Night Owls (21 page)

She didn’t have much time to ruminate on it, though. Once the round of introductions were done and Chaz had ducked out to go to Val’s, the demons had swept their guests into the brightly lit kitchen. Sunny bustled around getting everyone drinks and fussing with the appetizers they’d laid out—crackers and cheese, little spinach pies, and tiny hot dogs in matching tiny crescent rolls. Their bigger version had been Elly’s specialty, once upon a time. She almost opened her mouth to see if Cavale remembered, but after this morning’s cherry pie disaster, she didn’t quite dare.

While her partner was making sure everyone had a plateful of food, Lia settled them around the table and held court. She focused mostly on Justin and Cavale, but made sure Elly was part of the conversation. It was so smoothly done, in fact, that Elly forgot to fidget whenever Justin took his eyes off the book to answer Lia’s questions. He’d hardly looked up from it at all on the ride over, only pausing to make notes on the legal pad beside him. Elly had spent the trip entranced, wishing he’d write faster.

But now she’d relaxed a bit. The spell hadn’t faded at all. If anything, Justin had said the Creepscrawl was getting
easier
to read, not harder. Cavale seemed to think their ritual had made the magic dig in deeper, though whether that was something they’d triggered or whether it was the nature of the Creeps’ spell to resist ejection, he didn’t know.

She felt slightly guilty about hoping that Justin’s affliction would last long enough for him to finish translating, but she couldn’t help it. Whatever was written in that book was a potential weapon they could use in fighting the Creeps. Father Value would have been hovering over Justin’s shoulder, chivvying him on and scowling whenever Justin traded the pen for his fork to take a bite.

Her semicontent feeling lasted until dinner was nearly over. Then Elly screwed it up. Again.

She had a bellyful of roasted chicken and mashed potatoes. The green beans had actually been
green
, and had a bit of snap left to them, not the sickly snot brown rubbery things she’d eaten out of cans for as long as she could remember. She was so full, every movement felt languid. She knew that she’d need to be alert soon, especially with the sun on its way down, but that safe feeling was back and she let herself ride it a little longer.

Sunny had poured coffee. The cream was near Justin, but his head was bent over the book again. Rather than interrupt him, Elly reached across for the pitcher.

And knocked over the salt shaker.

She pinched a bit of it and tossed it over her shoulder. Father Value had ingrained the habit in them so young, she didn’t even think about it. When she looked up, Cavale was watching her with a sad little smile. “For good luck?” he asked.

“Mm-hm.” She should have stopped there. He wasn’t judging her with the question. If there was anyone in the world she didn’t have to explain herself to, it was Cavale. She couldn’t even say
why
she went on—Justin was deep into the text; Sunny was cutting monster-sized slices of chocolate cake, and Lia was stealing a dollop of frosting. No one was paying attention to her but Cavale, and yet she kept talking. “The only time I didn’t do it, I broke my wrist the next day.”

His smile faded. “I remember.”

Sunny and Lia’s playful banter cut off. Their heads swiveled to Cavale, worry creasing both of their brows.
They sensed his mood change.

Of course he remembered it. He’d been watching her. It was maybe two years after the cherry pie incident. She was eight, he was eleven, and they’d gone to the park to play. They were practicing moves on the monkey bars, taking their climbing far more seriously than the other children present, and Elly had slipped and fell. It was an accident. A stupid playground accident, but Father Value had blamed Cavale. She remembered the yelling only vaguely, through the haze of painkillers the hospital had prescribed.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she whispered. “It wasn’t.”

“I need a minute,” he said, and pushed away from the table.

Elly stared at his retreating back, fighting tears. Sunny set down her cake knife and came over to squeeze her shoulder. “He’ll be all right, honey,” she said, but Elly shook her off.

“I’ll go apologize.” She held her back straight as she left the kitchen, ignoring the compassionate stares of the succubi boring into her back.

