DISCLAIMER: Several characters within this story and the universe they interact in are the intellectual property of Stephenie Meyer.

CRESCENT MOON

Written by

Horatio Zedekiah Jaxx

CHAPTER 11: CONFESSIONALS

Renee and Charlie listened to the Cullens and their guests chronicle the last two years until early the next morning. By the time they returned home, they had a thorough understanding of the situation with regards to themselves, the Cullens, and the Olympic Peninsula in general. They left with a newfound respect for the Cullens, despite themselves. Bella's affection for this family of vampires and theirs for her and each other softened Renee and Charlie's opinion of them.

Renee had more of a problem with this revelation than Charlie. The whole supernatural aspect of all of this made her feel uneasy about Forks and the surrounding wilderness. Despite this apprehension, she needed no encouragement to remain where she was. She understood that the Cullens and the Quileute shape-shifters were providing the best protection she could get, and she had no intention of exposing Bella's secret to the world.

Charlie had a far easier time with this, or so it appeared to Renee. His fears and worries for his daughter were mostly eased by the knowledge that Bella loved the Cullens and that they loved her. His opinion of the Cullens was also improved by the discovery that Bella was not a passive victim of this family of vampires. He accepted the fact that for the better or the worse, Bella had made her decision, and there was nothing left for him to do but live with it, even if he did not like it. His opinion of Edward reluctantly softened a little, as well, despite the fact that he still blamed him for all that happened to Bella.

Quite to the opposite of this, Charlie's concerns about Forks in general had increased since his late night meeting with the Cullens. His job as Chief of Police had taken on a new severity for him. The knowledge that the community he was sworn to protect might soon be invaded by numerous supernatural predators increased his worry significantly. The absence of any new attacks, plus what he recently learned about the capabilities of these supernatural predators, reinforced in his mind the idea that the best thing he could do was trust in the Cullens and Quileute shape-shifters to keep the community safe, even if he did have his doubts about their ability to do this.

Based upon what he heard, it seemed to Charlie that the Volturi was more than a match for the Cullens and the Quileute shape-shifters combined. He spent the seven days that followed that meeting questioning the Cullens and Jacob for news about the surrounding wilderness, in anticipation of the return of the Volturi. The Cullens entertained his repeated inquiries pleasantly. Jacob became less and less agreeable as the number of inquiries grew.

"There's nothing you can do, Charlie, but wait. We'll let you know when there's something to tell you."

Charlie's primary concern was for hikers and campers in the area. Internally, for him, there was a conflict between his desire to conceal what he knew and the obligation he felt to warn everyone to stay out of the forest. This contention notwithstanding, Charlie knew he would not betray Bella's secret, so long as all were safe and secure in and about Forks. However, he had no idea how he would react if those he was charged to protect became collateral damage of this supernatural power struggle, and that was his greatest fear.

Life for the Cullens immediately became a whole lot easier after confiding with Renee and Charlie. The time and energy they were using concealing their true selves was suddenly available for other purposes. Ducking Charlie's and Renee's visits and limiting their visits with them was no longer necessary. This new, open association also made it easier for the Cullens to keep them safe. Bella, with Renesmee in tow, along with Esme, Edward, and Carlisle, began visiting Renee on a daily basis. They were able to provide for her comfort and needs personally, and Bella could visit with her little brother.

When the Cullens were not visiting at the Swan residence, they were at home pursuing their usual amusements and activities. Foremost among these was the continuation of Bella's combat training. Absent from Bella's schooling this time around was Edward. He was spending all of his spare time perfecting his ability to project his thoughts. No longer encumbered by the external distractions of Bella's parents and trespassing vampires, Edward began work on developing this talent with a vengeance. Finding a volunteer for his exercises had become less of a problem. When no one chose to make his or her self available for Edward's experimentation, he simply targeted individuals at random. Having their concentration disrupted by Edward's projected consciousness quickly became an annoyance for the Cullen family and their guests, minus Bella and Renesmee. Everyone understood Edward's need to develop this ability and subsequently bit their tongue rather than complain, but they also began to make themselves scarce whenever he came around.

