Richard Ashford

The night rain lashed mercilessly at the tiled rooftops of Florence. In the dimly lit back room of an old tavern on the banks of the Arno, twilight gloom prevailed, broken only by the uneven crackle of dying candles. On the rough oak table, spread across an unfolded map of the city's catacombs, lay gleaming hunting blades with immaculate silver plating, arranged neatly beside a heavy revolver.

Richard Ashford stood by the tall lancet window, his hands clasped behind his back. Dark chestnut strands, still slightly damp from his recent passage through the rain, fell carelessly across his forehead. His fitted waistcoat and formal dark coat sat flawlessly on his lean figure, concealing a harness of throwing knives. He stared through the murky glass at the blurred outlines of the nocturnal city, though his ears remained attuned to the quiet footsteps behind him.

The necessity of cooperating with anyone stirred a dull irritation in the young hunter. After Martin's betrayal, he had sworn never to rely on another man's back again. Trust in their line of work too often ended with a knife between the ribs or fangs at one's own throat. Yet the Order's elders had been adamant this time: a creature from the Young Blood faction, responsible for a massacre in the Santa Croce district, had proved too swift and cunning for a lone hunter. The vampire had already left five drained corpses in its wake, and the order from above was not open to discussion.

Richard slowly turned as the door creaked open, admitting his assigned partner. His gaze swept over the newcomer, assessing their equipment, posture, and readiness for the task. Not a trace of a welcoming smile stirred on Richard's lips. Approaching the table, the chestnut-haired hunter braced his leather-gloved fingers against the edge of the map.

Another burden I'll have to keep an eye on, he thought, but when he spoke, his voice was even, restrained, and dry.

"You are four minutes late," Richard said, getting straight to business without wasting time on empty pleasantries. "I usually work alone, and I'm perfectly satisfied with that arrangement. But the Council believes this particular bloodsucker is too much for a single hunter to handle, so we'll have to endure each other's company."

He gave a brief nod toward the map, where red ink marked the sites of the latest attacks, forming an irregular semicircle around an abandoned monastery.

"The lair is believed to be in the old crypts beneath the ruined chapel. The blood on the cobblestones by the northern entrance is still fresh. This vampire went to ground before dawn." His brown eyes fixed intently on his companion. "I have two conditions for this partnership. First: stay out of my way and follow the plan. Second: no hesitation. I don't care how this scum begs for mercy or what stories it starts telling. We go in, corner it, and cut off its head. If you have a problem with that, say so now, before we descend underground."

Returning to consciousness was a slow and agonising process. The first thing to pierce the thick darkness of oblivion was a dull, throbbing pain around his ribs and right shoulder. Then came the last memory: a narrow dead-end behind the slaughterhouses of San Lorenzo, five bloodsuckers from the Young Blood faction instead of the two he had expected, the clang of steel against the cobblestones, and his own fatal mistake. His overconfidence had cost him far too much. When one of the creatures' claws tore through his flesh, Richard had already mentally prepared himself to sell his life dearly, if only to avoid being turned into the undead.

But death never came.

A low groan escaped his parched lips before the young hunter could bite his tongue. His lashes trembled, revealing brown eyes clouded by weakness but instantly snapping into focus. Instead of a filthy drainage ditch, the vaulted ceiling of an unfamiliar bedroom loomed above him, its stucco mouldings adorned with peeling gilding. Heavy velvet curtains were drawn tightly across the tall windows, while embers smouldered lazily in the fireplace, colouring the dim room in crimson hues.

Richard abruptly jerked, attempting to sit up, and immediately hissed through clenched teeth. Tight, professionally applied bandages bound his chest and shoulder, already stained in places with fresh blood-tinged fluid from the sudden movement. The hunter gene was working overtime, closing his ragged wounds faster than those of an ordinary mortal, but the loss of blood still weighed heavily on his limbs. His coat, waistcoat and bloodied shirt were gone. His right hand instinctively darted to his belt, where the sheath of his silver dagger usually rested, but his fingers closed around nothing but the empty fabric of his dark trousers.

It was at that very moment that the brown-haired hunter noticed another presence in the room.

