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Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994)

by Anne Rice.
Based on the her novel.

More info about this movie on IMDb.com


FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY


FADE IN:


INT. ROOM - NIGHT (SAN FRANCISCO)

A small bare room, illuminated only by the streetlight
coming through the window.

A hand presses a cassette into a recorder and fiddles
with a small microphone.

Malloy sits over a table fiddling with the tape. He is
young, half-shaven, dressed in T-shirt and jeans. He
looks too -

LOUIS, who stands by the window, looking out on the
street, with his back to Malloy. Louis is dressed in an
old-fashioned suit.

		LOUIS
	So you want me to tell you the
	story of my life...

		MALLOY
	That's what I do. I interview
	people. I collect lives. F.M.
	radio. F.F.R.C. I just interviewed
	a genuine hero, a cop who -

		LOUIS
		(quietly interrupting)
	You'd have to have a lot of tape
	for my story. I've had a very
	unusual life.

		MALLOY
	So much the better. I've got a
	pocket full of tapes.

		LOUIS
	You followed me here, didn't you?

		MALLOY
	Saw you in the street outside. You
	seemed interesting. Is this where
	you live?

		LOUIS
	It's just a room...

		MALLOY
	So shall we begin?
		(playfully, almost
		teasing)
	What do you do?

		LOUIS
	I'm a vampire.

Malloy laughs.

		MALLOY
	See? I knew you were interesting.
	You mean this literally, I take it?

		LOUIS
	Absolutely. I was watching you
	watching me. I was waiting for you
	in that alleyway. And then you
	began to speak.

		MALLOY
	Well, what a lucky break for me.

		LOUIS
	Perhaps lucky for both of us.

Still in shadow he turns from the window and approaches
the table.

		LOUIS
	I'll tell you my story. All of it.
	I'd like to do that very much.

Malloy is uneasy as he studies the shadowy figure,
fascinated but afraid.

		MALLOY
	You were going to kill me? Drink my
	blood?

		LOUIS
	Yes but you needn't worry about
	that now. Things change.

Louis stands opposite, hand on the chair. Malloy is
riveted.

		MALLOY
	You believe this, don't you? That
	you're a vampire? You really
	think...

		LOUIS
	We can't begin this way. Let me
	turn on the light.

		MALLOY
	But I thought vampires didn't like
	the light.

		LOUIS
	We love it. I only wanted to
	prepare you.

Louis pulls the chord of the overhead naked light bulb.


LOUIS' FACE

Appears inhumanly white, eyes glittering. Inhuman or
not alive. the effect is subtle, beautiful and ghastly.

		MALLOY
	Good God!

He struggles to suppress fear and understand.

		LOUIS
	Don't be frightened. I want this
	opportunity.

The light appears to go out by itself and suddenly
Louis is in the chair, dimly lit by the street-light
from the window. The cassette is turning.

		MALLOY
	How did you do that?

		LOUIS
	The same way you do it. A series of
	simple gestures. Only I moved too
	fast for you to see. I'm flesh and
	blood, you see. But not human. I
	haven't been human for two hundred
	years.

Malloy is speechless, frightened yet enthralled.

		LOUIS
	What can I do to put you at ease?
	Shall we begin like David
	Copperfield? I am born, I grow up.
	Or shall we begin when I was born
	to darkness, as I call it. That's
	really where we should start, don't
	you think?

		MALLOY
	You're not lying to me, are you?

		LOUIS
	Why should I lie? 1791 was the year
	it happened. I was twenty-four -
	younger than you are now.

		MALLOY
	Yes.

		LOUIS
	But times were different then. I
	was a man at that age. The master
	of a large plantation just south of
	New Orleans...

						 DISSOLVE
						 TO:


EXT. LOUISIANA - DAY (1791)

A disheveled Louis, hair in pigtail, in deep pocket
frock coat, rides his horse through the fields of
indigo, passing an overseer and slaves at work.

He passes slave quarters and the distant colonial
mansion of Pointe du Lac.

He comes to a small parish church and a graveyard. he
dismounts and walks through the tombs to an elaborate
one in Greek Style.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	I had just lost my wife in
	childbirth. She and the infant had
	been buried less than half a year.

There is a marble angel above the tomb, feminine, with
a tiny cherub angel in her arms. Louis looks from the
angel, down to the inscriptions on the tomb:

"DIANNE DE POINTE DU LAC 1763 - 1791
INFANT JEAN MARIE - 1791"

Louis rips away the vines already covering the
inscription, then drinks from a pocket-flask. His face
is ashen.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	I was twenty-four and life seemed
	finished. I couldn't bear the pain
	of their loss. I longed for a
	release from it.


INT. WATERFRONT TAVERN - NIGHT

Louis in ragged lace and dirty brocade sitting between
two whores at a gaming table, drinking absinthe. All
around him flatboatmen, whores, gamblers, black African
freedmen.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	I wanted to lose everything. My
	wealth, my estate, my sanity. But
	Lady Luck didn't oblige.

Louis displays a hand of four aces. A gambler at the
table stands in fury, over turning money, cards,
drinks.

		LOUIS
	You're calling me a cheat?

		GAMBLER
	I'm calling you a piece of shit -

The Gambler pulls out a pearl-handled pistol and points
it at Louis. The crowd hushes and draws back. Louis
smiles drunkenly and stands. he rips open his lace
shirt, exposing his chest.

		LOUIS
	Then do me a favor. Get rid of this
	piece of shit...

The Gambler's finger on the trigger. His hand shakes.

		LOUIS
	You lack the courage of your
	convictions, sir. Do it.

LESTAT, a hooded figure in the corner, smiles from
beneath the shadow of his hood. Gleaming blue eyes.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	Most of all I longed for death. I
	know that now. I invited it, a
	release from the pain of living...

The Gambler lowers his gun, scowling. Louis pockets the
fistfulls of coins he has won.


EXT. WATERFRONT - NIGHT

Loud, crowded riverfront taverns full of ruffians.
Louis staggers down, an arm around a whore, drinking
from a bottle. A pockmarked pimp follows behind.

		LOUIS
	My invitation was open to anyone.
	Sailors, thieves, whores and
	slaves...


EXT. WHARF - NIGHT

Louis, quite insensible, being propped up against a
wall by the whore in a dank wharf over the water. The
pimp rifles his pockets, then pulls a knife, about to
slice his throat, when a shadow falls over him. He
turns, and we see the face of Lestat, who lifts him
into the air by his throat, breaking his neck. the
whore screams and Lestat's other hand clamps over her
mouth. Lestat drags her towards him. Louis falls to the
ground, supported no more, insensible. Close on his
face, as we hear the last breaths of life of the whore,
off.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	But it was a vampire that accepted.


IN THE WATER

The bodies of the thief and whore float by. Above on
the wharf, Louis, now awake, stares down at them. He
turns, to see Lestat, towering above him.

		LESTAT
	They would have killed you -

		LOUIS
	Then my luck would have changed.

		LESTAT
	You want death? Is it death you
	want?

		LOUIS
	Yes...

Lestat floats down on top of him, then lifts him in the
air, draws his head back by the hair and sinks his
teeth in his neck.


ON LOUIS' FACE

Every muscle rigid, teeth clenched, as the blood is
drained from him.


ON THEIR FEET

Hovering above the ground, like two quivering dancers.

THE WIND billows through the ghostly white sails and
rigging of the boats around the wharf.


LESTAT

Floats higher, with Louis in his arms, draining his
blood. One hand reaches out and grips a rope, hanging
from a shipmast. The other holds Louis. He withdraws
his teeth, and looks into Louis' drained face.

		LESTAT
	You still want death? Or have you
	tasted it enough?

Louis can barely get the words out.

		LOUIS
	Enough...

Lestat smiles and lets him go. Louis falls and plummets
into the water below.


LOUIS' FACE

Coming to the surface, in the water lapping by the
wharf. The bodies of the whore and thief float beside
him. He looks up and sees Lestat way above him,
dangling from the rope of the shipmast.


INT. ROOM - SAN FRANCISCO

ON MALLOY'S FACE

Captivated, terrified, enthralled.

		MALLOY
	That's how it happened?

		LOUIS
	No. The Gift of Darkness requires
	more than that, as you'll see.


EXT. WATERFRONT - DAY

Louis floating by mudflats, surrounded by dead fish,
the carcasses of animals, eighteenth century rubbish.
He gets to his feet and walks weakly through the
mudflats. The sun is coming up over the sea behind him.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	He left me half dead that morning.
	he wanted something from me. He
	came back the following night.


INT. LAVISH FRENCH-FURNISHED BEDROOM AT POINT DU LAC

Louis is delirious in a four-poster bed, shrouded with
mosquito netting. A female slave, YVETTE, bathes his
face with a rag. She is crying. Other slave women hover
in the shadows. Yvette puts out all candles save one by
the bed, and withdraws, with the others.

Candlelight flickers on the face of the bisque virgin.

Louis tosses and turns, dreaming, murmuring
incoherently. Then he opens his eyes.

LESTAT, exquisitely dressed in French clothing, stands
by the bed smiling. In the light of the candle we see
that he is not human; skin too white; eyes too bright.
Lestat looks amiable, even mischievous, but impossible
- and angel or monster.

Louis grabs his pistol from the table and cocks it.

		LOUIS
	Who the hell are you? What are you
	doing in my house?

		LESTAT
	And a beautiful house it is too.
	Yours is a good life, isn't it?

Louis takes aim. Lestat puts his hand over the barrel.
Louis fires. The bullet tears a hole in Lestat's hand.
Lestat is unfazed. He takes the gun from Louis' hand
and throws it away. His hand begins to heal.

		LESTAT
	You're not afraid of anything, are
	you?

		LOUIS
	Why should I be?

Louis reaches for his sword, hanging by the bed, and
point it. Lestat laughs indulgently. He draws closer.

		LESTAT
	Are you going to put that through
	me too? Ruin my beautiful clothes?

He comes closer to Louis, right up to his face, so the
sword passes through his waistcoat.

		LESTAT
	Were all last night's promises for
	nothing?

He reaches out with his now-healed hand and plucks out
the sword.

		LOUIS
	What do you want from me?

		LESTAT
	I've come to answer your prayers.
	You want to die, don't you? Life
	has no meaning anymore, does it?

Lestat sits down on the bed, drawing up one knee. Louis
is becoming spellbound.

		LESTAT
	The wine has no taste. The food
	sickens you. There seems no reason
	for any of it, does there? But what
	if I could give it back to you?
	Pluck out the pain and give you
	another life? And it would be for
	all time? And sickness and death
	could never touch you again?

The vampire theme rises, with the sound of a heartbeat.

						 DISSOLVE
						 TO:


EXT. GRAVEYARD - NIGHT

The camera drifts through the graveyard where Louis'
wife is buring. Everything is lit with an eerie glow,
as if seen through some unearthly eye.

		LESTAT
	Vampires, that's what we are.
	Creatures of darkness, only we see
	it that darkness more clearly than
	any mortal has ever seen...

Louis and Lestat drifting, dreamlike, through the
overhanging vines, comes to the grave of his wife and
child. Above the crypt, the statue of angel, mother and
child.

		LESTAT
	Wouldn't it be sweet to bid pain
	goodbye? To wave away anguish and
	grief? To embrace the peace of the
	unending night?

The marble fingers of the child on the statue move. The
angel raises her head and has the face of Louis wife,
Diane. she raises her hand and touches Louis tear-
streamed face. The child speaks.

		MARBLE CHILD
	Papa...

Louis reaches out to embrace them and finds himself
touching cold marble. He cries out in anguish-

		LOUIS
	Diane!!!!

		LESTAT
	They are gone, Louis. Death took
	them. Death which you can now
	destroy...

		LOUIS
	NO!!!!!


INT. LOUIS BEDROOM - NIGHT

Louis, thrashing on the bed in a delirium. Lestat
places a hand on his forehead and soothes him.

		LESTAT
	You have to ask me for this. You
	have to want it, do you hear me?

		LOUIS
	Give it to me!!!

		LESTAT
	Vampires. We thrive on blood.

		LOUIS
	I want it!

Lestat bends close as if to drink Louis' blood. Louis
does not shrink back, but stares into his eyes. Lestat
draws back, then stands up and goes to the French
doors.

		LESTAT
	Tomorrow night. You must prove
	yourself. I will give you the
	choice I never had.

He looks outside.

		LESTAT
	The sun's coming up. Watch it
	carefully. If you come with me
	tomorrow, you'll never see it
	again.

He leaves. Louis sits dazed, staring at the empty
French window. The sun rises with unnatural beauty,
over the swamplands and the plantation, filling the
room, striking water-pitcher, glass, mirror, and the
picture of his dead wife.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	My last sunrise. That morning I was
	not yet a vampire, and I saw my
	last sunrise. I remember it
	completely, yet I don't remember
	any sunrise before it. I watched
	the whole magnificence of the dawn
	for the last time, as if it were
	the first. And the I said goodbye
	to sunlight and went out to become
	what I became.


EXT. PLANTATION - NIGHT

Lestat and Louis walk through the slave quarters,
huddles groups around fires, music, singing. The sound
of whipping is heard.

		LESTAT
	Your grief has unhinged you. You've
	let your estate rot.

In the woods beyond the quarters, the white overseer is
whipping a black slave, with horrifying savagery.

		LESTAT
	You let your overseer run riot,
	work your slaves to the bone. We'll
	start with him.

		LOUIS
	How do you mean, start?

		LESTAT
	Call him.

