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Hunger has me too, it seems.
Later, Louis would realise Lestat meant hunger has driven me to throw myself onto your mercy.
It hadn’t been mercy. Mercy would have meant ending the hunger by the swiftest, cleanest means.
Hadn’t been mercy that made him kiss Lestat with the taste of ashes on his tongue, either.
On board the cargo ship full of new coffins and two silent passengers, he carved vertical lines onto the deck between mouthfuls of rodent blood. One for each reason: freedom, revenge, Claudia, Claudia…
Claudia only slapped him across the mouth on the third day.
Don’t you fucking dare pin this on me. When has it ever been for Claudia with you, or him?
Her eyes were bone dry.
She picked a different coffin furthest away from him that night.
Louis left her be.
Freedom, revenge, Claudia.
He didn’t dream about wind on his skin anymore. He dreamt about a river of red flowing over his hands.
He would not be able to stomach human blood for a good year after. It was back to four legs for him.
Claudia sidled up to him when the shore came into view. He turned, voice scratchy from disuse. ‘Sis, I’m—’
‘You will be.’ Claudia looked him dead in the eye. Always the brave one. ‘When he comes for me.’
‘No.’ He shook his head once, twice. Stopped himself because three times would cross the line to insincerity. ‘No, I won’t let that happen.’
‘Because you’ll put yourself between me and him?’ She stood on her tiptoes and put her mouth very close. Her breath was cold. ‘You would not have his death on your hands. So have mine.’
His voice dried up but she heard the begging just the same.
‘See it through, Louis. Don’t look away.’
Her kiss burnt his cheek.
He still followed her when she stepped off. She didn’t stop him.
That was mercy in its own right.
They shared coaches, streetcars, hotels. But always different rows, different rooms. Louis behind Claudia, a little to the side.
She put rouge on her lips, rolls in her hair, padded brassiere and lifted heels. Most of the times it got her into museums and picture houses alright, but not for dancing with handsome men in uniform. Then Louis would be allowed to accompany her proper as a cousin, her hand in the crook of his elbow but not touching.
She loved being swung about like a ragdoll by capable hands. Although the aren’t-you-a-little-young always dimmed her eyes.
She’d let them buy her a spiked soda. And talked to Louis in her head.
Louis thought he got through those nights purely by hunger. Hunger for her voice.
What about that one by the Victrola? Think he’d take you outta the back and fuck some cheer into you?
Louis didn’t need to look to know they’d be broad in the shoulders and blond. Blue eyed if he was unlucky.
Sometimes he followed Claudia’s sing-song instructions. Ending up with a fist to the mouth or a buggering against a wall. Sometimes it was her who took those boys up on their offers. Then she became really talkative.
Did it hurt when he put it in you? Was he big?
It hurts me every time. Why does it have to grow back? This one likes it, you know, that I’m completely bare down there. Almost shot his load before he shoved it in.
Louis threw up into his hand. There was barely anything, pink foam.
His dreams still flowed red. It was as if the mind was conjuring up meals to sustain him.
In Ploesti she turned around to face her off-centre shadow. ‘A truce, Louis.’
He imagined he saw the glint of an axe behind her. She answered without inflection. ‘No, too unwieldy.’ She moved closer, moonlight nails resting above his heart, all the better to get to the lie. ‘How do I make you love me more than you love him?’
Not an axe, a dagger.
He started thinking. She shook her head and tapped his throat.
‘It’s a different kind of love, is all.’ He didn’t recognize his own croak.
‘Yes. I’m aware. I’m talking about degrees. What do I need to add to my side of the scale?’
Nothing, he thought, helplessly.
She dropped her hand and moulded herself to his front. Twig arms around his back.
She cried. Big heaving sobs for both of them.
Louis, I don’t know how to make it better.
How to make you better, she meant. Lestat had tried, too. Cajoling, threatening, dropping him a thousand feet to see if the atoms would realign to his liking.
She jumped back and spat.
