CHAPTER THIRTEEN
May 2013
Kai had told her an hour, and that was probably how long it took for the heretic magic to seep out of her aura, but by the time Bonnie woke up, the light through the hotel windows told her that it was late evening.
She hummed with relief at the reassuring feel of her magic beating warm under her skin, a bit worse for wear after the ritual, but completely untainted. She tried to flick her wrists and perform a small spell – something practical and useful like drawing the curtains shut – but she couldn't move her hands. That was when she realised that they were trapped by Kai's body, one under his throat, and the other alarming close to his tail bone.
The last coherent thought in her head had been of blood lust so intense that it had obliterated everything else. Somewhere between the fifth and the tenth frenzied bout of feeding, they must have both passed out. Now they lay together on the floor beside the circle of candles and spent power rings, so intertwined that it was hard to tell where she ended and where he began.
His body was large and long, and there was altogether too much of him. But his skin was warm anywhere it touched hers – which was everywhere; and she could feel his magic rumbling against her own. It was wild, ancient, and steady all at once – a surprisingly homogenous mix of ancestral magic, his own volatility and, what she supposed, had been Luke Parker's steadier temperament. Most importantly, it was Kai's, unmistakably. The abnormal magic from the heretics was as completely gone from him as it was from her.
Her first instinct was – surprisingly enough – not to extricate herself from the tangle of limbs and flesh and sticky blood – but to just close her eyes and let real sleep overtake her. That this involved sleeping with someone who she had, barely twenty-four hours earlier, been convinced wanted to murder her or worse – did not seem as important as the weight of complete exhaustion that lay heavy on her. She might have been out for hours by the look of things, but she certainly was far from rested; the rush of hectic, unnatural magic through her system had taken a toll on her.
Kai stirred.
With a jolt, common sense kicked in – get the hell away from this guy! – and she twisted and pushed and rolled until she had unravelled herself from him.
Kai had moaned when she first started trying to get away, so she knew he was awake by the time she was done. He didn't, as she half-feared, try to hold on to her. Neither did he help her. When she finally got free, and crouched on the floor beside him, he was lying on his back, staring up at her.
For a moment, they just watched each other.
"You look horrible," he said at last, in his lilting voice.
"As do you," Bonnie countered. Which was true. She was hard-pressed to remember that the pieces of rags he wore had once been an eye-catching tuxedo. The slashes and stab wound from the night before had healed, she noticed. No doubt, courtesy of the dose of heretic aura that he had consumed. But the tan skin underneath, stretched over muscles that she could swear he hadn't had a few months ago was stained with sweat, blood and soot. His skull…
She touched his hairline; he tensed, his eyes widening, but she ignored that, as her fingers traced the smooth path of ripped hair that ran zigzag across his scalp.
He winced.
"Does it hurt?" Bonnie asked, more fascinated than concerned.
"Not the scar, no," he answered. Gently, he took her wrist and pushed it from his head.
Her hand fell to her side, and she resisted the urge to rub her wrist against her clothes, rub out the burn of his touch. She could feel his eyes heavy on her, and she ignored them, staring instead at her clothes. They weren't torn and shredded like his own – courtesy of her missing out on the battle of the night before – but they were drenched with blood. Her mouth, too, tasted slightly of iron.
"We're a mess. We can't go anywhere looking like this," she muttered, and clambered to her feet.
He stayed on the ground, watching her. "Know any cleaning spells?"
"No," she said, and felt defensive at the way his eyebrows lifted. "My speciality is combat. What about you? Didn't you need domestic magic growing up with a ton of bratty siblings?"
She bit her tongue as soon as she said it but it was too late. His brows fell as did his eyes, but not before she saw the darkness cloud them.
Grief, she recognised with surprise, even though every instinct in her wanted to deny it.
"Bonnie, believe me, I've changed."
"I know. But so have I."
She hadn't really known, if she were honest with herself. She had still believed it was all part of some long con, some diabolical plan he had cooked up to hoodwink her, his coven, and everyone else. But now…
Now, none of that mattered.
She hadn't been allowed to be physically present in the battle with the heretics – and there was simmering rage at that, but distant like a faraway storm; it would come but not yet. After all, in a way, she had done her own part in the fight. Arguably the most important part, since the entire existence of the coven rode on the continued existence of this one man, who was regarding her with that undecipherable look in his dark eyes.
Bonnie hadn't known that either, before 1903. That and a whole host of other things.
"How does it work?" she asked before she could help herself.
When he gaped, clearly taken aback, she shook her head and started scooting away. "Never mind-"
He reached out and grabbed her. One moment, he was lying on the ground, looking as completely worn out as she felt – the next moment, her back was on the ground as he hovered over her, his fingers wrapped around her arm.
The next moment, he had dropped her arm like if holding it burnt him. It probably did, if the charge that had rocked through Bonnie's body at his grip was anything to go by.
"I'm sorry," he said quickly. "I didn't… Still trying to figure this out."
She just stared at him, her heart pounding; but whether from how suddenly he had moved, how easily he could overpower her, or from that charge, she didn't know.
Whatever she showed on her face made him duck his, his mouth twisting as if with self-deprecation. "You know, the whole human interaction kind of thing. Wanting to understand people now. Wanting people to understand me. And at the same time, remembering that no one, least of all you, is obligated to give a damn about me." He chuckled bitterly. "Life was so much easier when I was a simple sociopath."
When she didn't say anything for a long moment, he threw her a quick glance. "Feel free to freak out now."
Bonnie sat up slowly and wrapped her arms around her middle. She didn't freak out. She wasn't going to give him the satisfaction. "OK then."
Kai eyed her warily. "What?"
"Never 'never mind'. Tell me. How does this whole merge thing work anyway?"
He didn't look pleased or relieved with her question. Instead his eyes narrowed with suspicion. "I thought you didn't believe in the merge. You thought that deep down inside me, I was still the same old me. You know, the guy who plotted to kill his coven for decades. The guy who brought you here so that you won't be in the way when the heretics destroyed them."
If his biting words were supposed to make her feel ashamed, he was wasting his time. Instead, her temper flared and she scoffed. "Your own parents didn't think that the Merge would automatically make you a better person otherwise they won't have tried so hard to have a back-up plan. So excuse the girl who's been on the receiving end of your cruelty for not automatically giving you the benefit of the doubt. If you're waiting for an apology for that, you're going to wait for a very long time."
His jaw ticked, his eyes at once stormy. For a moment they both just glared at each other angrily.
He broke first, looking away, and for a moment, she watched his profile as he swallowed rapidly, visibly trying to get himself under control.
"I'm not asking for an apology," he ground out. "All I've ever wanted was for you to…"
He bit off his words, his face darkening, and he turned away from her.
Bonnie glared at his back, wondering what he was about to say, to lash out at her before he changed his mind. He was visibly struggling with his own temper, his shoulders shaking slightly.
She supposed that was another post-merge change. His anger was hotter, less… refined was the best word. In 1994, his fury had been cold but contained; his eyes chips of malicious ice, not blazing rage. She had only ever seen him truly lose his temper once – that day in the cave she had thrown away her magic, thinking that she had trapped both of them there.
What had she been thinking?
Every other time, even at his most violent, there had always been something detached about him. He had never been angry for its own sake; he had used his anger like he used every other thing or person – a means to an end, that would be discarded promptly once it served its purposes.
But in the short, scattered time Bonnie had spent with him since her return from 1994, he now appeared to be less in perfect control of his emotions. It seemed to take a small thing for her to push him to the edge. Like right now, he not only seemed upset – for apparently, no other than reason than that she had upset him – he struggled with it. He was breathing steadily, his arms tense at his sides, his back muscles rippling with his effort to check himself. He hadn't suffered any injuries on his back but there were faint traces of white scars over the otherwise smooth muscles. She remembered how warm he had been, when they had been wrapped around each other on the floor. How his muscles had shifted against her body when she had slid out of their blood-stoned cuddle.
His back was marked with scars. Most were faded, old but there was a relatively new one that lay barely an inch to his spine, the skin twisted and angry. It was very familiar.
Her fingers were inches from touching it when her brain caught up with her.
Bonnie snatched her hand back with a thrill of horror. Then she shook her head, trying to literally snap out of her weird mental tangent. She hastily threw her gaze elsewhere – anywhere would be safer – and it landed on the three discarded rings on the floor. She remembered why she had asked the question in the first place.
Why she had ended up spending all day in this room with this man, doing everything in her power to save him.
Because much as she wanted to believe it, she hadn't done this just for the sake of his coven.
The day they returned from 1903 and Kai Parker told her the truth about her birthday, Bonnie had refused to believe him. Until she spoke to Jeremy, she had kept on hoping, with increasing desperation that Kai had been lying, that it was just a part of some grander manipulation that he was plotting.
Then she had spoken to Jeremy and he had confirmed all of Bonnie's worst fears – how Damon had lied and used her, how little her friends had actually done to save her and, the worst of it all, how Kai had almost died saving her life.
After that, the only thing she could process, the one thing she could latch on and deal with was the revelation about Damon. But even after the explosive confrontation with him and Elena, Bonnie had still not been ready to deal with the other, more damning the truth.
The truth that Kai had almost dying to save her life, going on with the spell not once, not twice, but three times, even as the stakes got higher and higher for him. That this sociopath whom she had hated, whom she had taken turns with in a vicious game of violence and betrayal, had probably risked more for her in those few hours in the Salvatore mansion than all her friends had ever done in her entire life.
How much of her nightmares of him taking vengeance against her, her growing conviction that Kai was just bidding his time to get back at her really stemmed from her determination not to confront that truth?
It was so much easier, Bonnie thought with no small bitterness as she turned her gaze back to the man himself, when she just hated him and wanted him dead.
Because now she had run out of excuses – he had saved her last night when he could have easily let a heretic murder her; and he had saved his coven at great cost to himself. And that conversation, that confrontation that she had been mentally running from since they day they both returned from 1903 – had finally caught up with her.
She took a deep breath but before she could speak, he swung back to face her, and cut her off. "We're even. I don't want an apology from you, Bon."
"But you do want something," she said shrewdly.
His face darkened at that, his whole body – and she knew because she could see so much of him – turning red all the way to the tips of his ears.
She felt her own face flush as she realised what she had just said.
"I m-mean," she stammered, "you w-want me… to understand you. You post-merge. What you just said now. I mean."
The corner of his mouth curled up in the tiniest of smirks. "Yes, Bonnie. I want you…" and even though his ears reddened further, he deliberately paused at that point "…to understand me."
There was something like laughter in his eyes – something like a plea, too. Like he was trying to make a joke that he desperately needed her to be amused by. It reminded her of him in the snow, talking about her palms, and how she looked up to see that faux-shy smile on his face as he waited for her to laugh that off.
Only it hadn't been faux at all, had it?
She sighed, got to her feet, and walked away.
Kai's eyes jerked up at her movement, disappointment flashing across his face, and then surprise taking its place when she stopped at the mini-bar by the door.
"I need a drink," she said simply, checking out the contents, "clean clothes will be nice too. Maybe even wash the makeup off my face." She pulled out two cans and tossed him one. He caught it easily. Bonnie tried not to notice how his face was positively glowing as he watched her.
She popped her can, took a long, cold swig, washing out the residual taste of blood from her mouth. "If this is going to be long, then I'm not going to sit on the floor for it."
June 2013
Matt Donovan had a cubicle-like office, a three by three feet space that was inundated with paperwork, spilling from what was probably a table to the floor. He was hunched over the floor, with a stack on his chair, a fistful in his grip, and only occasionally came up for air to consult something from the pile on the desk.
Apparently, someone was trying to drown the cadet with paperwork.
After waiting for a reasonable length of time and not being noticed, Kai cleared his throat loudly. Then again. Then he waved his hand discreetly and the pile of paper work on the chair slid down to the floor.
He half-expected the man to jump up with an expletive, instead Donovan just groaned heavily and sighed.
"You know, I knew you were there all this time," the cadet muttered, staring sadly at the chaos in front of him. "I just needed a few minutes to get down something. What is it about your super-naturals that makes you all so bloody impatient?"
"Shouldn't that be my line?" Kai wondered. "Your generation being into instant gratification and mine being … not?"
Donovan sighed again and finally stood up. He was frowning, not screaming with horror and trying to enact violence on Kai. Which, Kai remembered, had also been pretty much his reaction when his then-future brother-in-law Alaric Saltzman had made introductions. Donovan had been put in charge of running the groom's – a.k.a. the mundane – side of things for the wedding; Kai was the brother-in-law-to-be and the leader of the coven that Alaric was marrying into. It had, apparently, seemed necessary to Alaric for both men to know each other by name.
"And talking about millennials and the millennium, what happened to Go Paperless? Global warming, saving the trees and all that?"
Donovan sighed again. "What do you want, Kai?"
Bonnie.
The thought tore through Kai's head, sharply, keenly; and it was all he could do to keep the desperation off his face. It had been four days, fifteen hours, and ten minutes since she vanished after his botched attempt at a romantic dinner date, ruined so spectacularly by his father's unwelcome intrusion. Kai blew up her phone, haunted the Whitmore campus, stalked Mystic Falls, and all her friends, but there was no sign of her. In all those places, she had magically scoured any trace of her that he could have used for a locator spell.
She was avoiding him.
Either his father's interruption had given her the opportunity to make the escape she had been itching to do from the moment she showed up at his door or…
Or, thanks to Joshua, Bonnie had just found the perfect reason to hate him.
Kai had thought that never having a chance with Bonnie Bennett was bad. No, not bad. Horrendous. A fucking Greek tragedy. It had got so bad during that time in Portland when he and Joshua were patching things up – to put it mildly – that he had spent a day in the Archives, looking for any information on love antidotes. Pathetic, really.
But now, he was beginning to realise that he could have lived with that horrendous, hopeless pining. He could have lived with unfulfilled wanting.
Because this? Knowing that he had had a chance with her? Knowing what it felt like to fucking be with her – in every sense of the word? And then knowing that he wasn't going to get that feeling back… ever? Oh no. No way in hell could he survive this.
He wasn't interested in the niggling thought in the back of his mind that he could survive this because apparently, other people did. At least according to those sappy love songs and corny stories that never used to make any sense to him. Chalk it up to him being an ex-sociopath, on a zero to hundred learning curve in processing human emotions. Chalk it up to his feelings for Bonnie being exacerbated by that or magic or fate or fucking karma.
But he couldn't survive this.
So he refused to believe that he would have to.
Of course, he didn't say any of that out loud to Matt Donovan. Kai had guilted Alaric into giving him Bonnie's schedule but that was the most help he got from any of her friends. He didn't know how much she had told them of … anything. But they all played dumb, seemingly unaware that her relationship with him had moved past 'former enemies who tolerate each other from a safe, preferably umpired distance'. Kai couldn't decide if they genuinely didn't know where she was hiding or why she was hiding; but he certainly knew that they won't have helped him even if they did.
So he wasn't expecting Matt Donovan to get him what he really wanted above everything else. No. What the police cadet was going to get for Kai was closure. He was the end of a loose thread that Kai should have cut ages ago.
On their introduction, Kai had easily placed the man – childhood friend of Bonnie and co from Mystic Falls. The Humanity Quotient of the team. He hadn't raised any flags and Kai hadn't paid him any attention; had barely even registered his presence when he had installed the Genova family into Kai's apartment when the hotels had filled up with Gemini guests and boarding needed to be out-sourced.
But that was before Kai had discovered that this Matt Donovan had been Bonnie's chosen partner-in-crime when she had broken into his apartment in the hours before Jo's wedding.
Not Damon 'My Best Friend is a Vampire Dickhead' Salvatore, nor Elena 'My Other Best Friend is a Vampire Insert-Appropriate-Gender-Equivalent-of-A-Dickhead' Gilbert nor anybody else from their nest of user bloodsuckers. Nor Tyler Lockwood, the werewolf.
Bonnie had chosen the Token Mundane.
Since then, Kai had done his homework on the guy and now he regarded him attentively.
He raised an eyebrow now at the cadet's pointed question. "You don't beat around the bush much, do you?" He looked around for a chair, didn't find one, then waved his hand and conjured a seat.
Donovan jumped, and quickly looked around him. "Care to be more discreet?" he hissed. "Most of my mates don't know about this…" He waved his hand, 'this' probably signifying Kai, magic, and the supernatural as a whole.
"Word of advice: Any mundane who lives in this town and doesn't know about 'this'" Kai made an exaggerated imitation of the other man's gesture – "doesn't want to know. They see what they want to see. It's amazing really. A sort of survival instinct, I think. Anyway, you didn't offer."
This mundane's frown deepened.
Kai decided to take a page from the guy's book and get to the point. "I want to report a crime."
Donovan blinked. Stared.
Kai stared back.
"You want to report a crime?"
"Already said that. Do I need to start ranting about millennials and their abbreviated attention span?"
Donovan glowered. "O… K… That would be downstairs at the front de-"
"Break-in and forced entry into my apartment. Sunday the _ of May."
Kai had to give it to the guy. He had an excellent poker face.
"I see." The mundane turned to his desk and started shuffling papers.
"Uh-huh. I was away that day, attending my sister's wedding. Hey, weren't you supposed to be in it? What happened?"
Donovan cleared his throat. "Had an accident. Needed to go to the hospital."
"Sorry to hear that, man. What kind of accident?"
Donovan kept shuffling. "Didn't look where I was going. Walked into a pole."
The guy was either the lousiest liar in the world or he couldn't be bothered to deflect the freaking Gemini leader.
"Aw shucks. Well, glad to see you're back on your feet. Now about that break-in…"
"Here you are, sir," Donovan said suddenly. He turned back to Kai with a sheaf of papers. "Just fill in your name and address, and give us as much details as you can. Initial here, here and here. Sign here for permission to conduct a search through your apartment, and here to disclaim the Sheriff's office of any property damage that might occur accidentally during the preliminary search of your apartment."
When Kai stared at him, he elaborated with a smirk. "You know, as part of the investigation? Oh, I almost forgot: sign here for permission for forensics to collect some of your personal items as evidence. You'll be surprised at the clues these small-time crooks leave behind in the, for example, the pantry."
Kai couldn't help it: he laughed out loud. "Touché." He pushed the papers aside.
"Just going by the book, sir."
Kai snorted, tapped his knee with the pen, as he regarded the man sitting across from him. He was torn between amusement and impatience. Forget the pleasantries – he could clamp a hand around this smartass's shoulder, yank him to his apartment and clout the truth out of him, magic optional.
Or he could appreciate the fact that this was one of Bonnie's oldest friends, the one person she chose to accompany her into dangerous territory, and figure out how to use that.
After all, Kai used to be really good at figuring people out and figuring out how to use his knowledge of them to his advantage? It had been a survival technique honed through years of observing and imitating behaviour that had always seemed foreign to him.
Well now that he had all this pesky empathy, wasn't it supposed to make that technique easier?
He thought again about Matt Donovan's connection to Bonnie.
It always came back to her, didn't it? He thought with a tinge of bitterness.
He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. "I don't want trouble, Officer. I know you're worried about Bonnie."
The effort it took Kai to say her name so casually was almost worth the flicker of emotion that crossed the other man's face.
A flicker of emotion that immediately raised Kai's hackles. For a moment, he stared hard at the man, wondering…
Then he shook his head, refocused on the task at hand.
