Grave Matters

by Lauren M. Roy

  Cavale was glad to be on his way home. It had been a long day, full of weird shit, and he was ready for it to be over. Not that in his world things like this ever truly stopped coming—he’d be out of a job if they did. But a few hours of what passed for normalcy wouldn’t go amiss, and he was looking forward to a night in with pizza and beer and research.

  As he walked to his car, he couldn’t shake the sense that someone was watching him. He sat behind the wheel awhile, looking around for anyone conspicuous, but nothing stood out. He pulled a chunk of quartz out of the glove box and tucked it in his pocket, but it didn’t alleviate the feeling. Probably just tired. And paranoid, he thought, but he didn’t really believe it.

  When I get home, I’m burning a whole bushel of sage.

  10

  IT CAME DOWN to two things: Cavale was asleep, and Elly woke up famished. She heated a square of the beef and cheese casserole . . . thing . . . in the microwave and wolfed it down while she read the notes he’d left for her before he crashed.

  It wasn’t much to go on.

  Udrai, servant (?) to Ereshkigal. Minor deity? High priest? Will do more looking tonight.

  He’d described the encounter with the spirit for her, too, a quick rundown that left her wishing she’d been there to witness it. Not that she’d necessarily have noticed anything beyond what Cavale had, only . . . They worked well together, the two of them, and maybe something would have come of it. We’ll go over it when he wakes up. He’ll be thorough. She’d suggest mesmerizing him, the way she’d done to Chaz, but Cavale had never been susceptible to it. Father Value had trained too many defenses into them for either of his children to fall asleep because someone else wiggled their fingers and told them to.

  She was shoveling the last forkful into her mouth and contemplating seconds when her phone rang.

  Katya.

  Usually it was a Renfield that called her, or one of the vampires lower in the Stregoi hierarchy, but certainly not Katya herself. She was above such mundane communications. Unless something’s gone very wrong. She slid the icon to answer. “Hello?”

  “Eleanor.” Katya’s voice was hushed, annoyed. “I need you to come into town but not to the bar. There’s a cafe on H Street, Oliver’s. Do you know it?”

  Of course she did. These last few weeks, she’d walked all over Southie learning its layout, seeking out alleys and escape routes. “Sure, with the dancing coffee cup in the window.”

  “Yes. Come now. I will meet you there. Do not go to the bar.”

  “Is everything all right? Did something happen?”

  “When you get here, I’ll tell you. Hurry, now.” Then she hung up, leaving Elly to stare dumbly at her screen.

  She thought about calling the bar, or one of the lackeys, to see if they sounded at all frazzled. She could call and hang up, even do it from Cavale’s phone to mask that it was her. But Katya was her boss as much as Ivanov; that had been made clear to her from the start. If her orders were not to go there, the don’t call was implied. “Shit.” She grabbed her things and scrawled a note for Cavale:

  Called into work. Weird vampire shit. I’ll be fine.

  She paused a moment, eyeing her empty dish, and added:

  Thx for breakfast. Wasn’t poison.

  Then she grabbed her keys and kit and left.

  * * *

  SHE COULDN’T RESIST cruising past Ivanov’s bar on her way to meet Katya, to make sure it wasn’t on fire, or that a crowd of vampires weren’t brawling in the streets. It probably skirted right up to the line of her orders: don’t go in and don’t call carried an element of don’t be seen with them, but Elly’s car was nothing flashy. She’d never given any of the Stregoi a ride, and tended to park down the street a ways, so the chances of someone recognizing it were slim.

  It was early yet, not even seven thirty, so the bar was far from hopping. The after-work crowd had had their drinks and gone home by now. The social drinkers would be finishing their dinners elsewhere before they trickled in for beer and shots and yelling at the sports channel. That only accounted for the humans, of course. The vampires—who were not, in fact, tearing one another apart on the sidewalk—were likely off taking care of their nightly business before they’d show up at Ivanov’s. So what the hell could be making Katya so secretive?

