Gilded Destiny

by Nola Sarina

  Brothers

  Levi

  The chugging of the train on the rails wasn’t enough of a distraction for Levi’s frustrated mind. He paced in the engine for miles, Festus glaring at him, and then he had had enough of the rhythm of steel on steel, and climbed smoothly to the roof. Levi dismounted into the air and landed on his heels in the dirt of the ditch, skidding through the loose mud with the force of his momentum. He broke into an even stride east, headed home, still nearly the pace of the train but not quite.

  Not like I’m in a hurry to get home anyway.

  Levi ducked into the trees to compensate for his height within the branches and grabbed onto the trunk of an old, thick poplar. He wound his hand around the bark and hoisted his weight up into the thick branches, and began to climb.

  The noises of the nighttime symphony soothed his frustration where the unnatural chugging of the train could not, and Levi wound up the tree in a spiral, climbing as a snake would climb if it had limbs with which to pull his weight, his ascent so smooth the leaves refused to rustle as he moved.

  In the highest branches that could sustain the weight of a Vesper, a literal steel man, Levi reached out to grab a branch of the next tree, and slid over into it, still not disturbing the leaves, though birds abandoned their homes in the tree long before Levi approached, so predatory was his presence and so dark were the shadows. He slipped from tree to tree, the pull of his muscles a comfort and a distraction, and allowed his mind to silence of worry and fear.

  Levi reached the edge of the line of trees and gazed out at the landscape – familiar northern America, just south of his usual Canadian border travel. The mountains were ahead, and the exhilaration of scaling the Rockies was a challenge Levi always enjoyed, another chance to revel in the sheer perfection of his immortal form. Distractions, distractions.

  A throat cleared below him and Levi peered down. He heaved his weight up once in the air to dramatize the descent, and then dropped straight down, parallel with the tree he dismounted, never breaking or disturbing a single branch. He landed with a thick thud of boots in Earth, and Festus grinned at him.

  “Stressed out, little brother?” the elder Vesper – pupils silvered by age in his obsidian eyes – asked with a chuckle, his arms folded across his chest.

  Levi mirrored his brother’s stance. “I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit.”

  Festus grimaced. “I know. But at least Nycholas is stupid enough to challenge Levitiqas outright… that way he’s likely to come kill him personally, rather than issue a kill order for one of us.”

  Levi growled, his frustration bleeding into his tone. “How long has Nycholas been with us? Four hundred years, maybe five? He came into this legion only shortly after I did, and I don’t want to see him dismissed.”

  Festus shrugged. “He’s a useless fucking idiot. No one can deny that.”

  “He’s not a fucking idiot!” Levi snapped, advancing on Festus, who raised his eyebrows with shock at Levi’s vehemence. “He taught me the constellations. Every single one of them. He was a writer before Levitiqas ruined him! Just like he’ll ruin us all! He might not have had the most eloquent of speech, as you and I have, but he was more useful than half the other moronic muscle Levitiqas recruits. Nycholas has strength and brains, and he has something neither you nor I have anymore, Festus… a pair of balls.”

  Festus snarled and jabbed a finger into Levi’s shoulder at the insult. “Fuck you! You might be a castrated pussy, Levi, but I’m not.”

  Levi rolled his eyes. “You’re the first of us to cave every single time Levitiqas gets into an interrogation mood. He doesn’t even have to beat you and you fold.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, because I’m smarter than you and I know what will spare me the pain after two fucking thousand years of listening to the rest of you scream when he gets in the mood, I’ve got no balls? Fuck you.”

  “All I’m saying is it takes a seriously big pair to do what he’s doing… challenge Levitiqas, taunt and provoke him, knowing what will happen in the end.”

  Festus’ jaw twitched with restraint and he leered up into Levi’s face. “And don’t you forget, little brother, exactly what will happen to him now that he’s done this. Do you want him to wipe away your ability to read, too? Or perhaps your ability to speak all those languages you cherish?”

  Levi stared him down, fighting a wave of fury at the suggestion. But Festus wasn’t wrong: if Levitiqas chose to make Levi a completely helpless invalid, he could as easily wipe any of the intelligence he cherished from his brain, as he did to Nycholas’ ability to read and write.

  “Stay within your boundaries, if you don’t want to face the master head-on,” Festus said, jabbing an authoritative finger into Levi’s chest.

  Levi lifted an eyebrow and regarded Festus with a smirk. “Is that concern, I hear?”

  Festus spun away and strode along the train tracks. “Shut up.”

  Levi laughed and resumed a stride alongside Festus. “Oh, come on. Six hundred years of running together, Festus, I imagine you’d be quite concerned if I pulled a stunt like Nycholas did. After all, you’d get blamed for letting me do it.”

  Festus didn’t break his stride but grinned at Levi over his shoulder, the tension between them easily abandoned after so many centuries of comradeship. “That’s true. Did you really cross six hundred already?”

