"Charlie, we've still got that strictly need-to-know company situation going. I know it's been more than aweek since you saw Renesmee, but a visit is just not a good idea right now. How about I bringRenesmee over to see you?"Charlie was quiet for so long that I wondered if he heard the strain beneath my fagade.

　　But then he muttered, "Need to know, ugh" and I realized it was just his wariness of the supernaturalthat made him slow to respond.

　　"Okay, kid," Charlie said. "Can you bring her over this morning? Sue's bringing me lunch. She's just ashorrified by my cooking as you were when you first showed up."Charlie laughed and then sighed for the old days.

　　"This morning will be perfect." The sooner the better. I'd already put this off too long.

　　"Is Jake coming with you guys?"Though Charlie didn't know anything about werewolf imprinting, no one could be oblivious to theattachment between Jacob and Renesmee.

　　"Probably." There was no way Jacob would voluntarily miss an afternoon with Renesmee sansbloodsuckers.

　　"Maybe I should invite Billy, too," Charlie mused. "But... hmm. Maybe another time."I was only half paying attention to Charlie—enough to notice the strange reluctance in his voice when hespoke of Billy, but not enough to worry what that was about. Charlie and Billy were grown-ups; if therewas something going on between them, they could figure it out for themselves. I had too many moreimportant things to obsess over.

　　"See you in a few," I told him, and hung up.

　　This trip was about more than protecting my father from the twenty-seven oddly matched vampires—who all had sworn not to kill anyone in a three-hundred-mile radius, but still... Obviously, no humanbeing should get anywhere near this group. This was the excuse I'd given Edward: I was takingRenesmee to Charlie so that he wouldn't decideto come here. It was a good reason for leaving the house, but not my real reason at all.

　　"Why can't we take your Ferrari?" Jacob complained when he met me in the garage. I was already inEdward's Volvo with Renesmee.

　　Edward had gotten around to revealing my after car; as he'd suspected, I had not been capable ofshowing the appropriate enthusiasm. Sure, it was pretty and fast, but I liked to run.

　　"Too conspicuous," I answered. "We could go on foot, but that would freak Charlie out."Jacob grumbled but got into the front seat. Renesmee climbed from my lap to his.

　　"How are you?" I asked him as I pulled out of the garage.

　　"How do you think?" Jacob asked bitingly. "I'm sick of all these reeking bloodsuckers." He saw myexpression and spoke before I could answer. "Yeah, I know, I know. They're the good guys, they'rehere to help, they're going to save us all. Etcetera, etcetera. Say what you want, I still think Dracula Oneand Dracula Two are creep-tacular."I had to smile. The Romanians weren't my favorite guests, either. "I don't disagree with you there."Renesmee shook her head but said nothing; unlike the rest of us, she found the Romanians strangelyfascinating. She'd made the effort to speak to them aloud since they would not let her touch them. Herquestion was about their unusual skin and, though I was afraid they might be offended, I was kind of gladshe'd asked. I was curious, too.

　　They hadn't seemed upset by her interest. Maybe a little rueful.

　　"We sat still for a very long time, child," Vladimir had answered, with Stefan nodding along but notcontinuing Vladimir's sentences as he often did. "Contemplating our own divinity. It was a sign of ourpower that everything came to us. Prey, diplomats, those seeking our favor. We sat on our thrones andthought ourselves gods. We didn't notice for a long time that we were changing—almost petrifying. Isuppose the Volturi did us one favor when they burned our castles. Stefan and I, at least, did notcontinue to petrify. Now the Volturi's eyes are filmed with dusty scum, but ours are bright. I imagine thatwill give us an advantage when we gouge theirs from their sockets."I tried to keep Renesmee away from them after that.

　　"How long do we get to hang out with Charlie?" Jacob asked, interrupting my thoughts. He was visiblyrelaxing as we pulled away from the house and all its new inmates. It made me happy that I didn't reallycount as a vampire to him. I was still just Bella.

　　"For quite a while, actually."The tone of my voice caught his attention.