"I already know you were both in my apartment that day. I don't have a problem with that. You did what you had to do. But you were also the first people to see the heretics after they got out of the Prison World and there are a hella lot of unanswered questions about the why and how of that. She's not… around so that leaves you."
"But the heretics are dead. What does it ma-"
"You're a cop, aren't you? Then you should know that the case isn't over until all the questions are answered, not whether the bad guys are dead or not. And my biggest question is how they got out in the first place."
Donovan cocked his head. "Bonnie left her blood in the snow. They had the Ascendant, they heard her do the spell…"
Kai blinked. OK, so maybe the Token Mundane was not decorative after all.
"Impressive," he admitted as much. "But I was one step ahead of them and I made sure that even with all that, they won't be getting out of the Prison World."
I was one step ahead of them, all right. But I really should have been one step ahead of myself.
He winced as the sudden, bitter thought.
Donovan was staring. "What do you mean?"
Kai hedged. "Let's just say that as coven leader, I could and I did put a few extra locks in place. The Ascendant, Bennett blood and a pesky spell shouldn't have been enough for the heretics to break out. No offence, but I don't have time to explain the nitty-gritty details to a m…" At the man's frown, Kai quickly back-tracked. "I mean, most of this stuff is kinda coven-exclusive, you know? Gemini trademark secrets and all that. No time to clear with the witchy Consigliere. Just take my word for it, OK? If you follow me now to my apartment, there's a spell you can help me with to figure out how they did."
The mundane was still clearly unconvinced, his eyes narrowed with suspicion. Kai tried for a friendly grin. "Come on, didn't anyone tell you? I'm one of the good guys now. I grew the beard and everything."
"So you're not going after Bonnie?"
Kai almost laughed again.
Is that the real problem here? Well then, you can bet your law enforcement career that I'm going after Bonnie!
Just not the way you're thinking.
But Kai kept that to himself. Or tried to. From the feeling of sudden heat on his face, and Donovan's appraising look, he wondered how well a job he did of that.
"No, Donovan. I just want to figure out how this happened." He cleared his throat. "I don't know how much your friends told you about my coven's Prison Worlds, but they were built for some very bad people. It's for all our best interests that we know for certain how these guys engineered their prison break. Make sure no one else repeats the trick."
"You mean like you?" Donovan asked, but there was no bite in his voice. He looked thoughtful, considering. Then he shrugged. "Fine. Count me in. I've teamed up with worse for the greater good. What do I do?"
Teamed up with worse? Kai thought with outrage. Oh, for the glory days of his sociopathy! He'd teach this Pet Mundane a thing or two about Big Bads.
Instead, he could only plaster a smile on his face, and stretch out his hand. "Let's shake on it."
Donovan took the proffered hand – and Kai yanked them both out of that dingy cubicle.
June 2014
Mystic Falls
"And when Matt came to, he was back in his cubicle, with a bottle of water and two Aspirins on the desk beside him."
Lucy's laugh through the Bluetooth speakers of the car was almost infectious. "Considerate. I think I like this guy."
Almost.
Bonnie scowled. "Or he could have just warned Matt about what the spell could do. Even better, asked his consent before he performed invasive magic on him."
"The Memorian spell is hardly invasive magic, Bonnie. Come on, did Matt suffer any ill effects after taking his pain-killers?"
"'Take drugs from some weirdo who kinda kidnapped me and did juju on me in my sleep? Er… no can do.'" Bonnie repeated Matt's exact words verbatim, deep throat accent and all. Lucy chuckled at that and Bonnie cracked a small grin. "He slept it off. He felt fine the next day."
"My point exactly, Bon. The only reason why that Gemini wizard's spell hit you so badly was because you're already carrying so much on your shoulders. Whatever happened to staying out of the Mystic Falls Drama? Choosing a major, getting in on the Dean's list, working towards graduating summa cum laude, and all that boring college stuff that's been so important this past year?"
Bonnie sighed. She stared through the windscreen of Matt's police car to the man himself, standing by the hotdog stand and haggling with the vendor. It was a wet Sunday morning, and his image was blurred as the splashes of water ran down the glass. Even with the engine and the heat on, Bonnie felt the chill. She wondered how much of it was from the weather or just her own trepidations.
"This will be the last time, Luce," she said at last.
Lucy snorted. "That's what they always say. Admit it, Bonnie. This is you. Your Hero Complex. Saviour Syndrome. Whatever you want to call it. You can't walk away from a fight."
Bonnie flinched, her cousin's casual throwaway hitting harder than she probably realised.
"I can't walk away from a fight? Really? So what did I do when those werewolves were rampaging through campus? Or when the shapeshifter who was pretending to be a dragon-"
"What? What did you say?"
Bonnie raised an eyebrow, surprised at the sudden urgency in Lucy's voice. "The werewolves-"
"No, Bonnie. The dragon."
Bonnie laughed. "Oh that. Not a dragon, Lucy, I promise you. The gang took it out within weeks of it popping into Mystic Falls. It was either a shapeshifter or some other weirdo type creature that I've never heard about."
"I've never heard of vampires defeating a dragon before…" Lucy said, her voice uncertain.
"And you're not hearing it from me now." Bonnie lifted her head as the car door opened and grinned at the hot cup of coffee that Matt proffered. "Whatever Damon and co took out, that was certainly not a dragon."
Matt gave her a sharp frown at that. He shook his head.
'Sorry but it wasn't,' Bonnie mouthed.
He shook his head fiercely.
Bonnie gave him a 'get over it' shrug in reply; and he glared harder.
Bonnie rolled her eyes. Whatever.
"Mmm…."
Lucy sounded like if her mind was wandering, and Bonnie pulled her back to the point of the conversation. "So you're certain, right? The Memorian spell won't work without the people that were in the scene in question being physically present in the scene in question?"
"Yep. It recreates the reality from the conscious and sub-conscious memories of those present. And it gives reality – not glamours, not illusions, cloaking too is revealed. But the key ingredient is the memories of the people present. They can be sleeping, unconscious, in a coma, whatever. As long as they are existing in this realm, it's enough. It won't work, for example, if the ghost of a murder victim is haunting the scene of his murder."
"Or if none of the people are present, right?"
"Exactly. So this Asshat dude needed you and the others there – the more, the more detailed, more 'coverage' is the memory – and the Gemini Praetor needed Matt in his apartment to recreate what happened when you and Matt encountered the heretics. There's no way else he'd have known for sure what happened – short of using you, yourself."
Matt, who had been listening to the conversation keenly, sighed heavily. His eyes were sad as he mouthed to Bonnie, 'I'm sorry.'
'What the heck for?' she mouthed back, surprised.
He just sighed again.
"So," Bonnie asked Lucy with a knowing eye on Matt, "if, for example, I were to break into the boardings of a visiting Gemini wizard and rob him of certain books… Unless he physically drags me – or anyone helping me – back there, there's no way he can do this spell and confirm that I'm the one who stole these books and I dunno, get me thrown into some Gemini Prison World for breaking and entering, theft of sacred text, larceny, etc.?"
"No," Lucy started, then the rest of the question finally sank in. "Wait – what?"
"Nice talking to you, Luce! I'll let you know how it all works out."
"Wait a minute! Bonnie, you are not going to mess with some Gemini Envoy, are you? Bonnie, wait-"
"Oops, I'm entering a tunnel. Line's breaking up! I… can't… hear…"
Bonnie switched off the phone.
Matt burst out laughing. "That was mean."
"That was necessary. You'll be surprised out how petty Lucy can be over me pumping her for information but not advice. Apparently, there's a world of difference" She gave him a triumphant grin and reached for the black bag she had thrown on the floor. "You heard her. Our mission is a Go."
"Still seems like too much trouble just to get some damn books back for Liv. Why can't you just let this Parrish guy take them back to Portland and leave Liv to deal with her Gemini people? I mean, how bad can it be, Bonnie? You're a good witch, Bonnie. You saved their asses on Jo's wedding. And she's a freaking Parker. Her brother is like their King or something."
Bonnie pressed her lips together, as she retrieved a candle, and a small palm-sized pot of incense. "The Gemini are creepy and weird. What else is new?"
"I don't like them, at all. Any of them. That whole Parker family is sick."
She gave him a look, surprised at his sudden vehemence. "You don't like Liv?"
"Liv is alright. It's the rest I don't care about."
"The rest? Like Jo? Her twins?" Bonnie smiled as she balanced a candle on the dashboard.
"Not them. I mean everyone else…" When she kept staring, he burst out. "Remember when they tortured Luke for trying to help us save Elena and Stefan from the Travellers? Their idea of an election is ritual murder. Come on, Bonnie…"
Her smiled slipped. "Well, I'm the last person to defend the Gemini. Which is all the more reason why I don't need any more enemies there than I can help. And now that Liv's here in Mystic Falls, we can use her help. We can pick her brains some more about the heretics. Jo got back to me about Georgiana Parker. Nothing. Apparently, the Gemini scour out records of any known syphons from their books – and" – Bonnie clenched her fingers – "the only person who can get any kind of information about the inmates of any of the Gemini Prison Worlds is the Praetor. It's information that is buried under layers and layers of cloaking spells, a lock within a lock within a lock. Praetors don't even pass the information between themselves. Just how to access it if they need to." She sighed.
"So Liv isn't likely to know either," Matt said shrewdly.
Too shrewdly for Bonnie's sake. She glared at him and he raised his hands up. "Well, I'm just saying…"
"She might know. Liv was training to be a Praetor for a very long time. She might have some knowledge that Jo won't."
"Wasn't Jo also trained to be a Praetor? She and her brother were the older twins."
Bonnie shook her head. "No, that's not what happened at all. Jo was never prepared because that would have meant preparing Kai, too; and because of his siphoning, he was never a candidate to lead." It was almost textbook ironic.
"That's shitty even for the Gemini," Matt said simply.
It was. Bonnie had long thought so. But there was no point saying it aloud. Or dwelling on it. So many wrongs, maybes, what-ifs? What was important was the here and now.
And the here and now was preparing the spell to track Quentin Asshatt's whereabouts so that they could break into his apartment and rob him.
"Be careful with that," Matt said, eying the candle.
"Relax, Deputy Donovan," she said with a grin. "Not going to wreck your shiny new police car. Do you let this car see any action at all? Or do you wax it every day?"
He scoffed. "I'll let you know that my machine sees a lot of action."
Bonnie gave him a sharp look but it looked like the innuendo had gone right over his head. Poor Matt, she snickered quietly.
"Talking about seeing action," he said suddenly, "way to misrepresent our run-in with the Dragon Demon Santa."
Bonnie shrugged. "Sorry to burst your bubble, Matt. But whatever that thing was, it wasn't a dragon."
"Who cares what you want to call it? I'm just pissed that you told Lucy that it was 'Damon and the gang' that did all the work when Damon wasn't even there at all! He had to take a sudden trip out of state."
"That's not like Damon," Bonnie said, frowning. "For all his many faults, he's never been one to walk away from a fight."
"Well, considering the fact that he was never in- Speak of the Devil!"
And, Bonnie realised with a muffled scream, the Devil appeared. Or in this case, the Damon, whose wet face was pressed up against her window, eyes bulging as he stared into the car.
After her initial shock, the next thing she felt was pissed. She wound down her glass – he almost fell in – and glared at him. "Excuse you? What the heck are you doing here? We're supposed to rendezvous at Lockwood's in an hour."
He grinned. "Thought you duffers could use some help. Plus, I was bored. Stefan's off sleuthing the campus massacre with Vampire Barbie. Tyler's keeping our visiting Gemini witch very occupied." He winked at Matt. "I take back everything bad I ever said about the wolf. The bloke's got stamina."
What Damon was referring to, in his usual disgusting way, was the fact that Tyler had 'rescued' Bonnie from the confrontation with Liv the day before. He had intercepted the blonde witch in Bonnie's apartment, keeping her there while Bonnie, Caroline and Damon sneaked off to the Lockwood mansion. Later on, Bonnie found out that Tyler and Liv had stayed on at the apartment for hours, with Liv even helping with the vervain painting, speeding it up with magic, then they had ended up in the hotel room she was lodged.
And were still there. Tyler had called in sick at the precinct.
As Damon had put it that morning when they worked out the details of their break-in of Asshat's place, Lockwood was valiantly taking one for the team.
Matt was laughing now, and started saying something undoubtedly disgusting about timberwolves – then fell silent when he caught Bonnie's disapproving eye.
"Get lost, Damon," she said. "There's a reason why this is a No-Vampires-Allowed mission. Just because I've been inoculated to you lot, you forget that the presence of a vampire anywhere near a seasoned witch is like a beacon of all things dead, vicious and monstrous. Quentin will sense your decaying aura and this heist will be over before it's started."
"You say the sweetest things, love," he retorted. "But I'm one step ahead of you, as always." He flashed his phone at her. She stared at a display from a Map apps. Squinting, she saw a little red dot all the way in the heart of Whitmore. Miles away from here.
"Got a tracker on Quentin Whatshisname. He's somewhere in Whitmore, also looking into the campus massacre. So you can stop playing around with candles and locator spells, and let's get this thing done with."
Bonnie gaped at his phone.
"Wow, that's nifty," she said, marvelling at the red dot of magic and technology combined. "What witch helped you do that?"
"Hasn't been seen in this parts for some time now. But I believe he once went by the name of Jobs. Steve Jobs?"
"I've never heard of him. Maybe I'll ask Lucy-" Then it registered, and she glared up at Damon's laughing face. Beside her, Matt – the traitor – was snickering.
"Very funny."
"Find My Phone app, witchy. But you should have seen the look on your face."
Bonnie grabbed her bag, and pushed her door open, getting him straight in the gut. He doubled over, gasping as she stepped out, barely turning her head to them. "Come on, then. We don't have all day."
All this while, the police car was parked across the street from the row of single-bed-and-bath semi-detached bungalows that were rented out as guest houses by one of the downtown realtors. Bonnie stretched out her senses to reaffirm that the house leased by Quentin was empty, then she pried through his boundary words and made quick work of his lock.
She grinned at Matt's awed observation of her breaking-in-and-entering skills. "Not going to arrest me, Officer Donovan?"
He scoffed. "Is it me or did you do that faster than you did the last time, in Kai's apartment?"
Bonnie's grin faded abruptly. "More or less," she muttered, and led the way into the house, the boys following.
The sense of déjà vu was inevitable – breaking into a Gemini wizard's home with Matt at her side, for the purpose of finding, and stealing something that belonged to their coven. It was probably why she didn't so much mind Damon tagging along either. At least, he broke the pattern.
It was a sparsely furnished studio flat. The only other door beside the front door led to a bathroom. Bonnie made her way to the open closet and stared hard at the empty space on the floor underneath the hanging clothes.
Either Quentin Asshat travelled very light or his luggage was cloaked.
"Spread out and search for anything that looks like it could be keeping those books. Just please be discreet. The idea is for him not to even notice they're gone."
"Waste of time, love," Damon murmured. "By the time, we're done tearing up this place, there's no way he'll know we weren't here. Unless you've been practising your housecleaning magic?"
Bonnie ignored him, and after a while, he wandered off. Matt hesitated, watching as Bonnie sank cross-legged on the floor and started unpacking some of the contents of her bag.
"Need any help?" he asked.
"No, thanks, Matt. Just keep an eye on Damon. Make sure he doesn't break anything. He hates this guy."
"Obviously, I heard that!" Damon snapped. "And I don't know what you're talking about. I've no quarrel with the bloke."
"Yeah, right. Caroline only needed to snap your neck because you were threatening some other Gemini Councillor."
That shut him up, leaving Bonnie with the much-needed peace and quiet to concentrate.
She stared at the arrangement of candles before her, the careful pattern drawn with quicksilver on the floor, the blueprints to the housing unit that Matt had downloaded via the police servers, and last but not the least – the strand of curling blonde Parker hair that Tyler had smuggled to them that morning.
Once again, the sense of déjà vu assailed her.
The locator spell was tricky, but Bonnie had already factored in the cloaking and after a few false starts, it took hold. Her eye followed the trail of blood on the blue print before her, then she raised her hand to find what it represented in the space around her. She gazed hard at the wall on the side of the room opposite the bed. Just blank wallpaper, not even a painting or some decorative mirror. But the locator spell told her that her books were suspended somewhere on that wall.
Now for the revelation spell.
Bonnie wiped her hands against her trousers, her palms damp with nervousness. After Europe and those wild days and nights with Freya and Nora, Bonnie had taken a long break from magic – not just being involved in supernatural affairs but in her own magic. She had swapped her Grimoire for textbooks and her candles and incense for multi-coloured post-its and highlighter pens. But months later, when she had escaped from whispers of the Demon Santa shenanigans in Mystic Falls to the West Coast where Lucy now lived, her cousin had re-awakened Bonnie's love for her own power – reminding her that magic was more than a weapon for others to exploit, and could be … well, fun. Bonnie had spent Christmas practising cool, new spells, honing her craft and she hadn't let up when she returned to Virginia with her new outlook:
Magic was her heritage, not her curse.
Just because she wasn't going to let people use her for her powers – didn't mean that she should ban herself from them. She had a right, heck an obligation, to practise her arts, expand her knowledge and be the best witch she could possibly be.
But still… the revelation spell was wound up with a lot of baggage that Bonnie had left unpacked for over a year. She could hardly blame herself for being nervous over it now.
She retraced the quicksilver markings, checking and re-checking that her calibrations limited the spell to only this space, for a few minutes. Nothing beyond the walls of this house would be uncloaked. When she was satisfied, she poised her palm over the blueprint, and slashed it, whispering the wordings of the spell softly.
Only she stumbled over the last phrase and the spell fizzled out – her blood falling upwards to the ceiling, bouncing off it and falling onto the blueprint in a messy splatter.
From across the room, Damon burst out laughing. "Guessing that wasn't meant to do that."
"Bonnie, are you OK?" Matt asked, coming over.
"I'm fine," she said, a beat after she muttered a quick cleansing spell while the botched magic was still potent. She was trying to quickly re-align the quicksilver markings when shadows fell over her.
"Go away, guys," she said with a sigh. "I don't need an audience for this."
Damon promptly plopped down beside her. "And miss out on the witchy-woo fun?"
"It's just a revelation spell," she said quietly.
"Like the one you cast over at…" Matt's voice trailed, his eyes flickering from Bonnie to Damon, clearly at a loss at how much the latter knew.
"Over at what?" Damon asked, his eyes narrowing with suspicion.
Bonnie shrugged. "It was a long time ago." But Damon pressed and pressed and Bonnie finally told him about the last time she had casted a revelation spell. She stuck to the bare bones of the story – going to Kai's apartment to find the Ascendant, back when she – thought she – had good reason to suspect him. She didn't mention that she had done the spell recklessly, desperately with no thought to the consequences of uncloaking things that were meant to stay cloaked.
When she finished, she eyed Damon warily, expecting him to pry into all the missing holes of her narrative. Even Matt was looking at her sceptically. Perhaps picking up for the first time that there was more to this story than even he knew.
But Damon didn't seem interested in the details surrounding the spell, but the magic itself. "So everything that's hidden? Cloaking spells, illusion spells and the like?" he asked, staring at the quicksilver patterns.
"But only in this room, for a little while. At least, if my configurations are correct. Then the spell ends and whatever was cloaked before goes back to being cloaked. That should give us a few minutes to find these books, swap them with my substitutes" – she tapped her black bag –"and scram."
