Night Owls (18 page)

Probably not.
It was a tactic they’d used once before, while hunting with Father Value. That time, Cavale had been the bait. Even though Elly’d known he’d come out of it—that his heart would start beating again and he’d get up and stake the Creeps as soon as the trap was sprung—she’d been haunted by the image of his waxy skin and dead eyes for weeks after. She knew the fear and relief that had to be coursing through Val right about then.

Cavale was tugging on her arm. “The Creeps are leaving. Let’s go.” They hefted their backpacks, holy water sloshing away inside. Elly hated having to leave some of the supplies behind, but they could come back for them. They had enough to take these three on if it came to it, even though the mission was to follow, not to fight. Still, she couldn’t help hoping for
some
kind of fisticuffs.

It was easy enough to follow the Creeps’ trail through the woods. They weren’t concerned about subtlety, so they left a swath of broken branches in their wake. Every so often their voices echoed back to Elly and Cavale, usually one of them laughing at something the others had said. They sounded like hyenas, then, only throatier. Once they got to the road, though, they picked up speed.

Elly and Cavale could run, but for nowhere near as long as the Creeps could. “We’re going to lose them. Should I go back and see if Chaz will give us the car keys?”

“No. Hang on.”

Hanging on wasn’t easy. Every second they delayed, the trail got colder. Father Value had taught them both how to track, but doing it on pavement was unreliable at best. Unless . . . “What are you doing?”

“Check this out.” Cavale pulled a small, round mirror out of his pocket. Glued to the back of it was a safety pin. He opened the pin and pricked his finger, then squeezed a few drops onto the mirror. He smeared them into the shape of an arrow-headed rune. It lit up, then began to spin. Seconds later, the arrow pointed along the road toward the center of Weston. “Chaz let me draw another one in black chalk on the backseat. One of them leaned against it enough for it to transfer. As long as they don’t decide to go swimming or something, we’re set.”

They grinned at each other. Creeps hated water.

The rune-compass led them through Weston proper, past all four of its streetlights, and right up to the Edgewood town line. From there, they turned onto the road Elly recognized as the one from her bus trip. They were on a stretch that was neither Edgewood nor Weston now, made up of clusters of small businesses separated by long stretches of empty plots. Elly counted two car repair shops, a landscaper’s headquarters, and a place whose sign announced
Snowblowers are now in stock!!!

Just as they passed the sign, Cavale stopped short. “They’re up ahead.”

Past the next set of streetlights, a corrugated metal building sat in the center of a dirt lot. It was maybe thirty feet by fifty, with no windows aside from the ones on the garage door at the front. Those were painted over with black. Elly craned her neck and saw another, regular door on the side. “We should go get a better look, see how many are inside.”

“The sun’ll be up soon. We can do it then.”

“But if we go
now
, maybe we can hear who it is they’re reporting to. Whether it’s someone inside, or if they’re making a phone call.”

He was winding up with an argument, but before he could make it, he went very still. “Elly,” he said, staring at a point over her shoulder. He didn’t need to finish. She ducked and whirled, Silver and Pointy falling into her palm. She couldn’t help the smile that broke out on her face—after spending most of the day either preparing or watching Cavale do
his
thing, it felt damned good to finally be able to do
hers
.

The Creep hadn’t expected her to drop. As his momentum carried him past her, she reached out and snagged his ankle. Gravel skittered across the road as he went sprawling. Something clanged against the asphalt.
Tire iron?
Elly scuttled over to him, keeping out of range in case he sat up and swung. She could see the L-shaped rod clutched in his hand.
Yup. Tire iron.

To her side, Cavale had set down his backpack and retrieved a soda bottle filled with holy water. He loosened the cap and tossed it to her. She caught it with her free hand as the Creep pushed up onto his elbows. Now she had a dilemma: give him a good dousing, or go straight to her old standby?

Use every advantage, Eleanor.
Father Value hadn’t survived as long as he had by ignoring that rule. It wasn’t time for her to start. She gave the cap a twirl and heard it spin away along the shoulder of the road. She advanced on the Creep, the bottle in her left hand, Silver and Pointy ready in her right. The Creep was on one knee, his right leg behind him. He looked like a runner waiting for the starting pistol.

