Chapter Twenty
Damon stepped out of the phaeton (which still functioned well enough even with a spoke missing from one of the wheels), clutching Elena securely in his arms, one under her shoulders and the other under her knees, her head tucked in the crook of his neck. She lay still with her eyes closed, feigning unconsciousness as he carried her inside of the house.
"Father!" he shouted as soon as they were over the threshold. "Father, come quickly!"
A second later, she heard the sound of shoes on the wooden floor, drawing nearer until Giuseppe was in the entrance hall with them. "My God, son, what's happened to Miss Elena?" he said.
"We were attacked by a vampire," said Damon as he carried her in the direction of what Elena guessed was the sitting room. His tone was worried, and she doubted he was faking. "I staked her before she could hurt either of us, but Elena fainted in all the excitement. I doubt she's ever been exposed to such violence and horror in her life." He deposited her carefully on a settee as he spoke and brushed a stray curl away from her face. She wanted to lean into his touch, but remained motionless.
Elena could hear Giuseppe's increased heart rate and smelled his fear at this news of a vampire attack, but she doubted he was betraying any outward sign of weakness in front of his least favorite child. "Where did this happen?" he asked. Sure enough, his voice was curt and void of distress.
"In the quarry," said Damon. "I didn't have time to dispose of the vampire's body. I had to bring Elena home in case there were more of them."
"We can take care of that now," said Giuseppe. "She'll be safe here; no vampire can enter without an invitation. Get her to bed."
Elena felt Damon's arms slip under her again as he followed Giuseppe's order.
"What's happened?" said Katherine's voice as soon as Damon reached the top of the stairs.
"Is she all right?" added Stefan's. Elena hadn't heard a peep out of either of them at any point while she and Damon had been downstairs with Giuseppe, but it seemed that they had been together. This detail would've been more intriguing to her if not for the seriousness of what had just happened.
"She'll be fine," said Damon. His voice was slightly louder than it needed to be; no doubt for Giuseppe's benefit, if he was still listening. But a door closed downstairs, and Elena guessed that Giuseppe had gone to prepare his and Damon's horses to go back to the site of the attack.
As soon as they were in her room—she could tell by the way it smelled lightly of amaranth, forget-me-nots, mallow, and white clover from the bouquet of flowers Damon had given her for Christmas—, she dropped the swooning maid act and opened her eyes.
"Maria attacked us," she said as Damon set her down on her bed. "I tried to reason with her, but she wouldn't listen."
Anger flashed across Katherine's face, and Stefan looked alarmed. "Another vampire?" he said.
"There are more of us in town than you think," said Katherine. "But Maria's dead now?"
"She tried to bite me," said Damon, "but Elena managed to fend her off until I could stake her."
"Stefan, Damon!"
Elena immediately shut her eyes again and went limp at the sound of Giuseppe's approach.
"Yes, Father?" said Stefan. Elena heard feet shuffling and her bedroom door close. It seemed that everyone had left her room. She opened her eyes again and flashed over to the door—it was an unnecessary measure to hear what everyone was saying now that she was a vampire, merely a leftover eavesdropping habit from when she was human.
"I need to fetch Emily to tend to my sister," Katherine was saying. They were all back downstairs now. Elena pictured Katherine curtseying and walking away from the men while daintily holding her skirts up off the floor.
"Damon, I need you to come with me," said Giuseppe.
"Of course," said Damon.
"Stefan, I want you to stay here with Katherine and Elena and keep them safe. You're not to invite anybody in."
"Yes, sir," said Stefan. Elena heard some more scattered rustling and talking, then the front door slamming shut as Giuseppe and Damon left.
A few moments later, Katherine was back with Emily.
"Should we be worried about the other vampires?" said Elena at once.
"Frederick and Bethanne, maybe, but the rest wouldn't be stupid enough to take Maria's side after she attacked a member of the Council," said Katherine. "It's the first eyewitness account of an attack they've had. If Damon hadn't killed her, they would've torn her apart themselves for exposing us all so blatantly."
"But what if Frederick makes it about the daylight jewelry?" said Elena. "You know they all want their own; they'd agree with him about that."
"And they won't be getting it," said Emily crossly, her hands on her hips. "If any of them tries to ask for one or threaten me and my family for one again, it will be the last thing they ever do. By trying to attack Mr. Salvatore under this thick cloud cover, Maria proved that she couldn't be trusted with my daylight jewelry." She rounded on Elena. "But you! What's this about you and Mr. Salvatore being engaged? I know it's only to be expected after all this courtship, but you're only making more tracks for me to cover up when I send you home!"
