Chapter 2 Ezra
Ezra
Technically, I own the used bookshop in town, but the day-to-day logistics are beneath me. I leave that mind-numbing drudgery to my sole employee, Thane.
He’s the only modern human I’ve ever tolerated.
Why, you ask?
Because he’s a killer. Just like me.
It started with blood. Like it always does.
The night I found him, I was using the Tesem to track my next meal when I caught the scent of something far more interesting.
He reeked of rot and destruction, but there was something buried beneath it.
Faint and dissonant, like a note held too long in a song I’d forgotten.
And I hated that I couldn’t place it.
Thane was propped up against a tree, thick, syrupy blood dripping from his limbs and fingers—the kind that lingered, staining everything it touched.
His emerald green eyes were vacant, as if he’d been plucked straight from a nightmare.
And at his feet? A delightful mess.
Limbs, heads, and torsos scattered like a butcher’s feast gone wrong.
The smell of burnt flesh clogged the air—cloying, greasy smoke rising from what could’ve been a proper meal.
It stung my eyes, the stench curling through me until my stomach turned.
The tattered remains of black hooded robes clung to the charred body parts, sticky and wet with blood.
Something about them stirred memories I couldn’t quite place, making the puzzle before me infinitely more compelling than stalking my meal.
I’d deal with the rapist later. The bastard was already passed out, too drunk to hurt anyone else.
Yeah, so maybe I care. Barely. Shut up.
This traumatized human, who was little more than a blank slate, intrigued me.
I shifted into my L?kkda and crept closer.
He didn’t even blink when I crouched beside him to check for a pulse.
Tears streaked his blood-stained cheeks, painting soft pink lines through the red.
I waved a hand in front of his face.
Nothing.
I was almost certain he was harmless in this state, so I leaned in close and took a few quick sniffs, trying to figure out whose blood soaked his skin.
There was too much of it.
No one bled that much and lived, which meant most of it belonged to the corpses littering the forest floor.
But there was another scent.
One hiding behind the thick, sugared stench of evil blood.
It was faint.
Citrus and something ancient.
The memory clawed at the back of my mind, demanding to be remembered.
I’ve lived through eons. Watched continents shift and rebuilt civilizations from ash. I’ve smelled the blood of gods and heard things scream in languages the Earth tried to forget.
It could have been anything.
But when I inhaled again, the scent sharpened.
Grapefruit. Bright and unmistakable.
And beneath it?
Something wrong. Something forgotten.
Everything in me recoiled.
This … shouldn’t have been possible.
A few hundred years ago, I’d encountered a zealous religious group that used a specific flower in their strange, violent rituals meant to keep the so-called darkness at bay.
The group was quaint—laughable, even. All blood and theatrics, as if noise and mess could keep the shadows from watching.
I found myself lingering near their tents more often than I’d like to admit, drawn in by the spectacle.
The flower, with its sweet, citrusy fragrance, was used to make garlands for their massive white tents. The petals were dreary and brown, but the scent was clean and hopeful.
It was a cruel contrast to the blood-soaked woman barking about the evil in every corner of the world.
If only she knew how right she was.
They called themselves the Disciples of Humanity’s Light.
Fucking pretentious pricks.
Their crusade? Monster eradication.
Bigfoot might be a fun Appalachian legend, but there aren’t any seven-foot-tall hairy beasts in the woods or anywhere else. Chupacabras, the Jersey Devil, Mothman, the Loch Ness Monster—most “cryptids” are about as real as a cryptozoologist’s love life.
Still, even blind zealots get lucky.
They had peeled back just enough truth to find what they feared most. Not the fairy tales lurking in the shadows, but the ones standing beside them, smiling.
Once I found out the Disciples were hunting the underborne, I kept an eye on them.
Not because they were a threat—if they’d come after me or my siblings, they’d have been dead before they finished their first chant.
But still … I watched.
Maybe out of curiosity.
Maybe out of boredom.
Or maybe I just liked knowing where the next bloodbath might be.
I’d never admit it, but part of me was almost relieved they didn’t know we existed.
Safer that way. For them.
They were only humans, but they had just enough correct information, half-forgotten relics, borrowed magic, and raw, righteous hate to be dangerous.
