Work Text:
Interviewee: The Vampire Armand
Interviewer: Daniel Molloy
Date of Interview: 08/15/2026
Location of Interview: [REDACTED]
List of Acronyms: A=The Vampire Armand, D=Interviewer
Notes: N/A
[Begin Transcript 00:00:10]
Session #1.
D: Okay, so this is Session One of Daniel Molloy interviewing The Vampire Armand, and— Oh, come on, don't make that face at me. You're the one who agreed to do this. No one could force you to be here, even if they wanted to.
A: I don't understand the point of this, still. You already got the story you want from Lestat, who must have had no problem whatsoever in telling you the Children of Darkness were a pathetic display of vampirism who are better left as dead, buried in memory.
D: But that's exactly what I'm talking about! That's not how he worded it.
A: Oh, so you would like me to quote him? It's a bit difficult, when you won't let me see which of my secrets he decided to tell the whole worl—
D: Okay, don't start this again.
A: What am I starting, Mister Molloy?
D: I mean, do you really have to make things difficult? I already get enough of this walking-around-the-obvious bullshit with Lestat, and I don't need it from you too.
A: [laughs]
D: Seriously. Can't any of you cooperate, for once? Can't this be a repeat of— oh, I don't know— fucking Dubai?
A: But that was Louis' interview, Mister Molloy. I no longer have a companion I feel the need to please. Unless you're referring to the end of that whole debacle. In that case… Do you want to die a second time? I'd be more amenable to it, this time, I think.
D: Nah, I think I'm good.
A: Let me know if that changes.
D: Oh, but we both know you won't do anything to me. Louis would be pissed, and you've spent too much time following me around— like a creep, might I add— and killing any vampire that even looks at me weirdly to ever actually do anything to me.
[There's a drawn-out, tense silence.]
A: … It's a dangerous time, Daniel. Which is precisely why you should stop interviewing vampires. Even Louis thinks you're being stupid. He's refusing to talk to you too, isn't he?
D: Using my name? Gee, babe, I feel special.
A: I'm being serious.
D: When are you not? By the way, Lestat said you all were a sad excuse of—
A: Alright, alright, I get it.
[There's a long pause.]
D: Can we finally get started?
A: If you insist.
[The sound of papers rustling follows.]
D: So [clears throat] how did you originally come to be a part of the Children of Darkness?
A: [laughs, lowly] What? Not going to even try building up to it, are you? Have you lost your touch at last, Daniel?
D: Again, I have to do enough of that with Lestat. He makes it impossible to ask a straight forward question. Can't you be the one to make my life easier?
A: Alright, alright. I apologize.
D: If you were actually sorry, you'd stop stalling. We only have one night to get through all this. I'm on a deadline, and if you want the story straight, you're going to have to begin talking at some point.
[Another long pause passes.]
A: You've called the Children of Darkness my cult before, but I don't think that's the most accurate way to put it. They weren't mine, not really. Even in Paris, there were still people above me. Allesandra, who was among those who initiated me, came to Paris with me when I was sent there from Rome. When Allesandra died, when she threw herself into the flames at long last, I flew into a fit of rage, as I'm sure you'd so delicately put it. Knocked my coven one by one into the bonfire, mindless of the old rituals that usually came with death. Lestat told you about that, I'm sure.
D: And you told me, the first time you told me this story, though you left out this Allesandra, that the rest of your coven went mad. Ended themselves.
A: [hums] They were mad, though. I was mad too. I behaved in ways, back then, that I'm not sure I could not rationalize now. I don't remember as much as I'm sure you'd like me to remember for this interview. The decades all began to blur together at a certain point, but I do remember that it was difficult to tell one things from another. The past was the present, and the present was the past. I wasn't at my best, to put it mildly.
D: And your best is what? Now? Don't make me laugh.
A: Well, I haven't thrown you into the flames for your insolence yet, have I?
