by Бри Деспейн
Gabriel stood up from his chair. He tugged on the pastor’s collar and cleared his throat. “No, Grace. I think it’s a terrible idea. Training is the last thing someone like you should be doing.”
I took a step back. That wasn’t the response I’d expected. “But you saw me fight a few minutes ago. I’m getting stronger and faster. I mean, you saw what I’m capable of …”
“Yes, Grace. I saw exactly what you’re capable of. And that’s why I won’t train you. Daniel should have never started in the first place. What you did back there was lose control. You wanted to hurt me. I saw it in your eyes.”
“Yes …” I felt tongue-tied by frustration. Gabriel was basing his entire summation of my character on that one incident. He didn’t really know me.
“But that’s never happened before. And it won’t happen again. It was one brief lapse … I can do this—”
“One brief lapse is all that it takes, Grace. Do you have any idea how close you were to losing yourself to the wolf? All you’d had to do was squeeze.”
Dad shot up from his chair. I didn’t know what he wanted to do, but he hesitated and glanced between Gabriel and me, obviously realizing that he’d missed something before coming into Don’s apartment. Daniel sat frozen like a statue in his chair, staring at the floor.
“Daniel, tell them. This was your idea in the first place. You’re the one who convinced me that I could become a hero. You know I can do this.”
Daniel owed me this, and I tried to get that across in my tone of voice. After all that crap in his driveway, and whatever secrets he was keeping, this was his chance to make up for being a jackass. “Tell them.”
Daniel took a deep breath. He didn’t look up at me. “I’m sorry, Grace,” he said sternly. “But I think they’re right.”
“What?”
My lips trembled. I should have been angry, but all I felt was hurt. Tears stung behind my eyes, but I forced them back. Bursting out crying right now wasn’t going to convince anyone that I was the pinnacle of control. I couldn’t look at Daniel anymore.
“But you said I was special,” I said to Gabriel, trying one more time to get through to him. “Isn’t that why you wanted to come here? And isn’t this what you wanted? Isn’t this what you told Katharine you wanted to do? Find a way to help the Urbat use these powers for good? Fight the good fight?”
“I wrote those letters eight hundred and thirty years ago, Grace. I used to think that these powers could be used for good. I don’t believe in fighting anymore. I don’t use my powers if I can help it.” Gabriel stepped toward me. “You are special, Grace. I can tell just by hearing how badly you want to save your brother. But that’s why we can’t lose you to the curse.” He reached for my hand again.
I pulled it away. This person standing in front of me wasn’t the Gabriel I’d expected—the Gabriel I’d imagined meeting someday. This wasn’t the
Gabriel I’d gotten to know through those letters.
I didn’t know this man at all.
“You can help people, Grace,” he said. “But not in the way you’re thinking. There are other ways to be a hero in this world. That I am willing to teach you if you’ll let me.”
I let out a long breath between my teeth. “Fine,” I said, even though I felt far from it. I just didn’t want to talk anymore. How could the three people who were supposed to help turn their backs on me?
Dad tapped his desk with his knuckles and sat back down in his chair. “I need to get some work done here. But the three of you should get to bed. You’ve all got school in the morning.”
“All of us?” Daniel asked.
Gabriel tugged on his collar.
“Meet Pastor Saint Moon, junior pastor and your new religion teacher,” Dad said. “Gabriel will be taking over Mr. Shumway’s religion classes and covering for me at the parish if I need to leave again.”
“He’s the new religion teacher?” My mind couldn’t really wrap itself around the idea of an eight-hundred-something-year-old Catholic monk turned werewolf teaching religion classes at a Protestant private school for teenagers. But the part that bothered me was that my mental decision to never talk to Gabriel again wasn’t going to work if he invaded my school life—and especially not if he was going to be my freaking teacher.
“This’ll be interesting,” I said, a little too much sarcasm in my voice.