Louis grabbed onto her shoulders. ‘I’m sorry, sis.’ Tried to speak louder than her fury. ‘We both became a little more like him to break the chain. I, I.’
I slit his throat. There was so much blood and he was so heavy. I couldn’t ever get back up again if it wasn’t for you.
Her smile was a soap bubble.
For me, alright, for me. Then live for me. Live.
She hated being reminded of the height difference so Louis didn’t crouch, only dipped his chin a little to meet her eyes. ‘I’ll try.’
The war, ironically, made the world a better fit for them.
They were far from the only monsters, nor as ravenous for blood.
They huddled together in air raid shelters because even vampires weren’t immune to explosions. She clung to him and he covered her with his body. She didn’t mind the shielding then. Her animal instincts have always been stronger than his.
Where do you think he is now?
Louis startled. This was the first time she spoke about Lestat.
He looked down into her amber eyes. The emergency lights darkened them to a human brown.
A cord, Lestat had said. If there was one Louis wasn’t sure where it might be tied to on him.
Well, other than your dick.
Louis decided to embrace her quip. Yes, I was quite enamoured with his.
She glared. He held her tighter and muffled his laughter into her hair. Lestat. It felt good to finally return a name to that presence.
I never knew what you saw in him. Claudia flattened her mouth.
But you saw it too. Louis closed his eyes and dusted off the cobwebs: Lestat wearing a silly hat for Claudia’s birthday, the three of them laughing so hard at the screening they got thrown out.
She put her chilled hand over his, stopping the picture reel.
Both of them ran cold these days. Broken limbs and sulphur stink dampened their appetite. Louis haunted freshly bombed homes, delivering pinned down bodies to oblivion, if not God. Claudia wandered hospital corridors. She got called an angel quite often by young, delirious voices.
Europe teetered on the brink. But they would not risk America and a vengeful ghost.
Claudia peeled a bloodied acceptance letter off a lump that used to be Mildred Bessler. Would-be junior typist.
Mildred Bessler wore plaid skirts and sensible shoes. Only did night shifts due to an eye condition. Steady hands, photographic memory, within a week she wrote out Morse codes without even checking the book.
The codes got more complex. The levels of clearance needed climbed.
In her file it said parents deceased. Her only cousin, Louis, lived three doors down from her. A carpenter.
History wouldn’t remember Mildred Bessler’s name. Her file would be sealed 15 years after the war. Disappearance, suspected suicide.
Claudia was steely eyed when she burnt everything belonging to Mildred. In her ashes another would emerge.
He let her go bit by bit.
Three doors became a 10 minute bus ride, a train journey, a voice on the telephone.
‘I’m near 70 now, Louis.’ By which she meant I love you but I’m my own woman. The new decade filled her with a taste for fast cars and broad roads to drive them on, alone.
She earned it, Louis figured.
On a more selfish level, he saw her through. The hands that took gave something back. Victim, daughter, sister.
‘Just remember to forward me your new address, Jean Campbell.’
He started to wear denim, and found there were places where men could be seen together. Could dance close together. His skin didn’t dictate how people spoke to him, most of the time.
He was still partial to longish hair he could pull on. Blue eyes didn’t twist his guts anymore.
He found it quite easy to take small sips from sweaty bodies under neon lights, and wondered if Lestat had once again lied.
Then he remembered Lestat would order twenty suits every season, how he loathed the ending of parties.
Restraint wasn’t hard. Lestat just couldn’t be filled. He gobbled things down to sooth the hunger pain.
Has time mellowed him out some? But what was thirty years to two hundred? Who has he pulled into the bottomless well now? Beautiful, no doubt. A musician, most likely. Would Lestat climb into their coffin just before dusk? For kisses and another heart echoing his.
In dreams, warm summer rain fell on Louis’ upturned face, the tip of his tongue. He laughed and turned towards—
His business card said sculptor.
Clay, ceramics.
His childhood dream of playing with mud all day.
He drank his fill at the clubs and bars. If he took any home he wouldn’t put his fangs in them. Having a man in his bed, smiling, offering his neck or thigh, or wrist if you need to be prim and proper, Saint Louis, should I put a napkin down?
