Luminosity

by Alicorn

  There were a small handful of vampires in the room. Most of them wore ordinary-looking street clothes, but the man who took notice of our presence wore a cloak like Santiago's. The hood was down, and I noticed as soon as I looked at him that he was not typical of the vampires I had met. His skin was the customary white, but translucent, like onion or frosted glass - not like the marble of any given Cullen or Santiago or James. His eyes were red, but with a milky cast over them, as though he had cataracts. He didn't seem to have impaired eyesight, but I supposed he could have had considerably inferior visual acuity compared to other vampires without looking myopic to me. He wore his black hair long, and it blended into his shroud.

  "Santiago, you've brought us visitors," he said, sounding for all the world like Santiago's dotty uncle who was only too pleased to have strangers to welcome. He spoke in a soft, airy voice, just enough for me to hear, and floated forth in a cloudlike drift. Where Alice moved like a ballerina, this vampire moved like a soap bubble. The other vampires in the room drifted to cluster near him. Some stood ahead of him. They left his view clear, but were prepared to get in the way if James (or, I supposed, I) should decide to attack. The rest coalesced behind him, peering over each other's shoulders.

  Santiago bowed deeply to him. When she straightened up, she moved forward with one white hand extended. He placed his palm over her knuckles and closed his eyes. A moment later, they broke the contact and Santiago backed away. "Interesting," murmured the onion-skinned vampire.

  That one would be Aro, then.

  I glanced at James. He looked like every passing second made him feel more strongly that this had been a bad idea. But he didn't speak up as Aro regarded him - and, intermittently, me - with a look of calm thoughtfulness on his face.

  "I'm afraid," said Aro beatifically, "that you have been misinformed, James."

  * * *

  "Misinformed about...?" James asked, clearly wrong-footed by Aro's statement.

  "This child," Aro said with a wave in my direction, "may well be a witch. That remains to be discerned. But we have not spoken of her with the coven you mentioned to Santiago. Nor have we made a practice of offering permission to violate rules in exchange for the capture of even so lovely a jewel."

  James was starting to flick his eyes between all the vampires in the room, of whom there were really quite a few.

  "You have been lied to," Aro said, with a sorrowful look on his face that had to be faked. "Rather cleverly, it would seem. My dear," he said, turning to me and tilting his head inquisitively, "was that story your invention?"

  I nodded, not trusting my voice in that moment.

  "Before we decide how to proceed, I should like to investigate your witchcraft," said Aro, holding forth a pale hand.

  I took six careful steps forward, resisting the temptation to look back at James, and placed my fingers against Aro's. His skin felt nearly normal for a vampire's, in spite of its unusual appearance - hard, but more brittle in texture, and colder than most.

  He closed his eyes.

  And then he opened them again.

  "Fascinating," he breathed. "And one more test... Jane, dear one?"

  He was addressing a physically young vampire, the shockingly beautiful planes of her ivory face all the more startling given that she looked perhaps fourteen. "Yes, Master," she cooed. Jane looked at me and smiled like a little angel. Nothing happened. I blinked at her, nonplussed - I didn't know what she was meant to have done - and her face twisted into an awful mask of hate. She made a sound like an angered snake.

  "Santiago, my pet, won't you fetch my brothers for me?" Aro said, ignoring Jane's livid expression and soft hiss. "I believe they will be intrigued to learn of our new guest."

  Santiago bowed again, and then she turned about with a swish of her cloak to retrieve - presumably - Marcus and Caius, who I surmised were not present in the room already. James let out a small snarl, which startled me enough that I whipped my head around to look at him like a scared rabbit.

  "James, my friend," said Aro soothingly. "It won't do for you to hold a grudge against our charming little witch. She was clearly acting in self-defense, as any reasonable person would. I should not like to have to decide a fight between the two of you. I'm sure you realize that while she would lose on her own merits, there is one thing you were not lied to about." Aro stretched his paper skin into a broad smile; it did not tear with strain. "We are very pleased with the acquisition of witches. Perhaps you have a talent of your own, that let you capture this charming young lady away from her guardians?" he guessed. "Will you show me?" And he held out his hand again. I shuffled away, wanting it to be possible for some Volturi guard member to intervene if James lunged for my throat.

