Hello everyone! I have an exciting chapter lined up for you today. Who's excited for the premiere of this season of Vampire Diaries on Thursday? I know I am! Anyway, this is a pretty exciting chapter so I won't hold you up anymore. Enjoy!
Chapter Nine – Concentration
"Alright, let me get this straight," Caroline began slowly, her eyes drifting from one vampire to the next. "We finally got possessed-Tyler back, the coffin is on its way, Evie is a blood witch that bitch-slapped Klaus in the face and survived, and she decided that now is the best possible time for her to have a shower?"
"You hit the nail on the head, good job." Katherine drawled from the couch.
"I think she's more upset than she's letting on," Elena said slowly, trying to defend Evie. She had seen her when she had walked in: ashen faced and ripping snarky comments. She'd seen that kind of stoic defense before: she'd done it and Damon had done it, Stefan had even done it once or twice in his darker days. Now Evie had done it too – maybe she was not as tough as she let on. "She had blood all over her."
"Her blood," Damon reminded with a point to the ceiling. "Most of it was her blood. Don't forget that we still need to have an intervention with this little witch so we can figure out what exactly she means when she calls herself a blood witch. Sounds like some form of Satanic ritual to me: I don't usually like to roll with those crowds. Well, at least not anymore."
"There was one point you did?" Caroline asked skeptically.
"Of course," he smirked. "Most of those rituals involve blood and sex...not all of us here are prudes."
Caroline scoffed and moved away with him, while Stefan held up his hands to stop the oncoming argument.
"Come on, let's all give her a break. She did exactly what we asked her to and she managed to knock out an Original – that's not easy work," he reminded. Elena nodded because she, from experience, knew the truth behind it. "But I do want to hear more about their reactions to each other. You said that both of them responded strangely, Damon."
"Strangely's a bit of an understatement," Damon stretched as he said it, giving a shrug when he finished. "She looked pretty pleased to knock him out – not that anyone wouldn't be..."
"What happened so that she could get so close to Klaus and hit him with blood?"
"She followed the plan," he said sarcastically. "She didn't want to go and sacrifice herself like someone else: she waited for me to get there first to make sure she'd be safe...maybe for once we'll have a smart hero on our hands, Elena."
"And she won't fall for you either," Elena bit back. Katherine smiled wickedly in the background and Damon sneered at them both.
"Well, she played it smart – at least one person with Petrova lineage will make it out human," he hissed out. Elena's eyes hardened, he could see the blame running through her eyes as she remembered that it was his blood that had changed her. Never mind that he hadn't put the blood in her, of course, but to her it would always be his fault. "Evelina pretended to be Elena right until he went up and turned her around. He recognized her too, or maybe I should say he recognized that he didn't recognize her...then again, he did call her 'Honoria'."
"Honoria?" Caroline asked loudly, her eyes swivelling to Elena's and showing their discomfort. Elena's eyebrows furrowed as they both imagined back to Elijah's response to Evie. "Isn't that..."
"That's what Elijah called her at the Grill," Elena nodded slowly to herself, looking over to Katherine as the older doppelganger crossed her legs, a smug look crossing her face. She was getting comfortable for an interrogation, Elena realized with a frown. "She said she didn't know who that was."
"Honoria Fell was the wife of the Fell who founded Mystic Falls," Damon explained, moving to stand closer to the fire so that they could all see each other. "You remember, don't you, Stefan?"
"When Katherine was locked in the tomb-"
"Or so we thought," Damon added with an acidic smile to the woman on the couch.
"I killed her and her husband," Stefan said slowly, making sure that Elena wasn't too upset by it.
She opened her mouth to respond but couldn't think of anything to say to it. She was lucky that she had as many people to help her through the transition as she did, she had to remember that Stefan and Damon had not had that luxury. Ignoring the fact that their father had tried to kill them on top of that, it just meant that she should remember they had to learn how to be vampires completely on their own. It was a burden she could only imagine and was lucky she would never have to face.
