not a battle, a massacre
May 2013
Mystic Falls
The last thing Kai saw before he ported from the cool hotel suite was Bonnie's irate face. So it was only appropriate that the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes to the scorching, deafening and bloody chaos that was his sister's wedding was his father's livid one.
The night kept bearing gifts.
"What the hell are you doing?" Joshua Parker shouted. His eyes were filled with horror.
Kai cracked his neck, held himself back from ramming his fist into his father's face on sheer principle. "I took a detour fixing a problem I asked you to deal with. What did I miss?"
His eyes were already sliding from his father, barely taking in the tapestry of magical violence spread before him, as he sought out the glimmering rings of the Portal. He spotted it almost at once, its glow lighting up the Southern boundary. Before it, he could make out a line of witches throwing hexes at a heretic that was repeatedly charging towards them, apparently trying to breach the Portal.
He had barely registered all this when a scream burst out from somewhere beside him. He and Joshua turned to see a witch fly across the hall, followed immediately by a creature in red. Kai threw out his magic, in tandem with his father and the heretic froze, then shattered into pieces.
"That'll buy some time," Joshua muttered then he turned to Kai and grabbed his sleeve. "Get out of here."
Kai tried to take his arm back but his father held firm. "What the hell, Joshua?" he spat. "You don't give me orders."
"Where did I hear that before?" Joshua said irritably. "I don't have time to deal with your ego, Kai. Leave."
"So you can take all the glory and I live the rest of my days as the Praetor That Ran? No, thanks, Dad." He snorted. "What's the plan? Wait for me to scram, save the day and make me look bad? I'd bet good money you're carrying an Ascendant on you." He hooked his fingers in preparation for a summoning spell.
Joshua blocked it. "You foolish boy. You destroyed the 1903 Prison when you let these things out."
Kai reeled. "I… I d-"
"You might as well have! What possessed you to free the ripper?"
Not what, who. But of course, Kai wasn't going to tell his father that. Or tell his father anything at all.
Not that Joshua was waiting for an answer; he was in full rant mode. "It would take months to build a new Prison to hold six heretics, and we'd have to trap them first. And as for glory?" he spat. "Look around you, Malachai!"
Kai did. Saw the glass littering the ground, the flames, the blood, the twisted knots of smoke hovering in the air that indicated spot-sites of magical duels – light against dark.
The bodies.
So many bodies.
And not one wore a red robe.
Even the creature they had just obliterated had vanished, probably re-awakening somewhere in the ether.
Kai fought back a wave of nausea – and guilt. Despite the still ambivalent feelings he held for a lot of the members of his coven, he hadn't wanted this.
"Do you see?" Joshua said bleakly. "We're losing. We've ported out the young, the old, the sick. Now we're moving teenagers, the injured, those too weak to any longer. The rest of us will hold the line until they are through. Then we shut down the portals. This is not a battle. This is a massacre. Now get out."
"I'm the most powerful person here and you're asking me to run?" Kai asked incredulously.
"You're holding the lives of every single Gemini witch in your unworthy hands and I'm asking you to live."
Kai finally yanked his arm back. "I'm going to do more than that. I'm going to win."
"Kai-"
"See those party crashers in red? I've a good reason to think that I'm the only one who's qualified to bounce them. Besides," buried fury lashed in his belly, "they welcomed me with open arms in 1903. I'd like to return the favour. Sorry to ruin your last stand, Dad." He shouldered his father out of the way and jumped into the fray.
A pair of older witches ran past him, chased down by a red figure. He shot out a spear of power at it.
The woman's red hood fell back and her long curls streamed behind her. Its tips lit up with flames that propagated along the length of her hair. She died screaming but Kai didn't stay to enjoy the sight. He was racing south as fast as he could, towards the shimmering glow of the Portal, stopping now and then to lend a magical hand to any skirmish that crossed his path.
He finally made it within yards of the Portal, and now he could make out his own Livvie Poo, clearly in charge of the quartet of young envoys that guarded the Portal. She threw vicious hexes that made Kai proud but the scarred heretic before her, just bounced them back lazily, even though it could probably have easily taken down at least two witches. Kai hesitated, cloaked in the shadows, wondering what the ploy was.
Finally, one of Livvie's hexes snuck past the heretic's reflexes and the creature staggered back, choking – then charged forward with an angry snarl, flinging out a curse that would have killed off half of Kai's living siblings. He threw out a hand quickly to block it – but someone was faster. The werewolf that he had not even noticed until then – launched itself onto the heretic, the curse catching on, and bouncing harmlessly from its immune body. The wolf buried its jaws into the heretic's neck and both went crashing on the ground.
