She's a fitful sleeper.
Given that his kind cannot sleep, Demetri finds ways to amuse himself during the night. While his plans usually involve some form of dancing and drinking, today he finds himself spending a good chunk of it mindlessly flipping through TV channels. But cooking shows can keep his fancy for only so long, and a good three hours later, he craves something more interesting. That is how he finds himself observing the human he's sharing quarters with as she sleeps. And quite a fascinating activity it is.
The moment she hits the bed, Sophia slips into the first phase of sleep, and a few minutes later her dream cycle is well underway. He can tell by the mild twitching of her fingers, gripping and twisting the fabric of the comforter. As she moves around in bed repeatedly, he narrows his gaze upon her throat, checking its rise and fall to ensure she's still asleep.
Whatever it is, it's vivid.
The slow uptake in her breathing tells him that she's waking up, so he quickly runs over to the couch and mimics what is supposed to be a naturally sleeping human, complete with a blanket over his person. He can hear the thumps of her feet, hear the muscles in her throat move as she gulps down a glass of water before heading off back to her room.
He has to prick his ears and nose a little more to decipher exactly when she should be asleep, but her slowing pulse is a reliable indication, and he returns to his post. The next half an hour passes rather slowly, and nothing happens. He leans by the doorframe, eyes trained on her as he looks for those nighttime twitches.
They start off light, with just a finger moving here and there, but a good ten minutes later she's twisting and turning in bed. Her already tangled comforter is now just all over everywhere, and her hand seems to be reaching out to grip something. A bottle? An arm? Her nose scrunches a little, and her face seems so much more innocent in that moment. She looks carefree, an almost childlike petulant. It makes him smile a little.
He's never spent so much time observing a human before, and by the gods they are so much more fascinating than he has seen them to be. Maybe it's because of his constant consideration of them as food first, and not anything much else. It makes it easier to kill them. This is what happens when he takes his prey's personality into consideration.
It becomes so much harder to suck the life out of a person when you give their life and thoughts a depth equal to yours. Well, technically, vampires are more perceptive and more sensitive regarding just about everything. A human cannot ever possess the same depth as a vampire as long as they are human.
Can't they, though?
That's a question he doesn't have time to think over as he sees her eyes flick open, and Demetri makes a run for the front room. He quickly gets under the blanket and regulates his breathing, hoping that her brief disorientation as she woke up was enough to keep his secret safe. And since she doesn't yank the blanket off of him, he guesses that it was.
As the clock strikes eight, however, he emerges from his hiding place and walks around the place, inspecting the kitchen. Common courtesy would demand that he cook breakfast for his host who so kindly let him stay over. But he's not sure how she would take that, so he just dawdles until Sophia trudges into the living room, rubbing her eyes with her fists.
"Have a good night's sleep?" He asks lightly, leaning against one of the kitchen countertops. Her response is a noncommittal grunt, and she makes a beeline for the coffee maker.
A long sniff from the steaming mug seems to wake her up, and she takes a sip before looking back at him. "Just weird dreams." He has to rein in his curiosity to not blow his cover, and with some effort manages to not ask her a leading question. "Made my sleep break a couple of times - honestly, it's nothing new, I see weird shit in my dreams all the time, and with all this stuff going on it was bound to get worse." One finished, Sophia sets her mug down, peering into the kitchen sink. "I told you not to," she chides, looking between the empty sink and the dry dishes on the rack.
"Can't a friend help?" She doesn't argue that, simply shaking her head before heading over to the couch and he follows suit, seating himself in one of the other armchairs. Her head is buried amongst the many pillows on one end. "So, what do you wish to achieve today?"
"I don't know," the muffled words come from the pillow mass before she extricates her head and looks at him, nose scrunched. "There is a party at a club nearby however, and it ends by like ten I think, so we could do some recon, sneak out and kind of scale the forest from a distance." And he has no intention of letting her near that place. He's going try and identify the beast in human form, track its movements and get back to Felix, Jane and Alec on possible next steps.
"I'm in. However, we will not venture anywhere within the wolf's range from the edge of the forest."
"Fair deal."
And with that, the plan is made.
Somewhere around 9, he decides to head back to his apartment, informing Sophia of the same. "Okay, so you'll be here by 7?"She asks, looking around him, but not at him. A strange quirk. He nods. "Cool cool cool - sounds like a plan."
His arrival back at their place does not go unnoticed, Jane's ruby red eyes boring into his. She is rightly dressed in something more circumstantially appropriate, but that doesn't make seeing her in jeans any less weird for him. "At last, you grace us with your presence."
"Jane." The girl has never liked anyone save Alec, but she holds some more disdain for him than most others. He suspects its because of the value of his gifts rivaling hers, but it might just be some irrational reason the girl alone knows. A millennium, and I still don't know why.
"Where were you?" Never one for pleasantries, he thinks dourly.
"Gathering intel."
"And that required a full 24 hours." Jane takes a sniff, eyes narrowing.
"The human is an easy inconspicuous access to most institutions we need an entry in."
"And you didn't kill her after spending the night." He humours the teenager with a tight, sharp smile, leaning down to exert the full force of his stare.
"Like most mature individuals, I like to preserve my toys a little longer before I discard them." He can see the ire on the girl's face, but she doesn't rise to the bait, choosing to swerve and walk away. He gets about ten minutes' worth of peace before Felix walks in, curiously sniffing the air around him.
