Grave Matters: A Night Owls Novel

by Lauren M. Roy

  It wasn’t at the crisis stage yet, at least. The kid had a bit of breathing room: Thanksgiving break was a month away, and Justin had stayed on campus for it last year rather than flying home to Oregon. He could probably stay again this year, recycling the excuse that Night Owls needed him to work on Black Friday. The real reason, back then, was that his girlfriend lived on this coast and they’d been in that clingy-cute stage. He’d stuck around in the Ocean State so he could spend his long weekend necking.

  The girlfriend was long gone, left him for jockier pastures last spring, but, well. He’ll still be doing some necking on Turkey Day, just a different kind. Chaz snorted to himself and checked the time. Another couple hours or so before Val would be around for him to share that particular groaner.

  For now, he was alone in the Night Owls back room, sorting through bills and paperwork. The last of the repair invoices from last month had come in, and what insurance wouldn’t cover, Night Owls’ coffers miraculously could. Well, maybe it wasn’t entirely a miracle: once the news got out that a bunch of thugs had wrought havoc on the store, business had picked up. People from Edgewood and surrounding towns came in to show their support, spending money and rubbernecking and clucking their tongues at the senseless destruction. Of course, they thought the smashed front window and trashed state of the store was a case of vandalism, not a night of supernatural violence, but hey. People were reading.

  They also had a bit of unexpected cash flow from the Clearwater estate. Henry and Helen had left clear instructions in their will about their library, and in it, Night Owls was named as the official broker for the massive collection of books. Many of them had been earmarked for Edgewood College’s English department. The rest, Chaz and Val had been working through bit by bit, inventorying, sorting, pricing, reselling.

  The books in the first-floor library, that was.

  The upstairs library, with its floor-to-ceiling stacks of old occult books, was a matter of more . . . creative handling. Two things worked in Val and Chaz’ favor: Henry had no family, and Helen’s was mostly on the other side of the country. What few relatives had flown out for the funeral hadn’t stuck around for a stroll through the house, not while Henry’s and Helen’s blood still soaked the carpets. While lawyers and appraisers and God only knew who else had been through the house once the crime scene investigation had finished, their interests had trended toward Helen’s jewelry (worth some serious cash) and Henry’s poor attempt at a coin collection (nothing in it worth more than twenty or thirty bucks, if your buyer was generous).

  Val had told the lawyerly types from the start that the second-floor library was off-limits. Only once had two of them grown curious enough about the room while Chaz was there working, but they were that brand of New England polite that meant they didn’t try barging past him, just asked nosy questions and tried some good old-fashioned neck craning. He’d taken their business cards, promised Val would be in touch, and run some quick-and-dirty web searches to find their home addresses.

  She’d been in touch, all right, though they wouldn’t remember it. The few times Chaz had seen them at the house again, they’d walked past the door to the second-floor library without even a cursory peek. It was almost as if they didn’t see the room at all. Val had probably Commanded them not to.

  The books that weren’t quite right for the college, but not useful enough to be squirreled to Val’s or Cavale’s for safekeeping, were sold to collectors through Night Owls. A decent percentage of the sale went to the bookstore, but the majority of the proceeds went into a scholarship fund for Edgewood students the Clearwaters had established in their will.

  Soon enough, all the paperwork would be done, i’s dotted, t’s crossed, and they’d have to pack up and move any books still unsorted from the house to the store. Or, more likely, to Val’s house. Night Owls’ back room was decent-sized, but not could-house-a-couple-decades’-worth-of-rare-books big. For now, though, morbid as it was in that house, in that room where the Clearwaters and Elly had made their stand against the Jackals, it brought a sort of closure. More for Val and Justin, who’d known Henry and Helen the best, but for Chaz, too. Much as the old man had spent the last few years hinting that Chaz was secretly a werewolf, he’d liked the old fucker. It helped that Helen had sent a constant stream of baked goods to the store, and Chaz got to eat Val’s share.

