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Seven Nation Army- The White Stripes
My War- Black Flag
I wondered what Edward was doing. Was he playing a video game with Jacob Black, or maybe keeping to himself while reading a book?
I was desperate to know.
We arrived on Bainbridge in the late evening, just before midnight, deftly crossing roads and moving across the island until we got to the wooded area near South Beach, where we would be meeting the rest of our group.
We sparred for a while, practicing fighting two-on-one, a likely situation.
I heard movement behind us, and spun to see our five vegetarian contemporaries emerge from the shadows formed in the soft twilight sky.
"Cousins!" Tanya called, a smile on her stunning face as they joined their group with ours. We embraced quickly, integrating our two covens together and confirming out partnerships. Tanya hugged me to her, looking like she wanted to say something but holding it back.
"Shall we?" Irina asked, gesturing her hand towards Puget Sound. The sky was alight with the city lights, and we all just looked at the skyline for a moment.
"Are you all ready?" I asked, directing my question towards the Denalis. My family was as ready as they could be.
"Let's do this," Kate said, flexing her electricity across her skin.
We swam deeply through the Sound, the water dark and disturbed as ferry boats moved slowly on the surface.
I could still feel my heart pulling me to Edward- a dull ache in my chest I was completely unaccustomed to. We had never been separated like this since I met him, and even the few hours here and there I had taken to hunt had left me longing.
We jumped up from the water onto a deserted dock in the port. The area was poorly lit, and we slipped through unnoticed.
Esme and Emmett signaled to us they had caught a scent, and we ran over. It was very, very fresh, someone had been there maybe five minutes before us.
"Three?" Emmett asked. I nodded in confirmation. Definitely three vampires, and they weren't moving very quickly. They were hunting, and we needed to close in before they hurt anyone else.
Esme darted out to get the attention of Irina and Rose, who kept the right flank as we weaved around buildings surreptitiously, fading into shadows on the rare occasion we crossed paths with a human.
We were gaining on our prey, moving in so they were in earshot.
They had entered through a garage of an empty warehouse, but there wasn't a human heartbeat for two blocks. I wondered if this was their nest, where they all returned back to whoever created them.
Emmett and Esme scaled the walls of the building, jumping onto the roof to cover any exits. We still couldn't tell how many were inside, though, and I couldn't get a read on where Kate, Carlisle, Eleazar, and Carmen were. It would be unsafe and unwise to enter without our full force of numbers.
Just then, we heard the squeal of a vampire being torn, limb from limb. Tanya looked over to me in alarm, but all I could do was shrug in response. It wasn't uncommon for a creator to kill newborns if they aged past a year, or got too unruly to even loosely control.
But then, there was a scream from inside, and the three vampires we were tracking streaked out of the warehouse, heading south and right towards the rest of our group.
The scent of vampires was thick in the area, but it was easy to keep track of the three visually. Something seemed different about them, though. They moved deftly, hyperaware of their surroundings, and I knew they knew we were tailing them.
They didn't, however, know about the other two pairs of us closing in on them.
It was easy enough to herd them south, then west towards the water. The three whipped around when we reached the water's edge, then turned to try to run south only to find Carlisle, Kate, Eleazar, and Carmen in a half circle, blocking any land escape.
"Peace, friends," Carlisle called out, holding a hand up. I appraised the three of them, but stretched my shield out to cover us all anyways. I didn't use this part of myself very often, but it didn't take any effort to extend it forward to envelope my family.
Two were clearly mated, though they looked very similar, with shockingly blond hair. The woman was very short, and the man towered above her, holding her behind him in defense. The other man looked like a caged animal, red eyes darting towards the water as he charted an escape plan.
"Why are you chasing us?" The man with the white-blond hair asked, shifting to move forward as he asserted himself as the leader of their little group.
"We're of a permanent coven not far from Seattle. We're here to ask that those causing a scene here in the city disband so we can avoid attention," Carlisle sounded calm and hopeful, as the three in front of us didn't seem nearly as wild and inhospitable as we were expecting.
"Permanent?" The woman asked, her voice high-pitched and saccharine.
"Yes, I live in Forks with my family, Esme, Emmett and Rosalie, and Bella. These are our cousins from Alaska, Eleazar and Carmen, Tanya, Kate, and Irina, here to help us."
The position of the other man in their group relaxed, and he stepped forward.
"We're here for the same reason, then," he said in an affected Southern drawl.
"What do you mean?" Tanya asked.
"My companions, Peter and Charlotte, and myself, we've been following this activity from California, and we're here to eliminate the threat."
