The Dark Divine (37 page)

Later that evening, the phone rang. I listened for a minute until the nurse’s voice on the other line said, “He’s gone. There was nothing we could do to stop him from leaving….”

I dropped the phone, left it dangling in midair, and ran to my room.

Early in the morning of the seventh day, I awoke at my desk with a paintbrush stuck to my arm. There had been another note in the box Daniel left in my room. He’d written out instructions on how to use linseed oil and varnish with my oil paints. I’d fallen asleep at my desk while finishing my portfolio piece of Jude fishing at Kramer’s pond.

It was the brightness from the window that awoke me. I peered through the blinds. The early-morning moon reflected off the six inches of snow that had fallen
during the night. It looked so different outside than it had a few days before. Now the crusty brown lawn, the leaf-gunky gutters, the neighbors’ houses, and the ghostly walnut tree were all covered with a thick layer of pure, white, undisturbed snow. No cars or plows had been down the street yet to throw mud on the curbs or leave black tracks in its perfection. It looked like someone had come along with a brush and painted the world white, making it a giant blank canvas.

Then I saw him. A large wolf that looked almost black in the shadow of the walnut tree. It stared straight up at my bedroom window.

“Daniel?” I gasped, even though I knew it couldn’t be. I drew open the blinds, but the wolf was gone.

I must have drifted off to sleep again because I awoke, several hours later, to my mother’s screams. Dad and I finally got her to calm down enough to tell us that Jude had left during the night, leaving behind only his bottle of prescription sedatives and a note on the kitchen table.

I can’t stay. I don’t know who I am anymore. I need to go
.

But I knew Jude had been gone long before he ran away.

Mom was practically catatonic—expressionlessly rocking Baby James in the front room—when I slipped out of the house. I knew where I had to go, and I was glad she didn’t stop me. I drove for miles down the newly plowed streets
and parked the car a little ways off from my destination. I trudged up to the open gate. A man with silver-streaked red hair nodded as I passed him.

“Nice to have a visitor on a day like this.”

I tried to smile and returned his wish for a happy new year.

A narrow path had been dug out along the walks, but I preferred to walk in the snow. I let my feet sink in the icy cold, leaving my tracks in the perfect whiteness. I held my dress coat closed over the wooden box, protecting it from the drifting snow and the nipping wind. I sat on a stone bench in the memorial and pulled the book of letters from the box. I opened it to the last marked page and read the letter again.

I closed the book and held it to my chest. Katharine had no idea what killed her. She hadn’t known it was her own beloved brother. I walked up to the statue standing in the garden in front of me. It was the tall angel who stood with the wolf entwined in his robes. I brushed the snow from the wolf’s head, from the angel’s wings.

“This was you,” I said to the angel. He was the man who helped Daniel—the one who gave him his moonstone
necklace and sent the ring for Jude. “You wrote these letters. You are Brother Gabriel.” I looked up into his eyes, almost expecting him to answer.

Brother Gabriel was still alive after all these centuries.

Would Daniel have lived for as long if none of this had happened?

I felt like I’d lost everything. Daniel and Jude were gone. My mother was lost in her sorrow. My dad blamed himself. Even April avoided me, like she was too freaked out by everything she’d seen in the sanctuary.

I took off my gloves and knelt in the snow. I undid the button of my coat pocket and pulled out the little carved-wood angel Don had made for me. I brushed its crudely shaped face and the words I’d scratched into the bottom of the figurine:
Donald Saint Moon
.

I imagined Simon Saint Moon getting those letters and the silver dagger possibly only a few weeks after his wife had died—a few weeks too late. I imagined his sorrow at discovering that Katharine’s own brother had killed her, his anger at knowing he could have prevented her death—if only they’d gotten that package sooner. I pictured Katharine’s son, Doni, growing up with the legacy of his mother’s death.

Was it Simon or Doni who took up the quest to destroy werewolves first?

For some reason, I think it was Doni. He must have passed that silver dagger and his mission on to his own
son, who then passed to his, and then on and on through the years, until it came to Don Mooney—the last of the Saint Moons. But Don was different from the others: mentally challenged and alone in the world, with only that knife and his grandfather’s stories. He died trying to be a hero like his ancestors. He died before I had a chance to thank him for trying to save me—before I ever told him I forgave him for hurting my father all those years before.

“You belong here, too,” I said, and placed the tiny wood angel next to Gabriel in the snow. It seemed a far better memorial for my friend than being planted in field like a rutabaga or a tulip bulb. “You are a hero.”

“People will think you’re nuts if you keep talking to inanimate objects.”

I almost fell over as I turned to the voice behind me.

And there he sat, on the stone bench where I’d first held his hand, balancing a crutch between his knees.

