Night Owls (27 page)

It meant he needed a new tactic, then. No way she’d put her husband in danger for him. “Listen. I have friends who can help, okay? Got a vampire, couple of succubi, and like I said, two kids who used to be in the Brotherhood. Or were trained by a Brother, something like that. Help me out now and I swear to God, I’ll make sure we come back for you and your husband. Please.”

Footsteps started down the hall. “You two plotting in there?” Sean’s voice was thick from talking with his mouth full.

Chaz ignored him. “Please. I’m trying to save a kid’s life here, too. But I can’t help either of you if they’ve got me over a barrel like this. Please.”

She paused, watching him. Her shoulders lost some of their hunch. “I can’t get you out, but I’ll see what I can do before I leave.”

Chaz sat back, adopting as casual a pose as he could before Sean entered the room. “Sorry,” he said. “I was just asking her how she does all this. You’ve gotta admit, it’s kind of unreal.”

The Irish kid stared hard at them both; a smear of peanut butter clung to his bottom lip. He clearly wasn’t buying it, but since Marian had gone back to chanting and slicing off bits of dead skin from her patient’s face, he had no proof of shenanigans. He looked sort of disappointed.

 • • • 

I
T WAS NEARLY
sunset when Marian finished healing the last of the victims. Chaz wasn’t left alone with her again; Sean made sure of that. Marian took her time cleaning up her tools and repacking her tackle box while Tom and Beth escorted the last kid out of the sick room. At last, she got stiffly to her feet and approached Chaz and Sean, who were loitering near the door. She darted a timid glance at Sean. “Caleb told me to look at him before I went home.”

Sean huffed, but didn’t argue. “Go on, then.”

Marian took Chaz’ hands in hers, like they were lovers reluctant to say good-bye. She pressed something small and smooth and hard into his left palm.
One of her little vials?
Marian’s middle fingers rested on each of his wrists, her touch feather-like against the thin skin. Her fingertips were slick with oil; Chaz thought he smelled myrrh. She traced patterns there as she looked up into Chaz’ eyes.

“He’s all right,” she said, after a moment. She let him go, and he felt warmth spread across his wrists as the sigil settled in. “No concussion.” The headache ebbed a bit.

Luckily, Sean had been watching their faces, not their hands. Chaz pocketed the vial as carefully as he could and stepped back.

“Good. Diane’ll be happy.” Sean pulled a pair of crumpled twenties out of his pocket and passed them to Marian.

Chaz boggled. “That’s it? Forty bucks? She healed the
shit
out of your people. She . . . fuck, she
undisfigured
them, and the most they left you to give her is
that
?”

Sean shrugged. “I just do what I’m told. You want to argue the point, they’re waking up.”

Marian shook her head in warning. “No, it’s fine. It’s enough. It’s what’s left over after room and board.”

“Room and—”
Her husband.
The Jackal motherfuckers were keeping her husband hostage and
charging
her for it.
If I ever meet this alpha, I’m kicking him in the balls.
For now, though, Chaz bit his tongue. He didn’t want to get Marian or her husband in trouble.

A female Jackal appeared in the doorway, looking sleep mussed but still dangerous. She sneered at Chaz before she addressed Marian. “Let’s go.”

“I’m ready,” said Marian, retrieving the tackle box from where she’d set it down. She gave Chaz one last nod. “Good luck to you.” She bustled past them both and scurried to the front door.

That was when Tom came down the hall, grimacing. “Diane’s awake. She says it’s time to go.”

 • • • 

T
HE WHOLE PLACE
reeked of rotten meat and refuse, of blood and ash, of myrrh and rosewater. The first two teams had cleared the way through the upper floors, but the majority of the nest had fallen back to the basement and barricaded themselves in. That’s when the Councilmen had called in Val’s team.

The six of them should have been enough: two vampires, Val and Clara, who after eighty years still kept her coal black hair in a flapper bob; Angelo and Charlotte, Renfields the women had chosen from the Brotherhood’s ranks; and the twins, Kelly and Delilah, who had been full Sisters for over three decades. They were closer than most real families, had probably survived unscathed as much as they had because they were just that damned good together.

They descended in pairs, each checking that the way was clear and covering as the next two moved ahead. It was clean and textbook, just the way Angelo had learned it during his time with the LAPD SWAT team. The smell got worse with every landing; some of the blood spatters belonged to their friends. At least the previous teams had taken the bodies out with them when they’d retreated. They wouldn’t leave their own behind for the Jackals to desecrate.

Or recruit.

