Night Owls

by Lauren M. Roy

  Then, just as suddenly as the scent had appeared, it was gone. All the breeze carried now was the dry earthy smell of dying leaves. Her heart slammed; her hands were shaking. Every muscle screamed at her to run as fast and as far as she could.

  No. Even as she thought it, the fear had begun leaching away. Val willed her fists to unclench. Deep breaths, as much to make sure no traces of that horrible scent remained as to calm herself down. For years, she’d been the scariest thing in Edgewood, aside from finals and dissertations.

  Now it seemed something new had rolled into town. She hoped it hadn’t come here looking for her.

  She’d thought she’d left that all behind.

  3

  THE TEA WAS something herbal, probably one of those ones with bogus aromatherapy claims on the box: mood-lifting, or sweet dreams, or energy booster. It was all horseshit, but Elly wasn’t about to explain that to Helen. She had a feeling Helen knew it already, anyway.

  The older woman sat in an enormous wingback chair; Elly was snuggled in its twin. The chairs themselves were far too big for the room, which Helen had referred to as “Henry’s second library.” Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves covered the walls, and not an inch of any single shelf was empty. Elly had wandered around while her hostess was off making the tea. She’d touched the various volumes, mouthing the titles as she went along. Most of them were scholarly works, studies on the lives of long-dead poets, or treatises on how historical and socioeconomic factors had informed one classical artist or another. They were boring enough to make her feel sleepy despite the adrenaline still coursing through her from the encounter with the Creep.

  Helen had mentioned that this room served as the professor’s at-home office. Crammed into the corner by the window was a small mahogany desk. Elly’d peeked at the papers in the brushed-brass inbox and confirmed as much: students’ essays, waiting for their grades. So this was the place where he received regular visitors—kids from the college who went through their days oblivious to the nasty things waiting in the dark.

  I could write a paper that’d make their heads explode. And I wouldn’t even need footnotes.

  If this was the second library, Elly wondered where the first one was. Probably upstairs. That would be the one with information that might help her. Help all of them, now that she’d been invited into their house. She itched to ask about it, and about what kinds of books Professor Clearwater had stashed away, but Father Value’s voice was in the back of her mind, reminding her not to be rude. Even though he was dead, she could still hear him chiding her.

  So she sipped her tea and tried to remember her manners. When she was little, Father Value had made her practice polite conversation. She hunted around in her memory for something that normal people might ask one another in this situation. Do you have any crossbows? didn’t strike her as a good opening foray.

  Helen came to her rescue. “How long were you with Father Value, Elly?”

  Familiar ground, if painful. “All my life, really. If I had any family before him, I don’t remember them.” She’d thought about it, now and then, wondered who her parents were and what they’d been like. Father Value had some old pictures of the man and woman he’d said were her mom and dad, but she’d never felt a connection to the people in them. They were just faces on photo paper. In the made-for-TV movies, the long-lost child always felt some jolt of recognition. Elly hadn’t, no matter how hard she tried.

  “Then you must have spent a lot of time moving around. Henry said members of the Brotherhood never stayed in one place for very long.”

  Elly frowned. Father Value hadn’t spoken about his former organization very often, but he’d been quite clear on one rule: don’t talk about it to outsiders. “The Brotherhood?”

  Helen studied Elly for a moment, then sipped her tea. It was a knowing gesture, one that clearly read, I see you playing dumb. “Henry had been gone from it nearly ten years when we met. Plenty of time for certain old . . . taboos to lose their imperative. He told me some of what he was before. Not everything, but enough. Your Father Value came up often.”

  Damn it. Busted. This woman had invited her in in the middle of the night, and Elly was already lying. “I never met anyone else from it. There was only ever Father Value.” At least that part’s true.

  “I never met anyone else from it, either. But this man Value came sniffing around every once in a while, when he needed something. The phone would ring in the dead of night, and it was always him, asking for Henry’s help.”