“Daniel!” I ran to him and threw my arms around his neck.

“Whoa.” He winced.

I noticed the bandage across his throat, and I loosened my grip.

“They said you left. They said you got up and walked out in the middle of a shift change. I thought I’d never see you again.”

“But you came here?”

“I hoped … I hoped you’d come here, too.”

Daniel kissed my forehead. “I told you I’d stick around as long as you’d have me.” He smiled, all crooked and devious. “Or should I have taken you stabbing me through the heart as a sign you wanted to break up?”

“Shut up!” I punched him in the shoulder.

“Ow.”

“I’m sorry.” I took his hands in mine. “I didn’t do it to hurt you,” I said, referring to that night in the parish. “I did it because I promised to save you.”

“I know.” He squeezed my hand. “And you did.”

I looked at the bandage on his neck, the bruises down his jaw—the wounds he couldn’t heal on his own anymore. I kissed a scrape on his hand. The smell of his dried blood didn’t make me writhe like I thought it would.

“There’s one thing I don’t understand.” I leaned my head against his shoulder. “Why didn’t the wolf take me over when I stabbed you?”

Daniel turned my face toward his. He stared down into my eyes. His were so rich and deep, filled with his own personal light, not just a mere reflection like the moon. “Is that what you thought? That you’d become a werewolf if you saved me?” His eyes glistened, but only from tears.

“Yes. I’d been bitten. The wolf was in me. I thought if I killed you—that would give it control. You said a predatory act would do it….”

“Grace.” Daniel cupped my face. “What you did
wasn’t predatory. It was an act of love. It’s why I’m still alive.” He smiled. “I went to see Gabriel. That’s why I left the hospital. He came here to bring a moonstone for your brother, and I had to see him before he left. I needed to know why I lived. Gracie, Gabriel said that I am the first—the only—Urbat who has ever received the cure and lived. He said only the ultimate gift of love could have freed my soul … and granted me back my life.” He kissed my cheek. “I understand now.
You
gave me that ultimate gift. You thought you would become a werewolf if you saved me, and you still did it. You were willing to trade yourself for me. There is no greater gift….” He leaned in to kiss my lips. I pulled away.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“But the wolf
is
in me. My wounds healed so fast … and I feel stronger. I feel like all I want to do is run.” I bit my lip. “It will take me over someday. Doesn’t it eventually take everyone?”

“No, Grace. Not everyone.”

“But Gabriel, he wrote that people who were bitten turned faster. I mean, he was a monk, and he changed within a matter of days. How do I even stand a chance?”

“He was surrounded by the carnage of war. You’re not. You’re surrounded by people who love you. People who can keep you grounded.”

“But Jude had those things, too. He was one of the
best people I’ve ever known, but he turned so fast. I’m not nearly as good as him.”

“Jude
was
good. But he let his fear and jealousy get to him.” Daniel shrugged. “‘Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to the dark side.’”

I raised an eyebrow and held back the urge to punch him in his injured arm.

“What?” Daniel held up his hands. “Like you weren’t there when we watched the
Star Wars
movies fifty-three times that one summer.”

“Fifty-four. Jude and I stayed up until two a.m. to finish
Return of the Jedi
after you fell asleep one night. I tried to make caramel popcorn and almost burned the house down. Jude took the blame for me….”

My voice cracked. It hurt so much to think about Jude the way he used to be. “I hope Jude knows that if he … when he returns … I’ll be here for him.”

“Then let that be your anchor,” Daniel said. “Stay strong so you’ll be
Grace
when he needs you.” He brushed his fingers down my cheek, wiping away a stray tear. “And you don’t have to go through this alone. You have me.” He reached into his coat pocket and pulled something out. “And you have this.” He opened his hand and held out a jagged black rock. It was his moonstone pendant, broken in half.

I took it from him. It was warmer than the last time I touched it, pulsing with a power I’d never noticed before. It was hope.

“I thought I’d never find it in the snow,” he said. “It’s been a long time since I had to search for something without my abilities.”

“Are you sure you want me to have this? It’s yours.”

“I don’t need it anymore,” he said, and tipped up my chin.

He kissed me softly on the lips, with warmth and love. Then his lips parted, and he kissed me in a way that was so complete—giving me everything he’d held back before. I melted into him, letting go, feeling as free and light as I did when we ran in the forest.

“So what do we do now?” I said as Daniel held me to his chest.

He cleared his throat. “There are a lot of bad things out there. Things the Hounds of Heaven were created to destroy.” He trailed his finger down the side of my face. “I can’t be the hero you want me to be—at least not in that way. But you can, Grace. You don’t have to become one of the dark ones. You can fight it. You can turn this curse into a blessing. You can become the hero. You can become truly divine.”