"Mary. Mary. Wake up, Mary."
Her eyes fluttered and she gasped. But a strong hand gripped her mouth, muffling her cries. His face materialized out of the darkness and he had a finger to his lips to signify silence.
"Stay quiet, Mary. Or your precious Simon won't see dawn."
Her eyes instinctively looked over to Simon's sleeping body in the other twin bed. They had opted to share a room and he was now slumbering peacefully, unaware of the intruder.
"What do you want?" she hissed.
"Your daughter's blood," he laughed. "But you knew that."
"You won't have her. She's safe. You'll never touch her."
"Then I'll have to settle for you."
Before she could move away, he'd bent down and had sunken his fangs into her neck. But in an instant, he'd recoiled and winced in pain. Smoke drifted from his lips.
"You don't think I was stupid enough to go to sleep without rubbing holy water all over me, did you?" she asked snidely.
"I was counting on you being stupid enough, actually. When you get old, memory's the first thing to go, you know."
"I'm an exception."
"Regardless, you can't stop me from gutting you and Simon like fish. The only way I'm leaving this hotel room without killing you both is if you tell me where she is."
"Why would any mother sell out her own daughter?"
"Because you're not her mother," he snarled. "You gave birth to her, passed on the blood like your idiot father before you. But you were never that baby's mother."
This struck home. He could see it all over her face, and his lips widened in a grin. "What do you care about one more life? Don't you see? Give her to me and you'll be rid of me, forever. I'll swear on anything you wish that you'll never see me again."
"Swear on the Bible."
His face darkened instantly; enraged at the obvious attack on his complete lack of faith.
"Go on, Judas. Swear on the Bible. Swear on the crucifixion. Swear by Jesus Christ and I'll tell you everything. Nothing short of that will get me to utter a syllable about her."
His face twisted into the very picture of fury. "Fine then. Die and tell the Lord what stupid cause you gave your life for. Maybe he'll figure it balances out the blood you took from me!"
Then he slammed his fist into her gut with all the preternatural strength he had in him. Grasping her jaw tight so she couldn't get out a single cry of pain, he yanked his hand up hard, grasped the organ he wanted, and gripped it tight.
She was past wailing; now she silently cried, unable to make a sound. Blood spilled everywhere, and her breaths were ragged. He moved his hand and heard her quiet words.
"Have mercy…" she pleaded. "Please…have mercy!"
He laughed in his throat. "I will, trust me. You can be sure I'll have Mercy, and it will be beyond any pain and any horror that you can imagine. And you'll be there to see it."
And he withdrew his hand, leaving her chest cavity wide open with the heart pumping wildly.
He quietly called an emergency vehicle for her form the room and was gone the instant lights started flashing in the parking lot below.
"My God, Mary. How come you didn't scream?" Simon demanded a few days later. "You could have died!"
"No, I couldn't have. He doesn't want me dead. He wants me to see him do whatever he's going to do to Mercy. I won't die from him until he wants me to," she coughed.
The doctors were amazed. How anyone could have their chest split open in their near-sixties and survive the incredible blood-loss was beyond them. But survive Mary did, and she was actually coming around fine after four blood transfusions. They might even let her out within the week.
"But he doesn't know…where she is?"
"It's only a matter of time. I think…I think she's seeing the visions too. And he's getting closer. I need to get up…" She tried to sit up, but Simon physically held her down.
"You are not bloody moving anywhere. Mary, I don't think you realize; you have had your gut split open and your internal organs messed with. No one expected you to live through the first five minutes after it happened! And look, you're damned lucky to still be breathing two days later and recovering. So let's take this slow."
"We don't have time to be slow! Simon, if you won't let me go, then you have to. You need to make sure Mercy's alright. If he finds her…something terrible is going to happen to all of us, not just her. It's not just Mercy's life on the line; I can feel it."
He sighed and sat back. "A woman's intuition, I expect?"
"Yes. And we're almost never wrong."
He rubbed his eyelids and took a deep breath. "Mary, what can we do? We are a pair of old geezers who are nowhere near spry enough to make even the slightest stand against him. With us is an endless supply of ignorant priests who have no idea how to fight him and one innocent nun who is scared out of her wits because two people just showed up and claimed she was in danger. The odds aren't in our favor."
"Then we're going to have to stack the deck."
"With what? Mary, I just told you all we have. There's nothing to stack the deck with!"
"Simon, let me make this clear to you," she said, deathly serious and glaring at him. "I am fifty-seven years old. I just had my entire torso ripped apart two days ago and here I sit, ready and raring to go. So don't you tell me we have nothing to work with. As long as we can walk and talk and hold a silver stake, we can fight."