try until nothing is left

You had been raking gravel out of the yard, tiny stones kicked off the path into the kempt lawn by prancing horses and wagon wheels, when Lucy and the other nun, Esme, had caught your attention with their dense gossip. 

They regarded your approach with less caution than they would have had with their other Sisters, as gossip was deemed inappropriate, a violation, a flickering serpent’s tongue carrying covert temptations leading to luscious sins and debauchery.

They saw you—poor, morose, the groundskeeper's only child and reminder of loveless trysts—and thought nothing of snaking you into their prattle. You were not the sort to divulge anyone's secrets without gain, without reward, and you knew that the nuns kept nothing to their names once they took their vows and donned their habits.

“Father Shaw,” you encouraged the discussion, now intrigued, mostly from the fact that he was very new, very young, and modestly handsome, “why was he awake so early? Why was he in Father Marius’ chambers? Curious to me.”

Neither of them gave much caution to your questions, shrugging as if to dismiss your ambivalence and accusatory tone. You were bold in the way that the faithless and lost always tended to be: asking senseless things, always concerned with the wrongdoings of others, always suspicious, always inquiring—forever inquiring.

“Oh, my, you're so defensive,” Esme struggled to whip a yellow bedsheet out into the air, still heavy with water and the smell of mildew. “If that’s how you're going to be, then: why does your father stumble around the yard at night with a lantern, swinging around a pistol like a madman? Won't he hurt someone?”

Because he's a godless, superstitious drunk. Perhaps, even, a bit disturbed in his mind, but you couldn't bear to think that way, that he might be the type to need his head locked in a metal cage, gagged, arms bound, and padlocked in some damp, distant corner of an asylum.

“He's a good man,” you relented, taking your hands from the top of the weathered handle of the rake and resuming your task. The gravel made an awful, coarse sound as metal teeth collected pieces of stone and led them back to the rest. “He's served this monastery well. I don't mean offense about Father Shaw, I'm simply curious about what transpired, is all.”

“No offense taken,” came a voice from behind, startling both the twittering nuns and you with a flinch. They saw it to be Father Shaw standing there, hands cuffed behind his back with a particularly demure disposition, hiked their skirts and whisked themselves away back inside. “Ah, am I really such a frightful figure? I couldn't really find an opening during your conversation to invite myself in. I apologize.”

You were of a similar fretful nature, quickening your clawing and the reach of the rake. “Nay, Father. I think it's simply because you're a strange man to them still; a handsome face, a warm voice—mysterious. Give them time. They'll come around.”

“Have you?” Father Shaw asked, taking measured strides in a half-circle around to your front. He concentrated on where the teeth of your instrument struck next, tips temporarily wedged into the soft dirt before being ripped up with chunks of earth and gray gravel. “It wouldn't do for me if you… were still ill at ease with me as well. I consider you my one true friend in this place.”

Your father held a certain distaste towards Father Shaw that you'd never witnessed before, saying nothing but that something was terribly wrong with him and not to place yourself in a position to be alone with him. This, you attributed to his unsoundness, but it was always the sudden flicker of a sharp breath against candlelight—a jarring shift in his demeanor when he spoke about the Father. He'd grow neurotic and throw things about the cottage interior, convincing you to pay some mind to what he was saying.

“And, you're a great friend of mine as well.” You’d hoped you sounded coherent and paced your words evenly enough. “I'm sorry if you thought I was accusing you of something, sir. I really meant nothing to it.”

Father Shaw’s lips sprawled tight and pale into a fond smile, never showing his teeth, though the imprint of them seemed massive and the skin of his lips startlingly thin across them. “I know. You have nothing to fear. My feelings were not affected. If you'd like, come to my chambers later, we may pray together first, and I'll tell you everything you wish to know about what I saw to sate your curiosity.”

“That seems improper, sir,” you said.

“How so?”

“Inviting someone to your chambers at night seems an unbecoming venture for a pious man of status, such as yourself,” you continued, now standing upright beside your rake, “if any of the sisters were to witness it, worse, another priest, aren't you afraid you'd be horribly chastised? Even worse, excommunicated altogether?”

