Morning Mist 8: Blood at Sunrise

~~~~EDWARD CULLEN~~~~

Never before had I been so thankful for the near-agony of Bella's mortal years. I had become accustomed, like Carlisle, to refusing the lust for blood that so often raged in the subconscious of our kind. The five drugged humans and the blood that flowed from their slashed wrists were little more than an unpleasant distraction for my father and I.

I could not, however, say the same for the rest of us. Esme, Emmett, and Rosalie were trying their very hardest to focus on the fight at hand - going for the throats of our five antagonists after only a few seconds hesitation, though I could tell their minds were only half as dedicated to the task as they needed to be. Peter, Charlotte, and Jasper, on the other hand, lost it almost immediately – they each fell on the victim nearest to them, opening themselves wide for attack. But worst of all was Bella.

She simply froze. I could tell she was consumed with three overwhelming and conflicting desires: to feed on the fresh blood that lay before her too-recently-newborn eyes, to run as far away from that act as possible, and to stay by my side and fight for our family. I knew at once that I could not at the same time protect her, protect my brother, and fight effectively. I too would have to make a choice.

But, truly, in my heart, the choice was simple. I stepped before her paralyzed form in a protective crouch, daring the nearest black-haired vampire to attack – which he did.

All around me was chaos: the shifting shades of battle, the smell of blood, the sound of friend and foe crying out in pain, the frenetic, desperate thoughts of my family, and the silent, blocked minds of my enemies. The five original villains were being reinforced from somewhere – there were definitely more than when we'd arrived. Peter was dead. Jasper and Rosalie were hurt. But before me I could afford to see only one thing: a growling animal that wanted to kill my wife.

Fighting, for me, had always been more like dancing. Each move had to be deliberate, planned, executed with perfect timing. I realized as this dance commenced that I probably relied too much on my extra-sense. Everything felt off – blocking and striking with no idea what my opponent's intentions were. It was a true dance with death: the other vampire had every advantage, and one misstep would cost my and Bella's lives. But the rhythm and steps that Jasper had taught me over the decades held true. The first misstep was my opponent's, and soon his head was rolling at my feet.

But there was no rest. It seemed the enemy's strength had doubled, while ours was already diminished. A quick glance around me showed Jacob fighting like a madman, making up for the fact that Peter lay dead over the body he had so helplessly gone to feed on and Jasper – though he had snapped himself out of the feeding frenzy – was practically disabled by a vicious slash to his side, a wound that would've cut a normal human nearly in half. But my family seemed to be doing better on the whole, and Charlotte was in a dangerous wrath over the loss of her mate. Our opponents attacked a little more carefully, disappointed that their grand distraction had only rid them of one of us.

Still, Bella was fairly useless and this time two of them came at me at once. For a few minutes I feared this fight would go the way our very first one had – except this time there was no wolf-pack to save us. One of them bent my bad arm back to give the other a chance to strike at my throat . . . but the sharp, brutal pain never came. The one who lunged at me was flung back, half-way across the room, and the one who held my arm also leaped back, as if he'd been stung by electricity. I looked behind me and there stood Bella, eyes closed, arms outstretched, face tight with concentration: she was projecting a shield around me, and it was growing steadily larger.

"Everyone – closer to me!" I yelled. "To me!" My next kick sent a confused creep flying out the window on the far side of the room. My family pulled back with Jacob, closer to the edge of Bella's still-widening shield . . . but Charlotte was in no condition to listen to anything but her own sorrow. Still half-mad with the smell of blood, she stood away from everyone else, her fury deadly to any who approached. But she stood alone, and could not sustain such an uneven fight for long. She was overwhelmed before our eyes. We could do nothing as she fell across the body of her mate.

But the other vampires had suffered too. There were only five left when they attempted to attack our group, only three once they realized – too late – that Bella's shield was functional. These took one look around at the room full of bodies and ran to the opposite stairwell, but we didn't pursue them. We knew we had to regroup first.

