Grave Matters: A Night Owls Novel (25 page)

Elly hoped he wouldn’t eat anyone, but she had more pressing matters at the moment.

The other one was on her now. A woman, Elly’s height and build, but several times her strength. She grabbed Elly’s hand, squeezing until it felt as if Elly’d reached into a wasps’ nest and swatted. All the tiny bones bending, crushing, on the edge of fracture.

Elly cried out and dropped the stake.

The woman spun her around, her teeth on Elly’s throat. She felt the twin pinpricks of her fangs, but the vamp didn’t bite, not yet.
She’s waiting for me to be afraid. She wants to taste my fear.

“Go ahead, you bitch,” Elly hissed. “Do it. I bless my water before I drink it. See how
that
agrees with you.”

The woman snarled and shoved. Like a dancer, she kept hold of Elly’s injured hand, letting her twirl out to the end of her tether. Red-hot agony flared as Elly’s shoulder popped out of its socket.

Don’t feel it don’t feel it don’t feel it.
Easier said than done. Her right side was one throbbing jolt of pain, and the
Oisín
was reeling her back in. Elly scrabbled for Silver and Pointy with her left hand. She could see Katya, a whirlwind a few feet away, taking out one of her companions while one of the
Oisín
got a fistful of that chestnut hair. Up above, she saw Ivanov, a shadow in the shadows. Still watching.
Why isn’t he down here? Why isn’t he helping us? Helping Katya?

No. Oh, no.
The final piece of the puzzle she’d been gnawing at the last few days finally clicked into place.
He’s not being played. He’s the one doing the playing. Ivanov set this whole thing up.

Pain flared in her side, the left this time. Another vampire sandwiching her in. She felt warmth on her hip, felt it spread down the leg of her jeans. No time to look down and see how bad. She flailed about with the spike, her motions slow and sloppy.
Father Value would be so disappointed.

She got in a glancing blow, heard one of them hiss in pain as the spike rent a furrow in its face, but then the woman had her again. Close, like a lover, her breath hot on Elly’s neck.

Breathing, because they were
Oisín
and hadn’t quite forgotten they didn’t need to. Hot, because she’d probably gorged herself on the
Stregoi
as they fell.

Justin’s breath had been cool, enough to give her goose bumps. If she’d ignored Katya’s call, she’d be there still, in the backseat of her car, safe.
I should have stayed with him. Where I wanted to be.

“I don’t have to drink from you to kill you,” the woman said. Her teeth were needle sharp at Elly’s throat. Then they tore—not the neat punctures from the movies, but gaping, ragged holes. The woman growled as she ripped the flesh away. Elly flailed as the pain shot through her, kicking out at empty air, missing the other
Oisín
with one last swing of the spike. As her vision crept toward black, she thought she heard a wailing, soft at first, then growing louder.

The wail of the banshee signifies impending death.

I’m sorry, Cavale. I’m so sorry.

*   *   *

C
HAZ’ PHONE WAS
ringing. He’d never bothered to change the snappy riff from the factory setting, but at seven thirty in the goddamned morning it was enough to make him want to pitch the phone across the room. Then find out whoever was calling him and pitch
them
across a room, too.

Chaz lay in his bed, sprawled atop the blankets in last night’s clothes. He hadn’t taken off his shoes. His keys were still in his hands. He had to piss something fierce, and the
phone was still ringing
.

He fumbled it from his jacket—which, he was sensing a theme here, he still wore—and squinted blearily at the display.

Incoming call from:

Elly Garrett

“Fuck. Fuck!” The previous night came flooding back to him. He choked down his fury at Val’s betrayal, and stabbed at the answer button. “Elly?”

At first he thought,
Hooray, she’s calling after sunrise.
He could talk some sense into her before Ivanov and Katya woke up and swung her back the other way.

But there was hesitation on the other end, and when the person spoke, they sounded
like
Elly, but it wasn’t her. “Chaz? From the bookstore?”

“Marian?”

“Yes.”

He licked his lips. Didn’t want to ask the obvious question. But he had to. “Why are you calling me from Elly’s phone?”

Another short sip of breath. “She’s hurt. Badly. I need . . .
You
need to come get her.”

Give one thing to Val—sending him to bed fully dressed meant he didn’t have to search the floor for his pants. “Tell me where,” he said. “I’m on the way.”

