Chapter 26: Neptune
(Jasper's POV) "Blinding" by Florence and the Machine
It was hard to concentrate with my wife and mate in such a state. We were safe inside one of four cars Annie had stolen for us. Annie was our driver, leading the way to Catanzaro. The fact that one of the other two Saturnos was in Italy was unfortunate, but we'd killed Demetri and used teleportation. The Volturi had no idea where to begin searching for us. Another wave of quiet agony slammed into me and drew my attention back to my grieving mate. Bella's body and face were rigid and expressionless even as I felt the maelstrom of emotions in her. Aro's desperate and brutal gambit to derail our escape stunned and hurt us all, but I knew my Bella. I didn't need to feel the crushing guilt bleeding out of her to know she felt responsible for Jane and for what happened to her. It felt much like the cocktail of guilt and shame I would feel coming from Carlisle whenever Rose was in a particularly foul mood, venting to anyone and everyone that she detested vampirism and wished she were human. Bella chose to tell Jane about her mate and she severed her false bonds after the fight that broke out, and she was undoubtedly questioning her choices.
"What exactly did Peter see?" I blinked and Annie jumped slightly when Bella spoke for the first time since we left Volterra. "He was so cryptic when he told me…. He just said Jane would save my life. If I hadn't taken her to the river and told her about Jude, she wouldn't have needed to save me from Alec and Demetri, but I took her to the river because of what Peter told me, and I know the things he sees aren't self-fulfilling prophecies." Bella's voice was soft and flat, like she was still lost in thought but finally functioning through it.
"All he saw was Jane holding your hand and using her gift to attack others around you. He could barely make out the robes of Guards on the periphery, enough in number to defeat you, and he could sense their intent to kill. Of course, Aro, Caius, and Marcus ended up being there too."
"Saving lives always has a price," Bella murmured, "usually a sacrifice…"
"Aro won't really kill Jane or Alec," Annie commented. "He needs them, now more than ever." Anger abruptly took up residence in Bella's previously vacant eyes, but I cut her off before she could lash out.
"What Annie means is we'll have more chances to save her," I soothed, gently grabbing Bella's chin and turning her face so our eyes met. "I won't lie and say they won't harm her, but they won't destroy her. They'll try to reclaim control of her mind and bonds so they can use her without fear of rebellion, and they'll likely use pain to force her cooperation if needed, but you can always free her again, and we can still get her to Jude somehow." Bella just stared at me, emotions finally flickering in her eyes and animating her features again, but for several minutes she said nothing. Abruptly, she closed the distance between us and curled into me, her head against my chest, where I gladly held her. Still shaken by that disastrous exit myself, I absently rubbed the fresh bite scars inside her elbow and on her neck.
"Why bother with the cars?" Bella suddenly asked Annie, "We'd eventually need them, yes, but why steal them back in Assisi? Why not teleport all the way to… wherever Lysander is?"
"I thought it best to leave random scent trails," she shrugged. "The Volturi will expect us to rely heavily on teleportation, so when they happen across our scents somewhere, they'll assume at least a few of us are in the area and spend more time searching for us. We'll abandon these cars several miles from the northernmost point of Catanzaro. Lysander's home, for lack of a better word, is at the southernmost point, off the cliffs of Catanzaro Lido."
"Off the cliffs?" I felt Bella's brow furrowing against me. "Peter said he saw us in a cave."
"The entrance is underwater, but there's a large hollow inside above sea level. He travels occasionally, but he resides there for the most part. He prefers to keep to himself."
"Sounds like Carlisle's friend Alistair," I thought aloud.
"That surly, skittish tracker?" Annie laughed darkly, "Not even close. I've met both Alistair and Lysander, the latter more than once, and Lysander's got more courage and honor in one of his fingers than Alistair has in his entire being."
"But you make it sound like he's hiding from something," Bella half-heartedly argued.
"I told you I'll let him decide how much of his story to tell you, but you may as well know the Volturi technically know about him, just not who he is."
"That makes no sense," Bella muttered, shifting her position across my lap so she could bury her face fully in my shoulder, instinctively inhaling a long breath of my scent to calm herself.
"It will."
