“Whitton wouldn’t have helped him without payment. He didn’t want money, he wanted bodies,” Willa said.
“Decker, you told me you never found bodies of the people who disappeared when Elias was here, those were it. They were the payment.” Laurie cast an apologetic look to Safine, then Decker and the scars cradling his hands. “He just…decided he wanted to get rid of them instead of helping his wife.”
Knowing Elias first came there to seek help for his wifecouldhave changed things if he’d known. Still, Decker was sure nothing would have changed the hatred that festered in his heart and led to his death.
Safine glowered but stood down, stalking to Willa’s side. A locust, red and black and as long as a finger wriggled through the crack at the base of the door. It crunched underneath Safine’s heel. “So you’ve figured outwhyyour uncle wanted to kill us, but we’re going to be defenseless when the last of the plagues strike and Ridgewater remembers we’re here.”
“We’ve made progress,” Decker said.
Sister Inez made a dismissive sound. “Your doctor won’t be of any help. He made it clear.”
“So get rid of him,” Willa said, glancing back at them. She leaned against Safine, her hand braced behind her on the back of the chair and her other winding softly through her hair, cradling the back of her neck. “If he won’t talk he’s useless to have around.”
Safine sharpened. “And if he’s lying, the plagues might end with him.”
And Willa might be freed.
Wooden beads rattled against the table as Sister Inez knotted the last thread of her rosary and laid it next to the other four. “Locusts have a taste for human flesh when they’re hungry enough.”
Safine’s eyes met Decker’s from across the room. She brushed a kiss against Willa’s sweat-flecked temple and trailed a hand across Sister Inez’s habit.
Decker returned Laurie’s look with a small grimace before he and Safine disappeared into the back room.
They worked as one—Decker stripped an empty barrel of the iron bands and bent them into impenetrable shackles for Whitton’s arms and legs, tightening them until blood oozed over the metal from the mottled flesh, and Safine took an armful of bar towels and wedged them into the gap under the door to the saloon. Passing one to him, they knotted thin rags around their face, leaving a sliver of their eyes visible.
A groan wheezed from Whitton as Decker slid the chair to the door. Safine waited until he was poised, ready, returning his slight nod.
Fast. They had to be fast.
A flurry of chittering wings and hot air blazed in when she yanked the door open. Claws burrowed into Decker’s hat, his legs, biting through shirt sleeves. Decker hissed in pain, the groundturning slick and crunching underfoot as he dragged the chair outside and yanked the gag out of Whitton’s mouth.
If there is a God, maybe he’ll judge you less harshly.
Decker backed away and batted at the insects as Whitton’s body lurched under the starving horde. The locusts swarmed him, skittering up the chair legs in a frenzied cloud, clicking and trilling in a mist of blood as they burrowed into the empty pits of his face.
Whitton’s first garbled scream clipped off as Safine heaved the door shut behind Decker.
Swiping his hands over his body, he shuddered as handfuls of the creatures pinched at his arms and face and buzzed. Safine beat them away with a towel, her face stern as she cleared his back and arms. She’d wrapped her patent boots in cloth, and the calico fabric left dark, sticky footprints in her wake.
A locust squeezed under the door and darted at Decker’s face. He caught it, hurling it to the floor and stamping it out with a thud before plugging the last crack. His skin crawled and he shuddered again.
Safine did the same, itching at her arms. She took a breath to say something and then fell silent, wrinkling her face in disgust as she peeled away the soaked fabric from her boots.
The pump creaked under Decker’s hands when he filled a bucket with water and splashed the mop onto the floor.
“Safine—”
“Decker—”
His words died in his throat as he scrubbed the floor. Safine twisted the towel in her hands.
He wanted to tell her he was sorry, ask what he could do to make her forgive him.Ifhe could do anything to make her forgive him. He would do anything.
“I’m going back to New Orleans.”
The mop stuttered to a halt, tangled in spiked insect legs and sludge. She hadn’t been back to her parents since she’d left years ago, came out West to find her husband and tended the saloon with him. “Soon?”
“When this is over. When you don’t need me anymore.”
