Ezekiel stood at the top of the stone steps, a lone figure draped in silk that felt less like a robe and more like a shroud.
Below him, the courtyard was a sea of predators. Their stares weren't just hateful; they were hungry. Raphael had given them a new toy, and the air hummed with the cruel electricity of "permission." Pain was an education; death was a breach of contract. He descended the stairs, his bare feet flinching as they touched the grit. His old leather boots had been discarded during the medical frenzy, leaving his soles exposed to the jagged edges of volcanic rock. He walked a slow, wide circle, keeping his back to the walls, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs.
Raphael's voice echoed in his mind: Befriend them. Train.
But looking at the scowls and the crimson eyes tracking his every move, Ezekiel realized that "training" in the Abyssal Gang was just a polite word for a slow-motion execution.
"The boss said we can treat him however we want," a guard whispered, his voice carrying on the wind. "I say we see if that orange light of his can grow back a tongue."
"Careful," another cautioned, crossing his arms. "He turned Len into a memory. Len was a dog, sure, but he wasn't a corpse until the brat touched him."
"Len was a mistake," interrupted a towering man named John. He was built like a siege engine, his scruffy hair matted with the sweat of a morning drill. He was a Tier-1 enforcer, a man who lived just beneath the brothers. "The boy is a fluke. A mutant with a lucky spark. Desperation isn't the same as power."
"A fluke, John?"
The voice was cool, like a razor blade pulled from ice. Elyas stepped forward, his silver-threaded vest shimmering as he leaned against a pillar. His emerald eyes didn't just look at Ezekiel; they seemed to weigh his soul. "If you treat that 'spark' like a joke, you'll be the punchline. Look at his posture. He's terrified, yes—but his hands aren't shaking anymore."
Ezekiel stopped. He felt the weight of Elyas's gaze and, for a moment, he stopped trembling. He straightened his back, his voice cracking but carrying a jagged edge of resolve.
"I have no plans on remaining weak," Ezekiel called out, his eyes locking onto the high-ranking vampires. "You won't have to worry about that."
Elyas's lips twitched—not a smile, but a flicker of recognition. He murmured something inaudible and looked away, but the rest of the pack didn't follow his lead.
The Breaking In
Ezekiel found a corner and slid down the cold stone wall. He tucked his head into his knees, trying to disappear.
I have to kill to grow stronger, he thought, his pulse a drum in his ears. But they won't let me leave. I'm a prisoner in a palace. And that voice... five years.
The math was a nightmare. In the Nefarian Empire, time was the ultimate currency, and it was distributed with cruel bias. The Royals and high Nobles, blessed with immense blood magic, could live up to 400 years, watching centuries pass from their high spires. But those at the bottom—the Dregs, the serfs, and Ezekiel himself—were lucky to see 120 years before their cores flickered out.
He had just traded nearly five percent of his entire existence for a single, desperate victory. If every fight cost him half a decade, he would be a withered husk before he ever touched the hem of Darion's cloak.
He ran a shaky hand through his hair, his vision blurring. Then, the shadows shifted.
A hulking figure stepped into the light, blocking the dim glow of the torches. Ezekiel bolted to his feet, his balance failing him as his heart tried to leap out of his chest.
"There's nowhere to run, pup," a guard named Jarul bellowed. He was a mountain of scarred leather and malicious intent. "The boss said we should forge you into a weapon. Consider this the first strike of the hammer."
Jarul lunged.
Ezekiel moved. He was faster than he had been yesterday—his senses sharper, his muscles more responsive—but he was running on fumes. He sprinted across the open space, dust kicking up behind his bare heels, the laughter of the guards echoing off the walls like the barking of hyenas.
"Look at him go!" John laughed from the sidelines. "Jarul's going to break him before he even gets a chance to use that orange magic."
"The boss won't be happy if he kills him," Savier added, his narrow eyes tracking the chase. "Raphael wants a vanguard. He wants to see how much pressure the boy can take before he breaks... or ignites."
In the center of the yard, the "miracle" was failing. Ezekiel's lungs burned. His stamina was bottoming out. He hit the gravel on his knees, his breathing ragged and shallow.
Is this it? he wondered, sweat stinging his eyes. Did I sell my soul just to be a punching bag for these animals?
No. His jaw set. If I'm broken a hundred times, I'll rise a hundred and one. I have to. For her.
Jarul towered over him, his fist glowing with a thick, muddy crimson aura. "Tired already? I expected a monster, but I just found a stray dog."
The blow was a blur. Jarul didn't aim for the face; he aimed for the spine.
