And then I heard the snarling and screaming and
screeching explode from ahead and I knew the fight was
happening and I was too late to beat Diego there. I only ran
faster. Maybe I could still save him.
I smelled the smoke—the sweet, thick scent of vampires
burning—carried back to me on the wind. The sound of
mayhem was louder. Maybe it was almost done. Would I find
our coven victorious and Diego waiting?
I dashed through a heavy fringe of smoke and found myself
out of the forest in a huge grassy field. I leaped over a rock, only
to realize in the instant I flew past it that it was a headless torso.
My eyes raked the field. There were pieces of vampires
everywhere, and a huge bonfire smoking purple into the sunny
sky. Out from under the billowing haze, I could see dazzling,
glittering bodies darting and grappling as the sounds of
vampires being torn apart went on and on.
I looked for one thing: Diego’s curly black hair. No one I
could see had hair so dark. There was one huge vampire with
brown hair that was almost black, but he was too big, and as I
focused I watched him tear Kevin’s head off and pitch it into the
fire before leaping on someone else’s back. Was that Jen?
There was another with straight black hair that was too small to
be Diego. That one was moving so fast I couldn’t tell if it was a
boy or a girl.
I scanned quickly again, feeling horribly exposed. I took in
the faces. There weren’t nearly enough vampires here, even
counting those that were down. I didn’t see any of Kristie’s
group. There must have been a lot of vampires burned already.
Most of the vampires still standing were strangers. A blond
vampire glanced at me, meeting my gaze, and his eyes flashed
gold in the sunlight.
We were losing. Bad.
I started backing toward the trees, not moving fast enough
because I was still looking for Diego. He wasn’t here. There
was no sign he had ever been here. No trace of his scent,
though I could distinguish the smells of most of Raoul’s team
and many strangers. I had made myself look at the pieces, too.
None of them belonged to Diego. I would have recognized even
a finger.
I turned and really ran for the trees, suddenly positive that
Diego’s presence here was just another of Riley’s lies.
And if Diego wasn’t here, then he was already dead. This
fell into place for me so easily that I thought I must have known
the truth for a while. Since the moment that Diego had not
followed Riley through the basement door. He’d already been
gone.
I was a few feet into the trees when a force like a wrecking
ball hit me from behind and threw me to the ground. An arm
slipped under my chin.
“Please!” I sobbed. And I meant please kill me fast.
The arm hesitated. I didn’t fight back, though my instincts
were urging me to bite and claw and rip the enemy apart. The
saner part of me knew that wasn’t going to work. Riley had lied
about these weak, older vampires, too, and we’d never had a
chance. But even if I’d had a way to beat this one, I wouldn’t
have been able to move. Diego was gone, and that glaring fact
killed the fight in me.
Suddenly I was airborne. I crashed into a tree and crumpled
to the ground. I should have tried to run, but Diego was dead. I
couldn’t get around that.
The blond vampire from the clearing was staring intently at
me, his body ready to spring. He looked very capable, much
more experienced than Riley. But he wasn’t lunging at me. He
wasn’t crazed like Raoul or Kristie. He was totally in control.
“Please,” I said again, wanting him to get this over with. “I
don’t want to fight.”
Though he still held himself ready, his face changed. He
looked at me in a way I didn’t totally get. There was a lot of
knowledge in that face, and something else. Empathy? Pity, at
least.
“Neither do I, child,” he said in a calm, kind voice. “We are
only defending ourselves.”
There was such honesty in his odd yellow eyes that it made
me wonder how I had ever believed any of Riley’s stories. I
felt… guilty. Maybe this coven had never planned to attack us in
Seattle. How could I trust any part of what I’d been told?
“We didn’t know,” I explained, somehow ashamed. “Riley
lied. I’m sorry.”
He listened for a moment, and I realized that the battlefield
was quiet. It was over.
If I’d been in any doubt over who the winner was, that doubt
was gone when, a second later, a female vampire with wavy
brown hair and yellow eyes hurried to his side.
“Carlisle?” she asked in a confused voice, staring at me.
“She doesn’t want to fight,” he told her.
The woman touched his arm. He was still tensed to spring.
“She’s so frightened, Carlisle. Couldn’t we…”
The blond, Carlisle, glanced back at her, and then he
straightened up a little, though I could see he was still wary.
“We have no wish to harm you,” the woman said to me. She
had a soft, soothing voice. “We didn’t want to fight any of you.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered again.
I couldn’t make sense of the mess in my head. Diego was
dead, and that was the main thing, the devastating thing. Other
than that, the fight was over, my coven had lost and my enemies
had won. But my dead coven was full of people who would have
loved to watch me burn, and my enemies were speaking to me
kindly when they had no reason to. Moreover, I felt safer with
these two strangers than I’d ever felt with Raoul and Kristie. I
was relieved that Raoul and Kristie were dead. It was so
confusing.
