Into the Woods
By: Everleigh Allen
Chapter 35
One thing Bella hadn't given much thought to- was the way she was going to die.
It had not dawned on her that there were various elemental beings conspiring to both kill her and also save her. But all of that was brought to light with a flick of the lid from the box in her hand.
All the sudden, it was as if the curtain separating the things that are usually invisible dissipated and the most amazing sight suddenly came into focus; there were hundreds of little orbs of light that floated over the thick meadow grass, kissing the blades with tiny iridescent wings.
But there was more to them than anyone had thought.
Bella couldn't believe her eyes as little fairy fingers reached out to touch the soft, fleshy pad of her finger. She watched in amazement as the little fairy with gossamer wings and lithe, little body, pulled Bella's finger into a hug, wrapping its wings around its body and the finger. Bella's finger suddenly disappeared into the camouflage of the forest.
Then another little fairy, with jet black hair, and her wings very much like a little dragonfly, came forward and lay over her hand, nestling in and the wings seemed to blanket the little Fae body. Then Fairy and another until Bella's hand seemed to fade away into the world around them.
With a laugh she looked at Edward only to see his tight face and strong jaw locked with worry. He knew they were only trying to show her how she seemed to partially disappear, but what would happen if she completely disappeared? Would they try to steal her? Or was she there all along, just cloaked in fairies? Bella moved her invisible hand for a moment, watching the little beings roll about, showing little bits of creamy skin as they rolled and turned with the sound of soft, petite giggles.
"They hid you." Edward said quietly. Bella turned to him and nodded with a grin before tuned back to her little fairies. They watched as one of the fairies stood up before jumping off of her arm and fluttering around before lying in her palm, snuggling in. Another, with red curly bounded up and went right up to Edward s face and looked him in the eye. He watched as her head tilted side to side before her hand moved to lie over his nose, making Edward's eyes cross.
Everyone giggled as the Fae smiled brightly, her little white teeth glinting, before she bent forward and gave him a tiny kiss on the nose.
Bella snickered watching Edward stiffen up and watch the little fairy who was now making her way into the small recess of his shirt collar.
"It looks like you found a friend," Bella giggled.
"I am so jealous," Alice said quietly.
"I am so jealous," Alice said quietly.
"I know... me, too." Rosalie sighed, "She gets to be human and gets fairies. So unfair."
Alice nodded before something caught her eye.
A little male Fae with long blond hair bounded up toward Alice. He twisted around her tugging at her little leather clutch until it came off her hand. She let it go, watching aptly as he pulled at the threading and then whisked it away.
"Silly little guy dumped my clutch and took it!"
"They must want it for a reason." Bella mused softly, still staring at the sleeping Fae in her hand.
Most had scattered away, with the exception of the red headed Fae with Monarch butterfly wings that messing with Edward and the dragonfly one in Bella's hand.
The little male Fae came back moments later having somehow made the clutch into a little leather jacket.
"How cute is that?" Alice beamed patting the Fae on his head when he went over and sat on her hand.
Very cute," Bella supplied quietly. "I just adore them."
Alice and Rose nodded watching the little male one. "He looks like James now, with that jacket." Rose said cocking her head to the side. "That's really weird."
Alice agreed, looking closer at Bella's Fae, seeing that it bore a striking resemblance towards herself. "I wonder if they can morph into whomever they see."
"Well, if that's the case and they look like James and Victoria, which would mean they've seen them in the forest recently." Emmett supplied, looking around the forest with narrowed eyes.
"But that was months ago!" Alice howled out. "I would have seen them, right?"
Rose just shrugged as she tried to coax the little redhead from Edward's collar. She reached a finger in and the fairy bit her.
"Ow!" She cried out, "She bit me!"
"Not possible," Carlisle said with disbelief but moved towards Rose to have a look. He grabbed Rose's finger and saw that she did have tiny crescents of teeth makes. A tiny amount of venom shined silver as they looked at it in the sunlight. "Amazing. They can penetrate through our skin."
"Well, so can the wolves," Emmett scoffed, "Not mine of course, but, you know, others."
"Maybe it's a supernatural thing?" Bella supplied as a question. But there were no answers and Carlisle was sure none of the Fae would voluntarily come back to the house for scientific testing so he just gave her a slight shrug.
