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“I can imagine how the disciples struggled with this teaching,” Father O’Malley said softly. “It violated everything they understood about Jewish dietary laws, about what was possible. Yet Peter’s response is perfect: ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.’”

“Eternal,” I echoed, the word catching in my throat. Eternity stretched before me now—an endless procession of nights, of hunger, of isolation. Was that what Christ had offered? An eternity like mine?

“Not like yours,” Father O’Malley said, as if reading my thoughts. “Eternal life in Christ is about quality as much as duration. It’s about fullness, about becoming what we were created to be.”

“And what was I created to be?” I asked, the question escaping before I could stop it. “A monster? A killer?”

Father O’Malley closed the Bible and set it aside. “I don’t believe that’s what God intended for you, Alice. Your current state—this corruption—it may be a deviation from His original design. But that doesn’t mean you’re beyond His reach or His redemption.”

I laughed bitterly. “Redemption. That’s what the Order promised too. They said each witch I killed brought me one step closer to salvation.”

Father O’Malley’s expression darkened. “And do you believe that?”

“I did. For a time.” I looked down at my hands—hands that had torn out throats, that had been stained with blood. “Until I realized they were using me. That Silas was manipulating me, cutting his victims to trigger my hunger, knowing I couldn’t resist.”

“The Order of the Morning Dawn has strayed far from its original purpose,” Father O’Malley said, his voice tight with controlled anger. “They were founded to protect, not to destroy. To help those afflicted by darkness, not to exploit them.”

I looked up sharply. “You know about the Order?”

He nodded grimly. “Our paths have crossed before. We have... competing understandings... of how to address supernatural phenomena.”

This revelation shifted something in my understanding. “Everything you’re explaining... it’s nothing like what I grew up thinking your church believed.”

A smile touched Father O’Malley’s lips. “I’m not surprised. There are many misconceptions about Catholic teachings.”

“Daddy said you worshipped statues,” I admitted, glancing at a small figurine of Mary on a nearby shelf.

Father O’Malley chuckled. “Do you worship photographs of your mother? Do you actually adore the photographs themselves? Or do you value them as connections to someone you love?” He shook his head.

“I’ve heard it all. That we ‘added books’ to the Bible.

That we believe the Pope is sinless. That we think we can earn our salvation with an abundance of good works. ”

Despite everything, I found myself smiling. Because all the things he was denying are exactly the things I assumed he believed. “Daddy said Catholics weren’t allowed to read the Bible.”

“Ah yes, that old chestnut.” He gestured to the well-worn Bible on the table. “I must have missed that particular instruction.”

Our shared laughter felt strange—inappropriate even—given my condition and the seriousness of our discussion. Yet it also felt healing, as if puncturing the balloon of prejudice I’d carried for so long.

“I’ve met maybe ten people in all my life who actually hate the Catholic Church,” Father O’Malley said when our laughter subsided. “I’ve met thousands who hate what they think the Catholic Church is.”

The words resonated deeply. “I understand that feeling,” I said quietly. “Being misunderstood.”

He nodded, his expression softening. “I imagine you do.”

A silence fell between us, comfortable rather than strained. Through the small window high in the sacristy wall, I could see stars beginning to fade as dawn approached.

“Do you really think there’s hope for me?” I asked finally. “Beyond what the Order promised?”

Father O’Malley’s gaze was steady, assessing. “I believe there is, Alice. But I’m concerned about the Order’s influence on you. They’re using you for their own purposes—purposes that I’m certain have nothing to do with your salvation.”

“I’ve realized that,” I admitted. “We once had a mission. Silas made me watch as he burned another vampire, a girl not unlike me. Said it was my fault for refusing to kill her quickly.” The memory made me shudder. “He enjoyed it, Father. The suffering, the power. And I’d been helping him.”

Father O’Malley’s hand twitched, as if he’d almost reached out to comfort me but thought better of it.

“The path to hell is often paved with actions we believe will lead to heaven,” he said softly.

“The Order began with good intentions, centuries ago. But power corrupts. Spiritual power perhaps most of all.”

“So what can I do? What am I supposed to become?” The questions came from the deepest part of me, the part that still hoped for meaning beyond mere survival.