Damon nodded, looking contemplative. He cracked his knuckles. "The speed trick is where I come in. Get going witchy, we haven't all day." He yanked out his phone, ostensibly to check the time, then he yelped. "Parrish's on the move."
"What?" Bonnie asked.
Damon was already on his feet. "I reckon he's doing the Gemini portal-jumping thingummy thing."
Matt stared. "How's that possible? I thought only the coven leader could do that?"
"The heretics could do that, too," Bonnie said thoughtfully. "It's really a question of power."
The moment she said it, all three of them froze. Then they exchanged glances as the same thought undoubtedly crossed their minds.
Could Quentin Parrish, member of the Council of the Gemini Coven, be working with the heretics?
"No way," Matt breathed.
"Why not?" Damon asked, his eyes shining. Bonnie half-expected his brows to start waggling but they stayed relatively calm. "Corrupt official in league with the heretics, their inside man working on…" He trailed off.
"On what?" Matt insisted. "The heretics haven't even left the Mystic Falls-Whitmore area. For all we know, they're staying clear of Portland and the capital of their creepy coven."
"For all we know," Damon said meaningfully. He started moving. "OK, I'll see what I can do about heading him off. You get that spell cooking, Bonnie."
She was already on it, her hand poised above the blueprint with the knife for slashing in the other hand.
"How're you going to do that if he's portal-jumping?" Matt cried.
But Damon had already left.
Bonnie slashed her hand, and whispered the words of the spell again. This time she got it right.
A light breeze swept through the tightly-sealed apartment, ruffling the blueprint on the floor. Then it stopped.
It was done. Bonnie looked up to the formerly empty wall to point at the huge suitcase now suspended in the middle of the wallspace.
"How much time do we have?" Matt asked, grabbing a chair and pushing it up against the wall.
"Five minutes. Give or take ten?" Bonnie replied as she started gathering her things and stuffing them into her bag.
"Seriously?" he grunted, stretching to reach the top zipper of the suitcase.
"Sorry. I've not got much practice on this spell. Just hurry, Matt. This guy is portal jumping towards us as we speak."
"No pressure," he snorted as he finally yanked the zipper open. An assortment of clothes, books, loose pages and candles fell out.
Bonnie yelped, shifting out of the path of the downfall. Then her yelp turned to a cry of triumph as she spotted the Grimoires and dived for them. She muttered a quick spell to send the rest of the stuff floating at Matt. She was distracted, hurriedly grabbing the books and trying to catch some of the loose leaves that had gone up with the spell, while overly conscious of the little time they had. So she couldn't help it if instead of the items floating in a dignified manner, they rose haphazardly towards Matt. Some hit him in the face and he swore.
"Sorry," she cried again, glancing up at him quickly – then pausing when she saw the outline of the luggage shimmering. "The spell is ending. Quickly."
He had just stuffed in the last item, and yanked the zipper shut when the suitcase vanished before their eyes. The revelation spell was completed.
"Come on," she said, heart pounding as they gathered up her things into her bag. She swung it over her shoulder, and reached the door but had to stand there waiting and fidgeting as Matt put the chair back in the exact spot he had moved it from. He reached her, then he turned around to glance through the room for anything they had left out of place.
"Woah," he muttered and to Bonnie's dismay, he rushed back into the room to grab a loose brown parchment that was floating in the air. "From the Grimoires?" he asked, turning it over.
"No time to check. Just grab it and let's go," she said impatiently.
Her heartrate didn't return to normal until they were across the street, and moving towards the car.
"Mission accomplished, right?" she said, shooting a grin in Matt's direction.
He grinned back and reached over to give her a hi-five. "I'm walking out of here on my own two feet, at least. That's a nice change." He glanced up and down the street just before getting into the car. "He's nowhere in sight. We could have given ourselves a few more minutes to do a proper look-over."
Bonnie closed her door and strapped in. "Well, even if he suspects something, he won't be able to prove it. But if we're lucky he won't notice the books were taken until he's in Portland."
Matt started the car and she pulled out the particular tome she was most eager to check through. As he manoeuvred into the road, he asked if they needed to call Damon, and let him know they got out fine.
"A text will be faster. Then we'll call Tyler, and arrange a meet with Liv later in the day. Let her know that her precious Grimoires are back." She reached for her phone, and her hand brushed against a loose piece of parchment paper. It was the last page that Matt had grabbed from the floor just before they left. She was about to stuff it into one of the tomes when a line on the paper caught her eye.
She paused to read down the list.
"Matt," she said slowly. "What was the name of the old witch that died while I was in Portland? The one whose body we went to the M. E. to see yesterday?"
"Er…" he frowned. "Stewart, I think? Julie Stewart."
"Judith Stewart," Bonnie corrected quietly. "And the old wizards? The married couple? The ones who died almost a month ago?" When Matt frowned, struggling to remember, Bonnie added. "They moved into the house next to my Grams. Weren't they called Briggs?"
When he still looked puzzled, she glanced at the digital display on his dashboard. "Matt, your onboard computer is hooked up to the police database right?" When he nodded, she went on, "Let's try and run some names through that database right now."
He glanced from the windshield to stare at the paper in her hand. "What names? What's that?"
"I think… I'm not sure… But I think that this is a Kill List, Matt."
June 2013
"Am I still on your shit list? And if I am, can you just take me off it for an hour or two? Because I really need a friend."
Bonnie had had late lab work and returned to her dorm with a pile of even more work. Ever since – everything – she had been trying to swamp herself with activity as much as possible. Inundate her heart and soul with disciplined academic grunt work. Anything to keep her mind off the storm that was her emotional life right now.
On the more practical side, she had missed so many credits that year that she genuinely needed the extra work to make up for it. Signing up for summer classes hadn't been optional but she had an extra reason to be thankful for that.
The last thing she needed was to deal with Damon Salvatore. But there he was, sitting at the edge of Elena's bed, that mock-innocent expression on his face that he adapted when he wanted to worm something from her that he knew she won't ordinarily give.
He was about to waste his time and hers.
There had been a pile of flyers in front of her door, some about still-available summer classes and party invites, but most were about the upcoming construction work that was going to affect her dorm. Damon had picked up one of those flyers and he now waved it at her like a white flag.
"Bad news, Bon," he said with fake earnestness. "Looks like the Suits that bought this place finally clued in that this dorm room of yours is larger than most people's homes. Bye-bye vaulted ceilings and multiple light fixtures. Wanna bet the rent will stay the same?" His eyes popped with exaggerated outrage.
Bonnie left the door wide open and stood by it, arms folded.
With a dramatic sigh, Damon dropped the flyer and the act. "I'm sorry, Bonnie, OK? Lying about your birthday… tricking you into releasing my mother… We were buddies and that was not cool."
"Too little, too late," she bit out.
His eyes narrowed. "So it's too little too late for me but for Kai Parker…" Something dark and dangerous must have flashed across her face because he backed off, throwing up his hands in a peace-offering. "Look, BonBon, I promise I didn't come here to fight. I just wanted to know if you've seen Elena?"
For a moment, she considered not answering him, on the sheer principle of not wanting to help Damon Salvatore with anything whatsoever.
"I haven't seen her since just after the wedding," she said finally. The sooner he got what he wanted, the sooner he'd leave. "She sent me a text once that she was OK and not to worry." Which was almost funny because Bonnie had not even given Elena's absence a thought until then, assuming that she was in Mystic Falls with Damon. That is, when Bonnie thought of Elena at all. She had her own problems to deal with.
He frowned, clearly not happy with Bonnie's answer.
"You can leave now," Bonnie prompted helpfully.
He didn't look like if he was about to. "So she hasn't mentioned anything about me? About us?" When she shook her head exasperatedly, something like genuine pain flickered across his face. "What's going on, Bonnie? She freaked out when I told her I was going to take the Cure with her. She ignored every attempt I made to talk about it, and instead went to Jo's bachelorette. Which… OK, I went to Alaric's stag party, too. So I figured she needed a while to think about our options. I was expecting her to take the Cure after the Wedding at least but then the next day, she had taken the Cure already! So I thought OK, I'm going to take the Cure from her but we never really got a chance to talk at the Wedding, what with heretics crashing the party and all and then… since then…" He seemed to struggle to find the words.
Bonnie sighed. "Look, Damon. I don't want to get involved-"
"You're her friend. Are you telling me that you haven't noticed she's changed? Haven't noticed she's not been herself since she took the Cure?"
"I might have seen Elena" – Bonnie raised three fingers – "so many times since that happened. Damon, I have my own crap to deal with. I really need you to leave right now."
"My brother's gone, too," he said, his face growing dark. "Took me a while to notice it. I thought he was with Caroline, doing the post-humanity-off mutual flagellation thing for change – instead of the usual solo-flagellation thing he's perfected over the decades. Then I found out that Enzo's the one babysitting Vampire Barbie and Stefan was just… gone. I don't suppose Elena mentioned that to you, did she? That she's with Stefan?"
"No," Bonnie said automatically. She hadn't been aware of anything Damon just said. So this was what happened when you had your own personal melodrama to deal with? You got so self-involved, you were oblivious to the physical and emotional whereabouts of your friends.
Wow. It almost put things in perspective.
"You'd tell me if you knew right? If she said anything to you? You won't hold back for my sake?"
Bonnie laughed – she couldn't help it; the incredulity of the situation ripped it out of her. "Why would I care to hold back? To spare your feelings? The feelings of the guy who – gosh, where do I start with the crap you've put me through but let's use the last one – almost strangled me to death for not wanting to help your crazed mother free her deranged family of freaks?"
She could feel the shift in his mood, the way he struggled to keep his face and voice neutral. "But I didn't strangle you to death. Doesn't that count for something?"
When she gasped, he went on. "You know that I let my crazed mom be taken back to her Prison World, right? Handed her over to your boyfriend and everything?" He watched her carefully, something like suspicion in his gaze.
"He's not my boyfriend," Bonnie snapped, her colour rising.
"I'm not judging, Bon. But I have to say that it's mighty hypocritical of you to hold the whole birthday thing against me but be OK with screwing the guy that stabbed-and-abandoned you back in 1994."
"When I need your opinion, Damon," she said through gritted teeth, "I'll ask for it."
He smirked, and leaned back on the bed with his arms folded under his head. For some strange reason, he looked relieved. "By the by, I saw the guy last night at the Grill and boy, was he a wreck."
She hadn't even known that Kai was still in town. Since their disastrous last meeting, she had assumed he had left to Portland. Now Damon's words made her heart leap. She tried to school her face to be as dispassionate as possible but her surprise and interest must have shown because Damon's smirk widened.
"What did he do now to piss you off, Bonnie? I mean, you had obviously already got over the said stabbing-and-abandoning thing."
"Kai didn't abandon me," Bonnie corrected softly. "You did. As for the rest… I was stupid enough to think you were my friend at a time. So clearly, I have poor judgment. It doesn't only apply to you."
Damon scoffed. "Nope, it just means you can't lord your high-and-judgy self over the rest of us. Can't go around giving your friends sound advice about their love lives since you're just as capable of making bad choices as the rest of us."
So that was where this was going. As always, Damon Salvatore's only interest in other people's lives was to the extent that it affected him.
"If you're trying to imply that I'm somehow involved in turning Elena against you, Damon, then you're wrong and stupid."
"I hope not, for your sake," he said and the mask dropped then, his eyes turning cold and viper-like. "Because if you had helped Lily, she'd have returned the Cure to me and I would have kept it from Elena and everything would be as it was. I'm going to look past that for now, but if I find out that you've done anything else to turn Elena from me…" He smiled unpleasantly as he got up.
She watched him stalk towards her, her magic rushing defensively to her hands. When he was inches from her, he raised his hands and mimed snapping someone's neck.
"For the sake of our 'friendship', Damon," Bonnie whispered softly. "I think you should leave now before I set you on fire."
He tipped an imaginary hat to her. "When you hear from her, tell Elena that she needs to come home…"
The '…or else' was implied.
"Get out, Damon. I'm not going to say it again."
He shouldered past her as he left the room.
June 2014
Mystic Falls
Tyler nearly knocked her down on his way out of the door.
"Woah!"
"Sorry." He said hastily, righting her then moving quickly to the police car in the driveway, all the while tucking his shirt into his pants. "I… I'm late for my shift. Liv's here, by the way. Hope you've got her stuff?"
"What? S… she's here? You're leaving?" Bonnie didn't even know where to start. "Didn't you get our message? We're trying to hold a meet now. Care and Stephan are on their way."
"Hold it without me!" he yelled as he started the engine. "If I miss this shift, the Chief will fry my ass."
Matt, who had been chuckling under his breath all this while, managed to yell out before the car pulled out. "You've got lipstick on your shirt, dude!"
Tyler hastily checked himself in the rearview mirror. Of course, his shirt was spotless. As the car drove down the winding lane to the mansion gates, he stuck out his hand to give his friend the finger. But there was a wide grin across his face.
Bonnie rolled her eyes as she entered the house. "Glad to know somebody's getting their happy ending," she muttered. Not that she was bitter or anything like that.
Oh, not at all.
Voices led them through the palatial mansion to the state of the art kitchen. There Damon was seated at the island, a bottle of bourbon and a glass in front of him. Bonnie had barely had time to frown her disapproval when Liv's frame popped up from behind the open fridge.
"Good, you're back. Do any of you know how to cook? This fridge is full of booze and chips and I'm starving."
She looked and sounded her usual self. Bonnie was relieved. It might make her a Grinch of sorts, but she didn't think she could have stood being around a cooing lovebird.
"Someone worked herself an appetite," Damon remarked.
"Get bent, Vampire," Liv drawled.
"You mean like Lockwood did you? Hey, is this kitchen table even clean-"
"Hey! Hey!" Bonnie yelled, throwing up her arms before things turned ugly. With these two volatile personalities, it was hard to tell what was playful banter and what was the prelude to a throw-down. She eyed Matt – who had just started chuckling again – balefully. "Save the snark for never, people. We've got things to talk about now."
"Yeah, we do," Damon said with uncharacteristic seriousness. "Where the hell were you guys? Weren't we supposed to meet over an hour ago?"
"We stopped over at the Sheriff's. We couldn't have taken more than a few minutes, Damon."
"You took way lot longer. Next time, give me a heads up when you're changing the plan."
Matt sputtered at that. "Seriously? You're the one who crashed our heist this morning and now you're bitching because we were a few minutes late?"
"When did I…?"
"Your friends were on a heist and you've been sitting around here, slut-shaming me?" Liv murmured, as she took a seat across the vampire.
He glared at her.
"If you were that worried, you should have called, Damon," Bonnie added. She waved her phone at him. "But guess what? You didn't."
"Couldn't find my phone," he grumbled. He snuck her a guilty look. "Actually, that's when I realised you guys were taking too long. I needed you to do a locator spell for it."
Bonnie gaped. "Of all the…"
Liv cleared her throat. "Bonnie, about my Grim-"
Matt intervened. "OK, so the others aren't here yet. But Liv is, and she's the VIP for this so let's just share what we found with her. Right, Bonnie?" He indicated the folder he carried, bulging with files.
Bonnie gave Damon one final side-eye, then sat down next to Liv. The other witch looked startled, then delighted as Bonnie yanked out the Grimoires from her bag.
"Your books. Sorry about… everything."
"By everything, you mean stealing them and then getting caught by Parrish of all people?" But there was no bite in Liv's voice, just relief.
"Kinda," Bonnie admitted, shamefaced.
Liv grinned. "No problem. That doesn't mean this should ever happen again," she added hastily as she gathered the books. "Found anything useful?"
"So-so," Bonnie said noncommittally. "Look, Liv…"
"Cryptic," Liv said throwing Bonnie an amused look, then glancing over at Damon and Matt. "Your League of Mystic Falls Avengers seems kinda lean. Where is everyone else?"
"Busy doing your coven's work for you," Damon retorted. "You're welcome."
Liv smirked. "Let me guess… you and Quentin aren't getting along?" At the faces that Damon and Bonnie made, she burst out laughing. "If you're going to pick and choose who you work with, then you need to do either recruit more suckers or at least lure back your retirees. Speaking of which, how is the doppelgänger?" Her eyes glinted maliciously at Damon.
Matt shifted impatiently but Bonnie threw Damon a side-eyed glance. The one-time love of Elena's life didn't seem fazed by Liv's probing, shrugging as he filled up his glass. "Some war zone or the other, saving the world one broken leg at a time. At least that's what I heard – third-hand. Ex-boyfriends didn't make Dr. Gilbert's mailing list."
Liv gaped. Unlike the others who had got used to Damon's strange way of coping with Elena's departure, she was clearly dumbfounded at his very convincing disinterest and complete dispassion at the whole topic.
She shook her head slowly. "I never thought I'd see the day…"
"Can we save the romantic gossip for later?" Matt grumbled. "We have something important to ask you." He nudged Bonnie.
Liv and Damon stared at the other two. "Ask me?" she echoed.
"Yes, actually," Bonnie said, a bubble of anticipation rising inside her. "We found this when we went to get the Grimoires." She pulled out the single parchment from her bag and pushed it over at Liv.
The witch stared at the list of names and the blood seemed to leach from her face. "What is this?" she whispered.
Bonnie exchanged a knowing glance with Matt.
"Are any of those names familiar?" he asked, and there was a subtle inflection in his voice that surprised Bonnie. At that moment, it struck her in a way that it never had before that he was a police officer.
"I…"
"Because we checked the police records. Martin Linus. Victor Briggs. Gabriel Briggs – changed his name from O'Sullivan when he got married. Judith Stewart. Patrice Lang. Isach Genova. Bethany Stewart. All born in Portland roughly around the same time. All…"
"Gemini witches," Bonnie finished.
Liv was still silent.
Matt pressed on. "Records show that six of these people dropped off the grid around the same time last year. They moved out of their usual residences, stopped using their credit cards, switched off their mobiles… They vanished. Until they started showing up, one by one.
"And started dying."
"What's going ..." Damon started and Matt shushed him.
Damon was so surprised at that that he actually stayed silent.
"Did you speak to my brother about this?" Liv asked quietly.
Bonnie's stomach flipped.
"No." Matt answered, speaking up quickly, to Bonnie's silent relief. "You're here; he's there. It seemed sensible to come to you."
Liv looked up then, her forehead furrowed with confusion. "Then how do you…?" She checked herself. Then she spoke again, her voice cautious now. "What do you know?"
Bonnie and Matt exchanged looks again.
"You tell us what you know first," Matt insisted. "Can you confirm that these are Gemini witches?"
Liv answered slowly, thinking over her words. "The Stewarts, of course. I knew the Briggs personally. The others…? Not really. I mean, it's a large coven. I don't know every single witch. But you don't grow up as Joshua Parker's daughter, in line to lead, and not learn the last names of the families in your coven. And all these last names are definitely Gemini. So I guess that the answer to your question is: yes, these are probably all Gemini witches." She drew in a long breath. "Now's my turn to ask questions. What is this list for?"
Matt opened the folder and spread out its contents. Print outs of police reports and autopsies covered half of the island. "Out of these seven people, three are missing and four are dead."
"The Briggs. Judith Stewart. But that's three, right? Who's the fourth?"
"Martin Linus died of a heart attack a few years ago."
"Supposedly," Bonnie added.
"While the other three were murdered-"
"-by heretics," Liv completed. She sat back in her chair, her face shuttered. "I see now."
