Bon appetite!
May the Best Man Win
Chapter Twenty-five
ENZO
The militia camp seemed abandoned that night. There was a still in the air that infected everything so that even the few stragglers that remained lingering out in the open took care not to make a peep. A handful of lights were on, glowing softly around the entrance to a trailer, illuminating the windows where a group of silhouettes convened, lost in deep discussion.
The trailer door opened and closed, and Enzo slipped out. He gave a glance to the left and to the right, then walked through the open camp toward one lone bench out in the distance.
"You're right," Damon whispered. Enzo froze, ducking down instantly to hide behind a nearby collection of boxes. With a squint, he could espy Damon sitting out on the bench by himself. Damon's lips were moving—it seemed he was talking to himself.
"You're right," Damon said again, in a low mutter, "You're right."
Enzo frowned, tilting his head as Damon's hands flapped in the air frantically. For a moment, a moonbeam cast a slight blue pallor on the grass beside Damon's bench and a man could be seen standing there in the dark. Yet with another blink of the eye, the man was gone and Enzo stood out from behind the boxes and approached Damon.
"You're right!"
"Damon," Enzo frowned again, placing his hands on his hips as he stood in front of his friend, "Who are you talking to?"
Damon rocked back and forth, his hands squeezing at his knees as sweat poured down his forehead. His eyes roved along the dirt without a single glance upward as his low mumbling repeated itself.
"Him, him," he finally answered, his rocking growing faster in pace. Enzo knelt down to look into Damon's eyes but Damon averted his gaze.
"Who?" Enzo said.
"Him! Him!" Damon jumped up, pointing to the moonlit plot of grass beside him, but no one was there. As Damon began to pace back and forth, Enzo slowly stepped back and drank in the scene before him. Damon was even paler than usual, sallow almost, covered entirely with a sheen of sweat. His whole body, it seemed, was overwhelmed with a tremor that showed in his hands as they rove wildly through the air. One hand was covered over with white bandage and periodically, Damon would pick at it without thinking, with one finger creeping underneath the gauze to scratch at the unseen injury.
"He's right—" Damon swerved sharply toward Enzo and grappled him by the shoulders, shaking him like a ragdoll, "Enzo! Enzo, he's right! These people, they're blackmailing us. They can't be trusted."
Enzo gave no resistance, nodding gently, "Of course not."
"They'll kill us," Damon hissed.
Enzo smiled wide, "Before we can have our fun, we have to play their little game. He might be right but just play along a little longer then, alright?"
Enzo glanced over his shoulder toward the trailer. The door opened, and Marcel looked at them with an impatient frown.
"Look, I'll be right back. Don't…eat anyone while I'm gone," Enzo said hurriedly and then walked back toward the trailer, leaving Damon pacing back and forth.
Enzo entered the trailer with Marcel closing the door behind them. Inside sat Thierry and a handful of other men.
"Any sign of her?" said one of the men.
Enzo shook his head, "She texted me. She'll be here soon."
"It's about time," one of the men muttered, eyeing Damon suspiciously, "And Damon?"
Enzo shrugged, "He's doing as well as he can."
"I don't like keeping him out there unattended," Thierry grumbled under his breath, "Just keep your dog on its leash if you don't want trouble."
Enzo scowled at the man, "Why don't you just speak your peace and be done with it?"
Thierry stood up and strode right up to Enzo, puffing up in front of him, with their noses nearly touching.
"We're expecting that lunatic to be able to take orders?" Thierry threw his hands up, "You lead him around like a blind man!"
Marcel placed a hand on Thierry's shoulder, leading the man out of Enzo's face.
"We don't need him to take orders," Marcel explained with a sympathetic smile at Thierry, "We just need him to able to attack when the time is right."
Marcel stood in front of the group, "We have the plan in place. Enzo, you'll be our inside man, now that you're at Elijah's right hand. Tomorrow, when the peace summit is gathered, open the doors when you get the signal—that's all we need you to do."
Enzo cleared his throat, "And about that signal—how can you expect Jane's brother to help out the very people that killed his sister? The only reason he's against Elijah and the lot of them is because he thinks they're in league with the werewolves, and the only reason he cares about that is because he thinks it's the werewolves that killed his sister."
Marcel gave a shrug, "Well, what he doesn't know can't hurt him!"
Enzo blinked profusely at that, "So I'm to expect that you haven't told him about us then? I'm to expect you won't be leading us into that summit tomorrow to be delivered into the lion's den? It would be easy enough for you, wouldn't it? You'd make your peace with the Originals, you'd get on the good side of the vampires. Hell, if I were you, that's what I'd do."
