A new single drops just before the tour. Unconventional timing, perhaps, but the Vampire Lestat is not a conventional band.
Beginning with a vaguely terroristic hostage situation of a live late night studio to perform without the knowledge of the host or the crew, even the crew who found themselves assisting during the performance, followed by a dozen or so similar instances at various venues. VL obtaining a record deal felt a little like someone leashing a wild animal, forcing a proper album distribution, scheduled appearances, exclusive performances and interviews, and a social media landscape ravaged by one particularly annoying blonde man who appears bound and determined to convince the world he is a vampire.
On the same day that 'Long Face' is let loose on the Internet, Louis receives a gift. A record that does not appear to be available for purchase anywhere, the cover a glossy black with the band's logo in bright violet in the centre. The song pressed in vinyl is the same that is currently trending, but Louis will have to search himself for the accompanying music video. (A chaotic affair, a mix of various candid backstage and recording studio footage interspersed with elaborate sets, dancers, costumes, glitter and gore, and Lestat himself, a fanged and bedazzled constant in the ever shifting landscape.)
It's not the only thing he receives. An envelope contains with it some official documentation of a VIP backstage pass that encompasses the entirety of the tour, every American location, and then an invitation that welcomes the recipient to a private party in the heart of Auvergne, France.
The printed card (cream and gold) is signed personally, with a bespoke little message in black ink: surprise me by coming.
The video is playing on Louis' tablet as he turns the card in his hands. Lestat's handwriting, the same now as it had been then. A spiritual twin to the card Louis had recently passed across the coffee table in this very room to Daniel for inspection, that is preserved in archival storage along with all the other mementos of Louis' past.
He plays the song once, twice, three times. Then a fourth, trying to let all possible emotions wash through his body. Let the flush of heat in his face fade.
Turns his attention after to the documentation, the backstage pass, the invitation, the record itself. All these things strewn across Louis' coffee table as he watches the video and listens to the lyrics and considers whether he wants to book a direct flight to France, of all places.
Louis has been back since. (Since Claudia. Since the trial.) Has even seen Lestat since, has called him once or twice, had conversations easier than he would have ever guessed at after the book was released. They are—
Something. Friends. Near to friends. All things shaken loose in the hurricane and laid out in new and strange configurations.
Surprise me by coming, the note says, and Louis considers what he is actually being invited into. A party. Private, yes, but a party thrown by Lestat all the same.
Come appraise me the lyrics to the song had growled. Louis swipes two fingers across the tablet's surface, banishing the video, starting a call to his travel agent. Maybe it's a bad idea.
It's most certainly skirting the edges of a bad idea. Testing the delicate balance of the boundaries Louis has laid out for himself.
And yet, he boards a flight.
Daniel points out there are places in France worth looking into. Places that Louis might obtain documents, historical record, items of use. So there is something to this trip beyond just a party.
He is telling himself this as he presents the invitation at the door to a very tall, very slender, very unimpressed mortal at the entryway of the party. Whatever notation is beside his name inspires some urgency. He is sped through, into the crush of the crowd with the assurance, The Vampire Lestat will be notified of your arrival.
The château is not a public building in the slightest, and all infrastructure has had to be retrofitted especially, but an impossible feat has been achieved and Louis is guided through what appears to be an ancient medieval castle that has been furnished with luxury, music and lights, a bar and some food, servers flitting here and there. A decent crowd has gathered already, all humans who aren't constrained by things like when the sun sets, and the demographic seems to be a mix of band members and personal crew, musicians and producers, and a decent scattering of high profile hangers on.
A strict no photography policy is in place, although Louis is not among those who is asked to give up his devices. He is treated, instead, as an important attendee, just as much as the core band members might be.
He is told that Mr. Lioncourt will be making his appearance soon, and is directed to some comfortable furnishings to relax, offered a drink. The room is steadily becoming crowded as people drift in. There is a piano, and increasing evidence of a little makeshift performance space as the lighting changes seemingly as soon as Louis has a drink in hand.
And maybe it's imagined, or real, but a sense of awareness. Louis had described it as a scent, as nausea, as knowing. In not too many rooms away, Lestat feels it like a prickle across his skin, and a heart-sore twinge.
It occurs to Louis, seated and provided refreshment, that other vampires may be in attendance. That his acceptance of invitation may cause some trouble for Lestat depending on who arrives.
That maybe some of the trouble that dogs Louis will have found Lestat, given the givens. It's a thing to consider.
The promise of a performance is pleasing. It gives Louis something particular to structure his presence around, a clear way to avoid overstaying his welcome. Lestat will play. Perhaps he will allot some time to Louis after. Once he moves on, so too will Louis. Easy enough.
Sitting here, Louis is privy to all manner of conversation carried along on the air. Mortals, eager and excited. Impressed at the venue, the money involved in its presentation. Thrilled at the presence of the band, of Lestat. Some whose lustful hopes are more than obvious. Some who doubt the gimmick but would like to find out anyway.
Louis lifts his mind away.
He has taken much care with his own preparations. Has had to, each time he attends one of Lestat's invitations to a gathering, likes to look his best despite being relatively out of his element. Tonight he had chosen an artfully oversized suit, high-waisted black trousers cinched by gold buckle, lapels embroidered in similar shade, coat left to hang open to display the filmy sheer tunic beneath. A collection of rings for his fingers, a smear of gold applied to his eyes, his hair done up in the soft twists Louis has favored of late.
He occupies the sofa at a comfortable lean. Feels Lestat in proximity, a tangible sense like a storm gathering. Like the air is heavier. Like the music is made quieter so Louis might strain to hear his heartbeat.
The way his entire body prickles, aching and aware: He's here.
The Vampire Lestat will be informed of his presence. Louis doesn't doubt he already knows.
So, Louis meets the band. Larry and Alex, a handful of others Lestat has collected into his ensemble. Touches their minds, just to be check. Mingles, briefly, independent of Lestat. As promised, Cookie has answered very frankly to anyone who had expressed curiosity about the beautiful man sequestered in his VIP section, led out of the room by the hand by Lestat.
The vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac. From the book.
A little murmur that follows, even when Louis excuses himself from the party before the festivities turn wild enough to tempt Louis into recklessness.
(Before jealousy prompts him into some real foolishness. All their established boundaries can't fully keep Louis from losing his mind seeing Lestat so well-admired.)
So Lestat is on tour. Louis is fighting vampires. Louis is avoiding overzealous children wielding iPhones. Louis is running a thriving business, managing his assets and expanding his portfolio. He is making money. He is alone, more or less, for the first time in his entire life.
(Gutted periodically by the ways in which he finds himself missing phantoms. Missing Armand. Missing Lestat.)
Rashid has meticulously incorporated tour dates into Louis' calendar. Between his efforts and Rachida's, Louis can attend whichever location appeals to him, all the difficulty of travel already ironed out. Louis has not been so subtle in his comings and goings, but he intends to be as discreet as he can be when inviting himself to one of Lestat's concerts. Lestat is unmistakable, is flirting with the transgressions Louis has already committed, but Louis isn't eager to discover whether or not he'd be spared the consequences this time as he was once before.
Thinking of the trial is no good. Not for him, not for them. To whatever extent Them existed in the present moment.
The long fight (twenty hours, give or take) from Dubai to Las Vegas is sufficient time to put the ghosts of Paris aside. Louis had always intended to attend the first stop on Lestat's tour. He is packed. The hotel is arranged. A car service secured. A plane takes him from Dubai across ocean and continents to deposit him in Vegas, where Louis can feel Daniel among the many, and alongside him—
Lestat, thudding in his consciousness from the moment Louis disembarks.
It is as it was in Auvergne: ushered through the line, through the crowd, towards some designated luxury while a nervous little man with a clipboard chirps, The Vampire Lestat will be notified of your arrival. This time, Louis yields the luxury of the space to Rachida, so he might bled in among the concergoers and enjoy a closer vantage point within the churn of dancing and singing and screaming on the floor in front of the stage. Their enthusiasm is deafening when Lestat takes the stage, begins to sing.
The crowd demands two encores, roars for a third. Louis is already extricating himself, glowing with sweat, flush with adrenaline. Rachida is muttering at the state of him, hasty attempt to assist in making Louis flawlessly, coolly, presentable once more when their clipboard wielding host reappears.
If you'll accompany me backstage, is theoretically something Louis can refuse. But he does not refuse. He goes, following along the aisle as Lestat reappears once more. As they lock eyes, look at each other. As Louis is guided onto the edge of the stage and behind the curtain, perfect vantage point from which to watch this last performance. Perfect place to greet Lestat when he emerges from the stage.
On the Vampire Lestat's rider is an absence of beverages and food, including a certain ambivalence regarding whether he prefers still or sparkling water, but includes specifications around having his own well appointed dressing room separate to his band, several full vases of exotic flowers, a selection of heavy quilted housecoats hanging and ready, and a wooden plank with scarred scratches driven through the surface and streaks of what those who are designated to handle it hope aren't blood.
A little ritual, to begin. He uses his phone to bring up some Bach, listens to it through his headphones, balances the plank on his knees, and begins to play.
