Chapter 11
I almost jumped out of my skin when the voice spoke. My heart tried to beat its' way out of my chest. When there's always someone or something trying to kill you tend to jump first, run second, fight third, and if there's time ask questions eventually.
There was a very feminine (almost girlish) giggle, "I didn't scare you that much, did I?" There was a grey amorphous shape. A ghost? A spirit? Damn, nothing that dramatic. It was Alice wearing my cloak. A wave of relief washed over me.
"Ya, a little. It happens when something is always trying to kill you." I replied in a hushed whisper. My heart rate slowed, a bit. My breathing was still a little ragged. Not fear any more. Nerves, I think.
"I was wrong, you are paranoid." She said with another giggle. No, you can not get involved with a vampire. You can not get involved with a vampire. No matter how beautiful she is. No matter how perfect she is, or how hurt she is. Or no matter how much you want to play the hero.
"Why are you here? I figured you would still be sitting around crying your eyes out." I chided. It probably wasn't the best thing to say.
"You see," she said moving closer to me, "my kind are very easily distracted." She said without any real hint of flirtation, it was rather matter of fact.
"Oh, so that's what I am huh; a distraction." I realized how much different this conversation was then our last one. "How's the pain?" I asked shifting completely to a serious tone.
She grimaced slightly, "It hurts right about here." She said pointing to an area where her heart would be. "It feels like someone cut a hole into me." She wrapped her right arm over her shoulder to shield the wound.
"It's like that anytime someone suffers lost. It's a wound to the psyche." I explained. "It will heal, but it'll take a long time."
She nodded a small nod, "Did you see that? The wound I mean."
"Yes," I whispered, "it wasn't pretty, definitely worse than mine."
"I know you said you didn't want to know. I'm going to tell you anyway." She gave me a coy smile. "I saw someone that looked a lot like you, but older and slightly more muscled. He had a stunned look on his face, and he was covered in blood and scars." The timbre of her voice was different, somewhere between tears and laughing.
"Clearly we are two damaged people." I sighed, "I guess I'm not proving to be much of a distraction." I gave her a slight smile. It was amazing how the muted light danced across her face. She was the most beautiful creature I had seen in a lifetime. Even the tear stain was heavenly. I felt comfortable for the first time in an eternity.
"No you haven't. But I do feel safe with you." She replied scooting even closer.
"I'll alert the press! A vampire felling safe with a Warden." I joked.
"And a Warden, feeling safe with a vampire." She replied.
"I don't feel safe; I've fought vampires too long to feel safe around them." I stated with a bit too much bite on it. This is one of the many times that I spoke first and thought way too late. Truth or not. She stood abruptly, and shrugged off my cloak. I took the opportunity to stretch out across the couch. I waited for Alice to leave. I felt the hurt roll off of her in waves. It crashed into my regret, like waves against a cliff
She didn't leave; she just stood facing the window for a while before saying "How many?"
I knew exactly what she meant. "I stopped counting at nineteen. I couldn't let it reach twenty." I don't talk about the battles or the war much, too ugly, and I saw too many good people die. I saw my friends die.
"I think you're in more pain than I am." She said sitting back down on the couch.
"Maybe," I said, "but my wounds are old, some are scabs, but most of them are just scars." I felt tears welling up. I wanted to push all of these emotions away for a while. "How are you so at ease with the person that killed your love?"
"I was kinda waiting for that question," I hate dealing with seers for this very reason, "Jasper had been different, distant, these past couple of months. We just started drifting apart. He stopped talking to me, or sharing anything. He was always anxious, and got mad to easily. I hid it from Carlisle and everyone else; I just couldn't face the problem. I probably would have broken up with him if we were human." She turned away from me, she was obviously relieved to tell someone this, but by the same token she had to admit that it was real.
I yawned; it had been a long day. I had no answers, only questions. A lot of questions.
"I should go and let you get some sleep." She still didn't face me. She tried to stand up to leave.
I caught her wrist, "It's not the first time I've been without sleep and it sure as hell won't be the last. Stay. Please."
She turned, facing me. Her golden eyes met mine, a far cry from the emotionless eyes of the dream Alice. These were warm with an undertone of sadness. "Are you serious?"
