A/N:As usual, thank you guys for reviewing. It means a lot to me. One of you remarked that I used a "Growing Up Cullen" reference; I did, indeed. If you people don't know that one, Google it, it's hilarious. My point is, I do not and will not take credit for something I did not come up with myself. Any and all other references, should I make them, will be listed at the end of the fic. Not only do I intend no copyright infringement, but I don't intend to commit plagiarism, either.

In this chapter, a different player is introduced. Of course, this'll complicate things and make for even more inevitable disaster, but we wouldn't have it any other way, would we? No, we wouldn't. Oh, and soon to come: the epic introduction of the demon spawn. Be very afraid and stay tuned!

Chapter 4

1 Truth be told, Irina Horváthová had never pegged herself as a nature person. She'd been fond of her hometown, Kremnica, back in the old Slavic territories, centuries before the founding of the state of Slovakia. It was beautiful, modern, and always teeming with life. Due to the mining operation, there were always people from foreign lands arriving, bringing news from abroad, teaching her snippets of unknown languages. She'd loved learning new things, meeting new people, gathering knowledge. All her life, her human life, she had dreamed of meeting a rich merchant or someone of similar means, and leave her home, travel, see the world as it was known back then. What she wanted was to see cities: Rome, Constantinople, any place with many people in it, tall stone buildings, dozens of different languages being spoken, culture, novelty. No, simple, quiet nature was all around her as she grew up, and it held little interest to her. Irina was going to find a foreign husband, she was going to leave Kremnica, and she was going to live a long, exciting life travelling the world.

It was almost funny how prophetic these wishes had turned out to be, even if not quite the way she had imagined.

"The first man I loved was called Lyubomir," she told the youthful-looking man sitting to her left on the park bench overlooking Elliott Bay Beach. The sky was overcast with heavy, dark-grey clouds and the air was chilly; still, there were plenty of humans around, walking, running, cycling, enjoying the lovely view. Irina herself had only learned to appreciate the quiet majesty of nature after her death – after her rebirth. There was a certain irony to this, wasn't there? Alive, she had not valued creation as much as she had started doing after losing everything that had made her human. "He was Russian."

"Human?" the man said. He was a baritone, which was surprising if one took into account his slender frame and almost boyish features. There was a trace of an accent there, too; he wasn't accustomed to speaking much Slovakian.

From the corner of her eye, she could see that he was watching her. "Yes," she said, idly brushing a wayward strand of her long, blonde curls behind her ear. "Loves the world, the name means. It was very fitting." A small, wistful smile played with her lips. "He must've been the kindest person I ever met. He told me that where he came from, my name was pronounces Arina, and so, he called me Arisha. I thought it was lovely. I thought everything he did was: the way he treated me, the way he treated everyone around him. I think that it's become a commodity, you know? Kindness – among us, among the humans."

"It has; I happen to agree," he said. There was a softness to his tone that she'd never heard before. Well, it wasn't as if they knew each other very well, but they had interacted in the past, when…when the unspeakable had happened. Back then, in Kremnica, right before she and her sisters had decided to leave. "You remember him well, then? This human?"

She nodded briefly. Two young women walked by, arm and arm, smiling – downright glowing, actually – and obviously very close to each other. Just looking at this obvious display of happiness, of friendship, of love, was enough to make Irina feel heavy and hollow and old. By God, sometimes, she just felt so old. "Yes. I didn't, at first. You know, after I was turned. It took me years, in fact. Eventually, though, I succeeded, and now, the memories are with me forever."

"I know how that feels," he said, sounding the tiniest bit melancholy, "although the only thing from my human life I found worth remembering in greater detail was my mother. Everything else has all but faded away, now. It's…blurred. Dream-like."

Irina closed her eyes for a moment. She breathed in deeply the scent of the water, the trees, the air, the people. The back of her throat hurt, but she had fed before coming down here, and so, the thirst was manageable. "What was she like?"

