Josiah Whitman felt more at home standing before Dmitry Volchek, a heavy hitter in the New Harbour sect of the Russian Organised Crime Syndicate, than he ever had during his tenure as an officer in the NHPD. This was no surprise to Josiah because he was to do today what he had been booted from the force for: killing vampires.

  After the Great Revelation, death had become the currency of every crime syndicate across the globe because in every major city, there were vampires, and more importantly, humans who wanted those leeches dead. Josiah was old enough to remember the day the news broke. He'd been ten when fuzzy videos of serpent-fanged creatures with glowing red eyes that reflected light like a cat's flooded the news cycle. Now, it was almost hard to remember the time before, when children played in the streets until sundown, university students kept the city alive at night, and white-collar workers toiled away until long past sundown without fearing if they'd see the next sunrise.

  Now, the only people out past dark were self-proclaimed vampire hunters or already dead. Josiah was not to be in either category because, like anyone who was actually in the business of killing the undead, he attacked while the sun was still high in the sky. At least, he would be as soon as his accomplice arrived. The Wolf, the ROCS's resident vampire hunter, was to take him on his inaugural mission. If Josiah couldn't work alongside the Wolf, he wouldn't work with the Russians—Volchek's words.

  Josiah wasn't worried. Anyone who dedicated their life to exterminating leeches had his respect. The lot of them deserved to be staked and left to burn. They did nothing but consume.

  'My subordinate will be here shortly,' announced Volchek through his heavy, but nonetheless intelligible Russian accent.

  Despite his salt and pepper hair, Dmitry Volchek was well built. Josiah guessed he was probably in his late fifties, though he looked younger. He'd been dominating New Harbour's underbelly for the last twenty years at least. If the rumours were to be trusted, that domination was thanks, in no small part, to the Wolf. Although the rumours also painted him as a two-metre tall, one-hundred-kilogram man of pure muscle and violence, nothing but a mindless blade for Volchek to swing.

  What Josiah never could have expected was a kid who couldn't have, in Josiah's most liberal estimate, have been over twenty-seven. His physique was hidden under a pressed black suit, and although he was undeniably fit, he didn't have the commanding body the murmurs of New Harbour's criminal underworld foretold. His black hair was slicked back just like Volchek's, but what held the air in Josiah's lungs hostage was the hard black mask that covered the left side of his face, cleaving it clean in two. It had no eye hole, but given the scar branching over the Wolf's crooked nose, Josiah got the impression that there wasn't much of anything to see out of under it.

  'This is Wolf,' said Volchek.

  The Wolf didn't so much as nod at Josiah. In fact, his only acknowledgement of Josiah's presence was the attention of his exposed, unblinking eye. Josiah's skin crawled under it. He'd been around enough killers to recognise the emptiness in that pus green eye. Whatever semblance of a soul this kid had once had was long gone. All that remained was bloodshed radiating from him like thick black smoke.

  Nevertheless, Josiah approached him like one might with a feral street dog and said, 'Whitman,' while extending a hand. The Wolf's eye tracked the movement, but he didn't unclasp his hands from behind his back.

  'Don't mind Wolf,' said Volchek, 'He is a man of few words.'

  At present, Josiah wasn't convinced he was a man at all, but rather some kind of humanoid cryptid. Ever since the Great Revelation, nothing was above consideration, and the Wolf had yet to blink even once.

  Without taking his pale, ectoplasmic eye off Josiah for a second, the Wolf silently slipped a case file across Volchek's desk. It was thin, probably containing one, maybe two sheets of paper.

  Nodding, Volchek said, 'Good. Take care of her before she causes a problem.'

  Josiah was left scrambling as the Wolf stalked out of Volchek's den without so much as a backward glance, his steps silent against the floor despite the polished derbies he wore.

  A discrete black car waited for them, shining in the July sun.

  The ride to their target was short, only about ten minutes, but no less uncomfortable for it. Josiah spent the duration trying, and failing, to keep the Wolf's unfaltering gaze. However, he did manage to catch the kid blink exactly once, after which he retrieved a jackknife from somewhere under his suit jacket and handed it to Josiah.

