Here is the third installment in the Halfling series. This one focuses more on the Volturi, namely the relationship between Aro, Marcus, and Caius. There will be more stories after this, so have fun!


'Hurry, Jazz! Hurry!' Caius begged through their mind link.

Forty-two. That was the number of halflings that the Volturi were staring down. And that was five more than they had, even with Carlisle's coven. Jane's and Alec's powers were null and void because their enemies were halflings. Their best offensive weapons were gone. They had muscle, but so did Julien. He had chosen his army carefully. The Cullens were already there, all except for Alice and Jasper, and they were running as fast as they could toward the battlefield.

"We are sick of the Volturi killing us," Julien declared loudly. "We have just as much a right as you do to live."

Aro resisted the urge to glance at Caius, and responded carefully. "If you leave now, we will not kill you."

There was a murmur that ran through the vampires. Aro letting halflings go? What was going on? Julien laughed harshly.

"Then you will send your assassins after us and take us out one by one."

"This is useless, Julien," Caius said unwaveringly.

"No, it isn't albino freak." Caius twitched, growling angrily. Julien smirked. "We will take you down then we will hunt every vampire down and slaughter them. Then halflings will rule. Now, you think Jane and Alec are impressive. Watch this. Celia, if you please."

There was a concussive thud and everybody went down. Everybody, that is, except for Edward and Caius. Every jaw dropped on the other side of the battlefield. Then Julien began to laugh.

"What's so funny?" Caius demanded, kneeling down next to Aro. "What did you do?"

"Celia has a wonderful special ability. She can take down vampires, and only vampires. Which means, my white-haired friend, that you and that fellow over there are not vampires. You are halflings, like us. Join us in our rule."

"What will you do with my coven?" Caius asked coldly as Edward blurred over to him.

"We shall kill them all, of course," Julien said matter-of-factly.

"Then you can take your offer, shove it up your ass, and go to the fiery depths of hell to rot for all eternity," Caius said dryly.

"Oh ho. Loyal to the ones who would kill you? They don't want our kind, Caius. Aro has made it abundantly clear that we are to be destroyed, thrown aside because we don't matter."

"It isn't that we don't matter. It's that we're dangerous," Caius growled. "A halfling killed his wife and his sister."

"Ho hum," Julien yawned. "That doesn't warrant death for us."

"He loved them both fiercely, as did Marcus. They still feel the pain of their loss."

"How are you still alive?"

Caius stood, crossing his arms. "I had no halfling to tell me what I was. I didn't know I wasn't a vampire for seven hundred years."

"But you are over three thousand years old," Julien said, obviously confused.

"Three thousand, three hundred and sixty, to be precise."

"That is still twenty-six hundred and sixty years for you to keep your secret. How did you do it? Aro is a mind reader."

"You clearly don't know of a halfling's ability to shield," Caius said with a snort.

"Shield? From each other's minds? We can do that?" Julien asked in surprise.

"You are so young and foolish," Caius said, shaking his head. "Even vampires can shield, given the right training, and some humans have natural shields."

"Bah, that isn't useful."

"I'm alive, aren't I?"

"How can you want to be with them?" the halfling leader demanded. "They want us dead."

Caius looked down at Aro and Marcus. "I must admit, my coven leaders can be the biggest pains in the ass that anybody has ever seen. They're strict and mean to werewolves and those humans who find out about us. They claim halflings are monsters. But I've seen them at their worst. They can be monsters, too. And that's what makes them scary. But I'm not scared of them. I never have been. Even if Aro decided to snap my neck and burn my body at this very moment, I would understand to a degree. He doesn't like what he doesn't understand. Even now, he stays away from me unless I ask for his presence. Then he's tense and awkward. When we're around the Cullens, he's more relaxed, more touchy-feely. Carlisle always did bring out the best in the three of us."

"So…he knows you're a halfling?" Julien asked softly.

"Yes. Aro and Marcus have known for about a year that I am a halfling. They haven't told the rest of the coven yet."

Julien laughed. "Guess what?"

Caius frowned. "What?"

"Aro and Marcus don't have to tell them. They can still hear you. They've heard every word you've said. So you might as well join us, because if you don't, you will die."

Caius blushed fiercely then turned to face the hill next to them. "Julien, I would like you to meet the devil of the south. Jasper Whitlock! Over here!"

There was a low murmur that ran through the halflings as Jasper and Alice suddenly appeared at the top of the hill. They surveyed the situation then walked down to the battlefield.

"Howdy," Jasper said to Caius and Edward.

"Hey," Caius said, smiling a false smile. It wasn't that he was upset to see Jasper and Alice. Not at all. He was actually quite relieved. He was just still reeling from the fact that his entire coven now knew that he was a halfling.

"Celia?" Julien asked tersely.

"I'm doing it. They aren't going down."

"Two more halflings. I have an offer for you."

"No," Jasper said flatly.

"But they want to kill you."

"Mama and Papa don't. My bruthers 'n' my sister don't neither."

They had blank looks on their faces. "Mama? Papa? Brothers and sister? What kind of coven is that?"

"We aren't just a coven," Alice said with her nose in the air. "We are a family. Get used to it."

"You're not talking about the Volturi?!" Julien asked incredulously.

