I lost him, Walter reported in his thoughts with a startled inflection. Me too, he just vanished, Cody blurted into his thoughts. The two wolf-men had stopped their pursuit and were sniffing about them for a new trail.
What about the tracks, Sam queried the pair?
His tracks, his scent, it's all gone, Cody and Walter reported back.
The shape-shifters took the Cullen's claims about this vampire with a heavy dose of disbelief. It was their suspicion that the tricks of this vampire worked better against other vampires than it would against them. They believed their sense of smell, sight and hearing was far too acute to be completely fooled by anyone. For them, an invisible vampire was simply an added amusement to the chase.
More than the loss of the vampire's scent, Walter and Cody were thoroughly confused by the absence of his tracks. It appeared to them as if the trail had somehow been lifted out of the snow.
Stay where you are. We're coming.
Walter and Cody reluctantly complied with Sam's instruction. They both suspected that the Ghost Walker was nearby and was probably getting a read on their scent. The changing winds made it impossible for them to stay downwind of the vampire. Stealth was a matter of distance in this environment and they suspected, based on the reported reach of this vampire's invisibility glamour, they were well within range of his sense of smell. The instincts of the two shape-shifters were to race forward and engage the vampire before he could slip away.
He must have slowed so that he could project his glamour. Jacob pondered into his thoughts.
Why would he do that, a dozen minds queried all at once?
All of the shape-shifters believed that the destination of the Ghost Walker was the Cullen home. Considering his distance from the house, slowing down did not make sense to any of them. Even Jacob was hard pressed to make sense of this. The shape-shifters were accustomed to the limits of a vampire's sense of smell. Years of shadowing them had made them experts at the task. Because of this they gave no thought to the idea that the Ghost Walker had detected them before stopping. They considered it equally unlikely that he had detected someone else. By their read of the terrain, no one else was in range of the vampire's sense of smell. It did not take long for several of the shape-shifters to latch-on to the only other possibility left, Edward. The mind reading vampire could hear the thoughts of others over a large distance. The Ghost Walker was likely shielding himself from this intrusion.
He's in Cullen territory now. He's hiding himself from the mind reader.
A chorus of thoughts similar to this one erupted into the collective consciousness of the shape-shifters. An instant after, Walter and Cody made an announcement within their thoughts.
His trail, it's back.
The two large wolf-men could once again see the physical trail of the Ghost Walker's path and smell his scent. They took note, as well, that the scent was now moving away from the Cullen home.
You got too close. He picked up your scent," half a dozen thoughts like this exploded into the group consciousness.
The shape-shifters now knew that trapping the vampire was no longer possible. Pursuit and capture was now the game and preferably before he reached a river. Should that happen their only recourse would be to wait for him on land and hope they found his trail again. This, however, was the lesser of two evils. If the vampire reached the ocean or an inlet there would be nothing they could. There was one good to come out of this from the shape-shifter's perspective. The Ghost Walker could not extend his glamour of invisibility while running at full speed and if he slowed to do so they would have him for sure.
This was Ambrose Pennington's third excursion onto the Olympic Peninsula. The territory of the Olympic Coven had become an area of fascination for him. This was due to one factor. It was the home of the only being he knew of that could see him when his invisibility glamour was extended. This ability of the vampire, Bella Cullen, was a gnawing irritation to him. Even when he pushed it aside and found something new to distract him, it always returned to aggravate him. The very thought of her generated an unsettling tremor within him. The feeling reminded him of his days as a human on the streets of London. This sensation regularly dredged up memories of fear and a want to curl up in a corner and hide. Each time this happened he would shortly shake off the sensation and grow angry for having to relive it. It was after a year of enduring this that Ambrose came to the conclusion that he could no longer suffer Bella Cullen to live.
During his first visit to the Olympic Peninsula, the novice vampire was nowhere to be found. The adventure, however, was not without its benefits. He learned that he could move about the other members of the coven, undetected, as easily as he could any other vampire he knew of. This gave him the confidence to return for a second visit nearly a year later. During this visit he found, at first, no evidence of Bella Cullen. Shortly into the second half of this sojourn onto the peninsula he ran across her scent leading straight to the Cullen house. He followed it until he was in visual range of the home. Here he spent two days outside the home, savoring her scent like a dog slobbering after a piece of meat that was just beyond his reach. He left, only after, the entire coven returned to the peninsula. Evading four members of the coven simultaneously, he knew, would be difficult enough. Evading all eight, he suspected, would be impossible.
Ambrose returned for his third try after more than a year's absence. For him, this time away served only to heighten his desire for Bella's head. It was his hope that the Coven had dispersed once again and that Bella was still somewhere on the peninsula. He would try for her, if he could find her alone somewhere. Her death was a compulsion that was only being constrained by his fear of dying.
