Grave Matters

by Lauren M. Roy

  Ivanov didn’t answer, but cold fury drew his mouth tight.

  Val kept going. “I don’t know if Dunyasha went to him herself first, or if you let her think it was her own idea. But the Oisín haven’t been hers for months, not really.” She leaned in, far closer than anyone aside from Katya ever dared. “They were yours. You set this whole turf war up.”

  She couldn’t prove it, but Chaz’ theory felt right, that the necromancer had been working for Ivanov. It would be just like him, watching his enemies plot against him, turning their grand plans into their own downfalls. Cementing his rule.

  And when she’d talked to Elly early this morning, she’d told Val about Ivanov staying up above it all, how he didn’t seem afraid that one of the Oisín would venture up there to attack him. That had made Val sure.

  She didn’t know how much deeper it went, whether the Stregoi who’d died fighting the other night had been random casualties, or if Ivanov had used it as an opportunity to thin his own herd and made sure only specific vampires fell. It wasn’t Val’s job to find out, or to seek vengeance on anyone’s behalf: these weren’t her people.

  “Dunyasha’s dead,” she said. “And the last of the Oisín. And the necromancer.”

  Ivanov hadn’t moved. Val was inches away, all too keenly aware he could snap a hand forward and tear off her head if he wanted. Chaz shifted uncomfortably behind her. He was likely aware of that, too. She stood slowly, putting distance between herself and the Stregoi leader that would do fuck-all if he decided to attack.

  After a moment, that smile returned. Pleasant. Infuriating. “It’s sad that Dunyasha is gone, but I won’t waste tears on a traitor. As for the rest . . .” He waved a hand. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She hadn’t expected a confession. Even if she got one, what would she have done? Tattled on him? Expected the Stregoi who remained to rebel? They’d be his most loyal now. No one would ever find her or Chaz’ bodies.

  What she really didn’t expect was Ivanov’s next statement: “Come back to the fold, Valerie. You need us.”

  I guess we’re done with the accusation portion of the visit? “I don’t.”

  He spat, bright red against the pale wood, a gesture that had followed him from Russia: spitting on the devil, the Father of Lies. “You’re a vampire without a coven. Without a pack. Without a circle, or whatever term you’d like.”

  “I came from the West Coast, remember? There are plenty of independents out there.”

  “Rabble. Uncivilized. This is the East. There’s still a touch of the Old Country here. You’ve been on your own long enough, and I’ve allowed it, but it’s time to put this foolishness aside and come back to us. We can protect you.”

  She didn’t ask from what. “I have my friends. I don’t need a coven.”

  Ivanov snorted. “You have a pair of unbound succubi playing house until their master comes calling. You have a fledgling boy who the Jackals mistake for their alpha, whose balls they’d willingly lick if they could only get close enough. You have a Renfield you barely keep in line. You have Father Value’s pair of feral whelps, and don’t for a second think the Brotherhood isn’t watching them closely.

  “You need our strength behind you, before one of the others comes calling and simply takes what little you have. I can name you regent of your little towns, as long as you bend knee to me.”

  She realized, then, that the list he’d rattled off—Sunny and Lia; Cavale and Elly and Justin; Chaz—they were her pack. “I don’t need you,” she said. “New World, new rules, just like you said. I have a coven. Two vampires makes a coven, and we have that.”

  “Are you declaring, then?”

  She drew in a breath. This had not at all gone as she’d planned, but there was no backing down now. “Yes, I suppose I am.”

  Ivanov sat very, very still. Val could almost feel his claws at her throat. When he spoke, it was so softly she almost had to lean in to hear, but she wasn’t quite that stupid. “Then you realize, don’t you, that you’re a regent in enemy territory?”

  “Are we enemies now?”

  “I’ve not decided yet. You’d best go while I ponder.”

  She turned and ushered Chaz out of the office, down the hall, and out of the bar, the whole time expecting to hear Ivanov come roaring after them. But he didn’t, and they made it to the Mustang without incident.

  “What the fuck just happened?” Chaz was a multitasker. He asked the question while slamming the keys into the ignition and getting them the hell out of there. “Did I hear that right? Edgewood’s its own little vampire fiefdom now?”

  She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes and let the car’s acceleration comfort her. “Uh. Yeah. And Crow’s Neck, too, I guess.”

  “And you’re its queen.”

  “Oh God no, don’t call me that.”

  “Yes, Your Highness.”

  “Chaz.”

  “Yes, Your Ladyship? Oh, no, wait, Your Nibs?” He glanced over at her. “Get it? Because vampires nibble on people? Ow, don’t hit the driver!”

  He had her laughing, which was good, because inside all Val could think was What have I done? What utter clusterfuck have I gotten us into?

