Chapter 6
I knelt beside the staked bodies, each one frozen in that liminal space between true death and unlife.
Their souls had been temporarily severed from their flesh, cast into what we called ‘vampire hell’—not eternal damnation, but a shadowy nowhere that would hold them until we removed the stakes.
It was a necessary cruelty, one that weighed on me despite the years I’d spent performing this grim ritual.
My fingers traced the silver cross at my throat as I whispered a prayer for each of them, these lost children who had not asked for the darkness that claimed them.
“We need to hurry,” I said to Ruth and Rebecca, rising from my crouch. The night had grown colder, though I felt it only as an abstract awareness rather than discomfort. “Bring the cart from behind St. Vincent’s. The one the morticians use.”
Ruth nodded, her expression somber despite the earlier heat of battle. “Will they... feel anything? Where they are now?”
“Time passes differently there,” I answered, the words bitter on my tongue. “What seems hours to us might be an eternity for them. Or merely an instant. Father O’Malley believed it depended on the state of the soul when it was cast out.”
“I’ll pray for them,” Rebecca said simply, then touched Ruth’s arm. “Come. The sooner we retrieve them, the sooner they may begin their journey back.”
The two moved swiftly into the darkness, their habits billowing like wings in the night breeze.
I remained with our staked charges, my heart heavy with the weight of what we’d done.
Necessary, yes—they had been too far gone in their hunger to listen, too newly turned to control their baser instincts.
Yet the act of driving wood into their hearts, of casting their souls into that dark limbo, never grew easier.
I arranged Michael’s limbs into a more dignified position, straightening his clothing as best I could.
These small gestures of respect mattered, even if the soul temporarily separated from the flesh could not witness them.
I had to believe that dignity afforded to their bodies somehow reached their displaced souls.
The quiet purr of an automobile engine broke the night’s stillness.
My head jerked up, senses instantly alert.
The street had been empty when we fought; I thought I had made certain of that, though things happened so fast I could have missed it.
Now, a sleek black vehicle idled at the far end of the alleyway, its headlamps extinguished, rendering it nearly invisible to human eyes in the darkness.
I rose slowly, my gaze fixed on the car as it began to pull away from the curb.
In the instant before it disappeared around the corner, the rear of the vehicle caught the faint light from a nearby gas lamp.
Painted on the trunk in discreet gold lettering was an emblem—a rising sun with a cross at its center.
The same symbol Desiderius had shown me in his drawing.
My blood would have run cold, had it still flowed warmly through my veins. Someone had witnessed our confrontation with the ferals. Someone had watched without intervening, without helping—or hindering. Someone connected to whatever organization now used that symbol.
They had seen what we could do. What I could do.
The car disappeared into the night, leaving me alone with the staked bodies and a growing sense of dread.
I scanned the surrounding buildings, the shadowed doorways, wondering if other eyes still watched from hidden vantage points.
My hand slipped into my handbag, fingers closing around the cool metal of my pistol, though I knew the danger had already passed—for tonight, at least.
Ruth and Rebecca returned shortly, pushing a mortician’s cart before them. Its wheels creaked softly against the cobblestones, a mournful counterpoint to our hushed voices as we worked to lift the staked bodies onto its surface.
“Something troubles you,” Rebecca observed as we arranged Catherine’s rigid form beside the others. Her perception had always been keen.
“Someone observed us,” I said quietly, glancing again at the corner where the automobile had disappeared. “A car bearing the emblem Desiderius showed us—the sunrise and cross.”
Ruth’s head snapped up, her eyes widening. “The Order? Here?”
“I cannot say with certainty,” I replied, covering the bodies with a black cloth Rebecca had brought. “They watched without interfering. Which concerns me more than if they had attacked.”
“They’re studying us.” Rebecca’s voice was flat. “Learning our methods, our weaknesses.”
I nodded grimly. “Which means we must be even more vigilant. And we must accelerate the training of our new... charges.” I gestured to the covered forms on the cart.
We moved through the darkened streets like a funeral procession, Ruth and Rebecca pushing the cart while I walked ahead, scanning for any sign of further surveillance. The journey seemed longer than usual, each shadow concealing potential danger, each passing carriage a possible threat.
Sister Josephine awaited us in the chapel, her aged form kneeling before the altar, surrounded by the gentle glow of prayer candles. She did not turn as we entered, though I knew she had heard us. Her lips moved in silent devotion, her rosary beads clicking softly between her gnarled fingers.
We left the cart in the corridor and entered the chapel quietly, joining her in prayer. Only when the last prayer faded did she struggle to her feet, each movement a negotiation between will and worn cartilage.
