Page 61 of Of Faith and Fangs

“What step?” I asked, though I already suspected what he meant.

Father O’Malley moved to a small altar I hadn’t noticed before, set against the far wall of the chamber. Upon it rested a chalice and paten, the simple tools of his sacred office.

“Communion,” he said softly. “The true blood that can satisfy the hunger in your soul, if not the one in your body.”

I looked at Ruth and Rebecca, at their frightened, hopeful faces, and at Desiderius, who had walked this path for centuries before me. In that moment, I felt the weight of choice more heavily than I had since the night of my transformation—not just for myself, but for all those who might follow.

“I’m ready,” I said, and took my first step toward the altar, toward whatever salvation or damnation awaited me there.

Father O’Malley moved with the reverence of long practice as he prepared the altar, his wounded body forgotten in the familiar ritual. He unfolded a small linen cloth, placed it with careful precision, then set out the chalice and paten—simple vessels for the most sacred of mysteries. The candles threw his shadow against the ancient stone walls, making him seem both larger and more fragile than he was. In this hidden chamber beneath a church built by persecuted believers, we were about to attempt something that defied everything the Order of the Morning Dawn believed.

Rebecca’s voice broke the silence, pitched high with fear. “What will happen to us? Will it hurt like the church did?”

Father O’Malley turned to her, his face gentle in the candlelight. “I won’t deceive you,” he said. “You will feel pain when the words of the Lord are spoken, and again when the bread and wine become the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ.”

Ruth flinched at the mention of Christ’s name, her hands instinctively rising to cover her ears. The word hadn’t hurt me since that first night in the sanctuary with Father O’Malley, but I remembered the burning sensation all too well.

“The pain is most intense for the newly transformed,” Father O’Malley continued, his gaze moving between Ruth and Rebecca. “It’s not punishment, but purification—like fire burning away impurities in metal. In time, with faith and perseverance, it will lessen.”

“How much time?” Ruth asked, her voice barely audible.

Desiderius answered before Father O’Malley could. “It could take days or years. For me, it was nearly ten years before I could hear the Mass without feeling as though my skin was being flayed from my body.” His aristocratic features, still partially burned from the crucifix’s light, arranged themselves into something like compassion. “But each time was easier than the last.”

Rebecca’s eyes widened. “Ten years? I can’t—I don’t think I can endure that long.”

“It doesn’t have to take that long,” Father O’Malley insisted. “Desiderius here was already a very old vampire. His patterns and habits had taken deeper roots. For you, if you are open and willing to endure the process, it may be possible after only witnessing the consecration a few times.”

I moved to sit beside her on the pallet, taking her cold hand in mine. “It only took a few nights for me. I’m finally ready to receive it. I think.”

“I should say you are.” Father O’Malley nodded firmly as he donned a simple stole—not the full vestments he would wear for a public Mass, but enough to mark the sacredness of what we were about to witness. He moved to stand behind the altar, his expression solemn yet hopeful.

“In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti,” he began, making the sign of the cross.

The Latin words seemed to shimmer in the air, heavy with centuries of devotion. Ruth and Rebecca tensed beside me, their bodies rigid with anticipated pain. I felt it too—a distant pressure, but it didn’t hurt anymore. It was almost soothing. Desiderius stood perfectly still, unaffected by the words.

As Father O’Malley continued the ancient liturgy, the pressure grew for my progenies. Rebecca was the first to break, a small whimper escaping her lips as she scrambled back from the altar, pressing herself against the far wall of the chamber. Ruth lasted longer, her face contorted in a grimace of determination, but by the time Father O’Malley reached the Eucharistic prayer, she too retreated, joining Rebecca in the shadows.

“Hoc est enim Corpus Meum,” Father O’Malley intoned, raising the host.

The pressure intensified, becoming almost physical—not pain exactly, but a weight so immense it threatened to crush me beneath it. I remained standing, drawing strength from Desiderius’s unwavering presence beside me. His centuries of practice steadied me, showing me it was possible to endure, to push through to whatever lay on the other side of this purifying fire.

“Hic est enim calix Sanguinis mei,” Father O’Malley continued, raising the chalice.

Something shifted inside me then—a loosening, as if tight bands around my chest had suddenly released. The pressure remained, but it no longer threatened to overwhelm. Instead, it felt almost like an embrace, firm but not crushing.

Father O’Malley’s eyes met mine as he approached with the host. “Corpus Christi,” he said softly.

“Amen,” I whispered, and received the wafer on my tongue.

It didn’t burn as I’d feared it might. Instead, it melted like snow, cool and clean. I closed my eyes, waiting for the revulsion that should come with consuming anything other than blood, but it never arrived. The host settled within me, a presence both foreign and familiar.

When Father O’Malley offered the chalice, I took it with steady hands. “Sanguis Christi,” he said.

“Amen,” I responded, and drank.

The wine—no, not wine anymore, but blood, perfect blood—touched my lips. A single drop would have been enough, but I took more, unable to stop myself. It coursed through me like liquid fire, not burning but illuminating, revealing hollows and shadows I hadn’t known existed inside my transformed body.

This wasn’t the hot, copper tang of human blood that had sustained me since my transformation. This was something else entirely—ancient and new all at once, the ideal blood from which all other blood was just a shadow. It filled me in ways that no feeding ever had, satisfying a hunger deeper than the physical craving for life that drove my kind.

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