Shahrazád's Ghosts


Chapter 25: Isabella Cullen Part III


2416 A.D.


When Isabella woke the next morning, the first thing she heard was the sound of the piano. Far in the music room, a pair of voices sang out a melody she had never heard before along with the instrument. The musician was obviously untrained in the technicalities of how to play but was musically-inclined enough to still make something lovely from the sounds of the keys. Curiosity biting her heels, she wandered the halls in her pajamas towards the sound.

When she came to the music room, she found Bell and Peter sharing the piano bench. Their feet tapped a rhythm together against the floor and their duet was interwoven with delighted smiles. They did not notice Isabella arrive, but she was noticed by the shadow lurking outside the doorway. Darling stood in the threshold, hidden by the deep shadows of the hall with her attention entirely fixed on what was happening within the music room. Once she noted Isabella's approach, she vanished without a word, and did not rematerialize again.

"Play that other song," Bell said. She began to hum a tune and Peter grinned.

"That one? Fine."

His fingers stumbled to make out the tune for a moment before he figured out how it should go and then the pair began to sing together again. Isabella watched them play in fixed fascination until Bell caught sight of her and motioned for her to join them.

"Isabella plays wonderfully," Bell said, scooting over to make room for her on the bench. "Come, Izzy, show us how its done."

She complied and squeezed between them. Her fingers fell upon the keys with all the ease that her many decades of play could give her and she enjoyed the obvious appreciation the pair gave her while they listened.

"You play beautifully," Peter said with a sigh. "I could listen to you play all day."

"Doesn't she? I love coming in here to listen. She said that maybe someday she would teach me, but I do not think I will ever be as talented as she is."

"Thanks," Isabella answered, suddenly feeling shy and aware of how small the piano bench was and how closely the three of them were seated upon it. She stood up and moved to sit on the armchair across from a nearby harp.

She had been hesitant around Peter, as cautious as if she were afraid he would bite. She knew he could tell and that made her all the more nervous and self-conscious about it. The warmth of his smile only made her feel worse about the thoughts rampaging through her head.

I'm sorry, she whispered in her mind. It's all been a lot to take in for me. Michael and Bell and now you and Darling.

"Isabella, believe it or not, I think I might know a bit of what you feel," Peter said out loud. Bell didn't pry or ask what Isabella had thought. Instead, she opened a book of music and began to read through the lyrics to a song, as if the action would create a barrier between herself and the conversation around her.

"Did she ever talk about him? Her sire?" Isabella asked.

"Rarely… and only under rather, how shall I put it? Extreme duress. She does not have many favorable memories of him."

"Why do I feel like you are underexhaggerating?"

Peter chuckled and stroked his hands through his beard. "Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that she hated him so much, she recreated him over and over again so she can make him pay for his sins forever."

"Ummm, wow. That's, uh, intense."

"That is as good a description as any."

"But you are, I mean, you are another clone of him, of my father, I mean. Does she hate you?"

"Ah, sometimes I think she does, but in her own way. I do not hold it against her, though. I didn't understand… many years ago, when I was much younger and ignorance was my shield, I did not understand.

""I came to being in a place entirely surrounded with men like me who knew little more of their origins than I did. I can't read Darling's mind and the only times she mentioned her sire was when she assumed I would behave exactly as he did. She despised him and I had no idea why or what wrongs he had done. She held me responsible for the actions of a man I had never met and never even knew existed and punished me for crimes I never even knew could be committed

"Now, though, after seeing Barzakh and what became of the others and I must wonder what it had been like for her… I suppose I must say I understand her better and I do not hold it against her like I once did."

"I do not think anyone could come back from Barzakh unchanged," Isabella said. "I know I didn't."

"Had you known much of where you came from, before?" he asked.

"No. Alice wouldn't tell me. She didn't tell anyone. The family here, well, let's just say they saw Edward Cullen in a whole other light when Michael and Bell arrived. We finally had to tell the truth and say what had happened. They had never known it, before."

Peter gave a grave nod and considered this. "I do not pretend to know your family or anything about you, but I cannot imagine that conversation to have gone well. Were they upset?"

"Terribly. Carlisle is, well, he has more compassion than anyone I have ever met. He loved Edward with all his heart and he truly believed there was good to be found in him. Knowing the pain that Edward caused has really torn him up."

