Lauren Roy - Night Owls

Chaz slid behind the wheel and waved the envelope containing the morning’s bank deposit at her. “You know, usually it’s the man who’s supposed to escort the woman to her car.”

“I’m bucking the trends. Look at me go.”

“You’re protecting the profits. Let’s not be coy.”

Val grinned. “Gotta keep my investments safe.”

Chaz glanced around. Even the crickets had gone to bed. “Yeah, from all these thugs hanging out in Edgewood. I think someone ran a stop sign the other day. Or rolled through it.”

Val opened her mouth to retort, but before she could speak, her nostrils filled with the scent of blood. Not a bright, fresh-from-the-vein smell. This was old, congealing, like blood left to pool in a dark place and forgotten. She wanted to retch as her taste buds kicked in and helpfully supplied the rancid companion to the smell.

“Val?” Chaz started getting out of the car. He squawked as she shoved him back down into the driver’s seat. “The fuck?”

“Go home, Chaz. Get the hell out of here.”

“Val, what—” He just barely swung his legs back inside before Val slammed the door shut.

“GO. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

He looked ready to argue, but something in her glare made him reconsider. Although she couldn’t hear his muttered curses, his lips were easy enough to read as he jammed the keys in the ignition and started the car.

Val watched until his taillights disappeared at the end of the street. She turned her face to the wind and braced herself. Then she inhaled deeply.

Blood and rot and crawling things. Skittering, slithering. Writhing. The thickness filled her nose and went straight to her brain, to the place where pure animal fear ruled. She realized that the soft whimpering she heard was coming from her own throat.

Then, just as suddenly as the scent had appeared, it was gone. All the breeze carried now was the dry earthy smell of dying leaves. Her heart slammed; her hands were shaking. Every muscle screamed at her to run as fast and as far as she could.

No. Even as she thought it, the fear had begun leaching away. Val willed her fists to unclench. Deep breaths, as much to make sure no traces of that horrible scent remained as to calm herself down. For years, she’d been the scariest thing in Edgewood, aside from finals and dissertations.

Now it seemed something new had rolled into town. She hoped it hadn’t come here looking for her.

She’d thought she’d left that all behind.

THE TEA WAS something herbal, probably one of those ones with bogus aromatherapy claims on the box: mood-lifting , or sweet dreams , or energy booster . It was all horseshit, but Elly wasn’t about to explain that to Helen. She had a feeling Helen knew it already, anyway.

The older woman sat in an enormous wingback chair; Elly was snuggled in its twin. The chairs themselves were far too big for the room, which Helen had referred to as “Henry’s second library.” Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves covered the walls, and not an inch of any single shelf was empty. Elly had wandered around while her hostess was off making the tea. She’d touched the various volumes, mouthing the titles as she went along. Most of them were scholarly works, studies on the lives of long-dead poets, or treatises on how historical and socioeconomic factors had informed one classical artist or another. They were boring enough to make her feel sleepy despite the adrenaline still coursing through her from the encounter with the Creep.

Helen had mentioned that this room served as the professor’s at-home office. Crammed into the corner by the window was a small mahogany desk. Elly’d peeked at the papers in the brushed-brass inbox and confirmed as much: students’ essays, waiting for their grades. So this was the place where he received regular visitors—kids from the college who went through their days oblivious to the nasty things waiting in the dark.

I could write a paper that’d make their heads explode. And I wouldn’t even need footnotes.

If this was the second library, Elly wondered where the first one was. Probably upstairs. That would be the one with information that might help her. Help all of them, now that she’d been invited into their house. She itched to ask about it, and about what kinds of books Professor Clearwater had stashed away, but Father Value’s voice was in the back of her mind, reminding her not to be rude. Even though he was dead, she could still hear him chiding her.

So she sipped her tea and tried to remember her manners. When she was little, Father Value had made her practice polite conversation. She hunted around in her memory for something that normal people might ask one another in this situation. Do you have any crossbows? didn’t strike her as a good opening foray.

Helen came to her rescue. “How long were you with Father Value, Elly?”

Familiar ground, if painful. “All my life, really. If I had any family before him, I don’t remember them.” She’d thought about it, now and then, wondered who her parents were and what they’d been like. Father Value had some old pictures of the man and woman he’d said were her mom and dad, but she’d never felt a connection to the people in them. They were just faces on photo paper. In the made-for-TV movies, the long-lost child always felt some jolt of recognition. Elly hadn’t, no matter how hard she tried.

“Then you must have spent a lot of time moving around. Henry said members of the Brotherhood never stayed in one place for very long.”

Elly frowned. Father Value hadn’t spoken about his former organization very often, but he’d been quite clear on one rule: don’t talk about it to outsiders. “The Brotherhood?”

Helen studied Elly for a moment, then sipped her tea. It was a knowing gesture, one that clearly read, I see you playing dumb. “Henry had been gone from it nearly ten years when we met. Plenty of time for certain old . . . taboos to lose their imperative. He told me some of what he was before. Not everything, but enough. Your Father Value came up often.”

Damn it. Busted. This woman had invited her in in the middle of the night, and Elly was already lying. “I never met anyone else from it. There was only ever Father Value.” At least that part’s true.

“I never met anyone else from it, either. But this man Value came sniffing around every once in a while, when he needed something. The phone would ring in the dead of night, and it was always him, asking for Henry’s help.”

Elly opened her mouth to argue—Father Value hated asking for help—but then she remembered being ten years old and waking to Father Value’s voice drifting in through an open window. When she’d peered out, she’d seen him on the street below, his broad shoulders hunched over the pay phone. Now that she remembered that first time, she realized, there had been a few of those calls scattered over the years, often followed a few days later by a delivery or a drop of something they’d needed—clothes, supplies, books.

If I thought back, would we have been near Edgewood when they happened? She thought maybe they were.

From down the hallway came a rattling that nearly sent Elly out of her skin. Tea sloshed over the rim of the cup, scalding her hand, but she ignored the pain. She was out of the chair in a flash, settling herself in a crouch in front of Helen and digging the knife out of her boot. “Stay behind me,” she said. Her eyes flicked from the doorway to the window. She wondered how heavy the desk was, if she had time to barricade the door. Stupid of me. Should’ve checked its weight when I was walking around.

Then Helen’s hand was on her shoulder, her voice soft and soothing in Elly’s ear. “Elly. It’s only Henry. He’s home.”