“Child,” Carlisle said, “will you surrender to us? If you do not
try to harm us, we promise we will not harm you.”
And I believed him.
“Yes,” I whispered. “Yes, I surrender. I don’t want to hurt
anybody.”
He held out his hand encouragingly. “Come, child. Let our
family regroup for a moment, then we’ll have some questions for
you. If you answer honestly, you have nothing to fear.”
I got up slowly, making no movements that could be
considered threatening.
“Carlisle?” a male voice called.
And then another yellow-eyed vampire joined us. Any sort of
safety I’d felt with these strangers vanished as soon as I saw
him.
He was blond, like the first, but taller and leaner. His skin
was absolutely covered in scars, spaced most thickly together
on his neck and jaw. A few small marks on his arm were fresh,
but the rest were not from the brawl today. He had been in more
fights than I could have imagined, and he’d never lost. His tawny
eyes blazed and his stance exuded the barely contained
violence of an angry lion.
As soon as he saw me he coiled to spring.
“Jasper!” Carlisle warned.
Jasper pulled up short and stared at Carlisle with wide
eyes. “What’s going on?”
“She doesn’t want to fight. She’s surrendered.”
The scarred vampire’s brow clouded, and suddenly I felt an
unexpected surge of frustration, though I had no idea what I was
frustrated with.
“Carlisle, I…” He hesitated, then continued, “I’m sorry, but
that’s not possible. We can’t have any of these newborns
associated with us when the Volturi come. Do you realize the
danger that would put us in?”
I didn’t understand exactly what he was saying, but I got
enough. He wanted to kill me.
“Jasper, she’s only a child,” the woman protested. “We can’t
just murder her in cold blood!”
It was strange to hear her speak like we both were people,
like murder was a bad thing. An avoidable thing.
“It’s our family on the line here, Esme. We can’t afford to
have them think we broke this rule.”
The woman, Esme, walked between me and the one who
wanted to kill me. Incomprehensibly, she turned her back to me.
“No. I won’t stand for it.”
Carlisle shot me an anxious glance. I could see that he
cared a lot for this woman. I would have looked the same way at
anyone behind Diego’s back. I tried to appear as docile as I
felt.
“Jasper, I think we have to take the chance,” he said slowly.
“We are not the Volturi. We follow their rules, but we do not take
lives lightly. We will explain.”
“They might think we created our own newborns in defense.”
“But we didn’t. And even had we, there was no indiscretion
here, only in Seattle. There is no law against creating vampires
if you control them.”
“This is too dangerous.”
Carlisle touched Jasper’s shoulder tentatively. “Jasper. We
cannot kill this child.”
Jasper glowered at the man with the kind eyes, and I was
suddenly angry. Surely he wouldn’t hurt this gentle vampire or
the woman he loved. Then Jasper sighed, and I knew it was
okay. My anger evaporated.
“I don’t like this,” he said, but he was calmer. “At least let me
take charge of her. You two don’t know how to deal with
someone who’s been running wild so long.”
“Of course, Jasper,” the woman said. “But be kind.”
Jasper rolled his eyes. “We need to be with the others. Alice
said we don’t have long.”
Carlisle nodded. He held his hand out to Esme, and they
headed past Jasper back toward the open field.
“You there,” Jasper said to me, his face a glower again.
“Come with us. Don’t make one rash move or I will take you
down.”
I felt angry again as he glared at me, and a small part of me
wanted to snarl and show my teeth, but I had a feeling he was
looking for just that kind of excuse.
Jasper paused as if he’d just thought of something. “Close
your eyes,” he commanded.
I hesitated. Had he decided to kill me after all?
“Do it!”
I gritted my teeth and shut my eyes. I felt twice as helpless
as I had before.
“Follow the sound of my voice and don’t open your eyes.
You look, you lose, got it?”
I nodded, wondering what he didn’t want me to see. I felt
some relief that he was bothering to protect a secret. There was
no reason to do so if he was just going to kill me.
“This way.”
I walked slowly after him, careful to give him no excuses. He
was considerate in the way he led, not walking me into any
trees, at least. I could hear the way the sound changed when we
were in the open; the feel of the wind was different, too, and the
smell of my coven burning was stronger. I could feel the warmth
of the sun on my face, and the insides of my eyelids were
brighter as I sparkled.
He led me closer and closer to the muffled crackle of the
flames, so close that I could feel the smoke brush my skin. I
knew he could have killed me at any time, but the nearness of
the fire still made me nervous.
“Sit here. Eyes closed.”
