CHAPTER FIVE
HOUSE OF CARDS
"Don't let her hit the water!" I heard Ashe yell as I plummeted toward the crashing waves. Just before I pierced the surface of the water, I felt myself hit an invisible wall. It pushed me up, higher and higher, until I flew through the air and back up to the ledge where I fell in a heap. I stood, and my arms were then bound to my sides by some unseen force. I could not move.
"You know, in my day, back in Heraclea Minoa, someone rude enough to refuse help would be punished." Ashe said.
Heraclea Minoa? My mind tossed through the tumultuous waves of information and thought trying to place the name. What game was she playing?
"Ashe, we are not here for that." Daedra said in the most dulcet tone I had ever heard.
"Too true, Sister, too true." Ashe admitted, looking me over. "You have much to learn, child." she said to me sternly. "We should not waste anymore time. We know a great deal about you and your situation. We can help."
"I'm not going anywhere with you!" I hissed. "There is nothing you can tell me, nothing you can teach me that can undo what I have done! I killed someone! I killed the leader of one of the Quileute wolf packs. A friend that meant a great deal to me and so many others. I have alienated an entire race of people. Not to mention the pain I caused my husband and daughter by going off my rocker and leaving.
I abandoned them. There will never be anything in this world that can take that back and make us whole again, Ashe! Nothing! So you can sit there all high and mighty with whatever knowledge you think you have, but unless you've got a time machine in your bag of tricks, I'm done with this! It's over." I yelled, struggling against my invisible bindings.
Ashe rolled her eyes at my outburst and sighed. "This is why people shouldn't be turned as teenagers." she said under her breath. She stepped forward and slapped me hard across the face. Much to my surprise, it actually hurt. "Get a grip, Bella. No one likes a whiner." she said, and then she disappeared.
The other women were gone as well. And I was no longer held where I stood. What just happened? Had I imagined the whole thing? Was I truly losing my mind? I sank to the ground and screamed.
A hand on my shoulder brought me back to reality. I jerked away and then stood, looking up into Daedra's dark face. I hissed at her, but she didn't flinch. She looked at me with the kindest eyes. "Please forgive Ashe. She has little patience, and even less bedside manner when she is irritated, I'm afraid. Please, Bella, we truly can help you."
With my binding gone, I looked around for an escape route. Daedra, sensing my intent, said to Ashe, "Ashe, will you please calm her before she runs off again."
Ashe appeared, rolled her eyes and sighed. The others appeared behind her as she came forward. She picked up a rock from the ground and suddenly her palms were white hot flames. As fast as they had come, the flames were gone. T'sikati held out a length of leather tie and Ashe deftly wound it around the stone, making the charred black rock into a necklace. She stepped toward me, and when I stepped back, I felt the air return to hold me in place. Ashe slipped the rock around my neck
At first I felt nothing but the warmth from the stone, but then there was a sensation in my chest similar to how it feels when you plunge your toes into the warm sand on the beach. It started underneath the stone resting against my chest and spread through me. I felt everything boiling inside of me start to sway. No longer thrashing in chaos, my pain began to ebb and flow. It wasn't perfect, but it was better. I could think straight, just barely.
"Who are you?" I begged.
"You're welcome." Ashe muttered, crossing her arms in a huff.
Daedra answered. "There is no simple answer that I can give you that will satisfy that question, Bella. You just have to trust us. We can help." she said as she held out her hand. I felt the invisible restraints leave.
What choice did I have? I couldn't go home. My only other choice was to wander, and in my state there was no telling what I was capable of doing. I took her hand, and glanced the others; Ashe with her arms crossed, T'sikati with an angry scowl, and Anail with what seemed to be a perpetual face of worry.
"How did you do that?" I asked, referring to the appearing and disappearing.
"We have shields too." Daedra said. "Only ours are much more powerful and practiced."
"Can you show me how to do that?" I asked with wonder.
"First things first, Bella, we need to get you back in control of your shield. But be warned, it will not be easy." Daedra said.
"I don't care. I'll do anything." I swore. Ashe snorted at my oath, but I ignored her.
"Then let us begin." Daedra said. She took my hand and lead me into the trees.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"We have a camp not far from here near the river." Daedra said.
I stopped abruptly and she turned to me with a tilt of her eyebrow. I could hear Ashe behind me, huffing at the pause in our progress.
"That's too close." I whispered, the discord in my mind shifting violently like a vase full of water about to go off the end of a table. "They'll find us."
Ashe laughed behind me and said, "No one is going to find us, Bella." And with that she walked past me with T'sikati and Anail behind her. I looked to Daedra and she nodded, so I followed.