Damon leaned forward, his eyebrows so high that they almost vanished into his hair. "See what? What is-"
Matt cut in. "Look at the order of the names – Linus. Briggs. O'Sullivan. Stewart. Lang. Genova. Stewart. Linus died years ago of natural courses – we think – but he still died first. Victor and Gabriel Briggs were two of the heretics's first kills when they returned. Judith Stewart was murdered while I was in Portland. Her phone is in the evidence locker. Patrice Lang was listed in it as an Emergency contact. He was contacted but he never got back to the Station. That's been days now. I've put out an APB for Genova and Stewart but something tells me that it might already be too…"
"No," Liv said vehemently, her eyes flashing. "If they're taking them out in order, then it's not too late. Maybe the other two are safe. Maybe they-"
"Who's they?" Damon demanded impatiently. "Come on guys, you're talking over my head. What the hell is going on?"
Bonnie shifted the parchment to him. "We think this is a Kill List."
"A what?"
"There are seven names on that list. All Gemini witches. Four of those people are confirmed dead. Killed in the exact same order as written on the list. One might already be. He and the other two have been missing for over a year. It can't be a coincidence."
"There are no coincidences," Matt said gravely.
Damon whistled, long and low. "Where did you get this?"
"We found it in Quentin Parrish's luggage," Bonnie answered. "We thought it was part of the Grimoires but I never saw anything like this in the tomes when I had them, and I combed through those tomes pretty thoroughly."
She gave Liv a piercing look.
For a moment, Liv just blinked back, confused; then she goggled, her eyes almost falling out, as she finally grasped Bonnie's insinuation. "What…? You think… that this… this Kill List is Quent's?"
"It was in his luggage," Matt stated, his voice turning even more 'cop'-like.
Liv shook her head, then let out a strangled laugh. "No way. Quentin had nothing to do with this. Quentin…" She seemed to struggle for words. "Look, Quentin and my family go back a long way. Quentin was Luke's…" Her voice trailed off as sudden pain flashed across her face. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
"Hey," Bonnie said softly, putting a hand on Liv's shoulder.
Liv smiled thinly, but her eyes were still closed. She took another deep breath before she opened them. They were shining.
The others looked away.
When she spoke again, Liv's voice was scratchy. "Quentin is a bit of a … tool, I know." She cleared her throat and laughed at the same time. "But he's not some… heretic-conspirator slash murderer, OK? I don't vouch for a lot of people but I can vouch for Quentin."
"Then what was this list doing in his luggage?"
Liv shrugged. "I don't know. He's here in Virginia to help you guys out. Maybe he found it while he was doing his own snooping. Maybe he wrote it because he's figured out a pattern to the killings? Or maybe it's just a coincidence? The heretics kill witches and these witches…" She checked herself.
"If there's anything you know and you're keeping from us…" Matt warned.
"Chill!" Liv exclaimed. "I was just figuring out something in my head. OK, I'm not certain about this but a lot of those names are – I think – names of witches who went underground after Kai became leader."
Bonnie felt her heart leap.
Liv shrugged again. "That could be why they all seem to have dropped out of the grid for a year. That's around the time since Kai came back. We all went underground after the Merge; could you blame us? We had no idea what Kai was going to do then. But then he and my Dad made nice and Dad convinced us to come back. Most of us did. A bunch didn't. Although…" Her voice slowed as it became thoughtful. "They've been trickling back. Kai pardoned them. Perhaps," she added, her voice getting strong, "that's why Quentin had this list. Maybe they're the names of the witches still in hiding."
"He did?" Bonnie asked eagerly. "Kai, I mean. He pardoned the exiles?" She kept her voice as neutral as possible, and ignored the knowing look that Damon threw her before he took a swig from his glass.
Liv was about to answer when Matt interrupted, his voice cold. "Be that as it may, that doesn't explain this list. Why is it written in the order of these deaths? And Martin Linus died years ago, didn't he? Before Kai became leader, right? So he was never part of the group of witches who left in the first place."
Liv threw up her hands in surrender. "Look, I know it looks bad. But believe me, Quentin is not guilty. I just don't… I just can't believe it."
"Maybe you don't know your friend as well as you think you know," Matt insisted.
Liv chuckled again. Her voice was certain now, even tinged with amusement. "Quentin Parrish's not my friend. He's a pain in the ass and a wet blanket. He got the oxymoronic job of 'Council Envoy'" — she made air quotes — "because he's such a rule stickler he actually thought it was a promotion and not just the job you give to the guy that's grimoire-smart but can't cut it in the field. Believe me when I tell you that Quentin is the absolute last person to get mixed up with heretics who tried to murder our entire coven."
"Well, until we can find a good reason for this list, he remains a person of interest in our investigations."
"What?"
Damon guffawed and even Bonnie bit back a laugh.
"Matt, this is not a police investigation," she said, smiling a little.
But Matt's demeanour didn't crack. He gathered the papers strewn on the surface with brisk sternness. "Maybe not officially, but this is Mystic Falls. We mundanes" – he scoffed over the word – "are not as clueless as you'd like to think."
Bonnie blinked. "We… you… Matt, where is this coming from?"
He turned on her with a glare, tension stark on his face and body – and Bonnie was so shocked at that, that she started.
"Matt?" she asked, weakly.
"Easy now, Donovan," Damon said. He sounded mild enough, but his hand around his glass had tightened into a white-knuckled fist.
There was a long tense silence.
Liv broke it.
"I'll speak to Quentin."
Everyone rounded on her for that, protesting.
Liv raised her hand for silence. "I won't tell him about the list. Gosh, I'm not an idiot! I'll just feel him out. Drop some names. Fish out where he got that list from, what he knows. None of you can do it because you're all stuck in your theory and won't budge from it. But I know this guy and most importantly, I know my coven. If this is really a kill list, like you said, and if Quentin is – in the one-in-a-billion odds of this – is actually involved with it, then this is Gemini coven business, and you guys are officially off the case." She raised her hand higher to ward off another round of protests. "It's one thing for random witches in exile to be killed. That's the whole reason why they shouldn't have been in exile in the first place. We can't protect them when they've cut off from the coven – and I know this sounds cruel – but we shouldn't, either."
Bonnie recoiled at the hardness in Liv's voice. Matt drew in a sharp breath.
Even Damon looked weirded out. "That's cold."
Liv shrugged. "Our strength is in our numbers and when a witch abandons the coven, they weaken the coven. So it teaches everyone else a lesson not to do so."
"You Gemini make me sick," Matt muttered.
"You'd think a mundane like yourself would appreciate what the Gemini do for your kind. Do you think it's a coincidence that the heretics are deliberately trying to keep the number of mundane murders low?"
"You call two massacres and a pair of high-school kids low?" Matt exclaimed.
"It kinda is by Mystic Falls standards," Damon said grudgingly. When Matt glared at him, he pulled a face. "Hey, I'm calling it as it is. It could be worse. It has been worse. Think Ripper Barbie and Ken worse." The vampire appraised the Gemini witch. "Last year, we were in the middle of a crisis when one of your lot called us." He narrated again what he had told Bonnie back in Portland. How the Gemini gave them an ultimatum about the mundane body count in Mystic Falls.
Matt was not impressed. "So as long as we keep our quota count low, you don't get involved? What happened to one life lost being one life too many? Mundane or witch?"
"Because you guys are all white hats, right?" Liv scoffed. "Your scorecard before we showed up wasn't impeccable so stop acting so self-righteous and judgemental about how we run our coven. Besides, it's like I said already: it's one thing for these dead witches to be exiles who were at the wrong place, at the wrong time. It's another thing for some other supernatural, for a heretic, to be specifically targeting them because they are Gemini witches. The way this list is written, the victims being killed in order, of the same age bracket. I'm not sure, but it looks like these are sacrifices for a ritual."
A ritual, Bonnie thought, sharing surprised looks with the two men. That hadn't occurred to her but of course, it made sense. It would be just like – and this thought made her shudder – an Expression triangle.
"What kind of ritual would need seven dead Gemini witches?" she whispered.
Liv shook her head. "I don't know. But if it is one, then this has become coven business. Kai's business."
"Too late," Damon barked. "We came to Portland cap in hand for your help and you turned us down. Now this is our little mystery and we're not sharing. To quote Officer Donovan, you're out of jurisdiction."
"I never said that," Matt interjected.
Damon smirked. "Because I beat you to it."
Liv scoffed as she got to her feet. "Like you're going to have a choice if – and it's a big IF – any of this is true. Look, if you guys don't need anything else, then I'm off. Apparently, I now have the Council Envoy to interrogate before I leave town tonight. Also, this place has nothing to eat."
She grabbed the Grimoires, her purse hanging from a chair, the parchment -
Matt held on to it. "That stays."
"How am I supposed to remember these names?" Liv asked, irritated.
"Take a picture."
She looked like if she was going to argue, holding onto her edge and matching Matt's glare. It was on the tip of Bonnie's tongue to ask Matt to let go. They had made taken pictures of the parchment already; and Bonnie had scanned it as thoroughly as she could for magical clues and she had found nothing. It was just a piece of parchment. But before Bonnie could speak, Liv shrugged, and pulled out her phone.
That reminded Bonnie. "Hey, Liv. Did any of your ancestors go by the name of Georgiana Parker?"
Liv was bent over the table to focus the camera's lens on the parchment. She paused to consider Bonnie's question. "I guess? I mean, I don't know for sure but the last name fits. Why?"
Bonnie, Matt and Damon exchanged glances over Liv's head. Damon and Matt shook their heads. Their message was clear: Don't tell her.
Bonnie frowned. Why not?
Matt scowled as Damon's eyebrows waggled. Just don't.
It made zero sense to Bonnie. Even if Liv told Quentin the heretic's name, what harm could it do? The heretic herself provided the information. Plus they had asked Jo already. Liv probably already knew this.
Liv had straightened up, paused expectantly. "Well?"
"Nothing," Matt started. "We just thought-"
"That's one of the heretics," Bonnie blurted out. "She introduced herself before she tried to eat me. Between her name and the fact that she looks like a redheaded shorter version of you, we're pretty sure you're related. We asked Jo, but she couldn't find anything because records of syphons are expunged from your archives, apparently."
"Jo said that?" Liv frowned, biting her lip thoughtfully.
"Did she talk to you about this?"
"No, she didn't." For a moment she seemed to think, and Bonnie waited hopefully, ignoring the sharp, angry looks that Matt threw her way. Damon just rolled his eyes heavenwards.
But Liv shook her head. "Well, she's right, I suppose. I'm quite certain that access to information about past syphons and prisoners from a Prison World will be the purview of the existing Praetor." Her eyes twinkled a little. "I guess you'll have to talk to-"
"No," Bonnie said sharply. She flushed when Liv peered at her, her eyes twinkling more, but continued. "I'm not. He won't help. He made that quite clear," she finished and even she could hear the bitterness in her voice.
Liv looked like if she was going to say something, then she changed her mind. "Well… in that case, I guess I could ask Quentin…"
"No." It was Matt's turn to speak.
Liv sighed. "He's right here. If he's good for one thing, it's having the Council's ear. You should actually be sharing information with him…"
"Share intel with the Asshat?" Damon snorted. "Don't make me laugh. Until we say otherwise, keep your lips sealed. From Asshat. From everyone."
Liv's brows rose. "Including my brother?"
"We can't let Parrish know we suspect him for any reason," Matt said, cutting over what Bonnie was about to say. "The more people in your coven know, the more likely he will find out."
Bonnie pressed her lips together, holding back her own reply.
Liv gasped in exasperation. "This is-"
"Are you deaf, Goldilocks?" Damon barked.
Liv drew herself up, and gave him a frosty glare. In heels, she was tall enough to be almost eyeball to eyeball with the vampire. "Bonnie, Matt. Later," she said without once taking her eyes off Damon. Then she turned to leave.
And drew to a sudden stop as she looked up in irritation at Damon, who had suddenly appeared in her way.
"Seriously? Bonnie, can you ask your pet vampire to move out of the way before I set him on fire?"
Bonnie rolled her eyes. What was it about these Gemini and their insistence that Bonnie should have some sort of leash on her vampire friends? First Quentin with Stefan the other day and now Liv with Damon.
It was enough to make a witch wonder if she should be leashing her vampire friends.
"I don't know about that," Matt said, cutting over Bonnie's answer. "You're so sure he's innocent, you'll probably blab to this guy."
Liv sighed. "Are we really going to do this?"
"Let her go, Damon," Bonnie said tiredly.
"Bonnie!" Matt snapped. Damon looked sceptical.
"Damon," Bonnie insisted.
He frowned. Then he shrugged, and slid out of the way.
Without looking back, Liv walked out of the door.
Matt exploded the moment she was gone.
"Seriously, Bonnie? Seriously?"
"Do you honestly think that Liv can't be trusted to keep our secrets?" Bonnie asked. "Or K…Kai if she tells him? They're not brain-washed by their coven. We've seen them go their own way lots of times."
"I can only speak for what I know. And what I know is that the Gemini are not to be trusted."
"Yeah, I know, Matt. You keep going on and on about that."
He pressed his lips firmly together, then grabbed his satchel and started walking away.
Surprised, Bonnie grabbed his arm, stopping him. "Hey!"
His face was red when he turned to her, but he didn't shrug her hand off.
"What's the matter, Matt?" she asked gently, when he did nothing but glare at her.
"Yeah, Donovan," Damon drawled from where he had drifted back to his bourbon. "I wasn't too keen on FauxNoobie going off without giving us a blood oath at least, but since BonBon gave her say-so, I chilled. I think there's something else that's got Detective Gadget all rattled up."
Matt's face reddened further.
"Damon, can you excuse us?" Bonnie asked tiredly.
"And miss the show?" he retorted. Bonnie glared him down. He got up with a shrug. "Donovan's probably going to choke anyway," he snarked as he gathered his bottle and glass and left.
Bonnie turned back to Matt. "OK, Matt. Spit it out. What's going on? What's eating you?"
"Nothing," he muttered.
"Really?" she drawled, crossing her arms. "Because you've been acting off for a while now. Don't think I haven't noticed that the others seem to be in on something about you that I'm not. What's the secret that everyone else in our little group seems to know but me? Did something happen when I was in Portland?" She shook her head, rejecting the thought at once. "No, it couldn't have been then because Damon clearly knows but I don't."
Matt's face was so red now, it looked like it was about to explode. "Did something happen to me in Portland?" he parroted. "How about me asking if something happened to you in Portland?"
"What?"
"Since when did you become such a big Gemini champion, anyway? You've never been a fan of that coven. Now you're defending them left and right!"
"What are you talking about? I haven't-"
"That was a Kill List, Bonnie! Ritual Murder! I don't care what explanations Liv gave for Parrish. Nothing else makes sense. After Judith Stewart's dead body turned up, I said there was a pattern in all this and I was right! These witches disappeared for a year. The heretics we thought had died returned after a year. Can't you see what that means?"
Bonnie shook her head, more thrown by her usually mild-tempered friend's rage than by his question.
"It means that everything… the deaths of those college kids yesterday… Tyler's cousins… the bank… Enzo… those were just window dressing. That Kill List was what the heretics were after. Those were their targets. Everyone else… The wolves, the vampires, the mundanes… Bonnie, heretics don't like eating mundanes. We're not their first choice of a meal because we don't have the kind of magic juice the rest of you carry. But you know what we're excellent for? Collateral damage."
She couldn't tell which hurt her more – the clear bitterness in his voice or the realization that was dawning on her, too.
"You think the heretics came back to sacrifice those witches. And that everyone else who died was just a cover for the real murders?"
He nodded.
No, Bonnie thought, her mind rebelling against the idea. It couldn't be. April Young and her friend. The students. The bank massacre. All those lives stolen brutally, violently…
… as window dressing?
But what did it matter? A murder was a murder was a murder.
No, it isn't.
It was one thing for the heretics to be mindless, conscience-less killers who thought they were at the top of their mythical food chain and could kill as they please. It was sick and disgusting but it almost – almost – made some kind of twisted supernatural biological sense.
It was another thing entirely to know that the series of murders, the mayhem, was deliberately staged as a cover for another purpose. They could have just killed their targets, but no, they chose bury them under bodies. People's lives taken for camouflage…
The kitchen door swung open as Stefan and Caroline stepped in, gasping a little as if they had ran all the way there from Whitmore. Considering that they were vampires, Bonnie thought distractedly, that was not impossible.
"We got here as soon as we could. What did we miss?"
Portland, Oregon
Alaric Saltzman was not one to procrastinate on a decision. After the resolution he had made earlier this Sunday morning, he called his old friends in Mystic Falls first chance he got.
"I did my best, guys but I came up empty. It's the oddest thing – Judith Stewart… I could have sworn I know that person. Or heard that name recently. But at the moment… nothing. Sorry, guys." He paused, thought of the best way to say what came next. "And you know… I know I offered to help but maybe… I'll just sit this one out. Call me an old, retired, has-been badass or anything you like, Damon. But this isn't my life anymore so I'm leaving this to the experts to deal with from now on. You take care of yourself, buddy."
Alaric made a face as he ended the call. He wished he could have spoken to Damon directly. It was a crappy thing to leave in a voice message. But maybe it was for the best. If Damon got on his case, he might be tempted to do something stupid.
The only regret he had was letting Bonnie down. She rarely asked for anything – technically, she hadn't even asked him to look into Judith Stewart. Alaric had offered. And he had come up with zilch.
With a sigh, he pocketed his phone and climbed up the steps. Done with his weekend markings, he wanted to spend time with his family.
He heard Jo's phone ringing as he walked down the hallway. She was either taking a shower or asleep. Whichever, it was an unnerving thing to listen to in a house full of easily cranky little babies. He stepped into their bedroom. His guess hadn't been too far off – Jo was at the dresser, drying her hair. He took a moment to admire his beautiful wife, her strong and sexy body, half of her dark hair wet and shiny while the other half was spread out like a fan under the blast of the dryer. With a grin, he tapped her on the shoulder and handed her her phone. That was when he noticed that the caller was Kai.
Huh, he wondered as he left the room. What was going on with that one? Jo had been complaining about Kai's sudden and mysterious disappearance from Oregon, shortly after Bonnie and Damon had also left. The official word was that the Gemini weren't getting involved with the heretic situation at Mystic Falls. But how much of that was Kai's decision and how much was the Council's? Could Kai have gone rogue? Or had he gone off on something else entirely? Alaric still had his alerts from his online supernatural forums. A lot of it was drivel, but there was always the 10%. After the past year's lull, there was suddenly a lot of chatter. News about brutal murders on the East Coast… old powers re-awakening… old secret societies being reformed… sightings of creatures that were mythical even by supernatural standards…
He stopped at the door of the nursery and chuckled loudly.
He had only just resolved to stay out of Mystic Falls' heretic palaver! Yet barely five minutes later, his mind was full of even more morbid scenarios.
I need a 12-Step Program. Vampire-Hunters Anonymous or something.
Shaking his head, he stepped through the door.
Rachel was on her mat, trying to touch the portable mobile hanging over her. She turned her head to the side and cooed at her father and he felt his heart melt.
"Hello, sweetheart," he murmured, coming to kneel beside her. He gave her a kiss and she grinned from ear to ear.
"Good afternoon to you, Mr. Saltzman," said Gab from across the room.
She was at the changing area, manoeuvring a diaper around a pair of fat legs.
