Original subtitles

A few shattered vertebrae,

a punctured lung...

...blind in one eye for five weeks.

Two months, was it?

I took naps at night then.

I would feel the air against my skin

as though I was still falling.

And then I would land all over again.

Excruciating pain was the proof I was still alive.

He could fly?

Yes.

Like Superman?

Not like Superman.

Superman is a fictional character.

But in the air,

with a "fuck you to Newtonian physics" flying?

He said it was more like floating,

arising at will,

propelling in a direction by the decision.

He called it "the cloud gift."

Hey, Doc, did you know there's a flying vampire apocalypse

coming your way?

Most vampires do not possess the cloud gift.

With a few exceptions, only the most ancient of us have it.

You know he's a vampire, right?

I do not discuss my patients

with anyone but the patients themselves.

That's the voice of Dr. Fareed Bhansali.

That is not my voice.

He's the personal physician to the deputy prime minister and...

And I am not here....the vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac.

He's officially off the record.

NDAs signed by any and all who cross the threshold, eh?

Is your medicine taking?

It's cold and itchy. Thanks for asking.

Are you still dreaming about our first meeting, Daniel?

I keep waking up just before you ask me back

to your shitty apartment.

Can you fly, Louis?

No.

So for 20 years, you lived with the vampire Lestat,

and you didn't know he had the flying gift?

The cloud gift.

And yes, it was a remarkable bit of restraint he managed.

Why would he do that?

I suppose he thought if he exposed all his power to me,

I would never feel his equal and the relationship would suffer.

"He only beat me the one time, Officer.

It's not his fault."

Classic Stockholm, eh, Doc?

I am not here.

Are we the sum of our worst moments?

Can we be forgiven if we do not forgive others ourselves?

Lestat had disappeared after that awful night--

vanished out of a profound sense of shame

he would later confess to.

Which was just as well, since Claudia and I

were in no mood to receive his apologies.

I made pride my blanket.

And she dedicated all her energy to my rehabilitation.

You ready?

This is humiliating.

We'll try again tomorrow.

If you ever want to talk about what happened to you

while you were gone, you know you can, right?

Uh-huh.

Or you could just tell me his name,

write it on a scrap of paper.

You gonna be my knight in vengeful black?

I am the knight.

Don't move it.

I didn't.

Save your charity for the needful.

Claudia, hello.

I've been calling quite often.

I don't know if the operator is patching me through correctly.

I brought something from Louis's favorite bookshop.

"The Book of Hours." Extremely rare, 15th century.

Silver and gold in the vellum, palettes of blue and old rose.

No one here wishes to speak with you.

Well, I know he's upstairs. I can see his silhouette.

Perhaps we should let him decide if he wants to see me or not.

How's that for an answer?

"I Felt a Funeral in my Brain."

She also wrote one called "A Coffin Is a Small Domain."

- I mean, come on. - Emily Dickinson is not a vampire.

How do you know?'Cause she's dead.

How do you know?

She got a grave. She got a tombstone.

So do you.

25-horsepower Rolls-Royce six-cylinder engine

and a front end they call a "coffin nose."

Isn't that rich?

This one's yours.

Mine's back at home in blue.

I'm back in town permanently.

- Were you gone? - Across the river, in Algiers.

Louis, I don't know what possessed me that night.

Three years ago.

That night three years ago, he means.

I was someone I don't want to be anymore.

I've changed.

Let me prove it to you.

I'm nothing without you.

I'm nothing without both of you.

If you want me to go away, just say so.

I'll obey you.

I'll leave your life forever.

This silence is cruel.

And you were never cruel, Louis.

For six years in all,

these raw and desperate mea culpas came like the tide.

And for six years, they were greeted with silence or fire.

We burned more gifts than bodies in that decade,

but they would not stop coming.

And Lestat's relentless determination

began to crack my considerable armor.

Perhaps it was the modesty of the gesture.

But in the spring of 1937, one broke through.

He had written it himself in the music of the hour.

His first composition in 100 years.

Rashid, please play the song in question

for Mr. Molloy and the doctor.

I'm not here.

♪ Come to me

He had engaged a local record company.

And when the musicians they hired proved unsatisfactory,

he played all the instruments himself.

That's his voice?

Yeah.♪ Come to me

He pressed only one album.

Had the master recordings destroyed.

You're listening to an inferior rerecording now.

♪ Star-crossed lovers

The audacity of it all

was matched only by its sincerity.

He had made the near-perfect valentine,

with one flaw.

Pathetic.

One perfectly premeditated flaw.

Six years of begging.

