Fuil 'o mo chuislean Chapter 11, a twilight fanfic

Fuil 'o mo chuislean

Twilight characters and universe are not mine, but the original characters, storyline and wording are mine.

Hmmm little bit dark for the last chapter. You lot seemed to enjoy it, though, which is awesome. The necessary knowledge about Alistair's past is catching up with the present day. A few people mentioned aliens, not sure where they come in, so I have to disappoint you and say that as far I know (at this point) there are and will be no aliens in this story. If I use the word alien I'm using it as a synonym for foreign. If the part during Alistair's burn where his time travel element allows him to see the dawn of humanity as well as their distant future where they've inhabited other planets isn't overly clear, let me know. It's likely, though, that that will be mentioned and explained more thoroughly by the character himself in later chapters. I can't tell you how stoked I am that so many of you are still enjoying this story, and to the new readers who have only just found it, welcome, and thank you to you, too, for taking the time to review.

Human Alistair makes an appearance in my Criminal Minds fic (still wears a kilt though lol, which is something considering he's a spec ops mercenary), and will show up in my Walking Dead story too at some point, if any of you are reading those, too.

The jack and the queen

Have forsake the courtyard.

Fifty-two gypsies

Now file past the guards.

Joan Baez - Farewell Angelina

Chapter 11

Rosalie POV

"NO! Nononononono. Bella no!" Jasper ran to his mate to comfort her as she collapsed to the floor, sobbing. I felt my insides wrench. Were we too late? Had he killed her already?

"Alice? Alice! What did you see? What did you see, darlin'?" Jasper was rocking her back and forth, his face buried in her hair as she cried.

"He…he took her. Everything was blank and then suddenly he appeared. He took her out the train window and he's taken her north. All I saw after that was him throwing her on a stone floor."

"Was she..is she…is she dead, Alice?" Emmett's voice choked in his throat. I knew how hard it was for him to ask that question. I was too much of a coward to ask it myself. Esme's small sound of despair told me that it was on her mind, too.

"I don't think so. Not yet. The vision I had of him throwing her across a room covered in blood hasn't changed. That's still to come but I don't know how soon."

My phone chose this moment to chirrup intrusively in my pocket. I sighed when I saw my brother's name on the screen and transferred it to the video screen in the jet's boardroom area, motioning for Emmett to join me. I settled against him in one of the cream leather chairs and answered the call on the chiming display screen. My brother's haggard face appeared.

"Edward." I nodded in greeting.

"Rose, Emmett. I'm about an hour behind you; I couldn't get a charter out of Sao Paolo soon enough due to some civil unrest. Thank you for calling me earlier. Is there any more news?"

"Yes, but it's not good," I answered, feeling Emmett wrap his arms around my waist and rest his cheek on my shoulder. "At least I don't see how it could be." I pressed my fingertips to my temples, rubbing futilely at the worry that circulated there. "Alistair has taken Bella. We don't know exactly where but Alice said he was headed back up north with her. Maybe near where she was when we first managed to contact her."

"Goddamnit!" Edward's face disappeared for a moment and I heard a crash in the background.

"Edward don't smash things while thirty thousand feet above the Atlantic. You'll be no help to Bella if you get sucked out of the plane and have to swim to the British Isles." I felt Emmett's dry chuckle more than heard it and smacked him half heartedly. This was no time for amusement.

"You're right. Sorry. I just…what do we do? What the hell do we do?"

"Has Carlisle ever talked to you about Alistair before? I know it was just the two of you for a long time." As much as we all appreciated that Carlisle didn't favour Edward, it was undeniable that he knew our father better than anyone except Esme.

"Not much more than anything he might have told you. He warned me to stay away from Scotland when I went off on my own during my…rebellious period. It was more what he didn't say that stood out, I remember that much."

"Like what?" Emmett entered the conversation with his usual brevity, slipping his fingers through mine in support. Edward was silent for a moment. I could see in his expression that he considered what he knew to be a betrayal of Carlisle's confidence if spoken outright. He looked up with determination, and apology.

"Ask him about what happened between Alistair and the Volturi."

"Edward, if you know something that could help Bella. Your mate has been kidnapped."

