This is the story of Demetri, member of the Volturi guard. His life is pure tedium, until he is assigned to eradicate a dangerous and radical coven of vampires based in Paris. Demetri and all other members of the Volturi are not mine, but Stephanie Meyer's. If you enjoy the story, I would like to hear about it.
Sixty four seconds was all I had. In sixty four seconds, the faintest hint of pink would begin to rise over the horizon of the mountains, forcing my return to the darkness. For an instant, I considered simply staying in the square and watching the sunrise. It had been years since I had, before I had come to Volterra, before I had become who I was now. It would be hours until the humans awoke, hours before they would be able to see my skin sparkle in the dawn. No, I told myself, I was being unreasonable. I chided myself, knowing that I would never be able to see the sunrise over the mountains of Volterra.
I counted backwards in my head, like the countdown to a rocket launch. Five, four, three, two, one….blastoff! I darted into the alleyway, becoming invisible to the humans who were certainly not watching. I jumped downwards into the chute that would take me home, surrounded by the darkness that was my natural habitat. I ran down the winding passageway, anxious to return before my absence was noted, knowing that it would not be. I was not like the pets that Jane and Alec were, I was only noticed by Aro, Marcus and Caius when they had something for me to do. For this, I was grateful. Being the center of attention had never been my preference.
When I reached the public portion of the operation, I slowed my pace, just in case. This was habitual more than it was necessary, I would be able to smell anyone unfamiliar much sooner than I would have seen them. This time a day, the lobby was deserted, but the cheerful background music still played. The jolly piano notes seemed the worst kind of mockery. Day after day, week after week, month after month, the happiness was repeated again and again, never ending, never quieting. Like my life, it was endless, but my life was not jolly by any measure.
The music continued as I rode the elevator, but mercifully stopped as I exited on the third floor. This place was a little more archaic than the rest of the building, with furniture and tapestries that had been collected over the millennia or so that the Volturi had reigned. I passed through the first set of doors, into the sort of lounge that we usually assembled in. It was remarkable how little had happened in the several hours I had spent outside.
Afton and Santiago were still sitting on the floor by the blacked out window, a chessboard sitting between them. Afton moved one of the pieces without touching it, a smirk spreading across his marble features. Santiago winced, and stared even harder at the board. Chelsea and Mona sat beside them, neither looking very interested in the outcome. They were discussing something in the fashion magazine Mona was holding, wondering if they would be allowed to go to Paris like they did last year. Isidor and Corin were watching soccer on the big screen, discussing the likely outcome of the match. Renata was sitting alone, as usual, staring at the television without really seeing anything.
Nothing in this room could hold me, and I continued on, into the library. Here, Augustine was sitting, trapped in a book. Nowadays, the library was ill used; we had all read every single book in it at some point, trying to stay boredom. Augustine was now reading them all again, trying to find some new meaning in the words she had already memorized. I decided to find Felix, he was always entertaining. In an instant, I was heading towards him without thinking about my destination. His trail took me to the next floor, where our private rooms were. He was in Heidi's room. I stopped far from the door, groaning inwardly. Well, he would not be available for some time.
The relationship between Heidi and Felix was rather new, and I tried to think of it without any ill will. I knew that my little crush on Heidi was not, nor would it ever be, love. Still, she was something to think about, something to fixate my attention on. It should not surprise me, this love between them. Most of the love matches between members of the guards were created out of tedium. When you spend every moment with the same people, you are bound to feel something about them out of habit or convenience.
Dejected, I returned to the lounge, sat down in front of the stupid television and watched the meals on legs run to and fro, kicking a ball at each other. Isidor invited me to bet on the match, and I bet twenty Euros on the green ones to win. They lost. As Corin counted the money he had won, Jane walked in, her sickly sweet smile not reaching her scarlet eyes. "We are meeting now." I was suddenly filled with excitement. It must be something important if all of us were needed. The last time we had all met was when we were ordered to kill the Cullen child. I hoped that whatever it was, the outcome would be better than last time.