Another pretty long chapter, sorry if that's bad. The next two or three are gonna be pretty short.
I left pretty much all historic detailing out of this chapter. The half of me that's a History Student went crazy, but I've read stories and fics before where all the dates and stuff have made me feel a little dizzy. So I haven't left it all out to belittle anyone, this is just escapism for me, so despite my studies in History spanning from Medieval times to the 21st Century, I've left this all pretty non-specific. But also, Sonny, as you'll find, is pretty laid back, not one for firing out dates and details of Saxon Conquests.
"I'll take any story if it's good"
Bela Lugosi a.k.a Dracula
Chapter Thirteen: A Bedtime Story
The Cullen house glowed in the night. Its luminous windows were doing little to keep the sounds of screams and cries coming from inside from leaking out into the darkness.
They came like a thick, black smoke. Each of them with the hoods of their flowing robes draped over their heads, masking their evil faces. They glided down the driveway in the same formation they had entered that clearing seven years ago; Aro at the forefront and the guard drifting behind. When they crossed the threshold of the house, the screams got louder, and certain words became clear.
"No, you can't take her! I won't let you take her!" Then the man's voice just evaporated into a flow of vicious growls.
The dream had started exactly the same as my last nightmare, though nobody had dragged me away when Francesca attacked Cora, and only now were their violent snarls silenced. I stood frozen in the driveway listening to the sounds polluting the night air, when Cora emerged from the trees; the victor in her battle with Francesca. She approached me quickly with her arms outstretched and I wanted nothing more than to collapse into them and be taken from this place, but then I noticed her face. It was paler than usual and her lips were spread into a wide, threatening grin, exposing her sparkling teeth. And her eyes. They were no longer gold but a bright, unsettling red. As she came closer her stare intensified and her fingers outstretched into claws, then she pounced.
{--}
My scream seemed to echo through the wooden room. My chest heaved, pushing the freezing night air through my lungs. I was shaking all over and my elbows threatened to buckle as I propped myself up on them. A sob shuddered through me, and I realised the tears streaming to my chin had fallen before I'd even woke up. I dropped back down onto the pillow, trying to settle my breathing. Through the wall behind me I heard a few loud clinking and sliding sounds, then the creak as a heavy door was thrown open. The footsteps down the stairs were quick and light, and before the knock on my door came the sound of an impatient voice.
"You guys are assholes! Can I come in?" I figured only the last part of that was aimed at me, so I managed to gather my breath and reply.
"Yeah." The door creaked open slowly and a head poked through. His eyes were emerald green and his hair was a deep gold, swept across his head in a pile of messy spikes. "Sonny, right?" He grinned wide and span through the door, a huge duvet wrapped around his shoulders.
"That's me. But my moron brothers didn't have the civility to tell me your name." I laughed when he raised his voice at the moron part, aiming his insult towards the now closed door. I was sure it was just for effect, he probably knew they'd have no problem hearing him.
"I'm Renesmee." He waddled towards the bed, the duvet limiting his movements as he poked one hand out from it and shook mine.
"That's quite the mouthful"
"Yeah, it is. But you can call me Nessie."
"What?" One of his eyes brows arched and he raised one side of his lips in a smirk. "Nessie, that's not a nickname, that's an insult. No, I'll have to think of something better then that. Do you mind?" He nodded his head towards the bed and I slid over so he could sit, but instead he dropped onto his back beside me, and threw the duvet around him, covering us both with it.
"You don't like my name?"
"It's just a lot to handle. Re-ne-sme; that's three whole syllables! I'm only used to addressing people with one, like Oz, Brice, Al." He accentuated his pronunciation of each name to exaggerate his point.
"What about Sonny? That's two syllables that they have to call you by."
"Yes, but they're immortal vampires, I figure they deserve a little extra work." I couldn't help but laugh, deep and sincere. I felt refreshingly comfortable in the presence of the first human I'd had proper interaction with since my last day at school. "Ugh, I've missed this bed." I rolled onto my side to compensate for the now limited space on the already thin mattress.
"Yeah, that's my fault. I'm sorry."
"Oh no, don't worry about it." He rolled over too so his grinning face was just inches from mine. "I'm sure you're always getting rescued by strange vampires, going to stay with them and stealing some poor boy's bed."
"You'd be a little surprised actually." Ok, so I didn't make a habit of the stealing beds part, but the being rescued by vampires I didn't even know; I've been there before, didn't work so good.
