Twilight Fan Fiction / Twilight Fan Fiction ❯ I Know My Duty ❯ All ( Chapter 46 )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: Ithilwen 
"They're coming for us. All of them," –Alice, Breaking Dawn
Non Anime: Twilight Fan Fiction / Twilight Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Romance / Psychological | Type: Divergence | Uploaded On: 05.26.2013 | Updated On: 05.30.2013 | Pages: 4 | Words: 4.5K | Visits: 461 | Status: Completed
"They're coming for us. All of them," –Alice, Breaking Dawn
Non Anime: Twilight Fan Fiction / Twilight Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Romance / Psychological | Type: Divergence | Uploaded On: 05.26.2013 | Updated On: 05.30.2013 | Pages: 4 | Words: 4.5K | Visits: 461 | Status: Completed
Twilight and its three and two half sequels are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. This story is fanfiction based on characters, settings and concepts from <i>Twilight</i>, its first three sequels and the first half of Midnight Sun, all of which are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. No party other than the submitting author may alter this work in any way other than font size and other reasonable accommodations to formatting.
I just powered through "The Hangman's Hands" by Mercurie (and it totally wasn't because a bud of mine recommended the PWP spinoff by StolenMuse, which I read first), and <i>heck in a hat</i>. It's based on the recent Marvel movies and focuses on Jane Foster, Loki and Thor. Mercurie describes a sequence in which Foster is trying to develop an equation that will allow the Odinboys to get back to Asgard using Earth technology, and <i>day-um</i>. The author is discussing the mathematical side of astrophysics, a branch of science that most of her readers and possibly the author him/herself do not understand (partially because it doesn't exactly exist), and we <i>still</i> see all the emotional aspects of the scientist in research mode; frustration, unpredictability, helplessness, suspicion, disappointment, discovery. I've worked with and for scientists for years. One of my degrees is in biological sciences, and <i>that</i> is what it feels like. We also see the author use words to describe that a character is reaching an epiphany but remains unable to express himself. That is <i>really hard to do</i> and it's been utterly nailed. In short, if you like the <i>Thor</i> and <i>Avengers</i> movies and you have time for something to completely steal your brain, hop over to Archive of Our Own and read it!
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"They're coming for us. All of them," –Alice, <i>Breaking Dawn</i>
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I heard my footsteps echoing against the walls and felt a pang of my old craving for tennis shoes. Demetri had made contact less than an hour earlier. They were due back, and I couldn't be anywhere else, not even down below. The whole compound was like a coiled spring waiting for the next piece to fall.
Caroly's team had been attacked near Montpelier.
Renata and I had dragged Lydia down to the cell—the real cell, not the open-barred setup where we were keeping Doreen and Ichiro. I'd come back upstairs to find that Edward had located and disabled Lydia's recording equipment and shown her latest data packet to the masters. It had mentioned a group of enemy newborns in France and it mentioned their target. Except for the fact that they were expecting Edward, the Romanians knew everything about Demetri, his team and his projected itinerary. And Caius <i>hadn't called them back</i>. He'd let Edward contact Demetri and warn them, but he knew they were going to be ambushed and he <i>hadn't</i> told them to bug out and come straight home. And I was only allowed to be mad about it in my <i>head</i>.
And Edward, my angel, had smiled calmly and told me that Caius was very right, that if our enemies knew we were onto them that would strategy, advantage, initiative blah blah blah. It was like the goddamned <i>Twilight Zone</i> episode where the kid can turn people into puppets with his mind and everyone has to say it's a good thing. Sometimes I didn't remember what it was like to see Edward get angry at anyone but me. I hated what this place had done to him. I hated that I couldn't protect him from it.
But Demetri was on time for once, bless his bony slowpoke ass. He offered me a tight nod as they came into the reception area. This was the part where I normally counted heads like I was mama duck, even though none of my newborns had gone on this trip. Caroly rolled her eyes when she saw me. Even with her mouth shut, that girl spoke fluent sass.
There was a huge tear in Caroly's cloak and Felix had what looked like a field-repaired leg injury—a limp so slight that I wouldn't have been able to see it if I didn't know to look—but other than that, they seemed okay.
"Bella," Demetri said quickly. "Where is Edward? I need to talk to him." In the corner of my eye, I saw Caroly's jaw tense.
"With Master Caius," I said, relieved that at least I didn't <i>sound</i> like I hated the man's dust-clogged guts ...though that was fading a little now that everyone was home. "They're waiting for you on the third floor. Caius wants to see you before the formal report."
He headed toward the stairs without even a nod. Years ago I would have thought it was rude; now I knew it was just Demetri. Felix shot me a grumbly look and lumbered after him.
Caroly fell behind, and I finally got to take a good look at her. As usual, aside from having a face like a statue of a strapping Greek girl hero, she looked about as organized as a haystack in Red Riding Hood's emo castoffs. Par for the course.
