The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

Chapter Two





The next evening broke humid and breezy, and Louis and I were anxious to be off on the trip to New York City. Just after our vacation to the island, we'd decided to venture Northward, away from the oppressive Southern climate, for another vacation of sorts, only this time, we'd visit Dora and take in some of the social scene New York had to offer, instead of sinfully doting on just one another. While that had been truly a splendid time, it was after all summer, and the appeal of hectic city streets at night certainly stirred my appetites, if not Louis'. I felt he was going along with me simply for the sake of doing so, though I was sure he too would find something for himself to do while we were there. New York after all had a full menu of culture, like theater, galleries, operas and the parks, which I knew he loved to stroll through in the dark. As I packed, I made a note to myself to walk with him there. Central Park at two A.M. was so much less dangerous these days, if you believed the propaganda the city Father's would have you reading. Sure. That's what they said about New Orleans as well. I laughed at the fact that while I was about, nothing could ever be as safe as anyone would like it to be.

I called out to Louis, and heard him coming from down the hall. When he came to stand in the doorway of the room I saw that calm, collected smile he sometimes wore.

"You're all packed then?" I asked to confirm what his face said. "That's good. I want to be off in a bit. Our flight will be leaving in an hour."

"But Lestat," He said quietly, "I thought we'd be traveling by less conventional methods"

"Louis, don't be ridiculous. What am I supposed to do, levitate and speed us off through the night sky with all four of these Vuitton bags hanging at our sides? Driving would take too long unless you'd like to stop over for a night along the way in some insignificant little town and have a helping of backwoods culture before hitting the big lights. Anyhow, you know I like first-class commercial flight. Though I wish they'd serve a wider variety of things to accommodate such passengers as ourselves." That last bit came with a laugh, to which he shook his head.

"Thank goodness they don't. I can see you ordering one brunette and one blond, not shaken nor stirred."

"No, I'd do the shaking and stirring most efficiently myself" I said, closing the bag and lifting it from the bed. "You're ready then? Let's close up the place and be off."

"I've already seen to all of that. The staff has been informed that we may not be back for some time. I assume that by now, the skeleton crew we keep around this place is used to our travels and knows what to do."

"Skeleton crew huh? Louis you have a humor all your own." I joked, knowing he hadn't meant his words to be amusing. "Good, good. I'm glad then. Well, let's head out then?" I watched him nod, and come to take my bags from my hands. As we headed out and down the stairs into the foyer of our large home, he turned to me again.

"You're taking the car to the airport, or should I call for the driver?"

"I want to drive tonight. It's too thick and moon-filled for me to be stuffed into the backseat and be chauffeured. I'd much rather let the car feel the bends along the back roads under my hand."

"Of course you would, silly me." He chuckled and we carried the bags out to the car, sealing them in the trunk, and then settling ourselves into the softness of the leather seats. He'd bought this little gem for me about a year ago, and he knew I loved the car about as much as any mortal man might. Of course I didn't call it 'my baby' or have a key chain demonstrating my affections for the machine, but he knew he'd chosen well, and when I drove, it was like a fine dance, and I often went out alone, racing over the black, winding roads miles and miles from our home.

Given the speed I liked to travel at, we were soon at the airport, and checking in express style. Even though I sometimes traveled commercially, I had no patience for standing in line, paperwork, and all of those hassles. For this it would have been more convenient to have the driver along, and let him tend to such details, but then, Louis had a way of speaking to the mortal employees there that caused them to hurry along our baggage and process the necessary things with blushing smiles. I thought it wonderful that they looked at him and were enraptured by his looks, and those eyes. I wouldn't have had the patience, and in fact had in similar situations, proved fatally, that I was easily irritated by stumbling inefficiencies.

Before too long, we were seated in the shrouded dimness of first class, with a non-stop four-hour flight time ahead of us. Luckily I wasn't feeling the pains of thirst, or more precisely, the desire to take someone, whether innocent or not. If I had felt that I'd have made sure to feed beforehand, but I'd been far more concerned about the trip itself, and Merrick's words rang quietly through my mind. All you have to do is what you did here tonight. Relax, and yet at the same time, focus on what she's shown you. Call her to you. I lay back in my seat while the craft took to the skies, and thought of that. Where was the girl now, I wondered, and what was she doing? Louis was looking out at the moonlit clouds beneath the window, and I squeezed his hand gently in mine. I couldn't think of her now. In fact, why should I think of her at all? Mortal girls and their troubles should mean nothing to me, or I'd be saving them all, and from countless things from boyfriends, to parents, to school mates pestering them. To hell with it I said. Let such things resolve themselves. I wanted no part of it.

Louis patted my hand and caressed my fingers softly, saying nothing. I took my CD player out and let the headphones fill my ears with a wide variety of sounds as we flew northeast. It was good that I hadn't chosen a selection of purely classical, or rock, or jazz. My thoughts varied it seemed from hour to hour, and I was silently relieved as I was many times, that Louis was spared from knowing that fact.

Sometime in the middle of the night, my feet found their way past the farthest point where the tourists mingle, past the point where the vendors had rolled up their wares for the night, and even past the point of the run down homes. I was walking onward to places unknown. Ah the ache inside me would not subside. I felt as if I wanted to walk to the ends of the earth and back again were such a thing possible, just to get the thoughts out of my head, and to at last find some form of peace. Yet that would be too good, wouldn't it? I had to laugh, thinking that if only I were a mortal now, I might succumb to a prolonged bout of drinking or drug use to take away all the bothersome things that plagued my mind. The only drug I had was the blood and no amount of drinking in the past two evenings had soothed the discontent inside of my mind and spirit.

