70. Betrayed

Call Alice. This will go faster with her help.

The phone rang as I reached into my pocket. Carlisle and I shared a grin. Of course she would have seen.

"I don't see you finding her," Alice said before I could ask where we should look.

Alarmed, I asked, "Is she going after the wolves, then? Are they blocking you?"

"No, no, I see you looking. I just don't see you finding. But keep looking. Maybe something will change. I'll let you know."

I tucked my phone back in my pocket as we came to a halt on the ridge where Irina had stood, watching Bella. I recognized her scent. Though they had never met, Bella was right; Irina had definitely been here.

The clearing was empty now, Bella and her wolf escort having already left for home, but Irina would have had a clear view from up here. Standing precisely where she had, I could discern the prints that Bella's shoes had left. Irina would have had no problem identifying Bella as the newest Cullen, whose eyes were becoming more golden with each passing day, nor spotting the massive wolf who had accompanied her.

Why did it have to be today? Under any other circumstances, I would have been with Bella while she hunted, whether we brought Nessie or not. But today, I had stayed behind to give her and Jacob the chance to talk. And today, Irina shows up!

The vagueness of Alice's visions frustrated me anew. We'd known she was coming! Alice could see that much. Was it Irina's state of indecision that had made the date unknowable, or the interference cause by the presence of the wolves, or some other factor? If I'd have known, we would have made her visit easier by sending Jacob away.

Renesmee would have missed him, but the reward of meeting someone new would have made up for that. I would have liked Nessie to meet our extended family, to show off my exceptional daughter, like the proud father I was.

Well, perhaps I still could. We might find her yet.

I filled Carlisle in on what Alice had said while we scouted around the area, smelling the direction from which Irina had come and finding the end of her trail where she had jumped off the cliff. He frowned, thinking she was already doing what she could to make tracing her difficult.

She doesn't want to be found. She knows your abilities and how to foil them as well as anyone. Alice's as well. This will not be easy.

"Nothing worth doing ever is."

"Hmm," he agreed with a smile and launched himself off the cliff.

I followed a second later, landing lightly a few feet away from him. We headed in opposite directions to cover as much ground as possible. He found her first, and I joined him as he ran. It was good that I was the faster of the two of us. He followed her trail at an all-out sprint, hoping to make up as much time as possible. Irina had quite a head start on us.

We lost her several times, losing time as well. She had jumped into the trees, waded a long way down one of the rivers, and doubled back on her own trail to create several diverging paths. She created circuitous routes that went nowhere and made use of every cliff she came across to launch herself through the air so we would have to find her trail anew.

Carlisle regretted not inviting Emmett. We didn't need his protection, but we could have used his and Jasper's help with hunting. They would have enjoyed a good game of vampire hide-and-seek. At least this time, Bella's life wasn't hanging in the balance.

Laughing, I said, "Well, when this is over, you should enjoy surprising Emmett with the idea for a new game for a change."

His eyes danced despite his attempt at remaining serious. This was not a game, but to Emmett, most of life was. I felt a swelling of love for my carefree brother. If I was grateful to Rosalie for anything, it was in her choice of mate. Emmett had often made our lives better and brighter. He didn't need a superhuman gift other than his ability to find the fun in everything.

When at last we came to the edge of the sound, I stood by the vast body of water and stretched with my gift as far as I could, seeking even a hint of her thoughts.

"Olly, olly, oxen free," I muttered, discouraged and disheartened.

Nothing?

"Not even a whisper."

Then she must not be in the water. We shall simply have to keep looking on the opposite side.

"It connects with the ocean. You may as well be talking about searching across the Pacific as the Puget sound, here. She could be anywhere by now."

Nevertheless. We owe it to her to look.

Without hesitation, he strode into the water, and after pausing to sigh over the futility, I followed. We had not found Irina, just as Alice had foreseen. That wasn't likely to change at this point. Whether I owed it to Irina to keep looking or not was debatable, but I did owe it to Carlisle. There was no scent trail, of course, but I could still easily see his bubble trail as he sped in a straight line for the opposite shore.

