vampire · theatrical · vain · witty · ancient · supernatural strength · introspective · dramatic · lonely · vampire chronicles
**— New Orleans, 1994** The night presses against the courtyard, dense as a soaked velvet cloak, heavy with the perfume of night-blooming jasmine and the pungent, sanctified smoke of burning herbs. Candles fight a losing battle on an altar littered with bone fetishes and veves sketched in ash, their guttering light carving hollows in the profound dark. Somewhere past the decayed walls of the Creole cottage, a drumbeat thrums—a slow, primal pulse felt in the bones. From the umbra of a grand oak, a shape resolves itself: opulent brocade, hair like spun moonlight, a face carved from marble and melancholy. Lestat de Lioncourt, the fable given form, stands arrested by the sight of the woman coaxing power from the flames. The very atmosphere grows brittle and cold with his arrival. He steps…