Chapter Twenty-five: And we're back!

It was a crazy week, which meant there was no time for writing about vampires, werewolves, and horrible teenage romance. But I'm back and ready to go, so let's start wrapping up Eclipse before we move on to the nightmare that is Breaking Dawn.

This chapter begins with Edward destroying a headless vampire corpse. Nice. Seth tracks down every last bit of vampire that got tossed around the forest so that they can have a sparkly bonfire. When they're all done, Edward and Seth celebrate their teamwork with a nose-to-fist bump, like all good vampire-werewolf teammates do.

Edward approaches Bella slowly, trying not to freak out the crazy girl with the rock in her hand. Edward asks Bella several times not to be scared, which Bella doesn't really get. Why should she be scared of the supernatural undead creature that just mutilated another evil supernatural undead creature?

Bella was just worried about Seth and Edward getting hurt, but everyone is fine, both here and at the site of the bigger battle that we apparently didn't have tickets for. Seth was only pretending to be hurt to draw Riley in; nobody thought letting Bella in on this strategy might be a smart idea.

A while back though, Alice said there would be some sort of complication, something to do with scheduling...and now Bella wants to know what's up. Edward says that it's nothing to be afraid of, but that they'd best be getting back to the group.

But then something goes wrong. Edward uses his wolfie-talkies to see that...something has happened, but he doesn't say what. He just sends Seth home immediately. Communication is not one of the strong points in the Bella-Edward relationship.

Edward skips over whatever the first issue is and jumps back to the second. It seems that the Volturi have showed up to take care of the newborn problem themselves at the worst possible time. They're not coming for Bella or the Cullens; they just sent their regular clean up crew that takes care of your typical vampire societal issues. Edward seems to think it's also possible that the Volturi (here comes a shock!) might not be entirely friendly in their motives; they might feel lucky if the newborns happened to take out a few Cullens before they were stopped.

Alice can see it will all turn out okay, though. The wolves run away, since foreign vampires aren't likely to be so friendly with large packs of werewolves. But Bella demands to know what the other problem was all about.

It seems that Leah wanted to prove her worth, and decided to take on the last of the newborn vampires -- one they had overlooked on their first pass -- alone. Jacob stepped in to help her, but didn't have time to defend himself, and got hurt pretty badly in the process.

Bella faints and stays out for five minutes. She may want to see a doctor about that, because it happens way too often.

When she wakes up, she finds out that while Jacob is hurt, he's going to survive. He's a freaking werewolf, afterall; he's already starting to heal, and even though his injuries were almost life-threatening, he'll be back to normal in a couple days. Close one there, Stephenie: you almost made something that happen in these books have an actual consequence!

Alice sees that the Volturi are going to arrive in just a few minutes; Bella, now having regained her bearings, realizes they're in the middle of the vampire baseball clearing. There's also an additional vampire among them, a young girl who surrendered rather than be killed by the invincible sparklepire family. The girl really wants to eat Bella, and wants to know how the Cullens can stand being around her. I'd love to know that too, because she really is kind of insufferable. And probably tasty, if you're a vampire.

Jane and the Volturi arrive in their cute little hoodies. Jane is a little chagrined about the fact that one of the newborns has surrendered, because that's just not how the vampire world rolls -- at least not outside of Carlisle. Of course, even Dr. Sparklepire admits that he doesn't really have the authority to guarantee the newborn's safety, and that ultimately, her fate is up to Jane.

Looks like the Cullens almost pitched a perfect game: eighteen up, seventeen down, one error (not killing the hostage). At least, that's how Jane sees it, since she knows nothing of Quileute werewolves and alliances and supernatural love triangles. Counting Victoria and her older helper Riley, that's a total of 20 vampires killed by the Cullens without a single casualty. Jane is suitably impressed, especially after interrogating the hostage to confirm the details of their story.

Learning that Bella was the source of Victoria's fury, Jane notes that she seems to be good at getting strong reactions out of vampires. FYI, Jane, she also gets strong reactions out of me, though not the kind you're thinking of.

Edward and Carlisle make one last plea for Bree's life, careful not to try too hard. But Jane says that the Volturi don't give second chances, either for young vampires or for young soon-to-be-pires like Bella. Alice steps up to point out that the date has already been set for Bella's transformation, which disappoints Jane just a little. Won't they let her eat anyone anymore?

It's time for this little get-together to end, so Jane instructs Felix to take care of Bree (the girlpire). Felix dutifully does what's asked of him, while Bella doesn't look. Apparently, it's not traumatic at all to see her fiancee killing another vampire, but to see a complete stranger do it would be too much to handle.

Jane and friends head out into the mist quietly. I can't blame them for leaving; who wouldn't want to sneak out of these books as quickly as possible?