THE DEVIL

"There is no Devil except of man's own creation, and here it is evident that men are chained by their own wrong choices. However, the chains about their necks are loose and can be removed at will."

—Eden Gray, The Complete Guide to the Tarot

"Divinatory Meaning: Black magic, discontent, depression. Illness. Wrong use of force. Bondage to the material; sensation divorced from understanding.

Reversed: The beginning of spiritual understanding. Removing the chains of bondage to the material. Timidity, failure to make decisions. The overcoming of pride and self-interest."

—Joan Bunning, Learning the Tarot

—

NO REST

NO PEACE

Alice is rocking—

Alice had stopped moving to dig her hands back into the dirt—

Maria is gathering other body parts for the pyre she's set. The love of Alice's life makes for excellent fuel—

Maria grunted and swore as she shuffled something heavy behind her—

Emmett is on one knee when the sight of a familiar face freezes him. He recognizes one of the men from their time in Esteban's base and he charges. Someone else, having taken advantage of this moment of pause, is lunging for his unguarded back—

Emmett caught a man who stumbled backward over a discarded limb. With a swift twist of the man's arm Emmett pulled him down and jerked a knee upward all in one move. The underside of the newborn's jaw shattered audibly with the impact and Emmett rolled him over and onto the—

A flame catches on Esme's sleeve and as she tries to shake the fire out with a quick snap of her wrist, a man takes advantage of her distraction and dives for her. After a few seconds of struggle they're moving closer and closer to the encroaching wall of fire and they're—

A flame caught on Esme's sleeve and her wrist ignited with a sudden burst of fire, turning her aggrieved cries into one long howl of pain. Carlisle rushed to her side, panicked and terrified as he reached toward her, eyes widening as he watched a second wound on her forearm catch—

Bella winces and stumbles back and with this break of concentration every body on the battlefield collapses around her. She groans and lifts her hands as if that will help but—

Bella approached Kate, who licked at a dripping wound on her upper arm. "I have an idea," she gasped the words out, stepping to her side so that no one would be able to sneak up on either of them. "I'll give the signal, but—"

Alice presses her lips to the ankle of the burning body over and over again. The fire is already eating it's way downward and she knows she has less than twelve seconds before his body is engulfed and the flames jump to her wounds and his leg is all she can reach and to die at his side is what she wants—

Alice stared down at her shaking hands and couldn't take her eyes of the few pale hairs that were clenched tight between her fingers. The final evidence that she'd tried. She'd tried so hard and yet she'd still failed and—

"Look!" Maria shouts. Alice does not want to look but soon she has no choice because Maria has Alice's chin in her grasp and is jerking her head forward and—oh god—she can see the charred remains of Jasper's pants and boots and—

"Look at me!" Maria shouted. Alice clenched her eyes closed tight and leaned back in on herself. Jasper was dead. There was nothing she could do. There was no use for Alice anymore. Father Esteban had won and Alice would die right here with her husband—

The screams make Alice lift her head with startled panic just in time to watch a second blonde head tumble across the battlefield. It disappears into the nearest pyre but not too quickly that Alice isn't able to fully take in the fact that Rosalie is now dead and gone and it's all her fault that she can't—

"Get her out of here!" Alice could hear someone—no, not just someone, Rosalie—shout. Even without the context Alice knew it was about herself. Alice closed her mouth suddenly; she hadn't been aware of the extent of her screaming. But when she thought back to the fact that Jasper was dead her grief erupted from her, fresh and strong, and a choked sob escaped her.

The grip on her throat is tight and Alice blinks her eyes so fast in hopes that the man leering down at her will disappear in a burst of fog and confusion. But he's really there and he's got her by the throat and he's dragging her away and Alice can only kick her feet hopelessly, her heels just barely scraping the ground in an attempt at escape and he's pulling her away from Jasper's body and she knows what he has planned and—

Alice's entire body flinched when the sound of snarling and growling was punctuated with an abrupt screeching twist. Then, immediately after, two dull thuds sounded as the remnants of the body directly in front of her hit the ground. The frustrated shout was undeniably Maria's and Alice could tell that if she didn't get up and help soon, more than Jasper and herself would end up dead.

But Alice could not do anything other than sit, rock, and shriek. There was too much going on. She could not focus. She was seeing everything but at the same time absolutely nothing at all. Nothing that Alice was seeing made any sense and whatever was truly happening around her had somehow kept her alive over the past fifteen seconds, ever since she'd pressed her forehead into the dirt and erupted in her first scream.

Jasper. She had Jasper's—no, she'd had Jasper's head. It was gone now. Alice had seen Maria's intention. Alice had watched as Maria rolled his head away and let the embers in the grass catch onto his neck, setting fire to the piece of flesh that hung from his jaw on the left side. The same side that used to twitch when he shot her a mirthful expression or when he had to refrain from saying something he wanted to.

