The Dark Divine

by Бри Деспейн

  "It develops with age ... and experiences."

  "Superpowers are a little more intense than armpit hair and zits," I said.

  Daniel laughed. "It's kind of a family thing," He lowered his voice. "You know what your father says in his sermons about how the devil works--among other things--

  through flattery, jealousy, and complacency?"

  I nodded. That was one of Dad's favorite subjects.

  "Well, the devil wasn't always so subtle. In the beginning, he used demons, vampires, and other evil spirits to do his bidding. Real things-that-go-bump-in-the-night monsters." Daniel looked at me for my reaction.

  I didn't know what to say--or even think. Was he being serious? Did he really want me to believe that monsters existed? Rut then again, up until today, I thought people with super strength and the ability to heal themselves were just characters from comic books.

  When I didn't respond, Daniel went on. "With demons running loose on the earth, God decided he needed to 'fight fire with fire,' so to speak. My family--the Kalbi family--dates back before written language. Back before real civilization even existed. My family was part of a tribe of warriors. They were strong defenders of their land, but they were also stalwart in their belief in God and followed his teachings. He decided to reward them-- bless them with special abilities. He infused them with the essence of the most powerful animal in their highland forests, giving them enhanced speed, agility, strength, cunning, and tracking." He rubbed his hand across his cheekbone. "I'm not sure where the healing ability came from--must have been part of the benefits package."

  "So God made the ultimate soldier in His fight against evil?" My question sounded so logical, even though I still couldn't believe what I was hearing.

  "Exactly. He even marked them with white-blond hair like the angels." He fingered his shaggy, sandy-brown hair. "Hounds of Heaven. That's what He called them. Or something like that--the actual word has been lost. The closest I know of is the Sumerian word Urbat. It was their job to track down demons. Keep mortals safe from the wrath of the devil."

  "These ... Urbat ... what became of them? Why haven't I ever heard of them before?"

  Daniel shrugged. "They overstayed their welcome in the mortal world. There are only a relative handful of them today. They prefer to live in groups--packs, actually.

  Many of them are artists like me. It must be that animal connection to nature. There's a group out west. They live in a sort of artists' colony. I went there for a while.

  That's where I met Gabriel."

  "The angel from the garden? You said he gave you that necklace. What is it?"

  Daniel touched the black stone. "A piece of the moon."

  "What?" I don't know why that seemed more impossible to believe than his story.

  Daniel smiled at my inquisitive look. He wrapped his arm around my back and let me hold the flat black stone as it hung from his neck. It was surprisingly warm and wasn't as smooth as it looked. It was slightly porous, like lava rock. I pressed my fingertip into the small crescent carved in the middle.

  "It helps me control the things I do." He stroked his fingers over mine.

  I leaned my head against his chest and was surprised I could hear his heart thumping through his coat. His breaths were deep and steady, but his heartbeat seemed erratic. Too fast, but too slow at the same time--almost as if two hearts pounded inside of him. Both telling me to believe his words.

  Daniel pulled me closer in his embrace. He traced his hand along the collar of my robe, his fingers grazing my skin. One of his heartbeats quickened, fluttering as it pulsed.

  I dropped the stone pendant. It bounced slightly against his chest. "Daniel? If people like you--these Urbat--still exist, does that mean monsters do, too?"

  Daniel turned his head away. "I should go now." He pulled me up with him as he stood.

  My feet felt uneven on the slope of the roof. Daniel steadied me. I didn't want him to leave. I would have kept him with me all night if I could. But I knew he wouldn't stay.

  He wouldn't answer any more questions tonight.

  He helped me through the window and popped the screen back in place. "Good night, Grace."

  "Will I see you again?" I placed my hand on the screen that separated us. "You're not going to disappear now that your secret identity is blown?"

  He put his hand against mine, the thin metal mesh between our skin. "Tomorrow. I'll be here tomorrow. I told your dad I'd fix the fence." He made no guarantee beyond that.

  "I'll see you then."

  Daniel pulled his hand away.

  "Wait," I said.

  He stopped.