Sister Josephine’s rheumy eyes traveled from the mud on my hem to the tear in Rebecca’s sleeve. “I see your evening gown has acquired some rather uncharitable stains since the opera.”
“Yes,” I answered, the single syllable heavy with all we had experienced. “Three ferals confronted us afterwards.”
“They confronted you?” Sister Josephine tilted her head. “That’s unusual. You are not suited to their… tastes…”
I nodded. “It was certainly unusual. We typically have to track them down ourselves. I have reason to suspect that someone had arranged our confrontation. After the incident, I saw a horseless carriage with the same sigil Desiderius had shown me painted on the back.”
Sister Josephine’s lips thinned as she exhaled sharply through her nose. “This changes everything. These people aren’t just watching our convent—they’re studying you. They know what you are, Alice. What we harbor here.”
“And what we do,” I added quietly. “This goes far beyond complaints about our work with immigrants or even anti-Catholic sentiment. If I’d known someone was watching, we might have handled the situation differently.”
“How could we have done anything else?” Rebecca piped in. “We tried to give them hope, to share a little about what we do, but they were determined to attack.”
“It was strange,” I admitted, “that they’d lose control to attack us. If we were warm-blooded humans, losing control would make sense. But there’s nothing about us that should have triggered their bloodlust.”
“Unless they were there on orders.” Sister Josephine shook her head. “You will need to handle them delicately. You know how unpredictable the lost can be when we revive them.”
I bit the inside of my cheek, tasting the familiar copper tang of my blood.
“Every time I drive in that stake, I condemn them to a purgatory they cannot comprehend until they’ve endured it.
Yes, the shock has brought many back from the brink—made them receptive when nothing else could.
But I remember what it was like when I was newly turned.
” My fingers traced the outline of my locket through the fabric of my dress.
“These poor people have already known more suffering than they deserved.”
Sister Josephine nodded, no judgment in her weathered face. “And this troubles you still, after all this time. After you’ve experienced how such sorrow, how further suffering was necessary to awaken your faith,”
It wasn’t a question, but I answered anyway. “It does. Each time I drive the wood home, I cast a soul into darkness, however temporarily. What right have I to inflict such torment, even in the name of eventual salvation?”
“The same right any physician has to cause pain in service of healing.” Her voice was gentle but firm. “Would you rather have left them to continue their rampage? To kill innocents and damn themselves further?”
“No, but...” I sighed, my shoulders slumping beneath invisible weight. “What if some souls are simply beyond redemption? What if all our efforts merely postpone the inevitable fall?”
Sister Josephine’s hand found mine, her papery skin cool against my eternal chill.
“Free will means some souls cannot be saved against their will,” she said softly.
“Your attempt to reach them was itself an act of faith, Alice. Not all will choose the path you offer, but without the offer, none can choose it.”
“I know,” I whispered. “And yet...”
Sister Josephine’s eyes drifted toward the corridor where our grim cargo waited.
“We have walked this path before,” she said softly.
“Look at your flock now—how many began as these three? Think of Eleanor, her fangs bared as you approached, the venom in her voice when the wood pierced her chest. Yet now she tends the garden and leads the evening prayers.”
I nodded, remembering Eleanor’s rage, her hatred—and her eventual transformation into one of our most steadfast sisters.
“The pain of their temporary hell may be the crucible that prepares them to truly hear your message,” Sister Josephine continued. “Sometimes, Alice, salvation begins with suffering. Our Lord himself showed us this truth.”
As the first rays of morning light filtered through the stained glass windows, casting prismatic colors across the worn stone floor, I felt something inside me ease slightly. Not absolution, perhaps, but acceptance of the difficult path we walked.
“They will need cages,” I said finally, turning toward the door. “And blood, when they awaken. And patience.”
“All of which we have in abundance,” Sister Josephine assured me, a slight smile creasing her aged face. “Go now. See to your charges. I will pray for their souls while they wander in darkness.”
“And concerning the people who saw us, the same people who might have sent these three to attack us to begin with?”
Sister Josephine’s face remained impassive as marble. “We shall follow our usual method, Alice. First mercy, then truth. They will reveal what they know when their souls are ready, not when our curiosity demands it.”
I departed the chapel, my steps firmer now, with Ruth and Rebecca trailing like shadows.
The familiar ache of responsibility settled across my shoulders—a yoke I had willingly taken up.
This was my calling: to extend salvation’s hand to creatures who might slap it away a hundred times before finally grasping it.
Yet as we moved toward the cart and the three staked bodies, my thoughts returned to that horseless carriage and its occupants.
How long would these watchers observe our work?
Would they allow us to rehabilitate these ferals, or was some darker design already in motion?