Chapter 45- Caius Acts.

Rather than walk back to the guard, Aro beckoned them forward. Edward immediately took Bella's arm in one hand and Emmett's in the other and began backing up. Jacob came last, all the fur on his back bristling.

His back to the Volturi, Emmett made a face at me, and I didn't stop my answering smile. "Okay?" he said lightly as he took his place beside me in the line.

"Okay," I responded softly. I touched his hand, just to make sure he was really there by my side, and then turned my attention back to the Volturi line, now only fifty yards away. It would only take a single leap for someone to attack.

"How can you abide this infamy?" Caius growled. "Why do we stand here impotently in the face of such an outrageous crime, covered by such a ridiculous deception?"

"Because it's all true," Aro said calmly. "Every word of it. See how many witnesses stand ready to give evidence that they have seen this miraculous child grow and mature in just the short time they've known her. That they have felt the warmth of the blood that pulses in her veins." He gestured towards our friends, still standing and watching silently.

I looked around Emmett at Edward, hoping to see some hint of what he was reading from their minds, but his face was impassive. More so than Caius, who was clearly thinking hard. "The werewolves?" he murmured to Aro.

Aro looked pained. "Ah, brother…"

"Will you defend that alliance, too, Aro? The Children of the Moon have been our bitter enemies from the dawn of time. We have hunted to near extinction in Europe and Asia. Yet Carlisle encourages a familiar relationship with this enormous infestation- no doubt in an attempt to overthrow us. The better to protect his warped lifestyle," Caius sniffed.

Edward cleared his throat loudly. "Caius, it's the middle of the day," he pointed out. "These are not Children of the Moon, clearly. They bear no relation to your enemies on the other side of the world."

"You breed mutants here!" Caius spat.

Edward's jaw clenched, and I felt his rage, but his voice was calm when he spoke. "They aren't even werewolves. Aro can tell you all about it if you don't believe me."

"Dear Caius, I would have warned you not to press this point if you had told me your thoughts," Aro murmured patronisingly. "Though the creatures think of themselves as werewolves, they are not. The more accurate name for them would be shape-shifters. The choice of a wolf form was purely chance. It could have been a bear or a hawk or a panther when the first change was made. These creatures truly have nothing to do with the Children of the Moon. They have merely inherited this skill from their fathers. It's genetic- they not continue their species by infecting others the way true werewolves do."

Caius eyes narrowed to slits. "They know our secret," he said flatly.

Edward opened his mouth to answer, but Aro beat him to it. "They are creatures of our supernatural world, brother. Perhaps even more dependent upon secrecy than we are; they can hardly expose us. Carefully, Caius. Specious allegations get us nowhere."

Carefully. I was listening more intently now, both to the spoken and unspoken, and I realised that they were not done here. The Volturi would still move against us, and even as they spoke and took in our answers they were formulating new plans.

"I want to talk to the informant," Caius announced, turning abruptly away from Aro. "Irina!" he snapped, angry when she didn't immediately look to him. She had been looking across the field at Kate and Tanya, her expression one of abject misery as she realised her accusation had been groundless and that her sisters were lined up with us, ready to die.

"So you appear to have been quite mistaken in your allegations," Caius said harshly.

"I'm sorry," Irina said tremblingly. "I should have made sure of what I was seeing. But I had no idea…" She gestured towards Renesmee.

"Dear Caius, could you expect her to have guessed in an instant something so strange and impossible? Any of us would have made the same assumption," Aro said reasonably.

Caius flicked a hand dismissively at Aro, not taking his eyes off Irina. "We all know you made a mistake. I mean to speak of your motivations," he said shortly.

"My motivations?" Irina repeated nervously.

"Yes, for coming to spy on them in the first place," Caius continued mercilessly. "You were unhappy with the Cullens, were you not?"

Irina flinched, and turned unhappy eyes towards Carlisle. "I was," she said in a low voice.

"Because…?" Caius prompted.

"Because the werewolves killed my friend. And the Cullens wouldn't stand aside to let me avenge him."

