Night Owls

4

A SMART VAMPIRE would have gone home and gone to bed.

No, a smart vampire would have built up her wealth over the years, amassed a small army of devoted minions, and built an impenetrable fortress-mansion somewhere exotic. I went with the “sink all your money into a bookstore and barely scrape by in a quaint college town.”

And she’d sent her one minion home.

That had been the right decision, though. Chaz might be good at getting rid of the frat kids when they got bombed and came in to titter at the books of nudes in the art section, but no way in hell was he prepared to face what she was sure had loped its way into town. Hell, she wasn’t sure she was prepared to handle it, either.

More than ten years had passed since she’d last been face-to-face with a Jackal. It was another life, on another coast, and she’d been with five others. Back then, they’d been armed with stakes of rowan wood and vials of ash when they’d headed into the nest. Tonight, all Val had were fangs and claws. She wished she’d gone back to the store and grabbed a roll of quarters. Not that they’d help all that much.

She scuttled along Edgewood’s silent streets, heading toward campus. The scent hadn’t returned, though every now and then she’d stop and turn in a circle, sniffing the air just in case. They could have gone anywhere, might not even still be in town, but Val had to be sure. If they were on the hunt they’d find easy pickings at the dorms.

And plenty of virgin flesh.

It wasn’t often she wished she could turn into a bat or a shadow or a column of mist and speed through the night, but right then it would have come in awfully handy. Those things would come with age and training, not to mention a whole lot of ass-kissing. For now, the best she could do was will her legs to push harder, dig her heels in deeper, and launch herself headlong up the road to the student housing buildings.

Edgewood College had four dormitories in addition to the houses on Greek Row. Val dismissed the fraternity and sorority houses right away—lights still burned in the windows of Phi Lambda Lambda and Delta Mu, and from the looks of it the Gamma Rho Epsilon girls were having an all-night lawn party with the boys from Beta Epsilon. It was possible that a Jackal would hang around and watch from the shadows, waiting for an unsuspecting sister to totter away from the main festivities—it was how they’d earned the other name she’d heard them called: Creeps. But crowds made them nervous. If there was easier prey, they’d take it.

That also ruled out the two coed dorms. It was closing in on five thirty, but even with most of their inhabitants asleep, there were too many windows glowing softly from students’ monitors or lamps clipped to their headboards. The single-sex dorms, though, were a different story. The Jackals wouldn’t know it, but Ward and Bryant Halls were the places you lived if you wanted peace and quiet and early lights-out. Kids who lived in them did their partying elsewhere and tiptoed if they came home in the wee hours. It was where the campus geniuses lived.

Both were also—conveniently for a Jackal—nestled in at the far end of the street, and their back halves looked out at the woods. Now the trick was figuring out which kind of virgin flesh the Jackal was in the mood for tonight. Sugar, spice, and everything nice, or snails, pails, and puppy dog tails? Val stood halfway between the two buildings and sniffed again. Maybe it was a false alarm. Maybe it was just passing thr—

There.

Val hurried around to the back of the boys’ dorm, following the smell of rot and blood. The streetlights’ glow didn’t carry back here, but her eyes adjusted almost instantly. On the second floor, a window was open. She got up close to the building and ran her hands over the old brick. Just above her head, she felt the gouges from where the Jackal’s claws had dug in as it scaled.

What’s good for the goose, as they say.

Val held her hands out in front of her. This was the part she hated, the reason she suspected she’d never go for the whole bat-form thing even if she could. Bones cracked as she willed her hands into claws. They grew gnarled and twisted, the fingers becoming hooked and knobby, the nails lengthening, thickening, sharpening. She bit down on her lip to bear the pain of it, which was a mistake. Her fangs unsheathed and stabbed down, slicing into the tender skin of her lower lip.

The wounds sealed as soon as she opened her mouth to pull the fangs free, but it still hurt like hell. At least the surprise of it had distracted her from the last seconds of transformation as the fine bones in her hands finished adjusting themselves.