"That's the difference between me and you," Marcel walked up to Enzo, "I only do bad things to the people that betray me."
Staring Enzo down, Marcel placed one prodding finger on the man's chest, "Just be there, that's all we're asking. When you hear Jane's brother with the crowd outside, open the doors, let us in. Once we signal Davina to put the boundaries up, it'll just be a matter of letting Damon do the dirty work."
Enzo nodded, averting his gaze from Marcel with an accepting shrug, "Fine. And the radios? Are they working? We can't bloody well send each other signals all day if the damn things don't work."
Marcel motioned with one hand toward Thierry, who reached over to a nearby table and tossed over a utility belt with several walkie-talkies attached. Plucking one off the belt, Marcel raised the radio in front of Enzo so that he could study it.
"Set it to channel two," Marcel said, "that'll be the team's frequency."
"And channel one?"
Marcel jerked a shoulder, "One of the radios is having trouble with it. It makes it simpler to just have them all on two."
"Right," Enzo nodded, "So—how are we supposed to keep these things hidden? They're not exactly subtle."
Marcel rolled his eyes, handing Enzo one of the radios, "I'm sure you can think of something."
There was a knock at the door and all eyes turned toward it.
"Hello?" a woman's voice spoke through the door. Enzo opened it immediately and smiled at Davina, who smiled back. Reaching back a hand, Enzo beckoned at Thierry who gave a scowl.
"Hand me another one of those radios, will you?" Enzo spoke to Thierry with his eyes still locked on Davina, "I'll give our guest the run around of our little plan."
Thierry glanced at Marcel who gave a conceding nod and took another radio off the belt, tossing it over to Enzo.
"Just stay in the compound," Marcel said as Enzo exited the trailer with Davina by his side. The door closed quickly, and the two walked away. Enzo glanced up at the lone bench in the distance where Damon once sat. It was empty.
"Josh kept telling me to give Marcel a chance," Davina mumbled self-consciously, her fingers twirling the ends of her hair, "but he seems so…"
"Hell-bent on mass murder?" Enzo finished for her with a smirk as they ambled toward a shack near the trailer.
"I was gonna say 'different,' but yeah, that too."
"He's doing this for the same reason I'm doing it, for the same reason you're doing it. He knows that we need a change. I need my friend back the way he was, you need your friends back the way they were. And Marcel, he'll stay different so long as all our people go unavenged."
Enzo opened the door to the shack waiting for Davina to enter.
"How is Damon, anyways?" Davina said, and at that, Enzo gave another quick peak at that lone empty bench before giving a shrug.
"He's getting sicker everyday…" he said, beckoning at Davina to come in. When she did, he closed the door behind her and watched as she gave a curious gaze over the salt pentacle drawn across the floor of the little room. Candles were dimly lighting the area and a series of grimoires, dead animals, and bottles of supplies littered the floor.
"Wow," she muttered to herself, "You guys came prepared." Then with a glance up at Enzo, she licked her lips with an uncertain glint in her eyes.
"Look, I know that I've been getting better at my magic lately…" she hesitated, "but I don't know if I can build a boundary around a whole building at the drop of a pin like that."
"That's why you're here tonight. To practice!" Enzo leaned over and handed Davina a radio, "Here, you'll be needing this tomorrow."
"A walkie-talkie?" Davina looked at the machine curiously. Enzo walked up behind her, taking the hand she used to carry the radio and whispering into her ear.
"I'll signal you when we need you to put up the barrier," he said motioning over the various buttons on the radio, "Ah! It's on the wrong channel!"
His fingers reached out and switched a knob on the side of the radio. The dial switched from channel two to channel one.
"There we are! Keep it there," he said, pulling out his own radio and positioning it beside Davina's, "See? That's my frequency, too. I'll let you know when Marcel needs you to put the barrier up and after that, it'll just be a matter of sitting and waiting."
Davina shuffled back a little, into Enzo's chest so that she could feel the warmth of his closeness. She made an awkward attempt to turn toward him, her shoulder bumping into his own and craned her head over to gaze into his eyes.
"Waiting and doing the spell—until they get them to surrender?"
"Exactly," Enzo nodded, "Now…let's practice."
As the night deepened, fevered whispers could be heard and a faint light glowed around the shack, covering it over in a cocoon. A mosquito floated through the air, drawn toward the light, but the instant it touched it, it burned and burned until it was no more.