Elena blushed and avoided Emily's gaze sheepishly. Maybe she didn't want it to be so easy for Emily to send her home.
Beside her, Katherine laughed. "Of all things to get upset with Elena about, you've chosen her engagement? Progressing through this courtship in the expected way, even if they are going a bit faster than most couples would, is only going to draw suspicion away from her. We have much more pressing matters to attend to. Whether or not the rest of the vampires take his side, as soon as Frederick realizes his sister has been killed, I'm afraid he might do something rash. We should go warn Pearl."
"But what if Giuseppe gets back while we're gone?" said Elena.
"We'll be quick."
Before they returned to the quarry, Damon and Giuseppe split up, one going to fetch Mayor Lockwood and Thomas Fell, and the other, Sheriff Forbes and the Gilbert brothers. Damon, Johnathan and Franklin Gilbert, and the Sheriff arrived on the scene first.
"Hell, Salvatore," said the Sheriff, staring at Maria's gray, vein-covered corpse with wide eyes. He spat out a thin stream of tobacco juice from between his teeth. "How'd those damn Yankees manage scare you away from the war if you're tough enough to take down a vampire?"
Damon didn't dignify this with a response.
Johnathan hopped down from his horse to get a better look at the body. "What happened?" he asked.
"It seems like the vervain from the apothecary and what we put in the wells is doing the trick," said Damon. "She was getting desperate. When she came at me and Miss Elena, she was muttering something about all the tainted blood in this town. Apparently we were the first humans she ran into."
"Is that a wheel spoke?" asked Franklin, dismounting too and moving to stand beside his brother.
"It is," said Damon. "I kicked it out of one of the wheels of the phaeton when she started showing her fangs." The sound of hooves up the road heralded the imminent arrival of his father and the other Council members.
"Is Miss Elena alright?" said Johnathan.
"Yes," said Damon. "The vampire didn't touch her. She was terrified enough to swoon, but she's resting it off at home now."
"It's a good thing Giuseppe brought you into this when he did, son," said the Sheriff as the man himself pulled up beside him on his horse, along with Thomas Fell and the Mayor. "We might be looking at two bodies if he hadn't."
"Anything else that attacks my fiancée will meet the same fate," said Damon, his lip curled. Of course, he didn't just mean vampires, but he wasn't about to tell them that.
"Fiancée?" repeated Thomas Fell. "Then you're engaged?"
Damon nodded, unable to hold in a smile at the thought.
"Congratulations," said Johnathan, while Thomas and Franklin both clapped him on the back. "She seems like a lovely girl."
"Damn fine to look at, too," said the Sheriff with a leer. "Her and her sister." He spat out another stream of tobacco juice.
Every word out of the man's mouth was testing Damon's restraint. He'd have liked nothing better than to break his nose.
"Can we focus on the situation at hand, gentlemen?" said Mayor Lockwood, shooting the Sheriff a cold look. "Was she the only one?" he added, turning to face Damon.
"The only one we saw, sir," said Damon.
"And she attacked you in the day?"
"Yes, sir," said Damon, "but she said something about the clouds, so I had the impression that they were the only reason she was able to be out of doors."
The others all looked tremendously relieved by this. Damon was relieved too, but not for the same reason. For a second, he'd been worried that they were about to dismiss the idea that vampires couldn't go out in the sunlight, which could put Elena at risk.
"Do you think there are more of them?" asked Thomas.
The Sheriff jumped heavily down from his horse and pushed past Johnathan and Franklin to get at the body. He reached out a hand and peeled back the grayed lips to examine the teeth. "There are more of 'em, all right," he said, standing up straight again. "Until today, they've been doing a good job of lying low, I'll give 'em that much, but I've been around to all the nearby towns, and I've seen bite marks both bigger and smaller than what this one could've made."
"Why haven't we found any bite marks here in Mystic Falls?" said Franklin.
"Because this is where they live," said Giuseppe darkly. "And they've settled in. They're not stupid enough to leave that kind of evidence."
"That's right," said the Sheriff. "The trick will be finding them even when they don't make mistakes like this one did."
"I'm working on something that could help us with that," said Johnathan.
"Pearl!" said Katherine loudly as she and Elena entered the apothecary.
"Merry Christmas, Katherine, Elena," said Pearl, appearing suddenly in the doorway that led to the back of the shop and the stairs that went to her and Annabelle's flat on the second floor.
"Oh, please, you don't celebrate Christmas," said Katherine dismissively.
"You're hardly a Christian yourself, my dear," said Pearl. "And I may have been a Taoist in life, but I can appreciate the spirit that holidays like this one bring to the community if I choose to."
