Chapter Two: Wabbit Season
Los Angeles – November 23rd
The loud splash distracted the two newborn vampires just enough for Eliza to come behind them and rip their heads off in one smooth motion. Isabella moved slowly, circling the trio that had tried to surround her into the perfect position. The last one that had tried to attack, ended up in the pool… without a head. Newborns weren't known for thinking clearly, or at all. So, consumed by blood, they were not much more than cannon fodder.
Her move was unexpected, and faster than the fledgling vampires could track. If someone with experience was watching, they would frown at her game. Baiting the poor creatures with a simple faint, but a successful one. In the space of three heartbeats, all three of them were dead on the tiles surrounding the pool.
"Six down… a fuckton more to go." Eliza said with a half-hearted grin.
"You exposed us too soon." Isabella remonstrated without much censure through a sigh, the blackness that had enveloped her eyes reverting to their usual bright ruby red.
"It's not like they could hurt us." Eliza responded with a typical shrug; she'd grown bored of playing the waiting game. A full day of hunting and tracking was already getting tiresome.
"With a coven this large, they could hurt us." Isabella warned as she scanned the neighboring houses looking for the seventh member of the coven, they had been tracking through Culver City, under the 10 freeway into the maze of streets making up Cheviot Hills. The empty house had been advantageous, the pool convenient and the hedges surrounding it even more so.
"No, I mean something is odd about them. I can't put my finger on it, they just seem… off." Eliza was kneeling by one of the corpses examining a lifeless hand.
"I think it's just that we've been chasing this nest for the last ten hours." Isabella said absently.
"That might be a record for us." Eliza said with a frown, as Isabella pulled out her cellphone hitting a speed dial button as she brought it up to hear ear.
"779 Forrester Drive. Los Angeles. Six to tidy up." She hit end on the phone without waiting for a response.
"You know they hate that." Eliza said with a small grin, before going back to examining the corpse.
"Don't care. Anything useful?" Isabella said glancing down at Eliza.
"Does the fact that this one looks like she lost a fight with a paintball machine gun count as useful?" The vampire she was looking at had black spots all over her skin, like a leopard.
"No… er I don't think so Eliza. And no, I'm not letting you buy one of those either. Do you have a point?" Isabella said feeling a bit impatient. Dawdling and pointing out strange tattoos weren't going to help them catch the next one.
"I... don't have one." Eliza sighed and got to her feet. "You sure our cleaning crew will get here in time? Hate to leave this for the LAPD to find." Eliza looked around at the carnage, all distinctly inhuman.
"I'm sure, their lives depend on it." Isabella almost allowed a small smile to escape her lips at the idea but thought the better of it. At times she could see herself becoming too much like Aro. She had no illusions about the kind of monster she had become, but she never wanted to turn into something like him.
"Morbid much? Although, shit like this happens every day in LA, I doubt the cops would even put it on the news." Eliza grinned, which quickly fell as she thought about the repercussions. "Maybe we should start…"
"No, we need to keep moving. We do our jobs; they will do theirs." Isabella turned to survey the area again, scanning the shadows for a hint of the trail. They needed to find the one that had gotten away.
"It's the cleaner thing right, they play it safe. I never got the prejudice. Talia is a hoot, and Kell… he has great hair." Eliza got to her feet and started to look around as well, using her vampire senses to find any hint of their target's scent on the rest of their coven.
"They take the easy path, it's… disappointing. I tried to train both of them." Isabella frowned and then froze, her eyes locking on something.
Of course, Isabella found the trace first, something that never failed to amaze and irritate Eliza. She had worked with some of the Volturi's best trackers and fighters. None came close to Isabella's abilities, or her own for that matter. She knew they were different in some ways, not that it mattered, and distractions were hardly appropriate for their given task.
They had started in Los Angeles hoping it was clean, but a cursory investigation showed this coven still lurking, hunting carefully and not drawing undue attention to itself, which was odd for a coven made up of vampires no older than six months.
Isabella didn't wait for Eliza, never even bothering to look back to see if she was following. It was more than just their bond; it was the perfect trust she had in Eliza. She knew without a hint of doubt that her daughter would always be there for her. Would always have her back. They were family. No words could explain how deeply they were connected, and yet they were not related by blood at all.
