Page 23 of Chapel at Ender’s Ridge (Ender’s Calling #1)

Sins Laid Bare

D ecker dreamt.

Pain shot through his gut until he trembled, and chills shuddered through him under a mound of woolen blankets. He faded in and out, frantic and hazy.

Rocks lashed to his chest pinned him to the bottom of the river where hands reached for him, bloated and rotting and foul.

Nathan leered at him, lurching down the alley.

He left strips of stitched skin in his bloody footprints.

Flowers bloomed, spring bloodroot, and Safine tore them to pieces.

Sap stained her hands and burrowed under her nails.

Nightmares blurred, faded, overshadowed by sickly pleasant dreams.

Laurie, with gentle, warm hands, tucked sun-soaked blankets around him.

Cricket clouded the room with cigarette smoke and curled up on his bed, snores rumbling into Decker’s ear.

Decker didn’t think the fading sliver of light through the drapes was a dream. Nor was Laurie, slumped in his chair in the corner.

Laurie, who jolted awake at the first creak of the bed and made his head ache as he hovered over him .

“Thank God, you’re finally awake.” Dark circles ringed Laurie’s eyes, and he wore the same clothes. Half-buttoned flaps of his shirt framed his silver crucifix.

Decker tasted copper, but when he raised a hand to his head there were only clean strands of hair. No blood, no evidence of what happened days ago. Relief crept in enough to relax him, until he struggled upright with another thought. “Sitara? She wasn’t well—”

“Lay down.” Laurie moved to press his shoulders back to the bed but then stopped short, hand coming to rest on the curved headboard. “Safine and her medicine helped. One of Lee’s horses didn’t make it, but she did.”

This time, when Decker sat up and eased against the headboard to inspect himself, Laurie didn’t stop him, only stepped back. The slash across his cheek had healed—along with his chest—in ridges of light brown.

No need to sew him back together like Nathan.

“You stayed,” Decker said.

Laurie picked at his fingernails, looking anywhere but at him. “If it wasn’t for you, I think I would have been killed. The least I could do was stay.”

Decker gave a pained, wry smile. The saloon was quiet below him, and he couldn’t seek out the steady murmur of Safine’s heartbeat. “What did they tell you?” he asked softly.

“Willa mentioned a Dr. Whitton. She’s convinced he’s the reason he was sewn up. After they…took care of him, she and Safine left.” Laurie spoke like he was balancing on the chapel’s peak, testing his footing.

Took care of him. A decent burial for an indecent man?

Despite his betrayal, Nathan had been his neighbor once.

More than a neighbor.

Nathan deserved to rest, free from the change that he’d never quite accepted.

Decker should have been with the others, helping them bury him.

Sometimes sickness took hold after feeding, but it’d never been like this, where he dreamt and thrashed in pools of bloody sweat.

Just one more oddity to add to the passing weeks.

If Laurie had been balancing at the chapel’s peak with his inquisitiveness, now he was in danger of tipping over the edge with the way he hovered in the corner and worried at the edge of his lip.

“You’re bursting at the seams with your questions, Mr. Lane,” Decker murmured, shifting the quilt to the side as he stood.

“Laurie,” he said. “You called me Laurie last night. We’re past formalities.” He sounded pleading, but Decker didn’t need convincing despite the arch of his brow.

He rummaged through his dresser drawers for a fresh shirt. “Questions, Laurie.”

“The night you took me to the plateau. I wasn’t seeing things. You had…these teeth.”

“You were quite sane. With your perception of me, at least.”

Laurie apparently wasn’t in the mood for insinuations. “Are you a demon?”

Decker’s knowledge of the biblical supernatural came from Thomas and it was shrouded in years gone by. As for demons, he’d never met one.

“I need human blood to survive. The sun is deadly and holy things burn like fire. And I need permission to enter the church,” he said .

“You can’t touch the Bible,” Laurie whispered, as if the revelation horrified him. He paced the edges of the small bedroom. “I think I’ve met someone like you back at seminary. One of the bishops only taught at night and never read from the scripts like most teachers did.”

A man of God unable to hold the very thing he dedicated his life to.

Decker almost felt sorry for the man. “I miss the sun more than the Bible,” Decker said dryly before Laurie thought too hard and hurt himself.

He had little interest in the book aside from discovering what was so damning about loving a person the same as you.

Decker guessed the answer wouldn’t be found in the Bible, existing only in the minds of those who thought they knew the will of God.

“Have you…” Laurie trailed off, as if unsure he wanted the answer to the question that tumbled out of him. “You haven’t compelled me?”