We walked through the woods that had become so familiar to me over the last few years during my many hunts. Where could these women possibly have a camp that I have never come across it?
We walked through the overbearing green of the dense trees until we came to a small clearing. There were four distinct areas in the clearing with various personal effects, but there were no tents, not even any beds. A makeshift fire pit lay off to one side of the encampment. It was an odd place. Even though there were things here, it had a haunting sense of abandonment.
"Can you at least give me some idea of who you people are? Preferably not her." I said nodding toward Ashe. "I've heard more than enough from her."
Ashe looked as if she was going to haul off and punch me straight in the face, but Daedra made an exhalation of breath, and Ashe froze. She scowled and then nodded to Daedra. "Don't get used to that." Ashe muttered as Daedra began. I wasn't sure if she was speaking to me or Daedra.
"We are The Four, guardians of The First and keepers of the lines." Daedra said, as if that was supposed to explain everything.
I had a feeling that a request for a more detailed explanation would be ignored at this point. After all, I still had no idea how we could be so close to my family out here in these woods and these women think that they would not find us. So instead I asked "Why have I never heard of you?"
"Marketing just isn't what it used to be." Ashe said flatly. She was obviously trying to make a joke, but if she was waiting for me to laugh, that wasn't going to happen. Perhaps she thought her feeble attempt at sarcasm would hurt my feelings. She would have to do much better than that.
"We've survived this long by not advertising ourselves, Bella." Daedra offered.
"How long have you…survived?" I asked.
"What is it now, Dae? Seven? Eight?" Ashe asked Daedra without turning, keeping her eyes locked on me.
"Just over eight now." Daedra confirmed.
"Eight hundred years?" I asked. That wasn't very old at all. Most of the Volturi were more than three times that age.
"No, dear, eight thousand." Daedra clarified. A smug grin grew across Ashe's face at the sight of my shocked expression.
"That can't be. That would make you older than…" Older than a lot of things, I realized.
"Older than vampires, yes. And older than werewolves, shape shifters, and witches." Ashe said with a mischievous grin. How could these women be eight thousand years old? They looked so…fresh, was the only word that came to mind. The Volturi had been alive over three thousand years, and their eyes and skin showed their advanced age. Their skin was translucent like onions and their eyes had a slight milky film to them. But these women looked nothing like that. Then something occurred to me.
"Wait, you know when they all began? Like the very first of all of those beings?" I whispered.
"Yes. We were there when they were made." Ashe said casually, as if she were talking about having gone to the store or how bored she was waiting in line at the bank.
"Wait, and witches? I'm confused. Aren't you witches?" I said as I looked around at them. I felt even more lost now than before. If these women weren't witches, then what were they?
"No, we are not witches. Well, I guess that depends on how you define witches." Anail mumbled.
"You will learn everything you need to know in time. Right now, we need to cover some ground rules, and I know you are out of sorts, but you need to listen closely because I despise having to repeat myself." Ashe warned.
I nodded. "Fine, I'm listening."
"Good." Ashe said. "Rule number one: although it will be tempting, you are not to attempt to use your shield without one of us present and assisting. You are unstable and missteps right now could be…untoward."
I didn't need any further clarification on that one. I had seen what my shield was capable of and I had no desire to play with that without help. I nodded.
"Number two: this should go without saying, but just in case, you are not to contact your family in any way. Until you have regained control of your shield, it is too dangerous for you to be around them."
I couldn't argue with that one either. I nodded, wondering how many more rules there would be.
"Number three: you are not to leave this immediate area without an escort. This area is protected so that no one can see us and anyone that wanders close feels an inexplicable need to go the other way. You will be unprotected outside of this boundary without one of us, so don't do it."
"Unprotected? What do I need protection from?" I asked.
Ashe sneered, but did not answer my question as she continued.
"Rule number four." she said as she stepped closer to me. Her eyes were locked on mine and I realized I could not look away. I felt what I thought at first was the blooming of panic in my chest, but then it began to burn in waves, thumping, almost like a pulse. Ashe stepped so close that I could feel her cool breath on my face.
"You will do as we say, without complaint, and you will not give us any problems." She grabbed the amulet around my neck, her hand covering it completely, and with that, the pandemonium roared through my mind. The ebb and flow of my pain was replaced by the storm of white hot pain vibrating in my head. I heard Ashe's voice above the cacophony. "Do you understand?"
I gave a single nod, all I could manage, and Ashe released the amulet. All at once the melee in my mind was gone, replaced by the ebb and flow again.
Ashe smiled again that self-satisfied, joyless smile. The smile faded as her eyes unfocused and she stood very still as if she were seeing something only she could see. She blinked, then said to Daedra, "I must go. Deal with her until I return." Then she promptly walked off into the trees.
