The earth mother fashioned clay and threw it into the wilderness and created Enkidu,
born of silence, endowed with strength. He knew neither clan nor settled living.
He ran with the animals and jostled at the watering hole,
but unlike the animals, Enkidu's thirst was not slaked by mere water.*
- from the Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet I. Bronze Age, 2700 BC
The scent saturated the air and twisted through the trees. Pursuit should have been easy, but with the smell all around - prickling Bella's nose, burning like ammonia - it was impossible to know which direction to take. She had to trust in Demetri. He was a blur up ahead, either moving toward Edward or attempting to escape. If she let him gain any more distance, she'd lose the power to bring him down with fear, but he was still tracking, she hoped, and she couldn't afford to stop him now if Edward was close.
Flat palm leaves smacked against her skin, one after the other in a stuttering rush of sound, but underneath that she heard unfamiliar voices. They weren't alone.
"Ginnie, keep up," she called, because it would be easier to protect the blonde if she stayed close. There was only a huff of air in reply and the faster footfall behind her as Ginnie picked up the pace.
Beneath the voices, beneath the slap of leaves and the beat of their own feet, there was something else. Bella let her world narrow down to reflex and sound as she avoided a fallen log and opened herself to listening. There, quieter than the rest, the steady pulse of blood - a heart pumping. No, several hearts, almost in a circle around her, and getting closer.
What creatures had beating hearts and yet didn't have the instinct to keep their distance from blood drinkers?
Given what she knew about the acrid smell and given where they were, it was werewolves, most likely. The voices she could make out were human, and she glanced up to see a waxing moon – not quite full – through a break in the canopy. Not turned, then. From what she'd heard they were strong in their human form, and though not nearly as deadly without claws and a massive set of teeth, tonight they still had the advantage of self control and reason. She almost wished they were wolves. Better to battle brute force than cunning…if there was to be a battle. Normally there'd be no doubt, but if these creatures were really following Enkidu's orders….
It was hard to imagine werewolves living alongside a vampire, following him, if the Volturi were to be believed. She'd never seen such a thing, but her life was hardly an instant compared with that of her maker. Enkidu had been alive when the first wolf cub was taken in by man and learned to be a part of a human pack. He'd even told her of the last of the old ones – the great, sturdy Neanderthals who'd hunted mammoths in smaller and smaller numbers until the last of them were gone.
Now, over three thousand years since she'd left him, Enkidu was quite possibly very near. She didn't feel the confusing rush of revulsion and gratitude that usually accompanied thoughts of him. At the moment, his werewolves stood between her and Edward. It could be a coincidence… or not. Either way, despite having looked for her maker every thousand years or so, she had no desire to let him slow her down now. It was startling that the most powerful bond she'd ever known meant next to nothing in the face of finding Edward.
She kept her eyes on Demetri as she followed his every turn, but she almost stumbled when she saw him skid to a halt to avoid running into two men and a woman with a thick scar across her jaw. Though lean and heavily muscled, they looked human, but their heartbeats were faster, and the smell was overwhelming now.
Bella slowed her pace, and Ginnie collided with her back as they made their way up to Demetri and the strangers who'd halted his progress. One of the men looked Indian, but the other two were European.
Demetri turned to Bella as she drew close. He was looking to her to make the next move, and it didn't surprise her. He was the sort who could be stoic enough to carry out any order, however distasteful, but he was not a leader. Even the strangers sensed it, because they turned to her as well.
"We're looking for someone. A young vampire," she said. "What do you want?"
There, that should get them straight to the point.
"You feel different," the tallest man said. He had thick brown hair that hung in waves to his shoulders. His eyes were bright blue.
"She's dangerous." This judgment came from the woman half behind him who looked like she could have been his sister. "She makes my skin crawl. I don't think Kurtz will like her."
"You will stop what you're doing," the man told Bella. Clearly he was the leader, at least in this little group, and Bella turned all her attention to him, even as the other man whispered something she didn't recognize in Hindi.
"We have stopped, haven't we? We're not running," Ginnie said.
Leave it to Ginnie to brazen out a fight when they were outnumbered. Bella gave her a hard look, and Ginnie drew in a breath of frustration, but closed her mouth and turned away.
"I make people feel unsettled." Bella said. "I can't stop it any more than I already have. It's in my nature."
The leader gave a short nod, and held up his hand so no one would speak. After a moment of thought, he turned his bright eyes on Bella again.
