Siobhan asked Liam to trust her, and he reluctantly agreed to see how things would work out. Siobhan made it clear that Liam was her first priority, and he became reconciled to Maggie‘s presence more quickly than Siobhan had expected.
Siobhan also enjoyed Maggie‘s company more than she expected. She felt very maternal toward the girl, and fell naturally into the kind of close relationship she‘d had with her own mother. She also enjoyed the advantage Maggie‘s talent gave her in any kind of interaction.
Maggie learned to control her vocalizations, so she was able to simply nod or shake her head slightly to communicate whether or not someone was being honest. As long as she knew Siobhan was hearing the truth, she was comfortable.
While Siobhan was happy with her choice to include Maggie in her coven, she felt no desire to seek out other talented humans. Her curiosity about that world was satisfied.
FAMOUS QUOTE
“Shall I visualize the outcome I desire?” Breaking Dawn, Chapter 34
James‘s Coven
James, a tracker who loved the hunt, sought out the company of a few other vampires in order to use their help in his ongoing tracking games. His coven was nomadic. The members, all of whom are now deceased, drank human blood, as do most vampires, and they spent the majority of their lives outdoors. Because they never made the attempt to blend in with humans, they did not see the need to pay close attention to personal appearance; they looked feral to other vampires and to humans.
NAME: James
DATE OF BIRTH: Around 1780
DATE OF TRANSFORMATION: Around 1805, at approximately age 25
SOURCE OF TRANSFORMATION: A French vampire
PLACE OF ORIGIN: Present-day northwestern Pennsylvania, near Lake Erie HAIR COLOR: Light brown
EYE COLOR: Red/black (vampire)
HEIGHT: 5‘10‖
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: With an average build and nondescript features, James was not as beautiful as most vampires.
SPECIAL ABILITIES: He was a skilled tracker, able to sense in advance the most likely moves of his prey.
FAMILY/COVEN RELATIONSHIPS: His mate was Victoria. Laurent also traveled in his coven for a short while.
PERSONAL HISTORY:
James was born near the end of the American Revolution. His father was a French trapper and his mother was an English girl who had come to the Americas as an indentured servant and subsequently run away from her master. They lived a nomadic lifestyle, spending most of their time on the trail and occasionally returning to Montreal or Pittsburgh to trade.
James was raised to track and trap, and he learned quickly. The Iroquois killed his parents before his eleventh birthday, but already his skills were developed enough that he was able to survive on his own. He gained a measure of fame during his late teens and early twenties as the best tracker on the frontier, as well as sometimes being called the ugliest. He didn‘t care about his face; all he cared about was winning. He was boastful about his prowess, and always up for a challenge. He won all contests of skill, until one night in Montreal, when he met a mysterious Frenchman — also claiming to be a tracker — who found James‘s confidence amusing. The Frenchman offered to best him in any test, his only condition being that the competition had to be at night. James was unimpressed by the dandified appearance of his competitor, and he agreed without hesitation, even when the Frenchman — seemingly in jest — upped the stakes to life or death. James‘s test was to release a marked deer into the wild, allow it an hour to run or hide, and then track it. Of course, the Frenchman found the deer in a matter of minutes. He returned the carcass to James, who had just begun his search, and reminded James that his life was forfeit.
James — who had witnessed the speed with which the Frenchman moved and also saw no evidence of traditional hunting methods on the deer‘s body — cried foul. He said the Frenchman obviously had an undisclosed advantage, perhaps witchcraft or demonic help. If James were given the same advantage, he was sure he could beat the Frenchman.
The French vampire was entertained by James‘s brash confidence. He agreed to give James the exact advantage he himself had, thinking it a good joke to end the bet by taking James‘s life in a different way. He bit James and left, laughing, offering a rematch in a decade or so.
He was quite pleased with his heightened abilities, and surprised that he was no longer considered ugly.
James adjusted to vampire life fairly easily. He was quite pleased with his heightened abilities, and surprised that he was no longer considered ugly. But that didn‘t soften him toward the Frenchman. It was only about six months after the newborn madness had faded when he found the French vampire and killed him — James‘s idea of winning the bet.
Being a vampire made normal tracking — James‘s lifelong pursuit — somewhat boring. His senses were so developed that it was child‘s play to track any animal or human. To liven things up, James began giving himself harder and harder challenges. He would pick someone on a crowded city street, allow himself one sniff, and then walk away from the chase for a week or a month. Then he would return to the scene and track that individual. When that became too easy, he would do the same thing on a crowded dock, follow the ship a few months later, and search for his victim in another country. Sometimes these hunts took years, but James always found his prey. Because of his success, this got boring, too. He looked for bigger challenges, and began moving away from the practice of tracking for food. Instead he tracked vampires, a more worthy prey. This practice nearly cost him his life a few times, when he‘d killed one member of a coven and then been set upon by the vengeful remnants. These dangerous experiences did not stop him; he enjoyed the escalated consequences of his game.
