1 - RAVENNA

Content note: This story contains supernatural violence and unsettling creature imagery, body possession, references to childhood homelessness and trauma, strong language, and fade to black sensual romantic content.

1 - RAVENNA

Officer Alico Argent was pretending not to want a cookie. He sat at the far end of the counter with one gloved hand around a steaming cup of Lapsang Souchong and the other resting beside his phone.

It was two in the morning. Outside, rain dragged violet neon down the bakery windows.

Beyond the glass, Crescent Avenue was a maze of aging dark brick, tram cables, and apartment windows glowing through industrial haze. Some buildings still carried scars from the old Umbral years beneath their newer paint. Respa was very good at covering up its problems and calling it progress.

Inside, the last batch of cinnamon stars cooled on wire racks while the ovens ticked softly behind me. Alico stared at the two halves of a cookie beside his saucer.

“Hey. Ravenna. I did not order this,” he said, his voice low and steady.

He picked up one half of the cookie, the warm aroma wafting between us. “It’s also broken down the middle,” he added, a hint of amusement flickering in his violet eyes.

“I apologize, Officer. I thought you wouldn’t mind. Completely unsellable, but it’s free,” I replied, my heart racing slightly as he took a bite. I turned back toward the cooling racks, hoping he wouldn’t catch the smile tugging at my lips.

After months of serving him tea, I had learned that Officer Alico Argent was a man of particular habits. He spoke little, yet his gaze absorbed everything—an intensity that made me acutely aware of his presence. There was a perpetual edge to him, an air of suspicion directed at anyone who dared to enjoy themselves without oversight.

He often positioned himself where he could see both entrances, his posture relaxed yet alert, casting shadows across the countertop. The way he leaned slightly forward, eyes narrowed, made me suspect he disliked anyone approaching from behind.

He also tipped when he didn’t have to. Though he had never once asked for a damaged cookie, he devoured every one I placed beside his cup, as if savoring the sweetness of the moment. On nights he didn’t come in, an unsettling worry would creep in. I’d find myself glancing toward the door whenever the bell chimed, a flutter of anxiety tightening my chest. Respa wasn’t exactly the safest city to work nights in, especially for a police officer.

Not that I’d ever admit my concern to him. He’d probably launch into a lecture about how worrying is bad for your health or something equally unromantic.

“Thank you, Ravenna,” he said most nights, his voice wrapping around my name like a warm embrace. Then he’d step out into the rain-soaked city, leaving me with the lingering scent of his cologne and the taste of something unspoken hanging in the air between us, an electric charge that thrummed beneath the surface.

Respa’s night-shift officers had a reputation for being less open and friendly than the daytime ones.

I worked nights at the bakery for two reasons: one, someone had to, and two, people were more interesting to talk to after midnight.

During the day, the bakery belonged to people with somewhere else to be. Tired parents bought boxes for school events. Office workers checked their phones while waiting for coffee. Couples argued over pastries and schedules.

By one in the morning, all of that urgency had burned off.

The people who came through the door then usually sought something more than sugar and caffeine.

Tonight, the bakery had been quieter than usual. A nurse from the hospital district had stopped in just after midnight and taken two purple-frosted cookies to go.

She'd spent half her shift arguing over an anomalous patient classification, or so she'd informed me between yawns.

Respa liked to believe every supernatural problem could be solved with the proper paperwork. Judging by her expression, the paperwork was winning.

Three tram workers had occupied the window table for nearly an hour, complaining about somebody repeatedly stealing copper wiring beneath Crescent Avenue.

An elderly man who came every Tuesday had fallen asleep over his coffee, and I had let him stay until his cab arrived.

Then the city thinned. It always did eventually.

Respa belonged to different people after two in the morning. Delivery drivers, insomniacs, the less fortunate and the cursed. Empty tram platforms belonged to cleaners and security guards and people who knew why certain streets were brighter than others.

