Chapter 14
Scarlet Painted Doors
Decker cocked his head.
There it was again, from the alley. He silently got to his feet; he hated to leave her, but Sitara would be fine for a moment, and Laurie’s fevered prayers went silent two hours ago. The preacher wouldn’t be answering his visitor. Decker slipped out of the back door of the barn, keeping to the shadows as though he were one himself.
Barely breathing, he edged around the corner.
A lanky figure hunched over the parsonage door, claws ripping at the handle.
Decker cleared his throat and a canine face snapped up, jagged lips pulling tight over splintered yellow teeth.
Nathan looked worse than the last time Decker saw him like this, snarling and straining against chains in the back of the barber. Barely human, hardly animal, his golden eyes slitted.
Roped muscles writhed under the shredded shirt that clung to him like the last bit of his humanity, and the wolf shuddered, lashing out with a snarl as the doorframe split under his claws.
Laurie, hope your prayers made you tired enough to sleep like a fucking stone.
“You’re not here about newspapers this time.” Gravel crunched underfoot when he moved forward and Nathan’s scattered heartbeat pulsed in his head like thunder. “What do you want with the preacher?”
Nathan snarled, guttural and broken, bloody drool slicking the patches of brown fur sprouting from his neck. “Got to get him for—for me, got to,” he said, his voice as fragmented as he appeared.
Decker eased closer. “What do you need him for?”
“Not me…not me…heneeds him—”
“Who, Nate?” Gentling his voice, Decker spoke to him like he had done years ago. “Who are you getting Laurie for?”
He staggered in place. Spine cracked and bent, rippling under his shirt like it was sawing through his skin.
A pang of pity shot through Decker. The moon had always been hard on Nathan, worsening the unpredictable symptoms of his conditions, but never left him like this, half formed and incoherent.
“You can tell me.” Decker reached out, slowly, his hand grazing the misshapen mass of his shoulder.
We knew each other once. Please grant me this.
Nathan steadied under his touch, his gaunt face lifting. “You—you got….weak,James.” His eyes burned, desperation and fury igniting him.
Gnarled claws lashed out.
Decker stumbled back, cheek split and stinging as the alley caved in on his vision.
Nathan moved at a wrong angle as he lurched forward, tongue lolling from his elongated muzzle. His second attack blurred with snapping teeth at Decker’s throat and he threw him to the ground.
“Nathan, Nate, please—” he panted, one hand thrust under his jaw as the creature he once knew snapped at him, splintered teeth a breath away, snarl gusting across his face in a cloud of decayed meat and bile. Decker was too weak for this; he’d gone too many days without proper food.
He grappled with Nathan, wincing at the string of rotten spit slung across his face.
Bracing his shoulders against the ground, Decker shoved him away. Nathan’s claws gouged the sand as he caught himself, a snarl twisting his lips. Springing to his feet, he stomped at his face, the heel of his boot crunching a half-second after Decker rolled to the side.
This wasn’t the Nathan he once knew, reserved but kind. There had always been space in his barber’s chair for a talk, or a late-night drink at the saloon. Decker had since lost him somewhere between quiet moonlit nights and twisted bedsheets when Nathan left Ender’s Ridge.
Whoever wanted Laurie had done this to Nathan; Decker would bet it was the same person who’d helped him with the article and the break-in at theStar.
Decker lunged into Nathan’s legs with all the force he had left. A bone cracked. Scrambling to his feet, Decker slammed his shoulder into the side of the chapel. He bit back a groan, breaths wheezing through his tight chest.
Nathan staggered, his leg buckling under him, and pained eyes fixed on Decker as a howl ripped from his throat. Muscles rippledunder his hide, gathering his last strength. Blood streamed from the bone shard jutting out of his leg.