We all fell silent for the rest of the ride, though Bella and I communicated a little more via emotional exchange. Bella managed to get a better grip on her emotions again and sent them out in short bursts in place of comments or questions, first telling me she was terribly frightened despite her earlier resolve. I reflected the same feelings back to her in answer. I was afraid of all we would face next too. I feared for my friends, my family, my mate... I knew the same was true for Bella, of course, but I thought she was also beginning to fear herself. Seeing what Aro had become and hearing that Lysander was in hiding for reasons yet unknown, it was only natural for her to question all that being a Saturno entailed. Much like my experience with my Major persona, she was grateful for her extra power and strength, but also afraid of what she might be forced to do with it… and how others would inevitably judge her for it. I hated that my mate and I would soon have far too much in common. She would be hurt, and there was only so much I could do about it. I could feel the Major stirring in me even as I thought of it, taking it as a challenge. 'We'll see about that,' he whispered in the deep recesses of my mind. 'Just let me out and we'll see if anyone tries to come near her.' An image of Aro in pieces at my feet flashed in my mind before I pushed it away, and I promised the Major I'd let him out as needed. Refocusing on Bella, I felt a precise, carefully constructed shot of confusion, insecurity, and longing. Lysander. She was wary of him, and rightly so with Aro being the only other Saturno we'd met, and she wondered how he would really receive her. Annie and Peter were both sure he would swear allegiance to us, and Bella longed for another friendly Saturno to connect with on some level. The Major stirred again, 'If he knows what's good for him, he'll respect her and guard her well.'
In no time at all, we were pulling off Via Vescovo Luigi Agazio into a heavily forested area beneath a small villa. Annie drove right into a wide opening in the trees and slowed to a stop about twenty yards into the shadows of the trees. Night had fallen, so we did not need the cover from sunlight, but it was a good place to leave the cars, all four hidden where gaps in the wood allowed their passage. "Hide your bags up in the trees," Annie instructed as we all exited our vehicles. "Unless Irwin can take us to a specific part of an underwater cave he's never seen, we're teleporting to Porto di Catanzaro Lido and swimming from there."
"Most of us won't stay long," Alice interjected. "He won't like so many visitors in a tight space. I see him speaking to Eleazar for a few minutes, but then he's alone with Bella and Jasper as Peter saw. We'll just introduce ourselves and leave them to talk."
"That will give us a chance to come back here and make some calls," Carlisle mused. "Most of our friends don't carry phones, but it's a start before we hunt on foot."
"Good, let's begin," Irwin said as he dropped down from the tree he'd chosen. "Reverse order this time, in amplified groups."
Bella changed back into the striped bikini she wore to swim in the river with Jane, so she didn't look out of place at all among the boats, sand, and undulating waves, even if it was past nightfall. There were still several humans in similar attire strolling along the sprawling shoreline. She was better dressed than the rest of us for our swim to Lysander's dwelling. According to Annie, the cliffs were closer to the border of the province and the swim would take us about fifteen minutes, assuming no one needed to stop and drain a fish. Her hunting joke was half-hearted, and she was unsurprised when she received nothing but forced smiles in response. Annie walked toward the water and casually discarded her clothes while we were still in human sight range, drawing a soft chuckle from Bella when we all saw that our new friend was also clad in a bathing suit. Once we were out of sight, the three succubi stripped down to their underwear and tucked their clothes between some rocks for easy access on the way back. The rest of us chose to remain as we were, as a quick run would dry our clothing easily enough.
"Just when she met her true mate and could be happy with him for eternity, this happens," Bella murmured as we waded out into the water. She was watching Alice. Making no effort to spare her clothes as the Denali women had, Alice entered the ocean fully clothed. Luxury and frivolity had no place in war, and whether we liked it or not, the war had begun.
"The same could be said about us, but some idiot did tell us something about our true mates seeing us through anything." I snatched the wet shirt Peter threw at me out of the air before it could hit its mark. My curiosity won out over my urge to start a playful fight and I raised a questioning brow at him.
"Show your scars," Char answered for him, strategically knotting her own shirt to show as much scarred skin as possible without removing it entirely. Did Peter see a need for that kind of intimidation? Deciding not to press the matter, I tossed my shirt aside as well.
The swim took longer than fifteen minutes, mainly because of Bella's erratic movement. When she and I surfaced for a moment so she could explain her strong feelings of insecurity to me, she explained how her 'swimming lesson' with Jane had gone, how Jane hadn't been able to swim after her without being forced backward. We rejoined the others below hand-in-hand, and we kept our fingers locked as she swam at her natural pace, my weight anchoring her just enough for the rest of the group to match us. The reminder that she wasn't even two full months into this life yet weighed as heavily on my heart as an anchor. There were vampire wars, and there were newborn wars, but I couldn't recall hearing of a time in our history when a single newborn was in a leadership position in a large scale supernatural war involving more than our own kind. She didn't deserve such a heavy burden, but none of us had a choice. It was done, and we would survive to see the fall of the Volturi or burn trying to defeat them.
Just as Annie promised, about thirty feet below sea level, at the junction of the cliff wall and the sea floor, we came upon a circular cave entrance no more than five feet in height and just under three feet in width. Even in broad daylight, the water here would be too dark and murky for human eyes to see it unless they were within a yard of it, and even that would be a stretch. Surely no human would have the nerve to enter it, even if they did come across it, fearing creatures within or thinking they might be trapped inside. Annie signaled to us to wait and she swam in alone. Three minutes and twenty-three seconds later, she returned and waved us in after her. Bella surged forward first, dragging me into the opening with her, and the others snaked in behind us. Our course only remained horizontal for twenty-seven feet before we seemingly came to a dead end, but Annie led us straight up into a perfectly cylindrical channel. Moments after we pushed off the ground with our feet, we could just make out the surface of the water above. We all looked around in awe as we each breached the surface and happily breathed in stale, humid air faintly tinged with the smell of cold blood. The space we found ourselves in could hardly be called a cave. Smooth walls, furnishings made from the same stone... This was Lysander's home.