Some of the older streets still curved around sealed foundations left over from the Umbral cleanup. The city had long since removed most of the warning signs, but nobody had bothered to straighten the roads.

The bakery belonged to people who needed somewhere warm before going back into all that dark. I liked being able to hand someone a cup of tea and let them sit without explaining themselves.

Maybe that was why Alico kept coming back. Or maybe he just liked free cookies.

Alico took another bite.

“You’re closing alone tonight.”

I wiped flour from the counter with more concentration than the task required.

“My coworker left early.”

His jaw tightened.

“Ah, I see,” he said coolly.

I wondered if he practiced looking so serious in the mirror.

Sometimes one corner of his mouth betrayed him before the rest of his face could object.

Tonight I got half a second of it, but then his attention shifted toward the window. He had a broodingly handsome face for someone who spent so much time looking disappointed in the general public.

His hair was always neatly combed when he arrived. By the time he left, I usually wanted to ruin it.

From his first visit, I’d suspected some kind of supernatural affinity.

Whatever his abilities, my interest in his visits had very little to do with customer service.

I followed his gaze. Nothing waited outside except a rainy night. A delivery truck moved through the intersection, headlights spilling over the road. Across the street, one of the streetlights flickered.

Alico looked at it for longer than seemed necessary. His fingers remained around the teacup while his gaze stayed fixed beyond the glass.

Another light farther down Crescent Avenue dimmed, recovered, then dimmed again.

I turned back to him.

He had stopped pretending to care about the cookie.

“Is something wrong?”

“Not at all,” he responded.

“You say that like you're disappointed.”

His eyes returned to mine.

“I am a police officer. I’m not much use to the public just sitting here eating complimentary broken cookie pieces, right, Miss Carmine?”

I liked when he called me by my last name. It had an authoritative edge that I couldn’t help but enjoy. It made me want to misbehave just enough to hear him say it again. Nothing criminal. Maybe a creative minor pastry-related offense.

I laughed at his guarded response and then something dark moved beneath his chair.

I stopped laughing. The movement was subtle enough that I almost convinced myself I hadn't seen it.

Alico's shadow stretched toward the counter despite the overhead light being directly above him. Barely an inch. Then it returned to the ordinary shape cast beneath his stool.

We made eye contact.

For one strange second, neither of us spoke.

Officially, Umbrals had been eradicated in Respa seventy-seven years ago. So I convinced myself that I must have been seeing things.

Then he lifted the teacup.

“Your floor is uneven.”

I looked down.

“The tile is absolutely level, officer. The owner is meticulous about things like that.”

He let out a practiced laugh. Then his phone vibrated beside his hand. Alico glanced at the screen. Whatever he saw made him finish the dark tea immediately. He stood and placed several bills beside the cup.

“Officer, you overpaid again.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered, not looking my way.

“You know I can count, right? Alico..."

It was the first time that night I had used his name without Officer in front of it.

A minuscule change in his expression was gone before I could understand it.

“You should throw those away.”

“The cookies?”

“The broken ones, to be more specific. You keep giving them to undeserving officers and we are becoming dependent on them.”

I laughed again. He stepped toward the door.

The darkness beneath him moved with the turn of his body. This time I did not look directly at it. I wasn't sure why.

Respa had its share of people with unusual abilities, and I'd always considered myself good at respecting their privacy. That became harder when one of those abilities seemed interested in me. I was starting to think Alico wasn't the only one who liked visiting the bakery.

Alico paused with his hand against the door.

“Lock it when I leave.”

“You know I always do.”

“Immediately.”

He gave me a brief smile.

“Yes, Officer,” I said, rolling my eyes.

His violet eyes found mine for a long second. Then he stepped into the rain and the electronic bell over the door chimed once.

I turned the lock. Through the glass, I watched him walk toward the black patrol car parked across the avenue.

He never hurried, not even in bad weather. The rain darkened his hair and gathered over the shoulders of his uniform while violet light from the Respa Bakery sign fractured across the wet street around him.

