A Before the Dawn Spec

4. Heart of Darkness

by Auden 1996

Part One: (David)

I woke that night to the sounds of an argument in full force, accompanied by the crash of breaking objects that was beginning to seem too familiar. I dressed slowly, hoping that my vampire companions would have worked out their differences by the time I left my room. But this argument, whatever its original cause, was beginning to sound serious.

"You don't own me!" Louis' voice rising as he strained to be heard. "I have my own life, apart from you!"

"I *gave* you your life! Remember?" A dull thud, as if something had hit the wall.

"Let me GO!"

"Stop struggling, Louis," Lestat's voice a dangerous growl. Then, possessively: "You're over-reacting again, you *know* you are."

"Dammit, Lesat! This is not a game to me!" A crash and a cry of alarm suggested that Louis had been successful in evading his tormenter. I sighed and made my way into the living room.

Living with Louis and Lestat had proved difficult in ways I could not have imagined. I had thought the most difficult part of my new life would have proved the taking of blood, the emotional leap necessary after my birth to darkness, as Lestat liked to put it. Instead I had found that easy to deal with compared to the strain of living with my friend and his lover.

It had been difficult enough at first. Louis trying hard to make ovetures of friendship, while struggling with a jealousy he felt too guilty to admit to. Lestat's huge ego forcing him to pretend that everything was alright, while he watched Louis with such an intense hunger that it alarmed me. These two had known each other for over twice the length of my mortal life. They had lived together, loved together, and despite it all were as edgy with each other as two long-tailed cats in a room full of china. Then the tension in the house had increased when they had succeeded in initiating a sexual relationship, something assumed to be impossible. That had increased the difficulties. For them, because of the pain that seemed an unavoidable part of their union. For me, because it only deepened the sensation that I was an unwelcome intruder in their union.

I had become acutely uncomfortable about living with them, often leaving the house for the entire night, returning warily least I should interrupt yet another love-making session. It has never ceased to amaze me that, given the number of bedrooms where Lestat could pursue a discreet seduction, he has to pounce on Louis in the middle of the living room, or in the front hall, or on one extremely embarrassing occasion halfway up the stairs. I would have liked to move out, but was still too much of a novice, too uncertain of my vampire abilities. And Lestat had said once that the older members of their race might resent my creation, once they learnt of what he had done.

But as problematic as it was for me to cope with their love-affair, things became immeasurably harder when Lestat and Louis started to argue. The minor complaints had gradually escalated into bitter fights, and finally into all out war. Louis resented Lestat's arrogance, the possessiveness that even I found cloying. Lestat saw only that Lous was pushing him away again and fought even harder to smother him with a claustrophobic devotion.

I reached the door of the living room and hesitated. A crash of breaking glass, the vase on the fireplace, I decided. A pity, I had liked that. Then I opened the door and went in. Two sets of eyes immediately focused on me, both glowing with anger and frustration, Then they turned back to each other.

"Will you *stop* breaking things?" Louis demanded. "David and I happen to live here as well, you know."

"Then *you* explain to David what happened to the window!" Lestat hissed and I glanced at it automatically. The glass had been shattered for what was at least the third time in as many weeks.

"Don't worry, I'm used to it," I said with a shrug, hoping my nonchalance would tease one of them into laughter. I hated it when they dragged me into their rows, playing peace-maker was the only way I could avoid it. Crossing to the book shelves I took down a thick volume and setled myself in an armchair. Lestat regarded me wih disbelief, Louis with a hurt expression. Ignoring both of them I turned on a small side-light, then looked up.

"Oh, don't mind me ," I said calmly. "I'm so used to the sounds of things breaking, that I wouldn't know what to do if you suddenly stopped."

"David!" Lestat attempted a glare, but the corner of that wide mouth was twitching deliciously. He looked at Louis, still on the other side of the room, hands clenched tightly into fists, then looked back at me. Eventually he shrugged. "I'm sorry about the vase," he said, as much to Louis as to me, although it was my eyes he met half-apologetically, half-mischievously.

"You're always sorry," a cold voice slced across the room. "And you never mean it."

I bit my lip, apparrently this fight had yet to run its course. Lestat's irridescent eyes had shifted from blue to grey, a danger sign.

"You're never satisfied, are you?" he asked harshly. "You criticise and complain, and never do I hear a word of thanks for anything!"

"Thanks?" An expression of contempt crossed Louis' face. "For what, Lestat? For making me what I am... a killer like you?"

Lestat stiffened, the words striking him like a physical blow, he began to turn away, ready to had for the door. But something forced him back, made him spit out one last bitter sentence. Lestat, always having to have the last word.

"That is the truth isn't it?" he hissed. "You didn't mean it when you said you loved me for giving it to you... what did you call it?" He paused, angrily: "The 'artifice of eternity'? He laughed, shortly. "So much for that, cher." He headed for the door, his movements jagged and sharp, wrenched it open.

