The Lost Saint
Page 28

“Depends on how far gone your brother is. The wolf can make you do all sorts of sick things.” Gabriel pulled at the pastor’s collar around his neck. I wondered if he was thinking about Katharine—the sister he’d killed after he became a werewolf. “But I think it is safe to assume that you are all in danger if Jude is anywhere near here.”
“Which means we need to find him soon.” Dad leaned forward in his chair. “And we’re going to need a proper plan of attack. I think it’s only logical to assume that Jude may have contacted other people from his past. I’d like you to find a way to bring the subject up with April. Find out if she’s heard anything from him.”
“I already have,” I said.
“And?”
I told them about my visit to April’s house and what she told me about her blog and tracking Jude’s IP address. “It was for a club in the city. They have a Wi-Fi bar there that he must have used. Get this, Daniel, it’s called The Depot.” I looked at Daniel, but he didn’t even glance in my direction. Whatever temporary good mood seeing Gabriel had put him in was apparently gone now. I cleared my throat and turned to my dad. “I found a card for the club in the mess at Day’s Market.”
Dad sat up a bit. He must have recognized it as a clue, the same way I had—unlike Daniel, who had originally scoffed at the idea.
“Hmm,” Daniel said from his corner. I glanced back at him. His eyebrows knitted together as he scratched at the tape on his bandage. “I’ve been asking around about the place. Not good stuff.”
“Who did you ask?” I gave Daniel a pointed look that he didn’t see. “Is that what you were doing last night?” But if that were the case, why wouldn’t he have just told me?
Daniel ignored my questions and looked at my dad. “Maybe you and I should go down there tonight and ask around. I don’t want Grace to go.”
“Um …” I hesitated. “I kind of already did.”
“Grace!” Daniel and my dad bellowed at the same time.
“Do you have any idea what kind of people—not to mention nonpeople—hang out there?” Daniel asked, looking at me for the first time. Except it was more like a glare.
“Well, I do now.”
Daniel almost cracked a smile, but he shifted it quickly back into a look of annoyance. “I thought I asked you not to go looking for Jude on your own.”
“I know. But you were sick, or so you claimed, so I didn’t want to bug you.” Except Daniel didn’t look sick at all. Not even earlier when I was at his place. “And April said she knew where it was, and I had the keycard, so we kind of teamed up.”
“Whoa, you took April with you? Grace, do you have any idea how—?”
“Spare me the lecture, okay? It was stupid. I should’ve known better. We could have been killed.…”
“What? Are you okay?” Daniel asked, his voice suddenly softer. It was the first time he’d sounded like my boyfriend all evening. “Did someone hurt you?”
“No.” I looked away from his concerned gaze, trying to hide the red lie on my neck. I definitely didn’t feel like bringing up what happened with those two guys and Talbot now. “The point is that I went down there and asked around and found nothing. It’s probably been weeks since he’s been there.”
“And any chance of finding him through that club has probably been lost,” Gabriel said.
I groaned. “Don’t remind me.”
“I still want to go down there and see what I can find,” Dad said.
“You can’t get in without the keycard.” I gave him a sheepish grin. “And I think I kind of dropped it while I was there.” I hadn’t been able to find it since Talbot dragged us out of there.
Dad made a grumbling noise.
“I’ve got some contacts,” Daniel said. “I’ll ask around again. See if I can get a new card.”
“Can you think of anyone else Jude might try to contact?” Dad asked me.
I shook my head.
“Hmm.” Dad rubbed his temples, like he was trying to ward off a headache. “I’m going to have to mull this over a bit more before we come up with a plan B. In the meantime, we need to figure out what to do with you, Grace.”
“What to do with me?”
“I don’t want you running off all half-cocked again. If I can’t trust you to use your head, then maybe you need to be grounded. No more unauthorized visits to the city. Pull back on your training and hit the books again for a while.”
“What? No!” I’d been surprised when Dad had been supportive of the idea of my training in the first place. I knew he felt guilty that he hadn’t told Jude what was happening to him. So when I finally told Dad that I had been infected, he said, “Knowledge is power,” and gave me all of his books on werewolf lore. He even bought me some books on karate and self-defense. I think he hoped they’d help me develop my abilities without losing control like Jude. Not that you can really learn how to fight from a book, but that was just the way Dad operated—anything important could be found in a book, as far as he was concerned.
But why would he try to take that away from me now? Especially with Gabriel here to train me?
“Dad, you can’t do this. Not now. I’m just starting to be able to really tap into my powers. I ran at full speed for almost an hour and a half this evening. And last night I …” I let that thought drop before I said too much.
“What’s all this?” Gabriel asked. “You’ve been training for what?”
Gabriel! Yes, he was the one who could help me convince Dad.
“Daniel and I have been working on developing my superpowers. We think I can become a Hound of Heaven, like what you wrote about the Urbat. How these powers are meant to help people. How they can be a blessing and not a curse. Daniel’s been trying to teach me how to use my abilities, and I’m just starting to figure it out, but now that you’re here, you can teach me everything you know. You can help me finally tap into the power. If you train me, then you can help me reclaim the Urbat blessings, just like you told your sister you wanted to do in those letters.”
Gabriel stood up from his chair. He tugged on the pastor’s collar and cleared his throat. “No, Grace. I think it’s a terrible idea. Training is the last thing someone like you should be doing.”