The Eclipse's Dawn

THE JESUIT OFFER

The vampire’s ashes still clung to Annes Diane’s boots as she marched toward the only place left untouched by fear in HatchVille—the Church of Saint Lysandra. The sanctuary was empty except for a lone candle flickering before the altar, where a statue of the Virgin Mary gazed down with mournful eyes.

She dropped to her knees at the pew and whispered, “They’re real. I knew it.”

Somewhere behind her, the wind stirred the incense coils. Footsteps followed.

“You handled yourself well,” came a voice. Deep. Steady. Almost holy.

Annes didn’t turn. “I’ve seen one before. I didn’t have a blade back then.”

The man stepped into the candlelight. Clad in a charcoal cassock, with a heavy silver rosary looped at his side, he bore the air of a priest—but his hands bore old scars, and his eyes had seen war. His name was Father Antoine Mathieu, and he was not here by coincidence.

“You carry the mark of the lost ones,” he said, kneeling beside her. “Those who survived because heaven preserved them for judgment.”

“I carry rage,” Annes corrected.

He smiled faintly. “Rage sharpens faith.”

She turned to him fully. “Who are you really?”

Antoine placed a thin black envelope in her hand. It was stamped with the insignia of the Societas Sancti Ignatii, the secret arm of the Jesuit Order—the Vatican’s last defense against the supernatural.

“You’ve been watched since the night your family died. We hoped the darkness would pass over HatchVille. We were wrong.”

Annes opened the envelope.

Inside was a silver emblem: a cruciform blade crossed by a flaming sword. Beneath it, two Latin words were engraved:

“Milites Lux”—Soldiers of Light.

“What do you want from me?” she asked.

“To become what you were born to be.”

That night, under a fog-cloaked moon, Annes boarded a Vatican-marked vehicle escorted by silent monks and exorcist-soldiers. They drove through the outskirts of Rome, where ancient aqueducts crumbled and fields bore whispers of war long past. It was here, among the ruins, that the Jesuit Compound lay hidden—beneath an abandoned monastery covered in ivy and forgotten prayers.

Father Antoine led her through corridors guarded by armed clergy, their weapons an unholy fusion of faith and warfare—silver sabers inscribed with Psalms, crossbows carved from sacred wood, bullets filled with consecrated salt and powdered relics.

Annes said nothing. Her eyes watched. Her mind burned with questions.

At last, they reached the Training Crypt, a vaulted underground chamber lit by torchlight. Holy symbols adorned every stone. On the far end stood a tall woman with a shaven head and black cassock, her arms marked with stigmata scars.

“This is Sister Lavinia,” Antoine said. “She trains all initiates. She’ll break you, remake you, and either forge a saint—or bury a martyr.”

Sister Lavinia stepped forward. Her voice was steel. “So this is the girl who stabbed a vampire without proper rites?”

Annes stood tall. “It died.”

“By luck. Not skill.”

The nun threw her a dagger wrapped in crimson cloth. “Let’s see what you really are.”

Training began the next day.

At sunrise, she memorized every ancient name for the creatures of darkness—Strigoi, Nosferatu, Alukah, Empusa, The Cospii. By midday, she was blindfolded and made to spar in the catacombs with beasts caged from former hunts—ghouls, thralls, even a bloodweeper. And when night fell, she read the Book of Saint Thaddeus, the only Vatican scripture that described the Blood Wars of the early church—the time when the apostles themselves fought creatures of the night.

Pain became her daily bread. Scripture her shield. Her crucifix, a blade.

One evening, after weeks of brutal training, Annes collapsed in her chamber, soaked in sweat and bruises. She stared at the cracked ceiling and whispered:

“Mama, am I doing the right thing?”

A soft knock came at the door.

Antoine entered, holding a dusty book bound in red leather.

“You’re ready,” he said. “But before your first assignment, you need to read this.”

Annes opened it. Inside were ancient sketches—of men with long fangs, of burned cities, of altars bathed in blood. At the center, a name was written in ancient Greek and Latin:

Cospius Dracula

The Fifth Heir of the Blood King

Antoine continued. “He was sealed beneath the Temple of Nocturne after the Crusades. But he was never killed. Only... paused.”

Annes touched the page. Her hands trembled. “He’s waking.”

“No. He’s already awake,” Antoine said. “The blood moon confirmed it. And the Cospius Cult is preparing the ritual that will complete his rebirth.”

“Where?” she asked.

Antoine looked her in the eyes.

“HatchVille.”

Far beneath the sanatorium ruins, in a labyrinth forgotten by time, shadows gathered around a stone altar carved from obsidian. The vampire priests chanted in lost tongues, circling a coffin bound in chains of bone and sin.

And inside that coffin, with breath slow and dry as dust, Cospius Dracula opened his eyes.

His voice cracked the silence like thunder in a graveyard.

“Bring me Rome.”