Vampire Chronicles - Creve Coeur

Title: Crève Coeur
Author: Gairid
Fandom: Vampire Chronicles - I make no profit from these writings---all done for love of the characters.

Crève Coeur
28 August, 2005

(Brian)

"It's a monster – they just upgraded it to a Category 4. Have you seen the news at all? You can't even see the Gulf of Mexico. "

It was nearly two in the morning, but there was no sleep in me at all in spite of having gotten up earlier than I usually did and putting in a long day.

"We appreciate that you are concerned, Brian, but we will not be leaving. We would of course understand if you think you should leave." Lestat said.

There was no hint of disdain in his voice, but then why would there be? He meant exactly what he said. I had already decided that if they stayed then so would I. They were invulnerable to many things, but during the day anything might happen. I sat back in my chair with a sigh.

"If you can stick it out, I guess I can, too. "

"And someone has to keep an eye on things during the day, yes?" Louis said shrewdly.

"And then there's that." I agreed. I took a long drink from the bottle of water I was holding. We were sitting out on the balcony and I was sweating pretty freely in the thick humidity. It had rained late Saturday afternoon and that had only added to the discomfort. "I'll finish getting everything secured in the morning."

"It looks like you've got most of it done already." Lestat observed. "This balcony hasn't been so exposed in years."

I'd gotten all the potted plants from the balcony and the courtyard stashed away earlier in the empty house that backed up to mine. The property, yet another one of theirs, fronted on Bourbon St. and I'd been using it for storage for years, moving things in and out as they were needed.

"Wouldn't want them flying out onto the street or through someone's window. I've got some guys coming in the morning to put up the plywood. The back of the house is already done."

"It would appear that you knew we'd be staying." Louis said. He rose from his chair and went to look down the street, his hands resting lightly on the railing.

"I had an idea you would, yeah." I said. I finished the water. "They're partying hard all over the Quarter, but there's a line around the Superdome—everybody from the projects is packing in there. I've got a feeling this is gonna be bad. What if the roof blows off? "

"Unlikely." Lestat stated.

I looked at him. "You wouldn't consider sleeping in a box, would you?"

"A box? You get in a box!" Lestat cried, laughing.

"Those coffins have been gone for years." Louis said. He was smiling at Lestat.

"I know." I said, smiling a little myself in spite of the worry that had taken hold of me. "It was just a suggestion."

28 August, 2005
Mid-Morning
(Brian)

By mid-morning everything was as secure as it was going to be —t he townhouse and my own small house boarded up, most of the valuables moved days earlier to vaults over at Whitney National on Chartres or flown to New York where they would be safe. Computers backed up with the help of a service and I'd filled all the tubs and sinks with water.

Earlier in the day I'd heard on the radio that the storm had been upgraded to 'potentially catastrophic', a phrase that didn't go very far in eliminating my increasing anxiety. Not long after that Mayor Nagin ordered a mandatory evacuation. Many of our neighbors had already left the city; those that hadn't had already made up their minds to stay.

"After all," Harry, our neighbor just down the block said. "Every time we evacuate it's just a whole lot of nothin', am I right?" He was right about the past few times and I understood the attitude, but there was something lurking under his outward conviction, an edginess that I felt in myself and that I'd noticed in those others that had also decided to face Katrina.

At loose ends now that I'd finished up at home, I decided to go and get something to eat. There was no sign of the great storm churning away to the south—the sky was a washed-out blue and the sun already murderously hot. In the short time it took me to walk to Esplanade, the clean shirt I'd changed into after the morning's work was stuck to my skin and the sweat ran down the middle of my back like a river. The blast of refrigerated air that greeted me went a good way toward restoring my appetite and so did the smell of grilling meat.

"Another lunatic." Vaughn said by way of greeting. He didn't bother taking an order—I got the same thing every time I came in for lunch. Port of Call, usually packed for lunch even before noon, was fairly quiet. I knew most of the people I saw sitting at the bar and greeted those who called to me. The television in the corner was on and after a while I noticed the almost furtive glances people gave it, reading the constant reports scrolling across the bottom of the screen and then shifting their eyes back to whatever they were eating or drinking.

I spent much of the afternoon there and when I left to go home hours later, light-headed with drink, it occurred to me that we had eaten what might have been called the last supper.