"Don't you think I know that?" he half snarled, shaking his head and running his fingers through his dishevelled hair. "If I knew anything I'd tell you. All I know is that I always got the impression that there was more to that altercation than that the guy is a good fighter. I'm not hiding anything, I promise; I would never hide something that could help Bella. Even if she weren't my mate I still owe her for what I did, bringing her to the attention of the Volturi like that."

"Not your fault, bro. Nor yours either, Rosie babe. We all had every reason to believe she was dead. And who the hell goes cliff diving in winter anyway?"

I nodded, trying to circumnavigate the customary guilt that threatened to overwhelm me.

"Nothing came of it. She met the Volturi, she went home, we all got drunk, she had a cool story to tell her grandkids. If she could talk about it that is." I chuckled. Bless Emmett if he didn't have the most wonderful way of looking at things that would tear others apart.

"You're right. It turned out fine. Unless…Edward, was Demetri in the throne room when you and Bella met the kings?"

"Yes. And he greeted Bella by kissing her hand. He could have-"

"Been one of the ones hunting her these past years," I finished for him.

"If he's met her, could he help us track her now?"

"But if they're trying to kill her, wouldn't they be the last ones we'd want to ask for help? And what if they're looking for us, too?" I launched myself from Emmett's lap and paced the room, panic swiftly settling into the pit of my stomach.

"If they wanted us they could, and would, have called Carlisle at any time to extend an 'invitation'. You know that, Rose," said Edward quietly.

"Yes." I flattened my palms against my cheeks, willing myself to calm. "Yes, you're right, of course they could have, would have."

"I think-" Edward cut himself off to close his eyes for a moment.

"You OK, bro?" asked Emmett.

"Yes, yes of course. I think maybe…maybe something I ate didn't agree with me." He gave a gruff half laugh at his small joke. Emmett smiled and continued talking.

"Let's just…leave that option open for now and go ask Carlisle what Edward suggested. We've got two hours until we land in London. Three for Edward. We might as use the time efficiently."

"I thought strategising was Jasper's forte?" I smiled, leaning against Emmett, feeling the strength of his body always a comfort.

"It is, babe. I'm just suggesting that we do some. I'm not a complete waste of space in the thinking department, you know."

"Never, my love, never a waste." I kissed him softly, my panic dwindling to a tiny point that I could suppress while we dealt with all of this. I hoped. I wouldn't be any good to Bella if I couldn't think straight.

"Ahem." Edward interrupted awkwardly, making us both chuckle.

"Sorry, Edward. If we go and ask Carlisle about Alistair, can you get in touch with the wolves in Forks and try and find out what happened there the day Bella was supposed to meet us on that plane? Something in my gut tells me that whatever went wrong, it started in Forks."

"I'll call Sam now. Though he might not be willing to speak to me."

"We can only try, bro. That's all any of us can do right now. Try our best and hope it's enough."

"I'll talk to you when I touch down. Meet me at the airport and we'll figure out where we go from there." With that Edward signed off and the screen returned to our private airline's screensaver.

I let out a long sigh and turned to my mate.

"I need her, Emmett. I need her. I feel like part of me is missing. But I'm so…I'm so angry with her. For going off like that without a word, for leaving us all hanging, not knowing if she was alive or dead all this time. Aren't we her family anymore? Were we ever? You don't do that to family, you just don't." I wrapped my fingers into his t-shirt, the fingers curling into fists as I bumped my forehead against his.

"She knows that, babe. And for what it's worth we're probably all as pissed at her as we are worried about her. But it can wait, can't it?" I nodded.

"She had reason, good reason, for leaving without telling us where. I know that, I do. And I'll let her explain. But I'm not promising that I won't yell. But god, Emmett, I really hope I get the chance to yell at her, you know?"

"I know, babe. Me too." He kissed my neck and hugged me to him hard before taking my hand and leading me back to the cabins eating where the others sat.

I nodded to Jasper and motioned to the huge, ancient book Carlisle had dragged along with us, feeling that we'd need it. I turned to our father.

"Edward said to ask you about what happened between Alistair and the Volturi. He's going to talk to the Pack, see if he can find out what happened the day Bella went missing."

"I think that's a good idea." Carlisle nodded slowly. "Jasper, the book." Jasper passed the heavy tome to Esme, who laid it in her mate's lap, settling beside him as he opened it.

