On The Devil’s Road

The night Nicholas left us and went back to Eleni, I could feel the tension thick in the air. It was hard to believe that I had started such a feud between the two men. I wasn’t sure what to expect now; or if I should try and make amends with Nicki. I didn’t ask for this after-all, it was Lestat who chose me for this life. Night was leaving us just as quickly as it had started; everything was still so new to fresh and new to me. I was amazed at the way the world looked through my vampiric eyes. Colors I had so taken for granite in my mortal life, now was so brilliant and extraordinary. The many sounds moving around the flat outside was so utterly lovely to my senses, it was enough to make me fall to the ground in tears. Never in my whole existence had I seen the world with such admiration and appreciation for life. Despite having my thriving mortal being ripped from me with nothing more than a crimson kiss it was all starting to make sense. The world and all it’s beauty had no boundaries for us now. I could move about and go wherever I pleased. With Lestat at my side I don’t think I was afraid of anything at that moment I knew we would ravish in one anothers presence and take this world head on.

“Raven, mon amour..” Lestat purred and I raised a curious brow to him in question. He smiled that radiant gleam curling his pale pink lips up like some mischievous fiend showing the white teeth and small fangs. If I hadn’t already been dead in a sense I could have sworn my own heart stopped beating when he looked at me with such adoration. “Yes?” I asked in a simple voice as he beckoned to me and I was at his side instantly. “Come my darling, we need to get you some new clothes soon but for tonight we must rest.” Lestat made the smallest motion to my dirty soiled dress and he raked his hand over my hair. From what I gathered Lestat had come into a wealthy fortune of money from his maker and he flaunted it gladly. I felt so alive and free my limbs moved like liquid so elegant and and without much effort. Taking his hand in mine I pressed my cold palm into his and I was almost running into the quiet, abandon streets as Lestat pounded after me. We seemed to be flying our bodies were moving together so fast as we were leading one another down the street. We had two-hours left of the endless night when we finally returned to the tower. I watched as Lestat lit the resin torch and me down with him into the dungeon.There was no time now to show me the upper chamber he insisted.

My eyes were glassy I could tell by the way he was looking at me now and I couldn’t help but look about myself in an almost sluggish manner as we descended the screw stairs. The dirty dressed gleamed against the dark stones as we moved down deep inside the dungeon as Lestat stayed at my side holding the torch out which the brightness of the hot fire made my eyes sting and burn. I recoiled slightly but it wasn’t from the dampness of the environment but the savage new heat of the flames and I clung to him now like a terrified child afraid to let the flames get to close to me. The further down we moved the more grotesque my surroundings became, of course this wasn’t something I was use to and then the stench from the lower prison cells filled my nostrils making them burn slightly. It was disturbing, to say the least. The first time I smelled decay and rotting flesh all piled together in the prison cells. I felt my mouth go dry and my throat stiffened as if I might vomit, the smell was so intense I could almost taste the decay on my tongue. Lestat looked at me now seeing the torment that played on my face all to animated to saw the quick distress and he told me gently that it was nothing to do with us. He took me through a room in which we had entered a huge burial crypt, the smell was shut out as soon as he had closed the heavy iron-studded doors behind us.

I looked around everywhere as the torchlight spread out to reveal the low arches of the ceiling above us and then came the three great sarcophagi with their brilliant and deeply graven images. It was then I saw another figure move in the shadows and I jumped slightly which caused Lestat to stiffen and move the torch about only to see a tall,thin blonde haired woman with kitten like features. She smiled at him and he returned this smile with all the compassion and love and I had ever witnessed in one being. “So this is the woman you married and ran off to the Bahamas with..” her words were soft and even though she knew that now was a lie he had told her in her mortal weakness she chuckled and I thought I saw him blush if it were still possible for us. “Raven, this is Gabrielle..My mother..” She cringed at the word when he said and she swallowed before moving closer to inspect me. “She’s Italian..how pleasant! Looks as though my darling one has fair taste. I am of Italian decent as well.” Gabrielle smiled and informed me. I could hear the smallest hint of italia in her french accent that matched Lestat’s.

Gabrielle was stading by the stone sarcophagus with the knight in armor carved into the top of it. I assumed it was her own resting place and she was pushing the stone lid out of place and moving her slender body down into it. Lestat moved to her side and they kissed tenderly for that brief moment and I knew then the Dark Gift had made them more than the strongest bond that a mother and son could never imagine. Simply put they were just Lestat and Gabrielle two children of darkness like myself making their way in this new world. Finding his way back to me he lead me over to the sarcophagus that lay in the middle. It was a woman’s sarcophagi I could tell by the feminine patterns etched deeply into the stones. “I want to see if you can move it..” He told me touching the heavy lid ever so lightly. I nodded and pushed the heavy stone lid out of place as Gabrielle had done moments ago and I looked down into the empty space. I didn’t have as much strength as Lestat or maybe even Gabrielle but I had enough to move the heavy lid so I could slip in and out of it easily. “Don’t be frightened..” He smiled and moved closer to me taking me in his arms at once and I kissed him then as we held onto one another like two white-faced lovers and so we stood in this dungeon crypt and prepared to lie down on the stone beds, with only the rats to keep us company.

He looked tired and cold and I must have looked the same to him with a very wan about me. Sleepily I smiled to him and he returned it with a gentle smirk. My eyes closing as if I had no power over them to keep them open and I remember that I almost fell back but Lestat braced me and I could hear his voice “It’s only the rising sun,” he said to reassure me. I was weakening sooner than he did I guess I should of have expected it to happen that way. I turned away from him now and moved towards the coffin and he lifted me and my eyes shut completely then. I could hear him pushing the lid to the sarcophagus even more as he gently lay me down inside,I felt my limbs arrange themselves ever so naturally in a sheer elegance that was my own. I could feel my own face smoothing out into sleep and my hair moved to make a frame around my oval face. All the while he just stood there looking down at me as if I were truly dead and gone never to awake with the coming night. Moments later I felt tiny,hot droplets falling on my lips and the hot scent of the blood as it was caused me toopen my eyes. Lestat was bending over me letting the shining crimson droplets fall onto my lips from where he allowed his teeth cut into his tongue and I tasted his salty hot blood again. Stared up at him with my glittering green gold eyes. The blood came flowing into my opening mouth and slowly I started to lift my head from the stone pillow where it had laid I lifted my head now to meet his kiss. The first time I felt his tongue pass into my mouth. His lips were cold. My lips were cold, but the blood that raged between us was hot, and alive and it flowed between us like a firey passion that could consume our souls.

“Good night my dark angel..” Lestat whispered now as he let me go and I sank back down into the same stillness from which I had rose up from and my eyes shut without my consent and I could hear the stone close over me as I drifted off into a dead slumber.