Chapter 23: Heroes and Villains, Pt. 2

Nathan waited, but Peter, who seemed to be frozen in horror, said nothing. After a minute or two, Nathan took it upon himself to fill the silence.

"The question is, what exactly are we dealing with here? This footage surfaced during an investigation into reports of some kind of viral outbreak up in Alaska; everyone who was infected died within a day or two, but this girl... Peter, please tell me we're not dealing with some kind of real-life zombie virus."

"No, she wasn't a zombie."

Nathan started to breathe a sigh of relief, but Peter's next words made him realize that this reaction was premature in the extreme.

"She was a vampire."

At that, Nathan's sigh of relief turned into a strangled noise in his throat. "You're kidding...right?" he added almost pleadingly.

"'Fraid not," Peter said bluntly. "The good news is that most vampires aren't like that; it's the way this virus attacks their brains that makes them-"

"Whoa, whoa! Most vampires? As in...there are more of them?"

"Yeah, you've already met a few. There's Edward and Elle - Edward's whole family are vampires, as a matter of fact - and Bella, although she didn't become one until after election night, when I..."

Nathan nodded numbly, barely aware of what his body was doing as his mind whirled furiously. It almost made sense, in a bizarre, utterly nonsensical way - her inexplicable recovery from a condition that should have meant she was as good as dead, and the changes in her... That red-eyed glare that still made him shiver when the memory of it returned to haunt him late at night... As much as he wished he could deny it, he found himself believing Peter's insane claims. Drawing in a deep, slightly shaky breath, he said, "Tell me everything."

He then listened for the better part of an hour, during which he had to consciously remind himself several times to suspend his disbelief, as Peter related how he came to be aware of the existence of vampires (as well as werewolves and wolf-shifters, which were apparently two separate species), everything he'd learned about them, and his experiences with them since leaving New York.

When it came to the virus, however, there wasn't much to tell. "I learned from Patient Zero's memories that someone did that to him, someone created the virus and deliberately infected him before sending him to attack the wedding, but we don't know who did it or why, or even where their lab is. We haven't found a cure yet either, unless you count removing affected limbs to stop the infection from spreading. We couldn't do anything for the humans..."

A look of somber regret flickered across his face, but then he pushed it aside. "Maybe Claire's blood will help."

"What about me? What can I do?"

Peter looked surprised, which Nathan tried hard not to take offense at, reminding himself that he'd never shown any interest in getting involved in his brother's misadventures until now. Still, it shouldn't be so shocking that he wanted to help resolve a crisis that was causing panic among large swaths of the country's voting population; he was a United States Congressman, after all.

"It's probably best if you stay out of it," Peter said at last. "This isn't really a government problem."

Nathan wanted to argue that it was very much a government problem - they were the ones responsible for keeping the nation running smoothly, and something like this had the potential to destabilize everything - but Peter didn't give him a chance.

"Thanks for telling me about this; I'll let the others know that we'll have to be more careful from now on. Speaking of which, I should get back, but I'll try to call more often. Maybe we can get together for lunch sometime, if you're not too busy." Seeing that Nathan wanted to object, he tried to reassure him. "Hopefully this'll blow over in a week or two; we'll make sure nothing like this gets caught on camera again, and then people will decide the video was a hoax and move on. It'll be all right, Nate."

Then he disappeared, leaving Nathan to address his scathing response to an empty room.

Cullens' private plane - somewhere between New York & Colorado

Without Peter, the trip to the Cullens' base of operations - which Claire and Mohinder had been warned took 'off the grid' to a whole new level - took a lot longer, and there wasn't much to do during the flight except sleep (for those who could), watch movies, or talk. Claire was too keyed up to even think about sleeping and wasn't interested in the available cinematic offerings, but even so, everyone was surprised when she eventually made her way to the seats at the very back of the plane, where the twins had stationed themselves.

"Hey."

They didn't return her greeting, but neither did they react with open hostility, which she took as an invitation to sit down and keep talking.

"I just wanted to say thank you. You know, for getting me out of that lab. So...thanks." She waited for a response, but when none was forthcoming, she couldn't resist adding, "This is the part where you say 'you're welcome'. Just because I'm 'inedible' doesn't mean you have to be rude."

That finally got a response as Emmett, who was seated near the front, laughed and told her they would be even less polite if they found her more appetizing, and Jane's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Are you lecturing us on manners?"

"No - if you want to be jerks, that's your problem," Claire retorted. "I just thought, since you did help me earlier, maybe you weren't as borderline evil as everyone seems to think you are." They didn't come right out and say it, but she had noticed how they all seemed especially wary of the twins, or gave them the cold shoulder - more so than Demetri, even though all three had come from the same place.

"Do they?" Alec's eyebrows arched ever so slightly. "That's a bit harsh."

Claire returned his raised eyebrow with one of her own. "Really? 'Cause from what I heard while Edward and Emmett were getting the plane ready and you were off being antisocial, you two have a pretty scary reputation."

"It's true that the Volturi were uncompromising in their enforcement of the law," Jane acknowledged, "but it was necessary. Our kind don't respect anything except strength. You should be grateful for the work we did."

