Chapter 10: First Burn

The ashes of Ingrid were found by Stephan at her favorite hunting grounds. Her murderers had hung her torn ball gown in the trees above her pyre to taunt us. The idea that someone had done such a thing, and then taunted us with it, was infuriating, and all of the vampires of New York wanted revenge, even me.

We prepared for war for two months. I was torn by my double life, acting as if all were normal during the day while I took care of the sisters and worked on stocks. Then at night, I became a vampire and searched the city for intruders or practiced fighting with the others. I was on guard every second of those two months.

My only solace was found in the many library books that cluttered my floor. History, science, philosophy, fictional works, and style magazines littered my room as I read and processed all the information that had been missing due to my memory. My mind absorbed it all like a thirsty sponge. Even with the threat of war, I roared with laughter as I read about vampires and other mythical beasts in my room as the sun rose. Marianne was right; they thought we could be destroyed by sticks and vegetables. Bats indeed!

The extra activity and impending threat caused my visions to go into overdrive. With practice, I found that I could shift between the world of the present and the world of the possible future with more ease than I had ever thought possible, especially when I was fighting. While we fought, I could make my visions show me the next move of my opponent just before the strike occurred. At first, the double images were difficult to understand and gave me a piercing headache. They were so distracting that I lost several matches before I was finally able to use the rapid series of visions that overlaid what was really occurring at the moment. Eventually, I learned to block, deflect, and attack effectively. Even a snapshot of what was coming was often enough to fight any opponent. It was wonderfully fun to fight, especially since Gregorio found my speed and ability particularly annoying.

"How do you do that?" growled Gregorio after I had avoided his lunge, ducked between his legs, and hopped on his back in a tenth of a second.

"You're just too big to catch me," I laughed and jumped from his back, avoiding the swipe he took at me. "If you think I fight well, you should see me dance."

Marianne, Lena, and Annette were all giggling behind us. Gregorio was showing the ladies how to use our smaller size to our benefit, and my prowess was giving the girls no end of amusement.

"You know, it's a pity you didn't stay in the South, your skills would be truly appreciated down there," snickered Paul.

"Well, I could go back if you don't want me here..." I replied.

"No, no, you are an amazingly good addition to our little group," Paul quickly amended. "I would be willing to keep you even if you couldn't fight; your gift for money is enough to make me build you a house on Long Island."

He had been trying to join me to one of the city's covens since we had first met. Because of his gift, he was very persuasive, but I just could not commit myself to a coven, not when he was out there somewhere.

"Oooo, a house is a great idea! Where shall we put it?" I teased.

"Next to ours, of course. I would love to have your hunches around on a daily basis. We might even be able to put up with your annoying habits so long as you keep guessing right on the market."

"What did you ever do without me?" I laughed back.

"He did badly, for the most part, at least in money," teased George. "You know, for someone so tiny, you sure do cause a lot of trouble. I've never met a vampire like you before, its almost scary how well you fight. It's such a waste that you don't eat human, you'd be unstoppable."

"I'm unstoppable without the human diet, thank you very much." I had beaten him twice. We had been over my diet several times in the past two months because they wanted me to be strong for the fight, and they refused to believe I could be as strong as them without the benefit of human blood. I heard a loud "Harrumph" from Chi-Yang's direction. Chi-Yang was absolutely sure that I was just going to rot away or drop dead without a proper diet, and it was really starting to bother him that I could fight so well.

"Have we found anything else out about the murders?" asked Michael, who I found out was just fifteen when he was changed. He was now about four hundred years old, and very serious. The look of serious concern was totally out of place on his boyish face.

His question stopped all the jovial banter and brought us back to the very real threat we faced. One of our own and many humans had died from these unknown murderers, and all of us were on edge already. In fact, our joking was the only way to keep sane when we all wanted revenge so badly. If we didn't laugh, we ended up fighting each other for real.

"The local police may call in the feds if they can't figure out who's behind everything. They still think it is all mob related because of the mob hits that keep occurring. I am absolutely sure that if we don't find an answer to this soon, we will have an all out mob war on our hands as well," answered an equally concerned Paul. The fact that we hadn't come any closer to finding any of the newcomers was very frustrating for him, and us all. We had been running searches constantly across the city and by now had all caught the scents of the others, but they seemed to vanish into thin air whenever we got close.

