Chapter 7

Jack watched the entrance to the Salvatore land nearly erupt in activity twenty minutes after Elena made her phone calls. A blonde male emerged from the house on foot meeting and then hugging Elena as two cars arrived, almost simultaneously. He assumed the blonde was the other Salvatore, Stefan. Of the two cars, one was a German sedan driven by a man dressed in an expensive suit. He looked like a bank president. When he got out of the car, Jack watched Elena make a b line for the rich guy. She and Mr. Banker talked animatedly for several minutes, but he couldn't catch their words with everything else going on.

He couldn't help but wonder at the story there. They made a sharp contrast. Elena dressed in rider's clothes and the rich guy in his silk suit and Italian loafers. Before she stepped away, the banker guy pulled her into a heated kiss, like one that two long acquainted lovers would share. The rich guy and the vicious biker chic vampire. The plot thickens, he thought with a crooked grin.

Jack had just learned that the woman who'd shredded his guards a few months ago had a husband….

He pictured her husband as a tall, evil looking long haired biker vamp who ate werewolf hearts for breakfast. The idea of that guy getting a glimpse of the clench he'd just witnessed made him shudder a little to himself. Violent "little Elena" liked to live dangerously, he guessed.

Jack sure as hell wouldn't be telling anybody. Who was he to judge anyway, right? He wasn't here to take moral high ground. He was here for one reason alone….Milla.

Milla sat at the open door, also watching the activity and his heart ached at how she had declined over the last few months. She should be playing with kittens, not memorizing long names for child cancer and watching her father beg dangerous strangers for help. He was placing the entire pack in danger with this last ditch effort to break free. They had all agreed with him that it was necessary, but he would do it only if the risk was entirely his. They all stayed in their RVs while the vampires were here, and would until they pulled out of Virginia, if possible.

The other car that had pulled in was a small VW bug and a lovely dark skinned woman drove it. She had long, flowing hair and power snapped all around her. He could smell it on the wind. A witch. She left her car smiling and went to the male vampire he now knew to be Damon Salvatore, laughing and hugging him. She stopped a few seconds later to embrace Elena as well. Strange. In his experience, witches didn't get along with anybody. There was more animated talking he couldn't follow.

It appeared that this Elena snapped her fingers and vampires, bankers and witches came running. A leader he supposed. He could respect that. What he didn't understand was why she would make such effort for them. That, he was wary of.

Jack stood as Elena approached him. He could afford to pay her some respect if it would save his daughter's life.

Elena sat with Jack. Too often she had been the one left in the dark while others planned. She wanted to offer full disclosure for Jack and his little girl. He deserved that much for having the courage to come here.

She sat on the ground beside him. He offered her his chair, but she shrugged it away as she began.

"I want for us to go over some things before everything starts happening. There will be no surprises for you if I can help it. Everything that we do would require your permission."

After watching them work, unloading things from the witch's car, gathering others, he had some inkling of the effort involved here.

"Before you tell me, help me to understand why you would help us, Elena. I can see the group you command, but why bother, exactly? When we are part of the wolves that killed your father?"

"Well, you don't dance around things, do you? Just like Stefan. Alright, here it is. She," Elena gestured at Milla behind the screen of the RV. "is why I will help you. Pissing off the Council is a bonus. But if there was no council, I would still help."

Elena looked around the area, at the new activity and tried to see it as Jack might see it.

"Honestly, I don't command anything. These are my friends and family. We're a mixed bag, I have to say, but we mean well and try to leave things better than we found them. They are here because they want to be."

"As for Ric, he never wanted to be what he was. He was too good for it. He says I make him proud. He visits my brother regularly – don't ask- and sent me that message. That's important to me, but he's here too…in spirit, and he approves, I think."

She gave Jack a minute to absorb that.

"You are a very strange creature, Elena."

"You have no idea, Jack." They grinned at each other.

