PART 1:

GENESIS

"The burning of the first witch is widely associated with the creation of vampires. The Church forbids research on it, but from what I have gathered, it seems the fire acted as a kind of infernal baptism. I believe only God could have sanctioned this. Perhaps it was an attempt to counterbalance the sins of the Holy Order." 

―Excerpt of a private journal recovered from the ashes of Father Cyprian's estate, post-Schism

TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO

Father Adhemar knelt on the blood-slick floor of the temple, palms pressed against the wet stones. The Holy Sages towered over him, breathing heavily in their sheep masks, black robes almost invisible in the darkness of the confessional. With every breath, their rubbery, matted snouts quivered.

The confessional had only two rules: Do not speak unless spoken to, and do not touch anything but the floor. It was an enclosed, circular room beneath the citadel, lit only by a single torch above the altar. Most people never stepped foot inside of it. Not unless the Archbishop believed they had committed a great enough sin―a sin that even he was not capable of absolving. That was what the Holy Sages were for.

It had been ten years since Adhemar had last stepped foot in here. He had dreaded coming back ever since. He still had nightmares about the dead lamb he'd seen on the confessional's altar. It hadn't been freshly gutted like he'd expected, but weeks or even months old. Its tongue black, its body drained of blood and viscera, stray maggots dancing in the cavities where its eyes had been. The stench itself had been enough to make him keel over and retch once they let him leave the confessional. Vinegar and rotting oranges.

Today the confessional only smelled like copper. It seemed Adhemar had come on a day they had freshly slaughtered the lamb. Maybe even in the hour before his arrival. He couldn't see the lamb―only the oily, glistening rivulets of its blood that leaked down the sides of the altar, pooling on the floor and trickling between the stones.

"Glory be to God," whispered the Holy Sages.

Their voices sounded inhuman. Unnaturally deep. As if God truly were speaking through them. Seeping into their lungs, inflating their chests.

"God's glory to the People," Adhemar whispered back.

The cold, glossy eyes of the sheep masks gazed back at him.

Then one of the Holy Sages stepped forward and lifted Adhemar's chin with two fingers gloved in sheepskin.

"Dearest Father," he said. "What are you here to confess?"

Adhemar swallowed, forcing himself to meet the Holy Sage's eyes. "I have sinned grievously against our Lord."

"Tell us," said the Holy Sage, leaning closer.

Adhemar could feel his hot, gasping breath through the muzzle. He sounded hungry, almost orgasmic with insistence. His gloved fingers gripped Adhemar's chin hard enough to bruise. Adhemar's throat had become so dry he struggled to swallow. He knew what he had to say. But he was a coward. He feared he had done something that only death could absolve him of. And he didn't want to end up like the lamb on the altar, slaughtered and then desiccated.

"Tell us," the Holy Sage repeated, breathing harder now.

"I damned them," Adhemar said. He tore his face away from the clutch of the Holy Sage's fingers and slammed his forehead against the bloody stone floor. Again and again. Squeezing his eyes shut. It didn't help. He could hear her screaming all around them. As if she had followed him into this sacred place. As if her infernal soul were haunting him. In a blink, he saw the fire, and the smoke like silver thread, a ragged halo encircling the still-melting flesh of her face. "I damned us all."

He waited for penance, for absolution, for death. His forehead felt as if it had split down the middle, his blood mixing with the lamb's. His heart pounded, hard and fast, as if it knew it would never get the opportunity to beat again.

But the Holy Sages sounded as if they were smiling as they all responded, a thousand voices echoing at once.

"Blessed be to God, sweet Father. You are on the right path."

+++

Anactoria knelt before Magdalene's corpse and kissed what was left of her lips. Even with the flesh unraveled from her blackened bones, her veins exposed like tendrils of Stygian ink, she was still the most beautiful woman Anactoria had ever beheld.

"My darling, I am so sorry." Wind whistled through the empty courtyard. "I failed to protect you."

Anactoria buried her face against the charred remnants of Magdalene's chest. A sob clawed up her throat. They must have tied her to the stake hours ago, right in front of the church steps, as if the peaceful, compassionate god they worshiped would be proud of them.

The Holy Order had burned her alive and the people of Antioch had watched her burn, and they had all likely made it home by suppertime, so priests could clink glasses of wine and parents could force their children to eat spoonfuls of boiled parsnip and say bedtime prayers. None of them cared that they had murdered an innocent woman. That they had left her charred body at the bottom of the stake, in the middle of the city, like a doll a child had grown bored of.

Was she really supposed to believe this was the love and hope the Holy Order preached? This was the work of an almighty, benevolent God?

"I know you never approved of murder, sweetheart," Anactoria murmured. "I know you believed in a kinder world." She could taste her wife's ashes on her lips, mingling with her tears, and licked both. Relishing the salt and sweet decay. "But on our wedding day, I vowed that should anything ever happen to you, I would wage war with the world itself."

Anactoria clutched Magdalene's ruined body tighter. As if, by cradling her wife's charred skeleton, she could rewind time and stop this from ever happening. The love of her life couldn't possibly be dead. Not Magdalene, not her Magdalene, whose only crime had been falling in love with a monster, and then trusting that monster to keep her safe.

Anactoria looked up at the stake looming above them. The stake upon which Magdalene had burned. Its shadow halved the city like a threshold between worlds. Carving a dark, unswerving road to the future.

"Please forgive me, Magdalene, my love, for ever letting anything happen to you," Anactoria whispered, laying another kiss onto her wife's blackened bones. "And please forgive me, my darling, for what I must do to the world." 

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Hi everyone welcome back <3 I hope you're all excited for a lesbian vampire story. It's going to be a little intense.

From the moon and back,
Sarai