Here's the new chapter! The posting delay this time was all thesis-related. I had to defend my thesis proposal in January and write the first draft of the thesis itself (which needed to be twenty-five pages long, minimum) in February. Now it's Spring Break, so I had time to crank out a chapter, but next I'll be revising the thesis so I can defend it at the beginning of April and writing 10 and 20 page papers for my grad classes, all while teaching and grading papers for my students. And if all that sounds perfectly miserable, don't worry! I'm actually having a lot of fun, but I'm going to be very busy until I graduate. If all goes well, I'll be a Master of English in less than two months, and I'll get the lecturer position and be a full-time college composition teacher by the fall. I'm sincerely hoping that being done with grad school will enable me to update this story faster, because I seriously love writing it. However, I also plan to start writing some original fiction over the summer (it's about vampires; I think you guys would like it), and I'll be editing the sequel to the novel I edited two years ago (which is now published), so I will still have other demands on my time.
Also, you should go check out the original work of my "All This Time" co-author and beta of this story, Mara Miller. The first book, Head over Hoof, is published, and the sequel, Head over Heart, is now on pre-order. Real life has been giving her serious crap lately along with moving and job-hunt issues, but in spite of all that, she's planning to get going on the "All This Time" sequel "Petrova Blood" soon, so keep an eye out for it.
Without further ado, the chapter. In case you're fuzzy on where we left off, it was the night of the first full moon after Richard killed Vicki. Since Grayson Gilbert, Richard's lifelong nemesis, caused Liz to reopen the investigation into Vicki's death by proving a vampire couldn't have killed her, as soon as Richard turned into a wolf, he headed straight to the Gilbert house to kill Grayson and anyone who got in his way. Damon was standing guard and managed to keep the wolf from hurting anyone else, but Richard bit him in the process, and Grayson's survival now depends on the Gilbert ring.
"It's quiet down there now," said Jeremy.
Elena nodded. They were sitting side-by-side on the floor of Jeremy's closet. Elena was clutching Jeremy's arm, partly out of fear, partly to make sure he wouldn't go charging downstairs.
"Should we go check it out?" said Jeremy.
"Damon will come get us when it's safe," said Elena. She looked around at him in the semi-darkness. "How do you know about werewolves?"
"Stefan told me."
"Why would he do that?"
"Because unlike you, Mom, Dad, and Aunt Jenna, he doesn't think I'm too young to know stuff. Also I didn't give him a choice."
"What other 'stuff' do you know?"
"I know Stefan and Damon are vampires and there's a secret council of founding family members that meets to deal with them." There was a pause, and then he asked, "How long have you known?"
"Since the week after Damon came over and we watched Princess Bride."
They heard footsteps then, and they went still and tense as the sound drew nearer. After a few seconds, the closet door opened to reveal Damon and their mom, who both looked very serious. Miranda was extremely pale, and Damon's clothes were torn and covered in dark smudges.
"Is everything okay?" said Elena as she and Jeremy got to their feet. "What happened?"
"Everything's fine," said Miranda with a shaky smile. She looked at Jeremy, but before she could address him, he cut in.
"I know about vampires and werewolves," he said. "You don't have to lie to me anymore."
"A werewolf just attacked our home," said Miranda, reaching out a hand to touch Jeremy's arm. "We didn't tell you sooner because it wasn't something we wanted you to have to worry about yet. But things are different now. It's too dangerous to leave you in the dark. You're going to need to be prepared if something like this happens again. Okay?"
"Okay, Mom," said Jeremy gruffly, shrugging her hand off. She smiled and ruffled his hair.
"Can we come downstairs?" said Elena, her eyes on Damon. He didn't answer, but exchanged a glance with Miranda.
"What?" said Jeremy.
"There's something I need to explain before you go down there," said Miranda.
Her tone made Elena very anxious. "What is it?" she said. "I thought you said everything was fine! Is the werewolf still here? Are Dad and Jenna okay?"
"The big bad wolf ran off with his tail between his legs after I was finished with him," said Damon. "I don't think he'll be back tonight."
"And Dad and Jenna are fine," said Miranda, "but it's complicated." She sighed. "You know the big silver ring with a black stone that your dad wears?"
"You mean the one that brings the person wearing it back to life if something supernatural kills them?" said Elena.
"Whoa, really?" said Jeremy, but Elena was staring hard at their mother, and all the feeling seemed to have gone out of her body.
"Was Dad wearing it tonight?" she asked cautiously.
"I got it on his finger in time," said Miranda, her voice high and her eyes bright.
"Does that mean the werewolf killed him?!" said Jeremy loudly. He pushed past Miranda, heading for the door, but Damon stopped him, putting both hands on his shoulders and staring him hard in the face.
"Jeremy," he said firmly, "think about this. Going down there right now will probably put you in therapy until you're thirty."
"I don't care!" Jeremy shouted. "He's my dad! I have to see him."
"I want to see him too," said Elena. Damon and Miranda both looked at her. "I want to be with him when he wakes up." Jeremy met her gaze, and she knew he felt exactly the same way she did.
Still, all the resolve in the world could do little to prepare them for the sight that awaited them downstairs. The office looked like a tornado had hit it, and there was an enormous pool of blood at the edge of the overturned desk. They reached the bottom of the stairs and headed towards the living room. Grayson came into view as they neared the couch where he had been laid out. His skin was shockingly white and his eyes were open and glazed over. Thankfully there was no sign of a wound on him because a maroon towel was wrapped around his neck and shoulders, and if there had been blood on his face, someone had already wiped it off.