  Is she setting me up? It had been on her mind during the drive up, but it seemed unlikely. She hadn’t done anything wrong, hadn’t crossed any lines or fucked over the Stregoi. Last night she’d played her part as backup during the meeting with the Oisín, and done nothing else vampire-related since. So it shouldn’t be a trap she was walking into, but she parked a block down from the cafe anyway, and checked the straps on her silver spike. She considered trading it out for an ash stake instead, but at least with the silver, if it all turned out to be a misunderstanding Katya would heal.

  If Katya was planning on tearing Elly’s throat out, though, she wasn’t telegraphing it. She’d planted herself on one of the stools in the cafe’s window, peering out from behind the dancing coffee cup’s boogieing knees. The place had undergone renovations recently, in an attempt to draw in both the old-school Southie residents and the newer, hipper citizens with their fatter wallets. You could still get coffee and pastries at decent prices, but the menu had expanded to include overpriced fancy things, too. The decor was classic and clean: hardwood floors, beige walls hung with paintings from local artists for sale, shiny chrome equipment.

  The vampire had a cup of coffee in front of her, untouched. As Elly slid into the seat beside her, she passed it over. “I don’t know how you take it.” She pulled packets of cream and sugar from the pockets of her scuffed leather jacket and set them down beside the cup.

  Whatever comfort Elly had taken from Katya picking a public place disappeared. The woman was never polite, certainly wouldn’t buy Elly a cup of coffee like they were equals. She eyed it warily, tried to sniff conspicuously as she took off the lid.

  “Oh, come now,” said Katya, some of the snap returning to her voice. “Do you really think I’d poison you? Or, what, drug you? If I want you to do something and you balk, I’ll Command it.”

  Fair point. She took a sip, to smooth Katya’s ruffled feathers, and hoped the woman wasn’t bluffing. “Old habits. And, uh. You have to admit this isn’t how we normally do things.”

  Katya scowled, the tips of her fangs peeking out from beneath her lips. She might not always leave them fully extended, but she never retracted them all the way, either. Sharp, pointy canines, all the better to eat you with. It made her face all the more foxlike. “No, it isn’t. But our work tonight calls for a level of discretion.”

  Elly looked pointedly at the window. Anyone walking by could see them sitting here . . . Conspiring? Is that what we’re doing?

  Katya shrugged. “It’s what we do after this that needs quiet. I didn’t want to discuss our plans in the bar, though. Too many ears pricked, listening for opportunities.”

  That surprised her. Ivanov seemed to have the Stregoi so well in hand. “Is there someone there who’d try to challenge Ivanov?”

  “Here is your first true lesson in our politics, myshka: Everyone is looking for a way to fuck us over. Only a handful will ever try, but if someone were to succeed, you’d want to be in their good graces, yes?”

  Where is this going? Possibilities raced through Elly’s mind. Katya was making her own play, maybe, or she was getting in tight with someone else who was. Or she was testing Elly’s loyalties, or . . .

  “No, no, no.” Katya sighed. “I see it on your face. Not me. Never me. And you are here because he trusts you. Which means I do, too. Even though I saw you pondering using that spike of yours when you came in.”

  Elly didn’t bother denying it. “Where is it we’re going, then?”

  “Hunting.”

  “Creeps?”

  “No. They’ve gone seeking e
asier prey, I think. This is worse. This is one of ours.” She drew the bracelet out from her sleeve and toyed with one of the fangs. “The boy from last night. Theo.” It spoke to Katya’s age that she called Theo a boy, rather than a man. When you got to be as old as she was, nearly everyone was a child.

  He’d been so . . . normal when they went out to meet the Oisín. “What did he do?”

  “He’s gone missing. The Renfields say he came to the bar just after sunset. He wouldn’t even acknowledge them, just went into the back and tried to get into Ivanov’s safe. One of mine tried to stop him and now she’s at Mass General with a broken jaw. He picked her up by the chin and threw her. Stupid girl,” she said, but there was pride in it.

  “Why would he do that, though?”

