'Relax, Bella' Alice said. 'Jess and Angela don't know you've transformed, they'll just think your new face is part of the make-up.'

If my heart could still beat it would be fluttering at the speed of sound. I hadn't seen my human friends since my wedding. What would they think in an hour's time when they see me again, me with pale complexion, cold skin and a somewhat more beautiful face? I walked to the dressing table to check myself in the mirror.

'Alice, these fangs are horrible,' I complained, 'and the red contacts cloud my vision.'

'Ha,' she snorted. 'You've done nothing but complain since I proposed the party.'

I poked my tongue out at her. Tonight was Halloween – and my sister came up with the rotten idea of turning our house into a crypt and hold a party for our human friends. That wasn't bad, no – Alice was genius when it came to decorating houses. It was the fact that she wanted all of us to pretend to be vampires. Traditional vampires. Red eyes, fangs, bat wings and all that conventional human nonsense…

***

'No!' we all said to her last week. 'Alice, we're trying to keep our existence hidden, announcing outright to humans that we're vampires kind of breaks the Volturi's code of conduct.'

'Aww come on,' she begged. 'By dressing up as the traditional vampires, there's no way a human would think we are vampires. They'll just think we have excellent costumes and makeup. Besides, I can see nothing bad coming out of it. In fact – ' and here Alice squinted into the future ' – Jess is going to walk out of the party telling Mike to buy her the best vampire outfit he can find.'

Carlisle sighed, and we knew the battle was lost. There was no point in trying to argue with Alice when she got stubborn…

***

'Almost time, almost time,' I said nervously, glancing at the ornate grandfather clock. 'They'll be coming in an hour.'

'Good,' Alice's voice echoed from several floors up, where I could here her draping cobwebs into place. 'Why don't you go down to the basement and make sure that the coffins I ordered are all in place?'

The basement would be the first room our human visitors were to go after entering the house and into the dining room. Alice wanted all of us to hide in those coffins – pretend to actually sleep in them. Ugh. Then she wanted us to jump out and spook the humans. I rustled my cape irritably and trooped into the basement.

There were eight coffins in all. Nessie was to stay with Jacob and hit our party later, pretending to be an outsider – Jess would be extremely mystified if she found another addition to the Cullen household. I opened the door to the basement, and saw eight coffins, lavishly decorated, propped against the walls.

No, not eight. Nine. Nine coffins in total.

The ninth coffin was very large, the only one in the middle of the room, placed horizontally.

It obviously didn't belong with the other coffins. This one was so much more plain, and of a different style. It was even bigger than Emmett's coffin.

Jacob's?

Was this his idea of a Halloween joke?

I heard a rustle of cotton and Alice was by my side.

'Good, you're here,' I said. 'Alice, did you bring in that coffin?'

'No, I didn't,' she frowned. 'Everything just blurred out of my vision then, so I came down to see what was the matter.'

'Well, must be Jacob,' I concluded. 'The werewolves and Nessie are the only ones you can't see.'

'He's probably laughing his head off in there,' Alice grumbled.

'I hope he suffocates,' I added.

'Is the dog in our house?' Rosalie's musical voice echoed down the hallway, slightly distorted with distaste.

'Yep,' Alice replied.

'Gah,' Rosalie muttered. 'Now the whole house is going to stink.'

'Jacob, get out of there,' I called out and strode across the room to open the coffin. There was no reply. I flipped the lid back –

To find a complete stranger sleeping inside.

'Not Jacob?' Alice asked and walked to my side. Her jaw dropped open. We turned slowly to look at each other, then back at the strange man. He had an odd scent about him. Like…laboratory.

'His hair's a mess,' Alice commented, 'and his cloak is in complete tatters.'

I looked closely at the sleeping stranger. A red bandage was wrapped over his head, and his hair covered half of it. He wore a blood red cape which hid his mouth from view. Golden armour covered his left arm and both feet. Belts and buckles were strapped all over his body.

'The armour looks nice,' I said.

The man opened his eyes.

They were blood red.

And they were not contacts.

He was definitely not an albino.

But he had red eyes. Red. Eyes.

My first reaction was, vampire!

'Are you a half immortal?' Alice demanded.

'What's going on?' Rosalie came into the room.

The man sat up and rubbed his head.

'Who are you anyway?' I asked. 'Who, and what, are you?'

'Vincent,' he answered. 'Vincent Valentine.'

There was a long pause.

'Where am I?'

'In our house, which you have no right to be in,' Rosalie snapped. 'In fact, we have visitors coming in fifty minutes and it would be greatly appreciated if you could get out by then.'

'Are you a friend of Carlisle's from hospital?' I asked.

'Not likely,' Rosalie scoffed. 'No doctor would dress like that.'

