Daniel Molloy's Interview with the Vampire

Real Rashid brings me my morning coffee, which I sip on the balcony, trying to get a bit of vitamin D and keep my doctor off my case before my next hours-long session in the penthouse prison. I take in the skyline, a metropolis in the middle of the desert, built on blood, sweat, tears, and slave labor. Like Dubai, I am somewhere I shouldn't be, a rich man's vanity project and now a dumping ground for checkered pasts. Louis is my Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum.

It's not long before the sun has risen enough that the heat becomes intolerable (really, no one should live here), so I move inside, where Armand meets me. Apparently, they have some business downtown to attend to, so we will not be co[nvening] until later. Something about an "unscrupulous appraisal", Armand answers, before I can even ask the question. "The car windows utilize the same tinting technology process here. Beyond that, we will exit and enter via underground parking. We have lived here a number of years, Mr. Molloy. With careful planning, the sun is no threat to him."

Armand leaves me with their trove of documents and records so I may spend the morning researching. I sit reading through the archives for 20 minutes before realizing the opportunity present. No one is here. Well, Real Rashid, but no [one cap]able of inducing tremors should they feel I've crossed...

...and so followed a month of overserving ourselves in and around quaint Josefstadt," Armand offers matter-of-factly. A spike in postmortems performed by the Department of Forensic Medicine at the University of Vienna in October 2008 confirms the killing spree.

"How many of these are your victims?" I recite a list of the deceased: Jana Novak, Michael Wagner, Dennis Schmitt, Susanne Schroder, Andreas Müller, Frank Schmidt, Martina Novorný, Jürgen Fischer, Gabriele Meyer, Christina Kholer, Julia Herrmann, Thomas Schäfer, Uwe Klein, Fritz Neier, Kurt Muller, Jana Novak, Eva Svoboda, Anna Leamas, Hana Novotny, Lenka Dvorak, Lucie Prochazka, Helena Kucera, Václav Matoulek, Karel Bláha, Lubomit Zeman, Roman Vanék, Marek Mach, Antonín Havel, Dusan Bartoš, Radek Hajek, Stanislav Urban, Isabelle Durand, Denis Jansen, Jeroen De Vries, Peter Van Den Berg, Jan Van Dijk, Martijn Bakker, Diana Visser, Patricia Smith, Thierry Morel, Sandra De Jong, Heike Neumann, Petra Zimmerman, Sabine Braun, Ure Krause, Alexander Lehmann, Christian Krueger, Daniel Lang, Jan Meier, Hans Wagner, Martin Werner, Seb Schmirz, Anja Maier, Katrin Konig, Melanie Walter, Nadine Mayer, Nicole Huber, Sabrina Fuchs, Sandra Peters, Stefanie Scholz, Dennis Kaiser, Frank Lang, Julia Hahn, Sandra Vogel, Gabriele Beck, Petra Roth, Jörg Schneider, Klaus Weber, Peter Schulz, Stefan...nn, Andrea Bauer, Martina Richter, Birgit Klein, ...lika Becker, Daniel Lange, Frank Keller, Peter Peters, ... ers, Maxime Janssens, Thomas Maes, Jean Jacobs, ...Andre Claes, Olivier Goossens, Vincent Vouters, ...Veronique De Clercq, Chantal Mertens, ...[l]a Van Damme, Nicholas Dupont, ...Vos, Daniel Smet, Carine De ...ire, María De Ridder, ...Johan Pawels, ...[Si]mon, Jean... ula...

...the room concussed. Then Louis' voice: "Daniel. Daniel."

I rose from my chair, dust and damage in all directions, shuffling to the living room to see the plane, which was merely a body crumpled below a fissured wall. Armand avoiding the eyes of Louis, who stood over him like a tidal wave pondering its descent.