D: There's still time. The night is early. But [louder] note to self, don't piss off Armand when he's deep in psychosis.
A: Is that what they're calling it now? [a brief silence] Ah, but we're getting ahead of ourselves, aren't we? You asked for the beginning. It began in Venice, and it began with a fire. I wasn't mad yet then.
[A beat passes.]
D: Go on. I'm listening.
[The silence lingers.]
A: Amadeo smelt the fire before he saw it, and he understood the loud sounds he was hearing as screams before he ever recognized who or where they were coming from. It was my maker who roused my from my idiocy, ushering me into the hallway so we could escape. We rushed to leave, before the flames grew impossibly large, but they had planned their ambush on him rather well. They had us utterly surrounded, and it— and it wasn't long before I was forced to watch him die.
D: Hm.
A: What?… What could ever possibly be your problem now? I'm giving you what you want.
D: Nothing. Continue, I'm just taking notes.
A: Can I see them?
D: No.
A: And people call me the problem. I could pause time to take them from you, you know. I could read them before you even knew anything was amiss.
D: You are a problem. Exhibit A being that entirely out of line reaction to me doing my job.
A: If you were doing your job, you'd be listening quietly. [exhales sharply] But yes, as I was saying, I watched as they grabbed him, helpless as their flames engulfed him. I couldn't do anything. I was too weak, too young to fight against all their grasps. There were so many of them, and I was helpless, unable to even collect the ashes of my maker. They dragged me away before I could. They must have been watching us for some time, because they told me, as they dragged me away, that my Master should not have made me in sickness. They said the fire, and all of our deaths, was punishment for his crime.
[A pause.]
A: After that, for the second time in my life, I was shackled on a boat. I was alongside the rest of the Master's boys, and there was nothing to be done to escape. They beat me more than they did anyone else, I think. Or, I don't know, it's hard to remember. It's all a blur. The other boy were crying, but I couldn't do anything but it, chained and unable to break free. I couldn't comfort them. Riccardo— the oldest of the boys, who'd only been at the Palazzo at the time of the fire because he'd come back to visit me— tried to be of help, but he couldn't do much more than pray.
[Another pause, longer in length this time.]
A: When we finally, inevitably reached land, we were greeted by more fire. And I watched as my boys, one by one, were thrown into it. Even now, I don't understand why they waited for punishment. Cruelty alone doesn't feel like good enough a reason, even if it's the most likely one. In any case, watching, I couldn't account for everyone. I thought to myself, 'a few must have somehow gotten away.' It was a comfort to be able to lie to myself, for a brief moment, but then they threw me into the fire too and it became difficult to think of who I had and hadn't seen since the boat, since the Palazzo. For a moment, the pain was bliss like you wouldn't have imagined. I would have succumbed just like my maker had, if not for Santino pulling me out the scruff of my neck.
[A beat.]
A: Sometimes, I wish he would have just let me burn. I was so close, I could have been dead, but he took that away from me. It would have been better for Amadeo to have burned, I think. But they took me back with them to Rome.
[An even longer pause. The tension, even through audio, feels palpable.]
A: Santino had rats. [exhales sharply] They were in my cell with me. They sat in the corner quietly, staring, as the children threw my boys' ashes on me, and they continued watching as I ripped off the head of the worst offender. Santino didn't even get mad at me for that. He just said he was disappointed that I wouldn't listen to the rules, that I wouldn't behave. Allesandra, who introduced herself to me during my time imprisoned, mostly just looked sad for my sake. It's hard to blame either of them for it now. They were just doing what they'd been taught. Amadeo vowed to himself that he'd never join them, but [scoffs] of course, he didn't keep that promise for long at all.
