Chapter Thirty Seven

"You can do that?" Mason Lockwood, uncle of Tyler and a man with breath-taking grey eyes. I noticed I was staring and shook my head, trying to gather my thoughts and regaining a measure of my edge.

"Is it possible, yes," I said, trying to keep my tone calm when I started to notice I was on edge. This was perhaps the weirdest feeling yet. I took a breath to centre myself, taking a quick rundown of any memory that might filter through and the reason for the rouge feelings became apparent.

The Facsimile had had a crush on Mason Lockwood and it seemed it was something I'd inherited when I'd subsumed it. Another shake of the head, my eyes closing as I gathered my thoughts, willing my mind to find a thread a stay though course, allowing myself no distractions.

"Can I do it? Not at present. Is it likely that I might be able to figure it out. Yes."

"Like you'd be likely to finish all of your projects," Jeremy muttered. "I don't think taking on something else is the best idea."

"I've got to agree with Jeremy," said Jared. "This is cool and from what I can figure it would mean at the end of it all we had a greater understanding of wolves, but it seems a little much with what we've already spoken about.

"You've told him?" asked Jeremy.

I absently nodded, looking between the two of them. They knew the most of what I was planning to do, even if they didn't know the full story and taking that into account the list was that much larger: Bringing Grams back to life, building an alternate dimension that might house my school, learning to draw power from blood and a whole host of other ideas that were niggling in my subconscious.

Even so, this seemed important. The school could wait because there already was a working system. It was true that there were witches out there who suffered for not having a coven and were open to being manipulated because of this, but they were few and far between. Werewolves on the other hand had it bad, they were forced through their curse during every full moon and me having the power to help them out while doing nothing was something that didn't sit too well.

Question was, would I be willing to put everything else aside for this project? Would I even be able to figure this thing out? I could remember the basics of it, the ingredients of the spell: some black stone, the spell cast on a night of the full moon and bound to a wolf who didn't need to shift—with the side effect of render the binding agent weak once every month to refuel the stones.

It would require a lot of work, a lot of study in that particular field and a knowledge of Latin enough that I might be able to create my own spells.

I let out a breath. "I feel like an ass, now," I said. "Dangling this in front of you then accepting that its infeasible at this point."

"But it can be done?" asked the woman. I remember her saying her name but I had been too distracted by the piercing grey eyes. It had started with a J. "A more knowledgeable witch might be able to do it?"

"Yes," I told her. "I don't like the prospect of giving a job to someone else, but Stefan knows a witch more knowledgeable in practice than I am and she might have heard something."

"Bree?" said Jeremy.

"Yeah. Her. The work she was able to put into the Boundary spell is amazing. It looks as though she has a talent for those."

Mason gave a shrug, eyes casting onto Jay. "Worth a try," he said. "This is what many of us want after all." There was something more that was said behind their meaningful gaze, a gazed that had me surging with minute feelings of jealousy.

Fuck hormones.

"Right, Mr Lockwood, since you're knowledgeable than Mayor Lockwood we have a few questions about the whole werewolf curse," I said. I looked at Jared and the boy was practically brimming with excitement.

I didn't have questions myself but Jared seemed to have catalogued a coherent stream in the time we had been talking. The questions ranged from basics to stuff I hadn't much time to think about, whether werewolves turned by seeing the full moon and did this extend to when the moon was full during the day. At Mason and Jules' no Jared went into a speculation that the sun might have a nullifying effect on the werewolf transform.

It was adorable to watch in a way, but to the other Jared's behaviour quickly grew boring. Jeremy and Tyler practised their hallucinatory ability, pushing images into the other's mind while the other would note the inconsistencies in their work. Jules left a half hour into Jared's questioning and I could see that Mason was getting slightly irritated by it all but the guy was too nice to put an abrupt stop to it all.

The sun was starting its descent by the time Jared was sated, a few notes compiled and running theories jotted down, by this time Mason had followed in Jules' wake while I was listening absently to the boy's mutterings while trying to lower the natural defences I had and give Jeremy entry into my mind. I could feel it, the subtle force trying to intrude on my thoughts but it wasn't strong enough that it could pass through and the concept of lowering a barrier I hadn't even known existed was something that went over my head.

"Lag," muttered Jeremy. "When you made the breeze I felt if first then the grass moved."

Tyler's face scrunched in concentration, eyes closed and his breathing deep. It was boring to watch on the outside but it must have been exciting on the other side.

Even with this Jeremy still tried getting into my mind. Perhaps there were more perks in being a vampire than being a witch if it meant an awesome multitasking ability.

Getting a little bored I decided to practice with Lucy's spell. I built a boundary in the room we were in and experimented with the different functionalities I could put in, the rules I could bend. It was nothing too overt, small stuff in the greater scheme of what could be completed. I changed how the room interacted with sound. It took a small amount of power and a strong thought about what I wanted before it took effect: there room became absolutely silent, nothing in the form of ambient sound save that when one of us spoke it was almost like a shout.

Next was how light interacted with everything, giving the room a warm tinge to it before I went to the opposite end and made things colder, made the blues deeper and the yellows dulled to the point that they could no longer be considered so. I swapped it out then turned the entire room monochrome.

"You're bleeding," said Jeremy.

I touched my nose and my pulled the hand back, against the monochrome the blood was almost black; letting out a breath I cut the connection to the spell and everything returned to normal.

"You're doing too much on your own," Jared noted, his expression of worry. "Having power constantly rushing through you wears on the body. It's the reason for a coven in the first place. That and more people can share more power between them."

I nodded. I knew what he was doing even with most of his statement being truth. He was telling me that I needed to get a move on in telling Bonnie and inducting him into the coven. Not even a subtle manipulation but then I didn't take Jared for the manipulating type.