  James approached Aro unwillingly, obviously conscious of all the eyes on him. The Volturi were accustomed to being obeyed. They reacted to disobedience with violence. James did not have time for inventive stunts with newborns here: if he fought, he would lose.

  The vampires' hands touched. Aro hummed to himself in thought while he absorbed James's memories.

  "You took a very serious risk with those new children you made," tutted Aro when they'd dropped their hands.

  James shifted edgily. He looked like he wanted to drop into a combative crouch and kept thinking better of it a fraction of the way through. "I knew the coven would control them," he muttered. "If they hadn't been there at the right time, I'd have killed the newborns while they were incapacitated with the change before taking the girl. They wouldn't have exposed us."

  "Mm," sighed Aro, tipping his head back to scrutinize the ceiling and clasping his hands behind his back. "I suppose that in such a small town it may have seemed a reasonable risk to take." James nodded dumbly.

  I had turned to face the door whence I'd come, and so I saw the entrance of two vampires who had to be Caius and Marcus, flanked by Santiago. James turned to see who'd arrived. The two new arrivals had Aro's same papery, fragile-looking skin and the same cataracts over their red eyes. One had similar long, black hair; this one had a bored, detatched expression. The second had hair as white as his face, and looked annoyed by everything his eyes landed on.

  "Marcus, Caius," Aro exclaimed in a jovial tone that didn't respond to the others' visible emotions at all. "We have received such a lovely surprise."

  * * *

  Aro summarized for his "brothers" the events from James's perspective in his lilting, fanciful sighs. He skipped over trivialities like the deaths of the baggage handler and the dog; apparently James had covered those up to his satisfaction. Caius spoke little - brief clarifying questions - and Marcus not at all, although at one time he got up from the thronelike chair he'd gone to sit in to brush his hand against Aro's and communicate wordlessly. Soon the explanation was complete.

  "And, dear child," Aro said to me, turning his gaze in my direction with a soft smile, "perhaps you could tell us the actual sequence of events leading up to your coming to visit us?"

  I inhaled deeply. If I were very, very lucky, Alice would have seen where I was and the Cullens would already be on their way to retrieve me. The only way to have our stories straight was if I told the truth - only the truth, not necessarily allof it, although major omissions of facts that could be obtained other ways wouldn't be wise. And of course the Volturi were probably not accustomed to having to learn things by being told of them out loud, so I had to expect they'd check up on me out of caution.

  I stumbled through a synopsis, stuttering at every third word. Partway through, my vision swam and the vampire woman standing behind me had to catch me to prevent my collapse - the stress, inadequate food, and insufficient sleep were catching up with me. I managed to retake my feet and continue the story.

  I had met the Cullen coven in Forks when I moved there. I'd gotten suspicious of them, although I hastened to add that most people wouldn't have my resources in connecting the dots and no one else suspected a thing. They'd sort of adopted me into their family. There were plans in the works t
o turn me at the beginning of the summer, where I could be zipped away from home without arousing suspicion. Which, I mentioned again, the Cullens were very careful about. James's coven had run across us while we were out as a group. He, with his habit of hunting interesting and well-protected targets, had fixated on me, which the Cullens' talents had detected. I explained the plan of action, how they had set it into motion, and the point of failure. I mentioned that my father was a cop, and had the resources to make a fairly extensive and inconvenient network of people curious if anything happened to me that I wasn't around to explain. But I was clear that I definitely wanted to become a vampire as soon as I could do it without arousing curiosity. (It would have been smart if I'd gotten started turning on Sunday night when that could have saved me from James; now that I was under the Volturi's power, it would be no additional help. They could destroy vampires without much expenditure of effort, and it was entirely up to them whether I or James lived.)