He stopped in Crow’s Neck to pick up Cavale. Mr. Suave looked like shit for once, and Chaz suspected it wasn’t all due to the call from Marian. As they drove, after he’d had Chaz repeat the conversation with Marian four or five times, he told Chaz about Lia showing up, and what they’d seen in the house down the hill. That they’d met not only the necromancer but his master, too. There was probably an angle there they could play, but fucked if Chaz could see what it was just now.

Cavale stared out the window as they drove toward Boston. Chaz kept his mouth shut. Not because he might fuck up and say something to piss Cavale off, but because there was nothing useful he
could
say.
Elly will be fine
was a statement he couldn’t guarantee. Same with
It’s probably not as bad as it sounds
or
Marian can fix her
. He wanted to believe all of them, but unlike everyone fucking else he knew, Chaz didn’t have a single drop of supernatural anything in him to nudge those hopes into reality.

So he drove, and watched the sun rise over the city, and pretended not to see Cavale swiping away tears now and then.

He pulled into an old firehouse not far from the industrial parks. Marian had said to bring the car around the back. Cavale was up and out before Chaz got the key out of the ignition, but Chaz caught up to him at the door. It was open a crack, but something kept it from opening enough to admit them.

It took three good shoves for it to give enough for them to get through.

Cavale’s boot slid as he stepped inside. Chaz caught him and steadied him, then almost went reeling right back out. The stench was overwhelming: blood so thick he could taste it, ash swirling in the air as some of the bodies—
bodies everywhere oh God oh Jesus Elly what the fuck
—withered away.

Sunlight streamed in at the other end of the back wall. Before Chaz realized there were
people
moving around down there, Cavale had produced a knife and started toward them.

“Cavale, wait!” Chaz chased after him, trying not to notice the puddles of blood he splashed through.
Never wearing these sneakers again ever.
The others looked up as Cavale advanced.
If he gets stabby, this is going to go poorly for us.

Val had told him not to talk to the Renfields without her there but (a) she’d said it
before
she gave the Command, so it wasn’t drilled into his brain, and (b) the situation had changed, so fuck her. Still, his head felt swimmy when the obvious
what the fuck happened?
rose to his lips. She’d Commanded him not to talk to Ivanov’s people about the turf war, and
that
still stuck. It was fine; he wasn’t here to talk about that now, anyway. Fuck them and their slap fights; he was here to get Elly and go home.

He didn’t know all the
Stregoi
Renfields on sight, but he was fairly certain most of the people here served Ivanov’s bloodsuckers. A handful of them stood together weeping over what Chaz presumed were their masters’ ashes, but for the most part, the Renfields seemed calm. Grim and grossed out, sure, but upset? Afraid their world was about to change? Nope. If Chaz were a betting man, his money would have been on Ivanov’s people kicking the shit out of the
Oisín
. Which was, at least, good for him and Cavale
.

One guy, a burly football player type, stood in front of the others, ready for confrontation. Chaz knew his face. He was one of Katya’s Renfields. One of the ones who’d stood by and done nothing when she’d tried stealing him away from Val three years back.
Still owe him a punch in the nuts for that.
But now wasn’t the time, so he tilted his chin in the most neutral greeting he knew: “Trent, hey.”

Trent squinted. “Chaz? Why are you here?”

“Because you assholes have my sister,” said Cavale.

Chaz closed the gap between himself and Cavale and got a hand on his shoulder. “Okay, easy now.” Cavale tried shrugging him off, but he didn’t let go. “Do you guys know where Elly’s at? We got a call saying she was here, but she’s hurt.”

The Renfields exchanged uneasy glances. Chaz couldn’t blame them; they knew how deadly Elly was. If Cavale decided to cut his way through them, they’d be fucked. “Come with me,” said Trent after a moment. He skirted wide around Cavale, kept more than an arm’s length between them. “The good thing about being in a firehouse is, she had access to the first-aid stuff they left behind.” He didn’t elaborate on who
she
was, but Chaz had a good idea. And if the
Stregoi
Renfields hadn’t killed her on sight, that meant Chaz’ suspicions had been fucking right: she was working for Ivanov. Her, and the necromancer both. Whether the Renfields knew it or not didn’t matter right now.
Fuck the vampires and fuck their politics.
Only Elly mattered.

In the far corner, laid out on a stretcher older than most of the people in the station, was Elly. She was too pale. Red seeped through the bandages around her middle and at her throat. Her right arm was in a sling made from bedsheets. The gauze wrapped around her hand smelled of myrrh and had herbs tucked in between the layers.

