Night Owls

14

CHAZ COULDN’T REMEMBER the last time he’d seen the interior of Hill O’ Beans lit by early morning sunlight. His brain kept trying to fill in nighttime shadows, with ancient, white-haired Margaret behind the register and her twin Adele working the coffeemakers. He certainly didn’t know the two young women manning the counter this morning. They were probably students at Edgewood, like the majority of the small crew at Night Owls, but to him they looked wrong there.

Everything on the drive from Crow’s Neck back to Edgewood had been that way; landmarks that were usually draped in shadows looked alien in the pinkish glow of sunrise. It went with the territory of being a Renfield—you traded some of your own daylight so you could be available during your master’s waking hours. Chaz preferred sleeping through the mornings and starting his day around noon. He supposed others did the opposite, waking at sunset like their masters and staying up to watch Good Morning America and take care of daytime business, but he’d never really had a chance to swap notes with any others.

He didn’t care to, either. His brief glimpse into how the other half lived a few years back was quite enough, thankyouverymuch. Chaz’ impression of other Renfields—what little he could remember through the three-day haze of pain and mind-fuckery—was that most of them were obnoxious fucking sycophants. Most of them would have thought it an honor if their masters drained them to a husk and dumped their bodies into Boston Harbor. You don’t get a trophy for being a tasty snack. Christ. Now that he thought of it, getting rid of bodies was probably about as close as vampires got to defecating. He grinned. Val would appreciate that one, when she woke up.

The girl at the register must have thought the smile was for her. She returned it as she arranged the four coffee cups in a carry-out tray for him. Silver braces with hot pink bands covered her teeth. “You manage Night Owls next door, don’t you?”

“Yeah, but I’m usually on the night shift.” He peered at her, trying to dredge up some recognition, but nothing came. A good bookseller knew the regulars, and Chaz was usually pretty good with faces, even if they didn’t shop at Night Owls often. Still, nothing, not even a hit on the braces. “I’m having trouble recalling your name—I blame this ungodly hour.”

“Nah, I don’t think we’ve met. I usually go there during my morning break. I just noticed Justin out there in your car. He sits next to me in Western Civ, and he usually goes straight from class to his shift.” She tilted her chin toward the front window. “He looks beat. I’m not sure even a shot or six of espresso would wake him up.”

Chaz half turned. Justin was asleep in the front seat, head tilted against the backrest, with his eyes closed and mouth hanging open. “He’s had a long night.”

“I’d bet he’s had a couple of them. With Professor Clearwater and all.” She rang up the coffees and stuck a couple of chocolate croissants in a bag. “Here, on the house. Tell him Nadine from Dr. Forrester’s class says hi.”

“Will do.” Chaz dropped a healthy tip in the jar and headed out to the car.

At the creaking of the driver’s side door, Justin jerked awake. He accepted the tray and the bag of pastries blearily as Chaz passed them over. “How long was I asleep?”

“Maybe ten minutes. Nadine says hi.”

“Nadine?”

“From one of your classes. She saw you all conked out and drooling and sent me away with free food for you. Either she thought you looked like a kitten in need of rescuing, or she’s crushing on you.” The Mustang roared its way to life, and Chaz backed out of their spot. He saw Nadine watching them leave, and gave her a wave. “She’s cute. You should ask her out.”

Justin looked up from contemplating the croissants and waved in the same general direction as Chaz had.

“You didn’t even make eye contact.”

“I’m still half-asleep!” It showed, too. He stared down at the coffee cups and touched the lid of each, counting. “Four cups? Are Cavale and Elly meeting us?”

“No, they’re staying put. These are for Sunny and Lia.”

Watching Justin trying to make the connection was like watching the Mustang trying to start on bitterly cold mornings. He could almost see the check engine lights coming on in the kid’s eyes before the memory of where they were headed kicked in. “Wait, the succubi?”

“Yep.”

“Their names are Sunny and Lia. Succubi.”

“Yep. Well, no, but close enough. They said their real names for me once. I don’t really remember the next hour or two.” They’d told him he’d just sat there, entranced by a pattern on the wallpaper in their parlor, but whenever it came up, Lia and Val dissolved into snickers and Sunny succumbed to outright cackling. Chaz was just fine not knowing the specifics.

“Should I be, um. Worried, or anything?”

