Night Owls

by Lauren M. Roy

  A framed poem hung on the wall, a gift to Cavale from one of the succubi; distantly, Val recognized the spiky handwriting. There was a flat, dull crack as the Sister’s head smacked into it, spiderwebbing the glass. The woman grunted—sound at last! The smell of her blood filled Val’s nostrils.

  Good. Let her bleed like she should have last night. Images of the destroyed library and the dark smears of the Clearwaters’ blood flashed in Val’s mind. “You let them die!” she shouted. “You let them, you—” She took her right hand off the Sister’s arm and closed her clawed fingers around her throat.

  Even lifted up and pinned against the wall, Val was taller than the Sister. She leaned down before she started to squeeze, wanting to look in the woman’s eyes, wanting to see remorse in them, or guilt, sorrow, anything. They were all there—fear, too, even though Val still couldn’t smell it on her. But there was something missing. It took Val a moment to place it: the Sisters she’d met had had a wisdom to their gaze, a serenity gained through their training.

  This woman was simply afraid. Val pulled back an inch or two, her grip already loosening. No crow’s-feet, no laugh lines, hardly even a crease to her brow. The woman’s skin was smooth except for a smattering of acne on her chin.

  She’s just a kid.

  Bright pain bloomed in her stomach.

  Before she could drop the girl, light flooded the room. Two sets of hands took hold of Val, hauling her back: Cavale on her right, Chaz on her left. She was too stunned to resist when Chaz snaked his left arm up under her own; she felt pressure on the back of her neck as he locked his grip into some sort of quarter nelson.

  Everyone was shouting except Chaz, who whispered in her ear: “I’m asking you nicely not to yank my arms out of their sockets while we sort this out. Deal?”

  Val looked at the mousy girl leaning against the wall. Not nearly old enough to be a full Sister, not by at least a decade. “Just a kid,” she murmured, slumping against Chaz. “Just a fucking kid.”

  In her peripheral vision Cavale nodded at Chaz, then crossed the room to fuss over the girl. She had dark hair that fell to about her chin. The ends were ragged, like she’d cut them herself with a dull pair of scissors. She kept darting glances at Val while Cavale’s fingers fluttered over the back of her head and came back bloody.

  “Elly? You okay?” He sounded shaken, and with good cause. Val could have torn out her throat and had time to lick her fingers clean before they’d arrived in the room.

  The girl crooked a smile. “I’m fine. Just a cut.” She swatted him away. “Cavale, get off. I’m okay. She’s not.” In the hand she gestured with was a wicked metal spike. Streaks of Val’s blood still were dripping from it.

  That was when Justin, apparently realizing the violence was over, came around in front of Val. His eyes widened as he stared at her middle. Val glanced down, remembering the flare of pain before they’d yanked her off the girl. The spike had left a silver-dollar-sized hole in her white cotton shirt; the fabric was slowly turning red as blood seeped from the wound. Val marveled at it for a moment. It should have closed by now.

  Unless . . .

  That spike must be silver. This thing’s going to take forever to close.

  She thought I was a Jackal.

  “Jesus Christ!” Justin whipped his cell phone out of his pocket. “What’s the address here? She needs an ambulance. Chaz, let her go. It can’t be good to stretch the wound.”

  Cavale, Chaz, and Val shouted “No!” together, their voices echoing off the walls in the tiny room.

  Cavale crossed over to Justin—who stood gaping at them all like they’d lost their minds—and snatched the phone from him before he could finish dialing. “Val’s going to be okay.”

  Justin blinked. “Your friend stabbed her. In the stomach. If she punctured anything, it’ll go septic or something.” He held out his hand. “Give me my phone.”

  “Justin.” Val offered him a tight-lipped smile despite the dull throbbing in her gut. Now that the fight was over, her body was letting her know that, By the way, this fucking hurts. She shrugged in Chaz’ grasp, testing his hold. He got the message and let her go so she could spread her arms—ta-da. “I’m okay. No need for nine-one-one.”