"Well, my bed's yours as long as you want it."
"Thanks, but I'm gonna leave tomorrow."
"What? No way, why?"
"I've told them all they wanted to know, and I don't wanna take advantage of your hospitality. Plus, no offence, but I don't even know you guys. I can't just stay here."
"Why not?"
"You could be dangerous." Saying that, I felt ridiculous. I felt stupidly safe in this house, it being stupid because I really didn't know these people at all. "I have trust issues, I think."
"You don't trust people?"
"I wish. I trust them too easily, it's naïve. And up 'til know pretty much everyone I've trusted has ended up stabbing me in the back. Ok, so not everybody, humans have pretty much never screwed me over." I remembered my loyal Grandpa Charlie, but when I pictured his face I didn't feel the same warmth I used to, I felt nothing.
"Well that's 'cos humans rock! Did you ever hear of a vampire landing on the moon? No. Did you ever hear of a vampire discovering penicillin? No. Did vampires save Gotham city from evil, over and over again? No, that was Batman: Human."
"So, I should trust you because you're the same species as Batman?"
"Is there any better reason to trust a person? But I'm not here to win your trust; I came to ask about all the screaming, bad dream, huh?"
"You could say that, yeah. Sorry, did I wake you?" He pursed his lips and shook his head, raising his head to rest it in his hand.
"No. I'd have to actually have been asleep for you to wake me. But you've been pretty noisy all night, so sleeps been difficult." I rolled my face into the pillow; thoroughly embarrassed.
"I'm so, so sorry."
"Don't apologize! It should be those idiot bloodsuckers outside apologizing, they should have come in and made sure you were okay. But hey, I'm here now." He placed his hand on my shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "Besides, there's nothing wrong with having nightmares. I used to have them all the time when I was a kid. So, to get me to sleep, my brother's would tell me all these stories, sometimes funny, sometimes scary, or mostly both."
"Your brothers?" I pointed to the door and he nodded slowly.
"Well, kind of. It's a …. Long story. Would you like to hear it?"
"As a bedtime story?" We both laughed and he nodded as I dropped my head back down on the pillow. "Yes please."
"Ok" He wriggled a little and placed his fist before his mouth as he mock cleared his throat. "Once upon a time, or a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, or however you want to start it, there was this big, brave soldier called … Lice." I heard one grunt and then two people's laughter from the other room, but I doubted Sonny would have been able to hear it.
"Lice?"
"Yup, all identities will be thoroughly protected in my little tale." He winked dramatically and I laughed. "Ok, so Lice was this big strong Saxon soldier, the greatest of his time. One night he's sailing across the Ocean to go fight in some big scary battle or something."
"Wow, your historical detailing is enthralling, really." He laughed and nudged my shoulder gently.
"Hey, you should be thankful. When Brice tells me this story I get fed all these boring names and dates, and details of wars and arguments that just make my brain hurt. I'm giving you the Hollywood version, kay?"
"Not that Brice is involved in this story at all."
"Oh, of course not!" He let his eyes shift around nervously, making his lie over-obvious. "Anyway, so Lice is sailing some ocean with his army, all as big, brave and terrifying as him, though none of them quite as deadly, and their ship is attacked. This big, foreign vessel comes up beside them and one man jumps out. All Lice's men are watching, ready to defend themselves against this lunatic swimming towards their ship. They watch him swim, and he's ridiculously fast, cutting through the water like its thin air, and then scaling the side of Lice's ship in a few swift steps. When he leaps onto the deck, they see it's not a man at all, it's a woman. They're all left frozen by her beauty, the most beautiful thing they've ever seen. Her skin's as pale as the moon and her golden hair flows long past her shoulders, still dripping wet. It's her eyes that entrance Lice though. They're a haunting red, and he watches as her gaze scans slowly over all the men gathered speechless in front of her. Then she attacks. Biting and ripping at anyone she can get to, and that's everyone. She leaps across bodies, tearing them to shreds"
I watched as Sonny paused to gauge my reaction. "Good, you're not squeamish, that's good. The men throw their swords and axes into her but she emerges unscathed, her flesh even shattered some of the weapons before she turned her fury onto whoever had yielded it. Lice is at the edge of the deck, waiting for the demon woman to come to him. She moves inhumanly fast and before Lice can sink his axe into her, she bites him. Her teeth tear into the place where Lice's neck meets his shoulder, pushing through his clothes like they're not there. But then the ship shudders violently, crashing into waves that send it rocking quickly and she's thrown off of him and Lice is thrown overboard.
