Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Warren
My face burned from the tears streaming down my cheeks as Levette told me his story.
By the time he stopped speaking, black rivulets made a pathway down his skin.
I reached out, swiping them away before anyone else could see.
He deserved to have his moment of vulnerability in peace, without accusations of being demonic from a passerby.
Levette grabbed my wrist as I pulled away, holding it softly as he looked at the smear of black. “It has been a long time since I cried over that. It seems grief still has a hold on me.”
“Grief never truly lets us go. Remember them, all the love and all the pain is how we have the energy to continue on.”
“Such a human emotion; I didn’t think…”
I pressed my hand over his heart. “You did not erase your humanity by becoming what you are, Levy. Even so, I am sorry your choice was taken from you. It was a monstrous violation and I can only imagine how it felt to wake up, alone and changed forevermore.”
Levette nodded, taking a staggering breath.
“It was the scariest moment of my life. I awoke as the sun set, twilight surrounding me like a blanket. I should have been dead. I had bled out beside Leroy, I knew that because the blood had dried into the ground beneath me and soaked into my clothes. My body trembled in fear, alongside something else. Something had changed in me but I did not know what.”
“What was the other thing?” I asked softly.
“An unimaginable hunger,” Levette answered.
“Like nothing I had ever felt. When you are first changed, hunger is all you can think about. Your head pounds, and it isn’t until after you find your first meal that you realize the pounding is the heartbeats of the humans.
It fills your every sense and beckons you towards them, to drink from them and devour them. ”
“Wait, wait,” I interrupted, a question dawning on me, “backtrack a second. How did you change? I don’t understand. Because he fed on you?”
Levette shook his head. “I could not understand it myself. I thought it was my punishment from God. I had gone against his teachings and so he turned me into a creature of horror.”
I sat back in my pew, looking at Levette in a new light.
His sadness was palpable and my own guilt resonated deeply with how he felt.
I knew he was right when he said our souls called to each other—we understood what it meant to feel like we had disappointed the Almighty.
The heaviness of that was a burden most people could not understand.
“Hunger consumed me but again, I did not know that was what it was. So I grabbed Leroy’s dead body and pressed him against my chest. In hindsight, I should have known something was different in me because Leroy was taller and more muscular than I was, yet I was carrying him like a baby in my arms effortlessly, not a bead of sweat in sight.
I was determined to take him home and let his family give him the burial he deserved, since death had taken him so cruelly. ”
“That’s beautiful,” I told Levy, “to give that to his family.”
Levette averted his gaze, looking at his hands instead. “His death was my fault. Allowing his family the chance to say goodbye was the least I could do.”
“Did you attend his funeral?”
“Non, mon cher. I was already out of New Orleans by the time he was buried.”
“What happened?”
“His mama.” Levette sighed. “I took him to the bayou with a plan to lay him on their land and leave. They did not need to hear my apologies or excuses. But his Mama was waiting on his return, just like she was all those years before. You devil! She was yelling something else but the pounding of her heart filled my ears. You killed him! I tried to explain that it wasn’t me, I had not and would never harm him, but she saw something in me when she got closer and she stopped dead in her tracks.
Put my boy down, you servant of evil, and get away from us!
I won’t let you take nothing else! I lay Leroy gently on the ground between us, placing a soft kiss to his forehead.
I begged her to let me say goodbye, but she would not listen.
She was whispering in Latin and suddenly my vision blurred and an indescribable pain filled my skull, throwing off my balance. I sank to my knees, screaming in pain.”
I gasped, imagining the scene playing out. Levette had suffered so much, but he had been unable to tell them or ask for help. And even if he had, I doubted Leroy’s mother would have offered him assistance or guidance. How lonely he must have felt.
“She knew what I was, even if I didn’t. Vampires were known creatures to the witches, though they always hated each other and rarely lived in the same place.
Her anger, while natural, made me both angry and sad.
I hated that she would not allow me to explain and that she immediately placed the blame on my shoulders.
And I was heartbroken to know that nobody would ever know what had happened to Leroy… what had happened to me.”
“You were alone,” I heard myself mutter. The sadness I felt for him was a tangible thing, and I wished I could have taken away all the pain he felt.
Levette lifted a shoulder, trying his best to make it seem like he didn’t care, though his voice betrayed him.
“I deserved her anger. I deserved Josephine’s, too.
But I am sure you can see that the difference in how I reacted to them shows how much time has changed me.
I am not the person I was back then. I am not a good person now. ”
He was trying to cover up the way he’s exposed his emotions and made himself vulnerable. He wanted me to be scared or angry again because he knew how to deal with that. My understanding was what he wanted, but to have it was a new sensation and he could not handle it.
“Save your self-depreciation and judgement for later, Levy. I want your honesty right now. Tell me what happened next.”
He swept a hand through his dark hair, making his dark locks sit out of place. The ruggedness of it made him look more human.