The sound of the impact was a sickening, hollow crack that seemed to suck the air out of the courtyard. Ezekiel's body didn't just fall; it arched violently, a spray of dark blood painting the grey gravel. The agony was a white-hot nova that burned away his thoughts.
He didn't scream. There was no air left for it. He simply crumpled into the dirt—a broken boy in a kingdom that had no use for anything but monsters.
He tried to move, but his legs were strangers to him. The connection had been severed cleanly at the waist, leaving his lower half as heavy and useless as wet logs. Panic, cold and oily, flooded his system, moving faster than the blood escaping his wounds.
Jarul stood over him, a dark silhouette against the obsidian spires of the compound. He licked his lips, looking down at his "masterpiece" with the clinical approval of a sculptor.
"If only you could remain like this forever," Jarul purred, his nostrils flaring with a jagged, sadistic heat. "It's a pity your body is... special. Most would have the decency to stay broken. But you? You'll knit yourself back together just so I can find a new way to pull you apart."
He crouched, bringing his face level with Ezekiel's. The smell of expensive tobacco and cheap violence rolled off him. "I'll keep at it until I tire. Or until you do. Who knows? Maybe next time, I'll break something even that strange voice of yours can't fix."
Ezekiel gritted his teeth, the simple act sending lightning-bolts of agony through his skull. His hatred was the only thing keeping him conscious, a white-hot coal in the center of a freezing sea. He pursed his lips—a movement that felt like tearing silk—and spat.
A thick, hot glob of crimson struck Jarul's chiseled cheek.
The compound went silent. The guards standing sentinel by the entrance inhaled sharply, their outrage rippling through the air like a physical weight.
"If only your face could remain like this forever," Ezekiel hissed, his voice a wet, jagged rasp.
The smile died on Jarul's face. His hands began to vibrate, a crimson aura flickering wildly around his knuckles like dying embers caught in a gale. Humiliation was a heavy thing, and Jarul intended to offload every ounce of it onto Ezekiel's skull.
The blows that followed weren't just hits; they were erasures. Each strike crushed flesh into bone, clogging Ezekiel's nostrils with gore and plunging his world into a spiral of fading red. He felt his consciousness receding, the satisfied clamor of the guards sounding like a distant tide.
The last thing he saw before the dark took him was a pair of twin gems—Raphael's eyes—staring down at him with a chilling, clinical curiosity.
Ezekiel woke to a world made of needles.
As his eyes flickered open, he took in the familiar, hollow grandeur of the Abyssal base. The guards stood like dark sentinels, their eyes reflecting years of their own stored-up grief, now being poured into the youth at their feet. It was the ancient, rotting cycle of the Empire: suffering was a baton, passed from the broken to the breaking.
"So… hungry," Ezekiel wheezed. His lungs felt like they were lined with glass. "Why… am I still in pain?"
'Because,' the enigmatic voice in his mind replied, its tone stripped of its usual comfort. 'I am a catalyst, not a miracle. Your power is minute. To heal a shattered spine requires a tithe of essence you do not possess. Unless you kill, your regeneration is nothing but a slow crawl through the dirt.'
Ezekiel stared at the macabre state of his body—the deep purple hematomas, the chilling disconnect of his legs. He had grown far too used to the Voice playing the role of a savior. Now, he was just a living corpse on an icy floor.
He watched through half-closed lids as the guards rotated, their bellies full of bioluminescent blood and tender meat from a feast he wasn't invited to. Their laughter struck him like daggers, digging into the pit of hopeless despair gnawing at his mind.
I should just end it, he thought, eyeing the sharp edge of a guard's halberd. One word, one insult, and the peace of the void returns.
But then, the image of Darion flashed in his mind—the cold, distant eyes of his mother's killer.
No. I refuse to breathe my last until he takes his.
Ezekiel's thoughts turned cold and calculated, the logic of a man who had nothing left to lose but time. He was a vampire; he had 115 years of potential life left in his ledger. If five years had bought him a second chance in the war, what was five more for a functioning spine?
He thought of his father, Kennedy, waiting in that silent house. He'll have to live on without me. Or perhaps, I'll live long enough to ensure no one ever touches him again.
The plan crystallized. He would wait for the conflict between Raphael and the Devil's Flames. He would use the chaos of Patrick's war to reap every soul he could find, gorging himself on power until he was a match for a Night.
He looked inward, into the black space where the Voice resided.
'Take them,' Ezekiel thought, his mental voice hard as iron. 'Take five more years. Give me my legs. Give me the strength to stand.'