The bar’s lighting shifted in pulses of purple-red, bouncing off a faceted disco ball overhead.

The clean, simple mahogany counter ran the length of the room, and at it, nursing a drink, sat the church deacon from that morning. Miguel.

Raphael pulled his hair forward slightly to cover the scar across his brow. Church and IFSA cooperation was limited at the best of times, but there was no reason to push his luck.

He found a position not too close and not too far, side-on to the deacon, and listened.

The person beside Miguel was a tall woman with heavy gothic makeup, dressed in a low-cut top and shorts that made no compromises.

She had some strange tattoos on her arms, resembling barcodes, which were covered by her clothes, and a very conspicuous and out-of-place pet collar around her neck.

A staff pin at her chest marked her as an employee, designation: Purple Rose.

She’d angled herself toward Miguel with the practiced interest of someone who had assessed him and decided he was worth the attention. A cigarette dangled between her fingers.

"You look lonely, handsome. Want some company? Not expensive, four hundred Colin for the night. Drinking, talking, sleeping. Worth every one."

She glanced at his annual member pin and touched her tongue to her lips.

Miguel swirled the ice ball in his glass, listening to it clink, and asked quietly:

"What faith do you follow? And why are you doing this? You’re young. You’re healthy. Why not find honest work, be a law-abiding citizen?"

Purple Rose clearly hadn’t expected that question. She laughed, surprised, and blew a smoke ring directly at his face.

"What, roleplay? Or you want to know who I pray to when I’m begging? Interesting kink. Fine, I’ll tell you, I follow the dark god. Asmodeus. Heard of it?"

Miguel’s brow tightened. His voice went quieter and heavier at once.

"Asmodeus? The one tied to Luxuria, that dark god? Why? You’re young, you’re human, how could you go down that path?"

Purple Rose shrugged, took a long drag, stretched, and started to stand.

"No money, no lecture. You’re killing my business and wasting my time."

She settled back into the motion lazily.

"No reason beyond this: I like the philosophy. The body is free. Desire is human nature. Reproduction is a biological instinct. Life is short and meant to be enjoyed. I don’t care if you believe it, I do."

Miguel’s glass came down on the table with more force than he’d probably intended. The chain of his church medallion shifted beneath his collar and almost emerged.

"That’s complete nonsense. Even if your body is your own, have you considered decency? What people think of you?

A prostitute? A dissolute woman? You’re dressing up the sale of your body for money like it’s something honorable, the dark cult has clearly rotted your judgment."

Purple Rose clicked her tongue, irritated, and scratched at her styled hair, a genuine response beneath the performance.

"You mean I should get a proper job, fall in love, find some man who I love but might not love me back, and get married? No thanks. Sounds unbearable."

She looked at him sideways.

"It’s twenty twenty-seven. Are you still living in the last decade? People sleep together without needing love now. Right person, right drinks, that’s enough. You don’t even need to know the name."

Miguel took a sip and shook his head slowly. His background made it impossible to simply watch this without responding, but his current role made it impossible to push too far.

"If desire without love were truly correct, humans would never have evolved the concept of family, or society, we’d still be living in an age when sex required no love and pleasure was the only logic.

Humans are not animals. Reproduction is not entertainment. It should be sacred. Consensual. Not something to be debased."

By the end, his voice was carrying a tremor that wasn’t quite contained, something pressed down under the words, finding the surface anyway.

"Not to be debased?" Purple Rose made a sound of recognition, not mockery.

"So that’s what this is. I thought you were just another odd one. You’re church. Or, you were?"

She flicked the still-burning cigarette stub into his glass. The alcohol caught briefly, a small blue flame rising and dying.

"Interesting man. Look young, act ancient. Love a sermon, you should teach. Lecture hall would suit you better."

Her tone shifted slightly, pulling back from amusement.

"And if you’re clergy, doesn’t being in a place like this already defile your gods? A bit of a contradiction, isn’t it?"

