Louis and Lestat started the night hunting together. They chose one of Lestat’s favourite places, a saloon called “The Bayou’s End”, a grubby little place tucked away in the forgotten corners of the city. Once a grand old Creole cottage, it used to be a prosperous establishment, but time and neglect turned it into a place where only lost souls gathered. The perfect hunting ground for a vampire. Lestat always said that it reminded him of the “good old times” with its old-fashioned gas lamps flickering along the outside and the soft murmur of jazz music.

Inside, the air was thick with cigarette smoke, the room only dimly lit by candles and some lights above the dingy bar that ran along one wall. It made it easy for the two vampires to blend into the shadows and feed on several patrons hunched over their stale drinks and lost in their thoughts and misery.

Lestat loved “The Bayou’s End” for all its shrouded corners and alcoves, where the low light granted the guests their privacy – and the vampires the opportunity to feed on their victims, hidden in plain sight, slipping between light and obscurity, unnoticed by those who shared the room with them, ghosts among ghosts. It always felt like a fever dream, one they had entered the moment they crossed the threshold, and that would not release them until all their needs were satisfied.

It was long past midnight when they emerged from the saloon, drawing in big gulps of night air. The blood had made them light-headed and giddy, and it was with some difficulty that Louis kept his giggling husband steady when they staggered outside and into the parking lot. They stumbled against a moss-covered oak tree. Louis was pressed between its rough bark and Lestat, whose hands roamed recklessly over him.

Lestat’s inebriated kisses found Louis’ lips, the taste of his last prey still lingering around the edges. Cheap bourbon mixed with the coppery flavour of blood. A tingling spread through Louis’s mouth that told him there had been more in the guy’s system than just booze. Louis let his head fall against the tree, basking in the sensation of Lestat’s touch, warming the parts of his body that the blood of his victims had not been able to reach. He could smell the bayou around them, earthy and damp, mixed with the sweet perfume of night-blooming flowers. He felt like drifting, like a magnolia petal dancing on the water, but Lestat was his anchor that kept him in the here and now.

When they finally made their way to the main road, Louis hesitated for a moment, peering back at the saloon.

“Are you coming, mon cher?” Lestat asked.

Louis shook his head slowly. “Not yet. Go ahead without me. I need a bit of fresh air. Clear my head a little.”

When Lestat didn’t immediately reply, Louis took his hand and squeezed it lightly.

“I’ll meet you at home in an hour. Barney will miss his play date with you.” He smirked, and Lestat snorted. Louis knew that Lestat preferred if they stayed together, but giving each other space was part of their agreement. So Lestat simply nodded reluctantly, kissed Louis goodbye and was gone in a flash. Human eyes would not have been able to notice his disappearance, but Louis’ eyes were able to follow him for a while before he left.

When he stepped through the gates of St. Louis Cemetery, the well-known wave of loss, grief, and guilt washed over him. Even though he hadn’t been here in decades, since the night Claudia had returned to them, he found his way to the family tomb without hesitation, the path as familiar to him as his own heartbeat. The names were withered but still readable: Louis, Paul and Florence. His father, brother and mother. Grace, Levi and the children were buried in Boston.

He closed his eyes for a minute and allowed memories of times long past to flicker through his mind. To a time when he, Paul and Grace had been children and played catch in the backyard. Paul and Louis had loved to tease their sister and always tried to put the blame for any mischief they’d done on her. Of course, their father, whom Louis was named after, never believed them. In his eyes, his daughter was a perfect little angel and could never do wrong. Their mother had been a tougher case and was more likely to punish all three of them. “You could throw them all in a bag, swing a stick, and you’d always hit the right one,” she used to say.

Louis smiled when he remembered the time when he and Paul had smeared mud all over the pavement in front of their house. Had they really thought no one would notice? Louis shook his head in bewilderment. Florence had grounded both of them “until I say otherwise”. Louis pondered if that meant he was still grounded, as Florence had never actually lifted it. Did her death mean the punishment just… expired? What an interesting legal question! Louis made a mental note to ask Christine Claire about it at their next meeting. Louis chuckled as he imagined the reaction of Lestat’s no-nonsense lawyer.

Paul, Grace and his parents had been his human family. So long ago it almost felt like it happened to someone else, in another lifetime. In a way, it had. Over the decades of his immortal life their memory had somewhat faded, like the sagging sign above the entrance to “The Bayou’s End”, but it was still present in his mind and would always be.

