It was June. We arrived in Minas Gerais and made our way to a town on the outskirts of the capital, a church infested little place with steep narrow streets covered by cobblestones that meandered up and down various hills. The entire place held a typical long-forgotten aura, though it was a somewhat new settlement by my standards. To those native to that country it was old enough to be preserved and in my eyes it was a fairly pretty place in its own way.
I had Felix, Demetri and two lower guards with me. It was usual that Jane and I were sent to these missions separately as we were the ones the potentials had to match when being tested, so she was more often than not testing someone else in some other country as I was taking care of my own assignment. The potential we were sent to test was part of a trio but there was not a whisper about her two companions. With any luck they were also gifted, but I was not particularly hopeful of that.
The three of them were by the entrance of a bar -yet another thing that the city did not lack at all. We arrived around seven in the evening, there was barely anyone inside the bar and no one else outside but the three vampires.
"The small blonde."
I nodded to Demetri and ordered Felix to go before us to announce who we were and what we were there to do. He had a standard speech by then, always the same words voiced apathetically. Few words, no more than the strictly necessary as to not waste too much of our time if our visit ended up being fruitless.
The potential slowly approached Felix, scared and cautious. I could barely bring myself to pay attention but did hear her name was Marina and yes, she had a gift though not a very strong one. As she spoke with Felix I started to use my own gift since it takes a bit of time to work, and made my way to the two of them.
"Show me."
She looked at me when I spoke and I could tell she knew who I was. Her eyes widened slightly, she hunched her back almost unnoticeably and reflexively took half a step back.
I smiled at that.
"It's not much, really" she repeated, starting to retreat closer to her coven mates. "Not enough to block yours."
I did not stop at that. I kept walking to her and did not call back my power.
"I mean it, please" she tried once more, already verging on despair "please, it's really not much, I can't!"
"Do your best."
She whimpered and just as I could tell she would attempt to escape, so could every other vampire nearby. I kept walking at a steady pace and watched the mist of my gift begin to touch her. Her coven mates stood perfectly still, too afraid to offer aid and wise enough not to try to run with her.
She bolted and was immediately caught by our two light grey coats, each grasping one of her arms. They held her in place as my mist engulfed her small frame. We all stared intently, some curious and some anxious about her performance. I noticed one of the other two of the trio fidgeting in my peripheral vision, a brunette boy. The man by his side tried to soothe him by mumbling something in Portuguese to which I was too uninterested to listen.
The girl in front of me stopped fighting to break free and unleashed her gift.
It was disappointing.
She was not completely numb but she was hardly blocking me either.
"She could be trained" I heard Demetri suggest softly from my left, but I was already done with all of it and ready to go.
"We'll take her."
I released my gift with full force as I said it and the girl went limp. She could barely stand her ground when I was holding back.
I heard Felix chuckle.
"You were going easy on her."
I didn't answer him. I turned on my heels and started to call back the mist when the brunette boy called out from his spot.
"Let we go with her!"
I glanced at him from over my shoulder. The older looking vampire by his side seemed to be struggling to contain him. He hissed something in Portuguese while holding the boy's arms but was ignored, the boy being more interested in trying to break free and run to the girl Felix was already carrying away.
"And what do you have to show us?"
He stared stupidly at Demetri upon hearing his question and remained silent.
"Let's go" I told the guards and then turned to speak to the man "Don't let the boy be a nuisance to us."
He shook his head vigorously and yanked the boy, dragging him to the inside of the bar. That could have been the end of it, but the stupid creature started yelling and causing a scene.
"VocĂȘ vai deixar eles levarem ela assim? A gente tem que fazer alguma coisa!"*
The other one didn't have a chance to retort. With a wordless command from me the boy was torn apart by the light grey coats and set on fire. The few humans inside the inconspicuous bar that witnessed it were just as quickly ended by Demetri and as the remaining male from the coven exited the building it began to burn down as well.
I sighed.
"That could have been so easily avoided."
We made our way back to our car then and the man disappeared from our sight, proving yet again to be much smarter than his now deceased coven mate. The boy probably had a deeper relationship with the girl judging by his reaction and for a split second I allowed myself to be amused wondering how she would react to his death.
I almost lifted my gift from her to have the pleasure of telling her and savouring her reaction, but caught myself. That would have to wait.
I doubted that one would put an end to our search. Her attempt at blocking me was so laughable that if not for the nature of her gift she wouldn't even be taken to Volterra. The only thing that earned her a second test was the fact that her gift would be exactly what the masters were looking for except for the fact that it was so weak. She could be trained, it was true, but it seemed unlikely that any amount of training would put her on Bella Cullen's level.
Or mine.
I called Aro from inside of the car to report the results of the mission, the girl we gathered unconscious by Demetri's side in the backseat. He was not very thrilled by what I told him but agreed he had to see the girl for himself.
As we made our way through the steep streets of the little town that was when I saw it. The incident that changed everything. Felix and Demetri were chatting and from the passenger's seat I tried to dull them out, rolling my window glass down to be hit with the smells outside. Just then we passed by a human girl walking in the opposite direction rather hurriedly, holding some type of god-awful human food. Nothing about her appearance stood out, she had dark hair and brown eyes as most people in that area. Her clothes were not attention grabbing either, a simple shirt, a skirt and sandals. She dropped the thing in her hurry, quickly picked it up and took another bite while looking around to check if someone had seen her doing such a disgusting thing.
Had it been anyone else but me to see her that would have been how they processed it. To any human that is how it would have looked like, but I was no human. I saw exactly what happened, as if it occurred in slow motion, and clearly as if I stopped some footage to observe it frame by frame.
"Demetri."
He averted his eyes from Felix to look at me.
"That girl over there." He looked at her as I told him to. "Remember her."
He acquiesced with no questioning and returned to his conversation with Felix. I turned my head slightly to look at the girl for a little longer until she disappeared from my sight.
I knew she had seen me. When she glanced around to make sure no one caught her, she looked straight into my eyes for a moment.
The real question was: did she realise I had seen what she did?
"What is it, Alec?" Felix decided to ask when he noticed my eyes lingering on the human girl.
"That human" I paused to pick my words carefully "just made her food levitate."
He stared at me and so did Demetri and even the driver. Demetri arched one single eyebrow at me.
"She made it levitate." He repeated it like there was any chance he misheard me or that I misspoke.
"She dropped whatever she was eating but when she picked it up it had not touched the ground. Not because she caught it in time, mid-air, but because it floated for a fraction of a second."
They all simply continued to stare at me upon hearing my clarification. After a few moments, Felix laughed.
"Can you imagine," he said, still smiling, "that we came all the way here for this weak little thing" he pointed at the vampire by his side "and ended up finding a human that much more impressive?"
He laughed a little more, shaking his head. Demetri merely scoffed and smirked.
"Can you imagine?" He agreed.
I pondered that for the rest of our trip to the airport where the private jet awaited us. No, I couldn't fathom such luck, but there was no doubt of what I saw. Master Aro would see it when he took my hand in Volterra and he could decide what that meant and what would be done about it, I simply could not even wrap my head around a coincidence like that.
But it was just that, it was the most incredible of them. I witnessed it after so many centuries because if you are able to wait long enough the chances of seeing incredible things increase drastically. Living a short life makes luck feel like magic but living a long one lets you see it for what it is: inevitability.
That was the first note of my symphony.
"Are you going to let them take her like that? We have to do something!"
