The Dark Divine

by Бри Деспейн

  "You don't have to do this." He grasped my wrist, I dropped the plate. It crashed between our feet. Shards of glass and grains of rice scattered across the linoleum floor.

  "I'm sorry," I said. "I'll clean it up." I tried to pull out of his grip as I bent down, but he didn't let go.

  He drew me up. "I can do it."

  "No, it's my fault." I trembled in his grasp. "I'll clean it up." I looked around, as if searching for a broom. "And then I'll get out of your way."

  Daniel released my arm. "Are you okay?"

  "Yeah." I rubbed my wrist. "But it's late, and I should get home," I was being a chicken. I was failing. But at that moment I knew the truth might be more than I could handle. "We can do this another time."

  "Grace, what's going on?" He placed his hands on my hips.

  I looked down at the mess between our feet. "I forgot that I needed to do something."

  "I know you didn't come here to paint. I can see it in your face." He paused for a second. "Is this about the kiss? Grace, did you come here for something else?" He brushed my cheek. "Because I don't think you're ready--"

  "No," I practically shouted. "No, not at all. I came here because ..." But I couldn't say it. I needed to go. I needed to get out of there. I tried to pull away, but he held me tight around the hips.

  "Grace?" he asked, his voice sounding hurt. "What's wrong:

  "Nothing." Heat tingled up my neck. "Look at me then."

  I gazed up into his eyes. They were deep and soft and familiar. My brother had to be lying.

  "I don't think you should be here just as much as you think you should go," he said. "But I can't send you away like this. Tell me what happened."

  "Jude."

  Daniel's eyes shifted downward. He moved the broken plate with his bare foot.

  "I don't know what's wrong with him. He's not himself. He's making all these crazy accusations against you." I bit my lip. "He called you a monster. He said that you were using me. And he said other awful things about you. Things you did."

  Daniel moved his hands away from my waist and crossed his arms in front of his naked chest.

  "I refused to believe him. I didn't think you could do those things." I paused. "But he said that you were lying about the Urbat. I know it doesn't mean "Hounds of

  Heaven.'" I sucked in a breath. "You lied to me ... and now I don't know what to believe anymore."

  Daniel looked up at the ceiling. "I'm sorry, Grace. I should have stayed away from you. He told me to keep away from you and Jude, but I couldn't. I saw your name in that art class, and I had to know. I told myself that if you could look me in the eyes ... then maybe you could still love me. Maybe there was hope for me after all." A tear ran down his face. He wiped at it with his knuckles. "But I was selfish. I didn't care what it would do to you or Jude. All I wanted was your love, and now I know that's the one thing I can never have."

  "Yes, you can." I touched his bare, sinewy bicep. "Just be honest with me. I can help you if I know the truth."

  "You can't help me." He turned away and gripped the edge of the counter. "1 could never ask."

  "You don't have to ask. I know what I'm supposed to do."

  The muscles in Daniel's shoulders went rigid. "You can't possibly ..."

  "I figured it out. I'm supposed to help you use your abilities to help people. I'm the one who can turn you into a ... a superhero."

  "Damn it, Grace!" he roared. The counter creaked and groaned under his white-knuckled grasp. "Who the hell do you think I am? A superhero? I'm not Peter Parker.

  I'm not your own damn Clark Kent. Your brother told you right--I am a monster!"

  "No, you're not. I can--"

  "I'm using you, Grace," he snarled. "You think I can he saved, but I can't. You don't even know what I'm capable of!" He swept the second plate off the counter. It exploded at my feet.

  I jumped back, my shoes crunching on broken glass. "I don't care," I yelled at him. "I don't care if you're using me. And I don't care what lies my brother tells about you.

  That person he's describing isn't you."

  He reeled on me, his eyes black and empty. "And who is that person?" he said. "What did Jude say about me? Because I'm pretty damn sure he knows exactly what I am."

  I looked away at the cat-shaped clock above the stove.

  "He said you were a bar and a thief and a murderer," I whispered. "He told me to ask you what it felt like when you left him for dead."