  "Thank you. For what you did for my dad ... out in the backyard."

  Daniel bit his lip. "You saw that?" I nodded.

  His face colored slightly. "Don't worry about it, Gracie. Your dad was just feeling the aftereffects of what happened today--thinking he'd lost a son forever." Daniel stepped backward to the edge of the shingled eve. He sprang up onto his toes. "Lock your window," he said, and did a back flip dive off the roof.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Such great heights

  IN BED

  I curled up with my comforter and tried to make my brain stop whirling. But I couldn't stop thinking about Daniel: how it felt to be held in his arms, the exhilaration and freedom of running with him in the woods, what he told me about his ancestors ... about himself. But most of all, I couldn't stop wondering why Daniel hadn't answered my question about the existence of monsters.

  I have to admit I didn't know much about that sort of thing--monsters, demons, vampires. A lot of people in the parish thought it was a sin to read books or watch movies about such things. My parents limited the shows we were allowed to watch, and I had friends who were banned from reading the Harry Potter books because they supposedly celebrated witchcraft. I always thought that was silly--those things were just make-believe anyway.

  At least that's what I'd believed.

  But restrictions didn't stop people in Rose Crest from talking. I'd always tried to believe that the Markham Street Monster was just some kind of morality tale to scare us kids into behaving. The stories started out as just sightings of some kind of hairy beast on Markham Street. Then people in that part of the city went missing. Mostly shelter guests, prostitutes, and kids who were wasted, so no one seemed all that concerned. That is until their mangled bodies started turning up on Markham about once a month. At least those were the rumors I'd heard when I was a kid. Things closer to Rose Crest weren't as bad. Mostly dead animals--like my little dog, Daisy, ripped to pieces. Dad had said it was probably just a raccoon from the woods, but I'd always feared something worse. And what if I was right? What if it had been the

  Markham Street Monster? What if it had been as close as my front yard?

  Those strange things had stopped years ago--before Daniel ever left town--but now they were happening again. Maryanne had died from the cold, but her body had been abused like the ones found on Markham Street. Then James went missing ... and the blood on the porch. And I couldn't forget what had happened while I was stranded on Markham Street itself. What might have happened if Daniel hadn't come along?

  Could it really be a coincidence that any of these things started happening again only after Daniel had come home? Could the monster have followed him here? Or maybe he was the one who was tracking it.

  Daniel said he'd returned because of art school, but I'd felt there was something more to it. Was this it? Was the Markham Street Monster back? Was Daniel here to protect us from it?

  MORNING

  I must have fallen asleep eventually, because I was startled awake by a loud thunk outside my bedroom window. I rolled over and looked at the clock: 6:00 a.m. I heard the thunk again, so I stumbled out of bed and went to investigate. It was mostly dark out, but I could still see that the side yard was empty. The thunking continued. It seemed to be coming from the backyard. My legs were so stiff I practically had to slide down the stairs on my butt.

/>   I was in the kitchen when I saw Daniel out in the backyard. He was driving a wood fence post into the frozen dirt--with his bare hands. I couldn't tell for sure because his back was to me, but it looked like he was holding the post in one hand and then swinging his arm, presumably whacking the top of the post with the butt of his hand. No mallet, or hammer, or any tool was even nearby from what I could tell. He'd probably gotten such an early start so he could do it his way.

  I was about to go out and join him when I ran my hand through my hair, and my fingers lodged in a nest of snarls. I watched Daniel take another swing, sinking the post a good three inches into the ground, and I suddenly felt compelled to he cleaned and dressed in something more flattering than my flannel yellow-ducky pj's.

  By the time I'd done my makeup, flat-ironed my hair, and changed my sweater three times--why was everything I owned so boxy?--Charity was in the kitchen perusing one of her science hooks and eating sugared cereal from her private stash. Which meant that Mom wasn't up yet. The thunking noise had stopped, so hopefully Mom and James would sleep in for a while longer.

  I peered out the window. "Did you see where Daniel went?"

  "Nope," Charity grumbled. "I was about ready to go strangle him for making all that racket, but he was gone by the time I got down here."

