"What's happening?" I mumbled. "They've told him no," she said quietly. I noticed at once that her enthusiasm was gone. My voice choked in my throat with panic. "What's he going to do?" "It was chaotic at first. I was only getting flickers, he was changing plans so quickly." "What kinds of plans?" I pressed. "There was a bad hour," she whispered. "He'd decided to go hunting." She looked at me, seeing the comprehension in my face. "In the city," she explained. "It got very close. He changed his mind at the last minute." "He wouldn't want to disappoint Carlisle," I mumbled. Not at the end. "Probably," she agreed.
"Will there be enough time?" As I spoke, there was a shift in the cabin pressure. I could feel the plane angling downward.
"I'm hoping so–if he sticks to his latest decision, maybe." "What is that?" "He's going to keep it simple. He's just going to walk out into the sun." Just walk out into the sun. That was all.
It would be enough. The image of Edward in the meadow–glowing, shimmering like his skin was made of a million diamond facets–was burned into my memory. No human who saw that would ever forget. The Volturi couldn't possibly allow it. Not if they wanted to keep their city inconspicuous.
I looked at the slight gray glow that shone through the opened windows. "We'll be too late," I whispered, my throat closing in panic.
She shook her head. "Right now, he's leaning toward the melodramatic. He wants the biggest audience possible, so he'll choose the main plaza, under the clock tower. The walls are high there. He'll wait till the sun is exactly overhead."
"So we have till noon?" "If we're lucky. If he sticks with this decision."
The pilot came on over the intercom, announcing, first in French and then in English, our imminent landing. The seat belt lights dinged and flashed.
"How far is it from Florence to Volterra?"
"That depends on how fast you drive… Bella?"
"Yes?"
She eyed me speculatively. "How strongly are you opposed to grand theft auto?"
A bright yellow Porsche screamed to a stop a few feet in front of where I paced, the word TURBO scrawled in silver cursive across its back. Everyone beside me on the crowded airport sidewalk stared.
"Hurry, Bella!" Alice shouted impatiently through the open passenger window. I ran to the door and threw myself in, feeling as though I might as well be wearing a black stocking over my head.
"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."
"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. 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?"
"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 Voltun, 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." 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."