D: [softly] Armand…
A: They kept me alone in that cell for weeks after that, not even visiting to give me anything to eat. The rats stayed, but their blood was rotted from the inside out. When I drained them, I could never keep their blood down for long. I don't know how to describe the hunger I felt, then. I'd starved before, as a human, and my Master and I tested to see how long I could last without eating, but that was nothing compared to this new blood lust that had overtaken me in that timeless cell. Days must have turned into weeks, and I became foreign to myself. Feeding from myself has never been nourishing. I tried to rip my own head off, like I had with that irritating man who'd taunted me, but I was too weakened, by that point, to have much success. I resigned myself to lying on the floor.
[The sound of a chair's legs being dragged away from the table fills the room, scraping. It squeaks as weight is, presumably, lifted from it.]
A: But then they brought a boy for me, and well— I'm sure you can see where this is going.
D: Look, Armand. I'm—
A: I was right in assuming all the boys were not thrown into the fire. And I was wrong in assuming it was because those unaccounted for had escaped. Clever on Santino's part, I can admit that now. Remarkable, practiced foresight.
D: Armand, you don't have to—
A: Riccardo died listening to the squeaking of Santino's rats. Amadeo didn't realize what he'd done— who he had done it to— before it was too late. Shame, but you must understand, the hunger was so consuming. Amadeo had become a feral thing. Stupid and unable to resist the most animal of impulses, even though he'd been taught better by his former Master. He was horrified by what he'd done, after he came back to himself, but by then, it was already too late to have regrets. And what right did Amadeo have to regret what he had done, anyway? Riccardo's blood painted the walls red, but his still warm corpse didn't want any of Amadeo's blood in return. He already was too dread to drink, when offered.
[There's a thumping noise, as if someone has sat down. Heavy breathing follows.]
D: [whistles lowly] Shit, Armand—
A: Don't.
D: Right.
[A silence lingers, uncomfortable.]
A: I watched them all day, and then I— and I—
D: Murdered your best friend?
[There's a thumping sound, as if something has hit the table. A muffled sobbing sound follows.]
D: Shit. Uh— there, there. Hold on, let me just—
[End Transcript 02:37:43]
Interviewee: The Vampire Armand
Interviewer: Daniel Molloy
Date of Interview: 08/15/2026
Location of Interview: [REDACTED]
List of Acronyms: A=The Vampire Armand, D=Interviewer
Notes: Session #2, picked up two hours after #1 left off.
[Begin Transcript 00:00:00]
Session #2.
A: … would like to apologize for earlier tonight, Mister Molloy.
D: Back to 'Mister Molloy' again, are we?
A: I loved Riccardo more than I loved anyone else in the world, with an innocence I had long since been able to rightfully claim alone. It was my fault alone, more than anyone else, that he died so terribly. My Master was careful in trying to teach me self control, but I didn't learn that lesson from him. I learnt it in darkness, later and after his passing.
D: I'm pretty sure getting tricked into eating someone after being starved isn't your fault, but sure. What would I know? I'm just a wee little fledgling.
A: I tore him apart. I broke his body, pulling his limbs apart, and I shoved those bits and pieces of him body through the gaps of my cell, but I was too weakened, even with his blood flowing through my veins, to break apart the largest pieces of him, like his torso.
D: Bit of a clinical description, huh?
A: Riccardo's funeral was an undignified funeral. His corpse rotted right alongside poor, dead Amadeo. I didn't become Armand the moment Riccardo died— that name was given to me years later by Allesandra, a final gift before we traveled to Paris together— but Amadeo let out his last breath the moment his Riccardo did. Amadeo was killed, as he was always meant to be.
D: Morbid.
A: I became someone new in the time between. Not Armand yet, no, but most certainly no longer Amadeo. I was too broken to ever become Amadeo again. I think that was one of the greatest gifts the Roman coven gave to me. I betrayed myself, and they allowed me to blame them for it. Calling myself Arun has always been in mourning for a boy who I had to convince myself ever existed, but I can still remember Amadeo. He was a traitor. I refuse to feel anything but contempt for him, as pathetic as he was.