  “Unhappy with his paycheck? How should I know?”

  “What about his maker, that woman from the meeting with Ivanov. Dunyasha?”

  Katya placed her hand over Elly’s. The heat from the coffee cup warmed her palm, making the vampire’s marble skin on the other side feel icy. “Remember what I said, about someone always listening. If she were to learn of this, and find him first, she might get it in her head to protect him. Best we bring him in ourselves.”

  “What about the Renfields, and whoever else was there? Won’t they talk?”

  Katya smiled. “I got there quickly. They can’t discuss what they don’t remember.”

  * * *

  THEY WALKED ALONG the streets side by side, hands shoved in their pockets against the cold. Well, Elly’s were. Katya, she imagined, did it to keep up appearances. It seemed to be a common theme with the vampires—Val had spent days teaching Justin how to do things the human way when she’d first turned him, which made an odd kind of sense. Before, he’d been human—he didn’t have to think about how fast to walk, how many times a minute to breathe, the limit of what he could lift for his size and shape. Living people simply did those things. Vampires had to bring their own natural inclinations down to a human level.

  Not for the first time, Elly wondered how they’d all—vampires, Creeps, even the Brotherhood—managed to stay hidden all these centuries. In the past, it was probably helpful that communication hadn’t been instantaneous. Today, though? When the majority of people in any crowd could take and upload video almost before an incident was over? People would post anything to the Internet—fistfights on a subway train, skateboarders wiping out and breaking bones, protests turned violent—but when she’d gone looking, not a single video that declared Vampires are real! Here’s proof!!! was anything of the sort. She saw tricks of the light, and flat-out tricks filmed by charlatans, but no actual proof. No one popping claws or fangs, or doing any of the things Val and Justin and the Stregoi could do.

  If it was out, though . . . She couldn’t imagine much of an accord between people and monsters. Tempting as it was to have help from, oh, the army with taking the Creeps out, would anyone draw a distinction between Creeps and vampires? Could she, when it came right down to it? What about succubi like Sunny and Lia? They didn’t hurt anyone, but they weren’t human, and that’d make them targets. The Brotherhood? Pressed into service, likely. No. You kept it hidden, you kept it quiet, and if you were smart, you assumed someone with their finger on a big red button or with access to lab-filled bunkers fifty stories below a mountain knew all about you anyway.

  They tried Theo’s apartment first. He lived over near Castle Island, where crowds thronged in the summertime to watch ships in Boston Harbor, or to eat hot dogs while watching the fireworks on the Fourth of July. The complex was a square brick building, five stories high, twenty apartments per. Theo’s was on the third floor, on the side facing away from the water. They knocked, but no one answered.

  Katya pressed her ear to the door, listening. Then she got down on her hands and knees and stuck her nose against its bottom edge. “He’s not there,” she said. “Let’s go in.”

  “Do you have a key?”

  Katya snorted. She grabbed the doorknob and twisted. Metal groaned within the lock mechanism as she let out a low string of swears in Russian. With a final tortured clunk, the knob gave way and the door swung open. “Keys,” said Katya. “Feh.”

  Inside was a shambles. Not in the way Chaz’ apartment was, with what he called bachelor pad chic, but in the there was a fight here sense. The blackout curtains had been ripped from their rods. The couch was torn to shreds, stuffing everywhere, as though a tiger had come in and used the cushions as claw sharpeners. Drawers were emptied, their contents strewn around the room.

  Katya picked her way into the kitchen while Elly found the bedroom. It was the same story in there—mattress tossed, closet emptied. But none of that mattered as much as what was on the wall. “You might want to come see this,” she called.

  Katya was beside her in a heartbeat. No need to move like a human where the only one present knew what she was. She held one of those magnetic wipe-off boards, but it fell to the floor as she looked where Elly was pointing.

  Not that she needed to point. The ogham marking took up most of the wall above the bed, one long vertical line from the top of the headboard to the ceiling. Diagonal slashes extended from it in groups of one to five on either side, their tips still dripping red paint. “Can you read it, myshka?”

