Sorry that I didn't update for a while. To any of you who's been waiting for this, then this chapter is for you!

The Devil Owns The Catacombs
The Chamber

SNAP! Feeding time. Jimmy McKinney looked down and grinned, savagely. The tourist was heavy – a deadweight – in his arms, but he paid no attention to that. Since when should he care about it? The body was gradually getting lighter and soon he would be feeding off the soul of his victim, a delicacy in it's own right.

The tourist sagged, and then was weightless in Jimmy's arms. Jimmy slowly put the bulky man down on the ground and waited for the essence of life – the soul – to stream out like steam from a kettle.
The tourist's neck was twisted awkwardly. Jimmy hadn't killed for a long time – his techniques were not as good as they had been back in the war – but he still had some fire left in him.

To anyone who saw, he would've appeared to be an eighteen-year-old boy, dressed in uniform and looking… particularly blown to bits. Well, that wasn't the correct term. A bayonet had slashed Jimmy across the chest – it had been what killed him. The wound had been pretty deep and had almost cut him in segments.
Luckily, his torso was still connected to his lower body and he could stalk his prey.

Upon waking he'd had the insatiable urge to feed – and what had he seen crawling a few feet away? A human – a man dressed in three-quarter-length jeans and a bright orange vest top. He hadn't even put up a fight. Pity.
Jimmy was snapped from his thoughts by a thin trail of what appeared to be smoke escaping his victim's mouth. He hovered above the tourist's body and smiled. Perfect.

He felt himself absorb the man's soul – feeling the memories, the thoughts, the dreams and goals that the tourist had had. Jimmy felt a flicker of guilt, but it went as soon as it had come. When the tourist's body had stopped being weightless on the floor, and had solidified again – Jimmy picked the body up. This involved concentrating very hard and levitating the man into a coffin.

Jimmy didn't know how he knew, but he knew he could do it. On instinct. There was a thump, and the body landed into one of the makeshift coffins. And the lid slid over it with ease. Jimmy rubbed his hands together – a job well done. Then he looked around.

It was as if he were in a crypt. The place was dank and murky – seemingly a vault. Around him were skeletons hanging out of honey-comb sockets in the walls, coffins littered the floor space, cobwebs hung in the corners of the lofty room and he could hear the sounds of rats.

They sounded too fake – too high-pitched – to be real rats. Almost like someone imitating one. Of course, Jimmy McKinney had never heard of a speaker. He looked up and saw one – but he thought it was just a black box resting on the wall.

He ignored it. He ignored the rat sounds as well.

He'd been dead a long time. He didn't want to discover about what had happened while he'd been gone. And he hadn't wanted to spill more blood… but the thirst for a soul had been too strong.
He sighed – an eerie sound to his ears. It came out raspy and twisted. He looked down. His throat had been slashed as well. Oh. Never mind.

"Hello?"
Jimmy turned. A voice… he'd heard a voice. He felt trapped, scared, confused. As if he were about to die all over again.
The voice echoed from down a pathway – which led to an arched doorway on the far wall. Someone was coming…

He had no place to turn to – no place to hide. Except a coffin – but it didn't want to do that. He didn't want to move.
It turned out he'd been worrying for nothing. When the person came in, it was a girl.

A girl who couldn't see him. She was pretty. She had long dark hair that ran down to her shoulders and dark brown eyes that looked assessing and calculating. She wore a dark shirt with the words: The Catacombs printed over her chest. Her willowy body was encased with dark leather trousers. Black sandals covered her feet.

"Hello?" she called again. "Stefan, did you take the late shift? Stefan? Elena?"
Jimmy cocked his head on one side. She looked about twenty-one. And in charge. As if she owned this place. She held in one hand a torch – to Jimmy it had the same name: a stick lighted by fire it seemed. He had no idea why she was holding it horizontally. Of course, he hadn't heard of artificial light either.

