Gloom, dampness, stench, and eeriness.
This was not the first time Catherine had found herself in such an environment. She still remembered that when she was interning under Langdon for the first time, what she encountered was a decomposed female corpse discarded in the sewer. By the time Catherine arrived, the corpse had already reached the state of "giant corpse appearance".
Even though she had been fully prepared, Catherine still had a greenish complexion and couldn't eat a thing for a whole day.
However, in comparison, the sewers in Volterra were much cleaner. There wasn't even a single rat. Catherine couldn't tell whether this situation was good or bad. She was currently being tortured by an extreme thirst, but she wasn't really sure if she could bring herself to bite a rat.
Nevertheless, there were certain advantages to being transformed into a vampire. For instance, Catherine's speed was extremely fast. In no time, they arrived at a place where there was a roaring sound of water. Catherine looked up. The sound of water was coming from above.
"What place is this?" Catherine looked upwards. Unfortunately, the tightly sealed ceiling made of cement and stone bricks allowed her to see nothing.
"Don't worry. I'll go up and have a look." Having said that, the blond ghost flew straight up towards the ceiling and then disappeared completely, as if it had suddenly evaporated.
Catherine pursed her lips. Why didn't she have such a convenient ability? Although she had become a vampire, apart from her enhanced physical capabilities, nothing else seemed to have changed.
Oh, except for the increasingly thick redness in front of her eyes due to thirst.
After a while, the little ghost poked half of its body out from the ceiling upside down, "It's the fountain in Piazza dei Priori above."
The fountain?! That's wonderful!
Catherine's movements were faster than the little ghost's attempts to stop her. By the time she came to her senses, the water from the Piazza dei Priori fountain was already gushing in through the hole Catherine had made, surging and powerful, like a flood. Catherine didn't care that she was drenched from head to toe, as the impact of the water was negligible to her.
She was now completely attracted by the sweet human scent that came along with the water flow. Her experience in medicine didn't do much to awaken her conscience. Instead, it only made her more irresistibly compare which tasted hotter and more enticing, the blood in the arteries or that in the veins.
She didn't even need a scalpel now. Her hands were the sharpest weapons. She could easily tear through their skin, allowing the warm and fresh liquid to spill all over her hands. That was the antidote that could relieve her pain to the greatest extent.
Catherine jumped up from the sewer against the vertical water flow. The few remaining pieces of her clothing were wet and clung tightly to her body. Her hair was disheveled and dripping water, and there was an almost fierce glint in her eyes.
The sun had already set completely, leaving only a touch of melancholic twilight on the horizon. The sky was slowly turning from blue to black. She rose slowly, like an elegant and dangerous feline, her sharp eyes sweeping over the astonished crowd in front of her, as if scrutinizing her prey.
The little ghost grabbed Catherine's hair tightly, trying to make her come to her senses, "You can't go! You't kill! Please calm down. You're not a monster!"
Catherine could hardly hear the little ghost's words. Even though she was blocked by many ghosts in front of her eyes, she couldn't shake off the maddening allure of the blood. Her mind was filled with a voice screaming hysterically - "Bite down! Tear it open!" "Snap their necks!"
However, unexpectedly, those people didn't seem to be afraid of Catherine at all. They were wearing strange and retro clothes, looking as if they had walked out of the Middle Ages at first glance. Their faces were painted with exaggerated makeup, with purple eye bags depicted and fake fangs that would fall out when they smiled.
It seemed that they were imitating vampires.
They whistled and beckoned to Catherine one after another, "Hey, girl!"
"You made quite an entrance. You're even more exciting than that guy just now. How did you do it?"
"Want to join in the fun?"
The group that had just been performing the vampire-killing-human act in the crowd also couldn't help but applaud Catherine, their hands covered with syrup fake blood. For a moment, whistles and cheers rose and fell.
Gianna was originally guiding her tourists towards the Palazzo dei Priori as a tour guide. She didn't expect such a scene to occur at the central fountain. She hadn't paid much attention at first because it was September 21st, the Vampire Festival. Several days ago, many vampire culture enthusiasts had gathered here to revel and perform.
