The Savage Grace

  “Because I recognized the insignia on the cars. You can’t see it now, but I saw it when they first pulled up. There’s a medallion of a wolf’s head on their front grille. I was shoved into one of those cars by Sirhan’s guards when they found me trespassing on their land. And that car”—Dad pointed at the outline of a smaller vehicle in the middle of the line—“belongs to Sirhan himself. He personally escorted Gabriel and me from the compound property after he decided to let me go … Which is apparently when he decided he wanted you—”

  Dad’s sentence was interrupted when all of the cars’ headlights cut off at the exact same moment.

  “Ahhh!” I winced. My eyes throbbed, and the sudden change in light left me blinded momentarily—left us all blind.

  I heard a rush of movement, and seconds later the headlights of the middle car switched on—illuminating the silhouettes of at least forty individuals standing in my yard now.

  I couldn’t make out any of their faces; they were just tall, stark shadows in the headlights. They all seemed to be holding something long and pointed in their hands. One of them stepped forward, and the light from the car glinted off the tip of the object he held. It was a spear, the blade made of some sort of shiny metal—silver, no doubt. He seemed to be wearing some sort of cloak or robe; I couldn’t help but think about the Grim Reaper from the haunted farm.

  “Give us what we came for,” the man said in a deep, rumbling voice.

  Daniel reached out and took my hand in his, threading his fingers with mine. Without saying a word, the lost boys stepped closer to us—as if closing our ranks. I could see the muscles tensing in their arms and backs, looking like they’d jump the porch railing and attack at the first command from Daniel or me. Tension radiated off their bodies. I feared what might happen if they went wolf right in my front yard.

  Daniel held his hand up, telling his boys to wait. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to be more specific,” he said to the spearman, sounding too calm for the situation.

  The crowd stood steady. The same spearman spoke again, “Give us what we came for.”

  Was that the only thing he’d been ordered to say?

  “Again, specifics would be nice.” Daniel squared his shoulders. “You wanted Gabriel, but he’s already returned to you. Wasn’t that the deal, if Gabriel returned, you’d stay away?”

  “But where is Gabriel?” I whispered to Daniel. “Maybe something happened to him. Maybe he didn’t make it back.”

  The spearman put his hand to his ear. He seemed to listen for a moment. Was someone talking to him through an earpiece?

  He said something to the man next to him. Two other spearmen marched to one of the SUVs and yanked open the door. Something fell out of the doorway and landed in a heap on the pavement between two of the cars. I couldn’t tell what it was until I heard him groan.

  “Gabriel,” I breathed out. “No.”

  The heap shifted as Gabriel raised his head from the pavement. “I am sorry,” he said. “I did not leave soon enough. Daniel, I…”

  “Sirhan Etlu speaks,” the chattiest of the spearmen said. “Sirhan Etlu of the Etlu Clan speaks, and all listen.…”

  The lights of the smaller car turned off. I blinked several times to help my eyes adjust once more to the change in light. When I could see clearer, I noticed that the crowd—which was indeed forty people strong—wore long velvet robes draped over otherwise normal street clothes, the hoods of their cloaks obscuring most of their faces. Almost all of their robes were a deep sapphire blue color, except for the ten closest spear bearers, who stood in the very front of the crowd facing us. Their robes were emerald green. The only person in the mob who was noticeably female was a young woman who stood among the green-robed ten. Her hood was lowered, so I could see the more delicate features of her face and the teardrop-shaped earrings dangling from her ears. I couldn’t help staring at her. I’d never known another female Urbat.

  Something else entirely had caught Slade’s attention. He pointed at the smaller car in the middle of the SUVs. “That’s an Aston Martin Rapide limousine.” Slade whistled in appreciation.

  All ten of the closest spear bearers pointed their weapons at him. “Sirhan Etlu speaks, and you will listen,” the spokesperson said, with a fierceness in his rumbling voice.

  A hand extended from the back window of the limousine. I wouldn’t have noticed it if it weren’t for the light of the almost full moon glinting off the large ring on one of the fingers. Something about the shape of the hand didn’t look quite … human.