28 August, 2005
Late in the Evening
(Louis)

Brian had the house battened down as he'd said he would. He had not brought up what was plainly at the front of his mind—that Lestat and I should leave or at least take more precautions than usual to shield ourselves in what he considered to be our vulnerable time, the daylight hours.

The three of us were sitting around the television listening to the dire predictions of the forecasters, their eagerness at the approaching storm and the stories yet to come evident in the suppressed excitement bubbling beneath the surface of their grave faces.

We could feel it, Lestat and I, the currents in the air, the heightened pressure and the crackling energy in the clouds built up in the darkness above the city. It was like nothing I'd ever felt before, not in the way of weather or storms that I had known in over two centuries of existence.

Lestat was snappish, prowling and pacing with a restless energy that told me he was frustrated in a formless sort of way. There was nothing to be done about such a thing as a hurricane but he didn't like it as he didn't like anything that made him feel that he was in the least bit helpless. Unlike times gone by, however, he kept himself under control, venting his energy in the form of alternately peppering Brian with questions and reassuring him that if anywhere in New Orleans was safe it was where we were right now. Brian knew this of course but he answered the questions and absorbed the reassurances with his usual forbearance.

"Lestat, come to me." I said after a while. His enervation was communicating itself to me and I wanted to soothe him. He stopped and looked at me with his head cocked to one side for a long moment and then he came and laid his head in my lap, sprawling his long body along the length of the couch, his legs draped over the arm. There was room beside me and I patted the seat. "And you, Brian."


29 August, 2005
Monday, 6:48 am
(Brian)

They slept.

I'd gone in after official sunrise and covered them entirely with the blanket, tucking the ends under the mattress. I had decided I would stay in the house with them just in case the wind actually did tear the roof off—I had no idea what winds upward of 150 miles per hour could do but If nothing else, I could cover their flesh from the light should the worst happen. The wind was already howling up the narrow street and when I'd stepped out to look at one point I'd seen the planks of one of the balconies three buildings away lift up and fly into the air like so many piano keys. I went back down the carriageway, the force of the wind in that narrow space pressing me like a giant palm against the worn bricks. When I got through the door in the wall into the courtyard, I felt myself lifted by an updraft and I held on grimly to the heavy cypress door until the suction seemed to lessen. I shoved my shoulder against the door until I felt the latch catch hold. I went back into the house, bolting the heavy kitchen door behind me, leaning there with my heart pounding.

I went upstairs and switched the television on. The National Hurricane Center had issued warnings that some of the levees in New Orleans could be overtopped by the surge and that wave heights fifty miles east of the mouth of the Mississippi had reached heights of forty-seven feet. What would happen? How many people still remained in the city? Good Christ, what the hell were we still doing here?

11:39 am

The power went out around 9:42 and I'd been monitoring the storm on a battery-operated radio. New Orleans, the NOAA said, had been spared a direct hit and the winds had died somewhat—the storm was now a category 3.

None of this was comforting because our neighbor Harry LaSalla had braved the wind and rain to come and tell me that he'd had news that the 17th St. Canal had given way and Lake Ponchartrain was now spilling into the downtown area. Harry had his scraggly mutt of a dog with him and after he'd reported his news he suddenly burst into tears. Harry had grown up in the Lower Nine. We later found out that it had been many hours before the state or federal officials knew about this breach. Harry stayed until the wind died somewhat. He was an older man, in his sixties and I thought it had taken a good deal of courage for him to brave the elements to come and tell me the news he'd heard.

6:15 pm

After Harry left, I went upstairs and pulled the folding ladder down from the ceiling to check for any damages in the attic. The slate shingles on the hipped roof had held admirably and there were only a few small damp areas where rain had found its way in.

Satisfied that there was no danger to be had from that area, I went back downstairs. The floors on street level were wet, the marble foyer awash with perhaps six inches of water that had come in under the front door. The kitchen had some flooding as well, but it wasn't quite as bad since the courtyard was lower than the raised step that lead beneath the colonnade. The graveled walks and flowerbeds were under half a foot of water.

I went out to the garage at the end of the carriageway and opened the door. Water spilled out in a wave, carrying with it an assortment of spiders and palmetto bugs. Up against the wall beside Lestat's '59 Impala and the big black Harley-Davidson was a flat-bottomed aluminum fishing boat I'd stowed there days earlier, thinking I might be able to help someone if the water rose too high. I had no idea just how bad things were beyond the Quarter.