Elena found Jeremy's hand with hers. His grip immediately tightened to the point of pain. Together, they went to the loveseat and sat down, unable to take their eyes off their father's lifeless body. Jenna came into the living room from the kitchen. There was blood on her clothing, but her hands were clean, the skin bright pink as if she'd been scrubbing hard. "I tried to clean him up a little," she said, her expression frozen and her voice shaking.
"I can take care of it from here," said Miranda gently. "Why don't you go get changed?"
Jenna nodded and practically fled the room.
Elena looked at Damon, who had pulled out his phone. "Who are you calling?"
"Stefan. Just in case Richard is heading for Meredith's place next."
He paced until Stefan answered. The conversation was short and to the point. Evidently there had been no sign of a werewolf anywhere near Dr. Fell's apartment.
"I can take over cleaning up the office," Damon offered once he had hung up.
"Only the blood," said Miranda. "Leave everything else the way it is."
Damon smirked appreciatively. Clearly he understood something Elena didn't. "Cleaning supplies?"
"Bottom of the pantry," said Miranda.
Damon headed to the kitchen.
"Why do you only want him to clean up the blood?" said Elena.
"So that we can use the rest of the wreckage to convince the Sheriff we were attacked by a werewolf."
X
The next few hours seemed to pass in slow motion for Elena. She and Jeremy stayed right where they were, waiting. Elena felt like she was barely breathing, she was so still, her eyes straining to catch her dad's first movement when he came back to life. The sounds of Damon cleaning and her mom and aunt quietly talking to Jeremy all seemed to wash over her without really leaving much impact.
At around four in the morning, Damon (who had long since removed all traces of blood from the office and come back to the living room to take a seat on the arm of the loveseat beside Elena) suddenly sat up straight. "What is it?" said Elena. Everyone else looked at him too, their eyes all slightly bloodshot from anxiety and weariness.
"Edgar caught up with Richard," he said. "He's in the middle of the woods miles away. Doesn't seem like he's on the prowl anymore."
"Edgar?" said Jenna.
"He's a raven," said Elena.
"He's been keeping a lookout for me," said Damon. "He's how I had enough of a heads up to stop Richard as soon as I did. The plan was to stop him before he could get within a hundred yards of this house, but apparently werewolves can run at least as fast as I can. Edgar couldn't keep up."
"What's he doing now?" said Miranda.
"Just padding through the woods," said Damon, gazing at a blank spot on the wall, brow furrowed. He scowled. "And it looks like we can add super healing to the list of werewolf perks, 'cause I know I smashed at least five ribs and broke his jaw, but he looks just fine now." He smirked. "I guess one consolation prize is that at this rate, he's going to be about five miles away from his clothes and his car when he changes back."
Miranda, who had so far been the calmest of everyone present since the attack, let out a choked laugh at this. "Well, if he spends the day wandering naked through the woods, then that's a day we can spend pointing the Council in his direction," she said, her voice uncharacteristically venomous.
"Why can't we just tell them straight up that he did it?" said Jeremy angrily. "He killed Vicki, and it's not like he knew killing Dad wouldn't stick."
"Because he's the head of the Council, and we're the only ones who know werewolves exist, let alone that he is one," said Miranda, venom giving way to a steely resignation. "These people are very set in their ways. It's dangerous to stand out in that kind of group. We have to let the evidence speak for itself."
There was a loud gasp from the couch, and everyone jumped and looked at Grayson. The color had come back to his face, and he was blinking and reaching up to pull the towel away from his throat. There was a lot of dried blood underneath, but no wound.
"That was bracing," he said, starting to sit up. Before he could get fully vertical, he was buried under a pile of four bodies tackle-hugging him with such enthusiasm that the couch nearly tipped over backwards. When they backed off enough to let him breathe, he was chuckling. "Thank God it was just me," he said, touching Jenna, Jeremy, and Elena on their shoulders in turn, then interlocking his fingers with Miranda's, as if to reassure himself that they were all okay.
"You are never taking that ring off again," said Miranda sternly, wiping her eyes with her free hand.
"I've been relying on the invitation rule for so long that it didn't occur to me that we could actually be attacked inside our home," he said. He looked at Damon. "Thank you for protecting my family."
"I only wish I could've killed the bastard," said Damon.
Grayson looked around at Jeremy, who was sitting on his left. "You seem pretty cool about all this," he observed. "Vampires, werewolves…."
"I figured most of it out on my own, since you've all been acting so weird lately," said Jeremy. Grayson laughed and cuffed Jeremy affectionately over the head.
Nobody went to sleep for the rest of the night, though a considerable amount of tension lifted around six o'clock when Damon reported that Richard was back in human form. After Grayson finished taking a shower, he began cooking an enormous breakfast for all of them: waffles, eggs, bacon, sausage, hashbrowns—the works. He invited Damon to stay for the food, but Damon declined; he needed to meet up with Stefan.
X
Wednesday was the first day since Vicki's death that Matt made it to football practice. When he got on the field half an hour after it started, some of the guys who saw him came over and touched his shoulder or pounded him on the back. They didn't say anything, but this silent show of support meant more to him than anything the adults at the Fourth of July barbecue had said. Like Bonnie, Jeremy, and Elena, these guys knew him. They'd grown up with him, spent most of their time in high school doing warm-ups, practicing plays, playing scrimmages, and winning and losing games alongside him. Their support was real.
"Donovan!" came an angry voice from behind them. They all turned to face Coach Tanner, who was approaching rapidly.
"Coach?" said Matt.
"Thomas, Miller, Jacobs, get back to practice," Coach Tanner barked at the three guys still hanging around Matt.
"Yes, Coach," they replied in unison, then jogged back onto the field.
