April 8^th. Cloudy afternoon. 23-year-old James was closing his booth early for the day to get ready to see his parents and his aunt that were coming over to St. Lithe to visit him and stay the night. As he walks from his booth, he hears rustling behind him in some bushes. He turns to look behind him, but sees nothing coming out of them. He decides to think nothing of it, and continues walking to the cathedral’s direction. During his walk, he begins having glimpses of Harland’s screaming and running from whoever killed him which starts giving him a migraine, making him hold the left side of his head.

‘Why?...’ He thinks to himself. ‘It’s been almost 9 months! Why am I having thoughts of Harland’s death? …What are you telling me? Is… the killer close by?’

.   .   .   .   .

On a clear starry night, James was outside in the back of the cathedral sitting with Nyris, Theresa, and Deborah along with the other nuns and the children as they laugh, smile, and clap to music while they watch Elsa dance near a lit pyre while Gad was playing a drum while James’ aunt, Ester, was playing her flute and danced with Elsa. Elsa dances her way towards James and extends her hand to him.

“Come and dance with me, my son!” She insists with a smile.

“Uh… I can’t dance, Mother…” James said waving his hands in decline.

Nyris touches James’ shoulder. “Come now, dear boy. Have fun.”

All the children shout and encourage James to dance, making him sigh. “Alright… I’ll dance.”

James grasps Elsa’s hand, gets up, and starts to dance with Elsa with the children cheering. During the dance, Esper gives the flute to Elsa, so she could dance with James. As the three danced, Deborah and Theresa clap with the children to the beat of the music joyously.

.   .   .

After the dance, everyone goes inside with the nuns putting the children to bed, and most of them were also turning in for the night. Inside the cathedral’s dining room, James, Elsa, Gad, Esper, Deborah, Theresa, and Nyris were sitting and eating at one of the tables.

“So, what type of music is that, Elsa?” Theresa asks curiously.

“The music we danced to is the song of celebration. It’s type is called Calyp.” Elsa explains. “Not many of my people do it now because of the discrimination we still face.”

“How do you both dance like that?” Deborah asks Ester.

“Well, to tell you the truth, I never used to dance until Elsa taught me to.” She responds. “It’s whatever you feel in your body or your soul that makes you want to dance. If you like, we can teach you.”

“Oh… No thank you. I can’t dance that well.”

Nyris chuckles. “I’m sure you can be able to dance, sister Deborah, and you too, Theresa.”

Theresa squints her eyes at Nyris. “I don’t dance, Father. Besides the dancing, Ester, you don’t look like the woman to… do what Elsa does.”

“I never used to be.” Ester replies. “Gad and I lived in a strict religious home. ‘Anything with witchcraft and vampires is demonic’ Our parents said to Gad and me. ‘We are under a damned and condemned land ruled by a vampire. Becoming any one of these is damnation.’, that’s how they were. I was so sad when Gad left, because they disowned Gad as he went with Elsa. When Elsa saving me that day from the rebels, I learned afterward our parents were wrong about Romas and vampires. Not most of them are evil, and they’re no better than humans. Witches and vampires, I’ve known some of them to be the greatest people to ever meet and interact with, even the wolfen. It’s fun to be universal, and it’s fun to dance from your soul. It’s another type of religion, but freer; another way to express yourself, and it’s nice to see that church lot like yourselves aren’t discriminative.”

“Thank you, Ester.” Nyris praises. “I tell you, the moment when I held James when he was a baby, I knew he had a gift. Some priests I used to know can’t fathom such a thing. When it comes to a subject such as witchcraft, some priests would lead their flock to do… treacherous actions. Those are the men that give priests a bad reputation. So, I can assure you, anyone is welcome to come as they are to Holy St. Lithe Cathedral, and you three are welcome anytime as well here.”

Gad, Ester, and Elsa smile, and bow their heads to Nyris’ hospitality.

“Thank you, Father Dustine.” Gad comments.

“Please. Call me Nyris.”

.   .   .   .   .

Later that night, James helps Elsa take her belongings into the guestroom she and Gad were going staying in. As James puts her belongings down, Elsa slips some paper in James’ pocket. Confused, James takes out whatever Elsa put in his pocket and sees it was folded. James looks at Elsa in confusion, with Elsa signaling him to open it. He unfolds it and sees that it was the deed to the property near Mt. Kianu. Concerned, James looks at Elsa.

“W-why are giving me the deed to the land up north?” James asks.

“…I have a feeling that you’re going to need more than me.” Elsa responds.

“What do you mean? You aren’t sick or anything, right?”

“Of course not. Your father and I talked about this before we came down here and we thought it best to give you our land, because we feel our time is close; even Ester’s…”

“Mother… you’re scaring me… What are you talking about?”

