“Even if I could, she’d know you got her location from me, and there goes your credibility with her.”
“‘Even if you could’?”
“She might also have warded herself against tracking. And her car.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah.”
Silence descended again as they mulled that over. It didn’t last long; Chaz wasn’t one for prolonged periods of mulling. He needed to be out doing something proactive. And comforting Cavale wasn’t exactly in his mental how-to. “Okay, new plan. I’m going to Val’s. Maybe she’ll have some ideas, or maybe she knows how to get Ivanov to let Elly off the hook. She comes home, you’ll let me know?”
“Sure thing. And if she calls you back first?”
“I’ll check in with you.”
“Thank you.” Cavale stood to walk Chaz out. “And thanks for . . .” He gestured to the table, the evidence of them sitting down together and not being total dicks to each other, Chaz supposed.
“No worries, man. It’ll be okay.” He wasn’t sure it would be, not really, but it sounded good. “Do you think I could take a mug for the road?”
* * *
VAL WAS HOME, sitting on the floor in the living room with half a dozen books open before her on the coffee table. Chaz had told her about Clearwater’s annotations, and from what he could tell, she’d come straight back from the bookstore and gotten to work. “Anything good?” he asked as he shrugged off his jacket.
“Not yet. Well, interesting, yes. Helpful to our current situation, no. What’s this?”
“Cavale makes a non-shitty cup of coffee,” he said, passing her the travel mug he’d borrowed.
She popped the lid off and took a deep sniff. “Mm, yes he does. Listen to you, complimenting him.”
“Don’t get used to it. He was upset. He had a fight with Elly, and neither of us can get through to her. Did she say if she had any plans aside from going home and going to bed?”
“No.” Val stood, knuckling her back. “But come to think of it, Justin went out earlier and hasn’t come back. Maybe they’re out training?” She pulled her phone from her pocket. “No messages, but let’s give him a call.”
Chaz leaned closer so he could hear if Justin picked up. That was when he noticed how warm Val was. Her skin was normally barely room temperature. She wasn’t exactly radiating heat like a furnace, but when he brushed his wrist against her arm, it wasn’t ice cold. Her skin had more color than usual, too, a healthy glow he only saw when . . . “Did you go out and feed tonight?”
She held up a finger. Justin’s tinny voice came out of the speaker, asking the caller to leave a message. “Justin, it’s Val. Are you with Elly? Can you call one of us and let us know where you’re at? Thanks.” She hung up and turned to him. With her shoes off, they were the same height. “Yes, I did. I took down a deer.”
“Oh.”
“That all right with you?” She stayed where she was, close enough to bite off his nose if she wanted to. Chaz wasn’t entirely sure she wouldn’t.
What crawled up her ass? “Uh, yeah? Not that you need my permission?” He held her gaze, gave her a lopsided grin. “I was going to ask if I got venison stew out of the deal. Or if I could mount the antlers on my wall and say I hunted it.”
It got her to back off. Her smile returned, her lips, too, pinker than most days, making her teeth seem very white against them. “Sorry, I didn’t quite feel like lugging the carcass home. Kind of conspicuous, you know?”
“Right. So, listen, I had a visitor tonight.” He changed the subject both to distract himself from her sudden flare of temper, and because they still had a few good hours before daybreak to find Elly and talk her out of going back into Southie. He and Val weren’t exactly Mom and Dad, but maybe if they could present a united front on this, she’d be more inclined to listen. He half hoped Justin wasn’t out with her, that he’d come strolling in and they could talk him over to their side, too. He told Val about Marian, and his brief talk with Cavale.
When he finished, he said, “I thought, if we can’t catch her before she goes back, maybe you could talk to Ivanov. He probably needs to hear what Marian told me just as much as Elly does.”
“I’m not . . . Chaz, no.” She pinched the bridge of her nose and sank down on the couch. “We’ve never exactly come out on top when it’s come to Ivanov and his Stregoi, you and I.”
“But the necromancer—”
“Ivanov knows about him. Elly told him when he rose this evening.”
