Chapter 31

The ride back to Dank Town, formerly known as Forks, seemed much shorter than the drive down to Aberdeen. For most of the ride I was content to stare out the window and play with Alice's unoccupied hand; tracing patterns on the back of her hand with my thumb. The pangs of anxiety continued to burst through me at irregular intervals. The closer to the house we got, the more frequently the anxiety hit me.

I did all I could to hide the symptoms, but knowing Alice would be able to hear my heartbeat from a mile away, and my breathing from a mile and a half wasn't terribly reassuring. I've had this feeling a grand total of twice in my life: the first when I was coming home from vacation and I knew that my dog died, and the second when I knew what Choice Katherine was going to make. Neither one turned out well for me, this wasn't going to turn out well either.

"Something's wrong." I mumbled to myself, so quiet even I didn't think Alice would hear me.

"Relax," she smiled at me, "If something was wrong, wouldn't I know it?" Alice moved her hand to my knee in an attempt to reassure me.

It didn't work.

"Maybe you're right; I just have a bad feeling." I said, unconsciously rubbing my hands together.

The car continued to roll along the dark road in near silence, the engine purred, the darkness streaked by, and my anxiety grew. Unconsciously my leg began bouncing up and down with each passing second, sweat began welling up in my hands, and my heart started beating its rhythmic cadence even faster.

I squeezed my eyes shut, desperately using every technique that I'd been taught to control my nerves. Nothing helped, not deep breathing, not creative visualization, nothing. Reluctantly I opened my eyes, and was greeted by a slightly disturbing sight. The blackness surrounding the moving car was now topped with an eerie red glow to the tops of the trees.

"You're still going to try and tell me that nothing is wrong." I said hurriedly to Alice pointing to the light topping the trees.

"I would know if something was wrong. Wouldn't I?" My seer replied with a new formed look of worry.

"Not if someone threw up a veil or a glamour. Then you would see something and not even realize something was wrong." A plethora of terrible thoughts were cascading through my mind.

If it's even possible for a vampire to become pale, Alice did it. The normally bubbly exterior was shattered with a severe look of worry. "At least no one's there," she breathed in relief.

"What do you mean, where is everyone?" I asked, suddenly wishing I had some of my magical stuff with me.

"When you were…asleep everyone left to go to Alaska. They thought it would be safe there." She explained never taking her eyes off the brightening ring of orange, "I didn't like what I saw if we went with them, so I stayed with you."

"Thanks," I said purely out of habit, "you didn't happen to pack any of my magical do-dads in the car did you?" I would feel better if I had some way of protecting the two of us.

"I only have this," She said pulling a black plastic case from under her seat. I recognized it immediately I hadn't seen the case or what was inside it since Victoria tried to attack.

I popped the two red latches, opening the black lid; staring at me from the padded case was my reliable Desert Eagle. I quickly checked the magazine, empty. Pulling up the bottom of the padding, seven large metallic rounds rolled to the fore front. I managed to load the magazine with my shaking hands, before ramming the magazine home and pressing the slide release. A satisfying metallic clink echoed through the car. I've proven that the pistol does little against Alice's brand of vampire, but it does do a hell of a lot of damage to most creatures. Without thinking I slid the hand cannon into the breast pocket of my coat.

Murphy's Law exists for a reason, if something can go wrong it always will. It seems that it follows me around like the plague. We rounded the final bend, and instead of the perfectly manicured front lawn we were greeted by a flaming hulk of a house.

The three story complex was ablaze in a myriad of reds, oranges, and yellows. The once prominent plate glass windows were shattered, or beginning to melt under the intense heat of the fire. The manicured lawn and greenery were beginning to turn brow.

"I…I…I should have this. I should have seen this coming!" Alice stuttered, cutting the engine; she buried her face in my shirt, heaving dry sobs for the umpteenth time since I met her.

Her reaction was a testament to her total speed. My brain barely had time to comprehend what I was seeing. The house was on fire and all of my magical equipment was inside, getting the eternal kiss of death: my staff, gone, my blasting rod, gone, my shield bracelet, my speed charm, my sword, my cloak, gone, gone, gone, and gone. At least my books were safe in the lighthouse protected by some serious wards; I hope.

Isn't it funny what you worry about when your life is literally changing in front of your eyes? What or who started the fire didn't cross my mind at all. I was focused solely on what I was losing in the fire, and what Alice had already lost.

