I know this one took me a while to get up, but I've been tweaking it all day. I wrote it in the morning and then rewrote most of it during the afternoon. I just wasn't happy with the way things went during Eleazar's revelations. I'm still not sure I hit it out of the park, but I'm hoping you all will read and review for me. With the addition of more and more characters that I know less and less about, the job of telling the story is getting sticky . . . but interesting. I also hope that Emmett's small aside at the beginning is both humorous and insightful. Let me know what you all think and if there are any glaring issues. Thanks! :) ~Jen

Emmett's POV

Seriously, I didn't understand what Rose was so jazzed up about. Edward and Bella were the ones stuck with the crappy job of convincing everyone. We just had to ask people to go back to the house. How difficult could that be? It's not like travel was an issue for us.

"Emmett, be reasonable for a minute," Rose said. "I know it wouldn't phase you to go on a few hundred mile journey just for the hell of it, but don't you think these vampires are going to be the least be curious why we want them to visit our home?"

She looked at me expectantly, like I was suddenly going to slap my forehead and realize she had been right all along.

"Babe, relax already," I said, for about the thirtieth time since we had left the house. "They'll come. Alice already saw it."

She winced again. I didn't understand what had gotten Alice so upset that she ran away either, but I wasn't hurting as bad as Rose was. I figured Alice would take care of her stuff and come back when she was ready. I didn't always understand Alice, but if I knew my little sister, she wasn't going to let us have all the fun with the fight. She may be little, but she liked to kick ass as much as anyone I knew. I guessed that she wanted to kick the Volturi's ass more than any of us. She'd be back. No one else might believe it, but I did.

We were still in North America, searching out all of the nomads. We had already sent Garrett along, who went without a second thought. Rose said that was because he loved a challenge and an adventure. I didn't think Rose gave our family much credit. I was pretty sure that just saying Carlisle's name got everyone's attention and respect. She didn't realize that we were only a breath away from vampire royalty on a daily basis, but that was how I saw Carlisle. I was pretty sure that most of the vampires we met would think of him that way as well. Carlisle deserved respect. And if he was asking for help, anyone decent was going to give it to him.

Point proven again when we ran into Mary and Randall. They were wary of us at first. I think our eyes made them uneasy, actually. But as soon as we said "Carlisle Cullen needs your help" they were more than happy to oblige. I was sure the rest of our trip would be that easy.

Of course, it wasn't. We ran into Makenna and Charles in England while we were looking for Alistair, but as soon as they heard that the Volturi were involved, they slunk away from us in fear. Rose took that hard. I think even though she was tense, she expected people to believe us. Because anyone that didn't made it that much more likely that in the end the people who mattered wouldn't believe. She didn't want to think about that. Neither did I really. Hell, I wanted to fight them. But I didn't want Nessie to be hurt. And she could be if it came to a fight. I hoped that we could gather enough witnesses to protect her. We just kept plowing through all of the places that looked like they might hide our kind and searching out familiar scents. All the while, we felt the weight of what must have been going on at home hanging over our heads.

Edward's POV

"What is the werewolves part in all of this?" Tanya asked as we all stood around Carmen and Renesmee.

I got this, Edward, Jacob thought. "If the Volturi won't stop to listen about Nessie, I mean Renesmee, we will stop them."

"Very brave, child, but that would be impossible for more experienced fighters than you are." Tanya spoke to him as though he were a toddler dreaming of fighting a giant. To her, I guessed, he was little more than a toddler. Tanya was nearly as old as Carlisle.

"You don't know what we can do," Jacob said boldly. If I didn't know how deeply he felt what he said or how amazingly efficient the pack could be as a unit, I would have heard only what Tanya did in his words: the empty threats of one who did not understand. Instead, though I knew he was vastly underestimating the Volturi's ability, I saw through his bravado to the amazing courage that it took him to make that statement.

She shrugged, unconcerned for the moment with the fate of the pack. "It is your life, certainly, to spend as you choose."

Jacob looked over at Renesmee and I knew that he was certain that he was spending it well. I felt an overwhelming fondness for him in that moment. Tanya could read the look in his eyes as well as I could.

"She is special, that little one. Hard to resist," she mused.

Through all of this Eleazar paced back and forth and my mind followed him as he traveled. He was thinking about gifts. I was trying to follow his thoughts, but they were so erratic that I couldn't understand. I knew that my face was beginning to show my frustration. Mixed in with his memories of the Volturi were pictures of Bella and Nessie and Alice and I. I thought that maybe Eleazar was confused too, but that didn't fit the tone of his mind. Instead, he seemed excited or agitated about some possibility, but I couldn't . . .

