Grave Matters

by Lauren M. Roy

  She let Justin lead her downstairs. Val’s basement was half-finished, not the dreary, musty place Cavale’s was but a sealed concrete floor and walls, a laundry nook, and several pieces of discount-store furniture laid out on some clearance-sale throw rugs. It wasn’t a very lived-in space; the few times Elly had hung out here, they’d mostly stayed upstairs. There was enough room, with minimal rearranging, for her and Justin to be able to go over some moves.

  He applied the same kind of intensity to Elly’s fighting lessons as she’d seen him display with his academics. Whatever she showed him, the next time they met it was always obvious he’d practiced in between. He didn’t get embarrassed; he didn’t get frustrated if she stopped and made him start from the beginning. It had been pretty clear to her he hadn’t been in anything more serious than a kindergarten slap fight before he’d met her and Cavale, though he’d taken a fencing class as an elective one semester.

  They squared off now, Justin with his hands in a guard position, Elly on the offensive. “Tell me what you saw tonight, how he was standing, what you did.”

  “Uh. Its back was to me when I came in. I tore it off Chaz and knocked it down. Then I took the poker away from it and swung and caved its skull in. Then it ran.”

  As he spoke, Elly darted in, jabbing and feinting. He blocked well, not letting her get through. He turned with her when she tried getting around, danced out of her way when she went for a completely illegal kick. The first time she’d done that, the night of their first lesson, he’d complained that those weren’t fair. She asked if he thought the Creeps gave a shit about fair.

  Considering they were the reason his heart no longer beat, he had to concede the point.

  “And it didn’t react?”

  “Nope. It didn’t react before that, either, when a couple of its fingers came with the poker.”

  She got in close, went for a gut punch. It landed solidly, the air whooshing out of him, but he didn’t double over with its loss. Instead he sucked a breath back in, refilling his lungs so he could talk. He didn’t need to breathe the way she did. “Huh,” she said, and backed off a few steps.

  “Is that ‘huh’ about the finger thing, or the punch just now?”

  Busted.

  It was hard to resist a bit of poking and prodding at Justin. She and Cavale had grown up fighting Creeps, and knew a lot about other creatures in theory, but to have one up close and punchable? She couldn’t pass up the opportunity to do some science now and then. Not the kind that’d hurt Justin—she’d never ask to scrape him with different metals and woods to see how the vampire and Creep in him reacted—but tiny things, things that would be good to know while she was working for Ivanov. “Both? I mean, with the finger thing, it sounds like it’s a ghoul. They don’t feel pain anymore. They don’t feel much of anything. The other, uh. Did it hurt?”

  Those tawny eyes stared at her reproachfully from beneath his block. He’d also learned early on not to let his guard down when there was a lesson going on. Elly wasn’t above a sucker punch to keep him on his toes. “It was more of a surprise than anything. It felt . . . weird. Sort of like I’d deflated? But it didn’t hurt, no.” His brow furrowed. “That doesn’t mean I’m like a ghoul, right? I’d notice if I lost a finger?”

  “Do you want to test it out?” She was only half joking; she honestly didn’t know the answer to that one. He definitely could feel pain; she’d knocked him on his ass enough times to know that. But his pain threshold was different now than when he’d been living, he’d said.

  “Uh. No? It probably wouldn’t grow back.” He paused. “Would it?”

  “When you’re this new, I doubt it. I’ve heard some older vamps can survive just about anything as long as their heads stay on, though. Figure, if you can turn into a bat, you can probably regrow a limb.”

  “Oh. Right.” He shuddered.

  Elly was glad they were having this conversation while training. Her blush could be explained away as exertion rather than embarrassment. Too morbid? Does it freak him out that I know these things? That would be silly; he’d asked her to train him. Not Val, his maker, but Elly. Which meant it was her job to know about vampiric abilities.

  He was the student; she was the teacher. Why should she care what he thought of her?

  Besides, now that he’s a vampire, he’s as much of a freak as I am.