Marian stepped out from the shadows. “I’ve done what I can for her.”

“Have you?” asked Chaz. He was holding Cavale in place, but seeing Elly like this, he was tempted to let the kid have at her, and any of the Renfields who felt like joining in. “Because you had her fucking cell phone. You sure as shit could’ve called an ambulance.”

Marian shook her head. “Then this whole place would be a crime scene, for a case they’re not ever going to be able to solve. Bodies disappearing, evidence gone missing, and the only witness, ever, would be Elly. You think they’d simply discharge her when she got well and leave her be?”

“She’d at least have a chance to get well!”

“You assume the vampires wouldn’t get rid of her. She’d be a loose end. A danger to their secrecy.”

“Oh, fuck them,” said Chaz. He dug for his phone.

“No,” said Cavale. “She’s right.”

“You too? Oh come the fuck
on
.”

He ignored the outburst. When he looked at Marian, she flinched. “Can she travel?”

“If you keep her lying down, and still as you can.”

“All right.” He approached the gurney carefully, took Elly’s good hand. “We’re taking you home, El, okay? Hold on a little longer.”

Chaz couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Are you out of your fucking mind?
She needs a hospital or she’ll die.
” The last word echoed in the cavernous space. The Renfields paused in their work to steal a glance, then looked away, ashamed.
Yeah, fuck them, too.

“We’ll bring her to one closer to home,” said Cavale. How he could sound so fucking calm was beyond Chaz. “If she’s down our way, no one has to know where she got hurt. And Ivanov’s not so likely to send his lackeys after her. Too far for him to give a shit, as long as he’s not implicated.”

“Fuck.” He didn’t like it, but he knew the
Stregoi
. Cavale and Marian were both right. “Okay. Let’s get going, then. Sooner we’ve got some doctors looking at her, the better.”

“Yeah.” Cavale got on the other side of the stretcher. It took him close to Marian. He leaned down, making sure he had her attention. “You chose this life,” he said, and his words were filled with hate. “You chose this life over your daughter, and that meant you chose this life for her, too. You gave her up to be raised by the man that put her on the path leading right. The fuck. Here. If she dies, this is on you as much as it’s on Ivanov. As much as it’s on me. You understand?”

She nodded, miserable, but unlike Cavale, no tears shone in her eyes. “She has you because of my decisions, though. She’s lucky.”

“That’s not luck,” he said. “That’s
family
.”

21

V
AL WOKE UP
feeling the same way she had when she’d gone to bed: shitty. You didn’t use Command on your best friend, no matter how much trouble he was aiming to get himself in by running his mouth off at the wrong people. You didn’t do it because you were scared he’d get hurt, and you’d be snuggled up under your blankets sleeping the day away, literally dead to the world.

You didn’t do it, because it had been done to him before, and those were days he
still
won’t talk about, and now you were no better than Katya goddamned Mironova.

I’ll apologize to him. I’ll eat crow. I’ll eat a whole skyful of crows.

She thought she’d have more time to compose the apology, maybe get to practice it in the mirror before she called him.

But as Val descended the stairs, she saw the light on in the living room and caught Chaz’ scent: strong coffee, the secret, musky smell of old books, the mineral oil he used on the Mustang’s interior.

And, tonight, blood.

She took the last few steps at a leap, her sluggish heart coming to life and crawling up into her throat. “Chaz? Oh God, are you all right?”

As soon as she rounded the corner she saw he was fine. Perfectly, blessedly fine, except for scraped knuckles, but they couldn’t account for how cloying the smell of blood was. “It’s not me.” He batted her hands away, then stood, listless. Uncertain. “It’s Elly. They got her good, Val. She’s not dead, but fuck, it can’t be far off.” When he looked at her, she saw he’d been crying, was about to start again.

“Come here.” His breath hitched as she pulled him into her arms. He sagged against her, head resting on her shoulder. Chaz had little use for stoicism; if he didn’t give in to sobs now it was because he was too damned tired, too damned drained.

And because Justin hadn’t risen yet.

Val held him, keeping her questions in check. His composure returned a few minutes later, and he extracted himself from the embrace. “We brought her to the hospital. She’s over at St. Eustace Memorial. But we picked her up in Southie. I don’t know if the drive . . . if I should’ve stopped in Providence. Or put my foot down and told Cavale we were calling a fucking ambulance right then and there and to fuck with the
Stregoi
.”

