Night Owls

29

BY THE TIME they got to the front of the store, there were only a handful of Jackals left outside. Chaz took over acting as Justin’s crutch so Val could make a stop at the register. Elly’s short-term remedy was just about up. As they limped down the aisle together, the pain returned. He felt like his chest was on fire. Still, the hole in Justin’s middle trumped a few cracked ribs. Chaz gritted his teeth and kept going.

“Thanks,” said Justin. He still had the fangs out, so it made his speech come out a little funny. Chaz got the sense he didn’t know how to retract them yet. “Hey.” He crinkled his nose, in what Chaz had learned over the years was his thinky-face. “Are we cool?”

It was a question Chaz had figured he’d deal with later, but now it was right there, in the open: Val had made someone else a vampire, and not him. Katya’s offer had repulsed him, but when Val was turning Justin—even the part where she’d reached into his fucking chest—he’d felt jealousy wrapping its fingers around his throat. Why, though? Because I secretly want to be a vampire? Or because now I have to share her?

He looked at Justin. The kid hadn’t asked for all this shit to happen in the first place. Not his fault. Not Val’s, either. “Yeah, man. We’re cool.”

And he realized it was true.

“Hey.” Val shouted over the din of the fighting outside. She was waving around a piece of white cloth that Chaz recognized as the dust rag they kept under the register. “We’re ready to talk.”

It took a bit more shouting before the battle crawled to a stop. Cavale trotted over to stand with them, Elly trying to be subtle about it as she inspected his injuries. Even after Ivanov’s crew and the Jackals all stood down, Katya and Bitch kept trading blows. Neither of them seemed to be trying to land a killing blow, really. From their grins, they were enjoying beating the shit out of one another.

Finally, Lia stepped over beside Val and stuck her fingers in her mouth. She let out a shrill whistle that would’ve done a gym teacher proud. The women stopped smacking each other around and looked toward the store.

“Valerie?” Katya looked pouty. “I hope we’re not surrendering.”

“Not exactly.” Val gestured to Chaz and Justin. They picked their way forward to her, glass grinding beneath their feet. “Circumstances have changed. Bring her over here.”

“Gladly.” Katya reached out, snake-like, and collared Bitch. The Jackal woman cried out in surprise. Chaz snickered. She didn’t know Katya was playing with her this whole time.

When they got close, Bitch began sniffing. She was all Jackal-ed out, so she tilted her pointed snout into the air and snuffled. At a nod from Val, Katya released her hold. Bitch circled them warily, sniff-sniff-sniffing the whole way around. At one point, she sneezed and her whole body shook, like a dog with a noseful of pepper. She kept at it for almost a minute. Chaz half expected her to shove her face in Justin’s butt in doggy-greeting.

Instead she stepped back, horrified. She didn’t protest when Katya clamped a hand on her arm once more. “What did you do to him?”

Val smiled, letting her fangs show. “He’s mine now. He was before, too, but even more so now.”

“The spell. Does he still have it?”

“Let’s find out.” In addition to the dust rag, Val had grabbed a pad of paper and a pen from beside the register. “Justin? Want to try writing for us?”

Chaz took the paper so Justin didn’t have to unlatch. He held it up and watched as words crawled across the page:

JUSTIN KENNEDY. NOW LEAVE US THE FUCK ALONE.

He held it up for all of them to see. Bitch groaned. Sunny and Lia clapped and cheered. Chaz might’ve been tempted to appreciate the jiggling bits if it weren’t for their knives leaving ominous smoke trails.

“Call them off,” said Val. “We’re done here.”

Bitch turned around and gave an order in the Jackals’ speech. At Chaz’ side, Justin frowned, but didn’t comment.

The Jackals wavered a moment, uncertain whether they should obey. Bitch barked another command at them—literally—and one by one, they slunk away into the night.

The vampires stood their ground, waiting on Katya. “Go home,” she said, sounding bored. “Tell Ivanov I’m on my way.” Unlike the Jackals, the vampires dispersed as soon as she was finished giving the order. Katya stood there, holding on to Bitch. “If you don’t mind, Valerie, I think I’ll bring her home as a present for Ivanov. I’ll say you chipped in.”

“I don’t care what you do with her. Far as I’m concerned, it’s over.”

“It’s a bad idea,” said Bitch.

Katya shook her hard enough to make her teeth rattle. “Shut up. No one asked you.”