It took him a few moments to reply. Finally, though, he said, "She was wonderful. She loved me, and I loved her. We were all we had. There was no-one else. When I was changed, I lost her forever. I thought that" – He ran his pale fingers through his short, dark-brown hair – "I owed it to her to remember that without her, I would not exist."

She decided to drink this information in, let it bounce around in her head, try not to just absorb the factual information she'd received, but picture it, feel it. A minute or so passed. She half-turned to the left to look at his sharp, distinctive profile, at the slightly olive-tinged tone of his skin, white-washed as all vampires were white-washed. How terrifying that must have been for him: to see in a reflective surface not only his changed face and body, but a different skin-colour, too.

"That's a beautiful thing to remember," she said, feeling herself smile again. That was something they all had to teach themselves, and it was always a difficult and arduous process: conveying emotions via facial expressions and body language. A thousand years at it, and it had long become almost automatic to her. "I hardly recall my parents."

"But this man you loved," he said, still looking ahead at the water, even though she was pretty sure that he was still watching her from the corner of his eye, "you remember him."

"Yes," she said, took a strand of her hair between her fingers, and twirled it. "I suppose it's not just because I was very young and infatuations are overpowering when you are young, but also because he was the last human I was with before Aleksandra turned me. She killed him while I was changing. When I woke up, he was gone. I couldn't save him." The weight of the world crushed down on her dead heart, and she held perfectly still for a few seconds, riding through the pain of the memory. It wasn't as cathartic as crying, but it was all she had in ways of coping.

"I've noticed you don't call her Sasha."

The wind picked up a little. There was moisture in the air. It would rain soon. She hoped it would. "It's a nickname that signals endearment. I have no tender feelings toward that woman – not since I had time to think about what she did, about all the ways that she betrayed us. She destroyed my life in more ways than one."

"I know this is selfish," he said, after deliberating what had been said for a few seconds, "but I'm glad that you don't blame us for punishing her for her crimes-"

"Demetri-"

"- that you don't blame me personally, despite my direct involvement in this sordid affair." Finally, he looked at her. "I never wanted to be right about this – none of us did. It gives us no joy to enforce this kind of law."

Since they were in public, he wore dark-brown contacts, but through those, Irina could see the true, dark-red colour of his irises. Being so close to him, memories of those awful days resurfaced with perfect clarity: the at first unexplained random deaths in the villages around Kremnica; then Irina, Tanya and Katica's horrified realisation that it must be an immortal child; the pain of the betrayal suffered at the hands of their 'mother'; the Volterrani arriving in Kremnica; the investigation the child the verdict the execution the end.

Back then, it had felt like the end of everything.

She looked at him calmly, even though inside her, her memories were running rampant. "It wasn't your fault. Please don't apologise. You were only doing your duty."

The shadow of a smile curved up the corners of his mouth. "From what I've learned, your extended family, the Cullens-"

"They are not my family!" She forced herself to relax and shook her head. "I'm sorry."

"It's quite all right," he said, unfazed, his subtle little smile growing a little broader. "It was my mistake. I was under the impression that your coven and theirs were very friendly with each other, and from what I've learned, they very much resent being inconvenienced by the law – the law that you and your sisters gracefully endured despite grave personal loss, I might add."

"Inconvenienced," she echoed, leaned back against the bench again, and looked at the silvery surface of the water. It was cold and still and beautiful. "They think they can get away with anything, you know? They prance about, believing themselves above and better, lording over all of us with their moral superiority. They're responsible for my…my friend's death. They don't care. They dare to sit back and do nothing but cater to their own egos, rationalising their own shortcomings, pointing fingers at everyone else."

The little smile made way for seriousness - for a frown of concern. "Tell me more about this friend of yours, Irina."

