Chapter 23 – The Immortal Child

Tanya, Kate and Irina had been made to accompany us through the grisly remains of the tiny settlement. Caius wanted them to see what their mother had done, to accept that she had behave criminally and that the Volturi was serving justice. I looked at them as they stood huddled together by the pile of bodies, their faces stricken as they faced the possibility that what Sasha had been accused of was true. The massacre had all the hallmarks of that of an immortal child, and the neat pile of corpses spoke to a creator making at least an effort to tidy up. The three girls clung to each other but said nothing as the evidence against their mother solidified.

Mother.

I thought about the way they called her that. Why did they use that term? Sasha had created them and given them their vampire lives, but Aro had done the same for me and I did not call him Father. He was my creator and my lord and I was devoted to him, but still I didn't call him father. Why was it different for them?

"Do you remember our mother?" I asked Alec uncertainly. "From…before?"

Alec frowned reflectively. "I think she had fair hair, like yours. I remember a song, and a ritual by a pool…it must have been something like the grotto, because that was where I was when I remembered it."

I shrugged. None of Alec's recollections aroused any answering memories in my mind.

"Sometimes I miss the sun," he said unexpectedly. "The way it used to feel to lie in the sun on a summer day, with the bees buzzing. It's the thing I remember most clearly, and the only thing I miss." There was a faraway look in his clear red eyes. "Funny, isn't it…it's like I can control the darkness now, and yet what I really miss is the light."

"I don't miss anything," I said flatly. "This is much better." Suddenly bored with the seriousness of the situation and our conversation I grabbed Alec by the front of his robes and hurled him headfirst into a snowdrift twenty feet away.

"This…is…much…BETTER!" I shouted, laughing as I dove into the snow after him, and the two of us wrestled as we hadn't done since the beginning, ignoring everyone around us as we fought and laughed together.

Our game was cut short when Caius demanded order. Willamar had found a trail, and immediately everyone converged and began to follow him. I ran beside Alec, and the wind from our speed soon dried my snow-dampened clothes.

We smelled the blood and heard the noise long before the little village came in sight. Screams of terror and pain rang out across the snow, accompanied by the exultant shrieks and high-pitched laughter of a child.

"The trail splits," Willamar said, drawing to a stop at the edge of the village. "The child is that way, and the creator there."

"I shall go with Willamar to capture the creator," Caius declared. He looked at the big and brawny Volturi guards. "Appius, Flavius, Adelmar…you accompany me. Alec, you too. The creators of these immortal children will fight without any restraint when it comes to protecting them, and your ability to cut that short may come in useful."

"I shall seek out the child," Aro said. Unlike Caius' icy, barely contained fury, Aro seemed to be looking at the situation as a grand adventure. "Heaven knows it's going to be easy to find it…my, what a noise that child is making!" His eyes swept the group of Volturi before he landed on me. "Sweetling, I think you may be of use to me if the child proves difficult. And Felix my friend, I would be delighted if you would accompany us."

Felix and I moved to Aro's side. Alec winked at me and went with Caius, and the other vampires separated into the two groups and we went off in our different directions.

We didn't run now. We walked, Aro humming a little tune, as we followed the noise of crashing and laughing. We passed several bodies sprawled out on the ground, some still alive and calling weakly for help.

"My lord, would you have us take care of those?" Branka asked, indicating the bodies.

"Yes, we must," Aro sighed. "We shall have to build a fire and burn them so that there can be no accidental transformation. If you could be so kind as to attend to that, I would be most grateful."

Most of the vampires spread out through the village, finding bitten and mangled bodies and carrying them to centre of the village, where others were piling up wood to build a fire. Aro resumed humming, and then a smile spread across his face as the child came into view. "Well, well, well…just look at that."

I was already staring. The child was only just past infancy, perhaps three years old, and he was the most entrancingly beautiful creature I had ever seen. He had bright red eyes and a cloud of blonde curls, and his perfect pale face had round cheeks and blood red lips drawn back in a smile as he looked over at me. His stood sturdily on chubby little legs beside a pile of bodies, and as I watched him he picked one up and sent it sailing through the air into a dwelling, causing it to crash down into a pile of splintering wood.

The little boy laughed and clapped his hands. "Smash!" he told me joyously. He reached for another body.

