Chapter 1
November, 1914
ImovedthroughManhattan’sevening streets with the practiced grace of a society lady, each step deliberate and measured despite the wet cobblestones beneath my feet.November’s chill clung to the air, carrying with it the scent of coal smoke, horse dung, and the sweet metallic undercurrent of human blood that I had learned to acknowledge without surrendering to.Gas lamps cast long shadows across the darkening street, painting the world in shades of amber and black that my eyes pierced with unnatural clarity.Twenty-three years a vampire, I’d been one now longer than I’d been human, and still the sharpness of my senses sometimes caught me by surprise.
A young couple passed me on the sidewalk, the woman’s gloved hand tucked into the crook of her companion’s arm.Their heartbeats pulsed in my ears like distant drums, steady and strong.I nodded politely as they passed, maintaining the illusion of normalcy while silently counting my breaths.One.Two.Three.The familiar ritual helped quiet the hunger that stirred within me at their proximity.
I no longer felt an irresistible draw to human blood.That didn’t mean the temptation wasn’t there, that I somehow passed a human and saw a pile of rocks.Mynaturestill saw what it desired.The difference was that I was no longer a slave to my hunger, to my desire.To resist a vampiric urge isn’t all that different from how a human who has abstained from alcohol for a season might still crave it, or how a reformed philanderer might still see an attractive woman and recognize his desire.The difference is, a desire, anurge,when one is aided by grace, need not master us.
The difference between a “vampire” and a person who is not afflicted with such a condition, I’ve come to learn, has more to do with the particularity of our vexation, rather than our essence.My view wasn’t shared by most who are called “vampire,” but I was convinced we were still human, still made in God’s image, still worth saving.
It was that conviction that drove my mission.It was why I refused to allow myurgesto define me.I was made for more than that; I was meant for more than that.
A carriage clattered past, its driver hunched against the cold.I caught the scent of the horses, their sweat and fear, before they disappeared around a corner.Just a few years earlier, horses outnumbered automobiles.Over the course of the last year, automobiles had grown in popularity to the point that horse-drawn carriages were becoming rarer by the day.
My fingers found the silver locket at my throat, its metal cool against my skin.Once, the blessed silver would have burned like fire.Now it merely tingled, a testament to years of building tolerance through faith and discipline.Inside lay Bishop Harkins’ mandate, penned in his precise hand on paper thin as onionskin.I no longer needed to open the locket to recall his words.They were etched into my memory alongside prayers that now scorched my throat to recite.
“Infiltrate and observe.Report what you find.Trust no one within the Order.”
Such simple instructions for so dangerous a task.I smiled grimly, adjusting my hat as I turned onto Fifth Avenue where mansions rose like monuments to human ambition.Electric lights blazed from windows, casting squares of yellow onto manicured lawns.So much had changed since I first took up the bishop’s mission.Automobiles now competed with carriages on the streets.Telephones connected the wealthy to one another with unprecedented speed.Yet the Order of the Morning Dawn had gone silent.
There was nothing to infiltrate, nothing to observe.That didn’t mean the Order wouldn’t turn up again eventually.When it happened, I’d vowed to do whatever I could to fulfill the Bishop’s commission.My locket served as a constant reminder that everything I’d built, all the progress I’d made in my mission, remained temporary.Someday, if duty called, I’d answer.Still, I prayed the time would never come, or at least that it wouldn’t until I’d completed my work in New York.
Even Desiderius, with his centuries of connections, his network of informants both living and undead, could find no trace of the Order of the Morning Dawn.It was as though they had simply ceased to exist after our last confrontation a decade ago.I knew better.Organizations born of fear and righteous certainty did not simply disappear.They festered in the shadows, waiting for the right moment to emerge.
The Order had sought to use vampires like me as weapons in their crusade against what they deemed evil.They had turned me, trained me, filled my head with their doctrine, and sent me to hunt my own kind.And I had obeyed, believing their lies about divine purpose.
Until I hadn’t.Until a priest in a small, remote parish offered me a truer hope.I still thought about Father O’Malley from time-to-time.I offered prayers and often said Rosaries on his behalf, though I suspected he’d long ago passed from Purgatory into Heaven, if he’d required purification at all.I’d never known a human soul more fit for heaven than him.
