Page 41 of Of Faith and Fangs

“I do.” His certainty was unshakable. “Not in a crude, physical way that our senses can detect—the appearances of bread and wine remain. But in its deepest reality, its substance, it becomes Christ’s body and blood.” He leaned forward. “The body and blood of Christ can be both symbolic and literal, just as you are both dead and alive.”

The words struck me with unexpected force. Both dead and alive. It described my condition perfectly—this liminal existence, this neither-nor state that had become my reality.

“You said before that I wasn’t the first... like me... that you’d encountered.” I realized I was changing the subject. “The others—did they come to believe as you do?”

Father O’Malley’s expression grew distant. “Some did, in time. Others found the concept too difficult to accept. Faith isn’t something that can be forced, Alice. It can only be offered and received freely.”

I thought about the Order, about Silas and his rigid certainties. There had been no freedom there—only commands and consequences.

“How can you reconcile this?” I gestured at myself. “My existence with your faith? Silas says that vampires are abominations, unholy creatures that God will destroy.”

“Silas Blake’s theology is warped,” he replied with surprising frankness. “God’s creation is vast and complex. Scripture tells us that Christ came to reconcile all things in creation to Himself—all things, Alice, not just those that fit neatly into our human categories of good and evil.”

He rose and moved to a small cabinet, returning with a worn Bible. The sight of it made me tense—the last time I’d tried to touch scripture, the pages had scorched my fingers.

“Don’t worry,” he said, noticing my reaction. “I won’t ask you to touch it yet. But I want to share something with you.” He opened to a marked page. “Did you know that all Christians for nearly fifteen hundred years believed that when they received the Eucharist, they received the true body and blood of Christ? This wasn’t a Catholic innovation—it was the universal understanding.”

I frowned. “That can’t be right. Daddy said—“

“Your father was speaking from a tradition barely four centuries old,” O’Malley interrupted gently. “Listen to what Ignatius of Antioch wrote in the early second century—a man who had learned the faith from the apostles themselves. He spoke of certain heretics who ‘abstain form the Eucharist and prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness raised again,’ then he exhorted the Christians he was writing to at Smyrna to ‘stay aloof from such persons.’ Have you ever considered, dearest Alice, that the earliest Christians might have considered your father to be a heretic on account of what he told you concerning the Eucharist?”

The certainty in his voice gave me pause. The implication that my late father was a heretic might have sent me into a rage if it wasn’t for the fact that this priest had cited a source that was hard to deny. I mean, even if this Ignatius guy wasn’t inspired like the apostles, since he learned from the people who actually wrote the New Testament, he probably had a lot better of an idea what things really meant than my father did more than eighteen hundred years later. What had me so startled, though, was that Daddy had always presented Catholic beliefs as late corruptions of true Christianity. Father O’Malley was suggesting something different—that it was the Puritan view that was the innovation.

“But scripture—“ I began.

“Scripture supports this understanding,” he said, turning pages. “In John’s Gospel, chapter six, Jesus tells his followers quite explicitly: ‘Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.’ When many of his disciples found this teaching too difficult and stopped following him, did Jesus call them back to explain it was just a metaphor?”

I had to admit I didn’t know. I’d read the Bible cover to cover multiple times in my human life, but Daddy had always explained the difficult passages for us. That particular passage had always confused me, but Father O’Malley seemed to find its meaning plain.

“No,” Father O’Malley continued. “Instead, he turned to the twelve and asked if they would leave too. He didn’t soften his stance or clarify that he was speaking symbolically. He repeated the hard teaching and asked for faith.”

He handed me the open Bible, careful to hold it so I wouldn’t have to touch it. I read the passage he indicated, seeing it with new eyes. The words themselves seemed to shimmer on the page, challenging my understanding.

“I can imagine how the disciples struggled with this teaching,” Father O’Malley said softly. “It violated everything they understood about Jewish dietary laws, about what was possible. Yet Peter’s response is perfect: ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.’”

“Eternal,” I echoed, the word catching in my throat. Eternity stretched before me now—an endless procession of nights, of hunger, of isolation. Was that what Christ had offered? An eternity like mine?

“Not like yours,” Father O’Malley said, as if reading my thoughts. “Eternal life in Christ is about quality as much as duration. It’s about fullness, about becoming what we were created to be.”

“And what was I created to be?” I asked, the question escaping before I could stop it. “A monster? A killer?”

Father O’Malley closed the Bible and set it aside. “I don’t believe that’s what God intended for you, Alice. Your current state—this corruption—it may be a deviation from His original design. But that doesn’t mean you’re beyond His reach or His redemption.”

I laughed bitterly. “Redemption. That’s what the Order promised too. They said each witch I killed brought me one step closer to salvation.”

Father O’Malley’s expression darkened. “And do you believe that?”

“I did. For a time.” I looked down at my hands—hands that had torn out throats, that had been stained with blood. “Until I realized they were using me. That Silas was manipulating me, cutting his victims to trigger my hunger, knowing I couldn’t resist.”

“The Order of the Morning Dawn has strayed far from its original purpose,” Father O’Malley said, his voice tight with controlled anger. “They were founded to protect, not to destroy. To help those afflicted by darkness, not to exploit them.”

I looked up sharply. “You know about the Order?”

He nodded grimly. “Our paths have crossed before. We have... competing understandings... of how to address supernatural phenomena.”

This revelation shifted something in my understanding. “Everything you’re explaining... it’s nothing like what I grew up thinking your church believed.”

A smile touched Father O’Malley’s lips. “I’m not surprised. There are many misconceptions about Catholic teachings.”

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