Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the authors. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended. This is just a tribute.

Thank you to willowbae for all her help and great beta-ing :)

Chapter 35.

Leo – ghost

I caught the trail in Fremont. It was very faint and I could understand why no one in Brandon's crew had picked it up, not one of them had a sense of smell anywhere near as powerful as mine. But it wasn't just that; there was a certain point when following a trail became more than just picking up a scent. It was when you needed a strong inner voice telling you the movements of your prey.

It made my job more straightforward that the four vampires were still together. Apart from everything else, it meant that they left a more noticeable trail. It was easier for a lone vampire to disappear. The same rule applied to tracking. I always found it easier to focus on a trail when I was by myself. And if I wanted to use the element of surprise, it helped not to be travelling with a band of rowdy companions.

The coven swiftly moved north from Fremont, passing through Redding and up to Portland, leaving a very tidy trail of death behind them. I was relieved that they were heading away from San Francisco. When I called Hal at Brandon's villa, I considered telling him that he could return home, but in the end I decided not to risk it. There was always a slim chance that this coven would loop back down again. I wanted to take a little more time before declaring the coast clear.

For my own convenience, it was great that they were headed in just the direction that I wanted to go. It was amazing how much better I started to feel as I headed north. My instincts told me that I needed to see Nessie again. So, by answering this call, for the first time in weeks I felt as if I was swimming with the current, rather than against it.

It was only after I crossed the Washington border that our paths diverged. I knew that I was several days behind the four vampires. The two graves in the woods near Lacamas Lake confirmed the fact. As always, they were scrupulously neat and well hidden. Brandon was right; there was no way that a coven of newborns would be so cautious. These four knew the price of being too conspicuous.

Leaving Lacamas Lake, the coven made a slight change in direction and took a northeasterly route. I wasn't sure if they wanted to travel right up into Canada, or would move east to Idaho, but that was when I left the trail. It was tough, because once I was tracking it went against all my instincts to just walk away. But the call to see Red was more imperative, and I was confident that after I'd seen her I would find their trail again. I took comfort in the fact that at least they were headed away from California.

From that point I followed a northwesterly course, travelling straight up to Nessie's hometown. Carlisle had mentioned to Hal that she was planning to spend a week there, instead of at college. I was grateful for this piece of information, because it saved me the trouble of dragging myself to Seattle for nothing.

Hal had given me her Grandfather's address in Forks. I knew that she usually stayed with him when she was in town and I planned on surprising her there. Nessie had seemed sincere when asking me to visit, so I didn't think she would mind. I thought that she'd probably be pleased. After all, she had spoken to me through time and space!

As I travelled through Washington I went over everything that Hal had said before I'd hustled him out of the house with Brandon. He had taken great pains to tell me about the Olympic Peninsula and its supernatural inhabitants. He was anxious for my safety in an area populated by shapeshifting wolves, which were – by all accounts – huge and deadly.

He repeatedly reminded me of the Cullen's treaty and which territory I should avoid. He didn't forget to point out that Bella Cullen's stepbrother and stepsister were also part of the pack. He was clearly anxious that I was going to act like a moron and go crashing straight onto the wolves' land. Hal needn't have worried, I had more sense of self-preservation than that, and I had no desire to make things awkward for the Cullens. But his information was useful and I fully understood the need for caution.

I arrived in Forks on Wednesday morning. It was just before eight and although I was tempted to go straight to Nessie's house, I decided against it. She was a sleeper and lived with humans, so it seemed like a better idea to wait for a couple of hours before appearing on her doorstep.

Taking a stroll around town seemed a good way to kill some time. From what I could tell, Forks was a fairly quiet place. Everything in the town was about lumber. But with its location and weather, I could still understand why it had become home to a large vegetarian coven.

Every now and then I caught a trail of scent very much like that pungent dog smell that hung around Red. I wasn't long before I noticed that it was more than one person's scent that I was picking up. I began to realise just how many of these wolves must be in the area. Hal's warning didn't seem so excessive after all.

It didn't take long to circle the town and I still had some time on my hands. My curiosity got the better of me and I decided to go and check out the Cullens' house. If their New Hampshire place was anything to go by, it had to be worth a look. I had a fair idea of where I was going. Again, my ever-useful brother had taken the trouble to explain just where it was. I hardly needed to use my tracking skills when I had Hal and his Internet maps.

They lived a few miles outside of town and I had no trouble finding the house. I could appreciate how discreetly located it was, situated at the end of an unmarked driveway in the woods. I had to admit that the Cullens were good at what they did. They had their lives worked out, down to the finest detail.

Just like their home in New Hampshire, it was a fine old house. As I approached the building I gazed around me admiringly. I stopped outside the front door and breathed in the damp air. I instantly caught a trace of Red's distinctive scent. I smiled fondly at her familiar vanilla bouquet. It was strangely comforting to know that she'd been there within the last day or so.