Behind him a tortured whisper broke from Louis, unable to help himself:

"Lestat, please..."

Then the door closed with a bang and I heard Lestat leaving, the front door slamming only seconds later.

Louis collapsed into an armchair, spent with exhustion, his eyes filling with tears.

"You should leave too," I suggested quietly. "You ned to feed."

"You think I should have followed him," Louis said softly.

"No, not this time," I sighed again. "He proabably needs some time. Work it out on his victims."

"And I have his kills on my conscience as well as my own," Louis said, still quietly.

"You shouldn't have baited him with that," I told him. "You know how he feels about giving you the dark gift. Especially after your book."

"I know," Louis groaned. "It wasn't fair, and it wasn't even true. But he makes me so angry, David! He thinks I belong to him!"

"Louis," I opned my mouth to form the usual words of consolation and sympathy, but they didn't come out. "I'm sick of this," I said bitterly. "I'm tired of the constant arguments, the fighting. I'm not going to live with you two anymore if this is what it's going to be like." I stood up, resolution making me bold. "I', moving out," I decided. "And, if you have any sense, you will as well."

"Leave?" Louis looked shocked. "How could I leave?" It would kill Lestat."

"Perhaps a separation might be good for you," I told him. "It might help you to find some balance in your relationship." I consideed it for a while, then shook my head, discarding the thought. "At any rate, it's your problem, not mine." I headed for the door. "I'm going to pack, Louis. When I've found someplace to stay I'll contact you."

"David, wait." Louis hastened to my side, taking my arm gently. "You're right, it's not your responsibility to solve our problems. I'm sorry this has been so hard on you..." His voice trailed off, trying to find words for the impossible.

"Louis," I smiled a him. "I'll be fine. Don't worry. I hope you can work it out with Lestat."

"I hope so too," Louis bent his head a little, trying to conceal the worry that flitted across his face.

"Don't look so despondent," I put my arms around him in a comofrting hug, trying to give him some of my strength. "At least he's finally admitted that he loves you" I pointed out. "It's not all bad."

"No," Louis brightened a little. "It's not all bad," he agreed and a teasing smile caught at his mouth. I couldn't prevent an answering smile creeping across my face, knowing what he was thinking, and catching the flavour of some distinctly erotic thoughts from him.

"I think Lestat's beginning to rub off on you!" I challenged him and he blushed.

"Maybe," he smiled enigmatically. Then he glanced through the door which still lay open. "I suppose I *should* follow him," he said and I laughed.

"You know, Louis," I told him as he descended the stairs. "Sometimes I think you stage these fights just so you can make up." His answering laugh floated back up to me, and warmed me as I went to my room to pack.

Part Two: (Lestat)

I wonder what it is about me that makes mortals try to rob me. It happens so often that sometimes I wonder if it's more than coincidence. After all, other people can walk the streets all their lives without ever being attacked. But me, me they try to rush sometimes two or three a night.

Is it the areas I frequent, the dangerous sections of cities, where the low-life can be found? Or is it my clothes, the way the exude wealth? or possibly my smile as I mock the dangers of the night? I don't know. It annoys me, their constant presence, watching me as I pass, wondering whether to attack. The footsteps behind me. Of course, some nights, like this one, I welcome the attention. But with three drained in three different alley-ways, I was tiring of the kill.

I speeded up, moving so swiftly that no one would see me to attack, not slackening spped until I reached a better lit area. The lights of a vast shopping complex welcomed me and I entered it with relief, the doors sliding closed behind me. Louis would not be pleased if he found out about those three kills I had made this eveinging, it would be better if I had no more to rrouble my conscience. Gave him no more occasions to reprimand me.

A man stepped quickly out of my path and I realised I had been glaring again. The thought of my argument with Louis bringing back that surge of emotion. Ignoring the mortal I turned aside, entering a record store. I wondered idily if I would find my own album here, tucked away somewhere. Maybe in the bargain section, I thought, and laughed silently. The Vampire Lestat at a bargain. I flipped casually through the stacks of CDs, pursuing the thought unwillingly. Louis had got me at a bargain hadn't he? Immortality for his plantation house, I snorted. Stepped back from the rack of albums to allow some other customer to make a selection. Leaving the store I returned to the main body of the mall.

Usually I love the gleaming lights, love the multiplicity of choices that this century has to offer. But tonight I had no heart for it. Despite this wonderful miracle of consumerism, the piped music jingling in the background, I felt myself back in the New Orleans of the past. The swamps and filth, the mud that seemed to get everywhere, the rattling carriages and the creaking houses. And darkness, darkness everywhere. No electric lights to make the night as bright as day. Only the true stifling darkness of the vampire's prison. All colours blending into the murky shadows.

