Title: Louis Blue's Divine Madness

Author: Kris

Fandom: Vampire Chronicals

pairing: Nicki/Armand/original character

category: Drama

Status: on going

Archive: Yes, Peja is it possible to have this archived between Beautiful One and Provocateur? It's a presequel like the novel "Blood and Gold."

Feedback: Yes

Archive: Yes

email: myost@charter.net

Warning: serious subject matter, m/m sex, adult having sex with minor, 15/21. Death and violence

Category: drama

Site: http://louis3004212.nstemp.net

Disclaimer: I don't own then, no infringement intended

Summary: Nicki's nights at the theater

Notes: This story happened after Louis Blue's Beautiful One and Louis Blue's Provocateur

Spoilers: The novel "The Vampire Lestat"

Louis Blue's Divine Madness
by Kris

Lestat peered between the small space between the two dirty white curtains. His heart pounding with mixed emotions. The dirt and poverty of his small room he once shared with his partner no longer sank into his pores.

His skin was as clean as an angel's, peerless, white enough to be judged to belong to an effete, unhealthy, young man. His features were not lost to his white complexion. His red mouth curved easily. The lines of his face were still somewhat visible. His flashing and engaging gray eyes belied the initial concept anyone would have of his being a young man who was somehow unwholesome.

There was little light outside. Not even the private lamps outside of people's homes had any more wicks to them. The evening was only a few short hours away from dawn. Even the gangs of cutthroats, the whores, and drunken sailors had made their way to some sort of shelter from the night.

I love it. I love it all. Paris, Lestat thought hugging himself, trying to warm the ice of his skin. The humidity of the night had no moist effect on his skin. The better for it. If it did his skin would shed blood rather than mortal sweat.

Lestat went back to the curtains, parting them further with his long fingers, his lashes and lids closing over his fine eyes.

How marvelous it all looked when I come to find myself first here. The cut-gem, glitter of the aristocrats traveling in their chairs and coaches dazzled me to forget the squalor of the immense. Lestat smiled, thinking, Garbage of all these teeming cobbled streets. Heaving with noise. The bellowing of cattle, horses, ducks, dogs and cats mixed in with the shouts of vendors. Accompanied with the tunes of street musicians. The smoke of roast meat, and the scent of fresh fish, tallow soaps sold at market. The clouds of smoke, the air polluted with waste and gaudy perfume. That breath taking experience of Paris at day.

"At night," Lestat whispered "The night. The daytime noise still shouted out. And such a thing as a rare rare quiet moment could only be imagined.. The night smelled of grease paint, tasted of too much wine, tasted of rouged kisses, greasy faces pressed against my lips. And songs, scripted platitudes, .improvised lines from we, players of the comedella d'art, Oui, the laughter, sighs, and the gasps we drew out from the audience. And now, and now how quiet it is. How silent."

"Except for you," said a strong voice from the pallet, "Forever you chatter. Even to yourself. Are you so afraid of silence you must talk when all mortals are dead in their sleep, dreaming their dreams? You must talk!"

"I'm sorry Nicki," Lestat said, his jaw slack.

The vampire on the bed was the same shade of complexion as Lestat. Young enough flesh so not to appear to be monstrous. He was haughty in his own special way till his face broke into a wild kind of open, Bacchanal grin. His hair curly, thick, and brown companioning an urbane youthful face which made a point of appearing to be scornful.

Lestat never believed in the cynical approaches Nick's face would take; he had see Nicki's face too often off guard. Innocent and merry as a child's.

Innocent, merry, and drunken. Those are the only times you would ever allow me to see you in any other light than the over sophisticated manners you wanted, non you demanded me to see, Lestat thought miserably to himself.

He continued his vigil of staring out into the dome of the night up above the small, precious hovel.

"Who are you looking for? What are you looking for?' Nicki said not unkindly, stretching his naked body on the pallet. What made for a bed was messy with bed bugs.

Lestat hesitated. He still felt fragile and scorned from the angry exchange they had at Renaud's abandoned theater. Now the theater was occupied by Eleni, Laurent, and the other vampires of Armand's destroyed coven the Children of Darkness. Now they styled themselves as being Vampires des Theater. Soon Lestat imagined Armand would take the theater in hand as Armand would soon take Nicki in hand.

"Answer me," Nicki said, putting his slender arm around Lestat's naked chest, and his other arm around his waist.

"You said, I talk too much," Lestat said tense in Nicki's arms, repelled, hostile, yet desiring to be forgiven.

:Who are you looking for?' Nicki repeated, burying his head in Lestat's fine, long hair.

"I look in the well of darkness and I feel, non I think I see his face. His fine mask of a face which only held a personality to me other than that of monster when first I saw him with my new born vampire eyes. Ah, when I was mortal even in my fear of him I was in love with him. And once I was a vampire I saw the beauty which escaped my mortal eyes. Magnus. I wonder does he look at me with approval? If somehow he was aware I sill exist."

"Approval, ha, I find it surprising from you. Your seek the approval of a father. You never gave a damn about your own father. Why should you give a damn about the monster who created you?" Nicki said, cold hell's bells laughing in his voice, "Such an orphan. You even had to invite your own mother to be your lover on the Devil's Road, How perfect for you. Mother and son. She has her son, she needs no husband. You have your daughter. You need no partner, The two of you a perfect, supernatural union. You have no need for a father, Lestat. You and Gabrielle the union of the satanic parent and child."

Nicki fingers played with Lestat's lips, he whispered into Lestat's ear, "Perfect."

"You mock me once again," Lestat whispered, turning his head, his cold lips catching Nicki's by surprise. He slipped his long tongue into Nicki's mouth. Nicki withdrew his lips so the kiss was soon broken.

"Gabrielle, she believes in me. Lestat said, his lips feeling lonely for the cold touch of his dark son's mouth. :She completes me."

"She feels as much contempt for you as I do," Nicki said, nonchalantly, jauntily falling onto the pallet, "You have no idea at the depths we can take this evil existence of ours. We can even do good with it. Oh, she wants to frolic amongst the savage wilderness. An unseen legendary force. I will be seen Lestat. Are you not sick with jealousy?"

"Non," Lestat said, his stomach tightening.

"Oui, of you are jealous, And it delights me. And astounds me. I shall continue with your legacy, your priestly calling of doing good for the masses." Niicki laughed.

"Your intent is evil," Lestat tried to say causally. A catch in his
voice, "Your whole motivation is evil."

"Ah, but the result my dear fool is still the same. The masses who crowd the theater will leave their troubles outside. They will laugh, sigh, cry, be happy, they will be entertained. We will take them to our world."

"Not a better world. Not like the world of the theater d'commmedia."

"Not the world where the women are more beautiful them mere women? The men more brave than every day men. But we will. We will. Our so called women with their paper white faces will be far more beautiful, desirable than any mere mortal. Our heroes more heroic. Our comedies more meaningful; and more satirical. The deaths more tragic. Death is universal we will reflect Death's face. Make it a comic thing. Make it tragic. Make it however we desire to make it."

"I preferred laughter, romance," Lestat moaned.

"When you were a mortal but of course you preferred this. This make believe between lovers. This will be real. What we will do. Ah Lestat we will have our make believe too. Mixed in with reality. The theme death is more universal. More generous than love. Oui, a human being, a monster can live their whole life without ever being loved. But death! Democratic death is not prejudiced against the ugly, the obscene, or the misfit."

What do you want?" Lestat cried sitting on the pallet, "Be angry and hurtful with me if you must. I can not help the fact I do not love you. You are not the same Nicki."

"And I have changed? Have I?" Nick said flourishing his fangs at Lestat.

"Towards me, oui you changed. You lied to me. You told me you believed you and I could live, thrive together in Paris when all along you only meant for us to flounder, and starve. Damn you. Is it my fault your desires for the result of our fates betrayed you? Was it? Can I help that I was a successful actor?"

"This done to death argument between us. Why should we bring it up? Lovers bring up old arguments to tear bonds between them apart. We're not lovers," Nicki said insolently, "There's no need for use to argue anymore. The bond between us has been already broken."

"Do you know what I want?" Nicki said, leaning towards Lestat kissing his eyes to be shut. "I want to find a monster, A good monster. And mon ami, it isn't you."

"You'll find your good monster in Armand," Lestat cried sullenly, trying to pull away from Nicki's hold.

"That shallow child? That plaything?" Nicki laughed, falling backwards, flat on the pallet. He pulled Lestat to fall on top of him. "There's anther person you look for? Isn't there? The child you let escape."

Louis," Lestat said, his mouth enjoying the taste of the boy's name. "When he is grown I'll seek him out. Armand was almost as enamored of our near victim as I was. If Henri hadn't had forced me to recluse Louis from Armand's coven, and allow him to take Louis back to his family, I would have made a foolish mistake with the boy.

(2)

"It's gallant of you to wait till your Louis has grown into having a man's sense of reason," Nicki said seriously, not daring to inform Lestat he had the pleasure taking Louis' virginity before Lestat even entertained the idea.

"Why are you and your coffin not with your coven?"

"With my cast, not my coven." Niki smiled, staring at the ceiling. "I'll move into the confines of the theater tomorrow night. Tonight, I wanted for some sham sentimental reason to be here with you where I was so intensely mortal, so full of aspirations," he smirked putting his hand to his heart. "So full of love and desire!"

"So full. Life was so full for us here," Lestat said, " I am here to say a sad good-bye to Paris," Lestat paused, "And to say good-bye to you.."

"Non, you came here to argue with me."

Nicki played his fingers on Lestat's naked chest. His fingers making lazy caresses on his skin. His erection standing out firm from his curly pubic hair, seeking Lestat's thighs out. Lestat went to his knees, his hand on Nicholas' wrist, his long tongue exploring the cool taste of it, his other hand cupping Nicki's firm buttocks, massaging the muscles of it.

Lestat gave Nicki's wrist a bite. His lips firm against his flesh. His blond hair falling over Nicki's wrist. Nicki felt the vibrations of his nerves taunt and scorched as Lestat sucked away. His hand shaking, Nicki grasped Lestat's trembling hand, breaking into Lestat's skin. A ring of exchanged blood was formed by their a hunger to satisfy each other in the only way they could. Before they harmed each other their mouths let go of bleeding flesh.

Lestat fell. His back bent; his ass in the air. Pulling Lestat onto his lap, Nicki nibbled and licked his small nipples, mouthing each one till each one till was firm. His hand went to Lestat's shaft, rubbing the length if it. One of Lestat's legs was over Nicki's shoulder. Nicki's thumb rubbed Lestat's foreskin, pulling it back to reveal the naked head. He stroked it, tickled the smooth curve of it, tasking the cum his manipulations caused. He grabbed the back of Lestat's head, forcing him back to having his ass up and inviting. Nicki shoved his erection inside, taking him where it was still moist from their earlier love making. He cock stimulated Lestat's gland Lestat screamed from being taken so rough. Nicki's face was tense, his body rigid, caressing the writhing, trapped blond. He gasped, listening to the sounds of Lestat's moans, felt the way Lestat's body stiffened, strained against his. Lestat moving his ass up and down his smooth hard staff. With a shudder, and a whisper of his name, then the repeat of his name, then whisper once again of his name, "Nicki!" Lestat yelled his name again, and again, "Nicki!" Lestat's body had a rough orgasm. The next time Lestat said Nicki's name it was a happy, tearful caress to say. His cock stained the pallet. Nicki's body tightened as his breath came faster. His penis pumped his bloody seed into the panting body. His buttocks throbbing from the effort of cumming. After his ejection, his cock faded inside of Lestat, he kissed his neck, back, and hair. Slowly, he pulled himself out.

Lestat turned around, holding Nicki, his arms flung over his shoulders. "Where should I go?" Lestat whispered. Licking the smoothness of Nicki's face.

"Go to Gabrielle. Or rather Lestat We shared a bed for months in this room. Tonight, the night of endings, let us share a coffin."

A shade of disquiet settled over Lestat's face. The veil of doubt fell off to reveal desire to be at least this night in a union with Nicki in such an unusual bed.

Exhausted, Nicki took the wrist of an equally exhausted Lestat. Nicki carefully hid the feelings of regret he had for all of his angry words he used to hurt Lestat with.

I always, Nicki thought to himself, helping Lestat into the coffin which lay by the bed. I always felt a desire to protect you. From your father, your brother anyone who tried to hurt you. Remember how I would go over the lines of your plays with you? How I kept you warm in the winter? How I stole food for us? How we both chased after that baby piglet who escaped from the butcher's shop. We slid, dodged in the mud, determined to make a fine meal of our quarry. And when we caught it. More fool I. I had no idea what to do with it asides from slaughtering it. You prepared a good enough stew. Persuading a vendor with kisses to toss a few onions at you to chase you away. She was scandalized her husband would hear you making love words at her. We were partners and lovers till I spoiled it all with my drunken jealousies. I thought someday you would be called by the Comedie-Francaise to perform in their serious dramas and comedies. You would be performing in a play written by Racine, or Corneille. You're so talented. I couldn't imagine you would stay with me once you achieved the fame you so richly deserved. Look at us now. It's over.

Climbing to be on top of Lestat, Nicki whispered, making his voice sound caustic "You fell in love with him. Didn't you? Magnus. You disgust me. Pretty boy. Even when we were mortals and lovers your thoughts were on his ugly mug. Dreaming about what his filthy kisses would taste like."

"Oui," Lestat said uncomfortably. Somehow, through no one else could, Nicki could make him feel ashamed.

"Lovers, lovers, your world is so populated by true-love knots. I've never been in love with anyone," Nicki said thinking, I cut our knot, Lestat Set you free. My last good deed for you. I do it because, I love you.

Lestat trembled beneath Nicki. The hurt of Nicki's words slew his courage. Turning his face from Nicki's cold breath mingling with the frost of his own, Lestat whispered, "Tomorrow night, I will go with Gabrielle. You will have the stage Nicki. Play your part with Elini, and Armand well."

"I will make you so proud," Nicki said wearily. The pretend hate drained out of his voice. Hate he pretended to have for Lestat for Lestat not giving him the dark gift till after he pleaded and wept for it after Armand's coven tortured him. Somehow the vampire underneath him seemed too lost to his own empty visions to hate.

I will take from the people their applause You are not cunning, strong, or courageous enough to share it with me. And Lestat I refuse to prod you, tempt you to stay. Leave. Go with your
mother. I wish to brave my fate held captive by Armand's iron clad whims. I shall write operas which the world in truth has never seen By whatever means it takes.

Nicki almost kissed Lestat's cold face. He thought, You need protecting. You always will, but not by me. No longer by someone as weak as me. It falls to Gabrielle. Out of the two of you she has always been the strongest. If she fails you. God help you. I've had enough of you. You've giving up the theatre. For what? To wander? To look for white faces to match those memories of what you felt for Magnus? In the long one, it was I not you who was meant to be a
celebrated member of the guild of thespians after all Even after my death. I have found my niche here. Ah, Lestat the acclaim.

As Nicki started to fall to death, he felt strangely comforted and happy by the irony of what he would not have believed months ago about himself and Lestat.

He almost selfishly whispered to Lestat, Stay with me. Nicki knew it was impossible. It was too painful for Lestat to be on the stage now that he was a vampire. It would savage Lestat's heart to the point of breaking. He had to be driven away for his own sake. Nicki exhaled a breath he was holding in from closeness of Lestat in the casket with him. The sound of their breathing joined like two clocks till the sound stopped. The next night, Nicki awoke alone in his coffin.

(3)

"Look, look at the house!" Eleni merrily squealed, her tiny, white feet almost dancing out of her pretty, purple satin shoes with their fashionable turned up heels.

You think she would be afraid of Armand," Laurent thought, his black dyed hair tied back with an elegant black ribbon. His breeches showed off his gangly, boyish calves dressed in black stockings. His waistcoat, his frock coat were all a somber black. Not even embroidery disturbed the hue of his clothing.

Not she, she would have her high heels upturned. Her burnished brown hair would stay true to its natural color. And her diaphanous, loose shift would display her full breasts and mauve nipples to their best advantage. The shift had to be the color of pale lavender all the better to cause Parisian women after seeing her tonight in the show to go into hysterics, wondering why see-through lavender silk did not cause their ruddy bodies to turn into such a soft alabaster sheen. It had to be a trick caused by the stage lighting.

"Cherie, I told you Armand demands all his players to wear black. Has the smokey scent of our dead brethren Armand drove into the fire already abandoned your pretty nose so soon?" Santiago warned. Santiago's comic, handsome face always pleased her. Even when it wore
the expression of worry and disapproval.

She stood on her toes, and kissed his gaunt cheeks, lips and face.

"Damn Armand, I play your victim M. Death.. How can I be convincing if I look like Death too? Nicki picked this out for me himself. We laughed when we threw Armand's sad rags in the fire."

"He may yet make a sad rag of you," Santiago warned.

She drew back away from him. The flavor of his taste ripe on her lips. He tasted so good! This Santiago! Pity everyone knew he belonged to another.

"Tell me, Santino. The breaded one. The fair one with his rats. Donning black for all occasions Do you see him still?" Eleni whispered. He's more powerful, isn't he, than Armand?"

'Would you rather have Santino for a coven master?" Santiago teased.

"I would. Santino never had contempt for us. With Armand. The way he feels about us. How do we know he doesn't harbor feelings of revenge towards us for Santino burning down Marius' villa? The way he put so many of us in the fire after he disbanded the coven of the
Children of Darkness. I could tell Armand enjoyed the kills of vampires." Laurent shivered, afraid he had been overheard, "You have a little time left before the curtain rises. Change your shift to a black one. Put back your black wig on."

"Non, it's for the play. Nicki said I must wear this," Eleni said loyal to the writer of tonight's show and the hell with the coven master who wanted to be now called of all things the stage manager.

.The curtain parted, and they stopped beings vampires for a while and became characters.

The three did an erotic panomine "Death Has His Way."

Sitting up in the gallery was Armand. His mouth fell open when he saw Eleni. He clamped his hands over his mouth, mockingly rolling his amber eyes extravagantly. He made a burlesque of being scandalized or at least overly stimulated.

Eleni with Laurent danced together an elegant dance of marriage. Her eyes constantly turned to dancing Death who waltzed all by his lonesome self along side of them.

Following them around the stage, Death was trying to steal her from her husband. His hand would go to be pressed to his heart. He pantomimed being in love with her. Pleading with her to release herself from her husband's religiously sanctioned embrace.

Her husband laid down to sleep with her. While he slept, Eleni leapt up, and twilled away from his arms, into waiting Santiago's arms.

The audience intently watched Santiago's and Eleni's movements. She was not completely won over. A femme fatal She insists Death play sadistically, lewd games with her.

To the accompaniment of the laughing crowd she forces poor henpecked Death to wear a corset, forces him to kiss and lick her heels. She rides him like a horse. And uses the switch to make Death mind her The crueler she treats him the more he fawns all over her. Such desire! Till the tables turn, and Death takes this she-vampire in his arms, and the switch suddenly falls on her behind.

The chase is on now. He chases her about the stage. The comedy in full swing, and they dance, and frolic, doing somersaults, taking turns to slap and torment one another. Such is the love between the living and Death. The beloved, dominant one loses the upper hand and hell breaks loose.

Santiago stops running, addressing Eleni.

"You must choose now," he said in a falsetto voice which broke the audience up in laughter. Santiago paused till the audience was finished.

"I weary of my chasing you. All good things and bad must come to an end. Through you are taking my turning on you with good nature; it's time for another. Pick someone else," he said waving his switch at the audience, "Pick someone to have a near death experience."

Falling to her knees now his slave, she begged, "I choose no one else. Take me!"

"Your near death experience shall be closer, closer, fulfilled." Santiago drew his word, pricing her heart.

Nicki's violin joined in with the writhing she did at the end of the steel. Her face angelic in her passion to die.

She took her time in going, lounging around the stage in erotic death- throe poses. Then she finally died. Her face still lovely with a martyr's satisfaction. How else can you reach a climix with M. Death? You must end up dead. The little death of an orgasm with a living lover must be a much bigger one when the lover is M. Death.

The curtains rippled to be closed.

"Encore, encore!" the audience implored

Death stuck his head out between the curtains. He poked out his long. red tongue out at the audience, "What is the matter with you? She is dead. Have you no respect? Encore indeed."

He pulled out his head from between the curtains. The audience laughed. Death and the living shared a joke together.

The curtain opened up wide. The whole of the cast played upon drums, making mocking jokes about the plague, and all other fashions of dying. Venereal disease jokes drawing the biggest hoots of laughter. They made cat calls and extravagant carnival noises a wonderful erotic madness held sway over the playhouse. Then their outlandish merriment stopped.

Eleni tossed back her songbird's throat, and sang. Praising the living, courting love. Her body swaying with the violin's music. Her dancing--light, supple, modest and yet provoking and delicious.

When she was done; the curtains closed for the night. And the individual patrons filtered out on their own speed. Men and women threw bunches of flowers onto the stage with little love notes
attached. Some of the notes were proposals of marriage; some notes promised riches if a certain actress or actor would consent to becoming a mistress or a kept man.

Once all the humans were gone; the curtain reopened. Eleni ran to look through the offerings of flowers.

Eleni read a note out loud. She laughed along with the rest of the cast at the grandiose language the wishful suitor used in his message.

"Marry that one," Santiago smirked, "Drain the poor groom dry. Wait. It's from a lawyer. A fellow blood sucker more rank than we. At least we only kill or victims rather than causing our victims to live out their lives ruined. Take care this lawyer doesn't drain you first."

"What about you? " Eleni cried, tossing him a bunch of roses. "It's from a lady who desires you to meet here You're her heart's delight."

"I shall meet her when my delightful heart's hungry enough," Santiago grinned wolfishly.

"Eleni, you have disobeyed me," Armand said in a quiet voice, entering upon the stage.

"It's my fault, " Nicki said, coming up the stairs behind Armand. "If you punish someone by fining them. Fine me."

"I do not fine my so-called thespians as a mortal stage manager does," Armand said coolly, "I kill them."

"Armand!" Nicki cried, trying to come between Armand and Eleni.

Before Nicki could come between them, Armand kissed Eleni's right cheek, saying to her, "Charming.," Then he kissed the left cheek, saying, "Delightful." Then he kissed her red lips declaring, "I'm overwhelmed."

Throwing her head back in laughter, she vulgarly said, "Ah, that would be the night anyone overwhelms you."

"Oui, it would be such a night no one will witness,' Armand said, his eyes wetly gleaming at her. "You did well. All of you. And now hunt to keep your spirits up."

"And to make spirits," Santiago joked.

The vampires nervously applauded Armand's magnanimous gesture towards Eleni's rebelliousness.

Armand rolled his eyes, comically taking a bow.

He charmed them into feeling secure. Their on going applause was becoming more sincere.

"Nicki, I would like the pleasure of your dining out with me," Armand said, his voice a polite command.

The players looked uneasily at Armand. He had their fear in his sway despite their sudden feelings of camaraderie with him. They wondered if Nicki wasn't going to be punished after all for his atrocity of having Eleni wear lavender on opening night.

"I would be charmed to have you as my escort," Nicki said, taking a sarcastic bow, turning on his heels. Leaving Armand to follow him.

Armand made a pantomime of an exasperated suitor. The ensemble of actors laughed uneasily. They watched Armand follow Nicki down the stairs.

"He is a mad man this Nicki," Laurent murmured, "He is too brave. Armand will cut him down for his effrontery."

"Nicki knows how to handle Armand," Eleni roughly chided Laurent.

"Non, " Santiago said, "Armand is playing with his proud mouse. Letting Nicki think he has some sort of power over him. Then like a serpent, Armand will take Nicki in his coils and he'll squeeze out his pride. And along with it, Armand will squeeze out your pride too Eleni. Armand is letting you both have your little prance of independence until the music comes to a crushing stop."

