Myths and Reality
Valjean eyed the scene before him in horror and backed away.
The creature did not look up at him, merely continued to bend over the prone body.
It looked like…it really looked like…Valjean did not even believe in such things but what else could it be?
He turned and ran. He wasn't paying particular attention to where he was going, he just wanted to get away from there. He ran until his side ached.
Just when he was beginning to think that he was safe, the creature appeared in front of him. He blinked, trying to clear his vision, but it would just not go away. He recognized the police uniform and the spot of blood under its chin. He also recognized the face and he trembled.
The creature began to laugh but there was no merriment in it. "Oh, I should have known."
"Sh-should have known?" Valjean managed to ask. He did not know what was going on but if he kept it talking perhaps he would live longer. Perhaps he would find a way out. He couldn't die here.
Cosette.
"Of course it would be you! I search for you for years with no luck, even with my skills, and then the one person that I don't want to see stumbles across me tonight," the creature said. "Of course. Normally I wouldn't be so careless as to be caught feeding but I was famished when I was finally freed and all that blood in the air…it was difficult."
"I don't…" Valjean trailed off, uncertain of what to say.
"What is this? Speechless at last? You've never run out of words before." The creature seemed genuinely puzzled before he appeared to come to a realization and rolled its eyes. "Oh, is that it? You fear that I will kill you. I assure you that I will not."
It was not, Valjean reflected, a good idea to argue with someone who said that they would not kill him but how could he possibly trust that?
"That man," he said softly.
The creature frowned uncomprehendingly for a moment before his eyes cleared and he suddenly looked almost offended. "That man? The man you saw me with? Of course. You think that I killed him. Well I say to you that I have not and I would not. Do you really think that I would do that?"
The creature clearly did not want an answer or, if it did, wanted the answer to be a 'no.'
"I do not know. How could I know?"
The creature smiled sardonically. "I will acknowledge that neither of us knew some very important things about the other but we worked together for years. When I tried to resign, you would not let me. I was standing there, admitting that I had been trying to bring down your little house of cards and you said that I should be promoted. It would have been so easy to end all of your problems right there and yet you said I had too much honor and integrity to deprive the police of. And now you would say that you do not know that I am not a killer?"
He had meant his words, vaguely, but it had been so hard to think back then with the knowledge of Champmathieu and Arras slowly settling in on him. He had been so sure that it was not just to let Javert lose everything because he had been right, however.
But this wasn't right.
"That was Javert."
The creature fixed him with a look of impatience. "I am Javert."
Valjean shook his head in denial of that. "You cannot be. You are a-a-"
"I believe the word you're searching for is 'vampire'," Javert said dryly.
Valjean nodded, his mouth suddenly dry. He did not trust himself to speak.
"Well I tell you that I am he," the creature declared.
"But…you cannot be. I knew Javert and he was not a vampire."
"I knew Madeleine and he was not a convict," the creature countered.
"That's not the same," Valjean said helplessly.
"No, I suppose not," the creature agreed. "You, for all your lies and your sins, were at least always human. My past was invented and, despite how hard I strove to be irreproachable, I could not even claim that."
Javert. This creature claimed that it was Javert. It certainly looked and sounded like Javert and spoke of things such as irreproachability like Javert. It even knew details of Javert's past that he doubted he would have shared willingly, like the humiliation of begging a convict to be dismissed in disgrace when he at last doubted that the convict was, in fact, a convict. But did that really mean that this creature was Javert? Perhaps it was at one point and now no longer was. All he knew was that the more he spoke the more it was starting to truly seem like this was Javert.
"I do not know what to say," Valjean admitted.
"I do not know that there is anything to say," Javert replied. "I should not have gone after you. I would never have seen you again if I had not. You would not have known what you saw and would not have trusted your own eyes, especially after getting some sleep."
"Then why did you?" Valjean asked. If Javert had not come after him he would have already been working on convincing himself that he had imagined all of it.
"I don't know," Javert admitted. "Why did you let me go tonight?"