"For three days he waits to die. He just floats along the waves, not able to drown or starve, just burning. His entire body is wrapped in a fire that not even the ocean he's drifting on can put out. He prays for death, but it never comes. He wonders if he is dead, if this is hell, floating and burning for all eternity. But then it stops, the burning goes away and he feels … different. Stronger, more alert. He can see the air around him, and hear things no person should be able to hear. After what feels like a lifetime he sees land and he swims towards it, moving as fast as the woman who had come aboard his ship what felt like a life time ago. When he climbs to shore, he should feel weak. He hasn't eaten, hasn't slept, but he still feels strong. He runs into the land, still not convinced this is real life, still suspecting he's dead. Then he sees this boy …" The look of childlike joy washed from Sonny' face, his eyes moved slowly to me and I nodded, he needn't go into details. A newborn vampire comes across a helpless boy, I could guess.
"When it's over, he feels disgusted; he really does want to die. He never forgets the boys face. His skin was a little dark, his hair was jet black and his eyes were a light, cloudy grey." It upset me to hear how Sonny described the boy. It was as though he'd been there, seen him, as though he himself felt guilty for what happened, so I tried to shift the subject a little.
"So, how old is Brice exactly?"
"He was born in 971, and he became how he is today when he was 31."
"Wow, that's …. Amazing."
"Oldest person you've ever met or what?"
"Actually no, but he's not far off. He's very … well preserved" We both laughed, and I remembered what Stefan had told me as a child, that the Ancients of the Volturi looked so old and creepy because of some aspects of their lifestyle, whereas he and Vladimir, who were probably older than Brice, didn't have their delicate looking skin or filmed-over eyes.
"Aren't all vampires?"
"Not exactly, would you like to see?" His eyebrows furrowed and I heard movement in the other room as I lifted my hand to his forehead. I projected him an image of Aro, remembering how his appearance had made me feel when I was little, not just because I was aware his presence could mean I'd lose my family forever. A lot had changed since then.
"Woah, what was that?"
"That was Aro, one of the volturi. And what I just did was my gift; I can share my thoughts with people when I touch them." I paused for a second, but Sonny' responding nod ensured me he understood what I was talking about.
"You've met him?" His eyes were wide and I smiled.
"Yes, but that's a long story. And we can't start that one when you've still not finished my bedtime story."
"Oh yeah, sorry. Where were we? Oh, right, the boy. So afterwards Brice pretty much hates himself."
"You mean Lice?"
"Right, yes, of course." He slapped his forehead and I giggled. "But he can't stop, it's uncontrollable. One day he's in these woods on the boarder of this village, and he sees this little old lady struggling down some stone steps with this huge pail of water. When she falls, the first thing that hits Lice is the smell of her blood, but then this tingling hits him. It's racing all up his arm," Sonny ran his fingers across my arm tickling me, and from the way his expression didn't fall the way it had when he spoke of the little boy, I suspected this women had not suffered the same fate. "When he got closer to her he saw her arm, it was sliced open after her fall and he could feel it, and that feeling distracted him from her blood enough for him to try and comfort her screaming and crying in pain. When the blood started to distract him he focused on the tingling and the woman's arm until the tingling grew and got stronger, then the woman stopped screaming and crying, because the pain had all gone."
"He took it away?"
"Yup. It's what he does. It doesn't go away though, it gets transferred to him. But human pain doesn't feel the same to him, so it's just a tingle mostly, though over time he's become able to gauge just how much it would hurt them. And it's not just him; he can transfer pain to anybody, from anybody. But Brice would never to that, so he just takes it all himself." He'd slipped up again, switching from Lice to Brice, but I didn't point it out.
"He'd been on his own a few years when he saw his first other vampire. This vampire was older than Brice, he'd been created during some huge vampire war. You're little friend Nosferatu was involved in that."
"You mean the war between the Volturi and the Romanians?" I heard a gasp from the living room, and immediately felt very smug. For once I was grateful about all the stories Carlisle had told me as a child. At the time they'd bored me; I much preferred the stories Grandpa Charlie told me when I stayed with him. He'd always trip over his words and mix up the story. Sleeping Beauty would end up living with the seven dwarves, whilst Cinderella let down her long, golden hair for Prince Rumpelstiltskin to climb up.
