57

It took them just under an hour to travel the 90 miles to Fargo. As they approached the town they scented the nomad. This one, however, wasn't as easy to track down. He seemed to have travelled all over the town in the last few hours. Luckily they could not scent any fresh blood anywhere on the trail.

It was as they reached the center of town that Edward at last could hear his thoughts. He seemed full of remorse but his thoughts weren't as easy to read as they should be. For a minute Edward considered that he was a partial shield, like Charlie, but there was something not right about that theory. The thoughts came through clear, they were just… strange. He was obviously in parkland somewhere, and he wasn't hunting either. A quick look at the maps on his phone showed them that the town had a huge number of parks scattered all over. They dismissed the parks west as he believed that he would have caught the thoughts earlier if he was there, and they concentrated on the ones east.

As they approached Riverfront park the scent got stronger. The mind he was reading was in agony now. It wasn't until they at last found him, huddled into a ball on the bank of the river, that he understood why the nomad was so upset. Gioffre must have been truly depraved! The boy, for that was what he was, was about 12 or 13 of age. His perfected vampire features could not hide the fact that in life the boy was a down syndrome sufferer. He was keening loudly into the night. Edward could feel the remorse the boy projected at his actions. In total he had killed six people, one of them his much loved mother.

If Edward could have cried, he would have. As they approached the boy jumped to his feet.

"Kill me!" he begged. Edward shook his head sadly, the boy crumpled and sobbed loudly.

Bella stepped to the boy and opened her arms to him. Edward was about to protest… Jasper's warning ringing in his mind. The child flung himself into her arms, gasping and pleading to die.

"Don't worry." She said softly to the distraught boy, he sobbed again and gripped her tightly. Bella grimaced as his strong arms held her slightly too tight.

"Bella!" Edward whispered furiously. Her eyes met his and she shook her head to let him know she was fine. The humming of the bond told him that her shield was protecting her from the extra strength of the newborn.

"Shhh," she calmed the boy, running her hand over his untidy hair.

"I want my mom!" he cried. Even the nature of the vampire was subsumed by the loving nature of the boy who was possessed by it. Edward moved softly behind the boy. His eyes met his wife's again over the young man's head, he could see the pain in her as she held the sobbing boy. She closed her eyes and nodded. Edward gripped the boy's head and quickly twisted it from his neck. As the boy died his last thought was a thank you for ending his torment. Edward had never felt so guilty in his life as he did at that moment as they made the fire to destroy the body. Even after his early rebellious period, where he had killed humans, he had not felt their deaths the way he did this young child.

Bella cried softly as she gently settled the body into the flames, as carefully as his own mother would have settled him into his grave.

She looked at her husband, her eyes hard and black. "He has to pay!" she growled. He nodded silently.

If the Volturi Guard were not heading their way he would have delighted in teaching the Sire a lesson he would not live to benefit from. However there was more at stake than just a young boy who should have lived his life.

The moonless night still had several hours to go. Alice, Carlisle, Esme and Jasper were all in the air now heading to Eau Claire.

"I thought we were going to hire a car to get to Eau Claire?" Bella said as they exited the park.

"We didn't expect to be finished so soon. If we want to hire a car we will have to wait 4 hours for the company to open, why not run it?" he asked.

"It will be light before we get there." She pointed out.

"But we can go direct. I need to hunt." He shouldn't but the night had taken it out of him and he felt a great need to feed. Bella smoothed a hand over his jaw-line.

"Ok," she looked back to where the smoke of the bonfire was still just visible as it dissipated in the dark night air. "Do you know what his mother looks like? We could at least let her know… something." she asked as they picked up speed and exited the town.

"He killed her." He told her sadly.

"Oh god!" she gasped for air.

"I had trouble reading his mind, but from what I can gather he went looking for his mother as soon as he woke, knowing she would be worried, and…" he grimaced.

"Gioffre is a monster!" she growled. He had to agree with her.

They found a herd of deer as they ran through Maplewood State Park and Edward took a young buck down. Bella still wasn't hungry, but it had been so long since she had actually fed that he took it for granted that she was not thirsty. She had shown no loss of control at all, in fact she was more controlled than a lot of vampires a couple of years old.

The sun rose as they travelled north of Minneapolis. Half an hour later Edward actually heard the thoughts of his family as they passed overhead, coming into land at Chippewa Valley Airport.

Alice called as they were approaching the city. The sun would break through the cloud cover in an hour or so. They would be stuck until just after midday.

They quickly made their way to a central location and booked into a rather nice hotel called Ramada.