He had told Louis he would go on tour, become a famed pianist. He has decided to do something different, of course, but it wouldn't do to neglect practice, just in case. He is certain he will find it all the more easier to write songs when he has earned his way back towards a piano. But for now, fingertips dancing along the long-smoothed divots in the wood, familiar and comforting, and only pauses as the song continues when he can sense
an arrival, in the building, a bright and shining thing in the churn of minds and souls. Hands smooth over to the edge of the plank, gripping onto it as he focuses on that feeling, like a second heartbeat shadowing his own. Mutes Bach. Listens to that instead.
A whirlwind follows. Costumes organised, makeup and hair darting in and out, and an even more frantic buzz amongst the staff beyond Lestat's direct purview, and all too soon, he finds himself on stage, hands curled around the microphone in its stand. The coat that falls off bared shoulders is brilliant crimson, hem hitting the stage floor, feet of fabric laying in crumpled folds there and fanned out about him. Inky black leather platform heels raise him several inches taller than usual, seeming to melt into pants of the same texture, a buckled vest encrusted in shining silver sparkles. Hair in wild ice-gold curls, eyes in dark, bold makeup, mouth painted in red that he at the last moment decided to smear aside with his hand, a fading streak aside.
The coat is shed mid-song, tossed aside.
Eclectic variety, several costume changes, dancers and pyrotechnics, fake blood and shining lights. It is spectacle, distraction, loud and bright. The man himself matches it, nothing in the way of inhibitions, of the lows and highs of emotion on display, which is very much what his audience expects, desires. Makeup like blood tears, grins full of fangs. Performs from the scaffolding, from his kneels, steals Alex's guitar, reaches his hand down to grasping fans without any fear at all of being harmed. Leaves a scattered mess of loose feathers, sequins, paint and claw marks on the stage by the time the night is finished.
And seeks Louis in the crowd. Bold about eye contact, but the same can be said for varied audiences members, only that such moments for them are fleeting. Well, save for one, a girl near the end of the catwalk that extends out into the crowd who must have some kind of quality that draws his eye.
Pays off, towards the end. The final encore, singing from the very end of the stage, and in a flash, drawing her up out of the audience with effortless strength. She crumbles against him into an embrace, and the lyrics are lost as Lestat lowers his face against her neck, and fangs to flesh.
His sense of Louis, prickling, hair-raising awareness as he indulges in a little drink before thousands of screaming fans, the music unceasing.
Flush, skin gleaming red in the strobe of lights, Louis realizes what is going to happen before Lestat ever reaches down into the crowd.
Goes cold and hot simultaneously, jealousy and arousal and revulsion locking his body in place where he stands, watching.
A moment where Louis not here at all, where he is in Paris with Claudia watching eagerly beside him and Armand looking down, all-seeing, from the balcony.
The crowd is screaming, deafening. Lestat's body is a familiar, graceful bend, mouth open at the neck of a beautiful girl reaching up to him. Eager. Welcoming. Louis' breath goes shallow, pulse beating louder and louder in his ears in time with Lestat's.
Takes a step forward unconsciously, stopped only by the barrier created by his clipboard-wielding attendee. Where was he going? To join Lestat? To stop him? Louis can hardly pin down the impulse.
But his attention is so focused, nearly a physical touch, watching as Lestat lifts his head from his prey's neck. Watching her fingers catching at his hair, tangling in the ends, and feeling his own fangs heavy in his throat. Watching Lestat, incandescent, resplendent, holding everyone spellbound.
Holding Louis, in spite of all his intentions otherwise, Rachida's reminders, his bes intentions. He cannot look away from him.
The tour begins and continues in a predictable blur. Sold out venues, a scattering of fans with a souvenir in the form of bite marks on their throats. Pictures of the latter circulating social media, internet sleuthing to discern the forgeries from the real thing. Hot takes about the entitlement of celebrities, of psychopaths and public delusional behaviour being enabled by record labels, of passionate claims that vampirism is real. Noise gathering, brewing.
A different kind of noise to the amassing of vampire threats still leveled at Louis, public enemy number one, but a new current now. Is the flashy human masquerading as one of their kind the real thing? Has anyone gotten close enough to know? Do any of them dare say it?
Lestat has enough to deal with. Screaming matches with Cookie about a new arrangement, making it up to her in the dark room on the bus. Arguments with Christine about an endless calendar of radio interviews and podcasts. Snarling at Larry for being too quiet, at Alex for being too chatty.
So it goes. They're all getting paid for living out their dreams. It keeps a band together.
And there is Louis, in between, showing up, sometimes in the audience and sometimes backstage. Always time to speak, before a performance or after. Lestat has recovered well from his minor meltdown that first evening. They speak of art, they speak of music, of travel. They don't speak of vampire threats.
It is his second night in Dallas. A party the previous night had continued well into the next, a small group invited to his room with its heavyduty blackout curtains. Cocaine, vodka, and several eager fans that includes a young man in a cowboy hat that Lestat enjoyed stealing after he drank from his thick neck. His name is Noah and Lestat is in love with him, he thinks, falling asleep on his six pack just as Cookie is pounding on his hotel room door to tell him the car is here to take them to the venue.
Hopefully a twenty second nap will suit him. He asks Noah if he wants to come. Noah says yes.
All things proceed apace. Louis is traveling, again. Moving constantly between tour venues and galleries, detours into places he once traveled to with Armand to retrieve—Louis isn't sure what. Memories. Pieces of himself that might have been lost.
In some respects, all is well. Louis is making money. Daniel is wrapping up his own book tour. Lestat's tour has been well-received.
But between Daniel and Lestat, they are generating chatter that is making Louis anxious. He doesn't like the swirl of questions around Lestat, likes it even less after the first spate of attacks he has to deal with. Young vampires, yes, but—
Problems. Problems, maybe, for Lestat who has so many humans to attend to. Louis has Rachida, and a whole mess of staff traveling alongside them, but they are all better equipped to defend themselves than Lestat's humans.
Louis is making an effort not to carry these fears with him into the arenas and dressing rooms, the time he spends with Lestat. They talk, like they did once. Or nearly like they did once. There is no pretending that they aren't withholding, though Louis isn't certain with it is Lestat is keeping close to his chest. They're spending time. Lestat makes time for him. They text. It is good.
The night before Louis arrived in Dallas, he beheaded two young vampires and paid an exorbitant sum for the use of a local crematory's incinerator. He is healing still when the plane lands, when he is collected from the airport. Rachida has been texting Christine. They are on schedule. Louis is choosing not to ask after the pinch of worry on her face. Rachida has a very reliable policy, telling Louis when he needs to be concerned about something and withholding when it is something that doesn't require his attention.
Lestat is getting ready, clipboard-wielding Sven reports, but Louis is welcome to say hello before the show if he wishes.
If he hadn't spent the night before fielding attacking vampires, Louis might have left Lestat to his preparations. But he wants to see him, reassure himself.
Raps on the door, sets palm on the handle, and almost immediately realizes that Lestat isn't alone in that room.
Getting dressed, getting ready. His usual ritual abandoned, wooden keyboard left neglected in the corner. No more alcohol, just some amphetamines to hopefully get him through the night, doing his makeup while Noah touches him, says some nonsense about cancelling the show, groping him, kissing his neck. Lestat says he has kept to his commitments for hotter men, and it hurts Noah's feelings.
Which is boring. He'd been hoping for—well, absolutely unfair expectations, but it's easy to make up for. Which is what Lestat is doing when his vampire senses pick up on Louis' presence, unhelpfully, at the same time there is a knock at the door.
There's a thump, a heavy step, mumbled voices.
"A moment," Lestat's voice. Shuffling clothing. Another male voice, a complaint, are you serious?, lilting southern accent.
Maybe Louis sees the photoshoot first before Lestat's gift arrives in his penthouse in Dubai. It makes a social media splash, a racy photoshoot between the Vampire Lestat and another rising star, a female popstar of similar inclination towards glitter and spectacle. Black and white images with deliberate harsh lighting and flash photography, a tangle of rockstar messiness and, notably, blood rendered in tones of steely black. Pale skin decorated in accessories, framed in what is more lingerie than clothing, some more dressed than others.
Specifically a photograph of Lestat's fangs in the meat of her thigh, her head thrown back as liquid trickles around and down between her legs. Blood smeared in the next, across his face, across her thigh. Later, the starlet posts some images on her Instagram, a full colour version showing dark red blood, and her own picture of bruised, marked up skin, a little vampire emoji, a lyric from a song, and chaos in her comment section.
And then Louis receives a package. Merch, first: a poster, a few different styles of T-shirts, tending towards black and purple. A keychain, a bumper sticker. More intriguing, a folder without a note, and several printed photographs within.
Ones that didn't make publication, for obvious reasons. A handful of images of just Lestat, still wearing bracelets of leather, a metal spiked collar, but only those things. It is the kind of shoot that is a love affair with the photographer, unabashed and shameless, gazing down the camera as if it were the object of his own desire. If there is cut material of his musician friend, it only shows up in one of the images, where she is standing out of frame save for her bare leg, and Lestat is licking clean a rivulet of blood.
Louis is a photographer, isn't he? Certainly, he should appreciate these insights.