Alice was frozen into my arms, still sobbing when I undid my seatbelt and lifted her from the car. I stared as the flames while I ran my fingers through her hair. "I've made fire hundreds of times," I whispered gently, "And it's never looked so menacing." Newly formed tears started to trickle down my cheeks, landing in three week old stubble. I wasn't sure who I was trying to comfort now: Alice or myself. My knees gave out from under me, knocking us both to the rain soaked grass below.

Twisting shadows menacingly danced around us, cast off from flames. I closed my eyes again, hiding from the flames in Alice's head. My nostrils burnt with the heat and the sulfur.

Sulfur. The smell of sulfur could mean only one thing – Hellfire. The fires of destruction that literally come from Hell itself; most people who use them are the worst kind of magic users on the face of the planet, or worse.

The smell suddenly brought back a torrent of unpleasant memories. More burned flesh, sick and mangled corpses with their faces melted off, a hand red and raw with fingers that didn't have any skin on them. I instinctively clutched Alice tighter wishing the memories away, hoping that her closeness would protect me from the torture of my mind.

I don't think I will ever know how long we sat on the grass watching the house burn; it could have been just two minutes, but it could have easily have been close to two hours. What I do know is that Alice continued to jerk in heavy sobs, and I know at some point in time I willed my eyes open – watching the horror with my own eyes.

The indefinite moments ticked by in a slow methodical fashion; the flames leapt higher, trying to enlist the trees in their private holocaust. Shadows continued to dance menacingly as I stared at the flames, never wavering at all.

Then in a bizarre way things started to happen all at once. A more pronounced shadow began to emerge from the burning house that had begun to weaken and collapse; at the exact same time Alice's head snapped up and twisted to meet the shadow.

Not a second later she broke free from my arms, standing to face the shadow. The shadow-man slowly began to lumber towards the two of us, as I managed to get enough control of myself to get my legs firmly beneath me. My hand immediately went to the butt of my cannon.

The shadow continued to lurch forward in slow, lumbering strides.

"Jazz," Alice said just above a whisper, "Jazz, you're alive!" She bolted towards the shadow without a second's hesitation.

Everything suddenly moved in a kind of slow motion that never foreshadow pleasant events, the kind of slow motion that most people associate with bad news. The adrenaline kicked my mind into overdrive, unfortunately my body wouldn't respond in kind. The shadow looked exactly like Jasper, from what I remember of him, except his hair wasn't matted and his eyes didn't have a hauntingly red tinge to them.

Out of instinct I opened my Sight; immediately I was able to see through the glamour surrounding Shadow-Jasper. Two grey eyes and a pallid face. The alley, the vampire, the venom, my wrist; it all poured into my mind.

I reached out, grabbing for Alice's shirt; she was way too fast and I missed it by a mile. "Alice It's not him! It's not Jasper." I cried out…too late.

I watched helplessly as the warlock moved in slow motion; catching Alice by the wrist he clutched her to his chest, like a human shield. In another slow flash my silver rapier was pushed against her throat. I watched, frozen by the horror before me; I numbly reached for the butt of the eagle, distantly I felt the cold metal in the palm of my hand.

"You didn't think I wouldn't come back to finish the job, did you?" Shadow asked, pressing the rapier harder against Alice's throat. "But I think mercy is for the weak, so before I kill you…you're going to watch your little undead whore die."

"No!" I shouted, becoming acutely aware of my surroundings. "Enough people have died because of you." Carefully I leveled the gun at his head, taking careful aim. One shot is all I would need.

"You don't have the fucking guts to pull that trigger, not when you know that the bitch here would die when I fell." He mocked me, moving the blade in a methodical cut. A thin red line appeared on her neck, slowly oozing thick red blood.

I shouted angrily, spasmodically pulling the trigger. The shot went wide missing Shadow, by a foot. He just laughed, pulling the blade away from her neck, sliding it down to her belly. Cutting through her clothing and leaving a giant red trail of blood down her chest.

"Was that supposed to scare me?" He barked out a laugh. Alice, for all her super human strength struggled uselessly against his grasp.

"If you had the guts to kill her, you would have done it already." I challenged back, faking confidence and machismo.

