Chapter 34 - The VEIL

XAVIER'S HOUSE

FORKS, WASHINGTON

"So, what happens next?" Angela brought the phone closer to her ear even though the call was on speaker. "When are you coming back?"

Like I said, I can't be sure.

"Is there anything you can be sure about?"

I love you…

"Then come home…"

…..

"Fine…" Angela grunted. "I need pictures of injuries to show everyone that you're still alive. Bella, specifically, has been calling a lot recently. I think she is suspecting something."

Why?

"Don't know…" Angela shrugged, knowing Xavier could see her through the dozens of hidden cameras in his house. "She was getting closer to Edward Cullen recently, but that seemed to have stopped."

Tell her the same story as everyone else, and send the pictures where necessary. Just make sure my interests are protected.

"I thought Jessie was taking care of that."

You want to be the woman of the house? Then be the woman of the house! If Jessie can do everything you can do, then I will need Jessie for much longer than I do you.

"That would have been hurtful to anyone else, but thankfully, I know you…" Angela rolled her eyes, but then grew concerned. "You are usually subtle about these things – what changed?"

New information that the world might be a bit more complicated than I previously realized. When I come back, we have to start your training with Emily.

"That bad, huh?"

...….

"Just send me the pictures," Angela groaned and almost slammed the phone onto the ground.

Thankfully, she paused when she realized what a waste it would have been – instead, her fingers pinched the thin air and pulled back as if removing a layer of something.

With that, the call and video successfully ended.

۞۞۞

FERNIS HOTEL – MILE 8

Xavier fiddled with the phone in his hands for a bit, careful not to crush the device due to the uncertain feelings that caused turmoil in his heart.

As for the reason for this turmoil – it was not Angela.

It was the fact that he had now gone three days without any sex – the longest he had gone without sex since coming to Forks, Washington.

It hardly registered in The Eternal's mind that he may have been a sex addict.

"An Eternal – a sex addict?" Xavier questioned.

"That definitely is a problem," Alcides exited the bathroom, towel wrapped around his torso as water dripped down his impressive figure. "From all the notes I read, your kind doesn't enjoy sex unless it is with someone you love."

"Do you mind using the shower in your own room?" Xavier frowned, shifting his floating position above the bed.

"We could only afford one room," Alcides slipped out of the towel, and into the clothing he previously wore.

Xavier's initial reaction was to barf, but very soon, a genuine smirk made its way onto The Eternal's face.

"What are you smiling for?" Alcides frowned.

"I mean…" Xavier shrugged his shoulder, smirk turning into a wide smile. "Honestly, I am just bigger and longer than you – I feel a bit proud. After all, how old are you… like 400 years old?"

Alcides shook his head in disappointment. "You're a child," He commented and continued getting dressed. "You better grow up fast or you'll probably die."

"When you say things like that, it makes me think you know more than you're telling me," Xavier narrowed his eyes.

"Of course, I do!" Alcides answered without turning around. "At my age – which doesn't matter what it is – everyone has an Agenda of their own. You shouldn't trust anyone without knowing their weaknesses in and out."

BBBBZZZZZZZ

Alcides and Xavier held their heads.

They both stifled a rather painful grunt.

Alcides was the first to recover. "Take a bath, wear your best suit, and then we'll drink," He instructed.

Xavier's flickering golden eyes cleared as he acknowledged the plans – more than anything, he needed a drink to stabilize a fracturing mind.

---------------

FERNS BAR

The moment Xavier and Alcides entered the bar, The Eternal knew the vampire had chosen this bar specifically.

The dozen-or-so eyes in the bar gravitated toward the two individuals, scanning Xavier and Alcides from head to toe.

Their sophisticated suits didn't help them fit in.

Xavier pulled Alcides in close and complained. "Why did you bring us to a Redneck bar? And don't bullshit me by saying it just happens to be at the only hotel in a ten-mile radius. You obviously picked this hotel beforehand."

"Rednecks? Is that what they are called today?" Alcides mused.

Xavier sighed and rolled his eyes, releasing the vampire as they made their way to the bar under the scrutinizing gazes of a dozen eyes.

"What did you call them in your lifetime?" The Eternal inquired.

"Everything cruel and outdated in the time was called Egyptians," Alcides revealed, sliding onto a bar seat. "Egypt was a beautiful place, but they treated humans worse than even the bloodiest vampires at the time."