"Laurent. That was his name." She looked down on her white hands resting on her dark-jeans-clad thighs. "I cared about him, and he cared about me. He had to die because the Cullens are self-absorbed hypocrites." When he said nothing in reply, she raised her head to face him again. "Werewolves killed him while the Cullens were God knows where. They said that the wolves did it in defence of that girl, Bella" – She poured all the disgust she felt into those two little syllables – "who he was apparently trying to kill, but that's a lie. He would never do that."

Demetri gave her an unreadable, impassive look. "He had adapted to your, uh…diet?"

She nodded. "He wasn't as arrogant about the difficulties of the change as the Cullens, though. They think they're so superior, don't they? They ally themselves with werewolves. They tell mortals about our existence. They live in the most conspicuous way possible. They sat by and did nothing while a new-born army was being amassed here, in Seattle. Then they have the nerve to-" Interrupting herself as she noticed the rage in her voice getting slightly out of control, she pressed her lips together and shook her head again.

"So…the alliance of the Cullens with those wolves was not temporary?"

At that, she laughed bitterly. "If only. They're friends, don't you know it. One of them is in love with that brat Edward married last week. They're all but inseparable now, Carlisle told Tanya. I believe he even mentioned a new balance of power that might keep your coven's tyranny in check."

He raised his thin eyebrows at her. "And the girl? Has she been turned, as was promised?"

She shook her head. "Unless it's happened by accident, no. Tanya says the happy couple took off for a holiday somewhere tropical, and that the plan was to let Bella be human a few years longer. You know: the human experience that matters more than a promise given."

"I understand your bitterness-"

"Do you?" Again, she had to take a moment to let the ire wash through her, before she was able to speak again without raging. "Forgive me. It's not you I'm angry with."

"I know, and there is nothing to forgive," he said, reached out with obviously deliberate slowness, and covered her hand with his own. His hands were beautiful, she noticed, slender and long-fingered.

Sometimes, when she was very upset, she was still overwhelmed by her senses and ended up being blinded by that dizzying mix of micro- and macro-vision all immortals were cursed with. Most of the time, however, due to very dogged persistence and centuries of training, she usually just saw what she wanted to see.

They just sat there in comradely silence for a moment or two, when she decided to voice the questions that had been on her mind ever since he had contacted her. She glanced at him and said, "Why did you call me? What do you want from me?"

He looked at her squarely, and the smile he wore on his almost perfectly symmetrical, youthful face betrayed something inhuman, something…feral. It was subtle, it was pretty well concealed, it was tamed, but it was definitely there. "Let me reply with a question of my own: what do you want the most, right now, at this moment in time?"

"Justice." The word was out as soon as the thought formed in her mind. "I want to see the Cullens on the same level as the rest of us – no more, no less."

"If they have betrayed my masters' goodwill and continued to break the law, then they will be dealt with accordingly," he said, still smiling, still looking at her unblinkingly, still perfectly unmoving. "This is why we need you – why I need you. Your coven and theirs are friendly with each other. They trust you. Around you, they will not pretend to be following the law; they will behave as they do on a daily basis."

"And if they mess up, you want me to report it back to you."

He briefly inclined his head in the hint of a nod. "It's a matter of self-preservation for all of us. This is the age of information, Irina. There are mobile phones, social networks, images and videos and articles flitting around the globe in seconds, leaving us no means of controlling the information flow unless we stay hidden. People such as the Cullens believe that we vampires are invincible, that humans are no match for us, but they are. Look at their growing numbers. Look at their evolving technology. If we are not careful, if we catch their unforgiving, psychopathic eye, then we might actually face extinction."

Listening to him making a speech as if trying to win an election, she had to snicker. She intertwined her fingers with his briefly, gave his hand a squeeze, and then pulled her hand back. "You're preaching to the choir, you know. You want me to spy for you? I'd be happy to. There's only one problem, though: they're protected."

"Oh, you mean the mind-reader and the one who can randomly see possible futures?"

"Edward and Alice. Yes. Precisely."