Aro chuckled as I stepped closer to the child and said sternly, "You shouldn't be doing that."

He looked up at me with an uncertain frown. "No smashing?"

"No."

The child looked undecided, as though he was not sure whether to start screaming or not. But then he saw the silver bird clasp on my cloak, and stretched towards it.

"He seems to like you, Jane," Aro said genially. "Such a pity that these things are so intractable, because they really are quite delightful."

Drawn to the child despite myself, I knelt down and let him approach. With an engaging smile he reached out and touched the silver clasp of my cloak, saying to me in his babyish, lisping tones. "Pretty birds. I want them."

"You can't have them," I said indignantly. "They're mine."

The child scowled and yanked on the clasp, tearing it out of the fabric. "MINE!"

"Stop!" I was just about ready to show that child what happened to people who made me angry, but Aro's hand on my shoulder stopped me.

"No need to fret over it. Let the baby have it…you don't need it."

His prize now safely gripped in his plump hands, the child gave me a sunny smile. "I'm hungry," he said, dragging a body over and raising it to his mouth. The human he had in his grip was still alive, but clearly had several badly broken bones, and it didn't live long once the little boy began feeding on it.

"It's all gone," he said sadly, shaking the human hard enough that more bones cracked. His face was smeared with blood. "All broken." He tossed it aside.

From somewhere else in the village I began to smell the distinctive smell of burning flesh as the bodies were burned. The little boy smelled it too, raising his head and breathing in. "Mama?" he said uncertainly. "Where is Mama?"

"I'm sure Caius has found your mother," Aro said with a beatific smile. "Shall we go and see?"

The boy nodded and then raised his arms up. I scowled at him as Aro's laugh pealed out.

"The dear little one has taken quite the fancy to you sweetling! Perhaps you could indulge him and carry him over to Caius so that we might find a resolution for this unhappy situation."

Half wanting to object, I lifted the child and settled him on my hip, wrinkling my nose as he smeared the blood from his face onto my shoulder. "Mama," he demanded. "I want my Mama."

I carried his slight weight as we made our way to the centre of the little village. Around us were scenes of destruction, smashed houses and the bodies of the dead and dying scattered randomly. Beneath the noise of them I could hear heartbeats racing with fear, and I knew that there were other humans cowering in the dwellings, no doubt praying for rescue from the horrors that this child had wrought here.

As if there could be any rescue. As if anything could save them from the end to which the immortal child had condemned them.

The fire was in the open patch of earth before a slightly larger hovel than the others, and was burning fiercely bright and hot. I had to steel myself to keep my face smooth, and to move unhurriedly and without alarm past it. The child in my arms hid his face in my neck as the heat of the flames reached him.

"So hot," he said plaintively. "Don't like that."

I didn't answer. I could see the three sisters on the other side of the fire, their eyes horrified as they faced the scene in front of them. When they noticed me, and saw the child in my arms, they seemed to sag a little as they realised the irrefutable truth – there was an immortal child and their mother had created it.

Their mother was nearby, already caught and dragged to the fire to await sentence. She was as fair and beautiful as her daughters, although caught between the height and strength of Appius and Adelmar she seemed tiny and almost fragile. Her lip trembled as she saw her child in my arms, and I saw her mouth his name. Vasilii.

"They caught her," Felix muttered at my back. "Appius and Adelmar will get to tear her apart, which I suppose leaves this thing for me." He looked wryly at the child in my arms. "Hardly a challenge."

Without meaning to I found myself holding him a little tighter, as if to protect him. Felix didn't notice the tiny movement, but Aro did.

"Remember what he is, sweetling," he murmured, and there was ice in his tone. "Remember what he is…and remember what you are."

I don't know if the child sensed the danger, or if he simply caught sight of her for the first time, but at that instant he lurched in my arms and shrieked, "Mama!"

Sasha turned her head, and I instinctively recoiled from the anguish I saw in her face. This was a woman tormented, a mother who was facing the brutal truth of losing her child, and she was in agony. But her child was something that should never have been, and I straightened my spine and hardened my heart against her.

"Mama!" The child struggled briefly, but my arms held him like iron bars and I wasn't going to let him go. His wriggling ceased, and he looked at me with sorrowful eyes and said plaintively, "I want Mama."

