You're selfish, you know that? Read until the end, and tell me you aren't selfish. Tell me you won't make that choice (I'm not even asking about Damon, Damon's choice is obvious)
One world apart, part 24: Bridge
Ariane didn't feel well. The two idiots were doing their antics, like always, but it really wasn't the time for antics. The sole name of Silas had managed to writhe her insides, and the mad Immortal had managed to get a witch to do things for him? Something that, despite his own enormous power, he couldn't have done on his own? It could only mean it was something serious, because power would never be a problem for Silas. The Immortal warlock was so old his power had grown bigger than any other witch could even consider attaining. So it meant it had to be a spell he couldn't do for other reasons. Such as, it needed tapping into Expression...
And certainly, considering the effects, the spell had needed to be done by someone with Expression. The Veil hadn't only been lifted, it wasn't as if everyone had just put the right goggles on. There was something more going on there, and Ariane wasn't sure what it was, but it definitely wasn't something good.
The grim reaper still couldn't feel the arm one of the ghosts had touched, a few minutes ago, as she had been hurrying to the boarding house. The contact had been brief, and painful, and now she felt as if all life had been taken from her flesh, as if the ghost had somehow sucked in her energy. The fear she had felt, at that moment, and the look of triumph in the dead werewolf's eyes, it had been enough to trigger her scythe without her willing it. Before he knew it, the ghost had been beheaded cleanly, and Ariane had been catching her breath against a wall, unsure of what had really happened there.
Her left hand twitched at the memory. The reaper was more than certain this was why she had felt so sick when she had set foot into the ghost-invaded zone. That this was why whatever Silas had done, it could only be something bad.
She wasn't sure how, she wasn't sure why, but the Veil between the world of the living and Qetsiyah's afterlife hadn't only been ripped open, it had also latched onto her, a grim reaper. In the zone, life and death were converging, and she was the point of convergence. If what had happened with the ghost werewolf happened again, and she couldn't stop it in time...
Ariane wasn't sure the balance of these two layers would resist the damage.
And if that happened, there was no telling if the Veil could be put back into place.
The grim reaper barked at the bickering idiots.
"You don't get how terrible this is, do you?! Not only do you have to deal with Silas, the first Immortal ever, and his insanely strong magic, but you also need to stay clear of the occasional stray ghost with a grudge, and you have to put the Veil back into place before it merges with the living world! All that, preferably without you dying in the process, since, you know, you'd end up trapped in the Veil like every other supernatural being!"
Alaric Saltzman, obviously, was right back to a grave face, so quickly Ariane hadn't even noticed him stopping his antics. She wasn't surprised, though. The guy was a Falkenbach, and she knew too well how this curse influenced a person. After all, the grim reapers had considered it their duty to know what one of them had unwillingly created.
Damon, on the other hand, only stared at her for a moment, before asking, almost tentatively:
"It can't be that terrible, can it? I mean, we've already dealt with a lot of shit over the years, and we're still alive... wait, here, more like, because seriously Ric, you could try harder..."
The vampire got a swat on the back of his head for that.
"Sorry. As I said, what's one more little catastrophe...?"
The glare Ariane gave him seemed to do the trick.
"...or maybe not. What did you mean by the Veil merging with the living world?"
Ah, so he had listened. And he had gotten directly to the worst part. Ariane guessed there was yet some hope for him. Maybe the vampire wasn't an utter idiot, but just an idiot. Who knew, really? Maybe there was a brain in there, hidden behind the dirty thoughts and the unwarranted snarkiness.
Maybe.
"It's a possibility. The layers of life and death are unstable, right now, and if a certain succession of events happens, the Veil could be destroyed, but while on the wrong side of the balance, and that not only here, but in the whole world. Its souls would be scattered on this side, in life, and well, you know what happens when a lot of angry ghosts gets resurrected permanently?"
Damon winced a bit.
"People die?"
"People get torn to shreds. And you still have to deal with Silas while avoiding all your old enemies."
There, Alaric interrupted whatever it was Damon had been about to say, a hand on the vampire's shoulder. He looked calm... enough. More than Ariane had expected, even from a Falkenbach, but less than he would look if he had been ignoring his feelings.
Almost as if part of the problem had already been dealt with.
"Silas no longer is a problem. We got him back into mineral state, so to say, and as long as no one feed him blood, we should be safe. We plan to dispose of him in an inaccessible place as soon as the Veil is dealt with."
Ariane felt her blood pressure – which didn't exactly exist anymore, but who cared? – dampen a bit. No insane Immortal with a death wish who might provoque the death of a few hundreds of people – at best. That was something she could appreciate.
But it didn't change the rest of the situation.
"That still leaves the invading ghosts who'd love to get your and you friends' heads on a pike."
Ric turned to look at Damon, who already had his charming, if a little roguish, smile on.
"Well, you'll help us, won't you? You won't let them get to me, your old friend who is doing his best to undo whatever it is that Silas had planned to happen, will you?"
Ariane didn't look impressed.
Actually, she looked a bit green. Like she wasn't happy about it, but she was going to do something no one would like, because it had to be done.
"Sorry, Damon, but you are on your own this time. I'd like to help you, but I'm part of the chain of events that could lead to the merging. The best course of action is for me to leave town, and to leave the zone where the Veil has been dropped. If I don't, we risk having ghosts from all around the world running around. I can't risk that."
