Chapter 22 – The Sisters

We did not go directly to the place where we believed the immortal child to be. Lord Aro wished to interrogate the daughters of the depraved vampire who had created the child. He believed that they may have been involved, and Caius had decided that it would be better if we came upon them without warning.

Willamar tracked them to a cave in a mountain pass, nearly buried in snow. There were several small villages within tracking distance, but it didn't seem like a place I should like to linger.

The sisters came out at Caius' imperious shout. Three vampire women, tall and blonde and beautiful, clad in furs and glittering in the sunlight stood and faced Aro and Caius squarely.

"Aro, Caius." One of them nodded to the lords calmly. "It has been a long time."

"Indeed it has, Tanya. But how are you? And your sisters…Kate? Irina? I hope you are all well," Aro said solicitously.

"Quite well, thank you." Tanya sounded courteous, but I could detect the hint of unease behind her words. "You have apparently come quite a way…is there something we can help you with?"

"Perhaps, perhaps," Aro said dismissively, waving a hand as he looked around. "But someone is missing! Where is the lovely Sasha?"

The sisters' eyes met. Only for an instant, but I saw the confusion and the growing fear.

"We're not sure," Tanya admitted slowly. "Mother sometimes likes to do some travelling alone, and she does not keep us up to date with her whereabouts."

"Really?" Aro sighed with theatrical disappointment. "What a pity to miss her! I'm sure I'm quite devastated."

"You had best not be lying." Clearly exasperated with Aro's gentle approach, Caius stepped in. His eyes were dark red and intent as he snarled at the three vampires. "I would think very, very carefully before you answer this time…where is Sasha?"

"We don't know!" Tanya's composure was beginning to tremble. "What is this about? Has something happened to Mother?"

"She gave you no clue about where she was going, and what she was doing there? You know nothing of her intentions?" Caius demanded, ignoring Tanya's question.

"She said nothing." Kate this time, her voice low. "We have not seen her for several moon cycles."

Aro sighed and shook his head sadly, and Caius' face looked tight with frustrated anger.

"Please tell us what this is about," Tanya requested. "Perhaps there's something we can do to help."

Caius snorted. "There will be no help for your mother if what we have heard is true."

"I'm afraid it is a very grievous matter." Aro clasped his hands together. "We have had word that your mother has committed the ultimate crime and created a child."

"NO!" The word came from the lips of all three, a desperate exclamation and plea, as they clutched each other with trembling hands. They each looked from face to face, searching for any lack of surprise that might indicated knowledge, but each beautiful face was blank with shock.

"Oh please, she wouldn't!" Irina looked beseechingly at Aro. "I'm sure there is some other explanation."

"We are on our way to investigate, and I'm sure if there is any other explanation we shall discover it," Aro said consolingly. "Justice will be served, you can be sure of that, and if your mother is innocent then she has nothing to fear."

One of the sisters moaned, and for a moment they held each other tight, whispering and glancing fearfully at Aro and Caius. I also noticed several quick, furtive glances in my direction.

"Of course," Caius hissed, "We must first be sure that none of you have any involvement in your creator's abominable actions."

There was a sudden sharp silence. This was why we were here.

"Jane?" Caius said silkily and I stepped forward, wading through the deep snow and wishing I looked a little more dignified, before I stopped at his side. "Perhaps you would like to demonstrate to Tanya what shall happen to her if she is lying?"

Tanya's face was uncomprehending as she looked at me. "But is this not…I thought she was the child in question!"

I had meant to be brief and to the point with my demonstration. I had not intended to fire the pain receptors in her mind to the pitch of agony I did, but her accusation against me had enraged me.

I am not a child!

Tanya did not even scream. I don't think she could, as she fell to the ground, her back bowed and her hands clawing great furrows into the icy ground. Both her sisters screamed as they saw her, and an uneasy murmur ran through the watching Volturi. Most of them had seen my talent in action only once or twice, and for vampires who never otherwise felt pain the sight was a deeply confronting one.

