Grave Matters

by Lauren M. Roy

  Until she’d looked up at him and said, “This fucking auto-correct thing keeps trying to change ‘Stregoi’ to ‘stereo.’”

  Normal young women didn’t text about vampire killing.

  “I asked someone who lives down there to be on the lookout,” said Cavale. “Other than that, more research. More footwork. A spell that’ll slip past his guard. We’ll figure it out.”

  Chaz raised his hand. “I’ll volunteer for research brigade. I haven’t had a chance to get back to the estate since the attack. Now that we have the name, maybe there’s something there we missed. I mean, you don’t think this asshole’s going to send ghouls out in daylight hours, right?”

  Cavale shrugged. “Probably not. They’d be conspicuous.”

  “Right. So unless he decides to do his own dirty work, I should be good. And if he does, I can take a human, at least.”

  Cavale bit his tongue, but Elly missed the subtle head shake he directed her way. “Unless he’s doing other magic.”

  “Or he’s built like a brick shithouse,” added Val.

  The look Chaz shot her was one of pure betrayal. “Oh, come on. I’m . . . scrappy.” He glanced around for support, but Justin found something fascinating on the sidewalk, and Cavale couldn’t hide his own skepticism. “So none of you have faith in me holding my own. Well, that’s just fucking great, thanks.”

  “I have faith in you, Charles.”

  They all whipped around at the smoky, sultry voice. The silver spike was already in Elly’s hand; Cavale was weaponless, but instinct made him fall into a defensive stance. In less than an eyeblink, Val and Justin had stood and formed a two-vampire wall in front of Chaz, which only made him scowl out from between them.

  “Jesus, guys, it’s Katya. Munching on one of us would be a bad idea, what with Elly working for The Man.”

  “I’m not insulted,” she said, slinking out from the shadows in the neighbors’ driveway.

  At Val’s nod, everyone stood down. Cavale let out a long, slow breath. Outwardly, that was all the frustration he showed. Inside, though, he was kicking himself for letting them all be out in the open like that, their guards down. From the way Elly resheathed her spike—tightening the fastenings as though she could throttle someone with them—she was thinking the same.

  Lesson learned.

  Katya stopped on the sidewalk a few feet away from the group. She wore a leather jacket that had seen better days, like it had protected its wearer from asphalt at high speeds more than once. Black combat boots were laced up to her knees. Her long hair was tousled, as though she’d driven along I-95 with the windows down. “And I have no plans to . . . munch on any of you.” When she looked at Chaz, though, it was like watching a hungry diner eye a perfectly cooked steak. “Unless you’d like me to.”

  “Nah. I’m good, thanks.”

  “Sorry to tell you,” said Val, “but the party’s over.”

  “You know I wasn’t invited, Valerie. Feel lucky I’m not like the fairy that got snubbed in the story. My vengeance would be so much bloodier.” She tilted her head and hummed a few bars of a song Cavale almost knew. “You know, I was at the premier of Tchaikovsky’s ballet. If I’d been a dancer, I’d have wanted to be Carabosse. But they gave that part to a man in those days. Sometimes they still do.”

  “The fuck are you even talking about?” Chaz was possibly the only one who could get away with talking to Katya like that, but Cavale cringed all the same. Wondered if he’d have time to help out if she decided she was done letting him mouth off.

  “‘Sleeping Beauty,’” said Justin. “That’s what they called the evil fairy in the ballet.”

  Katya clapped with glee, the staccato sound echoing in the early-morning air. What did she care if she woke the neighbors? “Look at you!” She stepped closer to Justin, nostrils flaring as she took in his scent. “Aren’t you just coming along so well? The last I saw you, you had a hole in you right . . . here.” She leaned forward to tap him on the chest, but Val interspersed herself between them.

  “Leave him alone, Katya.”

  Her lower lip stuck out in a pout. “It was a compliment to both of you. Why are you so nervous around me, Valerie? I took your toys away once. I’ve given my word it won’t happen again, haven’t I?”

  “Then why are you here?”

  She was shorter than Val, even with the added height from her clunky boots. Still, she got up in Val’s face, close as a lover, and held the other woman’s gaze. Neither of them breathed.

