The city at night was a living pulse—slow, sinuous, and humming with the kind of hunger only darkness could feed.

Lestat walked through it as though born from its very heartbeat. Paris, New York, London—it hardly mattered anymore; they were all the same at this hour. Lights like veins. Music like breath. Blood like perfume.

He moved through the crowd with the ease of something that did not need to belong to be worshiped. The mortals never knew what they saw in him—only that they wanted. A touch, a glance, a taste of his attention. He gave it freely, lavishly, because what was eternity without a little theatre? Toujours le spectacle, as he’d always said. Always the show.

Tonight’s stage was a club carved into the bones of an old cathedral. Spires and stained glass now trembled with bass, and the saints glowed red under strobe lights. Lestat adored the irony—how mortals built temples and then turned them into shrines for sin. He could smell the centuries on the stone, old incense buried beneath spilled wine and sweat. The DJ spun some modern chaos that the young ones called music, and he laughed softly to himself, low and indulgent.

He wore white, because of course he did—a vision among shadows. The fabric caught the light like ivory skin, his curls tousled just so, the faintest trace of cologne beneath the sharper scent of power. There was no need for fangs or threat. Predators, true predators, didn’t need to announce themselves.

He paused at the bar, watching the way mortals’ throats moved when they drank, the pulse fluttering there like a secret. He remembered centuries ago, the taste of Parisian opera houses, the laughter of the courtesans, the sheen of powdered faces in candlelight. Some nights it ached—the memory of beauty that decayed. Other nights, he simply replaced it with new music, louder lights, fresher blood.

“C’est la même chanson,” he murmured under his breath. The same song, only louder.

Someone brushed past him. A mortal, perhaps. Perhaps not. He could feel it before he even turned—a presence that didn’t dissolve in the noise. Something... interesting. The world rarely gave him that anymore. He tilted his head, a wolfish smile ghosting over his lips.

Curiosity sparked in his golden eyes, that old, terrible charm unfurling like silk.

He lifted his glass, crimson and gleaming in the dim light—wine, though it could be anything—and offered it silently to the night itself, to whoever or whatever dared stand near him.

“À la vie éternelle,” he whispered, voice a velvet thread. To eternal life.

The crowd pressed and swayed, oblivious to the small moment in their midst, the beautiful danger smiling among them. Somewhere, the beat shifted—slower now, sensual, electric. The air tasted like promise, like temptation dressed in sound and smoke.

Lestat leaned back against the marble bar, eyes half-lidded, the picture of languid decadence. He lived for nights like this: when the world pretended to be immortal, and he could almost believe he wasn’t alone in it.

The lights flickered once, briefly dimming. He smiled wider. Paris, London, or New York—it didn’t matter. The dark always brought him something new to play with.

And tonight, Lestat de Lioncourt was in the mood for a game.