  Daniel drew in a deep breath and let it out. "Like every remaining ounce of light and hope was sucked out of the shell I used to call my soul."

  "Then it's true?" My voice cracked in my throat. "Tell me what you are. Tell me what you did. I think you at least owe me the truth."

  I heard the shifting of broken glass as he moved away. I kept looking at the cat clock. Its eyes swung back and forth with every second that passed until Daniel finally spoke.

  "I didn't Lie about the 'Hounds of Heaven,'" he said from the kitchen table. "That's what my ancestors were originally called. Everything I told you was true-- God's light against evil, His blessing on my people--I just didn't tell you the ending to that story."

  I turned to look at him. He sat in a kitchen chair, leaning over, his elbows on his knees. He looked down at the floor so all I could see was the top of his shaggy head.

  "My ancestors fought the forces of hell for many years. They seemed like an unwavering force against evil; only the devil figured out the flaw in their armor-- the flaw that's in all of us. The Hounds had been blessed with an animal essence that made them strong and agile, but they were still human, with human emotions. What they didn't realize is that the animal, the wolf that lived inside of them, fed on those emotions. The negative ones particularly: pride, jealousy, lust, fear, hate.

  "The devil nurtured those feelings. As the Hounds grew more prideful--believing they were superior to all other humans--the wolf inside grew. It influenced their thoughts, their actions, devoured pieces of their souls. Their blessing became their curse.

  "They turned their backs on God and his mission. They despised mortals and were hated and feared by them. And then the wolf started to lust for the blood of the ones the Hounds had once sworn to protect. And when a Hound gives in to that bloodlust--as most of them do--and he commits a true predatory act--tries to kill someone--the wolf takes control. It now has the power to take over the Hound's form at will, becoming an embodied wolf. It holds the Hound's mortal soul ransom as it hunts and ravages and kills."

  "Is that where the name Urbat comes from?" I asked. "The Dogs of Death?"

  He nodded. "There are many names. Hundreds, actually. The Skin-Walkers, Loup-Garou, Oik, Varkolak, Varulv. The name you are probably most familiar with is

  Werewolf."

  "Werewolf? Your family are werewolves?" I stepped back. "Are you ... Are you a ... ?"

  "A wolf in boy's clothing?" He wasn't joking. "I'm a hybrid actually. My mother was full human. My father was the Kalbi. He was the beast." Daniel looked up at me. "What

  I told you about the Urbat living in packs was true. They live together for protection and kinship." He lingered his necklace. "Many of them try to control the wolf; others like the taste of blood. My father was one of the latter. He challenged the alpha of his pack and lost. The alpha banished him instead of ripping out his throat--that was a big mistake.

  "My father wandered for a while. But a wolf's greatest instinct is for a pack, a family. He ended up in Rose Crest, where he chose a woman he could dominate. He tried living as a mortal with her. But then I came into the picture. I think he sensed he wouldn't be able to control me as easily ... and that made him crazy. I drove him to hunting again."

  "Your father"--I could barely bring myself to ask-- "he was the Markham Street Monster, wasn't he?" I thought about how his father seemed to sleep all day. How he worked a night shift at a warehouse near the shelter on Markham. How all those strange things stopped happening around the time he skipped town. "He killed all those peopl
e."

  Daniel lowered his head even more. He didn't need to answer.

  "And you were born with the wolf's essence, too?"

  Daniel reached down and scooped up a few shards of broken plate. He held them in his open palm. "My wolf wasn't as strong when I was younger--probably because I wasn't a purebred. Gabriel says there are some descendants of the Hounds who are so mixed in breed they probably don't feel it much at all." He closed his hand over the bits of glass and squeezed. He winced and opened his bloody palm. "I didn't know the truth then about my family. All I knew was that there was something very wrong with my father--which is how I discovered that I could heal faster than normal people. That I could heal myself."

  He closed his eyes and pursed his lips. It was like the cuts on his hands sucked the blood back in, then healed over into thin, jagged scars. All that remained in his hand were a few pink bits of glass.

