Only Girl: The tracker
Demetri didn't like humans despite having once been one.
That was a long time ago, when he had to worry about common tasks like breathing. Now, apart from the fact that he needed to feed on something much more delicious and warmer than food, all the worries of an ordinary life were ripped from him like a tight bandage, the pain of which was so strong that he became incapable of feeling anything else beyond insatiable thirst.
Now, when he looked at the frail, uninteresting humans strolling along the stone roads, touching the ancient walls as if that would give them some kind of power, he felt nothing. But there were different types of humans, and some were more tolerable than others, that much Demetri had to admit. The elderly were his favorites, as they would soon leave this world on their own, children were not to blame for being noisy, as they were raised by lenient parents. But there was one insufferable type: the tourists.
Demetri could hear from underground, through the echoes that were carried by the stone and through the tunnels that the Volturi had long been carefully expanding and excavating, the footsteps of tourists gathered in groups. Even the sound of cameras irritated him. Demetri's world was very small, and those people constantly invaded it, destroying its peace.
Or maybe it was simply difficult to see groups of tourists and not think about food when that's what they were.
But there was also another reason why Demetri hated tourists, as their increase meant that the busiest day of the year for the Volturi Guard was approaching. The St. Marcus Day Festival was a very important day and the masters demanded that every corner of the city to be watched. Demetri was doing the best he could, but he couldn't split himself into two yet and at the same time understand why humans needed to drink coffee in five different establishments per day.
The vampire sighed as all these thoughts came to mind. He didn't know why he was thinking so much about tourists and humans, or blood... He couldn't think about that now if he wanted to fulfill his goal.
And today he had a very simple goal.
Demetri was watching the saddest girl in the world on another ordinary day, and he needed to focus on her and not on the blood that was running through her veins. That girl's blood didn't sing to Demetri, if it did, she would have been dead for months. That wasn't the reason why Demetri watched her while she worked. He was simply curious.
The girl was not from Volterra, and he knew this because the masters made the Guard memorize the face of each resident of the city so that mistakes would not be made. She had arrived four months ago dragging large, heavy suitcases through the streets, but Demetri only saw her again two months later, when she got a job in one of the smallest cafes in the city that was at the end of a street facing a small fountain, away from the main square. Demetri only knew her name when he heard a man call her on the street and she immediately turned the head in his direction.
Demetri memorized the newcomer's face and smell the first time he saw her, but then she disappeared, as if she were hiding, so he was excited when he finally saw her outside the house. The girl started going to the cafe every day, and later to the nearest alley where she could cry without being seen, then return to the same table. That street was part of Demetri's lookout point, so he came across that scene repeatedly, until one day the girl started arriving at the cafe even earlier, with keys in hand, opened the doors and started serving customers.
Demetri imagined this would improve the newcomer's mood, but it didn't make her happy. She still cried when the cafe was empty, and when a customer arrived she tried to hide her red face with her hair, which made her look silly. From Demetri's perspective she looked to be in her twenties, her body seemed healthy, so he didn't know what was wrong.
The girl's routine hadn't changed much since then. She arrived at the cafe in the morning and did her daily tasks, more recently she had started carrying a sketchbook every day and Demetri imagined that she could be drawing to pass the time. It was better than crying.
- One, two, three and...
- I can hear you - Demetri moved away from the window before Renata came any closer. In fact he had already detected her presence twenty minutes ago, but sometimes he liked to guess what she was going to try.
- Damn it! - Renata stamped her foot - I almost caught you this time!
- Yes, you were very sneaky.
Renata sighed, then began to follow Demetri along the designated route back to the tunnels. She couldn't stay quiet when she was away from the masters, perhaps because she didn't need to focus so much on protecting someone.
In fact, Renata, just like him, was being punished after the near-battle that must have occurred in the United States the previous year. For some reason, Aro felt angry at everything and everyone, and his paranoia grew. He demanded constant watch around the city, as if he were afraid. And the Volturi were never afraid. In the end, the Guard was the most affected, so Renata, who had never had to go on patrol before, was also forced to sneak through the tunnels and empty houses to watch for an unknown enemy.
But she was really bad at it.
Renata's family was divided between humans and immortals, so she was easily attracted to human life, trinkets and other unnecessary objects. Renata could spend the day watching a street and go back underground knowing the lives of each of those people. That's why Demetri didn't want her, or anyone else, to know what he had been doing these past few months. Watching that girl silently was for him alone, not something to be shared. Just knowing her name was enough. If Demetri's world was small and he only had eyes for one girl, that meant she was the only girl in the world for him, and Demetri was afraid of feeling something like that.
Despite being an important member of the clan, Renata acted cordially with everyone, so Demetri had a good relationship with her. After he saw the girl and looked at Renata, Demetri thought that they were similar, since they were transformed at similar ages, but as he began to observe the girl more closely, the more difference he saw between the two. Renata was a vampire, her brown hair was long and greasy-looking, and her fragile appearance was just a facade for something more dangerous. The girl was human, therefore full of life, her skin had color and her heart beat inside her body, even her black hair seemed to be alive. Demetri even memorized the freckles on her face.
- Did I do something wrong? - Renata asked when they finally left the roof and managed to walk down one of the empty streets, sneaking into the shadows.
- When you feel sad, do you know why?
The question came from the old assumption that Renata and the girl were similar.
- No, I never get sad - Renata replied, confidently. Her eyes were black just like his, another mark of the punishment.
The Guard's food privilege had been cut, it had been months since Heidi had gone out to get food. Demetri was used to it, and he imagined Renata was too, as she needed to control her thirst when she was around her human relatives, but there were others who were more careless and he feared that some incident could happen at any moment.
They were close to the main square now, they needed to go back inside an empty house and jump to the Tower before they were seen.
