I left Paris, running. Once outside of the city, I quickly arrived
at the entrance to a small, somewhat open forest. I slowed my pace, and soon I arrived at a river whose existence I
had not previously been aware of. I
thought this perfect, and I hurriedly removed my shoes and slipped into the
water, letting it wash up over my ankles.
Checking to make sure there was no one else present, I carefully unlaced
what was left of my dress and corset, letting them, with my undergarments, drop
off of me onto the shore. I kneeled in
the water, scooping it up in handfuls and washing it over my head to it ran
down my back, my chest. I washed away
the dirt that had made itself comfortable on my face and arms.
As I rinsed my arms, I noticed
my hands for the first time. They
seemed more delicate, more feminine than they had been in my mortal lifetime,
my fingernails as clear as glass. I
stopped moving, and when the ripples in the water ceased, I peered intently
down at my reflection. My skin was
pale, and the hair that fell in loose black curls down over my shoulders to my
hips was near iridescent with a preternatural shimmer. My brown eyes seemed to glow, to shine,
though there was no light to cause such, save the faint light of the new
moon. I stood, careful to make as few
ripples as possible, and merely watched my full body reflection for several
minutes. Every move I made was fluid
and graceful, more so than I ever could have dreamed of being as a mortal. After a few more moments I stepped out of
the cool water, squeezing what I could from my hair before slipping into my
tattered dress.
I walked slowly back towards
Paris, and one of them stood waiting for me at the gates. It was not Armand, as I had half hoped, but
one of the others.
"Sister, Aurora," he
addressed me in Old French. "I
have been chosen to escort you on your first kill, if the thirst has become
maddening enough." His voice was
soft and gentle, so unlike the hideous shrieking I know he had participated in
the previous night.
"I have been ready for
blood since the moment the first drop touched my lips," I answered in a
more modern French, the sound of my voice with that inhuman tone startling me
somewhat.
"Then you shall have
it," he said and he took my hand, his flesh the same liquid marble as my
own. He led me faster than a mortal
could run through the shadows of the streets of Paris, and he whispered
"Take the first one you see," then he released my hand and
disappeared into an alleyway.
I walked silently, avoiding the glare of the street lamps, until I saw a man of
no more than thirty-five walking along the sidewalk towards me. I smirked inside but my face showed no
change as I stepped towards him, murderous intention etched onto my features. Then as I meant to grab him, a single sparkle
flashed from around his neck, reflecting in the lamplight, and I realized in an
instant that it was a cross. I quickly
moved away, disappearing from his sight, and I cursed inside. I could bear the thirst no longer; I
silently begged for a single victim. I
sought to gain surcease of pain, this horrible dragging pain. Finally I spotted a woman, not far from my
own age, and, making sure she wore no cross, I snatched her from the sidewalk
with my now laughably powerful arms, dragging her into a dark alley. I pushed her violently against the wall,
silencing her cries of pain and surprise with a hand clamed over her
mouth. I watched her eyes widen with
fear and horror as they scanned by features, my unlined and flawless face, the
way my eyes and hair shone, and I could sense how terrified she was when I
laughed, my fangs gleaming. I could
actually sense her thoughts, an act that I take for granted now.
Not hesitating another moment, I
moved close to the woman and bit down fiercely on the soft, tender flesh of her
neck, directly into the vein by instinct.
I groaned against her, pulling her close as the hot liquid poured into
my mouth, pumped to me by her powerful young heart. This was not like the immortal blood I had tasted before. It was thicker, more substance to it, and a
hint of saltiness broke through the sweet impression. I never swallowed, simply let the blood run down my throat,
holding the woman so close and tight to me that I heard some of the bones in
her arms, her back, perhaps even a few ribs, creak and finally snap. I sensed her fear, she knew she was going to
die, but she was so weak she could no longer cry out. Her heart, that same drum loud in my ears, began to slow its
tempo. I mentally begged it not to
stop, for I vaguely recalled Armand telling me that I must stop before the
heart does, but no matter how much I wanted more blood, her heart finally gave
out, and she went limp in my arms. She
was dead. I let her drop to the damp
stone of the alleyway ground, taking a step back from her. The tearing, ripping pain was now gone, and
I felt renewed, full of a new strength.
The one who had
"escorted" me appeared suddenly at my side. "You did well," he said quietly. "Now leave her." He turned away like he meant to return to
Les Innocents, and for me to follow, but I hesitated.
"I want more!" I
exclaimed to his back, forcefully.
"I want to kill again, I want more!"
