Foster Fledgling
Chapter One
Louis looked about him, to make sure that no stray mortals were wandering near. Satisfied that he was alone, he quickly scaled the walls of the cathedral, and seated himself on a ledge just below the roof line, where he had a clear view of St. Anthony's Garden. He reached into the hip pocket of his black jeans, and pulled out the note he'd found tucked in his mail slot the night before. Written in blue ink on a sheet of notebook paper, in a modern, somewhat ungraceful hand, with several lines crossed out and rewritten, was a simple message:
"Dear Sir,
You don't know me, but I think I know you. I mean, I think I know what you are, and who you are. I saw you a few nights ago. You were walking that huge wolf of a dog, and you were talking to him in French. You are the only other like me that I've seen. I watched for you the next night, and followed you. I did it again last night, just to be sure.I need your help. I will be in St. Anthony's Garden tomorrow night, after one. I will be wearing a Saints shirt and a Zephyrs hat, and will have a notebook.
Please meet me then. I really need your help. I am really scared, and I don't know what has happened to me. If you are who I think you are, I think you will understand.
Frankie Gallagher"
Louis looked at the watch on his wrist - a concession to convenience tonight, since his pocket watch was much louder, and stealth was desired. It was a few minutes before one. He settled back into a shadow, to wait.
He didn't wait long. It didn't require preternatural hearing to pick up the loud rustling noise, followed by the sound of feet landing on the grass. In a moment, a figure emerged into the middle of the garden.
It was a young boy, dressed as the note had indicated, in a faded Saints jersey and the denims and sneakers that were the uniform of modern children. His face was shadowed by the bill of a baseball cap emblazoned with the mascot of the New Orleans Zephyrs. He seemed very thin, his shoulders narrow; he could not have seen more than sixteen summers, if even that, Louis decided.
The boy looked around him a few times, then sat down in the grass near a pool of moonlight, and pulled a knapsack off his back. He opened the pack and pulled out a spiral bound notebook, tossing it on the ground beside him, and looked at his own watch. He reached into the pack again, and removed a book. Even from the distance, Louis could easily recognize the all-too familiar lettering.Inwardly, he groaned. The boy began to read the book, pausing now and again to write something in the notebook, and to look around.
Louis watched him for a long time. The boy seemed oblivious to his surroundings, intent upon his book and his note-taking. He sat, loose-limbed, for over an hour, and then stretched out on the ground on his stomach, still reading. When the cathedral clock chimed three, he roused himself, and sat up. He looked around again, checked his own watch, and seemed to become smaller, somehow. He picked up his book and notebook, and shoved them back into his pack. He zippered the pack, and then suddenly hugged it to himself, burying his face in it. He sat like that for several minutes, only his shoulders moving slightly.
Louis sat very still, watching, listening. Yes, there was no mistaking it. The boy was weeping, sobbing quietly, almost silently. Louis found, to his surprise, that it was a sound that gripped his heart, and would not let go. He quickly climbed down, and silently made his way across the lawn to where the boy sat. The boy took no notice of him, even when Louis stepped right beside him.
In an instant, he knew he had nothing to fear. He could see the boy's hands, small, delicate hands, nearly as pale as his own. The near total lack of human blood scent confirmed his suspicions; this boy was no longer mortal.
"Monsieur, I am so sorry I'm late," Louis said softly. "I must apologize, I was detained unavoidably."
The boy gasped, and looked up. "You - you came!", he exclaimed, clutching his bag more tightly against him. His face was streaked with red, more evidence of his immortal state. "I thought you weren't, I mean, I thought - I didn't think you'd come."
"You must be Frankie Gallagher?" Louis asked. He reached out, and patted the boy on the shoulder. The boy flinched, but kept his ground wiping his eyes with the backs of his hands.
He rose to his feet, and Louis was surprised at how small the boy was. He himself was not an exceptionally tall man, not by modern standards, anyway, but this lad barely came up to his shoulders. Louis wondered how young the boy really was.
"Yeah," Frankie replied. "You got my letter?"
"Oui." Louis reached into his pocket and pulled out the letter. "You said you needed help. How can I help you?"
"I don't know, exactly, but, like I wrote you, you're the only one like me I've been able to find. I thought you could teach me what I have to do. I think - " He paused for a moment, took a deep breath.
"I think I'm a vampire."