Lysander stood at the far side of the dome in which we found ourselves, his stance strong but his emotions mostly calm. He neither spoke nor made a move to approach, clearly waiting for us to come to him, and at a pace that would not smother him. A sharp feeling of agonizing recognition slammed into my back, and I turned to look at Eleazar, Bella automatically turning with me and frowning at the sight of his slack jaw and haunted eyes. We had seen that look on the plane when her blood first freed him of his false memories. I was vaguely aware of Annie climbing out of the water and moving to stand at a point halfway between us and Lysander, but I kept my attention on Eleazar as he tentatively swam forward, wordlessly touching Bella's arm and moving past us to climb out and approach Lysander first, each step hesitant, measured.
"Lysander, this is Eleazar Denali," Annie spoke encouragingly. "Eleazar, Lysander has only a vague memory of you, but you seem to remember him?"
"As if it were yesterday," Eleazar replied, pausing to incline his head in Bella's direction, "especially since my true memories have been completely restored. I… You can ask our empath, Jasper, about the sincerity of my words if you believe me to be blindly groveling, but… I am truly humbled and honored to see you again." And he was. "I understand your limited memory of me, of course, as you were undergoing the change when our paths crossed."
"That is what Piers told me," the strange vampire murmured, not too kindly, but still nodding in graceful acceptance. "You were the Guard he knew to be gifted with the ability to identify the gifts of others. He did not relate to me the names of the other Guards with you then, if he recognized them at all, but he recognized you. Already intent on raising and training me in this new life, his passion was redoubled because he knew you read us both, as brief as the encounter may have been." Eleazar was nodding somberly while the rest of us continued treading water, watching and listening.
"The villagers were preparing to burn Alec and Jane, still human then," Eleazar whispered bleakly. Bella gasped at the mention of Jane and climbed out of the water as if to approach, but she stopped and remained standing at the water's edge where I slowly moved to join her. Lysander's eyes flickered over both of us, but he returned his attention to Eleazar quickly. "Yes, I could tell you were both Saturnos, and regrettably it was indeed my passage of information to Aro that led to your father's capture and execution. Please—ask anyone here—I had no concept of what I would set in motion. The ramifications of it all completely eluded me, and then we heard your father was one of their accusers… Well, that sealed his fate in Aro's eyes, as he coveted the twins so fiercely."
"He was not my father. Piers was my sire." Lysander's expression gave nothing away, but the familial title struck a nerve with him. The distinction was important.
"My apologies," Eleazar bowed his head automatically, but a more sincere apology over a trivial slip of the tongue there never was. Eleazar cleared his throat, a nervous habit he'd picked up while mingling with humans, and he gestured to the water behind him. "Most of us will be leaving in moments. We don't mean to overwhelm you, but Annie told us you were amenable to introductions?" Lysander simply nodded. Though Bella and I were already out of the water, Eleazar beckoned his own family forward as he already stood with Lysander. Eleazar formally introduced all of them and all four women nodded politely, the three sisters trying to cover themselves with their arms, abruptly losing some of their succubi confidence while standing before this vampire so scantily clad. His emotions remained relatively neutral, scrutinizing everyone but judging no one. Carlisle followed Eleazar's lead and came forward to introduce himself, Esme, Rose, Emmett, Alice, and ex-Guard Irwin. Peter and Char took that as their cue to come forward, and I finally felt a distinct shift in Lysander's emotions. He maintained a calm and cool exterior as they introduced themselves, but his emotions started bouncing around between wariness, admiration, dread, anticipation, and anger. As soon as they finished their introductions, Annie called everyone but the two of us to follow her back to the port. They all complied, each of them only sending us silent nods of encouragement as they sank back into the sea.
The three of us stood still for a long moment. As Lysander's eyes flickered over us again, there was the same rotation of emotions—wariness, admiration, dread, anticipation, anger, and two more… speculation with a dash of wry humor. "So you're the two happy newlyweds who publicly defied the Volturi and had vampires around the world gossiping like teenagers within the day. The legendary Major Whitlock and his teenaged Saturno mate, Isabella Whitlock." He gave Bella one more once over. "Well, the rumors about you being far from your average newborn are true anyway."
"Bella, please, Lysander," my mate corrected, cutting in before I could react to the veiled insult. The Major was already hissing indignantly in my head. "It's nice to meet you. I'm glad the only other Saturno I have to look to isn't a pompous megalomaniac." Lysander cracked a small smile, admiring her nerve, but he shook his head.
