The things in my hand caught fire.
Well, not really, but they started smoking, so I whipped back my hand and flung them into the day. They landed together in the sparse grass of the yard. I poked at my hand, which seemed fine, though maybe a little tender. Eli got out of the SUV and stood over the things I’d tossed, staring and thinking. Then he picked them all up and put the things back in the gobag. “You need to tell us something, Janie?”
“Yes. In a bit.”
He zipped up the gobag. “We’ll hold ’em.”
I blinked back tears. They trusted me even when it looked like I was sick. And maybe dangerous. “Don’t go to sleep,” I said. “You’ll wake up with the SUV on blocks, the wheels gone, the engine pilfered, and your pockets picked of the maniacal, magical, mystery toys.”
Eli gave me a look that I interpreted as polite interest but was really only a slight twitch I might have imagined. “They could try. But then, I never sleep. Don’t get yourself hurt again. Yell if you need us.”
I nodded and went into the church, closing the door behind me. My right hand instantly started to ache, but I tried to pretend I was fine and called out, “Anyone here? Preacher? Pastor?” I couldn’t remember his name, and any scent was hidden beneath the reek of fresh paint. Massaging my hand, I walked through the dark foyer into the sanctuary. The daylight in the long, narrow building was shuttered away, but the air-conditioning wasn’t up to the job of the heat wave. The air in the old building was close and humid, smelling of New Orleans’ pervasive mold and the overriding paint stink, outgassing from the white, sun-heated walls. The floor was new hardwood, my flip-flops slapping. The white pews were old, looking as if they had been repurposed numerous times, sporting multilayers of paint at every scratch and nick. The rostrum on the uncarpeted dais was ancient, a scarred, fancy cross carved on the front. Celtic cross? No, the upright was longer than the arms. I didn’t know. Couldn’t remember, the effects of being blood-drunk from a witch spell thrown by a master vampire. The back wall showed no place for a choir but did have a half wall directly behind the rostrum and a door to either side. The smell of chlorinated water came from the half-wall opening, indicating a baptismal pool.
Rubbing my thrumming arm, I continued down the central aisle, making noise, picking up the scents of children, sweat, old cigarette smoke, and aftershave beneath the paint. From the back of the building I heard a toilet flush and smiled. Preachers had to pee too.
“Preacher?” I called again. I heard one of the front doors behind me open, and Eli’s scent swept through the old house turned church. So much for staying in the SUV in this heat. Nosy human.
“Yes?” From the door to the left of the rostrum a man came. Well, he was male and human, looking about twelve, no matter the scraggly mustache he sported. Yeah. Same church, same preacher. He held out his hand, walking closer. “I’m Charley—” He came to an abrupt stop about ten feet away, staring. His hand slowly fell. “You used to attend our congregation.”
I nodded.
“You stopped coming.”
I nodded.
“You’re Jane Yellowrock. The vampire hunter.”
I nodded again.
“What can I do for you, sister?”
I moved my massaging hand to my elbow, where the ache seemed to increase. “I don’t know. Not exactly.” I held out my damaged hand to show him the brightening red lines and felt my body listing to the side. I compensated by shuffling my flip-flops on the floor and caught my balance. “I was hit by a witch spell. One cast by a powerful vampire. I tried fire and light to drive it out, thinking, you know, vampire blood and the sun and all that. I don’t know what to try next. But I thought”—I gestured to the half wall behind the rostrum—“I thought maybe holy water.”
“We don’t believe in holy water, sister. But I can pray for you.”
“You don’t believe that the water recently used for baptism is touched by God? Because I can assure you”—I laughed, more a titter than a real laugh, sounding so very drunk—“vampires are scared silly of it.”
“Holy water is not the same . . . Never mind. Have you been drinking, sister?” he asked, earnest and kind—too kind—in his desire to help. Made me want to deck him. “If so, there are programs to help. I can assist you in finding them.”
“Preacher,” Eli said, striding toward me, his boots silent. “The lady hasn’t been drinking. She’s one of the few things standing between this city and another bloodbath, and she needs help. So, if you don’t mind, we’ll be taking advantage of the holy water in your baptismal thingy.” Without slowing his pace, Eli picked me up and carried me past the preacher.
“Sorry.” I waggled my fingers at the twelve-year-old human as Eli and I rounded the corner and the boy-preacher vanished from sight. “Sorry,” I called out, louder. “I’m saying I’m sorry a lot today,” I said to myself. Louder I added, “Sorry Eli’s so bossy.”
“Love you too, babe,” Eli said. And he threw me into the water.
I’d been baptized in a bend of a river when I was a teenager, the water in the swimming hole deep, cold, and still. I hadn’t thought about that in ages. But as I landed in the chlorinated water, eyes open and burning, seeing the blue tile and handrails beneath the water, the little rubber patches on the bottom of the pool to make it less slippery, loose strands of my black hair floating above me, I remembered. I remembered it all.
I remembered the feel of the preacher’s muscled arm beneath my hands. The wet chill of his hand on my nape, his other hand over my nose, closing it off. The sensation that jarred through me as he braced his feet on the rocky bottom and lowered me down. The way the brown water closed over my head. Chill. Remembering the sight of his face through the water, rippling.
The rush of water as he levered me back up, the sound of splashing. The sound of singing. The intense smell of river water. The feel of the river bottom beneath my bare feet. The knowledge that I was supposed to be a new person, and reborn. Again. I remember thinking that. Reborn. Again. As if I had been reborn before. And I had been reborn, every time I shifted. But this time, being reborn from the river water, it was supposed to bring me peace.
I wasn’t sure what peace really was—the English word hadn’t made a lot of sense to me at the time. I hadn’t known what it would mean for me, the rebel, the troublemaker at the children’s home, but I knew I wanted it. Wanted to throw myself into that sensation of tranquility, that new life that the preacher and his Bible had promised I would find. And as the chill water sluiced from me, there had been . . . something. Something—