"But," Damon's voice ripped her from her thoughts. "The two look nothing alike. Honoria was all old bitchy and...old..."
"So what are we missing?" Stefan sighed, his fish covering his mouth as if to stop the theories from popping freely from his mouth. Damon's eyes swivelled to the couch again.
"Yes, Katherine, what are we missing?" Damon added pointedly.
"Why ask me?"
The innocence was so put on that it was clear Katherine had been waiting for them to question her for the entire conversation. Elena couldn't stop the feeling of red-hot anger bubbling in the pit of her stomach – the boiling that she only ever felt when Katherine was near. It had worsened with her new temper and the heightened emotions – it had made her more and more willing to ease it and the only way she could picture helping the feeling go away was to rip something apart.
And Elena did have the genuine want to rip her mirror image apart for all the hurt she'd caused...she'd turned Stefan and Damon and Caroline, when Caroline had done nothing wrong, she'd done countless of other things that warranted someone ripping her apart...but Evie said they needed her...and Elena was trying to do everything to trust the girl who probably just wanted to help and then get home.
"Because you're grinning like the Cheshire cat," Damon hissed to Katherine, who didn't try to suppress her smile after that. "What do you know?"
"I never said that I know anything," she shrugged, looking away. "What I'd call it is closer to a theory."
"I like a story as much as the next bloodthirsty, homicidal vampire," Damon's eyes narrowed at her and did not move until there was a loud pounding on the door that made Elena nearly jump from her skin.
"Hey, guys!" The shout alerted everyone and made them sit up straighter, watching while Bonnie came inside – head down and trying to remain invisible from her guilt – while Jeremy and Matt groaned their way through the front door and manoeuvred in a large, mahogany casket. The casket that they all recognized as holding Klaus' desiccated body.
"Ready to introduce all the bad back into our lives?" Matt asked sarcastically, letting go of the coffin unceremoniously. None of them seemed worried about the occupant inside. Matt looked around the group, for a moment before his eyes landed on Katherine. "Alright, so you're Katherine, not Evie, because you don't have 'creepy eyes'-"
Elena gave a glare to Damon, who would be the only one to be so rude, where he shrugged and tried to look innocent. "She does."
"Yeah, where is the other look-alike?" Jeremy asked, rubbing his hands on his jeans before shoving them in his pockets. Bonnie walked forward a little bit, but stayed mainly behind Matt – the one person who evidently had not seemed to blame her as much for what she had done with Klaus.
"The new addition to our Scooby-Doo Gang is showering," Damon informed, walking over the coffin and taking a peek inside.
There was nothing different about the body – he still looked like the same pathetic vampire who had ruined all their lives. His veins were mutated and distended, his skin was gray and lifeless. It was sadistic, the smirk that crossed Damon's face for a moment, before he tried wiping it up and looking back up at the two guys.
"You made good time for not having a truck anymore," he said to Matt, whose eyes moved to Elena before nodding.
"Yeah, I bought another one off of Laurence from school – his dad fixes 'em up."
"Still," Damon shrugged. "Pretty good time."
"Well, that's how I roll," Jeremy snipped, obviously wanting not to talk about his sister's not-quite-full death experience. He turned his head, instead, to look at Tyler who was laid out on the couch with Katherine. "Poor Tyler."
"He's going to be fine, just like Alaric had been," Elena comforted, though it was clear from the look on everyone's faces that it wasn't quite comforting at all. How could it be, when Alaric's death had gotten them into this mess. "Now we need a plan on how not to let him kill us when he gets out..."
"Why can't we just kill him?" Jeremy sighed, kicking at the casket before stretching his arms behind his back.
"He starts Tyler's bloodline, Jer," Elena reminded, frowning mournfully. "And maybe even ours. You know, whether we bring him back or not, we did this to him and he's not going to be happy."
