Louis enters, slidently, like a corpse. He hears a voice behind him.
CLAUDIA
Locked together in hatred --
He turns, sees her sitting in the darkness. She is wearing a tiny nightgown
fo stiched lace and pearls, wierdly adult and
seductive. She comes towards him.
CLAUDIA
But I can't hate you Louis.
She sprays perfume over her body as she comes nearer.
CLAUDIA
Is this the aroma of a mortal child?
She whispers.
CLAUDIA
Louis. Lover.
She kisses his cheek.
CLAUDIA
I was mortal to you. You gave me your immortal kiss. You became my mother and my father. And so I'm yours. Forever.
She takes his face in her hands.
CLAUDIA
But now's the time to end it, Louis. Now's the time to leave him.
LOUIS
He'll never let us go.
Claudia smiles.
CLAUDIA
Oh... really?
EXT. DOCKLANDS. NEW ORLEANS. NIGHT.
A sailing ship, by the docks. Louis and Claudia talking to a shipping-clerk.
LOUIS (VO)
So we made plans. She was convinced there were others of our kind in
Europe, that they would have the answers Lestat
couldn't provide. Lestat whom she now hated, who she thought she could
be free of. I doubted, but then she had a suprise in
store...
INT. FLAT. NIGHT
Lestat playing the piano. Louis reading. Claudia enters, wearing a cape
and hat. She walks to the piano, sits at the end
of the piano and stares at him as he plays.
LESTAT
What is it now? You irritate me! Your very presence irritates me!
CLAUDIA (SWEETLY)
Does it?
LESTAT
Yes. And I'll tell you something else! I've met someone who will make a better vampire than both of you.
CLAUDIA
Is that supposed to frighten me?
LESTAT
You're spoilt because you're an only child. You need a brother. Or I do. I'm weary of you both.
CLAUDIA
I suppose we could people the world with vampires, the three of us.
LESTAT
Not you my dear.
CLAUDIA
You're a liar. But you upset my plans.
LESTAT
What plans?
CLAUDIA
I came to make peace with you, even if you're the father of lies. I want things to be as they were.
Louis perks up, puzzled.
LESTAT
Stop pestering me then!
CLAUDIA
Oh, Lestat. I must do more than that. I've brought a present for you.
LESTAT
Then I hope its a beautiful woman with endowments you will never possess.
Claudia stares at him for a moment.
CLAUDIA
Better than that.
She takes his hand and leads him into an inner room. Louis follows behind.
CLAUDIA
You haven't fed enough. I can tell by your colour.
INT. DINING ROOM. NIGHT.
Two beautiful youths, lying asleep on a couch, by a table full with a half-eaten meal. Lestat sighs.
LESTAT
Oh, Claudia, you've outdone yourself. Where did you find them?
CLAUDIA
Drunk on brandy wine. A thimblefull. I thought of you when I saw them.
LESTAT
We forgive each other then?
Claudia stares at him, sitting. She nods.
Lestat bites into the neck of one of the youths, sucks greddily and
horribly. Claudia watches him without expression.
He finished one, is about to take the other when he staggers. He looks
at Claudia.
LESTAT
Absinthe? You gave then absinthe?
CLAUDIA
No. Laudanum.
Lestat stares wildly at her, tries to move towars her, then slips to the floor.
LESTAT
Laudanum!
CLAUDIA
Yes. It killed them, unfortunately. But it keeps the blood warm.
Lestat tries to rise.
LESTAT
Ah Louis, Louis, she killed them... and let me drink...
Louis watches, apalled. He goes to move.
CLAUDIA
Don't Louis --
LESTAT
Louis, put me in my coffin...
CLAUDIA
I'll put you in your coffin. Forever.
She pulls a knife out from under her shawl, walks rapidly to him and slashes his throat. Blood explodes from it.
LOUIS
Claudia! Don't do this thing!!!
LESTAT
Louis, Louis, I gave you the gift --- help me ---
Claudia lacerates his face. Blood pours from everywhere. She plunges
the knife in his chest. He falls back, fangs bared,
clutching the knife. Claudia leaps on him then, bites deep into his
neck as he dies. Louis screams, runs forward, pulls
her away.