“I’m just saying. My alpha’s going to be upset enough as it is that we don’t have the boy. If I don’t come home, either, he’ll take it out on the undeserving.” She looked at Chaz as she said it, unblinking even after a cuff on the head from Katya.

“Wait,” said Chaz. He looked at her for signs of a bluff, but he had no idea how to spot a lying Jackal. “The kids?”

“Mm-hm. Among other . . . associates.”

Marian. Or her husband. Probably both. “We have to let her go.”

“We should kill her,” said Elly. She gripped the spike like she might just go ahead and do it. Though, at a warning look from Katya of all people, she lowered it to her side once more.

Katya rolled her eyes. “Charles. Look at what she did to you. Your poor face. You can’t mean it.”

Bitch watched the exchange, looking smug. She might have been lying. She probably was, but he couldn’t take that chance. Those kids weren’t bad, they were desperate. And he’d promised Marian he’d help her. What sort of help was it if he got her husband punished, or worse, killed? “I do. There are people there. Humans. They weren’t hostages like me, but they don’t deserve to be hurt, either.”

Katya looked to Val. “Valerie, are you allowing this?”

Val tilted her head, trying to puzzle him out. We really need to work out some sort of secret code. “Yeah,” she said at last. “I am.”

Katya’s pout deepened. She gave Bitch a shove to get her moving. “Go. If I can still see you in ten seconds, I’m coming after you.” She started counting.

The woman smirked. “You’ve gone soft, Leech,” she said to Val. “Not that I’m complaining.” Then she flipped them all off and took off up Main Street at an easy lope. She blended into the shadows before Katya got to six.

“Well,” Katya sighed, then unwound a long strand of black hair from around her fingers. She passed it to Cavale. “I assume you can use this to track her.”

He took it and held it up to the light. “It’ll do.”

“Good.” Katya sketched a bow. “Then I think I’ll get home. Ivanov will be in touch.” She looked at them all, her eyes lingering for a bit on Chaz and Justin before she showed Val a mouthful of fangs. “With all of you.” Then she was gone, heading off in the direction Bitch had run.

Justin let out a sigh that was more of a wheeze. “Holy crap. I think I’ve been holding my breath all this time.”

“You have.” Chaz hadn’t felt him breathe since Val had handed him off. “You’re kind of done needing as much air as you used to. Well, outside of using it to talk.”

“Huh. Neat.”

Elly came bustling over. If she was upset about letting Bitch go, she was saving the argument for now. She reached up to touch Chaz’ face, her fingers cool and steady. “My kit’s in with Cavale’s stuff,” she said. “I can help with the—oh, hello.” She took his left hand and turned it over. Her palm was still leaking a bit, so she dipped her pinky in it and spread a line of blood on Chaz’ wrist. The rune Marian had drawn with oil earlier flared. “Someone was protecting you.”

“Really? Because I still feel like I got hit by a truck.”

“It could have been worse. When Twitch was hitting you, I was sure he was going to puncture a lung.” She said it absently, concentrating more on the sigil than on him. Then she looked up, and it hit him.

He knew why Marian had looked familiar.

“Elly? Uh. Do you have family? In the Brotherhood?”

Her face closed up; the tentative smile she’d been trying on fled. “No.” Cavale cleared his throat and she relented. “Okay, maybe. I never knew my parents, but they were in it. Why?”

She was still cradling his hand. He turned it over carefully, giving her fingers a gentle squeeze. “I met a woman today who looked enough like you to be your mom. She’s one of the people the Jackals have a hold over.”

Elly squirmed away. “That’s her problem,” she said after a moment. “She hasn’t given a shit about me for twenty years. If it’s even her. Why should I go running off to the rescue?” Her voice was flat.

Chaz looked to the others for help, but no one seemed interested in talking sense to her—Sunny and Lia had disappeared; Val spread her hands, at a loss; Cavale shook his head and mouthed, “Let it drop.”

So he did, for the time being. He had plenty of other things to worry about. There’d been enough fighting for one night, and Elly looked like she wasn’t sure she was done with the stabby-stabby just yet.

Justin looked around, self-consciously. “I want to learn how to Hunt,” he blurted. He seemed to be getting some of his strength back, was no longer leaning on Chaz quite as heavily. When everyone turned to look at him, he flinched. “They killed the Clearwaters. I can’t just let that go.” He turned a shy smile on Elly. “I sort of hoped you’d be willing to teach me.”

