“No. I’d be a ringer. I’d fight side by side with you and Grace, but I have no qualms about killing anyone who tries to harm her. I can be your backup executioner—if that’s what the circumstances called for.”
My father threw his hands up. “I cannot condone this idea. I can’t listen to you all plan to kill people.…”
“Then maybe you should go home,” Bellamy snapped at him.
“Even if it is the only means to get your son back?” Jarem asked him.
Dad closed his mouth and dropped his hands to his sides.
Daniel still had his eyes narrowed at Talbot. “And then what?” he asked him. “What do you do at the end of the ceremony?”
“Then I’d submit to you,” Talbot said. “Ensure you’re the last man standing.”
“And what would you be getting out of it?” Daniel asked.
“Your trust. A place in your pack. Except for my brief time with the Shadow Kings, I’ve been on my own since I was thirteen. I want a place to belong.” He smiled at Daniel—one of his warm smiles that made you feel like you’d been friends for ages.
“I like this plan,” Jarem said.
Daniel gave a great sigh and looked at me. “You should have a say in this, too, Grace. Do we bring Talbot into the ring with us? You and I can fight, but we let him do the dirty work?”
I looked from Daniel, to Talbot, and then to my father. He turned away so I couldn’t see his face. I imagine it would be hard listening to your little girl deliberating over whether or not people should be allowed to die.
“Okay,” I said. “But only if circumstances absolutely call for it. I think every challenger, no matter how ruthless, should be given the opportunity to submit first.”
“I agree,” Daniel said.
“If that’s what you wish,” Talbot said.
Daniel extended his hand toward Talbot, and the two of them shook on it, sealing the deal. Something stirred in the pit of my stomach as I watched them. Most likely anxiety, knowing that in a little more than thirty-six hours’ time, we’d all be fighting for our lives, side by side.
A FEW MINUTES LATER
Other than the few rules Jarem had already told us about—the boundaries of the ring, and the last-man-standing-wins part—it started to become clear to me that the rest of the ceremony was pretty much a no-holds-barred free-for-all.
Weapons of any variety were allowed—except for vehicles. Challengers could choose to fight in either wolf or human form—the most advantageous choice being wolf, as most Urbat were stronger in that state. And any pack was allowed to send in as many challengers as they wished.
“Then how come the other packs don’t send in tons of challengers? We’re sending in more than one fighter? Don’t they stand a better chance with more?” I asked.
“Usually only one champion is sent into the ring by their pack because they risk losing each person who enters,” Lisa said. “Most packs are small. The Etlu clan is forty strong—or was before Marrock and his lackeys left and you all joined us. The Oberot Clan has twenty-seven members. But most of the other packs are less than a dozen members each. If you only have ten people in your pack, you’re not going to risk five of your men. Even two would be considered too great a risk, you see?”
I nodded.
“It’s the lone wolves you really have to worry about.
Challengers who have no pack of their own to be accountable to. They always fight the dirtiest.”
“Who we need to be the most worried about is Caleb,” Talbot said. “We’re getting off track, worrying about anyone else. Any other challenger is merely a distraction. Caleb’s coming here with an army of Gelals and Akhs and Urbats. Don’t forget that. And he doesn’t give a damn about casualties. He’s planning on bringing as many Shadow Kings into that ring as he can.”
“And he must have a lot of Gelals and Akhs,” Daniel said. “Based on how many he was willing to send to that trance party.”
“Is that allowed?” Lisa looked at Jarem.
“It’s never been done before. Gelals and Akhs do not normally ever interact with the Urbat. But it is not against the rules.”
I scrubbed my hand down the side of my face. A few minutes ago I was fretting over the prospect of our going up against a handful of challengers. Now it was sounding like a few dozen, or even more.
“What about the eclipse?” I asked. “Won’t that make Caleb even more of a threat?”
“The ceremony starts at midnight,” Lisa said. “The eclipse isn’t supposed to begin until about twelve twenty-five. We’ll just need to make sure Caleb is taken care of before it begins. They can last several hours, so the sooner we can finish this, the better.”