The vampire reached for her and grabbed her arm gently.
"What do you mean, you are part of the chain?"
The grim reaper breathed deeply, eyes closed. She couldn't tell for sure, and she certainly wouldn't be able to forgive herself if it turned out she was wrong and Damon or any of the people she cared about got murdered because she wasn't here to defend them, but...
No, the risks were too big.
"Some... things happened, on my way here. I thinks I'm the first step. I'm naturally between the layers, but now there isn't an in-between, so... Let's say that if I came into contact with a being who is currently caught in the very same place as I live... things could happen."
Immediately, Ric took a step back and away from the reaper. He had no desire to see what these "things" could be, and it was pretty obvious what Ariane had meant by a being caught in her domain. A material ghost. Just like him.
Ariane smiled weakly at the ghost, thankful for his understanding. It was simply too dangerous...
Damon, on the other hand, frowned.
"Things? We were talking about a chain of event, weren't we? So it's not a the-ghost-touch-the-reaper,-the-world-shatters situation, not right away at least..."
The grim reaper tried to shake her arm out of the vampire's grip, but she wasn't strong enough to do that. Maybe she'd have managed against a newly-turned vampire, or a werewolf, but Damon had around one century and a half behind him, and vampire strength went bigger with age. Grim reapers, on the other hand, were only at human peak strength. A third of a newly-turned vampire's strength. Ariane couldn't beat Damon in sheer strength.
She almost growled her discontent.
"Damon, I really, really need to go. This event, the Veil being dropped this way, it never happened before. Even if there was a way to stop the chain of events once it has started, I wouldn't know what it is. I will not risk the coming back of a few thousands of souls. Not even for you."
"But..."
The vampire's other hand clasped on her arm, and Damon was holding her back, almost pleading. Almost, because Damon Salvatore didn't plead. So, almost.
Alaric was about to say something, and keep Damon from being clingy, because well, that was definitely what was going on. Ariane needed to go, to get out of the zone where the Veil had been dropped, and that was it. She was right, Damon needed to let her go, and they were losing time...
But he didn't speak.
Ric didn't say anything, because something happened, and no one said a word.
As Damon had reached for his friend a second time, to beg – sorry, ask her very insistently to stay around and get rid of a few ghosts for them, because Damon Salvatore didn't beg, and you'd better remember that! – so, as his second hand had touched Ariane's arm, the nexus ring had started to shine.
Ariane's eyes widened. Something cold and crawling slithered by waves from the ring and into her skin, right where the two met. For a moment, she had the impression her metallic blood had been changed for iced water by the contact of the ring. Then the waves of cold fell back into the ring, but not without taking something with them.
It was exactly like when that werewolf ghost had touched her, only, worse. In a few seconds, it wasn't only her arm, but her heart, her head, her toes, her whole body that felt deprived of human warmth, just like a cadaver.
Ariane understood.
With the ghost, it would have taken much longer, and she had a feeling he wouldn't have been able to complete the transition from dead to living, permanently. In fact, she just knew it. Even with all the ghosts around, she would have been safer if she had stayed out of the boarding house, away from Damon, away from the nexus ring she had made herself. Sure, she might have been attacked by the ghosts, searching to steal her life force, but it wouldn't have ended the processus, it wouldn't have started the merging, because the ghosts out there had no anchor. Ariane was their door to another life, but they didn't have the key.
Damon had the key for Alaric to pass through.
Damon was the key for Alaric to pass through.
Maybe she should just summon her scythe, and kill the key. Her instincts had already kicked in, and because of their friendship, she had reigned them in, but really, maybe she shouldn't have. At least, if she had let it happen, she could have blamed it on her instincts.
Behind Damon, she saw Alaric's face twist, almost in pain, perhaps in glee. Something the ghost wouldn't have been able to control, even if he had wanted. Some instinct, for him too, to latch onto the life source Damon had unknowingly given him access to.
Despite feeling like a block of ice – or, really, more like a block of stone, which didn't feel anything – Ariane turned, slowly, desperately, to look her friend in the eyes. Damon seemed frozen in shock, but he caught her glance, and eventually looked back at her.
Her lower jaw was hard to move. A bit as if the mechanisms were jammed. A bit as if she was a statue made of stone.
Stone statues weren't supposed to talk. Still, she would speak.
"Damon, you have to let go! The ring, with the blood of a dead, the blood of a being in-between, and the blood of a living, it's creating a brigde. It's anchoring Alaric back into life, and such a disturbance could start the merging of the Veil with the world of the living!"
If only she had understood that sooner...!
But while Ariane felt desperate, unable to move, unable to take the decision and kill her friend, while the world was hanging in the balance, the words rang into Damon's head.
It was anchoring Alaric back into life.
Even if he had wanted to, he couldn't have let go of Ariane's arm. He couldn't have stopped the nexus ring from touching the reaper's skin. He couldn't have moved away, and made it stop.
It wasn't even that he didn't want to move, or that he wanted Ric alive even at the cost of hundreds of possibly-murderous souls walking free from a scattered Veil.
It was simply that the thought of Ric, alive, again, had stopped him from thinking.
