The Dark Divine(52)

“Then you ask him,” Jude said. “Go ask your precious Daniel about the night he tried to take that coat from me. Ask him what he did with all the money he stole. Ask him what really happened to those stained-glass windows in the parish. Ask him what he really is.” Jude slammed the swing into the wall. “You ask him what it felt like when he left me for dead.”

“What?” I stumbled backward and caught myself with the railing. It felt like the wind had been knocked right out of my chest. “No …”

He lunged off the porch and ran down the driveway.

“Jude!” I shouted after him. But he didn’t stop. He kept on running—so fast I couldn’t follow—until he disappeared into the night.





CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Undone





AROUND TWO IN THE MORNING




Once I had this blouse. It was emerald-green with smooth, expensive-looking buttons. Even though it was on sale, Mom said it cost too much. But I wanted it, so I made a deal with Mom and gave up two whole months of Saturday nights for babysitting so I could pay her back. I earned the shirt just in time to wear it to Pete Bradshaw’s sixteenth birthday party. I was asked to dance by five different guys. But later that evening, I noticed a thin green thread hanging from the sleeve. I tried to tuck it into to the cuff, but it kept falling out again. It seemed to get longer each time, so I finally pulled at it and tried to break it off for good. But when I yanked, the entire sleeve split up the seam to the shoulder, and I was left with a gaping hole in my favorite new shirt.

I felt that way now about my life. I’d pulled, or pushed, or picked, or yanked too hard, and everything seemed to be coming apart at the seams. Actually, my brother was the one who was falling apart, and all I knew is that it was my fault—and I didn’t know how to fix it. Jude used to be a saint compared to most teenage guys, so what could have possibly caused him to make up such hurtful lies about Daniel?

Jude had to be lying, I tried to tell myself over and over again.

He was flinging accusations in every direction, hoping one would stick. The things he said couldn’t be anything but lies.

How could I feel the way I did about Daniel otherwise?

I heard Jude tell April that my father knew what Daniel had done. But Dad wouldn’t let Daniel anywhere near us if Jude’s lies were true. And I knew that he didn’t hurt Maryanne—he loved her—and he didn’t steal James. I was with Daniel in the woods. He saved James. He was a hero. He may not think so. Jude may not think so. But I knew it. And if I could just get to the truth, I could help Daniel become the person I saw in him—the person I loved. And then Jude would see him, too. They could be friends again—brothers. I could still fix them both.

But as I lay in bed, I felt like I was floating in Jude’s and Daniel’s words.

I’m no hero. No one can love me.

Monster, liar, thief, murderer.

Monster. Jude had called Daniel a monster.

Urbat? Hound of Heaven? Look it up, Grace.

I sprang out of bed and over to my desk, yanked the cord out of the phone, and plugged it into my computer. My parents had given me Dad’s old desktop with the stipulation that I wasn’t to access the Internet from my room. Web surfing was strictly reserved for the computer in the family room, where Mom could check the browsing history on a regular basis. But tonight was an exception. I had to know something. And I didn’t want anyone to see what I was doing.

I waited for the computer to boot up and then logged on to the Internet. I pulled up Google and typed in “Hounds of Heaven.” The cursor turned into a little hourglass and I waited more. Finally, the page pulled up several references to the “Hound of Heaven”—all were about a poem some now-dead Catholic guy wrote about how the grace of God chased down the souls of sinners. Interesting, but not what I was looking for. Did I really expect there would be a website dedicated to Daniel’s secret colony of ancestors?

I was about to log off when I had another idea. I deleted my search. I started to type U-r … and then the words Urbat, Sumerian popped up in the search bar. Someone else had used my computer to look up the Urbat. I clicked on search, and a list of Sumerian-to-English dictionaries appeared up on the screen. One was highlighted in purple while the others were still blue. I clicked on it and found a list of Sumerian words for all sorts of things from vampires, to destroyers, to evil spirits. I scrolled down farther, scanning the words until I saw one I recognized.

Kalbi. Daniel’s last name. English meaning: dogs.

Did that prove Daniel’s claim? Dogs were hounds, after all. But then I scanned farther down the list and found another familiar word.

Urbat.

I looked over at the English translation. It wasn’t “Hounds of Heaven.”

I gasped for air. I wasn’t floating in words and accusations anymore. I was sinking. Sinking deep, and I couldn’t breathe.

Urbat … Dogs of Death.

Daniel had lied. He’d lied, and Jude knew it. It was something so small—just the meaning of a name. But if Daniel had thought he needed to lie about that, then what else wasn’t he telling me?

That monster is a liar as well as a thief and a murderer.

Could there be a shard, no matter how tiny, of truth to what Jude had said? Was Daniel really capable of those things? Whatever had happened between Daniel and Jude must have been pretty awful for my brother still to be so hurt and angry after all these years. But attempted murder?