An Evening With Santiago: March 1999 I have passed almost four years in New Orleans. I came here from Mexico, where I spent nearly a century after my flight from Paris in 1862. In my introduction, I spoke little about my Mexican coven, stating merely that I believed all of them to be dead, destroyed by a quirky band of humans soon after I left them in 1995. Until two nights ago. I left my basement apartment at sunset, as I often do. I rarely sleep in the days--I am too old and too wary for that. I rarely sleep, but I must hide in darkness...one reason the computer, the television, the technologies of the modern age delight me so! So many of the vampires succumb to unconsciousness during the burning hours--but there is a trick to it, you see, and I, the Trickster, am a master of such things. New Orleans by night...balmy, tropical, utterly seductive. One can almost sense the presence of wickedness on the wind, in the air...and it is there, oh, it is there. Am I not walking proof of that? Walk the streets of the French Quarter...you will feel it. Is the chill that skitters over your neck merely the wind, or is it the cold breath of a vampire? As you tread through our dirty alleys and shiny gutters, as you see our illuminated churches and bars, you will wonder. And wonder. Amazing place, and I smiled as I walked, marveling that I had come to it only to seek revenge. Yes, Louis de Pointe du Lac was on my mind, my usual preoccupation, my obsession. Recently, he had moved close to me--very close, perhaps without even realizing the mistake he was making. Ah, he was bending his throat near to my fist, clawed and ready to tear it out and the poor sheep didn't even know it. The thought made me laugh, startling a passing group of richly intoxicated tourists. I twisted my lips into a smile, lifted my hat to them. How tender and delicious they all seemed, but I was not of a mood to drink from the drunk and find myself as wasted as the rest of them. Wasted, a beautiful modern expression. How many things in this world are wasted. How many times even the Dark Gift is wasted. How often I had wasted it myself on the undeserving, simply because I thought they were easily controlled and therefore would suit my own cause--the strumpets and fops who became the vampires of Le Theatre, the whores and addicts who became the vampires of my Mexican coven, which was a poor recreation of Le Theatre, despite the lovely, crumbling ancient temple that we built it upon, on the outskirts of El Ray... They were all no more than the dust of history now, or so I thought as I walked down Royal Street, then cut through Pirate's Alley to Jackson Square, daring to tread so near St. Louis Cathedral as I headed for Decatur in search of a victim less likely to be mottled with drink. The further from Bourbon Street, the better. I crossed Decatur at the corner near Planet Hollywood and continued my trek, idly trying to devise new pranks to play on my unwitting neighbor. I had already subjected him to a flood of cockroaches, spent an entire evening dropping rats into a crack in his window, and performed a most amusing little diversion involving an obscenely large number of Mardi Gras cups. Amusing for me--not him, that is! All this, and Louis had not even attempted to see who was provoking him...never mind to confront me. I had to think of something stronger. A strategically placed corpse, perhaps. A hide and seek game of find the body part. Or maybe I'd just knock on his door and invite him for tea, I thought sarcastically as I passed the Hard Rock Cafe, pushing an old woman who was in my path just slightly to the left so I could pass. Come now, Santiago, think of something on a far grander scale than these petty, ridiculous pranks. Music assailed my senses. I ground to a halt. It must have been playing. I ought to have heard it when I made the top of the block, but the cacophony of an Aerosmith song blasting from the Hard Rock, the Cajun Zydeco echoing from the plastic souvenir shops across Decatur, the musician twanging his guitar in the middle of the sidewalk in hopes of being rewarded by the kindness of strangers had covered it up. I locked out the noise, and so it wasn't until I was just in front of Tower Records that I heard the music--real music. It wasn't just that it was beautiful...and it was, but also, it was familiar. And the voice! The singer. I knew that voice, knew it all too well. No, no, no, no. It wasn't the Vampire Lestat. The last time I'd heard this voice had been almost four years ago, and it belonged to one of the few I had been sorry to leave in Mexico, one of the few that the Dark Gift had not been wasted on. He was never a big rock star, like your blond haired Brat Prince...and haven't I already told you that this place is not for stories about him? ...but he was a splendid vampire, one whom I considered more of a friend than a servant, a useful creature, a pack animal. My own fledgling. The last time I had heard the song, it had been in Spanish, but apparently it had been translated somewhere along the way. I closed my eyes, leaning against a pole outside the shop. I listened. Watching her Strolling in the night so white Wondering why It's only after dark In her eyes A distant fire light Burns bright Wondering why It's only after dark I find myself in her room Feel the fever of my doom Falling falling Through the floor I'm knocking on the Devil's door In the dawn I wake up to find her gone And a note says Only after dark Burning burning in the flame Now I know her secret name You can tear Her temple down But she'll be back And rule again In my heart A deep and dark And lonely part Wants her and waits for After Dark What a romantic he had been, and that was why I had liked him. He was optimistic where I was bitter. And he always found the most beautiful girls. They were drawn to him, despite the fact that his looks, quite frankly, couldn't compare