  “It’s getting downright fucking maudlin back here,” he muttered, shoving away from the desk. He was in a fairly decent mood. Sticking back here with his thoughts seemed a good way to drag it down. He headed out to the front of the store, where it was bright and peopled, and even though the register lackeys weren’t quite as good company as Val was, they were still decent kids.

  Five steps down the aisle he wished he’d stayed holed up back there after all.

  Two aisles over, head bent in intense scrutiny over a book, was Cavale.

  Fuck.

  About the only thing he and Cavale had in common was their intense mutual dislike. They’d worked together without coming to blows with the Jackals and Justin and all, but soon as that business was done, the two had gone right back to being oil and water. Upon their first meeting, Chaz had decided Cavale was a pretentious know-it-all with a side of batshit crazy thrown in, what with the warlockery. Chaz’ enmity had nothing at all to do with Cavale being better suited to be a Renfield than he was. Nothing. At. All.

  Maybe he hasn’t seen me yet. Slowly as he could, Chaz edged backward, toward the safety of the back room. He must have looked like one of those old cartoons: mouse sneaking past the sleeping cat, talking animal avoiding the hunter or the cowboy or the alien, bookseller ducking his archrival.

  But this archrival was a Hunter with a capital H, and while Bugs Bunny might be able to get the drop on Elmer Fudd, Cavale’s senses were actually, eerily, sharp. He glanced up before Chaz had even retreated two steps. That kid must have killer peripheral vision.

  At first, Chaz hoped he could get out of it with one of those chin tilts, the kind that said “hey” without actually exchanging words, and they could just ignore each other. He gave it a try.

  But no. Of course not. Cavale snagged a couple books off the shelf and headed his way. His movements had a grace about them, his height lending fluidity to his stride. Chaz remembered how he’d prowled around the store after the Jackals had fled, searching every corner to make sure none were hiding out. It was the same today, though as far as Chaz knew there was nothing scarier here than college students cramming for midterms.

  Chaz put on his best helpful bookseller face and reminded himself that, colossal dick or no, Cavale might actually be a paying customer.

  “Val’s not here,” Chaz said by way of greeting. He cut his gaze toward the recently restored window, where the street outside had turned the molten gold of an October sunset. “She has some stuff to do before she comes in, so, uh, probably won’t see her here for a couple hours at least.”

  “That’s okay. I needed a book. You guys are on my way home.”

  “Right, right, from that new age shop.” Cavale’s day job involved reading tarot cards and tea leaves for people who believed in that mind-body-spirit shit. Chaz had Opinions on that, involving the morality of duping housewives and grandmothers out of their pocket money; but then again, some of those same customers probably headed over here and bought books on Visualizing Your Way to a Better Life Without Actually Making Any Fucking Changes. And he sold those without batting an eye, so he really didn’t have the high ground on this one.

  Cavale’s eyes narrowed as he braced for the insult. Did I telegraph it that much? Chaz waved it off; he’d been in too good a mood to start a pissing contest. “Anyway. Uh. Something I can help you with?”

  There was a look that Elly got about her sometimes, as though at any second she might bolt. Her mouth and eyes tightened, her gaze cut to the exits, and you’d swear the only reason she remained in her chair was because
she was afraid to make any sudden movements. Never before had Chaz seen Cavale get that look. He did now, though. His grip on the books tightened. The fight went out of his sky blue eyes, replaced by wariness.

  Chaz glanced down at the books. “What, are you—” Buying porn, man? was what he’d been winding up with, even though Cavale had been standing in the wrong section for that. Then he saw the covers and the titles, and his inner asshole went and put itself in time-out.

  Cooking for Beginners. 101 Easy Meals for Kitchen Newbies.

  “. . . uh. Are you trying to pick?” It was a terrible save, and Chaz knew it. He’d heard the smarm fade from his own voice; no way in hell had Cavale missed it.

  Cavale took a deep breath, like Elly did when they were in the middle of Sunday dinner at Sunny and Lia’s, the same calming maneuver that, presumably, kept her from shoving back from the table and hiding behind the couch for the rest of the night. Or going to the knife drawer and finding the perfect cutlery for stabbing us all. It was mean, and Chaz knew it, but sometimes Elly was like a half-feral cat. He forgot sometimes that Cavale had been raised by the same man, that they considered themselves brother and sister even though they weren’t siblings by blood.

