The Vampire Lestat (The Vampire Chronicles, #2)

by Anne Rice

Do devils love each other? Do they walk arm in arm in hell saying, “Ah, you are my friend, how I love you,” things like that to each other?

But don’t start crying again. I can’t abide all this crying.

And it seemed suddenly that suffering was an idea I’d known in another existence and would never know again.

Hmmm, broke the rules already, I thought. Am I supposed to die now?

Many vampires don’t rise until there is full darkness, and so I have a tremendous advantage in this, and in that they must return to the grave a full hour or more before I do. I haven’t mentioned it before because I didn’t know it then, and it didn’t come to matter until much later.

Perfectly regular French! In fact an ever increasing flood of pretty vernacular curse words.

“But Lestat, to rest under the very altar!” “Mother, you astonish me,” I said. “I have taken victims under the very roof of Notre Dame.”

I laughed. I didn’t really mean to, but I couldn’t help it. It was horrifying. But it was also very funny.

I winked at her. She would have been gorgeous if someone had thrown her into a waterfall and held her there for half an hour and I told her so silently.

“The power of Satan will blast you into hell,” the boy bellowed, gathering all his remaining strength. “You keep saying that!” I said. “And it keeps not happening, as we can all see!”

“Love mortals then, and live as you have lived, recklessly, with appetite for everything and love for everything, but there will come a time when only the love of your own kind can save you.”

“You hold to your old belief in goodness with a tenacity that is virtually unshakable. Yet you are so good at being what you are! You hunt your victims like a dark angel. You kill ruthlessly. You feast all the night long on victims when you choose.” “So?” I looked at her coldly. “I don’t know how to be bad at being bad.”

He lives on in my mind now. Pious mortal phrase. And what kind of life is that? I don’t like living here myself! What does it mean to live on in the mind of another? Nothing, I think. You aren’t really there, are you?

“In fact, you astound me because you admit to such extraordinary simplicity. You want a purpose. You want love.”

“If you mean to survive, you must live out one complete lifetime as soon as you can. To forestall it may be to lose everything, to despair and to go into the earth again, never to rise. Or worse …”

“And you’re impulsive and defiant.” “True.”

“Well, if it isn’t the vampire Lestat,” I said.

Louis was a sufferer, a thing that loved mortals even more than I did. And I wonder sometimes if I didn’t look to Louis to punish me for what had happened to Nicki, if I didn’t create Louis to be my conscience and to mete out year in and year out the penance I felt I deserved.

Claudia was my dark child, my love, evil of my evil. Claudia broke my heart.

Poor Armand. And you told me Louis was dead. Go dig a room for yourself under the Lafayette Cemetery. It’s just up the street.

“One thing, Louis,” I said. “Yes?” “Those clothes. Impossible. I mean, tomorrow night, as they say in the twentieth century, you will lose that sweater and those pants.”

“Mother, stop worrying,” I had said finally, hoping to settle it all, to create a moment of pure equanimity. “It’s pointless. A creature powerful enough to burn his enemies can find us anytime that he chooses, do exactly what he likes.” “And this should stop me from worrying?” she said.