"My sister is right," Alec agreed. "Before the Volturi came to power, our world was ruled by a coven in Romania who made no secret of their nature. They openly lorded over the humans in their domain, and they weren't the only ones. In ancient times, there were even those who set themselves up to be worshipped as gods, which is where many of your myths and legends originate. All in all, I would say humans have enjoyed a more peaceful existence under the Volturi's policy of keeping our two worlds separate. At least they didn't enslave your kind as some would have."

"Not being enslaved is nice, but you still eat people. Or at least drink their blood," Claire amended, recalling how Jane had corrected her on that technicality.

"Only as much as we need, which is roughly one or two adult humans every six to eight weeks, on average. Dietary requirements vary according to the size of the vampire in question, as well as their willpower. Nevertheless, when you consider how greatly humans outnumber us, with your population growing exponentially every few years, the impact of our predation isn't even statistically significant."

"It's significant to the people you kill and their families! You're talking about ending someone's life every couple of months, and you think statistics makes that okay? That's the same insane logic Linderman used to try and justify how letting a radioactive man blow up New York City was a good thing."

"We didn't know Daniel Linderman well enough to even begin to guess what he hoped to accomplish through such wanton destruction, but I highly doubt it was integral to his own survival," Alec retorted.

"Humans take each other's lives far more often and in much greater numbers than we do," Jane added disdainfully, "for the most petty reasons. You people kill one another over such small-minded squabbles as which deity to worship and other pointless ideological differences, or even just because you don't like the color of one another's skin, and you have the nerve to judge us merely for taking what we need?"

"Yeah, humans suck sometimes," Claire conceded, frowning. "You don't need to kill them, though. You could feed on animals like the Cullens do."

Alec leaned forward, crossing his arms and resting his elbows on his knees as he fixed her with an intent gaze. "And what about you, Claire Bennet?"

She blinked back at him in confusion. "What about me? I don't eat people, obviously."

"No, I don't imagine you're a cannibal," he replied pleasantly, smiling disarmingly at her. "But are you a vegan?"

"No..."

"Then you're not really so different from us, are you?" he asked, his smile taking on a smug edge. "You take the lives of lesser creatures to satisfy your own appetite even though you could get the nutrition you require from plants."

Claire leaned back in her seat, a troubled look appearing on her face. What he said made a certain amount of sense - in a twisted, disturbing way - yet that wasn't all that bothered her. "Lesser creatures? Is that how you see us?"

"Naturally." He seemed almost taken aback by the question. "We're physically superior to humans in every respect, and our mental acuity outstrips yours by a considerable amount. I would say that makes humans lesser than us, wouldn't you?"

"But you used to be human. Doesn't it bother you at all, killing people who used to be just like you?"

"Not particularly," Jane said coldly. "Not since our neighbors decided we weren't enough like them and tried to burn us as witches. Aro saved us, and since then we've never looked back."

Claire took a moment to consider that before speaking again, and when she did her voice had lost its argumentative quality, becoming quiet and serious. "I'm sorry that happened to you. Still, it's not fair for you to hate all humans because of what some superstitious villagers did back in the Dark Ages." Then she got up and went to sit with Bella, Emmett, Elle, and Charlie instead.

Charlie was taking advantage of the lull in activity to grab a couple of hours' sleep, which he hadn't gotten much of since his arrival at the Cullens' house, but the rest received her as if she'd done something impressive.

"I think they like you," Bella said softly, shooting a covertly curious look at the twins. "That might be the longest conversation I've heard them have with anyone except each other, or Demetri."

"Like me?" Claire scoffed. "All we did was argue about them drinking human blood."

"At least they bothered to argue with you," Elle pointed out. "I'm pretty good at getting the last word, but if I don't even care what someone has to say, I just zap them."

A few seats over, Demetri nodded in agreement. "Most people who disagree with Jane and Alec end up writhing on the floor or huddled in a ball, bereft of their senses."

"Excuse me," Jane said indignantly. "That's not always how we deal with conflict resolution."

"No, not always," he admitted, before spinning his seat around to flash a grin at her. "Just ninety percent of the time."

The diminutive blonde huffed and folded her arms across her chest as she turned her back on him, though it did not go unnoticed that Demetri didn't end up writhing on the floor either.

###

While everyone else was engrossed in Claire's debate with the twins, wondering how far she could push them before they lashed out at her, Leah took advantage of their distraction to sidle over to where Mohinder was trying to get into some movie, though the impatient bouncing of his foot suggested that he found the plot less than engaging. Sure enough, he pulled off his headphones with a look of something like relief the moment she sat down beside him, uncrossing his legs as he straightened up.

"Leah Clearwater, isn't it? The, ah, wolf-shifter." Although he maintained an attitude of polite restraint, it was plain from the gleam in his eyes that he was fascinated by this new ability that was similar to yet so different from anything he'd studied before.

Fortunately, Leah welcomed his fascination, since it suited her own objectives perfectly. "Yeah, that's me - only girl in the pack. According to our tribe's history, I might even be the first female shifter ever. Our legends only talk about men having the gift. The thing is," she continued quietly, lowering her voice in the hope that, if the vampires weren't actively listening in, her words might escape their notice, "I have no idea why I'm different. I thought, since you're a geneticist..."

