After cleaning up, I throw the locator pen, which needs a much better name, into my bag. Brain in total fucking overdrive.

This was not supposed to be happening. Why in the world would this guy come here of all fucking places?

Honestly, I hadn't expected to find him here. It was supposed to be a negative result and then find a positive, to prove that the map needed to be local to work. But here I am, waiting for the shoe to drop.

I reach into the base of the bag and pull magic from the charged salt, reducing it to null. This would be the absolute minimum amount for a quick defense if things get hairy.

It takes a long moment to reach up the courage to step out of the public bathroom, expecting him to be standing in the doorway, looking suave.

Instead, after a few minutes of searching, I catch his presence on the stage and my heart beats noticeably faster.

The stage lights are centered on him and on Mayor Lockwood, and he's gleaming with a prideful sneer that makes me weak in the knees.

I join the crowd, hoping to blend while keeping my eyes open. Thankfully, at the moment, I can enjoy the view for a few moments while the mayor, apparently, addresses the billionaire's presence in Mystic Falls. At any moment, one of his men could pop out of the shadows and take me down with little more than a snap of the neck, but I can take a few seconds to enjoy looking at the founder of Kingmaker Land Development, Inc.

Lockwood claps once to get everyone to quiet down. "I'd like to introduce an acquaintance of mine with a unique history in Mystic Falls and a keen mind for new developments that would benefit our quaint little town."

He's not supposed to be here. Really, if I took the time and aimed my cards right, I could take out a member of the Trinity immediately and potentially cloak before a vampire on his payroll notices that it's me. There are obvious reasons why I cannot do that, however.

I'm just… pissed that the plot is shot to hell. The Phoenix Stone Sword vision was just one aspect of this, and the potential for Rayna to get involved sooner, rather than later. But this? This right here is just BS.

It doesn't even make any goddamned sense!

I spot some of the other members of the Founders' Council. Caroline talking with her mother to the side of the stage, eying Lucien seductively. Carol standing behind her husband, hoping no one will notice that she's openly staring at the vampire's ass.

I'm sure it's a nice ass, but is literally everyone already inclined to be attracted to Lucien? Hmm. Maybe there's something magical going on to cause that, beyond the usual, "vampires are sexy." Some kind of lust aura? It would fit his MO, trying to make a good impression on the townsfolk and half the population.

They really are pitifully unaware of what's really going on if they invited the first non-Original vampire on stage right here, right now.

"My name is Lucien Castle, and my company and I are looking to extend business into Mystic Falls. There are several properties around the area that we've already acquired and are going to develop into an extended community, drawing on the rich history of this great town."

Bullshit. Something brought you here. You wouldn't normally be interested in Mystic Falls, so what the hell are you here for?

It's… not me, is it? I mean, I can let my imagination go wild on that, or I can think rationally. The odds of that are incredibly slim.

But then the odds skyrocket when he finds me in the audience and smirks, meeting my gaze.

Fuck.

"Logan!"

Thank you, Bonnie, for giving me something else to think about. I turn toward her and smile. "Hey."

"You ready to go? I'm… itching to get started." She's holding onto the talisman around her neck. Now that it's activated, it makes quite a lot of sense. She leans in and lowers her voice. "Magic!"

I cut back to Lucien on the stage briefly, and his smirk grows before he returns to schmoozing with Carol.

Bonnie's frowning when I manage to look back to her. "Hey, you okay?"

I nod. "I'm fine. Just nervous, build these things up in my head. It's important, and I don't want to screw it up, you know?"

Bonnie grins. "I can totally relate. Do you need a ride?" She pauses. "I noticed that you didn't have a car."

Lucien's now moved away from the stage, but isn't walking toward me. Perhaps I'm safe for now.

"Yes, that sounds great."

We walk back to her car, and I can't help but look over my shoulder. No strange men and women speed-blitzing into view, no paid witches ready to smite me. I should be fine.

When we finally get seated in her car and she pulls the ignition, I give her a pointed look and crank the radio up as high as I can. Bonnie protests, but I grab her hand before she can turn it down.

"Listen to me very, very carefully. I'm sorry I have to do it like this, but this is the best way to break the news." She starts to laugh it off, but when she sees how deadly serious I am, she tunes in. "The man that was on the stage is one of the oldest vampires in existence; my coven spoke unkindly of him, horror stories about sadistic murders with carved faces. I… think he's taken an interest in me, which can only mean that I'm on his radar."

And I just put you on their radar as well by speaking to you in front of him.

She wants to laugh it off. She wants to pretend that I'm not serious, I can tell. But she does, thankfully, give me the decency to start driving as quickly as she can.

"So these vampires-" she has a look of 'oh god, they're real' on her face- "are going to come after you?"

I shrug. "I don't know. It could have been a coincidence or a fluke or I could be imagining things. But I think it's very important that we get across the threshold of your grandmother's place as soon as possible."

She drives fast and I'm left to ponder, in the meantime, what the implications were.

Tristan, Lucien, and Aurora's sire lines never got along, but from what I remember of the show, their most recent conflict arose due to the death of Finn and Kol, and the extinguishing of their sire lines. Get a bunch of self-important people together with enough fire power to individually walk into the White House and bomb anyone anywhere, and you're bound to have conflict.

So are they getting along? Are the Trinity working together right now? Do Finn and Kol's sire lines have a similar leader to the three of them that they regularly speak with? In other words, did five potentially very powerful vampires and their contingents just walk into Mystic Falls and declare it theirs?

Fuck. Nothing about this situation could possibly be normal.

My only solace is finally crossing that threshold. Sheila can tell something is wrong immediately, and I can tell that she hasn't had any alcohol today. Either way, I try to smile to alleviate the tension, but Bonnie has no such filter.

"Grams, vampires are real? What's next, mummies?"

"Actually, there's a funny story about that. One of the splinter families of the Gemini Coven lived in Egypt and used mummification to draw power. Real nasty necromancy types." Wish I had their grimoires to add to my collection, but finding the real Books of the Living and the Books of the Dead is mighty complicated.

Sheila coughs at Bonnie's expression. "All right, tell me what happened."

"You know a man named Lucien Castle?" Grams shakes her head. "Legends say he's the first one that the Original families ever turned, so he's well over a thousand years old. Immensely powerful and skilled. He just walked into Mystic Falls with his company and bought a bunch of land to develop."

Sheila frowns. "That's… not good."

I shake my head. "No, no it is not."

Bonnie can't stand being out of the loop. "Can you two please tell me what's so important about this?"

It only takes a few moments to explain the implications to her, about vampire abilities and especially about compulsion, but once we do, the girl is more and more shocked as time goes on.

"They aren't all bad," Grams explains, looking off to the side. "Had a fun experience with one at Woodstock… Hmm, believe his name was Stefan Salvatore."

...

The look on Bonnie's face as she connects the dots is absolutely priceless.