  But he never treated her like a freak. No one did, here in Edgewood—they all had this strange after-hours existence in common. Hell, now that Justin was a bloodsucker, the humans were outnumbered.

  Aside from Cavale, though, everyone wore kid gloves around her, no matter how much they tried to hide it. Truthfully, Cavale wore them, too. She’d seen the wariness in his eyes as she was leaving the house. Val and Sunny and Lia, they talked to her about safe things, they walked carefully. The succubi were good enough that Elly could almost, almost miss it. Chaz was the straightest shooter, but even he backed off when he sensed her getting prickly.

  Justin talked to her like she was normal. How she imagined him talking to girls in his class, or at Night Owls, or anywhere that didn’t involve monsters and the hunting thereof. She liked it, even when she didn’t know how to react, or how to answer his questions in a way that didn’t destroy that fleeting illusion that she could get by in his world.

  Like now, when he asked, “So what did you do tonight, before you came here?”

  I exorcised a ghost that didn’t want to go quietly. I hung out with succubi and they fed me cookies. I watched the second-most powerful of the Stregoi threaten three new vampires just because they want to exist in her city. I sat outside the house the Creeps abandoned in case my mother might walk by. They all were true, and if she told him he’d listen. He’d even care. And he’d ask follow-ups that told her he was actually interested and not only asking because it was polite.

  For a moment she thought about stopping the lesson. They could flop down on the couches and talk, like she and Cavale used to do, and maybe some of his questions would help her figure things out. The part where Justin wasn’t Cavale was even better—he didn’t have years of old baggage stored up, or memories they’d have to steer far clear of. The words were there, ready to tumble off her tongue, if only she’d let them.

  But those things she wanted to talk about were weird, and she was weird, and she didn’t want to witness the moment where that realization crept into his amber eyes.

  “Nothing much,” she said instead. “It was a slow night.”

  * * *

  THEY SPARRED UNTIL nearly six thirty. There were no windows down here, but Elly could tell sunrise was getting close by the way Justin’s reactions slowed. Above them, the floorboards creaked as Chaz started pacing. Val and Cavale weren’t back from checking out the Clearwater house yet.

  “Let’s go keep him company,” said Elly. “At least until you have to go to bed.”

  Justin seemed relieved to be done with the drops and rolls she’d had him doing for fifteen minutes straight. He stood and knuckled his back. “Do you think they’re okay? They were only going to take a look around.”

  “They’ll be fine. They’re professionals.” Still, when they got upstairs she went and got her phone out of her coat pocket. Chaz had his in his hand, his thumb hovering over the call button. He looked at them sheepishly as they joined him in the living room.

  “She’ll dig herself into the ground if she needs to. Or hide in Cavale’s trunk.” He didn’t sound like he quite believed it.

  “Did you try calling?”

  “Not yet. I figure if they’re trying to be sneaky . . .”

  “They’re back,” said Justin, a yawn cracking his jaw. A few seconds later, they heard Cavale’s car pull in and the engine cut off. The twin thunks of the car’s doors closing were followed by Val and Cavale’s entrance.

  At a glance, both of them were unhurt. Val glowed with the exhilaration of
a successful hunt. Cavale looked thoughtful, but that was his typical state of being. “Sorry,” said Val. “We found the trail and followed it. Ran into a bit of a . . . thing.”

  Chaz eyed them. Dirt caked their shoes, streaked their knees and elbows. Val had leaves in her hair. “You guys are filthy. What were you doing?”

  They exchanged a glance. “Hiding a body,” said Val.

  “Hiding two bodies,” Cavale corrected.

  “Right. Two bodies.”

  Chaz’ eyes narrowed, as though he were jealous that the two were apparently disposing of corpses without him. Elly was right there with him—not that either of them (she didn’t think) were actually upset about the body-dumping part, but Val and Cavale had gone off and had an adventure together. And were practically giggling about it.

