[Untitled]
by Delphine, 03.11.2001

Disclaimer: This is a work of non-profit amateur fan fiction and is not meant to infringe on the copyright of Anne Rice or her publishers. Please don't sue me, I'm a poor student, really!

Spoiler: Everything up until after Memnoch. This is post-Memnoch, pre-Vampire Armand.

Anything else: This is my very first spec (yay!) and comments/constructive criticism are welcome. Setting is in San Francisco. This is really angst-y and depressing, as a warning. Also, really morbid. I know there's probably millions of grammatical/spelling errors. If this subject or topic has been done before, I don't mean to copy. Thanks for reading.

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He stared at his drink. It was the straight vodka he remembered drinking during his mortal life. Drinking until his death, drinking until a devil behind an angel’s face rescued him from despair. Or did he?

He sat now, at a run-down bar, staring at the soft glow of the harsh neon lighted signs, wallowing in the scent of human blood around him. Blood. Perhaps the one true pleasure he still had.

He stared at his drink, a drink that he would not drink, but only watch steadfastly as he wondered about his life. What was he? What had he become? And where was Armand?

Sometimes, he’d think he saw Armand on the street corner, underneath the sickly yellow street lamp. The auburn hair, slightly curled, with a wistful yet evil smile upon his angelic face. Armand, with his beauty and youth, a “cupid out of Caravaggio,” as Lestat once said. Armand, deadly and beautiful. Armand, never to die. Never to die. Eternal life as Marius had given him, and as Armand gave, but so reluctantly. But Armand, where was he now?

He thought he saw Armand, he thought he saw Armand as he did those last days in bitter Chicago. Himself, wasted away to a emaciated sickness from the caustic alcohol that corroded his flesh like the worst sort of acid. But it was never Armand. It was only a beautiful mortal, soft and young, so filled with blood. Only a beautiful mortal that he would soon kill. Innocent blood, the pleasure when his sharp fangs pierced the fragile flesh of the most delicate part of the neck as the blood spilled over, down the mortal’s front and back, purposefully. He liked it this way, the mess of blood wasted. He was the morbid romantic, after all. And he felt the realization of the mortal, that this was death, and it was beautiful. The ecstasy of that blood, and the ecstasy of the mortal lasted not long enough. The mortal would be reduced to nothing more than a beautiful corpse. A beautiful corpse that resembled Armand. And he could only think of that night when the Dark Gift separated them forever.

And where was Armand now? Wasn’t it that he could not die? Ashes? All he had left were ashes to cry his blood tears over? Why did Armand abandon him?

“Hey, man, are you all right? You look sick, and you haven’t touched your drink,” the bartender asked, interrupting his thoughts.

“I’m fine,” he replied curtly, paid, and left.

He went out into the cool San Francisco night, on Divisadero Street. So many memories. And he thought he passed by the dilapidated Victorian house where Louis de Pointe du Lac had told his tale of grief and sorrow. A tale that ruined his life.

He remembered, assuring his parents that the radio job was only temporary and part-time, and that it wouldn’t affect him. Some promise that was. The feeling of the teeth of a vampire and the pleasure all victims feel…it was too much. How could he return to his mortal life, knowing there was something so much greater and more beautiful?

He didn’t see it. He didn’t see the grief that Louis tried to share. He didn’t see the moral struggles between immortality and murder. He didn’t dislike taking innocent blood. Sweet, innocent blood, like the runaway Armand had brought to him. That moist, sickening, yet wonderful sound of the blood rushing throughout. And the scent of it radiating from her filthy body was almost too much to bear.

And now Armand was gone, reduced to nothing more than a handful of ashes. He walked like he did those days and nights in Chicago, with his body wasted on the same troubled emotions. He felt the blood thirst rise in him as he passed by the mortals. And yet, he didn’t feed. A gaunt, hollow, sunken face, hands in the pockets of loose denim jeans, slouched over with a wool trench coat. He had asked for this, the immortality, whatever it was, and whatever it meant to him was meaningless.

He continued on, walking to a dead cemetery, to find a mortal with the same despair and despondency, perhaps. He passed the gravestones, one by one, staring at the sentimental epitaphs and the flowing names of the deceased. This would never happen to him. And he chose a particularly broken and crumbled gravestone, the inscription barely readable, and collapsed on top of the unkempt grave. The wind blew and howled, but could not carry his grief away. There were the dark crows and the darker ravens, watching him, knowing he was dead, but not really.

Yet he wouldn’t admit he missed Armand, but his thoughts were chaos, and only about the angel which he found in lieu of Lestat. Second best? Was that what troubled Armand? He was only second best to Daniel? But that was never so, was it?

He sat there, letting the blood tears stream down his skeletal face. He stared at his hands—reduced to nothing more than the bleached skin with the veins jutting from the bones. The scent of his own blood maddened him.

He remembered his own mortal life—short, insane, driven by the need for immortality. How he had given up the warmth and love of the sun and mortal hands for a monster’s soul. Embracing perpetual twilight, embracing a killer’s desire.

So now here it was, his immortality, meaning nothing more than the dead branches of the dead cemetery with its dead corpses. Rotting, decaying, putrid flesh. He belonged in there; he belonged in one of the coffins, decomposing as the bodies had. A grave for him, his soul, his love, himself. He found no solace in holding the cold soil six feet above the coffin. He laughed; it was just his place to be in a cemetery. But the laughter soon turned to tears as blood continued to flow. It didn’t relieve his anguish or agony. Armand wasn’t there; he wouldn’t ever be there again. He wouldn’t find him standing on the street corner, smiling wistfully in front of a British car, inviting Daniel into the Dark Gift. He would only find the young mortals that he would so eagerly stalk and murder; the beautiful mortals blessed with youth and androgyny.

Dawn was approaching. He thought about staying there in the cemetery, letting the light burn his flesh into the same ashes. But no, he was never strong enough. Isn’t that what he asked for? Immortality? To have the Dark Gift? To be a vampire? To be a demon which preys on the innocent living?

He left the cemetery as quickly as he entered, mysterious and frightening. And he sought shelter in the catacombs of San Francisco. None noticed him walking by. Not that he cared.

He clutched his trembling hands as he felt the death sleep take over him.

“Armand!” he whispered uselessly.