I ran to the door and threw myself in, feeling as though I might as well be wearing a black stocking over my head.

"Argh," Alice rolled her eyes. "It's not that bad."

"Sheesh, Alice," I complained. "Could you pick a more conspicuous car to steal?"

The interior was black leather, and the windows were tinted dark. It felt safer inside, like nighttime.

Alice was already weaving, too fast, through the thick airport traffic – sliding through tiny spaces between the cars as I cringed and fumbled for my seat belt.

"The important question," she corrected, "is whether I could have stolen a faster car, and I don't think so. I got lucky."

"Hmph, that is true... that car is rather fast," Rosalie admitted.

"I'm sure that will be very comforting at the roadblock."

She trilled a laugh. "Trust me, Bella. If anyone sets up a roadblock, it will be behind us." She hit the gas then, as if to prove her point.

I probably should have watched out the window as first the city of Florence and then the Tuscan landscape flashed past with blurring speed. This was my first trip anywhere, and maybe my last, too. But Alice's driving frightened me, despite the fact that I knew I could trust her behind the wheel.

"Bella," Edward sighed and smiled. "It's comforting hearing her like this again...irrational about everything."

And I was too tortured with anxiety to really see the hills or the walled towns that looked like castles in the distance.

"Do you see anything more?"

"There's something going on," Alice muttered. "Some kind of festival. The streets are full of people and red flags. What's the date today?"

I wasn't entirely sure. "The nineteenth, maybe?"

"Ah, Saint Marcus Day," Carlisle said. "That's ironic."

"That should suit my dramatic side nicely," Edward said.

"And make them all the more quick to react," Carlisle sighed.

"Well, that's ironic. It's Saint Marcus Day."

"Which means?"

She chuckled darkly. "The city holds a celebration every year. As the legend goes, a Christian missionary, a Father Marcus – Marcus of the Volturi, in fact – drove all the vampires from Volterra fifteen hundred years ago. The story claims he was martyred in Romania, still trying to drive away the vampire scourge. Of course that's nonsense – he's never left the city. But that's where some of the superstitions about things like crosses and garlic come from. Father Marcus used them so successfully. And vampires don't trouble Volterra, so they must work."

"Why did he say he used those things?" Emmett asked.

"He thought it would be nice to have people believe that religion could stand up to the demons trying to destroy the world," Carlisle frowned. "Indeed, I found out how wrong that assumption was... as for the garlic...it's an old Greek superstition that garlic keeps away evil spirits. As it spread to the rest of the world, it became evil in general."

Her smile was sardonic. "It's become more of a celebration of the city, and recognition for the police force – after all, Volterra is an amazingly safe city. The police get the credit."

I was realizing what she meant when she'd said ironic. "They're not going to be very happy if Edward messes things up for them on St. Marcus Day, are they?"

She shook her head, her expression grim. "No. They'll act very quickly."

"We never seem to catch a break, do we?" Esme groaned.

I looked away, fighting against my teeth as they tried to break through the skin of my lower lip. Bleeding was not the best idea right now.

"No... I would appreciate it if she didn't" Alice said. "I'll need all my concentration as it is."

The sun was terrifyingly high in the pale blue sky.

"He's still planning on noon?" I checked.

"Yes. He's decided to wait. And they're waiting for him."

"Tell me what I have to do."

She kept her eyes on the winding road – the needle on the speedometer was touching the far right on the dial.

"You don't have to do anything. He just has to see you before he moves into the light. And he has to see you before he sees me."

"How are we going to work that?"

A small red car seemed to be racing backward as Alice zoomed around it.

"I'm going to get you as close as possible, and then you're going to run in the direction I point you."

I nodded.

"Try not to trip," she added. "We don't have time for a concussion today."

"I don't know if she can manage that," Emmett smiled.

"She can do it as long as she's determined enough," Edward said.

"And there's nothing that will make her more determined than this," Jasper said.

I groaned. That would be just like me – ruin everything, destroy the world, in a moment of klutziness.

The sun continued to climb in the sky while Alice raced against it. It was too bright, and that had me panicking. Maybe he wouldn't feel the need to wait for noon after all.

"There," Alice said abruptly, pointing to the castle city atop the closest hill.

I stared at it, feeling the very first hint of a new kind of fear. Every minute since yesterday morning – it seemed like a week ago – when Alice had spoken his name at the foot of the stairs, there had been only one fear. And yet, now, as I stared at the ancient sienna walls and towers crowning the peak of the steep hill, I felt another, more selfish kind of dread thrill through me.

I supposed the city was very beautiful. It absolutely terrified me.

"A normal instinct... she knows what lies between those walls," Jasper said.

"It seems that she does react to normal vampires correctly…at last," Edward said.

"Volterra," Alice announced in a flat, icy voice.

"That's the end of the chapter," Edward said, handing the book to Emmett.

Chapter Twenty

Volterra

"Volterra," Emmett read.

We began the steep climb, and the road grew congested. As we wound higher, the cars became too close together for Alice to weave insanely between them anymore. We slowed to a crawl behind a little tan Peugeot.

"Come on," Alice groaned. "We don't have time for this."

"Alice," I moaned. The clock on the dash seemed to be speeding up.

"It's the only way in," she tried soothe me. But her voice was too strained to comfort.

