Crap. The first guy to come out here hadn’t been able to either.

The man tried to leave, but Ivy moved with a vampire quickness, surprising all of us. Giving me a tight-lipped look, she muttered to me, “We’re going to talk about this,” and then to Dr. Williams, blinking at her suddenly before him, “Your ad says—”

“I know what the ad says,” he interrupted. “I wrote it. I told you, we don’t have the experience for your situation.”

He got another step down before Ivy was in front of him again, a dangerous thinning of brown around her pupil. He stopped, angry as he took off his purple ribbon. His disregard for the danger she represented surprised me, until I decided that if he could sanctify ground, he could probably take care of himself. I ran my eyes over him again, new thoughts sifting through me.

“Look,” he said, dropping his head. When it came back up, there was an expression of warning in his gaze. “If it was just resanctifying it, I could do it, but your church has been blasphemed.”

My lips parted, and Ivy crossed her arms over her chest in an unusual show of worry. I twisted a demon curse on blasphemed ground without the protection of my aura? Great.

“Blasphemed!” Jenks exclaimed, silver sparkles sifting from him. In the bushes there was a high-pitched call from a winged eavesdropper, quickly hushed.

The man looked from the bush to me. “From the bedrooms up to the front door,” he said, clearly resigned he wasn’t leaving until I was satisfied. “The entire church is contaminated. I’d have to get the demon smut off first, and I don’t know how to do that.”

His lack of fear seemed to give Ivy something to tie her emotions to and bring them back under control, but Jenks clattered his wings aggressively. He was getting ready to pix the man, and their attitudes were starting to tick me off. If Dr. Williams couldn’t do it, he couldn’t do it.

“Jenks,” I admonished, “back off. If he can’t do it, it’s not his fault.”

The doctor’s grip on his tackle box tightened, his pride clearly feeling the sting. “It’s usually the coroner who is called in to clean up failed demon summonings, not me.”

Ivy stiffened, and before she could get all vampy, I interjected, “I didn’t call the demon. She showed up on her own.”

He laughed bitterly, as if he had caught me in a lie. “She?” he mocked. “Female demons can’t cross the lines.”

“Can’t, or won’t?”

That made him pause, his expression taking on a hint of respect. Then he shook his head and his expression became hard. “Demon practitioners have a life expectancy of months, Ms. Morgan. I suggest you change your profession. Before your state-of-aliveness does it for you.”