  “Gabriel failed me,” came a voice from the car. It was raspy yet loud at the same time. Commanding. A power radiated through it that made my knees feel like they weren’t completely solid. Almost like I needed to bow down to the owner of the voice.

  The sensation must have been shared by the robed crowd, because they turned on their heels and fell to one knee, heads bowed in the direction of the limo with one fist shoved against the ground.

  “If he had been truly loyal,” the commanding voice continued, “he would have returned the moment my guards informed him of my ultimatum.”

  Gabriel moaned. His head bowed low.

  “Only he tarried, showing where his true loyalties lie. I had to see for myself who could steal the devotion of my very own beta. Bring this ‘Divine One’ to me.”

  Daniel let go of my hand and stepped forward.

  “Don’t,” I whispered to him.

  “Perhaps your own beta would be more loyal to you if you didn’t treat him in such a barbaric way.” Daniel stood tall. Taller than I’d ever seen him. How much had he grown in the last week?

  Again, I felt that sensation in my knees, trying to fold me into a bow. But this time it was directed toward Daniel. The lost boys on the porch fell into one-kneed bows, in supplication to Daniel. I glanced back quickly and saw that even Jude had fallen in a bow to Daniel. But I was even more shocked and amazed as two robed men from the crowd turned toward Daniel also.

  “Your time as alpha is growing to a close, Sirhan,” Talbot, stuck in a half-bowing position toward Daniel, said with a laugh. “Can’t you see that?”

  Which was apparently the worst thing anyone could have possibly said at the moment.

  “Take him!” the voice—I assumed belonged to Sirhan—roared. “Take the Kalbi boy before he corrupts any more!”

  A group of spear bearers rushed at Daniel, who stood at the edge of the porch steps. The lost boys growled and crouched back, ready to lunge at Daniel’s would-be captors. My insides shrieked, knowing a bloody battle was about to erupt in front of us. What would happen to my family? My neighborhood?

  “Don’t!” Daniel shouted.

  Both the lost boys and the spearmen stopped mid-motion.

  Daniel held out his arms out to Sirhan’s men. “I’ll go with them willingly.”

  Daniel, no! I thought as two spearmen grabbed Daniel’s arms.

  A sharp scream came from my right, and I watched in horror as Ryan jutted over the porch railing and flew at the guards. He swung his stake at the closest spear bearer—the young woman I’d noticed before—hitting her ear with his weapon. She screamed. Blood spurted from her head as she clutched at the side of her face—her ear barely hanging from a flap of skin.

  Another guard swung his spear at Ryan’s face, smacking him with the flat side of the silver blade. Ryan’s whimper made me shudder as he fell to the ground. A blistering red burn in the shape of the spearhead welted up on his cheek.

  “Stop!” Daniel shouted as the guard went in for a second blow against Ryan. “He’s just a boy.”

  The spearmen glared at Ryan, but he dropped his spear at his side—obeying Daniel’s command.

  “Don’t anyone else make a move,” Daniel said. “I am Sirhan’s prisoner, and I won’t allow anyone else to get hurt on my part. Not tonight.”

  “No.” I jogged down the porch steps. I strode right up to the guards holding Daniel. “No,” I said again. “I’m the one you really
want. I’m what you came for.” I tried to bypass two of the spearmen to go straight for the window of the limo, but the guards crossed their spears in front of me, blocking the way. “Take me and let Daniel go,” I shouted at the window of the limousine.

  “Let me pass.” I shoved the crossed spears out of my way. One of the guards grabbed my arm so hard it felt like my wrist might break.

  “Why would I want a child when I could have the false alpha?” came Sirhan’s voice from the limo window.

  “Because I’m the Divine One,” I said. “I’m the one you came here for.”

  “Lies. The Divine One is not an infant.”

  “I am older than I look,” I said, but I realized that, to someone as old as Sirhan, I probably did look like an infant. “Tell them who I am, Gabriel.”

  Gabriel slowly pushed himself up to a standing position against the side of one of the SUVs. “She speaks the truth. I told you the Divine One was a teenage girl.”

