Chapter VII


In which there are several mysteries


When the pain finally washed away, Alec was surrounded yet again by darkness. He tried to move, but found it impossible. This was getting at once old and on his nerves. For reasons he did not have time to question, he knew he was in the ground. He was buried alive, struck by the edge of the wave of earth hurled at them by their enemy. Felix had grabbed him in the last second and thrown him up towards the sky, hoping he would not be caught by the avalanche. It did strike him, when gravity inevitably pulled him down seconds later, and a tree trunk hit him in the head so hard that splinters of bark ended up in his mouth, and were now dissolving slowly in his venom. He knew he wasn't buried deep because he had had time to form an estimation based on the speed and volume of the wave. And yet he could not move. Not for the first time in his long, odd existence, Alec cursed his childish body. If he had had Felix's strength perhaps he could have risen out of the ground and smashed their assailants to pieces. But he had the body of a twelve year old boy from the Middle Ages, when the lack of proper nutrition and harsh living conditions meant that a child of his social standing was likely to grow up small of stature and rather delicate, in spite of his soldier father's supposedly fine physique. Alec had spent a thousand years wondering how he would have looked like if he had grown into a man, but his adult features remained as distant to him as the image of the father he never knew.

Alec tried to make sense of the madness he was in. He told himself not to be afraid, because the others were out there and... the others were out there. The realization, however late it was, would have stopped his heart if it had been still beating. Their attackers would be free to dig them up and slaughter them one by one. Felix would be hard to kill, but who knows how many enemies were really out there? Corin was a skilled fighter, for she had witnessed battlefield bloodsheds for millennia, an innocuous camp follower who would feed on the dying in the heat of battle... but her fighting was more art than war, and she would struggle against several opponents. As for himself and Jane... they worked well within the protection of their guard, but had never faced a dangerous foe on their own. Felix's throw and the wave had caught him too off guard to look for Jane as he shot up in the air and subsequently crashed down into the landslide, and he realized with a debilitating, shattering pain that he might have lost his chance to see her one last time.

This can't end like this, he thought, rather naively for someone who had seen this happen to others time and time again throughout his long life. He had thought of death after he had been turned into a vampire, but it had always been an abstract idea, made more and more translucid by the passing centuries. The very real possibility of a mishap, a powerful foe, of sheer bad luck paled unreasonably in the face of the increasing Volturi omnipotence. There was nobody who could harm them, the perfect twins, tucked safely into the Volturi altar of power. At yet here he was, six feet in the ground, where the villagers had wanted him that horrible day. It took a while, but here I am, he thought bitterly.

He made another attempt to move and tried shifting his arms, only to reach the shocking conclusion that he could feel his extremities.

"Open your eyes," a mellow voice whispered in the foggy halls of his mind. The words echoed gravely, and somehow Alec did not resent the strange presence. I'm dreaming, he thought. This already happened. They dug me out. And if this is a dream… then it means that I can leave it.

And then he felt the weight on his frame being lifted and he rose out of the earth into a sky full of stars. He found himself in front of a large, barn-like building. A sweet smell was hanging in the air, but his senses were dulled and he couldn't identify it, nor its source. He could hear a dog barking angrily in the distance. The door of the barn opened and a figure came out. He couldn't make out who it was, and the absence of his vampire senses made him wonder if perhaps he was dreaming of being human again. He followed the figure around the corner. It was a woman with long hair tied in braids and a full skirt with frayed, dirty edges. She left bare footprints in the damp ground. Alec followed her silently, floating after her in that implicit knowledge dreams can sometimes give one. He knew he was invisible to her.

