Prince Lestat: The Vampire Chronicles

by Anne Rice

  She grabbed her shoulder bag and tiptoed out of the room, rushing down the stairs, and out of the house. She had her iPhone out before she hit the long dark driveway, calling for Murray.

  The headlights soon appeared in the deserted street as the big limousine coasted up to her. She had never been so glad to see Murray in all her life.

  “What’s the matter, Rose!” Murray demanded.

  “Just drive,” she said. In the big black leather backseat of the car, she put her head down on her knees and cried. Her head was still aching from the blow, and when she rubbed her forehead she felt the soreness there.

  She felt stupid suddenly for ever trusting this man, for ever thinking that she could confide in him, for ever allowing herself to be intimate with him. She felt like a fool. She felt ashamed and she never, never wanted anyone ever to know about it. For the moment, she couldn’t understand the things he’d said. But one thing was clear. She’d trusted him with the most precious secrets of her life, and he’d accused her of borrowing stories from a novel. He’d hurled that heavy book at her, not giving a damn whether he hurt her with it. When she thought of herself naked beside him in that bed, she shuddered.

  The following Monday, Rose dropped Professor Gardner Paleston’s classes, giving family problems as a reason for having to cut her schedule. She never intended to see him again. Meanwhile, he was calling her constantly. He came by her house twice, but Aunt Marge agreeably explained that Rose wasn’t home.

  “If he comes again,” Rose told Murray, “ask him please to stop bothering me.”

  It was a week later, on a Friday night, in a bookstore downtown, that Rose saw a paperback book with the title: The Vampire Lestat.

  As she stood in the aisle examining the book, she saw that it was number 2 in some sort of series of novels. Quickly, she found several others. These books were called the Vampire Chronicles.

  Halfway home, she was so upset thinking about Gardner again that she was tempted to throw the books away, but she had to admit she was curious. What were these books about? Why did he think she was repeating stories from them?

  Since that awful night, Rose had been in a kind of a daze. She’d lost all appetite for school, for friends, for everything. She’d been moving around the campus as if in a half sleep, scared to death of running into Gardner anywhere or everywhere, and her mind kept circling back over what had happened. Maybe it would do her good to read these books and see just how unfair to her Gardner had been.

  Rose read the entire weekend. On Monday, she cut class and continued reading, complaining to Marge of an upset stomach. Sometime around Wednesday, she heard voices outside the little house and looked down to see Murray arguing with Gardner Paleston at the curb. Murray was clearly angry, but then so was Gardner. Finally the professor turned and walked off, shaking his head, his hand flung out before him, clawing at the air, and he appeared to be murmuring to himself.

  By Friday of that week, Rose felt remarkably calm about the situation. Whatever she was thinking no longer had much to do with Gardner. She was thinking of the books she’d been reading and she was thinking of Uncle Lestan.

  She knew now why Gardner had made his distasteful and hostile accusations. Yes, she could see it quite clearly. Gardner was a self-centered and inconsiderate man. But she knew now why he had said what he had said.

  Uncle Lestan’s physical description perfectly matched that of “the Vampire Lestat,” and his friend and lover, “Louis de Pointe du Lac” was certainly a dead ringer for the Louis who’d rescued Rose from Amazing Grace Home for Girls. Dead ringer. Now that was a good pun.

  But what did it mean that this was the case?

  Not for one moment did Rose believe in vampires. Not for one second. She no more believed in vampires than she believed in werewolves, or Bigfoot, or the Yeti, or aliens from outer space, or little winged fairies living in gardens, or elves capturing people in dark woodlands and transporting them to Magonia. She didn’t believe in ghosts, or astral travel, or near-death experiences, or psychics or witches or sorcerers either. Well, maybe she believed in ghosts. And well, maybe she believed in “near-death experiences,” yes. She had known a number of people who had those.

  But vampires?

