Red Moon - Chapter 18 - Great Escape

Chapter 18: Great Escape

Two weeks and a half later we were still here, trying to find a way to escape Volterra. Nessie was hanging out with Dawn and I was spending most of my time with Cole. As we had found out, the main part of the guard, along with the leaders, the Creepy-Trio, Aro, Marcus and Caius, had actually left for “some important business”. In the meantime we were wandering around the tunnels of the “palace” (or rat-hole  how I preferred to call it) exploring as much as we could now that Aro and part of the guard were away.

“And are you sure Alec or Jane won’t appear in the next corner?” I asked Cole.

He put one hand around my waist and whispered in my ear. “You are so cute when you chicken out like that, do you know that?” he teased me.

“Hey! I don’t chicken out!” I told him pretending to be offended. “I just don’t wanna play with an overspoiled, evil vampire.”

“Still, you are the cutest person I have ever met.” He said and crushed his lips against mine, pushing me against the wall. His body was pressed against mine and mine against the wall while we were kissing. He moved his lips from mine and started laying a trace of soft lips on my neck when...

“Damn, Jake, don’t do that!” I almost shouted and embarrassed pulled away from Cole. He simply waved at Jacob and then gave me a playful smile.

“Sorry, I didn’t know you had...” he chuckled. “... a personal moment.”

“Hell, Jake what’s that on your face?!” I walked forward and saw some awful, deep and bloody cuts running down to the length of his cheeks.

“Nothing... I’m fine. Don’t make that much noise for some scratches!”

“You say that scratches? When did you last look your face in a mirror?”

“It can’t be that bad.” He shrugged.

“We’ll be back, Cole.” I said and dragged Jacob a little further where Cole couldn’t hear us.

“Come on! Tell me what happened! And I hope you don’t expect me to believe some stupid excuse like that you tripped on the stairs.” I told him.

“I’m just fine, what’s so hard for you to understand?”

“That your face screams that you’re lying!”

“It will heal soon. Tomorrow it will be as if I had this ten years ago.”

“Okay, you convinced me.”

“Really?”

“No.” I said crossing my arms in front of my chest.

“I thought so. Okay, I just had a bad minute with a vampire.”

“Obviously. Tell me something I don’t know. Who was it?”

“Heidi... this vampire I cut in pieces back in Sherrill? Remember her? She wanted to take her revenge for some time now. She just waited the right moment.”

“There is something called self defence, you know...!”

“Yeah, and then they come and hurt Nessie and you! Great idea, why hadn’t I thought of that?” he said ironically.

“At least tell me you weren’t going to show Ness your oh-so-pretty face like that, were you?”

“I think you are overreacting, Eshe.”

“Since you are not, I have to do it for both of us.” I told him. “Come on, let’s go to Cole’s room and see what we can do.” We crossed the distance to Cole’s room quickly before Nessie would jump out of nowhere and notice him. “Alright, go wash your face and then I’ll see if I can fix it.” Actually I was worried because I wasn’t sure that what I wanted to try would work or even worse what would happen if I messed it up...

After he cleaned it up the wounds looked better but nothing that someone could ignore.

“Damn. Come here, Jake.” He gave me a funny look but came anyway. “Do you know you’re really tall? I need three chairs one on top of the other to reach your face!”

“Why would you need to do that?”

“You missed a scratch.” I lied pretending I wanted to clean it up. “Now should I bring the chairs or will you sit down?” Hell, if I screw this up Nessie will kill me. I silently prayed it would work and ran my hands over the cut on his face and smiled satisfied from the result. “Much better now.”

“What did you do?” he asked.

“See yourself.” As Jake went to look at his face I turned to face Cole.

“Did you heal him?”

“No. I’m not a healer. I just covered up these scars on his face. Just he’ll look like they don’t exist. But they will be there and may still hurt. I used to do it when I had a wound that I wanted to hide.”

“Wow, thanks. Why didn’t you say already?” Jake asked.

“I had been practicing with Ness but I’m not that good. So I didn’t want you to freak out.”

“Why didn’t I know about that?” Cole asked me.

“I thought you did, Mr-Know-All. And after all... you never asked.” I said playfully and winked at him.

 Jake went to find Nessie and Cole and I had to finish our ‘sort-of-patrolling-session’.  The lit torches were the only sources of light in the gloomy tunnels but I had gotten used to them after all this time. When we reached the central hall, a big room with white marble columns supporting the high ceiling and statues and other pieces of art decorating it, we came to a halt and carefully checked for any guards. Nothing. Empty. We ran as fast as we could to another hall, not as wide but beautifully decorated in marble and gold. This one led to Marcus’ chamber and everyday one of us checked who guarded the chamber. Today was our turn. We took some more, careful steps, waiting for the guard to spot us in any second.  Although Aro hadn’t set us any boundaries regarding the areas of the Volturi Palace we could go, there was a mental line that kept us in the eastern side. So we were here with –more or less- our own risk. But anyone had appeared yet.