"I see." Mohinder leaned back slightly, a trace of hesitance dampening his enthusiasm. "Well, I can't claim to have any insight into the gene patterns that produced your particular ability - I didn't even know interspecies transformation was possible until tonight - and your tribe seems to be, if you'll pardon the expression, a different animal from anything I've encountered in my previous studies. I've never heard of an ability being limited to a certain ethnic group, or confined to one gender or the other. Still, we could investigate the matter together," he offered when he saw her face fall. "If you're willing to provide blood samples, I'll be happy to analyze them at the earliest opportunity."

"Thank you."

Leah wasn't sure what, if anything, the doctor might be able to learn from studying her blood, but she desperately hoped he could help her gain some understanding of what made her so different, an aberration that had never occurred even once throughout her tribe's long history...and maybe put to rest the fear that had haunted her since her first transformation, that it was because there was something wrong with her.

###

When they reached their destination, however, it soon became clear that Leah's quest to understand her nature would have to wait. Peter, Jasper, and Alice met them at the front door with the grim news that the viral outbreak was receiving national attention, and somehow the media had gotten their hands on a recording of an infected vampire, fueling fears of a zombie apocalypse.

"So you told Nathan the truth?" Elle asked doubtfully when Peter finished, before shaking her head. "You should've let him think it was a zombie."

"I couldn't lie to him."

"Sure you can - he lied to you about knowing your powers were real. He-"

Edward gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze, cutting her off before the conversation degenerated into a pointless argument over past failings. "I think what Elle means to say is that we're not sure, given his position and his...history of attempting to turn things to his own advantage, that revealing our existence to your brother was the wisest choice."

"I understand," Peter acknowledged, a slight frown crossing his face as he recalled some of Nathan's more dubious actions, "but I trust him. Besides, it won't matter once we find a cure. Then everyone will forget this whole thing."

"There's that eternal optimism that I love about you," Alice said, though her rather strained smile and the undercurrent of worry in her voice indicated that she didn't share that optimism. "Unfortunately, I can't see yet if you're right; too much is still in flux, and even I can't foresee what the nation as a whole will decide to do."

"Ending the outbreak should do a lot to calm things down, though," Jasper pointed out. "Sorry to throw you right into the deep end, doc..."

"It's quite all right," Mohinder assured him. "If you'll show me where you've set up your equipment, I'll get straight to work."

"Sure you don't want to take a little time to settle in first, get some rest...?"

"I've got fresh clothes for you if you'd like to wash up and change," Alice offered.

"That's very kind of you, but this is a matter of life and death," Mohinder replied, rebuffing her offer with a firm shake of his head. "Besides, while I may not be able to stay awake indefinitely as I'm told you can, I did pull the occasional all-nighter in medical school."

Claire also declined the change of clothes Alice had prepared for her, assuming she would be needed in the lab. Elle and Leah went along to watch their progress, and Alec returned to the rooms where the infected were kept. "No rest for the wicked, as they say," he remarked with a feigned sigh.

"Some of us fit that category better than others," Claire muttered, smirking at him when he glanced her way.

"I guess I'll put away the outfits I pulled together for them, then," Alice said, sounding rather miffed.

Jasper threw his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, kissing the top of her head. "Just for a little while, babe. They're human - they'll have to change eventually. Come on, I'll help you."

"I can fold clothes by myself...but there are other things you could help me with."

"I like the sound of that."

They went upstairs with their arms wrapped tightly around each other, though not before an obviously embarrassed Charlie fled the scene, leaving Peter alone with Bella, Demetri, and Jane.

Deciding he might as well get it over with, he turned to the latter two and asked, "What's the matter, cat got your tongues? I thought you'd be right in line behind Elle to bite my head off."

"I see no point in that," Demetri replied, though he looked troubled. "I'm sure you did what you thought was right... I just hope your trust in this brother of yours hasn't doomed us all."

"And if it has, I suppose you'll feel badly enough without us piling on as well," Jane added, the corners of her mouth curling slightly in what could have been the beginnings of either a grin or a sneer. "Come along, Demetri, we might as well find out how many died while we were gone."

He followed her out, and then it was just Peter and Bella. "What about you?" he asked softly, moving closer to her and reaching out to tuck the hair hanging over her left shoulder behind her ear. "Do you think it was stupid of me to tell Nathan the truth?"

"I would never think that." She took half a step forward, closing the distance between them, and placed her hands on his chest while gazing earnestly into his eyes, her fingers running thoughtfully over his shirt as she said, "You're not stupid, you're just... You're a better person than most, and you want to believe everyone else is as good as you. The only problem is that sometimes they aren't."

"So you do think I have a problem?"

"Like I said, only when people don't live up to your expectations. I trust you, Peter. Nathan, on the other hand..." She let that statement hang in the air, not wanting to come right out and say anything overly negative about his brother when he already knew all the ways she might have finished the sentence anyway. "The Volturi may have been harsh enforcers, even brutal, but that doesn't mean they were wrong about keeping our world separate from the humans'. I just don't want some kind of interspecies war to break out, you know?"

"We won't let that happen." Peter covered her hands with his, taking hold and stopping their nervous fiddling. "No matter what, I'll keep you safe."

