1. Metempsychosis
It has been a month since my change, and the burning desire in my throat has not dulled. At times, when I'm thirsty, it feels like my entire esophagus has been lit aflame. I can crush boulders and run faster than any vehicle, all for the sole purpose of the hunt.
Blood. I can smell it wafting through the air as the newborn army trudges out of the water behind me. The smell is nigh unbearable, venom pools in my mouth as my teeth gnash together. I halt the flow of air to my lungs– another neat trick about being a vampire, I did not need to breathe.
The relief is instant, but the burn doesn't go away. I've found that it never really does. That aching desire is always there.
The blood I'm smelling belongs to a human, an important one. We haven't been fed a name, but Riley knows who we're after. He said there would be a band of vampires here to stop us from getting to her, and we must kill them at all costs.
Personally, I'm not in the mood for a battle to the death, newfound strength be damned. I don't have an issue with this family, nor do I have a motive to kill that human. I've been waiting to slip away from Riley's prying eyes for days now, but he watches us like a hawk.
The last one who tried to leave the army got her head torn off, so I must be careful.
Speaking of Riley, he has led us to an area in the mountains, nothing but snow and pines around us. It's a good thing cold temperatures don't bother me as much anymore. I watch as Riley inhales the air with no small amount of drama.
"Uphill," he says, his voice a silent whisper. "Follow."
He takes off, and to any human eye it would appear as if he simply vanished, but my crimson eyes can track his movements flawlessly. We do as he says, a few dozen newly turned vampires right on his heels.
I notice Bree, the youngest one of us, lagging behind. She isn't adapting to her new form very well, let alone her thirst. She does not want to kill or feed, or attack innocent covens.
When she nearly stumbles over the root of a tree, I catch her by the arm.
"Watch where you walk," I hiss. "You won't last with them if you're a liability."
Her red eyes find mine, fear evident in her soft features. "I don't want this," she says. "I never did."
"Neither did I, but we must adapt and overcome. Riley won't tolerate weakness."
Bree shivers at the thought of our 'leader'. "The Cullens," she says, "are they bad people?"
"I doubt it," I reply. "We're the ones on the attack. That says something."
"We'll have to kill them," says Bree. "I don't think I can do that."
I sigh, watching the trees blur as we race by. "I don't know if I can, either."
"But we'll have to fight."
"Yes." My answer is definitive. I doubt Riley would take kindly to cowardice, no matter what your reasoning is.
I've overheard that the Cullens have special abilities, rare even to those of our kind.
A mind reader amongst them. That sets me on edge. If my own thoughts weren't safe, then nothing was. They could anticipate every move we make before we make it. These vampires are supposedly hundreds of years old, and all of us are untrained.
We've already lost. Good thing I'm not planning on sticking around to see it. I told Bree we have to fight, but little does she know I'm planning to do the opposite. When the battle begins, I will make my escape. Riley will be too busy to notice and the other newborns won't care.
I skid to a stop at the edge of a clearing in the woods, a meadow. On the other side stands a group of vampires dressed in black, as if they coordinated their attire for the fight.
The Cullens. The others race past me in a frenzy, growling and nearly frothing at the mouth. The scent must be overwhelming them. I haven't taken a single breath after my conversation with Bree, and I don't intend to.
Even without air, I can taste the phantom blood on my tongue, and it burns like a fire in my throat. I stick to the treeline
I watch the army and the Cullen coven collide, starting with the death of a newborn– a scarred blonde man took his head straight off with a single punch. A few others meet the same fate, including a woman who gets her head pulled off her shoulders by the tall, muscular Cullen.
Looking around, I don't see Riley anywhere. This is my chance.
As I'm about to turn and run the other way, I see something move in my peripheral. A woman with long, ginger hair has materialized out of thin air. Her red eyes pierce mine. Her face is expressionless– I take a hesitant step back.
She charges at me. If it wasn't for my newborn speed, I would be a goner. She slams into me, and I hook my arms behind hers to stop her claw-like fingers from tearing me apart.
The woman growls through gritted teeth, before tossing me into the sky.
And onto the battlefield. My back hits the snow-covered sand– I quickly roll onto all fours. The battle rages on around me, though luckily no one has seen me yet. I look to the treeline, but the woman has vanished.
"Damn," I hiss.
A pair of feet drums against the ground to my left. I intercept the creature easily, stopping it dead in its tracks, only to feel rough patches of fur in my fists. It's a hulking gray wolf with a black tipped nose.
A wolf? Do werewolves exist too now? This is getting too much. I can't stop to ponder on it too much though.
The wolf snarls, trying to shake me off. I bare my teeth, tightening my hold. I can feel the creature's ribs bending under my touch, and it whines in distress.