All of us but Carlisle drew back into the stairwell we'd come up, taking our first deep breaths as we left the torturous blood smell in the room behind us. Jasper threw himself on the floor, seething with both rage and sorrow. Bella buried herself in my arms, as Rosalie did the same with Emmett. Jacob sat and panted, trying to conceal just how ground-up his musculoskeletal system was still feeling – but, of course, he couldn't hide from me. Bella, I decided, didn't need to know . . .

"You saved our lives, Bella," I said.

"You saved mine," she whispered.

"We're going to have to be careful or this will become a habit."

She tried to smile, but couldn't really. Carlisle came in, looking grim. "They're dead," he said. "Bled out while we were fighting." He shook his head, but I could hear what he was thinking: Such a damn waste. If we hadn't all rushed in like fools they might still be alive . . . 'Least they don't look like the kind of men with families to care for. Poor Jasper – Peter and Charlotte left in pieces like that. Speaking of . . .

"Jasper," he said out-loud, "are you alright, son?"

"I'm fine," said Jasper through clenched teeth, but I could hear him too: Hurts like hell . . . But I can move, so it doesn't effing matter. We have to MOVE before they do something to Alice!

"They clearly out-numbered and out-maneuvered us," said Rosalie.

"Where the hell are they all coming from?" moaned Jasper.

Jacob barked in frustrated agreement.

"Time for Plan B?" said Emmett, always the forward-thinking optimist.

"So long as we get Alice," said Esme, "I don't care if we have to move to Antarctica to get away from these monsters."

"I'd care . . ." I muttered.

"Right," said Carlisle. "We have to assume they've withdrawn to the twenty-seventh floor to guard their prisoner. Emmett, Edward, and I will lead the charge through the entrance in this stairwell, Esme, Rosalie and Jasper will go up the stair opposite and come at them from the other side of the room. Bella, stay with Edward and see if you can't achieve the shield affect again – at the least see if you can slow down their mind-reading work. Jacob . . . you can pick which group you want to go with. We fight only long enough to grab Alice and go."

Bella only squeezed my hand, but there was no time for any other kind of comfort or farewells. From three stories above us came a terrifying sound: Alice, screaming her head off.

Jasper and Jacob literally disappeared after the sound; and then we were running too, taking each flight of steps in one stride. Bella ran fierce and determined behind me, and I could sense her building up the concentration and strength needed for a shield once that last door opened.

Though it only took us seconds to reach the door, I could tell that the other group had beat us to it: Jasper's and Jacob's distinctive snarls already ripped through the air as I took the door off its hinges with my shoulder.

The room was emptier than I'd assumed. Perhaps, because they had always seemed so perpetually reinforced, I expected the room to hold dozens of them. But when we arrived there were only five left, fighting for their lives as they had forced us to fight for ours. For some reason I couldn't yet see, the smell of blood was as strong here as in the room we had just left – but we were too infuriated this time to let that drug affect us again. Jasper took out three of them before I could even lift a finger to help, and by the time Bella's shield was working, it was almost over. Emmett picked the last one up and snapped him in-half over his knee. Then it was quiet.

For a few milliseconds we were all still, listening and smelling for any hint of reinforcements. But none came. Our attention was immediately drawn to a cramped cage in the middle of the room, it's bars attached by wires to a battery that was clearly electrifying the metal at a very high amperage: sparks and arcs of electrical power sizzled over the cage's surface. Alice was huddled as far to the side of the cage as she could possibly get without shocking herself, and huddled in the opposite corner was a young, human girl, arms and legs covered in blood.

All but I, Carlisle, and Jacob instinctively recoiled from the temptation of the girl's scent, but only for a few seconds. Jasper held his breath, then flew to the cage and ripped the door open with one hand – getting a nasty shock for his trouble. Alice flew into his arms.

They held each other for a long time, whispering things that we all tried very hard not to hear. We stood around sheepishly for a few seconds, just happy to see them happy. But Carlisle couldn't shut the doctor side of himself off for very long.

