During Isobel's first years as a vampire, she had become utterly obsessed with Damon. In a jealous rage, she'd kill any lovers of his that she discovered. She killed hundreds in the name of love and respect for her sire. Her sex was insatiable. Once she seduced him onto a dinner table of a family they slew. It was lovely. Though it could be argued that she hadn't changed much, Isobel truly had lessened in her fixation of her sire-partly due to Jeremy. So paranoid was she of losing his attention in those early years that she bound herself to Damon with magic. In later years, she'd regret her impulsive move but pride kept her from breaking her bond. When Damon first discovered Isobel's deception, to say he was angry was putting it mildly. It was an interruption by Jeremy that saved Isobel from Damon's outrage that first night and the subsequent nights after. Her magic was this: Though she could not make Damon love her, she could make herself desirable in a way that she knew would make him notice her. And notice her he did and quite often. He could not kill her or harm her. If he killed her, she claimed, he would perish as well. Neither could he seriously injure her, otherwise he'd feel the dull ache of her pain. Though, sometimes her pain and his subsequent pain wasn't enough of a threat when Isobel had been acting foolish. He also couldn't cast her out of their home—where ever it may be. When Damon was separated from Isobel for long periods of time, he felt an anxiousness that was brought on by her magic. Only when he came home again was he able to calm regulate himself accordingly. And so, as Damon stood on the streets of Paris, he knew with great certainty that Isobel was in great harm.

Damon gasped, clutching his side and he bolted up and staggered back towards his hotel room. His arm twisted suddenly without cause, snapping loudly before falling crazily at his side. Damon groaned, biting down to keep from screaming. His vision became tunneled, and his eyes were throbbing viciously. His mind was racing a mile a minute, each step more difficult than the last. No sooner had he burst into his room, did he fall to the ground in agony, shielding himself from something he could not see.


Isobel's jaw was clamped shut, her eyes vacant, blood filling her mouth. She hadn't said a word in the last half hour as she lay on the stone floor of the basement. Damon had to have known something was amiss by this time. Yet, she resigned herself to the fact that he would not return. He couldn't. Even if he wanted to, he probably would have come too late to liberate she and Jeremy. She laid quietly as she walked through a dizzying maze in her mind. She wanted to scream, to cry. Instead there was silence. Once she settled on a final course of action, she felt awash with relief. She knew what she had to do. She just hoped she had the strength to do it.

"This has become tiresome," John's voice echoed through the quiet.

He loosened his tie and flicked the top button of his shirt open, surveying the damage that had been done.

Isobel lay shackled to the floor—violated, her eyes swollen and bulbous. Her mouth was twisted in a strange blood soaked smirk with one arm broken at her side. Across the room laid Jeremy—knees shattered, crushed orbital bone and blood…everywhere blood. The metallic earthy scent of it was so incrediblly heavy that even John could smell it. It was horrifying how much torture a vampire could endure. It was also, to John, quite fascinating. It reminded him of his days in the medical field.

"Well, this has been quite useless," John admitted, pulling a stake from the breast pocket of his coat. "I'm obviously not going to get anything out of you two beasts. This has been...interesting."

Just then, the sound of Isobel's strained whisper caught his ear.

"Ego dico ut matris of polus. Ego dico ut abbas of abyssus. Hic meus dico. Ego solvo Damon , ex meus vinculum. Ego solvo vos. Indulgeo mihi."

"Damon? What is that? Latin? Did you say Damon?"

Jeremy looked up weakly as John advanced towards Isobel, crouching beside her—his stake poised high and to strike.

"Answer me!"

"Leave her be," Jeremy groaned. "She's gone mad."

He lied. He knew exactly what Isobel had done and his heart lurched heavily in his chest.

"It's a little late for that, vampire," John called over his shoulder.

John rolled Isobel onto her back and straddled her.

"What did you say, you filthy animal," He leaned forward, screaming. "Mad, you say? I'll show you mad."

He reared back and descended his fist upon her. The blow sounded thick, her blood spraying into the wall beside them. Isobel shut her eyes painfully for a moment; the throb in her head was intensified tenfold. She slowly rolled her face from her side to straight ahead, staring into John's eyes. He pulled the neckline of her dress up, ripping it at the seams as he jerked her body upward. She laughed coldly, amused at his child-like antics. So strange that a mortal man could act so much like a vampire.

"Answer me!"

John himself had become unhinged. His "death" marked the end of any shred of morality he had left. All he cared about was revenge. Nothing else mattered. John palmed Isobel's chin in his hand, his fingers digging into her cheek.