"Donovan, I'm aware of your circumstances, but if you can't make it to practice on time, then I don't want you here at all. "
"O-okay, I'll just go, then," said Matt awkwardly, feeling as if Coach Tanner had punched him in the gut. He turned and headed back towards the locker room, his shoulders slumping. On the way, he passed Tyler, who was refilling his water bottle at the jug sitting on the end of the bleachers. He tried to make eye contact with Tyler, but Tyler was glaring past him at Coach Tanner.
"Hey, Coach," he called loudly.
"What is it, Lockwood?" said Coach Tanner.
"Do you really have to be such a hardass to a guy whose sister just died?" said Tyler, his voice just as loud as before.
Matt's eyes went wide, and all their teammates within earshot froze in the middle of their drills.
"You want to run that by me again?" said Coach Tanner, his tone menacing. "Because if you said what I think you said, you'll be lucky if all I do is bench you for the season."
"Ty, what are you doing?" said Matt in an urgent undertone, reaching out to grab Tyler's arm.
Tyler shrugged Matt's hand away, looking even angrier. "Matt's sister died less than ten days ago, and you're giving him crap for being late to an off-season practice?" he said. "What the hell is your problem?"
"You think you can get away with insubordination because your daddy is the Mayor?" said Coach Tanner, bearing down on Tyler, who still refused to back down. "If Donovan can't get it together enough to be here on time, then he's no good to the team yet. He's welcome to come back as soon as that changes, but you can get off my field and not come back." He punctuated this last sentence by jabbing Tyler in the chest.
Before Matt, Coach Tanner, or any of the other guys (all of whom were now staring, mesmerized, at the confrontation unfolding before them) could react, Tyler's fist shot out and connected with the man's snarling face. Coach Tanner's head snapped back and he staggered backward a few steps.
Tyler, an incoherent stream of swearwords and insults issuing from between his clenched teeth, made as if to lunge forward and continue the attack, but Matt seized him. It took all his strength to stop him from leaping on Coach Tanner, who was groaning and clutching his now profusely bleeding nose with both hands. Tyler continued to fight against Matt's grip, but by now, a couple of the other guys had run forward to help.
"Get him the hell off my field!" said Coach Tanner, voice thick and muffled from his fingers and the blood. "The rest of you, get back to work or you'll be running laps for the next two hours!"
X
Caroline arrived on the football field in time to see Tyler Lockwood punch Coach Tanner in the face and then be hauled off the field by four of his teammates. While this dramatic development would make extremely good gossip, it did not deter Caroline from her mission, which was to secure as many helpers as possible for cleaning up the Fourth of July decorations on Main Street. So after two seconds' hesitation, she resumed her purposeful stride towards Coach Tanner.
He noticed her when she was about ten feet away, and he gingerly removed the wad of paper towels from his bloody face and glowered at her. "What are you doing here, Miss Forbes?"
"I'm here as a representative of the Mystic Falls Beautification Committee," said Caroline, diplomatically pretending that nothing was out-of-the-ordinary about the situation or his appearance. "I've been assigned to oversee the taking down of the decorations on Main Street, and I thought the football team would be perfect for the job."
Coach Tanner opened his mouth, looking like he was ready to send her packing, but she continued before he could get a word out. "I've already been in touch with the owner of the Grill, and he agreed to give all my workers a free regular-sized lunch." She held up a stack of coupons as proof. "I also spoke to the principal, and he said this kind of community service activity would look very impressive on the guys' college applications next year."
Coach Tanner continued to glare at her for a few minutes over his clearly broken nose, while she obstinately held her peppy smile, until at last, he rolled his eyes and said, "Fine, take them."
X
"Get off me!" said Tyler once Matt, Josh, Zach, and Adam had dragged him halfway to the locker rooms.
"I got this," said Matt.
"See you later," said Josh, and he and the other two headed back to the field.
Matt waited until they were well out of earshot before facing Tyler again. "You didn't have to get yourself kicked off the team."
"I couldn't watch him give you crap like that," said Tyler stiffly.
"He gives all of us crap all the time," Matt reminded him.
"Yeah, because he's a piece of crap."
"You broke his nose."
"Good."
"You've got anger issues, man," said Matt, shaking his head. By now they'd reached the locker rooms. They changed out of their uniforms and gathered their things in silence.
"I'm sorry about Vicki," said Tyler. "I know how close you two were."
Matt looked down at the cement floor and swallowed hard. "Thanks."
X
After breakfast, Elena, Jenna, and Jeremy had gone upstairs to bed. It was lunchtime when Elena was awakened by her phone ringing. Groaning in protest, she reached out and snatched it off her nightstand. "Hello?"
"Where are you?" said Caroline's very indignant voice. "You promised you'd help me take down the Fourth of July decorations on Main Street! I got the football team here, Bonnie's already here, Stefan's on his way—"
"Wait, Stefan?" said Elena, sitting up and rubbing her face. "Seriously?"
"Of course!" said Caroline. "I read somewhere that a good way to get a guy to fall for you is to have him do manual labor for you. Once he's worked up a good sweat, I'll treat him to lunch at the Grill. Just wait. We'll be official by the end of the week."
Elena rolled her eyes. "I'll be there as soon as I can." She swung her legs off the bed and stood up, pressing Damon's number on her speed-dial and then putting her phone on speaker mode so she could talk while getting dressed.
"Everything okay?" said Damon's voice as soon as he picked up.
"Yeah, fine," said Elena. "I was just calling to see if you want to help me help Caroline take down the Fourth of July decorations on Main Street."
Damon gave an exaggerated gasp. "You mean you're not already there? Elena, I am shocked."