She found him in the sunroom, looking out over the back lawn. The way he stood, hands folded behind his back, head bowed, reminded her achingly of Father Value. Whether Cavale knew it or not, he’d always carried himself the way their guardian had. She crept in behind him and stopped a couple of feet to his side. “He shouldn’t have yelled at you for that,” she said. “He was worried and scared, you know? The hospital was going to call Child Services on us, and he thought he was going to lose us.”

She remembered that much—the concerned faces on first the adults at the playground, then on the EMTs, then on the doctors and nurses in the ER. There had been questions that had nothing to do with her wrist. They’d taken Cavale away to ask her some of them, even though she’d been crying too hard to answer. It wasn’t the pain that had her sobbing; it was the fear that she’d never see him again. Father Value had warned them both about the possibility of separation, should something like this happen.

In the end, they’d answered enough of the questions correctly so that when Father Value arrived, the staff let him take his wards home with him. Whatever papers they’d demanded, he’d had. They
were
his wards. That much was true. But their address, the way they lived, that’s where the lies came in. There hadn’t even been time to get in her pajamas when they got home. Father Value sent Cavale to fetch her teddy bear and they were on the move again.

But didn’t it go to show how much he cared? That he’d packed up and moved them around to keep them rather than sending them off to foster care, which would have been worlds easier?

That wasn’t how Cavale saw it. He turned to her. The fading sunlight cast long shadows on his face. “You keep making excuses for him. And I get why. I do. You’re still mourning him.”

“Of course I am. How could I not be? He raised me. He raised
us
.”

She might as well have slapped him, the way he rocked back. “Did he, Elly? Because from where I’m standing, it was more like he taught us some shit, left out a whole lot more, and let us raise ourselves when it came to anything
other
than fighting Creeps. And look what a fucking brilliant job we’ve done there.”

Now it was Elly’s turn to get angry. The man wasn’t a week in his grave—if they’d even buried him yet—and Cavale couldn’t even spare ten seconds of respect for him. “You seem to be doing just fine for yourself. You wanted a normal life and you got it.
By walking away from us.
”

“By walking away from
him
! Elly, I know you loved him. I know he was a hero to you. But he was just a
man
. And a fucked-up one, at that. His name was John Reed, not Father Value, and he was just. A. Man.”

She’d heard the name before. It was the one they’d given to the doctors at the hospital, the name he’d gone by before he’d become Father Value, but so what? What was Cavale trying to prove by invoking it? It didn’t diminish who he’d been or the things he’d done. It didn’t change the biggest, most important thing: “Our parents died fighting the Creeps and he took us in. Shouldn’t that be worth something?”

Cavale stared at her. For the second time today, she saw the look that meant he had something to say that she wouldn’t like. His eyes tightened, his jaw clenched. But this time, he didn’t swallow whatever it was. The anger drained out of him and her name came out like a sigh. “Elly. El.”

“What? What is it?” It scared her, how quickly he’d gone from furious to sad. It scared her even more when he reached for her hands.

A long moment passed before he spoke again. “My parents died,” he said. “Yours didn’t.”

“I— I don’t understand.” Father Value had always said her parents were gone, the few times it had come up.
“Gone,” he said. Did he ever say “dead”?
She couldn’t remember. They were two very different things.

“It’s a cult. The Brotherhood is a big goddamned cult, and your parents gave you to him so they could get right back out there to fight the Creeps.” He squeezed her hands and led her over to the love seat. It was nice of him to do that; the room’s proportions had gone all strange on her. “I was only three, so I don’t remember much. Faces coming and going, but they’re hazy. I think they came to see you, at first, and there were babysitters who watched us while . . . While Father Value was out.” Even in her shock, Elly could hear how hard it was for him to say his name.

“But it was only ever us. Just the three of us.”

“No. Not always. They stopped coming when I was six or seven, I guess, but for a while, there were more people around. Then one day he said I was old enough to watch over you by myself, and that was the end of the babysitters.” Cavale leaned in and put an arm around her shoulders. “I think maybe that’s when he and the Brotherhood had their falling out.”

“Are they still alive, do you think?” Not that she cared.
I don’t.

“I don’t know. If you want to look for them, I’ll help you.”