Louis calls.

		LOUIS
	Carlos!!!

The overseer turns and comes towards them, with the
bloodied whip.

		LESTAT
	Why the bloody whip, Carlos?

The overseer looks into his eyes, shivers with terror,
drops the whip and runs for the trees. Lestat is on him
in an instant. He sinks is teeth in his neck. Louis
runs to him, tries to pull him off. But Lestat turns to
Louis and smiles, with his bloodied mouth.

		LESTAT
	Let's call that a start.

		LOUIS
	I can't do it.

		LESTAT
	You've just done it -

		LOUIS
	Kill me if you will, but I can't do
	this...

He flees, as Lestat ends to finish off the overseer.


EXT. POINTE DU LAC - NIGHT

Louis running up the steps leading to the gallery. He
is crazed with guilt. He looks up and sees -


LESTAT

Sitting collected at the head of the steps.


LOUIS

Backs away as Lestat rises and descends the steps so
fluidly he hardly seems to move.

		LESTAT
	Don't worry. He was white trash,
	they come at two a penny. I dumped
	him in the swamp and untied the
	slave, licked his wounds clean.

		LOUIS
	You're the devil, aren't you?
	That's who you are.

		LESTAT
		(gently)
	I wish I were. But if I were, what
	would I want with you?

		LOUIS
	I can't go through with it, I tell
	you.

		LESTAT
	Your perfect. Your bitter and
	you're strong.

		LOUIS
	But why do you want me?

		LESTAT
	Because you're as strong as I was
	when I was alive.

Louis takes out his flask and drinks. Drunkenly, he
turns and heads for a nearby swamp.


EXT. CEMETERY - NIGHT

Louis stops again in front of the crypt. Drinks from
the flask, leans his forehead against the stone.

Lestat appears beside him, radiant, beautiful.

		LESTAT
	You really want to be with them?

		LOUIS
	Yes. Kill me. Kill me like you
	promised -

		LESTAT
	You asked for death. I didn't
	promise it -

In a quiet rage, Lestat raise his fist and shatters the
marble face stone, revealing a coffin below. His fist
shatters that in turn, revealing the half-rotted body
of a women, holding an infant, no longer recognizable
as individuals, a tangle of gruesome rotted hair,
flesh, eaten away lace, insects and worms crawling over
it.

Louis gasps.

		LESTAT
	It's not your wife and child my
	friend. It's death. Just that
	simple. Think and choose. It
	happens to everyone. Except us.

Lestat stares at him, smiling, becoming a hazy
dreamlike vision, then hyperclear. Louis again is
spellbound. He drops the flask, which shatters on the
stones.

Lestat appears angelic in his radiance.

		LESTAT
	We shall be this way always, my
	friend. Young as we are now. I'm
	lonely for a companion, lonely for
	your strength. But I'm not that
	lonely. Do you want to come or not?

Louis capitulates in one long sigh.

		LOUIS
	Yes...

Lestat comes closer, smiling.

		LESTAT
	Did I hear a yes?

		LOUIS
	Yes...

Lestat embraces Louis, obscuring his face. He drinks
his blood. We hear two heartbeats, out of sync, coming
together. We see Louis' face, growing paler, paler, as
his blood is drained. His eyes stare upwards, losing
their focus.


LOUIS' POV

The moon, through hanging vines. The marble statue of
his wife and child smile at him, as if come alive. Her
hair blows in the breeze, wonderful gold tresses, the
child's fingers reach out...


BACK TO SCENE

Lestat lets Louis fall down beside the broken crypt.
Louis looks from the rotting bodies to Lestat above
him. radiant. Lestat speaks gently.

		LESTAT
	I've drained you to the point of
	death. If you drink from me you
	live for ever. If I leave you here
	you die.

Lestat lifts his hand to his lips and blows Louis a
kiss.

		LOUIS
	No. Don't leave me here. Give it to
	me.

Lestat lifts his own right wrist to his teeth. Fangs
slash his own flesh, blood falls.

		LESTAT
	You're sure?

		LOUIS
	Sure...

Louis rises to accept the first drops with his open
mouth. Lestat gathers him up, as Louis clamps his hand
on Lestat's arm and drinks from the wrist.

The VAMPIRE THEME swells.

Lestat watches him drink his wrist with wry amusement.
Louis finishes, staggers away from him as if drunk.


LOUIS' POV

Vampire vision. The world is transformed, the swamp,
the moon, the clouds, the cry of the night birds all
come to him with unnatural clarity. He looks down with
pity at the corpses of his wife and child who appear
beautiful in death now rather than repulsive. He closes
the lid of the coffin and replaces it in the ground,
astonished at the ease of it.

He turns and stares at Lestat whom he sees now with
vampire's vision. Lestat's eyes are brighter, his
buttons are glimmering in the light. Everything is
clearer, brighter, containing more facets of light and
color.

		LESTAT
	Stop staring at my buttons. Didn't
	I tell you it was going to be fun?

Lestat leads him into the swamp. Everything astonished
Louis, as if he's never seen it before. Louis is
suddenly racked by shudders of pain.

		LESTAT
	You're body's dying. Pay no
	attention. It will take twenty
	minutes at most.

		LOUIS
	Dying?

Louis dry-retches.

		LESTAT
	It happens to us all.

Lestat wipes Louis' brow.

		LESTAT
	Come, you're going to feed now.

		LOUIS
	I want a woman.

Lestat laughs and his laughter echoes like bells in
Louis' ears.

		LESTAT
	That doesn't matter anymore, Louis.
	You'll see. Come...


LOUIS' VAMPIRE POV - SWAMP

Small high ground. Camp of runaway slaves. Several
share a bottle of rum around the fire. A male slave
rises. A gorgeous hunk of flesh in the moonlight and
goes into the swamp to relieve his bladder.

		LESTAT
	They're all beautiful now. Men,
	women, the old, the young...simply
	because they are alive. -

The slave walks towards them in the darkness. A
crucifix gleams round his neck.

		LESTAT
	Take him.

		LOUIS
	The crucifix -

		LESTAT
	Forget the crucifix. Take him.

Louis hesitates.

		LESTAT
	Resist no more Louis. Feed...

The slave looks up and sees them. Two gleaming white
beings standing before him with devil's eyes. The he
runs.

Louis can resist him no more. He swoops on him with a
vampire's rapid movement, brings him to the ground and
sinks his teeth in his neck.

Close on Louis feeding on the slave, the magnificent
body shuddering in its death-throes. Lestat stands
above, laughing.

The slave dies. Louis rises from him, drunkenly,
engorged with blood.

		LOUIS
	What have I done?

		LESTAT
	You have fed. You were made for
	this...

Louis looks down at the body of the slave. Lestat's
laughter echoes around him.

		LOUIS
	Dear God, what have I done?

		LESTAT
	You've killed Louis. And enjoyed
	it.

Lestat laughs harder. Louis runs from him, screaming in
anguish.


EXT. GRAVEYARD - NIGHT

Louis reaches his wife's grave. He falls to his knees,
throws back his head and bares his new fangs to the
moon.

		LOUIS
	Dear God, what have I become????


INT. ROOM. SAN FRANCISCO - NIGHT

Malloy stares at Louis, terrified and enthralled.

		MALLOY
	You said the slave had a
	crucifix...

		LOUIS
	Oh, that rumor about crosses?

		MALLOY
	You can't look at them...

		LOUIS
	Nonsense, my friend. I can look on
	anything I like. And I am
	particularly fond of looking on
	crucifixes.

		MALLOY
	The story about stakes through the
	heart?

		LOUIS
	The same. As you would say today...
	Bull shit.

		MALLOY
	What about coffins?

		LOUIS
	Coffins... coffins unfortunately
	are a necessity...


EXT. MANSION - NIGHT

Louis walks up the steps to the mansion. He looks now
like a fully-fledged vampire. Yvette, the slave girl
stares at him from the open doorway. Cascades of
harpsichord music come from the interior.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	Killing is no ordinary act. It is
	the experience of another's life
	for certain. That night I had lost
	my own life and taken another's. I
	was drowning in a sea of human
	guilt and regret, with all the
	heightened senses of a vampire...

Louis enters the mansion, following the harpsichord
music, as if in a dream. Yvette draws back as he
approaches.


INT. MANSION - NIGHT

Louis wanders into the parlor, where Lestat is playing
the harpsichord rapidly and exuberantly. Louis goes to
a full-length mirror and sees his own reflection there
- quite the perfect vampire.

		LESTAT
	Yes, that's you, my handsome
	friend. And you'll look that way
	till the stars fall from heaven.

		LOUIS
	It can't be...

		LESTAT
	Give it time. You're like a man who
	loses a limb and still imagines he
	feels pain. It will pass. And we
	must sleep now. I can feel the sun
	approaching.


EXT. POINTE DU LAC

Dawn spreading over the plantation.


INT. BASEMENT - POINTE DU LAC

A brick walled storage room. Two coffins stand on the
floor. Lestat enters with a lantern, Louis behind.
Lestat is apprehensive and protective of Louis. He
pulls back one lid ot reveal a satin interior.

		LESTAT
	You must get into it. It's the only
	safe place for you when the light
	comes.

		LOUIS
	And if I don't?

		LESTAT
	The sun will destroy the blood I've
	given you. Every tissue, every
	vein. The fire in this lantern
	could do that too.

Louis approaches the coffin, hands trembling as he
peers into it.

		LESTAT
	Don't be afraid. In moments you'll
	be sleeping as soundly as you ever
	slept. And when you awake I'll be
	waiting for you, and so will all
	the world.

Louis crawls into the coffin, fearful yet fascinated.

		LOUIS
	You told me something earlier. You
	said you didn't have a choice. Was
	that true?

Lestat smiles bitterly and nods.

		LESTAT
	Someday I'll tell you. We have a
	lot of time to talk to each other.
	You might say... we have all the
	time we shall ever need.

He closes the lid.

Total darkness. Sounds of Louis' panicked breathing. Of
his prayer again.

		LOUIS
	Dear God, what have I done?


INT. DINING ROOM - NIGHT

Louis and Lestat sitting at a sumptuous table, piled
with uneaten food. Lestat is going through sheafs of
documents.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	I awoke the next evening to a
	different world. And I realized
	there are as profound differences
	between vampires as between human
	beings...

Lestat, totting up figures on a piece of paper.

		LESTAT
	Your wealth, dear Louis, is
	inestimable. Your income from
	cotton alone will keep us in
	comfort for a century.

Louis just stares at him.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	I sat there staring at him with
	contempt. He had the soul of a
	shopkeeper, he was the sow's ear
	out of which nothing fine could be
	made. I felt sadly cheated in
	having him as a teacher...

Lestat looks up at him and grins.

		LESTAT
	You'll get used to killing. Just
	forget about that mortal coil.
	You'll become accustomed to things
	all too quickly.

		LOUIS
	Do you think so?

Yvette enters, stands behind him, staring at Lestat
with loathing.

		YVETTE
	You are not hungry, sir...

		LESTAT
	Au contraire, my dear. He could eat
	a horse...

Lestat laughs loudly. Louis turns and looks at Yvette.
Her beautiful forehead in the candlelight, the veins
pulsing on her neck and her hands.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	I looked at anything mortal and saw
	all life as precious, condemning
	all fruitless guilt and passion
	that would let it slip through the
	fingers like sand...

Yvette returns his stare, troubled.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	It was only as a vampire that I
	could see Yvette's beauty. Her fear
	of me increased my desire.

Yvette reaches for his uneaten plate. Louis stops her
hand. Holds it for a beat too long, looking at the
veins in her wrist.

		LOUIS
	I will finish it, Yvette. Now leave
	us.

She turns and runs from the table. Lestat leans towards
him.

		LESTAT
	Can't you pretend, you fool? Don't
	give the game away. We're lucky to
	have such a home.

His hand snakes out under the table. It comes up
holding a large grey rat.

		LESTAT
	Pretend to drink, at least.

He bares his fangs and slices the rat's throat. He
pours the blood into a crystal glass.

		LESTAT
	Such fine crystal shouldn't go to
	waste...

He hands the glass to Louis. Louis drinks the blood and
stares at it in surprise, then at the dead rat on the
fine lace tablecloth.

		LESTAT
	I know. It gets cold so fast.

		LOUIS
	We can live like this? Off the
	blood of animals?

Lestat shrugs.

		LESTAT
	I wouldn't call it living. I'd call
	it surviving. A useful trick if
	you're caught for a month on a ship
	at sea.

Lestat strokes the belly of the dead rat, studying it
sadly.

		LESTAT
	There's nothing in the world now
	that doesn't hold some...

		LOUIS
	Fascination...

		LESTAT
	Yes. And I'm bored with this
	prattle -

He throws the rat away.

		LOUIS
	But we can live without taking
	human life. It's possible.

		LESTAT
	Anything is possible. But just try
	it for a week. Come into New
	Orleans and let me show you some
	real sport!

He rises. Louis follows.


EXT. NEW ORLEANS - NIGHT

A big, lavish drinking place with a raised stage.

Italian actors in buffoonish costumes act crude
commedia dell'arte on the stage.

Plantation owners in soiled brocade, lace, crooked wigs
watch the show as tavern wenches move about.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	This was New Orleans, a magical and
	magnificent place to live. In which
	a vampire, richly dressed might
	attract no more notice in the
	evening than hundreds of other
	exotic creatures.

Louis and Lestat by a table, in the shadow of a tree.
Teresa, a tavern wench, sits on Lestat's lap, pouring
drinks for the two of them. She lifts a fresh glass to
Lestat's lips as he flirts with her.

