Forty-Four

For days, Alice had been plagued by visions. Not unusual, in hindsight, but the stretch of strange images made her feel uncomfortable. She had seen, shortly before Carlisle announced it, that he had reached out to the Israeli and Egyptian covens, asking for assistance with their perplexing investigation into the pregnant Italian women's murder in Volterra. Both Amun and Avraham were the closest in geographical proximity to the Volturi, and they both had the added benefit of several millennia experience with Aro and his dangerous ways.

Shortly after this, she began to see flashes of Alec and Renesmee—unsettling pictures weaving harsh threads into a frightening tapestry in her mind. She saw Renesmee running through the forest, with Alec close behind. She saw Jacob, through Renesmee's eyes, yelling about a lost set of keys. Somewhere farther beyond these images she saw Alec wandering the empty house in Canada that Esme purchased for the family. She saw Jasper smiling at the arrival of his friend Sybil Rafferty; an arrival that Alice felt was extremely close at hand now, and then that same never-forgotten glimpse of Jasper, backlit from a bar sign with his lips tinged blue in the burning neon.

Carlisle had suggested that Rosalie and Emmett take Alec on a trip up to Canada to see the new house, they had been gone for hours, and Alice didn't expect them back for hours still. Now the family cluttered in one of the back offices, Esme and Carlisle reviewing physical documents while Alice and Jasper mainly worked on computer searching.

When Alice typed: 'Isobel Bianchi, Volturi' into her search engine nothing relevant came up, but she was prompted to peruse several other news articles about the murdered pregnant women in Volterra, most of which mentioned her husband, Angelo Bianchi's gambling debts. Several internet sleuths were adamant that regardless of the Italian polices declaration that he was no longer a person of interest, he still appeared very much guilty. When Alice searched, 'Sprezzatura, Volturi,' even less came up. She was redirected to Sprezzatura's website, showing its versatile business profile, and a few scattered urban legend connections, about the mythical Volturi. It prompted only backchannel blog posts, nothing worthy of true consideration.

She read that Volterra, could literally be translated to "volume and land," and Alice wondered if a millennium ago, the Volturi had caused some kind of loud raucous to make the locals rename the region after them. Scanning the computer screen quickly and selectively, she tried to let the words sink in. Jasper was beside her, searching for any other clues on another family laptop. Carlisle and Esme were across from her, Carlisle, pouring over an ancient tome and Esme searching on her phone.

"Tanya hasn't heard anything," Esme said, breaking the unearthly silence of the four vampires.

Carlisle reached for his wife's hand. "If Kate has truly defected to the Volturi, she would have cut off contact by now. If not her own choice, it would have been a mandate from Aro, upon her commitment to the group."

"Tanya will barely speak to me. Garrett has been up in the mountains hunting for weeks, she says."

All of them understood it. If Alice has defected to the Volturi, leaving Jasper, she knew he would easily escape to a solitary life. As though sensing her thoughts, Jasper reached out for her hand, letting his soft lips caress the tender flesh at the top of her hand. His eyes seemed to say, "That won't happen to us."

Alice turned back to her computer screen, searching again. There had to be a connection between Sprezzatura and the Volturi. Such a large company operating so close to Aro and his coven would not go unnoticed and there had to be a source deep within, connecting the two.

She leaned back in her chair, the vision of her computer screen disappearing, only to be replaced with that same image of Jasper that she had seen weeks ago, his mouth pressed tight in a snarl while blue neon lights hit his face, turning his lips blue.

There was a knock at the main door, at the far end of the house, and Jasper's eyes lit up.

"Sybil?" He asked, searching Alice's eyes.

She nodded, pleased that he was so happy.

Sybil stood, framed in the doorway, one arm slung lazily around Ally, her girlfriends, neck. "Esme," she said, teeth sucking against her lip ring. "I love what you've done with the place."

Jasper stood without preamble, rushing through the hallway and embracing his long-lost friend. Alice watched as Ally ducked out of the way, her shoulder length black hair pushed back. Eyes slightly hollow, as they always were, and nail polish chipped on her short nails. Alice watched her raise a hand, slightly obscured by a hoodie sleeve up to her mouth, hiding the grin that formed when Jasper took Sybil in his arms and twirled her around. Laughing herself, Alice bridged the gap to the door and took Ally in her arms, embracing her like a long-lost sister.

"I've missed you," Jasper told Sybil. She was coltish in his arms, long limbs and easily standing over six feet tall.