  Justin’s mouth opened and closed, fishlike, as his glance darted around the room. When at last it came back to Val, he did a double take. “Val? Your, uh. Teeth. And, um.” His gaze drifted down, first to her still-seeping wound, then to her hands. Her gnarled, claw-tipped fingers. “Your . . . You have . . . What . . . ?” He looked like he might pass out.

  Val sighed. This wasn’t how she’d wanted confession time to go. “It’s fine, Justin. Really. We’ll explain.” He nodded dimly, his lips trying to form questions. He’d gone paler than Val imagined she must be right now.

  Chaz stepped around so he could get a look at the wound. He grunted in annoyance. Cavale held the phone out of Justin’s reach, not that he was trying for it anymore.

  The girl—Elly—stopped watching Justin and followed Chaz’ gaze. Her mouth twisted and her brow furrowed, like she was doing a crossword puzzle and trying to remember a word. After a moment, understanding dawned. “What are you?” she asked, though the way her eyes focused on Val’s lips—or, more specifically, the tips of her fangs peeking out from under them—said she’d figured it out.

  Val looked at Justin for a long moment before she addressed Elly. I was hoping we wouldn’t have to have this talk just yet. The professor would have had something to say about that, involving barn doors and escaped horses. “You used the wrong kind of stake, kid. Silver hurts like a bitch, but it won’t kill me.”

  “You’re a vampire, then.” She might as well have said, “You’re a mailman, then,” for the lack of surprise in her tone.

  “Guilty as charged.” They exchanged cautious smiles. I might like this girl, after all.

  There was a thud as Justin tried sitting on the bed and missed.

  12

  CAVALE HERDED THEM all down to the kitchen to talk. He poured generous cups of coffee into mismatched mugs, and set a bottle of whiskey down in the middle of the round table for anyone who felt they needed some reinforcement.

  Elly couldn’t help but marvel at how normal Cavale seemed. He owned a house. He did laundry in a washer-dryer unit in the basement rather than skulking into an all-night Laundromat at three a.m. and keeping watch while the clothes tumbled around. He had honest-to-god dishes, not a glorified mess kit. Sure, the place was warded all to hell, and there were some signs of his old life with her and Father Value in his mannerisms, but still. After he’d left them, he’d gone on to have as close to a normal life as their kind could. He’d even made friends. Granted, the woman was a vampire, but they sat beside one another without clutching at hidden weapons under the table. Cavale even turned his back on Val now and then.

  Elly had squeezed herself into the corner, so her back was to the wall.

  Justin had taken the revelation pretty well, for someone who’d lived his life blissfully unaware of their dark little niche. Since they’d picked him up off the guest room floor, he seemed to be taking a This is fucked-up, but I’ll just go with it approach. Now and then he’d look around, startled by something he saw—a gris-gris bag on the windowsill, jars and bottles of ingredients for spell work, an actual book of spells left open on a table—mutter “weird” under his breath, and return to the spooked-but-cheerful demeanor he’d apparently decided was most appropriate for the situation. He sat next to her now, cradling his coffee cup and eyeing the whiskey bottle. So far no one had added anything but cream and sugar to their mugs.

  The blond man, Chaz, sat on Val’s other side, scowling through her at Cavale. He’d insisted on Cavale breaking out the first aid kit and had dressed the puncture wound Silver and Pointy had left in Val. It wasn’t going to make it close any faster, but at least it stopped the slow leak.

  Val herself was looking pretty pale. Well, she’d been pale to start, but now her skin had taken on
an ashen tone. Elly had been surprised when Cavale had set a cup of coffee down in front of her; vampires couldn’t digest food and drink. Father Value hadn’t taught them as much about vampires as he did about Creeps, but that much, Elly knew. Val didn’t take a single sip, though. She just curled her fingers around the mug and sniffed at it while they talked.

  Vampires were weird.

  They sat in awkward silence for a while, the only sounds the clinking of spoons against mugs and the rattling motor of Cavale’s ancient fridge. Elly wondered if she ought to say anything to kick off the conversation, but “I’m sorry your friend died” seemed inadequate, and she was already on the vampire’s bad side. Some hornets’ nests were best left unpoked.