  To his credit, Cavale recovered faster than his sister did. “Yeah,” he said. “I figure maybe I ought to know something more than ‘dump can of soup in pot, heat.’”

  “Shit, man, that’s an advanced technique right there. I eat my Chef Boyardee right from the can.”

  It earned him the ghost of a smile, there then gone. “Elly deserves better, though. It was fine when it was just me, you know? But don’t think I haven’t noticed how all the leftovers end up coming home with us on Sundays.”

  “Huh.” That was as close as Chaz would get to admitting he hadn’t noticed it, but that wasn’t a big surprise. Not only could Sunny and Lia outmother most bears; they could be damned discreet about it while they were doing it, too. He tapped the cover of Cooking for Beginners. “We sell a lot of that one to the kids moving into the student apartments. It actually forgives you for using frozen veggies and shit. The other one gets a little, uh. Snobby.”

  Cavale put Cooking for Beginners atop the other. “Beginners it is, then. I’ll put the other one back.” He took a step back, paused. “Hey. Uh. Thanks.” The word had a weight to it, more than just thanks for the help. Could’ve meant a lot of things, but Chaz figured it was, quite likely, thanks for not being a shithead about this.

  Chaz gave him what he hoped was a decent bro-nod. “Sure thing.”

  He probably could have walked Cavale up to the register and told Kate to give him the friends-and-family discount, but that might seem outright friendly. He wasn’t quite ready to take that step.

  * * *

  VAL HAD BEEN up and about for half an hour before Justin came plodding down the stairs. He smoothed the corkscrews out of his dark hair with one hand, rubbed the sleep-sand out of his eyes with the other. Not for the first time, Val was struck by how his tawny irises caught the low light. A month ago, they’d been liquid brown.

  A month ago, Justin had been human.

  He’d adjusted fairly well to the whole “becoming a vampire” thing, partly out of necessity, she supposed. If he hadn’t accepted the offer when Elly suggested Val turn him, he’d have joined the ranks of the Jackals—and that would have lasted about as long as it took for Elly to stake him with her silver spike. Then he’d just have been dust.

  He’d dropped most of his classes for the semester, since attending during the day was no longer an option. He’d kept the one night class that had already been on his schedule, and a couple of his professors—the ones in the English department who’d also known and loved Henry Clearwater—had agreed to let him complete his courses as independent studies. Not because they knew what he’d become, of course, but because they’d received a call from his counselor suggesting he was too grief-stricken to function at his full academic capacity just now.

  Val had been particularly proud of those calls, as guilty as they made her feel—neither she nor Justin liked using the Clearwaters’ deaths as an excuse, but there weren’t many other ways to keep him matriculated without exposing his newfound immortality. Justin had asked about practicing Command with them, but she’d shot that one down. She suspected he was too newly made for the ability—somewhere between hypnotic suggestion and flat-out mind control—to have any real effect, but if she was wrong, the last thing any of them needed was him accidentally turning his professors’ brains to mush over the phone.

  They’d moved most of his things from his dorm room to Val’s house, where he’d taken over one of her spare bedrooms. He hadn’t quite made himself at home yet, insisting he’d figure something out, get an apartment of his own as soon as he could. Val found it unlikely unless he hit the lottery, but it was sweet that he didn’t want her to think he was freeloading off her.

  “Morning. Uh. Evening,” he said, shuffling into the kitchen. He opened the fridge and stared into it ponderously: an old habit dying hard. His choices amounted to lamb’s blood, lamb’s blood, or lamb’s blood, since Chaz’ leftover meatball sub wasn’t something Justin could digest anymore. He opted for the lamb’s blood, pouring it from its plastic deli tub into a pint glass. He made a face as he drank it down, and Val couldn’t blame him. Cold, dead blood would get you through, but that didn’t mean it was enjoyable. Like cram, he’d said to Elly once, before he gave up trying to get her to read Tolkien.

