50
"What the hell!" Edward leapt to his feet as his father-in-law left the floor. Carlisle lifted him back up almost as quickly as he flew.
"What was that?" Charlie asked again, looking at his daughter.
"I don't know. What did you feel?" Carlisle asked. Edward could read his father a lot clearer than Charlie but he could tell that he had no idea what had happened.
"When I touched Bella a shock went through my fingers and then it was like I had been hit by a truck, ow!" he folded over, holding his still injured ribs.
"Have you cracked your ribs again?" They all watched as the man tried to take a deep breath, he winced but shook his head.
"No, they seem to be fine, just sore."
"Edward?" he knew what the question was before it was even thought.
"I just feel the bond, it's strong but not much more than usual, I just thought it was because of her change." He told his audience.
Carlisle moved to his side and put a hand on Bella's shoulder, he too suddenly took a trip to the other side of the room, but being a vampire he landed safely on his feet. Edward moved quickly back to the head of the bed, looking down at his wife, she seemed oblivious to everything. Whatever was happening she wasn't doing it consciously.
He took her hand, the pulse of electric was stronger than ever, almost as strong as it was when they made love. His hand tingled at the power flowing through it. He reported the sensation and looked quizzically at the silent woman on the bed.
He heard Emmett enter the house at that second and in a couple of bounds he was outside the door to the study. The door rattled but did not open. "What's happening? Why is the door locked?" he asked. Edward hadn't even noticed when the door had shut, he knew Charlie and Carlisle had left it open when they entered. Rose moved to open the door, but just 2 feet into the room from the edge where she had been standing, she stopped.
"I can't move forward." She told them, Esme and Carlisle tried, neither of them could move across the room either, and trying to move around the edges they got to within 4 feet of the door when the same barrier prevented them from exiting the room.
"Emmett, force the door." Edward could hear how puzzled his brother was, but the man tried his best, the door didn't even rattle this time, he may as well have been trying to push a mountain.
"Won't budge." Emmett shouted, in seconds he was outside the French windows of the room, on the small balcony to the outside. Esme slipped the catch and he entered the room, only to stop dead as he tried to walk to the door, like everyone else. The humming power of the bond grew stronger and Edward watched as all the others in the room were pushed back to the still open window.
"Out! Now!" Charlie said, from where he was stood in the corner of the room. "Before we get trapped." They all exited and stood on the balcony.
"Edward?" Carlisle asked again.
He had to snatch his hand away from her shoulder, he could feel something pushing at him as he stood beside her. He resisted for as long as he could then stepped back a half a pace, the pushing diminished. He reached out and touched her again, it was bearable, though he had to grit his teeth at the pain that lanced up his arm.
"She's pushing me away, but it isn't too strong at the moment, I think I can stay here, but I can't get any closer."
"I think I should contact Eleazar, see if he has ever heard of anything like this." Carlisle said as he gracefully stepped off the balcony.
"Who is Eleazar?" Charlie asked and Esme told him. He was worried in his thoughts, knowing the Cullen's were good people, basically from instinct, he wasn't sure at all about bringing more vampires into the area.
"We should warn the mongrels." Rose said, Emmett sniggered.
"Rose!" Esme admonished.
"Ok, ok. We should warn the dogs." She grinned unrepentantly at her mother and followed her father over the balcony.
"I can't jump down there!" Charlie said, "and I certainly can't stay here 3 days." Esme moved to pick him up, but Emmett got there first, careful of the man's ribs he quickly dropped over the edge and disappeared from view with a yell of protest floating up from his passenger.
"Is there anything I can get you?" Esme asked. Edward frowned, thinking. There wasn't anything he needed really, the sound of Bella's heartbeat was enough to keep him enthralled and happy for the three days he may be stuck in the room with her, but there was no way he was leaving, just in case he couldn't get back in.
