This is not really an adventure, more like a short story. But don't fret because this has it's exciting parts also. Let me bring you to what has happened until this part of my story came about. I have lived with Louis and Lestat for quite sometime now and everything has been like heaven on earth for us. We live in a town house on the Rue Royale. No trouble ... of course until I started asking questions. I have grown up to have a lovely young woman's mind but, as you know, my body remained that of an eternal child's. I wondered from dusk until dawn, why did they do this to me? Etc. I became very curious for this type of knowledge ... how I can into being. I began to despise Lestat and all his doings. I would fall into trances watching him and pondering him. I would ignore him. I loved to watch him erupt in rage. I thought it very amusing. Once he flew at me shouting that he would slap me. Louis, of course, would stop him. I wish that only once, Louis didn't protect me from him. I would have liked to see what he would have done.

One night I really decided to get Lestat. The plan was to kill our to best maids, a mother and a daughter. The daughter was working silently in our parlor. I walked silently up to her and whispered in her ear, " I must tell you a secret." She bent down closer to the ground so she was able to hear it and that's when I took her. I grasped her with my arms and drank every drop of blood I could get. When I had drained her I let her drop to my feet. I think I even smiled in amusement. I thought, oh, this is really going to enrage Lestat. I laughed and ran off to find her mother.

I found her in the hallway. I exclaimed, "Please, come quick! Your daughter has fallen asleep and won't wake." She quickly follow me into the parlor where she rushed to her daughter who lay dead on the floor. She began to cry. I placed my hand on her shoulder to comfort her. " It will be all right," I said, " you will be meeting her again shortly in heaven, love." She turned and looked up at me and began to scream. I cover my hand over her mouth and drove my tiny fangs through her neck. Seconds passed and she was dead.

I then took them both and dragged them across the courtyard to a kitchen that had been unused. I hide them in there and went out to enjoy myself in the lovely city of New Orleans.

When I returned they were looking for them. I stood there watching them as they looked. I could hear Lestat saying, " It's she! She's done something to them and brought a risk to all of us now! " I laughed of myself. I loved to see him enraged. When they finally found them he exclaimed, "Damn her!" This was quite amusing. Lestat went back into the town house to find me, although I think he knew I was not there. He made Louis get rid of the bodies. He burned them in the unused stove and went in, I watched him do this and occasionally listened to Lestat cursing in the town house.

When Louis went inside I decided to go in as well, I was curious about what Lestat would do. I ran up the spiral stairwell and enter acting like I didn't even notice Lestat's presence. I had bought a bouquet of white chrysanthemums and carried them in my arms now. " Tomorrow is the Feast of All Saints," I said, " do you know that?

"Yes," Louis said. He nodded.

I held out the white chrysanthemums, admiring them. " I bought these from one of the vendors. They are so lovely, no?"

"Did you buy them for the two you left in the kitchen?" Lestat said fiercely. I turned to him and stared at him, but I said nothing. I took a few steps forward still staring at him. I could feel his angry. And it made me amused yet it also made me hate him more. And then turned the Louis. And I looked from one to the other. And I asked coldly:

"Which one of you did? Which one of you made me the way I am?"

I could see the surprised expression on Louis's face but I was the least concerned of him. He was my dark angel. My Louis. He couldn't have done it. But Lestat, that fiend, he was the one. I knew it! I fixed my eyes on Lestat and exclaimed, " You speak of us as if we always existed as we are now. You speak of them as mortals, and us as vampires. But it wasn't always so. Louis had a mortal sister, I remember her. There is a picture of her in his trunk. I have seen him look at it! He was mortal the same as she; and so was I! Why else this size, this shape?" I let the chrysanthemums fall to the floor.

" You made us what we are, didn't you?" I declared.

He raised his eyebrows as if to mock me. " What you are?" He asked me. " And would you be something other than what you are! Do you know how long it's been? Can you even picture yourself? Must I find a hag to show you your mortal countenance now if I had let you alone?"

