LA FIN
Eloa, October 2000


Spoiler: QOTD

Disclaimer: Louis and Daniel belong to Anne Rice. I only borrowed them for a while. No financial profit gained.

Thanks to Maggie Monroe for inspiration.



The doorbell made him awake at once. A few quick gasps in the darkness and then he pushed off the oaken lid. Another wicked idea of that lovable fiend. Installing a doorbell in the coffroom wasn't a normal vampire thing to do. But he was, of course, out of any standards. He was an anti-standard.

Louis walked the long stairway up to the metal door. The scanner took a glimpse of his retina, which resulted in a series of clicks and buzzes too quiet and swift for a mortal to hear. And then the door swooshed aside and light poured onto him. He blinked a few times to clear his gaze.

'Brruumm... Erm... Hyia, doll-face', murmured the black silhouette in front of him. Then that silhouette fell on him with inhuman force, sending him down the stairs. They landed on his beautiful restplace, breaking it apart. He couldn't stand up, because the other one's weight was pinning him to the floor.

'Daniel! You...'; but his shout was quickly concealed with a deep kiss. Only after a long while of a sensuous festivity did he push him off. Daniel gave out a short laugh. Then he reached out and wiped off the few drops of blood that came down Louie's chin. He put the fingers inside his mouth, and smiled. All the while he seemed unable to fix his gaze.

'You drunk from a drunk again!' Louis said playfully. 'Just get out of here, lest Lessie see you with me. He's getting very jealous, ya see.'

'Lessie-shmessie... We have at least - hick - a few hours to enjoy ourselves. I made sure he won't be back before midnight.'

'And how on earth did you manage to do that?' Louis asked doubtfully.

'Simple. I left him a note yesterday. "Mojo has a terrible case of mycosis".
He'll sure spend some time looking for an all-night animal clinic.'

'Now, I appreciate your effort, young one, but you know I love him... I can't take up such a moral challenge. I will not betray my love, not even with you...'

He started to gather the pieces of wood scattered around him into a pile. 'The guilt would hunt me for a few dozen years for sure... As well as our bratty friend.' - he ended up with a laugh.

'Wha? Erm, well... If that's what you... But wait! Let's just spend some time together. OK?', he said imploringly. 'Look what I have here...I snatched it from the guy at the bar. I'm sure you'll like it.' He took a cd out of his jacket and showed it to the slightly puzzled beauty in front of him.

'B-but it would still be unjust to... hey! It's The Doors!' - he took the cd and examined it closely. 'I've heard it's worth listening to. One of the musicians is a - what do you call that - a cult figure in these days, a celebrity, though he's long gone...'

'He's a singer. You should see some pictures of him. Your heart will melt, believe me.' Every sign of drunkenness was gone from him now.

'So I surely will... But let's go listen to it! I - well, he - has a, what do you call it again... A jukebox?'

'Stereo.'

'Yes - it's upstairs. I'm so excited! I didn't recently have much contact with any art, you see. Especially music. He thinks he's the best singer in the world. And that's only because one can still buy his records after fifteen years, everywhere. Times of commerce...'

'So this is what's it all about. Commerce. Coitus. Intercourse. Come on, Lou! You dick him, that's what you do.'

'You didn't get my point,' Louie answered, blushing slightly. 'But don't talk about such nonsense now. Les is gone - from my mind as well, at least for the moment. My soul is starving for inspiration. If you don't wanna join me, I'll listen to it myself'. He got to his feet and started up. Daniel joined him in a swift, inhuman move.

'Did you see my new trick?', he asked. Louis shook his head, with a slight frown on his face.

'Don't you like it?'

'In a few decades you'll be drinking from the First Brood and go on killing masses of innocent males. Don't go lestatish, my friend. It doesn't become you.'

'Say what?'

'Never mind.' They were in the living room now. Lace, velvet, black, blood-red, blood-stained. Baroque-resembling furniture and a few pictures hanging on the walls. And a non-fitting hi-tech metal case. Louis opened its door and put the cd inside the player.