Sasha moaned. "Oh Vasilii, sweet baby, don't fret, Mama's here, I'm here…" She turned pleading eyes towards Aro. "Please, please let me go to him!" she implored.

"Oh Mother!" It was Tanya's anguished voice. "Mother, what did you do? How could you do this?"

"How could I not?" Sasha whispered, her eyes glittering with a strength of emotion that was near madness. "Look at him…such a perfect, beautiful baby! I have always wanted a child, always felt the emptiness of not having one…then I saw him, and I could no longer resist."

For a moment she looked at her child and seemed to forget that she was being held, forget the fire burning and the death sentence hanging over her head. She looked at the child and her face was soft, and just for a moment I understood the word mother.

"So you acknowledge your wrongdoing then?" Caius snarled. "You admit that you created this immortal child, this abomination that goes against all our laws?"

"He's just a baby!" Sasha cried. "He's only a baby…"

"Indeed he is," Aro said soothingly. "Just a baby. But a baby that cannot be controlled or taught, and whose existence threatens us all."

"He can learn," Sasha whispered passionately. "I'm sure he can learn! He's so clever, and so sweet…I'll be firmer with him, I will, I swear I can make it work if you will only give him a chance!"

"There are no chances," Caius said flatly. "He should never have existed."

Sasha wailed again, completely overcome. In my arms the child was mashing the silver birds between his hands, his strength such that even the metal was no more than dough to him, and his lower lip was trembling as he watched his mama.

"You need only look around you to see what he has wrought," Caius said, his words striking Sasha like a whip that she cowered beneath. "Unnecessary deaths and destruction, humans bitten and left to transform…it goes against everything the Volturi stands for! You know our kind has a duty to remain discreet, and these children are incapable of discretion! They are incapable of moderation, of control, of self discipline…they have no place in the world and we will not allow anyone to attempt to change that!"

Sasha raised her head. "I would have cleaned up," she said hurriedly. "I know that he…that it's a little messy, but…"

"A little messy?" Caius sounded strident in his disbelief. "It's absolutely outrageous! And cleaning up…like you did in the last village?"

Sasha nodded stubbornly. "I did. I checked all the bodies and any that were at risk of transformation I burned. Vasilii is a good boy, he just needs to learn…"

"That is the issue though, is it not?" Aro enquired. Rather than accusing like Caius, Aro sounded merely interested. "That these children cannot learn. They will spend their immortal lives completely intractable and uncontrollable, with an insatiable appetite for blood and destruction. They are not capable of the restraint and discretion that is necessary for a vampire of today. That is why we have laws against their creation, and that their very existence is forbidden." Aro stroked a finger thoughtfully over the child's round cheek. "Beautiful little monsters."

Somehow Aro's soft tones were a thousand times more menacing than Caius' snarls, and I could see that Sasha was losing hope. But she held on long enough to beg, once again, for his life.

"Please…please spare him. I know that I have done wrong and I will accept any punishment, if you will only show mercy to him. Vasilii is a beautiful, sweet baby, if you get to know him you will love him too, I'm sure of it, oh please…"

"No." Aro said simply. "There can be no mercy for something that should never have existed." He looked to me, smiling his fearsome smile with his very white teeth, and there was a slight quirk of curiosity to his eyebrows as he said, "Jane?" His eyes slid to the fire.

I didn't breathe or move as the request sank in. Aro wanted the child dead, the child in my arms, he wanted me to kill it and there was a fire and…

He wants me to commit the child to the flames.

I suddenly remembered it with horrifying clarity. The choking smoke, and the flames licking at my skin, feeling the burn and smelling the scent of scorched flesh…oh no, oh no…

Aro was watching me intently. "Remember who you are, sweetling," he said, his voice low. "Remember where your loyalty lies."

I stared back at him, the stark white face and brilliant red eyes, the long dark hair swept back from his face. My lord, who had taken me in and raised me up from what I had been, who had given me the beauty and strength and immortality of the vampire. My lord, who had given me access to all the wealth and culture of Volterra. My lord, who valued my talents, who had made me his favourite and given me everything…he wanted just this one thing from me. This one little thing, to get rid of this child that should never have been created. Just one little movement and he'd be in the flames and it would be done, and I would have proved myself to Lord Aro, proved that I was really one of them and that he could trust me with anything…

I threw the child into the flames.