“I imagine it would be best if we could concentrate most of the fighting here.” Daniel pointed at the open area he’d marked as the “barnyard” on his map. “Try to keep the fighting out in the open.”
“But if the house and the barn are within the challenging ring, then people can take the fight in there, right?” I asked.
Jarem nodded.
“The barn doesn’t worry me so much,” Daniel said. “It’s still pretty open inside. However, I’ve been inside the house. The rooms are small and cramped, and there are far too many places to hide. Chasing someone in there might end up being an ambush.”
Brent suddenly jumped like he’d been shocked with a jolt of electricity “What if we got rid of the house?” he asked, an expression of maniacal glee on his face. “Made it go boom.”
“What?” Daniel and I asked at same time.
“Are you suggesting we blow up the farmhouse?” Daniel asked.
“Why not?” Brent pressed his finger to the bridge of his nose like he was pushing up an imaginary pair of glasses. “Seeing that thing go up would definitely freak out the Shadow Kings. Ahks and Gelals hate fire almost as much as Slade.”
Slade shot Brent a look like he wanted to pound him.
“What? I’m just saying.…” Brent shrugged dramatically.
“I like the way you’re thinking,” I said. “But what if we could somehow lure as many of those Ahks and Gelals into the house before you blew it up? Get rid of the house, and get rid of as many of them at the same time?”
“Now you’re talking!” I swear it was almost possible to watch Brent planning out a design for the explosives. “I’ll need a remote trigger.…”
“Can this kid really build a bomb big enough to burn down the house?” Bellamy crossed his large arms in front of his chest.
“Believe me,” Dad said. “He knows how to blow things up.”
Brent gave my dad a sheepish smile. “Uh, yeah. Sorry about that.”
Dad gave him a nod.
I looked at the other lost boys. “Do you think the rest of you could come up with some sort of plan to get as many demons into the house as possible? Some sort of lure?”
“Sure thing,” Zach said, and Ryan agreed.
“If that house is going up in flames, I’m not going anywhere near it,” Slade said. “I’d rather be fighting hand to hand in the barnyard with you guys.”
“That can be arranged,” I said, grateful for another fighter.
“Me, too,” Lisa said. “I want to fight with you guys. I said I’d follow Daniel into battle, and I meant it.”
Jarem looked at her like he wanted to protest. I wondered if it wasn’t customary for Elders to join the fight, or if he had some sort of personal interest in wanting her out of harm’s way.
Jude cleared his throat, drawing my attention. He’d been so quiet for so long, I’d almost forgotten he was there. He raised his hand as if he were a child in school. “What do you want me to do?”
I looked at Daniel. I have to admit, I didn’t want Jude in the ring with us. I just didn’t know if he was stable enough yet for such a fight.…
Daniel spoke up before I could. “I don’t imagine Caleb will limit his attack to just those inside the challenging ring. I think we need to be prepared for the possibility that the rest
of the pack may have to do some fighting on the sidelines. Would you be willing to help organize them?”
“Yes,” Jude said. I could tell he was relieved that we hadn’t asked him to enter the ring as a challenger.
“Our guards are trained in combat, but many of our other men are not fighters,” Jarem said. “We’ve followed Gabriel’s pacifist ways since the 1700s. We’re out of practice.”
“I can help Jude give them a crash course in fighting,” Talbot said. “They’re going to need all the help they can get.”
FRIDAY, MIDAFTERNOON, THIRTY-THREE HOURS UNTIL THE CEREMONY
Gabriel made the call for the rest of the Etlu Clan to join us, and we divvied up tasks and went to work. Daniel and a few of the Elders continued to debate strategy, while I sent Zach and Slade to the sporting-goods store on Main, to buy up as many crossbows and hunting knives as they could. Unfortunately, since the Death Howl last night, the mayor had upped the bounty on any wolf’s head to ten thousand dollars—which meant there weren’t very many weapons left in the store to begin with. I just hoped since our new farm was on a sixty-acre parcel of private land, we wouldn’t get any unexpected hunting visitors tomorrow night.
