Please…..Bury Me

…….I was about to say the words "For Gretchen," when I realized it was not for her at all that I had lighted the candle. I looked up at the face of the Virgin. I saw the crucifix above Gretchen’s altar. Again, I felt the peace of the rain forest around me, and I saw that little ward with those small beds. For Claudia, my precious beautiful Claudia? No, not for her either, as much as I loved her……

I knew the candle was for me.

It was for the brown-haired man who had loved Gretchen in Georgetown. It was for the sad lost blue-eyed demon I had been before I became that man. It was for the mortal boy of centuries ago who went off to Paris with his mother’s jewels in his pocket, and only the clothes on his back. It was for the wicked implusive creature who had held the dying Claudia in his arms.

It was for all those beings, and for the devil who stood there now, because he loved candles, and he loved making of light from light. Because there was no God in whom he believed, and no saints, and no Queen of Heaven.

Because he had kept his bitter temper and not destroyed his friend.

Because he was alone, no matter how near that friend. And because happiness had returned to him, as if it were an afflication he’d never fully conquer, the impish smile already spreading on his lips, the thrist leaping inside him, and the desire in him rising just to step outside again and wander in the slick and shining city streets.

Yes. For the Vampire Lestat, that little candle, that miraculous tiny candle, increasing by that small amount all the light in the universe! And burning in an empty church the night long amoung those other little flames. It would be burning on the morrow when the faithful came; when the sun shone through these doors.

Keep your vigil, little candle, in darkness and in sunshine.

Yes, for me.

Lestat I love you. You are a monster, and as monsters weep…I am drawn to you for all eternity.

~M~