“Brother Marcus says many things,” Ruth interrupted.“Most of them designed to keep us paralyzed with fear.But we didn’t come here to cower.We came to stop them from destroying every vampire in existence.”
They all turned to me, waiting for my agreement, my participation in this next deception.But the weight of Gabriel’s familiar strangeness pressed against my thoughts like a physical thing, making it hard to focus on anything else.
“I need to pray,” I said, the words emerging before I’d fully decided on them.“To think.To...process what we just witnessed.”
Ruth’s expression flickered between surprise and something that might have been hurt.“You’re not coming with us?”
“Gabriel’s speech troubled me.”It wasn’t quite a lie.“There was something in it, something I needed to understand.And I can’t do that surrounded by the Order’s collected horrors.”
Desiderius studied me for a long moment, and I wondered if he could see through my excuse to the real confusion beneath.“Prayer might serve you well,” he said finally.“We all process revelation differently.”
“We’ll tell you what we find,” Rebecca promised, though she still looked uncertain about the entire enterprise.
“Be careful,” I said, meaning it.“The archives aren’t just a library.Ruth’s burns prove that.Whatever you’re looking for might be protected by more than locks.”
“Everything here is protected by more than locks,” Ruth replied with dark humor.“But we’ve come too far to let that stop us now.”
They left me there in the alcove with the headless saint, their footsteps fading into the monastery’s perpetual whisper of sound—dripping water, settling stones, the distant murmur of prayer or plotting.I waited until I was certain they’d gone, then made my way toward my quarters, needing the illusion of privacy to sort through the chaos in my mind.
The corridor stretched before me, lit by candles that threw my shadow in multiple directions, as though I was fracturing with each step.Somewhere behind these walls, Gabriel probably knelt in his own cell, nursing the burns on his palms and dreaming of glorious self-destruction.Somewhere else, Brother Marcus catalogued our reactions to tonight’s performance, measuring our commitment to the cause.
And somewhere in my memory, locked away like the Order’s restricted texts, lay the answer to why Gabriel seemed so familiar.I just had to find the right key to open it.
Myquartershadneverfelt more like a tomb than in that moment, four walls of stone that seemed to pulse with my own confusion.I knelt on the cold floor, St.Teresa’s book open before me, but the words swam without meaning.Every prayer I attempted scattered like smoke, replaced by Gabriel’s eyes and that maddening sense of almost-recognition.
“Let nothing disturb thee,” I whispered, trying to anchor myself in the familiar passage.But everything disturbed me now.The way Gabriel had held that burning Bible, suffering so beautifully for his audience.The careful construction of his sermon, with each word chosen for maximum impact.The way Brother Marcus had watched from the shadows, evaluating not just Gabriel’s performance but our reactions to it.
I tried again, pressing my palms together until the bones ached.“Our Father, who art in heaven—“
The words turned sent a course of agony through my head—the same kind of headaches St.Theresa said she suffered from.It had gotten worse since I fed, as if I’d lost most of the progress I’d gained in all my months with Father O’Malley.I wanted to bear the pain like the saint, like all it proved was that I waslovedso much that I was deemed worthy to suffer with Christ.
But I didn’t have the faith of a saint.Maybe I did once, but not anymore.
Every attempt to press forward, to focus my mind on the events of Christ’s life, his birth from the Blessed Virgin’s womb, his baptism by John in the Jordan, the miracle at Cana, the institution of the Eucharist, his passion and crucifixion.My mind couldn’t stay there.Instead, Gabriel’s smug face kept flashing back in my mind like an all-consuming and devastating case of consumption.
I rose from my knees, pacing the narrow confines of my cell.Three steps to the wall, turn, three steps back.The movement helped somewhat, gave my restless energy an outlet, but it wasn’t enough.The walls pressed closer with each circuit; the air grew thick with my uncertainty.
I needed to move, to walk, to find space where my thoughts could expand beyond this crushing sense of wrong-ness.My hand found the door handle without conscious decision, and I stepped into the corridor before I could second-guess myself.
The monastery’s passages were darker at this hour, many of the candles allowed to gutter out until only every third or fourth remained lit.The shadows between them seemed solid enough to touch, creating pools of absolute darkness that even my enhanced vision struggled to penetrate.I walked without destination, letting my feet carry me through the labyrinth while my mind churned over the problem of Gabriel.
That voice.That jawline.The way his fingers had trembled against the Bible—not just from pain, but from something else.Excitement?Anticipation?Or was it something else?
A figure materialized from one of those shadow pools so suddenly I nearly stumbled.Speak of the devil, straight out of hell.
Gabriel stood there, close enough that I could see the fresh burns on his palms, still weeping clear fluid that looked almost like tears.
“Sister Alice,” he said, and there it was again—that particular way he shaped my name, the slight emphasis on the first syllable that pulled at memory’s threads.“I hoped we might speak privately.”
“I was just—“ I began, but he stepped closer, and his proximity scrambled my thoughts.This close, I could smell the char on his hands, the lingering smoke from his theatrical sacrifice, and underneath it something else.Something familiar in a way that made my chest constrict.
“Your dedication impressed me,” he said, studying my face with the intensity of a doctor performing an autopsy.“The way you completed your oath without flinching.”
“I didn’t know you saw that.I thought we were—“
He didn’t answer me.He just continued what sounded like admiration.“Such strength.Such...familiarity with pain.”
His hand rose almost dreamily, and his fingers brushed against my sleeve.The touch was light, barely there, but cold—colder than even our kind typically felt.And in that instant of contact, the world shattered.