Sybil pushed him away, playful and good-naturedly. Her newly cut red hair falling just above her ears, shorn like a boy's haircut from the nineteen-nineties, a style she had been sporting for nearly a hundred years. Cutting the long mane of hair every morning after it had grown out to her desired style.

"How could you not miss me, bro?" Sybil teased. "I am your favorite kid, after all."

Sybil Rafferty had been born on the Oklahoma prairie in the years leading up to the Civil War. Jasper had turned her shortly after Maria had enlisted him in her never-ending territory wars in the South. Sybil could have easily become another nameless, faceless, vampire in her newborn army, but she, like Jasper, had lasted. Both she and Jasper were only among a handful of survivors of that time.

Esme stepped forward, greeting Sybil and Ally with her customary warm hugs. Ally had taken to Esme like a mother. Had either Sybil or Ally been inclined to their lifestyle, Esme and Carlisle would have welcomed them as additional daughters into the fold.

Stepping forward, Carlisle said, "Thank you for coming, Sybil, Ally." He embraced them. "It's been too long."

"Yeah, well," Sybil started, stepping back on the porch. "We didn't come the last time the Volturi attacked. Didn't want to make that mistake again."

"We understand completely, why you couldn't," Esme told them.

Remembering, Alice recalled that Sybil, at nearly a hundred-fifty years old, had never changed a human into a vampire, until she met Ally, in the back of a crowded nightclub in late nineteen-ninety-one. Alicia Crowley, as she was in her human life, was a striper, strung out on half a dozen different drugs, and battling a crippling case of anorexia. Sybil had watched her, from afar for months, until she finally found her in the back of the club, one breath away from death from an overdose. Sybil changed her. A decision that neither of them regretted, but Ally's debilitating hunger and blood lust, lasting nearly a decade, had kept them highly visible to the Volturi for years. They had both been living under the radar for several years now.

Ally nuzzled Sybil. Alice was reminded of a pony, seeing its master, after a prolonged absence. "We're happy to come now," Ally whispered. "Is Edward here?"

Edward had fled to Sybil and Ally after he left Forks, Washington so many years ago, when he thought he could give up Bella and her fragile humanity. He had traveled, continuously, but for a time he had called the tiny bungalow in Santa Monica where they both lived, home.

"He's back at the cottage, with Bella," Jasper told them. "He's probably heard you coming by now."

Sybil asked, "And Alec? Where is he?" Her tone was guarded and weary.

Carlisle leaned forward, softly noting, "Rosalie and Emmett took him on a little side trip up to Canada."

Sybil furrowed her eyebrows.

Explaining, Carlisle continued, "We'll be leaving Fork's soon. It's been nearly ten years since we came here. Too long, really. Our aging, or lack thereof, is starting to be noticed."

"So, Canada, then? That'll be you're next stop?"

"Burnaby," Esme told them. "Just across the border. Close, but also far enough away."

"You can't trust Alec. You can't trust any of the Volturi." Sybil grasped Jasper's arm. A silent communicating. She was trying to pinch the truth of her words into him.

"We understand," Alice reassured her.

Ally stepped closer to Sybil's side. "Can we go in now?"

Sybil reached her arm around Ally, similarly to how she looked when Esme first opened the door. She kissed Ally on the cheek, a sensual kiss, unraveling some of the secrets that the two of them must have shared.

Esme stepped aside. "…Of course, yes, come in."

"How long has Alec been here?"

"Just a few weeks," Carlisle told them, showing them into the back room where the Cullen's had been previously researching. "He came to us by way of the Denali coven. He had been with them a few weeks prior to that."

Sybil didn't seem convinced. "Are you sure about that? Seems unlikely that Alec would be gone so long and Jane or one of the others wouldn't come for them."

"Kate—Tanya's sister—has also left to join to Volturi. The family is devastated," Esme explained.

Carlisle added, "He saved our granddaughter, Renesmee. Offering medical advice to save her. At the time, we could not turn him away."

Alice watched as Ally moved to the back of the room, framed by the floor to ceiling windows overlooking the river down the hill. The same cat that Alice had first made the home for several weeks ago was lounging on the porch, dry from the awning overhead, her belly still large with the impending litter of kittens that Alice knew would arrive any day now.

"Kittens?" Ally whispered, looking to Sybil.

Sybil tilted her head, sympathetically, but didn't seem to acknowledge the question at all. Animals tended to give vampires a wide birth, never coming too close or staying for too long. This cat seemed to be an anomaly. It was unlikely that Ally had been so close to a domesticated animal in the last twenty years.

