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"Take a seat," Lestat said, leading Louis into the sitting room. Louis couldn't help himself. Lestat had to practically support him. He could barely walk. He felt spiritless from witnessing Jamie's death.
"Say it," Lestat ordered, "Say all the angry words you want. Say them to me. Let's resolve this now. I will not have his death be between us. Why!" Lestat cried angrily, raising his hand, "Why would you allow every mortal in the world to come between us? I am sorry for what happened. Mais, what did you expect! I'm tired of you scorning me for doing what is natural for me to do."
"To be so cruel, so heartless," Louis whispered.
"Non, liar. The child wanted to die. So, so, tell me in all honesty, what would you have me to do then to become something to you? Should I start killing off your neighbor's horses, and live stock. What do you want of me?"
"Why would Jamie have been hunted down?"
"Non mortal who knows us for what we are can be allowed to live," Lestat said patiently as if he were saying the obvious to an ignorant fool. "Unless that mortal becomes a slave. We addict our slaves by allowing them a taste of our blood."
"Why him? Out of all people," Louis said quietly, "Why were you going to murder my cousin?"
"You're shivering, your cold," Lestat said quietly, going to the mud room where boots were kept and coats were hung. Taking a woolen great coat off of its peg, he hurried back into the sitting room.
"Wear this. I can not stand for you to be cold. Here, I'll make a fire for you." He busied himself with the stacking up of logs.
"Answer me! Why him?" Louis said, huddling in the coat. His thin hands and wrists jutting out.
Dropping the poker, Lestat lied, "Because as I said; Jamie was beautiful and I wanted him. I did not know there was anything between the two of you. If I had I would have left him alone."
"Chrysanthemums," Louis said sadly, "Yvette has put chrysanthemums and marigolds in vases. You know these flowers signify death. I must request to her that here after there be no more chrysanthemums allowed in the house."
"How you must hate me," Lestat whispered. Lestat made the fire roar. Heat soon filled the coldness of the room.
"Non," Louis said quietly, "I do not hate you. I learned about love tonight. Foolish, tragic, stupid love. I leaned a vampire can take a victim with authority, calm, and with tender compassion. It needn't be an angry, bitter affair. Henceforth, if I ever decide to kill a mortal I will do it with love and respect."
"I perhaps have forgotten how to kill a human being properly," Lestat said dryly, remembering the times he purposely terrified his victims before and during his kills just for the spiteful thrill of it all.
"Who was the vampire who killed Jamie?" Louis asked wistfully. The flicker of the flames in the fireplace caused dancing shadows to be on his face. "He was very handsome and kind. I would like to know him."
"You cannot know him. He is almost an outlaw amongst our kind. A rogue. No one is allowed to know such a mean quality of vampire. He asked us to leave him alone. Do you break your vows so easily? Are you so dishonorable?"
"Non, I am not!" Louis cried stung, "I am not so dishonorable! I will never mention him to anyone of his appearance in my life."
"Tonight has been a terror for you. I will try my hardest to make your evenings pleasurable ones. Mais, you have no idea what you are. About what is supposed to be pleasurable to a creature such as yourself. You repel your nature, clinging on to your stupid conscience, your morality."
"This isn't true. You misunderstand. Morality had nothing to do with my choice not to kill humans. It has everything to do with self restraint, with discipline. I will not be a fool to be played with to this, this life style which is little more than an addiction."
"Are you so sure of your resolve?" Lestat said quietly. Going to the bell, he rang for Yvette.
In entered Frances. His dark face grimacing.
"Where is Yvette?" Lestat said, smiling bitterly at the boy's weakness.
"She went to her man's cabin. One of her boys took ill."
Louis almost snapped out the question: Without my permission?
He put his hand to his mouth horrified over what he almost blurted out.
"Is her child being attended to by someone who is capable of helping him?" Louis asked, shutting his eyes.
"Don't know," Frances said, his bare toe impulsively pressed itself against the rose wood leg of a small table.
"Your master needs refreshment. Take yourself to the kitchen and prepare him a hot tea."
"Oui, monsieur," the child hurried away.
Louis listened to what seemed like hours to the great clock on the mantle. In minutes the child returned with a tray which held a steaming hot cup of tea.
"Put it down on the table," Lestat said sternly. Lestat went down one one knee before the twelve year old boy, pulling the child to himself. "Not a sound out of you," he whispered to the dark face. Slowly, he unbuttoned the child's thin cotton shirt, pulling back the collar, running his fingers along the collar bone.