"I was never supposed to see this book. I came across it during a stay with the Volturi, a later visit you understand, not my time living with them. This was perhaps five or ten years before I created Edward. As you can see," He stroked a fingertip beneath the lines of spidery script. "This is one of Aro's personal ledgers. His journal if you will."

We breathed a collective gasp. This was Aro's diary?

Alistair POV

I stood at the parapet, buffeted by winds that blew in off the Atlantic. The cold didn't bother me but I could feel it all the same. It felt malicious, howling through the stone walls, finding every nook and cranny, whistling and moaning as if it had desires beyond chilling this corner of the world. Sometimes I envied it. It would blow across the highlands, chilling the humans and taking the moisture from their fields, and continue on its journey across to the great continent to the East, perhaps moving down to Africa where it would be warmed by the heat rising from the sand.

I wished that there was something that could warm my cold limbs, my frozen heart. Instead I found myself in a castle missing the north wall with the shrieks of my prisoner grating in my ears. I tried to ignore them, smoothing the stone along the blade I held in one hand. The shriek of the metal wasn't quite enough to drown out the human's cries, but it was close.

I heard another cry and looked up, seeing the great wings of the golden eagle as it quartered the sky above me. He was a wild creature such as I, needing to be high up with an eye on the world below. I whistled and watched as he altered just the tips of his wings, allowing himself to drop down through the thermals towards the castle where I stood waiting. His huge talons alighted on the stone wall and he picked his way along it to where I stood, peeping as he eyed me, wondering if I had anything edible for him as I sometimes did.

"Not today, laddie. I just wanted to see how ye are. Though ye'd likely have let me know before now if anything was amiss."

He cocked his head, listening for a moment to the cries of the human woman far below us before looking back to me with a burst of conversational noises, pecking me a little spitefully to teach me a lesson for calling him without a reward in hand.

"Aye. I'm sorry. I didnae think." He acknowledged my mistake with a shake of his head before spreading his enormous wings and taking to the skies once more, rising quickly, barely moving a muscle as he let the air do the work for him. This time he headed south to the fields where I knew he would find his supper running through the grass. I bent my head back to the sword and whetstone in my hands, moving one long the other as I honed the metal to a lethal edge.

The sword was the only thing I had brought from my human life besides my clan brooch, the great sapphire gem that still fastened my plaid to this day. I should have carried the Claymore into battle but instead I carried it into the afterlife, such was the way of things. The Mackenzie motto Luceo non Uro, I shine not burn, was still as sharply imprinted into the hilt of the blade as it had been the day it was forged for me.

It had been a special commission by my father from the blacksmith, who also doubled as master swordsmith. With none to equal his skill I could see why. There were no swords that could match my size as I quickly approached six and a half feet tall, so my father had asked that this blade be made to fit. I swung the newly sharpened blade through the air and heard the slight whistle, high and nearly outside the human threshold of hearing. The sharper the blade, the less noise it made; this one was almost silent.

Human…hearing…shite. She'd gone quiet. I didn't think that was a good thing. I laid the blade upon the wall where it sang gently against the roughly hewn stone as I hopped over the wall, landing in the courtyard and hurrying to the entryway to the labyrinthine corridors that led down to the dungeons where I had left her. I flung the iron gate open, my vampire eyes even having trouble in the gloomy hole to make out the figure of the human. My mind was screaming as it tried to process her scent but I didn't stop to pay it any attention.

I reached forward and snatched her off the floor by one arm, bringing her face closer to mine.

"What have you been screaming about?"

"A-are you f-fucking k-kidding m-me? You l-locked me in a f-f-fucking hole in the gr-ground."

"At least I'm no in there with ye. Ye want to come out here with the creature who wants to eat ye?" She nodded emphatically and I almost laughed.

"Why did ye stop screaming?" She shivered and I could feel the tremble right down to her bones. She was terrified. But more that, she was…

"C…c-co-old. I'm c-cold." Her eyes closed and I bent closer to run my nose along her jaw, sensing the now sluggish ebb and flow of her blood. I could just eat her now, get it over with, I could…but I couldn't. Not yet. Because…I didn't know why, just that it would be better if I waited.

"B-bastard." Furious brown eyes bore into mine, tears threatening to overflow. I wondered what they would taste like.

