I gasped. “Mr. Kalbi? Daniel’s father?” I searched around in my head for his first name—Daniel never ever spoke it.

“Caleb Kalbi,” Gabriel said. “Yes.”

Now I finally understood why Sirhan hadn’t let Caleb’s son rejoin his pack last year. Why he seemed to despise Daniel for no fault of his own.

“I am just grateful that Caleb is not a true alpha, or this world may be a very different place. If he’d convinced more than a couple of members of our pack that he should be the leader …” Gabriel shook his head. “Caleb did enough damage as the Markham Street Monster, but imagine if he had a whole pack doing his bidding. It’d be Gevaudan all over again. Most likely worse.”

I shuddered at that idea. Caleb had killed at least two dozen people on his own before he left town. I couldn’t imagine his having an entire pack under his control. “What do you mean by true alpha?” I asked Gabriel. “You called Sirhan that before.” My head was beginning to spin from absorbing so much information, but I didn’t know when I’d get a chance to ask Gabriel questions like this again.

“True alphas are very rare. They are Urbats born with a certain mystical essence that grows in them as they age. They are the true ‘chosen’ pack leaders, and if a true alpha wants to be the alpha of a pack, usually the rest of the pack will recognize him as such. I don’t really know why, perhaps it is some magical phenomenon, or merely pheromones. There have been very few true alphas, and they are even rarer now than before—probably because Urbats tend not to procreate very often. Most packs operate under the leadership of a regular appointed alpha, rather than under the direction of a true alpha. Sirhan is the last remaining true alpha that I know of. I thought there was another at one point, but not anymore. And with Sirhan on his deathbed—”

“Sirhan is dying? Did someone try to kill him again?”

“He’s dying of old age, I guess you could say. Sirhan fell to the curse of the werewolf nine hundred and ninety-nine years ago, and he’s beginning to feel his age now. He’s quite sick. No werewolf has ever lived past a thousand years. I believe it’s only a matter of weeks at this point.”

“So what will happen when Sirhan dies?” I remembered Talbot saying something about how Gabriel deserved what was going to happen to his pack when Sirhan died.

“According to pack law, when an alpha dies, a new alpha must be called. If there is no true alpha present, then usually the calling of the alpha passes to the beta. That would be me, in this instance. However, before the beta can take charge, he must hold a ‘challenging ceremony,’ during which any wolf can present himself to contest the beta without anyone prohibiting him. The beta can either step aside and let the challenger become alpha, or the two can fight it out until someone relents—or dies. The winner is named alpha of the pack, even if he is an outsider, or is already the alpha of a different pack. If more than one challenger presents himself—or herself, though that is rare—at the ceremony, then they all must battle it out for the position. It can turn quite deadly.”

“And I’m guessing you’ll step aside if someone contests you?”

Gabriel sighed. “Usually the beta goes unchallenged out of respect,” he mumbled.

“But what if someone like Caleb challenges you?”

Gabriel blinked.

“You’d fight then, right?” There was more anger in my voice than I’d anticipated. Or is he just a coward? that voice I sometimes heard growled inside my head.

Gabriel didn’t answer. He just tapped his fingers on the open page of the book.

“What are you two talking about?” Charity said from the doorway of the study. She balanced a big box marked HALLOWEEN #3 in her arms.

Gabriel popped up from his chair. “Let me take that from you,” he said, and held his arms out to Charity.

“Thanks,” she said as she gave it to him. “Mom’s got like five more of these. Sorry it took so long. Mom made us reorganize the whole closet before we could take anything out.”

I heard Mom call Charity from the basement stairs, and she ducked back into the hallway.

Gabriel turned back toward me. “We shall see what happens when the time comes. But I wouldn’t worry about Caleb Kalbi, Grace. He’s a pathetic excuse for a man or a wolf, and I doubt he’d dare show up alone anywhere near our pack.” Gabriel hefted the box out of the room and said something to my father, who must have been in the kitchen.

I sighed and laid my head down on the table. My brain felt heavy from so much information, and now, on top of my concerns about Daniel and my anxiety over finding Jude, I was bogged down by a whole new set of worries. I glanced over at the book and saw the drawing of the Beast of Gevaudan. Long neck, sharp claws, and teeth dripping with blood. The drawing also depicted a woman lying on the ground, trying in vain to ward off the lunging beast with a long spear. Another question came to my mind, even though it was too late to ask Gabriel now.

What if Caleb Kalbi did show up to the challenging ceremony—only he wasn’t alone?

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Basic Training

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON

I knew Gabriel’s stories were supposed to deter me from wanting to develop my powers, but they only made me more determined. There were bad things out there—bad things like Caleb Kalbi (even if, according to Daniel, he was supposedly living in South America now) and bad things like the Shadow Kings, intent on tearing the city apart for who knew what purpose. And I had to be prepared to take them on if people like Gabriel were going to sit back and do nothing. I could barely wait for the school day to pass before I got a chance to see Talbot again.

I tapped my feet with anticipation the whole bus ride to Apple Valley and barely noticed what April was talking about until she asked me how I felt about tiaras.

“Um, what?”

“Tiaras: pro or con? Say pro, because I’ve been dying to design a killer tiara. Oh! Maybe it could really be killer. Like it could have silver spikes on it that separate into Chinese throwing stars or something.” She trembled and wrote something in her notebook.

“What are we talking about again? Why would I need a tiara?” And did I really want to know?

April held up a finger. She wrote one more thing in her notebook. “We were discussing a princess theme for your costume. Like Princess of Wolves. Or Princess Lupine. Princess Puppy … no …”