  "Sorry," I said, like anything Daniel did was my fault.

  "Meh." She shrugged. "I was gonna get up early today anyway. I've got to write a whole first draft for my research paper this weekend."

  "Oh." I stared farther out the window. "I wonder where he went."

  "The Corolla's gone. Maybe Dad took him to the hardware store or something."

  Or maybe whoever took the car last night never came home. I didn't hear the garage door last night, and I hadn't fallen asleep until at least three a.m. Dad's study was closed and locked, and the light was out. If Daniel wasn't with Dad, then where had he gone?

  I sank into a kitchen chair. Perhaps Daniel's reason for fixing the fence so early was because he'd changed his mind about wanting to see me again.

  "May I?" I reached for Charity's box of Lucky Charms.

  She nodded. "Did you hear about Mr. Day's granddaughter?"

  "Jessica or Kristy?" "Jess. She's missing."

  Little frosted three-leafed clovers tumbled into my bowl. I hadn't seen Jessica in years. She was in Daniel and Jude's grade growing up, but her family had moved to the city when she was a sophomore. "Doesn't she run away on a bimonthly basis?"

  "Yeah, but never seriously. She's never missed a holiday before. When she didn't show up for Thanksgiving, her parents called the police. Her friends said they were with her at a party downtown the other night. They said she was there one minute and gone the next. It was in the paper." Charity scraped the bottom of her bowl. "The

  Markham Street Monster strikes again."

  I dropped the cereal box. "Is that what they're saying:

  "Yep. There was even a little blurb at the end of the article about James wandering away. I don't know how they even heard about that. They say the monster might have tried to take him." There was a sudden edge to her voice. She looked at me over the cereal box. "You don't think--"

  "They're just trying to freak people out to up their sales." I wished I could believe what I was saying, but I knew now the article might be right. "Where's the newspaper anyway?"

  "Jude surfaced a few minutes ago. He took it back downstairs," Charity said. "The paper said the police are waiting for test results on that blood before they release a statement."

  My heart did a little flip-flop in my chest. What would they find with those test results? I pushed away the bowl of too-sweet cereal.

  Charity turned the page of her book. A large silver-gray wolf stared back at me from the page. I couldn't help shuddering as I thought of those animal tracks deep in the ravine.

  AFTERNOON

  I told myself I was not waiting for Daniel. I was simply working on my make-up assignment for Mr. Barlow, out on the porch, in November, where I might just happen to see Daniel if he decided to come back. I settled sideways into the porch swing, where I could see the walnut tree in the side yard, and the street--hut like I said, I was not sitting around waiting for a guy.

  It may have been the lack of focus, but no matter how hard I tried, my attempts to draw the walnut tree still didn't feel right at all. I was fighting the urge to chuck my charcoal pencil across the porch when I heard someone come up beside me.

  "I'm glad to see you haven't given up on me," Daniel said.

  "Took you long enough," I said, trying not to betray that I'd worried he wouldn't show. "Where'd you take off to anyway?"

  "Maryanne Duke's."

  I glanced up at him.

  "Apparently, she left her house to the parish. Your dad is letting me stay in the basement apartment until I figure some things out. I moved my stuff over there this morning."

  "I'm sure Maryanne's daughters are just crazy about that."

  Daniel smirked and sat down next to me on the swing.

  "Did you see the newspaper this morning?" I asked, trying to sound nonchalant. Daniel's grin fell into a frown.

  "Do you think they're right? That the Markham

  Street Monster is responsible for what happened to Mr. Day's granddaughter? That it tried to take James?" He shook his head.

  "But you're the one who said James couldn't have gone that far on his own. And how did his slipper get down in that ravine?"

  Daniel just stared at the palms of his hands, like he was hoping the answer would somehow he written there.

  "Monsters are real," I said. "They still exist right here in Minnesota, and in Iowa, and in Utah. Don't they?"

  Daniel scratched behind his ear. "Yes, Gracie. My people wouldn't still exist if monsters didn't."

