Chapter Two:

Our Eminent Return

I didn't need to probe his mind to know where he meant. "What do you mean we have to go back? I promised myself a long time ago that I was never going to step foot in that town again." Wolfcrest was the very bane of my existence and I couldn't face it again, not with all of those terrible memories looming overhead like a storm cloud that just wouldn't leave me alone, raining hopelessness over the thought that maybe happiness is possible. In that place, it wasn't. Too many bodies were piled up there to make it a sanctuary for me again, too many good thoughts crushed in a single moment.

Damon knew that and he lay beside me to hold me close. "I know, Evie. I know. I wouldn't say it unless we absolutely had to. That was Cal. He said that Alphaeus has escaped. We need to go find him before he goes and does something drastic."

When he put it like that, it was hard to refuse. "Okay," I choked out. "Okay." I was scared out of my wits, but he was going to be there with me every step of the way. I could do this for the people that I had spent so much of my life with, for those Wolfcrestors who never stopped helping me since my parents died. They deserved that much.

We packed away our stuff, took a few quick pictures that would remind us of the short but peaceful time that we had spent together in London, and caught a cab that would take us back to the airport. Since it was the holiday season, there weren't any available flights left but that didn't stop Damon. He had me scope out the place for a person who had two first class tickets to New York and he did the deed of compelling them into compliance. He made sure to pay the man—mostly because he knew I would beat him up if he didn't give the guy some sort of compensation—and then we were on our way.

Within a few hours, we made it back to the States. Thanks to our complete lack of luck and the fact that is was Christmas Eve, all of the cars were already rented.

Damon tugged me along passed the rental car place and went straight to the parking garage.

"Damon, what are we doing here? Why don't we just run to Wolfcrest?" I asked innocently.

He searched the rows of cars until he came across a midnight, crimson-trimmed SSC Ultimate Aero XT—a supercar, built for speed. "Here, take these," he commanded politely, handing me the bags. I don't know how but, without too much effort or trickery, he managed to get the door open and start the car without a key.

I should have known, I thought. I put the luggage into the trunk and hopped into the passenger's seat.

With a devilish grin, he turned on the radio to a rock station and turned up the volume until it was so loud that a normal person's eardrums would have exploded. He put on a pair of sunglasses that belonged to the owner of the car as he sang along to the music and sped through the many levels of the garage until we reached the toll booth. He rolled down the window, shifted his glasses a little so the lady in the booth could see his eyes and compelled her that the ticket was prepaid. Then he pushed the sunglasses to a proper spot along the bridge of his nose, put the window up, and took off as soon as the road barrier had fully ascended. My husband was a criminal mastermind but I loved him regardless.

Speed limits didn't exist for a vampire who could throw off a cop with a single word. Damon went as fast as the car would go all the way to town, a five hour trip made in exactly one hour and seven minutes.

As we passed the sign that read "Welcome to Wolfcrest" my heart sank. Too many horrible memories filled each stone, brick, and slab of concrete. Every fiber of my being told me to get out of the car and start running but I couldn't do that to these people. They needed me and I wasn't going to let them down.

Waiting outside of Moretti manor was Damon's brother and my brother-in-law, Cal. He was standing in front of the gigantic house with his hands in his pockets. The second our eyes met, my heart stirred with apologies. I didn't regret my decision but, in a way, it didn't seem fair to him that I would suddenly go with my affection to the one place that none of us were expecting, his brother.

Damon and I got out of the car and immediately linked ourselves together. Damon was worried that his stake wasn't quite claimed yet and he wasn't about to lose me to his brother again. I wanted to punch him in the arm for having such a ridiculous thought, but he was right. Just because I was committed to our relationship didn't mean that Cal respected my decision enough to stay away. Personally, I didn't see him doing any such thing but I could at least see where Damon was coming from and why he wanted to hold me around the waist so we were almost literally connected at the hip.

"Hey," greeted Cal.

"Hey," replied my husband. You'd never guess that the two guys were related from how indifferent they were being right now. There was some obvious contention going on and I wasn't about to have that.

"How have you been?" I asked, trying to communicate the fact that I still cared enough about him to want peace between us.

He shrugged. "Same old, same old." Without looking away from my eyes, he got right to the point of why we were there. "Like I told Damon on the phone, Alphaeus has escaped but we still have Cerebella trapped inside."

"How did you even get them to stay there? What could possibly hold a couple of Originals?" The exact meaning of the word was somewhat unfamiliar to me, but I could only guess that a synonym for Original was powerful. A simple cell in the basement might work for any old newbie vampire or the Moretti brothers, but it couldn't possibly stop Alphaeus and Cerebella from tearing it to pieces.

