The girl crouches beneath the desk, knees drawn tight, breath shallow. In the darkness of the office, the monster hunts. Not a creature of legend, but a man whose mind has rotted with hatred and lust.
He whistles low. “I know you’re here. Come out, come out, wherever you are... the game’s over.” The sound of a round chambering cuts through the stillness.
She presses a trembling hand to her mouth, willing herself not to make a sound. Her father’s voice echoes in memory, calm and steady, teaching her to hold her aim, to trust her hands, to breathe. Through the narrow gap beneath the desk, she sees the shadow move.
Before fear can speak, she acts. The pistol bucks once, twice, again. A scream, and the monster falls. She keeps firing until the world is silent.
In the quiet that follows, she learns what every faithful hunter must: belief makes the weapon work.
The Light Still Burns
Faith is not a relic. It is the current that makes the cross blaze when raised against the dark. When the hunter lifts his weapon, whether it is sword, stake, or Scripture, it only works if he believes. A blade without faith is metal; a cross without conviction is wood.
Modern man forgets this, though too often we analyze evil instead of confronting it. Yet the old stories knew: the world responds to conviction. Light does not merely reveal; it answers.
The Founders understood this truth. They gave us the twin tools of sword and word, the right to speak truth and the right to defend it. The First and Second Amendments are our cross and our blade, but like all sacred tools they are useless without conviction. A firearm in the hands of the faithless is only noise and recoil. Free speech in the mouths of the cowardly is only breath. Belief — in truth, in freedom, in right and wrong — is what makes these tools work, and these tools are what makes civilization viable.
Witness Over Words
Faith that hides too long behind argument soon dies. The world is not persuaded by explanation; it is renewed by witness. The true hunter doesn’t debate evil; he confronts it. Faith expressed through courage rekindles memory in others.
Michael Carpenter in The Dresden Files never preaches. He stands, protects, forgives: grace made tangible. Words can describe truth, but only courage can prove it. The believer who acts despite fear becomes sermon enough.
Our age is drowning in speech and starving for faith. The First Amendment grants the right to speak, but the duty to live truth remains ours. Freedom of speech without moral courage is a wrongly aimed gun: finely made, yet useless. The faithful hunter doesn’t argue for light. He illuminates the world.
Where Courage Springs From
Courage is not born of pride but of faith: the certainty that good is real and must be served whatever the cost. Fear belongs to the flesh, courage to the soul. When the heart anchors in something higher than the self, fear loses command. A man who believes in nothing fears everything. One who believes in God fears only betraying Him.
That is why the hunter prays before lifting his weapon. Strength alone cannot save him. Faith turns fear into motion, not by erasing it but by sanctifying it. Courage begins when the will bends toward the good and trusts that God will meet it there. It is not self-confidence but confidence in order: a structure older than creation itself.
Courage is not natural. It is supernatural, the spark that leaps from the eternal into mortal flesh. Without faith, we can imitate bravery for a moment; with faith, courage endures.
The Redemption of the Fallen Hunter
Not every hunter stands unshaken. Some falter. Some fall. They have faced the dark too long, or trusted the wrong light, or found their own hearts corrupt. They bear the guilt of failure — the partner not saved, the cause abandoned, the prayer unanswered.
But faith does not end in failure. Redemption begins where self-reliance dies. A broken sword can be reforged; a broken man remade. The wound becomes proof of the lesson learned: strength was never the point. Obedience was.
Scripture is filled with such restorations: Peter’s tears, David’s repentance, Saul’s blinding light. The pattern never changes: fall, repent, return. The scar becomes the seal of belonging. The fallen hunter is not discarded; he becomes the sharpest weapon in heaven’s armory. For he knows both weakness and mercy. He no longer trusts his own hand but only in God, and because of that, God can steady it. The faithful blade, once shattered, shines brighter for having been reforged in fire.
The Gathering
Faith is never solitary for long. The moment one heart catches fire, its light calls to another. In every dark age, the faithful begin as scattered sparks that act, endure, and refuse to yield until another recognizes the same flame.
The first Christians prayed in catacombs. The Fellowship of the Ring began as wanderers in a broken land. Every renewal begins this way: with the few who still believe. Across the ruins of faithless institutions, remnants find each other. Writers who will not lie, craftsmen who still shape beauty — meaning survives isolation.
I saw it myself: faithful writers gathering not for fame but because they could no longer stand alone. Hope drew them, and from that remnant, light began to grow again. The gathering is not strategy but recognition, courage becoming fellowship. And once it happens, the night begins to fade to a new dawn.
Creative and Cultural Renewal
When faith gathers, creation (or sub-creation, for those who study Tolkien) follows. The task of the faithful is not argument but building, not protest but praise. When the remnant remembers who they are, they begin to make again: churches, songs, stories that drive out despair.
Civilization renews itself through imagination long before law. When a people turns toward truth, art becomes liturgy and storytelling becomes exorcism. The faithful blade becomes a tool of restoration. Beauty and truth reclaim territory the darkness thought it owned. Honest craft, done in faith, restores the moral immune system of the world.
Renewal will not come from the powerful but from the faithful, from those who know their task is not to reinvent the world but to redeem it.
The Benediction
The night is long, but the faithful still keep watch. Across centuries they have stood their ground, not because they were many but because they believed. They learned what every true hunter learns: evil is real, good is worth the cost, and faith makes the blade — or the cross — work.
The tools remain the same: word and weapon, courage and prayer. They wait for the hands that will lift them again with conviction. When belief returns, even faintly, the world responds.
The faithful do not boast of victory; they bear witness to endurance. They know light cannot be killed, only hidden, and that somewhere, someone always keeps it burning. The girl stands over the broken monster, her Father's weapon at her side. Though physically the weakest of warriors, she is strong in faith.
The night is long, but the faithful still keep watch.
The cross still works.
The line still holds.
If you enjoyed this, see my earlier pieces on the Monster Hunter:
The Monster-Hunter: The Line Between Civilization and Chaos
The Hunter as Heretic: What Happened When the West Stopped Believing in Evil
And in honor of Spooky Month, on the monsters:
Immortality Without Judgment: How the Vampire Seduced the Modern World
How the Werewolf Romance Exposes Feminism’s Empty Promises
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