"Hey, Gab," Alaric said with a small sigh. He had given up trying to convince her to call him 'Alaric'.
"Is their mama asleep? 'heard her phone ringing and now, you're here…"
He tried not to bristle. "She's fine. Just wanted to spend some time with my girls."
Gab also had slightly old-fashioned views about child-rearing though and she usually regarded Alaric as the last resort in all things babies. It had bugged him at first – still bugged him, if he were honest. He tried not to take it personally.
He smiled instead at his baby girl, and she rewarded him with a beatific smile of her own that turned his heart a little. He could never get enough of her and her sister. Jo didn't believe him but he could already see their differences in personality. Martha seemed to be the more adventurous of the two – first to hit her physical milestones, always grabbing and touching. Rachel was the more affectionate one, and showed all signs of getting to proper words first.
Moments later, Gab dropped Martha beside her sister. She was very pleased to see Alaric and after chattering excitedly, started rolling towards him. He and Gab burst out laughing.
"She's gonna walk first, I tell you. Too impatient to crawl, that one."
"You think so, too, right?" Alaric asked.
Gab hummed her yes. "Rachel'll be a talker but Martha's gonna be a runner."
"I knew it!" Alaric exclaimed, disproportionately smug. Wait until he told Jo.
Gab hummed again, getting to her feet. She went back to the changing area and started tidying up. Alaric got down on his stomach besides his girls and took turns playing 'this little piggie' with their tiny toes. They squeed with laughter in turn, each one poking her feet at him when she had to wait her turn.
For a while, he and his girls were in a world of their own. All thoughts of Judith Stewarts, and disappointed friends from Virginia had leeched out of his head. He wasn't even aware that Gab was still in the room until the sound of her throat clearing loudly finally pulled him out of his bubble.
He blinked up at her. "Anything, Gab?"
She gave him a long hard stare.
A prickle of alarm hit him and he quickly sat up, glancing at his daughters who were now playing a game of rolling towards each other and laughing and crying in turn. "What… is something wrong with…?"
"Girls are good, Mr. Saltzman."
"Oh." He felt relieved – then confused. "Then… is everything OK?"
She sniffed. "You won't think it to look at me now but I was something of a catch back in the day."
Alaric blinked. "I… believe it," he managed to say to this completely apropos of nothing declaration.
For a moment, she stared hard at him, as if to determine if he was being honest while he stared back, completely befuddled. Whatever was on his face must have satisfied her because she went on. "Dated a guy called Tommy as a kid. Tall, strong, not much of a wizard but definitely a lot of man, if you know what I mean. Sort of like you."
And the old lady gave the very married Alaric Saltzman a once-over that was disconcerting enough to make him take a hasty scoot back. "Er…"
"We were all set to make it to the altar, and we would have if not for Judgy Judy. That's what we used to call his sister back then. Bossy, bold, and not as smart as she thought she was. She served as Envoy with Betty Patel and my brother though he wasn't good enough for her either. Good thing though, considering she wasn't really his type." Gab snorted.
"Gab, I don't think-"
"The Stewart name used to be a big deal once upon a time but they had fallen on hard times. But Judith had big plans. She made her mark as Envoy and everyone paid attention after that. A mere O'Sullivan wasn't good enough for her precious brother anymore so she broke us up. Match-made him with the Patel girl instead."
Alaric had been thinking of how to extricate himself from the conversation. It wouldn't have been the first time that Gab had started rambling at a tangent apropos of nothing. The old woman was slightly gaga – something that had worried him a lot in the beginning, but that he had got used to, as well.
Then she dropped the name Stewart, all the while staring at him with keen bird-like eyes, and his interruption froze in his mouth. By the time she mentioned Judith, his attention was riveted.
"Tommy died before he hit thirty. Judith helped Betty bring up the boy and they've been inseparable all these years. People call them the Stewart girls, and completely forget that they aren't even really sisters." She swivelled her head, bird-like, around her neck. "When Malachai became leader, they ran like everyone else, but only Betty came back. Is it true that Judith is dead?"
Alaric nodded.
Gab blinked rapidly.
"I'm sorry," he said gently.
"Don't be," Gab snapped. "She was always too smart for her own good. Too ambitious. Knowing her, she got tangled up in something that wasn't any of her business and she finally bit off more than she could chew. She should have listened to her nephew. He had some sense. Tommy's son and his family also came back with Joshua. I hear his little girl was even in the wedding, wasn't she?"
Alaric started shaking his head, about to say that he didn't remember – when he suddenly did.
When Joshua Parker had re-appeared a few days before the wedding, and made peace with his estranged children, he had asked Jo to let four coven children, two girls and two boys, stand in her train, supposedly as a sign of good-will and reconciliation in the coven.
"These are sweet children from good families. I don't want them to be crushed," Jo had said blithely but Alaric suspected that her capitulation had less to do with her concern about the kids and more to do with the fact that her father offered to pay for the wedding.
Jo had surprised Alaric at how quickly she let bygones be bygones.
"He's paying for the wedding," Jo had murmured, as she made some last minute changes to her train that she claimed were absolutely necessary but he suspected was simply because she now had a bigger budget.
"He tried to kill you!" Alaric had reminded her, shocked.
"He's paying for the wedding," Jo had said simply, looking at Alaric as if he was the crazy one.
They had been introduced to him. Four teenagers – two pretty girls, two scrappy boys, all completely forgettable. Heck, some of them might even be students in his high school. But he had been told their names and at the back of the head, those names had stuck.
And now, with Gab's shrewd prompting, they came back.
Alaric gaped at the old woman.
Her beady eyes glinted. "Too bad about Tommy's boy, though. Hell of a way to go. Him and his wife."
He opened his mouth to ask her what she meant by that – when there was a loud explosion from below stairs.
Alaric jumped to his feet, panic slamming through him. It sounded as if a bomb had gone off in his kitchen!
Gab had let out one short, sharp screech, but now she stood frozen, her hands pressed into her face, her blue rings emphasising the roundness of her eyes. The twins were screaming at the top of their lungs.
Alaric stared at the three of them desperately. Then turned around to stare at the door.
Jo, he thought, feeling like if he was torn into two. His heart was racing.
He swirled on Gab. "Stay here. Keep them safe…"
She looked frightened. "Mr. Saltzman…"
"You're a witch, aren't you?" he bellowed. "Keep my children safe!"
She swallowed hard, clasped her trembling hands together, nodded.
With a last desperate look at his babies, he turned on his heel and ran out to find his wife, and what the hell had just happened in his house.
Mystic Falls
"It's a good thing Tyler's not here then," Caroline said when Matt and Bonnie finished.
All five sat around the island now. Damon had returned to the kitchen with an empty bottle, and he let the other two do the narration of their findings and conversation with Liv Parker.
"Why?" Matt asked, surprised.
Caroline gave him an 'isn't it obvious?' glance. "Because we have to be careful what we tell Liv now. Or any Gemini. And right now, he's the one most connected to them." She carefully did not look at Bonnie as she said this – for which Bonnie was very grateful.
"Liv was right about this being Gemini business," Stefan said. "If their Councillor and heretics are performing ritual murder on their own witches then it definitely falls in their territory and they can take it out of our hands."
"I am not giving this to the Gemini," Damon snapped. "They had their chance to get involved and they blew it. If they want in, they'll come to us and they'll do it on ourterms."
Stephan just rolled his eyes at that.
"Stefan, we don't know who else might be involved in this," Caroline pointed out.
"So we take it right to the top," Stefan said. "We speak to Kai Parker."
All eyes landed on Bonnie.
"Why are you all looking at me for?" she exclaimed.
"Bonnie…" Caroline sighed.
"This is no time to be coy," Stefan finished.
Bonnie glared at them with narrowed eyes, not failing to note how in sync they suddenly seemed to be. "What the hell? I wasn't coy when I went to Portland and got turned down flat." In every sense of the word. Her face reddened at the memory, but she pushed on. "Maybe one of you guys should give it a whirl. Besides, Liv didn't believe a word against Saint Quentin the Asshat. Why would Kai?"
"I agree with Bonnie," Matt added. She nodded gratefully until he added: "and don't forget, there's the chance that Kai might be involved in this."
Bonnie whirled at him. "What?"
"Didn't Liv say that those witches exiled themselves when he became leader? That sounds to me like motive."
The others started looking thoughtful. Which incensed Bonnie more.
"You have no idea what you're talking about," Bonnie declared. "Kai doesn't need heretics to kill those witches. If he wanted them dead, he'd do that himself."
Matt whistled. "What a guy, huh?"
"What is with you?" Bonnie cried.
"Hey, guys!" Caroline cried. "Let's not fight, OK? So … can we all agree that we don't tell the Gemini?"
There was a strained silence. Then Stefan, who had been one to suggest it, nodded.
Bonnie rolled her eyes. Spineless.
Caroline looked relieved. "Great. So we keep on doing what we agreed to do all along. Figure out some way to get rid of these heretics ourselves. That's the most important thing, right? I mean, whatever their reasons for killing people… they're killing people. We have to stop them."
"Sounds good to me," Stefan said at once.
Bonnie raised an eyebrow. Yeah, those two were back to banging each other again.
There was a pause.
"I… I agree with Vampire Barbie," Damon drawled, his brows almost falling off his head as he exaggerated a look of amazement.
Caroline shot him a withering look, before turning to Matt and Bonnie, her face appealing. "Guys?"
"We have to go after the heretics, Quentin Parrish, and whoever else is involved in this," Matt insisted.
"I'll take a wild guess and say that the heretics might be the hardest kill there," Stefan murmured.
"But-"
"Oh come off it, Donovan!" Damon snapped. "We all know that your suspicions have less to do with the actual evidence and more to do with-"
"Fine!" Matt shouted. "Fine! We do it your way then."
"More to do with what?" Bonnie prompted, watching the way the other three shot knowing glances at each other, the way Matt seemed to cower into his seat. "What exactly am I missing here?"
It wasn't about the collateral damage this time, she was sure of it. There was something else going on with Matt.
Caroline giggled – then smothered it under Bonnie's glare. "Bonnie…"
"What did I say about you guys keeping secrets?"
"It's not..." Stefan began, then stopped and looked pointedly at Matt.
"I have personal beef with Kai Parker, alright!" Matt shouted.
Bonnie started. "What?"
"I hate the guy, OK? I can't stand him."
"Why? Since when?"
Matt sputtered. "Since when? Maybe since he stabbed the friend I've known since preschool and left her to die in his Prison World-"
"-that's not-"
"-maybe since I heard he was a sociopath who murdered his siblings. Maybe since he totalled my bar that one time he beat up Damon and Enzo-"
Damon looked up. "Wait a minute, that's not what-"
"-maybe since he did a memory spell on me against my consent. I don't know, Bonnie! Maybe I'll have to write a list."
Bonnie gaped at him, thoughts whirling. "Matt," she said slowly, "you don't… you're not…"
"-supposed to take this stuff personally?" he snapped.
"… making sense. You've worked with the bad guys before. We all have. The Mikaelsons? Trip? Damon?"
"Hey!"
"Maybe I don't want to keep working with the bad guys anymore," he muttered.
If her jaw dropped any further, it would hit the floor. "Matt, you dated Rebekah Mikaelson. And Nadia Petrova. At the same time."
His ears reddened. "How did you… I only told Tyler."
"Who told me, who told Bonnie," Caroline sing-sang. "We don't keep secrets in this group, Matt. It's, like, a rule," she rolled her eyes.
There was a tense silence.
Matt chuckled suddenly, his shoulders relaxing. Stefan snickered and then Damon laughed.
"You sound like an idiot, Care," Matt said.
The blonde vampire gave him the finger.
Bonnie smiled uneasily, relieved that the acrimonious tension had dissipated, but still wary that it had risen in the first place.
Matt raised his hands in surrender. "Forget what I said. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, right? Let's do this."
Stefan cleared his throat. "So… back to the matter at hand. We all agree that taking out the heretics is our first priority, right? And we've, for all sorts of reasons, decided to do this on our own?" When everyone nodded, he continued. "So … do we have a plan? Bonnie?"
"You guys are hopeless," she exclaimed, and rose to her feet.
"Bonnie?" Caroline cried, half-standing.
"Stay put, Care. I'm not walking out on you. As much I'd love to do that, but apparently I can't, since you're all going to die approximately twenty-four hours after I do."
"I'll have you know that we managed just fine last year without you-" Damon yelled but his voice vanished when she slammed the kitchen door shut.
In her off-campus flat, a trip to her room from the kitchen would have taken heartbeats. In the Lockwood mansion, where she had to literally go from one wing of the house to the other, it took minutes. It was a good thing she was in such good shape, Bonnie mused, as she made her way back to the kitchen. Although she would miss having someone clean up after her.
As she turned a corner to the kitchen, she slowed, an idea entering her head. She had left the room for minutes, hadn't she? There was no way the others could have resisted talking about her behind her back and whatever it was going on with Matt. Because there was something going on with him and for some reason, she was on the outside of it.
Ordinarily, she'd have respect her friend's privacy. It hurt, but if he chose not to confide in her, that was his call not hers. But heaven knows, her own personal life had suddenly become everyone's business. Why did Matt get to keep secrets? And how many times in the past had the personal got entangled with the political? Matt might think … the others might think that they were keeping harmless little secrets. But what if, unknown to them, there was something more sinister at work?
Ok, you're reaching, she told herself even as she twirled her fingers towards the door, the words of an eavesdropping spell at the tip of her tongue.
Yeah, but I'm still doing it.
And before she could talk herself out of it, she did.
The magic was instantaneous. The voices of her friends suddenly sounded beside her, as clear as if she was in the room right amongst them, and not at the end of the corridor, on the other side of the near-sound-proof door.
"'I can't stand him because he's a Bad Man! He's a Bad Man, Bonnie! Can't you see he's such a Bad, Bad, Bad Man?'" Caroline was saying, her voice deepened in an imitation of Matt's.
"Ex-Bad Man," Stefan corrected mildly.
"Nice save, Donovan," Damon snickered.
"Shut up," Matt muttered.
"Whose bright idea was it to tell Donovan about Bonnie and Harry Parker doing the nasty?" Damon continued.
"I believe that would be you," Stefan deadpanned.
Bonnie felt her face flush. She hadn't ever bothered trying to figure out when and how each member of their group had figured out what happened between her and Kai after Jo's wedding. Truth be told, she tried not to think about what her friends knew about her and Kai. Sometimes, she even kidded herself that they didn't really know anything. They might suspect something. So it was beyond mortifying to actually hear them talking about it, confirming that yeah, she really had no secrets where these clowns were concerned.
"I can't believe Bonnie ever had anything to do with that tool," Matt growled.
Bonnie felt her spine straighten. What the hell?
"Have you seen that tool?" Caroline replied. Beat. Then she and the other vampires burst into laughter at her own unintended innuendo. "Oh, we're hopeless. This is so ridiculous! Matt… Come on… Just tell Bonnie, OK? Get it out of your chest before we all explode keeping it in for you."
"Not a word to Bonnie, you guys," Matt hissed. "Or I swear…"
Damon oooh-ed. "Guys, Deputy Donovan's making threats. Everyone take cover."
Who the heck does he think he is, judging me? Bonnie thought furiously. Hello, Mr. I-Kissed-Two-Evil-Vamps-And-Liked-It. She had half a mind to barge into the kitchen right now and throw his disapproval in his face.
She cut off the spell, having heard enough. Her best friend was a hypocritical square. As secrets and lies went, that was nothing.
She walked down the corridor, and barged through the large doors.
The others started, looking appropriately guilty.
Bonnie gave each of them a grim smile, sparing a particularly mean one for Matt who looked alarmed, and slammed her Grimoire on the counter.
"So… who's up for killing heretics?"
May 2014
"OK, guys, I know we said we were going to blow up heretics, but I didn't think you meant we were going to…"
"… literally blow up heretics?" Tyler said with a slightly maniacal grin.
Bonnie gulped.
The War Room – the affectionate nickname they had given the guest room turned armoury in the Salvatore's boarding house – housed a fair share of dangerous arsenal. Crossbows, Molotov cocktails, magical weapons of all variations, even guns and grenades all found a place in the stacks that reached near the roof. But this was the first – and Bonnie sincerely hoped, the last – time that it housed this particular brand of munition.
In the middle of the table sat a row of dynamite.
Bonnie did not think of herself as a fainting kind of girl – but the sight of all those explosives in close proximity to her very flesh-and-bone person almost made her pass out.
She gulped again.
"Relax Bonnie," Matt said, laughing as he watched her face. "They're not going to blow off until they're set."
"Are you sure? Isn't the room too hot? Too damp? Am I the only one who's feeling sick looking at these things?"
Tyler snickered as he grabbed the first brick, and started rolling up the line of dynamite like a very thick scroll and not something that could literally blow up in his face, taking Bonnie, everyone in the room and about fifty meters of real estate with it.
He pushed it into a large bag, zipped it up and grinned at her. "Sit back, relax and watch things go ka-boom!" he announced.
"Of course, this would be your idea, Tyler," Caroline declared.
"Can you think of a better one?" he challenged. "As long as we're sure of the location of their house, we're good."
"I'm sure of the general area," Bonnie said.
"This baby's going to take out that area times ten, believe me." He and Matt gave each other high-fives.
"Scared, BB?" Matt teased, catching her worried glance.
She took a deep breath and ignored the question. Instead, she turned away from the dynamites, and towards Caroline. "Are you up for your part?"
"You mean the part where I'm charming and guileless and distract the heretics while Tyler and Stefan booby-trap their house? I can do that in my sleep. I am Miss Mystic Falls, after all." Caroline tossed her hair.
"And I'm going to be by her side, all the way," Matt added, "charming and distracting them with my All-American good looks while Tyler and Stefan place the explosives."
Bonnie cracked a smile at that. Wary that the heretics might have recognised, or even already been aware of any of their group, she had spelled a glamour over the two going into enemy territory.
Months ago, when Lucy offered to teach her how to glamour, Bonnie had been surprised.
"I thought that was Gemini spell craft?
Lucy rolled her eyes. "When are you going to realise you're a Bennett? No magic is off limits to us."
Now, Caroline spotted a tan and an impressive cloud of curls and Matt wore glasses on his paler, more angular features. They were dressed in conservative chic and looked like something from a fashion spread from the United Colours of Benetton. Lucy would almost be impressed.
"Remind me again why we're sending the bait in with the duffer?" A familiar accented voice declared.
The four friends turned as Enzo and Damon stepped into the room. Bonnie glanced worriedly at the bag that swung, oh-so-casually from Tyler's shoulder. Was all this body heat in this small space really such a good idea? Sure Tyler said they needed to be set, and something about blasting caps, but still…
"I still think Caroline and I should go," Enzo persisted. It wasn't the first time he had suggested this.
Lord knew that Enzo wasn't Bonnie's first choice of an ally, but there was no questioning his loyalty to Caroline. It struck her then, suddenly, that to her knowledge, there was only one person that Enzo might ever hold above Caroline – and it was a good thing that she was gone. Or who knew where Enzo's loyalty might lie in this conflict that had Lily's biological but forsaken sons on one side, and her adopted and preferred children on the other? Bonnie hadn't seen the point at the time, had chalked it up to Damon's usual schemes, but now she agreed with Damon that Enzo finding out the truth about Lily Salvatore would have been more painful and harmful – to everyone – than it was worth.