  I scrupulously avoided bringing up Victoria.

  "Thank you, dear," said Aro, having listened with calm attention to my entire haphazardly arranged narration. "We will now discuss our decision," he announced, seeming to direct his voice particularly towards a small vampire who couldn't have been more than fourteen when he was turned. In fact, he looked like Jane's twin - only slightly darker blonde hair and thinner lips differentiated their faces, although the boy's range of expressions seemed to be more neutral. He neither beamed nor scowled.

  The Volturi remained silent for a few moments, and I wondered if I was just unable to hear their voices as they reverted to their inaccessible pitches and speeds, but then I realized what they were waiting for. James's eyes rolled back in his head and he fell like a ragdoll to the floor. The fourteen-year-old immortal boy was gazing at the tracker with a cold steadiness that unnerved me.

  Then the child's red eyes slid up to look at me. I stood trembling, but didn't experience whatever was causing James to lie limply on the stones. If the boy was exercising his power against me, I was immune to that one, too.

  "Hmmm," Aro murmured. "It would seem that we cannot maintain our privacy in the typical manner. But, my lovely, you seem to be in some distress anyway. Perhaps you would prefer not to witness this when you could be sleeping."

  Sleep. Sleep sounded good. I was still in my pajamas, an old t-shirt and soft flannel pants, from when James had taken me from my bed. Did vampires have beds? Maybe that receptionist, Gianna, lived in their compound and I could borrow hers... I nodded, wobbling again.

  Aro inclined his head. "Oh," he said. "One question. What is it that happened to James's mate, Victoria?"

  "Dead," I whispered. James was still on the floor, unresponsive, and didn't hear or couldn't react.

  "Mm," sighed Aro. "Santiago, dear one, won't you see to our guest's needs?" He waved at me dismissively.

  I started to fall again, but Santiago whooshed across the room to break my fall, and then I passed out entirely.

  * * *

  I woke up under a fluffy duvet, snuggled in a bed more comfortable than my own. The room had a small window at the very top of the wall, which let in enough light to tell me that it was daytime - although I didn't know what day, at this point - and show me the contents of the room. Apart from the bed, there was a spindly wooden chair, which held a change of clothes. Under the chair was a basket with a lid. There were two doors into the room: one was closed, and one was open enough to reveal the little bathroom.

  On top of the outfit was a handwritten note.Please help yourself to anything you need from the bathroom, and these clothes, and the food under the chair. When you're ready, Santiago is waiting outside for you. There is no danger and no hurry. The note was signed "Gianna" - apparently she knew English. It was the most welcome piece of paper I'd ever seen in my life.

  I took a long, hot shower. I brushed my teeth. I blew my hair dry. The shampoo and other items were all labeled in Italian, but I guessed by packaging and the odd linguistic cognate which things were what, and got gloriously, spectacularly clean. I felt more alive and lucid than I had in days.

  Gianna had left me a blue t-shirt and a gray, swishy skirt. I was normally a pants sort of person, but Gianna was taller than me, and if these were her clothes, it made sense: the skirt would be more likely to fit than a pair of jeans. I put them on and checked myself out in the bathroom mirror. I looked basically normal. I could have been getting ready to go to school. School couldn't have seemed farther away.

  I opened the basket under the chair. Little cellophane bags of snackfood, an apple, a dinner roll, a candy bar - easy, quick food that would have been fine at room temperature while I slept. I ate all of it, even the oversalted chips, and then put the apple core and other debris in the chip bag and discarded it in the bathroom's wastebasket.

  I approached the other, closed door. Gianna had written that there was no danger. I didn't know for sure if that was true - but I'd been left to sleep, safely, given the chance to clean up and have breakfast. That didn't seem like the sort of treatment that would precede an execution without notice. I was, it seemed, actually witchy enough to hang onto my life. And related to an annoying enough profession to keep my heartbeat until a time of my choosing.

