I won't make promises, because I feel I might not keep my word. But I'll try to end this part before the end of the year.


Each a monster, part 23: Dreams

As Alaric walked into the room, he saw that indeed, the young witch was standing in the middle of larges circles drawn with chalk on the floor, the offending pendant in her cupped hands. All furnitures had been either pushed against the walls or put away. The windows were wide open, but the curtains had been drawn to let in as little light as possible.

Three large circles on the floor, three lines of chalk circling the teenager, three white paths drawn on the dark wood. What were they for? He had no idea. But the hunter was used to be in pain because of magical things, so he kept away. He remembered too well the effect a barrier had had on him back then, when Jenna had been taken away for Klaus' ritual and Damon...

Eitherway, he didn't have a good history with magic, it tended to hurt him through the seal, and he wasn't eager to be hurt, even less so shortly after dyi...

No matter. He'd stay clear from the magic circles.

Elena motioned for him to sit next to her and Caroline on the floor, so he complied.

"What is it about, exactly?"

The young woman looked at Bonnie, letting her answer the question. The witch pinched the pendant between two fingers, holding it for them to see.

"When I tried to find out why the pendant had burnt Elena the other day, I saw some images, amongst which Stefan's face. But, the thing that held my attention was that I saw him twice. Possibly where he was at the time... and another time he held it, since he's the one who gave it to Elena as a present. That was my hint: this is not just any pendant, it has some magical properties, or maybe it was once worn by a powerful witch or warlock, I don't know. What is certain is that it has kept parts of its past in itself... And I intend to discover as much as I can about it. We have had enough surprises with bewitched jewelry."

And with that, the teenager gave a pointed look to Alaric, who moved his hand to cover the ring which had already saved his life thrice. He wouldn't say it had been a pleasant surprise to find out about the ring, but it had more to do with the fact he had had to be brought back to life, hence that he had been dead, killed by a supernatural creature. All in all, he was rather thankful for the "bewitched jewelry", since it was the reason he was still alive.

But he could see the girl's point.

If rings that could bring back the victims of supernatural attacks, if rings that allowed vampires to walk under the sun, if rings that caused anyone with the Falkenbach seal to hurl away in pain existed, there surely were, out there, magical pendants that could do harm to a young and defenceless girl such as Elena. It was best to know than to guess, so that maybe, they wouldn't all die in terrible suffering because of the pendant.

One was never too cautious.

Caroline's eyes, dead set on the pendant, squinted a bit as she cocked her head to the left.

"You'll do a hocus-pocus thing and it will show you its past?"

Ric saw Elena contain a chuckle as Bonnie rolled her eyes.

"Hocus-pocus it won't be, Caroline. I don't do hocus-pocus, my grandmother didn't do hocus-pocus, and I don't think any self-respecting witch or warlock would do hocus-pocus even with their live on the line. What I'm going to do is calling to the forces of nature and using them to approach the pendant's own magic, hoping it will resonate and give me other images, maybe sounds too, and, if I'm really lucky, fragments of the past."

Caroline huffed at the response to her question, but said nothing.

Bonnie, gesturing to the lines on the floor, explained that these were wards, as Alaric had expected, but specific ones. The first circle on the outside was keeping vampires and other undead things from getting to her while she was in it. The second one was for inhuman-but-living-supernatural beings, like a werewolf. The last ward kept human-but-supernatural beings out, including doppelgangers, witches and cursed people. The barriers would stop anything coming from one of those beings. Bonnie, standing in there, was completely shut out of the supernatural world herself excepted.

It wasn't that the young woman feared an attack while she'd do her thing with the pendant. More like, she knew there would be a huge amount of magic released if she manaded to go into resonance with the piece of jewelry, and the wards would keep the magic in as it'd keep it out. She certainly didn't want an enormous wave of unknown magic left to hit Mystic Falls because of her actions.

In other words, Caroline was not to cross the first line under any circumstance, and Elena wasn't to go further than the second one even if her friend started to cry in pain or agony, since, anyway, they wouldn't be able to, and, secondly, it might backfire on them.

Bonnie gave a meaningful glance to the man sitting next to her friends, not having forgotten about last time in the least. She had strong suspicions about Ric, and there was just no way she was wrong, not with how she had reacted to the touch of his skin. Human or not, she couldn't honestly say, but the teacher certainly wouldn't be able to go through the third layer of wards.

As she looked at him, wondering quietly how he was coping with his last temporary death, she noticed he was listening to her explanations a bit too intently to be honest, as if he was trying not to think about something. Not surprising, considering how he had died.

There really was no hope for the bloody vampire...

It reminded her of the feeling she had had when she had tended to the man's wounds, not long before, the feeling that had given it all away. Bonnie still had no idea what the teacher was, but she knew it wasn't something pretty.

When in contact with a witch, she could feel a sort of connection, something from nature itself, but also something benevolent – most of the time. With Elena, it was just a strange feeling, as if she was an oddity of nature, but not something utterly wrong or evil. Simply odd, unexplained, but approved by nature. A doppelganger, so to say. Things became unpleasant with werewolves, for they gave off that wild feeling, natural, sure, but dangerous too. And of course, the vampires. With those ones, things were just ugly. Dead. Yes, that was it, they gave off death.