It did not take long for Edward to become confident of his ability to push his mind into another person's head. He had honed this ability until it took only a second or two of concentration to implant any thought he could think of into someone else's mind. He did not put a great deal of value in this ability, but Edward did believe that it could provide him with a chance to affect the outcome of a confrontation with the Volturi. Edward was consumed by the idea of getting his hands on Jane and Alec. He was confident that the pint-size Jane was no match for him, hand to hand, and he suspected the same was true for her average height brother. He desperately wanted to disable these two powerful vampires, so that his family could at least have a fighting chance, and he was determined to do this even at the price of his own life.

Edward's obsession with this newly discovered talent did not escape the notice or concern of Carlisle. Their history together was too long for Carlisle not to know something was gravely wrong with his son. He first noted Edward's growing sullen demeanor shortly after their encounter with the Volturi, but what was happening of late was altogether new. Edward was feverishly engrossed in his training regimen, at the expense of all else and all others in his life. To the opposite of Carlisle's hope that this preoccupation would pass, Edward became all the more intent upon what he was doing over time. With Esme's support, Carlisle concluded that he had to do something to save Edward from himself.

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"You're a vampire with a newborn child. Do you have any idea how much of a miracle she is?" Carlisle questioned Edward softly.

Edward was already all too aware of the motive behind this inquiry. He could hear it in Carlisle's thoughts as he approached.

"I know how special Renesmee is," Edward responded gruffly.

"She is literally growing by the minute, right before our eyes, and you're missing it," Carlisle emphasized strongly.

"All that I do, I do for her," Edward spoke back with a temper. "If the Volturi have their way, her life will end before it ever gets started."

"You don't know that, Edward," Carlisle calmly answered.

"I know what I heard in Aro's thoughts," Edward rifled back with anguish. "This family is in danger! This coven is in danger, and no amount of wishing, no amount of positive thinking is going to change that."

"Then we will deal with that when it comes," Carlisle spoke back softly after a pause.

Edward shook his head in distress, as if he were angry with himself for some unspoken deed.

"You have a life, here and now, and it's hurting me and your mother that you're missing it," Carlisle placidly continued.

"I can't let this go, Carlisle," Edward insisted vehemently. "This is my doing, and all our lives are at stake because of it."

"No, Edward," Carlisle insisted softly as he turned away, his face rumpled by contemplation.

Edward instantly took note of the thoughts foaming up in Carlisle's mind, and quickly fixed his attention anew on his father.

"Why would Aro want you dead?" Edward asked after plucking this thought out from Carlisle's head.

Carlisle turned back to note Edward studying him intensely. He pondered if he should continue withholding the information that was now on the tip of his tongue. He knew that if Aro ever found out that he had breathed these words, his fate, and the fate of the person he had spoken it to, would be a foregone conclusion.

"Why would this be about you?" Edward inquired again as he tried to penetrate the veil that Carlisle was hiding his thoughts behind.

Edward could read from Carlisle's mind that he was debating with himself if he should or should not speak what he knew. This was not the first time Edward had encountered this barrier to some guarded secret within Carlisle's mind, but this was the first time that it was so close to being lifted. Edward never thought to inquire about it before. Out of respect, he never queried friends and family about their hidden thoughts. This, however, was something that Edward knew Carlisle felt he should know and feared for him for knowing it.

Carlisle shied away from Edward's new inquiry as he continued to wrestle with his thoughts. If this were a secret belonging to anyone else but Aro, he would not think twice about telling it to Edward. He knew his son guarded all information, secret or not. Getting him to pass along an insignificant report required nothing less than an interrogation by its would be receiver, but Aro required no such exertion. His storehouse of knowledge on the vampire community was siphoned out of their minds by this ability of his to absorb the thoughts and memories of nearly everyone he touched. Carlisle knew that Aro would likely learn of this telling at some time in the future through a touch from his hand. He also feared that the discovery of him doing so would mean a death sentence for whomever he told.

"We're already under a death sentence," Edward pressured for more.

"You say that like you're so sure," Carlisle responded back directly.

"Aro sees us as a threat," Edward insisted.

"Aro sees everyone as a threat," Carlisle insisted back at him. "That does not mean he will act upon this fear."

"He already has," Edward argued. "He fears us like no other. This I do know, Carlisle."

