CHAPTER 31 REVISITED
by Zigi Blum, 1995
zigif@aol.com

INTRODUCTION:  After brooding over it, I decided that Chapter 31 of _The
Tale of the Body Thief_ didn't ring true to me.  I wondered if Louis
would, perhaps, have a totally different story to tell of what happened
that night, so I called up my own personal Louis (who is neither a whiner
nor a dishrag) and asked him about it.  This is his version:  it's quite
different from Lestat's, and of course I don't claim to speak for anyone's
else's personal Louis. :-)  

WARNING: This is a shamelessly pro-Louis spec, and may possibly act as a
spoiler to anyone really really worried about having a single atom of
_Body Thief_ revealed to them.  But as I say, this doesn't bear much
relation to the real Chapter 31 anyway... :-)


**************************


Lestat had been back in town for several days. I knew because he insists
that I know, showing himself to me in brief glimpses here and there. How I
knew it was he I couldn't say, but I have known Lestat for a long, long
time. It is he and he is very angry with me; it shows in every lineament
of his body and face, almost a palpable aura even for the split seconds
he's near to me.

My relief is immense. I had not been sure I would see him again, mortal or
otherwise; I had half thought he would get himself killed, either by this
Raglan James or one of the Old Ones. I am glad to see him, whole and
outraged as he is.  It is a familiar thing, Lestat's rage; it comforts me
to know that, whatever happened to him, it was not so great but that his
anger with me overshadows it.

He might have been trying to frighten me, but he came and went so quickly
that, even had I been predisposed to fear him, which I am not, I would not
have had time even to startle.  I was sure he wanted to talk to me, under
some circumstances of his own choosing; he wanted me to try to follow him,
look over my shoulder for him so he could catch me at it, wait vainly for
him somewhere absurd. 

He had, in his own mind, a reason to be angry with me. At other times I
have played his games to appease him, but now that I knew he was safe, I
still had a reason to be angry with him. I did not give him the
satisfaction of my concern.

Eventually, of course, he got tired of waiting. 



He has been following me for hours. Sometimes I know when he does, I
suppose often I don't. Tonight he stalks me and makes certain I'm aware of
it.  I pause under a streetlight for a few seconds and speak his name;
when he doesn't answer I turn to continue on my way.

There, just out of the halo cast on the pavement by the streetlight, he
catches me up.  I hear nothing, just feel his sudden brutal grip on my
arm.  "Hello, Lestat," I say softly. I don't look at him, not wanting to
see again how vulnerable his anger makes him.

"Louis."  His voice is cold. "Damn you, look at me!"

I look at him, standing quivering with fury, then away.

He gives my arm an impatient jerk, spinning me to face him. "Why have you
been running from me!" he demands in a tearing whisper.

"Because I knew you were angry. Too angry to make sense," I add sharply as
I see him raise an imperious eyebrow. I take my arm away from him; he
releases it rather than see me struggle. "And I am angry too, Lestat."

That is a matter of no concern to him. As long as he is not ignored. "I
will have my reckoning, Louis."

I sigh. "I know."  

"Then you had better start talking, Louis, and you had better convince me
of what you say."  I can see the fury welling up in him as he spurs it on.
 "This is one in a series of scores you have to settle with me.  So far I
have suspended sentence."

I gaze at him mutely.  What can I say to him that he would understand, he
to whom the Dark Gift has truly always seemed a gift? What have I ever
said to him that he has understood? Of course he can do whatever he likes
with me, but I can't be frightened of him, standing there making threats
like some television bad guy.  He could destroy me, yes, but how sorry he
would be then! Would he try not to think of me, as he tries not to think
of Claudia? I smile at the thought.  "I'm glad you are ... you ... again,
Lestat."

He makes a noise of disgust and turns away. "With no help from you."

I try to explain, as I have tried to explain other things over and over
again throughout the years. "Lestat, you came to me in the flesh of a
mortal, you asked me to destroy it! How could I?"

"It's easy enough." He scoops a hand through his hair, killing time while
he turns over what I said. "You've done it before! You do it every night!
You say you couldn't kill me, even to change me, and yet you would let me
die, you liar!" He remembers his anger with these words. "You sent me away
to die, Louis!"

Again I feel the hopeless gap between his mind and mine. "No, Lestat," I
say softly.