"Yeah, well it's hard to soothe someone else when you're anxious yourself," Alice muttered.

The cars continued to edge forward, one car length at a time. The sun beamed down brilliantly, seeming already overhead.

The cars crept one by one toward the city. As we got closer, I could see cars parked by the side of the road with people getting out to walk the rest of the way. At first I thought it was just impatience – something I could easily understand. But then we came around a switchback, and I could see the filled parking lot outside the city wall, the crowds of people walking through the gates. No one was being allowed to drive through.

"Alice," I whispered urgently.

"I know," she said. Her face was chiseled from ice.

"If anyone could get around that, it would be Alice," Jasper said confidently.

Now that I was looking, and we were crawling slowly enough to see, I could tell that it was very windy. The people crowding toward the gate gripped their hats and tugged their hair out of their faces. Their clothes billowed around them. I also noticed that the color red was everywhere. Red shirts, red hats, red flags dripping like long ribbons beside the gate, whipping in the wind–as I watched, the brilliant crimson scarf one woman had tied around her hair was caught in a sudden gust. It twisted up into the air above her, writhing like it was alive. She reached for it, jumping in the air, but it continued to flutter higher, a patch of bloody color against the dull, ancient walls.

"Bella." Alice spoke quickly in a fierce, low voice. "I can't see what the guard here will decide now – if this doesn't work, you're going to have to go in alone. You're going to have to run. Just keep asking for the Palazzo dei Priori, and running in the direction they tell you. Don't get lost."

"Lost," Emmett laughed, "I'd be more worried about her falling down."

"Palazzo dei Priori, Palazzo dei Priori," I repeated the name over and over again, trying to get it down.

"Or 'the clock tower,' if they speak English. I'll go around and try to find a secluded spot somewhere behind the city where I can go over the wall."

I nodded. "Palazzo dei Priori."

"Edward will be under the clock tower, to the north of the square. There's a narrow alleyway on the right, and he'll be in the shadow there. You have to get his attention before he can move into the sun."

"You should be attuned to her...even after all this time," Esme said.

"I think she's gone," Edward said. "I won't be looking for her...and even if I do sense her...I doubt I'll believe it."

I nodded furiously.

Alice was near the front of the line. A man in a navy blue uniform was directing the flow of traffic, turning the cars away from the full lot. They U-turned and headed back to find a place beside the road. Then it was Alice's turn.

The uniformed man motioned lazily, not paying attention. Alice accelerated, edging around him and heading for the gate. He shouted something at us, but held his ground, waving frantically to keep the next car from following our bad example.

"You're always setting bad examples, Shorty," Emmett chuckled.

The man at the gate wore a matching uniform. As we approached him, the throngs of tourists passed, crowding the sidewalks, staring curiously at the pushy, flashy Porsche.

The guard stepped into the middle of the street. Alice angled the car carefully before she came to a full stop. The sun beat against my window, and she was in shadow. She swiftly reached behind the seat and grabbed something from her bag.

"Probably a glove – don't want to frighten the poor man," Alice said.

The guard came around the car with an irritated expression, and tapped on her window angrily.

She rolled the window down halfway, and I watched him do a double take when he saw the face behind the dark glass.

"I'm sorry, only tour buses allowed in the city today, miss," he said in English, with a heavy accent. He was apologetic, now, as if he wished he had better news for the strikingly beautiful woman.

"It's a private tour," Alice said, flashing an alluring smile. She reached her hand out of the window, into the sunlight. I froze, until I realized she was wearing an elbow-length, tan glove. She took his hand, still raised from tapping her window, and pulled it into the car. She put something into his palm, and folded his fingers around it.

"Ah, good old bribery. It usually works like a charm," Emmett smirked.

His face was dazed as he retrieved his hand and stared at the thick roll of money he now held. The outside bill was a thousand dollar bill.

"Is this a joke?" he mumbled.

"I never joke about money," Alice smiled.

Alice's smile was blinding. "Only if you think it's funny."

He looked at her, his eyes staring wide. I glanced nervously at the clock on the dash. If Edward stuck to his plan, we had only five minutes left.

Esme gasped, bit her lip, and buried her head in Carlisle's chest. She really couldn't stand the thought of losing Edward - especially like this.

Edward, for his part, frowned, which he had been doing a lot lately...but this frown was different. This frown didn't seem to have anything to do with Bella, judging by the fact that he was closely watching Esme's loud reaction to his attempted suicide and his father's silent, but just as painful, reaction.

"Do you see how much pain you would put us all through, Edward?" Alice thought without the edge in her voice that was normally there when she was thinking about this. This time was different. She wasn't threatening him, she wasn't angry at him, she was just showing him how much it would hurt her and everyone else if he did this. "You can't ever do this..."

Edward then looked at Alice, his eyes sad and understanding, and she knew that he could finally see just how much this truly would affect all of them.

"I'm in a wee bit of a hurry," she hinted, still smiling.

The guard blinked twice, and then shoved the money inside his vest. He took a step away from the window and waved us on. None of the passing people seemed to notice the quiet exchange. Alice drove into the city, and we both sighed in relief.

The street was very narrow, cobbled with the same color stones as the faded cinnamon brown buildings that darkened the street with their shade. It had the feel of an alleyway. Red flags decorated the walls, spaced only a few yards apart, flapping in the wind that whistled through the narrow lane.