I asked for his intercession on occasion, a practice my human father would have ignorantly deemed idolatrous.However, when your entire existence tramples on the border between the living and the dead, it’s not so hard to believe that those who are united in Christ’s body are truly alive, even as I was alive despite all evidence to the contrary.If death could not keep Christ in the tomb, why should it be thought to define those who’ve passed ahead with Him into everlasting life?It seemed only natural to believe that Father O’Malley was praying for me in heaven.But just in case he wasn’t, just in case he had a little purification to endure before entering the Beatific Vision, I prayed for the repose of his soul.Though I always added the simple qualifier.If Father was in heaven already, I hoped my prayers might assist in my purification on earth.After all, a human being’s death purifies nothing.Jesus’ death purifies us completely.And we all must be pure before entering the heavenly presence of God.
The way I saw it, when we entered heaven, we’d encounter the light of the world, the light of all lights, the purifying light of Christ Himself.In that light, all would be exposed.All would be made clear.All that remained in us that belonged to the sinful flesh would be burned away, so that we could enter His presence in perfection.It’s what Paul was writing about, I think, in First Corinthians: “Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.”
As much as I could, albeit at a grave disadvantage due to the condition of my cold flesh, I meant to make as much of this existence a purgation, a purification, as I might.Let every stain of sin, every vile thought, every disordered attachment, pass away in the company of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist, in the discipline of prayer, in the arduous suffering I endured as a creature whose original good nature was warped beyond that of most human beings, whose very body had come to crave what most humans pretended they weren’t—vampiric, pursuinglifeat the expense of lives belonging to others, carnivores seeking whatever prey they might devour that their hunger for wealth, fame, and power might be satiated.
Indeed, it was a blessed thing to be what I was.I could no longer live under the delusion that blinded most men to their feeble monstrosity.I knew my weakness; I knew what I craved.I could not live as most do, living a lie unto themselves, ignoring such villainy under a complex facade of self-justifications and excuses.No, given my lingering murderous desire, the craving I experienced when exposed to human blood, and the deadly reaction I might suffer on account of sunlight, there was no denying what I was.I required grace if I was to be more than the lies my dead flesh screamed at me about who andwhatI was.
What my stomach craved every day was a severe mercy that allowed me to remain humble, that provided the urgency I required to remain on the path of perfection.
I passed the Astor mansion, its stone façade looming over the street like a fortress.Light spilled from the windows, and the sounds of a string quartet drifted through the night.I could have been inside, playing the part of the mysterious but youthful widow with obscure European connections.I had mastered that role years ago, using it to move through society unsuspected.
The street grew narrower as I left the opulence of upper Fifth Avenue behind.The buildings here pressed closer together, their windows darker, their façades less ornate.The Convent of the Good Shepherd appeared before me, its modest brick exterior a stark contrast to the marble-clad homes I had just passed.No ostentation marked this building as a place of worship and sanctuary.Only a simple cross above the door, visible to those who knew to look for it, betrayed its purpose.
And its second, secret purpose?That was hidden deeper still.
I paused at the corner, scanning the street.My senses stretched outward, cataloging each heartbeat, each breath, each whispered conversation behind closed doors.Three blocks east, a man stumbled drunkenly from a tavern.To the west, a prostitute negotiated with a potential client, her voice a practiced mix of promise and caution.Directly across from the convent, a figure stood motionless in an alleyway, watching.
I stiffened, focusing my attention on the observer.Male, from the breadth of the shoulders.Human, from the rhythm of the heartbeat.Patient, given how long he had remained in one position.A hunter?A spy?Or merely a common thief awaiting an easy mark?
My pace remained unhurried, my gaze fixed forward as though the shadow across the street held no more significance than the lampposts or cobblestones beneath my feet.My hand slipped into my handbag, fingers closing around the small pistol I carried.Silver bullets would not kill a vampire, but they would slow one.Against a human, they were merely a curiosity—until they tore through flesh.To them, a silver bullet was just as damaging as any other.
As I approached the convent steps, the door opened.Sister Agnes—a human, one of the few who knew what dwelled within these walls—nodded in greeting.Her aged face betrayed no fear as I approached, only a serene acceptance that had taken years to cultivate.
“Good evening, Miss Bladewell,” she said softly.“They await you inside.”
“Thank you, Sister,” I replied, taking one last look over my shoulder at the watcher in the shadows.“Has anyone unusual been asking about the convent?”
“No more than usual.Though Mrs.Calloway’s boy has been bringing more packages than scheduled.”
