Within the west wing of Volterra's hospital, a sickly young man lay shivering beneath a heavy layer of blankets, which soon became so itchy against his sensitive skin he cast them all aside.
A living skeleton, passersby used to call him, because he possessed so little body fat and his skin was horribly thin, almost see-through. Some days, he would sit on the street curb and listen to the children's screams as he picked and picked at the fresh scabs on his inner-arms. He came to enjoy the sound of their screams. It drowned out all the loud, maddening thoughts in his head. But now those thoughts were all he heard as he picked, picked, picked.
He had a brand new set of scabs today, ones that went real deep and made his skin bleed when he tore them off. He'd been scratching at them for most of the day, and every time he tore one off, another scab would quickly grow in its place. So he kept ripping them off again and again.
I've been touched by the devil, thought the man as he recalled the events of the night before. He was stumbling around the Gutter as he did most nights, still on the nod from his latest slam with Judas. He didn't even realize something was stalking him from the rooftops, not until it was already too late.
Thinking about that night made his heart race and his forehead dampen with sweat. With quivering fingers, he reached for the nurse call button on the rail of his hospital bed. Since his admission, he'd pushed that button a total of thirty times. It never took long for them to respond.
"What's the problem now?" the nurse would ask with a tired sigh, and he would complain that the blankets were too itchy or that his throat was dry or that the room was too hot or too cold.
This time, however, when that light came on at the nurse's station, nobody came to his aid.
So he pushed the button again and again and again.
Finally, after the tenth push, the door swung open with a loud creak. The man sat up and peered through the open doorway, seeing nothing but shadows and flickering lights. But there was someone there. Although his eyes were blind, he could feel a dark, ominous presence lurking in the doorway.
It was watching him.
The man's eyes widened in terror. "Help!" he shouted as he frantically pushed the call button. "Help! I need help! Nurse! Nurse! They're coming for me! They're coming!"
His voice weakened as a bitter chill came upon him, making all the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. It was at his bedside now. If he focused his eyes and his mind, he could almost see it: the shape of a man, with blood-red eyes.
"Who are you?" he asked the shape. "What do you want from me?"
The shape didn't move, and it didn't speak.
"What do you want?" he shouted. "What do you—Hmmph!"
All of a sudden, he felt the crushing weight of a pillow against his face, slamming his head against the bed with great force. In vain, he struggled. His body violently thrashed back and forth. His long, feeble legs kicked and pushed against the mattress. His hands flailed above him, clawing at the invisible arm which had him so tightly pinned. A deep groan erupted from his throat as his toes curled tighter and tighter, tighter and tighter.
He choked on his last breaths, and his body went limp.
Moments later, the shapeless man gave the pillow a quick fluff before neatly tucking it beneath the sleeping man's head, and then he pulled the blankets over him so that he could rest comfortably.
As the man lay there, his face paling, mouth fixed in a silent scream, his lifeless brown eyes captured the last sight they would ever see: the image of a man in black leaving the room and silently closing the door behind him.
✧ ✧ ✧
The alarm clock on the nightstand read three o'clock, but still Dahlia lay peacefully sleeping in her bed, completely unaware of the chaos around her.
Just as Santiago had warned, the wolves had come to the Palazzo dei Volturi in order to sniff out any lingering vampires, of which there were few. Most had fled the city long before, but some were foolish enough to stay, hoping that the Volturi would be dead by morning. For some, the chance at claiming a vacant throne was too tempting to ignore.
Sadly, their gamble did not pay off.
But their loss was Dahlia's gain. The overwhelming odor left behind by the vampire guests was strong enough to mask Dahlia's subtle human scent. She slept soundly through the night, undisturbed by even the loudest of screams. And then she slept through her alarm clock the next morning, which would have continued to ring and ring if Heidi hadn't gotten tired of the noise.
She really is daft, thought Heidi as she watched her protege roll over and snuggle her face into the pillows. Even while sleeping, she managed to keep a smile. Sometimes she even giggled, like she was having the most delightful dream.
During such times, Heidi was almost envious of her. She couldn't take refuge in her dreams because she had none. She never slept. For her, there was no reprieve from the darkness of her life. It just went on and on, day after day. Small wonder why so many of her kind eventually slip into madness.
Into the lounge she walked, where two of her colleagues, Demetri and Santiago, were sitting quietly in the dimly lit room. At sunrise, the three of them had sought shelter in the penthouse suite because they knew it was the last place the Volturi would ever search. Funny how, after going their separate ways, all three of them ended up in the same place.
But where had they gone that night? Where had they gone when they turned their backs on the Volturi? And why had they returned now? All three of them were wondering the same thing, yet none of them would bring it up.
"The little rat needs to dust," said Demetri as he swept his fingers across the dusty coffee table. When he attempted to withdraw his hand, however, his fingers continued to wiggle as if slowed by some sort of muscle delay.
Before it got any worse, Demetri hid the evidence underneath his jacket sleeve. "She lives in a pigsty."
"What happened to your hand?" Heidi asked. "It's been acting strange all day, like it has a life of its own, like it isn't truly under your command. What did you do, Demetri?"
Reluctantly, Demetri raised his right sleeve. Below his elbow, the skin was in perfect condition, without even the faintest scratch, cut, or scar. The skin tone, however, was two shades darker than the skin above his elbow. Even novice eyes could see the line of separation between the two.
