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The news bulletin plays at the worst possible moment.
But even before then, this operation had already gotten off to a rough start. Agent Hawk (codename) had taken a six-story tumble out of a skyscraper window last night, so this morning the field office had scrambled to sub you in as his last-minute replacement.
You’d only had a few hours to study the briefing papers before heading into your first VPU field assignment, which happened to be a large-scale, city-wide effort to separate and capture every member of the so-called “Magnificent Seven” vamp cell. Twenty groups of agent trios—(three agents for every one vamp; that was the golden rule)—had been deployed at locations based on reported sightings, rumors, or predictions from their data analysts.
Your team was Agent Starling (you), Agent Rook, and Agent Babbler.
You had traded spots with the bald, grizzled looking barber on shift after arriving. “You’re late,” he grunted, shouldering past you to clock out.
“Sorry,” you muttered, strapping on an apron and stepping up to the chair.
Surprise #1: the target was already sitting right there. You had to bite back a gasp when you glanced down. Even with half its face covered by a wet towel, you recognized it as one of them. The silver-blonde hair darkening at the roots, the constellation of jewels lining the outer shell of the ear, the playful shape of the mouth. You mentally flipped through the files you had looked over earlier and land on a name: Lee Heeseung.
Adrenaline spiking, you glanced up to signal to Rook and Babbler but noticed that the two of them were already signaling to you and each other. A quick scan of the surroundings revealed why.
Surprise #2: Not one, but two other vamps from their cell were also present. And the shop was filled with civilians, including a young child.
Fuck. You tried to remember protocol for cases like this. Abort mission? You signal to Rook. He shakes his head once, firmly, and signals that he’s called for backup.
“You must be new.”
The voice floated up from below you. “Sorry?” Your heart picked up speed.
“I’ve never had you before,” the man—the vamp—spoke from beneath the cloth on his eyes. He looked perfectly relaxed, laid out in the chair. “As my barber.”
“It’s my first day,” you managed, then focused on the meditative exercises they taught in training to slow down your breathing, slow your heart rate, stop perspiration. Vamps can sense the slightest of these changes if they’re paying attention. You’d never been this close to one before, and it felt like you were going to come out of your skin.
“Congratulations.” Its voice was so gentle, so deceptively soft, with the slightest hint of a rasp. “You’re the first woman this shop has hired.”
You coughed. Damn you, field office, way to make me even more conspicuous. Breathe. Breathe. “Th—thank you. Yay for progress.” You laughed awkwardly.
The vamp’s pink lips tipped up in a little grin. The top one was delicate, thinner than the bottom. They didn’t look like they belonged to a predator at all. But you know appearances are deceiving.
For the next few minutes, through sheer brute willpower, you forced your heartbeat and breathing to stay steady while you made small talk with this vampire and answered its questions. You made up a story about how you aspired to be a cosmetician before changing track to your current gig. You talked out your ass about the historical implications of the fade and undercut and how haircare was a material part of culture. You listened to its polite, and rather charming, honestly, responses.
All the while, you pulled the blade of the straight razor across its surprisingly warm, surprisingly soft skin: the cheeks, the borders of the lips, the clean edge of the jaw. You watched the vein in its neck pulse. It looked so real, so human. It smelled really fucking good, which was by far the most disorienting thing, something that VPU training hadn’t ever mentioned.
You could have cut the vamp’s throat right then. The straight razor was pure silver and would debilitate him long enough for you to put a wooden bullet in his heart.
But you’d have been dead twice over before reholstering your gun, thanks to the other vamps there. Not to mention what would happen to the rest of your team, or all of the other human innocents.
Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Babbler mark off the vamp Jay, and Rook position himself across the door of the restroom that Jungwon had gone into. He indicated that backup was minutes away, and some of the tension left your shoulders. You just needed to buy time.
You looked back down at your vampire. “So, what kind of cut would you like? Same as before, or do you want to try something fun this time?” You were getting into character a little.