"Jacob, Edward, I'll need your help with this poor thing . . ." he said, moving toward Alice's prison. I switched off the current as he reached into the cage and drew out the trembling girl, a street kid maybe fourteen or fifteen years old. Her arms and legs were covered in shallow but cruel slashes, some obviously weeks old, others – these ones deeper and more serious – quite fresh. She was shaking with terror, eyes wide – obviously on the edge of shock. Carlisle tried to calm her as he brought out the medical kit he'd carried with him on his back.

"Shhh . . . what's your name," he asked, laying her back against Jacob's warm hide. If she felt any aversion to the monstrous wolf that was curled up behind her, trying to look friendly, she didn't show it as her chilled body drew as near to his heat as possible.

"Emily," she whispered. "Those awful men lured me back here about two weeks ago . . ." Her thoughts had to fill in the rest of the story. They said . . . they said I was her food. She looked at Alice, and I instantly understood the torturous plan that the creeps had devised: to kidnap Alice, a "vegetarian" vampire, and then put her in such unbearably close proximity to a bleeding human being that she would have no choice but to give in to her primal and unthinkable desires.

"I don't know . . ." she continued as Carlisle and I carefully cleaned and bandaged the fresher wounds, "I don't know exactly what they were, or what she is . . ." Again, her thoughts completed the picture: How could she . . .? Why didn't she . . .? I saw Alice and Emily, at close quarters in the tiny cage, Alice's eyes black with hunger even as she tried to comfort her fellow prisoner. I saw one of their captors grab Emily's arm and slash deep into the flesh, I saw Alice go rigid with temptation, then I saw her reach out and grab the bars of the cage, and I watched her body shake with pain – distracting her from her hunger. In Emily's memory, I watched this happen again and again.

I closed by eyes and tried to shut that image out of my head, but I couldn't. It was a very good thing the bastards were all dead, or I would've been tempted to get my hands on one and rip him into a thousand pieces as slowly and painfully as possible. I made a note never to tell Jasper if I could help it. Suddenly, a disturbing thought that I should've considered before leapt into my mind.

"Alice," I said, reluctantly disturbing her and Jasper's reverie, "there aren't any more of those monsters out there?"

She looked up and smiled at me, though her eyes were still painfully black and her demeanor definitely tenser than usual. "No – you all got the last of him, I'm pretty sure."

"By him you mean them, right?" asked Rosalie, confused.

"No," she said, drawing out of her embrace with Jasper and putting her hands on her hips. "I mean him. Don't tell me you all thought there were actually two dozen of them?!"

"I'm . . . confused . . ." said Emmett.

Alice rolled her eyes and fluttered her hands at us. "I see I have a lot to explain. But I . . . I really need to get out of here. Can we go home?"

Suddenly she tensed, and turned to glare at Jacob.

"Jacob Black," she hissed, "What have you done with my car??!!!"

Jasper, Alice, Jacob and Emmett had fun setting the upper floors of Pattinson, Stewart, Rathbone & Sons on fire, while Esme and Rosalie reported the "arson" to the police, and Carlisle, Bella and I took Emily to the hospital. By the time we left her with an ER nurse – whose inner grumblings about "having to call in that damned social worker again" I tried hard to ignore – she was fast asleep and, by the look of it, having peaceful dreams.

By sunrise we were all racing through the forest back to Forks – except for Jacob, who had been sent to retrieve the yellow Porsche on pain of death. We would've beat him home, but Alice kept stopping to eat any warm-blooded creature that crossed our path. It took her an elk, six squirrels and lynx before her eyes lost their starving, onyx glow. When we got back, Jacob was waiting for us, Renesmée holding one hand, the keys to the Porsche held out apologetically in the other. Alice ran up and snatched them.

"The smell better wash out of my baby, Jake, or you've had it," she said with a playful growl.

Renesmée ran to us as soon as she saw us. "Mommy! Daddy! Did you get the Mean Ones?"