Bellamy supervised a stake-carving committee on the front porch. Talbot and Jude set up a boot camp out in the barnyard for anyone who wanted to brush up on demon fighting. April took it upon herself to buy up all the tiki torches at her favorite costume shop in Apple Valley, and she and Lisa staked them in the ground at regular ten-foot intervals around the boundary of the challenging ring.
Brent drew up his plans for his explosives, and then we sent runners to three separate hardware stores in the county—so as not to raise any red flags—to get supplies. He set to work on constructing the bomb in the barn, with Ryan as his only slightly disgruntled assistant.
I tried to keep myself as busy as possible, rotating among the groups and assisting where I could, in order to stave off my growing anxiety about the ceremony, and my deep worry for James’s well-being. Every time I felt the wolf’s voice creeping into my head, I stopped for deep-breathing exercises while I held the moonstone we’d found discarded in Jude’s cage.
Mom and Charity provided a lunch big enough to feed an army—Mom had thoroughly sanitized the haunted farmhouse’s kitchen and whipped herself into a cooking frenzy in order to “keep up the morale of the people who were going to save her baby.” I stuffed myself with food, mostly in order to keep my hands busy, and then rotated out to the barnyard to check up on Talbot’s and Jude’s progress in training a small group of the Sirhan’s youngest pack members.
But from the looks of it, it wasn’t going as smoothly as I’d hoped.…
“No, not like that!” Talbot barked at one of his students—a young Urbat with a closely shaved head. “Never try to stab someone while holding a knife with the blade pointing downward.”
Jude and the others looked over at them. I leaned with my elbows on the rickety railing of the back porch as I watched.
“If you hold the knife like that, it’s too easy for someone to take it out of your hand.” Talbot’s hand shot out, and, in almost a blink of an eye, he’d captured the knife from his pupil. Talbot turned the knife so the blade angled up and thrust it at his student. The young Urbat jumped back with a yelp.
Talbot sent another sparring thrust in his direction. “See! You can’t grab this out of my hand, can you?”
The student shook his head. Talbot looked up then and saw me standing on the porch. He handed the knife over to the young Urbat and positioned it correctly in his hand. “Give it a try.”
Talbot backed away as the guy started thrusting the knife awkwardly into the air.
He grabbed something off the top of a hay bale and jogged up the porch steps to join me. He leaned his backside against the porch railing so he was facing me and flashed one of his warmest smiles, like he was about to present some sort of peace offering.
“For you,” he said, and extended his hands out, presenting me with a sword incased in a wooden scabbard. “I told you I’d get you a sword. If you still insist on joining the fight, then I want you to have the best one I’ve got.”
I took it without saying anything and pulled the blade from the scabbard, inspecting it. I recognized it from one of our training sessions back when he was my mentor. It was a kung fu short broadsword, with a slightly curved steel blade and a wood-inlaid steel hilt. A tuft of bright red fabric was tied to the end of it.
“You remember how to use it?”
I nodded and sheathed the sword. As much as I liked it, I wasn’t sure I wanted to accept any type of gift from him. I may have agreed to let him join us in the Challenging Ceremony, but he still made me feel a bit uneasy.
“How’s it going out here?” I nodded toward the men training to stab each other.
Talbot hitched his thumbs behind his belt. “You know, for a pack that goes by the name Etlu, most of them fight like crap. The oldest ones at least have some skills from back in the day, but they sure haven’t done themselves any favors by spending the last few hundred years meditating on the mountainside.” He shook his head with disapproval. “What a waste.”
“What, you think it’s better they use their powers to go running around the city, knocking off jewelry stores and pawn shops?” I raised my eyebrows at him.
Talbot’s expression clouded over. “You’re still mad at me for earlier?”
I shrugged. I was still mad at him for so many reasons, let alone his insisting that I shouldn’t be allowed to fight.
