2-08

"Phasmatos Tribum," I started and I took in a long breath, feeling out the churning wind at the periphery and drawing it in. It was harder, the focus put into the spell when I was constantly forced to push out power but I did my best.

It took a few tries, pushing and slipping with my push of magic before I could get a steady enough suction to sustain a connection. The thread between Enzo and his sire thickened with the power, growing fatter until it was five times its size.

I pushed forward until I made it to the edges of the boundary. It caved a little, but the pressure from the strengthened connection still wasn't enough to make a dent in the spell. I reached for more power, feeling the air becoming louder and the voices of the ancestors becoming more vivid.

Thicker and thicker the thread became; pushing against the invisible barrier but the thing was elastic, being pushed back instead of being pierced.

I was preparing to reach for more power when I felt something break, a dent in the outside world which caused the balance of the entire thing to unravel. All at once I was in the real world and on my knees with Jeremy standing inside the circle.

"What's going on?" I said, my voice shaky.

"You're bleeding," said Jeremy helping me to my feet. "You're spreading yourself too thin doing this on your own and I think you might be doing more than a recommended amount of damage to Enzo."

I shook my head, focusing enough to look and Enzo was on the floor, his face covered with blood and his breathing coming out laboured and wheezing. I pushed myself to my feet only for the world to shake, the edges becoming darker and my legs threatening to give out from the minute effort.

"Yeah," I muttered. "You were right to break the spell. Luka made this spell look a lot easier than it is."

"Or you might have just been rushing it," said Jeremy, a hint of exasperation in his tone. "Pushing yourself just for something to do."

"I'm not trying to kill myself if that's what you're getting at," I muttered. I caught myself and pushed myself to my feet, using the chair for stability; that Jeremy wasn't helping me spoke volumes about what he felt.

He said nothing, only glaring at me. When he moved it was to help Enzo up. "Are you okay," he asked.

"Yeah," said Enzo drawled. "Just…that took a lot out of me. Especially with so little actually done."

"It might be a task for the entirety of our coven," I said. "First though, I should put some actual work into learning the spell before we do this again. I'm not sure that a vampire can heal if their entire brain is turned into mush."

"They can," Enzo said, some of the words coming out in a slur. "So long as the blood's pumping they can heal from almost anything."

"Except decapitation," I said.

"Except decapitation," said Enzo. "But then, that's a special case isn't it? The body can only continue so long without the brain telling it what it's supposed to do. The healing will most probably start before cutting short when things cease."

"I really hate that I'm not a vampire-witch hybrid," I muttered when Enzo stood and stretched, his arm moving to wipe away at the blood on his face. Not even a full minute had passed and he was already alright.

"Then you could be stupid and not have to worry about the consequences," Jeremy said.

"It wasn't my fault I didn't know how much power the spell would need," I said. Jeremy gave me a long look. "Fine, it is sort of my fault, but I was caught in the moment of finding out about Enzo's past," I said looking towards Enzo.

He shifted a little, guilt starting to show on his features.

"We might have been a smidge foolhardy," he said. "After all we don't have to rush this. We don't plan to die in the near future and even if we do die, you have countermeasures, right?"

"I know the series of events I need to put in place, yeah," I said.

"There really was no need to rush," he said. "We know she's alive. She's a vampire which means she's unlikely to die if she's been caught in a boundary spell like I think."

"Okay, fine," I muttered taking a seat on the chair. "Do we have orange juice? I feel a little light headed."

Jeremy teleported to the fridge and back, bringing with him a carton of orange juice. After taking a healthy chug, we moved back into the living room and watched an old movie that Enzo severely broke apart.

"…that particular style is too early," he was saying. "It took a few years before it spread through much of Britain, it would have taken longer to reach America, especially for a commoner."

"How much does it say about you that you remember the fashion of way back when?" said Jeremy.

Enzo shrugged. "Almost all my clothes were second-hand," he said. "It became habit to watch the style, long for them."

"Your life sounds very depressing," I muttered under my breath. Jeremy shot me a look but Enzo only shrugged.

