Lauren Roy - Night Owls

Professor Clearwater grunted at that. “If they’re determined enough, they’ll barrel through anything. Even if it hurts them.”

“That’s what they did. The first ones who came through were bleeding something fierce.”

“Why did you two make a stand? You could’ve put half the country between yourselves and them.”

Elly shrugged. She’d argued the same: Let’s get on a bus and go to California. There’s a train to Chicago leaving in an hour. Let’s be on it. I’ll steal a wallet and we’ll charge flights to London on the credit cards inside, put the whole damned ocean between us and the Creeps. But he’d vetoed every suggestion, and his reasons for why were flimsy at best. No time, Eleanor, he’d said, as if that were enough explanation. No time.

Still, Elly had survived as long as she had doing as Father Value told her. She hadn’t fought him too hard on it.

Maybe if I’d fought him more, he’d still be alive. She shook that off. “He wanted to stay close, said there wasn’t much time. He said you’d know what to do with it, but he wanted to shake them off first.”

Henry got up and began to pace. “He should have come straight to me and let me help . But to stay just out of reach? It’s foolish in the extreme.” He paused by the window, looking out over their expansive backyard.

“He said . . . He said he didn’t want to bring trouble to your door. Or as little of it as possible.” She shifted in the chair. Dancing around a delicate topic wasn’t something Father Value had taught her how to do. She felt like the conversation called for tact, but she’d never been good at employing it. All she’d ever really learned was, If you don’t want to tell the whole truth, hedge.

Of course, she’d learned that from Father Value, and that meant Professor Clearwater was probably familiar with the tactic, too.

He turned back to her, the set of his jaw somewhere between amused and annoyed. “What you’re saying, then, is he thought I’d gone soft since leaving the Brotherhood.”

Damn. “He thought you might be out of practice, a little.”

“I suppose I might be. I’ve not had to fight for my life in a very long time.” He must have seen her tense up, because he held his hands out, palms up. A calming gesture. “That doesn’t mean I’m unprepared for it. Come here.” He beckoned her closer.

Elly set aside her tea and stood with him at the window. She squinted into the darkness, but nothing struck her as obvious. The dark shapes of a patio set and charcoal grill were all that broke up the neatly mowed lawn. “I don’t know what I’m looking for, sir.”

“Not out. Down. ”

Frowning, she glanced down. And grinned. Lining the inside of the windowsill, in the groove between the glass and the screen, was a thick line of salt. It wouldn’t stop the Creeps outright—she’d learned that the other evening—but it would slow them down. And if the Clearwaters had salt wards, they’d have others, ones that weren’t so easy to spot.

“If they want to come in here, they’re going to hurt for it. But they won’t try tonight.” Outside, the first tinges of dawn lightened the sky. “There’s not enough time.” He guided her back to the chairs and peered into their empty teacups. Out came the flask. He poured a generous splash into each. “I’d suggest we get some sleep, but if you’ll pardon my saying, you still look wide awake.”

“Part of the lifestyle. We keep late hours.”

“Nearly nocturnal ones, I’d imagine.”

“Yes sir. But you don’t have to stay up with me. I can entertain myself.” Her fingers itched to flip through some of the books in this room, but, at the same time . . . She found herself hoping he’d insist on staying, found herself wanting the company.

He smiled. “Surely you must have questions for me. I’ve always found that getting answers helps me sleep.”

A SMART VAMPIRE would have gone home and gone to bed.

No, a smart vampire would have built up her wealth over the years, amassed a small army of devoted minions, and built an impenetrable fortress-mansion somewhere exotic. I went with the “sink all your money into a bookstore and barely scrape by in a quaint college town.”

And she’d sent her one minion home.

That had been the right decision, though. Chaz might be good at getting rid of the frat kids when they got bombed and came in to titter at the books of nudes in the art section, but no way in hell was he prepared to face what she was sure had loped its way into town. Hell, she wasn’t sure she was prepared to handle it, either.

More than ten years had passed since she’d last been face-to-face with a Jackal. It was another life, on another coast, and she’d been with five others. Back then, they’d been armed with stakes of rowan wood and vials of ash when they’d headed into the nest. Tonight, all Val had were fangs and claws. She wished she’d gone back to the store and grabbed a roll of quarters. Not that they’d help all that much.

She scuttled along Edgewood’s silent streets, heading toward campus. The scent hadn’t returned, though every now and then she’d stop and turn in a circle, sniffing the air just in case. They could have gone anywhere, might not even still be in town, but Val had to be sure. If they were on the hunt they’d find easy pickings at the dorms.

And plenty of virgin flesh.

It wasn’t often she wished she could turn into a bat or a shadow or a column of mist and speed through the night, but right then it would have come in awfully handy. Those things would come with age and training, not to mention a whole lot of ass-kissing. For now, the best she could do was will her legs to push harder, dig her heels in deeper, and launch herself headlong up the road to the student housing buildings.

Edgewood College had four dormitories in addition to the houses on Greek Row. Val dismissed the fraternity and sorority houses right away—lights still burned in the windows of Phi Lambda Lambda and Delta Mu, and from the looks of it the Gamma Rho Epsilon girls were having an all-night lawn party with the boys from Beta Epsilon. It was possible that a Jackal would hang around and watch from the shadows, waiting for an unsuspecting sister to totter away from the main festivities—it was how they’d earned the other name she’d heard them called: Creeps. But crowds made them nervous. If there was easier prey, they’d take it.

That also ruled out the two coed dorms. It was closing in on five thirty, but even with most of their inhabitants asleep, there were too many windows glowing softly from students’ monitors or lamps clipped to their headboards. The single-sex dorms, though, were a different story. The Jackals wouldn’t know it, but Ward and Bryant Halls were the places you lived if you wanted peace and quiet and early lights-out. Kids who lived in them did their partying elsewhere and tiptoed if they came home in the wee hours. It was where the campus geniuses lived.

Both were also—conveniently for a Jackal—nestled in at the far end of the street, and their back halves looked out at the woods. Now the trick was figuring out which kind of virgin flesh the Jackal was in the mood for tonight. Sugar, spice, and everything nice, or snails, pails, and puppy dog tails? Val stood halfway between the two buildings and sniffed again. Maybe it was a false alarm. Maybe it was just passing thr—

There.

Val hurried around to the back of the boys’ dorm, following the smell of rot and blood. The streetlights’ glow didn’t carry back here, but her eyes adjusted almost instantly. On the second floor, a window was open. She got up close to the building and ran her hands over the old brick. Just above her head, she felt the gouges from where the Jackal’s claws had dug in as it scaled.