“I’m sorry, Grace. It’s just that, you have this great healing power, and if someone you love gets hurt, like your dad, you can heal him. Maybe that makes you see life as not quite so fragile anymore. But what if you’re the one who gets hurt? Who’s going to heal you?” He looked at me with concern in his bright green eyes.
My shoulders dropped. “You and Gabriel tried to heal me once. After what happened at the warehouse.”
“Tried is the operative word there. It didn’t work nearly as well as the way you can do it.” He tapped the back of his shoe against the rungs of the porch railing. “Maybe you can teach me to do what you do.… Then maybe I won’t be so worried about you going into the fight.”
“I’m sure Gabriel already explained it to you when—”
“Honestly, Grace. I don’t remember much of what he said. I was just so desperate to save you I couldn’t really focus.…”
“Then that’s probably one of the reasons it didn’t really work all that well. You’ve got to be totally focused. Clear your mind and think about nothing but your love, or compassion, for the person you’re healing. Try to picture him becoming whole again.” I bit my lip, remembering what had happened the first time I’d tried to heal my father. “Otherwise, it can be dangerous. Like if you accidentally channel your fear, or anger, or hate.”
Talbot gave a grave nod. “Is that what happened to your dad that first time? You said you ended up hurting him more.”
“Gabriel said it’s like letting your inner wolf attack the other person from the inside. The healing power backfired, and instead of repairing his injuries, it reopened them. I even hurt Gabriel. Reopened an already-healed gash on his face. But you’ve seen what it can do when used correctly. I’ve never experienced anything like it before.”
Talbot held up his hands, almost as if he were examining them for healing potential. “That’s some power to wield.” He bit his lip.
“Healing people is exhausting, though. After I healed my parents, I fell unconscious for ten hours straight. That can’t be a good thing to happen on a regular basis. It’s not like I can go around healing an entire hospital of people at once, or anything. That would probably kill me.”
“What about during a lunar eclipse?” Talbot asked. “Aren’t our powers supposed to increase tenfold? Maybe if you could channel enough of the moon’s power during an eclipse, you could do a lot of good for a lot of people.”
“Or a lot of damage, if I
wasn’t careful.” I looked down at my hands, thinking about how they could be weapons even more dangerous than the broadsword.
Talbot reached out and grabbed my free hand by my fingers. He drew it close to him and placed it over his heart, pressing it against his chest with his own. “Maybe you could heal the aching I feel inside my heart when I look at you.”
“Talbot. Don’t.” I pulled my hand out from under his and started to turn away.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have done that. I get it. You’re Daniel’s, and he’s yours. You’re the perfect match. But I still want to be a part of your life, Grace. Any way I can.”
“I don’t know how that could work,” I said, and stepped away.
“Hey, Talbot?” the young Urbat with the shaved head called from the lawn. “Is this right?” He swung the knife with an upward jab.
While Talbot’s attention was turned away, I took the sword and went into the farmhouse to join Daniel and the Elders at as they huddled over a drawing of the battlefield.
And I didn’t look back.
FRIDAY EVENING, TWENTY-NINE HOURS TO GO
We kept working until the sun started to set, and Gabriel announced that he and his pack were going to retire into a meditative state—as was their custom on nights when the moon was full. He told me it would be best if I took my family home, and we could resume preparations in the morning.
Mom, Dad, and Charity piled into one of the Escalades driven by Daniel, but Jude told me he wanted to be locked up for the night again.
“There’s an empty silo in one of the adjacent fields,” he said. “I can sleep there tonight during the full moon, and you can let me out in the morning.”
The idea of his not going home again with the family made my heart feel heavy, but I didn’t fight him on it. We walked silently together out to the silo. Before Jude could close the door between us, I pressed the moonstone pendant into his hand.
He folded his fingers over it and closed his eyes with a sigh so heavy I suddenly felt guilty for keeping the stone to myself all day.
“Today was a hard day, Gracie,” Jude whispered.