"No! Stop it!" It was Kate, and I watched in amazement as she surged out of her sister's grasp and towards me. "Leave her!"

Effortlessly I turned my attention to Kate. She did scream, the high, shrill shrieks echoing back from the snowy mountains around. Enough to start an avalanche, I gloated. Don't you ever dare to threaten me.

"I believe they understand now sweetling." Aro touched me gently on the shoulder and I stopped, looking up at him to seek his approval. He nodded at me and patted my cheek. "Thank you, little one."

Irina had rushed forward and was helping her sisters stand in the snow. All of them were taut with fear and uncertainty as they looked towards us.

"You see, it will do no good to lie," Aro said calmly. "We will have the truth of what you know from you, and the punishment for untruth….well, you've only had a little taste of it."

Tanya's eyes were wide and she spoke fast. "We swear to you that we know nothing. Truly Aro, there must be a mistake, or a miscommunication, because I cannot believe that our mother would…not that!"

Aro held out his hands to them. "Come then, lay your hands in mine and we shall forgive each other for this misunderstanding then."

The three sisters came forward. Their eyes on me were wary, and they stood as far from me as they could while Aro gathered their hands in his.

"Nothing," he said to Caius, and I couldn't tell if he was pleased or disappointed. "If Sasha has indeed done this, they know nothing."

"Onwards then." Caius scowled. I had no doubt that he would have been quite happy to have the sisters found as liars! "I would like to see this matter settled."

The three sisters stepped backwards towards their cave, only to come to a halt as Aro spoke their names. "Tanya, Kate, Irina…I'm afraid you must accompany us now. I believe it necessary that you see the truth of this matter, and witness justice being done."

I watched indifferently as the horror grew on their faces. "Oh my lord, please no."

"Oh yes," Aro said sweetly. "She is your creator. Your mother, you call her…you will come with us and see what she has done, and see how the Volturi deal out justice to those who break the rules."

There was nothing they could do of course. Surrounded by massive Volturi guards, with me running silently alongside them, they had no choice but to accompany us as we followed Willamar's tracking.

It was early evening when we found the first village. It was a tiny little hamlet on a snowy slope, but it was eerily quiet as we tramped through it, our tracks the only ones marring the perfection of the snow.

"What do you think happened?" I murmured to Alec. "I can smell the bodies." Despite the freezing snow, the odour of dead humans was unmistakable in the apparently deserted village.

Alec shrugged, but then I saw his nostrils flaring. "There's still someone here."

He wasn't the only one to have scented it, the sweet smell of a living human. Soon everyone was moving in a closely packed bunch towards the tumbledown dwelling that the scent was drifting from, the aroma quickly joined by the sound of a weak, slow heartbeat. No one had been hunting while we were running, and many of us were thirsty.

The entrance was narrow and most of the vampires were forced to crowd around outside the dwelling, only being able to listen to what was said inside. But I was small and determined enough that I could squirm my way to the front, under people's elbows and ducking through gaps, until I was pressed up against Aro's side and staring into the dark space, looking to see who was responsible for the heartbeat that thudded lightly in my ears.

It was an old woman, wrapped in so many blankets and furs she could barely be seen and sitting by the ashes of a dead fire. "Who's there?" she called out querulously, turning her face with its blind white eyes towards the doorway. "I can hear you. Who are you and what do you want?"

"Why, we are just travellers wondering what has happened here," Aro said, his voice kind. "You seem to be all alone, my good lady…where are your family?

"They're gone…all of them, gone." The woman's voice was grief stricken.

"But how terrible!" Aro exclaimed. "For you to be left all alone is a dreadful shame. Who is responsible for this state of affairs?"

"It was a monster." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "He came to the village in the night. I heard them all screaming…there was crashing and the sound of things breaking, and shouting…and always the screaming…" The woman shuddered beneath her furs. "They didn't come back. When the silence fell I waited for them until I couldn't bear it, and then I crawled out into the snow. I found the bodies. I could feel the wounds in their skin…it must have all but torn them to pieces."