"Oh, I guess you're right." He said with fake surprise. Never taking his eyes off me he deftly slid the blade across her stomach. Blood poured from it immediately, and with it came her intestines.

That fucker, no one can gut my girlfriend and dream of getting away with it. Two more shots emerged from my cannon in rapid succession. The first one slammed into a wall of invisible energy flattening on impact, the second somehow managed to shatter the barrier. The gun barked again, unleashing round number four, with almost perfect accuracy, considering the sheer size of the cannon. The round hurdled towards him at supersonic speed, grazing his shoulder, sending him off balance, and causing him to release Alice from his death grip.

She flopped listlessly to the ground below, her eyes frozen open and glassy; staring at me. Blood continued to empty out of her petite body and soak the grass.

I didn't give the fucker a chance to recover, bullet five roared out of the muzzle striking him in the other shoulder. Shadow didn't go down, he recovered faster the second time even with the bullet tearing through his shoulder instead of grazing it.

With a flick of his wrist, the gun flew from my hand and into a tree with a heavy thud, before quickly falling to the ground. I silently prayed that it wasn't broken; if it was, I'd be armed with only wild emotion and unfocused magic.

"You're dead." I said through clenched teeth. Magic welled up, swirling in torrents around me; I've never felt so much power inside me. The love, the anger, the pain, the despair, and the hatred mixed together, it was an intoxicating amount of power.

"Oh, I am, am I? I would love to see you try." His voice was cold and deliberate as he flicked his hand again, throwing a white hot bolt of fire towards me.

I threw myself out of the way; the bolt singed the bottom of my heavy wool coat as it disappeared into the forest behind me.

I stood up as fast as I could, which compared to everyone around me was painfully slow; my legs were slowly turning into jelly beneath me. Three weeks without solid food will do that to a person.

"I thought you were going to kill me?" Shadow chided.

This bastard was seriously getting on my nerves; I was supposed to be the sarcastic smartass! I started to ignore the unsteadiness in my legs as I tried to focus the raw potential around me. Electricity arced between my fingers when I leveled my hand against him.

"Levitas pentas!" I shouted pouring all the magic I could into the evocation. Five bright blue bolts of lightning leapt from the tips of my fingers hurling themselves at Shadow at the speed of light. The first two sailed harmlessly past him, striking somewhere in the burning hulk of the house. The other three were spot on; one struck him in the chest, the two others struck him in either arm. He collapsed to the ground convulsing, twitching, but not dead.

I called up more magic to strike a kill shot, but I couldn't, I'd completely exhausted myself before I could kill him. Son of a whore. As much pain as he was in now; it would mean nothing in about ten seconds when his central nervous system started working again.

So I did what anyone would do in my position, I ran up and kicked him in the face. Twice; as hard as I could. When the twitching stopped Shadow didn't try to get up.

I haven't had a chance to think about this before, but fights just aren't that epic in real life. If this was a movie Shadow and I would be slinging spells at each other for an hour, before we ended up both firing a spell that would intercept one another and we would have to push and push and push until one of us finally gives out and then the other wins. Then there is some heavy breathing and some triumph.

Back in the real world, I bent down and wrenched my sword from his fucking hand and put it straight through his god forsaken heart. I could feel his heartbeat tremble, once, twice and then it died, his hitched into one final wheeze. I never killed a human before, it was so much different then killing vampires, or faeries, but you actually feel the life leaving the body.

In my estimation he didn't deserve a relatively painless death; he should have been flayed open and skinned alive, for what he did to Katherine, for what he did to Jasper, for what he did to me, and for what he did to…

Alice.

My Alice.

Oh god, Alice. I dropped the sword and ran to her, she was lying where she fell, cut from end to end; her cold blood still oozing out taking her intestines with them. Tears started pouring from my eyes as I cradled her frozen head. Her golden eyes had glassed over, as they stared into the grey sky. There were still shallow breaths coming from somewhere inside her, "A…Aaron…" she never finished that sentence.

"Alice, I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry. What did I do, I should have been there to protect you in the end, you deserved so much better than this." I sobbed into her silky hair, holding her as close to me as I could. "But I kept my promise, both of them. I know why Jasper died; he died for you. He died protecting you. He wanted to make sure you were safe, no matter what; no matter if he died to protect you, he didn't care if he died, as long as you were safe. He was scared of the Dhampir, he wanted to make sure you lived as long as you could."