The ground was warm from the sun and the fire. I kept very
still and tried to concentrate on looking harmless, but I could feel
his glare on me, and it made me agitated. Though I was not
mad at these vampires, who I truly believed had only been
defending themselves, I felt the oddest stirrings of fury. It was
almost outside myself, as if it were some leftover echo from the
battle that had just taken place.
The anger didn’t make me stupid, though, because I was
too sad—miserable to my core. Diego was aways in my mind,
and I couldn’t help thinking about how he must have died.
I was sure there was no way he would have voluntarily told
Riley our secrets—secrets that had given me a reason to trust
Riley just enough until it was too late. In my head, I saw Riley’s
face again—that cold, smooth expression that had formed as
he’d threatened to punish any of us who wouldn’t behave. I
heard again his macabre and oddly detailed description—when
I take you to her and hold you as she tears off your legs and
then slowly, slowly burns off your fingers, ears, lips, tongue,
and every other superfluous appendage one by one.
I realized now that I’d been hearing the description of
Diego’s death.
That night, I’d been sure that something had changed in
Riley. Killing Diego was what had changed Riley, had hardened
him. I believed only one thing that Riley had ever told me: he
had valued Diego more than any of the rest of us. Had even
been fond of him. And yet he’d watched our creator hurt him. No
doubt he’d helped her. Killed Diego with her.
I wondered how much pain it would have taken to make me
betray Diego. I imagined it would have taken quite a lot. And I
was sure it had taken at least that much to make Diego betray
me.
I felt sick. I wanted the image of Diego screaming in agony
out of my head, but it wouldn’t leave.
And then there was screaming there in the field.
My eyelids fluttered, but Jasper snarled furiously and I
clenched them together at once. I’d seen nothing but heavy
lavender smoke.
I heard shouting and a strange, savage howling. It was loud,
and there was a lot of it. I couldn’t imagine how a face would
have to contort to create such a noise, and the not knowing
made the sound more frightening. These yellow-eyed vampires
were so different from the rest of us. Or different from me, I
guess, since I was the only one left. Riley and our creator were
long gone by now.
I heard names called, Jacob, Leah, Sam. There were lots of
distinct voices, though the howls continued. Of course Riley had
lied to us about the number of vampires here, too.
The sound of the howling tapered off until it was just one
voice, one agonized, inhuman yowling that made me grit my
teeth. I could see Diego’s face so clearly in my mind, and the
sound was like him screaming.
I heard Carlisle talking over the other voices and the
howling. He was begging to look at something. “Please let me
take a look. Please let me help.” I didn’t hear anyone arguing
with him, but for some reason his tone made it sound like he
was losing the dispute.
And then the yowling reached a strident new pitch, and
suddenly Carlisle was saying “thank you” in a fervent voice, and
under the yowl there was the sound of a lot of movement by a lot
of bodies. Many heavy footsteps coming closer.
I listened harder and heard something unexpected and
impossible. Along with some heavy breathing—and I’ve never
heard anyone in my coven breathe like that—there were dozens
of deep thumping noises. Almost like… heartbeats. But
definitely not human hearts. I knew that particular sound well. I
sniffed hard, but the wind was blowing from the other direction,
and I could only smell the smoke.
Without a warning sound, something touched me, clapped
down firmly on either side of my head.
My eyes started open in panic as I lurched up, straining to
jerk free of this hold, and instantly met Jasper’s warning gaze
about two inches from my face.
“Stop it,” he snapped, yanking me back down on my butt. I
could only just hear him, and I realized that his hands were
sealed tight against my head, covering my ears entirely.
“Close your eyes,” he instructed again, probably at a normal
volume, but it was hushed for me.
I struggled to calm myself and shut my eyes again. There
were things they didn’t want me to hear, either. I could live with
that—if it meant I could live.
For a second I saw Fred’s face behind my eyelids. He had
said he would wait for one day. I wondered if he would keep his
word. I wished I could tell him the truth about the yellow-eyes,
and how much more there seemed to be that we didn’t know.
This whole world that we really knew nothing about.
It would be interesting to explore that world. Particularly with
someone who could make me invisible and safe.
But Diego was gone. He wouldn’t be coming to find Fred
with me. That made imagining the future faintly repugnant.
I could still hear some of what was going on, but just the
howling and a few voices. Whatever those weird thumping
sounds had been, they were too muted now for me to examine
them.
I did make out the words when, a few minutes later, Carlisle
said, “You have to…”—his voice was too low for a second, and
then—“… from here now. If we could help we would, but we
cannot leave.”
There was a growl, but it was oddly unmenacing. The
yowling became a low whine that disappeared slowly, as if it
was moving away from me.