"Um, no. The Olympic coven. Those vampires over there." She pointed to Carlisle and the others.

"This day is weird," Julien said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"How so?" Edward asked dryly.

Julien answered. "First we find out that a chief member of the Volturi is a halfling. Then we find out that he wants to stay with the vampires who want to kill him. Then we find out that the infamous devil of the south is a halfling, too. Now you're telling me that there's a vampire coven who actually acts as a family? Not only that, they've adopted two halflings as their children! Can this day get any weirder?"

"We could kick yer ass," Jasper said matter-of-factly.

The halflings laughed heartily. "There's forty-two of us, and four of you. I personally like the sound of those odds."

Caius laughed, too. "Yeah? Well we have an impressive mind reader who is the fastest thing I've ever met, an empath who is single-handedly the greatest strategist and fighter I have ever seen, a future-seer who can fight nearly as well as her brother, and my…me."

Julien perked up. "Could it be?" he asked softly. "Does the halfling Volturi leader have a special ability? Has he hidden that part of himself from his coven as well?"

Caius didn't grace that with an answer. "Alice, dear."

"Yes?"

"Who do you see winning this battle?"

"Are you hell-bent on fighting?"

"Yes."

Alice's face went blank. She came out looking nervous, and Caius was stiff.

"There is no other way?"

"That's what I see, Caius. I can't change the future. Not that way."

"Then so be it. Hopefully once we fight, we can change that."

"You're really going to fight us?" Julien asked resignedly.

"Yes. I will not let you destroy my coven."

"Or our family," Edward said fiercely.

"So be it. Attack!" Julien roared.

Jasper's mind immediately began spitting out calculations. One of their primary objectives was to take out Celia, but she had bodyguards, and they had about thirty-five halflings rushing them. Alice's visions began flashing through their minds and Jasper's strategy began matching it. Within a minute, five halflings were lying dead, their blood pooling beneath them. Julien was barking out orders. There was chaos as ten more halflings went down, all of them the enemy. Jasper was nearly to Celia when Caius screamed.

Jasper turned to see blood streaming down his best friend's face. He saw red and lunged for the female who'd hurt him. He tore her limb from limb rather cheerfully. Alice and Edward had taken out four more when Julien's voice rang out, causing them to halt. Caius turned and paled even more than he already was. Julien was right by Aro, and he held a lighter.

"Kill anybody else, and he goes up in flames. Then I'll do Marcus."

They stared. This was Alice's vision. This is what they had seen. They had tried to keep track of the halfling leader, but he'd slipped by them. There was only four of them. They stood down and they were locked in place by the four bodyguards, who were gifted in strength, just like Emmett.

"What are you going to do now?" Julien asked, flicking the lighter. On. Off. On. Off.

Caius nervously looked at Aro and Marcus then swallowed convulsively. "I'm going to use my special ability."

"Oh! So you do have one!"

"Yes."

"Let's see it then," Julien said eagerly.

Jasper nodded at him, and Caius shivered then hummed a long, low tone. Immediately the enemy halflings began locking up. Julien dropped the lighter, and his eyes became fixed at nothing. Then Caius began to sing. With Celia's power successfully neutralized for the moment, the vampires began stirring then painstakingly started to rise to their feet, shaking and shivering as if they were deathly ill. The bodyguards dropped their arms and Caius and the other halflings hurried out of reach and back to the vampires, going to Carlisle and the other Cullens, who took them in immediately.

All the while Caius sang, his voice unwavering. It was the purest, clearest, most perfect voice that any of them had heard, and some of them had heard the greatest voices throughout the ages. He sang in his native tongue, one song flowing into the other. Though the majority of those assembled didn't know what he was singing about, Edward, Alice, and Jasper got to hear of silver moonlight, twinkling stars, and flowers blooming in the field.

Caius used sign language to convey something to Jasper, who nodded and walked over to Celia. He took her face in his hands, then sighed heavily and snapped her head off. He swiftly dropped her and struck a match he'd gotten from his pocket, lighting her ablaze. That done, Caius finished his song then went silent.

The halflings woke from their daze slowly. Julien blinked, looking around.

"What happened?" His gaze fell on Caius, who was staring at the ground. "Hey! What did you do?!"

"Don't mess with my coven," Caius said in a low voice.

Julien swallowed nervously when he noticed Jasper standing by the fire that had previously been where Celia stood and began backing up. Aro looked murderous.

"Don't worry, Caius," he said softly. "He won't have the chance to make that mistake again."

He snapped his fingers and there was a bloodbath as nearly the entire Volturi coven tore into the remaining halflings. There were screams of agony as some were tortured.

While they were occupied, the other halflings, the ones who had been on the Volturi's side, silently slipped away back to Caius' home. The albino collapsed onto the bed in his room, sobbing hard. Jasper tried to soothe him, but his power was shoved away rather violently. When he attempted to physically soothe him, Caius let out a wail of agony.

"Just leave me alone!" he shrieked.

Jasper hesitated then he, Alice, and Edward left. Caius cried and cried, sure that he would be killed, or worse, thrown out of the coven. Aro did not like secrets kept from him. And to keep a special ability secret? Oh, Aro would have his head! He cried himself to sleep, more miserable than he'd been since his halfling secret had been discovered.