Night Owls

5

ELLY SETTLED BACK into the chair. She tapped at the rim of the teacup, trying to organize the flood of questions that had sprung to mind. Father Value had never been forthcoming with The Big Answers, preferring to tell her what she needed to know when she needed to know it. Most often, that came in the form of a crash course while they fled from terrible things.

So to sit here, calm and relaxed, with the whole day in front of her to pick Henry Clearwater’s brain, was a bit overwhelming. She sipped at the whiskey. Father Value had taught her to ask the most important questions first, usually because the Creep was dying and you needed information before he could gasp out his last breath.

Outside, the sky had gone from dusky blue to robin’s egg, and she relaxed a little more. Professor Clearwater was right; they wouldn’t come until nightfall now. Maybe there was time for the interesting questions, too.

“Why did you leave the Brotherhood?”

Henry smiled, but it wasn’t one of amusement or mirth. His eyes went somewhere far away, and his fingers made hollow thumps as he drummed them on the arm of the chair. “Because it was time to, Elly. Our job was done.”

“Done? I’ve helped kill fifty Creeps in the last three years, and there are still more out there. How can it be done?” It probably wasn’t too polite to yell at him, but she couldn’t help the anger that crept into her voice. How could he say that? How, after hearing her story, after she’d told him that a nest of at least six or seven had come after them the other night?

At the rise in her voice, he came back to the present. “Fifty in three years. That’s, what, thirteen or fourteen a year? There was a time when we’d kill thirteen or fourteen in a week. And that would only be enough to keep their population under control. Don’t get me wrong. What you two have done is admirable. However, they’re dying out, and soon enough they won’t be a worry any longer.”

“Shouldn’t you have stayed long enough to see it through, then? To finish them off for good?”

“I thought it best to let their natural predators do the job. It was quite a point of contention between Father Value and myself.”

Elly blinked. As far as she knew, the only ones hunting the Creeps in the first place had been Father Value and herself. He’d mentioned a few other scattered branches of the Brotherhood now and then, but there weren’t any formal reports, no tally board boasting the numbers of dead Creeps across the world from week to week. “What natural predators?”

Professor Clearwater sat forward, peering at her like she’d said something outrageous—I’ve never seen the color blue, or Electricity? Never heard of it.

“He never told you?”

“Obviously not.” She bit back her frustration. It wasn’t this man’s fault that Father Value had been secretive and paranoid. He’d withheld information. She’d always suspected it, but no amount of wheedling or coming at questions sideways had ever worked. Once Father Value decided she didn’t need to know something, that was the end of it. “I don’t suppose you’d care to fill me in?”

“Of course.” He cleared his throat, took a sip of whiskey, and cleared it again. “We’re not quite certain what the Creeps are, at heart. They take the bodies of their victims, usually after death, but not always. They’ve been able to turn the living as well. Whether the original personality remains seems to depend on the circumstances of their turning. Some retain pieces of themselves, some don’t.”

“I know. I’ve seen it happen.” She thought of poor Billy Chambers, the sweetest kid ever to have Silver and Pointy rammed into his belly. He’d recognized her, but he’d also been a colossal jerk in his last moments: Billy, but not Billy.

Professor Clearwater stood up and began pacing, hands folded behind his back. All he needed was a chalkboard and a podium, and he might as well have been teaching a class. “We don’t know precisely what it is that enters the bodies. Some kind of wraith, perhaps, or lesser demons too weak to have forms of their own. But once it’s done, the change is permanent. They’ll go around, killing indiscriminately, feasting on flesh and causing a panic.” He paused and looked at her. “They give others of similar ilk a rather bad name.”

He wants me to make some kind of connection here. Her palms started to sweat. Ask her to figure out why a crossbow was jamming, and she’d have it apart and fixed in seconds. Hunting the Creeps had always been ninety percent instinctual for her—she knew the things she needed to know, and acted on them. But delving deeper, putting disparate things together . . . that had been Father Value’s job. His and one other. But they’re both gone now. It’s just me, from here on out. Think, Elly. Similar ilk. Something else that took over bodies and ate people for a hobby. She groaned. “Vampires.”

Henry snapped his fingers. “Correct. Some werewolf packs, too, but primarily the vampires.”

Elly couldn’t help the proud flush that rose to her cheeks, but this was no time to bask in success. “So, what, the vampires pick off the Creeps over food?” If by food, we mean people.

“In some places, it is as simple as that. But those kinds of conflicts are mostly in . . . less civilized places. Places where the human inhabitants don’t have the same means of hunting as we do. I see you’re nodding. I assume Father Value educated you at least somewhat about the vampires, then?”

“Mostly that we leave them be. That they tend to police themselves, and only drink from willing donors. But that any of them we found preying on unwilling humans were fair game.” In all her time hunting, she and Father Value had only come across one rogue vampire. The kill had been clean and easy, but Father Value had been summoned away the next night by somber-looking, pale-skinned men. All he’d said, once he’d returned, was that he’d spent several hours “playing politics,” yet he’d walked like a man who’d been badly beaten. There had been no bruises to speak of, but he’d gone through nearly a whole bottle of aspirin over the next few days.

