Chapter 3: Warning Signs
Disclaimer: I do not own The Vampire Diaries. I'm not making money off of writing this.
AN: I paused halfway through writing this chapter and then when I picked back up again I had this feeling that my voice had shifted slightly. Tell me if you can spot where the switch is.
Hopefully the next chapter will take less time. It might be a little shorter as result, but I intend to get this moving along and I actually do have a plan going through my head for a good portion of this story.
Anyway. Sorry for the wait. Thanks for the reviews. On with the show.
Enjoy.
It took Caroline a few days to notice, but once she did it became painfully clear that Damon was still weak. He wasn't getting worse, he wasn't dying, but there were moments when she was sure that it was toss up which one of them would win in a fight. His hands were shaky, his reflexes were iffy, more than once she had caught a glimpse of his vampire visage peeking out at moments when he clearly wouldn't want it to, and he had been needing more blood than usual. She never talked about it. She was pretty sure that she was the only one who had noticed.
The night that they had abducted the deputies, Damon had answered a call from Ric on the way to the Boarding House and when they had gotten there she found Ric moving his stuff into one of the bedrooms. That had been days ago and she was pretty sure that Ric still hadn't figured it out.
Damon was sick. At best he had yet to recover. At worst he would spend the rest of his life a fraction of the vampire he had once been. All she could do was watch.
This bothered her and she couldn't for the life of her figure out why. Because it was Damon. Sure she had explained to her mother exactly how many times Damon had saved her life (five that came immediately to mind) and how Damon wasn't as evil as people made him out to be, but he had killed so many people around her. He had tried to kill her. Twice! She remembered that when she had first transitioned she had given him a fairly impressive list of reasons that she should want him dead. Hell, the sweetest thing he had ever said to her was that he was going kill her.
Basically, Damon was a jerk.
But, when Bonnie stormed into the Boarding House to tell Damon and Alaric that Jeremy was missing and Damon responded with a snide comment and Bonnie respond by giving him multiple aneurysms, Damon being a jerk didn't stop Caroline from getting him a bag of blood from the basement faster than either of them could blink. It didn't stop her from rubbing his back soothingly as he choked down the blood. It didn't stop her from glaring at Bonnie.
And it didn't stop him from promising that he would find 'the little nuisance'.
Jeremy was getting annoyingly used to being dragged around by his ex-girlfriends. After he had spent the whole of the previous day wandering the woods with Anna by his side, Vicky had arrived in the evening, nearly yanking him off of his feet and dragging him off in a completely new direction. She had found another group of raucous revelers in the vein of the ones she had found the night before, more of them this time and more out of it. However, Jeremy was surprised to see several repeat face from the last batch. Surprised until the mood turned. They sensed Vicky coming. The howled in anticipation, their eyes turning red, their fangs elongating, and the veins under their eyes pulsating.
Vicky had turned them.
When had Vicky turned them?
As Vicky and her new friends fed on the drugged up revelers en mass, all Jeremy could do was sit and watch and wonder once again where Anna had gotten to.
He woke up the next morning and Vicky was gone again, as were her kin, and Anna was already dragging him through the woods before he had fully registered where he was. She had a destination in mind and the last few days had drilled into his head that when a vampire wanted him to go somewhere, he didn't really have a choice in the matter.
Anna was less talkative today. Less gentle. He remembered the meek little girl who had first approached him in the library what seemed forever ago. He had known for awhile now that she wasn't that girl, but it had never been quite as clear as it was now. She had him by the hand and was dragging him in a direction that he could only assume was east. If he happened the trip or stumble, she simply caught him and continued to pull him along behind her. He had the feeling that if he slowed her down anymore she was just going to pick him up and run with him.
She was getting impatient.
They had a time limit.
He had called out a few times to ask her where they were going, but she had only briefly glimpsed back at him before returning her attention to the task at hand. With a sigh he thought that he was grateful that at least that task didn't seem to include slaughtering campers.
"Call Judgy," Damon said as he lost the scent for what felt like the hundredth time, "I swear to god his scent keeps cutting out."
Caroline shot Damon a concerned look as she pulled out her phone and called Bonnie's number.
"Did you find him?" were Bonnie's first words when she picked up.
"Damon lost the scent again," Caroline frowned and took a sniff herself before finishing with an odd mix of worry and relief, "So did I."
"I'll try the locator spell again," Bonnie sighed.
"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good," Damon murmured under his breath and Caroline shot him a look.
She watched his face as he leaned against a nearby tree. His face had been looking a little bit drawn for a few hours now. He had been slowing down. He needed blood. She knew it. He knew it. And she was pretty sure that they had both considered snapping up the next bunny that happened by and using it tide him over. Hell a squirrel would probably even be welcome at this point.
His cellphone rang at the same time that Bonnie's voice dragged Caroline away from her reverie. Damon looked down at the caller ID and picked up the phone with a forced smile.
"What's up, Liz."
"Caroline!" came Bonnie's exasperated voice over Caroline's cell.
"What?" Caroline asked, trying to focus now on not listening in on Damon's phone call.
"Jeremy's signal is sputtering. It's like he's there and then he's somewhere else and there's no in between."