"His mood swings are the easiest part to handle," Evie called, her voice echoing loudly. She was saying it from closer to her room. Elena could her new black leather boots clinking against the hardwood before she appeared a minute later on the stairs, taking time to scrunch her wet hair with a towel. She smiled down the steps. "Oh look, new helpers."
"I thought you said she wasn't a doppelganger?" Jeremy leaned in to whisper to his sister, apparently not well enough because Evie frowned at him.
"That's because I'm not," she informed. "I'm a witch: the name's Evie Austen, to be exact."
"Not a very futuristic name," Matt shook her hand. "I'm Matt Donovan."
"It's kind of a family honour thing – honour the dead. I guess since mine is supposed to represent Elena and Caroline, it would mean honouring the undead. Evelina Austen's the name, it's nice to meet you, Matt. You must be Jeremy," she took the time to shake his hand and smile as well.
"So," Jeremy began awkwardly, not very subtly moving away from her as soon as they had let go of one another's hands. He looked behind Matt and looked at Bonnie briefly. "You're Elena and Bonnie's descendant?"
"One of them," she nodded.
"And you're really from the future? You know what happens to us?"
"I'm really from the future or else I wouldn't be a descendant," she mocked him with a smile. "And no, neither of you ever win the lottery. Save your money and give up now."
"Damn," Jeremy laughed.
"It's alright, keep drawing monsters and demons, artsy-boy," she smirked. "That'll come in handy for you one day."
His eyes lit up, his mouth opening and closing a few times as the information sank in. "It will?"
"I've said my piece now leave it alone," she said simply, moving over toward the coffin and placing her hands on her hips. She examined it for a long moment before she sighed. "Alright, let's get this mummy moving-"
"Wait," Elena said quickly, stepping forward a bit so that she could be face to face with Evie. "Shouldn't we make sure he won't come straight out and kill any of us? He's going to be mad."
"Very mad," Bonnie echoed quietly. Caroline crossed her arms over her chest just at the sound of her voice, making Bonnie sigh and move toward Evie. Both witches nodded to each other as their greeting, but their eyes fell again to the coffin in front of them.
"I guess," the gray-eyed witch sighed. "Alright...how to do that, how should I contain him...hmm..." she pulled at a curl, straightening it through her fingers while she thought. Bonnie stayed quiet. "Ugh, fine, I'm going to need so many band-aids...Damon, come here for a sec."
"Why?" His face was contorted for a moment – he didn't want to have to be too close to her when she had that smell on her – the smell of blood that she had slapped over Tyler's cheek. She had washed it off as soon as they were near the house, but he still didn't like the way he'd reacted to it in the woods.
"So I can do voodoo on you – why do you think? Katherine already agreed to it, stop being such a pussy." She sneered. "If you want me to be able to help, I have to cut myself-"
"You what?" Jeremy looked helplessly around the room, but no one cared to explain why she had to.
"Cut myself. You know, with a knife. And then the...uh...less experienced vampires in the room might start to frenzy. So you're going to come here so you and Katherine can be super-duty club bouncers and keep me safe from anyone who might interrupt the spell. You got that?"
"I'm an avid bloodaholic," Damon frowned. "Why me?"
"Because you're a controlled bloodaholic," she hissed back, her eyes flashing to the side where Stefan stood for a moment before her eyes narrowed on him. "Don't make me make you."
"Your wish is my command," he muttered sarcastically, even going as far to fake a bow. Damon tried to keep his face impassive as he moved toward her, especially when he noticed that Katherine didn't seem at all bothered when she moved forward as well. It made Damon's suspicions rise.
So now Katherine was just blindly doing what Evie said? What had happened during their walk on the woods that made Katherine trust Evie so much and more importantly, what had happened that made her give a shit enough to stick around to trust her in the first place?
"Perfect. You," Evie pointed at Elena, Stefan and Caroline with black fingernails – they must have been recently painted. "Put your backs against the wall farthest away from me. I already know that you guys are about to struggle with this simply because you're going to be stubborn and not listen to the warning I'm giving you – this one right now – this one about how strong my blood will smell..."