Bella put on a smile and let him bring her arms down to her sides so he could pull her in closer, but even as she relished having a moment alone with him - something that seemed all too rare these days - and tried to block out everything except the feeling of him holding her, a tiny flicker of worry remained in the back of her mind, refusing to be extinguished.

###

Several hours passed, during which the Cullens and their assorted guests took turns dropping by the makeshift lab to check on Carlisle's and Mohinder's progress or lend a hand if they could, before the doctors emerged with both good news and bad news. The good news was that, after comparing the pathogen that had infected Niki Sanders to the one behind their current troubles, they had confirmed that both were variants of the Shanti virus, though the latter was much more aggressive, with unique properties that allowed it to penetrate and destroy vampire cells. Claire's blood was able to fight it off, however, at least insofar as slowing or even halting its progression.

The bad news was that her blood, with or without Mohinder's antibodies, was not able to repair the damage that had already been done. They had also tried it on Emmett's acid burns, applying it topically and even having him take a sip, yet it seemed that Claire's regenerative power had no effect on vampires.

"In humans, an infusion of her blood appears to accelerate the natural healing process, even to the point of repairing injuries and cellular deterioration that would normally be impossible to recover from," Mohinder explained. "The problem is that in vampiric cells, the normal biological processes have been arrested, so there's no mechanism for healing. To put it in layman's terms, her blood has nothing to work with."

Worse still, they had found that its ameliorative effect on the virus wore off, requiring them to extract large amounts of blood from Claire every two hours in order to keep the infection at bay, which was untenable as a long-term solution since it was inconvenient and painful for her and only provided temporary relief to the infected.

"We hope that by reverse engineering the penetrative properties of the Shanti strain we might be able to create an antivirus which will achieve real healing when used in conjunction with Claire's blood, but there's no telling how long that might take or if such an experiment has even a prayer of success," Carlisle said wearily. After days of watching others suffer and die while he was powerless to stop it, he had dared to hope that the end was in sight, only to have those hopes crushed when Claire's blood turned out not to be the panacea Mohinder had thought it was.

"You really think you can reverse engineer something like that?" Rosalie asked, her perfect eyebrows arching skeptically even as Esme shot her a stern look, silently warning her not to discourage Carlisle further.

Her doubts didn't seem to bother him, though - probably because he already had the same doubts himself - and it was Mohinder who answered. "I believe it's possible, considering that it was engineered in the first place." He paused momentarily before continuing, a frown forming on his face as he spoke. "What's even more troubling is that, after comparing our two strains, it seems likely that both were the product of genetic engineering, probably by the same person; their molecular structures show signs of similar modification, several sequences that appear to have been-"

"So," Leah interrupted, cutting off his scientific jargon, "you're saying there's a mad scientist out there who's not just trying to kill vampires, but humans too?" The pack would be very interested to hear of that; it might even be enough to convince them to get involved, now that this wasn't just a vampire problem, though she wasn't sure exactly what they could do. The people who were already here should be more than capable of taking down a scientist, no matter how brilliant or crazy they might be, without her brothers' help, and they certainly wouldn't be of much use in concocting a cure.

Peter, meanwhile, wasn't thinking of the wolves but of someone else. "Somebody created two new strains of the Shanti virus within weeks of each other, that are both designed to be deadlier than the original and resistant to treatment? I'm not much of a skeptic these days, but this is too much of a coincidence."

Bella realized what he was getting at almost instantly, and her face somehow turned even whiter than usual. "You don't think..."

"I think we need to pay Hiro a visit," Peter said grimly, "and find out exactly what he did with Adam."

Tokyo, Japan

Hiro greeted Peter and Bella with his typical joviality, though his mood soon turned sober when Peter explained why they were there. "No way Kensei escaped," he insisted, shaking his head emphatically. "I made sure he will never see light of day again."

"How?" Peter pressed, wishing he could take the other man's words at face value yet unable to shake the feeling of foreboding that had gripped him the moment Mohinder revealed that someone was experimenting with the Shanti virus as Adam had already tried to do twice, attempting to weaponize it, and so far achieving a frightening degree of success. "Where is he?"

So Hiro explained how he had buried Adam alive, then took them to the cemetery so they could see where he was imprisoned with their own eyes. "Like I said, no way-" he began, only to stop cold when he saw the open pit where Adam's tomb had been, the lid of his casket torn off. "How...? Who would do this?"

Bella immediately began searching for an answer to that question, jumping into the hole to examine the broken coffin, then scooping up a handful of dirt from the mound of displaced earth and sniffing it. Whatever she detected must have surprised or alarmed her, because the two men standing behind her heard her draw in a sharp breath.

"What is it?" Peter went over to where she crouched on the ground and reached down to place a hand on her shoulder. "What do you smell?"

She let the dirt fall from her hands as she turned her head to look up at him, her golden eyes wide with confusion...and maybe a hint of fear. "One of my kind," she whispered. "Wherever Adam is now, whatever he's planning...he has a vampire helping him."

###

Bella's discovery didn't come as a total shock; someone had bitten Patient Zero, after all, had left him lying in a snowy alley with venom coursing through his veins, and although his memories had been too clouded by pain to confirm that the vampire who'd changed him was in league with the person or people who turned him into a walking weapon, it had always seemed like a stretch to think that he, she, or they had just happened to stumble across a freshly bitten vampire in the making. Still, having irrefutable proof that Adam Monroe was free, that he was out there somewhere with a vampire partner in crime, was definitely daunting.

