They use no paint. And the audience think it is paint.
CLAUDIA
How devilishly clever.
A spotlight uncovers a mortal woman suddenly forced out upon the stage.
CLAUDIA
She's no vampire.
LOUIS
No. She's frightened. She doesn't know where she is.
The audience laughts uneasily, then stops as the Mortal Woman comes
into the footlights. She is too beautiful, too
confused. Santiago, as Death, advances on her. She backs away, terrified,
then sees the other vampires, in a phalanx,
advancing from behind, in a half-circle.
MORTAL WOMAN
I don't want to die!
She looks around in panic. Santiago swoons, arms over his breast as if he is hopelessly in love.
SANTIAGO
We are death!
The Mortal Woman steps to the footlights.
MORTAL WOMAN
Someone help me. Please... What have I done?
Louis whispers to Claudia.
LOUIS
This is no performance.
CLAUDIA
And no one knows but us...
ON THE STAGE --
SANTIAGO
We all die. Death is the one thing you share with all those here.
Santiago gestures to the audience.
AUDIENCE.
Rapt faces.
ON STAGE
MORTAL WOMAN
But I'm young...
SANTIAGO
Death is no respecter of age. He can come any time, any place. Need I tell you what fate has in store for you?
MORTAL WOMAN
I would take my chance. Let me go! Please...
SANTIAGO
And if you take that chance and live, what is your fate? The humpbacked toothless visage of old age?
Santiago approaches her and tears the drawstring out of her peasant
blouse. It opens completely and starts to slip. She
tries to catch it, but gently stops her wrists. The blouse falls, exposing
her young breasts.
LOUIS AND CLAUDIA
LOUIS
This is monstrous!
CLAUDIA
Yes, and very beautiful.
ON STAGE
SANTIAGO
Just as this flesh is pink now, it will turn grey and wrinkle with age.
WOMAN
Let me live, please. I don't care.
SANTIAGO
Then why should you care if you die now?
She shakes her head, confused. he catches her wrists behind her back.
AUDIENCE is awestruck by her beauty, her suffereing.
SANTIAGO draws near her cheek.
SANTIAGO
And suppose death had a heart to love and to release you? To whom would
he turn his passion? Would you pick a person
from the crowd there? A person to suffer as you suffer?
AUDIENCE
A young girl cries out in jest.
YOUNG GIRL
Oh, yes, take me Monsier Vampire! I adore you!
Audience roars with laughter.
ONSTAGE
SANTIAGO
You wait your turn.
The AUDIENCE laughs again.
The Mortal Woman shakes her head in panic.
SANTIAGO
Well, have you a sister, a mother, a daughter you would send in your place?
CLOSE ON CLAUDIA
Even she is repelled by the cruelty. She shakes her head.
MORTAL WOMAN
Shakes her head. She is helpless.
SANTIAGO
We alone can give death meaning. Do you know what it means to be loved by death, to become our bride?
MORTAL WOMAN looks up on hte verge of hysteria or fainting. But then her eyes mist over. She is being entranced.
FROM HER POV we realise she is looking past Santiago at the divinely
beautiful Armand, who has just stepped out of
the wings. Armand has entranced her. He passes Santiago. Santiago stiffens,
but yields the stage.
ARMAND
No pain.
MORTAL WOMAN
No pain?
ARMAND takes her by the nakes shoulders.
ARMAND
Your beauty is a gift to us.
ON STAGE
Armand gestures to the others who slowly, gracefully close in.
ARMAND
Who deserves such a gift?
He pulls the drawstring from her skirt and it falls revealing her nakedness. But she is spellbound.
MORTAL WOMAN
No pain...
Armand embraces her, drinks, her naked body stark against her black
clothes, then he passes her to the other
vampires one by one.
CLOSE ON LOUIS who battles desire and hunger with anger.
LOUIS
I've seen enough of this! I loathe it!
CLAUDIA
Be still!
ON STAGE
The naked Mortal Woman lies dead on the floor. The vampires seem to
vanish one by one. As the curtain draws across,
the Audience loudly applauds what they presume are theatrical tricks.
ANOTHER ANGLE
The audience, milling towards the exits. They talk in vacuous terms
about the beauty of the show, the symbolism of it,
the daring of it as they leave.
Gradually Louis and Claudia are left alone in the empty theatre. Louis
seems anxious to leave. Claudia whispers in his
ear.
CLAUDIA
Patience, Louis. Patience.
He looks around the empty theatre, more eery now than when the play
was on. The red curtain shifts slightly in a
hidden breeze, a candle sputters and dies in a box. Then the candle
flares again, and we see Armand in the box,
looking down on them. He stares with a dreamy expression, saying nothing.
LOUIS
We've been searching for you for a very long time...
His voice echoes eerily. Armand gestures for them to follow him.
INT. FOOT OF STAIRWAY.
Armand leading, Louis and Claudia following. It opens into a --
HUGE UNDERGROUND BALLROOM
Walls are painted with famous copies of Durer, Brueghel, Goya and Bosch
depictions of death. Fine wooden coffins
line the walls. Candles burn in sconces, casting alternate shawdows
and pools of light. Armand walks through,
gesturing Louis and Claudia to follow him.
As they walk through, vampire man and women appear out of the shadows
like wraiths, startling them, drifting
around them, stroking them, touching Claudia as if she were a doll.
Shrieks of preternatural laughter.
Armand gestures to the vampires to back off.
All obey but ESTELLE.
ESTELLE
Such a darling.