"Caroly—"
"Did it work?" she said, flicking the edges of her cloak in front of her arms. "Did you catch the spy?"
"Yes," I said, not wanting to talk about Lydia. "Now your mission—"
"Who was it?" she asked. "What did Master Aro see in his memory?"
"It was a her, actually."
"But you were vindicated," she insisted.
"They know the spy wasn't me." And I gave her the two-second version. I did not want to talk about Lydia.
"Wait," said Caroly. "<i>You</i> turned her?" She stared hard at my face, probably at the little swirls of angry spying-slimeball red swimming like leeches in my irises. Edward said that they'd go away in a couple weeks.
"Yes," I repeated. "It was that or let her die, and at least now Aro can take another crack at her memories."
"But..." I waited for Caroly to let me in on which part of this was confusing her. She pushed her roofthatch hair out of her face and then shook her head.
"More importantly," I changed the subject, "we learned that you were going to be attacked in Montpelier."
She looked away, like there was something she didn't want to tell me.
"Caroly, whatever it is, Edward is going to find out and he won't keep it from me," not where she was concerned.
She looked at me carefully, her ruby eyes glittering like bright sand in the shadows, the way she always did when she knew I wouldn't like what I heard. But she always told me.
"We didn't win this fight, Bella," Caroly admitted. "We drove them off, but we only killed one of them. They nearly took a piece of me along for the ride."
I clasped her upper arm and squeezed reassuringly. At least they hadn't run. Aro would have punished all of them if they'd run. But what she'd said was seriously creepy. Vampires burned their victims; they didn't take trophies.
"Speaking of inconvenient telepaths," Caroly said, "did Edward manage to get anything out of—which one was it? Lydia?"
Yes, that would have been convenient, wouldn't it? "Not much," I answered. "Whenever he comes downstairs, he says there's a flicker of something here or there but nothing concrete." I tried not to shiver. I motioned for Caroly to walk with me toward the east staircase so we could meet Edward and Demetri on the way back from seeing Caius. "Edward said he saw a woman's face that might have been Lydia's mom. He thinks the Romanians might have gotten to Lydia through her, but that it isn't a sure thing. She hasn't said anything to me either."
Caroly looked to the left and then back at me. "Bella," she said, "what do you mean she hasn't said anything to you?"
"I mean some newborns talk but she doesn't." Intermittent screaming. It was too much to hope for her to be a quiet one.
She grabbed me by the arm and brought me up short. "For the love of sanity—Please tell me you're not actually spending time with her," Caroly said.
I forced an eyeroll. "You sound like Edward."
"As long as it's the sound of Edward dragging you out of there by your ears!" she said. Her voice dropped to a whisper, "Bella, three days ago everyone thought you were the traitor. You can't be seen with her. People will talk. They might even think that you turned her to silence her."
Edward had said all the same things, and he'd said them better. But he also said the crowd was looking elsewhere for now.
"Caroly," I said, with far more patience than I'd managed the first time, "having a non-threatening adult vampire around during the transition helps the newborn—"
"—associate the presence of our kind with security and not with conflict; helps them tolerate life in a large coven; <i>I know</i>," she finished. "But this isn't someone Caius picked out for the novitiate. This is a traitor. She's ash two seconds after Aro gets what we need from her."
She was right, of course, and it <i>would</i> tie up a loose end for me, but... "Edward thinks that Aro might let her live."
Caroly raked her fingers through her hair ...which made her look like Edward instead of just sounding like him. "Fine. Then let Renata take care of her. Doreen and Ichiro need you as much as Lydia does."
"Actually, they've been coming along pretty well. Salome's been starting them on combat practice."
"You're ten times the trainer she is and everyone knows it. You can't blow off your real duties to— " Her head twisted on her neck, as if she'd heard me make a funny sound. "Wait. Why <i>are</i> you hanging around Lydia anyway? Are you waiting for her to say something?"
I looked at her, <i>really</i> looked at her. Renee had started confiding in me when I was twelve. I wasn't Renee, but she wasn't twelve.
"I thought I would feel something," I admitted.
"You thought you would feel something," she repeated flatly.
"Yes." And I hadn't. She was the first human I'd ever bitten and turned. It was <i>my</i> venom in her, changing her, like Edward's had changed me. So I'd sat there and listened to her whimper and I'd let her hear a friendly voice, just like I'd done with Phillip all the way through Doreen, and it hadn't mattered one damn.
"And you don't see why the middle of an espionage crisis in which you were until very recently the coven's prime suspect <i>might</i> not be the best time to explore the emotional side of turning new vampires?"
Edward. Except blond. And a girl.
"Like you said, she'll be dead in two days."
