Antoinette & Lestat
I suppose that normally we start off things with a very flowery and ornate opening. One where I recite the vivid details of a moment in my life that I feel was a turning point. And I suppose I could go on about the roar of the airplane or the stunning beauty I could see if I looked out of the tiny airplane window to see the world below me. But now, it would almost feel like I would be untruthful to you. Honestly, in that moment, I wasn’t gazing out of the window in a blissful state during my travels. I wasn’t engaging in small talk with my fellow passengers. I wasn’t even reading from a paperback novel to keep my mind free of flight anxieties. I merely sat there, tears no longer able to fall from my face, my eyes open blankly. I didn’t even truly notice who sat next to me in the economy seating. But isn’t that how every run away feels? They feel a constant up and down in their stomach. The butterflies of freedom blossoming and floating about, and yet in the bottom of your stomach you feel the cold hard stones that weigh you down. These stones that tell you that you are making a huge mistake and that you’ve ruined everything by burning bridges with everyone that was close to you. That certainly was me in that moment.
What was home life like? I suppose that these details would bore you, but if you simply must know at this point, I’ll tell you about it. My mother was overprotective and overbearing. I believe her to be the stem of the roots of my all my anxiety. I was never obedient enough for her. I was never polite enough for her. I couldn’t dress down too much without being judged for looking too plain or sloppy. I couldn’t dress up enough without being judged for being too vain or looking like a whore. She always bothered me about having friends though always complained that I visited with them too much. She wanted me to get a job and start working and yet she didn’t dare want me to move away from her. My father on the other hand, didn’t know I existed until I did something wrong. I was the one that wrecked his car. I was the one that kept all the strays in our neighborhood on our front porch. I was the one that broke my mother’s heart.
I had been scheming to get away from them for a long time, years perhaps. My life was my own to live, and I wanted to do it from a place where I could be free from them. I started spending more time with my friends. I began to sleep at their homes and even stayed with them for weeks at a time before coming back home. One of the last times I had done so, I had stayed with a young man. I knew him briefly from our time in school. He was a polite boy and was kind enough to offer me his home for a short while. We didn’t love each other, though I would be lying if I claimed that we didn’t share a bed once or twice.
When my mother found out that I had been living with a man for a month, she lost it. She arrived at his house, banging her fists upon the door and screaming at the top of her lungs. She called me a whore and a demon. She slapped the poor boy across his face; demanding that he tell her why he seduced her little child into his bed. She didn’t want to listen to me when I told her that it wasn’t his fault. That this was my doing. To leave us alone.
But now I would be too far for her to come for me. I was leaving behind my home country of France and doing what so many of those before me have done, and headed towards the ‘New World’. I had read so much about the city of New Orleans. Of how it shadowed France and yet was something entirely different all together. It was a delightful blend of so many countries and beliefs. Certainly I could find a place there that I could be myself.
Luckily for me, it didn’t take me long to find a job in the new city. I got a job working as a waitress in a small café not too far from the center of the city. I got to see so many unique faces and interesting people. The job wasn’t the best, but it paid me a few bills to help cover my living costs. I was staying in an apartment with a few other people that worked in the city or studied there. They kept to themselves and didn’t bother me as long as I paid my part of the rent.
Yes, it was then that it happened. It was a particularly nasty night. The muggy New Orleans night had begun to swirl with horrible inky black clouds as the sun was sinking down the horizon. I could feel the rumble of roaring thunder rattle the ground underneath my feet. Looking out the window of the small café I could see the maelstrom of rain pound the outside world. The people that lined the café seemed to not even notice the torrential downpour just on the other side of the thin glass windows. A flash of lightening caused a jolt amongst the small group and a collective sigh as the power in the small building shut off. It wasn’t much longer after that moment that I was sent home for the night. I didn’t live too far away from the place where I stayed, however, it was a bit of a trek to get home…especially when lost on the way.