"I see," Louis said, keeping his voice neutral. The boy spoke with just a trace of - what? Not an accent, exactly, but something was unusual about his speech patterns. There was something not quite right about it, although Louis was not immediately sure what it was. Perhaps it was merely his extreme youth, or perhaps this was simply the way modern children talked. It was not annoying, but it was strange. But then, so far, everything about this boy was out of the ordinary.
The boy was looking at him expectantly, waiting for an answer. But an answer to what? "You believe you are a vampire," Louis said, keeping his tone neutral, "but you aren't certain? Is that it, you need me to confirm this for you?"
"No, I mean, yeah, I mean -" he shook his head, pinching his eyes shut as if in pain. "I mean, I don't know how this happened to me. I don't know what I'm supposed to do."
Louis realized, then, what had been nagging at him about the boy. He lisped, badly, saying "thith" for "this," and seemed uncomfortable and embarrassed about it, halting every time he encountered the letter "s." It was as if he was new at dealing with the impediment. His fangs were not overly large, probably not noticeable to the casual observer, at least not to mortals. Yet, the boy seemed to have trouble speaking around them. A phrase from Lewis Carroll came to his mind. "'Curiouser and curiouser,'" he murmured to himself.
The boy looked at him for a moment, then reached into his pack, and pulled out the paperback of Interview With the Vampire he'd been reading earlier. "I got this, and I've read it all the way through, about ten times." He put the book back. "It didn't help much," he added.
"It wasn't meant to be a how-to manual," Louis replied dryly.
"Well, it was the only thing I found that was anywhere near accurate," the boy replied defensively. He wiped his nose on his sleeve, and sniffed. "I got all the books I could find from the library. Most of them were just stupid. Crosses and garlic and stuff like that. Real lame."
"I have to agree," Louis nodded. "But, you must have understood, must have known, something. Obviously, you have survived for some time." A sudden thought occurred to him. "How long have you been a vampire?"
"A couple of weeks, I think. I'm not really sure."
"You don't remember, or you haven't kept track?"
"I don't remember exactly. It took a long time to get over being burned, I don't know how long."
"Burned?" Louis asked, shocked. "How did you get burned? Did your maker burn you?"
"No, it was the sun," the boy said. "I didn't know what had happened to me. I thought I was just, you know, sick or something, from the drugs or from being sick. I couldn't eat, and my clothes were, well - " he looked away, his complexion darkening just slightly.
Louis realized that the child was blushing, at the same time he understood that the boy was describing the after effects of his change, the body's expulsion of all things human. "Your body had changed," he said, diplomatically. "I recall the process was somewhat . . . unpleasant."
The boy nodded, gratefully. "Yeah, you know what I mean. Only, I didn't remember it happening, I figured maybe I'd been out of my head, like, from the drugs they gave me, or a fever, maybe I had the flu, or something. Then the sun came up, and I was outside, and I -" he stopped, his lip quivering, the tears welling up in his eyes and spilling over, again streaking red down his hollow cheeks. "I don't know what happened, but I woke up later, at night, and I hurt all over, and I couldn't see, and I was in this - this - It was horrible! There were bones, and gross things crawling on me, and it smelled so awful!" He began to weep again, clutching the pack against him, great sobs wracking his frame.
Louis didn't stop to think, he simply moved the pack away, wrapped his arms around the boy, and pulled him close. "Shh, c'est bien," he whispered. "It's over now, you're safe. Hush, you mustn't cry, you weep blood, you know, you'll - you'll ruin your shirt." It was a silly thing to say, he knew, but when he was a mortal child, his nurse would often use such a tactic to calm him. It still worked, the boy's sobs grew quieter.
"Frankie?" Louis whispered. "Are you alright, now?" The boy nodded, hiccuped once, but didn't weep. "Good. Now, listen to me," Louis put his hands on the boy's shoulders and moved him away, to arms length. He looked deep into the boy's eyes. "You must tell me the truth, now. I need to know who made you."
"Who made me?" Frankie repeated. "You mean, my folks?"
"No," Louis shook his head. "I mean, the vampire who -" he took a deep breath. There was no point in being delicate, not now. "I mean, the one who bit you, and drank your blood, and then gave you his blood back. As Lestat did to me, in the book. The one who gave you the Dark Gift, who made you into a vampire."
"I don't know," Frankie shrugged. "That's why I need your help. I don't know who did this to me. I don't know why, either."
"You didn't ask for this? You were not given a choice?"
"Nope," Frankie shook his head. "I didn't even believe in that kind of stuff."
"And you don't have any idea who did this to you?"
Again, Frankie shook his head. "I don't even remember it happening. I just woke up, and here it was."