  The guard holding my wrist gasped and let go.

  “Lies and tricks,” Sirhan said. “The Divine One is great and powerful. This tiny imposter should be killed.”

  “I am not an imposter.” I didn’t exactly know what being the “Divine One” meant to Sirhan and his pack, but based on what Sirhan said, it seemed as though the very idea of me had grown to mythical proportions.

  They expected me to be powerful, and I had to do something to prove to them that I wasn’t lying.

  I turned toward the young woman in the green robe. She knelt in the grass, trying to hold her bloody, nearly severed ear in place. She looked like she was only a few years older than I was, but with the Urbat, you really never could tell for sure. I went and knelt next to her. “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Hurts like, you know, someone cut off my ear,” she said, wincing. “Don’t think I can heal this one. But hey, at least I’ll save money on earrings.” She smiled weakly, despite the pain that flashed in her eyes.

  I almost laughed, not expecting her to be so … nice. “I can help you,” I said, and cupped my hand over hers and pressed it against her head. Her fingers were warm and slick with blood. I knew I was supposed to draw on my love for someone in order to call on my healing powers, but I’d never met this woman before. We were strangers. Yet at the same time she fascinated me. The only other female Urbat I’d ever met. That made us connected, and I drew on that as I closed my eyes and concentrated my powers into the hand that was clasped over hers. I could feel the heat pulsing and swelling, growing as hot as a flatiron.

  She winced and then let out a small cry.

  “What is she doing?” one of the spearmen asked—presumably about me. “Get her away!”

  One of the guards moved toward us.

  “Stop,” Daniel said. “She’s healing your pack mate.”

  “Impossible,” Sirhan called from inside the limo. “She can’t possibly be strong enough. Only the most powerful of Urbats can heal others. And nobody can do it alone.”

  In my haste, I’d forgotten that it supposedly took two people to channel the healing power into someone else. Yet at the same time, I knew I could do it.

  I was doing it.

  The heat finally dissipated, and I stood, pulling the young woman up with me. I let go of her hand, and she dropped her own away from her head.

  Gasps rippled through the crowd around us.

  “Doesn’t even hurt,” the young woman said, prodding her newly healed ear. “I can’t even feel a scar.”

  “You see,” Gabriel called toward the limo. “No mere child could do that. Grace is the Divine One.”

  A deep, aching fatigue filled my body—the side effect of using my powers to heal someone else. But I tried not to let it show as I walked toward the limo. The spearmen didn’t even try to stop me.

  “You know who I am,” I called to Sirhan. “And I know what you want, old man. But I’m not going to give it to you unless you guarantee that Daniel goes free—and that the rest of my pack, my family, go unharmed.”

  “Come closer,” Sirhan’s voice beckoned from inside the limo.

  I walked slowly but deliberately toward the open window. The first thing I noticed was that the hand I’d seen earlier indeed didn’t look human. It was dark gray and leathery, mottled with short grayish-black hairs. No, it was fur. The fingers were unhumanly long, and looked even longer tipped with sharp, wolflike black claws. The hand was a freakish mix of beast and human.

  “Look at me, child,” Sirhan said.

  My vision snapped from the beastly hand to the face that glared at me through the open window. I stifled a gasp, but let my eyes grow wide—dilating enough in the dark to really see what was in front of me: a face that was also a grotesque mixture of animal and human. He had yellow eyes and a snout instead of a normal nose and jaw. His ears, on the sides of his head, came to mutant-looking points at the top.

  “Are you afraid of me, child?” he asked. His blackened gums held pointed teeth—like I was staring into the mouth of a wolf.

  “No,” I said.

  “Then tell me, what is it that you think I want. What could you give me to ensure the safety of the ones you love?”

  I looked him over—not only was he a mixture of man and beast, his body also looked decrepit and fragile. A thin plastic tube with two little nodules hung around his neck. I recognized what it was from the hospital—an oxygen feed. He must have pulled it from his animal-like nostrils just to speak to me.

