Echoes of the Full Moon: A Tale from Club Amaranth

The club pulsed with a beat that seemed to run along the walls, through the floors, echoing deep in every bone. Red and gold lights shimmered behind the fog of dry ice and thin cigarette smoke. Down on Dorsey Street, Club Amaranth opened its doors to all: bankers and bikers, witches and wolves, creatures who walked alone, and those who belonged to ancient packs and bloody covens. This was Nadine’s realm.

Nadine stood behind the main bar, the counters polished to a shine you could see your sins in. With dark lipstick and a brighter smile, she mixed and poured, concocting drinks for the living and those who had died once or twice before. She made it her business to watch everyone—living, dead, or something in-between. It was a survival tactic, but also a point of pride. Tonight, just before midnight, she saw the rude one.

He should have been unremarkable: tall, wiry, hair too long to be fashionable, cut just above his sharp jaw. His clothes were damp, as if he’d run through rain—though it hadn’t rained for days. He moved through the crowd like a knife, not looking at anyone, not smiling, not returning a single gaze. Customers lined at the bar were used to waiting, but when he pushed his way to the front, Nadine’s hackles rose.

“What’ll it be?” she asked evenly, wiping out a glass.

“A drink,” he spat, words cold as a tomb.

“We have hundreds. Try narrowing it down,” she replied, meeting his gaze and holding it.

He met her stare for a moment—eyes dark, too dark, like blown bulbs. Something twisted in his expression, something almost animal. He looked ready to snap.

“I said a drink,” he repeated, voice cracking.

“Coming right up.” She poured whiskey, neat, and slid it to him. Before she could say more, he snatched it, downed it, and left a crumpled ten on the counter.

“Keep it,” he growled.

It was everything she could do not to push back. Nadine prided herself on giving as good as she got, and he’d been rude, but there was something off. Most people—human or otherwise—came to Amaranth either to show off or to disappear. This man wanted to be invisible but didn’t know how; he was mostly presence and pressure, the kind of negative space she associated with things that only looked like people.

Nadine watched him as he stalked off to the darkest corner, sat with his back to the wall, eyes following every movement on the floor. He flinched whenever hands got too close, shied away when the music spiked. With quiet confidence, she refilled glasses, flirted with regulars, cleaned up shattered glasses from a vampire’s enthusiastic celebration. But she never let the stranger out of her sight.

Around three a.m., after the crowd thinned but before the haunted regulars began their final rounds, she watched him again. She saw the realization: his hands shaking, breath coming ragged, sweat on his forehead though the air conditioning blew icy drafts. He needed help—the kind you couldn’t pour in a glass or solve with a fist to the jaw.

Nadine had always noticed things others overlooked: the small, grey-furred fox licking spilled absinthe from under a table; the ghost who reordered gin and tonic for a lover long since gone; the nymph who cried glittering tears for a song that reminded her of the grave. She had seen the way pain made people ugly, turned words harsh and gestures sharper than knives. That’s all this was—pain.

She poured herself a ginger ale and made her way off the barstool, weaving through the crowd with practiced ease. She set one foot in front of the other, ignoring her first, most violent impulse. She wanted to punch the man in the mouth, teach him a lesson about manners and respecting people in their own homes. But violence was its own language, and tonight, Nadine needed words.

She approached his table, letting her presence be felt—her boots making the floorboards creak, the smell of sugar and lime following her. She did not look him in the eye—predators expect a challenge, strangers expect suspicion. Instead, she slid into the booth, leaving a respectful space between them.

“Long night?” she asked, tone casual.

He turned just enough that she could see a yellowing bruise on his jaw, a cut on his lip. He didn’t answer, but the silence was heavy.

“I’m Nadine,” she offered, meaning the words to sound normal. “I own the place. Just checking if you’re alright. You seem off.”

He lifted his drink—now empty—and set it down so hard the liquid inside sloshed. “I’m fine,” he growled, though his voice wavered at the end.

She nodded, accepting the lie.

“Club’s for everyone,” she said. “Not just for partying. Sometimes people come here to remember, or forget. Sometimes it’s safer here than anywhere else in the city.”

This time, he looked at her.

“You know about ‘safe’?” he snarled, voice curling with bitter amusement.

“I know a lot about not being safe,” she replied. “Let me guess: someone’s after you.”

He stiffened. The hand on the table curled—long, bony fingers with nails that were just a touch too sharp for human.

She lowered her voice. “We get all kinds here. Things that hunt, things that run. My job is to keep the peace and make sure no one leaves with more scars than they arrived with.”

He stared at her, weighing the truth of her words.

His words came quietly. “You can’t help.”

“Maybe,” Nadine said, “but if you’re going to work through it alone, you picked the right place. Least you won’t be bored.”

A sharp laugh escaped him—painful, but honest. Nadine sipped her ginger ale, letting him decide which direction to drag the conversation.

“I’m tired,” he said finally, voice low. “Of running, of hiding. I can’t stay anywhere too long. I get…angry. Someone hurt me. Badly. It gets worse every full moon. You see a lot, I bet.”

She nodded. “More than I wanted. Werewolf?”

He hesitated, then nodded—barely.

She took in his haggard face, broken expression, the tension pulling him in two like old rope. His rudeness was only a displaced bite, a defense against a world that only knew how to hunt or be hunted.

“A lot of us live with bad things inside,” Nadine admitted. “Most nights, I’m scared I’ll forget how to be human. The trick is to ask for help before it goes too far.”

“I don’t want charity,” he muttered.

“Not offering any. But you don’t have to be alone.”

He looked at her, desperate but proud. Nadine reached into her jacket, withdrew a business card for the back-office therapist—a retired priestess who knew the exorcism of the mind’s worst demons. She slid it across the table, fingers steady, smile gentle.

“I can get you help, on your terms,” she said. “Or just a drink and a safe spot to watch the world go by. You won’t have to say thank you, and you won’t owe me.”

He took the card, fingers trembling, and squeezed it hard—like it was a lifeline.

“For what it’s worth,” she said, standing, “I almost punched you for how you spoke to me earlier. But then I remembered—hurt things hurt others. Doesn’t mean it has to stay that way.”

His gaze was softer now, the anger spent, replaced by something like gratitude.

She left him in the golden shadows, drifting back to the bar, to her regulars and their strange, sad secrets. Hours later, as dawn struggled against the dark, she saw him slip out the side door, the card clenched in his hand.

She didn’t know if he’d come back. But her job wasn’t to fix people—it was just to see them. And maybe tonight, that was enough.

Because in Club Amaranth, even monsters deserved a place where being broken didn’t mean being alone. And for one night, at least, that made all the difference.

This story was generated by user kitty.cat07 with assistance by one of OpenAI’s large-scale language-generation model; prompts used to help generate the story are shown below.

Images were generated with OpenAI's AI system, DALL·E 2, or uploaded by the user.

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