Chapter 31
Dawn approached as we secured ourselves in the abbey’s crypt, far below the chapel where we had once gathered for prayer. We couldn’t pray now, not publicly, lest we compromise the narrative we’d fed Gallow.
I sat upon a stone bench carved from the wall itself, my fingers tracing patterns in the dust that had accumulated over centuries of quiet death.
How different our immortality was from the peaceful rest of those who had been laid here with prayers and tears, their souls commended to heaven while their bodies returned to earth.
We existed in the space between—neither fully alive nor granted the mercy of true death, suspended in a perpetual twilight that promised neither salvation nor damnation but only the relentless march of nights without end.
Catherine had already succumbed to daylight torpor, less because her body required it, and more because she’d endured more than any young vampire should. She craved escape—and daytime slumbers were the only actual way any of us could escape what we were, even if only in our dreams.
Only Desiderius remained awake with me, fighting the sun’s invisible weight as I was, determined to address what had transpired in Gallow’s presence.
“You’re at another crossroads, Alice,” he observed, his voice barely disturbing the crypt’s heavy silence. “Having lost almost everything you built—your convent, your flock, your mission of redemption.”
I lifted my gaze to his ancient face, seeing in it the weight of centuries I could scarcely imagine. “Is that supposed to comfort me?”
“It focuses you,” he replied without rancor. “What remains unchanged is the bishop’s need for our protection, and the continuation of both wars—human and supernatural—regardless of our personal losses.”
“The bishop.” I touched my locket reflexively, feeling the outline of the consecrated host within. “Who apparently has werewolves among his allies, and who knew more about this mission than he ever revealed to me.”
Desiderius nodded, acknowledging the truth in my words. “Harkins has always operated with necessary discretion. The fewer who know the full scope of his network, the safer all remain.”
I clenched my fists. “Now I’m not even sure if I can trust you, Desiderius!”
He tilted his head. “What do you mean?”
“Who in God’s name is Vladislav? Was everything you said true? Were you sent by him to pacify us, to leave us like lambs ready to become lions at the beck and call of the Order?”
“Yes, and no.” He hesitated a moment. “What I told Gallow was rooted more in fact than fiction.”
I stood up, hands on my hips. “Well, now would be a fantastic time to separate the two! After all these years, I trusted you!”
“I never lied to you.” Desiderius looked at me with eyes wider and more innocent than were fitting a vampire of his caliber.
“It is true that I was sent to Father O’Malley on a mission.
It’s also true that I recruited you for the very same purpose we spoke about with Gallow. But somewhere along the way—“
I snorted. “You had a change of heart? You fell in love? Don’t you dare tell me you fell in love with me because I’m not going to buy that load of manure even if I live long enough to see Christ return!”
Desiderius chuckled. “I didn’t fall in love with you. No offense.”
“Then what was it!”
“I found faith, Alice. The Eucharist actually purified me. And your example—it inspired me. I am the man you always believed I was, even if I wasn’t when we first met. I am not working for Vladislav, though I suspect he still trusts that I am.”
I wasn’t sure if I believed him, but I was willing to hear him out. “I’m going to ask you again. Who in the name of the Mother of God is Vladislav?”
Desiderius’s expression shifted, becoming more guarded yet somehow more honest simultaneously. “Vladislav is... a vampire of considerable age and influence. A Transylvanian nobleman turned during the Ottoman incursions of the fifteenth century.”
“And his connection to the Order?” I pressed.
“He founded it,” Desiderius stated simply. “Or rather, he guided its formation from behind several layers of human proxies.”
I stared at him, certain I had misunderstood. “A vampire founded the Order of the Morning Dawn? The organization dedicated to exterminating our kind?”
“Ironic, is it not?” A ghost of a smile touched Desiderius’s lips.
“But entirely logical when one understands Vladislav’s ultimate goal.
He believed that vampire nature represented a corruption of the divine image—a theological position I’m sure you can understand.
But rather than seek redemption through prayer as you have done, he sought purification through selection. ”
“Selection?” I cocked an eyebrow.
“He believed that only certain vampires—those with sufficient will, sufficient spiritual strength—deserved to exist. The rest were abominations to be eliminated.” Desiderius paused, his gaze growing distant with memory.
“He created the Order to systematically identify and destroy those vampires who could not control their nature, who succumbed completely to bloodlust and predation.”
I snorted. “Witches, too.”
“That also fit his agenda,” Desiderius said. “Suffer not a witch to live. I grant it’s a gross abuse of the Biblical text, but he took it out of context, and to heart… what remained of his heart.”
Understanding dawned with horrific clarity. “And you... you knew him?”
Desiderius met my gaze directly. “He was my sire,” he admitted. “The one who turned me, who taught me control, who showed me the path of discipline I later adapted into the monastic practice you observed in New York.”
The revelation left me speechless. Desiderius—the ancient vampire who had joined my spiritual mission, who had helped me guide newly turned vampires toward control and potential redemption—had been created by the very architect of our persecution.
And what we were doing somehow fit the designs of the mastermind behind the Order of the Morning Dawn?