“I agree.” Gabriel grimaced. “But do I have to wear this stupid collar? Makes me feel like a dog on somebody else’s leash.”
“Get used to it,” I said.
“Grace,” Dad snapped, with a very knock-it-off tone. “You should get home. Daniel, will you see Grace back to the house?”
I glanced at Daniel and crossed my arms in front of my chest. I wasn’t in the mood to go anywhere with him, but I’d already learned it was of no use to protest this sort of thing.
“Actually, sir”—Daniel got up from his chair—“I really need to speak with Gabriel—alone. It can’t wait any longer.”
Dad glanced from Daniel to me, as if noticing the tension between us for the first time. “Very well.” Dad picked up a book and put it in his bag. “I’ll finish up here as quickly as I can and then she can go home with me.”
Daniel nodded. He picked up his duffel bag and motioned for Gabriel to go with him outside. He didn’t even glance my way before leaving.
Gabriel put his hand on my shoulder. “We’ll become fast friends yet, Grace.” He gave me an ancient smile. His eyes crinkled with age in his otherwise smooth, youthful face. “You look so much like Katharine, you know. At least what little of her I can remember.” He tapped his forehead and then let go of my shoulder. He followed Daniel out of the office.
“I’ll just be a few minutes,” my dad said.
I nodded and leaned against the door Gabriel had just closed behind him. I held my breath and concentrated as hard as I could, listening beyond the thick metal door. My ears burned only slightly—it was getting easier to call on this power—and then I heard Gabriel’s voice.
“What is it, my boy?” he asked Daniel. They sounded like they were a good twenty feet from the door.
“I don’t know,” Daniel said. His voice was even farther away now. From the sound of it, they were walking toward the back of the parish. Probably back to Don’s apartment. I assumed that was where Gabriel would be staying. “I’m not sure what—”
“Gracie,” Dad called from his desk.
I jumped. It sounded like he’d screamed into my oversensitive ears. I shook my head, and my superhearing dissipated.
“Go call your mother and tell her you’re with me. I imagine she was expecting you home a while ago.”
“Oh. Yeah.” I hesitated for a moment and tried to hone in on Daniel and Gabriel’s conversation again, but then a sneaking voice filled my mind.
Already using your powers for ill? Spying on the person you love? Good for you.
I clutched my hands to my head and stepped away from the door. How could I let myself think such disturbing things?
CHAPTER TWELVE
Good Samaritan
SCHOOL, THE NEXT DAY
Pretty much everyone was in a flurry about the new religion teacher on Monday. Considering the median age of teachers at HTA was well over forty, having such a young (if only by appearance) new teacher was something to talk about.
“I hear he’s cute,” April said as we walked to senior religion studies—the last class of the day.
I was glad for her company, since Daniel and I were apparently avoiding each other today. Or at least I was, considering the fact that I’d chosen to sit next to April in the back of the art room since her tablemate was out sick. April had spent most of art class sketching out costume designs for me. Even though I didn’t much care for wearing a violet-purple cape with a big sequined WG (for Wolf Girl!) on the back, I didn’t have the heart to tell her I’d been grounded from training—and if Daniel, Gabriel, and Dad had anything to say about it, I’d never have a need for any
of her designs. But now I almost wished April would go back to the subject of optimal crime-fighting footwear, because debating the finer points of Gabriel, or Pastor
Saint Moon, or whoever he was supposed to be, wasn’t exactly something I wanted to do.
April sighed as we walked through the classroom door. “Yep, he’s cute all right. Actually, I think handsome is more the word for him, don’t you think? Cute implies a certain boyishness, but …”
I leaned in close to her ear. “You know he’s, like, an eight-hundred-and-something-year-old werewolf, right?”
“What?” April asked about ten more questions in a single breath, but I have to admit I tuned her out.