It was quiet for a few minutes. I heard some low voices,
Carlisle and Esme among them, but also some I didn’t know. I
wished I could smell something—the blindness combined with
the muted sound left me straining for some source of sensory
information. But all I could smell was the horribly sweet smoke.
There was one voice, higher and clearer than the others,
that I could hear most easily.
“Another five minutes,” I heard whoever it was say. I was
sure it was a girl who was speaking. “And Bella will open her
eyes in thirty-seven seconds. I wouldn’t doubt that she can hear
us now.”
I tried to make sense of this. Was someone else being
forced to keep her eyes shut, like me? Or did she think my
name was Bella? I hadn’t told anyone my name. I struggled
again to smell something.
More mumbling. I thought that one voice sounded off—I
couldn’t hear any ring to it at all. But I couldn’t be sure with
Jasper’s hands so securely over my ears.
“Three minutes,” the high, clear voice said.
Jasper’s hands left my head.
“You’d better open your eyes now,” he told me from a few
steps away. The way he said this frightened me. I looked
around myself quickly, searching for the danger hinted at in his
tone.One whole field of my vision was obscured by the dark
smoke. Close by, Jasper was frowning. His teeth were gritted
together and he was looking at me with an expression that was
almost… frightened. Not like he was scared of me, but like he
was scared because of me. I remembered what he’d said
before, about my putting them in danger with something called
a Volturi. I wondered what a Volturi was. I couldn’t imagine what
this scarred-up, dangerous vampire would be afraid of.
Behind Jasper, four vampires were spaced out in a loose
line with their backs to me. One was Esme. With her were a tall
blonde woman, a tiny black-haired girl, and a dark-haired male
vampire so big that he was scary just to look at—the one I’d
seen kill Kevin. For an instant I imagined that vampire getting a
hold on Raoul. It was a strangely pleasant picture.
There were three more vampires behind the big one. I
couldn’t see exactly what they were doing with him in the way.
Carlisle was kneeling on the ground, and next to him was a
male vampire with dark red hair. Lying flat on the ground was
another figure, but I couldn’t see much of that one, only jeans
and small brown boots. It was either a female or a young male. I
wondered if they were putting the vampire back together.
So eight yellow-eyes total, plus all that howling before,
whatever strange kind of vampire that had been; there had
been at least eight more voices involved. Sixteen, maybe more.
More than twice as many as Riley had told us to expect.
I found myself fiercely hoping that those black-cloaked
vampires would catch up to Riley, and that they would make him
suffer.
The vampire on the ground started to get slowly to her feet
—moving awkwardly, almost like she was some clumsy human.
The breeze shifted, blowing the smoke across me and
Jasper. For a moment, everything was invisible except for him.
Though I was not as blind as before, I suddenly felt much more
anxious, for some reason. It was like I could feel the anxiety
bleeding out of the vampire next to me.
The light wind gusted back in the next second, and I could
see and smell everything.
Jasper hissed at me furiously and shoved me out of my
crouch and back onto the ground.
It was her—the human I’d been hunting just a few minutes
ago. The scent my whole body had been focused toward. The
sweet, wet scent of the most delicious blood I’d ever tracked.
My mouth and throat felt like they were on fire.
I tried wildly to hold on to my reason—to focus on the fact
that Jasper was just waiting for me to jump up again so that he
could kill me—but only part of me could do it. I felt like I was
about to pull into two halves trying to keep myself here.
The human named Bella stared at me with stunned brown
eyes. Looking at her made it worse. I could see the blood
flushing through her thin skin. I tried to look anywhere else, but
my eyes kept circling back to her.
The redhead spoke to her in a low voice. “She surrendered.
That’s one I’ve never seen before. Only Carlisle would think of
offering. Jasper doesn’t approve.”
Carlisle must have explained to that one when my ears were
covered.
The vampire had both his arms around the human girl, and
she had both hands pressed to his chest. Her throat was just
inches from his mouth, but she didn’t look frightened of him at
all. And he didn’t look like he was hunting. I had tried to wrap my
head around the idea of a coven with a pet human, but this was
not close to what I had imagined. If she’d been a vampire, I
would have guessed that they were together.
“Is Jasper all right?” the human whispered.
“He’s fine. The venom stings,” the vampire said.
“He was bitten?” she asked, sounding shocked by the idea.
Who was this girl? Why did the vampires allow her to be
with them? Why hadn’t they killed her yet? Why did she seem
so comfortable with them, like they didn’t scare her? She
seemed like she was a part of this world, and yet she didn’t
understand its realities. Of course Jasper was bitten. He’d just
fought—and destroyed—my entire coven. Did this girl even
know what we were?
Ugh, the burn in my throat was impossible! I tried not to think
about washing it away with her blood, but the wind was blowing
her smell right in my face! It was too late to keep my head—I
had scented the prey I was hunting, and nothing could change
that now.
