Grave Matters

by Lauren M. Roy

  She nodded. “I want so badly for it to be true.”

  “I know you do. Now go home, have a glass of wine, call a friend. I’ll be in touch.”

  As she pulled away, Cavale’s phone trilled in his pocket. Finally, a text message from Elly. But reading it didn’t make him feel any better:

  I’m fine. Things are fucked up. Necro can control vamps, pass it on.

  17

  HUNTING SEASON.

  Val knew the dates mostly out of curiosity. All of the state’s regulations told hunters to pack up by half an hour after sunset at the latest, which meant she ought to be alone in the woods by six o’clock on the first of November. Shotgun-hunting season didn’t start until December; hunters with muzzleloaders—she imagined people with bright orange vests over their Revolutionary War costumes, stuffing steel balls into their muskets—had two more days to wait until they could come after the deer. So it ought to have been just Val and the wildlife. She could avoid any archers on their way out.

  She could’ve fed somewhere else, too. Could have grabbed a blood pack and sifted through the Clearwaters’ books stored in her house. Could have gone up to Providence. But she’d woken up hungry, and the texts from Chaz and Cavale, the ones mentioning necromancer and Jackals and vampires, filled her with the need to get out, to run, to hunt.

  She liked the quiet and the cold. Out here, the early stars winked between the bare branches. If she looked north, she could see the tinge of orange to the sky that was one of the bigger towns. Probably not Providence, but a reminder that civilization wasn’t all that far away.

  The deer knew she was about, not from her movements (which were silent as could be), and probably not from her scent (she was smart enough to stay upwind of them), but from that ancient sixth sense hardwired into most creatures that tells them danger is near. Val stalked them awhile, nudging them this way and that, letting their uneasiness build. She waited until one got split from the rest by an inconvenient stand of trees, and closed the gap.

  It twitched when it caught her scent. It trembled and tensed, but stood frozen. There was no good direction to bolt, and maybe in its (delicious, tender) heart, the deer knew it couldn’t outrun her.

  Val leapt, fangs out, claws extended.

  BLAM.

  Agony in her chest. The flash of the deer’s eyes as it bounded away. Smell of scorched cotton and hot blood. Carpet of leaves coming up to meet her.

  The hunter’s voice, getting closer: “Oh shit. Oh shit oh shit oh shit OH SHIT.”

  He knelt beside her and rolled her over. (Terrible idea, my friend.) Her cold back grew suddenly warm as more blood leaked out of the hole he’d put in her. Bits of bone ground together where they’d chipped off from her shoulder blade. The hunter shoved a pair of fancy-looking night vision goggles up on his forehead and switched on his headlamp. “I’m sorry,” he said, “Oh God oh Jesus I’m sorry I’m so sorry.” He pulled a rag from his pocket, covered in gun oil and black powder, and pressed it to her chest.

  Oh. I’m bleeding from there, too.

  “Not . . . gun season. Out . . . after dark.” Sure, Val, like shooting a person hasn’t taught him his damned lesson.

  His eyes went wide as she spoke. If he saw her fangs, he was too far into shock to figure out what they meant. “I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t think anyone would be out here. And the infrared didn’t pick you up. Just the deer. I saw the deer and took the shot and there you were and . . .”

  “M’okay,” Val said, but it sounded . . . gurgly. Bubbly. Punctured lung. Fuck. “Be fine. Just need—”

  Blood, warm blood, frightened blood, HIS blood.

  No.

  He took a deep breath, filling his lungs. His unpunctured lungs. Calming him down. “Ma’am, I don’t know what you were doing out here either, but you’re not okay. I . . . I shot you. Gonna get you help now, just . . . just lie still and we’ll get someone out here, okay? Just hold on for me, can you do that?”

  Sure she could. She could hold on. She could reach up and snake her arms around his neck and hold on while she sank her fangs into his warm, warm, veins and drank.

  No! Stop it. If she wanted fresh human blood, she could go up to Providence, up to the club where volunteers gave you their wrists or their throats and let you slake your thirst. They had a whole rotating goddamned menu up there. Missed the rush of caffeine? They’d slug down an energy drink or sip at an espresso while you dined. Wanted to get a bit tipsy? Buy them your old favorites and they’d drink them down for you. Let you taste it in their bloodstream.

