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Claudia’s scream rips through the morning, wraps a hand around their throats and yanks them out of coffin. They are in their separate coffins, Lestat in the proverbial doghouse after how he handled the situation with Charlie. She’d asked the impossible, a corpse cannot be made a vampire, but she wouldn’t listen. And Louis now looked at Lestat with a kind of disgust and betrayal, as if he wanted Lestat to make Claudia her carcass companion. Claudia would not so much as look at him. Days and nights of this.
And the first time he hears her voice since that night, it’s this rising, guttural, pained cry that has Louis and Lestat bolting out of their separate coffins, colliding in the doorway, in their rush to get to her, to whatever is hurting her. Louis shoves Lestat out of his way; Lestat lets him, following a half-step behind. Their panic, their paternal impulsivity moves them while their minds reel. Lestat has been a vampire for longer, his instincts are sharper, his muscles are faster, but still he does not understand exactly what has happened until a heartbeat later, after he’s tackled Claudia to the floor, out of the skylight, shielding her body with own.
The second time he hears her voice: “Ge’off me!” Her knees and feet against his torso. She scurries away and he rises to his knees. Louis bends down by her side, arms extended, wanting to pull her to him, hands spread, afraid to hurt her.
And thats when Lestat understands. He had closed the skylight, just as he had done every night. There is a stool set by the table, which had not been there before. There is a pile of dust and ash sprinkled on one side of the table. He can trace a line on his own body where the sunlight struck him. His hands first, up his arms, his scalp, shoulders, down his back. He knows the injury is there because he can feel the temperature, but his body is empty. His mind is in Paris, watching Nicky toss himself into the fire. He wasn’t there, but he can picture it, is picturing it. His Maker tossinh himself into the fire. Louis’ pleading eyes, the night of Claudia’s rebirth, having pulled her out of the fire.
“I warned you,” Lestat murmurs. He stands, the dull burn rising in his skin already healing. He pulls the rope, re-closing the skylight. Louis is saying something, his tone angry and scared. “Why do we even have that skylight?” He’s demanding. “Should of bricked that shit up years ago.”
The skylight isn’t the problem. Lestat knows this, but he doesn’t have the energy to fight right now. He’s so tired.
He bites his hand open and holds it over Claudia’s shriveling, dessicated arm. Fat drops of blood plop down on it with a sound like dry leaves. Rivulets run down the sides of her arm. The skin starts to heal in their wake.
She won’t look at either of them. “This was no accident,” he says. His voice is empty.
He returns to coffin.
He gets no sleep.
Louis is looking at his daughter, his light, his reason for living, and he’s hearing the priest say it was a terrible accident, but they all knew, Louis saw Paul walk right off that roof. It was no accident.
“Claudia?” His voice wobbles. He reaches out to caress her cheek, but she bats his hand away with her good hand.
“Sorry,” she says. She takes his hand in hers, wraps her hand around three of his fingers. “I’m tired.” She looks up at him and there’s an emptiness in her eyes, something missing. “Take me to coffin?”
Louis nods mutely and pulls her up by her good hand, the bad one curled to her chest. She leads the way to the coffin room—not her own room. She stands by the edge and looks at Louis until he gets in, joining him as she had on her first night as a vampire, years ago when she was the exact same size.
Her palm is mostly intact. She lays it on Louis’ chest.
Louis wraps both hands around Claudia’s uninjured one. “Claudia, we— I love you so much,” he sobs.
“I know,” she breathes, barely audible. “I’m sorry.”
“Talk about it tomorrow,” he says.
“Okay,” says Claudia.
They never do.