"Can you reach that book?" he nodded to the first edition copy of Gray's Anatomy on Carlisle's desk, just outside the area of the barrier, she picked it up and threw it to him. The book slid down the barrier, ending up on the floor by her feet. "Ah, I wondered." He said. "I'm fine, go on, I'll shout if we need anything." Not that he thought shouting would do any good with whatever it was stopping anything getting close. Esme stepped over the low railing and went to join the rest of the family. He could hear Carlisle's mind going at a furious rate as he spoke to Eleazar on the phone. After hearing the puzzling account Eleazar called Tanya to the phone, it ended with the leader of the Denali coven promising to visit as soon as they could, hopefully before Bella came out of her change. The 2,000 miles could be covered, just, in that time if they drove down but Edward knew if Alice saw what was happening she would arrange it so they could fly.
Edward considered the other part of their extended family. Eleazar was always fascinated by new talent when he came across it and had hundreds of journals in his home listing the various vampires he had met in his long life and what talents, if any, they had. He had been turned several decades after Carlisle, by Aro, and had spent the next 200 or more years as part of the guard, identifying vampire and humans with talent for the rulers of their world.
Though a vampire in every way, including diet, his conscience bothered him as he witnessed and participated in the regular slaughter of humans. Eleazar had been fascinated by Carlisle when he had lived for a time with the Volturi, and he considered trying to change his diet while in Italy, however it wasn't something that Aro looked upon kindly. He had read the thoughts forming in Eleazar's mind and told him that vampires were supposed to kill humans, and there wasn't enough wildlife around them for him to try that diet.
When he had met Carmen as she was led into the feeding room when he was just under 100 years old, the pull of her had almost restarted his dead heart, he had once told Edward. Edward had thought that he was speaking metaphorically, until he had met Bella. Aro had protested his request to turn the human, as he had not identified any talent in her, but Eleazar had stuck to his guns, protecting the woman he held behind him until Aro (advised by his brother Marcus who could 'see' the bond form between them) agreed.
They continued to live with the Volturi for the next 125 years, but eventually the constant slaughter and the pressure Aro put on Eleazar's talent and subsequently his gentle soul, had an unexpected and previously unheard of, consequence and he temporarily lost his talent. Even being tortured by Aro's pets didn't bring the talent back, and as such he was virtually useless to the rulers of the vampire world.
In the early 20th Century, the two of them used his talent loss as an excuse to leave the city, they travelled to Canada, where they became nomads, trying to feed off animals only. It was hard and many times they 'slipped', but eventually they met up with Tanya and her sisters and, with their help, made the transition to vegetarians successfully. The 5 of them set up in Alaska, where they remained to that day. Unlike the Cullens they did not interact much with humans (well, the three single women did interact with the occasional human male, but not in any way Edward wanted to think about) and so had no need to change their location like the other family.
Carmen was a beautiful woman even before her change, she still had a full sized portrait that she had had done during her teens to prove that. She had been part of a Royal Diplomatic Mission to the court of Pope Clement XIII from the court of King Charles III of Spain. Bored with waiting around Rome for an audience she had decided on a tour of the country to expand her education before returning home to marry a man more than twice her age, and wealth. A political alliance she had protested violently. Though not talented in any discernible way, she gave Eleazar what he needed, a balance in his life. Carmen forgave him for taking her life, and tried to console him when the dark past overcame him, driving him into periods of depression when he thought of all the humans he had caused to lose their lives, either by his own feeding or by identifying talent and causing them to be turned.
The leader of the coven, Tanya was overwhelmingly beautiful (even by vampire standards). She was a tall Russian, her family was of Viking descent, having emigrated to their new colony in the 10th century.
One of the first settlers to try and work the land east of the capital Ladoga in that time, was Sasha, a Varangian, married to one of the King's close kin and main men. Soon after Sviatoslav came to the throne of the Rus people, her husband was killed in one of his raiding parties. Left alone at the farm they had built together she did her best to scrape a living. One day a nomad passed by the farm, and attracted by her blood, he attacked and changed her. She ran and hid in the harsh and almost uninhabited country for quite some time, but after about 40 years returned to try and find her family and found that the only member left was her great-niece, Tanya. The girl was trying to defend the family property from raiders, all on her own. Sasha swept in and killed them all, but Tanya was mortally wounded and so she felt she had no choice but to change her.
