Morning Mist 7: Keeping My Word
**** JACOB BLACK ****
I was so close – so close I could feel it. Every tortured bone and ligament was slowly finishing up the healing process. And I was gonna be damned if they tried to keep me out of the fight we all knew was coming. Still, the living corpse who called himself a doctor insisted that I stay in bed and let my tissues or whatever recuperate for at least two more days. And they were all leaving that night. Without me.
The hell they were.
I knew there was no way I could keep my plans from Edward, insufferable sneak that he was. My only hope was that, a.) he might have sympathy, or b.) he just wouldn't be in the mood to fight. 'Cause it was a really dumb reason to have to hurt him.
It had been almost two weeks since the initial attack. My pack, in Leah's capable hands, had discovered ten more of our nasty little friends, patrolling the wilderness near the Oregon border. Since they didn't seem to be doing anything but guarding the way south, we hadn't engaged them. Instead, the Cullens had set the packs on watch duty, then used the time to pull in every favor ever owed them by any of their vamp friends, in order to search for that particular mouthful of a firm and prepare for the final showdown.
Finally, just when we all thought Jasper was gonna flee and go looking by himself, we found them. Peter and Charlotte, two of Jasper's bloodthirsty old contacts, had spotted a vampire matching the description of our attackers walking the streets of Portland, and had followed him to a building matching the description of the one I'd seen. They'd even followed him up to his lair and heard Alice screaming apropos insults at the four or five guards that kept an eye on her.
So, since it was my fine memory that had helped them find the creeps in the first place, there was absolutely no way they were leaving without me.
I played the Perfect Patient for the last couple days leading up to things. I jumped when Carlisle said jump, ate what and when he said, slept when he said, and spent the rest of the time giving everybody my best puppy-dog eyes – which, Bella tells me, are the consummate sympathy device.
The morning before the big assault was planned, Bella and Nessie were sitting up with me. Bella was knitting a blanket for Ness, her fingers moving much faster than even my wolf eyes could follow. Occasionally she would look up at my still – apparently – bedridden form, bite her lip, attempt a smile, than attack her knitting like it had gravely insulted her. I sighed – I thought maybe once she'd been a vampire for a while she would leave behind her whole irrational guilt issue. I guess not.
Renesmée, of course, held more of my attention. She sat next to me on the bed, very carefully penning-in a Disney Princess's coloring book. Every choice of color was a painstaking process, four or five pens held up for my inspection and approval before each section could be filled-in. She took a whole forty-five minutes coming up with a artistic concept compatible with magic-markers for making the princesses "go sparkly" if they were pictured outside – being raised as she was, she assumed that all beautiful women did this. Her precision, her attention to detail, her solemn-yet-playful demeanor captivated me.
It's hard to explain imprinting to those who have never experienced it. All I can say is, if she had wanted to continue sitting there coloring in pictures of Sleeping Beauty for the rest of my natural life, I would've stayed right next to her and enjoyed myself the entire time. I couldn't imagine anything or anyone in the world more important, more beautiful, and more worth protecting than her.
Which was why I hoped her parents would understand if I left her with my wolf pack and went to fight alongside them when the time came.
As my luck would have it, I let this thought run through my head right as Edward came up to visit the most important women in his life. He arched an eyebrow at me, then said something which gave me hope that he might just feel like helping me after all.
"Bella, er, Esme is downstairs re-arranging the furniture again." She always did that when she was nervous about something. "She could use your help and advice, I think. Rosalie just keeps getting testy."
"Sure, Edward." She put her knitting aside and hurried downstairs to help her mother-in-law. Nessie was completely absorbed in picking the right skin-tone for Prince Charming at that moment, but all Edward had to do was whisper in her ear and she toddled off after her mother.
He began, as usual, with a half-insult. "You do realize you're insane?"
"No crazier than the seven of you – outnumbered two-to-one on strange turf against vampires that can use all your combined strengths against you."
"It must be pretty important to you if you're willing to leave Ness behind to do it."
"I've promised the same thing you have, Cullen." He could tell that I had him on that one.
"Besides," I went on, "one of their most powerful assets is Alice's power. If I show up, it might confuse things just enough to give you all the advantage."
"True."
"I still don't understand how you're thinking to get around that. I mean – they must already know you're coming."
Edward growled slightly. "At this point, we don't give a damn what they know. We're coming for my sister, and we're coming to kill them, whether we die trying or not."
This time I was the one who raised my eyebrows. He read the thought behind them and answered me after a short silence.
"Yeah, I am willing to risk it. What kind of world would it be for Ness if we just had to keep running from these freaks every time they show up? They have to be eliminated . . . And no, we're not bringing the Volturi into it. They can come and clean up after us if we fail – but there's no way I'm voluntarily bringing them within a day's run of my family again."
"And if you do fail?"
He frowned. I could tell this deeply troubled him, but it did not shake his resolve. "If we fail, then I'm trusting the packs with Ness's life. I know they could get her someplace where its safe . . . Which is why I would prefer for you to stay behind. You are Renesmée's destined protector and mate. How can I let you risk your life when she still needs you?"
A glare from me was all he needed.