Xavier tapped the counter twice, signaling the bartender – in a typical redneck fashion – to bring two large cups of a boilermaker, hoping it would ease the building tension in the bar.

The tension did ease… somewhat.

"I just learned several things about you," Alcides took a sip from the cup and spat the drink back into the cup. "One…" He continued despite the men rising from their seats. "You try to avoid conflict as much as possible."

"Obvi-fucking-ously…" Xavier snorted, dragging his seat a bit further from Alcides.

"Two…" The Vampire continued to list. "You're a very cruel person because you need a reason to kill – as your memories return, you will realize that killing beforehand is as effective as not killing at all. As species capable of living thousands of years, we are qualified to make this call."

Xavier sunk into silence, scanning through his memories quickly – it did indicate as such, but of course, he wasn't willing to participate in pre-emptive strikes.

By now, the dozen or so rednecks in the bar had gravitated to Alcides's side – only two making their way to Xavier's location.

"Three…" Alcides stared into Xavier's eyes as if daring The Eternal to prove him wrong. "You fight like a human and you think like a human – that's why you can't use the beams from your eyes, and your power will always fail you at critical moments."

A rising golden hue built-in Xavier's eyes, but true to Alcides's prediction, The Eternal could not convince himself – the human part of himself – to emit a beam from his eyes.

It felt unnatural.

BANG

It started as most barfights did – a chair to the back of Alcides's head, but the vampire didn't even flinch.

Alcides rose from his seat, and a quick jab to the offender caused the large redneck to double over, clutching his stomach as he rolled on the ground more pitifully than a wrongly beaten animal.

WHOOSH

Xavier's perception of the world slowed, and he spun up and out of his seat, watching as a blade traced a trajectory to his lower abdomen.

The Eternal was uncertain so he decided to test a theory.

Xavier moved his hand to intercept the blade, allowing the blade to grace his wide-open palm.

KRT

The two rednecks' eyes widened as the sharp blade bent on Xavier's palm.

"I am durable enough for blades at least," The Eternal muttered.

BANG

BANG

Blood splattered across the ground as Xavier's elbow shattered the jaw of the first offender, and crushed the feet of the second offender by stomping down hard enough to shatter the pine wooded flooring.

The six observers who had yet to attack Xavier and Alcides made their intentions known at this time. The Eternal expected the men to make a run for it – all wise men would.

But that wasn't the case.

The fight was bloody, leaving broken bodies at the minimum.

As the fight progressed, Xavier was pleased to notice that Alcides was guiding him along, showing just how much strength to use, and what mistakes not to make.

The Eternal had trained with Sam before, but training with a wolf could never compare to combat with a humanoid creature, albeit of a weaker strength.

Of course, Xavier used utilized the memories in his head as much as possible, trying to fight in a way that is familiar to Ikaris's physique.

--------------

Alcides and Xavier shared three bloodied cloth between themselves as they exited the bar.

Their respective suits had not a spot of blood from the one-sided battle, but it was inevitable that their shoes would become a little messy.

"You're right," Xavier sighed, fixing the position of the duffle bag on his shoulder. "I do hold back a bit when I fight. Why show me this?"

"Because the faster you remember, the better off we are," Alcides stated. "And I wanted to see what an Eternal is capable of – so far, I am not impressed."

Xavier shrugged his shoulders, uncaring of any opinion that didn't come from Angela or himself.

"Let's go…" Alcides motioned.

The Eternal was confused at first, but when he saw the forest across the street, Xavier finally understood why Alcides had chosen this location in particular.

The Vampire blurred into a sprint.

Xavier took some time to observe, noting how much slower Alcides was than The Cullens.

"Forty meters in a second is impressive, but—" Xavier did the mental math in his head. "It can't compare to The Cullen's average speed of 67 meters in a single second."

Xavier took two large steps in a blur of movement and tossed his body forward, instantly transitioning into a familiar wave pattern with the gravitons in the air.

WHOOOOOSH

The Eternal disappeared into the forest in the blink of an eye, and three seconds later, he was keeping pace with Alcides rather easily.

۞۞۞

It took two hours of running, scaling ridges, using branches as a springboard to scale steep drops, and climbing the rocky surfaces of cliffs.