"And you? Khalid and Kassim have spoken of their anger towards their father for his treatment of their mother and the circumstances of their birth. Were you, also, upset?"

"How could I not be?" Isabella said. "It was worse than I had ever even imagined! I just felt so, I don't know, so dirty after. It was like I was a mistake or a punishment."

"Ah, yes. I suppose, if I am honest, I did not feel much different. I was created solely for Darling to have her revenge on her dead sire. I wear his face and am built from his bones and embody all she hates most in the world. It is not an easy origin to accept."

Isabella gave a wry smile. "I guess not. Why did you go to Barzakh? Did Darling ask you to destroy the clones?"

"No. It was Slightly's idea…he's, uh, like me and he's Darling's second-in-command. He sent me out to do it. Darling, well, she can't even talk about her human life. She'll leave the room in a rage and stop talking. I can't imagine her ever willingly going to that place again."

"Does anyone know what happened there, at the end? My brothers only know of what happened up until their mother died. Alice couldn't see much of what happened after. She said his mind was too fractured and his decision-making was screwy and she didn't even know I existed. She couldn't see the twins either. For some reason, we are hidden from her sight. It was a miracle she found me there at all."

"You have borne your own burdens, Isabella," Peter said, considering her more closely and with an earnestness that made her feel like he truly understood her and could feel the weight she still carried on her shoulders. "I wish I could tell you more and cast light on what happened. Unfortunately, I think the only one who truly knows what happened at the end is Darling."

Isabella sighed. Of the pair, Peter was the less intimidating by far and she could more easily ply him with her questions. She realized now that there was most probably only one living person who had possibly known her mother… and the only one who would know what had become of her father. It was strange to think that Darling had actually been there, concurrently with them, and still lived and could speak upon it. Isabella had considered it all lost to the sands of the desert and extinguished by the deaths of the many who were buried there. She tried not to hope that she could learn more, just in case it proved another dead end. Still, she had to try. She determined she would find a way to corner the vampire queen and ask her all the questions that no one else knew the answers to.

Oooooo


Peter lay before the fire, Mikie climbing over him like his own little personal mountain to conquer, a chorus of giggles filling the room in his delight. Peter growled and caught the little climber again and again, forcing him down to the carpet to start his quest anew again.

Mikie wasn't the only one drawn to Peter. Bell talked more in that day than any of them had ever heard her speak in the months they'd known her all together. Yes, she spoke freely with Michael and she had gradually warmed up to the rest of them, but it was nothing like what they saw when she was with Peter. It was an unceasing cataract of words while she sat beside him, her hand in his, an affectionate smile on his face while he indulgently listened to her stories, only interrupting with the occasional question or two.

At first Isabella worried how Michael would handle this, but it quickly became apparent that whatever telepathic communication the two had undertaken soon after his arrival had quelled some of Michael's original misgivings. It melted away into an almost filial reverence and he watched their interaction with his own amused affection.

There was another, though, who did not seem to be so fortunate. Darling shrank into the shadows of each room she floated through. Despite the glaring brightness of the white of the dress she still wore, she tried to melt into the dark spaces and corners of each room, barely speaking and keeping careful vigil of all that occurred. It was unsettling how easily her presence could be forgotten in lieu of the more animated voices in the room and how well she could become a fly on the wall.

Still, Isabella noticed that her focus was, more often than not, fixed entirely on Peter. The exception came in her questioning of Carlisle, the morning after the Volturi's arrival.

"You are Carlisle? The Carlisle who once lived in Volterra?" she asked.

"Yes. I spent some time there, a few hundred years ago," Carlisle answered.

"Aro and Caius still grumble about you," she said, her expression so close to amusement that Isabella was surprised.

"I am pleased to know I am remembered, even if not in a positive light."

"I would consider it a compliment. Any who the Volturi look upon in irritation are bound to be preferable to those they approve of and praise."

"You may have a point," Carlisle said with a chuckle.

The pair fell into silence before Carlisle no longer restrained his own curiosity. "Darling, your eyes… you only drink from animals. Why?"

She cast her eyes around the room at all the various sets of golden and ruby eyes within and she cocked her head to one side. "Because my sire lost the ability to survive off animal blood and no matter how he wished to return, he could not. When I refuse human blood, I prove I am stronger than he and I will avoid the pitfalls he fell into that destroyed him."