“Most within the Order believe Vladislav died decades ago,” Desiderius continued into my stunned silence.
“That’s why Gallow was so shocked. They think he was destroyed by one of his own creations who rejected his philosophy of selective purification.
I allowed this myth to persist, though now I am obviously ready to dispel it, as it serves my purposes. ”
“Your purposes?” I managed finally.
“Our purposes.” Desiderius reached for my hand.
I yanked mine back with such force my elbow almost blasted a hole in the wall behind me. “You said you aren’t in love with me. I’m not letting you hold my hand.”
Desiderius laughed. “Fair enough.”
I glared at him for a moment expecting him to explain further. But he said nothing. I had to prod him. “What are our purposes exactly, since you’re so bold as to presume that mine aligns with yours?”
“To reform what Vladislav began,” he explained.
“To transform his vision of selection and destruction into one of potential redemption. I came to believe, thanks to you, that our condition need not damn us completely—that with proper guidance, even the most feral vampire might find a path back to something resembling humanity.”
I rose from the stone bench, needing physical movement to process this cascade of revelations. “A vampire secretly controls an organization dedicated to destroying vampires. It sounds like madness.”
“It is the ultimate expression of self-loathing,” Desiderius agreed. “A hatred of one’s nature so profound that it manifests as genocide against one’s own kind. Yet Vladislav saw himself as purifying rather than destroying—preserving only those he deemed worthy of immortality.”
“Those he deems worthy?“ I threw my hands in the air. “Who died and made him the judge of our souls?”
“He did,” Desiderius shook his head. “I mean, that’s probably what he’d say. He claims he had visions when he turned, a message from God that gave him this… mission.”
“And now Gallow believes we’ve been operating under Vladislav’s principles all along?
” I shook my head in disbelief. “That my guidance of the flock, my prayers, my efforts to help them find redemption—all of this was merely a facade to identify those who Vladislav might deem worthy, leading the rest to destruction?”
“It is a convenient fiction,” Desiderius acknowledged. “One that explains our survival and may grant us access to the Order’s inner workings. After all, our actions now serve as proof that Vladislav still lives. And I’m the only one who knows how to find him.”
“Because you’re his progeny.” I shook my head. “Even if you don’t know where he is, you could find him if you really wanted.”
Desiderius nodded firmly but remained silent as I processed everything and paced the length of the hall. “So we proceed with this deception? Pretending to serve an organization founded by a self-hating vampire, now apparently controlled by humans who’ve inherited his twisted vision?”
“We proceed with the mission Bishop Harkins entrusted to you,” Desiderius corrected gently. “To learn the Order’s true intentions, to understand the threat they pose not just to our kind but to countless others they’d burn at the stake.”
“And if we succeed?” I asked. “If we penetrate the heart of the Order, learn their secrets, expose their methods—what then? Will it restore what I’ve lost? Will it bring back Ruth, Rebecca, Thomas, and all the others who died believing in the path I showed them?”
“No,” Desiderius answered with simple honesty. “Nothing will restore them. But it may prevent others from sharing their fate.”
I knelt in my quarters, beside I bed I didn’t require. Apparently, given what I’d learned, I could use the chapel after all. Gallow didn’t understand everything, but he believed our religious devotion served a purpose—even if it was Vladislav’s rather than the Lord’s.
Catherine slumbered beside me, asleep more by choice than need.
A part of me envied her, the ability to detach, to forget about the troubles that befell us.
Such detachment was a quality that even some of the most advanced sisters in the convent never achieved.
I was under to illusion that Catherine had reached the point by devotion—she’d detached herself out of necessity.
She’d seen too much to handle. The only option that remained was acceptance. Surrender.
“Lord who walks with us in darkness,” I prayed, “receive the souls of those lost in this night of nights. Guide them toward Your light though they perished in shadow.” I paused, finding my next words with care.
“And grant me strength for the darker journey that lies ahead—not for glory or vengeance, but because the path to redemption requires us to tread through the very heart of darkness.”
As I spoke the final words, Catherine shifted again, her eyes opening briefly despite the daylight hour that should have rendered her unconscious. “Sister Alice?” she murmured, her voice thick with torpor.
“I’m here,” I assured her.
“Are we... are we still on the right path?” she asked, the question piercing in its innocent directness. “Can I still become a sister?”
I smoothed her hair back from her forehead, a gesture of comfort that belonged to my human life, to the days when I had nursed the sick and dying in my father’s parish. “There is no map for the wilderness we now traverse,” I told her softly. “But we have a guiding light. We are not alone.”
Her eyes closed again as she forfeited her consciousness, but the question lingered in the crypt’s hushed atmosphere. I remained on my knees, my prayer now giving way to a solemn vow.
“God, though I must become what they need me to be, I will never forfeit who you created me to be. Though wolves surround me, I will trust in You. Though my enemies encompass me, my hands and feet remain pierced in your stigmata. The wounds have not shown in many years, but the pain remains. Let me die in You, whatever I might be, that I might live in You all the more. I am yours.”