"Uh-no. The heretics will hear one word from your poor man's Pierce Brosnan's voice and tear you into pieces," Matt fired back.
"So you're saying that they'd find my voice bloody fit? That you find my voice bloody fit?"
Damon and Tyler snickered as Matt opened and closed his mouth in outrage. Bonnie and Caroline locked gazes across the table and smiled.
"Ugh!" Damon shouted. "Mind out of the gutter, ladies!"
"Hey," Bonnie said, laughing. "Since when can you read minds?"
"Because my mind's always in the gutter, and now I'm feeling crowded."
Everyone was laughing or snickering now, except poor Matt. "Guys, really?" he said, frowning. "Enzo?"
"I think you two will make a lovely couple," Caroline managed to say between huge giggles.
Someone's phone rang.
Bonnie almost fainted. "The explosives!"
Tyler shuddered. "OK, I'm leaving now because I know dynamites, and I know charges but I don't know what your nerves and magic combined are going to do to these babies. Congratulations Bonnie, you've succeeded in freaking me out. See you guys."
He left – to Bonnie's eternal relief – as Damon pulled out his phone.
"He's on his way." He mouthed 'Stefan' to the others. "Not-Blond and Not-Blonder will be there in fifteen." He switched off the phone. "You ready for this?"
The others nodded, and made varying agreeing sounds. Bonnie flexed her fingers and smiled at the rush of magic, then put her hands flat on the dynamite-free table.
"If every-thing goes according to plan," she said softly, "Mystic Falls will be heretic-free in the next six hours." And I'm off the hook once and for all from saving this fucking town.
Matt put his hand over hers, threading her fingers slightly. "Hear hear, Bonnie."
"Let's not jinx this," Damon said, but he still put his hand over Matt's.
"Shouldn't Tyler and Stefan be here…?" Caroline started, then yelped when Enzo yanked her hand, placing it over the others, then his on top.
Damon looked at all of them and nodded grimly. "Let's go blow up some heretics."
June 2014
Mystic Falls
In the hot evening, the War Room felt crowded and uncomfortable.
The vampires stood around the empty table. Matt had discovered an armchair under a pile of arrows, and Bonnie was sitting there now, while he leaned against her leg, exhausted. She almost pushed him off, still ticked with him from earlier, but pity swayed her kinder instincts.
The present discussion had been dragging for hours.
After their earlier pow-wow at the Lockwoods' Mansion, they had gone their separate ways and reconvened a few hours' later at the Salvatores'. Partly because it seemed fitting to plan with here since that was what they had been doing all along; but also because it was more convenient to keep this plan away from Tyler – and by extension, Liv and the rest of the Gemini – when they weren't scheming in his house.
Bonnie felt a little guilty at that. She was breaking her own rules about keeping secrets. But this was too important.
They finally had a chance.
That is, if she could get Stefan Salvatore to budge.
"I don't know how to make this any clearer," she said now, trying to keep her voice level and not show her acute irritation at the entire conversation. "But I'm going with Caroline and Matt to New Orleans or I am not going at all."
Caroline was the closest thing Bonnie had to a sister now that Elena was half-way around the world. And as for Matt, she might be slightly miffed at him for being such a hypocrite, but she knew she could trust him with her life.
The Salvatores were an entirely different matter.
"We've talked about this, Bonnie," Stefan said through gritted teeth. "Klaus' is away from New Orleans so Caroline doesn't have to come. We'll be dealing with Elijah, and three siblings. Matt can be there to work on Rebekah."
"Er…" Matt said, shifting nervously on the floor. "About that…"
Bonnie rolled her eyes. Hypocrite.
"Save your romantic dilemma for another time, Donovan," Damon snarked. "The lady specifically asked after you. You're going to have to take one for the team."
Beside her, Matt seemed to sink lower into the floor. Bonnie scoffed quietly.
"And Elijah specifically requested for Bonnie," Stefan finished. "And I'm there for negotiations."
"We've talked about it but you're not listening," she snapped.
"I can be there for negotiations, too," Caroline countered, plopping down on Bonnie's arm rest. She shouldn't have really been physically exhausted. But maybe she too was spiritually fed up with this discussion. "If Bonnie wants me there, then I'll be there. Let's all four go along."
"I am going with you and Matt only."
"OK, Bonnie," Stefan barked, losing some of his unflappability. "Out with it."
"Out with what?"
"The real reason you don't want me coming along to New Orleans."
"Hey Stefan," Matt snapped. "Bonnie doesn't owe anyone an explan-"
"Yes, as a matter of fact, she does. Full disclosure right? Those were her rules. Now she has to stick to them."
Matt could say nothing to that, but he leaned harder on Bonnie's leg, as if in support.
Bonnie glared at Stefan for a moment, then fell back into the chair in defeat. "You asked for it, then."
"Just tell us, Bonnie," Stefan said.
"Oh, I will. So Elijah Mikaelson wants me to do something for him in exchange for compelling the heretics."
It was such a simple plan, really, that when Bonnie finally laid it out to them, they all wondered the same thing – why didn't any of them think of it before?
Bonnie had smarted a little at that. Because it was far more than just simple compulsion.
"For one thing, compulsion is risky," she had explained. "It's still magic. They can just siphon it out from their own minds but not if -"
"-they were compelled not to siphon it out," Damon had finished. "Or were compelled not to remember that they were compelled. Or they were compelled to kill themselves quickly before they tried to siphon it out."
Of course, Bonnie thought with a mixture of disgust and amusement, Damon would be the first person to buy into this idea.
Caroline had wanted to know what would happen if the Original got daggered and the compulsion broke. "Remember how much Klaus loves keeping his family in boxes?"
"We aren't compelling them for an eternity of good behaviour," Bonnie had said brutally. "We're compelling them to suicide-murder. There won't be any time between them being compelled and them dying for Klaus, for any insane reason, to teleport to Mystic Falls and dagger his sibling."
Ideally, Bonnie thought now. But if there was one thing magic had taught her, there was always a loop-hole.
So she had found a way to seal this one. A spell she herself had designed, based on one of the Gemini grimoire, so that when casted during the actual compulsion, it sustained the compulsion for a few days beyond the Original's daggering or even death.
Bonnie had only described the spell to the others in broad hints. She had felt uncomfortable discussing it in detail because of its source: the report of a study by some Gemini mage of the elements of the sire bond. It had been a series of attempts to duplicate the sire bond, apparently developed by testing on some unfortunate vampire with the ability. He or she had been unsuccessful in duplicating the sire bond but his notes had proven useful to Bonnie.
Of course, bringing up Gemini using vampires as guinea pigs so soon after the quarrel with Matt; or vampires with the ability to sire-bond being used as guinea pigs in general considering Damon's past with the Augustine Society…
Well, that was just tactless. Bonnie herself felt distinctly uncomfortable that she was even using magic based on such cold-bloodedness.
Of course, Klaus Mikaelson himself could not be daggered. If he could be persuaded to help them, Bonnie would never have to sully the few scruples she had left and use the spell.
But as it turned out, the Original Hybrid wasn't available. Between leaving the Lockwood's and re-assembling at the Salvatore's, Stefan had got in touch with NOLA and he found out that Klaus Mikaelson was … indisposed.
Elijah Mikaelson however, was willing to help, but …
"Of course he wants something," Bonnie exclaimed now, as a wave of bitterness hit her. "I mean him deciding to be a decent human… vampire for a change and do the right thing? No, that would have been the plot twist in this tale."
Stefan sighed. "Well, we can't say we're surprised by this. I'm sorry, Bonnie that he's making this demand of you. If there was any other thing we could have offered Elijah…"
"Save it. I've agreed to go, haven't I? But this is my condition. As you well know, dealing with the Mikaelsons has never ended well for me."
There was an awkward silence.
"But what does that have to do with Stefan?" Caroline asked.
Bonnie just gave her a look. She loved her best friend but sometimes Caroline was completely clueless.
"Let me clarify," Bonnie said through gritted teeth as she stared at the Salvatore brothers who were doing their damnest not to look her in the eye right now. "Dealing with the Mikaelsons with a Salvatore at my back has never ended well for me."
"Oh," Caroline said softly.
"Oh indeed."
"Bonbon," Damon started.
"Don't Bonbon me," Bonnie snapped. "There's nothing to discuss here. I'm going to New Orleans with my friends or I'm not going at all."
"So we're not friends?"
"My childhood friends if that makes you feel better."
"No, Bonnie. It doesn't."
"Too bad."
Stefan stepped in. "What if I don't agree to this? You give up on fighting the heretics? Let them destroy Mystic Falls?" The challenge in his voice was clear.
"Watch it, Stefan," Caroline warned.
"I'm talking to Bonnie," Stefan snapped back, his tone making Caroline recoil.
"You don't get to strong-arm her or anyone else here," Matt interjected. "We're all here of our own free will. No one's going to be forced to do anything."
"What world do you live in, Matty Blue Eyes?" Damon sneered.
"This is what I hate about you guys," Matt exclaimed, jumping to his feet. "You feel you can bully anyone into doing anything you like. Well, I'm not going to let you-"
"Let us do what, exactly?" Stefan asked quietly, dangerously.
Voices rose angrily, everyone speaking over each other, and the first time Bonnie said it, no one heard.
Until she shouted it.
Stefan froze. As did everyone else in the room.
"What did you say?" he finally asked, his voice like ice.
Bonnie looked him straight in the eyes.
"The Cure. I write Elena and tell her we need the Cure."
He blanched.
There was a long silence.
"The Cure is out of the question," Stefan said slowly.
Matt cleared his throat. "Five students died not too far from here. Humans. Innocent bystanders. I'm sure if Elena realised…"
"I said, it's out of the question." Stefan didn't raise his voice. Not by one decibel.
But the warning in it was clear.
"Why is that up to you?" Caroline asked at once.
The two locked gazes. Stefan's was blank but implacable. Caroline's was furious.
"It's not," Bonnie said, breaking the stalemate. "It's up to Elena. And she's Elena. She's not going to say no. But on the off-chance she does, then I let Mystic Falls burn. I walked away from this town before. I can do it again."
"You won't dare," he growled.
She crossed her arms. "Won't I?"
The tension in the room was thick enough to stab through with a wooden stake.
Then Stefan pushed off from the table. "You win," he said quietly and walked out.
Damon looked hard at Bonnie. "Witchy, one of these days, you and I are going to have to talk."
Bonnie smiled thinly. "Can't hardly wait."
He rubbed his hand on his neck and seemed to be thinking about what to say. Then he shrugged and, unexpectedly, threw Caroline a commiserating smile. "Hang in there, Barbie."
He followed his brother.
Tense silence followed as Bonnie and Matt tried not to look at Caroline.
Bonnie tampered down her feelings of guilt.
Because it wasn't on her that she had to bring up dragging Elena back into Mystic Falls for this. It was a conversation that she knew would upset everyone. The Cure had always been an option – but none of them had ever brought it up for this precise reason. It had definitely upset Bonnie to suggest it. But Stefan hadn't given her a choice.
And yet…
Bonnie hadn't wanted to be dragged back into this mad world of theirs either. But she had had to do what she felt she needed to do.
So despite her own feelings on the subject, Stefan's reaction also miffed her. Even Damon had been more reasonable about the suggestion, seeming more upset about Bonnie's attitude towards his brother than the idea of Elena returning. He was doing that thing again, Bonnie realised, where he pretended to be uber-calm about things that would ordinarily upset him. He had put on the act for Liv that morning. And he had done the same thing for Bonnie when Enzo came up the day before.
Matt broke the silence with a loud sigh. He walked to the table and leaned against it, so that he was staring at Bonnie.
Bonnie glared at him. "What?"
"Wow, Bonnie," Matt said, rubbing the back of his neck. "I mean, you're right: Elena would definitely come back in a heartbeat if we told her we needed her help. I just… just didn't expect you to-"
"To what, Matt? Not agree to walk into danger with my eyes closed? Not let the Salvatores and the Mikaelsons push me around like a chess-piece? Have a modicum of self-preservation? Why the hell do you think I stayed away from this place for a year?"
"Hey, Bonnie!" He raised his hands up. "I'm on your side here."
Bonnie looked away. She was breathing hard, she realised suddenly, and she forced herself to calm down.
To Bonnie's surprise, Caroline reached for her shoulder, rubbing it gently. Bonnie felt a surge of gratitude to her friend. She didn't know what the hell was going on between Caroline and Stefan – and she wasn't going to ask until Caroline was clearly ready to say – but only a fool could have missed what just happened now. Yet Caroline was reaching past her own embarrassment and pain to console her, and Bonnie had never loved her friend more.
She leaned into Caroline and twined her fingers with her friend's.
Caroline laughed softly. "You know what's funny? If Elena were here, we won't need to go to NOLA at all. She'd guilt Elijah herself into coming here and doing this pro bono. He always had a soft spot for her."
"Ironic, right?" Bonnie wondered. She nudged her friend. "I didn't even ask if you were OK with coming to NOLA. I just assumed…"
"You kidding?" Caroline asked, although her smile was strained.
"Care…?"
"How do we keep this from Tyler?" Matt broke in, his voice heavy.
"With Livi-locks around? He probably won't notice if the whole group went to South America for the week," Caroline snipped.
Matt and Bonnie blinked at each other, both acknowledging – silently – the surprising tinge of venom in Caroline's voice.
"Liv… is leaving Mystic Falls in a few days…" Matt said tentatively.
"Huh." Caroline sniffed. "Well, there's a full moon on Friday."
She didn't need to say anymore. They all knew that Tyler would go underground in the days leading to and after the night of his transformation. No need to keep him in the dark – he'd be the one deliberately withdrawing away from the group.
"So, Matt," Caroline asked. "We're going into Original territory with half our usual army. Is your Resurrection Ring up to scratch? I mean, I've never quite understood if it still worked with the Other Side down."
Bonnie looked up at him as he looked down at her and despite recent differences, they shared a small, smug smile.
He nodded to Caroline. "Tested and trusted."
May 2013
Whitmore
It was less than an hour before Jo's wedding; and somewhere Caroline Forbes was waiting in vain for the floral arrangements that Bonnie and Matt should have returned with hours ago. If Bonnie hadn't side-tracked Matt, they'd be at the wedding now, and not …
Here.
"Bonnie… Bonnie, wake up!"
She didn't want to. She was tired. She was so tired. She had come to Kai Parker's house to anticipate a vendetta that was all in her head. She had dragged her friend along for the ride and now he was dead. Drained to death by hungry heretics. Matt was dead and it was all her fault.
Again.
"Bonnie!"
The insistent voice faded away, and she was so glad because all she wanted to do was sleep and never have to wake-
But warm hands kept patting her hair, rubbing on her cheeks, and upper arms, with increasing insistence. "Bonnie… Bonnie… Bonnie!"
Slowly, reluctantly, her eyelids parted.
Then flew wide open. "Matt!"
"Shhh!" Matt's blue eyes were wide, panicked. "They left one to stand guard. I got her by surprise. Shot her with my cross-bow while I was still down. I think I got her through the heart but I also shot the others and they-"
The rest of his words were cut off as Bonnie threw herself into his arms. "Oh my goodness, Matt! They told me you were dead!"
He returned her embrace with good measure. "I… I think I was."
"So how?"
He raised his hand. She stared at the silver band on his finger – then at the matted blood on his throat – then back at the ring that she easily recognised from all the times she had seen it on Jeremy's hand.
The Gilbert ring.
"I thought that the ring had stopped working when the Other Side was destroyed," she breathed.
"I thought so, too," he said soberly. There was a dazed look on his face. "I guess there was still some alternate dimension for my soul to fall into."
Tears filled Bonnie's eyes. "Oh god, Matt. If anything had happened to you…"
His hug turned fierce, almost cutting off her air. She yelped a little and he released her, his arms loosening slowly.
Bonnie stepped away. "OK, Matt. We can't know how long she's going to stay down. We have to move quickly."
"I tried opening the doors before but they've been sealed with magic, I believe. Can you get us out?"
Bonnie worked fast. She helped herself once again to Kai's magical supplies. Then tried every spell she knew to bring down the wards that had been placed around the flat. Fifteen minutes later, she was gasping over burning candles, a wad of tissue soaking up blood from her nose and they were no closer to breaking free.
"Bonnie," Matt whispered worriedly.
She looked across to where he stood, barricading the guestroom, with his phone in hand. Earlier, he had dragged in there a ginger-headed body that Bonnie had barely glanced at.
"Call me crazy," he muttered, "but I swear I got the other two in the heart and they still… Bonnie!"
She had almost keeled over, her head light with blood loss.
"Bonnie, stop! You're hurting yourself!"
"Matt…"
"We need to get help!" he exclaimed. "But I've been calling Kai Parker since I got free, and he's not answering. No one is. I think they're all at the wedding now."
They had both been out for hours and night had fallen.
"No help is coming and I can't take down the wards," Bonnie cried, her hands shaking as she casted again, futilely. "There's too much power." Never had she missed her Expression as she did at this moment. "I'm not strong enough."
"Can you get some?" When Bonnie gave him a look, he shook his head. "I'm sorry. Stupid question…"
"No," she breathed, "you're brilliant." She turned around slowly, her eyes weighing and calculating everything within sight. Syphon's home. Magical sources.
It was a long shot. Siphoning Qetsiya's magic had taken a huge toll. But she had to try.
She hobbled to Kai's bedroom, rifled through every thing he owned – and wasn't it perverse how even now in the height of panic, she still felt unnerved in his bedroom? – but she found nothing that indicated a source of power that could be drained or even merely channeled.
Channeled…
She doubled back until she was a hand's span from Matt. He looked hopeful. "Found anything?"
Bonnie nodded. "You." She lifted her palms, facing outwards, an inch away from his chest. "I can channel you."
"Do it."
His complete lack of hesitation threw her off balance. "Matt, are you sure?"
"I trust you," he said, and he managed to sound both nervous and certain. "And we don't have much time."
"It won't hurt," she promised – him or herself – she couldn't tell. The last time she had channeled someone, it had been another witch and they had channeled each other.
"I trust you," Matt said, more firmly this time.
He was arranging the candles in a circle on the floor while she was chanting, preparing the casting that would turn a living, breathing person into a magical conduit. Then they were both standing in the ring of fire. His eyes closed as she placed her hands on his chest. Then she started calling on the magic that lay dormant inside him, and she felt it open up under her skin, felt it flow through her veins and mingle with her own power, restoring back her lost strength.
She heard him gasp but she couldn't stop now. How strange, she thought coldly, even as she started spelling the wards down. When she and Kai had channeled each other, she had been completely lost in the magic, as much a conduit for him as he was for her. Now she felt the euphoria of casting, yes, but she was still in complete control. She could feel Matt's discomfort, the physical trauma that this was causing his body, but it was a thing apart from herself, something that she could detach herself from.
It hadn't been anything like that with Kai.
She heard the wards fall, a shudder against her aura, and it was over. She whispered the words to release Matt from her power, and the candles went off. She lifted her hands from him, stepping back.
His eyes were still shut. For a moment, he just stood there.
Then he collapsed.
Bonnie had been calling her people non-stop since she levitated Matt onto his truck bed, and got behind the wheel. Caroline's line was constantly busy. Damon and Elena were not answering. Stefan's and Tyler's were switched off.
