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I stared in disbelief before turning back to the ropes.

With Desiderius joining our side, the battle’s tide had turned.

His own Nightwalkers outside seemed confused, some fleeing into the night, others attempting to enter the church only to be driven back by pain of the consecrated building and ground.

Martha appeared beside me, her hands steady as she worked on the ropes binding Father O’Malley’s feet. “Strange allies we’ve made tonight,” she murmured.

As I freed Father O’Malley’s left wrist, the church doors burst open. More Order members poured in, these armed with crossbows, silver knives, and stakes.

“Down!” Desiderius shouted, shoving an Order member aside to reach us.

I pulled Father O’Malley from the cross just as Silas pushed through the melee, drawing out a crucifix—the same one that Silas told me the vampires stole, the one I “awakened” before my turn. It glowed with a sickly blue light.

“You should have stayed loyal, Desiderius,” Silas called. “Now you’ll burn with the rest of these abominations.”

He raised the crucifix high, and a beam of light shot forth like liquid fire.

It struck Sarah first as she turned to flee.

She didn’t even have time to scream before her body crumbled to ash, the particles drifting through the sanctuary like obscene snow.

Elizabeth was next, the light catching her mid-leap as she tried to attack Silas.

Her face registered a moment of perfect surprise before she too dissolved into dust.

“No!” I screamed, the sound tearing from my throat with such force that the stained glass windows shuddered in their frames.

Martha pushed me behind her, her maternal instinct asserting itself even in undeath. “Run,” she commanded. “Get the Father out—“

The light struck her full in the chest. For a heartbeat, she remained whole, her eyes meeting mine with a strange peace. “It doesn’t hurt,” she whispered, before disintegrating like the others.

Grief struck me like a physical blow, driving me to my knees. These women had been my victims, then my progeny, and finally my responsibility. In the space of seconds, three of them had been reduced to ash—their second deaths on my conscience just as their first had been.

Ruth and Rebecca had taken cover behind the altar, their eyes wide with terror. Desiderius moved to stand between us and Silas, his ancient face twisted with fury.

“That weapon was created to destroy demons, Silas” he snarled. “We are not demons. You pervert its purpose, just as you’ve perverted everything the Order once stood for.”

Silas laughed, the sound echoing off the church’s vaulted ceiling. “God’s creatures? You’re an abomination, Desiderius. All of you. That you can stand on consecrated ground changes nothing.”

“It changes everything,” Father O’Malley said weakly, leaning heavily against me. “It proves what I’ve been telling Alice—that faith and love, not nature, determines one’s relationship with the divine.”

Silas’s face contorted with rage. “Blasphemy!” He raised the crucifix again, this time aiming directly at me and the priest.

What happened next seemed to unfold in slow motion.

Desiderius launched himself forward with supernatural speed, placing his body directly in the path of the light.

The beam struck him full force, and he screamed—a sound of such agony that I felt it in my own dead heart.

His ancient flesh began to burn, blackening and peeling away in layers, but unlike the others, he didn’t immediately turn to ash.

His advanced age must’ve given him more resilience.

Or, perhaps, it was something else. An innate holiness, despite his unholy form.

The same kind of righteousness Father O’Malley promised me was available, if I was willing to take up my cross, if I was willing to subject my darkness to the light of the world.

The scent of charred flesh filled the sanctuary, thick and choking. Desiderius remained standing, his body smoking but intact, his golden eyes fixed on Silas with centuries of hatred.

“Run,” he gasped to me, his voice barely recognizable through his ruined throat. “I can’t hold much longer.”

Father O’Malley clutched my arm. “Alice, we must go. Now.”

The crucifix’s light seemed to be weakening, its glow dimming as if whatever powered it was being depleted. Silas noticed too, cursing as he shook the artifact.

“Ruth! Rebecca!” I called. “To me!”

They darted from behind the altar, keeping low, their faces contorted with pain from both the consecrated ground and the loss of their sisters. As they reached us, I saw Ruth’s hands were still flickering with flames—smaller now, but present.

“Can you create cover?” I asked her.