Gabriel stood next to Daniel’s desk. They both looked over a piece of paper in Daniel’s hand. I knew I could switch on my superhearing—it really was getting quite easy to control that power—to overhear what they were saying, but I didn’t like the idea of using my abilities to spy on Daniel. I also knew I could probably just walk right over there and ask what they were up to. I usually sat next to Daniel anyway. But I honestly wasn’t ready to talk to either of them yet. And since Daniel hadn’t made any effort to try to talk to me since last night, let alone apologize for lying about his whereabouts and then turning his back on me, I pulled a babbling April to the opposite side of the room.
“Hey, Grace,” Miya Nagamatsu said after I sat down in front of her.
“Hi.” I smiled at her. Mostly because her presence meant April stopped asking me questions about Gabriel’s were-status.
“We never see you around anymore.”
I shrugged. That was the thing about when April and I stopped being friends. It was as if we’d had an unspoken agreement that she’d get to keep all our other friends, like Miya, Claire, and Lane. They usually ate lunch together at the Rose Crest Café while I stayed back in the art room to work with Daniel and sometimes Katie Summers. Only today, Daniel had taken off as soon as the lunch bell rang, so it was just Katie and me working on our paintings—and she’d definitely been less talkative without Daniel around.
“Yeah,” said Claire. “We miss you.”
“Thanks, guys.”
“Did you and Daniel break up or something?” Miya pointed at Daniel across the room. “You guys are usually glued at the hip.”
As if on cue, Daniel looked up at me. Our eyes met for a moment, and he gave me half a smile. More sadness laced his expression than I’d expected to see. It made my heart feel hollow.
What is going on with him?
“No,” I said to Miya, “I just felt like a change today.” But I suddenly felt the urge to close the distance between Daniel and me. Yes, Daniel had lied, and he hadn’t backed me up when I needed him, but he was obviously going through something. I hated myself for being stupid and petty and not being there for him now.
But just then Katie Summers slipped into the empty desk next to Daniel, where I usually sat. She leaned over and asked Daniel a question. He took his eyes off me and answered her.
The bell rang. I begrudgingly turned my attention to Gabriel as he introduced himself to the class. He wrote the words Pastor Saint Moon on the dry-erase board at the front of the room. I wondered why he used that name. It was his sister’s married name—not his.
“I’m new to Rose Crest, but I imagine some of you knew my uncle, Donald Saint Moon. Though most of you probably knew him as Don Mooney.”
I almost let out a short laugh. The idea that Don had been Gabriel’s uncle was somewhat amusing—it was more like he was his great-great-
great-multiplied-by-ten grandnephew.
“I want to jump right in where Mr. Shumway left off. Who remembers what you discussed last week?”
Katie’s hand shot straight up. “We had just started a discussion on the parable of the Good Samaritan. We read the scriptural account the last time Mr. Shumway was here.”
“Grace”—Gabriel turned toward me—“can you tell us what you know about the Good Samaritan?”
“What?” The only thing I could think of at the moment was how the guy in the leather jacket had called Talbot the Good Samaritan when he’d stopped the fight in the club. The image of Talbot leaning over me as I lay on the ground—offering his hand to help, fog swirling behind him—
flashed in my mind. I pushed the mental picture out of my head. It was a stupid thing to think about, and surely not what Gabriel had meant.
“Can you summarize the story for us?” Gabriel asked.
“Oh yeah, sure.”
“Stand up so everyone can see you.”
I stood. “A Jewish man had been robbed, beaten, and left for dead on the side of the road. Two wealthy men of his own people saw him and did nothing because they were scared. But when a Samaritan—who the Jews hated—saw him, he took pity on the man and brought him to an inn and paid to make sure he was nursed back to health.”
“And what does that mean to you?”
I thought about it for a moment. “It means that if you have the ability and the opportunity to help someone, but you don’t do anything just because you’re scared or it’s inconvenient or something, then maybe you’re just as bad as the people who caused the problem in the first place.”
“Good analysis,” he said. “Thank you.”
