Tristan didn’t bother trying to be quiet—vampires had excellent hearing, and the cathedral had excellent acoustics. With each step, his heavy boots made a noise he found pleasing, and he relished the amplified clicking sound when he cocked his revolver. He walked steadily down the aisle, hyperaware of his surroundings, and didn’t let himself get distracted by the bat sweeping down from the high ceiling to catch some insect.
He could sense the vampire’s presence. The wrongness in the air. Stepping between two columns, he walked into the nave and headed toward the altar.
“There’s no point prolonging it,” he said, gun pointed at the ceiling. “You know I’ll get you in the end. Send you to the afterlife, where you belong.”
The lack of any response wasn’t surprising. They always thought they could hide until the last minute and then catch him off guard. That he would make a foolish mistake and give them an opening. But it always ended the same way, and this case wasn’t going to be any different.
“Please,” the vampire said, rising to his feet behind the altar, hands in the air. This surprised Tristan, as most of them weren’t so naive. But this one looked young. Must have been turned as a teenager, not that long ago. But he wasn’t a teenager anymore. He was an abomination and— “I haven’t done anything wrong, I swear.”
“A creature that drains people of blood and leaves them lifeless husks claims it hasn’t done anything wrong? Curious.” Tristan took aim. “Perhaps the gods will believe you when you face them.”
“I’ve never killed anyone. Please.” Tristan couldn’t allow himself to be swayed by the desperation in both the vampire’s eyes and his voice. This thing was no longer alive. He didn’t even know why he kept calling it a ‘he.’ It wasn’t a human. It wasn’t even an animal. “I only drink a little, then run. Just enough to survive.”
“Futile efforts.” Tristan fired his gun, hitting the vampire’s chest and piercing its heart. When he walked over to it, pushing open his coat and taking out the stake from his belt, it looked up at him with tears in its wide eyes. He didn’t understand why it could still cry normal tears. But he wasn’t here to ponder vampire anatomy, so he turned his attention to what he was actually here to do.
“Could I…” The vampire watched the stake, a mixture of hope and terror on its face. “C-could I still live after being shot? If you chose not to—If you didn’t stake—”
It let out a gasp when Tristan pushed the stake into its heart. Its shocked, betrayed expression disturbed him, and for a brief moment, he felt as if he were murdering a child. But he was quick to remind himself that he was merely destroying a thing that existed against the laws of nature. Perhaps now the teenage boy’s soul could finally rest.
He put the gun back in the holster, then pulled his sword out of its sheath and cut off the vampire’s head. The grand inquisitor wouldn’t just accept his word—he would demand proof of the completed mission. Tristan had only been doing this for a bit over a year. Perhaps he would eventually gain the grand inquisitor’s trust if he continued to fulfill his duties without issue.
He refused to look at the vampire’s face as he lifted the head by the hair. He put it in a bag and strode out of the building.
“Is it dead?” the archpriest asked.
Tristan nodded and raised the bag a little. “But I’m afraid I can’t stay to help with the cleanup, Your Excellency. Please have the remains cremated.”
“Of course, Inquisitor Starling. Thank you so much for your assistance.”
“I merely did my duty, Your Excellency, but you are welcome.”
Tristan strapped the bag to the saddle, got on the horse, and rode toward the palace, with the moon being his only source of light once he departed from the cathedral’s grounds.
He reached the Palace of the Holy Inquisition after about an hour of riding, but due to its rich illumination, he’d been able to see it long before then. After so many years, the magnificence of the palace—which really was more of a fortress—still awed him whenever he looked at it from afar. It was at once inviting and imposing. Though perhaps it seemed inviting to him only because it was the single place he’d ever called home.
Once inside, he made his way to the grand inquisitor’s office. Late though it was, he knew his superior was awaiting his return.
“Tristan,” the grand inquisitor said when presented with the bag. "Successful as always.” He took the bag and peeked inside, then put it on the floor by his desk. “Did it give you much trouble?”