LOUIS
What have you done, Claudia -
He drags her off Lestat, tries to pull her out of the room. She hisses at him.
CLAUDIA
Louis! Look what's happening to him!!
Louis looks. The fllor is a sea of blood. Lestat has begun to shrivel,
as if he'd been a bag of blood. His skin is
shrivelling against his bones like parchment, his eyes are slipping
back into his skull-like face. His lush, beautiful hair
remains unchanged. But his clothes are virtually being emptied of the
body. It is no more than bones, wrapped in paper
and the pupils of the eyes suddenly roll up into the papered skull.
LOUIS
Lestat. Oh, God forgive us.
CLAUDIA
Don't mock me, Louis. Help me.
She stares at the shrivelled skeleton in its skin wrapping. She is fascinated.
She sees the vampiric blood flow all over
the floor. She touches it and brings her finger to her lips.
; CLAUDIA
Goodnight, sweet prince, may flights of devils wing you to your rest.
Louis walks forward, touches the skeleton, the blonde hair.
LOUIS
He's dead, Claudia, dead.
CLAUDIA
The one good lesson he taught me, Louis. Never drink from the dead.
She stands up, all business suddenly.
CLAUDIA
Help me. We must get rid of him.
She drags the coverlet from the table, knocking the crockery over the
dead youths, and wraps Lestat's skeleton in it.
She takes a bunch of chrysanthemums and places them in his skeleton
hands.
CLAUDIA
Should we burn him? Bury him? What would he have liked, Louis?
LOUIS
Don't mock, Claudia...
CLAUDIA
The swamp...
EXT. CARRIAGE. NIGHT.
Louis whipping the horses. Claudia beside him. Lestat's skeleton in the back, with the bodies of the two dead youths.
CLAUDIA
In Europe, Louis. We shall meet our own kind. Find the one who made him. Learn what it means.
LOUIS
And suppose the one who made him knows nothing and the vampire who made
him knows nothing, and it goes back, nothing
proceeding from nothing, until there is nothing! And we must live with
the knowledge that there is no knowledge.
The carriage pulls up by a swamp. Mist everywhere. Overhanging creepers.
LOUIS
And if we find the one who made him? Do we tell him we destroyed his own creation? The vampire Lestat?
Louis drags out the bodies of the boys. He slides them into the waters
of the swamp. We see ripples in the water and
the churning of alligators, as they attack the corpses. Louis takes
Lestat's skeleton in his arms. He slides it into the
waters. The alligators speed towards it.
CLAUDIA
He belongs with those reptiles, Louis. He deserved to die.
LOUIS
Then maybe so do we. Every night of our lives. He was my brother. My maker. He gave me this life, whatever it is.
CLAUDIA
I did it for us, Louis. So we could be free.
He stands there, saying nothing.
CLAUDIA
Louis, look at me.
LOUIS (BITTERLY)
I can't. Go away from me.
Claudia is shocked to her core. She steps back. Louis stares at the
rippling waters. Gradually the movement of
alligators stops. Then he hears a sound he hasn't heard in years. Soft,
chocking. He turns, sees Claudia sitting by a
cypress tree, like a little girl for the first time in years. She is
weeping copiously.
LOUIS
Claudia - You're crying -
We see her face, tears of blood running down it. She is heartbroken, lost.
CLAUDIA
You never talked to me like that - in all these years.
LOUIS
And you never cried -
CLAUDIA
I can't bear it when you do - I would die rather than lose you Louis. I would die the way he died.
Louis gathers her in his arms.
LOUIS
Hush, Claudia, hush now my dear -
CLAUDIA
Tell me you don't hate me Louis. I did it for you -
Louis walks her towards the carriage.
LOUIS
I love you Claudia. Always. And we are free now, Claudia. No Lestat.
Just the two of us, beginning the great adventure of our
lives.
He lifts her into the carriage and drives off, leaving the silent waters of the swamp.
INT. FLAT. NIGHT.
Sturdy mullato workmen lifting cases and trunks out of the apartment.
All the furniture is covered in white sheets.
Claudia dressed in a cap and hat, is playing the piano by the light
of one remaining oil-lamp.