"Are you from the Volturi?" I asked. They certainly didn't look it, dressed in well-worn clothes, but they were wearing shoes- a sign of a more civilized and integrated nomad.
"No," the unnamed man snarled, then regained his composure, "All three of us were a part of the Southern armies. We were able to break off decades ago, but we noted a recent growth in newborn activity. They've moved westward, and we believed this group was created to challenge the vampires who have taken San Francisco. We were incorrect. We are not sure of their origin, but they're just wayward newborns forming a coven- there doesn't seem to be a leader or a reason for their existence."
It was then I got a good look at him. He was a handsome man, with longer, honey blond hair and a sharp jawline, but it was the scars that stood out the most.
Bite marks covered his body, bright crescents littered across his skin. To have that kind of scarring… he must have participated in countless battles.
"I'm Jasper, by the way," he said, extending his hand to shake Carlisle's.
"It's good to meet you."
And so our uneasy alliance was formed.
"Why are your eyes such an odd color?" Peter asked, studying us. It was a question we got from every nomad we encountered because, as far as we knew, no other vampires in the world eschewed from our natural diet.
"We do not feed from humans, instead sustaining ourselves on animal blood," Carlisle explained. Jasper's brow shot up in surprise, looking more than a little intrigued.
"That's possible?" He sounded less judgmental than most, more curious than sanctimonious.
"We've forgone human blood for several hundred years with no negative effects."
"I had no idea," Jasper said in wonder, appraising each of us, his eyes lingering on Emmett.
"Are we gonna get on with this, or what?" Emmett said, anxious for a fight.
"Do you know where they are?" Carlisle turned to our nomadic allies.
"We've been scouting the area for two days. They're concentrated in the warehouse you found us in, but there were only two in there-" Jasper was cut off by his coven-mate.
"There were two newborns in there. They're totally feral and completely untrained. Their creator, if he's still around, has no idea what he's doing, which is likely why they've been so visible," Peter said.
"How do you suggest we proceed?" I deferred to Jasper, as he seemed the most experienced with newborns, especially not such large groups of them. I had never actually encountered a newborn army- Carlisle and I had left the Volturi in the early eighteenth century, and the first newborn army was created in the mid-nineteenth century.
"Right now, they've broken off to feed," Jasper said, and Esme shuddered at the idea of all the innocent lives lost every moment, "I'd imagine they're moving in pairs."
"We counted thirteen of them, and after destroying two, that leaves eleven," Peter added.
"They're unprepared for an attack. I doubt they even understand that what they're doing is wrong, they're so addled by the newborn bloodlust. I suggest we focus on them group by group instead of splitting up, and take the pieces back to the main warehouse to burn." Jasper said.
"We didn't have time to burn the two newborns we destroyed before we heard you and ran, so they're still in pieces inside," Peter explained.
We moved out in our original groupings, with Jasper, Peter, and Charlotte accompanying us, and ran through the streets, trying to catch a fresh scent. It didn't take long, these newborns weren't exactly inconspicuous or disciplined.
They were three women, two laughing while the third sat on the ground with a corpse on her lap and fresh blood painted on the front of her tattered shirt.
They jumped the second we made our presence known, surrounding them in a circle. The snarled and launched themselves at us with no catalyst, seemingly eager for a fight.
Carlisle didn't even have a moment to parlay with them.
Jasper and Peter were experts in fighting newborns, jumping behind the woman who charged at them and easily ripped her arms off. The second woman went at Rose, but Emmett quickly interceded, managing to wrap his arms around her and holding her down so Rose could jump on his shoulders and rip her head off.
The third came at me, and I was fully prepared to fight her, but Kate darted forward and grabbed her wrist, shocking her and sending her to the ground, stunned, giving Tanya and Irina ample time to tear her to pieces.
"Carlisle, Esme, would you take the pieces back to the warehouse to burn?" I asked. It would be safest to have them out of the way and doing something productive but nonviolent. They acquiesced, neither wanting to participate in killing when we so outnumbered our opponents.
We moved through the city streets quietly, leaving behind ripped to pieces newborns and the human bodies they were feeding on for Carlisle and Esme to collect.
I had never seen anyone fight like Jasper. Peter and Charlotte were also impressive, but Jasper… he was absolutely lethal in a way I had never encountered before. He knew exactly what the newborn was going to do before they made the move, and they even seemed slower when they were fighting him.
"There are still four left," Charlotte sighed after we circled around the area. The area was so heavily trafficked by the newborns that it was difficult to pick up a scent and be able to track it.
Thankfully, it was the dead of night- no pun intended- and there weren't any humans on the street at three o'clock in the morning.
I wondered what Edward was doing, unable to even think about him potentially not being okay.