“No. You were right to get her out of there. From what Elly said to me last night, and from what Marian told you, that was the best call you could make.” She winced. That apology needed to happen, preparation or no. “Chaz, about . . . about what I did, this morning.”

A muscle in his jaw twitched. “Yeah, I’m still fucking furious with you over that, but . . . Not now. Elly’s more important.”

Letting it go like that was the coward’s way out, Val knew, but she took it anyway.

Probably for the better. Justin was shuffling about upstairs. He’d come in late, close enough to sunrise that Val had started to fret. His grin had stretched ear to ear, his hair had been mussed, and he’d smelled more like Elly than himself. She hadn’t needed to ask where he’d been.

When he rounded the corner, he was already wary. His nose picked up so much more than hers did—he’d probably sensed something was wrong before he’d even been fully awake. “What happened? What is it?” He braced for bad news as he came closer, like a dog about to be struck.

Val had been there when the news of the Clearwaters’ murder had devastated him. He wasn’t done mourning them, not yet, and here she was, about to tell him he might be burying another friend soon. “Elly’s been hurt,” she said, softly. “Chaz can tell us what he knows on the way to the hospital, but we should . . . we should probably get going. Before visiting hours are over.”

Though what she really meant was,
In case she doesn’t make it through the night
.

*   *   *

T
HEY’D PUT
E
LLY
in a private room once they’d stabilized her. For the first few hours, Chaz told Val and Justin, only Cavale was allowed in to see her, and that only after pleading with official after official. He had no papers to prove he was her next of kin, and Elly wasn’t waking up anytime soon to confirm that she knew him. Chaz understood their caution, and Cavale did, too, of course: two men bring a half-dead young woman into the ER, their story thin as onionskin, and for all the staff knew they were the ones who’d done it to her in the first place.

In the end it was Sunny who’d gotten Cavale permission to see her. When Chaz called their house to tell her and Lia, he’d mentioned the wall they were hitting. One of Sunny’s colleagues split his time between St. Eustace’s and the private practice where Sunny worked, and she’d pulled strings.

When she and Lia arrived in person, of course, they’d mind-whammied the staff to allow themselves and Chaz to go in, too.

Val did something similar, as Chaz led her and Justin to Elly’s room. Commanding nurses and orderlies to ignore them wasn’t as elegant as the succubi’s method, but it got them past.

Cavale sat beside the hospital bed, holding Elly’s unbroken hand. Sunny and Lia had taken up the two-person seat in the corner, their arms around each other. Although Chaz had described Elly’s injuries, Val couldn’t stop her hand from flying up to her mouth in horror.

The girl was pale as the sheets, her lips grey and chapped. Her right arm was in a sling, a cast protruding from the end. Tubes and wires trailed out from beneath the blankets, connecting to drips and machines whose purposes Val didn’t know. A pad of gauze and medical tape covered the left side of her neck. Maybe the only scent in the world stronger than blood was that of a hospital, because it was all that filled her nose.

Justin gave the others the briefest of hellos. He dragged the room’s remaining chair over and took up his position across from Cavale.

“You can touch her,” said Cavale. “She’s not going to get any more broken.” He wasn’t saying it to be mean. In fact, the words had no emotion behind them at all. Cavale and Elly were always reserved, thanks to their upbringing, but this listlessness was different. Awful. Familiar.
He thinks it’s just a matter of time before he loses her.
His mourning had already started. Val recognized it because it was how she’d experienced her own, a little over a decade ago. Don’t feel anything. Shut it all out. Let life happen around you.

She didn’t know how to drag him out of it. Val had escaped it by fleeing eastward.

Justin didn’t have the same context. He nodded and, like a prince in a fairy tale, leaned over to drop a chaste kiss on her forehead.

Elly didn’t stir.

“She’s so cold,” he said. “Like . . . Like me.” He stood up fast, seeking out Val. “That’s it. Isn’t it? If it gets bad? If it looks like she won’t come out of it?”

“What’s it?”
Don’t say it, stop even thinking it.

“We make her into a vampire. You saved me that way, you can save Elly. Or I can, if you’ll tell me how.” He looked around the room for support, the eagerness leaking from his face as it wasn’t forthcoming. “What?”

“It’s not what she’d want.” Cavale traced the bumps of her knuckles, back and forth. “So it’s off the table.”

