Grave Matters

by Lauren M. Roy

  It made a sick kind of sense. Elly fought another wave of nausea. Dunyasha was making a power play. Ivanov figured it out and outmaneuvered her. She looked at Val. “What will you say to him?”

  “I don’t know yet.” Val passed Elly her coat. “Here, I don’t need this. Wear it home.” The coat was a distraction, Elly thought, to keep her from asking more questions. It worked, long enough at least for Justin to return, and Udrai to disappear.

  * * *

  “NONE OF YOU have to do this,” Elly said an hour later. They were gathered in Cavale’s kitchen. She’d showered and put on her own clothes, including a spare pair of work boots. Sunny and Lia had gone home and returned with their keris knives. Chaz and Justin were sorting supplies while Val and Cavale gave them a refresher course on how to fight ghosts and ghouls. They all looked up at Elly where she stood by the coffeemaker. “You don’t. This is my fight. You’re not . . . None of you are assassins. This guy, he’s doing bad stuff, but he’s human, not a Creep.”

  “He’s killing people, El.” Cavale set down his canister of salt. They’d filled her in on what Udrai had told them on the way back to Crow’s Neck. “Even if I hadn’t made that deal, this is where it was probably heading anyway. If we don’t do this, more people will die before he’s done. It’s not like we can turn him in to the police and have him thrown in jail. Three hundred years ago, they’d have locked him up if we accused him of witchcraft, but today?” He shook his head. “You’re not doing this alone.”

  The others nodded. It wasn’t so much Cavale she was worried about. Val had seen ugly, nasty things during her time as a Hunter, and Sunny and Lia were demons beneath those human facades. Chaz and Justin, though . . . Neither of them had ever done something like this.

  I haven’t, either.

  But this was her life in the balance. If it kept her up at night, she had her justification ready. Theirs wouldn’t be as concrete. “Just . . . just keep his ghouls off me. Get me close enough, is all I ask.”

  Not long after, they set off down the hill. Cavale had his pendulum out, and his scrap of silk with Udrai’s sigil. He’d tweaked it, filtering out the misdirects the necromancer had planted. This time, it led them down to the bottom of the hill, then to the right along the intersecting road. It was just past ten o’clock, early enough for lights to be on in some of the houses. Quiet as their group was, seven people wandering down the sidewalk at this hour weren’t exactly inconspicuous. Elly saw curtains twitching, felt many a set of eyes watching their progress. Stay inside, she thought. This isn’t a night to be curious.

  Improved scrying device or no, Cavale’s crystal only led them so far before it quit working. It hung useless on the end of its chain in front of a vacant lot, its point describing tiny circles above the cloth. “I’m going to have to adjust it again,” he said. “But I don’t know what I’m not accounting for.”

  Val sniffed the air, frowning. “I’m not sure it’s actually broken.” Another sniff. She glanced at Justin, who nodded. “I smell corpses here. It’s faint, but, definitely there.”

  That was when Sunny held up the shorter of her wavy-bladed knives. Under the streetlights it was hard to see, but you could hear the metal singing as it resonated with . . . what, exactly? “It’s here, very close.” She turned, pointing the tip like a compass needle. The pitch increased until she was facing the vacant lot. “Here,” said Sunny. “Watch.” She stepped forward, into the weeds, and plunged the knife into the earth.

  It was like coming out of a fog bank into a clear night, even though none of them had moved. The air shimmered, a ripple that started with Sunny’s blade and fanned out over the dead brown grass. As it dissipated, a gasp went through the group.

  The lot wasn’t vacant at all.

  The house occupying it was a two-story McMansion. The door to the two-car garage dominated the front, and the house otherwise looked like several structures mashed together. Three different facades in addition to the garage, each requiring its own roof that joined the other at odd angles. In what must have been a nightmare for the architect, a balcony wrapped around the whole second floor.

  “Holy shit,” said Cavale. “I’d forgotten about this house. Few years back, this developer decided he was going to build a bunch of these. But only the one ever went up, because that’s when the economy tanked and the housing market shit the bed. This place was listed for months, but no one could afford it.”

