TFM

Chapter 4 - What next?

"Thank you, Rick. That's all for now." I saluted my agent, amused by his eagerness to leave. He loved having me as a client, but I made him nervous. He much preferred conducting our business by phone.

It had taken me a little more than a year to become, if not enormously rich, quite well off. I'd had a financial portfolio in Italy, but I hadn't managed it personally - the Volturi had stock market brokers to act for them. Prudent guys who knew better than to make mistakes, clearly sensing that not only their fee was at stake.

On Wall Street, however, I'd been on my own. Finding an agent had not been too difficult. I hadn't any big capital to start with, so I was not an interesting client for the big brokers. The man I eventually choose was new to the job, having just obtained his license and having no clients to speak of yet. As he was black, he felt further disadvantaged and was surprised that a white (very white) guy was going to entrust him his money.

Rick's parents had emigrated from the Caribbean, and he desperately desired to make it in New York. His youth and inexperience weren't a problem, as I intended to give him directives on what to buy and trade, being my own investment advisor. At lunch time financers, stock brokers and businessmen ate in the many restaurants of the Wall Street area and I joined them. I ordered some simple food – which disappeared unnoticed into a small plastic bag on my lap - fake sipped a glass of wine and listened. To minds rather than to conversations, as conversations were mostly guarded. It was rare that I did not leave my table with a precious snippet about a merger about to happen, which would skyrocket the related shares, or a suspected, but still unknown, lack of company's liquidity which would affect their value. I then instructed Rick on what to do.

In a word, I was trading securities on the basis of material information not - or not yet - in the public knowledge. Illegal, of course, much like my whole existence was.

As the months passed, I became more experienced and so did Rick. Now I was letting him manage my portfolio and take decisions, erring on the side of caution, unless I was in for a kill, and had managed to do a round of the restaurants near Wall Street first.

Speaking of kills, I mostly hunted evildoers now, just as I'd decided to do when leaving Atlantic City. In general they were just vermin, lurking in places like Central Park at night, waiting for their kind of prey. But sometimes my abilities helped me learn about higher range people, top of the chain of complex criminal activities. It was my pleasure to unravel and disrupt those activities before making a meal of them. Humans had a word for what I was doing: vigilantism – a term that carried a stigma of sorts, as law abiding citizens shouldn't substitute themselves to the police, let alone transform themselves in judges and executioners. Well, I was everything but law abiding, so it was fine.

In my existence, I'd never concerned myself with humans. Prey was brought to Volterra by our lures, otherwise I hunted during missions or on a leave of absence. I knew that it was better to choose inconsequential people, and never leave traces. As I wasn't one to play with my food, I used to kill or render unconscious the people I drank from. After all, their thoughts of pain and fear usually detracted from my enjoyment of meals. Now it was different. Some humans were crueler than the cruelest vampire, and they deserved to die in terror.

This was new to me because, until I left my coven, my job had been to help eradicating rogue vampires, not humans, and I'd forgotten everything about having been one.

.

I never remembered who I was, exactly, when I awoke after my change. I had a letter in my pocket, addressed to one Edward Antony Mason. With it, somebody who called me Dear Nephew and was a Church of Scotland's Minister - according to the letter's headings - tried to convince me not to endanger my studies, my future and my soul by doing something rash to oppose the evictions. They shouldn't concern me, he maintained. The clearances, despite the suffering they created, were necessary for progress, so good Christians should submit to the Laird and God's will. It was, after all, a chance for sinners to repent.

Evidently, I hadn't heeded him.

Algernon, my sire, was a coward, terrified of the Volturi and terrified that somebody would tell them his whereabouts. The reason he had left after biting me, and the reason he returned – finding me already transformed - was that he had been granted a reprieve for some misdemeanor and now he walked on a tight rope. "We never grant second chances" was a favorite expression of our leaders. When it became clear to him that I was gifted, he thought it gave him the perfect opportunity to ingratiate himself anew with the Brothers who ruled the vampires' world.

As soon as I was finally in control of my bloodlust, we left Scotland. We swam from the North Sea to the English Channel, crossed France, then went into the sea again in Marseille and reached the Italian shores near Pisa. Very soon we reached Volterra, where I was made very welcome. In turn, I was very happy to get rid of Algernon. It was only later that I learned what would be demanded of me.