"Where is she going?" I asked Daedra.
"I have found that, with Ashe, sometimes it's best not to ask too many questions." she said with an odd smile, as if there was some inside joke which I was not allowed to know.
I looked around and noticed that T'sikati was no longer with us either. As if she had read my mind, Daedra said, "T'sikati spends much of her time alone with nature. She's not really a people person, I believe is what you would say."
"Daedra, how is that you all have lived for eight thousand years? How is that possible? The things you must have seen in that time…" just thinking about it filled me with wonder.
"It's not like you think." Daedra said. "Most of the epic moments in history you know about, we were not present for, meaning we were in other parts of the world when they allegedly happened. I can't tell you if certain wars really happened, and no, I don't know if certain religious figures really existed. That's everyone's favorite question when they find out how old we are. We weren't there for any of that."
I couldn't help feeling a little disappointed. "Is there anything you can tell me about the past?"
Daedra explained. "I can tell you about our past. In the beginning, there were only humans. Then there was born 'The First', so called because she was the first of her kind. She could do things no other human being could do. She could read minds, control the elements, see the future: her talents were limitless. We four were drawn to her from the ends of the Earth, and we served her, protected her, in many ways. After a time she realized that her powers would be sought after for foul deeds and she split herself among us and commanded us to prevent the union of our essences."
"That sounds relatively straight forward." I said with suspicion.
"Well, of course there is a great deal more to it than that, but it will do for now." she said. "Our necklaces were given to us by The First. Well, they were just stones in the beginning. T'sikati made them into necklaces once such skills were discovered. They represent our elements and, by extension, the entities represented by those elements." Daedra explained.
"Do you know how many of each type of beings exist?" I asked.
"We don't know exact numbers. We only have a faint idea of which groups are larger than others." Daedra said. "But we do know that there are more witches than vampires, pure human beings, shape shifters, and werewolves combined."
"Yes, technically that is true." Anail confirmed as she overheard the topic on her way to the fire pit. She stopped and said, "When countries run a census they end up counting everyone as human, so the numbers you think of when you think of populations in the world actually include these other beings, plus consider all of the other ones that are in hiding. However, most people have such a diluted concentration of witch blood that they are almost purely human and never manifest any kind of powers. There are fewer pure humans on this planet than you would imagine." Anail said with more than a hint of sadness as she walked off to tend the fire.
For some reason, it pained me to see that sadness on her face, so I tried to change the subject.
"So how do you determine who is in charge?" I whispered to Daedra.
Daedra smiled. She seemed amused by my question. I thought she would not answer, but then she said simply, "By our hair."
By their hair? Seriously? What kind of leadership selection criteria is that? "Really? That seems fairly arbitrary." I mused.
"Not really. Hair is an extension of your nervous system, so it would make sense that to have more of it would allow for greater perception of your environment. Ashe is the strongest of us; hence she has the longest hair." Daedra said.
"But yours looks just as long as hers." I replied.
"It's not, I assure you." Daedra said. When she saw my look of doubt she whispered in a conspiratory tone, "It's those crazy waves. They are very misleading."
I smiled and she continued "But despite Ashe's brash attitude, she does defer to me on many things. We have a mutual respect. I may not be as powerful as she, but I represent beings similar to our kind and that carries weight. T'sikati is next strongest, but as you can see, the difference in length is noticeable between her and Ashe and me." Daedra was right. While her hair and Ashe's fell to their waists, T'sikati's hair fell just below her shoulder blades.
I glanced over at Anail. Her hair seemed to be cut at a very abrupt angle with one side barely touching her shoulder and the other side falling to the middle of her shoulder blade. "Anail's hair is relatively short, isn't it?"
Daedra was quiet and seemed to be looking somewhere far off. "Yes, her hair is short. There is a reason for that, but it is not my story to tell."
I could tell from her tone and body language that there would be no more talk on the subject, and since Daedra was the only one of them to really show me any consideration, I didn't want to fall out of her good graces. "So can you control your elements?" I asked, genuinely curious of the answer.
"To a degree. Nothing like the First could manage, but we have some influence. We can call, but we cannot truly control or create. I, for instance, can call up water from the ground, or manipulate a body of water. But I cannot make rain fall from a cloudless sky." Daedra explained.
Something occurred to me just then. "The day we buried my dad, clouds and rain came from out of nowhere. Alice had seen in the future that the day would be sunny. She's never wrong about weather. But if you can control it, and you decided to change it after she had her vision, she wouldn't have seen you do it. You made it rain that day, didn't, you?" I asked.