"Alright . . ." he said finally, with a reluctant smile. "I know better than to argue when you're like this. We're leaving at dawn. Sam's pack is gonna help us run down the ten waiting in the woods south of here. I suggest you try and catch us up during the confusion of that fight – my family won't notice an extra wolf or so. Then, by the time we make it to Portland, it'll be too late to send you home." He glanced at the arm and leg that Carlisle still insisted on keeping in braces. "You sure you're up to this?"
I flexed my muscles, sure that they were sound. Still sore, it was true, but sound. "Smashed to a pulp last time or not," I said. "I'm not staying behind."
"Very well. Just . . . try not to get hurt again. Carlisle and Bella – not to mention Nessie – would never forgive me."
"Deal, Cullen."
We shook on it – brothers in arms, as we were always meant to be.
****
Bella's goodbye to me and Ness was tender, but short. I could feel the fighter in her, the enraged mother bear, just waiting to be cut loose on those who had dared to hurt her family. She squeezed both of us, then ran off with the rest of them into the forest. I waited 'til I could no longer hear them making their way through the trees – then I ripped off Dr. Cullen's leg-brace, grabbed Ness and stole Alice's Porsche.
Sam's pack had signed on to help the Cullen's break through the 10 or so Vampire scouts they'd spotted to the south; but my pack had been left behind to guard LaPush. Despite all the angst over breaking up the pack a year ago, it was really nice having my own big posse of bodyguard-babysitters for Ness when I needed it.
We pulled up to Sam's place, where I saw Seth and Emily waiting for me: Leah, Embry, and Quill were out on patrol, as had been requested. Renesmée looked at me dubiously.
"Why are we going to play with Uncle Seth?" She unbuckled her seatbelt and grabbed her Sleeping Beauty backpack from the floor. "It's almost bedtime . . . Are you leaving? Why do you have to leave? Will the Mean Ones come back? Does Daddy know I'm here?"
Darnit, the kid was getting smart.
"Yes, Ness, Daddy knows you're here, and he and mommy and Uncle Jacob trust Uncle Seth to keep you very safe."
She drew her knees up to her chest and just looked at me. She didn't even need to pout: she looked so much like the old Bella like that, so frail and scared and beautiful, that it was all I could do to shake my head.
"You'll be safe here, Ness. Seth is going to let you stay up past your bedtime, and Em said she'd help you color. Nothing can get you here, I pro-" But then I knew I couldn't promise. Not after last time. I sighed, and brought her over to sit on my lap.
"When you think of me, Ness, what do you think of?"
She knit her brow and thought very hard for a little while. Finally, she looked up at me, and said in a voice that sounded a little like Carlisle making a clinical pronouncement: "I think that you're my Jacob and . . . you're funny and let me play with you and . . . hunt with you and you're big and strong and . . . furry sometimes and make me feel safe when I'm scared. Like Daddy."
"Thank you, Renesmée. I always want to be that for you; I always want to have fun with you and hunt with you and make sure you're safe. And right now there are mean people who might try and hurt you again . . . and . . . and I couldn't be your Jacob if I didn't try and stop them."
I let her try and think it out, hoping that I wasn't missing any good fighting. Of course, since Ness was there, I knew I wasn't missing anything really, truly good.
She looked up at me again, eyes bright with some kind of revelation. "So," she asked, "stopping the Mean Ones is like . . . what the dictionary says you are?"
It was a funny way to put it, but I thought it worked. "Yes, Ness. Just like that."
"So . . . you have to go fight them, because if you stayed it would be like changing what it said about you in the dictionary?"
"Yes."
She nodded her head, still frowning a little. "Okay," she whispered, putting her hand on my face to let me know what she really thought.
I saw myself, lying in bed, the first time Ness had been allowed to visit me after the last attack. I looked pale and broken, and now I could feel Renesmée's anger and anxiety at my condition.
Not again, okay?
"Okay, Ness. I'll be really, really careful."
For me?
"For you."
****
The battle was in full swing by the time I arrived – after dumping Alice's car in a Port Angeles parking garage, and praying for my own worthless life if it wasn't there when I got back. I phased while I was still about a mile away; Sam, of course, noted my presence.
"What in the world, Jake? I thought you were still in traction?!"
"Looks can be deceiving, bud. Have I missed anything good?"
"We've taken down almost half of them, but there were more than we first thought: 15, instead of 10. Looks like maybe . . . Emmett could use some help, three have ganged up on him and he's farther off from the rest of us. Not that he'll want to take it."
I hightailed it for Emmett Cullen's strong, musky scent. Sure enough, he was backed up against a huge redwood by three snarling "vampire-creeps," as I had come to call our long-haired friends. His grin was huge even in the thick of fighting for his life, though he did have several new scars on his arms and neck.
The creeps eventually sensed me, but not soon enough to prevent my lunging and ripping the head off of one before he could even scream. A second creep, who was busy gouging a chunk out of Emmett's shoulder, suddenly found Emmett freed up enough to elbow the creep deep into the redwood's trunk. The unfortunate vampire was decapitated by the Cullen family grizzly-bear before he could work himself free. Together we made short-work of the last one.
