Gabriel rubbed one of his fingers, which had a lighter band of skin on it than the rest of his hand. “I was concerned for the townsfolk. Heartbroken to see so many innocents die for sport. I was the presiding priest at so many of their funerals. Luckily, I was not the only one who was disgusted by Ulrich’s ways. My mentor, Sirhan, who should have been the true alpha of our pack, had not claimed the position out of respect for his father, Ulrich. However, he feared there would be no pack left for him to inherit if he waited too long. He and a couple of other pack mates devised a plan. I refused to take part in it directly, because it involved killing, but as a priest, I did bless a handful of silver bullets for them. Sirhan then waited until Ulrich turned into a wolf, and when he was just about to attack a peasant hunter, Sirhan shot him through the heart with one of my silver bullets. He then told the peasant that if he took the body of the giant wolf to the king and claimed he had killed it, he’d be rewarded handsomely.
“Sirhan became the true alpha of the pack and put a stop to the killings, and when the time was right, we moved the entire pack to the Americas. We’ve lived here in seclusion ever since. Sirhan puts the preservation of the pack above all else. And I, as his beta, Keeper of the pack, encourage them to live in peace. Some may call that being a coward. I do not.”
“And the pack has been peaceful ever since?” I asked. That didn’t jive with what Talbot had told me about wolves from Gabriel’s pack attacking his family.
“Many of them still hunt in our territory—animals mostly, but there have been a handful of unfortunate humans who have wandered onto our lands in the past couple hundred years.… But we live discreetly. However, a little less than twenty years ago, there was a group of relatively young Urbats in our pack who did not understand the things Sirhan and I tried to teach them. They were a new generation who reveled in the tales of Ulrich and the Beasts of Gevaudan; they thought the pack should return to what they thought of as the ‘golden age of the werewolf.’ One of them desired to be the new alpha, so they attacked Sirhan, mortally injured his mate, Rachel, and took their killing spree into the nearest town and attacked at least five different households.”
The image of a three-year-old watching his parents die flashed in my mind. “And you did nothing to stop them?”
“There was nothing I could do.” Gabriel slumped his shoulders and again rubbed at that light band of skin on his finger. “When I first turned into a wolf, I went on a killing spree of my own—until I killed my sister, Katharine. When I came to my senses and realized what I’d done, I swore off all forms of violence. I haven’t willingly injured anyone since then. I do not raise my hand, no matter the cause.”
“So you did just step aside and let those rogue wolves kill those families?”
“Sirhan sent men after them. They were captured and dealt with for almost exposing the pack. Their ringleader was banished for injuring Rachel, who eventually died, and for trying to usurp the position of alpha from Sirhan.”
“Banished? Why not killed? Where did he go?”
Gabriel pursed his lips and placed the open book on the desk. “Sirhan ran him out of the area. He traveled around a bit, and then decided to start his own pack by marrying a human woman and having a child. He eventually started killing again. I believe you knew him as the Markham Street Monster.”
I gasped. “Mr. Kalbi? Daniel’s father?” I searched around in my head for his first name—Daniel never ever spoke it.
“Caleb Kalbi,” Gabriel said. “Yes.”
Now I finally understood why Sirhan hadn’t let Caleb’s son rejoin his pack last year. Why he seemed to despise Daniel for no fault of his own.
“I am just grateful that Caleb is not a true alpha, or this world may be a very different place. If he’d convinced more than a couple of members of our pack that he should be the leader …” Gabriel shook his head. “Caleb did enough damage as the Markham Street Monster, but imagine if he had a whole pack doing his bidding. It’d be Gevaudan all over again. Most likely worse.”
I shuddered at that idea. Caleb had killed at least two dozen people on his own before he left town. I couldn’t imagine his having an entire pack under his control. “What do you mean by true alpha?” I asked Gabriel. “You called Sirhan that before.” My head was beginning to spin from absorbing so much information, but I didn’t know when I’d get a chance to ask Gabriel questions like this again.
