CHAPTER SEVEN
"Sometimes, I think the things I remember are more real than the things I see."
~ Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha
xxxxXxxxxx
Parkesburg, Virginia
1853.
"How much longer is it?" Stefan leaned forward in the seat, making the Clarence carriage rock like a boat in the water.
His question was nearly drowned out by the heavy clip clop sounds of the horses' hooves on the dirt of the road.
"Patience," Giuseppe Salvatore chided from his tufted black leather seat across from his youngest son. Giuseppe's dark blue silk suit was protected from the dust the horses kicked up by a black riding cape. "We're nearly there, a mere 15 minutes tops."
Stefan's eyes widened like his father had just told him that his favorite Hobby Horse in his nursery was going to be burned for sport. "You said that we were nearly there!"
"We've covered more than half the distance Stefan," Giuseppe returned. "That is more than nearly there."
Stefan took this news as well as any seven-year-old would, with petulance. "What if Ms. Abilene ate all the lemon tarts without me?"
"She hasn't little brother," Damon insisted from his seat next to their father. At 14 he was now considered old enough to wear a suit in the same style as Giuseppe. It was minus the riding coat, but compared to Stefan's short breeches and short sleeved button up shirt Damon looked very much the part of the older brother. "She only has the cooks bake them when you come over, she's doesn't love being a sour puss as much as you Stef."
"Don't call me Stef Damon!" Stefan harrumphed.
"Why?" Damon asked over the bumping of the carriage. "It is your name after all, isn't it?"
"It is not!" Stefan shouted back.
"That is enough!" Giuseppe snapped at them both. His eyes were half covered under the brim of his tall, black hat but they still rose up sternly. "Damon, what have I told you before about your insolent behavior?-" His eyes bore into his teenage son's beside him on the bench style seat.
Damon suddenly felt half the age of his younger brother under his father's deathly stare. No matter how hard Damon tried he was never able to please his father. It seemed that everything he did, and that seemed to include breathing and walking around, was deemed wrong. "I wasn't trying to be insolent father," Damon's face broke into an attempt of a smile to try and explain away his next explanation. "I was just trying to be funny, Stefan's just tired from the trip; he usually likes it when I call him Stef."
"Your brother is a child, Damon!" Giuseppe barked out to his son. "I don't hold him to understand the meaning of propriety. You on the other hand, are nearly 15-years of age, and yet you must be reminded daily of that fact!" The anger in his stare was hot enough to melt glass. "Sit with Stefan, Damon. Apparently, you're not much older than your seven-year-old brother so you should join him for the rest of the ride."
Giuseppe's words cut into Damon like glass shards; he did not answer with an obligatory 'yes father' but he did do what he was told, moving overand landing hard beside Stefan on the opposite carriage seat.
Damon was now blocking the view Stefan had up to that point of the scenery out the carriage's window. The trees and landscape were now hidden away by Damon's curls and hurt looking expression.
Stefan scooted the inches between him and Damon until they were gone and shook his brother's arm hidden under the silk of his suit. "Damon, I didn't mean to-"
Damon felt Stefan plucking at his arm. He turned away from the never ending parade of evergreen trees and met the expression on his younger brother's face. "We'll be there soon enough Stefan, don't worry." He offered no more words of comfort to Stefan than this, but raised his arm to lay across his little brother's shoulders, feeling Stefan's smaller body jostle and jump in time with the carriage that bumped along the road.
The carriage traveled on like this for those remaining fifteen minutes in silence, taking them through the center of Parkesburg with its sprawling brick two story buildings and busy streets. They rode past the livery with sounds of horses snorting behind their fences, general stores, the grand bank with its golden sign hanging out front, the even grander town hall where important looking men tipped their hats to Giuseppe. The carriage drove away past all this commotion to a road that had been formed into the dirt ground by constant horse travel rather than pebble or brick.
This road lead them away from the cluster of buildings and past a field as large as an ocean, bright green with tobacco plants.
Shapes moved in and out of that greenery dressed in washed out canvas, hacking away at the base of the plants w with machetes. As the Clarence carriage passed by, some of the men and women raised their heads up to the sound of the rolling wheels. They were snapped at by a field overseer and quickly returned to work. The overseer tipped a sun bleached tri corner hat at Giuseppe who didn't return the gesture.