I was about to sit back down, but something about that explanation bothered me. “So doesn’t that mean if you have the abilities needed to help someone, then you should do it? I mean, the Good Samaritan could have just kept on walking like everyone else. But he chose to do something instead. That’s what makes him a hero. He didn’t let fear hold him back.”
“Yes, but the Samaritan also didn’t try to hunt down the bandits and fight them. He helped the wounded man through charity and compassion.
Violence and fighting are not the answer.”
“But what if you’re at war? What if it’s a battle between good and evil? Shouldn’t you ‘fight fire with fire’?” I looked at Daniel, because that was how he’d described the reason for God’s creating the Urbat in the first place. In the battle against the devil and demons, God had created His own warriors to protect humankind. He’d imbued them with the essence of the most powerful beast in their highland forests—ancient wolves—in order to “fight fire with fire.” I looked back at Gabriel. “When you’re at war with someone evil, then it’s totally different, right? Sometimes you have to use extreme tactics to protect the ones you love?”
Gabriel cleared his throat. “Believe me, Grace. I’ve been to war. That’s not a place you want to go.”
I didn’t know what to say in return, so Gabriel and I just stood there, staring at each other for a moment, until Claire asked from behind me, “Were you in the Middle East?”
Gabriel blinked and looked at her. “I’m sorry, what?”
“The Middle East? The war? My brother’s in Iraq.”
Gabriel took a step back. “Oh, yes. I’ve been to the Middle East.”
“What’s it like?”
“I don’t remember. It was a long time ago.” His voice was soft, and I wasn’t sure he said it loud enough for anyone other than me to hear.
I sat down in my chair and opened my notebook.
“How about we move on with the lesson?” Gabriel said to the whole class. “I understand that you’ve all been discussing gospel principles, but I’m a firm believer in moving past talk and actually acting on the lessons we’re supposed to learn. Practice what we preach, so to speak. And according to what Mr. Shumway had planned for the next few weeks, it seems like he was a man of like mind.” Gabriel went to the board and wrote in large letters: Senior Religion Studies Project.
“Mr. Shumway had plans to institute a new requirement for all seniors who wish to graduate this year. He wanted each of you to fulfill an intensive community-service project before midterm break. I think it’s a brilliant idea, and I plan on carrying out the arrangements he’s already made.”
I sat up straighter. This must have been the big surprise Mr. Shumway had t
eased us with before he quit.
“Before the break?” Chris Conway, the principal’s son, stopped drawing flaming skulls on his notebook. I was surprised he’d been paying attention for once. “There’s only two more weeks until midterms. That’s impossible.”
“It’s not impossible, and I will be letting you out an hour early from school every day to report to your different projects.”
“Can we do anything we want?” April asked. “I could make jewelry for the kids at the children’s hospital.”
“Actually, Mr. Shumway already arranged your projects for you. We’ll be working with a group called the Rock Canyon Foundation.”
“They own the shelter in the city, right?” I asked.
“Very good, Grace.”
“I’m sorry, but there’s no way my parents will let me work at the shelter,” Katie said. “They don’t let me go into the city ever since those invisible criminals started running around.”
“That’s why we’ll be splitting into two groups. One group will be staying close to home. Mr. Shumway had originally planned for this group to volunteer with the Rock Canyon Foundation at their senior center in Oak Park. However, I’m going to make a modification to this. I assume most of you have heard about what happened at the local food market? I hear the proprietor needs help getting the store up and running again. There’s more cleanup and some light construction to do, and I imagine they could use a fund-raiser and a few free man-hours in the next few weeks.
“Daniel Kalbi will be heading up that group since he already works for Mr. Day. Those of you who aren’t allowed to travel, or who have work directly after school, will be in that group. Mr. Shumway had already contacted each of your guardians for permission and divided the class into two groups. Daniel has the names of those of you who will be staying in Rose Crest.”