There is no denying that immortal children are an abomination and shouldn't be allowed to exist. Before my arrival, for over a millennium, the search for them and their dams had been led by Boris, a vampire who wasn't a mind reader but could sense – even at a distance – vampires' age, both in human and immortal years. This talent could have been considered a rather irrelevant one, but for this particular hunt, which had made him extremely useful to the Volturi. Unfortunately for the coven, he'd met his end during the war against werewolves in Eastern Europe, and when I arrived in Volterra, it was feared that more children had been created, with nobody the wiser. News of events that could suggest the suspicions were true reached Italy with more difficulty than they would now, in the modern telecommunications era.

I did as I was told. I found the vampire children and their creators, but the culprits' death was devastating, and the children were innocent victims. For me it was a mental agony each time. However, the fear of deadly punishment worked, and after less than a century, no more immortal children were to be found. But of course my masters were never done with me….

.

The buzz of the doorbell, together with the thoughts of the woman outside, shook me from my bitter reminiscing.

Even before opening the door I knew what she wanted. Theoretically some sugar, practically me. Once again I questioned the wisdom of living in an apartment in Manhattan. At the same time, it was the most normal thing a human could do. A non-descript small flat of a '30s building, on West 25th street.

"Hi, I'm Dolly from across the hall. Please, would you lend me some sugar? My cousin likes her coffee plain, but I can't drink it…."

Oh God, you truly are gorgeous. Say yes, gimme a chance…

"I think I have some left. Please wait here." Having treated Rick to coffee a few times in my home, I did have sugar and I went into my spotless kitchenette to fetch it. The girl's frustrated thoughts followed me. She had hoped to be invited in, and progress from there. Dolly was from Philadelphia, visiting a cousin in New York, and having seen me and having liked what she had seen, hoped for my availability. I normally toned out the minds of the building's residents, so I hadn't noticed her. She was pretty, blonde and with a voluptuous body, accentuated by the very tight top she wore.

"Ooh, a piano. Do you play?"

"Occasionally."

As a human I must have played the piano, and after the change, my fingers remembered what my brain did not. After all, it was a common pursuit among the educated, at a time where canned music was not available. In Volterra I had became quite proficient, having infinite time to practice and the best instruments at my disposal in the music rooms. It was one of the few things that soothed me after missions. Here I'd finally bought an upright Steinway, mourning the lack of space that wouldn't allow me a grand.

"I adore music. Would you play for me sometime?" Dolly purred, her hopes rekindled. She thought she had the perfect excuse to visit again.

"I am leaving town, I am sorry." I said curtly, giving her the almost full sugar packet. A moment after I shut her and her disappointment out.

Hell, now I will have to leave for a while. Fortunately she is going back to Philadelphia soon.

My irritated thoughts wandered around a scenario where I did in fact have sex with Dolly. She was ready to be taken and this knowledge, coupled with her lusty and vivid imagination, had managed to arouse me.

I just had to cross the landing and knock at the door. Unfortunately, I wasn't sure she would survive the encounter. I had never copulated with a human, but other vampires did, and the end was always the same, since many immortals found extreme pleasure in drinking after intercourse, or while having it. Plus, due to our strength, the human was often seriously injured during the coupling, so his or her death became a necessity anyway. To me, the very idea was repulsive. Just imagining the woman's mind shifting from pleasure to pain and terror was enough to keep me away. Female vampires were a different matter, of course, and I'd had my share of them. Along with music, sex was the other thing I could lose myself in, after many distasteful missions.

No, it was better to take a shower and do what I could in order to calm down. In the last years of my servitude my interest in sex had waned, and I had lived like a monk. I never found a vampire interesting enough to have a longer liaison with, let alone to be my mate. All in all, I tended to disbelieve the mating bond, the case of Marcus being the exception, not the rule. Otherwise, it did not seem to be as absolute as theory wanted it to be.