Caroly gave a snort. "Yellow-eyes," she hissed. "Playing with your food isn't enough? <i>Ask Aro to let you make a new one.</i>"
I shot her a look that must have been pure poison. But it was treason to say it, even when I was about to be back in what passed for the masters' good graces. "Not everyone makes storm gray, Caroly," and I didn't say the rest: Marcell. Adal. Philip.
Caroly settled back, like an owl fluffing her feathers. "So what does Caius want to talk to Demetri about?"
I looked toward the stairs, the way Edward had gone when he'd heard him calling. I told her what he'd told me:
"He wants to be ready."
"For what?" Caroly asked.
"For whatever Lydia has to say."
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Edward had convinced me not to lead a known traitor into the audience chamber myself. And by "convinced," I mean that he threw a fit and tag-teamed both Caroly and Rolfe to guilt me until I felt like crud for even suggesting it. So I was standing with Caroly at my elbow in my dark gray cloak when Renata brought the newest addition to our creepy little family into the audience chamber.
She'd gotten prettier, the way they all did. Her pale blond hair had thickened to the color of sunlight through frost. Her face was smooth, missing the little sags and slouches of a woman over thirty, but her cheeks were still thin enough to show her cheekbones. Her age looked elegant on her now, like a diamond veil.
In this crowd, that made her about as scary as a fat chinchilla.
Renata and Salome had found her a heavy dark robe to wear. The cloth was probably some expensive weave with a fancy name, but it hung off her arms in a way that suggested chains. The color made her eyes seem even more iridescently red, blood in the snow. She was marched in with Felix's mitts around one arm and Rolfe's around the other.
"Do you think Edward will get a boon for this?" Caroly murmured at the edge of my hearing.
I looked across the crowd to where he was standing near the west pillar, where the masters could see him. It didn't matter. Today, no matter where he stood, he was Aro's right hand. "No," I answered. As far as Caius was concerned, the fact that we had a spy at all was Edward's fault to begin with. If Edward and I had let Rolfe take credit for Lydia, then at least someone would have gotten something.
Caroly shook her head, and I knew she was thinking of all the work Edward had done and all the risks that had been taken. Anyone else would have gotten three boons for masterminding something this good.
"Lydia." It was Caius who spoke from the center throne today. I guess they figured that Aro's usual "dear ones" schtick wouldn't get results. Caius was better as bad cop anyway. "You come before us with a birthright that you do not deserve. We welcomed you into our keep, gave you our trust and the chance to earn your immortality. You have repaid us poorly."
He stepped off the throne, letting the butt of his staff fall heavily against the floor with each step. His firelighter crackled and ozone stung the inside of my nose.
"Do not presume to think that the only thing you stand to lose is your life." And he gestured sharply with one hand.
From this angle, I could just see the side of Lydia's face as she threw her head back, the scream fighting its way out of her like a scalded animal. To the left of the thrones, Jane smiled. That had been Edward's idea. Vampires were afraid of Jane. They saw her face and they knew what was coming for them, and they broke. Lydia didn't know Jane. She'd be more frightened if the pain seemed to come from nowhere.
"That was—" Lydia gasped. "How did—"
"Name your masters!" shouted Caius. "Say the names of those who turned you against us."
I closed my eyes and wished like it was Christmas morning. <i>Please don't let her brain be fried. Please don't let her brain be fried...</i>
"I'm—I'm sorry, sir. I don't remember."
Caius looked to Edward. Very slightly, he shook his head.
<i>Yes</i>, I thought in relief, right before Lydia let out a full-throated, surprised scream.
"Cease your lies, servant," commanded Caius. "Tell us the truth or you will face the same again."
"But that was the truth. I don't re—" and she let out another scream. I could barely see Jane smiling her oatmeal smile. She'd complained about working backstage when Edward had proposed it, but now she seemed to be having fun.
I hated public interrogations. I hated watching people I'd learned to like—okay, learned to tolerate—do something that mean to someone who was already caught. I'd used to think it was just the masters being jerks—Aro was going to suck out her whole brain anyway—but now I knew it was necessary. Nothing glued a team together like a good look at an enemy. So Caius asked questions, and Lydia slowly figured out that she couldn't lie, and bit by bit, the truth came out.
"There was—There was a man! They had a woman. They had pictures. My aunt, they had my aunt!"
Caius looked at Edward. He'd spent the past day digging through Lydia's personnel file. Since the filing cabinet was Edward's and Felix's memories, that hadn't been too hard. She'd been like Andrew, he'd told me. She was estranged from her family, willing to cut ties with her family, but she still actually gave a damn about the woman who'd raised her. But it sounded like she'd been more steadfast than my poor dead Andrew. From her story, the Romanians had had to wiggle the old woman's life right under her nose before she'd taken the bait.
