41 Spoiling' for a Fight
The chapter title belongs to AC/DC
"The tribal legends speak of the white wolf appearing to the tribe, bringing a universal truth that will prevent great sorrow," Jacob told us, just getting his voice back. "We need to get a hold of Quil."
"Edward?" Bella's soft voice brought me away from the images flitting around Charlie's head. His vision was lengthy and complex. Unwittingly, he revealed the final part to me. I jumped.
Good God. Oh, my Good God.
"Jacob, you and Seth need to get Quil Ateara over here as soon as possible, because this is what he's been living for, all these years.
"This," I jabbed my finger in Charlie's direction, "has got to be the final part of the prophecy.
All eyes turned to Charlie, who looked alarmed and said, "Hey, this time last week I was watching a ball game, drinking a beer. Now I find I'm having visions and prophetic dreams and can't even claim to be human anymore. So...don't look at me like I know what this is all about."
Carlisle took Charlie's temperature, which had risen just one more degree. When he'd completed his change, he'd probably be about like the others, and that required an additional four degrees.
"I think we need to give Charlie some space here. He still needs to rest."
Jacob and Seth nodded a goodbye but Bella didn't budge. "I'll be down in a bit," she whispered.
I squeezed her arm and smiled at Charlie, who was almost asleep.
We all went into the kitchen and I poured Jacob and Seth some orange juice. After Carlisle fetched the mail he joined us, wrinkling his nose at the smell. Carlisle despised the smell of orange juice. I tried to convince Esme to get another kind but she insisted that humans drank orange juice. She made sure we had some in the house at all times.
It was a sad testament to the fact that Esme didn't actually know any real humans but did watch a lot of television, and apparently the people who sell orange juice were pretty skilled at making convincing commercials—so persuasive, in fact, that super-intelligent vampire women succumbed to them.
Jacob sipped his juice thoughtfully. Carlisle cocked his head as he watched Jacob take a drink, wondering how in the world Jacob was able to choke down the vile-smelling substance in front of him. I'd actually consumed orange juice—my mother was one of the women from Esme's commercials. But Carlisle lived in the time before orange juice so had no idea how it would have tasted to him as a human.
"He's not done with his transformation, is he?" Jacob had finished the small glass and poured another. The smell or orange wafted at Carlisle and he cringed but composed himself before Jacob noticed.
"I don't believe so, no," Carlisle replied, as he opened the kitchen window wide and pulled the chain to the ceiling fan. "I think he has a couple of days to go."
"He took the news just about like I thought he would." Jake rinsed his glass and stood at the sink, looking out at the endless green. After a moment he turned. "We gotta find Quil."
Jacob's phone rang. He spoke briefly, then frowned as he snapped it shut.
"Billy says that nobody knows where Quil is. He disappeared into the woods. We'll have to search for him."
"Do you need a ride?" Carlisle was generous to a fault. I smiled as I tried to imagine the Mercedes coupe driving in some of the terrain in the area, looking for a crazy old Indian. Jacob smiled briefly.
"Thanks, but we'll have to run. I've called the pack and they're meeting us on the beach. And Billy told me the cruiser is still in the same spot." He flung his hands up in aggravation.
"It's just off the road. The back end of it is visible from either lane. I don't know why it hasn't been spotted."
Carlisle shook his head. "I'll call the station, tell them our original story, that you and Seth found Charlie wandering in the woods and brought him to me."
"This is something I never thought I'd be a part of," Seth said seriously. "Jake and I grew up hearing all about the White Wolf. It's kind of like the Messiah in the Christian church."
Jacob nodded. "Yeah, but we waited, not for salvation, but for truth."
"I wonder if it's really Charlie or just some bizarre dream he had during his transformation," Seth wondered. "My dreams were pretty freaky when I was changing."
"I wondered the same thing," Jacob said. "Quil can tell us, I think."
"Is there no definitive test for the White Wolf?" Carlisle asked.
