“Perhaps.”I turned from the window, but the image of those spires remained burned into my vision.“St.Teresa writes that suffering brings us closer to Christ.That through our trials, we participate in His passion.”
“And do you feel closer to Him now?”
The question hung between us.Five days ago, I might have answered yes.Now, with my throat burning and my body failing I wasn’t sure.“It’s not about what I feel.It’s about what I believe.”The book pressed against my ribs where I’d tucked it inside my coat, but even its familiar weight brought little comfort.
We continued our exploration.The building’s decay offered both advantages and dangers—multiple escape routes, but also too many points of entry to properly secure.
“Down here.”Desiderius had discovered a narrow door nearly hidden behind a pile of moldering furniture.The wood had swollen with moisture, requiring our combined strength to force it open.
The smell that wafted up from below made my stomach clench—centuries of damp and decay concentrated in an airless space.But as we descended the stone steps, I recognized the value of what he’d found.The cellar stretched larger than expected, its walls carved from solid bedrock rather than brick.No windows, only one entrance, and stone too thick for anyone to hear screams from within.
“Emergency shelter,” Desiderius confirmed, running his hand along the walls to test their integrity.“If the Order discovers our deception, we could defend this position indefinitely.”
Or become trapped in it, I thought but didn’t voice.My second thought was just as perilous—if they used that weapon, would this be enough to protect us from it?The cellar felt too much like a tomb, too much like the grave I’d never properly occupied.But given our options, it would serve.
It was better than the storm shelter back in Rhode Island, anyway.
We made our way back to where Ruth and Rebecca lay.Rebecca’s fingers twitched occasionally, grasping at nothing.Dreaming, perhaps, though I couldn’t imagine our kind found any peace in sleep.It struck me that I hadn’t had a single dream since becoming what I was.I was about to ask Desiderius of that was common to our kind, but he spoke up before I could articulate the question.
“Tomorrow night,” Desiderius said quietly, “we approach the Order.”
Wesettledinwhatmight have once been a parlor, far enough from Ruth and Rebecca that our voices wouldn’t disturb their exhausted rest, though I doubted anything short of blood could rouse them now.The room’s elegance had long since surrendered to decay—strips of wallpaper hung like dead skin, and the elaborate plaster molding had crumbled to reveal the skeleton of lath beneath.Desiderius positioned himself where he could watch both the entrance and the sleeping forms of our companions, while I sank onto what remained of a window seat.
“Tell me about the Order’s operations here,” I said, keeping my voice barely above a whisper.“How do they manage Nightwalkers in a city this size?”
Desiderius leaned against the wall, his posture deceptively casual though I knew he remained alert to every sound in the building.“They’ve had decades to perfect their system.The New York chapter operates from St.Bartholomew’s—not the church itself, but the old monastery attached to it.Officially abandoned, but the Order maintains the underground levels.”
“St.Bartholomew’s?”My brow furrowed in confusion.“I thought the Order operated independently of the Church.Isn’t their mission at odds with the Catholic Church?I mean, they’ve murdered priests before.They tried to kill Father O’Malley!”
Desiderius nodded slightly, his eyes never leaving the doorway.“It is unusual,” he admitted.“The Church has not traditionally seen eye-to-eye with the Order of the Morning Dawn.I cannot speak to the circumstances as to how the Order acquired the property but only speculate.Given the Church’s needs—it isn’t especially popular in Protestant America—selling unused property rarely comes with much scrutiny over the purchaser.”
I shook my head, still finding it odd.“But a monastery?”
Desiderius shrugged.“I wish I could tell you more, Alice.I do not know the reasons, on that the Order has operated out of the monastery for nearly a decade.What happened before that, well, I wasn’t in the area.I cannot say.”
“But you’ve worked as a Nightwalker before.”I shook my head.“Surely you heard something.”
“I was a Nightwalker under unspoken protest.I’d been searching for a way to undermine their efforts, to save those they’d sent me to kill.”
“How’d you get away with that?”I was genuinely curious.“Didn’t they figure it out?”
Desiderius tapped his temple.“My abilities.They’d send me after a witch, I’d give them a memory that convinced them to flee the region.So far as the Order knew, I’d completed my missions.They never asked to see the bodies, thank God.If they had—“
“You’d have been caught.”
“Or I’d have had no choice but to find a body, dig up a grave, burn it sufficiently that the Order wouldn’t know the difference.”
I shuddered.“I hate this.This entireexistence.The things we have to do just to survive.It’s not natural.”
“The things many humans do to survive isn’t natural, either.They cheat each other; they compete to get ahead at the expense of others’ wellbeing.That’s capitalism, Alice.For all its benefits, all the progress our world believes it’s made, all its so-called enlightenment, has done little but whitewash the same evils humanity has always embraced.”
I pursed my lips.“What do you mean?”
Desiderius chuckled a little.“The Industrial Revolution.Everyone talks about it like some kind of salvation.After the war, slavery was supposed to end.But what is the difference, Alice?People work in factories in horrible conditions.They have to do whatever their masters, theirbosses, dictate.They have to be at their beck and call.During slavery, masters had to provide food and shelter.Today, the worker is given money for his labor.All in all, though, I’m not sure I see much of a difference.Only now, we aren’t forcing any particular race of people into bondage, we’ve made slaves of the entire working class.”
I shook my head, trying to reconcile Desiderius’s words with my own experiences.“You make it sound as if there’s no difference between slavery and capitalism.But Father always said that a man who works for his wage is a free man, not a slave.”
Desiderius laughed, a sound like dry leaves crumbling.“Your father was a man of his time, Alice.The world has changed, and not always for the better.The chains of capitalism are less visible, but they bind just as tightly.”