In any case, my ability didn't help my relationships, as much as I tried to stay out of my occasional companions' heads. Mission after mission, 'trial' after 'trial', I'd sunk deeper into a bleak melancholy. It was the "black humor", so well described by classic authors, but one which had a cause. I had believed for a long time I was an instrument of justice. A harsh justice to be sure, but still justice, necessary to keep some order in the bloody interaction between immortals and mankind. Otherwise, uncontrollable massacres would happen until only one species survived. And - in both cases - vampires would lose. But I was wrong. The original reasons behind my masters' ruling of our universe became blurred. Other reasons, inacceptable ones, started to became evident. Painfully so.

I'd a perfect recall of what had happened when we Volturi enforcers confronted the Cullen Coven and - unable to accept the tragic outcome - I'd decided to run. Then, believing escape was impossible, I had sought my own end, or tried to. However, I had been stopped and, at least for a while, I had to continue living.

After more than two centuries I was free, therefore I'd to decide what to do with myself for the time being. And now, what next? The importune thought had plagued me more than once, and today was not different.

Since coming to New York, I'd been able to seek solace in human art and culture. I'd gone to concerts, theatres, cinemas and visited museums often, happy that those pleasures were no longer a bounty bestowed on me by the Brothers' largesse, but something I could offer myself. Now, however, a new thought hit me: we vampires really were parasites. Nomads lived only for the blood, but even a civilized coven like the Volturi found enjoyment in the products of human creativity. Depended on it. We didn't produce anything and had to rely on humans not only for our sustenance but just for passing the time. It was a depressing thought.

Humans were contradictory indeed! The more I was in contact with them, the more I was puzzled by how high they could fly in the spiritual sense, and yet how low they could sink, like the ones I was hunting down. In fact, humans were puzzled themselves about their own nature and had dedicated a lot of research to this issue. Maybe… maybe I could try to understand better what humanity was. Psychology must have found some answers, and I too could benefit from the knowledge.

A few days after I was still looking for a University. The need to leave my apartment – thus escaping Dolly's attention – had brought me outside Manhattan and the suburbs. I wouldn't go very far, because I still thought that the metropolis offered me the best hunting grounds, but a change of scenery was welcome. Today I was considering Dyson College in Pleasantville, one of the campuses of Pace University, scattered in and around New York City.

I had enquired and learned that the college accepted auditors, for a fee. Obviously, I couldn't enroll as a student, not having any valid high school certificate. Auditors, however, could attend lessons, use labs and library, interact with professors, and even take tests to monitor their progress. Their BA programs offered, among others, courses in experimental psychology, social psychology, and the history of psychology. It was what I wanted, but I still debated if one of the colleges inside Manhattan wouldn't be a better choice. I was sitting inside a coffee shop with my untouched cup in front of me, and lazily looking outside the shop's windows. I tried to ascertain if the sun was going to make an apparition and if I would need to don my helmet before going outside, when I saw a girl in the street.

She was the same girl I'd seen in Alice Cullen's thoughts, the human who was her friend against all rules, and whose existence she had desperately tried to conceal from me. My eyes widened as I recalled Alice's memories. I again saw the two of them laughing, walking arm in arm. It was clear they had been close. The girl looked so much more vivid in real life: very pretty, with a heart-shaped face, brown tresses, and pale skin. What was it about her that had inspired Alice's devotion? Why was she so special as to make vampires risk extermination just to befriend her? I had pried open the little vampire's mind, but I'd not betrayed her secret - otherwise the human would have been dead by now.

I tried to read the girl's mind and know more, but to my shock, I heard nothing. It couldn't be the glass that deflected me, so what was it? And why was she here now, so far from the Olympic Peninsula? Did she know what had befallen the Cullens? I needed answers; they were more important to me than studying psychology on a whim. Thus I decided I needed to stay in this campus, hoping that she too was a student here.

.

However, after two months of college, I still hadn't found her. She was not in Pleasantville.

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Notes

Rick's character is based on an actual person I know in NY and he and his friends were convinced that that being black was the main reason behind his career's difficulties. He didn't get the chance of getting a very pale and well informed client to start him off, however, so – no longer a broker - he is now a math teacher. I hope nobody is offended by this. As I say, it's a true story of a few years ago.

So, where is Bella? The answer in the next chapter, which will be posted Dec 26th or 27th .

Have a wonderful Christmas, if you celebrate it, and happy holidays to all of you.