"So the Cullens sided with the shape shifters against our own kind- against a friend of a friend, even," Caius said deliberately.

Edward made a disgusted noise and Emmett shifted his feet restlessly. Caius was still searching, moving through his list of grievances for one that would stick.

"That's how I saw it," Irina murmured.

Caius waited for her to continue, and then scowled at her. "If you'd like to make a formal complaint against the shape-shifters – and the Cullens for supporting their actions – now would be the time."

Irina straightened her spine and lifted her head proudly. Across the field I saw her smile at her sisters, at all of us, and I knew that this was what the Volturi would never understand- the power of real love and family and friendship. "No, I have no complaint against the wolves, or the Cullens," she declared. "You came here today to destroy an immortal child. No immortal child exists. This was my mistake, and I take full responsibility for it. But the Cullens are innocent, and you have no reason to still be here. I'm so sorry," she said, directing her heartfelt words to us before she turned back to the Volturi and said clearly. "There was no crime. There's no valid reason for you to continue here."

For a moment I thought that it would be finished, that the truth of Irina's words would be enough to turn the tide in our favour. But then Caius raised his hand, and at the signal three of the guard leaped forward and converged on Irina. There were the horrible, metallic screeching sounds I had never wanted to hear again, and then Caius stepped towards the crowd and there was a sudden shower of sparks and tongues of flame. The three guards stepped back and then Caius stood alone beside the pyre, a triumphant grin on his face. "Now she has taken full responsibility for her actions."

His eyes were on our front line, on Kate and Tanya as they watched in horror as their sister burned. He was almost taunting them…It was only when Edward shouted "Stop them!" that I realised that Caius had done this on purpose, to trigger a fight from us.

I grabbed at Kate, and then there was an instant where the whole world went black as she used her power on me and I fell. I came back to myself seconds later, crumpled in the snow with Emmett on the ground beside me and Garrett, his arms locked around Kate, convulsing with his eyes rolled back as she fought to get free.

I don't know how Garrett could have held on to Kate as she fought so blindly to free herself, but he did. And then he blinked and shuddered and was in command of himself again, still holding a thrashing, whimpering Kate in his grip.

"Bella's doing that with her shield," Emmett muttered, staggering to his feet and hauling me up. "Wish she'd had it on me in time to deflect that…fuck! You okay, angel?" He peered at me anxiously, and I nodded distractedly, most of my attention on Kate and Garrett.

"If I let you up, will you knock me down again, Katie?" he whispered softly.

In his arms, the still enraged Kate only snarled and struggled harder.

"Listen to me Tanya, Kate," Carlisle said desperately. "Vengeance doesn't help her now. Irina wouldn't want you to waste your lives this way. Think about what you're doing. If you attack them, we all die."

Still held in Carlisle's arms, Tanya's body slumped under the weight of her grief, and on the ground beside me Kate finally lay still. Garrett murmured to her, too low for anyone else to hear, and for a moment she closed her eyes and pressed her face against the ground.

Across the field, the Volturi were watching with fascination. Aro, watching Kate and Garrett, was incredulous- from Edward's memories he knew how strong her gift was, and yet here was Garrett able to withstand it seemingly unaffected.

Behind the Volturi guard, their witnesses had grown confused and wary. They had come to witness our punishment for the creation of an immortal child, but now there was no immortal child and yet Irina had just been executed anyway, for the most nebulous of crimes. They moved restlessly, and as Aro glanced back at them with vexation I thought this his need for an audience might end up benefiting us. He could not just go ahead and slaughter us without cause, not now with people to see.

"Irina has been punished for bearing false witness against the child," Aro said to Caius, a pacifying hand on his shoulder. "Perhaps now we should return to the matter at hand?" He drifted forward a little, looking along the scattered vampires on our side. "Just to be thorough, I'd like to speak with a few of your witnesses. Procedure, you know."

"Amun," Aro called on him. "Carlisle called on you to witness?"

"Yes." Amun sounded surly, but he answered readily enough.

