Night Owls

22

A CIRCUIT OF the backyard didn’t cool Chaz down, so he’d set off around the block to work off the anger and humiliation. In this state, if Ivanov came within reach, Chaz was likely to coldcock him. That wouldn’t help Val, nor would it help Justin, so he made chilling the fuck out a priority.

But good Christ, was it hard. He rounded the corner to Val’s street at a power-walking clip. The sides of his dress shoes were protesting even that, pinching his feet and chafing his right ankle. He might regret it later, but right now, the discomfort leeched away some of his fury. One more spin, he thought as he drew up to Val’s house, and I can make another stab at genteel and complacent. He snorted at the thought of it, imagining himself with a tea towel draped over his arm and the bemused look Val would give him.

The thought lifted his mood for about half a second, then it came crashing down again as Katya appeared from behind the town car. She was snapping her cell phone shut; she must have been leaning against the trunk or perching on the back bumper, blocked from his view.

It was too late to wheel around and head the other way. She’d seen him. Probably caught my scent before I turned the corner. She took a few wobbly steps on those impossibly spiky heels, then stopped, one hand against the town car’s roof for balance, letting Chaz come to her.

He slowed down as he approached, finally ambling to a halt about a foot out of her reach. Not that it would help him if she truly wanted to make a grab for him. He’d seen how fast Val could move. Katya was older—not anywhere near Ivanov’s age, but she had at least a century under her belt. He couldn’t outrun her if she decided to pounce.

“Charles. You pissed off Ivanov before we had a chance to talk.” She stuck out her lower lip. A pout just looked wrong on that feral face, untrustworthy, the vampire equivalent of alligator tears.

“Well, he suggested we kill a friend. It didn’t go over big.”

Katya smirked and shrugged out of her suit coat. Beneath it she wore a faded black tank top that couldn’t have been part of the original ensemble. In the glow of Val’s yard lights, he could see the brands scattered across her right bicep. The mark of the Stregoi stood out in the center, a Cyrillic rune Val had taught him to steer clear of when he went into Boston. Around it were notches, some of rank—he could see the newly raised flesh from her promotion to Ivanov’s second—others marking her kills.

Those last were faded. Vampires weren’t supposed to off each other these days, but when they’d been fighting their turf wars, Katya had racked up the trophies. Literally. Last Chaz had seen her, she was wearing a bracelet made from her victims’ fangs. He glanced at her wrist, noting its absence.

“I see you’ve made some changes.”

She followed his gaze and the pout turned into a grin. “Not as many as you’d think.” Her right hand dipped into her pocket. The fangs clicked against one another as she pulled out the bracelet and slipped it on. “Neither have you.” She tilted her head toward the house. “Still hers, hmm?”

“Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“It’s just so sad. You give everything to her, your best years, and for what? What does she give you in return?”

What was she getting at? “I don’t—”

“She doesn’t love you, and she never will. Not the way you love her.”

The statement hit him like a mallet to the gut. “What?” It came out as a whisper.

“Come on, Charles. You don’t have to pretend. You told me everything when you were mine.” She reached out as if to stroke his cheek, the pout returning as he recoiled.

“I was never yours.” But he had been, for those three terrible days. Not of his own choice, but the Command she’d dropped on him had made him believe he wanted to be hers. Mix that with the blood loss and . . . What did I tell her? How much does she know?

Katya took half a step forward; Chaz was too dumbstruck to retreat. “You were mine. And you could be again. No tricks this time, I swear.” Her voice was low, intimate. “Come be mine again, Charles, and I will love you.”

“You don’t love anything.”

One pale, perfect shoulder lifted in a shrug. “Then I can make you believe I do. It’s almost the same. Come be mine, and I’ll give you whatever you want.”

“There’s nothing I want.”

“Nothing but her.” She spat the last word, but the treacly smile snapped right back. “Then do it for just a little while. Give me ten years, and you can go back to her at the end.”

“So you’d take my best years and send me packing when I’m all used up, is that it?” Every muscle was tensed to run, but Chaz couldn’t pull his eyes away from hers. Not again. Not this again.