"My father wed my mother thank ye verra much." Some small part of me was bothered by the fact that she'd implied I was less than legitimately born.

"Y-you know wh-what I m-mean. G-get me out of this h-hole you fu-fucking ASSHAT."

"Ah. So ye can swear at me without stuttering. Good for ye. Come then. No point eating ye while ye're cold as day old parritch."

I dragged her by the arm up the stairs and to the tower, stopping in the one room that had a fireplace without a collapsed chimney. Unfortunately I hadn't paid any mind to the fact that the stone stairs and flagstones I'd hauled her up and over had been less than kind to her person. She curled shaking hands around bleeding grazes on both knees and looked up at me with frightened eyes.

I clenched my hands into fists and screwed my eyes shut as the scent of her blood overwhelmed my senses like a tidal wave. My thoughts began to dim at the edges as it called to me.

Jasper POV

I tasted the emotions in the cabin as Carlisle opened the book. Shock and hope were strange bedfellows but they were swamping the room in equal measure. Esme's desperation was beginning to take too strong a hold of her, though, and I tried to find some calm to send to her. It wasn't much, because I didn't have much to give, but what I did have was hers. She murmured her thanks as she lay her hands flat on Carlisle's leg, contact with him working to keep them both functioning on a level that would serve everyone best.

"I've read these journal entries dozens of times. Most of the book is written impersonally, a record of daily life at Volterra; who came and went, what problems there were and what was done about them. But the entries that involve Alistair are deeply, deeply personal in nature."

"Do they say much about him or just what happened when he was there?"

"Both. He visited Volterra on 24th November 1744. For all intents and purposes, the Volturi were very pleased to receive him; his great uncle had had no small hand in raising the town's great church and they welcomed him with open arms. But something went wrong during the visit. I do not know why, but Caius killed Alistair's sister, and Alistair, in a killing rage, decimated their numbers within a matter of minutes and then escaped unharmed. The remaining Volturi fled the area for many weeks."

"I understand that it was a great blow to lose so many of the guard, but why would that be so personal?" Emmett looked thoughtful. It was a question I would have expected of Rose or Esme, not so much of my large and jovial brother. Sometimes we forget that, despite his open and comic nature, he has as thoughtful and nimble a mind as the rest of us.

"Because in his anger, Alistair killed Marcus' mate and Aro's sister. Didyme." Carlisle's tone told us all we needed to know. The vampire who had taken Bella was responsible for the worst atrocity ever committed against the kings of our race.

"Oh. Oh no." I felt Alice's despair grow out of control and there was nothing I could do to lessen it because it mirrored my own. If he could kill a queen, we stood little chance of stopping him from ending a human life. I looked at the faces of my family and I think that it was in that defining moment that we all accepted to some small degree that we may already have lost our sister, daughter, friend.

I scrubbed my hands over my face as I search for something, anything that could give us an advantage in this impossible mission.

"What about Alistair's change, Carlisle? Do we know who his sire was?"

"We…uh…no, there's no clue as to who turned him, but we have a fairly good idea of when it happened. There are records from the Mackenzies, his clan, of him being numbered among them. And of an incident which left him with a mortal wound of the throat the eve of the Battle of Culloden." I felt a chill run down my spine. "They took him with them but he died-"

"No." I said flatly. "No." I stood and paced the cabin, turning to Carlisle in accusation. "That is impossible. There must be some mistake."

"There is no mistake, son." Carlisle closed the book wearily, his eyes not leaving mine. "He was turned the day before the Scots fought the English on Culloden Moor."

"You know as well as I do that that battle was fought in April of 1746. A year and a half after Alistair's visit to Volterra."

A sea of confused faces looked between Carlisle and I, not comprehending the information. But again, Emmett was the quickest. I saw the implication dawn on his stony face as I looked back to the man I called father.

"That means-"

"Yes." Carlisle voice was flat and final. I held my head in my hands.

"Alistair was still human when he all but exterminated the leaders of the vampire race."

As the first reviewer ever on this story, thanks go to misty01 for choosing the sapphire clan brooch Alistair wears on his plaid. As second reviewer B-Mine got to choose the MacKenzie motto Luceo non Uro (I shine not burn) to be engraved on his sword.