“And he’s still going to have this fucking war?”
“Politics.”
“Fuck their politics. He’s got one of ours involved.” Chaz’ blood ran cold. Politics. Spin campaigns and sleight of hand. He’s working for the vampires, Marian had said about the necromancer. She didn’t specify which vampires, Stregoi or Oisín. But in this area, “the vampires” were understood to be Ivanov’s crew, the same as someone mentioning going “in town” meant they were going to Boston. The Stregoi were the vampires here. “Val, what if Ivanov’s setting this whole fucking thing up? We need to get Elly out.”
Val froze. “And how do you propose we do that?”
Chaz flopped down beside her. “Hell if I know, Val. Go in and ask nicely? Go in and shout? I can chuck some pint glasses around, hit someone with a pool cue? I don’t know. But Elly shouldn’t be part of this.”
She sighed. “I’ll think it over. It’s complicated, okay? Ivanov digs in if you push, if he even thinks you’re giving him an order. And if you’re right, and he’s behind the attacks on his own people . . . I do it wrong, and Elly could be in even more trouble.”
“What if I go in? During the day? I could talk to the other Renfields and—”
“No. Absolutely not. You do not talk to them without me there.”
“Fine, I—”
“In fact,” she said, taking his face in her hands, “you’re going home right now and going to bed.” Her words rang in his skull, in his chest, like the bone-thrumming feeling you got when the marching band’s bass drum passed by on parade day. “And you don’t talk to any of Ivanov’s people about this without my say-so. Clear?”
He had no other choice but to nod. And stand. And be a passenger in his own head as his arms picked up his jacket and put it on. As his fingers dug into the pocket and pulled out the keys. As his legs carried him out of Val’s house and into his car, and his whole body put itself into the driver’s seat and took them home. While the whole time, inside, he was screaming no no NO.
* * *
THE CAR WINDOWS were fogged up. Elly thought that was a thing that only happened in teenage slasher flicks, but no, here she was parked by the beach, sitting astride Justin in the backseat of her car, and the windows were covered in steam. All of it hers, probably, since he wasn’t giving off much heat himself.
He’d been pretty okay with her kissing him in Cavale’s driveway. It took all of three seconds before his arms had come up around her and he’d made this soft little sound in his throat—not a growl, which might have ruined everything (or then again, might not have)—but an oh sort of sound. An I like this sort of sound, and then he was kissing her back.
He was good at it, too.
It took effort to pull away from him, but she had. Only to say not here, so they could drive away and have some privacy. Pissed at Cavale as she was, she really didn’t want him catching her making out with Justin. He’d probably have opinions about that, too.
They were fifteen minutes or so out of Edgewood, a town or two east. Elly’d driven until her instincts said stop. Justin had only tried speaking once, and when she’d told him to shut up, he had. When she slewed the car into a parking spot overlooking the water and told him to get in the backseat, he’d turned bright red, but didn’t argue. It was logistics more than anything—the car had a center console. A gear stick in the ribs wasn’t
very romantic.
She thought maybe this was the strip of beach where she’d faced off against a Creep after Father Value died, where she’d run to the end of a pier and threatened to drop their precious book in the water. It was the book that had made Justin’s eyes turn yellow, as the Creeps’ spell worked its way into his head and started turning him. Elly’d escaped the Creep and climbed aboard a bus to Edgewood, where she brought the book to Henry Clearwater, and then Henry Clearwater had entrusted it to Justin, and Justin had opened it up and read words he never should have.
If it weren’t for me, Val wouldn’t have had to turn him.
The thought came not with guilt but a tinge of awe. Maybe she ought to apologize to him, but right now, it wasn’t time for that. They’d been at it nearly an hour already, sitting next to each other at first, Justin’s arm draped around her shoulders, his other hand touching her cheek, the swell of her hip, cradling her elbow, but going nowhere that wasn’t utterly chaste.
That was when she’d swung herself up onto his lap. He wanted her; she could feel it. When she moved her hips, he let out a gasp and fluttered his tongue against the pulse in her neck, but his hands stayed locked at the small of her back. She reached behind and took his wrist, moved it between them. She thought maybe, when she pushed her breast into his cupped hand, he’d take the hint.