Stefan stared at this scene from out his window, and even tried to wave at some of the field workers, but none of them returned his wave. He was not nearly 8-years-old years old yet, but he knew better than to ask if the workers liked what they did. Trying to do so before at their own house had gotten him a telling off – one of his first- by his father. So instead he crawled forward, climbing over the mountain of Damon's knees and peered out at the bricked plantation house that rose over all the tobacco plants and over at the people.
The carriage rounded a curve in the road and the house drew nearer, and nearer, its deep red brick guarded from the roadside by large white roman style colonnades that supported the triangular roof of a shaded portico. On either side of the house stood rows of black birch trees and magnolia trees, their heady blossoms in full bloom.
The driver overhead gave a 'whoa' and the carriage rumbled to a stop in front of all those sweet smelling blooms.
A grand porch took up the length of the entire first floor, and a line of women in black maids uniforms with whimpers on their heads stood soldier straight in lines on either side of the porch. On the set of white steps that led the porch down to the ground stood Abilene Rosenbaun, wearing a dress of blue silk the color of a robin's egg. She waved a hand in the air and smiled widely before descending the steps, holding onto her straw hat with one hand and her full skirt with the other. "You've arrived at last!"
Midway down the stairs stood a man in a dark gray butler's uniform and reached out to take her arm to help her down.
Abilene Rosenbaum was newly a widow, 29-years-old, which made her 'middle aged' by Parkesburg standards. But her beauty bested any of the younger women in town. Long ringlets the color of wheat bending in the summer wind framed a brilliant set of sapphire blue eyes and soft lips that seemed to constantly smile, even with the recent tragic death of her husband. And she had a lively personality that was only matched by her kindness.
Abilene finally reached the bottom stair, releasing her man servant's hand to make the journey the rest of the way alone, hiking up her skirts to the ankles and hurrying over to the carriage.
Abilene reached inside and unlatched the carriage door, drawing it open. "I thought you'd never come!"
"Ms. Abilene!" Stefan crawled over Damon's lap and flew like a bird until he reached the blue silk of Abilene's dress.
Abilene laughed and reached her arms around the boy, drawing him tight into a hug. "Oh my dear Stefan!" She set him down and stroked his dark hair. "How are you?" She kissed one of his cheeks, then the other, pulling back to gaze at him. "Gracious; it's only been a single summer and you've grown at least a foot!"
"Papa says I grow as fast as the tobacco plants!" Stefan exclaimed with the exuberance that always came when he visited Abilene on her plantation. He and Damon and their papa had been coming there every summer for as long as Stefan could remember; and every year he counted the days until they were able to make the journey again.
Abilene laughed again, and this time, she pinched his cheeks. "Your papa is very right my boy," She stood back up to her full height giving a little curtsey to Giuseppe "It is always a pleasure Mr. Salvatore."
Giuseppe tipped the brim of his hat towards the woman. "The pleasure is always mine Mrs. Rosenbaun." He smiled, but did not take her hand to kiss it since she wasn't wearing gloves, and it would be unseemly. "I have found the most perfect suitor for you, handsome, owns half of the new railway line in Denver."
"Mr. Salvatore!" Abilene returned, pretending to be affronted. "I've only been two months out of my black morning weeds!"
"Which is two months too long for a woman of your stature," Giuseppe volleyed back.
"And what about you Sir?" Abilene returned boldly. "You've been a widower for these past seven years."
"Men are allowed such labels longer than women Abilene," Giuseppe said it like he was reminding her of that fact. "I just want to see you taken care off. I'd make an offer myself-"
Abilene had finally heard enough, she swatted Giuseppe with a bare hand. "You are being brazen Mr. Salvatore," her eyes shown with mirth as she set her arms about Stefan's shoulders. "I appreciate the offer Sir, but I know that you will need a better mother than I for these two darling boys." She stroked Stefan's dark hair and he giggled at the tickling sensation it produced.
"As you wish madam," Giuseppe's smiled, but it faded away when he saw Damon standing there, hands behind his back having done nothing to add to the conversation. "Have your manners escaped you, Damon?"
