"Somebody's always watching …"

A Twilight / W.i.t.c.h. Crossover

By: AJ

(Standard Disclaimer Applies)

Chapter 10

"What a wonderful snafu we're having," Irma jibed while they waited for the agitated Council of Candracar to come to its senses and give them some kind of advice. Between the threat of vampires to the Heart of Earth, and the forced disappearance of the Guardian of Earth, they had plenty to complain about. Unfortunately, that was all they were doing, at the moment.

"Enough!" Halinor telepathically thundered out finally. The former Guardian of Fire was the W.i.t.c.h. girls' first, best champion on the Council, not least because they'd once saved her from psychic slavery. "One thing at a time," she continued. "Oracle, do you see any danger to the Heart of Earth in this?"

Himerish, Oracle of the Council of Infinite Dimensions and de facto leader of Candracar, stood and turned to face the Council. "The young Miss Hale is safe, for the foreseeable future. Her role in the happenings on their homeworld's 'West Coast' is minor, despite the revelation of vampires in their midst. Some of them are in fact old family-members, merely wishing to share their glad nuptial day with distant descendants. The Earth Guardian's abduction is an unrelated but regrettably more pressing matter. Are you five," and he turned to give a wan smile to Kor Huggles standing on Will's shoulder, "prepared to save her? Without revealing yourselves, if possible?"

"We'll do our best," Taranee said, seconded by the others. The five magical heroes regrouped, and Will opened a fold back to Earth, using Cornelia's last sent image as a guide.

T/w.i.t.c.h.

Alice Cullen was stamping one foot in irritation, hard enough to leave an imprint of her shoe in the tarmac of the Sea-Tac airport. She was helplessly trying to 'look' for her new niece-in-law Cornelia, about whom Jasper had called and told her all the currently-pertinent details after they'd both been disconnected from Rosalie and Edward. "C'mon, flight 976, land already," she muttered distractedly, letting her fingers flow through apps on her iPhone while her inner eye was looking for Rosalie's great-niece. She was still waiting for her own niece Cynthia, as well as Jasper's cousin Dennis. The pair was on the same NWA flight with Cynthia's daughter from Dallas to Seattle, where Alice had said she would pick them all up when they had called.

Just as she was catching a glimmer of an image of a black van in her mind's eye, a newly-familiar voice called out "Yoo-hoo! Allll-iiiice! Here we are!" The vision shattered with her broken concentration, and Alice turned to meet her long-lost family at last.

"Wow, we could be sisters," her great-niece Melody said, her Mississippi accent as pronounced as her physical resemblance to Alice. "Ah thought you was kiddin' Mama. She looks just laike me!" Melody stepped forward and Dennis Whitlock, trailing behind with the trio's luggage on a large trolley, whistled at the sight. Except for an extra inch to the length of Melody's hair, and the lack of designer labels to her clothes, the two Brandon women were uncanny mirrors.

"No foolin'" Dennis yelped, staring at the two. Alice smiled winningly his way. He was a decade older than Melody, as well as her and Jasper's 'apparent' age, but still acted like a teenager himself.

"Is this everything?" Alice asked, pointing at the luggage trolley.

"Ayep," Dennis drawled good-naturedly with a grin. Alice popped the trunk of her Porsche open with the button on her key fob, rolling her eyes.

"Load it up, cowboy. We've got something happening on the old homestead, and we need to mosey," she told him with a return smile. He chuckled, and started stacking suitcases in her yellow beauty while she helped Melody and Cynthia climb into the tiny back seat.

"Say, what happened to your spoiler, Alice?" Dennis asked as the pair took the front seats.

"Oh, I got too close to the Little League field last week, and it took a foul ball to the aft," she lied smoothly, still berating herself inwardly for the damage she'd done to her baby during her phone call to Edward. Turning the engine over, she fast-shifted and steered them away from the airport and Seattle, and towards Forks.

T/w.i.t.c.h.

Gravel crunched in the driveway as the household heard the squeal of old brakes. Leah looked up worriedly. "That ... that's Sam's truck. Em usually drives it now, though ..." She led the complements of the Cullen household out the front door to find that yes, it was definitely Emily ... and Sam was with her.

"'sup, Sam?" Jake called from the porch, where he was propping the door open with his good arm for everybody else.

"Hey, Jake, we just stopped by on our way back from Port Ang ... el ... es ... What happened to your arm?" The porch full of vampires all assumed their 'too-still-to-be-real' acts, waiting to hear how Jacob would answer.

"This? Oh, it's nothing, man. Just Nurse Nessie here," the Quileute lad responded, nodding at his imprint, "getting a little carried away over a scratch." Most of the adults chuckled, but Harold and Elizabeth looked askance at him in sudden additional worry.