Carlisle's intake of breath showed it was not quite the answer he expected. Darling was too perceptive to miss his response.

"Not the answer you wished to hear?" she asked, watching him closely for the minute shifts and struggles of emotion he displayed.

"Perhaps not. But I am often accused of being an idealist. Michael has told me about your bottled of blood. Tell me, where do you obtain the blood he drinks?" Carlisle asked.

"I make it. I have an extensive library of blood samples from humans and animals around the world. Neverland reproduces these in mass quantities and mixtures and then distributes it around the world."

"How did you obtain the samples?"

She fell silent for a moment, considering him again. "Are you certain the idealist in you wishes to know the answer?"

He gave a humorless chuckle. "No, but the doctor in me would like to know the answer."

"I held blood drives in Garden City and then in Tunis over a couple of years. The samples I obtained from donors I brought back to Neverland and preserved as base copies for reproduction. I did the same at the zoo in N'djamena and Tunis. I also incorporated the blood from each of the humans I was tasked with cloning."

"You cloned more humans?" Carlisle asked, his face drawn.

"Of course," Darling said. "Vampires will pay a pretty price to have their singers resurrected. I cannot duplicate blood without a source and so I must recreate the entire organism to the point where it begins to produce blood. Then I can reproduce the blood without the host organism. It a more arduous process than reproducing existing blood supplies, but the end result is an unlimited supply of the blood of a particular individual."

"What becomes of the clone?"

At her arched eyebrow, Carlisle knew the answer.

"We can't have people coming back from the dead and wandering free now can we?" she said.

"I suppose not," Carlisle choked back.

Darling appeared nonplussed by his discomfort and continued with a shrug. "I have moved away from that line of work. It was time consuming and more trouble than it was worth. Vampires are much too stubborn and once they determine they prefer one particular type of blood, they will quite literally refuse anything else, even to the detriment of their own health. The mixtures we produce are designed to counter this by providing enough diversity to support health. Even if they stubbornly decide to only ingest one particular mixture, it will not have long-term detrimental effects."

"Effects… like what happened to Edward?"

She failed to hide her grimace. "Yes. For vampires who exist only on one particular blood source, their strength wanes and they become brittle and sedentary. However, for vampires who find their singers and attempt to exist solely on the blood of their singers, the effect is exponentially worse and they quite literally run mad."

"Is there a cure?" Carlisle asked.

Darling shrugged again. "If they diversify their diets before biological dependency sets in, then perhaps, but the mental dependency typically sets in first that that is harder to cure. I have only known of one who has intentionally changed his diet to avoid dependency and refused the blood of his singer after tasting it. He has experienced no long-term ill-effects. However, he had never subsisted solely on the blood of his singer."

Carlisle and Darling continued to discuss the technology of blood cloning for some time as well as its implications for the broader vampire world. Then only stopped when Esme asked Darling to accompany her into the garden to gather flowers for each room in the house. Darling reluctantly agreed and followed Esme out the kitchen door.

"Well, I am not sure whether to be amazed or horrified," Carlisle said, once Darling and Esme had gone. "The potential of blood cloning for positive change in vampire-human relations is unparalleled…but the ethical dilemma it raises..."

At Carlisle's heavy sigh, Isabella knew he would be mulling over this for some time. She placed a consoling hand on his shoulder and then left him to himself.

ooooo


When she woke from her nap, she realized she had slept right through lunch and her growling stomach reminded her of it. She ran down the stairs and into the kitchen, hoping to find enough sliced cheese to make a sandwich. She stopped in her tracks when she heard the sound of raised voices in the kitchen.

Cautiously, she approached until she could tell the angry voice was Michael. He loomed over Darling with his fists clenched at his side, his voice raised. Darling was entirely unruffled and she barely gave Michael a second glance. Instead, she played with a vase full of flowers, absentmindedly rearranging the blooms in different patterns of colors before placing it on the kitchen table.

"So, what was I then, bait? What was going to become of me when the Volturi found me?" Michael asked.

"Oh, don't bother growing angry, pet," she said, so patronizingly it only angered him further. "You would have followed the same path as all your brothers. We all were created for one purpose. Is it as bait? That is one word for it. Were you only a decoy? Perhaps. Is it a twist of fate which sees you still alive, far from your destined end? Maybe. Can you find life or purpose after learning that your origins were so meaningless, so arbitrary, so abominable?"