He paused just beneath the surface where the land angled up, looking at me with raised eyebrows. It wouldn't do to stroll up out of the water in front of someone. I listened carefully, but we would not be observed. We emerged, dripping, and took off toward the north, zig-zagging closer to and farther out from the shore in case she had leapt from the water rather than run right out as we had done. We ran until we reached the outskirts of Vancouver, then headed back the way we had come, cutting a wide circle to look that much farther from the water, but there was nothing to be found.

Inevitably, we reached Seattle, but there was still no sign of her. She could have easily lost herself in either city, or headed for the open ocean, or be holed up on any one of a number of our coastal islands. Finally, Carlisle admitted defeat. We weren't going to find her.

He knew better than to doubt Alice, but that hadn't stopped him from holding onto hope. I had already given up hours earlier. I had only kept going for his benefit.

As soon as we got back to our house, I made my way to Bella and encircled her in my arms. She looked so guilty and miserable, as if any of this could possibly be her fault. Carlisle immediately made for the house phone to call Tanya and Kate and let them know of their sister's aborted visit.

They were quite dismayed. In the hours we had spent searching, she could have made it home to them, yet she had chosen to remain in solitude. Alice only saw that Irina wandered, angry and alone. She had no plans to do anything other than wallow.

Well, we had tried, and there was nothing to be done about her now.

I had much more important and exciting things to worry about.

We were leaving!

Bella suggested we abandon our Christmas plans in favor of leaving as soon as she and Carlisle got back from Italy. We could invite Charlie to wherever we were instead, and treat him to a holiday away from home - a tropical Christmas vacation. It wouldn't be snowing here by then anyway, just a dreary drizzle of near-icy rain and grey days. Making sand castles in the place of snow men sounded like much more fun than staying here.

In spite of these happy plans, Bella fretted over leaving Charlie. She put off telling him of our extended trip, finding an excuse each time I brought it up. Her brooding only emphasized to me how much she had lied - to me and herself - when I'd used him in my attempts to convince her to give up her plans to become a vampire. This wasn't even a permanent separation like we had expected her transformation to be, and yet she dreaded telling him.

I could only hold her and attempt to distract her from her worries, remind her this wasn't forever. Not yet, anyway.

Now that Jacob's presence was assured, our plans changed dramatically. He wouldn't have the benefit of knowing the local languages, but English was widely spoken, so he would be able to get by.

It wasn't likely that any of the Ticuna would be willing to talk to us now. Kaure had refused to return any of Esme's attempts at contact. I rather thought she would have returned to her people to tell them the latest evils we demons had committed. I held out hope that seeing Bella and Renesmee might convince them otherwise, and might prompt them to explore their legends and reconsider their preconceptions about us, but we had to be careful. It was not in their best interests to be too knowledgeable about us.

Jacob, however, could visit the many different tribes under the guise of a human with a grudge or one expressing simple curiosity, and they would accept him. Alice couldn't see it, of course, but he agreed, laughing uproariously at the idea of playing vampire hunter.

Jasper and I could hide, close enough to help him without being seen by them. I could listen, perhaps even communicate with him via phone if need be, or at least see what his questions prompted whether they were willing to tell Jacob anything they knew or not, while Jasper could use his gift to make them pliable, open to Jacob's friendliness, less afraid of his foreign status.

Our solidifying plans breathed new energy into everyone, with Bella being the exception. My mother and sisters had packed and repacked several times already. My brothers' favorite subject was hunting. The jungle promised a new variety of prey. Given that the local bear population was engaged in their long winter nap, Emmett was looking forward to creatures that could offer him a challenge. He thought the Anaconda might prove to be a worthy opponent.

I was a little disappointed that Jacob, acting as a responsible leader, was making arrangements for his pack to remain here. Although he blithely ignored his own unfinished education, the same could not be said for Seth's, nor Embry's or Quil's. Since Seth was staying, Leah would be, too. They were no longer members of Sam's pack, but he continued to feel a responsibility for all the wolves. Jacob was relying on Sam to look after his pack in his absence as if they were still Sam's own. Leah was none too pleased, but that seemed to be her default state, so I ignored her displeasure just as I always had.

The distance we were to travel would be a new test of the wolves' ability to communicate. Ever curious, Carlisle especially was looking forward to seeing just how far werewolf telepathy extended. Jacob, having already experienced communication from a distance of several hundred miles with no adverse effects, was certain the added miles would not interfere. He planned to coordinate a time to shift at least once a day so he could remain in contact with them. They didn't need a nanny, he insisted, but he didn't feel comfortable abandoning them completely. And if we discovered they were needed, it would be a simple matter of a few plane rides, and they could rejoin their leader.

With only a few days before Carlisle and Bella flew to Italy, he and I made use of every opportunity to plan. I even sacrificed several precious hours of Nessie's sleep, hours which I usually spent entwined with Bella, so that he and I could debate and refine every conceivable option, every difficulty we might encounter, every possible avenue of exploration.

Bella left us to our planning. Admittedly, it would have been hard for her to follow. In my excitement, I rarely gave him the chance to speak aloud, answering Carlisle's thoughts before she would have had the chance to hear them. Jacob, tired of listening to the one-sided conversation, had left hours ago, glad of his excuse of making plans of his own with Sam.

Rather than take her back to our cottage to sleep, Bella had allowed Nessie to fall asleep on the couch. She sat beside her now, playing idly with a curl of hair. She looked like nothing more than a doting mother, gazing lovingly at her child's innocent slumber. Her face showed none of the turmoil Jasper could sense. Worrying about Charlie again, I supposed.

For once, I was trying to ignore Alice. She kept seeing our hazy future shift and blur. It was distracting. Every time she focused on one certainty, it changed. Our family was traveling. That was all I could say for sure, and all I really needed to know. What we found along the way would surely cause us to adjust accordingly.

Perhaps it would have helped if she were searching for our future, but we were not the subject of her focus.

I wished she would stop looking for Irina. That succubus was not our problem! She wasn't a threat, and we couldn't find her despite all our efforts. She didn't want to be found! Not by us, nor her sisters. I knew well what that was like, having spent many months of misery avoiding my own loving family. I had no desire to witness someone else going through the same thing.

The emotions in the house were getting to Jasper. The combination of my overexcitement, Bella's moody fretting, and Alice's worried searching had his own nerves stretched taut.

Finally, he decided to act, spreading a sense of calm through the room. "Let it go, Alice," he advised. "She's not our concern."

She stuck her tongue out at him in response and continued her relentless and unnecessary cleaning of our already immaculate house. Honestly, how many times had she dusted those shelves already today? The flowers in the vase she held now were next to perfect. What was a little wilting when we were set to leave soon? By the time we got back, they would be long since dried and dead.

Rolling my eyes, I was about to tease her about them when the vase in question slipped unnoticed from her hands. It hit the floor and shattered, looking like so much spilled ice on the kitchen floor. I noticed it peripherally, aware of its fate only because the rest of our family was staring at the shattered remains of the crystal vase in utter shock. When was the last time any of us had accidentally dropped something?

My entire being was focused on Alice's mind, riveted and repulsed by what she saw. She spun to gape at Bella, and I was sure the same look of terror was on my face as was on my sister's. I tried to talk, to protest what she saw as impossible - impossible, damn it! - but only a garbled noise escaped me.

As if the very gates of hell opened up and spilled out an unimaginable evil with the intent of crushing all that was good and pure in the world, an army of demons were coming for us. For my family. For me. For my wife and, most especially, for my daughter.

I couldn't move, couldn't comprehend. I only saw what my eyes didn't want to see. My mind struggled to reject the horror it witnessed. None of it made sense. We weren't even supposed to be here! We had obeyed their laws: Bella was a vampire now. There was no reason for this, this hunt, this attack. Just days from now, Bella was to visit them and prove her immortal status, and then we were leaving!

We were leaving!

But they were coming.

Aro.

Caius.

Marcus.

Jane and Alec.

Felix and Demetri.

And with them, every single member of the Volturi guard, all those who had ever served in any fashion, all those who were loyal out of fear, all those who had visited out of curiosity or respect, all those Aro knew of only through the minds of others, all those who had heard of the Volturi as children hear of the boogyman.

All of them.

A hundred vampires, perhaps more.

They were coming here, to Forks!

For us.

For me.

This was my doing, my fault.

And my family, my gentle father, my sweet mother, my fun-loving brother, my resolute sister, they would die to protect my wife and child, die uselessly, for how could any of us stand against such a force?

I could hear the whisper of a hundred cloaks dragging across the snow-covered grass. I could hear the squeak of the snow beneath booted feet. I could see the glint of a hundred pairs of bright red eyes. I could smell them, their various scents mingling with the sharp bite of the cold to create a choking, cloying stench, fouler than the piles of rotting corpses of their victims.

"They're coming for us," Alice said. "All of them."

As if from a great distance, I was aware that I spoke as she did, locked in the horror within her mind. If she had moved, no doubt I would have mirrored her, but she was motionless, watching the future unfold. The future that meant our end.

"The Volturi," Alice managed to explain.

"All of them," I repeated.

They made the newborn army that had attacked that spring look like child's play.

Newborns had physical strength, yes, but the Volturi had powers for which there was no defence. They could swat us down without lifting a finger. They could trap us in blindness, assault our senses, divert us without our realizing. And while we writhed, while we blindly groped, we would be torn limb from limb.

And there was nothing I could do about it.

"Why?" Alice asked, as uncomprehending of what she was seeing as I. "How?"

While those were definitely vital questions, there was one I felt had more immediate concern. "When?"

Esme and Jasper echoed those questions of why and when, but Alice had no answer. She scrambled to find one, tracing the threads of the future back to their beginning.

Completely absorbed in Alice's thoughts, I heard myself say along with her, "Not long." I clenched my teeth and tried desperately to wrench myself out of the horror I was witnessing. I needed to think! I couldn't just watch it unfold. There had to be some answer, some solution, if only I could concentrate.

Alice said, "There's snow on the forest, snow on the town. Little more than a month."

"Why?" Carlisle asked.

"They must have a reason. Maybe to see..." Esme's eyes went to where Bella sat, arms spread protectively in front of Nessie, who still slept on, oblivious. There was only one thing my mother could think of that would draw the Volturi to us: the rule they knew we had broken. If Bella were still human, we would be in violation of the law, and we had already been warned.

But that didn't make sense to me. Why would they assemble every available vampire to witness our punishment for a crime that no longer applied? Surely they would have checked first, just in case Bella was no longer a human. They would have no wish to look foolish in front of the vast majority of the world's vampire population. They would have to know a law had been broken, and as soon as they investigated, they would see Bella had changed. No, this was something bigger, more sinister, than whether or not a single human girl knew of our existence.

"This isn't about Bella," Alice said. "They're all coming - Aro, Caius, Marcus, every member of the guard, even the wives."

"The wives never leave the tower," Jasper said. "Never. Not during the southern rebellion. Not when the Romanians tried to overthrow them. Not even when they were hunting the immortal children. Never."

"They're coming now," I mumbled through numb lips.

"But why?" Carlisle demanded. "We've done nothing! And if we had, what could we possibly do that would bring this down on us?"

There was only one reason to assemble such a force. We were powerful, a threat to them, the only other coven who had ever rivaled their size. We had already defeated an army without a single loss, proving that we were not a force to be confronted lightly. That meant numbers and powers had to be brought to bear, or they might suffer their first loss in millenia.

"There are so many of us. They must want to make sure that…" I couldn't finish, but it wasn't necessary. I heard the rest of what I didn't say in my family's thoughts.

They had to make certain they finished us off, and not the other way around. Before they were to confront us, they had to be assured of our total annihilation.

Carlisle did not think that was a good enough explanation. For why they brought so many, yes, but why were they coming at all? What could have precipitated our death sentence?

"That doesn't answer the crucial question!" he insisted. "Why?"

I looked at Bella, expecting to see the same confusion on her face, the familiar bewildered questioning I always found in her eyes, but she was staring at Renesmee with a dull resignation, as if she had already accepted our deaths as inevitable.

Bella's eyes drifted listlessly to Alice when Jasper prompted her to look into the future again.

"Go back, Alice," he said, desperate for answers. "Look for the trigger. Search."

"It came out of nowhere, Jazz," Alice said, sounding defeated. "I wasn't looking for them, or even for us. I was just looking for Irina. She wasn't where I expected her to be…"

Alice's visions had come unprompted before. When a decision was made that affected our family, our fate would come upon her unbidden. A decision must have been made, but by who? The Volturi? That didn't seem likely. They had decided to come for us - or would decide soon - but prompted by another event. Something else happened first. She traced them back as if rewinding a video, looking for the key moment.