The winter season was not his favorite time for this kind of activity. This was because he could project his invisibility glamour only so far, beyond that his tracks in the snow gave him away. He chose to ignore this inconvenience for this trip simply because his eagerness to be after Bella devalued it into a minor consideration. There was also the fact that he had grown familiar with the peninsula and its occupants. He knew all of the possible hazards here and considered them to be minimal at best. The least among these, by his estimation, was the shape-shifting Indians that called the peninsula their home. He considered them a minor threat to him physically and he suspected they were aware of this too. This was the only explanation he could think of for their timid behavior.
In the past, the shape-shifters showed to Ambrose a knack for finding his trails and shadowing him from afar. This was due to the fact that they ranged across vast distances on a daily basis. The area they covered was far greater than what any vampire would regularly commit to. Ambrose understood that staying undetected from them for an extended period of time was nearly impossible. However, the giant wolf-men never appeared to be interested in taking him on in a fight. They never approached in numbers greater than two and they never gave chase when he gave them the slip. Their only interest, it seemed to him, was to monitor his movements. The fact that the Cullens made this their home inclined him to believe they were essentially inoffensive. Because of this, the sudden smell of two of them at his rear, while surprising, had no effect on this perception. It was the scent of two more, approaching from another direction that elevated his alarm greatly.
Ambrose instantly projected his invisibility glamour and set off, at a walk, in the direction that best separated him from the two groups of shape-shifters. After a minute of travel, he noted that the scent of the pair on his trail was falling away and that the scent of the second pair was still getting stronger. This information gave him reason to be confident. The second pair had yet to enter the envelope of his invisibility glamour. He knew that this would soon be the case and then they too would hold up to ponder the loss of his scent. Ambrose's plan was simply to wait nearby with his glamour extended until the wolf-men lost interest and took off to range elsewhere. This was the normal pattern of behavior for the wolf-men. The only difference in this situation was the number of
shape-shifters he was detecting and the fact that they were coming from different directions. Were it not for the fact that he knew better, he would think that the wolf-men were trying to trap him. That would explain the second pair coming towards him from a direction where he had no trail. Ambrose quickly relegated this idea to nonsense. The shape-shifters, he thought, would need walkie-talkies to coordinate such an act.
Ambrose had no knowledge of the inner workings of the shape-shifters. This was due exclusively to the fact that he cared nothing for the capabilities of these wolf-men beyond what he already knew. It seemed obvious to him that the only difference between them and any normal wolf was their size and their intellect. What more was there to know that would have any value to him? This opinion of the shape-shifters was, up until a minute further, unchallenged. The sudden scent of a dozen or more shape-shifters converging on his location, from still a third direction gave him cause to reconsider. The realization that they were, indeed, hunting him and in great numbers, was terrifying to Ambrose. It took him little more than a second to awaken from the shock, drop his invisibility glamour and race away from all three groups of wolf-men at the best speed he had ever produced.
The swirling winds made it next to impossible for Ambrose to keep track of the wolf-men while running at full speed. He considered coming to a stop to sample the air for their scent, but a second thought quickly dispelled that idea. He knew that if the wolf-men were still pursuing then they were less than a minute away from being on top of him.
Keep running. Their scent will catch up if they're still coming, Ambrose repeated in his thoughts.
Ambrose maintained a steady course for the nearest river, half expecting, half hoping that this was all for nothing. The idea that they might be pursuing him was still favored in his thoughts as a mistake. Their presence in my vicinity, in these numbers have to a coincidence, Ambrose pondered in his thoughts. Thirty seconds later his resistance was shattered for good. The scent of the wolf-men returned and it was approaching from multiple directions.
Ambrose dared not to stop, or even slow down to deploy his glamour of invisibility. He did not want to lose the distance between the wolf-men and he. The safety of the river was far more reassuring and he raced on towards it without thought to concealing his movement. With each passing second the scent of the wolf-men grew stronger, as did their number. The swirling winds revealed that they were coming from nearly a semicircle of directions in his rear and they were close. Ambrose's fear increased in pace with their approach.
I'm not going to make it. I'm not going to make it; Ambrose began to repeat in his thoughts. His growing anxiety was tempting him to fall back on that which he did best, hide. He was seconds away from abandoning his run when the smell of the river rushed in like a flood. He raced on with renewed determination, even as the sound of the wolf-men sprinting behind began to sound in his ears. Twenty seconds later the river was twenty yards away, at the bottom of a shallow embankment. Ambrose jumped head first, from the tree-line of the forest, thirty yards into the river. He did not see the shape-shifters run up to the water's edge five seconds later.
The river was nearly one-hundred yards wide and thirty feet deep at the center. Ambrose swam out towards the middle along the river's bottom and then turned with the current. He began pulling himself along the bottom with his hands, his glamour of invisibility extending one-quarter of a mile out in all directions. He spent the remainder of the night and all of the next morning hauling himself, hand over hand, down the river. During the whole of this time he cursed the Quileute shape-shifters in between promises to one day have his revenge.