As soon as they settled into their suite Bella broke down and cried. Of course there were no tears but her sobs filled the air. Esme and Alice immediately went to comfort her as Edward told his father and brother about the young boy they had destroyed earlier.

"It hit Bella hard." Edward ran his hands through his hair. He had wanted to comfort Bella but as he had been the one to destroy the boy he thought she would welcome the comfort of the women rather than himself.

"I think it would have hit any of us." Carlisle said sadly, he laid a hand on Edward's shoulder.

"He just looked so sad!" Bella's voice travelled easily to them in the large living room.

"It was for the best. The Volturi wouldn't have let him live in any event." Alice pointed out.

"He wanted to die." She sobbed. Esme folded her into her arms. Edward could almost hear her heart break, not only for Bella but for the young boy.

"Alice?" Carlisle asked, "Any idea what we are facing?"

"No, I can't see still. I can spot a couple of vampires in New York, but as far as I can tell they aren't newborns." He watched as her visions flickered as she changed their plans over and over. Nowhere in the visions could she see Gioffre or anyone who seemed to know him.

"I'll contact Charlie and see if there are any reports that we may have missed." Carlisle dialled the number.

"Forks Police." The voice of Deputy Steve came clearly from the speaker.

"Is Charlie around?" Carlisle asked.

"Hold on I'll get him… Chief it's for you, I think it's Doctor Cullen."

"Got it! Carlisle?" Charlie sounded tired. He probably hadn't slept since they had left.

"Any news for us?" his father asked.

"Hold on," the sound of moving furniture and a door opening and closing seemed to echo around the room as they waited for Charlie to get somewhere safe enough to talk. "Sorry about that. There's reports of four or five deaths in towns you all headed to, but there's also one in a place called Little Falls MI. There aren't any reported strange deaths in New York, I've been keeping an eye on the area. Well, I say no strange deaths, there's none that have the same… MO anyway. As to missing persons, there's just too many to count. I was looking into the disappearance of a whole family in Minneapolis when a Federal Agent called to ask what my interest was. I could hardly tell them! I think at least that that family is in Witness Protection, rather than killed by vampires."

"What did you tell the FBI?" Jasper asked.

"That I was doing research on missing persons for a friend's son's school project. It was all I could think of. Sam was with me when I got the call and he promised to contact Jacob and have the Quileute school cover by assigning it to their pupils. It's a good job the Pack have pull in the reservation or I could be under investigation myself."

"Charlie. Go buy a disposable phone, if you need to contact us about this matter in future use that, when we have it all cleared up then you can dump the phone."

"What?" Charlie wasn't slow but even Edward was surprised by Jasper's advice.

"If they put together a serial killer profile they may start tracking your phonecalls. Especially now you have come to the notice of the FBI. Remember the first killings to fit the MO of this supposed killer happened in your town."

Charlie sighed. "Right. I never thought of that." He said. "That's what you get for living in a small town I suppose." He huffed a mirthless laugh. "Is Bella there?"

They paused for a second but she came out of the bedroom and took the phone.

"Hi Dad." She sounded subdued, which surprised no one in the room.

"Hey Bells, what's wrong?" he asked.

"I just… we had to…" she couldn't carry on and Edward took the phone off her and filled Charlie on the happenings of the morning and then at his request handed the phone back to her.

"Bastard!" Charlie sounded just as upset, "You did the right thing love." His soothing voice allowed her to calm slightly. "He wouldn't have been able to cope anyway, and how many more would he have killed?"

"I know but…"

"But nothing. Edward says he was thankful in the end. You did him a favour."

"I know." She whispered.

"I'll go get a disposable phone and contact Emmett and Rose. You go get him and rip him to pieces for me."

"We will." She promised.

She disconnected the call and slumped onto the sofa next to her husband. He wrapped his arms around her and lovingly kissed her hair.

"Promise me we will kill him." She said, her voice suddenly cold.

"I Promise." Said everyone in the room simultaneously.

She stood looking at herself in the mirror. They had waited until full dark before heading out to find the latest nomad. Once again it was easy to dispose of the creature. He was in a dark alley behind a pub, laying in wait for a one of the hookers that used the place frequently. He had been a client in his human life and so knew that the alley would be busy with at least a couple of 'meals' early in the night. Alice and Jasper had walked into the stinking backstreet as Edward and Carlisle dropped from the roof of the pub. Bella and Esme didn't even have to drop down. By the time they moved to do it, the nomad was already in two pieces. Jasper and Edward took the body and put it into the large bin that held the refuse of the businesses around the area. They set fire to it and watched as the metal container glowed with the heat of the conflagration.

