I've been working home office for two weeks now and I only leave the apartment when I have to. It's all so strange right now with the contact lock and I miss seeing other people. I live in NRW and of course in one of the hotspots.
I am currently distracting myself with The Originals and The Vampire Diaries, which is why I am now writing a sequel. I appreciate comments; tell me how you find the story.
BC = Thank you for your comment to the first part of the story. I hope you like the sequel.
Chapter 1
They were maybe one hour on the road when Damon became increasingly nervous, he had a bad feeling. Listening to his gut feeling, he called his headquarters. "Leave the base immediately and go to our alternative base 3. If you don't hear from me in the next 12 hours, change the base again."
"Yes, boss. What has happened?"
"I made an important contact and I don't want to have anyone but Jimmy with me when I meet him.
One more thing, should we not speak again and your situation gets untenable, go to Mystic Falls in Virginia, you are safe there. When they stop you at the city border, be polite, say that Damon Salvatore sends you and ask for Alaric Saltzmann.
If you see him, give him greetings from Damon Salvatore and tell him I hope he kept my bar stool in the Mystic Falls Grill free for me, as I did it for him during his stay in the veil."
"Okay, boss." Daniel's voice was a little puzzled by these strange instructions, but he asked no further questions.
"Be careful, Daniel."
"You and Jimmy too, boss." Daniel hung up.
Jimmy eyed Luther from the side after he hung up too. "Should I even ask you?"
Damon sighed. "I suddenly had a bad feeling."
"You think Elijah is luring us into a trap?"
"Elijah? God no, he has no reason and it is not his style as long as there aren't important reasons for it, which I don't see in this situation. Perhaps we have simply been too long in this place." Damon shook his head. "I have learned the hard way to listen to my feelings in these situations."
"We are still for several hours on the road. Why don't you explain a few things to me?"
"Well, I promised you explanations, didn't I?" Damon hesitated. "Are you sure, you want to hear them? Humans drawn into this world usually end up undead or as corpses. Maybe you should join the others." There was genuine concern in his voice.
"I'm afraid it's too late for that, I already know too much." Jimmy looked at Damon and felt how his perception of him had changed, he no longer thought of him as Luther. "And I will not leave you alone!"
"As you wish!" Then Damon started telling Jimmy about his first life as a human and his second life as a vampire. He spoke of vampires, werewolves and witches, their weaknesses and their strengths. In addition, he spoke of his friends and allies but also of the enemies, he had made over the centuries and who still wanted his death.
When Damon finally fell silent, there was a long time silence between the two men.
"Now that is what I call a good story", said Jimmy finally in a dazed voice.
"I warned you", replied Damon and smirked.
"You talked a lot about your friends and enemies, but you didn't tell me anything about Elijah and this Klaus."
"Oh, the Originals deserve independent story time and perhaps you shouldn't know too much about them before you meet them. You will sleep better." Damon laughed. "They never were what you call common enemies and no matter what happened later in Mystic Falls, they were always the most memorable enemies for me."
"You have used this expression before, what does it mean?"
"That they are the first vampires and every vampire that exists is because they descended from them. If one of them dies, his entire bloodline dies with him."
"How do you know that? And what was your bloodline?"
"Klaus claimed that we belonged to his bloodline." Damon shrugged. "Elijah and Rebecca never contradicted him, so it could be true.
There used to be five Originals but now there are only three of them. It is damn difficult to kill an Original, I know of only one way. You can hurt them, you can put them temporarily down if you are smart and surprise them, but never for long and when they're back..." Damon shrugged meaningful.
"You have a big problem, I understand. How did the other two die?"
"That was teamwork and in retrospect, pure luck. I was only involved in killing Finn, I never had anything to do with killing Kol." Damon looked grim. "And believe me, I would have enjoyed killing him."
"How do you kill an Original?"
Damon looked solemnly at his friend. "I will never tell you that. This kind of information is not good for your health. The less you know about certain things, the better for you."