There was no question of trying to move the Chevy so that I could get the boat down and in any case I didn't want to leave the house until they'd awakened. I left the doors ajar and went to my own place, high and dry above any flooding that had occurred because of its high porch.

10:52 pm
(Lestat)

I have known and seen horrors in my years on earth, but I was unprepared for the devastation that had occurred in the city I have long called my home. Louis and I had parted ways shortly after we left our home, unable to even speak to each other of what we were seeing. Whole neighborhoods were underwater. Entire sections of major roadways had been swept away. Terrified people were trapped in their houses, beating at the wood under their roofs and screaming for help. Here and there others tried to help, hacking away with axes and crowbars. Others cruised past in boats and makeshift vessels, some trying to help, others out for more nefarious purposes.

I did what I could, tearing at shingles and prying up boards, leaning in to haul people out—and what then? Load them into boats if they were available or leave them on their roofs? I couldn't save them all and in any case there was nowhere for them to go. I did what I was able to do, opening holes for them to crawl out and moving on under the cover of a darkness that was unnatural for this day and age.

The dead. The dead were everywhere; I smelled them, people and animals and under that smell was another and another and another, evil chemicals; leaking petrol and oil and God knows what else. The reek of their terror and the pervasive scent of blood. Screaming and wailing and shots fired and the blaze of light and the rush of wind from passing helicopters. Flashlight beams crisscrossed the darkness, the pathetic yellow light doing very little to illuminate anything. It was nightmarish, medieval, something out of a darkness that lurked just beneath the fragile net of electric lights and man-made things that is the illusion of modern life.

30 August, 2005
Tuesday, 3:27am
(Brian)

I'd been ferrying people from car tops and rooftops for hours, numb from what I'd seen and heard and so sick at heart that I found myself hardly able to speak anymore. The reactions of those who got in the boat varied widely from hysterics to a sort of disconnected jocularity; I had no doubt that I was witnessing the many ways that people absorb sudden horror. I'd run out of gas some time ago and my arms and back ached from the steady rowing, the skin on my palms had blistered and broken several times over.

I'd acquired a partner of sorts for a while, a huge black man in a pirogue that barely held him. He had taken it upon himself to row back and forth with me, his little boat tied to mine, steadying the boat as people scrambled or fell or climbed in and bending his back at the oars to get them away from the flooded areas. Each trip took upwards of a half an hour or so and those that we had to leave behind became more and more desperate each time we left. Several times we returned to a house only to find that there was no one there to rescue anymore.

"I got to be on my way." He said when we'd gotten to yet another empty rooftop. "Be careful, you. Not everyone so happy to see a white man in a boat by hisself. Maybe they take yo' l'il boat. You go on home if you still got one." He untied the frayed nylon rope and stuck out his huge hand. I am not a small person, but his hand swallowed mine whole, callused and warm. " 'Tee Georgie."

"Brian." My voice was a croak.

"Take care of yo'sef, Brian. Maybe I see you again sometime." He turned his boat around and began rowing. He was lost in the darkness only moments later. I sat there, the boat bobbing in the darkness, listening to the shouts coming from different directions. Now and then I heard gunfire and fire bloomed away to the east, lurid orange in the dark sky; the surface of the water boiled with mosquitoes.

After a while I turned around and headed toward St. Charles Avenue, trying not to think about what might be thudding against the sides of the boat. I armed the sweat from my face and the tears that leaked from my eyes. The oars creaked on the gunwales.

How could things have fallen apart so fast?


1 September, 2005
Mid-Afternoon
(Brian)

"You doin' okay, Brian? " Chaisson asked.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine." It was anything but the truth—how could anyone be fine when you could smell people cooking in their attics? The water we were wading through was brown, the odor unspeakable. There was a rainbow sheened skin floating on the top, an ungodly mix of oil and sewage. I'd been working alongside John, three other cops and a few others who were doing the same thing I was—trying to be of some use in an untenable situation.

"Careful here—the steps are broken, I think." One of the other cops said. His name was Wayne; I wasn't sure if that was his first name or his last. He still wore the remnants of his NOPD uniform, only the arm patches recognizable under the grime and he was poking under the filthy water with a metal signpost. He was a big guy, overweight, but under the layer of fat he had banded muscle, that was certain. He hauled himself up on the narrow porch and checked the footing. "Seems okay." He said after a moment. He leaned down, offering his hand. I took it and he pulled me up onto the porch.