"We've been told about a woman who brings fear wherever she goes. Are you Dae?" he asked. He drew the name out softly, Day-ee, as though it were sacred.
It was the confirmation of everything the Volturi had told her. This man knew her original name, her human name, and the only way that would be true was for Enkidu to have spoken of her, though she didn't want to imagine why, after so many years apart, he would speak her name aloud. She wondered whether to lie, but she suspected that either way they would bring her to Enkidu, and though the three werewolves had heartbeats that made them sound vulnerable, she could hear more voices, others that were waiting, hidden in the trees, for one word from this blue eyed man. His shoulders were set, and he was ready for any sign of aggression, and though Ginnie was the only natural discerner of lies, Bella had an intuition that she didn't want to lie to this man.
"I'm Dae," she said.
"This way then," and he turned and walked deeper into the forest without looking back. "We will take you to Kurtz."
The scarred woman hesitated and then hurried to catch up with her leader. Voices moved in closer behind them, now loud and unconcerned, and Bella guessed there were about seven or eight werewolves nearby, though there were still only three in sight.
Ginnie said, "What now?" but Bella ignored her and concentrated on the meeting ahead. The werewolves they followed had sensed her talent so they weren't immune, or at least, not in their human state. That was the first thing to note. She suspected Ginnie's gift would be useful as well. Enkidu was immune mainly to talents that required will and a focus on him specifically – Demetri trying to track him, Jane trying to torture him. He had never been immune to Bella, and like Bella, Ginnie's talent was innate, continuous and applied to everyone around her whether she concentrated or not. It occurred to Bella that Edward's mind reading was much the same, and for a moment she felt a sharp ache of longing that had nothing to do with whatever help he could have offered if he were here.
"Are we still moving closer?" she asked Demetri.
"Closer?"
"To Edward." She gave in to the impulse to jab her elbow into his ribs, and realized that without the heavy robe he felt thinner than she'd expected.
Demetri paused and cocked his head to the side. "He's a little to the north of where they're leading us, and perhaps thirty miles away."
"So close."
"Close to Enkidu," he agreed. "You can't believe that's merely a coincidence." He shifted his hand to rub gingerly at his ribs until he noticed her watching. "What is it about the newborn anyway? Is it affection, or does he have some talent you find useful?"
The werewolves hadn't once turned to see that she was following, but their senses were probably as attuned as hers, and scent and sound would be letting them know exactly where she was. She lowered her voice. "You will not speak of him while we're among strangers." She kept her head down, but lifted her eyes to let Demetri see the anger there.
"Of course. My apologies, Isabella."
There was smoke and the ashy smell of coals in the air now, and she could see orange sparks spitting into the night. More hearts, more voices, and then she caught the scent like tilled earth and salted driftwood that she hadn't breathed in for over three thousand years. Enkidu. She felt her chest pull tight with short breaths, and forced herself to calm down.
Their guides, captors – whatever the werewolves were – pushed aside the last palm fronds that had blocked her view of a clearing where even the undergrowth was swept away. Though she'd caught the scent of it, the bonfire in the middle was still a surprise; perhaps Enkidu wasn't bothering to hide himself from the Volturi at all. He sat on the far side of the fire in a wooden chair that looked like a heap of sticks lashed together. It was raised off the ground on a crude platform several feet high so that, even seated, he was above them all.
Four werewolves, all female and three of them Indian, were seated at his feet, two on either side of him. The ones who had brought her here – there were seven of them, six of them male – moved past the fire and knelt on the ground. When she didn't kneel, the blue eyed man started to get to his feet, but Enkidu waved a hand dismissively, and the lead werewolf settled back on his heels and said, "My Lord Kurtz, we brought the woman who tests us with fear. May our efforts please you." His reverent tone was such a flashback to the early days that for a moment Bella felt like she was in her youth again, accepting earthenware bowls of blood from trembling human hands as she watched the pulse thrum in the back of their necks. It brought forward such a wave of disgust and impatience that she felt it ripple out as tension gripping everyone around her until it reached the farthest side of the clearing and fear wrapped itself around Enkidu.
He smiled then, a rare and unsettling event.
"Come forward," he said, either to her or to all three of them, but Ginnie and Demetri stayed in place as Bella made her way through the kneeling werewolves. When she jumped up onto the dais, there was an anxious murmur behind her, probably because she now stood taller than their master in his chair. Enkidu held out a hand to silence them and stood so that they were face to face.
"Dae," he said. "I have missed you."
