his arms down with my knees. He had longish auburn hair and a short trimmed beard. He was tall, almost as tall as Don Mooney—whom I always thought of as being as big as a grizzly—
had been, but slim. He wore black from head to toe, which had made him seem sinister at first. But then, a horrible realization dawned on me as I noticed the white square notch in his black collar—a pastor’s collar, like the one my dad sometimes wore when he was working.
“Oh, no!” I let go of his throat and scrambled off him as fast as I could. I clutched at the moonstone pendant that hung from my own neck. I let its warm, calming strength wash through me. “I’m sorry, Pastor. I’m so sorry.” Heat seared my cheeks. “I don’t know what came over me, Pastor … I just … just …” I let my sentence trail off. How could I possibly explain what I had just done to this man?
I mean, I had attacked a pastor—in a freaking church! My anger had been replaced by embarrassment, which quickly edged into shame.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. Could I possibly apologize enough? “I saw you in here with that knife …” I pointed at the silver dagger, lodged in the ground with its handle sticking straight up in the air. A small scrap of fabric had fluttered to the ground near the knife when I’d knocked it from the man’s hand. It was Don’s infamous knife—the one that I’d plunged into Daniel’s chest. The one I’d used to break the curse. I’d found it in the parish a few weeks later, brought it here to Don’s apartment, and left it with his things, where it belonged.
“I thought you were a burglar. I thought you were trying to steal that knife.” The knife was ancient, made of very pure silver, and I always figured it could fetch a nice price with the right buyer. But pastors don’t break into churches and steal stuff. There had to be some other explanation.
The man smiled again, and with a quick movement he reached down and picked up the scrap of cloth and then wrapped it around the hilt of the silver knife and pulled it out of its sticking place in the floor. He looked at the dagger with appraising eyes, like a collector inspecting an antique.
“How can I steal something that already belongs to me?”
“What?” I looked at him again—the body of a young man with the eyes of an ancient seer. I noticed the way he gingerly held the knife in his hand, careful to keep the scrap of fabric between his skin and the knife. I could think of only one reason that this man would be afraid to touch silver.
My muscles tensed immediately as the thought took root in my brain. This man wasn’t a pastor. This man wasn’t even human. Then another thought surpassed those, and my body trembled with fear. They’re coming for you. He makes you think you can trust him, but you can’t, Jude’s voice echoed in my head.
“I’m sorry,” I said, backing away toward the door. “I need to go.” I bumped into a chair and tried to steady myself without looking too frantic. I didn’t know what I’d been thinking coming into this room in the first place; I was no match for this man. I might have fought a couple of punks at a nightclub last night and run at full capacity without faltering this evening, but that was nothing, I realized now. No matter what kind of power I could summon, it was nothing compared to what he could do to me. This man was dangerous. This man was a werewolf.
This man was—
“Gabriel!”
“What?” I whirled around toward the open door.
Daniel stood there, his mouth hanging open. He dropped his motorcycle keys in the doorway and lunged for the man with the knife. But it wasn’t an offensive strike. The man grabbed Daniel by the arm, and the two embraced. It was a quick hug, but a hug nonetheless.
“Daniel, my boy!” The man clapped him on the back. “You’re looking much better since Christmas. Although I was hoping to see you without any bandages.”
Daniel shook his head. “You have no idea how much I need to talk to you right now.”
I glanced away from the two.
“Always glad to be of service.”
I shifted from one foot to the other and cleared my throat.
They turned toward me. “Grace,” Daniel said, “this is Gabriel.”
“Gabriel the Angel?” That was how I’d always referred to him in my head, because of the statue of him in the Garden of Angels.
“Angel, huh? Sounds like Daniel’s been making up stories about me.” Gabriel’s lips edged up in an ancient, friendly smile.
“I’m sorry to sound rude, but why are you here?” I couldn’t help asking. And how had Daniel followed me?
“Because I brought him here,” my dad said as he came through the narrow doorway into the already crowded room. “Gabriel came to help us.”
“You’re back!” I sprang at Dad the way Daniel had lunged at Gabriel, and wrapped my arms around his middle. As mad as I’d been at him for being gone, I couldn’t help feeling a rush of relief that he was here. “I thought you didn’t know when you were coming back.”
“I didn’t,” Dad said. “I wasn’t sure how long it was going to take to track down Gabriel and convince him to come to Rose Crest.”
“But why didn’t you tell me that’s where you were headed in the first place?”
“Because I didn’t want either you or Daniel trying to come after me.”
“Why?”
“Because hunting down a werewolf pack and visiting their den without an invitation is a dangerous and foolhardy endeavor. Especially for a human,” Gabriel said. “Your father is lucky he’s good with words. Sirhan, my alpha, was quite intrigued by his stories.”
I let go of Dad and turned back toward Gabriel.
“Your father was also lucky that I was already hoping to pay you a visit,” Gabriel said. “I’ve been wanting to meet you, Grace.”
“Me?”
“You’re gaining quite the reputation in my pack. They call you the Divine One.”
“The what?”
“It’s a silly name, yes. But they can’t help being fascinated by you. In the four thousand years since the first Urbat succumbed to the curse, nobody has ever cured someone the way you cured Daniel.”
Gabriel clapped Daniel on the back again, but this time Daniel dropped his gaze to his feet. Red flushed his face. I didn’t know why he’d be embarrassed by the notion that he’d been saved. But then again, sometimes I wondered if he still thought he wasn’t worthy of it. Or maybe he just didn’t want to look me in the eye. We were still in a fight, after all.
“They think you’re something quite special, Grace.” Gabriel crossed the distance between the two of us and took my hand. He held it for a moment and then bowed his head. The gesture felt like something from centuries ago.
I was the one blushing now. I glanced at Daniel to see what he made of this “Divine One” idea, but he was still staring at his feet. I looked back at
Gabriel. “And you? Do you think I’m special?”
Gabriel gently let go of my hand. “I’m here to find out.”
It was then that the idea hit me. With Gabriel here, I finally had the chance to reach my full potential. I had someone with the same abilities as me who could really teach me how to use them. No offense to Daniel or anything, but it was hard for him to show me how to use powers that he didn’t have anymore. I mean, I’d outrun him even when he’d been on a motorcycle. But Gabriel had been using his superpowers for more than eight hundred years. And he was the one who thought it was possible for the Urbat to reclaim their blessings—to use their powers to help the world. Or at least that was what he’d written in those letters to his sister Katharine.
Using my powers to run this evening had been amazing. But now that Gabriel was here to help, my becoming a hero actually felt possible.
Dad cleared his throat. I’d all but forgotten he was still there. “Let’s move this gathering to my office so we can discuss what to do about Jude. It’s time to figure out how we’re going to find him.”
Gabriel sat in one of the cushiony chairs in front of my dad’s desk. It was so strange how he looked so young yet so old at the same time. And even stranger to be standing here listening to him talking for the first time when I already felt like I knew him so well. Reading the book of letters he had written to his sister all those