He almost did—he let her throat be and drew her down to kiss her again. There’d been a few times, when they’d retreated upstairs at Sunny and Lia’s party, that Elly’d thought he might kiss her like this. Awkward pauses while they’d shared the bed and watched old black-and-white horror movies. Pauses that could have been filled with either of them leaning over and planting one on the other. She’d been frustrated then—too timid to start anything herself, too embarrassed to ask him flat-out if he even liked her that way. Now, she decided, it had been worth the wait.
He kissed her carefully, like he was waiting for her approval before he opened his mouth, before the tip of his tongue touched hers. Far as she knew, he hadn’t been telepathic as a human. The Creeps weren’t, by nature, and he was far too new a vampire to have picked up any mind-reading that way. But as she was thinking she wanted him to kiss her harder, he did. When she wanted him to let up, to give her lips a break and nip at the hollow of her throat, he did.
Then his thumb brushed her nipple, and she couldn’t help but bear down with her hips, put pressure on that one part of him that was so warm beneath her, and he pulled away.
“Elly, no, stop.” His hands came to rest on her hips, not pushing her off him, but not letting her wriggle atop him like she wanted to, either. Goddamned vampire strength. “This isn’t . . . we can’t.”
“We can do anything we want, Justin. Wait, are you worried about . . .” She twisted around, but she couldn’t reach the glove box. “I’m pretty sure you can’t knock me up, but I’ve got condoms, if you’ll hold that thought.”
“No. No! That’s . . . that’s not why.”
She remembered the Creeps going after him, before he’d turned. When one of them drew blood, and they’d all clambered over one another to get to him. Ready to tear him apart for a taste of it. “Is it the virgin thing? I don’t care about that.” She stole another kiss, and whispered in his ear. “I can tell you what I want you to do.”
“Please don’t,” he said, his breath tickling her neck.
She drew back, stung. “I don’t understand.” Of course I do. He doesn’t like me, not like that, and he’s too good a person to just fuck me and forget it and I’ve screwed it all up. She hunched in on herself and tried to swing back off his lap, but he still had her hips and misunderstood the movement for another shot at a grind; he held her in place. He let go a moment later, to brush a lock of hair from her forehead, but by then she was too humiliated to move.
“This isn’t how I want it to go,” he said. “I didn’t even think you thought of me like . . . like this.”
Oh. “Surprise?” She smiled shyly, her bravado melting away. So much easier when it was just about sex, but she couldn’t deny the feelings that had been sneaking up on her this last month anymore. Elly’d never had a crush before, never met anyone worthy of one, so she hadn’t known what one felt like when it was smacking her upside the head. But judging from how—appropriately—crushed she’d felt just now, when she thought he didn’t want her . . . “So what do we do now? I mean, we could still . . . now that we’ve crossed that bridge. I mean, if you want.”
“Not yet, okay? I’m not asking for roses and a king-sized bed, but my first time, uh. Maybe not in the backseat of a car, where Murphy’s Law will send a cop by with a spotlight while we’re. Um.”
That blush. She liked that blush of his a hell of a lot. “Can we go back to kissing, then?”
“I’ll kiss you until sunrise, if you want.”
“I’ll get you home before you turn into a big pile of ash, I promise. Wait.” She’d thrown her duffel bag in the back before leaving Cavale’s. From one of the outer pockets, she took a bottle of lavender oil. Three quick runes—on the car’s ceiling, on her forehead, on Justin’s, and she was done. Then she took out her cell phone and silenced the ringer. Old habit wouldn’t let her shut it down all the way, but setting it to vibrate would have to do. “Now no one will interrupt us.”
It was Justin’s turn to wriggle as he drew his own from his back pocket and shut it off. The movement left both of them beet red, but they regained their composure. Mostly. Then Elly dipped her head down and Justin met her halfway, and she sent up a silent prayer to any dawn goddesses listening: Take your damned time.
