Night Owls (25 page)

Ivanov didn’t seem to have picked up on Cavale’s agitation. “The man who raised you two was a font of knowledge
before
the Brotherhood threw him out. He trained recruits for decades, and his protégés were among the most successful. Then there was a falling-out. I’ve not been privy to the exact details, but let us say he wanted to try tactics more extreme than the Brotherhood had the stomach for.

“They turned their backs on him, but not before they tried taking his two wards away from him. He . . . refused.”

One of her earliest memories was of being in their room, in the dark. She’d been curled up against Cavale, listening to raised voices on the other side of the door. One of them was Father Value’s. She remembered their door opening, the light spilling in to reveal an unfamiliar silhouette. Then the darkness had bubbled up like ink and engulfed the figure.

She’d always thought the last part might have been a dream, but from Cavale’s grimace, she now knew it wasn’t. “He killed them, didn’t he? The ones who came to take us?”

Cavale nodded. “He was chanting something. He’d lain wards to keep the Creeps away, but I think he activated them on the people who tried to come into our room. We did a lot of running, after that.”

“He never stopped learning, did he?” said Ivanov. “I’ve somewhat of a fondness for rare books, myself, and there were more than a few times I caught wind of one, only to learn he’d found it a week or a day before I had. Once, it was by a handful of hours.”

Elly had accompanied Father Value on the occasional book hunt, and knew at least a few of the hidey-holes where he’d stashed his precious tomes. Over the last few days, she’d toyed with the idea of retrieving and selling some of the less dangerous ones if she needed money. Perhaps she’d find a buyer in Ivanov.

“So what’s your proposal?” asked Cavale.

“Merely that you make yourselves available to me, should the need arise. I’m willing to pay you a monthly retainer. You can do as you please most of the time, but if I call upon you, I will expect the job to get done promptly.”

“I already have a job.”

“Yes. You read tarot cards to gullible, tittering housewives. How exciting.”

Cavale let the insult pass. “That’s what I do for pocket change. I meant my real job.”

“You’ve done quite well for yourself, vanquishing the local beasties. I’m not asking you to stop, Mr. Evans. Merely to make me your priority client.”

Cavale didn’t respond. Ivanov turned to Elly. “And yourself?”

“I’ll do it.”

That
got Cavale to sit up. “Elly—”

“I said I’ll do it. Will you promise to send help when the Creeps come back for Justin? They’re going to be plenty pissed about what we did tonight. If they don’t come back and try again tomorrow, I’ll have my spike melted down.” She stuck out her hand to shake, her sleeve pulling back to reveal said spike’s tip peeking out against her wrist. “We’ll need the backup.”

Ivanov didn’t bother with a dramatic pause. He stood and shook. His stone-cold hand eclipsed hers. She could feel the power in his grip; if he wanted to crush her bones to dust, he could. But he didn’t, smiling magnanimously as he settled back in his chair. “Good, good. You have my word, we’ll come to your aid should you need it. Mr. Evans, I hope you’ll consider the offer as well. Sleep on it, perhaps.” He pulled a ledger and a pen from his drawer and set them aside. “Now, I have some figuring to do, and you’ve a missing person to find. Go, and tell Valerie I hope her Charles is safe.”

 • • • 

C
AVALE FUMED SILENTLY
until they were on the highway. Elly watched Boston recede in the mirror, steeling herself for the argument. When it came, though, he didn’t yell.

He sighed, which was so much worse.

“I know why you’re taking his offer.”

She sucked in a breath to answer, but he held up a hand.

“Elly, you have a place to stay. I’m not . . . I’m not going to throw you out. You can crash with me as long as you want.”

“I’m not going to leech off you.”

“So do something closer to Crow’s Neck.”

“What, get a real job? Can you imagine me behind a desk? Cavale, I’d stab someone with a pen in the first week. Or even flipping burgers? I’d boil someone’s head in french fry oil. Then you’d be bailing me out.”

“So take cases with me. We can branch out, cover more of the state. Hell, you could write our shopping lists and I’d consider it rent well earned.” He changed lanes, glancing at her as the streetlights splashed over her face. “You don’t have to work for the vampires.”