　　"Is something going on here besides visiting your dad?""Jake, you know how you're pretty good at controlling your thoughts around Edward?"He raised one thick black brow. "Yeah?"I just nodded, cutting my eyes to Renesmee. She was looking out the window, and I couldn't tell howinterested she was in our conversation, but I decided not to risk going any further.

　　Jacob waited for me to add something else, and then his lower lip pushed out while he thought aboutwhat littleI'd said.

　　As we drove in silence, I squinted through the annoying contacts into the cold rain; it wasn't quite coldenough for snow. My eyes were not as ghoulish as they had been in the beginning—definitely closer to adull reddish orange than to bright crimson. Soon they'd be amber enough for me to quit the contacts, ihoped the change wouldn't upset Charlie too much.

　　Jacob was still chewing over our truncated conversation when we got to Charlie's. We didn't talk as wewalked at a quick human pace through the falling rain. My dad was waiting for us; he had the door openbefore I could knock.

　　"Hey, guys! It seems like it's been years! Look at you, Nessie! Come to Grampa! I swear you've grownhalf a foot. And you look skinny, Ness." He glared at me. "Aren't they feeding you up there?""It's just the growth spurt," I muttered. "Hey, Sue," I called over his shoulder. The smell of chicken,tomato, garlic, and cheese issued from the kitchen; it probably smelled good to everyone else. I couldalso smell fresh pine and packing dust.

　　Renesmee flashed her dimples. She never spoke in front of Charlie.

　　"Well, come on in out of the cold, kids. Where's my son-in-law?""Entertaining friends," Jacob said, and then snorted. "You're so lucky you're out of the loop, Charlie.

　　That's all I'm going to say."I punched Jacob lightly in the kidney while Charlie cringed.

　　"Ow," Jacob complained under his breath; well, I'd thought I'd punched lightly.

　　"Actually, Charlie, I have some errands to run."Jacob shot a glance at me but said nothing.

　　"Behind on your Christmas shopping, Bells? You only have a few days, you know.""Yeah, Christmas shopping," I said lamely. That explained the packing dust. Charlie must have put theold decorations up.

　　"Don't worry, Nessie," he whispered in her ear. "I got you covered if your mom drops the ball."I rolled my eyes at him, but in truth, I hadn't thought about the holidays at all.

　　"Lunch's on the table," Sue called from the kitchen. "C'mon, guys.""See you later, Dad," I said, and exchanged a quick look with Jacob. Even if he couldn't help but thinkabout this near Edward, at least there wasn't much for him to share. He had no idea what I was up to.

　　Of course, I thought to myself as I got into the car, it wasn't like I had much idea, either.

　　The roads were slick and dark, but driving didn't intimidate me anymore. My reflexes were well up tothe job, and I barely paid attention to the road. The problem was keeping my speed from attractingattention when I had company. I wanted to be done with today's mission, to have the mystery sorted outso that I could get back to the vital task of learning. Learning to protect some, learning to kill others.

　　I was getting better and better with my shield. Kate didn't feel the need to motivate me anymore—itwasn't hard to find reasons to feel angry, now that I knew that was the key—and so I mostly workedwith Zafrina. She waspleased with my extension; I was able to cover almost a ten-foot area for more than a minute, though itexhausted me. This morning she'd been trying to find out if I could push the shield away from my mindaltogether. I didn't see what the use of that would be, but Zafrina thought it would help strengthen me,like exercising muscles in the stomach and back rather than just the arms. Eventually, you could lift moreweight when all the muscles were stronger.

　　I wasn't very good at it. I had only gotten one glimpse of the jungle river she was trying to show me.

　　But there were different ways to prepare for what was coming, and with only two weeks left, I worriedthat I might be neglecting the most important. Today I would rectify that oversight.

　　I'd memorized the appropriate maps, and I had no problem finding my way to the address that didn'texist online, the one for J. Jenks. My next step would be Jason Jenks at the other address, the one Alicehad not given me.

　　To say that it wasn't a nice neighborhood would be an understatement. The most nondescript of all theCullens' cars was still outrageous on this street. My old Chevy would have looked healthy here. Duringmy human years, I would have locked the doors and driven away as fast as I dared. As it was, I was alittle fascinated. I tried to imagine Alice in this place for any reason, and failed.

