"The devil nurtured those feelings. As the Hounds grew more prideful--believing they were superior to all other humans--the wolf inside grew. It influenced their thoughts, their actions, devoured pieces of their souls. Their blessing became their curse.
"They turned their backs on God and his mission. They despised mortals and were hated and feared by them. And then the wolf started to lust for the blood of the ones the Hounds had once sworn to protect. And when a Hound gives in to that bloodlust--as most of them do--and he commits a true predatory act--tries to kill someone--the wolf takes control. It now has the power to take over the Hound's form at will, becoming an embodied wolf. It holds the Hound's mortal soul ransom as it hunts and ravages and kills."
"Is that where the name Urbat comes from?" I asked. "The Dogs of Death?"
He nodded. "There are many names. Hundreds, actually. The Skin-Walkers, Loup-Garou, Oik, Varkolak, Varulv. The name you are probably most familiar with is
Werewolf."
"Werewolf? Your family are werewolves?" I stepped back. "Are you ... Are you a ... ?"
"A wolf in boy's clothing?" He wasn't joking. "I'm a hybrid actually. My mother was full human. My father was the Kalbi. He was the beast." Daniel looked up at me. "What
I told you about the Urbat living in packs was true. They live together for protection and kinship." He lingered his necklace. "Many of them try to control the wolf; others like the taste of blood. My father was one of the latter. He challenged the alpha of his pack and lost. The alpha banished him instead of ripping out his throat--that was a big mistake.
"My father wandered for a while. But a wolf's greatest instinct is for a pack, a family. He ended up in Rose Crest, where he chose a woman he could dominate. He tried living as a mortal with her. But then I came into the picture. I think he sensed he wouldn't be able to control me as easily ... and that made him crazy. I drove him to hunting again."
"Your father"--I could barely bring myself to ask-- "he was the Markham Street Monster, wasn't he?" I thought about how his father seemed to sleep all day. How he worked a night shift at a warehouse near the shelter on Markham. How all those strange things stopped happening around the time he skipped town. "He killed all those people."
Daniel lowered his head even more. He didn't need to answer.
"And you were born with the wolf's essence, too?"
Daniel reached down and scooped up a few shards of broken plate. He held them in his open palm. "My wolf wasn't as strong when I was younger--probably because I wasn't a purebred. Gabriel says there are some descendants of the Hounds who are so mixed in breed they probably don't feel it much at all." He closed his hand over the bits of glass and squeezed. He winced and opened his bloody palm. "I didn't know the truth then about my family. All I knew was that there was something very wrong with my father--which is how I discovered that I could heal faster than normal people. That I could heal myself."
He closed his eyes and pursed his lips. It was like the cuts on his hands sucked the blood back in, then healed over into thin, jagged scars. All that remained in his hand were a few pink bits of glass.
"But as I got older, I felt the monster stirring. I fought it as hard as I could. But I've failed. The wolf took me over, too--turned me into a beast like my father."
"But if the wolf took you over, that means you've ..." I thought of Jude, of those scars on his hands and face, of the things he'd accused Daniel of. "That's when it happened. You tried to hurt Jude, and that's when the wolf took you over. That's why he's so afraid of you."
Daniel closed his list around the glass again. His knuckles went purple, then white. Blood snaked around his wrist. I turned away and studied the puke-pink daisies on the wall.
"The night I ran away from home," he said, "I broke into the parish. It was after the fund-raiser for the fire repairs, and I knew your father always put off taking donations to the bank. I was already quite strong then. It only took a second to break the lock on the outside door to the balcony. The plan was to get in and get out with the money, but as I was leaving, your brother showed up. He saw me with the cash box and told me to put it back. He seemed so self-righteous, and it made me sick. The wolf told me that all of this was his fault. That I wouldn't have even been there if it weren't for him."
"What do you mean?"
"I always felt the wolf drive for a pack. But I wanted a normal family. With a mother who put her child first, and a father who was steady and kind and didn't make me tremble in my bed at night. I wanted a family like yours. I wanted to be Daniel Divine." His voice faltered.
I heard him shift in his chair. "I hated my father. I hated the monster that burned inside of me. Every time I got mad, or jealous, or ... Something inside of me swelled, grew, eating me alive. It told me to hurt, to hunt. At first I thought I was going insane. I pushed it away. But somehow I knew that my father was responsible for what was happening to me. I followed him once. I saw what he would become--the things he did. I knew that was what my future held.
"I thought maybe I could get rid of the monster if I got rid of my father--told someone about what I saw. I wanted to tell. I almost told. But then I thought I had to forgive him. That no matter how bad he hurt me or anyone else, I had to turn the other cheek. You're the one who told me that. Told me my father hurt me because he was desperate."
My knees went numb. I clung to the counter for support. I didn't understand what I'd said back then--still didn't really. But that wasn't what I'd meant. Not at all.
"So I kept my mouth shut," Daniel continued. "Sometimes I tried to paint the things I saw, but that only made my father go ballistic. One day I finally tried to tell Jude about the Urbat--what little I'd learned about them by then--but he thought I was making up stories. So instead I told him how my father hurt me. I thought if I told one person, but made him keep it a secret, it would ease the burning a bit, and I wouldn't be betraying my father. I made Jude promise not to tell.
But he broke that promise. He ruined everything."
"But you got what you wanted." The numbness in my knees spread up my legs. "You became our brother."
"But it didn't last. Before I had only dreamed what it would be like to be in a real family, but if your brother hadn't broken his promise, then I wouldn't have ever known what it was like. I wouldn't have known what it felt like to be wanted and then get ripped out of the only warm, loving place I'd ever had. Things would have gone on like in the past, and my own mother wouldn't have had to choose between that monster and me."
Daniel cleared his throat and coughed. "It was easier to control the wolf when I was with your family. But when I left, it started stirring again. But this time I didn't fight it. I sought out other people who had demons inside--other creatures of the night." He made a scoffing laugh. "Although, most of their inner demons weren't quite so literal."
Daniel swallowed so hard I could hear him from across the room. I could tell he wasn't going to make any more jokes.
"The wolf grew stronger," he said after a moment. "It influenced everything I did. And then that night in the parish when I saw your brother standing there and he had everything I ever wanted, the monster finally broke free."
I cringed, imagining Jude alone and frightened.