"Non, Nicki knows how to play Armand as well as he plays his fiddle," she said confidently, "Nicki plays with skill."

Once Armand and Nicki were outside, Nicki stopped for Armand to catch up with him. They strolled through the night, passing by a couple of young girls who raised up the right side of their skirts to advertise their availability for the night.

"You were very rude to leave me behind like I'm some lackey," Armand said blandly as they strolled.

"You were very rude not to take the hint, monsieur," Nicki said coolly, "I am hunting after that for the rest of the night I will be busy composing new music and writing new plays. Place yourself where you'll be more useful. Place yourself far, far away from me."

"Still resent me for my torture I used against you to try to get Lestat to heel to my demands that he join my coven the late and the all but forgotten Children of Darkness?'

"The coven he ended up destroying by his using logical reasoning that you all were living outdated lives?" Nicki laughed, "Serves you right Armand. Serves you all right."

(4)

"Nothing which I have to say will cause things to be better between us. I tortured you out of a desire to hold on to my way of life, not out of personal spite. And you. Your encouraging Eleni to dress as a harlot," Armand said quietly.

"As a dancer," Nicki cried, turning on him in exasperation, "It wouldn't have suited my vision. Her looking like a pasty faced ghoul. And her voice!"

Nicki made a face.

"Her voice it was lovely," Armand protested.

"No, it was, it was!! Oui, it was beautiful. Angelic. No connection to the earth. Not human, I," Nicki cried out, frustrated running his hands through his hair. "There was too much sureness,
too much, it was too bold, verbose, no defect, nothing which could make that voice humble. Somehow. It doesn't have the range of emotions I need."

"The audience loved her voice," Armand admonished him.

"Somehow it wasn't enough. Not emotional enough. Not fallible. Real."

"Too perfect. To other worldly."

"Too perfect,' Nicki cried, "I doubt if her voice was that perfect when she was a mortal. Her voice didn't strive for perfection. It was just perfection. Somehow it bored me."

"You're a fool to think so. Dine with me. It will put you in a more charitable humor. Come I want to teach you a novelty I enjoy. The seduction of a suicide."

"And why would I be desirous of the seduction of suicide?" Nicki scoffed.

"It s the only way to enjoy the complete partaking of innocent blood with the victim's consent," Armand beamingly said, hoping he was shocking Nicki a little.

"You haven't tasted blood, not till you tasted to the brim the blood of an innocent," Armand assured him.

"How can someone who has designs to murder themselves be called an innocent?' Nicki scoffed, "Isn't suicide the worse sin of all? I prefer the blood of someone sanctified in their wickedness. The other night I supped on a duchess. The bawd. She was a right hypocrite. A creeping-to-the-church kind of fraud."

"Why didn't you partake of a meal from the scum of the streets?" Armand asked sensibly "There's plenty of beggars. People holding within them the ruins of small pox. People already knocking on Heaven's Gate. They are dying of poverty. Put them out of their misery. Leave the rich and powerful alone. Their deaths will be investigated."

"I hid the cause of this noble woman's death well enough. Slit her throat, tossed her in the Seine after stealing from her corpse the little pretties she used to adorn herself with. There was a perverse pollution to her soul."

"Pollution is nothing compared to the flavor of a simple soul. Watch me Nicki. Hold your laughter in. Here. We are at the bridge over the Seine. The best place to lure in a suicide. One will come to me."

Nicki watched Armand impatiently. The river gave off a heavy smell of summer sewer. He was almost going to leave Armand there to stand alone by himself when he spied a middle aged man approaching them

There was clear tears in the man's rough face. He wore a truss under his breeches. He lived most of his life a a chair man taking those who could pay in a chair throughout Paris. His hands were calloused and crippled. His spine falling apart. The mark of cupid's measles, venereal disease, was on his gray face.

Nicki snickered. He had to clasp his hand over his mouth really once he saw the prize Armand had reeled in.

The sarcastic merriment building inside his chest threatening to breakout into boisterous laughter died Nicki could feel what the man had seen at the hospital for those who were stricken as he was.

Many who occupied the hospital were children. Some even toddlers inflicted by the mistaken belief if a contaminated person had commerce, sexual relations, with a sound person it would get rid of the disease The younger the sound person the better. Some were infants. Diseased women would get deliberately pregnant with the belief the unborn fetus would absorb the disease resulting in a restoration of their own health.

The old man was tired of the world, There was no food, and the hospital was roasting inside. The beds full of vermin so that you scratched yourself to ribbons before you died.

He heard Armand's siren call. A call for a peace, for action.

The man stumbled, this burly, balding, smelly man into Armand's arms.

Armand caught the man's breath with a kiss before his mouth caught the man's throat to draw his blood to spill. The old man looked at Armand. Confused, he gave Armand's cheek a grandfather's kiss.

Nicki watched respectfully till the man tumbled out of Armand's embrace.

"For a little while you loved him," Nicki said in awe.

"Don't you think I'm capable of sympathy?" Armand said, ruefully patting his stained lips with his handkerchief "He was a good man. I didn't need to scare him. He came to me willingly."

"I didn't come you to you willingly. Did I?" Nicki said coldly.

"Would you change back time?" Armand said.

"I would that your wooing of me had been kinder," Nicki said dismissal in his voice.

"Who said anything about wooing you?" Armand snorted, "Look be silent. There's a suicide for you. A gourmet treat in a skirt."

"How can you be so respectful while you're killing them. Then so blasphemous afterwards?' Nicki said scornfully, withdrawing his arm from Armand's reach.

"Who cares what I am? Go to the poor suicide. Show me your skills. You do have skills other than making whiny music on your fiddle."

"Watch me then," Nicki whispered, to Armand. Taking up the challenge he approached the young figure who was glazing down into the waters. Nicki gently tried to engage the person's thoughts. Waiting for the young person to come to him,.

In his impatience, he impulsively reached on his hand out to touch a sleeve.

To his surprise a hand quickly slapped his face.

Feet in silk slippers ran away from him in a frantic panic.

Armand doubled up in laughter. He cried out, "Not all suicides are easy. Go after your prey. Weakling."

The sound of running filled the narrow alley. A key was taken out, unlocking the door to a townhouse. A shawl was tossed on a chair. A body fell heavily to a divan."

"Welcome home," Nicki sang out. A strand of his curly hair falling over his gleaming eyes. All along he had been stalking his running victim, keeping just a head of his prey to see where the mortal would lead him to.

"Leave me alone," the victim screamed.

"You voice," Nicki said, dropping his hands from the mortal's shoulders.

"I said leave me," the victim winced. The voice went higher. "Leave monsieur with whatever you like except for my life."

"What are you?" Nicki said, examining the flushed face before him

I'm not a what. You need not know my name take what you want."

"I want your name."

"My name is Lizbette my name. My name," the victim spat out, "Fuck you then if I must die write it on my crypt correctly. My name is Felix. And you monsieur can go to hell."

"Your face, you," Nicki said, pulling off the wig to revel hair which was shorn to the scalp.

"Castro," Nicki said, touching the boy's hairless face, "Or are you a mugutte? You impersonate females for money an I right my little androgyne? You make a pretty girl," Nicki said, replacing the wig. "And ," he pulled off the wig, "A pretty boy."

"I shaved my head in mourning," Felix said, consciously keeping his vice on a high scale.

"Your voice. It isn't natural."

"It's natural to me, I sounds like me. How I talk," he said backing away.

Nicki smiled, taking a seat, gesturing with his hand for the boy to sit on the divan.

The boy tried to not look out of the window, or the hall which led to the bedroom. His mind still dwelt on an escape. If he could break a window, barricade a door.

"Before you have a chance to scream my hand would be closed upon your mouth. And I will not be as I am now. Kindly enough disposed towards you for the moment."

(5)

Nicki's face assumed a look of profound panic, looking towards the doors and windows, saying mockingly, "What will you do? What will you do? How will you escape me?"

The boy forced out a nervous laugh, hoping to keep Nicki pleased and calm.

"So this perversion of yours," Nicki said, wrinkling his nose in distaste, "It gives you pleasure to trap yourself in a corset? Arousal?" Nicki teased, "So young to be so determined on such a
lifestyle course."

"It doesn't give me arousal to be dressed as I am. I was brought up as a boy till I was the age of seven. There is something wrong with my genitals. It made my father too ashamed to claim me. So he abandoned my mother and I."

"Can I see what your genitals look like?" Nicki asked, very curious.

"Non," Felix cried, stepping away. His face a furious red, "I had a happy life. Being what I used to be when I was with my mother. She worked for the renowned dressmaker Madam Bertin, "The Grand Mogol". My mother helped her make dresses for our beloved queen."

"All "The Grand Mogol". That ridiculous woman who made fashionable "poufs". Setting mounds of hair up, strewing the mounds with fruit, fake birds, and ornaments. Helping Queen Deficit to delete France's treasury on trifles such as her so called Polish or Turkish style dresses while people starve. Everyone loves "The Grand Mogol" and the Queen Marie Antoinette " Nicki said pleasantly, his eyes glittering dangerously, thinking about how delicious it would be to kill a boy whose mother helped clutter up the world with what he considered to be expensive, tragic female nonsense. "It that how you came to adore dressing up as woman?"

Felix's face went hot. He knew he had displeased Nicki by telling him of his origin. "Non, I have no compulsion to wear a dress because of my mother's employment. My mother died of small pox. I was going to end up being given to an orphanage when my father showed up. The man was a bastard. He could have easily sold me to be a chimney sweeper. One of those poor, naked boys who are forced to clean chimneys while a fire is going on in the fireplace. Instead due to my oddity, " Felix explained, thinking his oddity doomed him to soon be murdered by the smiling gentleman, "my father sold me to the Duchess de la Tour du Leon. The fist night she put me here, she had her servant give my a glass of milk, and a warm bath. I soon fell asleep in the bath. The next morning what little I have hurt."

"She castrated you," Nicki said moved to pity.

"Not only that. She kept me locked in this townhouse guarded by a woman servant who for months was not allowed to talk to me. I was kept at first naked. The servant gave me dolls. If I didn't play with the dolls and asked her for something else to do, I was slapped, and beaten. If I did not speak in high voice, I was beaten, Gradually, I was given clothing to wear. First a corset."

"Is it uncomfortable for you to wear?"

"Non, not at all. It fits me now. Then months later I was given a dress. I was given a gentle woman's education. Taught how to speak pleasantly, crusty, speak English and Italian. I play the harpsichord, guitar, and I know how to dance. To survive sir, to avoid being locked in a closet without food, or burnt with candles, to avoid being hit or mocked I became a woman."

"You didn't become woman. Your personality became a woman."

"What else could I do? She was my mother and my lover. She would laugh and scratch at what nature gave me between my legs. Ridicule it. I couldn't even be a true female. I've seen out in the streets women and girls being what the duchess disparagingly called boyish. I've seen women being aggressive, running, playing. Girls even fighting with other girls and even with boys. Monsieur, if I ever showed the least sign of having an impulse to be aggressive, she would
put me in a pink harness, tied my wrists with pink ribbons. She would take a switch to me. Humiliate me. I'm an act monsieur. My life is not a life but the performance of the role of a weak, submissive woman."

"She is dead?"

"Oui, murdered," Felex said awkwardly.

"Did you do it?"

"No, she was murdered far away from here, it wasn't me," Felex cried out frightened.

"Isn't it sad she was murdered?" Nicki said, smirking.

"Oui, it was sad," Felex said confused, "I didn't do it. I did love her in a fashion. Lizbette the creature she made of me is now dead too. The duchess was my livihood. Now," Felix said, twisting his hands nervously.

Thoughtfully, Nicki rubbed his chin. He said, " Taking in consideration that you will still be amongst the living after tonight how are you going to make a living? Don't make a mad dash to the door. I'm not going bite you," Nicki said, going to the organ, touching the keys.

The boy watched Nicki's manipulations on the instrument. It seemed strange to see a man sitting at her place. It even seemed stranger talking for such a length of time to a man. The duchess always kept his conversions with other males limited to a declarations of "oui" or "non" when she would rarely take him on a trip to market to purchase material of his liking to be made into a dress. The life he spent with the elderly duchess was a life where he was surround by women teachers and women servants. It was a startling miracle to him whenever by chance circumstance he found himself talking to a man.

"Sing," Nicki said, playing on the organ a composition from Mozart's opera: "Don Giovoni", "Sing high."

As he was instructed Felix's lungs filled with air. He let out lyrical notes which flew to the ceiling. If the windows were not locked shut the world outside would hear him clearly and marvel. His voice went through all the challenges Nicki threw at him. Going from a low musical A to go above a soprano high C. Going through runs, trills, leaps, reaching outstanding range.

To Nicki's vampire ears the castrato's voice was not pure, was not perfect. Through is was amazing. This castrato's voice was bound to the muck and sublime pleasures of earthy delights.

Nicki stopped playing, he grabbed the castrato by his arms. Pulling him to fall on his knees along with him.

"You could sing better. Your range is good, but it isn't what one can call a masterpiece yet. Not by far. Open your mouth."

Felix did as he was ordered. Nicki inserted his finger inside, roughly exploring his mouth, rubbing the ridge of it. Nicki's finger was as cold and as hard as an icicle. Nicki's rough exploing inside of his mouth sent tingles down Felix's arms. He felt a stirring between his legs--a hardness.

Gasping, Felix stated to gag. The finger was going too far down his throat. Terrifed, Felix grabbed Nicki's wrist, trying to pull it out. Tears smarted his eyes.

Nicki pried open the the boy's mouth as wide as it could go till the boy's jaws ached.

"Take off your bodice, and stomacher. Leave your over-skirt on."

Felix slowly took off his bodice, reveling his thinness.

Fascinated, Nicki placed a straying finger to the hollow of the boy's throat. The boy's nipples were swollen like a girl's first approach of growth there. The breasts were rounded, pointy, little cushions of firm flesh. The nipple's halo--wide. Impulsively, Nicki caressed one, feeling the nipple harden. He trapped the nipple between two of his fingers, gently rubbing and pulling on it. Experimenting still further, he mouthed the halo of it between his lips, giving it a suck. His hand played with the leather covering the boy's unnaturally, too tightly cinched in waist.

Impertinently, Nicki unlaced Felix's corset. The boy's ribs were shoved up high. His stomach and waist pinched. The corset caused marks on the flesh. The small under developed swollen breasts were thrust up high on the boy's chest.

His interest overcame his hunger to kill. He kissed and licked the nipples, looking up to see what effect it would have on the castrato.

Flex's face was warm and flush as his body was too with arousal, fear and humiliation. To be kissed and fingered in such a fashion by a dangerous stranger with such cold hands and bright eyes.

Nicki raised the castrato's skirts. Reveling a shapely leg clad in a silk stocking. He ran his hand up the firm calf.

"Non," Felix screamed weeping with embarrassment and terror. Panicking, Felix tried to struggle away from the hand going up his skirts.

"I won't look at what you are hiding," Nicki said, letting the skirt fall.

"How old are you?' Nicki questioned.

"Fifteen," Felix said, covering his chest with his arms.

"Your breasts. They may in time yet grow to be bigger," Nicki said. His demeanor one of curoisty, not arousal.

(6)

"I am the one who killed your old she-goat duchess," Nicki said, "Get me the switch. The harness. Anything she used on you."

Feeling helpless, Felix ran to the bedroom. He came back to Nicki. A shawl modestly tied around his shoulders to cover his chest. His arms were full of his mistress's little toys she used on him.

Nicki picked up a switch.

Felix blushed. "She liked to use me. I , She liked. I was her lover. She had other loves. Young and old women. She liked to spend her time with them more than with than me She told me I was as close enough to being a man as she could stomach.

"Her slaps, her hitting you. The ridicule. It was her foreplay. It's a thing of the past. The servant. Where is she?"

"Se left when she knew she was no longer to be paid."

Putting his hands to Felix's chest, Nicki squeezed it. "It's strong. Bones, heart, oui, strong. I have need of you as a singer. We go to Renaud's House of Thespians tomorrow night. I decided you can live. If you tell the gen d'arms, if you tell anyone you marked that man and his family for death. If you try to disobey me I will drag you to the nearest gen d'arms and I will complain you tried to entice me into spending money on the unnatural acts you said you had up for sell. You will be put in a pillory for people to throw garbage, dead dogs and cats at till you yourself is dead. And if the street urchins leave you to be only half dead; I will seek you out after your time is served, and I will hang you myself."

"Why did you kill the duchess?" Felix cried out in dispair.

"Because I want you," Nicki lied, "I can make my fortune off of a pretty singer as yourself. The old bawd wouldn't sell you to me. So I crept into her bedroom and I killed her. Cut her throat, then took the body to the Seine and tossed her in it. Lord knows how they found it. I must have not attached enough weights to that sluttish sow. Now my darling," Nicki said, grabbing Felix's arm, forcing him into the closet where Felix was put into as a child when he was disobedient.

Locking the boy up inside, Nicki's hunger was relentlessly making his head spin. He knew he had to put the boy someplace else and fast else he might lose control and end up killing him.

"I'll release you tomorrow night. You will keep out of trouble in there," Nicki cried out. It took all his will power not to unlock the closet door and throw himself on the boy.

Leaving Felix to pound his small fists uselessly on the door, Nicki went into the night, killing two sporting women before he committed himself to the safety to his coffin.

The next night, he carefully entered the townhouse. There was no debate in his mind whether to let Felix live or not. Nicki was determined to own the castrato's voice.

He unlocked the door.

Breathing hard, trembling, Felix flew himself at Nicki, hitting him with his fists.

Catching the boy by his waist, Nicki swung him around, landing Felix to fall on his bottom

"I'm going no where with you," Felix spat out at him, trying to regain the rags of his dignity.

"If you had any survival skills at all in that silly mop head of yours you would know it's best to appease the monster. Get dressed in something pretty. Show off your shoulders. Do it now. Or do you miss your duchess so much you want to join her in the afterlife? Remember you were my motivation for her death."

"I am sure you didn't even know me when you killed her," Felix spat out.

"Without your awareness I watched you from afar. I'm no longer so far away that you can't notice me. Get dressed."

Hurrying, Felix dressed in an ultra-feminine gown full of ribbons, embroidered flowers and ruffles. Ignoring Nicki's arm, he walked along with him through the squalid streets to a small theatre d'commedia, The House of Thespians.

They strolled down the aisle of the dank smelling theatre. They went backstage into one of the dressing rooms. A portly man was shouting directions to robed and also half clad actresses. Nicki made a noise in his throat.

"Nicki," boomed out the manager of the theatre, eying Nicki's rich dress. His expensive white breeches, his light blue waistcoat with roses made of silver threads embroidered in the cloth. The fabulously expensive rose colored French coat. Even his satin shoes was rich with silver thread.. The man's clothing was a good sized fortune on his back.

"Renaud," Nicki said, stepping forward to take Renaud's plump hand, shaking it hardly, "As soon as I heard you and the troupe was back in Paris, I had to come. And look! I come with a gift for you. A fine singer."

"A singer?" Renaud said, critically, shamelessly looking Felix over. He judged the young thing to be delicate and fine. Pretty brown eyes, a somewhat messy blond wig. Oh well from afar on the stage it would look good enough. All women wore wigs these days, except for the poorest. He would insist Nicki get her a more expensive wig. The complexion was clear, remarkable for these times of small pox. Flushed though, really it was as if this little offering of a singer was feverish.

"Isn't he pretty?" Nicki said, smiling sardonically,

"He! He it's a he!" Renaud said astonished, squinting into Felix's face, "I do not need a he-she thing, thank you very much. Take him away back into the streets," Renaud haughtily said, "My business like any other's Nicki depends on keeping my clients' interest piqued, its the fashionable patrons which keeps the money flowing into my coffers. Non, they want actresses. Girls. A he-she would be incompetent in this situation."

"Why didn't you stay in England?" Nicki said laconically.

"England! Bash! Where was my head when I accepted Lestat's money to relocate! The audience threw hard peas at us. We were slipping and falling all over the stage, When one of us tried to sing a song the audience would launch into a chorus of "The Roast Beef of Old England." France was after all in their opinion on the wrong side of the American Revolution affair. Siding with those revolutionaries now I guess they are Americans. The English hardly have any reason to love us. We're lucky they didn't tar and feather us! Damn Lestat. May he rot. Austria was no better. No one in my troupe speaks Austrian. Oh sure some, some of the upper class there understands French, but we totally lost the middle class and lower middle class audience. Showing off a firm ass in a pair of tights, and a jiggle of dangling tits on the most prettiest actress isn't going to hold them for long if people can't understand her. People made catcalls at us. Booed us! We went bankrupt Flat broke. We're lucky to be back where we belong. Where any sane person who has the good taste to be born a French man belongs. In Pairs!"

Nicki smothered a laugh. He put his arm confidently around Reanaud's shoulders, "Ah my poor man. I will make up for all the indignities Lestat put you through. I will be this boy's patron. I will sponsor your threate. This boy is not only a boy. He is a castrato."

"Now I know you're as mad as Lestat. You're jesting with me. What this castrato isn't good enough to be in the Opera Serias in Italy? We have to be stuck with him? We do not deal with classical theatre here with its grand and dramatic themes. We mock such drama. We parody it. We're all about comedy, and improvisation. Take him to Austria where they adore their ball-less Kapaunes. We French we do not like castratos as much as the cabbage eating Austrians like them, or the greasy Italians. The great Voltaire calls Castratos an offense of nature. So they are. You would not catch Voltaire putting one in his plays," Renaud said, directing a look of dislike at Felix. "You are wasting the castrato's breath here. Take him where he is wanted and needed."

"I see you have no need for my patronage. Very well. Good night to you then," Nicki took out a small silk bag from his French coat's pocket. He shook the bag a little so Renaud could see how heavy it was with coin. Nicki then turned away from Renaud, his voice singing smoothly, "Come along Felix. We wasted poor Renaud's time long enough, and time is a valuable thing."

"Wait!! Wait!! He can be n the show in minor parts. Listen to me castrati! You Italian boy. I know the vain tricks you Italian ball-less peacocks play. Wearing whatever costumes you think make you look pretty, never mind! If you are supposed to look like a Ceasar you will look like a Ceasar. Wearing something a simple Roman soldier would wear. You will not be dressed up in some pompous costume which shows off how pretty you think you are. None of that glittery garb unless I decide that is what you will wear. You and your tailor will not make decisions on your costumes. You will not be stopping the play to draw attention to yourself, making demands on our musicians so you can show off the range and virtuosity of your voice. You will be obedient to Papa. I am he. Your papa now. Do we understand each other, boy?"

"Oui," Felix said humbly, his cheeks burning , his eyes downcast. "I am not like that. Nor am I Italian. I was born as good as a French man as you!"

"You catratos are all like that. Mincing about creatures," Renaud cried out exasperated, "No French man has his balls messed with. What happened? An accident with you? Do you dress this way all the time? It's against the law to be dressed this way when you're not on the stage. Do you do other things you should not do? No matter."

"Between acts Felix will have a solo accompanied by my violin," Nicki said imposingly.

"What! What! Do you two want to be the stars? You playing Marc Anthony to his Cleopatra? Whatever. You, you go on tonight. You can be Hermes. Understand? You will lead the Parade of Gods. Sing a simple ditty. I don't care what you sing. Don't be overloud with it. Prance around a bit. Madam Luzun."

Oui Renaud," said a woman. A row of pins were in her shabby bodice.

"Dress this thing,"

"Oui, come along, "she said, her gray hair bobbing up and down and she looked him over, She took Felix's hand, "Come along."

