I explained what we were about to do, using Gabriel’s almost exact wording so I wouldn’t get it wrong. Daniel still had that shocked but solemn look on his face, but he nodded along like he understood.
“You need to clear your head,” I said again after the explanation. “The first time I tried this with Gabriel, I wasn’t able to push away my negative thoughts, and I ended up hurting my father more. I was afraid to ever try it again, but I had to use a similar method to turn you back into a human, and that worked. Now that I have you to help me, I believe it will work for my father, too.”
“I’m not sure I’m the best person—”
“You’re the only person.” I looked deep into Daniel’s eyes. “I need you to accept who you are. You’re a Hound of Heaven, not a Dog of Death. Yes, part of your calling is to kill demons—only to protect the innocent—but this right here is what we were truly meant for. What the original Urbat were created for. Something only Urbat like you and I can do. Because we haven’t lost our capacity to love. That’s what we have to give the world.”
I could see the struggle in Daniel’s eyes. The fight to accept what I was telling him against what he’d come to believe about himself.
“You’re not a monster. Not anymore. You came back something different. And deep down, I think you know what that is.”
Like an angel.
I leaned in and kissed Daniel softly on the lips. When I pulled away, he closed his eyes for a moment so I could no longer see the battle in his head. Then he stood a little straighter and nodded. “I think you’re right,” he said, opening his eyes again. What I saw there was a solid look of determination.
“Are you ready to do this with me?”
“Yes. Anything for you.” He glanced at my father. “For him.”
Daniel held his hands out to me. We stood side by side next to the hospital bed, and I placed Daniel’s hands on my father’s chest. “Concentrate on the positive. You need to channel all your good energy and love.”
Daniel closed his eyes, and so did I. I found myself digging deep down into my memory, pulling up every positive recollection of my father, and focused those thoughts into my hands. Only a few seconds passed before I could feel the energy buzzing between my hands and Daniel’s. It swelled and pulsed, growing in intensity. One of my memories of my father suddenly shifted to an image I didn’t remember at all—one of Daniel sitting in a chair across from my father at his desk in his office. They were alone, and I realized this wasn’t one of my memories at all. It was one of Daniel’s. We were connected once again. The images were murky, but I watched as my father told Daniel that he was going to help him find the cure to the werewolf curse, and I felt the gratitude Daniel experienced in that moment. The connection continued, and I saw little clips of Daniel’s life. And then I saw myself in one of his memories. Saw who I was to him from his mind’s eye, and I wondered how I could have ever doubted the way he felt about me.
My heart swelled with love, and a great burst of power ricocheted through every cell in my body, engulfing me until I didn’t know if I could hold it in any longer. With a great surge, all of that energy rushed through me, into Daniel’s hands, and then into my father. And then I felt myself let go of Daniel’s hands, and then I was falling. Collapsing next to the bed—only to be caught in Daniel’s arms.
“Are you okay?” he asked, cradling me against him. “That was intense.”
“Yes,” I tried to say, but my voice barely made a noise. I didn’t even have the strength to open my eyes.
A shrill chorus of beeping noises filled my ears. At first I didn’t know where they came from, but then with a shock of horror I realized it was the sound of every single one of my father’s monitor alarms. Indicating something was terribly wrong.
“Holy shit,” Daniel whispered.
I’d been so sure I could do this. So sure it would work this time like it had for Daniel. What have I done?
“Holy shit,” Daniel practically shouted. I felt the shift of his body as he turned me toward my father. “Look, Grace.”
I forced my eyes open, even though they wanted to stay clamped shut—afraid to see what damage I must have caused to send all those monitors into such a frenzy. But then I saw what it was, and I understood.
Dad was sitting there. Sitting up in his bed, and he’d pulled the oxygen mask from his face—both of which actions would have set off multiple alarms.
“Gracie?” he asked. “What happened? Where am I?”
I couldn’t believe it. He was awake. He was speaking. All the dark purple bruises on his face and arms had faded away.
“We did it.” Tears streamed from my eyes. “We actually did it.”
Daniel tried to set me on my feet, but I was too weak to stand, so he lifted me onto the bed, and I threw my arms around Dad’s neck. “You’re alive,” I said between happy sobs. “You’re alive, and you’re okay.”
Dad hugged me back. “Of course I’m alive. But what happened? Why am I here?”
Before I could answer his question, I heard the woosh of the sliding-glass door and an army of nurses swarmed into the room. “What’s going on here?” one of them shouted at me.
“Get away from him,” another nurse shouted, but then she stopped suddenly, staring at my father sitting up in his bed, looking perfectly healthy and uninjured.
She whispered something in what sounded like Spanish and made the sign of the cross in front of her chest and forehead. She went on in the language I didn’t quite understand, but I did catch something.
“A miracle,” she said. “It’s a miracle.”
Chapter Twenty-five
WORLDS COLLIDED
THURSDAY MORNING
You’d think a miracle would be cause for rejoicing in the ICU. Instead, it brought on a barrage of questions for me and several not-pleasant-looking tests and scans for my father. The successful power transfer had left me completely drained of all energy, and Daniel and I spent the next several hours curled up in one of the waiting room sofas, drifting in and out of sleep.
I guess the nurse at the front desk decided to let us stay longer than twenty minutes, considering the circumstances, because it was just after seven in the morning when my father announced that he wanted to go home.