“True alphas are very rare. They are Urbats born with a certain mystical essence that grows in them as they age. They are the true ‘chosen’ pack leaders, and if a true alpha wants to be the alpha of a pack, usually the rest of the pack will recognize him as such. I don’t really know why, perhaps it is some magical phenomenon, or merely pheromones. There have been very few true alphas, and they are even rarer now than before—probably because Urbats tend not to procreate very often. Most packs operate under the leadership of a regular appointed alpha, rather than under the direction of a true alpha. Sirhan is the last remaining true alpha that I know of. I thought there was another at one point, but not anymore. And with Sirhan on his deathbed—”
“Sirhan is dying? Did someone try to kill him again?”
“He’s dying of old age, I guess you could say. Sirhan fell to the curse of the werewolf nine hundred and ninety-nine years ago, and he’s beginning to feel his age now. He’s quite sick. No werewolf has ever lived past a thousand years. I believe it’s only a matter of weeks at this point.”
“So what will happen when Sirhan dies?” I remembered Talbot saying something about how Gabriel deserved what was going to happen to his pack when Sirhan died.
“According to pack law, when an alpha dies, a new alpha must be called. If there is no true alpha present, then usually the calling of the alpha passes to the beta. That would be me, in this instance. However, before the beta can take charge, he must hold a ‘challenging ceremony,’ during which any wolf can present himself to contest the beta without anyone prohibiting him. The beta can either step aside and let the challenger become alpha, or the two can fight it out until someone relents—or dies. The winner is named alpha of the pack, even if he is an outsider, or is already the alpha of a different pack. If more than one challenger presents himself—or herself, though that is rare—at the ceremony, then they all must battle it out for the position. It can turn quite deadly.”
“And I’m guessing you’ll step aside if someone contests you?”
Gabriel sighed. “Usually the beta goes unchallenged out of respect,” he mumbled.
“But what if someone like Caleb challenges you?”
Gabriel blinked.
“You’d fight then, right?” There was more anger in my voice than I’d anticipated. Or is he just a coward? that voice I sometimes heard growled inside my head.
Gabriel didn’t answer. He just tapped his fingers on the open page of the book.
“What are you two talking about?” Charity said from the doorway of the study. She balanced a big box marked HALLOWEEN #3 in her arms.
Gabriel popped up from his chair. “Let me take that from you,” he said, and held his arms out to Charity.
“Thanks,” she said as she gave it to him. “Mom’s got like five more of these. Sorry it took so long. Mom made us reorganize the whole closet before we could take anything out.”
I heard Mom call Charity from the basement stairs, and she ducked back into the hallway.
Gabriel turned back toward me. “We shall see what happens when the time comes. But I wouldn’t worry about Caleb Kalbi, Grace. He’s a pathetic excuse for a man or a wolf, and I doubt he’d dare show up alone anywhere near our pack.” Gabriel hefted the box out of the room and said something to my father, who must have been in the kitchen.
I sighed and laid my head down on the table. My brain felt heavy from so much information, and now, on top of my concerns about Daniel and my anxiety over finding Jude, I was bogged down by a whole new set of worries. I glanced over at the book and saw the drawing of the Beast of Gevaudan.
Long neck, sharp claws, and teeth dripping with blood. The drawing also depicted a woman lying on the ground, trying in vain to ward off the lunging beast with a long spear. Another question came to my mind, even though it was too late to ask Gabriel now.
What if Caleb Kalbi did show up to the challenging ceremony—only he wasn’t alone?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Basic Training
WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON
I knew Gabriel’s stories were supposed to deter me from wanting to develop my powers, but they only made me more determined. There were bad things out there—bad things like Caleb Kalbi (even if, according to Daniel, he was supposedly living in South America now) and bad things like the Shadow Kings, intent on tearing the city apart for who knew what purpose. And I had to be prepared to take them on if people like Gabriel were going to sit back and do nothing. I could barely wait for the school day to pass before I got a chance to see Talbot again.
I tapped my feet with anticipation the whole bus ride to Apple Valley and barely noticed what April was talking about until she asked me how I felt about tiaras.
“Um, what?”
