Disclaimer: Eclipse is not mine. In fact, there are so many issues in it that Bella addresses one at a time that it's insane for the Cullens to keep up!
Chapter Thirty One: SolutionsCarlisle:
In my study I constructed a long list of the complications that my family now faced. It lay on my desk, the scroll held open by paperweights, as I paced behind my chair, contemplating my best options to deal with each of the problems. Jasper was right: I had to sort this out soon or it would all collapse on us at once.
The stranger - keep an eye out. Esme could be right, after all. It might not be anything malignant.
Changing Bella - let Edward do it. That didn't solve anything much, but it was the inevitable solution.
Victoria - surveillance, temporary alliance with wolves until threat is dealt with. We were already doing that, but there wasn't much else to be done. I doubted she could slip through the cracks. Unfortunately, this meant that tension between us and the werewolves was high, and with Bella's change looming, a horrendous breach of our agreements, the last thing we needed was extra stress on the fragile treaty.
Volturi - change Bella. Again, the solution we had already chosen. It posed a breach of the treaty with the werewolves, which I had passed off without too much thought until considering the problems our allied hunt of Victoria might have. If the pack thought we already owed them one, there would be next to no chance of talking our way out of a fight.
Werewolves - make clear that alliance is only temporary. Hope that they don't feel we are indebted. This plagued me. There had to be a better way to deal with it, to level ground with them. Leverage...leverage...aha!
If so, I added, remind them of our surrendering the treaty line.
This brought me to our greatest problem yet. Even now that I had come up with some leverage to even our playing field with the wolves, it presented the greatest threat. I had a long list of possible solutions, but each one was eradicated: first with a neat line, and later with a vicious scribble as the frustration burnt through.
Treaty - Don't change Bella. Don't change Bella here. Set up a situation where the wolves can't fight us without abandoning their greater duty. Fight the wolves. Call our friends to help us fight the wolves.
I pondered this one for a very long time. I was in my study all night, racking my brain for answers, when suddenly I realised: Jacob Black should be the Alpha. His great-grandfather, Ephraim, had been, and in our treaty discussions he had told me that the rankings followed family lines. There must be a reason Jacob had given up his position - maybe, if he had joined the pack after whoever the black wolf was, he didn't even know that he was destined for such a rank. If we found why, and Jacob took back the Alpha position, he would undoubtedly help us protect Bella. If he came to understand that Bella's choices were limited to change or be exterminated, he would probably be more reasonable about the treaty breach.
After all the answers I had turned down, I scribbled; get Jacob Black into Alpha position. I smiled down at the words, satisfied that all our problems would be quite comfortably solved once pressure on the werewolf situation was lightened. Who knows? Maybe Edward and Jacob could come to accept each other being in Bella's life as well.
Jasper cheered supportively as he came into the room.
"Now that's what I'm talking about!" he praised, admiring my list. "Well done. I knew you could do it."
His eyes shifted to the pin-up board at the back of the room.
"What's this?" he asked, gesturing at the newspaper clippings I had covered it with. His eyes widened as he recognised them: the collection of Seattle articles from the last few months. Murders and disappearances all over Seattle, the victims not linked in any obvious ways. They were getting sloppier, though, and it became ever more obvious that whoever was committing them was either a wild newborn or an experienced vampire with a death wish.
At first it was not too obvious – three murders, six, ten: it could be passed off as gang activity. Now, though, the deaths were rising faster than ever – in the first month, there were six deaths. In the second, eleven. It was the beginning of July, and the toll was nearing forty. A single vampire was out of the question: there must be a gang of them at least to cause this much damage. It was getting ridiculous; the Volturi should have intervened long ago.
Jasper slowly walked along the wall, examining the cuttings. He stopped when he reached the most recent headline.
Murder Epidemic Continues – Police Have No New Leads"Carlisle?" Esme wondered, knocking on the door and gently pushing it open. Her eyes were black like onyx, shimmering with fear and concern. She barely hunted for food any more; she was out nearly every spare moment hunting Victoria. She hadn't so much as flicked the television or radio on in weeks. I ran to greet her at the front of the study so she wouldn't see the board of newspaper clippings: she had no idea of the seriousness of was going on in Seattle, and I was determined to keep it that way…for as long as possible, at least. She had enough to worry about.
