Andante, Allegro, Legato By Joanne Soper-Cook, 1995 bb106@FreeNet.Carleton.CA, jsoperco@morgan.ucs.mun.ca A Vampire Chronicles/Phantom of the Opera *Crossover* Spec --This spec takes place in the year 1883, when the Phantom would have been already ensconced at the Opera. However, it assumes the alternate reality of Erik having never met Christine Daae; instead he meets Lestat.-- Allegro "Louis, we really ought to book seats at the Opera...I know how much you like to go..." Louis looked up slowly from his book, the dark lashes sweeping back to reveal the green jewels of his eyes. "You don't like the Opera, Lestat." One slender hand rested on the fine binding of the book, the long, tapered fingers clutching the spine in an unconscious caress. How I love to look at him! How very beautiful he is, the absolute pinnacle of physical perfection, my darling Louis... "Yes, but *you* like the Opera." I grinned. "Besides, we can always get a private box so I can fall asleep." I waited for his gentle laughter, and when it came, it warmed me. "Well, what are they doing tonight? Have you checked?" Louis leaned forward and turned up the flame on the oil lamp, the better to see me. "You haven't checked, have you?" he said flatly, but the tucked corners of his mouth betrayed the nascent smile. "Lestat, you know my tastes are selective! What if they're doing something horrible like..." "Faust?" I arched my eyebrows at him, leering. "I ought to audition, Louis! Perhaps they would let me play Mephistopheles, don't you think?" I simpered in front of him in a parody of opera. "Am I devilish enough?" "I actually *like* Faust, Lestat---there's a moral there, if you'd take time to pay attention to it." "A *moral*? Really?" I slid next to him on the settee, caught his chin in my hand and turned his exquisite face so that I could look at him...that face! "And what's that, Louis? Don't sell your soul to the Devil?" I laughed. "Don't entertain Gentleman Death?" I leaned over him teasingly, pinning him to the settee with my weight. "Too late!" "You are the damnedest creature, Lestat!" He tried to push me off him, but I have always been stronger than Louis. He gave up after a token struggle and let me kiss him... God! The sweet taste of him, the warmth of his firm, moist mouth, the gorgeous nearness of that beautiful face as the silken eyelids hid his emerald eyes, and his lips closed over mine... When I drew away, it was with an effort: every fibre of my being pulsed with hunger for him and I would have gladly taken him then and there, spent the rest of the evening in blissful splendour in our bed... "I haven't fed yet," Louis protested, "and I'm very hungry. Perhaps you could go around to the Opera and pick up our tickets for this evening?" I sighed. Damn Louis! Here I was, *dying* for want of him, and he was sending me out into the crowds and stench of Paris to get Opera tickets! "Please, Lestat---" Louis persisted, and thus I acquiesced. "Alright," I sighed, "I'll go and get the tickets. Is there anything you *don't* want to see?" Louis grimaced. "Anything with that Madame Carlotta in it-- if she is to sing, we will..." He thought for a moment, his lovely white brow creased most becomingly... "take a carriage ride through the park, alright?" I nodded. "I shouldn't be very long, if I'm in luck and the box office is open. Will you be here when I return?" "I rather think so. It doesn't take long, you know." "Believe me, dearest, I *do* know." I paused for a moment and just drank in the sight of him, standing there, leaning against the lintel of the doorway with his silken black hair falling over his forehead. "You really are the most gorgeous thing, you know." Louis blushed. "*Please*, Lestat! The tickets. And get something good!" He practically pushed me out the door. "You never know what wonderful things you'll find at the Opera!" His voice faded into the distance. Andante Erik's Journal: 5 May, 1883 I awoke late this afternoon with the distinct sensation of being watched, but of course it was a false impression; I was as alone as I ever am. Besides, this underground lair of mine is nigh well impregnable from either above or below--one would drown in the lake without transport, and there is no other passage below this one whereby one could make an entrance into my hidden domain... So it is that I dwell in darkness; so it is that I arise at night, that I am forever hidden from the light of day, that I lead whatever life I may glean only in the murky shadows cast by moonlight, and never in the shining light of day. I pulled my watch from its resting-place on the bedside table and ascertained the time as four-thirty. I had gone to bed early that morning, some time before dawn...it was getting so that I was asleep much more now than I ever was awake. I expect that's the way I'll go, in my sleep. You do realise what I'm talking about? That final descent, of course, into the murky depths that no oar ever parted, into the arms of Gentleman Death. I seem to find my solace now in sleep, and neglect ever more the lures of life, which hold no lustre for me anymore. I expect that fairly soon my tenuous fascination with mortal life will leave me, and I will slip down slowly into oblivion... Of course, I could hasten the process; God knows I have enough of my precious morphine with which to affect my speedy end, but I somehow lack the *courage* to end it all. More and more upon awaking from my netherworld of dreams, I sense that I am somehow *waiting* for something, but what? I'm not sure, not sure at all. Ah, no matter...for the time being I linger in the limbo between death and life, and never the twain shall meet. I promised myself I would never use cliches such as that... I seem to be breaking all my own rules, don't I? Endangering myself by straying from them, tempting yet again the uncaring Fates.... Like last evening... When I bathed and carefully shaved, (the details of which need not be recorded, I assure you) dressed finely as is my custom and took a carriage out to the Bois... It's amazing what you can get away with in darkness, isn't it? Absolutely astonishing the acts that one can perpetrate, concealed by night. Of course, the park was beautiful, the lake a mirror, the gentle wind playing the reeds of the newly-budded trees...quite astonishing. It was the same as always, of course: I paid the driver, he departed, and then I walked, and then-- God damn. (Write it, Erik! You promised you would!) And then I took my bench in front of the lake, the same bench I always take, and in the gloom I sat and... Well! And now here I am, weeping again. Allegro It took me no more than five minutes to ascertain that the Opera was closed this evening, and the kindly forbearance of the doorman to assure me that no, nothing was wrong, Madame Carlotta had merely taken mysteriously ill at the last moment and nothing could be done about it, nothing! "What do you mean, she's ill?" I pressed the doorman for more information, but none was forthcoming. It seemed he had told me all he knew. "I do not know, Monsieur--" and then, perusing my expensive suit of clothing, "but you may speak with the manager, if you so desire." He opened the door and waved me inside. I'd never been in this building before, and I was quite literally astonished. For the first time in my preternatural existence, my native arrogance fell away and I was left with nothing but my own awe and wonder. Vaulted ceilings, towering over my head, curving down to the elaborately-appointed *Grande Escalier* which descended languidly from the upper floor...the main auditorium was a great inverted bowl with rows of sumptuous private boxes ranked round about...the stage was an enormous cavern which echoed with my hesitant footsteps... And crowning it all, the great capstone of this achievement, the mighty chandelier... It weighed fully seven tons, they said, and hung suspended from the very center of the ceiling, a monolithic Damoclean sword.... I found the sight of its ponderous, hanging weight unsettling and hastened in search of the manager. But, as Louis will tell you, I can be hopeless with directions; my sense of space having been corrupted, perhaps, by the preternatural blood. I found not the manager's office but a dusty back staircase, and heeding the cries of my curiosity, I descended. I found myself underneath the Opera. What a place! Another of these stone staircases, leading ever down to this netherworld of darkness, dust, and the eternal sound of dripping water... The air was heavy, but not musty, and held perhaps a great saturation of dampness. The walls of this place caught the flickers of some distant light on water, and where this light came from, I didn't know, and then I happened upon the lagoon... It stretched from one side of this underground enclosure to the other, a dark expanse of rippling water that caught the errant shards of this hidden light and tossed it up, around the walls. It was the sound of the violin that drew me, though; that sound which so reminded me of my tortured Nicki, of my early days, my mortal days... This was not Nicki playing, however; I recognised that immediately. This instrument was being caressed by the hands of a master much more skilled than Nicki, and the sound of those throbbing strings was almost more than I could bear. I, the eternal Brat Prince, whose hot immortal blood is rarely swayed by the things that so affect mortals, was drawn further and further away from the surface, and closer and closer to that shining expanse of dark water, pulled on an invisible thread of music, so elegantly sorrowful that it seemed the very walls were weeping... This dark lagoon might have been here to keep out lesser souls than I, but with the strength of my preternatural blood, I cleared it easily and was on the other side. Andante The throb of sweet music muted by the morphine in my veins, I let the demon carry me where it would and played without thought for any kind of time or meter... I had taken tonight quite a sizeable dose, rather foolishly sizeable, I suppose, (but I was beyond caring now) and the narrow parameters of my world had cracked wide open. The fingers holding the bow were not mine; the hands that held the violin belonged to someone other than myself... but still, this music came, not of my lucid self, but of my darker half. The kind of music the Devil might make. I was quite insensible to my surroundings, sawing away at the bow, when a slight noise from just outside my dwelling caught my ear. Living by myself all these years had sharpened my senses, given me yet another weapon with which to protect my cherished isolation. I immediately laid down the instrument and went silently and swiftly to the outer room, the large *salon* which fronted directly onto the underground lake, and my small, hand-built pier. Who *was* this creature?! There was a man standing in the middle of my sitting room... I say "a man" but he did not appear as other men do, or perhaps it has been so long since I've seen one that the appearance escaped me. He was tall, nearly as tall as I, and his hair was blond and wavy. It was untrimmed and was instead tied at the back of his neck in the popular style of the last century. His eyes were the blue of summer skies, and he was slender, yet strongly-made. "Who are you? What do you want, and how in hell did you get in here?" I advanced on him, my hand going to my waist to draw out the ever-present Punjab lasso---I am never without my evil little *garotte*, you see, and I had every intention of despatching him. He had invaded upon my isolation, and had thus destroyed my illusion of safety, and now that I had been discovered by him, there could be no haven on this earth for me. Something flickered in his eyes, and as my hand came slicing towards him, he sidestepped me, but far faster than I have ever seen! This gave him the advantage, for I was momentarily startled out of my usual offensive. "My name is Lestat de Lioncourt--" he was talking quickly, in French, one hand held out in front of him to ward me off. "I was looking for the manager but then I heard you playing and--" "--and so you took the opportunity presented, and came down here." The swirling