Who am I? I am a vampire, an actor, and a vengeful betrayed lover. However, I learn from my mistakes--don’t think I’ll ever be foolish enough to *love* again. You can try to seduce me if you like--I find all that quite amusing--but in the end, you will find yourself submitting to my whim...whatever it may be. Death has no heart.

I am Death. I am unpredictable, but completely reliable. You may rest assured that I will indeed come to you. I will have you, and you will fear me, love me, and belong to me completely.

I am Death, who knows no pity, no remorse, and no love.

Are you afraid? But, why? “O heavy lightness...serious vanity!”

Yes, Death can laugh. And I laugh at you all, for being foolish enough to step willingly into my domain. Perhaps I should reward you. Would you like to become a star in my little theater? Or are you just seeking knowledge? Information I will be glad to share with you...to some extent. After all, no one should be given *all* the answers... Start here...read my little introduction... I insist.

Those who curse me call me Santiago. In the mid-nineteenth century, I held sway over a coven of vampires in the city of Paris. While it is true that a certain *Armand* was acknowledged as the leader of our little troupe, it was I who ran the show...

Unfortunately, Le Theatre des Vampires is no more, so I have had to construct this new enterprise...Le Theatre de la Mort. I do miss that other. There was nothing on earth quite like it. And eventually, I will rebuild it it. Think of the possibilities in this modern era! Only two things stand in my way: Armand’s reticence, and Monsieur Louis de Pointe du Lac.

If you’re looking for a glowing tribute to Lestat, you’ve come to the wrong place. Lestat probably wouldn’t remember me if I bit him, and maybe I will. He was something of a wreck the last time I saw him.

Louis, on the other hand, I daresay might recall...and I certainly haven’t forgotten *him.* He’ll be quite, quite sorry when we meet again. Every vampire I remotely considered a *friend* is dead now, thanks to Louis.

Every vampire except for one.

Yes, Armand. To borrow (without apologies) Lestat’s words, the liar with the face of a choirboy. Though I wouldn’t say he lied to me, not directly anyway, he did forget to mention one little thing which nearly cost me my life...or unlife, if you like...along with the others. Louis would have you believe that he killed me...and won’t he be sad to discover that it’s just not so! I could always see through Armand, could always see into his mind and know what he was thinking. More than once I wished I couldn’t. Truth is painful, no? I gave Armand everything, did all he ever asked of me--except die when he wished it.

I am Death, and I bow to no one.

Let me make one thing clear. I didn’t hate Louis, not until the night he tried to kill me, anyway. I never respected him, to be certain. It’s no secret that I mocked him, taunted him--but I did that to everyone. I still do. Louis simply had no sense of humor. He insulted me, and I do not take such things lightly. The only reason I didn’t kill him then was because Armand desired him. I was always Armand’s fool...but not anymore.

Beware, Monsieur de Pointe du Lac!

Do I still hold sway over Armand? I would like to think so--but only time will tell. There’s still the little matter of his betrayal to deal with.

"Beware. I have been generous up until now, but I can be cruel... Everything that you wanted, I have done. You asked that the child be taken, I took him. You cowered before me, I was frightening. I have reordered time, I have turned the world upside down, and I have done it all for you. I’m exhausted from living up to your expectations. Isn’t that generous? Stop, wait...look what I’m offering you: your dreams. I ask for so little. Just let me rule you, and you can have everything that you want. Just fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave." --The Labyrinth

"If love be rough with you, be rough with love." -- Romeo & Juliet

Yes, Louis, I still haven't forgotten that you called me a buffoon. That hurt almost as much as when you attempted to chop off my head. I underestimated you that night, the night you burned Le Theatre des Vampires. I didn't think you had the strength to accomplish such a feat. It almost bought you a small measure of my respect. Almost. Keep in mind that it doesn't make me hate you any less.

Do you know who I am now? Do you wonder why I am so filled with hatred for the one loved so dearly by all the others, the one known as Merciful Death? Did you ever stop to consider what my motives might have been? It's all very simple, really. I think it's about time you considered my point of view.

