Squalo Bianco

[Levi DAmico]

The colloquial definition of insanity concluded that doing the exact same ******* thing over and over again and expecting **** to change made you a psychopath.

Those people had clearly never dug a grave before.

No. What made the Italian a psychopath was his tireless narcissism, a supreme lack of empathy, and a fucked up moral compass. Levi rarely – if ever – engaged in an activity without a clear and thorough understanding of how it would benefit him. The first priority would be to work out the return on his investment before he would act – as any sane person should, he argued. It just didn’t make any sense to sacrifice yourself for someone else’s benefit or to willingly put yourself in debt. There was playing the long game, which more often than not resulted in a loss here and there, and then there was just plain stupidity. In the umber eyes of the surly Vampiro, there was a lot of idiocy going around – it was like a pandemic of dumbshittery – and the most senseless person he’d ever known was Shirosame Hiroumi.

Levi just didn’t understand the katana-wielding, prickly little Japanese shitbag. He’d never been able to pin-point just what exactly the other man was getting out of their deal, their arrangement, their… relationship. If Levi didn’t know any better – and he considered himself a fairly intimidating presence in the realm of insights – he’d have accused the ****** of being in love with him. Of which he had done on a few occasions, and on those such rare and unusual occasions he had been quite intoxicated, so it hardly counted. Shiro had scoffed at the idea of course, but he’d skirt around the reasons for his actions nevertheless. This not-knowing, this unfathomable mystery, it hardly made the Italian’s blood pressure dip under the danger levels. So when Levi was in the mood to punish anyone for any slight or significant aggravation, he decided that he’d point his ire directly at the Japanese man.

It was his own damn fault.

Shiro made himself an easy target. No matter what Levi did or said to him, Shiro would never bend and he would never relent. Sure, he might go off and sulk for a few days, threaten to gut the grizzly ********, or strike out with fists and some sharp words of his own, but the bad blood streamed away so quickly between them that it was like it was never there to begin with. Shiro always found a reason to forgive him. He always came back with renewed zeal flashing in those deep-set, doe-like eyes. He always returned like a kicked puppy, wagging his tail, desperate for orders, filled with unconditional love. Shiro always stood at the Italian’s side.

Until he couldn’t any longer.
Until Levi had given him no more choice in the matter.

Levi hadn’t even said a word when it happened. He’d pulled the trigger like a man possessed, like none of those long, faithful years had meant anything to him. But for all his fire and draconic wrath, no blaze could scorch away the feelings he had. His fury couldn’t turn those illogical sentiments to ash and blast them away – out of sight, out of mind. All it could do was melt a chunk of his icy heart and leave a silver trail of it on his cheek.

It made him feel sick to succumb to weakness like that. He hadn’t cried since he was a toddler. He hadn’t shed a single tear for any woman who’d walked out on him, betrayed him, or left a hole in his heart. He didn’t even feel his eyes so much as welt when Gino had put a bullet right through Bester’s crown. Levi always found a way to convert those losses and pain into fuel, to power him forward, to activate his trigger finger and fight back. He’d killed Gino – his veritable uncle, his guardian, his shield – without a blink. But it was different with Shiro – it had always been different with Shiro – and maybe that was why it hurt so damn much to lose him.

It was disappointing that Gino had to go and make the Vampiro retaliate quite like he had. But the Sicilian was going to bring the entire world down around them – Mafioso, Yakuza, Vampiri, and Human alike. He taunted and goaded the younger Italian, forcing him into a corner, remarking sentiment as the source of their problem that night. And he was right, as per ******* usual. It never would have gone this far if Levi had acted sooner. If he would have let go of all the remedial ******** of comfort, nostalgia, and sentimentality; if he would have killed Gino sooner, then maybe Shiro would have been able to walk away from this mess instead of being left to bleed out on the floor of that hotel room.

Hindsight is such a ****.

[Levi DAmico]

What do you do with something that’s broken?