I sighed, transported back against my will. It had been a night like that when I had found Louis. Had seen him wandering aimlessly through those black streets and kew that I would make him mine. I remembered the first rush of his blood through me, swallowing his life by mouthfuls, the delicious taste of him. My head swum with the memory of it and I had to lean against the railing of the escalator as I traveled up to the next level of the complex. I caught myself with a jerk as I arrived there, nearly falling as the escalator came level with th floor. I grimaced at my clumsiness, rare for me to be caught off-guard. But oh, the thought of it. My Louis. I felt almost faint. I had left him that night, it was not until two nights later that I made him what I was, that I had taken him in my arms and brought him to me. I sighed, rememering the intoxicating scent of him as he pressed against me that night in my coffin. The taste of his lips as his mouth brushed mine in a kiss he hardly dared to give, using the darkness as a cover. Remembered the way he used to try not to look at me, his gaze drawn back almost irresistably, and how we had stared with our vampire eyes, drinking in the beauty of each other.

Suddenly I felt an urge to know what he had felt then, wanted desperately to know what he had felt when he kissed me that night, all the nights afterwards as we shared our immortal love. But he wasn't here, was probably telling David even now how angry I made him, how impossible it was. My eyes drifted around the shopping centre as I mused, alighted suddenly on a book store. I felt myself tense as the idea caught me. There was one way I could be close to him, even when he was away. It was a bad idea, I knew. The only other copy of that book I had ever held in my hands had been ripped to shreds. But it had been so long, so long since I read those words. And so much had changed since then. Surely I would be able to control the anger.

I had crossed to the gaily decorated windows of the book store before I could stop myself, staring in. I wondered if they even had it. Then the door opened, a mortal came out. A college student, clutching her little plastic carrier, meeting my eyes shyly as she held the door open for me. I murmurd something, words of thanks. Entered in a daze. I wasn't sure how I knew where to look, only that I found it. A small paperback, gold lettering picked out on the cover, an illustration that made me smile distastefully. The crude representation that was nothing to the reality of Louis. I held it in my hands, knew I had to have it. I crossed to the cashier, paid for it with a too large bill, stuffing the change into my pockets, not caring for the man's look of suprise. I discarded he little whisp of paper he had given me, and the paper bag that wrapped my book, as soon as I had left the shop, in a large metal wastebin. Then I found myself a seat on a low uncomfortable bench, flipping through the first few pages until I found what I wanted.

I read slowly, trying to hold back my anger at the little insults that laced the pages, savouring instead the sound of Louis' words, imagining him speaking them. He raced through his making as a vampire with an almost indelicate haste, missing out so much, leaving so much unsaid. His reticence would have been appealing, had I not wanted so desperately to be close to him.

"....that was positively the most intelligent and useful thing Lestat ever said in my presence, and it brought me around at once. 'Now, I'm getting into the coffin,' he finally said to me in his most disdainful tone, 'and you will get in on top of me if you know what's good for you'. And I did. I lay face-down on him, utterly confused by my absence of dread and filled with a distaste for being so close to him, handsome and intrigiung though he was. And he shut the lid. Then I asked him if I was completely dead. My body was tingling all over. 'No, you're not then,' he said. 'When you are, you'll only hear and see it changing and feel nothing. You should be dead by tonight. Go to sleep.'...."

I tried to ignore the tightness in my chest, but to to avail. I was remembering why it was that I had ripped my last copy of this little book to shreds and fighting the impulse to treat this one the same way. 'Distaste' he had said, that was what he had felt for me. The magical moment when he had surrendered himself to me had been overshadowed by that. I read on, and this time it was only the gibes that caught my attention, little hooks sinking into my flesh.

"....I did not like Lestat at all. I was far from being his equal yet, but I was infinitely closer to him than I had been before the death of my body. I can't really make this clear to you for the obvious reason that you are now as I was before my body died. You cannot understand. But, before I died, Lestat was absolutely the most overwhelming *experience* I'd ever had...."

An *experience*, Louis? I mused. Was that it? And so you disliked me. I wondered if any words could be more painful. Hard enough to bear all those years that he had hated me. Hard enough to stand under the weight of his accusations and my guilt. But worse still to think that he *disliked* me. The utter contempt of that word.

"....The trip back to Point du Lac was thrilling. And the constant chatter of Lestat was positively the most boring and disheartening thing I had ever experienced...."

Oh, Louis. I blinked rapidly, refusing to allow myself to cry. Too late, a single blood tear spattered down on the age, marring the regimented lines of black print. This hurt too much. I remembered that carriage trip too. Remembered talking too fast, pointing things out to him, changing subjects rapidly. Trying to do anything to take my attention away from the enchanting figure he presented, the unconscious grace of his posture as he gazed out of the windows, sometimes looking back at me with a smile of such sweetness that it stopped my heart. And that was what he had been thinking, how *boring* I was. How dull it was to listen to me, what a pathetic excuse for a vampire I made...