I am the Vampire Santiago. I won't bore you with how I was made, or who made me, or how I came to be a part of Le Theatre. In 1862, I was the toast of Paris. It was I who played Death on the stage, who gave those mortal audiences what they so desired...much in the way that television does today. What they never knew was that the deaths they saw were real. Le Theatre gave them what they really wanted and allowed them to believe that there was no harm in such fancy.

And they all loved me...all wanted me to be their Death. When I walked out behind the theater after the performances, women waited, and men, too, all wanting to touch my sleeve, to invite the famed actor to their dinners and parties. If they came often enough, I gave each his or her turn to learn what it meant to be loved by Death.

You shake your head. A name is in your mind, even on your lips, a name I haven't spoken aloud in nearly a century and a half. He was the owner of Le Theater, you say. Yes, he was. He owned the building, was the purported leader of our coven, and yes, he owned me. Every night on that stage I would submit to him. I would draw back, that he might have the first taste of whatever victim had been found to star in our show, whatever sweet lover who might have been cast to play against me. When he appeared, I became simply the narrator. I faded away in his presence, became just part of the background, just another white face.

For him, I gave up the role of Death. I became merely Death's reflection, Death's shadow...a mockery of Death, a mockery of myself. Perhaps this is what led me to be known as a trickster...and eventually, to Monsieur Louis, a buffoon. It was this one who stilled the pain of our unwilling actors. It was this vampire who orchestrated everything, who allowed me my own measure of fame. I would have done anything for him, and he knew it. He was the only one who ever touched my heart, the only one who I have ever loved, and still do love, despite the fact that he betrayed me completely.

Armand.

Yes, that is the reason behind it all. I was in love with Armand, and for the short time which I was able to hold him in thrall, the short time during which he cared for me enough to allow me to make me a star of Le Theatre des Vampires, I was not the bitter monster you see before you. He was a melancholy thing, an inequivocable beauty, and when first we met, he was enchanted by me. I might not have had the good looks of Lestat or Louis, but my rapier wit, my clever reasoning, the little jokes I spun which were beyond most of the simple creatures of his coven attracted him for a time. I distracted him from his pain and loneliness. If I became a clown, it was only to make him laugh. In the end, he misunderstood what I was trying to do, and if I became a cynic, this was why. Armand was always in search of a spell to bind him. He wanted something to obsess himself, to occupy him, to help him pass the dreary nights. I wanted him to love me, and he never did.

By the year of 1862, I had lost my ability to keep his attention. Perhaps it was because I became too caught up in the theater, in the actor's life. I began to feed on the admiration of the crowds--and yet still, I never tried to steal the show from Armand. As we grew farther apart, as his love for me waned, I put more and more of myself into the shows. I mocked what we were, found joy in my cynicism. The victims were treated more cruelly, and my own private kills became drawn out and sadistic. I tried to provoke Armand with these antics, tried to elicit any emotion from him at all, but it was no use. He turned a blind eye.

He was the reason I antagonized Louis, when really all I had been sent to do was deliver Armand's invitation. I knew Armand would love him, would desire him, and I knew Armand well enough to realize that if he pursued this questioning, innocent child of a vampire, that if he was indeed able to capture this Louis and make him his own, that my world, the theater, my life and the lives of my fellow vampire actors would all fall victim to Armand's obsession. I was right, of course. Once Louis had drawn Armand's attention, the rest of us became superfluous...and rather than let us continue, we would be destroyed.

I suppose I had the last laugh. The bud of humanity within Louis which attracted Armand so strongly was crushed out with the life of the little girl vampire, the creature who should never have been. Claudia meant nothing to me, absolutely nothing. Some felt it was a crime to make one so young...but I never believed there was such a thing as crime, except for the one which both she and Louis committed: to kill another vampire. Even so, my condemnation of her was simply an excuse. Lestat arrived conveniently and I saw my one chance to rid myself and Armand of Louis, despite the fact that I knew I was no longer anything but a familiar face and an occasional annoyance to Armand.

