Salome: Episode 10.
A vampyre will not flinch when struck in the throat.
Welcome to chapter 8 of Salome. This is a Gothic Horror novel set in the 1880s and introduces Sister Salome, a young Italian nun who will appear in the 3rd Muldoon book. I started this serial to help you get to know her before the events of the next novel.
Last week, Salome told her superiors that Catherine shared her dream.
After Easter Monday, my training began in earnest.
“The enemy never announces itself to you.” Mother Hildegard pulled the scarf tight around my head, covering my eyes. I stood in the centre of the gymnasium and heard her cross the room. “You must always be ready,” she said, her voice bouncing off the walls. It was raining outside, the hammering on the glass of the windows clearer now that I didn’t have my sight. I breathed slowly, listening. In the distance, doors opened and closed, footsteps coming to and from the corridors. The sawmill whirred in the background, but what was outside was of no use to me at that moment. There was something else in here with us.
The hairs on the back of my neck rose as I gently turned in the direction of a faint noise. The drag of coarse fabric, and the smallest creak of a leather shoe. Despite being able to hear them, I couldn’t anticipate the first attack. Two hands grabbed my shoulders. Dead in the first round.
“Again,” Mother Hildegard said.
Shaking off the defeat, I poised myself again. I’d felt his hands now, and I knew his scent.
I blocked the next swipe with my forearm, and, estimating the height of my opponent, threw myself shoulder-first into their ribcage. “Good!” Mother Hildegard said as I pushed them away and stepped back, ready for the next attack.
It didn’t come. Not for another minute. This task was tedious, and in my skirts, felt impossible; Mother Hildegard insisted on self-defence no matter how seemingly futile. He came for me again, knocking me off my feet with a tackle as I tried to step back. I crashed to the floor, saving myself as best as I could with my hands. He was still coming, the force of his body against mine pinning me to the floor. I yelped and hit his throat with the blade of my hand. My attacker rolled away, coughing slightly.
“Enough!” Mother Hildegard called. “That will do.”
I pulled the scarf from my face, still sitting on the floor. It was Mr Vickers standing next to Mother Hildegard, his hair dishevelled as he cleared his throat. “Did you know that it was Mr Vickers, Salome?”
“No.”
“But you estimated his height?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
She turned to Mr Vickers. “Next time, wear gloves,” she said, turning her attention back to me. “Tell Sister Catherine it is her turn next.” She followed me to the door. “A vampyre will not flinch when struck in the throat,” she said, handing me a vial of Holy Water. She eyed my crucifix and nodded, retreating back into the shadowed gymnasium.
The weeks that followed were as brutal as they were beneficial.
My hands bled from the cracks, the wounds forced open again after healing began. Only when Father John read to me or when I read to him did the pain subside, but it was always there. In the first few days, my hands were terribly swollen. I was grateful for my lack of hair or finery, for I would not be able to make much of my appearance. Every night, I would pray to God for the journey ahead.
Mother Hildegard said nothing more about my strange dream, but she told me to remain open-minded, and to make a note of any occurrences. I remained under her scrutinous gaze for weeks. She had softened towards me, but
Every morning, I would carry two buckets of water up to the second floor landing, and I would empty them into the pitchers in the dormitories. I went back down and filled them again until ten buckets had been emptied in total. “The Lord is my strength and my shield,” I said as I forced my jellied legs to climb the final step.
“The Lord is my strength and my shield,” I sputtered through sweating lips, stinging strikes and cramping muscles.
“The Lord is my strength and my shield,” I groaned as I rolled out of bed every morning before dawn to clean the grates.
I did not complain when the blisters on my heels burst, flooding my stockings and rubbing my raw skin against the lining of my shoes. I did not cry when I lowered my feet into warm salt water before going to bed. I did not whine when my muscles cramped and ached at night when I tried to sleep. I prayed, even when my knees hurt.
“Those who are strong of body will be strong of mind,” Mother Hildegard said, following me up to the top of the final staircase one morning. She startled me every time she appeared seemingly from nowhere. The woman was like a phantom. Perhaps it was simply a case of being unable to hear her over my own heavy breathing. I had never known such exertion. Christ met me every day at the top of the first floor staircase, his emaciated clay form looking down at me in sympathy. When my hands were free of the buckets, I made the sign of the cross to him, bending my knee, albeit slowly and not without pain. When my hands were occupied, I hoped that a nod would do.