Yes, the photos find Louis before Rashid forwards the package in question.
Lestat, looking out from a glossy magazine cover strewn artfully across a glass tabletop in a hotel lobby. An artful shot, bright eyes looking up from lovely thigh. Newsprint arranged so as not to distract from her face, his fangs.
Louis had felt his heart flip, clench, whole body flush hot. He'd taken the magazine. Hadn't opened it, only stashed it in his suitcase. (Entertained buying out the entirety of the run. Frivolous. Foolish.) It had traveled with him, one hotel to another, untouched.
Untouched until the package arrives, along with a handful of other forwarded mail, other things Louis requested from his penthouse. A shock, opening the folder. The box of merch is sitting on a tabletop. Louis is seated, all mail neatly arranged, and then:
These photos.
These photos.
Lestat, bare. Bare and made more so by the items that remain. The suggestion of this musician, Lestat's tongue on her skin.
Louis fetches the magazine to compare. Is not assuaged by what has made it to print. Has the sense that he will never break free of the furious flush of jealousy, that it will consume him, that he can do nothing but feel it, and feel it, and feel it, with nowhere and nothing to do but wrestle uselessly with what isn't his to claim any ownership over.
The contents of the package, t-shirts, key-chains, bumper sticker, magazine and photos, all of it would burn.
Louis doesn't burn any of it.
All things, photos and magazine, merchandise and all, are packed up neatly and added to the assortment of items that follow Louis around his own miniature tour of the country. They follow him to New Orleans, where he is absent from Lestat's dressing room at the beginning of the show.
Deciding, still. Deciding what he should be doing around Lestat when Louis has been driven to distraction by what feels pointed but cannot be about Louis, not really. It is a photoshoot. The additional pictures are—
It's not about Louis. He cannot entertain any other possibility without losing his grasp on his self-control.
Here too, Louis descends into the crowd into the crush of mortal bodies screaming eagerly for Lestat as he appears onstage. It doesn't soothe the snarling tangle of jealousy Louis has carried for days in his body. But they are playing. He will dance. He will be polite, if he is fetched.
It is a show. Louis will enjoy it. He will not indulge the near overwhelming urge to disrupt all of it by ripping Lestat off the stage. He will not begrudge whichever mortal is plucked from the churn of bodies to bare their throat to Lestat's teeth.
Louis makes himself all these promises, and pretends he is not a breath away from them coming all apart, that his patience isn't being tested by the rush of feeling and thought surrounding him. He will make it a balm. He will let it sweep him away, until Rachida or otherwise fishes him out.
The melt-water qualities of days and nights, of concerts and downtime, of parties and interviews and appearances. He has, he thinks, gotten better at it all, of understanding each kind of performance. Whether it's this, an adoring crowd, or just one person shivering as he sips from their throat, he has become quite proficient at being the thing required of him.
Misbehaving in between, perhaps. Rejected the preliminary call Christine had scheduled him to have with Molloy about the upcoming interview. More screaming matches with Cookie. Terrorising the backstage crew. Admittedly, sending Louis the cutting room floor copies of his photoshoot is a form of misbehaviour.
Earlier, he couldn't find the boots he wanted, and threw a chair into the mirror. Then he did find the boots he wanted, so it's fine, and now—
Lestat, on stage, wearing a tightly tailored suit of glittering violet, bare beneath his jacket, red nails and red eyeshadow. Heavy driving beats and an escalating tempo make for a good way to begin a show, high energy that he has every intention to match again and again. Already here at the edge of the stage, already kneeling and leaning past the stage monitors as if he might prowl his way down into the thick of things.
He has imagined doing that before. Letting the sea of faceless people swallow him whole, never to be seen again. But he doesn't do that. Instead, he does what he always does: sweeps a searching look over them.
The show goes on. The tour continues. Inching ever closer to the last place he called home this century.
It is a whirlwind, some of it splashed on social media. Cookie and Alex's Instagrams are full of dazzling pictures, heartfelt messages to the cities they tour. Their lead singer and drummer are both elusive creatures, but present. Candid images and posed selfies both, glitter and sweat and smiles. A backstage image fresh after their last performance in Oklahoma, a shirtless Lestat with the glow of the stage just behind him, blood streaking from a fanged, grinning mouth.
Other images circulate from concert goers, including an infamous series of high definition photos of his drinking from the neck of a female fan, an older woman than the masses of zillennials his band tends to attract. This one, a lifelong goth swooning happily under his fangs, and then moments later gathered up in his arms. Blood streaks and stains rendered sharp and clear. The debate continues, criticism and enthusiasm in equal parts for what must be a publicity stunt, but also, more and more believers that what they are seeing is real.
And then they arrive in New Orleans.
This was the first of all the announced shows that sold out, and promises to be a success. By all accounts, it is. The next day, when Lestat arrives hours late for the first in a long series of interviews, bloodied and bloodless, Daniel Molloy tells him it was great. Lestat thanks him by choking him out. An auspicious beginning.
Forty-three minutes of preliminary argument, of unhelpful wandering description about his childhood. Lestat briefly thinks about remembering what advice Louis had given him, but can't bring himself to try. The footage is probably useless by the time they are done. Christine Clare is unapologetic to Mr. Molloy, but can feel a new migraine beginning to form.
It's that same day, a few hours later, that Rachida, Louis' state-side contact, is messaged, requesting confirmation that Mr. du Lac is going to be attending the New Orleans shows.
Mr. du Lac has an exceptionally busy schedule, and cannot guarantee attendance. He offers his sincere apologies.
There is nothing in Louis' schedule that would not move if he wished it. Louis has spent a few decades amassing the kind of power and wealth that ensures such deference.
However, in the wake of the disastrous Oklahoma concert, Louis has been finding ways to keep himself busy.
Louis has toured galleries. He has met with museum boards. He has acquired no less than five properties, two of which he believes he can flip for a substantial profit within six months. He'd set himself that challenge while swiping past a tablet screen illuminated by Lestat. Lestat, cradling a swooning woman on a stage. Lestat with fangs fully elongated and bloody. Lestat, Lestat, Lestat.
Louis shouldn't have done what he did. He is ashamed. He is so jealous he feels like he might do something stupid.
He has channeled that energy into his real estate portfolio.
He has missed several concerts. The passes, merchandise and tickets languish, toted dutifully from hotel to hotel.
Rachida has not asked. Louis doesn't volunteer.
Daniel sends a single text: Yikes.
It is an invitation for Louis to ask more questions. Daniel is so annoying. (Louis misses him.) Louis has been delaying the question, but suspects he has just inside twelve hours before Daniel resorts to beaming his retorts into Louis' heads.
Christine doesn't reply, of course. No need. She counts her value in seconds, in letters, and doesn't require further clarification for bad news parceled politely.
The second concert goes on ahead. The songs are sung, which is what most of everyone is here for. Notably, no audience member is dragged on stage. Notably, at least one ballad is performed from a crossed legged sit off-centre on the stage. The intensity does not diminish, but becomes sporadic, spiky, deeper lows and higher highs. The audience is satisfied. The band is annoyed.
The next day, Louis' personal device is texted directly by an unknown number.
this is TC are you in NOLA?? Lestat would like it if you came to the show 2night
The interviews between Daniel Molloy and Lestat de Lioncourt have a very different tenor to what Louis will recall of his own. A studio is a far cry from the expensive privacy of a sky-high penthouse in Dubai, to begin with, and a camera is a different sort of observer than a laptop's audio recording. There are no long languid hours to spend together, but tightly controlled blocks of time parcelled out with room for hair and makeup beforehand.
And then there is the interview. Daniel is himself, but treats Lestat like a particularly fussy celebrity with a strict schedule, something impersonal to the tone they set. Lestat is resistant in the ways one might predict him to be, waving away questions he doesn't want to answer, insisting on tangents he prefers, as if Daniel is as much a passive part of the apparatus as the light fixtures, the boom mic.
But, and perhaps noticeable from Louis' place of privilege off to the side, there are cracks starting to form, and a long game being played—at least, on Daniel's side. Some quest for the vulnerable thing that shivering beneath the surface. Certainly, it would give purpose to this gaudy spectacle beyond popular demand for a sequel.
Today, they speak of his turning. Lestat is already bristling, some sensitive nerve about the way his story was already delivered to the world. Daniel, making space for the do over.
It's a different conversation to the way Lestat had obliged Louis and Claudia, long ago—a list of facts, a touch of flippancy, a little sincerity. Here, there is texture. There are the sweat-warm sheets of his shared bed with Nicolas and alcohol on his lover's sleeping breath. There is the monster, the pale-faced grinning man who had been following him, suddenly there in his room, half-melted into the corner shadows and gripping his wolf fur cloak. There is the panic and anger, the gun pulled from under his bed, yanked from his hands before he can fire. There is the feeling of red velvet on his bare skin as the monster wraps him in his own cloak, lifts him from the floor, and flies with him out the window, into a blizzard. A scene on a snowy rooftop, and somehow, in all the chaos of the revelation that vampires are real and Lestat has been taken by one, the most occupying and painful thing had been how cold the snow had felt against his bare feet.
