I stared at him until he turned to look at me, and suddenly the red vanished; it was replaced by that honey topaz—no…it was suddenly the deepest, darkest black, and I wondered when was the last time he had fed.

Capruti suddenly seemed enraged, and he whirled around to stare at Edward. His eyes immediately flashed red. Confused, I kept staring; they turned back into black, but right when Capruti looked at him again, they turned red.

Capruti turned to me, an evil smile on his face. "My dear," He said in a calm, but deadly voice, "Do refrain from glancing into my subjects' eyes."

Subjects? What the hell? I wanted to break away from Edward and run to Capruti and rip him into a million pieces. He had no right to do this to anyone!

I didn't have a full picture of what was going on, yet, like whether his intentions were to rule the world or just the vampire world—but so far I could pretty much tell that he had taken these people over, or he was somehow controlling them. I made a mental note to point out that it was painfully obvious to any observer that these people weren't normal, but I was pretty sure he was smart enough to figure that one out.

I ignored his warning, and stared at Edward again. His eyes flashed black, and Capruti didn't seem to notice—thank the gods. Edward took a step towards me, and then another, but he had the whole room to cover; he wouldn't make it. He would! I bit my lip as hard as I could and willed the world to be on my side. Come on, come on….

There was fire in Capruti's eyes when he shot a glance at Edward, turning his eyes red again, and then looked at me.

"No!" Emmett shouted, but the cry was lost in the utter silence of the place.

It came to me like smoke, the faint muttering that seemed to be coming from Capruti's still lips. And then I felt something that I had thought I would never feel again—the sharpest pain in my head, like I had crushed it against a brick wall. I had thought that when I turned vampire, all my clumsiness and injuries would be over—oh, I was so, so wrong. I was flung back against the wall, and I felt my backbone crunch. Pain shot through every vein of my body—somehow this seemed even worse than when I was turning into a vampire. And then it all stopped.

Capruti was laughing, a maniacal gleam in his eye—I was truly scared, folks. He looked like he belonged in the loony bin; in a straitjacket; with padded walls, so he didn't hurt himself. Or anyone else. Namely me.

I looked over at Jasper, and he nodded once; a feeling of calm settled over me, broke through my worries and my head felt lighter already. I gave him a small smile for thanks, and turned my attention back to Capruti. Okay. I finally decided we'd need a master plan; this wasn't going to work, standing here and waiting for Edward to come back to our side. "Well, nice to meet you," I said, standing up straight. I tried to pretend that the pain hadn't affected me, though it was bouncing through me still, like a bouncy ball in an empty room with everlasting momentum. "But I think we have to be going now."

Capruti's grin widened. "Oh, no." He replied. "I think you'll find yourself very comfortable, here, with us."

If I still had blood, the way he said that 'us' would have made my blood run cold. Somehow, I had a feeling he wasn't talking about his parents.

I glanced at Jasper, then Emmett—and I really, really wished they could read minds right then. I sort of had a plan, kind of, a really whacked out one that probably wouldn't work; but still, I knew I couldn't whisper it to them, because I wasn't practiced and Capruti was obviously a lot more skilled in that area.

Brain flash.

The brilliant thought hit me so fast that I almost fell backwards; luckily, my vampire powers were still intact, and falling backwards for no particular reason fell under category 'clumsy'. It wasn't so much of a flash as a realization, or a thought, or something like that.

Edward could still read minds, when his eyes weren't that horrible red color.

I nudged Emmett a bit towards Capruti, hoping he would get the idea and go distract him…or something….

Capruti knew something was up. He kept glancing over at me, but Emmett finally got the hint and stepped towards him, whispering something that even I couldn't here. Capruti's attention was gone, off of me. I stared as hard as I could at Edward, willing him to look up, counting the time off on my fingers. Twenty seconds. That was it. If it didn't work in that time, I was screwed.

Twenty…Edward, look up! Nineteen…Eighteen…Edward finally looked up, and I breathed a little sigh of relief, then stiffened and looked over at Capruti; his back was almost towards me. Thank god for smart vampires. I thought as hard as I could: Stare into their eyes! Stare into their eyes! With my own eyes I looked around at the crowd, still screaming the thought in my head.

Thirteen. Come on, Edward. Please work, I thought frantically. What if Capruti had taken their powers, too? What if….

Edward nodded at count eleven. He began to look around, focusing on someone's eyes until they were no longer red. I did that too; by five we had at least ten un-red. And we kept going. I honestly was surprised that Capruti hadn't looked over by now; what the hell was Emmett saying to him? Not that it really mattered to me, anyways…as long as we could get everyone good and get ourselves out, ASAP.

Capruti finally looked over at zero. A shudder went through me, involuntarily; would he unleash his crazy whacked out powers on me again? I sure wasn't ready for the intense pain.

It didn't come. He seemed shocked, which was good, and I could see the fire light in his eyes as he tried to look back into their eyes; they all looked away, though, before he could. I heard the whispers going through them, instructing the others to not look at him directly.

All this mayhem, coming from a man that was probably no more than three and a half feet high.

Jasper jumped into action, suddenly and so violently that I almost screamed. He sprang and I saw him out of the corner of my eye, breathtakingly fast take Capruti and squeeze an arm around his waist and another hand over his mouth, so he couldn't mutter an incantation that would be the doom of us all.

I suddenly felt very in control. "Okay, Cappy." I was so in control that I could even give him a nickname that he would probably hate. "We can do this the easy way, or the hard way." I held my hands behind my back and paced back and forth in front of him and Jasper, feeling very big and proud and important. "Give us a way out, and we let you go, unharmed. Don't, and things may get ugly." I nodded towards the crowd of recently un-evil-ized vampires (they were too sickeningly beautiful to be human) that clearly outnumbered Capruti, no matter how powerful he might be. There was no way he could compete with a roomful of vampires.

Right?

To my utter surprise, Capruti lifted a finger and the ceiling above us slid aside to allow daylight in.

The room was instantly ablaze with the light that rebounded off of all of our glittery skin, except Capruti—he stayed human-colored. I didn't sparkle that much, because Emmett, Jasper and I had taken precautions even though it had been overcast before. We had on dark, long clothing and hats.

One of the vampires jumped—apparently their skill was mad hops—and disappeared up above. The rest of us climbed on tables and chairs and hoisted ourselves up, because the ceiling really hadn't been that high.

Emmett was last coming through, and he brought Capruti up, then dropped him back down. I hadn't though it would be that easy, but the ceiling immediately slid shut, and Capruti was still down below.

Okay, then.

It did seem too easy to me, and suspicious, but since it was my first adventure as a vampire I guess I didn't really notice, or care. All that mattered was that my Edward was with me, and he wasn't under anybody's influence. Except mine. Hehe.