I nodded, recalling that now.
“If they don’t want to be found, they won’t be found,” Jude said. “That’s how they got their name, the Shadow Kings are masters of hiding in the dark.”
I scrubbed my hands down my face, pacing some more around the coffee table. The first time James had been taken from this house—stolen by Jude while he was under the influence of the wolf—before we found him, I’d thought that not knowing what had happened to him was the worst part. But this time, knowing who had him … Knowing what they were capable of doing to him…
Knowing was worse.
“I promised James I’d keep him safe,” I said.
This is your fault, snarled the wolf. I’d gone almost a full day without hearing its voice, and it almost startled me now. You brought this upon them with your promises. Promises you can never keep.
It’s your fault.
It’s your fault.
It’s your fault.
I grabbed the closest thing to me—Dad’s Bible from the coffee table—and chucked it through what was left of the front room window. Shards of glass shattered out onto the porch.
“This is my fault!” I cried. “I promised James I’d protect him. I promised him, and now he’s gone. They took him from me.”
Someone should to die for this.
I picked up another book and was about to throw it out the window, but Daniel grabbed my hand. He wrapped me in his arms, and I broke down, crying. “It’s my fault.”
“Shhh, Gracie,” Daniel said, running his fingers through my hair. “Get ahold of yourself. They want you to lose control, but you can’t. Don’t let them win by giving in to these thoughts. Caleb is a sociopath. There’s no way you could have predicted his behavior, or caused it to happen by making a promise. This isn’t your fault.”
I nodded against his chest, trying to let his words reassure me.
“If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine,” Jude said. He picked up the knife that sat on the side table—the same knife he’d tried to kill me with when he was entranced.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“The SKs came to the parish because of me. Because of a message I sent them.”
“That you sent them?” came Talbot’s voice from the foyer. He’d been standing there with the Etlu Elders.
Jude looked at the knife, twisting it in his hand, inspecting the silver blade. “That night you let me out of my cage to go visit my father in the hospital … ” He glanced at April. “I didn’t go straight to the hospital and back like I said. I stopped at an Internet café in the city and sent an e-mail to an account Caleb uses for fencing merchandise online. I sent him a message telling him that I was being held at the parish. I begged him to send the SKs to come get me. Begged him to let me rejoin his pack…”
Jude looked up at me. “But please remember, this was before I talked to you yesterday. Before I decided I wanted to truly come home. I was confused, and I didn’t know what I wanted. I just thought, if they wanted me back, and they came for me, then that would make up my mind for me.…” He placed the flat side of the silver blade against his arm, rolling it up and down. He winced, and I could smell his skin burning against the silver.
“But when they showed up last night, it made me ill. They’d finally come, and I didn’t want to go with them.
But the thing is, they weren’t really there for me at all. They just wanted to get rid of Sirhan. But maybe they wouldn’t have come at all if I hadn’t told them about the parish. Maybe they wouldn’t have taken Baby James. This is my fault.” Jude closed his hand over the knife’s blade, letting it burn the insides of his fingers.
“Jude, don’t,” I said.
The wolf in my head wanted me to rage at my brother. Blame him for even bringing the Shadow Kings into our lives in the first place. But I couldn’t. Daniel was right, giving in to the wolf in any way was not an option now. I’d been strong enough to keep it almost completely at bay since Wednesday—since I’d found my ability to push away my anger and start forgiving—and it had felt so freeing not to have the wolf in my head. I wasn’t going to willingly let it in again. I refused to feed the beast any longer.
I left Daniel’s embrace and went to my brother. “You had no way of knowing that they’d do what they did. At least you know now that you didn’t want to go with them.”
“More important,” Daniel said. “You know Caleb’s e-mail address. We can use that to contact him. Maybe we can arrange some sort of ransom for James.…”
Jude shook his head. To my relief, he put the knife down and reached into his jacket pocket with his uninjured hand. “I stole your cell phone earlier,” he said to April, giving her an apologetic glance.
She didn’t meet his gaze, and I wondered if she was thinking about how he’d admitted twice now in one conversation to breaking her trust.
“I e-mailed Caleb’s address already. This is all I got back.” Jude handed the phone to Daniel.
He read the message out loud. It was the same one the SKs had delivered through Jude: “Sirhan is dead. The Death Howl is over. The ceremony will go forward tomorrow. You will come. You will fight. The Shadow Kings will lap the blood from your throat. There, we will bring the child. You will fight, or he will die.”
I heard a high-pitched gasp from up the stairs, and I realized my mom must have been listening to our conversation from the landing. The knockout gas had left her extremely nauseous, and she’d supposedly been lying down since we got back from searching. This was the first time she’d heard the actual message.
“I tried e-mailing again,” Jude said, “but the account has been closed.”
“But what’s the effing point of that message?” Slade asked from where he sat on the bottom stair. “Isn’t it kind of a given that Daniel will be fighting in the ceremony? Why kidnap the baby in order to force Daniel into the fight? He’ll already be there. There’s got to be more to it.”
“It’s his backup plan,” Brent said. “Caleb always has a backup. He’s paranoid and always has to have something to fall back on.”
“Yeah, but why demand that we fight when we’re already going to? What’s the meaning?”