The power had gone out throughout most of the area so I had no streetlamps to light my way home and the pouring rain hadn’t helped either. The cold rain was chilling me terribly and I could feel my legs and arms grow numb from the cold water that drenched my form. I had no jacket or umbrella to shield me from the elements, so incredibly foolish of me. My hair clung to my face and I had to nearly strain my eyes to see where I was going as the rain seemed to fall even harder and heavier than before. I had to find a place of shelter if I was to make it home in one piece.
I had surveyed the area around me then and saw an abandoned town house. The windows had long been smashed open and the building bore signs of graffiti and the damage of time. The perimeter was guarded by vines and kudzu that hadn’t been disturbed in years. Even the front door of the once great town house, which stood cracked open, seemed to be held upon it’s rusty hinges dependent on the vines. I used a careful and gentle hand to push open the door as easy as I could, hearing the wood shift and the hinges squeak in despair as the door gave way.
Now that I was away from the rain, I wiped my hands upon my wet uniform that dripped with cold water and pulled my phone from my pocket. Luckily, it didn’t seem to be too water damaged and I was able to turn on the flashlight so that I may see the inside of the building. The paint that covered the walls of the interior was peeling and the entire building held an old musty smell. It was like a thousand old books had just been opened right under your nose. I could almost smell the dust and decay of the old building. The floor under my feet felt stable and the roof seemed to be holding up rather well for its age, though I did see signs of leaks here and there. I let myself wander through the place, taking note of the broken furniture and old pictures that lay on their sides, as if tossed away by time.
As I went further into the house, a horrible stench caught my nose. It was the scent of death. The light from my phone helped me survey the area. It didn’t take me long to find the root of the smell. Dozens of dead rats lay at my feet, some more decayed than others. Some seemed as if they just died a moment ago. Others no longer held fur or flesh and was merely a pile of bones upon the floor. With my hand covering my nose and mouth, carefully moved around the small dead bodies and saw that they seemed to form a path. It was as if someone were leaving them in a trail. As disgusting and gut wrenching as this was, my curiosity had been piqued. What manner of creature would leave bodies in a neat trail like this? Perhaps a very strange cat? Looking closer at one of the fresher corpses, I noticed what looked like puncture wounds on the creature. They seemed larger than a cat’s bite, though I wasn’t entirely eliminating the possibility of a giant cat.
Following the trail of rat corpses led me to an old crumbling staircase in the middle of the house. Some of the steps didn’t look too particularly stable and the roof was leaking water right in the middle, leaving the wooden stairs that sat there warped and striped. I put my foot on the bottom step and applied a small amount of weight to test its strength. The wood creaked under my foot, but held. I did the same to the next step, taking my time to carefully analyze the step’s strength before taking the next step. A few of the steps held more corpses that I would slide out of the way of my foot so that I wouldn’t have to make too much movement.
When I was midway up the stairs, my eyes concentrating on the footing beneath me, my peripheral vision caught movement up ahead at the top of the stairs. I quickly looked up, shining my light to the top of the stairs to catch a glimpse. A cat sat at the top of the stairs. Its fur was long and white and its eyes glared at the bright light from my phone. Its fur held mats and tear stains underneath the eyes, though it seemed to be in better health than most stray cats I’d run across in the city so far. The cat studied me while it tapped its long feathery tail at its side.
“Are you the one that killed all of these rats?”, I asked of the feline before me, my feet beginning their slow and careful climb up the steps. One loud creak from the wood under my feet seemed to offend the cat. It dashed away from its place at the top of the stairs and the glare from its eyes were all I could see from where it sat in the corner.