  Finally, Val set her mug down and cleared her throat. “I don’t have a lot of time left tonight, so here’s what I need to know. First, why was a member of the Brotherhood—no matter how green—at the Clearwaters’? I’m guessing it had something to do with the book Henry had Justin bring to me, but why bring it to him?”

  Elly tried not to bristle at being called green. She’d spent her life with Father Value. She’d hunted Creeps with him. She could do spells and wards and runework better than most people her age could do math homework. A slew of rebuttals rose to her lips, but Val wasn’t done.

  “Second, why are you here, with Cavale? Third”—here, she turned to Cavale—“how do we get this thing out of Justin’s head?” She settled back into her chair and picked up the mug once more. She looked at Elly. “You start.”

  Elly wasn’t used to being hit with such a barrage of questions from anyone other than Father Value. The questions were straightforward enough, but still she froze. Father Value’s prohibition about talking about the Brotherhood to the uninitiated echoed in her head again, like it had with Helen Clearwater. Val might not count, being part of the supernatural set herself, but Justin was definitely new to all of this, and judging from Chaz’ scowl, his mistress hadn’t shared much of her knowledge, either.

  Yet, Father Value was dead, and the only contact within the Brotherhood he’d left her was Professor Clearwater. With both of them gone, who was going to punish her if she talked? She opened her mouth to speak, but Cavale cut in first.

  “Elly’s here because we’re both Brotherhood. Or were. Sort of. We were raised by one of its members.”

  Elly caught Chaz squinting between them, scanning their faces for similarities. “Siblings?”

  Cavale shook his head. “We’re not related by blood, no, but we might as well be.” He reached over and took her hand, though whether it was to reassure her or himself, Elly wasn’t sure. “I walked away from that life a couple of months before I ended up in Crow’s Neck. There’s enough supernatural activity happening in the area to make a living off of, but it wasn’t so hopping that I’d have to get caught up in vampire politics or anything. Gave me room to figure things out, I guess.

  “And Val”—now he took Val’s hand in his free one—“Elly was at the Clearwaters’ because the professor was one of us, too. Retired, you might say, but one of us all the same.”

  The vampire went still. Her face might as well have been chiseled from marble, for all the expression she showed at first. Only the crystal blue of her eyes gave anything away as the twin revelations sank in. Shock turned to disbelief turned to grim acceptance. When the rest of her face caught up, or maybe when she let it catch up, Val simply looked hurt. “You never told me,” she said. “Either of you.”

  “Why do you think something always came up for me when you tried getting me to meet him? I was afraid he’d take one look at me and know, and I’d left that life behind.” His grip on Elly tightened. “I severed every tie I had.”

  “And the professor? Why wouldn’t he . . . ?” She shook her head. “No, I guess that should be obvious. It’s not the sort of thing you reminisce over.” The hurt remained, though.

  Elly cleared her throat, compelled to help ease the sting. Part of it was compassion, but mostly it was a good tactical move: if Cavale cared about this woman, it would be smart to have her as an ally. “I don’t think it was because Professor Clearwater distrusted you. He talked a little about why he left them. He’d done things that he couldn’t justify or make peace with, and the only way for him to come to terms with it at all was to get out. Those things still haunted him. So if he hid what he’d been, it wasn’t about you. It was about . . . about trying to forget. Or move on. Or something.” As she finished speaking she noticed every eye at the table was on her. She shrank back, wishing her chair would swallow her up.

  “I have a question.” Justin raised his hand like he was in a classroom. He waited for Val’s nod before asking, “Um. What is this ‘Brotherhood’? You guys make it sound like some sort of secret society.” He looked from Val to Cavale to Elly, hopefully.

  Elly shrugged. “Close enough. One that hunts monsters.”

  Val had recovered a bit. She reclaimed her hand from beneath Cavale’s and sniffed her coffee again. “They’re an old organization. Different sects can trace themselves back hundreds of years, if not thousands.”

  “What, like the ancient Egyptians had a branch?” Justin gave Chaz a help-me-out-here look, but didn’t get the support he was looking for.