In lessons that did not involve physical toil, my hands bled again with the impact of Mother Hildegard’s cane on my palms. A lack of focus, or an inability to recite what had just been read to me issued the discipline. She never told me, but she was always looking. Always scanning my face for some sign of… what? I could not ask. I simply endured. From the corner of my eye, I caught the shape of the only other student undertaking this exercise: Sister Catherine. I could not tell from her manner if the training was worse for her or easier having done it before. Mother Hildegard’s cane visited her hands more often than mine, so much so that I winced when I heard the slap. I felt terrible guilt of course, but it was oddly comforting to see that things could be worse.
As much as my body protested when it was time to carry the water again, I could not stop. “The Devil wants you to stop. He wants you to cry because you are weak. He wants you to beg him for comfort and reassurance.”
“The Lord is my strength and my shield.”
Satisfied, Mother Hildegard took the last two empty buckets from me, instructing me to wash and change before supper.
“It works, you know,” Father John said as I rubbed balm onto my hands. “You can’t keep a clear head if you’re physically weak.”
“I know.”
“How are your visions?”
“Nothing has changed since the one I told you of.”
“No other clues? No other signs?” He gave me a searching look, grimacing for a brief moment.
“No.” I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Sister Cecelia was long dead in my mind. The demon that lived within her body did not speak to me, or try to find me in my dreams. I amused myself with the thought that Mother Hildegard’s shadow had long occupied any space a demon could hope to hide in. She distracted me from thoughts of the hooded figure, and the figure itself did not come to me.
In truth, I was suffering too much from the training to even think about demons. I wasn’t sure if that was the correct thing to do, so I did not mention it to Father John. I collapsed on my bed in the evening, sometimes waking up at dawn still fully dressed.
The dream I appeared to share with Sister Catherine was of great interest to Mother Hildegard, but it did not happen again. I did not mean to distance myself from my dear friend, but what they told me of her past plagued my thoughts. What if the hooded figure was her? What if she scratched me? But the figure was a man, not a thin, wan-looking girl with chewed, bleeding nails. I suffocated beneath these thoughts as I ate my meals in silence, finding myself to be distrustful of every face I saw. Demons donning masks of angels and the mortal pure. My food often went cold while I was absent from my body. It happened too often. I feared I was being driven to the edge of madness.
“Your English is getting much better, but you still need to be able to read Latin,” Father John said, pleased with my progress despite my battered body. Latin, I discovered, was my least favourite language.
Unfortunately, the book of St Scholastica was written entirely in Latin. There were certain prayers and incantations that I needed to learn by myself, but I had convinced Father John to read to me still. On this night, we were talking of vampyres, because my head was filled with questions. I also knew the vampyre was a particular specialism of his.
“I am not much of a vampyre slayer these days,” Father John said as he helped me with my bandages. He said that he was a recruiter for the Vatican, finding new apprentices across the world. The furthest he had been to find a slayer was Argentina. “I find the new apprentices, and I stay with them until they are ready to continue their training without me.”
“Are all of the vampyre slayers nuns?”
“No,” he shook his head. “There are monks and priests too, but mostly monks in Eastern Europe. Many of the sisters are here or in the Vatican.”
“What about America?”
He thought for a moment. “There are members of our order in New York City, but I do not know of anyone else.” he cleared his throat, “Now Sister, if you don’t mind…”
I blushed.
“Nice try,” he said, smiling.
I laughed. “Sorry, Father.”
“Shall we begin with the book?”
“Of course, Father.”
We read some of the Latin on the pages, some of it familiar, some not. Father John would read it first, and then after discussion, I would try. “Pay close attention to this passage,” he said, his finger pointing to a paragraph of text as he read:
All evil fell from God’s kingdom. First, the most beloved of his angels fell. Then, the first children he made on earth fell. Lilith withdrew from the Garden Of Eden, taking her sin, her lust and her desire for power. In Samael, she sought a sire for her monstrous children. Adam remained, and for Adam God made Eve, but Lucifer had fallen first, and his agents were patient. The serpent, successful in its mission, had God drive his children out into the world.
I looked at him blankly, unsure of what I was supposed to learn from this. He gestured for me to keep reading.
After Eden was closed to man, the Nephilim came. Sons of God, though not cast out, made their homes on earth with daughters of man.
I looked up at Father John, unsure of what to say. He continued:
God tried to retrieve them, though he could not. God tried to drown them, though he could not. God tried to teach them, though he could not. But though all evil fell from God’s kingdom, not all who fall are damned. The children of the Nephilim, the greatest of men, drove demons away, casting them out into Hell.
“What happened to them?” I asked.
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Vampire slayers are right up my alley. Love it!
Yay, I'm finally caught up! Definitely worth binging.