The final vampire was a small woman, no taller than five feet. Her scent was different from the others, in that it wasn't as pungent. She was older, which meant she was more dangerous. She also didn't smell off, the slightly astringent scent the other vampires emitted. It made them easy to track, but it created more questions than answers.
"There she is." Eliza sent over the connection, confirming a visual on the vampire as she tried to casually cross a street two blocks away.
"We capture this one." Isabella sent across their tether, needing no response. "Cloak us."
"Yeah yeah." Eliza grumbled as she spread her power through the connection and surrounded Isabella as well as herself. Isabella could use the power as well, tapping into her daughter's abilities. But it was trickier to use each other's powers then it was to just share them with one another. They moved in unison, flanking the target without her even realizing she was being hunted. Then, something must've sent up a warning to the vampire, because she paused, visibly shuddered, and then started to run.
"She's wabbiting." Eliza sent with frustration.
"What the fuck is wabbiting?" Isabella said through the connection, as she burst into a full run, avoiding both people and cars.
"You know, she's acting like a wabbit. We're hunting here. Thus, she's wabbiting, you know Fudd speak." Eliza's mental words were so matter of fact; Isabella couldn't quite wrap her head around it. So, she didn't try.
"I… okay she's wabbiting. Anyway, I'm thinking Oslo." Isabella let a small smile curl up her mouth for an instant, but never lost focus on her prey.
"Gotcha, in five… four… three… two… one." Eliza's countdown ended and Isabella's cloak dropped. The three mortals in the nearby vicinity didn't really notice her presence, since the cloak affected them more strongly than a vampire. When it didn't they would just assume she had always been there, and make their own judgements on why they hadn't noticed her before. The vampire on the other hand, almost screamed in terror, and let loose her preternatural speed.
Isabella pulled on her daughter's power to cloak herself, as she chased the vampire north into West Hollywood. The traffic both on the ground and in the streets were getting dense, and the chances of humans catching on was becoming more and more likely. Most didn't have the capacity to spot a vampire running full speed. But some could, and human video cameras could as well. Time was running out, the chase had to come to an end.
Thankfully the vampire decided to duck into a side street, unaware that Isabella was close on her heels. The long alleyway was just wide enough for a car to drive down, marked with potholes and trash cans. The barred windows, and carports created an oppressive atmosphere, where few people ventured except for those that lived in each building, when they had to get to their car or take out their trash.
The vampire smiled to herself, thinking she had gotten away. When suddenly Eliza appeared ten paces in front of her. She stopped in place and growled at her new opponent. The sound was meant to strike fear in an opponent, but Eliza was hardly swayed. Instead she just smiled and nodded towards something over the vampire's shoulder.
Isabella was standing behind her, the darkness of the nearby carports gathering behind her almost like wings made of shadow. The woman screamed, but no sound escaped her. Isabella took her by the shoulder and slammed her into the concrete, cracking it like a spider-web beneath her. Then she knelt, placing an elbow into the woman's throat.
"Who created you?" Isabella's eyes were black, her voice hollow and deadly.
"I don't know. I woke up like this, a woman I'd never seen before or since said I should feed and that I was supposed to help the rest. There were more of us at first, until those two kids showed up and started slaughtering us. Most ran or tried too, a few were too stupid to realize we were outclassed. They tracked down ten, I told the rest we had to hide. We did, I thought we did. What are you?"
"Volturi. You have broken the law. There are no second chances." The coldness of her words could be seen on the woman's face. In a moment of horror, she realized she was about to die, a millisecond before Isabella took her head off. Almost instantly the darkness faded from the alleyway, and the black retreated from her eyes. She stood and straightened her shirt sleeve, before pulling out her cell again.
"One in a dumpster. The alleyway intersecting Beverly and Alden, between Robertson and Clark." Her voice had returned to normal too, but again she didn't wait for an answer before hanging up the phone.
"We keep doing sweeps for another week before heading north." Isabella said before picking up the corpse and throwing it into a nearby dumpster.
"I've always wondered why we don't give second chances. I mean, it's not like we'd give a third chance. But everyone makes at least one mistake in their life." Eliza pondered as they walked out of an alleyway, before pulling out her phone and ordering a private car to come for them.