Yet Armand knew I was waiting for only one shred of proof that Louis and Claudia were outlaws, waiting for any one thing which would force him to allow me and the others to do away with them. He knew of my jealousy, and so every word I put in his ear against them was for naught. It amused him, even, for he knew I wouldn't act against him or his wishes, no matter how strong my desire to do otherwise.

Ah, times have changed.

Lestat came, desperate for Armand's blood...desperate to be healed...and we both used him. I tried so hard to get Lestat to condemn Louis, for it was obvious at once that Louis would never leave with him. When he would not, I had Louis bricked up in a wall anyway. Even then, I dared not thrust him into the sunlight as we had done with Claudia and Madeleine. I dared not defy Armand even then. I knew Armand was prepared to do anything to possess Louis. I knew it when he killed Denis. It was then I went on my guard, and still I was caught with the others when Louis came to destroy the theater in revenge of his dark daughter. Armand didn't warn us...he betrayed us all.

I almost truly died that night. Not from the wounds which Louis inflicted so desperately upon me, nor from the fire that consumed those who had been my friends and companions for so many years. I almost gave up because I knew then that Armand was truly lost to me. He would never return my love, never show the appreciation I craved for all I did--because truly he did not ask for or want any of those things. I was unable to please him, and I almost lost the desire to live.

"So few vampires have the stamina for immortality," he had often remarked to me and to others. Those words seemed to echo in my mind as I clutched at my wounded neck, as I heard the pop and hiss and roar of the fire around me, as Louis raised the scythe towards me again. In that moment, my angry desire to prove to Armand that I did have such stamina was aroused. No, I was not going to allow this to happen. I was not going to die this way. Not this night.

It took all of my strength to do it. Louis saw what he wanted to see, assumed he had accomplished his task of revenge. Yet my head was not parted from my shoulders, my friend, else you certainly would not be reading this now. I was known as the trickster, and this was the trick that saved my life. I fled the theater swearing my own revenge, but by the time I had recovered from what damage Louis had inflicted on me, it was too late. He and Armand were gone, and all I had left were the ashes of my love.

Where did I go? Does it really matter? Suffice to say that in my travels, I left trails of blood and madness in my wake. I killed without thought, indiscriminately, unconsciously and unknowingly mimicking those who had tormented me. I was possessed with one thought; that I must recreate the theater, revive the coven, rebuild everything that had been destroyed and taken from me...yet this thought was as repulsive as it was pleasing, and behind it all was the thought that perhaps I had fallen as a result of my own hubris. I was not Armand, and without him, there could never be another Theatre des Vampires. I was merely an actor without a stage.

I traveled to the Americas, knowing Armand had gone this way, both hoping and fearing to find him. I ended in Mexico, made a home of it for awhile. Eventually I withdrew completely from the world, and it was by simple chance that I found in the possession of one of my victims a book called "Interview With the Vampire." For the first time in over a century, I felt myself truly awaken. This book led me to another, and another...and finally to an abomination called "Memnoch the Devil."

I had always used to tell Armand that there was no such thing as good and evil...there is only fun and boring. I knew he never believed me, not truly. Lestat's supposed journey to Heaven and Hell was a source of unending mirth for me until that fateful chapter at the end. Armand, dead? Immolated by the sun? No, I couldn't believe it...and I knew then that I could not rest until I knew the truth of the matter.

If he was dead, I would destroy this Lestat...and if I could not destroy him, I would destroy every creature that he loved, starting with one Louis de Pointe du Lac. If he was dead, it was Lestat's fault. I left my small coven in Mexico. It fell soon afterwards....brought down by mortals, ironically. Perhaps I had grown too much like Armand, for when I learned of this, it meant nothing. I went to the places in those novels, to Miami, to Paris, to California, to New Orleans...and when at last I found them, found that Armand was still indeed alive, if what we are can be called alive, came the greatest surprise of all. There was forgiveness among these vampires, even love. Armand, able to love? I had thought it impossible.

No...what was impossible was that Armand should ever love me. And when I saw him there, saw him so cherished among these friends and lovers of his, jealousy and hatred bloomed within me. I came alive with a passion I had never felt. Yes, I told myself, I will destroy them all. Destroy them, because I loved and was not loved in return.

This is what it means to be loved by Death.