Page 31 of Of Faith and Fangs

Silas advanced with the confidence of righteous purpose. “Eileen Maddox, the Order of the Morning Dawn has evidence of your communion with dark forces.”

The woman’s eyes darted between us, lingering on me with sudden recognition. “You’re the preacher’s daughter,” she whispered. “The one who survived the consumption. The one who prayed over the sick.” Her gaze hardened. “Now look at you. What would your father say?”

The words struck like physical blows. I faltered, and in that moment, Silas attacked. Not a killing blow. Instead, he slashed her shoulder, deep enough to bleed freely, but not to incapacitate.

The scent hit me like a wave. My body tensed, ready to spring. But this time, I recognized the manipulation. This time, I tried to resist.

“Remember your training,” Silas said, stepping back just as he had before. “This is your path to redemption.”

The woman started chanting, her hands weaving patterns in the air. The surrounding dust swirled, and sparks danced between her fingers. Real magic—not like the simple healing of the previous woman.

But even as I registered the threat, my hunger overwhelmed my reason. I lunged forward, teeth bared, and caught her mid-incantation. Or was it mid-prayer? Her blood was hearty and rich. I drank until there was nothing left, then dropped her empty body to the floor.

Silas watched with that same careful mixture of disapproval and satisfaction.

“Your control needs work,” he said, but his eyes gleamed with success. “I believe the only way you’ll overcome this problem is through exposure. Next time, you’ll do better.”

That night, alone in my sparse quarters at the Order’s regional headquarters, I tried to pray. The words burned my tongue, but I forced them out in a whispered torment.

“Our Father, who art in heaven—“

Pain lanced through my skull. I pressed on.

“Hallowed be Thy name—“

My skin began to smoke faintly where I’d clasped my hands together. I welcomed the pain. It was righteous. It was deserved.

“Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done—“

A memory surfaced: Daddy at the pulpit, his tall frame commanding, his voice ringing through our little Exeter church. “Sin takes many forms,” he’d thundered. “But none so insidious as the sin that disguises itself as necessity.”

I’d been sixteen then, sitting in the front pew in my best Sunday dress, hanging on his every word. The good daughter. The faithful daughter. The daughter who prayed over the sick and was mysteriously spared from their fate.

I forced myself back to the prayer, though each word scalded. “On earth as it is in heaven—“

Another memory: Mama on her deathbed, her face hollow with consumption, her eyes bright with fever. Me, holding her hand, reciting Psalms as she slipped away. The peaceful smile that had touched her lips at the end—had that been God’s mercy, or just the relief of final surrender?

I unclenched my burning hands and stared at the blisters forming on my palms. The price of prayer for the damned.

November brought us to a forest clearing where frost rimmed the dead leaves underfoot. Our target—a woman barely older than me—had made her home in a structure half-cave, half-cabin built into a hillside. Smoke rose from a crude chimney of stacked stones.

“Witch,” Silas declared, with the certainty of the righteous. “She’s been stealing livestock from nearby farms for sacrifices. The Order has tracked her for weeks.”

I said nothing. The pattern was apparent now—just enough truth to justify the hunt, just enough doubt to torture me afterward.

“Focus, Nightwalker,” Silas said, using the name the Order had given me. Never Alice anymore. Alice had died with her humanity. “Remember why we do this. Each witch destroyed brings you one step closer to salvation.”

I questioned his words in my mind. He’d told me before that those I’d drained damned me further. Now, he seemed less concerned with the manner of my success than that I completed the mission. Whole-burnt offering, perhaps that was ideal, but he seemed to think now that even if my killings indulged my darkness, the sacrifice granted me a mercy that counterbalanced my evil. I wasn’t making progress toward my redemption, but maybe I wasn’t damning myself any further. Provided, of course, the witches I was killing were actually witches.

We approached from different angles. The young woman fled out the back at our arrival, but I caught her easily, my inhuman speed an obscene advantage. She fought with unexpected strength, clawing at my face and screaming curses that made the air vibrate strangely.

Silas arrived as I pinned her against a tree. With deliberate precision, he cut a line across her collarbone. Blood welled up, black in the fading light.

“She’s resisting,” he said, stepping back. “Do what needs to be done.”

“Please,” the woman gasped. “I’ve harmed no one. The animals were already suffering. I only meant to end their pain—“

I tried to resist. God as my witness, I tried. My body shook with the effort of restraint, but the hunger was a living thing inside me, clawing its way out. I bent my head to her wound and drank until her struggles ceased.

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