“Louis! Louis? Lou?!” Lestat’s voice boomed through the house on Rue Royale. He tried again when there was no reply. Still nothing. Where was he?

Quite out of the ordinary, Lestat had awoken alone in Louis’ coffin that evening. They spent most of their days there, enjoying the proximity of the other, needing the reassurance of feeling each other’s body. They had gone to coffin just before dawn, and usually it was Lestat who rose early. Sometimes he stayed in coffin to watch his lover sleep and the peaceful expression on his face, undisturbed from unwelcome thoughts and worries that plagued him during the night. Lestat loved to hold him when Louis had a nightmare, stroke his face and place gentle kisses on his cheeks and neck.

But tonight, the space beside him had been empty and cold. No trace of Louis. Only the bare cushions that lined the wooden interior. Lestat couldn’t remember the last time this had happened. Not since he and Louis had found each other again. Before…

Lestat squeezed his eyes shut. He didn’t want to think about those years. The loneliness had nearly destroyed him once, and even now, the memory scraped raw.. The thought of losing Louis all over again made something cold twist in his chest.

“Mon cher?” The words were barely a whisper, but Lestat knew the other vampire could hear them. If he was close by. Lestat tried to ignore the feeling of uneasiness that started to creep up on him and strained his ears instead.

There! It was almost inaudible but definitely a sound coming from the parlour. Before Lestat could form a coherent thought about what kind of sound he’d heard, he dashed downstairs and only stopped when his feet touched the rug in the middle of the parlour. The room seemed empty.

“Louis?” he asked into the void, his voice thinned by anguish.

There it was again. The sound. Coming from the space in front of the fireplace. Lestat rounded the chair blocking his view to find them. His soulmate sat cross-legged on the floor, wearing a white undershirt and the pyjama bottoms that he had worn this morning when they’d gone to coffin. His hair was tousled from sleep, and red streaks ran down his cheeks. In his lap he cradled a bundle of unmoving silvery-grey fur.

Lestat closed his eyes, not wanting to see what his eyes presented to him. It was like staring into the sun. The sting and pain that came with it ripping through his core. He didn’t want to listen in to confirm what was no longer there. The happy little heartbeat that had filled their home on 1132 Rue Royale for decades. Soft padded paws that tiptoed almost silently through the townhouse, yellow eyes that had scanned their environment with a predator’s deadly precision, and a small pink tongue running meticulously over the shiny grey fur.

The once glossy coat had turned matte and uneven a while ago. The eyes had become clouded, their fire dimmed. The limbs had suddenly preferred to retreat into the dwindling warmth of a blanket by the fire. The mischief of “la Petite Enragée” had gone from this world.

Another sob from Louis made Lestat open his eyes again. Unbearable sorrow lived in his lover’s expression. His fingers reached for Lestat in a wordless plea, and in those bright green eyes, Lestat saw a mirror of his own undoing. Louis looked so lost; it shattered something in Lestat just to see him.

Lestat sank to his knees in front of his lover and their daughter. Their feline daughter. That’s how he’d come to think of her. Not just a pet but the offspring they could never have together. The memory of flaming red eyes and dark curls seared through him in a familiar way that had never faded over the decades since they had lost their other daughter. No, they hadn’t lost her. She had been ripped out of their lives by brutal force. Our stunningly beautiful vampire child.

There was no violence here. No blood. No searing blaze that turned souls to ash. Only the cold cruelty of something beloved slipping away, soft and inevitable.

Of course, Barney had never been a replacement for her – the muse of their moonlit hours – but the cat had stolen their hearts in her own special way. Lestat remembered the first night he had brought the ferocious kitten into their home and Louis’ panicked reaction. Given Louis’ dietary preferences, Lestat had been aware of the risk. But he’d also known that his lover was stronger than he gave himself credit for. Bringing the tabby into their lives had been a spontaneous decision but one that had always felt right.

They had known this day would come when they had to let go of their mortal pet, and in fact the moment had come years later than it probably should have come, cheating death over and over again, helped by the occasional drop of blood from her “vampire daddies”. Lestat still wasn’t ready. Not for this quiet horror. Not for the finality that came without fanfare – only the sound of Louis’ breath hitching and that look, that wretched look that said, ‘Please, not her. Take anything but her.’

Lestat took Louis’ outstretched hand and curled his fingers around his lover’s slender digits. He was dimly aware of the wetness that ran down his own cheeks as he – haltingly, tentatively – extended his free hand to touch the small frame in Louis’ lap. Realisation hit him like a jolt of electricity when strands of silver hairs brushed against his fingertips. Warmth radiated against his palm, and under her skin something moved, not quite a beat but the ghost of one.

Lestat squeezed his eyes shut to concentrate his senses on Barney. Was it just wishful thinking? No, it was still there, faint like a whisper, but still there. Thud. Thud. Thud.

“She’s still with us.” Lestat’s voice broke. He tried to steady it with a breath, but it came out as a fractured, aching gasp – more torment than air.

“She’s holding on…” Louis sounded cracked, split wide open by the sheer weight of grief that crushed them both, merciless and cruel, like the world had caved in from the inside. “I could feel her distress… I think it’s what woke me up so early. I couldn’t just leave her…” The sound escaped his lips again, somewhere between a sob and a cry, and he pressed his lips together tight.