"We'll go on to the next house." John said. Wayne nodded absently and looked at me. "Ready?"

"Yeah."

The smell emanating from the door Wayne yanked open made my stomach roil. I was long past vomiting at this point but this seemed to be an automatic reaction. I followed him inside, pushing aside the floating wreckage of furniture. Once enclosed in the superheated air of the house it was difficult to breathe.

"Man, there's someone in here." He said heavily. He shoved open the door to a bedroom and stepped back involuntarily. Beyond him I saw the bloated corpse of a woman floating face down, the back of her dress split apart from the strain of the gases building up inside her.

"I'll check the other room." I said, stumbling over something that I couldn't see. I leaned against the wall for a moment and went into the other small bedroom. Mercifully, it was empty. Back out on the front porch, Wayne sprayed the glyphs on the door, arcane symbols in day-glo orange that spoke the news of yet another death. The sun was a burning silver coin in the white sky; it glittered feverishly on the water.

3 September, 2005
Saturday Night
(Lestat)

"Generator's running. Who hooked you up wit' gas?" The black man blinked as he entered the bar. Up until today, candles had served for light. He closed his eyes blissfully when the breeze from the floor fan passed over him.

"Brian." Fontenot said, disappearing for a moment as he leaned down behind the bar. "So we got lights, we got a fan and we got ice, my man. Have you a cold beer."

Rémy Didier grinned with pure pleasure, pressing the cold bottle against his seamed brow.
"Don't that feel fine? Which Brian? Or do I got to ask?"

"From over on Royal. " Fontenot said, wiping down the bar and nodding to a man at the far end of the bar. "Comin' up."

Fontenot's place was full. One could almost think nothing had changed, except for the roar of the generator and the reek of gasoline. No one seemed to mind in the least.

None of the patrons took any notice of me, seated as I was in the far corner and that was as I willed it. I had come here to listen to my neighbors. To hear the gossip and the news and yes, to see how they were getting on. I knew most of them by sight and some of them by name. I knew their parents, their grandparents and in some cases, their great-grandparents, although at that time I had decided to go on hiatus, as it were.

It did not surprise me that they knew Brian. Of course they would. Brian was part of the neighborhood. He'd been here a while now, fifteen years, perhaps more. Fontenot's father used to run a restaurant in this same building, but Fontenot had changed that some years back. His place was more of a locals place, but anyone was welcome and the tourists came in, too, lured by the Zydeco bands he had on the weekends.

At the moment it was locals only. What tourists there were in New Orleans just now were those few still holed up in hotels waiting for flights to other cities, cities that had not been leveled by the hammer blow of a monstrous hurricane and the resulting flooding that had carried away homes and lives. There was no Zydeco band, only the television on its perch in the corner farthest from me, tuned to the local news. The picture was fuzzy.

Fontenot came back and leaned on the bar near Didier, watching him take a long, satisfied swallow of his beer. Didier put the bottle down.

"How much gas that boy get for you?" He asked with a casual air.

"Fifty-five gallons. Believe that? I'm betting there's more, too. He's dropping off the barrels to whoever he hears needs 'em."

"How he getting' in and out dis place, him?"

Fontenot gave him a significant look and Didier waved at him. "Never min'. I should'na axed." He shook his head and looked about furtively. "Dem two, eh? Or one of 'em, anyhow."

"C'mon Rémy. Don't tell me you believe gossip." This from a younger man whose face was familiar, but whose name I could not place.

"Don' matter what I believe, me. What matters is de troot', yeah."

"There's no such thing as vampires. Just the freaks playing dress-up is all." The man said with a trace of derision. "Don't we have enough to worry about without tourist stories thrown in the mix?"

Didier shrugged.

"How long you live here, Charlie?" Fontenot asked.

"Four years. Why?"

"Ain't that long, four years."

"Whatever that means." Charlie said, elbowing his buddy. They laughed They were both well on their way to abysmal intoxication.

"Means if you've been here a long time you might take notice of some things."

"What things?" Charlie's buddy asked.

"You look in the mirror, you see the same face lookin' back at you as you did twenty years ago?"