"Please, just give me the costume. Let me me dress some place private," Felix begged. "Nicki," he implored.

Nicki took Felix away from the imposing Madam Luzin. He whispered in Felix's ear. "Never mind the filthy nonsense coming out of Renaud's mouth. Sometimes his farts forget which end to come out of. All his words were just foul air. When Lestat persuaded Renaud to take me into
the orchestra, you should have heard what he said about Gypsy violinists putting on fancy airs. He's harmless. He just wants to give at least an appearance of being the boss."

"Nicki hung a blanket from a ladder leaning against a wall. "Dress behind this."

Felix's fingers shook as he undid his bodice. He moved quickly in case Nicki would become impatient and come behind the blanket insisting upon undressing and dressing him. He decided to keep his expensive stockings on. His jeweled high heels, his body was soaked with perfume and sweat. He pulled on a white knee length skirt. A bodice decorated with feathers went over his shoulders to cover his chest. He blushed at the sight of his exposed legs. He almost wanted
to put back on all his skirts. Impossible. He had the feeling Nicki would only yank off his skirts with everyone watching.

Felix blushed even harder when he stepped out from behind the blanket. The actresses were sniggering and laughing at his modesty, He didn't notice many of the actresses were regarding him with raw envy for the conquest they supposed he made of Nicki. Felix didn't even notice Nicki was comely much less handsome.

"None of you will tell anyone what this boy is. If any of you do," Renaud hissed at the actresses and actors, "It's out in the streets for you. You all owe me debts don't you all? I'll call in my marker from who ever tells, and I'll get that person tossed in the Bastille if they can't pay up. And I know none of you can. Not with the interest I charge."

Nicki pressed Renard's threats into the troupe's heads. So that if anyone did try to tell a feeling of dread would fall upon that person, and the secret would choke in their throats before it was spoken.

(7)

Three knocks were heard on the dressing room door. It was time to go on stage!

"Your hat," Madam Luzan cried out impatiently. Slamming a flat Hermes' hat on his head, she tied the ribbons to be in place.

Flex danced onto the stage, the gods and goddess in stately men walking behind him. Chaos broke out!

An actor with a phallic shaped nose, his leggings made of black, uncombed wool, wool also glued onto his burly chest, chased the scantily clad actresses all about the stage much to the amusement of the other Gods. The actor bahhed at the audience, wiggling his eyebrows. He was the god Pan of panic and mayhem.

Apollo, a blond hero with a black mustache, wooed a pretty nymph out of the melee. Apollo's and the nymph's extravagant love making was ludicrous. Insults and jokes were exchanged between Apollo and Pan. Pan did his leaps and somersaults in the air. The audience cheering the goat-man on. Pan kidnapped Apollo's lover.

Through out all of this, dizzy with the newness of his situation, Felix subdued his singing voice as Renaud ordered him to do. Stuttering, making jokes along with the others on the stage. Picking up his cues tossed at him by the other actors and improvising his lines. The first act ended.

Nicki took his place in the orchestra. He drew his bow on the taunt violin strings. He signaled in Felix's mind to come out between the curtains to stand alone and sing.

Felix lifted his voice to Nicki's violin, embellishing the music, matching the notes from the stringed instrument. Nicki shoved words of lyrics to songs of his composition into Felix's mind. So Felx's body was but a wind instrument for Nicki's songs.

Felix's diaphragm surged upwards, his lungs straining against his ribs. Nicki's lyrics gushed out from his mouth. Using his castrato's voice and Nicki's songs, Felix sang of liberty from death, from the notion of sin, and from bondage. He sang a song of the nobility of all men despite their station in life. He sang of freedom, and the simplicity of the human desire to beloved of someone.

Then the violin playing stopped. Felix found himself singing cappella with no accompanying instrument His clear voice became a hymn, a rhythmic chant, beautiful, filling the theatre.

The audience stopped talking, stopped almost breathing, enraptured by the splendor of the voice.

Felix felt his mind exploding from his frantic attempts to keep his singing voice up with the rapid delivery of Nicki's voice singing lyrics in his mind. Then Nicki's voice in his head sang not inspiring lyrics for his mouth to sing along with. Rather the lyrics became smutty, dirty.

Felix stopped singing. Through the lyics rang in his head, he would not sing them. His mouth dry and itchy.

"Dance, damn you dance. Turn around and shake your bottom at them. Kick your legs at them. It's what the goons really want. Make fools out of them," Nicki's voice in Felix's head commanded

Non, Flex thought.

"Damn you," the voice ordered "You saw how the other actresses did it. How they danced. Do it. It's what they like."

"NON! Felx's mind roared.

Nicki shook his head. He looked about hi., Felix was standing on the stage. The castrato's eyes were wild. The audience was on their feet. Applauding the now silent boy,

Fearfully, Felix ran between the curtains.

The curtains in just minutes flew open, Pan was back. His skeletal fame and rubbery proportions took over the stage. Trying his best to win over the poor nymph with her rolling eyes to fall in love with his ugly mug.

Venus came onto the stage. She convinced the reluctant nymph to desert her vain Apollo, and to give her affections to the supposedly more deserving Pan.

Supposedly deserving. Pan promptly dropped his nymph in favor of trying to ravish Venus.

Felix had to remind himself he was part of the play. He found himself gawking, laughing along with the audience. Everything held him in a thrall.

No matter how hard Venus shook her firm breasts at the audience, lifted her skirts to show a little bit of her pretty bottom along with her long legs, the audience could not keep their eyes off the pretty Hermes singing in a subdued voice. One man in the audience was so rude as to shout at Venus to shut her fat lip, so he could hear Hermes sing.

The actresses of the theatre had all the more reason to loathe and envy the pretty boy. Venus's fingernails itched to taste Felix's hairless face. Venus could feel Nicki's eyes hot on her. She looked over her shoulder at Nicki, thinking if Death was a handsome man; Death would look like Nicki.

The curtain fell and the play was over.

Renaud went Nicki. He said, "There are gentlemen who want to meet your little capon. They have invited him to sup with them. What harm can it do? The boy doesn't have to do anything with these gentlemen. All he has to do is be witty, and entertaining. What ever comes out of a pretty mouth is witty. But, if they were to find out the charming girl they invited for supper is really a boy," Renaud said, mopping his sweaty brow. "Oh the scandal that would create for me. What do I tell them?"

"Tell them she's a good girl. Tell them she obeyes her father. Tell them to go to hell he's already owned Tell them Hermes is owned," Nicki said curtly.

"I will, I will, anything you tell me to say I will say," Renaud said, holding his hands up in front of his chest as if to ward off a blow. "Tell the boy, what is his name for heaven's sake?"

"His name is Felix. He'll be called by all the name Lizbette," Nicki said.

"Tell Felix when he comes out of the dressing room I want to shake his hand! Shake the hand of a fellow French man. He's a good lad. He obeyed his papa. For that I want to shake his hand," Renard said, his face beaming.

Nicki didn't bother saying another word to Renard. He hurried backstage to the dressing room His little charge was dressing behind the blanket. Felix shrank from Nicki's out stretched arm. The actresses noticed this. This amused them more than ever.

Nicki took an impatient step to be behind the blanket, grabbing Felix's arm, pulling him along.

"What are? What are you?" Felix whispered as he was being led out the back way of the theatre.

"Stop being a child. I'm a hypnotist satisfied?" Nicki said, flashing him a smile, "You better be satisfied because that's all the explanation I will give you about what I am. You have another
performance tonight."

"Where?' Felix gasped.

"The Theatre des Vampires," Nicki said, smirking, dragging the boy along.

They entered the theatre with it's black painted walls decorated with white, painted skulls. The audience was already there. Richly dressed. This was an all together different kind of audience than the one at Renaud's Theatre of Thespians. This audience was numbered with nobles, the elite, and the rich.

Nicki took Felix to a dressing room.

Celeste's eyes opened wide. The others stood back, spell bound by the vision of the almost fainting mortal in Nicki's arms.

"Laurent get the harness on him. Celeste I want him to play your part."

"Him?" Celeste a pretty dark eyed vampire said dumbfounded. The gray eyed vampire boy took Felix by the arm. He snapped him in the harness which was attached to a thick rope.

"Climb the ladder to the scaffolding. You will jump down on the cue Laurent will give you. The cue is, Laurent will say, 'Look there.' You will play the angel," Nicki maniacally cried, ripping at Felix's clothing till he was only in his shift.

Trembling, Felix did as he was told. He reached the highest point of the ladder, he looked down at the blackness and at the white faces glowing below him

"You brought you dinner here to entertain us?" Eleni whispered, "how amusing."

"Touch him, and you will die,' Nicki said pleasantly.

"I'll touch anyone I damn well want to touch," Eleni said full of scorn "You're insane to being a mortal to perform amongst us. This is the Theatre des Vampires,"

Pushing her to be out of his way, Nicki raised the curtain. "Get to your places now!" He hissed at the actors.

They went through their lines on the stage. On his cue, Felix leaped from the scaffolding, gracefully swinging out to stop and hover over the stage. Glitter fell along with him. Real feathered angel wings were attached to the harness. He sang the words Nicki penetrated into his mind. Pleading for the vampire's victim to be spared.

Up in the gallery, Armand's eyes were locked upon this creature. Astounded, he couldn't believe his eyes. He rubbed them and looked again, It wasn't the fact that this creature was a castatro which startled him. He was familiar with this type of mortal from his mortal days in Venice. It was the fact this creature was a mortal And where he was at. The stage. His stage.

Armand looked around at the audience. He noticed a small man. A dwarf of a man with a broad chest, longs arms, and little legs. The dwarf was nodding, drawing the actors on the stage.

Armand looked away , then looked back. Really staring at the artist. Wondering what the devil was this artist doing? The dwarf put the pencil to his mouth. He looked back at Armand and shrugged. Then he want back to his work. Armand felt taken away by the beauty of the artist's intelligent eyes in such a plain yet expressive face.

A castrato twenty years of age was in the audience. On a whim, he rose to his feet, and he began to sing. Felix matched the fellow castrato trill for trill, a single note rapidly repeated with
aspiration before each repetition. First a major trill, a minor, then a double trill, embellishments between each trill., Short rapid ascending scales of trills known as flights were added.

The castrato took note that Nicki's violin playing was mocking both himself and the boy castrato hanging in the angel winged harness. Challenging them to sing at a range humanly impossible to reach. The older castrato noticed the strain on Felix's face, the paleness, and the sweat.

The castato pretended to cough.. For the sake of the boy, he conceded the impromptu musical contest, praying Felix would stop and take a breath The boy was turning blue. Felix at Nicki's command hit an even higher note. Felix's heart exploded. His body arched as if it had been hit by lightening. The body fell limp from his stiffened position to hang in the harness.

The castrato ran to backstage. He took from the stagehand the rope which was holding Felix up in the air. He lowered the boy to be on the stage. He ran to the stage and undid the body from the harness. He lifted the boy in his arms, taking Felix to an empty dressing room, "Fools," he yelled behind his shoulder at the vampires still on the stage. "Fools!"

(8)

Nicki left the pit, and hurried up the stairs which went to the back of the stage. He whispered to the vampires, "Stay in you places. The play is not done."

He made his way to the dressing room. Taking a hold of the castrato's arm, he said in a low voice, "Merci for bringing him back here and releasing him from the harness. Do not tell anyone you know of his being a boy. You can not stay here. It is forbidden. Please leave."

Nicki speedily left the dressing room, saying quirky to Laurent, "Take care of Felix." He made his way down the short flight of stairs back to the orchestra pit.

Laurent with hesitant steps entered the dressing room. The beautiful castrato's body was hovering over Felix's. The castrato was fanning the boy's face with his hand. "Get a damp cloth," the castrato ordered.

Laurent blankly stared at the mortal man giving him orders.

"Do it stupid! Get a wet cloth," the castrato yelled at Laurent, rubbing Felix's wrists.

Startled, Laurent woke up from his stupor of staring at the two mortals. He ran to get a damp cloth. He handed it to the castrato to put on Felix's forehead. The castrato put his smelling salts under Felix's nose. Felix coughed, opened up his eyes to stare into the flat, emotionless eyes of Laurent

Felix gave out a frightened gasp. Laurent's gray eyes were so dead, so without human feelings. His eyes terrified Felix.

Laurent leaned away from Felix. Surprised that he had frightened him. He didn't feel he was menacing Felix in anyway.

"Get out with you. Give the child air," the castrato ordered, waving with his hand for Laurent to leave the room

Laurent's face did not betray the concern he felt for Felix. He left. He heard his cue. As much as he wanted to go back into the dressing room to reassure Felix he meant him no harm to him and that it was unkind of Felix to think badly of him when Felix didn't even know him, he knew like it or not he had to be on the stage.

"Who are you?" Felix asked weakly.

"Who are you? I assure you with a voice such as yours you are a somebody. I happen to be Paolo Pasolini. So young. Yes. You are still playing the role of a woman. It's how we all start out on the stage. Nurse your voice. Do exercises with it, and you will someday play the hero."

"The hero?" Felix said, swallowing.

"The male. Did you start in a church then? I was given to the church when I was eight My mother herself cut me. What could she do? I was the youngest of six barely fed children. Ah, how I wanted to run away when she brought me to the conservatory. I missed her. And I didn't like being amongst so many strangers who took it upon themselves to regulate my every breathing moment. Priests telling me when to sing, when to learn scripture, sleep, eat. There was very little time left for child's play. I was contracted to the sing opera by the time I was fifteen. Lucky me I did not flop and end up in a small, providential opera house in the sticks, or in some
monastery's choir. You are pretty. You may turn handsome. You have a keeper. Yes?" Paolo said sadly.

"Oui. Someone owns me," Felix said, looking down at his hands

"Bad for you. The world is tough on us. Through they say to our faces they love us. At the conservatory, wearing my red belt, Turkish beret and flannel petticoats they worked my voice till I thought I would bleed through my throat. My voice would burst through the skin of my neck like a wounded monster and try to kill me. That was what I would dream about at night. Hold on to your money. Do not let anyone cheat you. Use your brains and you will become as
respected as, respected as Farinelli! He used his brains. He became an adviser of the Spanish King Philip the V. He only sings four songs a night. And only for the king to hear. The rest of his time is spent being an influential courtier. It will be your brain not your throat which will save you."

Felix leaned away from him. He could smell the sour stench of too much wine in the earnest castrato's breath.

"What is your preference?"

"My preference?" Felix asked confused.

"Man, woman. What d you like? On the stage you must play the woman for them now. Capitalizing on your youthfulness. Who do you want to prefer to love?'

"I prefer to love someone who can love me as I am. Someone kind."

"Your master will decide your preference for you while you are sill not rich. I know this. They do not love us. I know this. The hazing I got from uncut boys at the conservatory. The names I was called. Still am called behind my back. Remember they do not love us."

Nicki came inside the dressing room. "I told you to leave. Move aside capon," he growled, pushing Paolo to fall backwards. Felix reached over and slapped Nicki's face.

Nicki put his hand to where he hit him.

"You will respect him. You will respect me!" Felix cried out in a tense voice.

"Look at him. The boy is tremblin., When did you last eat, boy? Did he offer you a drink?" Paolo cried.

Felix looked away. His face pale.

"You fool," Paolo rounded on Nicki, "Savage! Did you allow him to warm up his voice between sets, or did you make him sing cold, treating him like a dancing bear in human form?"

"I knew you were all right," Nicki stammered, "I knew you just had fainted."

Felix still refused to look at him.

Nicki's face went from cold to hot. "Are you angry because I called him a capon? An unfortunate choice of words. I say it all the time to men cut or uncut."

"You should be horsewhipped for how you treat this child," Paolo cursed.

"Are you hungry Felix? Then eat," Nicki cried out in angry frustration. Taking a knife he cut into the castrato's arm, "Eat, hurry, and drink. This is food."

The other vampires entered the dressing room and gasped at the gesture Nicki made for the boy's sake. They wondered if Nicki forgot the boy was only human.

Felix took the wet cloth from his forehead, wrapping it around the stunned castato's bleeding arm.

In the dressing room they could hear the audience yelling, "Encore, encore."

Eleni ran to the curtains. Poking her head out between them, she cried, "She is dead!"

Her mouth fell open in surprise The audience wasn't laughing. They hissed and booed. Stamping their feet, calling for the angel.

"She is dead. I tell you, dead to you all. You can have her partner."

She ran back to the dressing room and gestured for Paolo to to follow her. She pushed him out from between the curtains, so he was on the stage. The audience wholeheartedly applauded him, still calling to see the angel.

Eleni went on the stage to stand by Paolo. She cried out, "You ask for too damn much!"

She pulled Paulo to be behind the curtain, hissing in his ear. "Who are you to try to come between a master and his slave? The child is owned by the Theatre Des Vampires and after that he is owned by his master. Leave with your life you interfering fool! No one will give you a third chance to leave with your life."

Paolo almost broke out with a scornful remark. Something about her made the cold touch of fear run down his spine, he left the theatre.

Armand with slow measured steps went into dressing room. His face held no movement to it. Nor his hands. He stood the room as still as a statue.

He projected his thoughts into Nicki's mind, Why did you being such a creature to be amongst us?

Nicki retorted out loud, "For the sake of art we need his voice. We need his humanity on the stage I will have it."

Armand's face was still unreadable. He projected into Nicki's mind the question, Does he know what we are?

"Nicki projected the answer into Armand's mind, He doesn't know what we are. And I will keep it that way.

Armand's face broke barely into a very thin smile. He projected into Nicki's mind, Keep it then This pet of yours for the sake of art. We have mortal slaves as stagehands and servants. We know have a singer. You can keep this boy.

Nicki turned from Armand, gathering up Felix in his arms. "Why do you wear such a shabby wig when everything else is so fine?"

"I shaved my hair off after the duchess died. I told you. I bought the wig myself with my own money."

"Tonight we will go to the finest wig maker and buy you the most fetching wig imaginable. I will take you to a real meal. Bread, water, wine, turtle soup, whatever you want."

"I can walk." Felix protested.

"Why should you walk after you sang for me tonight like an angel The high note you hit. It was remarkable. The next time you will not faint. I will take heed of our friend's words and take better care of you."

"You made him bleed. Why?" Felix said in a low voice, "He didn't hurt you. I want to see him again. I want to talk to him. I still haven't thanked him."

Non," Eleini said, "The castrato before he left told me he had a very long voyage to go on. Pray he reaches his destinations safely."

"I made him bleed because I thought you were hungry enough to eat a man," Nicki teased lightly, "I cut him to shut him up! What he was saying to me made sense. But the delivery of his lecture was rude. He was shouting at me. Now let's get you something to eat. And a stout glass of wine. Tonight, I'll warp a warm towel around your throat. That should be a comfort to your voice. You worked it hard tonight. Well done!"

Nicki carried Felix. He went to Armand. Nicki leaned over and kissed Armand's lips. "Thank you cher," Nicki whispered with great emotion in Armand's ear.

The other vampires tittered nervously behind Nicki and Felix as Nicki carried the boy out of the dressing room, Their eyes nervously fell on Armand.

Armand merely flung his arms upwards. His arms bent at the elbows, palms in the air. A display of a man who was perplexed. "All for art," he said with a grimace.

"To art" they chorused

Armand smiled benevolently going out the back way. His mind full of the artist he stared at in the audience.

Eleni pulled Santiago aside. She hissed in his ear. "Is Santino watching us? Will he allow Armand to employ a mortal singer?"

"Santino is out of the country," Santiago reassured her, "Besides Santino is a like a proud father who lives from a great distance from his grown son. He does not want to interfere with Armand's coven. He feels he has taught Armand well enough to learn from any mistakes Armand makes in life. He watches from a distance. He cares and is proud of us all. And he trusts us to do well in life."

"Ah," Eleni said, pleased. The image of a proud, caring, distant father was a wonderful comfort to her.

The next night, Armand stood outside of a cabaret. One which he knew the artist frequented. He touched his auburn hair tentatively. Then he messed up his carefully styled hair into a frantic mop. He took out a flask out from the pocket of his frock coat, dashing the contents of the flask on his shirt. He then gargled the hot liquid, spitting it out. Moaning and twisting his face about from the terrible taste.

(9)

Armand entered the cabaret. There were tired dancers done with their set, longing around, gossiping with customers. The show was over. Likewise, his own show was over at the Theatre Des Vampires.

Armand swayed, hoping he looked like a realistic drunk. He stumbled forward, pretending to collapse into a chair which was adjacent to the artist's chair. Armand put the full charm of the boyish part of his personality into his face.

"What are you up to? Drawing dirty pictures of dancers? Correct? I saw you in the Theatre des Vampires last night. Let me have a look," Armand drawled out.

"Before I show you my drawings, first let me ask you something. Do you enjoy smelling dirty shoes?" The artist asked. His rich brown eyes were twinkling in his breaded face.

"What?" Armand gasped.

"Monsieur it appears to me you have a dirty mind. Your ask of me if I have drawn dirty pictures implies a perverse streak in the make up of your character. If you enjoy the scent of dirty shoes I'm sure my drawings will be a bore to you."

"Adequately perfumed. I can appreciate shoes which has been worn by a foot for a little while. I can maybe even take a sniff or two. On the whole rank shoes holds no overt attraction to me, esthetically or any other way you can think of. Allow me to see your drawings."

The artist shrugged, and handed it over to him.

Armand looked it over. The colors were dark. The people in the crayon and pencil drawing were shabby looking with either startling yellow faces or mask like white faces. An underworld separated from the conventional. You could tell wicked dealings were going on in the drawing. The women were free to put their elbows on the tables, to drink, laugh, smoke, and curse.

To Armand the drawing reminded him of his own underworld. The Theatre des Vampires.

"Do you have the drawing you were doing last night?" he asked.

"You do not like my drawing I have done of the patrons here in this cabaret," the artist asked casually.

"Ah, I do. It is lovely I like it so much I want to see more of your work. Please."

"I threw that drawing away," the artist said. His expressive mouth pulled down to form a frown.

"But why,? You must come again to the theatre. Tomorrow night. I would like to see how you would depict it on paper," Armand said nervously. He found himself liking the ugly, little man. This dwarf. Armand despised himself for the betrayal of his strength. His mission was to destroy any drawings the artist made of the theatre. And to destroy the artist. And now here he was inviting him to the thearte to draw.

"I didn't like what I drew there," the artist said pleasantly, "The actors and actresses of the Vampire des Theatere through there is a sassy originality about them, and their dramas can be poignant. Somehow."

"Somehow?"

"They lack, they lack life monsieur, dedication to life. I feel it. They seem dead to me."

Armand's eyes opened wide, "Dead?"

"Dead. I prefer to draw more lively subject matter. Besides here at this cabaret do you know the actors and actresses they are friends of mine. Intimates. The actors and actresses at Des Vampires are renown for their aloofness. Non, I prefer to grapple with life here. The ladies here. My brush falls in love with them, my eyes, my heart, my soul everything falls deeply in love with them. My Body? Ah, I have to pay so I can make love to any of them. So what?'

Mesmerized, Armand leaned over and kissed the artist's mouth.

The drunken artist pushed his chair backwards. "Boy, when I talk of paying people to make love to them I was only referring to man's better half. And by better half I do not mean boys."

"How do you know what your tastes are until you tasted everything?" Armand said laughing, his eyes twinkling. "I see the bold colors in your drawing and I'm drawn in. I want to be in the drawing. Be a part of this cabaret which you think is so alive with the passion you think the Theatre Des Vampires lack."

"Draw away from me," the artist said, taking a sip of his wine.

"Non, tell me if you could be on the stage what role would you take?"

