The Savage Grace: A Dark Divine Novel (6 page)

At first I was confused, but then I knew what he meant without his saying it out loud.

Marcos was dead.

I didn’t have time to react to this revelation. A loud cracking noise above my head warned me that another portion of the corridor ceiling was about to fall—and it would come down right on top of us. I pushed all my emotions into my powers and made a run for the exit with my father in my arms and Talbot trailing behind me. My left ankle throbbed, threatening to break for a third time in a week, and just when I didn’t think I could go any farther, Brent, Ryan, and Zach appeared at the end of the corridor. I blinked at them through my smoke-stung eyes, wondering if this was a miracle or a mirage.

“Help,” I gasped.

The boys approached slowly at first, like their own inner wolves were physically trying to hold them back from the fire. Then, with what looked like a burst of unified courage, Ryan and Brent grabbed Talbot, and Zach took Dad from my arms. Together we pulled them from the corridor, just as the ceiling caved in behind us.

LATER

Four cop cars and three large fire trucks cordoned off the street outside the burning building. Their red-and-white flashing lights mixed with the yellow-and-orange flames, creating a garish portrait in front of me as I watched through the open doors from the back of an ambulance. My breath fogged inside an oxygen mask that sent clean air down my burning throat and into my aching lungs.

Dad was in the next ambulance over. I couldn’t stand not being able to see what they were doing to him.
Why hadn’t they left for the ER already?
I suddenly remembered seeing in a TV show once that paramedics can’t move the ambulance if they’re using a defibrillator.
oh, no!
I clawed at the mask and pulled it from my face. I’d started to climb out of the vehicle when the paramedic who had looked me over grabbed my arm.

“You can’t go yet, miss.”

Without thinking, I pushed him away—harder than I’d meant to—and he stumbled into the gurney I’d just left. “I need to be with my father,” I said, and staggered out of the truck.

“No, miss”—a fireman tried to stop me—“go back.”

“He’s my father!” I pushed past him toward the other ambulance.

“Let her through,” a female paramedic shouted. “She’s needed.”

The woman waved me over. I followed her around the big open doors of the ambulance and almost lost my footing when I saw the scene unfolding inside the back of the truck. Two paramedics worked over my unconscious father, who lay so still on a gurney, strapped to a backboard. One held an oxygen mask over my father’s face while the other prepared an IV. Dad had absolutely no reaction to the needle the woman stuck in his arm. I tried to imagine that he was just sleeping. Tried not to think about how he looked barely alive.

“Daddy?” I hadn’t called him that since I was eight.

The paramedic looked up from kneading a bag of liquid into the IV.

“This is his daughter,” the woman who had called me over told her before she could protest my presence.

The paramedic in the ambulance nodded. “My name is Jen, honey. What’s yours?” Her voice was soothing but urgent at the same time.

“Grace,” I said, my voice barely audible. “Why haven’t you left yet?”

“We’ve assessed his needs, and we’re doing what we can for him before we leave. He’s lucky, I’m certified to give him pain meds before we reach the ER.”

My breaths started to come much too quickly.

“Is your father allergic to any medications?”

“Um, I…” My head felt light, and suddenly my brain didn’t want to work. I knew he
was
allergic to something, but I couldn’t think of what it was. I couldn’t think of anything other than watching the way my father’s chest barely moved in response to the oxygen pump. My own breaths came so fast now I feared I was going to hyperventilate. Just then, I felt someone else’s presence next to me. I looked up and found Talbot standing there, wrapped in a thick blanket that was supposed to help prevent shock. Soot smudged his face, and his hair looked gray from the ashy dust that clung to his disheveled mane.

He put his hand on my back. “Deep breaths, kid. You won’t be able to help if you pass out.”

I nodded and took in several deep breaths and concentrated some of my healing power down my ragged throat. “Um, penicillin.” I finally remembered that’s why my mom never let any doctors prescribe it to us kids—just in case we were allergic like my dad.

“What’s his blood type?”

“O negative.”

“Are you a match? They may need to do a blood transfusion at the hospital.”

“Transfusion?”

I looked back at Talbot—only one question playing on my mind. If Dad were given a blood transfusion with
my
blood, would he be infected by the werewolf curse? Talbot gave me a look like he understood my unspoken question. His eyes seemed to say,
I really don’t know.

“No,” I lied. It was too risky.

“Anyone else in your family? His is a hard blood type to match.”

Jude,
I thought. As a nurse, my mom insisted we all know one another’s blood type. She kept them written on a laminated card in her wallet.

“No,” I lied again. Jude’s blood would be even more dangerous, considering he was a full-blown werewolf.

