A/N – Update, update, Update, UPDATE, Update, update! Alright, so this is a nice long one. Yes I have been listening—I am trying to make the chapters longer. Though this one would've been longer anyway. The words practically flew out of my fingertips whenever I got time to work on this (in fact I'm surprised I got it done so quickly, with NaNoWriMo this month and all... which I completed, btw!) so I hope you enjoy it. I have to say that it has been one of the most difficult, yet easiest and most rewarding chapter to write so far—the moment we've been waiting chapters for. I hope it lives up to expectations!

Once again, to those of you who take the time to review: I can't thank you enough. You are wonderful, keep it up!!!

The dark. Darkness was good. It was cool and gentle and quiet. She liked the dark.

The light. Light was bad. It stabbed and burned, it was vicious and cruel. She did not like the light. She hated it.

There were only two people in her world: the light man and the dark man.

"It will be worth it," the man in the light told her, the stilted words a threat spoken in that harsh voice.

"I'm sorry," the man in the darkness crooned, "I'm trying to help; I wish I could make the pain go away."

She liked the dark man. He was kind to her. He held her when fear made her numb; stroked her hair when she hurt all over; talked to her like she understood, even when she no longer could. He was Baal, her comforter in the dark, who was there even when she forgot her own name.

But even he couldn't protect her from the light.

"I can't do anything," he defended himself when she glared reproachfully in his direction.

She never saw him; she hardly saw anything now, only overwhelming bright light or blanketing blackness. He was the dark. His gentle caresses—those frigid fingers, that stone cold chest—were the only evidence that he even had a body.

His fingers were in her hair now. It was the longest it had been in years, though she didn't know that. She couldn't remember anything. But he had just told her that her hair was long enough that the nurse would have to cut it again soon.

"But not yet," he'd murmured, fingering the several-inch-long strands.

She huffed a surprised breath of pain when his hand barely brushed over her temple. Throbbing pain; a knife stabbing the same inch of skin again and again. Sunbursts flashed with each thrust. She cringed and whimpered.

"Sshhhh..."

His cold hands rested on each side of her face. The dark was cold. It leached away the remnants of light-pain. She didn't know if her eyes were open or closed. It made no difference. The cold hands numbed her face and her body became heavy. She took a rattling breath.

Thank-you for being my friend.

oOo

She was getting worse. Frustrated, he smashed his fist into a tree as he passed. He was a block away before he heard it crash to the ground behind him. Why wasn't the treatment working like it should? Already he had been able to release one of his patients from the asylum, declaring them fully cured of their mental ailments. A man who had had imaginary friends that told him to do dangerous deeds went home to his family and was able to interact with others. He could now spend his remaining years with his children and grandchildren.

Of course, the rest of his patients had only progressed to a stage where they no longer screamed and raged in their rooms, their minds blissfully blank. But not Mary Alice.

He knew he could save her. After a year and a half of treatment, she no longer had visions portending doom and destruction. She also no longer spoke; yet her dark eyes still reflected comprehension, she still whimpered from the temporary pain from each and every treatment, she still struggled to remember her horrifying past. And death still did not cling to her bony ribcage, to seep into his senses and tempt him to feast before it was too late.

What did it mean, that she smelled only of life and endurance? That, despite the delicate state of her failing human body, the death-stench did not stake its claim on her and announce to him when it would take her as its own?

He was on his way to the hospital again, to satiate his thirst. He didn't like to be away from Mary Alice for any length of time, now, but he had let the fire in his throat rage at a dangerous heat. She would be safe from harm—her room was the safest in the entire asylum now.

The hunt was short and barely satisfying. But it was enough to soothe the burning for a few more days. Spending so much time around ill humans had made him accustomed to ignoring the fiery heat of the venom. But the work he did was his way of repaying the deaths that sustained his existence.

Balint followed his own scent back to the asylum, letting his nose guide him through the dark while his mind was on other things. When he reached the tree he had felled earlier that evening, an unfamiliar scent hit him like a musket ball to the face.

His nose flared and his head whipped around, taking in his surroundings. The night noises of the forest screamed in his sensitive ears—birds fluffed their feathers against the cold, a family of squirrels shifted restlessly in their sleep, frogs in a brook a mile away grunted at each other in an echoing round. There was nothing unusual to see or hear. And yet the immortal-sweet stench of another vampire, coming from the west before mingling with his own, assaulted his senses.

