“Rebecca, you’ll assist with the donors.Learning to manage your hunger while surrounded by willing blood will strengthen your resolve.”
Rebecca’s face went even paler, if such a thing were possible.The assignment was clearly meant as torture, surrounding a starving vampire with food she could only take in measured doses.
“And you,” Marcus turned to me, “will accompany Desiderius, but you are not to interact with each other on the mission.You must heed only the commands of your superiors.You must prove your obedience accordingly.”
“When do we begin?”I asked.
“Tonight is short, so you may feed, then you must rest and allow your bodies to recover for your respective tasks.Matthias will show you to your quarters.”He paused, studying each of us.“Remember—you are constantly observed, constantly evaluated.Any deviation from your sworn oath, any sign of deception, will result in immediate termination.”
The threat hung in the air as we filed out of his office.My burned hand wouldn’t heal, not until I had blood.The only solace, the only thing Rebecca and Ruth heard at all: Marcus had permitted us to feed.It was a grace of a sort, like Christ’s cross.A curse in part, but a curse through which we might be revived.If not for salvation—nothing the Order offered could accomplish that—at least temporarily freed from our hunger.I didn’t want to taste human blood.After I’d received the eucharist, feeding on a human felt like sacrilege.But what choice did I have?Somehow, it was arranged that Nightwalkers could feed here without killing.If the taste of blood was what I had to endure, for Rebecca’s and Ruth’s sakes, it was the cross I’d have to bear.
Matthias led us down stone steps, deeper into the monastery’s bowels.
“The donors,” Matthias announced with the pride of someone showing off a well-stocked larder.“They come willingly, offering their blood for the greater good.They believe they’re preventing massacres, keeping monsters contained through their sacrifice.”
I nodded.“They aren’t doing it out of generosity toward our kind.They’re doing it for the same reason a zookeeper might keep a lion fed—because he’s less dangerous with a full stomach.These donors are here to save human lives, nothing more.”
The feeding chamber coursed with the odor of real, living humans.It smelled of blood.A dozen heartbeats fluttered, each one like a beacon calling me, teasing me.
Iron bars divided the room like a prison turned inside out.On one side, we monsters waited.On the other, a dozen humans lay on narrow cots, their faces carrying the same emptiness I recognized from the consumption wards—people who’d surrendered hope so completely they no longer bothered to dream of the future.Some slept, or pretended to.Others stared at the ceiling with the blank acceptance of livestock.
I nudged Desiderius.“I thought these werewillingdonors.”
“I don’t think anyone is forcing them to be here.These people might be desperate, for what I cannot say, but they know what they’re here for.”
Guards flanked every exit, their hands resting on wooden stakes.Each wore an iron collar that covered Their eyes followed our every movement.These were men who knew what they were doing, who’d each probably eliminated their fair share of vampires in the past.
“Protocol is simple.”Matthias gestured toward the cots.“One donor per Nightwalker.You feed until the supervisor signals cessation—three taps on your shoulder.Ignore the signal, and they intervene.”His eyes found mine.“Terminally.”
Ruth pressed against the bars, her fingers white where they gripped the metal.Beside her, Rebecca swayed on her feet, a soft keening sound escaping her throat.The hunger had carved them hollow, turned them into shells animated by need alone.
“You’re assigned by seniority,” Matthias continued.“Desiderius first, then—“
“Let them go first.”Desiderius nodded toward Ruth and Rebecca.“They need it more.”
Matthias hesitated, glancing at the nearest guard who gave an almost imperceptible shrug.“Very well.Ruth, Rebecca—beds seven and eight.”
The guard unlocked a narrow gate in the bars.Ruth shot through it like an arrow from a bow, Rebecca stumbling after.Ruth’s donor—a middle-aged man with the weathered hands of a dock worker—barely flinched when her fangs found his throat.He’d done this before.His eyes stayed fixed on the ceiling while Ruth drank, her entire body shuddering with relief as the blood filled her.
Rebecca’s donor, a boy who couldn’t have been over sixteen, did flinch.His hands came up instinctively before dropping back to his sides, resignation replacing fear.The guards watched, counting silently, their stakes ready.
Three taps came too soon for Ruth.She jerked back with a snarl that showed too much fang, too much monster.The guard’s stake pressed against her ribs—not breaking skin, but promising.She released her donor and stumbled backward, blood still glistening on her lips.Rebecca required two guards to pull away, her fingers leaving bruises on the boy’s arms.
“Alice.”Matthias gestured toward bed three.
My donor was young, perhaps twenty, with hollow eyes.When I approached, she turned her head to expose her neck—practiced, mechanical, empty.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, though I wasn’t sure if I meant it for her or myself.
She said nothing.They rarely did, Matthias had explained earlier.The Order selected donors who wouldn’t be missed, wouldn’t be believed.Immigrants who didn’t know English.Prostitutes.The homeless.The kind of people who could be easily convinced to submit themselves to something so perverse—either being paid a small sum, or desperate for whatever lie the Order of the Morning Dawn had re-packaged as a kind of salvation.They were also the kind of people who, if they ever spoke of what happened, most would dismiss as lunatics.
My fangs extended without conscious thought.The hunger commanded, and my body obeyed even as my mind recoiled.I tried to be gentle, to take only what I needed, but the first taste of blood after five days of starvation shattered my control.Warmth flooded through me, filling spaces I’d forgotten were empty.The woman’s heartbeat thundered in my ears, each pulse delivering life into my dead veins.
St.Teresa wrote of ecstasy in divine union.This was its dark mirror—transcendence through consumption.I drank deeper, the hunger finally, finally quieting.The woman’s pulse began to flutter, weakening, and still I drank.Some part of me knew I should stop, but that voice seemed very far away, muffled by the roar of blood and need and—
Three taps.Hard enough to bruise if I were still human.
I released her, gasping unnecessarily, blood running down my chin.The woman’s eyes had rolled back, showing only white.Still breathing, but barely.The guard shoved me back, another taking my place to check her pulse, press gauze to the wounds.
