And root to root and tip to tip

I look at him my country gip

Let it up I own his fears

But someone brought you close to tears.

Many trains and many miles

Like you to me on the sunny isle

What of which you wish to speak

Have you come here to rescue me?

Devil's Spoke, Laura Marling 2010

Disclaimer: I don't own them; I just play with them.

Many things to DeJean Smith, Swimom7, and SparklyBabs for their help in putting this story together. Special thanks to freesiaandlilacs and Camilla10 for their help with the Hungarian and Italian translations in this chapter.

Bella woke to the smell of coffee and the sound of Edward calling her name. Before opening her eyes, she breathed in deeply, letting the scent of him surround her fully. He was everywhere, on the sheets and on her body. He'd been hers last night.

"I do know you're awake." His voice drifted over to her from across the room, and she slowly opened her eyes.

"You brought coffee," she whispered, her voice still thick from sleep.

"It's just from the lobby, but I believe it's how you like it," he said, getting up from the chair he was sitting in.

Edward had been to his room already, having changed clothes from the previous night. The Kelly green sweater he was wearing was striking next to his bronze hair. He was wearing khakis, unusual for him on a normal business day; Edward seemed most comfortable in jeans.

"Who are you meeting today?" she asked, sitting up with the covers drawn around her.

"A rare books collector," he answered, perching on the edge of the bed. "He has a collection of journals I'm interested in.

"From the same family we've been studying?" Bella asked, immediately waking up and taking interested.

He paused, seeming to weigh his answer before proceeding.

"Yes," he said slowly, "but he doesn't know how important they are. He thinks they are just random journals; I believe them to be from the patriarch of the family we're studying."

"You believe them to be … or you know them to be?" Bella asked, looking pointedly away from Edward's eyes.

Edward sighed and handed her the still steaming cup of coffee.

"I know," he replied tersely. "No, I won't tell you how. Not yet."

"I didn't ask."

She took the coffee and let the covers drop, slipping out of bed. As she brought the cup to her lips, she heard Edward draw in an unsteady breath. She smiled around the edges of the cup as she walked toward the bathroom.

"Just a quick shower and change of clothes, and then I'll be ready to go," she said airily.

"Actually, I'm going to have to leave now," Edward said as she stepped into the bathroom. "I'm sorry, but it's unavoidable. There will be a car waiting to take you to the library."

She turned and faced him with a surprised look on her face.

"You're in a hurry?" she asked, unable to keep her disappointment out of her voice.

"I let you sleep in," he explained. "I wanted you to be well rested for your research today."

Bella narrowed her eyes.

"What time is it?"

"Nearly 10:30."

"Dammit, Edward!" she exclaimed, putting the coffee down and beginning to move quickly around the room. "I wanted to be done with this by lunchtime so I could get in some sightseeing. I've wasted the whole morning now!"

The color had risen in her face as she moved quickly around the room. Edward rested his ankle on the opposite knee and leaned forward to watch her with a smirk on his face.

"I don't know what you're smiling about," she said through thin lips. "You're in big trouble."

"You're sexy when you're angry," he purred.

Bella froze and turned around, squinting her eyes at him.

"If you think that distracting me will get you off the hook, you are sorely mistaken, Mr. Masen."

"I don't," he said, standing up. "But you are. Sexy, you know?"

Bella felt her pulse quicken as his eyes swept over her, his head moving slowly back and forth. She sighed and crossed her arms in front of her.

"It helps that I'm walking around naked, right?"

"It … adds to the whole picture, but really it's you, love."

She frowned and shook her head at him.

"You're forgiven." Her voice was still tight. Clipped.

Edward chuckled and walked over to her, pulling her into his arms.

"The tone of your voice doesn't make it sound as though I'm forgiven," he murmured, leaning down and pressing his lips against her hair.

"No, but you are," she said, wrapping her arms around his waist. "I don't think I can stay angry with you. Anyway, go. Will I see you tonight?"

"Most definitely. I'll pick you up from the library myself. There's … someplace special I'd like to take you."

With a quick kiss on her forehead, he pulled away. He gave her a lingering look and then turned toward the door.

"Edward," she called, reaching out for him and then letting her hand drop.

"Yes?"

"I'll – miss you," she said softly.

He smiled radiantly.

"Thank you for that," he said. "I'll miss you as well."