"Oooo… the Starbucks is still open." Eliza's enthusiasm for caffeine made no sense to Isabella since it had no effect on them, but she indulged her anyway. It was better than answering the question she herself didn't know the answer to, why did the Volturi refuse a simple second chance?
San Francisco – December 7th
"What is that, seventeen? All with the same bloody story." Eliza swore as she picked up the pieces of the vampire she had just beheaded.
"Yes. Seventeen that we left alive long enough to talk." Isabella sighed as she looked around at the nest they had cleared out. The walls were stained with the blood of dozens of victims, their bodies left to rot in the basement. The stench was starting to spread out into the street, which would've brought the local authorities around soon enough. Two dozen newborns were living in the house, which was practically falling apart in a rundown part of town. The leader, or rather the only one not affected by the same illness that seemed to afflict the rest, had exactly the same story as the one they found in Los Angeles.
"One thing is clear; someone is doing this. Someone is intentionally making these covens, and then leaving them." Eliza shook her head and turned to leave, but Isabella put up a hand to make her wait. That's when she heard it too, a small whisper coming from downstairs.
Without a sound, the two made it down into the basement. The wall of stink that escaped once they opened the door would've made any human collapse; it was inhumanly foul. Neither of them reacted, although Eliza was tempted. There was no real light, not that they needed any. Other than flies, there was no movement at first. But there was a sound, a frantic, thundering heartbeat. A sound intimately familiar to Isabella, it was the sound of a heart about to beat it's last before it never beat again, before it turned to stone.
Together they began to dig, as a few seconds later the desperate sound of a trapped man, or rather a trapped vampire, started to come from near the bottom of a pile of bodies. Several minutes passed before they were able to unbury him. He was terrified and completely consumed with bloodlust, his eyes frantic and unfocused. Eliza grabbed his shoulders and forced him to look at her, but all he did was growl at her.
Through the connection, Isabella already knew Eliza was trying to get a read on the newborn. Isabella knew that it would take months, if not years for him to have even a remote semblance of sanity. If the surroundings were any indication of his last days, his last moments as a human had been traumatizing to say the least. Within seconds, Isabella could tell there was no sign there was any rationality in the vampire, let alone humanity. With a deep sigh, she took his head off his shoulders and then waited for the repercussions of her actions.
Eliza stood without a sound and leveled an unusually disappointed gaze at her mother.
"Why? He was just changed. He could've been saved. We know for a fact that he never broke our laws. He could've been someone. He could've been one of the Guard. You didn't have to end him." Eliza's voice never got louder, but it was clear she was upset. Perhaps the weight of the last couple of weeks, which had been pretty much nonstop, were finally revealing their emotional toll, or perhaps it was just a little too brutal. Whatever it was, Isabella had been waiting for it to come.
While she knew Eliza could handle anything and was stronger than any other vampire she had ever come across, the constant death and the endless violence was occasionally taxing on someone as good as Eliza. It resulted in occasional bouts of frustration that Eliza was savvy enough to keep concealed, only to express them away from Volterra out of the earshot of someone like Caius, who would end them without a second's hesitation.
Isabella knew she was biased, but she also knew that her daughter was better than her. Isabella wasn't kind, or empathetic, at least not the way Eliza was at her core. Isabella was barely capable of compassion, although she did love her daughter with whatever was left of her soul. She was a monster, a beast that hunted in shadows. She was content with this kind of existence. Hunting, killing, passing judgement. It suited her. There were times she wasn't sure it suited her daughter.
"We couldn't take him on. Our cleaners are not equipped to handle a newborn. Shipping him home is not an option. There was only one choice. It was a mercy." Isabella said quietly.
"Mercy? He was an innocent mom. He had done nothing wrong." Eliza said, frustration bleeding through her tone.
"He was already dead." Isabella's words sounded cold, indifferent, but Eliza could feel the pity behind them.
"I… need a minute..." Eliza said quietly, as she turned and left the basement and then the house. As soon as her feet hit the pavement, she was walking away. She knew she could run like the wind if she chose but she wasn't looking to draw attention to herself. She needed to get away from the house though. She didn't even have a destination in mind. But she found herself nearing the ocean.