		TERESA
	Come on, mon cher. The best in the
	colony. Once you touch this you'll
	never go to any other tavern again.

		LESTAT
	You think so, cherie? But what if
	I'd rather taste your lips?

		TERESA
	My lips are even sweeter still...

She kisses him. He lets his tongue play with hers, then
runs it down her neck. She swoons with pleasure. Then
he sinks his teeth gently in her neck, looking
playfully behind at Louis, who if appalled and
fascinated.


ANTICS ON THE STAGE

Laughter rocks the tavern.

Lestat slips the pale and dead Teresa into a chair
beside him and folds her hands on the table. No one
notices. He lays gold coins on the table and touches
Louis' knee.

		LESTAT
	Let's get out of here!

Lestat rushes out, thrilled with himself.


EXT. TAVERN - NIGHT

A crowded street. Louis and Lestat emerge from the
tavern. Louis looks up at the moon.

		LOUIS
	Have you ever been caught?

		LESTAT
	Of course not. It's so easy you
	almost feel sorry for them.

They walk down the crowded night street, full of ladies
in their finery, freed slaves, whores, sailors etc.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	Lestat killed two, sometimes three
	a night. A fresh young girl, that
	was his favorite for the first of
	the evening.


INT. FRENCH QUARTER MANSION - BALLROOM

Small orchestra plays for colonial couples in fine wig
and garb prancing to a French minuet. Young women sit
in chairs along the walls with their chaperones. Young
men stand opposite.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	But the triumphant kill of Lestat
	was a young man. They represented
	the greatest loss to Lestat because
	they stood on the threshold of the
	maximum possibility of life.

A youth of preternatural beauty, silhouetted against
French windows. He is talking to an elegant widow,
seated, holding two manicured poodles. Lestat stares at
the youth with longing.

		LESTAT
	The trick is not to think about it.
	See that one? The widow St. Clair?
	she had that gorgeous young fop
	murder her husband. She's perfect
	for you. Go ahead.

		LOUIS
	But how do you know?

		LESTAT
	Read her thoughts.

		LOUIS
	I can't.

		LESTAT
	The dark gift is different for each
	of us. But one thing is true of
	everyone. We grow stronger as we go
	along.

He leads Louis closer to them.

		LESTAT
	Take my word for it. She blamed a
	slave for his murder. And do you
	know what they did to him?

He smiles at the young man, who smiles in return.

		LESTAT
	The evildoers are easier. And they
	taste better...


EXT. LAWNS - NIGHT

Lestat walks the youth towards a copse of trees. He
looks back at Louis, who holds both poodles on a
delicate leash, walking with the widow. The minuet
spills from the french windows.

		WIDOW ST. CLAIR
	Now, young man, you really amaze
	me! I'm old enough to be your
	grandmother.

She leans towards him concquettishly. Louis, crazed
with hunger, sees her as beautiful in the moonlight. He
allows her lips reach his. He takes her in his arms,
gently, romantically, and sinks in his teeth. She
swoons.

		WIDOW ST. CLAIR
	Yes, that's the melody, I remember
	it. Oh yes...

Louis draws his lips away. She is weak in his arms, but
still alive. He can't do it. The poodles growl. He
shoots out an arm and grabs one, then the other.


EXT. TREES - NIGHT

Lestat, bending over the body of the dead youth. A
scream pierces the night.

		WIDOW ST CLAIR
	Murder!!! Murderer!!


EXT. LAWNS. NIGHT

The widow on the grass, her poodles dead beside her.
Louis is trying to quiet her.

		WIDOW ST CLAIR
	My little papillions! My
	butterflies!!! He killed them!!!

Lestat comes from nowhere, claps a hand over her mouth
and breaks her neck. He spits in fury at Louis.

		LESTAT
	You whining coward of a vampire who
	prowls the night killing rats and
	poodles. You could have finished us
	both!

Louis throws himself on Lestat with extraordinary
force, pummeling him towards the trees.

		LOUIS
	What have you done to me? You've
	condemned me to hell.

		LESTAT
	I don't know any hell -

Louis hurls him against tree after tree with a strength
he never knew he had.

		LOUIS
	You want to see me kill? Watch me
	kill you then -

He drags him to the ground an throttles him. Lestat
looks up at him, amazed and amused at the same time.

		LESTAT
	What strength, my friend, what
	strength. I remember why I chose
	you now.

Lestat squirms from his grip, seemingly effortlessly.

		LESTAT
	But you can't kill me, Louis. Nor I
	you.

He ruffles Louis' hair, with wry affection.

		LESTAT
	Feed on what you want, mon cherie.
	Rats, chickens, doves, goats. I'll
	leave you to it and watch you come
	round. Just remember, life without
	me would be even more unbearable...

He smiles. A sly, pleasurable secret secret smile.


EXT. POINTE DU LAC - NIGHT

Their carriage draws up to the mansion as the first
fingers of light spread across the sky.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	Being a vampire to him meant
	revenge. Revenge against life-
	itself. Every time he took a life
	it was revenge. and the slaves with
	a wisdom that was denied their
	masters, began to notice...


INT. SLAVE-HUT - NIGHT

In a tiny cabin, a slave family. Kids sleeping on the
floor, in cribs and cots. The parents sleep on the bed,
young, beautiful, naked. Beside them is Lestat, who is
drinking the husband's blood, his hand playing across
the breast of the wife as he does so. She murmurs in
her sleep.

		WIFE
	Yes... please...

She grabs his fingers and kisses them, thinking him to
be her husband. Lestat gently disengages himself and
leaves.


EXT. SLAVE-HUT - NIGHT

The woman's scream pierces the sky, as Lestat walks
into the night.


EXT. CHICKEN-COOP - NIGHT

Every chicken is dead, bloodies necks hanging down from
the cribs. Louis emerges from the entrance, blood on
his lips. He hears the scream.


EXT. SLAVE QUARTER - NIGHT

The sound of drumming is heard, African, primal. The
woman runs through the quarters, screaming grief.
Others gather at doorways, restrain and console her.


EXT. DOVE-COTE - DAY

A beautiful, elaborate eighteenth century dove-cote.
Every dove inside is dead, pierced at the neck. A black
hand throws in a flaming torch and it bursts into
flame.


INT. CABIN - NIGHT

A doll, made in the image of Lestat, is pierced with
needles.


EXT. SWAMP BY FIELDS - DAY

Bodies of slaves floating in the swamp, with the bodies
of goats. Slaves at the edge throw ropes around the
bodies, pull them towards the shore. The drumming grows
louder.


EXT. SLAVE-QUARTERS - NIGHT

Louis walking through. The slaves hush as he
approaches, gather in doorways and whisper. He turns
and looks at them, sorrowfully. He looks truly like a
ghost. Their eyes turn away when they meet his. He
walks on.


INT. DINING ROOM IN MANSION - NIGHT

Lestat and Louis sit at the table, the untouched food
between them.

		LESTAT
	Consider yourself lucky. In Paris a
	vampire has to be clever for many
	reasons. Here all one needs is a
	pair of fangs.

		LOUIS
	Paris? You came from Paris?

		LESTAT
	As did the one who made me.

		LOUIS
	Tell me about him. You must have
	learnt something from him! It had
	to happen for you as it did for me!

		LESTAT
	I learnt absolutely nothing. I
	wasn't give a choice, remember?

		LOUIS
	But you must know something about
	the meaning of it all, you must
	know where we come from, why we...

Lestat spits out in anger.

		LESTAT
	Why? Why should I know these
	things? Do you know them?

The drumming grows outside.

		LESTAT
		(gripping his temples)
	That noise! It's driving me mad!
	We've been in the country for
	weeks, with nothing but that
	noise!!!

		LOUIS
	They know about us. They see us
	dine on empty plates and drink from
	empty glasses.

		LESTAT
	Come the New Orleans then. There's
	an opera on tonight. A real french
	opera! We can dine in splendor!

		LOUIS
	I respect life, don't you see? For
	each and every human life I have
	respect.

		LESTAT
	Respect me a little then. I'm the
	only life you know.

Louis stares. Lestat turns childishly, petulantly.

		LESTAT
	You'll soon run out of chickens,
	Louis...

He walks out, humming a French aria. Louis stares at
his plate.


EXT. SLAVE QUARTERS - NIGHT

The slaves, gathered on mass around fires. Frenzied
drumming, dancing. Lestat rides through, scattering the
flames. The drumming stops. The slaves look towards the
house. Slowly, they begin to move towards it.


INT. POINTE DU LAC DINING ROOM - NIGHT

Louis, sitting in despair by the table. Yvette, the
slave girl enters.

		YVETTE
	Michi Louis? You don't want any
	supper?

Louis laughs harshly.

		LOUIS
	No, ma cher. I need no supper. Is
	all well at Pointe Du Lac tonight?

Yvette draws closer. Light reveals her beauty.

		YVETTE
	We worry about you master. When do
	you ride about the fields? How long
	since you've been to the slave
	quarters? Everywhere there is
	death. Animals, men. Are you our
	master still at all?

Louis watches her sadly. He's getting hungry. Her
throat is long and slender, her breasts are gorgeous.

		LOUIS
		(dazed)
	Leave me alone now, Yvette.

		YVETTE
	I will not go unless you listen to
	me. Send away this new friend of
	yours. The slaves are frightened of
	him. They are frightened of you.

She comes closer, and he can hear her beating heart.
She touches his hair. He takes her hand and brings it
to his lips.

		LOUIS
	I am frightened of myself, Yvette.

He kisses her wrist. She suddenly gasps, sharply,
withdraws her hand. She sees her wrist is red with
blood. She sees the blood on his lips. She screams.

Louis stands.

		LOUIS
	Hush, Yvette -

She screams even louder. Louis clamps his hand over her
mouth. Her hand grips the table-cloth, pulls, bringing
the empty glasses and crockery to the floor.

In horror, Louis realizes he has broken her neck. He
brings her cut wrist to his lips, then drops it,
revolted. He carries her body outside, grief-stricken.

The drumming grows louder.


EXT. MANSION - NIGHT

Fires burning in the distance, round the slave-cabins.
The slaves are gathered at the foot of the mansion
steps. They see Louis come out, holding the body of
Yvette. He is deranged with grief.

		LOUIS
	This place is cursed. Damned, do
	you hear me? And your master is the
	devil.

He places the body of Yvette in a rocking chair on the
veranda.

		LOUIS
	Get out while you can. You're free
	men.

They don't move. They stare at him blankly.

		LOUIS
	Unlike me, you are no free men...

He turns behind him, and looks at the mansion, all
candelabra and chandeliers lighted, all windows open.

		LOUIS
	Do I have to convince you?

He rushed up the stairs, snatches up the candelabra and
sets fire to the drapes. He goes from window to window,
lighting drapes, lace curtains, everything.


SLAVES POV - MASTER

Setting fire to the house.

They rush up the stairs with shouts of "STOP HIM, HE'S
MAD". A wall of flame gushes out from the interior,
blocking their way.


INT. BURNING MANSION - NIGHT

Louis, wandering from room to room of the burning
mansion. he sees paintings of his wife consumed by the
flames. He is weakening with the fumes, the heat. We
can see this in his face, the texture of his skin.

Suddenly a large french window cascades inwards and
Lestat stands there, whip in hand. Behind him we can
see the morning sky.

		LESTAT
	You fool, what have you done?

		LOUIS
	What you wouldn't do. It's almost
	sunrise. It will be the sun or the
	fire. You said they can kill me.
	The sun or the fire!

Louis stands there, weakened, then collapses onto the
floor. Lestat darts forward and catches him before he
drops. He runs out the shattered window, carrying him
on his shoulder.


EXT. LARGE GRAVEYARD - DAWN

With many crypts. Louis, unconscious, carried over
Lestat's shoulder.


INT. CRYPT

Darkness. Louis lying on the floor of a large crypt. He
slowly comes to.

		LOUIS
	Where are we?

		LESTAT
	Where do you think, my idiot
	friend? We're in a nice filthy
	cemetery. Does this make you happy?
	Is this fitting and proper enough?

Louis laughs softly.

		LOUIS
	We belong in hell.

		LESTAT
	And what if there is no hell, or
	they don't want us there? Ever
	think of that?


INT. ROOM. SAN FRANCISCO - NIGHT

The vampire sits in silence, as if tired by his story.
Malloy speaks, hesitantly.

		MALLOY
	You loved Yvette...

		LOUIS
	Can a vampire feel love?

		MALLOY
	You loved your wife, surely.

		LOUIS
	I was human then. Might as well ask
	can an angel feel love. Both are
	blesses or cursed with a certain...
	detachment. Though whether angels
	take as long to learn it as I, I
	will never know.

He looks directly at Malloy, shocking him with his
gaze.

		LOUIS
	Yes, I loved Yvette. As I loved
	Pointe Du Lac. And as with each
	thing I loved, I destroyed it.


EXT. NEW ORLEANS - EVENING

From the sea, at evening, shrouded in mist.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	Lestat I did not love. And he
	survived.


INT. INN - EVENING

A lavish little supper chamber with coffered bed, fancy
French furniture. Open to rooftops of colonial city.
Louis sits by an open window looking out over the city.
Behind, we can hear the laughter of Lestat and tow
female voices. Louis turns and sees -

Lestat, in the main chamber with two drugged or drunked
whores. One runs her finger down his chest. The other
seems out of it.

