Anne Rice - Queen of the Damned (1)

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I'M THE VAMPIRE LESTAT. REMEMBER ME? THE vampire who became a super rock star, the one who

wrote the autobiography? The one with the blond hair and the gray eyes, and the insatiable desire for

visibility and fame? You remember. I wanted to be a symbol of evil in a shining century that didn't have any

place for the literal evil that I am. I even figured I'd do some good in that fashion-playing the devil on the

painted stage.

And I was off to a good start when we talked last. I'd just made my debut in San Francisco-first "live concert"

for me and my mortal band. Our album was a huge success. My autobiography was doing respectably with

both the dead and the undead.

Then something utterly unforeseen took place. Well, at least I hadn't seen it coming. And when I left you, I

was hanging from the proverbial cliff, you might say.

Well, it's all over now-what followed. I've survived, obviously. I wouldn't be talking to you if I hadn't. And the

cosmic dust has finally settled; and the small rift in the world's fabric of rational beliefs has been mended, or

at least closed.

I'm a little sadder for all of it, and a little meaner and a little more conscientious as well. I'm also infinitely

more powerful, though the human in me is closer to the surface than ever-an anguished and hungry being

who both loves and detests this invincible immortal shell in which I'm locked.

The blood thirst? Insatiable, though physically I have never needed the blood less. Possibly I could exist

now without it altogether. But the lust I feel for everything that walks tells me that this will never be put to the

test.

You know, it was never merely the need for the blood anyway, though the blood is all things sensual that a

creature could desire; it's the intimacy of that moment-drinking, killing-the great heart-to-heart dance that

takes place as the victim weakens and I feel myself expanding, swallowing the death which, for a split

second, blazes as large as the life.

That's deceptive, however. No death can be as large as a life. And that's why I keep taking life, isn't it? And

I'm as far from salvation now as I could ever get. The fact that I know it only makes it worse.

Of course I can still pass for human; all of us can, in one way or another, no matter how old we are. Collar

up, hat down, dark glasses, hands in pockets-it usually does the trick. I like slim leather jackets and tight

jeans for this disguise now, and a pair of plain black boots that are good for walking on any terrain. But now

and then I wear the fancier silks which people like in these southern climes where I now reside.

If someone does look too closely, then there is a little telepathic razzle-dazzle: Perfectly normal, what you

see. And a flash of the old smile, fang teeth easily concealed, and the mortal goes his way.

Occasionally I throw up all the disguises; I just go out the way I am. Hair long, a velvet blazer that makes me

think of the olden times, and an emerald ring or two on my right hand. I walk fast right through the downtown

crowds in this lovely corrupt southern city; or stroll slowly along the beaches, breathing the warm southern

breeze, on sands that are as white as the moon.

Nobody stares for more than a second or two. There are too many other inexplicable things around us-

horrors, threats, mysteries that draw you in and then inevitably disenchant you. Back to the predictable and

humdrum. The prince is never going to come, everybody knows that; and maybe Sleeping Beauty's dead.

It's the same for the others who have survived with me, and who share this hot and verdant little corner of

the universe-the southeastern tip of the North American continent, the glistering metropolis of Miami, a

happy hunting ground for bloodthirsting immortals if ever there was such a place.

It's good to have them with me, the others; it's crucial, really- and what I always thought I wanted: a grand

coven of the wise, the enduring, the ancient, and the careless young.

But ah, the agony of being anonymous among mortals has never been worse for me, greedy monster that I

am. The soft murmur of preternatural voices can't distract me from it. That taste of mortal recognition was

too seductive-the record albums in the windows, the fans leaping and clapping in front of the stage. Never

mind that they didn't really believe I was a vampire; for that moment we were together. They were calling my

name!

Now the record albums are gone, and I will never listen to those songs again. My book remains-along with

Interview with the Vampire-safely disguised as fiction, which is, perhaps, as it should be. I caused enough

trouble, as you will see.

Disaster, that's what I wrought with my little games. The vampire who would have been a hero and a martyr

finally for one moment of pure relevance . . .

You'd think I'd learn something from it, wouldn't you? Well, I did, actually. I really did.

But it's just so painful to shrink back into the shadows-Lestat, the sleek and nameless gangster ghoulie

again creeping up on helpless mortals who know nothing of things like me. So hurtful to be again the

outsider, forever on the fringes, struggling with good and evil in the age-old private hell of body and soul.

