Children of the Night
As Ileana walked along the dark and lonely byways of the bustling English capital, she carefully avoided the main thoroughfares, where even late at night groups of people congregated on corners and in doorways. Her family had only recently moved to the city, and she was not yet accustomed to her new environment.
Ileana's parents both worked overnight shifts. Her father was a night watchman at Barclays Bank, and her mother was a waitress at an all-night diner. Once her parents left the house to go to work, Ileana usually went outside and explored the murky corners of her latest home. Unlike most young girls, she had no fear of the dark. On the contrary, she considered the night her closest friend.
As she walked down a shadowy alley, fondly remembering the rolling green fields she had left behind in Ireland, Ileana detected a sudden movement in the darkness.
"Who's there?" a female voice cried out in fear. "What do you want?"
"Don't be frightened," Ileana replied. "I'm not a mugger or a rapist."
A young woman, who looked to be approximately the same age as Ileana, stepped out of the darkness and into the dim light that shone down from a window in a flat two floors up. She was dressed in a long, black gown with voluminous sleeves. Her hair, dyed a flat, lusterless black, fell straight down around her shoulders, and her pale makeup and dark eyeliner gave her a slightly cadaverous appearance.
"Are you going to Lestat's, too?" the young woman in black asked, clearly uncomfortable in her dismal surroundings. "If you are, can I walk with you?"
Ileana did not reply; she simply fell in step with the stranger.
"I don't think we've ever met," the girl said. "My name is Elvira."
"Ileana. I've only been in London a few weeks, so I don't know my way around yet."
"A runaway, huh? You should feel right at home at Lestat's then."
Ileana did not bother to enlighten her newfound companion about her destination, or rather her lack of one. Instead, the two young women walked in silence for several minutes, and then Elvira stopped in front of an abandoned warehouse where the sound of rock music floated up from the basement. They followed the beat down to a cavernous cellar that had been turned into a haven for Lestat and his motley group of friends.
Ileana was amused by the macabre décor of the room. The walls and ceiling had been painted black to match the carpeting on the floor. Flickering electric candelabras and wall sconces gave off an eerily dim light that was in competition with the wax candles that burned on every table and countertop. Most bizarre of all, there were several wooden coffins placed around the room, scattered among the sofas and chairs. It looked as though someone had decorated for a Halloween party. All that was missing was a carved jack-o-lantern.
"Welcome," a voice announced from out of the shadows.
Ileana turned and saw a young man—seventeen or eighteen years of age—dressed in fashionable Gothic attire.
"I'm Lestat," he introduced himself.
Ileana was clearly not impressed by her spurious vampire host.
When the young man saw the look of amusement in her blue-gray eyes, he quickly added, "That's not my real name, of course. None of us here goes by his real name."
"Why not?"
"Because we abhor reality," Lestat replied. "We much prefer to live in a world of our own making. We begin our journey by changing our names. Come; let me introduce you to some of the other Children of the Night."
Drakul, Bram, Mina, Boris, Harker, Renfield, Lucy, Bela and Vlad were practically carbon copies of Lestat and Elvira: they all had black clothing, dyed black hair and unnaturally pale complexions. Ileana's silvery blond hair and pastel lavender dress created a sharp contrast.
"Is this some kind of club?" Ileana asked, looking around the cellar.
"No, not really," Lestat replied. "It's our home. We all live here."
"Lestat's father owns this building," Vlad explained.
"Not to mention most of the property in this part of London," Harker added.
"And he lets you all live here rent-free?" Ileana asked.
"Yes," Mina answered.
"That's very generous of him."
"Not really," Lestat said bitterly. "You see, I'm somewhat of an embarrassment to the mater and the pater. I don't fit in with their preconceived image of a proper British son. I think they let us all stay here so that they can get me out of the house."
Realizing Lestat's relationship with his parents was a touchy topic, Ileana tactfully changed the subject.
"I can easily understand your aversion to reality. God knows the world sucks—no pun intended. But why the Bram Stoker/Anne Rice/Nosferatu setting? Couldn't you create a world that was a tad more—cheerful?"
"We are what we are, and our clothing and our environment reflect that."
"And what are you?"
"Vampires."
Ileana laughed, and a hurt expression crossed Lestat's handsome, young face.
"I'm sorry," she immediately apologized. "I didn't mean to insult you, but vampires? You can't be serious!"
"Don't misunderstand me. My friends and I don't claim to be actual supernatural monsters like the legendary Dracula. We're not the undead. We can't transform into bats or wolves and roam the countryside, killing victims by sucking their life's blood out of them; but like Wiccans practicing a modern-day form of benevolent witchcraft, the Children of the Night practice a more up-to-date, humane form of vampirism."
"Which entails what, exactly? Dressing up in trendy clothes from a London Gothic shop and decorating this place with cheap Halloween decorations?"
If Lestat took any offense from her question, he hid it well.
"It's true that we enjoy the theatrical, horror movie atmosphere we've created here, but our vampirism goes much deeper than our black clothes and macabre décor. All of us here, like Bram Stoker's Count Dracula and Anne Rice's Lestat, live by night and avoid the light of day. We sleep in caskets, and we drink blood."
Ileana's eyes widened. Lestat mistook her look of amazement for one of fear.
"We don't actually harm anyone," he hastily assured her. "Our bloodletting is ceremonial only. On specified nights, we gather together, open a small cut in our skin and taste the red nectar that flows from our wounds."
"Aside from other dangers, aren't you afraid of getting AIDS?"
"No. We each drink our own blood, never the blood of others."
"Lestat," Elvira whined, bored with all the talk, "when do we party?"
"Yes, my dear. Enough talk for one evening. Let's enjoy ourselves."
