A/N: There's a Breaking Dawn quote in here (the book's cheesy last sentence), which I don't want people to think is mine. There's a small and loving nod to Star Wars, too. Also, Jasper says some awful anti-human stuff that is paraphrased from a forum post SMeyer herself made. It's called Correspondence #12 and it's pretty bad. Again, I am not taking anything out of context. She really did post those things, and not in a fictional context, but as defense for her sparklepires' murdery behaviour. I mean it. This is real. I think you lovely people deserve to know why I'm characterising Jasper and Bella the way I am. As always, thanks for reading. I appreciate the fact that you're giving my story the time of day.
Chapter Thirty-One
1 "She didn't even complain when I bit her and you chained her up again," Irina told Aro, as she looked out the private jet's oval-shaped window at the clouds below. They'd set out from Volterra almost immediately. He'd filled her in about what that call had been about, and she'd of course agreed to join him on his impromptu trip to the USA.
"That's because I promised that it would only be for a few days," he replied from opposite her. "Now that her powers have been muted, she's remarkably patient."
"It's probably a side-effect of being chained to a wall for six centuries." It was out before she knew it. Being on a human-friendly restrictive diet came with side-effects, such as impaired impulse control. That got even worse if a vampire went on an animal diet, along with the additional stupidity and clumsiness. She glanced at him and made a pained face. "Sorry."
"It's perfectly all right. It's an upsetting notion," he said, and smiled, before looking out the window again. The windows they were sitting by faced south, and since it was around noon over these parts, the sun was shining into the cabin, making what little was exposed of their skin explode in a million sparkles. He held up his hand and beheld it, a thoughtful expression on his face. "You know, I leave the fortress so rarely, I sometimes forget about this. Looks rather silly, doesn't it?"
"It's probably a matter of personal opinion. Some find it beautiful," she said, and looked about the cabin. It was sleek, in beige tones, and very modern. On their side, there were three pairs of leather-covered armchairs around three little mahogany tables. On the other side was a huge sofa, lamps, and a bar that nobody used, among other smaller objects of decoration. All in all, this was the perfect cover, really, for a bunch of immortal people who wanted to travel around the globe, hidden in plain sight. "I've got enough foundation for both of us, should you have forgotten to bring any."
That made him laugh. He dropped his hand to the armrest. "Thank you, but that won't be necessary. Whenever I do venture outside, I take a page out of Demetri's book and go through a pre-travel checklist. No need to commit such a pointless blunder such as sparkling in public. I'd be mortified for the rest of my life, not to mention forced to execute myself."
The mentioning of Demetri's name wiped the smile from her face, despite his light-hearted little joke. She leaned back, crossed her arms, and looked out the window again. All those years, and flying still felt like a miracle of modern technology to her. "I wish things were less complicated…regarding Demetri, I mean. He's only doing what he thinks is best."
"I know," he said, and without seeing his face, she could still tell that he'd grown solemn. "I've known him for a very long time. He's a good person. He always tries to be fair. Unfortunately, fairness isn't always compatible with loyalty."
She let those words sink in for a while. After a minute or so she said, "I really don't know if that's true. What is loyalty worth if it's given against one's own personal convictions? Besides, in this case, the ultimate authority is you. You have the power to decide what is treason and what isn't."
He took his time replying to this, too. "That's why I'm flying to America," he finally said. "There's a reason I rarely leave my home, dear girl. If I'm gone and something happens to either me or Volterra, then there'll be a power vacuum that would probably result in our kind being discovered. It's happened before. Back then, humans were much less capable of fighting us, and even so, they managed to cause us damage. They're ingenious, resilient, and very intelligent. As the times changed, so have our methods. I've never approved of what the Romanians and the Egyptians did – trying to set themselves up as gods, herding humans like cattle, abusing them in every possible way." When she looked at him again, she was almost taken aback by the expression of unadulterated disgust on his face. "Even if we could endure the ages like that, there is no honour in slavery. That is one of the reasons Demetri believes so firmly in our work: we don't kill unless there's no other way. The vampire world needs us."
Having met many vampires, and having been one of the worst of her kind herself, Irina could only imagine how bloody and brutal power struggles amongst their greatest powers had looked like, back in the halcyon days. The collateral damage alone must have been staggering, nauseating, terrible. That wasn't what he was getting at, though, as far as she understood it. "Times are changing faster than we can comprehend them. If we don't adapt our behaviour, humanity will find out about us, and if they do, the consequences won't be pretty."
He locked eyes with her and smiled a little. It looked sad, somehow. "That's why we need rules. Please believe me when I tell you that I take no joy in what I'm about to do. I could claim that I have no choice, but I do. There are always choices. From where I'm standing, I'm almost sure that the one I've picked is right. But personal doubts or no, I have to stick to a decision once I've made it. That doesn't mean that I'm not troubled by it."
She returned his expression and then looked out the window again. Through the clouds, far down below, she could see the sun glint off the steely Atlantic ocean. It was beautiful. No, Irina had never been a nature person until the day she had died. It had taken losing her connection to life for her to appreciate the beauty of her own planet. "It's the right decision. It's what I would do."
"Then I have nothing to worry about."
Her smile grew. "Indeed, you don't."
