Recruitment
Jane entered downtown Vienna three nights after Alec's death. She had fed twice during the journey, more out of frustration than out of hunger. Chelsea had manipulated her. She had bound Jane, enslaved her, refused to let her be her own person. The repulsiveness of it made Jane sick. She wished Aro were still alive, just so she could kill him herself.
She arrived in the neighborhood of Alsergrund, stopped at a strange smell. The odor confused, repelled, fascinated. Jane abandoned her quest for the Volturi hideout and began tracking, the scent striking an incomprehensible dread into her heart even as it drew her helplessly into a small park cluttered with metal tables.
A couple sat at one of these tables despite the late hour, a chess game between them. The man looked up as Jane approached and beckoned her in American English: "Ah, Jane," he said. "It's about time you got here. Join us." He returned to studying his chess pieces.
This greeting alarmed Jane, but not as much as the woman whose smell had drawn her here. The woman wasn't human! She couldn't be. Yet Jane could hear the woman's heart beating. Curiosity compelled Jane to walk up to the table, though she refrained from sitting in the extra chair that seemed to have been reserved for her.
"Should we visit Beethoven's house or Freud's office, Lucy?" the man asked his opponent as he moved one of his knights.
"Seeing as it's three o'clock in the morning," the woman replied, countering with a bishop, "I reckon we won't be visiting either, Owen."
"You still don't understand what I'm doing, do you?" Owen asked.
"No," Lucy confessed, frowning at the board.
"My plan," Owen said, "is that I don't have a plan. I cram five capital pieces into a section of your line and figure it from there. So there's no use guessing what I'm going to do. I don't know myself."
"Then you will lose," Jane commented, unable to resist.
"You'd think," Lucy said, refusing to look up. "Yet he always wins."
"Always?" Jane asked.
Now the non-human named Lucy did turn and stare at Jane. "Always," she said.
Jane found herself completely nonplussed by Lucy's gaze. It made her feel like a little child, caught by her mother in the midst of some horrible transgression. It wasn't the discrepancy in their apparent ages - Jane looked thirteen, while Lucy seemed to be at least forty. It was this bizarre sense that Lucy knew her, weighed her, rejected her. And for some unfathomable reason, this rejection mattered. Oh, how it mattered!
Owen pulled a phone from his pocket and tapped the screen. "Five survivors from the Volturi guard have gathered in your safe house," he informed Jane.
A flash of light lit up the sky above the rooftops to the north, followed two seconds later by the thunderous sound of high explosives. Jane stared in horror at the cruel, confident smile on Owen's face. Her own expression hardened. "Pain," she pronounced.
Owen collapsed on the ground, writhing and screaming. Jane walked around him slowly, keeping her attention fixed on Lucy. The woman stayed in her seat, hands folded in her lap, seemingly unconcerned.
Jane halted the torture. Owen took almost a minute to catch his breath. Then he rolled onto his hands and knees, spit out a mouthful of blood, crawled to his chair, and resumed his place. "Still my move," he said.
Jane began wondering if she had lost her mind. How could the pain not affect this impudent human? Except it had affected him. The man had torn apart the night with his cries; likely only the sirens now sounding throughout the city had prevented Owen's agony from drawing attention. But with the pain over it was like he...didn't care. No shock. No fear that Jane would do it again. If anything, the incomprehensible man merely looked weary, an old soul marching through some obligatory routine. He moved his queen. "Check," he said.
"Who are you?" Jane finally asked.
"I'm the man who just saved your life," Owen noted. "I burn the Volturi to nothingness in that stupid Italian catacomb. What do your survivors do? Hole up in another underground space. Biggest group of idiot vampires I've ever seen. Darwin awards for everybody."
Fresh fury surged though Jane. How dare this human speak to her with such disrespect! Didn't he realize how easily Jane could kill them both? Except he did know. Somehow, someway, he seemed to know all the secrets Aro had tried so hard to hide. Owen knew he was defenseless, helpless, hopeless. He knew. And he didn't care. The absence of fear, of concern, left Jane completely flummoxed. She pulled up her chair and sat down.
"Edward Cullen entered the Volturi fortress last year," Owen observed. "While there he read Aro's mind. He did the same again during your recent confrontation in Washington. The information Edward acquired during those encounters led directly to the Volturi's destruction. Aro should have seen it coming, but he didn't. He was a fool."
"Aro ruled the world for fifteen hundred years," Jane objected.
"And look where it got him." Owen leaned toward Jane, invading her space. Jane couldn't help herself: she cast a nervous glance to her right, wondering what Lucy thought. The woman remained unmoved.
"Tell me," Owen challenged, "when Aro heard that the Cullens had created an immortal child, did it occur to his supposedly brilliant mind to just send Carlisle a text and ask what was going on? And once he committed to battle, did Aro think to scope the enemy forces with a UAV? How about bringing a hypersonic cruise missile to the fight? A grenade launcher with white phosphorous rounds? A tactical nuke?"
Jane wanted to object, but what could she say? Apparently Owen had succeeded where myriad vampires had failed: he had killed Aro. He had also killed Alec. That's what Jane needed to focus on. Owen needed to pay for that. Except what was any human, really? What was this human? Just some pawn used by the Cullens, even if he didn't realize it.
"Edward helped you kill Aro," Jane said, trying to redirect the conversation. "Now Aro is dead. Edward can be eliminated."
"I intend to kill all the Cullens," Owen announced, "but Bella especially. She chose to become a vampire. That makes her a traitor. I want her head on a platter."
"So do what you did to Volterra."