Bella looked down at the sleeping fairy, but the wind seemed to change and she looked toward its direction.
She couldn't believe her eyes!
It was like the trees were moving, but they weren't! The shadows of the trees seemed to sway and lengthen into long wisps of black. Then they seemed to move as if the shadows of tree limbs were ambling closer and closer.
The wolves started to howl in the trees' the sound deafening.
But the shadows kept slowly moving closer.
There was a part in the tree like as a fog moved forward and the sky seemed to darken.
Bella gasped as she felt the sharp nicks of pain on her fingers. The fairy was biting her over and over because Bella had somehow grasped the poor thing too tightly in her hand.
She released her with an apology and the little fairy faded away into the trees that were still.
The little red headed fairy pushed her way out of Edward's collar and then flew to the fairy Alice was holding before both of them seemed to flutter away and disappeared. "I'm so jealous."
"I know... me, too." Rosalie sighed, "She gets to be human and gets fairies. So unfair."
"It seems we have company and I didn't even see it," Alice said in a quiet, singsong yet scared voice. "What is this that stands before me? Figure in b lack which points at me, turn around quick, and start to run- find out I'm the chosen one, big black shape with eyes of fire~ telling people their desire." Alice screeched warily. Her eyes were hazy but underlining of fear. "Me." She looked at Bella and whispered, "And you." All the sudden her eyes darted to Edward who was like a statue next to Bella, "and you."
"Bella, move behind me." Edward said very quietly but sternly. "Quickly!"
Bella shifted and moved behind Edward as she was told as the little fairies that were lingering around noticed that there was a potential threat and seemed to fade away into the forest.
Bella shifted and moved behind Edward as she was told as the little fairies that were lingering around noticed that there was a potential threat and seemed to fade away into the forest.
It was quite amazing to see something so magical, something so ethereal, could be there one moment but not the next.
It makes you wonder about the things that are all around you that you don't or couldn't see.
"What?" Jasper said rigidly moving toward Alice.
"Um, is it the Volturi?" asked Bella. She thought she saw some sparkly, red-eyed, cloak wearing creepies walking up to them.
"Volturi wannabe's, more like." Rose snickered.
Alice hissed shaking her head, "The…the shadow things… are around them!"
Everyone could see them. Their long wispy limbs were dark yet transparent as they rose from the obscurities of the forest but they didn't seem like the problem at hand. They were creepy, yes, but not like the other three walking toward them with purpose.
"Oh, Edward, it seems that you have a brought a snack." The woman said narrowing her eyes as the man next to her twisted his face into a sinister grin and his red eyes glowed with hunger.
"You know them?" Bella whispered, but she needn't bother, everyone heard her.
"Most vampires know or know of one another." He supplied indifferently as he watched the three meadow crashers form into a makeshift triangle; a blond up front and the other two behind him.
They smiled widely showing off their sharp teeth bordered by lush blood red lips.
"You've clearly already… eaten." Bella said with a disgusted scowl. She stayed behind Edward only peeking at the three vampires. "Maybe you should wait a while… let the… food… settle."
The man snickered and licked his lips. "But you smell so delicious… like dessert." He countered. He pulled off the cloak to reveal a thick black leather jacket with no shirt underneath and old, warn, dirty pants. He had a stringy pony tail which was odd for a vampire as they usually all had beatific features and hair. This guy looked like he just walked out of a bad seventies porn.
Bella shrugged. "That's because I shower. You should try it sometime."
The redhead laughed. Out loud. "I almost like her." She sneered, her blood red lips curling wickedly.
The blond male leered at her as if in a warning as the other male looked disinterested.
"What are you doing here, James, Victoria, and Laurent?" Carlisle said quietly, looking toward the forest toward the area that the wolves were lingering. "We weren't expecting a visit so soon."
Alice gasped looking at the three vampires with curiosity. "That's why they were dressed like them-"
Edward hushed Alice before she could continue.
"A warning! Was it a warning?" Alice asked towards the air. Her eyes were blank as she sifted through visions and memories of the Fae dressing up as the three vampires before them. The fairies were probably trying to tell them that they were around or that they were coming they only way they could.
"Shut it," Edward glared at Alice from the corner of his eye. "Don't talk about them."
"We were bored." Laurent supplied, answering Carlisle, "But 'tis not my idea. I wished to be by the water."