“Vous tres jolie, mon petite chat”, I said softly as my feet came to rest at the top of the stairs. The cat watched me with wide eyes as I slowly approached. I held out my hand to the creature and held it steady to show that I meant no harm. It leaned forward from its perched position to sniff at my fingers from a distance, its soft sniffles could just barely be heard over the pouring rain outside. I watched its little pink nose come slightly closer to my fingers, perhaps smelling traces of food from my work. The white cat shifted closer to me and before it’s small rough pink tongue could lick the tip of my finger; we were both startled by a loud creak from another room. By the time my eyes returned to the resting place of the cat, it was gone.
Leaving my place at the top of the stairs, I looked down to the end of a hallway. The hallway led to different rooms and somewhere nearby I could hear the sound of rain pouring in from the leaking ceiling. The first room on my left that I peered into had a large patch of ceiling missing, the rain pounding on the sun bleached flooring. The patch also brought in a small patch of blessed light that streaked throughout the hallway.
As I stepped closer to the room across, I once again heard the loud creaking. This time however, the loud creaking was accompanied by a definite shuffle of feet.
“Hallo? Bonsoir?”, I called out. “Forgive me for trespassing, but the rain, it is too much for me to get home. I just needed shelter.”
As I edged ever closer to the room I could feel my stomach dropping. I could feel fear welling up, suddenly wishing I hadn’t made my presence known to whatever squatter was here in the abandoned town house. I reached the arched doorway and I immediately felt my bones nearly leap from my skin as I saw movement by my side. My heart was leaping from my chest when I was face to face with a pale young woman with coppery red hair pulled back in a messy bun, stray strands glued to her face from the rain. Her eyes were wide and were the color of fine honey. She wore a black uniform that was speckled with small stains and was drenched in cold rain. I sighed softly when I realized that I was staring at my reflection. My reflection sighed back at me from the large ornate framed mirror that leaned against the wall at my side.
“N’ayez pas peur mon cherie”, a hoarse dry voice spoke. Its French was very fluid and natural, very different from the Cajun mixture I’d gotten so used to deciphering here.
“Vous parlez francais! Tu parles il magnifiquement”, I exclaimed and approached the voice.
There was a large leather chair with its back turned to me, the legs tapering off into old worn wheels, one of which was twisted and close to breaking off the chair entirely. I could just barely make out an old stained blanket hanging down from the sides of the arm rests and faintly I could see two feet planted on the ground, though that was all I could currently see of who sat in front of me.
“It has been a very long time since I’ve spoken that language. I’d almost forgotten how to use the words properly”, the voice said to me. The voice cracked as it spoke, but now as it spoke more words I could make out that the voice was definitely male. Even as he spoke in English, I could hear the tinge of French at the end of every word, as though they were dipped into a decadent chocolate.
“It sounds as though you’ve been away from the old country for a very long time, monsieur.”, I said in plain English as I carefully approached the old worn chair. My steps were quiet, but very known to the man sitting just a few feet away from me.
“Mon Dieu, you’ve no idea, mademoiselle. It’s been centuries”, he laughed dryly.
The old wooden floor creaked and sighed with my movements and just as I was about to reach out and lay my hand on the old leather chair, the man panicked and slid further from me. As he moved away from me, however, one of the old rusty wheels gave out and caused the chair to topple over, causing the man to fall out onto the dirty old floor. I quickly moved to help him up, kneeling at his side. He was wrapped in bundles of old blankets and clothing that smelled of mildew and dust. I could see long strands of nearly white hair that poured from the top of his head. I reached for his hand to feel that it was ice cold and his skin felt smooth and hard. It reminded me of touching something dead…
“No, please. Don’t come any closer”, the man cried as I tried to help him sit up. His hands came and pushed me away from him and recoiled back to him just as quickly and forceful. He was hiding his face from me.
“I won’t hurt you monsieur, I just want to help you”, I said calmly, reaching out for him once more.
The man laughed once more, a deep chuckle this time. Such a deep vibrato, I hadn’t expected it to rumble forth from such a frail silhouette. I watched as the bony slender skeleton like fingers spread forth against the worn flooring and begin to put weight on the weak palms.