All eyes were on the macabre sight before then – and that was when the second heretic, clearly bidding its time all this while, charged.
Two envoys were on the ground before Kai could react. It reached for Livvie next – and his sister was still standing, frozen, too shocked or too slow to reach – when Kai sent a wave of power at it. It screamed as its skin tore, revealing blood and black magic, swelling obscenely until it exploded. Pieces of heretic fell to the ground. Livvie jumped out of the way with a yelp of disgust. It was only then that she looked around at her fallen friends and she let out a low gasp.
Her eyes met her brother's as the wolf padded back to her with its bloody jaws.
"Go," Kai said hoarsely. "Set up another Portal for the injured to the North. I have need for this one."
She didn't argue. Without looking back, she left, leading the surviving envoy and her wolf with her.
He ran up to the Portal, to the very edge where the magic threatened to pull him inside. Raising his arms up, he started chanting, channeling its power and transforming it at the same time. The rings on his fingers burnt as the rings of the Portal turned from their silvery blue glow to a dark, red blaze.
His arms were sore when he lowered them, but that was a small price to pay. The magic was already settling in the Portal. For the first time that evening, finally something was going his way.
He heard the whistle of a hex aimed at the center of his skull in the nick of time. He dodged it, and it shot into the Portal, turning the rings black for a moment, before they blazed back red.
He swirled to face the two that were materializing before him.
"Malachai," snarled the peroxide-blond reject that Kai had 'affectionately' named Iceman.
"Nice to see you too," Kai snarled back and threw lethal hexes from both hands in rapid succession. Iceman dodged the strike and the spell smashed into the ground, opening up a crater beside the heretics. The second heretic – Gingerdum – absorbed the magic with one hand and returned fire with the other hand. Kai flung out a shield but it went up a tad too late, and the edge of the hex struck just above his brow. Blood spilled into his eye, half-blinding him.
He staggered a little, blinking rapidly, but his shield was still up and the barrage of hexes that both attackers were sending merely smashed against it.
"You will perish for your treachery," Gingerdum was ranting.
"You have no idea what that word means, do you?" Kai muttered.
He was curling his right hand into the shape for a bone-crusher, preparing for the pause to drop his shield and strike.
The moment came and he had the satisfaction of hearing bones snap and crackle. Another hex and he had shoved them both into the crater and yet another sealed them in.
He smiled. This can still work, he thought, as flexed his fingers, rings glittering in the light of flames and spells as he channelled his power...
And something flung itself on his back and sank its teeth into his neck.
June 2014
Portland
"I was damn sure that we rounded up all those freakshows that night and then I sent their black souls into Oblivion. How the hell do you think two of them escaped?"
More to his frustration than to his surprise, Jo shook her head. "Don't be paranoid, Kai. No one in this coven would have helped any one of those heretics then or any other time."
"Your faith in our backstabbing little serfdom never ceases to touch my ugly black heart," he declared.
"You keep calling them serfs and very soon you're going to have a revolution on your hands. How many times do I need to tell you: the Praetor is only as strong as the witches' loyalty to him?"
"I play nice with the other kids, Jo," he exclaimed in protest. "I give the old fossils in the Council my ear all the time. It's hard to believe it, but when they put aside their petty politicking, they actually give good advice. Yes, that happens once in a blue moon but you never know when, right? Besides, when I'm too busy getting stuff done to hold their hands and make them feel important, that's what Dad's there for."
Of course, Jo couldn't counter that because it was true. Like many others, she had probably thought it was a phenomenally bad idea for Kai to give Joshua Parker a seat in the Gemini Council but that move ended up being a stroke of brilliance, if Kai said so himself. It had turned his father from being Kai's biggest enemy and a rallying point for the witches seeking to flee the coven – to becoming his staunchest supporter and his unofficial liaison with the rest of the Council. And when Joshua Parker vouched for him, a lot of the witches who had gone into exodus when Kai became leader came back in droves.
It amused Kai that his sister could still be so surprised at how well he did politics. In his pre-merge life, he had pretty much survived by learning, imitating and manipulating the emotions and inclinations that came so naturally to everyone but himself. A year of figuring out how to get a handle on his own emotions hadn't made him lose his old talents. If anything, they had come in handy in figuring out his own head.
Particularly where a certain black-haired witch was concerned.
Kai clamped down on that line of thought before it derailed him.