"What did the man look like?" Caius asked about details, asked the same question over again, asked overlapping questions just to make sure she said the same thing each time. Was he tall? Was he short? Did he have an accent? Did he have any scars?
"He—blond!" gasped Lydia. "Tall! Spoke like Am—American or Canadian!"
Edward looked at me this time, nodding quickly. I squeezed Caroly's hand. This was Andrew's mystery man. She squeezed back, knowing what I meant: He'd seen the face in her thoughts, and it was the same man. This was where Edward would really be able to help. He'd see the images in her mind and translate "tall" into "five-foot-eleven," "Canadian" into "from Manitoba, turned circa 1862" or whatnot. He'd done it before.
More questions came. Caius asked the same ones again, peppered with new. Lydia was like a child tripping as she was dragged down a cobbled road. How had the strange man proved that he had Lydia's aunt? Where had he approached her? What kinds of information had she given him? When? Which names? Who was he working for?
"He wouldn't tell me! He wouldn't tell! A-AAH!"
The rest of the crowd moved and didn't move, the way that leaves all hiss when the same wind touches them. The trees stay where they are. In here it was muscles shifting, fists clenching, mouths opening over fangs with every thrum of Lydia's voice against the vaulted ceiling. Jane could always remind us that we were one big evil family.
"Heard him on the phone once! I looked up the words—Romanian. There were names. Stefan! Vladimir!
"One day I—I dug into the addresses he gave me, the codes for the receivers—" and here she delved into NewCom speak; the way the networks had been restructured after the Internet hubs had stopped running a thousand servers twenty-four-seven. "He, he usually hid them, but I checked every time, and I..." Lydia sagged against Rolfe and Felix. I looked at Edward, but he wasn't looking at me. I could guess: Lydia had figured out that her next words would get her hostage killed.
Jane made the decision simple for her, her shrieks were like a violin being murdered.
"—outside Alwar! Within ten miles of the NeoCore!"
Caius and Aro exchanged a look, and then Caius's hand closed on Aro's wrist. Aro nodded.
"You have told us a great deal, servant," said Caius as Lydia gave up, letting herself hang from her captors' arms as if they were chains. "Unfortunately, it is not enough to save you."
Her head twitched, as if she'd considered looking up but had decided not to bother.
"You see, our own teams had already pieced this much together: Our old enemies have been recruiting and rebuilding and plan to attack us again. This is the way of the world. It is the way of Stefan especially," he said. "Your information may help us narrow down the location of their stronghold, but no more."
"Yes more!" she all but yelled. "Yes, there's more. Don't make it— Don't do it again, please!"
Caius turned the firestarter in his hand with a meaningful crackle.
"Build-building an army. An army of the young—made no sense. Ready mid—midwinter!"
A hissing murmur spread across the crowd like a breeze bending dead grass. Midwinter, when the nights were longest.
"And their target?" Caius asked pointedly. From the corner of my field of vision, I saw Edward lean forward, eyes going just a little wide.
"Here," Lydia gasped. "Volterra. Wanted—he wanted me to be ready. Learn shift schedules. Describe exits." She fell, then. "Let them in."
"Well my children," Caius said. "What do we make of this?"
The hissing sound became a snarl. Lydia's head twitched, like the last jolt of a maglev as its converters fail.
Aro didn't bother with Lydia's arm or shoulder, covering her forehead with his hand as if to hold her head underwater. I kept my eyes on Edward, watching him as he watched the master and imagining I could read the answers on his face. Aro looked up at Caius with a bland smile, folded his arms and stepped away. I'd learned to know the master's signals, and Aro had just yielded Caius the floor.
Caius raised both arms, "It seems our servant Lydia has told us all she knows of the enemies who bought her loyalty. Do you believe this earns her a quick death?"
I knew this answer. This was our reward. This was always our reward. I was no better. The bitch had tried to kill me. Just because I felt sorry for her, just because it was my own venom, and Edward's and Carlisle's, didn't mean my fingers weren't clenching involuntarily with the thought of tearing one of my own kind apart.
The chant came: "No master," and I was part of the chorus.
I had to do it. We'd talked about it, Edward and Caroly and me. If I got a good piece of her, an arm or an organ, where the guard could see, I would be clean. In the end, all I could manage was an ear and a chunk of hair. It seemed a lot of the guard wanted a piece of the traitor. But it was something to throw into the bonfire.
Edward slipped beside me as the flames sent the sweet dark incense that had been my first and only newborn into the smog above the city. "It was good," he whispered in my ear, soft as a kiss. "You and the flames. They will remember." And he kissed the side of my head as if it had all been love talk.
"At least it's over," I breathed, hoping he didn't feel the tension in my arms, how much I'd enjoyed killing my ...my whatever she was. But then, Edward was breathing hard himself, and his topaz eyes were bright. There were some instincts that didn't get civilized out, I guessed, or that came back if you lived with barbarians.
