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Sarah nodded. “Of course it isn’t witchcraft. The Order needs witches to justify its existence. I tried to prove it, to argue that my methods weren’t magical at all, but Silas didn’t buy it. They were just looking for a reason to kill me.”

Ruth nodded, understanding blooming on her face.

“I can create a distraction.” She extended her hands, palms slightly cupped.

For a breath-taking moment, nothing happened.

Then, a tiny, almost imperceptible shimmer appeared on her right palm, and with a faint, almost inaudible pop, a small, pale flame flickered to life, dancing for only a second before vanishing as quickly as it appeared.

It wasn’t the roaring inferno I’d once imagined her capable of, but a brief, startling flash, like a match head igniting and quickly blowing out.

My initial awe quickly gave way to a dawning, uncomfortable understanding.

The faintest whiff of something sharp, acrid, like burnt matches, reached me.

I remembered stories from the county fair, travelling showmen demonstrating “chemical wonders.” A sudden, almost shameful insight hit me.

Phosphorus. That was it. I’d read about its properties in some of Father’s old scientific journals—how it could ignite on contact with air, how a tiny amount could create a sudden, brief flash.

It wasn’t some mystical fire-working ability at all, but clever chemistry.

Ruth, catching my discerning glance, just rolled her eyes. “The Order dismisses anything they don’t understand as witchcraft. I suppose those new automobiles would have been condemned as powered by sorcery a hundred years ago, but now it’s understood as ingenuity.”

“Brilliant.” I turned to Elizabeth and Rebecca. “You two come with me and Martha through the side door. Sarah and Ruth will create the diversion and follow when they can.”

Rebecca’s eyes glowed brighter with anticipation. “And once we’re inside?”

“We find Father O’Malley and get him out,” I said firmly. “No matter what.”

We waited, tense and silent, until the first animals began emerging from the woods—foxes, raccoons, even a few deer, moving with unnatural purpose toward the church grounds.

The Nightwalkers patrolling the perimeter turned toward the disturbance, confused by the sudden presence of so many creatures.

“Now,” Ruth whispered, and with a blow from her palm sent a flame arcing through the air. It landed among dry autumn leaves, which caught fire immediately. More flames followed, creating a semicircle of fire that drove the animals into greater frenzy and forced the enemy Nightwalkers to scatter.

We moved quickly, using our supernatural speed to cross the open ground between the cemetery and the church. As we approached the side entrance, I felt the others hesitate, their bodies instinctively recoiling from the invisible barrier of sanctity.

“Keep moving,” I urged. “Remember, the pain is real, but it won’t destroy you. Focus on the goal, press into the pain.”

Martha was the first to step forward, her jaw clenched against the pain. “I’ve birthed eight children in my life,” she said through gritted teeth. “This is just another kind of labor.”

Elizabeth followed, then a reluctant Rebecca. I stepped across the threshold last, bracing for the agony that never came. The others noticed my lack of reaction immediately.

“How?” Rebecca gasped, her face contorted with pain as the holy ground seemed to burn through her dead flesh.

“Like I said, the pain purifies. I’ve gone through it already.”

My admission seemed to strengthen their resolve—I’d been through it, I was proof that the pain was worthwhile, that there was a way to get beyond it and come out better than before.

I led them deeper into the church, past the vestibule and toward the main sanctuary where I could hear Silas’s voice accusing Father O’Malley of conspiring with Satan.

Just hearing it made my ice-cold vampire blood boil.

It was all I could do to hold back. If this plan was going to work, charging in fangs bared wasn’t the most likely strategy to succeed.

We paused at the sanctuary doors, peering through the crack between them. The sight within froze the dead blood in my veins.

Father O’Malley hung suspended from a large wooden crucifix in the center of the sanctuary, his arms and legs bound with thick rope.

Blood trickled from his forehead where thorns had cut into his skin—a mockery of Christ’s passion.

Silas stood before him, reading from a book bound in what looked disturbingly like human skin.

And beside him, watching with cold interest, stood Desiderius—impossibly calm, impossibly present on consecrated ground.

“Now,” I whispered, and we burst through the doors.

The Order members inside—five of them besides Silas—turned toward us in shock. Desiderius merely raised an eyebrow, as if our arrival was an interesting but minor development.