* * *
SHE WOULD HAVE stayed with Justin until dawn—or nearly so, since stuffing the guy you’d spent hours making out with into your trunk would be really fucking weird, necessary or not—but at four o’clock, her phone started buzzing. Not Chaz or Cavale, whose inevitable lectures she’d decided to ignore for now, but Katya.
She couldn’t ignore a call from the Stregoi.
“I have to take this, I’m sorry.” She clambered off Justin’s lap and staggered out of the car to answer.
Katya sounded hushed and boxed in, as though she’d ducked into a closet or beneath a desk to make the call. In the background Elly heard snarls and tears, breaking glass, more than a few swears in Russian.
And screaming. There was that, too.
“Myshka. We need you. Now.”
For the last few hours, she’d been happy. Her lips felt puffy from all the kissing; she’d been contemplating resting her head on Justin’s shoulder and drowsing off for a while, safe and sound and content. That all drained out of her now, replaced with the cold calculation that Father Value had ingrained into her as she grew up. “Where are you? The bar?”
“No.” Katya gave her an address, one Elly’s tactical brain approved of: a place unlikely to attract human interference.
“I’m on the way,” she said. She held still a moment, phone pressed to her ear even after Katya hung up, considering her options. Justin was a good fighter; he’d have her back if she brought him with. But he’d only been a vampire a month, and even though some of the Oisín were newer, he’d never been in a real, honest-to-god fight. But I trained him. Val and me both. That’s a leg up.
He’d go with her if she asked. And that makes him part of the turf war. As convoluted as vampire politics could be, that aspect was clear-cut. If Justin came with, that put him more firmly on Ivanov’s radar. Good for him if he went into Boston if the Stregoi won, but if any of their opponents survived, Justin became a target for vengeance. Him and Val both. And Ivanov wouldn’t bother sending protection down here for them.
He waved at her from the backseat, and Elly made up her mind. She put on the most casual face she could and hoped he couldn’t see through it as she returned to the car. Or sniff through it. “I have to go into town,” she said. “Everything’s all right, but I have to leave right no
w. Or, after I drive you home.”
He scuttled across the seat and pulled her down for another kiss. “It’s okay. I can run from here.”
“It’s kind of a long way.”
“Vampire.” He stood and nipped at her neck—no teeth; she might still stake him. “I’m kind of wired after, uh. What we, uh.” He blushed, and Elly smiled.
Leaving him behind’s the right decision. “I’ll call you tonight, okay?”
“God, yes.” One last kiss and he stepped away from her. Then he turned and sprinted away, human-speed for now, but once he turned off the road, she figured, he’d open the hell up.
Before she pulled out of the parking space she texted Cavale. She was still raw about the fight and his attempt at talking her out of doing her job, but the lingering effects of her good mood made her check in. She left out the details. He didn’t need to worry, and she didn’t want the I told you so. Short and sweet: Going into Boston. We’ll talk when I get home.
He texted her back a few minutes later, but she was already headed for 95 North and couldn’t look. She was perfectly sanguine about fighting a nest of Creeps, or jumping into the middle of a vampire turf war, but Elly would never be so reckless as to text and drive.
19
CAVALE WAS IN the parlor, contemplating summoning a death god, when the headlights splashed across the room. He rushed to the window that looked out over the lawn, but the angle and the porch beams didn’t let him see who it was. Elly, he thought. Has to be. So he stayed where he was, a bit back from the window so she wouldn’t see him peering out like a worried parent, and waited for the rattle of her keys in the locks.
Only the footsteps that clumped up onto the porch were too heavy to be Elly’s. And she’d have no reason to knock; she lived here.
Any number of possibilities ran through his mind in the half second it took him to lean over and peer out the window: Chaz come back for another awkward round of coffee and commiseration; Justin looking for a lesson before daybreak; Mike, from down the hill, with information; the necromancer showing his face at last, looking to throw down. Worst was the fear it was a police officer, knocking to say Elly’d been in an accident, and they were so, so sorry.
Grave Matters: A Night Owls Novel Page 24
