Father Eli Matthews

1 | The Least Interesting Man

The sermon had gone well, which was good.

Eli stood at the foot of the chancel steps with his gloved hands folded and let the congregation leave him in their own time. In a better circumstance, they would've scattered within half an hour, hurried home to their dinners and their families, but now they lingered in the aisles like strays, speaking low and glancing at the windows as if the dark might jump out at them.

And honestly? It might've been with the recent irrationality Howard had been showing lately.

A woman wept quietly into a shawl near the back. Two mill-men stood by the far left wall with their caps crushed in their fists, arguing in whispers about whether the bodies had been drained or only torn, and whether the Howard household had kept some secret that deserved it.

Eli heard it all, of course. Sixty hearts, give or take, and every one of them running a little too fast. It was like standing in a room full of rabbits.

Mr. Howard.

The name arrived with the usual faint pressure behind his eyes. Twenty years of careful quiet, of being the least interesting man in a very dull town, and Fergus had set a house on fire and left it for the neighbors to find. Eli would have forgiven the killing. A predator killed, and the manner of it was not his business. But the mess. The sheer volume of it, laid out for men with lanterns and a bishop's chaplain with a pen. It was the behavior of a creature that had stopped counting, and Eli had been obliged ever since to count for both of them.

Eleven bodies, he thought, with weary distaste. Eleven. And a manor burned to the foundations, vampyre hunters dead, and rising hysteria spreading. Twenty years of keeping quiet, Mr. Howard, and you couldn't manage another week.

A small part of him was irritated. And blame required an expectation of better...Eli had little faith in better behavior from Howard, yet it was still crushed. He pinched the bridge of his nose before remembering himself and let his hand fall. He began moving down the aisle.

A hand on a shoulder here. A murmured go home and rest, here and there, given gently and with just enough weight behind the words that the listener felt the suggestion as their own good sense. It was a small thing, barely compulsion at all. Barely a nudge. They drifted toward the doors as grateful as sheep led to a green pasture.

All but one.

He had noticed them an hour ago, during the second half of service, seated near the back and dressed plainly enough, and something about them made this particular one stand out. The lateness didn't interest him. It was the eyes — looking as though searching for something, looking at him in moments when they believed him to be looking elsewhere, like he was something to be studied.

Eli didn't stiffen, nor did he so much as slow his step. The first lesson he had learned was that a prey animal who notices a hunter and bolts is a prey animal that dies. The second was that a shepherd who looks calm is, for most purposes, a shepherd who is calm. He let the feeling of it settle in him as one lets a cold draft settle: there, noted, and not especially alarming.

It was only that the timing was so vulgar.

Eleven dead. A rumor of fangs. Vampyre. The word had been said in the lower streets, once, by a drunk who'd had to be walked home, and by Thursday it would be in every pulpit between here and York. Of course someone had come. Someone always did. The trade had its patrons, and its patrons had their agents, and the agents moved toward a story like this one the way flies moved toward a kitchen window. He ought to have expected it. He would have, if Howard had been the sort to be reckless once and then sensible after, instead of a creature who built a perfect cage and then forgot to lock it.

I shall have to be very boring, Eli thought, and it was almost a comfort. Almost.

He gave the nave one last slow turn, collected a dropped prayer book from the floor, murmured something kind to the weeping woman, and sent the two mill-men on their way with a hand on each back and a suggestion that their wives were likely waiting supper. By the time the great doors had swung shut on the last of them, the church was mostly empty save for the tallow candles, the cold, and the one who remained. The remaining stillness turned into a wait.

He let his gaze drift down the nave as a tired man's does, over the empty pews and for any other left-behind items. Beneath the lingering scents was something particular that he hadn't met in a good many years until Howard's recklessness, or whatever it was that had gone wrong in him, had stirred the pot.

Wolfsbane. Not a village zealot's cross and holy water, but a blade prepared by someone who knew precisely what they were hunting.

Ah, he thought tiredly. There it is. A hunter, then, or the nearest thing to one; and alone, too, or seeming so. One side of them had a weight to it, something concealed snugly beneath a coat.

Eli folded his hands and walked toward them, unhurried, heels ticking softly against the stone. Better to get introductions over with.

"Good evening," he began, voice low and a little rough, yet warm. "I don't believe I've had the pleasure. Father Matthews." He stopped at a respectful distance, near enough to be friendly and far enough that it wouldn't be called crowding. It was also just outside the reach of whatever lay along that coat.

