How did religion get in here?

So there I was, driving my hero into worser and worser straits, one damn thing after another.

And up pops religion.  Now...I'm not very religious, but if you put any credence into vampires, they are all about religion.  They are the damned, the unforgiven, the unrepentant. 

Trading their souls for immortality.

Holy Water, Crosses, Sanctified Ground.

Of course, you can write vampires without these weaknesses.  But since I'm writing a story about redemption and forgiveness, the religious aspect becomes almost automatic.

So once I embraced that concept the rest of the plot became clear.

I needed for the female hero to forgive the male hero for a horrible crime, but if I make the female "sweetly religious" -- as I put it -- it becomes more likely.  If I put the hero through hell before he earns his redemption, then that works too.

So I have to use religious iconography even though I never intended the story to be religious.  Hopefully, not overly so.  Hopefully, it will still be read as a vampire story, not a religious story.  I guess all stories have elements of religion when you get right down to it.

Linda's comment was:  "There's religious, and then there's religious."

Still -- a surprising place to find myself.  And it adds hopefully a little depth.  At least an unexpected dimension.