How to Train Your Other Vampire
Alice followed close as Lucy led her, Bella, and Jane into Tysons Galleria. Shopping didn't mean as much to Alice as it used to, what with Lucy blocking most of her vision and Owen discouraging her from using the rest. Still, the Galleria was a clear step up from anything Seattle had to offer. And the Four Queens trying on dresses might even be fun.
But of course nothing involving Jane could be fun. Alice stepped from a changing room looking perfect in a ten thousand dollar designer dress, only to have Jane whip out her iPhone and begin making suggestions.
"The same dress can be bought online for eight thousand dollars," Jane pronounced. She continued tapping her screen. "A near-equivalent can be had at outlets in Buffalo and Lancaster for less than five. And an appropriate substitute is available at nearby Tysons Corner for a mere seven hundred dollars."
Jane glanced up from her smartphone in triumph. Her face quickly fell as she discovered the look on Alice's face.
Alice produced her own phone and typed a query. She presented the screen so Jane could see it. "Look," Alice noted, "an army-navy surplus less than two miles away."
Relief washed over Jane's face. "Back at nine," she declared, making her escape before Alice could change her mind. Alice and Bella burst into laughter.
After five more dresses Lucy led them to Macy's. It annoyed Alice, of course, Lucy's making every little decision. But the day was probably soon at hand when Owen let Alice start using her power again. That's when the real challenge would begin: learning to take advantage of her clairvoyance without becoming dependent upon it. Falling back into old habits would be easy - and Owen was certain to do whatever unpleasant things were necessary to keep that from happening.
It was about an hour later, while looking at Bella across a rack of clothes, that Alice suddenly realized Lucy had slipped away. The realization seemed to strike Bella at the same moment.
"Do you think we're really alone?" Bella whispered.
Alice nodded, wondering. Lucy never did anything without a reason. Was the shadow-feeder finally giving them a chance to talk in private?
"Are you buying any of it?" Bella demanded, her voice urgent. "Or should we just kill Owen and Jane, and make a run for it?"
"You only just left Owen's world," Alice said, "so shouldn't you understand it better than I? What do you make of all the science fiction?"
Bella crouched, carved two intersecting lines into the floor. "Label the x-axis in years," she explained, "with the origin the beginning of the human race. The y-axis represents man's scientific knowledge. This curve," Bella continued, starting at the origin and drawing what at first appeared to be a line almost parallel to the x-axis, "shows that for a long time man's knowledge of science remained minimal. But note how the curve starts moving upward. It's not linear. That's the key thing you have to get. It's not that technology is improving. Everyone knows that. It's that technology is improving exponentially. If this trend continues, humans will discover far more in the next hundred years than they did in the last hundred. And the curve keeps arcing upward, till..."
"Till what?" Alice demanded.
"Till they reach Owen's future: humans become gods, at least compared to us. They destroy us at their leisure. Unless man's progress is halted by some catastrophe."
"Which Owen thinks we will cause," Alice concluded.
"Exactly."
The women stood up. "Would we do it?" Alice asked "Will we do it?"
She watched carefully as hate and resentment flashed across Bella's face, a year's suppressed anger at Owen's having taken over their lives. Bella returned Alice's stare for several seconds, then folded her arms and looked away. "Yes," she hissed.
Alice received Owen into her office during the early hours of March 13, 2013. "Impress me," he demanded.
Alice called up a computer graphic and displayed it on her wall monitor. "This is your boss' house," Alice observed, noting the suburban Virginia home currently stalked by two white dots: Edward and Jasper. "According to Edward, he's having thoroughly inappropriate thoughts. Thinking about becoming one of us, in fact. He's also told his wife, and she's told her best friend."
Owen swore. "Can anyone keep a secret?" he lamented.
"Jane will eat your boss tomorrow," Alice continued. "What we need to decide is what to do with the women." Alice waited as Owen pondered this question. He claimed to care about human lives, but how much did he, really?
"Just scare them," Owen concluded, shaking his head. "We can always clean them up later if we have to. Stupid a-hole," he swore again.
If Owen's previous discussions on this matter were true, this would be the third supervisor he had been forced to kill. It seemed no one but Owen could handle awareness of the vampire world. And what did that mean for their long-term future? Sooner or later the government's knowledge of their species would have to be eliminated.
Alice shifted her computer's attention to Ireland. "We need to have a serious talk about the Irish Coven," she said.
"What about them?" Owen asked.
"Their leader, Siobhan. She may possess an unusual gift. If she concentrates on a situation, she can affect the outcome. Like whatever she wishes comes true."
"You're kidding me."
"She's not even sure she has the gift. Carlisle suspects she has it, but it's kind of untestable. If she does have it, capturing her will prove impossible. Or moving against her in any way, actually. I mean think about it. Here's a known coven right on our map. We know exactly where they are. Yet we've done nothing about them. Carlisle would probably say that's Siobhan's gift at work."
Owen became agitated. "I want her dead," he pronounced. "Dead in the worst possible way."
"Why? It could be a useful gift."