  Chaz looked at the other houses on the street. “So what we’re seeing is, this guy picked the one place in the neighborhood that probably doesn’t come with its ghosts preinstalled.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why do I feel like that’s not as much a point in our favor as it sounds?”

  Elly turned to Sunny and Lia. “Okay. You two go around the back, make sure he doesn’t try to run. Take Justin with you and meet us inside.” He seemed about to protest until she grinned at him. “Don’t worry, he’ll have sentries up if he’s smart. You’re not going to be twiddling your thumbs.” To the others she said, “No use sneaking. He knows we’re here by now. Ready?”

  They were.

  They stepped onto the lot. Sunny pulled her dagger from the ground, but the house didn’t vanish on them.

  “Let’s go.”

  A few hours ago, Elly’d been sure she’d fought her last fight. It felt damned good now, the ground pounding beneath her feet, her spike—which Cavale had rescued from the firehouse floor—heavy in her grip, and a roomful of ghouls waiting for them inside.

  The front door was unlocked and opened onto a massive, empty great room. The hardwood floors were dull with a layer of dust; the light fixture hanging high above sported ropes of cobwebs. Dotted across the floor like dancers waiting for their partners were the ghouls, half a dozen of them in various states of decay. Val darted past as soon as Chaz invited her inside, Cavale right behind.

  Chaz cursed and stepped up beside her, holding the tire iron he’d taken from the Mustang like a baseball bat. “I was sort of hoping we could go straight to their boss. Oop.” A ghoul wandered close. Chaz met it halfway, swinging for the fences, the socket end of the tire iron lodging deep into its skull. “Aww, you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” he said, and wrenched it out with a dry cracking of bone.

  Another followed it, and Elly pushed past Chaz to get to it. The ghoul bellowed as its fist looped around. She ducked beneath the blow, coming up behind it. Too dark in here. Despite the massive bay window, the weak light from the streetlamps didn’t penetrate all the way toward where she stood. Thank God for penlights. She pulled hers out of her back pocket as the ghoul spun, seeking her out. The light was thin enough that she could hold it alongside the spike and not need to worry about her grip. It sent a beam of light along the point, precisely what she needed.

  Behind her, Chaz had recovered the tire iron and got in another good blow. He put his whole body behind it, and this time, the ghoul’s head tilted at a sickening angle. It dropped to the ground, down but not out. Chaz bent to finish the job.

  Elly’s ghoul swung again, and again she dodged its fist. She stayed half a step out of its range, making it chase her, making it move. No sigil on its neck that she could see, none on its hands. The next time it made a grab for her, Elly dragged the spike down the rotted fabric of its sleeve. The material tore easily, exposing the ghoul’s withered forearm. There.

  Carved into the wrinkly flesh—what was left of it—was Udrai’s mark. Elly had a palmful of salt in her free hand. She lashed out with the spike, splitting the mark down the middle. The spike clattered to the floor as she caught the ghoul’s wrist and pulled its arm out taut. A couple Sundays back, Elly’d helped Sunny prepare the steak she was cooking for dinner. Sunny had uncapped a jar of her special grill rub—salt, pepper, cayenne, other spices—and asked Elly to slather it on the meat. She was reminded of that sensation now as she ground the salt into the ghoul’s torn flesh, th
e crystals grinding wetly against her skin.

  She thought maybe she’d hold off on steak dinners for a while.

  It worked, though. The ghoul gave one last sigh and collapsed, dead again.

  Retrieving the spike, she looked around for another to fight, and found there weren’t any. As she watched, Val kicked a head away from a prone body. Chaz had another in a wrestling hold—his arms up under its armpits, his hands locked behind its neck—while Cavale swooped in with his knife and destroyed the sigil. Two other bodies lay in a heap by the gargantuan fireplace.

  They all looked at one another, then at the grand staircase. Elly nodded toward it, and the others got moving.

  Up the stairs and down the hall, the open side of the passageway offering a lovely view of the great room. Or, what would have been a lovely view if they hadn’t left corpses strewn all around. Even the sitting rooms had sitting rooms in this house, it seemed. The hallway led them on a labyrinthine path, but it was all architecture, nothing supernatural. Father Value had taught them to keep track of which way they were facing, always, and Elly didn’t lose her bearings.