  Chaz got them on the highway and sped south, toward home.

  Toward her new territory.

  EPILOGUE

  CAVALE WAS GETTING damned good at soup. Tomato today, with milk instead of water. He’d topped it with a spoonful of sour cream and a pinch of fresh basil. The bowl sat next to a grilled cheese sandwich, artful in its execution: bread buttered and crispy from the pan, cheddar and provolone melted and oozing where he’d cut it on the diagonal.

  Elly sat up when he came into the living room with the tray. She still winced when she moved too quickly, even though she tried to hide it. When she let Cavale touch the skin around her scar, it was tender and warm, puffy with healing. She’d been slathering salves on it for two days, asking him to draw spells on scraps of cloth she attached over it with adhesive tape. It wasn’t that they didn’t trust Udrai, but . . . they didn’t trust Udrai.

  For the most part, though, she seemed to be on the mend. Cavale had started to suspect as much this morning, when he heard her scuttle back to the couch seconds before he poked his head in to check on her. At first she’d insisted she was ready to get back out and get to work, but Val had been by before sunrise, asking to see her in private, and whatever the two had talked about left Elly quiet and thoughtful. By midmorning she was smoldering.

  At lunch, she’d told Cavale she wasn’t going back to Southie. It wasn’t just that Ivanov had given her the Command that could have—should have—killed her, she said. It was the games he’d played with his own people. Elly didn’t know for sure, but she didn’t think Katya was aware of his machinations. His own right hand, fighting a battle that was a sham almost from the start.

  Elly’d never expected the vampires to act like a family. She’d heard every word of warning Val and Chaz and Cavale gave her. But still, she’d expected . . . something else. Something better, from creatures with centuries of wealth and experience at their disposal. “They should be wiser than we are,” she’d said. “Kinder. Maybe that’s it. Maybe I’m just disappointed.”

  He’d played it cool as he could, slipping back into the kitchen and turning the faucet on full blast, pretending to do dishes. It was just in time, really. His white-knuckled grip on the counter was all that held him up as the first sob tore through him. Cavale let himself give in to it, the weight of the last week crashing down on him at last. He hoped the rushing water and clattering plates would cover the sound of him crying with relief. For two days he’d been terrified she’d go right back to it, go wherever Ivanov sent her and die for it, this time for good.

  When he recovered, he’d sent flowers to Val at the bookstore, since she couldn’t answer the door at her house during
the day.

  Now, Elly switched off whatever ghost hunting show she’d been watching. She loved picking them apart, snarking at the screen as though the team could hear her and feel ashamed. “Ooh,” she said, craning to see what was on the tray. “My favorite.”

  Cavale joined her on the couch. “There’s dessert, too.”

  “What, did you bake a cake or something?” She scooped up half of the sandwich and dipped the corner in her soup, like he’d taught her to do when they were small.

  “No. That girl from down the street. Cinda?” She nodded. “She came by with another box of cookies for you. You were asleep. She said to say thank you again. And left me a list of her prices for lawn mowing and snow shoveling.”

  Elly grinned. “Well, you didn’t exorcise a ghost from her basement.” She munched her sandwich for another moment, then said, “Hey, aren’t you going to eat dinner, too?”

  “Yeah, I was just bringing yours in first.” He got up to retrieve his own tray from the kitchen, but paused in the doorway. “Hey, El?”

  Elly froze, halfway to another bite. They hadn’t talked about it much. Not yet. Their argument, her nearly dying. She took a deep breath. “Yeah?”

  Here, on the threshold, was a safe place to say it. Beside her was too close; she’d pull away. “I was really scared.”

  For a moment, silence reigned. Too soon, he thought, but then she nodded. “Me too. Cavale?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m . . . I’m glad you made the deal. In case you were ever questioning that. I am.”

  “Good.”

  “Hey, do you think . . .” Elly hemmed, then dug under the pillow to find her phone. She woke up the screen and pulled up her call history. He knew what she was looking at: the call Marian had placed to Chaz from Elly’s phone. “Do you think she knows I made it? Do you think she’ll try to get in touch?”

  “I don’t know.” There was more he could say, things like: She’s Brotherhood, she can read cards or entrails if she wants to find out, or She ought to have called Night Owls by now looking for Chaz. Killing the necromancer had ended her reason to be down this way. If she wanted to check on Elly, it was up to her to find another way. Unless . . . “Do you want to go looking for her? When you feel better?”

  “No. But I think I owe it to her.”

  “Think about it, then,” he said. “Take some time. Wherever she is, we know there are Creeps. You’re not in any shape to fight right now.”

  She nodded and tossed her phone onto the coffee table. “Go get your dinner. It’ll get cold.”

