Page 33 of Chapel at Ender’s Ridge (Ender’s Calling #1)

Den of Iniquity

D ecker was drunk when Laurie found him at the inn’s polished bar.

Liquor had to be the reason for the cotton stuffed between his ears and the tilted ceiling. His clouded head was an aching reminder of why they were here; the threat of humanity hung over them all, and his drunkenness was just more evidence.

They had wasted precious time with their quarreling and it had only led to a sour taste in Decker’s mouth.

Laurie batted the half-drunk glass away, shoving it into a clinking triangle with the others. “You drank all this in an hour?” A frown bit into his face under frizzy curls. His shirt—one button off—was the only other indication his nerves ran thin after their squabble.

Decker caught him by the wrist and drew him closer. “I have a secret, Mr. Lane.”

A flush bloomed above Laurie’s collar as Decker leaned in, his mouth against his ear. “This whiskey here tastes like shit .”

The preacher yanked away, red creeping into his cheeks. “If we get caught at the church, how do you propose we’ll explain what we’re doing there? No one comes to pray in the middle of the night, especially smelling like the bottom of a whiskey barrel.”

“That’s where you come in, my darling Laurie.

” Decker turned back and lazily grinned, reaching for his confiscated glass to drain it.

“All you have to do is flash your pretty eyes and tell them you’re so sorry for seeking help in the middle of the night for your soaked neighbor and the father will be on his knees for you. ”

Laurie’s cheeks flushed scarlet and Decker’s nasty smile grew. Their quarrel clearly hadn’t done away with Laurie’s affections.

He stood, stumbling into Laurie.

Catching him, he muttered under his breath, “I’m not fond of swearing, but you have me ready to.”

Decker grinned at his arm around his waist. “The first step of giving into desires of the flesh. Be sure to tell me when you commit to the others.”

“The only other one I would commit is murder,” Laurie whispered harshly, jerking his arm away and leaving him behind as he strode to the door, Decker’s laughter stretching between them.

The taste of humanity only lasted as long as the linger of whiskey on his breath, and by the time Decker caught Laurie in the street, he made no other mentions of whiskey or wives or wants.

After a hard look at him, Laurie seemed satisfied with what he saw. “We’ll have to hurry if we don’t want to get caught in the sun.”

“I thought we weren’t outlaws and ruffians.”

“God will forgive me for these transgressions if it means saving your people. ”

Your people. As if Decker was a child of God sent down to shepherd his flock. Maybe it was true, or maybe Laurie was well-fed with delusions.

“Our people.”

Laurie stopped. “Ours?”

“Neighbors. You’re in this fight with us now,” Decker said softly.

He frowned and returned to his side like a burr latching onto wool as they turned a corner. “If we return empty-handed I will remain the same.”

Their quiet conversation didn’t disturb anyone as they stole through the maze of back alleys leading to the church. The moon arced overhead, drooping towards the west with each passing minute. They would have to be quick to make it home before sunrise threatened him.

Still foolish, preacher.

“After Cricket and Whitton, Ridgewater knows something isn’t right. They’ll find a way across the river soon, or send a posse. Our town is on the line.”

Laurie sunk his teeth into the edge of his lip and wrapped his arms more tightly around himself in his thick coat. “Then I hope Sister’s hunch was right.”

White steeples and engraved doors towered above them and Decker could sense the sudden tang of nervousness rolling off Laurie. Slotting the tip of his needle-thin knife into the keyhole, he cocked his head and listened for the metallic click of the pins in the silver lock.

Extravagance like this was never intended to help the needy; it existed only to boast wealth, like a canary in a gilded cage who would never see the mines. Hell would welcome the Father if this church enabled Whitton.

Decker nudged Laurie’s side. “Holy ground. You have to let me in.”

He startled and nodded, murmuring quick permission. Decker followed through the side wing lined with bright white candles. Carved reliefs of the holy saints in curls of painted wood gazed down at them.

Unlike Laurie’s chapel, the floor was swept and the air burned his eyes with incense and stale wine.

Neat rows of pews lined the sanctuary, polished mahogany gleaming under the pale light from arched windows on either side—plain against the broad stained glass depiction behind the altar.

Jesus, surrounded by his apostles in the garden, shining in jewel tones of colored glass and lead.

Must have cost a fortune. Sister was right, the church is too lavish for a prairie town.

