The Vampire Lestat (The Vampire Chronicles, #2)

by Anne Rice

I am the vampire Lestat. I’m immortal. More or less. The light of the sun, the sustained heat of an intense fire—these things might destroy me. But then again, they might not. I’m six feet tall, which was fairly impressive in the 1780s when I was a young mortal man. It’s not bad now. I have thick blond hair, not quite shoulder length, and rather curly, which appears white under fluorescent light. My eyes are gray, but they absorb the colors blue or violet easily from surfaces around them. And I have a fairly short narrow nose, and a mouth that is well shaped but just a little too big for my face. It can look very mean, or extremely generous, my mouth. It always looks sensual. But emotions and attitudes are always reflected in my entire expression. I have a continuously animated face.

Hi my name is Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way and I have long ebony black hair (that’s how I got my name) with purple streaks and red tips that reaches my mid-back and icy blue eyes like limpid tears and a lot of people tell me I look like Amy Lee (AN: if u don’t know who she is get da hell out of here!). I’m not related to Gerard Way but I wish I was because he’s a major fucking hottie. I’m a vampire but my teeth are straight and white. I have pale white skin. I’m also a witch, and I go to a magic school called Hogwarts in England where I’m in the seventh year (I’m seventeen). I’m a goth (in case you couldn’t tell) and I wear mostly black.

Of course it was metaphor, the raving. None of them believed in angels or devils, no matter how well they assumed their parts. And the players of the old Italian commedia had been as shocking, as inventive, as lewd.

COMMEDIA MENTION (lestat is never beating the theatre kid allegations)

But after the third night up, I was roaring around New Orleans on a big black Harley-Davidson motorcycle making plenty of noise myself. I was looking for more killers to feed on. I wore gorgeous black leather clothes that I’d taken from my victims, and I had a little Sony Walkman stereo in my pocket that fed Bach’s Art of the Fugue through tiny earphones right into my head as I blazed along.

oh i love him

I continued my education. I talked to mortals at bus stops and at gas stations and in elegant drinking places. I read books. I decked myself out in the shimmering dream skins of the fashionable shops. I wore white turtleneck shirts and crisp khaki safari jackets, or lush gray velvet blazers with cashmere scarves. I powdered down my face so that I could “pass” beneath the chemical lights of the all-night supermarkets, the hamburger joints, the carnival thoroughfares called nightclub strips. I was learning. I was in love.

literally this is so endearing. louis de point du lac you fumbled this man so hard

And when they had gone off in the velvet-lined motor coach, I moved alone through the balmy night towards St. Charles Avenue, and thought about the danger facing them, my little mortal friends.

VELVET LINED MOTOR COACH????? LESTAT THATS A CAR

Old rules didn’t matter to me now, either.

did they ever?

“You little bastard,” he said coldly. “You didn’t kill eight wolves!” His face had an ugly disgusted look to it.

what a dick

It was called the commedia dell’arte. I was enchanted.

I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE (theatre kid)

“You don’t understand. I’m speaking of the character of human beings, not what they believe in. I’m speaking of those who won’t accept a useless life, just because they were born to it. I mean those who would be some-thing better. They work, they sacrifice, they do things …” He was moved by this, and I was a little surprised that I’d said it. Yet I felt I had hurt him somehow. “There is blessedness in that,” I said. “There’s sanctity. And God or no God, there is goodness in it. I know this the way I know the mountains are out there, that the stars shine.”

oh my GOD ANNE YOU CANT JUST SAY SHIT LIKE THIS. gnawing at the bars of my enclosure for real this is SO FUCKING GOOD. like this is a feeling i’ve never been talented enough to put into words. FUCK. ANNE. GIRL.

It makes other vampires furious, by the way. But I jump ahead of the tale. As you have probably noticed, I have made no mention of other vampires. The fact was I could not find any.

well perhaps they were hiding

“It has to be trickery, an illusion.” The same avowals came from all directions. People demanded agreement from those around them. Renaud’s face shone before me for an instant with gaping mouth and squinting eyes. But I had gone into a dance again. And this time the grace of it no longer mattered to the audience. I could feel it, because the dance became a parody, each gesture broader, longer, slower than a human dancer could have sustained. Someone shouted from the wings and was told to be still. And little cries burst from the musicians and those in the front rows. People were growing uneasy and whispering to one another, but the rabble in the gallery continued to clap.

lestat. babe. perhaps this isn’t such a good idea. you’re going to get yourself killed, babe.

But the shot exploded and the ball hit me with full force. I didn’t move. I stood as steady as the old man had stood before, and the pain rolled through me and stopped, leaving in its wake a terrible pulling in all my veins. The blood poured out. It flowed as I have never seen blood flow. It drenched my shirt and I could feel it spilling down my back. But the pulling grew stronger and stronger, and a warm tingling sensation had commenced to spread across the surface of my back and chest.

WHAT DID I SAY.