"Jeremy, ego tribuo vos meus diligo. Ego tribuo vos meus vires. Exsequor mihi."

Jeremy, I give you my love. I give you my strength. Avenge me.

"No," Jeremy screamed, gasping. His chest pushed upward, surged with an unknown force, and his eyes widened. "Isobel…!"

John turned his gaze in the confusion from Isobel to Jeremy. In that moment, Isobel's eyes grew hard. She swung her face to the left, her mouth immediately clamping down on two of John's fingers. Her fangs ripped through flesh and bone like butter, swallowing his fingers—and the ring attached, down her throat. John roared out in agony, his left hand automatically propelling the stake through skin and rib straight into Isobel's heart.

Isobel's head lolled towards Jeremy. A tear snaked down Isobel's face just then as she smiled. Her bloody lips turned pale, ashen, as she mouthed 'Im sorry' to Jeremy. Her last fragment of a thought was of Damon—beautiful Damon as she disintegrated to dust on the breeze. There was commotion from above as John's hired hands ran towards the basement, alerted by his scream.

John fell forward, blindly sifting through Isobel's ashes for his ring. His blood poured from his fingers into the ash, making it a mud. He didn't see Jeremy rise with renewed strength fueled by Isobel's black magic. He did feel, although, Jeremy's teeth clamp down harshly onto his neck. He moaned, pushing himself forward but was pulled back by Jeremy's steel embrace. It wasn't his blood that Jeremy was after. It was the kill. Jeremy had never been one to enjoy the death of his victims, but this was different.

As John's hired men bounded down the steps, they stopped short at the sight in front of them. John stood limply in Jeremy's arms, his body twitching as blood gushed from his neck with every heartbeat. As John's vision doubled and clouded, he realized this was his end. His true end. He had a fleeting moment of panic and regret before Jeremy clamped one hand on his shoulder and one hand that fisted in his hair. As Jeremy took a final gnaw into John's neck, tearing through tendons, he pulled his arms in opposite directions—ripping John's head from his neck. John's body twitched as it fell to the floor in a heap. Jeremy's eyes were hard, dark. His gaze slid up towards the guards, still holding John's head by its golden hair.

All air left the room and the men took a large step back in fear. Jeremy tossed the head to the floor, a loud thud echoing along the walls.

None of them would make it out alive.


Damon woke up choking, gasping. It took a moment for him to realize that he was lying on the floor of his hotel room, in a pool of blood without a wound from where it came. He lifted his shirt and found nothing, felt nothing. His bent his arm and felt fine. He blinked his eyes and realized they were not swollen nor throbbing. Damon stood slowly and looked about the room, slowly remembering how he came to be back here. He stumbled on the bed and sat for a moment, his hand slowly going over his chest. There was a strange clarity that filled his body, his mind. He knew.

Isobel was dead.

He wept.


Elena stood in the dancer's dressing room in the back of the Moulin Rouge. Her hair was full, curled. Her eyes were painted in a dark shadow and her lips were as red as satan. She looked like a harlot, she thought, as she pulled her trench coat tighter around her. She was to be on stage in an hour and she still couldn't bring herself to remove her coat.

This wasn't ballet and she wasn't wearing a tutu. She was in a red and gold abomination. The top barely covered her breasts and was adorned in red jewels with gold accents. The bottom was a short skirt that barely covered her derriere with gold charms dangling off of the hemline. Elena blew hot air out from between her lips. Something told her that tonight was going to be crazy.

Elena's eyes connected with Jules from her reflection in the mirror. The seething gaze from her unwanted competitor was full of jealousy and rage.

Very crazy.


It took hours before Damon was able to curtail his heavy emotions.

Isobel was dead. He didn't know how or why. He just knew that she was dust. It cut him. It cut him far more than he ever thought it would. Isobel had been a fixture in his life for years. Though she was a constant thorn in his side, a part of him always admired her. And now she was gone. He thought of how he saw her last—broken, defeated. A wash of guilt shamed him. His mind drifted to Jeremy and his entire body shuddered. No. Jeremy had to be alive. He would have felt something, anything, if Jeremy was gone. A part of him wanted to turn back, run back to the Chateau. They were the only family he had left. But a level head told him there was nothing he could do now. He was kilometers and kilometers away. He came here with a mission. And it was a mission he had to fulfill. Jeremy wouldn't have wanted him to come back on account of him. All he could do was hope.

And so Damon washed his face in a basin of water and changed into a fresh set of clothes. The sun was beginning to set and he knew that Elena was somewhere in the city. He was going to find her. He was going to find her tonight if it was the last thing he'd ever do.