Free Grave Matters: A Night Owls Novel by Lauren M. Roy Page A

her that to her face, if she ever lets you look right at her. Stick with
ma’am
or
miss
.”
    Elly disliked the woman more and more. “You two seem . . .”
    “Mismatched?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Opposites attract, right?” His laugh rang hollow, but Elly didn’t push. After a minute he said, “I don’t know. Maybe vampires have midlife crises. Or maybe I was just a good enough minion that she figured this was better than finding my replacement in fifty years. Ain’t gonna question it too much.”
    Elly did her best to suppress a shudder. Would Ivanov do the same for her, if she proved useful enough? It was supposed to be a choice, becoming a vampire. Sort of stupid to convert someone against their will—it would give them extra strength and speed if they decided to come at you with a stake as vengeance. And Ivanov wasn’t stupid.
And if he was, Cavale would come help me kill him.
    If Theo sensed her revulsion, he ignored it. “Anyway, it seems I get to keep being useful. I got Southie in my blood, unlike the rest of them. These guys we’re meeting, I’m the one they reached out to in the first place.”
    They came out onto Columbia Road, crossing the tree-lined strip that separated its lanes, and entered Babe Ruth Park from the north. Fittingly, a handful of baseball diamonds dotted the grounds, though at this time of night no one was playing. It wasn’t deserted, though, even for a cold October night. A few clusters of people hung out, the bright red tips of their cigarettes flaring as they took drags.
    Katya strolled up to meet them, her hands shoved deep into her pockets. Far as Elly knew, vampires didn’t feel the cold, but Katya liked to put on a show. “They’re on the far side,” she said. “Three of them. I could have snapped all their necks and put them in the bottom of the harbor before they even knew I was there. Make them swim home with their heads on crooked, stinking of dirty water.” She tilted her own to illustrate. “But no. We have to be
civil
.”
    Civil or no, Elly let her right arm hang loose at her side, the weight of the silver spike she carried a reassurance. A good shake and it would slip free of its strap and into her palm, from there into a vampire’s chest. Silver didn’t kill vampires unless you got them in the heart, but it slowed them down. It was too bad the
Stregoi
frowned on her carrying cedar stakes—which
did
kill vampires—into the bar; they’d come in handy about now.
    The three had claimed a bench overlooking Carson Beach, which bounded the park on one side. They broke off their conversation as Elly, Katya, and Theo approached. In their faded jeans, hoodie sweatshirts, and scowls, they resembled any of the other youth hanging out around here.
    “Sent in the big guns, I see,” said one of them. She stepped forward, pushing her hood back to show her face. The breeze picked up tendrils of her long, curly black hair and waved them about like Medusa’s snakes. “Well, one of them, anyway.” The woman nodded to Katya.
    “You wanted a meeting,” said Katya. “So talk.”
    “I’m Deirdre. This is Thomas and—”
    “I’ll forget your names before we leave the park. What do you
want
.”
    Deirdre didn’t let Katya’s impatience rattle her, perhaps because the two at her back were huge. They didn’t say anything, but from their postures Elly could tell they were ready for violence. “We represent the
Oisín
.” She pronounced it
o-sheen
, a word that tugged at Elly’s memory. She tucked it away for later. “And we want to split the city with you.”
    “You are lucky,” said Katya, “that I was instructed to hear you out. Otherwise you’d be standing there wondering where your tongue had got off to, for that foolishness.”
    The other two tensed, their hands going for the front pockets of their sweatshirts.
    The movement wasn’t lost on Katya. For a moment, Elly tensed, too, preparing to dive at the closer one at first twitch. She could at least get