The euphoria could last for hours, if she went slow and savored it. But it was distracting, too—altogether too easy to get caught up in the sensory overload. She needed to be alert when they faced the Jackals, but this was too much. The edge had to come off.
Val stood at the tree line and inhaled. Small animals rustled around in the leaves, but the night birds had gone silent, sensing the predator in their midst. To her eyes, the trees were lit up like noon. She picked out a likely-looking path and set off toward Edgewood in a blur.
16
CHAZ HAD HOLED himself up in the office most of the shift, only coming out when a customer threw a curve the register monkeys couldn’t handle. Then it was right back to the office, where he claimed to be poring over the Macmillan catalogs for an upcoming sales appointment. In reality, he was mostly sitting with his head in his hands wondering where the hell Val was.
She hadn’t answered her cell phone, though he supposed if she were feeding it’d be kind of hard to: Sorry, I have to take this. Can you stop bleeding for a sec? It had bothered him at first, the thought of her out stalking the streets of Edgewood, looking at its residents like they were walking dinner menus.
But it wasn’t how she operated. There was a club in Providence with willing donors. Every few weeks she’d make a trip up there to feed and come home smelling like cloves and pretension. She’d never taken him with her, but he had their card. If she’s not here by one thirty, I’m calling them. He didn’t really think she’d be there, though. Not tonight, when there was so much to do before the Jackals came.
One twenty-five.
Fuck it. Close enough. He snatched the card from where he’d set it on the keyboard and pulled out his cell phone. He was halfway through dialing when the back room door creaked open and Val peeked in.
“Anybody home?”
He gaped at her. Last night she’d looked like a walking corpse. Now she stood before him, cheeks flushed and filled out again. It had been a long time since he’d seen this much color in her complexion. “Holy shit.”
She executed a little twirl. “Ta-da!”
“How’s the belly?”
Val grinned and lifted the bottom of her shirt. When last he’d seen her, he could have stuck a finger in there and had some wiggle room left over; now the skin was smooth and unblemished. There was no evidence she’d ever been stabbed at all, not even the tiniest scar.
Chaz reached out like a strange sort of Doubting Thomas and poked at the place the spike had pierced. Val’s skin was warm to the touch; usually she was slightly cooler than room temperature. And the wound . . . Perfectly healed. Must have been a hell of a feeding. He grinned at her. “I think you should tell everyone this closed because I’m an ace at vampire first aid.”
“Done.” She tucked her shirt back in and leaned against the desk. “You ready for this?”
He wasn’t, not really. They’d given him a crash course in the Jackals’ weaknesses, and he’d spent a good chunk of the afternoon finding silver and rowan, but if he actually had to do any hand-to-hand fighting he was fucked. Last time he’d taken a swing at someone was high school. Still, if he told her he was nervous, Val would send him right home. “Much as I can be.”
“You could still back out, you know. Go home and sleep, head to Sunny and Lia’s and play cards with Justin . . .”
“Uh-uh. No. This isn’t up for debate. I’m going.” His part was simple enough: just drive. He didn’t plan on fucking that up. And this way, he’d know the outcome right away. No sitting around waiting for Cavale to call and tell him how it had gone.
For a long moment, she just looked at him. Out in the store, the register spat out a receipt. There was a series of thuds from the other side of the wall as one of the kids set to some late-night reorganizing. Chaz held Val’s gaze steadily. He knew that if she wanted to, she could order him to stay home. He wouldn’t even have the wits to question it until hours later, when the meeting with the Jackals had come and gone. The idea of it made his heart pound. Val could probably sense his agitation, but there wasn’t much he could do about that.
Don’t make me stay behind.
She crooked a smile. “Okay. Fine. We stick to the plan. What else have I missed?”
He let out a sigh of relief, ignoring the twitch of her lips. “It’s been quiet. I checked in with Justin earlier. He’s damned near jumping out of his skin over there, but he’s fine. The Clearwaters’ funeral is tomorrow. I told him I’d take him.”