"If I'd known those beasts had gotten into the sewers," Demetri said, "I would have chosen a different escape route. One took my arm, ripped it clean off my body. When I went back to retrieve it, the limb was already riddled with infection." He shrugged. "So I found another one. It's not mine yet, but it will be in time."
"Whose arm did you steal?" Heidi asked.
"Who cares? He was going to die anyway." He smirked. "Besides, his ID said he was an organ donor."
"Why did you come back, Demetri?" she pressed. "Of everyone, you had the best chance of evading the Volturi. Why come back?"
"The same reason you did. The same reason we all did. Where else do we go? I can't even count the number of people who want to see me dead. I go out there, I'll be running for the rest of my life. Have you ever lived with the nomads, Heidi? They're like animals, sleeping on the ground and chasing down every meal. It's exhausting. I like nice things, Heidi. I've grown accustomed to this lifestyle. I can't just walk away from it."
"So you've become a snob," Heidi mocked.
"Haven't we all? I know you would rather die than shop at some discount department store. How much were those shoes, exactly? One thousand or two? Tell me, who's the real snob?"
Heidi fell silent then, so Demetri turned his attention to Santiago, who hadn't spoken a word since his arrival. "Where did you go, Santiago?" he asked. "To church? Did you pray for our souls? Because when Aro finds us, we'll all be burned as deserters."
The quiet man sat with his head hung low, moving not even when he heard his own name. "God will not save our souls," he rasped, "for we have none. And yes, Demetri, we will burn. For what we did, we will all burn in hell."
Demetri rolled his eyes. "Something to look forward to, then."
"Did either of you attend the burning this morning?" Heidi asked as she pictured Felix's body resting upon the funeral pyre with all the other fallen guards. Marcus was the only leader present for the ceremony, and he watched the bodies burn away with a morbid fascination, like he wanted to hop on top of the pile himself. When it was over, he came to Heidi, placed his hand on her shoulder, and then walked away without a word.
"I don't attend the funerals of fools," Demetri spat.
Heidi twitched at those words. "He was our friend! He was more loyal than any of us."
"Yes," Demetri agreed. "He was loyal, and he was honorable, and now he's dead. I won't waste another thought on him."
"But he—"
Heidi's cell phone started buzzing on the table, so she put her thoughts on hold and answered it. "Is it finished?" she asked the caller.
"Yes. The Reaper has come."
Heidi smiled. "Thank you, Doctor. The Volturi shall reward you for your cooperation." Then she hung up the phone and said with a sigh, "Well, Caius will be pleased to hear that his sneaky plan worked."
Demetri tilted his head back and chuckled. "And here I thought Afton's gift was useless ... I guess I owe him an apology, don't I? He's done marvelous work with those cockroaches. Did you hear what he did to that one in solitary?" He sliced across his neck with his index finger. "I wish I had thought of that."
"That was sloppy," Heidi snapped, remembering that news article she'd read on the subject. "It was supposed to be a clean, natural-looking death."
"But points for creativity."
At last, Santiago lifted his head. His bright red eyes burned with anger. "You should not joke about such things, Demetri. What Afton did is a sin, and he will have to live with the guilt for the rest of his life."
Demetri scoffed. "Oh, enough with the saint act. It's getting old. This was war, Santiago. We won. They lost. Simple as that."
Santiago jumped to his feet. "That was not war! That was a massacre."
Hidden within his jacket sleeves, Santiago's clenched fists started to shake, so he took a long, deep breath and quietly left the room. Heidi rose to stop him, but her pleading words had no effect on him. As if moving on their own, his heavy feet made their way into Dahlia's bedroom, where he collapsed at her bedside and buried his head in his hands.
"God forgive me," he choked out through his dry sobs. "I couldn't stop them. I couldn't save them all. I tried—God help me, I tried!"
He prayed then, not for himself but for the souls of all the innocent victims. He prayed that their spirits would find comfort in His eternal palace and that their loved ones would one day find relief from their grief. Most of all, he prayed that Signora Parrilla and her dear daughter, Malise, had escaped the city and were making their way to Geneva as he'd arranged.
"I know what you did," Heidi said as she closed the door and leaned against it. "Caius will have you burn when he finds out."
Santiago nodded. "I know, but I had to do it, Heidi. She's only a child."
"I know. And I won't tell Caius. I don't care what he does to me. I won't lose anyone else."
He smiled. "By your will or not, he will find out. He always does. And when he does, I will accept my punishment."
Heidi shook her head. "No, Aro won't let you die. He needs you now more than ever. Word of the Volturi's vulnerability will spread. Our enemies will come. Aro needs people he can trust."
"Yes, he does," Santiago agreed, and then he climbed to his feet and looked upon Dahlia's sleeping form. With a delicate hand, he caressed her soft, snow-white cheek, and she shivered a little at his touch. "Watch over her, Heidi. She's not like us. She's not made for this life."
Upon hearing Santiago's voice, Dahlia's eyelids slowly fluttered open. "Santiago?" she murmured as she spotted his silhouette through her clouded morning gaze. But when her vision finally cleared, she saw only Heidi standing beside her, and she wore a grim expression.
"Aro has called a meeting," Heidi said, "for all of us."