After Tanya's newborn years the two travelled slowly through Rus and into the lands east, which had been recently conquered by the first wave of Scandinavians. In less than 10 years, first Katrina, or Kate as she now preferred, and then Irina joined the family of women. Both had been saved by Sasha after falling foul of the constant raids that the next wave of settlers subjected the region to.
Also at that time, unbeknown to the younger vampires, Sasha turned a small boy, Vasilii. She kept him secret from the family, knowing it was against the law. One day he escaped the small cave she kept him in and almost slaughtered a whole family on a nearby farm. The only one to live through the ordeal was a young man, who soon spread word in the area of a small daemon.
Unfortunately Caius had been on one of his periodic pogroms to eradicate werewolves and hearing about the child he called together his brothers and the guard and hunted him down. The three young women were forced to watch as their 'mother' was burnt alive, the child in her arms, for the crime.
To avoid falling foul of the brothers they immediately left the region, and for years wandered what would later be known as Siberia. Each of the women took an occasional human lover, but they never managed it without killing their men during the act. The pain and shame of what they had done haunted them all, Tanya was the first to figure out a way to have her cake and NOT eat it. She tried a diet of animal blood and after some time realised that her thirst for human blood was under control. She took the first lover she could entice and he lived. With such proof the other 2 women soon joined her, and the three frequently took lovers after that, and never killed a human again.
They wandered through the sparsely habited northern region, back and forth, dipping occasionally into China but mainly staying in the barren north. Then in the late 1800's, they crossed over the Bering Strait to the America's. After traversing the continent for several decades they settled in a, then, remote part of Canada. It was only as they met Eleazar and Carmen, that they decided to move to Alaska, the region they had inhabited was becoming more and more populated by humans and their need to stay undetected and isolated decided them.
Over the decades they built a rambling house deep in what was now known as the Denali National Park, more than 50 miles from the closest humans, and there they stayed.
Edward's train of thought was broken as a slight whimper sounded in the room. He tried to move closer to Bella, but though she allowed his hand to touch her, the rest of his body was held away. It was a good job that vampires did not tire, he thought, as it looked like he had in excess of two and a half days stood in the one place.
Edward caught the thoughts of his 'cousins' as they approached the house. They were earlier than he had expected, Jasper and Alice had only been home for 8 hours when the Denali's arrived. He immediately scanned the thoughts of his family and found that Alice as he expected had sent them the family Leah Jet to Montana Creek Airport so they could actually land at Port Angeles, rather than going commercial and having to travel from Seattle.
Usually one of the Cullen's flew the plane, but they had a human pilot on permanent stand-by to bring it to wherever they needed it, and to fly it if they didn't want to.
The other family did not interact much with humans on a day to day basis if they could help it, and unlike the Cullens they did not have huge bank balances, but it was a testament to how important Eleazar thought this was that he had actually considered booking tickets and spending so much, just to get there sooner, until Alice called and let them know that the plane was on its way for them from its home base at Seattle.
They had walked out of the small airport and as soon as they were unobserved had run in a straight line to the Cullen house, only stopping in the hills south of Crescent Lake to take down a part of a herd of deer that was unfortunate enough to be drinking at one of the streams that fed the lake. Eleazar had thought it best as they expected to be busy for the next few days, guarding the newborn… or rather the town. He thought it unfortunate that the Cullen's had not managed to move to Alaska or the island before the change set in as they had planned. To humans the Cullen house may seem quite a way out of town, but to a vampire it was nothing.
Carlisle met them at the front door and after a quick explanation directed Eleazar around to the side, they both jumped up onto the balcony.