He usually avoided the company of his own kind; the eternal aura which hung around vampires offended him. It was the smell of sin. And this was the greediest, the most lustful and gluttonous scent he had ever encountered. The vampire it belonged to took all that it coveted and more from humanity and did nothing to repay his hefty debt.

Balint's stomach twisted and curled. He did not want to meet the being to whom this scent belonged. It wasn't hard to see what had happened—this nomad had been come across his scent in his roaming, noticed how well worn this path was, and followed the trail back...

... to Whitefield.

His legs began to move at double time. The nomad was probably just lonely from a long solitary hunt, and might have moved on without trouble when Balint avoided contact. But he would doubtless find it curious that the trail led back to a mental hospital, possibly curious enough to snoop around the place. And if he did that, he'd certainly be led to the most visited room in the asylum: Mary Alice's cell.

The deep dark of the trees began to lift and Balint curved around toward the left, following the trail left by his visitor. With relief, he noticed that it lead toward the east wing, where his office was. On the opposite side of the hospital to Mary Alice.

An outcrop of oaks reached toward the walls of the east wing, like a green finger straining to stroke the red bricks. From the edge of the trees, Balint could see his office window. The silhouette of a man was a black hole against the dark room.

"This is a rather nice set-up you have here," the shadow commented.

The shadow disappeared from the window, and a man landed in a shallow crouch in front of Balint. He was very average-looking—what passed for ugly amongst vampires—and his voice was mildly polite. But something wild glinted behind his ruby eyes.

"Thank-you," Balint replied, wary.

The sickeningly saccharine scent which meant that he was very well fed rolled off him in waves. The smell was created by the chemical reaction of the venom to blood, which was what gave vampires such great strength. It was a much more efficient way to produce energy than eating food; instantaneous, like photosynthesis in a plant.

"I wonder, would you mind showing me around?"

He took several steps to the south, keeping to the edge of the trees. It was the way Balint had come when he returned to his office before going on the hunt that night. The quickest way to Mary Alice's room. His eyes hardened.

"I do mind, actually," he bit out. "Might I first ask who you are? And what you are doing here?"

The other man smiled mildly, and his teeth flashed briefly in the moonlight. He took another couple of steps, and Balint was forced to move with him to keep him within reaching distance, should the need to restrain him arise.

"I'm sorry, how rude of me not to introduce myself," he held out a hand to Balint, which he shook reluctantly. "I am James. I was on my way to the coast—back to the bigger population, you understand—when I crossed your path."

He was silent for a moment, except for the brush of his feet against the leafy ground. The predatory glint in his eyes shone a little brighter than before as he examined Balint's expression.

"It's not often one finds a vampire who stays in the one area long enough to create such permanent paths. I thought I'd stop to say hello. Introduce myself."

Balint restrained the growl that built in his throat; they were drawing closer to the west wing of the asylum. But he made no effort to force his face into a friendlier expression, either. No other vampires were welcome in his existence—already he felt like the smell of immortality was choking him.

"You have done so," he murmured. "Now I would prefer that you leave this place. I do not appreciate visitors."

James continued to walk at a leisurely pace and Balint was forced to shadow him, until they stopped just outside Mary Alice's window. James looked up at the building, his eyes following the path of Balint's scent to the barred and bolted window. Though it looked secure to human eyes, Balint knew it must be obvious that the bars had been loosened so that he could get easily in and out. James grinned.

"Is this where you bring your victims before you feed, then?" he asked, judging the distance with his eyes. Balint could smell the venom pooling in James' mouth. "What is on the menu tonight? I should very much like to try a..."

Balint attacked, moving to hold him back in his arms, crush him, but James had already sprung toward the wall. He leapt after him, but he knew he was too late—pure desire transformed the plain face into a mask that terrified even Balint, who had seen more than his share of horror. Grabbing hold of the windowsill with only one hand, he shoved James off the building with the all his strength; the bars that the fiend had been gripping came out in his hands, like twisted straws.

A feral growl ripped from James' throat and he tried to jump for the window again, but Balint managed to wrestle him back into the trees, deep enough that they wouldn't disturb the humans. At the last minute, James wrenched himself free from Balint's unrelenting grip and stalked away in the direction he'd been steering him.