"I think I'll lay off casting any spells for today," I said as I stood, moving to the bathroom to wash off the blood. I hadn't missed the look Tyler had shot towards me, the rigid stance and the feeling that I was being watched by a predator.

Not gone five minutes but when I had returned everyone looked tense.

"There's been a vampire attack," said Jeremy.

888

"What did you do?" there was anger in the question because more than anything I felt turmoil, a rolling of emotions that compelled me to act.

Enzo for his part was glaring, looking at me with the cold look that I had a distinct impression came from one without humanity.

"You killed my best friend's uncle and a member of the Founder's Council. Do you have any idea how much of a mess this is all is?"

"Did you know?" The question and the tone of it sent chills running down my spine. "Did you know that the same family you're all buddy-buddy with is the same family that's been putting me under the knife for the most recent fifteen years of my life," said Enzo and I was briefly hit by the image, strapped to a table, a knife running over my skin and slicing through; even the pain was real, nothing at first at the initial incision but then a deep throb would come from the wound.

The image finished and I was on the ground, my legs having given out and my throat sore. Enzo stood over me and I could see the cogs moving in his head, realising what he'd done. Another image and again I was strapped to a table, contraptions around me before I felt a surge of electricity running through me, the back of my throat as dry as sand and a deep fatigue in every one of my muscles.

A man materialised in front of me, tall and slightly muscular, hair an almost black brown and a genial expression on him even as he placed an electrode over my skin, letting the current run through me, burning me from the inside.

A voice and it said, "Grayson."

"What are you doing here, John," said Grayson, irritation in his tone.

"Got in another scrap and I almost didn't make it. Ran out of vampire blood."

Grayson shook his head. "You know that you're playing a dangerous game, don't you? If you get killed with that stuff in your system."

"I can handle myself," said John, tone tight nipped, "and if things turn out for the worse I still have my ring."

"Stop," I said and I pushed past the image, trying to see Enzo. The image started to shake and flicker, breaking apart and resolving to the jail cell before I was back in that table, strapped and Grayson and John Gilbert talking as though they didn't have me as a victim of their torture.

I pushed back harder and when I saw Enzo I directed my anger towards him, shooting bursts and riding on the momentum. The image faded and I was left panting on the ground, my composure lost.

"Not even five minutes," said Enzo. "I had to go through that for fifteen years with him, taking out various organs, seeing how fast I healed and letting me desiccate a few times. All this time I've been living with their spawn right under my nose and you knew."

"I didn't know," I said, my voice coming out raw, phantom pain still radiating through me.

"I'm not sorry about what I did," he said. "Not sorry that I killed him. Because he knew about the stuff that was happening to me and he let it happen, and if I could do it again, I would."

I let out a sigh, slowly getting to my feet and trying to work around this dilemma. The truth of it was something that was not beyond credibility, there was no reason for Enzo to lie nor to pick the Gilberts in particular. The man had spent months with them and from my knowledge there was nothing that would have created a divide between them.

This information would though. It would draw a large divide between him and the Gilberts, making them aware of a truth they hadn't known about their father, and knowing what I knew about Enzo, he would love to tell them. Destroying the image that Grayson Gilbert had been a good man.

Did I stop it? Could I stop it? Did I even want to stop it?

How was I going to fix this?

"I'll work on getting you out of here," I said, running a hand through my hair. "It will mean enemies but extenuating circumstances have to be taken into account."

Enzo looked slightly surprised. He crossed his arms and said nothing.

"Changing the subject," I said. "I thought you were hunting Damon."

"He's cloaked," said Enzo. "Managed to get a whiff of him a few days ago and I followed it. He was in some bar with a boundary spell against everyone but himself, being all glib about it."

"So you came back for your own witch?"

"You said you would help me if I ever asked for it," he said.

"And I would," I told him. "I just have to figure out how I might be of help." I let out another sigh, trying to think through avenues that might make this work but finding nothing. The Council would not agree in releasing Enzo whether it was the fact that he'd committed a crime or because it was one of their own who had been killed and anything I said would fall on deaf ears.

The only reason they might let Enzo out is if he were useful and I already had avenues of making that work. Dangerous avenues but avenues nonetheless. Releasing vampires from the Tomb, they would go on a frenzy and all the help available would be needed. But that idea might mean casualties.

It occurred to me that I could just break him out but the trouble that would get me in would be counterproductive and it was only a matter of time before I was arrested too for breaking crimes.

"This won't be fast," I told him. "Right now nothing is coming to mind but in a few days or a month some knowledge might come to mind, an idea that could get you out."

"Do want you want," said Enzo and then he was laying on his cot. I could sense that he didn't entirely trust my words.

I disabled the spell to keep the silence as I left, moving to the offices and ignoring the glares shot my way as I went into the section with the morgue. My escapade with speaking to the still functional witch had been recorded by security camera and it was the fact that there was this that no one had mentioned it yet.

"What did he say?" Jeremy asked as I entered, an expression of anger masking the hurt I could see in his eyes.

"After," I said. I looked at Bonnie, Emily's grimoire in her hands and it was shut. That was a good sign, it meant she'd understood the spell. "What does it say?"

"Ring will bring him back if he's killed by a supernatural, even indirectly," she said. "It works by turning the human into enough of a supernatural creature that they enter the Other Side but not enough that they can stay. Emily notes that the Other Side was created as a measure to stop supernatural creatures from moving on so the path of least resistance is for the human to move back into their body."

"Duration?"

"Anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours," she said.

"But he'll be coming back?"

Bonnie nodded. I had something to work with now. I did my best to hold back the feelings of relief that Enzo would be out.

We waited.