"Hello, Edward." Eleazar said as he tried to enter the room. He was held back at the actual window now. Edward had only just managed not to be pushed back another step by the expansion of whatever it was that Bella was producing, it had grown when Alice and Jasper had returned home and the girl had tried to see if she could enter the room.
"Eleazar." He nodded but kept his eyes on Bella.
He could 'see' through both Carlisle and Eleazar's eyes if he needed to know what they were doing. They both tried pushing on the barrier, Eleazar's eyes opened wide when he felt how solid it was.
"Can you move to your right?" he asked Edward. He was reluctant to move in any direction that he could, worried that he may not be able to move back, as it was he could just reach her face with his hand, if he moved to his right he wouldn't.
"I'd rather not." Edward explained the problem he faced.
"If I can't see her face, my talent doesn't work." Eleazar explained. Edward put a steadying hand on the frame of the bed and leant as far to the right as he possibly could without moving his feet, almost trying to bend the laws of gravity with his angle.
"Ah!" he read his mind before he said anything and nodded. "She's a shield, a powerful one at that, what was she like as a human?" Edward didn't reply, he was asking Carlisle.
"Edward can't read her mind, Jasper has trouble altering her mood, oh and she's Edward's singer as well as his mate." Eleazar's mind was whirling.
"I have come across a few shields in my time, but usually when they are like this," he slapped his palm on the shield, "they are totally physical, I have never seen anyone with both mental and physical shields, especially not unconscious ones and as a human!" faces flashed through his memory, Edward wasn't surprised that one of them, a woman, had a Volturi cloak surrounding her head. "Renata is the only one that I know of at the moment with a working shield, and rather than protecting her in a solid type of way…" he knocked his hand on the barrier again, pausing in thought, Edward could see time after time as vampires ran towards her, only to turn away before making contact.
"Renata?" Edward asked.
"Unlike this, her talent is… complicated. If she feels threatened she can make the attacker turn away, it's not like a physical barrier, and not really a mental attack, they just… stop moving towards her and move in another direction…" He told them. "Nothing like your Bella's talent."
"What about the others?" Carlisle asked.
"Ahh, there were various ones over time, but Renata is the strongest I ever came across, one unfortunate young man, it was only about 140 years ago, actually he was the last talent I identified before we left the brothers he was a pure mental shield, he could use his talent at will, blocking most intrusive mental talents. He made a mistake. The talent was totally conscious and it took a great deal of effort to put it in place, rather like when Alice tries to force a vision or Kate tries to shock someone. He allowed Aro to touch him once when he wasn't shielded, Aro had him destroyed immediately, I never found out what he read in his thoughts to have him condemned so quickly."
"So Renata's defences wouldn't stop, say, Jane?" Carlisle asked, Eleazar shuddered, his thoughts echoed the pain he had felt when Aro tried to force him to use his talent before letting him go.
"No, but Aro would never allow the little witch to try, Renata didn't want to join the coven, so Aro used Chelsea to make her. If he were to turn Jane loose then I have a feeling that no matter what, the bond would break and she would leave. Aro depends too much on her to allow that to happen. Jane and Alec can cope with most attacks, but Jane is limited to a single target and Alec needs time. Having Renata by his side, constantly, ensures that no one can get close enough to him to strike."
"No one except someone like Bella." That was worrying, Edward touched her face, her skin was already almost as solid as his was. If the Volturi got wind of someone immune to threats like Bella then she could be in danger. They wouldn't act like Charlie had with them and hope that she behaved, they would strike first.
"So you think that this… 'shield' may be an extension of her mental shield?" Carlisle asked.
"No, I think this is something new, something to protect her while she is vulnerable. It may even go away once she is fully changed." Eleazar didn't really think it would.
"But, if it doesn't, her mental shield, as far as we know, isn't controlled at will. Does this mean that every time she feels threatened everyone in a 10 feet radius will suddenly fly backwards?" his father asked.