Chaz glanced sideways at Justin. The kid had turned bright red. Oh shit, he thinks he’s going to be babysat by porn demons. Don’t laugh, don’t laugh . . . To buy some time, he reached over and retrieved his coffee, settling it between his thighs to pry open the lid—the way you weren’t supposed to unless you wanted to risk burning your junk. But the Mustang was older than cup holders, and Chaz had yet to spill a drop in the ten years he’d had the car. Still, he figured showing amusement at Justin’s sudden embarrassment would be a great way to invoke karma, so he made sure his voice was steady and the hot coffee wasn’t hovering over his bits before he answered. “No. You shouldn’t be. Listen, I’m going to let you in on something about these girls, okay?”

“Okay?”

“Sunny and Lia are more interested in each other than they are in either of us.”

Justin’s brow creased as he puzzled that one out. “You mean . . . ?”

“Yep.”

“But I thought . . . I mean, aren’t succubi supposed to, um. Like men?”

“Technically, yes. And they do, I guess, but that’s none of my business so I’ve never asked for details. But you can stop worrying that they’ll spend the day trying to jump your bones.”

He let out a huge sigh of relief. “Okay, good.”

“You going to break out those croissants, or no?” It had been hours since either of them had eaten, and Margaret and Adele’s pastries were beyond amazing. Chaz’ disappeared in under two minutes. Justin ate more slowly, picking his apart in slow strips. He was at least being careful to keep the flakes falling into the bag rather than all over the seat, which Chaz appreciated. “Here’s what I don’t get. A guy your age, I’d think you’d be disappointed that you’re not in for a day of something straight out of Letters to Penthouse.”

So much for keeping the seat clean. Or the windshield for that matter. Justin spluttered, spraying crumbs all over the passenger side. “What?”

“Just saying.”

“I’m . . . I’m not like that. That’s not, it’s not my, I mean . . .” He cracked open his coffee and took a scalding sip. They’d come to a four-way stop, and Chaz took the opportunity to get a good look at Justin. The red, which had been subsiding, returned in force. Now he was full-on crimson from forehead to chin as he mumbled, “I wouldn’t even know what to do.”

A car behind them honked. Chaz waved an apology in the rearview and got going again. You didn’t flip off your fellow drivers in Edgewood; chances were they were also your patrons. “Are you telling me you’re a virgin?”

“I, um. Yeah.”

“Weren’t you with Annie for like a year?” Chaz had liked the tall blond girl who, up until a few months ago, used to come around for Justin’s dinner break. Something had happened over the summer, though, and she’d stopped swinging by. Justin had never said much about it, though he’d filled the poetry section with a slew of really depressing collections after the breakup.

“Yeah, but we never. You know.” From the look of things, he was about to spontaneously combust, and boy would that ruin the interior.

“Hey, that’s fine. Nothing wrong with it. And? It’s not any of my business either.” He waited a beat, then winced as he added, “Listen. Sunny and Lia will just know, okay? And they’re going to find it endearing.”

“‘Endearing’? Toddlers are endearing.”

“They’ll probably give you some shit about it, but I’ll tell them to lay off. I just figured, forewarned is forearmed, yeah?”

Justin groaned and took another sip of coffee. “Anything else I ought to know?”

“One other thing. Do you still think of Annie a lot?”

“Sometimes, I guess. I mean, I know we’re not getting back together, but I miss her, you know?” He paused and eyed Chaz suspiciously. “Why?”

“Just . . . Try not to be too freaked out if one of them starts looking like her. It’s a succubus thing. They pick up on who it is you’re wanting and sometimes they react to it. It happens subconsciously for them. Especially if you still have feelings for her. It’s not a big deal. If you ask them to turn it off, they will.”

Justin gaped at him for a good thirty seconds before he found his words again. “Are you sure I can’t just go back to the dorm?”

“Yes, I’m sure. Seriously, don’t sweat it. They’ll probably stick you in their spare room, tell you how the TV remote works and where the bathroom is and leave you alone.” He pulled into the driveway of a neat little Victorian and killed the engine. They had arrived.

Sunny and Lia’s house was their pride and joy. They’d spent most of the summer up on ladders, touching up the paint. Lia kept a vegetable garden out back, and she’d lined their brick walkway with pots of red and orange chrysanthemums. It was cozy and welcoming, the picture of domestic contentment. None of the neighbors would ever have suspected they lived next door to a pair of demons.

“You ready?” Chaz leaned over to take the coffee tray from Justin.

