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.”
“I think you’re right,” I said softly. “When I cured Daniel, his body turned human.”
Without a word, Daniel leaned over his grandfather’s body and crossed the old man’s arms over his chest like a mummy I once saw of an ancient king.
Gabriel rocked back and forth until he flung his head back, looking up at the moon, and a great howl ripped out of his throat. The sound of it made my whole body shudder.
Daniel stood, his head arched back as well, and picked up the cry. Slade followed suit. And soon more and more voices—dogs or wolves somewhere in the distance—joined in, creating an unearthly chorus, filling the early-morning sky with sorrow.
The Death Howl had begun.
It would spread, like a wave in a stadium, until every Urbat knew it was time.
Forty-four hours.
In about forty-four hours, the Challenging Ceremony would start in this exact spot.
Chapter Thirty-one
GET THE MESSAGE
FRIDAY MORNING, FOUR THIRTY A.M.
Slade drove us back to the parish, slower this time, though I could feel him itching to take the car at top speed again. When Gabriel got there, Sirhan’s pack, looking groggy and ill from coming to from the knockout gas, were waiting for us in the parking lot.
“The Death Howl,” Jarem said to Gabriel. He had an accent that made it sound as if he’d grown up somewhere in Africa. “We heard the howling and carried the cry. What became of Sirhan?”
“It is finished,” Gabriel said. “He was cured.”
The others bowed their heads in reverence.
“His body is in the car. We should take him and the two dead guards into the woods and give them the send-off fitting of warriors.”
Gabriel had explained to me on the way back that meant building a pyre and burning their remains.
They’d disintegrate completely in the flames.
A few of the Elders gathered together and left with Gabriel to take care of the dead. They had just pulled away when two cars came into the parking lot. April’s red hatchback and Talbot’s blue truck.
Lisa and April got out of the red truck. Talbot followed a few seconds later.
“We heard the howling,” Lisa said as they met us on the parish lawn where we stood.
“So did I,” Talbot said. “What happened?”
Daniel told them about the attack on the parish and what happened to Sirhan. Lisa wiped tears from her face. Talbot’s green eyes grew stormy with what I presumed was anger as he listened to the details.
“Where’s Jude?” April asked, her eyes flitting to the faces of Sirhan’s men, who milled about in the parking lot, still groggy from the gas. “Did he go with the Elders or something?”
I hesitated, not sure what to say. “No,” I finally said. “He asked to sleep at the parish, but we haven’t seen him since the attack. I don’t know if he ran away, or if the Shadow Kings took him prisoner.” It may even be possible he’s the one who brought them here.
April covered her mouth; she started to sink to the ground, but Talbot caught her up in his arms. She rocked a bit, clutching her hands close to her chest. “Tuesday is his birthday,” she said. “I thought … finally—” Her voice broke off with a high-pitched yelp.
“We’ll figure out what happened,” I said.
“We need to be open
to the possibility that Jude was the one who orchestrated this attack,” Daniel said.
“Do you really think that’s true?” I looked down at my hands. I know I’d thought the same thing just now, but I just couldn’t accept it.
“Think about it, Grace. The door of his cage was ripped open from the inside. I could tell by the way the hinges were bent. The Shadow Kings knew exactly where everyone in the building would be. They had a plan of attack before they even got here. How would they know unless they had an inside man?”
“You’re saying that Jude broke out of his cage and then let the SKs in?” April asked. “I just can’t believe it.”
“He asked to stay here last night, didn’t he, Grace?” Daniel asked. “When he could have stayed in a comfortable bed at home?”
I nodded.
“And we don’t know where he was every minute tonight before you locked him up again, do we?”
I shook my head.
Talbot nodded. “He could have sent the SKs a message to meet him here at a designated time,” he said. “Told them where to find Sirhan and the others. Told them about our plan to try to postpone the ceremony past the eclipse.”