It would be a slippery slope.
Given the chance, the hunger would always rear its head.
A curly haired youth walked into his studio.
‘You’ve been thinking so loudly about him. It’s distracting.’
Louis put the palette knife down and wiped his hands. He was old, the power felt like heat haze rising off him.
‘Five hundred and fourteen years, to be precise.’
‘Yet you can’t tune me out?’
His face stilled.
Ah, it wasn’t the volume but the key. Louis sighed. ‘Apologies, I didn’t realize I’ve been…’
Thinking, missing, him.
Fingers touched his jaw. ‘I could take it all away, if you want.’
Louis took an instinctive step back. His nails bit into his palm. The smell of iron flooded the space.
Armand, yes, Armand. The name was there like it always had been. Armand took his hand and unfurled his fist, inspected the damage. ‘Why do you choose to suffer? Do regrets keep you warm?’
Louis was familiar with this brand of mercy. Once upon a time he’d dished some out himself: the food and lodging are for free, anything else you make is pocket money.
‘Why were you listening?’
Armand slowly let his hand drop.
‘Climb out of the well, Armand.’
‘Like you think you did.’
‘Yes. Do you know why? Because I look down now and I can see where my feet are planted. Because for thirty years the ground beneath me was liquid. That was no way to live.’
‘Is slobbering after an echo more dignified?’ Armand sneered.
Louis sat back down again, put his hands out over wet clay. ‘Them, us, we share the same core: food, sex and home. When the hunger goes.’ He left the rest unsaid.
Armand was a statue. In a blink he was almost nose to nose with Louis. ‘So young, and so wise, Louis.’
Louis fought down a shiver. It was the same cadence, same almost-caress of his name, in a voice that did not fit the face. ‘Whatever you've got planned for me, seduction or destruction. It’s only fun when Lestat’s here to watch, right?’
The pottery wheel spun on. Armand straightened back up from his forward lean by degrees. Smiled.
Louis saw him in a rain splattered shop window.
Lavender suit, a head of tousled gold, hungry eyes.
They watched each other through the glass for a while.
Lestat closed the distance at a leisurely pace.
‘Hello.’
He’s always had that particular way of saying hello when he wanted something: attention, forgiveness.
Louis turned towards him.
Lestat’s mouth shaped Louis’ name. Stopped. His face took on an agility that said he didn’t really want to do it. ‘How fares our dear sister?’
If he wanted payback he would have taken it long ago. Louis said nothing.
The agility left his face at once. ‘I came in peace.’
‘And if I tell you to leave, you’d leave.’
A jerky nod, barely half an inch up and down.
How had he put it? Getting closer to a tall window, trying to catch a glimpse of lightening. Wanting to lift a hand up in preparation but it already happened, a brilliant flash slicing the sky in half.
‘Why now?’
‘I heard you.’
‘You can’t hear my thoughts.’
‘The cord, Louis.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘I can’t explain it.’ A stammering Lestat de Lioncourt was a rare sight. ‘It was, I felt it.’ He pressed a hand to his stomach.
Louis had felt nothing. No tugging. No pain. But perhaps the first wandering thought was a lock turned.
‘If I tell you to leave, you’d leave. Say it.’
He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times. ‘I’ll try.’
Louis nodded and swept away. He got five paces out.
‘Louis.’
He heard it alright—come to me, come back to me. I’m famished.
‘Can’t let you take roots again, Lestat.’ He told the road ahead. His own hunger stirred, scenting the air.
‘Then meet me in the middle, once in a while.’ Lestat implored, ‘New York, Munich, London.’ A pause. ‘Paris.’
How trying it must have been for him, to relent the hold on an entire city. Bastard. Louis lit a cigarette, took a drag and blew smoke to the side. In his mind’s eye he saw the old and new cities where they might come together, desperately alive. Then fall apart again because they would always be hungry things with teeth and nails.
He dropped the cigarette, turned back around.
‘I’d probably like that.’