Chapter 2
Behind the Wall
I have a dual purpose for my research with the Cullens. I truly am collecting information for B.I.T.E., but I also have another, more personal reason to focus on this family. A reason related to my own eating habits. I'm stowing this secondary purpose behind the wall for now. Before I tell you all about it, you'll need a little background.
What the Cullens don't know - what nobody knows - is that I haven't tasted human blood in fifty years. When you come from the land of Vlad the Impaler, that's not exactly something you advertise. So I've been faking it for fifty years.
I'd laid off humans for a very brief time earlier in my existence, during those few months when I was with Carlisle. I was a completely different vampire back then, but I've always been strong-willed, so abstaining was just a matter of setting my mind to it. It was easy enough for me to do, but I was still too young in my existence to care much about the morality of it. The veggie lifestyle was simply a novelty for me, a phase I'd out grow. When Carlisle and I went our separate ways, I went back to feeding on humans without any qualms. Still, I'd proven I could do it, no problem. I knew that if I ever wanted to quit humans again, I could. So when I met Kristoph and fell madly in love with him, I figured I could handle it.
I figured wrong.
I figured very wrong.
I came across Kristoph by chance in a crowded, western European market. He was the most remarkable human I'd ever met. I understood this after one brief conversation with him in front of a flower stand. That initial flirtation ended with him handing me a huge bouquet of daffodils under his sparkling grin. I was hooked. I couldn't stay away from him. Unfortunately for him, he couldn't stay away from me either.
The party never seemed to end with my adventurous Kristoph. We traveled and laughed and became addicted to one another. I trusted Kristoph with the secret of my existence, and somehow he accepted it. We were going to make it work, because I loved him, and miracle of miracles, he loved me. He loved me, loved me, loved me. Exactly as I was. He let me be bad, but he made me want to be better. And I was better with Kristoph. I was perfect with Kristoph.
Until…
I still don't know how it happened. Even now I can't remember what set me off. I'd been leaning against his chest, contented while he kissed the top of my head. We were making plans for a holiday somewhere secluded and warm and tropical. Then suddenly, for no reason at all, I was draining him of life. I still hear the anguished cries he made as I sank my teeth deep into his neck.
He made a solid attempt to throw me off, but I unleashed my full strength and pinned him helplessly to the ground. We locked eyes for a moment as we fell, and I read his cold fury. That fury fed my predatorial instinct, and I latched onto him again.
Midway through I thought I could stop. I thought maybe I could contain the damage and leave him converted to a vampire. That wouldn't be so bad would it? Since it was an accident? But I couldn't stop. I kept drinking and drinking his exquisite blood, made all the more irresistible because of the love I felt for the man it sustained. Kristoph's blood ran down my face like thick, crimson tears, but I couldn't stop.
With my thirst finally satiated, the full horror of what I'd done slammed down on me. I gathered my wonderful, hilarious, intelligent Kristoph in my arms and watched him struggle with his last gasp of breath. I stared silently at his motionless and drained corpse for hours and hours. I was glad I couldn't cry, because I didn't deserve to have the hideous sight of Kristoph's emaciated body blurred. I kept my hysterical screams locked inside my head, because I didn't deserve to release them.
I still don't know how it happened.
Every day I hear his anguished cries, see his cold fury, and listen to the rasp of his final, beautiful breath.
In the hours, maybe days, that I spent cradling him, I realized that I didn't want to exist any more in any dimension. I didn't deserve to exist. Annihilation. Utter and complete obliteration. That's what I was after.
I carried Kristoph's body to the forest and buried him. I wanted him to have a proper burial, but I couldn't bear the thought of humans poking around his precious limbs as they tried to figure out what kind of animal could have done this to him. Then I journeyed to the deserted marketplace, the very some one where Kristoph and I had met. I waited patiently through the night, stained and cracking with his dried blood. I hadn't bothered to clean myself up, because I didn't deserve to be clean. While I waited, I tried to feel his hemoglobin coursing through me. It was the last time I would ever feel my beautiful Kristoph.