In my isolation now I dream of finding some sweet young thing in a moonlighted chamber-one of those

tender teenagers, as they call them now, who read my book and listened to my songs; one of the idealistic

lovelies who wrote me fan letters on scented paper, during that brief period of ill-fated glory, talking of poetry

and the power of illusion, saying she wished I was real; I dream of stealing into her darkened room, where

maybe my book lies on a bedside table, with a pretty velvet marker in it, and I dream of touching her

shoulder and smiling as our eyes meet. "Lestat! I always believed in you. I always knew you would come!"

I clasp her face in both hands as I bend to kiss her. "Yes, darling," I answer, "and you don't know how I need

you, how I love you, how I always have."

Maybe she would find me more charming on account of what's befallen me-the unexpected horror I've seen,

the inevitable pain Pve endured. It's an awful truth that suffering can deepen us, give a greater luster to our

colors, a richer resonance to our words. That is, if it doesn't destroy us, if it doesn't burn away the optimism

and the spirit, the capacity for visions, and the respect for simple yet indispensable things.

Please forgive me if I sound bitter.

I don't have any right to be. I started the whole thing; and I got out in one piece, as they say. And so many of

our kind did not. Then there were the mortals who suffered. That part was inexcusable. And surely I shall

always pay for that.

But you see, I still don't really fully understand what happened. I don't know whether or not it was a tragedy,

or merely a meaningless venture. Or whether or not something absolutely magnificent might have been born

of my blundering, something that could have lifted me right out of irrelevance and nightmare and into the

burning light of redemption after all.

I may never know, either. The point is, it's over. And our world-our little private realm-is smaller and darker

and safer than ever. It will never again be what it was.

It's a wonder that I didn't foresee the cataclysm, but then I never really envision the finish of anything that I

start. It's the risk that fascinates, the moment of infinite possibility. It lures me through eternity when all other

charms fail.

After all, I was like that when I was alive two hundred years ago-the restless one, the impatient one, the one

who was always spoiling for love and a good brawl. When I set out for Paris in the 17805 to be an actor, all I

dreamed of were beginnings-the moment each night when the curtain went up.

Maybe the old ones are right. I refer now to the true immortals-the blood drinkers who've survived the

millennia-who say that none of us really changes over time; we only become more fully what we are.

To put it another way, you do get wiser when you live for hundreds of years; but you also have more time to

turn out as badly as your enemies always said you might.

And I'm the same devil I always was, the young man who would have center stage, where you can best see

me, and maybe love me. One's no good without the other. And I want so much to amuse you, to enthrall

you, to make you forgive me everything. ... Random moments of secret contact and recognition will never be

enough, I'm afraid. But I'm jumping ahead now, aren't I? If you've read my autobiography then you want to

know what I'm talking about. What was this disaster of which I speak?

Well, let's review, shall we? As I've said, I wrote the book and made the album because I wanted to be

visible, to be seen for what I am, even if only in symbolic terms.

As to the risk that mortals might really catch on, that they might realize I was exactly what I said I was-I was

rather excited by that possibility as well. Let them hunt us down, let them destroy us, that was in a way my

fondest wish. We don't deserve to exist; they ought to kill us. And think of the battles! Ah, fighting those who

really know what I am. But I never really expected such a confrontation; and the rockmusician persona, it

was too marvelous a cover for a fiend like me.

It was my own kind who took me literally, who decided to punish me for what I had done. And of course I'd

counted on that too.

After all, I'd told our history in my autobiography; I'd told our deepest secrets, things I'd been sworn never to

reveal. And I was strutting before the hot lights and the camera lenses. And what if some scientist had

gotten hold of me, or more likely a zealous police officer on a minor traffic violation five minutes before

sunup, and somehow I'd been incarcerated, inspected, identified, and classified-all during the daylight hours

while I lay helpless-to the satisfaction of the worst mortal skeptics worldwide?

Granted, that wasn't very likely. Still isn't. (Though it could be such fun, it really could!)

Yet it was inevitable that my own kind should be infuriated by the risks I was taking, that they would try to

burn me alive, or chop me up in little immortal pieces. Most of the young ones, they were too stupid to

realize how safe we were.

And as the night of the concert approached, I'd found myself dreaming of those battles, too. Such a pleasure

it was going to be to destroy those who were as evil as I was; to cut a swathe through the guilty; to cut down

my own image again and again.

Yet, you know, the sheer joy of being out there, making music, making theater, making magic!-that's what it

was all about in the end. I wanted to be alive, finally. I wanted to be simply human. The mortal actor who'd

gone to Paris two hundred years ago and met death on the boulevard, would have his moment at test.