She plucked one orange bloom from the vase and carefully wove it into her hair, which was piled in a messy bun on her head. She folded a lock of hair behind her ear. Then she plucked an identical bloom from the vase. This one, she crumbled to a broken pile of petals and let it fall in a heap upon the floor. Then she turned back to Michael, the barest hint of a smile playing on her red lips. "You must tell me once you decide for yourself."

"But Peter said you wanted him to help Bell escape. What were your plans for them? Were they another part of your plan? Another trap for the Volturi?" Micahel asked, nearly pleaded, with her to answer.

Her face unexpectedly softened and she shook her head. "Peter was never part of any plan. Bell was supposed to be his mate. You were never supposed to be part of that series of events."

Michael's anger bubbled over to the point of fury and it did not take an empath to see the ripples of jealousy rolling off of him. "You… please tell me that is a terrible joke."

"I am not well known for my sense of humor," she answered, one eyebrow arched delicately over her golden eye.

"You made Bell to be Peter's mate? Why?"

"Because he needed a mate," she answered, so unexpectedly transparent that Isabella wondered if she were actually lying.

Peter, upon hearing his name, had left the drawing room, where all the others were gathered, and came into the kitchen in a fluster. "My Lady, how could you think that was a good idea? How could that have even entered your mind?"

"Because it was a good idea and because it worked," she answered. She outstretched her hand to pat him on the head, though she had to stand on her tiptoes to reach. "Do not deny it."

"No! It didn't! Bell is my mate!" Michael shouted.

Peter pinched the bridge of his nose and groaned, but Michael did the exact same action at the same moment, which only highlighted the similarities between them and made them each more on edge.

"Of course, she is," Darling answered, much too warmly to be taken seriously. She gave Michael an indulgent smile before turning to Peter again. "But only because Peter let her. He chose to share, but that does not change the fact that you both are bonded to her in your own ways… and she to you."

Then she turned with all the haughty grandeur of a queen, and left the pair to glare daggers at each other in the kitchen, the temporary alliance between them suspended for the moment. It was Jasper who intervened to restore the peace between them.

"For the love of aged whiskey, will you two stop?" he said, throwing his hands up in exasperation. "Yes, you both love Bell and have a kind of emotional bond to her, but you are certainly not rivals – at least not now. I don't know if you could be. I don't know how cloning messes with our mating bonds or how this works, all I know is the emotions y'all got rolling off you now and they tell their own story well enough."

Michael managed to pry his glare away from Peter long enough to notice Jasper and at his frown, Jasper must have given an emotional laundry list of all he had noticed since their visitors' arrival.

"Cute, guys, real cute," Emmett groused. "Can you, uh, talk out loud so we know what's making Michael look as if he just drank a skunk?"

Whatever he shared made Peter sit in utter silence for five minutes without so much as blinking or moving a muscle.

"Well, grow me a beard and call me a Pirate," Peter whispered to himself. He did not speak again for some time, but lost himself paging through books he did not read or gazing absentmindedly out the drawing room window to the garden and the moors beyond. It was not clear whether he was pleased or disturbed by whatever Jasper had shared. Finally, without a word, Peter left and they could see his form growing smaller and smaller as he ran across the moor at full speed.

"Spill it, Jazz," Rosalie said. "Don't keep us in suspense any longer."

"They are mates," Jasper explained. "No, not Peter and Bell. Peter and Darling. However, by the constant pining and sadness they are both drowning in, and the way they watch each other when they think no one's looking, I don't think either has been willing to speak a word of it to the other."

"Well, that's…unexpected," Emmett said.

Michael agreed. "He is very talented at hiding his thoughts. I thought, sometimes, but he is much more open in his admiration of Bell. He never once openly thought of Darling… in that way."

"Not him," Emmett said. "I can understand that Peter being drawn to her. I mean, it sounds like there's a real shortage of women where y'all come from so of course he'd fall for the only woman around. I mean her. She's got, what, hundreds, thousands of y'all there? With her own harem of Edwards, I kinda thought she'd, you know…"

"Be like Edward?" Rosalie answered with one arched eyebrow and her lips pursed in obvious anger. "Not everyone finds that kind of arrangement to their liking."