I turned my back on him. I couldn't stand to look at him any longer. I walked to the velvet chair beside the fireplace and climbed into it. I drew my knees up to my chin and stared at the ashes in the hearth. I watched the wood burn and crack in two, giving out sparks. I hate him, I thought to myself, absolutely hate him.

"You would be dead by now if you were mortal!" Lestat ranted. " Do you hear me? Why do you ask me this now? Why must you make such a thing of it? You have known this all your life as I vampire." I was sat back now and turned my head to him so I could see him directly across from me "Did you do it to me? Tell me how it was done, Lestat!" I demanded.

"And why should I tell you? It's in my power."

"Why yours alone? Tell me how it was done!

He rose from the couch swiftly. Louis was immediately on his feet, facing him. "Stop her!" Lestat said to Louis in rage. " Do something about her! I can't endure her any longer! He started for the door but turned and drew very close to me. He was towering over me now. I stood there, fearless. He didn't scare me, the fool. " I can't undo what I did. Both to you and to him." He said, pointing at Louis. " Be glad I made you the way you are or I'll break you in a thousand pieces." He turned and quickly headed for the door.

How I hated him. I was glad he left, I would have if he didn't. I couldn't stand to be in the same room with him any longer.

After that incident I didn't ask many questions. I felt no need to. But now I was deep into books of the occult, of witches, and witchcraft, and of vampires. I enjoyed them. And they soothed my longing for knowledge. I read some nights until dawn. Louis had to come get me and take me to bed some nights.

I kept to myself. I didn't want to talk to either or them. It would only anger me.

I still wanted to know how it came to be that I am this thing, but I didn't think I would ever know the truth.

One evening when Louis awoke he found me standing by the French windows. I was watching the early evening rush on the Rue Royale. I noticed him watching me and said in a low whisper:

"He'll tell me nothing, Louis." He came toward me now and knelt down to be my height. I turned to him and asked," You'll tell me, won't you?"

" Is that what you wish to know? Or is it why it was done to you ... and what you were before? I don't understand what you mean by "how," for you mean how was it done so that you in turn may do it..."

I was confused from his questions. He knew what I meant, he had to. It was simple to understand, really. And he was the understanding one. He understood me and everything.

" I don't know what it is. What you're saying." I snapped back at him. I knew I shouldn't have said it so coldly. I turned a full circle to look into his eyes. I placed my hands on his face and said softly, " Kill with me tonight. And tell me all that you know. What we are? Why are we not like ... them?" I turned and looked down to the street.

" I don't all the answers to your questions," he said, " I have wondered the same things as you. And I don't know. How I was made, I will tell you that ... that Lestat did it to me. But the real "how" of it, I don't know."

I struggled to hear him. The voices in my head were taking over. I could hear a baby crying a block away from where Louis and I sat. I could hear a whistle blow on the waterfront and people talking on the ship. I did that sometimes ... let the voices take over. I would listen. But now I struggled to block them out.

"Claudia, " Louis said putting his hands on mine, trying to comfort me. The voices left. "Lestat has one wise thing to tell you. Don't ask these questions. You've been my companion for countless years in my search for all I could learn of mortal life and mortal creation. Don't be my companion now in this anxiety. He can't give us the answers. And I have none."

No answers? There has to be. I couldn't except this. There had to be answers to my questions. I would go mad if I didn't know them soon. I turned anyway in rage. He didn't know the answers? I pull at my hair. I looked up at the sky now. I looked at the smoke forming in it. My tongue move around in my mouth and in rage I bit it. My fangs pierced it and the blood began to flow into my mouth. It quickly healed.

I turned to Louis and said, " Then he did it ... he made me. You did not!" I knew it all along. That fiend made me the way I am. This enraged me even more.

He left me to go to the fireplace. He left using his preternatural speed. He was lighting a candle. " Why won't you answer me?" I replied. I heard Lestat's door open. Louis stared at the doorway and was absolutely silent. He looked down to the fireplace.

"Louis?" I said. I saw that he was staring at a doll that I had thrown into the fire that evening. It was one of the many Lestat had given me. I hated them all now. After all, they all were from Lestat.

