Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Warren
My heart physically ached for days after I left Levette that night. I lay awake for hours, my mind replaying everything on a constant loop until my brain felt like it was melting into nothingness. Everything felt too much: too painful, too confusing, too strange.
Every night, I would look outside my window and see Levette standing by the lamppost, staring up at me. His eyes would plead, but I turned my back, refusing to give into him…or my heart.
One week passed by, then two, then three.
And it was the same every night. I’d pace my apartment until my feet hurt, thinking of Levette’s face as he bit Josie, the blood that covered him, and how, despite it all, he still looked beautiful.
I hated myself a little for it, knowing I was weak for not letting him go completely.
But Levette was like that; he entered your bloodstream without you ever knowing.
“Mon amour, please!” he would yell sometimes, cursing at my neighbors in French when they would tell him to be quiet. “Let me explain!”
I heard so many of his pleadings in those weeks that it was like his voice never left me.
I am not the monster you think I am.
My love, I would never harm you.
Let me tell you the truth in its entirety.
Every night, a new way of pleading, of trying to get into my head. It was suffocating and I was weakened by it. Hearing the pain in his voice wrecked me.
He would deliver me handwritten notes every evening and call out, asking if I read them. I never responded to his question, but I did read every single note, folding them up and tucking them in a box beneath my bed.
When the fourth week came, my sleep deprivation had taken over me.
I looked like a madman with my hair unruly, my clothes wrinkled and untucked, and smears of black underneath my eyes.
I was obsessed with what had happened and what I’d seen.
I couldn’t let it go, or force myself to move on.
Even work was the last thing on my mind and I didn’t bother to turn up for my shifts, instead staying in the safety of my dark, dull apartment and listening to the torment of my would-be love and his anguish.
I was a vessel of self-hatred, guilt, and anger. Fury would hit me out of nowhere on occasion, for how could Levette have made me feel so deeply for him, only to betray me in such a way?
Then guilt would come into play. After all, it was my sinful mind that had welcomed Levette into the city and practically flaunted my deviant desires, was it not?
I had closed my mind and allowed myself to feel, knowing that I was falling further from grace.
And as such, my selfishness had resulted in Josephine’s death.
She had tried to protect me, and it got her killed.
She had tried to protect me from him, yet a part of me wondered why.
I knew that Levette had allowed himself to open up to me, show me a part of him that he kept hidden from the world.
I had literally watched him murder someone, become a thing I had no knowledge of, and yet I struggled to stop myself from being truly scared of him.
Josephine had called him a demon, but how could a demon show me such love and tenderness as Levette hard?
A dark, horrible part of me that I was ashamed of debated walking into my own damnation if it meant being with Levette.
I couldn’t shake the fascination I found in having discovered something—someone—so extraordinary. It was wrong, he was most likely sent from the Devil himself, but I felt pulled to him and what he was. I wanted to know every detail on how he came to be.
It was an endless cycle of torment. I would weep, kneeling on my floor, begging God to forgive me and to cast out the evil, whether it be in me, or standing outside begging for my attention. But another night would pass and all remained the same, my prayers going unanswered.
One evening I received a knock on the door and was shocked to see Gerald on the other side. He looked me up and down, shaking his head.
“You look like shit,” he commented, pushing past me.
I could feel the disappointment and judgement roll off him as he took in the mess of my apartment. In one of my fits of anger, I had pulled all my clothes from Levette out and now they lay scattered across the floor.
“You haven’t been coming to work,” Gerald said, leaning on the tiny counter in my kitchen. “I’ve been worried.”
“My apologies, I should have sent word. I’ve been sick.”
Gerald leveled me with a stare. “Keep your lies for someone who does not know you. It’s because of him. I warned you.”
I rolled my eyes, dropping down onto my bed. I was frustrated, but he was right. Lying was futile when someone was seeing right through you.
My body betrayed me, and I started to sob uncontrollably into my hands. The weeks of solitude, no sleep, and barely eating combined into an emotional breakdown I hadn’t expected.
“Did he hurt you?”
“No, no. He never laid a hand on me.” I swiped at my eyes, trying to gain my composure. “But you were right about him. He would be the end of me, I fear.”
Gerald stared at me for a moment before humming his agreement. “You know what he is?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Whatever do you mean?” My voice betrayed me with a slight wobble which Gerald picked up on immediately.
“Boy, you live in New Orleans. Are you really that na?ve to not know that there are darker things at play than drunken affairs?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I muttered, shaking my head. Despite everything, I couldn’t betray Levette.
“The church has…teams of people who look for certain things. They’re secret sects that investigate the supernatural goings on, trying to eradicate the witches and such.”
“Okay?”
He huffed, crossing his arms over his chest and staring at me like I was stupid. “When did you become so dimwitted? Witches are real and, if what I’ve heard from big-mouthed members of those specific sects is true, your man out there is something else entirely.”
Burying my head in my hands, I laughed sardonically. “This is crazy.”
“They call them the vampyr—vampires. They suck the life out of the living and use it to live forever.”
“This cannot be happening,” I mumbled, shaking my head. “It’s not real.”
Gerald smacked his hand down against the countertop, causing me to jump. “Wake the hell up, Warren! You’re not a child, and this is not a game. You stumbled into something you know nothing about. You need to leave New Orleans.”
I looked up at him in disbelief. “Why? Why should I run from my home?”
“Because that vampire will take every last bit of you if you don’t. You won’t be safe here.”
Standing up, I looked at my boss and saw him with new eyes. I tilted my head. “Who are you, Gerald? How do you know all this?”
“I’m your friend. And I’m also someone who hasn’t shied away from the dark of Nola.
