I don't own anything!

Chapter 40

I'm sorry

"I'm sorry, Bella." Tan looked sick with fear and shame and regret. "I'm so sorry. Bella, I'm sorry."

"You fucking bitch …"

"You don't understand!" Tan was crying. "He came to me last night, after I left. He said if I didn't tell him what you were going to do, that he'd kill you anyway, and he'd never finish me! I didn't have a choice!" Bella was taken aback.

"Never finish you?" Tan took a step forward.

"He's a god, Bella. We could be children of God. You know what it's like. Never sick, never weak. How could I not want it?"

"Not like this, Tan. You don't want what he's offering."

"I do! He gave me a taste of the blood last night. It was … oh, God. I want it. I need it!" Carlisle observed them, silent, smiling to himself. Bella whirled, faced him, hatred now beating down the last of her fear.

"Tell her! Tell her the truth! Tell her what your blood does!"

"The truth, Bella? The truth is that I have escaped the curse of my blood. I have discovered, through much experimentation, that my blood can be diluted. I can have now what I could never have before: a true fledgling, dedicated and attentive. I will dole out my blood in small amounts, and slowly Tanya will be transformed."

"A slave, Carlisle. That's what she'll always be to you. You'll never finish her, and even if you do, you'll keep her here forever."

"Can you take the word of this prostitute, Tanya? This unclean whore who would throw away your chance at immortality for the sake of her dead lover?" Bella turned back to Tan, plaintive.

"Tan, please …"

"I'm sorry, Bella." Tan took another step forward. A third. The distance was rapidly closing. Carlisle spoke again.

"This end was inevitable, Bella, from the moment you murdered my daughter." Bella closed her eyes and felt despair welling.

It ate at her courage once again. Accept this? Get it over with? Lie down and die? Inside her something grew. A spark became a flicker, a flicker a blaze. Death meant reunion with Edward, so what reason was there to fear it? If she must die, so be it.

She would do so on her own terms, though, not like this. Tan was nearly within grabbing distance. Bella looked up at her, met her eyes, and shook her head.

"I'm so sorry, Tan." Action as instinct. Bella moved so quickly that Tan had no chance of stopping her. Carlisle could have, if he'd wanted to, but Carlisle simply stood where he was, his black grin never wavering.

In one swift move, she drew Mike's gun from the waistband of her pants, levelled it at the girl in front of her, and fired. Once. Twice. A third shot went wild, but it didn't matter.

The first bullet hit Tan in the neck. The second entered at her forehead and removed the top half of Tan's skull, spraying it backward in gout of bone and brain.

Tan's eyes looked confused for a moment, and then went blank and lifeless. She exhaled in a long, rattling sigh, and dropped to the ground.

Bella was already spinning, pointing the gun at Carlisle, and now he moved. She felt it yanked from her grip before she could squeeze off a shot. A hand she couldn't see collided with her midsection and sent her hurtling backwards, rain-softened ground rising up to meet her.

On pavement, the landing would have shattered bone. Bella lay in the grass, writhing in pain. Carlisle towered over her.

"You're very good at making things difficult, Bella." Bella wheezed, finding her breath.

"Fuckin' A."

"Can you run?"

"Break as many of my fucking ribs as you want, bastard. I can run."

"Then I think you had better do so. Who knows? The forest is quite dark. Perhaps I shall lose you." Bella looked up at the smiling figure of death above her, laughing to itself at this little piece of nonsense.

Carlisle wanted a chase, that was all; a little action after so many years without. Bella knew it, and knew that her last chance was rapidly expiring.

She reached into the interior pocket of her leather jacket, and brought out the only hope she had left. White powder, some of it clumped with moisture, some still dry. Heroin.

Tan had found it in Mike's safe, and Bella had brought it with her. She had no interest in it now, not for herself, not for Jessica, not for Alice. But maybe for Carlisle. Bella hurled the drug at his face, heard him inhale in surprise, pulled herself to her feet, and ran for the forest.

That drug, Edward, more than any other, is poison to our kind.