"What did you think would happen, then? Me as a mortal, chasing this god's
body? Were you too stupid to know that meant my death?"

I cross my arms over my chest. "What I sent you away with was life. What
you chose to do with it I had no control over... Arson, for example." I
shrug.

He looks so angry that for a moment I believe he might really destroy me. 
He wants so much to be loved as he loves; he doesn't understand that there
are other ways of going about it.  I am sorry for all the times he has
been hurt, but I have been hurt too. And the burning of my house was a
cruel act.

"Lestat," I begin again in a conciliatory tone, but too late. He has gone.
He must drag this out some more, must have his showdown, as they call it. 

I know he wants me to follow him, to beg him for forgiveness, although
there is nothing to forgive. He has burned my house and I am angry, I have
denied him and he is angry, and of course his anger is the greater and the
more important, and I will let it be.  Anger fades; we have lived through
greater angers in the past, and there will be angers in the future, as
long as we survive.  He is what he is: he runs headlong into trouble to
come back and decree that he has changed, everything has changed, and then
to do it again and again and again, while very little, if anything, really
changes - him least of all.  He drinks in the turmoil and the attention as
surely as he drinks blood, and it brings him life in the same way. 
Indifference hurts him far more than anger. 

I feel very weary; I would have this round of the game over.  I know he
suffers now because I seem so unconcerned, and I will end that suffering,
if only because it is in my power to do so.  I bring enough pain to the
world. 

Oh, Lestat.  I will follow you, and you shall forgive me, just as it
pleases you.



He has escaped fairly completely this time; finding him is part of my
penance. I almost give up, but that would be useless, deferring the
inevitable. I want it to be over with, maybe as much as he does.  

It's the dog that he's so fond of that leads me to him; the creature has a
strong scent that clings to its master -- Lestat is always caressing him,
covering himself with dog hair and dog smell. I may remark on that someday
when he chides me for wearing worn clothing. Eventually I run across a
waft of Mojo and follow it straight to the cathedral.

Lestat has unlocked the door for me; I try it and find it open. There was
a time when a church door was never locked, but that was long ago. 
Quietly I slip in to the huge building, full of the sound of dead echoes
and the smell of old wood. Old wood and new dog.

I see him seated far down the nave, very still, his head bowed a little,
like a penitent in prayer. Loud in the silence I hear the whine as his dog
yawns at his feet, out of my sight.  For a few seconds I stand and look at
him, a small enough thing against the backdrop of the world, but an
unchanging one, a comfort.

Now it's he that refuses to look at me as I walk down the aisle and slip
into the pew beside him.  

For a few minutes, we are silent. 

Finally he says my name, so softly that I can barely hear it, a statement,
not a question or a sound of affection.

"Tell me what happened," I say gently.

"I will not! Why in the world do you want to know?"

I shrug. "I thought you wanted to tell me."

"No. I think - " he turns for a moment to study the dog stretched on the
floor, then back to me, holding my eyes. "I think I brought you here to
destroy you."

I raise my eyebrows, and wait.

"Aren't you afraid?"

"No." It's the truth, and he must know it. "You didn't mean it."

"Would you have refused me forever?" He leans toward me, rigid and
intense. "If this body had been destroyed, if I had begged you? Would you
have done that?"

I don't want to meet his eyes anymore, where I can see the rawness of the
pain that makes his anger, but I have no choice. "I don't know."

"If I had been dying, would you have held out against me?"

Now I do look away, almost desperately. "I tell you I don't know!"

"I tell you, you do.  The moment you had power over me, you took it, you
turned the screws!  How did it feel, your triumph? Did you relish the hold
you had on me, did you see death in my eyes?"

"Stop this, Lestat."  I close my eyes, grimacing. 
 
"Ah, you bastard," he says, very softly. "You, cruel, lying son of a
bitch. You deserve the fire."

"Damn  you, Lestat!" My voice bursts out, splintering the stillness,
before I realize I had intended to speak.  The dog scrambles to his feet,
alarmed, and I too leap up.  Lestat looks astonished. "You're raving like
a madman! How dare you - you! - accuse *me* of lying and cruelty! Ah, you
coward! Don't you know what you ask -- do I love you enough to watch you
die!  When you came to me, at that moment, I did: that much. Destroy me
for that if you like, you craven! God knows I've forgiven *you* too often
for the sins of love!"