You think a song's gonna get a rise out of me?!

Did you like it?

This her singing?

It's a clear voice.

I wanted no obstacle to the lyric.

Write me a song and put your lover's voice on it?

What the fuck is wrong with your head?

Louis, you're soaking wet.

I swim faster than I drive.

Put some clothes on and get the fuck out.

This is my house.

Do I look like I care?

Lestat.

Leave.

You swam the Mississippi to find me.

I hate you.

As you should.

Alavida, Dr. Bhansali.

Pleasure never meeting you, Mr. Molloy.

He said to no one.

Quick and clever, despite two bags of fluid.

Legal dope makes me constipated, but the wit flows like a river.

You took Lestat back.

The vampire bond.

There is no human equivalent.

Lover, murderer, maker.

You took him back.

It's a bond that can never fully be severed.

A bond like that makes you believe

there are only two of you on the planet.

Freedom and chastity wrapped in one person.

But there were three of you.

Yes.

Rule number four.

Kill Antoinette.

Antoinette is my own private--

Affair.

Said child, interfering in the romantic lives of her parents.

She's coming up on 33.

It's a lick and a promise in vampire years.

Maybe, but I'm not your child anymore.

That's rule number five.

I'll be your companion, your sister.

It's not as simple as choosing a new family configuration.

"Now I'm your cousin." "Now I'm your aunt."

I am your maker.

But not my uncle or my daddy.

I'm your sister or that's the door.

Rule number six--And know I'm doing this for him.

I wouldn't want to confuse you.

Rule number six-- no lies.

And that includes lies of exaggeration

and of omission.

For instance, if you can fly, tell us you can fly.

Assez.

Grand proclamations and portentous looks.

Do you think I'm withholding?

Go on. Ask your questions.

I'll answer them.

Did you have anything to do with Paul's death?

No.

I would never hurt your brother.

It's just something I always--

Never, Louis.

Who made you?

His name was Magnus.

He took me from my room in Paris,

as I kicked and screamed.

He kept me for a week, locked in a room full of corpses--

some freshly killed, some bloated and black.

But they all looked like me-- my coloring, my physique.

My own eyes staring back at me from rotting faces.

He fed on me every night.

And then he put me back in the tower

with the look-alike corpses.

I thought for sure I'd be one of them,

but instead he turned me into this.

No grand history of vampiric origins or physiology,

no rules, no counsel.

Just a sweeping hand to a pile of money

and the sight of him throwing himself into a fire.

And then I was alone.

I thought...

..."I can't drink hot blood.

I can't feed on others."

I cried.

I called to God.

I didn't want this.

But I have a capacity for enduring.

It's why I don't particularly like being abandoned.

Kill Antoinette.

Years accumulated in the small city

were catching up to us.

Our home was often vandalized.

Cowardly warnings suggesting we were no longer welcome.

"Please return to the dark place you came from."

Don't look, Eunice.

It was an awkward time,

but I loved Claudia with all my heart,

and I loved Lestat with a wounded one.

The work would be convincing the two

to find room again for each other.

Concessions would be needed.

I would have to lead by example.

I'd like to ask a question, if that's amenable to you both.

You don't have to ask permission.

Oh, of course I do. This is the new paradigm.

The lambs herd the Beauceron.

An apt metaphor.

I always took you for a dog, Lestat.

Ask the question.

Is it still four legs for Louis and two legs for Claudia?

I eat what I eat. She eats what she eats.

- We respect our differences. - Mm.

Well, it's always made me feel loathsome,

like I'm... looked down upon for my body's needs.

Well, you don't actually need it.

Mm. See, there it is.

It's an air of superiority when you say that.

I didn't say you couldn't.

I'm just saying you don't have to.

I agree.

I know you don't mean to, but I feel the same,

I feel tolerated.

Why didn't you ever say something?

Well, it's obvious. She doesn't want to upset you.

I can speak for myself.

Every night, we hunt.

And every night, these feelings arise.

- It breeds resentment. - I don't want that.

Well, then, at the risk of paralyzing this household

with more compromise, may I propose another rule?

When we hunt, we hunt human.

We are vampire. We should not--

Ba-a-a-ah!

Call me a dog.

But an honest dog.

♪ In the night

♪ For we're apart

Do you think you could try a little harder

to get on with him?

Have you asked him the same question?

He's trying.

Teaching you piano, the chess board, isn't he?

He hasn't taught me to fly.

It's-- It's not something you could teach.

You're born with it or you're not.

Another one of his lies.

Hello.

We were wondering where you were.

It's his nature to lie.

Claudia.