'What do I press now? Does it work with 'open sesame'? Or maybe there are some of those clicking and devices inside?' He turned his back to the hi-fi and blinked a few times. Then he leaned a little closer and did the same. Then he scowled.

'These horrible mechanisms are beyond my power!'

'Oh Louie, Louie... Still whining, Louie...', Daniel said with a mocking smile. Then he came up to the stereo and pressed the play button.

'Sit back. I'm gonna loop my favorite piece. It's called "The End".'

'As you wish', Louis replied. 'I wish I'd taken that comfy office-chair from that ancient gallery in the basement. Les develops his pictures there, you know. I'm growing tired of all these baroque things. They look nice but are quite unusable. Take this armchair, for instance. My buttocks feel as if...'

'Shh! It's beginning!', said Daniel. 'Enjoy'.

After they'd listened to it for the first time, Daniel pulled out a cowboy-killer out of his pocket.

After the second, smoke filled the room with fantastic loops and aery strings.
Daniel watched with amazement and rocked with the music. Louis coughed.

After the third, Louis shed a single blood-stained tear. Daniel picked his nose.

After the fourth one, Louis got up and turned the cd-player off.

'Mon Dieu', he said after a long pause.

'I told you', Daniel said.

'Mon Dieu!', Louis replied, turning to face him. 'Is this what you call art these days?!'

Daniel looked puzzled. 'So you didn't like it?'

'Did I like it? Well, I did. In a perverse way.'

'What do you mean?'

'It's hard to explain. That singer, you didn't tell me his name...'

'Jim Morrison.'

'Morrison...', he repeated, the French accent unusually clear. 'He was lost from the very beginning. This is an exclamation of death... He wanted somebody to help him, yes... A poor soul. Now, look at the symbolism in the latter part. Totally incoherent. It seems as though he had been hallucinating when writing this.'

'He probably was. You know about the Age of Aquarius. Everybody were hallucinating these days...'. He gave out an unsure laugh, looking for a reply in the greenish glaze. He didn't find one.

'As I was saying... It made ma sad to listen to this. That person was a looser. Playing with words, but without grasping any meaning, relying on the obscene but not really having anything to say... I pity for him. Did you look behind the words?'

Daniel sneered but didn't answer. Louis continued, now holding the cd in his hand, playing with it.

'Remember the reaction which Goethe's works arose among the young? Now, you surely don't...' He got a straightforward yawn as a reply. 'Now, I assume that he had many followers. I assume he still exerts some kind of power over the society. He's reaching towards them from the grave, dragging them with him towards his nothingness, and that's a vacuum shaft leading to hell.' The yawn was thunderous.

'I might say I'm glad he didn't survive. Bearing in mind that...'

'Fuck you.'

'What?'

'I said "FUCK YOU". Fuck off, sissy. You just don't get it, do you? Morrison was a prophet. Some people just don't get his music. And you're just one of them.'

'You think otherwise! You really believe that...'

'Stop this bull-shit, please! My ears ache. You didn't even understand the lyrics. And it's you who observed the development of this age. This culture. One might expect better of a vampire like you.'

'I'm sorry if I offended you, young one...'

'Yeah! That's it! I could've just as well played this to my mortal mother. That dishy body of yours just makes others forget that you're a gramps inside. Yuck. I shoudda known better than to come here... You and your precious Les... Yeah, right, precious Les.'

'What about Lessie? You said he's with Mojo...'

Daniel got up and walked to the hall. Louis followed to see him standing in the front door.

'Look,' Danny said with a mischievous smile, 'your beloved Lestat is fucking Armand right now. That's why I got a drunk and came over here. Well, take care. I'm going to join them.' Afterwards, he was gone. That new trick again.

Louis looked at the cd he was still clutching in his hand. He crushed it to pieces and tossed them onto the front stairway. Then he slammed the door shut.

The hinges feel off the wall and the heavy door fell down, catching him off-guard and pinning him down to the ground.

'I should have drained Edison when I met him.' He thought.

The End (no pun intended)