Sunlight streamed through the window, bathing him in red until he was covered in it. Baptized, and born again.
Decker gathered Laurie into his arms and stood in the ruins of the chapel at Ender’s Ridge.
A foreign god looked down upon him. He didn’t think Laurie’s God accepted bargains, but if he had a soul to bargain with, he would have laid it on the altar.
He didn’t have anything to give. No offerings, no praise. Laurie would have done it correctly. He would have known the right, proper things to say.
But Laurie was too cold to pray.
If his God wanted to smite him down for turning one of his humble servants to a creature of the night, Decker could bear it.
But when he laid the broken body of Lawrence Lane on his bed, it was with the steadfast, terrible knowledge that saving him had been a mindlessly selfish act. Laurie should never wake; he would have preferred it to this.
Decker smoothed venom-slick, limp waves away from Laurie’s forehead. The memories of his own turning were so faded he could have performed the ritual incorrectly and he would never know until it was too late. A day passed before he awoke; would Laurie be the same?
My fledgling. My neighbor. My friend.
Elias Lane was alive.
When he should have been rotting where Decker buried him, he was alive, and he was gone. The cursed serpent became ash and twisted metal, prone in the place where Elias should have remained.
What uncle would attack his family?
Faint chatter wafted down the street into the saloon.
What mother could curse her own son?
Safine and the others were back, cheerful and steeped in victory. There must have been no other deaths besides Whitton. If he didn’t wake up, Laurie’s name would be scrawled beside him.
What person could turn his friend into something so horrible?
Not horrible.
Radiant.
You, Laurie, will be radiant.
Decker wept.
Shined boots took stairs two at a time, and then Safine was next to him, questions spilling out of her, battering the fog clutched at his mind. The chapel destroyed, floor gone, Laurie dead—
No.
Not dead. Never dead. Not Laurie.
Laurie’s body lay between them like no-man’s land, broken from war.
Turning, not dead. He’s not dead. Elias isn’t dead. Elias caused the plagues.
Safine spoke, but he didn’t hear. He listened for Laurie’s heart under crushed ribs.
Silence.
Decker strained for a whisper of blood through veins; his eyes searched for movement in his hands. He ached for change in the quiet.
Willa rested her hand on his shoulder. She, too, was silent. Her faith, steadfast as it was, didn’t extend to Laurie.
Sister Inez’s rosary was harsh against the pale death of Laurie’s skin as she began praying.
