Page 45 of Chapel at Ender’s Ridge (Ender’s Calling #1)

He’d fed, but it wasn’t enough. Not when fresh blood beckoned him from the man he’d always wanted .

This is what I deserve.

For a life of running, for an ocean of bodies, for letting down Safine and the town, their home, this was what he deserved—

No. Not anymore.

This wasn’t what any of them deserved. They needed more time.

Please, I need more time.

Decker didn’t struggle.

Laurie put his hands on him as if in a trance, running down his face, pulling him closer. His fangs sank in like hot coals and a strangled sound escaped Decker.

Laurie knelt next to him, fingers buried in his skull and fangs lost in his throat.

Elias stroked his hand over Laurie’s head. He leaned closer, face coming into focus. “You will die and Ender’s Ridge will be forgotten, finally.”

His muffled voice faded in and out of Decker’s mind. He only wanted to rest. A nap in sun-warmed furrows of a freshly plowed field, the call for supper, racing the cattle home—

No.

India hadn’t been his home for a long time. His home was beside him, fangs in his neck, blood dripping away instead of being consumed.

Not drinking. Staying there, unmoving.

Distraction.

Decker forced air in his lungs.

The flames rushed higher, catching on the walls, and heat blistered at his legs.

Laurie’s hand brushed his cheek, gentle and trembling, and Decker was too far gone to do anything but let out the faintest sound as Elias clutched his crucifix, the sharp points glinting above Laurie’s bowed spine.

Fangs slowly slipped from his neck, replaced with the gentle press of blunt, human, teeth. Sunlight prickled through the holes in the roof.

The tenth plague. They were out of time.

Humanity had caught them, and Death would soon collect them.

Laurie whirled, catching Elias’s wrist as he slashed towards him, struggling. “Your curse is our curse ,” he ground out. “All of us.”

Including you, Elias Lane.

The old reverend was now as vulnerable as the rest of them.

He was human with the rest of them.

Soft footsteps and gentle hands, and then Safine’s lips were to his ear, her voice thick, wavering. “I’ve got it. Give me a few more minutes, darling. ‘Til death do us part.” Deep-set pain replaced dimness when she clasped a makeshift bandage around his neck.

Slipping her arm around him, she hauled him up; Decker staggered to his feet, leg dangling, spasming. Dizziness flooded him and his knuckles turned ashen on the edge of the pew as Safine disappeared into the parsonage.

“‘But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, even that prophet shall die’.” Laurie cornered him by the pulpit, flames on three sides and his nephew before him, and through the haze Decker thought he saw fear flicker across Elias’s gaunt face.

“I tried to help her—”

“You tried to fix a problem that doesn’t exist, while she died alone.” Laurie’s voice cut with rage at his lost family, the only one who understood him, dead.

Keep stalling.

Decker rasped, “I could have helped if you hadn’t taken Safine.” Black spots clouded his eyes and he dropped the soaked cloth to catch his balance. Warmth streamed down his neck.

They looked to him, as if both remembering they weren’t the only souls in the chapel.

A sneer curled Elias’s lip. “You wouldn’t have helped me.”

“If you weren’t a lying son of a bitch I would have.” Decker smiled faintly. “But it was too late for her, and it’s too late for you, Elias.”

Smoke billowed from the parsonage room as the quilt dropped away.

Laurie flew to Safine’s side, snatching the book and leaping into the circle of smoldering herbs, the incantation streaming from his lips, catching on the writhing smoke. Twisting words of Latin shook the chapel as the curse began to unravel.

The reverend’s mouth twisted in a snarl and he snatched a lamp from the pew, thick glass shattering at Laurie’s feet. Blue flames erupted with the oil and engulfed him.

Laurie did not waver. Voice strengthened, rising above the din outside as the heavens split open, sun-boiled rain lashing against the chapel. The fire inside roared, licking at the ceiling, at the rattling windows.

Safine cursed and threw her arm up to shield her from the flames, stumbling back and blindly reaching for the blankets heaped on the bed .

Decker’s mind went silent. His chest, hollow, familiar.