"Look at him? Isn't he exquisite Louis? " Lestat said in the same type of voice Satan employs to tempt angels with. He ran his finger down down the lightly breathing chest of the boy, stopping at his moist belly button. He could see the boy was almost in a faint. Deftly, untying the boy's cord holding up his pants, he pulled them down just enough for Louis to see the thick dark patch of his curling pubic hair. The fire shimmered on the boy's pitch black skin.
"How can you resist such a fine offering?" Lestat said sweetly. He placed his lips on the child's face. Then he held out his outstretched hand to Louis to welcome him to feast.
"Frances, leave," Louis cried out in a horse voice, fighting his blood lust which surged like a fever in his body.
Lestat threw his arms out open wide. The child ran away sobbing with terror into the kitchen.
"How could you not have killed him?" Lestat said exasperated.
"How could you take me for a fool! You knew I would not kill him. This wasn't a test. It was a deliberate jibe at me. A mockery."
"So it was! You throw away happiness with open hands. You deserve to be made fun of. If you refuse to allow me to make you happy then allow me to make you miserable."
Dashing into the kitchen, Lestat found what he was looking for. Scooping up a fat, gray rat, he carried it in triumph to the sitting room, throwing it at Louis' chest. "Eat, by God! Eat of it then."
The rat landed with a smack against Louis' chest, then rolled down to his lap. Rat and vampire stared at each other. Both of them stunned.
"Eat it," Lestat said, getting down on his knees, picking up the rat, placing it inches before Louis' face. "Please," he said in a gruff voice of tenderness. "You are hungry. I cannot bear this. My temper when I am frustrated is none too kind. Be what you want to be then. Mais for your sake eat it."
Struggling the rat's small legs kicked and scratched at Lestat's hand. It's sharp little teeth gave his thumb a hard bite.
Gasping, Lestat dropped the rat. It fell once again onto Louis' lap. Quickly, the rat run down Louis' leg, hurrying away back into the kitchen.
"Merci, for your attempt to feed me," Louis said coolly, "I will in future take care of that task myself. Go Lestat. I hear your father, he is calling for you." Louis said wearily, Try not to direct your harsh words you are burning to use on me on to him. None of this is his fault."
Lestat got off his knees, shaken. "You flatter yourself that I would have anything kind or unkind to say to you any more, " Lestat said coldly, as yet uncried tears smothered in his throat.
Lestat went to the stair. Louis caught by the sleeve of his frock coat. "Lestat?"
"Oui, Louis?"
"Sleep well," Louis said pressing his arm.
"Sleep well, and sleep alone, " Lestat said, despising him and cherishing him both.
"It is not that I deplore your gift of my own slave, Frances," Louis said with gentle humor, then forcefully he continued, "Non, your gift of a human being was touching. Mais, after your father is no more, there will be need for Pointe du Lac. I will be freeing the people who work on my plantation. At least for myself, if not for my contemporaries, it's time for my father's way of life to rest in peace," Louis said gently.
"How I wish I could understand you. Do as you please," Lestat said coldly, heading up the stairs. Midway up the stairs, Lestat turned around, saying, "I am, as much as a creature like myself can be, unhappy for your cousin's death, mostly because it caused you to be unhappy."
"I know, Lestat," Louis said with a weak smile. A part of them both wanted to reach out and comfort each other. Fear and mistrust about the words which might be said between them--the potential of making the situation worse, kept them apart. Lestat went up the stairs.
Louis went out the French doors to the oratory. Laying his his head down in his arms on top of his coffin, he shuddered. He noticed the unknown vampire had not left Jamie's body in the oratory as he had promised unless. Louis slowly opened the coffin, to his relief it was empty.
Going inside of his coffin, he laid himself flat, closing the lid, thinking of his father who loved him so very much. He thought about how wrong Valmount was about the important things in life, and about how right Valmount was about the small things. What ever his father's faults, the brutality of the mistaken beliefs that his father lived by, he would forever always cherish Valmount for the charm and the gallantry he taught him. His father's courage, and his father's cruelties, neither one could be separated out of who the man truly was. Yet, Louis knew he could, and did love the man.
He tried to imagine Jamie and Paul in heaven together, if there was such a place.
Jamie would finally get his wish to ride free and wild, going faster, and faster.
Paul would be riding alongside of Jamie. Neither passing the other. As they rode on the souls of horses. | 