At the stinging retort Damon's hands immediately uncrossed from behind his back. "My apologies Ms. Abilene." He took her hand, kissing it once, not noticing the way his father scowled at him for the brazen gesture.
"Think nothing of it my young Mr. Salvatore," Abilene said the words proudly. She surveyed Damon the same way she did Stefan. "My goodness Damon, you are becoming quite a handsome young man."
"Thank you ma'am," Damon returned with a genuine smile. Stefan wasn't the only one who loved the woman dearly. She had become almost like a mother to them both; Damon more so then Stefan since Stefan barely remembered anything about their mother.
All the time they had been talking, Abilene's man servant stood beside her like a silent shadow, keeping himself there, but out of the conversation and out of the way until he was called upon.
This moment came with a swish of Abilene's full gathered skirt. "Darius, help the driver with the Salvatores' bags." Abilene's words were softer than an order. 'Darius' had been on her plantation for the past five years, and had been faithful in his duties towards the woman.
Darius cut a formidable figure standing beside Abilene in her blue silk. His skin was dark pecan brown, and his head was shiny like a billiard ball under the brim of the hat that he tipped towards Abilene with a "yes Ms. Abilene."
There was something in the way Darius said her name and the 'just-longer-than-it-should-have-been-smile' that he gave towards her that gave Damon several moments of paused observation. He had become proficient in knowing how to watch and observe situations before he involved himself in them so he wouldn't be torn apart by his father's barbed tongue. He was not his father's deemed favorite, he would never be. That title would forever be given to his "Golden Boy" little brother.
Stefan released himself from Abilene's arms and ran to a side paddock where several roan and chestnut colored mares grazed on grass and clover. He climbed the fence in his short breaches and stockings, straddling the post. He held out his hand, and clicked with his tongue between his teeth to the nearest mare who munched a tuft of grass close to the fence and ignored him.
"Damon, she's fat!"' Stefan turned, teetering on the fence like a wobbly ladder.
"Not fat little brother," Damon could never hate his brother's 'Golden Boy Status' it's not like he asked for it. He cared very much for Stefan. Damon stepped off the path to join his brother by the fence, leaning his elbows on it. "See how round her belly is?" He pointed to the mare's round stomach that nearly touched the grass below her. "She's heavy with a foal, Stef."
Stefan's eyes grew saucer like at the declaration. "Really?"
"Your brother is right young Master Stefan," Darius' shiny black books crunched on the gravel of the drive. He claimed a spot a foot away from Damon and stared at the chocolate brown Quarter Horse. "She was sired to our Appalachian stallion, that foal will be a very sturdy work animal when it comes."
"But how'd it get in there?" Stefan returned with all the curiosity of a child who didn't understand such things.
The line between what Damon was and what Darius was blurred as they both shared an amused look over Stefan's short stature.
"I'll tell you all about it in a few years," Damon returned.
Stefan was no appeased by this offering. "But I want to know now!"
"Lunch is laid out in the parlor boys!" Abilene called out from where she now stood on the porch with Giuseppe. "Let's not let all the Kitchen's delicious lemon tarts go to rot!"
"Come on little brother," Damon pulled one of Stefan's arms off the fence, wrapping it around his neck, then the other. Stefan completed the gesture by clinging his legs around Damon's waist like a monkey.
Damon carried Stefan piggy back style up the drive towards the porch. Darius walked ahead of them, running up the stairs quickly a few moments later to take their brown traveling suitcase out of Abilene's hands.
"That's my job Ms. Abilene." Darius gently pried the bag's handle from her grasp.
Abilene didn't look affronted, she actually smiled. "You are too good to me Darius," there was a hidden moment that Damon wasn't supposed to see, but from where he was, he did. After Abilene complimented Darius she reached out a ghost of a hand and rested it on his wrist too long for a woman to her servant, the look in her eyes had shifted as well. So had the one in Darius'.
The entire moment happened in under three seconds and was soon drowned out by the sounds of Darius hefting all three suitcases under his arm and carrying them through the opened door.
"You really want to know about these things Stef?" Damon called out over his shoulder to Stefan's clinging form.
"Yes!"
Stefan's voice rang like a struck bell in Damon's ears. "It's not at all what you think it is. The real reason Ms. Abilene hasn't accepted father's offers for suitors is because of Darius."