Throw it in the trash and forget about it, get a replacement, or maybe you might even attempt to repair the original. Whatever the case, that once broken thing can never be the same again. The cracks in the vase, the chips in the paint, the scars on the skin and on the mind will always be there no matter how masterfully restored. It’ll exist as a memory, a lesson learned, a patch of history that’s not meant to be forgotten. But perhaps this broken thing is made all the more beautiful for the cracks in its façade.

There is a Japanese art form known as kintsugi (or kintsukuroi), in which broken pottery is repaired with a special lacquer mixed with precious metals such as gold, silver, and platinum. The restored imperfections can then be admired for their new aesthetic value, as opposed to being disguised to the naked eye. The belief is that these cracks, now visible for all to see, display the history of the piece and highlight its worth. For it is not something disposable and transient, but instead, something worth repairing and worth keeping. With kintsugi, the resulting renovation is usually something more beautiful than the original, but you can’t resurrect a mosaic into a pot.

Sometimes, when you’ve been broken enough, you become something else entirely.

The abused disciple becomes the anarchist. The abandoned tool becomes rusty, dull, and useless. And unreciprocated love becomes hatred so quickly that it’s blinding. As it happened, the Italian hadn’t seen this coming. The message he had received on his burner phone had made his harsh features animalistic in their anger, confusion, and surprise. He’d faltered for a moment, but was quick to get back to action; following the decrypted breadcrumbs to their source.

It wasn’t clear if a Leviathan was capable of fear. In the texts of ancient history, this great aquatic beast was a metaphor for a powerful enemy, one tortuous serpent who could only be killed at the end of time. For those who knew Levi – irrespective of their side – they understood that he portrayed the part of the Leviathan well, even down to its transformation from deity to demon and to monster.

It wasn’t clear if Levi could feel fear, or understood it as such, but those with power guarded their dominance over others with such ferocity that it suggested they feared losing that strength over all else. The Italian had coiled around his possessions like an envious dragon, breathing fire and fury at any who came too close – regardless of their intentions. And he’d become so preoccupied with defending his territory that he chose to surrender himself to one final act of selfishness. Unable to live with the thought of allowing his strength to fall into the hands of any other, he took it with him to his grave. He’d buried it six feet under narcissism and tainted the soil with his greed, causing that which rose from the defiled earth to return with nefarious purpose.

[Levi DAmico]

There’s a reason it always rains at a funeral.

They call it a pathetic fallacy; an attribution of human emotion onto a course of nature. It is as though, as the mourners gather, their collective sadness saturates the sky, causing their pain to rain down from the heavens and howl a gust of agony about their immediate proximity. The literary device, made famous in Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, has since been over-indulged to the point of becoming a trope. Still, one can understand its popularity, for there is no characteristic of nature which is more expressive and complicated than the weather.

If the weather were to reflect the Italian’s mood in that moment, then it would be still, prone, and cautious. Gloomy clouds would hang motionless in the sky, obscuring the stars and moon, reflecting back the murky smog of city lights. The air would feel electric, tense, signalling a thunder storm. But most of all it would be silent – as if the living and the undead knew better than to stick around for what was to come. But this was no book and Levi didn’t control the weather just by existing. Instead of ominous and foreboding, it was simply pissing it down – dull, wet, uncomfortable, and unnecessary.

The monotonous sound of raindrops pounded on every surface, on every path, awning, piece of brickwork, and window pane for miles around, beating like a thousand tiny heartbeats in his ears. With the occasional whisper of a breeze growing louder, and with this drizzle becoming heavier, Levi soon noticed that this rain shower was quickly developing into a characteristic storm. Umber eyes looked sharply over from one patch of black sky to another when he was brought rudely out of his brooding. A tremendous noise rippling through the gushing of the breeze and the swelling rain had captured his attention, though he saw nothing at first. Then a sudden brilliant flash, and then nothing again.

The lightning bolt had torn vehemently through the air and as it forked into blackness and nothingness once again, that monstrous noise repeated itself, followed quickly by a chorus of roars. The heavens grumbled and the Italian looked back to the world around him, determined to get this **** over and done with. The building was right across the street; sleepy apartment blocks stacked over each other like they’d been copied and pasted into place. It was nothing out of the ordinary – for the ordinary. For Levi, it felt like a trap.

