Night Owls (17 page)

Adding a third tipped the scales. Some of it was purely tactical—an extra set of eyes on your targets, an extra set of legs in a chase. But there was power in threes, too. Father Value had often spoken about the legs of a tripod when she and Cavale were growing up, how sturdy they were, how each supported the others. He’d told them how chords had three notes, each blending with the other two and transforming them into something bigger. Into something whole. So much of it had gone over her head, back then. She’d been too small to comprehend the full extent of Father Value’s meaning, but whenever he’d talked that way Elly had felt like she was part of something special.

Maybe there were rites they would have gone through, some mystical Brotherhood ceremony to tie them all together, had things gone differently.

But when Cavale left, they were only two again. Easier to knock down. Diminished.

Now that Father Value was gone, they were still only two. Or worse, one and one. That depended on whether she stuck around after this.
If Cavale even wants me to.
For now, there was a job to do, and Cavale was watching her, waiting to see if she was going to argue the point any further. She shook her head. “No, you’re right. It’s a good plan. It’s . . . it’s what
he
would have done, if he could have.”

His nod was slow in coming. It took a minute before she understood why.
Oh God, I’m an idiot.

“You disgust me,” he’d said, standing there with his fists clenched and his breath coming in ragged hitches. “If I stay here, I’m afraid I’ll end up becoming like you, and I don’t ever want that. I’d let a Creep turn me before I’d go that way.”

“Cavale, I didn’t mean—”

He hunkered down beside her and put a hand on her shoulder, shutting her up. “It’s okay, El. I know. I’ll take it in the spirit it was meant, all right?” He leaned back and retrieved the sticks and his knife, then pressed them into her hands. “How about you finish these for me? I want to give the wards another once-over.”

She accepted them mutely, but both wood and blade hung from her limp hands as she watched him walk away. From the rigid set of his shoulders, she could tell he was upset. She wanted to get up and run after him, hound him with apologies until he forgave her like she’d done when she was ten. But they were a long way from childhood now, and there was work to be done. Elly tore her eyes away from Cavale’s retreating form and snuck a glance at the moon. It had to be nearly two o’clock. Val and Chaz would be here soon, if everything went the way it was supposed to.

One and one, and another two.
She wondered if that meant anything. Father Value had never talked about the meaning of four.
It has to be stronger. If three’s good, four must be better.

17

T
HE DRIVE FROM
Night Owls to the abandoned cemetery plot in Weston was tense and silent. Val sat beside Chaz, watching his knuckles go white and whiter on the steering wheel. He was going to leave finger-sized indentations on the leather by the time he was done, but she couldn’t blame him. The big, scarred Jackal sat directly behind him, sneering into the rearview anytime Chaz glanced into it.

The skinny one was in the middle. The Bitch had pushed his hood back so she could stroke the back of his neck. Seemed he didn’t like cars very much, from the occasional low whine he let out. Val got a good look at him in the flashes from oncoming headlights—he hadn’t transformed all the way. The top half of his face looked perfectly human. The only thing that betrayed him there was the amber tint of his eyes. But below that his nose and mouth had pushed out, his nostrils lengthening until they almost touched his top lip. His chin jutted forward, giving him an underbite. It didn’t look comfortable, this in-between state.

It also meant he hadn’t learned full control yet.
We can use it to our advantage.
She just had to figure out how.

Ten minutes later, Chaz pulled over on the edge of an overgrown field and killed the engine. “Last stop,” he said, a little too loudly. “Everyone out of the pool.”

The lackeys got out on his side. Without Bitch next to him to calm him, the skinny kid whined and panted while he waited for his companion to exit. The other Jackal took his time, ignoring the sounds of distress coming from his right. For a moment, as the bigger one used the door frame to steady himself, Val was certain Chaz would slam the door closed on his hands. She tried catching his eye across the Mustang’s roof, giving her head a tiny shake, but he was too busy staring down the emerging Jackal.

Chaz had muttered his nicknames for them to her on the way to the car. Now, the one he’d dubbed Asshole finished unfolding himself from the backseat. He towered over Chaz, standing close enough to kiss. It was a dare. The Jackal’s breathing stayed even, his heartbeat steady. Beneath the stench of rotten meat, Val thought he smelled . . . amused.

Chaz’ heart, on the other hand, was thudding along fast and loud. Bitch heaved a sigh—they could sense it just as well as Val could. But if she wasn’t calling her lackeys off, neither would Val. Throwing down now would ruin the plans, but making Chaz back down would show weakness. That was just as bad.

