Immortals

Chapter 33

“Forks … This is where the Cullens live, is it not?” one of the Volturi scouts asked. Another nodded.

“Yes. I can smell them from here,” he said as they crossed the city limits. It was late at night, and the streets were empty. He inhaled deeply and wrinkled his nose.

“What’s wrong?” a third asked. All three were dressed in the typical Volturi garb and would have looked ridiculous to anyone watching.

“One of them smells strange. They smell of vampire with a hint of something else … something human-like,” he added. All three looked at each other.

“Should we investigate or report this straight to Aro?” the first asked the other two.

“I could be mistaken,” the second scout said. “Let’s move closer to the smell and investigate. We can report to Aro when we’re sure of what we found.” The others nodded and slipped into the thick, wet forest. They remained quiet and on edge. There was another scent that hung heavy in the area. It reeked of wet dog, though it was much stronger and worse than any dog they had ever smelled. They stopped, sniffed, and slightly changed their direction. They were heading straight for the Cullen residence.

The sound of a cracking branch behind them made them stop and turn faster than a human could blink. There was nothing there. Then another cracked behind them, making them spin back the other way. Again, nothing was there. Suddenly, the sound of heavy breathing could be heard right behind their ears. All three jumped into the air and spun around, landing in a defensive stance. All they could see was a field of trees and moss-covered rocks.

“What the hell’s going on? Are the Cullens playing some kind of trick on us?” one of them asked, both frightened and angered. He was a ranking member of the Volturi, and he didn’t like being made a fool of.

“I don’t know. They have members with talents, though I know little of them,” another stated.

“Carlisle should know better than to play games with us. When I get my hands on him, I’ll teach him to respect our authority,” the first scout snarled. The third was a bit more level-headed.

“Aro explicitly ordered us not to make contact with the Cullens, or have you forgotten?” the third asked, uncomfortable with the thought of violating such clear orders. The first scout growled in response.

“Aro is quickly losing favor amongst the ranks, and I don’t think it will be long before he’s replaced. I believe he sent us here without consulting Caius or Marcus, and I doubt they will be pleased when they discover this,” he spat.

“Even if this is true, he is still our ruler, and we answer to him,” the third scout countered.

“I answer to no one!” the first scout said through gritted teeth. “Especially a vampire who’s cowered for months in the bowels of his castle, too frightened to even send us out to enforce our laws!”

“Quiet!” one of them hissed. “The Cullens will hear us.”

“Let them! I would like nothing better than …” he suddenly stopped talking. The forest became deathly quiet, and not a single insect or rustling leaf could be heard. The three vampires stiffened while looking in every direction. Black mist then began seeping out of the ground on which they were standing. They all jumped back, giving the unnatural mist a wide berth. It coalesced into a large, dense cloud in the shape of a human. Before any of them could attack or run, its two arms shot out and grabbed two of them by the neck.

The hot-headed scout scooted further back, shocked by the turn of events. The other two vampires clawed at the misty arms, desperately trying to break free. The arms lifted them off their feet, and they kicked their legs furiously. The third scout heard cracking, and he could see their eyes bulging from their skulls. They didn’t remain there long. Their eyes broke free of their sockets and dangled disgustingly while their mouths hung agape, and their tongues became bloated and blackened. A powerful stench of decay suddenly filled the forest, and their clothes disintegrated from their bodies. Black, rotting patches formed on their skin, and large chunks fell off, landing on the ground where they continued to decay. His companions were no longer fighting back. In fact, they weren’t moving at all. Having seen enough, the scout turned and ran as fast as he could away from the scene.

He blurred through the forest and only looked back once to see if he was being followed. That momentary lapse in concentration was all it took to make a bad situation worse. He slammed right into something, and it was harder than anything he had ever felt. He quickly wondered if this was what it felt like for a human to run face-first into a brick wall. The crack of the impact was deafening and sounded like two boulders slamming into each other. He bounced off the obstruction, and his back slammed into the soft, earthen ground. The pain was unimaginable. He groaned and rubbed his chest, the place that bore the brunt of the impact. He looked down and gasped. His shirt was shredded, and his chest lay bare. A spiderweb of cracks ran up and down his otherwise flawless skin.

“Up you go,” he heard a beautiful male voice say. He was grabbed by the hair, and his body was lifted into a standing position. What he saw had to be the most beautiful male he had ever seen. His features were devastatingly perfect, but there was one problem. He could smell the human blood in him, and it smelled better than any human he had ever feasted from. Had he met him in a dark alley, there would have been no way this human could have survived. He would have devoured him in an instant. Even in his current predicament, his mouth flooded with venom.

“Human?” the scout choked out. The collision had damaged his throat, so he couldn’t speak properly.

“Close enough,” the human said with an annoyingly handsome grin. The scout took the opportunity to try to escape again, but at that moment, more black mist began wafting up from the ground and coating the lower half of his body. The scout cried out and thrashed, but every time he did, it felt like razor blades hacking at his skin. He quickly learned his lesson and stopped fighting. Unfortunately, the greasy, black mist crept further up until he was covered from the neck down. “Good,” the human happily said. “Now we can talk.”

The scout cried out. It felt like thousands of meat-eating bugs were chewing up his skin. “I don’t like Aro nosing around in my territory … understand?” the human said in a threatening manner.