You noted that his throat bobs when he swallows. His Adam’s apple was exquisitely prominent—the centerpiece of a long, slender neck that rumbled just so whenever he spoke.
And that’s when the fucking news bulletin cut into whatever was playing before.
*
“Breaking news! Seven vampires under a red notice…” There’s a montage of video footage, including a clip of Jungwon himself, his face as clear as day. Close-up photos of all seven of them on wanted posters.
Some of the other people in the shop turn to watch the television, and you can sense the gears turning in their brains as they slowly look at one another and back at the screen. There’s a shift in the air.
Shit shit shit. Now’s your chance. You have mere seconds to act before this all goes to hell.
If you slit this vamp’s throat right now, that’ll be one down (temporarily). Another in the bathroom, out of play. Which leaves your team of three vs. the last one, and that should be enough to take it out—if you all move fast enough.
You adjust your grip on the handle, raise it up—and then your vampire pulls the cloth off of his face.
Your hand freezes in midair.
Earlier today, when you had been reviewing everyone’s individual dossiers, Heeseung’s photo had gotten lost in the mix. Sunghoon had stood out the most, actually, looking like a textbook example of an eldritch vampire whose beauty could freeze you to the touch or boil the blood in your doomed veins. So you aren’t prepared for what it’s like to actually face Heeseung in the flesh.
His eyes are bigger than you expected, framed by whisper soft lashes and marked with a tender, haunted look that steals your breath for a moment. It feels like he’s seeing into your soul, into your most secret heart of hearts. Even more unsettling, it feels like you can see into his.
He’s uncanny. There’s a childlike, almost feminine beauty to him, offset by the sharp cut of his jaw and the breadth of his shoulders. You think that even if you weren’t VPU trained, you would know there was something inhuman about this creature the second you laid eyes on it.
Heeseung turns and you follow his gaze to catch Jungwon—a large black cross ironically tattooed on his neck—exiting the bathroom, your heart dropping into your stomach.
Jungwon looks at you. He looks at the TV. Then turns back to you. He knows that you know. He knows that you know that he knows.
Without another thought, you launch the straight razor at him with all of your strength. He ducks, the screen behind him bursts in a flurry of glass, and then all hell breaks loose.
*
Everyone is screaming and rushing for the door.
“The kid!” You shout over to Babbler. “Get the kid out of here!”
You whip back to face Heeseung, but he’s gone, of course. You know you just gave up the identity of one of your team members, but at least the vamps didn’t know there was still another one in play.
You lock eyes with Rook from across the room and nod toward Jay, who is closest to the child. If you and Babbler double-team him, it might be enough of a distraction to allow Rook to swoop in.
To your horror, Jay suddenly grabs the kid, stands, then tosses him clear across the room, above the crowd, into Jungwon’s waiting arms, who immediately ushers him outside onto the street.
Fuck! Did they just kidnap him? You start running after them when someone grabs you by the collar and hauls you backward.
You spin around and come face to face with Heeseung. Or rather, face to chest, forcing you to tilt your head up to see him.
“You’re pretty little for a VPU goon,” he says, looking you up and down.
That was not at all what you were expecting him to say. You blurt out the first thing that comes to mind, which happens to be, “Size doesn’t matter.” He has only a second to chuckle in surprise before you punch him.
Or at least try to. He dodges fast enough that your knuckle only skims his cheek, and then shoves you back hard, making you go flying across the countertop, clearing all of the brushes, bottles, appliances from its surface before going down with all of them on the ground, knocking the wind clear out of you.
There’s more screaming now, and gunfire. An influx of people in black tells you that backup has finally arrived. The remarkable speed with which the three vamps move through the crowd, kicking in legs and snapping necks, tells you that that may not save your chances.
Every time you get up, Heeseung is there again, slamming you this way and that with punishing strength.
Eventually, the shop starts to clear out, leaving a few black-clad bodies on the ground, when Heeseung shouts something to Jay in an ancient sounding language. Jay nods, shoots the last standing VPU officer with his own gun, then bolts out of the window, leaving the two of you alone.