  Toward the back of the house, they came to the master bedroom. In here, there was a light on—one table lamp with no shade, sitting atop a milk crate. Through a set of French doors, Elly saw the flagstones and balustrade of the wraparound balcony. Carpet that had once been cream-colored was tracked with dirt and rot. One corner was filled with fast-food wrappers and empty cans of cold pasta.

  Where the designer had likely imagined a four-poster bed fit for royalty was only a thin mattress, covered in blankets that needed a wash.

  Sitting primly at its edge was a woman Elly recognized.

  Dunyasha.

  Elly hadn’t seen her since that night at Ivanov’s, when the Oisín had asked for their meeting. She had a long, rectangular face, that upturned nose. Everything about her was hard angles and jagged points; she’d grown thinner since that day in the bar. Gaunt. Creating a small legion of vampires in a short span of time probably took a lot out of you. Dunyasha held up her hand with all its rings. They clattered loosely against one another. “You should go,” she said. She looked at all of them, her gaze lingering on Val. “It’s not safe for any of you.”

  “Where is he? The necromancer?”

  She didn’t answer at first, twisting one of her rings around her bony finger. At last she said, “We’re leaving, you know. Ivanov will kill me if I stay, after . . . after what I did. Another hour and we’d be out of your hair. You could just . . . go.”

  “No, we really can’t,” said Elly. The others had filed into the room, Cavale to her right, Val and Chaz to her left. Sounds drifted up from other parts of the house: Sunny, Lia, and Justin, getting closer but not quite broken through whatever surprises had been left around back. Maybe she could end this before they were all together. “Where is he?”

  Dunyasha sighed and stood. She wore an ice blue camisole over a pair of tailored black slacks. The top was inappropriate for the season, out of place in this neglected house. Her shoes’ silver heels dimpled the carpet. “He’s not receiving visitors.” Her mouth twisted with disdain—haughty Dunyasha, relegated to the role of secretary.

  Val’s head whipped up. She inhaled sharply and stared at the balcony, just as two shapes appeared on the other side of the glass. A cold blast of November air whirled in as the door opened. She didn’t know the taller person—a man in his twenties when he’d died, his shaggy red hair sticking out from under a Red Sox cap—but Elly groaned as Deirdre strode into the light to flank Dunyasha.

  “You could run,” said Elly softly. “Take them and go, join some other coven or start your own. You must have money tucked away. Do you even know Ivanov took the Oisín away from you? He used the necromancer to do it, got him to play both sides. Or do you really believe you gave them all those orders yourself?”

  Dunyasha looked startled. “He . . . Ivanov? No. He couldn’t have. He . . .” She shook her head. “Why not just kill us all, if he knew?”

  “To make an example of you,” said Val. “Your life was already forfeit at that point.”

  Elly didn’t care about Dunyasha in the slightest. She felt nothing—no pity, no satisfaction—as the woman’s cheeks flushed with anger and her hands curled into fists as she realized how thoroughly she’d been used. Far as she was concerned, Dunyasha had started this whole damned mess, even if Ivanov had co-opted it for his own means. But Deirdre . . . she was a pawn in a war between two ancient vampires. She didn’t deserve to die for either of them. If that meant letting Dunyasha go, too, well. Ivanov’s politics weren’t Elly’s concern outside Southie. “Please. We don’t have to fight.”

  “Yes, they do.” Val sounded sad. “They’re not in control of themselves.”

  The others moved at human-speed, but even with the necromancer in control Dunyasha was fast. She streaked toward Val, fangs and claws out and turning her into a monster from a cocktail party gone wrong.

  Val caught and deflected blow after blow, taking the brunt of the hits on her forearms. Dunyasha screeched as she drove Val backward, a sound almost matching the whistling air as her claws ripped through it. Some of the swipes got through, until the sleeve of Val’s sweatshirt hung from her arm in bloody tatters.

  The farther back Dunyasha forced her, the more Elly could see Val’s strength beginning to flag. Val was good, but Dunyasha was old.