"Milwaukee?" Carlisle asked. Everyone nodded. Again they were running, it was a more direct route than a car could take and they wanted to get it done that night. It took just over three hours for them to get there, having stopped for everyone but Bella and Edward to hunt in the Black River State Forest on the way. Unfortunately the Whitetail Deer population had been driven north almost to the boundary of the reserve by a large group of ATV riders that were, even at that late time of night, tearing up the paths of the usually quiet reserve.

It took longer than they had expected to find enough deer to satisfy everyone, but they still managed to get to their destination with hours to spare of darkness.

Alice hissed as a vision swam into her mind. The nomad they were hunting was a pyrotechnic. This could cause serious problems!

They all gathered in Rolling Meadows Park, just in range of the mind of their quarry he was about five miles away, his thoughts so loud that Edward had no trouble picking his mind out of the millions that were still active at that very early time of the morning. He had already fed that night according to his thoughts. He moved off, heading east. Alice stopped them following him. He soon got out of range of Edward's talent.

"We have to have a proper plan." Alice said, her focus going in and out as she tried to find the least damage and quickest method. If they had just followed him as planned Esme would be hurt badly and it was possible that Jasper would actually be killed as he jumped to defend her. They didn't really have time to waste though, the Volturi would be in New York in 18 hours. They had to kill this one and get there as quick as possible if they were to have any chance of killing Gioffre before he was located.

The Cullen Jet had gone to get Emmett and Rose and bring them to Little Falls to take out the nomad that was now behind them.

"What do you see?" Carlisle and Jasper asked at the same time.

"He's only found out about his talent today. He's busy setting fire to things around him, testing his limits. If we attack him he could kill some of us."

"We don't have a choice!" Jasper said. "If we don't take him out and the Volturi come after him, it won't be good for any of us!" Jasper could remember the carnage that the Volturi brought all too clearly of course. "If Alec is let off his leash we could all pay the price."

"I know!" she rubbed her forehead. She gasped.

"What?" a chorus of voices asked her.

"He's a pyromaniac, or he was. There's a wanted poster with his face on, he's planning on burning down the precinct that issued it in revenge. Now he knows his power and he thinks he's totally indestructible he's going after the police."

"Which station?" Jasper asked, running over to a phone booth on the edge of the park and grabbing the Yellow Pages and breaking the chain that supposedly held it in place.

"I can't see… hold on," she screwed her face up trying to pick anything out in her vision that would tell them where to go. "North 49th St!" she said at last as the street sign swam into view.

"Uptown!" Jasper closed the book and threw it onto a park bench, they sped off in the right direction. The streets were still busy so they took to the rooftops where possible to avoid detection.

As they ran Alice still tried to see what they had to do to get the best outcome from the confrontation.

"Bella, do you think your shield would stop fire?" Jasper asked.

"I don't know!" she replied.

"NO!" Edward spoke over her. "She isn't risking it."

"That's it!" Alice finally got a vision in which only the nomad was injured, well actually he was burnt to a crisp by his own flames.

Edward groaned. Bella would have to stand directly in his path.

"What is it?" Carlisle asked.

"Bella has to approach him from the front. He will attack her with his fire and her shield can sort of wrap around him and force the flames back at him."

"I don't know how to do that!" Bella protested. "I've only used the shield radiating from myself."

"Actually that isn't true." Esme said, "When we caught the nomad outside Forks you held him to the ground by projecting your shield over him."

"It still started from me." She said. "It was sort of like a tennis racquet, the handle was my shield attached to me, the actual bat bit was over him, stopping him from jumping."

Edward gasped, the mind of another vampire intruded on him. He automatically turned to the right.

"There's another!" he told them.

"Another what?" they asked.

"Another newborn. I can see the lake. He's heading south, he has a specific target in mind, someone who owns a boat."

"Are you sure it isn't the same one?" Carlisle asked.

"I'm sure, I can read them both, it's hard though, there are so many minds here, packed so close. But I definitely can hear 2 newborns." Edward ran his hands through his hair.

"We have to split up." Jasper said. "Edward, at the moment you are the only one who can track that new one, you, Carlisle and Esme go after him, Alice, Bella and I will go after the fire starter." Edward opened his mouth to protest.

"We have to get them and get to New York!" Esme said, putting a calming hand on his shoulder. Bella nodded to him. She wasn't happy about splitting up either by the look on her face.