"That's not about the horse!" Stefan protested loudly.
"I'm trying to tell you something you dolt!" Damon growled, not angry, just a tad impatient. He lowered his voice and whispered his next words. "Ms. Abilene and Darius have been carrying on affair for a while now."
Stefan's eyes went wide at the very notion Damon's words had planted in his head. "But he can't!" He nearly chocked Damon with his hands around his neck. He was only seven, and may not know what 'relations' were yet, but he understood about their society. "He's a negro!"
"Keep your voice down!" Damon hissed, slowing his pace so that they were allowed a few moments more to speak candidly before they reached the porch and their Father's forever constantly alert sense of hearing. "Darius is still a man Stefan," Damon stopped walking completely and craned his head to stare at his brother's face inches behind his own. "Just because other people chose not to see it doesn't make it less so to Ms. Abilene. It doesn't work that way."
Abilene smiled at the boys when she saw that they were finally drawing closer to the house. She turned with a swirl of her skirts and entered the house, throwing a remark over her shoulder about some new drapes in her parlor to Giuseppe as she passed him.
"How does it work then?"
"Boys!" Giuseppe barked to them both stopped on the path. "Ms. Abilene is waiting!"
Damon hefted Stefan's weight more onto his shoulders and resumed his walking. "Not a word of this to father, understand? Remember you like Darius. And if anyone else found out about this he would be in severe trouble."
"I don't understand enough to know what's going Damon!" Stefan retorted in a loud whisper.
This proclamation made Damon snort a laugh, he loosened one of his hands and reached back to ruffle up Stefan's hair. "Come on, Stef, you're lemon tarts are waiting." Damon ran the rest of the way to the porch and up the stairs, Stefan's laughter pouring in his ears.
xxxxXxxxx
Parkesburg, West Virginia
2014
The stone corridor was silent except for the clunking sounds of Wes's footsteps on the stone inlay underneath him. The tunnel perspired in the arches above him from the humid air of the cells. There hadn't been much of a way to build ventilation into the cave when the tunnels were originally used, first to house slaves, then to hide run-away slaves on the Underground Railroad. There were a few air holes here and there, but nothing substantial. And after the conversion by the Augustine's, the Maxfield ancestry and Augustine scientists didn't want to the resulting 'smells' of their experiments attracting the attention of the townspeople. Wes had been doing experiments down here for almost 5 years, and had actually gotten use to the constant smell of blood.
Row upon rows of empty cells greeted him. The project hadn't had a decent test subject in years. Most of them, like Jessie, had not lasted long after their transformation, killed off or unable to tolerate the catalyst drug for longer than a week before dying. When Wes found out who Damon was, he was relieved to begin again, on a subject that the Augustine's gloated about.
The first thing Wes noticed when he approached Damon's cell was white, then red. The girl's body lay in a heap in the center of the floor, her curls soaked red in a pool of her own blood, bite marks ran down both her wrists and shoulders, her eyes were half open and glassy, and her neck was twisted at a crooked angle.
Damon was crouched a foot away, blood staining his gray shirt. His head hung down, revealing a greasy mess of shorn black hair.
Wes approached the cell. "How was dinner?"
Damon raised a solitary hand and flipped Wes off before his head raised up slowly, his face was a mess of the girl's blood. "What the hell do you get out of this?" Damon's voice was low and weak sounding, but hostilely angry. "Half the world doesn't even know that vampires exist, it's not like they're going to drape a Peace Prize metal around your easily breakable neck."
"I get to be on the ground floor of ending the parasitic vampire race, Damon. It's more glory than ten Nobel Prizes." Wes voice rang with zealousness. "For too long the balance has been tipped against us by your kind, I'm finally evening the playing field."
"And what about your little guards? "What do they get out of helping you?"" Damon flickered his gaze over to the girl's body, her screams still wrung in his ears. Yes he had killed mercilessly before, and would continue to do so until someone drove a stake through his heart and ended his second existence. But being a psychopathic dick who liked to get off on vampires killing and feeding on each other was a role that Damon would never take from Wes.