"And what did you witness for him?"

"I'm observed the child in question," Amun said coldly. "It was evident almost immediately that she was not an immortal child…"

"Perhaps we should define our terminology," Aro interrupted. "Now that there seems to be new classifications. By immortal child you mean of course a human child who has been bitten and thus transformed into a vampire."

"Yes, that's what I meant."

"What else did you observe about the child?"

"The same things that you surely saw in Edward's mind. That the child is his biologically. That she grows. That she learns."

"Yes, yes," Aro said, a trifle impatient. "But specifically in your few weeks here, what did you see?"

Amun frowned. "That she grows…quickly."

Aro smiled. "And do you believe that she should be allowed to live?"

I could not stop my hiss of outrage at the idea of Ness being so casually sentenced to death. I was not the only one to protest, a wave of low sounds of fury and discontent rippled up the line. Ness herself merely looked at Amun with an interested face.

Amun glanced at our gathering a little uneasily. "I did not come to make judgements," he muttered. "But I see no danger in the child. She learns even more swiftly than she grows."

Aro glided along the length of line, stopping in front of Siobhan. "Hello dear Siobhan. You are as lovely as ever."

Siobhan inclined her head graciously, waiting for a question.

"And you?" Aro asked. "Would you answer my questions the same way Amun has?"

"I would," Siobhan answered. "But I would perhaps add a little more. Renesmee understands the limitations. She's no danger to humans- she blends in better than we do. She poses no threat of exposure."

"Can you think of none?" Aro asked sombrely.

A low growl ripped up through Edward's throat and I tensed. I couldn't see where Aro's questioning was going, but it seemed that he had a plan.

"I don't think I follow you," Siobhan said slowly.

Aro drifted lightly back towards his guard, casually, as though he were merely taking a short stroll to gather his thoughts. "There is no broken law," he said. "However, does it follow then that there is no danger? No. That is a separate issue. She is unique…utterly, impossibly unique. Such a waste it would be, to destroy something so lovely. Especially when we could learn so much…but there is danger, danger that cannot simply be ignored."

Danger? From the bright, funny little girl behind me who loved everyone and had never hurt a soul?

"How ironic it is that as the humans advance, as their faith in science grows and controls their world, the more free we are from discovery. Yet, as we become ever more uninhibited by their disbelief in the supernatural, they become strong enough in their technologies that, if they wished, they could actually pose a threat to us, even destroy some of us. For thousands of years our secrecy has been more a matter of convenience, of ease, than of actual safety. This last raw, angry century has given birth to weapons of such power that they endanger even immortals. Now our status as mere myth in truth protects us from these weak creatures we hunt. This amazing child, if we could but know her potential, know with absolute certainty that she could always remain shrouded within the obscurity that protects us. But we know nothing what she will become. Her own parents are plagued by fears of her future. We cannot know what she will grow to be!" He paused, looking meaningfully at his witnesses. "Only the known is safe. Only the known is tolerable. The unknown is…a vulnerability."

"You're reaching, Aro," Carlisle said in a bleak voice.

"Peace friend," Aro smiled, his face kind despite the horror he was bringing down on us. "Let us not be hasty. Let us look at this from every side." He turned to his witnesses. "Tell us, friends, what do you think of all this? I can assure you the child is not what we feared. Do we take the risk and let the child live? Do we put our world in jeopardy to preserve their family intact?" He paced along their line. "We are outnumbered, dearest ones," he said. "We can expect no outside help. Should we leave this question unanswered to save ourselves?"

"No master," the Volturi guard whispered in unison.

"Is the protection of our world worth perhaps the loss of some of our number?" Aro questioned them.

"Yes!" They answered. "We're not afraid."

Aro smiled, a cold and pitiless smile as he turned back to his ancient companions. "Brothers," he announced, "there is much to consider here."

"Let us counsel," Caius said eagerly.

"Let us counsel," Marcus agreed disinterestedly, and the three of them joined hands and bent their heads together, their black cloaks billowing slightly around them in the breeze.