Of course, there was one last problem.

She hadn’t been invited in.

If she entered without a come-on-in, she wouldn’t be repelled; no unseen force would throw her back to the ground. Nor would entering unasked mean agony with every step she took. But her abilities would be weaker, the reserves she could call on nearly nonexistent. Ten years since she’d faced a Jackal. Long enough since she’d even needed her claws that she made the fledgling mistake of tearing her lips. Val needed that invite. Fast.

There hadn’t been any screams yet, which meant the Jackal inside was either being extremely cautious or savoring its next meal. Val fumbled her cell phone from her jacket pocket, cursing the clumsiness of her freshly warped hands and thanking the gods for voice dial at the same time. She only hoped the fangs didn’t garble the preprogrammed names.

“Call Justin.” The call went through with no trouble, and somewhere deep in Bryant Hall, a cell phone rang.

He picked up on the third ring, his voice muzzy with sleep. “’Lo?”

I knew there was a reason I hired him. “Justin, it’s Val. Can I come in?”

“Time izzit?”

“Just say yes, Justin. Can I come in?”

“Uh. Yeah, ’kay.”

“Good. You’re dreaming. Hang up and go back to sleep.” She put a bit of Command into her voice. It didn’t always work through phone lines, but it helped if the person was inclined to do whatever you were asking them to, anyway. Justin already trusted her, which made him more susceptible.

The call ended and she shoved down a pang of guilt. She’d feel bad about manipulating him tomorrow, when the Jackal was gone and a freshman remained uneaten. She snapped the phone shut and shoved it back in her pocket.

Then she began to climb.

VAL TUMBLED THROUGH the window onto the cold, hard bathroom tiles. Whether the window had been opened to let out smoke, steam, or stink, she didn’t know and didn’t much care—laid over all of it was the gag-inducing psychic stench of the Jackal. Now that her fangs were out, the reek was even stronger. She stalked down the length of the bathroom, past shower stalls and urinals. If luck had been with her, the Jackal would’ve been lurking in here, waiting for a victim to stumble in for a late-night piss.

Luck seemed to be taking the night off.

She cracked the door inch by inch, sniffing as the darkened hallway was revealed. She stuck her head out and peered in both directions. No light spilled from beneath any of the doors. This floor’s inhabitants were all asleep. Good for her and the Jackal, bad for its prey.

The scent was sharper out here in the hall, as though it had paused awhile before moving on to find a victim. It likely had; human scents tended to muddle together for Val until she was up close, but in that regard Jackals’ noses were far more refined. It had probably stood in this same spot, taking in the residents’ scents the way a mall-goer might look at the options in the food court before deciding what was for lunch.

In this case, lunch—or breakfast, Val supposed—was off to the right. She followed, pressing herself as close to the wall as she could. Bryant Hall was one of the oldest buildings on campus, built in the early nineteen hundreds. The floors were hardwood, prone to creaking if you tromped down the middle of the hallway. The boards were tighter at the edges, quieter. Val was good at moving silently, but she wasn’t taking any chances. As it was, she had to hope the Jackal was too involved in its prey to have caught a whiff of its own predator.

One door down, two doors, three. Here. The trail led to a door with a whiteboard hanging from a nail. Jarrod’s Room: Beware of shark!!! it read, with a picture of a shark about to devour a stick-man to illustrate the point. Someone had drawn a T-Rex eating the shark, and captioned it, “FLEE, PUNY HUMAN!”

The knob turned easily. Don’t these kids ever listen to the “keep your doors locked” speeches they get at orientation? At the start of every semester, she allowed kids from the student union to hang campus safety posters in the store. That one was always on there, right beneath reminders about the buddy system and sticking to well-lit areas. Maybe Jarrod wasn’t worried about someone stealing his stuff, but leaving his door unlocked had let in something far worse than a thief.

She opened the door just enough to squeeze through. The rotten stink assaulted her as soon as she entered, making her skin crawl and her gorge rise. Meat gone bad and old, dead blood. Midden, filth, and milk turned sour. A feast for vultures and flies and—

The boy. Help the boy.