"It was actually Anail and I that did that. I can only call rain from the sky if the clouds are already there. I needed Anail to manipulate the wind to bring in the clouds."
"Thank you. I appreciate the effort." I said with genuine thankfulness.
Daedra nodded. "As for Alice, she cannot see anything having to do with us, The Four. Our shields are so strong that we cannot be touched by such powers that others possess. And if we shield another, they have the same protection. So Alice cannot see us, Jasper cannot affect us, Edward cannot read us, so on and so forth."
"You know about them?" I whispered.
"Of course we do. Our whole existence has been managing our charges, and if you haven't figured it out yet, vampires that have powers are a form of hybrid, Bella. If someone with witch blood is turned to a vampire, they manifest their power, if it hasn't already been noticeable." Daedra explained.
That would explain why some vampires had powers after the change and some didn't. That also meant that Alice and Jasper had been witches before being turned, Edward too. And me, I had been a witch before I was turned. Even knowing Gran had claimed to be a witch, it never occurred to me that I might be one without even trying or wanting to be.
"But if there are more witches than pure humans, why aren't there more vampires with powers?" I asked.
"Not everyone has enough witch blood to manifest a power. Most have just enough to not be pure humans." Daedra said.
"So what happens if a vampire changes a shape shifter or werewolf?" I asked.
"Wouldn't happen." Daedra insisted, shaking her head. "A vampire's instincts keep them from biting such creatures. Would you bite into something that smelled like a rotting dumpster?" Daedra asked.
"If that rotting dumpster was trying to kill me, it might cross my mind." I said.
Daedra chuckled before continuing. "Fair enough, but the genetics of the shape shifters and the werewolves do not allow them to be turned even if they were bitten. They would either heal, if the venom is removed in time, or die, like a human from a snake bite. A built in defense against the mixing of the lines." Daedra said. "There are two different considerations in the creation of beings: biting and mating. As I'm sure you know, humans, shape shifters, werewolves, and witches can and do mate with little issue. And as I know you are also aware, male vampires can mate with female humans and witches."
"What about vampires mating with shape shifters or werewolves?" I asked.
Daedra's face became dark. "It has never been an issue. Vampires and both forms of T'sikati's charges are natural enemies. The trouble truly begins when hybrids are entered into the equation."
"Like my daughter." I said.
"Bella, you must understand, the mixing of the lines would have catastrophic results. We have spent near eight thousand years preventing this from occurring, and now here we are on the eve of having all of that work for naught." Daedra pleaded.
"She is selfish. She does not care." came T'sikati's voice in the distance. She strolled into the clearing, her eyes focused on me as if she expected me to attack her at any moment. I realized that her body language wasn't one of ease, but of something else completely. Her movements reminded me of the way Jacob would stalk prey when he was in wolf form.
Daedra noticed this immediately. "Sister." she said in her dulcet tone as T'sikati came closer, her lip peeled back from her teeth as her expression darkened and her panting breaths stopped as she was about to pounce.
"Enough." Daedra said. The finality of the statement seemed to break T'sikati's trance-like focus on me. "Bella, will you stay with Anail, please? I need to speak with T'sikati."
I nodded, but Daedra was not looking at me as she walked past T'sikati toward the trees. T'sikati took one last look at me and snarled before following Daedra out of sight.
"She hates me." I said to no one in particular as I walked over to where Anail sat by the fire she had started in the pit.
"She does." Anail said in a matter of fact tone. "But in fairness, she dislikes most people."
"So I've heard." I said. I looked at Anail and then asked, "And you? How do you feel?"
She tilted her head at my question and seemed to be giving her answer serious thought. I wasn't sure if she would ever answer, but then she stood and walked toward me. It took an immense amount of control I didn't fully possess to try not to run as she approached me. I managed to only take two steps backward before she closed the gap between us and scrutinized me with those unsettling eyes that all four women possessed.
"I feel like you don't truly understand the seriousness of this situation. I feel that you are not ready for what lies ahead. But mostly, I feel like you are going to break in all of the wrong ways and put all of us in danger." she said.
I didn't know what to say to all of that. I said the only thing I could think of. "I'm sorry." I whispered.
"Not sorry enough." she said with a hint of what sounded like regret. "But you will be, before the end."
And with that she turned away to go back to her work.
"What happened to you?" I asked before I knew what I was saying.
Anail's movement halted abruptly, then she turned to me and said, "You cannot even comprehend."
"Maybe not, but I want to try. Please. Daedra wouldn't tell me. She said it wasn't her story to tell. Please help me understand." I begged.
Anail took a deep breath and then sat on the ground. She looked at me and then to a spot across from her, so I sat.
