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Louis didn’t mention that vampires could be made weaker with iron. Armand had mentioned in passing that defiant vampires in the Children of Darkness would be burned, wrapped in chains to prevent escape.
It would’ve helped, the heads-up, because Daniel found himself utterly helpless, wrapped up like a turkey in these god-awful chains. He wriggled around to try and find some give, but the vampires who tied him up were meticulous.
Daniel had been riding off the high of ripping a vampire’s head clean off its neck when he was ambushed. Moments like that could be where the Fire Gift, Cloud Gift, or even goddamn telekinesis could come in handy if he had a grip on any of them, that is. He was able to get a handful of hair in his fist of one of them before a swift blow to the back of Daniel’s head left him unconscious. The drugged blood he took from Dee didn’t help either, probably.
And now he was here, in some old house that creaked ominously at every footstep from the handful of vampires with him.
He glowers at one who was standing in the doorway at the entrance to the living room turned Daniel Molloy cage. At least they gave him a chair; his maker wasn’t so kind in the 70s.
“Hey, you know I was in Zheleznogorsk right? If you want to break me down for information, you need to put a little more work than this! I broke KGB operatives; you think I can’t handle some chains?” He made a racket to prove a point.
The vampire scoffs. “I don’t need information from you. Your guilt has been proven with the book.”
“Another guy upset with the book? Come on, man, I gave vampires some pretty great rep.” Daniel protests.
“Just sit tight; you won’t have to worry about being uncomfortable for much longer.”
Ominous. At least this guy was entertaining. He tries to call out to Lestat, even though he has no idea where Lestat fucked off to after flying off the roof. His attempts come out in vain. He can’t even hear the thoughts of the vampires around him. Must be the iron, a small note for the next book. One, the Talamasca won’t have a hand in publishing. He already owes them too much, and Raglan abused the power.
Great, well, he has to figure something else out.
He focuses on the wooden boards below him. No prior success with setting anything on fire. Even dead leaves refused to budge for him, but hey, maybe desperation will awaken something in his vampire self.
Before he can get very far, a voice calls out from another room, excited. “I got him! He’s coming; get the sacrifice ready.”
Sacrifice? Who was coming? Daniel looks up from the floor and all 6 vampires who ambushed him.
Oh, Daniel realizes, I am the sacrifice.
“Real powerful guys. Let’s beat up the fledgling who is still a little high; that’ll show 'em,” Daniel jeers. His hands were too far apart to do anything, and his legs couldn’t move much, being constrained. Lestat is unreachable, and Louis is pissed at him, as for his maker, ha, fuck that.
Did Daniel get fucking turned only to die 2 years later? What a joke. His daughters won’t even have a body to bury.
“—can ask what we need for the old rituals he wrote about,” a man says quietly. He sends a glare at Daniel. “You should be honored. We’re rectifying your mistakes.”
Suddenly, Daniel realizes who these guys were. He’d picked up on bits of it from Lestat’s mind. Lestat kept his mind guarded well, but he was high out of his mind earlier, which made it easy for Daniel to see what was going on and to intervene.
“Holy shit, the Tooth Team?”
“Fang Gang!” A woman corrects him, and she steps forward with ferocity, her fingers gripping one of the chains and yanking him forward just slightly. Daniel bites back a sound at the chains now digging into his back and shoulders, unwilling to give them satisfaction. “Dedicated to fixing up the mess you created.” Her eyes, a vibrant ruby red, glimmered in the low lights of the home. “My only regret is that not all of us are here tonight to see this.”
“He’ll be here, that’s all that matters. He can show us what we need to do.” Another woman reassures her.
“Being real vague there,” Daniel says, growing bored. If they were going to kill him, could they hurry up? Vampire life could be great when he drank good blood and got high and occasionally got to rip off another vampire’s head, but right now it was starting to suck.
“Your maker should be ashamed,” she spits at him and finally releases Daniel’s chains, leaving him back in the chair. The bit of blood spit rolling down his face is somehow not the worst thing Daniel has endured on his face, so he manages with just a grimace. He doesn’t have a snarky remark to her comment, nothing that wouldn’t make his voice crack and make this entire situation a thousand times worse.
It would’ve been better if Armand just killed him. He guesses this is the point, though, an eternal existence with this hollowness in his chest. One that couldn’t be filled with stories or drugs no matter how much he tried to make coked-up blood and Lestat’s documentary fit.
Everyone around him begins to move. Grabbing various things around the living room. Deep bowls, a fancy knife, an old book with its spine worn down from years of use.
He’s surprised no one’s put a circle of salt around him at this point and started trying to summon a demon. A part of Daniel wants to ask. He wants to pull out his notepad and his new-old MacBook, the one he bought B.A.T., aka Before Armand’s Turning, appropriately themed.
He can’t, because vampires are dicks and hate journalism, so he’s relegated to watching and waiting.
There’s no telling the amount of time that passes before there’s the sound of a door creaking open.
All the vampires freeze, and Daniel valiantly tries to hear who it is despite being blocked by the chains.
“I told you to tell him to knock!”