The last door waited, marked
Private and Keep Out
, with a stomach-churning line of the Jackals’ script scrawled beneath in red.

“It says ‘Leeches go away.’” Clara smirked back at Val. “Looks like we’d better give up. They don’t want our kind around here.” She dipped a finger in the writing, and took a sniff. “No, wait. This is Davenport’s blood. I liked him. Fuck these guys, let’s kill them.”

Charlotte needed no further prodding. She traced a sigil around the keyhole and took a step back. Then she brought her leg up and planted a solid kick just beneath. The door swung open, slamming dully against the wall inside. The room beyond was pitch-black, even to Val’s preternatural vision.

“The hell?” said Clara, sniffing the air. “It’s empty.”

“Can’t be.” Kelly pushed past, the scent of myrrh trailing after her. Her hands, already glowing from the runes Delilah had painted on them with henna that morning, flared as she crossed the threshold.

Then the darkness took her.

 • • • 

V
AL WOKE WITH
their screams ringing in her ears. Ten years gone and it still felt like something had been ripped out of her, the wound left raw and ragged. It had been years since she’d dreamed of them—years since she’d dreamed at all.
The last time was the night I took Chaz as my Renfield.

Because even though she knew she needed one, and even though Chaz was exactly
who
she needed, the idea of losing another had terrified her so much she’d had nightmares.

And now here she was again, on the cusp of losing not only Chaz, but Cavale and Elly and Justin, too. The Clearwaters had already died because she’d failed to protect them. What about her friends? What about Sunny and Lia and the lives they’d built here in Edgewood?

They can take care of themselves; they’ve been doing it for centuries. The others are still safe for now. Worry about Chaz first.
The voice in her head chastising her wasn’t her own, but Angelo’s. He’d been their voice of reason.

He’d been
her
voice of reason.

“I wish you’d known him,” she whispered, though she didn’t know if she was talking to Angelo or Chaz. “You two would’ve liked each other.”

Val heaved herself out of bed and headed downstairs, checking the messages on her cell phone as she went. The stone that had taken up residence in her stomach since Chaz’ disappearance grew heavier as she listened to Cavale’s report. They hadn’t found him yet. They were still looking. The trail was as cold for them as it had been for her.

The mail was scattered across the foyer floor. Most days, Chaz stopped in during the afternoon and sorted through it for her, leaving the important bills on the hall table. Val scooped it up absently, more to move it out of her path than to see what was due. A familiar logo stopped her cold: the bookstore’s owl with his wide-eyed gaze peeked out at her from behind the gas bill. It wasn’t a flyer, but a bookmark.

On the back, where they’d left space for customers to jot notes to themselves, were two sentences:

What is yours for what is ours.

Ten o’clock.

27

E
LLY PEERED THROUGH
the window and into the darkened bookstore. Val had called them a couple hours ago, saying she was heading to the store and getting everyone the hell out, that they should sharpen their stakes and meet her there. She’d mentioned the note they’d left her: the nest was on its way, and they needed to be ready.

Even more unnerving: the whole damned street was deserted, the other businesses buttoned up tight. It was a perfect autumn night—clear skies, a bit of a chill in the air but nothing too bad—and yet no one was out for a stroll along this quaint stretch of road. Elly was fairly certain this wasn’t the succubi’s doing, but she couldn’t feel other magic at play, either. She didn’t trust it, but then again, if it kept the civilians out of their hair for the coming brawl, maybe she ought not to try too hard to see the teeth in this particular gift horse’s mouth.

The bookstore’s sign was flipped over to Closed. A typed note was taped below the sleepy owl:
Closed due to water main break. We’ll reopen tomorrow.
The door was locked, but Justin had his keys with him. He led Elly and Cavale in, picking his way carefully around displays and furniture. Feeble light came in from the streetlamps, enough to keep them from tripping and breaking their necks, but not enough to see very well beyond that.

“What the hell is he doing here?”

Val’s voice snapped from somewhere down back. Justin jerked away, colliding into Elly and trodding none too delicately on her foot.

Cavale set down his duffel bag full of stakes and holy water and addressed the direction her voice had come from. The lights were off back there, too, except for the pale fluorescent glow coming from beneath the office door. Everything was shrouded in gloom. “He insisted on coming.”

“Insisted” was putting it mildly. There’d been an epic-scale shouting match, actually, which Justin had won. Elly had spent the last few hours teaching him how not to impale himself on a stake. Now they’d just have to hope that training stuck if a Creep got close enough.