Claudia’s memory was much brighter, sharper, and more painful. His daughter and his sister. Their daughter, Lestat’s, as much as his own. Sometimes, the taste of the patrons’ blood at “The Bayou’s End” brought Louis back to the bitter bite of misery and hopelessness he had once known – the same despair-laced blood they had fed on after the war. It would never bring warmth, never fully satisfy. Though the sharpness was not as intense as it had been then, the desperation and sorrow remained.

And then there was Lestat. His coal fire in their first winter together, the very first time he had ever confided his struggles to anyone else, to another man. The first time he had felt seen, had been accepted and loved for who he was. Had they done the worst to each other, unspeakable, unforgivable, monstrous things? Many times. Had they found their way back to each other? Like moths drawn to the flame.

Louis felt a sudden yearning to be home, to be with the man he loved and their adopted pet cat. There, with his family in flesh and blood, was where he truly belonged – far from the ghost of the past that haunted his memories. To watch them play in front of the fire, feel Lestat’s firm body close to his, Barney’s paws kneading a steady rhythm into his skin, hear the feline’s purring that still sounded like a broken diesel engine, and soak up the warmth of a fire burning in the fireplace. Without even making a conscious decision, Louis turned and raced back toward their townhouse on Rue Royale.

Even from far away, he could hear Lestat’s voice calling for Barney. The perks of supernatural hearing. Louis chuckled as he envisioned the elaborate game of hide-and-seek his partner and their cat were apparently playing. He’d hardly crossed their threshold when he came face-to-face with Lestat, who grabbed his shoulders.

“Where is he, Louis? Where is Barney?”

Louis laughed at Lestat’s frantic stare. “Where would he be? Hiding somewhere! Have you checked the grandfather clock?”

“Not funny,” growled Lestat. “I searched everywhere. I can’t find him! He’s gone!”

The sincerity in Lestat’s voice sobered Louis up a little.

“What do you mean, he’s gone? Gone where?”

Lestat ruffled his hair in a desperate gesture.

“I don’t know! Putain de merde! I told Mari not to let him outside all the time!”

Lestat rounded back up on Louis, his grip on Louis’ shoulder almost painful this time.

“Did you eat him, Louis? Did you eat our cat?”

“Lestat!” Louis was seriously offended. “I didn’t! I was with you the entire night, and you came back here before me! I’d never…!”

Lestat seemed only half-convinced, but Louis could see the pain and worry in his eyes. So, Barney was really… gone? Louis could hardly believe it. Barney had been a constant in their household for more than a year now, slowly growing from the accident-prone kitten that he had been when Lestat first brought him to the house into a slender, capable adult. As he’d become more confident, the vampires and their housekeeper Mari had allowed him to roam the neighbourhood freely, but he’d always returned home for pets and cuddles and other special treats.

Louis found it very unlikely. Barney wouldn’t just run off. But a niggling feeling at the back of his mind told him that there were still dangers out there for a mortal cat. Most of them were very real and mundane, and didn’t even include a blood-drinker on a vegetarian diet.

He cupped Lestat’s face in an attempt to calm him down as much as himself.

“He’ll be here somewhere. He never goes far. You know that. We’ll find him!” We will, one way or another. And hopefully he’ll be alive and unhurt. Louis brushed the thought out of his mind.

“Where have you looked for him?”

“Everywhere…” Lestat’s voice sounded small and teary.

Louis combed the hair out of Lestat’s face with his fingers.

“Have you tried listening to his heartbeat?”

Lestat shook his head, looking a little remorseful. Louis chuckled despite the growing anxiety in his own gut and pulled Lestat closer until their foreheads rested against the other.

“Come here, you big, dumb vampire; let’s use our supernatural senses to locate our cat.” He was glad to hear an angry growl from Lestat in response. Vexing Lestat was a great way to distract him from his worry.

“Breathe with me and concentrate… Can you hear his heartbeat? He can’t be far.”

Louis closed his eyes and let the air float in and out of his lungs, in perfect sync to Lestat’s breathing. His mind expanded with every intake, scents and sounds drifting around him, so tangible he could almost see them: a jasmine tree in full bloom somewhere in the neighbourhood, a whiff of fried shrimp and hot sauce from the Oyster Bar down the road, echoes of laughter and shouting from some drunken passers-by and the creak of an old shutter, moving ever so slightly in the breeze.

