Night Owls by Lauren M. Roy

she’d imagined. They’d come howling through the woods, black shapes writhing against the night. It had seemed like hundreds of them; she’d heard their claws scrabbling at every window. But Henry had said there were only a few. He said one of them must have been something
else
before the turning, and he’d brought tricks with him through the veil.
    He’d been so calm, telling her these things as he chalked the last runes on the doors and checked the salt wards lining the windows. Helen had sat on the floor in the middle of the upstairs library, weapons laid out around her like a deadly corona. She’d checked the stakes for sharpness and made sure the guns were loaded with silver bullets as if she’d been handling them all her life.
    Then the Creeps had come, breaking the downstairs windows, tearing the doors off their hinges. They paid for it; Elly’s ears still rang with their pained yelps from forcing their way past the wards. Two or three pups had made way for the others, whimpering as they rubbed out salt lines so their superiors could cross. The smell of charred fur had preceded them up the stairs. When the first one died due to the sigils at the top, Elly’d let herself think she and the Clearwaters might have a chance.
    But the elder three weren’t nearly as reckless. They’d roamed throughout the house, smashing and breaking things, taking their time. It sounded like an army of dogs down there, snarling and slavering. Helen’s eyes had been wide as she clutched a baseball bat to her chest. The Creeps thrived on fear. Elly knew that. Henry knew that. But their own calm hadn’t been enough to soothe Helen.
    Maybe you had to be born to the Brotherhood. Maybe you simply couldn’t learn to suppress terror in an hour.
    It didn’t matter. Helen broke first, fleeing the safety of the library and destroying God knew how many carefully laid wards. And what else could Henry have done? He followed his wife into the darkness, shouting her name.
    It had been blood from there until the end.
    Now, with a crisp autumn morning beaming sunlight down upon her, Elly’s legs finally gave out. She wobbled over to a patch of recently raked lawn, wondering where she was but not really caring. As she sprawled beside a pile of leaves, she realized she needed to take stock. But she was so damned
tired
. It was shock, she knew, and she ought to fight it.
    But what does it even matter now? Father Value’s dead. The Clearwaters are dead. The Creeps will sniff out where the book went before long, and it was all for nothing.
    She put her head between her knees and dragged in lungfuls of air. Father Value would never have allowed such a defeatist attitude. She could imagine him now: the disappointment in his eyes, the tilt of his head as he said,
You’re stronger than that, Eleanor.
    She hated it when he called her Eleanor.
    Okay. Okay. I have the clothes on my back. I have my wallet.
She patted the lump in her back pocket to confirm.
I have ten dollars and a handful of quarters. I have Silver and Pointy.
The weapon in question was strapped along her forearm beneath her sweater. Its weight was a comfort.
    That’s where the list ran out. She had nothing left and nowhere to go.
    That’s not true.
    Elly blinked. No. She couldn’t. Not ever.
He said he never wanted to see either of us, ever again.
It was more than two years now since he’d left them, and she and Father Value had let him go. They’d hardly spoken his name in that time; she’d pretended the empty seat at the table was just another chair, and Father Value had thrown away the extra plate.
    But they both knew where he’d ended up. It was just how they worked. Father Value knew someone who knew someone who knew this medium, and word got back to him. Not a lot, mostly that he was okay, that nothing had killed him yet, but Elly’d eaten those reports up like Halloween candy on All Saints’ Day.
    One night. I’ll knock on his door, and if he even answers, I’ll only