Chapter 5

It took several precious seconds for my eyes to adjust to the brutal sunlight without blinding me with tears. But once they did, I grasped at the air as if to wipe this new horror away. Weeds twisted through what was once the church parking lot, snaking in through broken windows of rusted cars and almost totally camouflaging others.

I didn't see Hendry anywhere.

I drew in a deep breath and held it, searching the weeds, cars, and the street beyond for movement. I didn't even know what the Berkano vampires looked like, but I would probably find out soon enough.

With my heart sprinting ahead, I tiptoed off the porch and sped my steps toward the west wing where a ladder leaned against the church's roof. Large chunks of that part of the building had caved in years ago from flooding, but not the nursery where we kept Mom and some classrooms at the innermost section of the wing.

I kept going on quiet feet, searching for Hendry. It was kind of ironic that the cars I passed likely still had the keys inside the church somewhere, but where else would we go? The church was a safe place when we followed through on our sacrifices. We had electricity, running water, and plenty of food, too. It was the kind of place no one ever wanted to leave. Including me.

More than halfway to the ladder that led up to the church roof, a terrible shriek pebbled goose bumps up my spine. I froze, trying to hear anything more over the blood thundering between my ears.

Hendry appeared from at the edge of the roof on the west wing. He stopped when he saw me, then looked over his shoulder toward the nave.

Our sacrifices were always placed outside the kitchen door afterward, which was on the opposite side of where we were now. No one knew why exactly the Berkano required a monthly sacrifice or what they did with the bodies afterward. When the Rift happened, Dad had a vision, sent to him by Sandreka the sun goddess, of a noose. The hanging ritual worked because the Berkano would always leave us in peace. I assumed they drained the blood from the bodies left for them. Maybe that was their only food source, since few people braved the outside.

But if Kit was hanged last night, then the vampires would have stolen him away already. It was daylight now, but I supposed there was enough shadow for them to be near. Maybe they somehow knew I'd botched last night's sacrifice and were coming for me. My insides squirmed, and my feet itched to race back to the church door and beg them to let me back in.

Allison was right. I wouldn't survive a day out here, because the only witch spell I knew was how to make things smell differently, bad or good. Other than that, I could sing, and in a world where the "no talking" rule had been drilled into my head since birth, singing likely wouldn't fly too well out here. I knew jack about survival, so as the chief hangman's daughter, maybe I should've considered that fact during last night's ritual. Yet even if I'd thought more about the consequences, I doubted I would have changed what I'd done.

I lifted my foot for another step, but movement from the roof paused it midair. Hendry flashed his arm out and shook his head before turning once again toward something I couldn't see.

He spread his fingers wider on his outstretched arm and backed up so the heel of his cowboy boot bit into the very edge of the roof. Was he debating whether to turn us back around? A cold chill clenched around my chest. Whatever was happening might be because of what I didn't do last night. Could the Berkano know somehow that the girl who was meant to die didn't?

I stood still, quieting my breaths, watching.

What could make Hendry back away from something in the first place? He was built like a building. When members of his hunting party didn't return, I always assumed he'd murdered them. Yes, I shouldn't make assumptions about someone I didn't even know, but it sure seemed a legit reason why the loner guy who never spoke a word to me before today was a one-man party.

Don't fuck up, he'd said.

I'd done much more than that.

Several seconds later, he jerked his head for me to follow once again and then disappeared across the roof. With my teeth on edge, I sped my pace until I stepped into the bed of a rusty old pickup truck that had been backed into the parking space. The ladder rose from the tail end, wedged into place by a pile of cinder blocks.

I lifted my hands to a rung and climbed. After I'd hauled myself up, I squinted into the morning sun and took in my surroundings. Stretching to my right for maybe thirty feet was a giant hole. Almost the entire west wing looked as if it had been picked apart from the topside down. Thick wires poked from stained, crumbling walls inside Sunday school rooms I'd spent my childhood in.

The one I peered down into had a broken treehouse inside it, its support beams hanging loose so it looked as if it were bending over like a cardboard goddess. Outside its lower door was the giant blue beanbag that was always losing its stuffing and that would catch us when we jumped off the top like five-year-old kamikazes. Now, the beanbag held a stagnant brown pool. And my kamikaze friends were all gone, either hanged, participating in one of Hendry's never-come-home hunting parties, or just mysteriously...gone.

I sidestepped the room below on the soggy foot of ceiling not yet destroyed and rushed across to another ladder. This one lay flat to connect to the roof of the next building over. Magic flared up from it in glowing white embers and laced the air with a cocoa and ginger scent, a form of magic I'd never smelled before. Since my magic was scent, I was particularly sensitive to odors and their ability to kick my memories to the forefront of my brain.

I glanced around for Hendry or whatever he'd been concerned with earlier, but I saw no sign of him. The sun's harsh rays beat into my back as I crossed the ladder on all fours, causing sweat to make my clothes cling to places they really shouldn't. My tongue already felt like it had swelled in size, but I had no water, no supplies. Hendry had taken it all with him, if the contents of his black bag were even for me. He'd told me to keep up, and oh, I would keep up all right. My boot would keep up his ass until he belched leather.

No wonder everyone on his hunting parties died.