Night Owls

15

THE WEIGHT OF darkness. Of daylight outside the walls, driving her inside. Cold, damp earth against her cheek, the musty smell of the space, mixed with old rags left forgotten in a corner, rotting away into nothing. Rumble of the furnace as it shuddered to life, rustle of mice as they scurried about in the walls.

Another mouse up above, at the door. Breathing, listening. Hand on the doorknob, hesitant. Come down, little mouse. Come see the monster in the basement. The creaking of the floor above as the mouse decided to be elsewhere. Just as well. The mouse had a sharp tooth.

Pain, too. Flesh knitting slowly together, the itch almost enough to pull her to consciousness.

Val turned uneasily in her sleep, a corpse rolling in its grave. Other things moved in the basement—beetles and crawly things, a family of moles—but once she’d subsided, she was as still and silent as stone.

Off and on during the day, there was a shuffling by the door upstairs and a pause as Elly listened for signs of life. At those times, Val’s nostrils would flare and her fingers would twitch. But the girl didn’t come down, and Val slept on.

SHE AWOKE AT sunset, cold, hungry, and with something stuck in her teeth. She worked it loose with her tongue while she got her bearings. Memory came back bit by bit, full recall dawning at about the same moment the thing in her teeth came free. The Jackals, the book, Justin. Elly and her silver weapon. Val spat the thing out into her palm. It was small and thin, spiky in places. Oh dear God, is that an antenna?

She sat up and looked around the dirt near where her head had been. Sure enough, the carcasses of several beetles were scattered about like the shells from discarded pumpkin seeds. Damn it. It had been years since something like that had happened. It was a testament to how badly she’d been hurt. Most nights, she didn’t make a habit of luring insects to their doom while she slept. There was nourishment to be had in those tiniest of doses, but the last time she’d done it had been back in Sacramento, in the aftermath of those final, dark days.

Rumor had it that it was how some of the Old World vampires had survived the crossing to America. Buried in the ships’ holds, nestled in their wooden crates filled with dirt from their homelands, they’d called the rats and vermin to them and feasted while above decks the poorest human passengers starved.

It was, of course, largely bullshit. Most of those Old World bloodsuckers had amassed enough wealth to hire their own ships and crews and make the crossing in style. Perhaps a handful of fledglings had gone the cargo-and-bugs way, but Val couldn’t imagine the ones who still clung to their titles—Count this, Baroness that—eating so much as a flea. Still, the legends were steeped in truth, and apparently Val had snacked on beetles like they were peanuts at a bar.

The blood on her shirt had dried during the day; the fabric was stiff as cardboard when she tugged at it. The bandages weren’t much better, and now they had grime from the cellar floor on them to boot. She unwound them carefully, dropping them into the rag pile in the corner.

Free of Chaz’ field dressing, she poked gingerly at the place where Elly’s spike had pierced her gut. It was tender, still, but the wound had closed. She didn’t think it would reopen on her if she had to run later. Or fight, let’s be honest.

She needed to be certain it wouldn’t, though, and that meant feeding.

A thin strip of yellow light peeked from beneath the door. Val climbed the rickety stairs, holding tight to the railing in case her weight was too much for them after years of disuse and they fell away beneath her. They didn’t, though, and as she cracked the door open, Val knew she was alone in the house. She stepped into a kitchen lit by the last remnants of twilight. A night-light plugged in above the stove was losing a battle with the encroaching gloom.

Cavale had left a note on the table: Gone to prepare. Towels beside the bathroom sink. See you tonight. Val smiled. She’d noticed over the years how meticulous Cavale was when it came to grooming. Most of the twentysomethings she knew tended to let things like shaving slide, or would wear a pair of jeans a day or two past when they ought to be washed. Granted, most of the twentysomethings she knew still brought their laundry home to Mom on the weekends, or spent the quarters intended for the washing machine on beer instead.

