Memory crashed over me like a wave of broken glass—
A mask.White, expressionless, covering everything above the jaw.Silas’s voice commanding: “He’s a warlock and a papist.The Order has marked him.You know what must be done.”
The man fighting, surprisingly strong for a human, his hands crackling with power that made my skin burn.But I was stronger, always stronger, and when I pinned him to the stone floor of that abandoned church, his mask slipped just enough—
That jaw.That precise angle where throat met chin.And his voice, pleading, “Please, I’m not what they say, I’m a seminarian, I only wanted to understand—“
But Silas’s commands were absolute then, before I’d learned to question, before Father O’Malley had shown me another way.My fangs found his throat despite his prayers, despite the way he called on God to save him.His blood tasted like every delicious meal I’d ever had, all combined into one.My senses were on overdrive, overwhelmed in the bliss of a feed.
I’d thought him dead.Silas had assured me later that the warlock papist—a contradiction that I was too desperate to notice—had been eliminated.But here he stood transformed, one of us now.
The memory shattered as suddenly as it had come, leaving me gasping in the corridor.Gabriel watched me with that knowing smile, as though he could see the recognition dawning in my eyes.
“You remember,” he said softly.“I wondered if you would.You were so...efficient that night.So obedient to your master’s will.Tell me, Sister Alice, do you still serve Silas Blake’s memory?Or is there another master you now obey?”
But he was already fading back into the shadows, leaving me standing alone in the corridor with the taste of his blood like a ghost on my tongue.My progeny.Gabriel was my progeny, one I’d created at Silas’s command and left for dead.One who now served Brother Marcus with the zealotry of the converted.
One who knew exactly who I was and where I’d come from.
I ran.Not superhuman speed that might draw attention, but fast enough that the corridors blurred past.I had to find Desiderius.Had to warn him that our deception was compromised, that Gabriel’s presence here couldn’t be coincidence.
I found him emerging from a side passage that led toward the archives, and the expression on his face when he saw me suggested he’d already sensed something wrong.We didn’t speak—couldn’t, not here where the walls themselves might be listening—but our eyes met and understanding passed between us like lightning.
He knew.Somehow, he’d pieced it together too.Gabriel’s presence here, his connection to me through blood and violence, the way Brother Marcus had watched us during that sermon—none of it was coincidence.
This was a trap, and we’d walked into it with our eyes wide open.
Desiderius’s hand found my arm, steadying me when I didn’t realize I was swaying.His touch was warmer than Gabriel’s had been, more real, more present.An anchor in the storm of realization that threatened to drown me.
If Marcus knew about Gabriel’s connection to me, if he knew about Silas and that night in the abandoned church, then he knew everything.Our story about serving the Order in Exeter, our supposed dedication to the cause—all of it was transparent to him.He’d been playing with us from the moment we’d arrived, letting us perform our little deception while he prepared...what?
The weapon.It all came back to the weapon.Whatever the Order planned, we were part of it now.Not as potential carriers of destruction, but as something else.Bait?Test subjects?Or simply entertainment for a man who found pleasure in watching monsters desperately pursue false redemption?
Gabriel’s words echoed in my mind: “Personal judgment...an immediate, intimate encounter with divine justice.”
He hadn’t been speaking in abstractions.He’d been speaking to me, about me, about what was coming for all of us.And somewhere in this monastery, Brother Marcus sat in his austere office, moving pieces on a board we couldn’t fully see, orchestrating a finale that would make all the suffering I’d endured so far feel like mercy.
Chapter 10
Ileanedintothecorner of our hideout, the stone wall exhaling its chill through my dress.Beside me, Desiderius knelt on one knee, his voice barely above a whisper when he finally spoke.
“The archives—we could not reach them.Guards everywhere, twice the usual number.”Something flickered across his marble features—frustration or fear, I couldn’t tell which.Even after all this time, Desiderius remained unreadable to me.
“Then we’ve learned nothing?”I crossed my arms.“Something tells me you learned something.Something that proves what I just learned from, well, my memories.I’m just not sure how to explain it.I know I was basically blood drunk those first few months.You’d think a memory like biting and draining someone of their life would be something a person can’t forget.”
“The transformation is different for every vampire; we all relate to the change and our former humanity differently.What’s consistent though is memory loss, panic, a sense of living through a dream, or a nightmare.It’s not all that difficult to think in the thralls of your thirst you forgot what happened.”
I sighed.“But we never forget anything completely, do we?Everything that happens…” I rubbed my brow.“It’s all in there somewhere.”
Desiderius’s eyes narrowed.“I found no direct proof that Gabriel is your creation, though if he were, the sire bond might give us leverage.What I did discover suggests his involvement with the weapon Matthias described.Every thread I’ve pulled leads back to him.”
“Not exactly a newspaper headline,” I remarked.“His little sermon pretty much confirmed that much.”
Desiderius crossed his arms.“But that’s not what was most concerning about what we found.”
“I thought you couldn’t get into the archives?”
Desiderius’s jaw tightened, his Dutch accent surfacing as it always did when troubled.“The entrance was well-guarded,” he said, “but providence favored us with an unexpected opportunity.”