“I should have expected that when the damned cat would finally bring me proper prey…that it would be one so innocent.” The man brought his other hand against the ground to push himself up to his knees. In a quick motion, one that I could only barely register, the man had twirled around and now sat with his back against the wall and he was finally facing me.
“Sweet girl, it is me hurting you, that you should be worried about”, the man said.
His face was pale and taut. I had expected to see wrinkles and spots from age, but what I saw was different. I saw nearly skeletal features, like a man starved for years. But his skin was nearly perfect, save what seemed to be scarring from injuries long ago. He seemed so thin and frail…and as though he were literally nothing more than skin and bones. I would think that I had been talking to a corpse this whole time…if it hadn’t been for his eyes. They were large and bright. Like a stormy night on a beautiful blue shore. His thick blond brow was furrowed as he stared at me now. His gaze was soft, perhaps winded from the fall. I wondered in that moment how I looked next to him. Everything about him seemed so faded and I must have looked like a blaze of color next to him with my red hair.
I was going to say something…something sassy about his last statement. Until I took a quick glance at his lips. I swore that I saw something that shouldn’t be there in that quick glance. And when I looked back, I studied the thin lips. They were dry and cracked, skin peeling from the bottom lip. But what had caught my attention were the glistening ends of sharp teeth that peeked from underneath his top lip. Almost like…fangs on a vampire.
“I know what you’re thinking. The answer is yes.”, the man said softly. I watched his lips move as they spoke this time and caught more of the fangs that lay behind his lips, nestled between normal teeth.
“But you can’t be. Vampires aren’t real. I mean, I know it’s the clichéd thing and all in New Orleans…but come on, you can’t be a vampire”, I exclaimed and leaned back to sit more comfortably on the floor in front of the man.
“Cherie, I am the reason that there are vampires in New Orleans.”, he said with a scoff. “I know I don’t look much now…but then…”, he smiled as he reminisced about strange old days “No one could resist me.”
“Oh yeah? Even someone like me?”, I asked of him, resting my head on my hand as I listened to him. I wasn’t sure why I felt so at ease around what could potentially be more than a health hazard, but I simply wanted nothing more than to be there and speak with him in that moment.
“Especially someone like you. I’d have you clinging to my arm by the intermission of an opera or symphony. Though…I’m surprised to find you still here and speaking to me. You’re quite strange”.
“The vampire is calling me strange?”
“I never claimed to not be strange. It takes one to know what and that sort.”
“What’s your name?”, I finally asked him.
“Lestat de Lioncourt. And yours?”
“I’m Antoinette Roselle Vâlème. Most people just call me Annie”, I said with a slight grimace when I said my nickname of Annie. I never really liked it as a nickname, though I was never overly fond of my actual name.
“Ah, cherie, but you’re more than just Annie. From now on, you’ll be my Beautiful Rose.”, Lestat said, a smile plastered on his lips.
I too had a smile across my face as we spoke for several more moments. He told me more of his life, of how he had created a lovely vampire family for himself. Of how they lived a wonderful and decadent lifestyle when America was brand new. And of how their child turned against him. A child vampire that grew to hate the one that gave her the immortality that ensured she would never grow up. I grew teary eyed as he spoke of how he knew she plotted against him and how she wanted him out of the picture. His voice had grown quiet and dark as he remembered nearly being murdered by the two of them, his vampire lover and their child. Of how they ran to France to be rid of him. Of how the vampires of France didn’t take kindly to Lestat’s presence and act of turning a child.
“What happened to Claudia? What did they do to her?”, I asked when his words began to fade away.
“They had burned her in the sun…and left me with the task to tell Louis that he would never see his daughter again. The daughter that I gave him…”
“Did you ever see Louis again? He must hate you”
“I don’t believe he hates me. I believe he has resentment for me. But not hate. And he has come to visit me in this godforsaken place once…that cat was his gift”, he said and pointed behind me.