Sybil continued, "I can't speak to the Denali's. I've only met them a handful of times. If it weren't for Jasper, I likely wouldn't know any of you. Ally and I like to keep to ourselves, you know that. Over the last few months, I have heard a lot of chatter, though…"

Jasper explained, "Sybil believes there is an undergrown network of vampire hunters out there, tracking us all, and categorizing us."

"I've run across Nadia a couple of times."

"Nadia?" Carlisle asked.

"…She's, their leader. She inherited the job from her grandmother, Darlene. As far as I can tell it's a generational thing. Passed down through families, like some sort of king and queenship of old. Nadia is in charge now."

"And what does Nadia want?" Alice asked.

"I'm not sure. Ally and I came across her in Santa Monica a few years ago, right after Edward left us. She knew our names, our history. She was able to fight us, but somehow, she wasn't supernatural herself, or at least not that we could see. There are a few other families—The Chang's in the Midwest, but also Hopper and Gabriella, the nomads. Last I heard they were in Colorado."

"Be that as it may," Carlisle insisted, "We can focus on this other problem, once we solve the issue with the Volturi."

Sybil said, "Jasper said that it sounded like the murder of this pregnant girl was somehow attached to the Volturi."

Ally hissed, behind them all. It was a loud sound, but no one seemed to acknowledge it. Alice, for her part, knew it was from Ally remembering the taste and smell of human blood. Pregnant women always had more blood flowing through their veins than men or other women who were not expecting. They could be a particular temptation to newborn vampires, or any vampire who struggled to keep their thirst in check. Ally had always had a problem with controlling her hungers. Curious, in that in her human life she struggled to eat food at all.

Edward opened the door. "…Thought that was you that I heard."

Sybil used her long slender index finger to tap her skull. "Mind tricks. Clever."

"I've missed you. Let me introduce you to my wife, Isabella Cullen."

Bella extended her hand; her face was almost as flush as a human girl again. "Just Bella," she said with a laugh, sighing over Edward's usual formalities.

Sybil shook her hand. "The famous 'just Bella,' I hoped I would get to meet you soon. This is my girlfriend, Ally."

Ally stumbled forward, awkwardly. Her voice taking on the cadence of a little girl. "Hello. It's nice to mee you."

Pulling Ally closer to her side, she said, "And where is your daughter? We were hoping to meet the famous child."

Edward raised his eyebrows. "She's not so much a child now."

Jasper cut in, "She grows taller and wiser by the day. She would appear as a teenager to your eyes now."

Ally giggled. "I'm so excited."

"We both are," Sybil explained. "We truly are sorry that we could not come and assist you when the Volturi came here before. We've been avoided Aro and some of the others for a decade now, at least."

"They want to kill me," Ally noted, her voice still high and girlish. "Because of everything I did."

Sybil quieted her with a tender kiss against her cheek. "The nineties were a dark time."

Edward shrugged, "A dark time for us all."

"I'm still not clear why you wanted Alec to stay here."

Carlisle said, "He saved Renesmee when she was close to death. None of us could ignore that," he looked to Bella and Edward.

"But we have no illusions about what he is," Edward was quick to remark. "We know nothing good can come from the Volturi, and that Aro has been trying to interfere with us for years."

Sybil pressed, "But why now? Why like this?"

"We're not sure," Carlisle said. "We all agree that Aro has set his plan in motion, what we don't know if what that plan actually is, or what part we will all play in it."

Stepping forward, Alice added, "I'm keeping an eye out. I have a lot of blind spots. Aro is covering his tracks this time around."

"Have you reached out to anyone else for assistance? Anyone beside the Denali coven?"

Carlisle leaned forward in his chair. "We've reached out to Amun from the Egyptian coven and Avraham from the Israeli coven."

Sybil nodded, "I've met Avraham, several times in fact. I've never met Amun." She looked back to Ally. "We hung out with Tivador Szaboo a couple of times. Back when we were in Budapest."

"Boo Boo!" Ally exclaimed.

Laughing, Sybil confirmed, "That's right, Boo Boo," she turned to Jasper and shrugged her head, "Our nickname for him."

Bella was confused, standing off to the sidelines, mimicking the personality that Alice remembered so well from when she was a human. Alice could see this and she pulled her forward. "Bella isn't familiar with all of the clans, families and relationships, yet."

Edward reached out for Bella, too.

"We can help you learn," said Sybil. "Avraham leads the Israeli coven. Tivador Szaboo is one of his son's."