She menaces Claudia, her breasts enormous, her fangs bared. Armand throw
her a look, and she is flung against the
wall.
Louis stares around. The vampires faces drift towards him and away,
always disclosing the face of Armand, who
seems some distance away, but strangely close, staring at Louis with
a constantly calm, hypnotic gaze. Then a young
mortal boy comes from the shadows with a candleabra, which he hands
to Armand.
Armand and the boy come towards them, leading them along the walls,
his candleabra illuminating the ghastly murals,
his face gleaming like an angel above the candleflame.
LOUIS
Monstrous.
ARMAND
Yes, and very beautiful.
LOUIS
Your lips, they didn't move.
ARMAND
They did, but too fast for you to see them. No magic, just grace and speed.
The boy is watching Louis. Armand's hand beckons and the boy draws up
to Louis in the candlelight. He places his
arms on Louis' shoulders. Louis glances at Armand, who smiles. Louis
sees the puncture marks on the boy's neck.
ARMAND
He wants you...
Louis is utterly confused. Can't resist. Drinks his blood.
The boy's body presses against him, sensual, willing. The other vampires
appear all around Louis, who suddenly senses
it and draws away, ashamed.
Claudia watches warily, from a distance. Armand beckons at her and Louis
and open a door in the wall which reveals
a stone staircase.
INT. MEDIEVAL ROOM.
Medieval chairs, table, an old coffin, a bed in one corner, a blazing
fire. A medieval painting of Satan, being banished
from heaven, above the fire. Armand places the boy on the bed, settling
him so he sleeps.
ARMAND
Disappointing, isn't it? To come so far and find so little. Jaded ingenues, amusing themselves with make- believe...
LOUIS
We had feared we were the only ones...
ARMAND
But how did you come into existence?
He glances at Louis, then at Claudia, who averts her eyes.
ARMAND
You don't want to answer... Two vampires from the new world, come to
guide us into the new era as all we love slowly rots
and fades away.
LOUIS
Are you the leader of tis group?
ARMAND
If there were a leader, I would be the one.
Claudia stares at him constantly, guarded.
LOUIS
So you have the answers...
ARMAND
Ah! You have questions?
LOUIS
What are we?
ARMAND
Nothing if not vampires...
LOUIS
Who made us what we are?
ARMAND
Surely you know the one who made you...
LOUIS
But the one who made him, who made the one who made him, the source of all this evil...
Louis looks at the picture. Armand watches him.
ARMAND
That is a picture, nothing more.
LOUIS
You mean we are not children of Satan?
ARMAND
No.
He smiles at Louis. A smile of infinite compassion.
ARMAND
I understand. I saw you in the theatre, your suffering, your sympathy
for that girl. I saw you with the boy. You die when you
kill, you feel you deserve to die and you stint on nothing. But does
that make you evil? Or, since you comprehend what you call
goodness, does it not make you good?
LOUIS
Then there is nothing.
ARMAND
Perhaps...
He passes his finger through the candle flame.
ARMAND
And perhaps this is the only real evil left...
LOUIS
Then God does not exist...
ARMAND
I have not spoken to him...
LOUIS
And no vampire here has discourse with God or the Devil?
ARMAND
None that I've ever known. I know nothing of God or the Devil, I have
never seen a vision nor learnt a secret that would damn
or save my soul. And as far as I know, after four hundred years I am
the oldest living vampire in the world.
He stares at them, his face angelic, hypnotic, young. His eyes hold them both in a trance.
LOUIS
My God... So it's as I always feared. Nothing, leading to nothing.
ARMAND
You fell too much. So much you make me feel...
He stares from Claudia to Louis. He seems to be reading their souls.
ARMAND
The one who made you should have told you this. The one who left the old world for the new...
LOUIS
He knew nothing. He just didn't care.
ARMAND
Knew? You mean he is...
Claudia appears suddenly to Louis' shoulder, interrupting.
CLAUDIA
Come, beloved. It's time we were on our way. I'm hungry and the city waits.
She stares hard at Armand. Armand looks from her to Louis.
ARMAND
So soon to go?
He seems genuinely regretful. But Claudia pulls Louis out.
INT. DARKENED CORRIDORS AND THEATRE. NIGHT.
Louis and Claudia feel their way through darkened corridors, trying to find their way out.
LOUIS (VO)
The place was dark as we left, a darkness that confounded even Claudia.
And as we blundered through it, again came the
thought: I have wronged Lestat, I have hated him for th wrong reasons.
Suddenly a light comes on. They see they are in the empty theatre. Santiago stands on the stage, under a candle.
SANTIAGO
How did you wrong him?
Louis is stunned.
LOUIS
You read my thoughts?
SANTIAGO
You said a name -
LOUIS
A name I don't want to say again.
SANTIAGO
I seemed to recongise it...
Other vampires appear behind him.
&n bsp; SANTIAGO
There is but one crime among us vampires here.
He looks at Claudia.
SANTIAGO
You should know, who are so secretive about the vampire who made you.
Claudia laughs.
CLAUDIA
Boredom!
SANTIAGO
It is the crime that means death to any vampire. To kill your own kind!
CLAUDIA
Aaaah! I was so afraid it was to be born like Venus out of the foam, as we were! Come Louis, let's go!
EXT. HOTEL SAINT GABRIEL. NIGHT.
Claudia and Louis enter the Lobby.
CLAUDIA
I lothe them! I can't stand the sight of them! Stupid bourgeois Parisians,
all dressed in black like some private club! I've
searched for them the world over and I despise them!
LOUIS
What danger?