"Maybe dat's enough, Font." Didier said in a low voice.

"Didier, everyone here knows." Fontenot turned back to Charlie. "Well?"

"Course not." Charlie said, taking another beer from Fontenot. "Twenty years ago I was a kid."

"I lived here all my life." Fontenot said. "My daddy, too. Those two never change. They ain't changed since I was a kid. Not since my daddy can remember, either. See?"

Charlie and his buddy laughed again, but no one else in the room did. They watched with a sort of proprietary interest but Charlie seemed at a loss as to how to answer Fontenot's statement. It had been some time since I had done something like this, sitting unnoticed among mortals and listening to them.

The talk turned after that, discussions about the flooding and why nothing had been done to help those that had stayed behind. Angry talk about the government and the president, warring opinions about why things had come to such a pass. Sobering talk about the death count mounting, the bodies in the streets left to rot in the relentless Louisiana heat. Some people left; others came in to take their places. A few noticed me in spite of my intentions to remain unobserved; Didier, for one, on his way to the odiferous men's room.

His eyes met mine and he stopped. "Bon soir." He said. "I hope you ain't upset."

"Not at all." I told him. "We are all in this together, after all. Fontenot is right, you know. People here know. You needn't be worried. How is Clarence? Did you manage to get him up to Baton Rouge?"

"Ville Platte." Didier corrected, nodding. The talk of his mule relaxed him somewhat. "He's fine. Took him up soon as I heard 'bout dat storm, me. Hack stable's in a low place and it's flooded now. Clarence getting' fat on grass up north. "

"Might I ask why you decided to stay here?"

Didier glanced into my eyes for a moment.

"It's my home, same as you." He said with perfect sincerity. " 'Scuse me now, I got to…" He waved vaguely.

"Of course."

He moved away and I caught the relieved run of his thoughts,:::ain't so bad, no, ain't so bad, but his eyes::: and then that was all.

Back at the bar, Charlie's raised voice claimed my attention. "Brian works for vampires. You know how crazy that sounds, don't you Font? Come on. He's a carpenter or something. Workin' on some place off St. Charles. He takes the streetcar, for chrissakes! I seen him walking up from Canal plenty of times, wearing his work clothes."

"You're drunk, Charlie." A woman called good-naturedly from further down. Susan something. She pushed her dark hair back from her face.

"Not that drunk." Charlie insisted. "C'mon, Sue. Those two fags just got the names from those books that old bat over on First St. wrote."

"She moved away, smartass." Susan retorted. "And how do you know where she got the names?"

"What two fags?" Came a familiar voice from the door. Brian backed in, wheeling a keg on a dolly. "Hey Font, tap this, will you?"

Fontenot came around the bar and took the dolly from Brian.

"Those guys you live with."

"I live in the place out back." Brian said blandly. "All us fags flock together, you know." He was full of restless energy, overflowing with an urgent need to be doing something. He'd been alternating between this manic state and sleeping like the dead, if you will pardon the expression, ever since Katrina passed. He turned his head and looked right where I was sitting and inclined his head slightly.

"Whatever." Charlie said. "Fontenot's tryin' to tell me they're vampires. What is it with you local people? How long does someone have to live here before you stop with the stories?"

"Gotta let that settle, Brian." Fontenot remarked, passing him a long-necked bottle.

"Think they're pulling your leg, do you?" Brian asked.

Charlie rolled his eyes. "Fairy tales now that the lights are out." He mumbled. "Except in here, anyway."

"Sure Charlie. Fairy tales." Brian ran a grimy hand through his hair and took a drink of his beer. Didier passed me on his way back to the bar and leaned over to say something into Brian's ear. Brian laughed and patted the old man's shoulder as he continued back to his seat. "You're paranoid, Charlie, know that? You really think everyone's messing with you when there's all this other stuff to deal with? G'wan."

At that point Louis sauntered in like a cat looking for a particular patch of sunlight. Conversation did not exactly grind to a complete stop, but it faltered and became unfocused.

Louis had been distant since the hurricane, sometimes coming with me those first few nights to do what we could for those people still alive in their attics; we could hear them when no others could. At other times he went off on his own—we didn't speak of what we'd seen on these forays. We were more than used to death, having been the cause of it for so many over such a long time; this was different--this was a nightmare from which we could not awaken any more than the people in our city could and even such as we could not ignore their suffering.