Judging by the hideous stench wafting through the air, the rundown row of shacks the woman was heading to were the latrines. A flash of light hit Alec's eyes, and he saw a scouting beam coming out from a tower. The woman broke into a run and reached the latrines, leaving Alec alone. "Where am I?" he asked aloud, but no sound came out of his mouth. A plume of smoke was stretching out on the inky sky, coming from somewhere nearby. There was something peculiar about the setting, Alec thought. The world had washed-out, hazy contours, and the buildings kept changing their locations and colors ever so slightly when he was looking away. It was as if he was trapped in an unfinished illustration. Before he could have time to take a better look at his environment, the woman came out, wrapping the rag she was using as a shawl tightly around her. She began making her way back, throwing anxious looks at the guard tower, and Alec prepared to join her when they both heard a distinctly human whimper. The woman hesitated, listening in the darkness. The whimpering continued, and she headed cautiously in its direction. Alec followed like a shadow, intrigued.

She peeked around the corner of one of the buildings, then edged carefully along the wall towards the entrance. A dark shape was bent over the naked, marble white body of a teenage girl, her limbs twitching painfully in the moonlight shining through the open door. Staring at the gruesome spectacle from behind the young woman, Alec recognized the black shape as a huge, well-built man in dark clothing. He had his mouth clamped over the girl's bruised neck and one large hand covering her right breast. The woman next to Alec stared, uncomprehending.

A vampire, Alec thought. He's feeding on these… and then, the sudden realization hit him with disturbing clarity. This is a concentration camp. He's feeding on the prisoners.

Alec had barely finished his thought when the woman next to him was pulled inside so brutally that she did not even have time to scream. The man held her struggling arms shackled in his hands. Blood was pouring down from his mouth, the tell-tale sign of a vampire who had fed far beyond the natural need and was full to his throat. He swung the woman around and smacked her hard across the face. Alec heard a sickening crack before he saw the woman being slammed into a pile of ghastly gray bodies rotting in a corner. She let out a high-pitched, terrified scream and the fiend was upon her, ripping up her rags to get to her throat. She screamed and wailed as he bit her, hopelessly clawing at his clothes. Alec crossed over to them, passing the feebly moving body of the teenage girl, and looked in revulsion at the scene unfolding before him. The woman's face was a red ruin, and the vampire had barely drawn a few gulps when the blood started coming down his nose in small rivulets. "Fucking gorger, just kill her already," Alec spat, but no sound came out of his mouth. Then, just as the woman's eyes rolled to the back of her head, the sound of footsteps echoed through the night and several guards burst through the door, shouting in German. The vampire dropped his victim and lunged at them, taking the head of a weasel-faced guard with one swing. Almost all the humans went down as if they were made of wet tissues, with the exception of one, who miraculously managed to sprint out of the building and began howling for his comrades. Seconds after, the piercing sound of an alarm rang throughout the camp, and the searchlights began moving madly across its surface. The vampire weighed his options for a second, and took a step towards the exit when he heard his teenage victim give a gurgle. He turned towards her and, with a swift, precise motion, crushed her throat with his boot. He advanced toward the broken body of the woman with what Alec believed were the same intentions, but then the approaching sound of dozens of guards seemed to have changed his mind. He jumped up to the rafters and smashed a hole through the roof, through which he climbed out with surprising nimbleness. Alec was left alone with the wounded, unstirring woman. As the blurred shapes of the guards began streaming around him and the world began to dissolve at the seams, the only thing which maintained its clarity was the shape of the remaining victim, barely clinging to life. Then there was nothing but darkness again.


"The whole mountainside?" Santiago repeated, staring at Corin.

"It just went up like a wave and smashed into us. I've never seen anything like that in my whole existence," she answered.

They were piled up in the back of a van driven by Felix, with maps crumpled between their hands. The newcomers had been told about the events which transpired, but still held a measure of disbelief at hearing something so astonishing.

"How come we've never heard anything about these people until now? Are they newborns?"

"Judging from Aro's drawings, the man is quite young and the woman is not more than a hundred, but it's difficult to say for sure because she covers her face. I think she has a deformity not even the change could fix."

"So how will we fight against someone who can flip the scenery over our heads?" asked Meishan, a small vampire with sharp features and three missing fingers.