“I think she didn’t want to go until we were both with her.” Louis continued after a while.

Louis’ free hand joined Lestat’s over Barney’s dying form. Always so gentle, even now, even when his hands trembled. They stroked her in turns, then together, and without thinking, their hands found each other. In the rhythm of their caress – Barney’s fading warmth beneath their palms – they reached for her and reached for each other. Offering comfort to their loyal companion as much as to each other.

A light tremor ran through Barney’s body. It wasn’t the cat’s signature diesel engine purr of her younger days, but even in her half-gone state she wanted to let her family know how much she appreciated their presence. They stayed like that, suspended in silence. Touching her. Touching each other. As if that small act could delay the inevitable.

Lestat slightly tilted his head in an altogether too human way to better listen to the faint heartbeat, the way it kept going, stuttered, stopped, then slammed back into motion with a heavy thud. Not long now… He lifted his gaze from their mortal companion to his immortal lover, face contorted with ache and sorrow, green eyes desperate and pleading for help. Something. Anything.

It fractured Lestat’s heart to see Louis in so much pain, and the guilt ripped through him with a force that he hadn’t felt in years. He hadn’t been able to save their other daughter. He had watched her die, unable to prevent it. His strength had been only enough to save Louis. Or had it? Maybe if he had tried harder, maybe… They would never know. His beautiful Louis surviving, instead of dead and gone with Claudia and Nick.

The past is a cruel master, its memories like knives, carving deep wounds that never seem to heal. It was the vampire’s curse that these memories never dulled. They remained as sharp as on the day they were made. It had taken 77 years for Louis to forgive him for betraying their daughter, the one object of devotion common to them both. How long would it take him now…?

Setting his jaw, he tried to blink away the blood tears that were brimming in his eyes. Gently, he moved his hands beneath Barney’s trembling form, gathering her almost weightless limbs in his hands.

Louis’ choked-up voice was barely a whisper, sounding stunned and bewildered. “What are you doing, Lestat? Leave her here with us…”

Lestat briefly glanced at Louis’ face before averting his eyes, too afraid that Louis would see his intentions in them and try to stop him. He didn’t want to be stopped; he needed to do this. He needed to try, at least. It was really wonderful that Louis still lived. It was wonderful that there existed still that handsome face, that poignant expression, that tender and faintly imploring voice. That part he would never regret having a hand in.

Louis’ sharp intake of breath pierced right through his heart. He’d seen it anyway. “No, Lestat, don’t…” His hands clasped his lover’s, stopping his attempt to remove the tabby from Louis’ lap.

“C’est bon, mon cœur.” Who was he trying to soothe here? Their cat? Louis? Himself?

“Ça ne fera pas mal. Je ne lui ferai pas de mal. Elle ne sentira rien… juste le calme.” The French came without thinking – as it always did when emotion tore too close to the bone. It was the language of his first heartbreak, his first prayer, and his first loss. It won’t hurt. I won’t hurt her. She won’t feel a thing… only peace.

Reluctantly, Louis gave up his resistance and let Lestat lift the feline out of her resting place on Louis’ lap. Carefully, as if he were carrying something sacred, delicate and irreplaceable, he took Barney to the dining room and placed her on the table. The smooth surface still carried the scratch marks Barney’s claws had once left when he ran and skidded towards Louis and a brown paper bag in search of food. They never had them removed. We leave the damage so we never forget the damage. Something sharp lodged beneath his ribs and he nearly folded over.

He shook himself, trying to push the memories aside. He couldn’t do this. Not now. He needed to concentrate on the task at hand. The wilderness that is our daughter. Not now. Claudia was my dark child, my love, evil of my evil. Claudia broke my heart. Not now.

He knelt in front of the table, Barney’s form outstretched on the dark wood. The colour reminded Lestat of dried roses, of blood gone brown, of things once living. Thud. Pause. Thud. Pause. The beats became more and more erratic. Each one could be the last. Now. He had to do it now. Yet he hesitated.

He buried his face in his hands for a moment, a precious moment he didn’t have – Barney didn’t have – if he wanted to succeed, and surrendered to the tide of desolation. The loss of Barney and the loss of their child. Grief is the price we pay for love.

He felt Louis’ hands cupping his own, entwining their fingers and removing them from Lestat’s face. He hadn’t even heard him come in.

“C’est bon, mon cher. This time we’ll do it together.”

---

Lestat quotes the following:

• “Our stunningly beautiful vampire child.” (Anne Rice’s The Vampire Lestat)
• “His beautiful Louis surviving, instead of dead and gone with Claudia and Nick.” (Anne Rice’s The Vampire Lestat)
• “The past is a cruel master, its memories like knives, carving deep wounds that never seem to heal.” (Unknown)
• “the one object of devotion common to them both” (Anne Rice’s The Vampire Lestat)
• “It was really wonderful that Louis still lived. It was wonderful that there existed still that handsome face, that poignant expression, that tender and faintly imploring voice.” (Anne Rice’s The Vampire Lestat)
• “We leave the damage so we never forget the damage.” (Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire – TV series)
• “The wilderness that is our daughter.” (Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire – TV series)
• “Claudia was my dark child, my love, evil of my evil. Claudia broke my heart.” (Anne Rice’s The Vampire Lestat)
• “Grief is the price we pay for love.” (Queen Elizabeth II)