Disclaimer: SMeyers owns the originals. Many thanks to Project Team Beta for helping with my copies!

Also, apologies: Fan Fiction and I had a little disagreement over how many times this chappie was posting.


~: Chapter 4: Stragglers In The Crowd :~

Chicago, APOV, June 20th

Shit. What was in these?

Edward's head was lolling dangerously as he carefully steered the glass toward his mouth. Melting bits of tequila and rum slopped over the sides of the glass onto his hand as it shook. His eyes got wide and he dove straight for it. "Mustn't waste the precious," he volunteered, slurping at his messy fingers and dumping half his drink onto the table.

We were going to kill him.

"More?" asked Jasper, pitcher in hand. The margarita slush clumped enticingly against the plastic walls.

Edward giggled. Oh Christ, he actually giggled as he waved his glass up at Jasper. It was confirmed. These were going to kill him, and it was going to be entirely my fault.

But how does a girl say no to a chance like this?

I'd bounced Edward out of bed this morning wearing my biggest smile and the most hideous Hawaiian shirt I could find.

"Rise and shine, birthday boy! It's 5 o 'clock somewhere and you need to take a break. No lab today and no arguments. Drink this," I'd insisted, pressing something ridiculously purple into his hands.

"What is it?" Edward asked, casting a sleepy, baleful eye at the glass. One of the orange slices fell off the side and onto his bed. He regarded it with a wary glance as if it was an invasion of the Huns. Hell, he regarded me like I was an invasion of the Huns. The clock flickered and updated the time to read 6:17 a.m., and Edward raised one eyebrow at me.

"No arguments. That's your invitation to your party. Drink up."

Warning sign number one should have been the way Edward just sighed and obediently slurped it down.

Edward needed these drinks. It had been a long three years, especially the last six months. Being human just made things worse for him emotionally, as his dreams were horrible. There was just one advantage to being human that all of us could agree on unanimously.

Humans could get drunk.

At the moment, Edward was very, very drunk.

Warning sign number two should have been his unhesitant abandonment of his rundown wardrobe for the Hawaiian shirt I'd handed him. Stolen from Carlisle's closet, it appeared to have come from Tommy Bahama's LSD collection. I hadn't questioned its presence—Esme had put a lot of color back into Carlisle's life lately—and I was sure Carlisle wasn't going to mind seeing Edward in something other than a tattered button down and jeans.

Carlisle was going to mind if Edward was passed out by the time he arrived later this evening with Esme. There was no excuse for his current state. His bedside cocktail had loosened him up enough to actually eat breakfast instead of just picking despondently at his food, and I thought we'd been pacing him pretty well so far.

He'd only had . . . umm . . . hmmm. We'd moved from purple drinks (Tropical Depressions) to pink drinks (Sex on the Beach) to orange drinks (Tequila Sunrise) to red drinks (Margarita Surprise, and Jasper wouldn't share the surprise). How many was that? And what was that counting the beer he'd had with pizza at lunch and the car bombs he'd followed it with at the Irish place we'd gone?

I eyed Jasper suspiciously as he filled Edward's glass again. "How many?"

"Well, the pitcher holds about 4 drinks, but he spilled some, so . . . three." Jasper grinned like a Cheshire cat at my scowl.

"No, how many has he had altogether?"

Edward chimed in incoherently through a mouthful of Margarita Surprise.

Jasper looked at me. "What was that he just mumbled at me?"

"I think he's trying to tell us how many he's had." I glared at him and reached for the pitcher. "What's in this? Give it to me."

"Oh no you don't. This is Edward's surprise." He held the pitcher back and up out of my reach. I jumped for it and missed while Edward watched in amusement. He was giggling again and I tried to be mad about that, but any kind of laughter from him was such a rare sound you couldn't be mad about it.

The jarring tones of the Theme From Jaws, on the other hand, you could be mad about.

"Jasper! Why didn't you turn that off?"

"Emergency contact," he said, smoothly evading my pitcher grasping attempts while sliding his phone out of his pocket. His eyes widened at the name on the caller ID. The Theme From Jaws was something he used for anyone he didn't trust, and he turned the phone away from me so I couldn't see who it was. "Keep him entertained," he directed, and left the room.

All Edward noticed was the departure of his alcohol source. "Alice," he said seriously, focusing on proper enunciation and waggling his glass at me, "I'm empty over here."

"Well, I'm not a barmaid, so you'll just have to help me mix up the next batch."

"I can't cook."

"Making drinks is not the same as cooking. Get over here and I'll teach you how to use the blender." There would be plenty of time later for me to reconsider the wisdom of this, but for the moment, getting Drunkbert Plasteredson from the table to the counter was an adventure in and of itself.