His breath came in short bursts, but it took Balint a moment to realise that his breathlessness was not due to shock and anger, but excitement. When he turned, the faint glimmer of danger in James' eye blazed like a furnace in his entire face; his expression was manic.

"Such a scent!" he exclaimed, still breathing feverishly. "How do you resist such a siren call? To drink that sweet elixir would be—"

Balint hissed and closed the distance that had grown between them, staying directly between Mary Alice and the monster who would steal her pecularly enduring life force. James crouched forward defensively, then pulled himself back with a vicious snarl.

But Balint didn't let up; his eyes watched James' every move as he sauntered further into the trees and turned back just before he was out of sight.

"This does not end here," he hissed, and Balint could hear the raw need in his voice. "I have won this game many times before—you will not win, old one."

And when James disappeared into the darkness, Balint did not hesitate. He turned and ran, back to protect Mary Alice from death.

oOo

He would have her.

James paced in the trees, on the very fringes of the forest so that he would not be spotted by a passing human. It was unusually sunny; he could not risk making a move until dark. He paused and looked at the window in the fire red wall, and he imagined he could smell the sweet scent of her blood wafting to him on the gentle breeze.

His throat burned, his entire body ached with the need to taste that divinest of liqueurs. The scent promised to be his one chance, the only blood that could fully quench his constant parching thirst.

That she was guarded by another only made her more desirable. He'd encountered this before—immortals who had formed some peculiar attachment to a human and were adverse to taking their life, content to watch the miserable creature live out it's miserably short life. Pathetic really, but it did make interesting sport for him. And this old one would be easy to defeat; almost not even worth the effort, except for that delectable blood...

He grinned, and a stray beam of sunlight glinted off his teeth. The sun was about to set and it would be dark soon. And in a few short hours, then he would have her all to himself to enjoy.

oOo

Mary Alice had still been traumatized after her last electro-convulsive treatment when he came to her room in the dark hours of the morning, and she had cried out and struggled when he tried to soothe her. After two hours, she was finally asleep for the moment, her hair a dark halo around her pinched face. She was so tiny that it was difficult to believe that she was nineteen years old.

He looked away and stalked silently to the window, a faint hiss of pain escaping through his teeth. Why was life so cruel—hadn't she already been dealt a bad enough hand? To be shunned, never accepted by family or friends her entire life, then suffer so much here in this asylum, only to be ravaged for her blood. Surely fate did not intend to end this young woman's life before she had the chance to live it.

But how else could this predicament end?

A butterfly flitted past the window, within easy reach through the bars. Balint knew that if he touched it, he could stroke its wings without even disturbing the loose pigment which gave it such a vibrant orange hue. He also knew, should he twist his fingers just gently, he could crush the delicate creature into unrecognisable powder.

"What can I do?" he whispered, listening to the fitful rasp of Mary Alice's breath as she slept. "I intended only to lift your burden, give you back the life you deserve to live. But instead I have sealed your doom."

She didn't answer, but there was no need. He knew the question she would surely want the answer to, the only one she ever asked that he had never answered, though she asked it again and again. The perfect recall of his memory pulled her voice out of the dark that still claimed the room in the oncoming dawn.

"Are you my friend?"

He winced as the cracked words in his memory stabbed his dead heart; the uncertainty in her voice as she formed the word—friend... friend... friend—was a physical force. But he could never answer her when she asked, could never find the words to explain to her why he came to this room night after night and tried so hard to atone for an ill he didn't cause.

"You draw me to you," he said again, desperation in his voice. "I tell myself not to, but I continue to return here, to you."

He could hear her heart and breathing stutter, watched through the pale dark that stymied her eyes as she struggled to sit up. She stared blindly in the direction of his voice, whimpers of pain already beginning again in the back of her throat. He took a deep breath, wondering again at how alive her smell was despite how close her death loomed.

And suddenly, he knew what he had to do.

He darted to her side and her frail fingers clutched at his shirt as he gathered her in his arms familiarly. She was so trusting. Her whimpering had already escalated to a piteous keen, but he couldn't tell if it was her usual pain or if she somehow sensed what he had in store for her.

But what kind of friend would allow her to die at the hands of a sadistic monster intent on murdering her for her blood, when he had the means to spare her?