This kind of act where vampires suddenly appear and perform the killing of humans with the cooperation of their companions happens every year. But Gianna's tourists were very interested, so she also stopped to enjoy it with them. However, she didn't expect to see someone who looked quite familiar to her.
At first, she just thought that this girl looked extraordinarily like the one who was imprisoned in the dark room in Volterra. Every day, she would go down with Jane to check whether the girl had successfully transformed or died, so she was quite familiar with this girl.
Although she had become extremely beautiful now, Gianna still recognized her.
"Catherine Windsor?!" she murmured. Then, her scalp tingled, and she immediately realized that the newborn from Volterra had escaped.
This was simply a disaster!
"Catherine Windsor?" One of the tourists asked with great interest, "Do you know her?"
Gianna blinked, trying her best to conceal her panic, and said, "Yes, she's one of the performers in this Vampire Festival. We arranged it. Um... Because tonight is the most lively time, we asked her to come and test the audience's reaction first. What do you guys think? She performed quite well, didn't she?"
The tourists praised her one after another, complimenting on the excellent choice of the actor, saying that she was beautiful and stunning, and looking forward to the grand performance tonight.
"Alright, ladies and gentlemen, let's continue walking. The Palazzo dei Priori is just ahead."
I must tell the masters immediately! Gianna thought, extremely frightened.
Meanwhile, the noisy chatter of the ghosts and the boiling excitement of the crowd finally brought Catherine back to her senses a little. She stiffened, her voice trembling, and her eyes tightly shut, "Could you please help me? Make them stop looking at me. I'm afraid I really won't be able to resist and will..."
"We'll do it right away!"
As soon as the little ghost finished speaking, the ghosts that had surrounded Catherine tightly scattered in a rush, covering the eyes of the people one by one. The people didn't notice anything at all. They just found that the beautiful young woman who had emerged from the fountain just now had disappeared.
Great.
Catherine thought, hoping that she would have enough willpower to cross this deadly square - although it wasn't her life that was at stake.
She was ready to start leaving at the fastest speed.
However, the moment she opened her eyes, she was stunned.
How could she describe the scene she saw:
She saw a blond young man closest to her, who was holding a mask and laughing heartily with his friends. He walked out of a bar drunk on a dark night, inseparable from his female companion. While driving on the highway, the wild heavy metal music and the high concentration of alcohol in his blood caused him to lose control when turning.
He died in the car, his face unrecognizable.
She saw a brown-haired woman who was forehead to forehead with her child, arguing loudly with her husband at home. Finally, the enraged husband stabbed her in the heart with a fruit knife, and the blood splattered on the face of the crying baby in the stroller beside her.
She saw a young girl holding a camera to take pictures. One night, she forgot to close the door because of exhaustion and fell asleep immediately. A homeless man who followed her knocked her head bleeding with a bottle, raped her forcibly, and finally cut her throat with a broken bottle fragment.
There were also some people who were traveling and visiting together and died under the fangs of the vampires in Volterra.
Catherine was stunned. What was this? Why was she seeing these terrifyingly real scenes?! She could still hear their cheers in her ears, but in the scenes that kept flashing in front of her eyes, they were all dead!
"What are you waiting for?! Run!" The little ghost became anxious when seeing Catherine standing still, "If you don't run, the people from Volterra will catch up!"
Catherine couldn't help but shudder when hearing this. She shot off like an arrow leaving the bow, covering a long distance in an instant, so fast that her shadow could hardly be seen. After all, in her mind now, Volterra was equivalent to death. Moreover, although the remnants of her forensic professional ethics told her not to have preconceived notions, she was now one hundred percent certain that the serial vampire killing cases around Volterra before were committed by the people from Volterra!
The name Volterra seemed to have a magic power, enabling her to temporarily forget her thirst. The instinct for survival overrode everything.
Seeing that Catherine had run far away, the ghosts released their hands covering the people's eyes one by one and quickly followed her.