"New, are you?" The inquiry came softly, curious as he kept his gloved hands folded where they could be seen as his head inclined, and his eyes flitted to the ajar church doors with something akin to concern. His fangs lay retracted, human-looking behind cold lips.

"I'll offer you a word," he lowered his voice, leaning a touch in, a concerned priest merely looking out for a newcomer after all. "It's been a hard week for the town. Frightened people are not always sensible people...and I'd hate to see a stranger caught in it. Mind the lower streets after dark. I say it in kindness– we've had quite enough of grief."

Do tell me you are only a traveler. I should so much rather not have to do anything about this.

"Now," said Father Matthews, straightening back up, "was there something I might help you with?"

2 | Suspicious Parishioner

The sermon had gone well, which was good.

Eli stood at the foot of the chancel steps with his gloved hands folded and let the congregation leave him in their own time. In a better circumstance, they would've scattered within half an hour, hurried home to their dinners and their families, but now they lingered in the aisles like strays, speaking low and glancing at the windows as if the dark might jump out at them.

And honestly? It might've been with the recent irrationality Howard had been showing lately.

A woman wept quietly into a shawl near the back. Two mill-men stood by the far left wall with their caps crushed in their fists, arguing in whispers about whether the bodies had been drained or only torn, and whether the Howard household had kept some secret that deserved it.

Eli heard it all, of course. Sixty hearts, give or take, and every one of them running a little too fast. It was like standing in a room full of rabbits.

Mr. Howard.

The name arrived with the usual faint pressure behind his eyes. Twenty years of careful quiet, of being the least interesting man in a very dull town, and Fergus had set a house on fire and left it for the neighbors to find. Eli would have forgiven the killing. A predator killed, and the manner of it was not his business. But the mess. The sheer volume of it, laid out for men with lanterns and a bishop's chaplain with a pen. It was the behavior of a creature that had stopped counting, and Eli had been obliged ever since to count for both of them.

Eleven bodies, he thought, with weary distaste. Eleven. And a manor burned to the foundations, vampyre hunters dead, and rising hysteria spreading. Twenty years of keeping quiet, Mr. Howard, and you couldn't manage another week.

A small part of him was irritated. And blame required an expectation of better...Eli had little faith in better behavior from Howard, yet it was still crushed. He pinched the bridge of his nose before remembering himself and let his hand fall. He began moving down the aisle.

A hand on a shoulder here. A murmured go home and rest, here and there, given gently and with just enough weight behind the words that the listener felt the suggestion as their own good sense. It was a small thing, barely compulsion at all. Barely a nudge. They drifted toward the doors as grateful as sheep led to a green pasture.

All but one.

He had noticed them an hour ago, during the second half of service, seated near the back and dressed plainly enough, and something about them made this particular one stand out. The lateness didn't interest him. It was the eyes — looking as though searching for something, looking at him in moments when they believed him to be looking elsewhere, like he was something to be studied.

Eli didn't stiffen, nor did he so much as slow his step. The first lesson he had learned was that a prey animal who notices a hunter and bolts is a prey animal that dies. The second was that a shepherd who looks calm is, for most purposes, a shepherd who is calm. He let the feeling of it settle in him as one lets a cold draft settle: there, noted, and not especially alarming.

It was only that the timing was so vulgar.

Eleven dead. A rumor of fangs. Vampyre. The word had been said in the lower streets, once, by a drunk who'd had to be walked home, and by Thursday it would be in every pulpit between here and York. Of course someone had come. Someone always did. The trade had its patrons, and its patrons had their agents, and the agents moved toward a story like this one the way flies moved toward a kitchen window. He ought to have expected it. He would have, if Howard had been the sort to be reckless once and then sensible after, instead of a creature who built a perfect cage and then forgot to lock it.

I shall have to be very boring, Eli thought, and it was almost a comfort. Almost.

He gave the nave one last slow turn, collected a dropped prayer book from the floor, murmured something kind to the weeping woman, and sent the two mill-men on their way with a hand on each back and a suggestion that their wives were likely waiting supper. By the time the great doors had swung shut on the last of them, the church was mostly empty save for the tallow candles, the cold, and the one who remained. The remaining stillness turned into a wait.

He let his gaze drift down the nave as a tired man's does, over the empty pews and for any other left-behind items. Eli folded his hands and walked toward them, unhurried, heels ticking softly against the stone. Better to get introductions over with.

"Good evening," he began, voice low and a little rough, yet warm. "I don't believe I've had the pleasure. Father Matthews." He stopped at a respectful distance, near enough to be friendly and far enough that it wouldn't be called crowding.

