A bright yellow Porsche screamed to a stop a few feet in front of where I paced, the word TURBO scrawled in silver cursive across its back. Everyone beside me on the crowded airport sidewalk stared.
"Hurry, Bella!" Alice shouted impatiently through the open passenger window.
I ran to the door and threw myself in, feeling as though I might as well be wearing a black stocking over my head.
"Sheesh, Alice," I complained. "Could you pick a more conspicuous car to steal?"
The interior was black leather, and the windows were tinted dark. It felt safer inside, like nighttime.
Alice was already weaving, too fast, through the thick airport traffic - sliding through tiny spaces between the cars as I cringed and fumbled for my seat belt.
"The important question," she corrected, "is whether I could have stolen a faster car, and I don't think so. I got lucky."
"I'm sure that will be very comforting at the roadblock."
She trilled a laugh. "Trust me, Bella. If anyone sets up a roadblock, it will be behind us." She hit the gas then, as if to prove her point.
I probably should have watched out the window as first the city of Florence and then the Tuscan landscape flashed past with blurring speed. This was my first trip anywhere, and maybe my last, too. But Alice's driving frightened me, despite the fact that I knew I could trust her behind the wheel. And I was too tortured with anxiety to really see the hills or the walled towns that looked like castles in the distance.
"Do you see anything more?"
"There's something going on," Alice muttered. "Some kind of festival. The streets are full of people and red flags. What's the date today?"
I wasn't entirely sure. "The nineteenth, maybe?"
"Well, that's ironic. It's Saint Marcus Day."
"Which means?"
She chuckled darkly. "The city holds a celebration every year. As the legend goes, a Christian missionary, a Father Marcus - Marcus of the Voltun, in fact - drove all the vampires from Volterra fifteen hundred years ago. The story claims he was martyred in Romania, still trying to drive away the vampire scourge. Of course that's nonsense - he's never left the city. But that's where some of the superstitions about things like crosses and garlic come from. Father Marcus used them so successfully. And vampires don't trouble Volterra, so they must work." Her smile was sardonic. "It's become more of a celebration of the city, and recognition for the police force - after all, Volterra is an amazingly safe city. The police get the credit."
I was realizing what she meant when she'd said ironic. "They're not going to be very happy if Edward messes things up for them on St. Marcus Day, are they?"
She shook her head, her expression grim. "No. They'll act very quickly."
I looked away, fighting against my teeth as they tried to break through the skin of my lower lip. Bleeding was not the best idea right now.
The sun was terrifyingly high in the pale blue sky.
"He's still planning on noon?" I checked.
"Yes. He's decided to wait. And they're waiting for him."
"Tell me what I have to do."
She kept her eyes on the winding road - the needle on the speedometer was touching the far right on the dial.
"You don't have to do anything. He just has to see you before he moves into the light. And he has to see you before he sees me."
"How are we going to work that?"
A small red car seemed to be racing backward as Alice zoomed around it.
"I'm going to get you as close as possible, and then you're going to run in the direction I point you."
I nodded.
"Try not to trip," she added. "We don't have time for a concussion today."
I groaned. That would be just like me - ruin everything, destroy the world, in a moment of klutziness.
The sun continued to climb in the sky while Alice raced against it. It was too brigh:, and that had me panicking. Maybe he wouldn't feel the need to wait for noon after all.
"There," Alice said abruptly, pointing to the castle city atop the closest hill.
I stared at it, feeling the very first hint of a new kind of fear. Every minute since yesterday morning - it seemed like a week ago - when Alice had spoken his name at the foot of the stairs, there had been only one fear. And yet, now, as I stared at the ancient sienna walls and towers crowning the peak of the steep hill, I felt another, more selfish kind of dread thrill through me.
I supposed the city was very beautiful. It absolutely terrified me.
"Volterra," Alice announced in a flat, icy voice.
Chapter 20 VOLTERRA
WE BEGAN THE STEEP CLIMB, AND THE ROAD GREW CONGESTED. As we wound higher, the cars became too close together for Alice to weave insanely between them anymore. We slowed to a crawl behind a little tan Peugeot.
"Alice," I moaned. The clock on the dash seemed to be speeding up.
"It's the only way in," she tried soothe me. But her voice was too strained to comfort.
The cars continued to edge forward, one car length at a time. The sun beamed down brilliantly, seeming already overhead.
The cars crept one by one toward the city. As we got closer, I could see cars parked by the side of the road with people getting out to walk the test of the way. At first I thought it was just impatience - something I could easily understand. But then we came around a switchback, and I could
see the filled parking lot outside the city wall, the crowds of people walking through the gates. No one was being allowed to drive through.
"Alice," I whispered urgently.
"I know," she said. Her face was chiseled from ice.
Now that I was looking, and we were crawling slowly enough to see, I could tell that it was very windy. The people crowding toward the gate gripped their hats and tugged their hair out of their faces. Their clothes billowed around them. I also noticed that the color red was everywhere. Red shirts, red hats, red flags dripping like long ribbons beside the gate, whipping in the wind - as I watched, the brilliant crimson scarf one woman had tied around her hair was caught in a sudden gust. It twisted up into the air above her, writhing like it was alive. She reached for it, jumping in the air, but it continued to flutter higher, a patch of bloody color against the dull, ancient walls.