The cool evening air swept across me, and my steps were steady as they had not been in many nights, though my thoughts were in a resounding vicious cycle of turmoil. Turned into a vampire hardly any time ago, I questioned everything and trusted in so little, now. The gold cross and chain that my mother had worn, bequeathed to me as a gift, resided hidden upon my person. I had cast it aside only nights earlier in a fit of utter despair, something which I had of late been prone to. So much had changed my life in so short a time that I felt nothing could hold me together now, not even the religion I had been raised in. I called frantically upon that faith in these dark hours, where all seemed hopeless, man and monster merging into a hybrid, fused by loss. I received no answer. Mocking words suffused me with a cold anger half-recollected, and my fists clenched at my sides. I was young in my immortality at this time…locked in a strange duet of devilry and what some would name as my self-proclaimed martyrdom. I walked the line between the two like a man on the razor’s edge, battling for a soul. A soul which I believed I had already lost.

Memories of being a mortal consumed me and left me unable to tolerate hunting, and I sought to distance myself from that driving hunger tonight in one of the strangest ways I had ever attempted. I distanced myself from it by returning to another once familiar comfort, away from Lestat for an hour or two, though I knew that I would have to return. Where else could I go, when I did not know all that I needed to, or so he had taunted me?

New Orleans rested in silence, the bustling streets that I knew so well quieted by the whispers of sweeping eventide. Tonight was not a night for revelry, but for reflections. A Sunday evening that most spent indoors, though I knew that at this moment in seedier areas, worse would be going on. I stayed where I knew, in the slightly dust riddled streets of my upbringing, not far from the residence that I now shared with Lestat. The heat of the day saturated the brick walls as I walked past them, trailing my fingertips along them. Cool smooth flesh contrasting with the roughness of the walls was a comforting contrast, however brief the contact. I moved away, emerging from the alleyway next to my chosen destination.

The cathedral loomed above me, a mass of incredible architecture punctuated with the delicate tones of stained glass, depicting stories of hope and faith. They were the stories of saints and disciples of the Roman Catholic religion, facing me, their cool features unmoving and yet somehow incredibly alive to my eyes. Workmen and artists of skill had taken that lead and glass and shaped it into something that was a symbol to believers…even to those agnostic demons that lurked in silence in the rich nights of Louisiana culture. I was one of those demons that I had once condemned. Where would my shattered beliefs take me, now?

I didn’t know the answer as I slipped inside. All I knew was that I was seeking a haven, a place where I could hide with my thoughts, however brief the sojourn would be. The candles left soft whispers of light, coverlets of shadow that waltzed in a cacophony across the high stone ceiling…and I was alone but for those few attending the night service. None of them knew me with my head bowed, my hair loose and covering my features, lending me some measure of anonymity. All let me be. Whether they sensed my need for solitude, my need to commune with my own thoughts, or as they may have believed...God…they left me alone. If only they had known what truly ran through my mind…I do not know if it would have horrified them that such a thing could be possible…or whether it would have simply terrified them out of their wits. Until they all disappeared, my senses were filled with their heartbeats and the scent of their blood pulsing under their skins, my thirst rising to a sudden, sinful fever pitch that I reviled. I let out a small sigh of relief as they retreated to the sacristy, those hidden quarters at the back of the church for the priesthood. But it was then that I realised that they had gone to pray, as such. Pray for those lost souls seeking to find peace. Lost souls like my own, living night after night in the limbo between heaven and hell.