Chapter Nine
Maria looked into the boy's eyes. He was about seventeen years old. Jasper always said boys that age were too young to have their mortality stolen, but Maria disagreed. If she's going to take away the ticking time bomb of life, then it didn't matter much when she did it. So, did she feel guilty? No. Not in the slightest.
Some had said that Maria's conscience was light as a feather, though the wrongdoings surely should've broken her back by now. It was a simple reason as to why: She never felt guilty about a thing. Maybe that's why Jasper left. No, she shook the ridiculous thought from her mind. Jasper was weak. That's why he left.
She'd given him the world, but he hadn't taken it.
Maria leaned forward, acting like she was about to kiss his neck, but, instead of lips, he got fangs. She sank her teeth into him. She tasted his blood, allowed herself a brief moment of ecstasy before she released as much venom as she could into his bloodstream, then pulled away. The blood ran over his bed where they were sitting, her hand clamping his mouth shut so that he couldn't scream.
Maria vaulted over the window sill and ran, her feet barely touching the ground as she sped toward the compound. Once she was in the desert and no one was around, she removed her hand and listened to the boy's screams echo off of the sand and rocks. Finally, she came upon the compound. It was a massive place built of adobe (Spanish architecture; her contractor had been Spanish before she ate him) with little squares cut into the place for windows. She went straight into the Creation room (where mortals became immortal) and laid the boy on the ground in the sand pit. Maria was quite dismayed to find that no one had changed the sand since the last mortal had bled here. Then she remembered that it normally would've been Irina's job, and she cackled in delight.
Irina was dead, and in this matter Maria was extremely delighted. The girl had come to Maria because she wanted to change her way of doing things. Irina had, apparently, been what vampires call a "vegetarian", meaning that Irina only consumed animal blood. The girl had gotten tired of it and yearned to go back to her old ways, but was fearful of hurting her coven. One day, Irina had given up. She disappeared and came here, far away from the Denali coven but not overseas. At first Maria had thought that she would like Irina, but she realized soon enough that the girl was weak. Soft.
If Jasper hadn't disappeared, he would've found Irina in the "disposables" lineup. But he had run off, and she knew he'd never return. After all, he'd taken newborns with him. Thank goodness one of them hadn't been Irina. Maria was, in a way, glad Jasper had left when he did. That way she got to snap Maria's neck herself. That may be the only good outcome of Jasper's departure: The fact that she got to kill the discarded newborns. Irina was not a newborn, but she was obnoxious. Maria could still remember word for word what Irina had yelled before they'd gotten into the fight.
"I don't freaking CARE how much power you have here in Mexico. The Volturi will come for you, and so will karma. You're psychotic if you think you're going to be able to keep this up! Literally. You are mentally ill. You need help, Maria. Now, I don't think anyone will give it to you. You're sick! You break necks and you enjoy it. You're building up an army to suit your own whims. You trick people then take their humanity. And if they aren't perfect? You wait till they've suffered the most excruciating form of pain in the universe before you kill them. Do you kill them when they beg you to? No. You wait until they figure that maybe, just maybe, they have something to fight for. You wait until they've found their life, and then you just snatch it right back.
"You cause people pain and feel no guilt as you do."
The last part was the only part that had actually bothered her.
"Maybe that's why he left you." This had struck Maria's heart, but she'd quickly recovered. It wasn't anything she had done that made Jasper leave, she was certain of that. He just hadn't had the stomach for it. Maybe he'd accidentally let a newborn escape and was too afraid to face her. But no, this was not the solution to Maria's predicament. Killing another vampire was quite a serious problem, and without Jasper's help, Maria couldn't control the newborns very well. Soon she'd have to start killing the restless ones, and that was a shame. The restless ones were normally the ones who would break bones without a second thought.
But that wasn't her biggest problem. As Maria had already realized, killing a fellow vampire was not something that went unnoticed by the Volturi. Surely they would show up soon, and they would find much more than they would be expecting.
Maria's whole operation would be blown open wide. This was why she only used vampires she had changed herself: They were off the radar. No member of the Volturi would notice if someone they didn't know existed. That was the genius behind it. After all, no single person should be so well known that dozens of others are shaken by their death.
Each year, hundreds of thousands of people die. Just as many (possibly more) enter the world. But every person passes through life being a nobody to billions of people. Swallowed up in the crowd.
My dream is that one day, there will be millions of vampires and humans are the rare ones. Many more like the boy lying at her knees would be changed. Soon Maria would need multiple Creation rooms at a time. She would hear the screams of mortals ring through the desert from miles away. Maria got a shiver down her spine, smiling to herself at the prospect. And when she heard the boy in front of her scream, "STOP IT! PLEASE! THE FIRE…IT'S BURNING!" Maria let out a high-pitched crackle, knowing this was her best kill yet. No, not kill, for Maria was giving life, allowing each individual she chose to be reborn. If only others saw Maria's side of things, she would have the other vampires lining up to help her, mortals lining up to be made whole.
Maria's cackle continued to drone on, the screams barely penetrating her skull.
She really was a psychopath.
Maria figured that, by now, she had maybe three months to solve her problem. And, so far, she saw only one solution: She would have to move the compound. It hurt her heart to have to leave this place now, when she'd made so many excellent memories for herself there. Oh, the screams she'd heard. The pain she'd witnessed.
The blood she'd tasted.
The sentimental value was almost enough to keep Maria put, but she simply couldn't. She couldn't risk her life's work to save some hurt feelings. Besides, it'd save her the pain of having to see the place Jasper had screamed and bled every day. The place he'd first kissed her.