  No. She did not believe in them. Whatever the case, she was intrigued by this series of fictional stories about them. And there was not a single description in any of them of the Vampire Lestat, or a single line of dialogue spoken by him, that did not check completely with her vision of Uncle Lestan. But that was sheer coincidence, surely. As for Louis, well, the character with the similar name was indeed exactly like him, yes, but that was sheer coincidence, too, wasn’t it? Well, it had to be! There was no other explanation.

  Unless they belonged to some organization, her uncle and this man, in which they engaged in role-playing games of some sophisticated sort modeled after the characters in these novels. But that was ridiculous. Playing roles was one thing. How in the world could anyone make himself look the way Uncle Lestan did?

  She felt a strange embarrassment at the very thought of asking Uncle Lestan whether or not he’d read these books. It would be insulting and demeaning to do this, she thought, rather like Gardner insulting her when he threw the book at her face, and went on with his accusations.

  But the entire problem began to obsess Rose. Meanwhile she read every last word of every book she could find with these characters.

  And the stories in truth amazed her, not only by their complexity and depth, but by the peculiar dark turns they took, and the chronology they laid out for the main character’s moral development. She realized that she was now thinking of Uncle Lestan as that main character. He’d been wounded, shocked, the victim of a series of disasters and adventures. He’d become a wanderer in these books. And his skin was tanned because he kept letting himself suffer the effects of sunlight in a painful attempt to mask his preternatural identity.

  No, this is impossible.

  She barely noticed when Marge told her that Gardner had gotten hold of their home number and she had had to change it. Rose keyed the new number into her cell and forgot about it. She didn’t use the landline much, but of course it was the principal way to reach Marge. So she had to have that number.

  “Do you want to tell me what’s the matter?” Marge asked. “I know something happened.”

  Rose shook her head. “Just reading, thinking,” she said. “I’m better now. I’m going back Monday. I have a lot of catching up to do.”

  In class, she could barely keep her mind on the lecture. She kept drifting off, thinking about that long-ago night when Uncle Lestan had caught her in his arms and carried her up and up from that island. She saw him in that dim, shadowy little lawyer’s office in Athens, Texas, saying, “Make it happen!”

  Well, there had to be some explanation. And then it struck her. Of course. Her uncle knew the author of these books. Her uncle had perhaps inspired them. It was so simple she almost laughed out loud. That had to be it. He and his friend Louis had inspired this fiction. And when she’d tell him she’d found the books, of course, he would laugh and explain how they’d come to be written! He’d probably say he’d been honored to be the inspiration of such bizarre and romantic ramblings.

  Sitting in the back of a history class, oblivious to the teacher’s words, she slipped Interview with the Vampire out of her purse and checked the copyright: 1976. No, that couldn’t be right. If her uncle had been a grown man by that time, well, now he’d be nearly sixty. No way was Uncle Lestan that old. That was positively ridiculous. But then … how old was he? How old had he been when he’d rescued her from that island earthquake? Hmmm … this wasn’t adding up. Maybe he’d been just a boy, then, when he’d rescued her and he’d looked like a grown man to her—a boy of what, sixteen or seventeen, and now he was what, forty? Well, that was possible. But hardly likely. No, this did not add up, and overshadowing it all was her vivid conviction of his demeanor, his charm.

  Class was over. Time to shuf
fle on, and go through the motions someplace else, to drift until she saw Murray waiting for her on some curb somewhere.… But surely there was a logical explanation.

  Murray drove her away from the campus to a restaurant she particularly liked where Marge was to meet her for an early dinner.

  It was getting dark. They had a regular table and she was glad that she had a little while to sit there alone, enjoy a badly needed cup of black coffee, and just think to herself.

  She was looking out the window, paying very little attention to much of anything, when she realized someone had sat down opposite her.

  It was Gardner.

  She was badly startled.

  “Rose, do you realize what you’ve done to me?” he asked. His voice was deep and tremulous.

  “Look, I want you to leave,” she started. He reached across the table and tried to take hold of her hand.

  Drawing it back, she stood up and stumbled away from the table, running towards the back of the restaurant. She hoped and prayed the one small ladies’ room would be empty.