"Hey, you know I got no sleep last night," said Elena as she struggled her way into the shirt she'd picked out. "But I'm hoping Caroline will forgive me if I bring an extra recruit along."
"Then you're in luck," he said. "I'm already on my way there."
"What?" said Elena, now tugging on her favorite comfy pair of jean shorts. "Why?"
"Because Stefan needed a ride. It's so cute the way Blondie has him wrapped around her little finger already."
"Knock it off," came Stefan's slightly muffled voice. "I'm just helping out to make a good impression with people around town. Caroline and I aren't dating."
"Keep telling yourself that," said Damon, while Elena snorted.
"Okay, I'll be there in twenty minutes," she said, then hung up.
Just then, Jeremy came bursting into her room through the bathroom door.
"Hey!" she said indignantly. "Knock, much? I could've still been in my underwear for all you knew."
"Yeah, but you weren't, so whatever," said Jeremy. "Did you say you're heading out?"
"Yeah," said Elena, "why, do you need a ride somewhere?"
"Can you drop me off at the library?" he said.
"No problem," said Elena, walking forward and shoving him back towards the bathroom. "Now get out."
X
"Why didn't you tell her why you're really headed into town?" said Stefan.
Damon pulled his sleeve down over the bite mark on his arm. Initially, it had healed like any other wound he'd ever gotten since becoming a vampire, but then, a couple of hours ago, it reappeared, stinging painfully. "Because it's not that unusual that I'm headed to her dad's office. I do that every week, remember? The only difference is that this time, there's one more thing on the agenda than just donating blood."
"Damon, you've never had a wound not heal before. Maybe werewolf bites aren't like regular injuries."
"Then hopefully Grayson will have some ideas for how to treat it." He pulled the Camaro into an empty spot in front of Grayson's clinic and got out. Stefan followed suit. "Don't you have a blonde taskmaster to go take orders from?"
"Not until I'm convinced that bite is really no big deal," said Stefan stubbornly.
They headed inside, and Damon walked straight up to the receptionist's desk. "Is Dr. Gilbert with a patient?" he asked.
The receptionist swallowed the bite of sandwich she'd been in the middle of eating. "No, but this is his lunch break," she said. "Do you have an appointment?"
Damon leaned closer, meeting her eyes. "Yes, I have an appointment for right now."
"Just head on back, then," she said with a slightly vacant smile.
"Thanks," said Damon, and he did just that.
When he and Stefan entered Grayson's office, they found him eating a salad and poring over patient files. "You here for the blood draw?" said Grayson.
"Yep," said Damon.
"Not just that," said Stefan. Grayson raised an eyebrow, looking from one to the other of them.
Damon shot Stefan an irritated look but rolled his left sleeve up to show Grayson the inflamed bite mark. "Mayor McWerewolfpants left me this nasty little souvenir when I was wiping the asphalt in front of your house with him."
Grayson frowned and came around the desk to have a closer look. "It looks infected," he said. "You don't have any vervain in your system, do you?"
"No. Now that I've been to a Council meeting, I know which citizens not to snack on," said Damon, grinning.
Stefan and Grayson both scowled, and Grayson said, "Well, I can clean and bandage it for now, and I'll run some tests on your blood sample to see if it's anything serious, but there's not much else I can do yet. I've never seen a vampire with an infected wound before. Let me know if anything changes."
"Sure thing, Doc," said Damon, hopping up on the exam table. "Will I get a juicebox if I'm a good patient?"
Grayson rolled his eyes, but he was already pulling a bag of A-positive out of the fridge by the sink.
X
Back at the Gilbert house, Miranda poured fresh cups of vervain tea into mugs for Jenna and herself. Jenna gave her big sister a mischievous look, then grabbed her mostly-empty whisky bottle out of the fridge. "Drinking it Irish style won't affect the vervain, will it?" she asked.
"Jenna, it's barely midday," said Miranda.
"Which has stopped us when?" said Jenna. "I just wish I thought of getting plastered last night. That way I wouldn't remember watching my brother-in-law die right in front of me while I was covered in his blood."
"Fine," Miranda sighed.
Jenna opened the bottle and tipped it over her mug, but when she made to do the same with Miranda's, Miranda's hand shot out to cover the top. "No alcohol for me," she said with a small smile. Jenna's eyes widened; she'd seen that smile several times before. It was both hopeful and sad. However, she didn't comment. The two of them had a rule: no discussing the subject until they knew it wouldn't end in disappointment and heartbreak, which had only been the case once.
To help bide time until she could figure out how to change the subject, Jenna downed half of her tea. Miranda did the same. Jenna looked down into the half-empty mug. "Do you ever wonder if it's a bad idea to double-cross Damon and Stefan when the tomb opens?" she asked. Maybe the whisky was making her bold, or maybe she was just sick of keeping her mouth shut on this issue.
"We can't take any chances that they'll let something slip about Elena," said Miranda. "Killing them and all the vampires in the tomb, including Katherine Pierce, is the best way to make sure no one else ever finds out Elena is the latest Petrova doppelgänger and comes looking for her."
"I'm not so sure," said Jenna. "Damon's talked to me about his plans for after comet day. He thinks he and Stefan are going to be our long-distance lookouts for any signs that someone wants to hurt Elena, so why not just let them do it?"
"It's too risky."
"How?" said Jenna. "Damon saved all of our lives last night. He didn't need to do that. He likes Elena and he needs Grayson's help, but the rest of us aren't part of his plan. I think we can actually trust him, and I know I'd feel better about going up against ancient vampires if we had a couple of centennial ones on our side."