"Yeah, that's the one. Please tell me you weren't alive for that?" I shook my head quickly. "Good, because that would be weird, even by my standards. You're too cute to be millenniums old. Well at least I think you're cute, it's pretty dark in here and I don't have vampire-vision." I giggled as he patted my face with his hands, feigning blindness.
"You're diverging! This bedtime stories turning more into a sleep preventer."
"Alright, alright. But you keep distracting me with your questions. No more talking 'til I'm done." I moved my fingers across my lips, zipping them shut.
"Ok, so this vampire was a soldier, just like Lice. He'd fought in this huge fight on the side of the Romanians, but pretty much abandoned them when he figured the Volturi were gonna reign supreme. Of course this didn't impress Lice much, him being a loyal fighter and all, but he stuck with the vampire. Lice became more comfortable with what he was but he still hated the fact he had to kill people to stay alive. He might have killed people in battle before, but that was very different to slaughtering innocent people who didn't stand a chance. One time when Lice's vamp-buddy was off on some Volturi worshiping pilgrimage to Italy, Lice met this other coven. There were four of them, these three women and their mother. I don't think she was their actual mother, just their creator kind of thing. Well they all pretty much fell in love with our Lice, and they asked him to stay for a while. Lice bonded with all four of them and stayed with them a long time, they became like his family. Though they all drank human blood, the mother told Lice of this theory she'd tested only once when she figured the blood of animals may be able to replace the blood of humans. Lice decided to take this theory further, and well that was over a thousand years ago, and he's been clean and sober ever since."
"Woah."
"I know right, he's the envy of everybody at bloodaholics-anonymous. His little coven didn't come round to the idea as quickly as him. Those women were man-eaters, literally. But Lice loved them so he stayed, but that's when his nasty little Volturi-worshipping friend decided to show up. Things went very wrong after that. It turns out the coven mother had been keeping a little secret in the form of this vampire baby."
"An immortal child?"
"You obviously didn't zip your mouth very tight did you? But yeah, that's what the poor thing was. Somehow the Volturi found out about it and executed it along with the mother."
I was now convinced I knew this story. The tale of the Denali's mother Sasha, had been one I'd heard as a child, and it was something that still haunted Kate and Tanya to this very day. "After what happened Lice left. He made sure the girls were okay then he set out on his own, his friend had mysteriously disappeared after the Volturi showed up. For centuries Lice did different things. He became a soldier again, but given the fact he could now feel every ounce of pain he administered, it became something he no longer found himself able to do. He learned to master his skill, learning to detach himself from the pain and just focus. He never forgot his old coven, and the pain of what happened never went away. He studied the Volturi, learning from his friend whenever he chose to pop back into his life. Lice found time went faster when he wasn't on his own, so he learned to live in society. He'd have jobs, houses even friends, something he never imagined he'd be able to do.
"So I think you'll agree, up to now, Lice has been coping pretty well, huh? Nothing too major or catastrophic has come up, throwing a spanner in the works of his existence?"
Sonny's tone had turned to mocking, and given the chuckles audible from the other room; I guessed it was aimed at his brothers. Still with my gagging order in place, I nodded quickly. "Well yeah, he's been doing fine for the last gazillion centuries he's been alive, then all of a sudden ... BAM! It's 1993 and things start to go very, very wrong."
Despite his foreboding words, Sonny's tone remained light, almost jokey. "So Lice is in Spain, with his vamp-buddy. They're just travelling through, coming out only at night of course because of all the sun, you know, like how vampires should be," I laughed again at his mocking tone and he smirked before continuing. "So they're travelling through the countryside, Lice is just returning from a hunt when he finds his buddy, half way through a meal. The face of the boy that Lice killed all those centuries ago, the little boy with dark skin, black hair and grey eyes, rises up in him as he stares on his buddy's prey, an exact likeness. Before Lice can register what he's doing he's pounced, pulling the boy away. He ended up having to fight with his friend for him, but Lice couldn't let him die. He still felt horrible agony for that first innocent life he claimed so long ago, so he needed to keep this boy alive, the boy who looked just like what he would have if he'd lived. Lice had to beat the crap out of his friend, before the loser sulked away. It was too late for the boy, his body was already on fire, Lice could feel it. So for three days, he sat with him, making sure he didn't feel an ounce of pain. Lice took it all; he burned himself just so the boy could sleep."
