The Savage Grace

by Bree Despain

  Talbot just stared at me. He blinked a couple of times. “What are you talking about … ?” He gave me a look like he was afraid I knew something I shouldn’t.

  “Don’t pretend you didn’t have anything to do with that attack on Pete. You know what happened to him. I watched him die two days ago, but my sister saw him hanging out near a gas station in the city this morning. Tell me how that’s possible.” I let go of his shirt. “Did you infect him? Is he an Urbat now or something?”

  Talbot swore, loudly. “This is what I was afraid of,” he said under his breath. “He’s not an Urbat, Grace. Damn it. If what you say is true, then Pete’s an Akh.”

  “An Akh?” Akhs were bloodthirsty and conniving, and they could psychically control their victims by staring into their eyes.

  “He must have been infected by an Akh when he was attacked.” Talbot brushed the leaf out of his hair. “I didn’t attack Pete that night … because you asked me not to—”

  “You didn’t?” My voice was more than tinged with incredulity.

  He looped his thumbs behind his big brass belt buckle. “No. You were already having an effect on me. Normally, I would have torn the guy apart and not given it a second thought, but since you asked me to leave him alone, I couldn’t bring myself lay a hand on him.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah.” He rocked back on his heels. He took in a long breath and then said quickly as he blew it back out: “But I may have ordered a couple of Caleb’s Akhs to do the job for me.”

  “nice.” I threw my hands up. “Because that was so much better?”

  “What was I supposed to do, Grace? He was harassing you. He looked at you like you were another notch on his belt. I saw the fear in your eyes after he came up to you. I couldn’t let him get away with it. I did it for you.”

  “For me? Someone I know is dead, or undead, or whatever, and you say you did it for me. Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  “That was the old me.”

  “You’re still the old you.”

  “If I were, then I wouldn’t have tried to fix it. I tried to take care of the problem in the hospital, but those stupid monitors went off.”

  “Hospital?” Something that had been nagging at me since yesterday resurfaced in my head. “Oh my—You were the cousin.” The nurse in Pete Bradshaw’s room had said that he’d had a cousin come visit him right before he crashed. I thought back to when I’d accidentally hugged Talbot in the hospital’s stairwell. The angle we were standing at … He hadn’t come from up the stairs, he’d come from the doorway of the ICU’s lobby. He’d been headed out of the ICU. Taking the stairs for a quick getaway, no doubt. “Pete was the thing you had to take care of?”

  I took a step back. Then another two. “Did you go to the hospital to finish off Pete? Did you kill him?”

  How had my life come to the point where, in less than forty-eight hours, counting my run-in with Jude, I’d have to ask two different people I knew if they’d killed someone?

  I mean, seriously?

  “No. I’d heard rumors around town that they’d found bite marks on Pete’s body, which made me suspect that his coma was actually an incubation period for an Akh infestation. I went to confirm my suspicions, but his oxygen levels crashed almost as soon as I entered the room and his oxygen monitor went crazy. I got out of there as fast as I could. That’s when I ran into you in the stairwell.”

  “And if the monitors hadn’t gone crazy? What would you have done?”

  “If I had been sure he’d been infected—which apparently he has been—I would have put a stake through his heart.”

  “You’d have killed him?”

  “Only so you wouldn’t have to.”

  My mouth popped open, but Talbot went on before I could I respond.

  “Pete isn’t Pete anymore. Think of it this way: he’s just a demon walking around wearing a Pete suit. He might look like Pete, he might sound like Pete, he’ll even have Pete’s memories, but it’s very important that you don’t forget that he isn’t Pete. Especially when he comes for you.”

  “Comes for me?”

  “The Akh inside of him will not only retain his memories, he’ll also take on parts of Pete’s personality. The bad parts. Only amplified. Pete had it out for you before he was infected and died—which means you’re probably one of the first people he’s going to come looking for after he’s gotten over the feeding-frenzy stage, and his memories start to come back.” Talbot let out a few more swear words. “There’s already been one killing—that nurse at the hospital. I should have suspected Pete as soon as I heard about it. I was so busy wallowing, I didn’t even think—”

  “You’re saying Pete was the one who killed that nurse?” I felt a pang of guilt for even suspecting Jude.

