Chapter 1: The Taste of Ash

Chapter 1: The Taste of Ash

The fog in Mayfair had a different quality than in the rest of London. It was a cleaner, more expensive sort of gloom, clinging to the polished brass knockers and pristine Georgian facades like a shroud of grey silk. It tasted less of coal smoke and desperation, more of damp stone and old money. Tonight, it also tasted of death.

I stood across the street from the crime scene, letting the mist curl around the worn collar of my leather trench coat. The gaslamp above me hissed, casting my shadow long and skeletal on the wet pavement. From here, I could see the pulsing cherry-and-blue lights painting the old-world architecture in jarring, modern strokes. Another one for the Tenebrous Hound.

A text message vibrated in my pocket. It was from my only friend on the force.

Davies: Penthouse. Get up here. It’s a weird one, Harper.

‘Weird’ was Inspector Frank Davies’s codeword for my entire life.

I crossed the street, ducking under the police tape. A young constable, barely old enough to shave, moved to stop me. His eyes were wide, still bright with a belief in a world that made sense.

“Sorry sir, this is a restricted…”

“He’s with me,” a gravelly voice cut through the fog.

Inspector Davies stood at the building’s grand entrance, a fortress of rumpled tweed and exhaustion. His face was a roadmap of sleepless nights and bad coffee, but his eyes, weary as they were, missed nothing. He gestured with his chin. “Glad you could make it. Hope I didn’t interrupt your beauty sleep.”

“You know I don’t sleep, Frank,” I said, falling into step beside him. “It’s bad for my complexion.”

He grunted, leading me into an opulent lobby of marble and gold. “Save the jokes. This one… this one’s going to make my retirement paperwork a nightmare.”

The elevator ride to the penthouse was silent. The crime scene was even quieter. It was a sprawling, minimalist space with floor-to-ceiling windows that should have offered a god’s-eye view of London. Tonight, they just reflected the sterile horror within.

The victim was, or had been, Sir Alistair Finch—a titan of industry with a portfolio as large as his list of enemies. He was slumped in an Eames chair, dressed in a silk robe, a crystal tumbler of what was probably single-malt scotch still resting near his hand. He looked… peaceful. Too peaceful.

Except for the gaping hole in his chest.

It wasn't a gunshot or a stab wound. The edges were grey and brittle, flaking away like old parchment. From the wound outwards, a web of black, vein-like lines spread across his skin, as if he were a piece of porcelain shattered from within. The air smelled faintly of ozone and burnt sugar.

“No forced entry. Security systems were clean. Staff found him an hour ago,” Davies said, keeping his distance. “Coroner’s preliminary is baffled. Says it looks like every cell in his body just… gave up. Spontaneously combusted from the inside out.”

I pulled my black leather gloves on tighter, a habit as ingrained as breathing. My gaze swept the room. To the mundane eye, it was immaculate. But I wasn't mundane.

I focused, letting the world fade to monochrome. A low hum started in the back of my skull as my Nether-Sight kicked in. The room bloomed with faint, ethereal light. Lingering emotional residue, splashes of fear and surprise, clung to the furniture like ghostly paint. But near the body, the energy was different. It was a sickly violet, corrupted and alien. Scrawled on the floor beneath the chair, visible only to my sight, was a sigil—a complex knot of intersecting lines and jagged curves I’d never seen before.

“Something’s here,” I murmured. “Not demonic. Not Fae.”

Davies just nodded, chewing on the end of an unlit cigarette. He knew not to ask for details. He just needed the what, not the how.

“Can you… do your thing?” he asked, his voice low.

My jaw tightened. “My thing” was a curse. A gift from a demon father I’d never met, passed down to his half-breed son. Psychometry. The ability to read the history of an object, a place, a person, through touch. For me, it was specialized. I only saw one thing: the moment of death.

Desire and duty warred within me. The desire to know, to solve the puzzle, and the duty I felt to the silent victim. The obstacle was the price. Every time I did this, a piece of someone else’s agony became my own.

“Yeah,” I sighed, stepping forward. “Keep everyone back.”

