Page 58 of Of Faith and Fangs

“For all our sakes, I want to believe you,” I whispered. “But what happened tonight…”

“It wasn’t pretty.” Father O’Malley shuddered. “But neither was Jesus’ crucifixion, and now for those given the eyes of faith, there’s nothing more beautiful. Will you see yourself the way your Maker sees you, Alice?”

“My maker?”

“I’m not talking about Mercy Brown.” The priest knew her name from my confession. “I’m talking about your real Maker.”

“I don’t see it right now,” I admitted. “But I’ll keep trying, Father.”

As we slipped out into the night, leaving the desecrated sanctuary behind, I felt something shift inside me—not the hunger that had become my constant companion, but something older, more human. The weight of choice. The burden of responsibility. The faint, flickering hope that even in darkness, there might be light.

Three of my progeny lay scattered as ash across the church floor. Two more followed me, drunk on human blood. Father O’Malley leaned against me, his faith unshaken despite the night’s horrors. And Desiderius, ancient and enigmatic, had chosen our side. What I still didn’t understand was why he’d waited so long to finally turn against the Order. Why had he infiltrated them if he’d always hoped to betray them? Why had I of all the young vampires he’d met through the centuries given him the boldness to act?

Questions I’d ask later. I’d demand answers, even though I couldn’t formally make any demand of a vampire so old as Desiderius.

All I knew was that the Order wasn’t my true family. This was my new congregation. My new family. My new purpose.

Chapter 24

We stumbled into the rectory through a side door that Father O’Malley unlocked with trembling hands. The smell of blood clung to us like a second skin—Silas’s blood on Ruth and Rebecca, Father O’Malley’s blood soaked into his own clothing, and whatever remnants of my humanity I’d left behind in that desecrated sanctuary. I supported the priest’s weight as we moved deeper into the building, away from the carnage, toward what he promised would be sanctuary. But sanctuary from what? The Order? Or from what we’d become?

The back room of the rectory was barely large enough for the five of us. A single oil lamp guttered on a desk cluttered with papers and leather-bound books, casting elongated shadows across our faces that made us look more monstrous than we already were. Father O’Malley eased himself onto a wooden chair with a grimace, the rope burns on his wrists angry and red in the weak light.

“There are clean cloths in that drawer,” he said, nodding toward a small cabinet. “And a bottle of iodine.”

I retrieved them, my movements mechanical. The cabinet smelled of incense and old paper, a peculiarly human scent that made my throat tighten with something like longing. I handed him the supplies, careful not to let my cold fingers brush his warm ones.

“Thank you, Alice.” He dabbed at the cuts on his forehead where the thorns had pierced his skin. Each touch made him wince, but he didn’t stop. Pain was sometimes necessary for healing. A lesson I’d learned several times over as of late.

Ruth and Rebecca huddled in the far corner, as far from the priest as the small room would allow. Their faces were smeared with blood that had begun to dry and flake, their eyes glazed and unfocused. The feeding frenzy I’d witnessed in the church had left them drunk and disoriented, caught between horror at what they’d done and satisfaction of the hunger that had driven them to it.

Ruth’s hands shook as she stared at them, at the blood caked beneath her fingernails. “I didn’t... I never...” Her voice was barely a whisper.

I placed my hand on her shoulder, feeling the tremors that ran through her body. “I know,” I said, though I didn’t, not really. I’d never given in to the hunger that completely, never let it consume me the way it had consumed them. Was that faith, or just fear? I wasn’t sure anymore.

Rebecca rocked back and forth beside Ruth, her teenage face contorted with emotions too complex for her years. She’d been the youngest when she died, barely sixteen, the same age I’d been when I sat with the dying and prayed for their souls. Now she was both dead and undead, caught in a twilight existence that defied all the theology I’d been raised on.

“I can still taste him,” she murmured, running her tongue over her lips. “He tasted like... like power. Like salvation.” She looked up at me, her eyes clearing slightly. “Is that wrong?”

What could I tell her? That feeding on a man’s lifeblood was a sin? We were beyond such simple judgments now. “It’s done,” I said instead. “We did what we had to do to survive.”

Desiderius stood apart from us, his back straight despite the horrific burns that covered half his face and neck. His flesh was knitting itself back together with agonizing slowness, new pink skin forming over charred tissue. He caught me watching and inclined his head slightly, a gesture that might have been acknowledgment or simply pain.

“You’re healing,” I observed.

“A benefit of age,” he replied, his aristocratic voice reduced to a rasp by his damaged throat. “Though I must admit, I haven’t felt pain like this since the Inquisition.”

The mention of such ancient history reminded me that this creature had walked the earth for centuries, had witnessed horrors I could scarcely imagine. What path had led him from those dark times to this moment, standing in a priest’s study, having betrayed his supposed allies to save a man of God?

Father O’Malley finished cleaning his wounds and looked up at us, his gaze moving from face to face. Despite everything, his eyes held no fear—only a deep, abiding compassion that made me want to look away.

“We can’t stay here long,” he said. “The Order will have sentries watching the church. They’ll be looking for us.”

“Where can we go?” I asked. The weight of responsibility pressed down on me—not just for myself, but for Ruth and Rebecca, for what remained of the progeny I’d unwittingly created.

“There’s a chamber beneath the church,” Father O’Malley explained, leaning forward despite his pain. “A sanctuary built during the days when Catholics were persecuted here. Few know of its existence now.”

“Below the church?” Rebecca’s voice cracked with fear. “But the consecrated ground—it burns us.”

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