Only a few days, I silently agreed as I drove to the church. But “a few days” was exactly what I’d thought four years ago.

CHAPTER

5

Thank the ever-loving ley lines that I’ve got my car, I thought. The dappled shade was pleasant as I drove down the quiet, residential Hollows street with the back full of my stuff and an unhappy cat. Up front, Stef stared out the window, silent in thought. A to-go bag of sub sandwiches and a tray with two cooling coffees sat between us. The car was full, warm, and smelling of coffee, and I didn’t know how I would have coped without it. The car, that is, though going without coffee would have put me on the nonstop, fun-sponge train to Pissy Town.

Jenks spilled a contented gold dust as he dozed on the rearview mirror, having missed his usual four-hour nap around noon. Which sent my thoughts to Trent and the girls sleeping their way to Seattle. He hadn’t been gone even a day yet, and I already missed his calm, certain presence—though if he’d been around, I’d probably still be at Piscary’s with Trent’s lawyer, arguing about legal loopholes rather than on the way to the church to regroup and have some lunch. Arguing wasn’t going to change the situation. Not when Constance owned the I.S.

The memory of Pike’s black-eyed, tantalizing anger as he walked away sent a stab of desire-tainted guilt through me, and my grip tightened on the wheel. It felt as if I’d cheated on Trent somehow, though it had been one hundred percent vampire pheromones that had lit me up. Maybe it was because I kind of enjoyed the erotic danger he was in a backassward sort of way. It had been a long time since I’d teased a living vampire, and Pike was skilled at holding his instincts in check, making him an easy target and fun to play with.

A smile quirked my lips, and I shushed Rex growling at Boots. I was still wearing it when I turned down my old street and my shoulders slumped. It felt like coming home, but the new place would, too, eventually. I’d moved before.

But never from somewhere where I’ve changed so much, become someone whom I really like, I thought as I slowed to take in the changes on the street.

“I’m sorry about this,” Stef said, clearly misreading my soft sigh.

“Hey, I should be apologizing to you,” I said, and Jenks stirred, stretching to make his wings shudder and sift dust. “I offer you a place to stay that dries up, and then you buy me lunch?”

“It’s the least I could do,” she said as she struggled with Boots. “This is a nice street.”

I nodded, remembering being dragged down it in the ice and snow, terrified when Al had tried to abduct me. The danger had been real, which made the demon being my admittedly on-the-outs friend now even better.

My smile became fond as I looked up at the steeple and recalled ringing the bell for the kids every Halloween. I was going to miss seeing them on our front steps begging for candy and tomatoes. But then my smile faded. I’d found Ivy blood-raped on those very same steps.

My hand dropped to cup around Bis in my lap. What the hell am I doing back here?

One-handed, I pulled into the carport and hit the brake inches from ramming the end of it. Practice . . . thou art my shield and sword. “Here we are,” I said, and Stef unclicked her seat belt. “The front door is probably open. Jenks, you want me to take in your food stocks? The contractors’ dorm fridge was still there the last I checked.” The work crew had left their paint-spotted, dust-caked boom box, too, and a cassette of Johnny Cash’s greatest hits. Weres . . .

“Thanks, sure,” Jenks said, surprising me, but an odd realization made my stomach hurt. Constance blacklisting me explained why even David hadn’t been able to convince them to come back. It hadn’t been the six pentagrams on the pool table that had chased them away. It had been Constance.

“Hey, Stef. You think Boots and Rex might use the same box?” Jenks asked as he rose up. “Or we could put a cat door out to the backyard. Rex is an outside cat,” he added proudly.

A cat door sounded rather permanent for two weeks, but I wasn’t four inches tall and had trouble with knobs.

“Boots is an inside cat,” Stef said as she got out, then hesitated, leaning to look back at me—seeing as I hadn’t made a single motion to get out yet.

“I’ll be right there,” I said as I waved them on. “I want to let Rex out. And I should probably text Edden to bring your stuff here and not Piscary’s. Jenks can show you the place.” Or what’s left of it, I thought sourly. “I’ll bring the sandwiches. Your hands are full.”

Stef’s expression shifted to relief. “Thanks.” Baby-talking to Boots, she headed with Jenks for the front steps, her soft-soled hospital shoes silent on the shady, cracked sidewalk. I watched them, glad that the offerings of food and flowers that had once adorned our door had slacked off. There was just a handful of wilted, handpicked daisies, and I hadn’t been out here for a week. Boots’s tail was switching. He was clearly done with being held. Stef had been holding him the better part of an hour. She was a good cat-mom.

“Speaking of which,” I said as I gently shifted Bis to the now-vacant front seat. His tail had curled around my wrist again, and my breath caught in heartache as I disentangled it. “Hey, Rex,” I said, forcing my voice light and airy as I got out to open the back door and pull the cat closer.

The orange tabby leapt out as soon as I opened the carrier, his ears alert as he sniffed my fingertips and got his bearings. Tail high, the young tom sauntered to the backyard, easily making the jump to the top of the fence, where he stared at me and cleaned his ears.

“That’s my good boy,” I said, resigned to the little love I ever got from the cat. Leaning against the car, I breathed in the cool damp and closed my eyes, letting the peace soak in. They flashed open at an almost ultrasonic complaint. Rex was gone, probably terrorizing whatever pixy had taken up residence in Jenks’s garden.

I reached for my phone and large shoulder purse, dropping Jenks’s stuff and the bag of takeout into it. One-handed, I quickly texted Edden to bring Stef’s stuff to the church.

“Why?” he immediately texted back.

The pleasure that I was again on speaking terms with Edden vanished. I frowned, started a message, then erased it. I’d tell him when he got here.

“Coming back to the church is not a failure. It’s temporary,” I said as I jammed the phone in a back pocket and carefully lifted Bis into my arms. The tray with the coffee went in my other hand, and with my heavy shoulder bag making me walk funny, I headed up the front path.

I couldn’t help but compare the church to the other properties we’d been looking at. It had great overnight street parking along with the covered carport. The lot ran deep to give tons of room, stretching all the way to the next street over. Mature trees made lots of shade, and the bus ran right past the far end of the graveyard.