2 Bella was standing in front of the hotel suite's master bathroom mirror, watching her own face in silent fascination. It was still weird, still off-putting to look in a mirror and see a different person – not only a different person, but one that was so completely alien. The round (red) eyes, the plump lips, the high cheekbones, the narrow nose, the ghostly white, liver-spot-and-freckle-free skin; none of that was Bella Swan. With living human blood in her veins, she was able to operate her body perfectly, but it was an illusion of control. As soon as the effects waned, she'd get slow and dumb again, she'd be plagued by sensory overload, she'd feel caught in an unwieldy stone fortress that was incapable of physically conveying emotions. Without a constant flow of human blood from the vein, she'd start feeling monstrous again, she'd start feeling dead again…she'd start asking questions. Her conscience would return, she'd been told.
Her conscience would return.
How many people had she even killed by now? There'd been the four campers, the five others, the five police officers, the two tourists on her way back from Mexico. Sixteen people. More were dead because of her, but she had killed sixteen people with her own bare hands, had consumed their blood, had torn them apart as if they'd been made of paper.
What had Renée always told her? Be good for goodness's sake, Bella.
Be good for goodness's sake.
Holy crow. Was this what happened when she had too much time to think? Wasn't 'too much time to think' a constant problem for people who were basically immortal? How come she never spent any time thinking about her problems when she'd still been human? All she'd ever done was mope and condescend to everyone around her – all except Edward. But with all his own condescension, there'd been no place for her to do the same.
That was what happened to a person who didn't have any hobbies except obsessing about her sparkly boyfriend – her ticket to immortality, beauty, and wealth.
Her ticket to immortality. It turned out that nothing was ever quite the way that one imagined.
In a slow, deliberate motion, she raised her long-fingered, flawless, elegant hand that was so unlike Isabella Marie Swan's to her throat. The slight burn had grown stronger, tearing at the inside of her throat, blistering. The urge to breathe in was relatively big, given the maddening sound of hearts beating all around her, but without Jasper here to cool her down, she didn't dare. What if she did lose it again, like she'd lost it when Charlie and his colleagues had walked into the Cullen house? Was it going to be like this for the rest of her existence? Would she always have to go through this cycle of agony, relief, agony, relief? Had she really accepted the fact that she'd be a murderous death machine for over a year? It was one thing to come to terms with her changed nature, but as a human, she'd still been prey, and she'd still believed that vampires were in the right. The Volturi didn't kill humans. Most of them were several hundred, if not thousands of years old, and were less removed from humanity than she was. They were the highest vampire authority. Were they not following the dictates of their nature? Were they only behaving like this for reasons of pragmatism?
Did they have a conscience?
She stared at her reflexion and told herself that it didn't matter. Conscience was a human's excuse for weakness. Still, as she stood in front of that window, looking at that perfect mannequin's face, her hand pressed against her burning throat, it was hard not to think about the people that she had killed. How many had died in Tijuana? She didn't even know. Dozens. Dozens of people who'd only been at the wrong place, at the wrong time.
Well, it had nothing to do with her, of course. Those hadn't been people she'd known. Still, even if she chose to never again ask herself what was right or wrong, even if she chose never to ponder the consequences of her choices again, one question remained: how was she supposed to exist as a vampire working for the Volturi, when the Volturi didn't kill? The pain in her throat got worse when a pair of humans walked by their suite, chattering merrily amongst themselves. The sound of their hearts beating was so deep, so lush, so fleshy, so alive, so-
She pressed her lips together and only just refrained from drawing a breath. This was bad. If she didn't feed again soon, she was sure that she wouldn't be able to curb the desire to run outside and kill. Closing her eyes, she told herself to stop sulking for once. None of this mattered a single bit. The next evening, they'd get rid of all the undesirable elements threatening the small but hopefully perfect piece of their forever. Then, everything would be clearer again. Everything would be better.
3 It was pretty early in the morning, not even half past seven, when June and Jerry set out and took the bus to La Push. The weather was nice, the air was cold, and the bus ride was only about twenty-five minutes long. All in all, a good start, as far as doomsdays were concerned. She was sitting by the aisle, a Styrofoam cup filled with black coffee in her well-manicured hands, unwieldy equipment duffel bag at her boots-clad feet, looking out the window at the streets with a little smile curving up the corners of her mouth. She couldn't even tell why precisely, but she always looked forward to it when she was about to do something important – something that mattered. It wasn't as if she were an adrenaline junkie, or anything. Placing herself and Jerry in danger was not something she did lightly. It was, however, satisfying to be part of something bigger than herself, to make a difference. Okay, sometimes, there were certain dangers involved, and they'd never put themselves on the line as much as they were doing right now. The stakes were extremely high, too: many lives would be lost if their plan failed – that was, if they failed the plan. It wasn't only about helping the tribe of werewolves save themselves, either; this was about keeping the supernatural world (there was a supernatural world! Reading all those sci-fi and fantasy novels had awarded her survival nerd points after all!) secret.
Even if the prospect of being in the thick of things weren't appealing, this was still something they needed to do. They'd gotten involved. They'd posted those videos and had drawn public attention to the creepier elements of the whole Forks debacle. They were part of everything now. Chickening out and leaving the wolves in the lurch when they needed June and Jerry's help was not an option. Well, okay, it was an option, but it would be a pretty cowardly one.
"What's your gut feeling?" she said to Jerry, who was huddled by the window, nursing his own steaming cup, scarf wrapped tightly around his neck and thick woolly hat pulled down over his ears and forehead.
He took a sip, thought it over for a while, glanced at her, and said, "We're good."
That was certainly a relief. The Lopes had spoken. She relaxed, reached out, and patted his knee. "That's great to hear, hon."