"I thought you said we needed to hurry," Elena muttered.
"What's happened?" asked Pearl.
"Maria's dead," said Katherine.
"She attacked me and Damon," said Elena. "He killed her."
"Does Frederick know?" said Pearl, looking remarkably unperturbed by this information.
"I'm not sure," said Elena.
"Then we should inform him," said Pearl. "Come, Annabelle," she called over her shoulder, "We're going to visit Frederick and Bethanne."
When they arrived at the mansion belonging to Frederick—which, Elena noticed, stood on almost exactly the same spot as the Lockwood mansion in the present—, they found him pacing restlessly inside the darkened entrance hall.
"Has any of you seen my sister?" he asked when he saw the four of them. "She took advantage of the cloud cover earlier to go hunting, and she should've been back by now."
"She won't be coming back," said Pearl.
Frederick's eyes narrowed. "Why is that?"
"Because she's dead," said Katherine, her voice and expression both utterly devoid of sympathy.
Frederick stopped in his tracks. For a second, he stared at Katherine with wide eyes, but then the whites turned red and he lunged forward, fangs bared. "What have you done to her?" he roared.
Before he could reach any of them, Bethanne appeared out of nowhere and hauled him back with her arms tight around his torso. "Frederick, no!" she cried.
"What happened to her? I'll kill you all!" He fought against Bethanne's grip, but she would not let go.
"Maria was foolish enough to attack a member of the Council," said Pearl, her voice loud but calm. "Even if she had survived the encounter, I would've killed her myself for putting us all in danger like that."
Predictably, Frederick only seemed to grow more furious at this. "Who was it? I'll rip his head off!"
This time it was Elena lunging at Frederick, and Katherine who had to restrain her. "If you so much as lay a finger on him, I'll tear your heart out with my bare hands!" she shrieked. Never, not even when she'd killed Connor, had she felt so enraged. Her entire field of vision was thick with a pulsing red through which she could barely even see Frederick. No one got to threaten Damon and live. Especially not the asshole who had once nearly killed her and Stefan, resulting in Stefan's tailspin that had brought him dangerously close to his ripper self.
"Elena, sweetie, if you don't behave, I'm going to have to break your neck again," said Katherine.
Elena stopped fighting so hard against Katherine's grip. As angry as she was, she didn't want to miss any of this.
Frederick, meanwhile, had put two and two together based on Elena's reaction to his threats. "Damon Salvatore is the one who killed her?" he said. "He's a dead man."
"Elena," hissed Katherine, for Elena was now fighting harder than ever to get at Frederick. Her hand tightened warningly around Elena's throat, and Elena eased off again.
"You will not go anywhere near Damon Salvatore," said Pearl firmly.
Frederick turned his livid gaze on her. "You're on his side?" he demanded.
"You cannot attack a Council member without bringing even more suspicion on us!" said Pearl, clearly growing frustrated with his obstinacy.
"My sister is dead!" he spat. "Someone will answer for this! If not the man who killed her, then how about his brother? A sibling for a sibling. Or perhaps the twin whores sharing his bed?"
In a flash, Katherine had released Elena and was across the hall, thrusting her thumbs deep into Frederick's eye sockets. He screamed in pain and Bethanne recoiled in shock. Katherine threw him out of the hall into the parlor with enough force that he cracked the wood paneling on the wall where he landed. She sped over to his crumpled form on the floor and jerked him back up by his hair. "The only sharing that will be going on if you threaten Stefan or insult me and my sister again," she said, "will be the carrion birds sharing the shredded remains of your corpse."
As a human, Katherine's display might have shocked Elena, but now she only wished she'd been free to inflict the damage on Frederick herself.
"Was it truly necessary to kill Maria?" said Bethanne tentatively. "Damon Salvatore knows our secret. Perhaps if she had attacked one of the other Council members, then there would have been no choice, but isn't he supposed to be our inside man? Couldn't he have just let her go?"
Elena bristled, and this time it was Annabelle holding her back, though there was no real need for it—at least, not at the moment. "I gave her a chance to back down, but she still went after Damon. When I defended him, she attacked me instead, so he killed her. It's her own fault she got staked. Damon said the Council has been growing restless to catch a vampire for a while. Now that they've succeeded, they should be satisfied with their progress and calm down."
"Or they'll only increase their efforts now they've had a taste of success," Bethanne shot back. "It's difficult enough as it is to get the blood we need when we can only hunt at night."
"She's right!" groaned Frederick, who obviously couldn't see the menacing look Katherine was shooting him. "We wouldn't have had this damn problem had Emily just made us rings!"
