Page 36 of Of Faith and Fangs

Exeter slept while I haunted its streets, a ghost among the living. My footsteps made no sound on the cobblestones; my breath formed no clouds in the January air. The town I’d once called home felt foreign now, viewed through these cursed eyes that saw too much—every shadow harboring potential threat, every distant heartbeat a reminder of what I’d become.

Three months since my transformation, and still I couldn’t reconcile the monster I now was with the faithful daughter I’d once been. My hands, pale in the moonlight, had torn out throats. My mouth, once shaped only for prayer, had drunk the lifeblood of those Silas called “witches.” God’s silence had never been so deafening as it was now, walking these empty streets.

At least Silas trusted me enough to allow me out at night. So long as I didn’t come back fully fed—biting without authorization was strictly forbidden—he promised I’d gradually gain more freedom and sooner that later I might be able to go on the Order’s missions alone.

The storefronts stood dark and shuttered against the night—Parker’s General Store where Mama used to buy fabric for my Sunday dresses, the cobbler’s shop where Daddy had his boots mended each winter, the milliner’s where we never shopped because Mama said their hats were “too worldly.” Each familiar landmark seemed to judge me as I passed, aware of the blood that stained my conscience, if not my skin.

I could hear everything: a cat stalking a mouse in the alley beside the bakery; an infant’s restless whimpers from an upstairs window; the rumbling snores of the blacksmith who’d always tipped his hat to Daddy after Sunday service. My heightened senses transformed the sleeping town into a symphony of life from which I was forever excluded. I was neither alive nor dead—trapped in an unholy limbo.

The image of the burning vampire haunted me. Her screams echoed in my memory, cutting through the silent night as they had cut through the winter air just days ago. I’d stood and watched. I hadn’t stopped it. I’d been complicit, just as I’d been complicit in all the deaths before. Had any of them truly been what Silas claimed? Had any of them deserved their fate?

“Monster,” I whispered to myself, the word hanging in the frozen air like a pronouncement. “You have become death.”

I paused at the intersection where Main Street met Church Road. To my right stood Daddy’s church, its spire reaching toward heaven like an accusing finger. No lights burned in its windows—the God I’d once served with such devotion apparently kept bankers’ hours now. I hadn’t been inside since before my transformation. Couldn’t bear to desecrate the sacred space with my unholy presence.

Not to mention, if some other minister had taken Daddy’s pulpit, I wasn’t sure I could handle it. I preferred to imagine Daddy was still inside, at his study, preparing Sunday’s homily. I knew it wasn’t true, just a fantasy, but when that’s all you have to live by, you embrace it. Perhaps if I imagined it that way enough, somehow, some way, it might come true. If God was still out there, if I still had a guardian angel, if miracles were possible.

“Daddy,” I whispered, staring at the dark church. “What would you say if you could see me now?”

I knew the answer. Reverend William Bladewell had been uncompromising in his sermons against evil. “The wages of sin is death,” he’d thundered from the pulpit. “And those who consort with darkness shall find no mercy in the light of God’s judgment.”

He’d been particularly venomous about Catholics. “Papists,” he’d called them, spitting the word like poison. “Blood-drinkers who claim to consume their God in their blasphemous rituals.” The irony wasn’t lost on me. I’d become the very thing he despised—a literal blood-drinker, damned beyond redemption.

Yet here I was, still in Exeter, doing the Order’s bidding, seeking... what? Absolution? Understanding? Or merely the comfort of familiar streets as I contemplated an eternity of darkness?

I turned away from the church and continued walking, passing the silent, snow-covered cemetery where Mama lay buried. I couldn’t bring myself to visit her grave. What would I say? “Sorry I’ve become an abomination, Mama. Sorry I won’t be joining you anytime soon. I could live like this forever, or go to hell, but I can’t go where you are.” The thought was unbearable.

As I approached the edge of town, the houses grew sparser, the darkness deeper. Few streetlamps lit this section of Exeter, where the poor and the immigrant populations lived in cramped quarters. The Irish neighborhood lay ahead—Catholic territory, as Daddy had always warned us. “They worship idols and practice necromancy,” he’d said, though I wasn’t sure I believed it.

Something changed in the air—a subtle shift that raised the hairs on the back of my neck. I was being watched. My eyes scanned the darkness, my body instinctively coiling for fight or flight. Three months of training with the Order had honed my predatory instincts, even as it had dulled my humanity.

A figure emerged from the shadows between two buildings—a man in a long black coat, moving with purpose rather than stealth. My enhanced vision cut through the darkness, revealing a weathered face framed by gray-streaked hair, kind eyes set in a face lined with both smiles and sorrow. He carried a wooden cane, leaning on it slightly as he approached.

I tensed, ready to disappear into the night. Had the Order sent someone else to retrieve me?

“Good evening,” the man said, his voice quiet but carrying clearly through the night air. He stopped at a respectful distance, studying me with an unnerving directness. “Or perhaps I should say good morning. It’s well past midnight.”

I said nothing, calculating the distance to the nearest alley, the fastest route out of town.

“You’re Reverend Bladewell’s daughter,” he continued. “Alice, isn’t it? I’ve seen you with your father at the market. Though not recently.”

His accent carried the faint lilt of Ireland, softened by years in America. His collar identified him clearly—a Catholic priest. What was he doing out at this hour?

“I don’t know you.” My voice was hollow.

“Father Thomas O’Malley,” he replied with a slight bow. “St. Mary’s parish.” He gestured vaguely toward the small stone church at the edge of the Irish quarter. Then, without warning, his expression shifted to one of gentle recognition. “I know what you are.”

My body went rigid. “I don’t know what you mean.”

He took a step closer, and I fought the urge to retreat. “You’re not breathing,” he observed quietly. “Your skin has the pallor of marble. And your movements...” He tilted his head slightly. “Too smooth. Too controlled. Like a predator.”

Fear and rage surged through me. Had he been sent by Silas, after all? Was this some new trap?

“What do you want?” I demanded, baring my teeth slightly. The hunger stirred within me—always present, though I’d fed recently enough to control it. For now.

Father O’Malley didn’t flinch. “I want nothing from you, child. But perhaps I can offer something instead.”

“I doubt that very much, Father.” I infused the title with all the disdain Daddy had taught me to feel for Catholic clergy. “Unless you’re offering your throat, which I don’t recommend.”

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