It wasn’t until they wiped out an entire huskmaw community and captured a youngling that I stepped in.
I rescued the little brat and ate my fill. Probably one of the best meals I’ve had in centuries.
And the satisfaction of tearing through a swarm of zealots who would’ve hunted me down without hesitation?
Delicious.
Still, I can’t figure out why I saved the huskmaw kid.
Destroying the Disciples was about self-preservation.
Saving the kid was … stupid.
One Disciple managed to escape during my little rampage, and thanks to my shifting, he assumed I was a vampire.
I wasn’t worried.
They saw fangs and shadows and picked the only word they had.
Simple minds need simple monsters.
If I don’t even know what I am, how the fuck would they?
Of course, that came back to bite me in the ass. The Disciples started targeting vampire nests across the country, and eventually, I had to apologize to the leader of the US vampires for putting them in such a shitty position.
And before you get your panties in a twist over my mention of vampires, let me make it clear: They are nothing like the seductive, dominant monsters you read about in books or see on TV.
They’re just self-important, daft assholes with a long history of slavery and manipulation all done to feed their egos and satisfy their hunger.
Vampires have held every position of economic power in human history.
They were the ones who built the pyramids on broken backs. The plantation owners who reveled in the misery of the humans they owned. The factory bosses who employed small children, pushed twelve-hour workdays, and created unsafe working conditions.
They helped Hitler rise to power and were behind the concentration camps.
They were the landlords who let their properties fall apart.
Anywhere you find human misery, there’s a vampire lurking in the shadows, pulling the strings.
Why? Because vampires don’t feast on blood. They feast on human souls.
The more miserable the better.
If I wasn’t so fucking tired of the vampires’ short-sighted stupidity, I might admire their tactics.
They’ve built entire empires on human misery, then sold the lie that it was all for their benefit.
Renato Cazador, the head of the US vampires and owner of almost every sweatshop in the United States, sat before me, his deep navy blue eyes trying—and failing—to intimidate me.
His wife and second in command, Vesna Sokolovi?, lounged beside him, looking bored as hell.
Renato had insisted I travel all the way to his mansion just outside Chicago to apologize.
Could I have torn them apart instead? Yes.
Would it have benefited me? Sadly, no.
I’ve learned that sometimes it pays to keep the peace, even if it means humbling myself in front of a lowly soul-sucker.
Their home tried so hard to impress that it descended into a rococo fever dream with a hard-on for chandeliers and a color palette that looked like a wedding cake threw up.
I could almost hear the ghost of Marie Antoinette whispering, “It’s a little decadent for my taste.
” All it was missing was a dick-shaped fountain with a plaque that read, “Mine’s bigger. ”
Every room reeked of wealth, decay, and desperation. Just like their owners.
Renato and Vesna draped themselves across flowered bergères, their iridescent, violet-tinged lips glistening against their sickly pale skin. They radiated an air of boredom and condescension.
I’m probably the most interesting thing, supernatural or human, to have walked through their doors in hundreds of years.
Within the underborne food chain, vampires are near the top—and these two were proof that it was lonely at the top.
“I understand you saved a young huskmaw, which is why I’m willing to accept your half-hearted apology. We can handle ourselves against a few pitiful humans. However, I’m still trying to figure out where you fit into this fiasco, and why they thought you were a vampire.”
Every word out of Renato’s mouth, delivered in that soft Spanish accent, dripped with feigned concern.
He didn’t give a shit about the kid.
He just liked pretending he was the protector of all things underborne.
What a cunt.
“Dear sir, your generosity humbles me,” I said, offering a mock bow so theatrical Shakespeare would have hired me on the fucking spot.
Not that Shakespeare was even real, of course.
We all know the renowned dramatist and poet was just Marlowe, Johnson, and Kyd stacked inside a trench coat, careening through the Elizabethan era like drama students on a dare, accidentally defining the Western literary canon.
“If I had known it would provoke such violence against your kind, I would have tracked down the human who got away and ensured he never spoke to another soul again. As for your other question, I must ask that you accept I am neither friend nor foe but simply a being who lives among you. I do not wish to divulge any more than that.”
When I looked up, Renato’s face twisted as if he was puzzling out a riddle no one asked him to solve. His fingers drummed a slow, deliberate rhythm along the arm of his chair.