“Damn,” Jen mumbled under her breath. “Hopefully, the hospital will have enough.”

How much blood does he need? Why is he still not moving?
“How bad is he?”

“Critical,” she said, and grabbed a long needle. I didn’t even want to know what that was for. “Your father must have been thrown several feet by the blast. He’s showing signs of internal bleeding. Still don’t know how the rest of you got out of there with barely a scratch.” She nodded to Talbot and me. “You’re damn lucky.”

Talbot ducked his head. “Yes, the
rest
of us were lucky.”

I looked at him, wondering about the inflection in his voice. Then I remembered … Marcos had entered that building with the others. Now he was gone. And Talbot didn’t want me to mention him. Marcos was dead, and it would be better if no one knew he’d ever existed.

And you’re the one who sent him to his death,
the wolf told me inside my head.

I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep standing. My legs felt far too soft, and the ground underneath my feet seemed suddenly off-kilter. Talbot’s hand on my back felt like the only thing holding me upright.

I’d known Marcos for only a week, and now he was just gone.

“We need to get your father to the hospital,” the male paramedic said. “I think it’s best if you ride along.” He held his hand out to help me climb into the back of the ambulance. I clung to it for support.

“I’ll meet you there,” Talbot said as they shut the doors between us.

I suddenly felt very alone in the crowded ambulance.

Dad’s eyes flickered open for a second and then closed.

“I’m here, Daddy.” I leaned forward and reached for his hand, but I could barely loop one of my fingers around one of his for all the wires and tubes that protruded from his hand and arm. I could see him straining to open his eyes again, but he couldn’t.

How could I have let this happen?

SEVERAL HOURS LATER

“I need to be able to do something,” I said to myself as I paced in the corner of Dad’s small ICU room.

Dad hadn’t opened his eyes again since that one time in the ambulance. Doctors and nurses had worked over him in the ER for what felt like an eternity, and then they shuffled us off into this room with grave looks on their faces. At one point someone examined me, and then I was told to wash up in the shower of an empty patient room. One of the nurses gave me a pair of pale green scrubs to change into. She wrapped my tattered and bloody clothes in a plastic bag and then threw them away in a canister marked biohazard.

When had I bled? It must have been my father’s.…

I guess they thought being clean would help me cope better with bad news, because as soon as I was dressed, someone with a clipboard took me aside. She’d said words relating to my father, like
trauma
and
invasive surgery
, along with a long string of other phrases that I couldn’t comprehend over the loud pounding of my heartbeat in my ears.

How can I have all these powers, yet there’s nothing I can do?

A muffled stream of what sounded like French curse words came from the sliding glass doorway. I turned to find Gabriel standing there, his hands clasped over his mouth as he looked at my father lying there, helpless and slipping further away.

I was about to mutter something horrible like, “Took you long enough,” because I’d left a string of urgent messages for him, but when Gabriel lowered his hands from his face, I saw a long, pink, newly healed scar marring one of his cheekbones. His reddish beard almost hid the faintest hints of purple bruises along his jaw. He hadn’t had those injuries this morning when I saw him last.

“Are you okay? What happened?” I knew immediately this had something to do with why he hadn’t wanted me to return to the parish. “Did Jude do this to you?” I hated to ask, but I had to. Jude acted placid, but I’d feared he was volatile, like a ticking time bomb …
oh hell.
Tears stung my eyes from the reminder of the explosion that had harmed my father.

It’s all your fault,
the evil wolf inside me growled.

“No,” Gabriel said. “Something else entirely, but it’s not important now. We’ll discuss it later. How is your father?” Gabriel stepped farther into the room, and the glass door slid closed behind him. “I had to convince the nurse I was his brother so she’d allow me in.”

“Critical. That’s all I know.”

The ICU was a busy, noisy place, with nurses and doctors bustling about, but I still felt like I’d been completely alone for the last couple of hours. Talbot had never showed up like he said he would. I hadn’t wanted to call April—because if April knew, then Jude would, too, and I didn’t know how the news would affect him—and after I couldn’t get ahold of Gabriel, there was no one else left to call who could come be with me. Not Daniel. Not Charity. Not even my mom. “They wanted to use my blood for a transfusion, but at the time I thought that would be too risky. It might infect him, you know? But maybe I was wrong. Maybe letting him get infected would help his body heal. Or my blood might do nothing at all.”

“Could you live with yourself knowing you had passed this curse on to him?”

I’d heard Daniel, who had suffered with the effects of the curse most of his life before he was supposedly cured, say that he’d rather die than live with the potential of becoming a monster again. Giving Dad healing powers might help him live, but he might never be the same person again. And I didn’t know what he’d choose if he could.