"Yes, Ness – we got them," I said, swinging her up in my arms. "You'll never have to worry about them every again."

"Good." She looked at Bella. "Jacob says mommy saved everybody."

"She did," I said. "Your mommy is very brave as well as beautiful."

"Will you tell me the story before I go to bed?" She yawned and laid her head on my chest – which I thought was odd. It was morning after all. Then she put her hand on Bella's cheek, out of habit, and I saw a picture of her playing chess with Seth in Emily's living room. Nothing looked out of place until I noticed the clock over the fireplace: it read 4:00 AM.

Bella's eyes widened in motherly horror as she turned toward the porch.

"Jaaaa-COB!!"

Jacob's punishment for leaving our daughter with a teenager who let her stay up all night was that, while the rest of us gathered in the living room to hear Alice's tale, he was condemned to putting Renesmée to bed. Rosalie, at the least, didn't seem to miss him.

"Alright, Alice," said Emmett, sprawling over the couch, "what's the deal with saying that we've only been fighting one vampire this entire time?"

Alice, sitting at Jasper's feet, painting her – in her words – "pitifully neglected" toenails, sighed and leaned back against Jasper's knees.

"You don't mean to tell me that you didn't notice they all looked alike?"

"Well, of course we did," said Carlisle, "but how could . . . A vampire couldn't . . . clone himself, could he?"

"Not in the scientific sense, good doctor," she teased. "But what do we know about our kind? Certain of us are capable of near about anything."

"So," I said, drawing Bella in closer to my side at the very thought, "this thing could create . . . duplicates of itself?"

"Basically, yes. He could create about 20 at a time, all of which could share his other power – you know, co-opting other vampire's gifts – and which could reason for themselves based on his thought-commands. But it was a fairly unstable process: after about 24 hours the clones would crumble back into dust, and, of course, none of them could actually talk."

"But still," said Esme, "just imagine what could have happened if the Volturi had gotten a hold of him . . . or worse, he had decided to fight the Volturi!"

"I could see the last happening," muttered Alice, concentrating on getting the pink paint perfect on her little toe. "And he really might've stood a chance – he didn't seem to like any other vampires much at all."

"Was he just some kind of megalomaniac?" asked Carlisle. "Couldn't handle having another rival coven so close?"

"Maybe . . . but I sometimes wondered whether it went deeper than that. You noticed how he looked Native American, right?"

"I did," said Bella. "I thought . . . I thought he looked like what Jake might look like if someone . . . turned him."

"I really think he might've been a Quileute, turned back in the days when that tribe first became shape-shifters. He retained a hatred for all other vampires, even though he was one himself."

"He utilized the Third-Wife strategy well enough," said Bella, shuddering.

"Well, he sure was crazy-miserable to hang out with for two weeks," said Alice, screwing the lid back on her polish with one flip of her fingers. "Unlike Carlisle, he never questioned the necessity of taking human life - but he still, like a good Quileute, hated himself for doing it all along. Maybe when he found out about us – who had managed to transcend our natures and resist what he couldn't – he snapped. Just wanted to be rid of us. No way to be sure."

"Poor thing," said Esme, only to be met with incredulous stares by the rest of us.

"You all were brilliant, by the way," said Alice. "When I first knew his plan, of course, you guys knew nothing about it, so all I could see was him wiping all of you out. But my sight's always been pretty awful at factoring in the werewolves. They hit him out of no where, to my great delight."

"But," said Jasper, "this has been bothering me for a while now: how come you didn't see it coming weeks ago, when you and I were both together and could've done something about it?"

"Yeah . . . I'm sorry about that," she said. "Another thing my sight can't see is, you know, the clones . . . since they're technically just a shadow of their maker. I'd been having bad dreams about you all jumping around in the forest . . . fighting air. I just figured they were dreams. My bad."

I could see her mind, however, and couldn't let her feel too guilty. "But that also helped us, in the long run," I said. "Since, using you, he couldn't see his clones or the werewolves, it made the whole thing much harder to plan than he'd anticipated."