"I know. I'm just that awesome." Facetiousness or no, in reality he was almost as confident in his intuition as she was. So far, it had never failed them. "I hope Mister Uley is a morning person. His afternoon grumpiness was enough for me."
"Me, too," she said, and nudged him with her shoulder. "It's gonna be a long day, and it's gonna be a bitch setting up all our stuff."
"Which is why we brought sandwiches."
She smiled again. "Which is why we brought sandwiches."
Giving her a sly sideways look, he said, "Did you know that there's a Lopez Island around these parts?"
That made her laugh. For a second or two, a few other passengers looked at her, but then saw that nothing was actually happening, and lost interest. "Spelled with a 'z', wise guy."
He shrugged. "It's not my fault that I'm special."
"Of course not. Such is the burden of those who are exceptional," she added, nodding in mockingly fervent agreement. From the corner of her eye, she could see that he was trying not to grin. "The feds will be utterly mystified once we tell them that there's nothing left to investigate – well, us and Chief Swan. I suspect his word will carry more weight."
"Can't imagine why."
"I know, right?" she said, and sighed. "Anyway, they'll have to pack their things and return to Quantico, won't they? Poor FBI."
"That's a crying shame."
"It most certainly is." She leaned her head against his bony shoulder.
They spent the rest of the short drive in comfortable silence.
4 Leah and company reached Port Townsend around noon. What with everyone being hungry, they decided to have lunch at something called Nifty Fiftys, a diner lovingly decorated in the style of the 1950s: turquoise plastic seats, pink tables, a long counter, a shiny jukebox, and a soda fountain. Leah herself had never been nostalgic for that particular decade, leaning much more toward the Seventies and Eighties for the rock music alone, but pre-Sam Emily had been a sucker for everything Fifties: the music, the dresses, the sweet if faulty illusion of a simpler time. Post-Sam (post-facial-mutilation), she never did anything anymore but cater to her one true love. He was a leader, had to shoulder so much responsibility and shit, that it wasn't asking too much for his fiancée to take care of everything domestic, was it? Of course not. It wasn't as if he had sort of forced her into the relationship by violently assaulting her, or anything. Where did Emily get off wanting to live her own life, wanting to dedicate time and effort to her own interests, her own pursuits outside of her relationship? Her Man™ took precedence, naturally. Romantic relationships were the most important ones, after all, and anyone who didn't think so was in the wrong. People shouldn't have lives that didn't revolve solely around obsessing over their significant other. If they did, then they weren't in True Love™ like Bell-Bell and Wardo had been.
Oh, wait. Yeah. Huh. Oops.
Or maybe Leah was just a bitter harpy because Her Man™ had left her and she couldn't pop out offspring or whatever.
Sullenly telling herself to cut the sarcastic crap, she bit into her huge burger. No, she didn't want Sam back, because the imprint had turned him into a person she didn't recognise, and after all that had been said and done, her erstwhile love for him was wiped out completely. That didn't mean she couldn't be bitter. She'd told herself a thousand times that this feeling was stupid, childish, and a colossal waste of time, but at some point, she was forced to admit to herself that it was also human. Feelings were feelings, and there was no stomping down how she felt without dealing with it first. No, the imprint was nobody's fault. Yes, she resented Sam for his genes-induced psychosis, Emily for her betrayal, everyone else for their lack of sympathy, and herself for her abrasive and belligerent bullshit. It was a wretched situation, no matter how one might look at it. It sucked. There was no changing it.
The thought that she'd be walking right into the quagmire should they manage to make it through the day alive wasn't exactly giving her the warm and fuzzies.
"What are you rolling your eyes at, Ms Clearwater?"
Snapping out of it, Leah shook her head and smiled wryly at Demetri, who was sitting opposite her and between Grace and Charlie, sipping some coffee while trying to pretend it didn't gross him out. "At myself, of course," she said. "I was feeling sorry for myself."
"Nothing wrong with that, at least from time to time," Ariel said. He was sitting to Leah's left, Blake to her right. "If we don't do it, who will?"
"Got a point there," Leah said, and chuckled. She wiped a recalcitrant strand of her dark hair behind her ear and sighed. "Thing is, if I start giving into self-pity now, I might not be able to ever stop again."
"We've all been there," Blake said, and briefly gave Leah's right upper arm a little squeeze. "I'm really surprised that you're not more anxious. Everyone you care about it in mortal danger. I'd be a nervous wreck."
"I doubt that's true," Charlie said, frowning a little. "You people seem to have defied all odds."
"Most of us didn't," Ariel said, and popped a French fry into his mouth.
"Do you have any advantages over the leeches?" Leah said, glancing at each of the wolves in turn. "I mean, you must have. Otherwise, this whole plan would be doomed to pathetic failure."
"They do," Demetri said, and set down his cup with a last little nauseated grimace. Poor guy. He'd have to vomit it up again later, but he was really committed to keeping up the pretence. It was hard not to at least grudgingly respect that kind of dogged determination. "They're immune to supernatural powers, and their night vision is just as good as ours."
Leah's eyebrows shot up. "Even in human form?"
Grace cracked a toothy smile. "Got to have something cool going for us. Otherwise, we'd all be goners by now."
"Oh," Leah said, trying to sound nonchalant and not let on how fucking amazing this was. "So, that's what you meant when you said we needed some serious leverage, Yuppie."
The corners of his mouth twitched a little. "Precisely."