"Don't make me rip out your tongue as well," said Katherine. "Emily already had no intention of making rings for any of you, but thanks to the stunt Maria pulled today, she has now vowed to kill the next vampire who tries to disagree. If you're so unhappy with your lot here, you could always leave. No one's forcing you to stay."
"This is our home!" said Bethanne. Even she seemed to be losing her temper now. "You say we wouldn't be able remain inconspicuous like you if we were free to roam in daylight." She looked from Katherine to Elena and back again. "But it's you two who keep drawing the town's attention by fooling around with the Salvatores."
"Who's fooling around?" said Elena, flashing her engagement ring. "Damon and I are engaged."
"That's a joke," Bethanne sneered. "How do you expect to marry a human? Even your ring will not allow you to maintain your charade forever."
"The charade isn't what will be lasting forever," said Elena with a smile.
"Frederick," said Katherine, "I'm sorry your sister was stupid."
Frederick sputtered and blindly attempted to attack her, but she had him pinned facedown on the floor with her foot in an instant, and he could do little but curse and grumble about his still ruined eyes.
"We need to keep our heads," said Pearl. "The Council members are getting smarter. If anyone else tries what Maria did, they'll be getting no help from us. I suggest you pas that along to any of the others who aren't content with their lot here."
They were back at the Salvatore mansion just in time for Elena to be lying in bed as though Emily and Katherine had been tending to her all along when Damon and Giuseppe returned. This time, Elena couldn't focus on what everyone else was saying as Giuseppe came to check on her. She couldn't help dwelling on what Emily had said earlier, about the risks of being engaged to Damon. Surely it wasn't a matter of life and death, and Emily had already said that those were the only things that really meant anything when it came to preserving the timeline. Perhaps she was getting a little caught up in the life she'd created for herself in 1864 with the Salvatores and Katherine, but what other option was there once Damon had proposed? She'd hurt present day Damon enough times; the last thing she wanted was to see that heartbreaking look of rejection on his face here as well, or ever again.
Eventually, Giuseppe's voice and footsteps faded into the background. When it sounded like he was back in his study, Katherine and Emily departed as well, and Damon was the only one left in the room. Elena opened her eyes. It had probably been enough time that she should be recovering from her "faint" by now anyway.
"Damon?" she said. He was standing by her window, staring out at the gradually darkening landscape. His hair was a bit mussed up and he looked exhausted. Elena joined him and wrapped her arms around him.
"Today started out so wonderful," she said. "I wish Maria hadn't ruined it like that."
Damon sighed and hugged her back, on hand stroking her hair. "How well did you know her?"
"Not well at all," said Elena. "I only met her once before today." She bit her lip. "Katherine and I need to go hunting."
Damon's arms tightened around her. "Stay," he said. "Just take what you need from me."
"I'm doing that far too often already," said Elena with a little smile. "I'm sure it can't be healthy for you."
His grip tightened still further. "Please don't leave here tonight."
Elena pulled back and looked up at him. "You're afraid," she said, cupping his cheek with her hand.
"Nearly every member of the Council is on high alert right now," he said, covering her hand with his own. "After the initial slaps on the back I got for staking a vampire, they all started talking about new ways to find more of you. Johnathan Gilbert says he's close to a breakthrough."
Elena's insides immediately seemed to twist into knots. If Johnathan was making progress on his inventions, then it was only a matter of time before Emily would spell them, and then she would be sending her home. "Well," she said, "if we don't hunt tonight, it will only strain our control when next we do hunt, and that will be more dangerous for everyone."
Damon leaned down and kissed her gently. "Just be careful. For now, they suspect nothing of you; you walk in the sun and you were attacked by a vampire yourself. As far as they know, you're the amazing human girl who captured my heart."
Elena smiled. If only he knew that she had been human the first time she'd captured his heart. But she couldn't tell him. She kissed him back, and it was a long moment before they broke apart. "I will be careful, I promise. I'll be back soon."
Three and a half centuries is a very long time to search for anyone, and even after living more than twice that long, Demetri had still not learned much about patience. For at least the thousandth time, he cursed the day back in 1496 that he'd run into Niklaus Mikaelson again. It had been the first he'd seen of him since their families had all lived in the Americas together, back when the arrogant prig had turned him into a vampire on the mistaken assumption that they were actually good friends. To Niklaus's fury, Demetri had not appreciated being forced into the ranks of the undead and had fled.
