It isn't the one that Daniel began. A mortal with a beating heart, easy to follow, easy to spook into taking a sidestreet. No big thing, just some guy who was in the wrong place at the wrong time when the craving comes. It happens. People die all the time for stupider reasons.
Street lamps, the energy-wasting glow of shop interiors that have been closed for hours, the vague haze of light pollution in the sky, and more sensory information than a young vampire might know how to deal with. Lestat (who is here, too, somewhere) has not been studying him for too long, this new one who has been released into the world, but having read the book—well, Molloy has had a more thorough education than most fledglings can hope for.
Anyway. The meat turns the corner, off the road. It's time.
And before Daniel can begin to consider his options, there's a scream, which cuts off with the sound of something wet. In this little sidestreet, blood is spilled and bone cracks, and when the limp body of the man falls away, his throat torn, the figure that now has blood covering half her face and cat-bright eyes turns her focus on Daniel, and gives him a predator's grin as she takes a step nearer.
Another sound, a creak—two figures, climbing up and over wooden fencing, landing together on the pavement, their fangs already dropped and their hunting stares fixed.
Big cities are easy to eat people in. This is not a surprise, to someone who was (at least once) nearly eaten, and who (more than once) has witnessed mundane horrors. Slumped-over figures in alleys and flophouses, week-long hangovers in shitty motel rooms. He aims for moderation, but tries to give himself leeway— if things go bad, better it be with some weirdo nobody will look for. Right? Right. It's a gamble, but most gamblers give up right before they win big, something like that.
And,
well.
Sometimes it's a bust all the way down.
"Uh," he says, which is not helpful. Uh, because in an instant he knows odds are he's screwed, and he knows why, and knew before he published the book. I'll deal with it, fuck 'em. This looks a lot more like getting fucked than fuck 'em!, so brazen and insistent, and boy, that feels like a long time ago.
"Did you—" his mouth starts working sooner than everything else (as usual), internal organs still all upside down with alarm, "I'm first, right? You're not here after finding Louis?"
Lizardbrain. Panic. Just leave that poor guy alone. It's Daniel's fault, whatever, fine, and hey, you know what, "Normal people these days just leave mean reviews on Goodreads, you should join the modern era before you get made over trying to buy thirty gallons of cow's blood and an antique scarf collection with a paper checkbook."
He's got his coming, one of them says. Something odd about their voice, like an echo, the kind of tone that might make something further down the food chain piss itself.
Colloquial. Maybe not so old. Or maybe just one of them is.
And it doesn't matter. That one makes the first move, the world slowing while he speeds up, and the clash that follows is even faster. With all the reckless abandon of a jungle predator, a fourth shape is simply on him out of nowhere, a blur of fabric and a flash of blonde that shows up brassy beneath an angle of lamplight struggling in from the street.
The scent of immortal blood, gushing as the vampire sprawls on one side, most of his throat gone, hands clawing. The second one just nearby has barely a chance to stand his ground and bare his teeth by the time he is grabbed and flung bodily back against the fence he'd come over, wood smashing into splinters on impact. Something about the motion like a dance, before it isn't.
Lestat finishes his turn on a heel, blood coating one hand as thick as a glove, and spattered across his face, hair wild from the rush. Sets bright blue eyes on Daniel, and the spread of his smile, while also full of fangs, is only as threatening as Daniel might make it.
And on Daniel's other side, the first vampire has hesitated, her heel scraping across the pavement in a step back.
Still adjusting to, a small sample of items: processing things happening so fast, much less being able to move that fast himself. The violence before him moves too quick for human eyes to follow, yet Daniel's eyes do. He remembers—
(He remembers. That's the important part.)
Nothing that helps. He has little experience besides sitting and watching. Not pinned down, now, not held hostage, but potentially just as useless given his inexperience. In his mind's eye, he tries to imagine himself throwing a punch. Going for the throat, the eyes. Comical. Maybe he should more seriously consider giving it a go, though, before that friendly-in-a-Stephen-King-way grin starts looming too much closer.
"Hi."
A cheerful greeting. Everything is fine! And normal. Daniel raises a hand in hello, and then swivels his person to the woman who seems to wishing she hadn't gotten out of bed this evening.
"Can we help you?"
Yeah it's a 'we' now. Get into it. Sharknado Smile over here might also be a problem, but he'll take one single problem over being jumped by a gang of problems.
Behind him is the sound of a vampire choking on his own blood, enduring in a way no mortal could, but no longer a part of the equation regardless. Behind him is also the sound of measured footsteps approaching, an unhurried saunter that slows and stops some few feet aside and behind.
All of a sudden outnumbered, the last vampire standing considers both in front of her, lips pulling back to show her own fangs. When she speaks, it's with a snarled form of German, all venom directed at Daniel. It doesn't sound like an actionable request. And at the end of it, her eyeline flickers—maybe to his new friend, but in reality further off, towards the gurgling death happening beyond.
From those several feet behind and aside to Molloy, apparently getting on board with we, Sharknado speaks up.
"Please," hands clasping in front of him. "Go on, if you are worried for your friend. I would take part in his rescue, or he may live to take it personally."
The accent is lilting French, if ironed out with time, some broad American syllables having forced their way in, a war of attrition. The language is, thus, English, but it's no difficult thing to transmit the same sentiment through the air in the form of thought, an echo past Daniel's ear. To press the point, Lestat swivels at the waist with an inviting go ahead gesture.
But no. The woman twitches backwards, draws her lips back to deliver a cattish hiss, and turns, making an exit by way of a leap, and the rooftops beyond.
Lestat tilts to watch her go, bringing his blood coated hand up to sample.
The stench of blood, the tang in his mouth of his own adrenaline (not quite like fear, none of them ever said fear would be different), and Daniel still finds himself just a bit disoriented now that he can panic without his pulse jumping. A freeing disconnect that explains some things. It helped him stay calm in early days, elated nerves of steel wrestling publication into submission, and now—
"Isn't that," that, that, he points, to the vampire who was aiming to kill him, who is now bleeding immortal blood from a sharkbite wound, "a violation? Or does self-defense cancel out the Girl Scout oath?"