vortex of my despair widened; I dropped into it. I supposed, standing there, that I would not die in my sleep, and so, here was my fate. I would give myself into his hands...I didn't care anymore. "Alright." I stared at him, watching the keen intelligence in his blue eyes, his poise...his skin had an unearthly pallor, and there was *something* in his stance that bespoke an occult power... In my drugged state, I couldn't figure it out. "But if you are going to kill me, please do it quickly--I fancy that the Devil doesn't like to be kept waiting." There was a moment of silence, and expression chased expression across his handsome face... ...and then he laughed. It was a bright, joyous sound, and it echoed off my solemn walls, glanced off the dark expanse of water at my door, went dancing up the many levels to the clear spring night. I was captivated--and a little annoyed, to think that he might be laughing at me. The nerve of him, the insolent brat! "He does not, Monsieur, I assure you--" He broke off, laughing, and offered me his outstretched hand. "Please---I am not here to harm you. You seem a gentleman of some breeding, and your sentiments, Monsieur, are not unlike my own." He shook my hand. "As I have said, I am Lestat de Lioncourt, and you are...?" "Erik," I said. "You may call me Erik." The darkness surrounding me receded... I was no longer afraid of him, but I was powerfully intrigued. Allegro. I can't tell you what I felt, that moment when I first laid eyes on him. He was obviously a musician of some considerable skill, and a gentleman as well, that much was certain by his manners... But what in hell was he doing down here? And why that *mask*? I could make nothing of it: a solitary man, living like a rat below ground, masked and intoxicated by music of his own devising and...something else. I'd seen people wearing masks at balls and at Carnival...but I'd no idea why he wore it now... And his eyes! Burning, alive, intense! A curious bluish-green, with intriguing rings of gold around the pupils, and thick, dark eyelashes to rival even Louis's. The only other visible part of his mysterious mien was his mouth, which was wide and somewhat...*cruel* and pulled a little, at one corner... He easily topped me in height, and he possessed a strength and muscularity not hidden by his clothes, yet moved with a certain inimitable grace, the kind of grace I had thought reserved for our kind alone. Yet it was his voice which was the most compelling thing...and when he spoke, I forgot the mask and every cold and lonely thing about him. He was a king when he spoke. He could have been some renegade vampire, I supposed, hiding out here alone, much as Armand and his band had done under Les Innocents... but that didn't explain why his face was covered. And he bore upon his shoulders a mantle of loneliness that reached out and enclosed me... I wanted to know more of him, I didn't want to leave him, and yet, I knew that Louis was home, waiting for me, and I must go to him, explain about the Opera, and Carlotta being ill... "May I come again, to see you?" I asked this honestly, you understand, without insolence or effrontery...his tragic dignity dissolved my mantle of arrogance, and left me defenceless beneath that burning gaze. "You have my word of honor---" He turned away, one hand moving in a gesture of graceful acquiesence. "You may," he said, and I fancied, as I left him, that his voice was rimmed with tears. I fancied, but I did not know. Legato "Louis, I want you to come with me---" Lestat burst into the salon, in his usual manner, his coat-tails flying, his hair all over the place, and that inimitable light in his blue eyes. I put down the Henry James novel I'd been trying to read and looked up at him, trying to keep the smile out of my voice...how I love him! Even when he is insufferable, even when he torments me so...truly, this divine devil is the center of my world.... "What is it, Lestat? And please, your tie has come apart-- you might take a moment to straighten yourself out---" I reached for his shirt-front, smoothing the fine linen against the hard planes of his chest. My sensitive preternatural fingertips detected the racing beat of his powerful heart--he was obviously quite excited, that much was certain. "Louis--no, Louis--stop it!" He pushed my hands away; his were trembling. I was becoming alarmed--what on earth was wrong with him? "I've just met--well, he's just the most *amazing*---Louis, the man is a *genius* I tell you, and the music! Well, the *violin* Louis! The violin!" Lestat swirled up out of the chair, whirling away from me, a streak of movement. "*Better* than Nicki ever could, and Louis, he lives *down there* all alone, and I---" Lestat broke off his excited tirade and peered at me, his blue eyes sliding over my form. "You don't sound very excited," he said, sounding somewhat disappointed. I sighed. If I wasn't excited, it was because this sounded like another of Lestat's passing fancies: he often latched onto some ignoble unfortunate in this manner, teasing and tormenting them, always keeping the object of his dubious attentions at arm's length until he finally grew bored and killed them...it invariably ended the same way each time. I could only wonder from which segment of the teeming Paris population he'd chosen his latest toy. "Did you get the opera tickets or not?" "There's no performance tonight--Louis, listen to me!" He knelt by the side of my chair, his fallen angel's face just inches from my own, and gripped my arm. "I met the most--" "--amazing man--" I put in, rather wearily. "Yes, Lestat-- another of your conquests--and how long will you toy with this unsuspecting citizen before despatching him as you did all the others, hmmm?" I held his gaze with mine for a long moment, wondering if, like Faust, Lestat would redeem himself... He threw back his head and laughed, a silvery peal of laughter, as only Lestat can laugh. Then he kissed me lingeringly, his warm mouth caressing my lips with a world of tenderness. "I do love you, Louis," he whispered, and brushed my cheek with the back of his knuckles. "But that's not it--not this time." He climbed into the chair with me, sitting across my lap, and in this most undignified position, he resembled nothing so much as some distressed elf in evening clothes. "Under the Opera...he lives down there, all alone, Louis." He paused, looking pensive, "and he is...*such* a musician as would make the angels weep, Louis. And yet..." Lestat tapped the center of my lips with his forefinger. "He reminds me of you." "Of me?" I felt my eyebrows disappearing into my hairline. "Are you certain?" The thought troubled me; perhaps because I had no idea what this obtuse statement might mean. "In what way, Lestat?" "So very...*melancholy* and utterly alone..." Lestat wasn't looking at me, he was gazing at some inner vista, some landscape created in his mind. "You must meet him!" "I think not," I said, rather stiffly. The very last thing I wanted was to be descend into the bowels of the Opera to meet some disenfranchised freak that Lestat had latched himself onto. I wouldn't go---it was settled. "But Louis!" Lestat shifted in the chair so that he was seated astride me, in my lap. I could feel the embers of desire flicker into life, a languorous flame climbing into the pit of my belly. He bent until his golden locks brushed my forehead, and the warm opening of his mouth fastened onto the curve of my cheek. The flame built in intensity, licking hungrily at the undersides of my ribs, and I pulled his delectable lips down to my own, devoured that irreverant mouth of his with mine. "I want you to meet him, Louis..." Lestat's finger traced the outline of my mouth. "Please." There was no trace of impudence or mockery in his voice, and perhaps it was the tone of that sincere request to which I acquiesed. At any rate, I agreed. "Fine." I slipped my hand around the back of his neck. "If it means that much to you." I felt his warm breath on my skin as he nuzzled my neck. "It does, Louis." He drew back to look at me. "I'm not sure why, but it means a great deal." "He lives underground?" I queried, pushing aside the immediate pleasures created by Lestat's busy mouth on my skin. "What sort of man lives underground?" It was suddenly too painful to contemplate, or the pleasure was too exquisitely excruciating. I forgot all about this tortured genius...forgot everything, and gave myself up to my demon, my darling. Andante He said he would be coming back, and he's not here, dammit! Why do I torment myself with my suppositions, thinking he will be here, thinking he will return, when I know he will not?! I must have developed a particular taste for this kind of pain... Well, I won't wait much longer, that much is certain...already the siren call of my gleaming needle is tugging at my soul, and my darling, my demon morphine, lies folded inside a sheet of paper, waiting for me. This is the only coupling in which I can ever find a kind of pleasure, for the joys of the flesh are forever forbidden to me. Ha! The very thought amuses me enormously--as if *I* would even know where to begin, where I able to secure some sort of romantic assignation! Likely I would fumble, be as clumsy and inept as some stripling, callow boy... Those dreams are not for me.... Still, I do wish my blond friend would return, young de Lioncourt. I would very much like to spend a little time talking, learning of the news, the happenings...anything, really is preferable to this. I don't know if I will be able to stand much more of this. This isolation, I mean, these enclosing walls, that maddening, eternal dripping... The dampness has already begun to affect me, and I awoke this evening with the beginnings of a chill... I fear Death, now, when just scant days ago I would have welcomed him as I would a lover! Strange, how one chance meeting with a young stranger can alter one's perspective... I wonder if he likes music? Legato I had no idea where Lestat was taking me, and this journey ever downwards into the very bowels of the Opera, was like a descent into Hell. "Lestat, how much further? I think you must have been mistaken, there's no-one---" "Good evening, Lestat. I thought perhaps I would meet you this evening." A voice, unlike any voice I had ever heard, reached out from these flickering shadows and embraced my soul. A beautiful voice, exquisitely modulated, perfect in pitch and intonation, possessed of so inherant a musicality that I wanted nothing more than to hear it again. As I watched, a figure materialized out of the darkness---a man, moving with such elegance and grace that he seemed to glide... The air around us was charged with the presence of this being, whom I was sure was not merely mortal, but something even more obscurely other than Lestat and I... As he came closer, I saw that he was beautifully dressed in evening clothes and an opera cloak... ...and wearing a mask... I tore my gaze from him long enough to cast an enquiring look at Lestat, who merely smiled in an enigmatic manner, and gently pushed me forward to meet this paragon of mystery. "Erik, I hope you do not mind, but I have brought my dear friend Louis..." Lestat bowed me forward, the very image of native Auvergne charm-- "Louis, this is Erik." I felt my hand float up from my side as if summoned by some outside force, felt the press of his warm, smooth palm against mine, the gentle squeeze of his fingers betraying his greater strength. Some invisible force traveled from his hand to mine, racing up my arm, into my chest, where it burst with a faint, pleasant tingle... The eyes behind the mask were green, like mine.... I sent out a silent query, let the tendrils of my mind touch his: gently, gently... He was like some exotic, wild being who has never ventured from his dwelling-place, and I did not want to frighten him away... :?: My mind, to his mind... :!: The myriad channels of his soul, opened to me...my God! the intricacies of thought and vision, the blinding light of reason, chained and tamed within the cage of his intellectual genius, his towering creativity...He possessed it, this man, he had it! The Divine Fire, of which the ancients spoke... I withdrew, with a great humility, pulling back the probing fingers of my preternatural mind, sealing the entry rift that my scrutinising soul had made. :laughter: He'd enjoyed our exchange. And I was suddenly and immensely glad I'd come. "You must take tea," Erik said, "I've brought the boat--we will go into my house and we can talk---I've built a fire---" We climbed into his little craft, and pushed away, out onto the dark water, where the unknown waited. Allegro I have to tell Erik the truth, and I have to tell him tonight... "I hope it isn't too cold here?" He looked from Louis to me, inquiringly. "I can build up the fire, if you like." "No, it's fine, we're fine..." I took a cup from the tray he'd brought and set it on my knee, watched as Louis did the same. So perfectly civilised, the three of us; the very pinnacle of Western civilisation, two vampires seated in the *salon* of a masked genius who never went above ground in the light of day, drinking Darjeeling and talking about the weather.... It was all perfectly insane. "Look, Erik, I feel I haven't been perfectly honest with you," I began, laying down my teacup. I looked up, and the naked fear standing in his eyes went through me like a stake... *He's afraid we're going to leave him alone again* my mind whispered, and a great shard of agony sliced through me. Christ! 