Grave Matters: A Night Owls Novel (3 page)

But Justin had been trying to instill some degree of social skills in her, and if she bailed on Cinda now, she had a feeling he’d be disappointed when she recounted the story later. Plus, the kid was all right in Elly’s book. She’d done as she was told—mostly—and kept a cooler head than most people would have when faced with a haunting.

So she stayed.

2

C
HAZ BOTH WAS
and wasn’t a fan of October in New England.

About midway through the month, the weather got squirrelly as fuck—crisp fall days bookended by raw, cold, and rainy on one side and summery surges on the other. Not that his apartment was ever what you might call orderly, but the piles of clothes on his bedroom floor (what Val had once referred to as his
floordrobe
) had to serve three seasons at once.

There usually came a week when the temperature took its final dive, where you couldn’t just throw an extra blanket on the bed and ignore the chill any longer. When you had to grit your teeth and turn up the thermostat, and brace yourself for next month’s heating bill. Some years it held off until November, but Chaz was pretty sure this year, wearing shorts at Halloween meant you’d be risking frostbite on your bits.

He wasn’t one for leaf-peeping. He resented how the stores broke out their holiday decorations before trick-or-treaters’ candy-overload stomachaches faded. In fact, he’d long ago imposed the “Not one fucking jingle bell until Black Friday” rule at Night Owls.

The good thing about October, though, the best thing, was how sunset crept earlier and earlier every day. Sure, it’d been doing that since late June and all, but October was when it really got obvious. Night stole in, leaching away the illusion of summer, and that meant Val was around a lot more. Vampires rose when the daystar set, after all.

So his reasons for digging October were pretty selfish, and screw anyone who had a problem with that: Chaz got to see more of his best friend.

His best friend, his boss, and oh, also his master, though she curled her lip at the term. These days, if one were counting, he technically served two masters, though he had no intention of ever taking actual orders from Justin.

It had been easier, they’d decided after Justin’s turning a month ago, to let him stay with Val while he got used to his fangs.

And figured out what, exactly, the fuck he ought to tell his parents.
Mom, Dad, I’m a vampire
was right out: they’d either have him committed or donate him to science.

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.”