BLOOD AND BOURBON

New Orleans never sleeps. it just changes masks.

The city moaned under the weight of its own secrets: jazz bleeding through cracked brick, sirens kissing the wind, ghosts whispering beneath streetlights still trembling from last night’s rain.

Cassian Voss moved through it like a shadow made flesh.

He didn’t walk Bourbon Street so much as cut through it, tall and deliberate, coat brushing his knees, tattoos ghosting his throat where his shirt gaped open. He smelled faintly of smoke and whiskey — and something older, something no prayer could name.

He’d woken up that morning with his usual companion: the Sight.

It came without warning — that electric pulse beneath his skin, a tightening behind his eyes, the city flickering between now and what-was-coming.

Tonight, it came sharp.

He blinked, and Bourbon Street split in two — one world full of neon and noise, the other soaked in crimson. He saw a man kneeling in the alley ahead, head tilted back, mouth open like he was trying to scream before the blade kissed his throat.

Cassian’s breath caught.

The man hadn’t died yet.

He exhaled, jaw flexing, forcing the vision down. He’d learned long ago that you couldn’t outrun what you saw — but you could try to catch it before it became real.

He pushed forward, hand brushing the inside of his coat where his gun slept. His boots echoed between brass notes and laughter, past tourists who had no idea the street was a crime scene waiting to happen.

The alley waited.

And there, like a ghost made solid, was the body from his vision — only the scene hadn’t finished playing out yet.

Two men hovered over the victim. One with a knife, the other with a smirk Cassian would’ve recognized anywhere.

“Moreau,” he muttered, the name tasting like smoke.

Luca Moreau looked up from where he was leaning against the brick, half-lit by the hum of a broken sign. He was dressed in black from boots to knuckles, gold chain winking against the throat Cassian sometimes wished he could forget.

“Voss,” Luca drawled, voice smooth as bourbon, dangerous as glass. “Didn’t think you’d show up to the party.”

Cassian ignored the knife, ignored the blood starting to drip. He leveled his gun at the man holding it. “Step away.”

The thug hesitated. Luca arched an eyebrow. “He’s ours.”

Cassian’s voice was low, even. “He’s marked for death. I saw it.”

Luca laughed — a rough, sinful sound that slid under Cassian’s skin. “You and your little ghost tricks again? Always seeing what ain’t there.”

Then it happened — a single flick of the knife, a scream, and the vision completed itself. The body crumpled. The future became now.

Cassian’s gun didn’t move.

Neither did Luca.

For a long moment, they just stared at each other across the corpse, breathing in the silence, that heavy city heat pressing against their skin.

“You always this late?” Luca asked finally, sheathing the knife the thug dropped. “Could’ve used that Sight of yours a minute sooner.”

Cassian holstered his gun. “You could’ve walked away.”

“Then we wouldn’t have had this sweet reunion,” Luca said, stepping closer. Too close. Cassian caught a flash of tattoo beneath his sleeve — a black serpent winding up his forearm, ink glistening with sweat.

Cassian didn’t move. “You’re playing with fire.”

Luca’s grin sharpened. “I like the burn.”

The alley pulsed with tension — not the kind that explodes in gunfire, but the kind that makes the air too thick to breathe. Cassian should’ve left. He should’ve called it in, reported the kill, walked back into the night.

Instead, he watched the curve of Luca’s mouth when he said, “You still see death everywhere, Prophet?”

Cassian’s hand clenched. “Only when it’s near.”

That earned a hum, deep and amused. “Guess I should be flattered.”

Somewhere, a police siren wailed, echoing between buildings. They didn’t move. The city seemed to fold around them — two predators circling something they couldn’t name.

Cassian finally turned away. “This isn’t over.”

“Never is with us, cher,” Luca called after him, voice sliding like sin over silk. “Try not to dream about me tonight.”

Cassian didn’t answer, but the Sight flickered again — just a heartbeat of vision before the world righted itself.

Luca’s face. Blood. His own hand holding the gun.

And the whisper of a voice he didn’t recognize:

The city remembers every sin, Prophet. Even love.

CASSIAN — The Prophet’s Room

Cassian’s apartment sat three floors above a voodoo supply shop on Royal Street — a place where the smell of sage never quite covered the memory of gunpowder.

The city throbbed below him: muffled horns, sirens, laughter that never learned to sound happy.

He sat on the edge of his bed, hands pressed over his face. The Sight still hummed behind his eyes like an afterimage burned into his skull.

He saw things hours, days, sometimes minutes before they happened — and it never felt like a gift.

He’d learned to use it, yes. To stay alive. To make his syndicate stronger.

But every vision was a scar waiting to open.

Every death he saw left fingerprints on his soul.

On the dresser sat a small framed photo: two boys, about fifteen, grinning under a broken streetlamp, both with scraped knuckles and too much pride.

One was Cassian. The other — before the ink, before the smirk — was Luca Moreau.

They’d trained together once, before the city tore them into different sides.

Before bloodlines decided who they’d become.

He reached for a cigarette, then thought better of it.

His hands were still trembling.

The vision wouldn’t leave him alone — Luca’s face, the blood, the gun in his own hand. It didn’t feel like a warning this time. It felt like fate.

Cassian leaned back, staring at the cracked ceiling. “You ever get tired of running in circles, Moreau?” he muttered to the empty room.

Down on the street, thunder rolled over the Mississippi.

Somewhere, church bells began to ring — low, mournful, and too slow to belong to Sunday.

Cassian closed his eyes.

The city never forgot its ghosts.

And tonight, neither could he.