“Indeed.” Henry’s voice tugged Elly back from her recollection. “But where vampires can subsist on blood alone, the Creeps need more. They’ll eat flesh, and if their victims are afraid first, all the better. You can see how that might negatively impact the vampires’ food source. So they police the Creeps, too. They know where their local nests are and keep an eye on them. Now and then, they’ll simply send out a party to eradicate them.”

“But they can make more. You said it yourself—you were only killing enough to keep them from creating a whole swarm. We’ve been nowhere near those numbers.”

He shook his head and returned to the chair. “Elly, before I left, we learned something, Father Value and I. We caught one just before daybreak and interrogated it. Sunlight works on them like bamboo shoots under the fingernails. So we—” He licked his lips and bunched his hands into fists, dredging up a memory he’d rather leave buried. “We tortured it. We sat it in a chair beside a black-curtained window, and whenever it stopped talking or resisted, we pulled the drape aside. It was in agony. Probably half the things it said were lies to get us to stop. But it told us something we’d already suspected: they were losing the ability to procreate.”

He shuddered and turned a haunted gaze on her. “Without that, the vampires will take care of them all, over time. The vampires are immortal; the Creeps, less so. Especially if they’re not feeding as much as they’d like. It slows their aging, but it doesn’t halt it altogether. The vampires don’t have to rush.”

He was quiet for a few minutes. When he spoke again, his voice was hushed. “You asked why I left the Brotherhood. It was that knowledge, and the knowledge—that I could spend ten hours willingly torturing another living being—that made me say ‘enough.’”

“It wasn’t a human, though. It was a Creep. It would’ve done worse to you if it could.”

He regarded her sadly. “So I should stoop to its level? No, Elly. Not that. Never that, ever again.”

Part of her wanted to comfort him, to tell him he’d done something important, as painful as it was. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear, though, and she suspected he’d pick up on the hollowness of the sentiment: she’d torture one of them without reservations. It was the least they deserved. Something else itched at her, though, something Professor Clearwater was missing.

She thought of Billy Chambers’ face, his eyes wide with surprise as his skin turned to ash and flaked away around her spike. “Professor, you’re wrong. They can make more. I watched them do it to a friend of mine.”

He held up his hands. “They still can, certainly, but only in rare cases. It’s taxing on the creators and what comes through is often too weak to survive the first night. When did your friend turn?”

“Three years ago.”

“Have you seen it happen since?”

“No, but . . .” She scuffed her feet against the floor. Her right foot met resistance: her backpack. “Oh no. Professor, do you think . . . What if that’s what’s in here?” What else would Father Value have given his life to keep out of the Creeps’ hands? What else could be more important?

“In where?”

“The book Father Value and I stole. What if the secret to . . . to being able to make more is what they were after?” She leaned down and unzipped the backpack. The book she withdrew was sealed in a huge Ziploc bag—even if she’d dropped it in the water back at the beach, it would have been all right, though the Creep hadn’t known that. Now she yanked the bag open and set the book on her lap.

It was plain, bound in old brown leather. The corners were bent and dented, as though it had been taken off shelves and replaced many a time. Most of the gold leaf had flaked off the cover, but the writing was still there, stamped deep into the leather. Only, the language . . . “Aw, crap.” She held it up for Professor Clearwater to see. She’d been hoping for English, but would have settled for Latin or German or anything that could be easily translated.

No such luck.

Scrawled across the cover were a dozen or so letters she’d never seen. Elly had a decent eye for runes, but these were unlike anything she’d ever come across. “Maybe it’s different inside,” she said, lowering it again.

Before she could open the cover, Professor Clearwater was out of his chair. He sprinted over and snatched the book away from her. “Don’t!”

Elly scrabbled up herself, putting distance between herself and the professor. If he was going to go batshit now . . . But he’d retreated to the other side of the room, the book clutched against his chest. He wasn’t going to attack her. “Professor, what the hell?” Then she thought of his collection, and understanding dawned. “I know how to handle old books.”

He gulped in a few breaths. “I don’t doubt that, Elly. But this. It’s not fit for human eyes.” He turned to glance outside. The sun was well above the horizon now. Further in the house, a clock chimed seven. “I have somewhere I can take it. Somewhere safe, until we can figure out what to do with it. Will you let me do that?”

She stared at him. It’s mine, though. It’s what Father Value died for. If I give it away, I’m giving away the last thing he fought for. But wasn’t this where he’d always intended to bring it? Wasn’t this man the one person he’d trusted with the book? Maybe she wasn’t abandoning their last mission by letting Henry Clearwater take it away; maybe she was completing it. She cleared away the sudden lump in her throat. “Okay. Okay, yeah. But I want to be part of any decisions about it.”

“Of course.” He relaxed and set the book down on his desk. “My coat’s in the front closet. Would you fetch it for me? I’d like to check this for wards before I go.”

Trust was leaving an old man you’d known for all of four hours alone with the one thing you’d sworn to protect. Especially after the one person you’d sworn to protect was dead. If Father Value had been a little more trusting and come straight here rather than running, he might still be alive. Elly would have to do better than he had.

She’d start with fetching Professor Clearwater’s coat.