"Ben managed to create a force field similar to the one that the Originals used for the turning ceremony. It allows people to get in but, once they're in, they can't get out. I don't know how but he got it to work without using any sacrifices. He thinks that, since the spell wasn't as concrete without them, that even the tiniest mistake could have made a sort of chink in the barrier. He claims he was slightly unfocused after you took off and this could have been enough to create Alphaeus's trapdoor. Luckily for us, Cerebella couldn't use it after we realized that her brother was gone. Ben had already mended the hole by then and was able to keep her inside."

Damon nodded towards the door. "Perhaps we should continue this conversation inside."

No words were exchanged. Instead, we followed Cal inside and waited for him to close the door behind us before anything else was said. We entered the living room and all of the memories started rushing in like bacteria infesting a wounded heart. So many things had happened in that house, heart-wrenching, terrible, wonderful things. Things that could only be suppressed with the rest of the lot.

As if none of it had ever happened, Damon and I sat down on one of the couches, his arm now around my shoulders, and smiled like the happy couple that we were trying to be despite the mess that had befallen us.

"So," my husband began. "What are we going to do with the wench in the basement?"

"Right now, there's nothing we can do. We can't torture her for information because if anyone steps inside the bubble, they're stuck there. I suppose we could try pelting her with a couple valerian bombs or something while someone slips in and out of there but it's risky."

"Sometimes you need to risk a little to get results. Besides, if we have backup on standby, it should be fine. We can get the person out before any harm comes to them, thanks to witch boy." Damon grinned, all for his plan.

If you're so willing to risk somebody, why don't you just go in and get stuck for the rest of your miserable existence. "Yeah," Cal replied aloud. "That could work. We'll have to talk about it with the rest of the group later."

My eyebrows came together in a quizzical line. "What do you mean 'group'? Isn't it just going to be the three of us?" Adding Ben didn't exactly count as a group either.

"Well, if you don't want our help, that's fine I suppose," uttered Ian as he and Ben came down the stairs that led to the second floor balcony corridor. "We might not be vampires, but I think we deserve to be in your little club after all the hard work we've been doing."

Too excited to restrain myself, I shot up and ran over to them to give each a hug, Ian first. "I'm sorry, guys! I didn't mean it like that! I just didn't know you two were joining us." Honestly, I was surprised that Ian was even there, let alone teaming up with us. He hated vampires, especially Damon and Cal, because they had feelings for me. Now that I was a vampire too, he seemed to be more complacent.

"I might not be supernatural but I've been hunting down vampires for a while. I think I can handle myself."

"Not against an Original! Cal and Damon couldn't even take him on, no offense."

"Ouch," said my husband mockingly as he smirked, as if what I said was only okay because he knew what I really thought about him.

Cal stayed silently indifferent, secretly thinking horrible things about Damon and the others. Under all that man fluff, the only thought I heard was I wish I'd gotten a hug… He didn't like being left out.

I stuck my tongue out at Damon and grinned. "You know what I mean."

"Actually," Ben began. "Ian was the one that discovered Alphaeus was missing in the first place. If it wasn't for him, both of the Originals could have escaped before we even had a clue. He's very useful for our cause, if you think about it. Rogue vampire hunter versus a big, psychopath like Alphaeus? We're going to need all the manpower we can get, human or otherwise." He smiled. "I, of course, am the magical, awesome side of this plan and you need me whether you like it or not." So you can't get rid of me now, wise guy, he added, knowing perfectly well that I could hear his thoughts—although, he didn't know the part where I could hear them whether he was pushing them on me or not.

Wouldn't dream of it. "Wait, but why were you here in the first place?" I asked Ian as we migrated to the parallel couches—Damon immediately wrapped his arm around me and made sure I was right beside him after that.

Ben nudged Ian while wearing a playfully malevolent grin. "He just got bored and decided he'd rather hang out with a warlock and a bloodsucker than just being a boring, old French teacher. Isn't that right, Mr. Quinton?"

Ian elbowed him back and glared. "No, I wanted to make sure that Evie was okay after this idiot," he said as he gestured to my husband. "Told me that you had been turned into a vampire and had run away because you were being chased by crazy, super strong vampires who wanted her for something. Not to mention, he found you guys in the first place by using a special creature tracking device made out of a compass and glowing ring that tells the wearer if the compass detects something." All of this was said in a single, long-winded breath. I didn't even know that he could talk that much, let alone all at once. Come to think of it, I had yet to learn a lot about this guy. He was practically unknown to me in my different ways.

"I see…" To me, it was all a big blur full of words I think I understood. None of it really meant anything to me. It would have made more sense if I wasn't so ecstatic at merely getting to see those guys again. I was on somewhat shaky terms with Ian because of his stunt with Cal and the wooden bullets back in the day but I was actually kind of over it. He meant to do it as an expression of love, affection, and worry. Now that everyone else in town thought I was dead, I was happy to accept anyone into my ring of friends that knew I was really alive.