'Who did this to you?!' I wanted to ask him, 'Who poisoned your soul like this?!' but I said nothing. The obvious parameters of his existence were all around me; the confines of his basement dwelling spoke volumes about his truncated life. "I'm not going to leave you," I said quietly, reaching out and placing my hand lightly over his wrist. He pulled away as if he'd been burned, and something raw and ugly flickered around the edges of my mind. "I haven't quite told you the truth about Louis and I..." Louis cast a glance in my direction, then buried his face in the rim of his cup. "What truth?" His voice was a harsh whisper. "What have you not told me?" I sighed deeply, looked at Louis, then leaned close to Erik again. "Louis and I are not quite... Well, we aren't...." "Lestat and I are vampires. The undead. *Nosferatu* Do you understand?" Louis's voice was piercing, insistent, undeterred. His green eyes caught and held Erik's gaze, but the bottom of his tea cup trembled a little in the saucer. There was a huge, pregnant silence, stretching to fill the confines of Erik's elegant sitting room... I could hear the clock ticking, and somewhere, in another room, the soft miaow of a cat... "Do you mock me, Monsieur?" Erik rose to his feet, and his voice, when he spoke again, held an element of outrage. "There is no such thing! What kind of a puerile joke is this?" I made as if to say something, but Louis was up and facing Erik. "It is the truth, Monsieur!" As I watched, Louis drew back his upper lip and showed Erik his fang teeth.... and then I did the same. "You see it is the truth, Monsieur." Louis turned slowly, almost wearily, and sat down on the settee again, took up his abandoned tea. "I am as bound by the constraints of daylight as you are. Lestat and I live our lives in darkness." Erik was silent for a long moment. "How long have you...?" "A hundred years," Louis replied. "A hundred years ago, Lestat made me what I am." He sipped his tea, and the illusion slipped back into place, of three modern gentlemen taking tea in a fashionable *salon*. "I have not seen the sun in one hundred years," Louis said, and dark blood-tears trembled on the cusp of his long lashes. I laid down my cup and withdrew. Legato Lestat had gone, leaving me with Erik, alone in his sumptuously-appointed *salon*. For a moment, I was quite at a loss for what to say, but he very adroitly filled that gap. "I am...astonished, Monsieur," he whispered. "I did not know, when I first met Monsieur de Lioncourt that he was..." "A vampire?" I finished. Erik nodded. He cast an anxious gaze in my direction. "Please forgive me, I am not prying but...these teeth of yours do they...forgive me! Do they grow after you have...*changed*?" I nodded, somewhat amused. I'd never had to explain the facts of my existence to anyone in quite this way before. "Yes-- and they are permanent. I mean, they don't...*retract*, if you were wondering..." I smiled at him, and amazingly, he smiled back. I noticed, for the first time, that the portion of his face not covered by the mask was absolutely unblemished....his mouth was quite beautiful, in fact, and his firm chin was indented with a dimple....quite compelling.... "Might I ask a question, Monsieur?" I laid down my untouched tea. "Please, Louis---" Erik held up a hand. "Call me Erik...it is, after all my name, and I find that I..." He smiled, rather wistfully, "...cherish the familiarity of it." I laughed softly. "Of course, Erik." I found myself caught up in his gaze, the gleaming aquamarine eyes, his thick, dark lashes...."I was wondering about your...*face*" "You may *not* see it, and if you came here purely to ridicule me, then---" "No! I assure you, I would never..." I trailed off, caught and held in thrall by his gorgeous, intelligent gaze... I swallowed hard. "What happened to you?" I took care to let no hint of crass curiousity filter into my question...it was suddenly, intensely important not to insult him or damage the fragile trust I seemed to be building. He wore his tragic dignity like a faded garment, like the only garment he had...and when I pondered the implications of both that faded garment and the mask, I felt my throat close together in something very like sorrow. "I was born this way." "Your face...?" "I have no face." This pronouncement fell with a certain finality that assured the closure of the subject. "Would you like to walk with me?" I rose to my feet. "I would very much like to explore this...*domain* of yours, if you would be so kind as to show it to me." Erik rose also, and picked up his cloak. He was taller than I, and easily taller than Lestat; broad-shouldered and muscular, yet graceful. I'd noticed, also, his beautiful hands.... "What kind of a person are you, Louis?" He peered at me closely, his blue-green eyes scrutinising my soul. "I mean, what sort of man are you, inside?" He tapped the center of his chest with one hand. "Your friend I can decipher easily, young de Lioncourt, all brashness and bad manners..." He grinned. "But for all that, he is kind." "He's a good man," I replied. "And I..." I thought about this for a long moment. "I try very hard to be good, and succeed only in being...*interesting.*" Erik laughed, a rich, resonant sound. "Well then, you are good, Louis---and fortunate! I prefer intellect to goodness, any day." This underground world of Erik's was unlike anything I had ever seen before: there were places where the light filtered through from above, and in these spots he'd planted trees and shrubs, lovingly tended them, so that they grew to brush the ceilings of these vaulted caverns... He'd built his home all by himself, using only the labour of his own hands and his skill as an architect to perfect this underground mansion. He kept company with no one, but his cat, a sleek Siamese who slept her days away atop his bed. There were areas in this basement world where the noises from above drifted down, and at one such juncture, Erik pulled me aside, a finger to his lips. "Listen." I listened. I could hear nothing but the screaming of some street child, probably lost in darkness outside. "What is it?" "It's Madame Carlotta, rehearsing!" Erik hissed, and we dissolved into laughter... I felt like a naughty schoolboy, whispering in darkness and laughing at the world. "Would you tell me why there was no performance last week?" I queried teasingly. I fancied I already knew the root of the matter. "Why, I'd heard that Madame Carlotta was taken ill. Pity, that..." He slanted a sideways gaze at me, which was at once so coy and so hilarious in its implications that I was reduced to horrified laughter. "What did you do to her?" "To her?" Erik feigned shock. "Why, I did *nothing* to her---I merely saved the consuming public from the pinnacle of bad art, that's all." He laughed. I liked to hear him laugh...it touched me, lit a warmth along my spine. I wanted to hear him laugh more often, I wanted to make him smile. "Louis, do you enjoy music?" Erik asked, on our returning stroll along the shore of the lagoon. "Of course," I replied. "I am most fond of all kinds, but I do enjoy the Opera." "And your...*companion*, young de Lioncourt...does he enjoy the Opera?" "Lestat?" I thought of Lestat, snoring softly in our private box at the last performance of "La Traviata" and grinned. "Not really. He tends to...fall asleep." Erik caught my eye and we laughed again, bent together like cheerful conspirators, and then the warmth and spirit of him caught on the cusp of my consciousness, and I felt some part of me *clinging* to his being. I wanted to be near him. "I noticed you have a piano," I said. "Would you like to share some music? I play, a little." I shrugged. "I know most of the favourites--Chopin, Beethoven, Mozart." "I'd like that." He smiled at me, that beautiful smile that curved his sensual mouth so beautifully. "You are a different sort of man, Louis, aren't you?" I had no idea what he meant, but I supposed the truth in this instance to be a flexible thing. "Yes, I guess so. It's different for us, once we...change." Erik shifted his weight, looked over my shoulder for a moment, then back at me. "Young de Lioncourt---is he your lover?" The candid question, phrased in that way, threw me off- balance, but I recovered quickly. I cast about for something to say, and realised in an instant that this man deserved nothing but the truth. "Yes, he is." Erik nodded. "Ahhh...I see." He grinned, began walking. "Come along." Andante So young de Lioncourt and this beautiful Creole vision are lovers.... Strange how that does not distress me---granted, I've never held any prejudices against love in all its myriad forms, so this revelation does not disgust me. I am secretly thrilled by it. I'm not sure why.... At any rate, Louis was as good as his word: he not only played, but played beautifully. I listened raptly as he ripped through a Chopin polonaise and segued gently into Bach....the motion of his slender fingers on the keys was mesmerising. "Bravo, Louis! You play very well." I passed him a glass of brandy. "I assume you can...