to mine. He had a certain charm, a charisma, a genuine smile. All of these qualities increased on the night I gave him the Dark Gift. It had been, I believe, during the mid-1960's, when I met him in a cantina in El Ray. He was a kid then, a strung out little Mexican with a slow style and an easy manner. He had shoulder-length black hair and black eyes, a slight mustache, and full, soft mouth. He challenged me to a gun fight, of all things. It would have been so easy to kill him then, but, I thought, that would be a waste of good blood. I agreed to the fight, so long as it would be in private. We met on a small ridge on the outskirts of El Ray. It was one hour before dawn, and he was drunk. Even so, he was still a good shot. I let him pepper me with bullets merely for the pleasure of seeing his expression when they didn't kill me. With elongated fingernails I gouged out the bullets from my own flesh, dropping them on the ground as I walked slowly towards him, as if they were no more than pebbles. I crushed them to powder beneath my boot heel. He was so shocked that he even let his gun fall from his fingers. I laughed, then, and he dove to the ground to pick it up. In a flash I was there, bringing my foot down hard on his hand, pinning him there. He looked up at me, but there wasn't fear, just anger, anger at himself for being so stupid. I could read it in his thoughts, in the air around him. "You bastard. I'm a musician. Break my hand and you might as well put a bullet through my heart," he hissed. He spit on my boot, the foot holding his hand down. It was my turn to be surprised. Gingerly, I lifted my foot and he snatched his hand back, though he didn't pick up the gun, clearly aware that it would do him no good. He rocked back on his haunches, clutching his bruised hand and looking up at me defiantly. "You dare to spit on me?" I said. "Yes! I know you are going to kill me anyway," he snarled. "That is true," I agreed, smiling at him. "I will not beg for mercy." "Good, it will save both of us a lot of aggravation," I replied languidly. Before he could speak again, I moved with preternatural speed and yanked him to his feet. He gasped, but it was more from surprise than fear. The scent of his blood rushing through his veins and flooding through his pounding heart invaded my consciousness and lit my eyes. Hunger hit me harder than any of his bullets had done. "What manner of beast are you?" he said, breathlessly. "Let me show you," I ground out, and then I sank my fangs deeply into his throat. He let out a gurgling scream, followed by something that sounded like a sigh. His blood was rich, almost as if it were spiced. The alcohol he had consumed made it all the sweeter, and my head spun. It would have been so easy to take it all, but he had stirred me with his bravado. Instead of killing him, I took him back to the temple. A musician, I thought. How droll. A musician and a gunfighter. He wanted the Dark Gift immediately, but I knew he wasn't ready. I made him live, first--after all, he was little more than a boy, a snotnosed kid. Besides, he came in handy for doing errands I couldn't do in the day time, such as seeking out prospective victims or pretty girls for my coven. I let him play his music in the temple at night, for the coven to dance by. A coven of whores. They were simpering things, without a brain between them, happy enough to be young and beautiful forever, without the desire to leave the temple which had been converted into a cantina in order to lure travelers and drunkards. Every night was a wild blood orgy. Tito's job was the bar the door once a sufficient number of "patrons" were inside. He waited outside during the slaughter. I insisted. I didn't want any of my girls to accidentally kill him. I watched him spend the next decade or two growing older, tougher, wiser. He hardened to the murders he helped to happen every night, learned how to burn the bodies, to sell what we stole from the pockets of the dead, and to kill those coven members whom I, for one reason or another, eventually deemed troublesome or unsuitable. He became more handsome, and more charming, if slightly bitter. He developed a natural charisma which I daresay became enhanced by his contact with me. His musical talent grew. I knew he resented the girls I gave the Dark Gift to so easily. Occasionally, I drank from him, but I never let him taste my blood. I didn't want him to go mad, or become addicted to it. I told him to taste the human pleasures which I scarcely remembered...food, wine, narcotics, love. I gave him more money than he ever dreamed of having before I seduced him, and he used it to wallow in those things. I watched him enjoy, then abuse, then poison himself with mortal solaces. I watched him push himself to the edge of madness. The night came when he stumbled in, too wrecked to play the guitar, to perform his duties, even to speak to me. I rescued him from the girls, closed the bar, and dragged him down the dark, damp stairs to my secret rooms beneath the temple. He passed out, and I paced my quarters, wondering what to do. I had honestly meant to let him live. But I knew now that he would not live unless I did something about it. "You're killing yourself, Tito," I whispered. I locked him in my room with no more than bread and water for several days, until I was sure everything was out of his system. I didn't tell him my intentions. I heard him being sick, heard him screaming for me, but I never visited him, never gave in to my urge to see him, until it was time. He was a shell of himself, weak and spent, lying in my coffin. "Put the lid on, Santiago," he said when I came in. "And leave me here." "Such dramatics," I sighed, going over to look at him. He was a mess. His skin was sallow, hanging loosely on his face. Beneath his eyes were dark circles. He was sweaty, his hair rumpled and matted. "You stink, Tito. Go take a bath and