Waxing Gibbous

Contrivances (A)

Aro did not rejoin his anxious guard waiting on the north side of the clearing; instead, he waved them forward. Edward started backing up immediately. Bella put Renesmee on my back with Demetri and I walked backwards keeping pace with Edward.

We reached our family at the same time that the dark cloaks surrounded Aro again. Now there were only fifty yards between them and us - a distance any of us could leap in just a fraction of a second. A distance they would take advantage of no doubt.

I looked at Bella, gesturing her to put the kids on Seth and Leah's back. She did so quickly. I could hear Seth's confused question, but Leah remained silent, instead her head rubbed my neck. She got it, now. Nestor did too as he stood in between the siblings.

Caius began arguing with Aro at once.

"How can you abide this infamy? Why do we stand here impotently in the face of such an outrageous crime, covered by such a ridiculous deception?" He held his arms rigidly at his sides, his hands curled into claws. I wondered why he did not just touch Aro to share his opinion. Were we seeing a division in their ranks already? Could we be that lucky?

"Because it's all true," Aro told him calmly. "Every word of it. See how many witnesses stand ready to give evidence that they have seen these miraculous children grow and mature in just the short time they've known them. That they have felt the warmth of the blood that pulses in their veins." Aro's gesture swept from Amun on one side across to Siobhan on the other.

Caius reacted oddly to Aro's soothing words, starting ever so slightly at the mention of witnesses. The anger drained from his features, replaced by a cold calculation. He glanced at the Volturi witnesses with an expression that looked vaguely... nervous.

I glanced at the angry mob, too, and saw immediately that the description no longer applied. The frenzy for action had turned to confusion. Whispered conversations seethed through the crowd as they tried to make sense of what had happened.

Caius was frowning, deep in thought. His speculative expression stoked the flames of my smoldering anger at the same time that it worried me. What if the guard acted again on some invisible signal, as they had in their march?

Only a second had passed; Caius was still deliberating.

"The werewolves," he murmured at last.

"Ah, brother...," Aro answered Caius's statement with a pained look.

"Will you defend that alliance, too, Aro?" Caius demanded. "The Children of the Moon have been our bitter enemies from the dawn of time. We have hunted them 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."

Edward cleared his throat loudly and Caius glared at him. Aro placed one thin, delicate hand over his own face as if he was embarrassed for the other ancient.

"Caius, it's the middle of the day," Edward pointed out. He gestured to me. "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 spit back at him.

Edward's jaw clenched and unclenched, then he answered evenly, "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. "Though the creatures think of themselves as werewolves, or all but one they are not. The more accurate name for them would be shapeshifters. 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 do not continue their species by infecting others the way true werewolves do. but by birth and breeding like humans."