Katya chuckled. “Perhaps. Or . . . maybe, if you make me happy, I’ll reward you.” She moved in close enough to kiss. Her palm came up and cupped his cheek. “Think of it. Give me ten years, and I’ll pay you with forever. Then you can chase her until the sun swallows the Earth, if you want.”

He stared. “That’s . . . that’s a pretty shitty reason to become a vampire. Stalking someone for centuries even after they’ve said no?” At first, his voice felt like it was coming from far away, but the more Chaz talked, the more in control he felt. He kept going. “Talk about an asshole thing to do.”

Another shrug. “It works in the movies.”

“In stupid movies, maybe.”

“So fine, don’t chase her.” She waved it off, annoyed. “Take my gift and be her friend forever.” The word dripped with contempt. “Follow her around like a sad puppy for a thousand years. What you do when you leave me is your business.”

“Right, because if I fuck off for a decade—with you, of all people—she’ll be totally cool with it when I walk back into her life. As a vampire.” He was on a roll now, his fear replaced by scorn. “What do you even want me for? Is it because I belong to someone else and you want all the toys?”

The smile didn’t fade, but a dangerous glint came into her eyes. He’d hit close to the mark. Before she could respond—and before he could dig himself in any deeper—the front door opened. Suddenly, the pressure from her fingers was gone from his cheeks, and she was out of arm’s reach again.

Ivanov strode out of the house. Val hurried after him, a duffel bag slung onto her back, its strap crossing her chest like a bandolier. Chaz had seen it a few times before, but never outside of the hall closet where it had been gathering dust in the back corner since before he’d become Val’s Renfield.

The driver, who up until now had been minding his own business in the town car’s front seat, hurried out to open the door for Ivanov. He shot Chaz a look that might have said, “Sorry, buddy,” or maybe, “Vampires. What can you do?” Ivanov didn’t get in right away. After a few beats, the driver retreated to the far end of the car, getting out of the way while his masters concluded their business.

Val came straight to Chaz’ side, peering between him and Katya. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” he said, and even meant it. “We were just having a chat.”

Katya beamed, showing far too many teeth.

Val gave him a dubious look, but dropped it. “Ooookay. We have to go. Cavale called. It’s time.” She turned to Ivanov. “You’re really not going to help us?”

He shook his head, the amusement on his face making Chaz’ urge to coldcock him surge all over again. “No. You are a Hunter, Valerie, and so are your friends. I suggest you do what you were born to do.” He started lowering himself into the car, then paused. “However. If you’ll consider my request, perhaps I shall be more inclined to consider yours. Let me know what you decide. Come, Katya.”

Katya retrieved her suit jacket from where she’d tossed it on the trunk. “My offer stands, too, Charles. Think about it.”

Then they were gone, the town car sliding away into the night.

Val let out a frustrated sigh. “What offer?”

“Nothing I’d even consider. You?”

She shook her head. “Later. We have to get to Sunny and Lia’s.” Her nostrils twitched as she sniffed the air, her mouth twisting in distaste. “There must be a lot of them. I just caught a scent.” Something in the duffel bag clanked as she turned to glance up and down the street. “Nobody out. You want to do this fast, or dignified?”

“What’s the difference?”

“I can carry you and get us there in five minutes flat, or you can drive over and meet me there.”

Chaz winced at the thought of Val carrying him on her back like a toddler. It was a short enough trip to Sunny and Lia’s under his own power. “I think my dignity’s taken about as many blows as it can handle for one night. I’ll drive.”

“Okay.” She squeezed his hand. “Be careful, yeah?”

“Always am.” Then she was off, a blur half-seen heading toward the woods she’d cut through to get to the succubi’s house. To hell with “as the crow flies.” “As the vampire sprints” might be faster. Chaz tucked that one away for later. The Mustang roared to life when he turned the key. It was a good car, reliable even in its old age. Sort of how he hoped to be for Val, someday. It was enough. It was, no matter what Katya thought he wanted.

He found the loudest metal station on the dial and cranked the volume. Entrance music, he lied to himself. Nothing at all to do with drowning out his own thoughts. Nothing at all.