  “Why not?” said Chaz, nodding thoughtfully. “Shit’s probably gone bump in the night since people started wearing loincloths and cooking their meat instead of eating it raw.”

  “A slightly inelegant way to put it, but yes.” Val pointed at the window above the sink. Carved into the peeling paint were several wedge-shaped runes. “That’s a cuneiform ward against evil, right there. This stuff gets passed down because it works.”

  Now Justin really goggled at Val. “You’re not . . . um. I mean, are you—”

  “Do I look Sumerian?” She held out her pale, freckled arms and pointed at her spill of red curls. “My great-grandparents were off the boat from Ireland.”

  “Oh,” said Justin, clearly biting his tongue against a follow-up.

  “At the turn of the century.” Exasperation crept into her tone.

  “Um.” His fingers twitched on the tabletop, like they wanted to lead the charge and shoot his hand back into the air. His mouth lost the battle first. “Which—?”

  “The last one. Can we get back on track, please?” Val pressed her fingers to her temples. “I’ll answer more questions for you tomorrow night. For now, we need to focus on what we came here for.” She turned away from Justin to face Cavale. “What do you need to do?”

  Cavale got up and went to one of the wide drawers next to the sink. It took him a few good tugs before it opened with the telltale rattle of a junk drawer. The times Father Value had let them settle down for a while, he too had found a space for the flotsam of day-to-day life to collect: pencils and pens, matchbooks, half-used bottles of glue, lengths of twine and bottle caps. She’d never given it much thought before, but now she wondered if it meant that, before the Brotherhood, Father Value had had a house like this, if he’d been like Justin once, even—someone from a normal home, a normal life.

  Cavale returned with a green-paged steno pad and a handful of pens. He plopped the pad down in front of Justin and laid the pens alongside it. “Go ahead and start writing.”

  Justin picked up a blue pen, considered it, then switched it for a black one. He flipped the cover of the notepad over and stared at the blank page for a long moment before he began to write. The pen’s point scratched across the paper. What little hope there was on Justin’s face died quickly as the Creeps’ runes flowed forth across the top three lines. Justin tossed the pen down in frustration. “So, yeah. That’s not a John Donne poem.”

  “We’ll figure it out. Did you guys bring the book?”

  “Yeah.” Justin’s backpack hung from the back of his chair. He pulled it onto his lap and unzipped it. Elly felt the dread rising as he peeled the canvas down and revealed the book she’d hoped never to see again. The urge to get up and check the windows and doors was so stron
g, she found herself gripping the seat of the chair to keep from standing up. This is Cavale’s house. I can see the wards, and he knows what he’s doing.

  But wards hadn’t stopped the Creeps at the Clearwaters’.

  She tamped the thoughts down as fiercely as she could, and discovered something even weirder underneath. As awful as it was to see the book again, she felt relief at its reappearance, too. Much as she knew she should want to be rid of it, its sight was a comfort. Father Value had died for it, and so had Henry and Helen. Elly had nearly died for it, too—twice over, even—and since she was still kicking, she felt like maybe it was her responsibility from here on out. Seeing it here meant the Creeps hadn’t gotten it, not yet. It had come back to her, sort of. Father Value would’ve called that a sign.

  Across the table, Cavale had broken out the salt and drawn a circle around the book. He poured two lines across and over the book, dividing the circle into quarters. From his back pocket, he produced a piece of chalk and filled in the sections with sigils. When the last one was placed, Cavale stepped back. Everyone was holding their breath.

  Justin leaned forward, his voice barely above a whisper. “What are we looking for?” He jumped when Cavale answered at regular volume.

  “A flash, maybe, or a shifting of the symbols. But it would have happened by now.” He picked the book up, the salt hissing off it as it tilted. “Good news is, there aren’t any traps waiting between the covers. Looks like you triggered the only one. Nothing in there to help them track it magically, either.”

  “That’s . . . good? I guess?” Justin toyed with the edges of the paper. “So what about me? How do we get this out of my head?”

  “For now, get back to writing. Keep going until it repeats, okay?” He clasped Val’s and Chaz’ shoulders. “Meanwhile, can I talk to you two alone for a few?”