I glanced at the huge house and then towards the overgrown garden, slowly taking another breath. This time I was hit by different fragrance…

Just for a moment, all time stood still.

It couldn't be…!

I stood unmoving, with my eyes wide and every muscle in my body tensed, as if I'd just seen a ghost.

I took another breath.

And there it was again, standing out in contrast to the heavy aromas of damp earth and overgrown forest, a light sea breeze. It was the scent that I would know anywhere; the most magical, the most evocative perfume in existence, and one that belonged to a girl who I'd missed so much that I had nearly lost my mind. The girl who had disappeared off the face of the earth.

For a moment I was so stunned that I actually doubted myself, but as her scent enfolded me, I knew with certainty that it was really her. She was real. She had been here. Katherine had stood on this very spot no more than a day ago.

As soon as I could move, I spun around, half expecting to find her standing behind me. But the damp garden was still deserted and I could hear nothing. I took another breath, and then another. The effect of her fragrance was addictive. After such a long period of abstinence, I couldn't get enough of it, that elusive scent of the surf.

I closed my eyes and allowed her essence to fill my lungs and my mind. For a moment I was beyond all rationale. The knowledge that she was so close, when I had so resolutely believed her to be lost, was hard to comprehend. My thoughts were in turmoil as my heart burned with feelings of joy, yearning and regret.

Moving forward, I instinctively followed the trail of scent, desperate to find its source. It led away from the house, across the lawn and into the forest. I swiftly passed through the trees and, bit by bit, questions started to filter into my mind. Questions like, 'what in God's name is Kathy doing here?'

I tried to make sense of it. It was impossible. She didn't know the Cullens.

They had told Hal and me about several other vegetarian vampires of their acquaintance, but they'd never mentioned Katherine. Of course, they might have concealed her whereabouts deliberately, hoping that I would never find her.

Just considering this possibility filled me with rage. What right did they have to keep her from me? But then it occurred to me that Kathy might have requested their silence. Could I really blame her? Could I really blame them? My anger was instantly replaced by guilt.

When she was a newborn, I'd told Kathy that when she was ready she could leave me and go her own way. I just hadn't believed that she would actually do it. I shouldn't have been so surprised. I had given her plenty of reasons to hate me. So presumably, if she's told the Cullens to lie to me, she didn't want to be found, which meant that she must still hate me.

I stopped in my tracks. If Kathy didn't want to see me, then maybe I should leave her alone.

I didn't consider this idea for more than a split second. However much she might want me to walk away, I knew that there was absolutely no way that I could do it. I'd allowed her to escape once before and had regretted it ever since. It was beyond me to let her go again.

I needed to see her. If only to find out how she was doing. In the years we'd been apart, I had spent so much time worrying about her. I'd imagined her being lonely or unhappy. In my darkest hours, I had pictured Katherine being sucked into a brutal coven and being mistreated, or even killed. I'd been desperate to know what had happened to her, at the very least for my own piece of mind.

And now, out of the blue, she had reappeared and it seemed that I would finally discover the truth. I caught my breath as I realised how close she must be…

Without hesitation, I continued to follow her scent across the wide river and through the moss-covered forest. I wasn't really thinking straight. If I had been, I would have considered the fact that Kathy might find it a shock to see me after fifty five years of absolutely no communication between us.

If this thought had occurred to me, I might have taken a different approach to contacting her. But my emotional overload, and the effect of her scent on my system, drove all the logic out of my head. I couldn't hold back. I hadn't thought of what I was going to do, or say. I just had to see her.

The trail took me right up to a place that I'd heard Nessie speak of; a small cottage, nestled deep in the woods like something straight out of a fairy tale. Katherine's scent was everywhere; she had obviously been living there. It made the whole situation seem even more surreal. Had Kathy turned into Snow White?

That was when my brain started to re-engage and I wondered if my sudden appearance might panic her. I cursed myself for being such an insensitive jerk, how else was she going to feel? She hadn't seen me in years and here I was, just rocking up on her doorstep like it was no big deal. She'd probably heard me coming and instantly freaked out.

God, I was already screwing this up. It seemed that some things never changed…

I stood gazing at the house, in a state of limbo. I couldn't go forward, I certainly couldn't leave. Was I going to stand outside the cottage, like an idiot, for the rest of eternity? And just as I was trying to resolve my dilemma, it disappeared altogether, because my inner voice told me that Kathy wasn't there.

I was almost too disappointed to feel angry. Almost, but not quite.

I knocked down a large tree in my frustration. It came down with a loud crash, narrowly missing the Cullens' cottage. If I hadn't been so pissed off, I might have felt relieved not to have squashed Nessie's picturesque home. But at that moment, the only thought in my head was, 'where the hell is Kathy?'

