The city felt different after that night.
Eli noticed it before he even left the house.
He woke before his alarm, eyes snapping open to the sound of something that wasn't there. The ceiling above him looked the same cracked, stained, lifeless but his senses felt sharper, more alert. Every creak of the building echoed louder than it should have. He could hear the pipes humming in the walls, the faint buzz of electricity running through cheap wiring.
He sat up slowly.
The ember in his chest pulsed once, warm and steady.
Eli frowned and pressed a hand over his heart. It didn't hurt anymore, but it was there, undeniable, like a presence quietly observing everything he did.
He dressed quickly and left his room.
Downstairs, his foster father was already awake, sitting at the table with a half-empty bottle. His foster mother stood by the sink, scrubbing the same plate over and over.
"You're up early," the man muttered without looking at him.
Eli nodded. "School."
A scoff. "Useless."
The word hit him harder than any slap ever had.
He grabbed his bag and turned for the door.
"Don't forget," his foster mother said flatly, "rent's due this week. You're not eating for free."
Eli paused, then nodded again.
Outside, the air felt heavier.
Darker.
He noticed it the moment he stepped onto the sidewalk.
The sky was the same dull gray it always was, low clouds hanging heavy over the rooftops. Cars moved through traffic. People hurried along sidewalks with their heads down, buried in phones and thoughts. On the surface, nothing had changed.
And yet everything had.
The world felt sharper, as if someone had adjusted a dial Eli hadn't known existed. Sounds carried farther the distant screech of brakes, the murmur of voices through apartment walls, the hum of electricity running through streetlights. Colors seemed deeper, shadows darker, more defined.
He felt like he was standing half a step out of place, no longer fully aligned with the world around him.
Darker.
At school, it was worse.
The moment Eli stepped through the gates, the ember reacted faint, restless. His skin prickled. He scanned the crowd without realizing it, eyes catching details he would have missed before.
Heartbeats.
He could hear them.
Too fast. Too slow. Too calm.
"Hey, orphan."
The voice snapped him out of it.
A hand shoved him from behind, nearly sending him sprawling. Laughter followed immediately. Three boys blocked his path, all taller, broader, confident in the way only people who had never been powerless could be.
"You think you're special now?" one of them sneered. "Been acting weird lately."
Eli bent to pick up his fallen books.
"Leave him," a teacher said half-heartedly from a distance, already turning away.
The boys smirked.
They kicked his bag down the hallway.
Eli didn't fight back.
He never did.
During class, chalk squeaked against the board as the teacher droned on. Eli stared at his notebook without seeing the words. The ember pulsed faintly each time someone laughed behind him, each insult landing heavier than it should have.
At lunch, he sat alone.
A girl glanced at him, hesitated, then looked away when her friends whispered something. Eli pretended not to notice.
By the end of the day, his head throbbed.
He felt watched.
Not by students.
By something else.
He walked home instead of taking the bus.
The city felt tighter as evening approached.
He skipped dinner. There was nothing waiting for him anyway. His foster parents argued loudly in the living room as he passed, voices sharp and careless.
"You're late," his foster father snapped.
"I had school," Eli said.
"Excuses."
Eli shut the door behind him and left.
The city streets were quieter after dark, bathed in flickering neon and weak streetlights. Wind pushed trash along the sidewalks. Somewhere nearby, music thumped faintly through apartment walls.
Eli liked the walk.
Movement helped him think.
Or at least helped him not think.
He didn't realize he was being followed at first.
It was the ember that warned him.
Halfway down an alley, the warmth in his chest spiked sharply, sending a jolt through his nerves. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. His steps slowed without conscious thought.
Someone was behind him.
Eli stopped walking.
The footsteps stopped too.
The silence stretched.
He turned just in time to see a man step into the light.
Tall.
Pale.
Impossibly calm.
"Well," the stranger said pleasantly, clapping slowly, "you're much less impressive than I expected."
Eli's heart slammed against his ribs.
"Who are you?" he asked, backing away.
The man smiled.
"A concerned citizen," he replied. "You caused quite a disturbance."
More figures stepped out of the shadows.
Men and women dressed in tailored suits, elegant dresses, polished shoes.
"You're human," the first vampire said thoughtfully. "But you smell like something else."
Eli felt the ember in his chest flare.
Instinct took over.
He ran.
He didn't look back.
Eli sprinted down the alley, shoes slapping against wet concrete, breath tearing in and out of his lungs. His backpack bounced painfully against his spine, the weight throwing him off balance, but he didn't slow down. He couldn't.