“No, I don’t
have
to, but it’s not a bad offer, either. Think about it—they find Creeps and point us right at them? It’s what I want to do anyway. They’re just doing the research for me.”

“And what if it’s not Creeps he points you at? What if he sends you after the other colonies? You heard Val; turf wars aren’t something you want to be in the middle of.”

She reached over and patted his arm. “I’ll be okay. I promise. I’m a big girl now.”

“Yeah, well. I’m still your big brother. I can’t help worrying.” He paused as if weighing whether to say more. She had to strain to hear him when he spoke again. “I never stopped worrying about you.”

Tears pricked at her eyes. The chain of streetlights ended, and Elly was grateful for the darkness. She bit her lip to keep from sniffling.

Cavale’s cell phone chirped in the center console, saving her from the burden of an awkward reply. Elly picked it up and read the name on the caller ID. “It’s Val.” She hit the speaker button and said hello.

The other woman sounded upset. “Bitch’s trail went cold. I don’t know where she took him.”

Elly and Cavale exchanged a look. Creeps weren’t known for taking hostages. Val had to know that, too, but better not to say it out loud.

“Sit tight,” said Cavale. “We’re on the way home. We’ll do some scrying when we get there and we’ll find him, okay?”

“Fuck,” Val said, and, “Okay.
Fuck.
” Then she cut the call.

Cavale stepped on the gas. The Mustang roared toward home.

25

C
HAZ WOKE UP
feeling like he’d been kicked in the head. Come to think of it, maybe he had been. He remembered driving down Val’s street, planning to roll through the stop sign then gun it onto the main road, when his headlights picked a person out of the early evening gloom. He’d jammed on the brakes, swearing. Then he’d seen the face peering in his window.

Bitch.

The last thing he could recall was her yanking him out of the car by his left arm. When he moved it now, the muscles twinged.
Now I know how taffy feels after it’s been pulled.

He sat up to squint at his surroundings. A bolt of pain shot through his skull as he did so, a headache settling in on its heels.
Do I have a concussion? Shit.
He peeled his eyes open again, trying not to look at the sunlight coming in around the raggedy, yellowed window shade.

The room was mostly bare. A bed with a lumpy, stained mattress took up one corner. Even with the crick in his neck and general achiness from spending the night on the floor, he was glad they hadn’t deposited him on the bed. God only knew how many different kinds of bugs were living in it. Against the wall beside the door were the busted-up remnants of a dresser. He couldn’t be certain that someone had been thrown into it—
no, through it
—but there was a rust-colored dent in the wall behind it at about head height.

Dust covered the floorboards. When Chaz brushed some away with the side of his hand, he uncovered an unpleasant-looking stain. Whether it was blood or Jackal ichor, he didn’t know. Still, he didn’t feel like sitting in a puddle of it anymore, no matter how old it was.

He got creakily to his feet, taking longer to stand up than an arthritic old man. The headache pulsed a warning at his being completely upright. He closed his eyes again and just stood there, taking slow, deep breaths until the pounding eased a bit. He could smell dust and old paint, stale bacon grease and body odor. There was the musty smell of a house that’s been shut up for a while, and beneath it, something animal and rancid, like the rodents had moved in and made themselves at home while the owners were away.

Not rodents. Jackals.

Val might have been able to pick up their rotten meat smell a mile away, but Chaz had learned they exuded it when you were close to them, too. Rotten meat and pencil shavings, that was, and he could smell both.

This is their nest, then. I’ll have a fuck of a time getting out. Unless.
He shuffled over to the window, flinging an arm across his eyes as he lifted the shade. When he was relatively certain he could open his eyes without the brightness stabbing into his brain, he peeked.

Damn.

Crudely welded bars crisscrossed the window frame. From what he could see, even if he could pry them off, it was a hell of a drop to the ground. He was three stories up with no convenient trees or garage roofs for him to drop down onto.

But . . . it was
daylight
. It had to be nine, maybe ten o’clock. If there had been any Jackals standing guard last night, they were down for the count. He’d be like Sylvester in one of those old cartoons, tiptoeing past the sleeping, snoring bulldog.