The fight has been temporarily knocked out of you. Heeseung fists you by the collar, walking you backwards until you’re up against the wall. No breathing exercise can help your heartbeat now, which is pounding so hard and fast that you think you might actually just drop dread. Problem solved.
“I underestimated you guys,” he says pleasantly. “Broad daylight, enclosed space with innocent people? Tsk tsk. And people say we’re the monsters.”
“Wasn’t my idea, vamp,” you breathe, trying in vain to wrench open his fist, though you’re not sure why you’re defending yourself to him.
He briefly closes his eyes and nods, mouthing a patronizing sure, ok at you.
“I’m going to ask you some questions, and you’re going to answer them if you want to stay in one piece.” There’s that gentle voice again. So sweet and soft around the edges it could almost be edible.
He fires off questions about how many other agents are active right now, why the VPU is so focused on their “coven”, and what else they have planned.
“I—I don’t know,” you lie.
He sighs. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he says, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear and tracing your cheek with a knuckle before grabbing the apple of it and pinching—a gesture so disarming and out of place that you forget to be scared for a moment —“but I will.”
You put up your hands like you’re under arrest. “Please, I really don’t know anything. I’m new, I swear. This is literally my first day.”
“I believe you,” he says. “About being new. But not about anything else,” he adds, darkly.
As he threatens you some more, you reach back a little further toward your head to pull out the hairpin that has been holding up your bun.
Eight inches long, pure silver soaked in vervain, and sharp as fuck.
You stab it into the meaty part between his neck and shoulder, immediately drawing blood splatter and a surprised hiss from him.
He steps back, grabbing at the now-steaming hairpin, leaving just enough of an opening for you to barrel past him.
Escape is your only thought.
The twenty feet ahead of you seem like twenty miles, but you run like the devil is at your heels—which it basically is. You fling broken chairs and overturned trays out of your way, hop over dead bodies and abandoned bags, and then—
the door is right there—
mere steps away—
You slip on a discarded gun and go down hard, taking it right on the chin.
As you struggle to get back up, a pair of black boots calmly steps into view. A moment later, your hairpin clatters beside them.
You look up and there he is. Heeseung. Looming over you like an escaped nightmare given form. The whites of his eyes have turned a brilliant red, his fangs and claws descended and taunting you with promises of sundered flesh and pain.
Your months of training suddenly blink out of existence. A primal, animal terror overtakes you, and as you desperately crawl backwards and away you release a long, shrill, truly blood curdling scream. A scream worthy of horror movies. It ends on a sob.
The sound surprises him. You can tell by the slight raise of his eyebrows. The black of his eyes seems to glow hotter, and his fangs lengthen even more, coated with spit and glinting white in the low light.
“What a lovely sound,” he purrs, stalking toward you. “Let’s hear it again.” Then he pounces.
*
To your credit, you don’t scream again, though the need sits stubbornly in your chest like a trapped bird, almost sealing off your lungs.
Instead, you use all of your energy to play a very high-stakes game of hide-and-seek with him as you use every possible item in the shop as cover or a projectile. He chases you all over, never once taking his eyes off of you, and it chills you to realize that he’s possibly enjoying this.
By the time you duck and take cover behind the back desk, you’re ready. You needed the time and distraction to take out and cock your gun. When Heeseung shows up to rip the desk from the ground, you turn and start shooting.
Your first few shots go wide, but a bullet eventually goes through his shoulder, another clipping him in the leg. Without stopping or breaking eye contact, he closes his hand over the muzzle and catches the final bullet in his fist, blood spraying back onto your face. He tosses the useless gun aside.
“What now, little bird?” He doesn’t seem angry, which only makes things more frightening.
You’re all out of weapons. This is probably where you’ll die, but you’re not going down without a fight.
You surprise him by lunging for him first, ramming the crown of your head into the bridge of his nose, and then dragging him to the ground on top of you.
His reaction is relatively slow. He’s probably used to agents shooting at him from a distance or desperately trying to pummel him into submission. No way he expected you to voluntarily pull him horizontal. But like he said earlier, you’re much smaller, you’re at a disadvantage, and the easiest way to even that playing field is to bring it to the floor, where height and weight are mostly neutralized.