*indulge*?" He looked at the swirl of amber liquid in the glass, inhaled its fragrant vapours. "I assure you, Erik: I can, and do!" I watched as he sipped it, watched the motion of his throat as he swallowed, that smooth ivory column.... "Would you join me?" He indicated the piano bench, the empty space beside him. "I am certain this can be transposed for four hands---are you in agreement?" I slid onto the bench, acutely aware of the sweet, scented warmth of him beside me, hastily turned my attentions to the music in front of me. "Yes, I do believe it can. Shall we endeavour?" I lifted my hands to the keys. We played for quite some time, until my mantel clock had rung two, then three, and by then I was too tired to continue. "You underestimate your skill, Louis; you play like a master," I said. "As you do," he replied, smiling. He dropped his gaze to my hands, where they rested on the keyboard. "I had difficulty following you--you play like a demon!" He laughed lightly, and picked up one of my hands in his. "Don't---" I made as if to pull away, but he prevented me. I could feel his immortal strength, throbbing underneath his skin, and for one wild moment, I feared he would kill me.... "Don't pull away from me, let me touch you." His deft fingers unclipped my cufflink, and he placed it on the top of the piano. The gold ornament made contact with a small clicking noise, and something in the centre of me shifted with that click; shifted and warmed. His fingers were so warm, so warm! on the inside of my wrist, slipping around my forearm, sliding back the sleeve to touch my skin. He leaned towards me, and I could smell the subtle scent of his cologne, the underlying heat of his alabaster skin. "Why did you pull away?" His emerald eyes pierced my gaze, but gently. "Has no one ever touched you?" "I have never been touched in gentleness, Monsieur...." My composure was quickly leaving me, and in its place the demon of my ever-present sorrow was rising in my throat, choking me. "...those who touched me did so with the intent to cause me harm, and pain." "I'm so sorry...." His green eyes filled with dark tears as I watched--he was weeping blood! and at the sight, I felt my own eyes fill....who was this exquisite creature? He traced the lines of broken veins that ran up the inside of my arm, gently touched the fresh puncture wounds in the crook of my elbow... He pressed his mouth to the very center of my palm, his warm lips connecting with my lonely flesh, and a small cry escaped me. As I watched in wonder, he lifted my hand and drew my forefinger into his mouth, sucked it gently. My fingers moved, and my hand, and clutched the sweet curve of his exquisite face, and great waves of pleasure rose and broke inside me, and my face underneath the mask was wet. He slid closer to me on the bench and cupped the back of my head in his hand, smiled into my eyes, and closed the distance between us. He kissed me. I felt the hot moistness of his mouth open over mine, the gentle, pulsing pressure of his lips as he coaxed my mouth open... I felt the quiver of his tongue, felt it flicker against mine, and suddenly I knew what to do, and I was not clumsy, and I was not inept or callow or foolish.... ...and I was not lonely any more... ...and he moved over and took me into his arms and this exquisite caress deepened and went on, and the smouldering fire in my belly turned to liquid and it spread, and I dimly heard myself moaning, very softly.... "Louis, sweet Louis...." Our mouths parted for an instant, and then he was mine again, and the pulse of my desire moved and shifted and engulfed us both... I felt his questing fingers part my shirt, gently, so gently, and his warm mouth moved to flutter against my shoulders, my chest... "You have seduced me with your mind, you brilliance, your eternal fire," he whispered huskily, his beautiful eyes hazy with desire. "I do not care one whit what your face looks like---I have seen your beautiful soul..." He tugged me to my feet and as if in a dream we were moving into the other room, and the sweet music of him was in my arms as he laid me on my bed.... "I am not going to hurt you, but you must trust me..." He was suddenly, deliciously naked, and so was I, with no idea how I'd become so quickly nude...the hot length of him, next to me on the bed, the hard paleness of his exquisite form. I was consumed with a mighty lust, and everything held some mysterious sheen: there was some end-point to which we both would travel, but what it might be, I had no idea. Reality moved and flowed like water, and time, distorted, held no meaning any more. His gently, skilful hands caressed my naked skin, and then he bent and closed his moist, hot mouth around the hardened shaft of my desire, and all my frustrated yearnings collapsed down into this one moment. A great pressure seemed to begin somewhere deep inside me, as his silky lips began their capable pull and slide, and this languorous desire weighted my eyelids.... I slid my fingers down the silky skin of his muscled back and surrendered to this marvelous thing that he was doing, the adept flicker of his busy tongue, the warm wetness of his opened mouth, before the consuming tide of my desire drowned me, and I was devoured by this bliss that felt a little like dying, a little like being born anew. I must have slept, for the clock read just after four in the morning when I was next aware of my immediate reality. I was both pleased and relieved to discover the sweet weight of Louis next to me in the bed; he had not left me as I'd feared. The events of a few hours ago were settling deliciously into my memory, and as I replayed them I felt the slow flood of languorous pleasure stealing through my limbs. I turned onto my side and looked at him, dozing lightly beside me. He was lying on his back, and his wealth of long hair spilled onto the pillow around him, a dark halo for this, my attending angel. As I watched him, a slow smile curved his exquisite mouth, drawing those silky lips into a bow, and his smooth brow creased with the emotion of his dream.... He was so beautiful---I realised it now anew and the realisation shocked me. I recalled our pleasures a little shyly, remembering the sight of his dark head against my belly, the sensation of his hot, moist mouth as it closed around me. I had never considered myself to be a gentleman of that particular persuasion...but I would have had to be made of stone indeed not to react to my darling's luminous, otherworldly beauty. The fact of his preternatural nature was a bit fantastical, to be sure, but not entirely outside the pale of possibilities. There are more things in Heaven and Earth, as the immortal Bard has said, than are dreampt of in our philosophy...I suppose it is so. I am content to lie here in my darling Louis's shadow. Legato I awoke confused for a moment as to my exact location, not recognising anything familiar in the sumptuousness of Erik's bed room, but then my surroundings coalesced into the familiar, and I turned to see Erik leaning upon his elbow, looking down at me. I was getting used to that mask now, not seeing it as a prosthetic but rather as a natural part of him. His aquamarine eyes were a little scared, and as I reached out to brush my mind with his, I sensed real fear, a fear that I had left him while we'd slept. "I would not be so callous," I assured him, drawing him near and kissing the wide mouth revealed at the edge of the mask, "as to abandon you after we have taken pleasures together..." I stroked his masked cheek with the back of my fingers, and an image flickered briefly in my mind, was dissolved. Somewhere in that flashing image, a child cowered in a cage, his head buried in his arms, but that was all I got. The attending sensations disappeared before I had the chance to chase them down, examine them, and it was just as well, for Erik was speaking, in that quiet yet firm way of his, and the music of his voice drew me to him. "I keep having to remind myself that *this* thing has actually happened!" he said, and laughed rather breathlessly. His eyes flickered away from me, and his beautiful hands busied themselves with the fringe of the bed spread. "I have never experienced pleasures of that sort before---I suppose you can decide the reason why, I don't have to tell you, Louis." His hand grasped my wrist. "I didn't...*do* anything, did I?" His gaze was beseeching, yet I found myself puzzled by his question. *Figure it out, Louis!* I seemed to hear Lestat's mocking voice in my head. "What do you mean?" I couldn't see his face, of course, yet I was certain he was blushing, and a tiny part of him withdrew into the carapace of himself. "I...performed adequately, I assume?" His blue-green eyes slid sideways and wouldn't meet my gaze. For a moment, I was at a loss.... How could I tell him that, even untutored as he was, that he was sensuality itself, that the caresses of his mouth and hands instilled in me a foreign bliss? Making love with Lestat, another vampire, was like seeing the reflection of myself in the highly polished surface of a diamond: hard, brilliant, almost violent... Sharing pleasure with Erik was like sinking into a sonata, being consumed by the music and utterly subsumed by his greater melody.... "You?" I whispered, cupping the back of his head in my palm. "You are music itself...would that I were not a slave to the dangers of daylight, I would stay all day with you." I smiled and kissed him, savouring the hot eagerness of his firm mouth against my own...his palms came up, flattened against my chest, his fingers flexing, grasping...I slid my hands into his thick, dark hair and held his face to mine, feeling the rasp of the mask strings against my palms, the gentle rolling motion of his head as he returned my caress. "May I tell you something honest?" I whispered, my forehead pressed against his. "I am not mocking you when I say this, but-- -" I tilted his face, looked into his eyes. "You are very beautiful, Erik...very beautiful indeed. I bless our meeting; I will bless it until the end of my days." I felt choked as I said this, so much so that the last few words died into silence. And he was staring at me with bright jewels of tears hovering on the tips of his dark eyelashes, struggling valiantly with himself. "I believe you," he whispered, and hugged me. "I have to go soon," I whispered into the satiny darkness of his hair. "It will soon be light, and I must be safely home before the sun rises." I drew back a little from him, kissed him gently. "Will you take me back across the lake now?" He nodded. "Of course." I watched as he drew back the covers and slipped out of bed, watched as he covered his lean, tautly-muscled body, hiding it from my view. "I must ask you, Louis---" He turned to face me, buttoning up his shirt, "will you ever want to drink from me?" I paused for a moment before answering him. "Would you ever permit me?" He nodded, his intelligent eyes thoughtful and faraway. "Yes, I think I might." He pulled on his shoes and beckoned me. "Come---we must get you safely home before young de Lioncourt comes looking, hmmm?" The thought of Lestat wading through the lake to find me amused me greatly, and I dressed quickly. Besides, it being spring, the sun would soon be rising, and I must needs be safely shielded from the daylight, long before the deadly rays could find me. Erik would still be here tomorrow night. Allegro I wonder where Louis could be, but of course, that's absurd, I know full well he's with Erik and what with Erik's own nocturnal habits, they are probably still sipping tea and talking about opera.... The door opened and shut softly, and I heard the click of the lock, and then Louis was standing in the doorway. "Hello, Lestat," he said, coming to kiss me. I could smell cologne on him, and I knew it wasn't mine. So he *had* been with Erik all this time. "I was wondering where you were--have you been with Erik?" I put aside the book I'd been reading, some Henry James novel belonging to Louis. The hands of the mantel clock stood at four- thirty. "Lestat, I must...talk to you." Louis sat opposite me on the settee and took a deep breath. "I've been all night with Erik." "I know," I said softly, and leaned forward to touch his cheek. He looked rumpled and tired and utterly gorgeous. "I know." "Yes, but I feel I must be honest and I don't want you to think that I've been unfaithful---" "I know that you and he made love." I fingered a strand of his dark hair. "It's alright, really, Louis. I'm not at all affected." "You aren't?" He drew back, and his forehead creased in a frown on puzzlement. "So what's he like in bed?" I asked, laughing. I picked up the book and set it nonchalantly on my lap. Louis got up. "That is none of your concern," he said stiffly. "I suppose not," I replied airily. "So did you get a peek under the mask, Louis? Did the freak let you have a look? Or was it just his clothes that came off, hmmm?" A great hunger for revenge was building in me; I stuck this statement into him and twisted it like a blade. I wanted to hurt him. "How dare you?!" Two bright spots of colour burned, high up on Louis's cheeks. I slapped the book against the far wall; it slammed into a framed Beardsley print and bounced to the floor. "Did he let you fuck him, Louis? Did he like it? I suppose it's his first, we really ought to hold a party or something!" I threw my hands in the air, turned away. I was shaking---I didn't like myself like this, I didn't want to act this way, I *loved* Louis and wanted Erik to be happy and loved and comforted by the immortal beauty of my Louis, just as I was... Just as I was... "You're *jealous*! I cannot believe this!" Louis hissed, his eyes green fire. "What are you afraid of, Lestat? That I'll run away and leave you? That I'll throw you over for some lonely man with half a face? Is that it?" And when I didn't answer, "You are truly pathetic, Lestat!" He stormed into the bedroom. The spare bedroom. And shut the door. I listened for a moment to the smooth movement of my breathing, the blood singing in my ears. "God damn," I whispered, and I went into the bedroom. This was not good, not good at all. I awoke at sunset to find Louis in the kitchen, staring out the window at the deepening twilight. He hadn't dressed yet, and was clad only in a favourite robe of his, and he was drinking tea. He looked up as I approached, and beckoned me to sit beside him at the table. I caught the scent of the hot tea as I lowered myself into a chair: Darjeeling. What we'd been drinking the night I introduced him to Erik. "I hate it when we fight," he whispered, still gazing out the window at the deepening shadows of Paris, "but I'm so torn, Lestat...." He turned to gaze at me in the semi-dusk. "I want you to appreciate him like I do... I don't want us to be at odds like this, not us, not now!" He sipped pensively, put the cup down; it fitted itself to the saucer with a tiny click. "Louis, I was jealous." This was a big admission for me, I rarely admitted to such things, at least not in front of Louis. In some secret place, deep inside me, it was vital, essential, that he approve of me. And as much as I had tormented and teased him in the past, that approval was always forthcoming. Now, with my criticism of Erik, I sensed it being gradually withdrawn, and this frightened me. "I...apologise." I swallowed hard, reached for one of his hands where they lay on top of the table. Louis turned and smiled faintly. "Thank you--I know it was difficult for you to say." I sighed. "You'll never know!" And I laughed. Then I steeled myself to offer the necessary olive branch. "Louis, I think you ought to go round to the Opera and collect Erik. I think an evening in his company might be...