"I'm curious about your power, Bella," Eleazar said, taking a seat beside me.
"What would you like to know?" I was happy for an excuse to talk about something besides designer clothing.
"First, are you familiar with my gift?" he asked.
I nodded. Alice had given us a brief history of each of the Denalis during our long run from Brazil to Norway. From what she'd said, Eleazar could sense other people's powers.
"I saw a great many abilities in my time working with the Volturi, but I've never encountered something like yours–one that blocks me from reading anything at all. It's frustrating, but intriguing."
"That's about what Edward thinks."
"It is amusing that he ended up with you as a partner–evidently, the intrigue won out." Eleazar smiled. "Normally, I can sense some extra information about how a power works–not just what it does now, but what it could do if it were trained. Take your friend Miranda: with practice, I believe she could learn to create multiple time distortion fields, each with perception moving at a different rate, as long as she herself is in the overlap of all of them. She'll never be able to leave herself out of the effect, though, no matter how much she practices."
"I wish I'd known that before I spent decades trying," Miranda commented, sliding in beside us. "Joham would have loved talking to you," she added, with only a slight hint of bitterness.
"I didn't realize your gift gave quite so much information," I said. "But none about me?"
"Nothing," he confirmed. "That's why I'm so curious."
"I guess that means I don't have any limits," I joked, trying to hide my disappointment that I'd have to figure things out the hard way.
Eleazar grinned back. "I suppose, in some ways, it's freeing not to know what you can do. Sometimes, when I told a new recruit what their potential was, it stifled their motivation to practice–as if, having learned the bounds of their ability, it was no longer worth striving to reach them."
"Do you have any guesses, based on your experience with similar powers, for how I might be able to improve?"
"Well," he considered, "Let's talk about your range first. Most abilities fall into a few categories of range. Some, like Edward's mind reading, work over a limited radius. But others have a maximum total volume of effect–they can reach farther if they keep the effect narrow. Still other powers are tied to the surface area, which means they can cover a large space if it's in a sphere, but they'll need more effort to cover a long and narrow space, or one with a complicated boundary. I've also seen abilities that depend primarily on headcount: they extend easily, but become much more taxing when there are multiple people being covered. And of course there are those like Kate's electric field, which cannot extend beyond the person at all."
I remembered the feeling of my power stretching around me like a rubber band, and the difficulty I'd had reshaping the edge around the Cullens when we fought Joham. "I think mine's surface-area-based," I offered tentatively.
"Good," Eleazar said. "Here are some exercises that others found helpful…"
When we were done discussing the options, I closed my eyes and started practicing. The goal of my first exercise was to increase the surface area of my shield while holding it in place around me. I focused my attention on creasing and folding the edge, teasing it into spikes of elastic that jutted in and out around my skin. Once I could hold my entire shield in that texture, I would add spikes onto the spikes, and so on, forming a fractal pattern–but I wasn't nearly that good yet. According to Eleazar, it was easiest to work on expanding my potential surface area while the shield was close enough for me to manipulate easily.
I wished he would stop using the word "easy" for something nearly impossible.
"So how would I go about learning the thing you mentioned earlier?" Miranda asked Eleazar. "Creating distinct but overlapping curves of effect?"
"I wouldn't mind if you wanted to practice overlapping curves with me," Tanya commented as she walked by. I briefly caught a small smile on Miranda's face.
"God, Tanya, flirting with a dyke now? You really do have no standards." Kyle laughed.
I tensed, half-expecting Tanya to go for his throat, but she just chuckled. She must be used to the family teasing her about her promiscuity. Still…
"I can't believe he said that about you," I whispered to Miranda once Kyle was out of earshot.
"Whatever," she shrugged. "It was just a joke–a funny one, even."
I blinked in surprise. "Really? You don't think it was offensive?"
"It's not like he tried to hurt anyone."
Huh. If it didn't bother Miranda, maybe I was overreacting. "Well, if he gets under your skin, let me know. I could punch him in the face and blame my newborn temper." I wasn't even sure it would be a lie–I'd never experienced such a strong desire to punch anyone in the face when I was a human.
She smiled exasperatedly. "Won't be necessary, but thanks."
I made myself smile back, then returned to exercising my shield. If there was one benefit to having Kyle around, it was that anger helped loosen my power. So I allowed myself to dwell a bit on my frustration as I worked.
What was with this guy? He reminded me of some attention-seeking teenage boys in my class in Phoenix… but he looked about twenty-five. And anyway, how pathetic was it that he hadn't grown out of that behavior in centuries?