There were vampires who didn’t have to speak to Command. Val wasn’t one of them. The best she could do was think
don’t do it
at him as hard as she could and hope he’d come to the conclusion that the timing wasn’t right on his own. After a moment in which Val was pretty certain he’d counted to ten, Chaz stepped away and swept an arm out to the side to let Asshole by.

Of course, that meant when Twitch got out Chaz feinted toward him, making him flinch.
Can’t win ’em all.

“Let’s go,” said Bitch. Her tone suggested boredom, but they were racing the sun, too. Wherever they went to ground during the day, they’d have to allow for time to get there, or at least to find somewhere they could hole up. This part of Weston was all fields and farmland. The roads didn’t even warrant streetlights out this far, and the last house they’d passed was back near the Edgewood town line.

Val took point, picking her way over the low wooden fence that ran along the property. Its rails were old and soft with rot. God only knew the last time it had been repaired. They struck out across the field, cutting a swath through the overgrown grass. Soon enough Chaz’ car was only a boxy lump of shadow in the distance.

Eventually they joined up with the dirt path that came in from another angle and continued on through a line of trees up ahead. In colonial times, the path had probably been well trod by churchgoer feet. Now it was little more than an overgrown rut, but it let Val know they were getting close.

The ruins were on the other side. The moonlight picked out three crumbling, blackened stone walls, about thirty feet to a side. Two of them still had arched windows, though the glass was long gone. The wall closest to them was probably ten feet high, with a gaping maw that used to be the front door.

Chiseled into the stone above the lintel was a cross.

Bitch snarled and threw out an arm to stop Twitch and Asshole in their tracks. She turned to Val, yellow eyes flashing. “Holy ground? You think we’re stupid enough to walk on
holy ground
?”

“Of course I don’t. And my guess is, neither did the professor.” Val nodded toward the structure. “Chaz spent the day researching. Henry Clearwater bought the property not long after he came to Edgewood. This church was active in the colonial days, but it burnt down in the early eighteen hundreds. The people who worshiped here joined up with a bigger parish nearby and let this place go to ruin, but the higher-ups never officially decommissioned it. Which means it’s still consecrated.”

“Shit,” said Bitch.

“Yep. And if Chaz found all that on Wikipedia, I’m guessing Henry Clearwater knew a hell of a lot more. Pretty convenient place to stash things you don’t want the local demon-souled rabble getting their hands on, wouldn’t you say?”

The Jackals’ heads all swung toward Chaz. Twitch stepped up behind him, considering. “But
he’s
not demon souled.”

Chaz held up his hands. “Uh-uh. Oh, fuck no. You think the professor would’ve left a loophole like that open? Look at the door frame. Shit, look at the grass.” He pointed his penlight a little ways ahead of them, then a bit to the right, then a bit further. Every ten feet or so, sigils were burnt into the dry grass. Several other, smaller rings were visible closer in. “Those things ring the whole clearing. And there are more on the building itself.” He sidestepped away from Twitch, but bumped into Asshole. He pretended not to notice the big man, addressing Bitch instead. “I can’t read runes for shit, but it’s a safe bet those are wards to keep out everything that’s not, y’know. You guys.”

Val watched the other woman, trying to gauge her reaction. This was the part where Cavale’s plan branched off into any number of possible outcomes. So far, it had gone smoothly—the Jackals had come to this place; Chaz’ lines had been pitch-perfect. Best case, Bitch and her lackeys would dismiss Val and Chaz and puzzle out their own way across the grounds. When they called it a night, Elly and Cavale would follow them home. Val glanced around at the line of trees ringing the meadow. Whatever Cavale had done to hide the two of them had worked: if Val hadn’t known they were dug in somewhere nearby, she’d have thought her own little group was all alone.

But the Jackals hadn’t stopped staring at Chaz. He seemed to notice the thoughtful expressions Bitch and Twitch had adopted, and when Asshole shrank the distance between them from inches to centimeters, he swore and tensed.

“Leave him alone,” Val said. “He’s not your guinea pig.” She didn’t have to fake the nervousness that crept into her voice. Cavale had drawn the wards, but if Chaz stepped past them and they didn’t do anything, the game was up. “There has to be a better way. Get someone down here to dismantle them and send in your own servants. Leave mine out of this.”

Bitch folded her arms and eyed Chaz. “Why should we waste our own?”

At her nod, Asshole grabbed Chaz’ shoulders and started forcing him forward.

“Hey, what the fuck?
Hey.
” Chaz thrashed in the bigger man’s grip, but it did him no good.