"You'd get on better with the Council if you just tried to be a little bit less… you sometimes," Jo said with the voice of a woman who had given this advice repeatedly and was exhausted. "But back to the point: if you think one of us rescued the heretics to … I dunno… pull them out of their sleeves like Jokers a year later to lure you to Mystic Falls and kill you, you're… You're being more than paranoid, Kai. You're being flat out ridiculous. Why would anyone in the Gemini coven want to kill their leader?"
"I could be the nicest Praetor in the world and there'd still be someone who wants to play game of magical thrones with me. Maybe someone lost a bet on how many bodies I'd drop in my first one hundred days in office and is looking to get even?" At Jo's look of outrage, he chuckled humourlessly. "Sorry. Too soon."
But still, someone somewhere had to be disappointed that the forebodings had not come to past. That the mad man hadn't burnt the coven to ashes. That he hadn't murdered his father, gutted his pregnant sister, ripped into shreds everyone that opposed him and drank the blood of their children.
Instead, he had, against all odds, saved all their asses. And thanks to a series of hard lessons early on in his reign, he had got his head on straight about just what it meant to be Praetor. And he had thrown himself into it.
Perhaps he had thrown himself into it a bit too much.
"Think the Genovas or the Lovegoods could be behind this?" He asked Jo now.
Those two families were some of the nastier elements in the coven, previously considered untouchable and allowed to indulge in forbidden arts unchecked for generations. A member of each of those houses had sat on the Council for centuries, the last being Anthony Genova and Mary Louise Lovegood, whose duties had concluded a few months into Kai's reign. One of his first 'official' acts when he returned to Portland was to evoke a privilege that Praetors rarely exercised – and forcibly retired two serving Council members. Then he had proceeded to lay down the law on both houses. Most of the witches had watched in anticipation of a rebellion or even self-imposed exile. But the Genovas and Lovegoods had toed the line. Perhaps all they had needed was a Praetor strong enough – or crazy enough – to bend them to his will.
It was just one more of Kai's actions as coven leader that inspired an interesting mix of approval, outrage and outright fear from the other witch families.
"Powers or no powers, their lives are still linked to yours," Jo countered. "I would suggest looking outwards – at some of our newer allies that you brought in by force. But in all honesty, I can't imagine a pack of wolves or a swarm of faeries or any of the other covens having any kind of influence over these heretics."
Kai nodded in grim agreement. For the past year, he had been using his scheming talents to repair old alliances with other supernatural elements, alliances that had been broken or forgotten because of his coven's paranoia. The Council had not liked the fact that the new Praetor was more likely to cut a deal with a werewolf clan than to cut off their heads. But they couldn't deny that he got more results his way. And when those had failed...
Well, he was mega-powerful and that streak of violence in him had been tamed, not erased.
Jo had told Kai once that the Council thought he was impulsive and he had laughed out loud at that. The truth was that he was a stickler for their protocol, and always took counsel before making a decision. He meant what he said – some of the advice the Council and the Elders gave were worthwhile. He was as likely to go along with a recommendation as to go against it.
Their real beef, he suspected, was that he didn't drag his feet long enough for them to catch up with him. He made up his mind as quickly as possible, and stuck to his guns. Councils, elders and petty factions be damned.
They had got too used to his father. Joshua had been formidable once upon a time, but he had had to be Praetor far longer than was normal – and his leadership had become overly cautious, even by Gemini standards, as a reflection of that. Over the past two decades, he had filled his Council with like-minded witches and now they were struggling to keep up with his son.
Jo sometimes told Kai that the witches whispered that the new Praetor was more ruthless than the former one had been in his prime. He considered it a compliment.
"What does Dad think?"
Kai bit back a groan. Of course, Sissy was going to pick up on his thoughts and start the discussion at a tangent that was not only furthest from his mind but completely in contradiction to it.
He had had eighteen years to forget what that felt like – growing up with someone who thought exactly like you but in the polar opposite direction.
But he had been reminded shortly after her children were born, when Jo had faced down the coven for her twins.
Although Kai had killed the debate eventually, Jo had gone from the wary indifference to coven affairs she had had when she first moved to Portland, to taking a more active interest. Powers or no powers, Jo Saltzman was still the sister to the current Praetor, the mother of the coven's heirs, and the daughter of the most influential wizard on the Council. Only an ostrich would fail to realise that she had a big stake in all things Gemini; and Jo wasn't that.