I walked all the way out of the city and then let my path turn once more along the banks of the Nile, in again toward the lights of the modern world. I could not help but to stop and stare out over the water and think of the history there. I lifted my head up, almost smelling the wind for hints of the past, and yet in that, all I could see were memories I didn't want to own. My heritage was here, the heritage of us all: We Immortals. Akasha and Enkil had drank from this river, had walked perhaps in the very spot where I stood. As I turned and looked around, wondering how much blood these sands had drank before they were washed clean by time, I waited for the voices or the visions, and yet heard nothing but the wind as it moved past me. Tonight there was no spirit passing through my mind, and yes, I knew who it was I had heard in nights past. As I crouched down on the sand, letting a handful pass through my fingers. I thought of that time, of the glorious orgy of blood she and I had partaken of, the onslaught, the sacrificial, the supremacy. For a moment, I wanted nothing more than to be there once more in Azim's temple, drinking and feasting, at once horrified and exhalted. How I desperately wanted it, and because there was still that little percentage in me, I had heard his voice. Oh yes, in body he could never come to exact any revenge, but it should never be doubted that we Immortals have our own ghosts and persistent spirits to deal with from time to time, and recently, ah, I'd seen such things… such glorious visions that made me yearn for them in utter desperation. And yet, I had thought there was a wholly different connection to why I was seeing them. I didn't think it was an effort to torment me. No, not this time, I hadn't perceived it as such, and yet now, what I'd envisioned, the link or meaning behind those visions seemed in itself a joke. I would wear no such robes, would I? Ah, and the temple, yes… how it still stands in my mind, calling me, and yet I am so afraid to look upon it. Is it glowing from a dim torch or two, still lit inside, just waiting to be refueled, or has it already been burnt, and all I sense is the ambient light from the coals of destruction? I cannot bear to look, and dear God, I hate being afraid.



Eventually I found myself on the outside of the Karnak complex, and of course wandered where I wished easily undetected. It was one of the better perks of this life, and it made me think for a moment of all the things I'd done and seen with such ease. One smile perhaps, that was all I was allowing myself this evening. I went around the East side of the stone ruins and into what once had been the Temple of the Hearing Ear. Here had been an Egyptian confessional of sorts, where prayers had been offered up to Amun. Gone was the great obelisk, taken some long years ago to Rome for safe keep and display. Yet there were still the little nooks, broken down but discernable to my eyes where the common persons would have knelt and prayed to the Gods ears that were engraved almost undetectably now on the time worn walls. I traced my hand upon them, loving the way the rough grit of the sandblasted stone scraped against my skin. When I leaned my face against the cool, raised etchings, I could hear the voices of the past, singing souls so lost, so unreal to me now, and yet, somehow all a part of what I was. I knelt in the stones and rested my head against the closest wall. Amun, the Sun God, Osiris, all the spirits of the long dead Gods. Could they see me now for what I was; A small man, with incredible powers, alone and kneeling in a place so far from his home, afraid and unsure? I hated the thought of what I must look like, even as the blood tears spilled onto the crumbled surface beneath them. I thought of all of that, my history in an instant, fast forward to this night, and again it was too much to bear. All I could think to do was offer up words to the darkness as if I too were a common man from the very period, crawled into the temple like a thief to beg for absolution. Who do I pray to now? Osiris himself ? "Exalted art thou on thy throne, O Osiris! Thou hast heard fair things." Do I pray to my saints? Juan Diego and Assisi? Make me an instrument of thy peace, yes. Finally not knowing, I merely spoke to the air around me, hoping someone would hear.



Let peace be restored. Let the rivers meet once more, let us find one another again, please, all of us. Oh please grant us the strength, the desire, the courage, dear God grant us the courage to go on, to love one another and to overcome. Let us have belief, and cast away all the hurt, please,oh.. please…



I fell down into a small position with the last word from my lips and thought of all that in just a few nights had passed and broken, and smashed, and been kicked and the wounds, oh my love all the wounds. I could see the blood when I closed my eyes, and it made me long to heal, to pick up the injury and caress it with my mouth until no more did it weep.



For all of them, for myself, please restore the wholeness. Let us live once more in the light, in the love of all we have and desire. Erase the confusion and contempt. Let us speak in peace and believe once more.



To whom I prayed was inconsequential as I lay in the darkness with the sand shifting around me. All that mattered was that somewhere, somehow it was heard. Who was I to pray and request such things? It was more my style to rail against the forces of nature and whatever karmic hand that might be guiding my own nights and the lives of those I loved to a place that might be exactly where we deserved to be. And yet there I was, lying in the dirt and ancient waste as surely as I ever had on any chapel floor, and wanting again to be heard, even for all the hurt I'd unduly caused which perhaps should have me exactly where I was at that moment.



Please… reach me. Touch me, Bring me home once more. Deliver us from such uncertainty. Let the love be restored... for us all.



For the longest time I lay there, until I could instinctively feel the coming of the sun, and then, spent of my tears, I rose into the sky as I had so very long ago. This dawn I was not seeking my demise as I went onward toward my darkened rooms in the opulent luxury of the hotel. I merely sought to sleep, and to dream of prayers being heard, and benevolent Gods answering. It was all I hoped, and all I wanted.