Wes didn't answer Damon's question, and instead pulled out a black handgun and aimed it at the bars. "I need to dispose of your sloppy leftovers Damon, so I'm going to need you to shut up now."
Damon rushed at the gun, but was unable to reach it before Wes fired two bullets at his chest. Damon coughed, and roared and dropped backwards on his knees.
Wes changed out a clip in his gun then, reached into his lab coat and removed a set of keys, twisting a brass skeleton one to release the lock on Damon's cell. The reinforced metal door swung open with a squeak and Wes stepped inside, gun still aimed at Damon. "Those bullets were wooden, steeped in concentrated vervain. These-" Wes waved his gun in the air. "Are stepped in concentrated Werewolf Venom, a little something I found off one of a Vampire Hunter a few years back. One shot to your heart and you're dead, so nothing fancy understand? I don't want to lose my Patient Zero."
Wes knelt down next to the girl's body and rolled her over onto her back. Her head fell forward with a flop, the entire left side of her face was sticky with blood. Wes pulled the hair back from her face like he was soothing a child who had just woken up from a nightmare. "I gotta say," He ran a hand down all the congealed blood on the girl's neck. "You are quite the marksman."
The girl's eyes suddenly snapped open with a gasp that turned into a scream as she lunged at him, and tore into his neck with razor sharp fangs. Wes screamed and pulled back and switched the aim of his gun from Damon to the girl, but he wasn't able to jerk his arm around enough to get in a good shot.
Damon jumped up from his feet and threw Wes to the ground, flinging the girl off of him. He pinned Wes down by stepping on his neck, snatching the gun from him releasing the clip from it, flinging both out of the cell. He turned to the girl who still stood there in bare feet, blood dripping down her face. "Get out of here, run as fast as you can!" Damon reached down and punched Wes hard, once in the face, hearing the 'crack' of his nasal passage breaking. When he looked back up the girl was still watching him. "Go! Now!"
The girl backed out a in a stumble, her bare feet slapping the stone floor, but then, like a baby animal learning how to find its feet when a predator was circling its herd, she bolted, her desperate breathing vanishing down the halls.
Damon reached down and snatched up the key ring from where it had fallen by Wes's head. The urge to kill him was strong, to just snap his unconscious neck and be done with it. But a swift death for Wes was too merciful for Damon. He wanted to make him suffer, but more than that, he wanted to get out of this hell hole. He ran out of the cell and slammed the iron door, locking Wes inside with the key.
His body lurched forward from the sting of the Vervain bullets. He felt both of them buried somewhere in his chest and abdomen. He dug into the torn flesh with his fingers, but only got a white hot poker of pain and a scream for his efforts.
The sound of footsteps echoed off of the stone floor about fifteen meters behind him. Damon turned around only once, seeing nothing but empty caves and empty cells. There was a brief moment where he wondered about what had happened to the over a dozen vampires he had been locked in here with in the 1950's. But the need for survival quickly outweighed the need for answers and he ran down the hallway, leaving his cell occupied by another.
xxxxXxxxx
"Darius?"
Faces were drawn to Stefan at the mention of a name for the nameless man. Elena and Katherine both looked at him, their eyes instantly wanting to know more. The hunters had the same look, but magnified a thousand fold.
But none of their looks bested Stefan's own. The face in front of him was not possible; he hadn't seen it in almost 150 years.
The man turned away from the hunters, Sam and Dean, and laid them on Stefan. "Master Stefan," Darius' face broke into a smile like he had just come upon an old friend by the roadside. "It has been a long time. Forgive me for staring, but your resemblance to your father is astonishing, it's the only way I was able to recognize you at all. As you dare remember, I haven't laid eyes on you since you were seven-years-old. "
"How the hell is this possible?" Stefan stared at the man, in his modern clothes, still remembering the last time he had seen him. "I watched the overseer kill you-"
"That was his mistake," Darius' smile turned into something older, older than Katherine and his existences combined. "As to how I'm possible, you already know the answer to that," Darius flicked his eyes over to Dean and Sam who stared at him like they were about to flay him alive. "Especially if you're traveling with hunters."