  “Yes. I think so. Akhs are born hungry. They need to feed off of both blood and psychic energy in insane amounts to survive the first few days. Which means he’ll be killing indiscriminately at first. But after that, it’s only a matter of time before he starts seeking out people from his former life.…”

  “What?” I thought about Charity encountering Pete at that gas station, grateful she’d only seen him through the car window as they’d pulled away. But then I thought about Pete’s mother, Ann. Would he go home and find her once his memories came back? And where was I on Pete’s potential list of victims?

  Talbot grabbed my arm and started pulling me toward his truck, which was parked behind the parish. “We’re going to have to kill Pete Bradshaw … again,” he said, sounding excited by the idea.

  “Wait.”

  I put my hand on top of his. He stopped pulling me toward his truck and looked down at our two hands touching.

  “Come on, Grace. You and me on the demon hunt again. Just like what we trained for. Just like it was meant to be.”

  I gave him a slight smile. He really was happy about the idea of our hunting together again. “How are we even going to find Pete?”

  “New Akhs are predictable because of their hunger. He’ll seek out whatever place has the most psychic and sexual energy wafting off of it. He’ll be able to smell it. Somewhere like a big party. Normally, new Akhs flock to the Depot. That’s how we recruited so many of them to the Shadow Kings. But now that the Depot is no more, he’ll have to find somewhere else.” He snapped his fingers. “I know just the place.”

  “Where?” I stepped closer to him.

  “There’s a trance party tonight.”

  “A what party?”

  “Trance party. You know how Akhs can put their victims into trances by staring into their eyes? They do it to feed off a human’s psychic energy and mess with their free will.”

  “Yeah.” I knew all to well. I’d almost been killed the last time it happened to me.

  “Well, a trance party is kind of like a rave, except humans use Akhs to get high instead of Ecstasy.”

  “You mean people go to these parties and willingly let Akhs feed off of them?”

  “Pretty much. The Akhs get to feed without a hunt. The humans get high and let someone take away their free will for a night. Some people get off on that.”

  “Eww.” I made a gagging face. “But aren’t people afraid the Akhs will feed too much off of them and they’ll die?”

  “It happens,” Talbot said. “Especially if new Akhs are in the mix. They don’t come just to get a quick fix; they feed to kill. But I guess the danger is part of the thrill for some people. And a lot of them are just stupid kids who don’t really know what’s going on. Most don’t remember in the morning.”

  “And we’ll be able to hunt down Pete there?” I gazed up into his green eyes. At the same time I reached into my jacket pocket and clicked a button on my phone.

  “I’d bet my truck on it.”

  “But where is the party?”

  “There’s always one a week or two after Halloween in a haunted house that’s just been closed down for the season. Before they strike all the creepy sets. Rumor has it,
tonight’s trance party is going to be at Frightmare Farms.”

  “That old farm outside Rose Crest? Didn’t that place get shut down for being unsafe?” April and I used to frequent the corn maze at that old farm-turned-Halloween-attraction, but we didn’t make it this year because it got shut down opening night after some kid fell through the rotten floorboards in the haunted barn. I’d heard the owners had left it abandoned the way it was, rather than spend the money to get it up to code.

  “You can see the appeal for this kind of party then?” Talbot reached out like he wanted to caress his fingers along my cheek. “But we’re going to have to cover up that pretty face of yours, find you a disguise. The party will be crawling with Gelals and Akhs. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few Shadow Kings showed up for recruiting.”

  Shadow Kings. That’s what I was afraid he was going to say.

  “People wear pretty crazy stuff to these things, so you won’t stand out in a costume,” Talbot said. “I don’t want any SKs getting wind of us being there. I imagine I’m the last person they’ll feel like being friendly to.”

  “That’s okay,” I said, taking a large step back, away from him and his truck. “Because you’re not coming.”

