Night Owls (3 page)

When his silhouette disappeared around the corner of the building, Chaz let out a growl. “Did you see that? He was watching to see if I could hold silver. Crazy old fuck.” He drained the last of his coffee and tossed the cup into the wastebasket with extra force, then eyed Val’s. “You done sniffing?”

She slid it across to him as he opened the fudge.

 • • • 

I
T WAS EARLY
enough in the semester that the store was dead by closing time. Outside, the street was quiet except for the occasional scatter of leaves drifting across the pavement. The other storefronts were dark, proprietors and customers long since gone home for the night. Night Owls was on Edgewood’s main drag. Were it not for the influx of students every September, the sleepy college town might otherwise be called a hamlet.

Val walked Chaz to his car, an ancient, ’84 Mustang that looked like it would just barely be able to make it out of the parking lot. But, in the way of well-built older vehicles, it ran like a dream on regular oil changes and tune-ups. Chaz swore it would outlast pretty much everything on the planet in the event of a nuclear war—with the exceptions of maybe the cockroaches, Twinkies, and Val.

Chaz slid behind the wheel and waved the envelope containing the morning’s bank deposit at her. “You know, usually it’s the man who’s supposed to escort the woman to her car.”

“I’m bucking the trends. Look at me go.”

“You’re protecting the profits. Let’s not be coy.”

Val grinned. “Gotta keep my investments safe.”

Chaz glanced around. Even the crickets had gone to bed. “Yeah, from all these thugs hanging out in Edgewood. I think someone ran a stop sign the other day. Or rolled through it.”

Val opened her mouth to retort, but before she could speak, her nostrils filled with the scent of blood. Not a bright, fresh-from-the-vein smell. This was old, congealing, like blood left to pool in a dark place and forgotten. She wanted to retch as her taste buds kicked in and helpfully supplied the rancid companion to the smell.

“Val?” Chaz started getting out of the car. He squawked as she shoved him back down into the driver’s seat. “The fuck?”

“Go home, Chaz. Get the hell out of here.”

“Val, what—” He just barely swung his legs back inside before Val slammed the door shut.

“GO. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

He looked ready to argue, but something in her glare made him reconsider. Although she couldn’t hear his muttered curses, his lips were easy enough to read as he jammed the keys in the ignition and started the car.

Val watched until his taillights disappeared at the end of the street. She turned her face to the wind and braced herself. Then she inhaled deeply.

Blood and rot and crawling things. Skittering, slithering. Writhing.
The thickness filled her nose and went straight to her brain, to the place where pure animal fear ruled. She realized that the soft whimpering she heard was coming from her own throat.

Then, just as suddenly as the scent had appeared, it was gone. All the breeze carried now was the dry earthy smell of dying leaves. Her heart slammed; her hands were shaking. Every muscle screamed at her to run as fast and as far as she could.

No.
Even as she thought it, the fear had begun leaching away. Val willed her fists to unclench. Deep breaths, as much to make sure no traces of that horrible scent remained as to calm herself down. For years, she’d been the scariest thing in Edgewood, aside from finals and dissertations.

Now it seemed something new had rolled into town. She hoped it hadn’t come here looking for her.

She’d thought she’d left that all behind.

3

T
HE TEA WAS
something herbal, probably one of those ones with bogus aromatherapy claims on the box:
mood-lifting
, or
sweet dreams
, or
energy booster
. It was all horseshit, but Elly wasn’t about to explain that to Helen. She had a feeling Helen knew it already, anyway.

The older woman sat in an enormous wingback chair; Elly was snuggled in its twin. The chairs themselves were far too big for the room, which Helen had referred to as “Henry’s second library.” Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves covered the walls, and not an inch of any single shelf was empty. Elly had wandered around while her hostess was off making the tea. She’d touched the various volumes, mouthing the titles as she went along. Most of them were scholarly works, studies on the lives of long-dead poets, or treatises on how historical and socioeconomic factors had informed one classical artist or another. They were boring enough to make her feel sleepy despite the adrenaline still coursing through her from the encounter with the Creep.

Helen had mentioned that this room served as the professor’s at-home office. Crammed into the corner by the window was a small mahogany desk. Elly’d peeked at the papers in the brushed-brass inbox and confirmed as much: students’ essays, waiting for their grades. So this was the place where he received regular visitors—kids from the college who went through their days oblivious to the nasty things waiting in the dark.

I could write a paper that’d make their heads explode. And I wouldn’t even need footnotes.

If this was the second library, Elly wondered where the first one was. Probably upstairs. That would be the one with information that might help her. Help all of them, now that she’d been invited into their house. She itched to ask about it, and about what kinds of books Professor Clearwater had stashed away, but Father Value’s voice was in the back of her mind, reminding her not to be rude. Even though he was dead, she could still hear him chiding her.