shave, then get about your duties." "And if I don't come back?" he said, staring me in the eye but not sitting up or even moving. "You'll come back," I said. "And if you come back drunk, I'll break your neck. Do you believe me?" He was silent, and his obstinance made me angry. "DO YOU BELIEVE ME?" I asked as I lifted him with one hand out of the coffin and set him on his feet. "Okay, okay, boss," he protested weakly. Bent, almost broken, he stumbled out of the room. I watched him go about his duties that night like a ghost, obeying me to the letter, and I couldn't help but read his thoughts and sadden at them. He wondered if he was a fool, if he had become, like the others, my slave. He wondered if he had sold his soul to the devil. Ah, he hadn't even come close, not yet. When he bolted the doors that night, I gorged myself on the blood of mortal victims, ripping throats and filling myself with the fountains of blood, consuming all I could hold. I would need my strength. Two hours before dawn, I gave Tito the signal to open the door, but he didn't respond. A flash of emotion flooded through me. Had he gone? Worse yet, would he return to kill the band on monsters he had worked for all these years? I broke open the door, ready to find him and kill him, only to find him sleeping peacefully on the stoop, his guitar wrapped in his arms. My relief was overwhelming. I gathered him into my arms and carried him back to my chambers, pressing my bloody mouth against his forehead. How strange, that I should grow to care about a mortal, I thought. I woke him in my rooms. He looked at me wearily, waiting for the sentence he knew was coming and yet not sure what it would be. Even now, he didn't trust me. "Play your guitar a little," I said. "All right." He picked out a slow and sad melody, a tune I had never heard him play before. "That is beautiful," I said. "Yes," he agreed, "But it is not finished yet." He set the guitar down and looked at me expectantly. I sighed, then held out my arms to him. "It is time." And then, he was made vampire. We celebrated for the next two decades...until I left after the news of Armand's death reached me. I left the coven to him when I left Mexico, to him and Tanico, a female fledgling whom we both admired. Perhaps I'll tell you her story another time. This is about Tito. Tito, whose music was playing here in New Orleans! But this was impossible. He was dead now. Not undead, not vampire any longer, but dead! Wasn't he? The music--it was not a recording. I almost couldn't bear to look in the window, to discover who sounded so like my old friend, to see who had stolen his song. It was too much to hope that it was him. I looked. It was, of course, Tito, playing in the store with a small group of mortal musicians. What the hell was he doing? He had made a record album? I strode into the store and lurked in the back until they stopped playing. He saw me come in and grinned, as if he were not the least bit surprised. Two beautiful young mortals asked him for his autograph after the performance, and I tapped my foot impatiently as they flirted with him and promised that they would be at his club show later that night. After they were gone, he turned to me almost lazily. "I knew you would find me," he said. "I thought you were dead. I heard that the coven had been destroyed by mortals," I hissed in a low voice so that the people milling around the shop would not hear me. "Tanico and I left right after you did. But the others...are gone." "Tanico? Where is she?" "I don't know. She never liked me very much, Santiago." "I know." "We started to look for you...but went our own ways. Once I found the books, I knew you were here." "Books?" "Yes, you know, that Lestat-" "Yes, yes, yes, all right. In any case," I paused. "I'm glad to see you." He grinned, his teeth incredibly white in contrast with the darkness of his hair, his eyes. "Good. Now, I have a few hours before my show. Let's hunt, like old times." I grinned back at him and clapped him on the shoulder. We went out into the night, the streets of New Orleans our playground. We walked together, he in leather and myself in velvet, but not so different in nature. We found our prey and took them, eyes locking as we fed together in an alley, laughing as we walked the bodies to a deserted bend in the river and dumped them in. Together again! What a pair we should make! I was starting to think we might even be able to take on Louis and Lestat, when Tito spoke. "I have to get to the club," he said, wiping his mouth on the back of his sleeve. "Come with me, Santiago. It would mean much to me." "You are...performing a show," I said as we headed towards the Warehouse District. "I'm still a musician, you know," he said, laughing. The club was on South Peters, called the Howlin' Wolf. And the music, amplified, morphed into something called rock and roll, was more beautiful than ever. Oh, he had a talent. And I had missed him. After the show, I shook his hand. I whispered to him of my plans, of the nights we would share together...of my plans for recreating Le Theatre des Vampires right here in New Orleans, all the ideas I had for improvement that would assure that things never went wrong the way they had in the temple. "I need your help, Tito." But he shook his head. "I have to go." "Go? Where?" I demanded, exasperated. "It's not safe for me here," he said simply. I thought of Louis de Pointe du Lac...Lestat de Lioncourt. I could hold my own against them and their crew...in fact, I was looking forward to the eventual showdown, but Tito was still young--hardly more than a fledgling, only having been a vampire for less than twenty-five years. I couldn't protect him. And the others could use him against me. I had to let him go. I nodded. "I'll come back, Santiago," he said. "I'll come back with Tanico. I'll find her for you." I patted his arm and walked out of the club into the dark night.