She shook her head to clear it and crouched down low, creeping off to the left so she could see both the kid and the Jackal. The room was small, maybe ten by twelve. Jarrod had pushed his bed beneath the window against the far wall.

The boy was kneeling up in bed, clad in a pair of cutoff sweatpants. His skin was pale, nearly paper white, and he was so scrawny his ribs stood out in the dim light. His open eyes were blank, already under his intruder’s spell. The Jackal stood over him, a thin figure in a long grey coat. A hood rose up from beneath the coat to cover its head—most of them wore hats or hoods to hide their faces. Val peered at it; it seemed small for its kind.

The thing tilted its head back, taking a long, deep, ecstatic sniff. The hood fell back as it did. Val caught a glimpse of the thin, pointed muzzle, the mouth open slightly to drink in more of Jarrod’s scent. A cascade of greasy black hair, freed from the confines of the hood, tumbled down the Jackal’s back. The tips of two long ears poked up from the tangle.

It’s a woman. As the revelation slammed home, Val’s prey went rigid. And she’s realized she’s not alone. Val sprang forward as the Jackal started its turn. She meant to get an arm around it, catch it around the throat, but the damned thing was fast. It sidestepped. All Val got was a handful of air.

She caught herself on the desk, her claws gouging the pine surface. She felt a whoosh of air and jerked to the left. Something heavy and hard-cornered flashed past her face and smashed into the desk, sending splinters flying. When Val looked up, she saw the Jackal holding a trophy by its gold-painted plastic man, the corner of its marble base lodged in the wood.

Before it could yank its weapon back for another strike, Val’s hand snaked out and grabbed it by the wrist. She dug her claws in, piercing through layers of trench coat and sweatshirt, into its skin. The Jackal hissed its pain as warm blood leaked over Val’s fingers. It pressed itself against her, its other arm coming up to scrabble at her throat.

Damn it, that was my move. Val let it get a grip. She even let out a few convincing gags. The crushing of her windpipe hurt like hell, but the Jackal had either forgotten something very important or had never fought a vampire before: Val didn’t actually need to breathe. She bent her knees and let her free hand get purchase on the edge of the desk, keeping the claws on the other hand in the Jackal’s wrist. Then she launched herself backward, like a swimmer pushing off from the edge of a pool.

They sailed across the room, the Jackal along for an unwilling ride before they crashed into the far wall. A thud and the sound of shattering glass came from the room next door as their impact dislodged whatever Jarrod’s neighbor had hanging on the other side. Time to get the hell out of here. The maneuver had also knocked the Jackal’s hand away from Val’s throat. “Jarrod,” she rasped. Yep. Crushed windpipe.

The kid’s head turned toward them slowly. The Jackal’s lull still held him in its sway. Well, good. Val could use that.

She filled her voice with Command. “Open your window. Screen and all.”

He turned without a word and did as she asked. Then stayed there, swaying slightly. In her way.

“Jarrod, lie back down.” The Jackal struggled behind her. Val jabbed her left arm back, hearing the Jackal’s grunt as her elbow connected with its stomach. “This was a dream. You were sleepwalking, even.”

He nodded, his head bobbing comically.

“And from here on out”—she caught the Jackal’s other hand and pulled its arm around her waist tight, like a lover’s embrace—“lock your goddamned door.” Val threw herself forward, dragging the Jackal along with her up onto Jarrod’s bed, through the wide-open window, and out into the night.

They didn’t stay suspended in midair like Wile E. Coyote in the cartoons. The arc of descent started immediately, cold wind rushing up past Val as the ground surged up to meet them. She had just enough time and momentum to twist them around; she got a good gander at the stars, even, or what few were still left in the sky.

Dawn’s coming. Have to end this fast.

The Jackal hit first, taking the brunt of the impact. Val heard the air whump out of its lungs.