D: Louis didn't like to call you Amadeo in bed, I take it. I can't imagine why.
A: Amadeo wouldn't have liked to be treated softly. Amadeo was— could only be beloved by one. Everyone else hurt him. Everyone else liked to hurt him. Boys are prettier when they are begging you to stop, aren't they? They liked when he was pretty, even if Amadeo tried his best to not let them see him be weak. Even if he pretended he liked it when they touched him, for his Master's sake.
D: Uh, right. I'm not touching that last part, but didn't your master used to whip you? I've seen the faded scars, all across the backs of your thighs. And I saw the shit you and Louis had hanging on the walls of your bedroom. I'm sure if Amadeo asked real nice for it, Louis would have been willing to give him whatever kinky shit he wanted, if that's what you want to call it.
A: You misunderstand. Louis was kind, by letting me be Arun again. But Arun and Armand only feel attached through violence. It was one of the only things they had in common, and it was a bonus that Louis needed an outlet for his rage toward Armand. The dynamic worked out well enough for frightened , barely existent Arun.
D: Amadeo knew violence.
A: But Amadeo is dead. He has to be. With his Master, violence was discipline. That's not what it was with Louis, a penance and kindness at once. Most of Amadeo's scars were healed by his Master. His Master healed his mind, and he healed his body from the violence from before. With everyone else, before and after, Amadeo didn't want it, but he learnt to like it from him. It was not lowering himself, to take what he was given.
D: Learnt? Okay, sure, I know you get all pissy when I say anything about Granddaddy, but seriously? 'It's okay if he beat me if he nursed me back to health afterwards,' right?
A: Don't be childish. That's not what I said. It wasn't like that, not in a way that mattered. I needed a reason to live for, and he gave me that. If I were to have ever told him to stop, he would have. I gave up when it came to asking anyone else.
D: But did you ever test that theory? Did you ever want him to stop?
A: But that doesn't matter either, Daniel.
[There's a long, drawn out pause.]
D: … Right. I forgot you're fucked up in the head. Yeah, whatever, silly me. I can never tell what the right thing to say is with you.
A: Riccardo always understood. I remember one time, after a party with the Master's friends that I alone of the boys attended, he found me sitting alone. He took me back to the Master's bedroom, and he sat on the edge of the bed until I fell asleep. He didn't say anything. We didn't need to talk to each other. My body ached, as it so often did those days, but he was so gentle with me. He didn't judge me for not calling it what we both knew it was. He understood me. He understood that I, like him, was better off than I ever had been before.
D: Wow. Trying to use your dead bestie to make me feel bad? Nice try.
A: I thought so.
D: How did we even get to this topic?
A: Sex and violence are remarkably similar. Inseparable, really.
D: Tough luck.
[A silence passes.]
A: I was a broken thing, after Riccardo died. Gone were the days of killing who my Master considered evil doers. But there was a more steady stream of food, after Amadeo had been smashed to nothingness. They brought me more people to eat— children, always children— and I tried my best to be careful, not wanting a repeat of the bloodshed of Riccardo. But I always killed them anyway, of course. I was haunted by them after, but that never stopped me. I learnt to stop caring, in those days. I had already killed him, I killed the only person who has ever loved me unconditionally, and by the time I'd realized who it was, it was already to late. Nothing else could matter. By the time they started bringing in the other children— not my other brothers, no, they had already all been burnt up, but children from the streets, who were confused and knew nothing of magic and blood— I was sharp enough a mind that I could have refused at any time, but I never did. It became easier to let myself be mended by my captors and their rules, after that. I was a ruined thing, and we all knew it. It was comforting, in a way, to know what was allowed of me. The rules were many, so numerous that there was always a guarantee of punishment, but the structure was nice, even if it was impossible, in those early days, to remember everything that they did to the corpse of Amadeo.
D: Extensive rules, huh? Extreme, too. Must have been, if you of all people thought they were a bit much.