"Annabeth has been insisting for a century that I call her Annie, and I have yet to do so. Good luck convincing me to change my ways for you. You were right to cut short my attempt to goad the real Major out. I'm sure I'll see plenty of him in the days to come, and Annabeth told me you've inquired about my past more than once. It is a pleasant surprise for me as well, to meet another Saturno, so I'll indulge you. Please, sit anywhere you like."
Bella and I settled down on a stone bench protruding from the wall, the lines so clean I could feel the cogs turning in the back of my mind wondering how he'd shaped the stone so immaculately; even grinding away thin layers with varied pressure would leave some visible imperfections. Still, the majority of my focus was riveted on our new ally as he sat opposite us on another sculpture that resembled a small armchair. Even I had to admit Lysander was intimidating in appearance. Even without knowing he was another Saturno, his frame and features suggested he was physically strong and agile even as a human. Seemingly turned in his late twenties or early thirties, he was six-foot-three-inches tall with broad shoulders tapering down in an inverted triangle, his musculature visible through his dry turquoise t-shirt. His legs were long but sturdy, clad in well-worn jeans that skimmed large, bare feet. He looked like your average nomad in many ways, until you looked at his face—rectangular, with a strong jaw covered by a thick but short and well-groomed black beard, short and precise sideburns moving upward into hair just long enough to swing slightly when he sat, he was too well-groomed to be compared to your average nomad.
"It must have taken a while to grind this furniture down," Bella voiced my earlier thought in a light and friendly tone, but I could feel her growing discomfort. This was rather awkward. I sent a wave of ease out to Bella and Lysander both, trying to make it as subtle as possible, but Lysander's wide lips twitched up into a knowing smirk.
"No need for that, Major," he assured me sincerely. "I'm only giving you time to get your thoughts in order. Annabeth told me of your tumultuous flight from Volterra and Isabella here is a newborn; I don't want to overwhelm her and offend you for it. I had my bit of fun, and now that time has passed."
"No offense taken. Anyone will tell you I'm far from your average newborn," Bella replied immediately and Lysander's deep-set eyes twinkled again at her pluck, though his heavy brows masked some of that visible humor.
"Not having to sculpt it by hand certainly expedited the process, Isabella," he said, nodding graciously in response to her comment on his work. Curiosity and confusion flared within Bella and within me. Lysander was suddenly brimming with a mixture of smugness, sportiveness, and a hint of trepidation he was making a valiant effort to bury, obviously concerned that I could feel it. He extended his hand toward a small pile of rocks that looked like the ones we'd walked across on the beach. He flexed his hand so his palm faced the pile, and one of the rocks flew across the cave into his hand.
I stared in stunned silence and Bella gaped for a second before recollecting herself.
"You're telekinetic!" Bella's excited observation still came out as a distracted whisper as we watched the rock hover above his hands, both cupped below the levitating stone. Lysander's gaze was penetrating as he focused on the stone. After another fraction of a second, we could hear grinding. Particles of stone fine as ash began flowing, first a mere trickle and soon a cloud as the pressure of Lysander's telekinetic power shaped the stone with laser precision. He moved his hands through the air as if he were sculpting a much larger vase from supple, wet clay, the stone spinning on an invisible axis while his hands orbited around, his eyes unmoving. Finally, the grinding noise ceased and he caught the small stone vase in his hand by its base, turning it upside-down so all the remaining debris poured out. Turning the object upright again, he touched a finger to the side facing him and moved it in a pattern indicative of writing, a soft grinding noise renting the air again, this time for just a moment. He pressed his palm over whatever he'd written and I could just make out an odd bell-like sound resonating from within the vase, vibrations of his power I guessed. Finally, he turned the vase around and we could see our name, 'Whitlock', chiseled into the stone face in an impossibly elegant and delicate script. Bella beamed at him, accepting the gift graciously, and I managed a grateful nod, but the true Major Lysander so wanted to see was whispering in the back of my mind again. 'This vampire can probably tear others apart from a distance.'
"Rumor has it you lived among vampires for approximately two years, or at least knew of the vampire world that long before you were turned. Is that correct, Isabella?" Lysander inquired politely, his eyes distant even as he glanced at her, all of his emotions shifting inward so steadily and fluidly it felt to me like the ocean tide was tugging against me, dragging my empathic sense deeper into his being.
"Yes, that's part of why my newborn state isn't causing any problems," she replied. Lysander nodded.
"I knew of vampires before my change as well," he said. "I was too young to turn when I met my sire, and I was in danger living among humans, so he took me in and raised me. Piers was very compassionate, observant, wise. When my human family feared and hated me, he easily saw how alike he an I were, each of us Children of Saturn, and he saved my life in more ways than one. He also helped me recall parts of my past I might have otherwise lost in the change, and he helped me track down what information he lacked, so I do have quite the story to tell.