Elly wasn’t much for waiting. She squeezed the bottle, sending an arc of water out in front of her as she charged forward. The Creep sprang, too, face-first into the water. His howl of pain choked off as his skin started to smoke. This close, Elly could see the fur on his muzzle and the sharp points of his teeth as his lips pulled back. He swiped at where she’d been standing, but she’d gotten him right between the eyes. He was fighting blind.

She dodged beneath the first swipe and danced back a step as he swung the tire iron in a wide arc. It whooshed through the air less than a foot from her head. She glanced to see where Cavale was and realized they had more company. He and another Creep were circling one another like boxers. A third was jogging toward them from the corner of the building.

None were the Creeps from earlier.
Which means these ones are buying them time. For what, though?
Elly dodged another swing. She needed him to get rid of that tire iron so she could get close enough for a staking. She let her instincts guide her through the motions of fighting while she turned plausible explanations over in her head.

Dawn was coming. It made no sense (duck, sidestep, try to flank) for the Creeps to finish their briefing if there were people who could come in during the daylight and (hop back, feint, pitch the empty bottle in the other direction) kill off the rest of their nest while they slept. Creeps weren’t known for bravery and sacrifice—they wouldn’t (leap while he sniffs in the direction of the noise, raise the spike high) trap themselves in a warehouse just to get information to their betters.

So either they think these three will take us out easily—

Elly drove Silver and Pointy home right between the blinded Creep’s shoulder blades. He shrieked as the tip pierced his heart from behind. Beneath his clothes, greasy ash spread outward from the wound, leaking out from his sleeves and cuffs. The clothing held his shape a moment longer, until Elly yanked out the spike and stepped away. Everything fell in a heap.

—or these ones have been abandoned and the rest of them are busy fleeing.

She turned to see Cavale shove his Creep up against the snowblower sign. They were captured in silhouette for a second, the Creep’s neck stretching as he snapped his teeth at Cavale’s face. Then Cavale pulled a rowan stake from his belt and plunged it into the Creep’s eye. It went down yelping, cradling its head. Rowan didn’t work as fast as silver, but this one wasn’t getting up again anytime soon.

Cavale straightened and pointed across the lot. The third Creep seemed to have changed its mind about joining the fight. It loped away past the building, a man-shape running on all fours.

Elly moved over to stand with Cavale. The Creep writhed in pain at their feet. “I don’t think anything’s going to be inside that place.”

“They ought to have swarmed us, if they were defending their territory.”

“Do you think we tipped the other three off? Did they know we were following?” She looked down at the Creep. “Wait, we can just ask.”

Its good eye rolled in fear when she hunkered down beside it. The stake still protruded from its other one.

“Is anyone left in that building?” She pointed with her silver spike, making sure the light from the sign caught the metal.

The Creep moaned. “Please . . .”

“Answer me and I’ll help you. Who’s in there?”

“No one. No one! Everyone ran.” He bucked beneath her as a spasm hit. The rowan was making its way to his brain.

Not yet.
“Why did they run?”

“Alpha. Alpha said . . .” He trailed off and barked a harsh laugh.

Elly shook him, resisting the urge to twist the stake. It might wake him up, but it might do more damage and render him incapable of answering. “What did your alpha say?”

“Said. Said the leech wasn’t alone. Said . . .
Value.
”

So they know we’re here, too.
She’d never thought of herself as particularly egotistic, but she couldn’t deny the swell of pride that came with knowing she and Cavale had factored into the Creeps’ retreat.

Its speech degenerated into moans and babbling, then. Its other eye filmed over and sunk in.

Elly took Silver and Pointy and finished the job. She wiped the spike off on the bottom of her shirt, then picked up a handful of dirt from the side of the road and dry washed her hands with it. She didn’t think she’d been hit by any blood, but the ash was a pain in the ass to get off.

Cavale held up one of the bottles of holy water. “You know, you could have used this.”

“Meh. We might need that later.” She waved it away. Picking up her backpack, she headed across the lot.

The side door of the Creeps’ former nest was unlocked. She opened it carefully, in case they’d left one unlucky packmate behind for an ambush. Cavale stood directly behind her, ready with a bottle and the tire iron he’d retrieved from beside Elly’s Creep’s remains. Nothing. The place wasn’t empty, but it had clearly been abandoned. Rags were strewn everywhere. Flies buzzed atop piles of garbage. Creepscrawl covered most of the walls.

They picked through the refuse, looking for anything that might be useful. The best they found, though, were three discarded sweatshirts. Cavale held up the mirror and the rune pointed at them. He picked one of them up and ran a finger down its back. He held up a chalk-smudged digit for Elly to see. “So much for tracing them further with this.”