"I don't know, Carlisle, it's possible." Eleazar ran his fingers along the shield again. "Do you feel that?" he asked. Carlisle put his hand flat on the surface.
"No, feel what?" he asked.
"No, just your fingertips, just get as close as you can without really touching." The Spaniard told him, Edward was trying to see what Eleazar was getting at when his father gasped and pulled his hand back, he rubbed his fingers.
"Electricity?"
"Yes, strong electricity."
"It isn't that strong." Carlisle pointed out, he could only just feel it if he put his hand flat.
"When you consider the size of the shield it is. Kate!" he called and suddenly she joined them on the balcony, "Put your hand out until you meet the shield." He instructed. Kate's talent was a generation of electricity, she could administer a shock to anyone she wished to. Not enough to harm them but enough that they pulled back automatically, or at least that was what her talent had been limited to. Edward could see in her thoughts that she had privately been pushing her talent since he had warned them about the nomads, now she could pack quite a punch, bringing a full grown moose to its knees with just the touch of her hand.
"Strange," she put both hands on the shield and moved forwards until she was pressing up against it as much as she could. "That is very strange." She said, turning to Carlisle. "I can usually absorb electric, say from a power outlet, I can store it in my body, but I can't drain this." She explained.
"Is that what you use in your talent? Electric you have stored up?" his father asked.
"No, I generate that myself, though if I have recently absorbed some electric I can give off a bigger jolt, it only lasts about 10 minutes before it dissipates so it isn't much use in a battle, unless I'm stood next to a socket." She laughed, running her hands on the shield as she pressed her forehead into it. "It feels funny. Electric, like that in our houses doesn't feel the same way, it's like… actually I'm not sure exactly what it is like." She said puzzled.
"Can Alice see her future?" Eleazar asked.
Both Edward and Carlisle nodded.
"I don't understand this talent at all, but I will be fascinated to see how it turns out when she wakes."
"You are all welcome to stay." Carlisle offered. "You and Carmen may have Edward's old room if you need it." Edward just didn't want to know that. There weren't that many reasons why a vampire would want a bedroom, but the one that occurred to him explained why the two Spaniards were offered the room and not the three single female Russians.
"Charlie is coming." Edward caught his father-in-law's thoughts as he turned off the road.
"How far away?" Carlisle asked, and then the sound of the motor of the squad car reached their ears as he turned off the highway.
"He's already here." Edward said, cursing again his inability to hear anyone named Swan properly. His father jumped down to the ground and in less than a couple of minutes appeared on the balcony again, his hands firmly holding Charlie under his arms as if he was a toddler being picked up by an adult.
"How is she?" he asked, easing past Eleazar and standing next to Kate.
"Still the same, changing but almost silent." Edward told him.
"Oh, by the way Alice was wrong!" Charlie said, glee in his voice, a picture of Renée flashed to the front of his mind before it once again closed itself off.
"Wrong?" Edward asked, not sure why Charlie was so happy if Renée got off.
"She attacked Jenks in the courtroom when he 'accidently' mentioned that Bella had got married just after she was sentenced. It seems she hadn't dropped her plan to get transferred somewhere south, no one told her that Bella had recovered from the accident and wasn't still stuck in hospital. She REALLY hates the weather up here!" he grinned rather maliciously as he watched his daughter's face for any sign she was able to hear, "Anyway, she said that it was all his fault she had been found guilty in the first place and was screaming for the judge to declare a mistrial, she had to be dragged off by the bailiffs." He laughed, "The Judge gave her 3 more years on top of the sentence she had just read out, this time to run consecutively. She will be away for 8 years, even with good behaviour she won't get out much before 5 and Alice did say she wouldn't behave!"
"What is he talking about?" Eleazar asked, Carlisle quickly explained who Renée was and a tiny bit of her history.
Edward nodded, satisfied that the woman was put away. Even at the best of times the family couldn't have stayed 8 more years in the area, and with Bella's change it wasn't the best of times.