"You mean it will smell good?" Elena asked nervously, clenching her teeth. She hadn't been around too many heartbeats at once yet, but she had done well. Then again if Evie was warning them of it – and she had already seen Damon's reaction to being so close to Tyler after the blood-slap – she was nervous that her reaction might be just as bad as Evie feared.
"No, still smells like iron and death," she frowned with a long sigh. "I mean, I still smell like me, just like you still smell like you. This isn't some romance fanger novel where someone smells better than someone else because of essence – I'm not that creative," she smirked.
"So why is it then?"
"It's because my blood smells concentrated. It'll kick up your thirst because your body will think the potency of three drops of my blood smells like three pints. That kind of smell will set vampires off – particularly ones that can't control the instinct yet. It's a biological need for vamps: if that much blood is around you, your body will think you've made a kill. Then you frenzy."
Elena instinctively put her hand over her nose and mouth, glad she was overwhelmed by the smell of her own perfume. Evie's eyes turned toward Stefan, she was stern – but the look was somehow still empathetic. When he nodded to him meaningfully.
"Will you need to leave?"
"He'll be fine," Damon interrupted, his eyes hard on him. "Won't you brother?"
Evie waited a moment, watching carefully while Stefan nodded. She did not move for a long while, analyzing him, waiting for some sign or other. When she seemed confident about the fact he was at least attempting to control himself, she turned back toward the coffin.
"Hey before you leave, will you come and help move the coffin here?" Evie asked Matt and Jeremy.
"Leave?" Matt guffawed. "I'm not going anywhere."
"In case they frenzy, you are." Evie said with such strength it was almost hard to argue her. Almost.
"No way! I want to make sure Tyler's all right just as much as everyone else-" Jeremy began but Elena shook her head, her anxiety levels so high that she wasn't even taking the chance to humour him.
"Get out, guys."
"Elena, seriously, we'll be-"
"Out." Evie demanded. "Wait upstairs. You'll know when it's over."
Matt and Jeremy were reluctant to help move the casket now that they wouldn't be able to stay and watch the show. Still, they made sure to put it exactly where Evie had asked, moving it so that she could stand directly beside Tyler who laid on the couch and have Klaus' coffin on her other side and walked up stairs muttering curses. While they swore, Bonnie dug through her grimoire, pointing out a spell to Evie silently. Evie looked at it briefly before responding with a nod, digging deep into her pocket and picking up the same knife that had cut her hand earlier. Without so much as a hesitation or readying breath Evie pressed the blade into her thumb.
While she waited for the blood to flow, the vampires held their breath. The smell was so potent that it nearly stung Damon's eyes – it was even stronger in a room like this – and something told him that the muttering in whatever witchy language she was muttering in was only making the potency worse while she dragged her bleeding thumb around the edge of the coffin.
"By the pricking of my thumb, something wicked this way comes..." she sounded like she was joking but no one laughed with her: they were too busy holding their breath. The smell was unlike anything the Damon had ever smelt. He remembered it from the forest – the smell of danger, red wine and cinnamon – but it was stronger now, now that he was in an enclosed space. It was like instead of pricking her thumb she had slit her own throat...
His throat burned at the thought.
"You're all so serious," Evie mumbled to herself, removing her thumb from the wood of the coffin. She checked it for a moment to see how much blood was flowing from it before making a fist around it to cut off its access to air. "That should keep him immobile and in the coffin until I let him out, got it? You're all safe. Now breathe, stay calm, don't try to smell me. Bonnie, let's do this."
Bonnie seemed more than excited to right her wrongs while she walked forward to meet Evie between Tyler and Klaus. She held the grimoire carefully in front of her, but Evie didn't need to look at it while she chanted. Instead she walked between the two men – chanting and watching them and walking to the other, then repeating the pattern. She would wait a moment, say a few words, and move to the side again – after a moment she let out something that sounded like a groan of pain before she shook her head and continued as she had been doing.
