Chapter 35- Feeling Lucky.

Emmett and I crossed the border to Canada at Niagara Falls shortly after leaving Rochester. Our passports were, as always, excellent forgeries and prompted no questions although I was disgusted to be held up by the border guards as several of them surreptitiously examined the Ferrari enviously.

I parked the car at a 24 hour diner outside Toronto and then Emmett and I continued on foot, making our way to where the homicide I suspected was the responsibility of a vampire had taken place. Sure enough the distinctive scent was all over the dark, shadowy corner of the park. Imperceptible to humans, the scent was as obvious as a signpost to us, and Emmett and I looked at each other and nodded confidently. It was Mary.

Emmett was probably the best tracker in the family, having already been an expert at it in his human life before he ever tried hunting as a vampire. I was not too bad either, mostly because it was a skill that could be improved with practice and I had always tried too hard at anything that I might possibly become better at than Edward! So the two of us moved quickly and mostly in silence, following the overlapping, muddled scent trails as best we could, always moving towards the freshest ones. While vampire interactions were often fraught with tension, most of the north American vampires knew each other and no one had any reason to be particularly wary, so fortunately for us Mary had made no effort to hide her tracks.

We found her early the next morning. Wearing a pair of filthy jeans and a man's plaid shirt and hunting cap, she was perched high in a tree in the forest, her long red hair hanging around the sharp face that was eyeing us with interest.

"Hell, but you two are loud." She grinned at us, and swung lightly down. "It's a miracle you ever catch anything, crashing through the forest like elephants as you do."

"Just giving you fair warning we were coming," Emmett said easily. "It's been a long time Mary…how have you been?"

"Can't complain." Her gleaming crimson eyes took in my golden ones with a quirked eyebrow of amusement. "All still on the wagon then? No one's joined the dark side?"

Emmett chuckled. "Not yet, not yet…"

"Well, I'd wager you're not here just for the pleasure of my company," Mary said, carelessly picking leaves out of her hair. "So what's brought you here to my neck of the woods?"

I glanced at Emmett. "Edward and Carlisle sent us," I said. "They…we all need your help."

"Aye? And what is it I can be doing for you?" Mary said sceptically.

Once again I held out my phone, showing a photograph of Renesmee. "It's about her," I said. "Renesmee."

"Fuck me dead!" Mary leapt twenty feet back into the tree and glared at us balefully. "Immortal children? What the hell have you been up to, and what makes you think I'd ever get involved in such a fucking mess?"

"It's not what you think!" I said. "She's not an immortal child…she's Edward's daughter."

Mary sneered at me. "I wouldn't have taken you for such a bald faced liar, Rosalie Cullen…I've heard the stories of the immortal children and the massacres and bloodshed that followed, and I'll have no part of it. Christ on a cracker! I would have thought Carlisle would have had more sense!"

"She's Edward's daughter!" I said desperately. "Please Mary, just listen to what I have to say! He married a human and he got her pregnant and…"

Mary laughed scornfully. "As though I'm going to believe that! What do you take me for?"

"I take you for someone who knows Edward well enough to know that if there's any vampire in the whole damn world who is uptight enough, repressed enough and just plain weird enough to have sex with a human and not kill them it would be Edward!" Emmett said with a relaxed laugh.

At that Mary hesitated. She did, indeed, know Edward.

"We didn't believe it either," I said to her. "Not until we saw Bella's belly growing bigger day by day with our own eyes! She nearly died- she would have died if Edward hadn't been able to change her at the last minute, after we delivered the baby."

"Let me see the picture again," Mary said suspiciously, silently dropping from the tree to land in a crouch beside me.

"She's not like the immortal children," I said quietly. "She's half human. She has a heartbeat, she sleeps, she grows every day. She can drink blood like we do or she can eat human food…although she doesn't like it much." I scrolled through the photos on my phone that showed Nessie in various stages of development, missing her desperately and longing to be back at home with her. "You can see how much she looks like Edward."

"Aye, I can." Mary pursed up her mouth. "What's the problem then? Why are you running all over God's earth looking for help? I'm not much of a babysitter."

Emmett laughed. "Nothing so simple as that I'm afraid. It's the Volturi…they know about our Ness but they think, as you did, that she's an immortal child. Unlike you though, we don't think they're going to be willing to stop and listen to what we have to say before they tear off all our heads. They're all coming, not just a soldier party but the whole damn lot of them."

Mary looked doubtful. "I don't know that I want to get involved in a war, Emmett."

"We're not asking that," I said quickly. "Really; you know Carlisle would never ask his friends to fight for him. We just want people to come and meet Ness and see the truth of the situation. If we have enough people outside the family who can witness to the truth, then the Volturi will have to stop and listen, and then they'll know we haven't broken any rules."

Mary deliberated, kicking her bare feet against the forest floor, digging in to the rotting leaves with her toes. "It's not that I don't want to help," she said slowly. "But I like my quiet life you know. I like being well out of the way of intrigue and drama and politics." She hesitated. "But I owe Carlisle and Edward a lot. I can't promise anything more, but I'll come and meet this child and see the truth of what you're telling me. I can do that much for them."

"Thank you," I said sincerely. "That's all we're asking for- just come and meet Renesmee." There was no doubt in my mind that Renesmee would be able to captivate anyone who took the time to get to know her.

Mary nodded. "Are you two going back to your home now?" Her eyes flickered over our clothes with a slight sneer. "Missing the trappings of civilisation?"

