Chapter Ten

Jasper

By the time I heard a faint noise in the corridor as the door swung open again I could feel a slight burn in my throat, I hadn't hunted for many hours and my thirst was beginning to grow. I didn't recognise the man who entered, he looked about Aro's age and had the same cynical look on his face but he smiled when he saw me watching him.

"Well Major Whitlock. I finally get to meet you in the flesh, I've heard so much about you from my friends. It seems you have quite a violent reputation although you don't look particularly dangerous to me."

"Looks can be deceptive."

"How true. You look at me and think... who is he? What does he want with me? Is he Volturi? Where am I? So many questions Major running through your brain."

"So who are you? After all you know my name"

"Oh I know a lot about you Major. I make it my business to learn all I can about our world. Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Samuel, you may have heard of me."

Samuel? The name rang a distant bell, I had heard the name before but not for many years.

"I see you are struggling so allow me to jog your memory. I worked for the Volturi once upon a time, I was what you might call an enabler."

Then it came to me, I'd heard his name once in talking to Eleazer. He told me that a man named Samuel had been Aro's greatest weapon because what he did no one ever saw, only the results.

"You were Aro's torturer."

He shook his head with a frown,

"I never laid a hand on anyone Major I merely enabled certain people to do as they were instructed...even when such things could cause them or others harm. A torturer only works to extract information and I never did that, Aro didn't need such a person. One touch and he knew everything so why would he need such a blunt instrument as a torturer?"

"Why am I here? Are you still working for the Volturi?"

"Oh no, I escaped from them many years ago and I've been in hiding ever since. I rather think Aro would kill me if he knew where I was."

"Well if not the Volturi then who and why?"

"Alas Major I couldn't possibly answer those questions. Lets just say I'm doing a favour for a friend. I'm afraid I may be a little rusty but I'm sure we'll get there in the end."

"Where exactly?"

"All in good time Major, for now I think we should get started don't you? The sooner this unpleasantness is over the sooner I can disappear once more."

"If you're not going to torture me, why the chains?"

"I may look a little crazy but I assure you I'm no fool. How on earth could I, one man, keep the greatest warrior of our world in check without a little help?"

"You have your friends"

"Oh they have their part to play but I don't underestimate your strength Major. Still we'll see."

He turned and walked back out and I was more confused than ever now, he hadn't told me anything except a friend of his wanted something of me. Not answers so what exactly?

It didn't take long to find out what he was doing and it certainly was torture, if mental rather than physical. At first as I waited I wondered if this were all part of his plan but then the door opened and two humans were thrown in, both bleeding badly from slashes to their arms and legs, their blood dripping to the concrete floor and forming pools that reached out towards me. I felt the burn in my throat intensify and clamped down on it but suddenly the burn became an inferno, I wanted that blood before my throat burned away and I struggled with my bonds but I couldn't escape them. I couldn't reach the blood that called to me so strongly. I was forced to watch as the humans terrified and in pain die slowly from blood loss cowering as far from me as they could. My mouth was full of venom almost choking me, my thirst had taken on a life of its own torturing me until I screamed out in my frustration.

The scent of the blood slowly faded a little as it sunk into the concrete floor but still I struggled to free myself chafing my wrists until the venom dripped from them to join the stains on the floor. When the door opened again two more humans were pushed in, women this time and seeing the dead men on the floor they screamed shrinking into a corner and watching me with huge scared eyes. Their fear hit me as I knew it would but then it became so great I could hardly bear the feeling of it and twisted this way and that trying to escape. To get out of this room, to kill the women, to stop their fear torturing me, to drink their blood top stop the terrible thirst.

This torture went on for days or weeks, I lost all sense of time, my brain hurting from the emotions of the humans who joined me in this room in ones and twos the earlier arrivals dying of thirst and hunger or of the blood loss from the wounds inflicted on them before they arrived. The room was thick with the stench of fresh and drying blood, urine from the fearful humans and my mind full of the pain and fear of the victims and my own terrible cravings for escape and blood. The furnace my throat had become hurt as much as the emotions battering against my sanity and I felt myself slipping back to my days as The Major.

The days when I killed and terrified vampires and humans alike for my sire. I struggled not to lose the man I had become but with each victim Jasper Hale faded into the background and Major Whitlock stepped forward to take control of me. I had forgotten where I had come from. Who I was and why I was here in this death chamber. I wanted to feed, I needed blood and my body screamed in its impotence. Sometimes a human was pushed in with an artery spurting blood and occasionally a few drops would land close enough for me to taste, my tongue seeking the splashes that landed on my face. It was never enough and it made my thirst even worse but I couldn't help myself. When I got out of here I was going to kill everyone involved in this. The Major was ready for carnage, he screamed for prey, and I could feel my true self, the one I had struggled so long to become, slipping away, and yet still it went on with no pause, hour after hour, day after day, until I wanted to kill everything that moved. My rage was so great I screamed in frustration and thirst and knew only death and blood could help me now.