Short, but meaty... enjoy :) Oh, and review... please please please
Chapter 40: The Beginning of the End
His crumpled body lay waste, cradled in my strong white arms. My skin appeared to glow and take on a ghost-like quality against the dark black and scarlet scars that laced through Marius' skin. The sun had robbed him of his former glory, reducing him to a shriveled and weak creature of the night. His crystal blue eyes strained from his skull and his lips were pulled back tight against his jaw leaving a hideous slit from which he drew ragged breaths. The calm that had eerily overtaken me seemed to extend throughout the darkness of the chamber. No one moved. I could feel the paralyzing fear holding my companions as they stared at the image of black against white, strength against weakness, beauty against the grotesque. In my mind's eye, I saw the scene through Carlisle's point of view and his thoughts told the tales of angels and demons, heaven and hell. It was difficult to believe that the two creatures now wound into each other's embrace were of the same species.
My angelic body pulled a long stark white arm to its lips. I gashed through the flesh with my fangs, it was deep enough this time. The life-giving substance poured from the gaping wound. I let it spill like water over the edge of a fountain. The dark blood fell upon Marius' blackened flesh causing a slight sizzle as it landed. My thoughts carried out one last time to those around me, expecting to find horror in my father's mind. But there was only a strange sense of amazement, an intensity, a longing that filled him. He was thinking of my blood, thinking of a scene from not long ago when he was the recipient of my gift. He had only had a mere sip, a taste, just enough to revive him and now a foreign jealousy pulled at the angry thirst in his throat as it burned lustfully for the substance seeping into the malformed crevice that was Marius' hungry mouth.
The thick liquid seemed to take on a life of its own, or maybe it was only an extension of my life force as it made its way through Marius' painfully scorched lips and down his throat. The cimmerian corpse that lay in my arms reanimated itself with a gasp and moan of pleasure. Its shadowy arms pulled around the source of its solace and locked the open wound to its mouth. Marius began pulling hard on my bloodline, the world around me disappeared. I fell into the loving arms of the swoon as my eyes closed and I fell to my knees. Despite his unfortunate state, power and fortitude emanated from his broken body. The pain and pleasure swirled together in a delicate balance as he sucked my vitality into himself. As more and more of my blood left me, I fell further and further into the bright and beautiful abyss of Marius' mind. I roamed through the endless corridors of ancient cities and places unknown to the world of today. I bore witness to loving faces of others of his kind and humans alike. I felt the power and wisdom that lay in his millennium of existence. I saw his fear, his need for continuing. I saw his former burdens as well as the ones that still weighed heavy on his heart. The opening of the blood connection allowed me admittance into the story of his life.
I felt weightless in his embrace, intertwined in his strength. I felt his mouth lift from my wound, he had released me from our bonds and for a moment I realized that we lay together on the cold, hard floor of stone, the others staring down at us. But the image disappeared as I felt Marius' tiny fangs plunge into my neck. His intimate embrace beckoned me, told me through images and emotions that I needed him, that we needed one another-- to take from him as he had taken from me. The monster inside of me knew the meaning before I did as he guided my mouth to Marius' throat. I pressed my teeth into his his flesh. The blood opened itself upon me and I took my first swallow of the sweet substance. I moaned in ecstasy as it coated the inside of my mouth with unparalleled deliciousness. My pallet sung songs of harmony and undeniable beauty as the monster inside of me danced to its ceremonial music. The channeling of blood locked together in full circle. A blinding light encompassed all of my mind's eye and all I knew was blithe and the rapture of true joy. Mine and Marius' thoughts, emotions and very souls wrapped around each other and walked down the primrose path of pleasure hand in hand. The feeling had no end, and no beginning. It was timeless-- the very essence of forever.
With a desperate cry of pain, we were wrenched apart. The light disappeared, only a shadow of its pleasure giving warmth remained. I felt like I was falling, the night air flooding my lungs, drowning me in its emptiness. I gasped for air, falling. My body filled with an ugly sinking sensation. I felt death's shadowy hands reaching for my soul as I descended from heavens beautiful embrace. The tears stung my eyes and the cries continued to erupt from deep with in me. My vision returned as I frantically searched for the light, but I only saw the endless night before me. Only the half smile of the crescent moon and the pity of the stars who seemed to weep in my suffering.
Reality snapped back all too quickly as the hateful voice boomed against the chamber walls and echoed out into the night, "And what do we have here? Our vegetarian friends have come to rescue the pile of ashes? How simply heroic," a sneer polluted his chiseled face and a scarlet flash in his eyes burned into my memory. He was so full of hate and his thoughts slithered with lust for power. I was pulled quickly to my feet, my head still swimming from the swoon. I felt as if I was once again bobbing on the waves of the soothing ocean as I swayed lightly back and forth before regaining my balance.
