LII. Alive
"Edward, how many fire extinguishers did you buy?" I asked in disbelief.
"Enough." He grinned sheepishly.
There had to be at least fifty. And the icing on the cake—Felix emerging with a tub of water so enormous it barely fit through the trapdoor. He set it down and I saw that it was filled to the brim with what looked like wet fabrics.
Edward's eyes were distant—he was listening to the thoughts three rooms away. He turned to the Guard. "Cover yourself and fan out."
They were cloaks. Wet cloaks that would help against the flames.
Edward himself was draped in what looked suspiciously like the flower-patterned curtains I'd seen from one of the earlier rooms. They were dripping wet and he'd wrapped them over his head like a shawl.
It was ridiculous... ridiculously brilliant.
"Bella, stay right here, okay?" he said, taking my hands and giving them a squeeze. "Please."
He'd never been about to go anywhere. He'd had a plan. The situation was under control.
Reckless. Foolish. Thoughtless.
Whoever his family thought he was, he'd grown past it. The Edward I knew was charming and fun—but also keen and careful.
"I'll be right here," I promised. Then I gestured to my bag. "I have more blood."
He shook his head, patting the vials in his pocket. "Three is more than enough. I drank the equivalent of one."
"Okay." I squeezed his hands back. "Be careful."
He winked. "Don't worry, love."
He gave me no time to worry. With a few small gestures of his hand, the barricade was dismantled, the extinguishers put to work, the Guards skilfully taking their formation, not a single one out of place. In less than a minute, it was done. There was no more screaming, and the Guards reappeared in a dizzying blur of speed, closing the doors behind them.
This was the Volturi I'd always heard of. Fast and brutally efficient. Watching the Guards with their cloaks, silent as a shadow and alert to Edward's every gesture, I saw for the first time why they were formidable. The coven was filled with Old Ones—experienced, controlled and disciplined. If Victoria's only allies were newborns, they stood no chance.
"Is it done?" Ariadnh asked, looking like she hardly dared to believe it.
Edward glanced around, taking note of everyone. "Yes," he said. "Helen isn't fully herself but she's calmed down. Brother dearest is a little overcooked but nothing serious. Thought we'd give them a bit of privacy."
Apart from the pungent smoke and a couple of singed cloaks—Felix was disgruntledly beating at a small flame at the corner of his cloak—everyone had come out unscathed. And as Edward relaxed, so did everyone else, shoulders untensing, brushing off errant soot and sighing in relief.
"Well, I never," Ariadnh stared in amazement. "Brother."
"I'm the best, aren't I?" Edward teased.
At that, she pursed her lips. "You'd better be after breaking your promise, destroying the main hall and disappearing with the Guard."
Edward's face fell. "I told you it was an accident."
She hugged him, damp curtains and all. "Don't you ever do that again."
"Accident or not, you've outdone yourself," Marcus said, examining a stray fire extinguisher. "I don't think anyone else has ever single-handedly stormed the castle—"
Edward opened his mouth to protest but Marcus was smiling. "…or handled Helen this well. I'm impressed. Truly."
"I'm proud of you," Ariadnh sniffed and pulled back. "You're all grown up."
Edward's ears turned red. "It's a fire extinguisher, not witchcraft," he said, rubbing his neck. "If I'd known you'd needed them this badly, I'd have come by with them much sooner."
"You would?" Ariadnh blinked rapidly, looking as though she were about to burst into tears. She put a hand to her heart. "It's been so long time since our family was this whole," she said, her voice filled with emotion. "You've helped Helen, helped us, found your mate…" A powerful wave of happiness rippled through the room and I felt myself become giddy with it. A couple of giggles broke out behind us and Ariadnh turned to hide her face in Marcus's chest. "Oh darling, I'm getting all worked up."
Marcus patted her back. "There, there," he said fondly.
His family dealt with, Edward made a beeline for me and hugged me—or tried to, at least. We were hugging more curtain than each other. He reached to pull it off when he stopped, seeming struck by a thought. "Did no one think to suggest fire extinguishers?" he asked. "Surely Philippe can't be the only Guard from this century?" He seemed mystified. "And what happened to the rest? Keenan? Therese? Su?"
