Chapter 4
Caroline had dumped Damon face down on the first couch she came to in his house. She felt a bit guilty for thinking that it was actually easier to move him now that he was unconscious – vampire strength or no, it was awkward to carry a full-grown man around, and this way she didn't have to worry as much about hurting him in the process.
Once she had Damon positioned on the couch, she reluctantly pulled off his shirt and started picking pieces of wood out of his back. There were a lot of them, and Caroline paused midway through removing them and sent text messages to Bonnie and Mr. Saltzman. If the warlock had gotten Elena, which was what Damon seemed to think had happened, they should probably start looking for her as soon as possible. Damon would wake up once she got all this wood out and some blood into him, and they could figure out what to do next. Then, just in case Damon had been wrong about the warlock, she sent a text to Elena. She thought about sending a message to Stefan as well – after all his brother was pretty badly hurt and his ex-girlfriend might be in trouble – but she had talked to Stefan two days ago and he was in California so he couldn't exactly do anything to help. And he was trying to get over Elena, after all, so asking Stefan to help should probably be a last resort, anyway – even though she kind of missed him.
With a sigh, Caroline went back to extracting the last few pieces of wood from Damon's skin, trying not to be distracted by the fact that his muscled back was still damn sexy, especially with spots of blood all over his skin. Sometimes being a vampire led to some truly gross thoughts. She reminded herself of the horrible things that Damon had done to her when she was human. She understood that better now that she was a vampire – she knew the urges that Damon had been indulging – but she didn't know if she could ever entirely forgive him. And she certainly should not be feeling attracted to him, no matter how hot he was. If nothing else, he was Elena's boyfriend now, and she had Tyler.
Finally, Caroline was sure that she had gotten the last of the wood fragments, and she flipped Damon around to lie on his back, propping him up on some pillows. "I'll be right back with some blood for you," she told the unconscious vampire before speeding down to the basement. A moment later, she was back upstairs with a couple of blood bags, and she pressed the first one to Damon's lips. "Drink, Damon," she told him, and for once Damon Salvatore actually seemed to be listening to her, although she knew it was just instinct that caused him to suck the blood from the bag. A moment later, she was staring into icy blue eyes.
"How are you feeling?" Caroline asked as she prepared a second blood bag. She felt oddly reassured that Damon had regained consciousness.
"Like I've been run over by a couple of semis." His voice was low and rough.
"Actually, it was just a telephone pole and a building."
Damon glared at her. "I remember." He brought his hand up shakily to take the second blood bag from her, and Caroline felt relief that she wouldn't have to feed him like she was his nurse. He was Damon, after all. Then he abruptly narrowed his eyes. "Wait, the warlock. Elena." She watched as Damon tried frantically to sit up and failed.
Caroline sighed. Elena hadn't replied to her text message. "I don't know where she is," she admitted.
Damon's eyes flashed at her. "You were supposed to be protecting her! You weren't supposed to let her out of your sight."
Caroline glared back at him. "Oh, excuse me, Mr. Perfect. Like you did such a great job of protecting her. Maybe I would have been able to find her if I hadn't had to rescue your ass."
"At least I tried."
"Yeah, 'cause taking out a telephone pole at 200 miles per hour was oh so helpful."
Caroline turned around abruptly as she heard a knock at the door. It opened immediately, the old hinges creaking just enough to be audible to a vampire, and a moment later, Alaric walked into the room. "What's going on?" the teacher asked. "I got your text, Caroline. The power's still out at the school, so they canceled classes for the afternoon." Then he apparently caught sight of Damon lying on the couch. "What the hell happened to you?"
"Hi, Mr. Saltzman," Caroline said brightly. "That is such great news about school being canceled." She could actually feel Damon's glare at her back.
"We think Elena's been kidnapped by a warlock," Damon said from behind her. His voice was much weaker than usual, but his tone clearly said, priorities people.
"Shit," Ric said softly. Then he looked at Damon again. "Damon, are you just going to lie there?"
Damon's quiet voice was a grimace. "That damn telephone pole broke my back, all right?"
Caroline looked first at Damon and then at Alaric, and she knew her eyes were as wide as the teacher's. "Oh, that explains why you've been out of it, then," she declared. She watched as Damon closed his eyes again, although she couldn't tell whether it was from annoyance or exhaustion.
Ric was apparently still trying to wrap his head around the concept. "You can heal from that?" he asked incredulously. "And it was you who cut off the power to the school? They're saying it was a freak storm, although I saw the blood before Sheriff Forbes and her deputies blocked everything off so I figured it had to be something vampire-related."