She could hear it and smell it before she saw it. Activity from the nearby Fisherman's Wharf could be heard across the water. If she bothered to concentrate, she could make out the individual voices, but the fits of laughter from a hundred conversations as people ate dinner together, or walked around tourist attractions made her even more frustrated. They had something she would never have, and a part of her, even though it was a small part, hated them for it. She knew it was petty jealousy, and they would probably envy her life just as much as she envied theirs, but she couldn't help the feeling.
She found a stretch of beach, just off a dark path with only one dying streetlight providing any illumination. The dark outline of Alcatraz could be seen in the distance, and the lights from the Wharf were not much more than starlight, twinkling with a distant glow. She sat for a while, losing track of time. Until she felt her mother's presence, tentatively waiting for her to react, and then approaching.
"I'm sorry." Isabella said as she sat down next to her daughter.
"Don't be. You probably did the right thing. I just... this is harder than I thought it would be." Eliza said huddled with her arms around her shoulders, even though she couldn't really feel the chilly air coming off the water.
"I can finish this alone." Isabella offered, and Eliza could tell it was genuine.
"No, I'm not letting you take this on alone. We still have Portland and Seattle left." Eliza said as she wrapped an arm around her mother's shoulders and pulled her in close.
"Okay. Two more to go." Isabella said softly, letting herself relax for a moment. She had never been to San Francisco as a human, and the sight of the infamous prison across the water was both beautiful and impressive. Yet somehow, even faced with that kind of history, she felt nothing but numbness. It made her wonder if anything besides Eliza would ever matter to her again.
Seattle – January 20th
"He's wabbiting." Isabella said over her shoulder to Eliza as she began to give chase.
"Be wary wary quiet." Eliza whispered back.
"What?" Isabella shook her head at Eliza and sighed softly in exasperation. Stealth had already been lost, what was the point of being quiet anymore?
"Sorry, I can't do the laugh. How does Tokyo sound?" Eliza said as she jumped over a small barrier wall surrounding the small park they were running through.
"What laugh? Um… yeah Tokyo sounds good. That church will work." Isabella responded trying not to sound confused.
The darkened stained glass of the church windows was intricate and beautiful. Even closed up, the tall colored glass let in a lot of ambient light. The vampire was a fast one, and clearly empowered with some kind of gift. That made him more dangerous than most of the rabble they had encountered so far.
"Leave me alone!" He shouted after them, as he tore down the center row between the pews.
"We can't do that, but we can offer you a choice." Eliza said loudly enough to get his attention. That made him pause, long enough for Isabella to drop down from the rafters above him and lock him into a hold.
"Elmer Fudd. I can't believe I forgot Looney Toons." Isabella said feeling a bit stupid.
"What's a looney toon?" The vampire looked confused, as he tried in vain to struggle against Isabella's grip.
"Before your time. Look, do you know what the Volturi are?" Eliza said stooping down so she could talk to him at eye level.
"Pops said they were like vampire police; I don't trust cops." The vampire was one of the first they had seen that wasn't afflicted with the purple vein disease. Other than ringleaders the rest had all been sickly. This one was different, perhaps it was his gift, perhaps it was something else entirely.
"The Volturi are not cops, more like the government. We do enforce the laws, but we are not police. However, we do offer jobs to good little vampires like yourself that are smart enough to realize they have no other options." Eliza didn't like the man already, but she wasn't about to kill him without giving him a first chance.
"I'm smart. I can do things too." He smirked, and with a free hand grabbed onto Isabella's arm. Smoke immediately started to form around her shirt sleeve which quickly burned away. Flames started to dance across the skin of his hand. Isabella didn't flinch at his burning touch, instead a smothering darkness consumed the flames and then quickly surrounded the three of them, blocking out the rest of the church.
"What the fuck is this? What did you do to me? Why can't I see?" The vampire started to panic, struggling violently against Isabella, which made her press against him even harder. The resulting pain stopped him in place, and a terrified yelp escaped his lips.
"I'll give you this one chance, tell us who made you." Isabella whispered in his ear, her voice hollow again, the quality of it inhuman and deeply unsettling.
