Grave Matters: A Night Owls Novel (9 page)

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.”

*   *   *

T
HEY 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

S
UNNY SOUN
DED 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.”

Obnoxious, how being in the presence of a pair of succubi could make you cut right to the chase.

“Look, before either of you start in on how Val picked me for a reason, and how much she appreciates what I do for her, I know, okay? She and I have had that conversation a few times now.”

Sunny closed her mouth, biting off whatever comment she’d been about to make. Lia remained poker faced.

Chaz slurped his coffee. He contemplated asking for a slug of whiskey for it—
it’s five o’clock somewhere
—but refrained. It was more to shut up his own shame than any worry that they were judging him. That wasn’t their MO. “I get all that happy wishy-washy
We love you for you
shit. But none of that helps me when some big nasty is slavering all over me and none of you are in arm’s reach. Which, since it’s happened at least twice now? Kind of a concern of mine.”

The women exchanged a look, the kind that can substitute for a whole conversation when it’s between two people who know each other inside and out.

Lia turned to him, her full lips bowing down. A dab of chocolate clung to the corner of her mouth. “What are you asking from us?”

“I’ve seen you two fight,” he said. “I know you can’t teach me the part where you get all seven feet tall and scary looking, but some basic self-defense would be nice. Or tactics of some sort. How to kill some paranormal motherfuckers.”

“Why not ask Elly?” They knew better than to suggest Cavale to him as a teacher.

“Because she’s got her hands full with Justin. And that job for Ivanov. Poor kid needs a break.”

Neither spoke. Lia’s eyes bored into him. The moment dragged on.

Chaz sighed. “And I don’t want them to see me more vulnerable than I already am. It’s bad enough they’ve watched me get my ass kicked. Do they really need to see me fight and think
Oh, no wonder why
?”

“And Val?” asked Sunny. “Out of everyone, she’d be my first choice.”

“I’ve asked her before, a few times. She shuts that shit down stupid fast.” She’d lost her last Renfield out in Sacramento, hunting Jackals. It was a touchy subject.

“So what makes you think she’d be all right with us teaching you, if she doesn’t want to teach you herself?”

That made him boil over. All the goddamned
coddling
, it was bad enough from Val, but for Sunny and Lia to defer to her, too? Fuck that. “She’s my master, not my mother. I know she thinks she’s got all kinds of wisdom on me because she’s in her seventies and all, and you two are in your . . .” He peered at them. At a guess, he’d say midthirties, but no way in hell was that right. “How old are you, anyway?”

“That’s not a question you ask a lady,” Lia said, prim as an Elizabethan spinster. Her lips quirked, giving away her amusement, but she didn’t offer him an answer.

“Right, sorry. My point is, I don’t care about wisdom coming with age. I need to know how to fight because if I did, maybe I could’ve avoided this shit.” He pointed at his black eye and the bruise that flowed down his cheek, along his jaw. “Don’t make me sign up for classes at the community center. I’m sure everyone there is smart and competent. None of them are you.” He thought about that night at Night Owls. The way they’d danced and spun and made it all look so easy. He wasn’t dumb enough to think he’d ever be
that
good, but his ribs wanted a fucking break.

“Give us a minute?” Sunny plucked at Lia’s sleeve. They retreated into the living room. Chaz tried his best to eavesdrop, but all that came back was the gentle murmurs of their voices, no actual words he could make out.
Probably doing it on purpose.
He felt like there ought to have been some other sound blocking them out—radio static, maybe, or waves lapping at a beach.

They came back in like the world’s smallest jury. Neither met his eyes until they sat. Sunny acted the part of the foreman, only instead of reading from a brief, she stared at her coffee cup. “We’ll do it. We’ll teach you. But you need to understand why Val feels the way she does about keeping you out of the fray when she can.”

“If you don’t want to hear us out on that,” Lia said, “I can hook you up with someone in the athletics department at Edgewood. Someone who isn’t me.” She was a phys ed teacher there, and the women’s track coach.

For a moment, Chaz toyed with asking her for lessons in how to run the fuck away, if nothing else, but he thought better of it, and went with a nod. “Fine. I’m all ears.”

“It’s going to take more than listening.” One minute it was Lia sitting there—pretty blond Lia, with her angular face and pouty mouth—and the next it was Val, red hair spilling over her shoulders, her face softer, more oval, a smattering of freckles across her cheeks. Val, there in that bright kitchen, the sun setting gold highlights in her hair aflame. It was still Lia, inside, but the illusion was otherwise so perfect it hurt. “I’m sorry,” she said, thankfully in her own voice rather than Val’s. “This makes it easier to show you.”

Sunny reached for his hand before he could pull away. “You need to know what she felt that night.” She waited for his nod of consent before placing her free hand over Lia’s.

The kitchen dissolved around them. Day darkened into night. The smell of fresh coffee faded away and became the stench of blood and ichor and the smell of the Jackals: pencil shavings, wet dog, rotting meat. Light came back slowly, revealing the ruined living room. Shadows moved within, the impressions of all the others. He couldn’t see their faces, but he could
feel
them there: Elly, determined, exhilarated, in triage mode as she attended to Justin; Justin, confused and frightened and wanting to climb out of his own skin; Cavale, calm and methodical. Sunny and Lia were present, but their feelings were inscrutable. Whether it was because they were in their warrior forms or because they chose to block themselves out now, he didn’t know.

The beacon here was Val. She was the only solid shade among them, clear as though he’d been standing there with them. Her mouth was covered with black Jackal blood, her hands gnarled and twisted into claws. She held a stake loosely in one of them, but most of the gore was caked beneath those talonlike nails. Her emotions pitched and yawed like a plane out of control, and Chaz felt every bit of it because the succubi had, and were relaying it to him.
Through
him. One second Val’s bloodlust sang in her; the next she was ashamed of it. She felt the thrill of the fight, that adrenaline rush as everything comes down, and hated herself for liking it.