They stopped traveling and settled down in a small town in Pennsylvania. The Saint Moons had a truce with Gabriel’s pack, which lived in the nearby mountains, but then, on my third birthday, my parents were slaughtered by a rogue band of werewolves from that pack—right in front of me.”
This time I did gasp. I covered my mouth with my hand.
“One of the unexpected guests decided to leave me with a special birthday present.” Talbot pulled up the bottom of his flannel shirt and showed me the large crescent-shaped scar that looked almost like a tattoo on his well-cut abs.
“I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say.
Talbot lowered his shirt. “Gabriel is the one who should be sorry. He could have stopped those werewolves, but he didn’t. It would have meant getting his hands dirty. And his alpha, Sirhan, barely even punished the wolves that killed my parents. They deserve what’s going to happen to their pack when Sirhan dies.…” He pursed his lips and looked down at his feet.
“What happened to you after that?” I couldn’t imagine being so young and having your parents killed right in front you. He would’ve been only six months older than Baby James.
“I was sent to live with my grandfather on his farm. He was already caring for my mentally disabled cousin. Our grandfather used to fill the two of us with all these stories of the great Saint Moons. Demon fighters. Brave to the very end. Used to show us this old silver dagger. He died after a stroke when I was only thirteen, and that’s when I decided to carry on the legacy. Only I have an advantage over Simon and all the other Saint Moons
—I’ve got superpowers. And unlike cowards like Gabriel, I use them.”
“Your cousin, the mentally disabled one, was he the only family you had left?”
Talbot nodded. “I couldn’t take care of him, and he couldn’t take care of me, even though he was a lot older. I haven’t seen him since the day our grandfather died. But we’re the last of the family.”
“No,” I said. “Don’s dead. I knew him, and he died ten months ago. But he’d wanted to be a hero like you.”
Talbot lowered his head, and his shoulders slumped. That was why he seemed strangely familiar. Even though none of their specific features were identical, there was still a family resemblance there—that familiarity that struck me so many times before—in the shape of his mouth, the tone of his voice, and the largeness of his hands. Talbot reminded me of a much younger, attractive, mentally and physically sound Don Mooney. There was even a slight resemblance to Gabriel—the two could also be cousins.
“That means you’re the last real Saint Moon,” I said.
Talbot bent down. He’d found his baseball cap. He scooped it up and put it on his head. “I’m going to check the rest of the house for bodies. I doubt those creatures were welcome houseguests of whoever used to live here.”
He started toward the stairs, then stopped and looked back at me. “You did a decent job here today. We’ve just got a lot to work on before we start thinking about going after the real gang.” He gave me a half smile. “We will find your brother. I promise.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“Get to work on healing those marks on your face. I bet you can find a towel in one of the bathrooms and wash up a bit. I can’t take you back to the bus looking like that.”
A FEW MINUTES LATER
I found a small bathroom off the kitchen. Yellow rings stained the inside of the sink, and the mirror was cloudy and cracked. An old, stiff towel hung from a tarnished-brass towel ring. I pulled it from the metal loop and used the corner of it to clean a section of the mirror. I stared at the red-rimmed eyes of my reflection and then my pale face and disheveled hair. Red marks shaped like long-taloned fingers painted my neck where Mishka had grabbed me, and three angry, blistering burns welted my face from the Gelal’s acid blood.
I closed my eyes and concentrated. Tried to picture my wounds healing over like Daniel had taught me—tried to erase them with the power of my mind. But when I opened my eyes, my reflection appeared exactly the same. My ability to control my superhearing, speed, strength, and agility had increased tenfold since my breakthrough run on Sunday. But the healing power still eluded me. Yes, these wounds would probably heal on their own in a matter of hours—compared to weeks for a regular human—but I should be able to speed up the process even more. Make it take seconds rather than hours, if I concentrated enough.
I didn’t have hours to wait, so I closed my eyes and tried again. Healing had been the first power Daniel had developed as a kid—it was how he’d discovered that he had special abilities in the first place. But for some reason it was the hardest one for me. I opened my eyes and frowned at my unchanged appearance—then jumped at the sight of Talbot standing right behind me in the doorway. I gripped the counter to steady myself.
“I’m sorry,” Talbot said. “I knocked, but you didn’t answer. I was worried.…”
“I’m okay. I was just concentrating.”
“You better concentrate harder. We’ve got to get back to the bus, and you’re not healed up yet.”
“That’s because I don’t know how to do it.”
“Oh.” Talbot stepped into the tight room. Only two more steps and we’d be touching. I cursed my heart for beating faster. “I can help you,” he said.
“How?”
Talbot took one more step. Closer now. I watched his reflection in the mirror as he reached his hands out and brushed my hair back behind my ears. He cupped both of his hands on my face, pressing his palms into the burns on my cheeks. I winced and tried to pull away from his touch.
“Easy,” he said softly. “Don’t think about the pain. Think about where the pain came from. Think about how you got these burns. What were you feeling when it happened?”
“Scared.” I pictured the sight of the Gelal, skewered right in front of me. Then the way he’d grabbed at the sword and cut his bare hands.
“Horrified.”
“Close your eyes.”
I let my eyelids drop.
“Concentrate on what you were feeling,” he said close to my ear. “Hold those emotions inside of you until they burn.”
At first I didn’t know what he meant, and it seemed so opposite from what Daniel had told me that I didn’t think it would work. But I replayed that horrible scene in my head and let the fear of the moment engulf me. Felt the panic rise in my chest. And then I felt tingling warmth under Talbot’s touch. The heat swelled until it felt as hot as white coals, and just when I thought I might faint from the pain, it tingled away into nothing.
I opened my eyes. Talbot pulled his hands away from my face and placed them on my shoulders. The burns were gone.
“Good as new,” he said.
I met his gaze in the mirror for a second, then quickly turned my head away.
I didn’t know if I could look at Talbot the same way again. He’d changed so much for me in the last few hours. He wasn’t just a dimpled-cheeked farm boy who just happened to be another Urbat and reminded me of comforting things. Under that flannel shirt beat the heart of a powerful hunter—
one strong enough to kill a demon with a single swing of his steel sword.
Talbot was dangerous.
I had no doubt about that.
But at the same time, I couldn’t help picturing him as a little boy, shrieking with fear as his parents died in front of him. It made me want to wrap my arms around him, hold him like Baby James, and tell him everything was going to be okay—that I could help him make the monsters go away.
I pulled out of his grasp and turned to leave. It wasn’t right to be this close to Talbot. I loved Daniel.
“Grace.”
“Yes?” I glanced back at him.
He stood quiet for a moment. No happiness in his expression at all. “Take that towel and wipe down anything you think you might have touched.”
“Why?”
He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. “I was right. Somebody did live here. I need to call the police so they can take care of the body.”