Laurie unraveled the curse, word by word, the final plague shifting and drawing back.

Good, preacher. Keep going.

Decker’s bones straightened with a soft pop .

The curse was breaking.

Humanity fleeing.

Decker drew himself up, testing his leg. Horrible, but he’d manage. When he touched his neck, there was only healing skin. He was still weak, still almost-human, but if killing Elias Lane for good took the last of his strength, so be it.

Wind howled as Elias did when Laurie did not stop, even as the flames ignited his hem and stretched towards the book in his hands.

Louder, each incantation becoming a thundering declaration against the storm raging outside, Laurie did not waver.

Decker limped to the edge of the first pew. Leisurely.

Witnessing his crumbling plan in rapt horror, the reverend never stood a chance.

“Take your last communion, Elias.” Thick oil spilled across his tongue when Decker crushed the lamp-well to his lips, gripping the back of his skull. Teeth cracked against the glass.

A thick, gurgling cry left him and Decker knotted his hand in his hair, dragging him to the engulfed fire of the pulpit like he’d dragged Safine to the pyre. Like he was speaking in tongues, flames writhed from his mouth and flashed in his eyes until Decker saw his reflection.

The smell of charred flesh overpowered smoldering herbs, and the cries of the reverend rang out through the chapel as he clawed at his face; the desiccated husk of his body burned from the inside out, outside in.

Fire ate through his eyes first, melting and dripping like bloody tears.

Then his sallow cheeks, flames gnawing at paper.

His cracked teeth crumbled through the hole in his jaw, scattering onto the floor.

Mouth stretched in a howl and Elias staggered through the chapel that was once his, cursing and threatening a reckoning that would never come. When he finally sagged to his knees, his lungs turned to ash, Decker leaned down.

“‘With what judgement ye judge’—you’re an educated man, you know the rest,” Decker said softly. With one, small nudge, Elias tipped into his grave and landed with a dull, finally-dead thump.

Flames flared and the peak of the chapel cracked. Rain strengthened, battering the roof until it worked a hole between the boards, hissing, taming the flames.

Laurie pressed on.

There was no trace of the uncertainty that followed him like a shadow when he’d arrived at Ender’s Ridge. Laurie spoke like a preacher to his flock.

Fire smoldered along Laurie’s waist and his voice shook, the book slipping from his hands.

Decker limped for him, dragging his still-healing leg behind him, and snatched a blanket from Safine. They beat at the flames, snuffing out the worst of it.

Heat seared his skin when Decker slipped his hands under Laurie’s, and he hissed through the pulsing ache.

The chapel shuddered, holding its breath, flames dying.

“Almost there, preacher,” Decker whispered .

Through gritted teeth, burnt hands trembling in Decker’s, his preacher forced out the last incantation.

Ender’s Ridge went still.

Rain died down to a gentle patter through the holes of the roof, sizzling when it fell onto glowing coals. Harsh wind heaved one last sigh, as though it was exhausted as they were, and eased to a soft breeze, carrying the last of the rain with it. Only the sunlight remained, dappled and gleaming.

Let it end.

Elias Lane was gone. The husk of his body crumbled as two pigeons swooped overhead and returned to their roost in the rafters.

They didn’t mind the saved town, only that their home was peaceful and they could return to preening their iridescent feathers above the group who gathered their wits about them.

Laurie sagged in Decker’s arms, both collapsing as he brushed away embers. They’d survived as one.

Laurie, Laurie, Laurie.

His shaken breaths sounded like a man on his deathbed.

“You did good, Laurie. Real good,” Decker murmured as his forehead rested against him, exhaustion making him heavy in his arms.

“Almost became a martyr if he’d thrown another lamp at me,” Laurie gritted out, his strained laughter huffing against Decker’s chest.

Decker’s eyes stung.

Only smoke .

Drawing back to look at Laurie, his gaze flickered over the ashen tatters of his clothes and the face gone pale under the soot .

Laurie’s teeth clenched against a small sound when Decker’s touch grazed over the burnt skin of his hands. Black flaked away. He was healing.