"You seem to have a fearless little pet there, hmm, Edward?" The blond, James, turned his head to the side almost like he was a cat trying to figure out how to get at a bird in a cage.
Bella being the bird in the scenario and Edward was the cage.
Bella snorted. "I am hardly a pet-"
"How about we share the meal," Laurent offered and Edward growled loudly. "We won't take much. Promise."
The redhead's nostrils flared. "Vampires don't just to keep the humans forever, girl!" She looked toward the blond man and narrowed her eyes. "Once they get you they either drain you or change you."
She seemed a bit bitter about a few things.
"Sounds like you have some experience with that," Bella supplied with a pitying stare. She peeked around Edward's arm to look at the female and put her hand out as if it was like a white flag. "Look, I am sorry you all seem to have some unresolved baggage and see humans- like me- as food but seriously, you need to stop. There's another way."
"What the hell! Is she insulting us?" Laurent scoffed, "I have no bag-gage."
Bella just shook her head at the lame fake accent he was sporting. "Ugh, seriously, if I am ever a vampire I am totally going to be a vampire therapist in some capacity. There is clearly a need." She gestured her hand toward the three vampires as if it proved her point. "All those years have got to be regressed somehow. Serious PTSD with that one, I bet."
"Totally," Rosalie snickered and nodded.
But they didn't seem to like Bella's comment and crouched down into a hiss.
"Oh, scary," Rosalie taunted before growing serious. "You're clearly outnumbered, here, peeps. You should leave now while you can."
"How do you figure?" James scoffed. "We can surely take a handful of vampires out."
Esme gasped in shock. "Oh, the nerve! We've done nothing to you! We've been very hospital."
Carlisle reached over and laid a comforting hand on Esme, instantly quieting her. "We don't want a fight." His tone was bored and he kept looking at the area where the wolves lingered. "The wolves would surely tear you apart before we lay a hand on you, anyway."
As if to prove his point there were various growls in the brush and trees.
"Don't mind them. That's just my fan club. Well, one is an enthusiast, anyway. But all of them are total wannabe vampire munchers-"
Edward agreed, "And we have a treaty that says they won't harm us and you don't, so there's also that."
"I can't believe you're such a creepy stalker!" Alice yelled and everyone seemed confused by her outburst.
"Not one step closer Jacob Black, I see your plan!"
All the sudden the vision of the wolves attacking all of the vampires, treaty be damned, and Jacob grabbing Bella and running off into the forest with her.
Alice's vision faded to black with a gasp, falling forward as Jasper barely caught her. Her body was rigid as it shook with painful convulsions, incapacitating her.
It all happened so fast.
Edward growled, wrapping his arms around Bella, twisting her so she was suddenly on his back. She curled around him, afraid to let go as he jumped up into the closest tree and then from tree to tree.
The vampires below all crouched down as the wolves ascended toward the vampires. But there were more vampires and both Alice and Edward were too preoccupied to notice the three Volturi vampires move out of the trees.
Emmett, with a huge smile, grabbed the guy in dreadlocks, swinging him around until he was airborne, and released him as he flew toward the three Volturi. Jane's eyes moved toward the incoming vampire which released Alice from the convulsions. Jasper held her, snarling at the blonde haired vampire, Jane, who laughed wickedly at him.
Laurent got up, disoriented for a moment, before running off the way he came in, trying to save himself.
Guttural howls filled the meadow as the wolves ran toward the escaping vampires. Victoria took to the trees, flipping agilely through them like a monkey while James glinted with excitement for a fight.
Esme and Carlisle stood with hands on their hips giving the young wolves the terrifying parental glares as they ran by them.
Edward jumped from the trees with Bella and put her one the ground. "Link hands," he urged, as Jasper,
Alice, Bella, and Edward linked hands.
Felix, the tall, handsome Volturi braced for the incoming Emmett, and when the crashed together with a massive BOOM like a lightning strike before they both wrestled around on the ground trying to best the other.
Demetri, the Volturi tracker, went face to face with James the nomadic tracker in a dance of skill and antagonism.
It was a battle royale all around.
Jane, her little eerie childlike face smiled as her eyes narrowed over Alice, stalking forward, but nothing happened.
Again, she narrowed her eyes on Alice.
Nothing happened.
She narrowed on Jasper.
Again, Nothing.
