Morrigan: Year 3101.

Jacques strolled down the crowded sidewalk, his stomach grumbling. The scent of grilled meat and onions wafted through the air, drawing him towards a familiar hotdog stand. The metal cart gleamed in the sunlight, its red and white striped awning flapping in the breeze.

"Yo, Freddy! Hook me up with a cheeze dog and a soda," Jacques called out as he approached.

Freddy, a large man with a thick New York accent, grinned. "Coming right up, detective. How's the crime-fighting business treating ya?"

Jacques leaned against the cart, watching as Freddy tossed a hotdog onto the grill. "Same shit, different day. How's the family?"

"Can't complain. Little Suzie just started kindergarten. Kid's already smarter than me," Freddy chuckled. He squirted cheese onto the bun and nestled the sizzling hotdog into it. "What about you? Any crazy cases lately?"

Jacques shrugged. "Nothing too wild. Just the usual murders and mayhem."

Freddy handed over the cheeze dog and cracked open a can of soda. "You know, sometimes I wonder if I made the right choice coming to Paris. Don't get me wrong, I love it here, but..."

"But what?" Jacques asked, taking a bite of his hotdog.

Freddy sighed. "It's just... different, you know? Back in New York, everything was familiar. Here, I'm still learning the ropes, even after five years."

"What made you decide to move in the first place?"

"Ah, it's a long story," Freddy said, wiping down the grill.

"I've got time," Jacques replied, taking a sip of his soda.

Freddy leaned back against the cart. "Well, it all started when my wife, Maria, got a job offer here. She's in biotech, you know? At first, I was dead set against it. I mean, leave New York? The greatest city in the world? But then I got to thinking..."

Jacques listened as Freddy recounted his journey from New York to Paris. The tale was filled with ups and downs, culture shocks, and moments of doubt. But underneath it all was a sense of adventure and hope.

"...and that's how I ended up slinging hotdogs in the City of Light," Freddy finished with a laugh.

"Sounds like quite the ride. You ever regret it?"

"Nah, not really. Sure, I miss New York sometimes, but Paris has its own charm. And hey, the food's not bad either," he winked.

Just then, Jacques' phone buzzed. He pulled it out, his eyes widening as he saw the notification.

"Shit, gotta run. That's the email I've been waiting," Jacques said, shoving the last bite of hotdog into his mouth.

Freddy waved him off. "Go catch the bad guys, detective. And hey, don't be a stranger!"

Jacques nodded, already turning to leave. "Thanks for the dog. See you around!"

He hurried back to his apartment and tossed his keys on the counter before booting up his laptop.

Finally, the screen lit up. Jacques clicked on his email client, scanning through the new messages until he found the one he'd been waiting for. He double-clicked, leaning in close to read its contents.

"Fuck," he muttered, scrolling through the attached files.

It was all information he already knew - police reports, witness statements, and forensic analyses from the Lyons case. Nothing new, nothing that could help him crack open this mystery.

He clicked through photo after photo, hoping to spot something he'd missed before. But it was all the same - crime scene shots, evidence bags, autopsy reports. No hidden clues, no smoking gun.

Jacques leaned back in his chair. He'd been so sure this email would give him the breakthrough he needed. Instead, he was right back where he started.

As he scrolled through the files again, a thought struck him. Antoine Dubois had promised to send him Tanaka's work, but this was just standard police reports and forensic analyses. Nothing new, nothing groundbreaking.

A suspicion began to form in Jacques' mind. What if Dubois was hiding something? What if he was part of the organization Jacques was investigating, or at least on their payroll?

It was a long shot, but it was the only lead he had. Jacques cracked his knuckles and dove into the internet, searching for anything he could find on Antoine Dubois.

Hours passed as he combed through article after article. Most of it was mundane stuff - Dubois receiving awards, posing with politicians and military brass, attending charity galas. It all painted a picture of a man more suited for politics than journalism.

Just as Jacques was about to call it quits, an article caught his eye. It was about Dubois receiving the European Press Freedom Award from Brice Olivier, the EU Federation's ambassador to the UN. But it wasn't the award that interested Jacques. It was the figure standing behind Olivier in the photo.

The man looked like he'd stepped straight out of a vampire novel. Pale skin, long white hair, dressed in flowing red robes. He stood out like a sore thumb among the suit-clad dignitaries.

Jacques leaned closer to the screen, squinting at the image. There was something off about the man, something that set his detective instincts on edge. He couldn't put his finger on it, but he knew he was onto something.

He saved the image and started a new search, this time focusing on Brice Olivier. If this vampire-looking guy was connected to the ambassador, maybe there was a trail to follow.

The search yielded more results than Jacques had expected. Olivier was a prominent figure in EU politics, with a career spanning decades. But as Jacques dug deeper, he started to notice inconsistencies.

There were gaps in Olivier's history, periods where he seemed to disappear from public view. And in the photos Jacques found, Olivier barely seemed to age over the years.

"What the fuck is going on here?" Jacques muttered to himself. "Maybe he has good genes?"

Good genes? He thought. Yeah, right.

He'd seen plenty of rich folks with their fancy anti-aging treatments, but this was something else entirely. Olivier looked like he'd stepped out of a time machine, not a plastic surgeon's office. It didn't add up. This wasn't just some politician with a good skincare routine. There was something fishy going on, something that stank worse than week-old garbage in the summer heat.

He pulled up another tab and started searching for information on the Bloody Shadows. It was a long shot, but his gut told him there was a connection.