"Ve are sure dis is a southern coven, den?" asked Ivan. "It could be the Volturi you know." After living through Russian Czars and the Russian Revolution, he didn't trust any form of authority.

"The Volturi don't want New York, and we are close allies with them in organized crime control. Perhaps we should ask for their help, though," replied Gregorio. He hated it when anyone questioned the Volturi.

My visions weren't helping much either. I could see hazy images of intruders, but I couldn't get a good enough vision to help us. I thought that, perhaps, it was because I just didn't know what to look for.

"I don't want to bring in the Volturi if we can help it," said Paul.

"I don't trust them to stay out after they intervene," added Mai-Li. Neither she nor her mate trusted the Volturi either, and the tension was palpable between them and Gregorio.

"Let's finish the searches tonight, and then we'll see what we can do to force their hand," said Paul. He didn't like being in a weaker position and forcing a fight, but it seemed that the others would not face us openly.

We went roof-running to the outskirts of the city again, and began to work our way back into the city heading towards Times Square in groups of three or four. No one went anywhere at night alone. I was with Brittany and Michael, and twice our group got a good scent, but lost it at a sewer opening. The sewers did a good job of hiding any scent left behind. It was almost as if they knew where we were and what we were doing.

I stopped short. What if they do know?

"What is it Alice?" asked Brittany. She and Michael came over and sniffed the air thinking I had found a scent.

"I think we've gone about this all wrong," I began, understanding dawning on me. "We keep thinking they are just trying to provoke us and pick a fight, but what if they don't need to?"

"What do you mean?" asked the ever serious Michael, the concerned look deepening on his face.

"What if they already know what we are doing? What if they don't need to pick a fight because they can avoid us any time they want because they know where we are going to be?"

"An inside job?" whispered Brittany.

"Yes, or maybe a vampire with a gift. They would only need a little information to be able to totally avoid us." I was torn, as always, about letting them know the full extent of my gift, but I just couldn't bring myself to tell them the whole truth. I still didn't feel like I was a truly part of this community. "If I can tell what will work with money, maybe someone can tell where we are going to be. I don't think any of us would work with another coven to take over, do you?"

"It's happened before," stated Michael. "Over the last hundred years, we have been betrayed and attacked in every way possible, so your ideas have merit. It would explain why they haven't stuck at us directly, and how they are avoiding us. There are at least seven or eight individuals, and probably several more - you don't take on New York unless you are prepared for a big fight - so that would explain how they are staying hidden. Let's finish here, and then we'll get back to Long Island and talk with the others."

oo||oXo||oo

"She came up with it?" growled Chi-Yang. He really didn't like me.

"It does explain why we can't catch these others," soothed Annette, "and perhaps it isn't a vampire that has turned against us, but maybe one of the humans we use."

Paul was standing looking at the ceiling and trying to concentrate. I could tell that he had already come up with the possibility of a traitor by his expression when Brittany and I told him of my epiphany. He was less than pleased to hear my thoughts.

"Well, we can't go about suspecting each other, we need to be united to fight this other coven, and suspicion is all it takes to break up the tightest alliance," he said, looking pointedly at Chi-Yang.

"We already knew it might be an inside job. We have been betrayed that way before. They came after Alice arrived, perhaps they are connected to our newcomer," Chi-Yang spat back.

"Michael would have told us," replied Brittany in a cold tone. She and I had become close over the last two months.

I looked at her curiously as she spoke, and then turned to Michael. "What would you have told them?"

"That you were lying to us," he said flatly. "You don't always speak the whole truth, but there is no detectable deception in your words," he smiled slightly as if in apology. "I can detect a lie. It's why I was changed."

"I don't always know the whole truth," I replied. That, at least, was truer than I wanted it to be.

"We should all meet back here Friday night," began Paul. He seemed to think his next statement through. "And we will bring up the two options. It is clear that we either have a snitch or a very dangerous vampire to deal with, and either way, it's going to up the ante in a fight. No one says anything about this outside of this room," he looked at the three others and then shot me a piercing glare. I hadn't noticed how much his leadership had formed the way I felt around him. I had always felt secure in his presence, but now his glare pierced me through and made me feel utterly wretched. "We don't need the others to start suspecting each other until Michael and I can sort this through. Don't worry Chi-Yang, we will not leave any stone unturned," he responded to the low guttural growl that was coming from Chi-Yang's chest. He was glaring in my direction.

I was now one of the key suspects in these murders, and an icy chill spread down my spine. For the first time in New York, I knew I was truly in danger.

