The Dark Divine(58)

My parents were such hypocrites! All this crap they taught us about not keeping secrets, and here my father was keeping the biggest one of all.

I threw the book on the desk. It skidded across the wood and knocked over the lamp. “You’re the one who started all this. Not me.”

Dad pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He closed his book and put it on top of one of the stacks. He looked completely unruffled by my behavior. It made me want to scream at him more.

“I wondered when you would come to me,” he said. “I hoped that if we left you alone, you eventually would.” He sounded like the perfect pastor dealing with a troubled parishioner. “Shut the door and take a seat.”

I was itching not to listen to him, but I did what he asked anyway. Once I was sitting, I picked up another book. The words and letters were all unfamiliar, like Arabic.

“So you want to know why I’m helping Daniel,” Dad said. “The answer is simple, Grace. He asked me to.”

“When?”

“Daniel contacted me about six weeks ago. I made the arrangements for his return.”

“But why would he want to come back here?”

“He hasn’t told you?”

I flipped through the pages of the book until I came to an illustration. It was an etching of what looked like a man transforming into a wolf. A full moon hung in the background. “He said something once about art school. He needed Holy Trinity to get into Trenton. But that was just a cover, right? This doesn’t have anything to do with art school, does it?”

Daniel just used that to make me feel empathy for him—feel connected in our goals.

“That was the cover story we invented,” Dad said. “But that doesn’t mean Daniel doesn’t want to go to Trenton. He wants to reclaim the life he should have had.” Dad leaned forward, his hands clasped together on top of his desk. “Grace, the reason Daniel came back is he’s searching for a cure.”

Something fluttered in my chest. “Is that even possible?”

Dad looked down at his hands. “While Daniel was gone he sought out the colony that his father came from. He asked them for a place in their pack. However, Urbat who have experienced the change—become werewolves—do not procreate often. It is typically against their nature. And in the pack dynamic, only the alpha is allowed to mate. Daniel’s mere existence was an affront to their ways.” Dad clasped and unclasped his fingers. “I don’t think those ancient wolves had any idea what to do with such a young Urbat—especially one who came from a volatile father who had been banished from their colony. Many of the elders were quite wary of letting Daniel live among them. The alpha granted him a probationary period while they deliberated his future. While there, Daniel met a man—”

“Gabriel?”

Dad nodded. “Gabriel is the beta of their pack. Second in command. He took Daniel under his wing—or paw, as the case may be—and taught him many things about the history of their people. And about the techniques they’ve developed over the centuries to help control the wolf. The necklace Daniel wears is quite rare. It helps him keep the wolf at bay, and it makes him more sentient—more able to control his actions—while in wolf form. The pendant is many centuries old. I’ve contacted Gabriel to see if he has another to spare….” Dad rubbed his hand down the side of his face. The dark patches under his eyes had gotten deeper and darker since I last saw him.

“Although Gabriel has a lot of influence with his pack, after the time of probation, he was unable to convince the other elders to let Daniel stay with them permanently. I think the memory of the damage his father caused to the pack was still too fresh. They sent Daniel away.”

I bowed my head. Just another set of names to add to the long list of people who had rejected Daniel—a list my name was now on after I couldn’t look him in the eyes.

“However, before Daniel was removed from the colony, Gabriel told him that there may be a way for him to free his soul from the clutches of the wolf. That there may be a cure. Gabriel said he couldn’t tell him the details but that the record of the ritual could be found if he looked hard enough. He told Daniel to enlist the help of a man of God. He told him to return to where someone loved him—he told him to go home.”

“And that’s why he contacted you. You’re the man of God.”

“Yes. I’ve been poring through every text on the subject since. Searching for the cure.” He gestured to the scattered books on his desk. “Then I realized that the answer must be something religious in nature—something only a man of God could obtain. I remembered meeting an Orthodox priest many years ago. He told me about a relic they kept in his cathedral. A book that contained translations of letters written by a monk who traveled to Mesopotamia during the Crusades. Although I thought little of it at the time, the priest joked that he had documented proof that God had invented the werewolf.”

Dad opened his desk drawer and pulled out a wood box. The lid was inlaid with a golden pattern of alternating suns and moons.

“I drove most of Thursday night to the cathedral. It took quite a bit of convincing, but the priest finally consented to loan the book to the parish. I couldn’t rest until I found the answer.”

“You found it?” My heart raced. “You can cure Daniel?”

“No.” Dad stared down at the box. “I can’t help him anymore.”