The Savage Grace: A Dark Divine Novel (33 page)

“It’s okay,” Daniel said, gritting his teeth. “He couldn’t get to my heart.”

“Why?” Jude asked.

“Because
this
heart doesn’t have an old wound to rip open.”

I nodded, understanding.

“What do you mean?” Jude asked. “Did I miss something?”

“When I stabbed Daniel last year, he was an Urbat with two hearts layered one on top of the other. But I killed that creature, and Daniel was essentially reborn.

Perfected. This heart, this single heart, has never been broken. There was no hole to rip open.”

Shifting so I was sitting at Daniel’s side, I started to help him remove his robe so I could get a better look at his shoulder.

“Water,” Daniel said. “My throat is so dry.”

“I’m on it.” Jude stood, ready to go fetch something for Daniel to drink.

“Thank you, brother,” Daniel said, and clasped Jude’s hand before he could go.

“You’re welcome … brother.” Jude squeezed Daniel’s fingers and let go, turning to leave.

“His heart still deserves to be broken,” came Talbot’s voice. My vision snapped to where I’d left him writhing in the dust. He’d moved two paces to the right. His arm pulled back, and a silver-tipped spear flew at Daniel’s chest like a javelin.

My hands were tangled in Daniel’s robes. I couldn’t react fast enough. Jude shouted and threw himself in front of Daniel. His cry turned sharp as the spear pierced through his chest and out his back. He landed on his side, one arm extended out, the other lying limply on the shaft of the spear.

I struggled to free my arm and let go of Daniel, scrambling to Jude. I looked up as Talbot ran, hobbling and stumbling on his injured leg toward the burning field of cornstalks. The guardians let him pass—abiding the rules of the ceremony that was still technically going on—but before I looked away, I thought I saw someone in a green robe go after him.

“Jude!” I said, turning my full attention on him.

His pleading eyes looked up at me. He grabbed weakly at the spear shaft. The amount of blood that pumped out of his chest confirmed my worst fear—he’d been stabbed through at least one of his hearts.

With a silver-tipped spear.

One of the few blows that could kill an Urbat.

“Jude, no!”

He’d reacted before I could. He’d thrown himself in front of the spear. He’d saved Daniel’s life.

“Gracie,” he said. “Please.” He tried to place his hand on mine. His following words made no sound, but he mouthed them to me with that pleading look overtaking his eyes.

I shook my head and grabbed him up in my arms. His head lolled in my grasp. His eyes rolled back under their lids. I checked the pulse in his neck. He was unconscious, but not dead. Not yet. The pulse was almost too weak to detect. “No. Hold on, Jude. You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.” I turned toward Daniel, who struggled to his knees. “I promised him that. I promised him everything was going to be okay. We have to do something. We have to heal him.”

I broke the shaft of the spear and yanked the spearhead out through his back. I pushed down and pressed my hands over the wound in his chest. Blood pooled under my fingers as I tried to concentrate whatever positive energy I could find into him.

“Help me,” I said to Daniel. “Help me. I can’t do this one alone.”

“Gracie, you can’t,” Daniel said, pulling at my arms. “You can’t heal silver.”

“But we can at least try,” I shouted at him, not letting him pull my blood-soaked hands from Jude’s chest. “Help me, damn it! We promised to help him.”

Daniel let go of my arms. He placed his hands over mine.

Tears flooded down my face, but I forced my mind to clear. I thought of every positive wonderful moment I’d ever shared with my brother. Building Ewok forts in the family room, climbing trees, sitting on a rock beside Grandpa Kramer’s pond with our fishing poles. Power poured from my fingertips, but it wasn’t enough. My mind centered on another memory. The one of Daniel and me holding Jude in his cell at the parish. How it felt when Jude said he wanted our help. How it felt to know my brother was finally coming home.

Power surged through my fingers into his chest. Exploding under my hands so forcefully it made me fall backward. I sat up and looked at Jude. He still lay there with a gaping, bloody wound in his chest.

“It’s not enough,” Daniel said. “You can’t heal silver. You can’t save him.”

Jude’s eyes flitted open. He extended a couple of fingers toward me, but he couldn’t lift his hand.

I caressed my fingers down Jude’s face. “Can you hear me? Can you try to transform into a wolf?”

Jude tried to speak, but no words came out. His head nodded ever so slightly.

“Then it is enough,” I said to Daniel.

