Prince Lestat: a gigantic multi-part recap: Part I

I've been meaning to do this for a while, but it was delayed by illness, work and sheer exhaustion. Brace yourselves, mes amis - it's the giant chapter-by-chapter Prince Lestat post! Or, to be honest, it's the first of several posts, because I want to get this thing rolling and not wait until I've commented on the whole thing. Also, I doubt that LiveJournal's post size limit can cope unless I split this thing up. I'll probably do it based on the sections of the book, but we'll see how things shake out.

Content note: sex, IVF, decapitation.

( Spoilers! A warning which will be cut off when this crossposts to LiveJournal, since they don't let you have custom cut text anymore. Whatever. )