A faint smile brushed against Decker’s lips. “Your lust is entirely your own, Laurie.”

He flushed, but pressed on, following him when Decker tied his hair back and stepped into the hall. “Is Safine like you?”

“Safine is her own breed. Her cures for ailments are as unusual as she is. You should have noticed when she was trying to fix the man Willa brought in.”

“I didn’t want to be rude,” Laurie said, hesitating for a moment. “Is anyone here…human?”

“Not many. The ones who are human used to see us how they wanted to. Things changed a while back. And Willa’s human. Used to be,” Decker added thoughtfully. “She thinks Dr. Whitton has something to do with why she’s still around.”

Laurie followed him down the stairs at his heels.

The tables were empty, except for Cricket fast asleep, head pillowed on the crook of his arm, hand still wrapped around a half-drunk glass of whiskey. Decker shook his head as he went behind the bar, Laurie following.

“And what about him?” He nodded at Cricket.

A small smile tugged at Decker’s lips. “I’ll show you.” The pistol he pulled from under the bar was featherlight in his hands as he aimed it at Cricket and squeezed the trigger.

Laurie flinched.

Cricket shifted sleepily at the table.

The trigger clicked under Decker’s finger again before he smiled and slid it under the till. “Luck,” he said. “He’s survived this far from dumb luck—wasn’t even born with it, just won it in a damn faro game.”

Laurie gawped at him, as if expecting blood to start spilling from Cricket’s head.

“We don’t tell him about us,” Decker said, motioning for Laurie to follow him to the back room. He held a hand over the iron stove and found it blistering hot, flames licking at the door. Setting the coffee pot to boil, he glanced back at Laurie.

“You kept the stove lit.”

“And I poured drinks for some of the neighbors,” Laurie said faintly, eyes still round like he was waiting for a delayed shot to rip through the saloon.

Decker smiled.

The bartending preacher. That should go in the paper .

His smile faded, thinking of Nathan. He didn’t try hard enough to reason with him, help him. He’d been too careful to make sure Laurie wasn’t harmed.

“You…fed off Nathan,” Laurie said slowly. “Did you do the same to my uncle?”

Decker took a deep breath, the scent of fresh coffee beans warming the room as he ground them. “I don’t like to waste.”

Laurie turned pale again, unspeaking.

Shame buried itself fast and hard into Decker’s chest. He didn’t make it a habit to lie, but Laurie needed some comfort. “He died quickly. I can show you his resting place. When you’re ready.”

The water bubbled in the coffee pot and Decker sifted the grounds.

“Someday,” Laurie said. He picked at his nails again, a drop of blood welling at the crescent moon, and Decker reached for his hands.

Laurie stiffened. Pulling back, he laced his fingers together. His face showed the price of knowing exactly who was standing in front of him.

Unease was understandable. Expected. Of course it was. So why did his stomach clench as Laurie shied away from him?

Laurie, who clung to him when he had too many drinks; Laurie, who tried his best to be a good neighbor. Laurie, who wanted to know him .

“Now you know me. Are you better for it?” Decker asked, taking two tin cups and setting them on the warm side of the stove. “Do you wish you would have stayed in the safety of your chapel instead of knowing what’s out here? ”

Laurie looked like he wished he had, but he set his jaw. “I planned on staying here. I would have found out the truth eventually. At least I’m here to know the one who saved me, instead of buried next to my uncle.”

“If our town was right when you came, you would have been oblivious, caught in the fog with the other humans.” Steam curled from the coffee cups and he nudged one towards Laurie.

A frown pulled at him, but he accepted the brew and gingerly took it by the handle to avoid burning his fingers. “Elias saw past the fog.”

“Elias was lost in the occult. Magic can consume a person, making them more supernatural than human.”

Laurie changed the subject, rushing on. “How long has it been? Since you’ve been—like me?”

Decker sipped at his liquor-halved coffee and scalded his tongue. “I haven’t been human for over a hundred years.”

“Practically an antique.” Laurie’s eyes regained their sparkle over the rim of his cup, and Decker smiled.

The next week passed in a haze of polite but determined questions from Laurie.

Never too far from the Goose as if making up for lost time, he asked questions late at night, fighting sleep over a cup of coffee, and in the morning when he was joined by Lee and McKinney, he nearly quivered with questions to ask once they’d gone .

They didn’t speak of what lingered between them in hushed voices and legs brushing under the table, and they didn’t speak of the failing of Ender’s Blessing.