THEY’D RETREATED TO the living room after their circuits of the house; Sunny said it had the best lines of sight out of any other rooms, and Elly had to agree. Justin lay sprawled on the floor with the book, flipping between pages. He looked up as Cavale strode past to check the windows for the fifth or sixth time, then noticed Elly digging into the backpack full of Creep-fighting supplies. “What can I do?”

“Nothing yet.” She checked the caps on the bottles of holy water and laid the rowan stakes out on the coffee table, the blond wood standing out against the mahogany. Elly touched their tips to check their sharpness, then moved on to palm a piece of chalk. “You sure we can’t just draw a couple . . . ?”

Sunny shook her head. “I promise you, we’re well-warded.”

Elly had never seen demonic wards. She thought she could feel them, at least a little, buzzing away at the corners of her senses whenever she touched the holy water. Of course they’d react to one another. For that matter, Sunny had inched away from the bottles as well.

Lia came back into the room carrying a polished wooden box. She’d disappeared upstairs a few minutes ago, muttering something about “bringing the ladies out of retirement.” She made a face when she saw the holy water, and set the box down on the far side of the table. When she undid the latch and lifted the lid, Elly saw the four daggers nestled inside on a bed of dark blue silk. Two were long, maybe fifteen inches from butt to tip. The other two were about half as long but identical in design. All four had wicked-looking serpentine blades.

“Keris knives?” Elly fought the urge to reach out and stroke the metal. Cavale wandered over to appreciate them as well, letting out a low whistle when he peered down into the box.

Lia grinned, her fingers playing over the wrapped leather of the hilt. “Old friends.”

Elly wasn’t so sure she wanted to touch the daggers after all. Some people believed keris knives had spirits imbued in them, forged into the metal. Could the succubi have . . . ? Before she could try to determine whether or not Lia was fucking with her, Justin spoke up.

“I smell wet dog again.”

Cavale was back at the window before Elly could react, twitching the curtains aside and peering out into the night. At that moment, the buzzing Elly’d felt from the succubi’s wards swelled. The living room was filled with the sound of a swarm of angry bees. No, not bees. Locusts. Sunny waved a hand and the noise dropped down to a dull drone.

“I can’t see any of them out there,” said Cavale. He checked the locks on the window—not like it’d keep out a determined Creep—and glanced back at Sunny. “How close are they?”

“They’re on the property.” She closed her eyes, as though there were words in the buzzing. “Those wards can’t keep them out all night, but they’ll slow them down for a few minutes.”

Cavale had his cell phone out already, dialing Val. Elly turned to the other three. “Okay. We’ll watch the entrances, get any who make it inside. You two stay close to Justin.”

Lia eyed him as he scrambled closer to the couch. “I don’t suppose you want to go in the other room and have the best, oh, three minutes of your life, do you?”

He blinked at her. “Wh—”

Oh you’ve got to be shitting me. Elly grimaced, catching Lia’s meaning before Justin did. “You’re a virgin?”

The crimson came back. He couldn’t seem to decide which of them to gape at. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Because it means they’ll fight all the harder to get to you. You’d better hope they want the thing in your head more than they want a snack.”

Lia smiled. “We’ll be fine. I just thought I’d offer.”

Justin scowled at Elly and the succubus, though the blush kept the look from being all that threatening. “How do they even know I’m the one they’re after?”

“You can smell them,” said Elly. “You’ve been doing it all day. I’m guessing they’ve been following you. Or the book’s psychic scent. Something like that, anyway.”

“But . . . but Chaz said they can’t be out during the day.”

“As far as we know, no, but we have to figure they know somehow. You smelled them at the funeral.”

“It was ten thirty.”

Sunny and Lia exchanged a look. “Um,” Sunny said. She sighed, setting her keris knife down. “There are rumors. Old ones. About Jackals walking in the daylight.”

Elly felt a chill go through her. “How?”

“Depends on the rumor. Some said they possessed actual jackals, and the dogs’ fur protected them from the sun.” There was a loud crash outside, and a flare of white. Sunny grimaced. “They’re trying to pass the first set of wards.”