I took a look around outside the cottage. It had the look of a building that had been closed up for the season. The scent was at least a day old. Had Kathy moved on? I knew that Hal wouldn't have told the Cullens of my plan to visit. I wondered if she'd had a premonition about it. I knew how intuitive she was, so it was certainly a possibility.

I couldn't believe it, she was agonisingly close, but still one step ahead. Was I destined to live out the same nightmare scenario again and again? Maybe it was lucky that I couldn't sleep. If I could, I'm sure that my dreams would have been haunted by a hopeless quest, searching for a girl who could never be found.

But before I could fall into a state of despair, I was bolstered by a new hope. I remembered that I was actually awake. This wasn't a nightmare. Kathy had been here. She had been here yesterday. I was tracker, damn it! I could find her. More than that, I would find her.

She would be mine again.

This idea caught me off-guard. What the hell was I thinking? Kathy had never been mine. And any chance that she might have been was destroyed by the way that I'd treated her.

Ok, so she wouldn't be mine… but I could still see her, which was good. In fact it was the best goddamn thing that could ever happen to me. There was always a slim chance that we could hang out and relive old times. Not the ones where I'd made her life a living hell, but the good ones, where we'd got on ok and almost been friends. I smiled at this appealing idea.

Now all I had to do was find her.

This meant that I was faced with a choice; I could either follow her trail directly, or get some answers first. My impatience told me to just follow her, but my instincts stepped in and reminded me that there was too much at stake not to take a more thoughtful approach.

At this point my attention finally turned to Nessie. How much did she know about my history with Katherine? Had she been sworn to secrecy? There was no doubt in my mind that this was why she'd spoken to me, which meant that whatever she might have agreed to do, Nessie Cullen had wanted to tell me that she'd found Kathy.

I'd always liked Red – and now I knew why.

Taking this into consideration, it made sense to speak to Nessie before charging off and doing something that I might regret. Anyway, for all I knew Katherine could actually be with Nessie, so I might kill two birds with one stone by finding her. Whatever happened, I wasn't going to get any answers by just hanging around in the forest. My sense of purpose returned as I retracted my steps out of the woods and back to town.

It was past midday when I reached Nessie's home. It was probably lucky that I'd been given her address, because there was an overpowering smell of wet dog surrounding the house and it almost completely masked every other scent. Even I would have had trouble picking up her trail here.

The dog smell made it difficult for me to distinguish whether or not Kathy was at the house. I couldn't smell her and I quickly realised that I couldn't feel her presence either. I was fairly sure that she was nowhere nearby. Although this was disappointing, I had to admit that it might be better to speak to Nessie alone. All I had to do was work out what I wanted to say.

After several minutes of pointless hovering, I went up to the house and knocked twice. A tall young woman with a dark complexion and a black ponytail answered the door. She was nicely dressed and would have been attractive if it hadn't been for the awful smell. With a scent this terrible she had to be part of the wolf pack.

I guessed at once that she was Bella's stepsister. And she instantly realised that I was a vampire. She stood in the doorway with a deeply hostile expression on her face.

"What do you want?" She glared angrily at me.

I admired her ability to get to the point without wasting any energy on good manners. I didn't waste words either. It was clear that any effort I made to charm this girl would be futile.

"I've come to see Nessie Cullen. I'm a friend of hers."

"She's not here." She spoke with a faint sneer and didn't bother to elaborate.

So, it was going to be like that, was it?

I made a half-hearted attempt to be civil. "Do you know where she is?"

"No."

This girl was already getting badly on my nerves. There was no way I was going to travel this far to let her give me the brush off. I was going to get my answers one way or another. I folded my arms and glared down at her, but before I could say anything, another figure appeared behind her.

"Leah, who is it?"

The door opened wider to reveal a big guy. He stood behind the girl and looked me up and down. By the smell and resemblance between them, I guessed that he was her brother. She turned to him and replied angrily.

"It's a friend of Nessie's."

As he looked at me, I noticed that his expression was more cautious than hostile. He pushed past the girl and stepped onto the porch. Even at this distance, I could feel the heat radiating off his body. He was even bigger that I'd realised and strong looking. I wondered if all the wolves were like this. I hoped it was just him.

"Nessie's not here right now," he said calmly.

"So I gather." I struggled to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. A fight wouldn't help me get the information I needed. "Can you tell me where she is?"

He frowned thoughtfully. "You're Leo, aren't you?"

I wasn't sure how he knew this, but I nodded anyway. "Yeah."

"I'm Seth, Nessie's step-uncle." He gave a reserved smile. "She told me about you. She'd want me to help you."

"Sure, ok." I was pleased to hear that Red would feel this way – and that he was decent enough to give a damn.

He threw a glance at the girl, who was still hovering in the doorway, scowling. "It's ok, Leah. He's a friend of the Cullens, I'll talk to him."