"It's why he can't turn his magical GPS powers on where we're concerned," Grace added, and elbowed Demetri in the side. She bounced back, made a face, and rubbed her elbow. "Ow. Forgot you were made out of granite."
Demetri smiled at her. "Occupational hazard, I'm afraid."
"We've got voluntary transformation and immunity to creepy leech powers, then," Ariel said, picking up his glass filled with cheerfully pink strawberry milkshake. "Looks like we actually do have a fighting chance, then."
Past Leah, Blake made a mockingly astonished face at him. "If even you're willing to be optimistic, then how could we ever fail?"
Ariel looked down at his half-eaten fish and chips portion. "We can't. We won't." And that was the final word on the matter.
5 Outside, as they returned to the car they'd parked in the shade of a relatively tall brick building, Demetri led the little group with Leah by his right side. She still couldn't walk much without getting out of breath and breaking a sweat despite the bitter cold, but her condition was improving by the minute. The healing powers of the Quileute werewolves were truly amazing. The Children healed better than regular humans, too, but they were more vulnerable in some ways – stronger in others, though. There was, it seemed, a balance in nature, where dominant species kept a kind of status quo by adapting to outside threats in different, but equally powerful ways.
The odd duck were, of course, vampires, but that was different. They didn't belong in any evolutionary chain. They were not part of nature.
"Did you ever wonder if there are other kinds of vampires around that you sparkly statues don't know about?" Leah suddenly said, as they were almost by the car. When he raised his eyebrows at her, she sniggered and stuffed her hands into the pockets of her trousers. "I mean, for centuries, people in my neck of the woods were completely convinced that they were werewolves and that nobody else could therefore be, as well. Few days ago, you told me otherwise. People at La Push are probably reeling from the news, and Blake's crowd had no idea, either. They've travelled all over and they didn't know. Maybe you guys don't know as much as you believe, either."
"Maybe," he said, and meant it, before he glanced at her. "I never said I knew everything, though."
"No, but you do have an annoying tendency to be right all the damn time."
He pulled the keys from his pocket and unlocked the car, before opening the back door for her. "I also never said I didn't know almost everything."
She sat down on the backseat and smirked. "Idiot."
"People always misunderstand true genius," he said, deliberately nonchalant.
"Ain't that ever so true," Charlie said gruffly, and got on the passenger seat.
"See you people on our next pit-stop," Blake told them, as she took her people to their motorbikes. It was a joke, of course, since they only had about two more hours to go until they got to La Push.
Taking the route over Port Townsend had been a pretty big diversion to the east, sure, but Demetri knew how important it was to be careful. After all, they were going against the people he worked for, and nobody knew their tactics better than he did. When the wolves were gone, he looked down at Leah again. Her forehead was damp with sweat, and she was a little pale around the nose. Her hands were trembling.
"Should I take a look at your wound again?"
She shook her head slowly, carefully, a serene expression on her sharp-angled face. "Nah. I'll do that in the car; it's less conspicuous. Besides, it's almost good now. I can feel it."
It wasn't going to do much good to protest. This was a grown woman who knew what she was doing. "Very well," he said. "Last leg of the journey."
"Last leg." She smiled a little, went serious, frowned, scratched her neck, cleared her throat, and said, "Listen: there's something I wanted to tell you – you know, in case I don't get another opportunity." She squinted up at him. "We haven't known each other for long, but we've gone through some pretty intense shit together. You're a good person, Demetri. You could be just like all the other lee…I mean, vampires I know, but you choose to be good. To me, that's an inherently human quality. You managed to hold onto at least part of who you were before they fucked you up, and knowing that that's possible gives me hope…as does knowing that someone like you and someone like me can be friends." After running a strong, long-fingered hand through her nearly black, sleek hair, she added, "If we don't make it, I want you to know that I'm really glad to have made your acquaintance."
"The pleasure's all mine," he said, and held out his hand.
She took it, looking visibly relieved that he just let the little speech hang in the air without making much of it. She'd said what she needed to say.
He knew that, understood, and was grateful. It had been an eternity since the last time someone had called him human.
6 With permission from the Volturi, Jasper had taken Bella out into town in the morning, so that they could hunt. Before they'd left, he'd broken Renesmee's neck, her spine further down her back, and her arms and legs again. She'd also been tied up again, despite Caius's protest, but without the only two people who were immune to her powers around, it would be impossible to control her if she woke up. It was better not to rely too much on Jane or Alec's abilities; other, less powerful dhampirs than Renesmee had shown resistance to them. At first, Caius had not wanted Bella to leave, but Jasper had argued that she was still new-born and that it would be in everybody's best interest if she fuelled up properly before that evening's confrontation. It was even more important that she be able to stay focussed; unfed, she ran the risk of losing control at the worst possible moment, which of course was to be avoided. Chelsea had countered that Aro's orders were clear about the murder of humans by Volturi members, but Caius had only told them to be discreet, and so, they'd left.
It wasn't really hard to get to a few humans at a nearly empty, shadowy parking garage. Vampires didn't leave any fingerprints, and they'd taken care of the security cameras more quickly than the human eye could perceive. It was all much easier than it should be. Four people were dead in a matter of minutes: two men, two women. Bella would never know their names, would never find out what they'd been doing in that parking garage, would never find out if they'd had families and friends and loved ones that would wait in vain for them to come home. Maybe they'd been great people. Maybe they'd been horrid. Maybe they would have impacted human society in unforeseeable ways, good or bad. It didn't matter anymore. They were gone. Nothing could ever bring them back. There was no rewind button for reality.