“What were the other rumors?” Elly picked up a set of stakes and shoved them in the mini quiver she’d clipped to her belt loop.

“That they sent the sun’s flame elsewhere. I don’t know how it worked.”

“There’s something in the book about deflection,” said Justin. “I don’t really understand it all, but that’s the gist of the word. And something about binding.”

He didn’t get any further than that, though, because the buzzing ward crescendoed then cut off abruptly. Then the howling started.

They weren’t the full-throated, blood-chilling howls of wolves. The Creeps’ cries were high and reedy, devolving into barks and yips at the end.

“Uh. Aren’t your neighbors going to hear that?” asked Justin. “And see what those flashes are?” He perked up as a new idea struck. “Won’t they call the police?”

“Sorry, sweetie,” said Sunny. “The property’s not just warded against the Jackals. It’s about as sound- and sight-proofed as we can make it.”

“Old habits,” said Lia, though the women exchanged a glance that told Elly there was more to it than that. Probably a lot more.

“There have to be fifty of them.” Cavale peered out the window again, squinting into the night. “I can see them moving.”

Lia looked relieved to be off the topic of nosy neighbors. “I don’t hear that many.”

Elly shook her head. “You probably don’t. Professor Clearwater thought one of them might be throwing out illusions. It might only work on humans. Or, um.” She didn’t know the etiquette here. Was it okay to point out that succubi spent most of their time deceiving people, too?

Sunny’s lips quirked. “Or because we deal in them ourselves?”

“Yeah.”

She took her knives out of the box once more—a long one and a short one for her, the other set for Lia. “They’re getting closer. The ladies are thrumming.”

“They’re hungry,” said Lia. “It’s been a long time.” She glanced down at her hands, then, with a sigh, reached over and took a lock of Sunny’s hair between her fingers. “I guess we ought to . . . ?”

Sunny kissed her knuckles, a sad smile on her lips. “We should.”

The air shimmered around the women, like heat coming from hot asphalt. Lia’s skin darkened to a dusky purple, her blond hair thickening and twisting itself into mud-colored dreadlocks. Her face elongated, her nose thinning to a vicious slash. Sunny gained a foot of height, then two. Her dark hair retracted into a short cap and her eyes took on a tilt that made her normally sweet face look severe.

Justin stood between them, gaping. Even Cavale, who was used to this sort of thing, had to tear his eyes away. Elly could see why. In their previous forms, they’d been pretty. The creatures that stood before them now were downright glorious. They shed their jeans and sweatshirts like snakes shedding their skin. Sunny kicked off her bunny slippers, one of them skittering away beneath the couch.

Justin’s throat clicked when he swallowed. “Do you . . . I mean, shouldn’t you—”

Lia giggled, her voice soft and husky. “This is how we learned to fight. Anything else is a hindrance.”

He found an interesting spot on the ceiling to stare at.

They didn’t have time to revel in his discomfort, though. Elly caught movement by the window. She grabbed Cavale’s sleeve and yanked him toward her just as the glass shattered inward, sending shards exploding across the living room. A Creep thudded to the floor, dead, its singed fur crackling and sparking with the remnants of the magic that had killed it.

“Here they come,” said Cavale. Sunny and Lia closed ranks around Justin, their keris knives at the ready.

Outside, shapes seethed in the darkness, the shadows stretching back to the line of hedges that marked the end of the succubi’s backyard. Golden eyes caught the light from the living room, one pair, two, ten. There can’t be that many. There aren’t. Elly hefted one of the glass holy water bottles. What’s a little more broken glass? She pitched it outside, aiming for a spot between a pair of glowing eyes.

There came a yelp as the bottle broke, the sound caught between human and canine. A hole opened in the writhing mass of Creeps, but Elly couldn’t tell if the empty space was illusion melting away or the Creeps avoiding the water.

Another one came pelting through the window. For a split second, Elly could see the demonic ward, like a spiderweb with strands plucked loose. As this new Creep came through, the web broke for good, its gossamer threads drifting to the ground and vanishing. It did a number on the Creep before it failed, though. This one made it into the room alive, but only barely. It drew one pained, shuddering breath before Cavale was on it, driving his stake into its back.