"Edward," I laughed, watching him stagger upright and do a zombie-sumo wrestler style stomp over to me, "we are totally cutting you off."

"No!" He shrieked and lunged for the unopened bottle of Patron sitting next to the blender.

"Yes!" Jasper tossed in his opinion decisively as he came back into the room. "You are doing one more shot with me and then you are through!"

"No!"

"Yes!" In a flash, Jasper had popped open the Patron and poured two shots. He handed one to Edward and raised his own glass high. "Happy Birthday!"

"Hashpy Berfday!" Edward replied, but before the glass even hit his lips, he went crashing to the floor. I almost went down, too, just from the reflected force of Jasper's sudden manipulation of Edward's senses.

"What are you doing?!" I yelled. "You can't just walk in here and vamp up to suggest to Edward that he's tired and needs to pass out like that. Vampire power abuse! Party foul!"

"Stuff it, Alice," Jasper said coolly as he lifted the now-unconscious Edward up off the floor. "We have an emergency situation here, and Drunkward wasn't going to be able to handle it."

I had shifted into combat mode while he spoke. "Spill. Now."

"You will stay here with him and I will keep you updated."

"Where are you going?" Jasper started to hand Edward to me before realizing that wasn't going to work. He dumped him unceremoniously back in one of the kitchen chairs and started for the door. "Hey!" I yelled, running after him. "Where are you going?"

"Russia," he said, crossing the threshold. "Bella's been spotted."

I stopped dead in my tracks. Birthday fun was officially over.

Returning to the kitchen, I surveyed the scene and checked to make sure Edward was still breathing. Jasper was usually a little more subtle with his powers of emotional suggestions. I hadn't realized "You're too drunk to stay conscious" was an emotion, but Eddie boy had gone down like a rock.

It was just as well. Any mention of Bella in his current state would have triggered an emergency situation right here in the kitchen, which already looked like a disaster area. Margarita slush was everywhere, and the stench of tequila rose above everything from where Edward's shot had gone down with him.

With a sigh, I started scrubbing. Some birthday celebration this had turned out to be. The sun was still up, but our hero was down for the count.

~:~:~:~:~:~

Once the kitchen was clean I went in search of my phone to start pestering Jasper for updates. I was in a foul mood from my scrub-a-thon, and he was going to need to cough up some serious details to justify the snoring, drooling, stinking lump of brother currently hanging off the couch.

How's the flight?

--Uneventful. Called ahead for the jet to save time.

What's the rush? As if I didn't know. Find Bella, fix Bella, eliminate Depression's Spokeswhore from existence so we could all live happily ever after.

--Laurent wants to skip town.

What does he have to do with this?

--He called it in.

Called what in? Bella spotting? To your phone? How?

--One at a time, babe.

Stuff it. Plasteredson is a dead weight drooling on the couch and you've got a 12-hour flight ahead of you. Mansplain.

--LOL.

No, seriously, spill. NOW.

Radio silence—the texting equivalent of hanging up on me. That bastard.

"Now I know why you throw things," I said to Sleeping Beauty. "I'm going to throw Jasper off a cliff." Ed didn't even twitch.

I waited a little longer, but nothing. Reluctantly, I hoisted Edward up off the couch to put him to bed upstairs. He was nearly a foot taller than I was, and it seemed as though arms and legs were dangling everywhere. His gaunt form wasn't heavy—Edward had always been lean—but it was a challenge to keep him from banging into anything as we headed upstairs.

Negotiating my way up the stairs, my phone startled me when it started vibrating. I threw Edward over my shoulders like a sack of potatoes, whacking his arm soundly into the ceiling. Oops.

--Sorry about that. Had to make some phone calls and watch some things. Carlisle's been briefed.

Great. Leave me in the dark. Spill it, I texted, shifting Edward's legs to type the message. He replied with a series of links to YouTube clips for some kind of news show. WTF, Jasper? Do you not know how hard it is to watch videos with one hand and not brain your brother's head against the wall as you drag him upstairs with the other?

--Did you see who's in the vids?

What do you mean, who? It's the stinking news in Russian. Like I understand Russian.

--Just watch carefully.

I propped Edward against the banister at the top of the stairs and watched again. Nothing. Just some reporter woman rambling in front of an apartment building before a small explosion and—

Oh, shit.

Edward had slumped down to the floor, but I was no longer paying attention as I watched Bella in the back of the crowd. In the next link she was gone, and then there was the explosion. Another link showed a different scene, with a sketch of a black-eyed angel with Bella's features.

Where did you find these?

--Victoria is sending them.

Does she have the translation?

--Working on it as they come in. How's the King of Beers?

I looked down. Lying like a limp noodle on the floor. Way to go us. Whose idea was it to get him drunk in the first place?