"Vampire speed?" Caroline asked, her voice coming off a little distracted.
"I thought of that. I don't know," Bonnie said.
"I haven't been off bag in months, Liz,"Damon's voice broke through Caroline's concentration again.
"Can you give us a direction at least?" Caroline said, forcing herself to stay on topic.
"Where are you guys?" Bonnie asked.
Caroline looked around. She hadn't really been paying much attention to where they were going, paying more attention to following Damon and to a lesser extent the scent of Jeremy.
"I'll ask," Damon said before turning to her, "Barbie?"
"Bonnie hold on a minute," Caroline said before turning her attention back to Damon, "What?"
"Have you killed anyone recently, Barbie?" Damon asked with a smirk.
"Nope," she replied.
Damon pulled the phone back to his ear and said, "She says no. Should I try beating the truth out of her?"
If Caroline strained her hearing she could make out her mother's voice, "Just keep an eye out, Damon."
"Mmkay," Damon hung up the phone, "Mommy dearest says 'hello.'"
"Liar," Caroline whispered.
Damon looked at her and then glanced at where she still held her phone in her hand. Caroline followed his gaze and then jumped a little bit as she remember what was going on.
"Where are we?" she asked.
"About a mile south-east of the cemetery," he answered shortly.
"Did you hear that," Caroline asked raising the phone to her ear.
"Head north," Bonnie said, "it's probably not exact, but it's a direction."
"Does Elena know about this," Damon asked suddenly.
Caroline shrugged. She had already heard the phone line cut out.
It was a house. Small, woodsy, a little bit rundown, but it was a house and it was nice and it seemed like Anna was finally starting to slow down, which added a little bit of charm to the whole thing in Jeremy's opinion.
Anna opened the door and Jeremy expected her to freeze at the threshold, but she just kept going and he followed after her. There were two bodies in the entryway, stakes through their hearts, grey skin and veins.
"No one has even moved them," Anna whispered.
Jeremy looked down at the faces. One of them, the one closest to him, he recognized as Anna's mother. He watched as Anna knelt down next to her mother's body and smoothed back her hair. A small chunk came off in her hand, still attached to a piece of skin. Jeremy was at Anna's side faster than he could think about it. He held her as she broke down, rocking the both of them back and forth, he whispered softly into her hair.
It didn't really matter what he was saying.
"Sit down, Damon," Caroline said softly.
"I think I'm smelling vampire," Damon said absentmindedly, not even pausing in his stride.
"Damon!" Caroline called out in frustration.
"I'm getting eau de baby Gilbert too, but I'm pretty sure I'm getting vampire too," Damon continued, just narrowly avoiding tripping over an overturned tree.
"Damon!" Caroline shouted, "Sit!"
Damon froze for a moment before plopping down onto the tree he had nearly tripped over. Caroline rushed forward and joined him on the seat, just as it struck Damon what had just happened. He turned to look at her stonily.
"Did you just tell me to sit?" he said evenly, "Like a dog?"
"And it worked," Caroline chirped, "Now stay."
Damon glared at her, but she just smirked back at him. He sighed and adjusted himself so that he was laying back on the tree with his fingers entwined behind his head.
He kept his eyes on the sky woody canopy as he spoke softly, "How long have you known?"
"No idea what you're talking about," Caroline said quickly.
Damon grinned, "Thanks."
Damon and Caroline pushed their way into the clearing and when Damon looked up and saw where they were he groaned.
"What?" Caroline asked.
"It had to be here," Damon groaned again.
Before Caroline could inquire further, Jeremy walked out of the house in the middle of the clearing and furtively looked around the clearing before turning to Damon and rolling his eyes.
"You couldn't have gotten here before sundown?" he sniped.
Caroline looked at the skyline and, sure enough, the last beams of sunlight were disappearing from the sky. Why that had any significance she had no idea, but there it was, sunset.
Jeremy's posture shifted quickly and then he growled as his fangs extended and his eyes shifted. Before Damon or Caroline could do anything Jeremy rushed at Damon with his hand extended towards his neck. Caroline sped in between them and threw Jeremy to the side. Jeremy pushed himself up from where he had landed and glared at them, but then he simply sped away.
"What the hell?" Damon shouted.
Stefan and Klaus strode to the center of the aisle of the church and knelt next to each other on the floor, their hands held up their faces. The church was filled to capacity. Stefan didn't know how Klaus had arranged that, but it didn't really matter to him. He slowly counted out the seconds and then he felt Klaus standing up beside him.
"Bless me father for I have sinned," Klaus shouted to the rafters, his arms raised to either side of his head, "and will soon be doing so again."
Klaus turned to look upon the closest members of the congregation and revealed his vampire visage. The young woman screamed as did several other people. As each member of the church spotted Klaus' face and the similar one that Stefan was allowing to slip onto his face as he stood as well, they began rushing to the doors.
The first members of the congregation to reach the door found that the door was sealed. Greta had seen to that, magically sealing everyone in. Klaus and Stefan had the entire church to themselves.
Klaus motioned slightly with his hand and Stefan flitted over to the nearest person and sank his teeth into their neck, letting blood spurt out and reveling in the taste of it spraying down his throat.