The kid took a deep breath and plastered on an exhausted smile. “My boss is a vampire and I have some kind of evil spell stuck in my head. How could spending the day with a pair of succubi be any weirder, right?”

“That’s the spirit.”

The front door opened when they were halfway up the walk. Sunny came out onto the steps in a blue and white tee shirt that read “Edgewood College Athletics Dept.” that was three sizes too big for her. Her bare feet peeked out from the bottom of her blue plaid pajama pants. She was short today; Chaz guessed she was only a hair over five feet. Her skin was nut-brown, her hair thick, black, and bobbed. Huge chocolate brown eyes peered up at him from an otherwise plain face.

Chaz could feel the confusion emanating from Justin. Sunny’s appearance didn’t exactly scream “sex demon.” Chaz knew this face of hers, though. It was Lia’s favorite, and thus the one Sunny usually wore.

“Sunny, this is Justin. Justin, Sunny.” Chaz gestured with the tray of coffee as they climbed the steps. “Val wanted me to tell you how much she appreciates this.”

“Oh, please. Anything for you guys.” She stepped back, beckoning them inside. “Lia’s out for a run. She should be back any minute now.”

They followed her into the living room and sat down on the black marshmallow leather couch. Chaz deposited the tray on the glass coffee table and sat back with his cup. Sunny plunked down on the matching love seat across from them and took in their rumpled clothes and tired eyes. “No run-ins on the way?”

Chaz shook his head. He’d told Sunny the Jackals might be after Justin, and she’d insisted he floor it to get there. “None. Val says they go to ground during the day, and they don’t know that what they’re looking for is cozying up next to The Complete Works of Christopher Marlowe in Justin’s head.”

“Yet,” muttered Justin. He got that sluggish-engine look again, then startled. “It is what they’re after. That piece of Professor Clearwater’s book.”

Shit. Chaz had told Val the kid wasn’t stupid, that it wasn’t a hard leap to make. She’d been hoping that exhaustion combined with the whole “my boss is a vampire and my handwriting’s been hijacked by some fucked-up spell” thing might distract him from drawing the obvious conclusion. With your average kid, that might’ve worked. But Justin was almost frighteningly smart, and, well, when a kid spends that much time thinking, sooner or later the brain was going to rejoin the party.

I was just hoping it wouldn’t be on my goddamned shift.

He felt guilty for even thinking that, but Chaz had never been very good at reassuring and comforting. I’ll probably just make it worse. Damage was already done though; he had to at least try. “Listen, Justin . . .”

“Sweetie, it’s not your fault.” Thank God for Sunny. She reached across the table and took Justin’s hands in hers. “If I understand it right, Professor Clearwater gave you the book, not the other way around, yes?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Because he trusted you with it. He knew you could get it where it needed to go, and that he wouldn’t have to worry about it. You eased a burden for him by taking it. Do you see?” While Sunny spoke, she stroked her thumb slowly back and forth across his knuckles. Her voice was low and smooth, and her eyes . . . It shouldn’t be possible for that brown to get deeper, but it had. They seemed almost liquid now, and even bigger than when Chaz and Justin had first arrived.

The smell of sandalwood filled the room, earthy and deep. Had she lit a candle? Or a stick of incense? Chaz found he couldn’t remember, and that was what brought him out of the stupor. Sunny never broke her eye contact with Justin, but Chaz was fairly certain the amused quirk of her lips was aimed at him.

She kept murmuring, too low for Chaz to make out the words. Justin nodded now and then, deep in her thrall. Probably should’ve told him she’s a therapist for her day job.

Chaz let his mind wander as Sunny eased Justin’s worry. He had very little to do until tonight. Night Owls’ daytime crew could take care of itself, and the plans for the Jackals’ return depended largely on Val, Elly, and Cavale. Which meant he could close his eyes, let his mind slip into neutral for a few minutes, and quietly freak the fuck out.

It had been bad enough having a Jackal come within millimeters of stabbing out his eye the other night. It had been worse when he and Val had gone into the Clearwaters’ and he’d seen what those creepy bastards could actually do. But what he kept coming back to, now that Cavale had utterly failed to fix Justin like Val had hoped (and wasn’t Chaz just sitting on a huge I told you so for that), was the Jackal woman’s parting threat. I’ll bring back a whole nest.

