“This can’t continue,” I said, surprising myself with the steadiness of my voice.“Tonight proved that.”
Desiderius nodded slowly.“The hunger will only grow worse.”
I looked at St.Teresa’s book in my hands, its pages full of wisdom about suffering and redemption, about finding God in the darkest of moments.But tonight had shown me something else, an insight of my own gleaned from both the saint’s wisdom and my experience.Suffering can be an opportunity to grow, but not every soul is prepared to endure it.I wasn’t ready—not yet.
“We have no choice but to act,” I met Desiderius’s gaze.“We go to New York.We infiltrate the Order.”The words tasted like surrender, but I forced them out, anyway.“If we remain passive, we doom ourselves either to feral hunger or destruction by their weapon.”
“And Father O’Malley?”Desiderius asked.“Will you seek him out?”
I thought of the dying priest, of his gentle hands placing the host on my tongue, of his absolute faith that even creatures like us could find redemption.“If God wills it, our paths will cross.But we can’t simply run to him for salvation.This is our trial to endure.”
Ruth stirred in the corner.“What if we can’t control ourselves again?What if next time—“
“There won’t be a next time,” I interrupted.“In New York, the Order provides blood to its Nightwalkers.It may be a trap, it may be manipulation, but it’s better than becoming the monsters they already believe us to be.”
We would go to New York, walk willingly into the Order’s stronghold, and pretend allegiance to those who would see us destroyed.It was madness, perhaps.But as I looked at my companions—Desiderius grim but resolute, Ruth and Rebecca broken but not yet lost—I knew madness was preferable to the alternative.
“When do we leave?”Rebecca asked.
“Tomorrow night,” Desiderius answered.“We’ll need the darkness to travel, and one more day to prepare ourselves for what’s to come.”
I nodded, though the thought of another day fighting this hunger made my throat burn.But having a plan, something that depended on us, and not the uncertain impending decision of the bishop, made it easier to endure.We were moving, we were doingsomething.
Chapter 6
Thetenementloomed,itsfaçade crumbling from decades of salt air.My legs faltered as we entered—five days without blood had left me hollow.The stench assaulted us immediately: mildew, rot, and the dockside miasma of fish, tar, and waste.My inner monster found it all perversely appetizing.
“Careful,” Desiderius murmured as the floorboard beneath my foot groaned and sagged.He tested the next plank with deliberate pressure before committing his weight.“The wood’s nearly rotted through.”
I followed his path exactly.Behind us, Ruth stumbled through the doorway with Rebecca leaning heavily against her shoulder.They made it perhaps ten feet before Rebecca’s knees gave out entirely.She crumpled to the floor with a sound that was half-sob, half-moan.
“Can’t,” Rebecca gasped.“Can’t go any further.”
Ruth lowered herself beside her.The hunger had carved hollows beneath their eyes, turned their skin translucent as parchment.
I forced my voice to remain steady despite the tremors in my limbs.“Stay and recover your strength.Desiderius and I will scout the building.”
Neither responded.Ruth’s eyes had already closed, her body curling protectively around Rebecca’s smaller frame.
We navigated a labyrinth of fallen plaster and splintered doorframes on the ground floor, each room a graveyard of abandoned possessions.Desiderius glided ahead despite his hunger, his eyes marking every detail, escape routes, places where daylight might get through come sunrise.I tried to match his systematic scrutiny, but hunger had turned my mind to fog, thoughts dissolving before they could fully form.
A rat scurried across a beam overhead, its tiny heart drumming like rainfall.My fangs ached at the sound.I pressed my tongue against them and forced my attention back to the building’s layout.
“Three exits on this level,” Desiderius noted.“The main entrance, a collapsed doorway on the north side that could be cleared if necessary, and what might have been a coal chute on the eastern wall.”
I nodded, filing the information away while examining the load-bearing walls.Most remained structurally sound despite the decay, though several showed deep cracks that suggested eventual collapse.
With every step we took made the staircase groaned and cracked beneath us.My palm slid along the wall, leaving finger trails in decades of dust as bits of plaster disintegrated at my touch.When we reached the middle landing, Desiderius’s weight sent his foot plunging straight through a rotted board.He grabbed for the banister, only to have it wrench away from its moorings with a spray of rust flakes and splintered wood.
“Perhaps we should—“ I began, but he’d already vaulted over the gap, landing silently on the intact portion above.
I followed less gracefully, my weakened limbs barely clearing the distance.The hunger had stolen more than just my strength—it had taken the supernatural coordination I’d taken for granted.Now I moved like what I was: a walking corpse sustained by what could only be called a curse.
The upper floors proved even more deteriorated.Entire sections of the roof had caved in, leaving rooms open to the sky.Through these gaps and the glassless windows, I could see the city spreading out before us.Lamplight dotted the streets below, each glow representing lives full of warm, pulsing blood.But what caught my attention, what made my chest constrict with something beyond hunger, were the church spires.
Three of them rose above the surrounding buildings, their crosses catching the moonlight.The nearest couldn’t have been more than a quarter mile away.Close enough that I could make out the bell tower, the Gothic arches, the cemetery gates.Was Father O’Malley there, or at one of the other churches?Was his mission somewhere else?Or had he already taken to his sickbed, unable to fulfill even this final calling?
“You’re torturing yourself,” Desiderius observed, though his tone held no judgment.
