Chapter 10
Gifted
(Edward)
I still couldn't believe whose gift that Eleazar thought Charlie's resembled the most. Jane was a complete sociopath who hurt people just because she enjoyed doing it; the fact that Aro often ordered her to do so was immaterial. There was no possibility that Charlie would ever end up like her in any way. But one thing still made no sense to me; shouldn't Charlie's gift be similar to Bella's since they are related. His thoughts always were a little muffled, but that may have been because of the small amount of time I actually spent with him. The more I thought about it, the less sure I really was since blood-related family being turned vampire was incredibly rare.
In fact, I could only think of a two pairs of relatives who both were turned and they were both brother and sister; the first was Aro and Didyme, who both did have mental abilities even though only one was truly useful. Didyme had the ability to create happiness; it seemed ironic that after her death, her mate, Marcus, became so apathetic. The second were those damned twins, Jane and Alec. Both of them were incredibly powerful offensively. But still, that left none that I could think of who were parent and child.
I must had stood statuesque for quite a while, since when my consciousness returned from my mind, only Eleazar remained with me. He was smiling and thought that I had heard exactly what he was thinking. "A penny for your thoughts?" He mused as he placed his right hand on my left shoulder gently.
I chuckled, since I couldn't even guess how many times I had heard others thinking that exact line. "How can Charlie's gift be so much like Jane's?" I asked, not trying to hide anything from Eleazar.
He shrugged. There was no way to know if a human would be gifted as a vampire until the transformation was nearing completion. This was an outstanding sign that his change was indeed proceeding extremely quickly. "I really don't know," Eleazar answered looking slightly concerned. "But with such a powerful gift he will surely be highly desirable to Aro."
"Do you think that he'll be able to torture people like … you know who?" I asked not hiding the disdain I felt for Jane, despite refusing to mention her name.
Eleazar shook his head, even though his thoughts weren't as certain of the answer. "Not if he's a friend of yours, but if his gift was ever to fall into the hands of Aro," he shrugged, "then who knows."
"More powerful than Jane, huh?" I mused trying to gain more information from Eleazar.
"It's still incredibly early; I'm surprised that I'm even able to get this much of an indication from him. You said he was bitten only yesterday morning?" His tone displayed the surprise he was so obviously feeling, even thought his thoughts expressed even more.
I nodded. I still wasn't sure if I should tell anyone yet of who I was almost certain the guilty party was, since it would be risky to do so. But I was interrupted by Tanya's shriek as she entered the room in which we were keeping Charlie. Eleazar and myself both sprinted to them, and was pleasantly surprised by what we saw.
Charlie had aged pretty significantly in the past few years, with Carlisle hypothesizing that it was due to the rapid spread of the cancer. But when I looked at Charlie's face, it looked years, no decades younger. He looked like he was in his early thirties, maybe even younger. "Carlisle!" I called just above my normal speaking voice knowing that if he was anywhere within a two mile radius from the house he'd hear it and come at once. I wasn't surprised when he entered the room less than a minute later.
"What's wrong?" Carlisle asked as soon as he entered, looking around the room.
"Look at Charlie," I said in a shocked voice as I pointed at him.
"Well I'll be," Carlisle whispered as he went closer to examine Charlie. "I always wondered what would happen when a vampire who was younger tried to change someone. I guess now we have the answer."
"What's he talking about," Bella asked to me as she had went with Tanya and Carmen to see Charlie while Eleazar and I remained talking about Charlie's gift.
"Your dad's getting younger. Like Carlisle said, every changed human was always bitten by an older vampire; this is the first time that Carlisle is aware of where the human was older."
"But you're a lot older than my dad," Bella said confused.
I wondered if she forget that two of those who did bite Charlie were much younger than he was, and also I and Heidi both were frozen at a much younger age. In addition, no one was really sure about what would happen when Renesmee bit someone.
We were interrupted from our conversation by sounds of groaning coming from Charlie. It was way too early for his change to be finished; Bella's was one of the most rapid ones on record, and even that took just over two days. Charlie was first bitten about 36 hours ago, so that meant at least another 12 hours of it.
"Bella," Charlie groaned out. A few more moans came from him, but he never did open his eyes.