"Alright, the plan is twofold. We are setting up in the back yard to take down the spell. I know it can be done, because I've done it once before, but it killed the last person in the process. I have Bonnie here to help me while we take it down for your pack all at once, rather than individually. We won't let anything happen and are prepared to find another way if this won't work but will not be hurting anyone tonight."

"Could you try it on one of us? If it works, then do it for the group? Would that be safer?"

"That first person would be at the greatest risk, Jack."

"You will do it on me first, then."

But Elena shook her head. "Milla is going to need you."

"Milla needs to be free." He said it with determination. His mind was made up. "If giving my life turns out to be the only way, then take it."

Elena's skin prickled. He sounded just like Ric and the pressure behind her eyes burned. The amber colored warrior eyes were back, hard and uncompromising. Elena learned to like one who had been an enemy in that moment.

"The other part of the plan involves Milla directly." Jack turned wary eyes on Elena at that and she rushed on.

"I'm going to let you in on a secret we keep tightly bound. Vampire blood can heal humans." This was the bit of information that Damon had seen so clearly in Elena's plans before. Jack's eyes went wide as he turned and looked at his little girl.

"How long have they given her?" The question was a tight whisper.

"Six months. And that's with the treatments that I can't get for her. Without them, it's bad." His throat closed for a second before he swallowed hard and went on. "Two months, maybe."

The small, tight thrum of the girl's heart filled Elena's ears across the ten feet that separated them from the door of the RV. It was fast and shallow, but she gazed into amber eyes and lied reassuringly.

"Her heart is determined and strong." Elena smiled at Jack when he looked surprised. "I hear it from here."

"Since Milla has a cancer of the bone marrow and blood, I think there is the possibility that I can do more than free her. But there are risks involved you need to know."

"Risks?" Jack didn't like the sound of that at all.

"Right. I could give her some of my blood. It would linger for twenty four hours. During that time it will be working to heal her. If she were to die while that blood is still present…" Elena hesitated. "Jack, I'm sitting here as a result of just such a set of circumstances."

Jack looked confused and faintly horrified.

"My husband was a vampire." She gestured toward Mr. Banker, who was removing bags from the trunk of the sedan. "I was human. I was accidentally exposed to his blood. There was a car wreck." She shrugged and gestured to herself. "I became what I am now."

"Your husband?" When she nodded, Jack thought- I'll be damned. The Bank President is her devil.

Jack couldn't help but examine the guy he'd written off as human a little more closely. He didn't look like someone who could or even would tear through an honor guard. He didn't even look like someone who liked to get his hands dirty, but there was something about his eyes that spoke of volumes of experience. He knew that vampires were virtually immortal and like weres they got stronger with age, so the guy had to be a lot older than he looked, which was about Jack's age, of thirty-five. Wow. Just wow.

He tried to absorb everything she was saying. "So you want to give her some of your blood and see if it heals her. Barricading the Salvatore home to keep her safe?" He swallowed hard.

Elena smiled grimly and nodded again. "Only with your permission. And since these two things will be going on at once, you would have to trust us to keep Milla safe inside while we are working a spell in the back yard."

Jack appeared to be considering, chewing his lower lip and turning narrowed eyes on his little girl. Elena rushed on.

"I have personally been saved by vamp blood many times. So I know it works. ETP-ALL may be a little different. It's an illness at the DNA level though, so I don't know for certain how deeply the blood will reach, but if it does heal her, it might change her DNA, too. The long term effects could mean that, if she ever activates the curse, she might be one helluva werewolf. I don't know. Elijah and I are speculating there. And if the blood won't repair DNA, it will help her get better at the very least. So I see it as a win-win, but this is your decision."

"You're really willing to bleed for my little girl."

"In a second."

"Werewolf tradition would make you one of ours, if you did that. Sharing blood would make you family. You prepared for that?" Jack leaned forward to study her more closely. He'd never even considered the possibilities she was introducing. But the gain would be deeper for all of them.

"I'm not going to be called into battle, am I?" Elena had to laugh. She knew that wolf families fought together, hunted together. Considering that werewolves and vamps were naturally enemies, that could get…um...awkward.