"Yeah," said Alice, "he was pretty ticked. After you all beat off his first attack – that's when he brought in poor little Emily and threw her in there with me." She put her head in her hands, trying to shut out the memories. "I'm sooooo glad I didn't eat her!"

"So, we're sure he's gone, then?" asked Bella, watching out the window as Jacob came back from our cottage.

"Yes. I was careful to note which one was, you know, the real one. He was one of the first to get killed when Jasper burst in to save me."

"Well," said Emmett, raising a fist in the air, "here's to kicking crack-head-vampire-clone-ass, to surviving, and to the Portland Police, who now have five unsolved murders and an expensive arson case on their hands."

"And to Emily," said Alice, "who was nice to me even when I felt like eating her."

Carlisle looked over at Esme, who nodded back. "We'll see what we can do for the police and the girl," he said. "We owe it to them, after all."

I smiled at this generous thoughts. After all, when Carlisle meant to be charitable, he really meant it.

After finally sending Jacob home with a grateful embrace and strict doctor's orders to "rest up for goodness sake," Bella and I walked back to our cottage holding hands. The minute we walked inside, we could smell Jacob's faint scent and hear our daughter's heart beating in the next room, her breathing steady, her dreams deep. Everything was right again.

Bella reached up and kissed me gently, then more passionately, pushing me up against the wall, letting her hands wander through my hair and over my chest, as mine did the same over her. Finally she pulled away. "You do realize what today is, O Forgetful One?"

"How could I forget? I'm sorry we're not in Alaska enjoying the walrus . . ." I ran finger over her face – an outline I could never tire of tracing.

"It's alright . . . I prefer all of us together and alive to the Yukon, now that I think about it."

"Did you get me an anniversary gift?" I asked, playing with a strand of her hair and pretending to pout.

"What?" she said playfully. "You mean I'm not enough for you?"
"Silly. You're more than enough: you're too much. Everyday it seems that if I loved you more, I would explode, and yet every morning, when the sun comes through our windows and glows on your hair, my love grows. It's filled me up again and again, and still, it seems, I have room for more. You're that amazing."

"Well, there it goes," she said, "you've already stolen the eloquent speech I was going to say. I'd better just show you your gift . . ."

She pulled an envelope out of, it seemed, thin-air and handed it to me. Opening it, I saw several different types of tickets and a printed itinerary. I raised a quizzical eyebrow.

"The Paris Symphony is performing a Nuit de Debussey next month. We're going to be there . . . and if any wacky vampire-clones show up to stop us, they'll have me to deal with! See – now I can buy you outrageously expensive gifts too."

I laughed, and drew out my own gift. She looked at the box a little dubiously. "What, more family-jewels?"

"Just open it!"

When she did, she smiled. Inside was a scrapbook that I had painstakingly worked with Esme on for over a year. It held pictures, alongside poems and reflections, for almost every single day of our courtship and our first year together.

"Not that vampires ever really need to be reminded of anything," I said, "but this year has been so utterly precious to me – I wanted to set it in stone."

"How in the world did you get all these pictures . . . was this taken with a telescopic lens?!"

I chuckled. "Alice is a good spy."

She grabbed me around the neck and we were kissing again.

"This year has been . . . absolutely . . . perfect," she said, between lip-locks.

"Even after being chased, and threatened, and ripped up by two separate crowds of vampires?"

"Edward, you're my sun now," she said, "you burn away the thickest mist and cloud. Looking at you blots out everything else."

As we embraced, I knew it was true – and always would be.

THE END

Author's Note: Thanks for hanging in there, guys! It's been real fun writing this, and I hope it was able to, in some small way, expand and extend the Twilight world that all of us have come to love so much :-) Have fun at the movies on Friday!!

P.P.S. Informal Reader's Poll: Would things be better/do y'all think more people would read this, if I took out the language and rated it PG instead? Just wondering if its worth it.