"And it seems," he told her sadly, "that I am fated to be your friend, at the end."

He would have preferred to do this somewhere more secluded, where he could be sure that his deed would not be discovered. But he knew James would be out there already, prepared to attack at any moment, and this was the only way he could be stopped. If Balint did not act now, it would be too late for her.

She cried out once when he nuzzled his face into her neck and bit down hard, and again on her wrists. It was over in only a few seconds; the longest of his existence. Hands shaking like leaves in a high storm, he slid her out of his lap and cringed at the other end of the room to get away from the delicious warmth she emanated.

Without the taint of death, her blood tasted unnaturally sweet on his tongue. But instead of tempting him to go back and drink, it gave him a sudden insight. This was why the death-stench did not cling to her—she was always destined to become immortal.

The pitch of her keening moan moved up an octave, but she seemed otherwise oblivious to the significant increase of her physical pain as the venom began to spread through her veins. He clearly remembered every second of his tortuous transformation, and he was strangely grateful for all that Mary Alice had already suffered, preparing her for this moment.

Eventually, he moved back to her bed, pulling her into his cold embrace as she continued to writhe in blistering agony. He would not be able to keep her here for the whole three or four days it would take for the venom to completely sear through her body, but he hoped that tonight she would be far enough along to be safe from James. He would guard her until the safe darkness of night returned and then he would take her and run somewhere far away, where she would be safe from harm and could not unintentionally hurt another.

oOo

When the sun finally set, Balint carefully stood from the bed and paced toward the window. He'd been with Mary Alice all day—he told the nurses that she had fallen unexpectedly ill and he would see no other patients today—on the off chance that James would risk exposure to the sun. That would be all he needed right now, to get the Volturi mixed up in this mess. In the falling dark, he searched the grounds for a sign of James' approach.

The faintest vibration in the trees below told him that James was just outside, and waiting for a sign of weakness. He gathered a struggling Mary Alice in his arms securely and for a moment he wished he had something nice for her to put on when she woke up. The inadequate warmth of her thin grey shift wouldn't matter soon, but it was a pity that she would have to see the holes around her name which she'd gnawed while she suffered in this hell hole.

She cried out in a random expression of the agony he was sure raged inside. He hoped, with sudden vehemence, that she wouldn't remember anything about it when she awoke to her new life—if anyone deserved to start afresh, she did.

It was time. He gripped her tightly, aware of her every bone and sinew, and moved to the window. With a swift strike of his foot, the bars clattered out of their loose stone holdings and he heard the stifled gasp of anticipation from the trees to the right.

Balint had endured through centuries. He was getting old, even by vampire standards, and had many lifetimes' worth of knowledge and skill. But he was not a fighter—had never been—and he knew that if it came to a physical confrontation it was highly unlikely that he would win. He had no doubt that James had outwitted many vampires with much greater defences than he.

But he would certainly give this young upstart a run for his money. He leapt from the window and landed easily four hundred feet into the forest, not even pausing to get his bearings before he was weaving through the trees at an incredible speed. He would find a safe place to hide her, where she would be undisturbed while the venom finished healing and perfecting her tiny body, and then he would face whatever consequences James had in store for him.

He wasn't afraid of what might happen to him. It mattered only that Mary Alice escaped unscathed. That she would live. Already she had begun to smell unbearably sweet.

oOo

Light. She was in agony, and she screamed for it to stop. It burned! But when the lightening was gone it still hurt. Everywhere. Bright light. Pain. Stop!

Dark. It was cool and silent. Cold hands stroked though her hair. She still hurt everywhere. Random flashes behind her eyelids made her quiver and shout.

Soon she was alone.

Light flashed. Disappeared. Light. And gone again. Dark.

The hands came back. Cold. Flashing light paused. She slept. Oblivion. His voice was smooth and dark and made her calm. Dark. Cold. Pain....

Heat.

Still dark, but invisible light burned. First her neck. Then her wrists. It burned. Hot dark. But cold fingers returned. Fire within. Ice without. Both burning.

Darker. Hotter.

She had no more screams. She tried anyway. Heat. Dark. Pain. Cold.

Wind. Flying... to heaven? It was cool. But dark. And fire still burned inside.

Still again. But agony. She screamed. It did not hide the loud cracks and screeches. Or the shout, whispered in her ear.

"—Alice."