"My birth name is Lysander Croft, named after the character written by the Bard, but my life was completely and utterly bereft of fairies and puckish whimsy. My birthdate alone nearly drove my uncle to kill me before I was born. My mother was a widow with child after the great fire of December 1665 killed my father and burned her home to the ground. This was just outside of Shorpshire, England. My maternal aunt, Mary Ellen Thompson, and her husband Gareth Thompson took my mother in. My uncle quickly came to regret taking her in when my telekinetic gift became active in the womb. In some drunken ramblings overheard by some friends of his, he claimed that his trusted hound was knocked a good couple feet away from my mother by an invisible force when the dog frightened her. I was due any day at that point, after that display of strange power, after a great fire that killed my father, and with the year 1666 just around the corner. My uncle and his friends came to believe I was the Devil's spawn. Aunt Mary Ellen refused to believe their rantings and protected my mother until I was born on December 31, 1665. A day later and they surely would have killed me, and quite possibly my mother as well as there were murmurings of witchcraft for her part in my conception."
Lysander paused, eyes closed against the old but simmering fury he still felt over the cruelty his mother surely endured in that time after the fire, as if the loss of husband and home weren't enough for a pregnant woman, especially in those days.
"I vaguely remember some of those early years. My mother tried her best to reintegrate herself into society, but if I was to be present, any invitations were always declined or rescinded. My uncle blamed me for the ostracism even when he was among those spreading the rumors. Still, my mother and aunt both tried to remind me often that I was loved and the gossip would die down eventually. My mother never saw that day; an unknown illness took her life, June 1679. Devastated, I remember losing control of my power, shattering windows and smashing a large hole through a load-bearing interior wall. The house didn't collapse, but after my aunt once again talked my uncle out of killing me, it was decided we needed to move far away from the shadows of our past in the hope of a new and better life. We boarded a ship to the New World. We settled in Boston, Massachusetts, and my uncle Gareth and I found work in the dockyards…"
I knew something significant was coming. Not just because of the dread I felt coming from both Lysander and my intuitive Bella, but something about what he said was jogging my memory… another disaster? Boston dockyards, 1679…
"On November 27th, 1679, a fire burned all the docks, warehouses, and eighty houses, not including our new home, but coming perilously close. My aunt was shaken, and she turned her back when my uncle turned on me that time—another fire like that in my proximity was too much. When I saw my uncle charging me with a dirty spade in hand, I ran through the streets as fast as my legs would carry me, but Gareth was a grown man, fast and strong. Whether I ran through the wreckage of the fire or through the busy streets filled with people and horses, he kept gaining. I couldn't go to an officer, as they'd probably side with him, and I didn't dare use the strange power I possessed and feared almost as much as my family did. I knew I couldn't control it. Hearing my uncle closing in, I ducked into an alley, looking around wildly for anyone who might help me. I was stunned when one pair of eyes did meet mine. I recognized him, though I'd only seen him walking the dockyards at night. Desperately trying to call for help with my eyes, not daring to shout lest my uncle hear me, I was relieved when his eyes, still holding my gaze, widened with shock. At the exact same moment that I heard my uncle turning into the alley, the man ran into the tavern behind him so quickly he became naught but a blur.
"'Pardon me, sir,' My uncle's voice made me jump. I whirled around to see him breathing heavily, looking right at me, but he looked concerned. 'I'm looking for my nephew. My dog ran off a while ago and my nephew took off after him. The dog will find his way home just fine, but my nephew is still quite young, and we've lived here but a few months.' I can remember gaping at him for a moment, struggling for what to say, but after a moment I realized my uncle and I were of the same height, and my hair was no longer clinging to my sweaty brow, but hanging neatly down past my shoulders. 'I haven't seen any young lads or dogs come through here, no,' I managed to blurt out to my uncle. My voice sounded the same, but my uncle took no notice. He left the alley the way he came and I stared after him until cold, hard hands grabbed me from behind and lifted me off the ground. The next thing I knew, I was cradled in the arms of the man I'd seen moments before, and he was running at inhuman speed to what destination I knew not.
"Before I knew it, he was setting me back on my feet in a warm and comfortable drawing room, furnished and decorated with understated elegance the likes of which I'd never seen. So distracted by my surroundings was I that I momentarily forgot how I came to be there. Those cold, hard hands were on my shoulders then, turning me so that I was looking into a mirror hung on the wall. I recoiled. Where I stood, I saw the man's twin brother. Some details weren't quite the same, but you had to look closely to catch the flaws.