"Stefan…? Is… Is that you?"
Jimmy flinched. The girl was coming closer. He had to hide in the shadows… get away.
"Stefan?"
No answer. The girls' eyes pierced through the darkness and met Jimmy's.
He stiffened – petrified. Then frowned. She was looking at him, but staring straight through him as if he didn't exist. Oh yeah… he realised. I'm… dead…
The girl gave up. She sighed and turned back the way she had gone, pressing a button on the wall that threw the crypt into darkness.

It was as if the sun had gone down in a split-second. Jimmy was left alone. He trembled. His breathing became gasps. And as he looked down, he discovered why he'd been ignored.
He knew he was dead – he'd known it from the beginning.
But he wasn't a vampire. Or a zombie. Or anything like that.
… He was a ghost.

Eben grinned. Another ghost up, one more to go. He already had two little ghosties feeding out of the palm of his hand, all he had to do now was get Jimmy McKinney to start killing as many tourists as he could and Eben would be… well, ecstatic.

It helped that he looked rather much like an angel. The routine went well with every spirit resurrected. 'I've chosen you to run an errand of God…' bla, bla, bla. They all fell for it. He would put thoughts in the ghosts' heads and they'd go off killing tourists – thinking they were sinners.

Eben laughed maliciously. It was so pitifully easily. How stupid could the dead be?
"Master?" Ah. There was one now.
Eben turned and smiled warmly at the spirit-girl. She had long blonde hair, violet eyes the colour of amethyst and a nervous smile. Her name was Penny Feather – she'd been murdered at the age of sixteen.

Her parents had been killed also. And Eben had her wrapped around his little finger.
"I didn't forget you, Penny," he said politely, holding up a finger. "I found some more descendants of those fools who slaughtered your family."

And almost as if he'd clicked his fingers, a dark light shone in Penny's eyes – seemingly alive and growing darker by the minute. "Those black-bloods bred like rabbits," she cursed, looking darkly at her 'master'. Eben chuckled. Penny was so full of hate that she killed before asking questions.

The people she killed had no connection to her family's slaughterers. They were oblivious. And dead by the time Penny was through with them. "Forgive me for laughing, Penny. You'll find them down that corridor," Eben pointed.

Here – where he was standing – was the main Chamber. The one dear little Stefan Salvatore pawed over every night to look authentic. Eben sniffed through his nose at the thought of the vampire.
The two of them looked too alike. In fact – they could pass as twins, had Stefan ever known Eben existed.

Eben was seventeen. He had wavy, jet-black hair and deep, green eyes. His teeth were sharp and fang-like, and his skin was pale. He was a vampire, too. It was how he could control the minds of his little followers.

Penny had left already. She'd been dead for a century. And even though her body had rotted away long ago, she still looked perfect before Eben's eyes. All except for the hatchet mark that left a gaping wound in skull. That didn't unsettle Eben. He was a vampire – he could take it.

He sighed and sat down on one of Stefan's makeshift coffins. He smiled, showing his fangs. He'd set up a murder and a body to draw the cops in. It had been easy, just… make like a vampire. Bite a human, drain him and kill him, stuff him in a wooden box and walk away.

All they'd see on CCTV was a guy with dark hair, a tall body and seemingly wearing a Catacombs uniform. Courtesy of the spare-uniform laundry basket that rested somewhere in the reception upstairs. Eben grinned. He'd framed little Stefan with that one. And soon the Salvatore vampire would be heading out of town.

Eben already had a plan settled on that one. Get to Stefan quick. Talk to him… And don't let him leave Fells Church alive.
Oh no, Eben didn't just 'not like' Stefan. He hated him. Why? And how could he hate someone that didn't even know he existed? Simple.

Eben hated all Salvatores. With reason.
A head appeared at the other end of the chamber. Semi-visible, almost like water droplets forming a body shape in the air. But there was a golden sheen soon enough where the hair would be, and the body gradually took colour.
Eben grinned. Blood red seeped to cover the figures arms – bathing them in scarlet from the fingertips to the elbow.

Penny was back.