"Mon Dieu," Louis whispered, more to himself than to the boy. "Monstrous. To do such a thing, and to a child yet, and then to abandon him . . ." Louis stood motionless, silent, staring off into the darkness, for several minutes, until Frankie thought that something was wrong with him. Then, Louis suddenly looked down at the boy, and smiled warmly, being careful to not show the fang teeth too much.
"Come," he said, stooping to pick up the backpack, and slipping an arm around the boy's shoulders. "It's late, and you should be seeking out your lair."
"My what?"
"Your . . . home," Louis said. "Where do you live?"
"I don't live anywhere," the boy responded. "I've been just, you know, finding places to hide."
Louis was aghast. "You don't have a safe place?"
Frankie shook his head. "Nope. Mostly, I been taking the money from the people I -" He looked down then, embarrassed. "Anyway, I got money, and I got hotel rooms. The first couple of nights I tried to sleep in the bed, but the light hurt me. After that, I slept in the bathroom. But I didn't get anything tonight, so I don't have no place to go." He shrugged. "I was gonna try to find a shut up house or car trunk or something. I don't know."
Louis looked away again, and Frankie hoped that he wouldn't go into another half-hour long staring-at-nothing session. In a moment, Louis looked back at him, and smiled. "Well, then, I suppose you'll have to come and stay with me tonight. We can find you a place of your own soon enough. Come."
He began walking toward the gate to the garden. In an instant, Louis was up and over the fence. Frankie watched him in awed surprise. He looked at the fence, and then ran a few yards away to a large oak, scrambling up the tree and dropping down to the ground. He ran back to join Louis.
"Why didn't you just climb over the fence?" Louis asked him, as they began walking toward St. Peter Street.
"It was too high, and I was afraid I'd fall on those spikes," Frankie replied. "It was easier to climb the tree." He took his backpack from Louis, and tossed it over his shoulder casually. "Where we going?"
"Royal Street," Louis replied. They walked along in silence for the few minutes it took to get to the town house. Frankie kept up with the pace easily enough, despite his frail appearance. As they passed beneath the street lamps, Louis stole a closer look at the boy.
He didn't like what he saw. Frankie was very pale, far too pale for a fledgling of his obvious youth. He was terribly gaunt, too; his cheeks were hollow, and the skin was like parchment, stretched tightly over the bones in his face and hand. His eyes looked too large for his face, sunken, haunted, with dark circles beneath them. Coupled with his physical weakness, it was a good indication that he was not feeding enough. There were also faint scars on his hands and the back of his neck, burn scars, probably, if what he'd said about his origin was true. Louis could see no reason to disbelieve him.
.
As they neared the town house, Louis stole a look at his watch. It was still at least two hours until dawn, they had a little time. Abruptly, he turned down a cross street, heading toward Armstrong Park. Frankie trudged along beside him, and it may have been Louis's imagination, but he thought the boy looked relieved, and less frightened. They came up to the park, and Louis stopped, and bent to whisper in Frankie's ear.
"You need to feed," he said simply. "Do you see that man over there, asleep on the bench?" Frankie looked where Louis indicated, and nodded. "Good. Now, there are no others around at the moment. You feed, and I will wait for you." The boy looked up at him suspiciously. "I promise, P'tit, I will wait. I will not abandon you."
Frankie looked into Louis's eyes for a long moment, and then sighed, and nodded. He shrugged off his pack, and walked over to where the man slept. He looked at the man for a minute, and then ran back over to where Louis waited.
"I can't," he said, his voice wavering slightly. "He's too big for me, he'll wake up."
"What do you mean?" Louis asked, incredulous. The man was of average height, certainly not too large for even a fledgling to drain sufficiently. "Now, go on. You haven't much time, and you need to feed."
"I can't," Frankie hung his head. "I don't know how. I mean," he faltered, searching for the word. "I've only - done it on drunks. They don't wake up easy."
"Oh, I see," Louis said. He hadn't realized, or he'd forgotten, what it was like for a fledgling. Even Lestat had given him some training, had taught him how to kill, if nothing else. This child was entirely on his own. "Well, that's alright. Let me think for a moment." No matter how he felt about it, there was no other option. The child needed blood, and he was not in a position to obtain it for himself. It was decided.
"Very well. You come with me. I will - kill him for you. And you will drink, and then we'll go to my house. Do you think you can do that?"
Frankie thought about it for a moment. "Yeah. I think so."
