One world apart, part 16: Snitch

One moment, Damon was sitting on the couch.

The next, he wasn't.

The vampire had blurred to the window, and grabbed whoever it was who was listening in. Not even taking the time to register the bright red hair in his hand, Damon pulled the intruder's head by the window sill, tackling it against the wall, in a up-is-down manner. The vampire smelled the scent of blood, but he could tell it wasn't much, only a few drops. He hadn't bashed the intruder's head against the wall that hard...

"I don't care who you are, I don't care for who you're doing it, but no one eavesdrops on my private conversations! Tell me, how should I kill you for spying on me in my own house?"

Ric tried to get Damon to calm down, and maybe to ask questions before actually killing people, but a "click" beat him to it.

Damon found himself starring at a M1911 pointed under his jaw, though he had no idea how exactly the intruder could tell where his jaw was, given the redhead's position. Not that the gun would do real and permanent damage, but still, the vampire'd rather not have a bullet in his brain if he could help it. And there was still the risk that this particular gun had been loaded with wooden bullets.

Which, given the town they lived in, and the fact that the intruder had been spying on his boarding house, home to two vampires, was more than probable.

And again, even if a wooden bullet would not kill him either, unless it was shot in his heart, Damon'd rather not get shot with a wooden bullet for all that. Wooden bullets were just freaking painful, you see?

And they were a pain in the ass to get out, so if he got one in his brain... Yuck.

"Thanks for asking, Damon, but you weren't answering when I knocked at the door. I was merely trying to get to you... another way."

Recognizing the drawling voice at once, the vampire let go of the red-headed woman, surprise clearly written on his face. Magdalena winced, and turned her head right and left, her neck being a bit painful after all that rough handling.

"Damon, move over here. Mag might just shoot you if you stay too close to her after... Well, after you bashed her head against a wall."

The vampire rolled his eyes, but did just as he had been told to.

"Yeah, right. You Falkenbachs are a bunch of barbarians, anyway."

The ghost smirked, amused.

"Like you're any better, Love."

Then Damon looked back at the young woman on the other side of the window.

Magdalena had both her elbows on the window sill, her chin leaning on her closed fists, and was eyeing him warily. Her M1991 was nowhere in sight; then again, the vampire had never seen her with it during the last weeks, but now that he knew she had one, he wouldn't be surprised to learn she never went out without it. The right side of her red hair was soaked in blood, but she only had a small gash on her forehead. Head wounds bled a lot.

Ignoring the fact that Magdalena was pouring blood on the window frame – because it might have been, slightly, just a little bit, kind of his fault – Damon handed her a handkerchief.

"Long time no see, Magdalena. How are you doing?"

The lawyer responded in kind, wiping some blood away, before pressuring on the gash with the tissue as if it was totally normal for them to exchange civilities after a death threat.

"I ran into a wall earlier today. That aside, I'm pleased to see you too, Damon. And for your information, if I am to be murdered, I'd rather it be quick, and not too bloody. A twisted neck sounds good."

Though it was possible that it was, actually, normal to her. Alaric wouldn't be the one to say the contrary, as the both of them shared many memories of sweet family time... and of Saltzman training-of-hell time. God knew him and Theodoric had been only this close to greet each other that way too: murder attempt, then civilities.

Damon sent her a dazzling smile, while Ric's ghost wondered, once again, why he hadn't just gone to the afterlife. Even Hell had to be less crazy than this.

"Good to know, and you are lucky, twisting necks is my speciality. Anything else you wanted to tell me, as you went out of your way to get to my house?"

Magdalena's eyes jumped over to Ariane, who was politely watching the conversation. The woman didn't seem very disturbed by all this either. Then again, if what the lawyer had heard as she had been making her way to the window, hoping to see someone in the boarding house, was true, it wouldn't be surprising that to Ariane too, this situation was pretty normal.

"Actually, I'm here for you. Guess what I found buzzing in my suitcase?"

And the redhead brandished the grim reaper's cell phone, a thin grin creeping on her forcedly-stern facial expression.

Ariane blinked, and took the cell phone, wondering out loud how it had ended up in her friend's suitcase of all places. Magdalena took the opportunity to point out that the caller's ID had been "Devil-in-disguise", with a pointed look at the phone. Ariane swore, and scowled at the phone, which she quickly put on silent mode. No one managed to get more from her, as she simply went to sit in an armchair, her features dark, and her glare unwelcoming.

Mag shrugged and turned back to Damon.

"You know, I couldn't help but hear..."

Ric facepalmed, and declared he was done with all sorts of secrets and lies, before flopping down on the couch, his eyes fixed on the ceiling decidedly.

"...a part of your conversation. Is my cousin back in town?"

Damon tried to catch Alaric's or Ariane's attention, but both were ignoring his attempts. So the vampire decided to simply be cautious, and answer Magdalena's inquiry with another question.

And if the ghost or the grim reaper weren't happy with what would come out of his choice, whatever it would be, then they'd just have to suck it up. Let it not be said that he hadn't tried to give them a say in the matter.

"How much of our conversation did you hear, exactly?"

"From the 'The Falkenbach were the descendants of the only man to have ever killed a grim reaper' part. By the way, who's Ascagne?"

Ariane grumbled, from her glaring contest with the wall on the other side of the room.

