Chapter Thirty Six

I paid attention as I entered. "Phasmatos Tribum: Somnus," I said and I pushed out, drawing threads towards everyone within sight. The spell worked well enough filled with the power that I had and every officer slumped forward on their desk.

My steps were a strut as I moved my way through the place and headed for the Sheriff's office. The door was closed and upon testing it out it was locked. I was focused as I said the spell to open doors. I didn't want to break the internal mechanisms as I had done before; this had to be cleaner in a respect.

A click and I pushed the door open. The office was filled with a large amount of paperwork and case folders, the organisational style making no sense to me. I ignored it, going instead for the drawers and searching through them for the rings. It took ten minutes before I found a drawer which didn't budge open.

I tried the spell to unlock the drawer but it didn't work. The spell met resistance, which meant there was some form of protection on the drawer. I took a large breath and closed my eyes, saying a spell that opened me up to the threads extending from the drawer. It was relatively frail, stretching out to a distant location but I didn't follow it. There was the chance that the person on the other side might track me and this time I wasn't prepared to block a Tracking spell.

"Phasmatos omnio ligor coldate sangorium," I said and I cut the thread. The drawer opened at my try and within sat what looked like a jewellery box. The thread running from the jewellery box was stronger than the one before, whatever binding agent they had used my this less thread but a thick rope.

Unravelling it would take some time and I suspected that doing so would set off some alarm system, though I couldn't be sure what that was or how it would work.

I prepared to take the chance. Even if they saw it was me doing all this I doubted they could do anything. There were four witches in town and only one of which would be willing to act against me but there was nothing in it for Andrew. I doubted they had the incentive he wanted and he didn't seem the sort who wanted money.

I didn't need to pull power in. It was already running through me, aching against my skin and just waiting for me to use it. The words slipped through my lips and the threads were cut, one by one they were cut down by a much stronger force until the last had been cut. I opened the box and retrieved a ring and made my way—

A muted thump reverberated around me as I smacked into the boundary. Something I was sure hadn't been here before. I frowned, running my hand over the surface of thin air, feeling as though my hand was sliding of the smoothest of glass.

My closest guess was that the spell on the box had been linked to a boundary. Maybe one of the multitude of threads had not gone to the power source for the spell on the box but to the boundary, making it so that if it were cut the boundary would come alive, to make this trap much stronger the anchor would be on the outside and I would be unable to break those threads. This would limit my choices, forcing me to brute force my way out of the place.

If I didn't have the power to overcome the spell, then I would be screwed.

Did I have the power? I could guess that I did. The only person who could have set up this system was Bree and I didn't know much about her save that she was friends with Stefan. There were three possibilities on her power source: herself, the elements and the ancestors.

If she used the former two power sources then I could brute force it. But it was complicated where the spirits were concerned, power levels weren't exactly something I could scale. There was another option I had though. I still had access to the power afforded to me by the Bennett Talisman but every time I tried to use the two powers in concert my body took a tremendous strain.

Even so, I trusted that I could do this in less than a minute, not enough damage that the power would eat me up.

I reached for the power of the talisman and said the spell, disabling the spell for five minutes and I walked out. Luckily there was no blood when I tested my nose.

The boundary put in place to guard the cell didn't stop me because of the ring. I managed to move smoothly through it and descended the stairs to the supernatural prison. There were only two people inside, both looking intensely bored.

Anna grinned. "Haven't seen you in a while," she said.

"Motus," I said with a look and her head snapped to the right. The other witch was on her feet, a look I couldn't quite read on her. "Hello."

She didn't answer. Instead she shifted. I was hit for the first time that she was relatively young, in her early twenties.

"I'm Micah. Bennett. But I'm guessing you knew that seeing as you were tasked to kill me."

She said nothing.

I took a breath, scratching my head. "I suddenly don't know why I'm here. I wanted to ask who sent you, but we already know it was a coven of witches. But no less there was the compulsion to come talk to you." I shrugged. "I'm confused. Why I came here or what I expected. Perhaps it was and apology," I said with a shrug but then I snorted. "But that isn't going to do me much good. What will is knowing more about you, about your group of witch hunters. So will you tell me something?"

"Why would I want to do that?" she said her tone hard.

"I don't know." I looked and I found a chair. I slid it over until I was sitting in front of her cell. "I told my sister some time ago that I had a list of acceptable behaviour. It's not cast in stone but I try to make it a point to stick to the principle behind it. One of the items on the list is no torture.

"It's selfish on my part because I don't like pain and inflicting it on someone else is something I don't think I'd have the stomach for. Right now, since you had tried to kill me, I'm aching to break that item. But I'm not. If I break just one of those then I'd be more liable to break another. So you're safe, in that respect. But that doesn't stop me from threatening you with a fate worse than death."

I saw the curiosity in her eyes.