Alice cut in, "You'll meet Amun soon. They're on their way." They were, she could see it. Avraham had come first, followed by Amun, and his mate Kebi, both of whom would need to leave quickly after his arrival.

There would be a strangeness to the pairs arrival, Alice thought, but her mind couldn't reach the finality of that thought. The Egyptian coven was one of the smallest covens in their circle of friends, just Amun, his mate Kebi, Amun's son Benjamin and his mate Tia.

Alice's mind flashed into another vision, Amun coming to the door, explaining something, loudly to Carlisle, though the words were muffled and indistinct. Alice couldn't make them out. Amun pointed to Avraham, Carlisle trying to calm him, and then that same blue neon light, filtering over Jasper's face. And then Sybil, reaching out for Jasper.

She stepped away from the crowded room, discreetly, backing away until she was alone in the hallway, the loud clambering of visions still echoing inside her brain. Jasper had followed her, but even has he reached out for her hand Alice realized that he had left Sybil and the others, hesitatingly. "What is it?" He cupped her cheek.

Leaning into his touch, she said. "Nothing, just images, too jumbled to make out clearly." Jasper studied her, intently, searching for any hidden clues that she tended to keep "I like seeing you with Sybil," she told him, distracting him from his concern over her.

Jasper's smile lit up his face. "I've missed her. Our time together in Maria's coven was so dark, but I wouldn't want to have spent it with anyone else."

"Go back," Alice coaxed. "I just want to catch my breath."

He studied her. "I might believe that more if we actually breathed."

Alice laughed his concern off. "I want you to go talk to her. I know how much you've missed her. It's been more than a decade since you last saw her."

"It's has been too long," he said. His Southern drawl seemed thicker now; now that the past was so close at hand. "She's like a sister to me—or, I guess, like a brother—she's always struggled with seeing herself chained to the word 'girl,' even back then, on the prairie when I found her."

Jasper had told her, a handful of times, what it had been like to kill each of the young humans that he and Maria had identified for the newborn army, but Sybil's story had been markedly different. Jasper, had, at the time, mistaken her for a boy. Her long red hair had been knotted back into two long braids, tucked up underneath a felt cap, and she had gone out into the fields wearing her older brother's clothes—a brother who had died fighting in one of the small skirmishes that were taking place across Kansas and Missouri during the waning years of the war. Her two younger brothers, Keith and Jason were close behind her trail. The day had been warm, but overcast. Maria emerged from the tree line first, with Jasper close behind her. He was still wearing his confederate uniform, in those days, and it was still stained red around the collar from his human death.

"Boy?" Maria had called out to Sybil. Her voice was frail and delicate, the portrait of a southern women in distress. "Do you know of a well around here? Might we beg some water from you or your family? My companion and I are frightfully thirsty."

Jasper had noticed quickly that Sybil was, in fact, not a boy, but after the lustful look that this young stranger had given Maria, she had been flattered and had not yet realized.

"Ma'am," Sybil started, her voice was low and husky, easily mistaken for male. "My father's farm is a way up the road, if you ask for my Ma, she'll give you some water."

Maria had laughed, delighted. The prairie vernacular always made her giddy with enjoyment. "What's your name, lad?"

The two younger boys tried to squeak out a rebuke, but Sybil had hushed them. "They call me Syb, or Silas sometimes."

"Syb?" Maria tasted the sound. "How perplexing. I knew a boy named Jeb, once though," she turned back to Jasper, dazzling him with her glittering smile. "It was short for Jedediah. What is Syb for?"

The youngest of the boys crowed, "Sybil. Her name is Sybil."

All around him, Jasper could feel the girl's embarrassment, which he quickly tried to tamper down with his skills at influencing the emotions of those around him. Underneath that flash of fear he could also feel the girl's adoration. A sharply-edged sense of yearning that he had encountered from people of the same sex before, but it was rare. He was immediately intrigued.

"Maria, my dear…" Jasper could feel the tang of jealousy, wafting off of Sybil like steam. He turned to Sybil, lowering his head in a consolatory bow, that immediately made Sybil take a step back. "These lovely people are so kind. Syb," he continued. "Would you, and your brothers mind, escorting us to your home? I have been wounded," he pointed to the dried blood on his uniform. "And Maria has walked a long time."

Maria reached out her hand to Sybil, and she took it, letting Maria rest some of her weight against the willowy girl's lithe frame.

"Will you hold my hand, Syb? My fingers are so cold."

Sybil did, and the chill of that physical touch would forever change the trajectory of Sybil's life.