"Let's regroup at the warehouse," Jasper said, "I want to check on the burning, and maybe we can find something to lead us to the remaining four. Chances are, the rest of them will be with him."
We all agreed, and found our way back to the main warehouse, with Jasper and Emmett covering the rear and Peter and Eleazar moving a block on either side to cover more ground and make sure we didn't miss anything.
The warehouse was smoky, but Carlisle and Esme had opened all the windows near the roof of the warehouse and had disabled the smoke alarms, so we were in no danger of detection or of burning the building to the ground.
"Did you get them all?" I asked, watching as Esme threw another arm into the fire. We had decided it would be best to also burn the bodies of the human victims.
"Yes," she said, wiping her hands on her black leggings, "Did you find the rest?"
"No, we're missing four," Jasper said, inspecting the wide open room. It was just an empty warehouse that had maybe been used to store shipping containers at one point, but the only thing in it was the bonfire and some blankets in a corner.
Jasper walked over and kicked the blankets, maybe thinking there was someone in it, but he just shot the blankets across the room.
"We might have to wait them out," Peter said, "I don't think we can track them down in the city with so many conflicting scents."
"We should send seven out, and six of us should stay here," Jasper disagreed, "They'll be outnumbered either way, and who knows if or when they'll come back here, especially with a fire burning."
"No splinter groups, though," Carlisle asserted. We all agreed, and split in two, with Jasper, Peter, Kate, Tanya, Eleazar, Rose, and Irina leaving to attempt to track the missing four, and Carlisle, Esme, Carmen, Emmett, Charlotte, and myself staying behind- much to Emmett's chagrin. But we were sending out the strongest fighters and trackers, and Emmett and I seemed to be the only two with fighting experience staying behind.
Charlotte told us that Peter and Jasper were basically lieutenants in a newborn army in the South, and when she was due to be destroyed after reaching one year old, Peter saved her. They ran away together, happy to finally be alone, but not long after, Peter wanted to return for his friend.
They went back for Jasper, who was deeply unhappy and just looking for an excuse to leave, and the three of them set off together. Jasper separated from the two of them after a few years, but they joined up again when they heard reports of newborn armies spreading from Phoenix to California, then further north.
As Charlotte was quietly relaying us their story, there was a loud bang outside, and the screeching sound of tearing metal that characterized a vampire being torn limb from limb.
I ran outside to help, Emmett right behind me, sure that the rest of our group had found the rest of the army and were destroying them.
The street was empty, though. We walked out to the middle of the road, looking all around us. The sound had come from just outside the door- we were quite sure of that.
Then bang.
My body flew back and I cracked into the pavement as something was thrown at me. No, not something, someone. He was big, almost as big as Emmett, and right on top of me. He must have been on the roof somehow, though I knew we had checked.
I tried to twist around, to push him off of me, but he was incredibly strong, and he kept shoving me into the ground burying me in the pavement.
He was completely feral, red eyes vicious and mouth pulled into a snarl. Definitely a newborn, and a particularly strong one at that. And he had gotten his arms around me.
I screamed as he squeezed me, feeling the agony of my bones cracking under the pressure.
It all happened in moments, because Emmett and Charlotte were right there, pulling the newborn off of me as I squirmed and shrieked, completely unable to do anything about the searing agony as he crushed me. All I could think of was Edward, my sweet, wonderful Edward, waiting for me to return. I saw Carlisle telling him what had happened, how his green eyes would turn glassy with tears, each drop clinging to his long, dark lashes. He would be completely devastated, and I had promised him I wouldn't leave him. I couldn't leave Edward!
But then the newborn's head was ripped from his body.
I sighed in relief as the pain subsided, quickly surveying the damage to my arms and torso. The attack had pounded me into a crater on the pavement, and my arms burned as the venom ran through me, repairing the crushed bones.
Carlisle ran to me and pulled me up, pressing his fingers into the dents on my arms. Before a word came out of his mouth, however, the other three dropped down on us, seemingly from out of the sky.
There were two men and one woman. One was taller and his sandy brown hair swung down to slightly obscure his less vibrant crimson eyes, indicating he was older than the other two. The other man was slighter, with cropped brown hair and nondescript features, his mouth pulled in vicious snarl. The woman was eerie, sporting a childlike grin on her streamlined, feline face, and her chaotic, bright orange hair curling around her like a devilish halo.
There was a long pause, almost as if we didn't know what to make of each other. The woman looked nervous, her ruby eyes rolling wildly as she took in her surroundings. The smaller man was staring directly at me, breathing so hard he seemed to be panting, nostrils flaring as his eyes darkened to a pitch black.