When they moved on they would change everyone's name, as usual, maybe it was time for Esme's maiden name to become the family one, and Jasper's for him and Rose. Edward could turn back to Masen, a distant cousin or even no relation at all so that Bella could join the family as Carlisle and Esme's daughter? All that speculation was for later though, if they moved to join the Denali family they wouldn't have to worry about anything as there were no humans in the area, of course that would mean that Carlisle wouldn't be able to be a doctor, not that he would anyway with a newborn to look after it may take all of them to help control her, depending how out of control she was.
Rose would be pleased not to have to interact with teenagers for a while, she hated starting high school over and over.
"Well, it looks like it runs in the family!" Charlie jumped, Edward had forgotten that he didn't know the other family.
"Eleazar, Kate, this is Charlie Swan, Bella's father."
The two of them said hello while Charlie nodded his head, his gaze still fixed on Bella.
"Charlie? Are you hungry?" Esme called out from below. Charlie's stomach took that opportunity to grumble. He blushed.
"I'll come down soon, Esme. You don't have to feed me though, I'll go to the diner."
"Nonsense, Jake and Seth are on their way over, so I'm making food for them anyway, you know those boys, always hungry."
"Well then, thanks, give me a shout when they get here."
Jacob had heard from Charlie about the 'accident' with Bella's truck and the death of the nomad just that morning, having been out like a light since his patrol the day before. The tow truck driver had taken one look at the age of the vehicle and towed it onto the Quileute scrap compound, alerting the pack to the accident. They were coming around to see how Bella was doing.
"So, what was it that ran in the family?" Charlie asked, not taking his eyes off his daughter.
Eleazar looked at Carlisle with a raised eyebrow. He knew that Bella had known about them while she was human, she had to do, because she was Edward's mate. He didn't know how much Charlie knew, and was wondering who Jake and Seth were.
"He's talking about my inability to read your mind, and the fact that Bella has a mental shield and now what looks like a physical one is developing." Edward explained.
"Shame it wasn't the other way around." Charlie grinned, "if she had had this shield when she was growing up, just imagine how many of her accidents wouldn't have occurred." His mind gave Edward a suddenly clear visual of Bella falling off a large rock on the First Beach some years before, and then her shield suddenly making her bounce down the beach like someone in one of those blow up plastic spheres that looked like bubble wrap that people could get inside to roll down hills without injury.
"I don't think it would work quite like that, Charlie." He laughed. Charlie shook his head and grinned.
"Nor do I, but it would have been cool!" he chuckled. The three vampires that weren't part of the discussion looked puzzled, Edward shook his head, he wasn't going to explain, he doubted that the Denali's would even know what they were talking about if he did.
Bella twitched, that was new, his whole attention was suddenly focused on her. She had not moved a muscle except to breathe and whimper occasionally since they had put her in the room.
"Shit!" Edward turned his head just in time to see Charlie almost fall off the balcony. The shield had expanded another foot, they were no longer able to enter the room properly.
"Carlisle, shut the doors." Edward said, his father looked at him quizzically, "The shield doesn't extend in a perfect half sphere, does it? I mean I have heard you all going up and down stairs past this room. If you shut the doors then it won't expand any further, we can still hear each other much further away, there's only Charlie who may have to have someone tell him what I said if he asks me." Carlisle nodded and closed the French doors from the outside.
The three vampires and one human disappeared. Edward reached out again to touch her, electricity arced from her skin to his. It was rather like the mating bond in feel, just manifesting as an actual physical spark now. He projected the thought to Alice, where she sat in the living room with everyone else, she shared his ideas, Eleazar was intrigued and Carlisle fascinated, but no one had anything useful to add. Alice's visions were totally blank when it came to Bella now.
"She will wake at 11:03 am tomorrow." Alice told him, he was puzzled. "I just decided that as soon as she woke I would call Charlie and let him know, I can see him clearly and the clock on his desk says the call comes in at 11:03!" Clever. Only 22 hours left to wait.