Chapter 1: The Graveyard Shift Has a Body

Chapter 1: The Graveyard Shift Has a Body

The fluorescent lights of the "24/7 Gas & Go" hummed a dreary, monotonous tune that Kaelen Vance had come to associate with the taste of ash. For eighty-four years he had walked the earth, and for the last twelve, he had spent his nights in this purgatory of stale coffee, expiring hot dogs, and the sickly sweet smell of cherry air freshener failing to mask the reek of gasoline. It was a perfect hell. It was the perfect hiding place.

Here, under the relentless hum and the garish glow, he was just Kael, the quiet guy who worked the graveyard shift. No one looked twice at his perpetually tired eyes, mistaking the ancient exhaustion of an undead predator for simple burnout. No one questioned why he only ever worked nights. In the sprawling, gritty metropolis of Aethelburg, a man keeping to himself was a virtue, not a curiosity.

All he wanted was to be left alone. To clock in, wipe down the perpetually grimy counters, restock the neon-colored energy drinks, and clock out before the sun’s first rays could kiss the horizon. The grand politics of the Nocturne District, the intricate power plays of the Vampire Houses, the cold fury of Lady Evangeline Valerius who had declared him Exile—it was all a distant, bitter memory. A life he had survived by pretending it never existed.

The bell above the door chimed, a tinny, cheerful sound that grated on his enhanced senses. A beat-up sedan had screeched into the rain-slicked lot, its engine coughing black smoke. The passenger door flew open and a figure was unceremoniously shoved out, stumbling onto the asphalt. The car peeled away with a squeal of tortured rubber, leaving the person huddled in the spreading puddle of rainbow-sheened water.

Kaelen’s jaw tightened. Another drunk, probably. Or a deal gone bad. Not his problem. His only job was to sell overpriced junk food and ignore the city’s endless parade of misery.

But then the figure stood up and stumbled towards the entrance. It was a girl, young, maybe early twenties, dressed in the tattered remains of a university sweatshirt and jeans. As she pushed through the glass door, the automatic chime sounding again, a wave of scent hit him so hard it was like a physical blow.

It wasn't just the wet pavement or the cheap perfume. It was blood. Coppery and sharp. But underneath it was something else, something acrid and primal that every vampire knew instinctively. The smell of a fresh, violent Turning. The scent of a soul being ripped apart and haphazardly stitched back together with hunger and fear.

Her dark hair was plastered to her face, her eyes wide with a terror so profound it seemed to swallow the dim light of the store. But as her gaze swept past the aisles of chips and landed on him, Kaelen saw it—a faint, flickering crimson deep within her pupils. The tell-tale sign of a fledgling whose hunger was a raging, uncontrolled inferno.

She didn't say a word, just lurched past him, her movements jerky and uncoordinated, like a puppet with tangled strings. She slammed her way into the customer restroom and the lock clicked shut with a sound that echoed like a gunshot in the silent store.

Kaelen stood frozen for a full ten seconds, his mind racing. Walk away. This is not your problem. This is a death sentence wrapped in college-girl clothing.

An illegal Turning was the highest crime in Aethelburg's vampiric society. The Houses maintained their power through absolute control over the creation of new vampires. A "back-alley childe" like her was an anomaly, a loose thread in their perfect tapestry. Their solution to loose threads was simple: find the thread, find whoever held it, and burn them both. If House Valerius found him with her, his status as a mere Exile would be upgraded to a pile of dust.

He reached under the counter, his hand brushing past the register key and closing around the worn, wooden handle of a tire iron. A pathetic weapon, but comforting. His desire for invisibility was a roaring siren in his head, but his survival instinct was louder. A panicked fledgling, lost to the bloodlust, could bring the whole damn city down on this gas station. Human police, or worse, the Order. He couldn't risk it. This mess had landed on his doorstep, and he had to clean it up before it stained him permanently.

With practiced efficiency, he flipped the neon "OPEN" sign to "CLOSED," locked the front door, and pulled down the greasy security blind. The store was plunged into a shadowed twilight, lit only by the hum of the drink coolers. He grabbed the janitor's keys from the hook. The one labeled "RESTROOM" felt unnaturally heavy in his hand.

As he approached the door, he could hear sounds from within. A choked, terrified sob, followed by a wet, retching cough. Then, a low growl that was utterly inhuman. It was the sound of a cornered animal, one that didn't yet understand its own claws and fangs.

"Hey," he said, his voice a low, calm rumble. "You need to open the door."

A frantic scrabbling sound answered him. "Go away! Leave me alone! I don't... I don't feel right."

"I know," Kaelen said, his hand on the doorknob. "That's why you have to open the door. I can help."

"Help me?" Her voice cracked, a shard of hysteria breaking through. "What's happening to me? My throat... it's burning. I'm so... thirsty."

The word hung in the air, thick and dangerous. Thirsty. The all-consuming, world-ending thirst of the newly Made.

He didn't wait for another reply. He inserted the key, but the lock was jammed from the inside. With a sigh of resignation, he gripped the knob, focused a flicker of his unnatural strength into his wrist, and twisted. There was a sharp crack of tortured metal, and the door swung inward.

The scene was worse than he'd imagined. The small room stank of blood, fear, and bile. The girl—Elara, according to the name stitched on her torn sweatshirt—was huddled in the corner between the toilet and the grimy wall, trying to make herself as small as possible. The white tiles around her were splattered with crimson. Two ragged, weeping puncture marks marred the side of her neck, a butcher's work, not a creator's.

Her head snapped up as he entered, and her crimson-flecked eyes locked onto his. The fear was still there, but now it was mixed with something else. A raw, predatory focus. Her lips were pulled back from her teeth in a nascent snarl, and he could see her gums were inflamed and her canines subtly, painfully elongated. She was a bomb, seconds from detonation.

"You're a problem," Kaelen stated flatly, his voice devoid of sympathy. It was a simple diagnosis of his situation.

"Please," she whimpered, the snarl dissolving back into terror. "I don't know what's happening."

He took a cautious step inside, keeping his weight balanced, ready to move. "Someone did this to you. They bit you, they fed you their blood, and they left you. They broke the Law."

"Law? What are you talking about?" she sobbed, clutching her head. "I just want to go home."

"You don't have a home anymore," he said, the words falling like chips of ice. "Welcome to the graveyard shift. It lasts forever."

It was a cruel thing to say, but she needed to understand the gravity of her situation. She was no longer human. She was contraband. Property to be seized and destroyed. And by being in the same room with her, so was he.

Suddenly, the sound of tires crunching slowly on the gravel outside cut through the air. Kaelen went rigid, his senses screaming. He moved to the small, grimy window of the restroom in a blur of motion, peering through a crack in the blinds.

A black van, sleek and unmarked, had parked across the street. Not police. Something worse. For a horrifying second, he thought it was a House Enforcer's vehicle. But then, two figures emerged, and the faint moonlight caught the sigil emblazoned on their black tactical vests: a radiant sunburst cradling a silver sword.

The Order of the Argent Sun.

Fanatical, merciless, human hunters who saw all "Anomalies" as demonic filth to be purged with fire and steel. They didn't ask questions. They didn't care about Vampire Law. They just killed.

Kaelen’s blood ran cold. The girl's uncontrolled, chaotic transformation was like a flare in the dark, a beacon of supernatural energy. And it hadn't just attracted his attention. It had called the wolves to the door.

His simple, soul-crushing, invisible life was over. The graveyard shift didn't just have a body tonight. It had a target. And he was standing right next to it.