*instructive*." Louis's eyes narrowed, and he peered at me with a frank suspicion standing in his gaze. "That certainly is a turnaround for you, at least from your earlier position. What prompted this sudden sea-change, Lestat?" I patted his hand. "I'm not sure," I said airily, and rose from my seat. "You run along and collect him, while I bathe. Oh, and don't forget to feed along the way, hmmm?" I wasn't even certain of my own motives in this, but I knew, deep within myself, that they weren't purely altruistic. I didn't know for certain what plan was being hatched in the diabolical recesses of my mind, but the worm of revenge had indeed turned... No one will take my darling Louis from me...*no one*! Legato Although Lestat's sudden change in attitude puzzled me, I passed no comment, and instead busied myself with bathing and dressing as quickly as I could. Scant moments after our "conversation" I was outside, quickly hailing a cab and hurrying towards the Opera, where my Dark Angel waited. Fortunately, the ubiquitous Madame Carlotta had recovered from her earlier bout with illness and would perform *Faust* this evening, and so it was that I could make my way below, to Erik's domain. He must have sensed that I was on my way, for he was waiting at the edge of the lake, his tall form coalescing out of darkness into substance, the dark cloak swirling about him like the wings of some malevolent celestial avenger. At the sight of him, my heart gave a great leap in my chest, and I took two steps forward and buried myself in his embrace. He was reassuringly solid and real beneath my hands, and I did not permit him to speak until I had pulled his face to mine and caressed his warm mouth with my own. "I sensed you were coming," he said, and his mellifluous voice rippled over me, a sensuous baptism of music. "And then I worried that you would not come." His fingers stroked my cheek, where we still stood, clasped in each others' embrace. "I promised you," I whispered, "and you will find that I am a man of my word." "Oh, Louis!" he sighed, "so good to see you again, so soon!" He released me and slid his arm around my waist, and we walked a little distance along the shore. "I would like to take you out, Erik, if I might," I ventured, and I felt his body tense beneath my arm. "Ah...I regret to say that is not possible...you see, I never go out." He dropped his arm and moved a little distance away, stood looking out over the dark expanse of water that ringed his subterranean home. "Erik---" "--enough!" His hand chopped sideways, a violent gesture, and his posture was stiff with rage and fear. "We will not discuss this!" "Erik--" "Louis, *please*!" He was pleading now, and I hated to see him reduced to this, and so I went and took him again into my arms. "I am not going to hurt you," I whispered into his dark hair, and my lips traveled to the satiny flesh behind his ear. "I promise you that, and I am a man of my word...." I could smell the blood in him, and I hadn't fed yet, and the scent of this rich morsel of humanity in my arms was exquisite torture. I watched the ripple of his throat as he swallowed; I could tell that he was afraid of me now, and he had not been afraid of me before: indeed, he had convinced himself of an entirely different reality... "Will it hurt?" His slender, graceful hands were clutching my shoulders like the grip of a drowning man and I could feel the subtle tremor that made his slender form vibrate like a bow-string. I lifted his masked face in my hands and kissed him deeply. "I promise you: I will *never* hurt you." His eyes widened in something very like anticipation. "Then take me!" I sighed as the attendant pleasure rose and rode astride me, and I lifted him and drove the two hard shafts of my teeth deep into his soul.... Andante I have been possessed by Gentleman Death, and his name is Louis... I have been the joyful victim of my immortal darling, and it was bliss! Such bliss as I have never known... I wondered if he would come back to me, and all throughout the day as I slept, I would awaken: I would awaken and drift for a time in thoughts of him, and then I would sink into despair, convinced that he would want no more to do with me. I eventually arose at dusk and dressed, ate a little, and took to walking along the lake, waiting for him. And my darling did not disappoint me! Louis.... I offered myself to him...and I knew that this was what he had wanted, all along. But I was so afraid! I thought he might kill me, and as much as I had thought to welcome Friend Death, when he appeared to me, I struggled--- ---but it was such rapture to surrender...even better than our pleasures in my bed, if such a thing were possible! The only pain was for a moment, and I felt his teeth go in, and I was caught and held in the grip of such excruciating pleasure, such sensual bliss.... Every pull, every hard draught from his hungry lips pushed me closer to the enveloping warmth he made, until there was only him, and I drowned in him, and then I *was* him.... Legato I willed my hunger back as I sank my fangs deep into Erik's yielding flesh: I wanted to take only the little drink, not to kill him, but it was difficult indeed. His muscled body clung to me as if in the throes of some erotic dance, and I felt his precious life-blood flowing past my lips, warming me with the secret essence of the man himself. I opened myself to his mind, allowing his impressions and the memories of his life to flow into me upon the tide of blood... I did this willingly; I wanted to share him, know him utterly, in a way our earlier passions had not afforded. I sank into his memories, immersing my consciousness into his opened soul. The impressions came in a flood, one fast upon the heels of another and blinding in their intensity. The dimly-perceived reality around me swirled into a kalidiescope of sound and light and colour, a whirling carnival ride which carried me along at a dizzying pace. I was inside his mind, I lived his life along with him, as the memories rose before. I was in a cage. Oh, God! And it was cold, so very cold, and the wind nipped ceaselessly at my tattered rags with pinching fingers, penetrating to the very marrow of my bones... Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked and bright flags of coloured fabric snapped and jostled overhead, dancing in the stiff breeze...it was spring, but it was cold, and I huddled on the filthy floor of the cage, barefoot and nearly naked. "Come on up and see him, see the living dead! Step up here now, mind your women and the kiddies, see the living dead!" The barker's voice grated against my ears, coarse and unrefined, a voice of one culled from the gutter's stench, the desperate streets... "Get up, boy!" the voice roared, and the man's huge, sweaty face was thrust up against the bars. "Stand up, damn you, and show yourself!" And oh, dear Lord, the shame, the awful, dying shame of it! "I want to go home...." "Do as you're told or I'll flay you within an inch of your miserable life! Do you hear me!" And standing, swaying against the bars, hungry and cold, and naked to their staring eyes, their gasps of horror and cruel laughter damning me to a Hell of shame.... "I want to go home..." Chained and exhibited like some sideshow freak, for that was what I was, a freak; some fairground attraction, caged and chained, and fed the scraps not fit to give to dogs... The horrible shame.... Another impression, of aching love and frustrated desire, of waiting in the shadows and watching as a smiling girl tripped in and out, shrouded in her bliss, not knowing that her very beauty was a curse and a damnation... "I want you to take off the mask...if you take it off, I'll give you a kiss...." And being fifteen years old and eager, so eager! for the taste of her precious lips, and fighting down the shame and fear, and reaching behind to pull the strings, loose the knot of safety, and raise my head to hear forever in my mind her demented shrieks... "No, oh no! Get it away from me, get it *away*!" And running blindly through the night, running, running, always away.... And being chased in public, and stoned: "Hey, look at the monster run!" "Ya, go on home, monster, go on!" The horrible, burning shame that all but extinguished the light in my soul, and lying on the cool floor weeping, "I can't live like this...." And the yearning, always! To know, to create, to do, to live! And grandiose dreams and visions, of magnificent modern castles, the grandeur of this, my Opera.... But always the secret, unspoken yearning... "Love me, please, *please* love me...I will do anything to make you love me...." And you did not. I released him, pulling myself back to my immediate reality with a vicious mental snap. I felt his mind disengage, draw back down into the secret place inside his soul where fantastical music crescendoed, swirling into the ethers and all the ancient pains of his existence were packed down tightly, layer upon poisonous layer. His head lolled against my shoulder, and his greater height was crumpled against me, insensible. I lifted his chin and kissed him... "Erik... wake up, sweet prince..." The violent images still lingered, in my mind, crouching round me, menacing me from the shadows, and I wanted nothing more than to be gone from this place. I would take him back to our house, and he would take tea with Lestat and I, and we would be friends and gentlemen, and would engage in polite discourse.... ...and I would, in the company of friends and lovers, banish the nightmare vision of a five-year-old child huddled in a cage, starving and freezing and dying for the want of love.... His eyes fluttered open, dazzling aquamarine jewels behind the mask, and fastened upon my face. As I watched, his full, sensuous mouth curved into a lazy smile. "Louis," he said, and his hand came up, his fingers pressed against my lips. "Come, my darling...I will take you to my house," I whispered, and with my vampiric strength, I took his slender frame into my arms. It was easy to slip unnoticed out of the Opera and to hail a cab, and it wasn't until we were nearly to my door that he spoke. "Louis," he whispered, "what did you see, *mon coeur*?" I suddenly began to tremble. "I saw your life," I said. "Hmmm...." He smiled. "I'm so thirsty, so thirsty..." Allegro I heard them coming up the stairs, heard Louis's soft, cultured voice, Erik's musical reply. I put down the book I was trying