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.”