Once again, thank you for all your kind reviews! I'm having such a blast writing this fic, and I'm really glad others are enjoying it too. This chapter was really fun, and we meet one of my favourite Bennetts!
"I'm not lost," Damon said, glaring out the front windshield as if he could scare up the sign leading him to the road they were looking for.
Bonnie held her phone at various heights around the car, searching for reception. "You're totally lost," she said again. "Pull over, let me try to get the GPS on here working."
"We're not lost," he reiterated, frustration seeping into his voice.
She shot him a look, clearly displaying her disagreement at that statement. "Pull over," she repeated.
"Fine." With a roll of his eyes, Damon pulled the car onto the shoulder of the isolated country road. "But not because we're lost," he clarified, before climbing out of the car. Bonnie unfolded the map and lay it on the hood of the Camaro, tracing her finger along the route they were on.
"Get the notebook, I need to double check the address," she instructed, brows furrowed together trying to determine where exactly they were. Damon dug through the glove compartment and returned a moment later with the notebook filled with Bennetts. He flipped it open.
"Rhea Bennett, lives in the middle of back ass of nowhere Indiana," he read.
"Seriously, what's the actual address?" Bonnie frowned at the map.
"It just says Bass Lake, off of Route 35. Didn't Caroline write these out? I for one am disappointed at the lack of detail." Damon shook his head and flipped the notebook shut. "Call her."
"No reception, remember?" Bonnie gestured to her phone lying uselessly beside the map, silently grateful she didn't have to make that call for reasons she couldn't quite pinpoint.
Damon pulled a displeased face, weighing their options. "We could backtrack to that rest stop and use the payphone," he finally suggested. Bonnie reluctantly gathered the map and followed him back into the car.
They pulled into the rest stop beside the payphone as the sun began to set. Damon dug around the cup holder for change, and held it out for Bonnie once he'd gathered enough.
"You take this one. I'm going to try to orient ourselves," she said, and gestured to map still in her hands. A flicker of confusion spread over Damon's face momentarily, but he agreed.
He slipped the change into the payphone and dialed Stefan's number, watching Bonnie pore over the map in the car.
"Evening, baby bro," Damon greeted. "You with Blondie?"
He could feel his brother rolling his eyes through the phone. "She's here. Why?"
"Some of the addresses she dug up leave something to be desired, think she'd care to elaborate on Rhea Bennett of Bass Lake, Indiana?" he asked, eyeing a woman approaching the Camaro suspiciously.
"Damon?" His brother's voice brought him back to his own conversation. "Caroline wants to talk to Bonnie."
"She's… busy," he answered, as Bonnie and the stranger struck up a conversation.
"Is everything okay out there? I heard about New York."
"What?" Something akin to guilt and shame swirled in his stomach thinking about Bonnie confiding his indiscretions to her closest gal pal. "Just give me the address, Stefan."
Bonnie tapped on the side of the payphone booth, effectively interrupting him. "That lady knows where Rhea lives," she said, nodding towards the stranger. "She said she'll take us."
"Caroline wants to talk to you," Damon relayed to Bonnie, holding the phone out to her. He was further surprised at the slight expression of apprehension that flashed across her features, and watching her carefully, he returned the phone to his ear. "Nevermind we found a Plan B." Damon dropped the phone back onto its receiver.
The stranger climbed into a small red bug, not unlike Stefan's, and drove steadily ahead of them, leading the Camaro to Rhea's address.
"Are we going to talk about what just happened?" Damon broached.
Bonnie flipped through the notebook, looking for nothing in particular. "Nope," she answered, flipping another page over.
"Why aren't you talking to Caroline?" he asked outright.
Bonnie stiffened. "What makes you think I'm not talking to Caroline?"
"It doesn't take a genius to figure it out," he said.
"Clearly." She flipped another page over.
"What's the fight?"
"There's no fight," Bonnie said, and annoyed edge her tone forming.
Flipping a coin in his head, Damon finally asked, "Was this before or after you told her about Sarah?"
"What does Sarah have to do with this?" She flipped another page, getting more irritated with the words Sarah and New York by the day.
"Caroline isn't exactly my biggest fan. If this came up because you were defending me-"
Bonnie scoffed loudly. "Don't worry, I'm not defending you."
Ouch. "Right," he said, backing off without his curiosity satiated.
She closed the notebook firmly. "Caroline said something that got under my skin, and I don't want to talk to her right now. I'm feeling something very similar towards someone else in my life at the moment," Bonnie looked at him pointedly.