"Fine! Just don't let him in the house," she snapped, before turning on her heel and slamming the door. I heard her muttering resentfully from inside. "Why does the bloodsucker have to show up the day I'm here?"

He sighed and turned back to me. "Sorry about that."

"She doesn't owe me anything." I shrugged.

Seth gave a rueful smile and changed the subject. "Nessie went away with a friend, they left town yesterday."

I knew that I should keep my enquiries casual if I didn't want to make him suspicious, so I tried to hide my disappointment. I reminded myself not to jump to any conclusions. I didn't even know if she had gone away with Katherine.

"Where did she go?" I spoke in a light tone. "Will she be back soon?"

"Her friend wanted to take a trip to Alaska and Nessie decided to travel with her. I think she was only planning to go for a few days."

"Alaska!" I repeated in surprise. This seemed a pretty far-flung destination, besides which, the place was just a big lump of snow. "What the hell does she want to go there for?"

There was something very wrong here. I could feel it. I wasn't playing it quite as cool as I intended, but luckily Seth didn't seem to think that my reaction was strange, he just smiled understandingly.

"Nessie has family there."

This rang a bell. "Yeah, of course… her cousins in Denali. She told me about them."

"That's right." He nodded. "They invited Katherine to stay. But she and Nessie wanted to go hunting for a few days, before she visits them."

I had a pretty good instinct for when I was being lied to, and the way that Seth mentioned Katherine so casually, made it clear that he was unaware of any connection between us. This could mean that Nessie didn't know that I was Katherine's creator, or that she just hadn't told him about it. I decided to try some subtle probing.

I raised my eyebrows and asked innocently. "Katherine?"

"Oh, sorry," he explained quickly, running his hand through his dark hair. "She's the friend that Nessie went away with."

"She's a vampire then?"

"Yeah, but she's like you, only feeds on animals."

There were no surprises there. I couldn't imagine Kathy ever slipping. Self-control was her middle name.

Seth continued. "I guess you don't know her."

I shook my head wordlessly. Just knowing that I was with someone who'd seen her so recently was making me feel surprisingly emotional and I didn't trust myself to speak. I just kept my expression passive as he continued.

"Katherine only arrived in town last month, but she and Nessie became pretty good friends. She's a nice girl. I like her," he added with a smile. "I was sorry to see her go."

Fighting back the flash of jealousy that this comment provoked in me, I tried to focus on what he was saying; Nessie hadn't known Kathy when we'd met in New Hampshire. This situation was getting progressively stranger. And then it occurred to me that his last remark was quite cryptic. Wasn't Katherine coming back?

I was desperate to discover what she was doing, but I thought that it might seem pretty weird if I started interrogating him about a girl who I was claiming not to know, so instead I asked.

"When is Nessie coming home?"

"I'm not quite sure." Seth deliberated for a moment, before adding cautiously. "Her boyfriend, Jacob, probably knows more than I do. You could ask him."

He looked slightly uncomfortable – as if he wasn't entirely sure that he should have made this suggestion – but I wasn't worried about meeting Red's wolf, as long as I could get the answers I needed. I just smiled gratefully and asked where I could find the guy.

"Jake said he'd be working today, so he'll be at his garage. It's just outside town." Seth gave me the directions and politely shook my hand as I thanked him. His hand was scorching, just like his niece's.

As I made my way to the garage, it occurred to me that my plan to see Nessie was proving to be more complicated than I'd originally envisaged. It already had that annoying 'wild goose chase' quality to it. And I also realised that although the mystery of why Nessie had spoken to me was now solved, the nagging worry – which I'd felt since hearing about the Cullens' move – was still lurking in the back of my mind. Something wasn't quite right. Nessie was making a mistake. I just knew it.

This would have been the perfect moment to walk away. But I also knew that it wasn't really an option. I liked little Red, and the debt that I owed her had increased, rather than lessened. She had saved my sanity and now it seemed that she'd found what I had lost. And since I'd discovered that Kathy was with her, my involvement in whatever mess she was in now seemed pretty much inevitable.

My trusty instincts told me that I was walking into a minefield. Just for starters, I was going to have to introduce myself to her Alpha wolf boyfriend, and in my experience boyfriends were notoriously touchy. But somehow, I still had a feeling that this would be the least of my worries. Who knew where it was all going to end?

I gave a weary sigh. How did girls manage to make everything so complicated?

Author's notes:

Back again!

I just want to say a big thank you for the reviews, and a special thanks to the people I couldn't PM, Olivia, Sarah and SweetLaura. And also thank you for the lovely wedding good wishes that some of you sent.

The wedding went really, really well. It was a great day. The bride and groom looked very happy, and the bridesmaids behaved themselves...!

Have a great week, thanks for reading, Mad :)