  But what they didn’t have on that menu, what they couldn’t serve, was fear.

  It had been so damned long since she’d tasted human fear. The adrenaline rush, their cold sweat on her lips like salt on a margarita glass.

  She could smell it on him now, beneath the gun oil and her own dead blood and the earthy smell of decaying leaves beneath her. It wasn’t quite the same fear as if he were prey—he was still the hunter; his fright wasn’t of her but for her—if she died, he’d go in for manslaughter. If she didn’t, he’d probably lose his house, lose his family. But if there was a difference in taste between Life as I know it is over and My life is literally over, Val doubted she’d know it. She’d never had the chance to develop her palate that far.

  I could start now.

  She grabbed his shoulders, drew him down.

  Groaned.

  So close she could count the fine hairs on his neck, see how her breath made them flutter. Flutter like his pulse, his sweet, strong pulse beneath that thin layer of skin. Rip into it, tear, feel his hot blood on my tongue, yes, so warm, warming me up, oh—

  “Get out of here,” she said, every word dragged through gritted teeth. “You came out here, froze your balls off for a few hours, went home. You missed the one deer you shot at, and that was it. Clear?” She wanted to Command him otherwise. Tell him to stay, to lie down beside her and loosen his collar for her. “Go. GO.” She gave him a shove, though her shoulder screamed as she did so.

  He scrambled backward, his face gone slack with Val’s Command rattling around in his brain. She didn’t know how he’d find his way out of the woods, and right now didn’t much care. What the ability didn’t account for, the human brain tended to fill in. She’d accounted for the spent casing, or the . . . What the fuck had he shot her with?

  She touched the hole, found it ragged and too fucking big—an inch across? Two? Her last Renfield had been former LAPD SWAT, had taught her a thing or two about exit wounds and what they could tell you about the weapons that created them. Lead ball, she thought, maybe. He’d tossed the gun aside as he’d approached her, but she thought she might have seen a ramrod attached to the barrel.

  At least he was only a day early.

  But still out past sunset. Asshole.

  She counted to ten, listening as his shuffling footsteps faded. Then she pushed herself up, hissing with the pain of it. Her body was knitting itself back together, but slowly. Dinner would speed up the process. Fresh blood. Deer blood, she reminded herself, ignoring the twinge of disappointment from that darker part of her mind that still wanted the hunter for her main course. She lurched away from him, toward the scent of game.

  Good thing there were no state laws on bringing a deer down with your bare hands. Or claws, as the case may be.

  * * *

  VAL ARRIVED AT Night Owls at ten, after a trip home to wash off the deer blood and change into a shirt that didn’t have a hole blown in it. Chaz wasn’t there yet; he’d be coming in to close, but after how late things had gone last night and his day spent among the Clearwater collection, he’d asked for—and earned—part of the evening off to get some sleep. She had a feeling he’d be freaking about the warning Elly had sent via Cavale, about the necromancer’s new vampire-controlling trick, but she was all right. She felt just fine, thank you very much.

 
“You have a visitor,” said Jen, the register person on duty. “She went next door to get a coffee, but she should be right back.”

  “Did she leave a name?”

  “No, sorry. Shorter than me, brown hair to her chin, kind of twitchy?”

  “Elly,” she said, and as though speaking her name had summoned her, the girl came into view in the front window, cradling a cup of Hill O’Beans coffee and blowing on the steam. The way she paused before entering the store—glance around the street, glance into the store—reminded Val of Henry Clearwater. He’d done the same, before he was killed. For the longest time, Val had thought he was simply dramatic, or maybe was checking to make sure none of his students were inside, waiting to accost him with questions about papers and quizzes if they spotted him. But no, he’d been Brotherhood once, and Elly had been trained by an old friend of his. Of course her wariness was familiar.

  She saw Val watching her and came inside. “I hope you don’t mind,” she said. Her nose was red with the cold; dark smudges marred the skin beneath her eyes. “I’m only home for a few hours. I was hoping I could pick your brain before I go back to Boston.”

