CHAPTER TWO
"So, you have met Lestat…" Carlisle said aloud.
"In New Orleans," I said, taking a step forward. "I heard him playing."
He stood for what seemed like an eternity, even to a vampire, stone still. Carlisle didn't breathe, lost in an internal debate on what to tell me. I didn't breathe because I couldn't. He knew him… he has hidden him from me…
Carlisle's mouth broke into a lopsided smirk. His head shook, so subtly that a human would have missed it. I saw it. He was not going to tell me the whole truth.
"Carlisle…" I whispered. "How does Lestat know my name?"
He turned to me, golden eyes offering a weak apology.
"Lestat is…" his shoulders fell, "an old friend." He offered no more.
I slumped onto the sofa opposite Carlisle's desk, as if he were my shrink. "Who is he, Dad?"
Carlisle folded his hands across his waist and sat in his chair. He swiveled to face me, his pale gold hair glowing in the lamplight.
"He was… his clothing was… fashionable. But not in our way. He wasn't blending in. He stands out, Carlisle. How have you kept him from me?"
"Son," he said, closing his eyes. "Lestat is… He is the only creature I have known who can surpass you in his passion for music. His skill for fitting in with them. And his delight in being a vampire."
I raised my eyebrow in question.
"He has never approved of my vegetarian lifestyle," Carlisle chuckled. "Lestat drank from the mother of us all. He cannot fathom being anything but vampire. He cannot relate to them anymore, yet he worships their adoration of him. Surely you have heard their music."
How could that have slipped past me. Of course. Nosferatu was huge in Europe and developing a following in the States. Lestat. He wasn't simply a human with good makeup and a good sound system. God I hated those pretentious humans who thought they were dabbling in the occult… Lestat. Lestat wasn't human. How had I not seen it?
He played like lightening.
"I met him a decade after I had been changed, in Paris," Carlisle whispered. "He was a country nobleman who had been bitten by an older Parisian aristocrat while visiting the King. Marcus left him. Much like Alice had been abandoned, I suppose…" his voice faltered for a moment.
"I had recently arrived on the continent and had firmly established my diet, at that point. But I sought light, music and knowledge. I was at a salon one night when Lestat arrived, throwing open the doors and tossing aside the corpse of a prostitute.
"Our hostess was enthralled. Paris at the time was a city in love with the idea of its New Orleans voodoo-laced colony and well, Lestat was a consummate showman," Carlisle smirked again, letting himself indulge in a silent memory as I surveyed his face.
"She was delighted he had arrived, and I had not anticipated seeing another of our kind so soon, and so… flamboyantly a vampire. But. But he was so successful because they thought it was an act. He was the worst stereotype of a vampire. I was both enthralled and appalled as he dropped her body in the hall as he threw open the salon doors."
I shivered at Carlisle's obvious admiration of the older vampire.
"How old is Lestat?" I asked.
"He is not much older than I am," Carlisle said. "But we are very different men…"
I couldn't suppress my snort. "Oh, really?"
"Edward," Carlisle began, "the things Lestat has done would make even your skin crawl, and you left us for long enough to know about human death. He thinks me and our lifestyle to be entirely ridiculous.
"But despite our differences," Carlisle sat back against the smooth brown leather of his chair. "We spent many years together, drinking in Paris. Him a little more literally than myself…"
I didn't know what to think, remembering the hypnotic blonde vampire who had played exactly the right thing to draw me in. I knew I would return to him if I heard it again.
"How does he know me, Carlisle?" I asked.
"He has visited us, son," Carlisle said, turning to look out the western window. "Always hidden, because I didn't want his charisma to jeopardize our diet… but it seems he was just biding his time."
