Vampire Hunter Nessie and the Twin Shadowed Knight

Disclaimer: I do not own Nessie, The Oprichniks, Buddhist mythology or Vampire Hunter D.

Part 1: Job details

So ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the front door of the Volturi. It's a hidden trapdoor in the worst neighbourhood in the Capitol in an alleyway that smells like urine.

You want to be careful when entering the Volturi's front door. It's about a two kilometre drop from the surface to the bottom of the shaft.

Gah! I do love a good freefall. There's something thrilling about plunging two clicks down a five by five foot shaft into the bowels of heck. It reminds me of cliff diving back home.

Wait, must suppress bad memories.

Any-hoo, I'm falling at near terminal velocity and the wind is rushing through my hair. Putting my feet and hands on the sides of the tunnel, I slow myself down to avoid any injury.

I've got an unholy case of the burns on my hands but I'm a big gurl and I won't cry.

The shaft is behind me and ahead of me is the maze.

I know the way through the maze. If you don't know the way through the maze, you're better off someplace else.

I know every turn of this maze. There's no light here. I move purely by memory. With my eidetic memory, I know where every pebble and speck of dust is sitting.

Did you ever watch that episode of SpongeBob where he learns how to drive? No. Well, it was over ten thousand years ago. Not everybody remembers the little yellow sponge that lived under the sea. Sniff. It makes me so sad.

Wait, I must be strong, for everyone's memory, SpongeBob included.

Here we are, right turn number two hundred seventy five. Down this way the walls change from the grey plascrete that they were.

Now the walls are grey stone, granite. Water drips down the walls and my eyes can't see a thing.

Heading down the hall, I need to stoop down to avoid hitting my head. I'm a tell girl; six feet, you know.

I remember the next part by the smell. It smells like a hundred thousand dogs used the toilet and nobody picked up after them.

I walk carefully to avoid the ten foot dung heaps and puddles of pee on the floor.

The eyes of a giant beast light up the cave like a searchlight for me. It's like a fox, but the size of a bear and with six legs. It looks at me and I pet it.

Animals love me and the Volturi know it. I run my hands through the beast's smelly fur and scratch its tender spots.

In a very un-fox like way, it purrs its pleasure out. I whisper to it. "Good doggie. Who's a good doggie? I love you, doggie."

After picking out some of its fleas, I let it go on its way, slightly happier than before.

The fox creature leaves and I'm back in the dark again. Time to move ahead.

The spot ahead is different again. It's all shiny ceramics and powerful lights; think a hospital in the Soviet Union at midnight when the furnace is broken and it's winter outside.

My eyes adapt instantly to the bright light. Darn it, this place smells clinical. You know that sterile smell of alcohol and steel; that's the smell of this place.

I hear footsteps and I look to the right of me. Coming down a hall is a marauder; a grotesque type of cyborg who spread like a disease through nano robots.

I encountered a band of these things three years ago when they attacked a small village before leaving.

This is an ugly sucker. Most of the face has been replaced by a grill like the front of a car, except for this psycho grin that's held in place with metal wire at the corners.

I can tell it's female because it has curvy hips and the breasts have been replaced with some kind of chemical thrower.

The marauder walks right past me, just grinning. It walks right past and I pretend not to notice.

So the Volturi are the ones who took control of the marauders three years ago. Since the fall of the last human government, marauders have been totally uncontrollable, until today.

So far I've walked from post apocalyptic to medieval to medical and now I'm in a prison environment. The grey concrete and iron walls look right out of Alcatraz.

Inside row after row of jail cells are classic supernatural demons who survived the apocalypse. Most of them are fae who hailed from Ireland. Yep, the Volturi have the world's most successful fairy breeding program. These twisted fairies don't look a thing like the "fairies" that the Nobility have created. Inside one of the cells, a woman with dragonfly wings and limbs as thin as my fingers propositions me. She promises me a good time.

