“No, but...”I sighed, my shoulders slumping beneath invisible weight.“What if some souls are simply beyond redemption?What if all our efforts merely postpone the inevitable fall?”
Sister Josephine’s hand found mine, her papery skin cool against my eternal chill.“Free will means some souls cannot be saved against their will,” she said softly.“Your attempt to reach them was itself an act of faith, Alice.Not all will choose the path you offer, but without the offer, none can choose it.”
“I know,” I whispered.“And yet...”
Sister Josephine’s eyes drifted toward the corridor where our grim cargo waited.“We have walked this path before,” she said softly.“Look at your flock now—how many began as these three?Think of Eleanor, her fangs bared as you approached, the venom in her voice when the wood pierced her chest.Yet now she tends the garden and leads the evening prayers.”
I nodded, remembering Eleanor’s rage, her hatred—and her eventual transformation into one of our most steadfast sisters.
“The pain of their temporary hell may be the crucible that prepares them to truly hear your message,” Sister Josephine continued.“Sometimes, Alice, salvation begins with suffering.Our Lord himself showed us this truth.”
As the first rays of morning light filtered through the stained glass windows, casting prismatic colors across the worn stone floor, I felt something inside me ease slightly.Not absolution, perhaps, but acceptance of the difficult path we walked.
“They will need cages,” I said finally, turning toward the door.“And blood, when they awaken.And patience.”
“All of which we have in abundance,” Sister Josephine assured me, a slight smile creasing her aged face.“Go now.See to your charges.I will pray for their souls while they wander in darkness.”
“And concerning the people who saw us, the same people who might have sent these three to attack us to begin with?”
Sister Josephine’s face remained impassive as marble.“We shall follow our usual method, Alice.First mercy, then truth.They will reveal what they know when their souls are ready, not when our curiosity demands it.”
I departed the chapel, my steps firmer now, with Ruth and Rebecca trailing like shadows.The familiar ache of responsibility settled across my shoulders—a yoke I had willingly taken up.This was my calling: to extend salvation’s hand to creatures who might slap it away a hundred times before finally grasping it.Yet as we moved toward the cart and the three staked bodies, my thoughts returned to that horseless carriage and its occupants.How long would these watchers observe our work?Would they allow us to rehabilitate these ferals, or was some darker design already in motion?
Chapter 7
Wewoundourwaydown the narrow spiral staircase, each turn bringing us closer to the convent’s basement where three staked vampires lay in suspended animation.My candle cast our shadows against damp stone walls—mine tall and straight, Desiderius’s hunched slightly despite his fluid movements, and the twin silhouettes of Ruth and Rebecca trailing behind us, their habits brushing the steps with soft whispers.The weight of my silver pins pressed against my thigh through my pocket, a reminder of what I had done to these souls and what I now intended to offer them: a chance at redemption they might well reject with fangs bared.
“You are certain they are ready?”Desiderius asked without turning, his voice echoing in the confines of the stairwell.
“No one is ever ready,” I replied.“But neither do I wish to prolong their suffering in that place.”
The place we sometimes called “vampire hell” though it may have been a misnomer—the shadowland where staked vampires dwelled, their souls cast into a darkness that Father O’Malley had once described as “a purgatory without the promise of eventual release.”I had felt its cold embrace myself, during my training with the Order.Silas staked me once to teach me a lesson.He’d meant for me to think he held the power over my existence, that Ineededthe false redemption he and the Order promised.The memory of that vast emptiness, that sense of being utterly forsaken, still haunted the corners of my mind.
We reached the bottom of the stairs where the air hung heavy with the scent of damp stone.The basement had once been used for storage before we repurposed it for our more delicate work.Now it held three wooden tables where our ferals lay bound with blessed silver chains, the stakes—and my umbrella—still protruding from their chests.Their bodies remained perfectly preserved, as though death had merely paused rather than claimed them.
I approached Catherine first.Her face was frozen in an expression of surprise, preserving in her countenance the moment when the wood had pierced her heart.Beside her, James and Michael lay in similar states of suspended animation, their features contorted with rage rather than shock.
“They have been in darkness for more than an hour,” I said softly.“Long enough, I think, for the void to have made its impression.”
Desiderius prepared the space.He laid prayer mats beside each table and arranged the implements we would need—silver knives to cut our palms should their thirst prove too great upon awakening, vials of donated blood to ease their transition back, restraints of blessed silver that would burn but not permanently harm.
“The boy’s anger runs deep,” Desiderius observed, pausing over Michael.“I have seen such rage before.It speaks of profound betrayal.”
“The Order has that effect,” I replied, bitterness coloring my voice.“If they are indeed responsible for turning these three.”
Ruth and Rebecca moved silently around the room, lighting additional candles and whispering prayers Father O’Malley had taught them
Rebecca’s hands remained steady as she prepared a vial of blood.“Which one shall we begin with?”
I studied the three prone figures, then gestured toward the woman whose face, even in suspended animation, held a certain thoughtfulness beneath the rage.“We’ll begin with Catherine.”
I took my place at the head of Catherine’s table, fingers poised inches from the stake jutting from her sternum.“When I pull this free,” I warned Ruth and Rebecca in a low voice, “she’ll return to us wild with hunger and disorientation.Keep your distance until I signal it’s safe.”
Desiderius took up position on Catherine’s other side.With a nod to indicate his readiness, I gripped the stake and pulled with a swift, smooth motion.
The stake released from Catherine’s chest with a wet, hollow pop.Three seconds of stillness followed—then life surged back into her.Her spine bowed upward against the restraints, chains rattling as a sound escaped her throat—half-scream, half-inhale—as though she were drowning in air.When her eyelids snapped open, crimson irises blazed beneath them, wild with both starvation and the lingering horror of where she had been.
“Hold her,” I commanded, and Desiderius pressed her shoulders back to the table as she thrashed against the restraints.