"We need to spread out so that they can't target all of us at once. They only got us because we weren't paying attention," called Felix from the driver's seat.

"What happened to the monk?" inquired Abel, a long faced vampire with white eyelashes.

"I think he's still buried. We need to send someone to find him. The last thing we want is the humans to dig him up all starved and cause a scene," came Felix's reply. Corin nodded. Jane said nothing, her eyes on the map on her mobile phone. Just as she was following the blue dot of their vehicle across the winding road, the golden Volturi crest stretched over the display.

"Yes, Master?" she answered immediately. The person at the end of the line said nothing, which made her wonder if perhaps there was not a connection problem. All ears were focused on the static noises coming from the small mobile phone.

"Dear ones… there has been a change of plans," came Aro's voice finally, tinged with a certain hesitance which everyone found unsettling. Aro was never openly hesitant.

"We are all listening," said Jane after a brief pause.

"It is my turn to give you distressing news. Our beloved Athenodora is missing. She disappeared from the tower and we cannot find her anywhere in Volterra. We've combed the city, looked over the security footage but we cannot see where she went. There is no scent, no trace of her. It's as if she simply disappeared."

As the occupants of the van exchanged stunned looks, Aro continued. "As you can very well imagine, Caius is distraught with worry. We need Demetri to come back immediately and help the search efforts."

But we need Demetri to find Alec, thought Jane, paralyzed. He can't leave now.

She somehow found the strength to say this aloud, under the conflicted gaze of her comrades.

Aro answered in the gentlest of tones, saying "Dearest one, it pains me to do this, but consider what could happen if Athenodora should die. Caius will become like Marcus – his fire, the source behind the Volturi energy for centuries, will be irrevocably extinguished. You know that once a vampire finds his soulmate, death of one means death of both. We cannot risk to lose Caius. We would take a great blow should this happen, with unprecedented consequences. Therefore, we must find Athenodora before something terrible happens to her. This is why I am hereby telling Demetri to come back at once."

But what about me? Can I risk to lose Alec? Would I be any less a ruin without him than Caius without his wife? was Jane's thought, but she did not voice it this time. She had always known that hierarchically, Caius was above her, and his need trumped hers. But she still couldn't help feeling the sting of a betrayal. She and her twin had never been passed over in favor of someone else, and the critical moment and high stakes made her feel as if a great injustice was being done to her. I have to fight for Alec.

"Master, please give us more time," begged Jane. "We are very close to finding Alec, Alec who is still alive and can still be rescued. I only ask for one day. We have served faithfully for more than a thousand years. I just need one day."

There was silence at the end of the line, followed by a long, airy sigh. Something was stretched out like a violin chord inside Jane.

"Jane, my dearest one… I have always thought that finding you and your brother was one of the greatest things that happened not only to me, but to us all. You are our golden children and we will protect you as long as we stand in this world. I had to change you at a young age, and it was unfortunate – I regret the circumstances to this day. To take the edge off this great injustice done to you and your brother by the cowardly and murderous humans around you, I pledged the Volturi protection. But for us to offer you the protection and life you deserve, we need to be strong… and we cannot be as strong without Caius. This is why it is of paramount importance that Demetri comes back immediately. I have absolute faith in the ones who are with you right now. They will bring Alec back, I am certain of it. Will you not, dear ones?"

The vampires nodded in unison and uttered words of confirmation, but their usual confidence was absent from their voices. Somewhere in the back of Jane's mind, a voice was screaming. The next thing she knew, the car was slowing down and Demetri was standing in front of her, eyes closed, brow furrowed. She recognized the look of intense concentration on his face and felt a pang of gratitude. He was making one last reach for Alec's whereabouts, his mind searching the ether, tugging on the silver string which bound him to someone he knew so well. After a few minutes of silence, he opened his eyes and went down on one knee in front of Jane. "He is about fifty kilometers east. I keep seeing something… something blue." He watched Jane nod, and was struck by how young and scared she looked. There was nothing haughty or cold in her now, just trembling fear, and Demetri recognized that it was her life too on the line, not just Alec's. He felt the need to comfort this girl, who suddenly became as young as she looked, but all he could offer was: "I will keep Alec's tracker with me. If we find Athenodora fast, I will start looking for him again, I promise."