		WHORE #1
	You're skin's icy.

		LESTAT
	Not always...

He presses his thumb on her neck and holds her tight,
sinking his teeth into her neck. After a time she falls
to the bed, dead. he turns to the other.

		LESTAT
	Your friend has no head for wine.

		WHORE
	She's stupid. I can warm that cold
	skin of yours better than she can.

		LESTAT
	Do you think so?

He rubs her breast.

		WHORE
	Why you're warm now.

		LESTAT
	Ah, but the price is pretty high.
	Your sweet friend - I exhausted
	her.

He bites her in turn, drinks her blood. She does into
the swoon.

Louis looks on in disgust. He stands.

		LOUIS
	I'm leaving you. I can't stand this
	any longer.

Lestat pulls away from the whore.

		LESTAT
	What, no flowery speeches? About
	what a monster I am? What a vulgar
	fiend?

		LOUIS
	I'm not interested in you. You
	disgust me. I'm interested in my
	own nature and know I can't trust
	you to tell me the truth about me.

		LESTAT
	What do you imagine you are Louis?

		LOUIS
	I don't pretend to know.

		LESTAT
	Don't you understand, Louis, that
	you alone of all creatures can see
	death with impunity... you alone
	under the rising moon can strike
	like the hand of God.

The girl moans.

		LOUIS
	Lestat, she's alive!!!

		LESTAT
	Vampires are killers. Predators,
	who's all seeing eyes were meant to
	give them detachment.

The girl moans again, open her eyes.

		LOUIS
	The girl, Lestat -

		LESTAT
	I know. Let her alone.

He slashes her wrist with his teeth, and lets the blood
drip into a glass.

		LESTAT
	You think you can be human. You
	think you can go back. But you
	can't. You live off the blood of
	rats now Louis. How human is that?

The girls moans again. Lestat drinks that glass.

		LESTAT
	Lie still, love...

The girl begins to scream. Lestat picks her up.

		LESTAT
	You're tired love, you want to
	sleep.

He walks to his coffin, puts her inside and sits on the
lid. We hear muffled screaming and banging from inside.

		LOUIS
	Why do you do this Lestat?

		LESTAT
	I like to do it. I enjoy it. Take
	you aesthete's taste to purer
	things. Kill them swiftly if you
	will, but do it! For now doubt, you
	are a killer Louis. Ah!

He stands up. The girl pushes the lid off, hysterical.
She looks at Louis.

		GIRL
	It's a coffin, a coffin! Get me
	out!

		LESTAT
	Of course it's a coffin. You're
	dead, love.

Louis screams at Lestat

		LOUIS
	Lestat - finish this -

		LESTAT
	You finish her - if you feel so
	much -

The girl grabs Louis and pleads.

		GIRL
	You won't let me die, will you?
	You'll save me?

		LESTAT
	But it's too late, love. Look at
	your wrist, you breast.

He picks her up again. He turns to Louis laughing.

		LESTAT
	Unless I make her one of us...

		LOUIS
	NO!!!

		LESTAT
	THEN YOU KILL HER!!!!!

The girl screams. Louis puts his hands to his ears.
Then Lestat, in a fit of pique puts his teeth to her
neck. She dies at last.

A terrible silence descends. Lestat looks at Louis.

		LOUIS
	My God... to think you... are all I
	have to learn from...

		LESTAT
	In the old world, they called it
	the dark gift, Louis. And I gave it
	to you.

Louis leaves without a word.


EXT. DANK NEW ORLEANS BACK STREETS - NIGHT

A rat scurried down a gutter, then another and another.
Louis' hand grabs the rat. We see him from behind,
walking down the street, gripping one, then another.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	Am I damned? Am I from the devil?
	Is my very nature that of a devil?
	And all the while, as these dreaded
	questions caused me to neglect my
	thirst, my thirst grew hotter, my
	veins were threads of pain in my
	flesh, my temples throbbed.

A smaller side street, in which every house is marked
with an X. The street is crawling with rats, and Louis
is following them. A man passes with a lantern.

		MAN
	Don't go that way Monsieur. It's
	the plague. Go back the way you
	came.

Louis smiles bitterly at these words, repeating them to
himself.

		LOUIS
	The way I came...

He walks on, following the rats.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	... and finally, when I could stand
	it no longer, I stood in an empty
	desolate street and heard the sound
	of a child crying.

A house, the door slightly open, marked with an X. The
sound of a child crying inside. Louis walks towards it.


INT. HOUSE - NIGHT

A little girl, pulling at a figure in a rocking chair.

		CLAUDIA
	Mama, please wake up. Mama, I'm
	frightened, please wake up.

As Louis enters, he sees the woman is dead. Her eyes
are being eaten away by rats.

Louis gasps in horror. Claudia turns. She is a radiant
doll or angel as she stretches out her hand to Louis.

		CLAUDIA
	Monsieur, please help us. Papa's
	waiting for us at the ship. Please
	wake mama, Monsieur.

She runs to him. Instinctively, he gathers her in his
arms. He looks down pitying on her beautiful face.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	And if I am damned, why do I fell
	such pity for her gaunt face? Why
	do I wish to warm her tiny arms?
	Comfort her beating heart?

She snuggles into him, suddenly utterly secure. She
tugs at his hair, brings his head down towards her. And
we see Louis shiver, as his lips go to her neck.

Her breathing becomes calm as she goes into the swoon.
Gradually another sound replaces it.

LESTAT'S LAUGHTER, GROWING LOUDER AND LOUDER.

Suddenly Louis backs away, caught red-handed, the child
in his arms. He sees Lestat slapping his knee and
laughing in the doorway.

		LESTAT
	Ah, my philosopher, my martyr.
	"Never take a human life". Well you
	must admit it is funny. Or is it
	merely touching? I'm not sure.

Louis stares at the unconscious Claudia in horror, then
lets her slip gently into a chair. Shamefully he wipes
his mouth, sees the tiny wounds on her throat.

Lestat snatches up the dead mother from the chair and
begins to dance with her in great circles, humming and
talking. Her head falls back. Black water flows from
her mouth.

		LESTAT
	Let's make some party of it, shall
	we? Maybe there's some life in the
	old lady yet?

Louis flees into the street.

		LESTAT
	Come back, Louis, you are what you
	are. The plague would have got her
	within hours anyway. Merciful Death
	how you love your precious guilt.


EXT. STREETS - NIGHT

Louis running through an assortment of streets. All the
night life of New Orleans flows by him.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	For years I had not savored a
	human. And when I had Lestat's
	words made sense to me. I knew
	peace only when I killed and when I
	heard her heart in that terrible
	rhythm I knew again what peace
	could be. Yet even then I could not
	contenance it...


EXT. WATERFRONT - DAWN

Fingers of light in the sky. Louis, pale and shivering,
walks splashing through the water. He comes to a huge
sewer-pipe, crowded with rats. He crawls inside.


EXT. WATERFRONT - SOME EVENINGS LATER

The same sewer-pipe. Now the bodies of dead rats lie
all around. A pair of fine leather boots splash through
the water - Lestat's.


INT. SEWER-PIPE - EVENING

Louis huddled there, so pale and shivering he seems
close to death. Lestat comes through.

		LESTAT
	All I need to find you Louis is
	follow the corpses of rats.

He bends down to him, surprisingly gently and puts his
own coat around him.

		LESTAT
	Pain is terrible for you. You feel
	it like no other creature because
	you are a vampire. You don't want
	it to go on.

		LOUIS
	No...

They emerge from the sewer and walk along the
waterfront.

		LESTAT
	Do what it is in your nature to do.
	And you will feel as you felt with
	that child in your arms.

		LOUIS
	Oh God Lestat. I felt peace. I felt
	an end to the craving.

		LESTAT
	That and more.

He puts his arm around Louis, to stop his shivering.

		LESTAT
	Evil is a point of view. God kills,
	indiscriminately, and so shall we.
	For no creatures under God are as
	we are, none so like him as
	ourselves.

		LOUIS
	Is God merciless? Greedy and cruel?

		LESTAT
	Ah, but we have even more in common
	with our creator. come, I am like a
	mother tonight. I want a child.

Louis is baffled. He follows.


INT. INN - SUPPER ROOM

Lestat enters.

		LESTAT
	She's here, your wounded one.

		LOUIS
	What are you saying?

		LESTAT
	You need company, Louis. More
	congenial than mine...

Lestat holds up a candle and walks towards a large four-
poster bed. Claudia lies there, angelic, under the
coverlet, two marks on her neck.

		LOUIS
	Lestat!

		LESTAT
	You remember how you wanted her,
	the taste of her -

		LOUIS
	I didn't want to kill her.

		LESTAT
	Don't worry, Louis, you're
	conscience is clear. You left her
	alive.

Lestat shakes her gently.

		LESTAT
	Claudia, Claudia, listen to me.
	You're ill, my precious and I'm
	going to give you what you need to
	get well.

		LOUIS
	Lestat, what do you mean?

Louis runs at him, but Lestat brushes him aside
effortlessly, so he falls to the floor. Lestat bites
his wrist and presses the bleeding wound to the child's
mouth... He winces in pain.

		LESTAT
	That's it dear. More. You must
	drink it to get well.

Claudia sucks on the wound, reviving, making little
noises like a person waking from sleep.

Louis rises to his feet as Claudia clutches Lestat's
arm, sucking the blood fiercely. Lestat moans.

		LESTAT
	Stop, that's enough. No more.

He pulls her loose and she growls and stares at him
with big clear astonished eyes.

		CLAUDIA
	I want more.

		LOUIS
	What have you done?

Lestat puts her down on the bed and sits beside her,
holding his wrist, obviously in pain.

		CLAUDIA
	More.

		LESTAT
	Yes, cherie, of course you want
	more. And I'll show you how to get
	it. You drink from morals, my
	beauty, but from me? Never again.

Still suffering, Lestat pulls the bell-rope.


CLOSE ON CLAUDIA

Being transformed. Becoming white yet robust, bright-
eyed yet crazed. She shakes her beautiful curls and the
dust falls from them. They are shining in the
candlelight.

Louis cannot stop looking at her. He does not notices
as -

The MAID enters.

		MAID
	Ah, quelle Belle enfant!

The maid comes near the bed, kneels in front of
Claudia. Lestat lays his hand on the maid's throat and
Claudia watches keenly.

		LESTAT
	Gently, cherie. They are so
	innocent. They must not be made to
	suffer.

Claudia lunges for the throbbing vein in the neck,
locking on to the flowing blood.

The Maid is transfixed.

Close on Louis, his anguish, his fascinated horror.

		LOUIS
	You are the devil! You are the
	instrument of Satan!

		LESTAT
	That's enough, cherie. Stop before
	the heart stops.

He lets the dead maid onto the floor. Claudia looks at
the corpse.

		CLAUDIA
	I want some more.

		LESTAT
	It's bet in the beginning, lest the
	death takes you down with it. yes,
	that's it. My child. My beloved
	child.

Lestat and Claudia sit on the Louis XVI settee. Claudia
is a vision, a doll made out of pearl. Animated, voice
crisp.

		CLAUDIA
	Where is Mamma?

The words echo in Louis' head, as he puts his hands to
his ears.

		LESTAT
	Mamma's gone to Heaven, cherie,
	like that sweet lady over there.
	They all go to Heaven. And you did
	very well, cherie. Not a drop
	spilt. Very good! You're going to
	be our child now.

Lestat takes out his comb and begins to comb her hair.

		LESTAT
	Your mama's left you with us. She
	wants you to be happy.

		LOUIS
		(whispers)
	You are the devil! You are the
	instrument of Satan!

		LESTAT
	Shhhh! Do you want to frighten our
	little daughter?

		CLAUDIA
	I'm not your daughter.

		LESTAT
	Yes you are, my dearest. You are
	mine and Louis' daughter. You see
	Louis was going to leave us. He was
	going to go away. But now he's not.
	He's going to stay and make you
	happy.

Claudia runs over to him. She smiles at him.

		CLAUDIA
	Lou...eee...

Louis is conflicted. He cannot leave her. He touches
her cheeks, her hair. Same as his. Vampire skin and
hair. He draws in his breath, shocked by her beauty,
then he embraces her as a father might a daughter. He
looks over her shoulder to Lestat.

		LOUIS
	You fiend. You monster.

Lestat smiles

		LESTAT
	One happy family.


INT. ROOM - SAN FRANCISCO

Malloy is open mouthed.

		MALLOY
	A child vampire!

He sees the tape has run out. He rapidly and clumsily
sticks in another.

		LOUIS
	Shall we go on?

		MALLOY
	He did it to make you stay with
	him!

		LOUIS
	Perhaps. He knew me. He knew I
	would love her more than the waking
	world. But there was more to it
	than that. Perhaps in the end he
	did it - to show me that he could.
	For he lavished affection on her,
	there was no doubt about that. Life
	was very different with madame
	Claudia, as you can imagine...


EXT. NEW SPANISH TOWNHOUSE - (RUE ROYALE, NEW ORLEANS)

Two husky movers bring in furniture through the back
courtyard, past the fountain and the banana trees, up
the back stairs and into -


INT. FLAT

Striped wallpaper gives way to flowers in the bedrooms.
Huge four-poster beds in the bedrooms, and large
chests, as big as coffins standing against the wall.
Everywhere there are candles and pretty Louis XVI
furniture. Lestat gives instructions to the movers.


WE MOVE INTO A DIMLY LIT PARLOUR

We see Claudia draped in lace standing on a petit point
chair as a DRESSMAKER measure out a garment.

