PROLOGUE
The old water tower on the city’s outskirts reeked of dampness, rust, and dried blood. An ideal spot for a date—assuming your type was a ten-foot-tall corpse-eating vocatt that had been terrorizing the local cemetery for the past two weeks.
Gabriel exhaled heavily, a cloud of vapor escaping his lips to dissolve instantly in the freezing air. He brushed a stray blonde lock from his forehead. In the dim moonlight piercing through the shattered roof, his gray eyes looked like forged steel. He barely looked twenty-six, yet the heavy .54-caliber revolver—custom-made for his grip—rested in his palm with a terrifying naturalness. The cylinder was loaded: six rounds of consecrated silver, each microscopically engraved with lines of Latin exorcisms.
His black suit, resembling a clerical uniform more than a priest’s typical garb, didn’t restrict his movements and could withstand a claw strike. The only thing betraying his holy orders was the white clerical collar. Concealed within it was a flexible band of consecrated silver—a last line of defense against those who preferred to start a conversation by going for the throat.
Somewhere in the gloom near the ceiling, a wet, scraping sound echoed. Claws scratching against rusty metal.
“I know you’re up there, you ugly bastard,” the priest said calmly, cocking the hammer. The click echoed through the empty tower. “Come down. I promise the confession will be brief.”
An answering guttural roar shook the air. Splintering wooden beams like matchsticks, the creature plummeted from the darkness. Pale, with unnaturally elongated limbs and a maw lined with multiple rows of needle-like teeth, the vocatt pushed off the floor and lunged at Gabriel with blinding speed.
The priest raised his revolver, but didn’t get the chance to fire. Like a stone dropping from the fractured roof, a black shadow plummeted from above. A deafening flap of wings, a cloud of pitch-black feathers erupting in the air, and in a fraction of a second, a massive raven morphed into a man in a long dark coat.
Adrian’s heavy boot met the vocatt’s jaw mid-flight. The crunch of bone drowned out the monster’s roar. Like a broken doll, the creature flew across the room, slammed into the brickwork, and slid to the floor, leaving a trail of viscous slime in its wake.
Adrian Raven landed smoothly on the concrete, brushing invisible dust from his coat sleeve. Dark, slightly wavy hair perfectly framed his aristocratic, unnaturally pale face—the face of a man forever frozen at twenty-seven.
“Headwind,” the vampire announced nonchalantly, turning to the priest. “Besides, you didn’t mention it was starting to rain. Birds despise getting wet.”
“You’re three minutes late, Adrian,” Gabriel said, keeping his revolver trained on the shifting vocatt in the corner. “I was about to absolve its sins without you.”
“That would have been monstrously selfish of you, Father. I never start dinner until you’ve said grace.” Adrian offered a warm, friendly smile, revealing his elongating fangs.
The vampire’s brown eyes began to flood with crimson light, like embers flaring to life deep within his pupils. A sure sign that Raven was hungry—and therefore, incredibly dangerous.
Meanwhile, the vocatt hissed, spitting out broken teeth. Rearing up on all fours, it readied itself to pounce. The muscles beneath its pallid skin bulged in knotty clusters.
“On your left!” Gabriel yelled.
He fired twice. The deafening roar made their ears ring; the muzzle flashes illuminated the tower. The consecrated silver bullets pierced the creature’s shoulder and chest, making it shriek in searing agony, but they didn’t stop it. The monster simply had too much mass.
The vocatt swung a clawed limb, aiming for the priest’s head. But Adrian was faster. He shot forward as a blurred shadow, pinning the monster’s arm to the ground with one hand while locking his other in a death grip around its throat. Adrian’s eyes blazed with the crimson fire of starvation. His fangs bared in a predatory snarl.
“You know, you reek so strongly of decay that I’ve completely lost my appetite,” the vampire hissed directly into the monster’s face. His voice vibrated, making the very air around them tremble.
“Hold him tight! And try not to bite him, you’ll get poisoned!” Without wasting a second, Gabriel stepped aside, clearing his line of fire, and sank two silver bullets straight into the base of the beast’s skull.