"You think Grayson and I don't know that?" said Miranda. She sounded regretful. "You think we're like the rest of the Council, so closed-minded that we can't imagine the possibility of a vampire being one of the good guys? Come on, Jenna. I'm the one who gave you that custom-made Team Angel shirt, after all, and back when Grayson was at Whitmore, he knew a vampire that he was glad to call his friend."
"Then what's the problem with Damon and Stefan?"
"Even if the Salvatores would never work against us deliberately, they might not have a choice," said Miranda.
"What do you mean?"
"When Mikael came to kill Elena, he had another vampire with him. Mikael didn't feed from humans; he fed from other vampires, and that's what that one was for."
"He's the one Grayson captured and used as his 'test subject,' right?" said Jenna, still slightly sickened by the thought.
Miranda nodded. "Original vampires like Mikael and the ones who could come after Elena have the ability to compel other vampires. That's why that vampire let Mikael feed off him, and it's why we can never be completely sure that a vampire will always be on our side. An Original could compel Damon to tell him everything he knows about Elena and our family. He could compel him and Stefan to kidnap her. We can drink vervain to keep our minds safe, but can a vampire do the same?" She looked Jenna in the eyes, and Jenna could see how strong her conviction was. "I don't like it any more than you do, but I won't risk my daughter's life on the chance that the Salvatores will never be compromised by the compulsion of an Original vampire."
She had barely finished speaking when there was a knock on the door. "That's probably Liz," she said. Together, they got up and headed to the front of the house.
Miranda was right; when she opened the door, they found Sheriff Forbes standing on the porch in uniform. "Hey, Miranda, Jenna," she said.
"Hi, Liz," said Miranda, smiling widely.
"I see you've had some trouble with your window," said Liz, gesturing at Grayson's office window, which was still completely broken and gaping open. Miranda had arranged to have it repaired later in the day, but for now, it served its purpose best if it remained untouched.
"We would've called it in," said Miranda, "but since we were next on your list of Council interviews anyway, we figured you'd just see it when you got here. Come on, I'll show you the rest of the damage."
"What happened?" said Liz, following Miranda and Jenna inside and over to the doorway of the office, from which point the overturned desk was clearly visible, along with several sets of claw marks on the wood floor and the window frame. Liz took all of this in, looking horrified. "Did something attack here last night?" she asked.
"Yeah," said Miranda. "It looked like a wolf. Grayson managed to hit it on the head with a baseball bat, which scared it off. None of us got hurt, though."
"It was the scariest thing I've ever seen," said Jenna honestly. Even Damon flashing his fangs at her that day at Whitmore didn't come close.
"For all that we've used 'animal attack' as a cover for vampire activity, I never would've imagined an actual wolf invading a home in a suburban neighborhood," said Liz.
"Actually, we're not so sure it's that simple," said Miranda.
"What are you talking about?" said Liz, dragging her eyes away from the claw marks to look at Miranda.
"It's just…it seems like a pretty big coincidence that it would go straight for our house, let alone Grayson's office, just three nights after Grayson provided the evidence that convinced you to reopen Vicki's case. And it was a wolf, on the night of the full moon. What if…what if vampires aren't the only supernatural things out there?"
Jenna had to marvel at Miranda's acting skills. She'd seen the whole thing happen and participated in planning this exact encounter with Liz, and even she was buying Miranda's façade of anxious uncertainty.
"So you think the wolf was actually a werewolf, and that it might have something to do with Vicki's death?" said Liz, looking like she didn't know whether to be alarmed or skeptical.
"I don't know," said Miranda. "We never thought they existed either, but that thing didn't act like a normal animal, and to specifically target Grayson..."
"Do you know where the wolf went after it left the house?" said Liz. "Maybe there's a trail we can follow."
"It ran up the street and disappeared into the woods at the bend in the road," said Jenna.
Liz nodded. "I'll call in some deputies and we'll see if we can turn anything up."
X
When Elena arrived at Main Street and parked her car, having already dropped Jeremy off at the library, Caroline was standing in the middle of the square, wielding a clipboard and marshalling her troops. Six or seven collapsible stepladders were propped against a tree, and the picnic table to Caroline's left was piled high with empty plastic dry-cleaner bags. The task of the day was to take down the large red, white, and blue bows from all the lampposts on both sides of the four-block stretch of road, as well as the banners that hung across the main intersections. But they couldn't just throw it all away—no. The banners had to be folded in just the right way, and the giant, unwieldy bows had to be placed neatly in the dry-cleaner bags so that everything could go back in storage in the basement of City Hall until next year.
As Elena walked closer, she caught sight of Stefan hovering a few feet away from Caroline, handing out dry cleaner bags to various football players, looking awkward and uncomfortable. She snorted.
"So you've spotted them, huh?" said Damon's voice right in her ear.
Elena jumped and grinned. "Don't do that," she giggled, reaching out to smack Damon on the arm, but he snatched her hand out of mid-air and spun her like they were dancing.
"But your reactions are always so funny," said Damon. When he stopped spinning her, she was facing Stefan and Caroline again. "Do you think we'll get Stefan back at any point today?"
"He shouldn't have encouraged Caroline by dancing with her at the barbecue," said Elena. "Also, she doesn't speak passive-aggressive, so if he wants this to stop, he's going to have to be very blunt about it."
Stefan had clearly been using his vamp-hearing to eavesdrop on their conversation, because he was now glaring reproachfully at them. Elena gave an exaggerated shrug for him to see, while Damon laughed. Midway through, though, he winced and grabbed his left forearm with his right hand.
"What's wrong?" said Elena, frowning.
"It's nothing," said Damon, quickly letting go of his forearm again and flashing a grin at her. "Just seems like wolf bites don't heal as easy as everything else."