So she sipped her tea and tried to remember her manners. When she was little, Father Value had made her practice polite conversation. She hunted around in her memory for something that normal people might ask one another in this situation.
Do you have any crossbows?
didn’t strike her as a good opening foray.

Helen came to her rescue. “How long were you with Father Value, Elly?”

Familiar ground, if painful. “All my life, really. If I had any family before him, I don’t remember them.” She’d thought about it, now and then, wondered who her parents were and what they’d been like. Father Value had some old pictures of the man and woman he’d said were her mom and dad, but she’d never felt a connection to the people in them. They were just faces on photo paper. In the made-for-TV movies, the long-lost child always felt some jolt of recognition. Elly hadn’t, no matter how hard she tried.

“Then you must have spent a lot of time moving around. Henry said members of the Brotherhood never stayed in one place for very long.”

Elly frowned. Father Value hadn’t spoken about his former organization very often, but he’d been quite clear on one rule: don’t talk about it to outsiders. “The Brotherhood?”

Helen studied Elly for a moment, then sipped her tea. It was a knowing gesture, one that clearly read,
I see you playing dumb.
“Henry had been gone from it nearly ten years when we met. Plenty of time for certain old . . . taboos to lose their imperative. He told me some of what he was before. Not everything, but enough. Your Father Value came up often.”

Damn it. Busted.
This woman had invited her in in the middle of the night, and Elly was already lying. “I never met anyone else from it. There was only ever Father Value.”
At least that part’s true.

“I never met anyone else from it, either. But this man Value came sniffing around every once in a while, when he needed something. The phone would ring in the dead of night, and it was always him, asking for Henry’s help.”

Elly opened her mouth to argue—Father Value
hated
asking for help—but then she remembered being ten years old and waking to Father Value’s voice drifting in through an open window. When she’d peered out, she’d seen him on the street below, his broad shoulders hunched over the pay phone. Now that she remembered that first time, she realized, there had been a few of those calls scattered over the years, often followed a few days later by a delivery or a drop of something they’d needed—clothes, supplies, books.

If I thought back, would we have been near Edgewood when they happened?
She thought maybe they were.

From down the hallway came a rattling that nearly sent Elly out of her skin. Tea sloshed over the rim of the cup, scalding her hand, but she ignored the pain. She was out of the chair in a flash, settling herself in a crouch in front of Helen and digging the knife out of her boot. “Stay behind me,” she said. Her eyes flicked from the doorway to the window. She wondered how heavy the desk was, if she had time to barricade the door.
Stupid of me. Should’ve checked its weight when I was walking around.

Then Helen’s hand was on her shoulder, her voice soft and soothing in Elly’s ear. “Elly. It’s only Henry. He’s home.”

“Oh. Oh, I . . .”
So much for manners.
“I’m sorry.” Sheepishly, she slid her knife back into her boot and stood.

Helen Clearwater took it with grace; you’d think she had students go all combat-ninja on her on a nightly basis. She patted Elly’s hand, set the teacup aright, and glided out into the hallway. “Come with me. I think Henry will like you.”

 • • • 

T
HE OTHER LIBRARY
—the
real
one—spanned nearly half of the second floor. The books here were much more to Elly’s taste—texts on monsters, survival, rituals from hundreds of years ago. One whole bookcase was dedicated to Bibles in all different languages and editions—King James, American Standard, New International—she had a feeling Professor Clearwater had leafed through most of them over the years. The chairs up here were twins of the ones downstairs, but they looked more lived-in, the leather far more supple. Elly sank into one and breathed in the smell of pipe smoke and old books.

When Helen brought a fresh pot of tea, Professor Clearwater produced a flask and poured a healthy dollop of whiskey into Elly’s cup.

He waited until Helen had closed the door behind her and Elly had taken a scalding sip before he spoke. “My wife tells me I’ve kept you waiting. My apologies.”

“It’s all right,” Elly said. “I’m the one who showed up at two in the morning. I didn’t know where else to go.”

He patted her hand, a grandfatherly gesture unlike anything she’d ever received from Father Value. It made her feel awkward and comforted at the same time. “You came to the right place, my dear. You’ll be safe here.”

She smiled, but couldn’t keep it up. “I wish that were true, Professor.”

“Henry, please.”

Just like his wife.
“Henry, then. You know I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t bad. The Creeps killed Father Value, and they’re coming after me. If they’re not here by morning, then they’ll come tomorrow night. Nowhere’s really safe.”