- Where is Alec? - Demetri finally remembered to ask. He had forgotten that three members of the Guard were supposed to watch that area of the city and meet at that point to return together. Alec was the third, and he was late.
- Don't worry, he must be chasing another street cat - Renata's words were quick, almost automatic, and Demetri didn't know if he should believe her, since she and Alec were close friends and they covered for each other, but he didn't have reason to not believe it. In the end, it was his fault for getting distracted by a human.
They jumped into the Tower, leaving the human world and the girl behind.
Only Girl: The prey
Elia closed the cafe early that day. It was a quiet shift with few customers, so she took care of the dirty cups and crumb-covered tables quickly until her cell phone vibrated. After Elia turned off the alarm, she went to the cashier, took the bag she left in the employee locker and took out a pill, placing it close to her throat to make it easier to swallow with water.
Then she sent a message to the owner of the cafe, a middle-aged man who kindly hired her as a favor to her brother while his son was on vacation somewhere in South America. Elia didn't ask for much and learned how to make coffee quickly, everyone won. She just wanted a place where she could cry in peace and accepted the sporadic arrival of customers as a reminder that she was still a functional human being.
She knew that when the cafe owner's son returned he had plans to turn the place into a restaurant, but she had no interest in that. A place where she could hide for a while was what Elia wanted, and that place would do for now.
Elia was about to leave when she heard a noise coming from the back of the cafe. The building was old and entirely made of stone, the owner had warned that she could hear some noise from time to time because of the wind, but now it wasn't the wind.
The girl placed her bag back on the counter and went to the back, past the stock closets and by the boxes full of packets of coffee beans, and down the stairs to the older part of the building, where the cold stone walls contrasted with the warm exterior where the tables were. Despite being humid, the place smelled like coffee.
Elia didn't go to that part of the building very often, as there was a hole in the lowest part of the wall and she was afraid of coming across rats or any other insect, but the noise was actually a call. A small cat with gray and white fur had snuck through the hole, walking nonchalantly to Elia's feet while its tail swayed.
- How did you end up there? - Elia asked the cat, more naturally than when he spoke to anyone else that day.
The closer she got to the wall, the more she noticed that the floor sloped downwards. Elia didn't go closer to the hole, she just leaned her head against the wall, trying to hear if there was another cat trapped on the other side, maybe she could hear a call or the sound of claws scratching the walls, but there was nothing.
- That's a relief - Elia said, then returned to paying attention to the cat, which was still meowing repeatedly - do you want to go outside?
Elia tried to touch the cat, which avoided her hands, but still followed her through the cafe.
No one will notice if I give you just a little - Elia said while serving the cat a bowl of cold milk.
Despite watching her for months, Demetri missed the moment when Elia smiled for the first time since she arrived in Volterra. It was a quick but real smile that came just as she watched the cat drink the milk. When he finished, the little ball of gray fur ran through the streets as soon as Elia opened the door, leaving her alone.
The girl spent a few moments staring at the street where the cat had run, wondering if she should go after him, what if she followed the cat she could become Alice in Wonderland and maybe something would change if that happened.
-That doesn't exist here - she took a deep breath as she locked the cafe door.
Elia looked at the sky, it was cloudy, maybe it was raining, and of course she didn't have an umbrella.
When Elia finally arrived at the school, there were few children waiting for their parents, most of them must have already left.
- You're late - said the black-haired, sulky - looking child.
- I know! - Elia ran up to him and held his hand, and then they ran back halfway to the bus stop.
Elia placed her nephew on one of the benches, then sat next to him.
- Was everything ok today?
- Yes, and with you?
- Everything wonderful - Elia closed her eyes when the bus started to move. The medicine made her nauseous and she had already run a lot to catch up to Luigi on time. She didn't want to throw up in front of everyone.
Elia opened her eyes after a few minutes, when looking at the moving landscape was no longer so dangerous. She could see the Clock Tower in the distance as the bus wound its way through the winding streets, still in the same place, in the piazza, at the Palazzo dei Priori. Elia avoided that square and all those buildings after she arrived. Her brother thought the mystery behind such old things scared her, but what really scared Elia were the ideas that could pop into her head if she got to a high place.
One of the bus stops was almost in front of their house, so she quickly learned which route she should take. The rain started as soon as they arrived home.
- We're here! - Elia said, glad to have managed to avoid the rain and to have cried less in the last few hours. At least some things were going right.
- Aunt was late today - was the first thing Luigi said as soon as he saw his father.
The house was bigger than the one she lived in Rome, inheritance from Luigi's mother, but for Elia it was a harbor where she could hide for a while.
- Why were you late? - Elia's brother asked quickly. She saw a little of herself in him and sometimes she was scared by it, especially in the last few months, but lately Andrea was growing a beard and that was helping to differentiate the two.
- It wasn't a big deal - Elia said to calm him down, I found a stray cat.
Luigi didn't notice his father's worried look, so Elia avoided them both and went straight upstairs, where she would find refuge in her isolated room. She hated that look of concern, because to her it meant disappointment, and she felt like she was disappointing Andrea every day by not feeling better yet.
Andrea was still talking, but Elia couldn't hear anymore after she closed the door, she didn't even ask him if he had a good day at the museum. She simply turned on the yellow light and sat down on the cold floor, taking her sketchbook out of her bag. She was still practicing how to draw faces, but she knew the basics of geometric shapes, so she tried to draw the stray cat she had seen. She started with the rounded shape of its head, then traced the pointy ears and elongated whiskers. Its eyes were yellowish... She wondered if there was anyone with golden eyes...
Elia's phone rang again, but this time it was a call from someone who still insisted on seeing her, on talking to her, but now, insistence meant to feel things, so Elia built another wall around herself when she refused the call and decided to finish the drawing.