When I was a child my mother would kneel with me at my bedside every night and pray the rosary with me. I still remember the vivid blue beads moving carefully through her pale fingertips as her soft voice muttered "Ave Maria, gratia plena…" She devoted to the old ways: she prayed in Latin, heard Mass every morning in Latin, abstained from meat every Friday, fasted the entire day on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and covered her head. She knew all the prayers in her breviary by heart, and she could translate every word of the Latin Mass. Every wall in our home had a crucifix or an icon of a saint or the blessed Mother. Our living room had an alter off to one side where my mother and father prayed together with my brothers and me every night before dinner.

I had four older brothers, and my mother was thankful for her sons, but she wanted a daughter. When I finally came along my father was in his early forties and my mother was just barely thirty-eight. They named me Maria Catherine and called me Mary. My mother dotted on me the most, especially since the youngest of my four brothers, John, was already ten when I was born. John and our older brother Mark entered the seminary and became priests. The oldest, Matthew, married the daughter of a family that was just as devoutly Catholic as my family, and he came a deacon when his six kids were grown. My fourth brother, Luke, the third born, entered the military and was killed in action when I was fourteen.

When I was seventeen the devoutly Catholic world as I knew it became my enemy, or rather, I became its. My mother had always wanted me to either enter the convent or marry and have many children. My fiancé, unknown to me until the night my world collapsed, was a vampire. I, as the daughter of a devout Catholic family was a prize for any vampire. I should have known when he insisted I wear the pendant he had bought me, instead of the crucifix my mother had given me for my First Communion. He turned me on the eve of the feast of the Archangels, and I took a new name. I called myself Lestata, the Queen of Vampires.

On the night of the feast of my transformation I stand on the steps of Saint Mary's Church and weep. I long to enter the wooden doors and stand before alter as I did when I received each of my sacraments as a child; the alter I should have stood at to take either my marriage vows or my vows to the Church. And when I died my body should have been placed in front of that alter. Now none of those will come to pass, and my salvation is forever lost.

The rosary of my mother's that was such a cherished childhood memory would kill me if I touched it. The words she spoke my forked tongue would burn to say. Yet in my mind I can form those words and I cry out in agony. "Tell me, O Queen of Heaven, why did you allowed this happen to me?! Why didn't you protect me?!" The stars in the blackened sky gave no response. "Why was this done to me?"

I, Lestata, Queen of Vampires, who forged an empire of blood and darkness in the 150 years I've walked this earth, would gladly renounce it all to the King of Heaven if only he would return my humanity and grant me the chance to regain my salvation.

I served the Queen of Heaven as a child, devout always to the ancient ways and to she who bore redemption. I served the Triune God, washed in his name, confessed my sins to his priests, ate his body, drank his blood, and was confirmed in his spirit. All my servitude was met with the damnation that night brought upon me. I, Lestata, who was born into light, will be forever condemned to darkness. How I am washed in the blood of innocence, my sins unconfessed and unforgiveable, it is the body of innocence I now eat, and their blood I drink, and the spirit of darkness I am confirmed in. I am the Queen of Vampires, the Queen of hell on earth.

"Lestata!" A voice commands my name, and light pierces the sky, sending me to my knees. I grip my cloak, using it to shield my face. "Lestata." I raise my eyes toward the voice and squeeze them shut in pain. "I come with word from He who is King of all. By the bidding of she who bore the Logos, I am instructed to inform you that Heaven is not blind to you, Queen of Vampires. Your empire is deep within the service of He who was cast out, and yet your dead soul still clutches to your long forsaken humanity."

"I would give it all to He who you serve, for the chance of redemption of my soul."

"And soon you shall." He held up my mother's rosary. "Let each bead be a year. At every bead in which one would recite Our Lord's prayer you will be that much closer to your humanity. For the decade by which you recite our Lady's prayer you will spend using this gift to help the Prince of Heavenly hosts and his army in the battle against the Prince of darkness."

And so I, Lestata, Queen of Vampires, became the key in the War to end the Earth itself. That night I received my first gift: my mother's rosary did not kill me. I draped the precious beads around my neck and strolled into the darkness I would soon conquer. For now I was still Lestata, and as Lestata there was still much I must do.