Carlisle took a moment to ponder Edward's last remark.

Shortly, Edward pressed him once again. "Tell me," Edward nearly pleaded. "What is this secret that you're protecting me from?"

"If I tell you this, Edward, there will be no retreat from it. Aro will kill you just for knowing it."

"I understand."

"You cannot tell anyone else. This is for you to know alone."

"I know."

Carlisle turned away and briefly paced as he gathered his thoughts. Edward waited quietly as he monitored his thinking.

"Aro likes to use vampires," Carlisle spoke softly as he began his story. "He values us for our varied gifts, and he fears us for them, as well. During my time with the Volturi in the late sixteen-hundreds, the vampire community was in a tumultuous state. Wars between covens over territories were common place occurrences. Still, the Volturi Coven was the most powerful coven of vampires anywhere, but there was no guarantee this would last. When the Volturi all but decimated the Romanian Coven more than a thousand-years earlier, there were no other covens about powerful enough to challenge them. By the late sixteen-hundreds, when I first encountered the Volturi, there were dozens of powerful covens that dotted the landscape of Europe. The days of tiptoeing around the Volturi seemed to be coming to an end."

Carlisle continued to wander about briefly, off and on, as he gathered his thoughts to tell this story.

"The Volturi was different at that time. Not quite as despotic as they appear to be now. They were far more careful about not creating enemies. I took a fancy to them because of their patronage of the Arts and Sciences, and I suspect that's what attracted me to Aro. He and I were friends for a time, I suppose. We shared the same interests. He was amused by my desire to continue tending to the medical needs of mortals. We had many talks about this, and over the course of our discussions, he managed to convince me to add the mechanics of vampirism to my studies. It was a hopeless venture. After three years of study, my understanding of what I am did not increase one bit. However, I did make one discovery that I soon learned intrigued Aro far more than it did me."

"Blood," Edward spoke up in response to the thought that suddenly appeared in Carlisle's mind.

"I wanted to know why vampires were so repelled by the blood of another vampire," Carlisle continued without hesitation.

"Our blood is cold and dead," Edward offered without a second thought.

"Cold, yes," Carlisle calmly agreed. "But not dead, because we're not dead. I wanted to know what would happen if a vampire drank the blood of another vampire. Aro provided me with test subjects to find out. The results at first were negligible. I was just about to terminate the experiment when I saw it."

"Blood poisoning," Edward picked the thought out of Carlisle's mind once again.

"Yes," Carlisle agreed solemnly. "Or so I coined it at the time. Venom poisoning is a more accurate description. The venom that we use to turn mortals exists in the blood that sustains us, in far less condensed concentrations."

"It altered them." Edward read Carlisle's thought out loud.

"I began to notice the change in a few of the test subjects. These individuals became more compliant," Carlisle paused to find the right word, "obedient, even servile to the donor whose blood they drank. It was as if they had somehow become mesmerized by a charisma they perceived the blood donor to have. At first, I saw it as simply an amusing efficacy. The infatuation was temporary. The effect simply dissipated over the next two to three months, and then, they were back to normal. My first thought was to ignore it and move on to new studies, but Aro pushed me to sort out why some of my test subjects were affected by this venom poisoning and others were not."

"And you did," Edward spoke up to encourage Carlisle to continue.

"Yes, I did," Carlisle continued. "It took me another year of study to sort it all out, and Aro was fascinated by my findings."

"And what were the findings, Father?" Edward softly queried.

Carlisle turned and looked at Edward with the knowledge that he was about to clear the last hurdle towards betraying a secret that had kept for more than three-hundred years, but he knew that there was no turning back. He had already said too much.

"I discovered that venom poisoning was one-hundred percent effective on all vampires," Carlisle responded, after a time, with finality.

"I thought you said some of your test subjects were not affected," Edward queried in confusion.

"All vampires have immunity to the venom of the vampire who made them vampires," Carlisle emphasized for effect.

Edward pondered this for a moment before speaking.

"So the vampires who were not affected were drinking the blood of the vampire who turned them."