Louis can be seen, in an inner room.

		DRESSMAKER
	Monsieur, I need more light. I
	shall go slind if you do not bring
	me a lamp, or let me fit this child
	during the day. Ouch!

She has pricked her hand. A spot of blood appears on
her finger Claudia takes her hand.

		CLAUDIA
	Let me kiss it better...

Claudia brings the hand to her lips. The dressmaker
abruptly pulls her finger away, in pain again.

CLOSEUP - her finger, two holes showing.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	A little child she was, but also a
	fierce killer, now capable of the
	ruthless pursuit of blood with all
	a child's demanding.

Lestat walks through - sees the dressmaker lying dead
at Claudia's feet, Claudia still on the chair in the
half-finished dress.

		LESTAT
	Claudia, Claudia, will you never
	learn? Who will we get now to
	finish your dress? A little
	practicality, cherie...


INT. LOUIS' BEDROOM - NIGHT

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	She would sleep in my coffin,
	daily, curl her child's fingers
	round my hair as she dreamt of I
	know not what...

Claudia and Louis, sleeping in a coffin together,
Claudia's fingers curling his hair.


INT. CLAUDIA'S BEDROOM

Claudia playing with dolls, each as perfect and
beautifully dressed as she is.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	Mute and beautiful, she played with
	dolls, dressing them and undressing
	them by the hour.


INT. PARLOUR - NIGHT

Claudia tinkling with her child's hands on the piano,
picking out a hesitant tune.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	Mute and beautiful, she killed. And
	to watch her kill was chilling.


EXT. SQUARE - NIGHT

The tinkling of Claudia's piano is heard, over -

A well-dressed lady, walking through a square lit by
gaslight. The lady hears a child's sobbing and stops,
turns.


POV

Claudia, the picture of lost innocence, sitting on a
bench and crying.

		WOMAN
	Why are you crying, child?

The woman, all solicitude, goes to Claudia.

		WOMAN
	Are you lost, my love?

		CLAUDIA
	Mama...

		WOMAN
	Hush now, don't cry, We'll find
	her...

		CLAUDIA
	Mama...

The woman takes Claudia in her arms. Claudia nestles
her head in her shoulder, her teeth near her neck.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	They found death fast in those
	days, before she learnt to play
	with the, to delay the moment till
	she had taken what she wanted...


INT. PARLOUR - NIGHT

A stern, stiff PIANO-TEACHER (male) beating time with a
ruler as Claudia picks out scales on the piano. He raps
her on the knuckles.

		PIANO-TEACHER
	The thumb girl! Mind the thumb!

Claudia glares at him, then returns to playing,
improving rapidly.


INT. DOLL-SHOP - NIGHT

Piano music over. Mozart, now well played.

Claudia staring at a glass case, inside of which are an
array of eighteenth century dolls. An old DOLLMAKER
looks down on her.

		DOLLMAKER
	They are expensive, my dear. Maybe
	too expensive for a young girl like
	you...


EXT. STREET - NIGHT

Claudia walking along, clutching the doll.


INT. DOLL-SHOP - NIGHT

The dollmaker lying dead, two puncture marks in his
throat, his dolls scattered all around him.


EXT. UNDERTAKER'S - NIGHT

Claudia and Louis looking through the window at a
display of coffins. Claudia point at the smallest one.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	She grew, yet stayed the same. She
	wanted a bed of her own, yet would
	climb back into mine.


INT. CLAUDIA'S BEDROOM - NIGHT

The child's coffin on the floor. The lid lifts. Claudia
emerges, yawning, wanders through the flat into -


LOUIS' BEDROOM

Where his coffin sits. She slides the lid off, and
curls in beside him.


INT. PARLOUR - NIGHT

Claudia playing the piano, now with remarkable
dexterity. The piano-teacher sits mute beside her. As
she plays, he topples over and falls to the ground. We
see the puncture-marks in his neck. Lestat, hearing the
noise, comes in.

		LESTAT
	Claudia, Claudia! Didn't I tell
	you, never in the house!

Claudia smiles to herself, keeps playing.


INT. CLAUDIA'S BEDROOM - NIGHT

CANARIES sing in a cage, above a child's coffin.

Claudia is writing at a secretaire. She is writing in a
diary with a quill pen in an adult hand. She murmurs
the date as she writes.

		CLAUDIA
	September 21st, one hour after
	sunset. The sky is still violet,
	the way Louis loves and as always
	Lestat was gone when we rose.

She looks up and sees Louis in the doorway, watching
her.

		LOUIS
	How did you learn to write,
	Claudia?

		CLAUDIA
	The way I learn everything. By
	watching you.

She closes the diary.

		CLAUDIA
	But you never let me see you kill,
	Louis.

		LOUIS
	Lestat taught you all you need to
	know about that.

		CLAUDIA
	Infant death, he calls me. Sweet
	daughter death. You know what he
	calls you? Merciful death.

		LOUIS
	He jests.

		CLAUDIA
	Why does he call you that?

		LOUIS
	Hush, Claudia don't talk about such
	things. Show me your book.

She opens it. Inside there is a beautiful pen and ink
portrait of Louis.

		LOUIS
	Claudia! You did that?

		CLAUDIA
	Sit still. It's not finished -

She begins to fill in the sketch.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	Time can pass fast for mortals when
	they're happy. With us it was the
	same.


EXT. RUE ROYALE - NIGHT (1800'S)

Street lamps are oil at this period. Houses are now
tall two-story Spanish style. Streets are flagstone.
Passing carriages are black.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	It was a very different life. And a
	new century was beginning. what had
	once been a small godforsaken
	French colony was growing into a
	great port, giving us an endless
	train of magnificent strangers...

Claudia, Louis and Lestat, dressed in the same clothes
walking through a raucous carnival with sideshows.
Crowd milling around, sailors, whores, children,
thieves, freed slaves, Indians. They pass a Wild West
display, jugglers, fire-eaters, three-card
tricksters...

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	All human life was here, for the
	taking. And we took, all three of
	us, in our different ways...

They come to a raised platform where a troupe of
perfectly-formed midgets do a burlesque show.

Claudia stops. She stares, at these small, perfect
creatures like herself, intrigued and troubled.

Louis and Lestat walk on, not noticing as -


CLAUDIA

Circles the troupe. She comes to a small tent, behind
it. At the entrance stands a midget youth.

		YOUTH
	You want to come inside, lovely?

Claudia walks up to him.

		YOUTH
	Ever been kissed?

Claudia shakes her head. He kisses her. Claudia allow
her to be kissed, then bites his tongue. he youth
struggles, as Claudia holds him and drains him. She
lets him go as Louis appears behind her.

		CLAUDIA
	She's like me, Louis. Small and yet
	not small at all. Like me.

Louis hurriedly draws her away.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	I watched her grow yet stay the
	same, her doll-like face possessed
	of adult eyes, eerie, powerful,
	seductive...


INT. FLAT - NIGHT

Claudia playing the piano, now like a demonic Liszt.
Louis writing.

Lestat appears in the doorway. He has a big box in his
arms.

		CLAUDIA
	Another doll? I have ten, you
	realize.

FOCUS ON early 19th Century French dolls - wood, glass,
wax, bisque - all around the bedroom, on chairs, on the
bed. Some newish, some tattered old.

		LESTAT
	Well, I thought you could use
	another.

He hands her the box. It is a fine Parisian Jumeau
doll. She likes it and stokes its face.

		CLAUDIA
	Why always on this night?

		LESTAT
	What night? What do you mean?

		CLAUDIA
	You always give me the doll on the
	same night of the year.

		LESTAT
	I didn't realize.

		CLAUDIA
	Is this my birthday?

He examines the other dolls.

		LESTAT
	Some of these are so old and
	tattered. You should throw them
	away.

		CLAUDIA
	I have. Or there would be twice as
	many.

		LESTAT
	But you're the fairest by far.

		CLAUDIA
	You dress me like a doll. You make
	my hair like a doll. Why?

Lestat doesn't answer. Claudia stands up quickly, and
strides out into the -


PARLOUR

Where Louis is reading by the window. She walks to a
mirrored cabinet, takes out a scissors and begins
cutting her hair.

		CLAUDIA
	You want me to be a doll forever?

		LOUIS
	Claudia - don't -

		CLAUDIA
	Why not?

She continues cutting. She sees Lestat emerge from her
bedroom in the mirror behind her then turns to him, an
angelic little boy's face now with soft curls around
her face.

		CLAUDIA
	Can't I change, like everybody
	else?

She walks past him, back into her bedroom and slams the
door.

A beat. Louis looks from the mass of blonde hair on the
floor to Lestat. Then a HORRID SCREAM pierces the
silence. More screams, which become roars.


INT. CLAUDIA'S BEDROOM

She stands before the dressing-table, all her long hair
grown back over her shoulders. She holds it with both
hands, screaming and screaming. Lestat and Louis come
through the door.

		CLAUDIA
	Which of you did it? Which of you
	made me the way I am?

		LESTAT
	What you are? You would be
	something other than you are?

		CLAUDIA
	And if I cut my hair again?

		LESTAT
	It will grow back again!

		CLAUDIA
	But it wasn't always so! I had a
	mother once! And Louis - he had a
	wife! He was mortal the same as
	she! And so was I!

		LOUIS
	Claudia -

She turns on Lestat.

		CLAUDIA
	You made us what we are, didn't
	you?

		LESTAT
	Stop her Louis!

		CLAUDIA
	DID YOU DO IT TO ME????

She runs at him with the scissors, scoring his face.
The cut heals. She scores it again. It heals again. She
stares at him in horror.

		CLAUDIA
		(whispering)
	How did you do it?

		LESTAT
	And why should I tell you? It's in
	my power.

		CLAUDIA
	Why yours alone? Tell me how it was
	done!!!!

		LESTAT
	Be glad I made you what you are!
	You'd be dead not if I hadn't.

He storms out. Louis goes to Claudia and picks her up
in his arms.

		LOUIS
		(tenderly)
	We're immortal. You've always known
	that.

		CLAUDIA
	Tell me why... you've got to tell
	me...

Louis carries her outside, onto the porch. There is an
old flower-seller going by.

		LOUIS
	You see the old woman? That will
	never happen to you. You'll never
	grow old. You will never die.

		CLAUDIA
	And it means something else too,
	doesn't it? I shall never, ever
	grow up.

She clutches Louis desperately.

		CLAUDIA
	I hate him. But I cannot bear to
	lose you. You're the only companion
	I have, forever. You taught me
	everything I know. Please tell me
	Louis. Tell me how it came to be
	that I am this... thing...

Louis strokes her beautiful face, her hair.

		LOUIS
	Come... I've something to show
	you...


EXT. NEW ORLEANS STREETS - NIGHT

Louis walking, holding Claudia as if he was about to
lose her.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	Though everything was changed,
	through the years had warped the
	contours of the streets, I found my
	way there, aware that I'd always
	known where it was and avoided it,
	not wanting to pass the doorway
	where I'd first heard Claudia cry.

Louis back in the same street, outside the same house.
He stands with Claudia at the window. There is a family
inside, a picture of domestic tranquility.

		LOUIS
	I heard you crying. You were there
	in a room with your mother. You
	were hugging her for warmth, crying
	pitifully as you had been for days.
	Because your mother was dead...

Claudia stares at him, suddenly very cold, very alert.

		LOUIS
	I opened the shutters... I came
	into the room... I felt pity for
	you. Pity, but something else.

He can't go on. Claudia's eyes are remorseless.

		CLAUDIA
	You... fed on me?

		LOUIS
	And he found me with you. I ran,
	sickened at what I'd done. Then he
	cut his wrist and fed you from him.
	I tried to stop him, but you were a
	vampire then. And have been every
	night hereafter.

		CLAUDIA
	You both did it?

		LOUIS
	I took your life. He gave you
	another one.

Claudia speaks through indrawn breath.

		CLAUDIA
	And here it is. And I hate you
	both.

She runs.


INT. ROOM SAN FRANCISCO

Malloy and Louis.

		MALLOY
	But why did you tell her?

		LOUIS
	How could I not? She had to know.

		MALLOY
	And did you lose her? Did she go?

		LOUIS
	Where would she have gone? She was
	a child, and beautiful,
	heartbreaking merciless child. And
	I had made her that...


EXT. STREETS - NIGHT

Louis, walking the streets, shivering.

		LOUIS
	I walked all night. I walked as I
	walked years before when my mind
	swam with guilt at the thought of
	killing. I found myself at the
	Cathedral.

A cathedral rising out of the mist, the doors open.

		LOUIS
	I thought of all the things I had
	done and couldn't undo. And I
	longed for one second's peace...

Louis walks towards the doors, inside.


INT. CATHEDRAL - NIGHT

Louis enters. The dim lights of candles. A sacristan
tending the altar, an old woman praying - otherwise
empty.

		LOUIS
	I had no fear. If anything I longed
	for something to happen, for the
	stones to tremble as I entered the
	foyer.

Louis walking down the nave of the church. He stops by
the alter.

		LOUIS
	I almost genuflected from old
	habit. I almost prayed.

Louis sits in a pew.

		LOUIS
	And then it struck me.


LOUIS' POV

The cross, the statues, the tabernacle.

		LOUIS
	What if the statues gave an image
	to nothing? What if I was the
	supernatural in this cathedral? The
	only immortal under this roof. And
	I felt nothing but loneliness.
	Loneliness to the point of madness.