Daniel's voice is doing a thing, he realizes after it starts. Going just a bit more high-pitched than he should, as hysteria tries to latch onto him. Laughter, but not because it's funny. It's ridiculous. It's should-be-terrifying. This blond, French vampire, effortlessly appearing and chewing another vampire's throat out in a split-second. Familiar, even without documented photos and renderings, because Daniel has spent so much time with the psychological effigy of him.
One knuckle has been sucked clean of blood by the time they are properly alone, Lestat looking to Molloy on his way to evaluating the dying vampire. Thick blood in a puddle, smearing where he has crawled away by half a foot, and failing as precious crimson leaves his body, soaking into the cracks in the pavement.
Lestat turns that lifted hand out, dismissive, as he says, "I'll check with my lawyer."
He does not look like a man who has a lawyer, but does look like someone who should have one. Shining blood coating hand and mouth, a coat over a suit over low-necked shirt, none of it looking properly laundered or tailored, pale streaks of dust, patches of mud, spatters of—well. Daniel probably knows the virtues of dark clothes, now. Everything expensive, and all a little neglected.
And he is being studied, and at Damn, recognition recognised. The fangs are gone this time when Lestat smiles in the face of it, continuing with, "And anyway, there is a war on, Mr. Molloy. You would know, having begun it?"
Moving, now, a trajectory that will take him towards the collapsed shape of the unfortunate mortal who took the wrong route home.
He hears it in his head, an echo of a memory once written over like the tapes he used to use, and re-use. Lestat, Lestat, Lestat, Lestat...
His dear, absent maker would probably be annoyed to the point of accidentally making a minor adjustment to his facial muscles to know Daniel has recognized him immediately. Maybe even more annoyed than over the number of social media posts tagged #lestat that now exist, full of fawning speculation over the tragic deuteragonist-antagonist who may or may not be real. #problematicfav!
There's no question. Rooted to the spot for a moment, considering it all. It's not like meeting a celebrity, except for all the ways in which it is; contrasting, there is real danger, and there is real humor.
I've heard too much about how you fuck.
"You can call me Daniel," he says, instead of any of that. Easy peasy, as he watches Sharky slither over towards the meal he was trying to make for himself. "I meant to publish that book then die anyway, you know. Figured I might as well go through with it."
Impossible to tell from looking at him if Lestat is at all cognizant to what is happening to his name in the world, and what it would mean if he did. There's a lot to learn, a lot to intuit, digital landscapes cropping up like phantoms overlaying the material, and of course, Daniel has no bearing for what became of Lioncourt after Louis left him in the disappointment dungeon.
Alive, it seems. And—well, well?
Not out of date if you forgive the Cobain chop to his hair, and it's 2022, who can even tell if the tallish heel of his boot is a throwback or an 18th century hold over. Anyway, it's planted in the side of the corpse so that he can roll it over and see if this human is clinging to life at all, although he already knows by the time he gets a look at unmoving, untwitching face.
"If I didn't know any better, I would say that was my beloved's plan as well."
Why not put it on a little, rolling his attention back to Daniel before crouching down to clean his hand on the edge of the dead man's shirt. "Daniel," he repeats. Very well. Crinkled amusement. "I saw you on TV. I'm a fan."
It is not lost on Daniel that the interview in Dubai was a coffin lid nailing shut, and was not lost at the time. Louis pouring out all of his insides, suicide as Armand called it, while Daniel tried not to let his decaying nerves tremble too much while writing notes and lifting cocktail glasses. But Louis has not allowed himself to be killed, and Daniel is not booking a room for considerate palliative care, and Armand is—
Who the fuck knows.
The thread stitched between them in that penthouse is a strange one. Not quite as strange as New Orleans, or Paris, but a part of the weave of it all.
"Well thanks, Lestat." This is very funny, actually. Daniel does not let himself laugh. "It always did sound like you had good taste. Which can't be said for the bled-out bozo, there, but he seemed fine for dinner."
It did always sound, and Lestat lets his head roll back with a quiet, breathy, still very French laugh as he finishes wiping clean his hands.
A waste, this body. A puddle of cold blood on the ground. He does not feel a particular need to clean up this mess, a neck wound without exsanguination doesn't prick at his own ingrained instincts to cover trails that are not even his to begin with. He tips his head, rustles through some pockets until he finds a wallet. Here, he can take the few crumpled bills inside, credit cards, and voila, we have a violent robbery, he's a genius. A little like straightening a picture on the wall of a half-collapsed house.
He also doesn't think to search out the cellphone, and gets to his feet as he inspects the cash. Not very much. Into his pocket it goes all the same, as he now turns his focus on Daniel, a lingering looking over that trawls head to toe.
Not Louis', this fledgling—his first guess. Which leaves behind only limited and unbelievable options, the likeliest one being the most incredible of all. It doesn't take much, a kind of psychic tracing over of a rumpled stitch, feeling out the threads of connection. Bright red eyes, unmistakable, and maybe Daniel can feel it, this knowledge plucked free.
Certainly, it can be read in Lestat's face. A flicker of some complicated tangle—amusement, first, mock-scandal in the snapping back of his focus to Daniel's eye. The focus of a predator, seeing the twitch in the brush.
"Well," is doing a lot of work, but he continues, "young ones like you shouldn't skip meals. Shall we?"
Daniel can feel it, in fact, and it's very strange. He'd found it critical to understand how to use his mind very quickly, given the situation he'd been left in. Eavesdropping has been a great teacher, and through it, he knows that cross-planet telepathy is an advanced trick that no one suspects in him even if a few have floated the notion that perhaps the writer has been embraced. He watches the information go in his mind's eye, like observing a particularly elegant date stealing a french fry off his plate.
This time, he does laugh, though it's tinged wry.
"At least I know he's probably not listening to me anymore."
Fucking Armand. Lestat can no doubt hear that one loud and clear. Last memories of him like a bizarre cat in the dark, a lithe shadow with lamplike eyes, pulling in all the light like he's greedy for it, and Daniel's world spinning, spinning, spinning.
