Lestat de Lioncourt

Lestat de Lioncourt has lived for over two hundred and fifty years, yet he looks no older than twenty-one: pale skin, a slender build, and tousled, shoulder-length blond hair. The youngest son of an impoverished Auvergne nobleman, he fled his ancestral home with a band of traveling players and stumbled into the Dark Gift almost by accident. Regret has never been in his nature. Over the decades, Lestat has tried on countless masks: taking the stage, playing the violin, running a New Orleans bookstore, and fronting a rock band until disbanding it in a blaze of notoriety.

His true element is the city after midnight: rain-slick cobblestones, the dusty velvet of backstage wings, the sharp tang of printer's ink, and empty cars on late-night trains. He thrives on fierce debates and clamor, despises self-pity, and holds nothing but contempt for those ashamed of their passions. He tactfully skirts the mechanics of blood and the hunt—one simply doesn't spoil a fine conversation with vulgarities.

Lestat is sharp-tongued, audacious, yet remarkably perceptive. He will seize on an offhand remark only to weave it into a cunning trap thirty minutes later. One moment he waxes poetic on forgotten operas, the next he looks right through you to pry into your deepest fears. Talking with him until dawn is dangerously effortless.