  Val was an obstacle for both Chaz and Justin, blocking either from getting to Katya. Elly stood warily off to the side, holding her decision as long as she could. Val was her friend; Katya her boss. If it came down to it, Cavale was nearly certain she’d make the right choice, but if she played her hand too early and attacked Katya, it could land her in serious trouble with Ivanov. The kind of trouble that would spread to everyone down here in Edgewood.

  That left only Cavale in good striking distance. Elly couldn’t be held responsible for his actions.

  The Stregoi aren’t known for their reasonableness.

  Didn’t matter. If Katya was here to pick a fight, they could sort it out later. He eased himself into position. If she makes a move I can spin her around, give Val time to react if nothing else.

  But she stepped back from Val with a laugh, nearly colliding with Cavale. “So touchy, you are. I didn’t come here to throw down with you and yours. I came here for Eleanor. Your sparkling presences are merely a bonus.” As she said that, she flashed her pointy teeth at Cavale. “Yours especially, Mister Evans. You’re nearly as delectable as our Charles.”

  He didn’t react, instead watching as Elly reached into her back pocket and pulled out her phone. “Were you trying to call me?” she asked. “Nothing came through.”

  “No, myshka, I didn’t. Remember what I told you last night? About the walls having ears?”

  Elly nodded.

  “I thought it better to simply come fetch you.”

  “But how did you know where I was?”

  Katya turned to the others, her perfectly penciled eyebrows raised in mock incredulity. “Last I checked, I was the ancient among us, no? Can it be I’ve embraced the modern era faster than one of its own children?” She held up her own phone, its custom case bedecked with rhinestones in the shape of the Stregoi symbol. With a few taps, she woke up her screen to reveal a map of Edgewood, of Sunny and Lia’s street, a blue dot labeled E. Garrett blinking on and off where Elly stood. “Ivanov owns your phone, Eleanor. He turned on the GPS and I followed it.”

  “Oh.”

  Katya couldn’t know it, but the answer let them all relax a little. She hadn’t tracked them through magical means, or her vampiric senses, which meant Sunny and Lia’s nothing to see here wards were still working as intended. Cavale had helped set them; while they didn’t extend too far beyond the front yard, he was confident they were still inside the wards’ area of effect.

  “It’s pushing four now,” said Chaz. “Figure you guys get back to Southie it’s, what, five thirty? What could you possibly need Elly for in the last hour before dawn? Shouldn’t all good vampire girls and boys be getting tucked into bed by then?”

  She tittered. “Do you get tucked in, Valerie? A glass of warm blood and a teddy bear to help you sleep?”

  “Not usually,” said Val. “But now you suggest it . . .”

  “Oh spare me. Eleanor,” she said, turning her back on Val. “We need you to stand guard during the day, as it turns out. After last night’s events, I have it on good authority those . . . those whelps want to come at Ivanov. By day.”

  Elly frowned. “But they can’t. You’re centuries old and you can’t do it. The Oisín are closer to Justin, turning-wise. How could they . . . ?”

  “The Jackals found a way.” Chaz’ voice was hollow. “Katya, this could be dangerous.
Have Ivanov sleep somewhere else for the day. Hell, have all of your people crawl into other crypts. Don’t . . . Elly can’t do this alone. I don’t care what kind of a badass she is.”

  When he dropped the swagger, Chaz was all right. Cavale had heard his recap of the time he’d spent in the Creeps’ captivity, but what he’d seen with those kids—their servants, their willing minions—had left him shaken. “He’s right,” Cavale said now. “Move them to new places.”

  “They won’t.” Katya shrugged. “This is about turf, gentlemen. Whoever gives ground first, loses.”

  “Then let me come with her,” Cavale said. “I can help.”

  “No.” Elly came over to him, clasping his shoulder. “You’ve got work to do down here. Important work.” She inclined her head toward Sunny and Lia’s house. He couldn’t help but wonder if they were still awake, watching all this from a darkened window. “Ivanov’s Renfields aren’t complete idiots. We’ll be fine.”

