All Twilight characters are the property of Stephenie Meyer.
Follow me as I delve into the dark, sordid history of the two sexiest vampires you love to hate – James and Victoria.
Please be advised that I make no apologies for evil deeds done by characters. This story will contain strong violence, language, and sexuality. This is the only warning you will get.
The Hunter
The early morning light shone down in dappled shadows on the forest floor, where a crush of dead leaves had settled underfoot the old growth trees. The sky was clear overhead; the air was cool and thin. A few late season thrushes chirped away in the trees above the shallow stream. A light wind shook through the trees, loosing a few dozen leaves from their branches and floating them gently down to the flowing water. A doe stepped into the clearing, her warm breath coming out in foggy puffs in the cold morning air. She ambled cautiously to the stream and bent her head to drink.
I was waiting for her. From my crouched position beside a prickly holly bush, I counted backwards from ten in my head to will my hands to stop shaking. 10... 9... I squeezed my eyes shut and bade my heart to stop hammering in my chest. I wasn't afraid of her, you understand. I wasn't like some nervous beau pawing with trembling hand at the first filly who opened her blouse to him. I shook from need. The need to kill. 8... 7... I continued counting. Without a sound I crept forward on my hands and knees through the underbrush. When I was as close as I could get without exposing myself, I flattened my back against the trunk of a sycamore and ventured a peek at the stream bank. The doe was lapping water up languidly with her tongue, her eyes closed from the pleasure the cool water brought as it slid down her throat parched from sleep. A bead of cold sweat ran down my neck.
6... 5... I raised my weapon and relished the electric charge of power I felt radiating down its barrel to its butt pressed hard into my shoulder. My hands stopped shaking. I swallowed hard and took my aim. 4... Slowly, quietly, I pulled the hammer back with my thumb, internally wincing at the tiny click it made as it locked into place. The deer twitched her ear at the sound and raised her head. I stopped breathing. 3... 2... I waited until she had lowered her head to the water again, exposing the top of her spine to me. ...1. I finished counting. Steadily, mechanically, I pulled back the trigger, my held breath finally gushing out in a whoosh as the lead bullet exploded from the gun in a cloud of powder and noise.
The forest fell silent, with even the birds pausing mid-song to regard my offense with revulsion. I hadn't realized that my eyes were closed until instinct urged me to open them again. The doe lay sputtering in the stream – paralyzed by my shot, but not yet dead. I tore headlong through the bushes and splashed into the water to reach her. Tossing my gun aside, I fell to my knees beside her body in the stream. I lifted her head in my arms almost tenderly, her only act of resistance the frantic fluttering of her nostrils as she struggled for breath. I pulled my Bowie knife from my boot and pressed the blade to her neck. She gazed up at me, her deep brown eyes heavily hooded by dark, tragic lashes – she was so beautiful, so helpless. I smiled grimly down at her and stroked her brow in reassurance. Her eyelids drooped closed and she made no further protest when I pushed the blade into her throat.
When it was done, I wiped the bloody blade on the leg of my pants. I stood up and threw her body over my shoulder, a thrill trembling up my spine at the sensation of her hot blood oozing down my back and her pulse slowly fading away against the back of my neck. My whole body was humming with triumph. Never did I feel so electrified and alive as I did after a kill. I was the hunter. I was the master of life and death.
I had just stepped back onto the trail when a strange sight caught my eye. Over the line of trees I noticed a distant cloud of black smoke in the direction of town. Something was obviously on fire. Curiosity overwhelmed me and I quickened my pace.
As I neared town I realized that the smoke was actually coming from some distance beyond the small cluster of buildings that earned the dubious title of "civilization" around here. Canyon Ridge was the pathetic skeleton of a Forty-Niner mining camp that had been abandoned years ago after the meager deposit of gold in the surrounding hills ran dry. It had only been revived recently by the surge of cattle ranchers brought this far West by the new railroad – the same railroad that brought me here, incidentally.
I walked cautiously through the near-empty streets, all the usual signs of morning life abandoned in favor of the excitement of the fire. Shop doors were left open, barrels overturned, horses left untended... A man in the mind for mischief might do well for himself in circumstances such as these.
"Wilder, where in the hell have you been?" An agitated voice shook me from my private scheming. I turned to see a young blond man with a pair of nervous, watery green eyes that I (unfortunately) recognized as belonging to one Ernie McClellan, who was currently trying to coax his frightened horse into letting him mount it. The horse whinnied and shied away from him, earning a curse and smack for its insolence.
"You ever try that move with a woman, McClellan? It might prove more effective," I suggested helpfully.
"I ain't got time to have your goddamn notion of fun poked at me, Wilder!" he barked back in a voice pitched higher than usual from strain. I made no move to answer him, contented for the time being merely to watch his pathetic attempts to domesticate the beast. Finally, he managed to pull himself into the saddle and started tightening the cords that were securing what looked like a stack of buckets to his horse.
Once safely aboard his transportation, McClellan continued, "Childress' goddamn barn caught fire early this morning and he's all up in a righteous fit of fury over it." McClellan's father had been an Irish preacher and a drunk, hence Ernie's particular brand of elocutionary eloquence. "He sent me out for buckets – buckets! As if there were a goddamn drop of water in the well to spare. Ha! Jesus, why in the holy hell are you draped in blood and a dead deer, Wilder? You are one strange fucker, you know that?"