There was a thud from off to the left, away from the back room door. Elly could make out the shape of another door back there, presumably the rare books room where Justin had taken his first peek at the Creeps’ spell book. There wasn’t much of anywhere to hide back there.
Was she clinging to the ceiling before we came in?

Before Elly could get a gander at the ceiling tiles to see if there were claw marks, Val was stalking down the aisle toward them. Her stride said she was walking, but to Elly it looked like someone had sped up the film. “And
I
told you to leave him with Sunny and Lia.”

“I’m right here.” Justin’s shoulders had lost their cringing slope as Val got closer. His voice trembled a bit, but it was an even bet whether it was from anger or fear of back talking a pissed-off vampire.

Elly thought about putting a hand on his arm and reining him in, but Cavale caught her eye and shook his head.

Justin stepped forward, past Cavale. “You can stop talking like I’m not in the room. I told them I was coming, and if they’d left me behind, I would’ve climbed out a window and walked over by myself.”

Val kept coming at that eerie gait until she was nose to nose with Justin. To his credit, he stood his ground. “They were supposed to get you out of town,” she said. “It’s not going to be an exchange.”

“Why not? They took Chaz, Val. They aren’t fucking around.”

“They weren’t fucking around last night, either.” She glowered down at him, nostrils flaring. “I thought you would have noticed that, what with all the fighting.”

“So why let it escalate?” He turned to Elly, looking for help. “What was it you told me Father Value said to do when you were cornered?”

Elly winced. It had come out earlier today, when they were driving around looking for Chaz’ trail. Justin had asked for a lesson in Creeps 101, and she’d gone over the basics. Including the rule both she and Father Value had been breaking since the night they’d yanked this book from beneath an altar: “If you’re cornered,” she recited, “give them what they want and get out of there.”

“That. Exactly.” He turned back to Val, ready to declare a triumph of logic, but Elly kept talking.

“It doesn’t work like that. Not this time.” She stepped around him, putting herself on Val’s side both literally and figuratively. “They might not try drawing a circle around you and getting it out with a ritual like we did. They might just do it the easier way.”

“There’s an easier way?”

“Kill you and it will hop to one of them. An energy like that, its instinct is to reach its own kind. You were the closest thing around when you released it from the book, so it didn’t have any choice. But if they release it from you when one of theirs is right there waiting to receive it, it’ll make a beeline for the more compatible host.”

“. . . oh.” He thought for a moment. “But what if it doesn’t work? Then they don’t have the knowledge either. What good is that?”

“If they don’t want to risk losing it, they could always keep you until they figure it out. Chained up. Probably starving. Beaten, too, in case you try resisting them . . .”

Val pinched the bridge of her nose. “That’s enough. You’re here now, and it’s quarter to ten. Too late to send you back.” She glanced out the front window. Elly followed her gaze. Nothing moved outside. “I assume Sunny and Lia are coming, too, then?”

“They said they’d be here,” Cavale said.

“. . . it’s like you summoned us.” Sunny’s voice came from everywhere and nowhere.

Elly whirled, trying to pinpoint it anyway, but the four of them were the only people in the store.
No, wait.
The shadows were deepest by the rare books room, probably why Val had been lurking back there, too. But now, instead of lying flat and uniform, like shadows ought to do, the darkness
writhed
. It licked up the walls like tongues of black flame, then subsided, leaving behind two feminine silhouettes.

Sunny and Lia sauntered forward, the shadows slipping away. Once they were away from that corner of the store, they became incredibly easy to spot. Both of them were wrapped in bright white bathrobes from neck to ankles. The hilts of their keris knives peeked out from the robes’ deep pockets. They were in their demon forms again, beautiful and terrifying at the same time.

“We didn’t know if anyone else would be here,” Lia said. “Figured maybe it would be bad form to show up stark naked from the get-go.”

“Kind of a dead giveaway that we’re not, you know, normal,” Sunny added, as if Lia’s twilight-colored skin or her own seven-foot stature might go unnoticed. “Who else is joining the party?”

For a moment, Elly thought Val was going to chew out the succubi for not adhering to the plan. Then she seemed to recognize the futility of arguing about it now and simply sighed.
Maybe she was tucking the yelling away for later.

“I don’t know,” said Val. “Ivanov hasn’t returned my calls.”

An awkward pause descended, as everyone avoided saying what they were thinking. They’d nearly been overwhelmed last night. There was no way the Creeps wouldn’t show up without an even stronger force tonight, and Night Owls wasn’t warded against them the way Sunny and Lia’s house had been.