They are a minute past the forty-five that Ms. Clare had allotted for this interview, but no interruption comes. Lestat, in his chair, sits with his chin in his hand, eyes somewhere else, and Daniel is afforded a moment to consider his line of questioning.
Louis understands this. Doesn't doubt this. Daniel had been the best, the best for Louis, but even beyond their affinity, Daniel is simply the best at this work. There is pleasure in watching him, even in spite of Louis' own growing discomfort, the sense that he is intruding.
Invited, yes, but feels his presence an intrusion all the same.
He is quiet. Smoking, presently, for something to occupy his hands while Lestat gives a fuller picture of the story Louis and Claudia dragged from him decades ago.
(Would Louis have ever heard it otherwise?
Unfair. Jealousy and hurt undeniable but smothered away. This is not about Louis.)
They are past the forty-five minute mark.
No one is moving.
Louis' eyes move between Lestat and Daniel, waiting. Unwilling to break the quiet, beat Daniel to his question. Has a finger at the edge of Daniel's mind anyway, feeling the buzz of his mind as Daniel looks at Lestat.
An impulse suppressed: Don't push.
It's not for Louis to say, though he wants to shield Lestat from whatever it is he is reliving.
But no. Daniel prompts, presses. Encourages. Pulls the story free, into the quiet sprung up between the three of them.
Daniel prompts, presses. Pushes. Beyond the call of a celebrity documentarian appeasing the vanity of celebrity rockstar, but he can't help himself, he is built this way.
It's why Louis needed him.
Here, Lestat's problem is not recall, but some labyrinthine, resistant quality between memory and speaking it into being. An effort is being made. He speaks of being bitten on that rooftop and then flown through an ice-flecked sky, of being spilled on stone ground in a chamber with broad shutterless windows, a heavy wooden trapdoor with iron lock. And Magnus, who toyed with him. Encouraged Lestat's struggle and curses while laughing, impossibly strong, touching him as he pleased.
And yes, the famous chamber and its blonde, bloated corpses. He felt he had disappointed the vampire, eventually, when the fight left his body, and he was taken into that room of horror and rot, and left there. A message, his eventual fate.
A week, he had said. Yes, a week.
Some heavy pull to the story, a centre point. The turning, but they both (all three) are vampires, familiar with the horror. Still, Lestat is quiet once again.
(Not about Louis? Lestat would laugh to know he thought so.)
The crowd had demanded two encores tonight. Louis had been summoned already from the crush of dancing mortals in the pit, and watched the roars and cheers from just off stage.
Sweating, strung with a handful of cheap plastic beads, Louis is there to receive Lestat when he finally parts with the crowd. The band behind him, raucous and snarking and affectionate, all of them satisfied with their night's work.
There is an after party. Christine had told Rachida who had warned Louis, who now is dutifully surprised when Lestat describes the waiting festivities to him. Louis would like to take Lestat back to a hotel room, rinse the paint and glitter off, dance a little, talk a little. But Louis says, Yes. Lestat invites him, and Louis will go. They can celebrate. It's not a hardship to be caught up in their jubilation.
Louis touches his face, brushes fingers along sweat-damp skin. Says, I'll see you there.
They part. Lestat, to the obligation of a meet and greet. Louis, to a private car.
It shouldn't touch Lestat, Louis' little war. His provocations. His skirmishes. It is Louis' business. If he kites irate vampires away from Lestat's stage, it is only good business. (He feels alive. In control. Sure of himself.) He had cleared out the apiring batch before the show, Louis had thought. He had gossiped quietly about it to Daniel, who had argued about it, but hadn't quite asked him to stop. Maybe he was saving that fight for another state, another city.
Louis arrives first, because no one is seeking Louis' autograph. He is on the list, swept into the club and lead upwards to a private balcony. Arrayed in gold and leather tonight, a harness of oxblood leather over a sheer black tank, straps running from throat to waist where loops cinch from rib to hip. Gold on his fingers, capping his fangs, cuffing his ear, circling his wrists. Heavy soled loafers raising his height by an inch. Leather trousers slung low on his hips. The gifted plastic beads swing, clack softly, not yet discarded.
These beaded necklaces break instantly when a clawed hand grabs hold of them, and yanks. Louis is already turning, hissing, as the cheap little beads scatter across the concrete floor, clink down onto the glass table.
Loud music and the babble of conversation are all adequate enough to drown out scuffle, the low hissing between fangs. Maybe someone looks up, maybe someone is already watching the VIP balconies in a place like this, but it doesn't matter soon enough.
Two sets of hands grabbing at Louis. One pair latch onto his arm, an elegant movement drawing it around to twist up his back, joints straining. The other goes to lock down the other. Coordinated, vicious. The balcony continues to wind within the interior corner, with a discreet door that will lead to service rooms, to the outside, emergency exits. This is their intended direction.
The tangle of three jar against the glass table. It's bolted down, but metal bends from the force. A crack shoots through the glass, webs out, not yet shattering.
It is now that a limousine is nosing into the back parking space. It's slow going, still. People pressing forwards, trying to get glimpses through the tinted windows, trying to get photos. The people inside the car are in no hurry. Alex and Cookie are negotiating lines of MDMA, but it's their friends (fans, groupies, meat, whatever you may call them) that have had a head start on their evening.
Lestat is occupied with a redheaded woman who is flushed all over, shivering as he drinks shallow sips from her pale neck. A sweet cocktail of chemicals, riding the champagne they keep stocked in their rides and rooms. She clutches his thigh desperately, nails putting lines in black, gold-speckled leather.
The concerts had always felt safe, as had the events following them. Louis is no fool. He is aware the vampires young enough to be trying him are young enough to fear Lestat. They have been careful, thus far, to avoid provoking Louis anywhere that might invite Lestat's attention.
And yet.
These two are brave. Just shy of their first century, Louis guesses. Whoever made them was powerful.
They are clever besides. They are trying to steal him, rather than kill him here.
When flame bursts across the balcony and blooms in the air above the dance floor, the mortals below scream in delight. Pyrotechnics, the Vampire Lestat truly spares no expense.
Above, one of these young vampires has gone reeling back, dodging out of the gout of flame. His compatriot has caught alight, dropped to the floor to write. Louis' arms are aching, aching, aching, but he pivots and begins kicking this fledgling anyway. Pinned up against the bars of the railing, this vampire scrabbles desperately trying to escape as Louis turns his ribs into pulp.
It might be the end of the whole affair if his partner hadn't pivoted to tackle Louis headlong into the wall, breaking his focus.
There's only so much time. Louis had wanted to finish this before Lestat arrived, before he could see or understand what Louis has been doing in his spare time.
Louis receives some news directly into his brain, courtesy of Daniel. Lestat has pulled the plug on the documentary, spoken in tones of someone who has become accustomed to dealing with a diva. Can Louis talk to him? Get it back on track? It was just starting to get good.
Oh, yeah, and did you hear—?
Well, no, Louis did not, but he might have marked the ripple effect when a message went out along the lines of:
I am the vampire Lestat, and mine is a fame that will carry my voice to the remotest parts of the world. And do you know what I will tell them? Everything.
And it happens during a live studio performance on a late night TV show that was not even remotely planned, crew commandeered, host sent into a dizzy coma, and cameras broadcasting a very special one-song performance by the Vampire Lestat and his band. It a blistering few minutes, a deep voice echoing through a hijacked sound system, bare chested and gleaming in sweat, blood spatters, glitter, and at least one instance of the lens of a camera being shown a blurry close up of long white fangs and a panting, fogging breath.
The tour goes on, and suddenly it is more chaotic than ever as the band and its lead are dosed with an extra hit of celebrity. Pictures surfacing, a blurry, low-resolution nightclub shot of a woman with a stunned, if delighted expression on face as Lestat bites her shoulder, where a dark dribble of blood runs over her tan skin. News of a cancelled gig, and then back to form the next night. News of a limo driving off the pavement and hitting a streetlamp. News of a blackout at a nightclub, witnesses with outlandish stories about dismembered arms, but only blood found on the scene.
And so on. The tour goes on. The documentary does not.
They speak regularly, Louis and Daniel, but not always about Lestat. Tender terrain. Daniel is sometimes mindful of it, sometimes not.
In this instance, Daniel has opted for "not."
Louis is so angry, is the thing. Angry at himself, angry at Lestat. Maybe Daniel can sense some of that he relates the happenings from the tour, the exact wording of what provocation was blasted out into the Many. Yes, Louis had understood something had happened. It had made for a strange panicky furious ripple through the stratosphere. It had changed the terms of play Louis had been operating on.
Daniel doesn't have to tell him the rest, but he does, from time to time, calling attention as if Louis hasn't seen the way mortal media lights up with what they believe to be a new gimmick. A new bit from the Vampire Lestat, though the thread of belief strengthens. Social media accounts relating stories, whispers of things that simply cannot be faked.
Louis has continued his business, but this ripple touches even him. A shift in the way he is targeted. A shift in who comes for him. Young, still, but discerning elders and who sometimes flee sometimes watch. Louis doesn't like the change in play, but the terms aren't his alone. Lestat is a wrecking ball, amplifying whatever Louis shouts into the dark, bending it in ways unintended.
