Chapter Twenty Nine
Carlisle
I was glad of Esme's companionship during the flight to Italy as the medical personnel were happy to be paid off. As long as the patient was provided with medical help it was no skin off their noses. I think Aro may have told the company that there would be a qualified doctor flying with the patient but they had supplied personnel just in case. I helped Charlie from the wheelchair provided into the bed on board and set up another blood transfusion glad at least that message had got through and by the time we were over the ocean he was asleep. Esme stayed at his side until sure he wasn't going to wake and only then joined me.
"Do you think Aro really can help Charlie, Carlisle? I feel so responsible."
"I think we all do now we know what our presence has cost Bella and Charlie but there was no way we could have known what would happen."
"True, but if we hadn't snuck away like thieves in the dead of night Bella could have contacted us and we could have avoided all this."
"All we can do is to help the situation as it stands my love, there's no point feeling guilty for things we cannot change."
"What about Bella though? She must be so scared, so angry with us."
"We can't do anything about that either, not here or in Italy, I take it you explained everything to Jasper?"
She nodded,
"Yes, I hope he finds her although I can't see her being happy to see any of us, even him."
We had just touched down when I received a message from Rosalie telling us that Jasper had found where Bella was and she was coming to meet him but that according to him Bella was now a vampire, not a hybrid, and was accompanied by Darius of all people. He told me that Bella had been quite straight with him, she did not trust any of us but Alice had told her that we were trying to help Charlie, to save his life, and I hoped that might at least redeem us a little in her eyes.
As Aro promised there was an ambulance waiting for us at the airport and Charlie was soon comfortably settled although he was not looking as well as I had hoped, it seemed the latest blood transfusion had not worked its magic like the first. It was clear to us both that Charlie was fading fast, faster than I had hoped or anticipated, in fact, unless Aro had this antidote ready and waiting we might already be too late to save him. Knowing this I rang ahead and explained the situation and Marcus who had come to the phone promised that everything would be ready by the time we arrived at the citadel.
Charlie
The flight had been long and arduous for me and despite the further blood transfusion I could feel my strength ebbing away as the pain in my body became more and more unbearable. Carlisle had given me strong painkillers but they did nothing to ease it and eventually he had resorted to a strong sedative which gave me a few mercifully pain free hours or at least pain I could no longer feel although Esme told me I had drifted in and out not sleeping properly as they had hoped. I had no great hopes of a cure, but I was hoping for a quick and relatively painless death. Once Esme told me that Jasper had found Bella and that she was fine I could stop worrying and when she promised me that if anything happened, if I died, the family would make sure Bella was well looked after I felt more at peace in my mind.
I had never flown in such comfort before and I certainly didn't expect a private mediflight. I was just glad I wouldn't be presented with the bill and wondered how many years salary it would have taken to pay it off. To find an ambulance waiting at Pisa airport was a relief as I felt so weak and sick I couldn't have stood to save my life. As I was gently transferred from plane to ambulance Carlisle reassured me that everything would be ready when we arrived although we had a long journey ahead of us up the mountain to Volterra. To be honest I didn't really care, I was too drugged up and still in too much pain to ever care that I was on my way to a town full of vampires, it was almost laughable.
Carlisle
Charlie slept most of the journey to Volterra while I sat worrying about what we would find when we arrived. I had no doubt that Aro had something to offer, he wouldn't lie outright to get us here but I somehow doubted it would be anything as straightforward as an antidote or cure. If such a thing existed I couldn't imagine it remaining a secret, not to me. After all, I'd lived in Volterra for decades and never came across anything remotely close and I searched the archives for medical knowledge hungrily. I had my doubts now it was too late, after all saving Charlie was one thing but what was I saving him for? I hated the thought of death winning but perhaps I should have thought more about the alternatives. Would Charlie be happier as a vampire? Or whatever this help could turn him into? Would he end up as a Volturi lab rat? Or prisoner?
Esme could see I was preoccupied and asked me what was wrong but I didn't feel I could tell her. There were other secrets between us, secrets that involved the Volturi and I was hoping nothing would bring them to light. I wasn't proud of the things I had done while I was a member of the Volturi, things that went against everything I now believed in but that didn't make them any less real. I had always used the story that I merely visited with the Volturi in order to gain knowledge, I had never told anyone that I had actually been one of them, had been offered a place on the ruling council and had come so close to accepting it. None of my family knew anything about the horror that had stopped me just in time and I never wanted that to come out. I was deeply in debt to Aro and his brothers although they had never voiced the threat. The thing was that we all knew it was there and one day they would call it in and I would have no option but to agree. Please let this not be that time.
It was strange to see the walls of the town again, the citadel, the clock tower, all as if I had been gone merely a week not centuries, somehow Volterra never changed although the humans who inhabited the town, living side by side with their greatest threat, had come and gone over those same centuries. The ambulance turned down a narrow alley to one side of the clock tower and I realized we were not using the main entrance, no one would ever see the patient, no one know we were ever here.
The first familiar face I saw was Jane's, as angelic as ever even though she didn't smile. The driver and medic opened the back of the ambulance but it was two Volturi guards who carried the litter inside the citadel and although they didn't know it the humans should be thankful, few humans ever entered the citadel and lived to walk out again. Esme and I followed Charlie in silence along corridors I recognized from my time here and I realized they were taking Charlie straight to the audience chamber. Esme grasped my hand tightly and I knew she was afraid but whether for us or for Charlie I couldn't tell.
Charlie
The jolt as the ambulance stopped woke me and as two silent figures carried me inside a huge stone building I understood I was now in vampire territory. I looked around for Carlisle and Esme and seeing them following me gave me some comfort. Studying the young woman, a girl really, who walked ahead of us I noticed her pale complexion and that air of agelessness and understood she too was a vampire but then what else? I doubted I would see another human here and I hoped not for they could only be a source of sustenance for the creatures that called this home. I guess I should have been afraid but the alternative was certain painful death and that scared me more. The drugs had helped a little, the pain was bearable but I knew this was just a short reprieve. My only hope was here among the blood drinking creatures I had thought belonged to mythology.