"My cousin taught me a spell that works by building a dimension that's under the caster's control," I told her. "She uses it as a loophole to the Protection of Invitation but I have another matter in my. What if I used it like the Other Side? Made it so that it had a condition in place to collect the mental imprints of a dead witch? I could use your blood to form a strong bond and I could lock you in a state where you were perpetually alone, sort of like how vampires and werewolves suffer with the effects of the Other Side."

"You can't do that," she said and there was a certainty in her words.

I grinned. "Are you sure about that? Why do you think everyone is so afraid of me? Why do you think I was able to take you down when I was outnumbered? Answer: Because I'm a Bennett. A male Bennett. A massive loophole with untold potential. But most scarily I'm clairsentient. You don't want to underestimate what I can do."

"Let's say I believe you," she said. "Let's say I believe you can do what you said. Do you think I'll believe that you'd be willing to kill me when you can't torture?"

"That's because I don't quite fear death in the same way that I fear torture," I told her. "And some people do deserve to die. You're a mercenary. You and yours have killed before because of nothing more than money. I could kill you in good conscious."

"Could being the operative word," she said with a small grin.

"I've got Enzo to do my killing," I said and her grin slipped. It was my turn to smirk. "Yeah. This, that you're seeing now, is a forced calm. I'm angry. I'm pissed. Because I have nightmares of you trying to kill me. I can't sleep in my own home because every time I'm there I get panic attacks. So, I'm going to enact my plan. I'm going to focus my attention on this fate of yours. But I could instead let you stay in jail. Anna's still alive and she succeeded in killing my grandmother, so at least I can restrain myself enough not to have you killed.

"Question now, is, do you value your own sanity enough to tell me what I want to know?"

We were quiet for long moments and she shifted before dissolving into a pace. I stayed, watching her, hoping that I might be able to read her personality but it was a no go. All I could see was that she was scared. I didn't have enough to go on to see which buttons would get me the result I wanted.

Sometime through it all Anna woke up with a large breath.

"Say anything and I'm going to snap your neck again."

She scowled, but further than that she said nothing. I took out my phone and looked at the time. I had ten more minutes before my spell wore off and I would be forced to move. It wasn't that I didn't want to get caught, but I wanted to be in my own element when they came after me, my thoughts gathered and at the ready. Right now I was brimming with too much anger to not be expected to be angry when they would inevitably say they were keeping me in the dark for my own protection.

"I'm not going to tell you anything," she said.

I nodded and stood, saying nothing as I left them behind. Jeremy was waiting for me outside in the car. I took out my phone and dropped the outgoing call.

"That was useless," said Jeremy as I entered. He had a hard look on him as he took me in.

"It was therapeutic," I said.

"Threatening her is therapeutic?"

I shrugged. "It's got her feeling as scared as I'm feeling right now."

"That was an empty threat right?" Jeremy asked.

"I honestly can't know," I said. "The concept is pretty interesting and I wouldn't be willing to put her through it."

"And the thing about Enzo?"

"I think if I did ask him, Enzo might agree, but I'm not willing to do that. The man looks as though he wants fresh start…Damon obsession aside."

Jeremy let out a breath. "What now?" he said. "I still don't entirely get the point to all this."

"Right now, I'm just trying to piece people off. I'm hoping that pushing them over a certain point will force them to act. Also the small point that it sucks when you're not informed in stuff."

"You're being such a teenager right now."

"Says the guy that's younger than me by a few months."

"I'm not the one testing the limits of the authority," he said.

"They're authority by virtue of being older, not because they're smarter. That's what I'm against in this whole thing. Not to mention I really hate being treated like a kid. We should leave before they start waking up," I said. "I've given them two days, the Lockwoods must be done with bonding."

"You going to question him about being a wolf?"

I nodded. "We should pick up Jared on the way there. He told me he'd never really talked to a live werewolf before. It should be interesting to bounce ideas off of him."

Luckily Andrew wasn't at their apartment when we arrive, which made the visit a lot less awkward when I didn't have the much older boy glaring at me for being a bad influence—the thought flickered through my mind that if the concept of Karma was real, I might have the same feelings when my children made friends I knew would lead them to ill. I pushed this thought aside however because it would limit my thinking and that wasn't something I needed.

It was strange the change which reverberated through our town, the boundary on the Lockwood Estate had been my doing, buying goodwill in case I ever needed it, which, with the whole infiltration of the station, I would need soon. The spell was basic though it had it had tried to incorporate the things I'd seen floating around, creating a vacuum within the consideration that would allow certain people within the boundary. I'd also ran a spell over the ring so that they couldn't leave the house for more than a minute and a half, dissolving if it passed the ring.

The work which had gone into creating this, and having to work with my sister to create a quasi-cursed object, was perhaps the best and calming moments I'd had in a while. It had helped in smoothing over my relationship with my sister as of late but I couldn't help but get the feeling that it was pity on her part with almost getting killed. Something else I pushed away, the why of it didn't matter so much as the fact that I'd had fun.