So she had started increasingly voicing her opinions to her twin brother and in return, Kai had gradually taken her more and more into his confidence. Being able to bounce off problems against a brain that worked like his had proven invaluable. Over time, she had become his informal counsellor / sounding board and the one person in the coven that he trusted absolutely.
Still, there were times when their differences in some fundamental ideologies left him wanting to tear his hair out.
Like now.
"Our father gave his recommendation with the rest of the Council," he answered shortly.
She rolled her eyes. "I meant one on one. After the Council meeting."
"He didn't stick around to chat." He barely reined in the flare of anger at the disappointment on his sister's face. "We've had this conversation before, Jo. I know this makes me a big fat hypocrite but Father and I are never going to repair the father-son bond we never had. We share an overwhelming interest in the welfare of the coven. Other than that, we don't have anything to say to each other and we both like it that way."
"I wonder why," she said sadly. "You guys are more alike than you think."
Now that made him laugh. "You can't be serious."
Either the baby hormones had finally scrambled his sister's brain or he was right and his sister indulged occasionally in juju weed.
Thinking of juju weed made Kai remember his conversation the night before with Bonnie.
He groaned inwardly. It seemed like his brain found every possible reason to bring her to the forefront of his thoughts! His chest tightened as a specific memory flashed through his mind. Bonnie between him and the kitchen window, her face so near that he could count each of her eyelashes, could smell her breath with each exhale.
Even now, he could feel her essence in this room. It dusted the entire house; it would linger here, this second home of his, long after she had gone.
He was equal parts thankful and resentful for that.
Jo's eyes were searching. "Yes, you are."
It took him a startled moment to realise that she was still going on about him and his father.
"Jo-"
"Duty before love. Coven before everything else, right?" Her voice was sad. "Gee, wonder where you picked that from?"
"That's not true," he said warningly. She was pushing it.
His sister's gaze was unrelenting. "Not yet. But you're getting there, big brother. There were many times you could have gone to Virginia this year. The nomad vampires. The Smallwood pack."
"Their pseudo-Founders' Council did their own housekeeping. Those potatoes were too small for Gemini interference."
"What about the dragon rumors?"
"Some run-of-the-mill shapeshifters with delusions of grandeur. I'm not one to rely on Astromancy, but even the experts ruled that a Landing would be impossible; and if an Old One had been revived, we'd all know now by the … I dunno… current apocalyptic conditions, dontcha think?"
Jo rolled her eyes.
The Southern Court had confirmed that a pair of their shapeshifters had gone rogue a few weeks before the first dragon sighting last Summer, and they had tracked them along every major sighting since then. Kai had volunteered a few Envoys to the Court's manhunt and although it was taking longer than he'd like, it was only a matter of time before the idiots were brought to justice. He supposed the temptation of having a bunch of mundane cultists spring up like weeds in response to the shapeshifters's theatrics had been too much to resist. But the fall out of all that nonsense was that sooner or later, one of those cults would go too far, and then the Gemini coven would find themselves – himself, to be precise – wading in the murky waters of the river of palaver that flowed whenever the same mundanes the Coven was committed to protecting became dangerous nuisances.
"Besides," he chuckled, thinking about this bit, "how the heck would the Mystic Falls Scooby Gang have been able to deal with a real dragon?"
"Yeah, and wasn't that convenient for you? Even if you had needed to look into things, you'd probably have just sent a few envoys and stayed away yourself."
Kai stared her down, daring her to say it.
She did. "You'd have found some reason to stay away from Bonnie."
He kicked her table again and was pleased to see her jump. "Why shouldn't I have?" he asked coldly as he started pacing again. "The situation was being handled… and I knew where I wasn't wanted."
"If you think this changes anything between us, then you're mistaken."
He felt his hands ball into fists. The leather on his wrist crackled as magical static rubbed against his skin.
"You didn't give her time. Oh my goodness, Kai! You terrorized that girl and you expected her to just let everything go because you had one night-"
"You really need to mind your own business, Jo…"
"Now, you're sending her packing to Virginia with the impression that you hate her so much that you won't do your job just to spite her, knowing full well that you've been digging into this matter from the moment you first heard about the heretics re-appearing!"
Now that shocked Kai into stillness. "How the hell did you know about that, Jo?"
Because he had been playing that very close to his chest. At the first whispers of Mystic Falls's newest tenants, he had bought a plane ticket to Virginia and used it. Heretics in Mystic Falls and Bonnie in Whitmore, less than an hour away. That was two reasons too many for him to get involved. But he had hoped she'd stay out of it. She had, surprisingly, managed to stay out of that town's troubles for a year. But as it turned out, he had hoped in vain; she had been right in the thick of things when he got there. He had barely made it to Virginia in time.