"Seven centuries old, fell in love, saw her die, went ballistic, became a psychopathic killer."

From the couch, Ric mumbled as he glanced at Damon, who totally ignored him.

"Well that rings a bell..."

The vampire had all his attention on the lawyer, mostly because he did not want to think about Katherine, and because he wasn't keen on explaining to the redhead what her cousin meant by that. Good thing she couldn't hear Ric. How would he do that, anyway? "Hey, I've murdered a few hundreds of people in the last century and a half"? No, certainly not.

So Damon scrunched up his nose, and muttered that of course, she couldn't have helped it, it wasn't as if the lawyer had been listening for a good thirty seconds before she cursed loudly, and got their attention.

Magdalena gave him a scathing look, well aware of what the dark-haired man was currently thinking. The conversation may have been private, but it was her ancestors that Ariane and Damon, and possibly Alaric, though she had yet to see him, had been talking about. She felt she had a right to know. And so, a right to listen.

"Speaking of which, on top of Ric's location, I also wanted to ask what it was all about, grim reapers and curses included."

Damon tried one last time to get the two others' opinions, but they were still ignoring him. So, caution be damned, and possibly thrown to the wind too, he was going to tell her. The Falkenbach had been growing suspicious of Mystic Falls in the whole for some time already, it wasn't as if she wasn't going to find out at some point. Hell, it was even a wonder she still didn't know about the supernatural while living here! She herself was a cursed woman, and the supernatural population of the city kept going up these days – and down, too, because supernatural beings tended to end up dead pretty quickly in Mystic Falls, but it wasn't the point.

"Alaric is just here, sulking on the couch, if you want to know."

Mag blinked, and then narrowed her eyes at said couch, which was very obviously devoid of all living presence. What was Damon trying to achieve here, exactly?

"Oh, and Ariane's a grim reaper, I'm a vampire, Ric's a ghost, reason why you can't see him... And you are a cursed woman."

The lawyer thought about telling Damon off for his antics, but Ariane had finally decided to come out of her glaring-at-a-wall session. The grim reaper tossed her cellphone at the vampire, who caught it without even trying.

"Great, now she knows. Anything else you want to tattle about, snitch?"

Damon sneered at the grim reaper, before walking over to the window.

"I didn't hear you giving her the shadow of an explanation, true or false for the matter."

Ariane just stood up, and made her way to the room she had been free-loading in. A fact that Damon liked to rub in her face, from time to time. Mosty, when he felt like being an ass.

"I'm not the one introducing her to our wonderful world, just so you know. You told her, it's your job. Now, I have to go and mull over the imbecility of in-laws, so if you'd let me..."

Damon didn't bother trying to find out what his friend meant by that, though he had an inkling it had to do with "Devil-in-disguise".

Magdalena stared in bewilderment as the dark-haired man – sorry, vampire, she'd have to get her head around that – bit his own wrist. His face had changed slightly, dark veins appearing around his eyes, and the scleras turning red, while his canines sharpened, becoming fangs. The lawyer blinked when he offered her the wrist, where the new wound was already fading.

"Drink. It'll heal your gash."

Mag stared dumbly at him, trying to see if he was joking or not. The now-very-obviously-vampiric man rolled his eyes, and pushed his wrist against her mouth, so that she only had to open her mouth.

"Drink. You won't turn into a vampire with just this, if that's what you're worried about. And yes, I owe you that, at least, because I'm the reason you are wounded."

Still unsure that he wasn't playing with her, Magdalena gulped down some blood tentatively. It could do no harm, even if it didn't work, could it? And it wasn't as if she had ever been bothered by the taste of blood. She was a Saltzman by her mother, after all.

A moment passed, and slowly the pain from her head wound disappeared. When she couldn't feel anything anymore, Mag took off the handkerchief, and touched the place where she had been injured, and found nothing, except a bit of dried blood.

Her eyes went back to Damon, wide open, and she stammered a bit when she spoke.

"You weren't kidding."

"Of course I wasn't. Sit down, and start with the questions about the supernatural. I'm not letting you out of this house until you know enough not to get in trouble with any of the monsters who live around Mystic Falls, because believe me, they are numerous."

Then the vampire shot a glance at his sulking lover, and added:

"And because if I did, your cousin would nag at me for all eternity. Ghosts never shut up, you see?"

"As if you'd want me to shut up and ignore you until world's end."

"Ric's got a point. Don't ask, he's just being an ass. Anyway. What do we start with?"

Magdalena's eyes flittered to the still-very-empty couch, wondering how exactly Damon could tell that Alaric was there and not somewhere else, how the vampire could hear him if he was a ghost, and why Ric was he a ghost in the first place? – but she felt it would be better to start with the simple stuff, or else she would get lost. The supernatural seemed to be rather... labyrinthine.

"So... Vampires, ghosts, grim reapers and cursed people exist?"

"As well as werewolves, witches, hybrids, and doppelgangers. And I'm sure I don't know everything yet, I mean, I'm only one hundred and seventy-two years old!"

Mag blinked, still processing.

"What are hybrids?"

"Ah, these guys! Werewolves and vampires at the same time. But Ric is better: he's a ghost, a cursed man, and an enhanced original vampire at the same time. His serial killer days were fun..."

"Oh joy..."