  “You’re dying,” I said. “And you want to be cured so your soul will be free from the wolf before you pass. Healing people isn’t the only thing I can do, as I’m sure you’ve heard or you wouldn’t be here. If you meet my demands, I will provide the cure for you.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  WOLVES AT THE GATE

  TEN MINUTES LATER, INSIDE SIRHAN’S CAR

  The smell of decay and wolf assaulted my senses with every breath I took as I rode in the back of Sirhan’s limousine with the ancient Urbat. Sirhan’s car wasn’t a limo in the traditional prom-night sense of the word. It could hold only four people: the driver, a spearman who sat up front, Sirhan, and me. The leather of my seat was so soft I finally understood why some people compared the feel of fine leather to butter. I’d never been in any vehicle nearly as nice as this one, but I couldn’t find comfort inside of it. Not only was the smell of Sirhan almost too much to handle, but the dark-tinted windows made it impossible to see if Daniel and the others were truly following us like they were supposed to.

  My nails dug into my skin as I held my arms crossed in front of my chest. It didn’t help my nerves that Sirhan’s labored breaths as he sucked in air from his oxygen tank reminded me of Darth Vader. He didn’t speak to me again, just kept looking occasionally in my direction and laughing until his mirth turned into fits of hacking coughs.

  At Dad’s insistence, Sirhan had agreed to move our negotiations to a new location—away from our curious neighbors, who kept peering out their windows at the spectacle in our front yard. My parents were going to have a devil of a time explaining what exactly had been going on. No doubt Dad would tell them we’d been rehearsing for a Christmas pageant or something. The only problem with that was then Dad would actually insist on our putting on a Christmas pageant this year just so he wouldn’t be caught in a lie.

  Great, I thought. Just the thing to look forward to.

  An aching gripped my heart, and suddenly I was looking forward to something like that. Anything, really. Because looking forward, making plans, feeling like there would be anything beyond this night, was what I needed to keep my nerves at bay.

  I didn’t know if Sirhan or anyone else would go for my plan—or if he could be trusted actually to meet my demands in the end. Only time would tell.

  We didn’t go far. The only place that Dad could think of to hold such a large group was the social hall of the parish. One of the guards prodded me out of the limo into the empty parking lot with the point of his spear.

  For a momen
t, I worried I’d been kidnapped, but I sighed with relief as the rest of the caravan of black Cadillac Escalades pulled in behind us. Daniel and my father got out of one of the vehicles; Talbot, Jude, and the lost boys soon arrived in other cars.

  The spearmen shuffled us into the building, followed by a long procession of Sirhan’s robe-clad people—or Urbats, to be exact. We stood around in the social hall, feeling like cattle herded into a corral.

  Or perhaps a slaughterhouse.

  Daniel gripped my hand hard. Almost like he feared he’d never get a chance to again.

  “They’re all looking at me,” I said, and nodded toward the members of Sirhan’s pack, who were staring at me.

  “It’s to be expected after what you did for Jordan. You’re the Divine One, remember?” Daniel said. “You’re the stuff of legends to them, and you proved them true.”

  “Oh. Yeah. That.” Earlier in the week, I’d felt so completely alone. Now I felt claustrophobic, surrounded by so many people and their searching eyes. “Wait, Jordan?” Daniel knew that young woman’s name?

  But Daniel had already turned to one of the spearmen. “What now?” Daniel asked him.

  “We wait for Sirhan.”

  “What’s taking so long?”

  The spearman furrowed his brow and rocked a little back and forth, looking like he was contemplating just how much to say. “Sirhan has his own medical staff. He won’t exit the car until they’ve fully examined him and deemed it safe for him to be moved.” His brow crinkled deeper. “He shouldn’t have left the estate to begin with, if you ask me.”

  Daniel nodded. I don’t know about him, but I was surprised by the spearman’s honesty.

  Minutes ticked by, and the silence started to wane. Sirhan’s people started to talk amongst themselves, many pointing in my direction. The spearman Daniel had questioned left our side and joined the nine other green-robed spear bearers, who were huddled in the far corner, looking like they were engaged in some sort of debate. Some of the men who’d been wearing blue robes had taken them off, revealing regular old T-shirts and jeans underneath.