The rest of the night was spent in a way similar to that known to most teenagers. There was music and laughter; eating, drinking and smoking; dancing and kissing. Whether Lestat made a move on all the young girls who entered his lair or whether his interest in her was genuine, Ileana did not know. But the handsome son of one of London's wealthiest manufacturers never left her side that night.
After explaining his unusual lifestyle to her at great length, he plied her with dozens of questions of his own.
"Why did your family leave Ireland and come to England?" he asked.
"They grew tired of sheep farming, and there were greater opportunities in the city."
Lestat smiled.
"I can see why you'd want to leave then. I imagine sheep make terrible conversationalists."
As Good Charlotte blared out of his Bose sound system, Lestat tried to romance Ileana. However, the girl resisted his advances.
"What's wrong?" he asked. "Am I too weird for your taste?"
"No, not at all. I'm just not hungry right now," she laughed.
* * *
Ileana returned to the abandoned warehouse several times during the next few weeks. On her fourth visit, she discovered Lestat and his friends lying silent and motionless in their caskets while Claude Debussy's "Clair de Lune" playing on the stereo enhanced the funereal atmosphere of the gloomy surroundings.
No one spoke or stirred when she entered the room.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
Lestat rose from his coffin like the legendary Transylvanian count and took Ileana in his arms, seeking solace from the closeness of a fellow human being.
"I needed a hug," he explained—a comment that seemed totally out of character with his vampire image.
"I repeat: what's wrong?"
Lestat handed her a newspaper article clipped from the Telegraph.
"It's Renfield," he explained despondently. "He's dead."
Ileana read the short write-up.
"How do you know it was him? It says here, 'unidentified male.'"
"Drakul stumbled upon his body three nights ago. He was in the alley right outside the warehouse. We dragged the corpse to the place where it was later found."
"Why?"
"We didn't want the police searching the area. We like our privacy."
"I don't blame you," Ileana said. "If the authorities take a look at this place, they are likely to lock you all up."
"Not Lestat," Bram interrupted. "His father would bail him out, but the rest of us would be sent home to our parents."
Elvira groaned.
"I'd sooner go to borstal than be sent back to Hampsthwaite!"
"Well, don't worry," Ileana said confidently. "I don't think the police will connect Renfield's death to any of you."
* * *
In the following month, four more runaways were found murdered; all of them had at one time shown up at Lestat's abandoned warehouse. The remaining young people who lived there—the self-proclaimed Children of the Night—began to fear for their own safety. Boris and Vlad showed signs of uneasiness whenever left alone in the company of young Lestat.
"What if all this vampire stuff went to this head?" Vlad asked when they were out of Lestat's hearing.
"You think he killed Renfield and the others?"
"The idea has crossed my mind."
"Mine, too," Boris admitted. "In fact, I've been thinking about moving on."
He and Vlad eventually left Lestat's macabre hideaway but not of their own accord. Yet unlike the other five victims, their bodies were never found. Thus, their fellow Children of the Night did not learn of their fate and assumed that the two had simply run away again.
Then, one night three weeks after the two young men were last seen by their fellow "vampires," Ileana walked the dark streets of London from her home to the abandoned warehouse and came upon Lestat in a deserted alley.
"Ileana," he called, "is that you?"
The young man, incongruously dressed in a pair of stylish blue jeans and a Blackpool T-shirt, appeared to be disoriented, and there were tears in his haunted brown eyes.
"Lestat?"
"My name is Kyle," he corrected her. "Kyle Atherton."
His voice sounded weak and whiny like that of a small child.
"I like Lestat better," Ileana said soothingly. "It suits you more."
Kyle's sad tears turned to bitter laughter.
"I'm a fake—a cosmic joke! I'm no more a vampire than I am a brain surgeon."
"Is that what you really want? To be a vampire? To be a prisoner of the night? Never to know the warmth of the sun? To be feared and hated by everyone? To be hunted because you yourself are nothing more than a hunter that preys on the innocent to survive?"
"It's better than being what I really am," he stubbornly insisted.
"Oh? And what exactly is that?"
"Unloved. Unwanted. I don't belong in my parents' world, and now ...."
His voice trailed off.
"Tell me what happened."
"The Children of the Night have deserted me. Those who were left have packed up and gone. I have no one now."
Ileana took his hand and declared, "You have me."
"But you'll leave me, too, eventually."
"No, I won't, not ever. We can belong to each other for all eternity."
She stepped forward and placed her arms around his neck. Gently, she kissed his lips, his cheek and his neck. Then she gave him the fatal kiss that made him a real vampire—like her.
* * *
In an abandoned warehouse along a little-traveled back street of London, homeless teenagers were welcomed to stay in its cavernous cellar. They were offered drinks, hot food and a warm place to sleep. At least temporarily, these wandering nomads found a place where they felt as if they belonged.
At a table in the corner of the room, Ileana turned to Lestat and whispered, "Which one?"
"How about the tall redheaded guy with the freckles? I didn't like the way he looked at you when he came in."
"The ginger it is then."
When the redheaded young man with the freckled face left Lestat's warehouse later that night, he didn't hear the two vampires that followed closely behind him.
After they drained the boy's blood between them, Kyle Atherton asked his mate, "Were you ever sorry your parents left Ireland and brought you here to London?"
"No. In fact, we were all relieved to put the Emerald Isle behind us. The farmers eventually became suspicious of us when so many of their sheep were found dead, but here in the city, with its never-ending stream of homeless people, derelicts and runaways, we can live undetected among the human race. To our kind," she said, daintily wiping a drop of blood from her lips, "London is like an all-you-can-eat buffet!"
Salem once wanted to be a vampire. He went by the name Cat Dracula, Creature of the Night.