"It also doesn't make sense," Leah pointed out when Peter and Bella returned and shared what they'd learned in Japan. "A human creating a virus to kill vampires makes perfect sense, because they prey on humans and are so ridiculously hard to kill that no ordinary human stands a chance unless they have something like this to level the field...but a vampire teaming up with an evolved human to kill their own kind? Who would do that?"

"I almost did," Bella said quietly, fixing her eyes on the floor so she wouldn't have to meet Leah's shocked stare. "Not that I wanted to kill anyone, of course - Adam kept me in the dark about that part of his plan... Still, you have no idea how persuasive he can be."

"Then he should be silenced," Jane suggested. "Permanently."

Leah and some of the Cullens, particularly Carlisle and Esme, looked uncomfortable with the idea, but Jasper spoke up in agreement. "I think she's right. Your time traveling friend's already tried locking him away, and he got out... Some people are just too dangerous to keep around."

"Especially if you already know what will happen if you do," Alice added, "if you know no amount of second chances will get them to change."

Peter hesitated for the briefest of moments - he wasn't thrilled with the idea of killing someone, but then he remembered how he'd helped to put an end to Sylar (though that was a little different since they were locked in a life-or-death struggle at the time, making it a clear-cut case of self-defense) and how he'd watched Linderman die without a word of protest, because as distasteful as it was, it was the only way to protect the people (millions of them, in Linderman's case) who would have been hurt if they'd been allowed to carry on scheming and murdering, and his aunt's words only strengthened his resolve.

"You're right. I've seen the future Adam wants, and I can't let it happen. I'll find him and get the name of the vampire who dug him up out of his head...and then I'll make sure he never hurts anyone again."

###

Tracking Adam down was easy enough, and once he found him strolling down a street in Des Moines, Iowa - no vampires anywhere in sight, since it was broad daylight - seemingly enjoying the atmosphere of uncertainty and tension that was beginning to take hold as word of the mysterious virus spread, capturing him was ridiculously simple. All Peter had to do was stop time before Adam noticed him, then grab him and teleport.

The next thing Adam knew, he was sitting in a chair in a house he'd never seen before. He wasn't tied up, but with almost a dozen vampires surrounding him and Peter directly in front of him, he knew trying to run would be pointless. "Hello, Peter. I'd say it's nice to see you again, but something tells me you haven't brought me here for a friendly chat, have you?"

Peter said nothing, though his words did elicit a soft growl from the girl closest to him, drawing Adam's attention to her. "Bella... I'm glad to see you looking so much better," he said in a tone that almost managed to sound sincere, before his eyes darted over the other members of the circle around his chair even as he tried not to show the full extent of his nervousness. "And Elle too - charming. I'm afraid I don't know the rest of your friends."

"We're more interested in your friends," Peter said in a hard voice that seemed totally at odds with the lost, malleable man Adam had met in the Company's cells, and with the sort of person Adam suspected he normally was, though he pulled it off well. "Specifically the vampire who dug you up from where Hiro buried you and turned people so you could use them in your latest experiments."

"My experiments? You've got it all wrong, it was all her - Victoria Pratt."

"Pratt?" Peter frowned. "I've heard that name before; when I spoke to my mother after Mohinder realized we were dealing with two modified strains of the Shanti virus, she said there was a Dr. Pratt who led the original experiments years ago...but she also said she disappeared..."

Edward leaned in, his eyes lit with an intense look. "I don't know about this Dr. Pratt, but I do know a vampire by the name of Victoria. I need you to find out what she looks like." He glared at Adam, who was stubbornly blocking her face out of his mind's eye. He was not, however, able to resist Peter's mental probing, and within seconds the empath had an image of the elusive Victoria Pratt.

Edward growled when Peter lowered his mental shield in order to show it to him. "That's her - the one-time partner of a sadistic vampire called James who made a sport out of hunting formidable targets, including your kind. Unfortunately for him, he bit off more than he could chew when he set his sights on Elle. Victoria vanished after we dealt with him, and I didn't give much thought to her after that; there was nothing in her thoughts at the time to indicate that she would seek vengeance if James died, though I suppose that was because she was so confident in his abilities that the idea of him failing simply never occurred to her...and certainly nothing to hint at a scientific background."

"Yes, she left all that behind when she fell in love with that James fellow - shame, really," Adam said with a regretful shake of his head. "She was quite brilliant in her day. She came looking for me when she realized I'd escaped Primatech's custody, seeking my help in avenging her lover-"

"And you used that to get her to do what you wanted," Bella said angrily, "just like you tried to do with me." She looked away, not wanting the others to see just how much the similarities between this woman and herself bothered her, or to dwell on the horrors she might have unleashed if Peter had truly been lost to her, if he hadn't arrived in time to stop her... Still, she reminded herself that she wasn't really the same as Victoria; revenge had never been her goal, and she definitely would not have agreed to do the things the former scientist had done.

