Page 22 of Of Faith and Fangs

Main Street lay empty, with all windows unlit and doors securely locked. Even the tavern, typically aglow with lamplight and echoing with the sounds of merriment, was unusually quiet, as though the entire town had chosen to pause and hold its breath. “People say they’ve seen her here,” Mr. Brown whispered. “Taking victims. Young women, mostly”. I nodded, unable to force words past the knot in my throat. The stake tucked inside my coat pressed hard against my ribs, a constant reminder of what I’d agreed to do. “Remember. She is not my daughter anymore. She’s not your friend, but she might attempt to deceive you into believing it’s so. What walks in her skin is a demon, nothing more.”

A demon. The word rang hollow. I had to wonder, did he have any proof that’s what a vampire was? Or was he simply going off of what the Order of the Morning Dawn told him? What if he was wrong? What if Mercy was still there, frightened by what she’d gone through, desperate for salvation? I’d seen Mercy in the sanatorium, seen her cough blood into handkerchiefs, seen her wither and fade. I’d watched her die. Whatever had visited her bed that night had not been merciful—but she’d welcomed it. Then there were the screams when the witch cut out her heart. The cries to her own father… that didn’t sound like a demon. It sounded like a girl in agony, misunderstood, betrayed.

I thought of those screams at the most ironic of times—because another scream sounded from nearby.

It wasn’t Mercy. It was someone else, another woman, shrieking in terror. It came from the narrow alley beside the tavern. Mr. Brown grabbed my arm, hard enough to bruise. “There,” he hissed. We moved toward the sound, our footsteps suddenly too loud on the frozen ground. My heart hammered against my ribs, each pulse a reminder that I was alive, terribly alive, and about to face something that existed beyond the boundary of death. The alley reeked of old beer and rotting vegetables, the scents oddly comforting in their mundanity. But as we crept deeper into the shadows, another smell rose beneath them—copper and salt, warm and wet. Blood. My foot struck something soft. I looked down to see a woman’s purse, its contents spilled across the dirty snow. A handkerchief, some coins, a small comb with teeth broken. A life interrupted.

That’s when I saw them. Two figures pressed against the brick wall at the alley’s end, so tightly entwined they might have been illicit lovers. But there was nothing loving in the rigid arch of the woman’s back, the way her hands clawed uselessly at her attacker’s shoulders. Mercy held her pinned, one hand tangled in the woman’s hair to expose her throat, the other clamped over her mouth to stifle her cries. Even in the darkness, I knew it was Mercy. The curve of her neck, the way she tilted her head—these were details burned into my memory from our time in the sanatorium. But everything else about her had changed. Her movements were fluid and predatory, her skin luminous in the faint light that spilled from the tavern’s back window. She looked healthier than she ever had while alive.

I stepped on a piece of broken glass. The crunch was deafening in the silent alley.

Mercy’s head snapped up. Her eyes caught the dim light and reflected it back, red as burning coals. Blood smeared her mouth, black in the darkness. She released her victim, who slid down the wall and crumpled into a heap. “Well,” Mercy said, her voice musical and strange. “If it isn’t little miss perfect”. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, casual as a child caught with jam. “You’re a long way from church, aren’t you?”

I couldn’t speak. My tongue felt swollen in my mouth, every word I’d rehearsed suddenly inaccessible.

Mercy took a step forward, then another. She moved like water over stones, all fluid grace. The girl I’d talked to in the sanatorium had been gaunt and feverish; this creature was something else entirely—beautiful and terrible.

“And Daddy dearest,” she continued, glancing at Mr. Brown. “Come to see your little girl? I’m touched.”

George trembled beside me, whether from rage or fear I couldn’t tell. His knuckles whitened around the hidden crucifix.

Mercy reached into a pocket and withdrew a small silver flask. She unscrewed the cap and took a long swallow, her throat working. Lowering the flask, she revealed a crimson-stained grin.

“How about a drink?” she offered, extending the flask toward me. “It warms you right up on a night like this”.

I found my voice at last. “I don’t drink”.

“No?” Mercy tilted her head, considering me. “That’s right. You’re a good girl, aren’t you, Alice? Always so pure. Always so... faithful.” She spat the last word like a curse.

