The Hallowed Ones

wouldn’t let him.”

Alex looked at me. “This place will be overrun. Vamps pop up faster than Whac-a-Moles.”

I didn’t bother to ask him what a Whac-a-Mole was. I nodded. “I know. But the Hexenmeister wants to try to stop them. He’s asked us to meet him at the Hersberger house before sunset.”

“Wait . . . he wants ‘us’?”

“I told him everything.” I looked up at him. “He won’t hurt you. He needs your help.”

Alex lifted a brow. “Your wizard wants to play a little arson?”

“I assume so.”

“I like burning things. I think.” He screwed up his face. “Last thing I set fire to was a couch in college. This will be way cooler.”

I elbowed him in the ribs. “There is nothing ‘cool’ about this.”

“Just a little levity. Though . . . not every guy gets to go play firebug with a wizard and Bonnet the Vampire Slayer.”

I was going to tell him that he had no idea what was in that house, but . . . maybe he did. Instead, I asked: “How’s Sunny?”

“She’s okay. I think. I keep staring at her and fidgeting. I think she’s annoyed at that.” His tone suddenly turned doubtful. I was reminded of what Frau Gerlach had said about men being useless in death and childbirth.

I lifted myself off the floor and trotted back to the paddock. Sunny was wrapped up in Alex’s blanket. Her tail thumped when she saw me.

“Hi, girl. How’s my mama-to-be?”

She licked my face. I unwrapped her from the blanket and ran my hands over her belly. The puppies felt calm. Her head was cool. I bent down to kiss her ear.

“Has she been drinking and eating?”

“She had dog food this morning. She hasn’t had much of an appetite since then, though she’s been drinking. She hasn’t moved except to go outside to pee.”

“I think she’ll be ready to go in the next day, definitely.” I arranged the blanket back over her body. “It’s nice of you to share your blanket with her.”

He sniffed his sleeve. “I think I smell like dog, though.”

“Better than smelling like a butcher shop.”

He leaned over and sniffed my neck. “I also detect garlic.”

I grimaced at him. I wasn’t much in the mood for play. Once Alex saw the Hersberger house, I was betting that he wouldn’t be, either.

* * *

I was terrified to take Alex into our world.

I tugged his sleeves down over his wrist bones to hide his tattoos, insisted that his suspenders were straight, and jammed Joseph’s old hat over his eyes. I hoped that he would pass for Plain from a distance, hoped that no one would get too close. He let me fuss over him like a mother hen before reminding me: “Daylight’s burning.”

I led him out of the barn, my sweaty hand in his. The sun cast our shadows long over the striped fields. I hoped that anyone who spied us from afar would think that we were simply young lovers enjoying the molten evening and leave us be.

I hoped.

I took him the long way through the fields, away from the roads. “How far is it?” he asked.

“Just ahead.” I pointed to a dot on the horizon. “That house.”

We approached slowly, and the dot resolved to a white house surrounded by a white fence. The front door was shut. There were no buggies or horses tied up at the gate, but I was still uncertain that the house was empty. Pine boxes stood empty against the side of the house—the larger ones for Ruth, her brother, and their parents. The small ones were still inside.

“Stay here,” I ordered, pointing to a tall hay bale.

Alex shook his head. “There are . . . bodies in there. There could be more than you’re reckoning. I’m coming with you.”

“I’ll check and make sure that no one’s there. I’ll come out on the porch and wave for you to come in.”

He looked at me dubiously.

“I have the Himmelsbrief.” I patted my pocket. “You can hear me scream from this distance.”

He acquiesced. “Five minutes.”

Neither one of us had a watch, but it sounded good. I nodded sharply. “Five minutes.”

I stepped out from behind the bale. Sweat broke out on the back of my neck. I was about to enter this house, full of dead, all alone.

Resolutely, I put one foot before the other, until I reached the gate. I unlatched it and let myself into the yard. The shadow of the house fell over me, the sun behind it. I was all too aware that the vampires only needed a shadow to survive, mentally calculating how many steps it was from the door to the patch of sun beyond the gate.

Something white moved in the corner of my eye, and a squeak escaped my lips. But it was only the white horse, standing at the edge of the fence.

I whistled to him. But he stood, rooted, on the other side of the yard. It was as if he sensed where the property line was. He could smell it. Smell the death here.

I walked up to the front step. The front door was closed but unlocked, and the windows were still open to give the house the opportunity to air out. The knob was slick on my hand as I shoved the door open.

“Hello?” I called. My voice was dry and cracked. I licked my lips. “Herr Stoltz? Frau Gerlach?”

Silence radiated through the building.

“Anyone there?”

No one answered me. And I was too afraid to continue farther alone.

I turned on my heel, walked down the step. I lifted my hand to wave to Alex but dropped it down to my side.

A plume of dust was lifting down the dirt road. I squinted, trying to distinguish who it was. A familiar figure held the reins, nodded to me as he pulled his horses up to the gate. The Hexenmeister.

I hurried to meet him.

The old man eased himself down from the step of his buggy. Herr Stoltz had a two-seated courting buggy, like Elijah. Only his was much, much older and showed bits of rust at the seams and along the inside tracks of the wheels. He tied his graying black mare to the fence post. The horse flicked her ears at the house, turned away.

“It’s okay, girl,” the Hexenmeister muttered at her. “We won’t be long.” He glanced at the opposite side of the yard, at the white horse frozen in place.

“I dinna recognize that horse.”

My mouth flattened. “He’s from Outside. I found him a few days ago . . . with a bloody saddle. And a foot still in the stirrup. I hoped that he would just go on . . .”

He whistled for the horse, muttered something in Hochdeutsch that the breeze ripped away before I could distinguish it. The horse picked its way carefully around the perimeter of the property and joined the black mare at the fence. Herr Stoltz shook some oats from his pocket, let the shy horse eat from his palm.

“Ja, there is evil in that house.” He explained, “A white horse is a sign of God’s purity. It will not willingly walk where the Darkness falls.” He rubbed the horse’s nose. “Where’s your friend?”

I gestured with my chin. “There.”

Alex emerged from behind the haystack, his hands loose at his side and his head lowered. I could not see his face beneath this hat. My heart quickened uncomfortably, and not just because I was exposing him to the possibility of discovery.

The Hexenmeister looked him up and down as he approached. “Good evening, young man.”

The Outsider stuck his hand out. “I’m Alex. You must be the wizard.”