Chapter 2
The Devil’s Town
Decker awoke with a start.
His hand stung from flinging it against the headboard, fitful thrashing as he always did after feeding.
He groaned, staring at the ceiling and trying to block out the instant flood of Rotham, blood, kill.
The chapel light.
Matted corn husks rustled inside his thin mattress as he rolled to the side, squinting at the sliver of dusk visible through the curtains. His bones ached with a brief taste of humanity.
Must have slept longer this time. Maybe a day, maybe two.
Dusty boards creaked under him as he slowly rose, dressed, and scrubbed away dust and dried blood. He tied his hair away from his face and glanced towards the window again.
Not a soul had opened the chapel doors since Decker had closed them three years ago. Curiosity overcame the part of him that chastised nosiness.
Prying the nail loose that pinned the curtains to the wall, he tugged a corner open, and the nail rattled through a knot in the plank floor.
Harsh edges of the steeple pierced through the sunset and wooden shingles flaked away from the skeleton of a once-fine church. The holy building was now wind-whipped boards and broken windows holding services for vermin.
Empty until a few days ago.
Decker descended the creaky stairs, his mind far from the liveliness filling the saloon.
Regulars clustered between two tables with cards at each and filled cups. Safine always carried on the business while he recovered from his feeding. He wound between them, murmuring a quiet “Good evening”, and, “I’m just fine, headache’s gone”.
Safine leaned behind the bar, muttering as she fished out the nail clanking in the bottom of her cup. Dark circles smudged her eyes—likely why she was drinking strong black at sundown—but she was ever lively as she hooked the rusted metal and flicked it at him.
“What the hell were you up to, stompin’ around up there?”
Decker mopped up the coffee droplets with one of the towels, too distracted to answer her. “You see it the other night when we came back?”
“See what?” Fingers deep in her lukewarm coffee again, searching for more things fallen from the ceiling, she was only half interested.
“There was a light at the chapel.”
“Was there?” She finally drained the chipped cup, acting unbothered with the news. Her eyes still turned wary when they met with Decker’s.
Their run-in with the last preacher hadn’t ended well for any of them—Elias Lane had been a pious snake of a man who ruined their town, claiming evil slept there.
Evil slept even more soundly after Decker put him six feet under. No one else had tried to take up residence in the chapel since.
A stranger fresh off the train wandered in, a thin layer of dust clinging to his freshly shined boots. He wavered between tables instead of slinging heartily into a seat like most did. Finally, he joined a card game at the second table, his back to the wall and his shoulders tight.
Ender’s Ridge bustled with life most days. Travelers from the train at Ridgewater who couldn’t know better and crossed the bridge, vaqueros rounding up their cattle at the stockyards, gold rushers heading further west all stopped in for a drink—or to restock at McKinney’s Mercantile, or tap their foot to the girls at the dance hall, unaware they could be trapped there until they danced bloody through their boot-soles and fell victim to the wide-eyed, sharp-toothed fae.
Any human without magic remained blissfully unaware of what the town hid from them with Ender’s Blessing.
Decker could flash his fangs at a stranger and all they’d see was a friendly smile.
And you, with the heartbeat like a scared little rabbit. Who are you? Why are you here?
The heartbeat he didn’t know murmured at the edge of his mind. A constant ticking like the broken clock, calling to him.
Decker wasn’t a nosy person. Like most folks in town, he kept to himself. He couldn’t even enter the chapel unless he was invitedin—like Safine had done for him years ago when he killed the last reverend.