Maria sighed. She couldn't stay up here with the young boy. It was the second day of his changing, and Maria would have to find a new victim soon. Until then, she wanted some time to herself. She'd make sure she'd be back up before the young man awoke immortal. They tend to be…temperamental when they first wake up. So, after making note of the time, Maria walked to the wall overgrown with ivy. One, two, three, four bricks to the right. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine bricks upward.
The bricks crumbled to the side as the gears put in place on the other side of the wall were put to the work. They collapsed in on themselves almost like melting butter, and Maria ducked into the opening. She pulled a lever on the wall, and the bricks slid into place.
As Maria turned toward the staircase lit by nothing but a soft glow coming from the room at the bottom of the stairwell, a thousand memories hit her at once like a tsunami. She could hear her heartbeat in her ears, and the pumping of blood sounded like a river in her veins. Maria was not used to this form of pain, and she had to clamp a pale hand over her mouth to keep from letting out an agonized shriek. She stumbled against the cool, earthy walls, and with her other hand she gripped the railing. Tears leaked from her eyes, and she squeezed them shut so tight that it hurt. Still, she stumbled down the stairs where she knew hope would find her once again.
Once Maria had staggered down the final step, she sank to her knees. Now that she was down here, safe from prying eyes (or ears) she let herself breathe, and she did, gulping great breaths of air. But when she opened her eyes, saw the pool of cool, silky water before her, she let out a sob. This was the place Jasper admitted his love for her. The place that Maria, too, had admitted her love for him.
She brushed her fingertips against the smooth, cool stone beneath her, looked all around at the Moonflowers that grew there, climbing up the wall, floating on the surface of the reflective pool that filled up the bowl in the middle of the room. She traveled over to the ancient, full-body mirror propped up in the corner. It had once been her abuela's mirror, and the frame around it was a gilded gold that formed the head of a dragon at the top. It had been very carefully and intricately carved, made with such attention to detail that the gorger had thought to place gleaming red rubies in the dragon's face where his eyes would be. Maria thought she looked quite like the dragon.
But when she looked into the mirror, she could not see herself. Maria thought this the one cruelty of being a vampire. So she floated back to the pool, leaned over the side. She looked at her reflection, studied every nook and cranny of her face. Her abuela would have been so ashamed to see her now.
Her hair fell around her in its thick, dark brown waves. That had not changed. But now her skin was pale, no longer the warm, caramel-brown that it used to be. And her eyes? They were not the dark brown they used to be. But this, she thought, was the only positive change: the blood red eyes. Maria was glad she was a vampire, no doubt about it, but there was some small part of her that spoke out: the part that was her Abuela. But now that Nana was gone, that part was swallowed up by the rest of her soul. Maria could sometimes remember the days after Nana had died. That was when she was soft. When she was weak.
When Nana had died, part of Maria had wanted to go with her. She couldn't get out of bed for days. Her stomach had felt like a boat on choppy waters, and every time she ate, the food would make a reappearance not long after. She'd stopped fearing death, knowing that she'd see her Nana again when she did. She now knew that was not a possibility; Maria would never make it to the same place Nana had.
Not long after Maria thought she had recovered, she started getting dizzy at random intervals. The world would spin so fast her eyes would begin to hurt, and she'd have to curl up on the ground whenever the migraines hit, coming after her. It almost felt as if someone was shooting a musket inside of her head, then the bullets kept ricocheting off of all the sides of her skull. Soon, she couldn't stand it.
The day she tried to be rid of the pain was the best day of her life. She'd found a man in an alley. He was old, and looked as though he couldn't outrun her. She'd given him the gun, told him to make it as quick as possible. But the man had jumped up in a flash, fangs flashing, and Maria caught a look at his eyes. They were a beautiful golden color, and Maria knew now that it must have been an older vegetarian.
However, he must have passed since then, because she could not find him. Every vegetarian had told her the same thing: no old man was a vampire. She was crazy. Psychotic.
Then again, it must be true. Not that Maria cared. This was the place she reveled in her mind, trapped herself inside of that endless chasm full of thoughts and feelings…and listened. Just thought and thought and thought. She loved remembering the way the power of that gun felt in her hand. But now she could feel it in every particle of her. Her destiny. She was destined to be immortal, destined to become a monster. Yes, Maria knew she was a monster. But she didn't ignore it, didn't run away like many did. She embraced it and, in return, the monster embraced her as well. The monster and Maria were not two different beings, but one. They functioned as a whole.
But when a young woman with hair that burned like sunshine stepped out of the shadows, the monster overtook Maria, roaring with white-hot rage. But no, not a woman, another monster. When she didn't step forward, Maria stayed put as well.
"Hello, Maria. It's so nice to finally meet you." Maria didn't think this woman was with the Volturi. No, this woman was here for another purpose, and Maria could see it burning in her onyx eyes: revenge.
"Who are you?" Maria inquired, simple and straight to the point.
"Tanya. From the Denali coven up north…I know you've heard of us." Ah, a vegetarian. That explains the yes. The Denali coven? What fun. I guess I know what she's here for.
"Ah, yes, I've had an encounter in the past…as I'm sure you know." Maria could see Tanya's muscles tightening underneath pale skin, could see her delicately put together bones, and couldn't help but wonder how they'd break. The sound they'd make. "Anyways, what are you here for? I need to water my flowers."
"Ah, yes, about that. You won't be able to water your flowers after I'm through with you."
"Whatever do you mean? I'm sure you won't try to kill me, not after the last attempt your coven made. Oh, no matter. I'll be through with you in half as much time."
A flash of golden hair.
Wild onyx eyes.
A horrible, ripping pain.
A scream…coming from Tanya's throat.
This should be interesting.