At slightly under six feet, he was miraculously tall given the time when he'd been born, but he did have the strong features that marked him as being from another age. He was spare and muscled and utilitarian – handsome in a stark way, with black hair that fell across his pale skin and threatened to hide red eyes. He raised a jeweled hand as if to touch her shoulder – his fingers weighted with a heavy signet ring and several copper bands – and leaned toward her. He didn't like to be touched, and contact had been such a ritualized and often painful event between them that she wasn't surprised when his hand pulled back, and he let it fall back to his side.
"Enkidu." She nodded once.
"I'm Kurtz now."
"I go by Isabella."
"No, you're still Dae. Even the birds here know it. They've flown off, and the woods went quiet in your wake. I know you." He gestured to her neck. "You still wear the blood pendant I gave you the night you died. You're still Dae."
"I'm not." She ran her fingers over the worn bronze dagger on a chain. "I wear it to remember what I once was." What I never want to be again, she almost said, but it wouldn't be wise to antagonize him. She was nothing like she'd been when she'd trusted this man. She held Enkidu's gaze and kept her emotions in check, knowing that, up to a certain point at least, he would see her ability to cause fear as a weakness. He knew that a lack of control could make it to spike around her unintentionally.
"Are we arguing already?" he asked. "Just when you've been flushed out of hiding?"
"I haven't been hiding. In fact, I have looked for you," she said, hoping the words would flatter and subdue him. "I was afraid you might be dead."
"I am dead."
"As in, no longer walking the earth," she said. "I heard you were in Herculaneum when Vesuvius erupted. I thought you might not have made it out."
"You know that the only way I could have succumbed would be by my own choice. The air there was heavy, but of course I had no need to breathe it, and I avoided lava flows. Did you think I didn't want to live anymore?" He laughed, and it was a hollow sound. "You've never understood me. You should have seen the eruption though, the bodies of men, of children and horses and dogs tied to posts, twisted in houses and on the streets, all blanketed in ash within hours. I wasn't bored."
Bella wanted to shout, I don't have time for this. I need to find Edward, but she couldn't risk it without knowing whether he was involved in the kidnapping.
"Do you know why I'm here?" she asked instead.
"Look at you. Your eyes are a travesty. You've been abstaining. There was a time when you were so sated on human blood that you couldn't even make the last few kills; do you remember?"
"Stop." She took a deep breath and tried to keep herself controlled enough to not give in to the outburst of fear he wanted to provoke. Though she could fill the clearing with it, Enkidu might enjoy that, and in retaliation, he could suck the life and joy out of anything, and it wasn't a talent – just the way he was.
"It was a mistake for you to leave me," he said. "I was angry enough to let you go at the time, but now I have need of you."
"He means that," Ginnie whispered from behind her.
The sun was coming up, and Bella heard rain a long way off, the first drops tapping the distant canopy to the north where Edward was waiting somewhere.
How to maneuver her way out of this, she wondered. Flattery would work on Enkidu only to a certain point. Though he drank it down, he never believed a word of it, and after a while, the praise would start to rankle, making him angry. But flat rejection would humiliate him in front of witnesses, and that too would prompt him to lash out. She could use her fear until everyone here was writhing on the ground waiting for her to make the world blink out of existence, but Enkidu knew the truth about her talent, and that knowledge gave him power. Plus she didn't know how the werewolves would react. They could sense the fear obviously; the woman had said Bella made her skin crawl – but would it incapacitate them long enough for her to grab Ginnie and the tracker and escape? It would be dangerous to count on it.
She'd have to exploit the fact that she didn't fall into either of the two categories that Enkidu used to define almost everyone. She wasn't a worshipper, and she wasn't his enemy. She wasn't even his acolyte as she'd once been. If he thought for a moment that she could be reduced to her old status, he would know exactly how to deal with her, but if she could keep him off guard by holding her own against him while not crossing the line that would make her an enemy, she might be able to negotiate an exit.
"What do you need from me?" she asked. "I owe you enough that I've been concerned about your disappearance, but right now I have alliances of my own to uphold. I've made a promise to another to return something that belongs to him. Once I've accomplished that, perhaps I could be of service to you."
She heard Ginnie shifting behind her as she tried to sort out the truth and the lies in Bella's formal words. She was probably hung up on the word 'something' – for Edward was hardly a thing – and the mention of an alliance, for really, what Bella had with Carlisle was simply friendship, but Enkidu would never understand that. Ironically, it was better to speak in dishonest terms he would believe than in truthful ones that would make him think she was lying.