Standing on the Port Angeles City Pier, looking blindly out at the deeply blue, troubled water, breathing in the heavy, humid sea air without paying it any heed, Bella said, "I feel better now, but that'll start fading in a couple of days again – maybe a little more. Is this how it'll be forever? Will I always want to kill, feel good when I do it, and then, after a while, start asking myself questions?" She kept her voice very low, so that no-one but Jasper, who was standing to her left and facing the pier, could hear her.
He didn't look at her, but she could see from the corner of her eye that he was making a face. "Oh, come on. Are you really gonna start with that crap again? I thought we were beyond that. This is tiresome."
She lowered her face and looked down at her eerily white hands on the railing's dark wood. It felt warm and frail under her stony skin. How easy it would be to break it, to crumble it into dust without any effort at all. How easy it would be to unleash her full strength and slaughter dozens of unsuspecting passers-by before they even realised what had hit them. This was something vampires were good at: breaking stuff. They didn't create, did they? They only took. They wrecked. They lived off others, in every conceivable way. "I thought I was beyond it, too. But my thoughts keep returning to the same subjects. I can't help it."
"Yes, you can. It's pretty easy," he said, sounding so bored, he probably wished he were still able to yawn, just to make a point. "Humans are like fruit flies, compared to us," he added, and reached out to gently trace the curve of her spine with the back of his hand. "Their life spans are so short. They're so breakable, so vulnerable to disease and old age. They die so easily. Why should we even take them seriously? We eat them. They're our prey. We're only following the dictates of our nature, and nobody can blame us for that." He chuckled. "Well, they can blame us, but they can't catch us. Human values, human laws, human justice – they've got nothing to do with us."
"I go from agreeing with you, from being drunk on my own magnificence, to wondering if my first instinct to feel like a monster wasn't right after all," she said, and closed her eyes. "I was standing in front of the mirror earlier, remembering my first kill, remembering what I thought, how I felt about myself. Edward told me that my humanity would return to me in time, and you keep telling me that I don't need it. What's right? Who do I believe? What stance am I supposed to model my life around? You have to tell me what to do." After a moment's hesitation, she added, in a subdued and timid tone of voice, "And what to think."
For an uncomfortably long moment – a few minutes at least – Jasper mulled over this in silence. Then, he turned around to face the water, inched closer to her, and spoke directly in her ear, "All your life, you've been the most passive, useless lump imaginable. You never had any hobbies, any friends, any ambitions apart from becoming immortal and rich and beautiful. You clung to Edward because in your eyes, he was your ticket to that. You never had any opinions of your own, either. Now, you're giving me the same treatment that you gave him. I'm not your keeper, Bella, nor do I want to be that. I don't want to control your movements, your whereabouts, or your thoughts. Make your own decisions. Learn to own yourself. Grow a spine; it's overdue. You can't keep clinging to a guy like a swooning damsel in distress, hoping he'll tell you what to do and to think. You need to start behaving like a grown-up."
It hurt, like a slap in the face. Human Bella would have flinched, blushed, forgotten to breathe. Vampire Bella just stared out at the water, paralysed. Maybe there hadn't been that much of a change, come to think about it. There was a strand of her dark-brown hair dancing in front of her face, carried by the stiff breeze, but she didn't move to wipe it aside. "I know that the transformation does something to us, that it-"
"Turns us into psychopaths? Maybe it does. Maybe it's only like that for some of us, though. Maybe you have to be prone to psychopathy as a human for it to work that way. I have my theories, but I don't know for sure," he cut in, half-laughing, half-thoughtful. "But I want to make one thing clear, honey: I am what I am and I like it. The reasons don't matter to me. There's nothing wrong with me, and you now what? There is no single Freudian excuse that defines me, or that explains what and who I am. Don't psychoanalyse me, at least not this cheaply. It won't work, and I won't have it."
"But there has to be a reason why you fit into this role as the perfect vampire so easily, and why Edward was so unhappy, so tortured, and-"
He laughed. "Edward, tortured? Sweetheart, he spent about ten years playing serial killer during Prohibition times, and he loved every minute of it. He stalked people, tortured them, and ate them. The only reason he ever stopped was because he didn't want Carlisle to think badly of him. Where on Earth did you get the idea that he was tortured? Unhappy, sure, because nothing could make that miserable, haughty little snob happy, but tortured? No. Not in the slightest. He relished the feeling of his own superiority."
She glanced at him and frowned. "He only killed evil men."
"Which is ridiculous. He couldn't possibly have had all the facts. Even though he was capable of reading superficial thoughts, he could, to my knowledge, not look into the future, nor could he tell whether a man was really thinking about committing a crime or if he was delusional. Maybe he murdered innocent schizophrenics. Even if he didn't, he told himself that he had the right to determine who deserved to die for what crime they either committed or intended to commit. He was a serial killer. I never did that, nor do I make excuses for my behaviour. I don't blame others for what I am and what I do, either. Which one of us is worse? Are you better, or do you need me to tell you what you believe about yourself?"
Again, she lowered her gaze. Did he have to be this caustic? Edward had done that, too. She probably deserved it, though. "What I want are answers. What am I? I don't know. Why are you the way you are? I believe it's because of the transformation. It makes so much sense."