Was it really just my newborn temper coloring my vision? I knew the others had more practice with patience than I did–but that didn't explain it fully, because none of them seemed to be exercising patience. They seemed to like Kyle.
A thought occurred to me. It was probably an overreaction. There was no harm in asking, though.
"Eleazar," I began tentatively, "Does Kyle have a power?"
"Technically, yes," he said. "Not a very strong one, though. It just makes everything he says or does seem more humorous."
Bingo. I raised my eyebrows. "Doesn't that bother you at all?"
"Bother me? Why?"
"To have someone messing with your sense of humor. Making things seem funny when they're not."
"Oh. Not really–we all enjoy a good laugh, right? What does it matter if it's 'objectively' funny?" His fingers formed quotes in the air, underscoring his skepticism.
"Well, just hypothetically, what if the person is objectively obnoxious underneath the humor?"
He tilted his head to look at me closely. "Right. It hadn't occurred to me, but of course you would be immune to it."
"I could shield you for a bit, if you'd like to see what I'm talking about." I bit my lip. I didn't want to sound like I was trying to cause drama.
"Kind of you to offer, but I'd rather see the best in my housemates," he said firmly.
"Of course," I nodded. "Excuse me."
I wandered casually over to where Laurent was sitting and tapped him on the shoulder. He grudgingly disentangled himself from Irina and followed me outside.
"I might have a way to get Irina to dump Kyle," I said in a low voice. "No fighting needed. You'll count that as your favor?"
"Of course," he agreed. "What's your plan?"
I grinned. "I'm just going to sit back and practice my shield."
We were all seated on the couches again, but this time it was Kyle who had his arm wrapped around Irina's shoulder possessively. I'd positioned myself immediately to Irina's other side, to make it as easy as possible to extend my shield around her. Laurent sulked in an armchair to my right, throwing dirty glances at Kyle occasionally.
I wasn't really following the conversation, and everyone accepted the true excuse that I was practicing my shield. I couldn't hold it around Irina constantly–I'd made huge progress during the fight with Joham, but I still needed to develop a lot more mental "muscle" before I could project my gift continuously–so I took breaks every so often, always making sure to push the shield back out when Kyle started speaking.
I'd been at it for half an hour so far, and I wasn't sure how long this would take. I'd developed a negative impression of the boorish vampire within ten minutes, but Irina had already spent weeks becoming infatuated with him. By this point, she was predisposed to like his jokes, even without a supernatural humor boost. Would a few hours or days of mental shielding be enough to show her his true colors?
"–reminds me of the time I hunted down the cousin who I always hated when I was human," Kyle was saying. "He didn't taste very good, though. You could say there was bad blood between us!"
The room erupted into laughter yet again. I kept the disgust off my face, pretending to be fully immersed in my practice. Next to me, I felt Irina stiffen.
"What's wrong, babe?" Kyle asked her.
"Nothing." Irina forced a smile. "That one was just a bit gruesome for me, I guess. Did you really kill your own cousin?"
"Well, he did once say, 'bite me,'" Kyle replied cheekily. Emmett seemed to find that one especially hilarious.
"Yeah, but… family," Irina finished weakly. She seemed to be looking around, hoping for backup. I wished I'd had the strength to shield a second person; if everyone else seemed to be chuckling, she might decide that it had been funny after all. I'd heard that was the whole reason they used laugh tracks on sitcoms–people were influenced by each other's laughter.
"That's a pretty ugly thing to do," Laurent agreed. I'd heard him chortle in spite of himself a moment ago, but it seemed he wasn't going to miss an opportunity to insult his rival.
"You'd know a lot about ugly!" Kyle snickered back.
"From looking at you."
"When I was holding up a mirror?"
"You do that a lot, Narcissus."
"Better Narcissus than Echo." That hardly seemed like a comeback to me, but it still managed to extract a round of guffaws from the circle, where Laurent's equally-bad insults had received only silence. Did there have to be any real humor to begin with, or could Kyle make anything he did seem funny once he got going? It was hard to believe Eleazar had characterized this as a weak ability–but maybe Kyle had made his gift itself seem humorous rather than threatening.
"Guys, play nice," Irina requested with a charming smile. "I'm not going to pick either of you if you can't behave."
"What are you, my mother?" Kyle snorted.
"Why are you being like this?" she asked petulantly, pulling out from under his arm to look him in the eye.
"Why am I being like this? What's wrong with you?" he demanded. "Can't you take a joke?"