"It offends me. You're saying here's a woman who can affect the world by lying in bed stressing over it. Imagine how many women would love such power! To realize one's desires by obsessing. Don't get out there and solve your problems. Just dwell on them and feel anxious about them, and they'll magically go away. If word of this gift ever got out, half the women on earth would fight to become vampires, just for the slightest chance of acquiring it."
"Well, if she does have the gift," Alice persisted, "we won't actually do what you're suggesting. We'll talk about killing her, then go on ignoring her anyway."
Owen approached the wall monitor, stared at the three white dots in Ireland. "Siobhan the stress-obsess goddess," he mused. "I wonder."
"I'm actually bringing her up to make a point," Alice said. "There are vampires with powerful defensive abilities. We'll never get them all."
Owen faced her. "I know," he replied. "There could be classes of vampires we never discover. There are defensive gifts we may never figure out how to counter. Add in how quickly vampires reproduce, and the hard reality is that their extermination is impossible.
"You must factor this into every decision you make. Some sort of co-existence is your only option. You must make them co-exist with us, Alice. Without eating us. Without attacking our technology. Somehow, someway, you must simply get your species to leave us alone."
Alice and Bella lurked inside an MRAP, a Transylvanian farmhouse just over the hill. This was their third day watching video of the family soon to be eaten by Vladimir and Stefan.
Owen had let Alice use her powers for a few minutes, enabling the Four Queens to set an ambush for the Romanian coven. Alice didn't know for certain why Lucy had filled the hapless humans' dwelling with surveillance equipment, but she feared the worst. Owen detested Bella's romanticizing of the vampiric condition, and although Bella was no longer a newborn, she had still never actually seen a vampire consume its natural prey. Lucy was probably hoping to give Bella a horror movie introduction to vampiric reality.
The door to their vehicle opened unexpectedly. Lucy entered and closed the hatch behind her.
"They'll smell you," Alice complained.
"You said they'll approach from the north," Lucy replied. "I'm downwind."
"You left Jane alone."
"Jane doesn't need me."
Alice couldn't object to that. No one f-cked with Jane. Especially when Jane had the hunt-lust in her eyes and four laser cannons slaved to her targeting system. The former Volturi guard leader had hunted the Romanians for so many centuries. She was beside herself with eager expectation at the prospect of bringing them to ground at last.
Alice returned her attention to the video monitors. Three days watching this simple family, observing their dinner table quirks, trying to learn Romanian as the mother read bedtime stories - Alice felt like she knew them. But that was the point, of course. These humans were no longer statistics, nutrition, talking heads. They were people - real people. Watching them get slaughtered would be a nightmare. Unless Lucy changed her mind at the last moment. Alice didn't think she would, though. And no one f-cked with Lucy. Not even Jane.
The farmwife had just finished bathing her youngest daughter when Vladimir and Stefan arrived. They did not enter the home immediately, but instead circled several minutes, examining for threats. One of the MRAP's monitors showed the targeting display from Jane's helmet. Jane could make clean kills on both vampires.
"Why doesn't she fire?" Bella asked.
Lucy said nothing, and neither did Alice.
"Order her to fire," Bella demanded, her voice urgent. She rose from her seat.
"Sit down," Lucy ordered.
Bella froze, realization dawning on her face. Alice felt sick. But if watching a bloodbath got Bella on board, in the long term it would result in fewer human deaths. That was how Alice justified it, anyway. It was still horrifying to watch.
Vladimir and Stefan entered the house and went to work. Their cruelty was petty and juvenile compared to Jane's. They consumed the children first, forcing the parents to watch. Jane would never have done that. Could there be such a thing as sophisticated sadism? Bella tried to turn the volume down, but Lucy wouldn't let her. The family's parting screams would be engraved in their memories forever.
"Flush them," Lucy finally ordered, releasing Bella from the MRAP. Bella rushed to the farmhouse and ripped open the door, Alice close behind. The Romanian vampires did not hesitate. They jumped through a window and ran.
Two hundred meters from the dwelling Stefan fell to the ground, his right foot no longer attached to his body, the stump of his leg on fire. The next instant Vladimir collapsed, limbs contorted in agony. Jane appeared over Vladimir, her gleeful face glowing in the light of Stefan's combustion.
Jane ceased the torture once Bella and Alice had taken up positions behind Vladimir. The four of them watched in helpless fascination as Stefan writhed and cried and oxidized. This must have been why Jane had struck her target in the ankle: it took that much longer for him to to die.
Jane began stomping on Stefan's ashes while directing a mad smile into Vladimir's eyes. Yet the Romanian vampire did not loose his arrogant, almost indifferent, expression. That pissed Alice off. What did the Four Queens have to do to earn a little respect?
Vladimir directed his attention toward Alice. "The Volturi hunted us for two thousand years," he declared proudly. "They never caught us. How long did it take you, Alice?"
"Three days," she answered.
Vladimir grinned. "Now you know why..." The smug look vanished, replaced with sudden confusion and wide-eyed terror: Lucy had appeared.