They were standing a few steps away from the bed. The very same figure that had emerged from the night fog in the alley when the hunter's strength had finally abandoned him. Pale skin, unnatural grace of movement, and the frightening silence with which the creature moved through space left not the slightest doubt about its nature.

A vampire. Another damned leech.

Richard's brown eyes instantly turned to ice, an uncompromising, furious hatred flaring within them and driving out every trace of pain. Bracing himself against the mattress with his uninjured hand, the young man struggled to sit up against the pillows, refusing to lie there like a helpless piece of meat before his enemy. He was ready to make a desperate lunge, even without a weapon.

Are they keeping me in reserve, like a living vessel? Or have they decided to play with their prey before tearing out its throat? The thought raced through his mind as the brown-haired hunter frantically searched the dim room for anything sharp: the poker by the fireplace, a shard of glass, or his own blade.

"What the hell is this charade?" Ashford's voice came out hoarse with thirst, but every word rang with steel and undisguised revulsion. "Bandages? A soft bed? If you expect me to start showering the undead with gratitude for saving my hide, you've badly miscalculated. Where are my weapons, and what the devil didn't you just finish me off in that alley along with the rest of your kind?"

The Whitmores' modest two-storey mansion on a quiet outskirts of Florence had always seemed to Richard like the only place in this rotten city that the claws of the creatures of the night had yet to reach. Here, behind a stone wall covered in ivy, time seemed to flow differently. The crackling of logs in the fireplace, the quiet ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall, and the worn velvet of the old armchairs created an illusion of peace that the young hunter guarded with all his characteristic grim determination.

Brushing the drops of autumn rain from his dark travelling coat, Ashford stepped over the threshold into the sitting room, holding a parcel of fine loose-leaf tea for Clara in one hand and keeping a thick envelope of crowns in the inner pocket of his waistcoat. Part of his payment for the latest job in the Santa Maria district. His adoptive parents had never asked him for money, but Richard considered it his duty to provide for their old age, seeing as their own son had chosen to betray his family for a fang-toothed whore.

The greeting caught in the brown-haired young man's throat as soon as he raised his brown eyes.

They were sitting in the soft armchair by the fireplace, directly opposite silver-haired Edmund, who was lighting his old briar pipe. The unfamiliar figure in this secluded domestic world looked out of place, instantly shattering the fragile sense of security. The habit of assessing any potential threat kicked in faster than politeness: the young man's gaze immediately swept over the guest's posture, the folds of their clothing where a weapon might be concealed, and the distance to the nearest window. His own right hand, clad in a leather glove, shifted almost imperceptibly towards the hilt of the blade hidden beneath his coat.

Who else has turned up in this backwater without warning? flashed through the young man's mind as his jaw clenched involuntarily. If the Council has decided to drag the old folks into Order business behind my back, they'll have some explaining to do.

"Richard, my boy, you're earlier than usual today!" Clara's gentle voice broke the silence. With a warm smile, the woman emerged from the adjoining dining room, carrying a tray with a porcelain tea set, though the corners of her eyes, as they had for the past few months, held a quiet, unending sorrow for Martin. "Come and warm yourself by the fire. It's terribly damp outside. And we have a guest today."

Edmund rose heavily from his armchair, leaning on his cane—his old knee injury always troubled him when bad weather was coming—and nodded approvingly at his adoptive son, patting him on his sturdy shoulder.

"Stop drilling holes through our guest with that stare, Rich," the old hunter chuckled good-naturedly, though the forgotten nickname made the young man wince inwardly.

Out of respect for his adoptive mother, Ashford forced himself to relax his shoulders and placed the parcel on the small round table by the entrance, but the wariness in his dark eyes did not fade. Approaching the fireplace, he stopped in a position that put him between the Whitmores and the guest, then looked down at the person before him.

"Good evening." The young hunter's voice was even and polite, but a distinct metallic chill lay beneath it. "I must admit, I wasn't expecting to find a stranger here. Edmund and Clara have long since retired, and matters concerning the Order in this district are usually handled through me. May I ask what business has brought you under this roof?"

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