At the time, Valjean had thought that he was saving Javert's life. Now, he wasn't so sure. From the little that Valjean knew about them, vampires weren't even truly alive and they could not be killed by whatever methods those students would have employed to try and kill Javert. But how had they gotten the best of him? Vampires were fast, as he had seen, and surely they would be strong as well.
"I told you this already," Valjean said tiredly. "You were a good man and you did not deserve to die tonight because you and those boys had different ideas about what was best for Paris."
Javert let out another humorless laugh. It was a chilling thing to hear. "A good man. You were forever calling me that back in Montreuil. At the time I thought you were taunting me. You must have known who I was and you thought that you had me deceived as to your true identity or at least that I could do nothing about my suspicions thanks to all the time that had passed and your position. Even if you hadn't meant it like that, it still would have been difficult to hear and now you know why."
"You think that you are not a good man because you are a vampire?" Valjean asked. "How long have you been a vampire?"
Javert waved the question off. "Oh, decades. Are you trying to tell me that you could possibly still see me as a good man now that you know the truth? I know you are a convict trying to be a good man, another impossibility, but surely that is going too far even for you."
Valjean's head was swimming from the revelation that Javert had apparently been a vampire the entire time that he had known him. "I…if you have been a vampire all this time then you are still the same man that I called a good man once."
"Yes but you did not have all the facts," Javert said impatiently. "Now you know that I am a soulless creature with no place in society and no way of ever joining society. I will be forever outside of it and you cannot possibly look me in the eye and say that you still believe that I am a good man."
That lined up with what Valjean had heard. Vampires had no souls and were evil. You became a vampire if you were bitten by one though vampires seemed to be able to suck blood without having to turn someone. They were pale and could not go out in the sun which definitely wasn't true if Javert was any indication. They could not enter a church or be around garlic. Valjean tried to remember if he had ever seen Javert in a church. It would have been years ago and, for the life of him, he simply could not remember. They were dead but could be killed again with a stake through the heart.
"See, you can't do it, can you?" Javert sounded oddly satisfied with this.
"I have heard many things about vampires," Valjean said slowly, still trying to get his thoughts in order. "You are the only vampire I am aware of having ever met and I did not know you were a vampire before tonight. Before tonight, before knowing you were a vampire, I would have said you were a good man. I have heard that vampires have no souls and are evil."
"Everyone knows that," Javert said, nodding. "It's something that I can't ever change no matter what I may do."
"But I have also heard those same people who have told me this swear with the same confidence that vampires cannot go out in the sun," Valjean continued. "Five years in Montreuil and I think I know better."
Javert scowled and looked away. "What is your point?"
"My point is that I know for a fact that not everything I hear about vampires can be taken as the truth," Valjean replied.
"Back when you were Madeleine, you practically lived at the church," Javert said. "I didn't trust it at first or, at best, considered that you were using God's forgiveness as an excuse to do as you pleased because you believed you would be forgiven in the end. But now, I suspect it may have been genuine. You know how unholy we vampires are. Are you really going to look at something that is literally unholy and an abomination to everything you hold dear and say that I could still be good, in any sense of the word?"
Valjean was silent for a long time, contemplating this. If vampires were truly unholy then no, he could not honestly accept them. But just the same, how did he know that they were? Because people said they were? Did the church even believe that vampires existed? He did not know. But even if the church said it, unless it was in the bible (and surely he would have noticed if there were vampires in the bible!) did that necessarily mean it was true? The church said many things and most of them Valjean agreed with but it was not infallible. Only the pope was infallible. The church had once taught that the sun revolved around the earth and that if one paid money then their soul would be saved or the soul of anyone they wished. Valjean knew very well by now that salvation was not so simple as throwing a lot of money around.
"I do not see how you could be unholy," he decided at last, wishing that he sounded a little more certain. "You have dedicated your life to keeping justice and, though I feel you are often misguided, you do honestly try to help people by upholding the law. A little mercy or compassion would not go amiss in your…life but you are not an evil man so how could you be an unholy one?"
Javert let out a long-suffering sigh. "Valjean, if one is an evil creature then it does not matter how many 'good' deeds you do! You can't just stop being unholy by helping enough people! Saving lives won't make you grow a soul!"