Emmett held out a fist, and I bumped it with my nose. "Good doggy," he said, laughing to himself; but I was already racing ahead looking for my next kill.
I found Bella, Edward, and Jasper together in a little clearing, facing off with two creeps. Bella didn't seem to be fighting: she stood off from the others with her eyes closed, concentrating very hard. Then I realized she was keeping a shield around Edward and Jasper as they fought, preventing the creeps from reading their minds, and - as I saw demonstrated just after I arrived – occasionally working up a physical barrier for one or both of the Cullen brothers. Edward turned briefly to wink at me, but they seemed to be holding their own, so I raced off to where I could hear my wolf-brothers fighting and cheerfully joined in the free-for-all.
After a few tussles I realized that Carlisle had been a little bit right. I was sorer and stiffer than I'd reckoned – but it only slowed me down slightly, and I could tell Jared and Paul were happy to see me. We cleared our sector in a matter of minutes.
After that, there seemed to be little to do. The three of us pursued a runaway for a couple miles, taking him down with relish. If we made his death a little slower than needed, well, they did have it a long time coming.
The battle had been spread out over miles of terrain, so when we finally gathered back together it was nearing midnight. The Cullen's, all relatively unhurt, glowed like moons themselves under the full-moon's light. I stayed back with the pack as they greeted each other – not wanting them to notice the addition just yet – but Emmett blew my cover when Rosalie noted his wounds.
Before I could quite react, Rosalie's arms were around my neck. I had no idea what to do – her affectionate gratitude was completely unprecedented. "Jacob, I'll never be able to thank you for saving Emm's life. I'll try and make it up somehow, I promise."
I tried to shrug under her firm grip, but failed. All I could do was bark and hope she'd let go of me before her enthusiastic gratitude choked me to death.
When Rosalie finally did let go of me, it was Bella's turn: to hug me and then smack me firmly across the nose.
"What do you think you're doing, Mr. Black?" she demanded, hands on hips.
I looked at Edward, who laughed. "He says he's doing the same thing you are and could you please spare the drama for after we've wiped these creeps from the face of the earth? He's added some loud and rather graphic mental images to his statement, but I think they'd be impolite to repeat."
"And my daughter is . . . where?!"
"Safe in LaPush," said Edward, playfully putting his arms around his wife. "Speaking of which: thank you, Sam, again, and you guys better get back. There's a half-breed to be looked after." The wolves barked in affirmation, said goodbye to me in proper pack fashion, then ran off into the darkness.
Bella sighed and laid her head back on his shoulder. She looked up at him. "There's really nothing you guys are gonna let me do about this, is there?"
"Nope," said Edward.
"Men . . ." she muttered, but not unkindly. She looked at me again: "If you get yourself hurt again, I will personally make sure Emmett sits on you until you fully recover!!"
"Don't worry, Bella," Edward was playing with her hair – they really could be sickeningly romantic sometimes – "Ness made him promise the same thing."
"Well," said Carlisle, who was dubiously examining Emmett's gouged neck, "since I have a feeling remonstrating with any of you for medical reasons will be a losing battle – we'd better get going. Portland's still a ways off and we need to get there before dawn."
We ran in formation, with Edward, Emmett, and Jasper at the point of the spear. After two weeks in bed, the feel of the moss on my feet and wind past my ears was glorious. Knowing that we were going to end this menace one way or another was even better.
Peter and Charlotte met us on the outskirts of Portland, where I phased back into my human form. We figured we didn't need animal control trucks coming after us too. The two bloodsuckers kept their distance from me – I guess Jasper had let them know how utterly opposed to their lifestyle I was.
They lead us to the downtown office-building where the creeps had their hide-out about two hours before dawn. The streets were empty, and aside from the occasional homeless person, no one was around to wonder why what-looked-like nine Gucci models and a shirtless hoodlum were wandering around at 4 in the morning.
We stopped at a new-built building about 30-stories high. Sure enough, there was the sign I remembered: Pattinson, Stewart, Rathbone & Sons. "The top ten floors are empty, waiting for tenants" said Peter. "They're staying on twenty-four and twenty-five mostly. Alice is on twenty seven."
"You don't have to stay," said Jasper. "You got us this far, and it isn't really your fight."
"Nah," said Charlotte. "Any coven this big and this violent is dangerous for all of us in the long run. We're staying."
"Remember," said Carlisle. "We don't know how many of them there may be. If it looks like too many to defeat all at once, we grab Alice and run, alright?"
We all nodded. Jasper didn't waste any time after that. A second story window that opened on a side-alley was found to be open, and before any of us could really think to be scared, we were charging up the stairwell for the twenty-fourth floor.
I phased as we came through the door, where I counted five creeps waiting for us. But it wasn't them, or their greedy eyes or their snapping teeth that caused my heart to fall through my toes at that point. It was the four or five bodies – homeless men by the look of it – that they stood over. The overwhelming, and to my companions, enticing, smell of human blood washed over all of us.
****
Author's Note: Yeah, I've basically decided that Jacob is the most fun to write. I promise this is the last cliff-hanger, guys. Next chapter's the last, and I guarantee Alice will make quite an exciting appearance.