“Tiaras: pro or con? Say pro, because I’ve been dying to design a killer tiara. Oh! Maybe it could really be killer. Like it could have silver spikes on it that separate into Chinese throwing stars or something.” She trembled and wrote something in her notebook.
“What are we talking about again? Why would I need a tiara?” And did I really want to know?
April held up a finger. She wrote one more thing in her notebook. “We were discussing a princess theme for your costume. Like Princess of Wolves. Or Princess Lupine. Princess Puppy … no …”
“You’re kidding, right? No spandex. No tiaras. And certainly no princesses.” I tried to grab her notebook to see what the heck she’d been up to while I wasn’t paying attention.
She hugged the notebook to her chest to keep it away from me. “How about the B-I-T-C-H Queen?”
“April!” My jaw dropped. She’d never been one for swearing—even the spelling variety.
“Well, you have been really on edge lately,” she said.
“I’m not on edge. I’m just, you know, nervous.”
I really didn’t know what to expect for basic training, since Talbot’s idea of testing my skills had been a little more than intense, but I was surprised when he drove us to a run-down Apple Valley strip mall after I met him outside the bus.
“If you think I need to sharpen my shopping skills, I’ve already got April for that,” I joked as I followed Talbot into one of the shops.
“This ain’t a pleasure trip,” he said, and pointed up to the sign above the shop door. Half the letters were missing, but I could tell it was a kids’ karate studio. A dojo—or at least that was what I thought it was called.
I crossed my arms in front of my chest. “If you’re thinking of enrolling me in class with a bunch of kindergartners, I can tell you right now that isn’t going to happen.”
Talbot rolled his eyes. “This place has been closed for the last year. The Rock Canyon Foundation just leased the property. They’re planning on fixing it up for one of their youth programs, but I figure we’ve got the studio to ourselves for a week or so. Perfect place to hone your skills in a controlled environment.” He pulled a key from his pocket and unlocked the front door. He held it open for me.
“Controlled environment?” There was a small waiting room in the front of the shop with dusty metal chairs, and then a long dark hallway that supposedly led to the actual studio. “You swear there are no demons waiting inside to jump me?” I could just picture a room full of Gelals with their claws out, ready to pounce on me the second I entered.
Talbot smirked. “Well, I might jump you—but only if you ask for it.”
“I’d like to see you try.”
Talbot gave his head a small shake. He looked at me with a slightly hopeful glance.
“Bad joke for both of us,” I said, feeling embarrassed and guilty at the same time for even responding to his flirting. Daniel and I might not be on the most solid ground at the moment, but that was no excuse. “Sorry.” If Talbot was going to be my mentor, then I needed to draw the line between us way before flirtation.
Talbot’s cheeks looked a bit pink. “Anyway, I’m just teaching you some new moves today, I promise.”
Talbot and I walked down the long hallway and then entered the dojo. It was filled with dusty mats and had a long wall of broken mirrors. Talbot opened his backpack. He pulled out one of those white karate outfits and handed it to me. “There’s a bathroom over there. You should change into this gi so you don’t mess up your school clothes.”
I fingered the fabric as I walked into the bathroom. I shut the door tight and pulled off my shirt and pants. I dressed quickly in the gi because it felt weird to stand there in just a camisole and underwear when only a thin wall separated Talbot and me. What if he suddenly showed up in the doorway again?
When I padded out of the bathroom, I found Talbot waiting for me, dressed in his own white gi tied with a black belt. The white tunic top crossed in front of his otherwise bare chest. He had pecs just as ripped as his forearms. I looked down at his bare feet poking out from the bottom of his lightweight white pants. Why did this whole situation feel more surreal than anything else we’d done so far?
“So you’re Mr. Miyagi and I’m the Karate Kid,” I said.
“I’m Mr. Who?” Talbot asked.
“You know, Mr. Miyagi. From the movie? Tries to catch flies with chopsticks?”
Talbot gave me a blank stare.
“You know, you have to be all, ‘Wax on, wax off!’” I made the hand gestures that went along with the chant.
Talbot’s eyes went wide. He obviously didn’t get it.