I had spent the next two days going about my activities more like a machine than a living being. Every instinct told me to leave the city, but I just couldn't. I wanted to protect my friends, but more than that, I could not leave Paul. Belatedly, I now realized how formidable Paul's gift truly was. I hadn't even thought of trouble since he became my friend; I simply trusted him to make the right choice. Now that he wasn't sure of me, I couldn't seem to be sure of myself. I couldn't trust myself to make a decision, even though I knew it was right.

My uncertainty even affected my visions. There was a hint of something in the future, not a vision, but an increasing sense of loss. Without an accompanying vision, it was infuriatingly frustrating to try to nail down why the feeling was growing. Was it the fight? Chi-Yang's obvious hatred of me? Paul's distrust? Was someone I knew going to die? My thoughts kept returning to the two sisters living down below.

For their part, Edwina and Myrtle were content and happy. Over the last three months, our wealth had grown exponentially, and Edwina was overjoyed. Also, several of my new friends had come to visit me, mostly out of curiosity, and had met the two sisters. The men had outnumbered the women, and Myrtle couldn't be happier. I wondered if I should stage a wedding just for her, she would love that.

My thoughts, though, kept returning to the single one who I could never truly see but must never lose. I understood the visions of him better now, thanks to the fight training and lessons on vampire tactics. He was a soldier who fought other vampires, but that wasn't all. He would turn on his compatriots at times and kill them en masse. He seemed to mostly fight with newborns and then, kill the ones that survived. The very thought made me sick.

When Paul had told us about the murderous tactics of the southern covens, my visions of my future mate came into sharp detail. He hated it, he hated killing the new ones, the ones he had fought with, but he did it anyway. Why? The question haunted my mind. Why did he do it, why did he fight and kill and destroy? The vampire I loved was as monstrous and murderous as the invading coven.

Monster - how I hated the word that described who I saw. How could this precious one be a monster?

I didn't want to think about it, so I turned my attention to the latest Harper's Bazaar and flipped through the pages angrily.

Too soon, it was time to go and meet Paul. I decided to get to Long Island earlier than necessary to meet whatever fate was in store for me. I was sure that if Paul still believed in me, I would remain safe, but I could no longer be sure of Paul's feelings towards me. I could not run away, though. Perhaps the strongest evidence of Paul's gift was the fact that I couldn't even consider leaving, even with the coven's distrust. Not only that, but I felt a strong sense of protectiveness for these covens. Like Charles had said so long ago, we are rather territorial.

"Hey ladies," I called as happily as I could as I went downstairs, "I am going out for the evening. Please don't stay up for me; I don't know how late I'll be out." Or if I'll return.

Myrtle's huge glasses turned to me and she smiled. "More friends? You have such a busy social life, Alice. It's almost scandalous."

"Indeed it is," agreed Edwina, "Are you any closer to settling down with one of the gentlemen callers? Myrtle and I are very worried about your reputation."

Great, now they were beginning to wonder about my morals. It didn't matter that I could kill a stadium full of people just for fun, no, staying out late as a single woman was morally wrong.

"Don't worry about me," I laughed, "I can take care of myself." And any army that needs help. "Besides, I am going out with Paul and Annette." The sisters loved them.

"Oh, then have a good time dear," cooed Myrtle as she turned her attention back to the wireless. Just then, I realized that they were listening to a baseball game, and the vision took me.

He was in a field at night, the full moon shimmered off his skin, and for the first time, he looked almost happy. There were a few others around him, but all I could focus on was his scarred face and now, finally, life lit eyes. He was twirling a piece of wood. "Come on, Peter, you have to do better than that," he yelled at a running blur.

His voice.

It was a deep and resonant bass. It was beautiful, he was beautiful.

"Out," someone yelled in my vision, and I could just make out something about a small, white ball. "Okay, Jasper Whitlock, you do better," said a blond vampire, and he punched Jasper hard as he passed.

Jasper Whitlock. His name is Jasper.

Jasper stepped up to the plate, twirled the bat one more time, and then hit an invisible ball with a thunderous crack that sounded like it split the wood of the bat. The vision faded.

Suddenly, I didn't care about coven wars, psychic vampires, or whether I would die. I didn't care about anything except what I had just seen.

Jasper. And I heard his voice. I heard him!