“There was no fight, Your Eminence. The vampire was frightened and merely… begged for its life.”
“A freshly turned one, it seems.” The grand inquisitor scratched his short salt-and-pepper beard. “They tend to resist their darkest urges and they still try to breathe like normal humans, even when no humans are watching them. But we cannot be fooled by their minor displays of humanity. They always turn into complete monsters in the end.”
“All of them?” Tristan asked, not sure why. He knew the truth.
“All of them, my dear. Vampires, werewolves, warlocks, witches… They all eventually lose their humanity. Some to instinct, others to an insatiable thirst for power.” The grand inquisitor smiled. “You were such a scrawny, timid boy when I found you all those years ago. I’m proud of the man you have grown into. Not only are you becoming the Holy Inquisition’s most effective weapon, but you’re also taller than me now and such a dashing young man that I’m sure many women wish you hadn’t taken the vows.”
“I will always honor my vows, sir.”
“I know. And I think you’ve proven your loyalty and competence enough times that we can dispense with the need for bringing proof of a kill every time. From now on, I will expect verbal reports only. These things…” The grand inquisitor gestured to the bag. “I always feel bad for the poor servants who have to get rid of them.”
Suppressing a smile, Tristan nodded. “Thank you for the trust, Your Eminence. I won’t fail you.”
“You have earned my trust, son. There’s no need to thank me for it. Now go eat something and rest.”
Tristan bowed and went to his room. He hung his coat on a hook on the door. After cleaning his weapons, he took off the rest of his clothes, leaving them in a pile on the floor, and went to his tiny bathroom to shower. Tiny but his own. He knew how much of a privilege it was to have one’s own room with a bathroom. Sometimes he wished he didn’t have the privilege because then he wouldn’t have to listen to other inquisitors’ obscene theories about how he’d earned it. He didn’t care if others insulted him, but he couldn’t stand the grand inquisitor being insulted as well.
“Treat it as a test of your self-restraint,” the grand inquisitor had said when Tristan had told him. “You must never attack a member of the Holy Inquisition unless they betray it.”
To Tristan, an insult to the head of the Inquisition felt like a betrayal of the Inquisition, but he wasn’t one to argue with his superior. If the grand inquisitor told him to ignore the others’ insults, he was going to ignore them.
The already lukewarm water was beginning to turn cold, so he quickly finished washing himself and stepped out of the shower. There was barely enough space for him to dry himself. There were moments when he wanted to tell the grand inquisitor that he’d outgrown his tiny quarters, but he didn’t wish to make the gossip even worse or to appear ungrateful. If not for His Eminence, he would have died in the streets without achieving anything, so he should be happy to be alive and have a place to live and, most of all, to have a purpose.
He looked in the small mirror on the wall. The grand inquisitor had called him dashing. A tavern owner had addressed him as ‘tall, dark, and handsome’ two days ago, but was he? Dashing? Handsome? Why would anyone even mention it when they knew what he was? When they knew his body belonged to the Holy Inquisition and could only ever be used to fight evil?
After dressing for bed, he ate the sandwiches he’d packed for his mission and drank a glass of water. While he was brushing his teeth, he accidentally hit the wall beside the basin with his elbow, which allowed him to practice self-restraint as he willed himself not to curse. When he finally slipped under the covers with a sigh, it surprised him that he was so tired after such an easy mission.
But sleep eluded him since he couldn’t relax, and there was a tightness in his chest that refused to go away no matter what position he took. When he finally realized the reason for it, he tried to resist thinking about it, because what good would it do? He’d killed a monster. There was no reason to feel guilty about it. He’d saved lives by doing it. He’d possibly also saved a soul that had been trapped between the world of the living and the world of the dead.
Besides, who was he to question the morality of what he was told to do? To doubt the judgment of his superiors? He believed in the Holy Inquisition and was content with the idea of becoming its greatest weapon in the war against the forces of evil.
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