　　The buildings—all three stories, all narrow, all leaning slightly as if bowed by the pounding rain—weremostly old houses divided up into multiple apartments. It was hard to tell what color the peeling paint wassupposed to be. Everything had faded to shades of gray. A few of the buildings had businesses on thefirst floor: a dirty bar with the windows painted black, a psychic's supply store with neon hands and tarotcards glowing fitfully on the door, a tattoo parlor, and a daycare with duct tape holding the broken frontwindow together. There were no lamps on inside any of the rooms, though it was grim enough outsidethat the humans should have needed the light. I could hear the low mumbling of voices in the distance; itsounded like TV.

　　There were a few people about, two shuffling through the rain in opposite directions and one sitting onthe shallow porch of a boarded-up cut-rate law office, reading a wet newspaper and whistling. Thesound was much too cheerful for the setting.

　　I was so bemused by the carefree whistler, I didn't realize at first that the abandoned building was rightwhere the address I was looking for should exist. There were no numbers on the dilapidated place, butthe tattoo parlor beside it was just two numbers off.

　　I pulled up to the curb and idled for a second. I was getting into that dump one way or another, but howto do so without the whistler noticing me? I could park the next street over and come through the back....

　　There might be more witnesses on that side. Maybe the rooftops? Was it dark enough for that kind ofthing?

　　"Hey, lady," the whistler called to me.

　　I rolled the passenger window down as if I couldn't hear him.

　　The man laid his paper aside, and his clothes surprised me, now that I could see them. Under his longragged duster, he was a little too well dressed. There was no breeze to give me the scent, but the sheenon his dark red shirt looked like silk. His crinkly black hair was tangled and wild, but his dark skin wassmooth and perfect, his teeth white and straight. A contradiction.

　　"Maybe you shouldn't park that car there, lady," he said. "It might not be here when you get back.""Thanks for the warning," I said.

　　I shut off the engine and got out. Perhaps my whistling friend could give me the answers I needed fasterthan breaking and entering. I opened my big gray umbrella—not that I cared, really, about protecting thelong cashmere sweater-dress I wore. It was what a human would do.

　　The man squinted through the rain at my face, and then his eyes widened. He swallowed, and I heard hisheart accelerate as I approached.

　　Tm looking for someone," I began.

　　"I'm someone," he offered with a smile. "What can I do for you, beautiful?""Are you J. Jenks?" I asked.

　　"Oh," he said, and his expression changed from anticipation to understanding. He got to his feet andexamined me with narrowed eyes. "Why're you looking for J?""That's my business." Besides, I didn't have a clue. "Are you J?""No."We faced each other for a long moment while his sharp eyes ran up and down the fitted pearl graysheath I wore. His gaze finally made it to my face. "You don't look like the usual customer.""I'm probably not the usual," I admitted. "But I do need to see him as soon as possible.""I'm not sure what to do," he admitted.

　　"Why don't you tell me your name?"He grinned. "Max.""Nice to meet you, Max. Now, why don't you tell me what you do for the usual?"His grin became a frown. "Well, J's usual clients don't look a thing like you. Your kind doesn't botherwith the downtown office. You just go straight up to his fancy office in the skyscraper."I repeated the other address I had, making the list of numbers a question.

　　"Yeah, that's the place," he said, suspicious again. "How come you didn't go there?""This was the address I was given—by a very dependable source.""If you were up to any good, you wouldn't be here."I pursed my lips. I'd never been much good at bluffing, but Alice hadn't left me a lot of alternatives.

　　"Maybe I'm not up to any good."Max's face turned apologetic. "Look, lady—""Bella.""Right. Bella. See, I need this job. J pays me pretty good to mostly just hang out here all day. I want tohelp you, I do, but—and of course Tm speaking hypothetically, right? Or off the record, or whateverworks for you—but if I pass somebody through that could get him in trouble, I'm out of work. Do yousee my problem?"I thought f............