  I pushed open the door. Santiago, in her cowl, was indeed waiting outside the door. "Hello, Bella," she said. She was the first person to use my name since I'd arrived. I supposed Aro might have told her; he could have gotten it from James, who had heard me introduced. Still, it was a little surprising.

  "Hello, Santiago," I said. "Uh... thank you for your help." Her eyes were still burgundy, although they deepened to black around the pupil - I was talking to a thirsty vampire murderess and I still felt stupidly, profoundly grateful for her presence. Aro was vaguely creepy; but Santiago had a professional demeanor that made her feel predictable and safe. I was not designated food, and therefore she would not eat me.

  The Volturi were killers - but they were lawfulkillers. They could be bargained with, reasoned with. I'd made a good call in luring James to them.

  "I'm to conduct you to the hall," Santiago told me.

  "Okay," I said, and she turned without further explanation and led me through the maze that was the Volturi compound. Eventually, once I was starting to wonder if I didn't need to go back and sleep for a couple more hours after all, we reached the same round room full of vampires I'd been to before. "La tua cantante!" one of them was exclaiming as I entered - it sounded like Aro.

  There were different vampires in the hall this time.

  * * *

  By the time I registered that I ought to look twice at the faces off to the left, I was already swept up in Edward's intense embrace. "Bella," he whispered in my ear, holding me to him so tightly I was challenged to draw breath. "Bella, Bella, my Bella, you're alive..."

  "Did they tell you I wasn't?" I asked, winding my arms around him and leaning my head on his shoulder. "I'm fine. I had a bad day, or two, but I'm fine. How long have you been here?"

  "Hours!" he growled. "They wouldn't let us see you..."

  "I was sleeping. I really needed it. They could have let you in to check on me, though," I frowned.

  "Ah, but Bella, my dear," said Aro. He was sitting on one of the chamber's thrones, hands folded, expression benign. "They might have disturbed your rest. And, of course, we had much to discuss. It has been too long since we have had a visit from our old friend Carlisle and his coven."

  I looked over at the other Cullens who had arrived: Carlisle and Esme were there, but not the remaining four. "I'm sorry I kept you waiting," I told Edward, looking up at him. "I didn't see any way to get in touch with you that wouldn't have been too dangerous until I finally got here, and then I basically told my story and passed out."

  "Don't be sorry," he said, squeezing me tighter. "I am so glad you're safe. I can't believe I was so irresponsible -"

  "Hey," I said. "It was my suggestion that you hunt, and if you hadn't, you might have died trying to fight James off. N
obody we like is dead. That is a good thing." I glanced at Aro. "Uh... What happened to James?"

  Aro tilted his head. "You needn't worry about him anymore, dear Bella," he said smoothly.

  "They didn't like his stunt with the newborns," Edward muttered in my ear. "And didn't think they could control him as a member of the guard - and they already have a better tracker."

  I nodded faintly and leaned against Edward for comfort. There had been more deaths than I liked, even if I had no reason to care for James or his mate and hadn't known the baggage handler. Or the dog. "What happened to the newborns?" I asked in a soft voice.

  Edward twined his fingers in my hair. "Two are dead," he said, voice full of regret. "The third was sufficiently under control that we're trying to bring him into the family, but it's going to be hard for him. He didn't have the warning you do. The others are at home now, supervising him. I don't think you knew any of them." He listed some names, none familiar - the one who was still breathing was named David. "They weren't able to kill anyone else," Edward assured me before I asked, "before my family got to them."

  "Is it safe for me to be around David?" I asked. "If it's not..."

  Edward winced. "I thought of that. We aren't sure what to do."

  "Maybe you'd better turn me early," I sighed. "We'll think of some story..."

  "On top of the story we're already trying to cook up to explain your disappearance?" Edward asked. "And the disappearances of the three legally dead? That's a lot of stories, Bella."

  I frowned. "Right. It will smooth over better if I'm there in obvious good health, fit to be seen in public. Uh..." I wracked my brain. "Do the Denalis live in a more remote location? Would they take him?"