Jude’s body began to twitch and convulse, trying to make the transformation. I placed my hands on his chest. “It’s going to be okay,” I said, and channeled my energy into him again, giving him enough strength to make the change.

Jude let out a gasp, and the transformation completed. His gray wolf form lay under my arms now. The gaping wound spilling blood into his fur.

“Close your eyes,” I told him.

The wolf’s violet eyes slid shut.

I picked up the broken spear, wrapping my fingers around the shaft. So much energy had drained out of me from trying to heal Jude, I could barely even lift my arm. Daniel clasped his hand over mine so we were both holding the spear.

“Together,” he said.

Hand in hand, we lifted the spearhead and plunged it deep into the bloody hole in the wolf’s chest. Its body convulsed and then lay still.

“I love you,” I whispered to Jude, and pulled the spear out.

I wrapped my arms around the wolf and counted my heartbeats. Thirty of them. Until the wolf melted away and it was my brother’s body that lay in my arms again.

In the end, this was my terrible gift—my savage grace. In order to cure Jude, I had to kill him. Some people I could heal; some people I could restore to life, but for others—like Jude—the only gift I had to give was death.

And in giving it, I’d freed his soul.

Everything was going to be okay.

I held Jude until I was sure he wasn’t coming back. I brushed his hair off his forehead and kissed the scar that was just above his left eyebrow. I laid his head on the ground. Daniel held his hand out to me as if he knew what I needed. He helped me stand, and we leaned our weight into each other for strength. Both injured, but still whole. Together, we stared out at the crowd that had gathered at the edge of the boundary line. Our friends stared back at us: the lost boys—all but Brent. Lisa with Baby James in her arms and Jarem at her side. Gabriel and the other Elders. The Etlu guardians of the ring.

Beyond our friends crowded the spectators—more witnesses who’d watched the hardest moments of my life played out in front of them.

Someone pounded his spear against the ground with three loud smacks, then every member of the Etlu Clan fell to one knee, one fist shoved to the ground and their heads bowed toward us. Some of the other spectators followed suit.

I looked up at Daniel. He squeezed my hand and answered the question I hadn’t asked out loud. “Yes,” he said. “It is finished.”

And we were the last ones standing.

THREE DAYS LATER

I sat on the porch swing, staring out at the orange sky that painted a perfect backdrop to the walnut tree where Jude, Daniel, and I had spent so much of our childhood playing up in its branches. I took in deep gulps of early evening air. It was cold and icy in my lungs, but the sharp pain with each breath felt somewhat invigorating.

Like I was actually waking up for the first time in three days.

What had happened in the many hours that followed the end of the ceremony had pretty much been a blur. I’d been exhausted, mentally fighting off the fatigue that tried to overtake my body after having poured so much of my power into Jude in order cure him. But there’d been no time for rest. So many things needed to be done, so many decisions needed to be made, and so many people now looked toward Daniel and me as the ones to make them.

The Elders had wanted to give Jude a warrior’s send-off—burn his body like they did with the five Etlu guardians we’d lost to the Shadow Kings during the ceremony. But I refused, knowing Mom would want Jude to have a proper human funeral. Which had left us to deal with the legal ramifications of his death—to explain what had happened to him in a way the sheriff and the rest of the town could accept. It was Daniel who’d come up with the solution. Jude’s body had still held a terrible gash in his side, where he’d taken a blow from Caleb’s claws.

“Jude died in a wolf attack,” Daniel had said. “We went wolf hunting, looking to win the ten-thousand-dollar bounty. But the wolf attacked us, and Jude, in the process of saving my life, grappled with the wolf, killing it, but was fatally injured by his own weapon. We’ll bring Jude’s body, along with one of the smallest of the wolf carcasses, to the sheriff as proof. Everyone will know that he died to save my life. Everyone
should
know that.”

The sheriff had bought the story. The mayor declared Jude a town hero for saving us all from the terrible wolf and awarded our family the prize money. Dad donated it to the homeless shelter in Jude’s name. And because of Jude’s sacrifice, the whole town had turned out for tonight’s memorial. I’d been obliged to retell the lie of how Jude had died over and over again in front of the crowd of mingling neighbors, parishioners, and the occasional superhuman werewolf, all here to pay their respects to Jude.

Today we should have been hosting Jude’s nineteenth birthday party; instead, we were hosting his wake.

