Chapter Two

BOO!

Lucky for Alice and Nessie, but decidedly unlucky for me, the next morning came cloudy and overcast. The perfect day for a vampire shopping trip. Edward and I watched the dawn with trepidation, knowing soon he would leave and we would have to be apart. Although we did not sleep, we began craving our nights together, when Renesmee slept and we could just relax and enjoy each other. Some nights we would listen to Bach, some we would spend hours in one kiss, occasionally we would talk, but mostly we communicated during this time without words. He could not look into my mind, but he could see my heart, for he had just to look in the palm of his hands. I could not imagine there being a heaven or hell without him, so although I still felt I had a soul- I was sure that was not lost in my vampire conversion- I now craved him so badly that I could not see any existence at all without my other half. Even the passing thought crossing my mind made me wince as I dressed Nessie in her favorite shopping dress. She noticed and put her little hand to my head. She showed me an image of myself sad and nervous as I was when we were waiting for our fate that previous New Year's in the meadow in Forks. I hoped I didn't look that despondent now.

"No, sweetie, Momma's fine. I just think too much. There's absolutely nothing to worry about. I'll just miss you guys when you go back home, that's all." I buttoned her sweater up over her yellow cotton dress. The white fringes of the sweater made the dress look frilly and girlie, Nessie liked that look for herself. 'She must get that from Edward's side.' I thought to myself and chuckled.

Renesmee touched my face again. She showed me images of Jacob and Charlie and Carlisle and Esmee and Rose and even Emmett. I could tell she missed them all. I nodded to her and twirled her around in front of me to see her outfit.

"Aunt Alice, I think a certain little princess is ready for a fun day of picking out the most embarrassing Halloween costumes you can find for mommy and daddy." I said with obvious chagrin.

Alice fluttered in and rolled her eyes. "Why does everything have to be all about you, Bella dear. We are going to get Nessie the best costume ever. I think she was mentioning something about either a fairy godmother or a bunny?" Alice said with a gleam in her coppery eyes.

"A bunny, a bunny!" Renesmee immediately started hopping around the loft. "May I be a bunny Papa?" She hopped over to where Edward was reading the morning newspaper on the large red sectional sofa in the living room area. The tv was on the morning news, but no one was paying any attention to it.

"If that's what you want my darling daughter." Edward cooed as he lifted her onto his lap and put the paper aside. "Be back by five Alice, I don't want to go out too late with her." Edward put the child down and shut off the tv with the remote then went back to the paper. He gave Nessie a pat on the back as she turned for the door. Nessie waved and blew a kiss in my direction since now I was standing in the doorway to her room.

Alice was already out the door. "I'm taking the Mercedes, see you later. Come'on Nessie!!" And they were gone. We could hear them scrambling down the three flights of steps toward the large parking garage. Of course, our loft was the penthouse of this small apartment building, Edward would have it no other way. 'He can be kind of spoiled when he wants to be', I thought looking around the apartment.

The loft was quite large, about 2100 square feet. It was furnished when we got here and I wasn't sure if Alice had done that or it came this way. The sectional, two large brown lounge chairs, the big screen tv, and two chestnut end tables were in the center of the floor on a large brown throw rug. The outer portions of the extra big space included a small kitchen (mostly useless for us), a computer area with a stereo system on top of the computer desk, one wall of large windows facing the bustling city street three stories below, a powder room, and the hallway which led to three bedrooms and a large bathroom with a jacuzzi tub. Edward and I were in the master suite, since we were still basically newlyweds. Jasper and Alice had the medium bedroom and Renesmee was in the small bedroom next to ours, I think it was originally meant to be a home office or home gym, it only had one small window. But, Nessie liked her little space and she had already filled up the walls with drawings and art she had made in her Fun Town classes or doodling the day away.

