Leon Vincent (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} voodoowho) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} st_margarets,@ 2014-12-07 14:12:00 |
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WHO: Leon Vincent
WHEN: Sunday night, Dec 7
WHERE: Dungeons
He was coming.
Leon knew it even if he no longer had his magic senses. He kept the lights off in his cell, not bothering with them, not using the blankets on the cot, not even sitting. He wasn't tired. In fact, Leon felt quite strong and wide awake, his physical senses open and reading the world in a new way. He couldn't believe what he had been missing as a human, and even if all he'd seen so far, while in his right mind, was the inside of this cell, the newly turned vampire was in awe.
He stood facing the wall, touching it with one hand and waiting. Waiting. There was silence all around him, but Leon was aware of Andrei not far away in another cell. He could feel him there, knew he was calm, and the familiar bond that he'd been feeling with the vampire for almost a year was only strengthened by Andrei becoming his sire. His creator. Andrei's blood was now his, just as Andrei's had belonged to his own sire in a continuing line back through generations of vampires. Where it all began, Leon didn't know. He had a long life ahead to ponder and research that mystery. For now, he was waiting. Waiting and wishing he had Mickey's warmth with him to make him forget, put it off for just a little longer. He hadn't even begun to think of how he'd tell his lover about this.
The blood he'd been fed had taken the edge off his hunger, but Leon could feel that gripping need to feed again start to climb up against his will and he tried not to think about it, tried to focus on other things. It was nearly impossible. Leon remembered the past night only vaguely. The spirits coming to claim his soul, Andrei appearing and saving him from their torment, then things got blurry. He'd come back to himself in this cell, blood on his hands, his mouth, smeared down his throat because he couldn't quite get enough. Leon had been shocked at the amount of blood, but Andrei was there to tell him it was alright. It was normal for a fangling to hunger so much they lost control. Luckily his source of blood was from bags that he'd pierced with his fangs and drank dry, not an animal or a person.
Leon had been given the opportunity to clean up, change clothes, and now he was in the dark cell waiting.
The Supreme Houngan of Haiti would soon grace him with his presence. Leon's father had been called to another dimension to assist in a demon invasion there and had not been available to help Leon when the spirits first started to become hazardous to his health. It had eventually driven Leon to St. Margaret's, and Leon had not seen his father since, only hearing from him occasionally from written letters. His father would have known the instant his son died. It's what it would take to make him show up at the school. Leon had tried and failed to come up with a way to explain, excuse, maybe even allow his transformation into a vampire. Nothing came to him. He was now an abomination to the Balance.
He was afraid of what his father would say, but more afraid of what he would do. Leon knew, or thought he knew, that Ms. Menides wouldn't let the Sorcerer destroy him, but there were worse things. The heritage of his people, his father's line of Voodoo Priests and Leon being his only son, it had to be a blow to the man and his hopes for the future. Leon was to return home to Haiti after graduating to follow in his father's footsteps. Now that was not an option.
The lights in his room started to come up, flickering on, then off, then came on and stayed on, and when Leon turned around, shoulders braced, his father was standing in his room. The Priest was marked with tattoos and piercings, paint and powered items adorning his person including skulls, feathers, a staff that Leon remembered from his childhood, long dreads, and eyes that were a striking bright green behind a painted skull mask. Leon thought that he looked like he had aged by decades instead of only 4 years since the last time he'd seen him.
He didn't speak at first, simply looking at his son and Leon didn't speak either, lowering his eyes and bowing his head out of respect. There was no embrace of greeting or warmth from the Houngan. Just a cold stare until finally he broke the silence, the language he spoke being Haitian Creole. "You gave up your soul to save yourself. How selfish to deny the Balance."
"S-selfish?" Leon blinked and looked up, taken back. He couldn't feel the call of his father's blood and absently, Leon wondered if he'd used some kind of spell to mask it or if the Loa were with him so strongly that they protected him from Leon's uncontrollable hunger. "I gave up everything for the Loa, father. For you and for our people. I had nothing left. The spirits would have taken me--"
"They should have." The man said curtly, "It is the way. Your fate. It was decided when you were born."
Leon stared at him. While he had not been expecting sympathy, he didn't think he'd hear his father tell him he should have died and let his soul be eternally tormented by the spirits of the ones he'd killed. The ones he'd killed to protect his people. It was a Priest's job, to sacrifice themselves for the Balance. But most Priests didn't have Leon's gift of mind walking through the dolls, didn't have a collection of vengeful spirits that was the cost of using that power to kill. Leon had hoped that serving the Loa would grant him pardon, but it appeared to not be the case.
"I will tell them you perished, for surely, without a soul, my son is gone." The Houngan moved, the beads and bones clacking together on his staff as he stepped closer to Leon and drew a black knife, not unlike the one Leon had used in the clearing to draw his own blood for the spell that had been his undoing.
Leon took a step back, holding up a hand as his father approached him with the blade, "Father, please. Don't do this."
"May Leon Drumm rest in peace." The Sorcerer left his staff standing on its own and reached out, gripping Leon by his long braided dreads and in a smooth cut, sliced through them. Their spiritual and religious significance would no longer bring him power with his blood now being that of a vampire, but Leon knew and understood that his father would take them, remove all traces of the Loa from him. He wondered if he'd already been to his room and cleared out all of his relics, emptying his shelves of older dolls, destroyed them in ashes that were then buried in the forest. His altar, his necklaces, everything that he was no longer worthy to possess.
In the end, the only thing the Houngan left Leon with were his tattoos. Dr. Drumm looked at his vampire son, ignoring or not bothered by the tears that streaked Leon's cheeks. "Leon Vincent, you are cast out. Don't ever return to Haiti or a curse will follow you for the rest of your days." It was then that Leon thought he heard a break of emotion in his father's voice. The Priest was losing a son and Leon understood why. He understood he had to, as unjust as he felt it was in his heart, he knew the law of The One would not permit an abomination any graces.
The lights faded out again and Leon closed his eyes, turning his face to the wall to miss the departure of his father. He gripped the wall, fingers tight and almost breaking the stone with the immortal strength he wasn't quite used to yet, and it was only a further reminder of the permanent nature of his condition, his new existence. Everything else was taken and gone, ripped right out of his hands and his life in one fell swoop.
Leon sank down to the floor, finally feeling too weak to stand and he buried his face into his arms, uneven cuts of his hair feeling strange, vacant, less, as his fingers combed into it.