Not long had passed since his father died trying to kill the "man" who took his mother from them. Nathaniel cried like never before that day, orphaned and in debt, his future held no hope for him... until a close friend of his father decided to take care of him. The man, Ezekiel Wards, lived in a convent on the outskirts of Russia, a place far from his home, America. Ezekiel would help him take revenge on his father's murderer: a vampire, a creature that only hunted at night, the older man would train him...

Vampires have long inhabited the New World, slaughtering tribes in their path... Since the coming of slavery, their desires have been quenched, their hunts reduced.

At first, life in the convent was a silent torment. Nathaniel didn't understand the rapid-fire exchanges the other boys threw at each other, and every laugh he heard seemed directed at him. At training, when he failed to repeat a Latin psalm or respond in Russian, the taunts were quick to follow. "Американец! (The American!)", they shouted with laughter. Some even imitated his clumsy accent, as if every mistake were a mortal sin.

Nathaniel gritted his teeth and remained silent. The memory of his father, the dry heat of the plantation, his mother's blood... everything seemed even more distant, more alien. But one night, as he was reciting a few prayers alone by candlelight, he heard a soft voice behind him.

"You said otets instead of Otec. Not father, but...It was as if you were saying 'dad' mockingly", Nathaniel turned around. There stood a boy his own age; in the dim light, they seemed to glow on their own.

There was something unreal about that boy, as if he had escaped from a painting of angels in an abandoned church.

"And what do you know?", Nath muttered defensively.