The Child Did Not Age.
I walked along the empty streets, hands stuffed into the pockets of my coat in the way that was the modern man of this era. The illuminating light from the stores still opened even at this time of night or early day glimmered in different shades and hues, purples, reds and greens. OPEN, WELCOME all the signs shinning brightly with an almost comical quality even if it were normal to the every day man, I was not.
I had a mother once, a wife. I was human too and yet, here I am, walking alone a silhouette against the mortal shadows of the men and women who've just come from work, the prostitutes, the homeless vagabonds that lined the alleys and the streets. All perfectly human, enviably human and their scent so sweet disgustingly sweet and I feel myself parched.
I find my victim blundering out of a strip club. He is pleasantly drunk bourbon pouring from his every pore and he is beautiful in the way that only a human can be to us despite size, age, race or filth but this particular victim is very pleasing by mortal standards as well.
He has a high forehead with thick wispy black hair falling from the dramatically slicked back coif it had been in during the day. He had powerful arms hidden beneath his suit with powerful legs and a firm chest where beneath his heart beat is heavy staccato, and then there as his face. Strong square jaw, long slightly curved nose, thick brows and deep brown eyes set against his light brown face.
All in all he was perfect and his eyes reminded me of my wife when she was alive and when I had still loved her because certainly now I do not. But to leave that topic quickly and to return to my victim as you must be curious. I saw him tip his 'hat' though it was a quirk of his hand, at the large Hispanic bodyguard before walking down the sidewalk. I was surprised that he could walk and it took me a moment to get on his trail, trying not to look too fast. It was a simple trick, able to appear completely human.
We reached Central Park in what felt like a few moments, always several steps behind my victim of course. I wouldn't be caught by him until we were properly hidden in shadow. The park was the perfect place.
We reached a hidden alcove shaded even from the moon by the tree tops and various kinds of vegetation. I could see him perfectly outlined against the black.
"Why are you following me?"
I was taken off guard but I didn't show it. Of course not but still, it seemed silly to skirt around the question or to even lie. "I'm here."
"I see that." He said boldly. It occurred to me that this man might just know that I wasn't human. It could be that he saw my eyes or my skin or my lips, red and pressed against the white marble of my skin. "What are you?" Ah, so he did know!
"I am an angel sent from heaven." I said. I placed my hands together, palm against palm, fingers pointing heavenward in mock prayer the way I had done when I was a human boy during Sunday sermon. It was, of course, mocking. "Do you wish to confess your sins before you die?"
I could hear him; demon, monster, I am going to die. The same litany that all humans recite before they die and how excited I felt for this the desire to listen to the fount of thoughts, the memories soaked up coating my tongue and throat and I would have that sweet passion.
"You're going to kill me?"
"Yes," I answered but then he began to run. "How quaint, he is trying to flee." And I gave forth a laugh. To a mortal's ear it could be heard as a loud barking howl or screech or whatever it is humans associate the sound to hells fire with. I do not know.
I ran at a humans pace and I even gave him the courtesy of breathing but his horror was what I wanted, why I ran like this why I gave the illusion that he may live that I would not catch him. And it was delicious, this chase and his terror. He knew of course, it was easy to read, he knew that he was going to die.
He reached the edge of the park the gates clear in view black shadows standing tall until I grew a little weary. I grabbed him by his powerful waist and quickly dragged him into the brambles where we would be alone for the deed to be done. I did not want anyone to see him running. I didn't want to kill anymore then was necessary.
He struggled of course, all mortals do in the beginning before they give up the fight. He clawed at my hands slipping on the cloth of the coat, pulled at my hair and scratched at my face. Oh, what little good that did, it only excited me and I took great pleasure in hugging his body close to mine in a lovers embrace and kissed him. The venom works wonders to paralyze the victim, freezing them in place and as it worked in his mouth I took time to exam his face. Oh yes, his eyes were just like hers and I let myself drift to that lost humanity from so long ago.
I did little work of breaking the skin of his throat pulling the flesh in chunks letting the meaty bits linger in my mouth taking in their blood before spitting it out. There was blood everywhere so I closed my mouth over the biggest wound and began to suck and as I sucked I hugged him tighter until I felt the bones of his arms crush. I pulled back and dropped the corpse.