“Shouldn’t we have seen the guard already?” I whispered.

“No, not necessarily.”

“Is he hiding?”

“I don’t think so. There isn’t someone on guard’s post.”

My eyes widened in surprise. “Are you sure?”

“Don’t know. But I can’t smell anyone else around. Can you?” I shook my head. “And anyway if there was someone I may had seen glimpses of his past.”

“So this is it?” I said trying to hide my smile and drown a shriek of excitement that was trying to escape my lips.

“Yes. I think it is.”

I walked toward the door. No one appeared. I touched the door handle. Again no reaction.

“Nobody’s here!”

“Come on, let’s go tell the others.”

We ran back, making sure we weren’t seen and stormed into Dawn’s room.

“Hey. Guarded again, huh?” Dawn asked casually.

“No! There is no guard! We can go!” I said excitedly.

“Really?” Nessie asked and instantly jumped off of her seat.

“Yes! We have to get ready!”

“First I have to take care of Gianna. We can’t let her say anything to anyone.” Dawn said quietly, her tone scaring me.

“You aren’t going to... kill her? Are you?” I asked.

“No, of course not! Will you come with me? I have to make sure she doesn’t have a clue how or when we escaped. And we also need some more casual clothes. We can’t appear in the city dressed in clothes that people used to wear three or four centuries ago.”

“You had thought a lot about our escape.”  Jacob told her.

“We had to be as prepared as possible.” She replied.

She dragged me to Gianna's room whose big green eyes looked up at us as we entered the room.

“Do you need anything?” she asked kindly.

“Yes.” Dawn replied, her voice as deep and hypnotising as possible, putting the poor human under her spell instantly. “You will not remember seeing us all day long and if you are asked you were close to us in the morning but don’t remember what happened afterwards.”

“Of course.” She said, her voice sounding as if she was sleeping.

“And can you give us clothes with which we can move around the city?”

She nodded and opened a closet in the corner of the room. With fast, robotic moves she grabbed some clothes and handed them to me and Dawn and while we turned round she was staring with a stupid, blank, cow-look.

“Oh, now go and act as if we didn’t come in.” Dawn giggled.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

“The way they look when they’re hypnotised.... they follow my commands like puppies!”

“Actually, I think that’s a little creepy.”

“It is. They would do whatever I asked. But I have never used my gift to hurt others!” she said quickly.

“Oh. Alright.”

Back with the others, when everyone was ready and we were about to leave my anxiety was growing by each tick of the clock on the wall.

“Put your cloaks on, we’ll leave them after we find the exit. I’ll be first and you will follow me. If anything happens, Melanie, you blink, the rest, of you run. Okay? Mel, wanna be on my shoulders?” Jacob said.

“Yeah!” Melanie said and in an eye blink she was on his shoulders. 

As Jake had planned, we reached the main hall in silence and thankfully, it was completely deserted.

“Melanie, I want you to blink yourself to the other side of the hall, right there.” Jacob pointed at the way to Marcus’s chamber. “If you see anyone, blink back here instantly. Do you understand me?”

She gave him a small nod and disappeared. She waved at us from the other side and hesitantly took some steps further. She motioned with her hand for us to follow and the fastest we could, we crossed the hall. Melanie smiled, satisfied with herself and blinked back on Jake’s shoulders. All of us reached the door, our stress was so obvious you could almost see it like an aura hovering around us.

“What are we waiting? No one is in.” I whispered.

“Did you check inside?” Jacob asked.

I hesitated. We actually hadn’t... “No, but-”

“No offence to any of you, but vampires are dead. No heartbeat or breathing to hear, no movements to sense. They can be like statues. You know you could have been fooled.”

“You know, he actually is right. This may be a trap.” Phillip said.

“We’re too close to step back now!” Nessie protested.

“Who said we will?” Jake said. “But... if it’s a trick, you’ll run as fast as you can. All of you.” His eyes stared intensely Renesmee's. “You RUN no matter what.”

She nodded but her face screamed ‘no’. I moved my head with the others too but no one seemed willing to do as Jacob had ordered. After all we aren’t his pack to obey his every order...

“Okay then. Here we go.” He decisively pulled the door handle down and with no resistance the door opened, revealing a huge room with lots of black leather and golden details on the furniture. And –thank god- no vampire inside. Jacob stepped in and after he made sure it was safe we followed.

“Cole what do we do now?” Dawn asked.

“There is a bookcase. A big one, with a golden box with gems.”

I looked around and finally spotted it. Big, heavy and with priceless stones decorating every inch of it.

“Did you mean this over there?” I pointed at the box.

“Yes! We have to place it on the self underneath.” He said.

I grabbed the box and placed it in the empty space of the self as he said. For some heartbeats nothing happened but then the box sunk a little deeper in the thick self and the whole bookcase started moving on the side, sliding across the cold, stone floor.