Chaz grinned as he crossed the room to try the handle of the rickety-looking door. Even if they had him locked in, he could probably kick it open or see if it would give way with a few good shoulder blows. If they slept anything like Val did during the day, you could set a bomb off beside them and they wouldn’t notice.

Still, better to be armed. He picked through the rubble that had been a dresser and found a good two-foot-long section he could use as a bat if need be. The end was pointed, but probably not sharp enough to use as a stake. Plus, it wasn’t very likely the dresser had been made from rowan wood. Even if he could impale a Jackal with it, he’d probably only piss it off.

To his surprise, the doorknob turned easily. The hinges groaned as he opened the door enough to peek out into the hallway. Across from him was another closed door. To his left were more bedrooms. To the right he could see the newel post at the top of the stairs.
Right. Down and out, here we go.
One slow step at a time, he slipped out of the room, shifting his weight from one foot to the other only when he was sure the floor wouldn’t creak beneath him. Halfway there, and no interruptions. Three-quarters and still safe.

Then, as he neared the stairs, a toilet flushed behind the door to his right. Chaz scuttled away, so his back was against the wall opposite. He didn’t have time to run back to the bedroom, and if he broke for the stairs he risked being shoved down them. He held his makeshift stave up like Babe Ruth about to swing for the fences and waited for the door to open.

The kid came out, zipping his fly and adjusting his package. He was tall and scraggly looking, the kind of chunky where you couldn’t tell if it was fat or muscle underneath until either you hit him or he hit you. His Slayer tee shirt and jeans had both been black, once upon a time, but now they were a dingy grey. His eyes were bright blue and wide with surprise.

They’re not yellow. This dude’s not a Jackal.
He almost checked his swing until he realized, Jackal or not, Slayer here had been taking a piss three doors down from where Chaz had been shut up. Which meant he was in on it, somehow.

Fuck this guy.

The stave made a satisfying low
whoosh
as it arced at Slayer’s head, but unfortunately for Chaz, the other man got his hand off his junk fast enough to bring his arm up and block the blow. His forearm took the impact, then he twisted his hand around and got a grip on it, wrenching the stave out of Chaz’ grasp. He tossed it aside and sent it skittering down the hall. Then, bellowing, he charged forward.

Yeah, there was muscle under the flab.

Chaz hit the wall with a dull thud and felt the breath
whuff
out of his lungs. The headache flared again, reminding him that yes, it was still there, matter of fact, have some stars to go with that head crack. Getting oxygen back was a struggle, made all the harder by Slayer keeping him pinned in place with that thick forearm against his chest. Over his agonized air sucking, Chaz heard footsteps pounding up the stairs. Slayer was holding a shouted conversation with someone, but Chaz figured it was more important to devote his energy to staying conscious than anything else.

The stars receded, and by the time he was able to draw a shaky kind of breath, Slayer had been joined by two others: a skinny girl of seventeen or so, wearing a flannel shirt about six sizes too big, and an Irish-looking kid whose nose crooked to the right, probably the product of several bar fights. All three of them watched him, waiting for him to compose himself. The girl looked bored, picking at a loose thread on her shirt. The Irish kid kept his eyes on Chaz’ hands, as if he expected him to pull a knife or a gun out of thin air. Slayer reminded Chaz of his junior high guidance counselor—the kind of person who could ask you a question and sit in unnerving silence waiting for an answer. And apparently the kind who wasn’t afraid to slam kids into lockers when they got out of line.

Just like Mr. Baker.

Slayer spoke first, his voice surprisingly gentle for such a bruiser. “If I let you go, can you stand?”

Chaz bobbed his head, though he wasn’t a hundred percent sure he could actually
stay
standing. His head throbbed like some kind of gremlin had been shoved inside and decided it wanted out.

“More importantly, if I let you go, will you promise not to try anything stupid?”

“Define stupid.”

Slayer sighed. “If you’re going to hit any of us, or try to run, you’re gonna be in a world of hurt. I’d rather you be reasonable about this.”

Reasonable?
“Fuck you, buddy. Your people
kidnapped
me, and you’re helping them keep me here. You want me to be reasonable? Suck my dick.” He wished he could muster up the spit for a good bit of dramatic punctuation, but his mouth was dry. The last thing he could remember drinking had been a can of soda on the way to Val’s last night.