The smile turned into a verifiable smirk. "That shouldn't be a problem. I can teach you how to…how should I put this? Ah, yes: how to make use of both their powers' loopholes."

Her expressive eyebrows went almost up to her hairline. "How do you mean?"

He briefly raised both hands. "I'll explain everything to you in time. Just trust me when I tell you that we are privy to all information regarding all of their abilities, and that we have found ways to counter them." Again, he smiled, and it looked genuinely friendly. Maybe this was part of an act, but who cared? They both wanted the same thing, didn't they? They both wanted only what was best for their people. "So, will you help us? Help me?"

"Yes." There was no thinking it over, no doubt, just eagerness. Justice would be served, and she would be an integral part of that. All her life, she had looked for purpose. This was it. Finally, she had found it, and it felt so good. She didn't care that he had an agenda. They both wanted the same thing, he took her concerns more than seriously, and she decided that she liked him. "Of course. I am an advocate of the law, after all."

"Needless to say. Good. It is settled, then. You will visit your…friends, you will watch them, assess them, and decide if there are any transgressions taking place. Should that be the case, you will report them back to me. I don't want you to worry about anything else."

"I won't," she said, returning his expression, feeling light and warm and strong again for the first time in way, way too long. "You can count on me."

2 For the next three months, the Cullens blocked Irina's attempts at visiting them in Forks, even when Tanya called Carlisle and told him that Irina wanted to make peace. That was odd, wasn't it? Tanya told Irina that she needed to be patient and wait for them to be ready to rebuild that bridge, blah, blah, blah. As if Irina had ever done them any wrong, apart from refusing to go to that tacky wedding (she'd seen the photographs, and wow; how was their secret still a secret, again?). Still, she had nodded and meekly agreed to do what was needed.

It was odd, though, this insistence that the time for a visit was less than ideal, that Bella and Edward had to get used to their lives as newlyweds, and God, did Irina not believe a single word of that twaddle. The Cullens, giving up on an opportunity to get kowtowed to, to have their superiority acknowledged? That didn't sound the least bit plausible.

Yes, she had told Tanya and Kate (always Katica to Irina, no matter what, no matter how) that she'd wait for the mighty Cullens to magnanimously bestow the amazing grace of their attention on her (okay, she hadn't phrased it quite like that, but the sentiment still stood) but she just knew that something fishy was going on. Something they did not want anyone to see – anyone who wasn't them. If anything else, this was highly suspicious. It might even be something worth reporting back to Demetri, her friend, the one person who not only had never lied to her, but who took her grief and bitterness completely seriously. She may have let down Laurent (and in the back of her mind, there was always Lyubomir), but she was never going to disappoint another friend – not if she could help it.

This was why she decided to disregard Tanya's advice, head on to begin the healing, and see for herself if the Cullen coven was up to anything…unlawful.

No, she wasn't out to 'get' them. She wasn't. Really. No. Of course not. What she wanted was justice, nothing but justice, and if they were stupid enough to provide her with ammunition, then it wasn't her fault. Really, she had no choice, if one thought about it for long enough. She had to go see what laws the Cullens were breaking. She had to go see if there was anything going on that would force her to interfere.

3The key to hiding from Edward's mind-reading and Alice's Sight was discipline. Edward could only read surface thoughts, so that could be dealt with the way she'd always dealt with it, really: all she had to do was think in her native language, a dialect of Early Slovak spoken in the eleventh century. The only thoughts that he ever managed to understand were those she was thinking clearly in a language he spoke, directly when she thought them. Her feelings, her resentments, her agendas, all of that would remain private if her mind didn't put them into words he could interpret whilst he was in mind-reading range.

As for Alice? All she could See clearly were people who had made up their mind definitively about something that concerned her loved ones. Everything else remained in the dark for her. Irina's intentions? She wanted to see how the Cullens were doing, what they were doing, and with whom. What she'd do with that information was something she didn't even know, herself. Everything else she'd figure out when it was time – should there be something worth wanting to take action about, of course.

