The Vervain had slowed Damon's healing ability. Lorenzo crouched down and looked at the vampire's face.
"He was very young when he turned. I wonder what his story is?" His tone spoke of wonderment and lives bigger than his own.
Dania set about packing up the viles of Damon's spinal fluid. With a speedy courier the precious body fluid would be with the coven in a matter of hours. Dania was pleased with herself. However, she was broken out of her self-congratulation by a yelp from Lorenzo. The vampire had her colleague against the wall by the throat, a broken handcuff dangled from his wrist.
"What did you do to me!?" Damon turned his Arctic coloured eyes upon her. A flutter of fear shivered through her. Lorenzo was terrified. In the time it took to blink his neck was broken in audible crunch. He dropped like a bag of bones.
As impressively strong as Damon was though, he was swaying in the breeze. He'd used too much speed and power too early. He wasn't in fighting shape. Justice, Dania thought. She'd heard, on the grapevine, that Damon Salvatore was cocky. What made him so important to the coven was beyond her comprehension.
"You've overexerted yourself, haven't you Damon? She sounded like she was talking to a child, "you're head's throbbing, isn't it?"
His reflexes were slow. Dania was mindful that she couldn't kill this vampire but she could certainly put him down. She picked up a stool, swung wide and took Damon by surprise. His reflexes were really sluggish. She swung again, putting him down for good. The vampire had overstayed his welcome. Time for him to be someone else's problem. Dania grabbed her things and swiftly exited the building.
They threw Stefan onto Elena and Jeremy's front porch. He landed with a thump and felt nothing of it. Like his brother, thousands of miles away, he was in unconscious oblivion. It was Jeremy who opened the front door. He called his sister's name loudly while dragging Stefan inside.
Elena raced down the staircase at a rate of knots. She slid down the last two steps painfully wrenching her ankle.
"What happened?" she shrieked, sinking to her knees beside Stefan.
"I don't know. I just opened the door to get the mail and found him laying there," he replied.
Stefan needed blood and lots of it. Elena dashed into the kitchen and grabbed a knife. Stefan unconsciously drank from her wrist until her head was swimming with blood loss. Jeremy repeated the process and eventually Stefan returned to them, fully conscious.
"I don't know who they were. I've never seen them. They came into the house and got the drop on me pretty quick," Stefan told them. "I think they drained nearly all my blood."
"You heard nothing else? That was it?" Jeremy said from the opposite side of the kitchen table. Elena lovingly massaged Stefan's shoulders. He searched his foggy memory of the surreal night. Something surfaced.
"Spinal fluid!"
"What?" Elena stopped kneading his muscles and sat beside him. She supportively placed her hand on his knee and squeezed.
"I heard a phone call just before I passed out. They were talking about draining someone's cerebrospinal fluid and kept on about a spell."
Jeremy's face crumpled in disgust, "that's sick."
"Who would do that?"
"I don't know but we're talking about something powerful here. We should call Bonnie and see if she's heard anything."
His suggestion stayed unanswered. He and whoever the spinal fluid belonged to were part of something. Concern had silenced everyone.
Damon awakened, face down, on the hard, unfinished floor tiles. He had no idea how long he'd been laying there but judging by how his bones ached it must've been a long time. He groaned as he hauled himself up. He could hear no heart beats, no living people to sap the life out of. He'd have to settle for the dead man at his feet. Lorenzo was still warm which meant his blood wouldn't taste too stale. Damon sunk his teeth in. He drank his fill feeling like he'd descended into desperation. Feeding from a dead man was like a bankrupt millionaire begging in the street. Damon was angry. He would make whoever did this pay... right after he figured out their reasons why.
Later that evening Damon was disturbed by a rap on the front door of his home.
"Well hello, Mr blue eyes." Alyssa barely gave Damon a chance to open the door before flinging her arms around her neck.
It took all of his self restraint not to sink his teeth into the fleshy part of her neck. That would certainly keep her away.
"I love your place. Its so much tidier than mine," she said falling into the soft white leather sofa.
Damon made no reply. He simply stood and watched the Thames through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Without him noticing, Alyssa poured them both a glass of wine.
"Tell me what's on your mind, babe." She pressed the glass into his hand and stared into his now distant blue eyes.
What Damon couldn't tell her was that he had the all too familiar feeling that something was on the horizon. Something horrible.
"Bad day at the office," he lied.
With that, Alyssa started peppering his neck with kisses. Damon stroked her flame-red hair and began to finally relax. She led him by the arm to the sofa. He let her push him backwards and straddle his lap. She continued her tirade of warm kisses. Alyssa's slender fingers ran south down his back. Perhaps she wasn't so bad after all.
Matt could hear the rain outside lashing down. It meant one of two things. The grill was either going to be doing a roaring trade or the place would be practically empty. On this particular occasion the place was deadly silent.
Matt finished wiping the bar clean for the hundredth time and took a heavy sigh of boredom. As soon as his eyes clapped sight of the man sitting in the corner booth his hackles went up. He knew a witch when he saw one. One didn't spend their entire life in Mystic Falls without catching scent of something decidedly mystic. Human he may be but he'd learnt to trust his hunches.
"You're staring, boy." There was too much white showing in the man's eyes.
"I'm sorry, sir. We don't get newcomers very often. Welcome to Mystic Falls."
The man obligingly accepted Matt's false welcome but started to stand up. He was clearly rattled. He placed a hat on his head and headed for the door, tipping Matt a polite nod on the way out.
Joseph left the small-town bar calmly despite the horrid weather. His mobile phone buzzed in his pocket. It must be them. Things must nearly be ready. Once in the shelter of his car he answered the text. As he sat there he had no doubt in his mind that the boy in the bar was watching him from the window. He didn't mind. Humans like him would eventually be thankful to him for what he was about to accomplish. Joseph checked the bag on the back seat. Bottles and bottles of blood and spinal fluid almost came spilling out. Perfect. They needed plenty for the spell. Satisfied, Joseph pulled away.
As expected the coven had congregated at the ruins of the original Salvatore house. The childhood home of the vampire brothers. This was the perfect place. Memories and times long passed were infused in the fabric of the place. They could not have picked a better spot to do the spell. Joseph stopped in front of the coven and opened his arms.
"Shall we start?"