Lestat.

I remember you like souvenirs.

Thank you.

We should really think about repairing that mantel.

No. Enjoy living in a ruin, do you?

We leave the damage so we never forget the damage.

If you could just give him an inch.

One sob story about his birth,

and you're back to eating from his hand.

Magnus could be a sous chef in Switzerland for all we know.

I am all sincerity and humility.

I cannot wear it any longer.

She's just stubborn.

She is a wall. The cliffs at Etretat.

Lestat the vulnerable becomes Lestat the irritable

become Lestat the controlling. We're all making compromises

You watch! ...to make this right again.

I'm drinking the blood. He ended it with the singer.

Mm-hmm. What are you doing?

I'm enduring.

Do more.

She's grown very protective of me.

That's what this is. It's why it's hard.

She came back altered when she left us.

There's a darkness in her that wasn't there before.

Give her a little time.

In many ways, they were more like each other

than they wanted to admit.

They both sought out weakness.

They reveled in the exploitation of it,

and they romped with joy as I played audience

to their joyless exchanges.

Tell us about your first love, Nicky.

Nicolas.

Louis said that you called him Nicky.

That's the song you wrote for him.

'Tis.

Do you write songs for all your lovers?

I think this one might be better than yours, Louis.

Does that mean you loved Nicky more than you love Louis?

Ignore her, Louis.

She asks these naughty questions to gain advantage in the game.

It won't work.

I ask these questions

because I'm trying to understand you better, Lestat.

I played three games at once in the Jardin du Luxembourg,

and one of my opponents was Johannes Zukertort,

who, you know, of course,

won the Paris championships of '78 and who...

Of course.

...later that afternoon, - I dueled to a draw. - Who doesn't know

who won the Paris Chess championship of '78?

So please continue... My mama taught me that

before I started crawling....with your tedious interrogations.

And I, once again... put you in check.

Did Nicky kill himself like your maker, Magnus?

Check.

Or did you kill him, like you did Antoinette,

and how you tried to do - with Louis? - Claudia.

Nicky passed on after he and I parted ways.

It took me over a century to try again.

Mm.

Checkmate.

I'm sorry for your losses, Lestat.

Oh, it's you who lost, Claudia, for the many hundredth time.

I admire your steadfast pursuit

of a game you clearly have no acumen for.

My massa taught me how to play,

but only enough to occupy his time.

I think I'll hunt alone tonight. Mm.

Massa's had so much loss in his life.

Lord couldn't ask him to bear any more.

I'll come with you.

Thank you. No.

Poor massa and his pain.

It's an honor just to sleep under massa's roof.

And I know she's talking to you.

You're ugly when you act like that.

Better ugly than blind.

She's an affected, self-absorbed,

nasty little creature who's fooled herself

into thinking she's smarter than she is,

and she is poisoning Louis against me.

You don't need her, and you don't need him.

They don't appreciate you like I do.

I have given her so many gifts, so many incalculable gifts.

And you're right. It is both of them.

He broods. She snipes.

That's why I need you.

You fortify me against them.

You're like me. You like to laugh.

You make me laugh all the time.

Hm.

We should go away, Lestat.

New York, Chicago, Los Angeles.

You want to be a movie star?

Well, now that I'm dead, I can be whoever I want.

I've been working on a new name.

What do you think of... Marie Lepere?

Don't be ridiculous.

There's no place for me other than New Orleans.

New Orleans?

You got me stashed away here at Ponchatoula.

How am I supposed to make a career here?

I seek refuge from complaints when I visit you, dear.

I know that, but promises were made.

And promises will be kept.

I am withering here, Lestat.

Who's gonna hire a singer who don't sing, who's a cripple?

No.

That's what gloves are for.

I know. I didn't mean to make you mad.

I love you, Lestat.

I love you, too.

It wasn't shocking.

It was perfectly consistent with his nature.

He'd been told to do something and, brat that he was,

didn't like being told what to do.

The effect, however, was numbing.

I'm sorry, Louis.

It's all what it is.

He's the father of lies.

And if that's the kind of desperate trash

he wants to love, then let him have her.

He doesn't love her.

You heard him say it.

Spit in the sandwich and serve it with a smile.

What?

It's only fun if you get to watch them take a bite.

Hides her a town away. Done by design.

He wanted us to discover him.

But why?

Because he's all kinds of fucked up.

'Cause he would've killed her in a second

if he thought I'd take him as he is.

And I probably will.

So you ain't gonna tell him that you know about her?

What difference would it make?

There's a train leaves every night for New York.

