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T he church after nightfall was nothing like the church by day. In daylight, it was austere but familiar, every shadow accounted for. At night, it was a mouth with all its teeth pulled, the absence of song or sermon leaving a silence that pressed against the windows and oozed beneath the doors.

I slipped through the side entrance, my shawl pulled tight and my footsteps barely audible on the stone floor.

The nave was empty, the pews like rows of gravestones.

The pulpit loomed overhead, carved with verses that once seemed immutable but now felt as fragile as ice.

The only light came from the crack under the basement door, a wavering orange that pulsed like a heartbeat.

I paused at the top of the steps, letting my eyes adjust, then made my way down.

The air grew colder with each step, and by the time I reached the bottom, my breath was visible in the candle glow.

There were maybe a dozen men in the room, arranged in a semicircle of chairs.

Some I recognized—Mr. Hobbes the butcher, Mr. Norris from the school, old Doctor Fields whose hands shook so badly he had to tie his pen to his wrist. There were others I’d only seen at a distance, nodding along to my father’s Sunday sermons.

They were not the men I knew. By candlelight, their faces were waxy and severe, their expressions stripped of every trace of neighborliness. They sat rigid, hands folded or gripping their knees, and did not look up as I entered.

Mr. Brown stood at the center, back straight, eyes fixed on some distant point above our heads. There were papers in his hands, and as I approached, he shuffled them nervously, as if the act itself might conjure up the courage he lacked.

He cleared his throat. “We begin.”

No one moved, but the silence somehow deepened.

“Miss Bladewell,” he said, “thank you for coming.”

He gestured for me to take a seat at the end of the arc. I obeyed, folding my hands in my lap, determined to show no fear. The only woman in a room full of men who’d decided I was necessary.

Mr. Brown turned to address the gathering. “Brothers,” he said, “we are met tonight because the evil we have long feared has come among us. Not as rumor or suspicion, but as a fact. My own daughter is the proof.”

A few of the men shifted in their seats, but none spoke.

“She is dead, and yet the devil lives through her,” George continued. “She has visited Edwin in the night, and left him weaker each time. I have seen her, and I have seen the thing that walks with her. Miss Bladewell has seen it as well.”

He looked to me, and in the silence I realized he was asking me to confirm it.

“Yes,” I said. My voice echoed off the stone.

Mr. Norris leaned forward, his knuckles white. “How can we be certain?” he said, voice trembling. “There have been stories, but—“

“Let the girl speak,” someone muttered from the shadows.

I cleared my throat, feeling all their eyes on me. “It wasn’t a person,” I said, searching for words. “Or if it was, it’s not anymore. I saw it in the sanatorium. It moved like smoke. And Mercy—she didn’t fight. She seemed… relieved.”

A hush fell, thicker than before.

Mr. Hobbes let out a breath through his nose. “So it’s true,” he said. “A vampire.”

The word landed with a thud. No one laughed.

Mr. Brown nodded. “It is true. My daughter has become the very thing we are sworn to fight.”

I sat up straight. “Sworn?”

Mr. Brown looked at me, and for the first time, there was a kind of apology in his face.

“You deserve to know,” he said. “This church—our congregation—is one of many fronts for the Order of the Morning Dawn.” He let the words settle.

“We are dedicated to stamping out evil wherever it takes root. Witches, warlocks, anything that traffics in the darkness. But most of all—those that return from the grave.”

It was absurd, yet it explained so much. The sermons on vigilance, the secret meetings held late at night. I thought of my father, who never let me wander outside after sundown.

Mr. Brown gestured to the floor at his feet, where someone had chalked a symbol into the flagstones: a half-circle, rays radiating outward, ringed in a language I didn’t know. “The rising sun,” he said. “Our charge is to bring light where darkness looms.”

I looked around the room. Every man was watching me now, gauging whether I was fit to be trusted, or if I would run screaming into the night.

Mr. Brown squared his shoulders. “There is a way to put things right. It is not pleasant, but it must be done.”

He was interrupted by a heavy sound—the groan of the basement door opening behind us. A figure stood in the entry: a woman, stooped and wild-haired, her dress a mess of stains and patches.

Moll Dwyer, the witch from the woods. I’d never seen her, but she looked like those who knew her described her.

The men erupted.

“You can’t bring her in here!”

“She should burn for what she’s done—“

“George, have you lost your mind—“

Moll paid them no mind. She advanced into the circle, a look of contempt on her weathered face. Her eyes were clear and sharp as cut glass, and when she spoke, her voice carried above the shouting.

“Be still, all of you. I am not your enemy tonight.”

A few men lunged for her, but Mr. Brown raised a hand and they halted, if only out of shock. The room vibrated with rage and fear.