“No, I don’t believe it,” I said. “He wanted to change. He wanted to be better.” My encounter with Jude—our reconciliation—had seemed so genuine, I couldn’t let myself believe that he’d betrayed us. “Maybe that Marrock guy is the one who—”
“I believed Jude, too,” Daniel said. “I really did.”
“Wait, isn’t that your brother?” Lisa asked, pointing at someone who came stumbling into the parking lot only a few yards away.
“Jude!” April and I shouted at the same time.
He looked up at the sound of our voices. His stumbling walk shifted into an awkward, jerking kind of run as he came toward us. He passed right by April, who looked like she wanted to tackle him with a hug, and kept coming toward me. He raised his arm, and something metallic flashed in his hand.
“Jude—?” I started to say.
His eyes looked completely dead as his arm came swinging down, a knife in his hand, aimed right at my heart. I spun away just in time. April screamed. Jude fell forward, and his knife lodged into the grass.
Had my own brother seriously just tried to kill me? Had I been so wrong about him?
Jude let go of the knife, looking stunned. He stood and started walking in a circle.
“What the hell?” Daniel shouted. He and Talbot made a move to grab Jude, but he suddenly scrambled away from them with jerking movements.
He turned those dead eyes on me and stepped toward me, again with odd jerky movements, like part of him wanted to move in my direction, but his feet were fighting it. I recognized those odd movements. It reminded me of those dancing girls at the trance party. It was almost like…
Talbot swung around, a large rock in his hand, ready to bash my brother in the head with it.
“No!” I shouted. “Don’t. He’s in a trance.”
Jude grabbed the knife out of the grass. His arm jerked back and forth as he swung it at me again.
Talbot grabbed him from behind and held him by his arms. The knife dropped from his hand.
“A trance?” Daniel asked.
Jude’s head jerked back like he was trying to head butt Talbot.
“Yes,” I said. “We have to snap him out of it.”
“On it,” Daniel said. “Sorry, friend,” he said to an unresponsive Jude, and swung his fist right into Jude’s jaw.
Jude’s head turned sideways in response to the blow, and then it lulled forward. He looked like he was unconscious for a moment, but then his body began to convulse, like he was having a seizure, while Talbot held him upright.
“Is he okay?” I started to ask.
Suddenly, Jude’s head snapped up. He looked right at me with his glazed-over eyes. His mouth opened and began to speak, but the words he said were not his own. “Sirhan is dead. The Death Howl is over. The ceremony will go forward tomorrow. You will come. You will fight. The Shadow Kings will lap the blood from your throat.” Jude clamped his mouth shut, his face twisted as if he were trying to stop someone else from speaking with his voice. He shook his head, but two more sentences came out. “There, we will bring the child. You will fight, or he will die.”
Daniel sent another punch across Jude’s face. He slumped out of Talbot’s arms and fell to the ground, in a faint.
“Well, those Shadow Kings could make a fortune writing creepy greeting cards,” Lisa said. “That was some message.”
Daniel scanned nearby rooftops. “Jude was being controlled, which means there was probably an Akh nearby, pulling the strings.”
“I’m on it,” Lisa said. “I’ll search the grounds.”
“I’ll go with you,” Talbot said. He stepped over Jude’s body, and he and Lisa took off on their search.
“Is he going to be okay?” April asked. She knelt in the grass next to Jude. He moaned when she felt for his pulse.
A cold dread had filled me since the moment Jude had stopped speaking. “What did he mean about the child?” I asked. “That they’d ‘bring the child’ with them?”
“I don’t know,” Daniel said.
Jude rolled his head back and forth with a great groan. He blinked up at me, looking dizzy. “Gracie,” he said, and I was sure it was actually him that was speaking. “I tried to stop them. I tried.… They said they were going for him.… I tried to stop them, but it’s too late.”
“I know,” I said, sitting next to him in the grass. I picked up his hand and patted it. “They got to Sirhan.”