"Can you guys give me a hand with this?"
They turned around and saw Bonnie staggering towards them with one of the big stepladders under her arms. Elena knew the ladders weren't particularly heavy, but as long as they were, they were pretty unwieldy for someone of Bonnie's height. Damon stepped forward and took it from her. "These jocks could use a lesson in chivalry if they were letting you carry that by yourself," he observed cheekily.
"Whatever," said Bonnie, clearly lacking the energy to deal with his sense of humor at the moment. "Caroline said she wants us down at the east end of the decorations, by your dad's clinic. After she's got all the football guys spread out over the rest of it, she'll meet up with us. We should grab a few of those bags." She pointed to the table with the dry-cleaner bags, and Elena went to get some.
"Should I be worried about Caroline and your brother?" Bonnie asked.
"I was just going to ask you the same thing," said Damon, looking at Bonnie with concern. "I'm worried she might pressure him into going farther than he's ready for."
"Shut up," said Bonnie, scowling.
"Relax," said Damon. "Stefan's a perfect gentleman, and he's more dangerous to squirrels than he is to people. It's disgraceful. I usually pretend I don't know him."
X
Even though Jeremy was now officially in the loop with his family about vampires and werewolves, he still wasn't content to just sit around at home and let everyone else figure out how to take down Mayor Lockwood. After all, his ancestors had been helping protect the town from vampires since the Civil War, but the first time a Gilbert found out about werewolves was a week ago. Clearly, they still had a lot to learn.
So here he was at the library, slowly burying one of the study tables beneath piles of all the books in the catalogue on werewolves. Before long, he even branched out to other keywords like lycanthropes, loups-garoux, shapeshifters, and skinwalkers just to be sure he covered every possibility. So far, it was mostly all fiction.
Refusing to be discouraged, he turned to the catalogue again after going through all the books he'd found, this time adding "folklore" as a keyword alongside "werewolves." This considerably cut down the number of results, and at the very top of the list was a book entitled The Werewolf in Lore and Legend. According to the computer, it was currently on the shelf.
Feeling confident that at last he might be getting somewhere, he carefully wrote down the book's info and went to find it. He was running his thumb along the spines of the books in the adult nonfiction section on the second floor when several books suddenly leapt off the shelf right in front of him, making him jump. "What the hell?" he muttered.
He bent down to pick the books up, and when he stood up again, there was an Asian girl he'd never seen before standing right next to him. "Oh my God! I am so sorry," she said, looking distressed. She had long, wavy hair, and she was wearing clothing and jewelry that fell somewhere on the spectrum between goth and punk. "There was this one book wedged between the other, and I pulled, and then—kerplunk, kaboom." She sighed ruefully and bit her lip, then looked at him. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, yeah," said Jeremy, more amused than annoyed, slotting a few of the books back in place. "I'm, uh, I'm fine."
She smiled, relieved. He bent down to pick up the last two books, but, evidently eager to repair the damage she'd done, she did the same, with the result that they ended up bonking heads and falling on their butts. The ridiculousness of it all had them both laughing.
"I'm Anna," she said.
"Uh, Jeremy," he said, holding out his hand for her to shake. She did so, smiling and biting her lip again. She was really cute. They stood up and re-shelved the books.
"So, what are you doing in the adult nonfiction section?" she asked. "It's the middle of the summer, so you can't be doing homework, and if you're here for fun, well, you strike me as more of an urban fantasy fan with maybe some interest in art, and all that stuff is on the first floor."
Jeremy let out a chuckle. "Good guess, but no, I'm, uh, I'm here doing research."
She looked around. "In the…folklore and legends aisle?" She sounded interested.
"Yeah," he said, but two could play at this curiosity game. "Why are you up here?"
"I was in the astronomy section," she said, jerking her thumb towards the aisle next door. "I'm looking up stuff about comets. You know there's gonna be one in a couple of months, right?"
"Yeah, it sounds pretty cool," said Jeremy. "Why didn't you just Google comets, though? Why come all the way to the library?"
"I guess I'm kind of old-fashioned when it comes to research. Besides, it's hard to find good local stuff online, but this library has tons of it."
"Yeah, I guess that's why I'm here too." Jeremy saw the book he'd come to this aisle for and pulled it off the shelf to show her.
"Ooh, werewolves," she said, her eyes lighting up. "So you're looking for stuff about the town legends, huh?"
"What do you know about it?" said Jeremy. His parents had made it very clear that he wasn't supposed to talk about this stuff to anyone outside the family, but if Anna knew anything about werewolves, maybe he could justify making an exception.
"When I was little, my granddad used to tell me all these creepy stories about vampires and werewolves wreaking havoc in Mystic Falls during the Civil War. He said his granddad told them to him when he was little."
"Yeah, we've got the same stories in my family," said Jeremy cautiously, "only minus the werewolves." He frowned at her. "If you know so much about the legends of Mystic Falls, how come I've never seen you around before?"
"I'm homeschooled," she said, screwing up her face a little. "I come to the library a lot for a 'mock school environment,' but hopefully I'll be able to convince my mom to let me go to regular high school in the fall. It'd be nice to be a normal teenager for once."
"So you're gonna be a freshman?"
"That's the plan," she said.
"Me too," said Jeremy brightly. "So, uh, I'm gonna check this book out, but I was thinking of grabbing lunch at the Grill. If you're not busy, do you want to come with so you can tell me some of your granddad's werewolf stories? I'll even pay for your food."
