the man said, and I paused, not wanting to be rude. “The numbers are backward on this street. Odd numbers on the wrong side of the road.” He smiled, creasing the wrinkles around his eyes. “But they didn’t ask me when they put the numbers up.” He extended his hand. “I’m Keasley,” he said, waiting for me to climb the stairs and take his hand.
Neighbors, I thought, rolling my eyes as I went up the stairs. Best to be nice. “Rachel Morgan,” I said, pumping his arm once. He beamed, patting my shoulder in a fatherly fashion. The strength of his grip was surprising, as was the scent of redwood coming from him. He was a witch, or at the very least a warlock. Not comfortable with his show of familiarity, I took a step back as he released me. It was cooler on his porch, and I felt tall under the low ceiling.
“Are you friends with the vamp?” he said, gesturing across the street with his chin.
“Ivy? Yeah.”
He nodded slowly, as if it were important. “Both of you quit together?”
I blinked. “News travels fast.”
He laughed. “Yup. It does at that.”
“Aren’t you afraid I’m going to get spelled on your front porch and take you with me?”
“No.” He leaned back in his rocker and picked up his glass. “I took that one off you.” He held up a tiny self-stick amulet between his finger and thumb. As my lips parted, he dropped it into his glass. What I thought had been lemonade foamed as the spell dissolutioned. Yellow smoke billowed, and he waved his hand dramatically. “Oooh doggies, that’s a nasty one.”
Saltwater? He grinned at my obvious shock. “That guy on the bus …” I stammered as I backed off the porch. The yellow sulfur eddied down the stairs as if trying to find me.
“Nice meeting you, Ms. Morgan,” the man said I stumbled onto the walk and into the sun. “A vamp and pixy might keep you alive a few days, but not if you aren’t more careful.”
My eyes turned to look down the street at the long gone bus. “The guy on the bus …”
Keasley nodded. “You’re right in that they won’t try anything when there’s a witness, leastwise, not at first, but you have to watch for the amulets that won’t trigger till you’re alone.”
I had forgotten about delayed spells. And where was Denon getting the money? My face scrunched up as I figured it out; Ivy’s bribe money was paying for my death threat. Swell.
“I’m home all day,” Keasley was saying. “Come on over if you want to talk. I don’t get out much anymore. Arthritis.” He slapped his knee.
“Thanks,” I said. “For—finding that charm.”
“My pleasure,” he said, his gaze on the ceiling of the porch and the lazily spinning fan.
My stomach was knotting as I made my way back to the sidewalk. Was the entire city aware I had quit? Maybe Ivy had talked to him.
I felt vulnerable in the empty street. Edgy, I crossed the road looking for house numbers. “Fifteen ninety-three,” I muttered, glancing at the small yellow house with two bikes tangled on the lawn. “Sixteen hundred and one,” I said, looking the other way to the well-kept brick home. My lips pursed. The only thing between them was that stone church. I froze. A church?
A harsh buzzing zipped past my ears, and I instinctively ducked.
“Hi, Rache!” Jenks came to a hovering halt just out of my reach.
“Damn it, Jenks!” I shouted, warming as I heard the old man laugh. “Don’t do that!”
“Got your stuff set,” Jenks said. “I made him put everything up on blocks.”
“It’s a church,” I said.
“No shit, Sherlock. Wait until you see the garden.”
I stood unmoving. “It’s a church.”
Jenks hovered, waiting for me. “There’s a huge yard in back. Great for parties.”
“Jenks,” I said through gritted teeth. “It’s a church. The backyard is a graveyard.”
“Not all of it.” He began weaving impatiently. “And it’s not a church anymore. It’s been a day care for the last two years. No one’s been buried there since the Turn.”
I stood, staring at him. “Did they move the bodies out?”
His darting ceased and he hung motionless. “’Course they moved the bodies out. You think I’m stupid? You think I’d live where there were dead humans? God help me. The bugs coming off ’em, diseases, viruses, and crap soaking into the soil and getting into everything!”
I adjusted my grip on my stuff, striding across the shady street and up the wide steps of the church. Jenks didn’t have a clue as to whether the bodies had been moved out. The gray stone steps were bowed in the middle from decades of use, and they were slippery. There were twin doors taller than I, made of a reddish wood and bound with metal. One had a plaque screwed into it. “Donna’s Daycare,” I muttered, reading the inscription. I tugged a door open, surprised at the strength needed to shift it. There wasn’t even a lock on it, just a sliding bolt on the inside.
“Of course they moved the bodies out,” Jenks said, then flitted over the church. I’d put a hundred on it that he was going out to the backyard to investigate.
“Ivy?” I shouted, trying to slam the door behind me. “Ivy, are you here?” The echo of my voice came back from the yet unseen sanctuary, a thick, stained-glassed quiet hush of sound. The closest I’d been to a church since my dad died was reading the cutesy catch phrases off those backlit signs they all put on their front lawns. The foyer was dark, having no windows and black wooden panels. It was warm and still, thick with the presence of past liturgy. I set the box on the wooden floor and listened to the green and amber hush slipping in from the sanctuary.
“Be right down!” came Ivy’s distant shout. She sounded almost cheerful, but where on earth was she? Her voice was coming from everywhere and nowhere at all.
There was the soft click of a latch, and Ivy slipped from behind a panel. A narrow spiral stairway went up behind her. “I’ve got my owls up in the belfry,” she said. Her brown eyes were more alive than I’d ever seen them. “It’s perfect for storage. Lots of shelves and drying racks. Someone left their stuff up there, though. Want to go through it with me later?”
“It’s a church, Ivy.”
Ivy stopped. Her arms crossed and she looked at me, her face abruptly empty.
“There are dead people in the backyard,” I added, and she levered herself up and went into the sanctuary. “You can see the tombstones from the road,” I continued as I followed her in.
The pews were gone, as was the altar, leaving only an empty room and a slightly raised stage. That same black wood made a wainscot that ran below the tall stained-glassed windows that wouldn’t open. A faded shadow on the wall remained where an enormous cross once hung over the altar. The ceiling was three stories up, and I sent my gaze to the open woodwork, thinking it would be hard to keep this room warm in winter. It was nothing but a stripped down open space … but the stark emptiness seemed to add to the feeling of peace.
“How much is this going to cost?” I asked, remembering I was supposed to be angry.
“Seven hundred a month, utilities—ah—included,” Ivy said quietly.
“Seven hundred?” I hesitated, surprised. That would be three fifty for my share. I was paying four fifty uptown for my one-room castle. That wasn’t bad. Not bad at all. Especially if it had a yard. No, I thought, my bad mood returning. It was a graveyard.
“Where are you going?” I said as Ivy walked away. “I’m talking to you.”
“To