"Thank you, Demetri. I will not forget this," whispered Jane.

Demetri hopped out of the car, followed by Yunan, according to the Volturi custom of avoiding traveling alone. He went over to the other side of the car and shook Felix's hand, wishing him good luck before disappearing into the cool green forest. Uneasy and having lost two from their ranks, the Volturi exchanged a few looks before Felix started the car again. They all felt it wasn't right – they had all known members which were lost, which had to be left behind, even a few which had to be sacrificed. The vampire world was one long, drawn-out war and all of them considered the protection offered by the Volturi to be a powerful incentive. But Aro's decision seemed to be an overreaction. All Jane had asked for was one day. One day to find one of the most powerful members of their coven. This left them with a heavy sense of uneasiness which draped over them as they drove closer to their unclear destination. They were not speaking, uncertain about what to say. Assurances were empty for beings who had lived so long and seen almost everything happen. Unfounded optimism had long fallen before the axe of experience.

Jane was looking down at the map in front of her, trying to find any cities or villages fifty kilometers to the east. There were several possibilities, and her companions were debating where to start. The sun was slowly setting down behind the mountains, turning the skies petal-pink and basking the forest in a gentle golden glow. It reminded Felix of an ornamental comb glittering in the hair of an emperor's favorite he had once known. There was rarely a moment of beauty before his eyes which did not remind him of some sweet face and shimmering silks, and for the time being, he was content to leave the flow of strategizing to the others, intervening only when he completely disagreed with something. Corin had found her voice back and was talking almost continuously, grinding one of her ringlets between her alabaster fingers. Santiago was sitting with his massive arms crossed, nodding at everything she said. Meishan and Sofia, a frosty-looking blonde whose exterior belied her character, were watching the others warily. They had contacted their nearby allies and asked them to go and dig out the buried monk, lest the humans discovered him first. Abel and Raj were exchanging quips about who will have the highest kill count at the end of the day. There was a long night ahead of them, and they all welcomed the setting sun, which would free them to wander across forests and roads, villages and fields without the need for subterfuge.

Corin finally stopped talking, and was gazing over Felix's shoulder at the sunset, feeling a tinge of nostalgia, the same kind she felt at the end of every day. Normally, she never felt it for more than a few minutes, because the night would bring skies full of stars and aurora curtains, and the promise of freedom. But this time, she felt it linger – was it because she felt that her world was about to change? She couldn't tell. They might very well find Alec and destroy their strange enemy. But she had the feeling that something was shifting, that the pieces were moving on the board again. She would have even felt excited if it wasn't for the fact that she was quite fond of Alec. The idea that he was in danger or even dead pained her, and she didn't really know if it was because she liked him that much or because he, having the appearance of a boy, stirred some maternal instinct in her, which hadn't had life breathed into since the last time she saw her siblings. Even with them dead, she had cared for her line across centuries, but they eventually died out, leaving her the last crystallized leaf on her ancient family tree.

Be safe, Alec, she urged him. Only you can remember the world as it was when you were there to see it. That piece of world lives in you and it will perish with you. Put up a fight!


The van smelled of mildew and dirt, and Alec knew it was an old model even before he opened his eyes. He made a quick body check and was relieved to see that he wasn't missing any further body parts. Oriana was sitting next to him, a small crocheted bag besides her. Her beautiful hair spilled over her shoulders.

"Did you sleep well?" she asked without looking up from a piece of cloth she was embroidering.

"Ugh," articulated Alec elegantly.

"His gift should be very similar to yours, isn't that right?"

"I don't make people dream," he responded, eyeing his surroundings suspiciously.