"I'm not sure," Jake confessed.
Bella came outside to join us. "Why don't you just have Charlie phase once he's completely transformed and see if he's white?"
All four of us looked at Bella, and then to each other, each one wishing he had been the one to suggest that idea. Sometimes it's too easy to overthink simple things.
"If he transforms into a white wolf, will that be proof enough?" Bella asked. "I mean, there are no white wolves in nature."
"That's true," quipped Seth. "But there aren't any black ones or tan ones or russet ones in the wild, either. Our pack has nine members that are all different but nobody knows why."
"I think Quil will be able to piece it all together with the prophecy", Jacob said with certainty.
Jacob and Carlisle began to discuss Charlie's condition when Bella's gaze was drawn to the woods across the river. After a moment she held her hand up for everyone to be quiet and then we could all hear it—voices raised in anger.
Vampire voices. Indian voices.
Jacob swore softly and he and Seth tore off their shorts and kicked off their shoes, phasing on the fly. In two seconds they were both sailing over the river.
The yelling continued. As I turned I spied my tortured countenance in Bella's eyes.
"Go!" she shouted, as she covered her mouth with her hand. Four seconds later Carlisle and I found ourselves in the middle of seething vampires and bristling, quivering Indian shapeshifters. Their combined thoughts were violent and primal.
The pack and the family faced off across a small clearing. At the forefront were Jasper and Quil, each wanting to completely annihilate his opponent.
I'd never seen Jasper so irate. His wild hair stood on end and his wide, unblinking eyes startled me. Emmett had hold of his shoulder but I knew that if Jasper made a break for it, Quil would be dead where he stood.
Jacob was already talking to Quil in a soft voice, trying to pull him back and calm him down so he wouldn't phase. The rest of the pack looked on.
"Don't you ever come near my mate again!" Jasper yelled, as he squirmed under Emmett's iron grip. "I will kill you! Do you understand me? I will rip your fucking head off!"
Venom dripped down Jasper's chin. With his face contorted by rage and his lips drawn back over razor sharp teeth, he looked like the devil himself.
Quil didn't seem upset by Jasper's appearance, and stupidly kept talking.
"This place won't be safe until you, your filthy mate and every one of your freakish family are dead!" he shouted back. "You're all an abomination!" At this he spit, right onto Jasper's shoe.
Jasper acted like he'd been slapped.
"You did not!" he roared, pulling more forcefully at the arms that held him. Em tightened his grip, joined by Rose and Alice, who whispered to her enraged husband.
"I'm all right, Jazz. They didn't hurt me!"
Jasper was a boiling cauldron of anger. I couldn't see what had precipitated his outrage. Instead I saw a single, repeating thought: Quil's head drop-kicked down the hill, the rest of him left behind in bloody, manageable pieces.
Jasper lunged and pulled free. Alice shrieked and grabbed for him but his shirt slipped through her fingers. I intercepted him right before he got his hands around Quil's neck. Emmett and Carlisle dragged him back. He was a whirlwind of snarling and swearing. I could hear Carlisle's calm voice trying to talk him down off the ledge.
"Get the fuck off of me!" Jasper bellowed. Behind me, the wolves seethed, their only thoughts of protecting each other. They didn't grasp that if they phased, we would walk down this hill short some family members.
The worst place to be if the vampires and wolves went at each other was in between. I'd decided to get out of the middle of the madness and turned away from the wolves to join the family when Quil reached out and raked his hand down the back of my arm.
His fingernails easily ripped through my shirt sleeve, leaving three long gashes from my shoulder, all the way down to the middle of my forearm.
"Hey! OW!" I spun around and glared at him as waves of searing pain ran up and down my arm, seeping into the muscle.
"Shit!" I yelled, as I grabbed my arm. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" The sickening burning continued.
Jasper stopped his frantic struggle and all the noise ended. Shuffling, pacing, panting, pleading—all came to a screeching halt. Nobody even dared to sweat.