Dawn had lightened the sky by the time they trudged out of the nest. Elly was dead tired. They still had the trek back to Crow’s Nest ahead of them. She looked hopefully along the road, willing a car to come along so she could stick out her thumb. But the ones that did pass by kept on going. No one wanted to stop and pick up two grimy-looking kids in the wee hours. Okay,
one
grimy-looking kid. Cavale was rumpled but nowhere near as filthy. Though it probably didn’t help that he’d held on to the tire iron.

Then there came the rumbling of an engine. It had to be an older car; nothing new made that much noise. Cavale squinted uphill as the car crested it. “Son of a bitch,” he said, but he was smiling. He waved wearily at the Mustang as it approached and pulled over on the opposite side of the street.

Chaz unrolled his window. “You kids want a ride?”

They clambered in, Cavale in front, Elly in the back. It felt good to sit down and close her eyes.

“I’ve been driving around for an hour trying to find you guys. You two okay? And where the hell did you get that?” Elly cracked one eye open to see him gesturing at Cavale’s prize.

“Oh. Yeah.” Cavale held the tire iron up so Chaz could see it. “Thought maybe you could use this. As long as you’re not going to hit me with it for what the wards did.”

“Nah,” he said. “But you probably don’t want to hand it to Val. She might use it.”

Elly lifted her head up off the seat rest. “Where
is
Val? Did she have time to get home before sunrise?”

In the mirror, Chaz winced. “No, she’s, uh. She insisted I come find you and make sure you were all right.”

“So did she go to ground or something?”

The wince deepened. “She’s in the trunk, asleep.”

18

C
HAZ HAD TIME
to catch a nap and a shower after he dropped Elly and Cavale off in Crow’s Neck. They’d stopped in Edgewood first, to maneuver Val inside. Good thing she had a garage that connected to the house and had given Chaz the automatic door opener. It would’ve been awkward explaining the body-shaped bundle they’d carried inside otherwise. Plus, he’d have had to find a tarp to wrap her in, first.

As it was, they’d left her on the living room floor, covered in blankets. Val was a hundred and fifty-something pounds of dead weight, and Chaz and Cavale had taken one look at the stairs and said forget it. The floor wasn’t as comfortable as her bed, but it was carpeted, and Chaz had tucked a throw pillow beneath her head. He was pretty sure it’d beat spending the day stuffed in his trunk.

Three hours later, tired as hell but at least clean shaven and presentable, he knocked on Sunny and Lia’s door. When it opened, he was greeted not by either of the women he’d left Justin with yesterday, but instead peered down into the eyes of a young Katharine Hepburn. She could have been straight out of
Philadelphia Story
if it weren’t for the flannel pajamas and the bunny slippers.

“Chaz! Hi!” she said, in Hepburn’s smoky voice. “Come on in. Lia’s trying out Rita Hayworth.”

“Trying . . . out?” He followed the succubus inside, confused.

“Mm-hmm. Did you know Justin likes old movies? He spent most of yesterday watching one of those black-and-white-film channels. We thought we’d put on a show.”

Chaz glanced at the bunny slippers again. Whatever they were up to, it clearly wasn’t the kind of show
most
men would expect a pair of succubi to put on. When he entered the living room, Lia was in a huge fluffy bathrobe, dancing a barefoot samba across the floor. Tendrils of red hair spilled down her back, and now and then the robe would flare open, revealing a pair of perfect legs that went all the way up to . . . the hem of Lia’s running shorts.

Justin looked like he wanted to dive behind the couch. When he noticed Chaz, he sprang to his feet, relieved. “Hey, uh, you ready to go?” He dodged around Lia, who was trying to snag him for a dance. Sunny stepped into her arms instead, and the two waltzed a few steps before collapsing onto the love seat, giggling.

“You know,” said Chaz, “someone out there on the Internet would
kill
to see this.” He elbowed Justin. “You’re turning your nose up at the opportunity of a lifetime, dude.” It was amusing as hell watching the kid go from pink to tomato red. “Not like
that
. I mean, think about it. Right now, there are like a thousand fans who are feeling a sudden, overwhelming disappointment and they don’t even know why. But
I
do. And Sunny and Lia do. It’s because you were sitting there trying to meld with the furniture when you could’ve been reenacting scenes from
The Lion in Winter
. Talk about missed opportunities.”