"Her desire for revenge was useful," Adam replied dismissively, "but our partnership's run its course. My plans are in motion, but waiting for the viruses to spread was taking too long for her liking; she's quite impatient for an immortal." He clicked his tongue disapprovingly before looking up at Edward and Elle. "She was particularly disappointed that the two of you both survived her attack on her old friend's wedding unscathed, so she's decided on a more direct approach."

The pair exchanged uneasy looks before Elle got in Adam's face, raising her hand threateningly. "What does that mean? What's she up to now?"

"Easy there; there's no need for unpleasantness," Adam said in a placatory tone that didn't completely hide his apprehension while leaning as far away from her as the back of his chair would allow. Although her ability to do him any lasting damage might be limited, he wasn't willing to undergo torture if he could avoid it. Swallowing hard, he started talking as fast as his tongue could form the words. "Her original plan before she found me was to create a newborn army with which to mount a large-scale offensive, but she was worried about drawing the attention of your lot's governing body, those Volturi twats-"

He was interrupted at that point by growls from Jane, Alec, and Demetri.

"I'd be careful if I were you," Rosalie advised with a smirk. "Those three used to work for the 'twats'."

"Then I guess condolences are in order, since Victoria heard through the vampire grapevine that their organization seems to have gone dark recently."

"One of our people was at the wedding too," Jane hissed, "and he didn't get out unscathed."

Adam nodded as if he'd expected as much. "Yes, that's what Victoria imagined must have happened, when she recalled that a member of the bride's coven used to be one of you. Anyway, without the threat of your intervention hanging over her head, she felt free to pursue her vendetta in her own way, with no further help from me."

"So she could be on her way here right now with an army of newborns?" Alice asked, horrified. "How did I not see this?"

"An army she's probably infected to boot," Adam said helpfully. "After all, she only needs them to stay alive long enough to bite some of you."

"When did she put this plan into action?" Jasper demanded, his mind already racing through potential strategies for dealing with the new threat. "How long has it been since you parted ways?"

"Just a couple of days. I doubt she'll exercise much discrimination in choosing her 'recruits'; they're all going to die anyway, so she'll probably grab some homeless people off the streets of the nearest town, bite them as fast as she can and drag them here... I'd say you've got less than a week. Of course, I'd rather not be here when she shows up, so now that I've told you all I know, how about letting me go?"

He started to get up, only to fall back into his seat when Elle zapped him.

"You're not going anywhere," Peter informed him, though he sounded more grimly resigned, like he was simply stating a fact that even he wasn't happy about, than menacing. "This is the second time you've tried to use the Shanti virus to destroy the world. We'll find a cure, but we can't let you keep trying. Hiro and the Company both tried locking you up already, so we know that doesn't work. There's always someone gullible enough to let you out."

As Adam gazed up at him, searching for a crack in his resolve and finding none, his confidence began to waver; the self-assured look on his face evaporated, and a hint of fear appeared in his eyes. "What are you saying?"

"I'm sorry it had to come to this." Peter reached out, and the handgun he'd laid on a table across the room, out of Adam's view, flew into his hand.

"No! You can't do this - we were friends - you're not a murderer, Peter!"

"I can do it," Elle offered. "I don't mind."

"Nor do I," Jane said with an evil look at Adam. "My gift may not be lethal, but I'm sure I can find some other way of inflicting sufficient damage to his brain to prevent him from regenerating."

A part of Peter was tempted to take one of them up on their offers, but he knew he couldn't, and not just because he didn't want to give the girls an opportunity to indulge their worst impulses. He was the one who had set this whole thing in motion by releasing Adam from the cell where he'd been safely contained for over twenty years, and he had located and captured him while knowing perfectly well that he was essentially taking him to his execution, so he had to see it through. It wouldn't be right to offload the responsibility onto someone else.

Then Bella laid her hand on his arm, causing him to look in her direction. "He's right," she said softly, "you're not a murderer, but that's not what this is. He's the one who made the choices that brought him here, not you, and you're not killing him because you want to, you're doing it to protect all the people he'll hurt if you don't. That's who you are."

"She's right," Carlisle agreed, even though he clearly wasn't any happier about the need to take a human life than Peter. "No one here will think any less of you."

Peter appreciated that, but there was one person whose opinion mattered more than all the rest put together. He looked into Bella's eyes for a long moment, assuring himself of her sincerity, before turning to face Adam, his hand perfectly steady as he pressed the muzzle of his gun to the other man's forehead.

###

After they burned Adam's body, Jasper began giving everyone a crash course in what he had learned about fighting newborns from his days in the southern wars - everyone, that is, except Charlie, Mohinder, and Claire, whose lack of abilities that would be useful in fighting vampires meant they would not be involved in the coming battle. Charlie objected vehemently to his exclusion, until Bella convinced him that he needed to stay behind to keep Claire and Mohinder safe, and help them escape if necessary. She left out the fact that, if they failed to stop Victoria from reaching the house, any attempts at fleeing would be futile. Fortunately, Charlie didn't question her reasoning, likely knowing on some level what she couldn't bring herself to say.

"I hate lying to him," she sighed, the memory of those last moments with her father, of the look in his eyes as she tried to pretend she didn't know it might be the last time they saw each other and he pretended to believe her, still replaying in her head.

"You didn't." Peter met her doubtful look with a reassuring smile. "You said you'd see him when all this is over, so we just have to make sure you keep that promise. We won't let Victoria get anywhere near him."