But to continue with the review-the concert was a success. I had my moment of triumph before fifteen

thousand screaming mortal fans; and two of my greatest immortal loves were there with me-Gabrielle and

Louis-my fledglings, my paramours, from whom I'd been separated for too many dark years.

Before the night was over, we licked the pesty vampires who tried to punish me for what I was doing. But

we'd had an invisible ally in these little skirmishes; our enemies burst into flames before they could do us

harm.

•As morning approached, I was too elated by the whole night Ib take the question of danger seriously. I

ignored Gabrielle's impassioned warnings-too sweet to hold her once again; and I dismissed Louis's dark

suspicions as I always had.

And then the jam, the cliffhanger ...

Just as the sun was rising over Carmel Valley and I was closing my eyes as vampires must do at that

moment, I realized I wasn't alone in my underground lair. It wasn't only the young vampires I'd reached with

my music; my songs had roused from their slumber the very oldest of our kind in the world.

And I found myself in one of those breathtaking instants of risk and possibility. What was to follow? Was I to

die finally, or perhaps to be reborn?

Now, to tell you the full story of what happened after that, I must move back a little in time.

I have to begin some ten nights before the fatal concert and I have to let you slip into the minds and hearts

of other beings who were responding to my music and my book in ways of which I knew little or nothing at

the time.

In other words, a lot was going on which I had to reconstruct later. And it is the reconstruction that I offer you

now.

So we will move out of the narrow, lyrical confines of the first person singular; we will jump as a thousand

mortal writers have done into the brains and souls of "many characters." We will gallop into the world of

"third person" and "multiple point of view."

And by the way, when these other characters think or say of me that I am beautiful or irresistible, etc., don't

think I put these words in their heads. I didn't! It's what was told to me after, or what I drew out of their minds

with infallible telepathic power; I wouldn't lie about that or anything else. I can't help being a gorgeous fiend.

It's just the card I drew. The bastard monster who made me what I am picked me on account of my good

looks. That's the long and short of it. And accidents like that occur all the time.

We live in a world of accidents finally, in which only aesthetic principles have a consistency of which we can

be sure. Right and wrong we will struggle with forever, striving to create and maintain an ethical balance; but

the shimmer of summer rain under the street lamps or the great flashing glare of artillery against a night sky-

such brutal beauty is beyond dispute.

Now, be assured: though I am leaving you, I will return with full flair at the appropriate moment. The truth is, I

hate not being the first person narrator all the way through! To paraphrase David Copperfield, I don't know

whether I'm the hero or the victim of this tale. But either way, shouldn't I dominate it? I'm the one really

telling it, after all.

Alas, my being the James Bond of vampires isn't the whole issue. Vanity must wait. I want you to know what

really took place with us, even if you never believe it. In fiction if nowhere else, I must have a little meaning,

a little coherence, or I will go mad.

So until we meet again, I am thinking of you always; I love you; I wish you were here ... in my arms.

CONTENTS

PROEM

PART I THE ROAD TO THE VAMPIRE LESTAT

The Legend of the Twins

The Short Happy Life of Baby Jenks and the Fang Gang

The Goddess Pandora

The Story of Daniel, the Devil's Minion, or the Boy from Interview with the Vampire

Khayman, My Khayman

The Story of Jesse, the Great Family, and the Talamasca

PART II ALL HALLOW'S EVE

PART III AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING, IS NOW, AND EVER SHALL BE

Lestat: In the Arms of the Goddess

Marius: Coming Together

Lestat: The Queen of Heaven

The Story of the Twins, Part I

Lestat: This Is My Body; This Is My Blood

The Story of the Twins, Part II

Lestat: The Kingdom of Heaven

The Story of the Twins, Conclusion

PART IV THE QUEEN OF THE DAMNED

PART V . . . WORLD WITHOUT END, AMEN

PROEM

DECLARATION IN THE FORM OF GRAFFITI

-written in black felt-tip pen on a red wall in the back room of a bar called Dracula's Daughter in San

Francisco-

Children of Darkness Be Advised of the Following:

BOOK ONE: Interview with the Vampire, published in 1976, was a true story. Any one of us could have

written it-an account of becoming what we are, of the misery and the searching. Yet Louis, the two-hundred-

year-old immortal who reveals all, insists on mortal sympathy. Lestat, the villain who gave Louis the Dark

Gift, gave him precious little else in the way of explanations or consolation. Sound familiar? Louis hasn't

given up the search for salvation yet, though even Armand, the oldest immortal he was ever to find, could

tell him nothing of why we are here or who made us. Not very surprising, is it, vampire boys and girls? After

all, there has never been a Baltimore Catechism for vampires.