I fought back a flare of irritation. Just because I brushed my hair occasionally and bought clothes instead of stealing them from my victim was no need to be rude.

"We're going to California," I told her shortly. "We need as many witnesses as we can find if we're going to make the Volturi pause and listen to us. We've caught up with Garrett in New York, and now you, and we think Randall is in California, or somewhere near there."

"Oh, Randall," Mary laughed. "I haven't seen him in years. It'll be like some kind of bizarre reunion, all Carlisle's little acolytes together…"

"Maybe we'll convert a few more of you," Emmett said cheerfully. "You can join our cult!"

Mary roared with laughter. "I don't think so! You're a pack of freaks…I'll leave you to your aberrations." She bounced up on her toes. "The last I heard you were living in some god-forsaken corner of Washington state, so is that where I'm heading?"

"Yes, a little town called Forks. Get close enough and you'll be able to follow the scent trails, we've been there a couple of years now and hunted all over." Emmett hesitated for a moment and then said forcefully, "Just…go straight to the house when you get near, okay? There's some other shit going on around there, they'll explain it all to you once you get there, and until you understand it's better if you're not running around the forest on your own."

The Quileute wolves, of course. I frowned for a minute, wondering how we were going handle that little complication. They had made and honoured the treaty with us based on the fact that we were no threat to humans, and the same could not be said about the guests we were inviting into the area. How much donated blood could Carlisle get his hands on?

Mary looked at Emmett speculatively. "Very well. Straight to the house…Carlisle and Edward are there?"

"Edward is," I told her. "He and Bella stayed behind with Ness, and so he could talk things through with anyone willing to come. Carlisle and Esme went to look up some other friends in Britain and Africa, and they'll be back as soon as possible. We don't have long…"

"How long?"

"Less than a month."

Mary absorbed this news stoically. "That isn't very long."

"No." I twisted my hands together anxiously. "But it's long enough for you to see that Renesmee grows and changes and isn't a threat, which is what matters."

"I'll go," Mary said decisively. "I'd be a sad kind of friend if I wouldn't. You have any messages you want me to pass along?"

"Nope, we're good." Emmett grinned. "Unlike you troglodytes, we're hip with the new century and have mobile phones and stuff."

Mary laughed good-naturedly. "If being hip to the new century involves sex with your fucking primary food source and creating these immortal-children-that-aren't you can keep it…I'll do without the cell phone."

I snorted. "Don't lay Edward's eccentricities on the rest of us!" Emmett was standing behind me and I felt his hands cup my ass, his thumbs hooking into the waistband of my jeans. "No one else is having sex with the food."

"I'll happily eat you though," Emmett muttered to me almost inaudibly, and I fought back a laugh and kicked him as I gave Mary some directions to Forks, and then the two of us waved her goodbye and went back to the Ferrari, ready to begin the long drive across country towards California.

As we passed through Utah I had Emmett drive for a while so that I could do some work on the laptop. Tracing what I believed was Randall's movements didn't take long, and then I startled Emmett as I let out a gleeful whoop. "Vegas, baby!"

Emmett grinned, half baffled. "What?"

"We're not going straight to California," I told him cheerfully. "Vampire activity in Las Vegas- I think it's Randall but even if it's not we may as well stop and see who it is. And if we should just happen to see some blackjack tables that need playing…"

"It would be a sin to pass them by," Emmett finished solemnly, his dimples flashing. "Damn baby doll, how long has it been? Remember how much fun we had in the 50's?"

"I remember." The 1950s, when Alice and Jasper had joined our family, gambling had become almost the biggest family bonding experience we shared. Dressing up for a night out at the casino, or dressing down for a night in some of the underground gambling dens we found, had been both brilliant fun and incredibly lucrative. Of course Alice and Edward were shameless cheats, they couldn't really help it, but Emmett and I had loved taking our chances and playing for real.

Alice. I couldn't help frowning, and began clicking my way through several screens on my laptop, unable to stop myself from swearing softly. "I've just been trying to trace Alice and Jasper," I told Emmett with a scowl. "It's too bad she's with Jas- he's wiping out their electronic trail. He knows I can see all the credit cards and tell what they're doing online…oh." A smile broke across my face, and I impulsively reached across and kissed Emmett. "Jasper's sent me a message."

"Can you trace it?"

"No, not a chance…but that's okay." I grinned as I looked at the message on my screen. "He says Leave it alone, roseofjericho. Trust me. MajorJW."

"You're going to listen to him?" Emmett queried.

I nodded, shutting down the laptop and tucking it back behind the seats. "It's Jasper, and he's never lied to me Emmett. You have to be right…Alice has a plan. They're not running away, no matter what it looks like. Jasper would never do that- I should never have doubted either of them." I felt strong and certain as I thought of my tall blonde 'brother' and dark, pixie-like 'sister' and for the first time felt a fluttering of optimism.

"I'm not confident that their plan will work," I added a moment later with a touch of regret. "I mean, the Volturi is on their way and we're probably all going to die regardless of what Alice and Jasper do or don't do…but I believe that they're doing something that might help us. I don't understand the secrecy but they must have a reason. I just have to trust them." I looked across at Emmett. "Now let's trade places so I can drive. We've sent Mary and Garret back home, so we're two for two so far. Let's go to Vegas and find Randall, make it three for three, and then hit the tables…I'm feeling lucky."