  Levi shrugged and slinked into the shadows as the hills rolled more thickly through the landscape. “Something like it, yeah. Not sure how many.”

  “I wish you’d quit talking back to Levitiqas when he gets pissed off. You might think me castrated, but at least I get to keep my memories, because I keep my goddamn mouth shut.”

  “Losing my memories is better than what Nycholas’ gonna get.”

  “That’s for damn sure,” Festus said. “Because getting caught with one woman wasn’t enough – he had to go and get another, and then run.”

  Levi tilted his head, conflicted. “I get what he’s doing… I do. It’s a lonesome life, we live… he longs for companionship.”

  “Shut your fucking mouth.” Festus crashed Levi with his shoulder, a disciplinary contact. “Don’t even think about it. You even suggest you’re gonna do such a thing, I’ve gotta turn you in.”

  “I’m not thinking about it!” Levi protested. “Not even close. I’m just… I understand it, that’s all.”

  Festus snagged Levi’s trench coat and jerked him down to meet his accusing glare. “Well, un-understand it! Of all the dismissals I’ve fucking done, Levi, the last thing I wanna do is rip your head off… and you know he’d make me be the one to do it, since it would amuse him to watch me suffer.”

  “I’m not going to do anything!” Levi put his hands in the air. “I don’t even imagine such things. To break the rules like that… to make another Vesper…”

  “Shut the fuck up!” Festus’ voice tore between the hills, venom seeping from his fangs with anger, visibly enhancing the rage in his face. “Don’t even say it! Don’t hint at it, don’t talk about it… seriously, Levi, just shut the fuck up before I rip your head off here and save Levitiqas the trouble.”

  “Okay, okay! I won’t speak of it.”

  The elder Vesper released Levi with a shove, furious fear radiating from his eyes and stance. “Good. Don’t think of it, either.”

  “I won’t.”

  “And for the love of all that’s holy, Levi, don’t ever, ever do it.”

  “I won’t!” Levi threw his hands up in the air. “What, you want me to sign it in blood?”

  Festus chewed his lip. “Maybe, yeah.”

  Laughter trickled into Levi’s senses from a dark road ahead, and he flashed Festus a grin. “Hungry?”

  “Starving,” Festus said.

  Down the road and around the corner lurked a young couple, seated on a bench on the outskirts of a small town. The road was deserted, illuminated by a small lamppost above the bench, and the two were kissing and sighing with the prelude to passio
n.

  The Vespers flipped up their hoods and ducked their heads, hiding their immortal appearance from the humans. As they approached, the couple cooled their groping slightly, and Levi stopped in front of them, his head still down. Festus circled around to the back of the bench.

  “Problem?” the young man – surely no older than twenty, Levi assumed – said.

  Levi chuckled darkly, and then shot his arm out from beneath his trench coat so fast the man didn’t even have time to scream before Levi sank his fangs into flesh - the flow of poison from his sinuses a welcome release to the pressure of anger and hunger – and his victim began to shrivel and dehydrate. A moment later, Levi swallowed with satisfaction and shuddered, letting out a growl of satisfaction as the corpse in his torso dissolved and fueled his veins with energy and nourishment, the man’s body evaporated into digestive mist.

  Levi turned to grin at Festus and swore at his brother, instead. “Are you kidding me, Festus?”

  The girl was slumped in his arms, unconscious and unbitten, drugged by venom. Festus shrugged. “What?”

  “Come on! Just eat her and be done with it.”

  Festus laughed. “Only you are stupid enough to deny your natural needs as a man, Levi. The more you let it build up, the more likely you are to snap, and that’s exactly what landed Nycholas in his situation: denial of satisfaction.” He lifted the girl into a more intimate hold, though she was nothing close to alert enough to embrace Festus back.

  “Fuck you, Festus, you’re a goddamn pervert. That’s food, not a toy.”

  Festus brushed the girl’s dark hair back from her unresponsive face. “Quit ejaculating your morals all over me, Levi.”

  “Clearly, I’m not the one ejaculating here. I’ll see you at home.” Levi broke into a jog back down the road out of town, into the thick of the mountains and the solitude of running through the wilderness, finding the shadows as easily as breathing in his own skin.

  A part of him wondered if Festus was right, and denying his urges for the sake of morality put him in a more compromised position, where he was likely to snap and break the rules as Nycholas had done. But the bigger part of him didn’t care: what Festus did with his meals was wrong on every ethical level Levi could conceive of, and he’d rather pay the price to Levitiqas for mutiny than bargain his soul to the fates for a few moments of satisfaction and the guilt that followed such an act of depravity.

  It’s denial, isolation, and perfection, for me, he thought as the nighttime world romanced his aged mind away from worry once again. And a hefty helping of pain, torture, and amnesia on the side.

  Better than dying, Levi supposed.