She drove like a mad woman to the general hospital. It was the safest place she could think of for Matt to stay while he recovered. Kai's place was obviously out of the question and the bar was, literally, a bar. Anyone could walk in and finish what they started. She mentioned Jo's name to the ER nurse and before she could finish, paramedics were at the truck and Matt was being whisked away in a trolley. He had started gaining consciousness towards the end, and Bonnie heard him asking for her as the trolley disappeared behind the hospital double doors.
As she rushed out of the hospital, she heard two doctors talking about ending their shift soon to make it to Jo's wedding.
She had backed out of the hospital by the time she realised that she had forgotten to take Matt's phone from him – the one with Kai Parker's number in its contacts. She paused for ten precious seconds, debating whether to go back for it – then she decided against it. There were very good odds that he was already at the venue and if he wasn't, the other Gemini were. Better to get to the venue as quickly as possible while trying to reach him through Caroline and the others.
She had driven into the street with one hand on the wheel and the other hand on the phone, calling Caroline without much hope this time – and nearly dropped her phone when she heard her friend's voice on the speaker.
"Caroline? Oh my g-"
"Bonnie, why haven't you returned my calls?"
"Care-"
"What is wrong with everybody? We are twenty minutes behind schedule and I can't keep stalling."
"Care-"
"Why do I have to do everything by myself? You know what? Just forget it. Where are you? Where are Damon and Elena? Where the hell are the flowers?!"
"Forget about the damn flowers, Caroline!" Bonnie screamed.
There was – finally – silence on the line and Bonnie used the chance to make a quick and dangerous lane change. Behind her, she could hear tyres skidding and horns blaring angrily.
"Bonnie?"
"Caroline, you have to listen carefully. Kai's going to be at the wedding and-"
"Oh, are you worried about that? We've sorted it out already."
Bonnie nearly ran into the SUV in front of her. What? "You have?"
"Yes, I have to admit things were looking really bad. I thought there'd be blood."
Relief and disbelief made Bonnie's hands shake, and Matt's truck swerved. "What happened, Care?"
"Nothing. Both parties worked things out. It's all one big happy Gemini coven family now."
Bonnie felt the beginning of a headache as she tried to get out from behind the slow coach in front of her. But there were cars on the lanes on either side of her, trapping her. "Huh? Caroline, are we even talking about the same–"
"I told you, it's settled, Bonnie. I mean, what difference does it make whether it's her father or her older brother? It's still some man walking a grown-ass woman down to hand her over like property to another man in the most antiquated, chauvinistic tradition of all time. Elena and I told Jo she should just walk down the bloody aisle herself rather than choose between two men who had tried to kill her. Recently. But did she listen to us? Noooo."
"Care, please listen-"
"Men. Why do they always feel that the world surrounds them? All they ever do is cause trouble and not be there when you need them to be!"
"Caroline, please, listen to me…"
"Finally! There's Elena and Damon. What the hell, you two?…" Her voice became muffled; two others seemed to join in as an indistinct conversation followed.
"Caroline…! Caroline…!"
But the line became even more muted, as if the phone's mic, still on, had been obscured.
Caroline must have forgotten that she was in the middle of a phone call, and dropped the phone into her purse without switching off the call. Bonnie could still make out an indistinct murmur of voices. Then the sound of music. She recognised it at once. The wedding march, albeit a strangely haunting rendition of it.
The wedding had started.
Bonnie took a deep breath and forced herself to loosen her grip. Then she twisted the wheel, and slammed on the pedal, squeezing – barely – through a gap in the traffic and shooting out from behind the SUV. Once again, she could hear the chaos in her wake – honking horns, screeching tyres – but she didn't care.
The wedding march was still playing. With one hand, Bonnie punched at her phone and put the call to Caroline on hold. Then she tried Tyler's number again. Still switched off. Stefan's was the same as well.
Red lights were up ahead and she slammed on the brakes, and the car screeched to a halt, its nose entering the intersection as Bonnie screamed in frustration. Then she took Caroline's call off the hold. The green lights came on, and her car shot forward just as the music stopped. Someone – a minister, she reckoned – was speaking. The background was silent now and the voices sounded clearer. After the minister's voice, she made out a male voice that she easily recognised as Alaric's.
She put the call on hold again, and tried to call Elena and once again, to no avail. Heck, she thought to herself and even tried Damon's. Still no answer.
The church wasn't so far away, Bonnie told herself, wiping her forehead with her sleeve. In a few minutes, she'd be there and she could warn Kai and the Gemini in person.
She put Caroline off hold again. This time she could hear Jo Laughlin speaking – her voice was soft, tinged with laughter.
The church was up ahead. Bonnie drove right up to the front, legal parking be damned. She started coming out and something yanked her back into her seat. She struggled violently for a long, precious moments until she realised that it was her seatbelt that was cutting into her ribs. She laughed half-hysterically, and unbuckled it with shaky fingers.
She had made it. She was here on time…
Then Jo screamed.
Bonnie was close enough that she heard that blood-curdling scream twice – the first from through the church doors, the second echoing on her phone.
Then Alaric was shouting and above his voice was the sound of Damon's yelling: "Elena!"
Bonnie jumped out of the truck so quickly that she stumbled, falling on her hands and her feet. Her heart was pounding in her throat, her legs shaking as she scrambled up the steps and burst through the doors.
Bonnie could feel magic gathering – so much magic concentrated within these four walls. It drenched over her skin like a downpour, a thick blanket of water that filled the air and cut off her breathing. She pushed back at it in panic – and it receded, barely, but enough for her to get control of her physical senses. And the first thing she saw was the altar raised on the dais above the hall and Kai Parker standing at the centre like some demonic priest in a tuxedo – one hand wielding a knife high above his sister, whom he held by the shoulder with his other hand – the sacrifice that he was about to slaughter.
Or, Bonnie thought with mounting horror, the sacrifice that he had already slaughtered.
Because there was blood all down the front of Jo's dress, red drenching through the white. There were bodies on the floor beside Jo – Elena… Alaric… Damon… A huddle of red clothes that looked like the body of a man – the minister?
Whatever had happened had only just happened. Some people were still sitting down, confused. Others were rising or already on their feet, shouting, pointing.
Her eyes caught Kai's. Even across the expanse, she knew he had seen her – knew when their gazes locked. She felt a lump rise in her throat.
Why? Why? The question kept screaming through her head, as she watched him, frozen, unable to move, or to look away.
Why did he do it? Why was she so –
– disappointed –
– shocked that he did?
His gaze on her was hard, cold, furious. Then suddenly – he smiled.
He raised the knife higher, and that's when Bonnie noticed two things: it was the knife, the one she thought she had lost in 1903, Josette's knife–
– that he had stabbed Bonnie with that she had stabbed Kai with –
– and the white of his tuxedo was also stained with blood. Then he was swinging Jo into the arms of Alaric – who had risen to his feet in time to grab his wife. Damon was standing too, Bonnie noticed, gathering Elena to his arms.
And suddenly, people were rushing to the altar. At the fore front was a grey haired elderly man, his hands out and Bonnie could feel the magic pouring out from him at Kai…
No, she thought, her brain still frozen and sluggish, still struggling to understand what her eyes were seeing, not at Kai.
At Them.
They had materialised on the altar. All six of them, stepping out of the thin air to surround Kai. Red-cloaked with the empty, zombie auras of the heretics.
Then powerful magic like she had never felt before rose through the air, prickling her skin, and drawing on something inside her, and she realised that it was coming from Kai, whose knife was raised high and who was…
No … No …
It exploded out of him, a force wave that hit through the hall, flattening everything in its path, the heretics and the others all falling before it. The sound of exploding glass and screams filled the hall.
Then silence.
And darkness.
June 2014
Portland, Oregon
It had been over a year, but the sound of glass exploding and people screaming, the sight of people – heretics, witches, and everyone else alike – falling flat on their faces was still chillingly familiar.
But that was only the beginning.
Alaric Saltzman braced himself, waiting for the carnage that would follow.
And… nothing.
The video ended, and skipped to the photos taken on his wedding day. Most of them were candids, not the formal wedding photos that they'd never got the chance to take. What with the massacre that ensued.
Technically, that day wasn't really his and Jo's actual wedding day. The heretics had arrived before they had finished their vows. They had exchanged vows in front of a notary a few days later, with only Jo's brother and Elena as their witnesses. Jo had worn something blue, in keeping with tradition. Alaric had worn…
A sharp rap at the door pulled him out of his wool-gathering thoughts and he blinked up at the bespectacled face of the faculty secretary standing in his doorway.
"Judi's at soccer practice," the bright young man said. "Should I ask her to come in now or wait until later?"
"Later, please," he said at once. No need to disrupt the girl's day.
The man nodded. As he walked out, Alaric glimpsed the quiet office corridor behind him. It was the last week of high school and school had been out early. Only teachers who were bogged down with extra work, had an extra-curricular activity that day, or were stuck monitoring detention were still around.
Alaric was none of the above. On any other day, he'd have been rushing home to his family.
But he needed to do this before he could bring himself to face them. He needed to root out these poisonous suspicions before he infected his home with them. Suspicions that had been planted by an insidious conversation with his nanny and fertilised by chaos in his kitchen.
He scrolled back to the video and started watching the last minutes again, this time in slow-motion. So the wedding video had been edited, he mused. Who could have spared the time in the weeks of chaos that followed, between sorting out the usual post-catastrophe paperwork that was so common place in Mystic Falls and the Saltzmans move house across the country? Surely Jo hadn't. Neither Alaric or his wife had expressed any interest in reliving that day; and these files had been buried in folders within folders of an old external drive for over a year. Maybe Matt or Tyler had? Or even Damon?
Alaric wished he knew if only to thank the person – and maybe complain a bit about not cutting it off earlier. Preferably before the nuptial ceremony morphed into a dance of death. Those few seconds when Alaric had looked up, dazed and confused, from the ground at his almost-brand-new wife and seen blood pouring down her dress and thought it had been hers were easily the worst moments of his life.
And then the seconds that followed – when Kai handed over the shaken, but completely unharmed Jo to Alaric and Alaric had realised that it wasn't Jo's blood that was drenching her white wedding gown but her brother's who had taken the knife that had been meant for her… were easily the second best moments of his life.
The best being, of course, the night that Martha and Rachel had been borne.
So why am I doing this? Alaric asked himself suddenly. I have the perfect wife. The perfect kids. The perfect life. Why am I digging up things that should probably stay buried?
For a moment, his finger hovered over a frame, pausing the video as he gazed into the distance, at nothing in particular. He could just stop all this now. Tell Bonnie and Damon that he tried, but he came up short. Ignore Gab's pointed comments and sharp bird-eyes.
Ignore the deep chasm of secrets and lies that was widening between him and his wife.
Only I did the same thing with Isobel, didn't I? And in exchange for burying my head in the sand and refusing to rock the boat, I lost my wife … and my life as I knew it.
Resolute, he pulled his gaze from his inner thoughts to the screen in front of him. He was about to unpause the video, when he stopped, peering hard at the faces that the camera had zoomed in at that particular moment.
A pair of matronly old women sat side by side on the brides's side of the pew. They were a study in contrasts – one pale-skinned with raven hair that probably came out of a bottle; the other dark-skinned with hair the colour of snow. Physically, they seemed nothing alike yet there was an uncanny resemblance in the way they looked – both sharp-eyed, stern, intimidating. They looked like headmistresses at a military school. But that was not what had caught his attention. He recognised the snow-haired one. He had a distinct memory of this woman haranguing he and Jo when she landed in Mystic Falls with Joshua Parker's personal contingent, determined to take over the wedding. Josette had lamented about it but he, Alaric, had been completely unsympathetic. She had been the one, after all, who had caved and invited the Gemini when her father had agreed to foot the bill.
If the snow-haired woman had come as part of the Joshua's personal contingent, that meant that she was a high-ranking Gemini: either a member of the Council, an Elder, an Envoy Chief or some combination of the three. Or, Alaric wondered with a frown, she had been? There was a story there that he had either forgotten or never quite got in full from Jo.
What was important was that even though it had been over a year, he recognised her. And now he remembered her name.
He still took the time to open the wedding program beside him to confirm it. Confirm her name, and confirm the name of her grand-daughter who had been part of Jo's bridal train.
Dame Bethany Stewart.
Grandmother to Judi Stewart.
One year later and all it had taken after the nanny's pointed ramblings were one fleeting image from their wedding video and a glance at the wedding program.
But meanwhile, his wife...
"Does the name Stewart ring a bell?"
"Nope. Should it?"
Alaric didn't want to remember. But there was nothing he could do to stop the flow of memories. Memories of conversations with his wife.
Memories of Jo's guileless voice.
Jo's guileless face.
"Hey, Jo, did you ever get a chance to look into that name I mentioned … Judith Stewart?"
" … S-T-U-A-R-T … on-call nurse at the hospital … "
"Oh … Thanks for looking into it."
"You're welcome. What is this about anyway?"
Memories of his wife lying to him.
But why?
Why would Jo lie about knowing Judith Stewart, an old witch murdered by heretics? Heretics who had shown up on Jo's wedding day to kill her. Who had almost killed her, if not for her brother.
Why would Jo lie for them? And for what end? What difference did it make? Though Alaric hadn't immediately recalled Judith Stewart, surely the Gemini knew their own. Knew she had been murdered by heretics.
Was Jo lying to protect him, Alaric?
He remembered the conversation he had overheard the night before – the one that had planted these doubts into his head in the first place. Standing in the kitchen and listening to his wife's voice through the baby monitor, snarling out threats and sounding completely unlike the woman he married.
Jo warning Gab.
Jo threatening Gab.
No. He didn't know what Jo was doing, but whatever it was, it wasn't because she was trying to protect him.
He reached into his drawer for a bottle of water and gulped it down thirstily, wishing he could get a proper drink.
There was a rap on the door.
"Come in," he called hoarsely.
She was still wearing her soccer clothes, and Alaric immediately felt guilty for not letting her change. Tall, olive-skinned with dark red curls in a sensible plait, she looked vaguely familiar. She couldn't have been in any of his classes though. He had mostly senior year and he had already checked from her file that she was a junior.
He would have liked to think that he recognised her from his wedding – she had been in Josette's train, after all, but the truth was that apart from the standouts like Bethany Stewart and a few others, he had barely registered any of the Gemini witches that were not Josette's immediate family.
"Mr. Saltzman, you asked to see me?" she asked, tentatively.
"Yes, please have a seat Miss Stewart." He paused. "You remember me, don't you?" He clarified. "I mean, you remember my wedding last year."
Young Judi Stewart – undoubtedly named after her Great-Aunt Judith Stewart – gave a nervous laugh. "Yeah. You're Josette Parker's husband."
Josette Parker. How odd. Alaric had never known his wife by that name. She had been Dr. Jo Laughlin all the time he knew her until they got married and she had chosen to take his own name.
Judi looked around nervously. "I don't know if it's OK to talk here about…" Her voice lowered. "… coven stuff?"
Alaric forced his face into a reassuring smile, and clamped down on thoughts about how little he really knew the woman he was married to. "I'm not really going to talk about that. I just wanted to ask you a few questions about your Great-Aunt Judith."
New Orleans, Louisiana
Bonnie was nudged out of a fitful sleep by Caroline's sharp elbow and her friend's even sharper whisper.
"I remember Bethany Stewart," Caroline hissed.
"W… what… where?"
"Pay attention, Bonnie. I said I remember Bethany Stewart. Not Judith, the one who's dead. The other one. The last name on the list." She flapped a copy of said list in front of Bonnie's face.
Bonnie immediately snatched the list and slammed it face-down on her lap. "Put that down, Care." Then she looked around her, blearily. Yes, she was still in the airplane. And yes, they were still thousands of miles in the air and her vampire friend, who didn't need sleep, had chosen to yank Bonnie's out of the little hours of RMS time she got.
"I… that's really… why are you telling me this now, Care?" she finally asked, too tired to even be properly angry.
"Because I think it's important," Caroline said as if it should be obvious.
"Oh."
Caroline went on at great length about Bethany Stewart. Mostly about how the woman had tried to hijack Jo's and Alaric's wedding from her, Caroline and how Caroline had fought back, giving the old witch as good as she got.
Bonnie supposed that Caroline was right in using the exact phrase 'old witch'. But somehow, she didn't think Caroline meant it in the literal, technical sense.
But she didn't say a word to Caroline. Caroline didn't really seem to need a response though. She had gone off on a rant about her experience that day, and all Bonnie had to do was nod at appropriate times. It was just Bonnie's bad luck that she needed to be awake to do that. Also, unlike Matt who had been safely far away from the wedding venue, Bonnie had actually been there during Caroline's face off with Bethany Stewart. So Matt got to sleep on the other side of the aisle while Bonnie got her ear talked out off.
She supposed that if her memories of Jo's wedding had been limited to party-planning and getting out of Dodge the moment the heretics showed up, she too would have a vivid recollection of this apparently scarring encounter with the Gemini matron. But Bonnie had had all sorts of adventures that day and the highpoint of Caroline's day was barely a blip on Bonnie's memory radar. She didn't even have a mental picture of the woman in question.
Caroline finally stopped talking. But only as the plane was taxing down at the runway. With a heavy sigh, Bonnie unbuckled out of her seat and reached for her overheard bag. Matt got there first, throwing it on his free shoulder, with a grin.
"Thanks," she said, smiling up at him as she started walking down the aisle.
"Aw," Caroline cooed, "Mattie can you help me-"
"Sorry, Care," he snarked, brushing past her to follow Bonnie out the plane.
"You can't see me but I'd like you to know I'm sticking my tongue at your back!" Care yelled, ignoring the amused looks of people passing her by.
She was still grumbling as they stepped into the sweltering New Orleans heat, and made their way through airport logistics to get their luggage and rent a car.
"You'd have thought that someone would have come to meet us," Caroline said fretfully, from where she rode shotgun with Matt, glancing fretfully through her window.
Bonnie wondered what her vampire eyes could see, or expected to see on a Monday night in NOLA. It was already late evening when they off-boarded, and by the time they got into the car, it was dark. The lights of the French Quarter were on, but Bonnie could barely make anything out of her glass. Not that she was trying particularly hard. Plus, she was struggling with the sleep that Caroline had deprived her off during the flight.
"Why?" Matt asked, surprised. "We have the address. We've got GPS. It's good we have our own ride. Keeps us free agents."
"We already turned down the offer to stay at the Mikaelsons's," Caroline retorted. "We can't get any freer than that. Or spend more money on fuel, accommodation and food."
"You're worried about money?" Matt sputtered. "Isn't that my thing?"
"You've got a job, Matt. I've got student loans."
"Care, what's going on?"
In the backseat, Bonnie stifled a yawn, but when Caroline fell silent, Bonnie's ears perked up. Now that Matt had asked the question, she realised that yes, Caroline was acting a little off. The extra-chattiness, the random bitching, the complaining. True, once in a while, her friend could be a bit… much, to put it nicely. But this was more than that. Something was up. And it had started back in Virginia, when the idea of this trip was brought up.
"Caroline, are you nervous about being here?" Bonnie asked.
"No!" After a pause, Caroline glanced over her shoulder. "Maybe a little. Aren't you?"
Bonnie bit her lip, thinking. "No," she said truthfully. "Not really. Mostly I just want this over and done with."