“We need to send flowers.”
“Already taken care of. What do you think you pay me for?”
Val straightened up. She was moving fast, faster than normal people. She was in front of Chaz before he could blink, squeezing his shoulder. “You do good work. I probably ought to say that more.”
“Does this mean I’m getting a raise?”
“Nope.”
It was an old joke between them. The patter felt good, something normal on the heels of a weird fucking day and a moment of mundanity before the night went right back to fubar.
By two thirty, the store was dead enough for Val to send the last of the register monkeys home. At two forty-five, the last late-night browser left. Chaz flipped the sign on the door to the closed side, with its picture of an owl with its head tucked beneath its wing. They went through the motions of closing the store for the night: cash register emptied, money counted and put in the safe, one final pass made with the push broom. It wasn’t until Chaz was killing the lights that Val snapped her head up and sniffed the air.
“They’re outside.”
The Jackals were waiting on the sidewalk, the same three from the other night as far as Chaz could tell: the woman, who he’d decided was named Bitch, stood in front with her arms folded; the smaller one, whom Chaz had dubbed Twitch, flanked her on the left; the bigger one with the scars, aka The Guy Who Was Going to Put Out My Fucking Eye—Asshole for short—flanked her on the right. They all wore hoods or hats, pulled far enough forward that their faces were hidden in shadow. Still, every now and then he could see flashes of their yellow eyes glowing within the deep recesses.
Bitch watched as Val locked the door and gave the handle an experimental tug. Her eyes flicked to the keys when Val turned, like she was looking for the silver one that went to the rare books room. Apparently the fear of her face being seen didn’t extend to the rest of her body. Her sweatshirt was unzipped, giving Chaz a glimpse of the burn marks on her neck; they hadn’t healed the way Val’s wound had. Does that mean they haven’t fed? Or does it work differently for Jackals?
“Did you find the pages?” Her voice was raspy, too. Had Val taken her by the throat the other night? He couldn’t remember. Asshole’s claw had blocked his field of view.
“We did.” Val shook her head ruefully. “But you’re not going to like where they are.”
When Bitch growled, Twitch took it up, too. Asshole settled for some extra looming. “Where are they?”
“The professor had some property in Weston, the next town over. He hid them there.”
The empty hood turned toward Chaz. “Why didn’t you bring them back? Or have your lackey fetch them?”
He didn’t have to put on an act when he scowled. “Lackey” was one of those words that set his teeth on edge and made him want to punch someone in the dick. “There were complications.” He left the you bitch unspoken and prided himself on his diplomacy.
Bitch looked between them for a few moments. Twitch and Asshole shifted, watching her for cues. If she was considering violence as an option, she dismissed it fairly quickly. “Show us.”
Val glanced back at Chaz. “You mind them stinking up your car?”
“You’re paying for me to get it cleaned after.” In truth, he minded plenty—carting around a trio of creatures who had threatened your friends and killed your acquaintances never would have made his unreal shit I’ll have to do as a Renfield list, but it was part of the plan they’d worked out with Cavale last night. Having the car there
wasn’t utterly vital, but if they had to switch to Plan B, it’d help.
“I’ll buy you a vat of Febreze.”
“Done.” He pulled the keys out of his jacket pocket and jangled them. “You three are in the back. I’d appreciate it if no one tried putting my eyes out while I’m driving.” He looked up at Asshole, but the larger Jackal didn’t react. As he led the way toward where the Mustang was parked, he caught Val’s eye. “This is going to be the most fucked-up clown car ever.”
• • •
ELLY WAS FEELING fidgety. They’d slept through the morning, though she’d woken up a few times to go check the cellar door. It wasn’t that she’d thought Val would come upstairs while the sun was up and tear out their throats—if the woman hadn’t killed her poststabbing, she probably wasn’t going to. Still, there was a predator in the basement, a blood drinker, and damned if Elly could wander off into dreamland knowing that.
