A/N: No seriously, you are the best reviewers. I was floored by the response to the last chapter. Your compliments mean more to me than you could know.

Pay attention to this one. Lots of little things going on.

Not my characters.

Bella's Blood Sucking Blog

February 28th 2009

Wannabeavamp85 wrote, "How do you become a vampire?"

Well, this topic has been asked about a bazillion times in the comments sections and in pm's from some of you, but I didn't actually have a good answer until now. I haven't addressed it all because I didn't want to speculate, and until this week, I was really just guessing.

Frankly, I'm glad I can finally put it to bed because I swear someone asks every five minutes.

I had been through all the traditional thoughts on the matter from both popular sources and all the blogs and websites of people who claim to be "real vampires." I knew there had to be holes in what people were saying because so far almost none of the typical theories have turned out to be true.

I pulled out some of my old notes last week when I was getting ready to interview my contact again.

Here are the most common beliefs I found about becoming a vampire.

1. You cannot become a vampire. It is genetic and you must be born one.

2. You are turned by drinking blood—you grow to crave it.

3. You must feed off another vampire.

4. Vampires must nearly drain you and then feed you.

5. There's the classic—you must be bitten three times. Think "I want to suck your blood."

There are variations of course, but these are the top five. I always assumed the answer had to be #1. My rationale was that there would have to be more of them if it were possible to turn us. I mean if they were stronger than humans, why wouldn't they form armies and attempt to colonize humans? It's not really a pleasant thought, but they'd have to have the advantage.

And I guess I sort of thought my first vampire might have been more inclined to hang around if there had been an option for him to change me, but that's neither here nor there.

This is also the most common one on the internet too. If you've Googled the topic, you've probably seen how adamant the "real" vampires are about #1. Even before I learned the truth, I had a feeling they were a bunch of crackpots who either had a weird blood fetish or just liked messing with people. Even though I also thought it was the correct answer, I figured the "real vampires" were using the excuse of genetics to hide the fact that they were complete fakes.

Believe it or not, I did a bunch of digging through medical records, searching for any common abnormalities in births that might show up across history. I was trying to find evidence of vampires anywhere I could. Then I realized how stupid that was because vampires probably weren't having babies in human hospitals. That is if they had babies.

I read this vampire book series once where they had a whole underground society—jobs, hospitals, businesses, etc. I don't know why, but that resonated with me. I suppose in my head I saw them as just like us, so I assumed their social order was the same. That's really when I started looking at buildings in very different ways. Who or what lived in them? What houses might contain a vampire library; what club might have a secret VIP room for vamps only?

Anyway, the long story short is that no vampire I've ever met had been willing to talk about it. It had always been an absolutely off limits topic. It was one of the first questions I'd asked my current contact of course, but he held out too, claiming that was one piece of information it was best left as a mystery.

I'm not entirely sure what prompted him to tell me now, but he did. He encouraged me to share here, but I kind of hesitated before posting this. I can't tell you everything, but let's just say there was more to the story, and I'm starting to wonder if maybe there aren't things in life we're better off not knowing. Anyway, I figured what the hell. I've come this far. Might as well go all the way.

It turns out, none of the previous theories are relevant. I guess that shouldn't have been a surprise.

Humans can be turned, but it is not a common practice. In other words, Dracula isn't running around biting people three times to get lovers or anything like that. But biting is involved.

It's as simple and complex as that.

Vampires are even more effective predators than I thought, and I knew they were good. You may recall that vampires possess a venom which is meant to immobilize their prey; that venom creates an unbelievable pain. What I hadn't known, however, was that left alone, the venom serves as the catalyst for turning a human. It spreads, putting the victim into something of a catatonic state. It would feel like you were burning, on fire really, for days. Usually around three. At some point, your heart would stop beating. When you woke up, you would be a vampire.

Now the reason it's not very common is that for most vampires, the bloodlust is so strong that once blood started flowing, they wouldn't be able to resist not drinking. The natural instinct is for them to drain the victim. It supposedly takes an amazing amount of control for a vampire to turn another.