--Yours, Alice. All yours.

Way to win friends, Jasper.

--He'll thank us later. Oh, and the surprise in the margarita was no booze. He'll be fine.

There was a slight moan at my feet, and I felt Edwards stomach muscles clench up. Gotta run—think we're on the verge of a messy human moment. Keep me posted.

~:~:~:~:~:~

By the time Carlisle arrived with Esme, I had eased Edward into his own bed after a session in the bathroom. There were upsides to being a vampire—you never saw pure vamps praying to the porcelain gods.

"How's he doing?" asked Esme, ever thoughtful. "Does he know?"

"I haven't told him," I said. "I wanted to wait until he sobered up so he didn't do anything he'd regret later, or that would get him killed."

"Good plan," said Carlisle, coming in and setting a birthday cake down on the freshly scrubbed kitchen table. I didn't have the heart to tell him Edward would never be able to keep it down. "What are our other plans?"

"They still need to be made. Obviously, a lot depends on what Jasper learns once he hits the ground in St. Petersburg and meets with Laurent." I frowned. "There's something weird with that whole situation over and above the usual mess."

"Yes," Carlisle agreed. "It's shedding some light on other inconsistencies with the Volturi's handling of the affair over the last few years, too."

"But what have we proven, other than that they are unpredictable, violent, and power-hungry? We knew that already." Esme's opinion was softly spoken. "We must always remember to focus on what is real and what is fact, instead of theories."

Carlisle nodded. Esme had survived for centuries as an independent operator in Italy, a traditional Volturi stronghold. Though she never looked it, she was fierce and tough. Esme's caring demeanor, polished beauty, and motherly exterior caused people to underestimate both her intelligence and her fighting abilities. Unable to defeat her in battle or with tactics, the Volturi had decided they had other things to do. I was glad she was on our team now.

"So," I said brightly. "What do we do now?"

"Let's eat," said Esme, matter-of-factly. "We should also choose our weapons now—there may not be time later."

~:~:~:~:~:~

Much later, I shook Edward awake. Well, I tried.

"Go away." His voice was muffled as he pressed his face down into the pillow. "And turn off that fucking light when you go."

"Get up, Edward. I have coffee and aspirin."

The disembodied pillow voice was emphatic. "..Stop." With his free hand he flipped me the bird.

"Edward!" I stamped my foot and yanked back the covers. "Bella made the news in St. Petersburg."

THAT got him up. He powered himself out of bed and downstairs to the den so fast I had to chase him with his coffee. Glued to the TV and flicking through the channels, his flannel pants and housecoat were still waving when I made my second attempt.

"Coffee, Edward. Aspirin."

He grabbed the pills and threw them to the back of his throat before snatching the coffee out of my hands and taking a long pull. "What channel?"

I guided him toward the laptop open on the coffee table and clicked the keys to feed the collected news footage over the plasma big screen. He flinched when he saw the stretchers parading across the screen.

"What are they saying? What?!"

"Apparently there are 11 bodies. Absolutely torn to shreds. The killing must have happened in the night, because it was discovered as a fresh disaster in the morning. Well, their morning. The apartment below was empty, and when the landlord came to show the place there was blood dripping from bullet holes in the ceiling."

Edward groaned. "Bella did this? How do you know?"

"She's standing there."

"What?!" His bleary eyes hadn't spotted her in the crowd. Anticipating this, I had a file of screen shots with her face circled. Clicking through the images, Edward frowned and made the same deduction we all had hours earlier: "She caused that explosion, didn't she?"

"Yes." Edward turned at the sound of Carlisle's voice and gave a nod to him and Esme as they joined us from the kitchen, bringing the coffee pot with them. Esme also had a tray of deli meats and crackers. Adrenaline was only going to keep Edward going for so long, and I knew his stomach was currently empty.

He turned back to the screen, clicking back and forth between the various images. "What was her motivation?"

"We think she spotted Laurent," said Esme, advancing the screen to a different set of pictures showcasing him. "He was following her, and she needed to shake him off."

Edward had scowled at the mention of Laurent's name and was still glaring actively at the screen. "Did it work?" he asked testily. He wanted to be the one to bring her in, not some Volturi flunky.

I gave a grim chuckle. "He was shaken before. Now he's actively shaking, thinking that he's on her hit list."

"How do you know?" Edward asked, looking up at me from the seat he'd taken on the couch. He was signaling Carlisle to top up his cup as he stuffed stacked crackers in his mouth, so Carlisle continued the story for us while he poured.

"Jasper will be on the ground in a matter of hours, and Laurent has agreed to meet with him. Laurent had called Victoria, who, as you know, is trying to find a new home for herself with us, and she phoned Jasper with the news late last night." By tacit agreement, we weren't mentioning Jasper's little power display knocking Edward out.