“He was trying to be everywhere at once,” the redhead told
the human. “Trying to make sure Alice had nothing to do,
actually.” He shook his head as he looked at the tiny blackhaired
girl. “Alice doesn’t need anyone’s help.”
The vampire named Alice shot a glare at Jasper.
“Overprotective fool,” she said in her clear soprano voice.
Jasper met her stare with a half smile, seeming to forget for a
second that I existed.
I could barely fight the instinct that wanted me to make use
of his lapse and spring at the human girl. It would take less than
an instant and then her warm blood—blood I could hear
pumping through her heart—would quench the burn. She was
so close—
The vampire with the dark red hair met my eyes with a
fierce warning glare, and I knew I would die if I tried for the girl,
but the agony in my throat made me feel like I would die if I
didn’t. It hurt so much that I screamed out loud in frustration.
Jasper snarled at me, and I tried to keep myself from
moving, but it felt like the scent of her blood was a giant hand
yanking me off the ground. I had never tried to stop myself from
feeding once I had committed to a hunt. I dug my hands into the
ground looking for something to hold on to but finding nothing.
Jasper leaned into a crouch, and even knowing I was two
seconds from death, I couldn’t focus my thirsty thoughts.
And then Carlisle was right there, his hand on Jasper’s arm.
He looked at me with kind, calm eyes. “Have you changed your
mind, young one?” he asked me. “We don’t want to destroy you,
but we will if you can’t control yourself.”
“How can you stand it?” I asked him, almost begging.
Wasn’t he burning, too? “I want her.” I stared at her, desperately
wishing the distance between us was gone. My fingers raked
uselessly through the rocky dirt.
“You must stand it,” Carlisle said solemnly. “You must
exercise control. It is possible, and it is the only thing that will
save you now.”
If being able to tolerate the human the way these strange
vampires did was my only hope for survival, then I was already
doomed. I couldn’t stand the fire. And I was of two minds about
survival anyway. I didn’t want to die, I didn’t want pain, but what
was the point? Everyone else was dead. Diego had been dead
for days.
His name was right on my lips. I almost whispered it aloud.
Instead, I gripped my skull with both hands and tried to think
about something that wouldn’t hurt. Not the girl, and not Diego. It
didn’t work very well.
“Shouldn’t we move away from her?” the human whispered
roughly, breaking my concentration. My eyes snapped back to
her. Her skin was so thin and soft. I could see the pulse in her
neck.
“We have to stay here,” said the vampire she was clinging
to. “They are coming to the north end of the clearing now.”
They? I glanced to the north, but there was nothing but
smoke. Did he mean Riley and my creator? I felt a new thrill of
panic, followed by a little spasm of hope. There was no way she
and Riley could stand against these vampires who had killed so
many of us, was there? Even if the howly ones were gone,
Jasper alone looked capable of dealing with the two of them.
Or did he mean this mysterious Volturi?
The wind teased the girl’s scent across my face again, and
my thoughts scattered. I glared at her thirstily.
The girl met my stare, but her expression was so different
from what it should have been. Though I could feel that my lips
were curled back from my teeth, though I trembled with the effort
to stop myself from springing at her, she did not look afraid of
me. Instead she seemed fascinated. It almost looked like she
wanted to speak to me—like she had a question she wanted
me to answer.
Then Carlisle and Jasper began to back away from the fire
—and me—closing ranks with the others and the human. They
all were staring past me into the smoke, so whatever they were
afraid of was closer to me than it was to them. I huddled tighter
to the smoke in spite of the nearby flames. Should I make a run
for it? Were they distracted enough that I could escape? Where
would I go? To Fred? Off on my own? To find Riley and make
him pay for what he’d done to Diego?
As I hesitated, mesmerized by that last idea, the moment
passed. I heard movement to the north and knew I was
sandwiched between the yellow-eyes and whatever was
coming.
“Hmm,” a dead voice said from behind the smoke.
In that one syllable I knew exactly who it was, and if I hadn’t
been frozen solid with mindless terror I would have bolted.
It was the dark-cloaks.
What did this mean? Would a new battle begin now? I knew
that the dark-cloaked vampires had wanted my creator to
succeed in destroying these yellow-eyes. My creator had clearly
failed. Did that mean they would kill her? Or would they kill
Carlisle and Esme and the rest here instead? If it had been my
choice, I knew who I would want destroyed, and it wasn’t my
captors.
The dark-cloaks ghosted through the vapor to face the
yellow-eyes. None of them looked in my direction. I held
absolutely still.
