Viaticum For The Marquise

I felt my body stirring finally as it roused me from my sleep as if screaming and I was thirsty. Seeming as though every fiber of my being was crying out in a blissful agony from the thirst pounding deep inside my body as if it were a pulse. My eyes snapped open and I moved the stone lid to the side allowing me passage from my stone shelter. I looked around and I didn’t sense Lestat near me but I could faintly hear Gabrielle still slumbering in the coffin on the other side of my own. I did not like rising in the black underground crypt where we hid from the harsh light of the daytime. I didn’t like the chill in the air that the ominous surroundings gave off, and that faint,foul stench from the prison below, the feeling I got from that was where all the dead things lay and I had become part of them. My once vibrant, playful life was no more and I was trapped suddenly in this new life whatever it was surrounded by death which in my mortal life I would have hid away from. My personality was always bubbly and playful and never witnessed my thoughts then turning to death or some other sort of macabre that I was so inviting of now. A fear came over me. What did I know of what I’d done? I had murdered countless innocents and drained their bodies of blood. In their blood memories and I had vasted in the flashes of happy families,children and lovers that I had stolen them from with one little kiss they fell to my power and became limp little flesh dolls in my cold grasp.

I saw the lit torch hanging up on the wall. He must have lit it for me to find my way up fom the crypt, I was right he had left the gate and doors unlocked and I made my way up the screw stairs as I ran my hand along the wall that was performed with the smell of decay and cold earthly things. I found him quite easily to my surprise I just followed his scent which came to me in an all too natural state. I found him in a lavished cell and he must have heard me coming I was sure because he turned and smiled as looked at me and he were laying out jewels. Lestat was selecting jewels for Gabrielle and myself,that was what I gathered as he was placing about two separate piles. I moved in closer to the candles in which he had lit to help him see. I smiled and squinted a little at the bright heat of the flame. I knew he didn’t need it because I had found my way to him through the ebony darkness of the tower. The illumination however was beautiful to me, I saw it like I never had when I was human and such things I wished I had given more thought too and respected. The beautiful light grappled over onto the jewels and they dazzled in the brilliance of the warm candle light. I found this a very delicate and lovely thing. It was the wind outside, the rustling of the trees and the faint distant whistling of the stable boy I just now learned of in the barn where he attended to the horses.

In the far off distance I heard the village church bell as it rang.

I seemed almost oblivious to everything else around me but Lestat got tense again and he looked panicked as he turned about now and almost stumbled onto the chest, and we both looked and started at the mouth of the tunnel from which I came and no one was there yet an unseen presence lurked all to close to us. Gabrielle had awoken and appeared before us now. No one in the small empty sanctum with the candlelight playing on the stones and the sarcophagus gleamed down there I was sure of it. An hour must have passed. The azure light faded and the stars had risen in the sky and the distant city of Paris lighted it’s tiny myriad beacons. I moved to the windowsill and sat looking out at the world.

I looked straight in front of the barred windows looking out but I could see him looking at me. I held onto the bars with both hands and I was smiling and Lestat watched me with awe and wonder as he stood there with Gabrielle who was contemplating over her jewels. From the corner of my eye I saw him back up as if he almost cried out and a sweat broke out over his body from being caught off guard, to be obviously startled. I decided not to bring it to attention and I stayed where I was motionless looking out the window smiling still, my expression gradually changing from serenity to mischievousness. Lestat said the candlelight made my eyes all too brilliant.

Lestat motioned us now as Gabrielle spoke “Let’s go into Paris now..I want to feed quickly tonight” her voice was soft and eager for the night and I could hear the hunger raging in her and Lestat looked from me to her and held up pearls,brooches and many other jewels for us as he placed the pearls around my neck and smiled picking up a emerald cameo ring that matched his own and slipped onto the forth finger of my left hand. It was our silent communion of vena amoris and I saw Gabrielle smile almost sadly to us. Then her saddened look was overcome when she gazed from us to the rings and brooches she elegantly decorated herself with. “Ah, but we are splendid devils, aren’t we?” She grinned to me and I couldn’t help but smile to her. “Hunters of the Savage Garden.” Lestat said as Gabrielle ran her tongue over her lips and almost angrily pushed her hair away from her forward. I couldn’t help but wonder if I was half as fascinating to them as they were to me?