The vocatt convulsed, let out a wet, gurgling rattle, and went limp in the vampire’s grasp. The body rapidly lost its shape, crumbling into gray ash and foul-smelling sludge. Adrian uncurled his fingers in disgust, letting the remains fall to the concrete. He pulled a pristine white handkerchief from his pocket and meticulously wiped his hand.
But the crimson glow in his eyes didn’t fade. The scent of blood, even blood this vile, had awakened the Thirst. His fangs elongated further.
Gabriel noticed. He lowered his revolver, and his left hand moved to the collar of his jacket. Hidden beneath the thick fabric on his collarbone was a complex tattoo: the Seal of Binding. An identical mark, branded in silver, marked Adrian’s neck, concealed by the high collar of his shirt.
The priest mentally recited a short prayer of control, channeling a pulse of his willpower through their bond. Adrian winced, touching a hand to his neck. The Seal burned him with a brief, warning heat, dampening his predatory instincts and flooding his mind with an alien, ironclad calm.
The Order’s Inquisitors genuinely believed they had backed Lord Raven into a corner, forcing him into this contract. Naive, arrogant fools... Adrian had masterfully played this game himself, voluntarily allowing them to clasp the humiliating silver collar around his neck. For an apex predator, breaking this spiritual chain would take nothing more than one bloody effort, but he endured it. He endured the burning discomfort of the Seal, the Church’s contempt, and the status of a ‘demon on a leash.’ He had his own reason for this alliance. A reason buried so deeply in the past that Adrian would sooner let his heart be ripped out, or walk out into the sunlight, than admit it...
“Yanking the leash again, Father?” the vampire chuckled. He smoothly hid his true thoughts behind a mask of mockery, the crimson sparks in his pupils reluctantly yielding back to a warm brown. “I have everything under control.”
“You’re hungry,” Gabriel looked at him sternly, holstering the revolver in his shoulder rig. “First, you’re going to drink the blood bag from the mini-fridge in the car.”
“I’m always hungry when I watch you risk your neck,” Raven noted philosophically. The gathering shadows around him seemed to cling to the hem of his coat. “But I wouldn’t drink this poor bastard even under the threat of sunlight. I prefer O-negative. Preferably in a clean crystal glass.”
“Will coffee and donuts at the 24-hour diner do?” Gabriel headed toward the tower’s exit. “We still need to write up the report for the Order and bill City Hall.”
Adrian followed, his footsteps absolutely silent, in stark contrast to the priest’s heavy tread.
“Coffee is just boiled dirt.” He turned his head slightly, the moonlight from the breach falling on his profile, carving sharp cheekbones and dark, impenetrable eyes out of the gloom. “But for you, I’m willing to sit in that abhorrent establishment.”
Gabriel grunted, reaching the creaky iron door. The rusty hinges protested with a squeal as he pulled it open. Outside, the rain was coming down in sheets. The city flickered below—millions of lights, millions of secrets, millions of souls who would never know they had been saved tonight.
Adrian paused on the threshold, lifting his face to the sky. The raindrops cascaded down his pale skin, and for a fleeting moment, he looked almost alive. Almost human.
“It’s cold,” the vampire remarked, and that same melancholy resonance Gabriel sometimes heard—in those rare moments when Adrian thought no one was watching—crept back into his voice.
“The rain?”
“No. The evening. The night. All of it.” Adrian lowered his gaze and smiled again, but this time it was just a mask. “Alright. Coffee. You promised coffee. And donuts. Though I’ll never understand why anyone would ruin a perfectly good stomach with sugary dough.”
“You don’t even need to eat,” Gabriel reminded him.
“But I want to remember the taste,” Adrian said softly.
And then, before Gabriel could reply, the vampire’s body dissolved into black smoke. A loud clapping of wings echoed, and a large raven, letting out a mocking caw, perched right on the priest’s shoulder. Gabriel sighed heavily, glaring sideways at the black bird digging its talons into the thick fabric of his uniform.
“If you crap on my clothes, Raven,” he warned, a glimmer of something that might have been a smile under different circumstances flashing in his gray eyes, “I will personally douse you in holy water. Head to claw. Un-diluted.”
The raven clicked its beak as if laughing, and the two strangest partners in the city vanished into the nocturnal veil.
A priest and a monster. Light and shadow, bound by a single seal, a single secret, and a single night that was only just beginning.