She rolled off it, skin and fabric tearing further as she pulled her claws out of its wrist. Then she was back on top, straddling the former woman and pinning its arms beneath her knees. The Jackal bucked weakly, but it couldn’t shake her off. Val leaned on its shoulders and bent until they were nose-to-snout. The rot was worse this close up, coming from the Jackal itself and exhaled with every shuddering breath. Val could see the vestiges of humanity in its face, and knew that when it wasn’t hunting, it could pass for human. The snout would push back in, the eyes lose their glow. Just like she’d lose her fangs and claws later on.

“This town’s off-limits to you.” Command didn’t work on them, but intimidation might. Val bore her fangs and saw the Jackal’s tawny eyes roll down to see them.

It wheezed beneath her, trying to suck air back into its chest.

“You understand me? Nod if you do.”

Instead, it grinned, revealing its own row of sharp teeth. “Can’t . . . kill me . . . can you?” It bucked again, a little stronger now.

“Right this second? No, I can’t. But you’d better damned well believe I’ll be carrying rowan and silver next time we meet.” She glanced up again. No more stars, and the sky had gone from black to indigo.

The Jackal snorted. “Have to get . . . to ground? Leech?”

Val brought one gnarled, taloned hand up and let it rest on the Jackal’s cheek for a second, before she raked it downward. Four parallel grooves opened up, oozing black blood down into the thing’s hair. Half an hour ago, they’d have closed up almost as soon as they’d been opened. With dawn coming, they continued to bleed. “We both do, and you know it. But I’d wager I can stand it longer than you can. You want to take that bet?” She sat back, settling down on the Jackal’s stomach. “I can get nice and comfortable, if you want to test it out.”

Panic crept into the thing’s eyes. “No . . . No.” It writhed, whining and mewling when it realized Val wasn’t going to budge. “Please.”

“I’ll let you up. But you’d better run. Clear? And tonight, when you drag your ass out of whatever hole you’ve crawled into, you keep running, until you’re out of this town.”

It nodded again, eager. “Anything. Please.”

Val let it squirm a second or two longer, then climbed off it and gained her feet. The Jackal scrambled up, too, backing away from her toward the woods. They regarded each other for a moment, as Val felt the fatigue creep into her bones. She suspected she could hold off longer than the Jackal, but it wasn’t something she truly wanted to test. Then the thing flashed its yellow teeth at her one last time, and loped off into the trees.

Val didn’t watch it leave. She turned and fled herself, as fast as she could go. With each step, she felt her speed draining away, her muscles protesting against the abuse. She felt the burn in her bones as the sun came ever closer to the horizon. The sight of her street filled her with relief and dread at the same time. She’d never seen the Maple Road sign in light this bright, ever. It stung her eyes.

She didn’t bother with her keys, or even her front door. Val rounded the back of the house and scrambled up the drainpipe, not caring if any of her neighbors saw. The sun was coming. The sun was coming. She tore out the screen and flung it to the ground. She set her palm flat against the window frame and pushed upward. The old wood groaned, then the locks gave way and the window was open.

For the third time in as many hours, Val found herself diving through a window. This time, into her own bedroom, where—when she regained her feet—she drew her velvet blackout curtains behind her and panted with relief. She was safe. She’d beaten the sun, chased off a Jackal, and saved a kid’s life—a full night’s work if ever there was one.

Val shuffled toward the bed. I’m going to sleep like the dead, har har. She collapsed onto the mattress, not even bothering to get under the blankets. As she drifted off, a breeze made its way through the still-open window and around the edge of the curtain. She could smell the rot of the Jackal on it. Probably went to ground not far from here.

Except, there was something else tangled in with the decay, acrid and sharp, like a dog had marked its territory. Her Jackal hadn’t smelled like that. This scent had a distinctly male tang, which meant—

Which means there are more of them. She fought against the fatigue, managing to sit up and even getting one leg over the side of the bed. But it was too late. Outside, to the east, the sun peeked above the horizon.

Darkness descended.