"A very talented family," he said, continuing his pacing. "A mind reader for a father, a shield for a mother, and then whatever magic this extraordinary child has bewitched us with. I wonder if there is a name for what she does, or if it is the norm for a vampire hybrid. As if such a thing could ever be considered normal! A vampire hybrid, indeed!"

I didn't hear much past the word shield. Surely I must have misheard. Bella? A shield?

"Excuse me," I said, grabbing him lightly on his shoulder as he passed by me, his eyes alight with curiosity. "What did you just call my wife?"

You must have guessed by now, he thought incredulously. "A shield, I think. She's blocking me now, so I can't be sure." You mean, you didn't know?

"A shield?" I said stunned.

"Come now, Edward! If I can't get a read on her, I doubt you can, either. Can you hear her thoughts right now?" Eleazar asked me, humor thick in his voice.

"No," I said. "But I've never been able to do that. Even when she was human."

"Never?" Eleazar asked, unbelieving now. All humor drained from his voice. "Interesting," he said aloud. "That would indicate a rather powerful latent talent, if it was manifesting so clearly even before the transformation. I can't feel a way through her shield to get a sense of it at all. Yet she must be raw still--she's only a few months old." He looked at me now, exasperated. She could have saved us all, had she been trained. "And apparently completely unaware of what she's doing. Totally unconscious. Ironic. Aro sent me all over the world searching for such anomalies, and you simply stumble across it by accident and don't even realize what you have." What we could have done with this talent . . .

"What are you talking about? How can I be a shield? What does that even mean?" Bella asked, confused.

All of this raw talent, Eleazar thought as he looked at Bella, forming his answer. "I suppose we were overly formal about it in the guard. In truth, categorizing talents is a subjective, haphazard business; every talent is unique, never exactly the same thing twice. But you, Bella, are fairly easy to classify. Talents that are purely defensive, that protect some aspect of the bearer, are always called shields. Have you ever tested your abilities? Blocked anyone besides me and your mate?"

I knew the answer to that before Bella spoke. Of course she had blocked other people, but it was never intentional. Bella didn't know what she was doing. But if it could be controlled . . . the possibilities were endless.

"It only works with certain things," Bella told him. "My head is sort of . . . private. But it doesn't stop Jasper from being able to mess with my mood or Alice from seeing my future."

"Purely a mental defense." Very interesting indeed, Eleazar nodded. "Limited, but strong."

"Aro couldn't hear her," I said, knowing what his reaction would be. "Though she was human when they met."

He's never been thwarted! Are you sure? Oh, I was sure. I remembered all to well the anger and the frustration Aro felt when he touched Bella's hand. I had been concerned that he would crush her hand in his irritation. In the end, he settled on intrigue at what it could mean that Bella had held him at bay.

"Jane tried to hurt me, but she couldn't," Bella said. "Edward thinks Demetri can't find me, and that Alec can't bother me, either. Is that good?"

Good? Eleazar nodded at first, unable to speak. "Quite," he finally choked out.

"A shield!" I said, still stunned but highly impressed. "I never thought of it that way. The only one I've ever met before was Renata, and what she did was so different."

"Yes, no talent ever manifests in precisely the same way, because no one ever thinks in exactly the same way."

"Who's Renata? What does she do?" Bella asked. Renesmee was looking around as well. She was the only one who seemed unsurprised by all of this, just curious.

"Renata is Aro's personal bodyguard," Eleazar explained. "A very practical kind of shield, and a very strong one."

But I could get around her shield. There doesn't seem to be a way through Bella's. There may be a way to make her useful to us yet, if we work with her long enough.

"I wonder . . ." Eleazar pondered aloud. "You see, Renata is a powerful shield against a physical attack. If someone approaches her--or Aro, as she is always close beside him in a hostile situation--they find themselves . . . diverted. There's a force around her that repels, though it's almost unnoticeable. You simply find yourself going a different direction than you planned, with a confused memory as to why you wanted to go that other way in the first place. She can project her shield several meters out from herself. She also protects Caius and Marcus, too, when they have a need, but Aro is her priority.

"What she does isn't actually physical, though. Like the vast majority of our gifts, it takes place in the mind. If she tried to keep you back, I wonder who would win?" I think it would be close, but Bella would come out on top. "I've never heard of Aro's or Jane's gifts being thwarted."