I turned to see the fluffy cat trot up to the two of us, strolling past me with a large rodent hanging from it’s mouth. It made soft, almost content mews as it approached him and placed the rat at his feet. The rodent squirmed but wouldn’t move from in front of him.
“How pitiful that I must rely on a feline to procure blood for me these days.”, Lestat whispered as he took hold of the rat and moved to sink his fangs into the poor creature, but his eyes met mine before he could. Disgusted with himself he threw the creature to the other side of the room.
“Why is the cat letting you do that?”, Lestat asked suddenly with wide eyes.
I had been mindlessly stroking the soft long snowy fur of the cat as I had watched him. The cat was sitting next to me, purring with great content and it twitched its tail every now and again when my hand moved too slow or stopped for a moment.
“I don’t know, she seems to like it. She seems like a very nice cat. Is she not that nice to you?”.
He didn’t give me an answer, only peered at the cat as though it would strike against him without a moment’s notice.
“I much prefer the company of dogs”, he said moments later.
It was then that I noticed how the rain had ended and how much more clearly I could hear the vampire speak. And with the dissipating clouds more moonlight was shining through the broken windows into the dank room we occupied and I could see him more clearly. I also noticed the vampire’s gaze on me. He was studying me with all the firm concentration of an art student putting the image on canvas.
“You would look so much more beautiful with your hair down”, he said softly. I could see the hints of a smile along his lips.
“Trying to charm me, are you?”, I asked of him with a sly smile.
“It is what I do, my beautiful Rose.”
I laughed at his words, but still took a moment to pull my hair from the messy bun it was tangled in. Before long, coppery red hair fell into my vision and around my shoulders. I had become so comfortable talking with Lestat that I began to wonder how I could help him. He seemed harmless enough. But the thought that he was the one that caused the rat genocide all along the townhouse sent a cold shiver down my spine. And yet…my mind kept wondering. Perhaps the rat blood just isn’t enough for him…maybe he needs something stronger…
“Lestat…would it help if I offered you my blood?”, I asked of him, my eyes not really focused on anything, merely staring in front of me.
“Offering yourself to me so soon? Perhaps I do still have more of my old charms than I realized”, he said, his words practically being purred to me.
“I’m just trying to help you!”, I sputtered with a sudden flash of embarrassment. This exclaim caused the old vampire to chuckle.
“Well, I suppose I can’t turn down such an enticing offer then.”, his voice was softer then, as though he were consoling a child. “Come to me.”
His hand was outstretched to me and in the moonlight, I could see the slender fingers tremble ever so slightly. His blue eyes were locked on me, though the gaze was soft with an air of appreciation. In that moment, I felt hesitation. Perhaps a moment of fear. Like when you go to the doctor and you see them approach to draw blood for a test. That strange tinge that sinks into your stomach and makes you uncomfortable.
“Do not fear me, darling Rose. I shall take care so that you shall lose no petals, only a small thorn that you won’t even know is gone.”, Lestat said to me then. He had a warm smile upon his lips as he spoke. It was a smile that broke through my hesitation.
I shuffled on my knees until I slid closer to his form that still clung to the wall. My warm hand came to rest in his cold hand. His grasp was gentle but firm as he pulled me closer to him. I was in his lap at this point, his blankets falling to his sides as his arms came around me. His clothing had smelt old and strange and yet now that I was even closer to him, I found that his true scent was that of the rain. I was gazing at him even as his hand was raking back the hair from my neck and he was nuzzling closer.
“You know, this is the part where you close your eyes”, he whispered softly against my skin. I could feel his soft breath along my skin, causing little goosebumps to form there.
I did as he suggested and let my eyes close. My heart was racing in my chest with anticipation of his bite, though he seemed to be just as content with drinking that in instead of my blood. His lips lightly traced the skin on my neck. I could feel his brow against my jawline as he simply savored the moment at hand.
“I wonder how much longer it’ll be before I go home…”