She turned the thought over in her mind. Growing up, she’d never understood the fairy tales where the heroine learned that the people who raised her weren’t her
real
parents. She couldn’t imagine any other family. She didn’t
want
to imagine one. “No. They gave me up. Why should I care who they are now?”

He opened his mouth, but no answer came. After a minute, he nodded. “Okay. If you change your mind—”

“I won’t,” she said, and considered the matter closed. She leaned into him, watching the shadows gather as the sun slipped below the horizon. “Are you mad at me?”

“No, and I never have been.” He ruffled her hair. “Are you mad at
me
?”

“No.”

“Good. You want to go back out there and see if there’s any cake left? Sunny’s an amazing baker.”

Elly grinned and sat up straight. “You go ahead. I’m going to go outside and get some air first.”

He looked like he might protest, but then his eyes cut to the darkening sky. They both knew that she wasn’t going for a simple evening stroll. She was going to go check the perimeter and set a few wards, and in a few minutes he’d do the same thing inside.

Because they were Father Value’s children.

21

V
AL WOKE UP
disoriented and with a crick in her neck. She was also hot, which was unusual considering her normal corpse-like temperature. Something lay atop her, not the heavy, gritty weight of dirt, so she knew she hadn’t gone to ground. This was soft and fuzzy.
Blankets?
She wriggled out from under them, dislodging enough throws and quilts to keep an Eskimo family warm in the dead of an arctic winter. She realized she was in her own living room, the fading light of dusk filtering through the drawn blinds. The events of the previous night came back to her, including her undignified climb into Chaz’ trunk.

At least he was thorough.
He must have stripped her bed and raided the linen closets to find all of these. It was a good call on his part: her bedroom was the only place in which she’d hung blackout curtains. She probably wouldn’t have caught fire from what light seeped in, but she might have woken up with some pretty nasty burns.

As it was, she’d just woken up sweaty. Her hair was plastered to her neck. She was just contemplating a shower when her cell phone buzzed, and Chaz’ number flashed across the display. She picked up, grinning.

“Thank you for not leaving me in your trunk all day.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, but he sounded harried. “Listen, uh. I’m on the way over. You’ve got about five minutes to tidy up.”

She glanced around the room. It was cluttered, sure, but not a pigsty. “It’s not so bad,” she said. “You’ve seen it in far worse condition than this.”

He cleared his throat, and when she spoke, she could hear the wince. “I have, but Ivanov hasn’t.”

Suddenly she wasn’t sweaty anymore; she was clammy and cold. “Ivanov?” She hadn’t seen the head of the Boston
Stregoi
in three years. At the end of their last conversation, she’d suggested she might stake him if they were in the same room together within the next decade. It hadn’t been her finest moment, but she’d also been carrying a dying Chaz in her arms at the time. A bit of theatrics were understandable, even justified.

“I told you I was calling them today if we hadn’t resolved the problem.”

Val put the phone on speaker so she could dart around picking things up while they talked. “You did, but I figured you’d, you know, set up a meeting.”

“It’s what I intended to do, but when I called . . . Shit, Val, I got the sense they were going to show up here whether we called them or not.”

“You think they know what’s going on?” She didn’t have time to fold the blankets. Gathering them up in a bundle, she carried them into the kitchen and shoved them through the cellar door. Her house wasn’t prepared to receive visitors, not the vampire kind, anyway. As a rule, she didn’t keep blood packs on hand to offer as refreshment. Or people, like they did in Boston.

Well, that’s their own problem, not giving me any notice.

“They must. Or at least part of it. Whatever lackey answered the phone put me right through to Ivanov’s primary Renfield. I wasn’t on hold more than ten seconds. And since they said he’d be here right after sunset, they have to have put him in the car while he was still out cold.”

Her stomach roiled. That didn’t bode well. “All right, well. Good to know.” His sucked-in breath was loud in the quiet room. “What are you leaving out?”

“Don’t freak out.”

“Time’s ticking, Chaz. Spit it out.”

“He’s bringing Katya.”

