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H unger clawed at my insides like a rabid beast, tearing through where my soul used to be.

The restraints bit into my flesh—all but the one at my right wrist that I’d snapped in my frenzy.

I felt hollow, a walking tomb with nothing inside but echoes of the girl I once was and the monster I’d become.

The room’s darkness didn’t bother my new eyes; I could see every crack in the stone ceiling, every water stain on the walls, all with perfect clarity.

What good was such sight when all it showed me was the prison of my damnation?

I wasn’t sure how long Silas had been gone.

Minutes? Hours? Time stretched and contracted like taffy in my new perception.

The only constant was the burning in my throat.

I tried not to think about blood, but my mind betrayed me, conjuring images of pulsing veins and warm, wet life flowing just beneath fragile skin.

So much for visions of gumdrops and sugarplums dancing in my head. Those days were long gone. Now I had visions of gaping wounds and recreational dismemberment.

My father’s face swam before me, and the memory of what Silas had told me—Mercy, killing him on our doorstep—sent a spasm of grief through my body. I tried to weep, but no tears would come. Even that small mercy was denied me now.

“Daddy,” I whispered to the empty room. “I’m so sorry.”

I tried to remember the scripture he’d taught me, seeking comfort in familiar verses, but the moment the holy words formed in my mind, pain shot through my skull. It was as if my very brain rejected what had once been my foundation. I was cut off—from tears, from prayer, from God Himself.

The door opened with a sound that would have been subtle to human ears but crashed like thunder against my heightened senses.

Silas entered, carrying a small wooden case and wearing an expression of careful neutrality.

The scent of his blood—sharp, metallic, alive—hit me with the force of a freight train.

My remaining restraints creaked as I involuntarily strained against them.

“Control yourself, Miss Bladewell,” he said calmly, though I noticed he kept his distance. “That’s your first lesson.”

I forced myself to stop struggling, though every muscle in my body screamed to lunge for his throat. “I can’t,” I rasped. “It hurts.”

Silas nodded, setting the case on a small table just out of my reach. “The hunger is always worst at first. It will become manageable with time and practice.” He opened the case, revealing several glass vials filled with dark liquid. “We have methods.”

The smell hit me immediately—blood. My body responded with a violence that shocked me; my back arched, my free hand clawed at the air, and something between a growl and a moan escaped my lips.

“This is from faithful donors,” Silas explained, selecting one vial.

“Members of the Order who understand the necessity of your... condition.” He held it up to the dim light, examining the contents.

“You must consume it quickly. If you don’t drink it soon after it’s shed, it’ll lack all nourishment. ”

He approached cautiously, the vial extended before him. With his other hand, he produced a small wooden stake, its tip gleaming with silver. “A precaution,” he said, noting my gaze. “Not a threat—unless you make it one.”

I struggled to focus on his words, my attention fixed on the vial of blood. “Why are you helping me?” I managed. “I’m a monster now. Why not just kill me?”

“Because monsters can be useful, Miss Bladewell.” He unscrewed the vial’s cap, and the scent intensified. “Especially those who have your faith. I realize it might not be easy to believe—but you may still serve the Lord as you are. Now, drink.”

He held the vial to my lips. I turned away, a last desperate attempt to cling to whatever humanity I had left. “I can’t. It’s wrong.”

“Is it?” Silas’s voice was surprisingly gentle. “Think of it as medicine. Would you refuse medicine for consumption? For cholera? This is no different.”

“It’s blood,” I whispered. “Human blood.”

“Yes. Freely given. And without it, you will weaken, and the hunger will drive you mad.” He pressed the vial against my lips again. “You will become the very thing the Order fights against—a mindless predator. Is that what you want?”

I closed my eyes, remembering my father’s words about the wages of sin. But I wasn’t alive anymore, was I? The rules that had governed my life—were they still binding in this half-existence?

“The practice of feeding only on willing donors, on blood freely given,” Silas continued, “is a form of asceticism. A denial of your baser nature. This is how you will subdue the passions of your damned condition. It is the only path to redemption for your kind.”

Redemption. The word pierced through the haze of hunger. Was it possible? Could I find my way back to God, even as this thing I’d become?

The cool glass touched my lips again, and this time, I did not turn away.

The first drop hit my tongue, and my world exploded.

The taste was beyond description—copper and salt and sweetness and life itself, distilled into liquid form.

My throat burned with both revulsion and desperate need.

I seized the vial from Silas’s hand, tilting it back, letting the blood flow down my throat in greedy gulps.

It was over too quickly. I let the empty vial drop from my fingers, horrified by what I’d just done, yet already craving more. The relief was immediate but incomplete—like trying to douse a forest fire with a single bucket of water.

“More,” I rasped, hating myself for asking, hating myself more for needing it.

Silas nodded, retrieving another vial from the case. “The first is always the hardest,” he said, uncapping it. “It gets easier.”

“I don’t want it to get easier,” I said, even as I reached for the second vial. “I don’t want to be this. But at the same time…”

He didn’t reply, simply watched as I drained the second vial, then a third. With each swallow, my mind cleared a little, the feral edge of my hunger dulling to a more manageable ache. By the fourth vial, I could think beyond the next moment, beyond the next drop of blood.

“Better?” Silas asked, his gaze assessing.

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. I was disgusted by what I’d done, by how good it had felt, by the way my body hummed with borrowed life.

“Do you still want to rip me apart?” His tone was clinical, as if he were asking about the weather.