Daniel remains on tour, making himself annoying. Louis has some concerns about Daniel being maimed. He appeals to Louis again, and Louis weighs it out, his going. His anger. The way they spiraled and couldn't right themselves, despite hard won equilibrium. It had maintained for such a short time.
He makes things worse. They make things worse, together.
But Daniel asks. And Louis, seeking excuse for the thunderstorm of feeling building in his body, goes. Rachida has all the tickets still. It is a short trip to a small club, where mortals pack onto the dance floor in an overexcited crush.
Louis has told no one he is coming. He is only there, in the crowd, as the band files out onto the stage.
It doesn't matter if Louis had thought perhaps he would speak to Daniel, and then go. They are bound to each other. Does Lestat feel the same rushing adrenaline Louis does? The old refrain?
This, Lestat knows intrinsically, like bones know the weather. It doesn't stop him as he gets ready, a ritual that involves a bite to neck of a young man on pills, a stand-off with his mirror as he applies cosmetic glue and a random pattering of multicoloured glitter to his face, around his eyes, down his cheeks, messy, and replenishes last night's eyemakeup with scribbles of eyeliner. Louis is here, and it makes him giddy to think about.
That's the best word for it, for the confused, carbonated mix of anger and desire and defiance and a sense that would come with having broken an expensive belonging out of spite.
Out onto the stage, where calm is smashed by the storm, the pounding drums and the guitar. The lights shine piercing white into the gloom. If the theatre had once covered vampiric traits with greasepaint and shifting lights, none of it is veiled in Lestat's performances. He is, likewise, made bare—clinging purple velvet pants that could have been spraypainted on if not for the looser cuff around his boots, and a corset with black lace panels cinching his waist, tied in dangling black ribbon.
And other details. Reddish bruising across his chest, wrapping around the cuff of his shoulder. The kind of marks of quick healing but damage lingering.
And he seeks Louis out, of course. A smile just for him.
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Beginning with a vaguely terroristic hostage situation of a live late night studio to perform without the knowledge of the host or the crew, even the crew who found themselves assisting during the performance, followed by a dozen or so similar instances at various venues. VL obtaining a record deal felt a little like someone leashing a wild animal, forcing a proper album distribution, scheduled appearances, exclusive performances and interviews, and a social media landscape ravaged by one particularly annoying blonde man who appears bound and determined to convince the world he is a vampire.
On the same day that 'Long Face' is let loose on the Internet, Louis receives a gift. A record that does not appear to be available for purchase anywhere, the cover a glossy black with the band's logo in bright violet in the centre. The song pressed in vinyl is the same that is currently trending, but Louis will have to search himself for the accompanying music video. (A chaotic affair, a mix of various candid backstage and recording studio footage interspersed with elaborate sets, dancers, costumes, glitter and gore, and Lestat himself, a fanged and bedazzled constant in the ever shifting landscape.)
It's not the only thing he receives. An envelope contains with it some official documentation of a VIP backstage pass that encompasses the entirety of the tour, every American location, and then an invitation that welcomes the recipient to a private party in the heart of Auvergne, France.
The printed card (cream and gold) is signed personally, with a bespoke little message in black ink: surprise me by coming.
will deliver Fashion next tag
He plays the song once, twice, three times. Then a fourth, trying to let all possible emotions wash through his body. Let the flush of heat in his face fade.
Turns his attention after to the documentation, the backstage pass, the invitation, the record itself. All these things strewn across Louis' coffee table as he watches the video and listens to the lyrics and considers whether he wants to book a direct flight to France, of all places.
Louis has been back since. (Since Claudia. Since the trial.) Has even seen Lestat since, has called him once or twice, had conversations easier than he would have ever guessed at after the book was released. They are—
Something. Friends. Near to friends. All things shaken loose in the hurricane and laid out in new and strange configurations.
Surprise me by coming, the note says, and Louis considers what he is actually being invited into. A party. Private, yes, but a party thrown by Lestat all the same.
Come appraise me the lyrics to the song had growled. Louis swipes two fingers across the tablet's surface, banishing the video, starting a call to his travel agent. Maybe it's a bad idea.
It's most certainly skirting the edges of a bad idea. Testing the delicate balance of the boundaries Louis has laid out for himself.
And yet, he boards a flight.
Daniel points out there are places in France worth looking into. Places that Louis might obtain documents, historical record, items of use. So there is something to this trip beyond just a party.
He is telling himself this as he presents the invitation at the door to a very tall, very slender, very unimpressed mortal at the entryway of the party. Whatever notation is beside his name inspires some urgency. He is sped through, into the crush of the crowd with the assurance, The Vampire Lestat will be notified of your arrival.
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The château is not a public building in the slightest, and all infrastructure has had to be retrofitted especially, but an impossible feat has been achieved and Louis is guided through what appears to be an ancient medieval castle that has been furnished with luxury, music and lights, a bar and some food, servers flitting here and there. A decent crowd has gathered already, all humans who aren't constrained by things like when the sun sets, and the demographic seems to be a mix of band members and personal crew, musicians and producers, and a decent scattering of high profile hangers on.
A strict no photography policy is in place, although Louis is not among those who is asked to give up his devices. He is treated, instead, as an important attendee, just as much as the core band members might be.
He is told that Mr. Lioncourt will be making his appearance soon, and is directed to some comfortable furnishings to relax, offered a drink. The room is steadily becoming crowded as people drift in. There is a piano, and increasing evidence of a little makeshift performance space as the lighting changes seemingly as soon as Louis has a drink in hand.
And maybe it's imagined, or real, but a sense of awareness. Louis had described it as a scent, as nausea, as knowing. In not too many rooms away, Lestat feels it like a prickle across his skin, and a heart-sore twinge.
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That maybe some of the trouble that dogs Louis will have found Lestat, given the givens. It's a thing to consider.
The promise of a performance is pleasing. It gives Louis something particular to structure his presence around, a clear way to avoid overstaying his welcome. Lestat will play. Perhaps he will allot some time to Louis after. Once he moves on, so too will Louis. Easy enough.
Sitting here, Louis is privy to all manner of conversation carried along on the air. Mortals, eager and excited. Impressed at the venue, the money involved in its presentation. Thrilled at the presence of the band, of Lestat. Some whose lustful hopes are more than obvious. Some who doubt the gimmick but would like to find out anyway.
Louis lifts his mind away.
He has taken much care with his own preparations. Has had to, each time he attends one of Lestat's invitations to a gathering, likes to look his best despite being relatively out of his element. Tonight he had chosen an artfully oversized suit, high-waisted black trousers cinched by gold buckle, lapels embroidered in similar shade, coat left to hang open to display the filmy sheer tunic beneath. A collection of rings for his fingers, a smear of gold applied to his eyes, his hair done up in the soft twists Louis has favored of late.
He occupies the sofa at a comfortable lean. Feels Lestat in proximity, a tangible sense like a storm gathering. Like the air is heavier. Like the music is made quieter so Louis might strain to hear his heartbeat.
The way his entire body prickles, aching and aware: He's here.
The Vampire Lestat will be informed of his presence. Louis doesn't doubt he already knows.
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The vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac. From the book.
A little murmur that follows, even when Louis excuses himself from the party before the festivities turn wild enough to tempt Louis into recklessness.
(Before jealousy prompts him into some real foolishness. All their established boundaries can't fully keep Louis from losing his mind seeing Lestat so well-admired.)
So Lestat is on tour. Louis is fighting vampires. Louis is avoiding overzealous children wielding iPhones. Louis is running a thriving business, managing his assets and expanding his portfolio. He is making money. He is alone, more or less, for the first time in his entire life.
(Gutted periodically by the ways in which he finds himself missing phantoms. Missing Armand. Missing Lestat.)
Rashid has meticulously incorporated tour dates into Louis' calendar. Between his efforts and Rachida's, Louis can attend whichever location appeals to him, all the difficulty of travel already ironed out. Louis has not been so subtle in his comings and goings, but he intends to be as discreet as he can be when inviting himself to one of Lestat's concerts. Lestat is unmistakable, is flirting with the transgressions Louis has already committed, but Louis isn't eager to discover whether or not he'd be spared the consequences this time as he was once before.
Thinking of the trial is no good. Not for him, not for them. To whatever extent Them existed in the present moment.
The long fight (twenty hours, give or take) from Dubai to Las Vegas is sufficient time to put the ghosts of Paris aside. Louis had always intended to attend the first stop on Lestat's tour. He is packed. The hotel is arranged. A car service secured. A plane takes him from Dubai across ocean and continents to deposit him in Vegas, where Louis can feel Daniel among the many, and alongside him—
Lestat, thudding in his consciousness from the moment Louis disembarks.
It is as it was in Auvergne: ushered through the line, through the crowd, towards some designated luxury while a nervous little man with a clipboard chirps, The Vampire Lestat will be notified of your arrival. This time, Louis yields the luxury of the space to Rachida, so he might bled in among the concergoers and enjoy a closer vantage point within the churn of dancing and singing and screaming on the floor in front of the stage. Their enthusiasm is deafening when Lestat takes the stage, begins to sing.
