“Yard is a lot of work,” I whispered, eyeing last year’s leaves still in the fallow flower beds. Not to mention that the front door only locked from the inside. But after seeing the expired charms on the storefront, putting in a few of my own here was an option.
I struggled to not spill the coffee as I bent to get the wilted daisies. The sign over the door with all our names on it was bittersweet. I’d paid a guy three hundred bucks one winter solstice to put it and the light over the door so everyone could see we were here, day or night.
I nudged the door open with my foot, closing it with a backward kick before Boots, hiding under the pool table, could even think to run out. Jenks and Stef were in one of the bedrooms, their voices too soft to hear words. “Hi, sweetie,” I crooned to the cat. “We’ll get your box up soon.” But all I got was the cat-stare.
The sanctuary was dim with all but one of the stained-glass windows broken and boarded up. Ivy’s baby grand piano was shoved in a corner, forgotten, and I set the daisies on Kisten’s de-felted and de-bumpered pool table. It wasn’t much more than an enormous single piece of slate with holes now, still sporting the chalk lines of the last curses I’d twisted on it. Hodin hadn’t put the table back the way he’d found it, and now I was too angry with him to insist.
Somehow, I felt as if Kisten’s table was indicative of my life and the damage I wrought on everyone around me. Because of me, a perfectly good table wasn’t usable for its intended purpose. Likewise, because of me, Kisten had died because he had stood up to Piscary, becoming the man I knew he was—and then dying for it.
Head down, I went to the low stage that had once held the altar. The hole was still in the middle of the floor, covered by a sheet of plywood. Even so, there was tons of room to practice my martial arts. The ceiling was tall, beautiful with exposed rafters dark against the ceiling. I could almost hear pixy kids singing up there in my memory. Ivy’s abandoned furniture was covered in sawdust, and I set my bag on the long, low coffee table. It was made of slate, too, thanks to Hodin magicking the glass to stone. Sharron would call this a “unique” property with “renovation challenges.” Meaning it was a church you couldn’t occupy without a massive rebuild.
But even with the kitchen gone, the sanctuary had been a pleasant place to both interview clients and spell in. There’d been no need to reroute the gas or electric lines to make a secure circle. So why did I feel so unprofessional in it? I wondered as I ran a finger across the chalk lines still lingering on the coffee table.
I was talking myself from a bad mood to downright depressed, and I set Bis on one of the chairs. Jenks’s and Stef’s words were a soft murmur as I put Jenks’s food into the tiny fridge and turned it from half-frozen beer to root-cellar cool. I took the bag of sandwiches out of my bag, hesitating before setting it on the dusty table. I didn’t want to eat in the dark when there was a perfectly good picnic table only half burned in the garden.
But even as I thought it, I remembered how the sun used to spill into the sanctuary all day. If you could look past the construction filth, there were a lot of pluses to living here. Minuses, too, I thought. Even the graveyard wasn’t looking quite so bad anymore.
“It’s Ivy’s old room,” I heard Jenks say clearly, and I picked the coffee tray back up. “There’s a cot in the belfry you and Rache can bring down. I know it’s not much, but it’s better than sleeping under a cabbage leaf.”
“What about Rachel?” Stef asked as I strode past the his-and-her bathrooms long since converted into a bath/laundry and a more traditional full bath.
“It’s his church,” I said as I eased to a halt and looked in on the tiny, empty ten-by-ten. “So whatever he says is good with me. My room is across the hall.” I eased out of the threshold, remembering my mom’s phobia about liminal spaces. “There’s two bathrooms, so take your pick. I’d show you the rest, but the kitchen and living room are gone, and the belfry is being used for storage. This is kind of it. Except for the graveyard.”
Stef began to blink fast, her eyes reddening from more than the cat hair coating her. “Thank you so much,” she choked out, and then, dropping her head into her hand, she began to quietly cry. “I don’t even have a toothbrush, and I’m so grateful that Boots and I aren’t on the street. You guys are being so nice, and you don’t have any reason to be.”
Jenks flew up, clearly embarrassed. Coming closer, I gave him a dark look. “What?” he complained. “I told her she could set up a cot.”
But I remembered what it was like to have the world take everything, leaving you with ugly, empty spaces where comfort had once been. Ivy had made a place for me to gather myself and make a new beginning. Okay, Ivy had had ulterior motives, but that hadn’t lessened what it had meant to me. Stef needed the same. She looked like a giver, not a taker. She wouldn’t overstay her welcome.
“Hey, it’s okay,” I said as I came close and gave her an awkward, supportive hug, the bag of subs crackling as it hit her back. “If you don’t mind the dust, we’ve got the room. The bus runs past the east side of the graveyard into Cincy if Edden doesn’t have your toothbrush.”
“Yeah.” Jenks hovered close. “Rache knows the schedule. She went an entire year without a car. And then months without a license until the DMV put demon as an option on the application.”
Stef stiffened and I let go, dropping back as she sniffed, looking at the ceiling as if embarrassed. “Look at me,” she said with a rueful laugh. “I’m a mess. I should call work and let them know I’m okay. The last they knew, I was flying out the door.”
“Okay, sure.” I edged away until I hit the doorframe. “The room is yours for as long as you need it or the city kicks us out for not having a dwelling permit. Whatever happens first.”
“Thanks again.” Stef looked over the tiny room still smelling faintly of vampire as she took her phone from her pocket. “I’ll probably head into Cincinnati later. Find out when the bus hits the hospital from here.”
“Sounds good.” I retreated into the hallway to give her some privacy. “Sandwiches will be in the backyard when you’re ready. Jenks, you may want to check out the garden,” I added when he showed no signs of leaving. “I heard Rex scare up some pixies.”
“Yeah, I saw them,” he muttered, his dust shifting a middling gray and red of indecision and anger. “They know better than to be here.”
“Well, be nice, okay?” I said, knowing it would be hard as they were trespassing and he was very garden-proud. Stef was already on her phone, giving me a distracted wave as Jenks and I headed down the hall to the temporary back door.
He probably had a pixy-hole somewhere he could use to get outside, but he waited, humming at head height as I juggled the coffee and sandwiches and worked the makeshift latch. Finally the door swung out and the sun and cool breeze flowed in, shifting my hair and going all the way to the belfry to stir the dust. It was as if the church had taken a cleansing breath, and I stood where I was, gazing out past the drop and into the early spring garden and long-grassed graveyard.