When the Commander of the Holy Order of the Swords of Truth tells you that you’re going to find and destroy a demon, you spend a week purifying your heart, then collect Tranquility, the most devoted demon slayer sword I had a bond with, and begin the hunt.

I’d hunted demons before and was moderately confident about my abilities, but this time, he called me in for further instructions and stared at me with the most unnerving gaze, like he was reading my mind, heart, and soul.

“If that’s all, I can get to work,” I said, but I didn’t stand up and take the folder with images of the rising demon’s ritualistic killings. You waited for the Commander to dismiss you.

“This is a special case,” he finally said, and then he pulled out another folder, sliding it across the desk almost reluctantly.

I opened it and read the file, expecting more brutality. Instead of evisceration, there was a mug shot of a female with dark hair and sad eyes. According to the caption, she was a vampire serving time for seventy-six murders. She’d confessed in detail to each one of them. To remember so many deaths, she was either a psychopath who relished the kill, or someone with a conscience where every death hung on her. “She’s the demon’s accomplice?” I asked. That would make it easy to track down the demon if his servant was already behind bars. I’d get the chance to find out the kind of killer she was.

“She’s the demon’s executioner. Unfortunately, she traded one bad master for another. Mr. Good.”

I frowned at my commander, who everyone knew was the most subtle, dangerous, devious creature in the world. Still, I’d much rather have him as a master than a demon or Mr. Good. I was starting to feel sorry for this sad vampire tied to very bad men. “She already killed this demon you’d like me to find? You’d like me to use her to kill him again? I don’t need help, and using someone who has already been so badly used is not what the HOST’s is about.” The Commander’s job was to use people. I understood that, but I still hated it when it applied to someone who hadn’t signed up for the program, even if that person was a murderer.

He tilted his head, almost a nod, but not quite. “I’d like you to redeem her. And this demon is unlike any other you’ve seen. Tralcon was a legend before his Blood opened the way to greater and greater power. You will need her help. And she will need yours.”

I studied the man across the desk. He was using this opportunity with a known murderer to push me away from executioner and towards hero, probably a new angle to his eternal meddling. Ever since he told me that his Miracle wasn’t an eligible match, he’d felt responsible for my unhappiness. I wasn’t unhappy. I loved my work, my duty, my title of reaper. Once I’d started hunting down and executing the worst offenders in our world, I’d been at peace with my goblin blood, that streak that made me ineligible for the one woman who had ever interested me. The goblin made it easier to hunt and kill. Nothing else mattered.

If I were him, having a reaper who enjoyed his job so much could be problematic. Still, I didn’t see how trying to redeem some sad vampire could possibly help. Happily, I wasn’t the commander who needed to know everything. I simply obeyed. That is, I agreed and then adapted as circumstances required. This vampire would escape from me, and I’d let her. You didn’t redeem other people; you simply showed them the way. They had to take their own steps towards the light.

“You aren’t arguing,” the Commander finally said.

“If you’d like me to redeem a renowned killer, then I will do my best.”

He grunted, narrowing his eyes at me. “You don’t approve.”

“I am not the one who bears the weight of responsibility.”

“You’re clever enough that you could be.”

I leaned slightly away from him automatically. I’d climbed the ranks in HOST’s faster than most of my brothers in arms, but I wasn’t interested in managing other angels. “If I have any cleverness, I will use it to avoid such situations.”

He laughed softly and gestured me to my feet. “Be gentle with her. You’ll take her from the prison in Apple City this afternoon.” Be gentle with her instead of making certain she didn’t escape? What plans did the Commander have for her? Was he actually thinking of using her skills in the future as a mercenary hire?

I bowed, but had a bad taste in my mouth as I left his office.

***

I stood in the shadows, willing them to wrap around me as she came out, this vampire murderer I was supposed to redeem. She hesitated at the gates, a splash of red in the otherwise gloomy day. Would she burn from the light? I should have met her inside, but I disliked the heavy scent of corruption. Even being on the roof was enough.

She walked out resolutely, a demure figure in red, looking more human than vampire. And she was beautiful. Beauty rarely struck me; surrounded by angels and heavenly choirs tended to dull that sense, but she was nothing like what I’d expected. There was an absolute stillness to her, even when she moved, a stillness that harkened to deep waters.

