The Vampire & Her Witch

”Do not go far, Brother Aubin,” Ignatious said, clapping a hand on the white-haired priest’s shoulder as he stepped up beside the aging priest. ”We’ll tell them together, we’ll pray together, and when daylight comes... I’ll leave them in your care until Her Dominion arrives.”

”Mmm,” Aubin acknowledged before stepping to the side and yielding entirely to the vampire Inquisitor.

Rather than addressing the congregation, however, Ignatious held up one hand with his fingers splayed wide, rotating his hand slightly as his gaze swept across the room, taking in every wall sconce, prayer candle, and burning taper in the chandeliers above. And then, with a single motion, he pinched two fingers together, extinguishing every flame in the cathedral, plunging it into darkness.

”The nights are dark and full of fears,” Ignatious said, allowing his voice to boom in the darkness, filling the cathedral and suppressing the startled cries that rippled across the congregation when he extinguished all light in the cathedral.

”In the darkness, when we are alone and afraid, we cry out for a savior and a protector,” Ignatious said, drawing the sword from his waist and filling the air with the sound of steel scraping against the wood of the sheath.

”There are monsters in the dark. Fiends who hunt the weak and the vulnerable,” Ignatious continued, holding his sword up high above his head. ”Only the chosen people of the Holy Lord of Light can protect us from the terrors of the night. Only the blessed few can rescue us from the dark.”

”Pray, if you wish to be saved,” Ignatious commanded. ”Pray to your savior and beg for his protection that you might live to see the dawn!”

”Please, High Inquisitor, protect us!” a lone woman cried, falling to her knees in the aisle as the darkness overwhelmed her.

”Merciful Lord of Light,” a young man said, clasping his hands together in front of his face, even though it was too dark to see them. ”Bless me and keep me safe from the demons and the wicked ones who conspire with them...”

”Lord of Light, save me from the dark...”

”... keep me safe from the demons in the night...”

”Enough!” Ignatious said, interrupting the increasingly desperate prayers. Slowly, a flicker of golden flame appeared at the hilt of his blade, growing brighter and brighter as the Holy Fire spread from the blade’s hilt to its tip until the blade burned brightly enough to create a circle of illumination around the Inquisitor more than a dozen paces across.

The rest of the cathedral was cast into deep shadows as the flickering light struggled to illuminate the vast space, but just seeing the light was enough to calm the racing hearts of many of the faithful.

”Your prayers have been heard,” Ignatious said, bringing the sword down in a powerful stroke that stopped just short of touching the altar. ”Your enemies have been struck down. On Midwinter’s Night, two men were executed for their crimes against the people of Lothian,” Ignatious said, his voice reverberating from the arched ceiling high overhead.

”Abbot Recared of the Inquisition is dead, executed with this very blade,” Ignatious said, shocking the audience enough that some jumped in their seats. ”He was guilty of torturing innocents in order to learn their ordinary secrets, blackmailing the people of the march with the secrets his order collected, callous murder, and far, far worse.”

A round of mutters filled the hall, followed by frantic shushing noises as people leaned forward in their pews, both seeking the comfort of the light from the Holy Flame Blade, and eager to hear who else the High Inquisitor had struck down if the first person he’d moved against was the Abbot from Maeril.

”Nine months ago,” Ignatious continued in a powerful voice that sounded as if it came from on high, an illusion that was only amplified by the light of his blade casting dancing shadows across his face from below.

”Nine months ago, a lord beat his bride almost to death and sent his knights to bury her in a grave beyond the borders of the march,” Ignatious said. ”Nine months ago, she refused to die. She crawled out of her shallow grave and swore that she’d return to claim justice for herself, and for everyone else her husband had wronged.”

”Nine months...” someone in the front rows muttered, their eyes going wide in shock as they realized which lord had been married nine months ago. ”It, it can’t be...”

”A lord who would murder his own wife is a horrifying fiend,” Ignatious said. ”A horrifying fiend who went so far as to poison the wife and child of a vassal who’d slighted him before poisoning his own father to death, condemning him to an agonizing death, plagued by delusions and nightmares.”

”No, it, it can’t be...” Gaius said from the back of the cathedral. ”He, he can’t mean...”

”On Midwinter’s Night, after nine months in exile, Her Dominion, Lady Ashlynn Blackwell, returned to Lothian Manor,” Ignatious said, his voice reverberating across the hall. ”She struck down her husband in a sacred Trial by Combat, witnessed by High Priest Aubin and all the lords of the march. She put an end to his reign of tyranny and terror before it could truly begin.”

”Your savior answered your prayers,” Ignatious said, holding the burning Holy Flame Blade up high once again. ”She pushed back the dark for you. But what she did and the struggles she overcame to do it can only burn as brightly as this blade. So long as we put all of our faith in saviors and heroes, we will always be trapped in the dark. All we can do is beg and plead and pray that someone will rescue us before the horrors in the night feast on our spirits and our flesh...”

”It doesn’t have to be this way,” Ignatious said. ”Each and every one of you can become a light. Each and every one of you can push back the darkness, just a little bit. Stand with your neighbors. Cling to your loved ones. Ensure that no flame goes out before its time,” he said as he shifted his grip on the sword before swinging it in a mighty arc.

Golden flames leaped from the blade, flowing over the heads of the gathered faithful like a flock of birds taking flight. All across the cathedral, the candles that had guttered out burst into flame once more, flooding the hall with a warm, golden glow and banishing the darkness from the hall.

”Tonight, I will tell you about the monsters in the dark,” Ignatious told the wide-eyed congregation. ”To keep the darkness at bay, we all need to light our own flames, and we need to welcome new friends who carry flames of their own.”

”Because alone, even the greatest of heroes can only shine like a beacon in the dark,” Ignatious said. ”It’s fine to treasure those beacons. It’s okay to follow them. But if we do not add our own flames to the fire, then all we can do is pray in the dark and hope that our savior comes in time.”

”Now,” Ignatious said, returning the blade to its sheath. ”Who will pray with me, so we may make it through this night?”