"You have to go to work," she said quietly, glancing behind me suspiciously as she pulled the tie around my neck and tied it with trembling hands. She kept her eyes away from mine, but her breath was rasping slightly with anxiety. Her hair was a mess. The sleeves of her jacket were torn and frayed at the ends where she'd been pulling at them with her anxious fingers. There was a splash of old deer blood where her shaking hands had led to a messy kill…Alice was so busy keeping a check on all our problems, she hadn't even noticed.
"I know you're worried, dear, but honestly; I'm sure everything will be fine," I told her. Another wave of relief settled in now that I was on the verge of solving everything. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her to my chest. She sniffed and pressed her face in my shoulder.
"I know that," Esme whispered, trying to control the tremor in her voice. "It's not just Bella I'm worried about, though."
"It's going to be fine," I repeated. "I promise."
Esme jumped to attention, having spotted Jasper over my shoulder. It was perfectly normal for us not to be alone, sharing a house with so many, but we didn't have the time right now to steal a private moment.
"You should- you should go," she stammered, pressing my bag into my hands.
I kissed her forehead and then her lips, and then slipped out of the house in silence. Once on the road, I decided to call Edward. Being Bella's closest guard, he should be kept absolutely up to date on everything. He was probably at Bella's right now, actually.
"Carlisle, I-" he started.
"Look at this morning's paper, Edward," I instructed. "They're getting sloppier – it's getting harder to cover up. They've given up on the gang theory…serial killer will be next, but that one won't hold up either. Bodies drained of blood, stolen right out from under people's noses and found miles from where they were last seen. It's got to be newborns – created by another young one, or someone with a death wish, I don't know, but they're just too reckless to be an established coven, even larger than ours – which may explain the numbers. It's getting ridiculous."
"I'll check it out," Edward said. "Listen…some of Bella's things are missing. Nothing valuable; clothes, her pillow, that kind of thing. Someone has taken them. I don't recognise the scent…it's not Victoria. I don't think it's one of the Volturi either."
"It's different to the scent you discovered earlier?" I wondered.
"No, the same one. Her visitor must have taken them when he came earlier."
"It could have something to do with Seattle," I speculated. "But I doubt it. Such reckless newborns wouldn't be so careful…" I cringed. Charlie had been lucky enough to be left alive. The vampire in Bella's room had been smart enough to leave him be: that was not newborn behaviour. The newborns in Seattle were on the fast track to becoming a big black mark on my carefully arranged set of solutions.
"Anyway," I pointed out, "the last thing we need right now is to get involved in a newborn attack and an overdue Volturi visit."
"Maybe I'll go…" Edward started. "Maybe not. Don't let Emmett go alone, you know how he gets. Ask Alice to keep an eye on things. We'll figure this out later." He hung up, and so did I. I pulled my bag out of the car with me and strode into the hospital trying to look confident – and praying with all my heart not to get any news of any more vampire attacks..o.o.o.Esme:Carlisle is hiding something.The voice nagged at me as I tried to repair a tear in one of Rosalie's dresses. It had been at the back of my mind for hours, ever since Carlisle had greeted me so strangely at the door of his study. I was always welcome there; it was highly unusual for him to block me out. The last time he had, it was to surprise me with my own island. Somehow, I was convinced that this surprise - if there was one - was much more sinister.He's hiding something serious from you. He's trying to protect you.I was taking a bundle of our old things to a Salvation Army appeal that afternoon, and a few stitches here and there would make no difference to the people receiving them. It was something to do, too. Carlisle vehemently insisted that the wolves had Victoria at bay, and all I needed was something to occupy myself with. He was just being a worrisome chauvinist, but nevertheless, I tried to focus on my needlepoint. The nagging voice was relentless, though...and persuasive.Just go check. If he's not hiding anything, no harm done. If he is, you can always talk it out.I rolled my eyes. I trusted my husband. But my foot started tapping the ground restlessly. I sighed, tossing the flimsy blue material onto the table and getting to my feet. I automatically traced the path up to Carlisle's study, all the while feeling terribly short of breath.What has become of me? I'm spying on my husband!I flicked the light on and scanned the room. Books organised, paintings in need of dusting, desk a mess...nothing out of the ordinary. Until I spied the pin-up board. Being a vampire, with a large mind and perfect memory, Carlisle didn't need to use it, but he felt it helped him better organise his thoughts. Now, it was covered in newspaper clippings. A photograph of Seattle's revolving restaurant caught my eye, and my heart plummeted as I noticed several more of them covering the board.