I knelt beside the body. The smell of ash was stronger now, a dry, suffocating scent that clung to the back of my throat. This was the part I hated. Slowly, deliberately, I peeled off my right glove. The air felt cold against my bare skin, a prelude to the storm. My hand trembled slightly as I reached for Sir Alistair’s cold, lifeless one.

The moment my fingertips made contact, the world shattered.

—FWOOSH!—

Agony. Not fire, but its opposite. A cold that burned, a void that consumed. I was Sir Alistair Finch. I was sitting in my chair, savoring the oaky burn of the Macallan 50. A shadow detached itself from the corner of the room, a place where no shadow should be.

It wasn't a person. It was a hole in the universe, shaped like a man. It had no face, no features, just an abyss that drank the light. Its presence was a silent scream that tore at the sanity.

“Who… who are you?” I/Alistair stammered, the glass trembling in my hand.

The shadow-thing didn’t speak. It raised a hand that was nothing but deeper darkness. I felt a pressure in my chest, a terrible implosion. My very life force, my soul, was being siphoned away, drawn into that hungry void. The sigil I’d seen with my Nether-Sight blazed on the floor, a violet beacon of damnation.

My body turned to dust from the inside out. My last sight was of that impossible silhouette, a perfect void against the glittering lights of the city I owned.

I snatched my hand back with a choked gasp, stumbling away from the body and collapsing against a wall. My chest heaved. The taste of ash was on my tongue, the phantom pain of dissolution echoing through my bones.

“Sabre!” Davies was at my side in an instant, his hand on my shoulder. “What did you see?”

I shoved my glove back on, the leather a welcome barrier against the world. “A shadow,” I rasped, my own grey eyes flaring with a faint amber glow. “Something that isn’t there. It… it unmade him.”

Before Davies could press further, the smooth glide of the elevator doors opening cut through the morgue-like silence of the room. Two uniformed officers stood aside stiffly, making way for the newcomer.

My first thought was that she was a hallucination, an aftershock from the vision. She was impossibly beautiful, with hair like spun silver-gold braided down her back and eyes the color of a wrathful sapphire sky. She wore a white pantsuit so perfectly tailored it seemed sculpted from light, its fabric subtly woven with celestial patterns. A palpable aura of power and judgment radiated from her, pressing down on the room, making the air thick and heavy.

She wasn't police. She wasn't government. She was something else entirely. Something ancient and terrifyingly pure.

Her piercing blue gaze swept the room, dismissing the forensics team, ignoring Davies, and landing squarely on me. There was no curiosity in her eyes, only cold, righteous condemnation. A faint, holy light shimmered within their depths.

“The scene is sealed,” she stated, her voice like the chime of a crystal bell, yet holding the unyielding force of a divine decree. “By the authority of the Empyrean Guard, this matter is now under our jurisdiction.”

Davies took a step forward, his brow furrowed. “Now hold on a minute. Who the hell are you? This is a Metropolitan Police investigation.”

She didn’t even deign to look at him. Her focus remained locked on me, dissecting me layer by layer. “You will leave, Inspector. All of you.” It wasn’t a request.

Her eyes narrowed on me, a flicker of disgust in their perfect blue depths. “And you,” she said, the word dripping with celestial contempt. “Abomination. Your presence here defiles this investigation.”

I pushed myself off the wall, the adrenaline from the vision giving way to a familiar, defiant anger. The amber in my eyes burned a little brighter.

“The name’s Sabre Harper,” I shot back, my voice rougher than I intended. “And I was just leaving. The killer was a shadow, it feeds on life, and it’s marked by a sigil you won’t find in any human grimoire. Good luck with the paperwork.”

I made to brush past her, but she moved with impossible grace, blocking my path. The air between us crackled with a tension that was more than just animosity. It was the friction of two opposing poles of existence forced into proximity—the tainted dark and the blinding light.

“You are a half-breed,” she said, her voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. “A stain upon the mortal coil. Your very existence is a violation of the Accords. You are not leaving. You are a person of interest.”

I let out a short, harsh laugh. “Lady, you have no idea how interesting I can be.”

Her name was Seraphina, and as she stood there, an avenging angel in the heart of my city, I knew my life, already a complicated shade of grey, was about to be plunged into a war of absolute black and white. And I was standing right in the middle.