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Chapter 14
Their time
Edward leaned against the edge of the Ferrari, staring out into the night beyond the light spilling from the mansion's garage.
On the perimeter of their land, a twelve-foot wrought-iron fence served to dissuade most random visitors. The persistent few found the yard patrolled, during daytime hours, by a pack of vicious Rottweilers, mammoth dogs with jaws capable of crushing human bones to powder.
Those who chose to leap the fence at night rarely made it to the front door before Alice found them.
The mansion was not without human visitors, though. Carlisle maintained contact with men in high places, mortal and immortal alike, though for those of the former type he disguised his own nature with both costumes and hypnosis.
There were the servants, as well – Men and women who arrived once or twice a week during daylight hours to clean the house and tend the grounds.
The Rottweilers knew them, and allowed them entry. They were unaware of the nature of their employers, and knew only that some rooms were off limits, locked to them.
They were paid very well for their discretion, and Edward had never had any dealings with them that were not pleasant.
He met with them periodically, during the early morning hours, fighting off the sleep and the pain of the sunlight, in order to read their minds and be certain of their loyalty.
Some vampires kept servants – slaves essentially – in thrall to them, bound by drops of blood and convinced that someday, if they behaved properly, they too could become vampires.
Absurd, of course: the vampires of all but the Burilgi line were very picky in their choice of fledglings.
Having become a servant to another creature in itself made these thralls the most unlikely choice for an heir.
"Hypocrite." The tiniest whisper of his own voice, a bitter smile. Was he not a servant to Carlisle? Had Bella not been a servant to her pimp?
Was she not, now, his own servant, dependent upon him for instruction and for blood? This last he doubted, and this gave him satisfaction. Bella had been the proper choice.
She was with him out of desire, not desperation, and would remain so for as long as such desire continued. This might be a decade, might be a millennium.
Regardless, it was more pure than the bond that held him to Carlisle. He believe that, with luck, it might last half a millennium or more. Long enough, perhaps, to finally bury Kate.
The dresses had made Bella aware of her own femininity. These clothes made her aware again of the raw physical appeal of her own body.
Tight, slate coloured jeans; a stretchy, white shirt showing off the slimmest crescent of her abdomen; a black leather jacket.
She felt strong, comfortable, desirable. Edward's double-take as she entered the garage reinforced this.
"Be still my heart," he said as she slipped into the leather interior of the Ferrari. Bella smiled. He sat down beside her and started the car. "Is Rose coming?" Bella nodded, then bit her lip.
"I asked her to. Or she asked me, but I wanted … I'm scared, Edward."
"I understand. You need not fear, Bella. We will be there to help you." Bella's newly enhanced senses were better able to cope with the speed of the Ferrari, but still the world was a blur.
The car glided along the dark roads, top down, the sound of the wind like the crashing of a waterfall.
Bella's hair streamed out behind her. She felt the big, stupid grin back on her face despite the evening's forthcoming events, and was glad for it.
Behind them, now and then, there was a flash of lights. Rose's roadster could not hope to compete with Edward's, but it was by no means a slow car either, and she drove it with an abandon that concerned even Edward.
At one point he slowed somewhat, and she caught up with them immediately, pulling alongside, grinning wildly, barely watching the road.
Edward stomped on the gas pedal, flying ahead of her, and slowed again. Rose pulled back to their side, middle finger extended, laughing.
His words, made audible by the force of his thought, cut through the wind.
"Please do not feel we're making light of this, Bella. It is just that we are both excited nearly beyond containment. We cannot help being joyful. We know very well what you are soon to experience."
Bella, who felt that the closest Edward might approach to "excitement beyond containment", was mild enthusiasm, remained sceptical. She was not offended, though. Quite the contrary, Edward's games with Rose helped to ease her mood.
These beings had been doing this thing for hundreds of years. If they could take it so lightly, perhaps their words about the effect of the blood were true.
They covered the fifty miles to the small town in less than half an hour, came to a stop in the parking lot of a small park just outside its boundaries, shut off their engines, got out of the cars.
Rose was giggling like a little girl, perched on the hood of her BMW, looking at the Bella of them.
"I love this century! We don't do that nearly enough, Edward." For his part, Edward was smiling broadly. He nodded.
"I don't know how the hell you guys do it." Bella was also smiling. She felt out of breath. "I couldn't see a thing."
"You will continue to change as the blood works on your body, Bella. In a few decades, you may be able to drive like Rose."
"No one drives like me!" Rose laughed, leapt to her feet, twirled circles on the road in the moonlight, staring upward at the stars.
"Well, perhaps not exactly like Rose," Edward conceded.
"I'm thirsty. Who's going first, here? Bella? Edward?"
"What about you, Rose?" Bella questioned.
"Nah. I'll wait and go into Manhattan. I might take an appetizer up here, but what I really want is to find some cute little sixteen year old thing with big boobs and too much makeup. I'm going to get her all drunk and seduce her." Rose's smile had a wicked edge to it.
Bella looked at her, eyebrows raised. Rose laughed at the expression.
"What? All vampires have to be like mister 'no, heterosexual food only, please' over there? I'm equal opportunity, bed and blood. Whatever strikes my fancy."
Edward put a hand to his brow and shook his head, but Bella could see humour warring with, and eventually winning out over, the look of disapproval he was attempting.