He paused, and glanced back to
me. "And you shall. You shall have more. Tomorrow night. Tonight you learn, tonight you learn, tonight you dance and sing
your praise to Satan." With that
said he disappeared, and I ran after him, through the shadows at an immortal's
pace, back to Les Innocents. He was
already inside when I arrived, the heavy stone door of the tomb in place. Surely with this new strength I could easily
move such an essentially small amount of limestone. With only a slight bit of difficulty, I dug my fingernails into
the side of the slab, and easily pulled it away from the door, revealing those
already familiar soil and stone steps with their narrow walls and steep
inclines. I stepped inside, letting the
stone fall behind me, and walked down the steps into the large room, pausing to
touch and inspect one of the skulls that made up the wall. Armand was suddenly next to me, his hand
over mine on the skull. I looked to
him, gazing into his deep brown eyes.
"You have become a Child of
Darkness. You are now a servant of
Satan, and you will be so until you reach the age of madness, where you will go
into the fire before you can cause any harm to your brothers and sisters, or
yourself. But hopefully that will not
be for many, many years," he said to me.
I blinked in surprise, but I did
not make any move to take my hand from his.
I actually rather enjoyed his touch.
"I am honored that you would choose me to be your Child, when you
had all of Paris to choose from," I answered, my French modern and quick.
"Actually we didn't,"
he explained. "Come, I will tell
you." He lowered his hand,
bringing mine with it, and led me into a smaller, more private room. It looked almost rather comfortable, like a
room in a mortal home, totally unlike the rest of the underground lair. There were a few books on a shelf, and two
somewhat comfortable chairs, one of which he gestured for me to sit in. I complied, and he sat across from me.
"What do you need to tell
me? You say you had no choice in who
you made your Child?" I asked, leaning forward in my chair in a very
unladylike manner, so that my full attention was on him. He seemed to find this amusing. "Why would you have no choice? Did someone decide for you?" I
continued curiously.
"Not exactly," was his
answer, soft and cool. "There are
simply some guidelines that we must follow."
"Such as?"
"We must always be
powerful, beautiful, and without regret.
You are all of these things, among a few others. That is why you were chosen."
I looked at him
quizzically. "You are telling me
that I, in all of Paris, am the only person who shows these qualities?" I
asked in disbelief.
He chuckled. "Certainly not. You were simply the one chosen. We certainly didn't have all of Paris to
choose from. There were only a few
choices, and you were the final decision."
"Why?"
"Because it was my
decision. I had been watching you for
quite some time, and I suppose I took pity on you. You had been treated horribly.
I wanted to offer you the chance for your quality of life to
improve."
"..." I considered this for a moment. Pity?
I did not want anyone's pity.
"Don't pity me," I ordered forcefully, not caring in that
moment that he was my superior. "I
neither want nor need your pity or your sympathy. What happened to me is over and done with. If I do not regret, you should not
either."
"I don't regret. Don't you see? That's why you were chosen.
You don't regret. I already said
that we must be without regret. And
beautiful. You are certainly these
things."
I remained silent, merely
listening to his words. It didn't quite
sink in that he was repeatedly complimenting me, but I suppose it didn't much
matter.
"I watched your kill
tonight. It was nearly perfect. You terrified that woman, you did not hide
the ghastliness of your face or hands.
You killed her painfully. You
are a true servant of Satan, Aurora, and I am glad to call you one of my
Children of Darkness," he said with a faint smile. "And although your name may mean the
sunrise, I believe it is surprisingly fitting."
I returned his smile, rising
from my seat and moving to the door in one fluid motion. "I appreciate your kind words of
acceptance..." I trailed off for a
moment, opening the door.
"...Father," I finished softly and hurriedly left the room,
closing the door behind me. The moment
I left the room I found myself pulled into a circular dance, linking arms with
other vampires on either side of me. I
laughed as I danced with my new brothers and sisters, crying loudly and
shouting my praise with the others, our powerful voices reverberating
throughout the large room. I didn't
know the words to this Satanic melody, yet somehow they flowed from me
naturally, my passion fueled by the heat from the lit torches about the room
and the loud beating of my own heart.
My heart had become the drum
once again, something pounding, pounding, beating hard, and the sound was
maddening inside my head. The wails and
shrieks of my comrades were near deafening, and, though I was technically dead,
I had never felt more alive. We seemed
to dance for hours around an enormous bonfire, and though I couldn't place just
when, at some point during this dance Armand joined the room, standing before
the flame and loudly proclaiming out prayers to Satan. The words of our song were barely
understandable, and I could not recite them for you now, as I never truly knew
them to begin with. I merely sang the
as though they came from my heart, as they did from the hearts of my brothers
and sisters.
