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SM owns Twilight and all its characters. I own a Tassimo machine. SM wins this round, but only by a little bit.
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EPOV-
I could hear Alice shuffling around nervously as she waited for Bella to open the bedroom door. Even from within the car three stories below, I could tell that the girl was clearly hysterical. I refused to go in with Alice, mostly because I was barely in the mood to deal with her bubbliness, let alone a complete stranger's hysterics over the coming events. Plus, I hadn't fed in a about a week, which, under normal circumstances wouldn't be too bad. However, San Francisco's population is significantly larger than that of Forks, and sitting in the middle of all those people had me aching with bloodlust.
Alice had suggested with sudden urgency last Thursday that she and I take a trip to visit Artemis. While I didn't have any real objection to seeing Artemis, I wasn't exactly keen on the long car ride with just my sister for company. She'd recently taken a very specific interest in my well-being, claiming that I needed to stop being so moody. Actually, the phrase she used sounded a lot more like "self-pitying asshole", but who really cares. Esme finally convinced me to go by reminding me that I hadn't actually gone to see Artemis in over a year, and with her so close-by, I really should feel bad about that.
And so, off I went, embarking on what I had anticipated to be a very long, painful twelve-hour drive, expecting a very long lecture on the merits of de-asshole-ifying myself. Instead, though, I was met with a confession that we weren't actually going to see Artemis, but instead, to see her granddaughter. I gave her a questioning look. Yes, I knew Artemis had a granddaughter, but never before had I taken any interest in her. Why start now?
"Edward, I've been seeing her a lot. A lot a lot. I...I think she's the one. For you, I mean. I guess, I've had these visions before, but they've always been of you and some faceless girl, missing an identity. At first I thought it was Tanya, but then that fell apart. And then two weeks ago, there's suddenly a face in all these pictures. I thought I was hallucinating during the first one, but when it happened a second time, and then a third, all with the same face that I recognized from Artemis's photo albums, I figured that maybe she really is the one. Coming here just seemed right."
"And in these visions," I'd asked her, "am I...happy?"
She shared with me then pictures of me laughing and smiling, dancing with a beautiful girl whose long auburn hair hung in glossy waves over her shoulders. Her smile was wide and full of life. It seemed too good to be true.
So here I was now, halfway-listening to Alice attempting to comfort my possible (?) future-life-partner and halfway-admonishing myself for thinking that such a thing was even possible.
"Bella, I know it's a lot to take in...Bella, listen to me. Bella, please, you're going to hurt yourself. Just put the lamp down, I'm here to help you."
I'd told Alice a million times since we arrived in San Francisco that Bella wasn't going to believe her. Hell, no sane person would believe her. Seriously, a pixie-looking girl shows up at your recently-deceased grandmother's house and tells you that that recently-deceased grandmother was actually one of the oldest recorded vampire on the books? That the woman named "Artemis" was not paying homage to the Greek goddess, but instead was actually the Greek goddess? That the ring she just put on is going to take her to hell and back , only so that she can endure an eternity of living like an extremely attractive, well-endowed animal? Yeah. We'll see how that one goes over.
I was one of the lucky few to actually have heard the story from Artemis herself. First, one must understand that there is no record of the first of our kind. All we know is who the second was-an Egyptian named Amun. Sometime around 2500 BC, Amun travelled north of the Mediterranean and changed three men-Marcus, Caius, and Aro, the latter of which stumbled across Artemis in 880 BC. Her beauty, intelligence, and skill with an arrow was legendary, and she had seduced her way to a position of influence within Greek society. When she met Aro, he could immediately tell that she was something special, and so he confided to her the story of the Vampyre. Artemis initially went along with it, assuming it was some sort of flirtatious joke, but then Aro asked her to join him in half-death. As could be expected, she was hesitant believe this handsome, well-spoken man who told her fantastic stories of infinite life, strength, power. Still, he was persistent. He showed her how easily he could crush an iron bar, how fast he was when he ran without inhibition. He showed her that he was designed to seduce humans, if only to gain an easier meal. Artemis began to believe him, but was still unwilling to forfeit her humanity.
In response, Aro, unwilling to admit defeat, devised the perfect solution. Using a method that only he and Artemis knew the full details of, he crafted a ring of vampire venom, crystallized under extreme heat and pressure into a slender band that, when worn, would diffuse venom into the body of the wearer, changing them, if only temporarily. The wearer would assume all properties of the vampire-cold, firm skin, mind-blowing strength and speed, extreme beauty, and immortality, but also retain a few human characteristics, such as blood (which would become venomous) that flowed through the body (without a heartbeat...a medical mystery that Carlisle is still wrestling with). The wearer would cease to age after the gradual change was complete, and if they were to take off the ring, they would gradually change back, aging faster and faster as the venom was worked out of their system, finally returning to their "true" age when the venom was entirely gone. Artemis was finally convinced by this idea of having a choice and decided to take Aro up on his offer. Thus was born the mythical goddess, the most beautiful and talented huntress, the Immortal Human.