Suddenly a hand is laid on his shoulder. Louis almost
jumps. He turns and sees the face of a grey-haired
priest.

		PRIEST
	You wish to go to confession? I was
	about to lock up the church.

Louis stares at him, tears in his eyes.

		PRIEST
	You are troubled, aren't you? Can I
	help?

		LOUIS
	It's too late, too late -

		PREIST
	No, it's never too late. Come...

The priest gestures to the confessional. Louis rises,
slowly.


INT. CONFESSIONAL

Louis, kneeling in the darkness. The hatch slides back.

		LOUIS
	Bless me father for I have sinned
	so often and so long, I don't know
	how to change nor beg for
	forgiveness.

		PRIEST
	Son, God is infinite in his
	capacity to forgive. Tell him from
	your heart.

		LOUIS
	Murders, father, death after death.
	The woman who died two nights ago
	in Jackson Square, I killed her.
	And thousands of others before her.
	I have walked the streets of New
	Orleans like the Grim reaper. And
	fed on human life for my own. I am
	a vampire, father, and have turned
	the one I love most of all into on
	too -

The hatch slams down. Louis rises, confused, and the
door is flung open, the priest stands there.

		PRIEST
	Do you know the meaning of
	sacrilege?

Louis rises. Walks out.

		LOUIS
	Then there is no mercy.

His face comes into the light. The priest steps back,
open-mouthed.

		LOUIS
	You talk of sacrilege. Why if God
	exists does he suffer me to exist?

He bares his fangs. The priest runs, screaming. Gets to
the bellrope, begins to ring the bell. Louis swoops on
him.

		LOUIS
	Why does he suffer me to live?

Louis takes him, lifting him from the floor, till his
feet stop kicking.


INT. FLAT - NIGHT

Louis enters, silently, 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 of stitched lace and pearls,
weirdly 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 (V.O.)
	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
	surprise 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 color.


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 thimbleful.
	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
greedily 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 them absinthe?

		CLAUDIA
	No. Laudanum.

Lestat stares wildly at her, tries to move towards 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, appalled. 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 floor is a sea of blood. Lestat has
begun to shrivel, as if he'd been a bag of blood. His
skin is shriveling 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 shriveled 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, choking. 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 mulatto 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 shriveled, 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 appalled 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
parlor 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 without 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 (V.O.)
	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.

		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 (V.O.)
	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

Trunks and cases, creaking with the ship's movement.
Dead rats everywhere.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	Claudia and I alone seemed immune.
	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 (V.O.)
	We reached the Mediterranean. I
	wanted those waters to be blue.
	They were black, nighttime waters
	and how I suffered then, straining
	to remember the color that a young
	man's senses had taken for granted,
	that my memory had let slip away
	for eternity. It was black 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 realized
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 (V.O.)
	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 (V.O.)
	We docked at Varna and searched the
	rural countryside of the
	Carpathians, for what she liked to
	term "our kind"...


MONTAGE OF SKETCHES

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 rumors, 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 (V.O.)
	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 couturiers. 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.

		CLAUDIA
	How do I look?

		LOUIS
	Still my beautiful child.

Claudia laughs.

		CLAUDIA
	A beautiful child! Is that what you
	still think I am?

		LOUIS
	Yes...

He turns away.

		CLAUDIA
	Why do you turn away? Why don't you
	look.

She twirls, looking at herself in the mirror, then
stops, stares at herself.

		CLAUDIA
	You want me to be your daughter
	forever, don't you?

		LOUIS
	Yes.

		CLAUDIA
	Well tell me, papa. What was it
	like making love?

Louis is stunned. He blushes.

		CLAUDIA
	You don't remember? Or you never
	knew.

		LOUIS
	It was something hurries...and
	seldom savored... something acute
	that was quickly lost. It was the
	pale shadow of killing.

		CLAUDIA
	But how will I ever know, Louis?

She stares at him through the mirror.

		CLAUDIA
	I'll never find them, will I? My
	own kind...


EXT. BOULEVARD - EVENING

Louis and Claudia walk along a boulevard like father
and daughter. All around them are bourgeois Parisian
families on their evening stroll. Claudia points at the
children that pass.

		CLAUDIA
	Have I anything in common with her,
	Louis?

She points to a beautiful French child walking by with
her mother.

		CLAUDIA
	Or her, or her - or any of them?

		LOUIS
	Claudia, you torture yourself.

		CLAUDIA
	They are ducklings, that will grow
	into swans. Whereas I must be the
	duckling forever.

		LOUIS
	You are more beautiful than any of
	them.


EXT. DOLL-SHOP - NIGHT

We see Madeleine, inside, painting a doll's face. Louis
and Claudia arrive outside.

		CLAUDIA
	All her dolls resemble me.


POV

Claudia's face, with the dolls in the background. The
resemblance is uncanny.

		CLAUDIA
	Are they my kind Louis? Dolls never
	change either.

		LOUIS
	You are neither, Claudia. Now stop
	this -

Madeleine sees Claudia from inside. She waves.

		LOUIS
	You know her?

		CLAUDIA
	Yes. Should I take her, Louis?
	Among her dolls? make a doll of her
	in turn?

		LOUIS
	Come, Claudia...

He takes her arm. But Claudia shakes him off, and moves
into the shop.


EXT. LATIN QUARTER - NIGHT

Louis walks briskly, head bowed.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	For a time we had been almost
	human, in the sensual whirl of what
	Paris had to offer. But the human
	delights of that city only served
	to remind her of the ageless child
	she had become. I felt her pain as
	I walked until I become aware that
	I was being followed.


CLOSEUP - LOUIS' FEET

Walking. A step echoes his.

Louis stops. Turns, sees nothing. Then walks again. The
echoing steps begin again.

Louis again. Sees a shadow, flitting.

		LOUIS
	Claudia!

Nothing. He walks again, hears the same effect. Then he
stops. He stares at a gaslamp opposite.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	So it was when I had given up the
	search for vampires that a vampire
	found me...

Santiago, a tall vampire, materializes under the
gaslight. And Louis gradually realizes that this
vampire has assumed the same attitude, posture, clothes
and hair-style as Louis.

Louis gives an involuntary shake of the head. Santiago
mimics. Louis takes a step forwards. Santiago mimics.
Louis folds his arms. Santiago mimics.

		LOUIS & STATIAGO
		(simultaneously)
	Clever.

		LOUIS
	You mean me harm?

		SANTIAGO
		(a beat later)
	You mean me harm?

Louis calculates.

		LOUIS
	Trickster. Buffoon!

Santiago echoes the first word, but not the second.
Louis has broken his composure. He turns his back on
Santiago, only to come face to face with Santiago right
in front of him.

Again Louis turns this back to find Santiago facing
him.

Louis turns, glowers, refusing to look at him.

		LOUIS
	I've searched the world for an
	immortal and this is what I find?

Slowly he looks up. Santiago draws close, breaking the
mirror trick and suddenly slams Louis back against the
wall.

Louis is furious. He regains his balance, strikes out
at Santiago and when Santiago vanishes, to reappear
behind him, Louis slams back his elbow into his
midriff. Santiago staggers, amazed and then rushes at
Louis, throwing him down.

Louis rolls back to his feet, then to his amazement
sees two vampires, on in front, on behind. He looks
both ways, then sees one has vanished. He stares,
awestruck, at this new one:

		ARMAND
	He looks like an angel.

		ARMAND
	You are all right.

He reaches into his waistcoat, takes an engraved
invitation out of his pocket and thrusts it at Louis.

Louis reads it aloud, as we see:

"THEATRE DES VAMPIRES
By Special Invitation
Friday, 9 p.m."

		ARMAND
	Bring the petit beauty with you. No
	one will harm you. I won't allow
	it. Remember my name. Armand.

Armand bows and vanishes.

Louis listens to the silence.


EXT BOULEVARD DES CAPUCHINES - THEATRE DES VAMPIRES -
NIGHT

Louis formally dressed with Claudia in rich attire on
his arm. They pass people buying tickets for the
theatre and go inside.

		LOUIS
	Remember what I've told you.
	They'll have different powers.
	They'll read your thoughts if you
	allow it.

They draw close to:


HUGE POSTERS

Reading -

"THEATRE DES VAMPIRES PRESENTS
THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH
By Edgar Allen Poe"

The posters are illustrated with cliched images of
vampires overcoming damsels in distress.


ANOTHER ANGLE

		CLAUDIA
	But this can't be real. This is
	nonsense.

		LOUIS
	Nonsense all right. But something
	tell me it's going to be the
	strangest nonsense we've ever seen.

Warily, they show their invitations to the mortal
ticket taker at the door. He glances away
indifferently.


INT. THEATRE BOX - NIGHT

Claudia and Louis look at the crowd as the lights go
down.

		CLAUDIA
	Mortals, mortals everywhere. And
	lots of drops to drink.

		LOUIS
	They are here. I know they are.
	Listen for something that doesn't
	make a sound.

Stage: curtain rises.

An elaborate painted set of an Italianate castle. Death
standing before it, the traditional image of the Grim
Reaper, complete with magnificent scythe.

		LOUIS
		(whispers)
	It's a vampire. It's the one I saw
	in Rue St Jacques.

A version of the Poe story unfolds before them. All of
the participants are vampires. All beautiful gleaming
white, aged 20 or 30.

		LOUIS
	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 laughs 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 THE 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 THE STAGE

		SANTIAGO
	Just as this flesh is pink now, it
	will turn grey and wrinkle with
	age.

		MORTAL 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 suffering.


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 Monsieur Vampire!
	I adore you!

Audience roars with laughter.


ON THE STAGE

		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 the verge of hysteria or
fainting. But then her eyes mist over. She is being
entranced.


FROM HER POV

We realize 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 naked shoulders.

		ARMAND
	Your beauty is a gift to us.


ON THE 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 THE 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 eerie 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 shadows 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
candelabra, which he hands to Armand.

Armand and the boy come towards them, leading them
along the walls, his candelabra 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 this 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 (V.O.)
	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 the 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 recognize it...

Other vampires appear behind him.

		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 loathe 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?

		CLAUDIA
	I can feel it from them! They want
	to know who made us, what became of
	him. They have their rules, their
	idiotic rules!

They come to their room, enter.


INT. HOTEL ROOMS - NIGHT

Louis closes the door behind him. Claudia paces.

		LOUIS
	Do you think I would let them harm
	you?

		CLAUDIA
	No, you would not, Louis. Danger
	hold you to me.

		LOUIS
	Love holds you to me. And we are in
	danger, not you.

		CLAUDIA
	Love?

She smiles at him. A strange, sad, adult smile.

		CLAUDIA
	You would leave me for Armand if he
	beckoned you.

		LOUIS
	Never.

		CLAUDIA
	He wants you as you want him. He's
	been waiting for you. He wants you
	for a companion. He bides his time
	that place. he finds them as dull
	and lifeless as we do.

		LOUIS
	That's not so.

		CLAUDIA
	Do you know what his soul said to
	me without saying a word? When he
	put me in that trance...

		LOUIS
	So you felt it too!

		CLAUDIA
	Let him go, he said. Let him go.

She touches his face.

		CLAUDIA
	Is that what I should do Louis? Let
	you go? My father? My lover? My
	Louis, who made me?

There are tears in her eyes. Louis lifts her up in his
arms.

		LOUIS
	He can protect us, Claudia.

		CLAUDIA
	You really believe that?


EXT. DOLL-SHIP - NIGHT

Claudia, staring at the dolls. We see Madeleine inside,
painting a doll. She sees Claudia and smiles and waves.


INT. THEATRE - NIGHT

Louis, sitting alone in the box, as the curtains draw
back, to show Santiago as death, as before. Louis takes
advantage of the darkness to slip away.


INT. ARMAND'S ROOM - NIGHT

Armand opens the door to Louis' knock.

		ARMAND
	I was waiting for you...

		LOUIS
	Listen to me.

He follows Armand into the room.

		LOUIS
	Claudia is dear to me. My...
	daughter.

		ARMAND
	Your lover.

		LOUIS
	No, my beloved, my child.

		ARMAND
	If you say so. You are innocent.

		LOUIS
	I'm not innocent. But I'm afraid.
	She feels she's in danger from the
	others.

		ARMAND
	She is.

		LOUIS
	But why?

		ARMAND
	I could give you reasons. Her
	silence. Her youth. It's forbidden
	to make so young, so helpless, that
	cannot survive on its own.

		LOUIS
	Then blame the one who made her...

		ARMAND
	Did you kill this vampire who made
	you both? Is that why you won't say
	his name? Santiago thinks you did.

		LOUIS
	We want no quarrel with him.

		ARMAND
	It's already begun. If you want to
	save her, send her away.

		LOUIS
	Then I leave too.

Armand smiles.

		ARMAND
	So soon? Without any of those
	answers you so longed for?

		LOUIS
	You said there were none.

		ARMAND
	But you asked the wrong questions.
	Do you know how few vampires have
	the stamina for immortality? How
	quickly they perish of their own
	will.

		LOUIS
	We can do that?

		ARMAND
	You would never give up life. If
	the world were reduced to one empty
	cell, on fragile candle, you stay
	alive and study it. You see too
	clearly. You see too much.

		LOUIS
	That's what the one who made me
	said.

		ARMAND
	How he must have loved you.

Armand suddenly grips Louis close to him.

		ARMAND
	Louis, I need you more than he ever
	did. I need a link with this
	century. The world changes. We do
	not. Therein lies the irony that
	ultimately kills us. I need you to
	make contact with this age.