The stack of magazines she’d collected fell to the carpet in a flutter of pages. “He’s
what
?”

“She’s his right-hand now. That’s what the Renfield said.”

“Don’t you dare come here,” she said. “Turn around and go back to Sunny and Lia’s.”

“Fuck that.”

“Chaz—”

“No. I’m pulling into your driveway now, and I’m staying for this.” Headlights splashed across her front window, and the roar of the Mustang’s engine cut short. “How about you turn on some lights for the sorry-ass mortal, huh? I’ll be in in a sec.” He ended the call.

Numbly, Val wandered around turning on the lights. She could Command Chaz to leave as soon as he came through the door, but then she’d lose his input. He’d be able to fill her—and therefore Ivanov and Katya—in on what had happened during the day.

But, Katya . . .
She’d threatened to stake Ivanov, but she’d flat-out
promised
to do it to Katya. Of course, not until after she’d garroted the woman with silver wire, poked her full of holes and stuffed said holes full of garlic. The
Stregoi
bitch was the one who’d stolen Chaz away and drained him to the point of death. She was the reason Val had refused to have any dealings with the Boston vampires ever since.

And now she was coming to Val’s house.

The key rattled in the lock. Chaz stepped into the living room, holding a paper bag. “Lamb’s blood,” he said. “Best I could do on short notice. I had to buy a whole fuckton of lamb chops, too. You got any good recipes for mint jelly?” His voice was light, but she could see tightness behind his eyes and smell the fear emanating from him.

“Chaz, you don’t have to stay.”

“Yeah, I do. I’m not going to hide. My job is to serve you. I’m not letting her chase me away from that.”

“You’re not my servant. That’s not how we work, you and I.”

He set the bag down on an end table. “No, but they don’t understand that. We need their help, Val, and that means conforming to their shit. So I’ll play the part.” He grinned wryly. “Plus, she probably
expects
me to make myself scarce, or for you to hide me away. Consider my presence a bit of a ‘fuck you.’”

They looked at each other for a moment, Val tried to find another way around it, but he was right. Ivanov and Katya already held most of the cards. She and Chaz needed to slip whichever ones they could up their own sleeves. “Okay. Fine. But that means that if I dismiss you, you go. No arguments.”

He didn’t like it, but he nodded his agreement. “Go get cleaned up,” he said. “I’ll finish down here.”

Ten minutes later, Val had changed into clean jeans and a tailored shirt. She’d dragged a brush through her hair and twisted it into a bun. By the time she came back downstairs, Chaz had cleared away the rest of the clutter in the living room. He’d broken out her tea service and transferred the lamb’s blood into the china pot. Three delicate cups and saucers, pale roses curling around them, were set out in anticipation of their guests.

They didn’t have long to wait. Chaz had opened the blinds as part of his tidying, and now they both watched as a sleek black town car pulled up to the curb outside. A liveried driver got out and opened the rear passenger door.

Ivanov got out first, dressed in a suit that had been cut to scream Old World. He looked no older than thirty-five, but his face was all hard angles and shrewd expressions. At first glance you might take him for a young up-and-comer at a law firm, but that impression never lasted for long. He was the kind of man who demanded deference. It had probably been centuries since someone had dared refuse it.

He held out a hand, and a set of slender, ring-laden fingers slipped into his. Katya didn’t so much exit the car as she slithered from it. She was tall and reedy; thick chestnut curls cascaded down her back. Her outfit made Val do a double take. Where Ivanov’s suit had something antique about it, Katya’s was ultramodern. It was so cutting-edge that Val suspected it wouldn’t officially hit the runways in Paris until
next
season.
The last time I saw her, she was dressed like a street rat.
Gone were the torn jeans and scuffed leather jacket, though when the breeze lifted the other woman’s hair Val caught a glimpse of the line of studs marching their way along Katya’s ear. Katya seemed a bit unsteady on the heels of her spiky shoes, too.
That means her getup is Ivanov’s doing.