I realized suddenly that Kyle had zero practice dealing with other people without his power. The constant positive attention had made him entitled. He simply couldn't fathom anyone not appreciating his humor.
"Not everything has to be funny, Kyle! You could try taking me seriously for once!" Irina snapped back.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of Laurent's gleeful expression.
"God, you're so high maintenance," Kyle complained.
Eleazar spoke up from the other side of the room. "I think I know what's going on, actually." Drat–I shouldn't have consulted with him earlier. "Bella, are you covering Irina while you practice your power?"
I tried to play dumb. "Huh? Oh… I guess so."
He nodded to himself. "So that's why Irina isn't as disposed to your humor as usual right now. I'm sure once Bella stops her exercises, you two will be back to normal."
Irina crossed her arms. "If this is how Kyle is going to be when I don't laugh at every little thing he says, I don't think I want to go back to normal."
Kyle ignored her and turned to glare at me. "So. Your terrible sense of humor is contagious, huh?"
My eyes narrowed. I knew I should keep my mouth shut, but the chorus of giggles from around the room incensed me. "If you were actually funny, you wouldn't need to rely so much on your power."
That struck a nerve. "You know what we do with contagious diseases?" he asked me viciously, eyes alight with fury. "Stamp them out."
He sprang at me, knocking me off the couch and slamming me into the hardwood floor. I raised my arm to block him from my throat. I heard more laughter in the background; Emmett was cheerfully calling "fight, fight, fight!" as if this were a playful match.
Could they really not see that I was in a fight for my life?
"Help!" I screamed, but laughter was the only answer.
I blindly shoved my power outward, trying to cover as many people as possible, but that was no good–Kyle was inside my shield too, continuing to affect them all. I tried again, letting it snap back into place and pushing it carefully out and around to the side. Meanwhile, his jaws closed around my arm, and I felt my shoulder dislocate. I pushed back with my other arm, struggling to throw him off, splitting my concentration to keep expanding my shield at the same time.
Finally, I felt my power connect with Laurent, just as sharp teeth dug into my throat. I hissed in pain. The French vampire stopped chuckling at the absurdity of us rolling around on the floor, and sprang into action, wrestling Kyle off of me. The two men tussled on the ground, fighting with no holds barred. Chunks of flesh went flying. My shield exploded outward, surging into place around everyone else in the room, even as I moved to help Laurent pin his rival. The laughter surrounding us slowly died down, and the others looked at each other, gradually realizing that the fight was serious. We suddenly had a lot more help.
"You fight like a girl," Kyle mocked me from the ground, held in place by a dozen hands. "You can't face me yourself–have to beg everyone else to save you, huh?"
"You're going to be crying like a girl when I'm through with you," Tanya growled back.
"What are you so mad about?" he asked her, perplexed by her sudden ill humor.
"You would attack our guest like this?!"
"I wasn't–"
"–And do you have any idea what you've done to my hardwood floor?!"
"Oh, get over your–aaaah!" he cried out as she bit into the tender skin of his neck, leaving a venomous crescent that I knew would scar.
Kate's teeth sank into his flesh next, making a second bite mark next to Tanya's.
"What the hell are you doing?" Kyle snarled, trying to squirm away from her. "It was just a joke!"
"No," said Irina. "None of them were jokes, were they? They were all hilariously funny, and somehow we thought that meant the things you did must be okay. Even now… all the people you've killed in the last few months… every one of them amuses me. But I can't think of a single rational reason why I'd be okay with that."
"Your family takes this 'vegetarian' tradition way too seriously," Kyle spat. "Someone needs to get you to lighten up occasionally. You're vampires, for crying out loud!"
"We have another family tradition," Kate informed him, sliding her fingers over his jugular where she had punctured it a moment earlier. He gasped in pain as her electric field touched the fresh wound. "It's called the Mark of the Denalis. Anyone who tries to trick us… doesn't forget it."
Carmen and Eleazar took their turns adding bite marks. Irina sank her fangs in with only the slightest hesitation, then motioned for Laurent to do the same. He bit down with a vicious satisfaction.
The six vampires looked down at their handiwork for a moment. The gashes formed a rough hexagonal pattern on Kyle's neck, where it would be hard for him to hide it under clothing. Then they lifted the unwelcome vampire into the air, carried him out the door, and hurled him into the snowy tundra.
"And don't come back!" Irina called.
It was, I supposed, as good a family tradition for vengeance as any.
2025-02-08 A/N: And we're almost at the end! There'll be one more chapter, plus an epilogue. Thank you all for making this such a pleasure to write. And congratulations to those of you who predicted Kyle's power!