This chapter is revolutionary. You'll meet so many new characters. Some will be recurrent, some you won't see for a while, but get used to them. Don't forget this is a trilogy, and new people are refreshing and invigorating. Oh, and I have nothing against Californians, I am one myself. Don't be offended by the Hollywood ref.. A Delphian Utopia 7 Demeter
Avery followed the young one down the hall, watching the sway of her hair as it dusted along the small of her back. What a lovely shade of red it was, like fire. She was muttering under her breath, too low for even him to hear, about Kale most likely. He wondered if her heart was broken now, or if it had already been torn to pieces long ago.
"So where's this room?"
She'd turned around and he hadn't even noticed, too preoccupied in watching her lithe, dainty movements—the movements of a soldier.
"You've been in battle," he murmured, that voice of his—so soft and beguiling—completely ignoring her question. She raised her brows.
"A few times," she confessed, looking up at him as he came to stand dangerously close to her. She reared back, her neck stretching. They were so close, she almost felt smothered. In a slow movement, his eyes moved from her hair to her eyes, where they locked.
"You move like a warrior," he said simply, moving around her and continuing down the hall. She stood there a minute, trying to asses what had just happened. He'd practically taken up the spot of floor she'd been standing on!
"Okay…" Avery opened a door at the end of this hall, his eyes connecting with hers as the only show of invitation. She slid past him into the room, wondering what the hell his issue with space was.
"Thanks," she murmured, "you should probably be getting back to Kale."
He smiled secretively, lowering his eyes, "I don't answer to Kale, Princess. He isn't my keeper."
Princess? She ignored the slight, smiling a smile of her own contempt, "So, you don't like him either?"
"I never said that," he answered vaguely, "I care for him, as if he were my own brother, however, I do not look to him as a master."
Ray settled on one of the plush couches in her living room, motioning to the one across from her. Avery sat, looking off towards the other wall, where a painting hung—Da Vinci's unfinished or finished, portrait of a woman' s head. The gold toned maiden stared at something below her, seemingly at peace, smiling serenely. Ray envied her.
The room they were in now, the one that had obviously been given personal touches—had it been a member of the Volturi's? Marcus, Aro, Caius? Ray suddenly felt a sense of foreboding as she stared at the painting, hanging so harmlessly on the wall.
She jerked her attention from it, focusing instead on Avery, "How long have you been here?"
"Not long now," he answered, "just about two years."
She leaned forward, her elbows pressing down on her knees, "Tell me," she muttered, her eyes ablaze with curiosity—and scorn, always and forever scorn— "how is it that Kale came to be master here?"
"He won."
She cocked her head, "You fought the Volturi?"
"We tricked the Volturi," Avery amended calmly, settling back into his chair, "with a whole community trapped inside of their own minds, it is easy to annihilate them. And so we did, while they were all disillusioned, killing them one after the other, starting with the twins."
"The twins?"
Avery smiled slightly in remembrance, "Alec and his little sister Jane. Sinister beasts they were, causing pain with just one look. Jane was hardest to kill."
"And who did you have the pleasure of eradicating?" Ray drawled, finding Avery's pleasure of death appalling.
He looked up at her, face stoic, eyes black, "Just the one. I believe they called him Aro."
Bella tried not to notice as Edward rose from their bed, supporting his weight on his elbows, watching as the scarlet sun snuck into their bedroom through the curtains. She wanted to sleep, to dream, to escape to a world all her own. Away from reality, away from chaos—where things would go her way. Where she could be happy again.
But none of that was possible now. She hadn't slept in one year, three months, and thirteen days. And god, did she miss the solace of slumber.
Edward's cool hands on her back made her reluctantly open her eyes, only to be grateful when she did so. He was staring down at her, his innocent face and revealing eyes, focused solely on her.
"I would have thought you were sleeping," he whispered, honeysuckle breath encompassing her.
"I tried," she sighed, rolling onto her back, pulling the covers up to cover her naked chest, "but it doesn't really work, no matter how tired I feel."
He smiled sadly, laying down beside her once more, placing his head at the junction of her neck and shoulder, "No matter how tired you'll ever be, you'll never sleep again."
Her eyes slipped shut, "I know."
"Bella," he said, "we should get up, talk."
"Should we?" she teased, "I was thinking we could just lay in bed all day. That'd be kind of nice."
His lip twitched into a grin, "As nice as that would be, there's things we have to do. Like make a cover for ourselves, buy you some clothes…"
She grinned slyly, "A cover? Can my new name be Mata Hari?"
Edward nuzzled further into her neck, "How about Bonnie? I'll be Clyde."
"Hmm, no, I think I like Heathcliff for you," she laughed at his sardonic frown, brushing the hair from his eyes, "Well what would you rather be called?"
"Yours," he whispered, "just Edward."
"Are you trying to seduce me Mr. Cullen?" she murmured, intrigued by the low, sensual drawl his voice had slipped towards.
"That depends," he kissed her softly, "is it working?"