  “Sure.” Rather than guiding her to the couches at the front of the store, she brought Elly out back to the office. The break couch wasn’t nearly as comfortable, but this way they’d have warning if anyone was coming their way. You had to enter a code to get in, and they’d hear the clicking of the buttons long before anyone came through to interrupt.

  Elly perched on the edge of the couch.

  “You look like you’re about to fall over.”

  “I feel like it.” She took a long swallow of coffee. “I need to know what you can tell me about the Stregoi. About Ivanov and his people.”

  “Elly, what’s going on?” She looked . . . not frightened, but frantic, her fingers tapping at the cup, her knee jittering out a rhythm of its own.

  “Ivanov’s keeping something from me. Or maybe he’s keeping me from something. I don’t know. Does that even make sense?” She didn’t wait for Val to answer that. “The necromancer’s controlling the Oisín. I saw it. We got one of them out of commission, and I kept the Renfields from killing her. We shoved her in a closet until Ivanov and Katya woke up. But he didn’t want me there for her questioning. I debriefed him and he thanked me for my work and that was it.” She raked her fingers through her hair. “He’s sending people to go talk with them, and he told me to go home and get some sleep.”

  Val frowned. “You’ve been up since last night, Elly. I might have made the same call.”

  “No. This is what he hired me for. Guarding his people, watching for . . . I don’t know. Weird things.”

  “And how well can you do that if you’re sleep-deprived?”

  “When have you known Ivanov to show concern? Real, genuine concern?”

  Elly had a point. “Never.”

  “He sent me home because I was asking good questions, not stupid ones. He wants me back tomorrow, but I can’t help but feel like he’s getting me out of the way tonight. Like there’s something he’s afraid I’ll ask the wrong questions about. I’m missing a clue here, or I don’t have the context. Or maybe the history. I need you to catch me up.”

  Val sat back, the squeal of the office chair beneath her a reminder that she’d built something here, and Ivanov couldn’t reach southward and take it away. Not easily, anyway. “What do you want to know?

  “What do you know about the Oisín?”

  “The what now?” The word jogged memories, but none related to the Stregoi. Her grandmother used to tell stories about the Old Country—a vastly different Old Country from the one Ivanov referred to on occasion—and that word rang a bell.

  “The Irish vampires. That’s what they’re calling themselves now.”

  Val shook her head. “When I was going up to Southie regularly, Elly, the Stregoi were it. There might’ve been Irish vampires among them, but not organized into their own separate coven.”

  “Southie’s got a huge Irish population, though. You’d think they’d have more vampires. Even over time, as Ivanov’s people made new ones.”

  “Two things—Ivanov’s very selective. It’s not that his people aren’t free to make their own vampires, but they’re . . . encouraged to seek his approval first. He’s not going to let them bring in outside influences if he can help it. Second thing: I can’t prove it, but I always thought he had a deal with the mob.”

  Elly blinked, took another sip of coffee, blinked again. “You want to repeat that? Like, Al Capone? Gangsters-and-tommy-guns mob?”

  “Irish mob,” said Val. “Been around since the eighteen hundreds, and right up through the last century they were a big presence in Southie. They might still be, for all I know; I haven’t been around much recently. But Ivanov has. Figure, he doesn’t want them coming after the Stregoi financially, or trying to infiltrate them, or finding and staking them, so he goes to their bosses and makes an offer: Leave us alone and we won’t take your people. Probably threw in some muscle as an offer of goodwill, but they left each other alone otherwise.”

  “Why wouldn’t they want vampires in their own ranks, though? You guys can fight.”

  “Oh, they did. Any big city, you’re going to find singletons who aren’t affiliated with anyone. Ivanov allowed a few. But they didn’t procreate. Or if they did, the newbies didn’t last long.”

  “Ivanov took them out?”

  “Or the mob itself. Gesture of goodwill.”

  Elly nodded. “I saw something like that a few nights ago. One of the Stregoi went . . . crazy. I thought it was the necromancer then, but I didn’t have solid proof. Now I’m sure of it. He attacked some Oisín, and Katya killed him. Told them to tell their leader that the debt was paid, basically.”