"Fly on angels wings." A voice whispered. I didn't turn my head instead I began to walk from the brambles away from the prying voice and the victim. His name had been Michael Talbot. He had been a father, twice divorced and a murderer.
"Oh Edward, that was positively stunning. Such an intimate kill! Why, I haven't seen anything like that since my own beginnings."
"Aro, why are you here? Shouldn't you be in Italy with your brothers?"
He giggled, actually giggled. "Oh I've decided to visit you after all we so seldom see one another anymore."
"Not since you killed my daughter." I said, there was no resentment in the statement or even in my voice but, deep inside where I was still human where Nessie lived, I sobbed. I shoved my hands, this time into the pockets of my jeans. "I'm leaving."
"You know it had to be done." Aro said now drifting in front of me. His hair had been tied back at the nape of his neck and his eyes were as red as they had always been. He was dressed in a smart black suit the buttons of his lapel gleamed silver. "Trying to stage a coo you know, trying to enslave the humans with immortal children. Can you imagine! Our meals would be dwindled, what else would we eat?"
"Animals?"
"Oh," He laughed. "Oh no that would not do, it is in our very nature to feed off humans Edward, surely you from anyone knows that now." His hands rested on my shoulders. "There is bad blood between us, I know."
"I watched her die."
"I know this, I know everything Edward, remember." He tapped his temple. "It was Alice that I saw the truth from I had touched her and I saw her vision. There was nothing anyone could have done to persuade your child and she would sooner have seen you dead then allow you to try to and stop her."
It wasn't anything that I had not known, I knew, deep in my soul, if I had one, that she would not have been deterred. After all, a spoiled child will not take no for an answer. She wanted to walk in the world without hiding and her resentment for humans grew and became prominent. Aro and his brother's had merely done what they had to do to save us and the humans. It was that Renesmee's life that had to end in order for the world to remain in peace and I would never forgive myself for not making it in time to save her. Her body burning and her screams haunted my waking dreams while Bella watched unchanged, unmoved and uncaring.
"How is my wife?" I asked watching for any expression in Aro's face but there was not a hint of trepidation.
"She is as she has been for these thirty years. Not emotionally involved in anything and forever hungry, of course you knew that. I say however, even her tastes in meals drives me to loose my appetite. I never did care for the children and how she plays with them. Singing to them making them believe that she is an angel sent to save them from the horrors of death only to kill them." He sighed. "Just the same as always, the way I had seen it when I touched your sister's hand."
"Alice knew?"
"Oh yes, she knew." Aro said dismissively, already bored. "But tell me, how have you been? I have heard from many of the murdered and the tales of The Angel of Death. Botticelli made him they say, he has black wings they say. He kills indiscriminately they say." As he says this his voice perks, peaked with interest and I can read it in his mind; my Angel, be of one of mine. A companion for as long as you wish, come with me to Volterra. I love you.
"You know I can't." My voice wavers. "I want to be alone. Go away."
But I didn't mean it. I hated being alone, since the day Bella left for Italy to learn the old secrets, since the day Alice burned herself in the meadow in a fit of insanity. Since the day I told Carlisle where to put his unfathomable completely unfounded love for human life when I left his company and the company of the only family I had left.
Thirty years ago, one year after Bella and I had been married, she left. There was no note, not a word. Simply, she kissed me, stared into my eyes then vanished. I later learned from Alice where she had gone.
I did not appreciate Rosalie's jibes, how she had been right about Bella's selfishness that she had not really loved me at all. But Rose had been right, Bella did not love me. She loved the beauty of it, the strangeness and immortal life and worse yet, she loved the blood. It was never about us it was about what I could give her. She had given me Renesmee and had fled at least she had been with us for one year, if only out of decency.
From our coven only two remained and for that I am and will forever be, truly sorry. If not for meeting Bella then we, the seven of us would have remained the happy family, though I suppose that it would have been inevitable for us to part. Jasper would always be the rogue no matter how comfortable he would have gotten with us and Rosalie would always tire of the day to day family life. It was Alice, Emmet and I that had been content in the familial lie that had kept us all together.
