Disclaimer: most of these characters and places belong to Stephanie Meyer, not me. Unfortunately.
Prologue
Elizabeth's POV
"And you are sure this is not just a rumour?"
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow as she stared at her partner. Arthur appeared not to notice, his scarlet eyes glimmering with excitement. He glanced at her, the sun sparking off his skin.
"Of course! I would not have dragged you and Evie out here if I was not certain!"
Evelyn, the third and youngest member of their coven, turned to stare at him.
"First of all, don't call me that. My name is Evelyn. Not Evie, Eve, Lyn, or anything else. Second of all, you would have. You have dragged us out countless times in pursuit of things that you claimed were 'forgotten history' but turned out to be myths." She flicked her waist-length blonde hair over her shoulder as she turned away, peering down into the pitch-black cave. Elizabeth laughed.
"She is correct, you know. You have said time and time again that you had found something important, but that has never been the case."
Arthur smiled softly at her.
"I wouldn't say never," he murmured softly. "After all…the most important day of my life was the day I found you."
Elizabeth smiled at him, leaning in until their lips brushed.
"No! I thought I would be free of you two flirting for one day! A few hours, is that too much to ask?!"
They broke apart, laughing at Evelyn's annoyed expression.
"What's wrong, Evie? You can't handle a little love?" Arthur laughed and blew Elizabeth a kiss. Evelyn rolled her eyes.
"What if I just don't want the constant reminder that I've been single for two hundred years?"
Arthur was about to say something else, but Elizabeth cut him off.
"No, we should get this over and done with first. If something of importance is in that cave, we need to find it. If not, at least we will know and won't waste any more time."
He sighed, running a hand through his honey-brunette curls as he, too, glanced into the cave.
"You're right, of course. Ladies first?" He gestured towards the yawning darkness with a sparkling hand. Elizabeth rolled her eyes at him and stepped down into the cavern. She heard him and Evelyn follow her, the darkness no impediment to their immortal eyes. She could see as clearly here as she could outside. She called to the others to follow as she crept deeper under the ground. She inhaled, smelling the cave around her; limestone, water, bats.
And something else.
Something very, very old.
By this point, they were almost fifty kilometres under the earth. Elizabeth stepped down, seeing that the trail ended with a deep, still lake.
She jumped, landing in the water with a quiet splash. Not breathing used to be uncomfortable for her, but she was long used to it by now. She swam down, clearly seeing the shadow of a tunnel at the very bottom. Her inky-black curls billowed out around her head in a dark cloud as she swam inside.
The tunnel was long and narrow. It went straight ahead for some time, then began to curve upward. Elizabeth broke the surface, leaving the water to stand in a cavern that was large-ish and unnaturally round and smooth. Seconds later, Evelyn and Arthur surfaced beside her. But she barely noticed them, her eyes locked on the stone sarcophagi that lined up in the middle of the cave.
This was no false alarm. Arthur had been right.
Slowly, slowly, she crept up to the nearest sarcophagus. She heard Arthur's hissed warning to be cautious, but her eyes were fixed on the coffin's lid.
As silently as was possible, she lifted the lid.
Inside the sarcophagus was a mound of hard, white rock. Pebbles and tiny pieces that had been ripped off.
To a human, it would have seemed like just that; rock.
But Elizabeth knew what this truly was.
This cave was a mass grave, the rock the remains of a vampire so old that they had been mostly forgotten.
She heard Arthur's gasp as he opened another coffin to find a similar pile of white stone, Evelyn's muttered exclamation as she uncovered an identical tomb. But these weren't just any vampires, and there was a reason they'd never been burned.
If Arthur was correct, these were the remains of the vampires who, millenia ago, had found out how to make a substance so powerful, so deadly, that even one touch could prove fatal. To humans and shape-shifters-like the werewolves of the north-it was only deadly if it was forged into a weapon.
To vampires, though, blood onyx was a death sentence.
It had been created with two purposes; one, to create a weapon that could get through vampire skin and poison them.
And two, to avoid detection. Even in those days, vampires understood the need for secrecy. Because of this, veined onyx could actually partially strip a vampire's immortality. They would still be as fast and strong as any other immortal, but the blood onyx would replicate a heartbeat, or human skin, flesh and blood. It could make a bloodless immortal bleed out in minutes by making their body once more dependent on these things that it replicated inside their body. It could leave a vampire vulnerable to cold, or drowning, or animal attack.
The venom laced inside the metal was a terrible thing. It caused agony not unlike that of the transformation, but it also kept the victim's mind glass-clear throughout the entire ordeal. They would know what was happening to them, and be powerless to stop it.
If the legends were to be believed, the vampires in these coffins had unlocked the secret to making this horrific material. Then, seeing what they had created, they cast all notes of how it was made to ash and ripped themselves apart, so that nobody could ever leak the secret to those who might abuse it. With nobody to burn the bodies, they had simply lain here for all this time.
Elizabeth's crimson gaze flicked up to meet that of her coven.
"If the legends are true," she began, "then we must destroy the bodies, so that they may never be resurrected."
Arthur nodded his agreement, while Evelyn bowed her head in acknowledgement.
"We cannot let this fall into the wrong hands," Arthur agreed. Evelyn removed a lighter from her pocket. But as she moved to light the first corpse, a voice called out in a high monotone.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you…"
Elizabeth spun around, eyes wide, and horror shot through her body as she saw figures in black cloaks stepping out of the water. The vampire in front had her hood down, and Elizabeth knew her all too well.
Jane flicked her eyes to Evelyn.
"Drop the lighter."
But Evelyn was frozen, shock and horror warring in her expression.
Jane smiled cruelly, and Evelyn screamed. The sound reverberated off the walls of the cave as the Volturi surrounded her, ripping and tearing. In seconds, a blazing bonfire was all that was left of Evelyn.
"No!" Elizabeth screamed, a vicious snarl tearing up her throat as she watched the blazing remains of her best friend. Jane's scarlet eyes met hers, and the next minute Arthur was shouting and hissing as they ripped him apart. And all Elizabeth could do was watch helplessly as the love of her life burned.
She thought she was prepared, when Jane's full attention turned to her.
She had been wrong.
Fire raced through her body, much worse than what she remembered of her transformation. She hit the ground with a horrific crack, unable to hear anything else over the sound of her own screams.
Except…as the Volturi soldiers converged on her, she heard that hateful monotone drawling out orders to them.
"Burn her, then gather up the ancient ones and bring them back to Volterra. We can reincarnate them there, then find out what they know about blood onyx…and how we can use it."
A/N
I know, cliff hanger. I'll try to update at least every week, but forgive me if I miss that deadline sometimes. See ya soon!
Please review!
If you don't the Volturi will drain you
Seriously
Review to survive