I found what I needed among the warehouse’s detritus—an old oil lamp, somehow still containing fuel.My hands shook as I lit it with matches they’d given me before the mission.This was supposed to be a death by fire.
“Now,” Desiderius commanded.
Timothy burst through the rear entrance just as I hurled the lamp onto the pile of bodies.The oil splashed across dead flesh and rotted wood alike, flame following instantly.The corpses’ clothing caught first, then their hair, then the flesh itself began to bubble and char.The smell—it was nothing I could have prepared for.
“What—“ Timothy stared at the growing inferno, his stake lowering as he took in the scene.Two vampires standing over burning corpses, the warehouse itself beginning to catch fire as flames spread to the debris-strewn floor.
“The coven is eliminated,” Desiderius reported with perfect calm, as though we weren’t standing in a growing inferno.“As Brother Elias commanded.”
Timothy’s gaze swept the scene, cataloguing details even as smoke obscured them.The surveillance, I realized.He was one of the watchers, here to verify our success.The burning bodies, our blood-covered hands, the devastation throughout the warehouse—it all painted the picture the Order expected.
“Fire,” he said finally.“Yes.Nothing recognizable.”He backed toward the entrance as flames began licking at the walls, hundred-year-old wood catching like kindling.“Return to the monastery.Brother Marcus will want a full report.”
We followed him out as the warehouse became a pillar of flame behind us, visible across half of Brooklyn.The corpses Matthias had stolen, whoever they’d been in life, were being erased completely.No evidence of our deception would survive that inferno.No proof that we’d saved five lives by desecrating the dead.
The walk back to St.Bartholomew’s passed in smoke-scented silence.Timothy stayed several paces ahead, occasionally glancing back as though to ensure we followed.My hands remained stained with blood.I wanted to wash them.I wanted to scrub until the skin came off, though I knew it wouldn’t help.
Brother Marcus waited in the monastery’s entrance hall, standing beneath a particularly graphic crucifix that showed Christ’s wounds in loving detail.His gray eyes tracked our approach, noting every detail of our appearance.
“It’s done,” Timothy reported.“The warehouse burns.I saw the bodies myself before the flames took them.”
Marcus moved closer, close enough that I could see the veins in his eyes, the places where age had begun carving lines around his mouth.He inhaled deeply, and I knew he was cataloguing the scents clinging to us—smoke, blood, death, and underneath it all, the distinctive smell of burned human flesh.
“You performed adequately,” he said finally, the word ‘adequately’ somehow more damning than outright criticism.“Your enthusiasm for destruction is...notable.”
I kept my gaze downcast, playing the obedient initiate.“We serve the cause, Brother Marcus.”
“Indeed.”He studied us a moment longer, then made a gesture of dismissal.“You’ve earned your place among us, provisional though it remains.Report to your quarters.Tomorrow we shall discuss your next… opportunity.”
We separated immediately, maintaining the pretense of distance.But as I passed Desiderius in the corridor leading to our quarters, he caught my eye for just a moment.In that glance, I saw my own horror reflected, my own recognition of what we’d done and what we’d become.We’d saved lives tonight, but what we did to those bodies, those poor women who should have been allowed to rest in peace.It bothered me more, perhaps, than it should have.
Ourquartershadoncebeen cells where monks engaged in contemplation and self-mortification.I felt a kinship with them, even though they were no longer present.I sat on the narrow cot that served as my bed—an absurd prop, since I no longer required sleep—and waited for the others.The smell of smoke still clung to my hair, and beneath my fingernails, blood had dried to dark crescents I couldn’t bring myself to clean.
Ruth arrived first.Her hands bore new burns, angry red welts that crossed her palms in patterns that looked almost deliberate.She collapsed onto Rebecca’s cot without ceremony, exhaustion evident in every line of her body.
“The archives,” she said without preamble, “are a monument to paranoia.They’ve been collecting weapons against our kind for God knows how long.The effort that they must have endured to secure such items…”
Rebecca slipped through the door moments later, and I nearly gasped at the change in her.Where before the hunger had made her gaunt, desperate, she now moved with something approaching control.Her eyes still held that terrible need, but it no longer consumed her entirely.
“You fed again?”I asked.
She shook her head, surprising me.“They brought donors to the chamber—twelve of them, all willing, all so broken they barely flinched when other Nightwalkers fed.But I...”She paused, searching for words.“All that starving we did, those days with nothing, it helped.I could resist.Which is the test I was supposed to endure.It wasn’t easy, but I resisted.”
“A miracle,” Ruth said flatly.“The Order taught you control.They believed it would make you more reliable, but it might very well be their undoing in the end.”
Desiderius entered last, closing the door with deliberate care.He’d washed the blood from his hands.
“Report,” he said simply, though his tone held none of its usual authority.We were all equal in our exhaustion.
Ruth straightened, professionalism overriding weariness.“I tested seventeen artifacts today.Most were useless—crosses and relics that burned but nothing we haven’t endured before.But three...”She held up her burned hands.“Three were different.”
She reached into her coat, producing a small notebook she’d somehow kept hidden.“The first was a blade, silver naturally, but inscribed with symbols I didn’t recognize.When I touched it, it didn’t just burn—it seemed to pull at something inside me.Like it was trying to draw out whatever animates us.”
“Hebrew?”Desiderius asked.“Enochian?”
“Neither.Older, maybe.The archivist called it ‘pre-Deluge,’ though I think he was being dramatic.”Ruth flipped through her notes.“The second was a mirror, polished obsidian set in bone.When I looked into it, I saw...nothing.Not even a void.True nothing, like I didn’t exist at all.The experience was so disturbing I nearly shattered it before remembering our purpose.”
“And the third?”I prompted.