"Imagine a hundred clones of Rosalie," Isabella said. "I don't think they'd let you survive."

Emmett's open awe at the idea was quickly replaced with a grimace. "That's true. I can barely survive one. Seriously, though, I mean, isn't she supposed to be like, I don't know, all cold-hearted and ice-queen-ish?"

"Even with all of Edward's many women, he still had one who stole his heart," Alice observed. "We are vampires, not lions. We are not meant to mate more than once. Not even Edward could change that."

"So, how come they aren't, you know, mated then? They act like two teenage kids who need a go-between to give them a letter saying, 'do you like me? Check yes or no,'" Emmett said.

"I don't know their story," Alice said. "But I do know what their story could be… and it could either end happily or tragically, depending on what they choose to do next."

"What will Aro do?" Jasper asked. "What have you seen?"

Alice paused for a moment before she answered. "He will accept. She's right. He is nearly dying of curiosity. It will be, I would say, less than a month before he arrives on Darling's doorstep."

"And the outcome there?"

"Oh, it's what it's always been. It does not matter if Darling wins or loses. At the end of the day, the Volturi will be overthrown."

Jasper whistled under his breath and shared a glance with Carlisle. "What will that mean for all of us?"

"It's too soon to tell. Part of it will be determined by if she wins or loses and just how long it takes. There are more pieces in play than I can adequately keep track of."

"She's kinda a bad ass. I wish I could watch that chess game between her and Aro. I'll bet she gives him a run for his money," Emmett said.

"That's another thing- is it a good thing or a bad thing for her to overthrow the Volturi?" Carlisle mused. "I don't know and it bothers me to the core that I do not know. All that she has accomplished since she came into this life- can we say it is good or evil? I just do not know."

"I don't know whether to hate her or love her," Rosalie admitted. "Cloning individuals to feed them to vampires seems so horrible, but then again, so does the traditional vampire lifestyle. I mean, at least no human families were torn apart or damaged in that meal, but recreating singers when it will drive vampires mad? I just don't know what to do with that."

"Cloning of blood is absolutely brilliant and revolutionary, but I do not believe her motives have been entirely altruistic. Actually, there is very little about her that I believe is truly altruistic, but nor can I condemn her as being without any compassion or goodness. She is here, after all, and putting herself on the line to protect our family. She didn't have to come. She could have stayed back and let us deal with the Volturi scouts on our own," Carlisle said.

"I don't think anyone was meant to have that kind of power," Jasper said. "The ability to create life on an assembly line like that and spill out human beings like tin soldiers. I think there is a profound ethical dilemma inherent in it and that kind of power corrupts the soul."

"But isn't that the same as Maria with her newborn army?" Emmett said.

"Yes, and that also was morally repugnant and made Maria hard-hearted and cruel."

"Here's the thing," Emmett continued. "I mean, I am glad to have met her and all but she's not exactly someone I'd want to live next door to, if you know what I mean. It's kinda like a tiger. I mean, tigers are cool, but if I were a human, then I'd want tigers to stay in the jungle and not, you know, at my house. I can admire them from afar or in a zoo, but set free to wander among my cows and my kids, I kinda don't want to see the outcome of that."

"But Peter?" Rosalie asked.

"Yeah, can't say I've ever met anyone quite like Peter, either. He reminds me of Carlisle in some ways, except he's more human than any vampire I've ever met."

"And Darling is all vampire," Rosalie added.

"I guess. You know, at first, when Alice told us she was building an army to overthrow the Volturi, I was kinda all for seeing the ice queen fall," Emmett mused.

"But that was before you met her?" Rosalie asked.

"No, that was before I met him. I really can't want anything bad to happen to the guy. I guess I like him… and if he likes her, then I guess I gotta root for her, too."

Isabella couldn't help but agree with him.


Author's Notes: Hi all. Sorry for the delay! I ended up trying to finish some stories I had left hanging and then let this one hang longer than normal. Actually, this was another beast of a chapter that I ran away from in fright whenever I thought of trying to wrangle it into submission. Now, it's split in half again. I know, I know, there's an ocean of revelations about to fall on Darling's head and we all want to see the aftermath of that. Don't worry. It's coming.

Hope you enjoy!