Alice knew what Maria had planned, which was why she screamed the way she did when Maria ripped Jasper's head from her hands. There was no hope anyways—the visions that Alice had received of Jasper's body burning before anyone could do anything to prevent it had been too clear in her head—but the raw pain that rippled out from her chest was unlike anything she could have ever imagined before.

Until a few days ago, Alice had never truly known pain.

The acts that had been committed against her hurt so much less than the pure agony that exploded out from her heart the instant she'd watched Jasper's head tumble toward her. There hadn't even been a conscious effort on her part to snatch his head up, but when her outstretched hands had found it—fingertips brushed against cheek and temple that she'd delicately stroked thousands and thousands of times before—she'd clutched it to her chest and bowled over as the excruciating misery possessed her, imploding inside of her.

Even as her family continued to fight around her, Alice knew there was no way she could keep fighting. Jasper was gone. And it was all her fault.

The only gift Alice received was that she hadn't been forced to watch—with her own eyes nor in her mind—as Jasper had burned. The love of her life and the reason for existing had turned to dust around her while she lay and screamed uselessly. At least it was only the aftermath that haunted her.

"Alice!" Maria screamed and Alice felt her shoulder being pushed against. Maria was trying to sit her upright. Alice clenched the few strands she had left of Jasper's hair tighter in her useless, pitiful fists, and let herself be heaved backward. It didn't matter anymore. Nothing mattered at all in that moment.

Then, something heavy and solid was dropped into her lap and then quickly removed.

Maria screeched with pure frustration. Alice felt herself lifted for a moment and when her legs were in front of her and not beneath her, she wondered if this was supposed to make it harder for their enemy to target and kill her.

If that were the case, Alice wasn't so sure she wanted whatever treatment this was.

Alice could not tell up from down, left from right, future from reality. But when Maria moved her, pushing her shoulders back and spreading her legs in a way that made old panic rise in her throat with a sickening feeling, Alice somehow knew that it was real. Her visions were never this lucid.

Not that her lucidity (or lack thereof) had gotten her or her family very far in the past day and a half. Alice felt more weapon than woman. But that's all she was in this moment: a broken weapon, a broken woman. A liability born only because the most powerful coven on the planet knew exactly how she ticked.

They'd known her strengths, her weaknesses, her capabilities, and her shortcomings. Aro had known exactly what to do, how to plan, and it seemed he'd done it all under her nose without her knowing about it.

Alice had claimed virtual omnipotence, and it had cost her Jasper's life.

Again, something heavy was placed against her and pinned her newly-extended leg against the ground. Alice flinched back and cried out; if someone wanted to kill her she wanted them to do it fast. She wanted them to do it while she was busy thinking about all the love she had for Jasper that would die alongside with her. Everything she wanted to say to him from this past week alone no longer mattered; it was over.

The weight was swiftly lifted off of her thigh and placed between her legs. Hands moved, lifted, and bent her legs, and it was only when they closed around something hard that Alice knew her ankles were digging into someone's ribs.

She did not understand what was happening and opened her eyes. It took Alice three entire seconds to realize she was staring down at Jasper's blank, unseeing gaze.

Before she could scream at the cold, dead, red eyes that stared back at her, Maria's hands were on her—one gripped her forearm and the other pushed down on her shoulder—until she was pressed nose-to-nose with Alice.

"Look at me!" She screamed in English before she repeated herself in Spanish. "You need to focus! Hold still!" As Maria spoke she moved Alice's hands, placing both of them on each side of Jasper's still face.

Alice couldn't control it when she flinched back from the feeling. Maria hissed and snatched her hands back out of the air quicker than Alice could move to avoid. She shoved Alice's hands back down again and growled so loudly that Alice's fear shook her to her core. Then, her attention focused on Maria and only Maria.

Her red, angry eyes were so close. "Hold him exactly at this angle or I'll have to rip it off and re-do it again later." Again, Maria repositioned Alice's hands on Jasper's head, as if she were covering his ears to protect him from the noise still thundering all around them. "Do it," she commanded, furious, "or he's as good as dead and so are you!"

Maria was gone in an instant, leaving Alice alone with Jasper's unmoving corpse.

For a moment it all seemed so easy that it still continued to feel unreal. Alice twitched her fingers slightly against the skin of his cheeks and focused hard on the feel of his hair pressed into her palms. Was it real? Was it real?

Alice found herself aggrieved at Maria's absence—if this was real Alice couldn't fight! She couldn't protect Jasper's body! She couldn't protect herself!—but she did the only thing she could think to do. The only option presented to her when Maria shouted and arranged Alice's limbs and then retreated back into the fray.

Alice left her future up to fate.

Her eyes flickered down to Jasper's still, blank face, fixated on the jagged, horrible line where the flesh of his neck had been pressed against the flesh it had been torn from—was it even possible? Could it really be this easy? How could it be so easy?—and tried not to cower at the sight. Her eyes landed on the ripped front of his shirt, exposing a jagged bite just beneath his collar bone.