"'I'm not going to harm you,' the man finally said to me. 'You need to try your best to calm down. I believe your panicked state triggered your gift.' I stared at him, unable to find an acceptable verbal response to that. I knew I had a great many questions to ask the man, but when at last I opened my mouth to speak, he raised a hand to silence me. 'I will explain everything when you change back. We cannot risk someone else seeing this. I was very nearly spotted by your uncle after you morphed. Just think what conclusions he might have jumped to had he seen both of us.' Feeling strangely safe with this man I'd never properly met, my panic subsided, but the mention of my uncle caused a surge of anger in me, and then as quickly as I registered that emotion, it was siphoned away and replaced with a feeling of calm that seemed to be seeping into my body from an external source. 'That is my gift you feel. Do not worry, my boy,' he said. 'I would rather you calm yourself without my influence, but I will help as needed. Focus on what you felt the moment you shifted, and we will reverse each emotion as we encounter it.' Looking back into the mirror, I did as instructed, and after a minute or two of concentration, I could feel myself shrinking back down to my own size."
What were the odds? No wonder he couldn't seem to resist barbing me here and there, playing with my gift. The first Saturno executed was an empath. I shared a gift with his sire.
"Piers went on to tell me he'd been watching me since the day I started work at the docks. In a moment when I thought I was alone, he'd witnessed my attempt to use my telekinesis to move a heavy sack I couldn't carry on my own. I'd been desperate to win my uncle's approval somehow. He told me all about himself: He was approximately four-hundred years old, a vampire, gifted with telekinesis himself as well as the empathic power he'd already demonstrated. He told me about the vampire world, the Volturi, preying on the cruel or dying as often as he could manage, and about Children of Saturn. Back then, Saturnos were revered legends, not feared freaks among monsters. He'd been watching me, planning to take me away when the time was right. Witnessing the manifestation of my second gift, he knew I was another Saturno. He said could teach me to wield my gifts properly, in a safe environment. With my uncle out to kill me, he knew the time had come. I would live with him, posing as his own son among humans, learning to control my powers and growing up in a home where I would be cared for and protected, taking as much or as little time as I needed to decide if I wanted to be turned. I agreed.
"We moved to Ipswich, a small town in Massachusetts, and Piers did just as he promised. Being telekinetic himself, he easily made those lessons fun and intriguing, never leaving me with feelings of shame or fear. I was simply training another muscle, just as I did in the physical training he gave me, seeing that I was well fed and healthy through it all so I could grow strong. The morphing was much more difficult to master, as he could only observe and theorize while I tried to get a feel for it. My voice never changed, so I had to practice vocal mimicry, and the superficial aspect was also a challenge. At first I could only transform into him, and only when he was in sight, but one day when I was seventeen, I was particularly frustrated while out repairing our twelve-foot fence. My thoughts and emotions took a terrible turn and I suddenly morphed into my uncle. Knowing I'd morphed but not knowing how I looked, I went inside to look in the mirror, cracking the glass with a short burst of power that broke through in my shock. Piers felt my emotions spiraling out of control and came running just in time. Desperately trying to morph back, I'd grabbed a knife. Piers used his own power to disarm me before he grabbed me and surrounded me in calm and comfort. I'd morphed again by the time he released me, and I apologized for nearly spilling my blood in my distress, explaining that in my panicked state I thought a physical wound might be enough to reverse the morphing. He shook his head wordlessly and helped me up, turning me to face the cracked mirror again. I still hadn't morphed back. I'd morphed into my mother, the way she looked the day she died. Before I could become too distracted by my female form, Piers simply asked me to think of why I would first turn into my uncle, and then into my mother…"
While Lysander paused, lost in thought, I experienced a clear flashback to those first months after Alice brought me to Carlisle. I'd slipped again, and instead of reacting angrily, Carlisle asked me to think about why I slipped, as I hadn't been all that thirsty. No, I'd let my mind wander back into my worst, most repulsive memories. I had dwelt too long in the memory of the monster I'd truly been. Doubting I'd ever be able to escape that past, I'd snapped. 'No,' I told myself, 'You'll never escape it. You'll never be like them, never good enough, always the weak link.' The voice in my head laughed at me, taunting me. 'Remember when you were strong? So strong you become a legend? Everyone feared the vampire countless others failed to defeat, and now you're just a weak failure.' I grabbed a human and sank my teeth into their flesh before I even realized what I was doing. Later that day I was a dry-sobbing mess on the floor, begging Alice and all the others for forgiveness. Knowing where my mind had gone, Bella climbed into my lap, turning from Lysander for a moment to straddle my legs and lift my eyes up to hers. I knew what she saw there. I could always feel it when he came forward. The Major wasn't only brought forward by anger, but whenever I felt that I or anyone I cared for was too vulnerable. It was like I told Eleazar: The Major was my original shield.
"Don't do this to yourself," Bella whispered, loud enough for Lysander to hear, but not by much. "You have another shield now, remember? I'll always keep you safe, even from yourself. I promise."