When Alice died everything had changed. I still don't understand why she did it, I don't really need to. It happens every so often to our kind, those who are unable to go on in the same way that they began. The fact that changes around us occur, that we must hide that we are different and must constantly down play ourselves and lie to ourselves, it gets to us it changes us. And ultimately it kills us.
Some time ago perhaps in the past ten years, I cam across a number of vampires of a different kind a much deadlier an older kind. It was in the times where I allowed myself to leave America. I had visited the Romanian's and their children and their makers. It didn't take a lot of questions to figure out that if they wanted us to die, really wanted to end us that they could do it. As our makers, our mothers and fathers they have that right to kill us.
"That isn't what you want. You don't want to be alone."
"Can you cease from reading my mind."
Aro lifted his hands from my shoulders and had to decency to look a bit embarrassed. Foolishly rubbing his cold hands together in a way that if one saw him do it would allude to something akin to normal, human but of course I wasn't fooled. He was skilled in human mannerisms only because he'd long ago mastered the technique and executed it with barely noticing the action. And out of the three brothers he appeared the most human, callus and brazen but human.
And it was such an endearing quality.
"Fine then, I will take my leave. But, if you change your mind...I've reserved the superior room in the Trump, of course." He added with a too natural human smile, his lips widening just so. "You know where to find me."
It might take me a week or so to add the next batch of chapters considering that I am moving to another apartment. Anyway, this just did not want to leave me, the premise seemed beautiful, Edward becoming a lone rogue vampire feeding the way that he was meant to. And having Bella's true intentions take root in the story was compelling, I say compelling because I have thus written a bulk of flashback chapters about the inevitable fall of Bella and Edward's relationship. About Renesmee, she was a spoiled child despite the rate of her growth. She wanted everything and thought lowly of human life. They were her bread and butter they were prey and beneath her. This isn't how she was necessarily raised but something that was ingrained within her. She was a predator and allowed herself to live as such. And you must wonder, about Jacob and what became of him?
He still roams angrily of course, his imprint was killed. However, it is not to say that he didn't understand as you will find in the next few chapters though he will not be integral to this story, this story is about Edward learning to true meaning of immortality. He was so sequestered and sheltered by his family that he never realized what it truly meant, not really and now that he is alone he's beginning to understand it. The madness that takes most of them the lust for blood and the knowledge that they will never know of what becomes of the human spirit, and why Alice never told him the whole truth.
She of course was driven mad. She didn't want to live unchanging and she didn't want to continue to pretend that she was happy when she was miserable. I wanted to make it beautiful I wanted to make it seem personal so that those of you who are not the biggest fans of Twilight of Edward himself could see the suffering in his understanding of it all. This is a dark story and in the end it may very well be that he dies from madness to or perhaps not. There was another story by LovingTheOgre called 'And She' that was inspiration to this, and while that one had an original character called Marion that was 'Edward's sister' the story dictates the importance of human life and the suffering of living forever. I've taken only bits of that into my own story such as 'sleep'. Edward 'sleeps' for a long time though for us it would be lost in day dreams.
Anyway, to get to the root of this explanation, I wanted to be honest. I was not a fan of the book series I was not Pro Bella, Team Edward, Team Jacob or Team anyone. I thought that it was superfluous in it's romance that had no basis for actual chemistry and was showy rather then anything of substance. Not to say that I hated it, I just didn't understand how one could fall in love so fast and never ever talk about the inside of a person only to constantly praise "Adonis like features". I guess I would have enjoyed the books if they would have been a little deeper if perhaps Bella would have been a little stronger and would have appreciated human life.
I am not bashing her in this story, not by a long shot. There are bits and pieces here in later chapters where you can relate to her and why she was so uncaring at Renesmee's murder. There is a reason for it, not to say she didn't care. She did, Renesmee was her daughter, her flesh and blood. There is a reason she is the way she is just like the reason behind Alice's silence and death. It all ties into the plot of the story and the mystery that Edward unravels but like I said it may take a week or so to get the ten chapters up. At the moment they're being edited.
Review, no flames no complaints that I hate Twilight or any of that nonsense. If you hate the story then do not review with complaints. If you liked it however and have an open mind then review, this story isn't meant to destroy any ones views of the characters. It's an alternate universe; this is a FAN fiction story. It means nothing and is not meant to offend. This chapter was short as to preview what it is about.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters.