Shahrazád's Ghosts
Chapter 32: Aro Part III
2416 A.D.
They grey cloaked legions descended upon the underground fortress by light of the moon and stars, as pale and eerie as the expressionless faces of the Volturi guard themselves. The point and pinnacle of the configuration came in perfect symmetry and then as one, they converged in front of a boulder. There, they halted at the precise coordinates given to them by the Mistress of Neverland herself.
A male voice crackled over the intercom, coming from below the ground, bidding them to enter. After the boulder was moved away, a grate pulled back and revealed a tunnel. The Volturi exchanged uneasy glances. They did not like the idea of going underground into an unfamiliar location without knowing exactly who, or what, they would find there.
"My lord?" asked Demetri, who led the way of the guard.
Aro's eyes remained fixed on the mouth of the tunnel, but his mind was filled with Caius' misgivings through his proffered hand. From the moment Aro had seen Darling in Demetri's mind, he had been nearly overcome with anticipation. When he heard her invitation, he decided then and there to accept and he had mobilized his guard faster than had been done in over two decades. Now, they were all here on Darling's very doorstep, if her words were to be believed. Aro knew caution was prudent. The combination of Darling's gift and Michael's telepathy was not to be taken lightly. If, as he suspected, Darling had succeeded in replicating individual vampires, there was no telling who they might find within. However, between the combined findings of the gifts of his guard, they could sense no more than one mind inside the underground fortress. That did not mean there could not be hundreds of shields, like Darling, but they could not sense any others, human or vampire.
The very idea of such a novelty, of such a sight, was enough to spur him onward. His curiosity nearly burned him from the inside out. For so long, he had imagined what Darling's dominion would be like and he had bent so much of his energy on finding it and now that he was here, no amount of risk would hold him back.
"Well, my lords?" the voice through the intercom spoke again. "Are you coming in?"
Aro nodded and they sent in the lesser guards to explore the tunnel first. When these came to no harm, the rest followed.
If he were to be honest, Aro had expected this famed vampire haven to be more… impressive. It was not so dissimilar to the catacombs underneath Volterra, other than the fact that these were obviously younger and had been built by vampire hands rather than human. While the tunnels were fitted with lights and a ventilation system, neither of these were in operation, and the entire structure appeared to have recently been the victim of some manner of calamity. The musty scent of water-soaked earth overwhelmed them, though the source of the water was now gone. Papers, glass bottles, tools, and articles of clothing were strewn in heaps along the way, adding an air of chaos to the tunnel through which they walked.
Not a single guard or sentry met them or prevented them from entry. The only sounds they could hear were their own footsteps. No voice, no movement, no sign of life stirred from any direction.
Aro felt a hand in his again and Caius' concerns had only grown.
I don't like this, brother, he groused.
Aro couldn't disagree, but he would not turn around now. Not when he had sought this so long and come so very far.
When the tunnel branched, the alternate routes were barricaded in order to direct them onwards, straight onwards into the heart of the earth. What made the Volturi all pause was the method of demarcation. Lying prone across the closed pathway was the unmoving figure of a man. His eyes were closed, his body as stiff as a board, yet his hands were outstretched to point in the direction they were to walk.
Felix leaned in to investigate warily, as if the figure would jump up and attack at any moment. But, despite how close he crept, the figure remained as motionless as if he were carved out of the very rock he was propped up against. He was obviously a vampire, though, and not a statue because all present detected his scent. Troubled murmurs began to ripple through the less-experienced guards. Unless beheaded, or under the influence of their singer's blood, they had never seen such behavior from a vampire and it unsettled them all to wonder just what weapon was used to coerce this vampire to behave thus.
"It's, uh, Michael," Felix said in surprise, after carefully examining the face. "Except, his hair is shorter."
Aro approached then, despite his guards' growls of disapproval. He wished to see for himself. As Felix said, the vampire looked nearly exactly like Michael, except for the shorn hair, lack of facial hair, and the scar running over his right cheek. Aro attempted to take the man's hand in his own, but his thoughts were absent. Whether this was due to the man's incapacitated state or Darling's shield, the end result was the same. His thoughts gave Aro more questions than answers.
They continued on. Various doors swung open to allow them to enter, yet no one stirred to open them. At each branch in the road, another figure lay, arranged in exactly the same corpse-like stillness, entirely oblivious to their entry.
What trickery is this? Caius whispered to Aro. Have they developed some new weapon which incapacitates vampires in this manner?
Aro shook his head, his mind whirling with the implications. What was evident with each and every branch of the road was that his suspicions were confirmed. The Master of Neverland had managed to duplicate individual vampires. Here was evidence of an unknown number of telepaths. There was no telling what else they would find within.
Finally, ahead of them, they could see light beneath a set of wooden doors. The doors opened with a slow creaking and groaning sound, and the tunnel flooded with light.
It was more of a great hall than a cavern. The roughly hewn rock walls of the external tunnels made way for precisely carved masonry and the walls rose up in a perfectly smooth and even pentagon, growing ever tighter until it reached a point overhead, so high even St. Peter's Basilica would fit inside. Colorful tapestries adorned the walls, each depicting scenes with crocodiles and billowing sails of ships and mermaids and children armed with swords fighting grown men. Light danced from sconces carved into pillars and enclaves around the massive hall, casting a dim golden light to make their shadows dance behind them as they entered. The soft carpets beneath their feet muffled the sounds of their footsteps as much as the tapestries drank in the sounds within the room.
In the center of the room stood an elevated platform, on which a chair glistened with gold and precious gems. Behind, in the center of vision and focus for the room, hung a portrait. It was unmistakably of Darling, though before Aro could dwell on it, his attention was arrested by the figure seated underneath it. He filled the throne with his lackadaisical limbs and the cocksure grin on his face revealed the one mind in all of this underground city that the Volturi guard could sense.
At first glance, he appeared to be Michael, but in all the time he spent in Volterra Michael had never once worn an expression like that on his face. This man's face was smooth and still tasted of youth. His burnished hair, only a finger's breadth in length, was mussed by a golden crown. His navy-blue tunic was wrinkled and dirty and missing the sash which was meant to tie around his waist and over his trousers. He wore no shoes but tapped his feet back and forth against the floor of the dais in a constant rhythm. In his hand, he held an opaque black bottle.
Darling stood directly next to the throne, one hand resting on the elaborate headrest, the other clenched at her side. Her black dress glistened with sequins, a length of skirt trailed behind where she stood and spilled onto the floor before the dais. Despite the elegance of her dress, her hair fell in messed, untended waves around her face and a forgotten crimson river trailed down her face and onto her shoulder, but not onto her dress.
Darling gave them an appraising, yet expressionless stare, her blood-red eyes falling first on Aro, then on Caius, before she curtsied and then the corners of her lips tugged upwards so briefly it could hardly be called a smile. She did not speak. Instead, she turned her attention to the vampire on the throne and waited for him to carry the conversation.
Despite the grandeur of the furnishings, the cavern itself was unkempt. On the floor directly behind the dais, a bundle of pink fabric showed the remains of a torn dress, this one stained crimson. Shards of glass were scattered across the fine carpets, glittering black in the overhead light. It stank of blood, old and new, and the carpets were still damp with old, stagnant water and puddles of much more recently spilled blood. Most ominously of all, along one wall, a dozen heads of decapitated vampires stared out upon the room with sightless eyes, their faces frozen in warning to those entering the room.
The vampire on the throne did not appear bothered at all by his guests. He took a greedy, lazy gulp from the bottle in his hand and all present could catch the scent.
And what a scent it was! It was well-known in the vampire world that some humans were more… aromatic… than others. Nothing could compare to the taste of one's singer- but that experience was of a deeply personal nature. It was said that they had been created entirely for the individual vampire, a gift of the gods, of sorts. To find one's singer was one of the most defining moments of a vampire's life- a rite of passage into the fullness of vampiric existence, yet singers were entirely a personal experience.
Then there were other humans who appealed to the vampiric world as a whole. These were individuals gifted with such a fragrance that any and all who caught it would find it of greater allure than most, though not to the same extent as their singer. Still, because of their widespread appeal, these humans were highly prized and sought and exchanged. Some vampires even collected them, hoping to gain the envy of their fellows through the rarity and quality of their acquisitions. At times, they were known in vampire lore to be a kind of "Helen of Troy" because of the wars which been fought over such prey on occasion.
By the way postures went rigid and nostrils flared around the room, Aro knew that whatever, or whoever, this vampire was drinking, would have been enough to start another Trojan War.
"So, you've come at last, have you? Welcome to Neverland," the vampire said, his arms outstretched before him. His voice would have been exactly like Michael's except for the slurred, slightly garbled tone with which he spoke.
Aro took it upon himself to take on the mantle of leadership before this strange pair. He stepped to the forefront, his eyes not leaving the man's.
"At last. We meet. You cannot possibly imagine how I have looked forward to this day."
"Oh, I can imagine," the man said, his grin widening till it entirely engulfed his face. He stood then, though the movement was unsteady and appeared exaggerated. He took another swig from his bottle before he tossed a glance over his shoulder. "Where are my manners? Come in! Come in! Refresh yourselves! Darling, serve our guests wine!"
Darling gave a subtle nod of her head and disappeared behind the throne. She returned with a crate filled with bottles identical to the one in the man's hand. She knelt before the Volturi and left the crate at their feet.
"Go ahead. Drink your fill," the man said with a wide grin. "We have more than enough for all."
The Volturi guard each gave each other wary glances and no one moved.
"What is this? You cannot tell me it does not smell delicious?" the man said. To illustrate his point, he tipped his bottle downward and cast a crimson trail behind him as he paced across the dais. The scent in the room became nearly overpowering.
"What happened to the other ones?" Caius asked.
"Ah! My Rip Van Winkles sleep on with no care whether they sleep a day or a hundred years," the man said with an unconcerned shrug. "They are not needed yet, or so I thought. Would you like for them to wake?"
When he caught Caius' uneasy glance, he burst into a boisterous, booming laugh. "Never fear, my lord. Let the Braves rest, for now." Then, he addressed the unasked question meandering through the dozens of minds now in the room. "This is merely human blood that has been artificially reproduced in mass quantities. If you do not like this flavor, we have hundreds of others for you to choose from. This one just happens to be my particular favorite. If you rather, you can taste them all. Darling, fetch…" he began, but then he stopped himself midsentence with a chuckle. "I see. You fear some nefarious intent. Never you mind. I have no qualms about keeping this all to myself."
He stepped down from the dais in a single leap and grabbed hold of the crate, pulling it across the floor with a loud, dragging, creaking sound. He tossed the empty bottle from his hand, letting it crash on the floor in front of him, then he withdrew another. He sat down on the crate itself, his legs crossed before him, then he opened the stopper, and began to drink.
Who is this? Caius whispered through his mind, though the man caught it as easily as if it had been spoken aloud.
"Darling calls me by many names," he said, casting a wink to the lady in question over his shoulder. "It depends on her mood and her fancy. Sometimes she calls me 'John,' but that is so very droll. Sometimes, she calls me 'Edward,' when she is in a darker mood. Other times, she calls me 'Anthony,' and those are when she is her sweetest, though today she preferred 'Captain Hook,' and I can't say I did not enjoy it."
Squilibrato! Pazzo! Matto! The man, he's mad! Caius exclaimed in his mind.
He may be, but Aro watched in fixed fascination. Darling moved around him as a subservient underling, yet by the way he bent towards her and his eyes lingered on her when she neared, she could not be only that. All the expected signs were there.
Are you the Master of Neverland? Aro mentally asked, knowing fully that the man could hear him.
"Yes," he answered, his eyes not leaving Aro's as he did. "I am the King of Neverland, for now. As for what to call me? I cannot have you calling me as my Darling does, now can I? Hmmm. For our games today, you shall call me 'Master Pan.' That sounds quite well, does it not?"
"Why have you called us here?" Caius asked, his growing irritation spilling into the edge of a growl in his voice and the deepening frown on his pale face.
"My Lady has called you here," he said and he held out his hand for Darling to take. "She plans to overthrow the Volturi and has thought of little else since she left Volterra."
The man gave a boisterous, unconcerned laugh which echoed through the room and he motioned to the Volturi as if they were a bouquet of flowers or a set of dancing minstrels for the entertainment of his lady, and not the most feared vampire coven of the world.