Around one o’clock that afternoon, they’d headed out for supplies. It wasn’t easy finding rowan wood here, but Cavale knew of a few copses that contained trees they could take cuttings from. They’d gone to a freshwater spring after that, filling up soda bottles with the clear, cold water and mixing in a few drops of silver nitrate before screwing on the caps. Cavale had spread his hands over the shopping cart full of bottles and said a prayer. You didn’t need to be ordained to bless the waters, Father Value had said. If regular people could baptize a baby in an emergency, then it had to follow that hunters like themselves could make some holy water to hunt the Creeps.
From there they’d hiked to the site he and Val had hashed out the night before and got the lay of the land. The cemetery had been abandoned before the Civil War. There’d been a church here once, but its walls had crumbled long ago, the congregation subsumed into other parishes. The land was privately owned now, Val had said, and no longer consecrated.
One lone, decrepit mausoleum still stood, a solitary sentry in the midst of gravestones that leaned precariously or had just plain fallen over. Elly had played her flashlight over some of them, just barely able to make out some of the names etched into the thin slate. Faint impressions of winged skulls survived at the tops of a few. She’d read somewhere that they’d signified angels to the colonists. Either angels are awfully ugly or the Pilgrims were awfully morbid. She guessed this one was probably on the Pilgrims.
They’d finished their preparations by twilight, the last rays of the setting sun throwing their shadows along the ground. When they were done, Cavale had checked her wards and she’d checked his, then they’d gone over all of them twice more.
After that, there wasn’t much else to do besides hunker down in the woods and wait. The ground was cold and damp. Wetness seeped through the knees of her jeans in no time, but she refused to spread out the jacket she’d borrowed from Cavale and kneel on it. Her stuff could get dirty; his, she ought to take care of. She checked the straps on Silver and Pointy and glanced at Cavale. He was leaning against a tree, whittling the rowan sticks into points.
She waited until he sensed the weight of her stare and looked up. “I still think we should kill them while we have the chance,” she said. “We brought more than we need for just-in-case supplies.” The holy water alone was enough to melt off their flesh a few times over.
Cavale tested the point of his stick, then went back to whittling. “Val said the woman’s not the alpha.” He sounded weary; they’d gone around in circles about this several times already. “Which means she’s probably reported to whoever is the alpha, and if they don’t come back, he’ll send the nest in tomorrow night.”
“But it’ll be the nest minus three. Father Value always said it was better to cull when you can.”
He didn’t answer her at first. For a second, she thought maybe she’d gotten through, that invoking Father Value’s name had swayed him. After all, Father Value had taught them both how to hunt the Creeps. It only made sense to do the things that had worked, didn’t it? It was how they’d survived as long as they had.
Then Cavale sighed and set down the stick. “Elly.” His voice was soft, hesitant. “This isn’t Father Value’s mission.”
“N-no. I know. But—”
“I need the extra day, El. We need to get that shit out of Justin’s head, and if the Creeps are busy chasing their tails, that gives us more time to prepare.”
She swallowed down a protest. The plan had too many holes in it: they were counting on the Creeps to follow Val, counting on Chaz to play his part convincingly, counting on the wards to do what they were supposed to.
Stop it. It’s not a bad plan at all. And it wasn’t, either. It was close to what Father Value would have done, back when he’d had all three of them together. The bit about culling when you could, well. That was what you did when times were desperate. Two people could handle a small amount of Creeps if they were clever and quick, but it would never be pretty.
Adding a third tipped the scales. Some of it was purely tactical—an extra set of eyes on your targets, an extra set of legs in a chase. But there was power in threes, too. Father Value had often spoken about the legs of a tripod when she and Cavale were growing up, how sturdy they were, how each supported the others. He’d told them how chords had three notes, each blending with the other two and transforming them into something bigger. Into something whole. So much of it had gone over her head, back then. She’d been too small to comprehend the full extent of Father Value’s meaning, but whenever he’d talked that way Elly had felt like she was part of something special.
