He knew he was not going make it this time. While the first impact of Jonathan Gilbert`s weapon device sent him sprawling to the floor, the second had set his body into convulsions so massive that his spine snapped, rendering him immobile and helpless, watching Uncle John staking Anna. A malicious smile on his face, he had turned to him, but instead of thrusting a wooden stake into Damons guts also, he simply dropped a match on the fuel-soaked carpet, lighting it up in a blaze.
Oh, he was able to heal even an injury as serious as this. Just not fast enough to make it out before the fire had crawled to him across the floor. Resulting in him burning alive and fully conscious, without any hope to rise again, fire being one of the very few things able to destroy a vampire. Not that he was afraid, after all, when you get staked, tortured, shot and strangled so many times as he had his 145 years of vampire life, pain does wear off some of its mind-grinding terror. He had even felt the small "pling" occasionally, when his body had been destroyed so badly that he technically died again, his mind dissolving into sheer nothingness. Just to wake up again seconds later, so much different from the first time, when his soul cried out in shock and terror that starless winter night of 1864. Feeling his life bleeding away, he had been struggling to hold onto, dreading hell´s sea of fire Guiseppe had threatened him with so often when he grew up an ever-questioning, ever-searching kid. For surely no God could ever forgive drinking blood, even if it was his first true love who seduced him to do so. When he finally surrendered, there had been this tiny, tiny spark of hope that the sea of fire´s purifying blaze would be able to redeem him... sometime.
He woke up a vampire in transition instead, finally the demon his name had always suggested. Only after his brother made him feed, he realized that he also was the incredibly strong, unbelievable beautiful predator of the night Kathrine had promised him to be. Humans now were mere cattle to him now, born to feed his hunger and his lust, not even Bree or Isobel touching anything inside of him, though both tried hard in their own ways. For of course, a vampire has no soul, being able to shrug off any feelings most conveniently. Until he met Elena. He loved her the very moment he saw her, though it took a spiteful Isobel´s remark for him to finally realize it.
Hating and hoping in the same instant, he prayed for Elena to survive Founder´s Day along with Stefan, because finally losing her boyfriend after all of last year´s deaths would most certainly break her. Not that he was in any condition to do anything about it now, but he did not mind to die – much. But losing her hurt more than any fire ever could, after all, she was his only friend in 145 years and may, just maybe, his only real love ever.
So, when the flames started to lick on his body, he surrendered to the pain almost happily, for it numbed out the other one. His mind already blurred, when he met Elena´s panicked stare right through the raging fire, having gone blank when a wet blanket smothered the flames and strong arms dragged his body out into the night, just as the tiniest crescent made its way out from behind the clouds.