But by the time you have him in a grappling hold, he’s chuckling and shrugging you off like you’re a doll. He wrestles you down and strikes you in the head, chest, and stomach in a way that seems almost playful. But every blow feels like getting pounded by a fucking baseball bat. Made of concrete. You’re seeing stars by the end.
He grabs you and throws you sideways into the nearest wall, watches as you slump down to the floor before struggling back up again. You can taste blood. Sweat stings your eyes. Meanwhile, he looks perfectly serene, as at ease as he was relaxing in the barber chair.
He hasn’t been trying to kill you. Not really.
“What are you doing?”
“What do you mean?” A suggestion of a smile lights the corner of his mouth.
“Why aren’t you killing me and then doing God knows what with the body?” You lean forward to catch your breath, your sides—and everything else—cramping and sore.
“Does it have to be in that order?”
Before you can fully process the implications of that, he whooshes back in front of you, and with his claws out, slices four shallow but searing gashes across your belly.
You choke and stumble back as he brings those talons to his mouth and, one by one, licks your blood off of the tips. The superficial wound on his leg knits itself back together. The one in his hand gets a little smaller.
He makes a gentle humming sound. “Oh. You taste much, much better than your colleagues.”
"Ugh," you say, at a loss for words, which makes his lips twitch into a genuine smile. Adrenaline and pain have made you stupid, because you try again to escape again by fleeing into the back office.
You slam the door and lock it behind you, like that’s going to help anything at all. Almost completely out of strength now, you stagger into a corner, collapse, and wait.
*
The door handle snaps off with a simple click, and then he’s easing the door open and stepping inside, looking like the prince of demons himself. Awesome and terrible in his profane beauty.
When he grabs you by the shoulders and lifts you up by the desk, you whimper, “Please.”
There’s no mercy in his eyes. But no malice, either. Just a bone deep hunger, and an unwavering, searing focus that says that nothing and no one else exists for him in the world right now except for you, his quarry.
He sinks his teeth into your throat.
At first all you feel is pressure, unbearable pressure as he bites down and his lower jaw squeezes your windpipe, but then his canines break through, gouging and penetrating and your whole body narrows down to just your neck.
The pain is razor sharp and blinding. It burns as his teeth dig in, as you feel his throat rolling against yours as he takes long pulls of your lifeblood.
There’s movement in his shoulder, and you watch in horrified fascination as your wooden bullet from earlier is ejected from his body, before the wound there seals itself back up.
You try to scream again but it strangles somewhere in the base of your chest. His bite has given you a burst of adrenaline, though, and you find you have some fight left. You struggle desperately, trying to free yourself enough to throw a punch or kick, but that only makes him grip you harder, crowd in more, and bite you deeper.
And then the most demented thing happens.
The pain ebbs, a little at first and then all at once.
Then a wave of unconscionable heat, of knee-buckling pleasure, rolls through your body like a giant tongue. It starts from your toes and then uncurls mercilessly up through your thighs, pussy, stomach until you’re shuddering, and escapes your mouth as a low, delirious moan.
He stills. He pulls back to look at you, wicked red eyes mapping your face. Those delicate eyebrows are lifted in surprise again.
Normally you might do or say something here, but you feel ruinously drunk. Six shots plus kind of drunk. Your muscles are like putty and despite what you want, they begin relaxing, becoming pliant in this vampire’s arms.
He places a hand on your chest, his thumb just skimming the inside of your shirt, pressing against the top swell of your breast. He mutters something in that language again; it might be a curse.
“I can hear your heart racing,” he says. His voice is so, so sweet. “I can feel it, too, in the space between us.”
He ducks back down again and licks up the side of your neck, gathering your blood on his tongue. You feel, more than hear, a warm chuckle tickling the hairs at the nape of your neck.
“I can taste it in your blood,” he whispers.