"Here you are, Lestat." He said, passing the patrons seated along the bar. He sat down across from me and took my hand in both of his, pressing a kiss to my palm.

"Yes, love." I murmured. Beyond his shoulder several people goggled in our direction, for they had only just then noticed my presence.

"There are roadblocks. A soldier with a gun tried to speak to me of curfews and mandatory evacuation. " He raised his eyes from his contemplation of my hand and blinked slowly. "I told him that the city would be better served if they would see to the dead before disease sets in. Surely they know this?"

"Where was this?"

He had not tied his hair back and I found myself contemplating the way the excessive humidity had caused the fine hairs at the scalp line to curl. The silky mass looked somehow luminous, if such a thing is possible with that degree of darkness.

He shrugged. "Poydras. There are others over on St. Charles, too. I could have avoided them altogether of course, but I confess I was curious." He turned his head. "Brian? Will you join us, cher?"

Brian came over and I slid over to make room for him. Before Louis said anything I leaned to speak into Brian's ear. "Who is that oaf? That Charles person?"

Brian exhaled strongly through his nose. "Bouncer at one of the titty bars. He lives on Iberville."

Louis appeared to ignore this exchange, but I saw turn to study the man's face with a flat, speculative look. He turned back to us. "II also saw John Chaisson, Brian. He asked me to tell you that he would come by at some point tomorrow to...to give you a hand."

Brian nodded. He hadn't spoken much about his own activities and I knew that he was more thrown by what had happened and what he had subsequently seen than his outward demeanor implied. He threw clothes in the trash after he returned home exhausted each day—the clothes smelt of chemical filth, sewage and death. When I went to look in on him two nights earlier, he'd been asleep on his couch. It had been a shock to see him looking so fragile and so worn. His skin had an unhealthy pallor beneath his tan and his mouth held a tightness that should not have endured in such a heavy sleep.

The strain was still evident; I saw it in his haunted eyes the same way I saw it lurking behind the forced joie d vivre in the voices of those in the dark little bar; their fear, their anxiety and their pain permeated the place. The inebriated banter was the thinnest of scabs over wounds that had not even begun any sort of proper healing.

"He was okay?" Brian asked. He rolled his shoulders to work out some of the tension. "John?"

"He looks tired. Like you." Louis said. "But he is unhurt, if that's what you meant."

Brian nodded. "There's a lot going on. Police department's a mess with so many cops just—gone. There's cops from New Iberia and some other northern parishes in trying to help the city cops coordinate things with the Coast Guard. Man, those guys really worked their asses off. There's cops from New York and New Jersey. Rescue units from out of state too, all volunteers. Everyone's talking about why there hasn't been more help from the government—people are still dying, they have no food or water and there's bodies every fucking where. People tried to cross over into Jefferson Parish and they were turned back by cops firing shotguns over their heads." His voice broke then and he lowered his head, hitching in a great breath. "I keep thinking I'm gonna wake up and this will all be a bad dream and I still have a place to live. Christ."

He glanced over at the bar. Susan caught his eye and gave him a sympathetic smile; it seemed to help him gain control. Brian told me the night before that her brother was among the missing. He turned his head to look at me and placed his hand over mine. "I know this is stupid but I think it's just better if I don't talk about this anymore right now. Talking about it just makes it worse, you know?"

"I know." I said. I was learning things about him that I had not suspected in the years I had known him. "Brian, perhaps you should go home. Get some rest." I knew very well what he'd been doing with his days; running barrels of petrol or vanloads of bottled water was the least of it. He moaned in his sleep and he dreamed of the dead.

"I probably should but I can't go yet. I can't stand the thought of just lying there and I know that's what will happen. " He smiled then, a sweet smile that made him look more like his usual self than anything I'd seen in the past week. "Thanks for looking out for me, though."

"You will have a care, Brian, yes? I would not like to think you gave Lestat too much worry, you know." Louis said. His eyes were kind and that put Brian off balance.

"I'll be fine." He said. "See you later, yeah?"

13 September, 2005
Tuesday Morning
3:20 am
(Brian)

The generator was running smoothly. I topped off the fuel and crossed the courtyard to the back door of the townhouse. I'd been catching what sleep I could in the guest bedroom, making do with a fan—it was a lot more than many others left in our forgotten, ruined city had. The generator was mostly to keep the library and the rare books therein at a dry and cool optimum. I also had the pool filter hooked up and I'd been using the water for washing. The level had gone down some, but not too much. I could still swim truncated laps in it.