Scars were an inevitable part of who they were, and now the three of them were forever bound by memories of fire from the same man—both an ever-present reminder of what they’d endured and a blessing they were still here to endure it, unlike some of the others.

The fresh graves down the street were testament. Cricket’s grave at Amaretto was testament.

Decker wasn’t sentimental enough to think Cricket would be proud; no, he’d smoke a few and drink and tell an off-color joke about how the reverend’s ashes would make good eye-paint for the girls at the dance hall.

He glanced up at Safine, hovering by the door.

Sister Inez was with her when they left the chapel.

Safine had returned alone.

Her teeth sunk into her lip and she dragged in a half breath. “Inez got the damned snake.” Her voice broke as she wiped her hands on her ruined dress. “She just didn’t time it right.”

Laurie let out a defeated sound, tipping his head back against Decker’s chest. “Oh, God , is she alive? Safine, please—”

Safine scuffled the toe of her boot against the charred circle of herbs on the floor. “She can be a nun with one hand. Willa’s mindin’ her now. With the supplies from Three Hawks, I think…I think I can patch her up. She’ll be alright, if she remembers,” she said, trying to sound convincing.

She lingered, unmoving.

Easing Laurie to lean against the pew, Decker stood .

Bottle-green eyes flashed with tears that refused to fall until he was there, arms around slumped shoulders. Decker held Safine like it was the last time and she clung to him, head buried in his neck and fingers holding tight enough to bruise.

“It’s over.”

“I—f uck , I didn’t think—”

“I know, Safi.”

Minutes slipped by. Like it was once again only the two of them finding their way in a world not kind to them. Then they’d found Ender’s Ridge, and each other, and the world grew a little brighter.

Safine’s voice strengthened. “Until death do us part?”

“I think that’s how it goes.” Decker smiled into her smoke-tinged curls.

Laurie gingerly got to his feet, wincing and trying out a tiny smile. “I haven’t performed a wedding yet, but you have it right.”

Safine untangled herself from Decker and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “So now the real problem,” she murmured, peering into the gaping hole. “How’d the bastard rise from the dead?”

“The dead don’t normally rise here, I assume,” Laurie said.

Fast learner.

Decker’s light tone didn’t betray the worry settling in him.

“Hope he wasn’t the second coming of Christ.” The two empty graves next to Thomas Haven may not have been taken by grave-robbers.

But he had yet to see them stalking around town, blowing smoke and claiming to be prophets.

“We have plenty to rebuild. Let’s worry about what we can fix. ”

As they left the ruined chapel behind them and reunited with their town—their family—Decker didn’t think he’d ever worry about another thing in his long life.

His home was here. His happiness was here, begging to be taken.

Ender’s Blessing returned. Dazed and forgotten, the people of Ridgewater wandered back to their homes, sure to concoct some story about how the river froze and they tried to fight their neighbors with horns and wings—ridiculous notions, really.

The neighbors, with their horns and wings and hands— hand , in Sister Inez’s case—tended to each other with the care of a tight-knit family.

Gibson and his own family returned to their ranch; he and Callie became distant when the Blessing returned. The two close-knit kids remained sharp, letting themselves behind the bar to jostle each other for shots of whiskey for the road.

Ender’s Calling wasn't restricted only to the town, it seemed. The taller of the two Gibson kids, eyes twinkling under a mass of dark curls barely contained under a handkerchief, asked him for a job. Decker said he’d consider it.

He had a feeling Safine wasn’t going to stick around behind the bar long.

Sister Inez couldn’t understand what happened to her hand—with the Blessing, her stern brows softened and forgetfulness clouded her mind, no matter how many times Safine told her, yes , those were her very own white boots and she had gone dancing with them at the hall on many occasions.

The Blessing couldn’t remove a deeper bond for long, and Safine pushed a second bed next to hers so she could change Sister’s bandage in the night.

Her arm would heal—though Sister Inez was less than pleased with the idea of bed rest, and less so with Willa insisting on it.

Victory was bittersweet. Always had been and would continue to be as long as Decker was alive.

Laurie was also bittersweet.