  “That’s about how it works. Blood is their politics, Elly. Ivanov might wrap it up in a layer of civility, but that’s what it always comes back to.”

  “Katya said . . . Mmph.” Her thin lips twisted, her shoulders hunched. She was getting ready to retreat.

  “Said what?” Val wasn’t about to try touching her, so she softened her voice as much as she could, after all that talk of violence. Her own system still sang with the deer’s blood. It had quelled the predator’s voice in her mind somewhat, but hunts always left her feeling sharp-edged, keen enough to cut. She took a calming breath. “I’m on your side, Elly. Whatever you say to me, I’ll keep in confidence.”

  The girl struggled with her conscience a moment longer, caught, Val presumed, between loyalty to her employer and that employer’s potential breach of trust. “She said the walls have ears up there. That someone might be looking for a weak spot.”

  “To challenge Ivanov?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s happened once or twice. No one’s ever succeeded, though.” Val herself had never been part of it, but she’d heard the stories-turned-cautionary-tales. “Do you know who it might be?”

  “There’s a woman. He called her Dunyasha. I don’t know her real name. Blond, lots of rings. She called the Oisín proles, and it pissed off Ivanov.”

  Val remembered her. Pixie-faced, holding her own court in the bar some nights, acting as though Ivanov had named her his successor when he never had. “She’s not as old as Katya,” said Val, “but she’s old enough to be trouble. Certainly old enough to want power of her own.”

  “The vampire we . . . Katya . . . staked. She was his maker. They didn’t seem to fit together, though. He was Southie Irish. Working class.” Elly ducked her head. “He was nice to me.”

  “It seems unlike her, yeah.”

  “He was the one the Oisín came to, asking him to set up a meeting with the Stregoi. And then he’s the one who went after them.”

  “You want to run your theory by me? Sounds like you might have one.”

  Elly nodded, but first she wriggled back onto the cou
ch all the way and closed her eyes. At first, Val thought she’d drifted off. Then—eyes still closed—she spoke, feeling her way around the words as though she were weaving one of her spells. “For the Oisín to have the numbers they do, this fast, they need a vampire capable of putting their body through that kind of abuse over and over. Or someone capable of restoring the vampire’s body on, what, a weekly basis? I saw you turn Justin. It wrecked you both.

  “Dunyasha’s old enough for it, let’s say. Say she has her eye on leading the Stregoi. Say she’s been playing a long game. Theo’s been hers for years now. Maybe she even took him from the mob. Or hell, maybe she was working with the mob herself, and Theo was payment for services rendered. That would give her power and pull against Ivanov, right there. Theo’s too dead now for me to ask, and I can’t trust anyone else to tell me. She turns him, and she waits.

  “Southie changes. The police and the feds neutralize some of the mob’s major players, they crack down, Southie gentrifies. Ivanov stops watching the mob because it’s not as much of a threat. Dunyasha starts making vampires on the quiet. Her own little army. Only a handful, though, because it hurts.”

  Elly opened her eyes. “Then she meets the necromancer. I don’t know how. That’s a gap I can’t fill in. But she does. And the Brotherhood, too. They had a Sister with them today. She’s probably doing some of the patching up that the necromancer can’t. Starts a turf war. If she’d taken Ivanov and Katya out today, she probably could’ve stepped right in and taken control.”

  “And either accepted her children into the fold or destroyed them all, destroyed the evidence,” Val finished.

  “Yeah.”

  “Shit.”

  “So why would Ivanov send me away before I could do anything about it?”

  “I’m sure he’ll have you do something about it soon. Right now . . . Like I said, it comes down to blood. You’re not one of the Stregoi; you’re not one of their Renfields. He’s put a lot of trust in you, but you’re his outside influence. If they think he’s leaning on you too much, it adds to the idea he has a weakness. Plays right into Dunyasha’s hands.” Val gave her an apologetic shrug. “That was me a few years ago. Part of them, but not. And they didn’t let me forget it. Welcome to the club.”