Emily stepped forward, grabbing both of Leah's hands. The female werewolf noticed a hard lump against one knuckle and glanced down. What she glimpsed made her take a second, longer look. "Ohmigod, Em ... is that ..?"

"Yes!" Emily Young actually giggled. She held her hand up for the other women behind them to see as well. "We're officially engaged!" Her expression slowly fell as she saw the less-than-enthusiastic expressions around them, though. "What's wrong?" Emily asked, her scarred cheek pulling down as she frowned with worry.

"My daughter's niece has been abducted," Esme said without preamble, "from our own front lawn." There was no mistaking the rage in her slight frame, and even battle-hardened shifters Sam and Leah looked away from her eyes, which had already turned a disconcerting black.

Harold cleared his throat. Bella jumped to the rescue, her recent transformation still keeping her more in-tune with the humans in their midst.

"Sam, Emily, these are the Hales, from West Virginia; Harold, his wife Elizabeth, and their younger daughter, Lillian. Their older girl Cornelia is the one who's gone missing." She turned to the distraught parents. "Harold, Elizabeth, meet Sam Uley and his fiancé Emily." She couldn't help the grin she had as she announced it. At least somebody's day held some good news. "Sam's a deputy for my dad, Sheriff Swan. Odds are he's just seconds away from getting called in on our case, anyway."

Renesmee and Lillian both bounded forward to see Emily's new bling, "Ooh"ing, "Aah"ing and giggling together like normal ten-year-old girls, while Bella, Elizabeth, and Leah all said quiet congratulations. Sam stepped toward Jacob, and the taller boy told him the morning's essential news in a whisper. Sam nodded afterwards.

"The pack knows?" he asked quietly. Jake nodded.

"Seth went to tell everyone, and to ask about these Guardians, whoever they are." Neither shifter was aware of the two little girls avidly listening in on their murmured conversation.

Lillian latched a hand onto Nessie, and asked telepathically "Is it safe for Sam to know about us?" Renesmee, once over the shock of a new mental communicator, nodded.

"He and Jake are part of the supernatural defenses of the area," she responded, and showed the young Heart the truth about the Quileute boys before them. Lillian gulped in wonder, nodded back in acknowledgement, and then brought her two present Regents up to speed as well.

"Somehow, I'm not surprised," Napoleon purred around her throat. "It makes sense that a group of ... What'd they call themselves? 'Vegetarian' vampires," and Napoleon's chuckle shook Lillian's shoulders, "Would end up best friends with the local changers." His purr ratcheted up a level. "Think I'd be considered an honorary tribemember?"

"I think they'd take Kor in first,Cat-man," Matt broke in, a grin coloring his sending. "You I think they'd rather tree." Napoleon almost fell off Lillian's shoulders between her laughter and his, and she nabbed Nessie's hand again to share the insider's joke. Their muffled laughing caught the attention of the sharper-eared others around them.

"Alright, what's up with you two?" Esme asked them quietly, now convinced the pair knew more than all the adults. The girls shared a glance, and then Renesmee set her hand against Esme's cheek, linking her grandmother to both girls at once. They filled her in as succinctly as possible with the amount of topics they had to cover, and the red-haired woman shook her head afterwards, dazzled. "My, if that's half of what Edward hears all the time, it's a wonder he stays anywhere around people still," she breathed afterwards.

"Man, this is getting deep," Peter murmured to Matt.

"Deep?" Matt countered, remembering a phrase both Heatherfield Swim-team members Will and Mandy had used before. "Something tells me we're still in the shallow end of our troubles."

T/w.i.t.c.h.

Cornelia came to with a headache. She tried to sit up, only to find that she was tied up tightly, with something over her. Concentrating, she used her telekinesis to lift what was covering her, to learn it was a ratty Navaho-print fleece throw, and she was in the dingy darkened back of an uncarpeted cargo van. For the time being, she assumed it was the one she'd seen turning the corner in front of the Cullens' place before she blacked out, and let the throw drop back down. Holding it up was making her headache worse. Instead, she opened her mind up, reaching out mentally for Lillian. Maybe she wasn't too far away yet to 'scream' for help.

T/w.i.t.c.h.

Rosalie and Edward were leaping for the passenger side of the van when Cornelia's telepathic cry for help swept out. Edward took it full-force to the frontal lobes, and dropped like a rock screaming with pain. Rosalie hesitated for a microsecond, then swung her fingertips out to catch hold of the van, knowing Edward would be fine, whatever had happened to him. Her niece still needed her. Her fingers slipped on the slick metal of the mist-moistened van, but then she managed to dig in at the edge of the sliding door on the side of the van. Getting her feet on the running board, she prepared to yank the door open. That's when the as-yet unidentified driver, alerted to her presence by the 'THUNK!' of her landing, swung the van into the nearest tree.