She wasn't looking forward to meeting the Mikaelsons, not in the least. She had suffered considerably at their hands. But that was the old Bonnie. The one who was the first to jump between her friends and fires they started. The one who cared more about everyone else than herself. The one who believed herself to be the strongest, and therefore the one to take the heaviest blow.
She was a different Bonnie. A Bonnie who had learnt the hard way that the first death might be seen as a heroic sacrifice but every death after became an expected duty. Her friends had shown her that they would – and they had – survive without her. And she wasn't just thinking about the past year she'd stayed away from Mystic Falls. She was also thinking about all the times she had died, and their lives had moved on.
Yes, it was a whole new Bonnie that was going to face the Originals. A Bonnie who only put out her own fires – and would do so without letting them burn her first.
She smirked softly. The Mikaelsons won't know what hit them.
"I'm a little nervous," Matt admitted softly.
"I'm a lot nervous," Caroline said with a shaky laugh. "I mean… I know that Stefan said that… K-Klaus isn't in NOLA now but … what if he is? What… how…?" Her voice trailed off.
Bonnie glanced at the backs of her two friends. She wondered if Matt was thinking of Rebekah. If that was the cause of his nervousness. She supposed it made sense. Of all their friends, she and Tyler had been the only ones who hadn't had complicated relationships with the Mikaelsons. To Tyler, they would always represent the time he was enslaved to Klaus, the massacre of his pack, the murder of his mother, his exile from his home. To Bonnie, they would always be the evil family who had wrecked havoc in Mystic Falls, whose actions had led to the turning of her mother, and brought misery to her friends.
But to everyone else – Matt, Caroline, Elena, the Salvatores… The Originals were sometime allies, sometime besties, sometime lovers. They had reason to be nervous because they had both, at one point in time or the other, got into bed with the enemy. In the literal and figurative sense.
Bonnie hadn't had that dubious privilege. Her relationship with the Originals was far simpler. And that was why she was lying back on the drive to their mansion, trying to catch some zzzzs so that when she faced Elijah, she'd be sharp and alert and ready to take him on.
"Maybe we should have brought Stefan-" Caroline started, then stopped when Bonnie smacked the back of her car seat. "Ow! I'm just saying…"
"It's too late for that now," Matt said firmly. "And we'll be fine. Come on, Care. A witch, a vampire and a savvy licensed-to-shoot mundane? We're an unbeatable team."
"Actually, we just sound like the beginning of a bad bar joke," Bonnie quipped.
Matt pretended to be hurt and Caroline snickered at that.
The three friends exchanged smiles, Matt and Bonnie locking eyes in the mirror before they each looked in turn at Caroline. A small bubble of happiness rose in Bonnie's heart. They were fine. They would be fine. She had no regrets about not carrying along any of the Salvatores and their twisted brand of deal-making, that involved stabbing people in the back when it suited them. She was in NOLA with people she could trust and that was what counted.
Even if they did have an unfortunate habit of sleeping with the occasional super-villains. No one was perfect.
OK now, who's acting the hypocrite?
Bonnie blushed. Nope, she had relinquished any claim to that particular halo any more.
Completely, thoroughly, repeatedly, and vigorously relinquished that claim.
"Bonnie, you OK?" Matt called back. He was turning off the main street to a row of palatial hotels. "You sounded like if you were choking."
"Groovy," she yelped and buried herself into the seat, as she pushed back suddenly vivid thoughts of dark-haired, grey-eyed wizards with literally magical hands, and lips and – oh heavens, why now? – far into the back of her mind. The last thing she needed right was to get caught up with thoughts of him. If she was going to face the Mikaelsons and come out of this a winner, she needed to keep her head in the game.
They checked into their hotel first – a beautiful, colonial-style building with white pillars and luxurious furniture. Matt didn't look too pleased when Caroline checked them all in with Stephan's credit card, but Bonnie left the other two to bicker over that while she went ahead to revel in her beautiful room. It had panelled floors, exotic flowers on every flat surface, and a beautiful balcony that they had been told overlooked the Mississippi river. It was perfect and for the first time since they had started planning this trip, something more than weary resolve filled Bonnie. She felt the faint tendrils of excitement rise inside her. This was New Orleans after all. The Mecca of witches and magic in the Northern continent. Whatever reason brought her here didn't matter.
She stood at the balcony, breathing in the salty, balmy air when there was a knock on the door.
"Come in," Bonnie called.
"You shouldn't leave your door open," Caroline cautioned, stepping in. "Oh, this is pretty. Mine doesn't have as many flowers. We need to start going. The Mikaelsons are expecting us for dinner. Formal wear, Stefan said."
Bonnie sighed, as some of the excitement seeped out of her. She stepped away from the balcony. "Give me a few minutes to shower and change."
In a few minutes, the three friends were driving away from their hotel to the Mikaelsons' home in the heart of the Quarter.
Maybe it was the slightly cold shower. Maybe it was the outfit that she was wearing. Knee-length and blue, with pushed back shoulders and strappy heels of the same colour. Matt's eyes had widened and his ears had turned pink when she met him in the lobby. It should have flattered Bonnie but for some reason, it just made her nervous.
That was it, she realised with a pang of surprise. She had finally caught the nervous bug that she had thought herself immune to. Because there was no denying the fluttering in her stomach. Or the way her mouth continued to stay dry no matter how many times, she swallowed. Or that her hands were shaking a little around the clutch in her lap.
Why was she nervous? She asked herself.
The last time I saw these people, they were either trying to kill me or trying to kill my friends. Why won't I be nervous?
But she hadn't been nervous less than an hour ago. She had been weary and wary, but alert. What changed?
Maybe when you started thinking about falling in bed with …
"This is it," Matt declared, as he drove up to a palatial-styled gate, and gave their names to the waiting steward.
Caroline peeped out her window, looking round. She let out a little nervous giggle. "Fancy."
Bonnie smoothed her dampened palms on her skirt and schooled her thoughts firmly, as they drove into the compound. In the darkness, all she could make out was tall trees on sprawling grounds. In the distance, she thought she glimpsed the white of marble statues, reflected in the crescent moonlight, but then again, it was dark. And her mind was buzzing.
Face blank. Chin up.
Whatever the butterflies in her stomach said, she wasn't going to show that she was off her game. She was walking into a den of predators. The worst thing she could do was show blood.
Matt drove up to the entrance canopy and got out, handing over the keys to the waiting valet.
The girls were helped out of the car by immaculately-uniformed, fashion magazine-gorgeous stewards. An elegant beauty in a red dress took Matt's elbow. As one party, the three friends were led through the Mikaelsons's home.
As they walked, Bonnie paid as much attention to her escort as she did to the hallways, and glimpses of rooms through doors left ajar. Later she would reflect on the antiquated style, the faded tapestry, portraits of the family that lined every passageway; even the magic felt aged – not just old in the sense of longevity but old in the sense of archaic, extinct. She felt like if she was stepping years into the past to a house that was frozen in time.
An appropriate dwelling place for fossils.
She side-eyed the handsome man leading her through the doors that opened into a wide courtyard, and wondered if he was a willing servant or a compelled slave.
Was it really nerves she felt? Bonnie wondered as she walked down the short steps that bridged the interior of the house to the open space and regarded the family of three waiting for her by the heavy-laden dining table.
Maybe it was simply rage.
"Bonnie Bennett, Caroline Forbes, Matthew Donovan, we are honoured to have you as our guests."
Of course, Elijah Mikaelson did the honours. He stepped forward, the picture of elegance in the familiar navy blue suit that he probably slept in. He bowed before Bonnie with a flourish, and rose with a brush of his lips on the back of her palm.
A few years ago –
before her magic woke and his Original aura made her blood curdle; before he betrayed them all and let Jenna Sommers die for nothing; before he master-minded her mother's death; before his family treated her like a pawn they could push around in their game of survival at all costs, the preservation of their unnatural longevity –
Bonnie might have found him charming.
Now, she smiled sweetly. "Thank you, Elijah, for having us."
He blinked. Bonnie wondered if she had let some of the poison she felt towards him slip into her voice.
She hoped so.
But his face was blankly courteous as he went to greet Caroline, and Matthew in turn.
He walked back to his family. "And these are my sisters. Rebekah, you know-"
Rebekah Mikaelson came forward, dancing blue eyes, blonde hair swept into an elegant chiffon and dressed in something short and red. "Matt!" she squealed and jumped the former quarterback with a big, perfunctory kiss.
"Ooof!" he said, staggering a little as he caught her.
It took him a while to extricate himself from her, and when he did, his face was completely red. "Hey, Rebekah, hey…" He threw Bonnie a nervous look.
Bonnie replied with a quick warning glance. That was not how he was supposed to greet his former Eurotour partner.
The youngest Mikaelson was mercurial and unpredictable and not their first choice to deal with a problem as important and dangerous as the heretics. But she was their back-up in case Elijah for whatever reason decided to renege on their deal – or asked Bonnie for a price she was unwilling to pay. So Matt needed to show a bit more enthusiasm at seeing her in case that ever came to pass.
"Nice to see you're as handsome and speechless as ever," Rebekah said with a huge grin. She stroked his blushing cheeks, and giggled before walking to the girls.
OK. Maybe Matt did know what he was doing.
"BB!" Rebekah yelled, and before Bonnie realised what was happening, she was being smothered by tall, blonde, eternally-seventeen-year-old Mikaelson.
"Er… Rebekah… hi." She stared at Caroline and Matt in confusion over Rebekah's shoulder. The others gaped, just as surprised. Bonnie and Rebekah might have had a grand total of two conversations in all the time they had known each other. Where did this warm welcome come from?
Rebekah pulled back. Her eyes were shining. "Sorry. I just… it's nice to see you again. I've missed you … you guys." She blushed a little, and smiled ruefully.
Bonnie returned the smile cautiously. "It's nice…" No, for the life of her, Bonnie could not bring herself to lie and say that she missed Rebekah Mikaelson. "… to see you so happy here, Rebekah."
That at least was true. Happy and here in New Orleans and far away from Mystic Falls. Bonnie was certainly glad to see that.
Rebekah's smile didn't waver, but it twisted a little, turned almost bittersweet as she kept peering at Bonnie. It was almost as if she was searching for something in Bonnie's face, or trying to make Bonnie see something in hers.
"Hello, Rebekah," Caroline said, breaking the unnerving moment.
The smile washed off Rebekah's face. "Forbes." Her voice was flat. Apparently her warm welcome did not extend to her on-again, off-again frenemy.
"Nice to see you, too," Caroline said through gritted teeth.
"Rebekah, stop being uncouth and allow our sister to meet our guests."
Bonnie stared in surprise as Elijah came forward with the other woman on his arm. He had said 'sisters' before, she realised. But Bonnie had mentally corrected that, thinking she had either misheard him or he misspoke. She had automatically assumed that the other woman, dressed in a floor-length elegant black and white gown, and short bob-cut blonde hair, was Elijah's dinner date.
But as the woman stepped closer, her features became clearer and the resemblance was undeniable. She looked like both an older version of Rebekah, and a feminine version of Elijah. There was even a hint of their choleric brother, Klaus himself, around her eyes.
And… Bonnie realised with a thrill of shock as she felt the aura rippling out of her… this woman was a witch.
"May I present: my dear sister and oldest sibling."
"Freya Mikaelson," she said, her voice low and sombre. She took Bonnie's hand and even though Bonnie had already expected it, it was still alarming to feel the wave of power that rippled out of the woman.
Not just a witch but an extremely powerful one. Her magic was refined, mature. The kind of magic that Bonnie usually felt from much, much older witches. But Freya Mikaelson couldn't have been much older than Bonnie. She certainly didn't look older than Elijah.
"Bonnie Bennett," Bonnie replied with equal formality, shaking firmly.
"It's a great honour to meet you, Bonnie Bennett. I knew your ancestor."
While Bonnie's head was still reeling, Freya greeted each of the others in turn. When she walked back to the table, Bonnie exchanged discreet glances with her friends.
Yep, they looked just as thrown as Bonnie felt.
Where the hell did the Mikaelsons get a witch sister from?
Had Stefan known? If he had, and he hadn't told them…
"Can we eat already?" Rebekah moaned, swaying near the table. "I'm starving."
"Please have your seats and forgive my sister's ill manners," Elijah said gravely as he led the Mystic Falls trio to the table. There were placeholders for eight seats. He helped Bonnie to the seat on the right of the head of the table, then Caroline on the same row, two spaces down. He turned to place Matt, but Rebekah had already plopped him across Caroline, and grabbed the seat beside him. Elijah shook his head in disapproval. To Bonnie's surprise, he took the seat between her and Caroline, and not the one at the head of the table.
But first, he helped Freya Mikaelson into the large ornate chair that was clearly meant as the head seat.
Rebekah must have noticed the surprise on the faces of the Mystic Falls's contingent because she said, laughing. "Freya sits on the big boss's chair because she's the oldest."
Caroline grinned. "What does Klaus think of that? Pretty sure he was presiding over the table in your house at Mystic Falls, even when Elijah was present?"
Rebekah grinned and she took a swig of a glass that might have been red wine or might have been blood. "Why do you think Klaus isn't here anymore?"
There was a sudden, uncomfortable silence as palpable tension seemed to run through the table.
"Rebekah," Elijah warned.
"What?" she asked, tossing her head; but her eyes caught Freya's blank gaze and she fell silent.
Bonnie felt her eyebrows disappearing into her head. She glanced over at her friends.
She could practically read the question on their faces.
What is going on?
Matt cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Er… who're we waiting for?" He gestured at the empty space at the end of the table, and the one across from Bonnie.
Rebekah looked puzzled. "I thought we were only expecting one more?"
Elijah glanced at his watch. "At this point, it seems we're expecting no more. Freya, dear, perhaps we should..."
"… wait for five more minutes, and then we'll eat," she said firmly.
Elijah fell silent.
Caroline's eyes were almost falling out of her head. Bonnie suspected that she probably looked the same. She had never seen Elijah so differential to anyone, not even Klaus.
There was a short silence. In all the elaborate formality of their welcome and the seating, Bonnie had been too preoccupied to be nervous. But now that they just sat there, silent and waiting, her nerves returned with a vengeance. The butterflies had left, probably sucked through the gaping hole that had formed somewhere in her middle.
Freya turned towards Bonnie. "So, Ms Bennett—"
"What do you want?" Bonnie snapped.
The older woman raised her brows.
Bonnie hadn't planned her outburst. Her nerves had got the better of her. "I mean," she pressed, lifting her chin to brazen through her faux pas, "why am I here in New Orleans? What 'favour' does your family want from me in exchange for –"
"According to Stefan Salvatore, you expected the utmost discretion in this matter," Elijah interjected, his voice reproving. "But if he was wrong and you'd rather start discussions here…"
"Of course not," Bonnie said, now completely mortified. She could hardly plan a sneak attack against the heretics if the entire Mikaelson household, servants and guests alike, knew about this before they returned to Virginia. She should be reminding the Originals of this, not the other way around. She avoided Matt's and Caroline's gazes. She had been so confident when she was telling off the Salvatores, but she'd barely been here for five minutes and she was already fumbling.
Her mouth was dry again, and she took a sip of water discreetly. Her ears were ringing, she realised as she swallowed. It was like if a bell was being pulled somewhere far away, and yet in her head. What was wrong with her?
This wasn't just nerves, she realised with alarm.
No. No way.
"Speaking of Mr. Salvatore, and correct me if I'm wrong on this Elijah" — the unspoken implication was that she was never wrong — "but during his short time with us, he indicated that he was romantically engaged with a woman I believe must be Miss Forbes," Freya intoned, turning a skewering gaze at Caroline – and momentarily breaking the alarming turn of Bonnie's thoughts.
"He… What?" Caroline asked, her voice going slightly high.
"However, I later discovered that you have also been romantically involved with my half-brother, Klaus."
"I… I was?"
Elijah was steadfastly folding a handkerchief.
"Don't be alarmed," Freya continued, in extremely alarming tones. "I make it my business to know of the women in my brothers' lives. Having been away from them for so long, I find I have a lot to catch up on. And a lot to correct."
Caroline blanched.
"So enlighten me, Miss Forbes. Although, I have done considerable research into your character."
"You've what?"
Rebekah coughed a laugh into her glass. Matt scowled. Elijah unfolded his handkerchief.
Bonnie barely noticed any of this. She tried to take a sip of wine but it spilled on the table cloth, her hands were shaking that badly. She twisted out a grateful smile at the steward that came near to mop it, and discreetly put her hands under the table, locking them together.
This isn't happening.
It can't.
She forced herself to concentrate on what Freya was saying.
"…nothing in great depth. Just the basics. Your family background, your personality, your ambitions, your romantic history. The last is unusually intricate, isn't it? Even, I daresay, for a woman born in this century."
"W-what?"
"Oh, thank goodness, he's here!" Elijah exclaimed, rising to his feet.
Freya sighed and gave Caroline one last once-over before she deigned to let Elijah help her to her feet. "Miss Forbes, we shall continue our conversation later."
"Er… I don't think so," Caroline muttered, but low, under her breath.
Freya clearly didn't hear as she continued, "Dear guests, please remain seated. He was, after all, late. You're not a guest, Rebekah." The last was an order.
"Who is this person anyway?" Rebekah grumbled, getting to her feet with what seemed like a great deal of effort.
Bonnie could have told her. If her heart wasn't running like a racehorse and her head wasn't shouting the same phrase over and over again.
Oh no.
Slowly, reluctantly, she turned to see.
Did a double take.
"Regent, how good of you to come," Freya Mikaelson said, walking with her arms outstretched to greet the tall, strikingly good-looking man that stood at the entrance of the courtyard. He wore an impeccable suit, the white shirt a crisp contrast to his dark skin and piercing gaze. When his eyes landed on Freya, his austere face softened into a smile.
"Freya. How are you?" he murmured, as they exchanged air kisses.
The acute disappointment that hit Bonnie almost dazed her.
"Bonnie?" Matt whispered.
She tilted her chin, and gave him a bright, sharp smile, furious with him for almost drawing attention to her agitation, but not as furious as she was for letting herself slip, lose her composure like that over…
Nothing.
My mind is playing tricks on me. Or my magic is off. I'm now imagining things. Oh no. Did I make a mistake? Should I have let Stefan come along?
Can I pull this off when I'm already falling apart?
Behind her, the newcomer was saying, "I'm so sorry for keeping you waiting," he explained. "It was entirely due to-"
"Me, apparently. Sorry, I'm late. I didn't want to come."
Bonnie turned so fast that her neck cracked.
Kai was walking down the steps. His eyes were scanning the room, as if searching for something. When they met hers, he froze, his face a maelstrom of emotions.
Then his face cleared, so quickly and abruptly, it was like a slate board being swiped down by an invisible hand. He turned to his hosts with an easy smile on his face.
"But now that I'm here… What's for dinner?"
A/N: Kudos to the amazing keenan24 who proof-read this, all 29K + words of it. You're a superhero.
I'm almost surprised that ff-net let me upload this as a single chapter. If you managed to read all this in one sitting, then you deserve a medal. I hope this (kinda) makes up for leaving this story abandoned for the whole of summer. So much for resolutions, right? What can I say, it looks like I'm only creative when I have deadlines breathing down my back. Anyway, you know the drill. :D If you loved this chapter, or even fairly liked it, all 29K + words of it, please review so that I'll know that people haven't given up on this LOOOOOONG shadowy tale. ;) (Ugh. Sorry, bad pun).