"It'll be the most restful night I've had without sleep." I smiled. I patted the couch next to me turning onto my side. She followed my lead, and lied down next to me. She snuggled very close, but on the small couch there wasn't much choice. Not that I'm complaining. "Did you ever realize that there was a whole other world beyond vampires, and werewolves?"
"No, not really. But we're kind of insular."
"Really? If you isolate yourselves that much, then why did I see a bunch of mortarboards framed in your house?"
"Going to school is about the only thing we can do."
"I don't see how you do that, once was enough for me."
"We do more than repeat high school; we've all been to college once or twice, plus a lot of traveling in between." I wrapped my arm around her waist, I don't know why; but it just felt right. She felt cold, icy; but in the cold that should have felt harsh and foreboding, it felt oddly comforting. Something beyond reminding me of Katherine. "What was your life like before magic?"
"Incredibly normal. I was a straight 'A' student, worked part time in a Best Buy that has since been reduced to a burnt out hulk, thanks in large part to yours truly."
"What happened?"
"I came into my powers about three months after I got the job. One night when I was turning off some of the TVs one exploded out and caught some of the paper and boxes on fire. The next thing I knew more and more TVs were exploding left and right. Had someone died in that fire I would have executed, for breaking the first law."
She giggled that same melodic giggle. "I'm sorry, but up to the executed part it was actually kind of funny." She paused and inhaled deeply. "There are laws to being a wizard?"
"Just seven, there pretty basic, but there's only one punishment. Death." The thought of what the council did as barbaric. Situations didn't matter it all came down to one thing, did you do it. If the answer is yes then it's off with your head, if it's no then it probably still off with your head.
"That's terrible. What are they?" I wasn't sure why she was asking about laws, if it was real curiosity or just not wanting the conversation to end.
"One, don't kill mortals, two, don't transform anyone, three don't mess around in someone's mind, four, don't make someone a slave, five, don't raise the dead, six don't fuck with time, seven don't go past the outer gates. Like I said pretty basic. Any laws you have to obey?"
"Just one, don't expose our secret. If it leaks, the Volturi will kill you." She shuddered, I responded by pulling her closer to me. For the first time her scent became overpowering, the sweet, icy smell. I inhaled it deeply, savoring it. Every rational part of brain said 'end this' 'stop' 'leave, now!' I couldn't I could not move, everything was spinning, everything was perfect. For the first time since…
Then the realization hit me, I'd heard the name Volturi before. "The Volturi, aren't they some brand of immortal?"
"Ya there vampires like me."
"Really!" I said with genuine surprise, "They're signed on the Accords as Free-Holding Lords. They're like a small neutral country." The world was getting smaller. "Would you mind if I went sleep now?"
"Do you want me to go?" she asked in a pouty voice.
"No, please stay, but do me a favor, I know you'll be gone in the morning; wake me before you go. That way I know this wasn't just a dream." I begged.
"Absolutely"
"Thank you," I whispered kissing the back of her head. My lips lingered there a little longer than necessary. I closed my eyes, and soon was asleep.
My dreams took on a different life tonight.
I was alone again, this time in a place completely alien to me. A big city, like New York maybe. I was alone in the middle of a big city; isolated on a cold sidewalk. The street ahead of me was completely empty and silent. I started walking, past the stores, the offices, the apartments. All silent, all still; I was the only movement in the entire world. The sidewalks were bare, free of people, free of garbage, not even a scrap of paper. The loneliness, the silence, the cold, began to eat at me.
I walked on, and on. Sometime later I found myself walking down a dark alley. The silence had rendered me deaf, the cold made me numb, sight was the last sense I had and it was fading.
Then a faint melody, of church bells, began drifting down the alley to where I was standing. I followed it, through a winding maze of streets and alleyways. Until I came to the greenest field I had ever seen that stretched far beyond the horizon. The music was coming from somewhere past the field. I walked out trying to find the source of that haunting melody.
The frosted grass crunched underneath my foot with every step, providing a steady rhythm in sharp contrast to the soft melodic bells. After a short while a path appeared. Not a sidewalk or a beaten track, but a path of streetlamps that stretched out into the black night.
I followed the lamps, the frosty grass crunching, the bells tolling, my breath coming out as small puffs of steam. Then in the distance, a small graceful shape ran towards me, a blur across the dark field. In a blink of an eye she jumped into my arms. Alice, the real one, had found me in this dream too.