Another tear fell and then another and I had to close the book, taking out a handkerchief to wipe away the blood from my face. When I had control of myself again I took a deep breath, then I reopened the book.

Part Three: (Louis)

I wished I had asked David to locate Lestat for me before leaving the house. After wandering for over an hour I seemed no closer to finding him. I had fed quickly, certain I would come across him at any moment. But althought mortals still thronged the streets and the city hummed with life, nowehere could I find my companion.

I was racked with guilt, wishing I hadn't said all the cutting things that make him so angry. Wishing I could stop myself from lashing out when he goads me to it. I know his possessiveness is his way of showing his love for me, why do I have to react to it so badly?

Every blond-haired mortal that passed caught my eyes. Every slim figure, every glimpse of blue eyes. But Lestat was not among them. It was only as I was near to giving up hope that I came to the vast shopping centre. A 'mall' is the correct term, although I am uncertain of the origins of the word. It seemed alien to me, squatting there like a monster. I've never truely got used to these huge modern buildings. But Lestat loves all the detritus of the technological age, loves the bright lights, and I entered reluctantly. Hoping that I might find my lover here, somewhere in the crowd.

I passed store fronts and fake stone fountains with the same indifference, only craning my head at every turn, looking for some sign of his presence. Ridiculous really, what did I expect? A scrawled graffiti message? 'Lestat was here.' Or a trail of dead bodies, ending in a final bloody X marking the spot? A bubble of near hysterical laughter almost escaped and I forced it back down. I was getting desperate. Never had we allowed one of our fights to go on this long. I wondered if he had already returned to the flat, was waiting for me even now. And then I saw it.

A mop of luxurient golden hair, so many different shades, waving around a bent head. I caught my breath, hoping and praying that it was really him. He didn't look up at my breath, hoping and praying that it was really him. He didn't look up at my appraoch, so intently focused on the book he was reading. But my heart lost some of its anxiety as I saw it really was him, recognised his faded blue jeans, a soft white shirt I had given him hanging loose. I could only see part of his face from where I stood and I willed him to look up, wanted to see those deep blue eyes meet mine with that mixture of guilt and relief, wanted to see the expression of love that crossed his face whenever he saw me.

And then he did look up and a lightening bolt of fear hit me. He wasn't looking at me, he wasn't looking at anything. Staring into the distance blankly expression of such complete hopelessness that it almost brought me to my knees. I wanted to run to him and take him in my arms, to kiss those lines of pain from his face. I took one step forward, then froze as I saw for the first time what he was reading.

He held the book with exaggerated care, forcing himself not to maul it, every muscle tense. As I watched he brushed the back of his left hand across his face, a mortal gesture affected by those who are ashamed of tears, need to disguise their emotions. My lips parted in a silent gasp of sorrow and I knew I couldn't let this continue one second longer. I crossed the distance between us in a flash and took the book out of his hands.

His head jerked up, anger flashing from his blue eyes, ready to punish whoever had disturbed him. Yes, I thought, be angry with me, let me ease your pain that way if no other. And then he recognised me and the anger went and with it the light, and he sat there looking up at me as if at a stranger. For once no love shone from him and my heart turned over.

"Lestat," I sat down beside him before I could fall down. "Lestat, I'm sorry."

"So am I," he replied, he voice dead, not really listening to me, going through th motions of making-up when his mind was elsewhere. I looked down at the book in my hands fearfully.

"How much did you read?" I asked.

"About half," he said lifelessly. "I've read it before."

"Lestat..." I didn't know what to say, didn't know what had driven him into himself like this. I could barely remember what I had said anymore, but there were bitter angry words in that book, I knew it. What he had come across, sitting here alone? I dreaded to think. I wanted to run out of that horrible building, with its glaring yellow lights, but the thought that he might not come after me held me in place. "Forgive me," I whispered, hardly knowing what I said.

"You don't even know what you're asking forgiveness for," he told me, rising a little from that terrible apathy.

"Tell me then," I begged. "Lestat, don't hate me! Please, I couldn't bear it if you hated me, not now...."

"I don't hate you, beautiful one," Lestat turned to look at me, but the endearment fell from his lips without warmth, simply the ease of long practice. He glanced down at the book and then took it from me. "It's been so long since I read it," he said softly. "I'd forgotten...."

"Lestat, whatever it is, I didn't mean it!" I was frantic now. "Not anymore, I don't hate you, Lestat! It's over now, finished, please..."

"It wasn't the anger, Louis," he stood in one smooth motion and stepped back, looking at me with an awful calm. "It was simply the realisation that you dislike me." And with that he turned and began to walk away, quite slowly, as if he didn't care whether I came after him or not.

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