"—and there has not yet been any new proceedings on the family who has been missing from Bristol since Monday evening. The father and husband, Evan Daniels, had nothing to say to us when we caught up to him outside of his office this morning. He seems to be continuing on his daily routine with the exception of hiring a private investigator by the name of…"
Analise looked away from the television, disgusted once again by the piles of cold, rank corpses littering up the two-story apartment she'd taken residence in. Dash just had to bring all of his meals home, including the ones who had been on the telly all week, that mother and her two little brats. But on the plus side—he would bring things home for her too—like that delicious university student from the building next door. He'd tasted like the breath of a god, maybe a little sweeter.
But still, living with a man, especially an immortal man, was hard work. Dash was disgusting, and she'd thought that since they hadn't been together that long he'd still be in that reserved phase around her. But no, he'd jumped right into familiarity, and had dragged her right along.
Ugh, she kicked a dismembered head from her path to the bathroom, and watched it roll towards the living room, boys. When she reached the loo, she immediately sought out her reflection, comforted that she hadn't turned into a putrid mass of rotting corpse in the hour since she'd last seen herself. Sometimes, when all was silent, like just after a kill, she'd see their faces as her own. Sometimes when she looked into a mirror, there would be no eyeballs in her sockets, and the flesh of her nose would have melted off, as if it had been left decomposing for weeks. Sometimes it was worse—her lips, rotten and maggoty, her skin a pale, haunting, rancid blue. And sometimes, her withered, gnarled mouth would move, pieces of her lips sagging, speaking to her in words only she could understand. And she would feel the dead, hear them cursing her. Watch their decrepit fingers run themselves through her hair, over her face.
But then, she already knew she had a reserved place in Hell. They didn't have to tell her twice.
Downstairs, she heard the door shut, and then voices.
Dash had brought home another victim. Another innocent. Another body full of blood.
She straightened her shirt, flipped her hair, and breathed out through her nose.
Again. Again. Again. It was survival of the fittest, after all. And Analise—she'd been surviving for quite a while.
"Aro?" Ray screeched, "Aro, as in the all powerful master? Brother above brothers? You killed him?"
Avery did not even bat an eyelash, "He was no match for me in battle," looking down, a strange emotion crossed his features, "but I regret the kill. He was an enigma, that man. We could use his guidance now that things are falling apart."
Ray leaned back in mock surprise, "you don't mean…things aren't as perfect as Kale thinks?"
He chuckled quietly, his lips hardly moving to form a glimmer of a smile. They were both quiet for a moment, before Avery spoke up, "I think I should be going now."
Ray nodded, leading him to the door, "It was a pleasure," she cracked a smile, "unfortunately."
He nodded to her, eyes boring intense holes into her as he said his silent goodbye, "A pleasure."
Something terrible was stirring just beneath the surface. London had gone to shambles, as had Marseilles. Creatures were emerging from the pits of Hell, or so the whispers said. People were scared to leave their homes—even though the flimsy layers of wood and brick could hardly save them. The other day, a woman had been gutted in an alley, her insides torn clean out by a marble hand. He'd smiled as he mutilated her body, sucking the blood from her neck as it simultaneously surged from her stomach. After, she'd fallen to the asphalt, dead as dead could be, her eyes still open in horrific surprise. There had only been one witness, and now he was missing too.
Missing, that's all anyone heard these days. People were dropping like flies, or disappearing like wind through the trees.
Frankly, Jordan was sick of it. His new girlfriend was one of the lost, and his best friend's brother, a twenty five year old lawyer. Creatures from Hell? Chupacabras? It was more like some psychopathic serial killing clan—like those homicide crazed groupies a few years back, in the States. He'd thought English culture was a little more civilized, a little more reserved, but obviously they had the same modern flaws as those Hollywood death-obsessed fanatics.
His mom was worried, always giving him the keys to her car—even though he was still meant to be driving with an adult after his license suspension. She was reconsidering the trip to Italy, but he knew they'd end up going. He'd use the excuse that it was safer there if he had to. There hadn't been any killings yet in Rome.
Plus, he'd wanted to sketch the clock tower in Volterra for as long as he could remember. And finally, finally, he was getting the chance to do it.
Kale was lost. In his head, in the long, dreary, dark halls of some ancient castle. Inside his own delusions, his memories. Ray had brought back things, events he'd never wanted to remember. Images of her smile, her grace, her beauty as she consumed him on those nights they would be together. And then… the moments when he'd left. Her cries, her pleas, her begging. The dirt on her knees as she'd fallen to the mud, the piercing screams as she'd taken out her misery on the village near their home. He'd driven her to massacre.
But that was so long ago, he reasoned with himself now, I have to believe I'm better than that. And yet he was chasing Bella. Bella, whose heart belonged to someone else. Bella, who was much too perfect for a beast of his caliber. He belonged with Virgil in Hell, deserved to burn for eternity in flames that wouldn't kill him, only cause him pain beyond imagination.
And even though he knew that he hardly deserved to live, he wouldn't stop the killing, the homicide, the torture that his race was wreaking on the other. Because he was lost, too far gone to return to the light. Perhaps he could have been saved before she'd fled, but now it was too late. Kale had become an oppressor, a tyrant, a blood lusting king.
When did I lose my sense of purpose?
Can I regain what's lost inside?
Why do I feel like I deserve this?
Why does my pain look like my pride?
Okay, questions? Comments? Leave me a review. I know you guys want to know about the new people, so ask away. Short. Yeah, I know.