But no one believed him. They just added it to the list of tall tales he always spun.
Despite Cricket’s knack for exaggeration, he seemed oblivious to the Blessing that cloaked their town and shielded creatures from most humans. Horns turned to hats, forked tongues disregarded as heat exhaustion, disappearances written off as drunken men losing their way in the wastelands.
Decker thought maybe Cricket saw them as they were.
The kid was just too foolish to mind.
Decker drained his whiskey glass to wash away the taste of gunpowder and savor the last dregs of his humanity.
Liquor was one of the few human substances he could still consume without feeling ill, though whiskey couldn’t cushion the ache in his gut and the irritability grinding at his bones with the knowledge that he had to feed soon.
There was no true justice in the West, but Decker tried to pick his kills carefully—choking down thick copper and moving on was easier if the people had been a problem or had no one to miss them.
It was just what he had to tell himself to not go mad.
“A round on the gentleman who disrupted our night!” Decker called out, making his final decision and breaking the seal from a bottle of Northern whiskey he’d special-ordered before the label change. Authentic, in high demand, and with just the right hint of oak, it was the perfect peace-offering to tear down the man’s defenses.
The man wouldn’t dare say no—not after being allowed to stay and keep his winnings, which were just enough to pay for his soon-to-be remarkable tab.
The woman at the piano plunked out a few more notes with her gnarled fingers. Her gilt-edged cane soon tapped the floor and replaced her pitiful attempt at music as she wove through the tables to meet Decker at the bar.
“Cricket,” he called into the back room and waved away the cigar smoke trailing between the faded maroon curtains. “Be useful and tell Safine we’re fixing to have a busy night.”
Decker rolled up his sleeves and tugged away the loose leather cord from the top section of his hair. Black strands brushed his upper arms before he re-tied his hair tightly at the crown of his head and got to work.
It would have been easier to take the shears to his hair like Cricket, but part of him clung to facets of his old life, of hands working warm oil through the strands after his family sat for a meal together. Memories ghosted back faintly at times, spices that warmed a human body from the inside out. Deep red, dandelion-yellow, earthy green. He’d never been able to find them once he’d come to America from India—not that it mattered anymore.
His life was here. His town, his saloon, his wife.
Safine bounded down the stairs in a sweet, earthy cloud of sagebrush and hackberry. She’d been working on her witching, as she always did when she could catch a free moment from the saloon, and he tossed her a rag to wipe her purple-stained hands.
“Which asshole shot the clock?” She squinted at her warped reflection in the till, wiping away a smudge of lip rouge bleeding into her pale complexion.
Decker nodded towards him. Her mouth twitched in a smile and bottle-green eyes danced up to meet his deep brown ones. “I’m low on supplies.”
“Couldn’t you have made do with herbs for your witching instead of body parts?” he asked under his breath and took the two glasses she poured, sending them down the rail into eager hands.
“Yarrow and cat’s tongue don’t have the same kick that a man’s liquor-addled brain does.” Safine grinned and poured a third. She smoothed the ruffles of her creamy dress and fished out a tiny oilskin pouch. The fine, nearly colorless grains of powder dissolved in the whiskey with a quick swirl of the glass.
Safine’s scars on her hands mirrored his own—pale ridges that rippled across their knuckles and trailed up their arms—and the match to his ring graced her slender finger. The soft metal of both bore the scratches and dents of seven years wrenching theGooseinto a functioning saloon after Safine’s late husband let it fall into disrepair.
Their wedding bands were the only part of them that didn’t raise eyebrows—golden collars tethering painted circus animals together to convince the audience of their authenticity. Their marriage afforded them both a level of normalcy and they found folks cared less about a married couple than they did a stranger and a widow; even Ender’s Ridge wasn’t without antiquated judgement.
Wedding rings were a stifling tradition they took advantage of, and Decker and Safine shamelessly flaunted their immunity.
Safine waited until the powder melted into the whiskey before she waved Cricket over. “Tell your sharpshooter friend this is his last drink because we ain’t letting him back after tonight.”
“And don’t drink it.” Decker raised an eyebrow at him.
Cricket grinned. “I’d never do such a thing.”
When he wanted to, Cricket could pull charm out of his ass like a damn rabbit from a hat. A handshake and a wide grin later—bordering on smug, since Cricket always wanted the last word—the stranger accepted the whiskey and Decker caught shreds of information as the men settled into another game of faro, accusations set aside.
Mr. Rotham was hopeful to work in the amorite mines just west of Ender’s Ridge. No children. Wedding ring, but he didn’t mention a wife.
No one will miss you.
Safine piled her curls atop her head, tendrils of copper-red twining with white strands at her right temple as she tied it back with a black velvet ribbon. “What’s your plan this time?”