In one swift movement, I send the wolf rolling away from me. It smacks against a tree, where it stays prone, dazed but not dead. I may be a vampire now, but I doubted that creature deserved to be killed. Any of them– I see several more wolves of different colors and sizes battling the newborns around me.
I dash into the forest, uninterrupted.
The forest blurs around me as I sprint away from the battlefield, but it doesn't take long for me to realize that I'm not alone. I hear another one of the wolves behind me now. The same one, perhaps?
I look over my shoulder and see a smallish gray wolf in the distance, lighter of color than the other one I've faced. She's a female– I don't know how I know that, but I do.
And she's quite fast.
She closes in on me in seconds, though I wasn't trying to run away anymore. As she leaps, I duck, she flies overhead with a snarl. She lands rather majestically, whirling around to face me. She bares her teeth.
"Peace," I say, holding up my hands in surrender. Why am I not running? "I'm not your enemy."
The wolf jumps at me, but unlike her friend, she doesn't simply barrel into me like a battering ram. I feel her jaws lock around my shoulder, teeth digging into the stone flesh. Pain arcs through my torso as I feel my skin start to chip.
I grunt, driving a low-powered punch to her side. The wolf yelps, flipping over, launched away from me. She rolls through the snow like a ragdoll. I wince. I heard one of her ribs crack.
"Sorry, but you left me no choice–"
My shirt is ripped to shreds, and I can see the cracks in my skin already beginning to close up. I scowl. Those teeth could have torn me in half.
I want to run the other way, but my eyes lock onto something– a spot of red on the side of a tree. A fingerprint of blood, with a small trail of the stuff dripping down the tree.
Blood. The fire in my throat reignites into a bonfire. I hiss at the painful feeling, clawing at the skin around my neck, as if that would help. I just needed to feed. Forks was close by, if I could just find an isolated person there and–
Suddenly, the wolf slams into my side. She recovered quicker than I thought she would. We roll across the dirt, slamming into a tree. Her jaws snap at me again, I crane my head away from her maw.
Hands on her shoulders, I push her away. Or try to. She refuses to back away, keeps slipping through my grasp like a snake through grass.
"Stop it!" I growl. "Get off me, you mutt–"
She stills.
My crimson eyes find hers; pools of light brown that convey the most confusion I've seen on someone's face, and this is a wolf we're talking about. What's happening?
The wolf leaps away from me, stumbling backwards until her back hits a tree. She whines, pawing at her snout and shaking her head, as if she's being plagued by some invisible force. I sit there, against the tree, motionless like a statue. I don't want to risk pissing her off again.
One wolf I could manage, just barely, but a whole group of them? They'd turn me to ashes like they did with the army. Speaking of the army; the battlefield has gone quiet in the distance. I can't hear any noise, except for the chatter of the Cullens.
They won? That took less time than I thought it would. Even more of a reason for me to leave, but for some reason my muscles are locked in place as I watch the wolf struggle.
She's beginning to shapeshift now. Her form shrinks, the fur vanishes, I can hear bones cracking and muscles being rearranged. The heat radiating from her body is enough to make me wince.
And then, all that's left is a girl. A very naked girl. I cast my eyes away, but not soon enough to miss a look at her face. She has short black hair, narrow eyes and flawless dark skin. Though for some reason, she doesn't incite my thirst at all.
"Do you mind?" I ask. "I'm not in the mood to deal with exhibitionists today, please."
Her scent isn't unpleasant, like the other wolves'. I can feel her eyes burn holes in my cold skin. I hear her huff, exasperated.
"Well, I don't exactly have a set of clothes on me, smartass." she bites. "And what about you? There's a Tarzan cosplaying event somewhere in Forks, maybe?"
"Good one," I say, dry as a desert. She's right though; my shirt is horribly shredded, hanging onto one shoulder by a thread. "You did this to me, mind you. Why didn't you stay in uhh… wolf shape, anyway?"
I dare to sneak a glance at her; she's sitting against the tree with her knees propped up to cover herself. Her eyes are boring into mine. They're a much darker brown in her human form. She seems to be scanning my face, looking for something.
"What's your name?" she asks, ignoring my question. I raise an eyebrow at her, but she seems intent on getting an answer.
"August," I sigh.
"You're a cold one," she says. It's a statement, not really a question.
I frown. "A what?"
"Cold one. Vampire." she clarifies.
"Oh." I haven't heard someone refer to me as a cold one before, though I suppose it does make sense. "Yes, I am. Don't the eyes give it away?"
"I suppose," she shrugs.
"You didn't tell me your name," I say.
She frowns for a moment, seemingly considering what to say. "Leah," she replies.
"Nice to meet you, Leah," I say, with no small amount of sarcasm. "Gonna try to kill me again?"
"No," she snaps, but her expression softens immediately. "No. I won't."