A: Yes, and I did the worst things I've ever done to anyone else in those days.
[There's a long pause.]
D: Like…?
[There's an even longer pause.]
D: Armand?
A: Hm?
D: You completely spaced out on me there for a minute.
A: Oh. I hadn't realized.
D: Right. Listen, I hate to ask this, but do you need a break? We can circle back to this later.
A: No, no, I don't need a break. [scoffs] I can practically feel your curiosity stabbing me, Mister Molloy, and I'm not sure you'd survive if I didn't give you a taste. One time, we [inaudible, crackling as if the mic malfunctioned]. Another time, we [inaudible, for an even longer period of time]. And things exactly like that happened over and over again, for centuries. It happened to us all.
D: Shit, Armand. And I thought the Nicki hand thing with the Parisian Coven was bad.
A: [scoffs, again] That's not the same thing at all! We gave him his hands back after!
D: Yeah, that sounded a bit too petulant for my taste.
A: But we did! Lestat wasn't there for it, and he's never understood that not all of us can run around doing whatever we want. Nicolas was putting the coven in danger. He was risking our exposure, and I had to punish him for it somehow. I had to make him stop. He couldn't just be allowed to run amok because Lestat has no understanding of the way the world works. It wasn't harsh. It was more the equivalent of taking a misbehaving child's toys away temporarily than anything particularly bad, as you and Lestat seem to think.
D: Grab that.
A: Oh, give me a break.
D: Already?
[A tense beat passes.]
A: Allesandra was easier to trust, those days. Santino was hypocritical at best, dressing himself in rich fabrics and adorning himself in jewels none of us would ever be allowed to obtain unpunished much less wear, but Allesandra always wore the same rags we did. I loved Allesandra, and I loved Santino, too. I didn't know how to feel any differently about either of them, but I didn't like them. I couldn't have left them, even if I'd tried. I grew, over time spent with them, to forget I had ever wanted to leave, in the first place. But by the time Allesandra threw herself into the fire, the Children of Darkness had already been crumbling for years. Her death was just the final nail in the coffin. But it did not hurt me then. It did not shake me. I was too pale of soul, too numbed, too used to seeing all things as figments in a series of unconnected dreams, for it to have ever hurt me.
D: It's a common cult control tactic, isn't it, to have a surrogate parent figure for members? Was that who Allesandra was to you, those days?
A: I… don't know. I suppose I've never really thought about it before. I suppose, if that's the way you want to look at it, that wouldn't exactly be incarnate. But I find it unproductive to label her as a mother to me. It's uncommon for vampires to stay together for as long as I stayed with her. She was more than that. For a long time, she was everything to me. She was the only person I had, and I can admit now, in hindsight, that she was the only reason I never went back into the flames.
D: That's… okay. Continue, please.
A: When I think of the earliest days, before it was just Allesandra and I and before the coven started falling apart, I can only remember my hatred. I grew to love Allesandra and even Santino, but for a while there, I could only feel hatred. The ghost of Amadeo wanted so badly to hate the two of them, kicking and screaming in my head, so I hated them. I did, as best and for as long as I could, until it began to hurt more to hate them than love them. Each and every time another of the children succumbed to the flames, a vindictive part of Amadeo celebrated, as much as Armand tried to stamp him out. I got in trouble for it, once or twice, before I figured out how to hide my reactions. [scoffs] It was humiliating, one of those times, when Santino pinned me to the floor in front of the rest of the coven and—
[A long stretch of silence passes. The sound of a slow exhale makes it clear it isn't due to a mic malfunction.]
A: Ah, but— I know rape. Don't look at me so horrified like that. This wasn't that. My first memories, on the boat, are of— And every day, for what must have been years after, that is what was done to me in the brothel. There was barely a break from it then, or at least, if there had been, I can't remember it now. And it wasn't just from the ones who paid for it either. It was the others too, the others like me who never saw even a flash of the money being made off our bodies— I mean, our skills. That isn't what Santino did to me. None of the other Children touched me. He didn't benefit from it in any way. He didn't enjoy doing it. He was just trying to fix what had been broken, in the only way he knew how.