Bella strolled into the library just before noon, having asked the driver to stop on the way so she could grab a quick bite of fish and chips. She entered the building, now lit up and bustling with activity. It seemed dim compared to the outside. Bella's eyes were drawn to the corner of the library where Edward had taken her last night, and she involuntarily blushed and smiled. She felt the warmth spreading through her body at the memory. After running her hand surreptitiously against the wall, she walked up the stairs to the second floor clean room.

As she entered the room, adjusting her cotton gloves, she was surprised to see someone already bent over the table.

"I'm sorry," she said in a low voice. "I didn't know anyone else would be here today."

"Oh!" the young man exclaimed, turning around quickly with a deepening blush on his face. "Dr. Swan. So good to see you again."

Bella's eyes widened and then narrowed again as she placed the young man's face. It was the young history major from the Bode.

"Mike, right?" Bella asked, closing the distance between them.

He reached out his gloved hand and she took it, hiding her distaste at the sticky warmth that she felt through the cotton. His cheeks were blazing as he tried to keep his eyes focused on her eyes, not her chest. As he lost the battle yet again, Bella rolled her eyes and snatched her hand back.

"So," Mike said, stepping a little closer to her, "what can I do you for?"

Bella shook her head in irritation and moved past him to the table.

"I don't understand why you're here," Bella said. "Ed . . . rather, Mr. Masen didn't mention that you would be traveling from Oxford."

Bella smiled when her intentional misstep over Edward's name had Mike looking downcast and dejected. She hoped it would help him keep his eyes – and hands – where they belonged.

"Yeah," he said slowly. "I wasn't expecting to be here either, but a Ms. Brandon showed up at my door early this morning with tickets, breakfast, and a smile. Said you'd need my help, so … here I am."

He finished with a flare of his hands, but Bella just shook her head and looked away, trying to hide her annoyance. The boy was inept at handling documents, and it was clear from his demeanor that he harbored some sort of feelings for her. This was not the distraction she needed having already gotten a late start to the day.

When Bella looked over the haphazard array of papers on the table, out of order from how she'd left it the night before, she slammed her hand on the table in frustration. If it had just been a matter of the documents, she probably wouldn't have been so upset, but she felt so close to unlocking the mystery of Edward; she didn't want to have to back track.

"Dr. Swan?"

Mike's hesitant voice made her look up and sigh.

"What can I do to help?" he asked.

Bella slowly smiled as she thought over how to handle the situation. There was data that she needed; perhaps Mike could be her gopher for the afternoon.

"I need some information on the likelihood of a family relocating to England from Italy between the years 1450 to 1550," she said quickly, walking back and forth in front of the table in her growing excitement. "I want to know what financial means they would need to be able to afford that kind of trip and most importantly, I want to know if it was a common occurrence or if, as I suspect, it was rather uncommon. Also, I need several references for the term Stregoni Benefici. It's an Italian term mentioned in one of the letters. Can you find those things out for me?"

Mike's blue eyes looked wide and shocked, but he was nodding as he wrote down her request.

"Yeah, absolutely, Dr. Swan," he said, continuing to nod. "But it might take me a while."

"That's fine," Bella crooned with a smile. "Why don't you get yourself some lunch before getting to work? You look famished."

His eyes lit up at the mention of food, and Bella internally congratulated herself. He'd be out of her hair for the next several hours.

"So, I'll just … bring the research here?" he asked.

"I'll likely be in the occult section of the library by the time you're done," she said airily.

"Occult? Like witches?"

Bella opened her mouth and then snapped it shut quickly, stopping herself from saying the word which was on the tip of her tongue.

"Yeah," she replied slowly. "Just like that."

"Okay, Dr. Swan. If you're not here, I'll find you there."

Mike turned and walked out the door, allowing her to breathe a deep sigh of relief. If there was any chance that Edward's secrets were connected to vampire legends, Bella understood that it would be dangerous to put the notion into anyone else's head. Better not to mention the word at all.

Bella bent over the letters and quickly rearranged them into the order that she had them in the night before. She carefully pulled out the letter she wished to examine, the one with the mention of la leggenda del vampiro. The text of the letter was oddly worded, circular in its phrasing, as though the writer was trying to impart a meaning he couldn't say outright.