He moved towards me now ... staring at it still. He was whispering my name. I could hardly hear him. He turned quickly away from me. He had saw one of my gloves across the floor.

"What's a matter with you ...? I asked him, drawing nearer to him and looking up upon his face. " What has always been the matter? Why do you stare at that skull like that, and at that glove?"

" I need you," he said, " I couldn't bare to lose you. You're my only companion I have in immortality."

"Surely there must be others! Surely we aren't the only vampires on earth!" I said cruelly. But I spoke the truth. We couldn't possibly be the only vampires on earth. What about the one who made Lestat. And the one who made that one. No, it was quite impossible for us to be the only ones.

He looked down at me. "Aren't you the same as I?" I asked him. "You've taught me all I know!"

"Lestat taught you how to kill." He replied as he went to get my gloves and coat. "Here, come ... let's go out. I want to go out." He was putting the gloves on my tiny hands now. Child's hands. He put the coat on me and lifted my curly hair and placed it gently over my coat. " But you taught me how to see," I exclaimed, " you taught me the words vampire eyes. You taught me to drink the world, to hunger for more than ..."

He interrupted me. " I never meant those words that way, vampire eyes. It has a very different ring when you say it..." he saw pulling at his coat. I wanted him to look down at me. I wanted to see his face. But he did not look down. " Come ... I have something to show you." He said and took my hand and lead me out the door. We went crossed the courtyard. I could still smell Lestat's cologne. He led me through the early evening traffic to some narrow streets. The stone was cracked and the houses were old. He led me to one of the run-down houses. Old ... tattered. He walked me to the window and opened the shudders

"This is where I first saw you ... I opened the shudders and saw you by your mother's side, weeping. I came into the room. I felt pity for you. Pity. And something else..." He told me this in a low voice. But it final hit me. And hit me hard. My jaw dropped and my eyes widened and said:

" You ... fed on me? I was your victim!"

" Yes, I did it," he said.

I was speechless. My Louis killed me? I couldn't believe it for a moment. I would expect this from Lestat but Louis! Never! I thought of only one thing to do. Turn and run from him, Louis; the one who took my life. And I did. I ran from him disappearing into the night. I ran up the narrow street we came up. I stopped under a gas lamppost. I knew we was following me. I stopped and turned to see him come to a stop in front of me. He lifted me up by my waist into the light. I continued to stare at him. Studying him. I couldn't believe that Louis, my immortal father, had taken my life. I suddenly whispered, " You killed me. You took my life!"

"Yes," he replied, " rather I tried to take it. To drink away. But you had a heart like no other I've ever felt, a heart that beat and beat until I had to let you go, had to cast you away from me lest you quickened my pulse until I would die. And it was Lestat who found me out; Louis the sentimentalist, the fool, feasting on a golden-haired child, a Holy Innocent, a little girl. He brought you back from the hospital in which they'd put you, and I never knew what he meant to do except teach me my nature. " Take her, finish it" he said. And I felt that passion for you again. Oh, I know I've lost you now forever. I can see it in your eyes! You look at me as you look at mortals, from aloft, from some region of self-sufficiency I can't understand. But I did it. I felt it for you again, a vile insupportable hunger for your little hammering heart, this cheek, this skin. You were pink and fragrant as mortal children are, sweet with a bite of salt and dust. I held you again, I took you again. And when I thought your heart would kill me and I didn't care, he parted us and, gnashing his own wrist, gave it to you to drink. And you did. And drink and drink until you nearly drained him and he was reeling. But you were a vampire then. And that very night you drank a human's blood and have ever night thereafter."

I was shocked. He had did it. My lover, my Louis. He drank from me. He had sank he fangs into this neck. My neck! I understood Lestat's words then: " I couldn't have done it without Louis!" Louis had took my life and Lestat, he had gave me this one ... whatever it is.

He sat me down on my feet. " Yes, I took your life, and he gave it back to you.

And under my breath I said to him, " And here it is, and I hate you both" I turned and ran into the night and this time never stopped to looked back.