Anne Rice - The Vampire Lestat

"And where are the names from Interview with the Vampire? " I asked with mock indignation.

"Verboten, " he said with a little lift of the eyebrows. "They are not fictional. They are real. But I will tell you they are playing your video clips on Castro Street now. The mortal customers demand it, They toast you with their vodka Bloody Marys. The Dance of les Innocents is pounding through the walls. " A real laughing fit was definitely coming. I tried to stop it. I shook my head.

"But you've effected something of a revolution in speech in the back room as well, " he continued in the same mock sober fashion, unable to keep his face entirely straight.

"What do you mean? "

"Dark Trick, Dark Gift, Devil's Road-they're all bantering those words about, the crudest fledglings who never even styled themselves vampires. They're imitating the book even though they condemn it utterly. They are loading themselves down with Egyptian jewelry. Black velvet is once again de rigueur. "

"Too perfect, " I said. "But these places, what are they like? "

"They're saturated with the vampire trappings, " he said. "Posters from the vampire films adorn the walls, and the films themselves are projected continuously on high screens. The mortals who come are a regular freak show of theatrical types-punk youngsters, artists, those done up in black capes and white plastic fangs. They scarcely notice us. We are often drab by comparison. And in the dim lights we might as well be invisible, velvet and Egyptian jewelry and all. Of course, no one preys upon these mortal customers. We come to the vampire bars for information. The vampire bar is the safest place for a mortal in all Christendom. You cannot kill in the vampire bar. "

"Wonder somebody didn't think of it before, " I said.

"They did think of it, " he said. "In Paris, it was the Theatre des Vampyres. "

"Of course, " I admitted. He went on:

"The word went out a month ago on the Vampire Connection that you were back. And the news was old then. They said you were hunting New Orleans, and then they learned what you meant to do. They had early copies of your autobiography. There was endless talk about the video films. "

"And why didn't I see them in New Orleans? " I asked.

"Because New Orleans has been for half a century Armand's territory. No one dares to hunt New Orleans. They learned through mortal sources of information, out of Los Angeles and New York. "

"I didn't see Armand in New Orleans, " I said.

"I know, " he answered. He looked troubled, confused for a moment. I felt a little tightening in the region of the heart.

"No one knows where Armand is, " he said a little dully. "But when he was there, he killed the young ones. They left New Orleans to him. They say that many of the old ones do that, kill the young ones. They say it of me, but it isn't so. I haunt San Francisco like a ghost. I do not trouble anyone save my unfortunate mortal victims. " All this didn't surprise me much.

"There are too many of us, " he said, "as there always have been. And there is much warring. And a coven in any given city is only a means by which three or more powerful ones agree not to destroy each other, and to share the territory according to the rules. "

"The rules, always the rules, " I said.

"They are different now, and more stringent. Absolutely no evidence of the kill must ever be left about. Not a single corpse must be left for mortals to investigate. "

"Of course. "

"And there must be no exposure whatsoever in the world of close-up photography and zoom lenses, of freeze-frame video examination-no risk that could lead to capture, incarceration, and scientific verification by the mortal world. " I nodded. But my pulse was racing. I loved being the outlaw, the one who had already broken every single law. And so they were imitating my book, were they? Oh, it was started already. Wheels set into motion.

"Lestat, you think you understand, " he said patiently, "but do you? Let the world have but one tiny fragment of our tissue for their microscopes, and there will be no arguments anymore about legend or superstition. The proof will be there. "

"I don't agree with you, Louis, " I said. "It isn't that simple. "

"They have the means to identify and classify us, to galvanize the human race against us. "

"No, Louis. Scientists in this day and age are witch doctors perpetually at war. They quarrel over the most rudimentary questions. You would have to spread that supernatural tissue to every microscope in the world and even then the public might not believe a word of it. " He reflected for a moment.

"One capture then, " he said. "One living specimen in their hands. "

"Even that wouldn't do it, " I said. "And how could they ever hold me? " But it was too lovely to contemplate-the chase, the intrigue, the possible capture and escape. I loved it. He was smiling now in a strange way. Full of disapproval and delight.

"You are madder than you ever were, " he said under his breath. "Madder than when you used to go about New Orleans deliberately scaring people in the old days. " I laughed and laughed. But then I got quiet. We didn't have that much time before morning. And I could laugh all the way into San Francisco tomorrow night.

"Louis, I've thought this over from every angle, " I said. "It will be harder to start a real war with mortals than you think- "

"-And you're bound and determined to start it, aren't you? You want everyone, mortal or immortal, to come after you. "

"Why not? " I asked. "Let it begin. And let them try to destroy us the way they have destroyed their other devils. Let them try to wipe us out. " He was watching me with that old. expression of awe and incredulity that I had seen a thousand times on his face. I was a fool for it, as the expression goes. But the sky was paling overhead, the stars drifting steadily away. Only precious moments we had together before the early spring morning.

"And so you really mean for it to happen, " he said earnestly, his tone gentler than before.

"Louis, I mean for something and everything to happen, " I said. "I mean for all that we have been to change! What are we but leeches now-loathsome, secretive, without justification. The old romance is gone. So let us take on a new meaning. I crave the bright lights as I crave blood. I crave the divine visibility. I crave war. "

"The new evil, to use your old words, " he said. "And this time it is the twentieth-century evil. "

"Precisely, " I said. But again, I thought of the purely mortal impulse, the vain impulse, for worldly fame, acknowledgment. Faint blush of shame. It was all going to be such a pleasure.

"But why, Lestat? " he asked a little suspiciously. "Why the danger, the risk? After all, you have done it. You have come back. You're stronger than ever. You have the old fire as if it had never been lost, and you know how precious this is, this will simply to go on. Why risk it immediately? Have you forgotten what it was like when we had the world all around us, and no one could hurt us except ourselves? "

"Is this an offer, Louis? Have you come back to me, as lovers say? " His eyes darkened and he looked away from me.

"I'm not mocking you, Louis, " I said.

"You've come back to me, Lestat, " he said evenly, looking at me again. "When I heard the first whispers of you at Dracula's Daughter, I felt something that I thought was gone forever- " He paused. But I knew what he was talking about. He had already said it. And I had understood it centuries ago when I felt Armand's despair after the death of the old coven. Excitement, the desire to continue, these things were priceless to us. All the more reason for the rock concert, the continuation, the war itself.

"Lestat, don't go on the stage tomorrow night, " he said. "Let the films and the book do what you want. But protect yourself. Let us come together and let us talk together. Let us have each other in this century the way we never did in the past. And I do mean all of us. "