  “How’d you sleep?”

  Justin eyed her over his breakfast. “If I say ‘like the dead,’ are you going to throw something at me?”

  Val groaned. “No, but I’ll tell Chaz he’s being a terrible influence on you.”

  “Then I won’t get him in trouble. I slept fine. No dreams, no . . . anything, really. I closed my eyes when the sun came up, and next thing I knew I was awake sometime after it went down. That’s normal, right? I mean, for us?”

  Val resisted the urge to pat his hand. “Yeah, it is. Most of us sleep like that. I can probably count on one hand the times I’ve dreamed since I was turned.” She didn’t know why that was, what changed between life and death that would affect the capacity to dream. Of the vampires Val had met, only a few of them dreamed regularly, and those ones . . . they were a little fucked-up, as Chaz would say.

  He drained the rest of his glass in one long, grimacing gulp and asked, “What’s the plan for tonight?”

  “Get your running shoes on,” she said. “We’re going out.”

  Elly was in charge of most of Justin’s training—he’d asked Elly specifically to teach him to Hunt: how to track down the Jackals, how to kill them, how to survive the fight. She’d taken the request seriously. A couple nights a week, she would lead Justin out into the abandoned streets that made up half of Crow’s Neck, run him through drills, and teach him what she knew about the Creeps, as she and Cavale called the Jackals.

  But Elly could only show him how to do things at human speed. There were things he needed to know about being a vampire, too, and since Val was his maker, it fell to her to teach him.

  It wasn’t like she was friends with many other bloodsuckers, as a rule.

  They walked along Edgewood’s darkened streets, leaves crunching under their feet. It was too early in the evening for them to run at full speed out here—too many students walking home from classes, too many cars cruising past. They could have run through backyards and woods and side streets to get where they were going, but Val took the opportunity to test Justin’s other senses instead. She asked him to sniff the air and tell her what he smelled. They strolled behind a group of Delta Mus, and Justin relayed their conversation to Val in hushed tones. They continued on this way past the college, out toward Edgewood’s outskirts, until they reached the graveyard.

  It wasn’t the sprawling modern cemetery the Clearwaters had been buried in. That was on the other side of town.
This one had last been used in the colonial days, and while Edgewood’s historical society came by once a month to pull weeds and mow the grass, it was by and large forgotten by the rest of the town’s residents. It got some traffic in the summer, when tourists came through to take gravestone rubbings of the few Revolutionary War soldiers buried here, or when genealogy buffs came seeking out their ancestors’ resting places. Tonight, though, it was empty. Justin announced its lack of lurkers as they stood at the gates; Val’s nose had told her the same a block ago.

  “I thought this counted as consecrated ground,” he said, peering inside dubiously. “Chaz didn’t think the Creeps could follow us to the Clearwaters’ funeral, at least.”

  “If someone’s specifically blessed a patch of ground, sure, but the whole cemetery? They generally don’t. And anything blessed in here has long worn away.”

  Justin got that look on his face, the one that said he was trying to find the diplomatic way to ask a question.

  “Spit it out.”

  “Uh. He’s your Renfield. Shouldn’t he . . . know that sort of thing?”

  “If it were two hundred years ago, maybe. He and I don’t spend a lot of time hanging out in graveyards discussing the rules. Besides,” she said, quirking a grin at him, “has it crossed your mind he might have just been talking out his ass to reassure you? It hadn’t been a good few days for you.” He stood there, gaping and processing that last, as she hopped to the top of the gates and dropped lightly down on the other side. “Come on. Let’s get started.”

  He made the jump easily, only a little bit of scrambling when his confidence faltered toward the top of his arc. Then he was over, and Val guided him deeper within, away from the street.

  They spent nearly an hour among the graves, Val running Justin through the moves Elly’d taught him, only faster. She led him blurring along the faint old walking paths, disappearing with a burst of speed, requiring him to find her by scent and sound alone. They tussled between stones adorned with winged skulls and strange angels, careful not to stagger into any and knock them over: control was as important as speed.