  Gardner came pounding after her, and when she realized her mistake, it was too late. He’d grabbed hold of her wrist and was dragging her out of the back exit into an alleyway. Murray was all the way around front, parked at the curb.

  “Let go of me!” she said. “I mean it, I’ll scream,” she said. She was as angry as she had been when the book had struck her.

  Without a word, he dragged her right off her feet and down the alleyway towards his car, and threw her in the passenger side, slamming the door and locking it with his remote.

  When he went to open the driver’s side, he unlocked only that door. She beat on the windows. She screamed. “Let me go!” she said. “How dare you do this to me?”

  He started the car, backed out of the alley, and took off down the side street, away from the main boulevard where Murray was no doubt waiting to pay for Marge’s taxi.

  Down a quiet street, he drove the car at reckless speed, oblivious to the squeal of the wheels or enjoying it.

  Rose beat on the windshield, on the side window, and when she could see no one anywhere around, she reached for the key in the ignition.

  With a resounding blow he sent her backwards against the passenger door. For a moment she didn’t know where she was, then it came back to her completely and horribly. She struggled to sit up, reaching into her purse and quickly finding the iPhone. She sent the SOS message to Murray. Then Gardner grabbed the purse from her and, buzzing down his window, hurled it out, phone and all.

  By now the car was speeding through traffic, and she was being thrown from one side to the other as it swerved around one intersection after another. It was making for old Palo Alto, the neighborhood where Gardner lived. And soon the streets would once again be deserted.

  Again, Rose banged on the windows, gesturing frantically to passing cars, to people on the sidewalk. But no one seemed to notice her. Her screams filled the car. Gardner grabbed her by her hair and pulled her head away from the window. The car slammed to a stop.

  They were in some side street now with big trees, those big beautiful dark green magnolias. He turned her around and held her face in the vise of his thin fingers, his thumb biting painfully into her jaw.

  “Who the Hell do you think you are!” he breathed at her, his face dark with rage. “Who the Hell do you think you are to do this to me!”

  These were exactly the words she wanted to speak to him, but all she could do was glare at him, her entire body soaked in sweat. She grabbed at his hair with both her hands and yanked it as he’d yanked hers. He hurled her back against the window again and slapped her repeatedly, until she was gasping uncontrollably.

  The car drove on, tires screaming, and as she struggled to sit up again, her face burning, she saw the driveway in front of her, and the old Georgian house looming over her.

  “You let me go!” she screamed.

  He dragged her from the car, pulling her out the driver’s side, and dragging her onto her knees on the concrete.

  “You don’t begin to know what you’ve done to me!” he roared. “You miserable stupid girl! You don’t begin to grasp what your fun and games have done.”

  He dragged her through the door and hurled her across the dining room so that she hit the table hard and sank to the floor. When he lifted her up, she’d lost one of her shoes, and blood was pouring from her face down onto her sweater. He hit her again, and she went out. Out.

  Next thing Rose knew, she was in the bedroom. She was on the bed, and he was standing over her. He had a glass in his hand.

  He was talking in a low voice, saying once more how she’d broken his heart, how she’d disappointed him. “Oh, this has all been the disappointment of my life, Rose,” he said. “And I wanted it to be so different, so very different, with you, Rose, of all the flowers of the field, you were the fairest, Rose, the fairest of all.”

  He came towards her as she struggled to get up.

  “Now we will drink this together.”

  She tried to scurry backwards, away from him, off the bed, but his right hand caught her wrist while, with his left hand, he held the glass of liquid high out of her reach.

  “Now, stop it, Rose.” He growled between his clenched teeth. “For the love of God, do this with dignity.”

  Suddenly a pair of headlamps sent their beams over the master-bedroom windows.

  Rose began to scream as loud as she could. It was nothing like those nightmares in which you try to scream and you can’t. She was shrieking. The screams just erupted uncontrollably.

