Page 29 of Of Faith and Fangs

I wasn’t sure I believed that. Then again, the God I’d worshipped as a human girl was absent. He hadn’t spared me from this life—if you could call it that—so maybe I’d been wrong about everything. Then again, Silas was wrong, too. Silas had believed that a girl with faith like mine would be protected from evil, protected from vampires. Mercy Brown begged to differ.

Despite my reservations, I nodded anyway.

“Let’s go,” Silas said, drawing his dagger.

We moved across the clearing, Silas with practiced stealth, me with the unnatural silence of the undead. The porch steps creaked beneath his weight but held. I followed, feeling the rotting wood shift beneath my feet. The door was weathered gray, its paint long since peeled away. A crude symbol had been carved into the wood—a circle containing a five-pointed star.

“Proof,” Silas whispered, nodding at the mark.

But I’d seen similar symbols in Daddy’s church—decorative stars at Christmas, circles representing God’s eternal nature. This proved nothing. Besides, it looked freshly carved. How could I be sure that the accused had carved it herself? What if Silas or someone else with the Order carved it there to “mark” our target, or to poison the well against the supposed witch? I wasn’t entirely sure that Silas was beyond manufacturing evidence if it supported his predetermined condemnations.

Before I could speak, Silas kicked the door open with a splintering crash. We surged inside, Silas with his dagger raised, me with nothing but my unnatural strength and speed.

The cabin’s interior was illuminated by a single oil lamp on a rough-hewn table. Bundles of dried herbs hung from the ceiling beams. Shelves lined the walls, crowded with jars of powders and liquids. A fire smoldered in a small stone hearth, filling the single room with smoky warmth.

The supposed witch stood beside the hearth, her gaunt face illuminated by the dying flames. She was younger than I’d expected—perhaps thirty, with dark hair streaked prematurely with gray. Her eyes widened at our intrusion, but they held defiance rather than fear.

“I’ve been expecting the Order’s dogs,” she said, her voice surprisingly steady. “Though I didn’t expect one of them to be dead.”

Silas stepped forward, the silver dagger gleaming in the lamplight. “By the authority of the Order of the Morning Dawn, you are condemned for the practice of witchcraft and the murder of children.”

The woman’s lips curled. “I’ve murdered no one. I’ve healed those I could—those the doctors gave up for dead.”

“Silence!” Silas barked. “Your confession is not required.”

She backed away, her hands moving in strange patterns as she began to whisper words in a language I didn’t recognize. The air in the cabin seemed to thicken, pressure building against my eardrums. The lamp flame bent sideways, though there was no breeze.

Silas lunged forward with practiced grace. The witch tried to dodge, but he anticipated her movement. Instead of plunging the dagger into her heart, however, he deliberately slashed across her forearm.

Blood welled from the cut—bright, vibrant red against her pale skin.

The scent hit me like a physical blow. My body reacted before my mind could intervene—pupils dilating, nostrils flaring, muscles coiling. Hunger roared through me, drowning out the thought, drowning out the prayer that instinctively rose to my lips. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not—

The witch’s heartbeat filled my ears, drowning out everything else. I could see the pulse in her neck, count each precious beat pushing blood through her veins. Blood that smelled of iron and salt and life itself.

“Alice,” Silas said, his voice distant through the roaring in my ears. “Control yourself.”

But he’d stepped back, giving me clear access to the bleeding woman. Her incantation faltered as she registered the change in my stance, the inhuman focus of my gaze. She pressed her wounded arm against her chest, but it was too late. The intoxicating scent of her blood had already filled the air.

“Stay back,” she warned, resuming her strange words with increased urgency.

I took a step forward, then another. Some part of me—the part that had once knelt in prayer at Daddy’s church—screamed in protest. That part recited fragments of scripture like broken shields: Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death... Yea, though I walk...

The witch’s back hit the wall. Her chanting grew louder, more desperate. Something invisible pushed against me—her magic attempting to hold me at bay—but my hunger was stronger than her power.

“Please,” she gasped, abandoning her spell. “I’m not what they told you. I heal people. I—“

I crossed the remaining distance in a blur of motion. My hands gripped her shoulders, pinning her against the rough-hewn logs. Up close, I could see the flecks of gold in her brown eyes, the faint freckles across her nose, the chapped skin of her lips as they formed one last, desperate plea.

“Our Father, who art in heaven—“ she began.

My teeth sank into her throat, cutting off the prayer. Had she truly evoked the Lord’s Prayer after clearly attempting to cast spells at Silas and me? Could this woman be a witch of a sort, without abandoning her faith? It seemed absurd—and probably was—but were her deeds actually spells at all? Were they, perhaps, prayers I’d never been taught to pray, only appearing as magic to my ignorance?

The first rush of blood was a shock—hot and vital and overwhelming. I drank deeply, feeling her struggling grow weaker as her life poured into me. Her heartbeat stuttered, tried to recover, then faded. Memories flashed through my mind—not mine, but hers. A child with fever, cooling beneath her hands. A man’s grateful smile. Herbs gathered by moonlight while she sang soft hymns.

I didn’t know if she was a witch or not, but she wasn’t villainous. She wasn’t a murderer, as Silas had insisted. She was a healer. And now I was the murderer…

Horror broke through my bloodlust, but too late. Her heart gave one final, weak flutter, then stilled. I released her, and her body slumped to the floor, pale and empty. Blood—her blood—dripped from my chin onto my white blouse. The same blouse I’d worn to church every Sunday of my human life.

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