That is, there wasn't until the publication of:

BOOK Two: The Vampire Lestat, this very week. Subtitle: His "early education and adventures." You don't

believe it? Check with the nearest mortal bookseller. Then go into the nearest record store and ask to see

the album which has only just arrived-also entitled The Vampire Lestat, with predictable modesty. Or if all

else fails, switch on your cable TV, if you don't disdain such things, and wait for one of Lestat's numerous

rock video films which began to air with nauseating frequency only yesterday. You will know Lestat for what

he is immediately. And it may not surprise you to be told that he plans to compound these unprecedented

outrages by appearing "live" on stage in a debut concert in this very city. Yes, on Halloween, you guessed it.

But let us forget for the moment the blatant insanity of his preternatural eyes flashing from every record store

window, or his powerful voice singing out the secret names and stories of the most ancient among us. Why

is he doing all this? What do his songs tell us? It is spelled out in his book. He has given us not only a

catechism but a Bible.

And deep into biblical times we are led to confront our first parents: Enkil and Akasha, rulers of the valley of

the Nile before it was ever called Egypt. Kindly disregard the gobbledygook of how they became the first

bloodsuckers on the face of the earth; it makes only a little more sense than the story of how life formed on

this planet in the first place, or how human fetuses develop from microscopic cells within the wombs of their

mortal mothers. The truth is we are descended from this venerable pair, and like it or no, there is

considerable reason to believe that the primal generator of all our delicious and indispensable powers

resides in one or the other of their ancient bodies. What does this mean? To put it bluntly, if Akasha and

Enkil should ever walk hand in hand into a furnace, we should all burn with them. Crush them to glittering

dust, and we are annihilated.

Ah, but there's hope. The pair haven't moved in over fifty centuries! Yes, that's correct. Except of course that

Lestat claims to have wakened them both by playing a violin at the foot of their shrine. But if we dismiss his

extravagant tale that Akasha took him in her arms and shared with him her primal blood, we are left with the

more likely state of affairs, corroborated by stories of old, that the two have not batted an eyelash since

before the fall of the Roman Empire. They've been kept all this time in a nice private crypt by Marius, an

ancient Roman vampire, who certainly knows what's best for all of us. And it was he who told the Vampire

Lestat never to reveal the secret.

Not a very trustworthy confidant, the Vampire Lestat. And what are his motives for the book, the album, the

films, the concert? Quite impossible to know what goes on in the mind of this fiend, except that what he

wants to do he does, with reliable consistency. After all, did he not make a vampire child? And a vampire of

his own mother, Gabrielle, who for years was his loving companion? He may set his sights upon the papacy,

this devil, out of sheer thirst for excitement!

So that's the gist: Loiiis, a wandering philosopher whom none of us can find, has confided our deepest moral

secrets to countless strangers. And Lestat has dared to reveal our history to the world, as he parades his

supernatural endowments before the mortal public.

Now the Question: Why are these two still in existence? Why have we not destroyed them already? Oh, the

danger to us from the great mortal herd is by no means a certainty. The villagers are not yet at the door,

torches in hand, threatening to burn the castle. But the monster is courting a change in mortal perspective.

And though we are too clever to corroborate for the human record his foolish fabrications, the outrage

exceeds all precedent. It cannot go unpunished.

Further observations: If the story the Vampire Lestat has told is true-and there are many who swear it is,

though on what account they cannot tell you-may not the two-thousand-year-old Marius come forward to

punish Lestat's disobedience? Or perhaps the King and Queen, if they have ears to hear, will waken at the

sound of their names carried on radio waves around the planet. What might happen to us all if this should

occur? Shall we prosper under their new reign? Or will they set the time for universal destruction? Whatever

the case, might not the swift destruction of the Vampire Lestat avert it?

The Plan: Destroy the Vampire Lestat and all his cohorts as soon as they dare to show themselves. Destroy

all those who show him allegiance.

A Warning: Inevitably, there are other very old blood with nauseating frequency only yesterday. You will

know Lestat for what he is immediately. And it may not surprise you to be told that he plans to compound

these unprecedented outrages by appearing "live" on stage in a debut concert in this very city. Yes, on

Halloween, you guessed it.