The Savage Grace: A Dark Divine Novel(85)

“Yes. Get us as far away from here as you can,” I said.

Daniel carefully but quickly broke the shaft of the spear so it only protruded about six inches out of Sirhan’s chest. Then he wrapped Sirhan in the bedspread. He and Gabriel hoisted up Sirhan’s beastlike body, spear and all, and we went running for the limo parked in the back lot of the parish. Slade unlocked the doors, and I held one open as Daniel and Gabriel carefully but quickly hefted Sirhan inside.

“Hold on, brother,” Gabriel said, holding Sirhan’s wrist.

I ran around the car and jumped into the front passenger seat.

“Go!” Daniel shouted, slamming the door once we were all inside the limo. “Drive as far out of town as you can!” He pointed in the direction of the main road.

Slade revved the engine and slammed on the gas.

We flew, faster than fast, out of the parking lot onto the road, and kept on careening toward Rose Crest’s town limits. I was glad it was so late; we wouldn’t encounter any other cars, as Slade wasn’t exactly worried about staying in our lane. Instead, he drove right down the middle, straddling the double yellow lines.

We’d just flown past the leaving rose crest, come back again soon sign when Gabriel shouted, “There’s no time left! We’re losing him.”

“You want me to stop?” Slade shouted.

“No!” I shouted. Sirhan couldn’t die here. Not out on the open road. We’d never be able to host a Challenging Ceremony here. We needed someplace secluded. Abandoned. Where no one in town would go.

I looked out the windshield at the upcoming intersection. “Hang a right!”

Slade turned the wheel, and we went sailing onto the old country road Daniel and I had driven down only the night before. “Seriously!” Slade shouted with glee. “Did you feel how the Aston handled that! I would kill to race this thing.”

I gave him a sideways glance, hoping he wasn’t being literal about the killing part.

“You’re racing against time, now!” Daniel shouted.

I could see the apex of the Frightmare Farms barn just beyond the trees. “We’re almost there. Take this left!”

Slade took the turn, clipping the back bumper on a post of a large for sale sign at the corner.

“That’s a bloody shame,” Slade said.

“We’re about to do worse. Keep going straight!”

“But there’s a fence.” He pointed at the closed entrance gate, guarded by a couple of scarecrows.

“Do it! Just keep going straight!” I ordered. “Hold on!” I shouted to the others.

Gabriel and Daniel clung tight to Sirhan. Slade cringed, slammed on the gas, and the front of the limo hit a metal gate. I braced against the impact as the gate burst open and one of the garish scarecrows went flying up in the air. It landed with a thunk on top of the car. It’s eyeless face looked down on us through the moon-roof before it went flying off the car.

“Hay!” Slade shouted, and we plowed through a pyramid of hay bales. Hay exploded all around us, but we kept on sailing until we came to the center of the barnyard and I shouted for Slade to stop.

The limo swerved, sending mud and hay flying as we spun to a stop.

“You’re insane!” Slade yelled.

“You’re brilliant,” Daniel said, pushing open his door.

“Sirhan’s dying!” Gabriel screamed.

He and Daniel pulled Sirhan’s shriveled body from the back of the car. If I’d thought the ancient alpha looked old before, it was nothing compared to how he looked now. Like leathered skin pulled tight over a skeleton.

Gabriel cradled Sirhan’s head in his lap as he lay in the hay in the middle of the barnyard. “Sirhan,” he said. Tears streamed from his eyes into his red beard. “Sirhan, I am here. I will keep my promise. I’ll cure you before you die.”

“Doesn’t he have to be in wolf form?” I asked, looking at Sirhan’s half-beast, half-human body.

“This is it,” Gabriel said. “There is no separation between his two forms anymore.”

“It’s now or never,” Daniel said, holding Sirhan’s limp wrist.

“Deal the final blow,” I said. “Let him die by the hand of the one who loves him most.”

With a great scream, Gabriel slammed his hand down on the hilt of the silver spear that protruded from Sirhan’s chest. It sank deep into his hollow rib cage, sending a gush of blood rolling into his already saturated fur. The body convulsed, but then with a final gasping wheeze, Sirhan’s head lulled back in Gabriel’s lap—dead.

We all knelt quietly in the mud, while Gabriel held Sirhan’s body and cried, until right in front of our very eyes Sirhan’s dead body began to transform. His short fur melted away, and his gray, withered wolf skin shifted into an olive human tone. The snout of his face shortened into a normal human nose, mouth, and dimpled chin. I couldn’t help thinking, as I looked at the purely human version of Sirhan in the light of the moon, that I now knew what Daniel would look like if he ever lived to be a very old man.

“It worked, my brother,” Gabriel whispered. “You are cured.”

“Um, how do you know if the cure worked?” Slade asked.

“The transformation,” Gabriel said. “Normally, when an Urbat dies, his body transforms into that of wolf. I always assumed it was a symbol that the man would remain a demon forever. But Sirhan’s body has reverted to his human form. I have to believe that means his soul is free of the wolf.”