James then feels something wrong within the entire cathedral, which was the exact feeling Elsa was feeling. It felt familiar to James due to it giving the same aura when he saw visions of Harland’s murder. The left side of his head begins to hurt as he sees what looks like the soon future. James then looks devasted as he sees the visions and looks at Elsa.

“Mother!” He calls urgently. “You, Father, and Aunt Ester have to leave from here!”

The two then heard screaming coming from downstairs, prompting James and Elsa to run out of the room and head downstairs. At the bottom of the stairs, mother and son sees Nyris guarding Theresa and Deborah with his cross from a woman robed in red with a red hood concealing her face. Gad and Ester were holding pouches that held crushed silver in it, and throws it at the woman which she dodges, and dashes toward Nyris. Elsa then snaps her fingers, causing the silver to turn into a giant hand, grabbing onto the woman. The silver began to burn the woman, causing her to scream.

“She’s a vampire!” Elsa claims and looks at Nyris. “Nyris! Use your cross!”

As told, Nyris extends his cross and started to pray, making the woman scream in pain as the silver burns her. As Nyris continued praying as quickly as he could, the woman forms a red aura around her, and in fit of rage, she screams out, obliterating the silver hand. Nyris instantly backs his hand away with his hand getting impaled by the silver flakes, and begins to bleed. The robed woman then charges at Nyris once again, but is stopped by a spear of clumped silver into her shoulder caused by Elsa while James runs towards Nyris, Deborah, and Theresa. The woman screams once more as she grabs the spear, pulling it out, and with the red aura emanating intensively, she throws it at the ground with inhuman force that shards of silver that shot at everyone else. The shards begin to hit everyone, making the woman dash towards James, grab his shirt, and forcefully throw him aside and hit the wall behind him. She then slashes Nyris’ cross away, severing his hand and causing him to scream in pain.

The woman instantly impales Nyris through his stomach with her claws, and throws him at the wall next to James. The woman then dashes towards Theresa and Deborah slashing through them like paper, causing them to bleed out. The woman turns to dash to Gad and Ester, but Elsa snaps her fingers again to form tendrils from the silver dust to quickly grab and bind the woman. Ester and Gad move away and throw out more silver for the tendrils to be stronger.

Elsa motions her hands, tightening the grip of the tendrils as she walks down the stairs. As the silver burns through the woman’s skin once again, Elsa then picks up the cross from Nyris’ severed hand, and aims it, praying the same prayer as Nyris at the woman who was now screaming angrily. James recovers and sees a bleeding and incapacitated Nyris in front of him. He crawls towards Nyris on his knees, and holds Nyris in his arms to see Nyris’ stomach wound, his missing hand, and bruised face. James looked in front of him to see if Theresa, or Deborah were still alive, but he saw Deborah suffered blood loss from her neck and chest and was dead next to Theresa, who was also dead from her bleeding stomach and chest wound. James could feel disbelief coarse through him as he saw their bodies lay lifeless in front of him. He hears Nyris weakly cough which catches his attention, and holds him up which makes Nyris spit up blood, and look up at James.

“So…” Nyris struggles. “This is how we leave you… I never thought it would be like this…”

“Father, please don’t say that.” James responds in a breaking voice. “You’ll be just fine.”

Nyris weakly chuckles. “Experiences… like tragedies happen for a reason. Don’t blame yourself for this… tragedy. Promise us… that you will be greater in life... For the sake of Velorice as a whole…”

James nods. “I will… I promise, Nyris…”

Nyris smiles. “I’m… proud of you, son… So is Deborah… and… Theresa…”

Nyris breathes his last breath, becoming limp in James’ arms. In tears, James lays Nyris down and looks at Elsa, Gad, and Ester who were struggling to restrain the female assailant. In another fit of rage, the silver tendrils start to crackle. The woman screams out once more with the silver blasting away from her, and hitting Elsa, Gad, and Ester with the silver dust. With the force of the blast, Ester gets pushed forcefully, hitting the back her head on a wooden door frame behind her, and splitting her head open in the process, killing her instantly. Gad was also struck with the silver dust, impaling him like micro shards of glass into his body and mouth. He starts coughing up blood and leans on the wall, slowly falling to the floor as the robed woman with burns on her body and robe tattered walks towards Gad.

She grabs Gad by his neck, lifting him up, and strangling him. Since Gad had silver in his body, she could not drink from any area of him, and decides to tighten her grip on his neck, to the point she snaps his neck, and drops Gad’s lifeless body. The woman then turns to an injured Elsa who was being dragged to safety by James. The woman smirks as she sees James’ eyes was filled with anger.

“Remember, James…” Elsa speaks, catching James’ attention. “This was destined to happen. I’ve seen it…”