"You see? Women! Who can predict what will stir their fancy? My Darling wishes to have your guard as her own. I aim to please."
"You are mad! You expect us to simply turn over our guard to you?" Caius hissed.
"Of course not," the man answered with a wave of his bottle and a shake of his crowned head. "We planned to simply attack you with our army and took them…taken them…tike them… take, that's it, take them for ourselves, but that seemed like such a waste. Darling is so fond of her little Braves, after all, and has worked so hard to create such an army and to train them so. They are such handsome, brilliant fellows, after all. Then, you have your lovely little guard. You have worked so hard to gather such a fascinating collection, we would hate to see harm come to it. It's very simple, you see? After all, since it is nothing but a game, why not come to an agreement through less… destructive… means?
"Darling wishes to play a game of chess against you, as she stated in her invitation. You may choose whichever of you that you wish to be your contestant. If you win, you take our army as your own, to do with what you will, and Darling will share with you her knowledge for replicating blood. If we win, we take your guard as our own, to do with what we will, and Darling keeps her secrets to herself."
"Through a game… of chess?" Caius repeated, incredulous. He rolled his eyes and cast a glance at Aro, who returned it. "And why would we wish to partake in such a gamble?"
"Why wouldn't you?" he said, without glancing up from where his fingers danced a rhythm on the crate of bottles he still sat upon.
"We need some time to… consider your offer," Caius answered. When the man only cocked his head in the direction of the door and began to whistle, the entire Volturi guard retreated from the room, eyes warily watching the man from behind their backs until the wooden doors closed behind them.
The Volturi expelled a sigh of relief once they felt their backs exposed to the open sky rather than the suffocating closeness of the underground tunnels. In the expanse of open land, uninhabited for the next ten miles before the city suburbs began, they could more easily gain an advantage over their strange opponents, if their opponents chose to turn on them. They circled around to discuss, guards appointed at each edge to keep watch, just in case that strange, unmoving army chose to wake and take them by surprise.
"They do not rely on humans for their continued existence," Caius mused as he looked out into the sparsely populated farms spilling over into desert. "I thought Michael mad, at first, with his unnatural diet, but now, I see the benefit. They can grow their numbers as large as they wish, without fear of discovery or lack of resources or territory. I never dreamed… what an army such a methods of food production could support! With such methods at our disposal, would we even need to bother keeping the little humans… and their weapons… around us?"
"What was wrong with them?" Alec asked. "Why does their army sleep?"
Caius gave a dark chuckle and gave him a patronizing pat on the head. "You will know, someday, when you find your own singer."
"He supplies them with the blood of their singer?" Jane gasped, no doubt remembering her own experience into vampiric fullness. "He can give them an unlimited supply?"
By the gasps from around the guard, Aro knew the possibilities of what they had just witnessed was only now beginning to percolate through their imaginations. Venom would soon begin to pool.
It was utterly brilliant. The Master of Neverland had discovered the means to control his army through the unending wellspring of the blood of their singers. What vampire would not tear off his own arm and leg for another chance to drink from their singer? What need would Aro have for Chelsea's gift or Marcus', if such a means were at his disposal? Loyalty could be bought by the bottle without any coercion necessary. This alone would ensure Volterra rose to unshakeable prominence in the vampire world.
To add to this the possibility of recreating not only blood, but entire individuals was beyond Aro's wildest dreams. If this so-called 'Master Pan' could replicate himself into his own army, why could he not also duplicate Darling? If Darling could be reproduced, then why not Jane and Alec and Demetri and every other valued guard member? What would Aro accomplish with such an army! If every single scouting party could contain a shield, a telepath, and an offensive weapon, who could stand against him?
Aro's guard was his greatest prize, his delight. He felt the loss of each as a wound to his own psyche. If every lost guard could be immediately replaced with another, how many of his deepest fears would be immediately relieved? While he treasured his guard, there was one aspiration he sought more than his guard and it was power.
Aro glanced over at Caius and knew his thoughts were shared in their entirety, without even needing to take his brother's hand.
Ooo
In the end, Aro found it all rather depressingly… anti-climactic. What was undoubtedly the largest vampire army in the history of vampire armies, guarded by the greatest shield ever born, was defeated without so much as a slap on the wrist or a single bite. In truth, Aro would have preferred at least an attempt at insurrection… just so the stories of his glorious victory would travel as far and as wide as the stories of Neverland's greatness. He was not so fortunate.