  Elly opened her mouth to argue—Father Value hated asking for help—but then she remembered being ten years old and waking to Father Value’s voice drifting in through an open window. When she’d peered out, she’d seen him on the street below, his broad shoulders hunched over the pay phone. Now that she remembered that first time, she realized, there had been a few of those calls scattered over the years, often followed a few days later by a delivery or a drop of something they’d needed—clothes, supplies, books.

  If I thought back, would we have been near Edgewood when they happened? She thought maybe they were.

  From down the hallway came a rattling that nearly sent Elly out of her skin. Tea sloshed over the rim of the cup, scalding her hand, but she ignored the pain. She was out of the chair in a flash, settling herself in a crouch in front of Helen and digging the knife out of her boot. “Stay behind me,” she said. Her eyes flicked from the doorway to the window. She wondered how heavy the desk was, if she had time to barricade the door. Stupid of me. Should’ve checked its weight when I was walking around.

  Then Helen’s hand was on her shoulder, her voice soft and soothing in Elly’s ear. “Elly. It’s only Henry. He’s home.”

  “Oh. Oh, I . . .” So much for manners. “I’m sorry.” Sheepishly, she slid her knife back into her boot and stood.

  Helen Clearwater took it with grace; you’d think she had students go all combat-ninja on her on a nightly basis. She patted Elly’s hand, set the teacup aright, and glided out into the hallway. “Come with me. I think Henry will like you.”

  • • •

  THE OTHER LIBRARY—THE real one—spanned nearly half of the second floor. The books here were much more to Elly’s taste—texts on monsters, survival, rituals from hundreds of years ago. One whole bookcase was dedicated to Bibles in all different languages and editions—King James, American Standard, New International—she had a feeling Professor Clearwater had leafed through most of them over the years. The chairs up here were twins of the ones downstairs, but they looked more lived-in, the leather far more supple. Elly sank into one and breathed in the smell of pipe smoke and old books.

  When Helen brought a fresh pot of tea, Professor Clearwater produced a flask and poured a healthy dollop of whiskey into Elly’s cup.

  He waited until Helen had closed the door behind her and Elly had taken a scalding sip before he spoke. “My wife tells me I’ve kept you waiting. My apologies.”

  “It’s all right,” Elly said. “I’m the one who showed up at two in the morning. I didn’t know where else to go.”

  He patted her hand, a grandfatherly gesture unlike anything she’d ever received from Father Value. It made her feel awkward and comforted at the same time. “You came to the right place, my dear. You’ll be safe here.”

  She smiled, but couldn’t keep it up. “I wish that were true, Professor.”

  “Henry, please.”

  Just like his wife. “Henry, then. You know I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t bad. The Creeps killed Father Value, and they’re coming after me. If they’re not here by morning, then they’ll come tomorrow night. Nowhere’s really safe.”

  “You’re safe enough for the moment, that I promise.” He sat back in the chair, the leather creaking as he settled in. He even looked grandfatherly, his white hair neatly trimmed, his wrinkled features kindly and nonjudgmental. “Elly, why don’t you tell me exactly what happened?”

  She took a deep breath. He wouldn’t turn her out, that much she kn
ew. He’d have done it as soon as Helen announced who she was, if he was going to. Still, the urge to snatch up her backpack and run out of this room, out of this house, nearly overwhelmed her. Her hands gripped the smooth wooden arms of her chair as if they were all that anchored her.

  The professor pulled out his flask again. It hovered over her teacup for a second before he passed it to her directly. “Go on,” he said.

  Elly accepted it and took a long swig. It burned as it went down, but she kept from coughing. Father Value had let her have the occasional sip, too. She couldn’t be sure, but Elly thought the men drank the same brand. She returned the flask and went back to her tea. “A few weeks ago, Father Value found out they were looking for something. A book. He didn’t say what was in it, only that they were after it.”