to finish---some Henry James novel of Louis's---and straightened my shirt and jacket. I don't know what had possessed me, but I'd dressed tonight as if I were going to the opera: a black suit of evening dress, the pants creased to a knife-edged sharpness, boiled shirt and white tie, polished black shoes. My thick blond hair had been pulled behind and fastened in a ribbon. I had even added a set of silver cufflinks belonging to my father...I was the very model of a 19th-century gentleman. "Ah, you've returned!" I went to the door, ushered them inside. "Good evening, Lestat. Might I say, it is a pleasure to see you once again." At the sound of that voice I turned, and my soul caught on the cusp of his wondrous aura, and I was drawn into the warmth of him, a heat I could almost see. It was as if he resonated to some higher frequency, as if he were made of music, and moved to- -and lived by--a cadence that only he could hear. He was utterly sensual, down to the last detail: from the melodic mastery of his beautiful voice to the graceful movements of his slender fingers.... He was beautiful. "Erik," I said, "please, sit down. May I offer you something?" I indicated the liquor cabinet, behind me. "Ah, a brandy please, if you would be so kind." He slipped out of the gorgeous opera cloak, or rather, he shifted and let it ripple off his shoulders and puddle in his hands, and I was forced to turn away! Here I was, prepared to confront him and I was being weakened by his presence, drawn into the sensual mystery of him. I couldn't even look at him! I was suddenly drowning in a flood of erotic images.... I passed him the glass, and as I did, our fingers touched, and something sensual and occult went racing up my arm. I drew back, snatching my hand away. "Lestat, I am going to slip in and change--" Louis indicated the slight spatters of blood on his shirt-front "--I trust you and Erik will excuse me?" He disappeared into our bedroom. "You have a very nice home, Lestat." Erik's eyes flickered on mine for a moment, then his gaze slid away. His fingers fluttered on the rim of the brandy glass, and once he half-raised it to his lips, lowered it again, uncertain. A stab of something very like pity went through me. "I hear that you and Louis spent an enjoyable evening together...the other night." I wanted no graceful segue into this subject, I was determined to tackle it head on. "Yes." His head came up with a jerk; this was more like it! Now, at least, he was prepared to do battle. I got up and began a languorous stroll around the sitting room, pausing here and there, never staying for more than a moment in any one place. If it appeared to Erik like I was stalking him, then so be it. "Did you let him fuck you, Erik?" I paused at one of the framed Beardsley prints that hung over the chiffonier, straightened it a fraction. "I beg your---" I swung around on him. "Oh, please, don't bother to defend yourself, Erik! It's all quite pointless, I assure you---he came in here reeking of your cologne, and I was left to draw my own conclusions!" "Is this why you have invited me here, Monsieur? So that you might mock me?" He'd risen from his chair and now stood over me, his voice a deadly hiss. The entire scene was somewhat ludicrous, seeing as how we were arguing entirely in *sotto voce*. "I have no intention of mocking you," I replied nonchalantly, but inside, I was trembling. Damn him! How was it that he had such a power over me, and so quickly? "I am merely curious...I assume you were a virgin prior to meeting, Louis, hmmm?" The eyes behind the mask darkened in something very like fury, and a small, still voice inside my mind whispered a warning.... I knew that, despite even my preternatural strength, he was capable of killing me. "Why are you doing this? Why? In what way have I threatened you?" And when I didn't answer, he made an irritated noise and turned away. "You are not curious, Lestat," he said finally, and turned slowly. "You are afraid." This went through me like cold steel, and my habitual bluster left me; in the face of this accusation, I was suddenly powerless, and suddenly very ashamed of myself. "Aren't you?" he prodded. "Yes," I whispered miserably. "I'm afraid that you will take Louis away from me...you are the only person who could lure him from me." His blue-green eyes flickered in the clutch of some pained emotion, and then he crossed to where I was, his hand on my arm. "My God!" he said quietly, "you are as afraid as I am of being...*alone*." "Wait here," I said, and I slipped into Louis's bedroom, kissed him gently. "Would you permit me a stroll alone with Erik?" I asked. "Of course." He looked puzzled. "Is something wrong?" I leaned in and kissed him again, lingeringly this time. "No, *mon coeur*--something is very right." I stroked his silken cheek with the back of my knuckles. "I will return soon." I turned to go, but Louis caught my wrist. "Lestat---you must not be unkind!" he admonished me. "Promise me!" "What...?" Louis's green eyes filled with dark blood-tears. "I took the little drink, Lestat...I saw his life." He pressed his fist against his mouth. "My God, what?" I asked, alarmed. "They put him in a *cage*!" "A *cage*?" A core of eternal cold bloomed inside me. A cage...Mother of God, they exhibited him like an animal! "I must go--I'll be back." Erik was waiting for me, patiently seated near the window and sipping his brandy. He rose and lifted his discarded cloak when I came in. "Perhaps I should be going," he said. "No!" I went to his side, addressed him a little ashamedly.. "I would like it if you'd walk with me." He nodded, as if he'd expected it all along. "All right." We went out, into the sheltering night. Andante Lestat's confrontation was not entirely unexpected; I am not so ignorant of the ways of men as to have overlooked the possibility of jealousy. I suppose that in the very back of my mind, I knew that we would come to this, and yet I could not help imagining what might have happened if it had been Lestat who'd made some kind of overtures. "I have been wanting to talk honestly with you," he began, as we strolled along the gravel paths that lined the Bois de Boulonge. It had been Lestat's idea to hire a cab and come here, and I was glad that we had. The park was utterly deserted, and I felt safe here, away from the prying eyes of people. "Yes." I didn't look at him, merely concentrated on my own footsteps in front of me. The truth is, he was so utterly beautiful, dazzlingly so, and made my own ugliness all the more horrendous in comparison. "You mustn't compare yourself to me," he said. "You read my mind!" I rounded on him, accusingly. "Merely an ability we have. I meant no offense." "Stop prying into my mind! If you want to know me, ask!" I was a little bit disgruntled at this clumsy overture of his, but also charmed. He was so very *different* from his quiet, cultured friend; he was lightning in motion, and rather than being introspective and thoughtful, his mind moved with dazzling precision. I liked him, I realised. "I'm sorry." He indicated a bench. "Please, sit down. I would like to talk." We sat for a moment in silence, and then he plunged into it. "I'm not sure what I feel about you--I mean, not about you and Louis--about *you*. You frighten me! And astonish me, and intrigue me--I've never met anyone like you! And yet, you are the biggest threat to my personal happiness, Erik---only you can lure Louis away from me." "I am not trying to lure him away," I said stiffly. I should never have come out here, I realised. I would have been safer at home, ensconced in front of my fire with a book. "I am more afraid of you than I have ever been of anything: in all my immortal existence, I have never met a threat like you." Lestat laughed harshly and raked a hand through his blond hair, freeing a wavy strand to fall over his high forehead. His eyes were so very blue, so blue! I leaned closer to him, grinning. "What exactly do you think we did, your Louis and I?" I was teasing him--turnabout is fair play, after all! His sapphire eyes glistened with laughter. "Tell me--what *did* you do?" His gorgeous, brazen face was inches from my own, and he was so close that I could feel the covert heat of his body where it rose from that tightly-muscled frame.... I lifted the precious curve of his face, tilted his eyes into the pale moonlight, so that I might see him, and he might see me... "I loved him, Lestat...and he loved me. And I have never been loved before, by anyone..." I felt the resistance when it burst inside him, spilling and dispersing and flowing away into nothing....His warm hand slipped around the back of my neck, his fingers caressing the mask strings. "Damn you!" he whispered, "you sexy bastard!" And then the hot core of his sensual mouth opened over mine and he was grasping me greedily, his fingers digging into my skin... I clasped his golden head between my hands and flickered the very tip of my tongue over the silken insides of his lips, plunged it deep into his eager mouth as his hard body clambered into my lap and he was straddling me... The hard bulge of his desire pressed against my belly, and his thighs clamped around my own and I was grinding up against him as the heat of my desire rose from the depths of my being.... When he released me, there was a wicked gleam in his eyes, and when he smiled, I saw the lethal gleam of his fang teeth in the dim moonlight. "Have you ever thought of both Louis and I?" he whispered, leaning close to trace the rim of my ear with his busy tongue. "Yes!" I whispered, "and I am thinking of it now! I want you, Lestat..." And I did. "Then we had better hail a cab, Erik!" I was suffused with myriad evil desires, and very, very thankful that my opera cloak hid the evidence of my musings.... Allegro The trip home by carriage was a journey of exquisite torment...my God! Sitting so close to him, enmeshed in his subtle yet powerful allure, experiencing a desire so keen it was nearly pain.... I stole a look at him, sitting composed and oddly quiet on the seat next to me. His opera cloak pooled around him like a coat of dark feathers, and the whiteness of his shirt-front seemed almost luminescent by contrast, as did the stark whiteness of the mask itself. His blue-green eyes gazed straight ahead, and his gloved hands were folded neatly in his lap.... I wanted to destroy his composure...I wanted to make him hot and uncomfortable, I wanted his lean, muscled body so permeated with screaming lust that I might take him right here, right now. I slid closer to him on the seat and let my hand slip up the inside of his thigh, coming finally to rest underneath his folded hands...the heat of his body warmed my fingers, went tingling up my arm, and I allowed the hand to rest there for a moment, while I watched him carefully. He was a monument of composure, for he didn't even bat an eyelash... And so I leaned over and pressed my opened mouth to the silken skin just underneath his earlobe, gently...gently.... Ah! His eyes flickered closed; one hand jerked slightly where it was pinioned by the other. Hmmm...very nice.... I traced the outer edge of his ear with my tongue, dipped gently into the shallow canal of his ear, caught his soft earlobe between my teeth and nipped it. "Not here!" he whispered, but his protest was something less than sincere...his hand came up and cupped the back of my head as my lips fastened on his neck, and a heated lust bloomed upward from the bottom of my belly.... I caught his sculpted chin in my hand and turned him to me: his eyes slid shut and his masked face rolled towards me, his mouth slightly open, hungry.... A shard of raw desire sliced me and the ragged edges of my soul sang with a poignant lust as I pressed my lips to his...he whimpered softly, deep in his throat; an animal sound, and his searing tongue grappled blindly with my own...the hand that was inside his shirt fastened upon a nipple, tugging, teasing, my other fingers flat against his hard chest, sliding down to rest against the rippled expanse of his muscled belly, then lower...I pressed the bottom edge of my palm against the hardened mound of his erection, gently squeezed...his eyes flickered