"My apologies, Major," Lysander murmured behind her, keeping his eyes down but leaning to the side so I could clearly see his face over Bella's shoulder. "I would never try to draw you out this way, especially not with your young mate present. I hadn't considered the fact that you might not need your gift to know how I felt then. I didn't even know you responded to anything but outside threats."
"You heard me tell him he has my shield now," Bella said without breaking eye contact with me. "You might say the Major is what he morphs into whenever any situation overwhelms his base personality." As I felt the Major withdraw again, Bella slid back into her seat and took my hand. "And before you ask, I noticed the distinction before he told me."
"I'm sure you did, Isabella," he replied, smiling softly. "I assume you both, in your own way, have already deduced from my story thus far what state of mind I found myself in. A rush of insecurity made me doubt my progress and my future, and the feeling grew until it turned into self-loathing, which made me morph into my uncle, and upon seeing his image in the mirror that loathing turned to longing and deep despair, so I morphed into my mother as soon as Piers took the remaining anger away. I broke down and cried while Piers held me, gradually morphing back into myself as I reminded myself she was long gone. Piers was nearly chanting in my ear, 'It wasn't your fault,' over and over until I began to believe him again, until I thought of how saddened she would be to see me mourning her so, and how happy she would be to know I was living with someone who understood and cared for me in her place.
"Ten years after that day, I was still human and still living with Piers, but he had to avoid the public eye more and more as I aged and he did not, frozen forever at the age of forty-two. We'd moved twice more as I grew, trying to keep one foot in society while remaining on guard. Still, it was only a matter of time before the gossip turned speculative, and then dangerous. It was 1692, and the witch trials were frightening people in every town, making them doubt and betray even their closest friends, and the carefully reclusive life we led backfired. Some of the town drunks, more foolish than brave, rode to our house together and threw bottles of ink at me when I opened the door just enough to politely greet them. Momentarily blinded by the ink and cut by the shards of glass, I recoiled. I should've attempted morphing into an older version of Piers before answering the door, but I had not, and I gave them the opening they sought. Barging in, they got a very good look at Piers when he came to check on me, their jaws going slack when their suspicions were confirmed: Piers couldn't possibly be a normal human. He wasn't aging. The drunkards fled as abruptly as they'd entered. They would return, however, and when they returned they would bring reinforcements.
"When Piers grabbed me with a little too much force, I thought he was about to just pick me up and run, but he didn't. I could just make out the words, 'I'm sorry, but the choice has been made for you,' before he bit me. In the seconds before the burn of the venom overwhelmed me, I was aware of Piers carefully laying my body down right in the mess of ink and glass by the door. He told me later that when my screams began, he ran to fetch his old crossbow before returning to me. Even my ears could hear the mob approaching, but I couldn't focus on any of it as the venom spread. Piers bent over me enough to let his hair fall into the ink, wiping off any that touched his skin, only staining his hair. When the mob was in sight, he threw open the door and sent out a wave of fear-tinged concern so strong it momentarily brought me out of my pain, but I sank back into it in seconds. His face a mask of agony and fury, he stormed out to confront the mob of thirty-something townspeople, aiming his crossbow wildly at them and gesturing to my body visible in the doorway. 'Demons!' He cried, 'Witches, Satan's minions, all of you! What have you done to my boy?!' Just like that, the angry mob halted. They listened and craned their necks to look at me. There I was, covered in the ink and glass the men had thrown, screaming as if some dark force was ripping my insides out. No one would even remember seeing the youth of my sire with their own eyes. My cries of agony had them flinching back and cowering in terror. The drunks were among the mob, and when the horrified mob turned on them, two of them vomited where they stood while the others went deathly pale. The tables had turned, and they knew they had to divert blame, and fast.
"'We din't know t'was more than ink!' One of them screeched in desperation. 'We found the bottles…' The next drunk had no ideas. 'We… we was havin' drinks with some good fellows in the next town over, and we found them with a bit of parchment by the gallows. Thought a scribe'd left it all there after a hangin', and thought we'd might s'well save it from the rain.' The men couldn't come up with more than that, but it was enough. Piers knew exactly where to take the story from there. He told me after my change was complete that he never would have said it had my life not been at stake, but it was them or us.
"'You degenerate, putrid, fools!' Piers bellowed, regaining everyone's rapt attention even as my screams made them continually recoil. 'Did you not hear of the witch twins they captured near dawn this morning? The boy who can steal your senses and his sister who can cause agony such as this? The girl must have bewitched the items you stole before they locked her away! They are both of them so feared that they are scheduled not merely to hang, but to burn this very night! You brought the Devil's magic here and you torture my son with it!' He raised his loaded crossbow and aimed it straight at the nearest of the drunks, but he didn't shoot. When my next scream pierced the air, Piers lowered the bow and doubled over as if he'd taken a knife to the heart. 'Curse you, foolish bastards,' he hissed. 'Damn you all to Hell for this.'