  She remembered those first fevered days. Father Value always tried keeping the Creeps from getting whatever they were after, but she’d never seen him seek anything out with such urgency before. He’d eaten only when she forced a plate in front of him; he’d slept on bus trips or in the backs of cabs as he dragged her from city to city. She’d been sure he’d collapse from exhaustion sooner or later, and there was no way they could afford hospital bills.

  But he hadn’t collapsed. Two days ago, they’d found the book.

  • • •

  ELLY WASN’T BIG on churches in general, but she really wasn’t keen on being in them after dark, when the doors were locked and the lights were off. She didn’t worry about being struck by lightning or burning in hell—churches were by and large some of the safest places to be when it came to the Creeps. Her fears were more practical.

  She was pretty sure breaking and entering in a church could get you arrested.

  Father Value insisted it would be all right. He knew the clergy there, he said. Or he had a decade ago. Or two. Either way, they’d be in and out. The book was right under . . . right under . . .

  “Right under here.” He was on his hands and knees behind the altar, prying at a slate. “Come help me with this, Elly, it’s heavy.”

  She gave up her spot by the door reluctantly. If someone came in while they were yanking up the stones, there’d be no warning. But if she didn’t help, he’d give himself a stroke trying to do it on his own. She crowded in beside him and got her fingers under a loose part of the slate. Dear God, please don’t let this slip and crush my fingers. I kind of need them. Amen.

  Father Value counted to three and they lifted. The scraping filled the church, echoing off the stone walls and stained glass windows. Elly half expected a clap of thunder to sound at the desecration, but none came.

  She had just enough time to wedge her shoulder beneath the slab and bear its weight. Father Value let his edge go and stuck his arm into the hollow beneath the floor. He leaned over so far she was sure he’d fall in, and they could add a broken neck or dislocated shoulder to the hospital bill racking up in her mind. He rooted around, muttering to himself. Elly’s muscles began to quiver from the strain.

  “Father, I can’t hold this up much longer.”

  “Patience, Eleanor. It’s here.”

  “What if someone else found it first? What if they already have it?”

  “Hush. It’s here, I’m sure of it.”

  Elly gritted her teeth and held on. She counted seconds, ignoring the tremors coursing through her arms and legs. A minute passed by. Two. Father Value was halfway in the hole now, the scrabbling sound of his questing hands sending odd echoes around the vestibule. Elly’s knees bent further and further as the slab’s weight bore down. “Father, I—”

  “I have it!” He scuttled backward, crablike, a dusty tome clutched in one gnarled hand.

  Just in time, too. Elly’s strength gave out a second after the old man was clear. She stumbled forward; the slate fell back into place with a crash that rattled off the walls. If anyone had been asleep in the rectory, surely that would have woken them. “We have to get out of here. Someone’ll be coming.”

  At first, she didn’t think he’d heard. He looked almost like a friar of old, standing in the darkened church in his plain black robes, clutching the book to his chest. All he needed to complete the outfit was a belt made of rope. Of course, the running shoes peeking out from beneath the hem killed the illusion. Beneath the monkish garb, Father Value wore jeans and a sweater.

  “Father?” She’d drag him out if she had to. Even if the priests in residence hadn’t called the cops, the Creeps might be on their way.

  Father Value opened his eyes. They glinted with triumph, but there was an urgency there, too. “The side door, Elly. We’ll want to be as far from here as we can get.” He’d left his knapsack on a pew on the way in. Now he tucked the book inside it and headed for the door. He paused with his hand on the knob, head tilted. He leaned his ear against the wood. After a moment, he looked back at her, his mouth set in a grim line. “We’ll have to look at it together in the morning. Tonight, I think we’ll be rather busy.”

  • • •

  “THAT WAS FRIDAY night. Well, Saturday morning, I suppose. They were outside, waiting. We ran. I don’t know how we got away, but we did. He spent Saturday making preparations, making sure the place we were holed up was defensible.” Elly’s tea had gone cold while she talked. “He never got to look at the book. They came that night, and we had to run again. They broke through his wards inside of an hour.”