Of course, Xavier mainly flew over these obstacles when he wasn't trying to get some exercise in.

BUZZ

BUZZ

BUZZ

The buzzing grew louder and louder, and since he wasn't feeling any sort of mental discomfort, Xavier knew it was a literal buzzing and not a mental one.

Alcides guided The Eternal to the source of the noise.

It was a plain of green grass, not unlike the terrain that could be found everywhere in the world. There was nothing unique about the environment by any measure.

Still, the buzzing was a consistent ache.

"You can hear it?" Alcides questioned, raising his head to see if there were any indications in the air.

"Yeah…"

"Then it is definitely here," The Vampire replied.

"Yeah…" Xavier pressed his ear to the ground and specified. "And it's deep, but right over there…" He pointed to an area of browner green twenty feet away.

Alcides seemed doubtful. "Are you certain?" The Vampire inquired. "In my limited experience, it is usually above."

"I can't be certain that it's down there since I don't know what exactly we are looking for but—" Xavier contemplated his next words, not wanting to reveal too much. "The buzzing is not coming from above – I know because I could feel everything happening in the atmosphere."

Alcides was incredulous. "On planet Earth?" He asked.

Xavier rolled his eyes and didn't reply – a little mystery was necessary to keep a powerful vampire in check. The Eternal placed his hand above the brownish patch and felt.

The vibrations spoke to him.

It was a blurry sort of sense.

The attuned senses that allowed Xavier to determine his position when flying could vaguely be applied to occupied spaces of Earth.

"Twenty feet… no…" Xavier frowned. "It's moving?"

A shimmer of disgust and genuine wrongness ran through Xavier's body, and The Eternal blurred away from the location as fast as he could.

It was the fastest he had ever managed in a single leap – yes, a leap… he didn't fly, but simply roused the gravitons to force his body backward while simultaneously applying every muscle in his body.

The accident maneuver opened a new insight to combat in Xavier's mind, but he couldn't bother with such a thought at this moment.

Xavier's eyes radiated a golden hue, and for the first time, The Eternal felt the cosmic Energy in his body rippling and moving toward a single purpose.

HEAT combined with LIGHT.

"Calm down…" Alcides stood alert, facing Xavier with cautiousness he had not shown before. "I am a vampire, but Cosmic Beams will still kill me."

"I can't…" Xavier struggled.

"What? Calm down!" Alcides repeated, carefully making his way to the duffle bag on the ground.

"I can't…" Xavier repeated, finding he could neither look away nor stop the energy that was accumulating behind his eyes. "Dodge!" He grunted.

Though, who could dodge light?

WWRRRTTTT

Two beams of concentrated cosmic phenomenon tore through the air, superheating the atmosphere where it passed.

Alcides had an instant to react and using the training afforded by an immortal lifespan, the vampire reacted in a way that only a few people on the planet could.

The Vampire rolled an instant before the beam, withdrew a short sword from the duffle bag, and struck toward the incoming beam with all the strength he could muster.

It took absolute technique.

Alcides had to cut the beam, flick his finger to turn the blade at least thirty-five degrees anticlockwise and release the blade simultaneously.

Then, the vampire rolled in the opposite direction – all of that to simply survive the second required to escape… and it worked.

Alcides had survived, but two holes had burned through his coat, searing just a bit of flesh in the process.

Xavier sunk to his knees, clutching his eyes to hide from whatever automatic targeting instinct had been instilled in Ikaris's Eternal psyche.

"FUCK!" He cursed.

Alcides rose to his feet, approaches Xavier, and gave The Eternal a casual pat on the back. "You okay?" The Vampire inquired.

"I almost killed you," Xavier muttered, still refusing to open his eyes until the urge building behind his pupils had died down.

"When you're immortal…" Alcides explained lazily. "Your best friends tend to be the people who try to kill you the most, and your wife becomes the person you kill others with the most."

Xavier cracked open his eyes. "That's fucked up."

"I know… but the good news is," Alcides placed his hand on the ground, concentrating his senses to feel what Xavier had originally felt. "You are right – what we are looking for is underground. I can tell because it projects disgust and unpleasantness to keep us from crossing."

"What is it?" Xavier stood, finally relieved the instinct to use his Cosmic Beams had passed.

"The VEIL…" Alcides responded.