Meanwhile: interesting. He can't turn off his note-taking brain, and note-take it does. The writer moves over to his would-be-dinner, perhaps looking like he's aping the elder's routine, but in fact fishing for the ignored phone. He mashes a passcode on it until it locks itself, then turns it off. Lestat went for the cash and the cards, Lestat looks properly nourished but is a little bit dressed like he forgot something at the grocery store on a Sunday morning, Lestat said my beloved.
He goes for the dead (?) vampire next, fishes out a second phone, repeats the process. This one he'll take to his guy to get broken into, but the mortal's is getting thrown in the river. Finally he looks back to Lestat.
Lestat is patient, watching Daniel go about the phones—and not disinterested, hawk-eyed and curious.
Back in New Orleans, he had his own rat catcher. A rat catcher who caught rats, and sometimes by accident useful things about the world would drop out of his mouth. None of them included any advice about what to do about cellular devices on victims—but advice on other things, like CCTV and forensic sciences, and after a while, the rats just seemed like the better solution—so he watches what Daniel does, and meets his eye when focus switches back to himself.
Hm, agreeable, with a smile. Pivots, and leads them away.
To nowhere in particular. He hasn't spent time getting to know Atlanta as a hunting ground, but he can listen to voices and thoughts on the wind, can catch scents, can feel his way through the dark streets, and besides, if all he wanted to do was save Daniel Molloy's life when it was in jeopardy, he would vanish as fast as he appeared.
"Lelio," he says, as they start, nothing but a distant siren, the sound of bootfalls on dry concrete. A glance, wry. "Not Arlequin. At that time described in your book, I was the romantic lead, not the clown. Your maker has a poor memory. I suppose it goes with age."
Quickstep, to keep up. Daniel moves like he's much younger than he looks, now, which is great. Honeymoon period, he knows (how could he not know), but he hopes to have a long one. Very curious about this encounter— grateful to be rescued, incredibly so, but that feeling is already in the rear view mirror compared to insistent interest. In Lestat in the flesh, in... what are they doing? Hunting?
Crazy. It's crazy, this happening. Should he mentally ring Louis? Nah, probably not. Even if only because he knows his friend isn't overly thrilled that Daniel has bypassed the 'self loathing and small animals' stage. And he gets why that disappoints Louis, he really does, but after those weeks in Dubai, learning what he learned, he knows that drawing it out is torture over a thing of inevitability. So why bother.
He'll reach out to Louis later. This is probably fine.
"That's generous of you." Right, yes, a simple mistake from mentally feeble old Armand, accidentally recasting Lestat as a clown. "Can't say anything about the stage, but you make an outstanding romantic lead on the page. And a romantic villain."
Frankly, the book might not have come together without Lestat haunting the narrative. Barring the meltdown Daniel was caught in the middle of, the timeline fades into vague summaries after Lestat's withdrawal, despite not having been the interview subject. As though he took something vital with him. A point that Daniel was forced to make in first draft, and then the final draft. Absent only in editing, dithering. So,
A demurring little shrug at his supposed generosity: what can he say? Armand can use all the help he can get.
Lestat, of course, has certainly read the thing. Read it to death. There is a copy stashed with his things, spine broken, pages dog-eared, and this is the second one after, during his first reading, some moment compelled him to take a handful of pages and tear them free in a fit of anguish. He has been more careful since, making sure to get to the end.
Which could be as much compliment to the writer as the subject. The matter of his heroism and villainy, both romantic, is awarded with him opening his mouth like he might say something to it, hesitating long enough—
Good, a pivot. "On a break."
Is it much of a detail, that he ignores the pockets of his coat as he walks, hands free? Maybe not. A slouchy affect isn't universally prescribed. All the same, an old world energy to posture, clinging to his frame for dear life as his accent does to his voice, a century spent in America, longer than the changes of men's fashion.
"But now I am working on an album. My own compositions. I have found within myself, Daniel, a new motivation to reenter the world, but," a turn of his hand, "I feel compelled to offer some credit where credit is due. Do you keep him as your acquaintance? Louis."
Confidence. It could mean that Lestat feels safe enough to turn any situation on its head, no fear of bloody fingers walking away from two brutalized bodies, that he has enough experience and finesse to simply be done with it (though the lack of attention to phones is a little concerning). It could also mean that he's not entirely plugged into reality. Daniel is in danger, he knows. But that just makes him more invested.
"Yeah, we stay in touch. Not as often as I might like, but he's working through some things. Remodeling. A tree was removed improperly from their little," here he makes a gesture, "simulated solarium, which I understand was a pain to restructure."
It occurs to him that Lestat will not have heard Louis' dare shouted out into the night. Only the reactions. What picture must that paint?
'Some things', 'their'. An open wound being cemented over.
This, Lestat had prepared himself for a little. The tantalising morsels of information that may emerge as they speak. He is not without context. His capacity to leave his roost in New Orleans can be solely attributed to a reunion, some shared understanding, a little knowledge of what the past seven decades have been for them both.
Not enough, never enough. But: he has prepared himself a little, so the sense of more metaphorical fangs extending at mention of their is the kind of thing he keeps more or less off his face. Doesn't immediately bite after the bait and demand for more. What tree? What things? How has he progressed, this working out?
No. Back to himself.
"Rock and roll," is said without irony, with great enthusiasm, but the smile he sends Daniel's way sidelong seems just this side of self-aware. Some kernel of sober conviction in the bright-eyed lunacy. "In feeling and sentiment at its least. I will take everything I have listened to over this past century and give it new life. What it chooses to be after that, no maker can dictate."
He swerves a little, a friendly little bump of the shoulder to Molloy's as they walk. "I wish to be on TV as well. You mustn't tell anyone."