  “What? You think I’m going to let you go alone?”

  “I won’t be alone.” I glanced over at the motorcycle driven by a lone rider pulling into the parking lot next to us. The green Corolla followed just behind him. Right on cue. “You’re just not coming with us.” I backed away quickly.

  “What’s going on?” Talbot started to come after me, but he stopped when the motorcyclist got off his bike and removed his helmet. Talbot’s eyes widened as he recognized Daniel. The four lost boys got out of the car and stood behind their alpha.

  “So he’s back?” Talbot asked.

  “Yep.” I couldn’t help smiling a bit and thinking of that song from the oldies station my Grandpa Kramer used to listen to. My boyfriend’s back, and your gonna be in trouble.…

  “Despite your best efforts, I hear,” Daniel said, tucking his helmet under his arm.

  Talbot’s mouth hung open with shock, but his hands balled into fists.

  “Do you need any help here?” Daniel asked me.

  “Nope. I got what I came for.” I looked at Talbot. “Thanks for the information. We’ll be taking care of the Pete problem without you.”

  “This was a setup?” Talbot asked. I could see the storm brewing behind his eyes. He took a stride toward me, but the four lost boys stepped forward, creating a barrier between us. Talbot stepped back slightly. “But I thought … you and me, Grace. This is what we’re supposed to do together.…”

  “There is no you and me, Talbot.” I got on the motorcycle with Daniel. “You’re not a part of this anymore.”

  Tricking Talbot into thinking I was going to go hunting with him, and then leaving him in the lurch, felt cruel. But he needed to know that despite his lies and betrayal, I’d gotten Daniel back—and I didn’t need Talbot anymore.

  “I need you to realize, Talbot,” I said to him, solemnly, “when it comes down to it, I’ll always choose Daniel.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  PARTY ON

  SEVERAL HOURS LATER, EVENING

  April was all over the needing-to-wear-a-disguise thing. I was starting to wonder if she had a frequent buyers’ reward at the thrift shop/costume closet in Apple Valley. We’d convened at her house to get ready for the trance party, and I watched in awe as she pulled outfit after outfit from her closet.

  “Wow, you’re really taking your role as my Alfred seriously,” I said. When April had learned about my quest to become a superhero—a quest I’d all but given up on while trying to find a way to bring Daniel back to me—she’d insisted on becoming the Alfred to my Batman. Which, unfortunately, often involved a BeDazzler.

  I seriously wouldn’t be surprised if she’d put “superhero stylist” as one of her qualifications on her Trenton application.

  “I design when I’m anxious,” April said. “And I’ve had a lot to be anxious about lately.” She pulled a yellow Day-Glo jumpsuit with a matching cape from the pile. “I put this one together after you got kidnapped by the Shadow Kings.”

  Daniel smiled wryly.

  It was nice to know April cared so much.

  “I even collected a few things for Daniel … you know, just in case he ever turned back into a human.” She picked up what looked like a bundle of black leather. She handed it to Daniel. “Glad you’re back, by the way.” She smiled at him.

  “Thanks.” Daniel unrolled the bundle. It turned out to be a long leather trench coat. “This I can handle,” he said.

  “Only twenty-five bucks at the thrift store. Can you believe it? Pair that with some black pants and black shirt, and you’re good to go.” She picked up another bundle of clothing and handed it to me. “Grace, on the other hand, needs a little more oomph.”

  “These are pleather shorts,” I said, holding up the pair of fake black leather Daisy Dukes.

  “You wear them with fishnets.” She handed me the tights and a lacy black cami. “There’s a jacket for you, too.”

  “Yeah. But. These. Are. Pleather. Shorts.”

  “And. You. Wear. Them. With. Fishnets,” she responded, as if I hadn’t heard her properly the first time. She pushed me toward the bathroom to get changed.

  Daniel smiled so wide I thought his face was going to crack.

  NEARLY MIDNIGHT

  Daniel was oddly quiet as I drove the Corolla—it’d been too cold for the motorcycle, considering my short-shorts—down an old country road that led to Frightmare Farms, just outside of Rose Crest. The boys followed in April’s red hatchback, borrowed as payback for my ridiculous outfit.