"I would like to be a hero! My shoulders board, my legs long and without pain, and I would get the girl," the artist laughed, "It late. I must go back to my flat. It was pleasant talking to you. I an glad you liked my drawing."

"Can I escort you to your home? Protect you from ruffians?'

"Who robs a poor artist? No thank you."

Armand felt a hunger to devour the artist, he wondered if his blood would have the thickness and the taint of paint to it.

Should I give him the dark gift, Armand thought to himself, The rules are a vampire can only bring those who are beautiful on to the Devils Road. This artist is a walking deformity. His stature is too small to protect himself in our world of predators. He would be a burden to my coven. But would it be worth it? To bring such a man with such a beautiful mind to walk along side me in my world. For him to grow to love me as I am growing to love him? To watch him do an eternity of painting.

"Do you hate your creator for making you as you are?' Armand asked anxiously.

"Your question is in poor taste," the artist sighed, "perhaps you ask because you are seeking answers for yourself about the deity. Non, I do not hate God for making me as I am. If there is a God. If I hated him for my legs and poor health wouldn't it be justice to also hate him for my ability to do this," he gestured to his drawing "And this too," he gestured at the dance hall. "I love life. I love it intensely though I dull the physical pain I am in with my drinking. And even so I cherish this pain which drives me out of my hiding place to seek laughter. Even if the laughter is sometimes directed at me. The people are are honest. They judged my work with their own eyes, and despite the fact I'm not a hero they respect me. There are many kinds of deformities to be found in human beings, lack of height, lack of compassion, lack of warmth. Monsieur, we all have a deformity. Mine is more apparent."

"I did not mean any disrespect when I asked if you hated your maker. Most people I know. My kind of people. They have grown to hate their maker or at least have disdain for whoever created them. And I wanted to know. Such a question I asked you. No wonder you misunderstood me."

"It's all right. I didn't mean for you to take it so harshly. Or imply you are emotionally deformed. You sound like you have bitter friends. Take this drawing. Don't insult me with the offer of a gift in return Take it and put it up. Enjoy life."

"I'll take it, and I'll give you nothing back in return, " Armand and said abashed. "Enjoy this. Your life," Armand said, smiling. Deciding the artist's existence was harmless to his coven. That the dwarf should live his life to the fullest of each hour left existing to him without any molestation by a supernatural agent's desire of him.

As the artist was leaving, Armand whispered, "Do you think I lack passion?"

Armand watched the door shut behind the artist.

Just as well you didn't hear me to give me an answer, Armand thought. Then he smiled, Ah you are wrong, and you are right about me. I may lack the passion of a mortal. I have my own demonic passion. More subtle and thought out than a human's or that damned Lestat's passions. But my passion. My passion is in my heart to be discovered by the right man.

Armand left the cabaret The painting tucked under his arm. He felt so good about himself. He even stared to whistle.

H walked down the drowsy cobbled streets till he came to Fleix's townhouse which was now Nicki's too. He went inside without knocking. "I've fallen in love," Armand said beaming at Felix and Nicki.

"So what if you have fallen in love?" Nicki snorted, brushing back his thick, untied hair from his handsome face.

He was dressed in only his breeches and silk shirt. The buttons of his shirt were undone reveling his thin toned chest and abdomen. His waistcoat and frock coat were tossed to the floor. A sitting Felix was dressed in his white cotton shift. His long, naked legs bewitchingly crossed at the ankles. His shaved head and lack of paint made him look more to be a boy than usual. His feminine gestures through were confusing to the senses. His voice still sounded like an artifice.

(10)

Nicki was spraying Felix's throat. "There you are oiled. Now for my violin," Nicki teased, carefully tending to oiling his instrument, turning the knobs to the strings.

"I fell out of love almost as soon as I fell into love," Armand said, watching the two.

Nicki put his hand under Felix's throat, caressing it, giving tingling kisses to the boy's smooth cheeks and forehead. Chastely kissing his soft lips.

"Here take the draught. I want you to sleep well in what is left of the night," Nicki said handing Felix a glass of murky, white liquid.

"It makes me sleep till you come at night and shake me in my bed to wake me up. Once I'm awake I feel out of it until I finally wake up from the pills you give me,' Felix protested.

"You need more rest than normal people. Your voice does. The less you talk the better," Nicki said smoothly, taking Felix by the hand leading him to the bedroom. Taking him to an ornate bed he pulled back the blanket, he waited till Felix slid between the cool sheets. "Here drink it," Nicki demanded.

His body still aroused from Nicki's touches and kisses, Flex shook his head.

"I have to tell you of the good deed I did. Make Felix go to bed so we can talk," Armand called out impatiently in the other room.

"I'll be there shortly," Nicki said going to the doorway. While Nicki's attention was on Armand, Felix poured the drink onto the floor.

Nicki turned to Felix. He saw the empty glass in his hand. "Good, no arguments from you for once. Now go to sleep child. Armand and I have grownup matters to discuss."

But, Armand is just a boy like me, Felix thought his face burning. He put his hand to his shift, feeling ashamed of it. He almost asked Nicki for one of this old night shirts to wear to sleep in.

Nicki left the bedroom. To his surprise Felix followed him out.

"Get back into bed," Nicki growled impatiently.

Bowing his head, feeling the fool, Felix obeyed.

"Now that we are finally alone tell me your tale about falling in love. You did a good deed for someone? Ah this is too preposterous," Nicki scoffed, coming into the room.

"First we have to have words. I know about your scandalous doings," Armand said seriously, "Nicki you have to stop meeting with the mortal M. Martel."

"Stop meeting with the journalist? Bash! I help write his articles, here read my latest composition."

Armand took up the editorial, reading it out loud, "The queen cuckolds the king and the nation, Her smelly skirts are thrown up to Fersen, a Swedish nobleman who is the real father of the dauphin. And her skirts are thrown up to Austria and Spain. She does whatever she can to weaken France and to empower and enrich herself.

Armand put the editorial down. "Oh Nicki."

"It's true. Marie Anntoinette is a villainous spider sucking France dry as if our country was a trapped fly."

"And who are we to talk about sucking France dry?"

I want it to be spectacular. The revolution," Nicki said smiling sardonically. "I want to help bring it about. Tear down the existing civilization."

"There isn't going to be a revolution."

"It's pathetic. Her gardens at Trianon. A merry-go-round, of fake wooden and straw horses for grown up women and men to ride on while Paris starves from the high price of bread."

"Enough. Parisians find cash for their wine, their plays."

"Not enough. And you know this."

"I know this," Armand said causally, "What of it? The poorer the populace the easier it is to kill them''

"Don't you ever want to do things in a gigantic style? Think of it. Dragging the queen onto our stage. Making a clever pantomime with her in it. Pelting her with fake jewelry, forcing her to dance. Make the bitch eat cake. And then the kill."

"The kill?" Eleni said, coming into the townhouse. Santiago at her side "What are the two of you talking about?

"What are the two of you doing here uninvited?' Nicki demand.

"We're looking for fun of course," Santiago said lazily, "We wanted to know if you had finished with your latest play. Now what is this about a kill?"

"What would make our plays more real, more engrossing than an actual kill?" Nicki said, leering at them.

"What do you mean by an actual kill?' Elleni asked.

"Santiago when you play Death, when you have your hands at Eleni's throat how does it feel?"

"Ah, my hand trembles. I can feel the cold of her flesh, and I was to squeeze it," Santiago laughed, "I quake with desire. The situation moves me."

"I felt that in you," Eleni laughed, "And in a way, non, I fully sympathize with you. I feel the excitement too! I wish I was human, submitting to your murdering hands. The union of killer and victim." Her eyes went dewy with excitement.

"What would make it more exiting then?" Nicki said, "What would make our performances perfect?"

"A murder," Santiago said, "A real murder?"

"Oui, bring a human on the stage and complete the act," Nicki said, clapping his hands.

"You are a fool, a braggart," Armand said coldly, "This notion is too dangerous. I forbid it."

"Santino would be amused," Santiago said sagely, tapping his gaunt cheek with a thin fingernail. "What a spectacular that would make. Art bluntly real. You have the audience applaud the murder of one of their own kind. The irony. Sanitno would think this worthy of applause. Think of the spectaculars he used to put on. Killing rogue vampires, killing mortals for the entertainment of his coven."

"Enough," Armand cried, his face going pale, his stomach tightening. Evil and bloody memories being herded into his mind by Santiago's words, "We will not murder humans on the stage."

"Speaking of murder are you trying to get us murdered Nicki?" Santiago said, "having your slave sing that song he sang tonight."

"It was an open insult to the nobility. It's a miracle the nobles enjoyed his music anyway, "Eleni cried.

My music. It's my words Felix sings," Nicki said gaily, "They took it as silly satires. There's no harm"

"The kings spies may not take it as a silly ditty comparing the queen to Jezebel," Santiago insisted.

"The nobles despise her for flouting proprieties and her constant insult of the long entrenched traditions of the court. They think of her as a frivolous fool. Her favorites mock her behind her back. They love her only for the power she gives them. And that is only pretend love. Easily given, easily taken away, " Nicki cried out, "We pleased the nobles in the crowd. And it was excellent art, making them laugh at themselves and her."

"Still we do not need the controversy of your little digs at the court causing us to be too interesting to the law," Armand warned, You are making your little castrato too interesting. He may get hurt."

(11)

"Felix is a victim. Since when does a victim's fate interest you Armand?" Nicholas said, sarcasm rife in his voice, "I will take care of Felix."

"The two of you out the door. I want to talk to Nicki alone," Armand ordered.

"Good-by then," Santiago said. Nicki's proposal of a murder on the stage playing pleasantly in his mind.

"Not the queen," Eleni said, "We couldn't use her. It would be too dangerous. Though what a frolic that would be."

Felix sat crouched in his bedroom The door partly open. He heard bits and pieces of their conspiracy against the queen. Confused, he wondered how serious he should take it. Were they talking about a play? Pretending to murder an actress dressed as the queen? It had to be. It was treason. How could Nicki even imagine such a thing?

Once Nicki and Armand were alone, Nicki laid down on the divan. A consolatory smile on his face. "Tell me about your good deed."

"I hope it will influence you away from your crazed visions," Armand said, "The notion that even I can be capable of a good deed might inspire you away from your dangerous, artistic ideas based on the treacherous inspiration of politics."

"Out with it then. Tell me about this adventure of yours."

"I feel in love with an artist. He was so animated, so wise, so everything I admire about a person. All I could do was fool myself into thinking I wanted nothing more than to bring him over to the Devil's Road."

"Why didn't you?"

"He wasn't in love with me. Not even fascinated. I adored him. He had a magical, inner beauty which made me feel hopeful about learning how to endure everything which has ever happened to me in my past with an intact and even open heart. I ended up leaving him behind me with no regrets. Glad for his being alive."

"Good for you," Nicki said coldly.

"Nicki I know you must resent me. I couldn't help but taunt Lestat with you. If I fall in love again I will fall in love with someone who is passionate. Your cynicism. That is why Lestat fell out of
love with you isn't it?"

Nicki looked thoughtfully at Armand. He leaned back and stretched, "If I had it all to do over again, I would be more kind to Lestat."

"Would you?" Armand said, just as thoughtfully.

"It wasn't his fault I was such a miserable composer of music. I unfairly took a lot of my frustrations out on him. He's so simple. So easily influenced and led. So unsophisticated. So easy to please. And so insecure. The man panics. If something upsets him he panics and he tries to make things better. He usually makes things worse. His mother is dying; he panics, and makes her one of us. I'm yelling at him, accusing him, he panics and makes me one of us. Every time something occurs which deeply upsets him he panics and viola yet another one is born to walk the Devil's Road. He amuses me greatly, the Vampire Lestat."

"From what I heard of him he is looking for my old lover Marius."

"Ah, now you must resent Lestat more."

"Not at all. Let them be lovers. Let Lestat be his dear boy. I'm as far away from being interested as I can be." Armand looked down at Nicki's face. He then looked up. His eyes misty, "I wished my first time had been a matter of choice. It was all such a nightmare. Being kept on a galley ship as a slave, being sold to a brothel. I have no excuse for my later actions after I was a coven master to the Children of Darkness. You know I used to flirt with Riccardo a boy older than me Marius had bought. This Riccardo was exasperating. He saw me as such a spoiled boy. And he was right."

"How spoiled were you?" Nicki said,

"Very, I would deliberately get in trouble, knowing he, my whipping boy, would be punished."

"Why?"

"Because I, I wanted to be in love with him. I wanted him to have feelings for me. Not the kind of sexual feelings a person has for a boy with gilt nipples. A sissy prancing around for his master's whims which are tossed at him, spending his days and nights wallowing in erotic whore houses. Riccardo frustrated me. He was so kind, wholesome, so manly. I wanted to seduce. Not always be the one who is seduced and overwhelmed by sexual horse play. I spent most of my mortal nights with Marius being drunk on spirits and seduced by his blood. I wanted to be in love. With a clear mind, and a clear heart kind of love. I was tired of showy, over sweaty sex. Marius wasn't in love with me. He was infatuated with having a boy he could fuck, and teach in the noble fashion he supposed the Greeks taught their boys. Emotionally, he still loved Pandora. He regarded the love he had for his fellow Roman more higher than what he felt for me. I was just a novelty he quickly forgot about when I offended him by my murdering innocents while I was in a Christian cult. I can remember taunting Riccardo that he and I should devise a way to never grow old. This was after he told me someday I would have to grow up. What I told him was prophetic. He never grew old, nor will I. I killed him."

"Why?"

"I didn't know it was he. He was insane from having been treated the way I treated you. Having my coven rape you with fangs. Threatening you with fire. I was in a haze of hunger. I couldn't see through this haze. All I could see was this filthy, insane human being brought into the cell Santino locked me in after he destroyed Marius' villa, and almost destroyed Marius. And it was over. I killed him. My humanity was over."

"You're better off without it," Nicki said carelessly.

"No, I'm not. I wish. I wish I could be the love of someone's life. I wish someone could be the love of my life. It will never happen to me," Armand said, smiling hard. His face hurting.

"Did you think it to be Lestat?"

I tried my best to seduce Lestat. My world was crumbing around me. The old coven days of worshipping the Christian Satan was dying. I attached myself to Lestat as hard a I could. He cast me aside, thinking me to be poor and dry when it came to originality. Thinking me to be a monster. While Marius, from what I hear, he thinks Mairus has held on to his humanity. He thinks Mairus is a human being living on his own terms despite his being affected with the disability of the Dark Gift. A man with the mind, soul, the heart of a human being. Lestat thinks he can learn from Marius how to keep his human spirit despite his now so-called limitations of having a fiend's hunger."

Nicki said thoughtfully, "I love Lestat. I will always love him. To me Lestat has no limitations. Everything comes easy to him People hated my music. It was too dark, too many notes. I hated being reduced to playing dittys on the streets for coins wile Lestat preened, and sang. I hated the solos I had to play of cheerful melodies between acts at the House of Thespians. It was rather breathtakingly like having excrement rubbed in my face. If I have to do it all over again I will only play for myself, and starve. Better starvation then humiliation. An artist has to make a choise to be true to his art, or to be true to the masses' demands. Things which make them forget about their troubles. I can not produce fluff."

"No more than your hero Mozart could. Look at him. Once he was no longer a novelty, a child prodigy, very few people respected his music or his opera very much. Even the queen ignores Mozart, giving her protection to her brother the Emperor Joseph's favorite the pathetic Italian Salieri. And she a woman who is celebrated for her good taste. At least she is celebrated for her good taste to her face. Imagine destroying Louis XV's celebrated garden of rare plants at Trianon for the sake of a fashionable Anglo-Chinese garden! How does that woman stay alive! All the intrigues she plots against any prime minister who dares try to curtail her spending, or tries to curtail the power of the monarchy. Never mind about killing her Nicki. Someone will do it for you. Imagine that musician Salieri the rival of Mozart! Ah, the queen prefers the Italians. Not that they are not good, but compare Salieri, Gretry, and Sacchini to Mozart and they may as well be a pack of squalling alley cats with their tails stepped on. Poor Mozart! Too many notes, too innovative, not simple, nor wholesome, too serious. Nicki I swear to you Mozart in another time or place his music will be appreciated just as yours would have been too if you had stayed."

"A mortal man?" Nicki said with a grimace "Non, unlike Mozart I sold my talent out for coin, food and to stay drunk. I became a drunkard. Feeling like a failure."

"This madness of yours wanting me to bring mortals on the stage to kill."

"If I do go mad coven master you know what to do. Consign me to flames, but I beg you and promise me this," Nicki said seriously. "Cut off my hands before I go into the flames. Burn them separate from my body. For I betrayed my hands. The talent in them too many times."

"I promise," Armand said uneasily, "I must leave now. You should have your coffin in the theatre where it can be guarded."

"No, I prefer to be here. Sometimes," Nicki said, remembering the torches pressed near the wicker cage he was locked in. "Sometimes I need to be away from darkness. The skulls, the depictions of torture you all have decorated the walls of the theatre with. I enjoy the luxury here. I like using my victim's things. The duchess's lamps, her mirrors, cabinets, and knickknacks. It's a delightful insult to her memory. To be able to handle her things anyway I want to handle them." Nicki reached casually over to take a hold of a shell mounted in gilt bronze. He cheerfully smashed it against a drop-front secretary's desk. "Like it or not. I like it here."

"Is it the mortal who makes you want to stay here?" Armand asked.

"I'm protective Felix, but no he isn't the reason I stay here. Tell me Armand. My bitterness. My being cynical. Forcing Felix, entering his mind, trying to make him sing a filthy song after he sings a beautiful song, making mock of the audience I know appreciates filth more than anything. Does this being cynical on my part cause it to be impossible for you to fall in love with me?"

(12)

Armand cocked his head. A small smile on his face.

"I chased after Lestat because I was afraid of being alone. I've done so many horrible things to people because I never again wanted to feel afraid. I'm happy Nicki. Secure in my life now. Your dark passions through they frighten me sometimes they have no effect on my falling in love with you. The artist was a dream. Like all mortals are dreams. Too beautiful, too alluring for any vampire to really be sure about how they feel about them. You are real to me."

Nicki put his hand on the back of Armand's head, pulling him forward, kissing the small smile off his face.

Nicki leaned back, regarding Armand's pale, flushed cheeks. Armand's closed eyes. Then amber eyes opened. Armand leaned upwards giving Nicki a deep kiss. His tongue exploring Nicki's mouth. Cutting himself on his fangs.

Nicki gasped at the taste of blood teasing, tormenting him. He licked Armand's mouth impatiently, tearing at the silk of Armand's frock coat. The buttons of Armand's silk shirt surrendered with resounding pops.

Felix heard the rustle, low laugher, and the rip of clothing, the murmured words of passion He felt a hardness between his legs. The pressure there was excruciating. He rubbed himself. His hand under his shift. Imagining Nicki's mouth on his. Nicki's hands touching him where he was now touching himself. Nicki's hands so much more stronger than the old duchess's rheumy hands had been. He bowed his shaved head. He rubbed more till there was moisture on his hand. He pulled his hand out from under his shift. There was seminal fluid, and blood on his palm. He stared at it for the longest time.

"My God," Felix sadly whispered, shaking his head. A tear fell down his eye. He wiped his hand on the shift. He hurried to his bedroom for a rag.

Nicki pulled Armand to be up on his knees. He licked, sucked, and tickled his flat nipple while he pleasured the other one with his fingers. His hand slid down to Armand's bare waist, making lazy tracings on his flesh. His head trailed down from his nipple, giving Armand's flesh sucking, biting kisses which drew a wealth of blood. Nicki pulled back. Glazing at the red scars dripping more red on Armand's pale flesh.

His strong violinist's hands yanked down Armand's breeches. He played with his crack. Armand yielding hot in his arms.

With one digit, he parted Armand's buttocks. Armand tensed against the finger pressed against his anus. It did not go inside. It merely rubbed and pressed against the nerve sensitive opening.

He grabbed Armand roughly around the waist. Making him to be on all fours, parting his taunt ass cheeks. He stroked his tongue inside against the delicate opening. He then slipped his thumb inside, next his pointer finger, jerking his fingers in and out with careful roughness between his crack and spread open thighs . He put his hand between Armand's legs. Rubbing and playing with his dangling balls and cock while his fingers went back and fourth in him

Armand's penis became hard. It's head filling up with blood, leaking precum. The head of it a treat on his long hard shaft

Nicki rolled him over. Pulling back the foreskin, biting firmly on the smooth, blue-pink, skin. Sucking hard while he jerked and pulled on Armand's shaft.

Armand moaned, his face and body tense. His head flung back. Trapped in the intense friction and pressure of blood being drawn out from his most sensitive spot.

Nicki swallowed Armand's blood. His tongue swirling, flickering against the head of Armand's cock as he sucked. Ejaculation squirted out along with a rush of blood.

"Love me," Armand whispered his tense body starting to relax, expect for his cock which was still throbbing and bleeding.

Nicki tuned Armand onto his back. The fingering Nicki had done to Armand caused his opening to be a little dilated. Nicki moistened himself and Armand with musk oil. Thrusting his oily fingers in and out. He then pressed his slippery erection inside of Armand, making love to him hard while Armand's ass squeezed his hard-on. Armand's own hard-on trapped in Nicki's hand.

Armand came inside his rectum and in his pumping cock. A release of tension gave way to a fantastic pleasure which made him feel like he was bleeding and wet inside.

Nicki ejaculated his seed into Armand's tight moistness. He curled his legs around Armand's body. Pressing noses with him, devouring each others mouths and flavors.

A precious stillness fell over them. Nicki whispered, "I love you." Then he got up from the divan pulling on his breeches. He picked up his shirt. Using it to carefully wipe the inside and the outside of his mouth clean of blood

"Where are you going?" Armand asked, "Get back here."

Nicki bent down to kiss his hair. "It's almost dawn. I do not sleep here as you supposed. There is a crypt near by I lay down in. I am going to check on Felix. Then we must leave. Understand I am not the boy's lover. None -the-less, he is important to me."

"I understand," Armand said with trust.

Nicki opened the door to Felix's bedroom and went inside. Nicki frowned.

Felix was in bed, his eyes lightly closed, his mouth a little ajar.

Felix tried not to squirm. Nicki smelled strange. He smelled like blood. He reeked of sex. Nicki went to his knees, leaning over Felix. He bent his head down and kissed the castrato's soft mouth. Nicki quickly pulled back his head from Felix's lips. Surprised. Not surprised that Felix was awake, no. He was surprised over Felix kissing him back. The intensity of the kiss. The textured warm tongue against his lips almost sliding into his mouth.

Felix propped himself up on his elbows. The strap of his shift strayed down partially reveling his rounded, girlish breast. Felix's eyes were huge and dazzling in his shaved head. Embarrassed, he laid back against the pillows. Covering his breast with his hand.

It made Nicki even more flustered and confused. He wanted to remove Felix's hand, replacing it with his own.

Feeling awkward Felix removed his hand, leaving the breast deliciously bare. The nipple protruding out from being touched.

Quickly, Nicki pulled the blanket up to Felix's chin. He willed himself to lean down to kiss Felix's forehead, reminding himself what he was feeling was nothing more than the ugly lust a vampire feels for a mortal slave.

Felix threw his arms around Nicki's neck, embracing him. Nicki's body stiffened. He grabbed the boy's arms, pushing him roughly away before he gave in to his desire to fall on top of the castrato's plaint body.

Cupping the boy's chin, Nicki said sharply, "You did not take your medicine."

"It was bad of me. Are you going to punish me?' Felix asked, his mouth tender.

Nicki looked troubled. Again he kissed Felix's forehead, "Ah would that make you happy to pull up your shift and take a switch to your behind. Would you like that?"

Under the blanket, Felix drew up his knees up to his chest. His face burning. His eyes closed.