"Piers turned his back on the mob and ran back to me at human speed, slamming the door behind him. The mob grabbed the drunks and dragged them back down the road, whispering about evil twins and burning. Meanwhile, I too was burning in my own way. Piers threw some clothing, money, and his most cherished books into a sac, uttered another soft apology, and lifted me up into his arms as soon as the mob was out of earshot. Using his gift to soothe and quiet me as much as possible, he carried me out the door and off into the night… even so, luck was just not on our side that night."
"Eleazar and the other Volturi Guards," Bella murmured, venom tears shining in her eyes. We already knew how this tale was going to end. Lysander nodded somberly.
"Piers told me later that he recognized Eleazar and knew of his very special gift. He felt the shock and wonderment, the recognition. Eleazar knew what we were, but neither party could stop to talk. I was undergoing my change, and much to the dismay of my sire, they were rushing to save Jane and Alec from execution, as Aro desperately wanted them in his Guard. The Guards we faced sped away and we continued in the opposite direction, but not before Piers looked back over his shoulder, cursing when he heard humans shrieking in sudden pain, certain Jane was being dragged out to the pyre somewhere off in the distance. He'd hated blaming the twins to save me as it was, and in that moment he knew it was only a matter of time before he saw Volterran vampires again. Word of his accusations had surely reached the crowd at the pyre. He had officially crossed Aro Volturi.
"With help from Piers, it took me about nine weeks to gain full control of my thirst, and as it turned out, that was all the time we'd have. Piers had prepared me for the day. I detested it, but I knew refusal to do as he wished would only add to his suffering, so I listened. Piers quizzed me on my memory of human life, and on how to use my gifts with just the right touch. We reviewed discreet hunting practices, discussed how to evade the Volturi as long as possible. He told me to morph often, if only to keep changing my scent trail. He set some brilliantly simple noise traps all around our location. He had me run the full perimeter so I would know when to jump, keeping the attention of our hunters away from me. Finally, we heard them. The traps sounded all around us, but we could hear where they had left the largest gap, and Piers ran toward them at just the right angle to make them separate and leave me a clear opening. Though it killed me to do so, I fled as instructed, morphing every mile I ran so Demetri couldn't follow me. I thought it was safe enough to stop in Plymouth, not in my natural form of course, but far enough out of range that I could slip into an inn and observe the townspeople for a while, learning new morphs. I tried to stick to the diet Piers followed of the sickly, the scoundrels, but nothing seemed to truly satisfy me. I swear, I could feel it. I could feel it the moment they burned him, and it crushed a great deal of my resolve, so in an effort to keep myself in check until I could be the kind of vampire Piers would be proud of, I ran to the ocean and found my first cliffside cave. Sometimes I'll venture on land and find a rapist or murder to drain, but most days I settle for swimmers, surfers, and the victims of shipwrecks. To any humans aware of the deaths, I'm no more than a shark."
After a beat of awed silence, I felt Bella's emotions take a sharp turn toward guilt and fear, and I knew what was coming just as much as I knew I had to let it play out.
"I'm so sorry, Lysander. I… I'm really not sure why you told Annie you would help us. Fellow Saturno or not, you've had a target on your back since the Saturno hunts began, and now that you finally found a lifestyle that's keeping you safe, you want to join a handful of rebels defying the Volturi? For all her infamy, Jane turned out to be a wonderful person at heart and Aro ripped her head off before our eyes when she tried to leave with us. Aro is a Saturno too. All this time the hunts have been his way of securing his power. Demetri? He's dead. I took off his head and Jasper burned it before we left. With your morphing, your safety is virtually guaranteed at this point." Bella seemed to have more to add, but Lysander was giving her that same soft smile again, and the twinkle of gratitude in his eyes was unmistakable, bringing Bella's long-winded warning to a halt.
"You aren't telling me anything Annabeth did not already tell me, Isabella. I am glad that her assessment of your character was accurate as well. Your mate is an empath like my sire, with experiences that help him understand me without use of his gift, and you have my sire's personality, even more so than Carlisle Cullen, or so I've been told. I understand you feel responsible for what's happening, but I do have my own reasons to fight. You are clearly determined to protect your mate, your family, and your friends with everything you have in you, but this is bigger than that. Carlisle Cullen is widely known for not only his diet, but for his choice to only change the dying. His chosen path is to give the dying more time, to give them a chance at happiness. Whether you made your choice consciously or not, your chosen path is clearly to give others the freedom to live as they choose. I respect you enough to be completely honest with you: I doubt we'll always get along, and I don't see myself forming any close bonds within this alliance, but I see too much of Piers in you to ignore. I admire you enough to follow you, as I wish to this day I had followed him."
It was taking a positively Herculean effort on Bella's part to not launch herself across the small space and hug Lysander, but he was obviously not the type, so I pulled her back to me, holding her unflinchingly while her unchecked newborn strength nearly cracked my skin.