Ever since 1496, he'd been serving his penance for the perceived betrayal with this endless search for Katerina Petrova. He'd never even met the woman, but as he'd known her predecessor, Tatia, Niklaus still thought he'd be useful in finding her. In the beginning, he'd actually sympathized with her. Through no fault of her own, Niklaus had ruined her life. He could relate. But year after year and eventually century after century compelled to search the world over and nothing to show for it had turned him bitter. When he finally did find her, he would not be handing her over to Niklaus in one piece.
The search was mostly aimless these days. It seemed that no one was better at eluding capture than this Katerina, and he currently had no leads. His travels had brought him close to the place he'd once called home, and even though it was also the location of some of his worst memories, he couldn't help feeling nostalgic after so long. The natives had been driven out, as they had been from so many places in the New World, and there didn't seem to be any wolves, but there was a town. A little town called Mystic Falls. How things could change in eight hundred years.
While a splintered young nation cannibalized itself around it, the town seemed largely untouched, tucked just beyond the war's reach. At least for now. Even small towns like this one could never remain entirely whole forever with so much chaos surrounding them. And he would be bringing a little chaos himself.
It was one of those rare days when the cloud cover was thick enough that he was free to walk while the sun was still up. There wasn't much time remaining before sunset, but he planned to enjoy it nonetheless. He concealed himself in some snow-dusted underbrush by the side of the road leading into Mystic Falls and waited. He could already hear a carriage approaching, and the ever-present hunger was unfurling within him in anticipation.
But someone else got to the carriage before he did. He took a few steps out of his cover, unable to believe his eyes. Here, of all places…Katerina? And she wasn't alone. He stared, dumbstruck at the two women, who were identical to the very last detail, right down to the pattern of the blood-swollen veins beneath their eyes. This was impossible. Even if there could be another doppelgänger after Katerina—which there could not, as the line had ended with her—, a doppelgänger could only be born five centuries after the death of the previous one, and there was still more than a century to go.
There was one other possibility, but it seemed just as unlikely. Niklaus's older brother might have tried to save Tatia after their mother's terrible ritual by turning her, but Demetri had witnessed Esther driving a stake through her heart—had watched the life leave her body. She couldn't be here now.
But if she was…. If she was, then that meant she was somehow as strong as Niklaus and the rest of the originals. Stronger than him. He would need more preparation than this if he was to confront them both.
Katherine watched in mild displeasure as the carriage drove away, full of cheerful, ignorant, and entirely too alive human beings. After a day like today, she'd really wanted to kill something. Elena always fought against the idea of Katherine killing any of their victims (and never killed any herself as per Emily's orders and her own ridiculously strict moral code), but she had been absolutely adamant about Katherine leaving everyone alive today, because it was Christmas.
Then again, taking her frustrations on a few hapless humans was probably not the best idea while things were so uncertain with Stefan. They were making more progress than she would have dared hope for a month and a half ago, and she was trying her hardest to trust him as he had asked, but he could still change his mind about her, and a Christmas massacre wasn't likely to improve her chances with him.
As they turned to leave, Katherine thought she saw something out of the corner of her eye. When she looked again, it was gone, but she had not evaded capture by Klaus for three and a half centuries by ignoring small details, so she went for a closer look. What she saw was enough to make the fresh blood in her veins run cold.
There were footprints in the snow.
Taaroko: Now that my final grades are in, I officially have my degree in Creative Writing! Woohoo! Anyway, AnglcDmn and I were chatting a while back about why Katherine would have wanted to fake her death all of a sudden, after chilling in Mystic Falls for a whole year, and we figured something must have happened to make her feel like she was in danger again. Hence Demetri, the unwilling agent of Klaus. Who also happens to be an OC recycled from two of my Buffyverse fics. Anyway, I really enjoyed writing the bit with the Council talking around Maria's body. The Sheriff is such a scumbag.
AnglcDmn1986: Not only is the Sheriff a scumbag, but I remember not liking Demetri too much in Taaroko's Season 9, so he's perfect for this role. Anyway, I feel better now. Tooth has been removed, I yanked out a large piece of bone that was big enough to sit on one of my arrow keys (ewwww I know) from my mouth, and I've stopped almost coughing my head off every time I need to talk (and I do a lot of talking, since I'm a market research interviewer). I'm going to update Cheap Guitars sometime within the next couple of days. Go to Taaroko's page if you haven't been before, she's got her own story up. She's in my favorite authors, as well as a few of her stories, so she is easy to find.
Ahem. If you happen to follow me on Twitter, (sn is anglcdmn1986), sorry if you've endured my recent ranting about Revenge and cooing over my rabbits. I'm actually going to go back to swearing at my TV now because of the Revenge finale. Hope you all enjoyed!