Night Owls (15 page)

I was just hoping it wouldn’t be on my goddamned shift.

He felt guilty for even thinking that, but Chaz had never been very good at reassuring and comforting.
I’ll probably just make it worse.
Damage was already done though; he had to at least try. “Listen, Justin . . .”

“Sweetie, it’s not your fault.” Thank God for Sunny. She reached across the table and took Justin’s hands in hers. “If I understand it right, Professor Clearwater gave you the book, not the other way around, yes?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Because he trusted you with it. He knew you could get it where it needed to go, and that he wouldn’t have to worry about it. You eased a burden for him by taking it. Do you see?” While Sunny spoke, she stroked her thumb slowly back and forth across his knuckles. Her voice was low and smooth, and her eyes . . . It shouldn’t be possible for that brown to get deeper, but it had. They seemed almost liquid now, and even bigger than when Chaz and Justin had first arrived.

The smell of sandalwood filled the room, earthy and deep. Had she lit a candle? Or a stick of incense? Chaz found he couldn’t remember, and
that
was what brought him out of the stupor. Sunny never broke her eye contact with Justin, but Chaz was fairly certain the amused quirk of her lips was aimed at him.

She kept murmuring, too low for Chaz to make out the words. Justin nodded now and then, deep in her thrall.
Probably should’ve told him she’s a therapist for her day job.

Chaz let his mind wander as Sunny eased Justin’s worry. He had very little to do until tonight. Night Owls’ daytime crew could take care of itself, and the plans for the Jackals’ return depended largely on Val, Elly, and Cavale. Which meant he could close his eyes, let his mind slip into neutral for a few minutes, and quietly freak the fuck out.

It had been bad enough having a Jackal come within millimeters of stabbing out his eye the other night. It had been worse when he and Val had gone into the Clearwaters’ and he’d seen what those creepy bastards could actually
do
. But what he kept coming back to, now that Cavale had utterly failed to fix Justin like Val had hoped (and wasn’t Chaz just sitting on a huge
I told you so
for that), was the Jackal woman’s parting threat.
I’ll bring back a whole nest.

They didn’t have the pages for her and they weren’t going to by tonight. How long would it take for them to rally their troops? Was it just a matter of sticking their snouts in the air and howling, or was there some sort of Jackal message board on the Internet:
Meet up in Edgewood, Friday at midnight. BYOB. Snacks will be provided.

Maybe they could handle a few of them, between the four of them. Val could fight. Cavale, too, as loath as Chaz was to compliment him. And if miss small, dark, and twitchy had learned her shit alongside Cavale, well, that probably meant Chaz was the weak link in the group.

That girl can hold her own. She stabbed Val, didn’t she?
He grimaced, remembering the feel of Val’s blood on his hands as he bandaged the wound, how warm it felt against her cold, cold skin. She’d looked like hell by the time she’d gone down into Cavale’s cellar. If they’d been alone, he would have insisted she let him help her down the stairs, at least let her lean on him instead of Cavale’s rickety goddamned railing. But while she might have conceded if Cavale had been the only other person present, she’d never show that much vulnerability in front of an employee and the girl who’d inflicted the wound in the first place.

So he’d watched her descend the stairs, his knuckles turning white on the edge of the chair as he waited for her weakened state to cause her to stumble and fall. It was like watching her descend into the crypt, stink of old earth and all, and he’d
hated
it.

He’d see her tonight. He knew that, logically. She’d probably insist on feeding first, too, so she really would look a thousand times better by the time she got back to Night Owls. But until then, every second would be tinged with worry for her.

The front door rattled open, pulling Chaz from his doom-filled thoughts. He was about to turn to say hello to Lia when Sunny’s expression stopped him. She was no longer hypnotizing Justin. Instead, she was staring over the top of his head, the color draining from her face. A tiny strangled noise escaped her throat as she shook her head “no.”

Justin twisted to follow her gaze and gasped. “But . . . It’s
daylight
.”

Chaz felt his mouth go dry. He turned slowly, already knowing what he’d see.

Val stood in the archway, dressed in a pink tracksuit, an Edgewood Panthers water bottle in her hand. Her red hair was pulled back into a ponytail, the strands around her hairline dark with sweat. Only, it wasn’t Val.

“Fuck,” said Lia, in Val’s voice. “I’m sorry, Chaz. I saw the car but I didn’t even think— Sec.” She disappeared into the hall bathroom, slamming the door behind her. When she emerged a minute later, she’d lost a few inches and gained a few pounds. Her ponytail still cascaded down her back, but now it was honey blond instead of dark red. Her skin was tanned, which made the cotton-candy pink polish on her fingernails stand out. This was the face Lia usually wore: Sunny’s favorite. “I’m so sorry about that. I. Um.”

“It’s okay,” Chaz said. “I’ve just been
worried
about her.” He overemphasized the word, hoping the women would back him up. She and Sunny knew how he felt about Val—it wasn’t the kind of thing you could hide from two extremely savvy succubi—but he certainly didn’t need Justin to twig on to it. “Sunny can fill you in on why later. Or Justin can. Justin, this is Lia.”

Justin smiled politely, but kept his eyes on Chaz. He was back to the puzzling-shit-out face.

“Not a word to Val about, uh. That. Okay? She gets snarly when I worry about her too much.”

Another nod, this one with a little less suspicion. It probably helped that Justin had actually seen Val get snarly now and then at Night Owls. Usually it was when she’d put off feeding a day or two too long, but he didn’t know that. Yet.

“Is Val okay? That was awfully strong.” Lia crossed over to sit next to Sunny.

“She’s all right. There’s some shit going down, but it’s being taken care of.” Chaz stood and pulled his keys out of his pocket.
I need to get out of here.
“Listen, I hate to run off like this, but I have a few things I need to get done before she wakes up. Sunny said it’d be okay for Justin to sack out here for the day. Is that cool?”

“Of course.” Lia bit her lip. She looked like she wanted to cry. “Chaz—”

He smiled at her, doing his best to reassure her without having magical succubus soothing powers at his beck and call. It wasn’t Lia’s fault his guard had slipped.

“It’s okay, really. Take care of Justin for us, yeah?” He clapped Justin on the shoulder and leaned down to stage-whisper in his ear: “No shoes on the furniture, no blaring the radio, and for God’s sake,
put the lid down
. Got it? Good. We’ll be back tonight to take you off the ladies’ hands.”

Chaz didn’t wait for any of them to answer. He showed himself out, willing his gait to remain steady and calm until the door closed behind him.

15

T
HE 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.

 • • • 

S
HE 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.”