open, bright with fevered sensuality. "You are killing me with want of you," he whispered.... I leaned back on the seat and pulled the taut length of him across me, brought one of his long legs around my waist...I could feel a thin sheen of blood-sweat standing out on my forehead--Christ! I couldn't remember ever wanting *anyone* this much...it was as if his vast, majestic soul beckoned to some part of mine, some hidden recess of my being that belonged to him, that had always belonged to him and no one else... I slipped free the buttons of his shirt and buried my face in his hard chest, rubbing my cheek in the coarse hair... He smelled like spices and like heat, he smelled like fragrant foreign places, he smelled like he belonged to me... I pulled the tail of his shirt free from his trousers, pushed it open so that I could see him... "...so beautiful..." I touched his masked face gently with my fingers. "You are so very beautiful." I freed the buttons of his trousers, slipped my hand inside. "I want to love you, Erik." I coaxed his lips open with my tongue, climbed into his lap, straddling him. "Like some violent young god, you are," he whispered, and the mouth beneath the mask smiled. For a second something cruel flickered in his eyes and the flood of my desire hardened down into a single, pulsing point of heat in my groin. And we were there....I tossed his cloak over him and hurried him from the darkened street into the foyer of the house. "Louis?" My voice echoed hollowly in the sitting room, and I saw the hastily-drawn note, pinned to the door: "Gone to feed--won't be long! Love, Louis." So he wasn't home.... "Louis isn't here," I said quietly. "So I've noticed." The opera cloak slid from his shoulders, puddled on the floor, and he was coming towards me, all feline grace and gorgeous limbs, his shirt still open, his blue-green eyes hazy with unspent lust... He halted scant inches in front of me, looking down at me, and he so very gently lifted my chin in his hand...the heat of his palm burned the imprint of his fingers into my skin, and a rivulet of blood-sweat trickled down between my shoulder-blades. "Do you like to play, Lestat?" The hint of cruelty flickered into life and my desire leapt up a note in intensity... "Yes." Time crawled in the hugeness of the attendant silence. "I thought you might..." He tilted my head to the side and fastened his mouth onto my neck. His mouth traveled to my ear. "Do you like to play rough, Lestat?" My clothes--especially my trousers--were suddenly far too confining...my blood pounded in my ears. "Yes, I do." "I thought you might...." His hovering mouth descended and his sharp mortal's teeth bit into my neck...hardly the bite of a vampire, but oh! so very sweet.... "Ohhh!" I arched against him, galvanised by this throbbing pleasure, but he abruptly pushed me away, raised his hand and ripped the front of my shirt...the garment parted in a shower of buttons, tearing from the shoulders. He wrenched the useless strips of cloth from my body, flung them away... "You want me," he said, his voice a velvet whisper. "Say it!" Ohhh, *how* I wanted him! "Yes." "Say it again!" His hand snaked out, caught me by the throat and slammed me back against the armoire...a crystal vase overbalanced and broke against the wooden floor, a thousand tinkling windchimes, and I felt the trickle of sweat that beaded on my brow.... I rebounded, slapped his hand away roughly. "Take your hands off me!" I snarled. "I'll touch you if I like," he replied, and laughed low in the back of his throat. His hand closed around my upper arm in a punishing grip...my God! His mortal strength was equal to my own! "You evil bastard." I taunted him, stepping around the broken vase, moving to the sofa. "You do like to play rough, don't you?" The seat of the sofa caught me in the back of the knees, and I went down, and he was on top of me, pinning me, and I couldn't move! But the hard, hot length of his body was pressed against mine, and I wrapped my legs around his waist, clamping him against me. I could smell the blood in him--oh, how I wanted to sink my teeth into the pulsing heat of him! The throbbing edge of my desire threatened to engulf me--- "...the bedroom," I whispered, releasing him from my grip, and we tumbled onto the soft mattress together... I caught his face between my hands and teased the corners of his mouth with my tongue. "Show me," he whispered. "Show me how to pleasure you...show me what you want." His hand traveled down my body, and all pretence of violence had vanished. He pressed his face against my belly, and my skin recoiled from the coldness of the mask... "I want to love you." "I want you," I said, and kissed him...I caught him in my arms and rolled onto my back, taking him with me... Andante I fought desperately to think of something else, anything else, or his busy hands and his questing mouth would finish me in seconds.... Already the boiling surge was cresting, rising through me like a wave and the culmination of desire pulsed in the soles of my feet... my lower belly was vaguely sticky, wet with anticipation; I was seared with heat everywhere his ivory skin had touched me.... "Mmmm--Lestat!" I inserted a hand between our bodies and gently pushed him off me; his blue eyes widened in surprise. "What did you do that for?" he asked, as his fingers traced the outline of my lips. "I didn't hurt you, did I?" I laughed, low and furtively. "You most certainly are *not* hurting me, let me assure you!" I caught a strand of his golden hair, tested the silken length of it between my fingers. "But I want to spin this out.... Do you understand?" His handsome face relaxed into a grin, and he leaned over me, his chest pressed against mine, his hands buried in my hair. "Am I exciting you that much?" His hot mouth descended over mine, his tongue tracing the insides of my lips... I slid my hands down the silken expanse of his broad back, clasped his hard buttocks in my palms... And then, quick as a thought, his wicked mouth traveled, and I was enclosed within a coccoon of warm and lovely wetness and the boiling surge caught me in its wake and I arched up against him as my desire collapsed down into a single point of release.... Stars danced behind my closed eyelids, myriad points of brilliance that streaked along my skin and burst again and again... I heard myself gasp, "Lestat!" felt my fingers digging into him until reality spun me slowly back to earth and my weighted eyelids opened just in time to see the sensual flex of his alabaster throat as he swallowed.... He leaned over me and kissed me deeply, giving me the taste of myself, and his wicked mouth was grinning hugely. "My God, Erik---even *I* felt the earth move that time!" "Oh, why didn't you wait?" I whispered. I'd wanted it to last... "What are you worried about?" His grin widened, and his slender shoulders shook with laughter. "Did you think I would only do you once and let you leave?" And when I didn't answer, "You did, didn't you?" His face softened and the grin disappeared, and for an instant, his sapphire eyes were haunted with some ancient pain. "I intend to give you much more pleasure, cherie...." He broke off and looked up as the outer door clicked softly open and shut, and the measured cadence of footsteps crossed the wooden floor. "Lestat?" I froze...whatever the game had been, it was over now. "I'll be going," I murmured, and made to get out of bed. "Don't be an idiot!" he hissed, pushing me back with a gently shove. "Stay there." "But Louis---" "Will very much want to join our game, don't you think?" And that very sensual wickedness of his flickered on his sculpted features. I looked up as Louis came into the room, his tall, slender frame draped in a dark coat. "Hello, Erik..." Uncertainty flickered in his emerald eyes, and his gaze wandered around the room, lighting here and there on the heaps of discarded clothing, Lestat's empty shoes.... "Lestat...." "We are playing a game," Lestat announced with aplomb, "would you join us, Louis?" I waited for Louis to react, to recoil from this, to storm away in anger... But I waited in vain. In a single graceful movement, he slithered out of his coat, loosed his long, dark hair... I watched as he slowly slipped free the buttons and released the cufflinks and stepped out of his clothes...I watched as he stood in his unearthly beauty in front of us, his dark hair falling unfettered around his face...I watched the sensual rolling of his slender hips as his long, lean legs drew his body to the bed, and I watched in silent wonder as he drew back the covers and slipped in beside Lestat and I.... "I'm glad the two of you seem to have...worked out your conflicts...." He placed his palm flat against my chest and slid his fingers through the dark, coarse hair, pressed his mouth to mine.... "I trust Lestat has made you comfortable?" "Very," I whispered, as the ebb tide of my spent desire gathered strength, and the insidious throbbing pleasure began again.... "And have you been pleasured, Lestat?" Louis turned his attentions to the blond young god beside me, his mouth traveling from the crest of Lestat's firm jaw to the silky flesh of his alabaster neck, his pink tongue flickering slowly, hotly.... "Not yet," Lestat replied, and catching Louis's face in his hands, pressed his opened lips against the other vampire's mouth. "Mmmmm...." he sighed, a gentle out-breathed murmur... "You fed well, didn't you?" I watched this entire scene, astonished.... I don't think I realised, even then, what was about to happen, and that I was probably the only mortal man alive who had ever seen such a thing... "You see, Erik...." Lestat began, conversationally, although his focus had begun to falter somewhat, "those of our kind seek pleasure of a different sort..." He was silenced for a moment by the caress of his lover's mouth, and I watched the play of muscles in Louis's face and neck and felt the edge of my desire harden. "Please continue, Louis...." And he leaned across the dark-haired vampire to kiss me gently, as Louis's busy mouth fastened upon one of Lestat's hard nipples, traveled down to flicker on his flat belly. "You mustn't be alarmed," he said, and I marveled that he was speaking yet, "because of what you see---I assure you, Louis isn't hurting me." I watched in silent wonder as Louis's top lip drew back to reveal the lethal fangs, those same instruments of delightful torture that had so recently slid into my own flesh... His palm slid up the side of Lestat's neck, and his mouth followed, and I distinctly heard the skin break when his teeth slid into the flesh. Lestat went rigid, his eyes wide open and staring, and he flinched a little when he felt the teeth go in... His hand slid up to clasp the back of Louis's neck, and then his eyes slid shut and one slender leg moved to curl around Louis's waist.... Louis's mouth was clamped firmly to the skin, and from where I watched, I could not discern where he ended and Lestat began... And then they began to move. Lestat's legs drew up to clasp his lover to him, and his body arched against Louis, and they began moving in what must have been some shared internal rhythm; Louis's body pressed Lestat flat into the bed and at intervals he would writhe, and a shudder would pass through him. I became fascinated with watching the flexing of his throat...he was undoubtedly swallowing the blood... Louis shifted slightly to allow Lestat access to his neck, and the process was repeated--the sight was so utterly fantastical and so absolutely sensual that I found myself drawn into the tableau, enchanted with the flexing of their slender bodies, the fine sheen of blood-sweat that covered both of them as they moved towards the culmination of this exquisite act. Lestat jerked away from Louis for a second, his gaze focussing on me. "Erik--" He reached out with a free hand and drew me near to them. "Louis, let him feel it," he whispered hoarsely, and Louis moved slightly to let me lie between them, his emerald eyes hazy and unfocussed, and his mouth moved from Lestat to me, fastening to my skin, and on the other side I felt the exquisite caress of Gentleman Death as Lestat's sharp teeth slid into my