The Council had recommended against getting involved and officially, he had concurred. Unofficially? What he did with his private time as a private person was none of the Council's business.
So how the hell did Sissy of all people know about this?
Jo shrugged. "That's not important."
"Like hell it's not. Have you been spying on me, Jo? Got a few witches in your pocket shadowing me?"
"Don't be ridiculous!" she snapped. "I kept calling you to help with the twins that weekend and you kept putting me off. I asked Liv to port over to your place and you weren't there. I put two and two together."
"I could have been with someone," he grumbled.
"Ha!"
Oh for goodness's sake. He didn't need this. To stand here, feel Bonnie everywhere and deal with Jo's smugness all at the same time.
He turned on his heel and walked towards the door.
"Kai! Come back, OK? I'm sorry. I shouldn't have…" Behind him, his sister sighed.
He froze where he stood, a few steps to the door. If he were honest with himself, he would admit that he wasn't angry at Jo. He wasn't even very angry at Bonnie.
Well, he wasn't mostly angry at Bonnie.
Whom Kai was really angry at was himself, or rather, at his own feelings. These horrible feelings that a year later, had only gotten worse. Stronger. More hopeless.
That misguided shrink had tried to feed Kai some psychobabble about locking his redemption onto the one person he had hurt the most. Kai grudgingly admitted to himself that there was some truth in that. But he had also meant it when he told her – what seemed like eons ago – that they were even. He would always be haunted with what he did to Bonnie – the guilt of it, as much as the regret of paths not taken. But he also knew that she had got her own back at him, with interest.
So why couldn't he let go?
"You need to give her time," Jo said uncannily. "But, Kai... Even if you never get the kind of relationship you want with Bonnie, you can't let yourself turn into this… machine that doesn't feel or care for anything beyond his duty."
"You say that like if it was a bad thing," he muttered.
"It's a bad thing because you can't keep going on with this… this… thing with Bonnie. You can't keep bottling everything inside, not wanting to try, not wanting to let go, hurting her, hurting yourself. Neither of you can."
Something warm gripped him at her words. It took him a moment to realize what it was. Hope.
No, you loser, he told himself at once. Don't do this to yourself.
But still. "Neither of us? Did… did Bonnie say something… about me?"
Jo's face was pained. "Oh, Kai."
So much for not hoping. He couldn't even keep it out of his voice, out of his face – if his sister's reaction was anything to go by.
"I just…" He cleared his throat against the ache that had started in it. Come on, Jo, he thought desperately.
"Bonnie didn't say anything to me," Jo said gently. "But I could read between the lines… she has a lot of stuff to work through. Whatever Bonnie feels for you, Kai, it's not indifference. That's a start."
He laughed, and it was a hollow sound even in his own ears as the hope vanished as quickly as it appeared, popping out of existence like a pricked balloon. "No. Just slow burning hatred."
"You don't really believe that. She'd never have come here if she still felt that way. "
"Bonnie Bennett was going to lock herself up in a prison world with me for all eternity because it was the right thing to do. She's big on self-sacrifice. Believe me, coming here to ask for help wasn't a big deal."
"I guess we're stuck here. Forever."
If he had a choice now between being the all-powerful Praetor, responsible for the wellbeing and prosperity of a coven, which was just a fancy way of describing his job as a glorified babysitter to a bunch of witches who either feared or hated him – and being stuck in an empty world with only Bonnie Bennett for company – he knew which he would choose in a heartbeat.
What was that word again?
Irony.
"At least just let her know that you're working on this. Let her know that you care about what's happening to her town," Jo insisted.
"No, I don't," Kai said at once, truthfully. "For all I care, that whole town can sink into the ground with everyone in it." Everyone except one.
Jo pursed her lips.
"Why can't you just be happy that I'm not having a psychotic break because my crush doesn't like me back?" He asked lightly.
"Probably because I'm afraid you will have a psychotic break over this and my family and I will be collateral damage."
He recoiled, feeling like if she had punched him.
There was contrition on Jo's face but it was buried under layers of steely resolve. "There's a fine line you're walking here, Kai. You don't see it but-"
He barked with laughter, cutting her off as he gave himself a mental face-palm. Even after everything they had gone through together this year – from her wedding to the fight with the Council over her twins – Jo would probably always regard him as a ticking bomb. As a monster trapped within a man, waiting for the crack, the fault line it could slip through and escape.