Carlisle's words, echoing in her brain as Bella had stared into the safe, at the bags of heroin Mike kept therein.

This was not the street grade junk he gave to his girls, nor even the private supply of cleaner product he kept for special occasions.

This was uncut, raw, and too powerful yet for use. Now it coated Carlisle's lungs, his nasal passages, the ducts of his eyes.

Bella could hear him screaming. Pain, rage, hate; Bella heard the depths of her own soul reflected back at her in Carlisle's voice, and grinned with malice as she ran.

She did not know if the heroin would kill him, or only slow him down and give her a few moments more to live before he tore her limb from limb. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore, except the deep, black well of joy within her.

She had done damage to a god. She had hurt the thing that could not be hurt. Bella laughed as she ran a maniacal cackle of glee and hatred. She slipped, slid; fell down a short, rocky embankment, cuts on her arms and face, still laughing.

Hysterical, now, and barely able to run. Something seemed to stab her in the side with every gasp. Bella didn't care. Her laughter came in gasps and shrieks.

Behind her, she could hear Carlisle crashing through the bushes. Roaring. Snarling. Bella screamed obscenities back at him, egging him on, daring him to kill her, laughing at his rage.

The path led to a sheer rock wall, the tangled underbrush on either side too thick to climb through. Bella skidded to a halt under the limbs of a tall oak, and looked around in desperation. She was trapped.

Behind her, she felt Carlisle's presence growing. There was no chance that way, and no other alternative. Death had come for her. Bella turned, put her back to the rock, and faced that death grinning.

Carlisle staggered into the clearing and came to a stop ten feet in front of her, his face twisted with hate. He coughed, rubbed an arm across his eyes, wobbled slightly, and Bella knew she had hurt him badly.

"You like it, fucker?" she screamed at the figure. "How does it feel? You flying high yet?"

"I'm going to cut the skin from your body in strips. I'm going to hang you upside-down. Keep the … blood at your head. Keep you alive." Carlisle's voice gurgled.

He turned to one side and dry heaved, broke into a fit of coughing. There was blood on his face, and Bella realized the heroin was eating away the soft tissue of his mouth and lungs. Carlisle swung back toward her, and his eyes spoke now only of death. Bella beckoned to him.

"Don't tease me, sweetheart. Do it. Do it!" Carlisle lurched forward, moving at a fraction of his former speed, unsteady in his step.

Bella unhooked her machete and prepared for death. Something dropped from the tree above, hit Carlisle with full force, and knocked him from his feet.

Snarling, screaming, writhing limbs. Alice. Bella howled in triumph, racing forward, raving, cackling.

"Alice! What are you doing?!" Carlisle's voice was weak. Confused. Its power was lost, and this more than anything filled Bella with hope.

Alice was at her peak, energized by rage and hatred, and the desire to protect her friend. Now was the time, yet Bella could not get a clear shot with the machete without hurting the girl.

"Alice, move! You have to move!" Too late. Carlisle shoved forward, and threw Alice from him.

The vampire girl collided with Bella, knocked her backward, and knocked the machete from her hand. Carlisle advanced now, still fast, despite the heroin.

Alice got in his way, was knocked aside, and landed hard. Bella could hear the crack of her head on rock from six feet away, like ice snapping on a lake in midwinter.

Bella fell to her knees, scrabbling at the ground. Reaching, searching, her eyes never leaving Carlisle's advancing form. She felt the machete's handle, clasped it, and brought it up in a last, desperate arc.

She swung the heavy blade with all of her strength, screaming prayers in a nonsense language to an indistinct God. Prayers for speed. Prayers for strength. Prayers that it was not too late.

The blade caught Carlisle just below the chin, carving into the skin of his neck. For Bella, it was like chopping at stone. She felt pain lance through her arm as muscles separated, tore, gave out, but did not draw back, did not stop her swing.

Carlisle's head separated from his body, flew up and backward into the air, hit the ground rolling, and came to a stop by Alice's inert form. Bella rolled away from the headless trunk, which stood for a moment as if welded to the ground.