The birch tree sundered explosively against her granite-hard body and the sheet steel of the vehicle, wrecking the doors on that side and dislodging Rosalie. She cursed wildly as she tumbled to the ground amidst birch splinters and a twisted handle from the front passenger door. The other handle was still clenched in her hand, bent into unrecognizability with the force of her grip. Rose flung the handle furiously after the fast-departing van, stuttering obscenities. The black vehicle swerved around the next corner and left her behind. She stood and turned back to find out what had happened to Edward, swearing again when she saw her favorite slacks were ruined in her fall.

"Language, Rose," Edward protested weakly when she got back to his side. He was sitting up, but looked uneager to move further than that. "I hate your niece," he added in a groan, massaging his temples to the sound of grating stone.

"Hey, she's the victim here," Rosalie chided. "Why?" she asked belatedly.

"'cause when she yells for help, she means it," he said. "She called out as loud as she could to her sister, telepathically, a foot from my head, Rose. I'm suddenly reminded of something written by Douglas Adams." He groaned again. She frowned down at him.

"You're the only mind-reader here, Ed. What about Douglas Adams?" she huffed, reaching down and hauling him to his feet.

"Something about a made-up drink called a Pan-galactic Gargle Blaster, and the effects of drinking one," he grunted. She grinned; they'd just watched that movie last week with Renesmee, who was on a science-fiction kick.

"Ah yes, so … how do you like 'having your brains smashed in by a twist of lemon, wrapped 'round a large gold brick'?" she quoted as they headed back to the house.

"It's rather like being drunk," he retorted sourly.

"I happen to remember that rather fondly … what's wrong with being drunk?"

"Ask a glass of water …" Edward sighed.

She conceded that one to him, considering she'd been forcibly removed from the pursuit herself with the help of a tree, the splintered remains of one which she remembered planting, no less. It had been there for over forty years, and she'd planted it to commemorate their original first anniversary in the house. She swore to raise one of its seedlings to take its place one day.

In the back of the black van, Cornelia slumped back into unconsciousness, having hit her head against the wheel well when her abductor had swerved into the birch to dislodge Rosalie.

T/w.i.t.c.h.

They all looked up at the resounding echo from the birch's demise. "Sounds like they caught up with the van at the curve," Emmett said lowly, then continued louder for the humans among them, "I'll go find out what that was." He took off at a 'normal' jog, and as soon as he was out of eyesight of the porch, he poured on vampiric speed.

The C B in Sam's truck let out a burst of static, followed by Sheriff Charlie Swan's voice. "… am? Em, i …'SQUARK!' … ERE?" The radio died with another squeal of feedback, and all those present with keen noses could smell the ozone from fried circuits.

Emily swore softly. "Here, better use this to call him back, Sam," she said, handing him her cell phone. He smiled as he dialed.

Jacob steered the adult Heatherfield Hales back inside and to the kitchen, where he poured each of the distraught parents a stiff shot of Esme's cooking Bourbon. "For the shock," he said reassuringly, doing his best to stay calm before them. He well remembered the cover measures that the Pack had had to institute around the unaware members of their Tribe, especially the parents of the newer young pups among them. Keeping the families 'out of the loop' had been a full-time job for the original five Quileute wolves for a time. Now he had to think back to the care they'd taken to keep Charlie Swan in the dark for as long as they had, dredging up all the tricks he and Edward both had utilized to hide the supernatural from the all-too-human Sheriff.

Harold accepted a second shot of Kentucky Courage from Jake, then a third, still trying to will his hand to stop shaking. That ended after a fourth liberal dose, and he looked up at Jacob sheepishly. "I don't normally drink this much."

"Yeah, well, now's a good time to pretend," Jake told him sympathetically.

Elizabeth, still nursing her second shot, slowly set her glass back down. "At least one of us should stay sober," she said with some reluctance. It was good Bourbon. "In case the Sheriff needs to know anything."

"Hey, that's why I'm here," Peter said, coming in as well. He got his unfinished juice from their interrupted breakfast, and sat down as well. "Go on, man, I got this," he muttered next to Jacob's ear while pulling his seat in across from his sweetheart's folks. Jake nodded to him in relief, sliding the Bourbon bottle to Pete's care with his unfettered arm.

"We're all right outside if you need anything," he said to the three of them as he stood up, and then walked back to the front door. He could hear the return of Edward and Rosalie as he got out of the kitchen.