"How old are you?" Maria asked.

"Nineteen, Ma'am."

"Goodness, you're so tall," Maria exclaimed with a giggle.

"My daddy is tall. All of us kids are."

"And it is a wonderful trait to have, my love."

Sybil blushed, "Love?"

Stroking the girl's cheek, Maria went on, "You don't mind if I call you 'my love' do you? I feel like I already know you. Like we've met somewhere before, in another life, perhaps?"

"Another life?"

Jasper stayed behind them the entire walk back to the farmhouse. The two younger boys keeping a safe distance away from him out of instinct. Had they been older, their senses of self-preservation would have been useful to both Jasper and Maria, but they were far too young for such things now.

Turning his head to scan the clearing, Jasper asked, "Are there any other farms around here? Our horses died several miles back, and we will need new ones to continue our journey."

Sybil turned back to him, still keeping Maria close at her side. "Maggie's farm is just up the road a piece, but the only horse we have is for plowing. Town is a few miles that way," she pointed beyond them, "You can buy a horse there."

"Maggie's farm?" Jasper asked.

One of the boys answered him, "Maggie is our brother's wife."

The other boy spoke up, "Our brother Daniel's widow."

"I see," Jasper noted. Already, in his mind he was thinking about the presence of another women just down the road.

"She went to town today," Sybil said. Her words caused Jasper to nod. Really, they would have enough with the girl and whoever else was at the cabin.

"How much further is it?" Maria asked Sybil.

"Just up the bend," Sybil said.

The river was coming into view, and beyond the ridge of trees, Jasper could see the trail of smoke coming up from an obscured chimney.

"Do you mind if we stop and wait here by the river, Syb? I am so tired. I must rest."

"The house is just there," Sybil pointed out.

Maria sat, one hand pressed tight to her corseted abdomen and the other clasping her fingers to her forehead. "Please, my love," taking Sybil's arm, Maria coaxed her down to the ground with her. "Sit with me a moment."

Sybil tried to protest and Jasper sent a flare of acceptance her way. The air crackled like dry longs on a blazing fire.

"The boys and I will go up to the house. We'll bring you back a cup for drinking," Jasper told them.

One of the boys said, "The stream is literally right here."

"Hush now," Jasper intoned. "You boys show me up to the house. How many more are you? Brothers and sisters, I mean?"

"Just us," one of them said. They crossed the river over a path of flat stones that the family must have placed their long ago. "Daddy is away in the war. Mama's up at the house."

"I see."

Jasper killed the mother first, a red headed matron whose skin was lined so deep in weathered wrinkles that he could have easily mistaken her for a grandmother. After the women was drained, he drank slowly from the boys, savoring their youth and sweet taste.

When he returned to the river bank, sated. He found Sybil in Maria's arms. Jasper could tell that Maria had only fed a little, and she was stroking Sybil's long hair, now loose and undone, the felt cap discarded in whatever tussle had occurred while Jasper was at the house. He could see the girl writhing, her breath coming in short, sharp burst. Teeth clenched, she continued to say the same phrase over and over again, "My love. My love."

"I thought we were just here to feed," Jasper objected.

"Did you see the way she looked at me?" Maria asked. "The longing, the adoration. She'll be a good soldier." Turning to Jasper, she added, "Loyalty is more important than anything." Her look toward him was somewhat pointed, but then her face lightened. "Go back into the woods and bring me the horses. We'll take sweet Syb back with us."

"You've barely eaten?" Jasper objected.

Maria sighed, "I suppose we'll have to get something in the town up ahead, then…"

Alice could see it all enfolding as Jasper reminisced his tale to her. She had seen it, through sparks and edges several times as Jasper and Sybil's relationship continued over the fifty years that she and Jasper had been together.

He was still cupping her cheek, "What is it? What do you see?"

She had seen Sybil at the house. Seen both she and Jasper laughing, but somehow it contrasted with her other image of him backlite in Seattle, the neon lights painting his lips blue. She knew something was coming, something was just over the horizon that she couldn't make out yet. Something was changing. Reaching out for his hand, she cupped her fingers over his. "I love you," she said, meaning it more than ever. There were days when she could see the next thousand years laid out with them, together, with their family, and then there were days like recently, where she struggled to see them together in a week's time. Her gift allowed her to lull herself into complacency and then thrust her back out into a dark unknown.

Sybil called for him from the other room.

Jasper kissed her cheek. "I love you." He hadn't seemed bothered by the edge in her voice. "Everything is fine now. Our friends are here."