She looked around, searching for me, and then she found me. In spite of the darkness I’d wrapped around myself, she saw through me with a glance. In that one look, I knew her. She wasn’t a killer consumed with guilt, and she wasn’t a killer relishing the kill. She was an accountant. She kept her kills organized in her head because that’s how she kept everything. She would be an excellent hire, moved by reason over emotion. She truly was an executioner, removing the corrupt from the world. She was like me. Only so very delicate, vulnerable to the machinations of the powerful, who saw her as a weapon to be used. She was the most beautiful weapon I’d ever seen.

I released my shadows and stepped forward. Her eyes widened, and she stumbled, thrown off by something about me. Was it the shard wings? No, she was staring at my face like she’d never seen an angel before. I had clear documentation that she not only knew them, she killed them.

No, she wasn’t looking at me like she’d never seen me before, but like I was someone she knew, someone she’d thought was long dead. Did she know one of my ancestors? How old was she?

She stood staring at me as I walked forward, taking my time, dropping more shadows as I neared her. She was more beautiful the closer I got, and she smelled like floral bath products. What did she smell like beneath the chemicals?

“I'm Gavriel, and you are…” I murmured, keeping my voice low. Vampires were sensitive to sound, and she’d been crammed in a jail with a thousand other people, loud, aggressive. Not the place a person like her should be. Such stillness.

“Names aren't important.” Her voice was as soft as mine, but there was a current of desolation that sent a ripple through me. She was still because she was used to disappearing, to being a weapon instead of a person.

I disliked that, particularly my part in it. Redeem could mean actual salvation, but it could also mean removing her from the prison and using her in a worthy cause without paying any attention to her will. She didn’t smile at me and try to use her unearthly beauty to put down my guard, simply studied me with almost uncomfortable intensity. Did she know me? Was I one of her targets before she was taken to prison?

“Names are very important, and so is trust between partners.” I wasn’t going to mold her into a tool for another master. If we were working together, then I was giving her the same respect I gave anyone I worked with.

“Partners? You're my parole officer, not my friend.” Her voice was hard, caution covering up her open fascination. That’s right. Weapons didn’t have friends.

But she wasn’t a weapon anymore. She could help me find this demon, but she wasn’t killing him. She wasn’t a tool in my hand.

"I could be both." I smiled at her even though my face was not made for smiling. She was even less used to smiling than I was. Her sneer was so charming. Did she realize how refreshing it was to deal with honest emotions instead of twisted manipulations?

“I don't have friends.” She took a breath, and I realized she’d been holding it up until that moment. Vampires didn’t need to breathe. She didn’t feel like a vampire, but that unnecessary breath drove home the point. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t be a valuable asset to the team.” Her eyes were intent, sincere, resolute. It was like talking to an angel.

I was notoriously bad at talking to female angels. They were so… terrifying.

“Team?”

Her eyes flickered red, dark, deep red like a garnet catching the last lines of golden sunshine. She was so beautiful. She licked her lips, and I was aware of the way she was looking at me now, the way most vampires looked at me, smelling my heavenly blood, craving it.

She licked her perfect red lips and then blinked, and the bloodlust was gone. She had so much control. Was I disappointed? Yes. How odd.

Her voice was soft, words quick. “Your team leader said that I had to work as a team with you. I don’t usually have a partner, except for Crucible, my ferret.” She looked around, like there might be someone else on the high-security prison’s rooftop who would use such shocking information against her. Come to think of it, confessing to a pet was very unlike a vampire.

“You're surprisingly chatty for a vampire.”

She blinked at me. That’s when I realized that she hadn’t blinked before. She didn’t feel like a vampire, even with the bloodlust. “And you’re surprisingly chatty for an angel of death."

I closed in because those weren’t terms you just threw around in the open air. “Angel of death?” Had she really had an assignment to kill me before? How else would she know so much about me unless she’d done research? And if she was supposed to kill me, why hadn’t she? I would have remembered an attempt from this beauty.

“Are you not the Reaper? Your team leader told me that I’d be working with the angel of death.” She lifted her chin as she tried to maintain authority and eye contact in spite of how much shorter than me she was.

“My position as Reaper is supposed to be classified.”

“You’ll have to take that up with Richard.” Her eyes flashed red once again, craving my blood, but once again controlling her craving beautifully. Richard? She thought that the Commander of HOST’s was a team leader? Why hadn’t he told her who he was? Perhaps she never met him. No, he was playing games with her.

“My team leader, Richard?” It wasn’t fair for someone like him to play with someone like her. He had all the power. He didn’t need to leave her in the dark as well.

