CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

ANALYSE 

After walking at a human pace to the end of Savanna’s street, Edward stopped and turned to face me, placing his hands on both of my arms. He stared blankly at me for a moment, before his marble expression broke and surrendered.

          

“Bella,” he sighed, as he pulled me into his embrace.

            

“Your not angry?” I asked quietly, with a hint of hope in my voice.

            

“I should be,” he replied, “its rather annoying the effect you have on me,” he added affectionately.

            

My arms were around his waist, and I squeezed him slightly as a sign of appreciation. I knew that I shouldn’t have taken off like I did, and understood how lucky I really was that Savanna was alone.

            

“Come-on,” he said, “we’ll talk when we get home.”

            

No one was watching us, and Edward couldn’t hear anyone’s mind thinking about us, so we ran home at our speed.

           

I hesitated as we reached the front door to the house. I felt rather embarrassed about the last ten minutes or so, I should have controlled my emotions more – I wondered what the others were thinking.

            

“Its okay Bella,” Edward said reassuringly. I guessed he could tell how I was feeling.

            

I followed him into the house, and despite the fact that I was really not reassured, I felt rather confident. Jaspers gift never failed to surprise me – I was sure that I gave him the most practice.

            

“Hey,” I said quietly when we entered the main living area, “sorry – “. Everyone was together now – most likely discussing the decomposing bodies in the lagoon.

            

Alice came over to me and gave me hug.

            

“I would have done the same if you hadn’t bet me to it,” Rosalie said, with a reassuring smirk on her face – she was sitting next to Emmett on the couch.

            

I smiled slightly at her in appreciation. I knew that she was telling the truth too – Rosalie was more of a second mother, rather than an aunty to Renesmee.

            

“So, we’re thinking that the lagoon has been used as a place for getting rid of bodies since the early 1900’s when the nearby river was reported as being poisoned,” Carlisle said, to Edward and I – but mostly for my benefit.

            

“A vampire’s dream,” Jasper said quietly, yet matter-of-factly.

            

I didn’t understand what he meant by this, and looked at Edward for a further explanation.

            

“You haven’t experience a very normal vampire life, and your newborn phase was basically nonexistent,” Edward said, “but when a vampire kills another human you can’t just leave the body anywhere, like we can with animals; its puts all vampires in danger. You have to find a way of disposing the body.”

            

I felt sick at the thought, but Jaspers comment made sense now.

            

“So how long have the bodies been in the lagoon?” I asked.

            

“My guess would be less than twenty four hours” Carlisle said, “and given the circumstances, its quite possible that they were at the party last night.”

            

This shocked me, when I saw the bodies I’d thought that they would have been at least a few months old.

            

“Did you learn anything from Savanna?” Emmett asked, causing me to move away from my thoughts about the bodies.

            

I felt bad again about my rashness regarding my decision to see her, then I remembered what she had said, “yes!” I replied, a little surprised that I had let this fall to the back of my mind temporarily instead of blurting it out when I first arrived home – I was so overwhelmed that Edward wasn’t mad with me. “She’s a venevore! They are venevores,” I added.

            

I watched as everyone’s expressions became confused, including Edwards; I guessed that they hadn’t heard of this name before either, and Savanna clearly did not have this in her mind when Edward reached me.

            

“A what?” Rosalie asked.

            

“A venevore,” I replied, I was sure that she had been telling the truth. “She had long veins sticking out along her arms, and her fingers had changed into gnarly green claws almost,” I added, hoping that one of them would soon realise what we were dealing with here – perhaps venevore was another name for something?

            

“I’ve heard of nothing like that before,” Carlisle said in a monotonous voice, clearly still trying to process and make sense of what I had said.

            

“Bella, show me,” Edward said.

            

I nodded.

            

Closing my eyes I pushed my mind out towards him, lifting my shield that would usually be protecting my thoughts, and recalled how I had seen Savanna.

            

“Wow,” Edward muttered to himself. I opened my eyes, everyone was staring at him; “venevore!?”

            

“Surely these characteristics are mentioned somewhere?” I asked, “In some form of myth or legend even?”

            

“We will need to do some research,” Carlisle replied, “the Seward Library has many old documents about the history of the area, we can start there.”

            

“And Savanna has promised some answers on Monday,” Edward added.

            

“Carlisle, are the bodies in the lagoon not disintegrating a little faster than they should? Even with the water being acidic?” Alice asked, her voice chimed and I realised that she had kept quiet the entire time.

            

“Of course!” Edward said, sounding a little more enthusiastic – Alice must have been on to something.

            

“Ahh, yes – ” Carlisle answered curiously.

            

“So how was the bear that almost killed Emmett poisioned?” she asked.

            

No one responded, and at first I had no idea where she was going with this – “her claws!” I said, breaking the silence as I made the connection.

            

“Yes,” Edward said, already knowing what Alice did, “the acid is actually their venom!”

            

“Vene,” Esme muttered as she was processing what Edward was saying too.

            

“So, the bear was actually being hunted by one of them?” Emmet asked.

            

“The name, venevore, its really quite self explanatory if you look at it that way,” Esme said, “we drink blood, they drink – “

           

“Venom!?” I said, interrupting her.

            

“It sounds wrong, but fits,” Edward said.

            

“And it also explains why the bodies in the lagoon are decomposing so quickly,” Alice added.

            

“Yes,” Carlisle said, “they’ll be completely disintegrated by the time the police have the chance to even begin looking for them –“

            

“Making it look like they simply ran away,” Jasper finished. “Truly a vampires dream,” he added again.

            

“Eric’s one too,” I exclaimed, “A venevore. I noticed his fingers were the same gnarly green, and claw-like as Savannas when we took Renesmee home last night.”

            

Carlisle and Edward nodded slightly in acknowledgment, the others remained as still as statues while they processed everything. “I’ll go to the library now,” Carlisle said, “Bella’s right, there has to be some sort of documentation on this – I don’t think they would be the only ones either! They’re different to Nessie; their characteristics seem too, individual; Nessie’s simply both human and vampire.”

            

“I’ll come to,” Edward said.

            

Carlisle and Edward left the room to head to the library, Jasper went along as well.

            

I went upstairs to check on Renesmee, she was just waking up – I sat on the side of her bed and placed my cool hand on her forehead.

            

“Hows your head?” I asked softly.

            

“Mmm, not to bad,” she said, her voice slightly croaky from sleeping.

            

I sat next to her in silence for a few minutes whilst she continued to wake up, then heard a slight clinking sound, and footsteps coming up the stairs. Esme came through the door quietly, holding a tray with food and some sort of herbal tea; Alice and Rosalie were behind her. “We thought we’d come and join you two for a while,” Esme said.

            

I smiled at them as they came into the room. Nessie sat up so that Esme could place the tray in front of her. All four of us sat with Nessie on her bed for the next few hours, talking about all that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, from the party last night to me confronting Savanna, whilst Carlisle, Edward and Jasper were at the library trying to find more information about venevores.

            

Despite the fact that what we weren’t talking about the most ideal issues, I was enjoying the company of the girls never-the-less.

             

             
© Copyright to Jonathan Cameron 2010