A Witch Thing

• 1 •

"How are you feeling? Are you nervous, scared, happy? Are you excited? Tell me!" Alice exclaimed.

Elizabet laughed, "I will when you stop talking."

She zipped her lips shut with an invisible zipper and Elizabet spoke, "I'm excited. Happy that I'm marrying the love of my life. I can't wait."

She smiled, "Awesome! Okay, so we have a few last minute things to do, but the decorations are being set up!"

"Can I have a peek at something?" She asked, hopefully. Alice didn't let her see anything.

She shook her head, "Nope. Not until tomorrow when your walking down the isle."

She sighed heavily and shrugged, "Okay."

"But I do need to do one last dress fitting to make sure everything is perfect!"

"Oh, Alice! I don't want to! It takes forever!" Elizabet whined at the vampire.

She shrugged, "Do you want your special day to be perfect?"

"It doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be with him," she answered Alice truthfully. The vampire shrugged, "Too bad. I'm making it perfect. If I'm going to plan a wedding, I'll make it perfect. Let's go."

Elizabet groaned and before she could get dragged away, Eileen stepped forward with Ella and said, "Actually, Alice. I was wondering if I could snatch the bride real quick."

"Please," Elizabet begged.

Alice pouted, "Fine. But bring her back! We're doing that fitting." She turned around and saw Freya sniffing at the food set on the table for tomorrow.

"Hey! Away from the food!" Alice exclaimed.

Freya snatched a snack and ran to Elizabet's side, hoping for protection. Elizabet laughed and walked away with Eileen, Freya following happily.

"So, what's up?" Elizabet asked. Eileen chuckled, "Actually, I was snatching you to take you to Jasper, he was wanting to talk."

She nodded and Eileen took her to a room, peeking her head in before allowing her inside. Elizabet stepped inside with Freya and Eileen left.

Freya jumped in Elizabet's arms to take a nap. Jasper smiled and kissed Elizabet's forehead. "Have you seen anything yet?" She asked.

He shook his head, "No, nothing." Elizabet sighed and said, "Who am I kidding? This is Alice we're talking about."

He chuckled and said, "Actually, I was wanting to talk to you about the wedding?"

She bit her lip, "Yeah, sure. What's up?"

He said, "I was thinking, probably not a good way to start the conversation, but here we go. I was thinking about us."

"What about us?" She asked shyly, "You're not...rethinking this, are you?"

He stepped close to her, taking her head in his hands and kissing her gently, "I want nothing more than the spend my life with you as your husband."

She smiled and let him continue, "But I also wanted to share something else with you. I know all about your past, how you lived before me. I realize you don't know much about me."

He sat down, patting the seat next to him. Elizabet sat down, setting the fox in her lap. Jasper let out a sigh before he started.

"You already know I come from the South. There, they spend the day plotting their next move and anticipating their enemy's. It had been constant war in the South, constant war for centuries, with never one moment of truce.

"The coven there barely note the existence of humans, except as soldiers notice a herd of cows by the wayside - food for the taking. They only hide from the notice of the herd because of the Volturi."

Elizabet almost flinched at the name. After her experience with them, the screams of the humans they'd killed, the name made her a slight uneasy.

"It occurred to someone once that, if he were the only vampire in, let's say Mexico City, well then, he could feed every night, twice, three times, and no one would ever notice. He plotted ways to get rid of the competition.

"Others had the same idea. Some came up with more effective tactics than others. But the most effective tactic was invented by a fairly young vampire named Benito."

Elizabet knew the name, "Wasn't that the vampire who came from somewhere north of Dallas and massacred the two covens that shared the area near Houston?"

"How did you know that?" Jasper asked quizzically.

She shrugged with one shoulder, "The witches like to keep tabs on big vampire activities and that definitely made the cut."

Jasper asked, "How much do you know about it?"

Elizabet thought for a moment, "Two nights later he took on the much stronger clan that claimed Monterrey in northern Mexico and won."

"And how did he win?" Jasper asked, wondering if she knew.

"Benito had created an army of newborns. He was the first to think of it and was unstoppable for a time."

He nodded, "Young vampires are volatile, wild, and almost impossible to control."

"Unless you're a witch, mostly. The more mature the vampire, the harder it is to work magic on. Which is why taking on the Volturi was especially risky," Elizabet noted.

"One newborn can be reasoned with, taught to restrain himself, but ten, fifteen together are a nightmare. They'll turn on each other as easily as on the enemy you point them at," Jasper continued.

You nodded, knowing the story, "Benito had to keep making more as they fought amongst themselves, and as the coven he decimated took more then half of his force down before they lost. Newborns are almost impossible to defeat unless you knew what you're doing. They're incredibly powerful physically for the first year or so, but they're slaves to their instincts, and thus, predictable."

Jasper nodded, "Yes. The vampires in southern Mexico realized what was coming for them, and they did the only thing they could think of the counteract Benito. They made armies of their own."

She nodded once again and took over, "All hell broke loose - literally. It was not a good time to be human in Mexico, or a witch. In fact, it was so bad, the witches were sending letter after letter to covens all over wondering if the witches should step in. We almost had a war because of it, some were focused on keeping the humans safe while others were worried about getting rid of their enemies entirely."

She continued, "The Volturi finally stepped in when the body count reached epidemic proportions. They were hunting down every newborn in the bottom half of North America. It's one of the reasons the witches didn't step in. A very small coven tried to do their bit in the vampire wars when they were discovered by the Volturi and slaughtered. It gave the opposing witches another reason to wage war, but the fear of losing generations of witches was too big and won. Mexico was emptied of vampires for a time and they almost found two more covens of witches."

Jasper continued, "The Volturi were cleaning house for almost a year. There were very few witnesses left to speak of what it was like. I spoke to someone once who had, from a distance, watched what happened when they visited Culiacán."

Jasper shuddered. Elizabet put a hand on his cheek and he looked at her, smiling at her presence. He sighed as he continued, "When the Volturi left, the wars resumed, but on a smaller scale. The humans selected for the armies were selected more carefully. It gave no reason for the Volturi to return.

"Every now and then, someone would go too far, speculation would begin in the human newspapers, and the Volturi would return to clean out the city. But they let the others, the careful ones, continue..."

"And that's how you were turned," she spoke.