Their captive made a break for it. Alice tackled him, while Bella pinned his arms. "Dear God, no!" he screamed. "Kill me, Jane, you worthless whore. Kill me!"
Alice joined everyone else in staring at Vladimir in confusion. Lucy approached him slowly, calmly, fascinated by his reaction. He ceased struggling, now paralyzed with a crippling fear Alice had never seen in any vampire's face.
Lucy reached out and stroked Vladimir's hair. Then she lifted his hand to her mouth and bit the inside of his wrist.
Vladimir jerked away, screaming. Alice let him go as he began convulsing, blood spraying from between his teeth, dust pouring from his eyes and ears. The Four Queens backed away, and it was a good thing they did. Vladimir's frenzy grew increasingly violent until, with one final cry, he exploded into powder.
Alice grimaced, wiping the Romanian remains from her shirt. No one f-cked with Lucy.
Alice received Owen into her office during the early hours of May 25, 2013. "Impress me," he demanded.
"Edward and Jasper just took out a shadow-feeder," she offered.
"Really?" Owen asked, surprised. "I was starting to think Lucy really was the last one."
"They tracked him into South Carolina, then let a human sniper team take him out. Their attempts at burning the body were unsuccessful, but then they exposed it to sunlight. Apparently the fire was much more violent than when one of our kind is burned."
Owen seemed strangely upset by this. He rubbed his hands through his hair and turned away.
"Did I do something wrong?" Alice asked. Owen wiped his face. Was he crying?
"You're doing your job," Owen croaked. "Keep doing it." He stood silent for several minutes, his back to Alice, then eventually settled into a chair beside her desk.
"I think I can dig up some details about your past," Owen offered, changing the subject. "If you're interested."
"I've never asked," Alice replied. She waited, but Owen said nothing. "I think we should focus on the future," she finally added, making an effort to keep the longing out of her voice. How hard it was, serving another, submitting to another, suppressing her own wishes and desires. Yet never for a moment did she forget that the Cullens were on probation, that the man who killed the Volturi could easily do the same to her entire family. There was also something paradoxically liberating about following orders. Alice had never been so tightly bound, yet she had never felt so free.
"We seem to have a fresh outbreak of newborns down south," Alice informed him. "I've been emailing Maria, trying to keep her reasonable. I dropped a JDAM on one of her houses, too. She's difficult to convince."
"Why not just kill her?" Owen asked.
"In my mind she's something of a test case. Can we get someone so old-school to embrace the new reality? If we can switch her coven to animal blood, we can probably switch just about anybody."
"Good luck with that," Owen muttered.
"She's a child," Alice said. "Despite her age and experience, she's still just a child. No one has ever worked with her, trained her, disciplined her. The Volturi used fear to keep us in check, but they never tried to teach us anything. They never tried to help us grow up.
"And growing up is what we need to do," she continued. "I mean look at us. Attending high school over and over again? Seriously? You were right. We went along with the Volturi too easily. We were self-righteous and self-centered. We need to do more. We need to make the most of the Volturi being dead. We need to grow up."
"What are you thinking?"
"Your core concern is the growing technological disparity between humans and vampires. You think we will eventually feel threatened by this gap, and attempt to push humanity back into the 1700's. Certainly that's one way we could deal with it. But there is another way. Instead of bringing you down to our level of ignorance, we could raise ourselves up to your level of knowledge - and even surpass it."
"How will that help?"
"Because then we can use technology to counter technology. If advanced machines can kill us, then even more advanced machines can protect us. We can continue to coexist with humans, trusting in our superior technology. It will just take discipline, hard work, mutual respect, long-term thinking - everything the Volturi refused to instill in us."
Owen stood and began pacing. "You're going to force compulsory education on vampires, aren't you?"
Alice smiled. "We establish a secret research university. With modern communications we can keep it fairly decentralized, but there'll probably have to be a main campus somewhere. Wyoming seems a reasonable option. Think about how much we could accomplish! We never sleep, our memory is exceptional, we can do everything faster than humans, we don't die. Within ten years we can understand modern tech as well as any MIT prof. Another ten years and we'll have pressed completely into the realm of science fiction.
"And there's another advantage," Alice added. "We can make ourselves useful to humanity, researching fields that they value. That way if we ever do get discovered, we've got something to offer in exchange for our lives. Worse case scenario, we push to the point where we can leave earth entirely. Our physiology makes us better suited for deep-space colonization, anyway."
"It's a compelling possibility," Owen granted. "We fear what we don't know. If you remake yourselves into uber-geek vamps, you'll no longer feel threatened by science. It could become a source of wonder and purpose rather than danger and war."
Alice got up from her desk, approached Owen, dared to give him a gentle hug. "Weakness into strength," she whispered. "Isn't that what you teach us? If we can do it, you can do it, too. Own your weakness, Owen. I don't know what it is, but surely you can discover it. The insight you use on others - direct it into yourself. Search, probe, squirm, pursue. Refuse to give up no matter how painful. Dig out the weakness and own it, Owen. Dig out the weakness, and grapple it, and turn it into strength."