"Noted," he said, dropping the subject entirely.
The red bug pulled onto a dirt road leading up to a quaint farmhouse, and the woman from the rest stop climbed out, watching them approach. Something didn't feel right.
"Bon," Damon warned, but was suddenly overcome with a fiery pain flashing through his head.
"Don't move," the woman said to Bonnie, keeping an arm out to perform the spell on Damon. "I need to know why a vampire is looking for me."
"He's not," Bonnie called out, hands twitching to interfere.
Rhea narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "And who are you?"
"Bonnie Bennett."
"I should have known." Rhea dropped the spell immediately and gestured for Bonnie to follow her inside. "He can wait."
Rhea adjusted her glasses, and looked Bonnie up and down. "He's with you?"
"In a manner of speaking," she answered. Rhea gazed outside suspiciously and, with a resigned sigh, invited Damon in.
"I've had some… unpleasant encounters with vampires recently. I thought you might be one of them," she explained, ushering them into her living room.
Bonnie looked around in awe; the walls with no windows were covered in bookshelves and there were plants and herbs growing out of every nook and cranny. A messy lab table filled with ingredients and notes was pushed up against the window on the far side of the room.
"Like my little workshop?" Rhea asked with a smile, noticing the look on Bonnie's face. After offering them tea, Rhea sat them down on her loud, floral couches. "Something tells me you're here for a favour," she said, sliding her glasses onto the top of her head.
After hearing the whole story, Rhea shook her head. "You should have come to me first. I can't believe Leah didn't send you."
"You know Leah?" Bonnie asked.
"Of course. I see the girls a few times a year when I go out east. Leah and I workshop spells and Sarah, well, Sarah's just a riot," Rhea smiled pleasantly.
"Yeah, Sarah's great," Bonnie said, shooting Damon a look. He found a very intricate design on the rug to study.
"Moving past what I just stepped into the middle of here," Rhea said, picking up on the tension that bubbled up at the mention of Sarah's name, "if I'm going to help you with this spell I'm going to need something from you in return."
"What kind of something?" Damon narrowed his eyes.
"I'm developing a new version of a cloaking spell," she explained, "specifically to cloak against vampires. I'm testing one right now which I believe is why it was so difficult for you to find my home, but I've run out of an ingredient and I need some assistance in retrieving it."
"What kind of ingredient?" Bonnie asked.
"Werewolf venom." Rhea leaned back against the couch across from them and gauged their reactions. "There's a full moon tomorrow and I need someone to collect more samples."
"And you can't do it yourself?" Damon asked roughly, and Bonnie nudged his knee with hers as a warning.
"My strengths lie in theoretical magic and spell development. Using magic as a weapon, especially alone, isn't my forte," she said.
"Seemed to do just fine earlier," Damon muttered, and Bonnie nudged him harder. A smirk tugged at the corners of Rhea's mouth. "I'm in," he announced after a quick glance at Bonnie, who remained silent.
Rhea settled them into her guest rooms for the night, and after breakfast the next morning began pulling out stacks of books and loose notes, splaying them throughout the room along with Bonnie's research on the spell.
"You're on the nose about being able to transfer the binder," Rhea assessed, reading over the notes, the midafternoon sun shining through the windows. "And unlinking the two of you should be relatively simple. The real trouble comes in with Kai's loophole prevention."
Damon watched from the doorway as they worked. He'd pored over the pages with them earlier, but was quickly out of his depth.
"In order to unravel the other two layers of the spell we have to dismantle that part first," Rhea continued and looked up, placing a hand on Bonnie's shoulder. "Don't touch this spell until we figure that part out. That's the part that will get you killed."
Bonnie nodded, the weight of the severity of the spell hitting her again. "So how do we do it?"
"Beats me. In my experience, spells like this require a personal touch. Usually blood," she said, talking herself through the spell. "Let me worry about this part. You focus on the stasis portion of the spell. Transferring it is doable, but because we have no idea what Kai used to bind the spell we're going to need a very powerful artifact to transfer it to, not to mention some sort of celestial event and a handful of witches to actually perform the damned thing."
"That's a lot to get in order," Bonnie said quietly, feeling overwhelmed at all the moving parts of the spell.
"One step at a time." Rhea smiled at her encouragingly. "And the first step is to master the stasis spell on a living being."
Bonnie spent the rest of daylight outside, attempting to put a robin into magical stasis using various stones from Rhea's collection as binders to no avail. As the sun began to set, Rhea pulled Damon aside.
