The Lost Saint (15 page)

“What else is new?” Daniel mumbled. It was the first thing he’d said since we’d left Don Mooney’s apartment.

“I think the more significant part of the conversation is that Jude said that there was someone
coming
for you,” Gabriel said. “Do you have any idea what he means?”

“Not a clue.” I shrugged. “Daniel thinks he’s just messing with us, but I don’t think he’d come back here just for a sick joke.”

“Depends on how far gone your brother is. The wolf can make you do all sorts of sick things.” Gabriel pulled at the pastor’s collar around his neck. I wondered if he was thinking about Katharine—the sister he’d killed after he became a werewolf. “But I think it is safe to assume that you are all in danger if Jude is anywhere near here.”

“Which means we need to find him soon.” Dad leaned forward in his chair. “And we’re going to need a proper plan of attack. I think it’s only logical to assume that Jude may have contacted other people from his past. I’d like you to find a way to bring the subject up with April. Find out if she’s heard anything from him.”

“I already have,” I said.

“And?”

I told them about my visit to April’s house and what she told me about her blog and tracking Jude’s IP address. “It was for a club in the city. They have a Wi-Fi bar there that he must have used. Get this, Daniel, it’s called The
Depot.
” I looked at Daniel, but he didn’t even glance in my direction. Whatever temporary good mood seeing Gabriel had put him in was apparently gone now. I cleared my throat and turned to my dad. “I found a card for the club in the mess at Day’s Market.”

Dad sat up a bit. He must have recognized it as a clue, the same way I had—unlike Daniel, who had originally scoffed at the idea.

“Hmm,” Daniel said from his corner. I glanced back at him. His eyebrows knitted together as he scratched at the tape on his bandage. “I’ve been asking around about the place. Not good stuff.”

“Who did you ask?” I gave Daniel a pointed look that he didn’t see. “Is that what you were doing last night?” But if that were the case, why wouldn’t he have just told me?

Daniel ignored my questions and looked at my dad. “Maybe you and I should go down there tonight and ask around. I don’t want Grace to go.”

“Um …” I hesitated. “I kind of already did.”

“Grace!” Daniel and my dad bellowed at the same time.

“Do you have any idea what kind of people—not to mention
nonpeople
—hang out there?” Daniel asked, looking at me for the first time. Except it was more like a glare.

“Well, I do
now.
”

Daniel almost cracked a smile, but he shifted it quickly back into a look of annoyance. “I thought I asked you not to go looking for Jude on your own.”

“I know. But you were sick, or so you
claimed
, so I didn’t want to bug you.” Except Daniel didn’t look sick at all. Not even earlier when I was at his place. “And April said she knew where it was, and I had the keycard, so we kind of teamed up.”

“Whoa, you took April with you? Grace, do you have any idea how—?”

“Spare me the lecture, okay? It was stupid. I should’ve known better. We could have been killed.…”

“What? Are you okay?” Daniel asked, his voice suddenly softer. It was the first time he’d sounded like my boyfriend all evening. “Did someone hurt you?”

“No.” I looked away from his concerned gaze, trying to hide the red lie on my neck. I definitely didn’t feel like bringing up what happened with those two guys and Talbot now. “The point is that I went down there and asked around and found nothing. It’s probably been weeks since he’s been there.”

“And any chance of finding him through that club has probably been lost,” Gabriel said.

I groaned. “Don’t remind me.”

“I still want to go down there and see what I can find,” Dad said.

“You can’t get in without the keycard.” I gave him a sheepish grin. “And I think I kind of dropped it while I was there.” I hadn’t been able to find it since Talbot dragged us out of there.

Dad made a grumbling noise.

“I’ve got some contacts,” Daniel said. “I’ll ask around again. See if I can get a new card.”

“Can you think of anyone else Jude might try to contact?” Dad asked me.

I shook my head.

“Hmm.” Dad rubbed his temples, like he was trying to ward off a headache. “I’m going to have to mull this over a bit more before we come up with a plan B. In the meantime, we need to figure out what to do with you, Grace.”

“What to do with me?”

“I don’t want you running off all half-cocked again. If I can’t trust you to use your head, then maybe you need to be grounded. No more unauthorized visits to the city. Pull back on your training and hit the books again for a while.”

“What? No!” I’d been surprised when Dad had been supportive of the idea of my training in the first place. I knew he felt guilty that he hadn’t told Jude what was happening to him. So when I finally told Dad that I had
been infected, he said, “Knowledge is power,” and gave me all of his books on werewolf lore. He even bought me some books on karate and self-defense. I think he hoped they’d help me develop my abilities without losing control like Jude. Not that you can really learn how to fight from a book, but that was just the way Dad operated—anything important could be found in a book, as far as he was concerned.

But why would he try to take that away from me now? Especially with Gabriel here to train me?

“Dad, you can’t do this. Not now. I’m just starting to be able to really tap into my powers. I ran at full speed for almost an hour and a half this evening. And last night I …” I let that thought drop before I said too much.

“What’s all this?” Gabriel asked. “You’ve been
training
for what?”

Gabriel! Yes, he was the one who could help me convince Dad
.

“Daniel and I have been working on developing my superpowers. We think I can become a Hound of Heaven, like what you wrote about the Urbat. How these powers are meant to help people. How they can be a blessing and not a curse. Daniel’s been trying to teach me how to use my abilities, and I’m just starting to figure it out, but now that you’re here, you can teach me everything you know. You can help me finally tap into the power. If you train me, then you can help
me reclaim the Urbat blessings, just like you told your sister you wanted to do in those letters.”

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?

SCHOOL, THE NEXT DAY