Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 106107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Blessed before he became cursed.
But if the brotherhood at the monastery couldn't help the creature find God—or something that resembles one—and become a man, then at the very least the doctor would do all he could to help.
After all, the more these monsters roamed the earth, the more that the doctor and his ilk would be at risk, and their secrets discovered by a world that was never ready to understand them.
"Can you hear me?" the doctor asked in a low voice. "My name is Abraham, but you may call me Abe."
The creature stirred but didn't open its eyes. Its mouth parted just a little.
The few creatures that Abe had come into contact with didn't speak English, or Spanish, or any language. Many of them were in an even earlier state of depravity, their bodies covered in matted fur or leathery wings. Some even had tails.
But this creature was past that stage, though it didn’t make him any less dangerous. It was still a monster, and yet it had potential to become a man again.
The creature suddenly snapped his jaws at Abe, trying to get a bite of him, but only got air before it fell back down to the ground, all strength gone.
“Now, now,” Abe said to him. “Anger is necessary for survival sometimes, but I will teach you to control your anger. I will teach you how to put that monster aside for now. I will get your soul back, as long as you’re willing to work for it. Are you willing to work for it, Man from Aragon?”
This was always the test. Give the man a choice, and the man might come forward. If the man made the choice, and not the beast, if the light broke through the shadows, then the creature had a chance to be saved.
The soul could be redeemed.
And this time the creature made a low hissing noise at Abe’s request.
He took it as a yes.
Chapter One
PRIEST
Two Centuries Later
“You have enough blood to last you a month,” Abe announces as he steps into my cabin. The wind howls like a rabid wolf through the crack as he shuts the door.
I press my fingers onto the papers to prevent them from flying away and look up from my desk. The candles flicker out, plunging my cottage into darkness, but I can see the doctor clearly.
“A month,” I repeat, panic making my mouth taste sour. Four weeks of absolution until I have to sin again.
Until I have to kill again.
I hope my voice doesn’t betray the despair inside me, twisting into acidic knots, but Abe’s expression softens, and I know he can smell my fear.
“You knew I had to leave,” he says gently as he slowly crosses the room. “I can only keep you company and do your…dirty work for so long.”
The dirty work. That is my term for my appetite. Abe uses more innocuous words: our instincts. Our hunger. Our drive. As a doctor, he looks at our affliction as merely that: something that had befallen us, like a disease, to be dealt with matter-of-factly. But Abe isn’t like me, not exactly. He was born with an appetite for blood. I wasn’t. I was born human. I had a family, a future.
I had a soul…until I didn’t.
“There are others,” Abe says as he stands by my desk, his fingers tracing the gold-foiled script stamped on the Holy Bible. “The last correspondence from the monastery said it resembles an epidemic. More of your kind have been created in a surge of violence. Some of them were witches, such as yourself.”
“By him? By Kaleid?” I whisper. Saying his name causes my heart to race, even after all this time.
The doctor stares at me for a moment, as if weighing the truth, then nods once. “I fear it may be worse than I originally thought, and my expertise is needed. They can’t be allowed to roam. They must be rehabilitated. They must be saved. You know there is a word for us now? The humans are catching on. They call us Vampyres.”
“Vampyres,” I repeat. The word seems fitting.
“There are people at the monastery…” I begin, but I trail off because there is no one like the doctor. I knew he wouldn’t be down here with me at the bottom of the world forever, but when he stepped off the ship eight months ago, I had hoped he would stay at least a couple of years.
Yet I know there is nothing for him here, nothing but me, and I’m not good company. My job is to become the voice for God in this cold, barren, windswept region, to provide both faith and guidance for the settlers who have been stationed here in Nombre de Jesus by command of the Governor of Chile. The people are here to prevent English privateers and pirates from taking over the Strait of Magellan, and I am here to provide salvation.