James met Victoria in England while playing this game. He caught the vampire scent, and though he had no idea whom he was tracking, he tried to hunt her down. It was the longest hunt he ever embarked on. No matter how fast he moved, she was one step ahead. He realized quickly that she somehow knew he was after her, though she‘d had no warning. He got close enough a few times to catch glimpses of the beautiful redhead, but she always escaped. After a few years of endless chasing, James was intrigued. He knew his tracking abilities went beyond just having excellent senses. He had a gift: He could predict his prey‘s moves in advance. But this vampire seemed to have a similar ability to know his own plans. He no longer wanted to kill the vampire; he wanted to learn more about her.
Unbeknownst to him, the less he meant her actual harm, the less effective her own skill became. She could feel the shift and eventually allowed him to catch up with her — in a place she‘d chosen for its easy escape routes, just in case. She was also curious about this dogged pursuer who could somehow always find her trail again.
Victoria‘s super-developed sense of self-preservation made teaming up with such a lethal vampire look promising.
His own desires were always more important to him than Victoria was.
There was an immediate attraction between the two. They teamed up for more reasons than attraction, however. Victoria‘s super-developed sense of self-preservation made teaming up with such a lethal vampire look promising. James knew his ongoing search for the next big challenge was only going to get him into more dangerous circumstances as time went on; joining forces with a vampire so good at escaping would be a definite benefit. After a time, Victoria was totally bound to him; he was her mate. However, James was never as committed to the relationship. His own desires were always more important to him than Victoria was.
James did not view Victoria‘s survival as a failure, because he had found her and — in a way — claimed her life. He considered Alice Cullen his only failure.
While pursuing a different hunt, James came across Alice‘s scent. She was what the Volturi call ―a singer‖ for James. The scent was very old, but James had tracked older. So, not abandoning his other hunt, James paused for a snack. Victoria, always the cautious one, was the first to be aware of the other vampire involved when James found the a
sylum where Alice had been incarcerated. She made James pause to get the lay of the land, thinking there might be more than one vampire; possibly this area was their hunting land, the asylum their headquarters. James never truly forgave her for making him hesitate in light of what happened.
The second James caught her scent, Alice saw a vision of him coming to kill her.
The second James caught her scent, Alice saw a vision of him coming to kill her. She confided in her only friend, the old vampire who worked nights in the asylum. This vampire knew Alice was special and cared about her like a daughter. He decided to save her from James, but she foresaw failure after failure, and he started to realize what he was up against. He stole her from the asylum and hid her as well as he could, biting her before he left her alone. He went back to try to delay James, knowing he was no match for the strong tracker but hoping to give Alice the time she had foreseen might be enough to keep her alive. James easily overpowered the older vampire. As a precaution, Victoria questioned the old one, using rather extreme measures to extract all information about Alice and anyone else involved. James found the vampire‘s concern for Alice and interest in her baffling but intriguing. He paid attention to the story — until he found out that the old one had bitten Alice. He left Victoria with the still-living vampire and continued on to his prize. He was disappointed to find Alice clearly in the last throes of the vampire conversion — though she made no sound, an aftereffect of the shock treatments. All of her blood had been changed by the transformation, and there was no satisfying snack to be had. Alice was totally vulnerable, too lost in the pain of the process to even notice James‘s presence. He watched her wake and scramble away to look for blood, in the typical newborn fashion. He wondered if she would be special, as the old one believed. He decided to give her time to develop into a worthy adversary, though she looked too tiny and weak to give him much hope.
Irritated by the loss of her blood, he returned and destroyed the old vampire.
As James grew more and more ambitious in his games, Victoria grew more cautious.
As James grew more and more ambitious in his games, Victoria grew more cautious. She was the one who suggested teaming up with expendable allies just for the sake of numbers. They did this successfully a few times, letting the additions act as the canary in the mine during potentially dangerous situations, cannon fodder in others.
Laurent was wilier and more skilled than some others James and Victoria had chosen, so he lasted longer. He enjoyed the novelty of James‘s lifestyle. They all worked together easily through a couple of uneventful hunts.
James and Victoria heard rumors of large clans of vampires claiming areas in the Pacific Northwest, and James was attracted to the rumors of these unusually large covens. Victoria was wary; she wanted to find more backup, but James didn‘t want to waste time. He thought Laurent was more than enough.
The surprise of seeing Alice there only fueled this desire to win at last.
James had no immediate objective in mind when they first met the Cullens. This was just an information-gathering trip. He let Laurent lead the way so that if the coven was hostile, Laurent would be their first priority. James was shocked and then thrilled by Bella‘s presence and Edward‘s protectiveness. Here was a hunt that would combine the best of both worlds: a delicious prize (though Bella was not a singer for James, she smelled much sweeter than the average human), and a huge coven bent on protecting her. He was determined to get to the prize before she was ruined, as Alice had been. The surprise of seeing Alice there only fueled this desire to win at last. He hoped that as they had not turned the girl so far, they had a reason for not acting, but he couldn‘t be sure.
