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The windows had to remain boarded over, but Mercy had thought it a real shame. The fire that had once taken the church had left behind a few beautifully warped stained glass windows. Eventually, she had found a solution; lights placed between the remnants of the windows and the plywood boarded across them from the outside sent shimmers of color through the remaining, charred shards of glass.
"We have a purpose here," she intoned in solemn voice and face, standing at a wooden pulpit at the front of the church. Behind her sat the soot stained marble altar, unused... for now. In the remains of pews, both the old broken, burned shells and new ones brought in by the few locals who had started to rebuild the church, sat her congregation, faces turned towards her eagerly as they awaited the Word of God. "Though many of you cannot yet see it, we have a great purpose."
She paused in her sermon to glance out over the faces in her congregation. There were few, but perhaps the number would grow, in time. In the front sat the vampires she had met in the desert, the faded remains of the crosses she had burnt into their foreheads with holy water still visible. A true baptism would never have worked, of course, so she had to make due with what the Lord had provided her.
The others... well they were certainly interesting. She had hoped in due time her ministry would extend to those not yet blessed with God's grace in eternal life, but she hadn't expected it so soon. It was difficult to keep her vampiric congregation from attacking them, though she was fairly certain they understood the consequences such an action might lead to.
She imagined she must present an odd image to the human congregants. In their eyes, she was only a young girl, dressed in white, standing at a pulpit and preaching the Word. They must be true believers, or they would not have stayed based on her youthful appearance alone.
"Long have we waited for the Messiah," she went on. "Long have we waited for the Lamb of God to return to his faithful. Ears to the wind, hoping for news of his miraculous birth, we waited. Our waiting will soon come to an end. But even as we wait in anticipation, we must continue with our ministry."
She paused and glanced out over them. The vampires in attendance only looked afraid, but the others... the humans... they believed. In their hearts, they knew she spoke the truth. They would be faithful.
"Some here are blessed among all others, though they did not understand the nature of their triumph over death. We are the Risen, and soon we will ascend. But until then, we must serve our purpose here. The Lord of Hosts has long been denied His due sacrifice, and we shall provide. His covenants have long since been abandoned, but we will renew them. We are all His servants, from the lowliest demon of Hell to the mightiest prince of men. And so we take up our cross, and bring to the world what we were made to bring."
She paused again, smiling coldly at the murmurs of agreement in her congregation and then glanced to the copy of Paradise Lost on her lectern. Milton's words, with a few changes, could serve as her own for now. "Of this be sure; to do aught good never will be our task, but ever to do ill our sole delight. As being what we are... low, foul creatures of earth, the contrary to His high will. If then His providence out of our evil seek to bring forth good, our labor must be to pervert that end, and out of good still find means of evil. This is our task. This is our mission."
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