gift or curse (A Twilight fanfiction)

Chapter 25

My words saved our lives.

The hand retreated and as I watched, the fracture on Demetri's face finally disappeared. With a start he inhaled, looked to his left, then back at me and with one swift motion he pushed me out of what was left of the car and crouched in front of me. The remnant of the black vehicle flew away like it weighed nothing and a loud crash echoed through the mountains surrounding us.

Before us now stood two very similar creatures. Even though the night was pitch black, I could see they were very old. The same papery skin that gave away Aro's age also tainted these men. One with dark hair, one with ashy blond.

I quickly repeated my command not to harm us and saw how their eyes squinted in equal confusion.

"Who are you?" The dark-haired man asked, looking at me, hands balled to fists, restrained by my words.

"She is under Aro's protection. You'd do well to heed that warning." Demetri hissed between his teeth. My eyes quickly scanned his face, but nothing of the crack remained. I exhaled in relief.

"Aaah, my old friend, Aro. Still won't come out of his hiding place, won't he."

The voice wasn't as raspy as those of the three ancient members of the Volturi and I also noticed that the eyes of these Romanians weren't covered by a milky film. Theirs shone bright and hatred burned within them.

"Did you come here to check on us, like you've done so many times before?"

"Or did you come to destroy us?"

"You can try."

"But you won't succeed."

Their voices interchanged, with barely a difference in structure or pitch. They creeped me out even more than Caius did.

"I think", the light-haired one said as he turned to look at his partner, "they have come here to see our new castle."

"Yes, I am surprised they waited this long."

"Shall we invite them over?"

Both turned their heads back our way and smiled with fake delight.

I didn't dare to take my eyes of them, ready to shout an order should the need arise. Should we just make a run for it? Command them to stay here and flee? Or should we follow them, see the castle, so we could give Aro more information. At least, if we lived to tell. I commanded these two not to hurt us, but there could be others.

From my peripheral vision I saw Demetri stand up straight and I copied him. With his chin held high, he said: "We are merely here to observe, if you don't harm us in any way, we will come and ... discuss."

"We cannot harm you."

"This young one has seen to that."

"We accept your offer."

"You are invited. We will discuss our options."

With one flowing move, the men, both clad in black, turned and began to walk away from us. Demetri took my hand, gave me a questioning glance and when I nodded, we followed.

---

For us vampires, the trip didn't last long. We went straight up a mountain, until the silhouette of a dark castle came into view. It looked like they wanted to bring back the myth of Count Dracula. Wasn't that in Romania as well?

The men waited for us at the entrance. Huge wooden doors with heavy metal fittings opened to the inside with a creaking noise that only enhanced the feeling of impending doom. I wouldn't have been so scared, had I not seen what a large piece of rock could do to a so called immortal. The question if it really could have killed him lay on my tongue, but I was too afraid to speak. We were walking into the belly of the beast and there was nobody around to help us. I found myself wishing Felix was here and that was saying something.

On the other side of the castle doors was a large hall. No fire, no chandeliers that illuminated the place, not even rugs on the floor gave any indication that someone lived here. It was a cold, damp place and I was grateful I couldn't feel either.

Like in the large tower room, where the Volturi held court, this room also featured two chairs. A little less grand and extravagant, but no less thrones. Yet, instead of sitting down in them, our hosts lead us into an antechamber, that was slightly less intimidating. For one, there hung torches on the walls that the dark-haired vampire quickly lit.

"Please, have a seat."

"We had not taken such lovely visitors into account. If we had known",

"we would have cleaned."

They chuckled in unison.

Still holding Demetri's hand, I sat down on a sofa that looked a little out of place. It had flowers on the light green fabric.

"Allow me to introduce ourselves. My name is Vladimir", the ash-blond vampire said.

"And I am Stefan", his counterpart added.

They ignored Demetri and looked at me with similar expressions of expectation.

"Ariadne", I curtly replied, worrying if saying my name gave them some sort of power over me.

"You did not come here to kill us." Vladimir, only an inch taller than Stefan, stated this as a fact.

"No", I replied anyway.

"Tell us, why did you come?"

I looked at Demetri, who looked back, narrowed his eyes a bit and said, still eyeing my way: "We merely came to observe, as I told you before. There have been rumors."

Stefan leaned against the back of the high chair he was sitting on. "Ah, yes, rumors. Fear. No doubt our Italian friends", he spoke the word with venom, "are afraid of retaliation."

"From what?" I asked, before checking myself.

"This castle", Stefan's arms motioned around them, "is the first we've build after your patrons burned down the last one."

I didn't know that. How long ago was this? Years? Decades? Perhaps even a millennium. Why wait so long? Did they want revenge? Then why were we invited inside? For them to tell us all their plans? They already knew what I could do. Their lack of fear kind of impressed me, but also made me suspicious. Especially when Vladimir left the room and closed the door behind him.

"Where is he going?"

"To get some refreshments", Stefan grinned.

Refreshments. Demetri grasped that meaning before I did, but when he looked at me with concern, I knew. He wasn't talking about a cup of tea. Refreshments for a vampire meant ...

The door opened again and Vladimir reappeared, with trailing him: a young girl who looked terrified and about to faint. In her trembling hands she held a leash, which held a small dog.