James, Leon, and open because this may get ugly
Leon wasn't afraid of James's powers. In fact, after what the half-Haitian and half-Cherokee boy had seen in his life, it took quite a bit to make him afraid at all. Fear was something that Leon had learned to control in himself out of necessity. Crying out as a youth while his father performed exorcisms and summoned the spirits was not looked kindly upon. Leon had not spoken for most of his youth, as a result. Later, when plagued by the ghosts of his victims, Leon had walked day to day with his haunts wanting him dead. He kept it in and wrestled with the demons until he had mastered them.
There were other emotions that Leon had no filter for. Powerless. Empty. Vulnerable. Reliant. So so needy and dependent on others because he could no longer take care of or control himself. Those feelings were bad enough when they resurfaced from James's telepathic assault. What wrenched a sound from Leon's throat was knowing what came next. "Stop. Stop this!"
Desperate to end the assault of memory, Leon was ready to lunge at James's figure to hit him, tear into him, do something to put an end to this when he heard that all too familiar voice behind him. Dr. Drumm. The Houngan. His father. "Leon."
The vampire whirled around and it was just as it was in the dungeons that day. The Houngan Supreme stood there, appearing out of shadow. He had come to take the sacred away from the desecrated. Leon was now an abomination to the Laws of the Major Balance. "Please," Leon said, then and now, the words uttered in Creole. "Please, father! Don't do this." But, then and now, the voodoo priest stepped forward and caught Leon by his hair, slicing through his beaded symbolic dreadlocks with a ritual knife until they were all removed.
The memory ended with Leon on his knees on the floor, hands trembling in his hair that had been kept short since that day he lost his religion.