Artemis lived under many names following that, shaking off her identity as "Artemis" in the goddess sense as Greek society began a downhill slide. She once shared a bed with Caesar in Rome, and later with Henry VIII in England. She worked in secrecy, but really never left the public eye. Her favorite pastime became intervening in the affairs of others, working her way into power with stunning beauty and knowledge that surpassed that of anyone of her time. Frozen eternally at twenty-three years old, she became an expert at faking her own death and disappearing back into secrecy for decades at a time. Occasionally she would fall into the succubus lifestyle, seducing attractive men and then draining them, but, relatively speaking, was fairly moral as far as early vampires go. She met Carlisle in 1707 and forged a lasting friendship, though she failed to adopt the vegetarian lifestyle when he first broached the subject with her.
According to Artemis, it was sometime around 1901 when she first began considering removing the ring and regressing back into human form gradually enough to have time to live a "normal" life. She knew, of course, that doing so would eventually bring her death, but after watching centuries of death and destruction, she had become fairly comfortable with the concept. Almost 3000 years of killing had also desensitized her towards the fact that, if there was a hell, she was going directly there. While she put on an outward portrayal of complete confidence and serenity in her situation, she knew as well as the rest of us that we were damned. The difference between us was that she would burn in hell, while we would burn in our own sin, still immortally rooted to the mortal world.
It was in 1942 that she first brought up the subject with Carlisle. They determined that by removing the ring for strategic periods of time, she would be able to physically age at approximately the rate of a normal human being, and, if she managed to "detoxify" enough, perhaps even bear children.
The plan was put into action in in 1953. She assumed the alias of Adelle Carmichael, complete with all necessary documents, and staged a marriage to Carlisle, already an established doctor in Chicago, as a means to reintroduce herself to society. They stayed together for just over a year before he left her, needing to move on to a new city anyways. Still, before he left, he managed to convert her to vegetarianism, which would at least help her cope with extended exposure to humans. I'm not entirely sure about what she did in the few years after Carlisle left, but I do know that, in the year 1962, she slept with her final world leader-John F. Kennedy.
In 1964, she married David Thomas, an attractive intellectual just out of Stanford. They settled into a simple life together in San Francisco, where David worked as an account manager at an advertising agency and Artemis-Adelle-played the part of happy housewife.
During the early years of her marriage, Artemis was in almost constant contact with Carlisle. She wanted to try to start a family with David, and had to carefully plan out her time without the ring. When she finally did conceive, Carlisle warned her not to complete the change fully back into vampire form. Since she had to go without the ring for weeks at a time, she aged significantly during that time. She convinced Carlisle to "diagnose" her with cancer just to have an excuse for the fine lines that were beginning to crawl across her face.
Miraculously, though, she carried Renee to term. For just over a year, she, David, and Renee were a happy family, even though Artemis was living a secret life. Then, in late November of 1970, she slipped. She never disclosed the details of what had happened, but Renee had been at David's parents' house, and in a lapse of control, Artemis killed David. It had been so long since she'd tasted human blood that once she started drinking from him, she wasn't even aware of what she was doing until the high of his blood dancing in her veins wore off. She had called Carlisle in a panic, hysterical with her own disgust and horror at what she had done. Carlisle faked an autopsy, citing a heart attack due to a previously unnoticed heart deformity as the cause of death. Following the funeral, Artemis disappeared for almost two months, but came back with a purpose. She wasn't going to allow her own nature destroy Renee's hope for a normal future. She did everything she possibly could for her daughter by day, fed religiously every night, and, in the process, formed an uncommonly strong bond with the only child she'd ever loved.
When Renee left home, things got easier for Artemis. I myself fell out of touch with her, but she and Alice struck up an immediate friendship that only continued to grow with time. For the past couple of years, the main sticking point between the two had been Artemis's continued aging. Alice was never one for saying goodbye, and felt that if there was a choice of whether or not to stay, one should always stay.
In the end, however, it was Artemis's own decision. I won't even begin to speculate about what finally prompted her to shift all the way back into her 3000 year old human body, but she did it. Of course, as soon as she had decided to, Alice knew, but she had refrained from telling Esme and Carlisle, opting to wait until we returned from California.