"Oh, dear," he said, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Honey, it's never that simple. There isn't any simple answer from which you could derive a template for future vampire-appropriate behaviour. There isn't. Trust me. Did you ever read any of those awful novels where the villain is a complete psycho because daddy beat mommy and at some point, the kid started thinking mommy was weak and deserved it, and that's why he's turned into an abuser, himself?" He snorted derisively. This time, Bella did almost flinch. At least she didn't nearly pass out anymore every time she forgot to breathe. "You do realise that no-one's psyche is that ridiculously simple, right? That this kind of bullshit reasoning and scapegoating is an insult to everyone, from abuse victims to psychopaths like me? I am not a walking Freudian excuse, Bella. I'm a complex person who won't be reduced to a bad novel's horrendously ridiculous characterisation. If you want to use the horrors of transformation to excuse your own conduct, then be my guest. If you want to claim some kind of moral high ground, it's your problem. Leave me out of it, though. Learn to shoulder some responsibility for your actions and stop looking for cheap rationalisations. Also, be warned: the moment you start wanting to convert me in any way, I'm gone."
"I know," she said. "So you told me. And no, I don't want to convert anyone. All I want is some clarity."
"I can't help you with that. I already told you what I believe. Make of that what you will." He put an arm around her shoulders. "I'll tell you what, though: you will never feel as sharp and as in control of yourself as now, after feeding on living human blood. You know that. There are prices we all must pay for our continued existence, and our parasitic nature demands a high price indeed. Being like this makes you happy, or at least it allows you not to be emotionally and physically miserable at all times. It allows you to switch off your conscience, to drop the bag of bricks that are guilt and sympathy. You know how it works; what you do with that knowledge is your choice. I'll be on the other side of the dark waters, waiting."
After mulling this over for a moment, she said, "I want to feel powerful. Maybe that's happiness. I don't know. I've never been happy before. I understand that now."
"Then stick with me," he said, and placed a kiss on her temple. "I can't tell you what to think, nor can I decide who you want to be, but I can guarantee that with me, you'll get the most out of this post-mortem life."
She breathed in the sea air, the lush aroma of people's blood, the earthy scent of the pier's wood, and said, "I don't ever want to feel like a monster again."
"All right, then. That's settled," he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. "No more cheap psychoanalysis, dear. Let's do what we do best. Let's kick some werewolf ass tonight. Everything will be better once all that is taken care of."
Bella's thoughts turned to Renesmee, her broken body, and her growing powers. The girl would have to die or be imprisoned, but as long as Bella was filled with living human blood, she did not care. It was better this way – easier. "Yes, it will."
7 Caius stood by the motionless and securely bound body of Renesmee Cullen and watched her; he didn't move, breathe, or blink. Her neck was broken and her heart did not beat, and yet, she wasn't dead. They'd observed the same phenomenon when Aro had broken Fiora's neck, six centuries ago, but comparing Fiora to Renesmee was absurd and ridiculous. Renesmee was so much more powerful. She was a child of little more than three months, was technically dead, and yet, she was growing steadily. Her body was repairing itself with surprising speed, and he could sense that at least part of her was aware of her surroundings.
What he'd told Quirina had been a strange lie – strange because he never lied to her – that Aro would want to examine and study a living Renesmee. Nothing could be further from the truth. With Fiora under lock and key in the bowels of the Volterra stronghold, there was no way that he would want another dhampir around to threaten public security. His order was to eliminate all dhampirs the scouts found, obviously dangerous ones first and less harmful ones later. He argued that all half-breeds were monsters who enslaved innocents and erased minds, and that if they were allowed to exist, they'd end up revealing the existence of vampires to the humans. To Caius, Aro's dhampir paranoia was less justified than his own hatred of all kinds of werewolves, but he usually agreed with Aro's decision to have half-breeds hunted down and eliminated. Those things were, as a rule, dangerous, and Caius did not care about them either way.
Renesmee, however, was a different. She was so strong, so mighty, so unique – killing her would be a loss not only for the supernatural world, but also for humanity. The things she could teach them! Why destroy the brightest diamond in the universe? It made no sense. This was a perfect child, and if the Volturi could convince her to work with them, then their rule would be even stronger. No-one would be able to oppose them. They'd be able to rid the entire world of danger and disease and death. The Earth would be at peace, in perfect balance.
He thought about Atalante, his beautiful wife of so many centuries, and her parting words to him. She'd told him that he had won, that he had slain all his enemies, and he had wondered whether that was the reason he'd grown so disillusioned with his existence. Now he realised that all his enemies were not slain. There were so many more who needed to be hunted down and eradicated – so many. The little venture today would only be a start. Just as he had been during his human life, he was a commander of legions. He was a soldier and always would be. Now he understood that the war was not over, that it was far from over, that perhaps it would take centuries until true peace could be achieved.
Maybe the war would never be over.
Aro didn't understand this, but once he found out what an asset, no, what an ally Renesmee could be to them, he undoubtedly would. He would understand. He would see.
The little girl on the bed opened her eyes suddenly, without warning, and looked directly at Caius. She was smiling slightly. The sight of it was mesmerising and lovely, and it made him feel elated and privileged. The only emotion comparable to this had been what he'd feel every time he rode into Rome during the Empire's unforgettable glory days, after a long campaign in foreign lands. He'd spot the hilly landscape from afar, watch the Aventine Triad that overlooked the Circus Maximus and the Temple of Vesta gleaming in the gentle autumn sun, and his heart would soar because he'd finally returned home.
He looked down at Renesmee's lovely face and smiled right back at her. Yes, of course he understood. Words were not necessary. He understood. He saw.