My voice replied calmly, "It's called 'hunting', you dolt. I hear it's quite popular among people who like eating."
"Alright. Whatever you say. Like I said, I ain't got time for your shit now. You better come with me, too, or Childress will know you were gone," he said as he extended his hand to me, intimating that I ought to climb onto his horse behind him.
"Nuh unh, I don't ride bitch for nobody, Ernie," I said, one side of my mouth quirking up into a smile. "Unless you're just itching to wriggle your way into my strong, yet sensitive, embrace."
"That – that right there. It's sayin' shit like that that makes people not like you, Jim. They think you're queer as all fuck. Go ahead and walk for all I goddamn care. I just know that if I don't get back in the next quarter hour you and me both are out of a job."
"Relax. Childress knows goddamn well there's no one else to hire out here." This wasn't an overstatement. Since the war back East had been on, many of the men who had moved out here to begin new lives found themselves anxious to return and defend their former homesteads. Or invade someone else's – depending on what side of the damned fence you were on. I wasn't on anybody's side.
"Sure, but if his barn burns down we're going to be out of a job all the same. No hay, no herd, no work. Look, I really gotta go," McClellan said with a nervous glance at the dark cloud on the horizon. "I don't care how you get there – steal a goddamn horse for all I care – but get there quick."
With those words he spurred his horse and galloped away. I grabbed a few more buckets from the unattended General Store and hurried up the road after him.
By the time I reached the Childress Ranch pandemonium had been all but extinguished. Pretty much the entire town had showed up for the initial excitement, and some had even worked to help keep the blaze from spreading out of control, but now that it was apparent that nothing more could be done for the smoldering barn the crowd had dispersed into muttering clutches to dispute the origins – and the implications – of the fire. I dropped off my hunting prize by the door of the workers' quarters before jogging up the hill to the barn. It was plain to see that the structure was nearly ruined. It would appear that the fire started in the hayloft, where the roof had been completely burned off. The walls of the bottom half of the building were soaked with water and ash, but appeared to be salvageable.
I was not unaware that my bloody clothes and generally wild appearance were earning me more than a few stares from the huddles of onlookers, but I was unconcerned with their good opinion. I caught sight of McClellan working to salvage some of the bales of hay not affected by the fire with a few of the other men in Childress' employ: Mason O'Morris, Peter Kittredge, Freddy Terrell, and the quiet new Red Man no one remembered the name of. McClellan saw me and waved for me to come over and help them, but my attention was diverted by the sight of a lone figure in white hovering near the tree line.
It was a girl. She was barefoot, and her wild red curls lay in unkempt clumps around her tear-stained face. My eyes fell to her nightgown, which was torn and stained with soot. Her feet and hands were scratched almost raw from lying too long in straw. She hugged her arms tightly to herself as a shield against the cold of the morning and the horror of the scene before her. She turned her sorrowful gaze to me and I felt a stab of unwelcome feeling in my gut.
"James," she cried hoarsely, grabbing up the hem of her nightgown and running towards me as if her life depended on it. As sad as it sounds, that might have been the truth. She ran into my bewildered arms, oblivious to the smell of blood and death still clinging to me. I was at once bemused and repulsed. I lifted an uncertain hand to her back, trying to stay the incessant pounding of her frightened heart against my chest.
"Vicky..." I said lowly, keeping my eyes raised and alert to my surroundings lest anyone observe this awkward embrace. Thankfully the attention of most was distracted by a falling beam within the barn. A series of shouts went up and McClellan and his crew ran inside, shielding their eyes against the heat and smoke still pervasive inside the barn.
"He finally did it," the girl sobbed, burying her face in my bloodstained shirt.
I was ill-equipped to deal with female histrionics. "Finally did what, Vicky?" I asked, calmly peeling her off of me and pushing her far enough away that a proper distance remained between us.
"There you are!" a deep and ungainly voice growled behind me. The comment was accompanied by the repulsive slurp of someone spitting tobacco.
The pair of us turned to the heavy-set, walrus-mustachioed man who spoke. The loathsome sloth stood before us in his dressing gown, poorly concealed by his fringed buckskin riding coat, and he yet stank of whiskey and tobacco from the night before. The very sight of him made my stomach turn – never mind the smell.
"Mr. Childress," I began, prepared to launch into an explanation of my absence this morning.
His beady eyes paid me no mind, as his gaze was completely captivated by the sight of the trembling girl before him. He spoke to her in a stern, slurred tone, "Victoria, your poor mother has been worried sick about you. Get your ass inside now before I have cause to swat you one."
Her voice came out in a choked whisper as she said, "OK, Daddy." She shot one desperate, pleading look at me before running down the hill to the house below as fast as her legs would carry her, her mass of blaze-colored hair fanned out in her wake.
Childress' eyes followed her all the way down the hill, his wretched, bloated tongue unconsciously darting out and over his tobacco-stained teeth. "Wilder," he said finally, "So nice of you to join us. Go help McClellan muck out what's left of the barn, will you?" The rest of his sentiment was silent, but more than apparent in the glare he shot me: And stay the fuck away from my daughter.
"Yessir," I mumbled and watched him hobble down the hill after Vicky.
He finally did it, I thought to myself. And it's all my fault.
This thought didn't bother me nearly as much as it probably should have.
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