And finding, at last, Irina.

She was there! Or would be. Not yet, but soon. Alice wouldn't see it if it had already happened.

It was her decision to go to them that prompted their decision to come to us. Yet that still didn't explain why. Why would her visit cause such a reaction? Retaliation for Laurent? For protecting the werewolves from her vengeance? I couldn't imagine the Volturi being so petty, risking so much for such a little thing.

"She decided to go to them," Alice said when it became obvious that I wouldn't, or couldn't, fill them in on what she saw. "Irina decided to go to the Volturi. And then they will decide… It's as if they're waiting for her. Like their decision was already made, and just waiting on her…"

There was a detail we were missing; I was certain of it. Something vital we were overlooking. This attack was too well coordinated. There was a practiced precision to their plan. There was nothing haphazard and rushed, nothing thrown together. This was an emergency room coming to life upon the arrival of an ambulance, all the key players moving as they'd been trained to do, no effort wasted, no time lost in debate.

Whatever this was, it had been done before.

"Can we stop her?" Jasper asked. He knew, as I did, that Irina was not there yet. We could fly to Italy, could we not? Intercept her before she spoke with them?

But he didn't understand, he couldn't see. He could only feel Alice's dread as she whispered, "There's no way. She's almost there."

"What is she doing?" Carlisle asked, though he didn't seem to expect an answer. "We are family. We've lived together. This attack cannot be the reason for her visit to them, can it? Does she know this will be their response?"

"Yes!" Alice hissed.

"That's why it took her so long to decide to tell them," I confirmed. Fury exploded within my chest. I'd had so little time with Bella, and it was my cousin who would intentionally steal my eternity of happiness away! And for what? Because she had none of her own?! I could barely speak for the rage that filled me at such a betrayal, but I forced the words past my gritted teeth, "She knew they'd kill us for it."

Emmett, whose eyes were roving the forest as if an attack were imminent, said, "But tell them what, exactly? I mean, Aro read your mind when you were there before, yeah?"

I nodded. "Alice's too."

"So what's new?"

"The wolves?" Jasper suggested. "Our relationship with them is different now. You encountered them decades ago, and he'd've seen that, wouldn't he? Including the animosity? And Irina could show them that the hostility between us no longer exists. A treaty of non-aggression is one thing, but an alliance? They would not be pleased to find out that we are friends with their enemies." The enemy of my enemy is my friend, but it goes the other way, too. The friend of my enemy, is my enemy as well.

"This isn't about them, I don't think," Alice said, frowning. "Aro didn't care that Bella was friends with them. He saw it from when I came home after I thought Bella had died."

"But she was human then. Vampires and werewolves aren't supposed to be friends." Emmett shook his head at the unlikeliness of our family's close relationship with creatures who had always been our kind's mortal enemy.

"The Volturi have hunted werewolves in the past," Carlisle agreed, recalling the volumes in Volterra's vast library detailing the relentless hunts that had driven the creatures to the brink of extinction.

"Because they threatened to expose our existence," I argued. "The Quileuttes aren't true werewolves; they're shape shifters. They retain their human minds and don't go about mindlessly savaging random strangers, leaving evidence everywhere. They're less of a threat to our secrecy than any newborn army, and the Volturi have never cared about those."

My eyes were drawn to Bella at the same time as Jasper's. The dread in the room, already thick, seemed to coalesce around Bella. As I watched, her face twisted with a grief that I only glimpsed before she turned away from our speculating to lay across Nessie's sleeping form, as if hiding her beneath Bella's hair and hands could in any way protect our daughter from what was coming.

"Yeah," Emmett said, "but Alice didn't know they'd killed Laurent when Aro read her, did he? I bet you anything this is retaliatory. And after the packs fought for us, I know I ain't the only one who'd fight to protect them. Alice, are you sure this isn't - "

"Think of what she saw that afternoon," Bella interrupted, speaking for the first time. "To someone who'd lost a mother because of the immortal children, what would Renesmee look like?"

"An immortal child," Carlisle whispered, understanding at once.

My breath caught as what she said made everything fall into place. Covens killed to protect their children. The devotion they had engendered in their creators had been fanatical. Carlisle had told us: To be around one was to love it completely.