Now that she’d met Elly and understood a little bit of how they’d lived, it made more sense. The girl had been clean, to be certain, but her hair looked like it had been hacked at with a knife. Probably because it had. She’d been wearing one of Cavale’s sweatshirts, but her faded jeans had been patched and patched again, just like the backpack. If you left a life where things like new clothes, haircuts, and maybe even reliable showers were a distant dream, why not indulge in those things when they became available?

Val made her way into the bathroom to clean up. She scrubbed the dirt from her face and brushed most of it out of her hair. One of Cavale’s shirts hung from the shower curtain rod. Val shrugged it on and stuffed her ruined blouse into the trash. She squeezed a dollop of toothpaste onto her fingertip and swabbed it around inside her mouth. Nowhere near as good as a real brushing, but she wanted the taste of beetle—pine nuts mixed with pennies—gone.

One last glance in the mirror showed her looking almost human again. Pale, sure, and more gaunt than she cared to be, but passable enough to draw in her prey. She smelled a little musty, but by the time anyone noticed, it’d be too late.

Outside, the street was quiet. Val could see lights on in several of the houses as she slipped past. She could smell the people within, beneath the aromas of cooking meat and macaroni and cheese: their blood, calling to her. Her own stomach growled, the hunger gnawing and buzzing at the back of her brain. Not here. Not in Cavale’s neighborhood.

She sped on, sticking to the shadows until she got out to the main drag. Rush hour had come and gone, but traffic was steady enough that Val didn’t have her thumb out for too long before someone pulled over. The car was a late-nineties Hyundai that had seen better days.

So, for that matter, had its driver. The woman was in her early forties, but there were twists of grey in her hair that made her look a decade older. Her maroon lipstick stained the filter of the cigarette clenched between her teeth. As Val pulled open the door and slid in, the woman said hello. “Hell of a road to be hitchhiking on. No one watches their speed.”

“I’ve noticed. Nearly been clipped a few times. Thank you for stopping.”

“Well, it’s not something I normally do, but you looked harmless enough.”

Val winced. Was the calling still in effect? Did it matter? Her intent was to feed; if latent abilities were helping her out, so much the better. She forced a smile. “Are you going anywhere near Edgewood?”

“I can get you most of the way there, sure.” She offered up the pack of Marlboros. “Smoke?”

“No, thank you.”

“Hope you don’t mind if I do.”

Val shook her head. “Not at all.” Normally, she didn’t like smokers’ blood. Afterward she felt like she’d licked an ashtray. Once in a while though, it wasn’t so bad. Especially now, when she didn’t have time to be picky.

The woman chatted amicably as she drove, gesturing with her cigarette to punctuate her points. Her name was Jane. She’d just come off the day shift at a plant where she “screwed this into that, and passed it on down the line.” Now she was headed home to scarf down dinner with her daughter before she headed off to her part-time data entry job. Val warmed to her quickly, but the hunger grew with every passing mile. Soon enough she was concentrating more on the rhythm of Jane’s pulse than the rise and fall of her patter.

There was a weigh station off the highway just outside of Edgewood. In the years she’d lived in town, Val had never seen anyone actually pulled off into it. It seemed as good a place as any. “You can let me off here,” she said.

Jane glanced at her. “I figured I’d take the exit, let you off at the Dunkin’ Donuts that’s there.”

“It’s not necessary.” Val pushed the Command into her voice. “Pull into the weigh station.”

Jane’s face went slack, her eyes blank. Her head swivelled forward again as she obeyed. All the animation was gone—everything that had lit her up as she’d spoken of her daughter, the sardonic smirk that had made the cigarette bob when she talked about her cubicle mate on the second shift—it was as if it had all leaked out of her and all that was left was this Jane-like husk.

It’ll come back. Five minutes after I’m gone, she’ll be herself again. Still, it was the worst part of what she was, the part she’d never been able to shut off the way the others did. The concept of humans-as-cattle repulsed her. She delayed that moment where their eyes went dead and their personalities took a walk as long as she could, every time.

The car rolled to a stop. Jane put it in park, then her hands returned to the steering wheel at ten and two. The cigarette smoldered between her lips as she stared straight ahead.