But Alaric Saltzman, it had been completely unexpected.

The man was her history teacher, for God's sake! A kind and compassionate man, unless he was out hunting bastard vampires / werewolves / hybrids / every-freaking-monster-too-happy-to-oblige-and-murder-innocent-people-existing. She knew he could be lethal, if it came to it.

But still.

There was something off about the feeling she had had.

Something that tasted a bit like death, but not the same as vampires' death. Something more frightening. Something terrible, under the guise of respectabily.

A monster in a human skin, ready to rise if ordered to, but a tamed monster, obeying every single move of its master, the man itself, the human skin, in a way.

Something like fright. Or dread.

Bonnie sighed, and went back to her preparations.

She'd find out what Alaric was hiding sooner or later.

Said teacher was now ignoring Caroline's attemps at comfort with all his might. The vampire teenager was insistent, though, and an annoying voice in the back of his mind had started nagging at him, whispering intently he'd better listen, for if the girl wasn't good at listening to people, her advices on the other hand were quite often accurately given. But for now, he'd rather wallow in self-pity, since, you know, it's the best way to deal with your lover having killed you. Twice.

"Come on, you have to talk about it."

No he didn't.

"Professoooor..."

Now that wasn't going to earn her any favor.

"Mr. Saltzman, talk to me..."

No.

"Alaric..."

Insidious girl, she was going to get him to talk, if only so that she'd stop that unbearable prattle.

"Ric... You will talk to me..."

Never.

"Trust in me... Just in me... Shut your eyes and trust in me..."

The teacher would have spun on his heels if he had been standing, but as he was sitting, he simply turned his head quick enough for the blond girl to hear a sickening crackle of his neck. But frankly, right then, Ric didn't care about creaking and damaged joints. He watched out for any form of compulsion, after all, one was never too cautious, and Caroline had just quoted Kaa, so he didn't feel safe at all and was totally right to be paranoid. Wait, no, that one was actually because of the hainous betrayal he had been faced with only hours before...

"What the hell was the Jungle Book quote for?!"

"Ah! I got you to answer, finally. See, I told you I would. So, now, let's talk about your murderous boyfriend who tried to kill my father and succeeded in killing you."

Alaric had a better idea, though.

"Let's not talk about the bloody bastard."

Caroline only arched an eyebrow and looked back at Bonnie and Elena, who were putting salt and candles here and there in the room while she was torturing the history teacher. Why the long faces? Someone had to do it, and she was the best for that. No other reason, she swore.

Seeing that her two friends were well on their way to de done and go on with the witchy things, Caroline realized she had to hurry up or the teacher's attention would escape her grasp. She wasn't going to let that happen, not after all the work she had done to get it.

"The bloody bastard must be sulking at the boarding house, right?"

"Maybe. Don't know, don't care."

"Liar. You wouldn't be sulking too if you didn't care."

Ric rolled his eyes, knowing she was right and still unwilling to admit it.

"So you consider that my lack of caring is a proof of my sulking that in itself is a proof of my caring?"

Caroline nodded, looking more serious and smug than disturbed by the strange way this discussion was going. If the teacher wanted to deny it, it was his choice only. Not hers.

"Now, listen, either you can go on hating Damon, or you can go to him, hand him his sorry ass on a silver platter and spit on him, and then try to beat into his poor excuse of a brain that. One. Does. Not. Kill. On. A. Whim."

Alaric smiled a weak smile, knowing full well such a beating would have results only for a few weeks at best. Damon had lived too long doing whatever he wanted, killing whoever he wanted, for the habit to be broken so easily. Yet, for a short moment, he allowed himself to dream he could change the vampire.

The weak smile turned into one of sarcasm.

He had allowed himself to dream, once. Dreams of a family, despite his cursed bloodline. Dreams of love, despite his utter lack of luck in life. Dreams of peace, despite his name and his past.

Dreams.

Only dreams.

Nothing more than dreams.

The teacher turned to look his student in the eyes, and his smile changed once more.

A smile of surrender.

"There's no need to try and fetch me a happy ending, Caroline. My life has been dictated by my blood and name, and never have I been able to escape those. It won't change with hope. I know. I tried it before. And still here I am, surrounded by darkness and misfortune yet again. There's no need to fight against it. My fate had been sealed the day I was born as a Saltzman."

Caroline was about to protest, thinking he was dramatizing a bit.

But she didn't get to.

A loud, hurt, frightened scream came from the middle of the room, from the middle of the circles, and the hunter and the vampire turned to the screaming witch in the circles.

Bonnie had fallen on her knees, blood running on her face from her nostrils and eyes, but she wasn't moving. The pendant in her hands was levitating in a sickly white light.

Elena tried to push her way into the wards of the third circles, but every time she only ended up cast aside. Caroline tried too, but the first barrier threw her away the same way.

Alaric was watching the third ward silently.

He put forth his left hand.