And in the end, there is very little incentive to do so. While some vampires live in covens, but they tend to be very small. For the most part vampires are quite nomadic, and since they don't really live with human desires, they don't necessarily want to surround themselves with more vampires, if that makes sense. They don't need to reproduce since they don't die, and in the end, a bigger coven just means more difficulties in maintaining a transient lifestyle as well as more competition over prey. So beyond the fact that it's difficult to do, turning a human into a vampire is just not something most vampires need or want to do.

The majority of vampires were actually changed by accident—for some reason the sire had to leave in a hurry, but my contact told me that there have been times in history when a renegade group made a play to form an army of sorts, turning as many humans as possible in a short period of time. I don't know why , but of everything I've learned this has me looking over my shoulder more.

Anyway, thankfully, there is some kind of governing body who steps in when this happens. That group is quite powerful, and they are also the reason why no vampire group has taken over the humans. I tried to ask more questions about why exactly they govern and some details about how they work, but that was all he would tell me.

So those are the facts. Basically, being turned doesn't seem like a fun thing—more painful than most of the traditional theories would have you believe. And I guess now I'm more leery of the motivations a vampire would have for doing it. Definitely not a love bite from George Hamilton. Whether it's worth it or not, I don't know anymore.

Oh and before I sign off, a note to Immortalbelovedpwnsme—My source is a vampire. Clearly there are no published sources on this subject, so quit asking me for a bibliography.

As always, Happy Hunting. But I'm going to add something this time. Be careful.

Edward

Present day

I hated this blog entry. I hated it more than any of the others. Even now as I read it for the umpteenth time, I could still recall every detail of how I felt the first time I read it. The anger and fear overtook me. Fear for her, fear for my family. Anger at her, anger at her contact, anger at myself. Everything I had done. Lying, leaving. It was all for naught. We ended up in exactly the place I was trying to avoid.

I didn't think, couldn't think. From that point, everything was about instinct and action.

This topic must have resulted in a collective gasp in the vampire world. This had been the entry that forced me to confront her, to try to save her from the inevitable. It was also the one that prompted Alice's vision of the Volturi coming to visit.

Whomever her current contact was had set her up. Had to have. He had to know what kind of attention this would draw.

All of the other pieces of information could be dismissed, ignored, even laughed at. But the Volturi had protected this bit even more than the rest and not only from humans. They counted on the fact that most vampires woke up with no one to explain how they had been turned. Most were born alone, abandoned by someone who had been unable to complete a task. Most relied on instinct to lead them to sustenance.

The escape of this guarded secret posed a threat. To everyone. If all it took was a bite and some control, the outcome could be devastating to the entire social order.

Even Carlisle hadn't known the truth about the simplicity of the act, and my turning was far more complicated than it needed to be.

Carlisle spent time with the Volturi long before he found me. Their lifestyle was extravagant, privileged, and entirely different from his own. They didn't hunt; they herded. He was at odds the entire time he was there; they were baffled by his choice to drink only from animals, to "deny his true nature." He'd been able to leave on good terms though that wasn't always the case. If you had something they wanted, they didn't let you walk away.

He also learned that they saw their sole purpose as maintaining order, the foundation of which was keeping the secret of our existence. Anything that threatened to break the rule was dealt with. Swiftly. Permanently.

Carlisle said they had eyes everywhere.

There was no way to know how long anyone else had been following Bella's blog, or whether this particular discussion simply caused people to take notice.

Regardless, her contact had to be pushing for that escalation. The only things I knew about him were that he was knowledgeable and must have had a significant amount of control himself to maintain contact with humans. But why had he fed her information? Accurate at that?

I'd driven myself crazy trying to figure out, but it didn't matter at this point who he was or why he'd done it. She was gone, and it all seemed to link back to one place.

I only hoped I'd get there in time.

E/N: 2 short things. First, remember Bella only has pieces, so she's putting together a puzzle. She may not always have clarity as a result. Second, there are little clues about what's going on throughout this one. What parts of the mystery do you think are revealed here?

I think I'm going to wait until after the holiday weekend to post the next chapter. Since you have to wait, I'll offer up a teaser in exchange for your review.