But then, as her eyes lingered over Bella there was a thundering of paws moving over the grassy meadow.
The wolf jumped forward, locking his jaw over her hand and tool a chunk out of Jane's hand and spit it off to the side, rushing for another.
She screeched out in pain, coddling it with the other as another wolf bounded forward and ripped through- detached her other arm. She screamed, falling to her knees when a wolf ripped off her leg.
"Stop them!" She shrieked, seeking sympathy that just wasn't there.
"Shock me, shock me, shock me, with your deviant behavior," Alice said with disturbing calmness as she watched her nemesis get tore apart. At the last moment, she released hands with the others, bound forward onto Jane's back and ripped off her head.
"Dead and done." She whispered, "Bitch."
Black shadows moved forward toward the bits and pieces left of Jane, unnoticed.
The wolves, preoccupied with their new chew toys seemed to weave through the trees completely oblivious, as well as the others, to what was now all around them.
Waiting.
Watching.
If there was ever a time to be afraid, it would be now.
It would be while the wolves sat chewing their Jane "bones" as the other vampires wrestled for supremacy.
It would be at the exact moment Bella hid behind Edward with new, wet- stress tears falling down her face, "Holy shit! What the hell are those?" She gasped, looking at the long shadowy things moving forward toward them.
"We've seen them before, but they were just in the background. They weren't advancing toward us."
"I know, but… we should leave, like now," Bella screeched. "I am the only human out here. I'm not immortal like you vampires or werewolves or even those fairies!"
"Bella's right," Carlisle sighed, but made no effort to move. He wanted to watch and see what the things would do. Were they angels of death coming for Jane or were they something else, something more sinister?
Something pulled at his mind from his human life when he spent time in Europe, but he couldn't grab at the hazy memory.
"Run Edward, now!" Alice gasped, watching the things stretching upward.
"Okay, time to go, climb up, love."
Bella climbed up Edward's back and he started to run out of the meadow.
There was a screeching noise in the distance that echoed through the forest and Edward ran even faster.
"What was that?" Bella cried, but Edward shook his head, moving toward his house.
It would be about a five minute run, but he was hopeful that he was allusive enough to thwart the shadowy things, Jake, and James who were racing after them.
"Back off James, or I'll let Jake munch you, too!" Edward called out and then snickered, sliding past trees and over the mossy forest floor.
But James didn't care. It was a chase and as far as he was concerned it was game on!
Bella turned her head, seeing the flash of red fur bounding over the ground and a speck of black leather and marble skin glinting with each ray of filtered sun.
"Edward!" Bella whined, seeing James moving quicker, but Edward turned and moved faster. "Where are we going?"
"Change of plans, Bella. Hold on tight."
Bella fused herself to Edward right before he leapt over a gulch and landing softly onto the other side.
"That was freaking insane!" Bella laughed, peeking behind her and seeing James standing on the edge of the gulch, glaring red beady eyes at them with a sour face.
All the sudden Edward stopped and twisted to see James, too, standing there. Jake was behind James crouched down and ready to pounce. But James was faster and jumped down the gulch and disappeared under the brush below.
"It isn't over," Edward whispered roughly, "You want a fight- you got one because there is no way you're taking my mate!" There was laughter, closer, but still inconspicuous. "Because I can read your mind," Edward said, obviously in a conversation that Bella couldn't hear. "I know you're every move, every thought, and even every want. I know you want to eat my girlfriend. But this is where it ends. You will not have her."
Then there was a roar and a scream and it was unclear to Bella on who got whom.
Edward sighed, giving a withering glare into the gulch and then he started to run again in a different direction.
"Do I even want to know, Edward?"
"Let's just say, Jake doesn't like me being with you, but he doesn't like other vampires pursuing you as their dinner or otherwise - more." He chuckled without humor. "I was enough of a distraction for Jake to pounce on James."
"Is he going to munch him?"
Edward laughed, "Munch? No. James got the warning and is evasion mode… for now."
"Ugh, this is all such a mess! Take me home Edward, I'm exhausted and we have got to figure some stuff out. I want to look up the black shadowy thingies and see what Renee unintentionally released."
With that, Edward turned again, running through the trees toward the Cullen home.
A/N:
Lyrics by Megadeath.
"Shock me, shock me, shock me, with your deviant behavior" –Empire Records
Thank you for reading and reviewing.