"What do we know about Alphaeus's ring and compass anyway?" inquired Damon curiously. He brought up a really good point. Perhaps if we could use knowledge to our advantage, we might be able to track him down. Learning the origin of those items could be extremely important if not vital to the mission.

"Not much," said Cal, desperate to rejoin the conversation for some reason I wasn't allowed to know. He seemed to be more careful around Ben. Did he not know that I had the same powers? Did any of them know? But, then again, how could they? We had been gone.

Ian took the emblematic baton from Cal and ran with it. "The compass is drawn to 'special creatures' or supernatural beings with an extra special amount of power or potential. Cal told us about it after he got back from…wherever you guys were. Evie must have shown her potential even while she was human. From what I've heard, it normally picks up the scent of supernatural creatures only." He reached out to me in his thoughts, forgetting that there were forces in that room who could hear them. I'm so sorry this had to happen.

I wanted to tell him that I was okay with it now. There were so many things in my life that were going okay that this one little thing wasn't going to stop me from enjoying myself. I had Damon now and we were married in a blissful union with a baby on the way. I had college to look forward to and I was going to become something in my eternal lifetime. Sure, there were a lot of things that were still unknown to me that I would have liked to know more about, but that didn't mean I would have given it all up just to be human again. Mortality was a disease that I had since been rid of. I just never fit in that way, as a human girl with nothing to offer the world. After I got my powers, both magical and otherwise, I was able to help people that perhaps I never would have been able to help before. I was okay. Why didn't he see that?

When I looked at his face again, my mind flashed to the one person who I wanted to talk to more than ever who wasn't allowed to know I was alive. She couldn't because one day, she'd be an old woman and I would still be a teenage girl with a college student husband and a family of my own. It would be easier to leave her knowledge of me the way that it was, but that didn't mean I wanted to talk to her any less. My wonderful Aunt Fauna, the woman who had helped raise me since I was five years old. What would she think of me now, the immortal vampire, the blood drinker? Would she be proud of me because I had finally found my place in the world or would she hate the very sight of me and wish me dead? I couldn't bear to think about that second scenario. In my mind, I hadn't changed all that much. I was still the teenage girl who hated mornings, loved drawing in my notebook during class, and who wrote down all of her thoughts and wanted to share them with the world. I still wanted everything that I wanted before, but now I had more than I ever could have hoped for. She would be proud of that, right?

Damon had to give me a good shake to bring me back into the present. I wasn't doing so good with our return to Wolfcrest and he could see the effect it was having on me. We'll be gone soon enough. We'll just take care of this and go. I promise.

I nodded slightly, trying not to grab anyone else's attention—except for Ben, because it didn't matter if he could see us; he could still hear us. My eyes grew heavy and, all of a sudden I had the urge to sleep. I rested my head on my husband's shoulder and listened with the best of my abilities to the conversation happening around me.

"Well, what I want to know is how we're going to track down the son of a b****," commented Cal agitatedly. And why the hell he wanted Evie and all those other creatures I helped him find.

"I imagine we're going to have to do that the old fashioned way. I could easily perform a tracking spell and meditate on it but I'm going to need something of his and the only thing I can think of is guarded by a force field that none of us can cross without getting stuck there forever." Ben was adamant on that point. He would gladly be the one to jump in there with the stupid vamp chick, but there was no way to lift the force field without risking her escape and there was no way he was going to allow that kind of a possibility. Not on his watch.

Hmm… What if…? Ian was contemplating, and the idea wasn't half bad. "Could we use his device against him somehow? Instead of letting it track other people, we could make it come to us or something, use it to get him here." That sounds dumb now that I say it out loud. I want to find this guy just as much as the rest of them. He's probably killing and turning loads of innocent people who didn't deserve to go out like that. He started mentally swearing in French, as if, somehow, that was going to help them come up with a solution.

"Evie, what do you think?" asked Cal. I'm sorry, is this serious dilemma boring you because I can go find something else for you to do if you want.

With a sigh, I sat up straight and opened my eyes. They were all staring at me like I was going to give them the answer that they were searching for. "Uh… I don't know. Why don't we just wait for him to come to us? We have his sister and he won't just leave her behind. They've been together since they were born. Spending a long time apart from her would be the ultimate suffering." I wouldn't want to be away from Ben that long, either. These past few months had been torture. For the longest time, I had to figure out how to move on with my life, a life without my friends in Wolfcrest. I didn't know if they were alive and I never had the heart to ask anyone at home about it for fear the answer would be a big, fat "no." After losing two parents and a best friend, that was all I could handle. Vampires turning off their humanity is a lie. At least, I wasn't able to do it. Every time I thought about anything, somehow the train of thought would link back to them and they'd get squashed on the tracks.