"Not at all, but it would make you and Milla family."

Elena had lost so much that just the thought made her eyes burn. She could always use more family. Smiling, she asked, "Like a god-daughter?"

"Yes, exactly like that."

"One last question. Who will be guarding my little girl while I can't?" Jack's concern was understandable.

"Elijah. Nothing and no one will get past him. I can guarantee that."

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In the drawing room at the boarding house, Elena brought a large heavy cup to Milla. She sat beside the girl. "Milla, have you ever had to drink yucky stuff so that the hospital can see inside your tummy?"

Milla made a face and said she had. "Well this will be yucky too, but not quite that much. I have mixed it with honey, so it's thick and sweet, but it's yucky too. And if it gets cold, it is truly nasty. Do you think you can drink all of this before it gets cold for us, honey? It will make you feel all better."

Milla promised she would drink it all.

And just like that, the first step was done. Twenty four hours would tell the tale for little Milla.

Elena kissed Elijah on the cheek and was gone.

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Bonnie had decided on a using a small clearing some 50 yards away from the house. It was surrounded by trees, isolated and just the right size.

No one had seen Bonnie at work from their group for a very long time, and had no idea what they were in for. Elena and Bonnie had agreed to take down the spell together. Elena had a natural gift for the work, according to Elijah. Bonnie could get her close and help her identify where to work without hurting anyone. That was the part she had been missing before. With the werewolf boy the night of the attack she had just pulled everything up by the roots, leaving nothing when he finished his compulsion to answer her questions. He had collapsed and died when she was done.

This time she would have to take greater care. Milla would need her father.

And so, everyone assembled to watch when the moon was at its highest in the night sky. Jeremy called "now" and Bonnie began. As before there had been many words and incantations early on, now it seemed that Bonnie had grown exponentially in power.

In the quiet, Bonnie closed her eyes, tipped her face to the half moon and said only "Terra."

Five pillars of stone rose from the grass, shifting, adjusting to do as she commanded. Four of them made four corners and a single one lifted half as tall in the middle as the others.

When all movement stopped, with Bonnie beyond hearing the gasps of the others, she tipped her head again and said "Aquas" and rain began to pour from a cloudless sky, covering the entire clearing and everyone in it.

Elena tipped her own face to the rain and licked her lips with joy. She wished Elijah could see this, but she would show him later.

The rain stopped when everything had a thorough soaking. Then Bonnie said "Aeris" and gale force winds filled the small glade. It seemed to move like a small dust devil from one end of the circle she had made to the other before settling in and dispersing to the stones, to hover there above each corner.

Finally, Bonnie said only "Ignis" and a fire erupted from her small hands and swept across the grass to light the stones as well. The fire and the air hovered over each stone, moving, blending, mixing in a swirl.

Elena crossed her wrists across the stone and Jack did the same. They anchored together there across the smallest middle pillar of rock. She smiled and winked at him. Jack smiled back grimly. Bonnie lifted her face again to the moon and said "Vitae" the elements within the circle seemed to go wild around the two of them.

Bonnie said then with a shout "Ab aeterno, ab hinc, absit invidia!"

The power very nearly threw Elena from the circle. She could feel the additional life force within Jack struggle. It was the enchantment, seeing its own end, working to regroup and push. Elena closed her eyes and saw the wall she always saw when she entered any mind. Elijah's looked like a red brick wall, the exterior of a home. Damon's was unaccountably tall and dark. Jack's appeared to be busting at the seams, buckled and bowed under great pressure.

With the boy, she was new and had just pushed through the wall. After Elijah's training, she made a door and opened it. Jack's mind, his consciousness was layered in the same thick, roping briars she recognized from the boy. Thinking to Bonnie, knowing she would hear, she described the sight and Bonnie's answer came on the wind. "Ab Immo." Deeper. So rather than working at the base pulling upwards by the roots as she had with the boy, Elena began to work through the briars, allowing them to rip and tear her as they would.