"Come back to me, and you won't need another alliance," he said. "I'm making a move now that will consolidate so much power that the Volturi will become obsolete."
Bella didn't turn to look at Demetri, but she hoped he had the good sense to keep still behind her. Without his robe on, it was probable that no one here knew he was a Volturi guard.
"I made a promise to an ally," she said.
"No, you'll stay."
"I won't. I don't want to pick a fight with you, but I will if I have to," she said, and as Enkidu raised a brow, she held up her hand before he could speak. "I can finish what I've promised to do and then come back to you." She had no intention of returning, certainly not with Edward at her side, but only Ginnie would know that. She kept her head up and her gaze steady so Enkidu would have no reason to doubt her.
"You've left before and didn't come back."
"But you didn't come looking for me either," she said, infusing her voice with a hint of disappointment. When she'd run from him, the possibility that he would hunt her down had been her greatest fear, but now she wanted Enkidu to believe that she regretted their time apart.
"I have your word that you'd return?"
He knew she took a promise far more seriously than he did, but at least he hadn't given her a time frame. "You have my word," she said, knowing that she wouldn't come back to reason with him until after Edward was safe and far from here.
"Go then, but your companions can wait for you here."
She fought hard to keep her agitation down so that he wouldn't sense it. "I need his help," she said, gesturing toward Demetri. "Without him, I won't be able to find what I'm looking for."
"The girl, then."
Bella shook her head. "I've made a promise to protect her."
"You should know better than to make all these promises. I taught you that much. But the girl will be fine here. No harm will come to her."
Bella turned to look, and Ginnie said, "Yes, I'll be fine." She obviously thought Enkidu was telling the truth, but that didn't mean he wouldn't change his mind later if something set off his temper.
"I'll need her as well," Bella said.
"One or the other, but not both."
"I could stay here, Isabella," Demetri said, and he was looking at Ginnie. Perhaps he felt something more for her than Bella had realized.
"No," Ginnie said, "You need him, and I made a promise to my grandfather. I'll stay. But you'd damn well better come back for me." She had her hands on her hips and her chin up, and if Bella hadn't known the Vikings never sent women on raids, she could have imagined a human Ginnlaug being the first to hit the shore and sack a rich monastery. This was the sort of fierce self assurance she'd seen from her when they first met near the battlefield in New Mexico.
"Thank you," Bella said. "I will come back for you."
She'd had to almost drag Demetri along with her, but once they'd run for miles, the sour scent of the werewolves grew faint until it was overpowered by the almost sweet smell of the storm.
"Just up ahead. We'll go back for Ginnie as soon as we have the newborn?" Demetri asked. He held a branch up so that Bella could move past it.
"I'll need to get Edward away from here first." Not only did she need him safely away, but she couldn't send him off with Demetri. The last thing she wanted was to place him in the hands of the Volturi, but she couldn't leave Ginnie for long either.
I've almost got Edward. It wouldn't be the end of her problem, but the thought calmed her nonetheless, and kept her from distracting Demetri. Almost there. She almost had him, and then she remembered that Edward should be able to read her mind now.
Edward, I'm here with the tracker who came to the cabin. We're going to free you.
She caught the scent of a werewolf and for a moment she thought Enkidu had sent one of his followers after them, but whoever it was waited up ahead. Did that mean the wolves had taken Edward?
"There!"
Bella looked where Demetri was pointing at a lone woman. She whipped her head around when she heard Demetri shout and then took off at a run.
"A werewolf. Should we go after her?" Demetri asked.
"Just get me to the newborn," she said, but even as she answered she caught the hint of sandalwood on the wind – sandalwood and stagnant water and rotting flesh and the bright green smell of moss. "Edward!" She pushed past the tracker and almost fell into a deep sinkhole that lay in front of her.
"Here. I'm here." His voice was strained and weak, but it was Edward. She could see him far below, knee deep in brackish water that glimmered with the light reflecting off of him. "Down here. Please," he called. There were dead bodies floating around him, and when he turned his face up to her his eyes were red and pleading.
*I altered the last line of the translation from The Epic of Gilgimesh to give it the opposite meaning. The original is "as with the animals, his thirst was slaked with mere water"
I've started Faust Had Nothing on Me - Standalone drabbles for The Twilight 25.
All the usual characters, settings, etc. are the property of S. Meyer. Original characters and plot are mine. No copyright infringement is intended. May not be reprinted without express written permission.