“But there has to be something I can do. I mean, I’m a freaking superpowered, demon-slaying, pseudo-werewolf, but all the power I have inside of me isn’t worth crap if I can’t use it to help my dad.”

“Perhaps there is a way…” Gabriel said hesitantly. “It is risky, though. And I cannot guarantee it will work. I have only tried it three times, with varying degrees of success. Yet it helped you some.” He seemed to be debating it out more with himself than explaining it me.

“What do you mean?” Then my mind flitted back to something Talbot had said to me last night, and I realized what he was referring to. “You and Talbot used your powers to help heal me—after I was attacked by those wolves in the warehouse. You did some sort of power transfer to help my body heal itself when I was unconscious and wasn’t able to do it myself?”

“Yes,” Gabriel said.

My memories surrounding the aftermath of what had happened in the warehouse were still fuzzy, so I’d never quite gotten the implications of that before now. Gabriel and Talbot had helped
heal
me. But I hadn’t known that was even possible—that healing other people was one of the many powers of the Urbat. Yes, they could heal themselves, but other people? I’d been the recipient of a power transfer before that day—when Daniel and I ran through the ravine in the woods after saving Baby James. I hadn’t had the ability to keep up with him until I felt a burst of energy travel through Daniel’s body into mine, tethering us together, making his power mine for a few moments. He’d shown me later that same night how he could heal himself, but he’d never mentioned that he could heal other people.

“Why didn’t Daniel tell me about this power?”

“He probably has no idea. It is a closely guarded secret. I did not know myself for hundreds of years. Not until Sirhan asked me to help him try it on his wife, Rachel. It did not work as well for her as it did for you. I believe that was the first and only time Sirhan had attempted it.” Gabriel scrubbed his hand over his bearded chin. “It is a remnant from the original Hounds of Heaven, the ones who were called by God and imbued with powers to help and protect the people of their clan. Legend has it that, in addition to being strong warriors, they were also great healers and teachers. They were like angels here on Earth, gifted with every power to help mankind. That is, until their power corrupted them, and they coveted their abilities for themselves. They succumbed to the same fate as the fallen angels of heaven, forsaking their duty and blessings to become as lowly as the devil’s demons. The power to heal others has been forgotten by most Urbat. They deal death now instead of life, and I am not sure the gift has been used on a normal human since those primitive times.”

“But you think it can be still?”

“I have never attempted it on a human before. It is extremely taxing, and dangerous if done wrong.” He studied Dad’s monitors like he understood what all the lines and numbers meant. “In your father’s condition, I think it is worth trying. If you will allow it.”

“Yes,” I said. “Please help him.”

“It takes two. I will need your help.” He gave me a soft, reassuring smile. He looked just like a priest consoling one of his parishioners. “You must have complete focus and clear your mind of negativity in order to be a conduit for your positive energy to pass into him. No negative thoughts or feelings. This must be a gift of love.”

I glanced over at Dad. A large brace supported his neck, and most of his swollen face was obscured by the oxygen mask. All I could really recognize of him were the creases of his closed eyes. He looked so utterly helpless.
Why did he insist on going to the warehouse? Why did I let him go? What if I couldn’t do this? What if I wasn’t ready? What if I couldn’t open my mind?

Deep breaths.

Deep breaths
.

I had to clear all those doubtful thoughts away.

“Show me what to do, then. I have to do something for him.” I held my hands out like the healing power was something tangible he could actually hand to me.

Gabriel pulled the hospital curtain partially closed over the glass observation window and door—I imagined to obscure an outsider’s view, but not draw too much attention by closing it completely. The nurses were letting me visit my dad’s room for only twenty minutes at a time, which meant we had less than ten minutes of privacy before someone returned to shoo us back into the waiting room. Gabriel took my hands in his and walked me over to my father’s bed. He placed my hands on my father’s shallow chest. The rise and fall of his breathing felt completely unnatural. Strained and thin.

“Your hands go here, over his heart. And mine go here.” He placed his hands softly over mine. “Clear your mind. Open a pathway for your positive energy to flow from your heart, through your hands, and into him. Negative emotions feed the wolf inside of you, but you must be able to push them completely away in order to do this. Deep breaths. Meditate. Clear your mind. Open your heart.”

I almost pulled my hands out from under Gabriel’s. “But what if I can’t do this?”

“I believe in you, Grace.” Gabriel had never said anything like that to me before. I’d started thinking of him as the world’s oldest skeptic. “You’re the girl who withstood the wolves. The Divine One, they say.”

