This Holiday Season
Disclaimer: This is a little story about Christmastime. The characters are taken from the Vampire Chronicles. I do not claim to own them, (though I have asked Santa for them this Christmas) and no profit will be made from this work of speculative fiction. No infringement upon the rights of The author of the Vampire Chronicles (EVIL) , Knopf Publishing (Nice), Kith and Kin (Naughty), Random House Books (Naughty), The City of New Orleans (VERY Naughty!), snowmen (Nice), candy canes (Naughty), reindeer (Nice), elves (Unbelievably Naughty), Christ, Christmas, Christians or Chris Chringle is intended.
SPOILERS: VampChron IWTV - TVA
Aspects from two of my other SPECS -
Little Known Facts about Louis and Lestat and Trio in Rio - Chapter Six sort of snuck in here too.KEY
~ telepathic communication ~
+ signed communication +GLOSSARY
Nepote - (Latin) Grandson
Tesoro - (Italian) Treasure
Diable Joli - (French) Pretty Devil
Les Feux De Joie - (Cajun French) The Fires Of Joy, This is what the Christmas bonfires are called.
Joyeaux Noel!
Happy Hannukah!
Merry Solstice!
Happy Kwanzaa!
Blessed Ramadan
Season's Greetings!
and
Happy Holidays to you all, My Darling Dears!
*hugs*
DarkAngelThis Spec is dedicated to my own Beloved, FoL.
I am so glad that Papa Noel left you in my stocking.
Tu es ma vie, ma couer, ma ame.and also to: Ana I, Artemesia, Artemis Lunarsa, Buni, Carol, Claire, Deb P., Heather, JP, Kabuki, Karen FS Ebony, Kelin WhiteMist, La Femme Christine, Laura, Lyn, Morrigan, Serenity, SilverHawk, Stumbleine, Tomo and Wendy
For all the interest, support, encouragement, patience and comments this year (1999).
*hugs and kisses*
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Extra Thanks to SilverHawk, Becky Durden, Steph and Brat X without whose unknowing encouragement this specs would NEVER NEVER NEVER have been finished!
This Holiday Season
by
DarkAngel
Begun: 21 Decembre 1999
Finished: 24 Decembre 2001Marius tapped the tickets on the burnished mahogany bannister, waiting for his grandson to appear. They had been in Prague less than three nights, and already Daniel was in the midst of the literati; meeting people, collecting stories and talking politics in his flawless Czech, of which he knew not a single word when they had arrived. Marius generally enjoyed the same type of contact with contemporary mortals, but tonight they had a plane to catch and Marius was looking forward to the trip.
~Daniel, come.~
~In a minute, Marius~
~That was what you said twenty minutes ago. Shall I drag you out here myself or simply leave without you?~
~Don't get your toga in a bunch, Grandad, we have plenty of time~
~Two minutes, Daniel, and I am walking out of this hotel, understand?~
~Gotcha~
Marius sighed. He was unsure if Daniel was really this interested in the mortals around him, or if he was simply avoiding the inevitable. Daniel had some reservations about spending Christmas with Lestat and Louis in New Orleans, because it was almost certain that Armand would be there. The two of them hadn't spoken since before Armand had gone into the sun. Marius wasn't certain of all the facts, Daniel refused to speak of it, but could not hide that the parting had been incredibly painful for him.
Marius scanned the minds of the mortals near Daniel. It was gratifying to him to see that the charming man with the sunny smile and cynical wit was accepted among them readily, even eagerly, and that there was not the least suspicion that he was more than he seemed. Daniel was skilled at blending in and had a natural talent for putting others at ease. Marius usually just took the shortcut by light mind control of the mortals around him, but he had picked up a few tricks from observing Daniel that could certainly prove useful sometime.
"Okay, okay, I'm all yours," Daniel said, as he descended the steps toward Marius. "You sure you want to go to America? Christmas is going to be a huge ritual event here; candles, lights, chanting, incense, girls in veils, guys in dresses, parading in the streets, the whole bit. You'd love it, I'm telling you."
"The car is waiting and the luggage is already in the trunk." Marius said, turning and walking briskly out the door.
"Guess that answers my question." Daniel said to himself, following the older vampire.
Once they were in the airplane and airborne, Marius continued the conversation. "You already promised Louis that you would come."
