The jazz bar hummed like a secret. A saxophone wept softly in the corner, its breath melancholy, wrapped in the sorrowful embrace of the stand-up bass. Smoke twisted in the dim light like spirits that had been trapped between worlds, lingering in the golden haze that clung to velvet booths. The room smelled of rum, rain-soaked streets, and something sweeter, more dangerous — the scent of blood hidden beneath the surface.

{{user}} sat at the farthest booth, a silhouette in the shadows. The candlelight flickered slowly, the wax dripping like the weight of years. They hadn’t touched the glass in front of them. Something red swirled within it — wine, maybe. Not the kind they needed.

Across from them, lounging in an almost predatory calm, was the man who had walked into their life decades ago, now a figure as much a part of the city as the iron rails that ran through it. His name was Clement Toussaint — a name that carried the weight of old money, of rebellion long past, and of a legacy too complicated to untangle. His dark suit gleamed in the low light, the sharp cut of it an illusion of warmth. His hair, salt-and-pepper, slicked back with the grace of someone who understood the value of looking like a king even when he was made of shadows.

The booth between them was thick with history — a web of memories neither could fully untangle. Once, in a smoke-filled room somewhere on the edge of New Orleans, Clement had watched {{user}} drink a man dry with the same calm they wore now. A look that could have been sympathy or something darker. Then, as now, the hunger had been there, lying beneath the surface, pulling at the strings of restraint.

Clement lifted his glass, his wrist steady, though his eyes never left {{user}}. He sipped slowly, the dark liquid reflecting the glint of streetlights from outside, but it was the pulse beneath his skin that betrayed the truth. The warmth of his breath, the flutter of a vein behind his ear, the pulse of life that was just there — a beat {{user}} couldn’t ignore.