“Alice Bladewell,” Silas said, closing his book with deliberate slowness. “I should have known your faith would waver. Too much of your father’s weakness in you.”

“Let him go,” I said, ignoring the taunt. “Father O’Malley has done nothing to deserve this.”

Silas laughed. “Nothing? He’s been harboring vampires, teaching them to resist their nature—teaching them lies about redemption. He undermines everything we’ve built.”

My progeny fanned out behind me, their pain temporarily forgotten in the face of immediate danger. Martha and Elizabeth moved to the left, Rebecca to the right, creating a semicircle that slowly advanced toward the altar where Father O’Malley hung.

“And what exactly have you built, Silas?” I asked, buying time for Ruth and Sarah to join us. “A world where you create monsters just to control them? Where faith is a weapon of hate?”

Desiderius stepped forward, his movement so fluid it barely disturbed the air. “Interesting questions. Would you care to elaborate?”

I didn’t waste time on further conversation.

Not while Father O’Malley was fighting for his life.

With a surge of vampiric speed, I launched myself toward Father O’Malley, moving faster than human eyes could track.

One of the Order members tried to intercept me, but I batted him aside with supernatural strength, sending him crashing into the first row of pews.

Another raised a crossbow, but Rebecca was on him before he could fire, her hunger finally finding release as she tore into his throat.

I reached the crucifix and began working at the ropes binding Father O’Malley’s right wrist. “Hold on,” I whispered. “We’re getting you out of here.”

As I turned back to free Father O’Malley, I caught Desiderius watching me with an expression I couldn’t quite decipher—something between curiosity and recognition.

For a moment, our eyes locked across the battle-torn sanctuary.

He could have charged after me, stopped me from helping the priest. But he wasn’t doing anything. Just watching. Observing.

I resumed my work on the ropes, unsure how to explain to old vampire’s behavior, but grateful he wasn’t trying to stop me.

Blood from Father O’Malley’s wounds smeared my hands, the scent of it igniting a hunger I forced myself to ignore.

Behind me, the sounds of battle filled the sanctuary—hisses and screams, the crack of breaking wood as bodies were thrown against pews, the wet tearing of flesh as my progeny unleashed their nature on the Order members who had made them monsters.

I had just loosened the rope around Father O’Malley’s right wrist when the distinctive click of a crossbow being cocked cut through the chaos.

“Step away from him, Alice.” Silas’s voice carried the cold authority that had commanded me for months after my transformation. “This is God’s justice for a heretic.”

I didn’t turn, continuing to work on the ropes. “There’s nothing godly about crucifying a priest, Silas.”

The crossbow bolt whistled past my ear, embedding itself in the wooden cross inches from Father O’Malley’s head. I flinched but didn’t stop.

“The next one goes through your heart,” Silas warned, already reloading.

Father O’Malley’s eyes met mine, his gaze surprisingly steady despite his pain. “Go,” he whispered. “Save yourself and the others.”

I shook my head. “Not without you.”

Silas barked an order across the sanctuary. “Desiderius! Bring our wayward daughter to me.”

A hush fell over the battle as the ancient vampire glided toward us, his movements so graceful they seemed almost human. Up close, his pale features carried an aristocratic hauteur that centuries of undeath had only refined. His golden eyes studied me with unsettling intensity.

“You’re different,” he observed, his aristocratic voice carrying over the chaos. “I can smell it in your blood.”

I tensed, ready to defend Father O’Malley with my life, or whatever remained of it. “Stay back.”

To everyone’s shock—mine most of all—Desiderius smiled. “I’ve been waiting three hundred years for someone like you, Alice Bladewell.”

Before I could process his words, Desiderius spun with supernatural speed and tore the crossbow from Silas’s hands, snapping it in two as if it were kindling.

“What are you doing?” Silas demanded, backing away in confusion.

“Repaying an old debt,” Desiderius replied calmly, before driving his fist through the chest of the nearest Order member. The man collapsed, blood pooling beneath him as my progeny hissed with renewed hunger.

“This priest saved me decades ago,” Desiderius explained between vicious attacks on his former allies.

His fighting style was unlike anything I’d seen—not the desperate savagery of new Nightwalkers, but something almost balletic in its precision.

“I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to repay that debt. ”