A celebrity vampire would take some of the in-community heat off of Louis, he suspects. He opts not to voice this; landmines such as their are unavoidable. Daniel was not in Dubai with Louis alone, and Daniel is not here, in this way, through Louis' grace. He should attempt to steer the conversation away from him, where he can—
Hah, yeah right. It's going to be a mirror. Louis couldn't get Lestat out of his story. There's no surprise in discovering, immediately, that Lestat can't get Louis out of his.
Kinda romantic, ignoring all the abuse. (And they probably will! Sigh.)
"I like rock and roll." Really, Mr Leather Jacket? "It's never been done by anyone whose musical CV loops back to commedia dell'arte."
Alone in this abandoned side street, they're approaching a parking lot. From the deep web maps of paranoid ex-redditors he's consulted, Daniel knows that the nearest camera is on a shitty chop shop diagonal from the lot. A few blocks away, someone is driving an old car, too slow to be going anywhere with purpose. In the 70s, he'd think it was somebody pulling over to get a blowjob, but here and now, it's probably someone trying to get Google Maps to work.
The growl of the engine draws Lestat's focus a ways as well. That might be good, either in particular or as a concept. A meal, and a means of transporting the waste to the darkest body of water. The parking lot is fenced off only on one side, and he notes the shadowy corners they could wait for whatever rat might scurry into a trap.
He doesn't know the territory but cameras give off a sound. Hard to pick up in a modern city full of sounds, but not impossible if you can narrow down your focus.
Speaking of focus—
Lestat laughs, a sudden and exuberant sound that takes all the air from his lungs, and his hand goes out to grip Daniel by the shoulder, as if they are old friends who just exited the bar at cut off.
"Daniel!" Daniel Daniel Daniel. "To speak with you, of course. You know," the amusement staying present in his voice as he leads them off towards the parking lot, "when I was taken," because what is sacred anymore, when Louis and Armand would give up so much of him to this man, who would give it to the world, "I was at the height of my career. I might have played at la salle Richelieu with one more mortal season. I was written about in British papers. And then I died."
Quelle tragique, says the hand to his breast, a brief swing around to walk backwards and look at Daniel as he does so.
"And like you, I continued on. I think we could be of mutual benefit, don't you think?"
One more thing for Lestat to hate Armand for, if he ends up deciding Daniel shouldn't be here, shouldn't have done what he did. (Assuming Louis wouldn't have found another way, another journalist, another drama.) The ancient vampire had decades to go and kill him between then and now, he had every opportunity to shut down the interview. All he did to Louis, Daniel doesn't believe he couldn't have psychically strong-armed him into letting it go.
Because it's not like Daniel was ever going to stop himself. He'd have gotten that book out on his death bed with no recordings, no files, if he had to get it out as a conspiracy theory. As soon as he got on the plane to the UAE, the book was set in stone. Practically already real.
"We both got thrown in the deep end in our own ways, huh."
The driver of the old car is thinking about going home, or killing himself, or getting tacos. Relatable nothingness. Daniel finds mortals very easy to read (he has not tried, will not try, Lestat, unwilling to insert his whole arm into the shark mouth).
"Is it better? Being this way?"
Logic, and all he knows about the man, tells him that Lestat is not a metric by which to evaluate this unlife. And yet despite all his charades, Daniel believes him (or the him he knows through Louis, through Armand, through Claudia) to be the most honest about being a vampire.
The driver in the old car then thinks about a place to pull over, a quiet parking lot nearby, seeing it so vividly in his mind's eye. His own brain rushes to fill in the rest, easy: he can check his phone which he thinks vibrated, and he can think about things, and delay whatever hopeless void awaits him at home.
Lestat's touch in the mortal's mind is like a fingertip tapping the surface of a pond, creating ripples, luring the fishies. No more than that.
Ah, such a question, transmitted through a flicker of his expression, turning back to face the path they've aimed themselves down. Thinking about it a little, as Daniel didn't ask do you like it more? or is it better for you?, but something more universal. Rings a little of the philosophising that tormented his early romances with du Lac, but only in form, he thinks, not spirit. Besides, he's had time to think.
"The most exquisite of agonies, the highest of pleasures. To live as selfishly as our inner animal compels us to live. Not less than human, but more than human, more human than any who walk the earth, more capacity to love and to hate and to rage. We will never escape our grief, our pain, the harms we have done, and every night, a decision to continue, to endure, and kill in the name of that enduring. Not everyone has this ability. Not everyone can stand it."
They could go around the chainlink fence, but why? Lestat hooks his claws into it, resting his weight back on his heels as he looks back at Daniel.
"But in short, it is called a gift for a reason, and it rules. Come," an invitation, before scaling the fence with great efficiency, jumping over it to land on silent feet.
The man in the old car will be here soon. Not much of a hunt, maybe, but Daniel is still a beginner, and if ArMaNd isn't around to drag something injured into the den for his cubs—
For the record, Daniel would have accepted a yes or no answer, but a part of him (the part that enjoyed writing the book, not the part that needled Louis about excusing abuse) is delighted at the theatrical presentation he receives instead. Lestat the actor, Lestat the composure, soon Lestat the lyricist, the poet? If he actually is set on being a musician out in the world, he's going to do great.
A bark of a laugh leaves him at 'it rules.'
You know what, that's a fine answer too. Someday if he's very lucky he will watch his daughters die peacefully, and not be executed by sunlight in front of him. Each drawback also has a silver lining, an it-could-be-worse. He won't wallow, he refuses. He'll have time for it.
Up and over. Surreal to be able to move like this (again? at all), and a part of him still braces inside and flinches now and again, expecting punishment from his body. A break, a sprain, a wrack of tremors he can't control. But he just feels good. Better than ever. And on that trajectory, eating people feels better than heroin ever did. Cognizant of that being a potential problem, he nevertheless waits for the car. Already, he has discovered the ability to go unnoticed, particularly in shadow.
Too much the natural showman for an actual short answer, it's true—at least not one off the bat, with no flourishing off-ramp. Lestat had been too blinded by the unfairness he'd choked down, reading Daniel Molloy's bestseller, to consider if any natural affinity for poetry out of him had translated itself onto the page. He had a way about him, Louis says like three times. Thanks Louis.