"Yeah, but that shouldn't count, he manipulated me with the old Pointe du Lac 'polite-but-hurt' voice when I said I'd have to think about it," Daniel did a rather good imitation of Louis's soft voice, complete with Creole French accent, "Oh . . . I understand, Danielle, of course, and thank you for returning my call."
Marius laughed.
"I shouldn't let it get to me, I know, but what can you do? it's Louis." Daniel shrugged.
"What, indeed?" Marius smiled.
Madame Mekare
Madame Maharet
Monsieur David Talbot
Mademoiselle Jessica Reeves
You are cordially invited to attend a Christmas gathering at
1132 Rue Royale
New Orleans, Louisiana
United States of America
Festivities will begin Decembre 24th, 10:00 p.m. central standard time.
Accommodations will be provided both at Rue Royale and at
1314 Napoleon Avenue.
All appropriate measures have been taken to insure your safety and security and all additional requests will be granted.
Please do us the honor of joining us this holiday season.
Monsieur Louis de Pointe du Lac
His Lordship Lestat de Lioncourt, Marquis D'Auvergne
et
Mojo
R.S.V.P if possible to
1-504-522-8634
Post Script - Due to the ephemeral and transitory nature of our coven members, and our own limitations, we may not be able to contact everyone. Therefore, we would be grateful if you would extend this invitation to whomever you may encounter, by any means of communication at your disposal. Merci Beaucoup.
Jesse looked up after reading the invitation aloud, "They mean Gabrielle, you know."
"I shall do what I can." Maharet nodded. "Though even my voice cannot reach her if she does not wish to be disturbed."
"I hope she does deign to grace us with her presence. I know that Lestat would be very hurt if she didn't attend." David commented.
"So we are all going, I assume?" Jesse said, lifting the receiver of the telephone. All eyes turned to Mekare.
After a long pause she signed, +I will go+
Jesse smiled and began dialing the New Orleans number.
"I will contact Eric, Santino and Mael." Maharet said, walking into her private rooms, "In case the children were unable to find addresses for them. David, would you mind calling Khayman, to make certain he knows of the invitation?"
"Certainly," David nodded, he reached out mentally for Khayman.
~Yes, David?~ The Egyptian's inner voice was as friendly as his outer disposition.
~I am sorry to disturb you, but I wonder if you have received an invitation to spend Christmas with Lestat and Louis?~
~No disturbance at all, young one. I have been invited. Will I see you there as well?~
~Yes, Jesse, Maharet, Mekare and I are all going.~
~Ah, what a wonderful reunion it will be.~
David gave a telepathic laugh, ~Let us all hope so.~
~You have little faith in your brothers and sisters, David.~
~Perhaps that comes from knowing a few of them too well.~
~The pretty one will keep the brat in line, and I believe that I can dissuade anyone else from starting any unpleasantness.~
~I have no doubt of that, sir. Merry Christmas, I'll see you there.~
~It was good talking with you, young one.~ Khayman broke the contact.
"What is the news from Cancun?" Jesse asked.
"He is coming." David answered. "Did you reach Louis or Lestat?"
"I reached their answering machine, they'll get the message when they awake."
Maharet joined them, leading Mekare by the hand. "Are we ready then, children?"
"Shouldn't we gather some things first?" David asked.
+No+ Mekare signed. +We haven't need of anything which we cannot find at our destination+
David said nothing, accepting this. He, Jesse and the twins rose into the air without another word, heading away from the sunrise, into the long night, toward New Orleans.
Santino approached his sleeping lover. "Eric? Tesoro? Wake up, that woman has contacted me."
Eric turned over and blinked sleepily. "Maharet? What's the matter?"
"Nothing. She wants you to go to New Orleans."
"New Orleans?" Eric sat up. "Why?"
"Coven gathering."
Eric smiled and kissed Santino, "Ah, then you mean she wants US to go to New Orleans."
Santino waved his hand as if to say, whatever you wish.
"When is this gathering?"
"Tomorrow night." Santino climbed into bed, pulling Eric's delicate form into his arms.
Eric wound his fingers in Santino's curly, black hair. "Shall we go, my little saint?" Eric grinned.