―I THOUGHT THIS ROOM WOULD BE VISUALLY DRAMATIC FOR MY
LITTLE FILM. THAT‘S WHY I PICKED THIS PLACE TO MEET YOU. IT‘S
PERFECT, ISN‘T IT?‖
— James, to Bella (Twilight, Chapter 22)
James was furious when he learned of Laurent‘s defection, but in his hurry to get Bella before someone thought to change her, he postponed vengeance until after the hunt.
The hunt proved a huge disappointment. Rather than keeping Bella physically under his protection, as James would have preferred, Edward opted to try misdirection. Following his hunches, James wound up in the same city as Bella, and then struck upon a successful lure to separate her from the vampires. He was hopeful, however, that Edward and his family‘s search for revenge would prove more exciting.
He lied to Bella just once, in the dance studio. Of Alice, he said, ―So I guess her coven ought to be able to derive some comfort from this experience. I get you, but they get her.‖ In fact, he had no intention of letting Alice live. Now that Alice was able to care for herself and had the support of a strong coven, James planned to finish that hunt, too.
FAMOUS QUOTES
“You brought a snack?” Twilight, Chapter 18
“To be quite honest, I"m disappointed. I expected a much greater challenge.” Twilight, Chapter 22
“I never will understand the obsession some vampires seem to form with you humans.”
Twilight, Chapter 22
NAME: Laurent
DATE OF BIRTH: 1700s
DATE OF TRANSFORMATION: 1740s, at approximately age 40
SOURCE OF TRANSFORMATION: Boris
PLACE OF ORIGIN: Paris, France
HAIR COLOR: Black
EYE COLOR: Red/black (vampire)
HEIGHT: 5‘9‖
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Laurent had glossy black hair and pale skin with a slight olive tone. He had a medium, slightly muscular frame and an easy smile.
SPECIAL ABILITIES: He did not possess a quantifiable supernatural ability.
FAMILY/COVEN RELATIONSHIPS: He was once part of a coven with James and Victoria. He later formed an attachment to Irina in Denali.
PERSONAL HISTORY:
Laurent was born into an aristocratic but financially embarrassed family during the reign of King Louis XIV. He was the third son, and he had little in the way of prospects. Thanks to his older brother‘s marriage into a more prosperous family, Laurent was recommended for a minor position in the court of the Sun King. Laurent loved being a part of the court and had ambitions to rise. He was always attracted to people with power, and curried their favor. He had a knack for discerning who the most important person was in any given grouping, and then attaching himself to that person. There was a certain way about Laurent that made anyone he singled out feel more important. So he did well among the other aristocrats, and had a promising future.
His life changed when a mysterious ambassador, purportedly from the Romanov court in Russia, made a diplomatic visit to the French court. The ambassador‘s strange behavior was attributed to cultural differences. He came out of his quarters only at night, kept a retinue of mute servants and soldiers who were totally obedient, and always put off discussions of matters of state. He did seem to enjoy the entertainments of the French court immensely and was very interested in King Louis‘s art collection.
Laurent was irresistibly drawn to the Russian ambassador, who seemed to Laurent to exude true power.
Laurent was irresistibly drawn to the Russian ambassador, who seemed to Laurent to exude true power. More even than the king himself, the Russian ambassador had no fear of any man.
The ambassador — a fun-loving Russian vampire named Boris who enjoyed human revelry — was flattered by the eager and admiring Laurent. He struck up a friendship with the French boy. When it was time for the Russian ambassador to leave (the number of vanished serving men and women was beginning to alarm many), he invited Laurent to go with him.
Laurent‘s love of the powerful made this an easy decision; his instincts told him that Boris was more powerful than anyone he‘d ever met.
Boris and Laurent became so close that eventually Boris told Laurent the truth about himself. Laurent begged to have the gift of power and immortality for himself. Boris was happy to comply.
For a while Boris and Laurent were
companions, but Laurent quickly grew tired of Boris‘s jovial habits. Once Laurent was introduced to the vampire world, it was clear to him that there were others much more powerful than Boris.
The next relationship that changed Laurent‘s life was with Vladimir, one of the surviving Romanians. Vladimir still radiated some of the power he had once held, and Laurent‘s reaction to that power was predictable. He did not follow Vladimir for long — Stefan was opposed to adding any new vampires to their number, favoring mobility and secrecy over everything else—
but it was long enough. When he at last came in contact with the Volturi, he was already tainted.
The Volturi were the epitome of vampire power, exactly the kind of vampires Laurent wanted to be with. But when he was brought to Aro as a prospective lesser-guard applicant, Aro saw the brief encounter with the Romanians and sent him away as untrustworthy. Laurent was unaware that members of the Volturi followed him for a few decades, hoping he would lead them to Vladimir.
The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide (twilight) Page 19