"Phil Getts lives at the edge of town," she said, adjusting her glasses on her nose and handing him a packaged syringe for the venom. "On full moons he used to chain himself up in his basement, but last month he went rogue. Another vampire, a friend of mine… well, she's not around anymore. Even I can't bring you back from that."
Damon nodded, understanding the implication. "I'll be careful." Pushing his somber mood down, he hopped down the steps of the porch and called out to Bonnie, and together they climbed into the Camaro on their way to meet Phil.
The moon rose full overhead, and the streets were quiet and still. "What's our game plan?" Bonnie asked, getting out of the car.
"My game plan is to find our pal Phil and siphon out some venom." Damon pulled out the syringe from his pocket to show her.
"And my job is to…" She nodded patronizingly, prompting him to finish.
"Wait patiently by the car?" Damon suggested with a smirk.
"So your plan is to basically tackle a werewolf and stab his gums. By yourself," Bonnie stated.
Damon placed a hand over his heart, feigning hurt. "Bonnie Bennett, are you doubting me?"
"Yes," she answered obviously.
"Rude." Damon grinned, at her. Bonnie rolled her eyes. "I told you, I'm not letting anything happen to you," he added seriously.
"And I'm just supposed to sit by and watch you wrestle a werewolf? Do I have to remind you what happens when that thing sinks his teeth into you?" Bonnie followed Damon through the empty streets, and pulled on his arm to stop him. "I'm not letting anything happen to you either," she said.
Before he could respond, a howl interrupted him. Damon turned around to face a snarling grey wolf standing at the end of the road. Before Bonnie could stop him, Damon sped towards the animal with open arms, and the pair rolled twice until he lay on his back.
"Idiot," Bonnie muttered under her breath, and chased after him.
Damon used his left arm to brace against the wolf's throat to keep his snapping teeth from reaching him. He gripped the animal's fur in his fist and used his free hand to dig through his pockets in search of the syringe. A fear gripped his chest as Damon realized he underestimated the amount of strength it would take to keep the beast away.
"Why do you have to be like this, Phil?" he grunted, fighting to stay in control and find an opening to steal some venom.
Bonnie's chanting floated in the night's air, getting louder and more powerful, finally culminating in the werewolf slumping onto his chest. Damon pushed him off to find her standing over them, clutching a moonstone, a smirk dancing on her lips.
"Thanks for distracting him," she said, offering him a hand. Once back on his feet, he slipped Phil's wolf body over his shoulders.
"I had it handled," Damon said, lugging him back to the car.
"Mmhmm," Bonnie nodded. "Of course you did."
Damon dropped Phil on Rhea's porch. She appeared at the doorway, taking in the wolf's body, Damon's dishevelled appearance, and the moonstone in Bonnie's hand.
"You did the stasis spell," Rhea said and grinned at the witch proudly before ushering them inside. She pushed papers and instruments off her lab table and had Damon place Phil there so she could extract some venom.
"Are you going to keep him like that?" Bonnie asked, turning the stone over in her hands.
Rhea shrugged. "Until I construct the cloaking spell. Normally I wouldn't, but Phil is, pardon my french, a giant fucking dick. He can stand to have a time out," she said, poking at his teeth. Bonnie placed the moonstone on the table beside him.
"The stones matter," she told her. "The moonstone wouldn't work on the robin earlier, but it worked on the werewolf. I think the stones, or whatever is being used as a binder, have to reflect the living thing they're binding."
Adjusting her glasses, Rhea smiled. "That makes sense," she said, nodding and making a note on one of the loose sheets for later. Looking up, she added, "I made sure the rooms were ready for you when you returned. Make sure you wake me before leaving in the morning so I can see you off."
Bonnie agreed and Rhea sent her upstairs with a hug goodnight before she returned her attention to the werewolf splayed out on her table.
"Bon," Damon paused at his door, as she gripped the handle of hers.
"Hm?"
"Thank you." He shifted his weight between his feet. "For tonight."
"You had it handled," she teased gently, the corner of her mouth turned up.
"Well, I wanted to thank you on the slim chance I didn't."
"Goodnight, Damon," she said with a tired smile and disappeared into her room. The door shut with a soft click.
"Night, Bon," he whispered after her.
I swear this is the last spell info dump chapter! And now Bonnie knows what to look for moving forward, while Rhea tackles the murderdeath part of Kai's spell. Unraveling it is doable...if they can get all the right pieces in order.