The ember in his chest burned hot now, no longer a warning but a scream.
Something slammed into the ground behind him.
The shockwave knocked him forward. He hit the pavement hard, palms scraping raw as he skidded several feet. Pain exploded up his arms, but adrenaline drowned it out. He rolled just as claws tore through the air where his head had been a moment earlier.
Concrete shattered.
Chunks of brick rained down around him.
Eli scrambled to his feet and ran again, heart hammering so violently he thought it might burst. The city blurred around him—dumpsters, fire escapes, flickering lights streaking together as his vision tunneled.
A shape dropped from above.
He barely managed to stop in time.
A vampire stood at the mouth of the alley now, blocking the exit. Up close, the thing looked even less human. Its skin was pale to the point of translucence, veins dark and branching beneath the surface. Its eyes glowed red, fixed on him with hungry amusement.
"You're fast," it said, tilting its head. "For food."
Eli spun around.
More of them were there.
They hadn't chased him like humans would have. They'd played with him. Herded him.
Hands grabbed his arms from behind, iron-strong fingers digging into muscle and bone. He screamed as something sharp raked across his back, tearing through fabric and skin alike. Warm blood soaked into his hoodie, the sensation terrifyingly real.
"Careful," a voice said lazily. "He's fragile."
They dragged him away as if he weighed nothing.
They took him places the city pretended didn't exist.
Through abandoned buildings where the walls wept moisture and the floors sagged with rot. Down rusted stairwells that spiraled deep underground. Through tunnels carved into the earth itself, where the air was damp and heavy and smelled faintly of iron.
Eli lost all sense of direction.
Every step sent pain lancing through his back. Blood dripped onto the stone floor, each drop echoing too loudly in the silence. The ember in his chest pulsed erratically, flaring whenever one of the vampires drew too close, recoiling when strange symbols carved into the walls came into view.
They threw him into a room bathed in red light.
The door slammed shut behind him.
Chains shot from the walls with violent force, wrapping around his wrists and ankles before he could react. They yanked him backward, slamming his spine against cold concrete. Agony exploded through his limbs.
He screamed.
The chains burned where they touched him not heat, but something deeper, like they were biting into his soul. Symbols were etched into the metal, glowing faintly as they tightened, making the ember in his chest scream in protest.
The first vampire stepped forward, adjusting his cuffs calmly.
"Let's start simple," he said. "Scream."
Pain followed.
Not the clean pain of a punch or a cut. This was deliberate. Measured. They carved into him slowly, watching how his body reacted, how quickly his wounds closed, how the ember responded to each injury.
Blood pooled on the floor.
Eli begged at first.
Then he screamed.
Then he went silent.
Time lost meaning.
Sometimes he drifted, half-conscious, trapped between pain and darkness. Sometimes he was fully aware, counting his breaths, clinging to the sound of his own heartbeat just to stay grounded.
They talked while they hurt him.
"Not normal," one muttered.
"Angels were involved," another said quietly.
"Interesting."
The word made Eli want to laugh and cry at the same time.
At some point, exhaustion overtook fear.
His head sagged forward, chin resting against his chest. Blood dripped steadily from his fingertips. The world narrowed to the ember inside him—burning, pulsing, growing angrier with every second.
I'm tired, he thought.
Tired of running.
Tired of hurting.
Tired of being weak.
Something inside him cracked.
The chains groaned.
A thin line of light crept along the symbols carved into the metal not red, not white, but gold.
One of the vampires frowned. "Did you see that"
The chains shattered.
The explosion hurled bodies across the room. Concrete fractured. The red lights burst overhead, plunging the chamber into chaos.
Eli lifted his head slowly.
His eyes glowed faintly gold.
The ember was no longer an ember.
It was a fire.
"What…" his voice came out wrong, layered, echoing strangely in the ruined room. "What did you do to me?"
Pressure rolled outward from his body in waves. Vampires slammed into walls, bones cracking audibly. One tried to scream and failed, crushed flat against the stone by invisible force.
Light flooded the chamber, raw and uncontrolled, tearing through shadows like a living thing.
Then silence.
Eli collapsed.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
Far above the city, on a rooftop overlooking the sea of lights below, a figure stood motionless.
Red eyes watched the streets beneath.
"So," a voice murmured, ancient and amused, wings unfolding slowly behind its back, "the angels missed one."
The wind howled around the building, carrying the scent of blood.
The hunt had begun.