"Aro, we cannot allow this slaughter to continue," Carlisle said with the up-most authority ringing in his voice. "You and your followers have awakened an ancient power, your cruelty to humans and those of your own kind has drawn the eye of those more powerful that even you. We are here to release those whom you have imprisoned and to beg you to reconsider your reckless actions."
"Or what?" Aro spat at Carlisle, "You are going to stop me? You? My old plant eating friend?" he mocked with a hideous smile. "I think not, you're time is over Carlisle, you and your family will join me or die. There is no longer any other choice."
A glowing white figure, naked in the flesh with flowing white hair and blazing blue eyes rose from the shadows behind us, "I'm afraid it is much more complicated than that, my friend," Marius' voice carried itself on the wings of the night, as it swept through the room. Aro's eyes bulged in surprise and horror and for a moment a flash of fear trickled from his every pore.
"But how?" he whispered evilly as he fought for his composure refusing to show the ones behind him a lack of poise.
Marius' radiant smile beamed with the same luster as the light that we had shared in our embrace, "It seems that there are some ancient secrets that even you, oh great ruler of Volturi, have yet to discover."
A tiny hooded figure stepped out from Aro's shadow. She pulled her cloak back revealing the evil little demon that they called Jane. Her face brought back the streaming memory of the Volturi's last attack on my family. The rage inside began to churn as I stepped forward to meet her. Aro's arm flicked in a tiny motion and my father and Carlisle fell to their knees screaming in pain. My gaze flashed to them and then back to her. Her hateful face twisted into a gnarled smile as she forced my family to suffer with her mind's power.
"Stop it!" I screamed, the blood boiled within me. The little demon only smiled wider and continued her torture. The screams of my father and grandfather filled the room, I felt Marius and David anxious on my heels. I couldn't hear their thoughts, only the monster within me as he roared with pain and hate. A fierce power glowed within me. My eyes locked into the eyes of the horrible bitch before me. My eyes narrowed and a velocity that channeled all of my protective force and poisonous vengeance descended upon her in one burst of power. Her tiny body erupted in flames. She screamed in terror and tried to outrun the lapping heat of the bonfire sparked within her. She flailed her arms, bellowing in pain and falling to her knees. The last thing that I saw of her rotten face was her eyes, consumed with anger, pain and fear. And then she was gone. Her cries still echoed off the walls of the chamber as she was reduced to an black pile of ashes. My family members were released from their pain. Jane's heinous mind would trouble us no longer. My chest was still heaving with fury as I turned daring any other to inflict pain upon my family.
Aro's face seethed with loathing and villainous wrath. My eyes locked into his as the fire begun burning once again within me. "Who did that?" No one answered, "I demand to know who's power it was that burst Jane into flames! Which one of you?!" I took a pronounced step forward. Aro's eyes searched my face for the first time. His expression seemed to lift a mask of hate and replace it with one of love and admiration. "I do not know this one, who are you, my child? One so strong would be an amazing addition to my collection." His face brightened with promises of glory, love and acceptance. He fained a sense of allegiance on his face, but his mind twisted with disturbing thoughts and a perverse craving for power.
The others held still behind me, my father and Carlisle had cautiously risen to their feet and I heard their warnings being flung at me. Carlisle's mind told me not to destroy Aro, he could be the fount. My father hastily repeated the words, over and over, mixed with love and fear for me. I smiled, half lovingly back at my father and half viciously at Aro. "I am no child of yours," I said slyly, "But you do not know me?" my voice was laced with the syrupy sweetness of viper venom. My eyes sparkled at him, daring him to guess. "Are you sure of that?" Even his thoughts seemed to be lost in my mesmerizing powers. I smiled angelically down on the demon before me. "We have met before, Aro. I have seen evidence of your wrongdoings. I know of your lust for power and your fear of the Cullen family. It was my mother who defeated you in your last battle against us. I assure you, you do know me."
Struck with a combination of fear, realization and lust for my power, his face laced into a snarl as he spoke through clenched jaws, "I knew I should have destroyed you when I had the chance," he growled.
"You tried," I said with snide smile, "but you failed-- and you will fail again." I moved too quickly for even him to see me. I seized his throat with my slender hand and pulled in close to his ear, "And now, we will know each other's secrets," his mind was spinning with my history, the story of my life, all of it. I smiled as his face turned to utter shock and horror as he learned of Athenadora's brutal end and my escape from the clutches of death. "That's right," I whispered, "I am one of them." He was frozen in terror, his eyes like gaping holes. "And now it is my turn, some how I think your story will be much more interesting than mine." A tiny chuckle escaped my lips as I reared back and descended into the sinister, blackened waters that encased Aro's wicked soul.