Damon opened his eyes slightly again. "Freak storm, huh? That's a new one." Then he added, "I can heal from just about anything. It's not fun, though." His voice was still barely audible, and Caroline could hear his pain. "More blood would help," Damon added, with the slightest trace of his usual smirk visible on his lips.
"Oh right. I'll get it." Caroline sprang up and was out of the room in a flash.
•••••
"I think she's sick of nursing you already," Ric told Damon when the blond vampire was gone.
Damon smiled slightly in response, although Ric thought it also could have been a grimace. "She's not the only one," Damon replied. "We need to find Elena, get Bonnie to do a locator spell."
Ric thought Damon had an impressively one-track mind given that his friend had apparently just nearly died. "Why do you think it was a warlock?" he asked. He had clearly missed a lot.
"This mysterious vampire warned me that a warlock would be coming after Elena. And who other than a damned witch could send me flying into a telephone pole like that?"
Ric had to admit that, by Mystic Falls standards, this seemed like a plausible theory. Just then, he heard a frantic knock at the door followed by footsteps rushing into the house. He turned around to see Bonnie, with Jeremy at her heels. "What is going on here?" the witch asked. "I got a text from Caroline to come here, and I found Elena's backpack outside the school, but there's no sign of her anywhere." From behind Bonnie, Jeremy held up the backpack. The worried look on his face matched Bonnie's.
Ric heard Damon's voice from behind him. "I think the warlock got Elena," the vampire said. His voice sounded shaky, and when Ric turned to look at him, he saw that Damon had managed to sit up and adjust his body so that he looked to be sprawled on the couch with his usual insouciance. Damon looked even paler than usual, though, and Ric wondered why his friend was bothering to cover up the extent of his injuries. Then he remembered Damon's uneasy relationship with Bonnie, and he thought he knew. Damon didn't want the witch to see his weakness.
Jeremy's eyes had narrowed as he looked at Damon. "What happened to you?" he asked. It was no wonder that Damon wasn't really fooling anyone, Ric thought. For all that his friend had managed to restore part of his characteristic cocky façade, he was still shirtless and bloody. Something had clearly happened to him.
Ric thought Damon looked thoroughly sick of being asked that question. "I tried to stop him," the vampire said simply, although the calm words were accompanied by a typical Damon eye-roll.
Bonnie opened her mouth to say something, but she was interrupted as Caroline reappeared in the room. The blond vampire tossed two blood bags at Damon, who grimaced as he caught them, before rushing across the room to hug Bonnie. "You're here," she declared happily to the confused witch.
"Enough with the happy reunion," Damon began.
Caroline pulled away from Bonnie to glare at him. "She could have been hurt, too, you know."
Damon ignored her. "Bonnie, can you do a locator spell to find Elena? The faster we get after this warlock, the better."
Bonnie nodded. "Sure. I have some candles in my bag." She started rummaging through her own backpack. "I just need a map and some of Jeremy's blood." She looked apologetically at Elena's brother.
"Sure, no problem," Jeremy said immediately.
Bonnie had pulled out the candles. "Damon, do you have a map of the area?" She looked a bit surprised that the vampire hadn't moved off the couch, especially since he had been the one pushing the necessity of acting quickly.
Damon looked annoyed. "Yes, but I don't know exactly where it is. Why don't you just fetch it with your magic? You know, like Call of the Wild." Ric was fairly certain that the real reason Damon hadn't moved was that the vampire couldn't, but he had no idea what Damon was talking about – and he had read Call of the Wild.
Bonnie looked a bit surprised, but unlike Ric, she apparently did understand Damon's cryptic reference. "Okay. Yeah, that's not a bad idea." She held up a hand and closed her eyes. A second later a map came flying through the air from upstairs.
"See, so much easier," Damon said smugly. "Stefan can't be trusted to put anything away, after all."
Bonnie shook her head in disgust, but she laid out the map on the floor and set up two candles next to it. She picked up a small knife and looked at Jeremy. "You ready?" she said softly.
Jeremy nodded, and Bonnie took the knife and sliced into his hand. Jeremy squeezed the wound, and several drops of blood fell onto the map in front of the two teenagers. Bonnie closed her eyes, her mouth beginning to move as she silently chanted the spell. They all watched, transfixed, as the drops of blood came together into one. However, instead of moving along the map, the blood floated up off the map and hovered above it.
Damon was the first to speak. "What the hell does that mean? Is it supposed to do that?" Ric noticed that the vampire had abandoned his pose of studied nonchalance and scooted forward to get as close to the map as he could while still sitting on the couch. At least that meant Damon could move a bit now. He was also drinking from a blood bag like it was a juice pouch, and Ric would have laughed at the sight if the situation had been less serious. And if Damon had been less likely to kill him for laughing.