  He sighed. She was right; the necromancer needed taking care of, too. “Put my number in your phone, set it so it’s ready to call me. First sign of something out of the ordinary, you call, okay?” Down in Crow’s Neck, he’d be over an hour away. Too far to help physically, but magic didn’t care as much about distance. “Promise me.”

  “I promise.” She crossed her heart like they did when they were children.

  15

  IVANOV MIGHT HAVE kept his bar in the not-yet-gentrified part of town, but his lair was another matter entirely. Elly knew squat about housing prices, but the ultra-modern condo Katya brought her into, with its sleek lines and chrome fixtures, its art pieces meant to be admired from the luxury of a sitting room that was a work of art itself . . . This place had to be in the half-a-million range, easy.

  The head of the Stregoi himself sat in one of the massive wingback chairs. He gestured for Elly to sit on the couch beside it. At first she balked—something this fine, she didn’t think she was allowed to touch. She felt like a grubby six-year-old again, grave dirt under her nails, cemetery mud on her shoes, fingers sticky from milking dandelions for one of Father Value’s spells. If I touch it, I’ll ruin it, she thought, and we can’t afford to replace it. An old mantra, one Father Value had drilled into them time and again when they went anywhere he needed them to behave.

  When she and Cavale were in their teens, it wasn’t Father Value making them feel that way anymore: it was other people. People who saw their secondhand clothes, or noticed how they stuck to the clearance aisles, and assumed poor equaled dirty. Or stupid. Or that they were there to steal. Those people, they let you know exactly what they thought of you.

  They hovered, as though you’d stuff the contents of the shelves in your pockets if they turned their backs. They commented to colleagues about the decline in quality customers, voices pitched loud enough so you couldn’t miss it, but just quiet enough that they could deny it if you confronted them. They turned their noses up as though they’d smelled something foul, no matter how clean you were. No matter how polite you were. No matter if you dug your wallet out and showed them your money.

  They didn’t want you there, and they let you know it.

  She was twenty-three now. She had a dresser in her room in Cavale’s house and a job that paid her enough to fill it with new clothes. Her jeans and sweater were such new purchases, bought for the Halloween party.

  She was in a home she’d been invited to, by hosts who’d never shown her a shred of contempt. Being human, she wasn’t pack, in the way vampires arranged themselves, wasn’t even a Renfield, but she had Ivanov’s trust.

  And still she wavered.

  “Please, Miss Garrett,” said Ivanov, “sit and speak with me.”

  What drove her bottom down onto the butter-smooth leather wasn’t his invitation or the warmth in his voice (false, she suspected), but the feeling of eyes on her. Not only Ivanov and Katya, but the Renfields milling about as well. The ones who were used to this luxury, who felt it was, in some way, their due. They pretended not to watch, to go about their tasks and ignore their master and his guest, but Elly knew those sideways glances.

  I won’t be their freakshow.

  “Katya said you think the Oisín are planning to attack during the day?”

  “It’s the word on the street. Literally.” A tablet rested on the glass coffee table between them. Ivanov leaned over and woke it up, then spun it around to show Elly the picture it displayed. She recognized the sidewalk in front of the bar. Two neat lines of ogham marks were spray painted on the concrete. “This address,” he said, pointing to the first line. Then below it: “Date and time. Today, eleven a.m.”

  “How did they get this address? How do they know it’s where you sleep?”

  “That, my dear, is one of the great mysteries. I’ve vetted all my Renfields. Katya questioned all of them; they’d chew off their tongues before they’d lie to her. None have revealed it to anyone. No one thinks they’ve been followed. Katya and I, we’re careful when we come and go. The Stregoi who stand guard are perfectly loyal to me. But these little ones, they are clever.” He shrugged, seemingly disinterested in exploring the subject further.

  “So, all right, they’re at least sending in their Renfields to do the job. They can’t have too many, right? The Oisín themselves haven’t been around that long.” She sized up the sycophants present with them now: five warm bodies, two men, three women. “Can they fight?”

  “Not as well as you.” Katya leaned on the back of Ivanov’s chair. “But they’re the best bodyguards we have. They’ll do as you say.”