Although Father Shaw’s dark eyes reflected no light, holding such demanding depth to them that it was hard to keep your bearings whenever you realized you'd been staring, his entire face was alight in amusement.

“Wherever did you learn to speak like that?” he asked candidly, still glowing despite his pallor. “Forgive me when I say, but your father is not an educated man. I mean no offense. Please don't look at me in such a way. You are so well spoken, I only wish to know more about you.”

“I've lived here my entire life,” you told him. “The nuns taught me how to read.”

He looked impressed. “You can read?”

“I can!” From a near distance, you could make out your father’s haddard form, bent sideways on a walking cane and limping towards the pair of you. You looked up at the priest’s smooth face. “It'd be best for you to leave before my father can speak to you. He isn't the kindest soul after a long day.

Father Shaw didn't react with any semblance of worry, but agreed that other things needed to be done and began walking away. Just as he passed you on his way towards the monastery, he let his hand rest atop your shoulder and leaned you towards him to whisper in your ear: “Come to me tonight. I'll be waiting for you.”

There was something so luxurious and cooling about his voice, like fine silks sitting in the shade during autumn, gliding across your bare skin, wrapping your neck, your chest, your nether parts. His voice was a fine, chilly mist after the first rains in spring. It felt refreshing and new after a glacial winter, yet still had the capacity to soak you to the bone. It was a nighttime breeze caressing your cheek, sweeping through your hair, making your skin burst all over with bumps.

“I don't like the way he looks at you,” said Father with a mouthful of beige porridge. Dinner for the night and every night for the next week. “He looks at you like you're a slab of meat! Some prize after a hunt. I don't like him, love. Not one bit. You'd do well to stay to mind yourself and do your chores and nothing else, y’hear?”

After the meal, you cleaned up and swept the floors with hard bristles. You snuffed all the lights except for the fireplace where your father sat in his old chair, fiddling with his favorite pistol. 

“It's time for bed, old man.” You watched him fit a couple of small bullets into the loading chamber. They glinted against the orange flames. “Goodness. What have you gotten this time? Something new?”

“Aye!” he grinned in a sickly way, almost toothless, ravaged by blackened decay with what remained. “Went to market the other day while the nuns bullied you and picked out some fine bullets from the silversmith.” He cracked the two halves of the pistol shut. “Better to be prepared.” 

You waited until sometime later, once he was finally asleep, possibly after midnight, before leaving the humble cottage sitting on the fringes of the massive monastery yard and rushing across the grounds to get inside. 

Once, they'd kept a guard dog on the property, one of those meaner breeds that were used for gambling, but the poor thing wound up shot dead in the middle of the night by a traveling friar who'd come to seek refuge at the monastery. You and the sisters were horribly distraught by the entire ordeal, and all vetoed the consideration of bringing another dog here.

Since then, it was no task for you (or anyone else) to get inside the building and shuffle along the shadows through the corridors. At night, the place stirred with patient insects, feral rodents large and small in the pantry, and hungry owls tamely whining from the rafters when something startled them away from their hunt of vermin. 

Your feet were a light sound on the masonry below, padded by thin leather soles, alerting you of your own enthusiasm as the thwap thwap thwap became louder, aggressive as you closed in on a wall and turned down another hallway for a sturdy wood door at the end of it. 

As your knuckles rapped, hoping the sound wouldn't disturb the animals’ nighttime caroling, a swift darkness moved across the floor from behind the door, briefly blocking out the soft light seeping out from underneath. 

The next moment, you were being pulled inside and sat at a small table tucked to the side of Father Shaw’s rather generous room. It was a simple space sparsely furnished for the barest of comforts—only for what was needed to live—but what had been made for him was of exquisite craftsmanship, some made of teakwood, which Shaw assured you was remarkably durable and highly resistant to rotting. 

“It's wonderful for boats,” he said, pouring a light amber colored brew from a metal kettle he'd heated a short while ago. “It’s good for all elements, really. Exceptional longevity. I've heard it has become a popular option in the city for burying the deceased.”

