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thoughts are in italics

Chapter 2: They're Back

January 20th, 2003

"What the hell was that?" Emmett growled as the three boys slipped into Edward's car.

Edward slammed his door with more force than necessary, barely refraining from tearing it from it's frame. "I don't know."

He hit the accelerator and roared out of the school parking lot. Car horns blared around them as they cut through traffic and idiotic mortals incapable of driving. They sped home, not even bothering to keep to the speed limit once they were out of the town centre.

"What do you mean you don't know?" Emmett leaned forward, his head jammed between where his adoptive brothers were sitting in the front. "What were they thinking?"

"I don't know!" Edward snapped. "I couldn't get anything from them." His fingers dug into the steering wheel like he was imagining cracking their heads open to read their thoughts.

"What? You couldn't read their minds?" Emmett repeated, incredulous.

"That's what I said, wasn't it?" Edward hissed, swivelling in his seat to glare at Emmett.

He turned to Jasper, ignoring Edward's glare. "Did you get anything from them?"

Jasper was staring out the window, his gaze troubled. "They wanted to inflict pain," he said softly. "They were boiling with it." It was quiet in the car for a moment, before Jasper murmured, in a voice so quiet a mortal would have never heard: "They know."

Emmett swore and the car leaped forward as Edward pressed harder on the gas. They needed to get home. No double sensing the urgency and turbulence swirling through Edward, Jasper pulled out his phone and sent a quick message to Carlisle. They all needed to be together to plan their next move. The girls had made it clear they knew Carlisle's past, and if they knew who they were, knew what they were, they needed to be ready to leave. Or stay and fight.

"What's going on?" Carlisle asked the moment he stepped out of his car. He had rushed over from the hospital the moment he could after reading Jasper text. Jasper handed him the note as he walked through the door.

"Three girls started school today. The Swan girls," Jasper said, straight to the point, as Carlisle was reading. Carlisle nodded, having already heard the news, but he looked up at the next part. "They know our secret."

"We think they know," Edward put in.

"Think?" Esme asked from where she'd come up beside Carlisle, reading over his shoulder. "Couldn't you read their minds and check?"

Edward shook his head with a frustrated snarl. "No! All their thoughts were blocked!"

"But they said stuff." Emmett crossed his arms over his chest. "They said they knew you when you were a pastor's son."

"Which you were—before you turned." Jasper watched Carlisle with calm eyes that belied his emotional turbulence.

A sense of foreboding had settled on Carlisle's shoulders the moment he'd read the note. "What were their names?"

"Isabella, Alice and Rosalie."

Carlisle relaxed slightly, turning back to the note with a slight frown, until Jasper added, "But they called each other by different names: Esmerelda, Evangeline and Catherine."

Had Carlisle been mortal he would have paled and needed to sit down. He leaned back slightly against his wife who rested her hands on his waist, steadying him. His eyes lost focus, his mind swirling. They're back. They kept their promise.

"What do you mean 'they're back'?" Edward demanded. "What promise? Do you know them?"

Carlisle rubbed a hand over his mouth and his eyes focused on his family. He blinked and sighed. "They were witches. Back when I was human. They were the first people I had actively caught and sentenced to burn at the stake. The first and the last." He looked out the window, history heavy on his soul as he relived the events of that fateful day. "They had healed a child of smallpox, and in return, the child's mother turned them into the church as witches to avoid payment.

"I had thought they had cursed the child," he said, lost in the memories as Esme pressed a gentle kiss to his shoulder. "But I'd only found out after the trial that they had saved him." Carlisle shook his head. "They were entirely unrepentant until the end, as was their right, even managing to lay two curses before they burned."

"One on the mother, and one on you," Edward supplied quietly.

Carlisle nodded. "They cursed me to become a vampire, and that night I did. Then they swore to be reborn." Carlisle looked up at his family, all watching him with steady, resolute eyes. "If what you've said is true, then these girls are the reincarnations of those three witches. And they want me dead."

Standing on the edge of the forest, Edward, Emmett and Jasper watched the lights slowly go out in the Swan house until only one was left. They listened intently as Charlie settled in for the night and the girls settled into one bedroom. They waited until they could hear Charlie's soft snores before walking closer.

~Scene~

The moon hung low and heavy over their head as they crossed the yard to the lone tree, reaching up to the lit bedroom. They darted up the tree and Edward reached across to tap on the window, only to feel a sharp shock ripple through his arm. He let go of the branch with a yowl and landed on the ground with a hiss.

"Wards against vampires," Jasper murmured, studying the house before dropping next to him.

Emmett looked like he was trying not to laugh as he landed lightly, dodging Edward's half-hearted swing.

"Did you really think we were that stupid?"

Their heads snapped up to see the girls leaning out of their window with matching wicked grins.