I held her close to me. Taking in every detail. The soft stone of her skin, the cold of her body. Her scent. The smell of her breath. And the sweet sound of her laugh.
When I woke, it was still pitch dark outside, and there was still a beautiful woman in my arms. It was hard to think of Alice as a vampire. After all a vampire is nothing but a bloodsucking demon that hunts, preys, feeds on humans, not someone who turns against her primal urges and lives in harmony with the things that it should hunt. Most mortal people don't turn away from their basic desires, they hide them.
"Bad dream?" She whispered in a voice so soft, so quiet that it would not have woken me up.
"No, no, quite the opposite." I smiled to myself and kissed her on the back of her head again. "You were there." I whispered softly into her ear. She laughed her sweet melodic laugh. What the hell was I saying?
Every rational, logical fiber of my being told me that I had to kick her out, get rid of her, or at least stop telling her absolutely everything. But I didn't, I'm a moron.
"There's one thing I still don't understand. For the past couple of hours I've been concentrating on seeing the future, yours actually. It's nothing but a wash of images." She said in a breathy whisper wrapping herself tighter in my arms.
"I haven't made a single decision that extends past tomorrow. I don't know if I should stay around here, how to find what happened, and then of course there's you." I couldn't help but shed a tear when I mentioned her. What the hell are you doing Aaron; stop it right freakin' now! "I have no idea about anything. I was so sure about so many things. Things were black and white with a healthy patch of grey in the middle, but there was always right and wrong, good and evil. Now there's nothing but grey area. I was so sure that you and your family would be evil. I had no idea that you've all fought your basic instincts, and won. I had no idea that there were vampires with souls. I can't breathe anymore. I'm drowning and I don't have a way out."
The verbal diarrhea continued in this same course for at least another ten minutes; I found myself completely unable to stop talking.
When I finally finished my idiotic rant Alice softly spoke, "I'm not sure I understand, but I do know what it's like to have your world turned upside down." She still faced away from me, "Every rational thought tells me I should hate you. You killed the one I loved, more than anything, and yet I'm here lying in your arms…" She stopped in mid sentence.
"Alice, what's wrong?" She tensed up in my arms. "Alice!" I whispered fiercely, "What are you seeing, tell me." I shook her gently. I've only met one other seer in my short existence and everything sign told me that she was having a vision.
Before I could take another breath she spun around and faced me, wrapping her arms around me, burying her face in my chest. I held her closer to me. "Please tell me. If it's bad let me know. Let me fix it." She pulled into me harder, and shook her head violently.
"No," she was crying now. "I saw you," she stammered, "you had a gun… it was against your head… you pulled the trigger." Her voice was muffled from being pressed against my chest. None of this made sense; I have absolutely no reason to kill myself. Besides my gun is with my 'kitchen stuff and sharp things' box over a hundred miles away.
"Slow down. Nothing is written in stone yet. The more you know the easier it is to change." I rubbed her back in small circles. I held her close, trying to calm her. "What else did you see, what was I wearing?"
I could barely understand her through her sobs. "The grey cloak you wore today." Her tears were cold against my skin.
I understood, "the only reason I would do what you saw is if the White Council calls my bluff." I tried to sound as comforting as possible. "I swore that if they ever tried to make me execute a kid who screwed up, I would kill myself. Now that I know it'll happen I can make arrangements to prevent it right."
"No, this one will come true."
"If it does, well than at least I can be happy 'til then." I said holding her close to me. I finally gave up fighting to what was happening, I felt happy again. I shouldn't be ashamed of that. I tilted her head up to look her square in the eye. "I made one promise to you today, and now I'll make another. I promise you I will not die, not soon at least. Maybe in a couple hundred years, of old age." The tears were still welled up in her golden eyes. I brushed them delicately off her hard icy, and for some odd reason comforting skin.
A/N: Chapter eleven is now one for the history books. I may post another chapter before the weekend is out; they start to get more interesting and fast paced. Some of these middle chapters tend waffle a bit because I was still trying to sort out my main plot line. I now feel compelled to make the same plug all authors make: please review, even a little bit, it makes me feel very goodly.