“You’re safe enough for the moment, that I promise.” He sat back in the chair, the leather creaking as he settled in. He even
looked
grandfatherly, his white hair neatly trimmed, his wrinkled features kindly and nonjudgmental. “Elly, why don’t you tell me exactly what happened?”

She took a deep breath. He wouldn’t turn her out, that much she knew. He’d have done it as soon as Helen announced who she was, if he was going to. Still, the urge to snatch up her backpack and run out of this room, out of this house, nearly overwhelmed her. Her hands gripped the smooth wooden arms of her chair as if they were all that anchored her.

The professor pulled out his flask again. It hovered over her teacup for a second before he passed it to her directly. “Go on,” he said.

Elly accepted it and took a long swig. It burned as it went down, but she kept from coughing. Father Value had let her have the occasional sip, too. She couldn’t be sure, but Elly thought the men drank the same brand. She returned the flask and went back to her tea. “A few weeks ago, Father Value found out they were looking for something. A book. He didn’t say what was in it, only that they were after it.”

She remembered those first fevered days. Father Value always tried keeping the Creeps from getting whatever they were after, but she’d never seen him seek anything out with such urgency before. He’d eaten only when she forced a plate in front of him; he’d slept on bus trips or in the backs of cabs as he dragged her from city to city. She’d been sure he’d collapse from exhaustion sooner or later, and there was no way they could afford hospital bills.

But he hadn’t collapsed. Two days ago, they’d found the book.

 • • • 

E
LLY WASN’T BIG
on churches in general, but she really wasn’t keen on being in them after dark, when the doors were locked and the lights were off. She didn’t worry about being struck by lightning or burning in hell—churches were by and large some of the safest places to be when it came to the Creeps. Her fears were more practical.

She was pretty sure breaking and entering in a church could get you arrested.

Father Value insisted it would be all right. He knew the clergy there, he said. Or he had a decade ago. Or two. Either way, they’d be in and out. The book was right under . . . right under . . .

“Right under here.” He was on his hands and knees behind the altar, prying at a slate. “Come help me with this, Elly, it’s heavy.”

She gave up her spot by the door reluctantly. If someone came in while they were yanking up the stones, there’d be no warning. But if she didn’t help, he’d give himself a stroke trying to do it on his own. She crowded in beside him and got her fingers under a loose part of the slate.
Dear God, please don’t let this slip and crush my fingers. I kind of need them. Amen.

Father Value counted to three and they lifted. The scraping filled the church, echoing off the stone walls and stained glass windows. Elly half expected a clap of thunder to sound at the desecration, but none came.

She had just enough time to wedge her shoulder beneath the slab and bear its weight. Father Value let his edge go and stuck his arm into the hollow beneath the floor. He leaned over so far she was sure he’d fall in, and they could add a broken neck or dislocated shoulder to the hospital bill racking up in her mind. He rooted around, muttering to himself. Elly’s muscles began to quiver from the strain.

“Father, I can’t hold this up much longer.”

“Patience, Eleanor. It’s here.”

“What if someone else found it first? What if they already have it?”

“Hush. It’s here, I’m sure of it.”

Elly gritted her teeth and held on. She counted seconds, ignoring the tremors coursing through her arms and legs. A minute passed by. Two. Father Value was halfway in the hole now, the scrabbling sound of his questing hands sending odd echoes around the vestibule. Elly’s knees bent further and further as the slab’s weight bore down. “Father, I—”

“I have it!” He scuttled backward, crablike, a dusty tome clutched in one gnarled hand.

Just in time, too. Elly’s strength gave out a second after the old man was clear. She stumbled forward; the slate fell back into place with a crash that rattled off the walls. If anyone had been asleep in the rectory, surely that would have woken them. “We have to get out of here. Someone’ll be coming.”

At first, she didn’t think he’d heard. He looked almost like a friar of old, standing in the darkened church in his plain black robes, clutching the book to his chest. All he needed to complete the outfit was a belt made of rope. Of course, the running shoes peeking out from beneath the hem killed the illusion. Beneath the monkish garb, Father Value wore jeans and a sweater.

“Father?” She’d drag him out if she had to. Even if the priests in residence hadn’t called the cops, the Creeps might be on their way.

Father Value opened his eyes. They glinted with triumph, but there was an urgency there, too. “The side door, Elly. We’ll want to be as far from here as we can get.” He’d left his knapsack on a pew on the way in. Now he tucked the book inside it and headed for the door. He paused with his hand on the knob, head tilted. He leaned his ear against the wood. After a moment, he looked back at her, his mouth set in a grim line. “We’ll have to look at it together in the morning. Tonight, I think we’ll be rather busy.”