Fortunately, Volterra, as a small town on the outskirts of Florence, had perfectly inherited the fine tradition of the City of Flowers in protecting historical relics. Even in today's highly developed technological era, this small town had not been occupied by high-rise buildings made of reinforced concrete, and the surrounding forests were also well protected.
There weren't many local people in the small town. As long as she bypassed those tourist attractions that were lively for a while, Catherine immediately felt that the thirst in her throat had eased a lot.
After running into the forest, Catherine's attention was quickly attracted by the vivid heartbeats of some other beings - the heartbeats of animals.
She swallowed a mouthful of venom with difficulty. Her scarlet eyes swept over the seemingly empty forest in front of her. In an instant, Italian wolves with gray fur and golden pupils; Segugio dogs that left their masters far behind and chased prey alone; blue-spotted lizards lurking on tall trees; pythons that waited quietly for the heat of the day to dissipate before starting to move, and so on, were all presented before her.
The alternating heartbeats echoed in her ears, tearing at her throat and nerves. Before Catherine had even decided whether she really wanted to return to the most primitive way of eating raw and drinking blood, her body had already made the decision for her.
She rushed forward, agile and powerful like a cheetah. She hugged the prey in front of her, effortlessly and extremely accurately broke its joints, disabling its means of resistance. She turned the prey's back upwards, bent its spine forcefully. Along with the shrill screech that was barely audible to Catherine, the more wonderful sound was that of the spine breaking.
After hearing this sound, she raised her head and bit down on the vulnerable throat of the prey that had no means of resistance.
In an instant, the hot and fresh liquid gushed into her mouth, as if warming her entire cold body. This blood extinguished the poisonous fire that had been burning her, making her extremely greedy for it. She didn't look up until she could no longer suck out a single drop of blood.
Only then did Catherine have the strength to look at the ghosts who had accompanied her to escape with a rational eye, and at the already lifeless prey - an adult buck.
She had never known that the taste of blood could be so wonderful, even more irresistible than drugs. She had really become such a monster. Thinking like this, Catherine suddenly felt a bit nauseous.
At the same time, a strong sense of fear rose in her heart. She was so obsessed with the feeling of blood. Today, the one that died in her hands was a buck. What about tomorrow? And the day after tomorrow?
She suddenly realized that there was also the thing of three meals a day, which had been a headache for her since she was human. Before, she could spend money to go to restaurants, but now she had lost that right too.
I wonder if there is a catering industry for vampires?
At this moment, she missed Langdon terribly. From the first day she followed him, no matter what trouble Catherine got into, Langdon always had a way to make up for it. He was like a savior, and Catherine had complete faith in him.
However, she didn't dare to go to Langdon now.
Because Catherine didn't know how she had become like this, but since she had become a vampire in Volterra, it must have something to do with the people from Volterra. She still remembered that the last person she saw was Langdon. She was very worried about how Langdon was now. Had he also been turned into a vampire by Volterra?
He must have been crazy with worry since she hadn't returned for so many days. But Catherine was even more afraid that she would lose control and hurt him. If that was the case, it would be better to let the people from Volterra drain her dry - or something else? Anyway, it was their way of killing vampires.
"Are you okay?" The little ghost tentatively approached her, "It's not safe here yet. We need to keep going. The people from Volterra will find us soon."
Catherine sighed. She didn't even have time to be sad now because she was being hunted down.
Wiping the blood from the corner of her mouth casually, Catherine suddenly remembered something and asked, "Aren't you going to find your families?"
A male ghost with a middle-aged appearance said, "We're here to say goodbye to you for this reason, madam. Thank you for rescuing us from there. We can't accompany you any further now. We're really sorry."
Catherine shrugged understandingly, "I understand. You've helped me a lot along the way. It's time to say goodbye."
"May you have a smooth journey, child. Run towards the distance as fast as possible. The farther the better. Don't let them catch you."
Ghosts have no body temperature. Fortunately, Catherine didn't either. When they hugged Catherine in a group, she also tried her best to hug them back. Then, they disappeared one by one. Finally, only Catherine and the blond little ghost were left in the place.
"Why don't you go?" Catherine asked strangely.
"I... I can't find my way back."