"Enough with the idle chit chat, start saying something worthy of keeping my machete out of your damn neck!" Dean barked in that voice Stefan had heard moments before the hunter had taken a machete and dug it into his shoulder. But Stefan had felt no burning desire to retaliate because that action had come on the heels of him digging his fangs into the man's neck when a flashed image had hit him out of nowhere. At first it was the relentless drowning, but then it became the echoes of a girl's scream, of Damon's voice somewhere near it, not angry, but hurt.
Darius passed a glance over at Dean, then blinked away from him like he didn't deem him worthy in the company that he kept. "I am possible the same way you are possible Stefan; if either one of us were still human we wouldn't be having this conversation-"
"Hey!" Dean roared at Darius, his machete making a resonating sound as it was raised up into the air. "I know you heard me!"
Darius finally acknowledged Dean, and Stefan could see a feral look under his eyes underneath the calm. His eyes flicked over to both of the hunters.
"Dean and Sam Winchester," Darius finally attached a last name to two men, saying the words like had swallowed battery acid. "Unlike Mr. Salvatore, my seeing you both again is most certainly not, a pleasure."
"Yeah?" Sam had taken out a gun and was aiming it right at Darius' face. "We don't love you either. So how about you tell us what you're doing walking around the woods alone?"
"You're keeping company with Vampires Sam, I believe you've lost your right in asking cocky questions."
Darius voice hadn't aged at all, which was a trademark of any Vampire. But up until that moment, Stefan believed that Darius had been killed by Abilene Rosenbaun's plantation overseer when he caught him kissing Abilene through the window of her home. Now, to know that he was a vampire, it was like an explosion rattling through the last vestiges of Stefan's sanity.
"I've always considered you one of the top hunters I've ever had the privilege of using Sam," Darius said this with a cockiness, but one that almost seemed to border on a version of grudging respect. "Don't ruin it by suspecting that I would ever travel alone."
Darrius' words were like a cue to the land. The tree line slopped upwards from the roadside in both directions, and shadowy figures began to spring out from both these sides. There were eight of them of them in all, five men, and three women, walking a slow path down towards them like pride of lions circling prey.
Stefan turned and surveyed the vampires ascending the hillside, Elena did the same beside him, and he felt as the strands of her hair whipped back and forth by his neck from her movements.
"This is all you've got?" Katherine stood her ground amidst the vampires that came so far down the road and halted behind Darius like a Roman sentry awaiting command.
"Katerina Petrova," Darius said Katherine's full name like he was sucking on a honey comb. "We've never had the privilege," his eyes flickered down Katherine's body and back up again. "But your reputation more than proceeds you."
"I don't know you," Katherine snarked back in all her glory despite the fact that she could now be easily ripped apart by a single bite to the neck. "And I know all the important Vampires out there, which means you're not important enough to know."
"I could guarantee you of my importance Katerina," Darius returned. "But I didn't come to exchange pleasantries, this is strictly business."
"You set us up for an ambush didn't you?" Dean snarled, turning his machete out from Darius, to Stefan and Elena. "What? You led us out here so we can be vamp bait for your friends?" The hunter growled in his throat, angry, at Stefan, but sounded angrier at himself. He stared at Stefan with a hostility that not even Damon could muster. "I knew I should've killed you when I had the chance!"
"As usual you get too far ahead of yourself Dean," Darius said it like they were almost old friends. "You over estimate your ability to see the forest for the trees-"
Stefan was in no way Dean Winchester's old friend, or old anything, but he could tell that Dean did not take Darius' words lightly.
"You shut your mouth!" The blade was removed from being aimed at Stefan, and was aimed again at Darius.
"I am in no way in league with Stefan or his little harem," Darius cut in, reverting his look to Dean like he was an errant orphan child who tried to climb into his sleek Packard. "Just because we're of the same origins doesn't mean that we share confidence."
"And we're just supposed to believe that?" the words came from Sam who stood at all of 6'4" by his brother, his own machete blade glinting in the light.
Elena's heart was beating so loudly that Stefan felt the ponding in his own ears. It was only overshadowed by Katherine's, and his own. He had lived for almost two centuries, but with that age did not come a guide for the supernatural status that had allowed him to obtain it. It all came from trial and error, a lot of it involving blood, and moments like this one.