“Will Father Marius be buried in a teakwood coffin, then?” you asked, sipping politely from the cup even though you had no appetite for it. You already felt ill at ease enough having disobeyed your father by sneaking into a priest's personal chambers at night. The things the sisters would say about you—

“He will be entombed underneath the monastery with the rest who have served here and passed. I believe that is all stone down there, my dear.” Father Shaw smiled tepidly, kettle aside, no tea of his own. “But, I know that your curiosity led you here to me with questions, yes? About the state I found Father Marius in, yes?”

You tried to disguise your intrigue by drinking more of the tea, of whatever it was he had given you, and listened to the sounds of your fingertips sticking to the porcelain from sweat and steam. 

“If you wouldn't mind sharing…”

“I wouldn't!” he leaned on his arms on the table, closer towards you as though with a secret. “As I've said, you are truly the only soul here whom I can confide in. You are not a sheep. And you do not fear sin as the rest do. So, you can ask me anything, and I'll tell you everything.”

“Tell me about Father Marius, then.” 

Father Shaw reached across the table for one of your hands. His fingers were far larger, much longer, and colder than your own as they clamped around yours as he recounted the event.

“Dreadful sight, it was. It was, oh, perhaps sometime after three o'clock when I heard a massive racket; a struggle. When I knocked, all of the noise subsided at once, and there was complete stillness. Silence, my dear, silence so deep, dark, and damning that I knew something awful had happened.

“I didn't knock again, I was too afraid to! But Father Marius was getting on in age, so I couldn't just stand by, either. I kicked the door in—just once was all it took—and I rushed inside to see the room was a complete mess. A fight had clearly taken place, and the walls—oh, the walls—”

His remorse was performed, stiff and uncertain, reflected nowhere within the vastness of his black gaze. You were moved by the vulnerability he was trying to show you, going so far as to abandon your drink to place your warm hand on top of his.

“The walls, my dear, were a mess of blood. Something vicious and awful had happened in that room. But then, I found Father Marius lying there on the ground next to a broken window. I think he'd tried to throw himself through it. His face was shredded to pieces, his eyes gouged. When I got closer, I noticed that his tongue had been severed from his head!”

You were holding Father Shaw’s hands in a bloodless grip, face ashen, teeth chattering behind your lips. “What on earth! That is not only horror, but cruelty!”

"Oh, my love, it gets worse!” Father Shaw held you mesmerized in his void. “Closer still, Father Marius’ face was locked in one of pure terror, I've—I’ve never seen a human react in quite a way such as that before, to fear. The man unhinged his own jaw in a hideous scream, and it seemed to me he was skeletal. By that, it's like he was, well, quite dry.

“So, I crouched down so much lower and inspected him all over. Do you want to know what I found?” 

“Yes.” You spoke breathlessly.

Father Shaw had moved out of his seat and was on one knee in front of you, both of his frigid hands on your face to smooth across your cheeks, pushing away pieces of hair obscuring some part of you he'd wanted to see. 

“My love, I saw marks in his neck. Two, beautifully, wonderfully symmetrical marks that were far too clean to be of any animal that we know of. The bite was clean; it was patient and cunning. And the fangs that had sunk into his tender flesh had drained him of blood, of the very essence that kept his heart beating until the very last.”

“Sir—” your stomach plummeted, falling forever, when he smiled, teeth longer than any human should be shown through to you. He wouldn't let you go when you went to move out of his hands, away from him. “Father Shaw, please—”

“I wish you could have seen it, my love. It was a breathtaking sight, and I longed for someone else to admire the beauty of my work alongside me.” 

It was unthinkable that a vampire could walk on these holy grounds and in the bright of day, yet Father Shaw had for countless days. Evil held you sweetly by the cheek and in your hair, kissed you with a corpse’s cold lips, and laved the skin of your skin with a long, serpentine tongue.

“O’, my merciful lord…”

Father Shaw bent your head back with a fistful of hair and spoke from your throat: