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"And time goes round and back again
Only your name in my head

And thoughts will pass
Sleep well tonight
I know your demons
And ... delight."

-"Aqua" by Claire Voyant

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Gods of War
by, Rushlight
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Even as a child, I never feared the darkness. Cold and beautiful, dark and strange, it has always possessed the very heart of me, until I cannot tell where the dream leaves off and I begin. There is a clarity that comes with the night that cannot be obtained through any other medium, any practice other than the forsaking of all lights, all likenesses, until the lines that define us by day blur together, erasing the strictures of all artificial boundaries.

My mother used to tell me stories about creatures who lived within the darkness. Terrible monsters born of grief and rage, whose sole objective in life is to drag others down to their level of existence, and to feed off of their victims' dying souls. I remember sitting on my bed at night, knees drawn up to my chest, my eyes wide as I hung on every word that passed her lips.

Even now, I cannot say what my fascination with these dark fairy-tales had been. They never frightened me, at least not beyond the pleasurable shiver that I would obtain from watching a horror flick at the theatre downtown. There was always a certain element of unreality to these fictions, a sense of impending drama that kept me safely disconnected from any reality that they might have to impart. Of course the events in these stories could never *really* happen. Life just didn't work that way.

Such childhood fantasies make me laugh at my present age. For of course I know now that there *are* monsters in the world, and that they are every bit as fearsome as those in the tales that my mother once entertained me with when I was a child. But even with such a background in the seductive art of darkness, I was unprepared for the moment when I finally met the monster of my dreams. When it happened, I almost didn't recognize him, because my mother had left out one very important detail from the stories that she recounted to me.

She never told me that he would be beautiful.

********

I have dreams where I meet my perfect monster, my dark angel, and in these dreams, we talk for hours throughout the long nights. I beg him to tell me about Paris, and the Old World, and all of the many places that he has seen, the places to which I will never have time or resources to go. He always complies, out of a sense of indulgence perhaps, filling my heart with stories of such wonder and mystery that I feel I must go mad from the beauty of it. Yet I crave these nightly meetings the way I crave water in the dead of summer, as if my soul would wither up and die without it.

Even now, I do not know if he is real, or if he is only a dream, brought to life by my fevered imagination. Certainly nothing else of life has seemed real since I met him, and my life during the daytime hours seems pale, wretched in comparison to the time that I spend in his company. It is as if I am not entirely real when we are apart, as if the threads that bind me to the universe are blurred somehow, faded, so that I might drift away like a forsaken balloon at a child's birthday party with only the slightest puff of wind. Or perhaps it is the universe that turns pale and inconsequential around me without him to brighten the depths of it, as if the world is reduced to a piece of two-dimensional cracked glass, fragile and transparent.

Or, more likely, I am simply insane.

He says that his name is Louis. I think I understood from the very start of things that he was something more than he seemed, something darker than the night that swells in unthinking majesty around him. I know that he is a monster to rival any out of my childhood dreams, although I could not say how I came to understand this. He has not sought to hide this knowledge from me. And yet, when I look at him, I see only the beauty. Beauty of face, yes, those hard, brittle eyes, that lustrous, dark hair. But beauty of mind, as well. Beauty of heart, of intellect. He has seen so much, experienced so many things. He carries a great deal of pain within him.

That was what drew me to him, that first night I laid eyes on him. I could see the pain that he carried, clear as light, as he stood there silhouetted against the night sky at the edge of the bridge that spanned the south quarter canal. It surrounded him like a dark cloud, raising him somehow above the paltry others who moved around him. And yes, all I saw at first was the physical beauty, that and the terrible pain.

I spoke to him. I think I may have surprised him, although his face showed no expression when he turned to look at me. But if his face was expressionless, his eyes were alive with emotion. For the most part, that emotion was sorrow, although there was a fair amount of curiosity there, as well. Whatever torments this life has inflicted on him, it has not defeated him yet. There is still a fire within him, a yearning for completion, that carries him on.

It did not occur to me until later that maybe he was lonely, too. That maybe he was glad of my company on that first night, and not only tolerant of it. Perhaps the nights can be long and silent for even one such as he, and there was solace to be found in the comfort of another voice in the darkness, another presence to keep the solitude at bay. Perhaps, like me, he wanted companionship.

And I found it that night, as I had never found it before. To my delight, I found that this handsome, melancholy young Frenchman had the heart of a poet. We walked together along the city streets of New Orleans, heads bent together, laughing softly as we found irony in our conversation. We truly did not speak about anything consequential. Music. Art. London. Paris. Snow on the mountains, sunsets, the ocean. It was trivial, but it was enormously comforting to me.

He promised to meet me again the following night. Of course, I had no idea what he was then. I loved his beauty, although I had never looked at another man with romantic intent in my life. This was more an appreciation for something exquisite, something sacred, the way I might hold a painting, or a mountain, in something close to religious awe. I loved the way our conversations deepened as the nights went by. Each time we met, I discovered new dimensions in him, in myself, and the world, which had always seemed a flat, grey, and lifeless thing, was suddenly filled with color and possibility.

Through his descriptions, I was seeing Paris, and England, and a thousand other places that I'd never dreamed existed. I could see the snow glistening on the steps of the great cathedrals, feel the wind lift my hair as it came down off the pyramids. I was in awe of the things he told me. And he didn't just talk. He listened, coaxing the words out of me as if they were notes of purest music, and I the Stradivarius violin. He was ravenous for my opinions on the world, its intricacies, its mystery. He wanted to know everything about me, down to the deepest, hidden elements that define me for who and what I am. He fed on each idea I shared with him as if it were the breath of life itself.

I remember vividly the night that the true nature of his darkness was revealed to me. We were in his apartment, a luxurious suite of rooms overlooking the city from high above St. Peter Street. I don't know why, but I had the impression from the first night he showed them to me that he'd rented them solely for the purpose of bringing me there.

The windows were open that night, letting in a slight, heavy breath of air. Louis was lounging on the plush, white couch, his head resting on its pillows. The collar of his shirt was open, a concession to the moist warmth of the spring air, and the arch of his throat was perfectly sculpted against the dark line of the cloth. He always dressed expensively, my poet, although the quality of the clothing was forever in somewhat less than optimum condition. It amused me to see him sometimes, this seeming vanity in him, this human frailty. It did not lessen my awe of him, but it made him seem more ... human.

I was sitting beside him on the floor beside the couch, my chin lying on my folded arms just inches from his face. There was an expansive fire burning in the fireplace, and it was the only source of illumination in the room, aside from the streetlight that managed to filter in through the open window. Its warmth blazed against my back, a welcome sensation despite the humid heat of the evening; it seemed to reach into the very heart of me, soothing away the trials and petty tribulations of the day.

We weren't talking then, but our silence was filled with as much communion as our conversations ever were. I felt sleepy at that moment, dreamy, enormously comfortable and happy. I loved being here, with him, so far away from the city, with the lights spread out below us like stars. I loved the way the firelight caught in his hair, his eyes. I could never look at those eyes for very long; they threatened to swallow me whole whenever my gaze lingered, as if I would become lost in them. And once lost, I might never find my way back again.

His fingers were curling gently in the ends of my hair. I had never worn it very long, not like his silken mane, but it was of a respectable length, the thin, chestnut-colored strands curling down around my ears. The touch of his fingers was strangely soothing, and it seemed perfectly natural that he should touch me like this, with such casual familiarity. It never occurred to me that there was anything other than a desire for further connection within his touch, which was why it took me completely by surprise when he kissed me.

It was a light kiss, the barest brushing of lips, and he pulled away again almost immediately. I stared at him, feeling my heart rate increase as I took in the tender, yearning sadness in his expression.

His lips curled in a sorrowful smile. "Was that a mistake?" he said.

The softness of his voice completely undid me. A word from me, and I knew he would never bring up this subject between us again, would in fact never allow me to lay eyes on him again if I wished it. The thought brought a stab of something akin to panic into my chest. As I thought about it, I realized that this, too, felt like a natural extension of the rapport we had grown through our long nights of discussion, of empathy. And suddenly I wanted nothing more than the connection that he was offering to me.

He was waiting for my thoughts to arrange themselves into the path that they were going to take. I had the fleeting impression that he had surprised himself with this action, but that he was perfectly willing to see where it led. For the first time, I allowed myself to admire his beauty in the way that a lover might. It felt strange, as I had never looked at a man in this manner before, but for some reason, it felt right in this instance. I felt a small thrill of anticipation at the thought of it.

"Do that again," I whispered to him.

His smile softened, took on a gentler cast, and the lids of his eyes turned heavy as he leaned in to kiss me again. This time I was prepared for it, and I closed my eyes against the softly sensual assault, inhaling deeply as his lips moved against mine, breathing in the air as he expelled it. Strangely enough, he had no scent, and the sense I took from him was one of a vastly superior intellect preying upon a weaker one. It frightened me suddenly, although I could not have described a reason for my sudden unease. It didn't seem to matter, however, as the sheer, overwhelming weight of his presence enfolded me.

His kiss grew more demanding, more primal, and I tasted the first swift flicker of his tongue. It made me hungry for more, even as the languor continued to slide around me like a serpent's coils, cutting me off from the severity of my emotion as if my thoughts had been packaged carefully in cotton. I was aware of the insistent pounding of my heart, each tremulous beat that marked off the seconds as they slid past, turning each one into a lingering eternity. I was aware of his hair as it slid against my face, soft as spiders' webs, and the soft, gentling caress of his lips as they slid along my cheek to the slope of my jaw.

And then I was aware of the first strident prick of his teeth against my skin, but the languor was still enfolding me, so that even my alarm seemed to be experienced from some great distance. My eyes were still closed, and I believed that I could see the imprint of his face outlined in red against the backs of my eyelids. I clung to that image, worshipped it, as the pain in my neck deepened, grew hungrier in its quest to be acknowledged, but still it was something that I felt from very far away.

A cold draft of air from the window broke the spell, and I blinked, feeling as if I had just woken from a very deep dream. For a moment, I couldn't remember where I was, and the heat of the fire seemed ominous suddenly, but there was a presence in this room that I trusted, so I allowed myself to relax. Still not entirely certain what had just transpired, my gaze slid to the window, where I saw a slender figure outlined against the backdrop of stars.

He looked like an angel, with a tousled head of yellow-blond hair and the most arresting blue eyes I have ever seen, even in dreams. There was something frightening about the paleness of his skin, as if he had been carved from a block of creamy marble, or gilded by a layer of ice. He seemed unreal, standing there, so that I could not be sure if I was truly seeing him at all.

I knelt there on that plush carpet, leaning against the side of the white couch, and stared at the single droplet of red that had appeared on the fabric of the cushion under my chin. It looked obscene, garish, a shocking contrast to the pristine whiteness of the cloth around it. It consumed the entirety of my focus as I struggled to understand what was happening to me. Voices buzzed through the room around me, although the words themselves meant nothing.

*Will you never learn, Louis?* That voice was amused, with a degree of heavy-handed satisfaction that I found distasteful. I felt a twinge of irritation that such a voice should be leveled against my dark angel. *You cannot make pets out of them. The thirst always wins, in the end.*

I didn't understand, didn't want to understand. The words continued, a spiraling kaleidoscope of sound and motion inside my brain, aural shapes without form or substance. My gaze lifted to find Louis' face, and my lips parted as I saw the simmering anger that stirred deep in those faceted eyes. My heart nearly broke at the sight of it; he should not be angry, not Louis, and what had I done to bring about such an emotion in him? For surely it had to be I who had caused it, as there was no one else in the room with us now. I doubted suddenly that there had been anyone else in the room at all.

His expression softened when he turned to me, and for a moment, I felt a deep chill as I looked into his eyes. There was great age there, and more pain than any one man should ever have to be burdened with. My hand moved of its own accord to touch his cheek, and he smiled, turning his face into my hand and kissing the tips of my fingers.

"It's time for you to go home," he said to me, and somehow, I caught the edges of the reluctance and fear and the lingering traces of arousal in his mind. I wondered what had happened to bring us so close, so quickly. "It isn't safe for you here."

I knew without having to ask for clarification that it was true. The next thing I knew, I was standing on my doorstep, and he was gone. I shivered, feeling suddenly bereft without his presence to support me, and the bite of the wind through my long coat seemed unwontedly cold. Strange, when earlier that night I had been remarking on the heat of the evening.

The keys to my apartment door were in my hand. I frowned, not quite sure why my heart should be pounding so forcefully. I could not shake the uncomfortable feeling that I had barely escaped some unfortunate circumstance, although the lingering fog in my thoughts refused to let me focus on it. Once again, I considered the possibility that I might be mad. The thought brought little reaction with it. If this was madness, then by God, I preferred the dream to the reality that my life had become.

Just before I opened my door to go inside and prepare for bed, I lifted a finger to the side of my throat, where a small pain still throbbed gently in time with my pulse. My fingertip came away dotted with a single drop of blood. Stifling another bone-deep shiver, I went inside.

I made sure to lock the door behind me.

********

The following night, I found him waiting on the bridge where I had first laid eyes on him. He looked ethereal, a cutout shadow against the brilliance of the night sky, as if he sought to lord over it. He did not turn around as I approached.

I stood beside him for what seemed a very long time, staring down at the slowly churning waters of the canal. They looked black in the darkness, covered by a thin sheen of reflected light, which broke apart and reformed constantly as the currents of the water moved it. After a while, I reached out a single finger to touch the back of his hand where it was cupped over the railing in front of us.

"Are you my lover, Louis?" I asked him quietly.

He chuckled softly at my words, and the sound held an edge of self-directed scorn in it. "It would seem that I am," he said. "Because I don't seem to have the strength of will to resist you." He turned to me then, and I could tell by the way the light caught in his eyes that he was going to kiss me. Right here, in full view of the street, and I didn't care. My heart began to race as he bent toward me, and my eyes closed as his lips fell softly onto mine.

"What are you?" I whispered, once he pulled away.

I felt him smile, even though my eyes were still closed. "A monster," he answered me, and I knew that he had picked the word out of my own tangled morass of feelings from the previous night. He may not be able to read my thoughts directly, but whatever we had shared the previous evening had opened us up to each other in ways that I was only beginning to understand. It was a mark of the magnetism he held over me that this thought did not seem at all strange.

"My dark angel," I said to him, and I knew that he had heard that thought, too. It didn't seem to matter in the least; I felt that he was welcome to every part of me, every thought, every passion, and I wanted suddenly to feel that closeness with him again, that intimacy that we had shared the previous evening. My fingers twisted in the heavy fabric of his sweater, imploring without words for what I could not even describe.

He seemed to understand. "Be very sure," he told me, and I almost laughed at the tender apprehension in his eyes. I knew instinctively that he had the strength to take from me whatever he wanted, whether I willed it or no. It amused me that he would show such restraint now.

"You didn't show such self-control last night," I told him, without knowing exactly why I said it. I could tell by the look in his eyes that I had hurt him.

But it was enough to convince him of my sincerity, and he led me with aching composure through the half-empty streets toward the corner building where his apartment was located. I followed at his side without saying a word, wrestling with a strange mixture of apprehension and anticipation. I think I truly did understand then what he was, and what he meant to do to me, but the knowledge was buried under the heaping tide of the need that I had for him, to be close to him.

The apartment was exactly as I had left it. There was even a fire flickering in the hearth, leaving the impression in my mind that the previous day had been nothing but a dream, and that I had never truly left this room at all. I stood there in the center of the room staring at the orange-tinged flames while he closed the door behind us. I felt his presence draw close behind me, although he made absolutely no sound when he walked.

His hands were warm as they moved to cup my neck on either side, and I sighed as he tilted my head backward against his shoulder. He was only slightly taller than I was, and it felt enormously comfortable to lean against him in the way his hands demanded. I felt his breath waft warmly across my cheek as he sighed, and those long fingers brushed my hair back away from my face. I closed my eyes, almost quivering in anticipation although I did not know precisely what it was that I yearned for.

He kissed me, lightly, against the side of the neck, and I shivered. If he noticed my reaction, he made no comment on it, and his fingers spread along the underside of my jaw, caressing me, as his lips trailed further down toward the hollow of my collar. The languor was already beginning to enfold me again, and I gave into it completely, but my anticipation was still heightening with an almost unbearable sharpness.

"Touch me," I whispered.

He laughed, a soft expulsion of air against my throat, nearly silent in his vast amusement. But he complied, one hand sliding down over my chest and across the even planes of my stomach to rub the flat of his palm against the front of my pants. I shivered under the erotic caress, wanting more of it.

He seemed to sense my desire without my needing to say a word, and his deft fingers moved at the clasp of my belt buckle while his soft lips continued their sensual assault against the side of my neck. I trembled as the tip of his tongue flickered moistly against my skin, and then his hand was inside my trousers, caressing me with slow intent.

How soft he was, how very warm. Or perhaps it was my own warm pliancy that I felt. I may have moaned as I leaned against him, and he supported my weight effortlessly, one arm slipping around my waist to hold me as he continued to work at the hardening length of my penis. I had never been touched in this way before, not with such raw, masculine need, and it felt so utterly right that I should be experiencing this now, here, with him. The room seemed to swell around me, increasing in dimension with stunning rapidity, as if its subtle, white-tinged walls encompassed the whole of the universe, and everything outside of its well-worn contours had suddenly ceased to exist. For this one moment, there was only Louis, and the heat that grew in shifting waves around us, and the light that touched his hair with such a beautiful glow, and then, finally, the sharp push of the pain against my throat, piercing me, impaling me, and the soft rush of my lifeforce as it flowed into him.

Rapture. I moaned aloud, caught up in the ecstasy of it, and his hand moved harder against my flesh, almost bruising me with the force of its claiming. I cried out, caught up in the absolute delight of it, and then I was coming, and the pleasure exploded out of me with stunning intensity, igniting a fire behind my closed eyelids that burned and burned and did not stop. I felt him shudder behind me, and then we both sank down to the floor, my body still wrapped protectively in his arms.

For a long while, we did not move. I felt exhausted, as I knelt there leaning against him, and he made no move to dislodge my head from where it rested against his chest. My head felt as if it weighed a thousand pounds suddenly, and I did not have the strength to lift it. Strange visions and half-remembered dreams flitted across the backs of my eyelids in a taunting procession of abstract images, spiraling one into the next until I could not grasp the significance of it. The thundering pulse of my heartbeat was very loud in my ears.

I don't remember him bringing me home, but it was several days before I was well enough to venture out again. I don't know exactly how close to death he brought me, or even if I realized that it was, indeed, death I was courting. I wonder if I would have cared had I known, or if that was perhaps the motivation that drew me so strongly to him. The titillation of knowing that I had come so close to death, but not crossed over. I wonder if that was what had drawn me to him from the very beginning.

We met with each other often after that, as fate and my body's constitution allowed. Sometimes we would just talk, reviving the patterns of empathy and discovery that had brought us together at the start of it all. Sometimes we would walk the city streets, just walk and walk through the rain-lit dark, and the silences between us were no less rich than our conversations ever had been. Sometimes he would kiss me again, and it was this that I truly craved, truly yearned for, until it became an addiction that I could not get enough of. But he was always unfailingly gentle with me, my dark lover, as if he thought I would break if he used me too harshly. Over time, I came to realize that I trusted him, more than I trusted myself.

Life went on. The daytime world became increasingly unreal to me, like colored images painted on glass, and I lived only for the night, with its rich flavors and textures. That was when I truly lived, to share my soul and my life with my immortal lover.

There was a certain innocence to the time that we spent together during that phase of my life, a perfection that could not be denied for all its strangeness. I was happy, and I know that Louis found contentment in my presence, for whatever reasons he may have had.

Of course, it could not last. I know this now; our relationship was too perfect, too sane, in its way, to continue in a world that was spiraling down with increasing speed into the yawning jaws of entropy. There had to be a catalyst for change, and it came to me, one evening, in the form of a young boy.

He couldn't have been more than twelve years old. I was just emerging from my apartment that night to meet with Louis when I saw him, standing there at the edge of the curb. I knew instinctively that he had been waiting for me. His face was cherubic, framed with thick, dark hair and dominated by two luscious brown eyes. His expression was impassive as he looked at me.

Wordlessly, he handed me a beautifully etched envelope. I took it from him with some trepidation, not knowing what this visit portended but sensing that it had no bearing whatsoever on the realm of the life I lived during the daytime hours. He bobbed his head once at me and turned to leave. My eyes were drawn to the billowing length of dark silk that was wrapped twice around his neck, fluttering softly behind him as he moved.

Once he was lost from sight, I turned my attention to the missive in my hands. Inside the envelope was a note printed on a heavy piece of folded parchment. The handwriting was ornate, carefully penned. It said briefly that my presence was requested that evening at a rather expensive hotel downtown and was signed only, "A Student of the Night".

I was profoundly curious, of course. Obviously, this letter was from another creature like my Louis, and the thought of it both terrified and exhilarated me. It had not occurred to me until now that there would be others.

Of course I knew that I would go. I had too little sense not to. I had fallen victim to the seduction of Louis' world, and it was calling to me, drawing me in with every breath I took of its dark-scented air. I hailed a taxi and went immediately to the address printed at the bottom of the letter.

I arrived at the hotel just a half an hour later, and I was met in the foyer by the young boy who had delivered the letter. He nodded politely at my arrival and asked if I would please follow him upstairs to "the master's" suite.

I politely declined. Despite my willing seduction into the world that these beings inhabited, I had no desire to be alone with such an enigmatic individual, no matter how courteously the invitation had been worded.

"Such a cautious creature you are," a voice spoke behind me.

I turned and laid eyes on Armand then for the very first time. He was heartbreakingly lovely, with long, auburn hair that curled beguilingly around his face and soft, brown eyes that seemed to be illuminated by a light that I couldn't see. Such a captivating little waif he was. I was caught by those eyes, overwhelmed by their incredible age, and I wondered how the people who milled around us could possibly not be aware of it. This was a being of immense age and wisdom, for all his apparent youthfulness. His very presence took my breath away. And he was so very beautiful, so that my heart ached to see him.

I was to learn that he had been watching me for months now. He'd listened in on my conversations with Louis, following the myriad twists of poetry and logic that sustained us through the long nights. He never admitted as much, but I suspected that he'd spied on us when we made love, as well. I should have been mortally offended by this secret scrutiny, but I was not. Just as I was not offended by the pervasively growing suspicion that my Louis, whom I loved so very dearly, was a murderer a thousand times over.

It occurred to me, as we talked, that he was attempting to seduce me away from Louis. He was dropping tantalizing bits of information about the Old World, things that not even Louis could know. I was fascinated by him, by the idea that such an ancient being could have noticed me, been seduced by me. I realized that it must be difficult for these creatures, to be in the world but not a part of it, to always keep their true selves hidden, to never be taken as they truly are. I must be a rare thing indeed to draw such an interest from them - a mortal who sees them as they are and is not afraid.

I found Armand deeply compelling. He offered to show me the world. England, France, Spain, South Africa, Japan, anywhere I wished to go. I would live in unspeakable luxury. We would explore the face of the world together, its continents, its oceans, its deep jungles, its sweeping mountains. We would track down the wild jaguar and play with the lions of the Serengeti. And he would share with me everything that he knew, the wisdom acquired over five hundred years. He would help me find the answers to the questions that I was burdened with, help me to define the questions themselves. He could reveal to me the mystery I saw all around me, without understanding it. He could give me the understanding I craved.

This was something that not even Louis could offer, for his questions were as great as my own. Armand had all his questions answered. I found myself being seduced by him, by his beauty, yes, but also by his wisdom, his charm. By the promises of knowledge and adventure that he dangled so tantalizingly in front of me. Armand had a presence I could not ignore, even though I had only known him for a few short hours.

But still, I was reluctant to follow him. Perhaps I sensed somehow that what he wanted was not a mortal lover. He wanted an immortal companion, to hunt with him and love with him and ease the loneliness of his aching heart. I was in awe of him, it's true, but I was also frightened by him. And I could not forget Louis, whose very existence comforted me. I did not feel that kind of peace with Armand.

I politely took my leave of him before the night was half over, and he let me go. His eyes followed me as I walked out to the taxi that was inexplicably waiting for me at the curb, and I forced myself not to turn around. I knew that I would see him again.

Louis was waiting for me by our bridge. There was no censure in his eyes as he watched me approach, although I sensed that he knew I had spent the early hours of the evening with another. Feeling suddenly as if I owed him an explanation for my actions, I told him everything I knew about Armand.

A dark emotion flickered across his eyes. "You must not see him again," he said. I was quick to assure him that my love was for him alone, assuming it was jealousy that prompted this admonition, but he held me close in his arms and shook his head. "Not all vampires are as I am," he murmured into my hair. I felt a lance of shock move through me, and it took me a moment to realize that it was because I had never until this moment heard him use that word aloud. "Some would wish you great harm; others would wish to use you to their own ends. Do not trust them."

I wondered if Armand's eyes were on us even then.

But we chose by unspoken agreement to disregard the problem for the time being. Our interest lately had been music, and we retired to his apartment on St. Peter Street. He had been teaching me how to play the piano over the past several weeks, with enormous patience for the slow, plodding progress I made. Sometimes I liked to just sit and listen to him play, losing myself in the haunting, compelling melodies he so skillfully drew out of the instrument. Oh, how I loved his music. It carried me out of the dawning world and into realms of fragile, perilous beauty, where the wisdom and conscience of ages rested in each glistening note.

I saw Armand often after that. I caught glimpses of him in the crowd at the supermarket where I shopped after hours, the line at the local dance club where Louis and I walked, inside the window of a taxi that passed me on the street. Once, when I had said good-night to Louis and gone home to retire for the night, he appeared at the foot of my bed just as I was drifting off to sleep. I woke up in a panic, my heart pounding, but there was no one there. Yet I knew that I hadn't imagined it.

I thought I would go mad, or perhaps that I already was. He was toying with me, tormenting me, letting me know that he could have me any time he wanted. Louis tried to comfort me, staying by my side as often as he was able, except when he went out to feed. I knew he was angry that I was so frightened, that Armand would dare to threaten me, even indirectly. His anger terrified me; I feared a confrontation between the two of them most of all. At two hundred years old, Louis was still a fledgling compared to Armand.

What I did not understand was why Armand would feel the need to bother with me at all; I was so obviously Louis' creature, and there are so many other mortals in the world. It seemed so petty to me, that these two ancient and terrible beings would resort to such posturing over the fate of one insignificant mortal. But perhaps that is what drew Armand to me from the beginning - the fact that I belonged to the one who had never truly belonged to him. I wondered if the older vampire's attraction towards me sprang from the fact that I had been touched by Louis, loved by him, tasted by him, in the way that Armand had never been.

In my more lucid moments, I realized that my fate truly was not the issue here. Like a hapless supplicant caught between the gods of war, I was nothing in the games these creatures played. I was only a man, a lonely man, who loved the night and had fallen prey to the seduction of the dark. The true prize in this battle of wills would not be my life nor even my soul, but the occupation of this one small corner of eternity, which may have been brightened, however faintly, by my presence here. I was only a conduit to this end between them, and to the victor go the spoils.

What a perfect whore I am.

Louis had gone out to feed early one evening when the inevitable at last occurred. He left me by the fountain in the park next to our bridge, a public, well-lighted area that should have been safe from any overt assault from a creature to whom secrecy was the breath of life itself. I waited restlessly for him to return.

Then, between one blink and the next, I saw Armand standing at the edge of the square, about thirty feet away through the crowd. I froze, recognizing the danger I was in, public area or no. The light from the overhead lamps turned sultry as it fell against his soft hair, giving the dark auburn tresses a golden cast. Despite my fear, I was enraptured by his perfect beauty. Those eyes called to me.

I did not move as he approached. My eyes never left his, although my heart was pounding as if it meant to break free of my chest. I felt as if I were crumpling underneath the full weight of his indomitable personality; his eyes alone told the story of his great age. It was the power I would feel in the presence of the great redwoods, or the pyramids of Egypt, or in an open field far away from the city lights where I could look up and see the majesty of the stars. Such unimaginable age.

He touched me lightly on the face before I realized that he'd drawn near. His touch was delicious, warm. I heard him sigh as he bent his face down to mine and kissed me above one eye, on the cheekbone, and then the lips. His hand moved to cup the back of my neck. I didn't resist him, didn't want to resist him. To do so would have been as futile as attempting to resist the gravity of the sun itself.

This was ecstasy, as his presence filled my mind. His lips trailed lightly down my jaw to my throat, his breath hot and moist on my skin. Did he sense the lingering traces of Louis there? I felt a shiver of longing at the subtle eroticism of his touch.

Then I realized that he was going to do it here, in front of all these people, and no one would even know. Oh, he was smooth. This act that I had shared only with Louis was being forced upon me now. This act that was largely sexual in nature, as he drained me into himself, and I could not even fight him. It was rape.

That realization gave me the strength I needed to push him away. His hands closed over me with impossible, frightening strength, but not before I saw that I'd surprised him. He hadn't expected me to resist. "Do not fight it," he whispered in my ear as he pulled me close once again. "You will see that I am right."

I was enraged. I tried to shove him away again, but it was like battling stone, like struggling against the granite faces of oblivion. And suddenly I was terrified. I had never felt so helpless, so completely subject to another's whims. I would have screamed, but his hand closed over my mouth with a teasingly gentle motion, holding the breath inside of me. Such a tauntingly tender fiend he was. His lips bent to my neck once again, and I clawed at him, arching my back to get away from him, but I couldn't move. Didn't anyone see that I was struggling? Didn't anyone see what was happening?

Suddenly, Armand was ripped away from me with such force that I was thrown against the stone bench surrounding the fountain. I staggered, aware of a dark movement to my left, and somewhere in my mind someone was screaming. When I looked up, however, there was nothing to be seen. At my side, the splash of the fountain was a rushing softness against my ear.

A deepening chill fell over me as my eyes swept over the encroaching dark. The strident laughter of a young woman at the far side of the square sounded unwontedly piercing against the night. I cringed from it, suddenly petrified of calling attention to myself, as my mind once again fastened upon the imagery of the gods at war. I could all but taste Louis' presence on the air.

"Come, chéri," a voice whispered at my ear. I turned and was stunned to see the handsome blond-haired devil that I remembered from that long-ago night in Louis' rooms. "Away from here. We'll greet the victor later."

I let him pull me away from that place, and as we ran, a memory stirred; a hint of black leather, a strain of blaring music coming from a radio's speakers. I felt suddenly as if I knew this man, or at least knew of him, or that I should. I struggled against the pervasive fog in my brain as I had struggled against Armand's embrace, and the dangling torment of the memory at last provided me with a name: Lestat. This, then, was the vampire who had made my dark angel, so long ago. I felt a thrill of exhilaration at the thought of it.

We ran hand-in-hand down the streets and into the back alleys of the Market District, away from the noise and the bustle of the city. I hardly noted where he was leading me. At last he stopped, and I collapsed against the wall of the alleyway, gasping for breaths in between shuddering tears as I fought to regain my equilibrium. It was very dark.

"Armand will kill him," I said, once I had found the breath to speak.

"Oh, we are not so easy to kill. From the feel of things when we left, Armand is the one who needs your prayers more."

He sounded totally unconcerned. A taunting smile curled at the edges of his sculpted lips, giving his handsome face a rakish cast. I glared at him accusingly.

"It may surprise you," he said, as if to mollify me, "but Armand does not want to kill Louis. He is too much in love with him."

This was a new thought. I remembered the way in which Armand had touched me, the way his thoughts had whispered Louis' name as he bent to kiss my lips. I began to relax somewhat as I considered the truth of Lestat's words.

"But what does he see in you?"

There was a new note in his voice now, a distance, a longing. I looked up sharply. Suddenly, I was very much aware of our isolation. His white skin seemed to glow in the dim light, and his unnatural, blue eyes gleamed with their own luminescence. The light from the far-distant streetlamps caught on the edges of his teeth when he smiled.

"I assumed that Louis' passion for you was only temporary," he continued thoughtfully. "After all, he is still in love with the mortal world. It is entirely like him to take on a mortal lover. But Armand?" He shook his head. "I thought he was playing a game with you. A bit of amusement to help wile away the centuries. But he was going to do it. He was going to make you one of us."

I shuddered at the memory and wiped at the suddenly stinging moisture in my eyes. "Perhaps he only tired of his game and sought to end it once and for all."

"Perhaps."

I stood silent while he appraised me, knowing that this was a creature of sublime viciousness, knowing he could kill me in a second if the mood took him. And I knew that he did not fear Louis' wrath; as he'd said, his kind was remarkably hard to kill. I wondered suddenly what twisted paths of lust and love had drawn these three together throughout the centuries, so that they would come to be together here, now, bound by the fleeting breath and fortitude of one inconsequential mortal. It occurred to me then that Lestat would have to be in love with Louis at least as much as Armand.

"You are beautiful," he said at last. It was as if he'd only just noticed, and the knowledge surprised him. I could not suppress a shiver; his words seemed almost a mockery of the thoughts I had originally held for Louis. I wondered then at the chance of fate that had led me to my dark angel, had welcomed me into his world. It seemed the purest of impudence suddenly that I could have ever thought I had a right to lust after him, to want him, to need him, when he so obviously had others who filled this place in his life perfectly well.

Lestat came closer to me and touched me on the face, tracing the tracks of my drying tears with his long fingers. "That tears could be shed for the likes of us..." he murmured, wonderingly. There was a distant note of longing in his voice that pierced into my heart; perhaps he was wishing that he, too, had someone who would be willing to shed tears for him. Or someone for whom he would be willing to shed tears of his own. I thought of Armand then, alone in his grand hotel with his legions of servants and expensive foreign finery. What was it that made these creatures go on, night after night, year after year? Was it truly the blood from us that they craved? Or were they after something more elusive, a sense of direction perhaps, a buoy to keep them anchored in the midst of the chaos of time? Perhaps, in the end, that was all they ever truly desired to take from the mortals whose lives they impacted upon. Purpose. Persistence. A reason to go on.

Lestat's voice lowered as he picked up on the thread of my thoughts. "Armand will get you, you know. Eventually. Louis can't protect you forever."

I wanted to say something then, but my mind was infuriatingly blank. Perhaps it was my intention to voice a last, desperate plea. Or perhaps I realized how entirely useless such a gesture would have been.

"And Louis," he continued, as if he were completely unaware of my emotional turmoil. "Louis wants you. He wants you with all of his immortal soul, but he won't do it. His morality gets in the way. He would watch you grow old, and die, and the loss of you would be yet another wound to add to his growing collection of burdens to bear. Yet he will not offer it to you." His voice was curiously devoid of any mockery. His fingers moved back along the line of my jaw and curled around the collar of my shirt, a tender gesture. "Yes, it's best this way. For everyone. Even you, mon chér."

I tensed as his arms slid around me, but by then, it was too late. His fangs sank into my neck, and I gasped as my blood leapt into his waiting mouth. I struggled for a moment against the pain, uselessly, but then the familiar languor moved in to enfold me. Soon, his strong arms were the only thing holding me upright. He made a low sound in the back of his throat as my blood flowed into him; this was sex as surely as any of the times that I'd done it with Louis, but there was a terrible helplessness to it. Rape.

He was taking me slowly, drawing out my blood in long, rhythmic pulses, his arms holding me against his body tightly. He felt unbearably solid against me, a granite cliff against which the waves of my life were crashing, bringing me inexorably closer to the point at which I would break against the shore. I was weakening, my strength slowly fading as the seconds ticked past. This was further than I had ever gone with Louis. I couldn't even be afraid anymore. There was only the thought, "This is it," and I was going to sleep now. I would sleep, and when I woke up, I would be where I truly belonged.

But as we neared the end together, and he lowered me slowly to the cold, hard ground, I felt nothing but fear. This life, this world, was all I had ever known. And I hated him suddenly for ripping me away from it.

"I will give you a choice now," he whispered in my ear. My eyes were open, but I couldn't see him. It was so dreadfully, horribly dark. "It's the choice Armand would never have given you. Death ... or life?"

I knew that I was dying. Lestat's voice came to me as if from a great distance, barely audible over the concussive roaring in my ears. I felt like I was slipping away down a long tunnel. Oddly enough, I could hear the strains of Louis' haunting melodies on the piano, also very far away but growing more real to me than Lestat. Such a beautiful music. I wanted desperately to hear such music again.

I must have made some sign, but I don't know what it could have been. I tasted a strange wetness on my tongue, and the feel of it sent tremors racing through every cell of my body. I reached out and found the suddenly yielding warmth of Lestat's extended arm, and I mouthed hungrily for the ragged slit that he had opened in his wrist, following the dripping trail of proffered blood to the fount from which it came. I clung to him as my lips closed over his torn flesh, accepting the offering that he gave to me, taking back the blood that he had stolen. I cannot even begin to describe what I felt as I drank from him; best not to even try.

That, as they say, was that. The circle closed; I died, and I was reborn a vampire. When I opened my eyes, Louis was bending over me. He was crying, and I stared for a long while at the tracks the blood-tears made as they slid down his pale cheeks. I was touched for one moment by the pain that I saw in him, but then I was swept up in the new world that had sprang into existence around me.

Louis helped me sit up, gently. Protectively. Lestat was nowhere to be seen, although I hardly registered his absence. My senses reeled under the infusion of blood that I had received, and my attention was wholly diverted by it. The night was no longer dark; it was more clearly revealed to me than the brightest day had ever been. I could hear the people on the street at the end of the alley, their voices, their cars, their sweet laughter. I could smell their rich blood.

Louis led me by the hand out of the alley, one arm held loosely around my waist, and I leaned against him, allowing him to lead me. Neither one of us spoke, but I sensed that he understood what I was feeling as I looked around, staring in wonder as the city unfolded around me. There was beauty everywhere I looked, and in my heart I was falling in love with the night as if I had never before laid eyes on it.

Here, for this one moment, it was enough.

We returned to our apartment far above the city, and Louis lit the fire in the large fireplace. Its warmth was delicious on my face and hands, for suddenly, I felt very cold. Louis sat beside me on the couch and held both my hands, bending his head down close to mine and closing his eyes in an inwardly calming gesture. Unable to resist him, I tipped my head up to kiss him lightly on the lips.

"You're not entirely unhappy that this has happened, are you?" I asked him.

Instead of answering, he kissed me then, with a passion that left me dizzy. I was overwhelmed by it, as always. I loved him. Oh, how I loved him, despite everything that he had brought with him into my life.

No, not unhappy, he told me. And that was the crux of it, that he felt he should be. I was his fledgling now, for all that Lestat had made me. He was my guide to the vampire world, my lover, my teacher, my friend. I could feel the quietly raging joy inside of him, that I was his now, truly his, in a way that I had never been before. The happiness warred with the guilt I sensed within him.

It was drawing near to the early hours of the morning by then, and I began to realize that I was very thirsty. When I mentioned this to him, I was pierced by the lance of pain that crossed his eyes. "It's not your fault," I whispered to him. I'm still not sure if he believed me.

He asked me if I wanted to go out in search of blood. It was a part of his existence that he had always tried to keep hidden from me, the fact that he had to kill in order to survive. It was something he always took care of before we met in the evenings, and perhaps after, when I had gone home to bed. The thought of it now filled me with a stark and unrelenting horror. To kill, to take a human life... No. To do such a thing would be to give up the last thread tying me to the life that had been taken from me, and that I could not do. Not now. Not tonight.

He, more than anyone else in the world, understood my reluctance to accept this facet of my new existence. I did not have to kill, he assured me. I could take what I needed from him.

The offer stunned me. I touched his face lightly, and he kissed my curled fingers. I was hesitant as he cupped his hand at the back of my neck and gently drew me down toward his throat, but the smell of the blood that coursed through him was maddening. I sank my new fangs into his skin, and he gasped as the blood flowed into me. I was completely washed away by it. Vampiric blood is like no other - it carries with it the spirits of those who died to give it, perhaps, amplified a thousand times by the vampire body it springs from. It was delicious, hot, sweet and rapturous all at the same time. We clung to each other as I drank, and his hands made tender, loving circles over my back as I bore him down to the cushions beneath me.

He pushed me gently away before I could drain him too much, and immediately he kissed my face, my eyes, my lips. We were both breathless with arousal. I returned his fierce kisses, yearning for the ability to dissolve away into them, and whispered a harsh, "Do it." I felt the spike of urgency within him as he understood my meaning.

He rolled to his side, holding me firmly against his body as he bent over me. He kissed my throat once, then bit into it with a passion that took my breath away. Our bodies pressed tightly together in the intimacy of the moment, and I knew that his hands were bruising where they touched me, restraint unleashed to the necessities of desire.

We passed the rest of the night in this manner, passing the blood from one to the other, making love with a fierce abandon that defied everything in the world around us, as if this were the last night we had together before the world would erupt into fiery chaos. Nothing mattered to me but the feel of him, the scent of him, the taste.

He brought me with him when he went out to feed before morning. I was full, sated, but he was nearly drained. He took the life of a boy in a secluded alley, who, judging by his attire, was obviously a rebellious young member of a local gang. Louis did it quickly, as if he found the blood distasteful. I watched in silence, hating the way my heartbeat quickened as I saw that boy hanging limply in his arms. It was desire, pure and simple. I wanted to taste mortal blood.

Before the sun's rays could make their appearance at the horizon, I fled with Louis to the hideaway where he kept his coffin. We slept together in its dark embrace, and while I felt a momentary twinge of discomfort at the thought of being sealed within its grasp, I was comforted that Louis was by my side.

The next night, we went out again so that he could feed. We wandered for only a short while before we were stopped by a young hoodlum with a knife, demanding that we turn over our money. I could sense somehow that he'd killed before.

"Do you want him?" Louis asked me. I didn't answer at once, and he added, "I don't want to tempt you, but I thought it might be easier this way."

A killer, yes. It was easier, for to take his life would be to save the lives of others. How very just.

The fool had no idea what we were talking about, and it came as a great surprise to him when Louis moved forward with inhuman speed and forced him to his knees. I knelt slowly in front of the captivated young man, overcome by the scent of his blood that pounded rhythmically throughout my senses, and Louis gently massaged the back of my neck as I drank, curling his fingers in my hair.

We hunted together often after that, as the nights went on and blended together into one long, seamless tapestry in which there seemed no hint nor memory of the sun. Our conversations continued more or less where they'd left off, only now there was new depth to them, as I had so much more to explore. We talked about the taking of the blood at great length, how it made us feel, how beautiful and delicious the mortals were, so lovely. Louis played the piano for me whenever I asked, sometimes for half the night at a time, and I was always swept away by his music. I knew he was sublimely happy, as he had not been for a very long time. We made love often, drowning in each other in the arms of the night that enfolded us.

Of Armand and Lestat, there was no sign. This was for the best, of course, and nothing interfered with our happiness together. But I often wondered what I would do if I came across one or the other of them. Would I greet them, hate them? Would all be forgiven?

As time passed, I came to know the answers to these questions. I did not hate Armand. I thought of him often now, his fierce beauty, his wisdom. Perhaps, someday, I would go with him as he desired, to learn the things that he had to teach. To play with the lions of the Serengeti.

As for Lestat... I could not forgive him for taking me away from my mortal life, for making me into this thing that I am. All that I had ever known is lost to me now, and while I am finding its replacement more than adequate, I cannot help but mourn the existence that I lost. He'd known that I would hate him for it, that I would have hated Armand if he'd been the one to do it to me. I hoped, in my more charitable moments, that Armand truly appreciated what it was that Lestat had done for him.

Eventually, I did see Armand again. He appeared tentatively at first, then more boldly. I never approached him, although the sight of him cut me to the heart. I ached to see him, to touch him, to hear the sound of his voice again. I thought of the secrets that he had yet to reveal. But I would not leave Louis for him. Louis, who completed my immortal soul.

"You want to go to him," Louis commented one evening, as we sat together on the couch in his apartment. His arm was wrapped around my shoulders, and I leaned in against his side, feeling naturally contented in his presence. He was staring into the flickering light of the fireplace, unmoving. He looked so beautiful in the light of the fire, as it caught on his eyes, his hands, his hair.

I didn't want to hurt him, but I could not lie to him. "I won't leave you," was all I said.

"Oh, but you must." His smile was sad. "You have questions, more now than ever. And I can't help you with them."

I knew that he was right. In Louis, I had a perfect soulmate. Someone to share with, to laugh with, to cry with. He was my guide through this preternatural afterlife, a compassionate and loving companion. My friend, my lover, my brother in blood. He understood the deepest parts of me, the secret things that drove me on. He understood the depth of feeling that comprised my universe. I could be myself with him, wholly myself, without fear or shame. I loved him.

But his questions were as deep as my own. He looked for his answers in books, in music, in the endless philosophical bantering that sustained us through the long nights. He had been tempted, at one time, to accept Armand's offer. He would have accepted, I think, except that his attraction to the older vampire had soured for reasons that he still would not explain to me. I had no such pain to cut me off from the lure of the mystery.

I put my arms around him and laid my cheek against his hair. There was really nothing to say. He took my hand and kissed my curled knuckles, and it was the most tender gesture that I have ever known. I used my newly discovered mental proficiency to shift through the thoughts in his mind, and he opened himself completely to me. There was no regret there, no lingering anger at Armand. A little sadness, yes, but mostly acceptance. He understood.

We kissed then, and all the world to me seemed made up of that familiar white couch, the warm fire, and Louis. There was nothing else. When his head bent to my neck, and I felt his sharp teeth pierce my skin, it was ecstasy the likes of which I had never experienced. I curled my fingers in his thick, soft hair and bit into his neck without thinking. Louis moaned as we fell back onto those soft, white cushions, our bodies intertwined, as the blood flowed from one body to the other and then back again.

Later, we went out and visited all the places that we loved. We both knew that this was our final night together. We hunted, then retired back to our apartment in the early hours before the morning. There, he played his music for me on the old piano, and we sat together, and held each other, and said our silent good-byes.

When I woke the next evening, he was gone. It was best this way, I realized, as I went out to hunt by myself for the very first time. I felt very lonely, cut adrift from the one thing that had given my life meaning. I was suddenly very frightened and lost. But none of those feelings lessened my desire to see Armand, though I wished that they would.

I wandered the streets alone, waiting for him to find me. And find me he did. It was less than an hour after sundown when I saw him, a slim, handsome figure in black jeans and a black leather jacket, wearing a dark T-shirt with the name of a popular local band imprinted on it. Oh, such a picture of fragile youth, of deception itself. No one would guess that this creature was five hundred years old, a remorseless and efficient killer.

I walked up to him without speaking, and he slowly, almost tentatively, touched the side of my face. His fingers were warm, smooth. I closed my eyes at the caress, as a little shiver of desire ran through me. He sighed in pure happiness and touched his forehead to mine. "It begins," he whispered.

In the nights that followed, he opened up all the libraries in the hotel that he owned so that I could explore their contents at will. He asked for nothing more than my company at first, and we spoke very little. He would sit and watch me for hours, unmoving, as I poured through the ancient tomes. History, poetry, art, religion, science. The amount of information available to me here was stunning, overwhelming. I loved it. Each precious book had been hand-picked by Armand himself, added lovingly over the years to his collection.

But soon, books were not enough. I wanted to see these things that I read about, the many places immortalized by the written word. When I mentioned this to Armand, he acquiesced immediately. We left on a plane for Paris that very night.

I won't describe all the places that we went together, the adventures that we had. We spent months among the trappings of civilization, and then we would retreat into the countryside and live at one with nature. We did, indeed, play with the lions of the Serengeti. Armand taught me how to use my vampire powers, and through him, I learned to define myself to my own satisfaction, at least for a while. I'd sit at his feet in front of a roaring fireplace for nights on end, listening in rapt silence as he told stories about the past as he had lived it. He was a patient and compassionate teacher, and he never asked for more than I could give. I never felt as close to him as I did to Louis, but I did love him.

One night, we came home from visiting one of the more unscrupulous local rock clubs, and we were both well-sated on human blood. "Home" for the time being was a beautiful old chateau in the northern part of England. I loved the place, its haunting beauty, its mystery. We sat together in a tower room overlooking the night-colored gardens below, and I lost myself in the beauty of the full moon. Armand sat behind me on the plush window seat, his arms around me, his long hair curling softly against my cheek. I felt content, at peace. I was happy, and I was thinking of the lions again. Maybe it was time to leave civilization behind again, for a while. I'd never been to Antarctica.

Armand laughed softly in my ear, a low purr of pleasure against my cheek. "My wild, beautiful adventurer," he murmured. "You would love it there. I know you could spend months appreciating the way the light hits the ice. And the way the wind piles the drifting snow..."

I could almost see it as he described it. "I really hate it when you do that," I commented, referring to the way he'd read my thoughts. But I really wasn't mad. The moon was too beautiful, and his arms felt too good around me.

There was silence again between us, for minutes or for hours, I don't know. He held me tightly, possessively, and I wasn't sure what to make of it. He wanted something, but was reluctant to speak.

"What is it?" I said at last.

It was a moment before he answered. Then, "Is all truly forgiven between us?"

I knew exactly what he meant. I remembered that night vividly, when I had still been mortal, and he'd tried to steal my blood in the square by the fountain in New Orleans. Vampiric rape. He would have forced me to become this thing that I am now, to be his companion forever.

I knew as well as he did that it would never have worked. If he had made me into a vampire by force, there would have been no love between us. When Lestat stepped in and offered me his dreadful choice, he had saved Armand from the hatred that would have been his due. Now my hatred was for Lestat alone.

"Yes," I said finally, meaning it. "All is forgiven."

He gave an audible sigh and buried his face in my hair, holding me even tighter against him. I realized that this had been preying on him for a very long time. This fragility in him startled me; I'd always seen him as a strong, unbreakable thing, like marble.

"Do you love me?" he whispered in my ear, as if he were afraid to hear the answer. He was suddenly vulnerable in a way that I had never imagined. Conversely, this weakness only made him more beautiful to me. This steadfast, magnificent creature needed to be cherished. It wasn't in his nature not to be.

"Yes," I answered truthfully. My eyes never moved away from the moon as I gazed up at it. "I love you."

A shudder passed through his body where it pressed behind me. I could feel his hot breath on the side of my neck. He kissed me lightly behind the ear, then on the curve of my jaw. One hand moved to brush my hair aside, and his lips pressed against the skin of my throat. I sighed, just audibly. He hesitated, his breath tickling my skin, and I knew that he was waiting for me to tell him no, to push him away, to flee if that was my wish. My heart was pounding madly. I thought of Louis suddenly, for the first time in I don't know how long, but I knew that he would have no objection to this. We'd made no promises, no claims to monogamy. My heart and my soul still belonged to Louis, but tonight, my body would belong to Armand.

His teeth pierced the skin of my neck with ease, and his body shuddered as my blood began to flow into him. Oh, this was ecstasy. It had been too long. Armand was a fierce, bright soul, deeper and more complex, in his own way, even than Louis. I thought of the way the light filled his fathomless, brown eyes, and how much more vibrant those eyes had seemed since I'd joined him. I was awed that such an ancient, beautiful creature would even notice me, much less be seduced by me, love me.

"I *do* love you," he whispered, drawing away long enough to lower me gently back onto the pillows. The moonlight caught in his dark eyes, and they gleamed like points of black fire in the darkness. It touched his auburn hair with an edge of silver. So beautiful. I didn't even care if he was reading my thoughts again. He kissed me lingeringly on the lips, the face, the throat. His hot tongue licked at my ear, once. "When I see the world through your eyes, as you discover everything anew for the first time, I am reborn. You have brought life again to this accursed, lonely existence. I feel whole again for the first time in ... too long."

"Love me," I sighed, reaching up to touch his thin lips with my fingertips. He kissed them, lovingly, then lowered his body over mine once more. I hissed as his weight pressed over me, and the reality of him overfilled my senses. When his teeth pierced my skin, the pleasure was so intense, it was almost pain, and I cried out, completely undone by it. His hands tightened convulsively around me. I clung to him, to that strong, slender body, as he took me with long, forceful swallows that left me gasping. With Louis, it had never been like this. Louis, ever the mild one, who always made love to me tenderly, gently. There was a strength and a ferocity to Armand's lovemaking that I was totally unprepared for, and I found myself moaning softly into the pillows, overcome with the power of it.

When it was over, I felt nearly drained. I lay unmoving on those soft, luxurious pillows, my breath faltering, my body weak and aching yet enormously satisfied. Armand kissed my closed eyelids, his hands moving gently over my shoulders in a slow massage, and the sensation was wonderful. I realized suddenly that he wanted me to take his blood in return now, that he desperately wanted it with every fiber of his being, but I could not. I thought about the night Louis and I had joined together in ecstasy, passing the blood around and around in an endless circle, and the pleasure had been so intense, so all-consuming, that it seemed the universe was being remade around us. Only with Louis could I have this kind of spiritual connection. I owed him that much.

I don't know what went through Armand's mind then; his thoughts have always been closed to me, unless he wanted me to read them. I hoped that I hadn't hurt him too deeply. He said nothing as he drew slowly back onto his haunches above me, one hand still massaging languidly into my shoulders, my throat. He reached for the small buzzer that would summon his human servant and gave low instructions over the intercom that I could not hear. I was very weak now, drifting in the aftermath of our pleasure. I could smell his warm blood, and it was maddening to me. Yet I could not take it.

The human servant appeared after a moment with another mortal in tow. This one was male, twenty or twenty-five years old, and exceptionally handsome. His hands were secured tightly behind his back, and the scent of his wild fear filled the room. It excited me. I could almost taste him, and my eyes hungrily followed the contours of his perfect body, his perfect face.

"A gift for you, my love," Armand murmured, giving a last affectionate stroke with his fingers to the side of my cheek. He slid languidly off of my body and settled back comfortably in an armchair to one side of the window seat, sending his servant away with a soft word.

I was nearly mad with hunger, with desire for this succulent, young mortal that my lover was gifting me with. The young man's eyes were wide with terror, his nostrils flaring with heated breaths as he fought to get his rampaging emotions under control. I briefly touched his thoughts and saw that he was the president of a local street gang. A murderer and a thief. And a rapist. Oh, such divine justice. I went to him, using my newly learned powers of persuasion to calm the fears in his mind, as Armand had taught me. He did not struggle as I touched his face, his throat. When I bit into his neck and started to drink, he twitched once, then went still. And then there was nothing but the blood.

I knew Armand was watching me. He sat in his chair by the window like an observer at the theatre, taking sublime and carnal pleasure in every aspect of the feeding. I felt naked and exposed suddenly, as if he were watching me have sex with another man, but the hunger was too great. It was over quickly.

We left the body for his human servants to dispose of and left for the city once again. I knew that the scent of fresh blood in me excited him, that he wanted to make love to me again. But I was restless suddenly. Ever attentive to my needs, he brought me out into the civilization that I suddenly craved.

More time passed. He made love to me many times, though I never took the blood from him in return. He came to accept this, I think, that I was not truly his. We were happy together, and there was no end to the things he had to teach.

But inevitably, the time came when I started to long for simpler things. He resisted at first, making love to me more frequently and with greater passion, as if he might dissolve me into himself so that I would be with him forever. His reluctance to let me go touched the deepest part of me, and I tried for his sake to concentrate on his lessons. But my heart was not in it. I didn't need a teacher anymore; I needed a soulmate. I needed Louis.

"Go," he told me one wintry, December evening as we stood together on a bridge overlooking the Seine. I looked at him sharply, disbelieving. He didn't say another word; he just stood there, staring out at the swiftly flowing water, the wind stirring in his long hair. I laid my hand on his for a moment, unable to find the words to say what I needed to say. But no words were necessary; I knew he could read the thoughts and feelings in my soul.

I left him then. I returned to New Orleans that very night, on a private jet that had been left for me without explanation on Armand's private airfield. The night was more than half over by the time I arrived, but I moved without pausing through the city streets, searching. My heart ached at the sight of these familiar avenues, and a part of me sang inside as I realized that I had finally, truly come home.

I found him standing beside the fountain by the bridge where we had first met, staring up at the stars. I paused for a moment, just watching him, the breath catching in my throat as I drank in his beauty. How could I have forgotten?

Suddenly I was running to him, needing desperately to feel his arms around me. He must have sensed me coming long before I left the airstrip, but still he turned slowly to meet me, and the desperate light of happiness that ignited within his eyes was enough to make me delirious with an answering joy. We came together in a deep embrace, and his arms felt so very right around me. This was what I had been missing, what I had been longing for, all this time.

And nothing else mattered.

********

Time advanced.

I fell in love with New Orleans all over again. There is nothing precisely like the feeling of coming home, and Louis and I were happy there together again, for a time. After a while, I went out on my own, but I knew I would come back to him. Louis, my immortal lover and my soul's companion. My love for him only deepened as time went on.

I saw Lestat not once in all those years, but then, I made no serious effort to seek him out. There was something within me that would not let me so much as think his name, although I could not have described what this reluctance was, exactly. I was not yet ready to meet my maker.

The confrontation between us came much sooner than I would have thought, I who had determined to put centuries between us. It came about on the forgotten husk of the once-legendary Night Island, where I occasionally found myself when I needed to regain my focus on the world. It holds a fascination for me that has grown increasingly strident in these later years, as my thoughts turn more and more often to the gaping maw of eternity that yawns before me.

I've found myself coming to this forgotten sanctuary more often as the years fade past. And I still don't know what it is I hope to find. It seems somehow that the lines which separate me from the living realm are less clearly defined here, where mortals once laughed and lived in tandem with their supernatural hosts, however unknowingly. At times, I believe I can hear the lingering traces of their laughter on the air, their hopes, their dreams, their sense of belonging to the world in which they walk. Without the scent of their blood to distract me, it is a powerful experience. It helps me to regain my own sense of belonging, of connection to the world around me.

Only ghosts haunt Night Island now. I can feel the echoes of them, those great ones who had once walked these beaches and these halls. Maharet and Khayman, the eldest of us, each of them more than six thousand years old. The mind boggles. Mael and Marius, Pandora, Gabrielle, my very own Armand and Louis, and the newborn fledglings of the twentieth century. I breathe and I can taste them on the air.

I wondered briefly, as I stepped onto the beach from the small trawler that had brought me here, if any of them ever long for the warmth of the sun, as I do.

It was Lestat I noticed, however, as I entered the main floor where the majority of our kind had once gathered. For once, the flitting memories of the bastard others of our kind failed to catch my eye; my attention was focused solely on him, where his slender form was silhouetted against the broad, floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the edge of the ocean beneath us. I could see his face reflected on the glass, held trapped within the glittering mosaic of stars that painted the span of the night sky outside. He was watching me, in the window's reflection. It took me a moment to realize that he was real, and not one of the memories that walked these floors like living specters within the night.

I stopped at the entrance to the room, knowing in my heart that I had expected to find him here, that I had, in fact, hoped for it. But why? What could I possibly have to say to him? Wolfkiller, Brat Prince, haunt of the Savage Garden, tormentor and murderer and immortal father. I understood so much now, that I had never truly thought about before. And even so, the reasons why were slow in coming. Some might never be discovered.

And I realized at that moment that I did not hate him. It was a feeling of freedom, of euphoria, as I recognized that. There was no longer any hatred between us. Time had dulled the blade of memory within me, and understanding of his circumstances had softened the blow of betrayal. I would never love Lestat, but it was enough, for now, to know that I did not hate him. In the glass, he met my eyes and smiled.

Age. Age and consequence. It's all I can think of here, as I sense the lingering echo of the forms that I might take in later years. So much life, fed by blood, by hapless lives and the dying dreams of innocents. And they are all innocent, every one of them, because they do not know what we know, and they do not do what we do. They live, and they die, while we ... go on. It is all we know how to do, until even the reasons why are lost to us. And I do not have your strength of heart, my poet.

It seemed much later when I stood before that same window, and I realized only then that I was alone. Or at least as alone as one could ever be on Night Island. The great room seemed yawningly empty around me, but it suited my mood perfectly. The moonlight glinted silver off of the black waves at the edge of the beach outside, a spot of brightness within the night.

I was not at all surprised when Louis found me there. It seemed a night for revelations. He stepped up behind me, and I leaned against him, enjoying the feeling of being close to him again. I could be perfectly happy, if only I could exist as I was right there, within the circle of his arms.

"I've missed you," he said to me, the words the softest of whispers against my hair.

Ah, yes, it had been a long while this time, hadn't it, since I'd been to New Orleans? Of course he would have missed me. And I missed him, always, even when we were together it seemed, because I was anticipating the next time that I would be apart from him.

"What is it within you that will not let you be happy?" he asked.

I had to think about that one. I had been so exceedingly restless lately, as if I was searching for something that I could not identify, much less ever find. Did he know that I had been thinking of the fire, that the thought of eternity, now that I had tasted it, terrified me in ways that nothing else had ever done? Fire was one of the few ways that our kind could be killed, at least theoretically. Although I had my doubts that it would work on me, I who had been born of Lestat's legendary and most potent of blood-gifts. So long ago it seemed.

A moment later, I felt a lance of bitter amusement at the thought. Of course he knew. Of course they all knew.

But for now, I let the dark thoughts go and merely allowed myself to be cradled within his arms. My dark angel, to whom I come for absolution. The light of worlds sparks in your bright eyes, light moonlight glinting off of a dark sea. Worlds within worlds, and I am so very lost here, lost to the buffeting winds of time, and I am helpless to stand firm against it. It frightens me. Time moves on, and carries us with it. That, in the end, is the epitaph that each of us holds.

"Is it the killing?" he asked me.

I shook my head. The killing that we did in order to survive had never truly bothered me; this was a part of me that he had never genuinely come to terms with.

"There is not enough blood in all the world to slake our thirst," I told him, hoping that he would comprehend the reasons for my unease. It was something that had troubled me greatly on more than one occasion, this need, this passion for the life-blood, this glistening thread of purest crimson that bound us each one to the other and drew us forward, ever onward, into the dark.

His breath was warm against my hair as he sighed. "There's more."

I smiled. He knew me so very well. "Mostly I just ... envy them. I want to be them, Louis, because they know their reasons why. They know why they go on, day after day, as they walk in the daylight and feel the heat of the sun on their faces. Even when they don't believe that they know, they do."

He nodded, understanding. It was a relief to know that he did, indeed, understand, that I was not alone in this interpretation of mortal existence. It was something we all longed for, at some point in our lives, to go back to that, to reclaim the innocence and the surety that we had lost. I know that now, and I have learned not to be afraid of it.

"You've forgiven him," he said at last. I did not need to ask to whom he referred.

"Yes," I replied. And there was a feeling of momentous import to that, although I could not have said why. Perhaps it was the sense that all the chapters of my life were at last drawing to a close.

Silence then, as we each held tightly to the other, and I breathed in the heady not-scent of his hair. It seemed so perfect to stand here with him, and I was transported for a moment to that earlier time, that innocent time, when we had stood together as mortal and immortal, and there was nothing but poetry and love and light between us. Somewhere in the far corner of the room, a memory stirred. But no, not a memory this time; the light from the window caught on the edges of dark auburn hair, pooling in the depths of eyes that had seen all too clearly the pitfalls of eternity. And suddenly I no longer felt quite so alone.

"Did you get what you wanted?" I asked into the stillness that hung heavy in the air, not sure, even then, which of them I addressed.

For one moment, I could see the pain that my words drew out of them both as clearly as if it were blood dripping from an open wound. The poignancy of it made me close my eyes in sympathy.

"Yes," Louis said at last, in a voice that was barely audible in the silence that enfolded us. I know he understood then as clearly as if he had seen into the bottom of my soul, how those who are unfortunate enough to be caught between the gods of war cannot help but be crushed within their embrace. And for all of that, I could not help but love him, poor fiend. Lestat may have taken my body, but you, Louis, my poet, my dark angel ... you're the one who took my soul.

*I love you.*

*I hate you.*

The thoughts hung glistening in the air between us, strident as the dawn. I felt him smile against my hair. *I know.*

The tightening of his arms around my waist was the only warning that I received. I gave a little gasp as he sank his teeth into the side of my neck, his body warm and sinuous where it pressed against me from behind. I saw Armand out of the corner of my eye, a lithe and deadly shadow that came further into focus with each passing moment, as the stars danced and whirled before my eyes. He had been keeping his distance, unsure, perhaps, of competing with Louis for my affections, but he came forward now and knelt in front of me, so that his form was silhouetted before me against the night. He took hold of my hand and kissed my open palm, smoothing his fingers languidly up to the crook of my arm. The tenderness of the gesture, the gentle worship inherent in it, made me smile. I understood the silent question and did nothing to stop him as he sank his teeth into my wrist, drawing hungrily on the fount of blood that met him there.

There was surprisingly little pain. Being made love to by two men at once was dizzying, all-consuming, and I swooned with the force of it. I sensed no jealousy in Louis; he knows that my heart is his alone, even at this moment - no, especially at this moment, above all. I could feel their teeth latched onto my flesh, sharp points of ragged darkness that drew out my blood, my life, my light, my soul, and I gave myself to them both with unreserved abandon.

My eyesight began to blur as they lowered me to the ground, and I caught a fevered glimpse of the Brat Prince himself then, in all of his resplendent glory, hovering at the outside of the room. How beautiful he looks, and how fitting that he should be here for this, in spirit if not in body. I do not hate you, Lestat. All this time, it was truly myself I hated, for not having had the strength of will to deny the gift you offered me. How much easier it would have been if you had forced me, if you had not given me the choice. The monsters in the stories I was told as a child were always so clearly defined. It was always obvious who the villains were.

My vision is dimming; I cannot see the stars anymore, and that saddens me. I had so hoped that there would be stars, here at the denouement of my life, which is both height and depth to me, the sum total of all that I have ever lived for or dreamed.

I can hear music, faintly now, but growing stronger. It takes me a moment to recognize it as the stirring chords that Louis once played for me on his piano in our apartment in New Orleans. The sound of it brings a smile to my face, and I know that wherever I am going, it will be a happy place. I can no longer feel Louis' arms around me, although the sense of him is strong in my mind. He is with me here, now, as he has been with me in his way throughout my entire life.

I can see it all now, how he found me when I was just a child, and followed me, nurtured me, until the day when he judged that I was finally old enough for him to reveal himself to me. My entire life has been orchestrated out of his loneliness, his desire for companionship, and I cannot even hate him for it. Not here. Not now.

*Remember me,* I say to them, as the walls press in around me. There is a yawning precipice beneath my feet, and I am tottering at the brink of it.

I feel him smile. *Of course. Do you think that we would forget you?*

And from Armand, *Sleep, love. We're here to catch you when you fall.*

The void is calling to me. I will sleep now, yes, and by giving in to the void, I will be saving myself from the fire. It is in the nature of our kind to go into the ground when the pressures of eternity become too heavy to bear. Perhaps I will rise again, in another age, a friendlier age, after I have had the time to rest, and to be reborn. And they will be waiting for me, my family of angels, my monsters, my beautiful coven of night-shrouded fiends.

The music swells around me, and I feel a last stirring of sadness for my decision, but no real regret. This is how it should have been, all those years ago, when Lestat looked me in the eyes and told me, "Choose." I choose now, as I should have chosen then, and there are no regrets within me. Here at the edge of the darkness, there is only love.

And then there are only stars.

The End
9/11/00