She nodded grimly. “Enough to get us out the side door.”

I looked back at Desiderius, still standing between us and Silas, his body a charred ruin that somehow refused to collapse. His sacrifice—the debt he claimed to owe Father O’Malley—had bought us precious seconds.

“Thank you,” I said, knowing he could hear me even across the chaos.

His head inclined slightly in acknowledgment. Then, with a roar that shook dust from the rafters, he summoned what strength remained and lurched toward Silas.

With Desiderius occupying Silas, I saw my chance.

The processional torch stood in its holder near the altar, its flame dancing like a beacon in the chaos.

I moved with preternatural speed, snatching the heavy brass pole from its stand.

The metal felt cold against my dead skin, but the weight was nothing to my vampiric strength.

It was a long-shot, but I had to try. I couldn’t join in the fight—that crucifix might burn me alive like it had the others.

Not to mention, Silas had a talisman of some kind that weakened me when I got too close. This was the best chance I had.

When I launched the torch, it cut through the air, its flame trailing behind it like the tail of a comet.

Silas turned at the last second, perhaps sensing the danger.

His eyes widened in shock—the look of a man who believed himself untouchable suddenly confronted with his mortality.

The torch struck with such force that the brass pole punched through his neck, pinning him to the wooden panel behind him.

His mouth opened in a silent scream as blood fountained from the wound, spraying across the marble floor.

The crucifix fell from his hand, its unnatural light dying as it clattered against the stone. Silas clawed at the pole transfixing his throat, his movements growing weaker with each passing second. Blood continued to pour from the wound, filling the sanctuary with its copper scent.

What happened next would haunt me for whatever remained of my existence.

Ruth and Rebecca, driven beyond reason by the smell of fresh blood, abandoned all pretense of humanity.

They moved as a blur, reaching Silas before his body had even begun to slide down the wall.

Ruth reached him first, her hands still flickering with dying flames as she tore into his shoulder with teeth that had fully extended into fangs.

Rebecca attacked from the other side, ripping into his abdomen.

I stood frozen, unable to look away from the feeding frenzy.

These were my progeny—my responsibility—tearing a man apart like wolves on a fallen deer.

Blood splattered across their faces, across the holy floor, across the altar itself.

The sounds they made weren’t human—wet, desperate gulping punctuated by growls of pleasure that belonged in the darkest circle of hell.

Father O’Malley clutched my arm, his fingers digging into my cold flesh with surprising strength. “Alice,” he whispered, his voice thick with horror. “We need to go. Now.”

But I couldn’t move. Couldn’t tear my eyes from the scene before me. This was what we were. What I had made them. What the Order had made me. Monsters wearing human faces, driven by hunger so intense it obliterated all reason, all faith, all hope of redemption.

“Alice.” Desiderius’s voice, barely recognizable through his burned throat, cut through my paralysis.

The ancient vampire was scorched, his skin burned by the celestial light—if that’s what it was—emitted by Silas’s crucifix.

He looked less like the pristine Dutchman I’d watched from afar and more like a genuine creature born of hell itself.

But he wasn’t that. He’d helped us—probably intended to the entire time, but was affected by Silas’s talisman the same way I was. Just as I couldn’t overpower Silas, without assistance, even a vampire as old and as strong as Desiderius couldn’t.

I held up Father O’Malley, letting him use my body like a crutch. The priest winced with every step.

“Thank God they didn’t nail me to the cross,” Father O’Malley murmured.. “Small mercies.”

“It wasn’t a grace on Silas’s part,” I said, my voice hollow as I forced myself to look away from my feeding progeny. “He knew if he drew blood, things could get out of hand. I suspect if these young vampires bit you, given your grace, it would destroy them before it could harm you.”

Desiderius smiled and shook his head. “Silas told me you were a righteous girl. If that’s the case, if the blood of the pure repelled vampires, how’d you become one to begin with?”

“It seems my faith still had some growing to do.” I nodded firmly. “Or, perhaps, it was God’s will that I become what I am. I’m hardly a saint. I just killed a man.”