“But she’d be
alive
.” Justin stepped over to Chaz. “What’s the saying? Easier to seek forgiveness than permission?”

Chaz wouldn’t meet his eyes. “That’s . . . that’s when I overrule Val on a book order, Justin. You can send books back to the publisher. You change Elly, the only way out of it for her if she doesn’t want it is to kill her all over again. You up for that?”

“Yeah, well, at least she’d get to yay or nay. If she . . . if she dies now, we can’t take that back, either.” He shifted so those yellow eyes were on her now, begging. “Val,
please
. Order them to stay out of it and we’ll sort it out later.”

I could do it.
Part of her
wanted
to: she was strong enough, especially after last night’s deer blood feast. She could Command Chaz and Cavale to sit on their hands. The challenge would be Sunny and Lia, who were both watching her with grim expressions.

It had never occurred to her before, that she had power over death. Turning Justin had been a
fuck you
to the Jackals, a necessity to save his humanity, maybe, but not his life. When she’d turned him, she’d known she was killing him, no matter how you looked at it, but he’d consented. Shit, he’d
demanded
she do it. This, though . . .

She’s dying. Better I be the one to pull her back from that threshold than let her cross over it.
The necromancer was still out there. What if he was waiting to snatch Elly’s spirit up? To make her fight for him when they came kicking down his door? Wouldn’t that hurt Cavale more?

I could save her. I could turn her right here or pick her up and be gone before anyone could react, do it somewhere quieter. Away from the machines that’ll go batshit if I unhook her, and the doctors who’ll come rushing in.

Another voice piped up in her mind, her more reasonable self. It was hard to hear beneath the rushing of her blood and her glorious thoughts.
It’s not what she’d want. Who are you to steal this last choice from her?

Right now, I’m death’s master.

“No, you aren’t,” said a voice from the doorway. “That would be me.”

*   *   *

U
DRAI.

Cavale scrambled up to get himself between Sunny and Lia and the death god at the door. Val and Chaz were in his path as well, but the more obstacles, the better.
How the hell did he find us?

“Oh, relax,” said the short man. He stepped the rest of the way into the room and closed the door behind him. He shrugged off his coat and, seeing the chairs all occupied, hung it over the container for disposing of needles and biohazards. “First off.” He leaned to the side to peer past Chaz, at Lia. “You lied to me, young lady. It puts us off on the wrong foot. I know who you are now. I
remembered
. You can change your face, but not the flavor of what you do. What you
are
.” He bent farther, listing until Cavale thought he might fall, to get a look at Sunny. “Which means I know who you are, too. There aren’t a lot of succubi who run off to play house together.” He considered this, dark eyes taking in how tightly they held each other, how Lia had positioned herself half a step in front of Sunny. “You’re not just playing house, are you? Oh, wouldn’t
that
little twist fetch me some coin in the right places.”

Cavale wished he hadn’t left the knife in Chaz’ car. It wasn’t the sort of thing you carried when you brought your sliced-up sister into the ER, and if they’d found it on him, they’d likely have had him arrested, but it would be awfully handy now. He scanned the room for weapons: cords everywhere that could make good garrotes, plenty of heavy equipment he could heave if he needed to. He hadn’t searched the drawers, didn’t know if anything good and sharp was nestled inside.

The threat toward the succubi had helped Chaz put it together. He waded right in. “You’re not selling shit to anyone, asshole. Get the fuck out of here. Visiting hours are for family. Which you’re not.”

“Which
none
of you are,” said Udrai. “Glamours are easily broken, you know. I don’t think the staff would be too pleased to find you having a party in their patient’s room. Speaking of.” He shuffled to the side to better see Elly.

“No. No!” Cavale grabbed for the privacy curtain and yanked it along its track, cutting her off from Udrai’s line of sight. Justin helped, then turned to stand sentry. He reminded Cavale of a cat puffing itself up to seem bigger to its opponents, but Justin was about the least intimidating person Cavale knew. Still, the kid had a month of training with Elly under his belt. Cavale wouldn’t count him out.

Udrai clasped his hands in front of him and
tsk
ed. “How funny that the lot of you were discussing her death before I walked in, that all but the presently dead were ready to
let her go
, and now you’re keeping me from even laying eyes on her? Shouldn’t you be welcoming me about now?”

Cavale shook his head. “This is none of your concern.”

“Oh, you’re adorable.”