"Momma, you're special," Renesmee said then, without surprise. She had known all along that Bella was different.

Eleazar continued to consider the possibilities that Bella presented, but Kate was one step further. She was thinking about her own gift and what she had learned to do with it. Eleazar was convinced that Bella could have been an asset to us if we had known about her gift when she was turned and began working on it then. He didn't feel that a month was enough time to hone her skills. Kate, on the other hand, had an idea. She didn't know Bella very well, but she guessed that she was determined to protect her daughter. She also guessed that Bella was stubborn. She was forming a plan to stretch Bella's gift to its limits, and quickly.

"Can you project?" Kate asked idly.

"Project?" Bella asked.

"Push it out from yourself," she explained. "Shield someone besides yourself."

"I don't know. I've never tried. I didn't know I should do that."

"Oh, you might not be able to," Kate said quickly. "Heaven knows I've been working on it for centuries and the best I can do it run a current over my skin."

If I can provoke her enough, I might be able to get her to do this. I'm going to need your help, Edward. And a little latitude.

I nodded my head imperceptibly, but I didn't need to be subtle. Bella was rapt on Kate now. I thought that Kate might just be able to make this work.

"Kate's got an offensive skill," I explained to Bella. "Sort of like Jane."

Right on cue, Bella flinched away from her and Kate laughed.

"I'm not sadistic about it," she assured Bella with a glint in her eye. "It's just something that comes in handy during a fight."

I could see the wheels turning in Bella's head and I knew that Kate had gotten her attention. She has to do more than want it Edward. She's going to have to need it.

"You have to teach me what to do!" Bella exclaimed, grabbing Kate's arm. "You have to show me how!"

Well, that's out. She didn't even flinch!

"Maybe--if you stop trying to crush my radius."

"Oops! Sorry!" Bella said, embarrassed.

"You're shielding, all right," Kate said. "That move should have about shocked your arm off. You didn't feel anything just now?"

"That wasn't really necessary, Kate. She didn't mean any harm," I muttered. Relax, Edward, she thought. I'm not going to hurt her . . . or anyone else. I wondered briefly what she meant by that, but their conversation had run ahead.

"No, I didn't feel anything. Were you doing your electric-current thing?"

"I was. Hmm. I've never met anyone who couldn't feel it, immortal or otherwise," Kate said. You could help me, you know. You know she'd like to protect you. Now I could see where she was going with this. If it could help us in the fight, I'd get shocked as many times as it took.

"You said you project it? On your skin?" Bella asked.

Kate nodded. "It used to be just I my palms. Kind of like Aro."

"Or Renesmee," I added, but I was barely listening to them anymore. Eleazar's thoughts had changed again and I picked up immediately the track that they were taking.

Could he have known when he met her? Is it possible that she is what he wants? It's doubtful that he's bringing the entire guard and the rest of the ancients just for another shield, but the rest of the family . . . A mind-reader, a prophet, and a shield. Quite the trifecta.

"Eleazar?" I asked loudly enough to get his attention, but not so loud as to interrupt Kate and Bella. "What are you thinking? Has this happened before?"

"Not quite like this. He's never brought the wives, but he couldn't really leave them unprotected could he?"

"When has he ever come close to doing what he's doing now? Why do you think this has something to do with Bella, Alice and I?"

"Edward, this is very difficult for me," Eleazar began hesitantly. "You need to understand that I spent centuries of my existence in Aro's service thinking that I served the greater good. If what I am thinking is true, it will negate everything that I thought my existence stood for." I will have been working towards some sort of super race, where only the strongest and most talented are needed or saved. The implication is beyond our worst nightmares. You can see our problem. There will be no reasoning with them unless he gets what he wants.

I let his thoughts and his words sink in. I still didn't totally understand and Eleazar realized that. He began to show me and the pictures were terrifying to me. Covens paraded through his perfect memory, all of them with one or two "jewels" that Aro wanted for his "collection." The "jewels" were the highly talented vampires that Eleazar had found himself. All of those covens eventually made a mistake, something that required the intervention of the Volturi. Aro would go then, with the guard this time, to intercede, save the jewel from the fire. The jewel would be thankful for the second chance to prove his or her worthiness to the ancients. The bonds with their coven easily broken, the jewel would happily take its place among the Volturi guard and Aro would get what he wanted.

It makes what I did a . . . witch-hunt, Eleazar thought sadly. I never even thought of the possiblity until now. I knew that Aro was greedy for talent, but I never put the pieces together like this before. Maybe I'm wrong . . .