"Ok, I suppose we have to." Alice held up her hand.

"As soon as you kill him, head to New York, we may have a problem, we will be right behind you."

Edward would have objected but he could see the vision in her mind. The pyromaniac had been diverted by an open-air party in County Grounds Park. Even now at 4:30 in the morning there were hundreds of young people, loud music, drink and drugs. The vampire had fed well earlier and so was in no mind to hurry from the party. They would have to wait until it died down in an hour or so or until he got tired of dancing with the humans and left. However the other nomad was getting further and further away as he travelled down the lake shore to get to his quarry.

"Ok." He sighed, he kissed Bella. "Be safe!" he commanded.

"You too, see you in New York if not before." She promised him. He nodded and the three of them sped south east on a course to intercept the other newborn before he reached the person he was targeting.

It was almost dawn by the time the people in the park dispersed enough that the nomad they were after got bored and left. He headed in almost a direct line for the police station that Alice could still see he planned to set fire to. They had moved around so they were on the path he would travel.

"He just doesn't care if he is seen or not." Alice's eyes weren't focussed on the street where they had been waiting, they started to move towards their target. Bella guided her around a fire hydrant that she seemed to be headed right for. Jasper grinned at her and shook his head to let her know that Alice didn't need help. "He thinks he is invincible, he doesn't care if he gets caught, he plans to kill any police that come too close. Wait!" They stopped. The street was getting busier as people who worked early shifts headed into the city through the gloom of pre-dawn. "There's just no safe place to ambush him. This area is all detached houses! Everything is too spread out, no alleys or anything. He's changed route!"

Alice guided them onto West North Avenue and pointed at a man walking casually on the other side of the road. He was almost so nondescript you couldn't pick him out of a line up even if you had studied his face well. Even with enhanced vampire features he wasn't anything special. They got closer, less than 200 yards separating them.

Bella was about to cross the road when a hand on her arm stopped her. "Wait." Alice said almost silently. Jasper's face was tight with effort as he stared at the man. Suddenly he paused and looked around, everywhere but directly at the trio waiting for him. He wrung his hands together, obviously Jasper was using his talent to make him nervous.

Suddenly he turned up N62nd and started to run at full speed. The few commuters on the road didn't even seem to notice him pass.

"After him." Was all Jasper said and the three set off running. As soon as he could the nomad switched direction, and again and again. He didn't even think about jumping over things, he just ran. "I'm keeping him off balance, but he won't run forever." He told the girls.

He took a road heading northwest and in minutes they were out of the city and back into the countryside. Jasper gestured and Alice and he moved to the sides, leaving Bella in the center, they ran as fast as possible, but the newborn was pulling away from them. Suddenly he stopped dead. In front of them was a massive stone quarry.

"I think he's afraid of heights." Alice sounded unsure.

"If he wasn't before he is now." Jasper said, concentrating. Bella closed in on the man.

"Stay back!" he sounded very afraid as he watched her move towards him, Jasper must be pouring everything he had into influencing his mood. He put his hands out, fire seemed to dance above his right hand.

"You can't keep killing people." Bella told him. The man's face twisted in disgust.

"Why not? Seems to me that they deserve everything they get. You can't stop me!" the last four words came out in a scream as he pulled his arm back and seemed to throw the fire directly at her.

Without even thinking of what was happening, Bella's shield activated and wrapped around him. Just like Edward had said earlier, she blocked the fire and turned it back on its creator.

The first scream coming from his throat made all of them jump. All the other nomads they had burnt hadn't been able to scream as their heads had been detached from their bodies.

Bella felt nauseous as she watched the nomad burn. The sweet purple smoke swirled around, held close by the shield as the fire intensified and the body crumbled into ash. An alarm sounded in the small office in the bottom of the quarry, they could see men heading in their direction as the beacon type fire on the edge of the cliff alerted them to something happening.

As soon as there was nothing left of the newborn the three of them sped away, at least there wouldn't be anything left by the time the humans arrived, no body, no clothes, nothing but a burnt patch of ground and maybe some ashes.

They got a few miles from the site before Bella collapsed on the ground, sobbing. It wasn't that she felt sorry for what they had to do, as much as she hated the fact that she herself was responsible for it. With the young boy she and Edward had killed she at least felt she was doing him a favour. The boy was so distressed by his own actions, and so horrified at what he had become that she felt more like she was doing him a service rather than taking his life. Though she knew she had to kill the nomad, that he WASN'T sorry for his actions, and in fact planned more of the same, she was horrified that her shield could be used as an offensive weapon rather than the defensive aspects she had seen before.