Bella whooshed to her father's side to hold his hand. "I'm right here dad. What's wrong?" She asked concerned about the agony she had to assume he was feeling, but Charlie's thoughts were almost too clear to me now. Like before he was in discomfort, but with the help of our family it was nowhere near agony.
"Nothing's wrong, kiddo. Actually in not too long everything will be perfect." Charlie said as he breathed in deeply through his nose, with the pleasant scents he was taking in to his rapidly expanding brain with his newly developed senses pleasing him immensely. "Hmm, roses and hyacinth, and," he sniffed again, and his face contorted in the agony of an unpleasant smell, "Bella, do the Cullens have a dog?"
Everyone in the room laughed, realizing what Charlie had smelled. "Kind of," Bella answered her father as she rubbed his hair. By now, Tanya had joined Bella with her father, with her holding Charlie's left hand. "Jacob's about as loyal as one."
"That's Jacob?" Charlie said completely confused. "It stinks like a wet dog."
"Welcome to our world," Rosalie kidded with a smile on her face. She turned to Esme and added, "I told you we'd never get the smell out. Even someone who's only half conscious can tell."
There was assorted laughter throughout the room at Rosalie's quip, and Charlie let out another contented sigh. He still hadn't opened his eyes, so I assumed that his vision hadn't improved like his other senses. But now a new scent was catching his nose, one that was so familiar to me I knew it just by his thoughts. "Bells, is someone cutting limes or something like that?"
Bella smiled. Ever since her transformation that had been her primary scent. "No dad, that's me."
Charlie let a small grin show as well. Carlisle and I were still in shock from how easily Charlie's transformation was proceeding. I ran though Carlisle's thoughts again and he still was trying to find a way to explain it. I had a theory that I would ask about later, but not now. This was a time for telling Charlie about his new life; one that he had chosen with his own free will. I still couldn't believe that; that someone would voluntarily choose this life, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised about Charlie since Bella had done the same thing too.
I looked at Tanya who was in shock at the simple beauty of Charlie's younger and more perfect face. Any signs of aging that were present had disappeared and now the angles were become more defined and sharper. I nodded at Tanya when she thought if she should go sit next to Charlie, since she was falling even more in love with him by the minute.
Charlie sniffed again and a large grin crossed his lips as he picked up a new scent coming closer to him, in addition to now distinguishing the subtleties in all of our scents. Lilac, jasmine, and an even sweeter smell now overtook Charlie's senses; Tanya's strawberry one.
"Hi Charlie," Tanya said softly, allowing her voice to shine in all of its supernatural glory. A larger smile was on Charlie's face as he realized who was here as well. "How are you doing with all of this?"
Charlie's voice had gotten raspier from the thirst he was beginning to feel. It had yet to become more genteel and intoxicating. "Okay, all things considered," he said as his brain began to process his newly discovered thirst for the first time.
"Carlisle, will you come with me for a moment please?" I asked. I had an idea I wanted to try, and if Charlie would be willing, it might help speed his transformation even more. He nodded at me and we began to leave the room.
Charlie lifted his head and sniffed. It was apparent that he could tell from our scents that someone was leaving. "Where you goin'?" He asked.
"We'll be back in a moment. There's something I need to ask Carlisle."
We left the room and I immediately asked Carlisle about my idea. "What do you think we try to feed Charlie now?"
"I don't think he'll want human food any more," Carlisle answered me softly, both of us trying to keep our voices down, "and even though I have some O-neg here, I don't think we want to start him on human blood, even if it is donated."
I shook my head. "We also have some animal blood that I picked up from slaughterhouses. I was thinking more about trying that."
"Oh," Carlisle said embarrassed, "you think he's already thirsty? He hadn't even finished his transformation."
"True, but how many newborns are calm enough during the change to be talking so rationally during it?" I could hear the thoughts crossing Carlisle's mind. He was as curious as I was. "Why don't we at least try it and see; I think it might help him adopt the vegetarian lifestyle if he is started on animal blood early."
"We can ask him, but I wouldn't want to force him into anything. What he will be is his choice."
Yet again, I shook my head. "You know him better than that; his moral compass is very strong. He'll do anything he has to do to keep all the humans in Forks safe, even starve himself like you tried to in London."