Taking out a velvet pink gown that I was sure Gabrielle had worn because I could smell her scent on it. It was lovely and she took a ribbon and handed it to me to use to tie my hair back from my face. She nodded in approval and helped me with my hair before leaving the room to allow Lestat to help me with my gown and clothes. He undressed me slowly gazing over the pale, milky flesh that almost matched his own. I didn’t mind being naked in front of him I saw no shame in it. “I cannot overcome this notion that I have died,” I told said to him now as he tossed the soiled dress away and placed the girdle around me touching my skin ever so lightly with his fingertips. I continued to speak and he listened tightening the girdle and dressing me as if I were his doll. “Is it that I am utterly cut off from all living creatures. I can taste,I can See, I can feel. I can drink blood even bur I am like something that cannot be seen or cannot affect things.” He shook his head as he helped me put the dress over my head and when he touched the front of my body along with the soft fabric it all but gave me goosebumps. “That is not so..” He told me knowing I was feeling the same thing he had so many years ago. He was a century older than me by now and I was like a child weeping at this new life.

He dressed me and looked me over with a smile from outside the room where Gabrielle had been we heard a noise and dashed out to find her no where in sight. She had moved to an unused room. She stood there and I looked at her as her long,heavy hair slipped over her shoulders and exasperated, she took hold of it in both hands and Lestat moved forward from me. Suddenly Gabrielle made a low hissing sound, and her body started to go rigid. She was holding her long tresses of hair in her hands and staring at them. “My God,” I heard her whisper and then in a spasm she let go of her hair and screamed causing me to jump back against the wall. The sound paralyzed me, it sent a flash of tremendous white pain through my head. I had never heard such a scream in my life as though she were a banshee and I thought glass might shatter if any were around.She were screaming as if she might be on fire and I watched her in horror as I clung to wall in fear. Gabrielle had fallen back against the window and she was screaming louder as she looked at her hair. She went to touch it and pulled her fingers back from the long blonde strands as if it were blazing. She was struggling against the window, screaming and twisting from side to side as though she were trying to get away from her hair.

“Stop it!” Lestat shouted at her as I watched him grab hold of her shoulders and started to shake her. She was gasping and we both realized what it must have been. Lestat knew then it was her hair. Her hair had grown back! Grown back as she had slept until it was long as I imagined it had been before. It was thicker even more lustrous. “Stop it,stop it now!” Lestat shouted louder at her, her body was shaking so violently that it seemed as though he could barely keep her in his arms. “It’s grown back that’s all.” I heard him insist to her as I stood up now from my crouching in fear against the wall. “It’s natural to you, don’t you see? It’s nothing?” I could hear her choking as I watched them and she was trying to calm herself, touching it and then screaming like I had never heard as if her fingertips were blistered from touching her hair. I watched as she tried to get away from Lestat and ripped at her own hair in pure terror. I was shaking and trembling now myself unsure of what was happening and would I suffer this same state of madness that seemed to overtake her?

Lestat shook Gabrielle hard this time.

“Gabrielle!” He said in a harsh voice. “Do you understand me? It’s grown back, and it will every time you cut it! There’s no horror in it, for the love of hell, stop!” He shouted to her and we were trembling as bad as she was now. She stopped screaming and she was giving little gasps. I watched as Lestat guided her to the bench over by the hearth and Gabrielle sat and held her hands to her temples and tried to catch her breath, her body rocking back and forth slowly. Lestat pulled out his knife and I watched silently as Gabrielle sobbed softly in her hands. “Do you want me to cut it off again?” he asked and she didn’t answer. “Gabrielle,listen to me..”He took her hands from her face. “I’ll cut ut again if you like. Each night, cut it,and burn it..That’s all.” She stared at him in perfect stillness and it was like I was no longer in the room with them anymore. I didn’t know what to do or what to say now. I looked at her with her face smeared with blood from her tears and there was blood on her linen shirt as I looked from her to Lestat. “Shall I cut it?” he asked her again.

She looked exactly as if someone had hit her and made her bleed, her eyes were wide and wondering as I gazed at her now. The blood tears were seeping out of her down her smooth cheeks as I watched them. The flow stopped and th tears darkened and dried to a crust on her white skin. I saw all this and realized this was what I was a blood driven beautiful fiend of a monster that so even my tears were the hot,crimson liquid I craved.