His hand rubbed from my shoulder to my elbow and back. "The guard no longer suspects you," he murmured, "but it isn't over."
I looked up at him, remembering the sudden gleam in Aro's dull eyes, and Edward answered the question in my mind, "He read the answers in her thoughts, Bella," he told me. "And we're going after the Romanians." He looked slowly around the room, and I watched his gaze stop on Caroly, Demetri, Rolfe. "All of us."
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drf24 (at) columbia (dot) edu
I just powered through "The Hangman's Hands" by Mercurie (and it totally wasn't because a bud of mine recommended the PWP spinoff by StolenMuse, which I read first), and <i>heck in a hat</i>. It's based on the recent Marvel movies and focuses on Jane Foster, Loki and Thor. Mercurie describes a sequence in which Foster is trying to develop an equation that will allow the Odinboys to get back to Asgard using Earth technology, and <i>day-um</i>. The author is discussing the mathematical side of astrophysics, a branch of science that most of her readers and possibly the author him/herself do not understand (partially because it doesn't exactly exist), and we <i>still</i> see all the emotional aspects of the scientist in research mode; frustration, unpredictability, helplessness, suspicion, disappointment, discovery. I've worked with and for scientists for years. One of my degrees is in biological sciences, and <i>that</i> is what it feels like. We also see the author use words to describe that a character is reaching an epiphany but remains unable to express himself. That is <i>really hard to do</i> and it's been utterly nailed. In short, if you like the <i>Thor</i> and <i>Avengers</i> movies and you have time for something to completely steal your brain, hop over to Archive of Our Own and read it!
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"They're coming for us. All of them," –Alice, <i>Breaking Dawn</i>
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I heard my footsteps echoing against the walls and felt a pang of my old craving for tennis shoes. Demetri had made contact less than an hour earlier. They were due back, and I couldn't be anywhere else, not even down below. The whole compound was like a coiled spring waiting for the next piece to fall.
Caroly's team had been attacked near Montpelier.
Renata and I had dragged Lydia down to the cell—the real cell, not the open-barred setup where we were keeping Doreen and Ichiro. I'd come back upstairs to find that Edward had located and disabled Lydia's recording equipment and shown her latest data packet to the masters. It had mentioned a group of enemy newborns in France and it mentioned their target. Except for the fact that they were expecting Edward, the Romanians knew everything about Demetri, his team and his projected itinerary. And Caius <i>hadn't called them back</i>. He'd let Edward contact Demetri and warn them, but he knew they were going to be ambushed and he <i>hadn't</i> told them to bug out and come straight home. And I was only allowed to be mad about it in my <i>head</i>.
And Edward, my angel, had smiled calmly and told me that Caius was very right, that if our enemies knew we were onto them that would strategy, advantage, initiative blah blah blah. It was like the goddamned <i>Twilight Zone</i> episode where the kid can turn people into puppets with his mind and everyone has to say it's a good thing. Sometimes I didn't remember what it was like to see Edward get angry at anyone but me. I hated what this place had done to him. I hated that I couldn't protect him from it.
But Demetri was on time for once, bless his bony slowpoke ass. He offered me a tight nod as they came into the reception area. This was the part where I normally counted heads like I was mama duck, even though none of my newborns had gone on this trip. Caroly rolled her eyes when she saw me. Even with her mouth shut, that girl spoke fluent sass.
There was a huge tear in Caroly's cloak and Felix had what looked like a field-repaired leg injury—a limp so slight that I wouldn't have been able to see it if I didn't know to look—but other than that, they seemed okay.
"Bella," Demetri said quickly. "Where is Edward? I need to talk to him." In the corner of my eye, I saw Caroly's jaw tense.
"With Master Caius," I said, relieved that at least I didn't <i>sound</i> like I hated the man's dust-clogged guts ...though that was fading a little now that everyone was home. "They're waiting for you on the third floor. Caius wants to see you before the formal report."
He headed toward the stairs without even a nod. Years ago I would have thought it was rude; now I knew it was just Demetri. Felix shot me a grumbly look and lumbered after him.
Caroly fell behind, and I finally got to take a good look at her. As usual, aside from having a face like a statue of a strapping Greek girl hero, she looked about as organized as a haystack in Red Riding Hood's emo castoffs. Par for the course.
"Caroly—"
"Did it work?" she said, flicking the edges of her cloak in front of her arms. "Did you catch the spy?"
"Yes," I said, not wanting to talk about Lydia. "Now your mission—"
"Who was it?" she asked. "What did Master Aro see in his memory?"
"It was a her, actually."
"But you were vindicated," she insisted.
"They know the spy wasn't me." And I gave her the two-second version. I did not want to talk about Lydia.