You nod dumbly, and his vise grip around you relaxes. He repositions his hands behind your back in a way that feels almost gentle.
He bites down again, finding the puncture holes he tore earlier and sliding his teeth right back into the bruised flesh. It feels horribly sore, raw, and at the same time like he’s rubbing a deep, deep ache in exactly the right spot and with just the right amount of brutal pressure to turn the pain into pleasure.
Your muscles feel like they’re turning into jelly. Your legs fall open on their own accord, and he naturally steps further between them, bringing your bodies flush together. The collar of your shirt is wet and sticky. Wetness slides down your front, between your breasts. You grab at his shoulders, possibly to push him away, possibly to hold him still.
Is this how you die? It doesn’t seem as bad as everyone made it out to be. In fact, it’s kind of the only thing you want to be doing right now. You might die if he stops. You’ll definitely die if he doesn’t.
Heeseung is growling now, you can feel the sound vibrating in your bones. His muscles shift under your fingers as he arches and remolds himself to your body. He sounds absolutely feral.
“Please,” you gasp. Your head is fuzzy, words feel like cotton in your mouth. “Stop… Don’t… Stop… Please.” You choke, gasping. “Heeseung.”
He drives into you, and when his groin touches yours, you release a gasp so ragged and loud that it seems to fill up the whole room. He’s rock fucking hard. His cock presses against your pussy, only a few layers of clothing separating you two, and the sheer perfection of the feeling feels like lightning striking. Pleasure sparks white behind your eyes.
Good God, you might be coming. You’re not sure, because the sensation wracking your body is foreign and blinding in its intensity. You might have also just taken a massive hit of heroin, who knows. All you know is that you can’t get close enough to him. Your legs lock around his waist, your hands fist in his hair as hips roll involuntarily.
The last thing you register before blacking out completely is the feeling of being lifted and gently propped up against a corner, your hands placed in your lap, your hair brushed away from your face.
Then: glass breaking, angry shouts filling the empty space.
*
You slowly float up to consciousness, feeling like roadkill. Everything hurts, the room is spinning, and soon the blackness overtakes you.
You wake up again some indeterminate amount of time later, and there are two VPU suits you don’t recognize hovering over your bedside. Distantly, you realize that you’re in the hospital. They keep asking questions about the barber shop, about your fight, about Heeseung. You answer what you can until you feel the insistent tug of sleep pulling hard again.
*
You wake up, and your head feels clearer. You’re still sore as fuck everywhere.
You struggle to sit up, reaching for some water by your bedside table, and are surprised to see Special Agent Weaver, your captain, sitting beside you.
“How long have I been out?”
“A few days,” he says.
“What happened with the rest of the vamp cell? Did we get any?”
Weaver fills you in. All seven escaped; many VPU casualties. What’s more, the two agents from before were VPU Internal Affairs. Apparently, you were the only agent that went toe-to-toe with one of the vamps and lived. Not only lived, but survived a feeding. It created quite a stir, and the IA agents were sent to investigate.
You start to protest when he cuts you off. “Don’t worry. Someone from tech thought to pull the security tapes and then it became clear what happened. We all got to watch you get your ass handed to you over every corner of that shop.”
You groan, then wince at the pain that causes.
“My God, Starling. He really worked you over, didn’t he?” There was a faint note of approval in his voice, kind of like a dad with his kid after his first schoolyard fight. “It was like watching some featherweight nobody try to go round for round with Mike Tyson.”
You close your eyes, groaning again, despite the pain. “Please. Stop.”
He chuckles. “Anyway, after that, IA quieted down and just started the paperwork to wrap up another failed mission. The only part of your 'fight' that wasn’t recorded was the last few minutes in the backroom. And I don’t even think you were conscious by then.”
You were absolutely 100% conscious for most of it. And you are absolutely not going to share that, so you just nod noncommittally.
Failed mission. You steer the subject back to what’s important. “Rook and Babbler?”
“Killed in action,” Weaver says.
“Fuck,” you breathe, feeling strangely guilty.