Then they were pouring in, jamming themselves through the bay window four, five at a time, crawling over one another to get inside. They were in different states of transformation, some still nearly human except for their claws, others with snouts extended and teeth bared but standing upright. A few had turned all the way: heads completely canine, covered in short black fur, their bodies bulging with muscles and twisted so they loped across the yard on all fours.

Elly loosed more holy water on them, snatching up a plastic bottle this time and squeezing it out in a gush. Two of them clutched at their faces, screaming, and fell back. The other three came on, unaffected. “Those ones are fake!” she shouted, but her heart dropped as two more took the injured ones’ places at the sill. She didn’t have enough water to test every one that came through.

They clambered into the room and more took their places. Another spray of the water had no effect, but the Creep that advanced on her sure as hell felt real. Silver and Pointy dropped into her palm as he advanced, snarling.

Elly swung the spike in a perfect arc and felt the resistance as it sunk into the Creep’s chest. The ash spread quickly, radiating outward from the wound. She yanked her spike back as the light went out of the Creep’s eyes. But why didn’t the water hurt it? There were burn marks on his face. She had hit him, then. He had either ignored the pain, or never even felt it.

If they can walk in the day, can they shrug off the holy water, too?

It didn’t seem to be the case with all of them. Cavale had his own bottle, and was driving a pair of Creeps toward the kitchen with it. One of them yowled with pain, covering its eyes where he’d already scored a direct hit. The other . . . the other mimicked its companion’s actions—cowering, backing away, taking agonized-looking peeks through its clawed hands—but it didn’t make a single sound. Elly realized she could see through that one’s arm, and make out the edge of the end table behind it.

So some were illusion, but others were simply impervious to the water. Good to know.

She dodged aside at movement in her peripheral vision. A pair of monstrous claws raked the air where she’d been standing. The Creep snapped at her, its rotted yellow teeth clacking as it lunged. Elly dipped and spun, bringing the spike up so the Creep ran right into it.

Another stood right behind it, half-human, with a knife in one hand and the claws protruding from the other. He swiped with the knife first. Too late, Elly realized it was a feint. The clawed hand came up and caught her by the jaw. She swung the spike, but the Creep was taller, his arms longer. She hit empty air.

The claws dug into her chin, five bright flares of pain. She kicked out at him, but he held her fast. She couldn’t see Cavale. Judging from the sounds coming from the kitchen, he was holding up fine. Behind the Creep, she could see Sunny and Lia, whirling about, smoke trailing from their knives. A growing pile of Creep corpses lay at their feet.

She couldn’t shout; the Creep was already squeezing her jaw so hard it throbbed. One good thrash only dug the tips in deeper and made her see stars. Not going down. Not like this.

Sunny and Lia moved apart, giving her a glimpse of Justin in between them. He had his hands clamped over his ears, like he was trying to block something out. He turned toward her, and for a heartbeat, they made eye contact. She tried shaking her head and got another jolt of pain for her troubles.

Oh, don’t. Don’t play hero. Don’t, don’t, don’t.

He did.

Justin shoved past Sunny, shouting. He knocked one Creep aside, making it fall on its ass by dint of sheer luck. Then one snagged him by the upper arm, its claws tearing through his sleeve. Elly recognized him as one of the three from last night. The big one with the scarred face. Asshole. All that effort to keep the pigs’ blood off the shirt earlier and it gets ruined anyway. Justin cried out as the gash opened on his arm.

Elly shouldn’t have been able to hear him over the snarling and the snapping, but that’s when she realized the room had gone silent, the last echoes of Justin’s pain hanging on the air. One by one, the Creeps’ noses—real and illusionary—turned up and sniffed the air. They smell virgin blood. Her Creep let her go, the claws retracting and leaving warm blood to trickle down her chin in their absence. He turned toward Justin, his snout getting longer as he let his transformation complete.

Elly checked her grip on Silver and Pointy. Shaking off the agony at her jaw, she darted forward, spike raised.

Not fast enough.

The Creeps surged toward Justin.