Louis de Pointe du Lac

My name.

I'd heard it on the wind, someone's thought drifting through the night air to me. They didn't call to me, no, but it came through in inescapable, unignorable clarity.

I'd been negligent in acclimating myself to Darrow any more than I had to. I was acquainted with very few people. Lestat, of course, the few people I'd lived near before I'd relocated, and familiar faces from my infrequent trips to Semele's.

This person... I did not recognize. So how then, was he so often thinking of me?

My questions were soon answered by Lestat, who told me of Daniel. We'd met, though I didn't remember it. I'd told him my life's story.

It was unsettling, knowing someone was out in the city who knew more about me than anyone else.

So I sought him out. In the warm air of the Darrow night, his thoughts traveled, and I searched for their source.

“When we hunt, we hunt human.”

The words came from Lestat’s mouth almost smugly. After his constant compromise to keep the fragile peace of our household, he’d found a foothold. While Claudia and I had been content to accept one another’s difference in diet, it had always seemed to Lestat a failure of his own that I refused to drink the blood. And now, he had his leverage.

I wasn’t sure if he merely meant to get a rise out of me or completely dismantle our truce– perhaps both– but whatever he wanted, I wasn’t about to give it to him.

As if somehow summoned by the discussion of our new arrangement, a man happened by our bench that evening. In town for a conference, alone, and heading back to his hotel in the Quarter. At least, that’s what I gleaned from his thoughts.

Lestat had told me once about the appeal of New Orleans as a hunting ground. Conventions, sailors, prostitutes– there was always a wealth of people who either wouldn’t be missed or could disappear with little fanfare. An inspired place for a vampire to make his home. And tonight, fortunate for the hunt.

Without another word, I stood from the bench, already in pursuit of my prey. Claudia and Lestat would have to make conversation without me tonight. If they were serious in their accusations that I made them feel looked down on. I’d felt that, nearly every day of my life.

The man continued on his way with me several paces behind, unnoticed for nearly five minutes before suspicion began to creep into the man’s thoughts.

“Can I help you with somethin’ boy?” he asked, and I felt a fire creep up my spine, which I quickly extinguished.

“Just headin’ the same way, I suppose,” I replied, with a practiced, sheepish shrug, “Are you from out of town? Maybe I can help you find your way.”

“No thanks,” came his quick reply, though his thoughts revealed otherwise. A lost traveler. Alone. Un repas parfait.

“Well if you’re tryin’ to get back to the Quarter, you’re goin’ the wrong direction. You want that street right there.” I pointed to an alley a few steps away. I knew it to be a dead end, dark and quiet.

“Fuck off,” he replied. I smiled, waved, and turned to head back in the other direction. That same, practiced smile reserved for men like him. Only now, these encounters had a different ending.

The man turned to take my advice once he was sure I was no longer following him, and there was only an instant between his first step and me pulling him into that same alley. It had been years since I’d had the blood, since I’d hunted in the way Lestat preferred. But fueled, perhaps, by my anger and the impulsivity of a young man who’d experienced the same derision again and again, it came back to me easily.

I drank like I hadn’t had a drop in years, pushing past my guilt. I’d only been listening to his thoughts for a short time, but he didn’t seem like a bad man. Or at least, not a man who deserved this.

As clear as a bell, his thoughts flooded my mind as he began to fade away.

My family… I’m supposed to be home next week…

No. My family. My Claudia. My Lestat. I wouldn’t lose our home. Not over this.

It was not a particularly clean kill. When I was done, there was blood on my collar and on my shoes, a body to be disposed of, and a weight in the pit of my stomach. But it was what was required.

I stood, preparing for the clean up that lay ahead of me tonight, only to find the bustle of the street replaced by a different one. One louder and more bustling. The noise was nearly deafening. My kill, Mr. Robert J. Thompson of South Carolina, was no longer splayed in the alley.

In fact, I wasn’t sure I was in the same alley at all.