  The Wolf's hands were littered with scars. That type of damage was no less than what Josiah would expect from a contract killer. Whatever he was, the Wolf wasn't a leech. Leeches didn't scar. Still, the Wolf's suspiciously infrequent breaths and general lack of humanity raised the hair on Josiah's arms. Even if the kid was just tremendously messed up, he was a valued member of the ROCS at the ripe age of twenty-something, and not a blood sucking monster, Josiah still resented his flippant attitude. He'd probably spent longer with the force than this kid had been alive. He deserved more respect than an unnerving stare and a silent shoulder, yet that was all he received as the car abruptly pulled over, and Josiah was once more left jogging after the Wolf's silhouette.

  Josiah stumbled out into one of New Harbour's seedier neighbourhoods. Crumbling, gratified triplexes lined the garbage-littered street. The Wolf stood against his surroundings like a lone ink blot on a white handkerchief as he strode for a triplex across the street. Josiah followed him at a jog, knife clutched in his sweaty palm. The Wolf was too busy jimmying his arm into a pane of broken glass on the building's front door to notice how the knife shook in Josiah's hand.

  Knives were a deeply personal weapon, very different to the NHPD-issued handgun Josiah used against the leech he killed. They necessitated getting very close to one's target, and the last thing Josiah wanted to do was get cosy with a vamp. Even during the safety of midday, they were stepping into the target's den. The leech had home court advantage, and Josiah had nothing to defend himself but a jackknife. Either the Wolf was using him as bait and keeping his gun to himself, or they'd both be dead very soon.

  After finagling the lock open from the inside with little issue or concern for the shards of broken glass threatening his forearm, the Wolf padded silently up to the second level of the triplex, Josiah's clunky footsteps ruining his practised stealth. The power to the building was off, so only the dim sunlight filtering in from the door on the level below illuminated the landing. Josiah could hardly see a thing, and it showed in the sound of him colliding with his surroundings, but the Wolf remained as silent as ever. He stopped before a door, and Josiah had to squint just to discern his partner's shadowy form.

  In one well-placed kick, the Wolf busted the door's bolt and sent it swinging into the apartment with a crash. His eye dilated like a cat on the hunt. Josiah would have been happy to be rid of that narrow green stare, but his pupils were blown a little too wide as he stalked into the dim apartment with feline grace. Every curtain was drawn, and the place smelled of food rotting in the summer heat.

  Covering his nose and mouth with an arm, Josiah followed as far as he dared while the Wolf's head snapped to some invisible movement or inaudible sound, and he prowled silently into another room. Josiah didn't have time to follow or inquire before the Wolf returned, dragging a screaming woman by her hair like she weighed nothing and wasn't resisting him with all the strength she could muster. She thrashed so vigorously that Josiah didn't even notice she was pregnant, heavily so, until the Wolf had dragged her up, her back to his chest, and pulled her head up, his inhuman eye watching Josiah expectantly.

  The woman—nail beds jagged and bloody, face wet with tears, chest heaving with sobs, ears rounded, and eyes sky blue—was painfully human. Josiah took a step back. This wasn't what he'd signed on for. He was here to exterminate leeches, not kill an unsuspecting human woman, no less one who was pregnant.

  The Wolf's gaze narrowed on Josiah, his eyes unblinking and his chest unmoving as he drew a finger across the woman's neck. The message was clear. This was their assignment. Slit her throat.

  'I can't,' stammered Josiah. 'She's human.'

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  Hope flared in the woman's eyes, and she opened her mouth, ostensibly to defend herself, but in place of the words came a torrent of blood, for, in the blink of an eye, the Wolf had slit her throat.

  Sticky, red ichor exploded from her neck like a shaken soda can, dousing Josiah. His knees buckled, and he fell to the ground as the stench of iron turned his insides sludgy. Cold saliva bloomed in his mouth before Josiah emptied the contents of his stomach onto the floor.

  The blood was so hot, almost like water from a shower, but the syrupy viscosity made him retch and retch until there was nothing left in him to heave up.

  Only after the spew from her neck had slowed to a gurgle did the Wolf toss her body to the floor. It slapped down into the pool of blood, and the Wolf sank to his haunches beside it, looking every bit like his namesake. Josiah half expected him to snarl like a beast and bear a fanged maw, but the Wolf's face was completely devoid of emotion as he gouged his knife into the corpse's bloated belly and set forth a second, waterier wave of blood, tearing it open in one swift strike.

  From the weeping gash, the Wolf pulled forth a humanoid form, the cuffs of his pressed white button-up stained crimson.