I politely say no and give the fae woman a cookie. Sure they're prisoners, but that doesn't mean that I have to kick sand in their faces. The fae woman thanks me and eats that cookie like it's the last in the world.

At the end of the jail section I spot a familiar face. It's the red haired vampire from my youth, Siobhan; the Unstet whose power is to influence the future according to her will.

We hug and greet one another. Siobhan joined the Volturi shortly after the apocalypse, when Maggie, Liam and Sarah were killed. Only she and Benjamin survived.

Lots of vampires, driven by vengeance towards the Nobles, traded their freedom for the black Volturi robes.

I tease her a bit. "Hey Siobhan, how are those robes fitting?"

"Don't try to sass me, lass. I'm the same dress size as I ever was."

We break apart the hug and I can't wait to beak her a bit more. "Really, I thought you were looking a little heavy."

She frowns playfully at me. "Alright, dear tot, now you're asking fer a smackin." Don't let the supernatural beauty fool you, Siobhan is a pure tomboy. She'll knock your blinking block off. And her accent is so cool. I wish I had one just like it; but when I try to talk like her I just feel silly.

"So what does Aro need this time; does she want me to help him find his pen?"

Siobhan's face turns stony. "Don't ask me what that man wants. He'll tell you when you meet him."

I suddenly get stony in the face. So many familiar faces that I knew and loved are either dead or members of the Volturi guard. They recruited aggressively even before their downfall and I fear it's only a matter of time before they target me and my family.

Siobhan points me in the right direction and I move to the last section. The decorative theme behind this last section is religious.

The Capitol is built on top of the ruins of an ancient city called Rome. Once Rome was the head of a vast empire which eventually became capital city of the Catholic Church.

Given the Nobles white European centric worldview, they thought that destroying the Vatican and building their Capitol on it would be a great move. Personally if I was a Noble, I'd have taken over Philadelphia. It's a nice city and it's there Aunt Alice and Uncle Jasper met.

Where I'm standing now looks just like the original Vatican City as it was during the height of the power of the Popes.

Every brush stroke of a fresco, every stone and every detail has been recaptured from the memory of the three Volturi heads; the three headed monster.

They rebuilt this city so that its holy energies would drive away any Noble intruders and it's worked so far. I bet you that just one of these paintings of Jesus on the cross would have a Noble's head exploding.

At last I reach the throne room. This is where the Volturi sit and watch the world live and die like Sunday night football.

Caius, Marcus and Aro sit in three chairs that are covered with precious stones and gold. The seat cushions alone are worth more than most Nobles entire fortunes.

The three leaders are protected by a pru shield and guarded by security measures so elaborate, only Dracula has access to better equipment.

When they recreated the Vatican, rebuild the buildings almost by themselves, two kilometres underneath humanity's capital city, the Volturi were sending a giant "suck you" to both human and Noble alike.

Aro is the one on the left with black hair that seems to float. Caius is the white haired one and Marcus is the one who looks almost dead.

Three of them have skin like an onion, thing and nearly see through. But they radiate such a sense of knowledge and wisdom. For a time, they spent centuries in a meditative trance, letting food come to them and seeing the secrets of the universe.

When you get near them, you can feel all that wisdom that's contained in their ancient brains; you can also feel the evil inside, the pure greed and lust for power.

The Volturi are flanked by their private body guards, the best of the best. In front of them, sitting in a meditative pose is Vaisravana, the world's oldest vampire. Once a servant of the Romanian coven, he's a master of every martial art ever created and he was the inspiration for the mythical figure Vessavana; one of the guardians of Mt. Meru in Buddhist mythology.

Vaisravana is a short North Indian guy with big head and bigger shoulders. Don't let the peaceful meditation fool you. He looks so fierce he could eat a baby; and his bite is worse than his bark. His crazy beard and moustache are some of the most legendary I've seen.

At the start of my career, Vaisravana was the one who trained me how to fight.