“I know the demon you’re hunting better than anyone. You need me,” she said, eyes large and luminous. Determined, desperate to stop this growing evil. No, I wouldn’t need to watch her so that she didn’t escape. I needed to watch that she didn’t take action without me.

I stepped towards her and released the last shadows, showing her my wings as clearly as it was possible to do on such an overcast day. I let her see me, all of me, the death and the resolve. I couldn’t tell her what the Commander had chosen to keep secret, but I could show her myself. I’d be honest with her.

I kept my voice gentle, “I need you? You want to hunt the demon that has already destroyed your life? I am surprised.” She was nothing like any vampire I’d ever met. Driven by duty and will.

She shifted slightly, a shadow passing over her face as she thought of the demon she wanted to kill. Again. “I know what he is and what he does. There is no surprise that someone who knew him so well would want to destroy him like I did the first time.”

She really didn’t understand what motivated most people who lacked her character. "Some surprises can be good."

She laughed, and it was like death and sweet ecstasy. It didn’t last long, but it shook my soul. She was so beautiful.

She stared at me. “Sorry, you weren't joking? That is sweet. You clearly haven't lived long enough.” She muttered under her breath, like I couldn’t clearly hear her. “And this child is the one assigned to destroy Tralcon? Angels are so delusional.”

A child? Me? It was absolutely flummoxing. I was death. I was thirty-seven. I was an old bachelor who the Commander had stopped trying to marry off. She saw me as a child? Unthinkable. Insulting. But also amusing, and I was rarely amused. I spoke clearly. "We also have extremely good hearing. You're calling me a child? And in third person? Vampires. So ill-mannered."

She flashed her fangs in a smile that gave a hint to who she was when she allowed herself to be a person. "You have no idea how 'ill-mannered' I can be. I'm an assassin. I was made for killing, not polite society."

Which was exactly what I would have said about myself. Strange to find someone who matched my soul. Stranger still that she was a vampire.

This is what it felt like: the early stages of fascination that led to love, the kind of love that an angel never recovered from. I could walk away, tell the Commander that I refused to take a corruptible vampire to war against a demon. I could protect my heart, my soul, but she had a purpose, and she would accomplish it whether I was there or not. No prison could contain someone with a cause. She would find her way to destroy this evil that she hated with her whole soul, that she felt responsible for. And I would be there to make certain she survived the encounter, soul intact.

I nodded at her. "In that case, this child will have to teach you how to dance.”

Dancing with her would be an experience I’d remember forever. I had no expectations of finding happiness with another person. I’d given up on duty when I realized that my goblin blood would always be an impossible barrier to anyone with a whole soul. But she was a vampire. She didn’t expect happily ever after. She didn’t expect anything but misery. At the same time, she carried peace with her along with her conviction.

Talking with her was a dance of words, clever parries that spoke to my heart, my mind, waking me up to the possibilities. A goblin could love a vampire, and vice versa. And we had so many of the same interests. Word play. Poetry. Killing corrupt angels. Smelling corruption.

She got close enough to rip out my throat, but instead she smelled me. Her eyes darkened with hunger that made my own mouth water as she leaned closer, close enough that I could have turned my head and kissed her.

What would a vampire taste like?

For a second she stared at me like she was also thinking what an angel would taste like before she reclaimed her distance. I hated it. I hadn’t smelled her, and I needed to return the favor. It was good manners. And my streak of goblin needed to taste her in some way. Scent would work. For now.

I asked for her permission to invade her space and smell her as uncivilized as a vampire and goblin could be.

“Of course. I’d be delighted.” Those words with those large eyes filled with horror strummed at something deep beneath my skin. She didn’t want me to smell her, but she’d allow it. She’d allow my goblin to relish in her scent.

She held perfectly still as I closed in, feeling like a predator, tracking all of her reactions, her held breath, her perfect stillness, except for those eyes, searching mine with such agonizing intensity. I should not play this game of desire. I shouldn’t humor the goblin in me. But I would anyway.

I bent my head to her throat and opened my mouth, stretching my senses as I devoured her essence, parsing through the top-notes of floral fakery to the woman underneath. Was anything more revealing than scent? What I smelled past the synthetics was as shocking as ice and as delicious as heaven.

Purity.

She was as pure and untouched as snow, a lily unblemished by corruption. The goblin wanted the desire, the forbidden, but instead found what the angel would die to protect.

I was lost in that scent, her goodness and perfect resolve. I was undone and remade in that moment of perfect clarity.

She was mine to protect. To love. To cherish. No matter the price. Whatever else she was or had been, she was my angel.