“Yes!” the scout gasped, hoping he would be let free. “I won’t touch the Cullens!” he promised.

“You wouldn’t have anyway. I would have made sure of that,” the human told him, walking up to him and lightly patting him on the shoulder. His shoulder exploded in red-hot agony. The scout screamed pitifully, and he wondered if his entire arm had been eaten away. “But you did threaten them, and I just can’t let that go unpunished … I hope you understand.”

“I promise I’ll stay away … I swear!” he cried out in a panic.

“I need to send Aro a message. Are you willing to help me with that?” the human asked him.

“Anything! I’ll do anything you ask,” the scout vowed.

“Wonderful!” the human happily declared and rubbed his hands together. “Now hold still. This won’t be pleasant.”

The human grabbed the hair on top of his head just as the mist decomposed his body. The scout screamed in pain and terror as the human held his head up and angled it downward so he could watch his own body get consumed by the shadows of hell.

Immortals

Aro waited in his room, waiting for his three scouts to send their nightly reports. He checked the large, ornately decorated grandfather clock and sneered. They were late. Half an hour later, there was a knock at the door. He stood up and answered. “A package arrived for you, sir,” one of the young assistants said, holding up a box. Aro snatched the box from his hands and slammed the door in his face. He went back to his desk and set the box down.

He examined the box closely. As he rarely received packages, he was suspicious from the get-go. It was a large white gift box with a red bow tied around it on all sides. He sniffed the air and smelled nothing out of the ordinary. Aro pulled the bow from the box and removed the lid. Seeing the top of a head, he stepped back, and that was when the head began wailing.

“Aro! Aro … please!” the head begged. Aro reached in, grabbed the hair, and lifted the head out of the box.

“Thadeus?” Aro asked, confused. The head belonged to one of the scouts he had sent to the Olympic area. He turned the head to get a better look at it. It definitely belonged to Thadeus. His mouth was open, and he was wailing pitifully.

“Help me!” he cried out as black liquid began dribbling from the corner of his mouth.

“Who did this to you? Tell me!” Aro demanded while the head continued to wail. Thadeus’s head began trembling, and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. The head then suddenly stopped quivering, and his eyes looked straight into his. The head then smiled.

“Good evening, Aro,” he said in a very different-sounding voice. Aro was, of course, very confused, so he remained quiet. “Come now. There’s no need to be rude,” the head chastised him.

“What devilry is this? Who am I speaking to?” Aro demanded of the head.

“I’m a friend of the Cullens, and I’m a little annoyed that you’ve been sniffing around the area.”

“Whatever do you mean?” Aro asked, trying to sound confused.

“You know what I mean. First, it was that pathetic newborn army, and now this. My patience is running thin. Consider the Olympic Peninsula my territory. In fact, consider whatever’s in a thousand-mile radius of wherever I’m at my territory, and the Cullens … they’re under my protection,” the head told him. Aro snarled in anger. He was just about to make some threats when the head continued.

“Shut it, Aro,” the head said in an authoritative voice. “You’ve been warned.” Before Aro could respond, the head began quivering again, and its eyes once again rolled into the back of its head.

“Aro … Why are you not helping me, my friend?” it wailed. It sounded like Thadeus again. “HEEEEEEELP!” it shouted loudly and began to smoke. There was a sudden flash of light and a deafening boom. Aro was thrown into the wall behind him so hard that it cracked the stone. The head had exploded and set fire to his entire room. Aro screeched and ran through the flames, crashing right through his seven-hundred-year-old door. Once out of the flaming room, he rolled on the ground, trying to extinguish the flames that were eating away at his clothes. Aro could have sworn he heard a laugh from the burning room, but it stopped as soon as the rest of the Volturi came to investigate the sound of the explosion. Aro considered himself one of the fiercest vampires to ever live, and now, he was rolling on the ground while several feet stomped on him while trying to put out the fire. A small voice in the back of his head kept repeating, ‘Oh, how the mighty have fallen.’

Immortals

Alice blinked a few times, confused. She suddenly found herself on a white, sandy beach. She heard Harry clear his throat behind her. She spun around and found him smiling down at her. “Harry? Why did you bring me here? What’s going on?” she asked. She had just been reading a catalog and taking notes on everything she wanted to order. Her order had barely reached ten thousand dollars before Harry whisked her away.

“I took care of those pesky scouts hanging around the area,” he told her.

“Is that why Aro’s mind is so crazy right now?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Possibly. I sent him a gently worded warning to stay away. We’ll see if he listens,” Harry chuckled.

“I hope so,” Alice said, still worried about her family’s safety.

“Relax, Alice. I told you I’d handle the Volturi. If Aro doesn’t listen, I’ll be a bit more forceful next time,” he gently reminded her.

“I guess,” she sighed.

“Now that you’re here … How about a swim?” he asked, smiling handsomely. Alice couldn’t resist his handsome face and smiled back.

“Fine. Bikini me, please!” she said, holding her arms to the side. Instead of a bikini, Alice suddenly found herself without a stitch of clothing on. “Harry!” she whined. “I said a bikini.” Harry chuckled and wrapped his arms around her waist. Alice wrapped her legs around him and began grinding against his muscled stomach.

“Why? I was just going to rip it off of you anyway,” he teased and carried her into the water. Alice rolled her eyes and leaned in, kissing him deeply while his hands explored her nude, wet body.