Louis gave him a small smile. "Bien. Now, come along. And you must be quiet, do you understand?"
Frankie nodded, and they proceeded to the bench where the man slept, oblivious. Louis dispatched him quickly, and took only the briefest taste of the blood, just to ensure that it was untainted by drugs; the child did not need any more problems tonight. The sleeping man had drunk alcohol, but that would be alright, it would only help the boy relax, if it affected him at all.
Frankie bent over the man's supine form, and after a moment's hesitation, latched on to the wound, and drank deeply. Louis watched him carefully, and listened to the man's heart beat. When the heart began to slow, he pulled Frankie away. The boy tried to drink more, but Louis gripped him firmly, and shook him gently, once. "No. That's enough. No more." Frankie looked dazed for a moment, and then his eyes cleared, and he nodded. "You stay here, do you understand?" Again, Frankie nodded, and sat down on the end of the bench.
Louis searched the man's pockets, and took out a wallet, some change, and a fairly large pocket knife. Glancing back at the boy, and assuring himself that he was not watching, he pocketed the wallet, and opening the knife, slit the man's throat. Very little blood oozed out, but the wound would look fatal, as it would have been, had the man been alive. This done, he took the body over to some bushes, and placed it beneath a large clump, so that it would not be found immediately. Then, he folded the knife, and went back to the bench, where the boy still sat.
"Do you feel better?" he asked him. Frankie nodded, and smiled slightly. His fang teeth were fully visible; they were sharp, of course, but hardly longer than a mortal's teeth, barely extending below his front teeth. It was little wonder that he wasn't able to hunt. Louis doubted it had been much more than a fortnight since he'd been mortal.
"Good," Louis smiled back, this time letting his fang teeth show. Frankie gasped slightly, but then tentatively touched his tongue to his own fangs, feeling them out. He smiled again, too.
"Come along, Frankie - " Louis stopped. "Is that your given name, Frankie?"
"It's Francis, Francis Albert." He gave Louis a lop-sided grin, and shrugged. "My old lady was nuts for Sinatra. Stupid, huh?"
"No, I think it's a fine name," Louis replied, slipping his arm around Frankie's shoulder again, and slowing his pace to accommodate the boy's shorter stride. "You know, in French, it is François," he added, thoughtfully.
"I think I like it better," Frankie said. "François. Yeah, I like it." He looked up at Louis. "I don't know what your name really is," he said, surprised. "Is it, I mean, is the book true?"
"My name is Louis, just as the book says," came the slightly amused reply. "Louis de Pointe du Lac. And, yes," he added, "most of that book is true. Nearly everything written in the other books is factual, as well, to some degree." He smiled to himself. "There are some differing opinions on that point."
"I wondered," François nodded. "I mean, I knew the parts about me that were right, but I didn't know about the rest." He surreptitiously slipped a finger into his mouth, to feel those fangs. "Will I always talk like this?"
"I don't know," Louis replied. "Did you speak this way as a mortal?" The boy shook his head. "Then, I expect it will pass. You are young yet."
"I hope so," the boy muttered. "I don't like talking like Daffy Duck. But, it hurts my tongue if I don't." He reached up and touched a fang again. A drop of blood formed on his finger, then quickly disappeared. "Wow. These are really sharp."
Louis laughed. "Yes, they are. Don't worry too much about it, P'tit. I'm sure you will become accustomed to it all too quickly."
"That's from your book," Frankie grinned, obviously impressed.
"Oh, is it?" Louis replied. "It was unintentional. And it is not my book, strictly speaking, it is Daniel's book. It is only my story." He smiled down at the boy. "Still, it is the truth."
Louis hadn't realized what he was saying until the words were already out. He vowed not to repeat the other mistakes that had accompanied those words. True, this child was not his responsibility. He had not broken his promise, had not created another killer to plague humanity. He had not created more evil. Yet, he felt an obligation to care for this youngster. Frankie Gallagher had not willingly given up his mortal life, it had been cruelly taken from him. Louis could not give that back, yet, he could see to it that Frankie's immortal life would be as painless as possible, both for the child as well as for his necessary victims. He would kill, yes, that was unavoidable, and Louis would gladly teach him all that he needed to survive. But he would not teach him cruelty. If Louis could help it, Frankie would never toy with his victims, would not take pleasure in their suffering. He would learn to respect life, to cherish it, to see the beauty in every living thing, including himself. He would not suffer from ignorance and fear. For this fledgling, things would be different.