I spent the remainder of the night in the cathedral, huddled in a shadowy place by the right wall. I hungered for the blood I’d lost, and each time a mortal drew near I felt a strong pulling and tingling where the wounds had been.

what is it with lestat and churches

“Send them to London, to Drury Lane.

RESTORATION THEATRE MENTION

“Tomorrow … tomorrow night,” I think I stammered. That line came back to me from Shakespeare’s Macbeth … “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow …”

It came clear in an instant why she’d done it. She tore off the pink velvet girdle and skirts right there and put on the boy’s clothes. She’d chosen him for the fit of the clothes. And to describe it more truly, as she put on his garments, she became the boy. She put on his cream silk stockings and scarlet breeches, the lace shirt and the yellow waistcoat and then the scarlet frock coat, and even took the scarlet ribbon from the boy’s hair.

gabrielle this isn’t very cisgender of you

“No, Mother,” I said. My own voice startled me. It leapt out echoing too sharply under the arched ceiling. The figures on the other sarcophagi seemed merciless witnesses. The hurt in my heart stunned me. Evil sound, the snipping, the shearing. Her hair fell down in great long locks on the floor. “Ooooh, Mother.” She looked down at it, scattering it silently with the tip of her boot, and then she looked up at me, and she was a young man now certainly, the short hair curling against her cheek.

gabrielle!!!!!! i love your trans ass

Then suddenly she made a low hissing sound, and her body went rigid. She was holding her long tresses and staring at them. “My God,” she whispered. And then in a spasm, she let go of her hair and screamed. The sound paralyzed me. It sent a flash of white pain through my head. I had never heard her scream. And she screamed again as if she were on fire. She had fallen back against the window and she was screaming louder as she looked at her hair. She went to touch it and then pulled her fingers back from it as if it were blazing. And she struggled against the window, screaming and twisting from side to side, as if she were trying to get away from her own hair. “Stop it!” I shouted. I grabbed hold of her shoulders and shook her. She was gasping. I realized instantly what it was. Her hair had grown back! It had grown back as she slept until it was as long as it had been before. And it was thicker even, more lustrous. That is what was wrong with the way she looked, what I had noticed and not noticed! And what she herself had just seen. “Stop it, stop it now!” I shouted louder, her body shaking so violently I could hardly keep her in my arms. “It’s grown back, that’s all!” I insisted. “It’s natural to you, don’t you see? It’s nothing!” She was choking, trying to calm herself, touching it and then screaming as if her fingertips were blistered. She tried to get away from me, and then ripped at her hair in pure terror. I shook her hard this time. “Gabrielle!” I said. “Do you unders...

that’s the gender dysphoria babe

I looked up and saw the figure of an unearthly young boy, an exquisite young boy, pacing the floor of the chamber. Of course it was only Gabrielle.

Surrender to us, we welcome you, and we will not harm either of you if only you come.

oh that sounds like armand

Stupid thought. This was a boy, as I had said, and he had a head of long curly hair, and he walked very straight and very simply through the silvery light and into the church. He hesitated for a moment. And by the tilt of the head, it seemed he was looking up. And then he came on through the nave and towards us, his feet making not the faintest sound on the stones. He moved into the glow of the candles on the side altar. His clothes were black velvet, once beautiful, and now eaten away by time, and crusted with dirt. But his face was shining white, and perfect, the countenance of a god it seemed, a Cupid out of Caravaggio, seductive yet ethereal, with auburn hair and dark brown eyes.

WHAT DID I SAY. I FUCKING SNIFFED HIS WEIRD ASS OUT IMMEDIATELY. ARMAND MY BELOVED

And I knew this much pride would forgive nothing. God help Nicolas if we couldn’t trick this one!

oh please armand wouldn’t turn nicki

Some twenty feet away from me, I saw him sprawled on the stones staring at me with positive awe, as if I were a god. His long auburn hair was tossed about, his brown eyes enormous as he looked up. And for all the gentle innocence of his face, his will was rolling over me, a hot stream of commands, telling me I was weak and imperfect and a fool, and I would be torn limb from limb by his followers as soon as they appeared. They would roast my mortal lover slowly till he died. I laughed silently. This was as ludicrous as a fight out of the old commedia.

oh that’s so much worse actually. armand you fucking wackjob.

The pyre was as big as the one that had consumed Magnus. And on top of the pyre in a crude wooden cage, Nicolas knelt slumped against the bars. He stared blindly at us, and I could find no recognition in his face or his thoughts.

how did they figure out the exact way to traumatize lestat the most. like what the fuck

And human as Orpheus perhaps, I stopped and glanced back.

“I would have shared anything I possessed with you!” Rage building again.

oh, nicki. baby.

Emptiness here. And the quiet I had told myself that I wanted—just to be alone after the grisly struggle in Paris. Quiet, and the realization, which I could not bring myself to confess to her, the realization gnawing at my insides like a starved animal—that I couldn’t stand the sight of him now.