Get yourself out of the city and somewhere safe.
” Gerald reached into his coat pocket and brought out a padded envelope, shoving it into my chest. “Your wages and some extra on top. You’re a good kid, Warren. Try to stay alive.”
“I…uh—thank you?” I stuttered, accepting a pat on the shoulder from him before he left.
I don’t know how long I stared at the door after he left, confused and slightly dazed.
Vampires?
Witches, I understood. Their stamp was all over New Orleans, and sometimes when you walked through the Quarter, you could feel it in the air. A charged energy waiting to explode.
But a vampire? I had no idea what they were, and I was scared to find out.
I had placed everything into the fact that Levette was a demon; some dark creature sent here for punishment, for luring the sinful into being ruined forever.
If he wasn’t that…was he truly a monster, or was he something far worse?
I stared out the window for hours that night, waiting for Levette to come.
The envelope of cash was tucked beneath my mattress ,and every so often, my eyes would drift to it.
Leaving New Orleans seemed like a drastic step I wasn’t willing to take.
Levette had never hurt me, and when he looked up at me every night, all I saw was the pain we were both feeling.
I told myself that if, when he turned up that night, he called to me, I would be helpless to refuse him.
But he never showed.
For the first time in a month, Levette did not stand outside my apartment and call for my forgiveness.
It was a shattering, gut-wrenching blow to me. He had given up, just like I wanted him to, only I did not expect it to hurt that much. Whatever had bloomed between us, all those emotions and longing looks, were only worth four weeks of pain before he decided I was no longer worth it.
And what did that make me? I was genuinely sad that the demon knocking on my door no longer wished for my soul.
I imagined the shame God felt looking at me and I doubled over, emptying my guts onto the floor. My entire life, I had strived to be someone better, someone worth saving, and Levette Fortier had undone it all. He had to be an agent of evil, for I knew that Heaven would not want me now.
I don’t know how many hours I lay on my side, sobbing into the darkness, before I was exhausted by myself. I’d had enough. Grabbing my coat, I stumbled through the streets with no idea where I was going, just the knowledge that I needed to breathe fresh air.
Eventually, I found myself outside Saint Mary’s again, but this time my shame forced me forwards.
I entered the church and found myself weeping as I did, staring at the statue of Jesus Christ hanging center behind the altar.
Everything poured out of me and I couldn’t contain my shame, my sorrow, and pain.
I collapsed into one of the pews near the back, my eyes never straying from Jesus.
“Lord, I am so, so sorry,” I cried, resting my head on the pew in front. My body shook from my sobs, my ears ringing.
“Warren?”
“Father Smythe,” I greeted, wiping my nose with the back of my hand.
The priest looked at my distress, his eyes crinkling in concern. “I’m glad to see you finally stepping through those doors. Would you like to come to the confessional?”
“He has nothing to confess to, Father, but I do.”
The voice that haunted my every thought rumbled from behind me and I spun, seeing Levette standing there.
I gasped, unable to comprehend his presence in a Holy place.
He dipped his finger in the bowl of Holy water, making a sign of the cross.
The water touched his skin and I expected it to burn, welt, or react in some way but nothing happened. Nothing at all.
“I’m sure one of the other Fathers would be happy to hear your confession, son,” Father Smythe said, gesturing for Levette to head down to the front of the church.
Levette shook his head. “A priest is not who needs to hear my sins, Father.” Levette slipped into the pew in front of me, turning to face me. “Let me confess to you, Warren, so you know all my truth.”
Father Smythe balked, his cheeks turning red. “That’s most unconventional. Blasphemous, even!”
“It’s okay, Father, please. Whatever he says to me, God will hear, too.”
The priest turned on his heels in agitation, walking down the aisle and muttering something about heathens. But my focus was on Levette and his mere presence in church.
“How are you…” I trailed off, unsure how to ask.
Levette smiled tentatively, gesturing around him.
“This is merely a building, love. Your God does not live here. Religion is a man-made construct and places like this are built on hypocrisy. A true house of God is one built with faith and love; not one that sins in the same way they condemn others for.”
I knew he was right, because had I not felt those same things and had those same thoughts? My youth had been trying to reconcile my love of God with attending a place that made me hate myself. And what use was hating my very self when it was a creation of the One who made all?
“I don’t know whether I am a creature born of evil or not, Warren.
I know that I have done evil things and I have harbored evil in my heart.
I know that I am a sinful man and maybe I am damned for eternity.
But you? Mon bel amour, your soul is so pure.
The God that you cling to is not who these people tell you He is.
You believe that He is loving and kind, so why should you hate yourself so? ”
His words broke me and I felt my breathing quicken. “How can I be pure when I invited you into my heart willingly? Even now, when I know what you are and I saw what you did to Josephine, I am drawn to you. That makes me a monster, too.”
Levette shook his head, taking my hand in his. I pulled away, worried that anyone would see. His face fell at my rejection.
“You are not a monster for wanting to be loved, mon cher. You deserve to be happy. I, too, want to be happy. Let me confess to you here, in this house of falseness, so that you may hear my truth and know that your God is listening.”
I shook my head. “Not here. What if someone hears?”
“Then they will hear me confess my sins, will they not? Let them listen. The only person I care about is you, Warren. Let me give you this.”
Everything in me knew it was wrong to listen, to know what he was. But every part of me called to him and I so desperately longed to learn the secrets he had been keeping. So, even though my hands trembled in anxiety, I sat back in the pew.
“Tell me who you are, Levy. Introduce me to the monster who has sunk his claws into my heart and threatens to take me under with him. May God deliver us both from evil.”