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Summary: Elisabeth Edgerton is hiding from her past and a family that won't leave her alone. Luckily, she runs into Alice Cullen. Literally so.

Never Dawn

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"Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." – Winston Churchill, London, 10 November 1942.

Chapter Three:

Beginning of Her End

"She was supposed to come alone," James said as she slowly shut the door to the room with the video tape. His voice echoed, and she didn't turn to look.

"Renee Dwyer took a plane to Tennessee two hours ago. I looked it up on the way."

James chuckled. We'd met before, once. Unlike Bella, my judgment wouldn't be clouded by love, even if it was the reason I was here tonight. James would be too fast for my powers, I knew that, but I could only hope to take him down before he got to Bella and the others. I had fought vampires before. They were our worst, most vicious enemies in the war. I knew what I was doing.

I'd never given much thought to how I would die – though I'd had reason enough in the last few years – but even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this.

He had given me a reason. Forks had made me happy in ways that I can never describe, but he's the one who gave my life purpose. Ironically, he seemed more human than I could ever hope to be. Then she came and I faded back of my own free will. I didn't want to scare her, and I didn't dare to hope. He was her everything as much as he was mine. It was beautiful, and if the brightness of their light hurt my eyes that didn't make it any less so. When I ran into his sister, I had never expected something like this.

I stared without breathing across the long room, into the dark eyes of the hunter, and he looked pleasantly back at me.

I was doing this for them. Surely it was a good way to die, in the place of someone else, someone I loved. Noble, even. That ought to count for something.

I knew that if I'd never gone to Forks, I wouldn't be facing death right now. But, terrified as I was, as I always was whenever I thought about it, I couldn't bring myself to regret the decision. When life offers you a dream so far beyond any of your expectations, it is unreasonable to grieve when it comes to an end.

The hunter smiled in a friendly way as he sauntered forward to kill me.

I ducked the first swing, but hit a pillar on the second. His voice echoed; mirrors all around me made it so I couldn't find him; he'd picked the perfect place to kill us. I let my magic saturate the area invisibly. If I could see where he was going before he could…

It worked for a bit, but whether I knew what he would to do or not I could only go a certain amount past human speed or risk tearing apart my body. He wasn't so limited, and there was no time to let off a mass-killing spell like I could in a big battle with others covering my six for their own sakes. My strength was at maximum human limits, but he was stronger. I, at least, was more flexible and agile. It wouldn't save me forever though; I had to at least trap him for the others, if he was too fast to cut up and set on fire. Well, the fire might be doable, but it was useless without the hacking him to pieces bit, and the last thing I needed now was the fire department barging in.

I skidded and hit something wooden, breaking it, but was more concerned with the piece of wood through my calf and how much it hindered mobility. He was far faster than me now, not that he wasn't already. I got up anyway, though, setting up the magical trap that had come to me. It was a last ditch effort.

He slammed me into a mirror, and a chunk of it speared into my stomach from where I'd spun with the impact. If I were human, I'd be dead from the blood loss, but I luckily wasn't. Bella came in at that point, damn silly girl-child. She was the real prey; I was just an appetizer.

With me lying on the ground, barely able to move, James was able to 'play with his food', in a sense. She hit her head; it was bleeding; God I hope not too much. Head wounds bled fast, as I was well aware. She tried to scramble away. He pinned her easily and sunk his fangs into her neck, the fury of the fight and all the blood around them soon driving sense from his mind.

He'd forgotten about me.

James was frozen still, encased in white just as the Cullens burst in. Jasper had to be held back immediately, while Edward skidded to his knees over to Bella. Carlisle gave me a concerned look but I waved him off to her. He couldn't live without her. I cast a few rune sets on myself, then crawled over to Bells, ignoring Edward and Carlisle's arguing as I did the same to her.

"I'm making her body produce blood cells as fast as it possibly can, but it's not working; one of you needs to get the venom out. She might need to be turned anyway."

I was worried, but there was nothing more I could do. Jasper, on the other hand….

"Lizzy, don't –!" Esme cried, horrified. But she kept coming closer.

Jasper broke free and went straight to the closest source of the blood; me.

I told you that I wasn't human enough for blood loss to kill me. It just puts me to sleep for a long while. That's why I waved them off when he latched onto my neck. Alice must have known, because they instead hovered a fair distance from Bella, Rosalie daring to go the closest – never having taken human blood, she wasn't as tempted. I let Jasper have his fill and more, until he was sated – Hell, that took until partway home. He didn't even realize what he'd done until a few minutes after that. I did my best to quiet his fears, pushing my calm and lack of regret into those horrified eyes. Jasper thought that he was a monster; that they'd had to turn me because of him. I softly explained.

"Jasper, any human wouldn't have been able to stand up to come that close. If I were a human I'd have been dead and cold before you even showed up; but I'm not human, I'm an Enchantress, and I know what my body can handle. I could lose all the blood within me and never have to worry about dying; I'd be up again late the next day; but you smelt the blood, and there were only two people bleeding in that room."

"You and Bella," he said softly.

"That's right; me and Bella. There was only one human in that room tonight Jasper, and you would've killed yourself if you'd gone for her. So I took her out of the equation and I put myself in your way. I walked directly up to you; purposely. I walked up to a vampire, bleeding. Don't blame yourself for me being a reckless fool."

Esme chuckled tiredly; I caught her grateful smile in the mirror.

Despite her wishes, I'm glad Bell wasn't turned; not that way. I couldn't ask that of Edward. I'm glad my spell helped somewhat.

Now only to explain it to them.

"An Enchantress… changes things. They can change a heart to stone, a pebble to a fire, in the most literal of ways. We are the predecessors of Sirens, both more and less than human. We can eat, but have no need of it beyond the taste, getting our energy from the ambient magic around us. Those of us with the gift are few, most lost to civil wars on the scale of vampire wars and bloodier; throughout the years we have adapted to large scale battle, but it makes us weaker to single combat. What is left are Halflings, the Part-Way Children, our blood diluted but on rare occasion showing through; and Wanderers. We never stay in one place long, never congregate. If you are lucky, you will find a teacher to help you when your gifts manifest. The are only two diseases that effect us; both can be stopped in progression if caught in their infancy, meaning in the child's first four years."

A voice eerily overlapped hers in her mind. Edward could hear it.

"You have one of them."

"Yes. Normally immortal, it's a surprise I made it to sixteen years old."

She was quite calm about this. Edward and Bella were not.

Things calmed down after the prom. Bella had made up with Charlie, Edward and the others realized I was not so breakable and was quite willing to be an emergency blood donor, Esme cooked a lot, and I learned to appreciate my life even more. If this was all I could ever have, I'd never have reason to cry over it. Days were good.

"Beth, can we talk to you…?" Bella asked for herself and Edward.

"Sure."

"Dear ____,

You know how I'm doing probably better than I do, so I need not say it, but I'll tell you about my life anyway. Small town life has been good to me. I kept expecting my past to catch up to me those first few weeks, and I suppose they will someday, but things have been very relaxing….

So that's pretty much it for these past two years. I'm sorry about not writing you before, but I needed to get my head on straight – or maybe sideways. Anyway, I'll start sending the letters I write more frequently now, so you won't have to look into a crystal ball or a deck of tarot cards just to find out about me anymore. I don't think this is really the end, you know? Maybe the end of the first chapter of a never ending story. I think I'll have plenty more to write, anyway, if not the time to write it in. Send ______ my love.

Your Friend… " – Elisabeth Edgerton, in a letter to a friend

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