Also for consideration: maybe it's important to him that Daniel, personally, find him charming.
But then, when isn't that important to him, for literally everyone everywhere all the time, who ever meets him? He shows a smile to Daniel when the man lands on the other side and it reaches his eyes, and then they are making for the shadows. Naturally silent, vanishing past the glow of streetlamps, signage, haze.
Moments later, the car bumping off the road and into the parking lot, like an endangered sea mammal drifting into the netting. Next to Daniel, Lestat gives a small hum of satisfaction when the engine is killed.
"In or out of the car?" he asks. What is Daniel's instinct?
There are merits to both. If disposing of the car would be difficult, fingerprints and other evidence easily harvested from slipping inside of it, then hauling the victim out would be best. If leaving behind a mess would be the bigger risk, then containing the scene and dumping the car with the body wholesale would be smarter. He considers where they are, and what's around them.
"In."
Date night in the back seat, then a drive. There are paths to the Chattahoochee River that evade cameras, and areas where it's deep enough to roll a car into, never to be seen again. Daniel has done a few of these murders so far, and he feels ways about it, but makes himself compartmentalize. He tries for horrible people, even if those horrors are mundane— might as well, right? He's not God, he's not moralizing, but it's sensible. The worse a person is, the less likely it is that their disappearance will be looked into with any urgency.
"It's like eating hamburgers after going to a rescued animal sanctuary," he says, with an awareness that Lestat is probably eavesdropping for insight into his opinion about this. Might be a little sad, in theory, but in practice, it simply has to be done. "Most people aren't as cute as cows, though, you know?"
So this is actually easier. Cows tend not to beat their girlfriends or exploit minors after getting their Discord usernames off Fortnite.
The sorting through of the angles—logistical and moral, both—has a pleasantly decisive energy that Lestat can appreciate, his focus more intent on the fledgling vampire next to him, his other senses geared for the car.
"I never liked it when Louis selected dogs," he says. Most dogs are cuter than most humans, accounting for some extremes. Overall, certainly more willing to love unconditionally. The meat in the car has his hands on the wheel, his eyes closed. Making it easy, even without more meddling. "But one man can only have so many hierarchies inside of him."
A streetlamp above flickers, and winks out. The shadows that flood in are jarring, thick.
Turn to your vampire elders for the answers, and you will find dust, or something that wishes to be it. Lestat's psychic voice, like a murmur from behind, is made more disorienting as he cuts a path forwards, his stride long and purposeful. You can be God, if you wish. You can be the random and tragic accident, a collision, an act of nature. You can be the curator and refiner of good taste and culture as you see it. You can be mercy. You can be the Devil. In my experience, we try them all at least once.
As he nears, there's the sound of locking mechanisms undoing, and the figure in the car startles from his self-imposed reverie. Looking the wrong way, as Lestat goes for the front passenger door. Shot gun.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
new kid on the block.
It isn't the one that Daniel began. A mortal with a beating heart, easy to follow, easy to spook into taking a sidestreet. No big thing, just some guy who was in the wrong place at the wrong time when the craving comes. It happens. People die all the time for stupider reasons.
Street lamps, the energy-wasting glow of shop interiors that have been closed for hours, the vague haze of light pollution in the sky, and more sensory information than a young vampire might know how to deal with. Lestat (who is here, too, somewhere) has not been studying him for too long, this new one who has been released into the world, but having read the book—well, Molloy has had a more thorough education than most fledglings can hope for.
Anyway. The meat turns the corner, off the road. It's time.
And before Daniel can begin to consider his options, there's a scream, which cuts off with the sound of something wet. In this little sidestreet, blood is spilled and bone cracks, and when the limp body of the man falls away, his throat torn, the figure that now has blood covering half her face and cat-bright eyes turns her focus on Daniel, and gives him a predator's grin as she takes a step nearer.
Another sound, a creak—two figures, climbing up and over wooden fencing, landing together on the pavement, their fangs already dropped and their hunting stares fixed.
no subject
And,
well.
Sometimes it's a bust all the way down.
"Uh," he says, which is not helpful. Uh, because in an instant he knows odds are he's screwed, and he knows why, and knew before he published the book. I'll deal with it, fuck 'em. This looks a lot more like getting fucked than fuck 'em!, so brazen and insistent, and boy, that feels like a long time ago.
"Did you—" his mouth starts working sooner than everything else (as usual), internal organs still all upside down with alarm, "I'm first, right? You're not here after finding Louis?"
Lizardbrain. Panic. Just leave that poor guy alone. It's Daniel's fault, whatever, fine, and hey, you know what, "Normal people these days just leave mean reviews on Goodreads, you should join the modern era before you get made over trying to buy thirty gallons of cow's blood and an antique scarf collection with a paper checkbook."
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Colloquial. Maybe not so old. Or maybe just one of them is.
And it doesn't matter. That one makes the first move, the world slowing while he speeds up, and the clash that follows is even faster. With all the reckless abandon of a jungle predator, a fourth shape is simply on him out of nowhere, a blur of fabric and a flash of blonde that shows up brassy beneath an angle of lamplight struggling in from the street.
The scent of immortal blood, gushing as the vampire sprawls on one side, most of his throat gone, hands clawing. The second one just nearby has barely a chance to stand his ground and bare his teeth by the time he is grabbed and flung bodily back against the fence he'd come over, wood smashing into splinters on impact. Something about the motion like a dance, before it isn't.
Lestat finishes his turn on a heel, blood coating one hand as thick as a glove, and spattered across his face, hair wild from the rush. Sets bright blue eyes on Daniel, and the spread of his smile, while also full of fangs, is only as threatening as Daniel might make it.
And on Daniel's other side, the first vampire has hesitated, her heel scraping across the pavement in a step back.
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(He remembers. That's the important part.)
Nothing that helps. He has little experience besides sitting and watching. Not pinned down, now, not held hostage, but potentially just as useless given his inexperience. In his mind's eye, he tries to imagine himself throwing a punch. Going for the throat, the eyes. Comical. Maybe he should more seriously consider giving it a go, though, before that friendly-in-a-Stephen-King-way grin starts looming too much closer.