"A reasonable suggestion," Owen replied. He pulled out a laptop and opened it to reveal a satellite image of a house surrounded by trees. "The Cullen residence," he said. "Currently deserted. When they heard about the Volturi they scattered. Still, they're not hard to locate. GPS trackers in their cars and cell phones. Distinctive thermal signatures when they move in the open. But the fact that I can follow them doesn't matter, and you know why."
"Alice," Jane said.
"Alice," Owen agreed. "From what I've been told, if I actually decide to make a move on the Cullens, Alice will see it and they will compensate. Worse yet, they might go to ground and disappear for real."
"Her gift has limits," Jane explained. "That's what Aro said, anyway. She can only see so much. And her visions have gaps. She can see humans and vampires, but she can't see werewolves. She can't see Renesmee."
"Is that right?" Owen pondered, glancing at Lucy. "I wonder if she can see you."
Jane's eyes went wide. "You're a shadow-feeder?" she demanded, incredulous. "You can't be. You don't exist anymore."
"If only we could know for certain," Lucy said, ignoring Jane. "If Alice can't see my decisions, that might make for a short fight."
"Perhaps," Owen granted. "But the details of her gift are unclear. She's certainly managed to save her coven on more than one occasion, and in the face of imposing odds, too. We must proceed with caution, even if I do put you in charge." He turned back to Jane. "I don't know who you have the biggest grudge against. Bella, perhaps. It doesn't matter. Right now Alice has to be our primary target."
"Excuse me?" Jane asked, incredulous. "You think I'm going to help you? You killed Alec!"
"That's right. And one day I'll kill you. But Cullens first. The traitor, especially."
Owen's reckless confidence stunned Jane. Was the man crazy? Did he have a death wish? Was that why the pain had failed to instill fear, or even respect? Maybe he was trying to get Jane to bite his head off. Either way, the idea of working with a human offended her elitist sensibilities. "I have served the mightiest vampire on earth for over a thousand..."
"Yes, yes," Owen interrupted. "Aro the great. Aro the invincible. Let me ask you something, Jane. Vamps are so powerful. We humans are so weak. Why is it, then, that for thirty years every time I go up against a vampire, it's the vamp that always ends up dead? Well," he paused, reaching out and caressing Lucy's hand, "all except one. Yes," he continued, standing up, "compared to you I am a weak, piddly nothing. So why do I win? Why do I always win? I'll tell you my secret, Jane: I win because I'm weak."
"That's absurd," Jane protested.
Owen smiled. "What have you ever had to work for, Jane? You were born with a latent mental ability. Aro's bite turned you into a vampire. So now you have these amazing powers. Whoop-De-Do. Like I'm supposed to be impressed? What's so special about powers you didn't have to work for? What you have you have as a result of outside forces. You didn't make yourself this way, so it doesn't count. I, on the other hand, have to work at everything. That's what makes me better than you."
Jane would not allow this. "I endured the venom," she said.
"Three days pain is not a high enough cost. You got something for nothing, Jane, and the universe won't permit it. Entropy's a b-. You've got to pay up, same as the rest of us."
"I'm stronger than you," she maintained.
"So's a bear. So's a tractor. So's a hellfire missile. Who cares? None of these things chose to be strong. None of these things made itself strong. You're like a three-year-old with a gun, Jane. You have this incredible power put into your hand, but you don't understand it. Maybe you can slaughter everyone. That doesn't change the fact you're surrounded by people smarter than you.
"Why do you think humans still run this planet?" he continued. "Your species is lazy. Lazy between the ears. How could you not know that in the modern world, lurking in a dungeon is asking to die? I mean, seriously Jane? Any twelve-year-old with a smart phone could have told you as much. But even after Volterra, you still don't know what a bunker-buster JDAM is, do you? Do you? Pathetic."
"If you want me to help you," Jane asked, "why do you speak to me like this?"
"Because I want you to join me voluntarily," Owen said. "Not through lies, or fear, or manipulation. Not even so that you can get revenge. I want you to join me because I can give you something you've never had: a genuine sense of identity."
Jane tried to object to this, but Owen didn't give her a chance.
"Yes, I know," Owen said. "You've led the Volturi guard for a thousand years. But you didn't choose that. It was chosen for you. Now you have to make a decision, the first real decision of your life: what are you going to live for? And you can't wait until Bella is dead to ask. There's more to life than vengeance. There's more to life than pleasure and survival, or the three of us might as well just die right here and now. I will help you discover your purpose, your telos, your end - the reason you exist."
"I want to make the Cullens suffer," Jane said. "That's all I care about."
"Then you're of no use to me," Owen replied. "I don't want angry helpers. I want interesting helpers. There's nothing interesting about anger. Is there more to you than rage and pain? Or at the very least, are you capable of more than that?
"And let's get something perfectly clear: I don't need you. I spared you because I want to know if stone vampires can change. Show me a genuine alteration in what drives you. Become something more than an animal. Get to the point where vengeance is no longer what you want most - and then I will give it to you."
Jane's heart burned with the improbability of it all. Could a human possibly do something good for her? Why would a human even care? Yet Aro had never spoken to her like this, had never expressed the least interest in her inner life. She had been a useful tool, nothing more. Surely that was how this man thought of her as well. But he was honest about it! Did that mean something? Anything? Everything? How embarrassing it was not to know.
"What do you want?" she finally asked.
"I want to train you," Owen said. "Let me remake you, and you will become smart - smarter than you ever dreamed possible. You will own your greatest weakness and learn how to make it a strength. You will comprehend your enemy's greatest strength and turn it into the very weakness that destroys her. You will become the mightiest vampire the world has ever seen. And in the midst of it all, somehow, someway, you will figure out why you exist.
"And I promise you this, Jane: only when you've discovered your purpose, only when you've internalized in your precious, undead bones why you're here - I promise it's only then that will I kill you."