“His mother did not let up. The rest of her family came running out of the house in hysterics when they saw Leroy, one of his brothers whispering the same words as his mama. You will leave this place now, Levette Fortier, and never return. If you step foot back on this land, I will make sure your time on Earth is a Hell you will never escape from. You belong to the devil now, boy—you don’t belong here.
I remember how hard all their hearts were beating in their chests, the way my stomach ached and how my head felt like it was melting in my skull.
Her words filled me with terror and I knew that she meant it.
So, I did as she commanded me. I turned and fled.
Without Leroy, I no longer felt at home in New Orleans, anyway. I had to find somewhere new.”
I shivered, the air around us suddenly cold.
The pain he must have felt, leaving behind everything and everyone he loved.
I ached for him, wishing I could take it away.
To have eternity to relive those emotions and memories over and over again; it was no surprise Levette had made himself emotionless and untouchable to the rest of the world. The alternative was devastating.
“I can feel your pity, Warren. I do not deserve it.”
“You don’t get to decide what you deserve. And it’s not pity—it’s heartbreak on your behalf.”
Levette shrugged out of his coat when he saw me shivering, handing it to me over the pew. I wrapped it around my shoulders and pulled it tight, the scent of him invaded my senses.
“On my way out of the city, I came across a homeless man. He asked me for money, and it was like something switched in me. My fangs descended in my mouth for the first time, and the hunger became uncontrollable. I grabbed him and sunk my teeth into the soft skin of his neck, draining the blood from him.” Levette looked at me, like he could see the questions swirling in my mind.
“It tasted like the finest wine, the most expensive meal, the sweetest honey; the most decadent taste you could think of will not come close to what that first drink of blood tastes like. But with that came a shame so great that I vomited all the blood up immediately. I know now that you have to pace yourself, only drink enough to quench your hunger, but I didn’t have guidance.
I had to figure it out on my own, while also feeling like a demon’s plaything.
I had killed someone—that had to mean I was evil. ”
Somehow, even hearing the gory details of his story, I could not match the word evil with Levette. He was complicated and had done monstrous things, but I sensed that he wanted to be better. Evil people did not feel shame and remorse for their dark deeds.
“Where did you go when you fled?”
“I left a path of dead bodies in my wake from Louisiana to Europe.
I fed when I wanted and stole from my victims, using their money and possessions to help me go to the next place.
After each kill, I cried and purged the guilt from my system, ready to repeat it all over again.
I was lost and alone, and all I had to keep me going was my anger and my hunger.
I was angry at what I was, and the fact that it had isolated me only propelled me further into the grips of vampirism.
It was easier to pretend I felt nothing than allow myself to feel everything.
I feared that if I did that, I would walk into the sun and allow myself to turn to dust.
“I ended up in France after about five years of traveling from place to place, never setting down roots. There was a war happening then—there was always a war somewhere—and it was the perfect place for me to hide out. I enlisted and found myself on the frontlines, killing and feeding on the dying. The blood tasted like death, but I didn’t care.
I only cared about feeding my hunger and time passing enough that my thoughts would not be crippled by the pain of what I had done and all those I had disappointed and abandoned. ”
“Did you ever meet another vampire along the way?”
Levette smiled, but it was twisted and not one of happiness.
“I had been in France for around six years when a coven swept through the town I had been stationed at. I knew vampires were in town because the death toll rose to an insurmountable number, troubling even during the war. Nobody batted an eye, but I sensed it.”
My curiosity piqued at the idea of other vampires. It was shameful to be excited to hear about it, but I allowed myself the indulgence of it, being so invested in Levette’s story as I was.
“How did you feel about the prospect of meeting another vampire?” I asked.
“I was fearful, bien s?r, considering how my last meeting had gone. But I cannot deny that the idea of meeting another of my kind, of no longer being alone, sparked something within me and I was exhilarated by it. I went searching for them, even killing more brazenly in the hopes they would seek me out.”
I leaned forward, sitting on the edge of the pew. “And did they?”
Levette’s face took on a sharpness, his lip curling in disgust. “Oui, and it was not the meeting I had hoped for. The leader of the coven did not recognize me, but we had met before. He was the vampire who had turned me and killed Leroy. His face was not one I was likely to forget.”
My stomach sank as I envisioned how Levette must have felt, the anger and hurt he must have experienced seeing that man again. It was a torment I had hoped he never had to go through.
“What did you do?”
“I was still a fledgling vampire, all things considered, but I was not new or na?ve to the world. I had been twenty-seven when I was turned, and years had passed since then. My travels had made me wiser, and so I played the game, allowing them to court me into their coven. Outwardly appearing enamored by them, I was all the while plotting how to destroy their maker. My maker.”
I grabbed Levette’s jacket and pulled it tighter around me, feeling chills spread down my body. “Did you kill him?”
Levette grinned, a savage thing with his fangs on full display. My pulse quickened and it should have been in fear, but it was not. I was enthralled by him and his tale.
“Cassius Jonescu died at my hands, though I don’t know if I can take credit for his death.”
“What does that mean?” I asked in confusion, my brows raised.
“How can evil destroy evil?” Levette countered, a solemn look on his face.