  "But as I got older, I felt the monster stirring. I fought it as hard as I could. But I've failed. The wolf took me over, too--turned me into a beast like my father."

  "But if the wolf took you over, that means you've ..." I thought of Jude, of those scars on his hands and face, of the things he'd accused Daniel of. "That's when it happened. You tried to hurt Jude, and that's when the wolf took you over. That's why he's so afraid of you."

  Daniel closed his list around the glass again. His knuckles went purple, then white. Blood snaked around his wrist. I turned away and studied the puke-pink daisies on the wall.

  "The night I ran away from home," he said, "I broke into the parish. It was after the fund-raiser for the fire repairs, and I knew your father always put off taking donations to the bank. I was already quite strong then. It only took a second to break the lock on the outside door to the balcony. The plan was to get in and get out with the money, but as I was leaving, your brother showed up. He saw me with the cash box and told me to put it back. He seemed so self-righteous, and it made me sick. The wolf told me that all of this was his fault. That I wouldn't have even been there if it weren't for him."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I always felt the wolf drive for a pack. But I wanted a normal family. With a mother who put her child first, and a father who was steady and kind and didn't make me tremble in my bed at night. I wanted a family like yours. I wanted to be Daniel Divine." His voice faltered.

  I heard him shift in his chair. "I hated my father. I hated the monster that burned inside of me. Every time I got mad, or jealous, or ... Something inside of me swelled, grew, eating me alive. It told me to hurt, to hunt. At first I thought I was going insane. I pushed it away. But somehow I knew that my father was responsible for what was happening to me. I followed him once. I saw what he would become--the things he did. I knew that was what my future held.

  "I thought maybe I could get rid of the monster if I got rid of my father--told someone about what I saw. I wanted to tell. I almost told. But then I thought I had to forgive him. That no matter how bad he hurt me or anyone else, I had to turn the other cheek. You're the one who told me that. Told me my father hurt me because he was desperate."

  My knees went numb. I clung to the counter for support. I didn't understand what I'd said back then--still didn't really. But that wasn't what I'd meant. Not at all.

  "So I kept my mouth shut," Daniel continued. "Sometimes I tried to paint the things I saw, but that only made my father go ballistic. One day I finally tried to tell Jude about the Urbat--what little I'd learned about them by then--but he thought I was making up stories. So instead I told him how my father hurt me. I thought if I told one person, but made him keep it a secret, it would ease the burning a bit, and I wouldn't be betraying my father. I made Jude promise not to tell.

  But he broke that promise. He ruined everything."

  "But you got what you wanted." The numbness in my knees spread up my legs. "You became our brother."

  "But it didn't last. Before I had only dreamed what it would be like to be in a real family, but if your brother hadn't broken his promise, then I wouldn't have ever known what it was like. I wouldn't have known what it felt like to be wanted and then get ripped out of the only warm, loving place I'd ever had. Things would have gone on like in the past, and my own mother wouldn't have had to choose between that monster and me."

  Daniel cleared his throat and coughed. "It was easier to control the wolf when I was with your family. But when I left, it started stirring again. But this time I didn't fight it. I sought out other people who had demons inside--other creatures of the night." He made a scoffing laugh. "Although, most of their inner demons weren't quite so literal."

  Daniel swallowed so hard I could hear him from across the room. I could tell he wasn't going to make any more jokes.

  "The wolf grew stronger," he said after a moment. "It influenced everything I did. And then that night in the parish when I saw your brother standing there and he had everything I ever wanted, the monster finally broke free."

  I cringed, imagining Jude alone and frightened.

  "I raged and wailed on Jude like my father used to wail on me. I wanted to make him feel all the pain I had inside. He didn't even try to fight back. He just took it like he was some kind of martyr, and that made the wolf fume. I wanted to strip him of everything he had.''

  Daniel took in a long breath. "When I told Jude I was taking the money and his new coat, you know what he did? He got to his feet in front of those stained-glass pictures of Christ, took off his coat, and offered it to me. 'Take it,' he said. 'It's cold outside, and you need it more than I do.' He put the coat in my hands, and he was so calm and peaceful and I didn't understand. I didn't know this place he was coming from. I didn't know how he could just offer it to me like it was nothing--like I'd done nothing. That's when I thought it--I wanted to kill him. And then something seared through my veins, and I started to shake and scream ... and I lunged at him.