He tried to remind himself that he deserved this – just as her forgiveness was her right, not his, the extent of her trust in him was hers to determine, not his to demand in full.
But yet…
Yet…
If his twin sister, who he regarded as his steadiest ally, who was probably the closest person in his life right now, thought of him that way then what the hell did he expect Bonnie to see when she looked at him?
And why the Hell did everything keep coming back to her?
It was enough to make one mad, he thought, feeling the dark emotions beating against his skull like a twisted drum orchestra.
Times like this, the fleeting thought would cross Kai's mind, that being a heretic won't be too bad. Not if it would let him switch off his emotions for good.
"Kai…" Jo tried again.
"Oh save it, Sissy," he taunted. "Once a sociopath, always a sociopath, right? Thankfully, no one's depending on your two months internship in the Psych ward to pull me from the brink. I happen to know my antidote and even better, it's right around the corner." He grinned maliciously. "Good ol' fashioned violence. Magic-ripping, heart-ripping, blood-splashing-everywhere type of violence."
Jo blanched and he laughed nastily.
"But don't you worry. The lucky recipients are not, for a change, your nearest and dearest but two heretics in a quintessential town in Virginia. Shortly to be followed by the rat in our coven that is in league with them. And-" he raised his hand to hush her next words –"spare me the lecture about being paranoid. One good thing about being a semi-retired, semi-reformed sociopath: when I feel someone's out to get me, I'm usually right."
He finished with a smile, and even though the menace in it wasn't directed at her, his sister still flinched.
Nice one, loser. Spook the one person on your side.
His heart was like a stone in his chest but he donned the aura of his authority like armor, turned on his heel and went to face his demons.
An hour after Damon took off, Bonnie was heading to the nursery to find Alaric before he left for the high school. If Damon had any luck with bumping up their flights, then by the time they left Portland, Alaric would still be in school; so Bonnie wanted to say goodbye now.
Her emotions were all over the place. After that wave of exhaustion had flooded her in the room, she was hit with the opposite extreme – tense, wired, out of sorts, like if there was a tight coil inside her, taut with anticipation for something.
Someone.
"It's for a good cause."
Caroline's words still haunted her. As did Bonnie's own memories. She was getting tired of fighting them.
She didn't know what to do. She only knew that whatever she decided had to be soon.
Alaric was in the nursery, cooing over Martha. The baby sat on the floor, banging her toys together and he was on his stomach, watching her. In the far side of the room, Rachel was asleep in the crib. Bonnie sat down beside him and allowed herself a small sense of smugness at finally figuring out the twins.
He grinned up at Bonnie. "Hey, Bon. Thanks for," he cleared his throat when one of her eyebrows went up and his face reddened. "Anyway, you should catch some rest now. Daddy's home," and he smiled at his daughter who – and there was really no other way to describe it – preened.
Bonnie petted the soft down on the baby's head – that was the difference between the two. Martha had a few wisps of dark hair and Rachel was bald.
The baby smiled at Bonnie and her heart loosened. "Oh, you precious little thing," she said softly.
"They're amazing, right?" Alaric said, his eyes fixed on the baby. "So much work. So little sleep. But they smile at you and everything just melts away."
Bonnie nodded. He was right. Just by watching the baby, she could feel that coil inside her loosening.
After a few minutes, she looked at Alaric curiously. "Don't you have to be at work in a couple of hours?"
"Yeah, but I do this all the time. She'll be asleep in a little while. I'll crash for half an hour and then I'll be good to go." He peered at her. "Are you OK?"
"Somebody else was murdered."
His face fell. "Oh no. I'm so sorry, Bonnie. Was it someone you knew?"
It was someone somebody knew, she wanted to retort but didn't. She couldn't really blame him. That had also been her first concern when she called Matt back that morning.
"Matt said the cops identified her with the contents of her purse. Her name is Judith Stewart. 63. Her address is somewhere in Nevada State. No one has a clue what she was doing near Mystic Falls." Alaric's frown surprised her. "Do you know this person?"
"I-I'm not sure. The name sounds familiar."
She waited but after a while, he just shrugged. "I'll check my records. If I find anything, I'll call you from school."
"We're going to leave today. As soon as possible." At the look of disappointment on his face, she smiled ruefully, "Sorry. Wish we could have stayed longer but -" she sighed heavily.