He played Darling at her chosen game of chess. He even pretended to agree to her rules. He knew, even if she did not, that the outcome of the game did not matter. If Aro won, Neverland would be his. If Aro loss, well, Neverland would still be his.
The Volturi feigned as much suspense as was warranted for such stakes, each jostling the others in their eager attempts to gain a better view of the game. In reality, they were positioning themselves around the pair, each with their instructions of who to lunge at first, once the game was decided.
The Master of Neverland did not so much as look at the game board. He contented himself with sitting on his golden chair, his feet tossed over the armrest while he hummed to himself, his eyes fixed entirely on Darling's face. Darling, on the other hand, took her challenge very seriously and proved to be a formidable opponent.
"Ah, Darling, I am glad to continue our game," Aro said, once the pair were settled around a small table with an elaborate silver and gold chess set. "I feared we would never have the opportunity to play again."
Darling didn't answer. She tilted her head to one side, picked up a rook, and stole away his knight. He chuckled, and moved his pawn out of her way.
The game continued on, each opponent seeking to outmaneuver the other. Finally, when what felt like an age had passed, Darling moved her queen into position and she broke into the widest grin Aro had ever seen on her face. "Checkmate," she cried out victoriously, clapping her hands together in front of her.
Aro considered the board before he laughed. "You appear to have won the game," he said, bowing his head in acceptance of his defeat. "Unfortunately, you have still lost Neverland."
Felix and Demetri's arms enclosed around Darling, so strong she could not pry herself away, no matter how she kicked and screamed and shouted muffled curses. Domingo and Oliver moved towards the vampire on the throne, but he did not so much as move a leg or an arm away. Instead, he held out his wrists, already crossed, and he gave an over-exaggerated pout.
"Must you?" he said. "If I promise to come along like a good boy, may I gather my belongings first?" Then he turned to Aro, his red eyes staring right through him, and he grinned. "After all, there are some particular assets I believe you would find very interesting."
Domingo and Oliver turned to Aro in question. Aro nodded. If Master Pan was foolish enough to run, Demetri could track him down. If he was desperate enough to abandon his mate, then Jane could bring his unshielded self to the floor in a moment. They had Darling, now completely bound and heading out of the tunnels to where their helicopters waited. In less than an hour, Darling would be gone and he would be exposed to them all.
Guards scattered throughout the remaining tunnels, exploring each room for potentially useful objects, or individuals. Soon, the trail guards carrying unconscious soldiers moved along the tunnels like ants to their colony. There was more of them than Aro would have even hoped possible. He saw Caius overflow with his own brightly glowing delight at the sheer numbers. When the Master of Neverland came with his arm full of mechanical blueprints, Aro's grin grew even wider.
"Here's the plans you need to make more blood," he said. "My machines are ruined, here, so you'll have to make your own, but this is how to do it. I can tell you how to make them and run them."
Then, the man disappeared again. When he reemerged, his hands were full of wooden crates and he had a satchel around his shoulder.
"You there. Your hands are free," Master Pan commanded the exiting guards. "Take these with you. I will have need of them." He stacked crates of bottles by the door and did not let any depart without their hands carrying at least one.
Once on the helicopter, Aro ensured he sat by the former Master of Neverland.
May I? Aro asked, though they both knew it was a formality only. Pan could not hope to keep Aro from gleaning his thoughts any more than Aro could keep Pan out of his. Pan only nursed the lip of the bottle in his right hand and then outstretched his left for Aro to take.
Peter's mind was a sight to behold! It was as complicated a web of thoughts and memories as Aro himself possessed, after his many years of telepathy. Within, Pan bore not only his own memories and thoughts, but those of an innumerable number of his fellow telepaths. It was as if they were an entire grove of aspen trees – each a single individual that was replicated again and again, yet was still interconnected to the whole. Thoughts, memories, experiences were gathered and shared by all, reverberating through the collective whole like the wind through the branches of the overhanging trees.