"New pet?" He questions, plopping down beside him on the couch.
"The human provides us with the necessary access. She has been crucial to collecting intel and with her connections with the victim, we have a lot more reach without really doing anything."
"Good job - how did you find this one?" He considers hiding the facts from the man he considers a dear friend, but then thinks better of it. For all of his light, jovial air, Felix has the keen eye and observational skills of a Roman general. Considering how he almost was one.
"I was going to eat her a day after I first arrived here." At that, the other man quirks an eyebrow. "Found her crying by the tennis courts - distraught and rather hopeless. By the sound of the pills rattling in her bag, it sounded like she had already planned to die that night." Recalling the detail makes him oddly sad - it is worrying, how quickly he has grown fond of Sophia. "And for reasons I cannot fathom, I talked her out of it. By the time I convinced the girl, I had no intention of killing her anymore."
"She reminded you of yourself," his friend concludes.
She does. "She is a fighter, that I can say. And incredibly resourceful."
"Do we get to work with her?"
"As a matter of fact, yes." He raises his voice, enough to catch Jane and Alec's attention. "Alec, Jane, I need you here in the front room." Once the four of them are in the room, he rises from his seat. "Our first assignment involves tracking this Child of the Moon. Given that the two of you have no experience dealing with and exterminating the beast, there are some things you need to know."
Alec looks at him intently, fingers drumming on the mantle.
"Their kind is physically our equal, and one-on-one, a Child of the Moon has a greater chance of defeating us than vice versa. But much like the shapeshifters, they smell just as terrible in their human form. Their transformation is involuntary and is triggered by a full moon - however, if there is any threat or situation where they feel attacked, they might transform at will. And most importantly, their bite can be fatal for us. There is an event tonight at seven near the site of the attacks - we shall all be attending, and I expect it to be there in human form." Alec seems to be wanting to say something, and Demetri nods.
"Do we kill the beast if we get the chance tonight?"
He thinks over this - neither Aro nor the other brothers had explicitly outlined what to do in the event of a direct first encounter. "Yes - the thing is a menace. Besides, the Masters would want the body delivered to them as soon as possible."
"Any other instructions?"
"Yes. I need you two to be well-versed in the basics of college culture - you will be posing as first years, or freshmen as they are called here, and while I am aware you have the gist of the human college experience down, I need you to come up with coherent backstories and a trail that leads you here. You will not pose as students at Harvard. If you see the Cullens, keep your interactions to a minimum. I am certain Carlisle's coven has the good sense to not interfere in Volturi matters."
"We shall prepare accordingly." With that, he has his bases covered. Now all that's left is finally finding the elusive wolf.
He instructs Felix to take the twins and reach the spot while he heads over to Sophia's house, knocking lightly on the door to signal his arrival. The person in question steps out in a bomber jacket, a t-shirt, white pants and sneakers, her bag slung over her shoulder.
"Do you take bags to every party you go to?"
At that, he gets a wry smile. "I don't really go to many parties. Besides, we need the supplies for our investigation." More like he's going to have Alec and Jane keep her occupied while him and Felix eliminate the threat.
The drive is uneventful and silent, and he quickly introduces her to his 'cousins' when they arrive, watching her reactions closely.
She shares handshakes with Felix, Jane and Alec, eyes lingering a beat too long on their gloved hands. But other than that, she takes the trio in stride, engaging Alec in a discussion over some new comic book TV adaptation he hasn't seen yet. For the first few minutes, he stands by her side, throwing in smiles at the right moments and occasionally nodding his head, keeping an eye out for Felix. Once the man in question returns, however, the scene changes.
"Felix just spotted a friend of his somewhere by the keg, so I'll be back in a while," he offers as an excuse. Sophia, too busy speaking to Alec, simply nods, leaving him free to leave. "Where exactly is the thing?"
Felix grimaces, nose wrinkled as the offending smell grows stronger. "Stunk up the entire bar so it took a moment to pinpoint to the source, but he seems to have gone outside; I could not catch sight of him before he left. It has been a long time since we last dealt with their kind."
"And by the gods above I hope this is the last time we ever deal with them." Demetri cranes his neck backwards to check on Jane, Alec and Sophia - they seem to be doing just fine there, with the exception of Jane's sour attitude. "Remind me to discuss Jane's tonight's behaviour with the masters."
The large man smiles mischievously, nudging him slightly. "You're upset she's not getting along with your little pet."
"Sophia is not my pet," Demetri grumbles. "And Jane can make more effort to blend in; haughtily staring down her nose at someone who is honestly doing her a favour by talking to her does not aid her." Once they make their way past the crowded dance floor and towards the bar, they find the man in question is gone.
The smell still lingers strongly, but their target has vanished, and Demetri takes a deep breath to both track the scent's movement and to not lose his cool. "To the forest, Felix."
Pushing past the pulsing crowd of bodies, the two men find themselves outside in the cool night air, and with the scent of humans fainter than inside, it makes it easier on their sense of smell to track this thing, and Demetri feels more like a police dog than a skilled tracker, sniffing the air.
"He's about a hundred or so metres into the forest," Felix tells him after a deep inhale. "I'm calling Jane and Alec in now." Demetri takes the lead, heading off into the forest while Felix calls the two, and after a minute or so, he hears escalating tension in his friend's words.
"What is it?"
"Your human friend is missing - they believe she's gone after the beast."