I made an overly dramatic sigh. I guess kids who grow up on farms with retired demon hunters don’t exactly watch a lot of eighties movies. “You’re the great karate master, and I’m your student.”
“Um, okay.” He still looked at me funny. “But I’m not going to teach you karate. I’m actually debating between aikido and wing chun. Both are good for a small-sized fighter. Plus, you need sword training. And then we’ll move to crossbows, advanced staking, and maybe even some work with the bow staff.”
This time I was the one who made the surprised expression, but not because he was joking. He was dead serious.
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, FOUR DAYS LATER
Training with Talbot was intense, to say the least. He didn’t pull punches, never had to take a breather or nurse a tender knee. Which meant I had to work like hell to keep up with him. And I don’t know what it was that made it possible, but I gained more skills in less than a week while working with Talbot than I had in the months of training with Daniel.
Maybe it was the fact that Talbot didn’t demand that I hold back at the same time he encouraged me to push forward. He wanted me to grab on to my raw emotions, use them to make me stronger. And I couldn’t believe how quickly it worked—how much more powerful I’d become.
Our training sessions were like a drug—fully tapping into my abilities was overwhelming, engulfing, leaving me buzzed with power and wanting more. April always gave me funny looks when I got back to the bus, and she’d ask questions about what Talbot and I did for training, but she never quite understood why I was so excited about sparring.
I’d even contemplated getting together with Talbot on Saturday for an extra training session. But Mom had been in manic overdrive ever since Gabriel had come to dinner and she’d learned about the Halloween fund-raising festival—the same fund-raising festival for which she’d commandeered control of the concessions booths and poured every waking moment into preparing for. And there was no escaping her desire to bake and freeze a zillion pecan tarts all Saturday long for refreshments. We were T-minus six days until Halloween, and I knew that if it weren’t for my mandatory service project each afternoon in the coming week, I’d probably never get out of the house to train with Talbot a
gain.
By Sunday afternoon, I felt so positively shaky from having gone so long without training that I could barely think. Which definitely wasn’t a good thing, since I was supposed to meet Daniel for a picnic on the parish lawn after services. At Dad’s insistence, Mom had granted me a two-hour reprieve to work on my Trenton application with Daniel. Only I still worried he might notice something different about me.
It seemed like the better my training went with Talbot, the harder things got with Daniel. The harder it was to pretend to be normal around him.
I hated keeping things from Daniel. I hated that I couldn’t tell him anything about Talbot, or my lessons, or my plans to find Jude, for that matter. But that was just the way it needed to be, because I knew he’d try to stop me.
Daniel wanted me to be normal, but I couldn’t be. That wasn’t who I was anymore. I had these talents, these abilities. I knew what evil existed in the world, and I couldn’t just sit by anymore. I guess that’s why in all those comic books, the superheroes have to create an alter ego—the person who pretends to be ordinary so they can still be with the ones they love.
I knew Daniel wanted me to be normal because he wanted to keep me safe. But that was only because he didn’t know what I was really capable of. He’d lost his faith in me somewhere, somehow. Lost his faith in the whole concept of my being a Hound of Heaven—but I’d show him; I’d prove to him that I could do this. When the time was right—probably not until after I finished my training with Talbot … and maybe not until after I brought Jude home—I’d tell Daniel everything … eventually.
So that made what I was doing a surprise. I wasn’t technically keeping secrets from the person I loved the most.
Right?
As much as I dreaded trying to pull off “Grace Divine: 100 Percent Normal Pastor’s Daughter” for a couple of hours, I longed to be with Daniel. Just that he’d suggested the picnic in the first place made any potential awkwardness worth it. With Mom keeping me busy when I wasn’t with Talbot, and Daniel working extra shifts for Mr. Day and helping Katie Summers co-chair the fund-raiser, it felt as if it had been forever since we’d had time to be together outside of school. Or even in school, for that matter—considering he spent most of our lunch breaks planning booths and posters with Katie. And as twitchy as I felt—kind of like power withdrawal—nothing was going to keep me from having lunch with Daniel today.