One day, when Tanya and Katica were out in the National Park to hunt, she packed a backpack, pinned her long hair up, and ran away from Denali, keeping away from her sisters' trails. It was time to patch up a strained relationship and make peace with her good friends, whom she loved as dearly as one would family. There was nothing suspicious about that, was there? Well, if she found them disrespecting the law, that wouldn't be her fault. All she wanted was to put her mind at ease, and that was it. That was it. It was. It truly was.

4 When she reached the edge of the Cullen estate, she immediately could tell that something was off. First of all, she could smell a vampire she didn't know – Bella? The Cullens wanting to be by themselves during such a time would make sense, but why the secrecy? After all, they'd made such a spectacle of themselves with the wedding, everyone who wasn't a human knew that Bella would eventually be turned – not to mention the fact that they had given their word to the Volterrani, or Volturi, as many called them these days. Changing her in secret had no advantages.

So there was a new-born vampire. That wasn't spectacular all by itself, although Irina had to wonder why they'd turn someone this closely to human civilisation. The stranger thing was that there were several heartbeats to be heard, all of them in the house. She breathed in, grimaced, made a face, stopped short halfway between the line of trees and the huge house's front porch.

Werewolves. Three of them. In the house. With the vampires.

There was something else, too: a heartbeat that did not belong to a werewolf, but it didn't sound quite human, either. She focussed, standing perfectly still, listening to that strange sound, breathing in that strange scent, completely at a loss. They were all inside, weren't they? Watching her standing there, waiting. Waiting for what? This behaviour made no sense. They were hiding something. They must be.

"I'm not here to fight you," she called out, thinking it, willing it, deciding to be peaceful. "I came to get all that unpleasantness out of the way." No reply came for at least half a minute, which was almost an eternity, given the circumstances. Feeling silly, she laughed. "Are you really gonna just let me stand out here in the front yard?"

It took another ten seconds or so until the front door was opened from the inside. Someone stepped into the doorframe. It was Carlisle. He had a strange, frowny expression on his face. Worry? Anxiety? Something like that. "Hello, Irina. I thought Tanya had told you that right now isn't a good time." Oh, he was hiding something. That much was obvious. It must be something big, too.

"I was in the neighbourhood," she said, making herself smile, making herself relax. "Are you really gonna send me away again? That would be more than rude."

His frown deepened, and he took a deep breath, even though there were no humans around and there was no need for the pretence. "Irina…"

Even though she opened her mouth to reply, Irina stayed silent when she heard steps approaching the door from within. She pressed her lips together and breathed in a warm, living scent that was so far removed from humanity, it made all the muscles in her body tense up.

"What's going on?" The voice that spoke up behind Carlisle was unknown to Irina – a child's voice, clear and determined and impatient.

Irina felt herself tensing again. "What…?"

She pushed herself past Carlisle, who protested feebly, and stepped into the light: a girl of maybe five, white as marble, brown-haired, big-eyed, red-lipped, and…

…and obviously immortal.

There was a heartbeat, yes, but what did it matter? This child was not a human child. This child was forbidden. It must not be. It could not be.

What had they done?

Irina froze to the spot. She forgot to feign relaxation. She forgot to feign friendship. She even forgot to think. The only coherent thing that kept playing in her mind over and over, like a broken record, was one single word. A name.

Vasilii. Vasilii. Vasilii.

The memories crashed down on her like a tidal wave: her maker's secretiveness. The rising death-toll in and around Kremnica. Irina and her sisters' confusion. The fear. The horror. Being absolutely helpless. The Volterrani coven. The child, that beautiful, confused, innocent, monstrous child. Vasilii.

The executions.

Oh, God. Oh, no.

No. No, no, no, not ever again, not ever again, not ever, no this was not going to happen she wouldn't allow it no couldn't would not ever oh God the horror the terror the death. No. No!

Turning around on her heels, Irina ran.