"Yeah, I know." He said, smiling back. "It's been nice having you guys around. I don't just mean because you gave Jo and I a night out," he added and they both laughed a little. "I miss Mystic Falls sometimes. It wasn't all bad, was it?"
Bonnie gave him a look.
He laughed. "Yeah, it probably was."
"You have a lovely family, Alaric," she said, almost scolding.
He looked at her in amazement. "I know that. Come on, Bonnie, do you think I'd trade a minute of this for anything from Mystic Falls?"
She shrugged, unconvinced. The town had its charm. She had been away for almost a year and it had felt like coming home.
If home was a graveyard, that is.
"I mean, who would have thought, right?" Alaric continued. "Three strikes. My first wife would rather be dead than be married to me. Literally. The next woman I fell in love with was murdered." His face twisted and so did Bonnie's, at the memory of Aunt Jenna. "Then the third woman, well we were almost something, but she ran off. I still tell Jo that Meredith's the smartest woman I ever dated, and that includes her."
Bonnie laughed.
"Now, look at me. A beautiful, amazing wife. A doctor, for that matter." He chuckled. "My old mom would have been so proud. Two beautiful little girls," he stroked Martha's hair.
Bonnie felt her eyes tear up a little.
"I even have a job. As a respectable high school teacher in a town where it's somebody else's job to keep the supernaturals in check for a change. Heck, I'd like to see the suicidal vampire or werewolf or Original that would try to take on the Geminis in their home-front. You did that for me, Bonnie."
Her face burned. "Oh my goodness, not again!"
"You did this," Alaric insisted. "You. And Kai."
And just like that, the tension had coiled back up inside her. The indulgent smile on her face froze.
"Alaric…"
"The heretics wanted to murder Jo first, you know. No idea why. Maybe because she was the most vulnerable person there and the easiest to kill. Maybe because she was the center of attention and they wanted to start their massacre with a big bang. Who knows? But if Kai hadn't got between her and that knife, she'd be dead, and I'd have lost three people that night."
Bonnie said nothing.
Alaric glanced at her. "People change, Bonnie. Damon turned my first wife into a vampire. Years later, he gave up his chance to live so that I could."
"That's different," Bonnie muttered.
Alaric cocked his head, like if he was thinking. "I don't see how it is."
"It just is." She took a deep breath. "Jo told you, didn't she?"
She didn't say about what. She didn't have to.
For a moment though, Alaric looked uneasy, like if he was thinking of feigning ignorance. But her eyes stayed sharp on his face, and he bowed his head.
"Actually, Kai did."
She started. "What?"
"A month before the twins were born, we had a false alarm. Jo and the babies, I mean. I rushed her to the hospital, thinking they were about to come. The nurses were all cool and clinical and not appreciating the situation at all. So, I probably threw a little tantrum."
"A tantrum?"
"Yeah. I got thrown out of the delivery room." He made a face when Bonnie snickered. "Luckily, we had called Kai and he got to run interference between me and Jo. I was out of my mind with worry. Jo didn't have the easiest time with the coven when we got here. And the old witches used to say things about the babies."
"What kind of things?" Bonnie wondered, remembering Liv's talk from earlier.
Alaric shrugged. "Mostly about Jo not being a witch anymore and how she'll have a difficult time because of her age and lack of magic. The doctors said the same about the age part. Jo said the same about the age part. Then there was some talk in the coven about taking the kids from us so that they could be raised in a proper magical home." At Bonnie's alarmed look, he shook his head. "Kai shut that down at once."
She looked away from him and stared fixedly at Martha. The baby was on her stomach, now, kicking with her legs.
Alaric put a bright toy just a little out of the girl's reach.
"He helped calm me down while we were waiting. And we got talking. We aren't close or anything but…you know, family is family. We both care about Jo, about the twins. I told him about Isobel. He told me about you. Now that I think about it, he was probably a little tipsy."
Bonnie felt her hands tighten into fists. Her heart was pounding. "He had no right."
"He'd never told anyone else before. I don't think he even told Jo. She sort of figured it out on her own, twin-style."
Bonnie stood up abruptly and would have walked away but Alaric reached for her.
"Bonnie."
"It was nothing," she snapped. "A moment of … madness. Magic. Adrenaline. I was half out of my mind. It could have been with anyone, OK? It just happened to be him and I needed… It meant nothing to me. Except for wishing it never happened because apparently that's why he's refusing to help us now," she said, bitterly.
"Kai would never do that."
"Won't he?" she cried. "You don't know him, Alaric. You don't know how he was before his…" She clapped her hands together. "Mergeance Personality Transplant. He was a monster."