I was sad to lose Artemis. She had been a presence throughout my un-life, always with wise input to any discussion I could ever think to start. She had seen so much, done so much, that one couldn't help but respect her. If Carlisle and Esme were my parents, she was definitely my grandmother. As much as we try to distance ourselves from feeling pain at losses that are inevitable, I had to admit it...I was going to miss Artemis.
I listened in to see how it was going for Alice.
"Well, we're different. We...we feed off of animals? Like, we hunt animals, not people. I mean, not all of us are like that, but my family is. Vegetarian, kind of." Alice laughed nervously. She was never nervous.
Bella sniffed loudly. She was crying. "So...you're trying to t-tell me that I'm going to become like you and I can't do anything about it? That...that's not right. It can't be right. I'm going insane."
"No, you're not. Bella, this is a lot to take in. I'm not forcing you into this. You can say no at any time. But, since you've already begun the change, it would be unwise to stop now. I'm asking you to come to Washington with us so that you complete the change without putting yourself or anyone else at risk. Once it's done, we can reverse it, but really...I know how crazy this all must sound...it's for your own safety, Bella."
I almost wanted to go in, just to see how the both of them were handling this...I heard something fall, and then a cry of pain.
"Bella!" Alice yelled. "Bella, I'm taking you out to the car."
Alice began running down the stairs, holding Bella safely in her arms. I got out of the car and opened the back door just as Alice came bursting out of the house.
"Alice..." I questioned. She didn't look at me.
"Renee's not coming back, Edward. Not for a while at least. We've got enough time. Phil is insisting she let him take her to Japan for a while...he's got an apartment there and wants her to "unwind". She's going to agree and be gone for at least a couple of weeks. It's okay. Just get in the car and get us the hell home. Her eyes are already turning."
I saw Alice's mental image of impossibly dark brown eyes being struck through with the deep emerald green that Artemis's had always been. The change was beginning. I pulled quickly out of the parking spot in front of the house and gunned the Volvo back towards the highway. I didn't realize what was strange until Gallagher House was long behind us.
"Alice...I...I can't hear her. I can't hear her."
"You mean, like..."
"Yeah. She's completely quiet...it's...surprising."
"Well, you also haven't taken a breath since she got in the car. I don't know what that's about, but it's kinda freaking me out. You okay?"
I hadn't consciously noticed either. There was something strange about that sleeping form of a girl, huddled in the backseat. She was making me tense. Suddenly, I became aware of how tightly I was gripping the steering wheel and made a determined effort to relax. I drew in a deep breath...and slammed on the breaks, roughly steering the car to the side of the street, nearly doubled over in pain.
"Oh God, Alice! Ahhhggh!" I tore off my seat belt and threw open the door, stumbling out into the fairly busy street. I hobbled over to the sidewalk where Alice grabbed my shoulders, shaking me out of my inferno.
"Edward? EDWARD!"
"I'm-I'm burning, Alice...I have to have her. Just let me have her." I drank in another lungful of her scent, drunk on the delicious aroma. Oh, to feel that inside me...I would be satiated for a thousand years...All it would take would just be a little bite, she'd barely even know what was happening...It would be so easy, like cutting warm butter with a steak knife...to feel that liquid bliss sluicing down my throat, filling long-empty veins...I would feel like God. I would be God...
"Alice...Alice, please..."
"Edward, NO!" She groaned with the effort of holding me back as I fought to reach the source of that scent that, before then, I would have thought to be beyond impossible to create. Using what I assumed was all of her strength, Alice clutched my face and pulled it level with hers, looking me directly in the eyes. "Edward, listen to me. You're better than this. Walk away. She's going to be alright, and I'm not going to let you hurt her. Walk. Away." No fucking way, I thought. She's mine. Alice's eyes were cold and hard, daring me to move another inch towards the car. They were unforgiving and firm, but beckoned me away from the edge. I managed to recall some of my control by focusing only on the deep amber color of Alice's eyes before falling to the pavement in a heap, entirely exhausted from the effort I had just put in to not killing the one person that I wanted to drink more than anyone or anything I'd encountered since my change. As I sat there, Alice left my side. I barely registered the sound of the Volvo speeding away. I didn't acknowledge the pedestrians who walked past me, their thoughts wondering why someone would choose that spot to lie prostrate...
After what may have been minutes or hours, I pulled myself up off the sidewalk, brushed off my coat, and called Carlisle's cell phone. He didn't answer, so I sent him a text.
Do not, under any circumstances, let me back in the house before the change is complete.
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