There were only four of them, like last time. But it didn’t
make a difference that there were seven of the yellow-eyes. I
could tell that they were as wary of these dark-cloaks as Riley
and my creator had been. There was something more to them
than I could see, but I could definitely feel it. These were the
punishers, and they didn’t lose.
“Welcome, Jane,” said the yellow-eyed one who held the
human.
They knew each other. But the redhead’s voice was not
friendly—nor was it weak and eager to please like Riley’s had
been, or furiously terrified like my creator’s. His voice was
simply cold and polite and unsurprised. Were the dark-cloaks
this Volturi, then?
The small vampire who led the dark-cloaks—Jane,
apparently—slowly scanned across the seven yellow-eyes and
the human, and then finally turned her head toward me. I
glimpsed her face for the first time. She was younger than me,
but much older, too, I guessed. Her eyes were the velvet color of
dark red roses. Knowing it was too late to escape notice, I put
my head down, covering it with my hands. Maybe if it were clear
that I didn’t want to fight, Jane would treat me as Carlisle had. I
didn’t feel much hope of that, though.
“I don’t understand.” Jane’s dead voice betrayed a hint of
annoyance.
“She has surrendered,” the redhead explained.
“Surrendered?” Jane snapped.
I peeked up to see the dark-cloaks exchanging glances.
The redhead had said that he’d never seen anyone surrender
before. Maybe the dark-cloaks hadn’t, either.
“Carlisle gave her the option,” the redhead said. He
seemed to be the spokesperson for the yellow-eyes, though I
thought Carlisle might be the leader.
“There are no options for those who break the rules,” Jane
said, her voice dead again.
My bones felt like ice, but I didn’t feel panicked anymore. It
all seemed so inevitable now.
Carlisle answered Jane in a soft voice. “That’s in your
hands. As long as she was willing to halt her attack on us, I saw
no need to destroy her. She was never taught.”
Though his words were neutral, I almost thought he was
pleading for me. But, as he had said, my fate was not up to him.
“That is irrelevant,” Jane confirmed.
“As you wish.”
Jane was staring at Carlisle with an expression that was
half confusion and half frustration. She shook her head, and her
face was unreadable again.
“Aro hoped that we would get far enough west to see you,
Carlisle,” she said. “He sends his regards.”
“I would appreciate it if you would convey mine to him,” he
answered.
Jane smiled. “Of course.” Then she looked at me again,
with the corners of her mouth still slightly holding the smile. “It
appears that you’ve done our work for us today… for the most
part. Just out of professional curiosity, how many were there?
They left quite a wake of destruction in Seattle.”
She spoke of jobs and professionals. I was right, then, that it
was her profession to punish. And if there were punishers, then
there must be rules. Carlisle had said before, We follow their
rules, and also, There is no law against creating vampires if
you control them. Riley and my creator had been afraid but not
exactly surprised by the arrival of the dark-cloaks, these Volturi.
They knew about the laws, and they knew they were breaking
them. Why hadn’t they told us? And there were more Volturi than
just these four. Someone named Aro and probably many more.
There must have been a lot for everyone to fear them so much.
Carlisle answered Jane’s question. “Eighteen, including this
one.”There was a barely audible murmur among the four darkcloaks.
“Eighteen?” Jane repeated, a note of surprise in her voice.
Our creator had never told Jane how many of us she’d created.
Was Jane really surprised, or just faking it?
“All brand-new,” Carlisle said. “They were unskilled.”
Unskilled and uninformed, thanks to Riley. I was beginning
to get a sense of how these older vampires viewed us.
Newborn, Jasper had called me. Like a baby.
“All?” Jane snapped. “Then who was their creator?”
As if they hadn’t already been introduced. This Jane was a
bigger liar than Riley, and she was so much better at it than he
was.
“Her name was Victoria,” the redhead answered.
How did he know that when even I didn’t? I remembered
that Riley had said there was a mind reader in this group. Was
that how they knew everything? Or was that another of Riley’s
lies?“Was?” Jane asked.
The redhead jerked his head toward the east like he was
pointing. I looked up and saw a cloud of thick lilac smoke
billowing from the side of the mountain.
Was. I felt a similar kind of pleasure to what I’d felt
imagining the big vampire shredding Raoul. Only much, much
greater.
“This Victoria,” Jane asked slowly. “She was in addition to
the eighteen here?”
“Yes,” the redhead confirmed. “She had only one other with
her. He was not as young as this one here, but no older than a
year.”
Riley. My fierce pleasure intensified. If—okay, when—I died
today, at least I didn’t leave that loose thread. Diego had been
avenged. I almost smiled.
“Twenty,” Jane breathed. Either this was more than she had
expected, or she was a killer actress. “Who dealt with the
creator?”
“I did,” the redhead said coldly.
