The Dark Divine(68)

“Not Daniel. He does good work for your father and Mr. Day.” Don shook his head and slumped down the porch. He stopped at the end of the front walk. “I was talking about the other one.”





LATER THAT NIGHT




I was rooting around in the pantry for some ibuprofen, or anything that might make my head stop pounding, when I heard a howl from the front room. I ran to see what it was and found Charity watching her wolf documentary. It was the same part from before, with the two wolves savoring a fresh kill. It seemed extra morbid to me now.

“Why are you still watching this?”

“My final report’s due on Friday,” Charity said. Her middle school didn’t get out for Christmas for another two days. “I wanted to get in a wolfy mood before I finished typing it up.”

Wolfy mood. She had no idea.

I stood and watched the plight of the little omega wolf, desperate for food but being denied. My heart sank as the alpha lunged at his throat, taking him down into the snow, and snarled into his pleading face. Then the little omega rolled over and exposed his belly and jugular to the alpha—giving up. I wondered how anyone could survive being treated that way his whole life.

I thought of Daniel and his father. The way his dad had screamed and snarled at him for any little thing. I remembered how, when Daniel joined my family for dinner, he would stare reluctantly at his food while the rest of us ate—until my dad, joking, would tell him to stop being shy. I remembered all of his bruises. I remembered what it sounded like when his father beat him into oblivion for disobeying his rules about painting in the house.

How had Daniel ever survived his father’s monster?

But then I realized that he hadn’t. He’d let the monster overpower him. The pain had been too great, and he had rolled over and given up, too. That he’d lasted so long was a miracle.

And now he faced a lifetime as a monster himself. And even if he died, there was no escape. He’d be damned as a demon for all eternity.

I’d wondered if that was the fate Daniel deserved. But it all seemed different now, like looking at a Seurat painting from a whole new angle. Daniel had done something undeniably wrong. But did he have to live with that mistake forever? Couldn’t he be redeemed? Couldn’t everyone? That’s what Dad taught with every sermon. It’s the meaning of my name. Grace.

Or was it possible that some souls could not be saved? Isn’t that what demons are? Fallen angels—damned to hell forever. Was Daniel’s giving in to the bloodlust such an irredeemable act that he was now one of these fallen angels, too? But perhaps he wasn’t actually a demon. Maybe the demon was simply inside of him. Was the wolf trapping Daniel’s soul in its clutches, in some kind of limbo, keeping him from salvation?

Daniel said it himself: the wolf was holding his soul ransom.

So didn’t that mean there was a price that could be paid? Was there something that could be done to free his soul and make him just like the rest of us? So grace could have him instead of the darkness?

Dad had said that he couldn’t help Daniel anymore. It was out of his hands. But he didn’t say it wasn’t possible. He didn’t say there wasn’t a cure. He’d given me the book. He’d put it in my hands. He’d told me I had a choice to make.

I ran up the stairs to my bedroom and pulled open my desk drawer—the book was gone. My heart hammered into my throat. I pushed things off my desk, hoping the book was in among my schoolwork. I threw the pillows and blankets off my bed. It had to be here somewhere! Then I felt ultimately stupid and grabbed my backpack. The book had been in there since I went to the library. I pulled it out, more brittle bits of pages sprinkling from the binding.

I carefully turned to the last letter I’d read. Half of it was missing—disintegrated in the hostile environment of my school bag. My dad and that priest were so going to kill me. I flipped to the second to last marked letter, one I hadn’t read yet. Katharine’s brother had come up with the idea of the moonstones. Had he found one in time to stop himself from going after his sister? Had he bought himself enough time to find the cure?

Oh, Katharine,

I am lost.

The wolf has me in its clutches.



My fingers curled around the book. I wanted to throw it away, but I forced myself to read on.

I smell the rage and the blood wafting from the city, and I feel drawn to it. What has repulsed me in the past now whets my appetite.

The wolf preys on my love for thee. It tells me to return home. I am enclosing this letter with a silver dagger. If I come to thee as a wolf, I ask that Saint Moon try to kill me. I do not have the courage to dispatch myself. But Simon must not hesitate. He must thrust the dagger straight and true into the wolf’s heart. It is the only way to keep thee safe. Saint Moon must protect our people from this curse.

Oh, Katharine! I know I should not ask, but alas, I must. If thou hast the courage, then let it be thee who plunges the knife into my wolf’s heart. For I have learned from the blind prophet that the only way to free my soul from the demon’s clutches is to be killed by thee. My inner wolf seeks to destroy the one I love for reasons of self-preservation. For the only cure to free my soul is to be killed, in an act of true love, by the one who loves me most….



And there it was—scrawled in faded brown ink across a yellowed page—the reason that everything had changed when I told Daniel I loved him. It was the thing Daniel said he could never ask. The reason he said all those awful things the way he had—the reason he’d tried to scare me away.