They didn’t have the pages for her and they weren’t going to by tonight. How long would it take for them to rally their troops? Was it just a matter of sticking their snouts in the air and howling, or was there some sort of Jackal message board on the Internet: Meet up in Edgewood, Friday at midnight. BYOB. Snacks will be provided.

Maybe they could handle a few of them, between the four of them. Val could fight. Cavale, too, as loath as Chaz was to compliment him. And if miss small, dark, and twitchy had learned her shit alongside Cavale, well, that probably meant Chaz was the weak link in the group.

That girl can hold her own. She stabbed Val, didn’t she? He grimaced, remembering the feel of Val’s blood on his hands as he bandaged the wound, how warm it felt against her cold, cold skin. She’d looked like hell by the time she’d gone down into Cavale’s cellar. If they’d been alone, he would have insisted she let him help her down the stairs, at least let her lean on him instead of Cavale’s rickety goddamned railing. But while she might have conceded if Cavale had been the only other person present, she’d never show that much vulnerability in front of an employee and the girl who’d inflicted the wound in the first place.

So he’d watched her descend the stairs, his knuckles turning white on the edge of the chair as he waited for her weakened state to cause her to stumble and fall. It was like watching her descend into the crypt, stink of old earth and all, and he’d hated it.

He’d see her tonight. He knew that, logically. She’d probably insist on feeding first, too, so she really would look a thousand times better by the time she got back to Night Owls. But until then, every second would be tinged with worry for her.

The front door rattled open, pulling Chaz from his doom-filled thoughts. He was about to turn to say hello to Lia when Sunny’s expression stopped him. She was no longer hypnotizing Justin. Instead, she was staring over the top of his head, the color draining from her face. A tiny strangled noise escaped her throat as she shook her head “no.”

Justin twisted to follow her gaze and gasped. “But . . . It’s daylight.”

Chaz felt his mouth go dry. He turned slowly, already knowing what he’d see.

Val stood in the archway, dressed in a pink tracksuit, an Edgewood Panthers water bottle in her hand. Her red hair was pulled back into a ponytail, the strands around her hairline dark with sweat. Only, it wasn’t Val.

“Fuck,” said Lia, in Val’s voice. “I’m sorry, Chaz. I saw the car but I didn’t even think— Sec.” She disappeared into the hall bathroom, slamming the door behind her. When she emerged a minute later, she’d lost a few inches and gained a few pounds. Her ponytail still cascaded down her back, but now it was honey blond instead of dark red. Her skin was tanned, which made the cotton-candy pink polish on her fingernails stand out. This was the face Lia usually wore: Sunny’s favorite. “I’m so sorry about that. I. Um.”

“It’s okay,” Chaz said. “I’ve just been worried about her.” He overemphasized the word, hoping the women would back him up. She and Sunny knew how he felt about Val—it wasn’t the kind of thing you could hide from two extremely savvy succubi—but he certainly didn’t need Justin to twig on to it. “Sunny can fill you in on why later. Or Justin can. Justin, this is Lia.”

Justin smiled politely, but kept his eyes on Chaz. He was back to the puzzling-shit-out face.

“Not a word to Val about, uh. That. Okay? She gets snarly when I worry about her too much.”

Another nod, this one with a little less suspicion. It probably helped that Justin had actually seen Val get snarly now and then at Night Owls. Usually it was when she’d put off feeding a day or two too long, but he didn’t know that. Yet.

“Is Val okay? That was awfully strong.” Lia crossed over to sit next to Sunny.

“She’s all right. There’s some shit going down, but it’s being taken care of.” Chaz stood and pulled his keys out of his pocket. I need to get out of here. “Listen, I hate to run off like this, but I have a few things I need to get done before she wakes up. Sunny said it’d be okay for Justin to sack out here for the day. Is that cool?”

“Of course.” Lia bit her lip. She looked like she wanted to cry. “Chaz—”

He smiled at her, doing his best to reassure her without having magical succubus soothing powers at his beck and call. It wasn’t Lia’s fault his guard had slipped.

“It’s okay, really. Take care of Justin for us, yeah?” He clapped Justin on the shoulder and leaned down to stage-whisper in his ear: “No shoes on the furniture, no blaring the radio, and for God’s sake, put the lid down. Got it? Good. We’ll be back tonight to take you off the ladies’ hands.”

Chaz didn’t wait for any of them to answer. He showed himself out, willing his gait to remain steady and calm until the door closed behind him.