"Hi."
A cheerful greeting. Everything is fine! And normal. Daniel raises a hand in hello, and then swivels his person to the woman who seems to wishing she hadn't gotten out of bed this evening.
"Can we help you?"
Yeah it's a 'we' now. Get into it. Sharknado Smile over here might also be a problem, but he'll take one single problem over being jumped by a gang of problems.
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All of a sudden outnumbered, the last vampire standing considers both in front of her, lips pulling back to show her own fangs. When she speaks, it's with a snarled form of German, all venom directed at Daniel. It doesn't sound like an actionable request. And at the end of it, her eyeline flickers—maybe to his new friend, but in reality further off, towards the gurgling death happening beyond.
From those several feet behind and aside to Molloy, apparently getting on board with we, Sharknado speaks up.
"Please," hands clasping in front of him. "Go on, if you are worried for your friend. I would take part in his rescue, or he may live to take it personally."
The accent is lilting French, if ironed out with time, some broad American syllables having forced their way in, a war of attrition. The language is, thus, English, but it's no difficult thing to transmit the same sentiment through the air in the form of thought, an echo past Daniel's ear. To press the point, Lestat swivels at the waist with an inviting go ahead gesture.
But no. The woman twitches backwards, draws her lips back to deliver a cattish hiss, and turns, making an exit by way of a leap, and the rooftops beyond.
Lestat tilts to watch her go, bringing his blood coated hand up to sample.
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"Isn't that," that, that, he points, to the vampire who was aiming to kill him, who is now bleeding immortal blood from a sharkbite wound, "a violation? Or does self-defense cancel out the Girl Scout oath?"
Daniel's voice is doing a thing, he realizes after it starts. Going just a bit more high-pitched than he should, as hysteria tries to latch onto him. Laughter, but not because it's funny. It's ridiculous. It's should-be-terrifying. This blond, French vampire, effortlessly appearing and chewing another vampire's throat out in a split-second. Familiar, even without documented photos and renderings, because Daniel has spent so much time with the psychological effigy of him.
"Damn."
Of course that'd be the entrance.
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Lestat turns that lifted hand out, dismissive, as he says, "I'll check with my lawyer."
He does not look like a man who has a lawyer, but does look like someone who should have one. Shining blood coating hand and mouth, a coat over a suit over low-necked shirt, none of it looking properly laundered or tailored, pale streaks of dust, patches of mud, spatters of—well. Daniel probably knows the virtues of dark clothes, now. Everything expensive, and all a little neglected.
And he is being studied, and at Damn, recognition recognised. The fangs are gone this time when Lestat smiles in the face of it, continuing with, "And anyway, there is a war on, Mr. Molloy. You would know, having begun it?"
Moving, now, a trajectory that will take him towards the collapsed shape of the unfortunate mortal who took the wrong route home.
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His dear, absent maker would probably be annoyed to the point of accidentally making a minor adjustment to his facial muscles to know Daniel has recognized him immediately. Maybe even more annoyed than over the number of social media posts tagged #lestat that now exist, full of fawning speculation over the tragic deuteragonist-antagonist who may or may not be real. #problematicfav!
There's no question. Rooted to the spot for a moment, considering it all. It's not like meeting a celebrity, except for all the ways in which it is; contrasting, there is real danger, and there is real humor.
I've heard too much about how you fuck.
"You can call me Daniel," he says, instead of any of that. Easy peasy, as he watches Sharky slither over towards the meal he was trying to make for himself. "I meant to publish that book then die anyway, you know. Figured I might as well go through with it."
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Alive, it seems. And—well, well?
Not out of date if you forgive the Cobain chop to his hair, and it's 2022, who can even tell if the tallish heel of his boot is a throwback or an 18th century hold over. Anyway, it's planted in the side of the corpse so that he can roll it over and see if this human is clinging to life at all, although he already knows by the time he gets a look at unmoving, untwitching face.
"If I didn't know any better, I would say that was my beloved's plan as well."
Why not put it on a little, rolling his attention back to Daniel before crouching down to clean his hand on the edge of the dead man's shirt. "Daniel," he repeats. Very well. Crinkled amusement. "I saw you on TV. I'm a fan."
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It is not lost on Daniel that the interview in Dubai was a coffin lid nailing shut, and was not lost at the time. Louis pouring out all of his insides, suicide as Armand called it, while Daniel tried not to let his decaying nerves tremble too much while writing notes and lifting cocktail glasses. But Louis has not allowed himself to be killed, and Daniel is not booking a room for considerate palliative care, and Armand is—
Who the fuck knows.
The thread stitched between them in that penthouse is a strange one. Not quite as strange as New Orleans, or Paris, but a part of the weave of it all.
"Well thanks, Lestat." This is very funny, actually. Daniel does not let himself laugh. "It always did sound like you had good taste. Which can't be said for the bled-out bozo, there, but he seemed fine for dinner."
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A waste, this body. A puddle of cold blood on the ground. He does not feel a particular need to clean up this mess, a neck wound without exsanguination doesn't prick at his own ingrained instincts to cover trails that are not even his to begin with. He tips his head, rustles through some pockets until he finds a wallet. Here, he can take the few crumpled bills inside, credit cards, and voila, we have a violent robbery, he's a genius. A little like straightening a picture on the wall of a half-collapsed house.
He also doesn't think to search out the cellphone, and gets to his feet as he inspects the cash. Not very much. Into his pocket it goes all the same, as he now turns his focus on Daniel, a lingering looking over that trawls head to toe.
Not Louis', this fledgling—his first guess. Which leaves behind only limited and unbelievable options, the likeliest one being the most incredible of all. It doesn't take much, a kind of psychic tracing over of a rumpled stitch, feeling out the threads of connection. Bright red eyes, unmistakable, and maybe Daniel can feel it, this knowledge plucked free.