The lightning flashed again, covering the gritty streets with its blanket white before the whole scene faded to an ominous black a second after. The Vampiro might have seemed like a hideous phantom in those eerie seconds as he walked from out of a void and onto the street that faced a line of buildings, but Levi didn’t seem to care or be aware of such a thing. Umber eyes sought out the apartment number, made identifiable by a bronze plaque just to the right of the security door. The Italian let out of a breath of frustration, but at least he had been gifted the code to access the building.

These breadcrumbs he had been following straight from his travelling nexus had been very detailed. Whomever had left them – and frankly, the list was small and conspicuous – had been considerate enough to specifically invite him into the building. There was no need to execute any spells to sneak in and thank the heavens that he didn’t have to break in, alerting whomever was waiting for him to his presence. Although, given the meticulous nature of his host, Levi had a sneaking suspicion that they already knew he was here.

A glance to his left acknowledged the wispy, inky form of the Wraith, Leveret Rey. The Italian had asked the ghost to attend after all, and while normally he would send it ahead to scout out the place, Levi was rather looking forward to being surprised. As a result, the Wraith was instructed to watch the rear, to ensure that any unwanted surprises were prevented. With what looked like a nod from the silhouette, a gesture of understanding, the door was wrenched open and the pair began their advance.

[Levi DAmico]

They advanced into the lobby, toward the staircase that spiralled into the dark ceiling like an ancient dragon wrapping itself around a spire of metal. The instructions had stated that he would find what he’d been seeking on the second floor. Of course the Italian had scoffed at the cryptic ******** and had a firm belief that what he was really seeking – which was a free and fully stocked ******* wine cellar – would most certainly not be up there. Nevertheless, and after deciding that he didn’t wholly trust his luck with electronic equipment enough to take the elevator, the Italian obliged his mysterious host and headed up the stairs.

Once the last step of the dragon’s back retracted under foot, Levi moved across the hall toward the door marked with the same number as outlined in the message. First things first, the Italian inspected the door for any signs of a trap or forced entry. You never could be too careful. And besides, he had seen some pretty devastating snares and ambushes set up with such creativity and precision that it was as though MacGyver had been giving complimentary lessons to the denizens of Harper Rock. The last thing he wanted was to walk face-first, or groin-first, into a shotgun blast.

After he’d pushed the door lightly aside, fashioning a path for them to walk through, Levi paused.

Despite the trademark grimace which was glued to his face, the nerves had begun to creep up on him. A thousand tiny insects were crawling silently beneath his skin, and although he’d barely noticed the arrival, he was nevertheless infested at that point. Each tiny anxiety ant delivered a caustic bite to his flesh as Levi wavered in the doorway, uncertain about whether or not he could enter freely.

Vampires were weird like that after all, conforming to a preposterous notion of invitation, and for reasons that seemed beyond logic, science, and psychology. Levi couldn’t fathom the notion that made his pores bleed whenever he attempted to step foot into a house uninvited, without the advantage of those learned gifts, but he couldn’t deny the evidence. Technically, since his host had encouraged Levi to come this far, then the invitation was still valid... wasn’t it?

Proceeding past the threshold took a leap of faith that the Italian wasn’t entirely sure he was ready for, but then, he couldn’t stand glued to the spot all night long either.

With Wraith in tow, Levi stepped by the threshold of the apartment and closed the door behind them safely and quietly. The Vampiro continued through the short hallway, oblivious to décor and layout, feelings and memories, as he made a bee-line for the sound of heartbeats in a room straight ahead. The haste with which he walked might have suggested that he was in a hurry, and while that was true to an extent, it wasn’t for the obvious reasons. It was that niggling anxiety again that powered the Italian’s legs to cross the space and stand proudly, angrily in the centre of that room.

He eagerly wanted to meet his host and to punch the ****** in the face. But all the fight fled him like a flock of birds when he saw that contemptuous obsidian eye sitting in a familiar face of hate.

[Levi DAmico]

The squall clawed at the windows of the small room like it was trying to break in; each raindrop pelleting the glass as bullets and the wind wrenching with raw rage at the wooden frame. Cool light flooded in ahead, unheeded by such barriers. It gained six feet of territory, pouring past a head of black hair, but stopped short of the Vampiro’s looming shadow which held in place by a force of preternatural intention. The counterparts met like an uneasy horizon as Levi stood his ground in the centre of the room. Despite being flanked by two human guards and being directly opposed by a third mortal threat, it would be laughable to suggest that the Italian felt in anyway threatened. Over the sound of rain and wind, two hearts pounded a regular, solid rhythm, two chest cavities rose and fell with deplorable synchronicity, and two guns readied a bullet in their chambers. The third set of lungs and the third heart opposed the harmony with such distinction that if Levi hadn’t been looking directly at him, he would have been lured like a fox into a hen house.

“If I didn’t know any better,” Levi offered to the room, but kept his umber eyes focused on the man in the middle. “I’d think you weren’t happy to see me.”

“It’s fifty-fifty, to be honest,” Shiro spat back.

By all outward appearances, Great White Sharks are menaces of the deep. They’re the king of the ocean, inspiring fear, awe, and respect in people all across the globe. It’s thought that the Great White has been around Earth’s oceans for 16 million years and each one lives to be around 70 years old. A male can typically grow up to 21 feet in length, eats 11 tonnes of food a year, and are patient enough to go without a meal for a whole three months. Clocking in at speeds up to 35 mph, these sharks are also some of the fastest predators in the oceans. Their sense of smell is so good they can detect the scent of blood in the water from up to three miles away. They also have a sixth sense: electroreception, which helps them to feel vibrations in the water from potential prey. Great Whites also hold no compunction against cannibalism, turning those 5 rows of 46 razor sharp teeth on their own kind.

In the Japanese underworld, having one’s bloodline associated with such a fearsome predator spoke volumes of that family’s power. Yet, the House of Shirosame had fallen some time ago and their remaining heir, Hiroumi, had been reported KIA around about a year ago when Levi unceremoniously appeared at his hotel room and shot him in the face. So, seeing that phantom shark here – very much alive – gave the Vampiro mixed feelings. First of all was a sense of relief and giddiness, followed quickly by a surge of nausea and regret like he’d rushed through a night of intoxication and sped on through to the hangover. Of course, the Italian hadn’t suspected anything supernatural about his companion, so the only explanation remaining was that his aim hadn’t been true that night. They both should have been thankful of that small fact, but, the sour and hateful look in Shiro’s obsidian eye – one, because Levi couldn’t make out the right eye on account of the hair – that gratitude was missing.

The Italian scoffed in retort, but his subsequent words were strung tight. “Yeah, how’s that exactly?”

“Well, if you were actually dead, I wouldn’t have a chance at vengeance.”

“I see.”

The Italian’s clipped words matched his demeanour in that moment. Levi’s focus cut from the man in the middle to the 5’10” bag of trash to his right. Dressed all in black, his face covered to the brim of his eyes, he really did remind Levi of a trash bag rather than shinobi. Of course, with there being a pair of men either side of him, the Italian had to share his glare with the trash heap to his left as well.

“I really advise against pulling that trigger,” he warned the man to his left, then looked right again. “Your master probably didn’t mention it, or maybe he did coz he loves to talk ****, but. I’m kinda difficult to kill and if you fail… I’m going to rip your ******* head off. And when I’m done ripping his ******* head off,” he said, directing his attention to the man on his left. “I’m going to turn you inside out. And then, when I am done doing all that, I’m going to put your master through that ******* window.”

But trying to get a positive reaction – or any kind of reaction, for that matter – from these fuckers was like blowing smoke into empty beehive. Their vacant, disapproving stares and their composed statures made Levi feel like he was talking to a field of scarecrows. Because Shiro’s head was clearly full of straw if he thought that shooting Levi a couple of times would do anything more than piss him off. The shark spoke of vengeance, but his actions were like that of a scorned child drawing on the walls with crayon because their father put them to bed early.

“Alright,” Levi said with a bemused sigh, “but you remember my warning when your life flashes before your eyes and you see this as something that could’ve been avoided.”