“Oh, oh! Like this!” Sunny sat up and yanked a doily off an end table. As she tied it around her head, those sharp cheekbones softened a bit. A few strands of grey wound through her auburn hair and crow’s-feet appeared around her eyes: Hepburn at sixty. She held an imaginary necklace to her chest and intoned, “I’d hang you from the nipples, but you’d shock the children.”

Justin threw Chaz a pleading look.

“Aww, cut him some slack.” Lia dragged her fingers through her hair. With every stroke, the red faded and her usual blond streaked its way in. “He’s been a complete gentleman since you left. Even when we were being utter shits.”

“We must’ve tried to get a favorite face out of him for two hours.
Nothing.
”

“Well.” Chaz clapped a hand on Justin’s shoulder. “You might get another chance. Shit’s still getting resolved, and if Cavale can’t get the weirdness out of our boy here this afternoon, we might need him to stay another night.”

There was a gasp from his side. Justin ducked away from him. “Don’t I get a say?”

He grimaced. “Right now? No, you don’t. And I’m sorry for that, but these things don’t fuck around and we don’t know what they’re up to right now.”

“I thought you had a plan. I thought you guys were fixing things. Like, you know. Me.”

“We are.”

“But?”

“But we need more time.”

Lia padded over to them. While Chaz and Justin were arguing, she’d reverted the rest of the way back to her regular face. It was probably why Justin allowed her to straighten his tie. All of her previous flirtation was gone as she smoothed out his collar and brushed a piece of lint—or maybe cat hair from their evil fucking cat that was lurking around somewhere—from his shoulder. “You’re welcome here anytime.”

“Yeah.” Sunny unwrapped the doily from around her head. She ducked behind the lace for a second, and when she emerged, Katharine Hepburn had made her exit. “You did the dishes last night. Dishes
suck
.”

As hard as Justin tried to look miserable, he couldn’t resist a little grin. “I’m your guest. It’s just polite.”

“Yeah, well, if you can’t figure out what to do with your English degree after you graduate, we’d be happy to hire you on. You can recite Shakespeare while you dust.”

“Well, um. I’ll keep it in mind. Thank you.”

Lia beamed at Justin. When she turned the smile on Chaz, it seemed to say,
See? This is how it’s done.

That settled, Justin and Chaz set out for the Clearwaters’ funeral Mass. They were partway down the street when Justin started twisting around in his seat to peer into the back.

“I promise you,” said Chaz, “there aren’t any succubi hiding in the back waiting to jump out and torture you.”

“It’s not that,” he said, his nose crinkling. “What the hell did you have in here? It smells like wet dog.”

Chaz sniffed. All he got was a noseful of his and Justin’s aftershaves and the mineral oil he used to protect the Mustang’s seats. “I don’t smell anything.”

“How can you not? It’s, like, everywhere.” Justin was leaning halfway into the backseat now, his seat belt off so he could get a better angle.

“If I have to slam on the brakes, you’re going right through the windshield. You know how much that’d cost to replace?”

“You really can’t smell it? It’s even worse back here.” He squirmed around to the front again, though, and dutifully buckled up. “It’s really nasty.”

That was when Chaz got a better look at Justin. His nose was high in the air and he turned his head this way and that, trying to catch the scent. It might’ve seemed funny, if he hadn’t been witnessing Val doing the same damned thing for the last five years. “Oh, shit, dude.”

That brought Justin’s nose back to normal-people level. “What?”

“I, uh. I think you might be smelling the Jackals. They were in here last night.”

Justin blinked. “But that . . . Why would I be able to smell them when you can’t?”

Chaz didn’t have to answer that one. Dismay spread across Justin’s features as it came to him.

“Oh.”

“It’ll probably go away when Cavale gets that shit out of you. It’s just some sort of, I don’t know. Psychic side effect.” This was one of the disadvantages to being a minion whose vampire avoided others of her kind. The Boston Renfields were better versed in magical dealings because they were surrounded by it twenty-four-fucking-seven. Nine times out of ten, it just made them even more pretentious. But right now, this one time, it would’ve been nice to be able to put more authority behind his assertion.

Justin peered at him. He seemed to be on the brink of more questions, but he let it go. “Sunny and Lia are nice,” he said, blessedly changing the subject.

Chaz grinned. “Yeah? They didn’t fuck with you too much?”

