Page 11 of Of Faith and Fangs
He gestured to the threadbare chair opposite, and I sat. My father stood by the hearth, one hand resting on the mantle, the other hidden behind his back.
“I need to know what happened that night,” Mr. Brown said. He looked at his hands, as if surprised to find them still attached to his body. “They said you were there when Mercy died. I have to know, were you able to bring her to repentance?”
I couldn’t find the words. I shook my head.
“Did anyone come and visit? Before she died?”
My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. “I was there, and I—“ I could not finish the thought.
He nodded, as if I’d confirmed something he’d long suspected. “You saw something, didn’t you?”
I tried to look at my father for guidance, but his eyes were trained on the fire.
“I did,” I said.
George’s jaw worked for a moment before he could force the words out. “I’ve seen her. Mercy. Since the day she died.”
That wasn’t the admission I had anticipated, yet it felt genuine, much like how some nightmares continue to feel real—you understand, even as you awaken, that the fear won’t disappear with the morning light.
“She comes at night,” he went on, voice so low I had to lean forward to hear him. “She comes to the window, or sometimes she slips in through the cracks in the wall. Always at night. I’ve seen the marks on Edwin’s neck. He won’t admit it, but the boy is pale and weak, and he’s afraid.” George’s face contorted, and for a moment I thought he might collapse inward, like a house with its beams rotted through. “I know what it means. I know what it is.”
He looked up at me, and the desperation in his eyes was so raw I felt my composure crumble.
“Tell me,” he said, “what did you see in the sanatorium?”
I tried to speak, but my mouth was full of sand. I closed my eyes and forced myself to remember. The figure at the window, the impossible way it moved, the hunger that bled from its eyes.
“There was a man,” I said, the words barely above a whisper. “Or—it looked like a man, but I don’t think he was.” I shuddered. “He was tall, and thin, and his eyes were…”
George’s face turned ashen. “They were red.”
“He drank from her,” I said, my hands gripping the arms of the chair so tightly I thought they might splinter. “He drank her blood, and then he looked at me. He saw me, but it was like he was looking through me. I was frozen, petrified. I couldn’t move.”
My father broke his silence at last. “This is madness.”
George shot him a look of contempt, then returned to me. “It is not madness. There are things older than the church, older than all your prayers. In the old country, we knew how to deal with them. Here, we pretend they don’t exist, and so they take what they please.”
I wanted to object, but the memory of Mercy’s face, twisted in its final satisfied rictus, held my tongue.
“I need your help,” Mr. Brown said, voice cracking. “You are the only one who saw it, the only one who can say what really happened. We require your testimony, if I’m to do what I intend.”
I shook my head, but he pressed on. “The demon who inhabits my daughter comes every night. I hear her scratching at the walls. I hear Edwin talking to her in his sleep. Sometimes I see her in the yard, standing among the dead stalks, her white dress shining in the dark. She has no shadow.”
I swallowed, trying to push the image away.
“You’re special, Alice,” Mr. Brown continued, his words tumbling out in a rush. “They say you are immune to the disease. Maybe it’s true, or maybe you just have not been claimed by it yet. But you survived, and she did not. I believe an angel protects you, an angel whose aid we require.”
“I can’t—“ I started, but he cut me off.
“You must,” he said. “If you don’t help, she will take Edwin. She will take the whole town. The thing that drank her soul that night did not finish its work. It left something behind.”
The silence that followed was as complete as a burial was supposed to be.
“What do you want me to do?” There was nothing else to say.
Mr. Brown leaned forward, his face inches from mine. “Come to the church tonight, after the last bell. There will be others there—men who know what must be done. We cannot do it alone.”
He looked at my father, who met his gaze with a mixture of anger and fear.