The crowd demands two encores, roars for a third. Louis is already extricating himself, glowing with sweat, flush with adrenaline. Rachida is muttering at the state of him, hasty attempt to assist in making Louis flawlessly, coolly, presentable once more when their clipboard wielding host reappears.
If you'll accompany me backstage, is theoretically something Louis can refuse. But he does not refuse. He goes, following along the aisle as Lestat reappears once more. As they lock eyes, look at each other. As Louis is guided onto the edge of the stage and behind the curtain, perfect vantage point from which to watch this last performance. Perfect place to greet Lestat when he emerges from the stage.
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A little ritual, to begin. He uses his phone to bring up some Bach, listens to it through his headphones, balances the plank on his knees, and begins to play.
He had told Louis he would go on tour, become a famed pianist. He has decided to do something different, of course, but it wouldn't do to neglect practice, just in case. He is certain he will find it all the more easier to write songs when he has earned his way back towards a piano. But for now, fingertips dancing along the long-smoothed divots in the wood, familiar and comforting, and only pauses as the song continues when he can sense
an arrival, in the building, a bright and shining thing in the churn of minds and souls. Hands smooth over to the edge of the plank, gripping onto it as he focuses on that feeling, like a second heartbeat shadowing his own. Mutes Bach. Listens to that instead.
A whirlwind follows. Costumes organised, makeup and hair darting in and out, and an even more frantic buzz amongst the staff beyond Lestat's direct purview, and all too soon, he finds himself on stage, hands curled around the microphone in its stand. The coat that falls off bared shoulders is brilliant crimson, hem hitting the stage floor, feet of fabric laying in crumpled folds there and fanned out about him. Inky black leather platform heels raise him several inches taller than usual, seeming to melt into pants of the same texture, a buckled vest encrusted in shining silver sparkles. Hair in wild ice-gold curls, eyes in dark, bold makeup, mouth painted in red that he at the last moment decided to smear aside with his hand, a fading streak aside.
The coat is shed mid-song, tossed aside.
Eclectic variety, several costume changes, dancers and pyrotechnics, fake blood and shining lights. It is spectacle, distraction, loud and bright. The man himself matches it, nothing in the way of inhibitions, of the lows and highs of emotion on display, which is very much what his audience expects, desires. Makeup like blood tears, grins full of fangs. Performs from the scaffolding, from his kneels, steals Alex's guitar, reaches his hand down to grasping fans without any fear at all of being harmed. Leaves a scattered mess of loose feathers, sequins, paint and claw marks on the stage by the time the night is finished.
And seeks Louis in the crowd. Bold about eye contact, but the same can be said for varied audiences members, only that such moments for them are fleeting. Well, save for one, a girl near the end of the catwalk that extends out into the crowd who must have some kind of quality that draws his eye.
Pays off, towards the end. The final encore, singing from the very end of the stage, and in a flash, drawing her up out of the audience with effortless strength. She crumbles against him into an embrace, and the lyrics are lost as Lestat lowers his face against her neck, and fangs to flesh.
His sense of Louis, prickling, hair-raising awareness as he indulges in a little drink before thousands of screaming fans, the music unceasing.
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Goes cold and hot simultaneously, jealousy and arousal and revulsion locking his body in place where he stands, watching.
A moment where Louis not here at all, where he is in Paris with Claudia watching eagerly beside him and Armand looking down, all-seeing, from the balcony.
The crowd is screaming, deafening. Lestat's body is a familiar, graceful bend, mouth open at the neck of a beautiful girl reaching up to him. Eager. Welcoming. Louis' breath goes shallow, pulse beating louder and louder in his ears in time with Lestat's.
Takes a step forward unconsciously, stopped only by the barrier created by his clipboard-wielding attendee. Where was he going? To join Lestat? To stop him? Louis can hardly pin down the impulse.
But his attention is so focused, nearly a physical touch, watching as Lestat lifts his head from his prey's neck. Watching her fingers catching at his hair, tangling in the ends, and feeling his own fangs heavy in his throat. Watching Lestat, incandescent, resplendent, holding everyone spellbound.
Holding Louis, in spite of all his intentions otherwise, Rachida's reminders, his bes intentions. He cannot look away from him.
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A different kind of noise to the amassing of vampire threats still leveled at Louis, public enemy number one, but a new current now. Is the flashy human masquerading as one of their kind the real thing? Has anyone gotten close enough to know? Do any of them dare say it?
Lestat has enough to deal with. Screaming matches with Cookie about a new arrangement, making it up to her in the dark room on the bus. Arguments with Christine about an endless calendar of radio interviews and podcasts. Snarling at Larry for being too quiet, at Alex for being too chatty.
So it goes. They're all getting paid for living out their dreams. It keeps a band together.
And there is Louis, in between, showing up, sometimes in the audience and sometimes backstage. Always time to speak, before a performance or after. Lestat has recovered well from his minor meltdown that first evening. They speak of art, they speak of music, of travel. They don't speak of vampire threats.
It is his second night in Dallas. A party the previous night had continued well into the next, a small group invited to his room with its heavyduty blackout curtains. Cocaine, vodka, and several eager fans that includes a young man in a cowboy hat that Lestat enjoyed stealing after he drank from his thick neck. His name is Noah and Lestat is in love with him, he thinks, falling asleep on his six pack just as Cookie is pounding on his hotel room door to tell him the car is here to take them to the venue.
Hopefully a twenty second nap will suit him. He asks Noah if he wants to come. Noah says yes.
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In some respects, all is well. Louis is making money. Daniel is wrapping up his own book tour. Lestat's tour has been well-received.
But between Daniel and Lestat, they are generating chatter that is making Louis anxious. He doesn't like the swirl of questions around Lestat, likes it even less after the first spate of attacks he has to deal with. Young vampires, yes, but—
Problems. Problems, maybe, for Lestat who has so many humans to attend to. Louis has Rachida, and a whole mess of staff traveling alongside them, but they are all better equipped to defend themselves than Lestat's humans.
Louis is making an effort not to carry these fears with him into the arenas and dressing rooms, the time he spends with Lestat. They talk, like they did once. Or nearly like they did once. There is no pretending that they aren't withholding, though Louis isn't certain with it is Lestat is keeping close to his chest. They're spending time. Lestat makes time for him. They text. It is good.
The night before Louis arrived in Dallas, he beheaded two young vampires and paid an exorbitant sum for the use of a local crematory's incinerator. He is healing still when the plane lands, when he is collected from the airport. Rachida has been texting Christine. They are on schedule. Louis is choosing not to ask after the pinch of worry on her face. Rachida has a very reliable policy, telling Louis when he needs to be concerned about something and withholding when it is something that doesn't require his attention.
Lestat is getting ready, clipboard-wielding Sven reports, but Louis is welcome to say hello before the show if he wishes.
If he hadn't spent the night before fielding attacking vampires, Louis might have left Lestat to his preparations. But he wants to see him, reassure himself.
Raps on the door, sets palm on the handle, and almost immediately realizes that Lestat isn't alone in that room.
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Getting dressed, getting ready. His usual ritual abandoned, wooden keyboard left neglected in the corner. No more alcohol, just some amphetamines to hopefully get him through the night, doing his makeup while Noah touches him, says some nonsense about cancelling the show, groping him, kissing his neck. Lestat says he has kept to his commitments for hotter men, and it hurts Noah's feelings.
Which is boring. He'd been hoping for—well, absolutely unfair expectations, but it's easy to make up for. Which is what Lestat is doing when his vampire senses pick up on Louis' presence, unhelpfully, at the same time there is a knock at the door.
There's a thump, a heavy step, mumbled voices.
"A moment," Lestat's voice. Shuffling clothing. Another male voice, a complaint, are you serious?, lilting southern accent.
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pivots to fashion
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Specifically a photograph of Lestat's fangs in the meat of her thigh, her head thrown back as liquid trickles around and down between her legs. Blood smeared in the next, across his face, across her thigh. Later, the starlet posts some images on her Instagram, a full colour version showing dark red blood, and her own picture of bruised, marked up skin, a little vampire emoji, a lyric from a song, and chaos in her comment section.
And then Louis receives a package. Merch, first: a poster, a few different styles of T-shirts, tending towards black and purple. A keychain, a bumper sticker. More intriguing, a folder without a note, and several printed photographs within.
Ones that didn't make publication, for obvious reasons. A handful of images of just Lestat, still wearing bracelets of leather, a metal spiked collar, but only those things. It is the kind of shoot that is a love affair with the photographer, unabashed and shameless, gazing down the camera as if it were the object of his own desire. If there is cut material of his musician friend, it only shows up in one of the images, where she is standing out of frame save for her bare leg, and Lestat is licking clean a rivulet of blood.
Louis is a photographer, isn't he? Certainly, he should appreciate these insights.
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Lestat, looking out from a glossy magazine cover strewn artfully across a glass tabletop in a hotel lobby. An artful shot, bright eyes looking up from lovely thigh. Newsprint arranged so as not to distract from her face, his fangs.