We could hide out in Harlem for a few, then hop on a boat.

Take us anywhere we want to go.

"Anywhere" sounds like nowhere.

Prague. Bucharest. Varna. Silistra.

Ploiesti.

Funny-sounding towns.

Ancient towns with more like us living in them.

And they can't all be like him... or him.

We can get on that train, Louis.

Louis.

The numbness remained,

hardened somehow into a dissociative shell,

a vessel of acceptance, tortured rationalization.

This life, it does a number on the head,

on the soul-- if we even have a soul.

We could say, "That won't be us."

But every night, I feel a little crazier.

And off to Antoinette.

I'll see you both at dawn.

I love you.

Give us a hundred more years of this,

taking anything we want,

killing anything in front of us,

no one says shit about it.

I can see us just like him.

I can see it, Claudia.

Well, I can't.

Train's leavin' in an hour. Get off that bench.

I can barely speak French and English.

I'd just hold you back.

When he hurts you again, and he will, come find me.

I'll be in-- Prague.

Bucharest.

Varna, Silistra.

Ploi-- Ploi-- um...

Ploiesti.

Pff.

I could never get that one to tumble out right.

Hey, sis.

You don't need me.

You think you do, but you don't.

You're smarter now.

You see trouble coming a mile away.

Dark woods and bridged rivers.

Then the lights of the city depot.

Birmingham.

Atlanta.

Greensboro.

Washington, D.C.

She, of all things on the Earth,

deserved a nice seat and a wide window

to watch the countryside blur before the glass.

But it was 1939, and the only Negro allowed in first class

was the porter,

and the Negro passenger rode the rear.

The Negro vampire made do with what was left,

which was fine with her.

This is the part of my story, back in San Francisco,

where you said, and I paraphrase,

"Give it to me.

Make me a vampire now."

In the eyes of a 20-year-old, you were wasting the gift.

You're in your 20s, Rashid. What do you think?

Well, Mr. du Lac presides

in the most desired real estate in the country.

I do not see the waste Mr. Molloy sees.

Yeah, well, he lived in a dump the last time we did this.

I'd give it to you now.

A still hand, time to watch your daughters marry.

And divorce.

And die.

Save it for the rent boy.

May I be excused, Mr. du Lac?

Are you planning on slapping me again, Daniel?

No.

I teased the sun that night in Jackson Square.

Thought about the walking cane and pile of ash

they'd find in the morning.

But Paul had forever ruined Grace's wedding night,

and I would not do the same to Claudia

on the anniversary of her escape.

If I was to join Dante's Wood of the Self-Murdered,

it would be another night.

And so I endured my way home...

...back to the crypt.

Back to the undeserving Lestat.

Lestat, I'm home.

Louis, come.

Listen here.

What is it?

Germany's invaded Poland.

Tanks rolling through the countryside.

Horrors unleashed.

Since when do you care about humanity?

Well, I don't.

But to think our sister,

impulsive tot that she is,

was on her way to holiday in Europe.

I'm so glad she decided the better of it.

We'll have to make it up to her Stateside somehow.

Won't we, Louis?

Hey, what you doing here?!

Tickets, please.

Tickets, please!

You are riding the New York Limited.

Next stop-- Birmingham, Alabama.

Claudia.

Claudia.

Shh, shh, shh, shh.

Claudia, you left without saying goodbye.

Again.

I'm sure it was an oversight, but still.

You'd think your creator had earned the courtesy.

You didn't want me.

You made me for Louis.

And he needs you now more than ever.

He's in a terrible state.

He said I could go.

He picked you over me.

Louis couldn't pick an apple off a tree in his current state.

He'd grip it, tug at it,

and, weak as he is, the stem would hold.

Let me go, Lestat.

In Louis' hour of need?

I'm afraid I can't allow that.

He's very fragile right now,

worse than the last time you abandoned him,

when you filled your head with knowledge

and hitched a ride on a motorbike.

Well, you wouldn't talk of it.

Louis insisted I not ask.

I love our family, but the rules are "no secrets."

Fortunate for our family, when I put my mind to it,

I can hear the thoughts of other vampires

at a very great distance.

Bastard.

He thinks of you often.

Bruce.

Fucking bastard.

I couldn't agree more.

What he did to you was in very poor taste.

Could you imagine if something like that happened to you again?

Louis would never forgive himself.

Back in your cage, sweetheart.

We endure each other for Louis' happiness.

So come home and make him happy.

Because if you try this again, Claudia,

I won't snap your leg, defile your pocket,

and zoom off on a motorbike.

I'll turn your bones to dust.