"That was my initial assumption, but that wasn't true in all cases." Carlisle quickly responded. "It took me seven test batches and thirty-nine test subjects to figure it all out," Carlisle emphasized the last part with displeasure. "The immunity is passed on from one generation to the next like a family tree," Carlisle reported with frustration. "Parent vampires are incapable of mesmerizing their offspring or their second-generation offspring. Third-generation descendants showed minimal signs of poisoning. I doubt the immunity extends beyond that."

"So a vampire's venom has no, or little, affect upon his progeny three generations down?" Edward mused out loud.

"The immunity can also be passed on when a vampire who is under the effect of venom poisoning turns a mortal into a vampire. The newborn vampire is not only immune to the venom of the vampire that made him or her, but they also have immunity to the venom of the vampire that their maker is infected with at that time."

Edward took a moment to ponder this. A thought gradually came to him and shortly grew into a revelation.

"That's why Aro let Bella go in Volterra," Edward spoke up softly as he discerned the truth for the first time. "He couldn't turn her himself, because he would lose any chance of controlling her later on."

"Precisely," Carlisle answered back directly, "and that should give you some idea about the Volturi Coven."

Carlisle paused to allow the latter part of his statement take effect.

"Not only could Aro, Marcus, and Caius not turn her, but they could not allow anyone there to turn her. The Volturi Coven has not turned a mortal into a vampire for more than three-hundred years."

"The entire coven is brainwashed by them," Edward spoke up with a surprised tone in his voice. "I often wondered why Jane and Alec put up with them for so long."

"Once they had their secret weapon," Carlisle continued without regard for Edward's remark, "they swore me to secrecy under penalty of death."

"But how could they keep this a secret with so many test subjects?" Edward queried suspiciously. "They killed them," Edward quickly picked the thought out of Carlisle's head before he could answer.

"Aro, Marcus, and Caius created newborn vampires for me to experiment with," Carlisle somberly reported, "and after I had produced the answer, they destroyed them, all of them, to protect the secret."

Edward studied Carlisle's face as he listened to his thoughts. Suddenly, he knew that these deaths, more than anything else that happened, was what drove Carlisle to leave the Volturi.

"Soon after this discovery of mine," Carlisle emphasized with a mixture of anger and sadness, "the Volturi became too powerful to be challenged by any single coven. They accomplished this through the use of a ceremony they referred to as The Blood Ritual. New and veteran members of the coven are required once every full moon to drink from a cup that contains the blood of Aro, Marcus, and Caius mixed together. Once they've taken their first drink, the second drink and third and forth are progressively easier to induce. The more intoxicated they are by the venom, the more compliant they are to their masters."

Edward took a moment to consider everything he was told, and shortly into this, a question came to mind. Carlisle beat him to the question.

"Why did they let me leave?"

"Yes," Edward validated the question.

"I think Aro thought that I would return eventually. He knew my vow never to reveal this secret was sincere. He got that with just a touch of his hand, and I think he genuinely didn't want to kill me. They brought it to a vote, and I was permitted to leave by a two to one majority.

"Caius," Edward spoke out the name he suspected to have cast the dissenting vote.

"I suspect so," Carlisle agreed. "Caius never liked me. He found my penchant for wanting to heal mortals rather than feed on them abhorrent. I was a member of the Volturi only by the favor of Aro and the apathy of Marcus, and I have no doubt that I left under the same protection."

"And you think after all this time, they've changed their minds about you?" Edward questioned in a ponderous voice.

"The instant I defied Aro," Carlisle shortly answered back, "I became a liability. Aro rarely places his affection ahead of his judgment. You're just an excuse. I'm the problem."

"This is still my doing, Carlisle," Edward somberly responded. "It doesn't matter what Aro's motivation is now. I set this into motion. You cannot take the blame for that."

"I can, and I do. This family is wholly a product of my creation. I could have kept you away from Bella. I could have taken this family away and told you never to look back, but I didn't. I saw how important she was to you, and I chose to allow you to explore those feelings. I forbid you from taking the blame for the road that we have traveled," Carlisle instructed sternly.

Edward was suddenly lost for words. His head slumped forward, and his eyelids squeezed shut in an attempt to hold back phantom human tears. Carlisle instantly softened his stance at the sight of this, and took his son into his embrace.