Father O’Malley placed a hand on my shoulder, his touch offering comfort I didn’t deserve. “You did what was necessary,” he told me. “God understands the difference between protecting those you love and murder.”

I took a deep breath. “Does He? I was raised to believe all killing is sin.”

“Then you were raised with simplistic theology,” Father O’Malley said firmly. “The God I serve—the true God, not the vengeful caricature the Order worships—understands context. Intention. Necessity. In a sinful world, love sometimes demands we do what we’d otherwise never do.”

Desiderius made a sound that might have been agreement or pain. His body was healing, I realized—slowly, far slower than it should for a vampire of his age, but the worst of his burns were closing, new pink skin forming over charred flesh.

“How did you survive?” I asked him. “The others turned to ash instantly.”

His golden eyes met mine. “Age grants certain... resistances. In addition, faith protects in ways the Order has never understood.” He looked toward the altar, where Ruth and Rebecca still fed, though their movements had slowed, their hunger finally sated.

“We must get your young ones and the Father someplace safe. It’s possible Silas had reinforcements lying in wait. ”

Father O’Malley nodded. “We need to get to the rectory. I have supplies there—blood for your kind, medicine for my wounds.”

“You knew this might happen,” I said, studying his face. “You’ve been preparing.”

“I’ve been serving vampires in secret for decades,” he admitted. “Offering sanctuary, communion, absolution. Desiderius was my first... unlikely parishioner.”

The ancient vampire’s ruined mouth twisted into what might have been a smile. “I sought to test the limits of my damnation. Instead, I found something unexpected—hope.”

Ruth and Rebecca had finally finished feeding. They rose from Silas’s corpse, their faces and clothes drenched in blood, their eyes unfocused with satiation. They looked like children who had gorged themselves on sweets, drunk on their excess.

“We need to go,” I told them, my voice carrying the command of their sire. “Follow us to the rectory. Stay close.”

They nodded dumbly, too blood-drunk to argue.

I helped Father O’Malley toward the side door, Desiderius limping beside us.

As we passed the altar, I caught sight of my reflection in a polished silver communion plate—my pale face spattered with blood, my eyes still glowing with predatory light.

I looked like what I was—a monster playing at redemption.

“Second thoughts?” Father O’Malley asked quietly, seeing my hesitation.

I shook my head. “Just... wondering if this path leads where you think it does. If creatures like us can ever truly be more than what the Order made us.”

“The Order didn’t make you, Alice,” he said. “They merely changed your form. What you are—what you choose to be—that comes from within.”

I looked down at my blood-spattered hands. The same hands that had nursed the dying, that had prayed for salvation, that had turned innocent women into Nightwalkers, that had just killed a man. The same hands that now supported a priest who believed in redemption for the damned.

“For all our sakes, I want to believe you,” I whispered. “But what happened tonight…”

“It wasn’t pretty.” Father O’Malley shuddered. “But neither was Jesus’ crucifixion, and now for those given the eyes of faith, there’s nothing more beautiful. Will you see yourself the way your Maker sees you, Alice?”

“My maker?”

“I’m not talking about Mercy Brown.” The priest knew her name from my confession. “I’m talking about your real Maker.”

“I don’t see it right now,” I admitted. “But I’ll keep trying, Father.”

As we slipped out into the night, leaving the desecrated sanctuary behind, I felt something shift inside me—not the hunger that had become my constant companion, but something older, more human.

The weight of choice. The burden of responsibility.

The faint, flickering hope that even in darkness, there might be light.

Three of my progeny lay scattered as ash across the church floor.

Two more followed me, drunk on human blood.

Father O’Malley leaned against me, his faith unshaken despite the night’s horrors.

And Desiderius, ancient and enigmatic, had chosen our side.

What I still didn’t understand was why he’d waited so long to finally turn against the Order.

Why had he infiltrated them if he’d always hoped to betray them?

Why had I of all the young vampires he’d met through the centuries given him the boldness to act?

Questions I’d ask later. I’d demand answers, even though I couldn’t formally make any demand of a vampire so old as Desiderius.

All I knew was that the Order wasn’t my true family. This was my new congregation. My new family. My new purpose.