Whoever this vampire was, whether he kept a pet human or
no, he was a friend of mine. Even if he were the one to kill me in
the end, I would still owe him.
Jane turned to stare at me with narrowed eyes.
“You there,” she snarled. “Your name.”
I was dead anyway, according to her. So why give this lying
vampire anything she wanted? I just glared at her.
Jane smiled at me, the bright, happy smile of an innocent
child, and suddenly I was on fire. It was like I’d gone back in
time to the worst night of my life. Fire was in every vein of my
body, covering every inch of my skin, gnawing through the
marrow of every bone. It felt like I was buried in the middle of my
coven’s funeral bonfire, with the flames on every side. There
wasn’t a single cell in my body that wasn’t blazing with the worst
agony imaginable. I could barely hear myself scream over the
pain in my ears.
“Your name,” Jane said again, and as she spoke the fire
disappeared. Gone like that, as if I’d only been imagining it.
“Bree,” I said as fast as I could, still gasping though the pain
wasn’t there anymore.
Jane smiled again and the fire was everywhere. How much
pain would it take before I would die of it? The screams didn’t
even feel like they were coming from me anymore. Why
wouldn’t someone rip my head off? Carlisle was kind enough
for that, wasn’t he? Or whoever their mind reader was. Couldn’t
he or she understand and make this stop?
“She’ll tell you anything you want to know,” the redhead
growled. “You don’t have to do that.”
The pain vanished again, like Jane had turned off a light
switch. I found myself facedown on the ground, panting as if I
needed air.
“Oh, I know,” I heard Jane say cheerfully. “Bree?”
I shuddered when she called my name, but the pain didn’t
start again.
“Is his story true?” she asked me. “Were there twenty of
you?”
The words flew out of my mouth. “Nineteen or twenty, maybe
more, I don’t know! Sara and the one whose name I don’t know
got in a fight on the way….”
I waited for the pain to punish me for not having a better
answer, but instead Jane spoke again.
“And this Victoria—did she create you?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted fearfully. “Riley never said her
name. I didn’t see that night… it was so dark, and it hurt!” I
flinched. “He didn’t want us to be able to think of her. He said
that our thoughts weren’t safe.”
Jane shot a glance at the redhead, then looked at me
again.
“Tell me about Riley,” Jane said. “Why did he bring you
here?”
I recited Riley’s lies as quickly as I could. “Riley told us that
we had to destroy the strange yellow-eyes here. He said it
would be easy. He said that the city was theirs, and they were
coming to get us. He said once they were gone, all the blood
would be ours. He gave us her scent.” I pointed in the human’s
direction. “He said we would know that we had the right coven,
because she would be with them. He said whoever got to her
first could have her.”
“It looks like Riley was wrong about the easy part,” Jane
said, a hint of teasing in her tone.
It seemed like Jane was pleased with my story. In a flash of
insight, I understood that she was relieved Riley hadn’t told me
or the others about her little visit to our creator. Victoria. This
was the story she wanted the yellow-eyes to know—the story
that didn’t implicate Jane or the dark-cloaked Volturi. Well, I
could play along. Hopefully the mind reader was already in the
know.
I couldn’t physically take revenge on this monster, but I could
tell the yellow-eyes everything with my thoughts. I hoped.
I nodded, agreeing with Jane’s little joke, and sat up
because I wanted the mind reader’s attention, whoever that
was. I continued with the version of the story that any other
member of my coven would have been able to give. I pretended
I was Kevin. Dumb as a bag of rocks and totally ignorant.
“I don’t know what happened.” That part was true. The mess
on the battlefield was still a mystery. I’d never seen any of
Kristie’s group. Did the secret howler vampires get them? I
would keep that secret for the yellow-eyes. “We split up, but the
others never came. And Riley left us, and he didn’t come to help
like he promised. And then it was so confusing, and everybody
was in pieces.” I flinched at the memory of the torso I’d hurdled.
“I was afraid. I wanted to run away.” I nodded at Carlisle. “That
one said they wouldn’t hurt me if I stopped fighting.”
This wasn’t betraying Carlisle in any way. He’d already told
Jane as much.
“Ah, but that wasn’t his gift to offer, young one,” Jane said.
She sounded like she was enjoying herself. “Broken rules
demand a consequence.”
Still pretending I was Kevin, I just stared at her as if I were
too stupid to understand.
Jane looked at Carlisle. “Are you sure you got all of them?
The other half that split off?”
Carlisle nodded. “We split up, too.”
So it was the howlers that got Kristie. I hoped that, whatever
else they were, the howlers were really, really terrifying. Kristie
deserved that.
“I can’t deny that I’m impressed,” Jane said, sounding
sincere, and I thought that this was probably the truth. Jane had
been hopeful that Victoria’s army would do some damage here,
and we’d clearly failed.