Even if Asshole hadn’t had the size advantage, a Jackal’s strength would rival Val’s own. “Come on, no!” Chaz whipped his head back, his skull smashing into Asshole’s chin. Asshole barely even grunted. He didn’t slow down.

As they approached the outer ring, several of the closest sigils started to glow a deep cobalt blue. Chaz threw a panicked look back at Val.

“You don’t have to do this,” she said. Still no movement from the woods. Cavale and Elly had to be able to see what was happening, but they hadn’t broken cover. What did the glow mean? Cavale hadn’t said anything about real, working wards. So what the hell were these? “No one has to get hurt.”

Bitch shrugged. “Maybe not. But this is so much more efficient. We can tell our people what to expect.” She turned back to Asshole. “Go ahead.”

At first, as Asshole’s shove sent Chaz staggering across the runes, Val thought the glow was the extent of the effect. Then
all
the sigils lit up, so bright that they all had to shade their eyes. The air around Chaz sizzled as the glow coalesced around him.

Chaz wheeled back around to face them. His mouth opened in a silent scream as brilliant blue flame licked up over his face. Val screamed aloud
for
him, shoving her way past Bitch. A few feet away, she stopped. Cavale’s runes started in the same place as the consecrated ground, and even though Chaz was just out of arm’s reach, he might as well have been a mile away. She could see his eyes, bright with pain, but moving through this was like swimming through molasses—if a swarm of angry bees were mixed into the molasses, that was.

Every inch of her skin stung as she forced herself closer.
If I can get to him . . . If I can just get a hand around his wrist . . .
The Jackals had gone silent behind her. She almost had him. She was
so damned close
. Then his eyes rolled up in his head and he crumpled to the ground.

No breath. No heartbeat. The body on the ground before her was lifeless and unmoving.

She fell to her knees as she broke through the other side of the barrier. The sluggishness was gone, but the stinging intensified. Val shoved it aside and crawled the last few feet to Chaz. “No,” she muttered, pulling him into her lap. The last of the cobalt fire guttered out. It didn’t burn, but then, maybe it wouldn’t. She had no idea what Cavale had
done
. “Oh God, Chaz, I’m sorry, I’m—” She broke off when she saw the smirk on his lips.

His eyes were open and tight with pain and confusion. Beneath her hands, she felt his heart give a few stuttery thumps as his chest rose and fell with shallow breaths. Her supernatural senses insisted that the man in her lap was dead, but plain old touch and sight told her differently.

Then, infuriating as ever, he winked.

Relief coursed through her, drowning out the sting of holy ground for the moment. She could hear the Jackals moving away, twigs and branches snapping as they tromped off in the direction of the road. A glance back confirmed it. The three of them were visible for a few more seconds until the trees and the dark swallowed them up.
They must have seen enough.
The chase was up to Cavale and Elly now.

Val peered down at Chaz. His grin had grown to shit-eating proportions. “I’m going to kill you,” she mouthed.

 • • • 

“V
AL’S GOING TO
kill
you,” said Elly. “Both of you.” She watched the runes trigger and squinted as the fire flared around Chaz. “And there she goes.” The vampire’s scream rent the air. The night-creatures, who had restarted their chirping and scurrying once they realized Elly and Cavale weren’t there to eat them, went silent again. She turned to Cavale. “How long can she stay there?”

His eyes were fixed on the Creeps at the edge of the woods. “She’ll be fine for a few minutes. She knows to get out before it gets too bad.”

Chaz collapsed. Elly saw Val reach him, but then the fire went out and she couldn’t make out more than a hunched shape in the middle. In theory, Val was finding out that Chaz was just fine right about now. The wards had been pretty ingenious on Cavale’s part. He’d spent most of the day trying to figure out something that’d keep the charade going if the Creeps decided to call their bluff and make Chaz go into the husk of the church. At first, he’d wanted to go with a simple illusion, something that would
look
like the wards had tripped. Chaz could have run inside the ruin and hidden there until the Jackals left.

It had seemed solid enough until Elly mentioned the attack at the Clearwaters, and the impression of hundreds of Creeps attacking. One of them—she guessed it was the female—could make illusions of her own, which meant it was possible she’d see right through Cavale’s. But a smaller one, confined to Chaz himself, might work. Cavale had run it by Chaz and they’d both agreed to leave Val out of the loop on it. It was better if her reaction was real. Elly wondered if Cavale had told Chaz the part he’d asked her to add in, where his heart really
would
stop for a few seconds.