"We knew the moment you stepped foot on our land." Rosalie leaned further out the window, looking absolutely delighted they had the advantage.

"Killing us isn't going to be as easy as you think." Alice smirked as she sat on the windowsill, her legs swinging in the cool night air.

They boys looked at each other, understanding dawning.

Maybe they don't know about the treaty, Emmett thought.

"They are quite young, even if you combine both lives," Edward murmured, too quiet for the girls to hear.

"It would make sense why they're still bent on killing Carlisle," Jasper murmured, looking up at them in consideration. "Carlisle said they died young—maybe too young to know their history."

"What about our history?" Bella snapped, her grin disappearing as she narrowed her eyes at them.

Their eyes widened at her words. Surely she, a near-mortal, couldn't hear what they were saying!

Rosalie grinned, daring and delighted. "You're on our land now, boys. Nothing happens here that we don't know about."

The boys glanced at each other. Makes sense, Emmett thought, and Edward nodded minutely at Jasper to explain—he knew more about the histories between vampires and witches than his brothers.

"For centuries, vampires and witches were at war," Jasper began, his head tipped back to look at the girls. "A war started in an effort to subjugate witches. They witches retaliated by wiping out most of the ruling coven—the Romanians.

"This led to the rise of the Volturi, who believed that with their abilities, they were more powerful than witches and could win the war more easily. That wasn't the case." While Jasper's ability was the reading and manipulation of emotions, he had a far subtler gift of storytelling.

The girls leaned further out the window to hear him, and even his brothers seemed to listen closer. "The war continued for another four centuries before it was ended. Four centuries of vampires and witches wiping each other out. Four centuries of death and vengeful fury before both sides decided to lay down their arms and broach peace."

The moon glinted off his skin as he spoke, revealing shiny half-circle scars on every inch of bare skin. "And so a treaty was signed. The Volturi and the Covenant signed on behalf of all vampires and witches. From that point on, should one kill the other or reveal the existence of the other to humans, the treaty would take their life in forfeit. And so it was, Synthiki Aematus Kai Mageías. The Treaty of Blood and Magic."

Silence followed as the sisters took in everything Jasper had said. They exchanged glances, communicating silently as siblings oft do.

"So you're telling us," Bella said after a long moment, "that there just happens to be a treaty that means we can't kill you." Her eyes were hard. "How convenient."

"Why don't you come down here and prove us wrong then?" Emmett challenged, tired of the postulating and itching for a fight.

A ring of purple runes suddenly flickered to life around Emmett, slowly constricting itself until it was so tight a mortal would have lost their breath. Eyes glowing a bright violet, Rosalie smiled, every bit the dark and vengeful witch her ancestors were. "You forget yourself, vampire. You're on my land now."

Jasper stepped forward and their eyes swung to him in unison. He held his hands up in supplication. "This isn't a trick or ploy. The treaty will kill you if you kill him." Jasper's eyes bounced between the sisters until he settled on Alice, the more reasonable seeming of them. He took another tentative step closer. "We came here tonight to talk, not to fight."

Alice watched him, eyes hard as she considered his words, before placing a hand on her sister's shoulder. "Rose. They stand within the boundary—they can't lie."

That seemed to mollify the blonde as her eyes returned to their blue hue and the runes around Emmett dropped away.

Why haven't we heard of this before?" Bella demanded.

"Perhaps—" Edward started but Alice cut him off with a wave of her hand.

"I think we have," she said softly. "I remember Mother Aquila talking about a trattato between the covens and the demons. This must have been what she meant."

She met the eyes of each of her sisters, and an air of resigned acceptance seemed to settle around them. The tension that had welled in the boys relaxed as the girls calmed. Jasper watched Alice in a new light as she surveyed the boys with pursed lips and narrowed eyes. Even Emmett seemed intrigued as he stared at Rosalie with a small delighted smile—one she matched with a wicked grin of her own.

Bella, on the other hand, looked ready to remove their heads at a moment's notice. Jasper could feel the well of hate within. Something she hid well behind a gaze of irritated boredom. Edward met Jasper's gaze, but they dared not discuss the problems that arose until the sisters were out of earshot.

"I suggest you leave," Bella said abruptly, causing the boys to glance up at her. She turned from the window, her sisters turning with her. "The wards are designed to go off at midnight should vampire presences set it off. The rings you are standing in will remove your heads if you're not gone before then." She glanced behind her, turning her hard eyes to the boys. "You have ten seconds."

In less than that the boys were off the property and heading home.

"They really were going to kill us," Emmett said, admiration lining his words. "You know, I think I like those ladies after all."

"Those ladies, or the one who threatened to squish you?" Jasper teased, a light grin on his face despite the night's events.

Emmett's laugh rippled through the night in answer