She turned away from him.

"Sometimes people like me need something to believe in just to keep going." The performance was gone entirely now. "Not everyone gets to choose. Not everyone..."

She exhaled.

"...has real freedom."

She left.

Miguel stared at her back, expression changed. He’d heard what was underneath the words.

He pressed both hands to his face briefly, drew a slow breath, and let the bartender take the glass away without comment. He looked exhausted.

Raphael had taken all of it in from his position down the bar. He’d heard it too, the thing Purple Rose hadn’t quite said directly.

A person who described freedom as something others had but not themselves, working in a nightclub with a staff designation and no apparent exit, that wasn’t a standard employment arrangement.

Considering the strange collar around her neck, the barcode that seemed to conveniently mark prices like merchandise, her self-destructive attitude, and her helpless act of believing in an evil god, all these suspicious points came together, leading Raphael to think of one word.

The only other category was one that had changed names over the centuries but not in substance.

The slave.

The dragons and vampires had applied the word to humans first. Then humans had used it for beast-kin and sea-folk.

When the human federations formed and abolished non-human slavery, the practice had simply redirected, the word eventually settling on the weakest human beings instead of the weakest non-humans.

The wheel of history, turning without destination.

And that vampire at the black market, embedded in this city for who knew how long.

Perhaps he is the culprit behind all this; if so, vampires will once again enslave humans.

"History really is a circle," Raphael murmured.

Miguel glanced sideways and noticed him.

His eyes landed on Raphael’s shoulder.

"...Sir. There."

Raphael looked. Several golden-yellow strands on the black fabric, coarse, firm, animal in texture. He brushed them off.

"Strange. Thanks. Your name?" 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

He didn’t actually need to ask. But he’d wanted an opening.

Miguel looked at his own pin.

"Miguel Averen. And you? Ah... Elena. Armed Helicopter."

Raphael lifted a shoulder.

"Fake name. Call me Raphael."

Miguel nodded and accepted the next drink the bartender brought him.

"Sensible approach. You want something from me, is that it?"

Raphael’s ginger beer arrived. He took a mouthful of the extra-spiced version he’d ordered, exhaled the heat, and looked at him.

"You don’t carry yourself like an ordinary patron."

Miguel registered how far he’d let himself go with his reaction just now, coughed once, and didn’t seem to know how to respond.

The bartender leaned in toward Raphael.

"Sir, the girl you ordered, should she come here, or wait in a private booth? We still have availability on the first and second floors."

Raphael frowned.

"When did I order a girl?"

The bartender scanned the room briefly, indicating he should keep his voice down.

"First visit, sir? Our clients here mostly aren’t here for the drinks. They’re here to order companions.

Everything the name implies, and other things too. We also have men, though fewer."

He lowered his voice further.

"The ginger beer with extra spice, ginger beer tends to be ordered by younger clientele, meaning young.

Extra spice is code for a preference toward the intense end. It usually indicates beast-kin or non-human companions. They tend to have... a bit of a scent. And body hair."

Raphael’s expression went flat. He looked at Miguel beside him and said nothing.

The bartender appeared to read the situation, and whether it was residual irritation at Miguel’s behavior from earlier or the absence of a tip, he added one more detail in a low voice:

"That one’s been working through the menu all evening. Orders a type, the girl arrives, he starts moralizing, drives her off, orders again.

Repeat. Purple Rose threw her cigarette in his drink just now, which means she’s done, send someone else."

Raphael’s mouth twitched.

But then several things that had been sitting separately in his mind began to connect.

Beast-kin. The strands on his shoulder that had appeared without explanation.

The smell on the man outside, animal, earthy, the particular scent of something that had been living rough.

He’d been so struck by the smell at the time because it was very specific. It wasn’t ordinary body odor.

It was the scent of a stray, a creature without a fixed territory, moving unseen through spaces it wasn’t supposed to occupy.

What if the man at the door had also been a beast-kin?