Louis laughs bitterly.

		LOUIS
	He? Don't you see? I'm not the
	spirit of any age! I'm at odds with
	everything and always have been!
	I'm not even sure what I am!

Armand smiles.

		ARMAND
	But Louis, that is the very spirit
	of your age. The heart of it. You
	fall from grace has been the fall
	of a century.

Louis is stunned.

		LOUIS
	And the vampires of the Theatre?

		ARMAND
	Like moths around the candle of the
	age. Decadent, useless. They can't
	reflect anything. But you do. You
	reflect its broken heart.

Louis is speechless.

		ARMAND
	Are these not the answers you came
	for?

		LOUIS
		(softly)
	Yes... My God...

		ARMAND
	A vampire with a human soul. An
	immortal with a mortal's passion.
	You are beautiful, my friend.
	Lestat must have wept when he made
	you -

		LOUIS
	Lestat! You knew Lestat!

		ARMAND
	Yes I knew him. Knew him well
	enough not to mourn his passing.

Armand stands. He takes Louis by the arm, leads him
towards the back wall.

		ARMAND
	But you must go now. You must get
	her safely out of Paris.

He opens a hidden door in the wall.

		ARMAND
	No-one else knows of this door.
	When you knock you will find me
	waiting...


EXT. THEATRE DES VAMPIRES - NIGHT

Louis, in the street outside, as the door closes behind
him.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	I felt a kind of peace at last. I
	had found the teacher which Lestat
	could never, I knew now, have been.
	I knew knowledge would never be
	withheld by Armand. It would pass
	through him as through a pane of
	glass. And I knew Claudia must
	leave me...


INT. HOTEL SUITE - NIGHT

Louis enters. There is unfamiliar scent in the air, a
doll sitting by the mirror. Louis looks in the mirror
and sees...


MADELEINE

The doll-maker, resplendent in green taffeta, sitting
like a Madonna with Claudia on her lap. Claudia's arms
are wound round her neck. The contrast between mortal
woman and immortal child is plain.

		CLAUDIA
	Madeleine... Louis is shy.

Madeleine rises and comes towards Louis. She draws back
the lace fringes round her throat, so he can see the
two marks there. She says softly, dreamily.

		MADELEINE
	Drink.

Louis turns away. Claudia speaks, icy, from the bed.

		CLAUDIA
	Do it Louis. Because I cannot do
	it. I haven't the strength. You saw
	to that when you made me.

Louis turns to Madeleine.

		LOUIS
	You haven't the vaguest conception
	under God of what you ask!

		MADELEINE
	Au contraire, monsieur, I have.

Louis pushes her away. Claudia screams.

		CLAUDIA
	You have found your new companion,
	Louis! You will make me mine!

Louis grips Madeleine and shakes her.

		LOUIS
	How do we seem to you? Do you think
	us beautiful, magical, our white
	skin, our fierce eyes? Drink, you
	ask me! Have you any idea of the
	thing you will become?

		CLAUDIA
	Your evil is that you cannot be
	evil! And I will suffer for it no
	longer!

		LOUIS
	Don't make me, Claudia! I cannot do
	it!

		CLAUDIA
	Yet you could do it to me!
	Snatching me from my mother's hands
	like two monsters in a fairy-tale!
	Couldn't you have waited? Six more
	years and I would have had that
	shape! And now you weep! You
	haven't tears enough for what
	you've done to me.

She points to Madeleine

		CLAUDIA
	You give her to me! Do this before
	you leave me!

She begins to weep, sobbing like a child.

		CLAUDIA
	Oh God! I love you still, that's
	the torment of it. But you know I
	must leave you Louis...

		LOUIS
	Yes...

		CLAUDIA
	And who will care for me my love,
	my dark angel, when you are gone?

Louis looks at Madeleine

		LOUIS
	You promise to care for her then?

		MADELEINE
	Yes...

		LOUIS
	And you know what you ask for?

She wraps her arms around Claudia.

		MADELEINE
	Yes.

		LOUIS
	What do you think she is,
	Madeleine? A doll?

		MADELEINE
	A child who can't die...

Her finger clutches a locket around her neck, Louis
touches it, opens it.


THE LOCKET

A picture of a young girl, Claudia's age, wistful,
beautiful.

		LOUIS
		(softly)
	And the child who did die?

		MADELEINE
	My daughter...

Louis takes her chin in his hand, gently.

		LOUIS
	Look at the gaslight. Don't take
	your eyes off it. You will be
	drained to the point of death, but
	you must stay alive. Do you hear
	me?

		MADELEINE
	Yes!

Louis pulls her to him and starts to drink her blood.


EXT. HOTEL BALCONY - LATER

Louis on the balcony, weakened terribly. A breeze blows
on the gauze curtains behind him, through which we
see...

SILHOUETTES of Madeleine and Claudia. Madeleine her
arms outstretched, now a vampire, a long moan of pain
coming from her. Claudia comes through the curtains,
alarmed.

		CLAUDIA
		(whispers)
	Louis!

Louis speaks without turning.

		LOUIS
	She is dying. It happened to you
	too, but your child's mind can't
	remember.

		CLAUDIA
	But if she dies...

		LOUIS
	It's only mortal death.

He turns to look at Claudia.

		LOUIS
	Bear me no ill will, my love. We
	are now even.

		CLAUDIA
	What do you mean?

		LOUIS
	What died tonight inside that room
	was not that woman. It will take
	her many nights to die, perhaps
	years. What has died in that room
	tonight is the last vestige in me
	of what was human.

She takes his hand.

		CLAUDIA
	Yes father. At last. We are een.

He bends down and kisses her. He looks up, at the
wafting curtains. He sees -


MANY VAMPIRE SHADOWS

Silhouetted, coming closer.


CLAUDIA

Looks up and screams.


THE CURTAINS

Are ripped aside. The vampires of the Theatre surge
through.

		ESTELLE
	Time for justice, little one.

The vampires close on them as Louis struggles,
Claudia's scream pierces the night air.


INT. CORRIDOR OF THEATRE DES VAMPIRES - NIGHT

In a press of vampires, Louis, Claudia and Madeleine
are forced down the dark corridor. Into -


THE BALLROOM

Vampire chaos, as they are dragged through. Louis
struggling like a demon.

		LOUIS
	Armand! Get me Armand! he wouldn't
	countenance this -

		SANTIAGO
	You can make no demands here!
	Buffoon! Bastard -

Santiago strikes Louis to the ground. As he struggles
to his feet, he sees the vampires part around a figure
coming through. He gasps at the sight of -


LESTAT

Dressed beautifully, but horribly scarred now, from the
fire as well as the earlier stabbing. Lestat is
confused, ancient, teetering, reaching for Santiago's
shoulder to steady himself.

		LESTAT
	Louis...

		SANTIAGO
	Is he the one?

Lestat shakes his head.

		LESTAT
	No, the child. The child was the
	one...

		SANTIAGO
	All the murderers!!!

		LOUIS
	You are alive, Lestat! It can't be
	murder! Tell them how you treated
	us...

Lestat reaches out to Louis.

		LESTAT
	No... You come back to me Louis...

		LOUIS
	Are you mad???

		ESTELLE
	The sentence is death! To all of
	them!!!

		LESTAT
	Only the girl - it was the girl -

The sound of something being dragged through the crowd.
Horrible echoing, scraping -

Lestat grips Santiago.

		LESTAT
	You promised me - I could take him
	back to New Orleans - Louis -
	there's something I must tell you -
	about that night - that night I met
	you -

He stares around him, confused. The scraping gets
louder.

		LOUIS
	You let her go, Lestat - you let
	her free - and I'll come back with
	you -

Santiago grabs Louis by the neck.

		SANTIAGO
	Death for the others. For you
	eternity in a box -

We see now what caused the scraping. A huge metal
coffin being dragged through the vampires. Claudia
screams.

		SANTIAGO
	Walled in a dungeon. Your only
	company will be your screams...
	Perhaps it will take centuries...

The vampires grab Louis. They force him towards the
coffin. Lestat struggles with them.

		LESTAT
	He's coming home with me - you
	promised -

		SANTIAGO
		(laughing)
	We promised nothing!

Louis struggles fiercely as he is forced into the
coffin. Claudia weeps.

		LOUIS
	They've fooled you, Lestat! You
	must reach Armand! Armand has the
	power!

Louis, struggling in the coffin. Then the lid is forced
down, huge locks closed over it.


INT. COFFIN

Louis, in the smallest imaginable space. Beating his
forehead against the metal.


EXT. COFFIN

Claudia, throwing herself on the coffin, crying. She is
dragged away. Vampire hands drag the coffin across the
stone floor.


INT. COFFIN

Louis, forehead pouring with blood, being thrown this
way and that. The coffin is lifted, upside down, Louis'
head crashes off the floor.


EXT. COFFIN

Is thrust into a niche in the wall. Bricks being placed
over, mortar trowelled on.


INT. COFFIN

Louis upside down. Sounds of bricks and mortar. Then
terrifying, unearthly scream pierces the coffin,
striking to his very soul.

		LOUIS
	Claudia!!!

He loses consciousness.


BLACKNESS

INT. COFFIN

Louis sleeps, upside down. Sound of bricks being
broken, thrown aside. Then of locks breaking.

Louis opens his eyes. The lid opens. He sees -

		ARMAND
	Above him, reaching down to take
	his hand.

		ARMAND
	Hurry. Don't make a sound.

Louis gets out, into a vast long catacomb. Louis runs
to the end of it, steps through a broken brick wall.

		LOUIS
	Where is she? Where's Claudia?

		ARMAND
	Follow me - that way - through my
	cell -

He points to his cell at the end of the passage, the
foot of the steps. Sound of rain beyond the door.

		LOUIS
	Not without Claudia. Where is she?

		ARMAND
	I can't save her.

		LOUIS
	You can't believe I'd leave without
	her. Armand! You must save her! You
	have no choice.

		ARMAND
	Louis, I can't save her. I will
	only risk losing you -

Louis runs up the stone stairs. It leads to the
ballroom. He enters.

Estelle stands far off, looking at him coolly. She
lifts the stage skull mask and laughs softly behind it.
A male vampire slumps in a chair staring softly at
Louis.

Silence. Indifference.

Louis sees Lestat sitting in a far corner. he rushes up
to Lestat, who looks up at him, confused. He's holding
something crumpled, made of cloth.

		LESTAT
	You'll come home with me Louis? For
	a little while... until I am myself
	again.

		LOUIS
	CLAUDIA!!!

Louis turns round and round in rage. Passive still
faces. A door bangs open and shut.

Louis looks again at Lestat. He snatches the cloth from
Lestat's hand. We see it is a small torn bloodstained
dress. Claudia's dress.

The door bangs again. Estelle laughs. Rain gusts into
the ballroom.

Louis goes to the door, holding the dress. Armand
approaches, trying to pull him away, but Louis shrugs
him off. He draws nearer and nearer and stairs at -


INT. BRICK AIRWELL

On the stones lie Claudia and Madeleine, burn to ashes,
in each other's arms, like the corpses of his wife and
daughter in the New Orleans graveyard, embracing each
other.

Only Claudia's blond hair and Madeleine's red hair
remain unburnt.

Louis looks up at the walls of this airwell, many
stories to the sky. He cries out in agony.

Santiago appears behind him, staring. Louis roars in
horror and attacks Santiago, scattering the ashes into
the rainy wind. Claudia's golden locks fly up into the
wind, they whirl around the warring figure.

Armand appears, drags Louis free, pulls him screaming
from the airwell, into the ballroom, towards the exit.

Claudia's hair is sucked up by the wind through the
airwell, towards the night sky.


EXT. NOTRE DAME DOOR - NIGHT

Louis is slumped against the stone wall. Armand stands
beside him like a guardian angel.

		ARMAND
	I couldn't prevent it.

		LOUIS
	I don't believe you. I do not have
	to read your soul to know that you
	lie.

		ARMAND
	Louis, they cannot be brought back.
	There are some things that are
	impossible, even for me.

		LOUIS
	You let them do it.

Louis climbs to his feet.

		LOUIS
	You held sway over them. They
	feared you. You wanted it to
	happen.

		ARMAND
	Louis, I swear I did not.

		LOUIS
	I understand you only too well. You
	let them do it, as I let Lestat
	turn a child into a demon. As I let
	her rip Lestat's heart to pieces!
	Well I am no longer that passive
	fool that has spun evil from evil
	till the web traps the one who made
	it. Your melancholy spirit of this
	century! I know what I must do. And
	I warn you - you saved me tonight,
	so I return the favor - do not go
	near your cell in the Theatre Des
	Vampires again.


EXT. THEATRE DES VAMPIRES - DAWN

Wet and deserted, the streets around the theatre are
quiet.


CLOSEUP - CLOCK

Chiming five a.m.


CLOSE ON LOUIS

Looking at the paling sky. He is in an alleyway,
outside of Armand's cell. He has a huge keg with him.
he finds the door unlocked. He enters.


INT. CELL

Empty. The hearth is cold. The old coffin is gone.
Louis silently closes the door to the passage and
blocks it with an immense bar. He goes in the other
door.


INT. THEATRE

Louis hurls kerosene all over the stage, the curtain,
the sets, the seats below. He grabs the scythe from the
playlet. He walks out. Dribbling a trail of kerosene
behind him.


INT. STAIRS

Louis walking rapidly down, leaving the trail of
kerosene. He creeps quietly into the -


BALLROOM

Leaking kerosene from the cask. He splashes over the
coffins that gleam in the dimness.