I rushed out onto the roofs of New York and looked up at the almost full moon. The vision would take place in a few days. It was almost, not quite, but almost like he was close enough for me to touch, and the longing would have ripped me apart if it wasn't for the joy that now raged through my entire being. I hated the fact that I didn't have a clue as to where he was, but I rejoiced in his happiness. I rejoiced in seeing him act like a normal, happy vampire. I rejoiced in his name as I chanted it across the rooftops. I don't think my feet actually touched the roofs as I ran to meet my fate.

I didn't go directly to Long Island, but rather ran for an hour, just for the joy of the run. I stopped at Paul's door thirty minutes before the meeting was to begin. Part of my mind was screaming at me to run away and try to find Jasper on my own, and part of it was sure that Paul would do the right thing. I struggled with both parts as I stood there and tried desperately to get a vision of me leaving out the same door, but the infuriatingly erratic things wouldn't cooperate. Maybe it was because I was flat out angry that my anxiety over the meeting was overshadowing my joy over the vision. It just wasn't fair. I was finally happy about something, and I had to come here.

"Alice!" Annette called to me happily from the door as it opened. She seemed totally at ease, which I wistfully took as a good sign. "Come in."

"I'm sorry if I'm a little early, but I had nothing better to do, so I thought I'd drop by."

"The others will be here in half an hour, why don't you go call Michael and Brittany and have them come over early. I know they would love to spend a few minutes with you."

I wondered why they wanted to be here, and if it was a good sign, as I dialed the operator. The phone rang several times with no answer, so I began to put the hand piece down when a vision swept over me. It was Michael and Brittany, and they were being torn apart and burned by three assailants. I could see the dark hair and chalky-olive skin of the attackers.

"No!" I yelled. In an instant, I was surrounded by four alert vampires.

"What is it?" demanded Paul.

"I s-heard screaming," I lied, "I think they're being attacked."

Without so much as a word, the four vampires were out of the back door and running through the woods with me following. Less than a minute later, we were at the back door of Brittany's home. The smell of smoke twisted around me in a coil of panic.

Paul and Gregorio burst through the back door with we three girls behind them. There was a sharp cracking noise and a high pitched shriek coming from the front room, and we rushed in to find a wall of fire and a pile of what used to be Michael and Brittany on the floor behind the flames. Two dark haired vampires were across the pile from us tearing apart the last of Michael's granite body. A third man was lighting every piece of furniture in the room on fire using a long candle. They weren't even burning the bodies first, they were going to let the fire take them slowly.

"NO!" I screamed with all my strength, and tried to run through the flames to the tortured face of Brittany. Her head was turned towards me, and I could see that she was still alive. Her face contorted in a mask of pain, and she was trying to scream. Her eyes were wide with terror. Someone grabbed me and held me in place so that I could not enter the flames.

The one with the candle threw it on the glittering pieces of my friend, and she burst into flames.

"We can do nothing now! We must leave, and avenge them later!" Annette was pulling me back with the help of Marianne. Rage and grief turned her voice to a rasping growl.

Revenge.

Suddenly, my mind could see the three vampires running to the front of the house. I needed to kill them. Every part of my being was focused on the need to rip apart and burn the murderers.

Everything around me became a red haze, and it made for a good contrast as I sought my prey. I darted out the back, the way we came, rounded the corners and came to the front. The others were running with me, five enraged vampires who would stop at nothing less than the destruction of our enemies. The murderers were running as fast as they could towards the city.

No one could have even seen us or our prey as we ran. We were running like I had never run before, on a hunt unlike anything I had ever experienced. I forced my visions to tell me where they were going, willing the visions to let me have my prey now as they did every weekend. My visions showed me with sharp clarity that the three were going to head straight into the water and then go to the sewer outlet by the shanty towns.

"They will head into the water and try to get to the sewers," I roared to the others.

"Are you sure?" asked Paul.

"Yes, they will try to make it into the sewers by the shanty towns near the docks. I know it."

Paul smiled, "Then we will beat them there. Alice, you're with us, Marianne and Annette, you keep chasing them and drive them into the water." With that, he headed to a small ditch that led directly to a thin finger of water. We swam to another sewer outlet across the river and Paul led us through the complicated system. All the while, my vision never faltered; we had them trapped. We waited until the three men entered the long tube in front of us and we could see Annette and Marianne coming closer in the water, then we struck.