I’d come outside to escape for a few minutes. I’d retold the lie so many times I had almost started to believe that false story myself. But I didn’t want to forget the truth. I wanted the pain of it, mixed with the icy stabbing of the night’s air, to keep me feeling alive and awake.

Two things I knew Jude wasn’t anymore.

Part of me had hoped that he’d rise again, like Daniel had when I’d cured him last year. But really, deep down, I’d known he wouldn’t. Killing Jude hadn’t been an ultimate sacrifice the way it had been for Daniel, because I’d
known
when I plunged that spear into Jude’s heart that I wasn’t sacrificing my soul to save him. What I’d done for Jude had freed his soul, but it wasn’t enough to restore his life.

And I wondered if it was better this way.

Or at least if it was what Jude had wanted.

The words he’d mouthed to me just before I tried to heal him—the words he’d been too weak actually to say out loud, still echoed in my head, even though they’d made no sound. “Let me go,” he’d tried to say, with desperate pleading in his eyes. “Let me go. It’s easier.…”

Jude hadn’t been able to imagine a future for himself.

And perhaps dying a martyr—sacrificing himself for Daniel and me—had been the easiest way out he could see.…

I shook my head. Jude had died a hero as far as everyone was concerned. His last words I’d keep to myself. No one else ever needed to know.

I heard the creak of wooden porch steps and realized I wasn’t alone. I looked up and saw someone standing there wearing a black sheath dress and bright coral-pink tights. She held a small, brightly wrapped package in her hands. I blinked several times, wondering if I really was awake after all.

“Hey,” Katie Summers said.

“Hey,” I said back.

“I know I didn’t know your brother, but I wanted to stop by and tell you that I’m sorry for your loss.”

I nodded. “Thanks.” I wiped at the tears pooling in the corners of my eyes.

“I heard what he did for Daniel …,” she started to say.

“Yeah. Wolf attack.” I sighed, knowing she’d probably want to hear the false account from an “eyewitness” just like everyone else.

Katie shook her head. “No. I know what really happened. So don’t worry, you don’t need to lie to me.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“Slade told me. And I know what you all did for me at that awful party. I’m afraid Slade and Brent didn’t do the best job convincing me that I’d drunk some funky Kool-Aid.” She smiled a little. “So thanks, you know, for helping to save my life. You’re pretty cool, you know that?”

I gave a little laugh.

She tapped the present she held with her coral-pink-painted fingernails. I could tell the design on the wrapping paper was hand drawn, and it reminded me of the get-well present she’d wanted me to give Daniel last week. The one that was still tucked in my backpack upstairs. Had she really brought another present for my boyfriend to my brother’s funeral?

“Um, this is for Slade,” she said about the package. I realized then that the brightly colored drawings on the paper were the same design as the flamed tattoos that inked Slade’s arms. “It’s a stopwatch.”

“A stopwatch. For Slade?”

She blushed a bit. “Did he tell you he’s thinking about trying out for the fire department again?”

I shook my head. He hadn’t said anything to me, but I wasn’t surprised. Slade had seemed like a completely different person ever since he brought Baby James out of the fire. Like a man who’d found a reason to live again.

“I thought I could help him train,” she said. “The stopwatch is so we can make sure he doesn’t do the drills
too
fast, if you know what I mean.”

I smiled and nodded.

“So do you know where I might find him?” Her cheeks went almost as bright as her pink tights. Obviously, Slade had made quite the impression on her when he saved her from that Akh at the party.

“My guess is in the garage. He’s been working on the Aston Martin.”

“The Rapide?” Her eyes grew wide. “You know, I’ve got a thing for automotive design? I have got to sit in that car.”

“Be my guest,” I said, and gestured her inside the house to join the rest of the town. My heart felt a little lighter, knowing that Slade had met his match. Even on a sad day, people should still be allowed to find some happiness. I wondered if Slade would come with us when Daniel and I left with the Etlu Clan, or if this meant he was planning on staying here.

About a minute later, I heard the front door open, and Daniel came to sit with me on the porch swing.

“I brought you something to eat.” He placed a paper plate piled high with honey-glazed ham and a concoction of cheesy shredded potatoes with cornflakes on the top, which my mom had always called funeral potatoes. The name felt a little too poignant at the moment.

“Thanks,” I said, and Daniel wrapped an arm around my shoulders.