“What’s happening, Eshe?” little Melanie asked me.

“I think we’re escaping, Mel. That’s what’s happening.” A smile of wild excitement crept on my face triumphantly.

The bookcase stopped on the side revealing an arched entrance to a dark tunnel. Cold, musty air came from the opening as if it hadn’t been opened for ages, maybe even centuries. And this is actually the case as far as I know.  Melanie started walking in but I stopped her and surprising even myself I took the lead and started going up the swirling stairs, my breathing becoming more and more uneven in every step.

“Cole? Do you know how we get out when we reach the top? I can’t see a thing!” I said panicked as I reached the top of the stairs and couldn’t find an exit.

“Try pushing it away.”

“Oh... okay.” I said my voice half trembling.

I was ready to start pushing with all my strength, when the wooden obstacle against my palms started moving on its own and I flinched away, almost falling back, but a pair of warm hands steadied me. I was scared like hell not knowing what was happening and I literally froze when my eyes met two pairs of burgundy eyes and two paper-white faces framing them. I opened my mouth to shout but the shock was so strong I couldn’t even do that.

“Eshe, step on the side!” I heard Jacob saying but my feet wouldn’t obey me.

“Come here, child.” One of the vampires said, offering her hand. “We are not here to hurt you; if we were we would already have done it.”

I didn’t know why, but I trusted her. I took her hand and she pulled me in the sunlit room.  She was breathtakingly beautiful, not even Rosalie could be compared. She was perfect in many ways. She reminded me of an ancient goddess. Dark, long hair covering her back falling in thick ringlets, perfectly shaped face, red immortal eyes hiding years of wisdom inside. The other woman next to her was just as beautiful, but had fair blond hair, straight and long, and looked as if she had jumped out of a fairytale book.

“It’s alright you can come out,” the blond vampire said. Everyone walked in the room, except Jacob who was suspicious and Renesmee, whose arm he was holding and was trying to pull back in the shadows.

“We are not going to hurt you, or your mate, son of the wolf.”

He didn’t look convinced at all, obviously, but Nessie’s look forced him to get out.

“I am Sulpicia, Aro’s wife.” The dark haired vampire said and the blond one introduced herself as Athenodora, Caius’ wife.

“You are the wives?” Phillip asked curiously.

“Yes. This is us.”

Jake gave them his worse I-don’t-trust-you-blood-sucking-monsters-because-you-will-stab-my-back glare. “Why are you helping us?”

“Being mates of the most powerful vampires doesn’t mean we don’t think on our own. We disagree with Aro’s behaviour. He has lost control and has crossed the lines a long time ago. He had no right to bring you here against your will.”

“How did you know we would come?” Dawn asked, her voice deep and hypnotizing.

“Child, your gift needs a lot of practice to have effect on us. And you don’t have any reasons to use it on us after all, we are here to help. We have servants all over the palace, we know almost everything that happens. I hope this answer is enough for you, son of the wolf.” Sulpicia explained calmly.

“It is a way to spend eternity. We hadn’t entered Didyme’s chamber for centuries, from respect to her memory and her mate, Marcus, but when we learned about this young man’s power” Athenodora showed Cole “we knew that you’d finally find a way to escape. Do you know where to go after exiting the place?”

This was something I hadn’t thought much. I saw heads shaking just like mine did.

“First of all you will need this. Without this not even hypnotism won’t help you.” She handed Phillip a wallet, way too packed with money. Lots of money. “And this is where you come in, young lady.” She moved her hand for Dawn to come closer.  “I believe you can’t convince the airport staff that all these children are yours, wolf.”

“Jacob.” He growled.

“Jacob. Your extra influence will be needed in that part, Dawn. Their human minds will bend under your will instantly, it is obvious, my child.”

“We can’t lead you out from our tower, the guards will see you and even we can’t cover that. You will have to jump. Do you think you can do this?” Sulpicia asked.

“Yes, we can.” Nessie said.

“You have grown up to a strong and beautiful woman my dear.” She said, comparing her with the child she had seen six years ago.

“Thank you.” Nessie’s cheeks flushed pink like they usually did and she gave Sulpicia a sweet smile.

“Here is the city’s clock tower so when you jump you will find yourselves near the square. It’s not hard to find the way to the city walls after this, but if you need to ask for directions to reach the main gate. If they don’t recognise it like that say it in Italian: Gande Cancello. There’s a bus from there to Florence. Get off at the airport and I hope you’ll find your way from there.” She finished.

“Be well.” Both said and after saying goodbye for a last time they led us to the window that was (according to them) closer to the ground.

“Are you sure nobody won’t see us?” Nessie asked worried.

“Absolutely, dear. This window is covered from all sides.” They assured us.

“Mel, you’ll come last. Don’t jump blink.”

“Okay” she said and smiled before I jumped.

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