Silence fell upon the room as they all calculated. Ian and Ben thought I was crazy. Cal and Damon thought I was brilliant, but they were wondering how long it would take for him to come to us to retrieve his sister. They weren't exactly helping the humans' definition of vampire right now. Anyone hearing their thoughts, like Ben and I, would call them heartless. They weren't trying to be heartless, only rational. Sometimes, in wars, there are casualties but it's all for the greater good. The way I thought of it was that vampires—like the Morettis—were like kings and queens. Sometimes things happened and they needed to protect their own but at a cost. But when those lives were lost, everyone else looks to them and calls it hatred and power-hungry blindness. They're just misunderstood creatures who have never had the benefit of the doubt from anyone. Except for me.

"I like it," exclaimed my husband with a smile. He kissed my forehead and leaned back, at ease.

"You're nuts," said Ben, shaking his head with disappointment. You've gone to the dark side.

I wanted to punch him. No I have not! I just don't know what else there is to do. I'm good with anything else you're willing to spring up but, for now, this is our only option.

Deep down, I could see that he understood where I was coming from, but he wished that there was something else that could be done. He just wanted to blame someone for our current predicament.

"Hey, watch it. You're talking to my wife, buddy."

Everyone stared at me again, this time Damon was also a spectacle worth pondering over.

WHAT?!

I knew that already.

Really? I didn't think that would happen so soon.

I patted his knee. "It's okay, he doesn't mean it in a bad way," I reassured him with a kiss, trying to keep him under wraps.

"When did that happen?" Cal made it sound like a tragedy.

I showed everyone the ring and beamed. "Two days ago. Saturday. It would have been sooner but we had to wait for all of the paperwork and stuff to go through."

"Holy mother of God. Look at that thing," commented Ben. "It's huge!" I'm sure that makes you happy, now, doesn't it.

Not more so than before, Fillmore.

Anastasia!

Fillmore!

Anastasia!

Fillmore! I sent happy vibes along with the words and smiled, though everyone assumed it was because I was proud of the ring. I did love the ring and was proud of what it stood for, but they were wrong.

"Mother's diamond poinsettia? Where did you get that?" Last time I remembered, she was buried with it. Well that was a pretty thought.

Thanks, Cal. "She entrusted it to me when Guinevere came to town. She was hoping that, whoever I ended up falling in love with, I would give it to them and let it be a symbol of the same kind of blooming love that her and father shared." His mind went back to the moment that this had happened.

He was about a year younger than the age that was showing on his face now. Guinevere had literally gotten into town that day, wearing her golden dress, her brown ringlets hidden under an Italian sunhat of some kind. The moment his human eyes had beheld her, he was almost positive that they were destined to be together. Almost.

That night, his mother took him aside after dinner and took off her ring, placing it at the center of the small end table that sat between them. "Damon, my darling boy. You have reached an age where your father and I know has aided you well, that has made you mature enough to have want of a wife." She gently pointed to the ring in the delicate manner that befit a proper lady of the Colonial era. "All I ask is, when you have found your one true love, give her this and remember me. Nothing less than a soul mate, than true love. Am I understood?"

His mother was not a woman to be trifled with. Rosalinda Moretti was a caring woman and sweet in most of her day to day comings and goings. But when she entrusted someone with a duty, she expected it to be followed to the letter, for her expectations were few and far between. This was nothing like his father, Torvald, the strict, selfish man.

"Yes, mother, I understand." He placed the ring back in her hand, adding the pressure of a son's affection. "When I find her, Mother, I will give her your ring and all the love in the world. I swear to you."

After he was turned and watched the love that he thought was true perish by his brother's hands, he thought he had lost the right to bestow the symbol upon any woman for the rest of his eternal life. But then he found me. He was drawn to my house several times, thinking that it was for all of the wrong reasons. But then he returned when he found out his brother was in love and sought to have me for himself. At first, he thought it was because his brother wanted me that he found he did also. The time spent between us proved him wrong. Remembering the vow he made to his mother, he had found the ring I wore now and made sure that her dying wish was kept.

I wanted to cry when I realized the pain that went behind that ring. He had never had those thoughts about that day until now. He had never wanted me to see that, but it couldn't be avoided.

We had to speak alone. I felt like there were never enough hours in the day to say everything that I wanted to say to him and wished that I could do with him what Ben could do with me. I desired more than anything to be able to push my thoughts onto him so he could know my immediate thoughts as well as he knew my general mind.

"Well, I think we should go but hopefully we'll figure out this Alphaeus business in the morning." I got up and gave Ben a hug, a thing that I had not been able to do until now, despite my efforts.

The second that we touched, his mind was closed to me as if there was something flashing through him that I wasn't allowed to see. He pulled away from me with wide eyes. "Can we speak alone?"