“Once you get back, a few things are going to happen. We’re going to do another psych eval, and then you’re going to put you in therapy even though your probation isn’t over.”
“Why?”
He gives you a strange look. “Some agents need extra therapy after even seeing a vamp for real for the first time. You were trapped with this thing for almost half an hour, fighting for your life.” He clears his throat. “I’m told this was likely a…traumatic experience.”
“Oh, of course,” you say, nodding emphatically. “Yep, therapy, sounds good.” Were you traumatized? Thinking about that barber shop again, the glittering look in the vampire’s eyes as he leapt at you again and again, it makes your heart pound and your hands start trembling a little—but not in the way that a psychiatrist would dub as PTSD, you don’t think.
Your mind snags on a vision—unwelcome as a nail catching on a sleeve—the back room. His lips against your throat. His arms wrapped tight around your waist. His, oh god, his—
“Oh and there’s one last thing.” Weavers shifts uncomfortably. “Let me call the nurse.”
The nurse comes in, and turns out, they’re offering you a rape kit.
“What?” Your eyes bug out. “Wh—no, not necessary.”
The nurse places her hand on your hand. “We won’t make you do it, honey. But it could help you guys catch him. You were found…in a state that suggests this might be useful.”
Weaver adds, “Don’t take it personally, Starling. This is standard when those fucking vamps are involved.”
It was true. The line between sex and violence, seduction and straight up assault, was extremely blurred when it came to these creatures.
“No, no,” you repeat. “Really, nothing at all like that happened.” You want to say Heeseung would never, but then catch yourself, because that’s a really fucking weird thing to think about a vamp, much less say out loud.
*
You make a full recovery in the hospital, though you have a few new scars to show for it. Then you go back to the Nest (aka headquarters), where you're sent back to field training.
You’re made to rewatch the security footage while your drill instructor pauses at every failure point and walks you through alternative responses. You practice hand-to-hand combat, you practice raid drills, you practice crisis response. You go to the shooting range every day and work on your aim.
Weaver had failed to mention that even though IA put the investigation to rest, a general miasma of suspicion and misgiving that you can’t shake off still hangs around you.
VPU agents are trained at a few things: cold profiling, body language, lip reading, among other things. You can tell that there’s this sense that you may have been compromised. People think it’s too weird that you were left alive.
One day, when you’re in the ladies’ room, you overhear a conversation between two other agents at the sink.
“You going to the range next?”
“Yeah. Probably later tonight. I don’t wanna be there with Starling.”
A noisy exhale. “So it’s not just me, right? There’s something fishy there. What if that vamp blood-bonded with her and turned her into a spy?”
“Eh, I don’t know about all of that vamp magic stuff. None of it’s been proven,” the second one says, making you nod silently in your stall. “Besides, if she’s a mole, she was already one going in. They probably got to her when she was still in training and the higher-ups were too distracted by a pretty face to do their job right.”
“Right? Pervs, all of them.” Laughter.
Fuck you, you mouth. This pisses you off, mostly because it’s not true, but also because you can’t even really be mad at them, because you know you’d be wondering the exact same thing if you were in their position.
There have long been rumors about blood bonds, psychic compulsions, and even the synching of heart beats between a vamp and its victim.
It’s one of the first things you’re taught in training: Never, ever underestimate the enemy. Vamps have resources, knowledge, and access to abilities that are yet undiscovered. And they make horrible enemies because they're constantly turning your allies into their allies. Some people will betray anything, risk everything, while under the call of a vamp's siren song. This is why the so-called "covens" are treated like terrorist sleeper cells—they're always luring, recruiting, infecting the population. This is why VPU IA is constantly on the offense, turning over every rock and looking through everyone's trash. Agents, at all levels, have turned on the agency in the past. It's a hazard of the job.
You train harder than ever. And once you re-graduate from boot camp and are ready to be back out in the field, the first thing you request is all the intel available on Lee Heeseung.
Lee Heeseung. This fucking vampire almost strangled your professional reputation in its proverbial cradle.
And that’s exactly why you have to be the one to take him down.