She didn't care. She wove and worked through layer after layer of great, roping briars finding some of them as thick and large around as her arm or her thigh. She did not tear, but stretch and push at them, ever deeper. It felt like she was here for hours, ever pushing against the briars and then she found the center of it all. Jack was there, finally, wrapped in the briars, imprisoned there and looking terrified. She freed him enough that he could hear her and speak. She leaned forward and whispered the words to Jack. It had to come from him, or it would kill him. She told him so. Just say it Jack for your people, for Milla.

Jack let the words rip from his chest in a great roar, his eyes yellow. "Vepres morior, alea iacta est." And the briars disappeared to dust. The die was cast.

She was pulled now, backwards, through the portal of Jack's consciousness as a great wind blew through her, sweeping her and the remaining dust forever away. Elena saw as she went that this would free his entire pack. The power, the spell had been rooted in Jack, as their leader. If he had been lost, it would've reverted to his second and so on, until the end of time. By removing the briars here, all of them were free.

What she did not see was that when the spell began, her and Jack, anchored at their hands had been lifted from the ground by the combined elemental power of the air, fire, water, air and finally spirit represented by Jack. They moved together at blinding speeds and the entire group was mesmerized watching the two of them levitate and spin in the middle of the circle of light and air and water. Bonnie, who was also lost in the power along with Jack and Elena saw only what Elena saw. When Elena watched the briars blow away to dust and was pulled away, the elements dispersed at once causing an explosion that sent her, as the intruder in the circle, out of the glade and across the sky in an explosion of fire and power that shook the ground beneath all of them. Her body flew up and over, crashing through trees and knocking over dozens of them. The area where her body lay looked like a small bomb had gone off.

It was Stefan that found her first. The fire had burnt away part of her clothes, charring some of it, but her skin had already healed. The trees were demolished around her and he lifted her into his arms, running back toward the house. She had been thrown nearly two miles. Damon met him part of the way, inspecting her. She was still unconscious, but there were no injuries.

Elena woke to jarring and the smell of Stefan. For a moment she was seventeen again and he was her hero. Leaning in close she wrapped arms around his neck and laid her head there. But his scent filled her senses of blood and she was hungry, starving. Before she understood where, or why or what was happening, she had opened her mouth, fangs extended and was hovering close to his skin. At the last possible moment she remembered some remnant of who she was and leapt from his arms with a roar of horror and pain, landing gracelessly against the shattered roots of a toppled and ancient tree.

She looked at her hands and they were greying before her eyes. She was dying, starving. How was this possible? Stefan and Damon were coming in close, attempting to help her. She roared in horror, mindless, fearful. All she could think was that she would hurt one of them. She was backing away, against the tree, pushing up and away, too weak to stand.

"She's starving." Stefan could see the grey under her skin. They couldn't call Elijah to come to her because he was with Milla, the girl, protecting her at Elena's request.

"The blast threw her for miles. That's bound to wear on a body." It was Damon and he could see what needed to happen. "Stefan, go tell them that we've found her. I'll bring her back when she's able to travel. It'll be a few minutes, but she'll be fine."

"But Damon…." Concern for his brother made Stefan hesitate.

"I got this man."

Damon drew closer to her and she snarled low. And spoke through clenched teeth. "Please go."

"It's okay, Elena. You saved everybody tonight. Jack and Milla will be free. You did it." He was talking, distracting her as he drew in a little closer with each word. "Let me be the one to save you now, honey. Just this one last time."

Tears streamed down her face. "I'll hurt you. Please, just go back." She sobbed, shaking as the thirst tore through her, her entire body ached and burned.

"You would never hurt me, or anyone else for that matter." Lovingly he pulled her up and into his arms. "Please let me do this, Elena."

He was close and the scent was more than she could stand. For good measure, he drew a line across his own jugular with a fingernail, and a single line of blood appeared. When the scent hit the air, she moved, pushing him to the ground.

She sank her teeth into Damon's skin without another thought for him or anything but to make the burning stop. And he let her, wrapping his arms around her effectively locking her in place as she fed and sobbed and moaned.