"It became much better as a vampire," he said. "Well, before I got captured. I travelled, had my fill of women even in the most remote tribes, fought in a few wars and then torture."

"You're immortal at least," said Jeremy. "There's still time for less depressive at the end of the road."

"Not with all that you lot get into," said Enzo. "We have to survive the Originals first."

"We'll survive," I said. Jeremy's phone buzzed and he picked it up, grunting a few times before he gave a short nod and dropped the line. Enzo was standing and already moving towards the door. "What's going on?"

"We're needed," said Jeremy. "Luka's telling us he can get us Elijah."

"Obviously a trap," I said.

"Except for the fact that he's also telling us where his father will be," Jeremy continued. "That Elijah has spies within our number and that they're sharing information. We're calling a council meeting."

"Has Lucy arrived yet?"

Jeremy shook his head. "Not yet."

"What about the boundary spell all of you have been afraid I might break through?" The both of them stopped and looked at me for the longest moment before they both broke into identical grins. "Fuck me, there's nothing really keeping me in, is there?"

Jeremy broke into a guffaw while Enzo said, "Not really. There's a physical boundary around the place but if you pushed hard enough it would fall in."

"Jared thought the idea of a boundary spell and us putting pressure on you would complete your abstract boundary," Jeremy said. "He's really pissed about what you said about his brother."

"Suppose I deserved this," I said. "Though I'm a little surprised Jared thought through all of this. Maybe Bonnie, but not Jared."

I got up, following Jeremy and Enzo out of the house. I touched the boundary and pushed and pretty quickly, the entire thing fell apart. We moved to the car and started driving, moving through town until we reached the church closest to the town centre; Pastor Young's congregation and there were already a few cars parked outside.

Bonnie was outside waiting for us when we arrived with Luka at her side. He shifted when I looked in his direction, but then again, if my features were mirroring what I felt, it wasn't a pretty picture.

"Tell him what you told me," said Bonnie.

Luka took a breath and said, "Elijah has spies within your group. A person or people he's been able to compel. He didn't tell me the names and I didn't ask."

I disregarded the words and more searched for how he held himself. This situation wasn't something I had in my mental stores, nothing that had happened which meant I had to improvise. I was lucky enough to have two things going for me: That I was good at reading people and that the task was all the easier because I'd gotten to know Luka, even if most of it had been a façade.

His shoulders were drawn in, closed off which could have meant that he was rightly scared, but the direction of the fear was something I couldn't read. When he looked at me, in the moments that he did, I could see mingles of guilt amongst a brew of determination. He had a plot in motion, but what could that plot be?

Occam's razor, I thought. He's lulling us into a false sense of security and this is part of some larger plan. But how can we play it on our side?

Before we'd played along because we hadn't had much of a choice. Even with my future knowledge they still beat us in raw strength. This was true even now, but in a matter of hours it wouldn't be that way.

Ideas came together and spread out: How they would rationally move if they had this information on hand. What new plans they would form. How old plans would be restructured. Even so I couldn't see in which direction this took us.

But then, he'd only said three sentences.

"Go on," I said. He'd stopped, I really hated that I was so easy to read, that everyone could see it when I was running through ideas, when they thought I was looking at the memories of the future.

A part of me wondered what everyone would think if they knew that a majority of this was guesswork?

"I know that I've been working for him, that Dad's still working for him, but I've had an epiphany, that this isn't the path I should be taking things."

"And what is that path, may I ask," said Enzo.

"That I have to look out for me first and foremost," he said, there was something in his voice, something in how he held himself, how he looked at us.

"Lie," said Jeremy. I looked at him with a quirked eyebrow. "YouTube," he said though it didn't explain much. To Luka he said, "Try again. Because the more you lie, the less we believe you in future, and the more likely we are to Cloak and Bind you."

Luka's eyes bulged a little. He took in a large breath before he slowly let it out. "Do you know why we're working for Elijah?" he asked. Me in particular.

"I do, but explain for the others that might not," I said.

"It's because Dad believes that my sister, Greta, is being held captive by Klaus. She isn't, nor is she brainwashed or whatever, that's all things Dad's saying to convince himself that she didn't leave because of him, that she might be better off."