"Sounds like fun," she said. She ducked her head, then smiled up at him, which caused a weird flip-flopping sensation in his stomach. The only other girl who'd ever done that to him was Vicki. The thought wiped the smile off his face. Just for a minute, Anna had made him completely forget about her—about the reason he cared so much about werewolf research in the first place. It wasn't like he and Vicki had ever actually gone out, but he felt like he'd betrayed her memory somehow. He avoided looking Anna the whole way to the checkout counter.
X
Despite his inability to discuss or share his findings with other doctors and researchers, Grayson was confident that he was the world's leading expert on the properties of vampire blood. He knew that it could heal any physical wound as long as the patient was still alive when it was administered. He knew it could obliterate any pathogen in the body within seconds, thereby instantly curing any fungal, bacterial, or viral illness. He knew it could repair the damage and temporarily halt the symptoms of autoimmune diseases and genetic disorders, but not permanently cure them. He knew it had little to no effect on scar tissue, but that if the scar tissue was surgically removed and then vampire blood administered, it would heal with no trace of the old scar. He knew it had no effect on benign growths and tumors but dramatically accelerated the growth of malignant ones, which was why he was always very careful to avoid using vampire blood to treat patients with cancer or a high risk of cancer. He had theories about the possibility of using vampire blood as post-op treatment in cases where 100% of the malignant tumor is successfully removed, but those were theories he would probably never be able to test.
Five years with the Augustines and five more with his own test subject locked in the basement of the clinic had taught him all this and more, and yet he had never seen anything like what was currently under his microscope. Some of the white blood cells in Damon's blood sample were attacking the surrounding healthy cells at the speed with which they usually attacked invading microorganisms. At least ten percent of the cells on the slide had already been destroyed. It almost looked like Damon had contracted lupus, except that real lupus moved about a hundred times slower. At this rate, if nothing changed, Damon would be dead in less than seventy-two hours.
"You wanted me to drop by if I discovered anything else."
Grayson looked up from the microscope. Sheila Bennett was standing on the threshold of his office. "Well?" he said.
"I finally got in touch with a witch in Florida who knows a werewolf pack. Apparently the werewolf gene runs in families, but it could go generations without surfacing. It's only when someone with the gene kills a human—whether by accident or on purpose—that it manifests."
"Which is what happened to Richard after Vicki's death."
Sheila nodded gravely. "That poor child."
"Richard attacked my house last night when he was in wolf form."
"I saw flashes of the attack in my dream. I'm glad everyone's alright, but you ought to be careful about relying too heavily on that kind of magic." She looked pointedly at his ring.
"I'm certainly not planning on making a habit of it," said Grayson. He walked over to his desk and sat down, gesturing to the seat across from it. "What else did your Florida contact tell you?"
"Werewolves have enhanced healing abilities of about the same level as vampires," said Sheila, taking the offered seat. "So if you're planning on killing Richard, you'll have to do something he can't heal from, like cutting off his head or removing his heart."
Grayson nodded. "Damon said he recovered quickly from all the damage he inflicted."
"Unlike vampires, werewolves are alive, so it's possible they'd be vulnerable to death by drowning, suffocation, electrocution, or fire, but removing the heart or the head seem like the safest bets. Either way, it's an ugly business."
"Did you learn anything about the effects of werewolf bites?" said Grayson.
"A human won't suffer any ill effects from the bite alone, but as you already know, that doesn't do a lot of good, because a human doesn't usually survive being attacked by a werewolf," said Sheila. "But even though a vampire has a much better chance of walking away from a werewolf in one piece, all it takes is a single bite, and before long, he'll be dead."
"I've been able to discover that much from Damon's blood sample," said Grayson, gesturing at the microscope. "He didn't come out of his fight with Richard unscathed. Any specifics you can tell me about the way werewolf venom works?"
"My Florida contact watched a vampire die from a werewolf bite last year. First, the wound heals like anything else would, but then it comes back, infected. As the toxin spreads, the vampire grows weaker and develops a high fever. They eventually begin to hallucinate, and they become extremely dangerous as their bloodlust spirals out of control—their body's attempt to fight back, I suppose, but it doesn't work. The whole process is very painful, and the result is always death."
"Always? So your contact tried to cure it and failed?"
"He came to her for help, but if he really wanted her to try to cure him, then he probably shouldn't have killed her daughter," said Sheila dryly. "She just used a spell to keep him trapped until the toxin finished him off so he wouldn't be able to do any more damage in the meantime, but she didn't believe a cure was possible through magic, even if she'd wanted to try to find one." Sheila looked at Grayson shrewdly. "You're still going to try, aren't you?"
"My whole family could have been torn to pieces last night if it hadn't been for Damon, and I don't plan to spend the rest of my life indebted to a vampire." Grayson closed his eyes and took a long, slow breath. A burning feeling of determination was coursing through him. He opened his eyes again. "So yes, even though the last five generations of Gilberts have dedicated themselves to the destruction of vampires, I'm going to find a way to stop this one from dying."
Sheila's lips twitched in a small smile. "No herbal mixture or spell I know of can cure this, but I owe him too much not to offer my help if you need it." She stood up. "Maybe we'll both be able to pay off some of our debt."
X
The red, white, and blue bows turned out to be pretty easy to take down. Damon, Elena, and Bonnie quickly worked out a system. He went up the ladder to undo the hook, Elena waited at the bottom to catch the bow when he let it fall, and then Bonnie helped her put it in a bag while Damon moved the ladder to the next pole. There were about fifteen lampposts stretching from where the decorations began to the next cleanup group's territory a block west of them. By the time they'd finished bagging five bows, Caroline and Stefan had arrived with their own ladder and stack of dry-cleaner bags. True to her word, Caroline had left all the manual labor to Stefan, who was somehow managing to carry everything while Caroline had only her clipboard and a water bottle.