“In time, perhaps, you’ll be ready to know,” Father O’Malley said. “For now, it’s enough that you’re here, seeking something beyond the darkness. That you recognize the monster isn’t all you are.”

“The hunger is always there,” I confessed, my voice dropping to a whisper. “Always waiting. I try to control it, but when there’s blood...” I thought of the women I’d killed, the lives I’d taken at Silas’s orchestration. “It takes over.”

“And yet you resist it,” Father O’Malley pointed out. “You question it. That alone sets you apart from many with your... condition.”

“Not well enough. Not consistently enough.”

“Sanctification is a process, not an event,” he said, using a word I’d never heard before. “The same is true of healing. Of forgiveness. Of learning to live with what you’ve become without surrendering to its worst impulses.”

He rose and moved to the window, checking the lightening sky. “You should go. Find shelter before sunrise. But return tomorrow night, if you’re willing. I believe regular exposure to the sacraments might help you control your darker urges.”

I stood as well, feeling both drained and somehow lightened by our conversation. “I’ll come back,” I promised. “There’s nowhere else for me to go, really.”

Father O’Malley’s smile held genuine warmth. “There’s always a choice, Alice.”

T hree weeks had passed since my first visit to Father O’Mally at St. Mary’s—three weeks of midnight masses, of theological discussions in the sacristy afterward, of cautious hope blooming like a winter rose in frozen ground.

Each night, I slipped away from my daytime hiding place, a forgotten root cellar at the edge of town, and followed streets I once walked as a living girl.

The hunger remained, a constant companion that whispered and clawed, but something else had begun to grow alongside it—a fragile awareness that I might be more than my thirst, that the monster wasn’t the sum total of what I had become.

Father O’Malley called it grace. I wasn’t ready to name it yet, afraid that acknowledging it might somehow cause it to vanish like the morning mist.

The first week had been the hardest—each step onto consecrated ground an exercise in endurance, each prayer a needle in my ears, each blessing a fresh wave of agony.

I’d fled the sanctuary multiple times, unable to bear the consecration of the Eucharist. Father O’Malley never pushed, never judged.

He simply waited, offering the same patient guidance night after night.

“The pain is purpose,” he’d explained one evening as I trembled in the sacristy after a particularly difficult mass. “Your body rejects what your soul craves. The struggle itself is transformative.”

I’d nodded, not entirely understanding but willing to believe there might be meaning in my suffering beyond mere punishment. It was more than the Order had ever offered me.

By the second week, subtle changes had begun.

The holy water at the church entrance still burned my skin, but the pain faded more quickly.

The Latin prayers still pressed against me, but I could remain seated through them rather than fighting the urge to flee.

I still couldn’t bear to witness the consecration, but I lasted longer each night before needing to escape.

I’d confided in Father O’Malley about the hunger, about how I managed it. “Donated blood,” I’d admitted reluctantly. “From Silas. I don’t know where he gets it. But he insists that the donors are willing.”

He hadn’t recoiled or condemned. “You’re trying,” he’d said simply. “That matters.”

Now, as the moon cast long shadows across the snow-covered cemetery beside St. Mary’s, I approached the church with a familiar mix of dread and anticipation. The pain would come, as it always did, but so would the strange peace that followed—a feeling of being scoured clean from the inside out.

Father O’Malley waited at the door, a ritual that had become our nightly custom. His weathered face showed more fatigue than usual, the lines around his eyes deeper.

“You look tired, Father,” I said as I approached.

“Old bones,” he replied with a dismissive wave. “They protest the cold.” He held out the small vial of holy water, another part of our ritual. “Shall we?”

I extended my hand. The water fell onto my palm—a single drop that sizzled against my skin. The pain was sharp but brief, like touching a hot stove rather than being engulfed in flames. Progress, of a sort.

Inside, the church was empty save for the elderly sexton lighting candles at the altar. The sexton nodded at us without curiosity—Father O’Malley had explained my presence as spiritual counseling for a troubled young woman, not entirely untrue.

We took our usual places in the back pew. No mass tonight—Father O’Malley had suggested a different form of healing.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said quietly, “that you might be ready for confession.”

I stiffened beside him. “Catholics confess to priests,” I said, falling back on Daddy’s teachings. “Puritans confess directly to God.”

Father O’Malley smiled slightly. “And how has that been working for you?”