He got into the cruiser and I went back to work.

Twenty-seven minutes later, the ovens were off. The display case had been emptied and the register was balanced. I packed the remaining damaged cookies into a paper sack because throwing away perfectly edible food offended something fundamental in me.

Then I turned off the lights one row at a time.

The bakery changed when it went dark.

During business hours, the windows held heat and conversation.

After closing, reflections took over. Streetlights floated across the glass. The purple sign above the entrance cast a faint wash of color over the tile. My shadow moved between tables as I collected my things.

For a moment, something seemed to move behind me. I turned but there was nothing.

Alico’s voice returned to me.

Lock it when I leave.

I had laughed at him for saying it.

Now I checked the front lock again anyway.

Outside, violet light trembled across the wet pavement. Nobody stood beneath it.

Rain battered the windows. After checking the back door, I let myself out through the front and tested the lock twice. Then I crossed the street to my car.

The city smelled like mildew, concrete, dog piss and hot electrical wire. Somewhere below the avenue, an underground tram passed beneath the street with enough force to tremble through the soles of my shoes.

I got inside my car, tossed the paper bakery sack onto the passenger floor, and started the engine.

Home wasn't far. Fifteen minutes if the roads were empty, which they were around this time. Twelve if I ignored certain posted suggestions.

I pulled away from the curb and the city of Respa slid around me.

Bright apartment windows glowing above dark storefronts. Convenience stores with red and yellow signs. Graffiti glowing beneath overpasses.

Late-night diners were alive with activity. Patrol cars everywhere, marked and unmarked. Violet-gray steam rose from vents while oily runoff threaded along the gutters.

There were uglier cities in Tacitra, and of course there were more beautiful ones.

But Respa was safer from supernatural disaster these days than it was from ordinary crime. Even though it wasn’t perfect, it was home.

The east bridge rose ahead. Rain thickened into globs against the windshield as I climbed onto it. Halfway across, the radio crackled with static. I tapped the screen and the music returned.

Seconds later, it disappeared again. The streetlight ahead flickered in irregular patterns. I passed beneath it. The next one went dark. I frowned.

Respa lost streetlights all the time.

That was what I told myself.

This part of the city had old electrical lines, older drainage systems, and enough city maintenance problems to keep half the municipal government employed forever.

Not to mention this district had once been the site of a massive Umbral outbreak.

But two malfunctioning lights during heavy rain did not qualify as supernatural.

The radio crackled again.

Beneath the static, I swore that I heard fabric shifting against fabric.

My eyes moved toward the rearview mirror and stopped before reaching it.

I turned the volume higher instead.

Nothing came through the speakers except static.

The third streetlight went out. Then a fourth one crackled.

Not all at once like I expected. One after another. One even burst in a shower of sparks behind me.

I checked the rearview mirror but the road was empty. My hands tightened around the wheel. Another streetlight cracked. Closer this time.

Something frigid moved through the car, which was odd because the heater was on. I turned it higher anyway. The bakery sack slid across the passenger floor when I took the next curve. I checked the mirror again. Nothing. Except—for one second I thought the darkness in the back seat had moved. I turned forward so fast my neck hurt. My speed climbed. I just wanted to get home.

The bridge descended into the older eastern district.

Sixty. Sixty-five.

The lights behind me continued dying one at a time. I slammed the accelerator.

Seventy miles per hour.

Royal purple, yellow, and white lights flashed across my mirrors.

I swore as a black patrol car appeared behind me. Of course this was how this stupid night ended. I pulled onto the shoulder beneath a flickering light.

Rain blurred the cruiser in the mirror. The driver's door opened and a tall figure stepped out.

Black uniform. Dark gloves. A very familiar and severe posture.

“You have got to be kidding me.”

Officer Alico Argent began walking toward my car.

And for reasons I could not explain, seeing him made me feel safe.