  "All I remember after that is waking up outside on the parish grounds. My clothes were missing and shards of colored glass were scattered all around. There was blood all over me. But none of it was mine. I had no idea what happened---what I'd become. Gabriel says it's like that the first few times; you're not conscious of your actions at all. I was frantic. I didn't know where your brother had gone. But then I saw him, lying, twisted, in the bushes a few feet away. And I knew I was responsible."

  I held my hand over my heart. It was racing so fast it felt like it was going to burst through my ribs. "Was it you or the wolf?"

  Daniel was silent for a moment. "The wolf took him through that window. But I was the one who left him there. I saw the blood on his face. I knew he needed help. But I ran away. I took the cash box and I left him there."

  The chair creaked as he stood up. I heard him moving closer to me. I could see his dark reflection in the cat clock's shifting eyes.

  "You want to know what the real kicker is?" he asked, only a few inches from me now.

  I didn't answer, but he told me anyway.

  "That money only lasted me three weeks," he said. "Five thousand dollars of blood money, and I pissed it away on shit-hole motel rooms and girls who said they loved me until the drugs ran out. And at the end of three weeks, when I'd sobered up enough to remember what I'd done, I started running. But no matter how far or fast I ran, I couldn't get away from the wolf. So I kept running and drinking and using--anything to numb the memories away--and I ran so far, that's probably how I ended up back here."

  He moved closer to me--as close as he was when I kissed him in the moonlight. "Do you know me now? Do you still think I'm worth saving?" His breath burned the side of my face. "Can you look me in the eyes and say you love me now?"

  I shifted my gaze from the clock to my feet. I picked my way through the broken glass and grabbed my backpack, leaving the bottles of linseed oil and varnish on the table, and went straight to the door. My hand was on the doorknob when I stopped.

  "Jude didn't break his promise," I choked out. "I was the one who told on your father. I'm the
one who turned you into the wolf."

  I wrenched the door open and ran up the stairs to the minivan. I drove aimlessly for at least an hour and somehow ended up at home in my bed.

  I had no thoughts in my head. No feeling in my skin. There was nothing in me at all.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Book of secrets

  MONDAY

  I woke the next morning, tangled in the bed sheets. My shirt clung to my chest, sticky with cold sweat. My head throbbed. It felt like someone was drilling a hole in the base of my skull, the pain radiating up behind my eyes. I squinted at the alarm clock. It was much later than I thought. I pushed myself out of hed and into the shower.

  I stood in the stream of hot water and let the heat prick at the numbness under my skin, washing away the shock. That's when the tears came.

  I never cried. Not since I was a baby, according to my mother. I didn't get the point. Crying never fixed anything. But as the tears started to roll down my face, mingling with the rain from the showerhead, I couldn't hold it in anymore. I sobbed into the steam, hoping no one could hear me over the somber buzz of the bathroom fan. It was like I finally let out every tear I'd ever held back. I cried for the time Don Mooney held his silver knife to my father's throat. I cried for the times I overheard Daniel's father ripping into him. For the time his mother took him away from us. For when Charity and T were sent to our grandparents for three weeks without any explanation. I cried for Maryanne's death, for James going missing, for Jude.

  But mostly I sobbed for what I now knew about myself.

  I felt like such a fraud. My father told me my name meant mercy, help, and guidance. But he was wrong. All Grace Divine meant was blundering, meddling, disappointment. Everything I touched--everything I tried to help--fell apart and slipped through my fingers.

  Why did I have to press the issue, refuse to stay ignorant? Why couldn't I go back and stop myself from creating this mess?

  If I had just stayed out of things, if I had just minded my own business for all these years, would everything be the way it used to? Would Daniel still be the blond-haired boy next door if I had kept my mouth shut about his father? Would Daniel and Jude still be the best of friends? Would my brother be undamaged? Would Daniel be human?