  He dragged her towards him as he went on and on, shouting over her screams: “You are the most dreadful disappointment of my life,” he cried, “and now as I seek to make all things new, to make all things whole, for you and for me, Rose, you do this to me, to me!”

  With the back of his hand, he slammed her into the pillow. Out. When she opened her eyes, a foul burning fluid was in her mouth. He had her nose pinched between his fingers. She gagged, and bucked and struggled to scream. The taste was ghastly. Her throat was burning. So was her chest.

  He thrust the half-full glass at her and the liquid inside it splashed on her face, burning her. The smell was acrid, chemical, caustic. It burned into her cheek and neck.

  Twisting around as she struggled against his grip, she vomited on the bed. She kicked at him with both feet. But he wouldn’t let go. He threw the liquid at her and she turned with all her strength, feeling it splash against her face. It went into her eyes. It blinded her. Her eyes were on fire.

  Murray’s voice sounded from the hallway door.

  “Let her go.”

  And then she was free, screaming, crying, grabbing for the covers to wipe the burning liquid off her face, and from out of her eyes.

  The men were scuffling and the furniture was breaking. There was a loud crash as the mirror on the dresser broke.

  “I’ve got you,” said Murray as he grabbed up Rose and carried her out of the room, running down the steps with her.

  She could hear sirens approaching. “Murray, I’m blind!” she sobbed. “Murray, my throat is on fire.”

  Rose woke up in the ICU. Her eyes were bandaged, her throat was aching unbelievably, and her hands were strapped so that she couldn’t move.

  Aunt Marge and Murray were with her. Desperately, they were trying to reach Uncle Lestan. They would not give up trying. They would find him.

  “I’m blind now, aren’t I?” Rose wanted to ask, but she couldn’t talk. Her throat wouldn’t open. The pain in her chest was grinding.

  Gardner Paleston was dead, Murray assured her. He’d died from a blow to the head in the fight with Murray.

  It was an open-and-shut case of attempted murder-suicide. The bastard, as Murray called him, had already posted his suicide note online fully describing his plan to give Rose “the burning hemlock,” along with an ode to their mingled decomposing remains. She heard Aunt Marge begging Murray to stop talking.

  “We’
re going to find Uncle Lestan,” Marge said.

  Terror engulfed Rose. She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t see. She couldn’t beg for reassurance; she couldn’t even tell them about the pain, the unrelenting pain. But Uncle Lestan was coming. He was coming. Oh, what a fool she’d been, such a fool, to have loved Gardner, to have trusted Gardner. She was so ashamed, ashamed as she’d been years ago lying on the floor of Amazing Grace Home, so ashamed.

  And all the confusion about the books, those books which had affected her so deeply that for days she’d lived in them, imagining Uncle Lestan to be the hero, rising with him, in his arms, towards the stars. Give me the stars.

  She lapsed back into sleep because there was no place else to go.

  There was no day or night, only an alternating rhythm of activity and noise. More commotion in the room, and in the corridor beyond, more voices near at hand yet muffled, indistinct.

  Then a doctor was talking to her.

  He was close by her ear. His voice was soft, deep, resonant, sharpened by an accent she didn’t know.

  “I am caring for you now,” he said. “I will make you well.”

  They were in an ambulance moving through traffic, and she could feel every bump of the road. The siren was distant but steady. And when she woke next she knew she was on a plane. She could hear Marge talking softly to someone, but it wasn’t Murray. She couldn’t hear Murray.

  Next time she woke she was in a new bed, a very soft bed, and there was music playing, a lovely song from Romberg’s The Student Prince. It was the “Serenade” that long ago Uncle Lestan had sung to her. If her eyes had not been wrapped tight, they would have filled with tears. Maybe they did fill with tears.

  “Don’t cry, precious dear,” said the doctor, the doctor with the accent. She felt his silken hand on her forehead. “Our medicines are healing you. By tomorrow this time, your vision will be restored.”

  Slowly it dawned on her that her chest no longer hurt. There was no pain in her throat. She swallowed freely for the first time in so long.