第 14 页

----------------------- Page 137-----------------------

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

----------------------- Page 138-----------------------

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

----------------------- Page 139-----------------------

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 black- haired 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,

----------------------- Page 140-----------------------

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

----------------------- Page 141-----------------------

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.

----------------------- Page 142-----------------------

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

----------------------- Page 143-----------------------

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.

----------------------- Page 144-----------------------

“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 dark- cloaks. “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

----------------------- Page 145-----------------------

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

----------------------- Page 146-----------------------

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?