"Would I have woke you if we weren't going, Tesoro Mio?" Santino stared into Eric's soft brown eyes, as always they melted his heart and softened his manner. He bestowed light kisses down Eric's hairless chest.
Eric moaned quietly. "Why New Orleans?"
"The Brat and his child are giving a party, a Christmas party."
"Oh, " Eric laughed. "Well then you must go. They cannot have Christmas without Black Peter!"
"Without whom?" Santino licked at the vein pulsing in Eric's neck.
"Mmmmmm . . . Black Peter, you know, he accompanies Sinter Klaus?"
"No, I do not know." Santino ran his fangs over the vein, not quite breaking the skin.
"Oooooooooh . . .um . . .he punishes the bad children. He beats them with a stick and then puts them in his bag and carries them off to Spain."
Santino momentarily pulled away from Eric's neck. "Spain?"
"Yes," Eric laughed, "I guess the Dutch weren't very impressed with Spaniards when they made that part up."
"I believe that I have a far more effective way of punishing the bad children." Santino plunged his fangs into Eric's neck.
Eric arched his back and gave a sustained scream of pleasure. Santino pulled and pulled upon his lover until Eric was nearly dry and his screams had faded to whispers. Then, slowly, deliberately, he bit his own tongue, and drop by drop fed Eric his blood. Eric's body jerked slightly as each droplet slid into his moth, as if the blood was electric. Finally, he was strong enough to claw a handful of Santino's hair into his fist and pull him closer, close enough for Eric to pierce the younger vampire's jugular and fill his mouth with liquid ecstasy. He then drained Santino, drinking and drinking until he could hear the heart shuddering and then, biting his finger, he teased his lover back to life.
Afterwards, they lay in each other's arms a long time. Finally Eric spoke, "When we go to new Orleans . . ."
"Si?" Santino asked.
"We mustn't forget the mistletoe."
"Ah, that reminds me. She wanted you to contact her bodyslave."
"Mael isn't her bodyslave, Santino." Eric sighed, not wanting to renew the old argument. "I don't know if he is in any shape to travel."
"He is far older than Armand."
"Yes, but Armand was made by Marius, who had drunk the blood of Akasha."
"Then don't call him, you know that it matters not to me." Santino laid his head on Eric's chest and enjoyed the sound of his heartbeat.
Eric ignored Santino and reached out mentally for his friend. ~Mael? Are you there?~
~I am.~
Eric could feel the weariness and the ache in the simple answer. ~It is good to hear you again, my friend.~
~I am grateful for the sentiment.~
~If you are well enough, the coven is gathering in New Orleans, December 24th.~
~New Orleans? Lestat's territory?~
~He hardly claims it as his territory, Mael, but it is at his behest.~
~I see.~
~Will you come?~
~Perhaps.~
Eric nodded as he broke the connection.
"You reached him?" Santino asked in a bored voice.
"Yes." Eric playfully pulled Santino's thick chest hair.
"Where was he?"
Eric wasn't sure if he should answer. He was quiet.
"Where was he?" Santino repeated.
"He's . . .inatree." Eric mumbled
"What, Tresoro?"
"A TREE, I said he is in a tree!"
Santino didn't laugh, in fact neither his face nor his voice betrayed a hint of humor when he said, "I hope you asked him to bring the mistletoe."
Louis stood at the kitchen window of the townhouse looking out at the solemn cherub in his courtyard garden. He sat composed in his thick white sweater and brown corduroy trousers, like a mannequin in an upscale department store, the kind Lestat would frequent. The large brown eyes stared at nothing and everything. The only movement was from the night breeze catching his wild auburn curls.
Armand. Amadeo. Andrei. Who was this puzzling immortal, and why was he fated to such deep and constant pain?
Louis had been drawn to him 200 years before. From their first meeting, Armand had mesmerized him. They had professed their love to one another, become companions and traveled together for decades. Then, long after they'd parted, Louis had read of Armand's past in Lestat's autobiography. Soon after, they met again in Sonoma, during that unbearable time when Lestat had been taken. They hadn't spoken beyond a very few words of courtesy, but once it had ended, in that final terrible murder and consummation, Louis had awoken from the nightmare to find himself in Armand's strong embrace. Those very eyes looking down at him, that voice calling his name.
