1-05

It was a quick task getting the new barriers around the places of interest. Bonnie and me went to work creating Boundary spells around Grams' place, our house and after calling Lucy to get the nitty-gritty of the Blessing around the graveyard, we forewent it, instead meeting with Jared and Andrew do get the Salvatore and Gilbert houses done.

"You know," said Jared, "if you were a part of the coven, big bro, we wouldn't need to be outsourcing."

"It'll take a lot more than this to convince," Andrew said with a small smile. "Where to next? I've got classes in the morning."

"This is really more coven business," I said looking at him.

Andrew tensed, shoulders squaring and a fire sparking behind his eyes. He looked from me to Jeremy to Enzo to my dad and then Stefan. "They aren't a part of you coven," he said. "And I'm not about to just leave my brother with the rest of you."

"I'm not telling you to leave him," I said. "Just don't listen to anything we've got to say. Stay in the car, be on your phone or something while we discuss."

"I don't like this," he said. "You could be talking about the Original. Something I have a vested interest in. Something that will be working against the whole making sure my kid brother is out of the way of this."

I wanted to speak, tell him that his brother had a voice of his own but that thought made me see the hypocrisy the statement would have if I were the one discussing it. Instead I looked at Jared, this was something he had to discuss with his brother, in the meantime I had to fill everyone else in. It was really complicated, this, it would have been better if Andrew and I worked together but I'd messed that up by inducting Jared without his permission.

This was also the reason that he and Bonnie had stopped their burgeoning relationship in its tracks. I made a mental note to apologise for that. But from the looks of it she'd already moved on with the Marc guy a year ahead of us. Truth be admitted I didn't like him as much as I'd liked Andrew but I was getting side-tracked.

"Jared, sort this out," I said. "But for the rest of us." I took a breath and started the spell, one iteration and I had a boundary spell around us, making sure it excluded Andrew and Jeremy. I warped the sound so that they couldn't hear us and we in turn couldn't hear them.

"There's another store of power in Mystic Falls beyond the usual sources," I started.

"Why am I not surprised," Enzo muttered. "Let's list them off shall we so that no one's confused. Stefan and Elena, our two doppelganger pair, then there's Tyler, your witch ancestors and now…?"

"Emily," I said. "Do you know how she died?" I asked Stefan.

He squared his shoulders, taking a breath. "I heard," he said. "While visiting. Apparently she'd been burned, her and one of her daughters."

"Oh god," Bonnie muttered. It had elicited a reaction from my father as well, a cold look in his eyes and his teeth clenched together. I remembered that he'd feared such a thing happening to us way-back-when and I hadn't much listened. It was so easy to dismiss it as not likely to happen, but looking at it now, my father had had rational reason to fear because it had already happened before.

"She wasn't the only one," I said. "The site she was burned at one another set of witches a period before were burned. I'm not sure of the exact dates or the circumstance but if I'm remembering correctly this was before Mystic Falls was even a place."

"So they're looking for this power source?" asked Enzo, the one showing the least amount of emotion of all of us. Excluding me, that is. But then those were extenuating circumstances.

"Yes," I said. "The short of it. The long of it is, they're watching us, Elena in particular. The memories are foggy in my mind but I think they might just use her as ransom or they might use her to lure in Klaus, and considering who they're working with it most likely is the former."

"Elijah Mikaelson," said Stephan. "If all this is already coming to a head, shouldn't we tell the Council?" he asked. "Make sure that we're prepared?"

Before I could speak Dad said, "We should. The relationship between the witches and the Council is tenuous." Looking at him I could see that he was mostly talking to me. "You're known for doing things without speaking to anyone, things that put everyone in danger. You say we should share knowledge but as someone who knows the bulk of it, you don't return that kindness. This would be a step against that."

I swallowed before giving a nod. Personally I wouldn't have told them, too many people threatened to muddy what we were trying to achieve. They would have their own objectives, their own thought processes to achieve things and I couldn't trust that. But the same could be said for me. They didn't know all that I knew and from their perspective I might look crazy taking into consideration some of the things I did.

Stealing a sign of all things. I quickly made a note to burn or destroy the bridge leading into town before anyone could connect the two things. But that was for the future, in the now I had to focus on the now.

"So who'll tell, them?" asked Enzo. "The Council and I don't get along too swimmingly." He didn't mention the fact that they thought he was my lapdog, which was severely underestimating Enzo's scheming capabilities.

"I will," said Dad. "Keep them safe," he said to Enzo and Stefan. They both nodded. Dad took a step out from the boundary's area effect and then he was gone, appearing as a blur that moved in a straight line before it was gone.