"Not that this isn't fun," said Jared. We were sitting one of the few rooms with a TV and a sports game had been putting on—I wasn't paying much attention at this point too consumed by my thoughts. "But I've never really met a werewolf before." He looked at me. "You promised me a werewolf."

"So that's what this is about," said Tyler, shooting me and Jeremy a look I couldn't quite read. I rose a brow. "You're out of the Gilbert place. Which doesn't happened much, lately. So its suspicious."

"Is this entire town suspicious?" asked Jared.

"We're low bit," said Tyler. "It goes up in scale with how much you know."

"Where do I rank?" asked Jeremy.

"Classes A to D," said Tyler. "Everyone out of the know would be D. C is most people in the know but have a layer of separation from it all. Matt would be class C. B is where that layer is removed. That would be me and most others in the know including the council. A is for the heads, the Founders and most the people who have to deal with the large aspects. The sheriff, head doctor in the hospital, the principal and the more older vampires. Lastly, A+. This is conspiracy level stuff and reserved for a few. Yourself," he said, gesturing to Jeremy, "Micah and Stefan are the only holders right now, and I'm thinking Damon might be there but I don't really have an idea of the guy save the memories I was able to get back."

"I get why Micah would qualify," said Jared. "But I haven't seen him do anything of worth."

"Of worth, how?" asked Jeremy.

"Micah went to channel, but you haven't really done much, have you?"

"I've done a lot," said Jeremy. "But when we're compared to Micah it's true that it seems like most of us are doing nothing. Then again Micah's easily distractible."

"I'm not distractible," I said, taking slight offence.

"You decided you were going to make a move the first day you got this new power of yours and then in the week that followed you did nothing but slip and let me experiment."

"Sordid," said Jared.

He was ignored. "There's so much to do and only so much time to do it all," I said in my defence.

"Shouldn't what happening now be the most important?" asked Tyler.

"Try telling that to my brain," I told him. "I have idea that I want to do and I've got this petulance running through me that everything else is periphery to what I want to do. Kind of the reason I've been focusing on expansion more than defence. That would be rigid, limiting my thinking to only a certain avenue of magic."

"Nothing more despicable than that," said Jared. "Which is the reason I think we should return to the whole matter of the wolf—"

"Mason," I corrected.

"—I have questions I've been mentally rolling over that need answers."

"Answers you'll be getting," said Jeremy. "I hear an irregular heartbeats."

"Plural?"

"My uncle brought his friends…or pack. Few of them living outside of town in some encampment. Really into the beast nature of being a wolf," said Tyler.

"How many are there?" asked Jared. "A few months ago I wasn't sure they existed much less that there were so many of them."

"Not many," I answered. "Less when eventually Klaus arrives."

"What does the Original have to do with this?" asked Jeremy, and I could tell by his tone that he had tensed. I didn't answer, couldn't answer because my mind was already running a mile a minute.

"Tyler, awkward question, but the man or woman who killed you, did you kill them in turn?" I asked.

"No," he said. "Why?"

"Werewolf transformation first happens when someone kills for the first time. You're a vampire, true, but there isn't anything barring someone from being both a werewolf and a vampire. What happens if you kill someone?"

"You're thinking he becomes a hybrid," said Jeremy.

I nodded. "Magic and loopholes goes hand in hand and this a massive one. Sure I think there would be more to it. There reason Klaus could transform in the first place was because of the influx of power afforded to him by doppelganger blood."

"Wait, you know the ingredients needed for the vampire spell?" asked Jared but I ignored him.

Pretty much this had been needed with wolves turned into vampires after their transformation, they had needed Elena's blood after the fact. Except Hayley who had been working on a loophole but I disregarded her. In this situation, if Tyler were to kill someone, could the laws which already exist create another semi-Original hybrid?

"Whatever ideas you've got going, keep my sister out of it," said Jeremy.

Elena wasn't the only doppelganger I had to work with, not to mention if ever it came to it the situation would compel Elena to give me her blood. I could remember what happened to hybrids who didn't drink Elena's blood, they would slowly degrade until they died the true death.

I waved it off. "I'll put a pin in all this," I told him. "Look into it if ever there's time. Right now though there's something I want to work on, but I'll need money before I can make anything useable."

"What are you planning to make?" asked Jeremy with a knowing tone.

"Amongst other things," I said, and know I could hear the footsteps coming closer. "A way for werewolves to keep their wolf strength without having to transform every night of the full moon."

The footsteps stopped and I grinned. If this were a movie and the audience had been watching, what I'd done, especially consciously, would have been bad ass to a point.

AN: It occurred to me that I'd only updated twice. Rushed this, but I think it turned out well.