We sat in comfortable silence. I picked at my food while Daniel used his feet to rock the swing back and forth. Beyond the squeaks of the metal chains as we swayed in the swing, I listened to the noises of the gathering inside the house. As much as I’d needed a few minutes away from the crowd, I didn’t know how I was going to handle leaving any of them behind in a few short days.

Since Sunday we’d been locked in debate with both my parents and the Elders as to when and how to facilitate Daniel and me moving to the mountains of Pennsylvania in order to lead our new pack. Many of the Elders wanted to whisk us away immediately, but Dad wanted to keep us until Christmas at least. Mom made an unwavering argument that the pack should allow us at least to finish high school before taking us away.

I could tell she was desperate not to lose another child so soon. I didn’t want to go, either. Didn’t want to leave my family, or my town, or the things I wanted out of my future behind. How could I live with the pack in seclusion in the mountains and still use my powers to help the rest of the world? But what else could we do?

Daniel and I had won the responsibility for the pack, and it’s not like I could expect them, more than thirty strong, to keep sleeping on the floor of the parish’s social hall indefinitely.

I heard a guffaw of laughter from inside the house. It sounded like a mixture of Bellamy, Gabriel, Jack Headrick, and Mr. Day’s voices. Last I’d seen them, they’d been exchanging travel stories over the refreshment table. I thought about Katie and Slade probably in the garage together. And I’d seen Ryan and Zach discussing hockey with a couple of guys from my school. I watched now as Jarem and Lisa came around the house from the backyard. They walked close together, their hands not quite touching, but almost.

And that’s when the idea came to me, forming in my mind the way I could see a painting coming together in my head before I’d even touched my brush to canvas.

I pushed myself up from the swing, careful not to put too much pressure on my still-healing leg, and called to Lisa and Jarem, who stood near the driveway: “How do you think the pack would feel about relocating permanently?”

Lisa, Jarem, and Daniel all looked at me.

“How so?” Lisa asked, approaching the porch with Jarem.

“We—the pack anyway—own a sixty-acre plot of land outside town now. Do you think the pack would be willing to move? Start over there with us? We could build whatever kind of estate we want on the grounds. It’s far enough outside town for privacy, but close enough that we could still have a relatively…”

“Normal life?” Daniel asked, with a wry smile.

“As normal as a couple of teenage alphas of a werewolf pack can get.” I smiled back at him. “But I think it’d be good for the pack, too. They’ve lived cloistered away for so long, they’ve forgotten about the good they can do for the rest of the world with their powers. I think it would be good for them to start
living
a little more.” I nodded to Jarem, who had a slightly skeptical look in his eyes. “We’d put the decision to a vote, of course. I mean, it’s their lives, too, we’re talking about.”

Lisa popped up on to the porch and hugged me. “Well, I, for one, welcome a change in scenery. Oh, and cable TV.” She looked at Jarem. “And a movie theater. I haven’t been on a date since 1986, you know?”

“Date?” Jarem spoke the word like it was completely foreign to him.

“You’ll see,” she said. “And you’ll like it.”

“Moving the pack to the farm?” Gabriel asked. He stood in the open doorway, looking out at us. “It is a good idea. I have grown a bit fond of Rose Crest myself. I think I would like to stay on as your father’s junior pastor, if he will let me. And I have a feeling the rest of the pack will follow the two of you anywhere.”

Daniel squeezed my hand with approval. We discussed logistics for a while, and then I excused myself and went back into the house to find April. She sat alone in the dining room next to the display of pictures of Jude that Mom had put out on the table. I could tell that not getting a chance to say good-bye to Jude had hit her hard, and I hoped
not
having to say good-bye to me soon might help lift her spirits.

“When you’re up for it, I’d like to see more of your costume designs,” I said as I sat next to her, holding her hand. “I think we’re going to be sticking around, and I’m going to need my Alfred.”

She nodded. After a minute she whispered, “Do you think we’ll find Talbot? Stop him from hurting anyone else like he did Jude?” She wiped at her eyes. “Do you think we’ll ever even hear from him again?”

“Yes,” I said. If there was one thing I was sure of in this world, other than the love Daniel and I shared, it was that Nathan Talbot would try to find a way to be a part of my life.…

A conclusion that was confirmed later that night when I crawled into my bed and heard my phone buzz with a text. I knew it was from Talbot, even though the number was blocked, because it read:
You want to be a superhero still, grace? Well, every hero has a nemesis. And I’m yours.