“Tell me, Mercy,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt. “What does it feel like to die?”

Something flickered across her face—surprise, perhaps, or a ghost of the human girl she’d once been. “What do you mean?”

“I was there,” I pressed on. “I watched you die in that sanatorium bed. I saw what came for you”. Mercy’s smile widened, revealing teeth too white, too sharp. “The Mercy you knew is still dead,” she said. “I’m brand new”. She took another step closer. “Better. Stronger”. I felt for the sack of garlic at my waist, fingers closing around the rough burlap. The Order’s instructions echoed in my mind: get close, distract her, use the garlic, then the stake. The crucifix would do the rest.

“It’s a sin,” I said, playing for time. “What you’re doing. Those people you’ve hurt—“

“Sin?” Mercy laughed, the sound high and hollow. “That’s rich, coming from someone who helped cut out my heart and feed it to my brother. How is Edwin, by the way? Still sipping soup laced with my ashes?”

“You’re not Mercy,” I said, voice shaking now. “You’re just wearing her face. The real Mercy is gone.” She was close enough now that I could smell her—not the rot I’d expected, but something sweet and coppery, like metal left in the rain. “Am I?” she asked. “Or am I more Mercy than I ever was? Free from all those rules and fears. Free from illness. Free from death.”

I moved before I could lose my nerve. In one motion, I pulled the sack of garlic from my belt and flung it over her head, aiming for her face. The crushed cloves spilled out, a cloud of pungent dust that should have blinded her, choked her. “By the Order of the Morning Dawn,” I shouted, drawing the stake from inside my coat, “to hell with you, devil!” I drove the stake toward her chest, putting all my weight behind it. I wasn’t thinking of Mercy Brown anymore, but of the thing that had taken her, the demon that had to be sent back to the pit it crawled from. The stake drove into Mercy’s chest with a dull thud, meeting no resistance other than the skin it pierced. Yet, to my horror, there was no blood, no cry of pain—nothing. She stood there, unfazed, as if I had merely tapped her with a feather. The stake had found its mark, but without a heart to pierce, it had no effect. Mercy laughed again, reaching up to tear the sack from her head. The garlic dust clung to her hair, her face, but she merely wrinkled her nose in exaggerated disgust. “That stinks,” she said, brushing the garlic from her dress. “Really, Alice. Garlic? Stakes? You’ve been reading too many penny dreadfuls”. Her smile returned, wide and wicked. “None of that works on me. I’m something... different”.

With a force I couldn’t resist, Mercy grabbed my scarf and ripped it from my neck. A sharp, searing pain bloomed in my throat as her teeth sank into my flesh. Immediately, I went limp, my muscles betraying me, and my vision blurred, the alley spinning into a dark, formless void.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Mr. Brown move, throwing back his cloak to reveal the glowing crucifix. The blue-white light bathed the alley, turning the snow to silver. “Back!” he commanded, voice cracking with fear. “Back to the hell that spawned you!”

Mercy didn’t even flinch. She stared at the crucifix, a puzzled expression crossing her features. “Interesting toy,” she said. “But I’m afraid you’ve been misled about its effectiveness”.

That’s when I noticed the shadow behind George, a darkness deeper than the night itself. It moved like fog, coalescing into the shape of a man—tall and thin, with eyes that gleamed red in the crucifix’s light. “George!” I screamed. “Behind you!” My vision blurred at the edges, and the world spun as the cold numbness that had been building inside my veins intensified. I felt my knees give way, and the darkness swallowed me whole.

Chapter 10

“We suspect Mercy Brown killed him.” Silas’s voice was precise, emotionless. “After she killed you. She went to your home. Your father opened the door to her, likely expecting your return. We found him, his throat torn open and his body exsanguinated on the doorstep.”

I felt something crack inside me, some essential part that had been holding me together. My father—stern, righteous, flawed, but mine—gone. I couldn’t weep, though my body shuddered with the impulse. No tears came. Another confirmation of what I’d become.

“Why did they die, but I didn’t?” It made little sense. If the vampires drained both Mr. Brown and my father, why was I alone in this… condition?

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