Darius' next smile was slow pulling, like a cat taking a stretch in a shaft of sunlight. "I didn't expect as much," Darius' reached into the pocket of his jacket and removed something that he concealed in his palm. "Which is why I came bearing proof."
Grasped in-between Darius' fingers was a silver ring with a dark Lapis Lazuli setting, the cursive silver 'D' being squashed under his thumb.
Stefan's breath actually stopped for several seconds, then it exploded outwards like a bomb.
"That's Damon's ring!"
Elena shouted it before Stefan could. Before he could shout it and rip Darius apart for what his grasping the ring implied.
"What did you do to him?!" Elena's shout tore across the tree line.
"Calm yourself girl," Darius spoke like he was scolding a child. "I haven't done anything to Damon that hasn't been done to him before."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Stefan's voice echoed on the last strains of Elena's yell, and the group of vampires crouched closer, but none of them moved. Not yet.
"There will be time for unanswered questions later," Darius' pocketed Damon's ring back into his jacket. His glance shifted over to the Hunters for a brief moment, "Showing these hunters your brother's daylight ring is only my first proof that you and I are not on the same side Stefan." A twig crunched under his boot as he stepped closer. "This is proof number two."
Darius ran at Stefan in a form of wind and speed. Stefan ducked, and dodged, moving past a thick pine tree trunk in a blur. As he dodged Darius' in those ten seconds he was suddenly aware that the group of Vampires hadn't moved at all, even at the sight of one of their own under attack. Stefan had been a vampire long enough to know that there was a loyalty to vampires who traveled together. And if the other vampires with Darius weren't coming to defend him, it was because they knew they didn't need too.
Stefan came to this understanding too late, as he ducked from another attack, only to be flung hard into a tree. He retaliated in kind, fangs bared, moving to snap Darius' neck.
But, Darius' moved faster than a second should have allowed, even for a vampire and grabbed a fallen branch from one of the birch trees, and without ceremony or quip, slammed it into Stefan's leg.
Stefan's anger died into a howled grunt as he felt bones breaking. His grunt soon became a guttural scream as he looked down to see that his daylight ring missing and his arm alight with orange flames. He heard Elena scream his name as the flames began to creep up to his neck attacking it like fire ants in blinding pain.
This lasted for long, agonizing moments before something choked Stefan back behind the neck and the flames vaporized like a sprinkler system had been released from a smoke alarm signal. His shirt smoked like charcoal and he felt his skin sizzling.
Darius had him in a choke hold, and was holding out his hand which had both Stefan and Damon's daylight rings. He released Stefan and at the same moment snapped something heavy over his wrist.
Stefan fell back with a gasp to find himself manacled to Darius by a chain of old iron handcuffs, his body barely able to support its own weight from the jagged broken bone that he felt poking through the skin on his leg.
"I am the Alpha of a higher race of vampires' boy. We have long since evolved past the need for witches spells. As long as I am alive and touching you in some form you will not burn without your ring," he jerked Stefan forward with hard strength and Stefan groaned from the resulting pain. Darius' cast his eyes up to Elena who was panting, staring at Stefan, unhurt, but wide eyed. "I suggest your friends remember that as we continue our journey." Darius' eyes shifted over to Sam and Dean Winchester. "As for you two, you're welcome to try and escape, but my children still remember nearly being wiped out by those Leviathans that you let loose, and they hold a grudge."
The vampires had finally started to move slowly, like wild dogs cornering prey that had evaded them for too long. As they came closer Stefan heard a sound like cracking ice magnified a thousand fold as all the vampires released, not a set of fangs, but an entire mouthful.
"What the hell?" Katherine turned to look at all the vampires in stunned shock.
Darius' once again jerked Stefan by the manacle. "Shall we take a walk Master Stefan?"
xxxxXxxxx
Stefan hadn't experienced sunlight in a long time. His daylight ring permitted him to walk in the sun's rays without self-emulating; but that was all that the ring allowed. He felt no warmth from the sun, just a tingling sensation like all the hairs on his body were standing up in goose bumps. When he had been a child he used to sit out in the gardens of his home when the summer had turned the days long and honey gold; doing absolutely nothing but soaking in the rays. It was one of things that Stefan missed most about being human.