Unlike some of the other letters, this one had a short salutation at the top. It said simply, My Son. Bella wondered why this letter would be addressed so personally when the others seemed to forgo salutation completely. She made a notation in her book and moved down into the body of the letter.

The writer of the letter felt threatened by a prior letter, one which spoke of removing the son from the household. Perhaps another family sought to enter into a marriage agreement, one that would take the son away from the family lands? That didn't make sense, however. The writer sounded … fearful. What's more, the writer seemed to be worried that someone would intercept his letter to his son.

Why would anyone dangerous be interested in a family's correspondence? Bella thought crossly. By all accounts, the family was quietly living in the British countryside doing farming work and hunting small game in the nearby forest. They shouldn't be on anyone's radar, let alone in any danger from some powerful, unknown force.

And then there's the references to vampires …

When Bella had looked at the passage last night, she'd been tired and only given it a cursory glance. Even then, it had sent chills down her back at how cavalierly the writer spoke of vampire legends. As she examined the writing more carefully, she found more reasons for her dark suspicions.

The writer shifted into Italian for the passage about vampires. Bella was more than capable of deciphering words in Italian, but her pronouns and articles often got confused. The writer seemed to feel that there was some danger di essere scoperti, or discovery, because gli esseri umani, or the humans, were getting close to il segreto, or the secret.

There was no way around the fact that the writer seemed to talk about "humans" as separate from himself. The thought both intrigued and frightened Bella. Vampires were the stuff of legend and nightmares; Bella had difficulty thinking of them as a part of her world. However, she knew better than to rule it out. It would have been more comfortable to dismiss it, but she knew that doing so could thwart her efforts to uncover Edward's secret. She'd resigned herself to the possibility that his true nature likely lay somewhere well outside her comfort range. She needed to resist the urge to focus on comfort and delve into the unknown. It was the only way to find the truth.

After placing the letters back in their repository, Bella gathered her notes and headed out to the stacks. The library had an extensive occult section, rivaling most collections in England, so she knew that she would find everything she needed. Cringing only slightly, she typed the words "vampire legends" into Newton, the library's catalog, and waited for the data to collate. She was inundated with information.

She narrowed her search several times until she had a list of seven books that looked promising to her. The first one predated the letters by nearly four hundred years, but the database claimed it was the first mention of the vampire-like beings in England. Bella needed to investigate. She found several other books and documents that looked promising, all with either evidence of vampiric activity on the continent or with pertinent folklore. She added as an afterthought a Hungarian text written in the 1800's titled Vámpírok vadászata, or Hunting Vampires. She threw a Hungarian to English dictionary on top of her pile and sat down to work in one of the cloistered study carrels in the occult section.

There was literally a glut of information about the many definitions of vampirism. There seemed to be hundreds of different ways to tell if a dearly departed relative had joined the ranks of the undead. If holes appeared in the soil above a grave, a vampire lay beneath. If a corpse didn't decay in the usual manner, it was a vampire. If blood appeared at the corners of a corpse's mouth, it was because it had been sucking blood and therefore … a vampire. Many of these "mysterious circumstances" were easily explained away by modern science, but not all of them. As with many folklores, Bella could see behind the primal fear to a root cause that might have provoked the fantastic tales.

The Hungarian text was a hefty volume of dusty pages which appeared not to have been disturbed in many decades. The cover was dry, brittle to the touch, and Bella handled it with care. As she laid it on the table, she noticed that there appeared to be something tucked within the pages of the book.

She opened it gingerly and found some papers within that were nearly crumbling with age. Printed on parchment paper, the way one might print a pamphlet to distribute to large numbers of people, the text was faint and difficult to read. Bella was ready to put the stray pieces of paper to the side, when something in the margin caught her eye. There was writing on the article … writing that Bella recognized. The same person marked up this article who had written some of the letters she had examined.

Looking more carefully at it, Bella realized that the whole pamphlet and the notations in the margins were written in English. This, in and of itself, was surprising. She had been expecting it to be in Hungarian like the book she had found it in. Judging by the spellings and grammar of both, she guessed that it was written around the same time as the publication of the book. The notations appeared to be made concurrently, but she couldn't be positive. There was likely so little time differential that she would never know how soon after publication her mysterious letter writer had gotten hold of the pamphlet.