Quil began to tremble. Grabbing his shirt, I held him close to me with my uninjured arm.
"If you begin to phase, I will rip your head off. Do you HEAR ME?"
"Let me take care of him, Edward." I heard Jacob's voice in my ear through the red haze of my anger. Go ahead, go ahead and phase. Please. Please! I want to hurt you so bad that—
Carlisle's steadying hand clamped down on my shoulder. I've got to treat your wound before it tries to heal. The pack members have a peculiar toxin on their fingernails that's poisonous to us.
Fucking wonderful. I threw Quil backwards to land on his back about ten feet away.
I shook Carlisle's grip off and walked to stand over him. "The White Wolf is a 'Bringer of Truth' is he? Maybe the truth is that you're an asshole, Quil." I spat the words out of gritted teeth, wanting nothing more than to stomp on his scrawny ass until he was pulp. Numbness seeped into my upper arm, leaving me feeling angrier than I'd been before.
Several of the pack ran and stood between Quil and me. "You'll all leave if you know what's good for you, Cullen." I looked incredulously at Brady, who stood his ground. I was a good foot taller than he was.
"We'll leave when we're damn good and ready," I replied. "Why don't you go back to your stinking reservation?"
Carlisle had rounded up the family and asked them to stand behind him, which Jasper and Emmett promptly ignored. Esme spoke to me in a low, soothing voice, asking me to back away and come home with her and the family.
Quil got up and brushed himself off. His mind was a jumble of sworn epithets, threats, and swirling fury.
I turned away from his livid face but realized I had one more thing to say.
Looking around, I pointed to him. "Don't you ever spit at a member of my family again, or, one day, you'll just be gone." I sliced my good hand horizontally in a sharp motion.
Quil's mouth dropped open. "Are you threatening me? he demanded.
"And your fellow dogs will never find your body."
If the other pack members weren't angry, that got them going. The rumble of dissatisfaction began again and the stench of dog was stirred up by their milling around.
Jacob finally managed to get them all to form a circle around him. He told them about Charlie's dream that he was the white wolf. He was thinking something else.
Get your family off the mountain, Edward. Somebody's gonna get a limb torn off, or worse. I'll get these guys calmed down and outta here in a minute.
In a few seconds they'd run into the woods, leaving their wretched stench behind.
Jasper was still outraged but I couldn't tell what had happened. His mind was a jumble of red rage mixed with fierce determination to keep Alice safe.
Uh-oh.
As soon as we were visible, Bella ran from the porch to meet us on the banks of the river.
"What was that all about?" She wrung her hands, glancing at each of us quickly.
Before I could say anything, she saw my shirt sleeve, hanging in dirty ribbons from my shoulder. My anger rippled from me in giant waves.
"You're hurt! Oh my God!" She spun me around and gasped.
"I'm all right, Bella." I made a gigantic effort to sound calm. "It stings, because the pack members have a toxin—"
"One of the wolves did this?" She sounded outraged. Good.
We walked slowly to the house, lagging behind the others. "I couldn't hear exactly what was going on. There was too much shouting, and I was afraid to leave Charlie."
I didn't need to be able to read Bella's mind to know that she was truly afraid of an altercation between the vampires and the wolves. Her fears were well founded.
"I don't know who started it, but you know Jasper and Emmett. They would kill one of the pack members if they felt threatened, and from what we saw, except for those of us up with Charlie, they were all out there. That's five vampires and seven wolves. We can't go on like this. Somebody's going to get carried away and we'll be hip deep in a situation that has no resolution."
Bella fretted about my arm and worried about what might have happened with Alice. Soon we were in Carlisle's office. He pulled a small white bottle from a desk drawer, dabbing the pungent solution onto a cotton ball and then over the scratches. Bella looked on, seemingly fascinated, as Carlisle cleaned the wounds, directing me to deposit some venom into a small plastic cup.