The candles flickered and the fire seemed to lick at the carpet toward the witches, the fire looked as if it wanted to engulf them and burn the coffin to destroy what lay inside of it. Maybe that's exactly what they needed, Damon couldn't help think. if they could just give up on Tyler, Klaus would die too...maybe they weren't part of his bloodline – they hadn't died with his body, had they?
Evie's eyes caught him in the middle of his quiet musings. Her eyes were intense, the gray in it swirling like a thunderstorm filled with sharp, silver bolts of lightning. Before he even had time to ponder what the deep look meant, Evie took the blade to her skin and let out a hiss as her blood spilled over the blade and dripped onto the hardwood. Apparently her thumb would not give enough blood, nor would reopening the earlier cut to her hand...no, for this spell Evie had sacrificed her own wrist.
Elena slapped her other hand over top of the first, this time focusing on her nose. She felt her eyes changing as everything around her took on a bloodied hue, she felt her teeth shifting and itching to bite into flesh. This was too much. This was too much for her to handle.
Beside her, Stefan closed his eyes.
Damon watched, holding his breath and completely enthralled by her actions while she dripped her blood onto Tyler's chest. She held it above him, letting the blood collect before Damon saw the blood begin to pool and...was the blood moving?
It was moving. It was moving across his chest and creating a spider web in the pattern of his veins from his heart all the way down to his right arm. Bonnie grabbed the webbed and bloodied wrist, holding it for Evie to examine – neither of them ceased their chanting, even when Evie closed her eyes for a moment and swayed...she was losing blood quickly and bending down to Tyler's level did her no favours for energy.
Evie took a shuttering breath, taking a brief moment to control her swaying before she gripped the silver blade in her hand again. In once fluid movement, Evie sliced through Tyler's wrist.
Caroline let out a sob beside Elena, removing her hand so that she could call out Tyler's name. Katherine stiffened beside Damon, her eyes on Caroline with a concentration he had never seen before. Katherine's hands fisted as her nostrils flared...Katherine was trying to control herself.
While the blood flowed from Tyler's wrist, Evie swivelled on her heel and pulled Tyler's arm up so suddenly that his unconscious body jerked toward her and where she held the wrist over the coffin. She pressed Tyler's wrist to Klaus' lips.
Bonnie's continuous chanting became louder and somehow more violent. The house felt like it was shaking, or maybe it was Damon's ear drums. He had the urge to cover his ears, he didn't want to hear Bonnie's chanting and he could hear Evie's racing heartbeat and smell her blood and hear her laboured breathing as she tried to concentrate through her blood loss.
This was too much.
He had to get out of here.
But suddenly, the chanting was not the only thing reverberating through his skull. Now there was a screaming – Tyler. Tyler was screaming while Evie held his wrist to Klaus' mouth. His eyes were open, unseeing and black as he wailed.
Caroline screamed with him.
And then, the body in the coffin gasped.
Klaus was awake.
As Caroline screamed and gasped, the full impact of Evie's blood seemed to smack her against the face. Her eyes, already red and burning zeroed in on the woman who held Tyler's hand and fed him to the monster in the coffin. It was all she could see, her mind was puzzled together into a wrong, disorganized picture of what was supposed to be happening. She couldn't remember. Why couldn't she remember? Why was Evie letting Klaus drain Tyler?
The blood. There was so much blood.
Whose blood?
Whose blood was puddled on the floor, whose blood was being fed to Klaus, whose blood coated Tyler's arm? Was it Tyler's or Evie's? Why was there so much blood? Whose blood?
...Tyler's blood.
"Get away from him!" Caroline screamed, diving toward Evie.
"Caroline, don't!" Stefan yelled, barreling toward her. He was caught by the throat by Damon, who sneered at him. He tried to tell him to stay in control – but Damon couldn't find his words. The smell was worse now, the smell was drowning him...the blood was everywhere.