"I think Jared's done talking to his brother," said Bonnie. I looked in their direction and Andrew was on the ground, eyes closed and his breathing calm and even. I beckoned him forward and added him to the affect's power.

"Drew said it was okay to go," said Jared. "Then promptly said he was too tired and fell asleep. I think he wants us to take him home at some point."

We all looked at him for a long moment before I gave a nod. "Moving on," I said. "Major power source and we're going to put a blessing around it. The same one that's in the graveyard."

Jared grinned. "My first blessing," he said. "This is going to be awesome."

"And it's going to take the better part of the night if it's the last one," said Jeremy. Jared deflated at that slightly but there was just enough enthusiasm that he was still chirper.

"More," said Bonnie. "Planning might take the better part of an hour in I'm generous and there's the actual spell itself. We'll have to be slow about, picking between who will lead the spell at certain points between the boundary, curse and linking phases."

"Sleep's for the ugly," said Jared.

"Okay that makes no sense," I said.

"You know, beauty sleep. That's me saying I don't need no beauty sleep. Fuck," he said. "You made me explain it and now it's no longer funny."

"It wasn't funny to begin with," said Enzo.

"Humour is subjective," Jared quickly returned.

"By which you mean you're the only one who found it funny," said Enzo.

"I'm a kid," said Jared, "and you're picking on me. This is bullying, this era doesn't like bullies so be careful."

"Consider myself warned," said Enzo. "Now let's get a move on," he said. "Sleep may be for the ugly, but it's still a pleasure to enjoy."

We got to moving, Stephan stowing Andrew in the back before we drove to the site. It took a little driving and course correction before we arrived. Stephan and I were trying to work off of memory about where the place was since we didn't have a name. He knew a path he'd taken when he was still alive and the only place marker I knew was that there was a building there.

Fifteen minutes passed with us doing this before Stephan decided to move on foot. He eventually found the place and a road we could use to reach it. From there the real work started.

The recipe we had, Lucy and her mother had been gracious enough to give that to us while we'd been working through creating the spell for the graveyard, but it was everything else that was the problem. We needed to make the spell our own, structure it in a way that three novices could achieve without ruining the integrity of it all, and all that was with the fact that we were making adjustment to make the blessing easier to create.

Stephan was the better part of that. He slit his wrist and bled into a jar, he repeated this until he filled four of the things and proceeded to put them in equal distances apart so that they formed a large diamond like structure. Jared would be the one handling the blood, it was similar enough to water that his natural affinity would help him handle how to channel the blood without much trouble.

Next Jeremy worked to put thick, short candles in equal distances from the blood with turned the large diamond into an almost circular shape. The mounds of salt were what followed, this was a more advanced form of a boundary spell, which meant the majority of its source needed to be earth if we wanted to draw on that power, the abstract quality it would bring with it. All this meant that Jeremy had placed eight mounds of salt between the blood and the candles.

"Incendia," said Bonnie and every candle came alight. We stepped into the large circle with the vampires on the outside. Witches were prejudicial, the three of us doubted they would be allowed into the building and there was the chance that them being too close might cause the spirits whose domain this was to muddy the spell.

We walked until we found the centremost place and started the spell.

I was the first to take leads and there was a power in that. When I focused I could feel the various elements in the spell: the earth thundering below us, the crackle of fire in the periphery and the crashing of waves which were even louder than the other elements, with more weight behind them. But the loudest of all our sources were their voices.

I could hear them, the ancestors and they said the spell just as we were doing. A myriad of voices pouring power into one objective.

I pushed my focus away from that and instead focused on my anchor points. There were fourteen in all and the task was on me to equally feed them power from the various sources in the correct concentrations. Earth took providence, followed closely by the blood which added more power into the mix and the firm to make the entire thing.

Time passed, countless iterations of the same spell over and over but it was immaterial because I was focusing on this one task. I'm not sure how much time passed and then all at once I was done and the lead had shifted from leading to following, Bonnie next took hold, weaving a curse into the spell network in quick order. Jared followed thereafter, warping the effects of the spell so that we were the only witches could enter this place and going so far as even to shift the threads of power, building redundancies into the threads of power would need to be cut all at once to stop a flow of power to flow into the blessing.

And then it was done. The various sounds leaving and a deep fatigue setting into me.

I let myself fall back, groaning because I could feel a throb moving through my head and my joints squeaking because they no doubt hadn't move in a matter of hours.

"Yep," said Jared. "It's over. That whole enthusiasm thing. I never want to do one of these again."

"Ditto," said Bonnie. "Let's leave because I want to sleep for the next three years."

I couldn't help but agree.