10- Report on the Ghost Walker
The Cullens had no indicator that anything of significance had happened during the night that just passed. When Sam Uley called and said he needed to speak with them, the whole family was taken by surprise. They were grateful to hear that the shape-shifters were communicating with them. However, the topic for this day's meeting was a mystery to them all.
Outside the Cullen home, it was a pleasant noon February day, by human standards. The temperature was slightly below freezing and the air had only a slight breeze in it. A thin overcast of clouds glowed white from the effects of the sun's rays. Snow blanketed the landscape two feet high and caked atop anything that could hold its weight. The countryside about the house was still and quiet up until the moment Jacob's Charger rumbled up the access road and parked in front of the house. Within half a dozen seconds, from the time the engine was shut down, Jacob, Sam, Paul and Embry had climbed out of the vehicle. All looked to be seriously undressed for the weather and acted indifferent to same. They promptly filed up to the front door of the Cullen home without a word being passed between them. The door opened the instant they assembled there. Esme ushered the four shape-shifters into her home with a pleasant demeanor and then closed the door behind them.
"They have something to tell us, and they don't know how we're going to take it."
Edward whispered these words to Carlisle, Bella, Jasper, Rosalie and Emmett just as the shape-shifters entered the house. No one thought to query Edward about this. They knew he would not be able to answer before the shape-shifters entered the living-room where they were.
"Sam, Jacob, Paul, Embry, welcome," Carlisle greeted as the four stepped into the room.
The Cullens, minus Esme, were standing in a cluster in the center of the room. The shape-shifters came to a stop half a dozen feet opposite of them. Esme continued on across to stand with her family. She then turned about to face the shape-shifters before adding some hospitality to Carlisle's greeting.
"Won't you have a seat?"
"No," Sam responded bluntly. "We've come to tell you something that you'll probably find out any way, sooner or later." Sam gave a nod towards Edward as he spoke the last part of his remark.
"We're listening," Carlisle responded calmly.
Sam paused to give the Cullens a brief study before starting his report. "The Ghost Walker was here last night."
Sam paused again to note the reactions of the family of vampires. They were clearly surprised to be hearing this. The Cullens looked about at each other briefly with perplexed expressions. After two seconds of this, Jasper took point with the family's response.
"Why weren't we told of this when it happened?"
"We don't report to vampires," Paul quickly answered back with a packaged response.
"He got away?" Bella questioned with a surprised inflection.
"We'll get him next time," Sam responded back.
Edward, as usual, studied the shape-shifters intensely as he gathered their story from out of their thoughts. Carlisle and Esme shortly returned to their calm and unexpressive demeanors, and Alice and Jasper expressed a quiet annoyance with this report. Rosalie and Emmett, unlike the others, were agitated to the point of animated reactions.
"There would be no need for a next time if you had told us this last night." Emmett bellowed with an angry toss of his hands.
"Stupid mutts," Rosalie spouted as she brought her hands to her hips, her words overlapping Emmett's complaint.
"There's nothing you could have done," Jacob spoke up with a hint of defiance.
"We could have helped you," Jasper quickly insisted.
"We don't need your help," Embry countered in a huff.
"Obviously you do," Rosalie argued back loudly.
"You couldn't have caught him," Paul angrily countered.
"Bella can see him," Alice retaliated sharply. "Can any of your hounds do that?"
"We don't have to see him," Paul responded right back. "We can smell him from over a mile away."
"Apparently that wasn't good enough," Rosalie retorted snidely.
"The winds kept shifting on us," Sam reported somberly. "He smelled us before we could close the trap. It won't happen again."
"You've got that right," Rosalie spat out with an incredulous shake of her head.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Paul challenged.
"Let him," Embry boldly spoke out. "We're not afraid of the Ghost Walker."
Rosalie was just about to respond to this when Carlisle cut her off.
"Enough! What's done is done."
The room went quiet in response to Carlisle's direction. He, in turn, paused to note this before continuing with his thought.
"Sam, it's important that you contact us when the Ghost Walker is on the peninsula from now on."
"Next time we will call," Sam Uley concurred soberly. "But we will not wait for you."
"Understood," Carlisle agreed with an affirmative nod of his head. He then paused for a moment to reflect on his next thought and then gently moved half a step closer to Sam. "You should also consider giving us access onto the reservation."
The instant he made this suggestion, Paul and Embry went into displays of animated disapproval. Jacob visibly stiffened, as well, in response to the idea.
"Vampires must never be allowed onto our lands," Embry yelled, more so for Sam's benefit than Carlisle's.
"We will never allow a vampire on Quileute land." Paul's roar, overlapped Embry's and was completely for Carlisle's benefit.
Sam regarded the request with a poker face expression. After taking a couple of seconds to consider, he then responded with the same calm as his deliberation. "This we cannot do."
Jacob, Paul and Embry were visibly relieved to hear this response. Carlisle immediately went to work on trying to overturn this decision.
"If this vampire returns, he may come after you and yours," Carlisle warned in his most sincere tone of expression.
"Let him try," Paul laughed defiantly.
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