I felt my flesh quivering as he held the edges together and applied the venom. After a few minutes the sensation lessened as the last of the scratches was cleaned and closed. My arm was stiff for a few minutes, but the more I worked it out, the less it bothered me, until no trace remained of the tenderness or pain.
Jasper appeared at the office door, still angry. He'd showered, his wet hair hanging in ringlets. He'd thrown the clothes he'd been wearing into the firepit, shoes and all.
I knew he'd come to explain, and when I saw the reason for his outburst, I was irate all over again. Closing my eyes, I counted to ten, but it wasn't enough. A hundred, a thousand, wouldn't have been enough.
Carlisle motioned him to sit as he perched on the corner of his desk. Jasper sat on the edge of the couch, his hands between his knees. It was a good thing that Quil had clawed me, as it had defused a potentially deadly situation. In Jasper's shoes, I'm not sure I could have walked away without somebody's head in my pocket.
"I'm taking Alice back to Alaska. We're staying until Tanya and her family return, then we're moving up there permanently. Somewhere near the preserve, maybe."
It was difficult for Jasper to maintain his composure. Carlisle waited patiently and finally Jasper got up and began to pace the spacious office.
"Alice and I were after a couple of deer. I snagged mine but hers ran down the hill. She chased after it and ran a couple of miles. After I'd finished I followed her scent and picked up the stench of dog. Just about that time I heard her call. Two of the bastards had phased and had her cornered! If Em hadn't been right behind me we'd probably all be dead."
Jasper stopped his pacing and stood at the large window. His voice had softened as he thought about his mate and what she meant to him. "That was too close, Carlisle. And I hate to say this, but Jake isn't keeping them in control. If we go on like this, somebody's going to get killed and then it will be a fucking free-for-all."
Carlisle's mind was whirring, trying to find some commonality with the wolves that we could grasp. Finally desperation won out as he asked, "Will you at least delay your decision to leave until we've talked to Old Quil?"
Jasper thought for a moment, finally nodding reluctantly as he rose to leave. "Sure. I'll take Alice to hunt elsewhere. We're not going into the woods around here anymore. I suggest you consider the same."
"What's wrong with those boys?" Bella wondered aloud. She was too new to this life to understand a fundamental fact: Nothing is ever easy.
"They're not boys, Bella. And they were too long without a leader. Jacob can accept some of the blame for this. He left, knowing he was the Alpha."
After checking on Charlie, Bella and I went up to my room and collapsed onto the bed. After trying to imagine how I would have reacted if she'd been the one the wolves had cornered, I decided we both needed the respite of a hot shower.
I turned on the stereo as I pulled her into the bathroom and soon we were serenaded by Rodrigo Y Gabriela's guitar tunes as we washed each other's hair in the hot spray. Bella made certain to rub her soapy body up against my back, resulting in a shower attack, lots of groaning and grunting and fierce kissing, as I held her against the tiles.
Bella made a decent effort at not being quite so vociferous, although I'm certain every member of the family heard us, despite the music blasting and the doors closed. I comforted myself with the knowledge that they'd all enjoyed shower sex—lots of it, as it turned out—so they couldn't begrudge us the as Bella came and the torrent of whispered cuss words tumbled out of her mouth, I could have sworn I heard Emmett chuckle.
When we were both dressed we decided to drive the Volvo over to the outskirts of Port Angeles to hunt. We finished after midnight and decided to head over to the Cedar Inn and stay the night there.
The moment I opened the door a peculiar smell met me—home. Bella glanced at me and pulled me into a soft and lingering kiss. Later, as we relaxed on the white bed, she whispered, "I missed this place. Our place."
After a quick call to the house to make sure Charlie was still sleeping, we tucked in to watch movies and make love all night. I closed my eyes, willing myself to put prophecies and revelations and possible confrontations with vicious wolves out of my mind, just for tonight.
Tomorrow would be here soon enough, with its attendant problems, negotiations, and compromises.
Tonight, I just wanted to drown in Bella.