"How long ago was this?" Aro asked.

"Three…four days."

"Go and check those bodies," Aro murmured to Felix and Appius. "Ensure they are all dead, and check for any evidence that any of them may have been transformed. I will not have an untaught newborn rampaging about the land alongside an immortal child!"

Felix and Appius shouldered their way through the crowd, and Aro turned his attention back to the crone. "Did you hear anything from this monster? Is there anything you can tell us that might help us identify this demon?"

The woman hesitated for a long time. "There was laughter," she said at last. "I couldn't hear well over the screams, but I heard laughter. I know it makes no sense, and it cannot be…but it sounded like a child."

"Thank you my dear, you've been most helpful," Aro said brightly, turning away from her. Everyone stepped back to make way for him as he strode through the crowd. At the edge of it he turned back to me with a brilliant smile. "It would be cruel to leave the old woman here to slowly starve or freeze to death alone…sweetling, you may do what you will."

I grabbed Alec's hand and the two of us ignored the low rumble of discontent from the other vampires behind us as we slipped into the tiny dwelling.

Lightly I pushed the furs away from her face, tipping her head back to mine. Her milky, sightless eyes gazed just past me and her face contorted with fright as she felt the unnatural strength and iciness of my hands, and smelled my breath. Aro had told me that vampires smell delicious to humans, but I saw the way she registered that I could not be human and I doubted that I smelled all that nice to her in her fear.

"What?" she cried. "Who…"

Perfectly synchronised, Alec and I bit on opposite sides of her neck, and she was able to say no more.

Alec carried the body out of the hut when we were done, looking for the other bodies in order to dispose of it. We found them stacked together, the pile peculiarly neat, and the other vampires milling around it and talking amongst themselves.

A little warily, Alec added the old woman's body to the pile, looking puzzled. "They've all been bitten," he told me, when he was back at my side. "But I don't know if that's what killed them…there are lots of broken bones and some have pieces missing. But to be bitten and not killed means they could have been turned! It's all just so careless, and yet someone has taken the trouble to pile the bodies together."

"Let's see what they're saying," I suggested, nodding at Aro and Caius who were conferring on little distance away. Alec nodded, and the two of us sidled closer.

Caius was more furious than I had ever seen him, so enraged that he seemed beyond words. Aro was shaking his head and making dramatic hand gestures as he exclaimed, "It's all so disgracefully careless! To create an immortal child and then allow them to do this! Almost any of these wretched humans could have been turned from one of those bites and where would be then?"

"They must be found," Caius said through gritted teeth. "They must be found and destroyed."

"Of course, of course," Aro sighed. He looked over at Alec and I. "You took care of the old woman? Thank you, dear ones. And you have looked around? You can clearly see why it is that we cannot allow this kind of creature to exist?"

"Does it not kill to feed?" Alec asked. "Some of those people looked liked they had barely been sipped from."

"They kill recklessly, indiscriminately," Aro answered. "They are, above everything, children and they are incapable of self discipline. They see a human and they want it so they take it, until the next human catches their eye and then they abandon one for the other. They play with the humans, but they break them and then rage because their toy is broken. They can destroy towns in tantrums and it is near impossible to pacify them."

"Why would anyone do it then? Why would you create something like that?!" I was revolted. A squalling brat demanding everything and throwing tantrums when they were thwarted? What on earth was the appeal?

Aro smiled at me fondly. "It seems madness, and it is. But these immortal children…they induce that madness. They are beautiful and beguiling and they arouse such love and devotion in their creators that they will do anything to protect them. Whole covens have been slaughtered because they would not, could not, give up the infant." His brows lowered. "So be careful my little ones…keep in mind always what it is that we are dealing here. Do not allow yourself to be seduced by their pleas and explanations. An immortal child is an abomination, and we cannot allow it to live."