The demons and the vampires were connected — and connected deeply.
On one side stood the she-demon Ruby and the vampires; on the other, the Albanians and the mysterious Russian tycoon. Four separate powers, each wanting something different, had fallen naturally into an alliance to hunt Bella down.
Bella was so furious her face went white. They were writing her off as good as dead, plain and simple. Did they think she wouldn't fight back? Did they think this was some kind of gift?
She was doing perfectly well as a psion — and they wanted to make her a vampire? To her, that was no gift. That was cutting off her path. This meant a feud to the death.
"Lie low for a while. They've got the numbers. The Cullen family can call in some allies and try to open a dialogue with them, but… not many will come…"
Alice Cullen's tone was sincere, and full of concern for her friend.
Bella's relationship with the Cullen family was nowhere near what it had been in the original timeline, but even so, the Cullens were willing to stand on the same side as her and help fend off the vampires' attack.
Bella thanked her for it. "Don't worry. After I left Forks, I made a few new friends of my own. This vampire family — whereabouts in Italy are they? I need to go pay them a visit, and soon!"
Her words were positively dripping with murderous intent.
Angels, demons, gangsters — and now vampires. Did they take her for an easy target?
Alice hesitated, clearly torn, but in the end she softly let a place name fall from her lips.
"Understood. I'm grateful to the Cullen family for the help. Whatever happens, you're all my friends — so stay out of this from here on." Bella turned down Alice's offer to broker a truce. There was nothing to broker. They had to be destroyed.
Dealing with vampires couldn't be as casual as dealing with the Albanians. The Tyrant looked invincible to ordinary people, but against vampires it came up a little short — especially since the ones she was about to take on were the Volturi, a vampire clan founded more than three thousand years ago.
Like the Cullen family, they could walk in daylight, and their members were like a scaled-down X-Men — each with some strange power of their own.
Beyond their individual gifts, their enhancements in strength, speed, and durability outstripped those of ordinary vampires too. They were a formidable enemy in every sense of the word.
The Volturi had originally lived in Greece; only after a series of migrations did they finally settle in the Italian city of Volterra.
The irony was rich. Long ago, the legendary missionary Father Marcus had claimed to have driven the vampires out of the city fifteen hundred years earlier. To this day the city still observed the custom of Saint Marcus' Day, its citizens believing the priest's sacrifice had saved them — never dreaming that the vampires had been living among them the whole time.
Sending human soldiers to attack vampires would cost her dearly. Being turned was an agonizing ordeal — for the person turned, and for their comrades. Bella needed a helper who couldn't be turned into a vampire.
* * *
Bella stepped out of the teleportation array. She had returned to Skull Island — to find her new friend, Kong.
"Big guy, I need your help."
Kong dug a thick finger into one nostril and cocked his head to the far side, signaling that he wasn't listening.
"I've got some enemies. They're vicious, they're terrifying, and wiping them all out with the power I have on hand is difficult. I need you to fight for me."
Bella spoke with real earnestness. Kong buried his head in the crook of his arm, raised his other hand, and flapped it outward — get lost, I don't care what you're saying.
"All right, how about this: you fight for me, and I'll let you have a taste of the real thing — the genuine article, not some clone."
Bella produced a chicken wing — no, a dragon wing! Not a clone. A genuine, honest-to-goodness dragon wing.
The high energy packed into the dragon wing shot Kong bolt upright. He'd spent his whole life shut away on Skull Island — where would he ever have seen a thing like this? The moment the great ape laid eyes on the dragon wing, the drool started running down, all on its own.
The thing smelled unbelievably good.
Bella had no shortage of fine goods. Seeing the ape still wrestling with himself, she took out a single drop of golden blood — angel blood, left behind by Castiel two visits ago.
Angels were really beings of pure energy, with no blood or bone to speak of. But when they possessed a human host, human blood took on their divine properties. The energy in this drop was less than the dragon wing's, but its quality was unquestionably higher.
Bella let the blood fall onto the dragon wing. The "chicken wing" that had already looked so mouthwatering in Kong's eyes now became downright irresistible.
Kong knew perfectly well that Bella was trying to trick him into going out and doing the heavy lifting — but he still couldn't hold out against the instinctive pull of high-energy food. Shameful tears rolled down his face. In his heart he murmured an apology to his parents, gone to heaven — it isn't that I have no self-control; it's just that it smells too good.
* * *
Today was once again Saint Marcus' Day, the annual festival of the little Italian city of Volterra.
The city's residents rose early, donned their red robes, and stepped out of their homes.
Calling it a city was generous; Volterra was really no bigger than an ordinary town, its men and women together numbering only a little over twenty thousand.
Everywhere the eye landed, people wore red robes and red caps and carried torches, all in memory of Father Marcus, who had driven out the vampires fifteen hundred years ago.
Like so many modern events, the rituals had long since lost their original meaning.
Once the celebration wrapped up, everyone would enjoy themselves for a while and call it a day. But today something unexpected happened. When the usual lap around the city was finished and the formal festivities were meant to begin, word suddenly spread that a neighboring city was holding a celebration of its own. Egged on by someone with an agenda, the crowd went off en masse to the other city — to see whether its festival could hold a candle to Saint Marcus' Day.
Bella came to Volterra alone.
"So you've finally grasped the vast gap between us, and you've come to surrender? Don't worry — I'll be very gentle with you, sister."
The short female vampire she'd crossed paths with back in Istanbul seemed to have known she was coming, and had long since been waiting at the gates of the Volturi's residence. Bella gave her one cold glance. Barely over 1.4 meters (four foot seven), the vampire had pale skin and a high, thin voice, and carried herself with a condescending air.
She'd probably been no older than twelve or thirteen when she was turned.
"I pity you," Bella said, neither cowed nor haughty, "because you have no idea what life is actually about."
"Hahahaha—" The vampire laughed, a cold and distant sound. "Such foolish pride. I don't see what's so impressive about you. If it weren't for the master's orders, a creature like you would be fit only to be my slave — the lowliest slave of all."
Bella had no intention of trading words with what amounted to a bodyguard, a hired thug. She simply walked on inside.
There were plenty of vampires in the Volturi, and seeing her arrive alone, some of them curled their lips in smiles and stepped aside with the bearing of victors, clearing her path.