The larger, older man charged at Carlisle, who was still standing in front of me. My arms felt sore and tired, and I couldn't move them much, so I stepped back and away from Carlisle.
Emmett interceded, though, slamming into the newborn and knocking him down. He tried to pin him, but the newborn was too strong and flipped him over. Carmen came in from behind, trying to hold the newborn's arms back so Emmett could gain the upper hand.
The woman disappeared, almost in thin air.
"Go after her!" I shouted, directing Charlotte and Esme to run after our escaped vampire.
"We truly don't mean any harm-" Carlisle started, trying to calm down the large vampire than Emmett and Carmen were trying to get a grip on. He seemed to be a little more experienced than the newborns we had encountered, engaging in evasive maneuvers that kept him from their hands.
And I was helpless but to watch.
The large vampire jumped up in the air, launching himself on the roof of one of the buildings. Emmett and Carmen followed with an intense focus on getting the defensive vampire.
The slighter man was still standing in the street where he landed, staring at me with a spiteful intensity I didn't know was possible in a complete stranger.
"You don't have to attack us," Carlisle started, and his voice snapped the vampire out of his daze. He looked at Carlisle and I thought he was poised to launch himself at Carlisle. His eyes never left Carlisle, but he landed on me. And I was still immobilized, completely vulnerable to any attack.
The man had his hands around my neck, and he leaned in to bite, but instead inhaled deeply. I couldn't figure out why, thinking maybe I was missing something, that I somehow had blood on me that distracted the newborn, when Carlisle tore him off of me.
Carlisle and the vampire were battling hand-to-hand, Carlisle trying to stay moving and not hesitate, but he seemed surprisingly disciplined for a newborn, staying one step ahead of Carlisle.
Then, there was the signature metallic sounding screeching from a roof a block away, indicating someone was being torn apart. I could only hope it wasn't Emmett or Carmen losing a limb.
"Let's go," hissed a high pitched voice from a roof on the other side of the street. I looked up, but didn't see anyone. The vampire Carlisle was fighting did recognize her, and he ducked under Carlisle and launched himself up to the roof. I assumed the orange-haired woman was up there, waiting for him.
Before I could urge Carlisle to go after them, and follow myself as my arms started regaining motor control, the larger vampire came crashing down, sliding and tearing up the pavement before stopping in front of us. He was missing an arm, but that didn't stop him from zeroing in on Carlisle.
With a roar, he launched himself at my father, but Emmett and Carmen were right behind him. Emmett grabbed his other arm and ripped it off of him, rendering the vampire defenseless. He was yelping in pain, and Emmett tossed the arm to Carmen, who was holding the other arm.
"Let me?" I asked as Emmett forced the vampire to his knees. I wanted my chance to rip his head off. This vampire was at least partly responsible for taking me away from Edward, for leaving my love unprotected and abandoned, all because he couldn't control himself. I would destroy him.
"You don't want to do this," he chuckled menacingly as Carlisle and Emmett held his shoulders down, keeping him down as his knees created craters in the asphalt.
Oddly, though, they both faltered.
"You all want to leave Seattle," he said, and Carlisle's and Emmett's grip loosened, a confused expression coming across their faces. I looked around and saw standing there, two arms in her hands, similarly stunned and blank, and knew it was some kind of mental manipulation, a power of persuasion. He was probably some kind of lawyer or salesman when he was human, because apparently he was very convincing.
He wriggled out from Emmett and Carlisle hold, standing up and grinning smugly.
It happened just in time. My arms still hurt, and I could feel the venom still mending some small fractures in my ribs, but I could use my arms and take advantage of the element of surprise.
He turned his back to walk towards Carmen, about to retrieve his removed arms, and I darted forward at the same time I stretched my shield back to cover everyone, wrapping around them like cellophane.
I kicked forward, planting my feet on his back and forcing him to fall forward, his chest and face slamming into the pavement. Everyone came to the moment I shielded them, and Emmett came to one side and held his shoulder down, and Carlisle to the other to do the same.
He squirmed under me, and I felt as my lips pulled back in a fierce snarl. This stupid young vampire was the reason I had to leave Edward at his most vulnerable, and he was the reason I almost didn't live through the night. I knew that he was responsible for at least some of the devastation the newborns caused- he was older, and incredibly influential with his power. He was responsible.
I wrapped my hands around his neck, still standing on his back and keeping him pinned to the ground. I was just about to pull when I heard a ghostly chuckle that sent a shiver down my spine.
"Now, now, Bella. You always get all the fun," said a reedy voice from the roof.
And it was then I knew I was going to die.