"And I'm alright, just like I promised." Too bad it didn't mean anything without her to be there with me. "You know, it's funny." I barked out a short laugh that instantly mixed with a harsh sob, "The last time I dreamed of Katherine I told her…I told her I wished I could find a way you two could meet. I think that you will really like her – thought you would really like her. I just didn't know that it would happen so soon." I couldn't keep talking; I couldn't keep thinking.

I let go of Alice's cold head, placing it gently on the ground. "I love you, and I will always love you." I kissed her lightly on the lips – one last time. I managed to close her eyes and cross her arms across her chest. She still deserves some dignity in death. She also deserves as much beauty as possible; I slowly closed my hands and with a whisper of will conjured another white rose.

After gently tucking it behind her ear, I stood up in a haze and a stupor. Everything in my body felt like numb, like I wasn't able to control anything; my hands, my feet, hell I couldn't control my head. My feet slowly dragged themselves to a glinting piece of steel hiding under one of the trees.

My hand unconsciously reached for the butt of the moss covered gun. So Alice's vision will come to pass after all. The only thing that would change was my wardrobe. Replace my cloak for a wool coat and it would be the same.

It's amazing how dethatched I was from what I was about to do. My knees gave out from under me forcing me harshly to the ground; a trembling hand slowly raised the dented pistol, there was a good chance this would be the last bullet my gun ever fired.

That was all I would need. One little tiny squeeze and I would be with Alice again, and maybe Katherine. Something had to happen to her soul, why not go where all souls go. My hand pressed the cold steel against my temple.

"Don't!"

I stopped immediately looking around trying to find the voice, but there was nothing around me except two very dead bodies, a burning mansion, and an empty forest; but nothing that can talk.

Wearily I raised the muzzle back to my temple, hesitating, taking a few last ragged breaths.

Before I could pull the trigger I heard a voice echoing in my mind "If you love me, do not do this." It was Alice; her sweet melodic voice filled me. I still couldn't drop the gun; the cold steel was a far cry from her cold and comforting hands. "We will meet again; but not if you do this."

"What?" I asked despairingly to the empty space around me.

There was no response, just silence. As miraculous as the voice had been, it was gone now, and I don't think it will ever come back.

I was suddenly wracked with terrible, heaving sobs. Four simple words had reduced me to a writhing pile of flesh and bone.

We will meet again.

My mind replayed them over, and over, and over, and over again; each time Alice's voice was crystal clear. Compounded, all of this was too much for my recovering mind to take; I passed out on the cold ground.

Finally letting the pistol fall loose from my fingers.

I woke up and it was dark, there were no stars, no moon, no fire; I was wrapped in a blanket of darkness. Every fiber of my being ached when I tried to stand.

I vaguely remembered that there should be a car somewhere behind me. Numbly I staggered in the darkness, trying to find the car in the inky blackness. My legs took me there instantly, the sleek yellow managed to shimmer in the darkness, like its former owner. An invisible knife plunged into my heart again at the thought of my love.

Somehow, I made it to the driver's door and slid in. It smelled so much like here; I would have to get rid of it immediately. Old wounds opened up immediately, joined by even worse fresh ones.

I had to leave, I had to get out of there, and I had to run. I had to run; because that's what I did when things got hard. Things go bad at home, and I run to Phoenix; when shit got too hard there, I ran to California; and from there Forks. Where would I run now?

It doesn't matter, it never mattered. In the end I was too cowardly to stick it out and fight; I chose the easy way out. Courage, bravery, valor: those things are not shooting a gun or using a sword. They're wading through the shit that comes after the battle. That's something I'm incapable of doing.

I turned the key in the ignition; the Porsche started right up, with it the radio; the one thing that wasn't either replaced or not taken out to wizard proof the car. Though I never remember it being turned on.

"The world is full of happiness that I will never know!" The radio blared before I shut if off…strange thing is that one line perfectly described the past five years of my life…And probably the rest of it.

I drove well into the pre-dawn twilight, and when the car finally ran empty, I left it on the side of the road and set out on foot. When the sun finally rose I tore a hole into the Nevernever and kept walking.

A/N: This is the end of Blurred Lines, well it could be, I did write an Epilogue for it and I'm willing to publish it if you, my readers, want it. There is a poll up on my profile page. Go vote...please.