  Shortly after the “pleather shorts incident,” Daniel became more and more withdrawn as time drew closer to go hunt down Pete at the trance party. He hadn’t even protested April’s insistence that he wear the black mask she’d pilfered from a Zorro costume. The perfect finishing touch for his “Bad A outfit”—as she put it.

  I’d figured he must have been bothered that I’d had to turn to Talbot for information, but the way he stared far out the passenger’s-side window made me worry that something deeper was eating at him.

  I parked in a field full of cars outside the decrepit “haunted” farmhouse. Possessed-looking scarecrows hung limp from their stands in front of the entrance gate, and part of the roof of the barn that loomed behind the house looked like it could cave in at any given moment.

  I knew from experience that a corn maze stretched out for a good five acres beyond the barn. Secluded from town, I could see why Akhs would choose this place for one of their creepy trance parties—and based on the crowds of teens that headed from the parking field to the farm, they’d pulled in a pretty good turnout.

  “Are you okay?” I asked as I pulled the keys out of the ignition.

  Daniel shrugged.

  “I’m sorry you’ve gotten dragged into this mess. And I’m sorry you had to see Talbot.”

  “It’s not any of that.” Daniel sighed heavily and pushed his hand through his golden hair. “I’ve been trying not to let it get to me all day. Move on and get the job done, you know. It’s just that … she looked at me like I was a monster.”

  “Who?” I hadn’t seen anything like that from April.

  “Charity.” He looked down at his finely muscled hands. “After I was cured, before my powers came back—when I was normal for once—there was a time when I thought I’d never have to deal with anyone looking at me like that again. Calling me that. And now, I don’t even know what I am anymore.… Maybe ‘monster’ is all I’ll ever be.”

  “Daniel.” I placed my hand on his shoulder. “You are not a monster. And no, you’re not normal anymore. You never have been, really.”

  He winced. Being normal was what Daniel had always desired more than anything. Normal meant Trenton, and family, and having a life. But I saw in him a potential to have all of that a
nd so much more.

  “You’re something greater than that. I really think you’re like an—”

  “Angel?” He shook his head and looked out the window instead of at me. “I don’t think so.”

  “Daniel, I really think you can use your powers for good. I thought that before you were even cured. I know you’re skeptical, and I know you’ve always felt that being an Urbat made you a monster. But Gabriel told me about the original Urbat, and the good things they were created to do. Like protect people. Like we’re about to do now. I think, together, we can be heroes.”

  “Didn’t the quest to become a hero almost get you killed?”

  “Only because I was trying to do it alone—or not exactly alone, but with the wrong help. But now that I have you to be a hero with me, it could totally work.”

  A bubbling of hope trilled up my body into my heart, and I suddenly wondered, if I could convince Daniel that his powers could be blessing instead of a curse—that he could become a hero—then maybe there was a chance to convince other Urbat, like Sirhan’s pack, that they could do it, too. I could help them reclaim their blessings—just like Gabriel had said I could.

  “I’ve never seen myself as a hero,” Daniel said.

  “Maybe it’s time you start.”

  I could tell Daniel was about to protest, but he then suddenly sat up in his seat. “He’s here.”

  I looked up just in time to see Pete Bradshaw, looking all too alive, slink through the line of teens gathered outside the entrance gate. A couple of burly-looking guys stood aside to let him enter the farmhouse.

  “Bouncers,” I said. “I didn’t think an Akh party would have bouncers.”

  “I’m sure they’d want to keep people like us from crashing their fun.”

  “Right.” I took in a deep breath and let it out in a puff. “So this is it? The end of our story with Pete Bradshaw? As much trouble as he’s given us, I never thought I’d be the one to kill him.”

  Daniel put his hand on my arm. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

  “I’ve killed a demon before. He was a Gelal, but according to Talbot, Akhs die the same way. They just explode into dust instead of burning acid. It should be cleaner, I guess.”