Bella doubted that it had been stored within the book for much longer than ten to fifteen years. Even the less than ideal conditions of the book would have kept it in better condition than it appeared to be in. The pamphlet looked as though it had been through years of misuse and poor storage.

Bella's heart fluttered as she reached into her back pocket for her white gloves and her magnifying glasses. The writing in the margins was definitely the same flowing script that she had seen in some of the letters. She recognized the flourishes, especially on the capital Es and Ms. For the first time, she allowed herself to think of the significance of those letters. She knew from her first year class in document studies that people flourished the upper case letters of their names more than any other letter. She knew a person with the initials EM, but it was impossible for her EM to have written something in the 1800s … wasn't it?

Bella shivered and turned back to the document. She decided to ignore the notations and focus solely on the printed text. The title really told the whole story about what Bella could expect to find within the body of the pamphlet: A Tretisse on the Exisstanse of Vampyres ~ On How to Kno Them. She expected to find much of the same information she had found in the volumes of folklore, but she was surprised at what she did find.

Vampyres do exist. It is simply a matter of recognizing the differences between them and us. Despite the monsters' powers of deception and their ability avoid detection, humans ought to be able to recognize one of the demons if they were only to look for these simple signs.

Pale, icy skin, like the touch of a cadaver. The skin is harder than rock, impenetrable. Wooden stakes or pitchforks would be completely useless against these creatures

The blood from their prey swims within their irises and serves as a gauge to their hunger. The blacker they are, the hungrier the monster.

Incredible strength, incredible speed, though if you are privy to a show of either of these, you are likely headed to an untimely demise.

They are honed for the kill, attuned to their prey. Everything about them invites us, their prey, in. From their intoxicating smell to their perfected bodies and faces, they are nearly irresistible to humans. It is that which lures us to our deaths.

Garlic, holy water, crosses … none of these things are effective against the creatures. The sun does not burn them though they seem avoid it at all costs.

They cannot be destroyed.

Bella blinked several times before shaking her head. If it had just been the pamphlet, she could have brushed it aside. The words seemed to be was written by a fanatic intent on convincing the world of the existence of vampires. However, the notations in the margins chilled Bella to the bone. Whoever had marked it up gave plenty of credence to the ranting. The writer seemed to have a vested interest in proving the author of the article to be a quack. Several of the notations talked about what "we" should do to avoid "their" notice, almost as if the writer himself considered himself … a vampire.

Bella had never been comfortable with superstitions. If she couldn't examine it with her magnifying glass and cross reference it in a few reputable books, she was content to chalk it up as hogwash. However, something about this pamphlet and the vehemence with which the mystery annotator tried to prove it wrong made Bella's skin crawl. Also, despite the almost choking warmth of the stacks, Bella felt cold. She was trying to ignore it, but the pamphlet spelled out something she didn't want to read. She recognized nearly all of the characteristics listed within the treatise.

Pale, icy skin reminded her of the way Edward's cold fingers had felt on her overheated skin every time he touched her. She hadn't thought much about how hard his skin was; in fact she had always been comfortable in his embrace, even as she slept. But thinking back to their night together, she remembered running her fingers along his chest, scraping against his collarbone with her teeth, and gaining no purchase in his flesh. It was as if she were running her fingers against stone … silky smooth stone, but granite nonetheless.

Bella certainly couldn't deny that everything about him drew her in. It was as if someone had set about making the perfect man for her and then put him in her path. Built, but not bulging; messy, careless hair of the perfect shade; penetrating eyes; perfect wit; caring to a fault. Even his smell drew her in. Bella remembered the night before how she had felt almost high on the minty chill of his breath on her face. She had thought it was just an overload of Edward, but now … she wondered if it was part of his lures.

Edward's eyes, though not red, were always something that had fascinated her. And she remembered his words from the previous day on the bank of the river. She'd asked him why his eyes went from gold to black and he told her it was because he was hungry … for her. She took it to mean that his eyes betrayed his lust for her body, but was he trying to tell her more? Was Edward's 'but' that he was actually hungry for her blood as well?

The natural reaction should have been to run – to put the books back neatly as if she had never been there and then to run for the nearest cab to take her to the airport. She could leave England and never think about Edward, his mystery, or vampires again. And yet – here she sat – rigid over the books in front of her continuing to think. The more she thought, the more convinced she became that she knew Edward's secret.

"Vampire," she whispered quietly.