Elly stared at him, agape, then looked to Val and Cavale. They were about as helpful to her as they’d been to Chaz a moment ago.

“It’s up to you two,” said Val. “I’m done with Hunting. I meant that.”

Cavale grinned. “All you, kid.”

She stared out at the empty street, considering. Chaz got ready to haul Justin backward in case she decided the proper response to this was an attempted staking. At last, she turned back to Justin. “Fine. Now can I do my job?” She stalked off into the store, ducking down behind the register to retrieve her kit.

Justin unhooked his arm from around Chaz, testing his ability to stand on his own. He was a little wobbly, but otherwise fine. A thought struck him, and he leaned in, keeping his voice low. “Think she’d be my Renfield?”

Chaz clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t push it.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

Sunny came shuffling out from the back of the store. She’d donned a fluffy white bathrobe and her bunny slippers. Her face had reverted back to her everyday look. The curved knives were gone, too. In their place, she held push brooms and mops. “We’ve got a lot of cleaning up to do,” she said, handing one of the brooms to Cavale.

The store lights flicked on, row by row. Lia must have found the breakers. The front half of the store was in utter chaos. Val groaned and held her hand out for one of the other brooms just as the first splashes of blue and red flashed across the storefront. Whatever had been holding Edgewood’s finest away from Main Street had finally worn off.

Chaz headed over to Val, catching her before she could go and meet the officer climbing out of his car. “You’re covered in blood,” he said. “I’ll handle this.”

“You look like shit.”

“Yeah, but I don’t look like someone punched a hole in my chest.”

She grimaced but had to concede the point. “Fine. I’ll get Justin to come out back, too.”

He caught her arm as she turned to go. “Hey. We need to talk.”

She covered his hand with hers. “I know.”

THEY GOT BACK to Val’s house an hour before sunrise. Chaz had, through some combination of smooth talking and bullshitting, managed to convince the officers that the damage had been done as part of a drunken drive-by, no idea who the culprits might be. He’d needed help from Sunny and Lia—a “tiny bit of a mind-whammy,” as he’d put it to Val—to get the officer to overlook his battered face and the pile of Jackal corpses lining the sidewalk.

They’d swept up the glass and ash and washed away as much of the blood as they could for one night. Chaz would be meeting with the window people in the afternoon about replacing the plate glass.

Justin had crashed out almost as soon as Val got him settled in her bed. He still had changing to do, and tonight she’d have to teach him how to find blood, but for now, he needed sleep more than anything. Elly and Cavale had gone back to Crow’s Neck, dropping Sunny and Lia off at home on their way.

Now Val sat in her living room, alone with Chaz. He’d found a bottle of scotch in her liquor cabinet and poured himself a double. The bottle was beside him in case he needed any more. His fingers tapped out a rhythm against the glass while he thought. Val couldn’t read him, not completely. He smelled hurt more than anything, but his face gave none of it away. Finally, he sighed and set the glass down.

“You never told me about Sacramento,” he said.

Val wished she had a glass of her own to fidget with, but all she had was leftover lamb’s blood from Ivanov’s visit. It wasn’t quite the same as a real drink, even if she mixed some whiskey in. “It was another life.”

“One that’s coming back to you now, like it or not.” He sat forward, on the edge of the armchair. Elly had wrapped him in an Ace bandage and drawn runes all over it. He was walking straighter, which was good to see, and when he breathed, nothing grated in his chest.

Val was curled up on the corner of the couch, feeling the unnerving sensation of her bones shifting as they finished knitting themselves back together. Every now and then, one of them gave an alarming crackle as it settled into place. “It’s done. I meant that.”

“Ivanov’s not the type to let that go. He’s got Elly working for him. He’ll try to drag you in, too. But that’s not the point right now.”

“Then what is the point?”

“You never told me. That’s all. I think I deserve to know.”

“You’re right. You do.” No more hedging. She straightened up. “I was a Hunter. There was a huge nest that we were called in to take out and it went badly. I lost my whole team. We killed the Jackals, but I’m the only one who made it out.” She closed her eyes, hearing Delilah’s screams echoing through the dark. “I decided it wasn’t worth it anymore.”

“Who was on your team?”

“Another vampire. Her name was Clara. Four members of the Brotherhood. Kelly and Delilah were both sisters and Sisters.” He nodded, hearing the capital when she said it. “Two fighters, more like what Cavale does.”