  Professor Clearwater grunted at that. “If they’re determined enough, they’ll barrel through anything. Even if it hurts them.”

  “That’s what they did. The first ones who came through were bleeding something fierce.”

  “Why did you two make a stand? You could’ve put half the country between yourselves and them.”

  Elly shrugged. She’d argued the same: Let’s get on a bus and go to California. There’s a train to Chicago leaving in an hour. Let’s be on it. I’ll steal a wallet and we’ll charge flights to London on the credit cards inside, put the whole damned ocean between us and the Creeps. But he’d vetoed every suggestion, and his reasons for why were flimsy at best. No time, Eleanor, he’d said, as if that were enough explanation. No time.

  Still, Elly had survived as long as she had doing as Father Value told her. She hadn’t fought him too hard on it.

  Maybe if I’d fought him more, he’d still be alive. She shook that off. “He wanted to stay close, said there wasn’t much time. He said you’d know what to do with it, but he wanted to shake them off first.”

  Henry got up and began to pace. “He should have come straight to me and let me help. But to stay just out of reach? It’s foolish in the extreme.” He paused by the window, looking out over their expansive backyard.

  “He said . . . He said he didn’t want to bring trouble to your door. Or as little of it as possible.” She shifted in the chair. Dancing around a delicate topic wasn’t something Father Value had taught her how to do. She felt like the conversation called for tact, but she’d never been good at employing it. All she’d ever really learned was, If you don’t want to tell the whole truth, hedge.

  Of course, she’d learned that from Father Value, and that meant Professor Clearwater was probably familiar with the tactic, too.

  He turned back to her, the set of his jaw somewhere between amused and annoyed. “What you’re saying, then, is he thought I’d gone soft since leaving the Brotherhood.”

  Damn. “He thought you might be out of practice, a little.”

  “I suppose I might be. I’ve not had to fight for my life in a very long time.” He must have seen her tense up, because he held his hands out, palms up. A calming gesture. “That doesn’t mean I’m unprepared for it. Come here.” He beckoned her closer.

  Elly set aside her tea and stood with him at the window. She squinted into the darkness, but nothing struck her as obvious. The dark shapes of a patio set and charcoal grill were all that broke up the neatly mowed lawn. “I don’t know what I’m looking for, sir.”

  “Not out. Down.”

&n
bsp; Frowning, she glanced down. And grinned. Lining the inside of the windowsill, in the groove between the glass and the screen, was a thick line of salt. It wouldn’t stop the Creeps outright—she’d learned that the other evening—but it would slow them down. And if the Clearwaters had salt wards, they’d have others, ones that weren’t so easy to spot.

  “If they want to come in here, they’re going to hurt for it. But they won’t try tonight.” Outside, the first tinges of dawn lightened the sky. “There’s not enough time.” He guided her back to the chairs and peered into their empty teacups. Out came the flask. He poured a generous splash into each. “I’d suggest we get some sleep, but if you’ll pardon my saying, you still look wide awake.”

  “Part of the lifestyle. We keep late hours.”

  “Nearly nocturnal ones, I’d imagine.”

  “Yes sir. But you don’t have to stay up with me. I can entertain myself.” Her fingers itched to flip through some of the books in this room, but, at the same time . . . She found herself hoping he’d insist on staying, found herself wanting the company.

  He smiled. “Surely you must have questions for me. I’ve always found that getting answers helps me sleep.”

  4

  A SMART VAMPIRE WOULD have gone home and gone to bed.

  No, a smart vampire would have built up her wealth over the years, amassed a small army of devoted minions, and built an impenetrable fortress-mansion somewhere exotic. I went with the “sink all your money into a bookstore and barely scrape by in a quaint college town.”

  And she’d sent her one minion home.

  That had been the right decision, though. Chaz might be good at getting rid of the frat kids when they got bombed and came in to titter at the books of nudes in the art section, but no way in hell was he prepared to face what she was sure had loped its way into town. Hell, she wasn’t sure she was prepared to handle it, either.