"I don't trust her." Edward's statement was flat and non-negotiable. "She's compromised."

"That may be changing," Esme said. "We are awaiting confirmation of James' death at Bella's hand."

Edward just looked at her. I'd once heard him vow to rip James to shreds with his bare hands, and from my own past, I could understand the need to personally erase a threat from the scene. However, given that Bella and James had been dating off and on for decades, this was a shocking development.

Carlisle sat down next to Edward on the couch, shaking him out of his blank stare. "There's more, whenever you're ready."

Edward shook his head to clear it. "Continue."

Carlisle topped up the cup again. Was that three already? We were going to have to work on Edward's drinking issues one of these days.

"James was not with Bella, nor was he hunting her. He was in the city for another purpose when their paths crossed. Laurent has not said why—he told Victoria only that it was an accident, a complete accident."

"How did he track her?" Edward's question was curious, as Bella was not exactly easy to find.

Esme cued up another YouTube clip. This one was a special interest piece on the local news and featured the sketch of Bella as an angel. Take away the wings, flaming sword, and blood dripping from her teeth and it wasn't a bad likeness. Okay, leave the blood on her teeth—that was probably pretty accurate.

"First on camera, now this?" Edward was shocked. "Bella's getting careless."

Esme shook her head. "Something else is going on. This is just one layer."

"Explain."

Esme went back to the screen shots and started with the sketch. "This is from early in the evening. A woman went to a church to pray for help, and Bella was there, black-eyed and fierce. Hence the avenging angel bit—this woman thinks Bella was an angel sent by God to answer her prayers."

"And people believe this?" he asked, one eyebrow raised.

"They wouldn't, but she has the children. Three little girls, kidnapped and believed dead, suddenly alive and delivered by our alleged angel to this St. Petersburg granny. The woman will not shut up, but the children won't talk about it. They say thank you to her but won't say more—the oldest said they promised to keep it a secret."

"But?" Edward asked. There was always a 'but' in these situations, especially once the media got involved.

Esme advanced to the apartment building. "The woman lived in this building, and it's not a large leap for anyone to connect the dots. The dead men who have been identified are known thugs, and there is evidence mounting that they may have been planning to sell the girls into the sex trade."

Edward nodded grimly. "So no mourners there."

"No," said Esme, advancing several screens. "James was able to track Bella from here to another location we don't have yet, and then Laurent was able to follow her back here. But look at Bella here. What's different?"

Edward looked at Bella for a long time. Watching him watch her was interesting. He was hungover and processing a lot of new information, but a piece of him also looked happy. Bella was found! Bella just looked pissed. She hated attention—even as a human she'd preferred to stay in the shadows, a tendency her vamp self had taken to a whole other level. If she knew she'd been caught on camera she'd be kicking herself.

Edward seemed to kick himself, too, back into reality from dreamland. "Obviously no wings or sword. But that's not what's important here, right? What am I missing?"

Carlisle set a small picture down on the table. Bella at the lakeshore, taken from our wall. "Look closer," he suggested.

Edward stared at the photo of Bella, and then at the grainy enlargement from the news footage. When his coffee mug hit the floor, I knew he'd seen it.

"How?" he gasped, voice raspy with caffeine and shock. "How is that possible?"

Bella's eyes were a warm, human brown. In both pictures.

No contact lenses could ever completely hide the electric red irises of a freshly fed vampire, and the stretcher parade was a sure sign that Bella had been exercising her vampiric abilities with gusto, so she could hardly be hungry. Her eyes were known to clear their red quickly but even for her this was wrong. Esme had caught the discrepancy, and Carlisle had several theories.

"Exactly how?" I said, tossing a towel at Edward so he could mop the coffee off his feet. "No one knows. Jasper is hoping that Laurent will be able to shed some light on the situation."

Edward patted the floor on autopilot, eyes glued back on the screen. Finally, he tore his gaze away and stared at Carlisle. "How much longer?" he asked, gesturing at himself.

"It's the new batch. When was your last dose? It could be another three or four months."

He groaned in frustration and buried his head in his hands. "I can't let her get away again," he said. "Not like this." He fisted his hair in his hands and let out a sigh of exasperation. There was nothing for that, so we sat for a moment in silence, until a small chime made everyone look at me. I looked down at my phone.

"Jasper's landed. He's leaving the airport to meet Laurent."

Edward nodded, then posed one more question. "What now?"

What now, indeed? Chapter 5 is written and off with the beta team. Bella is crouching on a rooftop, hanging onto a chimney stack. What's behind her . . . and what's ahead? Stay tuned!