Martha gurgled then, distracting both of them. She had reached the toy. Alaric placed another one just a little out of her way. The baby gave him what Bonnie almost swore was an "Are you kidding me?" glare.
"Come on kiddo, you can do it," he murmured.
Bonnie sighed. "Look, Alaric, can we please just not talk-"
"Was, Bonnie."
"What?" she asked, confused.
"You said was. Your words: 'Kai was a monster.' So you do realize that he's not the same guy."
"I did… I don't…" She tripped over her words and Alaric looked at her knowingly.
Semantics! She thought. She knew what she meant, what she felt.
Anger and hurt were rising in her again.
But Alaric was already going on:
"And you're wrong, you know, about me not knowing who he was. I did meet the old Kai. I even put a gun to his head. All I had to do was pull the trigger but Jo stopped me. Not because she thought he was worth saving though. Because she thought she could merge with him and beat him, and spare Liv and Luke."
Alaric sighed. "And maybe she would have won and we'd be telling a different story now. A better one. Or maybe something worse."
He gave her a pointed look.
"But… that's not what happened. Luke merged with Kai. And Kai saved your life. And Jo's . And mine. And a lot of other people at our wedding. And even more people since then. He's done so much good for this coven, and the supernatural world in turn. There comes a point when-"
"Don't, Alaric," Bonnie warned, her voice a harsh whisper because of the baby. "Don't you dare tell me when I have to trust Kai Parker or anyone else who's ever hurt me. Don't. You. Dare."
"I don't," he said softly, and his eyes were sad. "But haven't you already? Didn't you have to for what happened between you two… to have happened in the first place?"
"No, I didn't –"
"Pssst."
They turned to see Liv standing by the door. Her face was tense, her blue eyes wary.
"The Praetor's downstairs." Her voice was cold. "You've been summoned."
May 2013
Mystic Falls
On the night of his sister's wedding, when a heretic bit him, Kai screamed not so much from the pain but from the memory.
Teeth. So much teeth. His magic. His blood. How much do they need? When will this stop?
Why can't he just die?
It was sheer reflexive power that shot out of his head and into his attacker's. He felt more than he heard the pop of a skull imploding and then the gooey mess of heretic brains splattered on the back of his suit.
He fell to his knees, bile rising in his throat and he wanted nothing more than to hurl but he was already raising his hands up to push back Iceman and Gingerdum who had apparently crawled out of the literal hole they came from and were about to rush at him again; and Kai started laughing, half-hysterically, because it was more than ridiculous, just how badly his careful plans had screwed up…
Then hexes flew above his head, and both of them hit the heretics inches from his face. Blondie and Ginger shattered into dust and smoke.
A healing spell hit him in the back and a firm grip was pulling him to his feet. He turned to throw a grateful grin at the witch that had joined in the fight.
And took his father's punch full in the face.
Kai reeled, but not before his magic flared out defensively and smote his father in the stomach. Joshua doubled over, coughing out blood while Kai hesitated, his hand up, his magic barely leashed and his head whirling in confusion. It was barely a few seconds of momentary pause, while the battle whirled around them, but it seemed to last forever.
Finally, Joshua lifted his head, and shouted through his blood-stained lips. "This isn't about your stupid pride or petty revenge! You wanted this! You fought for it! You murdered your siblings for it! I locked you up in that Prison because I didn't know how to kill you and yet you found your way back and stole it! Well you got it. Now. do. the. damn. job." With each angry exclamation, he stood a little straighter, came a little closer. By the end, he was standing right in front of Kai and he shoved his son.
Kai shoved him back, both fists up as he glared at his father, his heart pounding with hatred.
Joshua held his ground and glared right back, his eyes brimming with contempt.
"You want to be Praetor? This is what it takes to be Praetor, Malachai. Putting your pride and your vainglory aside to survive for the coven. Look around you. This is happening because you forgot your most important job. Putting the coven first. Now get out of here so I can clean up your mess the way I did eighteen years ago."
He shouldered past his son and marched off.
Kai swallowed hard as he turned to watch as his father walked into the storm of smoke and magic.
Author's Note: Thank you dear reviewers. I really appreciate all the feedback, especially those who have sent feedback for both versions of this story. BTW, if ff-net is not letting you review the chapter again, you can send an unsigned review if you like. Finally, thanks a million to my beta thenameismaynard who is the absolute saint that has betad numerous versions of this chapter. If you're not reading By and Down, please check it out!