Which led Val to an odd thought: if Ivanov and Katya had left Boston before the sun went down, not only had their servants bundled their sleeping masters into the town car, they’d very likely
dressed
them as well. She repressed a shudder. Bad enough that Chaz had had to drag her out of his trunk this morning and deposit her in the living room. She couldn’t imagine making him dress her like an oversized Barbie doll.

Still, in the face of the two fashion plates out on the sidewalk, her own jeans-and-a-nice-blouse ensemble felt suddenly shabby. At least Chaz looked sharp; he still had on the suit he’d worn to the Clearwaters’ funeral.

Katya peered around the neighborhood, a look of disdain on her perfectly made-up face. Edgewood clearly didn’t meet her tastes, which, unless she’d had a personality transplant, ran toward the seedy. Edgewood’s biggest dive bar was still terribly white-collar. She shook her head and let Ivanov guide her up the walk.

Chaz opened the door as they ascended the front steps, sweeping his arm aside and letting them past. Ivanov walked straight by him, but Katya paused, her eyes lighting up.

Val clenched her fists, fighting the instinct to lunge forward and drag the woman away from him. By the hair.

“Charles!” she exclaimed, drawing out the
A
. “I’d hoped to see you here.” She reached out and cupped his cheek. “I see you’re handsome as ever.”

He used the open door as an excuse to pull away from her touch, moving smoothly to close it. “I’ve never won any beauty pageants,” he said.

“You looked so ill, last I saw you. I’m glad you’ve recovered.”

Chaz stiffened. His scent shifted from terrified to furious, and for good cause: he’d been so ill because
Katya had nearly killed him
. Much as Val wanted to let him give her a piece of his mind—much as she wanted to join in on it herself—she saw the tiny grin playing about Ivanov’s lips as he watched the exchange and knew she had to head it off.

“Lord Ivanov. Katya. Why don’t we all sit? You’ve come all this way. Perhaps we should get straight to business.”

Ivanov smiled indulgently. Katya scowled for the briefest instant, then turned to greet Val at last. She glided forward, clasping Val’s hands and kissing her on each cheek. Her cold hands and lips took Val by surprise—she’d been away from others of her kind for so long, the warmth of human touch had become the norm for her. Katya’s grip was cool iron as she looked Val up and down.

“Valerie,” she said. “We’ve missed you in Boston.” The lie was obvious in her ice blue eyes.

“Well, maybe it’s time I made my grand return.” If Katya wanted to play that particular game, Val could join in, too. Especially since she was the better liar. The other woman’s plastered-on smile faltered.
Score one for me.

Ivanov cleared his throat and touched Katya’s shoulder. “I do believe Valerie had the right of it. Perhaps we should discuss what we’ve come for.”

“Of course.” Katya squeezed Val’s fingers once before letting go, a cold marble warning.

They moved the rest of the way into the living room and sat, Ivanov and Katya on the couch, Val in the armchair. Chaz followed silently, pouring three cups of lamb’s blood from the teapot then exiling himself to the corner. He placed himself within sight of all three vampires. Blood drinkers were an untrusting lot; standing where they couldn’t see you made the more paranoid ones wonder if you were coming up behind them with a stake. He stayed just on the edge of Katya’s peripheral vision, to fuck with her. If she wanted a good look, she’d have to twist around.

Ivanov took a sip from his cup. He was far too polite to grimace at the poor vintage, but he set it down on his saucer and didn’t touch it again. “I understand you’ve come into conflict with some Jackals,” he said. His mouth twisted as he said the last, like the word tasted worse on his tongue than the blood had.

“You could say that,” said Val. “A friend of mine came into possession of something they want. He died for it, but not before he arranged for it to come into my keeping.”

“And when they showed up to retrieve it, you refused to hand it over?”

“I
couldn’t
have.” She left out the part where she’d tried. If Ivanov pushed for details, she’d tell him, but she didn’t want to admit they’d taken her by surprise and overpowered her if she didn’t have to. “It’s a book. We don’t know exactly what’s in there, but one of my employees had a look at it before they came. Whatever they want so badly, it’s not in there anymore.”