"Wait," said Caroly. "<i>You</i> turned her?" She stared hard at my face, probably at the little swirls of angry spying-slimeball red swimming like leeches in my irises. Edward said that they'd go away in a couple weeks.
"Yes," I repeated. "It was that or let her die, and at least now Aro can take another crack at her memories."
"But..." I waited for Caroly to let me in on which part of this was confusing her. She pushed her roofthatch hair out of her face and then shook her head.
"More importantly," I changed the subject, "we learned that you were going to be attacked in Montpelier."
She looked away, like there was something she didn't want to tell me.
"Caroly, whatever it is, Edward is going to find out and he won't keep it from me," not where she was concerned.
She looked at me carefully, her ruby eyes glittering like bright sand in the shadows, the way she always did when she knew I wouldn't like what I heard. But she always told me.
"We didn't win this fight, Bella," Caroly admitted. "We drove them off, but we only killed one of them. They nearly took a piece of me along for the ride."
I clasped her upper arm and squeezed reassuringly. At least they hadn't run. Aro would have punished all of them if they'd run. But what she'd said was seriously creepy. Vampires burned their victims; they didn't take trophies.
"Speaking of inconvenient telepaths," Caroly said, "did Edward manage to get anything out of—which one was it? Lydia?"
Yes, that would have been convenient, wouldn't it? "Not much," I answered. "Whenever he comes downstairs, he says there's a flicker of something here or there but nothing concrete." I tried not to shiver. I motioned for Caroly to walk with me toward the east staircase so we could meet Edward and Demetri on the way back from seeing Caius. "Edward said he saw a woman's face that might have been Lydia's mom. He thinks the Romanians might have gotten to Lydia through her, but that it isn't a sure thing. She hasn't said anything to me either."
Caroly looked to the left and then back at me. "Bella," she said, "what do you mean she hasn't said anything to you?"
"I mean some newborns talk but she doesn't." Intermittent screaming. It was too much to hope for her to be a quiet one.
She grabbed me by the arm and brought me up short. "For the love of sanity—Please tell me you're not actually spending time with her," Caroly said.
I forced an eyeroll. "You sound like Edward."
"As long as it's the sound of Edward dragging you out of there by your ears!" she said. Her voice dropped to a whisper, "Bella, three days ago everyone thought you were the traitor. You can't be seen with her. People will talk. They might even think that you turned her to silence her."
Edward had said all the same things, and he'd said them better. But he also said the crowd was looking elsewhere for now.
"Caroly," I said, with far more patience than I'd managed the first time, "having a non-threatening adult vampire around during the transition helps the newborn—"
"—associate the presence of our kind with security and not with conflict; helps them tolerate life in a large coven; <i>I know</i>," she finished. "But this isn't someone Caius picked out for the novitiate. This is a traitor. She's ash two seconds after Aro gets what we need from her."
She was right, of course, and it <i>would</i> tie up a loose end for me, but... "Edward thinks that Aro might let her live."
Caroly raked her fingers through her hair ...which made her look like Edward instead of just sounding like him. "Fine. Then let Renata take care of her. Doreen and Ichiro need you as much as Lydia does."
"Actually, they've been coming along pretty well. Salome's been starting them on combat practice."
"You're ten times the trainer she is and everyone knows it. You can't blow off your real duties to— " Her head twisted on her neck, as if she'd heard me make a funny sound. "Wait. Why <i>are</i> you hanging around Lydia anyway? Are you waiting for her to say something?"
I looked at her, <i>really</i> looked at her. Renee had started confiding in me when I was twelve. I wasn't Renee, but she wasn't twelve.
"I thought I would feel something," I admitted.
"You thought you would feel something," she repeated flatly.
"Yes." And I hadn't. She was the first human I'd ever bitten and turned. It was <i>my</i> venom in her, changing her, like Edward's had changed me. So I'd sat there and listened to her whimper and I'd let her hear a friendly voice, just like I'd done with Phillip all the way through Doreen, and it hadn't mattered one damn.
"And you don't see why the middle of an espionage crisis in which you were until very recently the coven's prime suspect <i>might</i> not be the best time to explore the emotional side of turning new vampires?"
Edward. Except blond. And a girl.
"Like you said, she'll be dead in two days."
Caroly gave a snort. "Yellow-eyes," she hissed. "Playing with your food isn't enough? <i>Ask Aro to let you make a new one.</i>"
I shot her a look that must have been pure poison. But it was treason to say it, even when I was about to be back in what passed for the masters' good graces. "Not everyone makes storm gray, Caroly," and I didn't say the rest: Marcell. Adal. Philip.
Caroly settled back, like an owl fluffing her feathers. "So what does Caius want to talk to Demetri about?"