"Can you think of even one exception, though?" I asked gently, because I already knew the answer.

He thought back again to all of the condemned covens and all of those that Aro pardoned, those with the greatest talents, whom Aro could "see" had truly repented.

"I don't want to think of them that way," Eleazar said through his teeth. It would make them the Nazis of our kind, not the fair and unbiased judges that I thought I gave my allegiance to.

"If you're right--" he began.

"The thought was yours, not mine," I said, reminding him.

"If I'm right . . . I can't even grasp what that would mean. It would change everything about the world we've created. It would change the meaning of my life. What I have been part of."

"Your intentions were always pure, Eleazar," I said.

"Would that even matter? What have I done? How many lives . . ." he trailed off, remembering the faces of those that he had inadvertently condemned by not finding a gift.

Tanya walked over to him, placing her hand on his shoulder in supplication, and I realized that all other conversation had stopped. "What did we miss, my friend? I want to know so that I can argue with these thoughts. You've never done anything worth castigating yourself this way."

"Oh, haven't I?" he muttered, shrugging away from her friendly touch and began pacing again, agitated at the losses he had witnessed, that he felt responsible for.

Tanya turned her eyes on me then. "Explain." We will have words if I find out that you caused his pain, cousin.

I nodded to her, but didn't take my eyes or mind off of Eleazar. He was considering the ramifications of his new outlook on the Volturi and not liking what he was seeing.

"He was trying to understand why so many of the Volturi would come to punish us. It's not the way they do things. Certainly, we are the biggest mature coven they've dealt with, but in the past other covens have joined to protect themselves, and they never presented much of a challenge despite their numbers. We are more closely bonded, and that's a factor, but not a huge one.

"He was remembering other times that covens have been punished, for one thing or the other, and a pattern occurred to him. It was a pattern that the rest of the guard would never have noticed, since Eleazar was the one passing the pertinent intelligence privately to Aro. A pattern that only repeated every other century or so."

"What was this pattern?" Carmen asked, watching Eleazar.

"Aro does not often personally attend a punishing expedition," I explained. "But in the past, when Aro wanted something in particular, it was never long before evidence had turned up proving that this coven or that coven had committed some unpardonable crime. The ancients would decide to go along to watch the guard administer justice. And then, once the coven was all but destroyed, Aro would grant pardon to one member whose thoughts, he would claim, were particularly repentant. Always, it would turn out that this vampire had the gift that Aro had admired. Always, this person was given a place with the guard. The gifted vampire was won over quickly, always so grateful for the honor. There were no exceptions."

"It must be a heady thing to be chosen," Kate said, confused at how someone could accept the death of comrades so easily.

"Ha!" Eleazar said. Heady! As if one had a choice with Chelsea there.

"There is one among the guard," I explained to them. "Her name is Chelsea. She has influence over the emotional ties between people. She can both loosen and secure these ties. She could make someone feel bonded to the Volturi, to want to belong, to want to please them . . ."

Eleazar stopped dead in his tracks. Were we all just pawns then? "We all understood why Chelsea was important. In a fight, if we could separate allegiances between allied covens, we could defeat them that much more easily. If we could distance the innocent members of a coven emotionally from the guilty, justice could be done without unnecessary brutality--the guilty could be punished without interference, and the innocent could be spared. Otherwise, it was impossible to keep the coven from fighting as a whole. So Chelsea would break the ties that bound them together. It seemed a great kindness to me, evidence of Aro's mercy. I did suspect that Chelsea kept our own band more tightly knit, but that, too, was a good thing. It made us more effective. It helped us coexist more easily." And now, looking back, it all seems so very different than good or merciful.

"How strong is her gift?' Tanya asked tersely. Will she have me fighting against my sisters, my cousins?

"I was able to leave with Carmen," Eleazar said, shrugging. And then shook his head. "But anything weaker than the bond between partners is in danger. In a normal coven, at least. Those are weaker bonds than those in our family, though. Abstaining from human blood makes us more civilized--lets us form true bonds of love. I doubt she could turn our allegiances, Tanya," he said, reading into her question. Tanya nodded, appeased for the moment, but she was still considering the implications of this discussion.

