Children Of Darkness
The next night when we awoke the events I had recalled with Gabrielle in her mad frenzy seemed all but a dream now. She cut her hair and burned it every night when she woke from her slumber and here I was standing before this beautiful woman with all her kitten like features that seemed to make her look more like a girl than myself. She smiled at me and moved in close. She were dressed in a new cotton linen shirt,trousers and white silk stockings covered her all to feminine legs. With the blonde hair cut so short as that of a man’s she looked almost hard not fragile and sweet as when I first lay eyes on her. Gabrielle was a mystery to me and I to her. So much I wanted to know, She was of Italian descent as I was and the curiosity burned deep in me. I wondered how and when she had come to France and was her education as great as Lestat so intrigued me on? The cold delicate hands reached out and touched my hair in a caressing manner.
“We’re going into Paris tonight..”
“Paris? Why?”
“Lestat wishes to see Armand and the Theater Des Vampires before we leave.”
The Theater of Vampires? What was this? I looked at her now with a grand curiosity even more still and she smiled and gave a small laugh as Lestat wandered up behind me. Touching my back I could feel his smile washing over me. “Yes, Armand..He’s beautiful Raven, I think you would love him all the same.” Lestat said gently and I cocked my head to the side in wonder. His blue eyes found my green and in that moment I don’t think I dared to move and reaching out it was his cold hand against the cold flesh of my cheek that matched his own. I was back in the reality of where we were down in the dirty,dungeon crypt with our little coven, Lestat was moving me toward the stairs and upward out of the crypt now and I was all too happy to go. From behind us I heard Gabrielle make a noise I couldn’t comprehend as she took the lead and she was taking us out of the tower and toward the stables where Lestat kept his mare. Gabrielle was inside the stables and bringing the mare out for us now before I had time to ask about the stable boy I had heard the night before. Lestat shrugged off my thought and I could see the pain in his eyes now and I looked away quickly as if I had broken his heart.
In seconds I looked up and Gabrielle had already saddled and mounted the mare holding her hand out and down to me from the ground where I stood with Lestat. Effortlessly she pulled me up on the saddle behind her and she was holding onto the mane of the giant animal as it moved under us slightly. Lestat was next as he jumped up taking his place behind me as I was squished between the two beautiful immortals and taking the reins delicately Lestat gave them a thrust and pull steering the horse from the stables and we rode away from the tower towards the city of Paris. Glancing up into the darkening sky the stars came out and twinkled with a playful delight and I hadn’t noticed the stars burning so bright before. “Beautiful isn’t it?” Lestat said gently leaning in against my ear as we neared the wooden bridge and the horse started in a noisy trot over the planks of wood. Gabrielle didn’t speak a word as we rode into the city and that made me uneasy. I couldn’t hear her thoughts she locked me out at times and I wondered if Lestat could hear them? or even my own?
The streets of Paris were alive and busy with the horses and carriages of it’s people. Pulling firmly on the reins the horse reared into a run down an alleyway causing me to grab hold on Gabrielle around the waist in fear I might fall from this large creature. Laughter escaped her lips and her silence was no more. We were bounding furiously down the cobblestone and the loud pounding of the hooves rang out in my ears and my hair whipped ever which way with the wind. Coming to a halt finally at the end of the alley and crossing the corner on Boulevard du Temple where Renaud’s Theater was. Lestat and Nicki had worked there and I had to at one point but not for as long as they had. It was an eerie feeling about the place now as I looked around, Gabrielle was the first to demount the mare and tying the horse up for us. Lestat followed after her and helped me from the tall creature. Smiling to Lestat he returned it as always but my attention on him was short when I saw who I guessed was Armand, just a young boy about my age, of seventeen standing there in the doorway of Renaud’s Theater that Lestat had now called the Theater of the Vampires.
The creature he was with a boy’s face and all to beautiful features, Lestat had been right he was brilliant to the eyes and I couldn’t help but to look upon him. I think I saw Lestat smile as he watched me just gaze at the boy who stood perfectly still watching us. However I did notice that he was not dressed now as men today dressed. Rather he was wearing a belted tunic, that looked aw so graceful and he wore creamy white stockings on his well-shaped legs. I was looking him over from head to toe marveling at his beauty. Then I noticed his sleeves looked very deep and was hanging to his sides. He had a head of long curly auburn hair that was slightly tattered with dust I noticed and dark brown eyes that looked as though they could see down into the very essence of my immortal soul.
“Thou art the devil’s child now..” The sweetest masculine voice sang in my head and as I looked at Armand I realized he was speaking to me without moving his lips and I gripped Lestat’s sleeve and he looked at me quickly then to Armand giving him a warning glare and Armand instantly dropped his eyes from me and looked to the ground. We moved closer and Gabrielle took Armand in her arms and they hugged and kissed one another. I watched in awe once again as Armand moved from Gabrielle to Lestat now exchanging hugs and kisses then he looked me with the most curious smile and extended his hand for me to take which I did after looking to Lestat for an approving glance and he nodded. Armand bent low and kissed my hand tenderly bowing in courtesy. I felt the blood rise in my cheeks and he smirked playfully. “Come inside..” Armand smiled and motioned us into the theater to an old dressing room that I recognized as Lestat’s when he and Nicki would perform here.