"I don't know, some woman. She never said her name." His voice was beyond terrified, if he had been human, he would've pissed himself. Upon hearing the same story again, Isabella started to rip him apart. But Eliza put a hand on her knee, stopping her in mid motion.
"You've done well. Go to the cafe two blocks away and wait for a man named Kell. He'll take you to your new life." Eliza smiled at the man, who was now sitting alone on the floor of the church. He looked around startled, trying to find Isabella.
"What if I don't?" He asked, getting to his feet.
"Then I'll let her finish what she started." Eliza motioned behind him, and as he looked, he found Isabella several feet behind him, glaring at him with black eyes.
"New life, right. I'm lookin' forward to it." He said turning back towards Eliza, running a nervous hand through his long curly blond hair.
"Go, before I change my mind, and remember, the Volturi do not give second chances." Eliza said with a half-smile. Without another word he was gone.
"I wonder if he'll actually go." Isabella said after she was sure he was out of earshot.
"Fifty-fifty. Either way, Kell knows about him as a loose end. I guess that's it. Seattle's clean. We should probably check in though, it's been a week since our last report." Eliza said with a frown.
"Aro will be happy about a new member of the guard, elemental powers are rare." Isabella looked down at the blackened skin on her right arm. Then she pulled out her cell and hit the external display function. A flat two-dimensional holographic projection appeared in front of them, which shifted into an image of Aro a few seconds later as the call connected.
"Isabella. Elizabeth. Wonderful to hear from you. I assume Seattle is cleared of any hostiles?" Aro was practically gleeful as he spoke.
"As far as we can tell yes. We'll do another sweep before settling down at our new base." Isabella said without any real intonation or emotion.
"Of course. I understand you are going to your old human stomping ground. Say hello to Carlisle for me, if he is in the area." Aro said, looking perfectly innocent of the emotional complications of his request.
"We'll do that Pops. We also have some good news. There's a survivor, we sent him to Kell, to join the guard." Eliza said intercepting Isabella's reaction to the mention of the Cullen's.
"A survivor, that's surprising." Aro asked, looking partially intrigued.
"There had to be at least one, and he also has some kind of an elemental gift." Eliza explained, wondering if she had overstepped letting him live.
"Perfect. Perfect. I look forward to your next report." Aro said with a high voice and a wide smile, and then cut the call as soon as he finished speaking
"Odd, he usually likes to talk more. Must be because he's getting the same reports everywhere." Eliza said looking over at her mother who was staring at the nearest stained glass window, which was done in a depiction of a man kneeling in supplication to his god, a small halo denoting him as a saint. Neither of them knew who the man in the glass was supposed to be, but it felt oddly perfect in the moment.
"Oh… yeah. Brazil, New York. Lots of activity, no answers." Isabella said distractedly. "Speaking of Tokyo I wonder how Mei is doing, I kinda miss her."
"Um, one she's taken, and two… Mei barely emotes, how do you miss her?" Eliza sounded slightly incredulous.
"Nevermind. So Forks… I can't wait." Isabella's fake enthusiasm just made Eliza shake her head.
"They won't be there." Eliza offered, halfheartedly.
"Probably, and if they are, I'll make sure they understand what they did to me." Isabella said, her voice turning cold.
"I can't believe it, we're actually going to Forks." Eliza responded, trying to ignore the promise of violence.
"Me neither." Isabella's voice was hard to read, wrapped up in a hundred different and conflicting emotions.
Author's Notes:
You're not losing your mind, this chapter is entirely new. Don't worry, Counting Snowflakes isn't gone it was just moved for continuity and pacing reasons. This chapter was conceived because we never see Isabella and Eliza in their element as Volturi. Without establishing what they do, it felt like all we had was their word that they were badasses (until much later when they do show it). So here is a chapter devoted to their time putting down the rash of newborn threats along the west coast. Continuity wise I am also keeping track of time, which is why this has dates on it. One of the more confusing elements of the original version was the long multi-chapter conversations that took place in a single night. Now we can get a much better idea of when things happen.
As always, we appreciate any comments you have, so please take a moment to leave a review. We still have about 2200 comments to go to reach Kathryn's original 5000 review goal so any thoughts would be appreciated.
Thank you for reading!