  On top of that, Elly suspected the necromancer could make her keep going well past exhaustion if he wanted. She was a puppet, and he was the one pulling her strings.

  Still, Val held her own. For the moment.

  Cavale, meanwhile, had wasted no time with the unnamed redhead. Elly couldn’t have tracked Val and Dunyasha for more than a few seconds, but Cavale already had the vampire on the ground, curled into the fetal position with a length of cedar protruding from his back.

  They spotted Chaz at the same time, fending off Deirdre with his tire iron. “Guys? A little help here? This is steel, not silver.”

  Maybe don’t tell her that.

  She and Cavale reached Deirdre at the same time. Cavale was ready with his stake, but Elly shoved herself between him and the vampire. “No. Not if we don’t have to.”

  Deirdre’s head turned at the sound of Elly’s voice. Her body went right on scrabbling at Chaz, but her eyes found Elly. She opened her mouth—raw, bloody holes where Katya had torn out her fangs—and let out that terrible moan from the morning they’d attacked Ivanov’s. She’s still in there. Fighting him.

  “We’ll get you out,” Elly told her. Then, to Chaz and Cavale: “Find the sigil.”

  Chaz took advantage of Deirdre’s distraction, skirted around those flailing claws, and—shaking his head like he was going to regret it—got in behind her. He planted his feet between hers, slipped his arms around her, and got her in that hold he’d used on the ghoul. Deirdre snarled and spun, but Chaz moved with her. “Hurry up before she takes my arms off. She’s fucking strong.”

  Her shirt pulled up as Deirdre struggled to get free. There. The sigil was on the lower part of her belly, a dark smudge against her pale skin. Elly’s spike flashed out, dug a gash in its center. Deirdre howled as the poison silver stung, the flesh burning and cracking and oozing as though splashed with acid.

  But she didn’t stop fighting.

  “What’s going on?” asked Chaz. His muscles were corded with the strain of holding her. Elly could see the tremble building in his arms. He can’t hold her much longer. “She’s . . . Fuck.” The last came as Deirdre whipped her head back, hard. He had time to duck, a little, but there wasn’t far to move and keep the hold. Their heads met with a crack, and when Chaz peered at Elly and Cavale over her shoulder, his forehead was a red mess.

  Forehead wounds bleed a lot. He’s fine.

  She’s not.

  Deirdre didn’t drop. The only thing that changed was the
pitch of her moan, as another sigil formed above the old one. “Shit.” Elly slashed at the new one. Same effect—black-edged, ruined skin, the mark destroyed. And, a heartbeat later, another took its place.

  Cavale was beside her. He met her incredulous stare. “I’m sorry,” he said. “He’s so close by it doesn’t matter. We have to—”

  “I know.” She hefted the spike and made sure she could see Deirdre’s eyes. “Chaz, keep her still.”

  “Fucking trying.”

  The moan softened, stopped. It was like watching a clockwork toy wind down, the way her limbs slowed and her head hung. She’s fighting the spell. But it wouldn’t last. All Deirdre could do was buy Elly a precious second for a clear shot.

  She pulled a cedar stake from her belt, said, “I’m so sorry,” and drove it into Deirdre’s chest.

  Chaz staggered as she sagged, regained his balance as the ash swept over her and she crumbled in his arms. He didn’t have time to parse what had just happened, though: across the room, Dunyasha had Val pinned in the corner.

  The single bulb splashed three long shadows over the walls as Elly, Cavale, and Chaz fanned out to help.

  They were halfway to Val when their shadows came alive. They melded together, weaving into one another like a braid, darkening, deepening. They split apart, two instead of three, and flowed down to the floor where they collected in inky puddles.

  Out of those puddles rose the succubi.

  Gone were the gentle women who shared their cozy house in Edgewood. Seven feet tall they were, their skin the violet of the sky after the sun has just set. Sunny was the taller of the two now, her hair barely more than a dark fuzz over her scalp. Lia’s eyes were black pools in her narrow face. Long, brown dreadlocks hung past her shoulders. Both carried their keris knives—one long, one short in each pair. Smoke curled up off the blades.