“Does she know?”
“No, I haven’t told her yet..”
“Shall I then? I presume this is why you have brought her?”
Lestat nodded to Armand as we all settled into the old dressing room, down the hall I could hear the other vampires out on the stage prancing about and I thought I heard Nicki with his violin strumming away at it with the bow and conducting the saddest song my ears had ever heard. Looking at me now Armand caught my full attention and I swallowed hard and we stared at one another in an eerie silence and I felt Gabrielle and Lestat both become tense unsure of what might happen next. Pacing back and forth between us Armand gave a gentle sigh and I knew what he had to tell me was important, why else would I be here?
Armand,Lestat and Gabrielle already knew the rituals and common prohibitions with the laws; now they must inform me of such things. “These laws, you must live by..” Armand told me as his dark brown eyes peered heavily into my green and his Russian accent was deep and so lovely to my ears. “The great laws of the vampire:
One–that each coven must have its leader and only he might order the working of the Dark Trick upona mortal,seeing that the methods and the rituals were properly observed.
Two–that the Dark Gifts must never be given to the crippled,the maimed, or to children, or to those who cannot ,even with Dark Powers, survive on their own.Be it further understood that all mortals who would receive the Dark Gifts should be beautiful in person so that the insult to God might be greater when the Dark Trick is done.
Three–that never should an old vampire work this magic lest the blood of the fledgling be too strong.For all our gifts increase naturally with age, and the old ones have too much strength to pass on. Injury,burning–these catastrophes,if they do not destroy the Child of Satan will only increase his powers when he is healed. Yet Satan guards the flock from the power of old ones, for almost all without exception, go mad.”
Armand’s voice faded and I made mental notes to myself about all this and it was Children of Satan from which he called us and he thrust into my mind a mental picture of men and women dressed in black robes in what seemed to be a Roman coven and a tall dark haired man stood there with Armand and he recited these things to Armand as he was to me and I shuddered seeing all this now. It was the first Roman coven, where the devil frequently calls his vampires home. In his silent teachings now he lead me to understand that the effect of the Dark Trick is unpredictable,even when passed on by the very young vampires and with all their care. For reasons unknown to us when some mortals are Born into Darkness some become as powerful as Titans, others may be no more than corpses that move with us as we do or as humans do.That is why mortals must be chosen with skill.
Nodding silently I understood all this now and Armand opened his mouth to speak again as he pressed on about the great laws of vampires.
“Four–that no vampire may ever destroy another vampire,except that the coven master has the power of life and death over all his flock. And it is,further,his obligation to lead the old ones and the mad ones into the fire when they can no longer serve Satan as they should. It is his obligation to destroy all vampires who are not properly made,It is his obligation to destroy those who are so badly wounded that they cannot survive on their own. And it is his obligation finally to seek destruction of all outcasts and all who have broken these laws.
Five–that no vampire shall ever reveal his true nature to a mortal and allow that mortal to live.No vampire must ever reveal the history of the vampires to a mortal and let the mortal live.No vampire must commit to writing the history of the vampires or any true knowledge of vampires lest such a history be found by mortals,save from his tombstone, and never must any vampire reveal to mortals the location of his or any other vampire’s lair.
These are great commandments,which all vampires must obey and this is the condition of existence among all the Undead.” Armand finished and smiled touching my cheek and I gave him an understanding smile. I knew then if I broke any of these sacred vows, that in his mind he told me so boldly; I would die by his hand if this were to ever happen and I knew he wasn’t lying. After all Armand had been alive since 1349 and his eyes alone told the story of his age underneath those lovely auburn curls. “We are the abandon of God..” He said gently to finish his teachings for me and I glanced at him suddenly. “Do you believe in God?” I asked. He smiled gently to me now and moved closer and I could smell the dust and rotting cloth of his tunic among his sweet skin. “Yes, always in God,” he answered. “It is Satan–our master–who is the fiction and that is the fiction which had betrayed me.”
“Oh, then you are truly damned?” I asked and he exchanged looks with Lestat and they chuckled to my question and I felt Lestat’s arm go around me and then I realized we to were all damned and abandoned by God and the devil was but a thing of fiction and all ours sins then were not a sin and how I wanted to weep at this realization and Lestat held me to him and caressed my cheek to calm me. So here it was, everything I ever needed to know about the Children of Darkness, the vampires we were. What is there to know? but this? What is there to give? We are the abandoned of God. And there is no Devil’s Road spinning out before us and there are no bells of hell ringing in my ears now as I would have thought it to be.