Carlisle agreed with me and the two of us went to the refrigerator where I had been storing a few liters of various types of animal blood; mostly bovine and porcine. "What do you think we should start with, cow or pig?" I mused softly to Carlisle before grabbing one of the packets of pig's blood.
We returned to the room that could best be described as our infirmary. Immediately upon our entry, all of the vampires began to salivate from the smell of the blood. Carlisle would be the one to ask, "Charlie, we'd like to try something with you, if that's okay."
"Sure. I trust all of you," he answered back, his voice still incredibly raspy sounding as if his throat was parched.
"It might not seem pleasant, but we'd like you to at least try some pig's blood. It might help sooth your throat."
Charlie grimaced at first, not realizing exactly why we were asking him this. The thought of drinking blood scared him at first, but he remembered when he saw Alice and Esme hunt deer a few years ago. He remembered that he would so be like all of us, including sharing our thirst, and agreed. "If you think it'll help," Charlie groaned out, for the first time thinking about his thirst.
I cut open a small slit in the side of the bag and gently held it to his lips. His first thoughts about the taste was it was sour and bitter, but slowly I could hear Charlie think his throat was becoming soothed. He quickly downed the entire liter. "Umm," he sighed contented, "that was kind of good."
His thoughts never even suspected that he had just drank blood for the first time; all he could process was the burning in his throat had subsided for the moment. Then his thoughts clarified again. I could hear that the burning was already starting to end. His change was about to enter the final, and most painful stage. His rebirth was imminent.
(Marcus)
I still wondered why Aro had insisted that I accompany Dimitri to Brazil. The search for the experimenter could have been completed without me. Although it was extremely pleasant to get out of Volterra for a short while and explore the new world. How I had missed that.
We quickly found Nahuel and his aunt, Hulien in our quest to find the one truly responsible for their creation. But other than the names of Nahuel's other siblings, there was no way to get any lead on their father. Dimitri could not even begin to find a trail to him. He tried for two days to gain a start towards his half-sisters hoping that alone would enable him to begin to track. We never even could actually learn his name. The only thing I was sure of was this half-breed despised his father.
When we retuned to our home, I couldn't help but notice a lot of idle chatter among many members of the guard. It seemed that my brothers had been quite busy in the two weeks I had been gone. Some of our more gifted fighters were hoping for some action in the very near future, the result I gathered of some new law that Aro had devised in the time I had been gone.
"What is the meaning of this?" I demanded to Santiago, one of the loudest voices hoping for a fight.
"Nothing, sir," Santiago said, I assumed trying to conceal the reason I was sent away.
"Do you really want to lie to me?" I snapped as I threw a piece of parchment across the table at Santiago. "Now tell me the meaning of this." The paper contained a proposed law that would ban the creation of newborns. I wasn't completely opposed to the measure, what with the event in the past but the timing seemed suspect. There hadn't been any rash of killings by newborns in more than five years.
Santiago either didn't know the actual reasons, or was prohibited from telling me. It no longer mattered to me; if my brothers didn't see fit to tell me their motives, then I was prepared to do something I should have a long time ago. The death of my beloved made me stay for the time being, and since then the desire to leave had not crossed my mind. However, since our encounter with the Cullens a few years ago, I had grown suspicious of my comrades true motives. The way that their coven lived intrigued me and their ties were stronger than any that Chelsea could break or create.
Santiago would not tell me anything, so I softly growled at him. What very few knew about me was that I was an extremely skilled fighter in the past. Even still, taking on a warrior of his caliber would have been an interesting match, but I was not interested in actual combat at this time. Fighting all of the guard, even without Jane and Alec was something that I would be sure to fail at, but if I could take out the other ancients, my former brothers, then my death would be worth it. I knew that as we had replaced the Romanians, surely someone would replace us in upholding the laws necessary to our kind.
My final thought in the presence of our guard, was of the human Bella. Secrecy might not be necessary for eternity, but the only way that one day we might be able to expose ourselves would be if we all adopted the diet of the Cullens. I was not opposed to trying this, since Heidi had been beginning to abduct more people with the growth of the guard. It was becoming clear to me that these actions were unjust, and I needed to change my ways. Carlisle was right; we all had a choice to make, and I had made the wrong one.