“I don’t feel very divine.”

“You must try, for you father.”

I nodded. Gabriel pulled in a long breath and then let it out between his lips. I did the same. He closed his eyes. I did also.

“Concentrate on your love for him. Clear your mind of doubt, and imagine him becoming whole.”

Gabriel was still for a moment, but then his hands clasped tightly over mine. Heat swelled from his fingers and pulsed into my hands. I tried to picture my father well again, tried to call up memories of him from my life. The way he smiled. His patient voice. But as the heat swelled in my hands, growing with intensity, my memories flashed to the scene in the fiery corridor. The way my father looked, limp and lifeless in Talbot’s arms, when I found them. I couldn’t stop him from getting hurt, so what made me think I could actually help him now?

You’re too weak,
my inner wolf snarled.
You can’t help him. You can’t help anybody.

I winced. The heat radiating off of Gabriel’s hands was almost too much to bear. I gritted my teeth, trying to hold on. Dad needed my help. He went to that warehouse because of me.…

Images of the fire ripped through my mind. The sound of the explosion I heard over the phone. Words the nurses said. My father lying so still.

It’s your fault. It’s your fault. It’s your fault. It’s your fault.

No,
I tried to tell the wolf’s voice.
I didn’t tell him to go there. He insisted on going. It should have been me in the corridor. He shouldn’t have gone.

It’s his fault!

Gabriel cried out like he’d been stabbed with a sharp pain. His hands lifted off mine and the intense power dissipated with a sudden surge that made my eyes pop open from the shock. Gabriel stumbled away from the bedside, his hand clasped over his cheek.

“Are you okay?” I asked between panting breaths.

Gabriel moved his hand away from his face. The scar on his cheek looked like a fresh cut now, oozing blood. The once faded bruises on his jaw now looked fresh and painful, like someone had slammed a mallet into his face several times. Gabriel looked at his bloodstained fingers. “I need to take care of this,” he said, and staggered toward the door. “I am sorry. I thought you were ready.”

He left through the sliding door before I could ask him if he needed my help.

You did that,
the wolf said in my head. I looked down at my father.
What if I’d hurt him more, too?
My fear was confirmed a few seconds later when one of his monitors started making a frantic beeping noise.

Two nurses rushed into the room. I felt numb, completely unable to react, as they pushed me away in order to get to his bedside.

ANOTHER HOUR LATER

I stayed outside the room, watching through the small opening of the curtained glass window, until the doctor was able to do something to Dad to make that horrible beeping monitor noise stop. One of the nurses told me I could go in for one more short visit, but then I
must
go home. I knew the drill from last year when Daniel had been trapped in one of those hospital beds. Even though the ICU had open visiting hours, I was still a minor, and I wasn’t allowed to stay here at night. I’d nodded and told her I would go, but it still took me another few minutes before I could tear myself away from Dad’s bedside.

I wanted to squeeze his hand to let him know I was leaving, but I hesitated, afraid my very touch might hurt him again. Instead, I left a note on the table by his bed just in case he woke up and I wasn’t here. I didn’t want him to feel as abandoned as I did at the moment.

I left the ICU and went out into the lobby. I started toward an elevator that would take me down to the main floor so I could leave the hospital. But I stopped in front of the closed elevator doors and stared at the triangular up and down arrow buttons—not knowing which one to push. Down would take me to the exit. Up would take me to the psych ward.

To my mom.

When Dad and I came into the ER from the ambulance, someone had asked me where they could find my mother. When I told him where she was, the man said they’d have to call Dr. Connors first and let him decide if my mother should be informed about what had happened.

The fact that she hadn’t come down here to see Dad yet didn’t bode well to me.

I knew if Dad had been awake, he would have told me to go visit her, just like he’d wanted me to visit Jude. I hadn’t seen either of them since I’d come home from the warehouse, and I knew Dad would have said something about how, by not visiting them, I wasn’t acting like myself. Just like April had.

The thing is, Dad had been my go-to parent for the last few years, but there had been a time in my life when Mom had been my rock. Back when I still wore pigtails and lived off of peanut-butter-and-honey sandwiches with the crusts cut off. Back when I thought a mother’s kiss could heal any hurt, whether it was a wound of the flesh or of the heart. I longed for the days when I could bury my head against her side and she’d stroke my hair, telling me everything would be all right.

I’d spent the last year shutting her out. Keeping her away from my secrets. Maybe it was out of some noble idea of protecting her. Maybe I thought she was too fragile to handle it. Or maybe the real reason I’d kept her in the dark was because I worried that she’d be afraid of what I’d become.