8 It was the early afternoon when Leah and the others reached La Push. With Demetri's help, it was possible to tell where all the enemy vampires were located – at least approximately. Grace had not been far off, calling him a supernatural GPS. He drove the rental right up to Billy Black's house. Poor Billy. He knew that Jacob hadn't made it because Leah had told Sam on the phone, but she hadn't wanted to break the news to him like that. Yeah, it was probably chicken. Okay, it was very chicken. Here she was, after the fact, still wanting to weasel out of facing Billy, of facing everyone, but of course she wouldn't. When the occasion called for it, she always ended up doing what she had to, even if she preferred not to, even if she tried to run away from it at first.
When she got out of the car and saw Billy wheeling through the door of his house, her heart started thundering and her stomach cramped badly. She felt cold, but it was coming from the inside. Man, this sucked. She took a deep breath, told herself to stop making this awful moment about her own discomfort, and trudged up the gravelly path to where Billy was waiting. "I'm sorry," she said, knowing how trite it was and that there still was no better way to convey how she felt than the unabashed truth. The tip of her nose was itching, her throat constricted, and her vision grew blurry. She took a deep breath. Good gravy. This was bad. "I am so, so sorry."
"I know that you did what you could," Billy said, and looked up at her. His eyes were bloodshot and he was pale, but he was calm and composed.
She almost told him that she wasn't just sorry about Jacob, but also about the fact that she had been too much of a coward to call him and tell him first-hand about what had happened to his son. But that would bring the topic around to her again, and not only would that be self-centred as all hell, it would be horribly insensitive, too. "I wish we could've helped him."
"He was beyond help," Billy said. His voice was firm, but he sounded exhausted. "Hello, Charlie."
Leah heard Charlie's steps approaching.
He cleared his throat, started to say, "Hey, Billy. Look, uh, what happened…" and trailed off. Yeah. One couldn't exactly blame him for not being able to finish that particular sentence.
"Thank you. Glad to see you're alive. Does that still hurt?" Billy motioned at the healing cut on Charlie's forehead.
Charlie had taken off the last bandage. He waved off. "I'm fine, thanks."
Billy nodded once at his best friend before locking eyes with Leah again. "Where's my son?"
It took her a respectable amount of effort, but she managed to refrain from breaking eye-contact. "In the trunk. I'm sorry, but there was no other way."
"I know," Billy said, and glanced over his shoulder into the house. "Sam? Could you help with Jacob?" He looked at Leah again, at Charlie, and at the ones behind them: Demetri, Blake, Ariel, and Grace. "Your reporter friends are already here, too. You can come in so we can get started – all of you."
Despite the awkwardness of the situation and her own sympathy, Leah couldn't help but feel a stab of anger at the sharpness in Billy's tone; he obviously directed the last bit at Demetri. Yes, there was the treaty. Yes, vampires were generally the enemy. Still, Demetri had done nothing but be decent and brave, and if the Quileute wolves couldn't look past their prejudice even in face of that, how was the big change in the supernatural world that everyone was wishing upon a star for supposed to ever happen?
Yet again, she told herself to cut it out. She was tired and in pain and annoyed and sick of sitting around in a car, and Billy had just lost his son. He was doing the best he could under the circumstances. They were going to work together. They were going to win. Things were going to work out. They just had to.
That was when Sam stepped into the doorframe. He nodded at Leah without looking her in the eye, gave Charlie a grim little smile, and looked at a point behind Leah's back. "I'm Sam Uley. I can speak for all of us when I say that meeting other werewolves seems like a miracle. I just wish it had happened under better circumstances."
"The feeling is mutual," Blake replied from further back. "We're glad to be here. We hope we can help beat that asshole Caius once and for all."
Scowling, Sam motioned forward with a jerk of his chin. "And you trust this leech?"
"This leech," Blake said patiently, "saved our lives, back in the day. We kind of owe him."
"And yes, he really is going up against his boss because he thinks that genocide is bad," Leah said, in no mood for the debate that was surely going to follow if she let this conversation play out uninterrupted. Besides, she needed to sit down for a spell. Her wound, though healing, was aching dully, and she felt a little queasy. When Sam gave her one of his patented dirty looks, she rolled her eyes, knowing well how obnoxious that was and not caring. She crossed her arms and jutted out her chin. "Spare me the lecture, Sam. After all the shit we've been through ever since the Cullens decided to plant their flag in our corner of the sandbox, I'm in no mood for your posturing and flailing. Demetri is trustworthy. I vouch for him, as will Blake; that's her name, by the way. Introductions all around when we're inside, and I'm on the couch, eating a sandwich." Without waiting for a reply, she pushed past Billy and stomped into the house.
"You heard the lady," she heard Charlie saying, before he followed her inside.
Damn right, they'd heard the lady. The lady had had enough, too. They'd all missed Christmas and New Year's, good people had died, and nothing would ever go back to the way it had been. The time hadn't only come for the supernatural world to change. The time had arrived for all this dramatic bullshit to finally come to an end, because enough was enough. Sunset would be in about two hours. Then, it was either make or break, win or lose. Either way, it would all be over. As far as Leah was concerned, that was a good thing.