In Armand's other arm, Daniel, the innocent reporter whom Louis had unwittingly seduced into this Dark Life, just as surely as if it had been his own blood which had changed Daniel from a wide-eyed boy to a white skinned monster. Louis was sorry to see that Daniel had been admitted to the ranks of the undead, not only out of principle, but because he himself had tasted Daniel's mortal blood. Through that blood Louis had learned everything about Daniel, and liked Daniel very much, too much to see him thus changed without feeling pain for the boy he had been.
Yet, it had been done, and there was no undoing of the Dark Trick. In that light, Louis appreciated that Daniel was good for Armand. Armand needed one like Daniel who could not only follow, but also lead; who would be compliant and eager to please but not without voicing his own demands and refusals. Armand didn't fear Daniel, but he also could not completely control him. In Daniel Armand had met his match in both neediness and stubbornness. Of course Armand hadn't been able to let Daniel slip away into mortal death, of course he'd had to keep Daniel with him forever.
But even so, Daniel and Armand had parted. Louis had read the book which Armand had dictated to David. In it Armand stated that:
"Daniel . . .can no more stand my company than I can stand his. . . .he cannot contend with my continuous company any more than I can contend with his.And when Louis first read that he had flung the book across the room in anger and disgust! How DARE he say such a thing! What a complete and utter lie!
I turned Daniel from a morbid romantic to a true killer. I made real in his natural blood cells the horror that he so fancied he understood in mine. I pushed his face into the flesh of the first young innocent he had to slaughter for his inevitable thirst , and thereby fell off the pedestal on which he'd placed me in his demented, overimaginative, feverishly poetical and ever exuberant mortal mind.
But I had others around me when I lost Daniel, or rather, when in gaining Daniel as a fledgling, I'd lost him as a mortal lover and gradually began to let him go."
"Five paragraphs!" Louis had railed at an unsuspecting David, who had the misfortune of being in the same room at the time. "He mentions his ONLY fledgling in merely FIVE paragraphs of his entire tome, and he has the audacious malice to say such a thing as this!"
Poor David made a quick and unannounced exit as Louis snatched up the nearest telephone and dialed Armand's current number. In the end, he hadn't been able to do more than leave a scathing voice-mail denouncing Armand for his cruelty. Louis wasn't certain if Armand had ever received it. He hadn't mentioned it, and Louis wasn't about to ask. He was quite ashamed of his behavior now.
At the time, he'd been perhaps projecting his own experience of reading his maker's memoir, The Vampire Lestat and finding that he himself was only mentioned on eight pages, this of course was the first edition, before the revision after the concert. He'd felt pain at that, at so scant a mention, and Daniel's appearance in The Vampire Armand was briefer still! How hurtful that must be for Daniel, who no doubt read the book the instant he saw it. And he, Louis, deserved the pain, as he has slandered Lestat in his own story first, mentioning him often, yes, but almost always with bitterness and rancor. Daniel did not deserve this, how could Armand be so cold?
But now Louis could see how similar in fact, were his and Armand's actions in telling their stories. Hadn't he found Lestat to be so much less magical when he was newly dead? Hadn't he told Daniel how irritating, boring and tasteless Lestat was? What was wrong with him then? And hadn't Lestat experienced the same disillusionment, the same disappointment with Louis? He certainly had been insulting and impatient with Louis, that had not been exaggeration. He had been constantly demanding that Louis do this, or forbidding Louis to do that, making threats, intimidating him. Odd the similarity of behavior and timing between he and Lestat and Armand and Daniel.
'Perhaps it is a stage each maker and fledgling goes through,' Louis pondered. 'Post-partum depression? It is certainly possible. There is no doubt but that the Dark Gift brought forth physical and chemical changes in the fledgling, did it also do so in the maker? But of course, it must! Why else would the telepathic link be broken? Telepathy is certainly a mental process, as are emotions, so therefore a mood disorder would be very likely to occur. This is exactly like that article I was just reading yesterday. Now where did I put that magazine? Was it the Philosophist's Journal or Psychology Today? Perhaps it was that Touro Medical Center publication.' Louis had moved into the study and was searching through a pile of magazines on his desk when he remembered Armand.
He immediately went to the courtyard and called to his friend, "Armand?"
This Holiday Season - Part Two
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