"Okay–"
"I would have, but…" She combs her hair back with her hands. There are tears brimming in her eyes. "It's… It's complicated."
"How complicated?"
"Very fucking complicated."
"I'm sure I can keep up."
"Well, I can't tell you." she says, chuckling. There's no humor behind it though.
"Hmm…" I hum, not pressing the issue. Secrecy be damned, she did decide to stop fighting. I'll be grateful for that. But why did she? And what was that inner struggle of hers about?
In the distance, I can't hear the chatter of the Cullen coven anymore. That was either good, or terrifically bad.
"Pack," she says, breaking the silence. I blink.
"What?"
"A group of wolves is called a pack," she explains, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ears.
I called it a flock earlier, I remember. "Oh… That's my bad." I say. "Is your pack coming to tear me apart right now?"
Leah frowns. "No, they heard my mind when I was phased. They won't interfere right now. Besides, they've got their hands full. Embry's got a concussion."
Heard her mind? They could communicate telepathically? Or were they using the mind reading vampire's power? Who is Embry?
"Why won't they interfere?" I ask.
She doesn't reply.
"Got it, can't tell me," I sigh, raising to my full height as I stand up. "Am I free to leave? Is there some sort of wolf interrogation thing, or–"
"No!"
I frown at her outburst. She looks distressed, panicked, as if the thought of being left alone terrifies her. Oh, right. She's naked.
"Then what?" I ask. "The Cullens will kill me like they did with the others–"
"They left one," Leah interjects. She seems distracted for a moment. "A girl. Small one. They won't kill her."
My frown deepens. "Bree? She lived?"
I was fully expecting her to run in and die, like all the others, but it seems she cowered by the sidelines. They spared her life though.
Leah nods. "Carlisle is… a pacifist." She seems to choose the word carefully, as if not speaking ill of him causes her physical pain.
In my mind's eye, I see the image of a blonde man. An older vampire who stood at the center of the Cullen family. Carlisle.
"Why were his eyes gold?" I ask.
"They don't eat humans," she says. "Only animals. It makes their eyes mellow."
"Interesting." I softly touch the skin of my neck, where I could feel the burn of my thirst the most. "And it keeps them alive?"
"Mhm," she nods, spaced out, before looking off to the right. I can hear it too.
Several pairs of footsteps. The wind is blowing downhill, towards me, and I can taste the sugary scent of other vampires on my tongue, with the stench of dog mixed in. They're pretty far, but closing in rapidly.
"I think my time's up," I mutter, casting one more glance down at the girl.
Something in my nonexistent soul trembles at the sight of her teary eyes, seeing the conflict pooling in her heart. What conflict though, I don't know.
"You're leaving?" she asks.
"For now," I reply, nodding. "Where do you live?"
It's an incredibly invasive question, and part of me isn't even expecting an answer, but I can't deny the strange connection I've magically developed with this girl. All because of that one moment of eye contact.
It's as if my soul is yearning for… something. An echo of a thing that should've been there, but isn't. It's not an earth shattering revelation or anything, but a nagging feeling at the back of my mind.
"The reservation," she says with a blink. She seems to have come back to her senses, finally. "Just follow the scent. Can't miss it."
"Alright." I turn to leave, when she fires another question at me.
"Why didn't you kill me?" Leah asks. "I'm not phased… You don't know me. Your eyes are red. Why're you talking to me, and not killing me?"
I frown. A muscle jumps in my jaw. Truthfully, I don't have an answer to that question. Despite the change, and the fact that I've fed before, I felt no desire to kill. Not for sport. Not like the others.
As for this girl–
"I have no reason to harm you," I reply. "Not really. I want no part in Riley's degenerate activities, nor did I want to fight the Cullens today."
I wince, reminded of something. "Sorry about your rib. That was my fault."
Leah blinks, placing a hand on her chest as if she didn't even realize she has a broken rib. "I…I think it's healed, so don't sweat it."
"Okay." I nod, though my guilt doesn't fade. "I have to go now. I'll see you soon."
Soon? What did I mean by that?
Leah nods, still shaken, but she seems to be doing slightly better. I still have yet to know what exactly shook her this way. It sure as hell wasn't me.
"See you, August."
I can't help but show a slight smile when she says my name, for whatever reason. I take off, leaving both her and the nearing group of vampires behind. Thoughts of the girl plague my mind, worming their way into my brain like a bug that won't stay away.
I want to know who she is. How she is. I blink, barely avoiding a head-on collision with a pinetree. I need to focus, damn it.
I reach the giant river once again –the newborn army exited the river somewhere upstream– and the water swallows me whole. I hold my breath once again. Water filling the lungs is unpleasant, vampire or not.
I hit the bottom, and begin my trek to someplace quiet, where I can think.