Katherine had not stopped Caroline from her pounce and she screamed as she smacked into the witch. Evie screamed too, her stomach slapping the ground and her forehead cracking against the wooden floor.
"Caroline, no!" Evie screamed, let out a stifled sob when the blonde's fangs dug into the skin of her neck. There was a moment where the smell worsened, when the blood was so strong that Damon felt like he was already drinking it, like it was his mouth against her throat.
And then Caroline screamed, scrambling like a crab away from her, hand over her bloodied lips.
"Oh my God," she whispered. "Evie, I didn't mean..."
But Evie's neck was bleeding profusely now. Stefan started to struggle, his hands ripping into Damon's knuckles as he tried to escape the hold – his eyes were empty as they stared at the blood covering Evie's neck. It didn't matter that she had put her hand up to stop the flow.
Evie rolled onto her stomach, her eyes looking between the couch and the coffin, looking between the predatory eyes that hungered for her weakness that rained through her fingers. She moaned, falling back onto the floor again.
"You're awake," she whispered, her heart slowing. It slowed as her eyes closed, and it slowed more until it was no more than a dull beating, like the headache fogging Damon's thoughts. It slowed while her neck stopped pulsating blood through her hand.
And then it stopped completely.
Dun, dun, dun! What's happened now? Klaus and Tyler are awake – but did it all work right? And poor Evie, she did warn them and she knew they wouldn't listen – she should have gotten some better bodyguards! To my fantastic reviewers:
SomebodyWhoCares: I guess you'll just have to wait and see what it all means...thanks for the review :)
Tvdlover87654: He did get bitch slapped. I thought that would be a fun way to let everyone find out about her little technicalities when it comes to spells. Hope you enjoyed this chapter and thanks for the review!
nickiR0x: I agree, I think that if Evie weren't worried about the possibility of her not existing, we would have some other problems besides the idea of her not existing, ha. I won't spoil anything for you, but you will be seeing a little bit into Evie's future – not that I'll tell you when, why or how yet...and you'll have to wait for the other questions too! Sorry, but it's an author's secret.
SilverMoonlit: Yes, I thought being a blood witch would be an interesting change. I purposefully tried not to make her like a 'Bella Swan' character and make her blood 'smell delicious' or anything, even to Damon. Then again, I don't know if danger, cinnamon and wine would taste good or not. Not to me. Hope you liked this chapter and thanks for the review :)
susl: Thanks for the review! I'm glad that you like the story, hopefully this chapter was a fun read. I guess you'll have to wait to hear about how Evie and Klaus know each other, but at least now he's back!
Angel of the Night Watchers: Yeah, my dog and I don't do walking in the winter very well. I've fallen more than a number of times – I suggest some sort of padding like snow pants. You may look ridiculous, but it will save you a number of cuts and bruises. How was Perfect Pitch, did you like it?
Mujona: Wow, that's so cool! I was hoping Evie fit into the plot well enough, I'm glad you were fooled, even just for a minute! Thanks for the review, I really appreciate it :)
BlueRose22: Yup, she's a blood witch. Apparently a pretty good one too – Klaus is awake!
ally0212: You will find out who Honoria is when we delve deeper into Evie's past and everything that the characters know are linked into her (and their) future. As you can see she has to use blood to perform spells, but I will be explaining it more next chapter. I know these are shorter than my normal chapters, they'll get longer as the story goes on and gets more intricate. I hope you liked this chapter and thanks for the review!
flazzy cullen: I'm glad you like it so far, thank you for reviewing! Hopefully you still liked it after this chapter :)
Wow, ten reviews! That's so exciting. I love reviews and they really inspire me to write so please send some more in everyone – I promise if I get ten reviews for this chapter, I'll release another chapter before next week, like I plan...tempting?
So please REVIEW!
-Egypt