Moll fixed her gaze on me, then on Mr. Brown. “You asked for my help. You said you would listen.”

Mr. Brown nodded, his lips pressed so tight the skin went white.

She turned to the men, her voice steely.

“You can exorcise a ghost, and you can drown a witch.

But a vampire—“ She spat on the floor. “A vampire is something older, and far more clever. You cannot frighten it, and you cannot reason with it. You must destroy its heart, or it will keep coming. No matter how many times you bless the grave.”

The men muttered curses under their breath.

Moll continued, her tone almost mocking.

“There is a ritual. One you will not like. But it’s the only thing that works.

” She glanced at me again. “It must be performed by one who has not been claimed by the curse. Who cannot contract the ailment that’s befallen so many of you.

The boy you seek to save will have contracted it, and any of you who try to do what must be done will fail without protection. ”

It took me a moment to realize she meant me.

Mr. Brown finally spoke, his voice trembling but clear. “We need you, Alice.”

I stared at him, at all of them. “And what if I refuse?”

“Then Edwin dies,” Mr. Brown said. “And after him, all of us. The demon that has taken my daughter will devour the entire town if she gains more strength.”

Moll nodded. “It will not stop until it is finished. That is the nature of the thing.”

No one moved for a long time. The candles guttered, their light stretched thin against the darkness.

I looked at the symbol on the floor, at the men whose faces I had grown up with, now twisted by fear. I thought of Mercy, and the peace I’d seen in her face as she died. I thought of the thing at the window, waiting for me to flinch.

“I’ll do it,” I said. My voice was steady, even as my hands shook.

Moll smiled, and it was not a kind smile. “Good,” she said.

She turned to Mr. Brown. “Tell her where to meet me, and bring the others if you have the stomach for it. But don’t wait. The sun will be up soon, and you’ll want this done before then.”

No one moved. The only sound was the pop and hiss of candle fat.

She began with a wordless look at each face in the crowd, as if tallying which would see tomorrow’s dawn and which might not. When her eyes met mine, I saw not contempt but calculation—an abacus behind cataract-clouded irises, every bead tallying debts and curses owed.

Someone in the crowd—the butcher, or maybe the schoolmaster—spat on the stone and said, “What’s this old witch got to teach us? It violates everything the Order stands for to ally ourselves with her!”

Moll smiled, showing teeth uneven as a graveyard.

“We have no choice.” Mr. Brown’s words were hushed. “I beg you all, for the sake of my son. It’s the only way to end this nightmare.”

“You’ll dig her up,” Moll said. “Tonight, before the full moon drops. You’ll find her corpse as fresh as the day she died, or fresher.

” She didn’t blink. “You’ll cut out the heart, burn it to ash, and feed the ashes to the boy.

I must be there to ensure all is done properly. The ashes will cure the infection.”

“That’s madness,” someone barked from the back. “You’ve lost your mind, George. Or worse, you’re bewitched.”

Mr. Brown didn’t answer. Instead, he raised his head, looked at the crowd, and said, “Again, I beg you, for Edwin’s sake. The marks on his neck. He’s dying. Faster every day. I will not allow the devil that took my daughter to take my son as well.”

The crowd seethed, then splintered into debate—some for, some against, all of them loud.

Through the chaos, Moll’s voice knifed out: “There is no second chance. At sunrise, it’s too late. If you want to save the boy, you dig her up now. Or you can wait and see the horror unfold.”

A voice, high and thin, called from the edge: “And if you’re lying to us? What then?”

Moll shrugged. “Then you’ve wasted a cold night and a bit of sweat. But if I’m right—“ She looked at George. “You’ll thank me, or at least let me be.”

“What is your price?!” the man with the high voice snapped.

“Again, only that your Order leaves me and my coven be. We will not harm you or anyone in this town.”

George fell to his knees. It was not a graceful motion; his legs gave out, and he caught himself on his palms. “Please,” he said. “I’ve already lost my wife and daughter. I cannot lose my son too.”

I’d never seen a grown man break like that. It was not theatrical. It was genuine, as if his spirit had broken.

Moll stepped forward, and for a heartbeat I thought she might gloat. Instead, she put her hand on his shoulder and said, “Do it quick. Do it before you lose your nerve.”

The debate died, the men exhausted even by their own uproar.

Moll turned back to the mob. “You think me a witch, and maybe I am. But what Miss Brown has become is an abomination to both our kinds. Tonight, you’ll see that even enemies can have a common cause. For once, let the enemy of your enemy be your friend.”

No one cheered. No one offered thanks. The men simply gathered their coats and their shovels, and the sound of boots on stone was the only response.