And those same covens had been decimated for their creation of vampire children. The Volturi had wiped them out.

It wasn't hard to imagine Irina's fear that upon catching her after she had discovered our illegal creation, we would have killed her to protect it. No wonder she went to such lengths to avoid being found! And all that time wandering, worrying, she had not been mourning Laurent as Alice and I had supposed. It had been us. She'd known from experience that keeping our secret would have implicated her. The same punishment would have been meted out to any who could be implicated in aiding and abetting as to those who had perpetrated such a heinous crime.

When we were caught, as inevitably we would be, her knowledge of our crime would be discovered, and she and her sisters would be killed for keeping our secret. It was only their ignorance that had protected the Denali sisters from such a fate at the time of their mother's execution. Where did Irina's greatest loyalty lie? With us, or her sisters?

The answer was obvious.

Without being aware I'd moved, I found myself on my knees beside Bella, wrapping my arms around her and Nessie. I felt the need to protect Renesmee within every cell of my body. She was so good, so pure, gentle and sweet as her mother, innocent and endlessly curious.

I loved my daughter, the child I'd thought I could never have, the child that had proven to me once and for all that Carlisle had been right all along.

If time had taken Nessie from us, we would have mourned, but we would have had each other and our family to share in our grief. It would never have passed entirely, but we could have helped each other through our grieving until we were capable of remembering all the beauty of her life without the crushing pain that it had ended.

There was no question that the death she now faced was a different matter. Neither of us could have survived such a horrendous loss, even if the Volturi would have allowed it.

I understood those ancient vampires more than I'd ever thought possible, for I would have risked everything to protect my child, just as they had done for theirs. My own life meant nothing. Bella would die to protect her, and I could not live without them. Such an existence would be meaningless.

But there was no protection! The Volturi were a force that we could never hope to defeat.

"But she's wrong," Bella insisted. "Renesmee isn't like those other children. They were frozen, but she grows every day. They were out of control, but she never hurts Charlie or Sue or even shows them things that would upset them. She can control herself. She's already smarter than most adults. There would be no reason…"

It sounded like she was begging us to believe her, to agree that of course Nessie was different, and therefore would be spared. The Volturi were our lawmakers, were they not? They killed to feed themselves, and they killed those who threatened our world. Carlisle considered Aro his friend! They didn't kill without reason, and where Renesmee was concerned, they had none.

No, no reason, except they would never give us the chance to show them who Renesmee really was, what she was like, that she was not what they feared. Their prior experiences with other children were all the reason they needed. Our protestations that she was different, special, wonderful, would sound exactly like the protestations of the creators of all vampire children. Surely they had claimed the same: my child is unique, my child can be taught, if they would but give us the chance to prove it.

Irina's mother, had she begged for the life of the infant she had changed? Had Irina and her sisters listened to their mother beg for time, time for the child to learn? As Carlisle had told me again and again, unchangeable though we were, vampires could grow. It might take a century or two, but if they had the perfect memory of all vampires, couldn't those children learn to behave? Surely their creators had believed so.

But in the interim, how many times would they expose us, our world? As far as the Volturi were concerned, even once was one time too many.

And they themselves had tried, had they not? The Volturi had made or obtained children for their own study, and now those children were nothing but ashes and memories, and proof positive that no good could ever come from the creation of an immortal child.

The warmth of Nessie's living body radiated out from her, I felt the vibrations in the air from her beating heart, heard the sound of the blood pulsing through her veins. Renesmee lived! She was not immortal, a fact we desperately strove to alter.

I pressed my head against Bella's, buried my face in her hair just as hers was buried in our daughter's. They were both so precious, and our time together so short. Eternity would not have been enough. Now, these few months were all I would have.

"It's not the kind of crime they hold a trial for, love," I eventually whispered. No one else seemed capable of answering. "Aro's seen Irina's proof in her thoughts. They come to destroy, not to be reasoned with."

"But they're wrong," Bella cried.

"They won't wait for us to show them that."

Facts did not matter when the decision had already been made. The Volturi knew what the immortal children were like, and Irina knew what she had seen. Nothing we could say would give them pause. They already knew, and our lives were already lost.