Bella took the cotton gloves off of her hands and hesitated over the document for several seconds before tracing one of the flourished Es with her fingertip. Could it be that her Edward had written this nearly a hundred and fifty years ago? Her mind began to race with the possibilities, encountering mind-bending problems at every turn. She wondered idly whether he had placed the document in her path somehow, but couldn't determine how that would be possible.

She must have sat, unmoving, for nearly an hour before a pair hands on her shoulders made her jump and yelp. They were all wrong; they were warm.

"Sorry to startle you, Dr. Swan," Mike's voice squeaked above her. "You looked tense."

Bella glared at him until he removed his hands from her shoulders. He looked down sheepishly and mumbled another apology.

"What did you find?" Bella asked, surprised by how steady and normal her voice sounded.

Mike perked up when she asked for his findings and walked around the table to the other chair.

"There was lots of information about the relocation of families during the 15th and 16th centuries. Rather, there was lots of evidence that it didn't happen very often, as you thought. I printed out several articles that talked about why families tended to stay rooted to their homelands for centuries, hoping that would be of use to you. Also, I did a search on what kind of money would be needed to facilitate that kind of move; it's pretty hefty if you ask me … not something a typical family in that time period would have access to."

Bella was impressed with the depth of his research. He really went the extra step to get her the information that she needed and she appreciated his attention to detail. Clearly, he was good at what he did even if it wasn't handling documents. Perhaps she'd misjudged him.

"This is good, Mike. Thank you."

He beamed at her praise, and Bella felt even guiltier at her snap judgment of him. He flipped through some papers until he found what he was looking for.

"The term you sent me looking for was harder to nail down," he said with a frown, shaking his head. "I looked up Stregoni Benefici in three different dictionaries. The first two only had the words separate. Translated in that way, the term is "wizard's benefit." I could find no mention of Wizard's Benefit in any folklore reference at all. The third dictionary I looked at was one that dealt in the occult. I figured if you were going up here, maybe I'd find something there."

Bella felt her stomach tighten in fear. What if she had inadvertently sent him on a goose chase that led him directly where she was trying not to lead him? She bit her lip as she waited for him to tell her what he knew.

"That dictionary had a definition for the Stregoni Benefici that was really … weird. It said the term was related to vampires who had forsaken human blood and sustained themselves solely on the blood of animals. It went on to state that these creatures were often protectors of mankind and their gentler nature made them less of a threat, though no less deadly should one take a notion to kill a human."

Bella swallowed the bile rising in her throat. The fact that the term had any relevance to vampire legend made her want to bang her head against the table. However, the information was fascinating in light of the pamphlet she had just read. She was contemplating how it might relate to Edward when Mike cleared his throat.

"Dr. Swan? Are you feeling well? You look rather pale."

"Yes!" Her voice was too bright and too loud. "I'm fine," she continued in a more normal tone of voice. It's been a long day researching. You've done well."

"You don't believe any of that stuff, do you?" Mike asked, furrowing his brow. "That … vampire hocus-pocus?"

Bella bristled at his tone of voice but took a deep breath before answering.

"It isn't about what you and I believe," she answered. "It's about what the people who wrote the letters believe."

"Right. Our sources."

He nodded and colored a bit at her lecturing tone. Bella felt her fingers shaking. She needed a moment alone to collate the information. She was on overload and felt that at any moment she might burst with the weight of her suppositions.

"I'm going to call it a night here, Mike," she said, stretching her arms above her head in an exaggerated motion and yawning loudly.

You're a terrible fucking actress, Isabella, she chided herself.

"I'm tired too," Mike said quickly. "And hungry again. Can I … take you to dinner?"

His too-young face was pink with hope and Bella smiled sadly at him. Her answer was in her averted eyes, but she felt she owed him a firm answer.

"Mike, you're a lovely young man. But … I'm with Edward."

Her heart raced at his name and she flushed like a schoolgirl saying her crush's name aloud. Mike was stuttering over his words, telling her it was "cool" and not to worry, but all Bella could hear was her own voice saying she was "with Edward." There was so much truth in those words that she was nearly choking on it.