"How do you know this?" I asked. "She's supposed to be cloaked."

"We chat," he said with a shrug. Saying that almost sounded painful. "She isn't putting as much effort of hiding from me as she is from Dad. Anyway my sister told me to work towards me being happier than just Dad. But for the life of me I can't. I'm hoping for your help in getting my sister and Dad together, but also that I don't get to move at the end of the day."

"How does this help you?" asked Bonnie. "This course of action, I mean."

"Micah," he said. "If everything you guys say about him is true, I'm hoping he'll put through the mental effort to play events into me getting what I want."

I was quiet, watching him. He seemed earnest, at least, but did that translate itself into truth?

"This all seems a touch too convenient," Enzo said but he sounded far away. I was trying to pull forward images of Greta, she really hadn't been much of a presence save a witch that had run a spell, certainly less of a presence than the rest of her family.

I didn't know what drove her, which meant I couldn't really put effort into working things to making her stay with her family; adding to all of it that I really didn't know the dynamic of Luka and his family. I knew they moved a lot which meant I could hazard the guess that the kids had hated that. But had that been enough for Greta to move?

Too many unknowns and too much guesswork for my liking.

"That's what I thought," said Bonnie. "But the threat that Elijah might have a spy is too great. It ruins any plans we might be shooting in his direction because he'll have forewarning."

"Also the fact that he could be playing things like Anna," said Jeremy. "He could have a horde of compelled people acting as his spies. For that matter he could have kill orders just in case he losses, if he gets caught and needs to force us to release him."

"Not his style," I said. "But then there's an aspect of him I don't know. Can I have your phone." Bonnie pulled out her phone and I searched through her contacts until I found the name. I didn't like doing this, but this was my family and friends' lives on the line.

"Josephine," I said when she picked up. "Luka's switching sides. How likely is that?"

"Very unlikely," she said. "But then again you've changed what I know." She took a breath. "From what I remember he followed his father before he died."

That got a reaction.

"FYI he's listening to you," I said.

"Don't care," she said. "Not a factor in my plans and I'm not about to filter my thinking process. If he were turning sides then it definitely wouldn't be turning against his father. Except if it was some twisted love thing. The Klaus sort of love."

"I'm not getting that," I said. "He's working towards a greater selfish goal that's made up of selfless parts. He wants to reunite his family but ensure they stop moving around a lot."

"I could see that," she said. "But then I'd have a better feel for the situation if I wasn't being forced to thi—Elijah's outside. I have to go." She dropped the line.

I gave Luka a pointed look.

"He told us that that would happen," said Bonnie. "That right now Elijah and his father are moving on two fronts. One is trying to court Josephine while the other is working on Andrew. Jared is dealing with that right now."

I sighed, running a hand through my brow. "Made all the worse by my outburst earlier. Three people very good with Linking magic against us and on the other side, one person who's passably good with its counter."

"You think he'll succeed in convincing him?" said Jeremy.

I shrugged. "Andrew's spiteful, sure, but would he be that spiteful? But then again, there's the Klaus kind of love."

"What does that even mean, anyway?" said Enzo.

"The kind of love that means stabbing your siblings in the heart and putting then in a deep sleep and saying you're 'protecting' them; killing every man your sister loves because you don't want them to hurt her, all the while ignoring all the damage you're doing. If it hasn't become clear to anyone, the Originals are all kinds of screwed up."

"At least there are only two we have to deal with," Enzo muttered. "Until you and Josephine muck things up, that is."

"We're moving away from the point we should be focusing on, though," said Bonnie. "Luka, what do we do about him?"

"Not trust him, obviously," said Jeremy.

"Not trust him," I said, "but trust that he's working for his family." He wasn't looking at me, sort of looking to the ground. "He's got a plot brewing, I can feel it. But I'll need a little more time to see the general thread of how things flow and figure it out."

"That done, we're boarding up the church," she said. "Whoever our mole is, we need to make it so that nothing gets out."

I grinned at that. We would be building an abstract boundary, pushing the church into a pocket dimension. My first large iteration of Lucy's spell.