In Defense of Murder
© Cathy c
sweetdarknightingale@hotmail.com
October, 1999Spoilers: Up to TVA. Do NOT read this if you haven't read Interview, since there is a major piont from that book here. Although, why are you here if you haven't?
Disclaimers: If I don't want Anne's dog-lawyers sniffing up my as- uh, butt, I have to say (at gunpiont you realize) that I DO NOT OWN THE CHARACTERS. Also, this is the work of an extreme amatuer. That should be in the warning.
WARNING: I have been doing work in making everyone like Armie and Claudia both. This spec is seriously damaging to my cause if you read it the wrong way. It is kind of meant sarcastically. Remember that, please. Also, I have a bit of a foul mouth that translates onto my characters. Be warned. Oh, and one of my personalities is acting up. I may not seem like me. *grin* Again, be warned. In summary: It's silly, but probably rated with the G or R for language as well.
Dedication: To Muse Moms. Why? Because she suggested it. Although I don't think this is what she meant. Also, to the Naked Coven(when is the next part coming out?) and to the god of writing. Dragonwhelp, you're added there now!
It was a cold October evening: snow had fallen early, the frost on the windows looked like lace, and the slush in the gutter was appalingly white for the brief moments of early evening. I was sitting on the dead grass in the park, enjoying the feel of the snow melted through my thin jeans.
All of a sudden, the calm atmosphere changed, and there was a distubance behind me. I turnedÐ you know, like in slow motionÐ and I saw the most terrible sight. A wraith of a child, her blonde curls blowing in the scant wind, and blue eyes wide, taking everything in, stood watching me. Beside her was a man. But he was no normal man. He seemed larger than life, and he was so beautiful... almost like Armand, or Louis. That kind of beauty, where it almost could be a woman, but not quite. The curve of the lips so entirely masculine...
The girl tugged on his sleeve, and whispered something, and the man nodded. Then, almost from nowhere, a pair of hands grabbed me by the waist, and snarled into my ear, "Armand. Where is he?"
I struggled to see the man, and was passed off into the hands of the tall, beautiful man, to gaze into the face of someone so lovely he must have been an artist. The long hands so wonderfully calloused, eyes wide as if he was dreaming while still awake. As if, perhaps, music flooded through his brain.
"I... I don't... don't... don't know..." I stammered, watching him still.
He raised his eyebrows, like he didn't believe me. "Listen, boy, I have no patience for this. I have a couple hundred years on you, you think I couldn't tear you apart? Now, Armand. You know where to find him?"
I nodded frantically, and he smiled. "Well then, take us there," a woman said. I glanced around to see if I could find her, but only saw the girl. She smiled at me, a real woman's smile, and then gestured to the man holding me to let me go.
I led them to Armand's apartment. Really, the only reason I chose to live in this fucked-up city was him. Even if he refused to look at me. Of course I knew where it was.
We entered the house like thieves in the night, my pulse was racing, and adrenaline pumping. Why is it that it's so energizing to break the law? Maybe that's why the kill is so exciting.
We went to his room, and the musician threw open the door, without even knocking. Armand looked up, and said coldly, "Really, Daniel, it's not polite- N... Nicki!" He stood up, and was ready to run, but the tall man grabbed him. His eyes moved to the figure standing beside me. "Claudia!"
"Nice to meet you, Armand," he said. "I've heard a lot about you from your friends here. My name is Memnoch, maybe you've heard of me?"
He gasped at about the same time that I did. Memnoch? The grouchy, boring, long-winded thing that Lestat had met was this beautiful man? Shocks never came so hard. Finding out that my three companions were these three... two of them DEAD, and one the DEVIL? But I had to admit, Armand looked good when shocked.
A screaming noise came with violent winds, and I closed my eyes tight, shouting. When I opened them a second later, we were standing in a house. My house. And there were other vampires here, ones that I knew, but couldn't quite place.
Memnoch started talking. "Two hundred years ago, you killed this man, and then this woman another hundred years later." He had a stern expression on his face.
Armand stopped being shocked long enough to answer, "Has it been so long?" with a little sneer marring his pretty features. I have to say, I love that little brat. Always got a smart remark ready.
Claudia almost laughed, but then, at a look from Memnoch, stopped and glared at him. Memnoch continued. "It is a crime... an insult in the face of God- not to mention an inconvenience to me-" He whispered under his breath something that sounded like 'Damn vampires think they own Hell, and deserve some VIP privelage from sending me so many souls over the years! I wish they'd just go to Heaven!' He then continued, "-to send these vampires to their deaths."
"So?" Armand drawled. Really, he seemed to be picking up more and more of a southern accent each minute he spent here.
Memnoch glared at him. "What do you have to say to validate these murders? If you can think of nothing, you have two choices: come to Hell yourself to keep them in their place- for eternity- or..." he mumbled, letting his words drift off.
Armand glared. "I guess I'll validate their deaths, then," he snarled.
"Why don't you start with me?" Claudia asked, sounding as cheerful as Lestat. "I'm more important, anyway. More people grieved over me." And had his ego, too.
"Bitch!" Nicki muttered. "More like Lestat each second she spends in Hell."