9 Why Demetri had agreed to have his ridiculous meeting in the evening was beyond Caius. He probably wanted to put Caius at ease, since the Quileute wolves did not have night vision like the Children of the Moon had. This was probably a concession, a peace offering, after Demetri had insisted that the meeting happen on Quileute soil. What a hapless fool. For all his talent and intelligence, he had let sentiment get in the way of reason, which had turned him traitor. It was a shame, losing him, and Aro would surely be vexed, but alas! It could not be helped. Loyalty was the most important trait in a soldier, even more so than bravery. Demetri had never lacked the latter. Up until a few days ago, Caius would not have believed that he might ever be devoid of the former.
They did not need cars to make their way from Port Angeles to La Push, but one of Aro's silly protocol rules demanded that they behave as human as possible when out in the human world.
When in Rome, he'd joked, but Caius had not been able to laugh.
To be fair, Caius couldn't remember the last time he'd laughed – ever.
They drove onto reservation ground in two cars: Caius, Quirina, and the twins in one. Renesmee was in the boot of the car Charmion was driving. She was sleeping again, in a way, but the rope binding her wrists and ankles could no longer hold her. No, someone of her strength and might was way, way too powerful, way too high above such pedestrian means of restraint. Nothing could hold her back. It was important to understand that, and in time, everyone would. They would see.
Following the obvious scent of Demetri, the injured human, and Leah Clearwater, Quirina drove up to a specific street, parked, stopped the engine, and stepped out of the vehicle when Caius gave her the silent go-ahead. The other rental car stopped right behind them. Everyone got out. It was a clear, frosty, starry night. What day was this? The third of January. Caius only just refrained from massaging his scarred throat. It would be a full moon tonight. Ridiculous that this should still give him pause – utterly ridiculous.
Looking around the dark, empty, silent street, he noticed that no light was shining out of any of the lovingly tended-to bungalows, and that their rental cars were the only vehicles around. During their earlier scouting mission, Jasper and Charmion had reported seeing several Jeeps and trucks in front of the houses.
"Did they evacuate? Even the hotel's empty. I don't know how they did it, but they did do it." Jasper said, ambling up to Caius, looking around with narrowed eyes. "Smart."
"Not smart enough," Quirina countered, deadpan. "I can still smell them."
"I smell them, too," Bella piped up, somewhat hesitant. "It's strange, though. I don't even know how to describe it. It's somehow too…too…"
"Strong," Jasper said. "They tried to mask their scent by overexposing us to it, here. Not bad." His severely scarred face lit up in a savage little grin. There was something wrong with this fellow – deeply wrong.
"Can you feel them?" Caius asked him, not even trying to mask his own irritation. What games was Demetri playing, and what was even remotely amusing about any of this to Jasper? If only people would behave according to Caius's standards! The world would be a better, simpler, cleaner place.
Jasper shook his head curtly. "No, I'm not picking up any moods whatsoever, which means I can't manipulate anything."
"This is really strange. I-" Charmion interrupted herself when a light went on from farther away. "The beach."
They all set out immediately, without another word.
The light was coming from a circle of huge, dead tree trunks. It was…a floodlight? What?
"Turn it off!" Caius snapped. The light gave the wolves the advantage, and they had to be close. He could smell them.
Quick as lightning, Alec killed the light. He held up a small plastic device. "Timer."
Jane pointed further away. "Is that a boom box?"
Bella frowned. "I don't-"
The box, farther away and half hidden behind another gargantuan dead tree, crackled loudly.
"Hello, Caius," a sonorous, woman's voice boomed across the empty beach, drowning out the pleasant murmur of the ocean. "Remember me?"
Caius froze. His eyes went wide. He balled his hands into fists. It was all he could do not to bare his fangs. He knew that voice. Oh, he knew it very well. No, all his enemies had not been slain. Here she was, his most resilient, most formidable foe. "Blake."
Everyone looked around wildly, but there was nobody there.
"That's right," Blake's voice agreed, trembling slightly, sounding both furious and triumphant – perhaps a little frightened, too. Not that it mattered. "And now, you genocidal fuck, it's finally payback time."
"It's a trap!" Jasper yelled, grabbed Bella's arm, and tried to run. He didn't get far.
All around them, several rings of fire erupted seemingly from the sand. The flames flared high, over two metres; their heat hit the vampires like a punch in the face. They shied away, huddled closer together in the relative safety of their ring of tree trunks.
Only once in his life had Caius ever been duped like this, and it had nearly been the end of him. Rage shook his body like an infection. Oh, Demetri. That dirty traitor! He would pay for this. He would pay, and so were all these damned werewolves! Caius would kill the lot of them, once and for all.
"And now," Blake went on, "we're gonna have a nice and cosy little chat. Try to escape and you die." She laughed grimly. "Come on. Give me an excuse. You're finally at my mercy now, and I'm gonna savour this – we all are."
It didn't look like the vampires had any choice.
Caius's thoughts turned to Renesmee, reached out to her, willed her to see what was happening. Come to me, he thought, eyes closed. Help me rid the world of this blight, and I shall place the world at your feet.
VERY WELL.
Her reply in his head was loud and screechy and weirdly metallic, making him flinch, making him feel like his skull was about to crack. He pressed his hands to his temples, groaning.
Nobody paid any attention to him. They were too busy staying away from the fire.
Renesmee's voice was a whirlwind of broken glass in Caius's thoughts:
I WILL CRUSH ALL THOSE WHO HAVE HURT ME, BUT I WON'T KILL THEM. I WILL MAKE THEM LOVE ME. THE WHOLE WORLD WILL LEARN TO LOVE ME. THEY'LL UNDERSTAND. THEY'LL SEE. THEY WILL ALL SEE.