neck. The universe opened before me; my immediate reality split asunder, as the tremour passed from Louis to Lestat through me and I spent myself in a series of long, tremulous bursts that left me trembling on a spike of ecstasy. I was aware of nothing but the pleasure, such pleasure as I have never felt before, clasped between my two vampire lovers, caught in some loop of repeating bliss, whose circuit passed through our three joined selves. "I love you," Louis whispered, reaching across me to kiss Lestat. "Hmmmm...of course you do," Lestat replied, his full mouth wet with shared blood. He leaned over me and pressed his lips to mine, and the coppery taste filled my mouth... "A little taste of yourself, *mon coeur*," he said. There was silence, and I began to weep. Allegro About two days after our sensual interlude with Erik, Louis sat bolt upright in bed one evening, caught in the throes of a ghastly nightmare. "Louis!" I drew him to me, his dark head upon my shoulder, and kissed his ivory forehead. "Shhh...what is it, *mon coeur*?" His skin was clammy with sweat, and his emerald eyes stared straight ahead at nothing. "I must go to him," he whispered. "Louis..." I was beginning to become alarmed...this wasn't like Louis: he didn't have delusions, he rarely even had bad dreams! What could have disturbed his sleep so? "It's Erik--" and then his sleep-clouded voice delivered the hammerblow upon my soul. "---he's dying, Lestat." I moved away from him and sat up, and the hovering cloud of disaster descended and wrapped me in its damning arms. "You just had a bad dream, Louis; that's all, just a bad dream. It happens to everyone, it happens to me, sometimes, and Claudia! Claudia always had bad dreams, she would awaken, remember? And we would go to comfort her, you and I...." I was dimly aware that I was babbling uncontrollably, but something deep in the very primitive recesses of my brain whispered that I could keep this fate at bay if only I continued to talk unceasingly. "No." The single word rang with a haunting finality. "I saw it, Lestat." Louis threw back the covers and climbed out of bed, shivering in the dusk of late spring. "I must go to him." He was resolute and strangely unflinching, even though dark blood-tears quivered in the rims of his emerald eyes. "What if it was just a bad dream, Louis?" I chuckled half- heartedly. "Erik is going to think us a pair of fools for barging in on him like this!" Even as I said it, something in Louis's quiet determination convinced me. I got dressed and went with him, out into the soft twilight. A single nightingale sang with liquid purity, perched on the branch of an oak, a gorgeous, otherworldly music that absolutely froze my soul. Andante I've been...trying to write. But...difficult. Oh dear... I suppose I ought to have...done something. Known for months, really...this coughing that wouldn't go away...and the blood, at odd times... But that was before...before *them*...when I would have...welcomed Gentleman Death with opened arms... I must stop. It's so hard to breathe. What's this? I fancy I hear a nightingale...strange...to hear it, all the way down here.... Legato I couldn't communicate to Lestat the need for haste; the dream that I'd had was not merely a dream, but rather a harbinger of some dread fate that awaited my darling Angel... My mind was whirling in odd circles all during the eternal carriage ride to the Opera, and I must have seemed distracted, for Lestat would raise his gloved hand now and again to stroke my cheek, pat my arm.... Why is it that everyone I love is taken from me? Why does this distant, vengeful God see fit to rend me from the ones I love the most? For I do love Erik...I know that now. I love him very nearly, or just as much as I love Lestat. I think I loved him from the very first moment that he appeared to me, coalescing out of shadow, traversing the distance between a dark dream of unfurling wings to the reality of my own immortal beloved. But we are already at the Opera. Allegro It wasn't hard to find him, in the huge underground house...the sound of his coughing echoed up the great stone staircase to the floors above, and I marveled that this evidence of his illness had not betrayed him to the management of the theatre. Surely someone had heard him coughing? Surely someone would have gone down there, even out of curiousity, if not to render aid? Someone must have known he lived down here... ...Didn't they? "Lestat, Louis!" He was in bed. "Come in, please!" He raised a slender hand weakly to usher us into the room, and as I drew near, the unmistakeable scent of blood rose enticingly up my nostrils. The bedspread, sheets, pillowcase and the front of his shirt was soaked with it: great dappled spots of dark crimson marked the linens in some surreal chiaroscuro. The pristine whiteness of his shirt was wet with fresh blood, soaked and sticking to his chest. Evidence of neglect lay all around me; and I could tell by a rapid glance around me that he had been very sick for at least several days. "Oh!" Louis slipped out from behind me and went to him, collapsing onto his knees before the bed, burying his face in the soiled sheets. "Why didn't you send word?" His hand went out, blindly seeking the dying man in the bed. "I saw you, in a dream...." "My darling Louis...." Erik's fingers slid caressingly into Louis's dark hair. "Thank you for coming to me." He looked up at me, his blue-green eyes bright with fever. "And you, Lestat." "Let us get you to a doctor," I said. "I know an excellent physician, he is a friend of Louis's, we can take you to our house and he will tend you there." Even as I said it, I knew with a jarring finality that it was over. Erik wouldn't-- couldn't--accept any help from us now. "No use," he whispered, and turned his face to cough. A trickle of dark blood leaked from the corners of his mouth, through his cupped fingers, trickled down his chin. I took my handkerchief and pressed it to his lips. "Don't say that!" I lifted his chin in my hand and gently cleaned the dark blood from his lips. The rich smell of it was so enticing... "Lestat." Erik smiled weakly at me. "I am dying. I have known it for a long time. In point of fact, until I met the two of you, I had never lived!" He laughed, a whispered chuckle that degenerated rapidly into a harsh, racking cough. I lifted him and held him in my arms until the spasm had passed, wiped the leaking blood from his masked face. "Completely devoid of any kind of beauty, I have been blessed with beauty in its purest form!" His gaze traveled from Louis and back to me. "The two of you---magnificent!" And his wide mouth smiled beneath the edges of the mask. "Is there anything you need? Anything you want?" Louis had moved to sit beside me on the edge of Erik's bed. "No. Just that you make sure I am...*buried* somewhere very deep, where none may find me. I would prefer not to be exhibited posthumously, if you don't mind." A spark of his old, quirky humour flickered to life in his eyes and just as rapidly died away as the dark tears that had trembled in Louis's eyes slid slowly down his cheeks. "Why didn't you tell us you were ill? Why?" Louis's slender fingers stroked the cool surface of the mask. "We might have helped you, Lestat and I...we might have taken care of you." "Consumption, Louis..." Erik paused, becoming very breathless. "Nothing to be done." The resignation of fear that rose in him reminded me suddenly of Gabrielle, dying in Auvergne, her lungs eaten from the inside-out by this very same demon that now plagued our darling Angel... "Erik!" A great wave of joy suddenly suffused my being. "You aren't going to die!" His eyes fastened to mine, and something very like amusement lingered there; a very ancient amusement, the silent laughter of a soul that has seen everything in its time and knows the final outcome. "Lestat." "No!" I was already baring my wrist, tearing at my cufflinks, ripping the white sleeve up over my arm. I sank my teeth mercilessly into my own flesh until I felt the dark, hot blood well up. "I will give you the Dark Gift...I assure you, you don't have to die!" This plan was so elegant in its simplicity, I wondered why I had not thought of it before. I held my arm out to him, waiting. "No." His masked face turned away from me on the bloodsoaked pillow as he was racked with another terrible spasm. His slender shoulders shook in agony as a fountain of dark blood splattered down upon his chest. Louis moved to hold him, pressing Erik's masked face against his chest. The diseased blood soaked into the dark serge of Louis's topcoat, disappearing into the black fabric. "Erik....please!" I pressed a handkerchief to my wounded wrist....desperation hummed around me--he *must* take it! He must! "I can't let you go like this! You can't die, you can't--" the truth slammed into me, knocking me momentarily breathless. "You can't leave me...I love you." Louis spoke first. "Let him go, Lestat." He straighted up as Erik pulled away from him. The mask was caked with dried blood. "But---" I didn't understand. "I've no doubt that your dark blood is miraculous in substance, Lestat." Erik smiled weakly. "But there is some damage that even you cannot undo, my brave young friend." "That's absurd! My mother was dying of this consumption of the lungs, and I gave this to her and---" Oh... I knew, suddenly, that he was not talking about his lungs now. I knew he was talking about his face. But I had nearly forgotten the mask... I had come to know *him* and to love him... I had forgotten all about what lay underneath the mask. And as I watched, mystified, his hands went behind his dark head to untie the strings...the long fingers of his left hand splayed over the front of the mask, and as I watched, breathless, he drew it off.... Oh my darling.... My chest was squeezed with a monumental pain; mingled sorrow and rage rose up in my throat to choke me and I felt a profound trembling begin deep within my soul. I couldn't tear my eyes awar from what had been revealed, and yet--- ---I was not horrified, or repulsed, or sickened. I profoundly and deeply sad.... Sad that a man such as he should have let so trivial a thing keep him locked away in darkness, fettered by unfounded fears and the ignorance of fools. Oh, my darling Angel.... I leaned forward and took his dear, shattered face into my trembling hands and kissed his forehead, his cheek, the corners of his mouth...I caught his hot tears on my lips and pressed them again into his waiting mouth. Oh my darling.... "I love you," I whispered, my forehead pressed to his. "I will always love you." I heard a choked sob as Louis, turning, bolted from the bedroom...his footsteps echoed on the stone staircase as he fled away from a pain he could not endure or comprehend. "I have so enjoyed knowing you," Erik said, his hand stroking my cheek. The distorted visage shifted, and he smiled. "I am glad that I have known...happiness." "You have made me nothing less than blessed," I said, and I pressed my lips to his forehead. "And I shall miss you more than anything when you have gone to your rest." His perfect mouth curved in a grin. "I may yet be back to haunt you, young de Lioncourt." His slender fingers closed around my hand. Already, his hand was cooling in my grasp. "But not today...I'm so very tired...." His eyes fluttered closed, and in another heartbeat, he was gone. I fancied I could feel his noble spirit swirling up out of his shattered body, and as I bent to replace the mask upon his vacant face, something feathery and warm brushed against my face. Good night, sweet prince...may flights of angels see thee to thy rest.... Lestat de Lioncourt Paris, 1883 "Oh how at journey's end, I lie in the heat of the night, feeling the heartache, wondering why, I want a friend. I want a friend to lay down beside me, I want a friend, I want [him] now, someone who knows what I mean when I say that I need... Tender hands to hold me, I need tender hands tonight. Will you lay them on my shoulders? Will you lay them on my eyes? And I need tender hands to take me all the way to Paradise And then, when it's over I need tender hands to hold me through the night...." (c) 1995 Chris De Burgh