“You want me to tell an ancient vampire to knock? Are you stupid?”
A part of Daniel thinks he knows, that he has to know who is behind the wall. Yet it still surprises him when everyone in the room melts into the background.
It is not the first time this has happened. The world in front of him was transforming into a dreamlike in-between, devoid of people, and Daniel was utterly consumed with the feeling of his maker. His brain still fights back on it, though. Argues that there were 6 vampires in the room with him, that there was one right in front of him rather than his view to the entrance hall. It doesn’t help. Daniel is entrapped in this space with no one around. Just him.
Him and Armand.
Armand’s footsteps echo too loudly for someone with such a light gait. Daniel wants to look away and has not wanted outof these chains more than right now.
The first glimpse of Armand in two years makes the fire in his chest grow. A stupid yearning to open his mouth and ask Armand to come closer.
Unlike the low-cut tops in Dubai, Armand dresses now like he was back in the catacombs of Paris. Loose, dark clothing that brings all emphasis to his inky black hair and bright amber eyes that mirror Daniel’s own.
Armand sees him and—does he get this too? Is Daniel the only one in the room for him, too? His eyes widen just a fraction, and all Daniel gets is a wave of intensity through their bond before God decides to send the humans back down from heaven and everyone reappears.
Daniel slumps forward, overwhelmed and frankly feeling like he was about to throw up.
“What is this?” Armand asks quietly, and he hasn’t even looked at anyone else in the room. Daniel can feel his burning gaze.
One of them had been talking this whole time, but the words never reached Daniel’s ears. He was too busy getting a glimpse of Hell. Or Heaven. A combination of both.
“We, uh,” she falters, clearly not expecting the reaction. “The Fang Gang brings you this heretic as a thank you for bringing us the knowledge of the Children of Darkness, although it shouldn’t have been published.” She walks closer to Daniel, yielding that fancy knife from earlier.
Knowledge? Daniel raises his head in exasperation. He hadn’t written much about it. Maybe the Talamasca sneaked something in, sneaky fuckers.
“It’s an invitation as well, for you to join us and to teach us the proper ways.” Another says.
“And you believe this to be sufficient?” Armand prods again, his tone unbearably soft.
She gives a quick glance to the others. None of this was going to plan; Daniel didn’t need vampire knowledge to know that.
“We can bring others!” She assures. “The original plan was also to have Lestat.” Armand’s jaw tightens microscopically. “But we—I am willing to do as you ask! I’m willing to spill blood. See, look!”
Everything Louis, Armand, and Lestat have said about the Dark Gift says that a simple knife cut would not kill him. Hurt like a bitch though? Yeah, it would.
He braces himself for impact by squeezing his eyes shut, wondering how Armand once again got the best seats in the house to something he begrudgingly led to when nothing happens. The clatter of a knife startled his eyes open, and the sight that greeted him was familiar.
Frozen in place, the woman trembled as her eyes darted back and forth between Armand and Daniel.
Armand seemed unperturbed as the others, also frozen, visibly struggled to get free of his mental tricks.
“One of yours went missing a few weeks ago, yes?” Armand asks conversationally as if he were sitting down to have a coffee with them. The slight Parisian inflection in his tone was back, no more haughty British, Daniel guesses. “A Dylan, I believe the name was. He struck out on his own in an attempt to bring Mr. Molloy here to your self-serving justice.”
He walks closer slowly. His eyes weren’t on Daniel now for the first time but rather on her, a nameless vampire wrapped up in a desire to belong, so she wants to revive a 300-year-old cult. “Now, he’s nothing more than ash scattered by the winds from the West, and yet, your desire to kill him never ceased despite losing a member of your coven.”
She gasps, finally having gained control of her lungs. “I-I thought it was him killing all of them. I-in the air, they would talk about it and then vanish the next day.“
Two pairs of eyes go to Daniel. He winces. “I have a job, you know; I can’t go around killing vampires all the time.” Lestat had given him the Vampire Slayer title, but Daniel just assumed it was a strange form of bullying. Strange creatures, vampires.
Armand turns to the others, his long jacket moving more like a cape as it swished just above the floor. “Did you believe there would be rewards for bringing my fledgling to me like this? All tied up and helpless? A lamb ready for the slaughter.”
And now everyone’s eyes are open wide.
“Fledgling? But he broke—“ Her words become cut off as Armand does a light flick of his wrist, and the woman bursts into flames. Daniel instinctively wants to crawl back. Fire, he does know, is the end all.
The chains around him loosen, letting Daniel squirm his way free slowly, ignoring the screams as the other vampires burst into flames.
“Show-off,” Daniel says under his breath before he can stop himself, flexing his wrists to get the blood flow back into them.
Armand’s gaze fixes him in place, and in the light of the dying flames from the clothes of his would-be murderers, he looks bewitching.
What the fuck does Daniel even say? Thanks for saving me even though you cast me off like an unwanted puppy on the side of the road after Christmas came and went. Thanks to you, I’m vampirically stunted, and hey, do you also feel that weird bond between us, or am I just losing my mind?
Armand beats him to it.
“I think we should start on your Spell Gift first.”