"I guess I'll go first." Bella sighed. Edward touched her cheek lightly, smiled, turned and began to walk down the road. Bella and Rose followed.
They moved toward the town, and the unsuspecting humans who slept there.
"This reminds me of my first time," said Rose as they walked. "I mean, not with a guy but, you know, like drinking blood and everything. After Carlisle made me, he sent me out with Edward, and said he could teach me everything I needed to know."
"I am more your patron, in most ways, than that ancient—" Edward began. Rose interrupted him.
"We know how you feel about Carlisle, Edward. Shut up and let me tell my story!" Bella laughed.
The expression on Edward's face was typical of an older brother: exasperated, and yet she saw a great deal of love there as well.
"As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, Edward took me to the city, took me to a brownstone. Hmmm … maybe I should start at the beginning?"
"Will it lessen the deluge of words you no doubt have prepared, if you structure your thoughts first, I wonder?" Edward's voice was wistful as he looked up at the stars. Bella laughed, then clapped a hand over her mouth, looking at Rose with bright eyes.
"You're no better than he is." Rose tossed her hair playfully. "Fine, fine. If you don't want to hear my story, we'll just walk in silence. Or maybe Edward could think of something more structured. Accounting, or law, or something."
"I want to hear the story, Rose. Honestly." Bella tried to look apologetic, succeeded only in half-stifling another burst of laughter.
"I don't know how Carlisle found me. Either does Edward. Or if he does, he won't tell me. I don't know why he made me what I am. I was twenty-three, working in a garment shop, making clothes. I was a seamstress. It was eighteen-seventy-two, and they paid me two dollars a week. Can you believe that?"
"A week?"
"A week. I lived in that dirty, rat-infested pile of bricks in Brooklyn, and I worked for two dollars a week. My whole family worked there, except my father. He died when I was just a little girl.
"When I said I loved this century, I meant it. It's so clean now! Even Manhattan. Even the dirty parts. The streets aren't filled with mud and manure. I can drive my pretty little car wherever I want to go. I can buy perfume and beautiful clothes and, if I want, I can walk around in nothing but a bikini, and no one will even say anything. Girls do it in the summer all the time."
Bella found it fascinating, this new take on what seemed to be such mundane aspects of life. She realized that even given her love of art, she had remained wholly grounded in her 21st-century world. Rose was not of this time, and her amazement at things Bella had always taken for granted was refreshing.
"One evening as I left the building, there was Edward, standing in front of me. He said that my presence was urgently requested by a great lord, and beckoned toward a carriage. Even then, he had a taste for fast vehicles. There were six huge horses tied to that carriage, each of them worth more than I would ever earn in my life. Big wheels with wooden padding on the axles to remove some of the shock.
"It still bounced and jostled something awful, but he drove it like a madman anyway. Oh, of course I went. There was no doubt that he did represent some wealthy lord. The carriage alone proved it. And when the rich beckoned, well … it was always wise to follow.
"I was totally unaware of what was going on right up until he put his fangs into me." She looked at Bella and shook her head, her smile sad. "It was pretty disgusting, but it didn't stop me from, you know … like right then and there."
Bella nodded, glanced up at Edward, her face colouring slightly. Edward seemed absorbed in contemplating the moon.
"He drained me all the way, and then gave me some of his blood. I didn't wake up like you did, though. No, his blood was … it hurt me. Really badly, actually, even though he gave it in three or four doses. I remember I was screaming, and then it was dark, and then it was four days later, and I don't remember any of them." Rose's voice, normally so happy, now trembled.
"I can't even feel her!" She cried, then bit her lip in frustration. "I only know she's there because Edward tells me about her, and because sometimes I wake up and I know it's been more than one day. I'll wake up in new clothes. I'll wake up and find horrible pictures spread out on the bed. She likes terrible things. Things with needles and knives and hooks. I'm only glad I can't remember how she eats. I don't want to know."
"She is not a part of you, Rose." Edward's voice was soothing. He was still looking at the moon.
"Really, Edward? She cut me, the other day. She cut me from the back of my wrist up to my shoulder, half an inch deep, and then … went back. Let me in. I woke up all of a sudden, standing outside in the woods, with my whole arm feeling like it was on fire, pouring blood. Poor Alice was having conniptions. I don't know what I was being punished for.
"She hates me. She hates me because she can't escape from me, and if she can't escape from me, then she must be a part of me."
Edward was quiet. He turned away from the moon, looked down at the road. He seemed to have no answer to this. Bella spoke up.
"If she's a part of you, Rose, she's a part that was supposed to be buried. Carlisle's blood woke her up, but she's not a part of you that was ever supposed to … to function. She's like a set of wisdom teeth that never come in, but never need to be pulled, except Carlisle pushed them forward. She's like a benign tumour, except Carlisle made it malignant. You see?
"We've all got parts of us that are dormant. They don't affect us, even subconsciously. But I guess the right shock can wake them up. But she's not a part of you, she's a wrongful addition. You were already complete to begin with."
Rose seemed to take some consolation in this. She stopped, hugged Bella, and kissed her cheek.
"Thanks. I thought I was supposed to be tagging along to comfort you!" Bella smiled.
"You are. Glad I could return the favour."