Jasper came out of the bathroom and into the living room just then wearing nothing but a towel. He shook his matted wet head and said that he was concerned about a conversation he'd overheard at the club the night before. Two of the 'Club Kids' were laughing about an odd local robbery they'd heard about. Apparently, the owner of the club had been missing for three days. They finally broke into his house and found him passed out in his bed. He lived alone and despite numerous girlfriends, no one else had a key to his home but him. He had no wounds and no drugs in his system, he was not violated, other then his bank account being cleaned out and many of his most expensive possessions gone. The part that concerned Jasper though, was that the kids revealed the robber had actually lived there for the three days, crashing at the house while the owner was incapacitated somehow. The temperature outside was quite chilly and normal humans would have had the heat on this time of year, but the kids said the police found the house 'cold as death' and the club owner's dog was found mutilated in the back shed, blood drained. The club owner could remember nothing other then a very vivid dream and although tired, he was none the worse for the wear.

When Jasper finished the story, Edward looked thoughtful for a long minute. "Maybe we should go check out the house and see if we can get a scent?" He finally said, looking at Jasper. "Just in case?" His eyes looked concerned and his brow furrowed.

"That's exactly what I thought. Lemme get dressed. You coming Bella?" Jasper glanced backward at me as he strolled into his bedroom to get dressed.

"Sure. What better way to spend Halloween then to go looking for vampires?" I grinned at Edward and his hard look softened. I was glad that I had gotten a shower and dressed before I got Renesmee ready.

"My darling, do not make light of this, if we do have a rogue taking up residence with humans in the city, then we have a problem indeed. I can't help but to wonder, Jasper," Edward continued speaking in a normal voice to his brother who was now behind a closed bedroom door, of course, Jasper could certainly hear him, "if this is one of us, why would he not kill the human?" Edward's brow furrowed again, "I'm going to get dressed."

An hour later we were on the road. It was easy enough to find a whole story on the robbery in the newspaper, the full coverage included the address of the poor club owner. We had to take our second car in New Hampshire, a Lexus SUV, I wasn't sure what the model was, I'm not very good with cars. Edward had insisted we drive the Limited Edition Mercedes tank-like car when we moved here, so that he could be sure Renesmee was safe when riding. Overkill if you ask me, but that's what I thought when he bought me the car a little more then a year ago. Jasper purchased the Lexus for he and Alice when we got here so we would not be that dependent on each other if we had to travel by vehicle. We, of course, preferred to run, but in the city that was not practical, we would be too easily detected as a group. Sometimes an individual vampire could get away with a midnight run through the streets. I made a mental note to run more often, just the thought of it made me grip the door handle in anticipation. I may seem completely in control most of the time, but I was a newborn vampire and it was all too easy to let my passions get the better of me. I needed to make sure that I had a constant outlet for my natural yearnings. I would also need to feed soon, that meant Edward would too. My revere was broken by Edward opening up my car door for me.

"Can you smell it?" Edward said to me with a grim expression on his face. We were parked in front of a modest twin on a typical suburban city street. There were many twin homes, connected at one side, and a few trees. All of the houses had their own drive ways and the cars were modest, the street was well kept with a few scattered leaves blowing in the wind. Almost all of the houses had Halloween decorations strewn about. Some more decorative then others, with fog machines and blow up ghosts. It didn't look like these people were worried about burgulary in this neighborhood. The house in front of us resembled the others in that it was decorated, but the -KEEP OUT -POLICE- tape was real, not make believe horror. Edward grasped my hand and asked again, "Bella, honey, do you smell it?"

I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply. I smelled the maple tree sap from the shedding tree to my right. I smelled the barking dog locked inside the backyard fence of the house behind us. I smelled the jasmine and wilting roses of someone's dying garden to the left. And, directly in front of me I smelled the sweet, rich scent of vampire, it was strong and recent, and it was the scent of one that I had never smelled before. My stomach started to churn.

I answered Edward glumly, "I smell it."

Chapter Three

More to come!!