Prague, Czech Republic

2:13 AM

Rainwater dripped steadily from the broken cathedral ceiling, gathering in dark pools between shattered pews and collapsed stone.

The smell hit Seraphina first.

Blood.

Not fresh anymore. Metallic. Thick. Lingering in the damp air beneath the sharper scent of incense and wet ash.

She stepped over a severed arm without looking down at it.

“Third body near the altar,” one of the local hunters called quietly from the nave. “Male. Mid-thirties.”

Seraphina didn’t answer right away. Her gloved fingers brushed against the silver rosary wrapped around her wrist before she crouched beside the corpse.

The victim’s throat had been opened almost clean through. Not torn. Cut.

That mattered.

Most inexperienced hunters only saw blood and missing flesh and immediately blamed vampires. The Order encouraged that kind of thinking. It made reports simpler.

Monster. Hunt. Kill.

Easy.

Real violence was rarely that organized.

Seraphina tilted the dead man’s jaw toward the fractured moonlight spilling through the stained-glass windows overhead. His skin had already started graying around the lips. There were strange symbols carved into the inside of his forearm — thin, deliberate lines etched deep enough to expose bone.

Not feeding marks.

Not vampire ritual language either.

Her expression tightened slightly.

“Did anyone touch the bodies before I arrived?” she asked.

A younger hunter near the entrance straightened immediately. “No, Commander.”

“Good.”

She reached into her coat and removed a small silver blade no longer than her palm. Carefully, she slid it beneath the corpse’s wrist and lifted the arm higher.

The symbol resembled a sunburst at first glance.

Until you noticed the hooks hidden inside the design.

Hooks facing inward.

Containment markings.

Seraphina stared at it for several seconds before quietly exhaling through her nose.

That symbol shouldn’t exist outside restricted Church archives.

Behind her, thunder rolled across Prague like distant artillery.

One of the hunters shifted uneasily. “Do we know what killed them?”

Seraphina rose to her feet in one smooth motion, wiping blood from the blade with a cloth tucked into her belt.

“No,” she said.

Then, after a pause:

“But I know what didn’t.”

The silence that followed carried its own weight.

Nobody liked hearing that.

Especially not hunters.

Because if vampires weren’t responsible for the massacre, then something far more dangerous was moving through the city unnoticed.

Or worse—

someone.

A cold draft swept through the ruined cathedral, stirring candle smoke near the altar.

Seraphina’s hand instinctively moved toward the pistol holstered beneath her coat.

Something had changed.

Not the room itself.

The feeling of it.

The younger hunters noticed it too. She heard their breathing sharpen almost simultaneously.

Predator instinct.

Human bodies recognized danger long before the mind caught up.

One of the stained-glass windows rattled faintly overhead.

Then—

a voice emerged softly from the darkness beyond the altar.

“You’re more observant than your father was.”

Every weapon in the room lifted at once.

Silver barrels.

Blessed blades.

Crossbow bolts tipped with holy iron.

Seraphina turned slowly toward the shadows.

A man stood near the ruined choir platform as though he’d been there the entire time.

Tall.

Black coat.

Dark hair falling loosely across his forehead, damp from rain.

He wasn’t moving.

That was the first thing that felt wrong about him.

Most people shifted their weight naturally. Breathed visibly after climbing cathedral stairs. Reacted to being surrounded by armed hunters.

This man simply stood there with one hand resting against the cracked stone railing behind him, calm in a way that felt profoundly unnatural.

The candles near the altar flickered harder.

Several hunters stepped back instinctively.

Seraphina didn’t.

Her gaze locked onto his face.

Pale skin.

Sharp cheekbones.

Eyes dark enough to look black from this distance.

Beautiful, unfortunately.

That happened sometimes with monsters.

“Identify yourself,” one of the hunters demanded.

The man ignored him completely.

Instead, his attention settled on Seraphina with unsettling focus, as though the rest of the room had ceased to exist.

Something unreadable crossed his expression.

Not surprise.

Recognition.

Seraphina felt it immediately.

That look was not curiosity.

It was the look of someone finding something they had already been searching for.

Her fingers tightened around the grip of her pistol.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she said evenly.

A faint smile touched the corner of his mouth.

Not amused.

Tired.

“I could say the same to you.”

The younger hunter beside her muttered a prayer under his breath before firing.

The gunshot exploded through the cathedral.

Silver round.

Direct hit.

Or it should have been.

The man moved before the sound fully reached the walls.

One second he stood near the altar.

The next—

he appeared beside the hunter.

No footsteps.

No warning.

Just absence followed by presence.

The hunter barely had time to inhale before icy fingers closed around his throat.

The entire cathedral froze.

Seraphina drew her blade instantly.

“Don’t,” she said sharply.

The man’s gaze flicked toward her.

Interesting.

Not angry.

Interested.

The terrified hunter struggled against the grip crushing his airway. Blood rushed into his face.

“Lucien,” Seraphina said carefully, testing the name against instinct.

Because there was only one creature in Europe capable of moving like that.

And suddenly the entire room understood it too.

The First Vampire.

The hunter in Lucien’s grasp started shaking violently.

Lucien didn’t even glance at him.

His attention remained fixed entirely on Seraphina.

“You know who I am,” he said quietly.

“Yes.”

“Then your Order has already lied to you.”

Several hunters raised their weapons higher.

Seraphina stepped forward before anyone could fire again.

Rain continued dripping through the shattered ceiling between them.

Somewhere outside, church bells began ringing across the city.

Too late for prayer.

Too early for dawn.

Lucien studied her face with an intensity that felt almost invasive.

Then his eyes lowered briefly toward the silver cross hanging at her throat.

Something in his expression changed.

For the first time since appearing, he looked almost… unsettled.

“You have her eyes,” he said softly.

Seraphina frowned.

“Whose?”

Lucien released the hunter abruptly.

The man collapsed to the floor coughing hard.

But Lucien was already stepping backward into shadow.

Not retreating.

Disappearing.

As though darkness itself welcomed him home.

“Tell your Order,” he said, voice echoing faintly through the ruined cathedral, “that whatever they buried beneath Prague should have stayed dead.”

Then he vanished.

The candles extinguished simultaneously.

Silence crashed down across the cathedral so suddenly it almost hurt.

For several seconds nobody moved.

Seraphina stared at the empty shadows near the altar, pulse steady despite the adrenaline burning beneath her skin.

Around her, hunters slowly lowered their weapons with trembling hands.

One of them whispered shakily:

“Saints protect us…”

But Seraphina barely heard him.

Because near the altar—

where Lucien had been standing—

she noticed something resting on the stone floor.

A single silver coin.

Ancient.

Dark with age.

Marked with the same symbol carved into the victims’ flesh.