'You know,' I said to my sisters, 'he does look like a guy on his way to a Halloween party dressed as a vampire.'

'How?'

'Minus the fangs, he has pale skin, extraordinarily red eyes, and his cape is quite fascinating. Oh, and the coffin sleeping,' I replied.

'Vampire capes are black.' Alice rolled her eyes.

'What are vampires?' the man asked as he climbed out the coffin. His movements were very graceful, and slightly faster than a normal human's. A silver charm hung out from a pouch behind his butt.

'What's that?' I pointed at the charm. It looked like some winged, three headed creature.

'Cerberus,' He pulled the charm and a triple-barreled gun slid into view.

Rosalie laughed. 'You think you can kill us with that? We're bulletproof.'

'No one is trying to kill you,' he said emotionlessly.

'Then get out of here.'

'Ugh,' the man muttered. 'What a dump.'

'Excuse me?' Rosalie said coldly. 'If anything, you look like you came from a dump. You look like a homeless drug addict wearing that frayed cloak, and you seriously need a haircut.'

'Ouch,' Alice said.

However, it did not seem to affect the man in any way. He just looked at us with an air of indifferent calm.

'What's going on in here?' Emmett asked in a booming tone and sauntered in. 'Having an argument over coffins?' His gaze fell on the red-eyed stranger, and a grin stretched across his face. 'Who's this?' he laughed, clapping the man on the back. However, in one fluid motion, the man sidestepped and dodged Emmett.

'Goodbye,' he said in a bored tone and strode purposefully out the door, leaving the four of us staring after him in confusion.

'How does that guy walk in those funny armoured boots?' Alice asked incredulously.

'He's not going to smash the house?' Rosalie looked at her.

'Well, I can't see,' Alice responded, 'but the future of this house hasn't blurred out of my vision, so I don't think he's going to do anything to it. Yet.'

'Who is he anyway?' Emmett asked.

I shrugged. 'He says his name is Vincent Valentine. He's not human since Alice can't see him, but we have no idea what he is. Maybe half-immortal?'

My hearing had been enhanced since my transformation, and so I heard the thuds in the forest which signaled the werewolves' presence. Suddenly, the thuds stopped.

'Hmm,' Alice said thoughtfully. 'The Quilettes must've met that Vincent.'

A shocked yelp confirmed Alice's prediction.

'Nessie!' I choked out. 'What if that man hurt her?' I bolted for the door with Alice, Rosalie and Emmett hard on my heels. The setting sun hit my vision as I burst outside. I scanned the trees, and saw the man standing in front of the gigantic russet wolf. He did not appear at all frightened.

Jacob, on the other hand, was crouched in front of Nessie protectively, ears flattened and growling fiercely. We all moved to stand beside Jacob.

'Who's this?' Edward flitted to my side after emerging from the trees with the rest of my vampire family. 'Hmm, are you shielding him?' he whispered to me.

'No, should I?'

'I can't read his mind,' he frowned at the man. 'Yes, that's fine,' he said out aloud to no one in particular. 'You'll find some new ones on the porch.' Jacob trotted away, and Jasper filled his place.

'Who're you talking to?' I asked Edward, though I already had an idea.

'Jacob,' he explained. 'He wants to know if it's okay for him to morph human, then asked where he could find clothes.'

We all stared at the man – Vincent – but he did not seem to be the slightest bit bothered. He looked, if anything, plain downright bored. His behaviour reminded me of Marcus, the ancient Volturi vampire whose manner and behavior resembled that of a dead log.

A while later Jacob came back, looking warily at the stranger.

For the first time, the man showed a flicker of surprise. 'You're that giant wolf.' It wasn't a question, it was a statement. How had he connected so quickly the image of my best friend with the russet wolf? It had taken me more than a week to see the connection. 'Nice Limit Break,' he complimented.

'Huh?' Jacob said. 'Nice what?'

'Limit Break,' the man explained. 'The thing that you turn to when you, uh, get really angry.' Wow, the longest sentence he said so far. I was starting to think he was mentally handicapped.

'What are you?' Emmett asked.

'Aha!,' he said, not answering Emmett's question at all. 'I know how to get back. Well, goodbye, everyone. It was nice meeting you.' I detected a touch of sarcasm in his voice.

The man wrapped his tattered cloak around himself, and I saw a bright flash of light. When the flash faded, I caught a glimpse of his tattered cloak gliding back to our house.

'I generally don't believe in ghosts,' Jacob said. 'But that thing really looked like one.'

We followed the wispy strands back to the basement, and saw it dive into the coffin. A moment later, there was another burst of light, and the coffin vanished.

'Well, that was random,' Edward commented.

'I think that Valentine's gone,' I said in the silence that followed.

'Aww,' Alice complained. 'If he stayed around for just another hour all our human friends would call him a vampire dress-up connoisseur!'