"We don't keep Guards here all the time," Ariadnh said. "Not any more. It's suffocating. Some of them don't return unless summoned."
"Many went mad," Marcus said sombrely. "If you think Helen's condition was poor… well, at least she recognises her mate. We've had many who went on a rampage, who imagined their beloved as an enemy and destroyed them."
I went cold at the thought and I wasn't the only one. Edward's arm tightened around me and all around, the faces were grim.
"It's been getting worse," Marcus murmured. "In the last one hundred years alone, we've lost fifteen to the madness."
"Fifteen?" Edward looked appalled. "Fifteen went mad?"
"Usually it's one of a mated pair," Ariadnh said, huddling closer to Marcus. "But you know how it is. One goes, and the other follows."
"And that's how you lost all the new ones?" Edward asked. "That's why everyone here is so…" He cleared his throat and I knew what he meant. Technologically incompetent.
"Oh no," Ariadnh said at once. "The ones that went mad were some of the oldest. We haven't taken in anyone but Philippe since… well, since the last time you were here."
I got that one too: Since you got torn apart and buried.
There was a tense silence. I bet a number of the Guards here took part in the Bury Your Brother incident and were worried Edward was going to go berserk again. But that Edward was gone. The current Edward only looked confused.
"I thought you were looking for talents to help Helen?" he asked.
"No talent will stop the madness," Ariadnh said tersely. "A thousand years of trying… and after we lost you… well, it stopped there."
Marcus coughed. "Ariadnh means to say she threw a fit. Threw a frightful fit and renounced us all, me included—"
"I did not."
"Ari, dear, you most certainly did," Marcus said. "Heavens knew the gods were afraid of you that day."
"I had to find my brother. It took me years," Ariadnh seemed genuinely distressed by the memory and Marcus put an arm around her.
"It was a miracle that you found him at all. I wished you had let me help."
Ariadnh went still. "I couldn't because I thought I might have been mad too. It was the oddest thing. A human memory—or was it a dream? A woman with silk hair and a crescent pendant. The willow tree, Ariadnh, she said. He's there. It was a bent weeping willow raining autumn leaves—I could see it so clearly. And I searched and I searched… and there it was one day. And I couldn't hear Eumenes, I couldn't smell him, but I knew he was there. And I was right."
The Oracle.
I exchanged a look with Edward. He wasn't the only one she'd approached. Had she spoken to Andronikh too—was that how he'd known to hide my secret well enough to fool everyone? Who else?
And then I knew.
Of course. The only person who could truly understand the scrolls.
"Helen," Edward breathed, reaching the same conclusion.
What did she know that we didn't?
"Ah yes, Helen's sister." Ariadnh's eyes flashed. "Isabella just informed us. I can't believe that old hag is still alive. When I get my hands on her—"
"I'm sure it won't come to that," Marcus interjected.
"Oh, after everything she's done, I will personally end her." Ariadnh set her jaw, looking positively terrifying.
"I'm sure Helen can handle her sister," Marcus said hurriedly. "Besides, we should focus on the good news first. Helen has regained herself, Andronikh will be happy and Eumenes is here with lovely Isabella. We should celebrate, Ari, darling."
Ariadnh sighed. "My heart rests uneasily knowing that shrew is roaming about but perhaps you're right."
"We should let everyone rest and prepare while Helen recovers." Marcus looked relieved. "And Eumenes, honestly, those curtains look dreadful on you."
Edward looked down at himself as though he'd forgotten all about them and I grinned at him. "He's right, you know."
I gave one end of it a tug.
They were twisted together, with large patches of burnt holes and loose thread that tangled with his belt, his ears, his fingers. The more I tried to unwrap it, the more they were tangling. I frowned until I realised he'd been tangling them more and more together—too fast for me to see and now I was stuck in his wet curtains with him.
"Edward!" I chided, trying to bat his hands away but they came around me instead.
"We're bound together," he said in my ear, hugging me so tightly I could hardly breathe. "Literally."
"Get off!" I was laughing as he twirled me around and around, twisting us closer together and then in the other direction until the knots loosened.