Alice and Jasper both put their arms around her in comfort. She cried for around 10 minutes before realising what she needed, Edward. She could feel the bond pulling her in his direction.

"I'm ok." She told them. Jasper put his hand on her shoulder, but she could not feel any change of mood. She could do with it really, but her shield was back to full force, stopping her from benefiting from his power. She gave him a small smile and shrugged.

"Let's go meet them." She said, and got to her feet.

They made their way towards the city again, they briefly considered flying to New York, but in the end decided that overland they would have more chance of spotting any more Nomads left behind by Gioffre, so they slipped south around the inhabited areas and headed east.

"Has Edward…?" Bella asked Alice.

"They must have done. I can see they are already in Cleveland, about 3 or 4 hours ahead of us."

They had agreed that they wouldn't contact each other until they all got to New York. It wouldn't be exactly stealthy to be hunting a vampire with ringtones blaring into the air.

She missed him though. She would give anything at that moment to be held in his arms. It wasn't pressing, not like when the bond pulled at them, just a human need for comfort.

They avoided contact with humans, travelling rather out of their way to make sure that there wasn't a chance of being seen. In the late morning the cloud cover dissipated, leaving them exposed. They sheltered in a small state park in Pennsylvania, just east of Pittsburgh. Alice told them they only had to wait a couple of hours and the clouds would make travel possible again. She could feel the bond stretch as Edward moved further and further away from her. A dry tickling sensation in the back of her throat started as the clouds came overhead. She didn't know what it was, she thought for a second that she was coming down with a sore throat or maybe some other type of infection, but then remembered she was now a vampire and it wasn't possible. How could she forget something like that, she wondered?

The three of them quickly set off as soon as the light permitted, the dryness turned into an ache as they finally approached the city of New York. They had just crossed into the sprawling satellite towns and cities on the approach to New York City itself when the slow growing ache turned into burning. Bella gasped, her hand going to her throat as if trying to ease the sensation. She backed into a narrow alley between two empty businesses.

"Bella?" Jasper pulled her to a stop before they reached the dead end of the alley. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"I don't know." Her voice was hoarse and her throat burned with every breath, smells surrounded her, making the burning even worse, she backed more until her spine was pressing into the bricks so hard she could feel them crumble under the pressure.

"Let down your shield a bit." Jasper stood in front of her, bending slightly to meet her eye at her level.

"I… I don't know how!" a pulsing sound filled her ears, drowning out whatever he was saying in his soft Texan twang. Alice gasped.

"She's thirsty!" she exclaimed.

"I… it hurts." She rubbed her throat even though it did no good to ease the pain. It felt as if someone was putting a red hot poker down her throat! Suddenly she crouched and let out a growl. Wild feelings swept over her as she swayed slightly from side to side, unable to decide which of the smells she wanted to find first.

Alice quickly took her phone out of her pocket. "Edward, where are you?" she almost screamed.

"7th Avenue. We think he's in Manhattan at the moment, there's a couple of vampires there that have visualised him in the last few hours. Where are you?" he asked.

"We're just on the outskirts of South Orange, Bella is…"

"Thirsty!" she growled, unable to chase any of the scents she wanted because Jasper was holding her back she was getting frustrated. She knew she could throw him off at any time, she was a newborn after all, and her shield could hold him away easily, but she knew deep down in her civilised self that if she was allowed free she would never forgive herself for her actions. It was one thing to take out out-of-control nomads, it was another to kill an innocent human.

"Can you hold on? I can be there in 10 minutes." The noise coming over the speaker told them that he was already travelling as fast as he could as wind howled across the ether.

"She's not trying to escape yet, but as the thirst grows she won't be able to hold her control." Jasper was already straining to keep her from moving.

"Get her out of the city!" Edward shouted.

"We can't it won't work." Alice told him, "If we try and move her she will get free and attack someone." Bella tried to not think about the scents surrounding her, she tried not to think of the burning in her throat, but of course the more she tried to not think of it the more that thought dominated her.

She could feel Edward moving closer every second. She tried to concentrate on the bond but it wasn't strong enough to keep her attention from the raging thirst. Her inner vampire suddenly had had enough. Her shield snapped to full strength, throwing both Alice and Jasper into the walls of the buildings each side of the alley where they were stood. A car with four young men in it sped past on the street at the end of the alleyway, it's windows open, music blaring out and the delicious smell she craved filled the air. She jumped.