chapter 9
877 Words
They reached the outskirts at dawn, when the sun looked sickly and pale, like it didn’t want to shine on the place they were approaching.
It wasn’t a town anymore.
Not even close.
It was a settlement remade.
Houses that once held families now ringed a central clearing like obedient parishioners bowing their heads. Every roof bore strange charcoal symbols, each one drawn with the same obsessive hand. Smoke drifted from chimneys in thin, unnatural plumes—too white, too clean, like something holy had been burned to ash.
And at the center—rising like a wooden crown—was a massive chapel.
Newly built.
Fresh lumber.
No dust on its steps.
A monument erected too fast, too perfectly, as if the hands that built it didn’t tire or bleed.
Rudy whispered, “This place… it ain’t right.”
“Your eyes work,” she muttered.
Her shadow stayed closer than usual. Not pacing. Not drifting. Clinging, like it felt eyes on them.
And it was right to be afraid.
Because every window in the Shepherd’s town watched them.
People stared out, faces pale, expressionless.
No blinking.
No whispering.
Just watching.
“Are they alive?” Rudy whispered.
“Alive enough,” she said.
A bell clanged at the chapel, too crisp for dawn.
One single note.
The kind that didn’t summon worship—it summoned obedience.
Then the doors opened.
And they walked out.
Not soldiers.
Not worshippers.
Followers.
Men and women in clean shirts and blank eyes, each wearing a silver medallion shaped like a sun with too many rays. Their movements were synchronized—too smooth, too controlled.
Rudy’s mule brayed. “Oh hell. Oh hell no.”
She kept riding forward.
When the first follower approached, he did so calmly, hands clasped behind his back like he was greeting a guest at a funeral.
“Welcome,” he said. “The Shepherd has been expecting you.”
She froze.
Rudy nearly fell off his mule. “Expecting—? How the hell would he know—?”
The follower smiled.
Not a human smile.
A polite shape of a smile.
“Because he knows the devil rides beside you,” he said softly.
“And he knows the devil wants to come home.”
The shadow behind her rippled violently, warping the air. Boot prints stuttered across the dirt—uneven, frantic.
She drew Marlowe’s reinforced revolver.
“Take me to him,” she said.
“Gladly,” the follower said.
“But your… companion must stay outside the chapel.”
“No.”
The follower’s smile sharpened. “The Shepherd insists.”
She clicked back the hammer.
“I don’t take orders.”
“He doesn’t give orders. He gives truth.”
Rudy leaned in and whispered, “Ma’am, I did not come this far to die in somebody else’s church.”
She ignored him.
“You tell the Shepherd,” she said coldly, “if he wants my shadow bound, he can try to bind it himself. But if he touches it—”
The ground cracked.
A deep, sudden fracture split the dirt beneath the follower’s boots.
A warning.
He glanced down, unfazed.
“It’s angry,” he whispered, “because it remembers what was taken.”
Her jaw clenched.
“Take me to him,” she repeated.
He turned toward the chapel.
“This way. Bring your sinner. Leave your sin.”
She dismounted, tying her horse to a post. Rudy scrambled off his mule.
“Wait here,” she told the ghost behind her.
But the shadow didn’t move.
Boot prints planted hard, refusing to stay behind.
“Damn it,” she muttered. “You can’t follow me in there.”
The air warped. The shadow’s outline trembled—like a child refusing to let go of a mother’s hand.
She lowered her voice.
“You want answers? So do I. But you can’t cross that threshold.”
The wind died.
For a moment, she thought she’d won.
Then—
The shadow leaned forward, stretching its form across the ground until it touched the chapel’s stone steps.
The stone hissed.
Burned black.
Cracked.
It recoiled violently—like it’d been struck.
Her breath caught.
“Holy ground,” she whispered. “Or what’s left of it.”
Rudy clutched his chest. “Lady… it ain’t supposed to burn holy ground.”
“And holy ground ain’t supposed to burn it.”
She took a deep breath, turning to the shadow that trembled behind her.
“I’ll come back for you,” she whispered.
Boot prints softened.
Flattened.
A reluctant nod.
She stepped toward the chapel doors.
Rudy followed, shaking so hard he looked ready to shed his skin.
The follower opened the doors.
The chapel was wrong.
Candles burned black.
Pews arranged in a perfect circle.
Symbols carved into the floor that pulsed faintly—breathing.
And at the center, standing bathed in impossible light, was the Shepherd.
White hat.
White coat.
Eyes like polished bone.
He spread his arms, smiling wide.
“Child,” he said warmly.
“You came home.”
Her hand twitched toward her gun.
Rudy fainted.
The Shepherd laughed softly.
And behind her—outside—the shadow screamed without sound.
- Writer