They walked along in silence, back to Royal Street, stopping only long enough for Louis to drop the knife and the emptied wallet into a storm gutter. In a few minutes, they arrived at the town house where Louis had lived, on and off, for over two hundred years. He pulled a key out of his pocket, and quickly opened the gate, locking it again behind them. Frankie followed him up the stairs, and when they stepped through the door into the house, he gasped aloud.
"Wow," he said, his eyes wide as he took in the antique furnishings, the heavy draperies, the opulence. "This is some place."
"I hope you'll be comfortable here," Louis said, locking the door and tossing the keys onto the marble mantle. "You don't need to worry about the sunlight. The room where you'll sleep has no windows, and the entire house is secure. You will be perfectly safe, never fear."
"Thanks," Frankie yawned. He sat down on one of the gilt sofas, and ran a hand over the fabric. Louis disappeared into the back of the house for a moment, and there was the sound of a door opening, and the clatter of a large animal running across tile. The door shut again, and Louis then returned.
"Well, except for the dog, we are alone here. Not," he added quickly, "that it would be a problem, anyway. But you needn't feel nervous. You must make yourself at home."
A large ornate clock on the mantle chimed four times. Louis looked at it thoughtfully. "I think perhaps we should get you to bed. It will be daylight fairly soon. Come with me, please." He held his hand out, and Frankie rose and followed him.
They went up another flight of stairs, and came out on a landing with hallways leading out on left and right. Louis turned to the right, and Frankie followed, running a hand along the heavily textured wallpaper. At the end of a hall was a large wooden door, and Louis opened it, gesturing for Frankie to precede him.
It was a large room, but inviting, with a rich green being the predominant color, and worn but comfortable-looking furniture scattered about. Most prominent was a heavy oak bed with a half-tester, which took up most of one wall. The other walls were lined with book cases, most filled with books, some with video tapes. There was a large wooden cabinet on the wall opposite the bed, which was opened to reveal the largest television Frankie had ever seen. There was also a desk in one corner, and atop it a large computer screen and a telephone.
"Sit down, and make yourself comfortable," Louis said, gesturing toward a velvet covered armchair. Obligingly, Frankie sank down, running his hands over the soft surface. Louis stepped into a large, walk-in closet, and took off his jacket. "The washroom is over here," he continued, as he walked through the room and opened a door to the left of the television. "Perhaps you'd like to have a wash?" There was no answer. "Frankie?" he called. Still no response. He stepped back out into the room.
Frankie was lying back in the chair, eyes closed, one arm pillowing his head. Louis walked over to him, and listened. His breathing was very slow, probably imperceptible to any but his own kind. He picked up the boy's free hand, and let it drop listlessly. It was still a considerable time until dawn, but morning had come for the young fledgling. Louis smiled to himself.
Louis quickly undressed, hanging his clothes neatly on wooden hangers, and pulled on a long, white nightshirt. Lestat found great amusement in this choice of sleeping attire, and was forever buying him pajamas in every style and fabric, but Louis preferred his old-fashioned night shirt, finding it comfortable and functional. He searched through his closet until he found some of the less offensive of Lestat's gifts, a light yet warm flannel - in emerald green, of course - and brought them out. He held them up, comparing them with Frankie's slight form. They would be somewhat large, but would have to do.
"It is a bit forward, I suppose," he mused, "but he cannot sleep in these filthy clothes, and I expect he'll forgive me." He quickly stripped and redressed Frankie in the pajamas, noting with some relief that the child had at least washed away all trace of his transformation. He took the boy's clothing to the washroom, and deposited it in the laundry chute. Louis knew that the clothing would be waiting the next night, freshly laundered. The mortal servants who would come during the day to look after the household chores were efficient and discrete, quite literally the best that money could buy; the convenience was almost worth putting up with Lestat and his excesses. Louis was uncertain what story Lestat had concocted to explain their odd hours, but the system worked; the servants came after daylight, left before dusk, and asked no questions.
He returned, and turned down the bed. He picked up the child - Mon Dieu, he weighed next to nothing! - and gently placed him in the bed, tucking the silk coverings up around him. Then, Louis put out the lights, and climbed in beside him.
"Pauvre P'tit," he sighed. He pushed the hair out of the boy's face, and then, on impulse, leaned over and kissed him, very lightly, on both cheeks. "It has not been easy for you, has it?" He lay back against the pillows. "Never worry, I promise you, you have nothing to fear now." He smiled to himself again. "Bonne nuit, François. Belle reves, P'tit."
Foster Fledgling - Chapter Two
