Chapter 7
We wound our way down the narrow spiral staircase, each turn bringing us closer to the convent’s basement where three staked vampires lay in suspended animation.
My candle cast our shadows against damp stone walls—mine tall and straight, Desiderius’s hunched slightly despite his fluid movements, and the twin silhouettes of Ruth and Rebecca trailing behind us, their habits brushing the steps with soft whispers.
The weight of my silver pins pressed against my thigh through my pocket, a reminder of what I had done to these souls and what I now intended to offer them: a chance at redemption they might well reject with fangs bared.
“You are certain they are ready?” Desiderius asked without turning, his voice echoing in the confines of the stairwell.
“No one is ever ready,” I replied. “But neither do I wish to prolong their suffering in that place.”
The place we sometimes called “vampire hell” though it may have been a misnomer—the shadowland where staked vampires dwelled, their souls cast into a darkness that Father O’Malley had once described as “a purgatory without the promise of eventual release.” I had felt its cold embrace myself, during my training with the Order.
Silas staked me once to teach me a lesson.
He’d meant for me to think he held the power over my existence, that I needed the false redemption he and the Order promised.
The memory of that vast emptiness, that sense of being utterly forsaken, still haunted the corners of my mind.
We reached the bottom of the stairs where the air hung heavy with the scent of damp stone.
The basement had once been used for storage before we repurposed it for our more delicate work.
Now it held three wooden tables where our ferals lay bound with blessed silver chains, the stakes—and my umbrella—still protruding from their chests.
Their bodies remained perfectly preserved, as though death had merely paused rather than claimed them.
I approached Catherine first. Her face was frozen in an expression of surprise, preserving in her countenance the moment when the wood had pierced her heart. Beside her, James and Michael lay in similar states of suspended animation, their features contorted with rage rather than shock.
“They have been in darkness for more than an hour,” I said softly. “Long enough, I think, for the void to have made its impression.”
Desiderius prepared the space. He laid prayer mats beside each table and arranged the implements we would need—silver knives to cut our palms should their thirst prove too great upon awakening, vials of donated blood to ease their transition back, restraints of blessed silver that would burn but not permanently harm.
“The boy’s anger runs deep,” Desiderius observed, pausing over Michael. “I have seen such rage before. It speaks of profound betrayal.”
“The Order has that effect,” I replied, bitterness coloring my voice. “If they are indeed responsible for turning these three.”
Ruth and Rebecca moved silently around the room, lighting additional candles and whispering prayers Father O’Malley had taught them
Rebecca’s hands remained steady as she prepared a vial of blood. “Which one shall we begin with?”
I studied the three prone figures, then gestured toward the woman whose face, even in suspended animation, held a certain thoughtfulness beneath the rage. “We’ll begin with Catherine.”
I took my place at the head of Catherine’s table, fingers poised inches from the stake jutting from her sternum. “When I pull this free,” I warned Ruth and Rebecca in a low voice, “she’ll return to us wild with hunger and disorientation. Keep your distance until I signal it’s safe.”
Desiderius took up position on Catherine’s other side. With a nod to indicate his readiness, I gripped the stake and pulled with a swift, smooth motion.
The stake released from Catherine’s chest with a wet, hollow pop.
Three seconds of stillness followed—then life surged back into her.
Her spine bowed upward against the restraints, chains rattling as a sound escaped her throat—half-scream, half-inhale—as though she were drowning in air.
When her eyelids snapped open, crimson irises blazed beneath them, wild with both starvation and the lingering horror of where she had been.
“Hold her,” I commanded, and Desiderius pressed her shoulders back to the table as she thrashed against the restraints.
“Where—where was I?” Catherine choked out, her voice raw. “It was so dark, so empty—please, don’t send me back there!”
I pressed the vial to her lips, my voice steady despite the way her anguish clawed at my chest. “The darkness is gone. Take this.”
She latched onto the vial desperately, gulping the contents as though it were water in a desert. When it was empty, some of the wildness receded from her eyes, replaced by confusion and lingering fear.
“What happened to me?” she whispered. “I remember a fight, and then... nothing. Just darkness and cold. So cold.”
I leaned closer, my voice barely above a whisper. “What you felt—that void—is the shadowland where we exist when staked. It’s a glimpse of our eternal fate should we give ourselves over to bloodlust completely. I had to send you there briefly to transport you here without risk to others.”
Cautiously, I motioned for Ruth to approach with another vial while I loosened Catherine’s restraints.
“There is another path,” I continued, watching her face for understanding. “A difficult one, filled with pain and sacrifice, but one that leads away from that darkness. A path of redemption.”
Catherine’s lips curled back, revealing the tips of her fangs. “Redemption?” The word caught in her throat. “You might as well offer salvation to a rabid dog.”