They were currently staking out a gently sloping valley, dotted with trees, at the base of the narrow, winding mountain pass that led up to the Cullens' home, which was where Alice had determined their enemy would make her approach now that she knew who to look for, intending to turn the tables on Victoria and ambush her rather than waiting for her to attack them.

She tried to smile back, but it died away when a distant rumble reached her ears. "I hear something... A van, maybe?"

Sure enough, a large van chugged into view a short time later, and even from a distance, she was able to see the driver's bright red hair. She glanced over at Elle and Edward, who were closest to her and Peter, silently asking if this was the infamous Victoria she'd heard so much about but never seen in person, and received terse nods in return.

"That's her."

As one, the Cullens and Elle moved out into the open, letting her see them. They hoped that if she saw all of her enemies gathered there she wouldn't try to take her army up the mountain to where they'd left the humans and the few remaining infected vampires they were still caring for; meanwhile, Bella, Peter, Jane, Alec, Demetri, and Leah in her wolf form hung back, intending to surprise her with their additional numbers.

Their plan seemed to work; the van screeched to a halt and the redhead got out, her gaze sweeping over the eight vampires arrayed against her. Bella noticed that her eyes lingered on Edward and Elle a second or two longer than the others, her whole body practically vibrating with the intensity of her hatred... Then she darted around to the back of the van and ripped the rear doors off.

A dozen freshly made, black-veined vampires sprang out and ran straight at the Cullens, their pain and delirium driving them to attack the first moving targets they saw. As the two sides came together, Bella and the others closed in from the sides and rear, sowing confusion as some of the newborns peeled off to charge the new arrivals. Peter stepped forward, hand outstretched as he channeled his telekinesis to stop one that was heading for Bella...and nothing happened.

She dodged the newborn's grasping hands at the last second, danced around to the side and delivered a kick to his ribs that sent him flying without even noticing Peter's failed attempt at warding him off, but he heard exclamations of alarm from the others who tended to utilize their powers in combat, like Alec, Jane, and Elle, which seemed to indicate that he wasn't the only one having problems. Luckily for her, Elle had learned to fight without relying exclusively on her ability, so when she realized it wasn't working, she simply abandoned her efforts to shoot lightning at the newborns and switched to fighting them the old-fashioned way. Others, like Alice, Edward, and Jasper, hadn't expected their gifts to be of much use against opponents whose minds were too far gone to be read, predicted, or emotionally influenced anyway, and of course Demetri didn't need to track them, so they weren't terribly perturbed at being deprived of their special talents, or at least were too focused on their immediate survival to get upset. The twins, on the other hand, depended almost completely on their powers, so having them neutralized effectively took them out of the fight.

Even without them, both sides were fairly evenly matched - at least in numbers. The fact that a single bite from the newborns could prove deadly put the Cullens and their allies at a distinct disadvantage, however, forcing them to move much more cautiously than usual as they struggled to take down their enemies and ensure that none of them escaped while simultaneously trying to avoid close contact with them, and it didn't take long for Peter, who had been reduced to watching from the sidelines, to see that things weren't going well.

He also saw that Victoria was perched on top of her van, not participating in the fight. It could just be that she didn't want to risk getting bitten by her own creations, yet there was something about her defensive posture as she crouched up there...

Before he realized what he was doing, he had stepped forward, into the path of a newborn who had veered off in his direction. Bella got there just in time, tackling him out of the way a fraction of a second before the vampire's teeth would have sunk into his neck. They crashed into the ground amid a spray of grass and dirt, and even though she managed to keep her weight off him by catching herself on her hands and knees, Peter felt his arm break as he landed on it crookedly, the pain hitting him with shocking intensity. He had almost forgotten how much broken bones hurt when they didn't heal in less than a minute...

Then Bella pushed him onto his back, which provided some relief from the physical pain, though the glare she gave him wasn't exactly comforting. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?!"

"No, I was watching Victoria." Peter looked over at the redhead, and Bella turned her head to follow his gaze. "Is it just me, or does it look like she's not just sitting up there to stay out of the fight - like she's guarding something?"

Bella's eyes narrowed - it went without saying that anything Victoria deemed worth guarding at a time like this must be extremely important - and leapt to her feet. Nearby, Edward and Elle had stepped in to take care of the newborn who had almost bitten Peter; once they removed her head, Bella darted over to them and, after a few quick words between them, the trio took off running at full speed.

Victoria saw them coming and launched herself off the van just before they smashed into it, easily knocking it onto its side. Peter hurried to join them while being more careful to skirt the edges of the battle this time, reaching them just in time to see a man crawl out of the overturned van. He had the bright red eyes of a recently turned vampire but didn't appear to be infected, yet looked miserable all the same.

It was no wonder, Elle thought as she looked the Haitian up and down, considering that the last time she had seen him he'd been desperate to avoid the very fate that had somehow befallen him anyway. "Well, this is a surprise," she said wryly. "Last time we met, you said you'd rather die than be bitten. Irony's a bitch, isn't it?"

Edward, on the other hand, was a bit more sympathetic. "How did this happen to you?"

