Four:
The Devourer
Elena Gilbert
Mystic Falls; Salvatore Boarding House
The front door swung open, and Elena stood there upon the steps, astonished at the face that came smirking from inside.
Rebekah Mikaelson shimmied out from the threshold, perfectly dressed, perfectly contemptuous.
She was wearing the dress Elena had seen her wearing last night at the ball. Behind the blonde stood Damon, effortlessly buttoning up his shirt, hair tousled from what could only be a recent awakening from a large, comfy bed.
A large comfy bed he had clearly not been alone in.
"Did you stop taking your vervain?"
Damon rolled his eyes as Elena strolled through the door and shut it behind the female Mikaelson.
"You think Rebekah had to compel me?"
Elena glared, and she glared fiercely.
"What is wrong with you? She tried to kill me less than forty-eight hours ago!"
Damon turned on his heel and made for the living room.
No.
He was not just going to walk away from her like that. Like he always did. Dismiss her as if she was some child angry over her crayons being snapped.
Crayons could be replaced. Her neck could not.
"Can we just move past that, Elena?"
Picking up her pace, Elena skidded to a stop in front of Damon, leaving him nowhere else to look but at her.
"So that's how it's going to be now, huh? I hurt your feelings, and this is how you lash out at me?"
Side-stepping to the brandy bar in the corner of the room, Damon popped the cap of an amber tinted bottle and poured himself a drink in a crystal tumbler.
"Here's a concept, maybe, for once, something I did had nothing to do with you. Have you thought of that?"
He held aloft his drink, as if toasting the very idea itself.
The barb… Hurt.
Hurt more than Elena would ever let on it hurt.
"You should know that Esther is planning on killing her entire family. She has a-… she has something that is, according to her, capable of ending them all. Something that will once it's woken up."
Damon downed his drink and leered.
"Well, that's great! Klaus will finally be dead. We win. Why do you look like someone just shot a panda bear?"
Why?
Because Elena had lied to get there.
She had lied for her own ends, lied to her friends, lied to Damon and Stefan, lied for the conceived notion of a greater good, for isn't killing the Originals the greater good for all involved, and… And she was becoming what she had always told herself she would not become.
Katherine.
And where did it end if not here? What lengths would she go to next time, for there always was a next time? Dear God, what if Esther woke up-… Whatever it was she had stashed away, and it turned on all of them?
What if Esther had lied?
What if she had needed Damon's blood not because it was some sort of key, but because she was going to control him and-
What had Elena done?
She had taken Damon's blood under false pretences only yesterday, under the excuse of wanting a backup plan should Klaus corner her with no way out, saying she did not want to go to Stefan with such problems and cause needless arguments, and she had delivered it to Finn, who had surely given it to his mother by now, and this was on her.
What had she done?
It was alright.
She could fix this.
Really, she could.
And still… Elena lied.
She did not mean to, but it was out of her hands and solely in Esther's. Some kind of spell, Elena would guess.
A spell that kept her from mentioning anything that had transpired in that study.
"Uh, because to kill Klaus, Esther has to kill all of them including Elijah. And he doesn't deserve this!"
Damon shrugged.
"I'm supposed to care about Elijah?"
Elena scowled.
"Shouldn't you at least care about Rebekah?"
Damon glanced her way, and his eyes were… Cold. So cold. So cold and so far away.
"Two seconds ago you were pissed that she attacked you. It's a win-win."
Elena turned to leave.
Obviously, she was talking to the wrong brother.
Stefan would understand.
Nevertheless, in a flash, Damon was before her, blocking her way out. It wasn't so pleasant when the boot was on the other foot.
"Don't do anything to screw this up, Elena."
Elena, exasperated, flung her arms out.
"Why are you doing this?"
Stefan's voice piped up from behind the door.
"He's right you know. Klaus has to die. They all do. If this is the only way it can be done, then so be it."
Damon chuckled.
"See? It's democracy in action."
Elena barged past Damon, knocking shoulders on the way and spilling his drink.
If she didn't figure this out, more than whiskey would spill by the end of the week.
Elena Gilbert
Mystic Falls; Gilbert Residence
Before Bonnie Bennet was a tray containing three lit candles and a bowl for burning sage. Opposite the tray, cross legged on the bed, sat Elena Gilbert.
"He was gloating. Like actual gloating. Like he was proud of himself for sleeping with her. Is it working?"
Caroline Forbes came strolling through the door, heels clacking on the hardwood.
"It's not working. I can hear every word you're saying about Damon, the vampire gigolo."
Bonnie stared miserably down at the tray.
"I don't know… It's a tricky spell."
Elena eyed the bowl.
"When Esther did it, she kept the sage burning. There was a lot more smoke."
Bonnie nodded, and re-lit the sage.
"Alright. We'll try it again."
Caroline scoffed and left the room once more. Waving the sage through the air, Bonnie watched the girl in front of her.
"Speaking of Esther, you should know that she came to see me and Abby this morning."
Elena chuckled.
"And all this time you let me vent about Damon?"
Bonnie shrugged.
"I didn't want you to worry."
Silence for a drift, and the scent of sage heavy in the air.
"Okay, well, what did she want?"
A hesitant pause.
"She wanted to introduce herself. Abby and I helped bring her back. She's channelling our entire ancestral bloodline for power… I think she thought she was being polite."
Elena winced.
"Is there a way to stop her from channelling you?"
Bonnie frowned.
"Even if there was, why would I want that?"
Elena fiddled with the sleeve of her top, gaze drifting about the room, unfocused, as hazy as the sage smoke.
"I just keep thinking, before the sun and the moon ritual, Elijah found a way to keep me alive and now I'm in exactly the same position and I'm just… What? Going to let him die? It doesn't feel right."
Bonnie's face turned stony.
"There's no time to change your mind, Elena. He'll be dead by the end of the night, along with all his siblings once the All-blood is awake."
Elena's gaze snapped to Bonnie like a rubber band stretched too far.
"You… You know what Esther is doing? What she's really doing? You can speak about it?"
Bonnie dropped the sage into the bowl.
"I told you… She came to me and Abby and explained. Once the All-blood is awake, the Originals will end. She's called the Devourer in the texts Esther showed us, and that's exactly what the Mikaelson's deserve. A taste of the medicine they've forced on innocent people for a millennium. Once they're gone, balance with be restored once more."
Elena nervously bit at her lip.
"All-blood… That's what this thing is called?"
Bonnie cocked a brow.
"Not a thing… A she."
At Elena's blank stare, Bonnie furthered.
"I don't know much, only the small bits Esther told us. There's a… Prophecy. An old one, ancient, made before even Vampires were created… When the silent dead howl and the Hybrid bleeds, when the sanctified lies despoiled at the sarcophagus's feet, when the father weeps for what he has lost and the mother forgets by the wanded Priest, only then will the Devourer feast. Born in a womb that is already dead, she walks in shadow and in death, and only then, after the tenth moon of her slumber is high above, will the Nightwalkers end thereof. The Devourer will come, and the cursed will fall, and the Hybrid and his kinfolk will be no more."
Bonnie grinned.
"Vampires, Elena. This All-blood was born from two vampires, and she's… Well. She's their end. I… Don't know the rest of the prophecy. There's a last Stanza that was lost centuries ago… But Esther swears this is the way we end Klaus. His siblings too. Vampires, gone, and balance restored. The tenth moon of the All-blood's slumber is tonight. There's no time to back out now."
"Excuse me."
Bonnie and Elena's gazes snapped to the door, to an ashen faced Caroline.
"Did I just hear you two right? Not only have you gotten into bed with Esther, which I advised against from the very beginning by the way, but… You're trying to wake something up called the Devourer? Who, incidentally, by that little ditty, doesn't sound as if she will only feed on the Mikaelsons, but on-"
Caroline gestured down her body with a sweep of her hand.
"All vampires! Which, if it hasn't escaped your notice, includes me!"
Elena shuffled off the bed.
"Caroline-"
The blond took a sharp step backwards.
"How can you be so stupid! What about Damon and Stefan? What if after having a snack on the Originals, it's still hungry and decides we look rather tasty? This doesn't sound like something we can just shove back into its box once we've let it out! I expected this sort of short sightedness from you, Elena, but you, Bonnie?"
Bonnie stood, resolute.
"This is the only way to get rid of the Originals permanently. Esther assured me that once the All-blood has done so, we can make it slumber once more. That's why she's channelling my bloodline. With all Bennet's, living and dead, in attendance we'll have enough fire power to send it to sleep again and-"
Caroline laughed, high, cold.
"Yes, because trusting Esther has played out so wonderful so far. She has Elena stealing blood, and you tying your lifeforce to hers so you can all wake up a god-damned doomsday creature!"
Elena stole another step forward, reaching for her friend.
"Caroline, please, just see-"
Caroline smacked her hand away.
"Your so focused on making your own life normal, whatever that means, that you would risk us all? Does my life mean so little to you?"
Caroline shook her head.
"At least Katherine looked me in the face when she snapped my neck."
Elena stumbled back from the verbal blow, and that was enough room for Caroline to zoom away.
Elena went to follow, but Bonnie snagged her arm.
"Let her cool off. She'll come around."
Elena fumbled.
"Do you really think we'll be able to put it to sleep again afterwards? Before it can attack Stefan or Damon or Caroline?"
Bonnie smiled brilliantly.
"Of course we will. The Bennet line is long and old... The only way this Devourer could possibly sidestep that sort of magic was if it had magic of its own, equally as old and long born, and that's impossible. You can't be a vampire and a witch, they cancel each other out, and this thing is meant to be more vampire than most."
Vampire's aren't meant to be able to procreate at all, let alone birth something called the Devourer.
Elena, however, does not say this, perhaps a little afraid of the answer.
Bonnie was smiling, and she was confident, and maybe she knew what she was doing.
Maybe Elena just needed to trust her friend.
Maybe they were all in too deep to get out of it already.
Mystic Falls; Mikaelson Mansion.
The frantic knocking on the door came incessantly.
"Is somebody going to get that?"
The knocking did not stop, and neither was there any sound of moving footsteps.
Huffing, Rebekah marched her way to the front door of her home and flung it open, momentarily stalling at Caroline Forbes, of all vampires, standing at her doorstep.
"Is Klaus there? We need to talk."
A.N: I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, and are looking forward to what's coming. If you would like to feed this poor hungry trash goblin, don't forget to drop a review! And Thank you to everyone who has already favourited, followed, and reviewed! Hope you have a wonderful night!