  Then Chaz shook it off, pragmatism kicking in. “What happens if they get found? If the cops come banging down the door, I’m not going to be able to stop them. If it’s daylight, you’re going to wake up in a body bag. In a drawer. In the morgue.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time,” Val said. At Chaz’ scowl, she sobered and came forward to examine his face, tracking dirt behind her. “Seriously, it’ll be fine. Trail’s covered, earth’s tamped down, and if it does get noticed, Cavale made sure it doesn’t point to us.”

  “Misdirection spells,” said Cavale. He gave Elly a nod and a wink. They’d learned how to make those early, for when Child Services people came sniffing around, or truant officers, or anyone else in authority who posed a threat to their family.

  Chaz waved Val off. “All right, fine. Then would you two fucking giggle twins like to tell us why you hid two bodies? And maybe whose they were?”

  “Well, Val beheaded the ghoul that attacked you,” said Cavale, “so there’s that. The other one—whoever raised them in the first place severed the tie when I started trying to follow the magic. Dropped dead in the middle of my circle. Dropped dead again, I guess.” He looked at Elly. “That one had the same sigil on his arm as your ghost did.”

  “Holy shit,” she said. “We got a necromancer?”

  “We might.”

  Elly couldn’t help the tiny thrill that went through her at the prospect. It was new and interesting; she’d never met a necromancer.

  “Whoa, hold up.” Chaz ticked off points on his fingers. “So we’ve got a person who can raise the dead. And control them. And is sending them on errands around Edgewood. Oh, and they’re not shambling stupid ghouls, they’re apparently at least semiliterate and like a bit of fisticuffs. Have I got that right so far?”

  Elly and Cavale nodded.

  Justin, who looked even more incredulous than Chaz did, if it were possible, added, “Plus, this . . . necromancer . . . knew where to send their ghouls to get more information. Does that mean whoever it is knew the Clearwaters?”

  “It’s possible,” said Cavale. “Or they knew he was former Brotherhood. Or there’s no connection at all, and divination led them there.”

  “What, like throwing tarot cards?” asked Chaz.

  He was still in the living room doorway, a few feet away from her, but Elly saw Cavale stiffen at that. Chaz had taken shots at Cavale’s day job before and it never bothered him. This is something else, then. But no way in hell would Cavale reveal it here, if Chaz was being a shit.

  “Sun’s coming up soon,” Val said quietly. “Justin and I had better get up to bed.”

  “What if this jackhole sends new ghouls back to the Clearwaters’? I’m not exactly going to be able to hold them off.” Chaz touched his bruised face to illustrate the point.

  “You won’t have to,” said Cavale. “I’m going back there now to set some wards. Should keep them repelled while we figure out who we’re dealing with. Elly, you want to come with?”

  No. No, she didn’t want to go back to that murder house again, where Justin said you could still feel death on the air. Where Henry’s wards hadn’t staved off the Creeps for all that long at all. Where the Clearwaters had died because she brought monsters to their door.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Let me get my keys.”

  8

  SUNNY SOUNDED SURPRISED to hear from Chaz so early in the morning. He’d waited until nine o’clock, when he was fairly sure she and Lia would both be awake and moving around. Chaz himself was normally quite thoroughly faceplanted at that hour, and nearly as dead to the world as Val. Except he could leave his curtains open without fear of burning to a crisp. So when he asked if they had some free time today, and if he could stop by, she said yes, of course. Concern filled her voice, palpable even over the phone, but she didn’t ask what was going on.

  Sunny and Lia lived on the other side of campus from the bookstore, in a house that had been two thousand square feet of Victorian fixer-upper when they bought it. At the time, the acreage of their ridiculously huge backyard probably accounted for most of the listing price. The house itself had been nothing to write home about. Rather, it was the sort of thing you left out of letters home, it was so sad. But the couple had spent all their free time those first few years painting and scraping, tearing down walls and putting new ones up, spackling this and wiring that. For some of their bigger projects, they’d roped Chaz, Val, and Cavale into helping, but truly every beautiful piece of the house was Sunny’s and Lia’s handiwork.