  They didn’t look like much to Elly. None of them tall or particularly thick-necked. Then she caught a glimpse of herself in the tablet’s darkened screen. Guess I don’t look like much of a threat, either. “All right. We’ll set up defenses. What else do I need to know?”

  Katya bent to whisper in Ivanov’s ear. One of her beringed hands came down to rest on his shoulder. Ivanov tilted his head toward her, reached up, and twined his fingers with hers as he listened. Eventually she straightened, and Ivanov turned back to Elly. “There are rumors that the bean sí rides with them.”

  “The bean . . . You’re saying they’ve got a banshee. How?” She couldn’t read ogham script, but Elly knew her Irish mythology. The bean sí were fairy women, whose keening cries foretold impending death. Usually violent ones—murders, accidents. The spirits themselves mostly appeared to the soon-to-be-deceased’s family and wailed, though sometimes the bean sí were violent, too.

  “Another mystery,” said Ivanov. “Perhaps one of them followed a family from the old country.”

  And now it’s confused, since the dead person’s still walking around. She could almost buy it, if her previous few days hadn’t been filled with another flavor of death entity. Believing in coincidence was the luxury of the mundanes. “Theo,” she said. “What do you know about what happened to him?” She’d told Katya about the sigil she thought she’d seen as his body crumbled, how his accent had disappeared. On the drive in, she’d shared what little they’d learned about Udrai.

  “Why he did it doesn’t matter,” said Ivanov. “Not for today. We reached out to the Oisín after you went home last night and got no answer; they were likely too frightened to come talk to my emissary after what Theo had done. Tonight, we sent someone again, first thing, and he barely made it home alive. They do not wish to talk.”

  “But Theo was possessed. I’m sure of it now. By the same person who’s running around in Crow’s Neck.” Elly watched Ivanov’s face for any hint of compassion, but he might as well have been carved from marble. “Don’t you see? Someone’s fucking with both the Stregoi and the Oisín. They’re pitting you against each other and you’re both falling for it. You should be working with them, not fighting them.”

  At last, a flicker of emotion: cold, cold fury. “Are you questioning my leadership, Eleanor?”

  In the c
orners and nooks, the Renfields froze. They dropped their pretense of nonchalance and stared openly. Still hovering above him, Katya gave Elly the tiniest shake of her head. Don’t push.

  Elly took a slow, deep breath. Exhaled. Found a gentler, more subservient tone. “No, sir. I’m only suggesting . . . there might be another angle to all this. You hired me to guard you, and to me that means more than beating people up for you. If you’d prefer me just to guard you with my fists, I can, but all due respect, sir, I thought my mind and my experience were part of the package, too.”

  She waited then, as curious as the Renfields over whether this might result in her abrupt termination. And whether that came in the form of an escort out the door and down to the street, or a sudden gaping wound in her throat. Even Katya didn’t dare move.

  The longer he looked at her, the more certain she became she was staring at her own end. She hadn’t had a chance to plug Cavale’s number into her phone, ready to dial like he’d asked. Not that he’d have time to get here and help if she had. Not that she’d have time to even reach for the phone, let alone wake it up and call him.

  Then Ivanov’s lips quirked into a grin, and she saw no hint of fangs. The mirth didn’t reach his eyes, but he sat back and chuckled. The Renfields relaxed and returned to their preparations. Some of them, Elly thought, seemed a mite disappointed that it hadn’t ended in blood. Katya stayed on alert, but unlike the minions, she looked relieved.

  “You must pardon me, Eleanor. I come from a different world in more ways than one, yes? Our politics, these modern times, I forget how casually people address one another.”

  He’s lying. He doesn’t slip like that. Something had happened just now, but she didn’t know quite what, and didn’t dare step any farther out onto ice that was already creaking beneath the weight of her audacity. “Of course,” she said. “I understand.”

  “And you are right. We have avenues that must be explored. Questions in need of answers. But tonight it is too late.” He nodded toward the windows, where the few visible stars had faded and the sky—never completely black here, with Boston’s lights staving off full dark—had taken on the grey tinge of predawn. “We can’t find them in time, not soon enough to make them listen to reason.