Louis had felt his heart flip, clench, whole body flush hot. He'd taken the magazine. Hadn't opened it, only stashed it in his suitcase. (Entertained buying out the entirety of the run. Frivolous. Foolish.) It had traveled with him, one hotel to another, untouched.
Untouched until the package arrives, along with a handful of other forwarded mail, other things Louis requested from his penthouse. A shock, opening the folder. The box of merch is sitting on a tabletop. Louis is seated, all mail neatly arranged, and then:
These photos.
These photos.
Lestat, bare. Bare and made more so by the items that remain. The suggestion of this musician, Lestat's tongue on her skin.
Louis fetches the magazine to compare. Is not assuaged by what has made it to print. Has the sense that he will never break free of the furious flush of jealousy, that it will consume him, that he can do nothing but feel it, and feel it, and feel it, with nowhere and nothing to do but wrestle uselessly with what isn't his to claim any ownership over.
The contents of the package, t-shirts, key-chains, bumper sticker, magazine and photos, all of it would burn.
Louis doesn't burn any of it.
All things, photos and magazine, merchandise and all, are packed up neatly and added to the assortment of items that follow Louis around his own miniature tour of the country. They follow him to New Orleans, where he is absent from Lestat's dressing room at the beginning of the show.
Deciding, still. Deciding what he should be doing around Lestat when Louis has been driven to distraction by what feels pointed but cannot be about Louis, not really. It is a photoshoot. The additional pictures are—
It's not about Louis. He cannot entertain any other possibility without losing his grasp on his self-control.
Here too, Louis descends into the crowd into the crush of mortal bodies screaming eagerly for Lestat as he appears onstage. It doesn't soothe the snarling tangle of jealousy Louis has carried for days in his body. But they are playing. He will dance. He will be polite, if he is fetched.
It is a show. Louis will enjoy it. He will not indulge the near overwhelming urge to disrupt all of it by ripping Lestat off the stage. He will not begrudge whichever mortal is plucked from the churn of bodies to bare their throat to Lestat's teeth.
Louis makes himself all these promises, and pretends he is not a breath away from them coming all apart, that his patience isn't being tested by the rush of feeling and thought surrounding him. He will make it a balm. He will let it sweep him away, until Rachida or otherwise fishes him out.
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The melt-water qualities of days and nights, of concerts and downtime, of parties and interviews and appearances. He has, he thinks, gotten better at it all, of understanding each kind of performance. Whether it's this, an adoring crowd, or just one person shivering as he sips from their throat, he has become quite proficient at being the thing required of him.
Misbehaving in between, perhaps. Rejected the preliminary call Christine had scheduled him to have with Molloy about the upcoming interview. More screaming matches with Cookie. Terrorising the backstage crew. Admittedly, sending Louis the cutting room floor copies of his photoshoot is a form of misbehaviour.
Earlier, he couldn't find the boots he wanted, and threw a chair into the mirror. Then he did find the boots he wanted, so it's fine, and now—
Lestat, on stage, wearing a tightly tailored suit of glittering violet, bare beneath his jacket, red nails and red eyeshadow. Heavy driving beats and an escalating tempo make for a good way to begin a show, high energy that he has every intention to match again and again. Already here at the edge of the stage, already kneeling and leaning past the stage monitors as if he might prowl his way down into the thick of things.
He has imagined doing that before. Letting the sea of faceless people swallow him whole, never to be seen again. But he doesn't do that. Instead, he does what he always does: sweeps a searching look over them.
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It is a whirlwind, some of it splashed on social media. Cookie and Alex's Instagrams are full of dazzling pictures, heartfelt messages to the cities they tour. Their lead singer and drummer are both elusive creatures, but present. Candid images and posed selfies both, glitter and sweat and smiles. A backstage image fresh after their last performance in Oklahoma, a shirtless Lestat with the glow of the stage just behind him, blood streaking from a fanged, grinning mouth.
Other images circulate from concert goers, including an infamous series of high definition photos of his drinking from the neck of a female fan, an older woman than the masses of zillennials his band tends to attract. This one, a lifelong goth swooning happily under his fangs, and then moments later gathered up in his arms. Blood streaks and stains rendered sharp and clear. The debate continues, criticism and enthusiasm in equal parts for what must be a publicity stunt, but also, more and more believers that what they are seeing is real.
And then they arrive in New Orleans.
This was the first of all the announced shows that sold out, and promises to be a success. By all accounts, it is. The next day, when Lestat arrives hours late for the first in a long series of interviews, bloodied and bloodless, Daniel Molloy tells him it was great. Lestat thanks him by choking him out. An auspicious beginning.
Forty-three minutes of preliminary argument, of unhelpful wandering description about his childhood. Lestat briefly thinks about remembering what advice Louis had given him, but can't bring himself to try. The footage is probably useless by the time they are done. Christine Clare is unapologetic to Mr. Molloy, but can feel a new migraine beginning to form.
It's that same day, a few hours later, that Rachida, Louis' state-side contact, is messaged, requesting confirmation that Mr. du Lac is going to be attending the New Orleans shows.
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Mr. du Lac has an exceptionally busy schedule, and cannot guarantee attendance. He offers his sincere apologies.
There is nothing in Louis' schedule that would not move if he wished it. Louis has spent a few decades amassing the kind of power and wealth that ensures such deference.
However, in the wake of the disastrous Oklahoma concert, Louis has been finding ways to keep himself busy.
Louis has toured galleries. He has met with museum boards. He has acquired no less than five properties, two of which he believes he can flip for a substantial profit within six months. He'd set himself that challenge while swiping past a tablet screen illuminated by Lestat. Lestat, cradling a swooning woman on a stage. Lestat with fangs fully elongated and bloody. Lestat, Lestat, Lestat.
Louis shouldn't have done what he did. He is ashamed. He is so jealous he feels like he might do something stupid.
He has channeled that energy into his real estate portfolio.
He has missed several concerts. The passes, merchandise and tickets languish, toted dutifully from hotel to hotel.
Rachida has not asked. Louis doesn't volunteer.
Daniel sends a single text: Yikes.
It is an invitation for Louis to ask more questions. Daniel is so annoying. (Louis misses him.) Louis has been delaying the question, but suspects he has just inside twelve hours before Daniel resorts to beaming his retorts into Louis' heads.
Rachida asks, and Louis simply says, No.
Withholding. His specialty.
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The second concert goes on ahead. The songs are sung, which is what most of everyone is here for. Notably, no audience member is dragged on stage. Notably, at least one ballad is performed from a crossed legged sit off-centre on the stage. The intensity does not diminish, but becomes sporadic, spiky, deeper lows and higher highs. The audience is satisfied. The band is annoyed.
The next day, Louis' personal device is texted directly by an unknown number.
this is TC
are you in NOLA??
Lestat would like it if you came to the show 2night
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And then there is the interview. Daniel is himself, but treats Lestat like a particularly fussy celebrity with a strict schedule, something impersonal to the tone they set. Lestat is resistant in the ways one might predict him to be, waving away questions he doesn't want to answer, insisting on tangents he prefers, as if Daniel is as much a passive part of the apparatus as the light fixtures, the boom mic.
But, and perhaps noticeable from Louis' place of privilege off to the side, there are cracks starting to form, and a long game being played—at least, on Daniel's side. Some quest for the vulnerable thing that shivering beneath the surface. Certainly, it would give purpose to this gaudy spectacle beyond popular demand for a sequel.
Today, they speak of his turning. Lestat is already bristling, some sensitive nerve about the way his story was already delivered to the world. Daniel, making space for the do over.
It's a different conversation to the way Lestat had obliged Louis and Claudia, long ago—a list of facts, a touch of flippancy, a little sincerity. Here, there is texture. There are the sweat-warm sheets of his shared bed with Nicolas and alcohol on his lover's sleeping breath. There is the monster, the pale-faced grinning man who had been following him, suddenly there in his room, half-melted into the corner shadows and gripping his wolf fur cloak. There is the panic and anger, the gun pulled from under his bed, yanked from his hands before he can fire. There is the feeling of red velvet on his bare skin as the monster wraps him in his own cloak, lifts him from the floor, and flies with him out the window, into a blizzard. A scene on a snowy rooftop, and somehow, in all the chaos of the revelation that vampires are real and Lestat has been taken by one, the most occupying and painful thing had been how cold the snow had felt against his bare feet.
They are a minute past the forty-five that Ms. Clare had allotted for this interview, but no interruption comes. Lestat, in his chair, sits with his chin in his hand, eyes somewhere else, and Daniel is afforded a moment to consider his line of questioning.
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Louis understands this. Doesn't doubt this. Daniel had been the best, the best for Louis, but even beyond their affinity, Daniel is simply the best at this work. There is pleasure in watching him, even in spite of Louis' own growing discomfort, the sense that he is intruding.
Invited, yes, but feels his presence an intrusion all the same.
He is quiet. Smoking, presently, for something to occupy his hands while Lestat gives a fuller picture of the story Louis and Claudia dragged from him decades ago.
(Would Louis have ever heard it otherwise?
Unfair. Jealousy and hurt undeniable but smothered away. This is not about Louis.)
They are past the forty-five minute mark.
No one is moving.