"That sounds an awful lot like our disagreement about whether or not a convict can ever be a good person," Valjean noted. "I believe you know where I stand on that issue. And, more relevantly, if you truly believe that you are evil and soulless and unholy then why do you spend so much time trying to uphold the law and defend the society you say will never accept you?"
Javert scowled again. "Well, what else was I supposed to do? Be a criminal?"
"You aren't being hunted like I am and even I've had more options than that," Valjean told him. "I've been a laborer, a factory owner, a pruner, a mayor, a gardener, a member of the national guard…Off the top of my head you could have joined the military or went to work in a factory or become a laborer yourself and that's even without any particular luck or talent. I refuse to believe you literally had no other path in life besides a criminal or an inspector. And you are a vampire who feeds off of blood. Did you even need a profession to begin with?"
Javert said nothing.
"But say that were true, say you could only protect society or attack it and there was no option to just ignore it," Valjean continued. "You chose to protect it. You say to me 'What else was I supposed to do? Be a criminal?' I say to you 'Why not?' If you are truly as without hope or options as you think, if you are really so evil, why would you not choose that path?"
Javert smiled grimly. "Just because I am cursed like this does not mean I have to indulge in my baser instincts."
"We may be talking in circles but just the fact you have a choice and you can make it and are choosing to be better than others think you can be, that you think you can be, is proof that things cannot be as bad as you say," Valjean reasoned.
"You believe so much with so little reason," Javert said challengingly. "What if, after all your fine words, I were to kill you now? Would you believe me then?"
"You said you wouldn't," Valjean said, his voice coming out surprisingly steady.
"I'm an unholy vampire," Javert said flatly. "Maybe I lied."
"Well then I certainly couldn't stop you."
Javert huffed and turned away. "You should go."
It was tempting. "What will you do?"
Javert waved an arm. "What does it matter? I won't arrest you."
That had not even been on his mind since he realized what Javert truly was.
"I do not think that you should be alone right now," Valjean said impulsively. "Come with me."
"What? Do you think I'm in danger of being attacked?" Javert asked sardonically. "I assure you, the streets are safe enough for me, even tonight."
"That's not what I'm worried about," Valjean replied. "And, before you ask, I'm not worried about you attacking people, either."
"Then what?" Javert asked, frowning.
"The things you say, the things you seem to believe about yourself…I cannot keep you forever but I will not see you alone now," Valjean said.
"You realize that if I choose to leave then you cannot stop me," Javert pointed out.
"Don't go."
"What would you do with me if I stayed?" Javert asked silkily. "Take me home to your pretty little daughter?"
Valjean felt a twinge of fear. How had he known of Cosette? Still, Javert was still Javert and – no matter what he thought of her mother – Cosette had done nothing to earn his ire.
"You will not hurt her," he said confidently. "Cosette is an innocent. The worst thing she has ever done is fall in love and not tell me and the letter I read…the boy sounds so innocent, as well. They cannot have done anything…improper."
Part of him wondered why Javert was even still there at all when, as he had said himself, he could leave at any time. Part of him wished that he would. But it was only part.
"You would truly invite a vampire into your home?" Javert asked, staring at him.
"I don't see why not," Valjean said uncertainly.
Javert kept staring at him and then he remembered.
"Oh, because vampires can only enter a dwelling if they are invited," Valjean remembered. "That's obviously a myth."
Javert started to walk then, in the direction of Valjean's home, and Valjean followed after him. "What makes you say that?"
He had never noticed Javert being bound so but, on the other hand, it made sense that Javert would put forth an effort to conceal the fact he needed to be invited in order to go anywhere.
"Well, for one thing I don't remember inviting you into my home when you came to arrest me at Fantine's deathbed," Valjean said.
Javert laughed once again but this time it sounded different. Almost pleasant.
"What?" Valjean asked self-consciously.
"I'm just surprised you didn't realize," Javert said, truly sounding amused for the first time that evening. Valjean hoped it was a good sign. "For all your secrets and keeping to yourself, some woman says she wants to see your rooms and you open them up to the town. That's one thing I never had to worry about with you. Everyone was welcome in your home."