Then he strikes a match and heaves it into the
kerosene. Everything bursts into flame. The trail of
kerosene roars into fire through the ballroom over the
coffins and up the stairs. We hear EXPLOSIONS of fire
from above.


LOUIS

Shudders all over, fighting the morning weakness. He
readies the scythe, like the grim reaper.


ESTELLE

Rises from her burning coffin, screams and tries to run
through the fire but Louis slashes her down with the
scythe and she goes down screaming, her dress in
flames.

		ESTELLE
	Stop him. It's morning. The
	sunlight. Stop him.

Others rise, choking in the smoke. Screams from
everywhere. They are burning.

Louis backs up the stairs to the -


DUNGEON

He can see there a thin pale light under Armand's
bolted door. Suddenly -


SANTIAGO

Comes at him from behind. Louis turns. Santiago rushes
him in a blur. Louis swings the scythe, too fast to see
what he himself is doing. Santiago's head streaming
blood flies through the air.

The body drops, flapping its arms.

SCREAMS come from everywhere.

Another vampire rushes burning towards Louis. He
decapitates him in turn. Then he staggers into Armand's
cell, and bars the door the connects it to the ballroom
behind him. He staggers to the outer door. There is a
thin strip of daylight, beneath the door, blinding him.
He throws it open, and staggers into the daylight.


EXT. THEATRE DES VAMPIRES - DAWN

Louis staggers out of the burning theatre, into the
thin daylight. Great gusts of smoke cover the street.
He staggers through the daylight, weakening, about to
fall, when through the clouds of smoke comes -


A MAGNIFICENT HEARSE

As in a dream, driven by Armand's human boy. The door
of the hearse opens. Through the curtains enclosing the
interior, we see Armand. He reaches a hand out to Louis
and pulls him inside.

The hearse vanishes through the smoke, leaving the
spectacle of the burning theatre.


EXT. THEATRE DES VAMPIRES - TWILIGHT

The gutted Theatre and ballroom, the roof collapsed,
exposed to the evening sky. The life of Paris goes on
around it, oblivious.


INT. LOUVRE - NIGHTS LATER

It is already a museum by this time and Louis and
Armand, fancily dressed and composed, walk through it.
They stop by a Gericault - The Wreck of the Medusa.

		LOUIS
	You didn't even warm them, did you?

		ARMAND
	No.

		LOUIS
	And yet you knew what I would do.

		ARMAND
	I knew. I rescued you, didn't I?
	From the terrible dawn.

		LOUIS
	You were their leader. They trusted
	you.

		ARMAND
	You made me see their failings,
	Louis. You made me look at them
	with your eyes.

He looks at Louis affectionately.

		ARMAND
	Your melancholy eyes...

		LOUIS
	What a pair we are. We deserve each
	other, don't we?

		ARMAND
	We are a pair, and that's what
	counts.

Armand and Louis walk slowly through the Louvre
together. Camera follows them for a while, then comes
to rest on a sunrise by Turner.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	We left Paris shortly after. For
	years we wandered. Greece, Egypt,
	all the ancient lands. Then, out of
	curiosity, perhaps, boredom, who
	knows what, I took him home, to my
	America...


INT. MOVIE THEATRE - NIGHT

A deco cinema of the twenties. Louis and Armand,
dressed in the style of the period walk down the aisle
through the crowded seats.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	And there, a technological wonder
	allowed me see sunrise, for the
	first time in two hundred years...

On the screen, Murnau's "Sunrise", in black and white.
We see a montage of sunrises, from a whole range of
movies, in black and white.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	And what sunrises! Seen as the
	human eye could never see them. We
	would sit in the dark, night after
	night among nameless humans,
	entranced with the miracle of
	light. Silver at first, then as the
	years progressed in tones of
	purple, red and my long-lost
	blue...

The SUNRISES continue, in color now, and the
backgrounds in them change to the fifties.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	And in time parted. We had become
	so alike, we both wanted the
	certainties of loneliness once
	more.

The lights come up in a different theatre. Louis
sitting there, alone, in a half empty theatre, dressed
in the clothes of the fifties. He rises, exits with the
others.


EXT. NEW ORLEANS STREET - NIGHT

Cars rushing by, twentieth-century madness. Louis
emerges from the theatre, walks through the streets.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	I had returned to new Orleans. As
	soon as I smelt the air, I knew I
	was home. There was sadness there,
	rich, almost sweet, like the
	fragrance of jasmine. I walked the
	streets, savoring it like a long
	lost perfume...


EXT. GARDEN DISTRICT - NIGHT

Louis walks past the many Greek Revival Mansions.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	And then on Prytania Street, only
	blocks from the Lafayette cemetery
	I caught the scent of death and it
	wasn't coming from the graves...

CAMERA PANS OVER white-walled Lafayette cemetery and
its surrounding mansions.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	The scent grew stronger as I
	walked. Old death. A scent too
	faint for mortals to detect.

Louis sees rats darting across the street. They rush
into a great overgrown garden surrounding a ruined
mansion. No lights.

Louis stops at a rusted gate. He forces it open and
enters -


A VERITABLE JUNGLE

Of overgrown rose and oak tree and wisteria. he sees a
faint glimmer of light coming from a distant glass
window of a huge Greek Revival house. He approaches
then he sees -


OLD SHRIVELLED CORPSE

Of a man, long dead and dried up, snagged in the thorny
rosevines.


LOUIS

Looks around. Walks on. Sees another corpse, almost
nothing but bones, sinking into the wet earth, the
roots of an oak overgrowing it.

He looks up at the distant light.

He passes a third corpse, caught in wisteria and rose
vine, only bones and clothes.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	They were like the doomed princess
	caught in the thorny vines of
	Sleeping Beauty's castle. I knew
	what it meant. A vampire had lured
	them here, but had been to weak to
	get rid of them.

Louis sees dead rats lying near the steps.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	It spelt weakness, madness, the
	behavior of a dying animal that
	pollutes its own lair.

Louis treads carefully on the rotted steps. he moves
along the porch. More dead rats. He sees through the
floor-length window into rooms lined with stacked
books. Virtually walled with them. Water seeps down
from the ceiling, gleaming as it streaks over the
books. The floors of the splendid rooms are bare,
except for a rotten French chair by a dead fireplace. A
single mirror reflecting the moon.

Dead rats.

He moves along the porch to the parlor windows. The
candle flickers inside. He sees -


HIS POV

Lestat lying on the floor. He is gaunt to near
starvation. All his scars are gone, but he is almost a
skeleton and his eyes are enormous in their sockets.
His clothes are rags. Blond hair beautiful, as always.


MALLOY'S ENTRANCES FACE SUPERIMPOSED OVER

		MALLOY (V.O.)
	Lestat escaped the fire!

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	He hadn't even been there. And all
	those years I thought he was dead.


BACK TO LESTAT

One tiny candle stands beside him. He reads an early
comic, from the turn of the century. Without turning
his head, he speaks.

		LESTAT
	I'm so glad you're here Louis...
	I've dreamed of your coming...

		LOUIS
	Don't try to speak... it's
	alright...

		LESTAT
	I didn't mean to let them do it...
	that Santiago, he tricked me...

		LOUIS
	That's all past, Lestat.

		LESTAT
	Yes. Past... she should never have
	been one of us...

He turns and looks at Louis. Old, fearful, broken.

		LESTAT
	Still beautiful Louis. You always
	were the strong one.

		LOUIS
	Don't fear me, Lestat. I bring you
	no harm.

		LESTAT
	You've come back to me, Louis?
	You've come again to me?

Louis shakes his head. A series of police sirens go by,
piercing the night sky. A helicopter goes overhead. Red
flashes illuminate his face. Lestat shivers, covers his
ears. He's terrified. Louis touches him, calming him,
until the lights pass over.

		LOUIS
	It's only a siren...

		LESTAT
	I can't bear it Louis! The machines
	out there, that fly and that roar!
	And such lights! They make the
	night brighter than the day!

		LOUIS
	And they frighten you?

		LESTAT
	You know I love the dark. But
	there's no dark anymore.

		LOUIS
	It's false light, Lestat. It can't
	harm you...

		LESTAT
	If you stayed with me Louis, I
	could venture out... little by
	little... become the old Lestat.

Louis shivers. He releases him.

		LOUIS
	I have to go now Lestat...

		LESTAT
	You remember how I was, Louis.. the
	vampire Lestat...

		LOUIS
	Yes. I remember...

Lestat shivers.

		LESTAT
	I tried to tell you Louis... that
	night in Paris... when I first came
	to you... no-one can refuse the
	dark gift, Louis... not even you.

		LOUIS
	I tried...

		LESTAT
	And the more you tried, the more I
	wanted you... a vampire with your
	beautiful, suffering human heart.
	And how you suffered... I need your
	forgiveness, Louis.

		LOUIS
	You have it...

Louis walks slowly away from him. Lestat turns back to
his candle, his magazine.

		LESTAT
	You'll come back, Louis... take me
	out... little by little... and
	maybe I'll be myself again...

A bluebottle buzzes by him. His hand shoots out and
grabs it, squeezes the blood.

		LOUIS
		(whispering)
	Yes, Lestat...


ON LOUIS

As he walks through the decayed house. His eyes are
expressionless.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
	And my story ends there. But in
	fact it ended a long time ago, with
	Claudia's ashes in that theatre. My
	love died with her. I never really
	changed after that. What became of
	Lestat I have no idea. I go on,
	night after night. I feed on those
	who cross my path. But all my
	passion went with her yellow hair.
	I ma a spirit with preternatural
	flesh. Detached. unchangeable.
	Empty.


INT. ROOM. SAN FRANCISCO - NIGHT (PRESENT)

Malloy, staring at Louis.

		MALLOY
	No... it can't end like that...

		LOUIS
	But it has. There is no more to
	tell.

		MALLOY
	But you talk about passion, about
	longing, about things I'll never
	know in my life! It's still inside
	you, in every syllable you speak!
	And then you tell me it ends like
	that? Just empty?

		LOUIS
	It's over, I'm telling you...

		MALLOY
	You need a new passion, Louis, a
	new reason to feel... what a story
	you've told, you don't understand
	yourself.

Louis looks at the cassettes on the table.

		LOUIS
	Do what you want with it. Learn
	what you can. Give the story to
	others.

Malloy rises.

		MALLOY
	You have another chance, Louis.
	Take me! Give me your gift, your
	power...

Louis is slowly horrified, then outraged and angry.

		LOUIS
	Is this what you want? You ask me
	for this after all I've told you?

		MALLOY
	If I could see what you've seen,
	feel what you've felt I wouldn't
	let it end like this! You need a
	like to the world out there, a
	connection... then it won't end
	like this...

He stares at Louis.

		MALLOY
	You need me.

Louis turns away.

		LOUIS
	Dear God. I've failed again,
	haven't I?

		MALLOY
	No...

		LOUIS
	Don't say anymore. The reels are
	still turning. I have but one
	chance to show you the meaning of
	what I've said.

He looks at the boy. Then suddenly grabs him, lifts him
off the floor, bares his terrifying fangs and brings
them to his throat. Malloy screams, in involuntary
terror.

		LOUIS
	You like it? You like being food
	for the immortals? You like dying?
	Is it beautiful? Is it intense?

Malloy, now terrified, whispers

		MALLOY
	No... please...

Louis drops him.

		LOUIS
	Thank God.

Malloy, falls on the floor, terrified. When he looks
up, Louis has vanished.

		MALLOY
	Louis... Louis...

He looks up at the tape. It is still turning.

		MALLOY
	Holy shit...

He shakes his head. He gets up, and with shaking
fingers gathers his tapes. He runs out of the room.


EXT. STREET OUTSIDE - NIGHT

Malloy running for his car, a convertible. He leaps in
and screeches off through the night.


EXT. STREETS - NIGHT

Malloy whips the car through the tiny streets, in
sheer, unfocused terror.

		MALLOY
	Jesus...


EXT. GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE - NIGHT

Malloy driving with streams of traffic over the bridge.
He breathes deeply, to calm himself. He takes a tape
from his pocket, and with still shaking hands, sticks
it in the deck.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
		(tape)
	1791. That's when it happened. I
	was twenty-four. Younger then you
	are now.

Suddenly a bony hand shoots out from the back seat,
pulls his neck backwards -


LESTAT

Sinks his teeth in his neck.


MALLOY'S HANDS

On the wheel, shaking, shuddering, losing their grip.


MALLOY'S EYES

Bulging, as the life drains out of him. Lestat sucking
him like a rat.


THE WHEEL

Swinging free of Malloy's dying hands.


THE CAR

Veers wildly into oncoming traffic.


LESTAT

Drinks regardless.


A TRUCK

Coming towards them, about to crush the car.


LESTAT'S BONY HAND

Grabs the wheel, jerks it as he drinks.


THE CAR

Misses the truck by inches.


LESTAT

Throws Malloy to one side, climbs into the front seat.

The tape is playing.

		LOUIS (V.O.)
		(tape)
	My invitation was open to anyone.
	Sailors, whores, thieves. But it
	was a vampire that accepted...


ON LESTAT

At the wheel, the corpse of Malloy in the passenger
seat. He smiles. We can see the blood renewing him.

		LESTAT
	Dear Louis... will I ever forget?


EXT. GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE - NIGHT

Lestat drives on, the car a tiny speck against the
bridge, the sea, the sky beyond, with the first fingers
of light spreading through it.

						 FADE OUT



THE END
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