"You dreamed?" she inquired, eyebrows raised.

"Of you," Alec lied without missing a beat, intrigued by her reaction.

So it's either not normal or very unusual to dream while under the power of his gift, made Alec a mental note. He still wasn't sure whether he was still in a dream or not, and fixed Oriana with an intense stare, waiting for something unsettling to happen. Instead, he was rewarded with a mild frown and a "Do I have something in my teeth?" So he focused his attention at the sounds outside the van. He could hear the engine of another, newer car in front of the van, and he presumed that it belonged to his captors. Aside that, he could hear no other cars or sounds associated with a city, so he assumed they were on a road to somewhere. The dusty windows of the van door showed only a patch of sunset sky. They're relocating me, he thought, and hoped that they were doing it because they were being followed by his coven. He hoped that Jane, Corin and Felix had made it out alright and would find him soon. In the meantime, he wisely focused on finding a means of escape. He looked up and saw that someone had punched a fist-sized hole in the wall which separated the van from the driver's cabin, probably to serve as a crude peephole. He couldn't hear anything which clued him on the identity of the driver, so he closed his eyes and let his fine nose take in the scents surrounding him. The musty smell of the van gradually gave way to Oriana's, and he found that she smelled like a garden after a storm. There was something about that fragrance which took him back to barefoot moments in old woods. But that wasn't what he was after, so he continued to analyze, to reach out for the third presence in the car. He caught the subtle smell of the third driver – in particular, he could smell the expensive fabrics and hear the ticking of a watch. That watch is ticking for me, he thought. It's counting the seconds until my execution. How long before they realize there is no way out for them and all they can do is take me out to deal a blow to the Volturi? He had to do something.

"How long have you been doing that? It's very good work."

He was not quite right – the work was absolutely exquisite, the kind achieved only by expert hands and fine senses. He saw several spools of colored thread peeking out from the crocheted bag laying at her side.

"A while. Idle hands and all that."

"My sister is the same. She has a whole range of things to keep herself busy."

"She is known to be a very busy girl. What about you?"

The implication was not lost on Alec, but he and Jane were used to being the scarecrow twins. "When I'm not keeping law and order, I like to read poetry."

"Keeping law and order," repeated Oriana slowly. "That's a nice way to call it. Doesn't sound at all tyrannical. Good job."

"If we are to argue over semantics, I need to warn you – I have written and published several dictionaries. I will be swift and merciless, not to mention insufferable in my adroit delivery of arguments."

"You've written dictionaries."

"I have a lot of free time."

Before Alec had the time to say anything further, he received a question. "Does it hurt?" she asked with a studied air of casualness.

"Not at all. It just feels odd to lose all four limbs. Can't say I recommend it."

"Didn't think so," she agreed.

Alec couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't sound deeply resentful, and a few minutes of silence passed between them, broken only when Oriana uttered: "So. You found my grave."

"I did. I like the photograph your family used. It was different."

"Oh?"

"Your hair was unbound and covering your shoulders. Not a typical portrait."

"Ah yes, I remember when I had that taken. My father loved my hair so he let me be photographed like that. It was his favorite portrait of me."

"How did you end up a vampire?"

"I died."

"Well we all did, it's somewhat of a prerequisite. The heart stops during the transformation. But who changed you?"

"A dashing young man called Lestat. Terribly handsome fellow. I assume he needs no introduction."

"Very funny," Alec made a face and blew a strand of hair away from his eyes.

Something landed on the top of the van with a loud thud. Oriana got up immediately and went to the doors. Alec heard light footsteps and when Oriana opened the doors, he saw the lanky boy jump in.

"Hello sweet prince," he greeted cheerfully. Alec stared at him in a manner which he hoped was hostile and terrifying. "Did you sleep well?" Completely unfazed by Alec's attempt to hurt him with his eyes, the boy kneeled in front of him and took out a cell phone from his pocket.

"I'm going to need a favor from you."