Great black jets sprayed forth from the ragged stump of neck, and the hands clutched at its sides as if searching still to tear Bella apart. Then at last like Goliath it fell, borne down by its own weight, and lay still upon the ground.

Carlisle, the dark god, elder vampire of the New World, lay dead.

Blackness overtook Bella, and she lay on her back for some time, covered in filth and blood, heedless of the slush soaking into her clothes.

Gasping, sobbing, calling out to Edward, Bella lay on the cold ground until she at last realized that Edward wasn't coming, and dragged herself to a sitting position. Alice.

She made her way to Alice's body and bent down, fearing the worst. To her relief, Alice's body was already healing, the flow of blood from the wound on the forehead slowing.

She was breathing in deep, slow, steady breaths. Bella shook her gently, and Alice opened her eyes. She sat up, groggy, and looked at Bella, then at the head on the ground, and broke into tears.

Bella held her tightly, kissing her face, her hair, unable to believe they had both survived it.

"Oh, Alice. Oh, sweetheart. We did it. He's dead. Alice, he's dead!" They took the head back with them to the house. Bella wanted it nowhere near the body.

She knew that vampires possessed formidable powers of regeneration, and if someone had told her that Carlisle's head could somehow reattach itself to his body, she would not have doubted them.

They emerged from the forest together, staggering, leaning on each other for strength and making their way slowly toward the mansion, toward warmth.

Bella's head was throbbing, though she couldn't remember hitting it on anything. Her right arm felt as if on fire, every muscle torn and pulled.

Alice shuffled along, leaning against her, still dizzy and sick from the blow to the head.

Neither woman was capable of mustering more strength than was necessary to keep their limbs moving. The side door was locked, and so they made their way toward the front.

Bella didn't know what she would do if that door wouldn't open. Break a window, perhaps. It didn't matter. They needed to get inside.

The mansion was hope where no hope had been. It was warmth. Survival. Bella wondered if she was crying. Her face was too numb from cold to tell.

The front door opened with ease, swinging wide, opening on the rooms in which she had spent the past two months. Bella made a choked, sobbing noise of gratitude and stumbled inside, slamming the door behind her.

She eased Alice down onto the plush oriental carpet, and staggered to the entrance to the basement. She threw Carlisle's head down the stairs, and then bolted the heavy oak door at their top. The pain in her head and arm were making her dizzy.

Bella stumbled forward into the first room she could see. The media room. Rose's blood still stained the carpet, and Bella looked away. She struggled to one of the couches, fell down upon it, and let black unconsciousness take her.

She woke in the early morning, the sunlight still painful on her skin, and moved to a couch that lay in the shadows. Here she slept the rest of the day, and into the next evening.

When at last she came out of her slumber, she found Alice curled up next to her. Her head still ached, but only slightly. Her arm was better, though still painful to move.

Bella felt very human indeed, and wondered if her regression to that form had been hastened as she had healed.

She sat up, looking around, trying to determine what hour of the day it was. The media room's windows were dark. Bella could see smears of dirt in the hallway, and realized that during the day, Alice had dragged herself into the front closet.

"Smart girl," Bella said. She turned on one of the televisions.

Sights and sounds flashed by, news reports on things she didn't care about. She flipped channels and found a cable access station broadcasting the time and date.

Near midnight, mid-December. It would be Christmas soon, the television informed her. Had she done her shopping? To Bella it felt like she had lived ten years in the course of the past two months.

She turned off the TV and stood on shaky legs. She was starving, but not for blood. What she really wanted was a cheeseburger.

This realization made her laugh, even as tears sprung to her eyes. Bella made her way upstairs into the room she had shared with Edward.

Her clothes were still there, in closet and dressers. Bathroom supplies, books of poetry, it was as if she had never left.

Bella thought of Edward, lying next to her on the bed, and the ache in her heart leapt to the forefront.

"I could kill you a thousand times, Carlisle, and we'd never be even. You took everything I had."

Bella went to take a shower.