Jimmy shrugged and accepted Damon's decision without resistance. "I find it amazing that Elijah calls you a friend nonetheless."
"Twenty years is a long time and the circumstances were for all of us difficult at that time. We also helped them kill their parents, which earned us a few bonus points from them", mentioned Damon nonchalantly.
"I beg your pardon?" asked Jimmy incredulously.
"In the lexicon should be a picture from the Originals and their parents next to the word 'Dysfunctional family'. My parents were shitty enough but the number Mikael and Esther did on their children, phew. He was a murderous asshole and she was a bitch. They only agreed on one thing that they wanted to see their children dead. And that, after they were the ones responsible for the creation of the Originals."
"So what are the Originals to you?"
"We have a very complicated relationship. We fought against each other, allied us against common enemies, tortured and tried to kill each other." Damon exhaled slowly.
"For a vampire, the word 'never' does not have the same meaning as for humans; everything can change over the centuries, nothing stays the same.
In a way Stefan, Elijah, Klaus und Rebecca and I clicked with each other, they were older and more powerful than Stefan and me but…" Damon shrugged and struggled for the right words.
"You could relate to each other," said Jimmy thoughtfully.
"Yes. We recognized ourselves in the others. Like I said, it is complicated. I was serious when I said that you didn't want to be drawn into my world."
The fatigue in Damon's eyes made Jimmy pensive and he was now for the first time able to believe that Damon was really 200 years old.
"Elijah respects you", said Jimmy thoughtfully.
"Fight someone and you get to know him." Damon laughed. "I think even Klaus had a little respect and fondness for us at the end and that's no small feat."
"How do you know that?"
"Well, he didn't kill us."
"This Klaus must be a very interesting character."
"You can say that again." Damon sighed. "Listen, if you stay with me it's probably only a matter of time before you meet him. As soon as he realizes that I like you, he will know that you are a lever against me. If he ever wants something that I can or will not give to him and that he can't compel from me he will use you."
Damon looked grimly at the street. "I know what Klaus can do to someone and I will never subject you to something like this. He knows no scruples, no restraint and no mercy with his opponents and he has a really explosive temper."
Damon looked ashamed. "Klaus and I share a similar personality. With Elijah I always shared the bond of being the older brother and to have a younger brother for which we more than once sacrificed everything."
"So it's best for me to stay in the background and talk as little as possible when he's around."
"This is definitely a good place to start. Just be careful and don't provoke him."
"I do my best. We are back."
Damon looked up and saw the usual sign that signalled him that the evacuation went smoothly and there was no one left at the base. "The others are gone. Good."
Damon and Jimmy got out of the car and walked to the front door of the complex.
However, the closer Damon got to the door, the more his spider sense tingled. He put a hand on Jimmy's arm. "Stop, there is something wrong here."
Damon didn't have to say another word because Jimmy felt it too. Both men drew their guns, but it was too late. Bloods came out of their hiding places and surrounded them, too many to kill and then get away from them.
Damon and Jimmy exchanged a resigned glance then they gave up their weapons and let themselves handcuff without resistance.
A young woman moved through the Bloods, which made room for her without hesitation. "It seems I finally got lucky. Dr. Swann, so nice to see you again."
"I wish I could say the same", replied Damon coldly.
Ava O'Malley smiled thinly. "You have changed."
Damon grinned sardonically. "Not as much as you think. Where are my men?"
"They were regrettably already gone when we came here. I thought I would go back to Calix empty-handed but it looks like I was wrong. Bring them inside! I'll interrogate them; maybe we can get the whole group after all."
Damon did the math anxiously. They had to hold up against the interrogation for an hour, after that Daniel would change the base again and this time Damon would not know where to find them. He looked at Jimmy, who nodded in agreement; he had done the same calculations as Damon, this was doable for them.
This would be the first time that someone would torture Damon as a human being and he was a little nervous about it. He just hoped that he would be strong or rather stubborn enough to get through the next hour.