Ruth stepped forward, her eyes meeting Catherine’s without flinching. “I once felt as you do.” The candlelight danced across her face. “I remember believing the hunger would consume me forever. That I was damned. Yet here we stand. Living proof that another way exists.”
Catherine snorted. “Living?”
I nodded. “We’re more alive than you’ve come to believe. This is not death, Catherine. We are not damned. Not yet, anyway.”
Catherine’s gaze darted between us, suspicion warring with desperate hope.
While Ruth continued to explain to Catherine, I moved to James and removed his stake with the same swift motion.
His awakening was more violent than Catherine’s, a roar of fury erupting from his lips as consciousness returned.
Rebecca immediately held a vial to his mouth, which he bit into savagely, glass cracking between his teeth as he gulped the contents.
Michael’s revival followed a similar pattern, his eyes blazing with hatred as I pulled the wood from his chest. He spat curses that would have shamed a sailor, straining against the silver restraints until they smoked against his skin.
“The process is painful,” I admitted once all three were awake and had taken their first feeding.
“Purification always is. You must learn to resist the urge to feed on the living, to control the hunger that consumes you. Eventually, through prayer and discipline, you may find that the Eucharist itself can sustain you. You will no longe require human blood.”
James and Michael exchanged skeptical glances, their defiance palpable despite their weakened state. “Pretty tales for children,” James spat. “We are predators, not penitents.”
“So was I,” I replied evenly. “So were we all. Yet here we are.”
“Where did you come from?” Desiderius asked, his tone conversational though his eyes remained sharp. “Who turned you?”
All three fell silent, exchanging wary looks.
“The Order of the Morning Dawn,” I suggested, watching their reactions carefully. “Did they find you? Promise you power, purpose, salvation if you proved yourselves worthy?”
Michael’s jaw tightened, but he maintained his silence. James looked away, suddenly finding the stone ceiling fascinating. Only Catherine’s expression shifted, a mixture of surprise and recognition crossing her features.
“They said we’d be cleansed if we proved ourselves,” she admitted quietly.
“They who?” I pressed. “Did they mention the Order by name?”
Catherine shook her head. “No. They never said what they called themselves. Just that we needed to show our worth by eliminating certain... threats.” Her eyes flicked to me. “They described you—said you were corrupting others of our kind with false promises.”
“I’d expect the Order to think nothing less,” I sighed, my suspicions confirmed even without the name being spoken. “They create vampires, then use them as disposable weapons against their enemies. When your usefulness ends, so does your existence.”
“That can’t be true,” Catherine protested, but doubt had crept into her voice. “They saved us when we were turned. They gave us shelter, blood...”
“Enough to keep you alive, to make you dependent,” I finished for her. “But did they offer you true control? Or merely direction for your hunger?”
The uncertainty in Catherine’s eyes told me everything. Behind her, I noticed James shifting uncomfortably, the first crack in his defiance.
Desiderius stepped forward. “I have guided many like you. Vampires who believed themselves beyond redemption, consumed by bloodlust and rage. I can show you techniques that worked for them—controlled feeding rituals, prayers, gradual exposure to the Eucharist, and the spiritual discipline needed to master your condition.”
To demonstrate, he performed a brief ritual with Rebecca—a careful prayer followed by her touching a small silver cross without flinching, then sipping from a chalice that I knew contained consecrated wine.
We were not generally granted free access to the Eucharist; we typically received it kneeling at Mass, but for these purposes, the Bishop had granted us a dispensation.
Catherine watched with undisguised fascination. Even Michael’s rigid posture had softened slightly, his eyes following Desiderius’s movements with reluctant interest.
“This is possible?” It was the first genuine question James asked.
Before I could answer, a soft sound from the stairwell drew my attention. Sister Josephine stood framed in the doorway, her frail form silhouetted against the torchlight behind her. Despite her age, she had managed the stairs, which told me her news could not wait.
“Sister Alice,” she called, her voice surprisingly strong. “There are visitors. Important ones, I believe. They arrived in a horseless carriage bearing the rising-sun-and-cross sigil.”
I exchanged a worried glance with Desiderius, whose expression hardened almost imperceptibly.
I turned to Ruth and Rebecca, keeping my voice low. “Start them on Desiderius’s breathing technique. If they don’t fight it, move on to the first meditation with the consecrated blood.”
Desiderius stepped forward, his expression grim. “I’ll accompany you, Alice. These visitors concern us both.”
I nodded, grateful for his presence as we moved toward the stairs together. Desiderius’s footsteps beside mine were steady, unhurried—the measured pace of a man who had faced darkness countless times and emerged unbroken.