"I represent air, and by extension, human beings. It has not been an easy charge." Anail said. "The others don't understand. Their populations grow and shrink slowly. Barely noticeable. Humans? So many of them are born and die every day. It is a constant seesaw of birth and death. And things like natural disasters, or human atrocities? The feeling of many lives lost at one time is an agony I would wish on no one. Sometimes I feel as if I might lose my mind with it." she admitted.
"When we were first created, The Four, I was the most powerful of us all. The First wanted me to protect humanity. It is why she rendered herself in the first place, to keep her power out of the hands that would use it to enslave the world. But what she didn't see, and what I have come to learn over these many years, was that humanity doesn't need an outside force to destroy it.
Long ago, during a great war, I tried to stop a massacre. I had experienced the pain of subtle losses of human life up until that point, and this war threatened to be one of great pain and devastation.
I had not had time to master my powers. I was inexperienced. I tried to pull down the wind, trap people in air to keep them from hurting each other, but no matter what I did, they wouldn't stop. There were too many of them for me to stop them all. I was there to protect them, but when they discovered me during the fight, they turned on me.
They managed to grab me. There were so many. Men were fighting all around me, and some of them decided they'd prefer another more brutal pursuit." she said under her breath, her face quite plainly revealing her remembrance of the events she described.
"They tore at my clothes. One of them said my hair was in the way. Another took his sword and as he cut it, but before they could complete their vile intentions, I pulled wind into all of their lungs until they exploded in their chests. Hundreds of human beings, dead all at once by my hand. I've never felt such pain. My power had been severed by my own charges, and I killed that which I was supposed to protect. I paid for it. Dearly." She said, her eyes wide and unfocused.
It pained me to see her stuck in that image in her head. "Can't it grow back? Your hair?" I asked, trying to pull her out of the memory.
"It has grown back some in the last several thousand years, but you see, that day I lost a piece of my purpose. Why would I want to protect something that would do such things? For a long time, my hair stayed as it was. I could not move forward. Over time I was able to find the beauty in the world again. It gave me something to fight for."
I wished I knew what beauty she had found that brought her back from something so terrible. I had killed Sam, and the weight of that was its own special hell. I could not imagine killing hundreds of people all at once, even in self-defense. It seemed like such an insurmountable tragedy.
Daedra returned to the clearing without T'sikati.
"Is she going to be okay?" I asked.
Daedra paused, seemingly shocked that I would have asked, but then nodded and said, "It is hard for her when the Quileutes and the werewolves die. She is deeply connected to them, sometimes I think even more than the rest of us are connected to our own charges. When they pass, it affects her deeply."
Yet another person to add to the list of people I have hurt by killing Sam. That's when something occurred to me.
"Daedra, I need to ask a favor of you." I whispered.
"You aren't in a position to be asking for favors, Bella." Daedra admonished.
"Look, I know, but please hear me out. I know Sam's funeral is going to be held in three days, and I really want to be there." I said.
"If you go there, the pack will tear you to shreds. In front of your daughter, I would assume." she said.
"You are probably right. But if I was hidden, then we could avoid all of that." I said.
"You want me to hide you so that you can attend the funeral of the shape shifter you killed?" Daedra asked.
"I know it sounds like it doesn't make sense, but he was my friend. Please. I need to be there to say goodbye." I said, feeling my sorrow and anxiousness build inside me.
Daedra looked off into the distance, seemingly deep in thought. "Ashe would be very unhappy. T'sikati as well."
"I know I am asking for a lot, Daedra. Please. Is there any way I can convince you?"
"This is not a decision I can make alone, Bella. If this is truly what you want, then we must consult the others." Daedra said. "We will wait for Ashe and T'sikati to return."
The sun was already mostly gone from the sky. Where had this day gone? I sat and watched Daedra and Anail prepare food. Eventually T'sikati returned once night fell completely. She grabbed a heaping plate of the meal being served and went to her area of the clearing. I sat and watched them eat, realizing how long it had been since I had hunted. I should be ravenous, mad with hunger. I felt nothing but the ebb and flow of the muted turmoil flowing in my mind.
It was well into the next day by the time Ashe returned. She ignored the lunch that Anail had prepared as she came into camp. She walked over to me, glaring down at me.
"You have caused a great deal of pain today. It is a hefty price to be paid, Bella. You have no idea." came her vehement whisper.
I couldn't look away from her, but I said nothing. There was nothing I could say. She was right. Every word she spoke was true, even the part about my having no idea, even though I didn't know it then. I had not a clue. But I would soon learn how 'hefty' that price truly was.
* ******************CHAPTER END************