"After you left in search of Peter Petrelli, I contracted the Shanti virus and went home to Haiti to die. Victoria and Adam Monroe found me there," the Haitian explained, his voice growing bitter when he said their names. "They extracted samples of the virus from my blood; then they cured me, but kept me their prisoner. When they parted ways, and Victoria decided to confront your coven directly, she changed me in order to augment my power so I could suppress all of yours - even his." He nodded at Peter, his eyes meeting the empath's. "Adam had warned her about you, which was why she first attempted to destroy your friends through scientific means; that, and she feared incurring the anger of the coven I understand used to rule the vampire world. Once they were removed, however, you were the only obstacle remaining in her path to revenge, so she made me into a weapon she believed could defeat you."

Peter didn't know what to say to that, except, "I'm sorry." Although he wasn't personally responsible for turning the man into something he clearly hated, he nevertheless regretted that it had happened because of him.

The Haitian seemed to appreciate the sentiment, accepting his words with a grateful nod. "I'm sorry my efforts to save you from this madness failed." He then turned back to the three vampires, who were watching him with varying degrees of dismay and pity. "Now I can only hope that one of you will free me from this wretched existence. Kill me, and you'll be able to use your gifts once more."

When none of them rushed to comply, he cast an urgent look around the battlefield. "Hurry! There isn't much time left."

A quick glance was all it took to confirm the truth of his warning, but Bella still felt obligated to protest. "No! There must be another way..."

"There is no other way," he said firmly. "Please - this is what I want."

"If you're certain..." Edward let the words trail off, turning them into a question. When the Haitian gave a resolute nod, he promised, "We'll make it quick."

The instant he and Elle made good on that promise, Peter's broken arm mended itself, electricity sparked to life at Elle's fingertips, and Alec was able to cut off the newborns' sight and hearing, allowing them to be taken down much more easily. Though they were hardly needed anymore, Peter, Bella, Elle, and Edward headed over to help where they could, until Bella came to a sudden halt, grabbing Elle's arm and stopping her as well, some thirty feet from where Peter was setting a pile of body parts alight with the blue fire he'd acquired from Flint Gordon.

"Wait! Where did Victoria go?"

No sooner had she voiced the question than the redhead leapt out of a nearby tree and landed in front of them, cutting the two girls off from everyone else. They eyed her warily, prepared to defend themselves but making no move to attack her first.

"It's over, Victoria," Bella told her, trying to sound calm and reasonable. "The Haitian's dead, your army's gone, and you know you can't fight all of us by yourself. Just let it end here, all right?"

"It ends here, you're right about that," Victoria snarled. "And I don't need to fight all of you - I just need to get my teeth into her." Fixing Elle with a poisonous glare, she pulled a vial from an inner pocket of her jacket and swallowed its contents in a single gulp, the veins in her throat turning black as the liquid went down.

"Did you just infect yourself?" Elle gasped. "Are you crazy?!"

"I don't want to live without James anymore," the other woman replied, and Bella couldn't help feeling a flash of sympathy for her when she saw in her eyes the depth of her pain, a pain she herself knew all too well, though whatever pity she felt vanished with Victoria's next words. "I'm ready to die...as long as I take you with me, so your little boyfriend will spend the rest of eternity suffering the way I've suffered since he killed James for you!"

She launched herself at Elle, and they went down in a tangle of limbs, locked together so tightly, so closely that Bella didn't think even her force field could pry them apart. Seeing no other way to help her best friend, she pounced on Victoria's back, and then all three of them were fighting, teeth snapping and fingers clawing as they tumbled over the bedraggled turf together.

The noise got everyone's attention, and Edward and Peter abandoned their respective tasks of dismembering and burning the newborns to get as close as possible, both of them looking for an opening they could use to help the girls they loved. Before they could do anything, however, it was over, the frenzied blur of motion coming to an abrupt end as Victoria's head rolled free of the melee, bouncing over the grass before stopping a foot from Edward's shoes.

Then Bella and Elle were untangling themselves from Victoria's headless body and from one another, and he and Peter went to help them. Elle took Edward's hands and let him pull her to her feet even as she rolled her eyes at the unneeded assistance, but when Peter reached out to Bella, she recoiled, a look of horror coming over her.

"Get back!"

"What's the matter?" Peter asked, disregarding her order and taking a step closer instead. "It's all right; it's all over, you're okay..."

"No, I'm not," she whispered. She pulled her hair back to reveal a bite mark on her neck, black tendrils already spreading from the wound's edges.

Sorry this chapter is a little late; as you can tell, it's the longest of this story so far, and parts of it were very difficult to write, but I hope it turned out okay.

As for the characters who died, and why: Adam's death I think was pretty self-explanatory; it had to happen, because if he hadn't seen the error of his ways after having 20-plus years in a cell to think about it, I think we can safely assume there's no redemption for him, and I hope it made sense why Peter felt he had to follow through with killing him personally. I was sorry to take out the Haitian like this, but when I thought about what would've happened to him after we last saw him in chapter 16, I realized there was no way Adam and Victoria would let him go. As to why he didn't get away from her once she changed him, he chose to stick around for the battle in the hope that someone would kill him. She knew that's what he wanted, hence why she tried to keep him out of the actual fighting.

In other news, now that we've passed this point, I feel pretty confident in saying there are no more than 10 chapters left, maybe even less.