  Ever the good houseguest, Chaz showed up with coffee and pastries from Hill O’Beans, the bakery a few doors down from Night Owls. Sunny met him at the door, smiling, but her liquid brown eyes were cautious. She was short and plain and a little bit plump, with thick black hair falling to her chin. Of the two, Sunny was the more no-nonsense. Her day job as a counselor meant she was damn good at getting to the heart of a matter. With clients, Chaz suspected she led them gently but firmly to their conclusions. With friends, Sunny was more blunt, but never unkindly so. Even standing on the doorstep, breakfast offerings in hand, Chaz felt her sizing him up.

  Before Chaz met them, he’d always figured succubi would look like porn stars and dress about the same. If they wanted to, they could. But this was the face and form Lia loved best, so it was the one Sunny wore most often. She wore a grey tailored suit with a robin’s-egg blue blouse beneath it, and her low, stacked-heel boots gave her an extra inch of height.

  “Holy shit,” she said, finally getting a gander at his face. “What happened to you?”

  “Long story. Well, no. Not really. A ghoul showed up at the Clearwater house last night and tossed me around the downstairs library until Justin got rid of it.” He was stiff and sore in places he didn’t even think got abused, but he tried not to show it as he held up the coffee. “Can we do this with more caffeine, maybe?”

  “Oh! Of course. Come on in.” She backed up into the entryway, making room for him to pass. “Lia’s in the kitchen.”

  They had to pass through the living room to get there, and Chaz still winced when he saw the boarded-up sliding glass doors that led to the backyard. Every pane had been broken the night the Jackals came, trying to get Justin and the spell that had lodged itself in his head. Chaz hadn’t been here—before he’d even turned off Val’s street, the leader of the Jackals had come for him. While her group attacked on this side of town, she’d been busy carting Chaz’ unconscious ass up to Boston in case the other team failed.

  Which it had.

  They’d made a stand here—Sunny and Lia, Elly and Cavale, Val—cutting a swath through the Jackals as they poured into the house. And Justin . . . he’d been the one to drive them away completely. Justin uttered a command in their language that sent them running with their tails between their legs. He’d still been human then. Mostly.

  The battle had left the living room a shambles. Chaz had seen it a few days afterward—broken glass, ruined furniture, the greasy smears of ash left when you staked a Jackal with silver. Blood, too, rust brown from the injuries Elly and Cavale had taken, but most of
it black from whatever ran in the Jackals’ veins. They’d replaced the carpet first thing—Lia had a tendency to shuck her shoes the second she came in the house. The furniture they were repairing or replacing piecemeal.

  “We’ve gotta get that door fixed for you,” Chaz said, noticing the towels stuffed at the bottom to keep out drafts. “November’s coming.”

  “You’re not here to play handyman today.” Sunny gave him a push into the kitchen. “Besides. We have someone coming next week.”

  The kitchen hadn’t escaped unscathed from the carnage, either, but the damage was less in here. The dead Jackal-grease came up off the ceramic tile floor with a good steam mop, and they’d left only a few claw marks on the cabinets.

  Lia sat at the breakfast bar, her blond head bent over the Edgewood Gazette. It was a testament to the recent cold snap (and probably the draft from that door) that she’d succumbed to wearing her bunny slippers.

  “Look what the cat dragged in,” she said. She slipped off her stool to come kiss him on the cheek, which was really a ruse to get to the Hill O’Beans bag. “Tell me you brought me a Boston cream.”

  “Of course I did. And the muffin of the day for Sunny. Apple-pistachio.”

  Sunny let out a squeal you wouldn’t expect from a woman in a business suit, but she maintained her dignity long enough to set out plates and napkins. Sunny ate the bottom half of the muffin first, saving the sugared top for last. Lia didn’t even bother with her plate, devouring the donut like it was the last one ever and the other two might attack her for it. Chaz picked at his bear claw even though his appetite was fairly shit.

  “All right,” said Lia, licking the last of the custard from her fingers, “spill.”

  He’d been rehearsing speeches ever since he’d left Val’s house just after sunrise, variations on Oh, I’m looking to pick up a new hobby and My doctor says I should get more exercise, but what came out of his mouth was, “I feel fucking useless.”