I considered the question honestly. The urge was still there, a low pulse beneath my thoughts, but no longer the overwhelming compulsion it had been. “No,” I said finally. “Not right now.”

Silas seemed satisfied with this answer. He moved to the restraints at my ankles, unfastening them with quick, efficient movements. “Remember,” he said as he worked, “I can end you if necessary. I’ve done it before.”

The threat should have frightened me, but instead, it was almost comforting. Someone could stop me if I became the monster I felt within. “I understand.”

He freed my left wrist last, then stepped back, stake still in hand. “Stand up. Slowly.”

I complied, easing myself off the table with unnatural grace.

My feet touched the cold stone floor, and a shock ran through me.

I could feel everything—the minute vibrations of Silas’s heartbeat traveling through the ground, the skittering of a mouse behind the walls, even the subtle shift of air currents around us. I gasped, overwhelmed by the input.

“What’s happening?” I clutched at the table for support, though my balance was perfect. “I can feel—everything.”

“Your senses are enhanced,” Silas explained, maintaining his distance. “Sight, smell, hearing, touch—all amplified beyond human capability. It’s part of what makes your kind such effective predators.”

I took a tentative step, marveling at how the floor seemed to speak to me through my bare feet.

I could sense the building’s foundation, the weight of the earth above us, the very pulse of the world.

“There’s someone walking in the corridor,” I said, surprised by my certainty.

“Three doors down. And... a cricket outside? How far down are we?”

“Twenty feet below ground.” Silas nodded, impressed despite himself. “And yes, Lady Margaret is making her rounds. You’ll learn to filter such information, to focus on what matters.”

“Is she one of your... donors?” I couldn’t keep the bitterness from my voice.

“Yes. As will I, occasionally, if necessary.” He touched his neck briefly. “The Order has worked with Nightwalkers for generations. Though you’re the first we’ve created in the new world.”

“Nightwalkers,” I repeated. The name still felt wrong on my tongue, a label for something I couldn’t bring myself to accept. “What does that even mean?”

Silas moved to a small chest against the wall, retrieving a bundle of fabric. “It means you walk in darkness but are not of it. You hunt evil—other vampires, witches, creatures that prey on humanity—using the very abilities they possess.”

He handed me the bundle—clothes, I realized. A plain black dress, stockings, boots. Simple, practical garments that would allow me to blend into the night. “The Order of the Morning Dawn acknowledges that sometimes darkness must be fought with darkness.”

I took the clothes, my fingers running over the fabric with new sensitivity. “And you think I’ll just... agree to this? Become your weapon?”

“I think you want redemption,” Silas said simply. “I think you’re looking for a path back to God, and this is the only one available to you.”

I stared at him, seeing the conviction in his eyes.

He truly believed what he was saying—that I could somehow atone for what I’d become by killing others like me.

“What about the crucifix?” I asked. “The one Mr. Brown had, the one that glowed blue-white. Why did it work for me then, but crosses hurt me now?”

Silas’s expression darkened. “That particular relic is... complicated. And unfortunately, it’s been lost—we believe Mercy or her companion took it after they killed George Brown.”

“But what was it? Why did it respond to me?”

He sighed, running a hand through his close-cropped hair.

“Celestial power infuses this holy relic. An angel forged it and gave it to us. There are seven of its kind, held by different chapters of the Order. The cross responds to true faith—which you had in abundance. Eventually, we’ll need you to retrieve it. When you’re ready..”

“And now?” I gestured to myself, to what I’d become.

“Now, even if we recovered it, there’s no telling what it would do to you. Prayer causes you pain. Common crosses burn your eyes. That relic might destroy you entirely—or it might do something else, something unprecedented.” He shook his head. “Until we find it again, it’s moot speculation.”

I clutched the clothes to my chest, a shield against a world that had become too sharp, too loud, too much. “So that’s it? I hunt for you or face damnation?”

“Not for us,” Silas corrected. “With us. And your alternative isn’t just damnation—it’s becoming like Mercy Brown.

Losing the last shreds of your humanity until you’re nothing but hunger and cruelty.

” His voice softened slightly. “This is your only indulgence, your only clemency. One opportunity to redeem yourself, even though you walk quite literally only in the shadow of death. I want to see you prevail. I don’t want to see you fall prey to your nature, to become the monster that most of your kind devolve into.

And every vampire will, without a mission, without a proper penance. ”

I snorted. “I thought we were puritans. We don’t believe in penance.”

“Not for the human faithful, that’s absolutely right.

You’re less than human, Alice. To become again for whom Christ’s atonement applies, you must become as the cross itself.

Standing alone, an instrument of death, a vile thing meant to evoke fear, but when joined to Christ, the choicest instrument of the salvation of the world. ”

The honesty in his voice surprised me. For all his clinical detachment, there was something like compassion in his eyes—or at least, the memory of it.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” I admitted. “Hunt. Kill. Even if they deserve it.”

“You can,” he said with quiet certainty. “You will. Because the alternative is unthinkable.” He moved toward the door, stake still in hand but held loosely now. “Get dressed. Your training begins tonight.”

As he reached the threshold, I called after him. “Silas.” He paused, looking back. “What if I run? What if I just... disappear?”

His smile was thin and joyless. “Then I will hunt you down myself, Alice Bladewell. And I will not fail.” He closed the door behind him, leaving me alone with my borrowed strength and the taste of blood still fresh on my tongue.