Their footsteps echoed in the barren place. Decker cast his hearing wide, the patter of a mouse’s heartbeat tapping far beneath the floorboards.

“We’re alone.” Even his hushed voice rattled like scree down a mountainside in the silence.

Red light emanated from the glass holders of candles lit to remember the fallen, waiting for the prayers of those left behind. Even in death, choice was an illusion.

Laurie slipped between the pews as he searched for anything out of place.

Decker followed the tiny heartbeat and trailed a hand along the edge of the pews as he walked down the aisle.

A morbid sense of satisfaction lingered in him with each graze of his fingers against polished wood.

The priest would never allow him to enter.

Would hardly allow Laurie in the place of worship if he knew of his proclivity towards men.

Decker reveled in the sensation of existing where he was hated, in a land not built for men like him. He had carved his own destiny with bloodied hands and gnashing teeth. Whitton threatened his life— all their lives. Decker would put an end to it, as soon as he found the goddamn mouse.

The last pew shifted under his hand. Laurie glanced at him as he stopped. Wood and nails rattled when Decker grasped the seat and heaved, tipping it back until an inky pit yawned open in front of them.

Carefully carpentered boards jutted like teeth around the edge, seamlessly blending the disguise into the church. Rotted meat and damp mildew borne on stale air gusted from beneath their feet and warned them away.

Decker peered down the steep steps.

“Don’t leave me,” Laurie whispered and dragged the trap door shut behind them. Darkness crushed them as the last sliver of candlelight snuffed out.

“Decker.” Laurie’s breath was hot in his ear, and he reached behind him, finding Laurie’s clammy hand and raising it to his shoulder. His fingers sunk into the thick wool of his coat and he pressed closer, a step behind as they descended.

Trust became unspoken between them—if Decker told himself months earlier he would have trusted a preacher’s hand on him, he would have scoffed.

Now Laurie’s touch was almost a comfort, a closure to the door behind them and a steady, gentle push towards the rough-cut tunnel stretching before them.

Husks of grass roots reached for them like tortured souls through Decker’s dim, reddened gaze and he angled sideways as the tunnel stretched on.

Laurie shuddered behind him as his shoulders brushed the walls, and his voice dropped above a whisper. “I visited a church in New York with recently excavated catacombs. This feels like prairie dog tunnels, not a place where the church buries her dead.”

“These tunnels have been here for some time,” Decker murmured. “I doubt anyone finds their rest here.”

In several steps the passage widened into a room, but Laurie pressed even closer, his hand never leaving his shoulder. The foul odor threatened to suffocate them and Decker pulled his bandana over his nose, taking in a small shallow breath as his reddened gaze flicked over the interior.

Shit.

He reached for the oil lamp. “You need to see this.”

Flames devoured the wick and light flooded the room.

The table in the center bled a dark maroon, layered thick like a painted-over fence. A narrow cot took up the back wall, thin blankets rumpled over stained sheets. Three cages, cobwebbed and rust-pocked, lined the left side of the chamber.

“This must’ve been what Nathan was after,” Decker murmured. “He’d bring them here for Whitton to use for spare parts. So far under the church nobody would ever hear them.”

Old hinges shrieked in protest as he pushed one of the cage doors until it clanged shut. Nathan had come for Laurie to take him back, but why? What was so different about the young preacher from any other miner or drunkard plucked from the streets above?

Can’t question insanity.

He’d lose his own mind trying to make sense of it all .

The newspaper, a distraction to blame the shifting veil of Ender’s Ridge and pin the disappearances on tall tales of creatures instead of the filth happening under the church, had worked.

No one came looking for Whitton’s victims.

A hand hung limply over the rim of a wooden bucket as if it was still clutching at hope after being hacked off and discarded in a pail of fingers and gutted entrails.

Laurie muffled a wet sound with the crook of his elbow jammed across his mouth. Decker nudged one of the pails with his foot and wrinkled his nose at the sludge.

How many of them belonged to creatures that had disappeared from Ender’s Ridge?

Or humans no one would miss, taken from the streets?

Was this any different than what he was forced to do to survive?

Was ending up drained, floating facedown in the river, better than being cut into pieces and slopped in a bucket?

Laurie’s face looked as sickly as the bloated remnants of Whitton’s experiments. “The church had to have known.” Laurie made a choked sound, his voice strung tight as he said, “The church isn’t blameless, but covering up this ?”