I'd been dismissed from death house duty a few days before—there was a new sheriff in town, apparently and the city cops that were still here weren't happy about it. They were mercenaries, John had told me, the same bunch that the government had running wild over in Iraq. Blackwater. I'd had a run-in with some of them earlier in the day and that had been more than enough. I'm pretty good at working under the radar, but it appeared that they were, too. My only advantage was that I knew the city better than they did. I was beginning to feel like I lived in some banana republic rather than a city in the United States of America.

"Do you ever stop working?"

It was Lestat, coming up silently behind me. I hadn't even noticed the light leaking from the sky. When I turned to look at him things seemed almost as they had always been—he is so beautiful, so unchanging. He was shirtless and barefoot, clad in a pair of worn jeans and I knew he could easily tell what I was thinking but that was fine, too—it was nothing new, after all.

"There's been a lot to do lately." I said, trying on a smile. It almost fit.

"Surely you don't have to do all of it yourself, hmm? What news do you have for me today?"

He sat down on the edge of the pool, letting his feet dangle in the water. I watched the moisture darken the fabric of his jeans. He patted the bluestone and I toed off the sneakers I was wearing, sitting down next to him. I told him about the Blackwater mercenaries and passed on news I'd picked up.

"Oh, and we were all really happy to hear that the president has taken responsibility for the federal government not fully doing its job." I said, leaning forward. "Like that does anyone here any good. " I looked sideways at him. "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"What happened here when there were storms like this when the city was new?"

"People died. They lost their homes. " He looked back at me. "Those that remained rebuilt. It's happened many times. "

"Think it will happen this time?" I dragged my eyes from his and looked down into the water.

"I think that you are tired." He said, moving away from his position beside me in one eerily fluid motion. I felt him close behind me, his knees on either side of my hips, one arm snaking around my chest. "I can help." He said into my ear.

I swallowed. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." He ran his finger across my mouth and I realized that he'd laid it open, I could taste him and I licked my lips eagerly. It had been a long time.

He moved his hand away and I grabbed for him, any tentativeness, any fear burned away by his rich blood on my mouth. "A moment only." He said softly. His hand came back into view, his wrist torn open, a welling crimson fount. He pressed it to my mouth and I took hold, I sucked and pulled at him, eyes closed.

A moment only, as he said, but it seemed a long time, it seemed like forever and at the same time it wasn't enough and I knew it would never be enough. I felt the bones in his wrist, the texture of his smooth, hard skin under my tongue, the iron muscle under my gripping fingers. His skin knitted itself closed even as I tried to tear at him. He withdrew his hand and I leaned back against him.

My breathing was loud, my own heartbeat like thunder in my ears and I wondered at that because it meant my heart was whole and not broken as I'd begun to think these past hellish days.

"Wounded. We are all wounded." Lestat said and his voice calmed the thundering, made it so I could hear again. The water in the pool was suddenly disturbed, coolness lapping up around my knees. I opened my eyes at last to see Louis standing in the water in front of me. He moved closer, his eyes fixed on my mouth.

"Your heart will never be whole, I think." Louis said, pulling me toward him. He licked delicately at the corner of my mouth. I slid from the edge of the pool into the water and he stood very still when I reached to touch his face, brushing his sharp cheekbone with my thumb. He darted forward and pressed his mouth to mine, his tongue parting my lips, searching for a lingering taste. "A crushing sorrow, yes?" His face was so close to mine, his green eyes as hot as Lestat's blood coursing through my body. "The city crumbles, it falls and people die around us and it is also a crushing sorrow."

Louis' body shivered and tensed and he was suddenly not in front of me any longer. When I turned he was beside Lestat, still kneeling at the edge of the pool. Louis brushed Lestat's hair back from his brow. Lestat extended his hand to me to pull me from the water and pressed his forehead to mine for a moment. "The city has fallen before, yet she remains. It is a hard thing to see her brought so low. A human thing to grieve as you do. " He said.

"A human thing." Louis echoed. He looked at me and there was a fierceness in his expression. "Do not forget the gift he gives you."


FIN