Leaving him open-mouthed in either surprise or speechless anger, I turn
and walk rapidly out of the cathedral. I do not look back.  

Because I don't burst into flames as I step out into the night, I realize
he has forgiven me.  I'm too angry myself to care.

Perhaps I've given him what he wanted.




He catches me up once more, less than two hours later, after I have hunted
and killed. He's been following me again.  Emerging from the shadows he
falls into step beside me, and we walk silently for a block or two, the
dog he calls Mojo pattering behind and around.

It is hard to sustain anger at Lestat; he can't help the way he is any
more than I can help the way I am, and I know he is afraid. His anger is,
and always was, only fear; fear of abandonment, dismissal, loneliness. His
fear drives him constantly, maddening him and those around him, but
there's no assuaging it. If he stands in one place too long, he fears he
will be forgotten.  There is, for him, no deeper circle of hell.

"For a moment, Louis, I thought you were going to challenge me to a duel,"
he says at last, lightly now.

"No. I was never - "  I can't use modern words and phrases as he does,
without tasting their irony on my ancient tongue, " - wild about
duelling."

"A craven, you called me," he remarks, bitterly but without heat. 
"Perhaps *I* should challenge *you*."

"Ah. But that was a joke." I say dryly. That's what he always says to me
when he's through insulting me.

He recognizes the line and lets it pass. We are almost companionable
again.  Another block passes in silence.

He stops me with a hand on my arm, steps around to face me.

"Louis." He holds me at arms' length, regarding me critically through
narrowed eyes.  Then he clucks his tongue and shakes his head, and makes a
great show of slapping imaginary dust from my shoulders and jerking
imaginary wrinkles from the hem of my jacket.  I make a weak protest,
raising my arms and retreating from his ministrations.

"You look as if you've been living on the streets, Louis," he chaffs. "You
need a home."

I turn and find him very close. "This forgiveness is not an absolutely
simple matter, Lestat. You burned my house, my things-"

"I moved the important ones."

"Ah, you are like a child, Lestat! You have no idea of what is important
to me, what you've done -"

"Come and live with me."

I am surprised that the end game has begun so soon.

"It will be like old times."

"Do you *want* it to be like old times?" I ask harshly.  "I was happy in
that little house!"

"You are *never* happy *any*where!" he cries impatiently. "You are always
saying you *were* happy, but you never *are*!  It is a vile thing, Louis,
this habit."

Live with Lestat again? So much for the quiet and solitude I adore. And
yet I long to do it.  I turn away and begin to walk again.

"Won't you come, Louis?" he says, as if this is my last chance. "I'll take
you away from dust and mice and damp. And buy you a new suit! The one
you're wearing is an embarrassment."

I can't help it. I smile at him. "You are the very devil himself, Lestat."

"Ah, you forgive me."

"There was nothing to forgive. We are condemned to suffer each other, my
friend. Let there be amnesty amongst the damned."

"My God, you waste your talent on fiction. You should send that to a
greeting card company. You still think this is damnation?"

"What else could it be?"

"I tell you, Louis, after what I've been through, you have no conception.
You know nothing of hell! Nothing!"  He speaks with both pain and deep
satisfaction.

"I know that you are an eternal feature of it." I smile again.  

"You would find it worse without me!" he says, stung.

"Oh yes," I agree. "At least when you are with me tedium is never one of
my torments."

"But I want to know..." he begins hesitantly.

"Know what?"

"How you knew I would hate it. Mortal life."

I shrug. Who wouldn't have known it? 

 My silence frustrates him. "You told me - " he begins again, and stops.

"Perhaps because I remember. Perhaps because I know you better than you
know yourself. Perhaps -" and here I lay a hand on his shoulder for a
second - "because you are an idiot, and I am not."

He accepts this in silence, gracious enough.  After a few blocks he
vanishes.  Mojo stops and his head snaps up; he looks around alertly.
There is a faint, a very faint whistle from some distance; at this hour
and in this part of town there are only two beings to hear it.

Mojo dashes off, huge, ungainly, and eager, his tongue lolling. He enjoys
this game of hide-and-seek and has no fear that he will be abandoned; he
knows how he is loved.  I smile at his exuberance and start off again into
the night, hands in my pockets.

			THE END