D: Right. You really want to go down in the history books as a victim blamer?
A: I'm already in history as a heartless, conniving murderer. Forgive me if I think the distinction is important. Forgive me if I choose to describe my life in a different way than you, in your oh so enlightened age where you assume you're right in describing everything as uniquely terrible, want me to describe it.
D: Touché, old man. But Santino was a hypocrite. You're the one who said that, right? I remember, clearly, you saying that yourself earlier.
A: He was, but this wasn't that.
D: But why not? You've said it yourself, you have a difficult time remembering how exactly it was that things went. How can you be sure of his motivations, or what—
[There's a sharp crack, as if someone hit their palms against the table.]
A: Why should I have to give this, my pain, to you? I've given so much, I've given everything else. Why must I be forced to give this up too? It's mine, this pain, and it's mine alone. Why must you insist upon every detail of the worst of it?
[A long, tense pause passes.]
A: Ah, I think now would be a good time to take the break you offered. Are we done here? Do you have what you need?
D: Sure. Yeah. Whatever.
[The sound of footsteps fill the room.]
[The footsteps pause.]
A: Maybe you should just listen Lestat's version for the rest of it.. You already have the rest of the story, and I see no point in finishing this (scoffs) interview. Fill in the blanks for yourself, would you? Rome was the single worst experience of my life, and I was glad to leave it behind. Allesandra and I went to Paris after one final bonfire with Santino and the rest of the coven, and before we left, she gave me the name Armand. Obviously, I've decided against going back to any name I may have had before.
D: Oh, come on, don't be like tha— What about Claudia?
[A silence.]
A: … What about her?
D: You said the worst things you've ever done were with the Children of Darkness, but they'd already disbanded by the time she came around. What about her?
A: [scoffs] What reason would I have to care about her? She was an adult. I regret it, I do, for hurting Louis, but I've killed so many. If I felt bad for every person… Well, it doesn't matter, because I don't. [sharper, as if trying (and failing) to be more convincing] I don't. I swear, I don't, and I never will. I've killed so many of my own coven members, even beyond the days of darkness, and I can not muster up even an inkling of regret for it. So many dead throughout the years because of me, but where is your rage for any of them? Nowhere to be found. I let— I let Louis kill them all in the end. I betrayed them as much as I betrayed him by not stopping him from doing what I knew he would, and I have not even attempted to atone for that. I have no interest in atoning for that. I don't regret it, and I— I don't miss them.
D: I think the circumstances for Claudia's death compared to misbehaving coven members were different—
A: [laughs] Do you really think the laws were ever fair? Do you really think we never just used them as an excuse? Do you really think anything that happened to her was unique? Don't make me laugh. You just care about her because you knew none of the others. Nicolas disgusted me, and he devastated me. Claudia just disgusted me. I gave up. Is that what you want to hear? I couldn't love her, I didn't know how. Is that the confession you want from me? No, surely not, but it's the one you're getting anyway. I can't be sorry for it. I have apologized to Louis a million times over, but it's unforgivable. But the coven, as unnecessary an evil it was, antedates her. It antedates us all.
D: Louis would hate to hear you talking about Claudia like that. Disgust, seriously?
A: But Louis, unlike you, understands that this is how the world works! He wouldn't act surprised. He's learnt, by now, that this is the way things have always been. [pauses] If you must think of me as evil, then just do that! What makes you think I've never thought it before? What makes you think no one else has ever thought it before? You didn't need another interview to come to that conclusion. You've already published a book about that!
[A long, heavy silence is followed by footsteps. A door opens and closes, slamming shut. Someone exhales loudly, irritation (and perhaps regret?) obvious.]
[End Transcript 03:47:23]