The Bloods tied up Damon and Jimmy with their hands above their heads and then two Bloods started beating them up without asking any questions. Only in this case, it was to their disadvantage because as long as the Bloods didn't ask them questions, he and Jimmy could buy time.
Damon, who, to his dismay, knew more about torture than he ever wanted to know, recognized their tactic. The Bloods wanted to make them afraid of what other things they were going to do to them and they concentrated their attention on him because they thought he was the easiest to break.
Finally, Ava stopped the Bloods and stood up in front of Damon. "Do you want to talk now?"
Damon grinned at her with a battered face and spat contemptuously blood before her feet. "No thank you!"
To Damon's surprise, his sense of pain as a human was not so different from when he was a vampire. He now knew that he would not break so fast. The only downside was that he no longer had the healing ability of a vampire.
Ava O'Malley was a little confused about his reaction, this was no longer the friendly and peaceful scientist she had previously met. "This is just the beginning of what we will do to you. Soon you will begging us for mercy and tell us anything you know."
Damon just grinned insolently at her in his unique way that had more than once driven his enemies, friends and brother into a blind rage. He wanted to provoke Ava so that she would focus on him and ignore Jimmy.
He was pleased to see Ava O'Malley narrowing her eyes angrily at him; apparently, he hadn't lost his knack to enrage his enemies beyond reason in the past 20 years.
"It is your choice." Ava turned to her companions. "Take them down! We bring them to our headquarters." With a cruel smile, she turned back to Damon. "It would have been better for you if you had spoken. Calix will enjoy it breaking you and take away all of your knowledge. To be honest, he actually regretted giving the order for your murder."
"What, isn't he smart enough to unravel the secrets of the prions alone? I'm so shocked", continued Damon to mock her.
"You will rue your insolence when Calix is done with you."
"Honestly I doubt that, not that you will have the opportunity to bring him to this Calix. I know Damon's impertinence from personal painful experience, he never shuts up or backs down", sounded behind her the amused voice of a man with an indefinable accent.
Ava turned around in surprise, in the entrance stood a lean man in an expensive suit. She frowned irritated; she had stationed 10 bloods outside to keep them safe and undisturbed. Why hadn't they stopped the man?
Damon laughed so madly that Ava eyed him warily while the strange man only sighed long-suffering and studied Damon reproachful.
"Why do I always have to save you from being tortured?"
"Oh don't be like that, Elijah, you enjoy seeing me like this, it reminds you the good old times."
Elijah snorted contemptuously but grinned slightly before turning back to Ava O'Malley. "If you and your companions go now, I will not harm you. If you don't go..." He twisted the corners of his mouth into a humourless half smile and shrugged.
Ava O'Malley laughed derisively. "There is nothing you can do, you are alone." She made a head movement and the other Bloods moved to surround the man.
"Well I am alone but I can do a lot of things without any help to you." Elijah looked bored, took off his jacket, put it neatly over a chair and rolled up his shirtsleeves.
"Elijah, she is pretty high up in the Bloods' hierarchy", interfered Damon anxious. "It is possible she knows where my son is."
If he was honest, he couldn't await to watch Elijah wipe the floor with the Bloods but Ava had to stay alive for the moment. Ava really should have accepted Elijah's offer, but of course she had no idea what she and her people were up against now.
"Thanks for the information, Damon, I will let her live for now." Elijah looked at Ava O'Malley. "Protect Damon and Jimmy with your life while I take care of your people. You will not try to escape and you will not attack me." His emphasis did not change as he compelled Ava.
Ava O'Malley froze for a moment before she moved between the bound prisoners and the Bloods.
Jimmy stared at Damon, who just grinned at him and shrugged. From Damon's body language, Jimmy could see that by now he had totally relaxed.
"Do any of you want to go?" asked Elijah one last time. The Bloods only growled, even if Ava's reaction confused them. With a smile that Jimmy found more than scary, stepped Elijah further between the Bloods. "Shall we?"