  1 suddenly shivered, even though we were sitting in the sun. I'm not sure I wanted to be right. "That's just too weird to wrap my head around. To think that for nearly seventeen years I've been walking around completely oblivious to what the world is really like. I mean, I could have walked right past a monster without even knowing it."

  "You've met one," Daniel said. "The other night."

  "I did?" Then my mind drifted back to the party at Daniel's apartment. "Mishka," I said, thinking of her black, black eyes and how I'd felt so fuzzy in the head around her.

  "And you're friends with her?"

  "It's complicated," Daniel said. "But she's only dangerous when she doesn't get what she wants. That's why I went with her. I didn't just abandon you for a haircut.

  I knew if I chose you over her, she might decide to ... target you."

  My heart felt like it was twisting into a knot. "You don't think that's what happened, do you? Maybe she followed you here and decided to go after my little brother--"

  "No. That's not what happened."

  "Then what did?"

  "I don't know," he mumbled. He was quiet for a moment, and then he looked at the drawing I held on my lap. "I can help you with that."

  "You're doing it again," I grumbled.

  "What?"

  "Dodging my questions, like everybody else. I'm not stupid or fragile or weak, you know."

  "I know, Grace. You're anything but." He blew his floppy bangs off his forehead. "I'm not dodging your questions. I just don't have any more answers to give you." He tapped my sketch pad with one of his long fingers. "Now, do you want help with your assignment, or not?"

  "No, thanks. I'm in enough trouble over the last time you 'fixed' one of my drawings."

  "That's not really what I meant," he said. "I'll be staying after school every day to work in the art room. I could use your company. Help keep that Barlow guy off my back.

  But we could start today. I could show you some new techniques I've picked up over the years."

  "I bet you could." I sighed, realizing that our discussion about monsters was over--for now. "But this drawing is totally hopeless." I tore the page out of my sketch pad and was about to crumple it up.
/>
  "Don't." Daniel grabbed it from me. He studied it for a moment. "Why are you drawing this?" He pointed at my skeleton of a tree.

  I shrugged. "Because Barlow wants us to draw something that reminds us of our childhood. This is all I could think of."

  "But why?" Daniel asked. "What exactly about this tree are you trying to capture? What does it make you feel? What does it make you want?"

  I gazed at the real tree in the yard. Memories trickled into my mind. You, I thought. It makes me want you. I looked down at my drawing pad and hoped mind reading wasn't one of Daniel's many hidden, demon-hunter talents.

  "Remember when we used to race up that tree--see who could go the highest the fastest?" I asked. "And then we'd perch up there, and we could see the whole neighborhood? It felt like if we could just climb a little bit farther into the thin branches, we could stretch up and brush the clouds with our fingers." I rolled the charcoal pencil between my hands. "I guess that's what I want to feel again."

  "Then why are we down here?" Daniel grabbed my pencil and tucked my pad under his arm. "Come on."

  He pulled me up from the swing and down the porch to the base of the walnut tree. Before I could blink, he'd kicked off his shoes and was halfway up the tree. "You coming?" he goaded from his perch.

  "You're crazy," I shouted up to him.

  "You're losing!" He jumped from his branch to a higher one above.

  "You're cheating!" I grabbed the lowest branch and tried to swing myself up. My stiff legs groaned, I grabbed a different branch and climbed up a few feet. This was a lot less scary than the ravine, but a lot harder than the stone pillar in the Garden of Angels. My injured hand didn't make it any easier.

  "Pick up the pace, slowpoke!" Daniel shouted down at me like we were kids all over again. He was higher in the branches than I'd ever climbed.

  "Zip it, or you're going to lose an appendage."

  My feet scraped against the ashy-white bark as I pushed and pulled myself up through the tree. I was a few feet below Daniel when the branches felt too thin and wavering to support me. I stretched to reach him-- to reach the sky, like I tried when I was kid. I slipped a bit and hugged the closest branch. Daniel swung down to meet me. The tree shuddered when he landed. I hugged my branch tighter. Daniel didn't even blink. He sat in a crook of the tree, his legs swinging in the open air.