Which thoughts belonged to the being before him and which were from his hundreds of brothers? How old was this mind and how old were these memories? There was no way to untangle them. So similar were the mental timbres, the unique individual voices that were replicated, Aro felt like he sought to separate an individual drop of water from the merging, crashing waves of the ocean.
He could see human versions of the telepath, with green eyes bright with youth or dimmed with age. Each of these had their own mental voices, unconnected to each other but connected to the massive web of their vampiric fellows. There were more names and faces than Aro could differentiate between.
Within that vampiric hive of thoughts, hundreds of telepaths woke and trained, lived and died, fought and played. Through that mind, he could see Darling's brown eyes, her human eyes, first blinking in the bright lights of a room. Then he saw those same eyes glazed in the sight of death, her rich, pungent blood…the blood Aro could now smell from Pan's bottle… beneath the teeth in that memory.
In some memories, the overwhelming lust of newborn vampires clawed after the woman. He watched as Darling poured her blood into their waiting mouths, claiming them each as her own, forever through the tantalizing taste of her blood. In others, it was the overwhelming call of the mating bond. In these, her skin was caressed, her lips sought, her entire being treasured and worshipped. Yet, all these thoughts were as blurred by layers of identical fantasies as they were rooted in lived experiences. Woven throughout it all was the terrible burn of constant jealousy and unsatiated desire. It defined them as much as it destroyed them. Yet, it was impossible to tell where the bonds began and ended and so it all splashed into the ocean of his mind like rain.
Aro had never heard of one's mate also being one's singer. Such inherently contradictory forces was a recipe for chaos. It was little wonder that Pan was insane.
Pan's mind was like a kaleidoscope, twisting and turning in dissonant, warring fragments of ever-shifting colors and blurred, nonsensical shapes. This, Aro could only assume, was due to influence of his singer's blood, continuing to blur his senses and intoxicate his mind. Aro could glean thoughts which were clearer, sharper, and which tasted more of reality, but these were so tangled up with the rest of him that it was hard to tell where reality ended and fantasy began.
It appeared, for all intents and purposes, like Peter genuinely believed he had spent the better part of his day on a pirate ship and that he was the captain. It was as real in his mind as if he were truly on a pirate ship, and yet he must have spent the day within the underground fortress. Even now, he did not seem to fully grasp that this interaction with the Volturi was happening in reality, and not only in his mind.
Which parts of Pan's memories were true and which were not? The fact that stood out from among all the others was that there had been more than one copy of Darling… and she was part of a perfectly mated pair. In each and every of Pan's thoughts, it was clear that every version of Pan held an unwavering obsession for every version of Darling. And that was enough for Aro.
Darling's mind, the beautiful mind he had always assumed was locked. It turned out that vault had a key.
And the key had a name.
Aro knew that all the secrets of Darling's mind would now be his.
All because of the existence of the pompous, self-important man before him. Aro was so happy he felt like embracing the man and kissing him on both cheeks himself.
She will not be pleased by this. Pan whispered. If you wish to access her secrets, to 'pry open the vaults' of her mind, you will need my help…and I have conditions.
Why should I make arrangements with a defeated man? Aro mentally thought in return. Your welfare is in my hands. Your army, while impressive, is now mine. From what I saw of your city, it lies in ruins. Your many subjects fled, long before we even arrived. You gambled with the few assets you still owned and you have lost. You could not honestly expect us to hold to our arrangement?
The vampire held up his free hand in a show of surrender, his red eyes fixed on Aro. I did not doubt the outcome from the moment you accepted, but why should I care the outcome? I have two goals- my mate and my wine. As long as I have those, to hell with all the rest. You allow me to have my mate and my wine, I will give you whatever else you ask for in return.
What do you want? Aro asked.
First, you will not harm Darling and you will treat her like a queen. Second, you will allow us to stay together in adequate accommodations and live as we please within those accommodations. Third, you give me all the materials and machinery and blood I ask for. I will give you what you seek if you comply.
Why bother creating Neverland if only to throw it away? Aro asked.
Priorities change. Finding your mate… and your singer… it shifts everything. She will do as I ask, if you do as I ask.
Aro clasped Pan's hand in between both of his and he nodded.
I agree.
Author's Notes: One more chapter-back to Darling- and then we will have our epilogue.
