The bank, I thought, wincing. She was supposed to wait until I had the rest of my rent. Jax flew three circles about my head, making me dizzy. “ ’Bye, Ms. Morgan,” he called out, zipping off to join his siblings, who were escorting their dad to the back of the church and the oak stump Jenks had moved his very large family into.

My breath puffed out as Glenn came around the back of the car, offering to carry my canister. I shook my head and hefted it; it wasn’t that heavy. I was starting to feel guilty for having let Jenks pix him. But then I hadn’t known I was going to have to baby-sit him at the time. “Come on in,” I said as I started across the street to the wide stone steps.

The sound of his hard-soled shoes on the street faltered. “You live in a church?”

My eyes narrowed. “Yeah. But I don’t sleep with voodoo dolls.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind.”

Glenn muttered something, and my guilt deepened. “Thanks for driving me home,” I said as I climbed the stone steps and pulled open the right side of the twin wooden doors for him. He said nothing, and I added, “Really. Thanks.”

Hesitating on the stoop, he stared at me. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. “You’re welcome,” he finally said, his voice giving me no clue, either.

I led the way through the empty foyer into the even more empty sanctuary. Before we rented out the church, it had been used as a daycare. The pews and altar had been removed to make a large play area. Now all that remained were the stained-glass windows and a slightly raised stage. The shadow of a huge, long-gone cross spread across the wall in a poignant reminder. I glanced at the tall ceiling, seeing the familiar room in a new way as Glenn looked it over. It was quiet. I’d forgotten how peaceful it was.

Ivy had spread tumbling mats over half of it, leaving a narrow walkway running from the foyer to the back rooms. At least once a week we’d spar to keep fresh, now that we were both independents and not on the streets every night. It invariably ended with me a sweating mass of bruises and her not even breathing hard. Ivy was a living vamp—as alive as I was and in possession of a soul, infected by the vamp virus by way of her, at the time, still-living mother.