Moonlight filtered down through the lush Georgia forest, the silvery beams a stark contrast to the sweltering summer night. The heat was a pleasure unattainable in the north. I dropped the slash pine back into its place and heavily sat down beneath it. The body under its roots once belonged to William Andrew Jackson. He'd led the lynching of two men and was fixing for a third one tonight. What I'd done wasn't wrong. I leaned my head back against the rough, pungent bark.
It wasn't wrong.
The first time I caught the scent of a colored person, I was astounded to realize they smelled the same as whites. Blood was blood as far as a vampire was concerned. My mortal parents came from abolitionist roots, but not even they believed that — black and white — we were all equal. Carlisle did, but Billy Jackson didn't. He'd raped four colored women and was looking to kill a colored man tonight just because he was colored and Billy was drunk. I'd stopped him on his way to round up his buddies.
It wasn't wrong.
Lion and lamb, predator and prey — God created us all. It wasn't wrong to do what came naturally. I only hunted those who were themselves hunters. I didn't take the lambs, I took the coyotes who would prey on them. If anything, I protected the flock.
It wasn't wrong.
Hunting animals only made the burning worse, and hunting the hunters quenched the brimstone in my throat. How could the right choice be the painful one? And how could the wrong choice be healing?
It wasn't wrong.
Three years of hunting — hundreds of lives taken. Why could I not forget their faces? Some were handsome. Many were vile. Most were haunted. All of them were hunters.
Like me.
"Hey there, handsome!"
Her hair was almost as white as her smooth skin, and her eyes were a dark, blood red. "I thought I smelled a fresh kill. You don't have any to share, do you?"
It had been more than a year since I'd encountered any other vampires. "No. I'm done."
She shrugged. What a pretty little thing he is! And all alone, too. She sat cross-legged at my feet, her legs wrapping around my ankles. That was a bit forward.
"I'm Beth." Her coy, crimson eyes made me recoil a bit. Carlisle never permitted hunting in the city where he lived, and red eyes meant trouble. Even before I was with him, he claimed his town as his territory. Now he only had Esme to back him up. I wondered how she would fare in a fight.
Is he love-sick? Because I'd make him forget the broad he's pining for. "And you are?"
Not interested. "My name is Edward."
"Edward, hm?" She looked me over, and I was startled to see my eyes in her mind. They were ruby in the moonlight. I knew it must be so, but I hadn't seen a mirror in three years. I'd wandered, interacting with humans only when I was on the hunt. There was no reason for involvement in the human world when I would be moving on in a few days. No connections, no constraints. I was free.
"You seem a bit glum, Edward. Tell you what. Let me find something sweet to slake my thirst, and then I'll show you a good time." Of course, a good time in her mind meant fornication.
I almost snorted. Murder and debauchery, the vampire definition of a good time. Maybe it was all the moralizing earlier, but a passage from Isaiah popped into my head then. Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil.
Beth interpreted my silence as agreement and eagerly left to hunt, oblivious to how thoroughly she'd shaken me. In her mind, I was a vampire like any other. My eyes were blood red. I could argue and rationalize until Doomsday, but the truth was written on my face.
I was Carlisle's enemy now.
If I he and I met face-to-face tomorrow, he would ask me to leave town — not in malice but on principle. Even if what I was doing wasn't wrong, it wasn't right either — not if it left Carlisle and me in opposition. The truth I'd been resisting for months finally asserted itself. I couldn't hunt like this anymore.
It was wrong.