Chapter IV

First Blood

Grace stepped out through the bar’s back door, heels landing softly on wet stone.

The alley outside was dark, rain-slick, trash bins lined against one wall. Quiet. Too quiet. The city’s muffled heartbeat didn’t reach here.

Adrian dropped down beside her, landing harder than he meant to. For a few paces, he stayed close, eyes locked on the dark strip of blood as if sheer will might drag it back into the bar where it belonged.
They followed the thin trail, two parallel streaks scuffed into the wet stone. It wound behind the bar, down the slight incline towards the service road. Every so often, she paused — listening, waiting for movement.

Nothing. Just the faint drip of rain from awnings above.

Then she saw it.

The Marked lay near the gutter.

Face down. Throat torn open with brutal efficiency. Blood had thinned into a dark, diluted stream, slipping towards the storm drain at the edge of the alley.

Grace knelt, two fingers brushing his neck.

Nothing.

No pulse. No lingering warmth.

And something else — subtler, more disturbing.

The Mark was gone.

Not fractured. Not damaged. Simply absent, as though someone had reached into the system and removed it cleanly, leaving no trace behind.

Her chest tightened with something sharp and cold, something dangerously close to grief. He hadn’t deserved this. Not for being loyal. Not for doing his job. The Mark wasn’t supposed to vanish. It could fail, fracture, be reassigned — but not erased. Not like this.

Adrian had fallen back a few steps, as if instinct had yanked him out of the blood’s reach. One hand braced against the brick wall as though the ground might tilt beneath him.
“He didn’t suffer,” Grace said quietly. It wasn’t comfort. Just assessment.
Adrian swallowed. “Radek’s going to want answers,” he said, voice thin. “And I don’t have any. Who would do this?”

Grace didn’t answer. Her gaze had fixed on the storm drain.

The metal grate wasn’t broken.

It had been opened.

Carefully.

She straightened and pulled out her phone.

“David,” she said when he answered. “Radek’s Marked is dead. Throat torn. Drag marks lead into the drainage system.”

Silence on the line. Then a measured pause.

“I’m sending someone,” David said. “Stay where you are. Do not go down alone.”

“I won’t,” Grace replied.

She ended the call before he could add anything else.

The alley felt narrower now. As if the city itself were paying attention.

✦ ✦ ✦

The corridor smelled of stone and cleaning solvent.

Christopher walked without sound, out of habit rather than effort, shoes placing themselves where echoes wouldn’t linger. Vienna’s underground spaces were less ceremonial than London’s — functional, stripped of ornament, built for passage rather than presence.

Arthur walked beside him.

That alone was wrong.

Arthur’s steps did echo — they always did.

Measured. Heavy. The sound of a man who expected space to accommodate him.

Christopher slowed half a step before he consciously decided to. He turned his head slightly.

“You weren’t listed on the Vienna rotation.”

Arthur — grey at the temples, face set in lines earned over decades — didn’t look at him. “Schedules change.”

They reached the stairwell at the end of the corridor. Narrow. Unmonitored. A single fluorescent light flickered overhead, buzzing faintly.

Christopher stopped.

Arthur took one more step.

The impact came without warning.

Not pain at first — pressure. A violent, absolute force driving into his chest, pinning him back against the wall. For a fractured second, Christopher thought he’d been shoved.

Then the pressure locked.

A stake.

Driven cleanly between his ribs, precise to the millimetre.

The world lurched.

Every muscle forgot how to obey. His body went traitorous and still, strength draining out of him in a way no training could counter. He slid down the wall, boots scraping uselessly against stone.

Arthur caught him before he hit the floor.

Christopher’s fingers twitched, reaching — more reflex than resistance.

“You —”

The word never finished forming.

Arthur lowered him carefully onto the concrete, arranging him with the same detached efficiency he’d bring to a report. No anger. No haste.

No hesitation.

Christopher stared up at him, mind racing even as his body shut down.

Unauthorized. Unreported. This isn’t procedure. Someone had signed off on this.

Arthur crouched briefly, gaze flicking once to Christopher’s chest.

He adjusted nothing.

Said nothing.

The fluorescent light flickered again, buzzing louder now, the sound stretching thin and distant.

Christopher tried to call whatever passed for life inside him back into motion. Failed. Tried to reach for the blood that should have answered him.

Nothing came.

Arthur straightened.

“You shouldn’t have come,” he said quietly.

Christopher wanted to ask why. Wanted to demand whose authority had been bent far enough to allow this.

The thought never finished forming.

Darkness closed in, thick and absolute.

The last thing he registered was Arthur’s footsteps retreating — not hurried, not hesitant, simply leaving him behind.