Seattle Terrorized By Slayings read the headline under the first picture I spotted. I scanned through the article and noticed things circled in red.
This killer – if, in fact, it is one person – would then be responsible for 39 linked homicides and disappearances within the last three months alone. '39 linked homicides' was not only circled but underlined in red.The motive seems to be killing for no other reason than to kill, was circled further through the article.Every victim discovered has been burnt to the extent that dental records were necessary for identification…all of the bodies have been carelessly dumped with no attempt at concealment.I cringed and all but skipped the rest of the article to the next phrase circled in red. Perhaps the most astounding: 30-year-old amateur boxer Robert Walsh entered a movie theatre with a date; a few minutes into the movie, the woman realized that he was not in his seat. His body was found only three hours later when fire fighters were called to the scene of a burning trash Dumpster, twenty miles away. All of the victims disappeared at night...Twenty two have occurred in the last ten days alone…The last line of the article was vigorously circled – the pen nearly wore through the page.
Only one conclusion is indisputable: something hideous is stalking Seattle.
I nearly jumped out of my skin when someone tapped my shoulder.
"Esme, you didn't need to see that," Carlisle said as I turned to face him.
"Yes I did," I insisted. Flaring through my shock was rage. I'd never felt so mad at Carlisle. I gritted my teeth, but that only lasted for a second against my indignant shout. All this while, I had thought he'd understood, but really he'd grudgingly let me join the hunt for Victoria to keep me away from all of this!
"You can't shield me from everything, Carlisle!" I yelled. "I have to know what's going on!"
He hung his head and held up his hands in a gesture of surrender.
"You're right. I'm sorry. It's just that everything is so much worse for you…you worry so much. It hurts to see you like that."
"Well I'd rather be worried than dancing around while all of you get yourselves killed behind my back!" I snapped. "Victoria is bad enough but this! What if this turns out to be a serious threat to us, huh? What if some God-forsaken army is out to get us? Hm?"
"Esme, I'm sorry," he said, ashamed. "But you've hardly been 'dancing around'..."
"That's not my point!" I shrieked. "I'm not a doll, Carlisle, I can take care of myself! Christ! You're so pig-headed sometimes, you know that? How long is it going to take you to realise: I'm a vampire too! I'm just as fast and dangerous as you! Don't you think it hurts me to see you in danger? Hm? Did that ever occur to you?"
I shoved past him and fled the room before he could reply.
.o.o.o.
I ran all the way to the river, and sat on a rock that looked over it. My body shook with the after-effects of rage, as well as terror at my own ferocity - especially with Carlisle, I hadn't expected that - and I forced myself to take deep breaths. I hugged my knees to my chest, and put my forehead against my legs until I relaxed a little.
I lifted my head and looked at the stranger's reflection in the water. She was wearing my jacket, but it was torn; my face, tortured; my hair, wild. Carlisle's words echoed in my head; you've hardly been 'dancing around'. This must be what he meant.
As I watched, I saw Carlisle walk up beside the wild woman in the river.
"Esme," he addressed her. "I am so sorry. You were right; I never should have hidden this from you."
"I understand why you did it," I said, looking down at the sleeves of my jacket, which were torn like those in my wild reflection. "I had no idea…but I still wish you'd told me."
"I know. I'm sorry," he repeated. "I was scared. I still am, but I'll try not to get in your way anymore. I know you want to help us and I understand that means taking risks. Please come home, dear. You need something to eat, and then come home. Please."
I stood, but didn't move towards him. I didn't even look at him; I was still staring at the river. Carlisle held his hand out to me.
"Please, Esme," he begged quietly. I sighed and let him pull me away.