The admiration in Sonny's voice was palpable as he spoke of Brice, or Lice; same person. "When the boy woke up he was as menacing and thirsty as Lice had been. His eyes were no longer the grey that had pushed Lice to save him, but his protectiveness over him never went away. Whenever the boy felt a burning in his throat, a pull to feed on a human, Lice took it away, suffering through it himself. After a while the boy developed this weird talent, he could hear every lie a person could ever told, ever. But more than that was, he could see the truth as well, he heard the lie, then he heard the truth."
"Give the boy a name Sonny, God!" We both creased with laughter when Alvar's voice leaked through the door. I now figured he'd been the boy, the boy with the grey eyes, the boy who saw the truth.
"Fine, his name was Assvar, Ass for short." I laughed again and covered my mouth to stifle it, wanting Sonny to carry on with his story.
"After about a year, Lice's stupid buddy comes back, and he's still pretty pissed at Lice for stealing his dinner. Then when Ass meets him, it really kicks off. Ass uses his little gift thingy to uncover one hell of a secret."
My body involuntarily inched closer to Sonny's to listen. "Turns out Lice's so called friend was the one who ratted out the coven mother to the Volturi. He thought that if he handed her and her immortal child over, it'd get him on their side enough for them to let him in, something he'd always wanted."
I felt my gasp squeeze at my lungs. This man, this traitor was what caused Sasha's death. He'd exposed and betrayed the Denali's mother. "When Lice found out from Alvar he was furious. He tortured his so called buddy, dragging him to Italy and throwing him on the steps of the Volturi fortress, humiliating him in front of the thing he loved most."
I felt like I was watching a movie, at the part where the good guy wins. A bubble of joy rose up in me and I wanted to run to Brice and pat him on the back, but Sonny hadn't finished. "Unfortunately, vampires love revenge. He found them in France on November 8th 1996, I was just a toddler."
Sonny's eyes were suddenly very distant. I could tell he was getting tired, but there was something else too. He'd stopped using his fake names completely and he now sounded so sad. "He'd started the fire before he even went up to the floor they were staying on. He didn't care that innocent people were choking and burning in their sleep, he just broke into the room and tried to rip Al apart. Brice wasn't there at the time, but when he smelt the smoke he raced back, finding the whole apartment block a towering inferno. It was almost too late when he found Al. They should have killed him then and there but the coward leapt through one of the windows and ran off. Our apartment was on the floor above theirs. Oscar was eighteen when I was born, our Mom had had him really young, so he was pretty much helping raise me. She didn't wake up when Oscar tried to get her out, she just didn't wake up. So he had to just grab me and run."
I could see a tear working it's way down Sonny's cheek and shuffled closer to him. "Oscar got me out, but he was burned all over and he couldn't breathe. We were the only two to make it out alive. Actually scrap that, Oz died alright. But it didn't hurt, he didn't feel a thing once Brice found him. He changed him because he felt guilty, because he blamed himself for what had happened. And then he took us both, and he's been like our older brother ever since."
Sonny's eyes were heavy and his head started to loll.
"That was a good story."
"I know, I have plenty more. I have stories of run in's with Werewolves, but they're for another night."
"There won't be another night Sonny, I'm leaving tomorrow."
"We'll see about that." I just smiled, and let my thoughts wander.
"I have a question."
"Shoot."
"The Volturi didn't let Lice's friend in?"
"No. They said reporting an immortal child was a duty, nothing special."
"So, if Lice never knew about it, how did his friend?"
"He had this ability; he could see people's past, pretty much everything they've ever done. So when he saw her, he just knew." I felt my heart stop as well as my breath. Coincidence can be a cruel thing, but never this cruel, right?
"Sonny, what was Brice's friends name?"
"His name?" I could tell I was fighting with Sonny's exhaustion, but I didn't care.
"Yes, his name. No protecting his identity by making one up, I want his name." His eyes were shut and his head rolled over onto the pillow before he muttered his reply.
"Victor, his name was Victor."
Woops. So is Victor's past with these vamps all a coincidence?? No, no it's not. :P
Ness figures it out next chapter, but can any of you put it together before then?
I'll give you a clue: The Phonecall.
I loved hearing some of your theories after last chapter, (Gay Oz?), so keep them coming.
Oh, and previews too.