“What were their names?”

“Charlotte and Angelo.” It was hard to say his name. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d spoken it aloud.

Chaz sat back, reaching for the scotch. “There it is.”

“What?”

“The last one. Angelo. He meant something to you, didn’t he?” There was no accusation in his tone, simply resignation, like he’d received long-anticipated bad news.

“They all meant something to me. They were my family.”

“But him most of all. Was he your Renfield?”

Oh. Val smiled. “Don’t you dare,” she said, but her voice was soft. “Come here.” She patted the cushion beside her. At first, she didn’t think Chaz was going to come sit with her, but at last he relinquished the armchair. Val scooted closer to him and laid her head on his shoulder. He put his arm around her and leaned back. They sat like that for a few minutes, not speaking. Val sought out his free hand and laced her fingers through his. “He was my Renfield, yes. And I miss him. I didn’t want to take another after he died. I didn’t think I ever would.” She sighed with the memory of his loss. “It hurt so goddamned much, you know?”

Chaz didn’t answer, but she felt him nodding. He rubbed her shoulder, too, comforting her when he was the one who actually needed to be comforted.

She lifted her head up and kissed his cheek. His skin got warm beneath her lips as he blushed. “But I’m glad I did. I found you, and you’ve been amazing, right from the start. When they took you, I was afraid it was all happening again. I spent the last day and a half scared shitless.”

“Yeah, me, too.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken my eyes off you for a second.”

“You shouldn’t have to worry about that,” he said. His grip on her hand tightened. “This . . . Angelo. He obviously could have held his own with them. I couldn’t. I can, what, pour blood into a tea set and do your taxes. That’s one fuck of a downgrade.”

“Chaz.” Val sat up and turned his chin so he was looking her in the eye. “I don’t compare you to him, so don’t you do it, either. You’re who I need. That’s my call. Okay?”

He blinked, surprised. The hurt smell went away, even though some of the sadness remained. “Okay.”

“Really okay?”

“Swear to God.” He let go of her hand and crossed his heart. His crooked grin was back, too.

She could do more convincing later, if need be, when the sun’s weight wasn’t bearing down on her eyelids. “I have to get up to bed,” she said, pulling Chaz in for one last hug. She was careful not to hurt his ribs. “You take it slow today, okay?”

“I will.”

Val walked him to the door, waiting while he got in the Mustang and pulled out of the driveway. She didn’t go back inside until he turned the corner and the roar of the engine faded away.

ELLY KICKED OFF her boots and collapsed onto the bed in Cavale’s guest room. She was tired and sore, but all in all, the night had been a success. She’d wanted to start the search for Bitch and the rest of her nest right away, but Cavale had convinced her they both needed a few hours to sleep and recharge. He had the lock of hair Katya had given him. They’d be able to find her with that when they were ready.

She listened to the sounds of Cavale checking the locks downstairs: back door, front door, windows, cellar. The stairs creaked as he ascended them, and she could follow his progress down the hallway. He paused outside her door and knocked softly.

“I’m awake.”

He came in and sat on the bed beside her. “Good job tonight.”

“You, too.” She reached up and touched his cheek, where she’d applied butterfly stitches to a couple of nasty scratches from the Creeps’ claws. “How are those holding up?”

“They itch a little, but they’re fine.” He smiled. “I had a good doctor.”

Elly rolled her eyes, but she was grinning, pleased at the praise. “We’re going to have to hit the drugstore later. I used up most of the supplies on Chaz.”

“I’ll get a shopping list started.”

“Like hell you will. I’ll do it.” Suddenly shy, she pushed up to her elbows so she could look out the window. “I mean, if you want me to.”

“Hey.” Cavale took her hand and waited until she was looking at him again. “My house is your house, Elly.” He squeezed her fingers. “I figure, if you’re going to be teaching Justin, you might as well stay close by. If Ivanov needs you in Boston, you can take my car. Unless you’d rather live in the city. It might be easier to find your mother that way, if you change your mind about it. Better resources. It’s your call.” Now it was his turn to look shy. “But I’d like it if you stayed.”

She paused, looking away as she tried to find the words. “I know you all want me to find this woman. I just . . . don’t care. If we find the nest and the alpha, and that frees her, great. But she’s not my family.”

She looked Cavale in the eye. It was easier this time. “You are.”