Louis comes from her room with the cage of canaries.
LOUIS
The birds. We forgot about the birds. There's nothing for it but to let them go.
He opens the cage, and the canaries fly around the room.
There is a knocking on the door. Claudia falters.
CLAUDIA
What was that?
LOUIS
The workmen must have a trunk - don't stop, cherie -
He goes downstairs. Claudia plays a moment, then stops, perturbed. She
goes to the window. Then sees something out
there that makes her face go white. She screams.
CLAUDIA
Louis!!!
THE STAIRWAY --
Louis walking to the door. The knocking gets louder.
THE PARLOUR --
Claudia runs for the stairs, after Louis.
THE HALLWAY --
Louis reaches the door. The knocking gets louder. He opens the door as -
CLAUDIA -
Reaches the stairs. She screams -
CLAUDIA
Don't Louis -
But Louis has opened the door. Nothing there. He looks back at Claudia,
puzzled, then at the door again when,
swooping into his vision comes the nightmare image of --
LESTAT --
In filthy swamp-soaked rags, robust again, but his flesh shrivelled,
covered in scars, his eyes riddled, bloodshot. he
roars.
LESTAT
WHERE IS SHE? WHERE IS THAT ACCURSED CHILD?
Louis throws his body against the door, slamming it on Lestat's reaching
hand. The hand withdraws, as Lestat roars.
Louis bolts the door.
Louis runs up the stairs, sweeps Claudia in his arms, watching apalled
as the door shudders with the force of Lestat's
body.
IN THE PARLOUR
Louis runs through with Claudia in his arms.
LOUIS
It can't be -
CLAUDIA
It is! Take the back stairwell -
Suddenly Lestat crashes through the casement window, scattering blood
everywhere, reefing himself on the shattered
glass. He tumbles to the floor and gets unsteadily to his feet.
LESTAT
GIVE ME HER LOUIS!!
Louis throws Claudia behind him and hurls himself on Lestat, who fights
like a ravening animal, bits of his broken
body coming off in the process. Then with a terrifying effort, Lestat
hurls Louis off, goes for Claudia, who grabs the
poker from the fireplace, scatters burning coals over him. He falls
back, then comes at her again, as the drapes catch
fire. Louis grabs the lamp.
LOUIS
Stay back--- for the love of God... or I'll burn you alive...
Lestat lunges again at Claudia. Louis hurls the lamp, which explodes him in flame.
Lestat screams in agony, whirls around the room, then comes on Claudia
again. She hurls another lamp. Louis throws
the flaming sheets around him, wrapping him further in fire. Lestat
falls to his knees, choking, hands up over his face
in the smoke. The whole parlour is afire. Louis gathers up Claudia,
smothering the burning house, carries her down the
back stairs, through the carriage way and through the gathering crowds
of mortals into the street.
EXT. STREET. NIGHT.
Louis running, with Claudia in his arms. He looks back at the flames of the house. Sound of a ship's horn.
CLAUDIA
The ship is sailing wihout us!
LOUIS
Not yet.
Holding her tightly, Louis runs.
EXT. DECK OF SHIP. NEAR DAWN.
Louis stands at the railings in the morning mist as the ship moves down the river. He sees...
CITY OF NEW ORLEANS
With flame lighting up the sky.
LOUIS (VO)
Though the fire seemed to spread through the quartier, I stood on that
deck until dawn, fearful he would come out again of the
very river like some monster to destroy us both. And all the while
I thought, Lestat, we deserve your vengeance. You gave me
the dark gift. And I delivered you into the hands of death for the
second time.
INT. ROOM. SAN FRANCISCO
Louis and Malloy.
&nb sp; MALLOY
Did he die in the fire?
LOUIS
He was dead to us. We were free. That was all that mattered.
EXT. SHIP. EVENING.
The ship, shrouded in mist.
LOUIS (VO)
Though the ship was blessedly free of rats, a strange plague nonetheless struck its passengers.
A body is slipped into the sea. A priest reads last rites to a mourning family.
INT. SHIPS HOLD.
Turnks and cases, creaking with the ship's movement. Dead rats everywhere.