"Non, Felix, I will not punish you," Nicki putting his hand under the blanket, running it up along between Felix's long legs, up into his shift, up onto his thigh. Through he wasn't in love with the boy, he told himself and retold himself. He was intrigued by him to the point he couldn't keep his hands off of him.

What would it matter to anyone if I had this boy in my bed occasionally? It wouldn't mean anything to anyone, Nicki thought longingly to himself. He's only a slave. A mere mortal to be used. It obvious he wants me too.

Felix shut his eyes harder. His face a grimace. Nicki withdrew his hand from his thigh. Chastely kissing Felix's face.

"I'll get your medicine. You will take it," Nicki said gruffly, leaving the room, coming back with the draught. Once he was sure Felix would not wake up soon, Nicki left with Armand.

The next night Nicki came into the town house. It was Sunday and there would be no performance for Nicki and Felix to go to.

In Nicki's fist there was long sheets of music note paper. Scribbled notes on their lined faces here and there. Inside his frock coat's pocket was seditious editorials mixed with a play he was working on for Theatre Des Vampires. He heard noises in the other room.

Throwing his frock coat onto the floor, he yelled out, "Felix come out from where ever you are hiding."

"Don't shout! The drought you give me every night gives me a headache," Felix said, entering the main room.

Nicki took a minute to look absently at Flex. Then he really looked. Felix had a pair of silk stockings on. Silver embroidered roses running along the sides of his legs. Gray breeches, a fanciful embroidered waistcoat, and a mauve colored frock coat on. Fine lace was at his throat and wrists. He had a boy's gray wig on his head.

"You didn't wake me like you usually do. I didn't think I would see you tonight," Felix said, his cheeks pale. He felt overjoyed Nicki had shone up after all. His dress was for Nicki's benefit.

Nicki stopped himself before he blurted out a compliment. Felix looked perfectly bewitching. So young and unclaimed.

Silently, Nicky stretched out on the divan. Looking his music over, humming the notes.

"There was too much chattering and mischief going on at Des Theatre. I came here for some peace and quiet. You are not going out are you? You've been very busy these past nights. You are not going out with anyone? One of those shabby actors, a pox ridden whore of an actress?" Nicki asked, keeping his voice to sound teasing and indifferent.

(13)

"Non, I am not going out with anyone. How can I? You hurry me out of Renaud's. You hurry me out of Des Vampires. When we have company you send me to bed before I have a chance to have a conversation with anyone" Felix said timidly, "Are you ashamed of me?"

"You needn't talk to rabble. Occupy yourself with a book. Rest your throat. Be silent."

"All I do is sing, perform, sleep, and be silent," Felix cried, not trying to plead, putting some indignation into his voice though he was afraid of Nicki's temper. "I want to go out."

"Go out then," Nicki said pretending indifference. "Lock the door's behind you. Leave."

"I want to go out with a friend," Felix cried, "With you."

Nicki threw the music he wasn't really looking at anyway across the room. "Brat! Your worse at distracting me from my work than all the hurly-burly at the theatre."

"Why are you not with Armand tonight?" Felix asked in a small voice.

"Armand is busy. I'm meeting him later tonight. Have you eaten?"

"Non, the vendor came by. The meat-in-pastry she had to sell looked nasty."

"The come along. I'll take you to a fine place to eat. You deserve a treat."

Felix hoped Nicki would say something, anything about how he looked. Instead Nicki simply opened the door, gesturing for Felix to leave.

Nicki hailed a chair. He gave instructions to the head man. Then he opened the chair door for Felix to seat himself inside.

He was reasonably not jostled about too much. The chair men carefully put the poles onto their shoulders and lifted up the long rectangular box with its wooden, sliding panel openings which made do as windows, and its upholstered bench. They stopped at a hotel.

Opening the door, one of the men helped Felix out. Nicki took Felix's arm and led him inside.

The hotel was glamorous and clean. Hot candelabras lit the room with a mellow yellow glow. Musicians were playing in the corner. On a long table there were people seated.

Never had Felix seen so many gems. The woman had rubies and diamonds peeking out of fine silk, or displayed brazenly on their long, oily necks and wrists. They were opera ladies from the Comedie- Francaise, or the Theatre des Italiens where all serious drama and comedy belonged, and the plays of Racine, Corneille, and Voltaire. Some of them were not even particularly beautiful, or even young. It didn't matter. Their talent and fame earned them a seat. Their full
breasts were thrown up out of their low cut bodices. The men with them were men of good families, the elite of Paris. The atmosphere was an orgy of crude laughing, flirting, eating, and loud talk. They eyed Nicki and Felix wondering who they were with. And why would a man bring a boy to such a table as this?

The soup was served first by the waiters. The patrons had a choice of Puree d'asperges comtesse, consomme a la Desilgnac. After much slurping and dribbling of soup, Burgundy and Bordeaux onto shirts and bodices the soup plates were taken away, and the crepinettes de lapereaux aux truffles and gnochis au parmesan was brought out. Heads lolled about, yapping, loudly laughing with neighbors and to people across the room. One man between bites was singing loudly.

Are you not eating?" Felix shyly asked Nicki. "This is quite good."

"Non, I will eat later with Armand," Nicki said, brushing a hair away from his brooding face.

Fleix couldn't believe how the people around them were acting. The beauty of the gold trimmed china, the table settings, the wilting flowers in silver plate bowls, the crystal chandeliers, the crystal glasses made him want to sit straight. To use his most perfect manners. He had no idea the china was not real quality, the chipped silver not all that fine, to him a boy who lived off of the food and fruit bought from vendors this was a paradise of luxury. And the way these nobles treated paradise! Ignoring their food some of them. One man even tossed a spoon full of truffles at an actress's bodice for a lark. One man pulled off his expensive wig and let it plop to the floor. They were all intoxicated to the gills.

The next course was brought onto the table. A Rhine carp a la Chambord , and a saddle of venison a l'anglaise was served

Felix got the idea Nicki wanted him to finish with his venison. He took a dry mouthfuls of the overcooked deer. He tried to engage Nicki in a conversation. Nicki only grumbled at him. His face twisting in disdain as if he was in the presence of something which smelled bad.

The waiters took away the bones of the meal. They brought out the next course: poulardes a la marechale, filets de sole sauce ravugote, and escalopes de fois gras. Hands reached over hands to get to the serving plates to take portions to their plates in a merry free for all. Felix was getting tired of all of this. He meekly took a spoonful of escalopes and dumped it on the new plate a waiter gave him. Nicki poured him a glass of burgundy, urging him to wash down his food. The wine tasted fruity, heavy. He wished it would make him sparkle like all the laughing women were sparkling around him.

And then at last the next course was served after a flurry of removing plates. A hot roast of a fillet served with truffles, and a cold roast galantine of guinea-fowls in jelly. Once this was taken away and it was time for the cakes which was placed on plates on tiers in the middle of the table. Nicki smiled, and became more animated, even friendly, making drool comments about the theatre, telling Felix the names of people around them. Who was truly talented, and who in his opinion was not.

The meal was concluded with sweetmeats, candied and preserved fruit and more wine. Felix felt he had drunk a tub full of wine. Felix had a mouthful of candied rose petals, chewing them slowly as he could. Nicki teased him about his taste for sweets and made him blush by asking him if he was trying to sweeten his mouth up for a suitor.

"Non," Felix laughed, digging into a transparent pudding, l'anglise, covered with a silver web made of spun sugar.

Nicki poured more red liquid into Felix's glass, saying, "Drink my little puppy. Drink."

He then ordered the waiter to give Felix a glass of kirsch liqueur. He patted Felix's back, letting his hand linger. He then recklessly kissed Felix's cheek. Felix leaned towards him to kiss him back. Nicki quickly turned his head away, laughing, saying, It's time to go my pet. You are tipsy. You need not be drunk."

Fleix pushed himself out of his chair. The maitre of d'hotel announced royalty was present. Everyone stood up. Before Felix could leave he was approached by the Duc de Chartes, the king's youngest brother. One each arm the Duc had a brightly dressed, butterfly of an opera lady.

In a panic, Felix almost curtsied to the Duc. His mind raced wondering how to make a bow.

Felix took a short step sideways on to his right foot, bowed his back moved his left leg back, his left heel touching his right heel to his big toe. His feet at right angles. He lost his balance and fell flat on his face at the Duc's feet.

"Groveling is not called for," the Duc said, looking down his long, elegant nose.

Nicki had done his own bow perfectly. So perfect that if the Duc was not nearsighted he would have known an insult if he had seen it.

His entourage of familiars and favorites tittered behind their hands and fans.

Felix awkwardly managed to get off the floor. Mortified, he was about to try again to make a bow but before he could the Duc and his following left the banquet room.

Numbly Felix walked out of the hotel. Once again they traveled by chair back to the townhouse.

Once they were inside, Nicki cried, "Where did you get your new clothes?' Curiosity was on Nicki's face.

"I, I had them all along," Felix said defensively, trying to escape from Nicki's outreached hand.

"Why the tears?" Nicki said impatiently, holding his arm captive. "That fat pig made you cry? Because he made a joke at your expense? It was nothing. He's nothing."

"Never mind. You wouldn't understand," Felix cried.

"You tricked me last night didn't you? You had someone come by during the day. Who?"

"Blanche An actress from Renaud's," Felix said, his head bowed. "She came over for a visit. She woke me up. She helped arrange for a tailor to come by. He already had this suit on hand. The client died before he could make the final transaction. He measured me for more clothing," Felix said, his voice low.

"Did he?" Nicki sad, hungrily caressing the silk at Felix's throat. He had to shut his eyes. His hunger so intensely approved of his touching Felix's throat.

"You have money then," Nicki said, removing his hand before his lips were driven to touch the flesh underneath the lace. "Give it to me. I will keep it for you."

Felix's face went cold. He hesitated.

"Give it to me now!" Nicki said harshly, "Do it before I slap you. I am your guardian now."

Hurrying to the duchess's old room, the boy pulled out a narrow iron box. He brought the box submissively to Nicki.

"I'll give you enough for meals. If you need clothing or anything else you need only ask me. This money is yours of course. As is the money you make at the theatres. When you are of age and the two of us part this money and any future money you earn will be given to you," Nicki said sternly.

"I, I would like to read my book now. Isn't it time you went to see Armand?"

"It's too early. And I haven't gotten any work done thanks to you. We should have ordered in," Nicki said caustically. His face softened when he saw fresh tears on Felixs' face.

"Felix, I had a pleasant time with you. I am angry at you through. Obviously, you did not do as you were told. You were supposed to take your medicine and sleep all day. I can't abide a trickster."

"I'm sorry," Felix sad humbly, "it's only. Must you make it so strong? Can't I at least have the afternoon to be awake in along with the nights?"

"I will consider it," Nicki said flatly, dismal in his voice.

Felix went into his bedroom going into wardrobe closet. He lit a candle and stared at the pretty boy who stared sadly back at him.

He said to his reflection, "He doesn't like you very much. He's not very nice to you. He wants someone else, not you. And you know it. It was wrong of you to act like a fool. A flirt. To want what doesn't belong to you. Forget this foolishness. He put you in your place. Learn from it."

Felix thought of his clumsy attempt at trying to make a bow, and about how well he curtsied.

"I do not know how to be myself," he tearfully whispered to his reflection "I do not know how to be a boy."

Slowly, he took off his fine garb. A puddle of silk and brocade surrounded him. And a moist rag lay at his feet. The boy took up a corset, putting it on. It felt strangely comforting. All night long he had felt like he was hanging out. The corset made him feel secure. He replaced the rag between his thighs. He pulled a cotton shift over his shaved head. He put on his bodice, ruffles going down the shoulder to the neckline. The sleeves tight around his arms, ending with lace at his wrists. He put on his hoop, then his under-petticoat, The over coat came next which fell just below his ankles. Lastly he put on his stomacher. He put on his stiff wig of hair made up in triers.

"This is me," he said, feeling strangely secure and insecure. Protected, but not sure. Wondering why he felt protected and from what did he feel protected from? Knowing the person in the mirror wasn't really completely himself.

Undressing himself, he stood naked in front of the mirror. His body having the characteristics of which he was born with. That of both genders. He said simply, "This is me."

(14)

After having blown out the candle, he stepped naked out of the closet.

"What are you doing on my bed?" Felix cried, his hand hiding what lay between his legs.

"Working of course," Nicki growled at him. Papers were strewn all about.

"I wanted to read in my bed!" Felix said determinedly. "Could you work someplace else?"

"The mouse is pulling a tantrum. How unbecoming of the mouse. Hide under the covers. It will make a comfortable burrow for you."

Running for the bed, Felix scrambled under the blankets.

"Is this your book?" Nicki said, handing him a book of poems.

"Oui," Felix said, embarrassed, rolling over so his back faced Nicki.

Trying to concentrate on his editorial, Nicki found it to be impossible. His cold hand went over to touch Felix's wrists. He spooned himself next to Felix's body, his knees tucked under Felix's.

"What are you doing?" Felix cried out, feeling aroused but also repelled.

"I'm cold. You're not. Your scent. What is it? It makes your flesh feel even warmer," Nicki said, tucking his hand between the boy's legs. The blanket was still on Felix.

Nicki's other hand went beneath the blanket, touching and cupping one of his small breasts.

"Does it hurt to squeeze them?" he whispered in Felix's ear.

"Non," Felix said embarrassed. His eyes shut. He enjoyed the gentle squeeze, the cradling, the rub of Nicki's finger against his taunt nipple.

As quickly as the touching started it stopped.

Nicki got off the bed. "I can't work here. I'm going into the other room. Stay here and finish your poems. I do not wish to be bothered."

Felix face was in flames. "It's all right."

"What's all right?' Nicki said angrily, his body dying for the boy's warmth, his thirst screaming for the boy's' death, his hands still hot from the boy's pulsing body.

"That you do not desire me," Felix said, his face turned up to Nicki's. "I know I am a freak to you. A monster. I know you like boys. Boys like Armand. I heard the two of you last night. You were making love to him."

"You think I like boys like Armand?"

"Yo do not think of me as a human being much less a boy. It's all right," Felix said seriously.

"You want to know what I like?" Nicki said his voice benign. His expression--harmless.

"Get dressed. Do it immediately. The actress you were talking about. What is she like? The color of her hair. Is she beautiful?"

Blanche? Oui," Felix said confused. "She is blond. Very brown eyes. Big boned. She has a, a nice shape."

"Does she live nearby?"

"Oui. She does," Felix said. He ran to his closet, and threw on a simple gown and a robe. He put on his wig.


"There is plenty enough poor boys and men outside who would be happy to run an errand. Have one of them fetch her. Tell me did you discuss with you any of her likes or dislikes?"

"She liked oranges. She adores red roses. Sugared almonds," Felix said uneasily.

"Have someone fetch those too. Anything else?"

"She had a fondness for pickled eggs and radishes."

"Does she? Pay someone to do the honor of collecting gifts for our guest. Give them money for their task and promise you will give them three times that amount after their task is complete. Off with you."

Nicki's eyes gleamed dangerously.

Felix went to the iron box. He pulled out a handful of coins. He went outside and hailed a couple of shabby dressed chair men, promising them he would look after their chair till they came back.

In a while one of the men came back with a plump blond. She had a small cupid's mouth, merry small eyes, and a tiny pug nose.

"Blanche, my master, he wants to treat you to dinner," Felix said simply.

"Does he now?' Blanche said, trying to sound like a high born lady.

Her eagerness betrayed her origin from the gutter.

Felix led her inside. Soon the gifts appeared. Felix took the food perched on the man's head off. He took the flowers too,. He hurried inside after paying the men.

He found Nicki joking and tickling Blanche. He whispered in her ear. She was trying not to laugh, saying, "What do you take me for?"

Felix laid out the treats, causing a sensation.

Blanche tried to be demure, her greed over took her. Rapidly she ate up the food before her. Sometimes gentlemen like to see a healthy girl with a health appetite, she reasoned to herself.

Nicki was smiling pleasantly. He took up a napkin, and playfully wiped her little, moist mouth.

He discreetly put coins on the table. His brown eyes gave her a look of infinite longing.

Gaily, she gave him a smacking kiss on his lips. Good naturally, she headed off to where she thought the bedroom to be.

"Come along Felix," Nicki said, taking firm hold of his arm.

"What do you mean?" she grunted over her shoulder "Am I to have converse with the castato? Is it possible for he and I? I have heard tales."

"Non!" Felix cried, angrily trying to wrench himself away from Nicki.

"My little friend here, he thinks I like boys. I'm going to teach him what I like," Nicki said throwing Felix forward.

"Take off your gown," Nicki ordered Felix.

"Non!" Felix roared, tears starting from his eyes.

"Ah, leave the boy alone, if he doesn't like this sort of thing," Blanche said, sympathetically. Then she remembered the money on the table. Grumpily, she cried, "Courage boy. It's only what people
do!"

"Oui, courage. We all need courage in this life of ours," Nicki said sternly, leading the two to his bedroom. Felix was too shocked to put up a fight, besides the grip Nicki had on his arm was tight enough to break it.

"None of us need remove our clothing," Nicki said pleasantly.

Blanche lay to his right; Felix to his left.

"Before we start," Nicki said. He took a slash from the drapery hanging behind the bed. He tested it by holding it with both hands and yanking it. Securely, he tied Felix's wrist to the bed post.

Nicki's harsh and fast breathing filled the room. His famished mouth avoided Blanche's puckered up lips. The smell of food in her mouth made his stomach turn in the state he was in.

Felix watched as Nicki licked Blanche's throat with his long pale tongue. He almost seemed to be tasting her. Nicki head buried itself against her neck. Blanche gasped, and moaned, her lips parted. The pleasure on her flushed face immense.

Nicki removed his face from her throat. He grinned down at her. Careful to hide his fangs. She felt drops on her face. Her eyes opened. Blood was dripping onto her face from Nicki's mouth. His face demonically beautiful Blood was moist, oozing from out of her throat.

"What the hell, what the hell," she whimpered.

He was laughing at her.

Screaming, she couldn't stop screaming. She struggled with him.

Kicking her legs, his body between them, she sobbed, "No, No, get away. Help! God help me. Please."

He laughed all the harder, licking her face, holding her down by her wrists, giving her long lavish licks to her bleeding throat.

(15)

"Felix," she cried, "Felix get me help! Please."

Felix desperately yanked and yanked at the slash holding him fast.

"Stop it!" he yelled "Stop it! Nicki why?"

The slash came undone. Felix ran out out the bedroom into the kitchen. Nicki chasing after him.

Felix opened a drawer.

Amazed, he saw Nicki's arm became elongated, impossibly long.

"Is this what you want?" Nicki said, grinning at him. His hand holding the butcher knife Felix was going for. "Have I been bad, Felix? Were you going to stab me with this? How could you! Think of the name of your favorite color."

"Non," Felix said fearfully, trapped against the long wooden table.

"Oh come on now. To please me think of a color. You don't even have to make an effort. I can pull it out of your mind. Your favorite color is, why the same as mine! I'm partial to red too," Nicki smirked.

"It's not red, not red," Felix whispered.

"You're lying to me," Nicki said frowning.

"Oui," Fleix said his knees ready to fall out from under him.

"Lies you are always telling me lies," Nicki said his voice rife with disapproval. He flung the knife into the table. Felix gasped in amazement the knife went into the hard, oak wood as if it were butter. The blade was embedded to the hilt.

"A silly trick compared to what I'm really capable of," Nicki said, wiping his bloody mouth with his sleeve. "What I can do to your mind. What I can do to you."

Felix gasped, the pressure of Nicki's face against his came out of nowhere. Nicki had been a least two feet away. "Am I dreaming?" Felix whispered. "Tell me I'm dreaming Nicki, please."

Nicki put his forefinger to Felix's pulse right where his jugular vein throbbed. He leaned forward and tenderly kissed the boy. He whispered, his lips on Felix's, "Non, my petite you are not dreaming."

"Stop, stop hurting her. Nicki, for me. Please stop hurting her," Felix asked humbly.

"I see a monster's refection in your frightened eyes. I am the monster here not you. Do you understand? I am the monster here. If I were to taste your blood your blood would taste as human as hers, as mine. Come here."

"Non, non, I don't want to watch. Leave me alone," Felix cried. "I can't bear it."

"You wanted to know what I like? I'm merely granting you at least this request," Nicki said gently, putting his arm around Felix's shoulders. Firmly, but with tenderness, Nicki led Felix back into the bedroom, "Lay down," he ordered abruptly.

"Is she?" Felix cried backing away from the bed.

Blanche was pale, blood was in a small shallow pool under her neck. and blond hair, and shoulders. Her eyes wide, staring up at the ceiling.

"Non, she is in shock," Nicki said, lifting Felix up into his arms, laying him on the bed to be next to him.

Nicki pulled her head back. She moaned, a thin sliver of spit on her lips. He put his lips to her throat. He savagely bit her.

Felix lay quietly sobbing, too frightened to move. Feeling the coward, desiring nothing but to escape alive, hating himself for it. His stomach convulsing at the sounds being made next to him. The lapping sound of Nicki feeding off of her. Her moans, and painful gasps.

When Nicki was almost done, he rolled off of her. Nicki savagely bit her again. Her body jolted up like it had been shocked. Using all his teeth, grinding his molars into her raw wound, he made Felix take a quick look at what passed for a human's bite, then he pulled the boy away.

Taking up the woman's scarf, he wound it around her throat to further hide the evidence of unnatural puncture wounds.

Twisting the scarf around her neck, he tightened it even harder when she tried one last time to scream. Her face was turning bluer, her wet eyes bulging out. Her tongue grotesquely extended from her mouth. Her little hands clawed at his while she struggled for air.

He quickly snapped her neck. Her suffering over.

"This is what I like more than anything or anyone," Nicki said, turning to softly stroke Felix's face, "I like to bite them, suck and lick on the wound, then I kill them by strangling them. I like this more than Armand, more than I like you. I could tip your mind over like a cup, empty it, make you insane. Felix, I will do no such thing. There are many things the world has never fully understood. This isn't a dream. I am a monster. I won't allow you to call yourself a monster. I never want to hear you call yourself names, or put yourself down. The only thing I love about you is your voice. There is nothing about me for you to love."

"You are going to kill me," Felix cried, mad panic in his eyes.

"I kill only women, girls," Nicki said in a charming voice, "Did I kill Armand? No of course not. You are over wrought. Given to grave fancies. Look at you. You're trembling, I have some opium wrapped in candy for you. It's rolled in sesame seeds. A change from your medicine."

"I don't want it. It's poison. You showed me this. You killed her before my eyes. You can't want any witnesses to what you have done."

"I showed you because I wanted you to know what a monster really is. And it isn't you, castrato," Nicki said softly, coaxing Felix's mouth to open with the small candy between his fingers.

Gingerly, opening his mouth a little, Felix gulped the candy down, then another, and more.

"Ah," Nicki whispered stretching. His hand falling around Felix's waist, drawing the boy closer. He looked down at Felix. His eyes and body so satisfied with blood Felix could see the laugh lines crinkling in the corner of Nicki's eyes.

"She was good," Nicki whispered wickedly in his ear. His tongue lazily lolled against the nape of the boy's neck.

"Why this fear? The surprise? I told you I killed your duchess," Nicki said, with good humor.

"I didn't want to believe you," Felix said in a subdued, terrified voice.

"Do you believe me now?" Nicki said with mock concern, kissing the soft downy hairs on the back of Felix's neck. Reaching his hand under the shift to go up onto his warm thigh.

"Oui. I believe you. Stop kissing me. I don't want you to kiss me. Don't touch me there," Felix moaned.