Bella tidied up her workspace like a dutiful researcher and slipped the pamphlet she'd found into an acid-free envelope. Then, like a thief in the night, she tucked the envelope into her own bag and marched toward the doors with her palms sweaty and her heart racing. Technically, she should have handed the pamphlet over to the librarian so it could be catalogued and archived. But Bella couldn't take that risk, not guessing as she did that Edward himself might have written on it.

As she exited the library, the sun was low and turning the sky a deep red. Red sky at night, sailor's delight, she chanted to herself as she attempted to distract herself. If she chanted nonsense rhymes to herself, maybe she could forget about what else was red – vampire eyes. Bella shivered. Distraction wasn't working. And Bella wasn't entirely certain she wanted to be distracted. She wanted to know; and then, she wanted to move on.

Edward had promised to meet her after dark inside the vestibule of the library, but she wanted to be outside in the night air to clear her head. As she looked at the setting sun, she couldn't help but notice that the day had been sunnier than any of her previous days in England. You're being ridiculous, Isabella … he told you yesterday he had business. She walked through the streets to the small shop where she had gotten the steak and ale pie the night before. She had a hankering for comfort food and that pie definitely fit the bill. She hoped that it would calm her nerves.

After finishing her dinner along with a pint of the pub's finest ale, Bella felt remarkably better. She walked out into the misty evening and wrapped herself in the red sweater she had tied around her waist, knowing the evening air would get chilly. When she reached the river, she began to amble and think. Think and amble. She realized that she was looking forward to seeing Edward again; she wasn't frightened of him, she was eager to see him and disprove her fantastical conclusions from this afternoon's research.

After all, if vampires are real, what's next? Mermaids, werewolves, unicorns? Was nothing fantasy anymore?

"You look beautiful in the moonlight," a familiar voice purred in her ear.

Bella's skin erupted in gooseflesh, and she immediately smiled, leaning into his embrace. See? Even when he startles you, you aren't afraid.

"I missed you," she murmured as she leaned against him.

He was hard … his chest, his arms, well, him. Everything about him was sharp lines and angles, though she wouldn't have described him as made of stone. That implied that leaning against him was uncomfortable and for Bella, feeling his arms around her was the most natural feeling in the world.

"Why are you doing that?" he asked.

She realized that she had been squeezing and releasing his arm, testing to see if she could feel any give in his muscles.

"Oh, um, I – ah – like your muscles," she said stupidly.

Great. Very smooth.

"Mmm," he murmured, turning her around and kissing her lightly. "Then squeeze away."

Bella smiled as his mouth covered hers again, and she tasted him. He was a delicious mix of mint and honey and Edward. Even though they were in the middle of the street, her hands traveled up his arms and to his neck and she began trying to pull him closer. She wanted his tongue, his lips, everything open to her. He easily pulled away from her and sighed, fanning her with his sweet breath. Bella felt that unusual high caress her as she drank in his scent.

"Shall we walk?" he asked.

He put his arm around her waist and began rubbing small circles on her back.

"How did research go? Did you find anything interesting?"

"Well," Bella said, squirming uncomfortably.

She was much more comfortable when they were kissing or just walking. She didn't want to discuss her findings and bring the issue to a head. She wanted to continue on as they were … her pretending not to know, and him thinking that she hadn't guessed.

"Bella," Edward said, concern in his voice. "Did you find something that upset you?"

Bella stopped and looked up at him, shocked again by the way his golden eyes burned in the moonlight. She felt her courage wavering but then closed her eyes and steeled her resolve.

"Can we go somewhere? Private. So we can talk? I think – I think I know your secret."

A/N: So, she knows. And she's about to tell him. Before you bring out the pitchforks on me for not having her just say it … out loud, let me explain. I wanted us to hear it through Edward's ears and since I hate switching POV mid chapter, we'll have to wait for next chapter. Please read the important note that follows. Much love to you for reading and I hope you all continue to enjoy!

*Important Note: I've signed up to contribute to two very important charities this Spring. I'm going to do an outtake from each of my current WIPs, one for each charity. I would like you, the readers, to choose what I do for this story. I have two polls on my profile right now, and I'd like you to weigh in. The charity that I will be donating the FP outtake to will be: Finding Your Voice: Fandom Fights Mental Illness. This is particularly close to my heart, having suffered from a long bout with Post-Partum Depression. Please take a moment to vote in the poll and consider donating to the cause? I will have links for both of the charities that I'm contributing to on my profile. Sorry for the extra long note. =)