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The stench hit first.
Rot. Blood. Mana.
Not the blood of Paris. Not the blood of mortals stumbling drunkenly from cafés. Something else. Something sharp beneath the city grime, humming beneath the skin of the world itself.
Lestat’s eyes narrowed as he stared up at the stranger silhouetted by moonlight. The air around her felt wrong. Dangerous. Alive in a way he’d never encountered before.
A hunter, though he had no word for it yet.
His laugh emerged as a broken thing, little more than a rasping cough.
“Ah…”
Blood stained his lips as he attempted a smile.
“So not an undertaker after all.”
His accent remained unmistakably French despite the weakness dragging at every syllable.
“That is disappointing. I was hoping for a proper burial. Flowers. Mourners. A statue perhaps.”
His fingers twitched against the ruined coffin.
“Though I suppose if I am to be rescued, a beautiful stranger is preferable.”
The compliment came automatically. Even half-dead, Lestat remained Lestat.
Moonlight caught what remained of him.
He was horrifying.
His clothes hung in tatters. His skin stretched tightly across sharp bones. Long blond hair clung in filthy tangles around his face. His throat bore an ugly scar, half-healed and jagged. Whatever had happened to him had left him looking less like a man and more like a corpse that had stubbornly refused to stay buried.
Yet his eyes still burned.
Blue. Bright. Defiant.
Predatory.
He studied Jess carefully.
No heartbeat racing with fear. No scent of ordinary humanity. There was power beneath her skin, strange and unfamiliar.
A faint frown crossed his face.
“You are not human.”
The words came quietly.
“Or perhaps you are and this world has become much stranger than I remember.”
Slowly, painfully, he attempted to sit up. The effort earned him a sharp hiss and another fit of coughing.
“Damn Louis.”
He leaned back against the shattered coffin wall.
“Where am I?”
His gaze swept over unfamiliar buildings and distant lights.
“…And before you answer, tell me one thing.”
The ghost of a grin returned.
“Do all angels in this place carry weapons?”* His eyes flicked toward her hunter gear. “Or am I simply fortunate?”
She tilts her head“….no angels here.”
Lestat’s grin widened despite the exhaustion threatening to drag him back into the coffin.
“Ah.”
He looked genuinely relieved.
“Good.”
His head lolled against the broken wood.
“The angels I’ve met have been insufferable.”
His eyes drifted over her gear again, taking in every detail with the practiced attention of a predator.
Not prey.
Danger.
Interesting danger.
His favorite kind.
He tried to push himself upright again and immediately regretted it, a pained sound escaping him.
“…Though I confess, if this is Hell, they’ve improved the scenery.”
The attempt at humor was undercut by how awful he looked.
Silence settled for a moment.
Lestat studied her face, noting the lack of immediate panic. Most humans would have fled by now. Others would have tried to kill him.
This one simply stood there.
Watching.
Considering.
His expression softened slightly.
“Yet you haven’t run.”
The words were quieter.
“You found a half-dead creature climbing out of a coffin and your first instinct was not to scream.”
A small laugh.
“Either you are remarkably brave…”
His eyes narrowed playfully.
“…or your profession involves encountering things much uglier than me.”
Another pause.
“Which, I must admit, is somewhat insulting.”
He placed a hand dramatically over his chest before remembering that even that movement hurt.
“…Ow.”
The hand dropped immediately.
“Dreadful.”
His gaze lifted back to her.
“So.”
The blue eyes sharpened.
“If there are no angels here, what are you?”*
Then, after a beat:
“And more importantly…”
His stomach twisted violently from hunger.
“…do you happen to know where one acquires blood in this strange world?”
“…….humans, animals… anything that’s alive..?” She crouches down to his level.
For a moment, Lestat simply stared at her.
Then a laugh escaped him.
A real laugh.
Rough. Broken. Yet unmistakably genuine.
“Marvelous.”
His head fell back against the coffin.
“An entire world and the answer remains exactly the same.”
He closed his eyes briefly.
“Humans, animals, anything alive…”
The irony was almost enough to amuse him out of his misery.
When he looked at her again, she had crouched beside the coffin, bringing herself level with him. Most people stood over the weak. She didn’t.
Interesting.
Lestat’s gaze lingered on her face.
“Then perhaps the universe possesses a sense of humor after all.”
His voice had become quieter, lacking some of its usual theatricality.
“I feared I had awakened somewhere entirely alien.”
He shifted slightly, grimacing.
“Though judging by the state of me, I doubt I could catch a rabbit at the moment.”
His eyes dropped briefly to his own hands.
Thin. Trembling.
Pathetic.
A century ago he would have torn through stone walls. Now he looked as though a strong breeze might carry him away.
He hated it.
The hatred flashed briefly across his features before vanishing behind a smile.
“Tell me, little hunter.”
The title rolled off his tongue naturally, despite not fully understanding what it meant.
“Do you often collect wounded monsters from dumpsters?”
One brow lifted.
“Or am I receiving special treatment?”
The teasing was there, but beneath it was genuine curiosity.
Because she still hadn’t left.
Any sensible person would have.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
“…You don’t seem afraid of me.”
The observation hung between them.
Not accusatory.
Merely puzzled.
After everything he’d become, fear was usually the first gift he received from strangers.