It takes no time at all for Armand to decide against killing the boy himself. And to be clear, there is nothing in this decision about sparing the boy's life. After a scattering of his memories are sifted through for explanation, for secret messages, and finding nothing of much value but confirmation, the mortal's life is deemed irrelevant, and winks out from Armand's perception like a distant star, dying.
A missed step, a stumble in the dark. What must Daniel think of him, to inspire this rejection? What is its meaning? Contemplating this is like contemplating wallpaper, its uniform nonsense patterns, or contemplating his hands, considering the whorls of patterns in his fingertips and the odder smoothness everywhere else, or a sky shrouded in cloud. No answers there.
There are other gifts he could give. More rivals, more naysayers. His agent, his publicist. His ex wives, his own daughters. Provocation, condemnation. This is a punishment.
Unbidden, an old memory: I am not Lestat. Responding to the prospect of annihilation with destruction. What Armand knows is that things destroy themselves on their own. Entropy. Daniel will hate him, in time. A hundred years. Maybe less.
(He still has business ties in San Francisco and New York, a couple of different firms holding his portfolios, a part of the neat surgery of financial interests from Louis'. He had decided that these ones can belong to him, and so these are his forged identities and contacts attached to old buildings and bank accounts, not so difficult to uncover when one knows what to dig for, even without Louis' confirmation or knowledge.)
A news headline, a couple of days later, barely a blip in the scheme of things and otherwise entirely missable if not for proximity: the mysterious death of a motel clerk, found sitting at her desk like a blue-tinge doll, and close to entirely exsanguinated.
no subject
A missed step, a stumble in the dark. What must Daniel think of him, to inspire this rejection? What is its meaning? Contemplating this is like contemplating wallpaper, its uniform nonsense patterns, or contemplating his hands, considering the whorls of patterns in his fingertips and the odder smoothness everywhere else, or a sky shrouded in cloud. No answers there.
There are other gifts he could give. More rivals, more naysayers. His agent, his publicist. His ex wives, his own daughters. Provocation, condemnation. This is a punishment.
Unbidden, an old memory: I am not Lestat. Responding to the prospect of annihilation with destruction. What Armand knows is that things destroy themselves on their own. Entropy. Daniel will hate him, in time. A hundred years. Maybe less.
(He still has business ties in San Francisco and New York, a couple of different firms holding his portfolios, a part of the neat surgery of financial interests from Louis'. He had decided that these ones can belong to him, and so these are his forged identities and contacts attached to old buildings and bank accounts, not so difficult to uncover when one knows what to dig for, even without Louis' confirmation or knowledge.)
A news headline, a couple of days later, barely a blip in the scheme of things and otherwise entirely missable if not for proximity: the mysterious death of a motel clerk, found sitting at her desk like a blue-tinge doll, and close to entirely exsanguinated.