“We can always tie you to the bed in there until sunset. Doesn’t matter to me, really. You guys?” His companions shook their heads. “Or we can be nice about it. Beth can make some breakfast for you, and Sean and I will help you get down the stairs. How’s that sound instead?”

Chaz thought about the stained mattress back in the other room. He could risk bedbugs or be cooperative and maybe get another chance at escaping. His stomach growled, making the decision for him. “Okay, fine. I’ll behave.” He wobbled a moment when Slayer eased him back to the ground, but he didn’t keel over.

Beth headed down ahead of them. When she reached the first landing, Slayer and Sean each took one of Chaz’ elbows and guided him along. He thought about trying to shrug them off and make a break for it, but now that he was moving at a normal clip, wooziness and nausea were setting in. He’d be lucky to make it to the kitchen without hurling.

That, and when Sean had moved forward to take hold of him, Chaz had caught a glimpse of the gun tucked into his waistband. Useful to know for later, maybe, when he wasn’t seeing double.

The good news was, he made it all the way downstairs without puking on anyone’s shoes. Once they lowered him onto a chair, his stomach stopped flip-flopping and went back to growling. The kitchen wasn’t any improvement on the rest of the place: paint peeled from the cabinets, water stains trailed down the walls, a film of grease covered everything in the room, and Chaz could smell the mold rotting out the floor beneath the sink.

“Breakfast” turned out to be toast and cereal. The bread was stale, the butter just shy of rancid. He choked that down, then turned to the Lucky Charms Beth had set in front of him. Good news: they were in one of those individual-serving cups, sealed away from the squalor in this place. Bad news: he didn’t have the option of eating them dry. Beth had opened them for him and drowned them in reconstituted milk. It might not have been so bad if the tap water she’d used to mix it didn’t taste like rust.

Still, it was food, and he’d probably—
probably
—eaten worse in his college days. He didn’t know how long he’d be here if he didn’t get a chance to attempt an escape, so it seemed prudent to eat now and build up some strength.

Slayer, whose name it turned out was Tom, produced a bottle of aspirin. “I’m sorry about knocking you against the wall up there, man,” he said. “Just, you know. You were kind of trying to take my head off with a—what was that? A bed slat?”

“Part of a dresser.” Chaz shook three pills out into his palm, thought about it, then added a fourth. He knocked them back with a swallow of rusty water from his glass. He tried finding a spot that didn’t have grimy fingerprints on it, but had to settle for wiping the lip with his sleeve and praying no one had anything contagious. “So, uh.” He looked around. Beth slouched against the counter. Her cigarette more interesting than her hostage. Sean had disappeared off into another part of the house as soon as he realized Chaz wasn’t going to go all secret badass on them. “I guess this is the nest?”

Slayer—
Tom, gotta remember since I seem to be my own hostage negotiator
—nodded. “It is for now.”

“It’s awfully bright for . . . oh. There we go.” He pointed to a door next to the one they’d brought him through. Someone had scrawled “Do Not Open” on the back of a flyer and tacked it up there. “I guess there’s something nasty in the basement, huh?”

“A lot of something nasties.”

He heard the threat behind it, but didn’t react. A basement full of Jackals would only be a problem when night fell. He’d revisit it in six or seven hours if he was still here. For now, Tom, Beth, and Sean were his main concerns. “So what keeps you guys here?”

Tom frowned, puzzled. “How do you mean?”

“I mean, look around.” Chaz waved his hand around the dirty kitchen. “This place is falling apart. I’m guessing you scrape together whatever you can to feed yourselves, or maybe you have to live off whatever’s in their victims’ wallets. How is this any kind of life?”

Up until now Beth had been staring off into space, so zoned out Chaz wondered what she was on. At his question she finally came alive. And she was pissed. She launched herself away from the counter to come stick a finger in his face. Dirt was caked under her nail; the edges of it were ragged, bitten. “They’re going to make us what they are! We would’ve been like them two days ago, if it weren’t for you and your people
stealing
it from us.”