"Keep up the good work, you guys!" Caroline called loudly. "We'll get the ones on this side of the street."
"I really hope Stefan doesn't put a stop to that," said Damon, jumping down from the ladder after dropping the sixth bow to Elena. "Because it's never going to stop being funny." He stumbled a little and leaned back against the lamppost, eyes closed, breathing hard.
"You okay?" said Elena. They'd only been working for half an hour, but this wasn't the first time he'd seemed less coordinated than usual.
"Fine," said Damon. "Just got a little head-rush from the jump."
"I don't know," said Bonnie, her arms folded, "you seem even paler than usual."
Damon stared at her, looking deeply offended. "Pale jokes, really? I don't know if I can be friends with someone so racist."
"Ha ha," said Bonnie.
"Seriously, Damon, you don't look very good," said Elena. She automatically did what her mom had always done whenever she or Jeremy was sick, and laid the back of her hand against Damon's forehead. A split-second later, she snatched her hand back. "Holy crap, you're burning up!" she said.
"Of course I'm not," said Damon. "Vampires don't get fevers. It's just the hot sun. I'm fine. Let's keep going before those two pass us up." He grabbed the ladder and hauled it off to the next lamppost. Elena exchanged worried glances with Bonnie as they put the bow in its bag, grabbed the piles of empty and full bags, and hurried to catch up to him.
Elena kept watching Damon. She knew she hadn't imagined his abnormal temperature. Just when he'd climbed high enough to reach the next bow, his eyes rolled back and he toppled sideways off the ladder, falling ten feet and hitting the sidewalk with a thud.
"Damon!" Elena cried, dropping her armful of plastic and dashing to him. Stefan appeared out of nowhere, reaching Damon at the same time. Damon groaned and tried to push himself up, but his arms were shaking violently. Elena leaned forward and helped him into a sitting position at the base of the ladder.
"Bonnie," said Stefan, glancing over his shoulder at her, "can you distract Caroline?"
Elena turned and saw that Caroline was looking all over to see where Stefan had disappeared to.
"On it," said Bonnie. She looked both ways, then dashed over to Caroline's side of the street.
Damon was suddenly seized by a fit of hacking coughs. Elena looked helplessly at Stefan, her hand still on Damon's back. Stefan looked back at her, obviously terrified. When the coughing stopped, Damon's hands were covered in blood. "Okay, maybe I'm not fine," he said.
"Come on," said Stefan, pulling Damon's arm over his shoulders and hoisting him onto his feet. "We're taking you back to Dr. Gilbert."
X
Damon hurt all over. His joints were on fire, and tiny knives seemed to be piercing every inch of his flesh. His left arm in particular was agony like nothing he'd ever felt before. Through the pain he was dimly aware that Stefan and Elena were hauling him around to the back door of Grayson's clinic, and then Grayson was there, opening the door to let them inside. He didn't look remotely surprised to see them.
"Bring him down to the basement," he said. "I've already rescheduled the rest of my appointments today and sent Laura home."
"The basement?" said Elena. "But there's nothing down there except your files and some extra supplies."
"That's only the main room," said Grayson. "We're going to my lab." He did not elaborate further, but Stefan and Elena followed him anyway.
If Damon had occasionally felt slightly creeped out by Grayson's clinic and by Grayson himself, it was nothing to how he felt about the room Grayson led them to. It was almost identical to the room where Dr. Whitmore had spent five years playing Operation with his insides. Bare brick walls, white tile floor, too-bright fluorescent overhead lighting, cabinets covered in test tubes and beakers and other lab equipment along three walls, and an operating table fitted with thick leather straps and manacles as the centerpiece. The differences between Dr. Whitmore's lab and this one didn't exactly make it better. Against the fourth wall there was a reinforced steel cage big enough for a grown man to stand up and walk a few steps in, and vervain crops were growing under each of the basement windows. Except for a burning whiff of vervain on the air, the whole room smelled disturbingly sterile.
Damon wanted to get out of here and run as far away as he could, but his legs weren't working at the moment. Stefan and Elena helped him sit down on the edge of the operating table. Their presence was all that was keeping him from going insane.
There is so much going on in this chapter, it's kind of ridiculous. The mysterious vampire girl with compelled spies working for her in Mystic Falls has shown her face: it's Anna! Some of you guessed Katherine, but come on, would Katherine ever wear loose-fitting clothes? Anna never said anything about werewolves in canon, but if Katherine knew about werewolves, then so did Anna and Pearl. There are a couple of very significant bits of foreshadowing (and a Buffy reference) in the scene with Miranda and Jenna. Please share your theories in the reviews. I really liked writing Tyler and Matt in this chapter, and Tyler punching Coach Tanner was extremely satisfying. Grayson has earned snarky nickname status with Damon! Whether or not he keeps it remains to be seen. I've put a *lot* of thought into Grayson's history with vampires and his research on their blood, and as you can tell, I've even incorporated some of the developments in canon S6 into his findings. If anyone is prepared to take on the werewolf toxin, it's Grayson. I got the timeline for the progression of Damon's illness from the end of S2. In canon, Tyler bit him halfway through his transformation on the night of the full moon, and he was still walking around two days later when Klaus resumed his human form. So he had about three days between the bite and when Katherine showed up with Klaus's blood. In this, Damon was bitten by a fully-transformed wolf, so the toxin is probably more concentrated, but the bite was very small. Also, Grayson's thought about how Damon's blood sample looks like he's got lupus? That's not just me being clever. I did some research to find out what disease werewolf toxin (if it works the way I think it does) would most closely resemble. That the answer is lupus is just a hilarious coincidence.