“Nah. I mean, they teased me a lot at dinner but not in a mean way.”

“Good.”

“Well, except when in the middle of trying to pick my crushes out of my head, Sunny turned into my mom.”

Chaz snorted. “They got you with the Oedipus trick, huh?”

“They did it to you, too?”

“Oh God yeah. They think it’s hilarious.” It had been Lia, not Sunny, but they’d played the same game with him when they’d first met. High school girlfriends, college flings, a couple of hot professors he’d had, then, smack in the middle of the cute customers list, bam. Chaz’ mother. “Don’t worry,” he told Justin, “they really were just fucking with you. You don’t actually want to bone your mom, subconsciously or otherwise. At least, probably not.”

One thing he’d been grateful for, and hadn’t even realized until after the giggling had stopped and they’d moved on to a game of Scrabble: they’d never once turned into Val.

 • • • 

T
HE CHURCH WAS
packed when they arrived. Every pew was filled, students and faculty crammed together like sardines. Chaz and Justin were prepared to stand in the back, but before they could find a spot, the head of the English department found them and ushered Justin (and thus Chaz) to a pew closer to the front. They’d set aside a section for Professor Clearwater’s grad students.

Chaz hated to think it, but it was nice to sit down, after being up all night and catching an inadequate nap. Especially since the day wasn’t likely to get much easier. And tonight . . .

He’d think about that later.

The Mass went smoothly and, to Chaz’ tired brain, quickly. A lot of the crowd thinned out afterward, most of the students opting to go back to campus rather than attending the graveside service. But Justin wanted to go, and Chaz wasn’t going to deny the kid. He looked rough, as if
he’d
been the one running around all last night.

Justin was quiet as they pulled into the line of cars that comprised the procession, staring out the window and watching his classmates go about their days. At the first stoplight, Chaz was concentrating on making sure an asshole in an SUV didn’t cut off the rest of the line. It took him a minute to realize Justin’s shoulders were shaking. He caught a glimpse of Justin’s reflection, and the tears flowing down his cheeks. “Hey, man, you okay?”

Justin swallowed hard a couple of times before answering. “Yeah, I just. I’m sorry. It just hits me now and then.”

Chaz reached over and gave him an awkward sort of bro-pat. He wished Val were there. She was so much better at this shit. “It’s okay. That’s gonna happen. There’s, uh, well. I don’t think I have any tissues, but there ought to be some napkins in the glove box, if you want them.”

“Thanks.” He popped it open and pulled out a handful of bright yellow fast-food napkins to dab at his eyes and blow his nose with. By the time they reached the cemetery, he was mostly composed again, though he’d shoved a couple of dry ones into the pocket of his dress pants, just in case.

Edgewood Cemetery was a pretty place, with rolling hills and well-kept plots. The trees scattered about blazed with color, but hardly any leaves carpeted the ground. In another section of the cemetery, Chaz could hear the rhythmic whisper of groundskeepers’ rakes as they tried keeping ahead of autumn’s organic litter. But here, near the Clearwaters’ side-by-side graves, all was quiet except for the shuffling of feet and the soft sound of mourners sniffling. The priest, a round-faced, greying man with a full, neatly trimmed beard uttered the benedictions somberly, then invited the Clearwaters’ family and friends to come and take flowers from the many arrangements that had been sent in remembrance.

Chaz hung back, letting the immediate family pay their final respects. He wanted to take a couple of iris buds back to Val; she would have been here, if it weren’t for the whole sun-killing-her thing. He nudged Justin, who was still standing beside him. “You can go on up, if you want. You were close to him.”

But Justin wasn’t paying attention. He wasn’t even facing the caskets.

He’d turned away, sniffing the air again. He was up on his toes, like he was trying to get higher for a better shot at the scent.

“Justin? What’s going on?”

After half a minute or so, at the point where Chaz was about to give him as subtle a shake as he could to get a response, Justin lowered himself back onto his heels and looked up at Chaz, troubled. “I smelled it again. Wet dog.”

Chaz turned in a slow circle, as if he were admiring the view the Clearwaters would have from their eternal resting places. Really, he was looking for anyone that seemed out of place, even a mourner in a too-big hat. But there was nothing to be seen. He put on his best
everything’s cool
smile and mustered what little certainty he could find. “Probably a real one, kid. People bring their dogs here all the time. Maybe Spot got a bath before walkies.”