And there it was: the quiet hammering beat of a small heart. Steady and strong. A tiny drum beating furiously against a delicate ribcage. Lestat must have heard it at the same time Louis had, as he was off in a flash. Louis had been right. Barney wasn’t far away, only in their attic. Louis frowned. Why didn’t he come down when Lestat called him? And there was something else. Very faint, like the rapid flutter of a hummingbird’s wings, a soft rhythm of overlapping sounds. Was Barney not alone?

Louis rushed upstairs after Lestat until he reached the open door that led to their attic room. A sudden rush of warm, stagnant heat met him, thick and suffocating. The humidity of the day still clung to every corner and lay heavy on his skin. No one had been up here in forever. Only occasionally objects valued for sentimental reasons were removed from downstairs and stored in this space. Broken things, lost things. Stepping over the threshold felt like stepping into a world long gone.

The room was dark and full of furniture, carpets, old suitcases piled up in heaps and jumbles. A maze of forgotten relics. Louis whispered Lestat’s name as if he was afraid to wake the ghosts of the past in this place. Lestat’s voice came from the furthest corner of the room, and Louis followed it.

He found Lestat kneeling in front of an old desk. Claudia’s desk, where she would sit and write in her diary.

Without turning around, Lestat called, “I found him, Louis. Viens voir!”

Louis stepped around Lestat to see what he was looking at. There was Barney, lying on his side on a nest of rags and pieces of fabric, appearing exhausted and alert at the same time. Then Louis spotted them, hidden between the different colours of material underneath. Three round shapes with minuscule ears and blind eyes, squeaking and fumbling in search of nourishment from their mother.

Louis peered around to find the mother cat those baby kittens belonged to, but there was none. There was only Barney. It wasn’t until after the babies, one by one, docked onto Barney’s nipples and their tiny little peeps were replaced by hungry slurping noises that the truth sank in and Louis realised: Barney was their mother.

“Barney’s a girl,” Lestat said in a hollow voice, stating the obvious.

Louis cleared his throat. “It certainly appears so. And he – sorry, she – has babies.”

Lestat grinned up at him: “Does that make us grandparents, then?”

Louis snorted. “I told you, we should have taken him – sorry, her – to a vet a long time ago.”

“But look at her beautiful babies!”

Louis sank down on his knees next to Lestat, putting an arm around the other vampire’s waist to examine the three little hairless creatures still struggling to find the best position for feeding.

“They’re still quite ugly,” he observed but quickly added as he could feel Lestat’s body tense in protest. “I’m sure they will become as beautiful and radiant as their mother.”

“Hmmm… their mother…” Lestat made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a gasp. “This is going to take some getting used to.” He glanced at Louis: “How could we have missed this?”

Louis shrugged. It was an excellent question. Too preoccupied with themselves?

“Ballsy enough to be a boy?” he reminded Lestat of their first conversation about the fierce little kitten.

“Boyish charms, eh?” Lestat retorted.

They both shot each other a side look and burst out laughing, the tension flooding out of them. It took them quite a while to compose themselves, but once they caught their breaths, Lestat suggested between two wheezing gasps:

“Come on, let’s take them downstairs and make them more comfortable there.”

Louis nodded and bent down to pick up Barney, while Lestat was gathering up the newborns that had – one by one – unplugged from their mother as soon as their tiny bellies were filled to the brim and fallen asleep on the spot.

“Ouch!” A quick jolt of pain shot through Louis’ thumb where Barney’s sharp fangs had bitten into his flesh. A drop of blood appeared where the cat’s tooth had pierced his skin and was gone, lapped up by the feline before he could react.

“Barney!”

The two vampires regarded each other in surprise and shock. So far, they had always been careful not to let Barney drink their blood, unsure of what the consequences for the feline would be. But she seemed fine, completely unchanged and unaffected.

Lestat shrugged: “It was only a drop… What’s a drop going to do?”

Louis nodded, and together with Lestat, he managed to convince Barney to let them carry her and her babies down into the parlour, where they built the young mother and her offspring a new and more comfortable bed in a basket in the corner by the fireplace.