I looked toward the stairs, the way Edward had gone when he'd heard him calling. I told her what he'd told me:
"He wants to be ready."
"For what?" Caroly asked.
"For whatever Lydia has to say."
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Edward had convinced me not to lead a known traitor into the audience chamber myself. And by "convinced," I mean that he threw a fit and tag-teamed both Caroly and Rolfe to guilt me until I felt like crud for even suggesting it. So I was standing with Caroly at my elbow in my dark gray cloak when Renata brought the newest addition to our creepy little family into the audience chamber.
She'd gotten prettier, the way they all did. Her pale blond hair had thickened to the color of sunlight through frost. Her face was smooth, missing the little sags and slouches of a woman over thirty, but her cheeks were still thin enough to show her cheekbones. Her age looked elegant on her now, like a diamond veil.
In this crowd, that made her about as scary as a fat chinchilla.
Renata and Salome had found her a heavy dark robe to wear. The cloth was probably some expensive weave with a fancy name, but it hung off her arms in a way that suggested chains. The color made her eyes seem even more iridescently red, blood in the snow. She was marched in with Felix's mitts around one arm and Rolfe's around the other.
"Do you think Edward will get a boon for this?" Caroly murmured at the edge of my hearing.
I looked across the crowd to where he was standing near the west pillar, where the masters could see him. It didn't matter. Today, no matter where he stood, he was Aro's right hand. "No," I answered. As far as Caius was concerned, the fact that we had a spy at all was Edward's fault to begin with. If Edward and I had let Rolfe take credit for Lydia, then at least someone would have gotten something.
Caroly shook her head, and I knew she was thinking of all the work Edward had done and all the risks that had been taken. Anyone else would have gotten three boons for masterminding something this good.
"Lydia." It was Caius who spoke from the center throne today. I guess they figured that Aro's usual "dear ones" schtick wouldn't get results. Caius was better as bad cop anyway. "You come before us with a birthright that you do not deserve. We welcomed you into our keep, gave you our trust and the chance to earn your immortality. You have repaid us poorly."
He stepped off the throne, letting the butt of his staff fall heavily against the floor with each step. His firelighter crackled and ozone stung the inside of my nose.
"Do not presume to think that the only thing you stand to lose is your life." And he gestured sharply with one hand.
From this angle, I could just see the side of Lydia's face as she threw her head back, the scream fighting its way out of her like a scalded animal. To the left of the thrones, Jane smiled. That had been Edward's idea. Vampires were afraid of Jane. They saw her face and they knew what was coming for them, and they broke. Lydia didn't know Jane. She'd be more frightened if the pain seemed to come from nowhere.
"That was—" Lydia gasped. "How did—"
"Name your masters!" shouted Caius. "Say the names of those who turned you against us."
I closed my eyes and wished like it was Christmas morning. <i>Please don't let her brain be fried. Please don't let her brain be fried...</i>
"I'm—I'm sorry, sir. I don't remember."
Caius looked to Edward. Very slightly, he shook his head.
<i>Yes</i>, I thought in relief, right before Lydia let out a full-throated, surprised scream.
"Cease your lies, servant," commanded Caius. "Tell us the truth or you will face the same again."
"But that was the truth. I don't re—" and she let out another scream. I could barely see Jane smiling her oatmeal smile. She'd complained about working backstage when Edward had proposed it, but now she seemed to be having fun.
I hated public interrogations. I hated watching people I'd learned to like—okay, learned to tolerate—do something that mean to someone who was already caught. I'd used to think it was just the masters being jerks—Aro was going to suck out her whole brain anyway—but now I knew it was necessary. Nothing glued a team together like a good look at an enemy. So Caius asked questions, and Lydia slowly figured out that she couldn't lie, and bit by bit, the truth came out.
"There was—There was a man! They had a woman. They had pictures. My aunt, they had my aunt!"
Caius looked at Edward. He'd spent the past day digging through Lydia's personnel file. Since the filing cabinet was Edward's and Felix's memories, that hadn't been too hard. She'd been like Andrew, he'd told me. She was estranged from her family, willing to cut ties with her family, but she still actually gave a damn about the woman who'd raised her. But it sounded like she'd been more steadfast than my poor dead Andrew. From her story, the Romanians had had to wiggle the old woman's life right under her nose before she'd taken the bait.
"What did the man look like?" Caius asked about details, asked the same question over again, asked overlapping questions just to make sure she said the same thing each time. Was he tall? Was he short? Did he have an accent? Did he have any scars?
"He—blond!" gasped Lydia. "Tall! Spoke like Am—American or Canadian!"
Edward looked at me this time, nodding quickly. I squeezed Caroly's hand. This was Andrew's mystery man. She squeezed back, knowing what I meant: He'd seen the face in her thoughts, and it was the same man. This was where Edward would really be able to help. He'd see the images in her mind and translate "tall" into "five-foot-eleven," "Canadian" into "from Manitoba, turned circa 1862" or whatnot. He'd done it before.