Flanking Caius is his personal body guard, a psycho Russian guy named Oprichnik, with the emblem of a broom and a severed dogs head on his robes. He was originally a member of Ivan the Terrible's secret police force, the Oprichniki; a pack of loonies who made the Gestapo look like fluffy bunnies. A big boned, brutal Russian, Oprichnik was part of Ivan's three hundred elite "brotherhood." He has no memory of his human life, not even his name. So he calls himself Oprichnik and his sadism and gluttony for blood match even the most brutal Nobles.

Behind Aro is Manchu guy, who under his black robe is the clothing of a fourth level Manchu soldier. I don't know anything about him; his job, his power or his name. Every time I visit here he just stands there smiling, doing nothing whatsoever. If I'm lucky I'll get to see him play with is moustache. Otherwise he's the world's biggest paperweight.

Left of Manchu guy is Herbert West, the Reanimator. As a human, Herbert invented a formula that could bring back dead bodies. As a vampire, he can resurrect anything; all he needs is a little piece of your corpse, even if it's only a single molecule.

Herbert is really more like an advisor than a guard but his talent is very important because it brought back Alec, Dmitri and other members that they've lost.

Aro is the most vocal of the Volturi, Caius is the angry one and since the death of his wife, Marcus has been a zombie. You can throw rocks at him and you could run, get something to eat and have a shower before he even noticed.

Aro, the voice piece of the Volturi, greets me and I curtsy in turn. "Dearest Nessie, these halls have felt cold and empty since you last graced us with your presence."

He just gushes it all out like he actually thinks I have intrinsic value as a person. I bet that rapist Uncles talk to their nieces this way. It sends chills up my spine.

"Nice to meet you again, Aro. Nice to meet you, Caius and Marcus." Caius sneers at me like a white Los Angeles guy objecting to the ghetto kids having access to healthcare. Marcus just grunts and waves.

Aro steps down from his throne and hugs me warmly. More chills run up my spine at his cold touch.

He nuzzles my neck and I want to vomit. Aro with a touch can download every memory you've ever had into his brain. So he already knows everything that happened since we last met; including the fact that I now shave my pubic hair into the shape of a maple leaf. (Hey, it's the right colour. Don't judge me.)

He steps back and gushes some more. "My sweet heart, truly you live a remarkable life. Your very presence is a candle in our dark life."

Yeah, dark is the word.

You know, the reason that he acts like an excited child is because he can afford to. He has absolute power in this organization. Power attracts the corruptible, absolute power attracts the absolutely corruptible. And the Volturi have in this world the closest thing to absolute power.

Caius takes us straight to the point. With him, there's no left or right or sideways. You do what he wants right away or die. "We have a job for you."

Aro sighs, "Yes child, I'm afraid that we have a job only you can do."

I nod, putting personal feelings aside and adopting an air of professionalism. "What would you like?" As Hugh Jackman once said, "What are we dealing with and how do I kill it?"

Aro turns around and gets back on his throne. On cue, Jane comes in; the little cherub who can cause blinding pain in anyone she looks at; even over video monitors.

Jane is no longer the most talented member of the coven but she's still extremely vital in torturing of Nobility for information. Her gaze is as painful as the rays of sun, sometimes even more if the vampire in question is weak.

The tiny Unstet girl glares at me. I think she's jealous. Holding out her hand, she reveals a drei-d projecto-matic.

I use all my ten thousand years of training to keep my emotions hidden. I struggle to control my heartbeat and blush reflexes.

Caius explains. "This is your target."

And the target in question is none other than Vampire Hunter D! They want me to kidnap my own former boyfriend!

Oh snap.

Ha! Now you'll have to deal with a cliffhanger! Though I must say that I really don't mind cliffhangers. I hope you enjoyed this. Next chapter the Volturi elaborate and Nessie tries to reason with her target.

TA

MAster of the Boot

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