A View from the Clock tower
Chapter 1
I am infallible.
My position in the dark alleyway brought into view the St. Marcus Day celebrations, and the Volturi's guard's latest victim, a strange topaz-eyed suicidal vampire. He was not just yet our victim, but he soon would be. He had loved a fragile human, and she had died, a despicable waste of blood. For reasons incomprehensible to Felix and Demetri, the two hunters, and I, he wanted to die too.
Why a vampire would want to give up life because a petty human died, I do not know. Humans live to sustain us, their blood is our strength. We are the predators, they are the prey.
Felix and Demetri stirred slightly in their positions below the wall, perpendicular to our subject, who was sulking silently in the shadow of the overhanging clock tower. He turned toward the two hunters as if sensing their presence, paused for a moment, then spun back to face the partying humans in the square, almost as if he were playing with them, provoking them.
One does not travel to Italy and provoke the Volturi, not unless one wants to die. And to die, this one wants.
Twin bumblebees, flitting with one another, darted across my view. Lover bumblebees, that was sickening. An angelic smile, a moment's concentration, an image of blazing flames was all it took to send one, then the other to the ground, dead.
Earlier, this one had stridden into our tower room, verbalizing his demands to be killed. Master, for once, diminishing his often cheerful and obsessive nature, had stood up from one of the trio of wooden thrones and approached him. With one inconspicuous brush of physical contact, Master discovered, with some jealousy, this one, Edward, could read minds from a distance. Master refused to fulfill his wishes.
A slight breeze blew across the plaza, wafting towards me the delicious scent of human blood. My dull crimson eyes sought out the source. A small family with two girls dressed in scarlet dresses stood with their parents, eyes on the festivities. I snorted; St. Marcus Day, the day when a certain Father Marcus drove every vampire out of Volterra, making it the safest city, safe enough from vampire attacks. But the vampires are still here. The humans are myopic; they do not realize the vampires rule their city, as they have for the past 3000 years.
I resisted my thirst, for the time being. Heidi will be back upon our return with her latest catch of humans. Then we shall feast on the human blood, strengthening us, sustaining us.
The Volturi rule Volterra, as well as the rest of our secret world. The oblivious humans should almost thank us, we are the reason they are not all slaughtered into extinction by the want-to-be's of our world. We are the peacekeepers, one could say. When one vampire becomes out of line, threatening to reveal our secret existence, it is our duty to… dispose of them. As we soon will do to this one.
Yes, the humans should thank us. And what better way to thank us than to become our source of sustainment?
Through with the wind passed a hint of despair from our soon-to-be victim. A small hope, perhaps Felix and Demetri will let me have my fun before they annihilate him. Yes, yes, let me see the shock, and the pain on his face before he is destroyed. The thought made me smiled. His pain would suffice to sustain me until Heidi's arrival.
The monster inside me smiled also. It would soon be unleashed.