"I could only think that the reason Aro had decided to come himself, to bring so many with him, is because his goal is not punishment but acquisition," Eleazar continued where I had left off. "He needs to be there to control the situation. But he needs the entire guard for protection from such a large, gifted coven. On the other hand, that leaves the other ancients unprotected in Volterra. Too risky--someone might try to take advantage. So they all come together. How else could he be sure to preserve the gifts he wants? He must want them very badly," Eleazar mused.

And then it all made sense. I remembered standing in the great hall of the Volturi reading Aro's mind as he touched Alice's hand for the first time. It was clear what he was coming to acquire. He might have other prizes in mind as well, but Alice was the jewel.

"From what I saw of his thoughts last spring, Aro's never wanted anything more than he wants Alice," I said flatly.

"Is that why Alice left?" Bella asked.

What? Tanya thought.

Edward, she's gone! Eleazar nearly screamed in my head.

I put my hand on Bella's cheek to calm her. She was the only one I really heard. "I think it must be. To keep Aro from gaining the thing he wants most of all. To keep her power out of his hands."

Tanya and Kate were hissing back and forth, trying to determine what it meant to us to be blind, as we were without Alice to guide us. Without her, we wouldn't know the exact time. They were frightened and confused. And they were angry, too. They felt that Alice owed us more than running away to save herself.

But, having seen Eleazar's memories, I could understand better what she had chosen for herself. I knew that she would never go quietly like the ones that Eleazar remembered. She would have fought, Jazz alongside her, and he would have died trying to protect her. She couldn't have that. I understood more now. She would have seen herself as their prisoner without the comfort of Chelsea's gift to bond her to the Volturi or loosen her ties to us. She would have been in Hell. And I would be standing next to her, wearing a black cloak as well. In Hell. Because he would want us both for his menagerie, of course.

"He wants you, too." Bella's voice like splintered glass broke my concentration, and I wondered if I was speaking out loud.

I shrugged a little too quickly and made my face a mask. "Not nearly as much," I said as gently as possible. "I can't really give him anything more than he already has. And of course that's dependant on his finding a way to force me to do his will. He knows me, and he knows how unlikely that is."

You're a fool if you believe that, Eleazar shot at me and I looked back at him with my eyebrow raised. "He also knows your weaknesses," he said, looking at Bella.

"It's nothing to discuss now," I said, uncomfortable with where this was leading. I was beginning to see my family's faces in the covens that Eleazar remembered. Myself, Bella, Alice . . . Slaves to the Volturi. The rest, burned on the battlefield for crimes they didn't commit all to satiate Aro's desire for supremacy.

"He probably wants your mate, too, regardless," Eleazar continued, mistaking my concern about the rest of my family's death for concern over Bella. I knew for sure that he wanted her as well. I had seen that last Spring as well. "He must have been intrigued by a talent that could defy him in its human incarnation." He was. I remembered too well.

But this was all too much.

"I think the Volturi were waiting for this--for some pretext," I began. "They couldn't know what form their excuse would come in, but the plan was already in place for when it did come. That's why Alice saw their decision before Irina triggered it. The decision was already made, just waiting for the pretense of a justification."

"If the Volturi are abusing the trust all immortals have placed in them . . ." Carmen murmured, thinking that our job may be easier than we had previously thought. If others could only see . . .

"Does it matter?" Eleazar asked harshly. "Who would believe it? And even if others could be convinced that the Volturi are exploiting their power, how would it make any difference? No one can stand against them." I made sure of that, he berated himself.

"Though some of us are apparently insane enough to try," Kate murmured.

"You're only here to witness, Kate," I reminded her. "Whatever Aro's goal, I don't think he's ready to tarnish the Volturi's reputation for it. If we can take away his argument against us, he'll be forced to leave us in peace."

"Of course," Tanya said slowly, but it was clear she didn't agree.

Even as I was saying it, I was sure that it wasn't true. If they wanted us as badly as it seemed they did, wouldn't they come prepared with more than just Irina's testimony in hand? Wouldn't they hit us with everything they could in order to bring us down and get what they craved? I was sure that they would. It wouldn't matter . . . except that we might be able to save Nessie somehow. And if that was all I could do, I would do it gladly and welcome the fire.

Then we all turned toward the sound of tires crunching on the driveway.

"Oh crap, Charlie," Bella muttered. "Maybe the Denalis could hang out upstairs until--"

But it wasn't Charlie. I heard the wary thoughts almost as soon as I was aware a car was turning into the drive. It seemed that Alice hadn't deserted us completely.

"No," I said quietly, staring at the door. "It's not your father. Alice sent Peter and Charlotte, after all. Time to get ready for the next round."