The sound of the duffel bag unzipping made them all jump. Cavale tossed a piece of chalk to Elly, then gestured at the bag. “You guys go ahead and line up the stakes and holy water on the counter. We’ll get at least a few wards in place.” He nodded at Elly and set off toward the rear of the store. Elly headed for the front, wondering if Val had anything she could use to write on the plate glass window itself. One big rune to say
fuck you
to the Creeps.

She pulled up short three steps away from the window. “Uh, guys?”

Bitch stood on the other side, one hand around Chaz’ throat, the other waving cheerily. Elly squinted. There was something wrong with the light. It took her a second to realize what it was: Bitch and Chaz should’ve been lit from above by the streetlights. Instead, the light splashed over them from the front, bright white instead of amber, more like someone had a car’s high beams trained on them.

Then they disappeared.

Val was beside her. She’d been by the register an eye blink ago. She sniffed at the air, then strode over to the door, yanked it open, and stuck her head out. “They’re not here yet,” she said, pulling back in, “but they’re close. I can smell them now.” She stood there for a moment, staring out at the night. The confidence she’d had since Elly had met her had fled. Her shoulders hunched; her hands clasped and unclasped. Worry was written in every line of her body. When she spoke, Elly almost didn’t hear. “Did he look all right?”

She thought about it. No use softening what she’d glimpsed in those few seconds. “Pissed off, mostly. But his nose was bleeding, and I think he has a black eye.”

Val straightened up and lifted her chin. Anger replaced the worry in her stance, until that deceitfully lazy grace was back. “They’ll pay for that.”

Fury is an acceptable substitute for bravery.
It had been one of Father Value’s favorites. “They will.” She resisted the urge to pat Val’s arm—she’d never been so hot at the whole reassuring thing, anyway. Instead, she took up her chalk and got to work on setting the runes.

Five minutes later, as she was laying the last of the hastily drawn set, the first hulking shapes of the Creeps began slinking their way onto Main Street.

 • • • 

H
E PROBABLY SHOULDN’T
have opened with “Where’s your other lackey?” when he saw Bitch and Twitch standing in the kitchen without Asshole. How could he have known Elly had stuck Asshole with that spike of hers and done him in? Lucky for him, Bitch—whose real name was indeed Diane—seemed to be under orders to leave him mostly unharmed.

Mostly.

His nose hadn’t stopped leaking since she’d knocked him on his ass, and from the way she’d said “Behave” as they left the house, he knew she hoped he wouldn’t, so she could make it bleed some more. They’d covered his face with a blanket that smelled of mold and dust, and shoved him into the backseat of a car whose shocks were completely shot. A couple of Jackals piled on top of him. He figured one had to be Bitch, from the elbow that dug none too gently into his ribs anytime they went over a bump. Every pothole brought a new flare of pain in his nose, in his aching shoulder. The headache had ramped back up, too. It sang in a chorus with his other injuries.

By the time they got to Edgewood, Chaz felt like an overused punching bag. He didn’t bother playing it cool when they yanked him out of the backseat, gulping down mouthfuls of the crisp night air. He only got to enjoy it for a few seconds before Bitch came over and dragged him in front of the car. The brights blinded him, sending another jolt straight through his skull. She held him by the neck, and for a moment he wondered if she was about to throw him, like a stick tossed for a dog to chase. Only, in this case, the dog was a car.

I can run. If she throws me, I can run.
He recognized the street they were on. The woods were to his right. If she threw him that way, he’d make a break for the trees. If she sent him sailing to the left, he’d see how far he could get toward campus.

But the throw never came. Through slit eyes, he saw her wave at the car. Then the driver killed the lights and the engine, and Bitch’s grip moved to Chaz’ arm. “What the hell was that?” he asked.

“Five-minute warning.” Another pair of glorified rust buckets rattled their way up the hill and parked. More Jackals spilled out, and still more came loping out of the woods.
If she’d thrown me to the right, I wouldn’t have made it far after all.

Bitch handed him off to Twitch while she went to rally the troops. The kid seemed distracted, even more jittery than the last couple of times Chaz had seen him. He was a few inches shorter than Chaz, though they probably matched one another on the wiry scale. If it weren’t for the whole Jackal thing giving the kid an unfair advantage, Chaz figured he could take him in a bar fight. Since scrapping wasn’t an option, Chaz figured talking was worth a shot. The scrawny ones also tended to be the voices of reason. “You don’t have to do this, you know,” he said, keeping his voice low.