Over the next year, Hector, Renata, and Sabine sweep across Spain, leaving depopulated villages behind. They disguise themselves as plague doctors in spring and as Inquisition members in summer, using fear and authority to move unchallenged. By fall, Hector becomes fixated on churches and clergy as prey, a reckless shift that worries Sabine, who notes a manic edge to Hector’s temper, while Renata dismisses it as a passing storm.

They enter a chapel at night, careful to avoid the consecrated graveyard soil, which Renata warns is dangerous because "Death calls to death." Inside, Hector topples a candelabra to draw out the priest. When the priest appears, Hector insists on confession, enters the confessional, kills the priest, and dons the priest’s vestments, despite Sabine’s disapproval.

The following evening, parishioners gather for service. Sabine counts twenty-four people as they arrive. Renata bolts the doors, and Hector, in priestly robes, begins a Latin prayer, delighting in the audience. Confusion among the congregation turns to panic as they realize Hector is an imposter, but by then the trio has already set the slaughter in motion.

A brutal massacre follows. The congregation stampedes and screams, and the three predators attack like wolves. Sabine is overtaken by a feral hunger, drinking deeply and continuously without finding fullness; each victim only widens her craving. She experiences the blood’s flavor tinged with sacramental wine and sinks into a euphoric aftermath.

When the violence ends, silence fills the church. Hector sits at the altar steps, his robes soaked red; Renata sits beside him; Sabine rests with her head in Renata’s lap, savoring the lull. Aware that the bodies are cooling and time is short, they depart, satisfied and careless.

Before the massacre, Sabine had counted twenty-four parishioners; however, in their intoxicated exit, they fail to count the bodies. Unnoticed by them, only twenty-three corpses remain, implying a survivor or missing body.

Threaded through the events, Sabine recognizes that her promise to Renata not to leave functions like a compulsion that clouds her thoughts, masking the constraint as desire and preventing her from contemplating escape.