Certainly, it can be read in Lestat's face. A flicker of some complicated tangle—amusement, first, mock-scandal in the snapping back of his focus to Daniel's eye. The focus of a predator, seeing the twitch in the brush.
"Well," is doing a lot of work, but he continues, "young ones like you shouldn't skip meals. Shall we?"
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This time, he does laugh, though it's tinged wry.
"At least I know he's probably not listening to me anymore."
Fucking Armand. Lestat can no doubt hear that one loud and clear. Last memories of him like a bizarre cat in the dark, a lithe shadow with lamplike eyes, pulling in all the light like he's greedy for it, and Daniel's world spinning, spinning, spinning.
Meanwhile: interesting. He can't turn off his note-taking brain, and note-take it does. The writer moves over to his would-be-dinner, perhaps looking like he's aping the elder's routine, but in fact fishing for the ignored phone. He mashes a passcode on it until it locks itself, then turns it off. Lestat went for the cash and the cards, Lestat looks properly nourished but is a little bit dressed like he forgot something at the grocery store on a Sunday morning, Lestat said my beloved.
He goes for the dead (?) vampire next, fishes out a second phone, repeats the process. This one he'll take to his guy to get broken into, but the mortal's is getting thrown in the river. Finally he looks back to Lestat.
"You're the boss, boss."
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Back in New Orleans, he had his own rat catcher. A rat catcher who caught rats, and sometimes by accident useful things about the world would drop out of his mouth. None of them included any advice about what to do about cellular devices on victims—but advice on other things, like CCTV and forensic sciences, and after a while, the rats just seemed like the better solution—so he watches what Daniel does, and meets his eye when focus switches back to himself.
Hm, agreeable, with a smile. Pivots, and leads them away.
To nowhere in particular. He hasn't spent time getting to know Atlanta as a hunting ground, but he can listen to voices and thoughts on the wind, can catch scents, can feel his way through the dark streets, and besides, if all he wanted to do was save Daniel Molloy's life when it was in jeopardy, he would vanish as fast as he appeared.
"Lelio," he says, as they start, nothing but a distant siren, the sound of bootfalls on dry concrete. A glance, wry. "Not Arlequin. At that time described in your book, I was the romantic lead, not the clown. Your maker has a poor memory. I suppose it goes with age."
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Crazy. It's crazy, this happening. Should he mentally ring Louis? Nah, probably not. Even if only because he knows his friend isn't overly thrilled that Daniel has bypassed the 'self loathing and small animals' stage. And he gets why that disappoints Louis, he really does, but after those weeks in Dubai, learning what he learned, he knows that drawing it out is torture over a thing of inevitability. So why bother.
He'll reach out to Louis later. This is probably fine.
"That's generous of you." Right, yes, a simple mistake from mentally feeble old Armand, accidentally recasting Lestat as a clown. "Can't say anything about the stage, but you make an outstanding romantic lead on the page. And a romantic villain."
Frankly, the book might not have come together without Lestat haunting the narrative. Barring the meltdown Daniel was caught in the middle of, the timeline fades into vague summaries after Lestat's withdrawal, despite not having been the interview subject. As though he took something vital with him. A point that Daniel was forced to make in first draft, and then the final draft. Absent only in editing, dithering. So,
"How've you been?"
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Lestat, of course, has certainly read the thing. Read it to death. There is a copy stashed with his things, spine broken, pages dog-eared, and this is the second one after, during his first reading, some moment compelled him to take a handful of pages and tear them free in a fit of anguish. He has been more careful since, making sure to get to the end.
Which could be as much compliment to the writer as the subject. The matter of his heroism and villainy, both romantic, is awarded with him opening his mouth like he might say something to it, hesitating long enough—
Good, a pivot. "On a break."
Is it much of a detail, that he ignores the pockets of his coat as he walks, hands free? Maybe not. A slouchy affect isn't universally prescribed. All the same, an old world energy to posture, clinging to his frame for dear life as his accent does to his voice, a century spent in America, longer than the changes of men's fashion.
"But now I am working on an album. My own compositions. I have found within myself, Daniel, a new motivation to reenter the world, but," a turn of his hand, "I feel compelled to offer some credit where credit is due. Do you keep him as your acquaintance? Louis."
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"Yeah, we stay in touch. Not as often as I might like, but he's working through some things. Remodeling. A tree was removed improperly from their little," here he makes a gesture, "simulated solarium, which I understand was a pain to restructure."
It occurs to him that Lestat will not have heard Louis' dare shouted out into the night. Only the reactions. What picture must that paint?
'Some things', 'their'. An open wound being cemented over.
"What kind of music?"
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Not enough, never enough. But: he has prepared himself a little, so the sense of more metaphorical fangs extending at mention of their is the kind of thing he keeps more or less off his face. Doesn't immediately bite after the bait and demand for more. What tree? What things? How has he progressed, this working out?
No. Back to himself.
"Rock and roll," is said without irony, with great enthusiasm, but the smile he sends Daniel's way sidelong seems just this side of self-aware. Some kernel of sober conviction in the bright-eyed lunacy. "In feeling and sentiment at its least. I will take everything I have listened to over this past century and give it new life. What it chooses to be after that, no maker can dictate."
He swerves a little, a friendly little bump of the shoulder to Molloy's as they walk. "I wish to be on TV as well. You mustn't tell anyone."
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Hah, yeah right. It's going to be a mirror. Louis couldn't get Lestat out of his story. There's no surprise in discovering, immediately, that Lestat can't get Louis out of his.
Kinda romantic, ignoring all the abuse. (And they probably will! Sigh.)
"I like rock and roll." Really, Mr Leather Jacket? "It's never been done by anyone whose musical CV loops back to commedia dell'arte."
Alone in this abandoned side street, they're approaching a parking lot. From the deep web maps of paranoid ex-redditors he's consulted, Daniel knows that the nearest camera is on a shitty chop shop diagonal from the lot. A few blocks away, someone is driving an old car, too slow to be going anywhere with purpose. In the 70s, he'd think it was somebody pulling over to get a blowjob, but here and now, it's probably someone trying to get Google Maps to work.