I was going to attract the Volturi to end my existence. The Volturi are a huge network of vampires in Italy. They've appointed themselves as the watchdogs of the vampiring world and police our activity to make sure our species is not exposed to the rest of the world. Anyone caught endangering our secrecy is summarily executed. At least the lucky ones are. The not-so-lucky ones are unmercifully tortured first. I was hoping for torture. It's what I deserved.
The Volturi is the group Edward pretended to try to offend during his little tantrum in Italy earlier this year. I think his plan was to expose his skin in sunlight and freak out humans with his shimmery, vampire skin. I guess pretty boy was trying to sparkle himself to death. Emasculated little prick. My plan had a bit more teeth to it.
I was going to wait in the marketplace until the humans started coming out in the morning. Then I would attack anyone and everyone that I could get to. I would rip out their throats and turn the market into a river of blood. I would spare just enough to leave as witnesses. The Volturi couldn't ignore that.
The sun showed its first glow over the city buildings, and humans began to appear, dragging their wares to the scattered booths. A few cast suspicious glances at me. I can't imagine what they made of my blackened blood stains, my matted hair, and my wild, grief-stricken eyes. The first wary human got too close. I pulled my lips back into a fierce snarl and crouched, ready to pounce. I caught a flash of fear in his eyes, and Kristoph's screams exploded in my head. I couldn't move. I could only stand and listen. Listen to my love die again and again. I was paralyzed and stayed frozen in my crouched position, staring like a lunatic at the crowd that was beginning to form around me.
Eventually, the city authorities came to shoo me away. I turned to them and managed to let out a pathetic squeak. As they made to grab me, I turned and ran and ran and ran. I kept running, and nobody stopped me; apparently the Volturi aren't real sticklers when it comes to squeaking in public.
I eventually stopped running and simply walked. Walked without knowing where I was going. While I walked, I made a new plan. Feeding was going to be a problem, since I was no longer capable of killing anything, so plan B was very simple – I wouldn't eat. Period. A slow, excruciating death by starvation. That's what I deserved.
Turns out vampires can't die from starvation. They just get weaker and weaker and weaker until they are nothing but a useless pile of rubbish, capable of nothing other than reliving in their minds the horror of whatever sent them to starvation in the first place. I didn't figure this out until I was lying in a crisp, autumn field somewhere. I lay on my back with my legs splayed out at odd angles. I don't even know what my arms were doing. My mouth was slack and my eyelids stayed plastered open, because closing them would have required too much energy.
I prayed for insanity to set in, but it never came. I wanted to scream, but I couldn't, so I listened to Kristoph's screams instead. All the way into winter. The situation was impossible. I had to get up. I needed nourishment. Somehow, I needed to get blood. Field mice often rustled the dried, frozen grasses near me, but all I could do was watch their delectable corpuscles inevitably skitter away. One day, a mouse bravely crawled onto me. He wasn't big, but maybe this speck of nourishment would allow me enough motion to trap something bigger. He cautiously traversed my throat and sniffed his tiny nose around my face. His whiskers tickled my chin, my cheek, my lips.
'Oh little mouse,' I thought, 'Come on in…come on in.' He ducked his foolish head past my teeth. 'Bite!' I commanded myself. 'Bite, damnit! Bite!'
My jaw remained helplessly open, but I did feel a bite – on my tongue. The little vermin bit me! The pain was exquisite. Miraculously, wonderfully exquisite. I wanted more, more, more pain. But the vermin didn't like me and scampered away.
I was left in hell. It was exactly what I deserved.
Spring arrived and with it came the footsteps of a sandy-haired, stout little man. Even after all of my horrors, something about this little man sent a new wave of terror trembling through me. He wore the uniform of my ultimate, mortal enemy. He was far more threatening to me than even the Volturi.