I turned without another word, my companions following.As we moved toward the door, I heard Father John call after us.
“I will pray for you.For your...souls.If you have them.”
The doubt in those final words cut deeper than certainty would have.We passed through the church doors into the winter night, where the cold embraced us like kin.None of us spoke as we stood in the churchyard, but I felt the urge, the hunger, churning in my gut.
Even Desiderius, ancient and controlled, stood a fraction too still, holding himself in check through will alone.We exchanged glances—no words were needed.
Chapter 4
FourdayssinceFatherJohn’s rejection.My throat burned raw, my stomach a hollow pit gnawing itself.When I closed my eyes, I saw only crimson behind my lids.My fangs throbbed at the root.I tasted decay but couldn’t identify the source.Was my dead flesh decomposing now more quickly than it regenerated?
Ruth paced the narrow confines like a caged animal, her boots wearing grooves in the packed dirt floor.Rebecca had collapsed in the corner hours ago, or perhaps days—time had blurred.She’d drawn her knees to her chest, arms wrapped tight around them.Blood-tinged tears had carved crimson paths down her cheeks.
I pressed St.Teresa’s book against my chest, the leather binding grown warm from my constant clutching.The pages bore witness to my desperation—corners folded, margins filled with my cramped notations, passages underlined so forcefully the pen had torn through in places.My lips moved of their own accord, forming the words I’d memorized through repetition.
“Let nothing disturb thee,” I whispered, the saint’s words barely audible above Ruth’s pacing.“Let nothing affright thee.All things are passing.God never changes.Patience obtains all things.Whoever has God wants nothing.God alone suffices.”
The words should have brought comfort.They had, those first two nights.But now they felt hollow, echoing in the empty chambers where my faith had once burned bright.How could God alone suffice when my very nature demanded blood?When every fiber of my being screamed for sustenance He seemed to withhold?
“It’s easier to recite than to believe, isn’t it?”Desiderius’s voice cut through my meditation.He hadn’t moved from his position near the shelter’s entrance in hours.Less to protect us from unexpected intruders than to protect the world from one of us.
“Faith requires practice,” I managed.“St.Teresa writes that ‘the soul must persevere through periods of dryness—’”
“This isn’t dryness, Alice.”Desiderius wasn’t the least bit patronizing, but he spoke with the authority of experience.“This is starvation.And there’s something you need to understand about our kind when we starve.”
I lifted my gaze to meet his, though the effort felt monumental.“We endure.It’s difficult, but we resist our appetites.We’ve endured for four days already.”
“Four days.”He chuckled a little.“I’ve seen vampires starve for weeks, months even.Do you know what happens to us when the hunger grows beyond endurance?”
My fingers tightened on the book.“We suffer more.It gets more difficult, but we suffer through it.”
“We turn feral.”
The words hung in the stale air.
“Feral?”I repeated.
Desiderius finally moved, turning to face us fully.In the darkness, his eyes caught what little light filtered from the moonlight through the cracks above.“The hunger doesn’t just torment the body, Alice.It devours the mind.Layer by layer, it strips away everything that makes us more than beasts.First goes restraint.Then memory.Then, language itself.”
“You’re trying to frighten us,” Ruth accused, though her voice wavered.
“I’m trying to prepare you.”His gaze swept over each of us.“I’ve witnessed it firsthand.A vampire I knew in Amsterdam—a scholar, brilliant mind—went three months without feeding, locked in a cellar by hunters who wanted to study our kind.They wanted to see what would happen, if there might be a way to get us through it, like a boozer giving up his drink.They were curious, in part, but also thought deprivation might cure us of our condition if we abstained from blood for a prolonged period.When they finally opened that door, what emerged wasn’t a man anymore.It was a creature, more reptilian than human, that had forgotten its own name, that saw nothing in the world but prey and predator.”
My stomach clenched.“But he was alone.We have each other.We have our faith—“
“Faith?”Desiderius’s lips curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile.“The scholar was a devout Calvinist.He’d recited scripture for the first month.By the second, he could only manage fragments.By the third, the only sounds from that cellar were howls.”
Rebecca whimpered, pressing herself further into the corner.I wanted to comfort her, to say something reassuring, but the hunger had sharpened to where her fear smelled almost...appetizing.The thought horrified me enough that I opened St.Teresa’s book again, searching for any passage that might anchor me.
“His mercy is forever,” I read aloud, my voice stronger than I felt.“Though He slay me, yet will I trust—“
A scratching sound at the shelter door cut through my recitation.Not the random scrabbling of an animal, but deliberate, rhythmic.Three long drags across the wood, a pause, then three more.
We all froze.
The scratching came again, more insistent this time.The old wood groaned under the assault.
I forced myself to my feet.The hunger had stiffened my limbs, making every gesture arduous.