“No.” He rocked his head back and forth. “Not Sirhan. They wanted him, I heard them say it.…” He blinked, blinked, as if trying to clear his thoughts. He squeezed my hand weakly. “Gracie, the Shadow Kings were headed for our house.…”
Chapter Thirty-two
EVIL DEEDS
STILL FRIDAY MORNING
Baby James was gone.
The Shadow Kings had taken him.
When we got to the house, we found the front room window shattered and another one of Brent’s makeshift gas bombs under the coffee table. Mom and Dad, who must have been waiting up for us to return from the parish, were knocked out cold on the couch. Daniel stopped to check their pulses, but I ran straight up the stairs. Charity was unconscious in her bed, probably unaware that anything had even happened. But James was just gone.
Taken from his toddler bed, blankey and all.
We gathered a rescue party immediately. Every last member of the Etlu Clan volunteered to help us search for any trace of the Shadow Kings, but still we found nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Every scent we followed seemed to evaporate into thin air. Every trail dead-ended. By eight thirty a.m., four hours later, we’d reconvened at the house to talk over new strategies.
“I don’t understand,” I said, pacing the front room. “How can there be no trace of the SKs? When they kidnapped me, Gabriel was able to follow their trail easily to find me at the warehouse.”
Jude cleared his throat. He sat on the sofa next to April. “Gabriel only found the Shadow Kings because they wanted to be found. It was a trap, remember?”
I nodded, recalling that now.
“If they don’t want to be found, they won’t be found,” Jude said. “That’s how they got their name, the Shadow Kings are masters of hiding in the dark.”
I scrubbed my hands down my face, pacing some more around the coffee table. The first time James had been taken from this house—stolen by Jude while he was under the influence of the wolf—before we found him, I’d thought that not knowing what had happened to him was the worst part. But this time, knowing who had him … Knowing what they were capable of doing to him…
Knowing was worse.
“I promised James I’d keep him safe,” I said.
This is your fault, snarled the wolf. I’d gone almost a full day without hearing its voice, and it almost startled me
now. You brought this upon them with your promises. Promises you can never keep.
It’s your fault.
It’s your fault.
It’s your fault.
I grabbed the closest thing to me—Dad’s Bible from the coffee table—and chucked it through what was left of the front room window. Shards of glass shattered out onto the porch.
“This is my fault!” I cried. “I promised James I’d protect him. I promised him, and now he’s gone. They took him from me.”
Someone should to die for this.
I picked up another book and was about to throw it out the window, but Daniel grabbed my hand. He wrapped me in his arms, and I broke down, crying. “It’s my fault.”
“Shhh, Gracie,” Daniel said, running his fingers through my hair. “Get ahold of yourself. They want you to lose control, but you can’t. Don’t let them win by giving in to these thoughts. Caleb is a sociopath. There’s no way you could have predicted his behavior, or caused it to happen by making a promise. This isn’t your fault.”
I nodded against his chest, trying to let his words reassure me.
“If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine,” Jude said. He picked up the knife that sat on the side table—the same knife he’d tried to kill me with when he was entranced.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“The SKs came to the parish because of me. Because of a message I sent them.”
“That you sent them?” came Talbot’s voice from the foyer. He’d been standing there with the Etlu Elders.
Jude looked at the knife, twisting it in his hand, inspecting the silver blade. “That night you let me out of my cage to go visit my father in the hospital … ” He glanced at April. “I didn’t go straight to the hospital and back like I said. I stopped at an Internet café in the city and sent an e-mail to an account Caleb uses for fencing merchandise online. I sent him a message telling him that I was being held at the parish. I begged him to send the SKs to come get me. Begged him to let me rejoin his pack…”
Jude looked up at me. “But please remember, this was before I talked to you yesterday. Before I decided I wanted to truly come home. I was confused, and I didn’t know what I wanted. I just thought, if they wanted me back, and they came for me, then that would make up my mind for me.…” He placed the flat side of the silver blade against his arm, rolling it up and down. He winced, and I could smell his skin burning against the silver.