  “No, but Cavale can. Do you mind if I send him a picture?”

  “Please.”

  Katya paced as they waited for him to get the text and respond. Elly was sure he’d be awake by now, and she was right. Less than five minutes passed before he sent back one word: traitor.

  Another string of Russian expletives. Elly caught something about whores and mothers and quite a few inventive uses for fuck before Katya dragged her fingers through her long chestnut-colored hair and regrouped. When she reverted to English, she said, “I think I know where to find him.” The wipe-off board had an address written down on it, the date and time two days ago. “It must be where he met those little leeches before they requested their meeting. Let’s go.”

  They left without bothering to lock the door. On the way out, Elly’s phone buzzed with another text from Cavale.

  Are you okay?

  Fine, she replied, watching the pissed-off Stregoi woman stride down the hall. With Katya.

  That’s not terribly reassuring, he texted back.

  * * *

  THE CLOSER THEY got to that address, the louder the alarm bells rang in Elly’s head.

  “There wasn’t any blood there,” she said.

  “So?”

  “So they didn’t take him at his apartment. Assuming you’re thinking now he was taken?”

  “This might be a rescue mission now, yes.”

  “Let’s say something tipped him off that they were coming for him and he went to the bar. Why go for Ivanov’s safe? Why not call his maker and get her to protect him? Or if he couldn’t get hold of her, why not have the Renfields rally the troops?”

  Katya slowed her ground-eating pace momentarily. Her fangs were longer now, had been ever since they left Theo’s apartment. She hadn’t pulled out the claws yet, but that wasn’t far off. “I don’t know, Eleanor. Dunyasha made him hastily. Perhaps he’s simply stupid and tried to get money so he could leave town. Do you have another theory?”

  “The Renfields said he was acting weird, right? Could another vampire Command him? Does it even work on other vampires?”

  She considered a moment, then shook her head. “Not any of these Irish whelps. They’re too new to be that strong.”

  “How old would someone have to be to control a vampire Theo’s age?”

  “At a guess? At least a century, probably two.”

  “From everything you all have said, these guys have sprung up here all of a sudden. One day, the Stregoi were the only game in town, now . . . How did Dunyasha put it? Someone made a passel of them. I’ve . . . I’ve seen a vampire being made.” E
lly had guarded the door to Night Owls’ back room while Val turned Justin. She should have been watching the front the whole time, to make sure no Creeps came hurtling back toward them, but she hadn’t been able to look away as Val tore into her own fucking chest to get to her heartsblood, then did the same to Justin. The holes had closed up quickly for both of them, enough that they could walk without dripping internal organs on the floor, but it had taken a lot out of her. Elly couldn’t imagine her doing it all the damned time. “How old does someone have to be to be strong enough to make all those vampires in that short amount of time?”

  Katya twigged onto her meaning at last. “You think we’re walking into a trap, myshka, don’t you?”

  “I wouldn’t rule it out.”

  She’d hoped to make Katya stop and think, to call for backup. To call the bar and tell Ivanov where they were, if nothing else. Instead, Katya only smiled, her fangs making it into a devil’s grin. “Oh, I certainly hope so.” She picked up her pace, making Elly hurry to keep up.

  The address led them to one of the quieter side streets, filled with triple-deckers that reminded Elly of the ones in Dorchester. Elly and Katya crept around to the back of the house. No cars were in the driveway; no lights shone from any of the windows. Blackout curtains, maybe?

  A beam of light streaked out from the basement windows, like a flashlight swung wildly around. Katya needed no encouragement. She skulked up to the first-floor porch and waited at the door for Elly to go through first. “Invite me in,” she said.

  The door was unlocked. The apartments in these buildings were connected by a steep spiraling stairwell, with doors to the homes themselves at each landing. Here in the back, a flight extended downward, too. Into the cellar. Elly stepped out of the way and whispered, “Katya, will you please come in?”

  She patted Elly’s shoulder as she entered, the fangs on her bracelet clicking together with the gesture.