  Cries split through the oppressive heat in the apartment, and Josiah felt the urge to vomit all over again as he watched the creature's eyes shift from red to sky blue in the Wolf's grasp. For the first time, Josiah saw a flicker of emotion, a grimace, cross the Wolf's half-concealed face.

  'What the hell is that thing?' said Josiah, his voice hoarse and trembling.

  The Wolf's eye flicked up to watch Josiah's expression as he ripped the baby's head off without a word.

  Half vampires weren't real. That was what Josiah told himself as the Wolf cut its chest open and stuffed his fingers into the tiny cavity.

  The dead had weak seed and dry wombs. When they did manage to conceive with a human, the result was always miscarried or stillborn. Yet the infant cried. It flailed through its first and last seconds of life in the Wolf's unforgiving hands, which now held a tiny lump of calcified flesh with equal uncaring—a vampire heart in miniature. The Wolf pocketed it before standing and prowling past Josiah.

  No amount of time in the police force could have prepared Josiah for the sheer uncaring on the Wolf's face.

  The car ride back to Volchek's den was a blur. Josiah's brain played reruns of the woman's face as blood spilt from her mouth on loop. The Wolf sat adjacent to him, twirling the murder weapon absentmindedly in his hand with eerie confidence as he stared out the window.

  Josiah's heart was like a lead weight in his chest. A long as he lived, he would never escape his memories of the day's events. That apathetic green eye would follow him anywhere he ran. He had abetted the murder. He had been excited.

  As the car came to a stop, Josiah thought of the corpses they'd left so carelessly, but he knew better. The NHPD would deem it 'vampire affairs'. It wasn't an official designation, but anyone with more than five minutes of experience knew that such cases never saw the light of day again. Legally, Josiah was free. He'd never be found out or accused of a crime. The thought offered him no consolation. The blazing summer sun felt accusatory on the back of his neck as he stepped out of the car, still dripping with blood.

  The Wolf had no such hesitations. He stalked forward without pause, just like he had earlier that day, just like Josiah was sure he would tomorrow and the day after, unburdened by the terrible things he'd done.

  Josiah followed him nonetheless.

  At his desk sat Dmitry Volchek, exactly as he'd been not an hour ago, before Josiah had doused himself in unforgivable quantities of blood. Human blood. The only change to the office was the addition of a man in a navy blue suit sitting before Volchek.

  'Ah, Wolf,' said Volchek, as if calling out to a long-lost friend, not the fiend he'd released on the world. 'How was the mission?'

  The Wolf pulled the heart from his pocket and set it on the table before the man in the navy suit.

  Cringing, the man said, 'Vamp fucking whore got what she deserved. I can only imagine what that hell spawn could have gotten up to if I hadn't caught it.'

  Volchek laughed heartily from his chest. 'Terrible things, I'm sure.' The Wolf settled behind Volchek's shoulder like a looming threat. 'And how did you find the mission, fresh meat?'

  Josiah almost longed for the soundless obedience in Wolf's too-wide gaze as Dmitry Volchek disassembled him with a single look. Instead of saying anything remotely intelligent to try and save his ego after the pitiful display of weakness he'd put on for the Wolf earlier, Josiah blurted, 'Its eyes… It can't… Half vampires aren't real.'

  The man in the navy suit scoffed, and Volchek grinned, but he held up a hand to silence the man before he said, 'A half vampire? Who ever heard of such a preposterous thing?' The Wolf did not share Volchek's amusement. He just stared with his dead eye. 'No, no. Not a half vampire. It is possible for a human and a vampire to conceive, and their offspring, on rare occasions, can survive as either human or vampire, not both, and by the looks of things,' Volchek prodded the heart with the butt of a pen, 'it was the latter. It can be difficult to tell from the outside, but it seems it was worth sending Wolf out to take care of it. That poor woman truly did have the devil's spawn brewing inside of her.' With a single flick of his wrist, Volchek summoned the Wolf to his side. 'Tell me, Wolf, what do you think of our new recruit?'

  The Wolf leaned forward, bracing his hands, still stained red with blood on Volchek's desk, never once breaking eye contact with Josiah.

  Something in the gesture conveyed meaning to Volchek because he said, 'I see. Show our newest addition to the showers, then. You both need to get cleaned up.' Turning to the man in the navy suit, Volchek said, 'As for you, I will be expecting the second half of your payment by the week's end. How you find the money is not my concern, and if you cannot, then Wolf will find it for you. Understand?'

