Interview with the Vampire

A few shattered vertebrae,

a punctured lung...

blind in one eye for five weeks.

Two months, was it?

I took naps at night then.

I would feel the air against my skin

as though I was still falling.

And then I would land all over again.

Excruciating pain was the proof I was still alive.

He could fly?

Yes.

Like Superman?

Not like Superman.

Superman is a fictional character.

But in the air,

with a "fuck you to Newtonian physics" flying?

He said it was more like floating,

arising at will,

propelling in a direction by the decision.

He called it "the cloud gift."

Hey, Doc, did you know there's a flying vampire apocalypse

coming your way?

Most vampires do not possess the cloud gift.

With a few exceptions, only the most ancient of us have it.

You know he's a vampire, right?

I do not discuss my patients

with anyone but the patients themselves.

That's the voice of Dr. Fareed Bhansali.

That is not my voice.

He's the personal physician to the deputy prime minister and...

And I am not here... the vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac.

He's officially off the record.

NDAs signed by any and all who cross the threshold, eh?

Is your medicine taking?

It's cold and itchy. Thanks for asking.

Are you still dreaming about our first meeting, Daniel?

I keep waking up just before you ask me back

to your shitty apartment.

Can you fly, Louis?

No.

So for 20 years, you lived with the vampire Lestat,

and you didn't know he had the flying gift?

The cloud gift.

And yes, it was a remarkable bit of restraint he managed.

Why would he do that?

I suppose he thought if he exposed all his power to me,

I would never feel his equal and the relationship would suffer.

"He only beat me the one time, Officer.

It's not his fault."

Classic Stockholm, eh, Doc?

I am not here.

Are we the sum of our worst moments?

Can we be forgiven if we do not forgive others ourselves?

Lestat had disappeared after that awful night...

vanished out of a profound sense of shame

he would later confess to.

Which was just as well, since Claudia and I

were in no mood to receive his apologies.

I made pride my blanket.

And she dedicated all her energy to my rehabilitation.

You ready?

This is humiliating.

We'll try again tomorrow.

If you ever want to talk about what happened to you

while you were gone, you know you can, right?

Uh-huh.

Or you could just tell me his name,

write it on a scrap of paper.

You gonna be my knight in vengeful black?

I am the knight.

Don't move it.

I didn't.

Save your charity for the needful.

Claudia, hello.

I've been calling quite often.

I don't know if the operator is patching me through correctly.

I brought something from Louis's favorite bookshop.

"The Book of Hours." Extremely rare, 15th century.

Silver and gold in the vellum, palettes of blue and old rose.

No one here wishes to speak with you.

Well, I know he's upstairs. I can see his silhouette.

Perhaps we should let him decide if he wants to see me or not.

How's that for an answer?

"I Felt a Funeral in my Brain."

She also wrote one called "A Coffin Is a Small Domain."

I mean, come on. Emily Dickinson is not a vampire.

How do you know? 'Cause she's dead.

How do you know?

She got a grave. She got a tombstone.

So do you.

25-horsepower Rolls-Royce six-cylinder engine

and a front end they call a "coffin nose."

Isn't that rich?

This one's yours.

Mine's back at home in blue.

I'm back in town permanently.

Were you gone? Across the river, in Algiers.

Louis, I don't know what possessed me that night.

Three years ago.

That night three years ago, he means.

I was someone I don't want to be anymore.

I've changed.

Let me prove it to you.

I'm nothing without you.

I'm nothing without both of you.

If you want me to go away, just say so.

I'll obey you.

I'll leave your life forever.

This silence is cruel.

And you were never cruel, Louis.

For six years in all,

these raw and desperate mea culpas came like the tide.

And for six years, they were greeted with silence or fire.

We burned more gifts than bodies in that decade,

but they would not stop coming.

And Lestat's relentless determination

began to crack my considerable armor.

Perhaps it was the modesty of the gesture.

But in the spring of 1937, one broke through.

He had written it himself in the music of the hour.

His first composition in 100 years.

Rashid, please play the song in question

for Mr. Molloy and the doctor.

I'm not here.

He had engaged a local record company.

And when the musicians they hired proved unsatisfactory,

he played all the instruments himself.

That's his voice?

He pressed only one album.

Had the master recordings destroyed.

You're listening to an inferior rerecording now.

The audacity of it all

was matched only by its sincerity.

He had made the near-perfect valentine,

with one flaw.

Pathetic.

One perfectly premeditated flaw.

Six years of begging.

You think a song's gonna get a rise out of me?!

Did you like it?

This her singing?

It's a clear voice.

I wanted no obstacle to the lyric.

Write me a song and put your lover's voice on it?

What the fuck is wrong with your head?

Louis, you're soaking wet.

I swim faster than I drive.

Put some clothes on and get the fuck out.

This is my house.

Do I look like I care?

Lestat.

Leave.

You swam the Mississippi to find me.

I hate you.

As you should.

Alavida, Dr. Bhansali.

Pleasure never meeting you, Mr. Molloy.

He said to no one.

Quick and clever, despite two bags of fluid.

Legal dope makes me constipated, but the wit flows like a river.

You took Lestat back.

The vampire bond.

There is no human equivalent.

Lover, murderer, maker.

You took him back.

It's a bond that can never fully be severed.

A bond like that makes you believe

there are only two of you on the planet.

Freedom and chastity wrapped in one person.

But there were three of you.

Yes.

Yes.

Rule number four.

Kill Antoinette.

Antoinette is my own private...

Affair.

Said child, interfering in the romantic lives of her parents.

She's coming up on 33.

It's a lick and a promise in vampire years.

Maybe, but I'm not your child anymore.

That's rule number five.

I'll be your companion, your sister.

It's not as simple as choosing a new family configuration.

"Now I'm your cousin.” "Now I'm your aunt."”

I am your maker.

But not my uncle or my daddy.

I'm your sister or that's the door.

Rule number six... And know I'm doing this for him.

I wouldn't want to confuse you.

Rule number six... no lies.

And that includes lies of exaggeration

and of omission.

For instance, if you can fly, tell us you can fly.

Assez.

Grand proclamations and portentous looks.

Do you think I'm withholding?

Go on. Ask your questions.

I'll answer them.

Did you have anything to do with Paul's death?

No.