"Indecision?" Jasper asked in disbelief.
"I don't know. . . ."
"Not indecision," Edward growled. "Knowledge. Someone who knows you can't see anything until the
decision is made. Someone who is hiding from us. Playing with the holes in your vision."
"Who would know that?" Alice whispered.
Edward's eyes were hard as ice. "Aro knows you as well as you know yourself."
"But I would see if they'd decided to come. . . ."
"Unless they didn't want to get their hands dirty."
"A favor," Rosalie suggested, speaking for the first time. "Someone in the South . . . someone who already had trouble with the rules. Someone who should have been destroyed is offered a second chance - if they take care of this one small problem. . . . That would explain the Volturi's sluggish response."
"Why?" Carlisle asked, still shocked. "There's no reason for the Volturi -"
"It was there," Edward disagreed quietly. "I'm surprised it's come to this so soon, because the other thoughts were stronger. In Aro's head he saw me at his one side and Alice at his other. The present and the future, virtual omniscience. The power of the idea intoxicated him. I would have thought it would take him much longer to give up on that plan - he wanted it too much. But there was also the thought of you, Carlisle, of our family, growing stronger and larger. The jealousy and the fear: you having . . . not more than he had, but still, things that he wanted. He tried not to think about it, but he couldn't hide it completely. The idea of rooting out the competition was there; besides their own, ours is the largest coven they've ever found. . . ."
I stared at his face in horror. He'd never told me this, but I guessed I knew why. I could see it in my head now, Aro's dream. Edward and Alice in black, flowing robes, drifting along at Aro's side with their eyes cold and blood-red. . . .
Carlisle interrupted my waking nightmare. "They're too committed to their mission. They would never break the rules themselves. It goes against everything they've worked for."
"They'll clean up afterward. A double betrayal," Edward said in a grim voice. "No harm done."
Jasper leaned forward, shaking his head. "No, Carlisle is right. The Volturi do not break rules. Besides, it's much too sloppy. This . . . person, this threat - they have no idea what they're doing. A first-timer, I'd swear to it. I cannot believe the Volturi are involved. But they will be."
They all stared at each other, frozen with stress.
"Then let's go," Emmett almost roared. "What are we waiting for?"
Carlisle and Edward exchanged a long glance. Edward nodded once.
"We'll need you to teach us, Jasper," Carlisle finally said. "How to destroy them." Carlisle's jaw was hard, but I could see the pain in his eyes as he said the words. No one hated violence more than Carlisle.
There was something bothering me, and I couldn't put my finger on it. I was numb, horrified, deathly afraid. And yet, under that, I could feel that I was missing something important. Something that would make some sense out of the chaos. That would explain it.
"We're going to need help," Jasper said. "Do you think Tanya's family would be willing . . . ? Another five mature vampires would make an enormous difference. And then Kate and Eleazar would be especially advantageous on our side. It would be almost easy, with their aid."
"We'll ask," Carlisle answered.
Jasper held out a cell phone. "We need to hurry."
I'd never seen Carlisle's innate calm so shaken. He took the phone, and paced toward the windows. He dialed a number, held the phone to his ear, and laid the other hand against the glass. He stared out into the foggy morning with a pained and ambivalent expression.
Edward took my hand and pulled me to the white loveseat. I sat beside him, staring at his face while he stared at Carlisle.
Carlisle's voice was low and quick, difficult to hear. I heard him greet Tanya, and then he raced through the situation too fast for me to understand much, though I could tell that the Alaskan vampires were not ignorant of what was going on in Seattle.
Then something changed in Carlisle's voice.
"Oh," he said, his voice sharper in surprise. "We didn't realize . . . that Irina felt that way."
Edward groaned at my side and closed his eyes. "Damn it. Damn Laurent to the deepest pit of hell where he belongs."
"Laurent?" I whispered, the blood emptying from my face, but Edward didn't respond, focused on Carlisle's thoughts.
My short encounter with Laurent early this spring was not something that had faded or dimmed in my mind. I still remembered every word he'd said before Jacob and his pack had interrupted.
I actually came here as a favor to her. . . .
Victoria. Laurent had been her first maneuver - she'd sent him to observe, to see how hard it might be to get to me. He hadn't survived the wolves to report back.
Though he'd kept up his old ties with Victoria after James's death, he'd also formed new ties and new relationships. He'd gone to live with Tanya's family in Alaska - Tanya the strawberry blonde - the closest friends the Cullens had in the vampire world, practically extended family. Laurent had been with them for almost a year previous to his death.
Carlisle was still talking, his voice not quite pleading. Persuasive, but with an edge. Then the edge abruptly won out over the persuasion.
"There's no question of that," Carlisle said in a stern voice. "We have a truce. They haven't broken it, and neither will we. I'm sorry to hear that. . . . Of course. We'll just have to do our best alone."