“Put that out, then give me your right wrist.”

There was no hesitation. Jane stubbed out the butt then held her right arm straight to the side, her wrist tantalizingly close to Val’s nose. The rest of her body hadn’t moved. It was like watching one of those robot demonstrations, where the programmers gave orders and the machine carried them out with perfect efficiency.

Val encircled Jane’s wrist and squeezed gently a few inches below the heel of her palm. With her other thumb, she massaged the veins until they stood out against the woman’s pale skin. “I’m sorry,” she said, but her fangs unsheathed as she said it, giving voice to the part of her that was not sorry at all. As they pierced the skin, the hunger surged.

Jane’s blood coursed hot and thick over Val’s tongue. Val felt her own pulse quicken as her body opened up to the sudden rush. She imagined it was how a man would feel diving into a lake after wandering through the desert for several days. The wound in her middle throbbed as it healed the rest of the way. In the dim amber of the streetlights, Val watched her skin smooth out, the wrinkles and rivulets that had sunk in over the last day disappearing. She could feel it in her muscles, too, the strength flooding back with every swallow.

Enough. Enough. STOP.

Jane groaned as Val tore herself away, but she still hadn’t moved. Her arm bobbed a bit, but it stayed stuck straight out. Val glanced down at Jane’s mangled wrist. The neat twin puncture wounds they showed in the movies were laughable. Teeth tore, especially in places where the flesh was thin. Maybe the vampires who drank from the femoral artery could leave a perfect pair of bite marks, but taking from the wrist . . . not so much. Blood pulsed out from Jane’s wound, inviting. Heady.

No more.

Val pressed her fingers to the broken flesh. She scooted closer to Jane so she could bend her elbow and hold her wrist up as high as it would go to slow the blood flow. Then she steeled herself and bit her tongue, hissing at the flare of pain. This time, the blood that filled her mouth was her own. She worked it around a moment, mixing it with her own saliva like some kind of gruesome mouthwash.

When the blood seeping from Jane’s wound had slowed to a trickle, Val lifted the injured wrist to her mouth once more. She smeared the blood-and-spit mixture over the worst parts of the wound, pushing the ragged skin together to help it knit back together. It took a few minutes to heal, but when she was done, the only evidence she’d fed was the leftover blood. Val lapped that up, too, then hunted around in Jane’s glove box hoping to find some napkins to wipe up the last vestiges of red. She found something even better: a stash of wet naps.

She returned Jane’s hand to the steering wheel, then cleaned it all, every drop she could find. Jane sat there totally checked out until Val spoke again. “When the car door closes, get back on the road and go home. If you’re late it’s because, uh, you hit some traffic. No smoking for three hours or so.” She patted Jane’s shoulder. “And you never saw me.”

Then she got out of the car and slammed the door, hard. She watched from a few steps away as, inside, Jane jerked awake. The woman didn’t turn to look out the passenger window as she got her bearings. Val knew that the fog of Command was lifting, but it wouldn’t dissipate fully until Jane had put some distance between them. The Hyundai’s taillights flashed as it pulled away, heading for the on-ramp. Val watched them grow smaller and smaller, until they were two red pinpricks in the distance. Then the road curved, and they were gone.

Val struck off toward the woods that crept right up to the edge of the weigh station. Edgewood was only a few miles’ run from where she was now. She could have hitched the rest of the way, or even called Chaz to come get her, but Jane’s blood was singing in her veins. She felt like she could run a million miles. She wanted to feel the autumn wind against her face and the ground churning beneath her feet. Everything was so much sharper after a feeding, every sense almost painfully keen.

The euphoria could last for hours, if she went slow and savored it. But it was distracting, too—altogether too easy to get caught up in the sensory overload. She needed to be alert when they faced the Jackals, but this was too much. The edge had to come off.

Val stood at the tree line and inhaled. Small animals rustled around in the leaves, but the night birds had gone silent, sensing the predator in their midst. To her eyes, the trees were lit up like noon. She picked out a likely-looking path and set off toward Edgewood in a blur.