Each one of us took one, and I didn't care if they were bigger or that my life was at stake. I was the predator and they were my prey, and I would avenge my friends. The red fury took over my entire mind, and it filled with the visions that I needed to fight. I cornered the tallest but thinnest of the three, and we began swerving and lunging in a deadly game of cat and mouse. I could hear the growling and screams of the other two fights.

My own growls ripped through me, and made me stronger. The tunnel was trembling with the horrific noises coming from the warring vampires. I tried repeatedly to catch him off balance and hit him from the side, but he was a fast and accomplished fighter. Finally, I saw my chance and fake lunged right, caught his hand as it came up and used it to fling myself onto his back trying to get my teeth up to his neck. His arm grabbed at me, but I held on with my legs, and ripped his right arm off. He screamed in agony, wrenched his whole body around and slammed me into the brick wall of the sewer. The brick gave way and showered us both with an avalanche of stone and cement, but it didn't matter. I jumped off his back and again got just close enough for him to strike at me. I moved to my right, grabbed his other hand, and lunged under his legs. He was totally unprepared for my unusual attack, and he crashed to the ground with a howl. I twisted the other arm around with a nearly perfect pirouette, and ripped it off. Then, I leapt onto his body, grabbed his head, raked my teeth deeply across his neck, and yanked with all my strength. With a loud crack, his head came off.

I continued ripping his body apart in my rage until Gregorio's hand stopped me.

"We don't need to chop them up quite so finely. Large chunks burn just as well," he laughed.

"I wanted to chop him up finely," I answered through gritted teeth.

I looked around, Paul and the others were smiling at me. Annette and Marianne each held a head in one hand and a few body parts in the other, and Paul was gathering up all the rest into a pile. I couldn't imagine what they were doing with the heads, until I saw the lit matches in their hands.

"Alice grab the head and a few pieces of that one and bring them here," Annette instructed.

I grabbed what I could and brought the wriggling parts over to the girls.

"What are we doing?" I asked. Now that the fight was over, the scene was giving me a sick feeling.

"We are going to find out who and what they are," answered Gregorio with the most evil look on his face that I had ever seen. The gentle giant that I had come to know was replaced by a murderous vampire, and it frightened me.

"Alice, you don't need to do this with us, but please stay and watch," said Paul as he took the churning rock from me. "This is the worst part of protecting ourselves, but we must do it."

I watched in horrified fascination as they put the heads on the ground right side up. I didn't want to see this, but I couldn't look away, either. Whether it was Paul's command or my morbid curiosity, I had to stay and watch. Each face was animated and grotesque as it twisted in pain. Then they put the few body parts in front of each head.

"I need to know who you are and what you are doing. We will quickly burn any one of you who tells us what we need; the rest will feel the flame on each piece slowly. We can take you home and burn you for weeks if we need to. I will ask questions, you blink once for yes and twice for no," Gregorio commanded.

With that, Gregorio began to burn a piece of one of the men. The head on the right grimaced and tried to cry out. Strange rasping noises came from his torn throat.

"Are you here with a coven?" No one blinked, so Annette and Paul grabbed more matches and set a small piece of the other two on fire. The heads began to contort and spasm and each in turn rolled over. When the small parts were done burning, Marianne picked up the heads and Paul asked the question again. This time the middle head blinked once.

"Good. Are you from Mexico?" One blink again.

"How many are left? Blink the number." No one blinked, though they seemed to try to see each other. The macabre pattern of burning and contorting continued several times until the one on the right began blinking. Eighteen.

"Are you working with someone from this city? Is there a snitch?" The one on the right blinked twice.

"What about a gifted vampire?" The faces just tried to look at each other again, and so more of them burned. We had been at this for almost forty minutes now, and for the first time in my known life, I felt truly sick.

"Gift?" warned Paul as he lit another match. The one on the right blinked once.

"Can he see the future?" One blink.

"I will let you burn and end this if you tell me where your compatriots are hiding," stated Paul, and he began to name the boroughs of New York and the areas of New Jersey that were nearby. It took twenty minutes, and three more body parts, but we found out that they were in the old, abandoned iron works on the border of Newark and New York.

As the bodies were burned a strong incense filled the air. I was so numb from all that I had done and seen that I didn't even feel Annette's hand on my shoulder. "I know it is sickening to watch that, but, believe me, they would have done it to any one of us. Just remember what they did to Michael and Brittany."

I would never forget what they did. I would never forget her face, and I would never underestimate the utter ferocity and cruelty of my species again.