  “That’s what the microwave’s for.” He meant it as a joke, but before he could duck into the kitchen, someone knocked on the front door. Cavale detoured down the hall and peered out the window.

  Justin stood on the porch, one arm in a sling, holding a lavender plant in a little clay pot. He looked terrified, leaning back as though he were about to run, fingers tapping out a nervous rhythm against the pot.

  Things didn’t improve when Cavale answered the door.

  They’d parted fine the other night; the group had returned here after placing don’t-see-me wards around the necromancer’s house. Sunny and Lia had said they could take care of the bodies in a day or two, as long as the wards held. Then, safe at Cavale’s, Elly had packed the hole in Justin’s shoulder with herbs soaked in myrrh and ordered him not to carry his heavy backpack full of books around campus or lift anything big at the bookstore. She was one to talk—she’d done the job propped up on the couch, and fallen into an exhausted sleep as soon as everyone left.

  They hadn’t seen him since, though Val said this morning he was doing better. Now he shifted uneasily and said, “Um. May I come in?”

  Cavale stepped back. “We haven’t rescinded your invitation, if that’s what you mean.”

  From Justin’s blush, it was obvious that was exactly what he’d meant. “I just thought . . .”

  He thought we’d blame him for what the necromancer made him do. If Elly weren’t sitting in the living room right now, if she were under the ground rather than under a blanket, he might have been right. But she was all right. If she wasn’t holding a grudge, Cavale would try not to, either. “Come on in. I’ll see if she wants visitors.”

  She did, of course. Her whole face lit up when Cavale announced him; she finger-combed her hair, brushed crumbs from the blanket, made Cavale promise there wasn’t any basil stuck between her teeth. It didn’t surprise him—he’d seen them outside the other night, kissing up against her car. He figured Elly’d tell him about it when she was ready. For now, he let Justin in the room, saw the smile that broke like a sunrise on her lips, and left the two of them alone.

  In the kitchen, he heated up his soup and sandwich and sat at the table to eat. Tomorrow, as long as Elly could get around okay, he’d go back into work and see if he could find Trina’s number. He didn’t know what to say to her yet, how to tell her there wouldn’t be any more visits with James.

  What the necromancer had done was wrong, but it had brought her comfort. A few days ago, Cavale had thought Trina should move on, let the promise of seeing her husband again go, give him up the way other people did cigarettes.

  He understood now how hard it was to let go.

  He’d told Val and Justin no, when Justin wanted to save Elly by turning her. It wasn’t a life she’d want, and he knew it. But while they were standing there arguing, while Chaz was saying the words Cavale himself should have been saying, he’d been so damned close to telling them to do it. To make her a vampire so he wouldn’t have to lose her.

  He’d been saved by the death god showing up and making an offer he told himself he couldn’t refuse. In truth, it was one he didn’t want to refuse. Elly telling him she was glad he’d taken it didn’t make him feel much better about it. Because he knew how close he’d come to taking that first one, the one that would have made her hate them all.

  But he’d taken the better deal, the right one. In Cavale’s nightmares, Chaz didn’t always take Lia’s knife and kill the necromancer. Sometimes he was too late, and Val tore him apart before he even moved. Sometimes he strolled over—Chaz always strolled in Cavale’s mind—and slit Elly’s throat instead. Sometimes he turned the dagger on himself and plunged it into his own eye. Through all of these, Cavale sat to the side, unable to help, unable to change a damned thing.

  That wasn’t how it went down, and he knew it—if Cavale hadn’t gone after Justin, Elly really would be dead. He’d made sure not to hit him in the heart, though he’d had a second to wonder what the silver would do to him. Justin’s yellow eyes weren’t the only thing that made him seem Jackal-like at times. The spike might have done him even more damage, and Cavale had known it. In that moment, he hadn’t cared.

  And Chaz had killed the necromancer. And they were all alive because of it.

  How do I even start to say thank you? Chaz had waved it off when he’d tried the other night, and this wasn’t the sort of thing you sent flowers for. Plus, Cavale had a sneaking suspicion Chaz would leave them in a vase until the water turned slimy and stank. Possibly at the bookstore.

  He got up to put his plate in the sink and saw Cooking for Beginners where he’d left it propped.

  “Thanks for killing a dude for us, here’s some fudge”? That’s stupid.

  Or maybe it wasn’t. Chaz had been a great fan of Helen Clearwater’s fudge. Not that Cavale thought he could replicate it exactly, but it was a start. It was an opening. It gave him the excuse to talk to Chaz and find a way to show his gratitude.

  As he flipped to the dessert section, Elly’s and Justin’s laughter echoed down the hall.

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