LOUIS (VO)
Claudia and I alone seemed imune. We kept to ourselves, pondering the
mystery of Lestat and the greater mystery of each
other.
EXT. SHIP. NIGHT.
Passing through the Straits of Gibralter.
LOUIS (VO)
We reached the Mediterranean. I wanted those waters to be blue. They
were black, nightime waters and how I suffered then,
straining to remember the colour that a young man's senses had taken
for granted, that my memory had let slip away for
eternity. It was balck off the coast of Italy, black off the coast
of Greece, Europe itself was black.
EXT. DECK. NIGHT.
Claudia, sitting with an easel and sketch-pad, sketching the bay of
Naples. A beautifully realised drawing, all in shades
of grey and black. Louis observes.
CLAUDIA
Louis, your quest is for darkness only. This sea is not your sea. They
myths of men are not your myths. Their history isn't yours.
The sketch changes to a sketch of -
THE ACROPOLIS --
In the moonlight.
LOUIS (VO)
We saw the Acropolis by moonlight, shades of grey and silver. And I
longed for the brilliant white of those marbles in the hot
sun of Homer...
The sketch changes to a sketch of --
TRANSYLVANIA --
And the traditional shapes of the vampire landscape.
LOUIS (VO)
We docked at Varna and searched the rural countryside of the Carpathians, for what she liked to term "our kind"...
a montage of sketches now - A TRANSLYVANIAN VILLAGE, A GRAVEYARD.
RUINED CASTLE AFTER CASTLE, LOOKING INTO THE SKIES...
LOUIS
The quest for these Old World vampires filled me with bitterness. We
searched village after village, ruin after ruin and I was
glad when always we found nothing. For what could the damned really
have to say to the damned?
INT. ROOM. SAN FRANCISCO.
Malloy and Louis.
MALLOY
You found nothing?
LOUIS
Peasant rumours, superstitions about garlic, crosses, stakes in the
hear, all that - how do you say again? Bull shit. But one of
our kind? Not a whisper.
MALLOY
No vampires in Transylvania? No Count Dracula?
LOUIS
Fictions, my friend. The vulgar fictions of a demented Irishman... So we repaired to Paris...
EXT. BOULEVARD FACADE OF GRAND HOTEL AND PARIS OPERA.
Crowds and gaslight everywhere. Carriages, horses, OPERA coming from the opera house.
LOUIS (VO)
I think the very name of Paris brought a rush of pleasure to me that
was extraordinary. I was a Creole, after all and Paris was
the mother of New Orleans, a universe whole and entire unto herself...
EXT. 18TH CENTURE PALACES ALONG THE SEINE - NIGHT
The high walls of the Louvre, dark figures walking in pairs through the shadowy tulieries.
EXT. STREET - SHOP WINDOW
Claudia, in furtrimmed muff and bonnet, peers through the glass at a
display of dolls. Each doll in there seems to
resemble her, with blonde hair and blue eyes. She peers deep into the
shop and sees -
MADELEINE, a young woman bent over a workbench painting a doll's face, oblivious to being watched.
INT. OPERA STAIRCASE
Louis and Claudia hurrying hand in hand with a crowd of mortals towards
the sound of an ORCHESTRA TURNING
beyond.
INT. NOTRE DAME.
Claudia and Louis standing in the deep shadows, looking at the branching
arches. Louis is overcome with sadness,
Claudia is fascinated.
INT. GALLERY.
Louis and Claudia walk among a series of mythological nudes by Poussin.
INT. SALON. NIGHT.
Claudia, surrounded by discarded dresses and outfits, being attended
by cautouriers. All the clothes are tiny, to fit her
frame, but have an adult cut and shape.
LOUIS
We were alive again. We were in love and so euphoric was I that I yielded to her every desire...
INT. SUMPRUOUS HOTEL SUITE
Full of late 19th century furniture, lots of Empire style, Regency, gilt, velvet and brocade.
CLOSE ON A HUGE BLACK EBONY CHEST
Against a wall, solemn among all the light and glitter.
CLAUDIA
By a large gilt mirror, in her new clothes. She is covered with jewelry, fixing earrings to her ears.
CLAUDIA
Help me, mon chere...
Louis walks over, helps her with the earrings.