  The man nodded vigorously, his face pallid. One look from Volchek, and the lackeys waiting at the door were guiding the man out.

  Alone with the Wolf and Volchek, Josiah felt as though he was already six feet under.

  'Go on, Lyoshka,' said Volchek.

  Josiah had spent enough time brushing shoulders with the Russians during his time as an officer to know that Lyoshka wasn't the Wolf's real name, but that didn't mean he couldn't use the diminutive to find it the moment he was back at the station.

  The Wolf padded silently out of the room, Josiah following after him like a kid in a haunted maze. He made no move to take the knife still throttled in Josiah's hands.

  The predatory grace in the Wolf's body never lessened, not even as he stopped before a locker and performed mundane tasks such as fishing lazily through the black duffel bag inside and flicking open the buttons of his soiled shirt. Josiah couldn't afford to look away. He forced himself to absorb every identifying detail he could.

  There was no lock on the Wolf's locker. No decorations, either, but this was the mob, not an American high school flick. Josiah supposed no one, not even the other members of Volchek's inner circle, dared meddle in the affairs of his pet monster and prized vampire killer.

  The last thing to leave the Wolf's body was the mask, which bisected his face into two not-so-symmetrical halves. However, Josiah never saw what lay beneath it because the Wolf kept his back to Josiah as he walked out.

  The sound of running water lubricated the rusty gears of Josiah's mind. The scars on the Wolf's hands and the dozens more hidden beneath his suit. The slow, intentional blink of his reptilian eye. The infrequent, shallow breaths that moved his chest. The sunspots and moles that littered his skin. He wasn't a leech. He couldn't be. He'd walked under the summer sun unharmed. And yet.

  Josiah couldn't purge the colour-shifting eyes of the baby the Wolf had pulled apart with his hands, nor the grimace on his face. It was still the only change to that unfeeling visage Josiah had witnessed.

  Josiah knew what he'd seen. That baby wasn't a vampire, either. At least, not a full-blooded one. Josiah looked down at the jackknife still clutched in his hand. The Wolf seemed to have no intention of taking it back. Clearly, he had plenty.

  As he stared at the knife, Josiah remembered why he'd been unofficially rehired after his not-quite honourable discharge from the NHPD for this job. His grip on the knife steadied, and Josiah moved as quietly as he could towards the steamy cover of the showers.

  Still facing away from Josiah, the Wolf lathered shampoo into his short black hair, the muscles in his back shifting with every movement. The kid's body was deceptively strong. Beneath the suit, it had been impossible to see the extent of his physique. He was shredded to the bone. Even from the back, it was obvious that he had no excess flesh on his body. His muscles were compact and lean for maximum power in minimal space. It was the strength of a real hunter, not the hulking mass of vanity muscles men usually put on in the gym.

  No, the Wolf's body was that of a predator forged in the blistering heat of nature's furnace. Josiah had witnessed its deadly precision firsthand. More than the lack of breathing and odd blinking, that grace was what made the Wolf less than human. Josiah wouldn't give those predators' instincts the chance to show their claws.

  Knife ready, Josiah lunged forward to plunge it into the Wolf's exposed back.

  Alas, he stood no chance.

  The Wolf's hand was on his neck, hoisting him into the air before Josiah could react. He dropped the jackknife, not because of the bind on his windpipe, but the horror that was the Wolf's face. One side had been raked through, ravaged, and ruined. Five gashes, the jagged claw marks of some beast, ran like fissures through his flesh. One pulled his lip open just above the canine, another ripped a chunk out of his nose, but the worst cleaved clean through his eye: a line of milky white gouged into his atrophied puce iris. It may have been clouded by the injury, but Josiah knew that colour. Red.

  Josiah did not kick. He did not scream, not that he could have gotten much sound out from under the Wolf's grip on his throat. He knew his life was over the moment he glimpsed that derelict red eye. He was hopeless to do anything but watch as the Wolf's other eye bled from the pupil until the putrid green had been completely eclipsed, and a fang descended from the exposed gums on the scarred side of his face.

  It was impossible. Leeches couldn't alter their appearances, yet Josiah had just watched it happen. The Wolf's fangs sank into his neck. The bite hurt more than Josiah expected, like being stuck with a pair of white-hot pokers, but he didn't have to care for long before the gravity of eternal sleep pulled him into its orbit. Not even in his last seconds of conscious life could Josiah purge the sight of the Wolf's hideous face from his memory. It was all he saw as he died.