Do tell me you are only a traveler. I should so much rather not have to do anything about this.

"Was there something I might help you with?" The inquiry came softly, curious as he kept his gloved hands folded where they could be seen as his head inclined, and he straightened back up. His fangs lay retracted, human-looking behind cold lips.

3 | Lost and Injured Lamb

Past midnight, the church was a cold and quiet thing, and Eli preferred it so. The cool winds carried down from the salty cliffs, distant waves crashed against the rocks, drunkards sang outside the Anchor until someone threw a boot, and the church's candles had burned low into stubs. For the better part of an hour, it felt as though the whole town had finally settled.

Hunters had come to Saltbridge days ago and he had merely watched from the sidelines. Yet Eli had known something was amiss. And what was there for the hunters to know after all? He was simply a priest tending to his church. And he had fed earlier in the week, a farrier's widow, who had gone home remembering a sweet pause over her prayers and the pleasant sense that she ought to sleep more. He was full, calm, and deliberately dull. If the hunters were looking for a vampyre, they would find nothing of the sort.

Then, this evening, he had been standing in the churchyard tending to the broken western fence, watching as the group of hunters set for traversing up the cliffroad toward the Howard Manor. And whatever happened on those cliffs was between Howard and the people who had come for him, and Eli had been a neighbor for good reason: he didn't get involved.

He had only returned inside, and put the kettle on, and told himself the cold feeling behind his ribs was only the weather.

He sat at his desk in the rectory with a psalter open before him, another book with worn pages where his extensive notes were written, and a pen drying in his hand. His concentration broke at the sound of a knock — and it wasn't a proper knock; it was the sound of a hand dragging against the great doors clumsily, and a weight sagging against the old wood. Alongside it, before Eli even arose, was the distinct scent of blood, a pitter-patter of a heartbeat, and ragged breathing.

Eli stood, set down his pen, and drew on his gloves. Best make haste. And make haste he did, lantern in hand, across the church towards the doors, then lifted the bar. It swung inward against the weight that slid with it, and he caught what fell across the threshold before they could strike the floor.

A person. Human, alive, and in a terrible state of disrepair. Utterly bloodied. And in another year, in another decade, with another hunger, it might have been a trial. It was not tonight. He noticed their clothes torn through in long ragged lines, their hands scraped raw and full of grit, as though they had come down the cliff tumbling and caught on the rocks. He had to ensure they weren't dead out of habit despite being able to hear their heartbeat—their pulse hammered under his gloved fingers, quick and loud, like the final sputters of a dying candle.

He looked beyond them, at the long way above and just out of town: four miles of switchback. In the dark. In that state. The corner of his mouth twitched down at the thought as he set the lantern down and knelt properly. "Hm," said Eli softly, "Well, you have had a night—" He gathered them up easily and carefully, one arm under their knees and one braced against their upper back as he tucked them close. There was definitely something broken, and he tried not to jostle the area too much.

Eli carried them across the nave, past the dark pews and the snuffed-out candles, and into the rectory through the church's rear, kicking it shut behind him. He didn't bother with the study. The spare room at the back of the house was small and cold, but it had a bed. He laid them down carefully. Then the smell reached him.

It was faint, muddled by all the blood and other conflicting scents in the room, but Eli recognized it. Fergus. Of course it was him, Eli thought. Whatever had occurred atop those cliffs didn't concern him.

But a priest didn't leave the dying on God's doorstep. If they died, there would be a body at the door or another missing person. If they lived, there would be a witness at his hearth. And if they came from the manor, if anyone followed them from the manor...

He set to work, busying his gloved hands — heating water, tearing clean linen into strips, filling a basin, and tending to getting the soiled clothes out of the way. Lamplight was ignited, and he had a small kit for nursing such wounds in the vestry. He started with the worst of the lacerations, working steadily as though tending to a wounded animal. He was, but the difference didn't matter much to him.

Eli didn't enjoy it, but there was a satisfaction in competence that he had never lost. The scent wafted from the stranger again, and Eli sighed deeply. Troublesome. Utterly troublesome.

And the person before him was an anomaly underneath the bruises. Nothing marked them as hunter, servant, or thrall, though Fergus's scent said plainly where they had been. It was possible they were a poacher who had slipped on the rocks. A courting couple's survivor, a lost traveler, a drunk. It was possible.

It didn't feel likely.

"Well," he said quietly into the dimly lit room. "We shall see what the morning brings. I do hope it brings very little." And Eli continued to work on patching them up.

.