Louis' eyes move between Lestat and Daniel, waiting. Unwilling to break the quiet, beat Daniel to his question. Has a finger at the edge of Daniel's mind anyway, feeling the buzz of his mind as Daniel looks at Lestat.
An impulse suppressed: Don't push.
It's not for Louis to say, though he wants to shield Lestat from whatever it is he is reliving.
But no. Daniel prompts, presses. Encourages. Pulls the story free, into the quiet sprung up between the three of them.
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It's why Louis needed him.
Here, Lestat's problem is not recall, but some labyrinthine, resistant quality between memory and speaking it into being. An effort is being made. He speaks of being bitten on that rooftop and then flown through an ice-flecked sky, of being spilled on stone ground in a chamber with broad shutterless windows, a heavy wooden trapdoor with iron lock. And Magnus, who toyed with him. Encouraged Lestat's struggle and curses while laughing, impossibly strong, touching him as he pleased.
And yes, the famous chamber and its blonde, bloated corpses. He felt he had disappointed the vampire, eventually, when the fight left his body, and he was taken into that room of horror and rot, and left there. A message, his eventual fate.
A week, he had said. Yes, a week.
Some heavy pull to the story, a centre point. The turning, but they both (all three) are vampires, familiar with the horror. Still, Lestat is quiet once again.
(Not about Louis? Lestat would laugh to know he thought so.)
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Sweating, strung with a handful of cheap plastic beads, Louis is there to receive Lestat when he finally parts with the crowd. The band behind him, raucous and snarking and affectionate, all of them satisfied with their night's work.
There is an after party. Christine had told Rachida who had warned Louis, who now is dutifully surprised when Lestat describes the waiting festivities to him. Louis would like to take Lestat back to a hotel room, rinse the paint and glitter off, dance a little, talk a little. But Louis says, Yes. Lestat invites him, and Louis will go. They can celebrate. It's not a hardship to be caught up in their jubilation.
Louis touches his face, brushes fingers along sweat-damp skin. Says, I'll see you there.
They part. Lestat, to the obligation of a meet and greet. Louis, to a private car.
It shouldn't touch Lestat, Louis' little war. His provocations. His skirmishes. It is Louis' business. If he kites irate vampires away from Lestat's stage, it is only good business. (He feels alive. In control. Sure of himself.) He had cleared out the apiring batch before the show, Louis had thought. He had gossiped quietly about it to Daniel, who had argued about it, but hadn't quite asked him to stop. Maybe he was saving that fight for another state, another city.
Louis arrives first, because no one is seeking Louis' autograph. He is on the list, swept into the club and lead upwards to a private balcony. Arrayed in gold and leather tonight, a harness of oxblood leather over a sheer black tank, straps running from throat to waist where loops cinch from rib to hip. Gold on his fingers, capping his fangs, cuffing his ear, circling his wrists. Heavy soled loafers raising his height by an inch. Leather trousers slung low on his hips. The gifted plastic beads swing, clack softly, not yet discarded.
These beaded necklaces break instantly when a clawed hand grabs hold of them, and yanks. Louis is already turning, hissing, as the cheap little beads scatter across the concrete floor, clink down onto the glass table.
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Two sets of hands grabbing at Louis. One pair latch onto his arm, an elegant movement drawing it around to twist up his back, joints straining. The other goes to lock down the other. Coordinated, vicious. The balcony continues to wind within the interior corner, with a discreet door that will lead to service rooms, to the outside, emergency exits. This is their intended direction.
The tangle of three jar against the glass table. It's bolted down, but metal bends from the force. A crack shoots through the glass, webs out, not yet shattering.
It is now that a limousine is nosing into the back parking space. It's slow going, still. People pressing forwards, trying to get glimpses through the tinted windows, trying to get photos. The people inside the car are in no hurry. Alex and Cookie are negotiating lines of MDMA, but it's their friends (fans, groupies, meat, whatever you may call them) that have had a head start on their evening.
Lestat is occupied with a redheaded woman who is flushed all over, shivering as he drinks shallow sips from her pale neck. A sweet cocktail of chemicals, riding the champagne they keep stocked in their rides and rooms. She clutches his thigh desperately, nails putting lines in black, gold-speckled leather.
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And yet.
These two are brave. Just shy of their first century, Louis guesses. Whoever made them was powerful.
They are clever besides. They are trying to steal him, rather than kill him here.
When flame bursts across the balcony and blooms in the air above the dance floor, the mortals below scream in delight. Pyrotechnics, the Vampire Lestat truly spares no expense.
Above, one of these young vampires has gone reeling back, dodging out of the gout of flame. His compatriot has caught alight, dropped to the floor to write. Louis' arms are aching, aching, aching, but he pivots and begins kicking this fledgling anyway. Pinned up against the bars of the railing, this vampire scrabbles desperately trying to escape as Louis turns his ribs into pulp.
It might be the end of the whole affair if his partner hadn't pivoted to tackle Louis headlong into the wall, breaking his focus.
There's only so much time. Louis had wanted to finish this before Lestat arrived, before he could see or understand what Louis has been doing in his spare time.
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Oh, yeah, and did you hear—?
Well, no, Louis did not, but he might have marked the ripple effect when a message went out along the lines of:
I am the vampire Lestat, and mine is a fame that will carry my voice to the remotest parts of the world. And do you know what I will tell them? Everything.
And it happens during a live studio performance on a late night TV show that was not even remotely planned, crew commandeered, host sent into a dizzy coma, and cameras broadcasting a very special one-song performance by the Vampire Lestat and his band. It a blistering few minutes, a deep voice echoing through a hijacked sound system, bare chested and gleaming in sweat, blood spatters, glitter, and at least one instance of the lens of a camera being shown a blurry close up of long white fangs and a panting, fogging breath.
The tour goes on, and suddenly it is more chaotic than ever as the band and its lead are dosed with an extra hit of celebrity. Pictures surfacing, a blurry, low-resolution nightclub shot of a woman with a stunned, if delighted expression on face as Lestat bites her shoulder, where a dark dribble of blood runs over her tan skin. News of a cancelled gig, and then back to form the next night. News of a limo driving off the pavement and hitting a streetlamp. News of a blackout at a nightclub, witnesses with outlandish stories about dismembered arms, but only blood found on the scene.
And so on. The tour goes on. The documentary does not.
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In this instance, Daniel has opted for "not."
Louis is so angry, is the thing. Angry at himself, angry at Lestat. Maybe Daniel can sense some of that he relates the happenings from the tour, the exact wording of what provocation was blasted out into the Many. Yes, Louis had understood something had happened. It had made for a strange panicky furious ripple through the stratosphere. It had changed the terms of play Louis had been operating on.
Daniel doesn't have to tell him the rest, but he does, from time to time, calling attention as if Louis hasn't seen the way mortal media lights up with what they believe to be a new gimmick. A new bit from the Vampire Lestat, though the thread of belief strengthens. Social media accounts relating stories, whispers of things that simply cannot be faked.
Louis has continued his business, but this ripple touches even him. A shift in the way he is targeted. A shift in who comes for him. Young, still, but discerning elders and who sometimes flee sometimes watch. Louis doesn't like the change in play, but the terms aren't his alone. Lestat is a wrecking ball, amplifying whatever Louis shouts into the dark, bending it in ways unintended.
Daniel remains on tour, making himself annoying. Louis has some concerns about Daniel being maimed. He appeals to Louis again, and Louis weighs it out, his going. His anger. The way they spiraled and couldn't right themselves, despite hard won equilibrium. It had maintained for such a short time.
He makes things worse. They make things worse, together.
But Daniel asks. And Louis, seeking excuse for the thunderstorm of feeling building in his body, goes. Rachida has all the tickets still. It is a short trip to a small club, where mortals pack onto the dance floor in an overexcited crush.
Louis has told no one he is coming. He is only there, in the crowd, as the band files out onto the stage.
It doesn't matter if Louis had thought perhaps he would speak to Daniel, and then go. They are bound to each other. Does Lestat feel the same rushing adrenaline Louis does? The old refrain?
He's here, he's here, he's here.
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This, Lestat knows intrinsically, like bones know the weather. It doesn't stop him as he gets ready, a ritual that involves a bite to neck of a young man on pills, a stand-off with his mirror as he applies cosmetic glue and a random pattering of multicoloured glitter to his face, around his eyes, down his cheeks, messy, and replenishes last night's eyemakeup with scribbles of eyeliner. Louis is here, and it makes him giddy to think about.
That's the best word for it, for the confused, carbonated mix of anger and desire and defiance and a sense that would come with having broken an expensive belonging out of spite.
Out onto the stage, where calm is smashed by the storm, the pounding drums and the guitar. The lights shine piercing white into the gloom. If the theatre had once covered vampiric traits with greasepaint and shifting lights, none of it is veiled in Lestat's performances. He is, likewise, made bare—clinging purple velvet pants that could have been spraypainted on if not for the looser cuff around his boots, and a corset with black lace panels cinching his waist, tied in dangling black ribbon.
And other details. Reddish bruising across his chest, wrapping around the cuff of his shoulder. The kind of marks of quick healing but damage lingering.
And he seeks Louis out, of course. A smile just for him.
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