Armand shrugged, and opened his mouth to begin his little speech. "Um," I said loudly, interrupting him. "Um, Memny? What's the other choice if he fails to validate their deaths?"
"They... come back to earth," he whispered. That got Armand talking.
"Okay, so I killed her," he began. "It wasn't really ever my intention. The little slut just got in my way."
Claudia glared at him. "Slut? I'll get you for that!"
He ignored her, and went on. "I wanted Louis, and she wouldn't let him go. I was going to imprison her in one of those cells in my Theatre, so I dragged her back there, and got Lestat to try her. An unfair trial, I admit, but she deserved it! She tried to kill her maker. So Louis and she were shut up in coffins, as far as I knew. I planned on rescuing him, and telling my followers to let her out after I was gone, but I screwed up. I told Louis that she was dead, that they had killed her, and then he told me to get out, if I wanted to live. So I hightailed it out of there. He burned the place down, killing my coven. She would have died then if it hadn't been for me! I pulled her out of the building right before it went up in flames, and took her back to my tower. Well, she was really getting on my nerves by the next dawn, and as long as she was there to broadcast my lie I couldn't get to Louis, so I got kind of mad."
"Kind of?" Claudia said, almost blowing up. "I wouldn't call that 'kind of mad'! You killed me!"
Armand looked at her, almost remorsefully. Almost, but not quite. "I..."
"Say it, Amand," Claudia said sweetly.
"I... pushed her off the tower a few minutes before dawn. Really, she had plenty of time to find shelter before the sun rose!"
"If the fall hadn't broken my legs!" she yelled.
"Yes, well, I didn't foresee that, now did I?" Armand said, smirking.
"And me? Why did you kill me?" Nicki asked quietly.
"Oh, come on, Nicki! You wanted it. You begged for it!" Armand said.
"You had cut off my hands, and I was half mad!" Nicki protested.
"That's no excuse," Armand said, and shrugged. "If I was half mad, I never would ask to die. It's your fault, really."
Memnoch sighed. "Armand, this is getting nowhere. These damned vampi- I mean, these people have been wronged, and you haven't given me a good enough explanation. I will have to send them-"
"No!" Armand screamed. "No. I'm not finished yet. Nicki was pleading for death, he wanted it. He said that he went to Paris so that he could die disgracefully, and so, I helped." Armand smiled. "He wanted to die by flames, so I built the fire for him. Really, I was being a nice person. I didn't kill him. True, when it came down to it, he chickened out, so I was forced to throw him in the fire myself, by force, but that was only for the last week he was alive. The rest of the time, he was begging for it. Truly."
Nicki watched him, with a frown on his face. "That's not true, and you know it," he said. "I only said I wanted to die. I never really did."
"Well, I didn't like you much, anyway," Armand said. "You got on my nerves. I really hate Lestat for saddling me with you, just because he couldn't stand the sight of you, and I was 'the perfect caretaker'. God! I could have killed him for saying that. It's like, 'Oh, Armand, you're so responsible. Be the designated driver, so we can get high off of these wasted mortals'. Damn them! I'm not a damned taxi service!"
"Um, Armand," Claudia said, giggling, "I think those are issues to be worked out somewhere else. We were discussing something."
His face turned crimson. "Oh. Well, I'm done, anyway. I just killed you because you got on my nerves, Nicki, it's really nothing personal. Okay, so it is."
"We have one more thing to discuss, Armand," said Memnoch. "You... cut Claudia's head off, and then sewed it onto another body." He made a face. "That's really not very nice."
Armand looked at him strangely. "Memnoch, you believed that shit? I made it up! It was all for publicity, like Benji and Sybelle, like me going into the sun, like when I said I didn't love Dan-" He stopped short when he realized that I was in the room. "Never mind. It was all just made up!"
He looked at Claudia strangely. "But you told me that he-"
"Never mind that, Memny. I never said anything like that."
"Probably said it just to get some sympathy," Nicki said under his breath. "Lestat always did that."
"Now, we'll bring in the witnesses," Memnoch boomed over the sounds in the room. "Those most closely affected..."
"Who would that be?" Armand asked, but I knew even before the witnesses entered what he meant. Louis and Lestat.
Memnoch led the two witnesses to a couch, this being a house not usually used for trials, and so, having no witness stand. Memnoch called his first witness to the stand. "Louis de Pointe du Lac!" he cried.
Louis looked as if he had had no food in days. He was pale, and there was little recognition in his eyes. They were so... dull. Lifeless. "Don't worry, Daniel, they're alright," Claudia whispered to me from across the room.
"Well, I won't ask him to swear to tell the truth," Memnoch said with a grin. "They're bound to do it anyhow, in this trance." Armand grinned back at him.
"Lestat? Tell the truth? What a laugh!" He fell into hysterics with the dead vampires, and the devil. I had to peel him off the floor. "I'm... fine... really... Danny, love!" he gasped out between giggles, and never realized that he had called me that.
"We'll resume... this... court..." Memnoch said, laughing also. He finally calmed down. "Now, this is not a usual court. This is a court that plays by my rules. Now, Louis. Begin."