The violin was all he’d ever loved when he was alive. Maybe now it would awaken him. I’d put it in his hands, and he’d want to play it again, he’d want to play it with his new skill, and everything would change and the chill in my heart would somehow melt.

“I do?” I tried to steady the mare. She didn’t like their company. “Why do I have to help you?” I demanded. “He’s destroying the coven,” she said. “Destroying us …” the boy said. But he didn’t look at me. He was staring at the stones in front of him, and from his mind I caught flashes of what was happening, of the pyre lighted, of Armand forcing his followers into the fire.

jesus armand, that’s a tad dramatic

“Choose for yourself!” I said. “Look around you. Masquerade as gypsies if you will—that oughtn’t to be too difficult—or better yet mummers,” I glanced towards the lights of the boulevard. “Mummers!” said the dark-eyed woman with a little spark of excitement. “Yes, actors. Street performers. Acrobats. Make yourselves acrobats. Surely you’ve seen them out there. You can cover your white faces with greasepaint, and your extravagant gestures and facial expressions won’t even be noticed. You couldn’t choose a more nearly perfect disguise than that. On the boulevard you’ll see every manner of mortal that dwells in this city. You’ll learn all you need to know.”

and thus the théâtre de vampires was born

Candle wax dripped down the marble bust of Caesar, flowed over the brightly painted countries of the world globe. And the books, they lay in mountains on the carpet, save for those of the very last shelf in the corner where he stood, in his old rags still, hair full of dust, ignoring me as he ran his hand over page after page, his eyes intent on the words before him, his lips half open, his expression like that of an insect in its concentration as it chews through a leaf. Perfectly horrible he looked, actually. He was sucking everything out of the books! Finally he let this one drop and took down another, and opened it and started devouring it in the same manner, fingers moving down the sentences with preternatural speed. And I realized that he had been examining everything in the flat in this fashion, even the bed sheets and curtains, the pictures that had been taken off their hooks, the contents of cupboards and drawers. But from the books, he was taking concentrated knowledge. Everything from Caesar’s Gallic Wars to modern English novels lay on the floor.

little freak. he’s so endearing to me. he reads like i read low key

It seemed the longest time had passed. I was becoming disoriented. He was speaking again, but in silence. They never satisfy you, the ones you make. In silence the estrangement and the resentment only grow.

yeah but you wouldn’t know, would you, armand? you’ve never made one

A loud piercing laughter erupted from him. His chest shivered with it, his arms and legs quaking with it. And then he lowered his head and he fixed his eyes on me. And at the top of his voice he screamed: “I GIVE YOU THE THEATER OF THE VAMPIRES! THE THEATER OF THE VAMPIRES! THE GREATEST SPECTACLE OF THE BOULEVARD!”

“I despise you,” he said. “But I am done with you. I have the power from you and I know how to use it, which you do not. I am in a realm at last where I choose to triumph! In darkness, we’re equal now. And you will give me the theater, that because you owe it to me, and you are a giver of things, aren’t you—a giver of gold coins to hungry children—and then, I won’t ever look upon your light again.”

And then I went to the boulevard du Temple and I found him at his rehearsals, excited and mad as he had been before. He wore his fancy clothes again and his old jewels from the time when he had been his father’s favorite son, but his tie was askew, his stockings crooked, and his hair was as wild and unkempt as the hair of a prisoner in the Bastille who hadn’t seen himself in a mirror in twenty years.

“What can I do to make you love me?” he whispered. “What can I give? The knowledge of all I have witnessed, the secrets of our powers, the mystery of what I am?”

“Leave Paris, yes,” he whispered. “But take me with you. I don’t know how to exist here now. I stumble through a carnival of horrors. Please …”

I watched him bow his head and turn away. He became small, light, and held his arms close to himself as he stood before the blaze and he thought of threats now to hurt me, and I heard them though they died before they ever reached his lips. But something disturbed my vision for a fraction of a second. Maybe it was a candle guttering. Maybe it was the blink of my eye. Whatever it was, he vanished. Or he tried to vanish, and I saw him leaping away from the fire in a great dark streak. “No!” I cried out. And lunging at something I couldn’t even see, I held him, material again, in my hands.

armand i swear to god

“My guidance is what you need,” he answered. “You’ve only begun your adventure and you have no beliefs to hold you. You cannot live without some guidance …” “Millions live without belief or guidance. It is you who cannot live without it,” she said.

GO FOR THE THROAT GIRL

“I’ve been a rebel always,” I said. “You’ve been the slave of everything that ever claimed you.”

wow devastatingly accurate read from lestat

And the sense of grief came back to me, the realization that we were really going, that it was finished with Nicolas and finished with the Children of Darkness and their leader, and I wouldn’t see Paris again, or anything familiar to me, for years and years. And for all my desire to be free, I wanted to weep.