His cheeks were flushed, his green eyes brilliant in the sunlight. He seemed human and at the same time more. He was calm. At ease. Free from thirst, protected from madness. That was the power of my blood.
There is only duty.
If one vial of my blood was enough to sustain him this long, I could help more vampires. I could stop them from killing humans.
I felt suddenly warm from the thought, warm from the hug, my body heated as he twirled me faster and faster, and still laughing, I spread my arms, feeling the sunlight on my skin as it streamed through the window.
Warm.
Warmer.
Too warm.
My laugh gave way to a cry when I looked at my skin and saw it smoke and then burst into flames.
"Helen!" Ariadnh cried.
Except I knew it wasn't Helen. Edward would've heard her thoughts—he would've run to her if she'd been responsible.
But he was with me, his eyes wild with terror and confusion as he beat at the fire.
It was everywhere—I was on fire everywhere and the more I tried to look at the blinding light, the more I couldn't see.
And that was when it hit me.
It was the sun.
The sunlight was burning me alive.
Nessie
They'd barely took a step when Annette ambushed them in the hallway. She was wearing long dress pants and a starched shirt and was as gorgeous as Nessie remembered. "Hurry. This way." She seemed panicked and hardly looked at them as she ushered them through a side door.
Nessie exchanged an uneasy glance with Leah as they followed Annette. Up one flight of stairs and then another, and another. Annette was moving at a dizzying speed, pausing only for them to catch up.
"What's going on?" Leah asked, panting from all the climbing.
"Keep your voice down," Annette whispered. "We have a visit from the Volturi. It's better if they don't see you. Here." She opened the keypad. 159753. Nessie took note of the X-shaped code as the door slid open.
"This is a scent-blocking room with one-way glass," Annette said. "It's supposed to be soundproof, but let's not push our luck. I'll be back."
She hurried away, the door shutting behind her. A gush of powerful air poured constantly down from the top of the door, the current separating their scents from those outside the room. Nessie pressed her nose to the glass, looking at the sleek iron staircase—from this angle, they could catch a glimpse of the vast laboratory.
They were on the fifth floor facing a quadrangle and there was a fountain in the centre of the ground floor. There had to be at least twenty floors, each with several sight, noise and smell-isolating cubicles like the one they were in, opaque glasses locked with keypads. Nessie examined the glass, wondering if it was bullet-proof, perhaps even vampire-proof.
There was no one else in sight except Annette as she stood beside the fountain, the deceiving picture of serenity.
"Did she say the Volturi?" Nessie whispered.
The Volturi. Vampire royalty. Wasn't that where Bella was? Did they count as an enemy? Or were the Elders the true enemy?
There was no answer from Leah.
Nessie turned to see her frozen on the spot. "Leah?"
For the first time, she took in the room they were in. There was nothing inside except a table scattered with papers and some pens, and stacked metal boxes that looked suspiciously like…
"We're in a morgue," Nessie said, realising why Leah was so horrified. There were corpses inside the cells.
Leah was peering through a tiny glass panel on the side one of the cells. She still hadn't said a word, both hands clapped to her mouth, her eyes wide.
Nessie frowned. It was unusual for a cell to have a viewing panel but she'd never pegged Leah to be this squeamish.
She came closer and instantly understood.
"Oh my god," Leah said. "Oh. My. God."
Nessie felt the blood draining out of her face.
They weren't separate cells stacked on top of each other. They only seemed that way from the outside. Inside the 'cells' was a room of its own and the body lying on the metallic tray was hooked up to a bunch of tubes.
One of the wires was connected to an active electroencephalogram.
A human doctor was inside, facing away from them as she studied the monitor, entirely absorbed in her work as she compared the monitor with the readings on her clipboard.
The readings were changing before their very eyes: From a straight line of the dead to a small glimpse of delta waves of sleep and dreams. And then that too began to transform to theta waves of drowsiness.
The body on the tray wasn't only alive, it was waking up.
But Nessie didn't have to be a neurologist to understand that. Or to recognise the vampire lying on the tray. The memory of the grainy video was enough to send a chill down Nessie's spine.
White-blond with a sharp profile and thin lips, he was unmistakable.
James.