“Yes,” the three vampires behind Jane all agreed quietly.
“I’ve never seen a coven escape this magnitude of offensive
intact,” Jane continued. “Do you know what was behind it? It
seems like extreme behavior, considering the way you live here.
And why was the girl the key?” Her eyes flicked to the human for
just a moment.
“Victoria held a grudge against Bella,” the redhead told her.
So the strategy finally made sense. Riley just wanted the girl
dead and didn’t care how many of us died to get it done.
Jane laughed happily. “This one”—and she smiled at the
human the way she’d smiled at me—“seems to bring out
bizarrely strong reactions in our kind.”
Nothing happened to the girl. Maybe Jane didn’t want to hurt
her. Or maybe her horrible talent only worked on vampires.
“Would you please not do that?” the redhead asked in a
controlled but furious voice.
Jane laughed again. “Just checking. No harm done,
apparently.”
I tried to keep my expression Kevin-ish and not betray my
interest. So Jane couldn’t hurt this girl the way she’d hurt me,
and this was not a normal thing for Jane. Though Jane was
laughing about it, I could tell it was driving her crazy. Was this
why the human girl was tolerated by the yellow-eyes? But if she
was special in some way, why didn’t they just change her into a
vampire?
“Well, it appears that there’s not much left for us to do,” Jane
said, her voice a dead monotone again. “Odd. We’re not used
to being rendered unnecessary. It’s too bad we missed the
fight. It sounds like it would have been entertaining to watch.”
“Yes,” the redhead retorted. “And you were so close. It’s a
shame you didn’t arrive just a half hour earlier. Perhaps then you
could have fulfilled your purpose here.”
I fought a smile. So the redhead was the mind reader, and
he’d heard everything I’d wanted him to hear. Jane wasn’t
getting away with anything.
Jane stared back at the mind reader with a blank
expression. “Yes. Quite a pity how things turned out, isn’t it?”
The mind reader nodded, and I wondered what he was
hearing in Jane’s head.
Jane turned her blank face to me now. There was nothing in
her eyes, but I could feel that my time had run out. She’d gotten
what she needed from me. She didn’t know that I’d also given
the mind reader everything I could. And protected his coven’s
secrets, too. I owed him that. He’d punished Riley and Victoria
for me.
I glanced at him from the corner of my eye and thought,
Thanks.
“Felix?” Jane said lazily.
“Wait,” the mind reader said loudly.
He turned to Carlisle and spoke quickly. “We could explain
the rules to the young one. She doesn’t seem unwilling to learn.
She didn’t know what she was doing.”
“Of course,” Carlisle said eagerly, looking at Jane. “We
would certainly be prepared to take responsibility for Bree.”
Jane’s face looked like she wasn’t sure if they were joking,
but if they were joking, they were funnier than she’d given them
credit for.
Me, I was touched to the core. These vampires were
strangers, but they’d gone out on this dangerous limb for me. I
already knew it wasn’t going to work, but still.
“We don’t make exceptions,” Jane told them, amused. “And
we don’t give second chances. It’s bad for our reputation.”
It was like she was discussing someone else. I didn’t care
that she was talking about killing me. I knew the yellow-eyes
couldn’t stop her. She was the vampire police. But even though
the vampire cops were dirty—really dirty—at least the yelloweyes
knew it now.
“Which reminds me…,” Jane went on, her eyes locking on
the human girl again and her smile widening. “Caius will be so
interested to hear that you’re still human, Bella. Perhaps he’ll
decide to visit.”
Still human. So they were going to change the girl. I
wondered what they were waiting for.
“The date is set,” said the little vampire with the short black
hair and the clear voice. “Perhaps we’ll come to visit you in a
few months.”
Jane’s smile disappeared like someone had wiped it off.
She shrugged without looking at the black-haired vampire, and I
got the feeling that as much as she might have hated the human
girl, she hated this small vampire ten times as much.
Jane turned back to Carlisle with the same vacant
expression as before. “It was nice to meet you, Carlisle—I’d
thought Aro was exaggerating. Well, until we meet again…”
This would be it, then. I still didn’t feel afraid. My only regret
was that I couldn’t tell Fred more about all of this. He was going
almost totally blind into this world full of dangerous politics and
dirty cops and secret covens. But Fred was smart and careful
and talented. What could they do to him if they couldn’t even
see him? Maybe the yellow-eyes would meet Fred someday.
Be nice to him, please, I thought at the mind reader.
“Take care of that, Felix,” Jane said indifferently, nodding at
me. “I want to go home.”
“Don’t watch,” the redheaded mind reader whispered.
I closed my eyes.