"I don't know," Jeremy said, sounding confused. "That's not what it did last time."
Bonnie stopped chanting and opened her eyes. The blood hovered in the air for a second longer then dropped to the map, landing in a blob. "What did it do?" she asked.
"It . . . it floated." Jeremy looked at Bonnie. "What does that mean?"
"I don't know. Maybe it didn't work. Or maybe she's already outside the area covered by the map. We can try it again." Bonnie sounded uncertain, and Ric was starting to think that this whole situation was getting even more complicated.
"Don't tell me you screwed up the spell, witch," Damon began angrily.
Bonnie glared right back at him. "I didn't screw it up, Damon."
Ric decided it was time to intervene. "Yelling at each other isn't going to help Elena," he pointed out.
"He's right. Let's get some other maps and try it again," Bonnie said.
So they tried the spell again and again, until Bonnie was wiping blood from her nose. Each time, the drops of blood ended up hovering above the map, like Elena was nowhere to be found. Finally Bonnie shook her head. "It's not going to work," she said, sounding defeated. "I'll go home and do some research, see if I can find another way to locate her."
Not even Damon could argue with her, and the teenagers filed out, Jeremy insisting on driving Bonnie home. Finally, only Alaric and Damon were left in the parlor. The polished wood floor was covered with slightly blood-spotted maps. Ric stood up and poured two glasses of bourbon. He handed one to Damon. "How are you doing?" he asked.
Damon slammed back the drink and held out his glass for more before Ric could even sit down with his own drink. Ric just shook his head ruefully and poured Damon another round. "I'm fine," Damon declared as he took his glass back. At least he didn't chug this one, Ric thought. "It's time for Plan B, though."
That sounded a bit ominous to Ric. "What's Plan B?"
"Forget magic. I'm going to track that warlock the old-fashioned way."
"You're not going after him tonight, are you? Damon, you need to rest."
Damon shook his head. "The longer we wait, the more time he has to hurt Elena and the colder the trail will be."
Ric tried again to reason with his friend. "You can't go out like that," he pointed out. Damon seemed to have forgotten that he was wearing nothing except jeans, dirt, and dried blood.
"Fine, I'll take a shower first. Go home, Ric. I'll call you when I have a lead." Damon set down his now-empty glass and stood up. Ric watched as his friend crossed the room to the stairs. He saw Damon pause for a moment at the bottom of the stairs, and he noticed that Damon clutched the banister as he made his way slowly up. He shook his head silently. Damon was in no condition to go after a warlock who had almost killed the vampire when he was at full strength. And that meant that Ric wasn't going anywhere.
•••••
As Damon made his way into his bedroom, he idly wished that he lived in a one-story house. Those stairs had kicked his ass. He was well aware that he had no business challenging a powerful warlock right now, but he had to do something. Elena was in danger. And he told himself that he would just be picking up the trail tonight. He would be back to himself in no time, starting with a shower and another couple of blood bags, and then this warlock wouldn't know what hit him.
A few minutes later, Damon stepped out of the shower, towel wrapped around his waist. He left the pile of dirty, bloody clothes on his bathroom floor, too tired to deal with them that night, and stopped at his dresser for a pair of boxers on the way to his closet. As he replaced the towel with black boxers, he found his steps taking him unwittingly toward his bed. He was so exhausted; he would just lie down for a few minutes before he went to the school to try to get a lead on Elena. I have to find Elena, he repeated to himself as he sank onto the bed. There was no time to waste, after all, but he was dead tired – pun not intended. He would just rest for a few minutes, he told himself. But Damon was fast asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.
•••••
Alaric was waiting downstairs, nursing another glass of bourbon. He hadn't missed the way Damon had needed to hold onto the banister just to make his way upstairs, and he wasn't about to let his friend go off looking for a warlock alone when he was in that bad a shape.
But when Damon didn't reappear after a few minutes, Ric put down his now-empty glass and trudged up the stairs himself. He tentatively turned the knob on Damon's door and pushed it open. The vampire was asleep, sprawled on top of the bed. Ric wondered if vampires got cold because, if so, Damon was going to wish that he had made it under the covers. But he didn't want to risk waking Damon and having him revisit his idea of going after the warlock tonight so he just turned out the light and shut the door as quietly as he could.
Ric decided it was awfully late to head home, and he had been drinking, so he continued down the hallway to one of the numerous bedrooms in the boarding house. It wouldn't be the first time he had crashed at Damon's after drinking too much, after all. The first room he came to seemed suitable, so he stripped off his own clothes and crawled under the covers to sleep.