Maybe there were rites they would have gone through, some mystical Brotherhood ceremony to tie them all together, had things gone differently.
But when Cavale left, they were only two again. Easier to knock down. Diminished.
Now that Father Value was gone, they were still only two. Or worse, one and one. That depended on whether she stuck around after this. If Cavale even wants me to. For now, there was a job to do, and Cavale was watching her, waiting to see if she was going to argue the point any further. She shook her head. “No, you’re right. It’s a good plan. It’s . . . it’s what he would have done, if he could have.”
His nod was slow in coming. It took a minute before she understood why. Oh God, I’m an idiot.
“You disgust me,” he’d said, standing there with his fists clenched and his breath coming in ragged hitches. “If I stay here, I’m afraid I’ll end up becoming like you, and I don’t ever want that. I’d let a Creep turn me before I’d go that way.”
“Cavale, I didn’t mean—”
He hunkered down beside her and put a hand on her shoulder, shutting her up. “It’s okay, El. I know. I’ll take it in the spirit it was meant, all right?” He leaned back and retrieved the sticks and his knife, then pressed them into her hands. “How about you finish these for me? I want to give the wards another once-over.”
She accepted them mutely, but both wood and blade hung from her limp hands as she watched him walk away. From the rigid set of his shoulders, she could tell he was upset. She wanted to get up and run after him, hound him with apologies until he forgave her like she’d done when she was ten. But they were a long way from childhood now, and there was work to be done. Elly tore her eyes away from Cavale’s retreating form and snuck a glance at the moon. It had to be nearly two o’clock. Val and Chaz would be here soon, if everything went the way it was supposed to.
One and one, and another two. She wondered if that meant anything. Father Value had never talked about the meaning of four. It has to be stronger. If three’s good, four must be better.
17
THE DRIVE FROM Night Owls to the abandoned cemetery plot in Weston was tense and silent. Val sat beside Chaz, watching his knuckles go white and whiter on the steering wheel. He was going to leave finger-sized indentations on the leather by the time he was done, but she couldn’t blame him. The big, scarred Jackal sat directly behind him, sneering into the rearview anytime Chaz glanced into it.
The skinny on
e was in the middle. The Bitch had pushed his hood back so she could stroke the back of his neck. Seemed he didn’t like cars very much, from the occasional low whine he let out. Val got a good look at him in the flashes from oncoming headlights—he hadn’t transformed all the way. The top half of his face looked perfectly human. The only thing that betrayed him there was the amber tint of his eyes. But below that his nose and mouth had pushed out, his nostrils lengthening until they almost touched his top lip. His chin jutted forward, giving him an underbite. It didn’t look comfortable, this in-between state.
It also meant he hadn’t learned full control yet. We can use it to our advantage. She just had to figure out how.
Ten minutes later, Chaz pulled over on the edge of an overgrown field and killed the engine. “Last stop,” he said, a little too loudly. “Everyone out of the pool.”
The lackeys got out on his side. Without Bitch next to him to calm him, the skinny kid whined and panted while he waited for his companion to exit. The other Jackal took his time, ignoring the sounds of distress coming from his right. For a moment, as the bigger one used the door frame to steady himself, Val was certain Chaz would slam the door closed on his hands. She tried catching his eye across the Mustang’s roof, giving her head a tiny shake, but he was too busy staring down the emerging Jackal.
Chaz had muttered his nicknames for them to her on the way to the car. Now, the one he’d dubbed Asshole finished unfolding himself from the backseat. He towered over Chaz, standing close enough to kiss. It was a dare. The Jackal’s breathing stayed even, his heartbeat steady. Beneath the stench of rotten meat, Val thought he smelled . . . amused.
Chaz’ heart, on the other hand, was thudding along fast and loud. Bitch heaved a sigh—they could sense it just as well as Val could. But if she wasn’t calling her lackeys off, neither would Val. Throwing down now would ruin the plans, but making Chaz back down would show weakness. That was just as bad.
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