More questions came. Caius asked the same ones again, peppered with new. Lydia was like a child tripping as she was dragged down a cobbled road. How had the strange man proved that he had Lydia's aunt? Where had he approached her? What kinds of information had she given him? When? Which names? Who was he working for?
"He wouldn't tell me! He wouldn't tell! A-AAH!"
The rest of the crowd moved and didn't move, the way that leaves all hiss when the same wind touches them. The trees stay where they are. In here it was muscles shifting, fists clenching, mouths opening over fangs with every thrum of Lydia's voice against the vaulted ceiling. Jane could always remind us that we were one big evil family.
"Heard him on the phone once! I looked up the words—Romanian. There were names. Stefan! Vladimir!
"One day I—I dug into the addresses he gave me, the codes for the receivers—" and here she delved into NewCom speak; the way the networks had been restructured after the Internet hubs had stopped running a thousand servers twenty-four-seven. "He, he usually hid them, but I checked every time, and I..." Lydia sagged against Rolfe and Felix. I looked at Edward, but he wasn't looking at me. I could guess: Lydia had figured out that her next words would get her hostage killed.
Jane made the decision simple for her, her shrieks were like a violin being murdered.
"—outside Alwar! Within ten miles of the NeoCore!"
Caius and Aro exchanged a look, and then Caius's hand closed on Aro's wrist. Aro nodded.
"You have told us a great deal, servant," said Caius as Lydia gave up, letting herself hang from her captors' arms as if they were chains. "Unfortunately, it is not enough to save you."
Her head twitched, as if she'd considered looking up but had decided not to bother.
"You see, our own teams had already pieced this much together: Our old enemies have been recruiting and rebuilding and plan to attack us again. This is the way of the world. It is the way of Stefan especially," he said. "Your information may help us narrow down the location of their stronghold, but no more."
"Yes more!" she all but yelled. "Yes, there's more. Don't make it— Don't do it again, please!"
Caius turned the firestarter in his hand with a meaningful crackle.
"Build-building an army. An army of the young—made no sense. Ready mid—midwinter!"
A hissing murmur spread across the crowd like a breeze bending dead grass. Midwinter, when the nights were longest.
"And their target?" Caius asked pointedly. From the corner of my field of vision, I saw Edward lean forward, eyes going just a little wide.
"Here," Lydia gasped. "Volterra. Wanted—he wanted me to be ready. Learn shift schedules. Describe exits." She fell, then. "Let them in."
"Well my children," Caius said. "What do we make of this?"
The hissing sound became a snarl. Lydia's head twitched, like the last jolt of a maglev as its converters fail.
Aro didn't bother with Lydia's arm or shoulder, covering her forehead with his hand as if to hold her head underwater. I kept my eyes on Edward, watching him as he watched the master and imagining I could read the answers on his face. Aro looked up at Caius with a bland smile, folded his arms and stepped away. I'd learned to know the master's signals, and Aro had just yielded Caius the floor.
Caius raised both arms, "It seems our servant Lydia has told us all she knows of the enemies who bought her loyalty. Do you believe this earns her a quick death?"
I knew this answer. This was our reward. This was always our reward. I was no better. The bitch had tried to kill me. Just because I felt sorry for her, just because it was my own venom, and Edward's and Carlisle's, didn't mean my fingers weren't clenching involuntarily with the thought of tearing one of my own kind apart.
The chant came: "No master," and I was part of the chorus.
I had to do it. We'd talked about it, Edward and Caroly and me. If I got a good piece of her, an arm or an organ, where the guard could see, I would be clean. In the end, all I could manage was an ear and a chunk of hair. It seemed a lot of the guard wanted a piece of the traitor. But it was something to throw into the bonfire.
Edward slipped beside me as the flames sent the sweet dark incense that had been my first and only newborn into the smog above the city. "It was good," he whispered in my ear, soft as a kiss. "You and the flames. They will remember." And he kissed the side of my head as if it had all been love talk.
"At least it's over," I breathed, hoping he didn't feel the tension in my arms, how much I'd enjoyed killing my ...my whatever she was. But then, Edward was breathing hard himself, and his topaz eyes were bright. There were some instincts that didn't get civilized out, I guessed, or that came back if you lived with barbarians.
His hand rubbed from my shoulder to my elbow and back. "The guard no longer suspects you," he murmured, "but it isn't over."
I looked up at him, remembering the sudden gleam in Aro's dull eyes, and Edward answered the question in my mind, "He read the answers in her thoughts, Bella," he told me. "And we're going after the Romanians." He looked slowly around the room, and I watched his gaze stop on Caroly, Demetri, Rolfe. "All of us."
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