"Why Atlanta? Why now?"
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He doesn't know the territory but cameras give off a sound. Hard to pick up in a modern city full of sounds, but not impossible if you can narrow down your focus.
Speaking of focus—
Lestat laughs, a sudden and exuberant sound that takes all the air from his lungs, and his hand goes out to grip Daniel by the shoulder, as if they are old friends who just exited the bar at cut off.
"Daniel!" Daniel Daniel Daniel. "To speak with you, of course. You know," the amusement staying present in his voice as he leads them off towards the parking lot, "when I was taken," because what is sacred anymore, when Louis and Armand would give up so much of him to this man, who would give it to the world, "I was at the height of my career. I might have played at la salle Richelieu with one more mortal season. I was written about in British papers. And then I died."
Quelle tragique, says the hand to his breast, a brief swing around to walk backwards and look at Daniel as he does so.
"And like you, I continued on. I think we could be of mutual benefit, don't you think?"
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Because it's not like Daniel was ever going to stop himself. He'd have gotten that book out on his death bed with no recordings, no files, if he had to get it out as a conspiracy theory. As soon as he got on the plane to the UAE, the book was set in stone. Practically already real.
"We both got thrown in the deep end in our own ways, huh."
The driver of the old car is thinking about going home, or killing himself, or getting tacos. Relatable nothingness. Daniel finds mortals very easy to read (he has not tried, will not try, Lestat, unwilling to insert his whole arm into the shark mouth).
"Is it better? Being this way?"
Logic, and all he knows about the man, tells him that Lestat is not a metric by which to evaluate this unlife. And yet despite all his charades, Daniel believes him (or the him he knows through Louis, through Armand, through Claudia) to be the most honest about being a vampire.
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Lestat's touch in the mortal's mind is like a fingertip tapping the surface of a pond, creating ripples, luring the fishies. No more than that.
Ah, such a question, transmitted through a flicker of his expression, turning back to face the path they've aimed themselves down. Thinking about it a little, as Daniel didn't ask do you like it more? or is it better for you?, but something more universal. Rings a little of the philosophising that tormented his early romances with du Lac, but only in form, he thinks, not spirit. Besides, he's had time to think.
"The most exquisite of agonies, the highest of pleasures. To live as selfishly as our inner animal compels us to live. Not less than human, but more than human, more human than any who walk the earth, more capacity to love and to hate and to rage. We will never escape our grief, our pain, the harms we have done, and every night, a decision to continue, to endure, and kill in the name of that enduring. Not everyone has this ability. Not everyone can stand it."
They could go around the chainlink fence, but why? Lestat hooks his claws into it, resting his weight back on his heels as he looks back at Daniel.
"But in short, it is called a gift for a reason, and it rules. Come," an invitation, before scaling the fence with great efficiency, jumping over it to land on silent feet.
The man in the old car will be here soon. Not much of a hunt, maybe, but Daniel is still a beginner, and if ArMaNd isn't around to drag something injured into the den for his cubs—
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A bark of a laugh leaves him at 'it rules.'
You know what, that's a fine answer too. Someday if he's very lucky he will watch his daughters die peacefully, and not be executed by sunlight in front of him. Each drawback also has a silver lining, an it-could-be-worse. He won't wallow, he refuses. He'll have time for it.
Up and over. Surreal to be able to move like this (again? at all), and a part of him still braces inside and flinches now and again, expecting punishment from his body. A break, a sprain, a wrack of tremors he can't control. But he just feels good. Better than ever. And on that trajectory, eating people feels better than heroin ever did. Cognizant of that being a potential problem, he nevertheless waits for the car. Already, he has discovered the ability to go unnoticed, particularly in shadow.
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Also for consideration: maybe it's important to him that Daniel, personally, find him charming.
But then, when isn't that important to him, for literally everyone everywhere all the time, who ever meets him? He shows a smile to Daniel when the man lands on the other side and it reaches his eyes, and then they are making for the shadows. Naturally silent, vanishing past the glow of streetlamps, signage, haze.
Moments later, the car bumping off the road and into the parking lot, like an endangered sea mammal drifting into the netting. Next to Daniel, Lestat gives a small hum of satisfaction when the engine is killed.
"In or out of the car?" he asks. What is Daniel's instinct?
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"In."
Date night in the back seat, then a drive. There are paths to the Chattahoochee River that evade cameras, and areas where it's deep enough to roll a car into, never to be seen again. Daniel has done a few of these murders so far, and he feels ways about it, but makes himself compartmentalize. He tries for horrible people, even if those horrors are mundane— might as well, right? He's not God, he's not moralizing, but it's sensible. The worse a person is, the less likely it is that their disappearance will be looked into with any urgency.
"It's like eating hamburgers after going to a rescued animal sanctuary," he says, with an awareness that Lestat is probably eavesdropping for insight into his opinion about this. Might be a little sad, in theory, but in practice, it simply has to be done. "Most people aren't as cute as cows, though, you know?"
So this is actually easier. Cows tend not to beat their girlfriends or exploit minors after getting their Discord usernames off Fortnite.
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"I never liked it when Louis selected dogs," he says. Most dogs are cuter than most humans, accounting for some extremes. Overall, certainly more willing to love unconditionally. The meat in the car has his hands on the wheel, his eyes closed. Making it easy, even without more meddling. "But one man can only have so many hierarchies inside of him."
A streetlamp above flickers, and winks out. The shadows that flood in are jarring, thick.
Turn to your vampire elders for the answers, and you will find dust, or something that wishes to be it. Lestat's psychic voice, like a murmur from behind, is made more disorienting as he cuts a path forwards, his stride long and purposeful. You can be God, if you wish. You can be the random and tragic accident, a collision, an act of nature. You can be the curator and refiner of good taste and culture as you see it. You can be mercy. You can be the Devil. In my experience, we try them all at least once.
As he nears, there's the sound of locking mechanisms undoing, and the figure in the car startles from his self-imposed reverie. Looking the wrong way, as Lestat goes for the front passenger door. Shot gun.
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