Louis sighed, and started to speak. "I loved my daughter, my dear Claudia, as much as my heart could allow. She was my baby girl, and if she grew up with some kind of Oedipal problem, it was never my fault. I loved her however she was, and I still do." Claudia smiled at him, although he couldn't see her. "I followed her where she wanted to go, going even so far as the attempted murder of my maker. And then, I followed her to Europe. Once there, I admit, I fell in love with Armand, but it was not the same. My love for her was the love of a father, a lover, a son, a dear friend. My love for Armand was purely as a lover. If it came down to it, I would have chosen her. But I was never given that choice. She and I were taken away, and imprisoned, by the feeble and pedantic revenge that Lestat was 'obliged by honour' to fulfill. I really shouldn't have taken any part in their quarrels. But I never learn. So, I ended up locked in a coffin, and she died."
"How did you feel about that?" she asked, quietly.
"I haven't stopped mourning for her since."
"I see," said Memnoch, and then bellowed, "Next witness! I call Lestat de Lioncourt to the stand!"
Lestat was dragged to the front of the room. His eyes were glazed over, and he had a thin line of drool tracing its way down his chin. Armand whispered to Memnoch, "This is how he looked when he came to me right before he saw you, Memny!" I giggled. By this time, Memny had released Louis from the trance, and he was fine, except the dead vampires were invisible to him.
"Lestat... this man killed two of your fledglings. What did you feel about that?" Memnoch said.
"I... I'm six feet tall, blond, beautiful, and if you don't know me, piss off," he said, spittle jumping from his lips.
"No, Lestat," Nicki said to him, "This is not your new book. You are here to testify against Armand."
"Oh," he said. "Well, I was distressed when I made my first fledgling, and then, when I found out that some inhuman monster had taken my Nicki into his lair-"
"Hey!" Armand shouted. "I resent that!"
"Be quiet, he is testifying!" Memny said loudly.
Lestat continued. "-I was stricken. I took him home, and when he found out what I was, I made him one of us. It was a disaster. Really," he began to muse, "my first success in making a vampire was David."
All three of his fledglings cried out in protest, and Memnoch had to physically restrain Claudia from strangling Lestat. "Go on, Lestat," he urged.
"I was happy enough to give Nicki to Armand, and really, the only thing that bothered me about the whole ordeal of his death was the part about the hands." He shuddered. "I mean, I could have used those hands. Those were some great hands, and really good with a violin, too. I could have, at the very least, sold them at a market in Cairo for a pretty penny. But no, Armand- that brat!- had to throw the hands into the fire with Nicki."
He threw his hands up. "And then, after I refused to let him follow me around like a puppy, he pushes me off a tower, and takes my lover! AND he killed my daughter. Yeah, sure I asked him to, but he's supposed to talk me out of it! But, I guess I'm glad to be rid of her. I mean, she did try to kill me twice. How many more times would she have tried? And Nicki. Mon dieu, he would have pulled me apart, limb by limb, and throw me into the sunlight in peices if he could. He was always a little crazy."
Claudia was glaring at him, fuming, and Nicki frowned in his direction. But Armand grinned. "See? I did good. You wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for me, Memny."
"What are you talking about? Have you gone as nutty as the musician?" Memnoch asked, puzzled.
"Well, if he hadn't killed Nicki, Lestat would never have made Louis, or Claudia, because he would have no need to recreate Nicki, or to make that creation stay," I said, adding to Armand's words.
"If Louis wasn't made," he continued, "then every vampire alive would be eating only evildoers, and Hell would be overflowing, with only a trickle of people going to heaven. If I hadn't killed Claudia, then Lestat would have died, eventually, from her trying almost every day to kill him. Between Lestat and all those evildoers, you would be swamped, and would eventually keel over."
Memny wrinkled his eyebrows.
"So, I've saved you, really," my Armand said, grinning.
"Good one, boss," I said. He smiled at me.
Memnoch glared. "I suppose," he said stiffly, "That that means that they will stay with me, without you as a caretaker."
He nodded smugly. Memnoch growled, and disappeared in a puff of smoke, taking Claudia and Nicki with her.
"You're good," I whispered.
"Well, you don't act as a devil on earth for so long without learning some of your own tricks. And, thank you, Danny," he said.
"Why?" I asked.
"I really had no clue what I could have said to make him think I saved his life."
"I'm good at bullshitting, Armand," I answered.
"Yeah, I suppose so," he said, turning away. He helped Lestat to his feet, and sent Louis and Lestat on their way.
"Danny?" he whispered, back to me.
"Hmmm?"
"I love you."
"I know, boss," I said, glad he didn't turn to see the tears in my eyes. "I know."
He walked away, to look at the hole in the carpet where Memny had stood, and I got myself under control. "Will you stay here with me, Armand?" I asked.
He shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe not."
"Liar. You planned all along to stay. You were going to come back this weekend, I saw your bag!"
He grinned. "So what if I did? I only wanted to scare you a little. And maybe this whole Memnoch thing showed me what was important."
"Maybe," I agreed. This didn't seem like an ending, but it was one I was willing to use, if it meant getting Armand back in my arms. "It just helped you clear your vision."
End.