Based on characters from the Twilight© by Stephanie Meyers. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No copyright infringement is intended.

51 MONSTER KILLER

I was the hunter of the hunters. I was the monster killer. I was keeping the townspeople from the clutches of evil. I rescued damsels in distress and others also. I was the hero, but there was no treasure and no fame to enjoy. My reward – human blood – the glorious and magnificent nectar I craved.

I hunted down and killed hundreds of foul subhuman creatures in many cities across the northeastern part of the continent. I lost count. Actually, I didn't count, except I knew how many days I hunted, and tracked the vile humans and about how many I caught.

The monstrous thirst reveled in the glorious feast, the magnificent taste, the rapturous easing of the terrible pain that ached inside me. The pain free days after the feast were magnificent but I also knew the thirst was never… ever… satisfied. The fiery pain always returned and would build up until it was blazing again demanding relief.

My first few kills were memorable in that I was delirious before I had even captured my perverse prey. The blood driven rapture thrilled and confused me so much that I was unprepared for the thirst's resistance to being restrained. I had to wrestle my wanton reaction to feed on my prey's prey. Though extremely difficult at first I harmed none of their innocent victims.

I had my plan and used it well following the monster to his next victim; I snatched him up before he had a chance to do any damage and claim my reward. Then I would search the area listening for other monsters. I targeted a few and listened in on them until they made their move. Little did I know that there were so many human monsters in large cities, so I didn't need to let the thirst get close to burning. I fed until I was sated and delirious with pleasure.

There was a terrible price for this glorious relief. I learned what humans were capable of doing to each other, making what my kind did look inconsequential by comparison, reinforcing my justification. I heard in the minds of those vile monsters the most nightmarish tortures and brutal acts. They thought of the acts they had already committed as they planned the next. They looked forward to the brutality that they were in the course of committing when I stopped them.

I wasn't going to take the chance that one could get away with venom in their veins. These fiends would have made the most monstrous of vampires and I wasn't going to be responsible for that horror. None of my prey had a beating heart when my teeth bit into their necks and I drained their lovely blood from their vile bodies. Unfortunately there was always another human monster to take their place.

After a few days of practice I did my best to catch my monsters just before they captured or connected with their victim. I took them just a fraction of a second before they reached their intended prey. I didn't want to make the mistake of killing someone with just a vivid and thoroughly disgusting imagination.

I found that my running speed was a better way to keep the victim from knowing what was happening. I basically flew past the victim grabbing the attacker by the head. The resulting force usually broke the fiend's neck, stopping their heart and ending the stream of their depraved thoughts assaulting me.

Some of the intended victims felt a tug or a tap then nothing as the air rushed by unexpectedly. They might have heard a faint cry in the wind that blew suddenly. When they looked around no one was there for by then I was taking my reward on a nearby rooftop.

I ran into the scent and minds of only two other vampires and avoided them easily. Reading minds from a distance definitely had its advantages.

During one rescue, the victim heard me, the dark stranger who saved her in the dark alley, telling her attacker that I could hear his loathsome thoughts. I spoke in front of her because I wanted to make sure she wasn't hurt too badly. I held him in my stony grip but didn't kill him in front of her though it was too dark for her to see if I had. I listened to her body tell me her injuries as I told him I knew what evil lurked in his black heart.

My smooth adolescent voice soothed her, and he struggled in fear that an avenging angel had caught him. I had to laugh for he would have been luckier if that were the case, but he got a monster instead.

I rarely ever said anything to anyone but that night I was angry. I was angry with his hideously gruesome thoughts, and then his cowardly fear but particularly with myself. I hadn't been quick enough to prevent his initial attack, fortunately she wasn't severely injured, physically anyway.

I heard her listen to me but I didn't care. She couldn't even see my shadow in the dark, she only heard my voice. She was grateful, for I was her young hero. She wanted to thank me but her pain had taken away her voice. I liked the feeling that I was saving the damsel in distress, I always did. She was one of the few that knew she had been rescued. Regrettably, I hadn't saved her preemptively.

My pleasure at being her hero took the edge off my anger and the human monster did not suffer as I had initially intended. I had planned to make him feel her agony before I took my reward but instead his death was swift and painless, much better than he deserved. His blood cooled as I made sure someone kind quickly found her. I felt she shouldn't suffer any more than she had, so I sacrificed my warm meal. I smiled as I took her tormenter away and made him disappear; they never found his body, as they never found any of them.

About a year later I heard words similar to mine coming back to me from a radio. I overheard the program while keeping tabs on my targeted monsters in a different town. There was a radio program, The Shadow*. The lead in to the program was 'who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The shadow knows.'

Maybe the young woman's story found its way to a creative writer and it was their way of thanking her hero. Maybe it was just my imagination, my need to justify my rationalization. My self-serving way of patting myself on the back since there was no one else to do it.

I had already realized that this was a very lonely existence. I didn't know how much longer I could keep it up. My mind started wandering toward home, it was time for a visit.

After my first year away, I traveled back home every other month or so to check on my parents to see if they were still living in the same house. I knew that Carlisle would catch my scent when he crossed it and he would know I still existed. I hoped it would ease his mind somewhat. I couldn't bear the thought of him seeing my crimson eyes and knowing what I'd been doing, but he would probably be able to discern that from my scent. At least I didn't have to see the disappointment in his eyes.

I was deceiving myself, as usual.

I always stopped at a specific tree in a nearby field where the house was well within my mind reading range. Carlisle passed it every day that he went to work. If Carlisle or Esme were at the house I would hear them and be quickly on the way to my next hunting ground. If there was no one there I would move a little closer until I could smell their scent. Their strong familiar scent meant they were still living in the house. A couple of times I actually peeked into the windows to see Esme's newest redesign. I just wanted to connect without contact.

*The Shadow debuted on July 31, 1930, on the Street and Smith radio program Detective Story Hour.