Pulling his hand out, Nicki massaged the back of Fleix's neck. Nicki said, "I'll stop kissing and touching you when I'm done. I'm done. I'm such a fiend sometimes I forget how deeply I can hurt you. What happened to this poor girl. It's too bad. She suffered. This is why little boys should listen to their wonderful guardians who feed them, and take them out to a fine meal, clothe them, and take them to wonderful places where they can show off their pretty little voices. Understand?" Nicki said winking at Felix.

Nicki leaped off of the bed. "If you leave this room," Nicki said, taking up the Blanche's corpse in his arms, "You will not go far. You will pass out someplace from the drug I gave you. Some place dangerous where you will get raped or killed. You have seen how dangerous I can be. You behave yourself Felix till I wake you up tomorrow evening. It's time for me to visit with Armand now."

Nicki left with his burden of a dead body.

After hearing the door shut and the locks put firmly in place, Felix jammed his fingers down his throat, throwing up the contents of his stomach like he had done the night before.

He ran to the door of the townhouse, running out into the night to find someone to help him.

Why should you leave? Asked a soothing voice inside of his mind.

Fleix stopped his flight. Panting he almost collapsed to the ground.

Nicki's voice was in his mind, enchanting and calm asking him over and over again, Why should you leave me?

"You don't love me," Felix whispered.

The voice kept on chanting the same words over and over again. Every time Felix tried to argue with himself, to talk himself into escaping, the voice raised over his thoughts, drowning out his desire to escape.

Violin music, sensual, smooth played in his mind. The melody caressed him. He felt like his mind was tied up in strings. The music made him romp and twirl around. He felt like he was surrounded by the angel dust which accompanied his great fall from the ladder when he played the role of an angel on the stage of des Vampires. He stopped twirling around, fell softly to the ground, the music over him like a lover's hand. Then the music stopped.

Shuddering, he went into the townhouse. Blood was ripe red on his bed like an obscene blossom. He picked up his book of poems. His head throbbing. He went to the divan in the main room and read himself to sleep.

The next day Felix crept out out the townhouse The sunlight marvelous on his pale face. He had no idea what to think about last night. What to do.

Ruby stains were still on the bed testifying to the reality that someone died last night. He looked at the stains more than once though he couldn't bring himself to touch them.

He couldn't believe he didn't try to escape last night. It was like his mind had a trap in it. When ever he tried to run out the door, the trap in his mind would fall, and he would be held hostage to a languor of well being.

He strolled out to the cobbled streets, making his way to market. His long over petticoat and under- petticoats swinging as he gracefully walked. His head held high under his wig. He examined the ribbon vendors offerings. He had money in the pocket of his dress. Unbeknownst to Nicki, he did not give all of his money up. He still had more in various hiding places.

There was shouting and cheering on the streets ahead A group of shabby dressed youngsters some his age, some younger, were kicking a old rolled up leather boot. Making it do as a ball. Dodging, tackling, and shouting happy curses to one another.

Felix longingly watched them, feeling shy. He promised himself if he could trick Nicki again, he would find some shabby clothes, and perhaps these boys would let him join in their play.

A black haired boy of ten ran backwards trying to catch the makeshift ball. A carriage was hurrying down the narrow street. The boy fell against the wheel. He was flung back.

The carriage did not even slow down much less stop. The driver whipped the horses to go on.

Filth, garbage was flung at the carriage. The occupants ignored the boys' insults. Impulsively, Felix ran to the injured boy, wrapping his scarf around the gash on his head.

Once the carriage went further down the street, Felix noted the other boys were continuing with their play.

"Excuse me," he called out to them, "Do any of you know him? Where he lives?"

"Oh!" A burly boy yelled at Felix, "He's a stranger."

Felix hailed a chair, taking the boy inside with him. He instructed the head chair man to take them to his townhouse.

For a tip generously offered, one of the men carried the boy inside for Felix.

Once they were alone Felix got a fresh rag for the wounded boy's head.

The boy's eyes fluttered open. His almond shaped eyes were black with fine lashes. His eyebrows thick. His hair had tight black curls like a gypsy's. And even through his body was rail thin, his cheeks were yet plump and flushed.

"Merci, mademoiselle," he whispered, amazed that anyone like Felix would come to his aide.

"Can you tell me where you live?" Felix asked.

The boy had a far away stubborn look in his eyes, afraid Felix was going to turn him into the police and he would be imprisoned in a house for boys, "I can take myself home. Merci."

"I can take you there. Where do you?"

Something about the boy's embarrassed manner stopped Flex from saying anything more.

"You can go home when you are ready to," he said, judging the boy to be homeless.

"Your parents?"

"My mother died in the prison for debt,' he said sullenly. He reddened, feeling like he said too much. Then he whispered, "She didn't last long. When she died. I escaped. My father he went to the colonies and forgot to send for us."

"I see," Felix said carefully. A feeling of the boy's loneliness and need touched him. He had a crazy desire to have someone he could be friends with. He blurted out, "You can stay here for a little bit. You have to leave later. But please stay here for a while."

Mad, troubled thoughts mastered over Felix's commons sense. Schemes danced in his mind of hiding the boy at night in the closet when he performed. Spending his days with the boy.

"I'll let you get cleaned up," Flex said weakly, already despairing over the impossibility of the boy staying. He noticed the boy was crossing and uncrossing his legs.

Felix delicately handed the boy a chamber pot. Before Felix could retreat the boy pulled down his breeches. Hot pee fell into the pot.

Fleix's eyes went wide. The small cock's head was rounded and naked of a foreskin.

"Jews get hungry too, lady," the boy said rudely, fully expecting Felix to show him the door.

"I'm, I'm sorry for staring. We can go out. I'll get you something to eat. You see I'm a boy too."

He looked at him with mocking disbelief.

"I was cut too, but differently," Felix said, taking off his wig.

"Are you Jewish too? Why are you in disguise? Are you hiding from someone?"

"Non, I'm an actor I dress this way because I play girl parts. It's complicated. Come on. I'm hungry too. What's your name?"

"Davie," he said, holding out his grimy hand for Felix to shake.

(16)

Felix went into the duchess's closet. He dug around till he discovered in a pile of discarded clean clothes some boy's wear the servant had meant to tear into rags.

There was a pair of breeches and a torn shirt.

"There," Flex said after donning the clothes, "Do I look all right?"

Felix looked a like a comical scarecrow. The breeches were much too short for his long, hair-less legs. His unnaturally long arms hung out of the cotton sleeves. Even so, his face was pretty-boy handsome.

Lovely or ugly it didn't matter to his new friend. Davie didn't have any opinion at all on the matter. His thoughts were set on his desire for food. He wondered if Felix had any rich garbage to throw out. Like a vase Felix no longer wanted, so he could sell it at market. He'd be more than willing to share with Felix fifty-fifty for whatever money they got for it.

They strolled back to the streets of the market place. Felix bought Davie two meat-in-pastries. He had to buy Davie a third. He himself could only handle one.

The other boys were still playing their uproarious game. Uninvited, Felix joined in. What he lacked in strength, he more than had the advantage over some of the other boys when it came down to a good eye, speed, and thinking on his feet. His overly long height helped him
too.

Late into the afternoon Felix played. Later Davie and he took in the sights. They stopped to watch a barber pull decaying teeth from a drunk man. Davie wanted to watch a dog being baited by another dog. The owners of the dogs were taking bets from watcher-ons. Felix
couldn't bear it. He persuaded Davie to go to the park with him to listen to wandering musicians and to watch pretty dancing girls. One girl even had a monkey.

"Come with me Lizbette," a gray haired man demanded, grabbing Felix's arm

"You are mistaken about who I am. Davie, please stay here. I'll be right back," Felix cried over his shoulder as the man drug him away.

"Listen you. I know who you are. I've been following you for days. Why have you come out dressed as a boy? No matter. I have an offer for you." He squinted into Felix's face, trying to decide if Felix was a boy or a girl. He pulled up Felix's shirt and saw the small breasts. He decided he was a shameless girl of an actress.

"I have an offer for you," he said gruffly, pulling down Felix's shirt.

"An offer?' Felix said hotly, "I'm not interested in any filthy offers." He looked down at the man's miserable shoes. The man was dressed like a common sailor. The words the man used, and his
manner betrayed him as someone who had some formal education.

"I work for a count who loves the queen very much. He is very loyal to her," the man said.

"The Count Axel Fersen?" Felix blurted out.

"Oui, he is loyal to the king. Are you loyal to our king and queen, or are you one of them?"

"What do you mean one of them?" Felix said nervously.

"Them, the "opponents". That shameful rabble who have betrayed their high station in life. They invite Jeffereson, Lafayette, and Duc de la Rochefiucauld into their homes. These silly women and men of nobility are calling for a public regeneration! Some are advocating an English-style monarchy. Like the bastard Protestants have. They are calling for the return of Necker the prime minister to be put back into power. Do you know what they want? What Necker wants?"

"Non," Felix said, fearfully shaking his head.

"They want to put checks and balances on an institution ordained my our Catholic God, by our Catholic religion! They want to put checks and balances on the absolute rights of the monarchy. What will be next! Checks and balances on the pope himself? On our Catholic faith? Forcefully taking power from out of the hands of those who have been ordained by Jesus Christ, the Father and the Holy Ghost to govern over us. Putting checks and balances on God himself! Putting the power to rule into the hands of filthy people seeped with sin. Who do not deserve it! War will be the price France will pay if this happens! Are you seeped with sin, girl? Do you believe in God? Do you believe in our king and queen?" The man questioned in his self righteous voice.

"Oui, I believe in them. In God, in them," Felix said quickly.

"You are not like one of those priests who do not believe with their whole hearts the near divinity of kings and their divine right to rule. You are not a bad Catholic?"

"No, I'm a good Catholic. My mother taught me how. My mother taught me how to do the rosary. She taught me how to revere the king, queen, and God," Felix said sincerely.

"You are not an atheist?"

"Non, never" Felix said his head spinning. He quickly crossed himself.

"Would you die for them, for God, and country? To prevent civil war?"

"Oui," Felix said clearly.

"Then listen to me have you ever heard anyone threaten the king or the queen's life?"

"Non," Felix said in a horrified voice, using his powers as an actor. He was loyal to the king and queen. As much as he hated Nicki, he loved him too. He cared about Eleni, Laurent, and Santiago. He even cared about Armand. He couldn't betray them. He couldn't see them justly on trail for treason, or Nicki on trail for murder. Love argued stronger than loyalty.

"I think you have heard threats. If not, I think you have at least heard people speaking about this public regeneration."

Felix looked down at the ground, and swallowed.

"I want names girl. I want names. Have you ever heard of the banker Kornmann? His lampoons he pays writers to write of the king and queen? Does Nicki write lampoons about the king and queen? I saw Nicki bowing to Louis Phillippe Joseph, the Duc de Chartres. It was overly mocking. I could tell there was something between the two men. A conspiracy. You sing songs which can be taken as slurs against the monarchy."

"They are only songs to make people laugh! I do what my master tells me to do. That is all!"

"The Duc he gathers artists about him who are critical against his brother, the king. The Duc de Chartes is conspiring to have the people look to him as an alternative king to Louis the XVI. Give me names. Who does Nicki or anyone else in the theatre talk to?"

"They do not talk to anyone. I swear it," Felix said in a low voice.

"I want you to be an agent for the queen," the man said in a quiet voice. His voice now had a foreign accent where before it had been peerless French. He pressed gold coins into Felix's hand. "I want you to come back here. Stand by yonder oak tree. I'll meet you there. Give me names. I'll give you more money for something in writing. You are a true subject. A good worthy girl." He doubted his words, thinking this person he was speaking to was nothing but
talented trash. But to buy this talent! To use it for spying. What a coup that could prove to be for the queen and his master the Count Fersen. He stopped fingering the knife in his pocket he was going to drive into the throat of his recruit if she had proven to be unmanageable.

He arrogantly whispered into Felix's ear. "That boy you are with. I know about everyone around the theatre and the market. No one is a stranger to me for long. I have many more loyal spies like you working for the queen. He's a Jew-boy. Things happen easily to Jews. Bad things. It would be a pity if he died with such an unclean soul as his. He'll go to hell. Be careful my girl. Be very careful."

Felix studied himself, looking the man full in the face, saying, "I will be careful."

The man left Felix.

Felix went to Davie, thinking, What have I done by being kind to you? I have put you in danger. I have to hide you. I have to find a way to protect you. It's all my fault. I should have let you bleed in the street. Someone else would have helped you.

"What did that old granddad want?" Davie said.

"Nothing. Nothing, I want to worry about," Felix said coolly.

Before long the two boys headed back to the townhouse. Their faces sticky with sweetmeats, jokes, and laughter. For Davie's sake Felix was determined to act like nothing happened.

Once they were inside, Felix said, " I have to practice with my voice."

He took his place by the piano. Carefully, he worked his voice. When he was done he said, "Listen carefully to me. It's starting to get dark. I have a master. He can be very mean some times. I have to get dressed in my shift, and pretend to be asleep so my master can wake me."

Felix pointed to the late Duchess's bedroom, "Hide in there. You'll hear us leaving. Then you can come out. Hide once again when we come back. We will be back when it is about two in the morning. Listen for voices. If you hear other people in here besides for me stay hidden. I will tell you when it is safe to come out. During the day it is safe to be here."

Davie gave him an understanding look He was about to take himself into the bedroom when the door flew open.

Nicki stared at the child. Nicki looked as if he spied a rat running across the room.

Felix hurried to Davie. "He, he was hurt," Felix said, trying to swallow over the lump in his throat "Why are you here so early? It's just started to be dark. You are never here this early. It isn't eight thirty. Nicki, please. He has no other place to go."

Nicki coldly assessed the sunburn on Felix's face.

"What do we have here?" Nicki said coldly, tickling the boy under his chin, "He's very pretty, Shall we cut him? Have another gelding in the house?"

Felix's ears rang with the brutal insult. Slappng Nicki across his face, Felix yelled, "Leave! I never want to see you again. Get out of this house now! I despise you. This is my house you stole it from me. Like you steal my money!"

"I pay the rent on this townhouse. I pay for everything. I manage your money! You leave. You nobody" Nicholas said coolly, "I'll keep the boy. You claim he has no place to go. Good! I need a new boy. One who doesn't play tricks. One I can trust! He can stay here."

Felix mouth flew down in disbelief. He ran to the door. Before he could touch it Nicki snarled, "You will starve you know. I'll see to it! The reign of the castrato in opera is ending. They do not want your unnatural voice. They want to hear only voices which are natural. That is fast becoming the fashion. Fashion will kill you all off! When your audience finds out your voice is not natural they will scornfully abandon you. I will see that you are blackballed from every theatre! What are you going to be then without me? A despised pickpocket? Not even men who love boys or who love other men will be able to stomach your mincing, feminine ways. What will you do without me! What will you be but a rear-end whore for drunken men to fuck. Men who are too damn drunk to care about you're not being a woman?"

"Shut up! What will you be without me! You'll be nothing too! You are nothing! Do you hear me Nicki, nothing! What do you care about what happens to us?" Felix screamed, sobbing, grabbing the handle of the door.

Nicki grabbed his shoulder, slapping Felix's face. Grabbing the kicking and screaming boy's arm he dragged him from the door into the bedroom.

Locking the door, Nicki then flung him on the bed. Felix screamed hysterically. Sure he was going to be slaughtered.

Tying Felix's wrists to the bedposts, Nicki slapped him again, ordering him to shut up. Nicki removed from its hiding place a switch.

"You didn't know about this one," he said with a smirk, "Your old duchess must have forgotten to put it away."

He laid on top of the boy, his prick hard against between Felix's thighs. Tortuously, he slowly undressed the humiliated frightened boy from his rags Licking and chewing at the boy's sweaty clothes and at the buttons of his shirt. Digging his hand into Felix's breeches to reveal smooth thighs. Caressing and fondling the reveled young girlish breasts. Nicki then slowly took off his own shirt, and waistcoat. His bare, slender, muscular chest was held above the boy's naked chest. Nicki's thick, brown hair hanging down his face.

"Do you want me?" Nicki said slowly, "Tell me the truth."

"Oui, I want you. I'm afraid of you. I should be afraid of you. I want to leave you," Felix said, "I do not understand myself. You make it so hard to love you. I do. Love you. I want you to love me. Tell me the truth do you want me?"

"Oui," Nicki breathed, "Tell me. Do you want to kiss my boots. Lick my heels? That is what she had you do. Isn't it?" Nicki said, licking his lips. Nicki couldn't remember ever being so aroused by flesh.

He took up the switch, playing the leather against Felix's right breast. He flicked the leather at the nipple, then he bought the leather sharply and quickly down on the breast. Turning the flesh red and hot with a stripe going across it. He carefully hit the boy again, so that the switch was but a stinging kiss. He knew if he even used a eighth of his full strength, even less than that, he could easily break the boy in two.

"Whatever you prefer me to do for you master, I will do," Felix whispered a tear on his face.

Untying the boy so Felix could get down on his knees to touch his boot with his tongue, Nicki's erection throbbed and wept at the exotic submissive sight of Felix's back, his naked body crouched at his feet, the delicious curve of his ass. Like a beautiful animal.

Nicki nudged Felix's face away with the toe of his boot.

"Take it off," he ordered in a husky voice, his hand on the boy's shaved head.

Felix pulled off a boot. Nicki pulled off the other, then he pulled off his breeches and stockings. His cock ram-hard high, standing out from his thighs. Felix went back to kissing, and licking his foot, the instep, around the toes the ankle, up to the rounded muscles of his calves and to Nicki's thighs.

Nicki was breathing harder, he pointed to his long hard cock. First, Nicki carefully wiped it clean with his hand.

Timidly, Felix pulled his head up to kiss the moist foreskin. Nicki thrust his penis forward engorging the boy's mouth with his cock, running it through the boy's firm, young mouth. He undid all the physical and mental locks in the boy's mind so Felix could take the cock deeply down. Felix jerked Nicki's cock with his mouth. He pulled his mouth away to kiss, and lick it's tightness, to lick the sensitive veins in it, underneath it, to lick the balls.

Lifting Felix up before he had a change to kiss him more there, Nicki placed him on the bed. Greedily, Nicki kissed Felix's face, his throat. Nicki's hand cupping and playing with his swollen nipples, squeezing the flesh beneath the halos. Hungrily his head bent down to suckle from a breast. His other hand went between Felix's thighs, parting the nether lips to be found up there, stimulating the tender small flesh between the lips.

His hand pulled away. "Blood," Nicki whispered.

"It's just a little blood," Felix whispered.

Nicki's head went down to tease the boy's abdomen, his tongue teased, his lips, sucked at the small appendage between Felix's nether lips. His fingers played with his small, delicate balls which would never dangle like a grown man's no matter how old Felix got.

Felix moaned, undulating beneath the fast heady torment of Nicki's mouth sucking on him, Nicki was stronger, way more forceful that the duchess had been. More kind. More giving. Nicki's body was beautiful like a steel angel. It was even warm tonight.

Nicki pulled the boy's legs over his shoulder, his erect penis prodded the boy's buttocks, pushing, shoving against his anus, poking inside.

"Stop it!" Felix screamed, his eyes wet. "You're hurting me."

"You're so tight. Too tight. I should stop," Nicki cried, his breath harsh. His hand going for ointment by the bed.

Nicki masturbated his huge cock with the oily ointment, making it hot and slippery, He applied the ointment inside of the boy's small hole. Moving his fingers gently in and out, stretching him.

He pushed himself inside, watching his shaft go inside the boy, watching the the grimace of pain on the boy's face.

He shoved himself in further. Down to the base of his cock, down to his pubic hair. Felix screamed, his body bucking to pull himself free from Nicki, feeling like his insides would burst.

Nicki almost panicked. He now knew the boy's insides were too underdeveloped for true anal pleasure. The boy was too tense. He was hurting badly. Nicki chased Flex's mind from the pain, manipulated Felix's mind, so Felix could enjoy the act as any other man or adolescent boy did.

Slowly, Nicki worked his cock with rhythmic motions inside the boy's rectum, watching his cock slide up and down inside the boy and between the boy's thighs.

Playing with what was between Felix's legs, beads of red sweat on his face, Nicki shoved harder inside of him. His face gaunt and straining.

The blood leaking between Felix's legs made the flesh slick and tender, the fiction of Nicki's fingers and cock were made more intense.

Felix mind and body tingled with volumes of pleasure. With a cry the boy pumped white semen into Nicki's hand. Nicki ejaculated his semen inside of him. His face still strained and flushed as his penis pumped, and pumped.

Nicki pulled out, falling on Felix, kissing his mouth. His cock still hard. Still desiring to go between Felix's thighs again, and again, determined to fuck the boy all night long.

"Sing to me," Nicki ordered.

"Now?" Flex whispered throwing his arms around Nicki's neck.

"Oui, now, sing," Nicki said, caressing Felix's throat, his shoulders, his chest, "Sing."

Throwing back his head, the pain vivid inside his hips, in his voice, then the rapture, the ecstasy, Felix sang about his love for Nicki. His emotions naked, fearless in his song. His song went through like a clean sword through the reaches of all the universes shared by heaven and hell.

Nicki reached for the boy's genitals.

The music in the Felix's throat stopped. His mouth empty. His eyes full of wonder.

Nicki wanted everything. Wanted more from the boy. Wanted his body, his voice, more and more. To use him till he was dry. He knew he couldn't take more. He couldn't.

Felix screamed.

Felix watched in horror.

Frustrated, Nicki bit into his own wrist. Nicki fell backwards from the boy's body. His thin cheeks working furiously, his own blood leaking down his mouth. His eyes went white. He sucked harder on himself. His erection pumped out bloody cum onto the sheets.

"My God! Don't touch me! Don't, don't," Felix screamed.

"Non, non," Nicki panted, "I couldn't. Not with you. I wanted you. Felix, non. I wanted to. Never again. We can't do this ever again. I could lose you if I ever touch you again. Do you hear me? I could lose you. I almost did."

"That first night we met. And you chased me home. You meant to kill me didn't you?"

"Oui," Nicki said, falling on the bed, laying beside Felix "Did you tell the boy out there about Blanche? Did you?"

(17)

"Non, I didn't tell Davie about Blanche. Please Nicki, don't hurt him. Please, I'll evict him myself. I'll never see him again. I swear it. His life is in danger," Felix begged.

"What do you mean his life is in danger?" Nicki scoffed, rubbing Felix's shaved head. Exasperated, he cried, "So of course you bring him here where it is nice and safe for him to be!"

Felix pushed Nicki's hand off his head, "A man stopped me in the park. He told me he would pay for information about you and the other actors at Vampires des Theatre. He made a veiled threat against Davie's life. He wanted me to turn against you."

"I won't hurt the boy if he means something to you," Nicki said, a strange, sad look on his face. "We can't do this. I'm in love with someone else. He answers all my needs in ways you never can. He's not an innocent like you. We understand each other. He and I. He's a man. I need him. Felix, please understand."

"This Armand," Felix said a catch in his voice.

"Oui, this Armand," Nicki said, slowly dressing himself.

"He's only a boy too!" Felix cried out.

"He is older than you by many many years," Nicki said irony in his voice.

Felix tried to move out of bed. His lower back screamed with pain. His legs ached, and his buttocks burned.

"Stay in bed. I was too much the savage," Nicki cried out alarmed, "I have to leave for a little while. I will come back for you. I'll stay all night long. I'll take you to the opera You can laugh at the poor fools lack of true talent. I'll teach you how to ride. On a fine black horse. Fire in its eyes. Smoke coming out of its nostrils. Lightening from its galloping hooves. I'll dress you in
black silk breeches. You'll wear a black half-mask. Jet black jewels I'll give to you. A black feather for your cap. A castle painted black."

"And all the time you are with me, you will desire nothing more than to be with Armand. Because Armand is a man, and you are a man, and I am a mere boy you put up with," Felix said in a small voice.

Nicki said, stroking his face "I want to be with you But not as your lover. Please understand."

"I had a glorious day. And now I want to sleep the night away. I'll heal better if I am alone."

"Oui, stay in bed. Your body is not used to this rough sport I put it through. When you are older, much, much older you will find a lover. Not me. Can't you see the sex between us will become crueler, more experimental, frustrating, and exasperating? You are as innocent as
any drug. It's my addiction to your voice which causes us both harm. I guilty of the destruction I am doing to us both. Sex should be an act between two people who have a special bond of love between them, a different kind of love than what I have for you. It has to go back the way it was between us. I have to remain your master and you my slave. Our love it has to go back to being pure between us."

"Fine. I want us to love each other. I want to have our pure love," Felix said, keeping his face turned from Nicki. He wondered if Nicki was dying from some sort of illness-- the blood of his sweat, drinking his own blood. If this illness was causing him to actually believe he was some sort of vampire or wizard. His strength was it natural to a mad man? Or was it natural to the kind of genius he was? Did Nicki have such a hold on his mind was he forcing him to live a life of fantasy?

"I'm taking the boy," Nicki said, not being able to look at Felix, "He cannot stay here."

"I know," Felix said quietly.

"I will tell Renaud and Armand you are unwell. You can not perform tonight."

"Where are you taking Davie?" Felix asked. Still not looking at him.

"I am taking him to the Theatre Des Vampires," Nicki said, leaving the bed, closing the door on Felix. He stood there for a while, listening to the boy cry. Then he went into the main room.

"Where's Felix? What have you done with him? Did you give him a black eye?" Davie asked nervously, not sure if he should run out the door or stay. "Is he all right?"

"Felix is unwell. We had an argument. He has agreed with me you are old enough for employment."

"As a what?" Davie aid suspiciously.

"A stage hand. You will help the actors and actresses at Des Vampies. Doesn't that sound like fun? Maybe you'll grow up to be just like the actors. Maybe not."

Nicki took the small boy's hand in his. They strolled down the boulevard to the theatre.

"My God. He's brought another one," Santiago sang out when Nicki and Davie entered the dressing room.

"Armand, I must speak with you alone," Nicki said in a slow, urgent voice.

"Take the boy to play out on the stage," Armand said to Santiago.

"I did a horrible thing," Nicki said once they were alone, "I hurt Felix."

"What do you mean you hurt him?"

"I had no control over myself, no more control than I have over a kill. It was impulse which governed me."

"Is Felix dead?"

"Non, I didn't go too far. Through, God knows I wanted to kill him."

"Did you drink from him? Is Felix aware that you drank from him? Does he know?"

"Felix thinks me to be a perverted mad man. I didn't drink from him."

"You have to make Felix your slave," Armand said sternly.

"He's already my slave! Non, Armand I cannot offer him my blood. I will not drive him into an insane addiction."

"The boy."

"Davie, his name is Davie," Nicki looked away, feeling ashamed, "Felix wants me to give him a home."

"I see," Armand said a in faraway, wise voice, "You want him to be here?"

"I couldn't think of any place else to take him."

"You know what must happen if Davie is to live here?"

"Oui," Nicki said softly, his long fingers tight with tension.

Armand opened the door. He called for Santiago to bring him the child.

Taking Davie's hand from Santiago's, Armand led Davie to a chair.

"Please sit down, Davie. Nicki tells me you're a good boy, a strong worker," Armand said, his heart constructing in his chest. Never had he performed this act with one so young.

"Before you can live with us, you and I, we must have a pact of blood between us," Armand said, smiling his smile.

"Of blood?' David asked, his eyes wide.

"Oui," Armand said. He took a letter opener, cutting his wrist. He leaned over from where he was seated, and offered his wrist to Davie.

"Just a small drink," Nicki said gently to Davie.

Confused, the boy made a face of disgust. He took a jab with his tongue at Armand's blood. He leaned back in his chair. A stunned, dreamy look on his face.

"One more taste of me," Armand said, putting his bleeding wrist to the boy's mouth.

The boy tasted his flesh and blood again. His mind seemed to freeze and become winter. The blood he was tasting met all desires for him.

"You will get more of my blood as long as you stay a good boy," Armand said to Davie whose eyes were now cloudy. "Now I will tell you what we truly are. What you must do if you want more blood to taste. You must keep secrets, guard us, and obey us, and never, never, tell."

"Oui," Davie whispered, "I'll never tell."

He now completely belonged to Armand's blood.

Nicki sighed, putting his head in Armand's lap. Armand played with Nicki's thick hair.

"I love you Armand," Nicki whispered.

"As I do you," Armand whispered back.

"One of the queen's secret police has attempted to bribe Felix for information about the theatre." He lifted his head from Armand's lap.

"No matter," Armand said in a soothing voice His fangs plainly revealed. "We can use our own bribes, our own threats to keep the secret police in line. We'll have them in our pocket. There is no need for overt violence."

"Armand, this man who tried to bribe Felix. I must." Nicki's face was gloomy, "You understand. It is my honor which is at stake here. You understood why out of honor I brought you Davie. I must now."

"Oui," Armand said, his face old, "Do what you must do my beloved."

The next evening Felix was shaken awake by Nicki.

After he dressed, Felix went into the carriage waiting to take them to the Theatre of Thespians. There outside hanging from a pole was a leg still in its shoe.

Without a word, Felix rode in the carriage with Nicki. The man who drove the carriage was a slave of the theatre. He turned from his perch and yelled out to Nicki and Felix that bits and pieces of the corpse was discovered though out the market and the park.

Nicki at first took no notice of the tears rolling down Felix's face.

Finally, Nicki angrily said, "Must you always be crying. What is the matter with you?"

Nicki reached in his frock coat for a handkerchief.

"You killed the agent. I recognized the shoe." Flex said in a low whisper, "Nicki, the man could of had a family. Children to support."

"Above all else it was his duty to protect the royal family. Isn't this true?"

"Oui," Felix said, turning his head from Nicki.

"Above all else it is my duty to protect you," Nicki said sternly, wiping Felix's face, kissing his cheek. His cold breath on his tears, "As a man of honor he understood this while I was killing him. I am a man of honor my Felix."

Felix had been performing for weeks after Davie had been taken from his townhouse, and after Nicki had killed the agent. He now slept during all of his days. Obediently taking all the drugs Nicki gave him. Grateful to Nicki for giving Davie a home.

Felix stood on the stage of the Vampies des Theatre. Fighting off the weariness he felt after performing earlier on Renaud's stage. It didn't matter. Didn't matter how tired he felt. The strength of Nicki's words in his mind would spring fourth as lyrics loud and clear.

Eleni was a female contralto, playing male roles. She was a marvel. Her lovely, long legs sensuously bare, a roman soldier's armor covering just her torso, a little white skirt barely hiding her delectable rump. The audience's eyes scooped her up as if she was a bon-bon.

But Felix, playing the lovely slave maiden, for Felix the audience ate him up with their ears, their souls, and their love. His voice triumphant hit the chords which he sent out in magnificent waves and waves to the audience. Eleni did not mind. She pranced around having a good time, Sometimes she even went so far as to forget the role she was playing. Rolling a dainty shoulder, her hand on her hip, sounding more a a debaucher rather than a threatening emperor.

>From the orchestra pit, Nicki shook his head, thinking, Bless me, no damn me. What do we have here, but a female Lestat!

Her songs warbled in her throat. Her body wiggled as if it had fleas.

Stop with your nonsense, Nicholas projected his words into her mind. Your part. Your character.

I am Nero! Eleni sang into Nicki's mind, It's all for my art! Wicked! I am a wicked, ravishing despot. That's who I am.

She captured a singing Felix in her arms, taunting Santiago with her hostage.

Santiago ran on all fours on the stage. Yellow yarn tied to the roots of his long, black hair. This was his mane. He scrambled about roaring his lion's roar at the laughing audience. His vampire fangs fully bared for all to see under his tied on snout.

Santiago twirled his tied on lion's tail by wiggling his hips. The audience had no idea he was utterly laughing at them. Now and again, he would spy someone choice in the audience, promising himself the object of his regard would have their rendezvous with Death.

The madcap singing and roaring from Santiago and Eleni stopped. Fleix did his solo. The music of this voice searching into the hearts of his audience.

More vampires dressed to be as lions come onto the stage. They surrounded Felix, leaping onto the boy, dragging him down with their claws. Their cold mouths on him.

Some in the audience held their breath. Some were frightened. Some even were moved to tears. One young woman painfully squeezed her companion's arm. She put her hands to her lips. She so wanted to run onto the stage and try to rescue the girl from the lions. The killing
seemed too real. But it was too exotic to be real. All those hands on the girl. The mouths. Too exotic to scream about. Her breath was taken from her.

"It's only an actress," her young man assured her.

The curtain closed. The audience shouted, "Encore, encore!"

And Eleni again as she did every night, pushed her head out between the curtains, informing the audience, "For shame! Why can't the living stop disturbing the dead? She is dead! I tell you! She is dead!"

She closed the curtain. The lights went out. Theatergoers mulled out as the orchestra played.

Once the audience was gone, Nicki went and stormed behind the stage. "I do not care if tonight you decided to be a lecherous Nero. But Eleni, the part was written for Nero to be a cunning, ruthless nobleman, not a complete ass. Tomorrow night couldn't you stretch your acting abilities just a little bit? Be the actress I know you can be?"

"If I wrongly interrupted how you wrote Nero, it was because you didn't give me enough direction," the greedy actress retorted. She helped Felix to his feet.

Flex smiled wanly at Nicki. The tension between them was over with. No longer did Nicki try to touch him in any way asides from possessive friendship.

Armand and Nicki are drawing closer together every night, Felix thought to himself, watching Armand playfully scold Eleni.

Armand's troupe of vampire actors were less afraid of their master. He no longer seemed to be a danger to them because he was too distracted and too happy with being in love. The old coven days of killing rogues out right, of weak vampires being bricked in catacombs seemed to be a vague bad dream. This was a new coven. A coven full of hope for everyone's personal happiness. With a new Armand. Never had the vampires felt more like a family. To their minds It wasn't even a coven any more. Nobody had to stay. They stayed because they enjoyed what they were doing and enjoyed each other.

Even Santiago who still sneaked out to occasionally sleep with Santino, and to give him is reports of Armand's actions, even he was happy.

(18)

"Laurent I would like you to escort Felix home," Nicki said over his shoulder, interrupting his conversation he was having with Armand. "I'll be home shortly Felix to put you to bed."

"Take Davie with you. He should be out of the theatre once in a while," Armand said.

Laurent took Davie's hand, he could not believe what he was doing. Vampires made it a point not to touch slaves of other vampires. Davie's flesh felt flushed and warm. Laurent could feel the pulse of life in the boy's hand. The feeling was so intense he almost dropped it.

With mortals, Laurent thought confused, when I touch them I only do it to kill them. There is no true intimacy. He glanced at Felix, something inside of Laurent yearned for him. He shook his head, thinking, This is all too strange and confusing.

Armand's carriage was brought out front. Felix and Lauernt quickly ran inside. Laurent pulling Davie along. Flowers were tossed at Felix from his many male and female admirers. None of them knew what he was. That he was a castrato.

The carriage took them quickly to Felix's townhouse. He stepped out of the carriage. He paused and talked to some of his admirers, accepting flowers, and kisses on his cheeks, and embraces. He talked to a few, then he hurried inside the townhouse with Davie and Laurent Felix knew if Nicki caught him talking to people he would have a fit.

Felix panted against the shut door. Of course Laurent wasn't even winded.

"Can I get you a glass of wine?" Laurent asked concerned

"Please."

While he poured the wine, Laurent rebelliously tossed Nicki's order to him up and down in his mind.

True Nicki told me to only escort Felix home. He did not say I could stay here with Fleix, but on the other hand he did not say I could not.

He brought the glass to Felix. Curiosity on his face, he noticed Felix had a slight overbite. He brought his face closer, staring at Felix observing his features carefully.

It's been so long since I have seen a mortal so composed. I avoid looking out in the audience. When I am this close to a mortal they are always terrified or lost in a swoon, Laruent thought.

He made it a habit to track down his victims like a cutthroat When the kill was done, and the remains disposed, he quickly spirited himself back into the theater. He never really looked at any of the mortal slaves. They were just there. Barely noticeable objects.

Felix stared boldly back at Laurent wondering what the hell Laurent thought he was doing staring at him so intensely.

"Laurent," Davie cried, pulling on his frock coat, "Play for Felix on the piano. He's terrible Felix. You'll laugh at him like I do. "

Laurent's glaze reluctantly pulled away from Felix's face. With a somber expression, he regarded Davie.

Felix put his hand to Davie's forehead. It was clammy. Davie's eyes were always overly bright and anxious. He seemed more excitable and full of mood swings since the theater adopted him

He's well fed though, Felix worried, He seems mostly happy.

Davie pushed Felix's hand from his forehead. He went to Laurent, rubbing his face hungrily on his frock coat. He sighed, wishing Armand had given him a drink of blood before they had left. He couldn't help but resent Felix. If Felix hadn't been there backstage Armand very well could have cut his wrist open for him to have drink. He wished Laurent would give him a drink, he was so thirsty for a taste of vampire blood. He struggled with his anger, and resentment. He knew if he wasn't good, Armand would withhold the feast. Suddenly, he ran to Felix, and gave him a hug.

You're my friend. This isn't your fault. I'm so afraid sometimes, then I'm so happy with Armand, then unhappy. What can I do? Davie thought to himself. The child looked up to Felix and laughed. He teased Laurent further, "Play for him. Make him laugh."

"Very well I will play for him. I would like to Felix laugh. Even if it must be at my expense," Laurent said, his voice had the quality of smooth silver.

Laurent took his place at the piano bench. His hands touching the keys in a strange disjoined fashion. When he heard the first note he made, his mind awkwardly lurked to the nights he was a religious fanatic dancing to the sounds of drums, horns, and ancient fifes. Killing the heathen, and captured mortals. Burning others of his kind who did not conform to coven rules.

Another note followed the first. The note strangely distorted. He tried again. Except when he was in character on the stage his emotions lost in a play he felt somehow sickened and threatened by music.

Felix sat down beside him on the bench. Lazily, not trying to sing good, Felix softly sang a love song from one of Mozart's operas.

Laurent stopped torturing the piano with his clumsiness. He laid his head on Felix shoulder. Music felt good to him when it came out of Felix.

The silence between them was broken when Felix whispered in Laruent's ear, "Nicki, he, he kills people."

"I kill too," Lauent whispered into Felix's ear.

Fleix looked away.

"I told you! Isn't his playing comical!" Davie yelled laughing and pointing at Laruent.

"Do you know what I bought you Davie? I bought you some tin solders. They are in my bedroom, Would you like to play with them? Felix said.

Once Davie left and they were alone, Laurent could tell Felix wanted him to leave.

Laurent awkwardly licked his lips which still had clinging to them the warmth of blood he consumed hours ago.

"Armand, he has a library. I read some books about you."

"About me?" Felix asked surprised.

"Not exactly about you. I mean not about you personally. I read castratos were created to sing acappella. Without instruments accompanying them. I read that cutting boys was supposed to be done only to glorify God with song. Dionyos, the God of wine, when he was displeased with men or women he would unleash the full force of female sexuality inside of both genders, making them insane."

"Are you calling me insane? The Gods are displeased with me so I am infected as I am?" Felix said impatiently.

"Non, I," Laurent cried shocked. He was surprised how it deeply Felix's feelings mattered to him, and how scared he was of hurting Felix's feelings.

"You call me insane when you go about killing people?' Felix said hotly.

"You can do nothing about this," Laurent said softly, wondering why in the world Nicki used the old fashioned means of using threats to keep Felix under his control. He marveled that Nicki refused to make Felix a slave with a taste of his blood. He imagined and worried that it was because Nicki loved Felix very much.

He took Felix's hand. "The duchess and Nicki they took so much away from you. They took away your virtue. You are without guilt."

"Are you without guilt? Are you like Nicki then? Do you bite people? Drink their blood then kill them?" Fleix demanded.

"Oui, as is Armand," Laurent said quietly.

"Are you all at the theatre like that? Do you teach Davie how to kill?" Felix demanded.

Non, we are not all like that," Laurent said truthfully, referring to the mortal slaves.

Felix took it to mean only Nicki, Laurent and Armand were killers.

"I also read, "Laurent said a little bit more smoothly, "That Goddess Cybele the Cretan Goddess identified with the Roman Goddess Rhea and the Greek Goddess Demeter, her worship was conducted by emasculated priests called Galli. The Canaanite's believed El, the father creator God was castrated by Ba'al huddad. This God assumed the power of El's fertility. Anath, the wife of El, was worshiped by a hundred priests who were castrated to fertilize her."

"Why are you telling me this?" Felix cried.

"I wanted to know about you," Laurent said meekly.

"What does other people's history have to do with me! Why bother reading about history? If you wanted to know me why didn't you just talk to me?"

"Do you want me to talk to you? Listen Nicki is all that you have. Armand is all that any of us have at des Theatre. You have to accept this without avoidance."

"If you could change. Not be a killer."

Laurent smiled at his innocence. "If it were possible? It is too late for me too change. Like it is too late for you to change. This happened to you when you were very young?"

"The castration? Oui. When I was eight years old. Everything else abut me. I was born this way."

"In a sense I was born this way too," Laruent said thoughtfully.

"People are born with blond hair, with handicaps, with one leg shorter than the other. They are not born to be killers. What are you? What is Nicki?"

Laurent almost blunted out what he was, and how he was born into darkness with his creator's blood kiss. The very sound of the word vampire sounded ridiculous in this modern age.

"I am a blood drinker," Laurent said seriously.

"What do you mean? Why drink blood? Do you hate people so much you decided you had to kill them? What has someone done to you to make you hate people? How did Nicki's mind become so powerful? Is Nicki? Is Nicki? Are you human? What are you? Are you wizards? Are you really vampires? Vampires are dead people who live in graves, and who come out only at night to drink blood. Then they go back into their coffins. You are alive. You're not a walking corpse. You talk to me, Nicki has, he has with me in bed," Felix said embarrassed. "If I try
to question Nicki he curses me and shows me his fist. Then he placates me with more of his medicine, and more control of my mind. I'm his prisoner."

"He's whatever he says we are," Laurent said, "He doesn't mean for you to think that he keeps you as his prisoner. You belong to him. You are safe with Nicki. Can I ask Nicki's permission to call on you?"

"You want to call on me?" Felix said in disbelief.

"Oui," Laurent said respectfully "It is not out of curiosity over what you are, but over who you are. I have limited myself to the confines of the theater and my whole life feels to me like it is a coffin. Talking to you, watching you, opens up my coffin."

Felix had no idea the meaning between Laruent's words, no idea that during the days Laurent actually slept in a coffin.

"Nicki is your family. The theater is your home. If not us at the theater than who would you have for friends? There is no one else but us. Please do not think us to be always unkind, " Laurent said calmly, "I do not love you the way Nicki loves you. I watch you, and I know what I feel through I try to dismiss it as an impossibility, I know what I feel is love for you. Your gentleness. Your courage, and your humor. You make the audience feel for you, and without even trying you make me feel for you. The qualities you have I once long ago disdained as being weaknesses. But in you I see these qualities as strengths. I thought it would be best to keep my thoughts to myself. Love you from afar. But I can't any longer. I would like to be a part of your family too."

Felix stared at him bewildered. He had to admit he did see Nicki as a figure of authority his life. Nicki did take care of him and Davie. Laurent's words rang true. But to be part of a family of
murderers.

Felix lowered his eyes. His feelings at war. Who would have him out in the world outside of the theatre? Who else wanted him? Felix knew he was a monster hiding his secret amongst monsters hiding their own secrets. And for a handsome boy such as Laruent to actually want him as a, as perhaps a partner? As damaged goods as he was Laurent wanted him?

But he's a killer, Felix thought to himself, If I love him wouldn't I be agreeing to his lifestyle? To Nicki's lifestyle. With or without my agreeing they are going to kill. Armand, I can barely believe it of him. Will I be expected to kill too? I won't. But, I'm so alone. How can I be his wife? Can we both be each other's husbands? Can I accept him for who he is?

(19)

Why can't I live a full life? Is any of this my fault? Did I ask for this to happen to anyone? I never deliberately hurt anyone. I do not wish for people to die. Am I selfish for wishing for the
possibility of happiness for myself? I cannot change the way my world had become. Must I always be alone in it forever? Without a mate? Why should I? Felix thought rebelliously to himself. Happy or unhappy people are still going to die. What if he decides to kill me? What if he really does think he loves me?

"Oui," Felix said in a low voice, feeling damned, dismayed, and hopeful at the same time.

Formally, Laurent kissed Felix's hand. Laurent's clear gray eyes twinkled. Felix never seen him look so warm.

Laurent leaned over and kissed him passionately. It felt so good it hurt.

"It's never has allowed between people like me. The blessed sacrament of marriage. I want to marry you. I want to wait till our wedding night to hold you. I loved you from afar so long, never
hoping you would even learn to smile at me much less learn to love me. I'll ask Nicki's and Armand's permission. I'll tell you everything about people like me once were wed. It will be your choice how you want to live. You will understand everything. I'll never cause you to be sorry. I know." Laurent ducked his head. "I must seem to you to be a devil. But to you I'll will be an angel. Please know I will never give you a reason to be afraid of me."

"It will not take me very long to learn how to love you," Felix said, smiling, feeling accepted for the very first time in his life. He needed this acceptance more than honor, more than goodness. He needed it.

Sunday night, Laurent asked Nicki if he could take Felix to go out for a stroll in the park.

Laurent promised, he swore he would not kill in front of Felix. He would not display any aspect of his vampire nature by contorting his limbs. Again Laurent marveled at the protection Nicki lavished on Felix to keep him naive.

Once Laurent and Felix left, Armand could not help but tease Nicki. "Are you sure you shouldn't chaperone them?"

"I'm having Celiste follow them. If Laurent does one thing to upset Felix it will be his neck," Nicki growled.

"I have the decision if you ever would get Laurent's neck or not," Armand said, kissing his nose, his lips, and throat.

"I can't believe you gave your permission to Laurent to marry Felix. I can't believe you're giving your slave away! We are gong to have a wedding! And the boy still doesn't know," Eleni said happily.

"I suppose on their wedding night Laurent will reveal everything," Santiago said complacently, "And then Laurent will give Felix the dark gift."

"Perhaps he will," Nicki said coldly, "Perhaps not. Why should Laruent tell Felix anything? Why should it be he who gives Felix the dark gift?"

"Because it is he who is going to be Felix's mate," Armand said coldly.

"Enough of this wedding talk. It makes me nervous," Santiago said, smirking at them, "We have to discuss Eleni's and my idea. Eleni and I still want to kill a mortal on the stage."

"Nicki as long as Felix is mortal and you keep the truth from him our art is impeded from its full potential. It is never fully realized," Eleni pouted, "Felix is popular. But this is about art, not
popularity. You have always told me good art is controversial, innovative, daring. Pretending to kill each other, or to kill Felix is old hat. It's not passionate enough, not intense. I find the
whole thing killing, and rekilling Felix to be little more than a joke."

"You need novelty?" Nicki said smiling.

"Oui," Santiago and Eleni said in unison.

"I need to be challenged. My performances are becoming jaded for me. Write a real kill into a play," Eleni begged.

"Non," Nicki said, "I would rather write a resurrection."

"A resurrection!" Armand said with misgivings.

"Felix will have the staring role of course," Nicki said with a flourish.

"Non. You can't mean on the stage. Taking Felix and putting him on the Devil's Road in front of a human audience," Santiago said in disbelief.

"Oui. You wanted a drama? This is perfect! Mortals kill every day and every night. We kill every night. How mundane and commonplace is that? Boring. To laugh at. We scoff at death. No one can hurt us but one of us," Nicki cried.

"Oui," Armand said calmly, surprising them all, "Nicki you are right. This is a form of goodness we can offer Felix."

"Goodness?" Santiago cried.

Isn't it though? To take him from his mortal coil, to make him into a dark angel. An angel of death and life," Nicki said hungrily, "Like God we make angels. Death is petty. Death is everyday. But resurrection! How many times do we do that? It is a special gift only we can give. Prove to be there is anything such as a God. Have any of you seen a man climb out of his grave without the help of a vampire? Think of it! Resurrecting a mortal from the tomb to be an
angel in front of mortals who are ignorant of the real miracle before them."

"Blasphemy," Santiago cried, "What a beautiful blasphemy."

"I'm all for it!" Eleni said. Nicki's excitement was contagious.

"Nicki you realize Flex's voice may change," Armand said mildly.

"Bash his voice will change if I allow him to grow any older," Nicki said disdainfully. "It will be improved. He had the talent to begin with. I will not have his voice fall prey to age or his face."

"He is so young. Is it because you fear you'll lose the malleability of his boyish nature?" Armand said coolly.

"I will not lose my control over my instrument. You are my lover. He is nothing but my music," Nicki insisted.

"And you would do anything for your music," Armand said caressing Nicki's arm. "I would do anything for you."

"You Eleni, you will be Felix's creator. I will still be open to his mind. You will only give him enough blood to keep him young, beautiful and dependent."

"To steal this privilege which morally belongs to Laruent. Will Laurent forgive me for making him a cuckold even before the vows are said? Why not? He can marry his radiant one already having vampire eyes. My gift to them both. The blasphemy. I adore it! Oui!."

She started to pace, hugging herself, "Their thoughts will remain open to each other. The curtain of silence which falls between maker and fledgling will not fall between their minds. Keeping them apart. Laurent will end up adoring me. Thanking me for this. Let the secrets be displayed before mortal's disbelieving eyes for them all to misunderstand what is before truly before them."

"It is not Laurent's moral privilege to bring Felix on the Devil's Road. Felix is my slave. His fate is my decision. And my decision is it will be you who will be his creator," Nicki said arrogantly. "Do not worry about Laurent."

"Will Felix go through his death throes in front of the audience. His waste coming out?" Santiago worried.

"The audience will watch as Eleni feeds him. His dying. That only takes minutes. The curtain will be closed. Cleanse the waste quickly away. Burn incense to hide the smell. Have someone on the stage to entertain the audience during all of this. Once he is a vampire I will enter his thoughts and calm him, explain to him everything. Even the kill. Lull him. Talk him through it. Embrace him with my mind so he will feel protected. Then the curtain will be flung open. And
they will see him shining."

And they will applaud the birth of a killer," Santiago grinned. "Appallingly delicious. Wonderful."

"I will do this only on one condition will I do this," Eleni cried, "I want to take him as an innocent. Do not tell Laurent what I am going to do. Santiago you put a block on Laruent's mind so he doesn't know what is happening. My gift to them both will be a surprise! I want to taste Felix's ignorance. It will dawn upon him he has died, and he has been reborn. I want to hear his explanations of astonishment!"

"Tomorrow night we will do the deed," Nicki said, jealous of Laurent taking his instrument out to the park much less marrying him.

How could I protest or refuse Laurent? The stupid, romantic fool. He is ruining everything. What is the matter with him? Wanting to marry my slave. I love Armand, but still even though I do not love Felix, I love him as I love a hollow wind instrument with its valves. The notes I coax from it and will coax from it. Non, even if there was no interfering Laurent, Fleix can not grow old. So old that he will break away from me, desiring mundane things such as heath and home
with a mortal companion or worse to grow to be a man demanding his independence, seeking a career far away from me. Non, Felix has to stay a boy. If Lauernt persists with this foolishness, Laurent will make a good condolence gift for Felix for the loss of his mortal life. Laurent will be a manageable companion for Felix. He is not powerful. I have more powers than he does. He will understand, married or not. Felix's voice remains my slave, Nicki reasoned, irritated beyond reason. He will not disrupt my dominion over Felix. Laurent can have Flex's body and everything in it. I will not give up his voice. I discovered his voice. I brought his voice to the theatre. It belong to me.

The next night after performing at Renaud's Felix was surprised when Nicki informed him he was no longer required to perform there any more.

"But why?" Felix asked. He held in his breath as Nicki yanked on the strings of his corset.

"I have a better idea. You will only perform for Des Vampires. You will no longer need your townhouse. It only holds for you bad memories. I will put you inside a better place."

"Why did you demand we return here so you can dress me and do my make up? We always go straight to Des Theatre after Renaud's."

"I wanted to be alone with you before you go to the theatre." Nicki said.

Passively, Felix allowed Nicki to dress him. Feeling a little bemused because he knew he would have to undress himself all over again at the theatre to get into costume.

Nicki threw his petticoat over his head. The rest of his dresses. Carefully, Nicki painted Felix's cheeks, forehead, and chin with ceruse, a preparation of white lead. He them put rouge to Felix's lips and cheeks.

"Hold still you like to wiggle," Nicki ordered him.

"I have an itch between the blades of my back. Could you?"

"Oui, oui," of course," Nicki said.

Felix turned around, Nicki scratched his back, the scratch became a caress, then an awkward pat.

"Nicki?" Felix said, surprised at the touch. It was gentle, not demanding at all. Felix turned around. He never felt so loved by Nicki, and not in a sexual way. Passion, he thought had died between them. Felix supposed after Nicki's curiosity over his body was appeased, passion was quenched. Felix hoped the same thing would not happen with Laurent.

(20)

"Open, open your eyes for me," Nicki said impatiently. He glued a heart-shaped patch on Felix's cheek.

Before he could stop himself, Nicki placed a kiss on his mouth. Before the kiss was completed, they ended up laughing together.

"My face," Felix said.

"I'll repair it," Nicki said painting the smudged part carefully so it was once again perfect.

Nicki leaned over, touching the brocade on his bodice. His lips drawing closer to his.

Embarrassed, Felix pushed him away. Hurt on his face. "I didn't think Nicki. I thought. You never wanted me again. I love him, Nicki."

"You only love him because he says he loves you. You didn't even notice him before he made his declaration to you," Nicki said harshly.

He envisioned taking the boy away with him. Holding him down by his wrists, his naked body open, writhering against his. Gathering Felix up in his arms, he laid him on the bed. "What if I forbid your marriage when Armand asks if anyone objects to your union. I own you."

"Master, you wouldn't. You would be hurting Armand. You wouldn't do that for a mere fuck," Felix said fearlessly.

"How dare you use such language to me? You never called me master before! Call me by my name. Felix, I wouldn't be hurting Armand. He is sophisticated enough to know the difference between what I feel for you and what I feel for him. If you were only a fuck to me Felix, I would have kept fucking you. What if I forced you to make love with me tonight? Would I have to force you?" Nicki said lazily.

"I'm going to stay faithful to Laurent If you forced me, I would call of my wedding. Call off my happiness."

"The fool would convince you to wed him," Nicki said.

Nicki kissed Felix's cheek and then he said, "Even after you are wed promise you will not abandon me? Your voice at least belongs to me, Felix.

"Master, you can have at least my voice," Felix promised.

Nicki looked away, feeling ashamed and yet angry that things were not going his way.

Finally, he said, "Felix my father always told me I would be nothing without him. Even after I struck out on my own, I believed him. And I failed. Felix with or without your voice, you are somebody. Laurent is a lucky man."

"Merci, Nicki," Felix said, kissing his cheek, "I will never abandon you."

"Nor will I ever abandon you. You're a very large part of me," Nicki said.

"I can love someone else you know. Like you love your Armand," Felix teased, making a face at him, getting off the bed.

"If you must love someone else," Nicki said mockingly, "I guess it must be dear Laurent."

He almost blurted out what was going to happen. What he was. He was too afraid Felix would end up demanding that Laurent be his creator. Or worse would refuse the gift. The very idea made Nicki cringe. It had to be his mind in Felix's mind when Felix went through his metamorphoses

"Tonight, you are to be given a gift," Nicki said, kissing his hand. He escorted him out to the waiting carriage. "Be grateful for it."

They rode together down the crowded, cobbled streets. Nicki was in a preoccupied silence, fussing with his waistcoats, tuning his violin. Felix did not try to engage him in a conversation. Felix knew better than to bother Nicki when Nicki was busy with his violin.

They entered through the backway of the theatre Felix climbed the small flight of stairs to the backstage, He went to his dressing room. Dressing in his costume of a simple cotton frock.

A small bouquet of violets was on his vanity table. He expected to read a love note from Laurent. Instead tied to the flowers was a note from Armand. It read: To beauty.

Felix almost dropped the note. He turned to find Armand as always wearing his quizzical smile.

"Tonight is special, cher," Armand said, going to him, giving him a kiss.

"He'll always love you," Felix said with a warm smile. "I am glad for that."

"And he'll always love you. I love you for that," Armand said, his eyes shining, "My friend do not be afraid tonight over whatever happens. Remember it is not real. All the world is a stage. And we are but players. Not even death is real on the stage."

"Not even life, not even friendship is real on the stage?" Felix teased.

"Life is real. So is love and friendship. Prove it me tonight, Felix. Prove to me life is real," Armand said his voice rich with emotion.

"I'm never afraid when I am on the stage," Fleix said cheerfully. "It doesn't bother me. This pretend of life and death."

Three knocks were made on the dressing room door. Felix kissed Armand good-bye.

Felix went to his place on the stage. The set was dressed as if it were heaven. Dazzling, fluffy clouds which looked like they would taste of moisture and sunlight was overhead. Funny, chubby cherubs hanging by their necks bobbed comically up and down from the clouds.

Felix shuddered. Laurent had told him that little boy castratos called "Cherub children" were employed long ago to sing at the funeral of dead children.

The little, blond, baby dolls smiled at him blankly.

The curtains rolled open. The applause started.

Eleni was dressed as a hilarious Saint Peter. Saint Pete with a low cut gown, and with bouncing breasts. Keys hung down from her waist.

Felix got down on his knees begging, imploring Saint Pete to let him into heaven.

An elderly lady cried out, "Ah, let the girl in."

The audience laughed, some hushed the venerable lady.

Part one was spent with angels coming up with various comic plots to help poor Felix enter into heaven.

Part one was done. Felix did his solo.

The curtain then closed. Laurent went to Felix. Laurent was one of the angels.

He whispered into Felix's ear, "The original person according to some people's interpretation of the Old Testament was perfect. He was perfect because he had no desires. Some say Adam was a hermaphrodite."

"I have desires I want satisfied," Felix said longing in his voice, "I am not perfect. I love you."

They kissed hurriedly. Laruent remained backstage. Felix hurried to his place.

The curtain opened. Eleni and Felix were revealed.

She was looking upwards at the rafters. Seeing nothing. Her hands wandering all over Felix's flesh. It did not surprise her that her hands were trembling.

Confused by her touching him the way she was, Felix did not allow himself to panic. Soon his mind was held captive by Nicki's voice in his mind. Nicki's words sang out with the use of his voice, brilliant and clear.

She caressed the vibration of his throat. Touched where his larynx lay.

Her hands ripped apart his cotton frock.

"Are you afraid of a life unrehearsed?" she whispered.

The light of many candles were upon them

Felix's naked body was exposed. Tattered cotton falling away. His corset had been removed for the performance.

He looked out into a dark night of faces.

He could hear words being murmured, crashing into his ears like bitter cold waves.

"Emasculated."

"Capon."

"Invalid."

"Gelding."

The laughter, he was surrounded by laughter.

Nicki's face was a pale, cold light amongst all those ruddy, burning faces He could not hear Nicki's voice in his mind.

Convulsively, like an automation, Felix's hands sought to cover his parts.

Nicki's volion was as still as if it had died. He was in shock. His eyes upon the boy he enjoyed and still desired to enjoy. Flex's slim shape before him like accusation.

Flex's arms were overly long for his body. His lax, small, almost childish penis which would have grown larger, and would have been capable of fathering children had he not been cut was surrounded by hairy vaginal lips which were fused to his very childish scrotum. His appendage acted as both a penis and a clitoris. From it he had his monthly periods, and his emissions of sperm.

Stunned, Nicki bought up his hands together. He started to clap. The audience started to clap. Then a hush fell on the room

It was Felix's voice which quieted them down. It was a song of sublime liberty. Once again Nicki had his mind captured.

Eleni covered his small protruding breasts with her arm. She used a hand to cover his sex.

"I am afraid of a life unrehearsed," Felix whispered to her.

The two of them stared into the vastness. Every sound seemed to roar in their ears. Their faces turned slowly to each others. Their noses then touched. His strong boy's bones against her strength. They passionately kissed.

She reared her head back gracefully. Her nerves taunt, her body a thing of taunt nerves. She bit. Her body relaxed at the signal of Felix's blood flowing into her mouth. She tasted. She drank. She sucked. And he bled. The blood flowed sensually and slow as the audience watched. The moment seemed timeless through the clocks were all ticking at the same speed they always kept at.

He fell off his feet. Slumped and lax in her arms. The burning lights of people's faces, of the cold light of Nick's face dimmed. Then died.

Nicki waited expectantly for Eleni to have Felix bite into her wrist. He was ready to once again invade Felix's mind once she did.

She leaned back from the body. She signaled for the curtains to be closed.

The audience roared. Nicki screamed above the roar. Confused, horrified.

Eleni stuck out her head out from the curtains, screaming in a voice of command, "What is the matter with you? There is no encore. He is in heaven."

The audience seemed to sigh as one. Slowly with their muffled conversations, they filed out of the playhouse,

Nicki ran up the stage, parting the curtains.

Felix's body was dead.

Nicki lunged at Eleni. Armand stopped him before he could tear her apart. Laurent took Flex's hand. A cold tear wet his cheek . He heard a human sound behind him. Quickly, Laurent took Davie away from the sight of the body.

"It was for art!" Eleni explained frightened. Havoc on her face. "Nicki I couldn't do it to him. He was weak. Art is more important than love! You know this! Art lasts longer. Who will forget this night, who? I felt compelled, wanted to give him my blood. But the strength of what it would mean to kill someone as beautiful as that. To kill his voice. In front of all those people! It was too powerful. I had no resistance. The play had to end beautifully. It did. It did. All secrets exposed. It was beautiful. Don't lie to me! Tell me it was beautiful!"

"You humiliated him! You stripped him of his clothes so they could laugh at him!" Nicki raged.

"Non, non, I wanted them to know his secret. How beautiful he really was. Is it my fault if anyone misunderstood his beauty? They applauded Nicki. They understood! I know they did!" Eleni screamed.

"Liar, bitch, whore, murderess!" Nicki screamed in anguish, held fast from killing her in Armand's arms.

"Nicki, don't , don't," Armand pleaded, bloody tears in his eyes.

"You," Nicki screamed, slapping Armand, throwing him across the room.

Armand's head hit the side of a table filled with white prochein masks.

(21)

To the vampires amazement, a gash appeared on Armand's pale forehead. Armand could feel and taste his own blood on his face.

"You rewrote my play. You were jealous of him. She is your creature. Monster. How could I have thought you loved me," Nicki screamed, kicking his ribs, his face. "Your love was all a lie. Bring him back. Bring my music back!"

"Non, it was my doing. Don't blame Armand," Eleni cried, grabbing Nicki's arm, "Nicki, I didn't hate Felix. It was good art. Good art is clothed in a serious bitter pill. I wanted it Nicki. I wanted this performance. Please. You can find another. Make a boy another castrato."

Santiago pulled her away from Nicki.

Nicki bitterly laughed and laughed, muttering, "Good art. Good art."

He ran off the stage out of the theatre. The other vampires at his heels.

Nicki grabbed a passerby. One he knew had been at the performance.

"What did you see?" His words sounded almost like gibberish.

"What do you mean? What are you talking about?" cried the frightened elderly man.

His companions were too stunned to fight the madman off.

"It was real what you saw. It as real," Nicki bared his fangs, "They are vampires. I am a vampire. Pleased to meet you. Now kill us all, or die!"

His fangs sought out the old man's blue vein in his neck.

Santiago pulled Nicki off. It all of them to carry Nicki away.

Armand could read the static in Nicki's mind. Nicki's anger, his horror, his desire to kill them all. His madness.

Without a word, remembering his promise he had given Nicki, Armand took up a sword they used as a prop.

With a smooth movement the sword fell, cutting off Nicki's hands.

Nicki howled, tortured. They pulled him out into the white mist outside.

Laurent carried Felix's body out.

"It is finished," Armand whispered, as the vampires prepared the bonfire.

First the hands went into the flames. They crawled about the embers. They curled into fists, turning black and sooty.

Felix's body hit the flames. The naked skin burned, popped and sizzled. The blond wig went red.

Rasing his bloody sword, Armand went to Nicki. Nicki ran into the flames.

"You'll die in pain. I have to cut off your head. Nicki come back," Armand wept, running into the flames.

Hurriedly, Santiago pulled Armand away, "You will die too!"

Nicki laughed, he danced, and cursed them. He screamed and fell on top of Felix's burning body. With his bleeding stumps, he frantically tried to wipe the flames off of Felix's burning face. He held Felix's bones and flesh. The fire roared then exploded.

Armand played the violin. Awkwardly, in tribute, the vampires' voices rose in song. Laurent could not sing. He wiped his face. He almost left. He studied himself. He went to touch the ashes. He lifted the ashes lovingly up in his arms and threw the ashes up into the starry sky.

Then nothing was but ashes left of Felix and Nicki.

Felix's soul left his ashes and ran down a funnel. He ran and ran. The funnel narrowed the further he ran till he became quite small. He fell out of the opening.

His black wings flew him down to the surface of hell.

"There you are my fallen one," sang out a voice.

Felix's face was that of a grown man. Brown, curly hair with reddish tips falling to his thin shoulders. His body was that of a full grown, normally developed man.

"Why was I born the way I was?" he asked.

"When you were an angel still pure you cursed God for making genders. God caused you to be one of his hermaphrodites."

"Why?"

"To teach men tolerance. How can anyone learn the divine gift of tolerance if we are all the same?"

"God was cruel. I still call him cruel! God has no mercy. He should made made us sexless," Felix cried, "The hurt that one is punished with for the crime of being different. It isn't fair."

"You still haven't learned a thing. And you have not found your true love yet."

Walls of bricks surrounded Felix. The fires were lit up inside.

Nicki flew down to hell.

"And you my poor fool. You loved your music more than anything or anyone. You raped his mind. You used his body to perform with."

"He consented to everything." Nicki screamed.

"He depended on you! You need to serve your time in hell too," Memnoch roared.

"Where is Felix? I demand you to give me Felix," Nicki screamed, going for Memnoch's throat.

Brick walls ate up Nicki. Flames tormented him.

"Felix was not meant for you," Memncoh laughed. He flew up into the night ski, with his black wings. Lightening crossed the universes of hell. Thunder sang. The rain fell. The flames continued

Years and years went by.

"So what does my spy have to say about the where whereabouts of Lestat," Armand said coldly. His face was too frozen to desplay the pain underneath. Any feelings he was capable of feeling was impeded by the throb of his emotional, tormenting ache. He leaned back in his wooden chair to hear what Eleni had to say.

"He has left Marius," Eleni told him.

She was dressed all in funeral black. Her hair dyed black. All the vampires, their hair, their clothes, everything about them was now dyed black. Everything except for their white faces. Their faces were clean of any color of cosmetics. It was as if Armand painted over all their colors. Their white bodies imprisoned in black. Their hands trapped in black gloves.

"Armand our plays. Killing mortals. It's all we do on stage. It's all the same story. It is drudgery," she said in an dried out voice.

"Theartre Des Vampires is about the art of death and drying. You proved that to me long ago," Armand said in his quiet voice, "It isn't about love, friendship, or life. The plays stay as they are."

"Besides, the audience are not displeased," Armand said, his face breaking into a smirk.

"Davie and Laruent wrote a letter to you I have it here," Eleni said in a small voice.

"Throw it away," Armand merrily said. "I know how to contact Laruent when I need him for a job. Davie, I ever want to see him again."

She winced. The last bright spot of the coven's nights were long ago extinguished when Davie tuned the mortal age of twenty. Laurent took Davie onto the Devils' Road.

Armand drove the two lovers out of the coven. Anyone else who attempted to leave, Armand killed.

He made the theatre into a theate of conformity. Audiences came to gawk at the freakish going goings-on's. Watching mortals nightly being murdered. The means of the mortals being tortured varied little, not much. The themes of the plays stayed the same. What a price Armand made them all pay for what Eleni did. Even the conversations the vampires now had between each other were forced by social pressure, and Armand's censorship, and his mute threats to be kept to the description of kills. He took to the habit of keeping a mortal boy for his lover till the boy grew too old, and then he killed the child. Then he would find another boy. These boys of his were not well taken cared of. Often he shared his boys with the coven. Smirking, when he watched them drink from them.

"Lestat, he has gone to the colony of New Orleans," she said.

"So he's gone to finally collect pretty Louis now that Louis is a man," Armand said lightly.

"That is not all who is there in New Orleans. Your sister, Bianca is there. And your cousin Henri."

"Bianca. She thinks she knows everything about me," Armand said, blandly.

"Henri too has interest still in Louis. And in," Eleni hesitated.

"In who?" Armand said softly.

"In Louis' brother Paul."

"I see," Armand said, "You are dismissed."

"First tell me why did you ever agree to Nicki to put him on the stage?" She asked.

He considered the question for a moment. Then he said, "The voice belonged to Nicki even more than it belonged to Felix. All the lyrics were Nicki's, I could not allow Nicki's instrument to grow old. The voice was Nicki's voice. Never say his name ever again. Felix's name is as dead as his voice. I will not ever hear it again."

"Armand do you love any of us at all?" Eleni said in a small voice, "You knew my nature, our nature, when you put Felix in my arms. The danger. I could not help myself. Forgive me."

"Have I harmed you in anyway?"

"Armand," she cried, throwing up her arms dressed in black. "I think sometimes you wouldn't care if we all died."

"You are useful to be. I thank you again for sending Lestat Nicki's violin. Be obedient to me and I will love you," Armand said playing with a rose he had trapped in his hand.

She left him free of her presence as he wished to be free. The dying sound of her footsteps fading from his hearing.

So Lestat, the Brat Prince, will get to live all eternity in love, in happiness, and I, Armand thought.

A bitter tear of rage fell down his face.

"This is your fault Lestat Destroying my coven the children of darkness, the creation of Theatre des Vampires, the existence of Nicki. This destruction of my beliefs that there is some kind of
goodness we vampires are capable of. Being destroyed over and over and over again. This savage hurt."

Throwing the chair into the wall Armand said in a soft voice, "Lestat, you will not find happiness with Louis. I will find a means of destroying your happiness with him. Even if I have to go so far as to kill him. If I must live for all eternity you will learn to love me. Replace the love I lost. If not. I curse you Lestat with lovers who will destroy the love you have for Louis. I curse you with hate and misunderstandings between you two of you. Curse you with the love of too many for anyone's love for you to last long."

Memnoch heard Armand's words echoing in hell.

Memnoch laughed a low laugh, knowing how ineffective and effective curses can be.

The end
the sequel to this is the story Louis Blue's Provocateur