I stayed and studied with
Armand, who I by then called Father on a regular basis, for two hundred and six
years. Then in seventeen hundred and
eighty came the end of the end of the Children of Darkness, in the form of a
golden-haired blasphemer.
A fledgling, given the Dark Gift
by the elder heretic Magnus. He dared
to walk the streets of Paris, dressing and acting as a mortal man would,
speaking casually, even having conversations and monetary transactions with mortals! His actions were unforgivable, and the
moment his existence was confirmed, the entire coven forcefully beseeched
Armand to destroy him. He refused.
"Let us watch him for
awhile," he had said, "and then he shall not be able to deny his
blasphemous acts."
The others seemed to agree with
this, and so we did watch, observed, and as his behavior did not change we
began to torment him, appearing in his sight for barely a moment before leaving
him. I especially enjoyed watching him,
in silence sometimes for hours before he noticed I was near. However, I never allowed him to see me. I thought it was hilarious that he seemed
afraid of us, that he referred to us as 'The Presence' and nothing more. We watched him like this for nearly half a
year.
We told Armand to dispose of
him. We called him blasphemer, heretic,
disgrace, insult, yet Armand refused.
Only when we watched that vampire, who I now knew as Lestat de
Lioncourt, make another immortal, watched him work the Dark Trick on the woman
who had been his mother in life, did Armand take action. The night after the mother's rebirth, he
sent us out. We attacked Lestat as he
rode with the fledgling Gabrielle back t his tower outside the city, we
attacked and nearly gained entrance to his resting place, many of us burned by
his retaliatory torch before Armand called us back. I myself was scalded on the left shoulder, but of course it
healed almost immediately, so no trace of that injury remains. It was Armand that approached him in the
end, which Lestat has described in detail in his novel, and it took the reading
of that novel before I knew that Armand entered Notre Dame. This would have infuriated me at the time,
but now it is not surprising. However,
even after four hundred years, I still refuse to set foot inside a church or
chapel. Not for fear of being struck
down by God, but simply because of the idea being drilled, pounded into my head
for over two centuries.
I will not go into any more
details. Both Lestat and Armand have
given accounts of the situation, so mine is not needed. I will merely say that I joined the Theatre
de Vampyres when it was formed, and stayed, once again, until my home was
destroyed. During those years I took an
interest in collecting money and valuables from my victims, and by the end of
my time there I had a fair-sized horde.
It would come in handy later.
There were two other vampires in
Paris then, the kind we would previously have called heretics, that autumn of
eighteen hundred and sixty-two. Walking
alone on an empty street I saw one of them, a quite beautiful creature, but not
the vision my Armand was. Black was his
hair, resting against the raven material of his gentleman's cloak, a glowing
yet pale green were his eyes. I
ventured out with the one known as Santiago that evening, watching this new immortal
from my place in the shadows. A
fledgling, this one, not even a hundred years old. I found his name was Louis, and his maker the blasphemer Lestat,
whom we had prosecuted so many years before.
But where was the maker now?
From this immortal's head I
sought to draw this information, but the first thing on his mind was a young
girl. Claudia. A dainty figure of thick curls and glowing
eyes. A child vampire, and Lestat's as
well! She could not have had more than
five years of mortal life before that blonde fool has worked the dark Trick on
her. I found the idea repulsive, and
immediately withdrew from Louis' mind.
As I watched, I noticed Santiago
step from my side, out into the street.
As his elder I ordered him to stop, stay out of sight, but he
refused. He walked behind the one named
Louis, exactly in step with him, the click of their shoes in perfect
syncopation resounding through the alley.
They were even dressed alike, how fitting. I watched in great amusement as Santiago mimicked his every move,
but disappearing from sight when Louis turned.
Finally he allowed himself to be seen, and the clowning lasted only a
few moments, because the fledgling soon became angered, and they began to
fight. I heard Louis call Santiago a
buffoon, which I knew would anger him, then I saw my father appear and call out
Santiago's name. Santiago vanished, and
I as well, leaping to the top of a nearby building and collapsing to my back on
the roof in a fit of laughter. I may
have laughed for an hour on that roof, not minding that mortals could hear me
and were probably afraid, and by the time I finally finished, the blood tears
streamed across my cheeks, staining my face.
I struggled to regain my breath after the fit, and upon doing so, made
my way back to the theatre.