His decapitation fluttered through her mind again and again and again, interspersed with visions of Esme's death and then of Emmett's and then of Maria's over and over again until she wished that it would be her death. Alice's death.

Alice was the prize to be won here. That's all she'd ever been. As she stared down at the hole in Jasper's shirt, and at the purple-silver injury that would not heal itself because Jasper was not alive, that was the only thought in her head.

Suddenly, even though Alice didn't need to breathe, she couldn't bring any air into her lungs. She wanted to yell out. She wanted to cry. She wanted to draw as much goddamned attention to herself as she could. Jasper's wound would not heal because wounds did not heal themselves on the dead. Because whatever last-ditch effort this was to put her husband back together was nothing more than a final move to give Alice false hope. Because Maria knew, the same way that Aro did and the same way that her family acknowledged time and time again: Alice was worth more alive than she was dead.

Jasper was dead, and Alice wanted to be, too.

But she couldn't breathe. The panic began to build higher and higher within her, and somehow despite this she was able to focus hard on Maria's last words to her. She had to hold Jasper's head still. She had to hold still and keep hoping and praying that either the universe would have some mercy on her or that she would find herself so distracted by her task that when someone inevitably snuck up on her to rid her own head from her shoulders, she wouldn't see, hear, or sense it coming.

It was all a nightmare. It was all a goddamned nightmare.

And Alice couldn't fucking breathe.

But despite her ineptitude to do one of the most basic functions of their kind—a function that had been deemed unnecessary by her anatomy but pertinent to her ability at being an adequate killing machine—Alice could still see and—

Rosalie watches Emmett fall and Bella is not quick enough to stop her lunge; when Rose dives after the woman who dealt the final blow, it's a terrible impulse. Rose hits the woman with enough force that they both tumble head over heels, directly through the wall of fire. Her hair catches first—

Esme's screaming intensifies and she's burning and Carlisle is running toward her but the flames have already forced her to her knees and the newborns surrounding her give her a wide berth and Carlisle is not going to make it in time—

Edward cries out in pain as the concerted effort of two newborns forces him to stumble sideways. Alice does not see where his arm went but it is already gone and the smaller, quicker newborn is going for the other one and his hiss of pain is like gasoline against her burning mind and—

The sound that erupts from Maria's chest is terrifying. Her ribs shatter with the blow and Peter sees but is fighting his own battle and can't stop to help. Garrett hesitates one second too long and when one newborn pins Maria facedown into the dirt she kicks and growls and fights for several seconds while three newborns descend on her at once, ripping and tearing with hands and teeth and—

Alice gasped when suddenly she could not see. She pushed, as was habit, and did not find even a snippet or a glimpse waiting for her in her mind. She shoved against the nothingness and when pain erupted behind her eyes but left her mind empty she let out a low, horrible whine. Alice let her head fall forward again and forced her tired eyes to stare back into Jasper's empty ones.

He was dead but he was here and if she was meant to go next then that was okay. If the rest of her family could find a way to make it out alive, then everything would be okay. If Maria and her army and Kate and Garrett and the hybrid girl and maybe even Nahuel and Huilen if they ever arrived could just keep fighting and continue onward, then maybe it would all be worth it.

Her family had once lived without her and Jasper in their lives. Alice and Jasper had joined and they had been loved and they had enjoyed a home that had been so full of bliss that the eighty-nine years they'd been gifted felt worth it despite their horrid, painful demise. Carlisle had opened his home and his arms to them and despite the way things ended, Alice hoped that the joy of the past century had counted for something.

It was impossible now, not to take note of the differences between this sight and her first.

Her first vision had been powerful, all-consuming, and a beacon of hope for her confused, scared, empty mind. Jasper had spoken her name, he'd smiled down at her, he'd touched her with intent and want and love and he'd given her the home she needed in her mind when she had still been alone. It felt depressingly fitting that the last thing she ever saw were those same red eyes, lifeless, not looking at anything at all, staring directly through her. The smile was gone, the love was gone, and she would never hear him speak her name ever again.

If this was the end, Alice thought, at least she was with Jasper.

Love for the land costed a hand.

Sometimes, two.

A/N: Next week: the conclusion to the battle.

Thank you all for your reviews + favorites + follows! I've been trying to keep my author's notes to a minimum the past several weeks, so that y'all can get absorbed without my nonsense distracting you, but now feels like a good time to pop in here for a second. It brings me so much delight to know how tuned into this story some of you are. As we get closer to the 6th and final (tiny) act, please feel free to leave a comment, especially if you've been lurking. As always, I'm most active on tumblr, so feel free to also catch up with me on there. (Same handle on there—flowerslut.) Thanks again for the love you've shared. Right back 'atcha.