Ninth.

I drove slowly up the back road leading to the Salvatore boarding house and when it came into view I was stunned. Alexia had described it when it was first built, but I had no idea it was so large. I parked close to the door and spent a few minutes just taking it all in, then a few more rehearsing what I was going to say. I took a few deep breaths and knocked on the door and waited. I heard footsteps coming towards the door and felt my heart pounding in my temples. As the door knob turned I tried to put a smile on my face but shock replaced that as Alaric opened the door to greet me.

He looked a little surprised to see me as well. "Hi Norrah, it's nice to see you again. I didn't realize you were going to be stopping by, would you care to join us for a nightcap? He asked.

"Good evening Ric, I'm sorry, this was an impromptu visit. Do you live here as well?" I knew Damon had said his brother lived with him, but he didn't mention Alaric. He smiled and said that he didn't, his living situation was complicated. "I'm sorry for prying, but yes, I think I would enjoy a nightcap." I knew that I could enter if there wasn't a living person who owned it or lived there, but I couldn't help glancing up at the doorframe as I stepped through. If Alaric noticed he didn't say anything, it seemed that they had probably had more than just one drink this evening.

Alaric led me into the sunken parlor and my jaw dropped. He turned around and looked at me laughing, "Impressive, huh? You'll get used to it if you stick around for a while," he told me. I couldn't imagine ever getting used to this, it was architecture of a bygone era, exquisitely furnished, every piece had its place, and as I guessed it, Damon's place appeared to be behind the liquor. He came around the couch and handed me a glass, startling me back to reality.

"Have a seat," He said to me as he gestured towards one of the large sofas. He sat on a settee across from me smirking.

"Well, I think that I am going to call it a night." Ric told us. I stood to say goodbye, then sat back down and saw down the rest of his drink and then wink at Damon as he left the room and walked out the front door.

After the door closed I looked back over at Damon who still had that strange smile on his face. "So tell me, what is it you need so desperately that you drove over here at this time of the night?" he asked as he took a sip of his drink.

I looked down at my watch and told him, "It's only seven o'clock." His face fell; apparently he thought it was much later. I quietly chuckled. "I need to talk to you about something, but it's a sensitive subject. I need to know that this will stay between you and me, at least for now." I looked across the room and into his eyes, trying to read whether or not I could trust him seeing as how we had only just met a few days before. It had to stay between the two of us. In a flash he was at my side on the couch finishing what was left in his drink and smiling all the while. Maybe I should have waited until he was sober.

"I know what you're thinking, but believe me, I am much more fun after a few drinks," he assured me. He started to lean in towards me and I felt my lips tingle. That was it, I had no choice, I flashed my fangs at him and threw him back over to the settee, well, actually, I threw him over the settee.

He was back on his feet in a flash, fangs barred and ready to fight. He rushed at me, but I had already retracted mine. He hit my outstretched hand at full speed and landed on his back in front of the fire. He moaned but quickly recovered. I saw him try to double back around me, but I spun around and crashed into him, pinning him up against the wall a few inches off the floor, my hand at his throat. "Are you quite finished?" I asked him, "I came to talk, not to fight." He nodded and I released my hold on his throat. He crumbled to the floor gasping for air.

He looked up at me in shock, "I get your point so let's talk."

Once we had settled back in next to the fire and Damon had poured himself another generous drink I started. "Obviously you are aware that I am a vampire, that I am quite a bit older than you are and significantly stronger. I came to Mystic Falls specifically to find you and ask for your help. In turn I am willing to offer my help to you in return." He looked at me strangely but didn't interrupt. "Contrary to what you just witnessed I am generally non-violent unless provoked. I have absolutely no intension of hurting you, Stefan, or anyone else in Mystic Falls for that matter. I was hoping that you might be willing to help me locate a missing family member of mine."

I knew, of course, what the next words out of his mouth would be. "If you want my help finding someone, you'll have to be a bit more specific. Why the hell do you think I would help you anyway?" He asked.

"I need help finding my mother," I told him. He finished his drink and threw the glass into the fire where it shattered on the hearth.

"I've been through this before and have no interest in doing it again. If you want to find your mother so badly then go find her yourself. I am not reliving another Pearl and Anna drama in which I could get hurt, or more likely killed. Besides, what could you possibly do for me, you don't even know me. I can take care of myself." He said as he turned away from me.

Having expected this reaction I was able to maintain my composure. "Pearl and Anna were a very different situation." I told him. I'm surprised to hear that they actually lived that long as reckless as they were when I knew them." That caught his attention. "That's right, I came across Pearl and her daughter centuries ago on the ship from England to America, but that hardly matters now. I have no doubt that you can take care of yourself Mr. Salvatore, but it isn't really you that I am concerned about anyway.

His eyes narrowed as he leaned forward, cocking his head to the side. "If it isn't me that you are worried about then who is it?"

I smirked back at him as I said the name out loud, "Elena Gilb-..." Before I had even gotten her whole name out of my mouth he knocked me from my sitting position onto my back and had his hand at my throat. I saw anger flash in his eyes.

"Don't even think about going anywhere near Elena or so help me I will pull your heart out of your chest and ram it down your throat." I smiled up at him as I bent back the fingers on his hand and after hearing a few bones snap he retreated.

"I am here to help her," I told him as he realigned the bones in his fingers to heal properly.

"Elena has all the help that she needs so you can go back to where ever it is that you came from and forget about her," he muttered.

I smiled down at him and whispered, "I'm not going anywhere. I came here to help Elena and that is what I plan to do." He looked up at me enraged but stayed put on the floor.

"How much does it mean to you to have your brother here with you Damon? I asked.

"What does that have to do with anything?" he replied.

"I don't know much about your family dynamics, but in my own, family means everything." I told him. He looked at me still somewhat mystified. I sighed, "Elena and I are family, we are blood relations, and I came to town to make sure that my family is safe."

He stood up and paced in front of the fire. "So you are telling me that you're an un-dead ancestor of Elena's whom she has never met? She doesn't even know that you exist? I nodded, she certainly wasn't the first who hadn't heard of me, but you can't really blame her, both my birth and death were undocumented, there had never been any record of my existence to reference. Although to be fair, I wasn't completely dead so that shouldn't be counted I guessed. I watched him trying to work this out in his head, after a moment I saw a change in his face, he looked up at me starring, blinking, not believing what he saw. "There is no way that is possible." He had figured it out.

"That's right Damon; Katherine Pierce is my birth mother."