Most of the results were dead ends - conspiracy theories, horror movie fan sites, and the like. But buried in the depths of a forum thread, Jacques found a post that made his blood run cold.

The post described an ancient secret society, one that had existed for centuries. They called themselves the Bloody Shadows, and they were said to be immortal beings who fed on human blood. In short, a vampire club or something.

Jacques scoffed at first. It sounded like something out of a bad horror movie. But as he read on, details started to line up with what he'd uncovered in his investigation.

The puncture wounds on the victims' necks. The strange compounds in their blood. The way powerful people seemed to be covering up the murders.

It was crazy. Impossible. But the more Jacques thought about it, the more it made a twisted kind of sense.

He leaned back in his chair, mind reeling. If this was true - if vampires were real and operating at the highest levels of government - it would be the biggest story in history.

It sounded like a bad joke. But the evidence was piling up, and he couldn't ignore it. How deep does this rabbit hole go? Were there bloodsuckers lurking in every corner of power? Jacques wondered if he'd stumbled onto something that could get him killed - or worse, turned into one of them.

These weren't just ordinary criminals he was dealing with. If the forum post was to be believed, these were ancient, powerful beings with connections everywhere.

Jacques rubbed his eyes, feeling the strain of hours spent staring at the screen. He needed to be smart about this. He couldn't go charging in half-cocked, not when he was up against something this big.

He saved all his findings to an encrypted drive and shut down his computer. Then, his phone rang. He fished it out of his pocket, glancing at the screen. Eugene's name flashed up.

"Yeah?" Jacques said.

"Where the fuck are you?" Eugene's voice crackled through the speaker. "I've been trying to reach you for hours."

"I've been working on the case. What's up?"

"What's up? What's up is we've got another body, and I need your ass down here pronto. Captain's breathing down my neck, and I can't handle this shit alone."

"Damn," Jacques muttered. "Look, I'm in the middle of something big here. Can't you handle it?"

"Handle it? Are you kidding me? This is your case. Your responsibility. What the hell could be more important than a fresh murder?"

Jacques hesitated. He couldn't tell Eugene about his vampire theory over the phone. It was too crazy, too dangerous.

"I'm following up on a lead," he said finally. "It might be connected to the other murders."

"A lead? What kind of lead?"

"It's... complicated. I can't really explain it over the phone."

Eugene's sigh crackled through the speaker. "Cut the bullshit. What's really going on?"

Jacques ran a hand through his hair, weighing his options. Eugene was his partner, his friend. If he couldn't trust him, who could he trust?

"Fuck it," he muttered. "Alright, listen up. This is going to sound insane, but hear me out."

Over the next ten minutes, Jacques laid out everything he'd discovered. The connections between the murders, the strange man in the photo, the forum post about the Bloody Shadows. As he spoke, he could almost hear Eugene's disbelief growing.

When he finished, there was a long silence on the other end of the line.

"Jacques," Eugene said. "Have you been drinking?"

"What? No, I haven't. I know how it sounds, but—"

"No, you don't," Eugene cut him off. "You don't know how it sounds. It sounds like you've lost your goddamn mind. Vampires? Secret societies? What the fuck, man?"

"I know it's crazy, but the evidence—"

"Evidence? What evidence? Some bullshit you found on the internet? A weird photo? That's not evidence. That's the ramblings of a man who's been staring at his computer screen for too long."

Jacques felt his frustration rising. "Look, I know it sounds far-fetched, but—"

"Far-fetched? It's fucking insane. You're talking about vampires running the government, for Christ's sake. Do you have any idea how you sound right now?"

"I'm not saying I believe it all," Jacques protested. "I'm just saying there might be something to it. These murders, the cover-ups, it all fits."

"No, it doesn't fit. It doesn't fit anything except the inside of a straitjacket. Jesus, Jacques, listen to yourself."

He gritted his teeth. "So what, you think I'm making this all up?"

"I think you're stressed, overworked, and seeing connections that aren't there. This vampire shit? It's a fantasy. A distraction from the real work we need to be doing."

"And what if you're wrong?" Jacques challenged. "What if there really is something to all this?"

"Then I'll eat my fucking badge and sacrifice a goat to the Egyptian god Seth. But right now, we've got a real murder to solve. A real body. Real evidence. Not some half-baked conspiracy theory."

Jacques opened his mouth to argue further, but Eugene cut him off.

"Look, I don't know what's going on with you, but you need to get your head straight. We've got a job to do. So here's what's going to happen. You're going to get your ass down to the station right now. We're going to work this case like professionals. And you're going to forget all this vampire bullshit before you get us both fired. Got it?"

Jacques wanted to argue, to make Eugene understand. But he could hear the finality in his partner's voice. There would be no convincing him, not now.

"Fine," he said at last. "I'll be there in twenty."

"Make it fifteen," Eugene replied, then hung up.

Jacques stared at his phone for a moment, then shoved it back in his pocket. He grabbed his jacket and headed for the door, his mind still buzzing with everything he'd discovered.

Eugene might not believe him, but Jacques knew he was onto something. Something big. Something dangerous. And he wasn't about to let it go, no matter what anyone said.

As he stepped out into the Paris night, Jacques couldn't shake the feeling that he was being watched. He glanced over his shoulder, expecting to see a pale figure in flowing red robes. But the street was empty, save for a few late-night stragglers.

He shook his head and started walking. He had a crime scene to get to. But even as he focused on the task at hand, a part of his mind was still turning over the pieces of the puzzle he'd uncovered.

Vampires or not, there was something rotten in the heart of Paris. And Jacques was going to get to the bottom of it.