President Roosevelt: I had hoped against hope

that some miracle would prevent

a devastating war in Europe

and bring to an end the invasion of Poland by Germany.

The Dutch Defense. Naturally.

I've been having a thought the last few days, Louis.

Yeah? What's that?

I think he killed Magnus.

I think the vampire made him a slave.

And he would be a slave no more than I would,

and so he killed him--

killed him before he knew all the things

he couldn't know.

And now he's gone and made us slaves to him.

Stonewalling again.

You've become quite predictable,

my sister, disappointment.

We're not slaves. Maybe mindless accomplices.

No, we're his slaves, and I will free us both.

Claudia.

We have no more use for him.

And he causes us misery with no horizon.

What are you gonna do?

Pout and mimic me until I grow empathetic?

Is that your strategy tonight?

President Roosevelt: ...the teachings of religion,

the continuation of efforts to restore peace...

One bishop can be captured,

but... I see the trap.

I don't like what you're feeling right now.

You cannot kill--

I love you, Louis.

I don't say it often enough anymore.

If you love me, then listen to me.

I beg you.

If you're going to beat Lestat,

you have to become Lestat.

You have to think like he does

and then five moves ahead of that.

Bishop to G1.

But he's not mortal.

Queen to H2.

No illness can touch him.

You threaten a life which will endure

till the end of the world.

You will bring your queen,

but the bishop cannot be ignored.

The rook, the queen...

I am done endurin'.

I'm not moving my rook.

Knight takes the bishop.

I'm going to kill him.

Check.

He'll destroy you if you try it.

No, Louis.

Rook protects the king,

and your queen has been neutralized.

It's a very spirited effort.

I can kill him.

Another baffling pawn sacrifice.

Check.

And I want to tell you something else now.

A secret of all secrets between you and me.

Now you're giving up bishops and knights for pawns.

Wait.

No, that can't be.

The secret is, Louis...

Queen on one side,

rook on the other.

...you want to kill him too,

and you will enjoy doing it.

You have won.

I'm tired.

We'll finish the game.

I think I'm gonna go to bed.

Move your pawn. Finish the game.

- Good night, Lestat. - Finish the game!

Good night, Louis.

She was right.

Spoiled, selfish, thankless.

It was inevitable.

Heedless, disagreeable, obnoxious, repellent,

unkind, spoiled to the core!

President Roosevelt: ...every ship that sails the sea,

every battle that is fought

does affect the American future.

We were going to kill Lestat.

We were going to kill Lestat.

Rashid, are you awake?

I can be.

I think the medication has overwhelmed our boy.

I would gladly wake him.

No, we can pick it up again tomorrow.

But fetch a cover, would you?

Let him be warm with his dreaming.

♪ I see you walking

♪ I see you talking with all of my friends ♪

What's in the bag?

Hello.

Hi.

Work. My work's in the bag.

Is it a gun?

Are you an assassin?

Am I the man you came to kill?

I did a terrible thing once. It wouldn't surprise me.

I'm a writer.

A journalist mostly, so...

Do you have money tonight, Danny?

Get the boy whatever he want.

I'll have a grasshopper.

Tom Collins.

Louis de Pointe du Lac. That's an interesting name.

Louis of Pointe du Lac Plantation.

My great-great-grandfather owned one.

All that remains is a name.

Ah, that's the accent.

I have an accent?

You have a slight sharpness of the consonants,

that's all.

An observant journalist.

Yeah. I do interviews mostly.

I have a series at the Berkeley Barb.

Hey, you know, I could interview you.

Well, I'm no one of importance.

Well, that's my speciality.

You see, I look for people in the cracks, you feel me?

I do feel you.

You know, it's about the people, you know,

who make the city, right?

You know, not a cop or a politician.

Any asshole can do that.

Look.

You see, I get 'em on tape, and then I write 'em up.

You didn't come here for that.

I know you're struggling, Danny.

It's Daniel.

I have what you're looking for.

High quality.

Befitting a man of my tastes.

I have a room over on Divisadero, not too far a walk.

Are you a narc?

I'm a vampire.

I want to interview you.

Sounds fun.

I mean, if something happens, you know, I'm cool,

but, yeah,

I really want to interview you.

Course.

We'll take it as it comes.

That okay with you? Would you like to join us?

No.

You go ahead. Have your fun.

♪ Aah

♪ Come to me

♪ And let my everloving arms

♪ Surround you

♪ Come to me

♪ And let my infinite embrace

♪ Confound you

♪ And mourn each other like star-crossed lovers ♪

♪ Oh, come to me

♪ Come to me