The sun had succumb to the shadows that signaled that the afternoon was about to wane to early evening, but light still lingered bright in the blue sky. And for the first time in 147 years Stefan was able to feel something like what the sun had felt like when he was a human being. It almost felt like he was developing a sunburn that his fair skin used to constantly get when he had stayed out on those summer days.
But the nostalgic waft of humanity was soon overpowered by the sensation of his shattered left leg scraping bone against bone as he was jerked along in his strides by Darius. The stick that Darius had used to break his leg had produced a compound fracture, and splinters of wood from the branch had embedded into the shattered areas. It wasn't his heart, but the wood was still agonizing against his bone, the constant moving kept it from being able to knit itself together.
Four of the eight vampires walked behind Darius' in a half crescent shape, guarding his back. These vampires formed a wall between Stefan and Sam and Dean, while the five remaining vampires walked behind the hunters. One of the female vampires, a strawberry blonde swathed in skin tight leather and denim held out a machete pressed against Sam Winchester's back. The hunter himself had a stream of blood streaking down his face, his face starting to form a pattern of molten bruises from where the vampire had slammed him into a tree after he tried to slice her head off. Her neck still bore a huge wound that she wasn't paying attention too.
Sam Winchester himself looked a bit dazed, but more pissed at being in this kind of situation. Beside him Dean Winchester just looked pissed, like a caged dog about to bite the people who caged him.
Stefan barely had time to process these surroundings that he found himself in because, vampire or not, walking on shattered bone was very disorienting. Especially now when his focus was split on two things: keeping this pain back enough so that he could manage to keep walking, and making sure Elena and, yes, even Katherine stayed within his field of vision. They were both about a foot behind him, their steps crunching on the rocks and rot of the forest floor. The few times Stefan looked back before Darius' jerked him forward he saw Elena's horror stricken angry face directed at what was being done to him.
And Stefan's only way to show her that he was okay was to remain standing upright. "What did you mean-" Stefan hated the grunted, pained sound of his voice. He hated this entire damn situation. "About what Damon had done to him before?"
Darius' didn't stop walking or turn around, but Stefan could hear the smile move across his dry lips. "You were always persistent Stefan. As I recall you were always an endless parade of questions."
"Was that before or after you became a vampire?" Stefan grunted out as he stepped over a flat piece of rock that shoved a piece of wood against the nerve that had been exposed from his shattered tibia. He fought the urge to cry out, not wanting to give Darius the satisfaction.
"I turned long before I came to Mystic Falls Stefan," Darius returned, not seeing Stefan's expression to his announcement because he still hadn't turned around. "I was a servant in the Governor's back when Louisiana was still a colony of France, and I was turned by a beautiful pet of the governor named Rebecca Mikaleson. I fled the colony and moved in search of a cure for my ailment. But none were available. But it was New Orleans, the land of witches and hoodoo; I finally found a local woman who tried to cure me-"
"Witches can't cure vampires-" The pain was up to Stefan's neck and pushed his words out his mouth before he could force himself to shut up.
"A fact I didn't know at the time Master Stefan. But this witch she was old world hoodoo, her lineage ran to the very first demons," This time Darius did turn around, and it wasn't to meet Stefan's expression it was to meet Sam and Dean's.
"Demons-" Dean Winchester finally spoke out. "You bargained with Demons?" He looked away like the air Darius breathed had suddenly turned the air rancid.
Stefan's head was filled with pain and sliding around his skull like loose bricks, but he managed to muster up enough of a confused as hell look about the demon remark. But before he could say anything about it Darius interrupted his thoughts
"Monsters aren't above deals with the demonic Dean," Darius said it like he was reading an article heading in a newspaper. "I didn't find out until later this deal was black. The spell didn't cure me. She bargained with her demonic book keeper and created a spell that mutated my new vampire genetics, it turned me into this," Darius held out his hands to encompass himself, at the same time his hand jerked the chain yanking Stefan at a hard right.
"I would've asked for my money back," Dean Winchester returned.
Darius smiled again while Stefan fought to remain standing on his bad leg, breath heaving in pain.
"I hated what I was at first, but gradually I came to the understanding that I wasn't angry so much as lonely. The other vampires out there were nothing like who I had become; so I built new ones." Darius glanced over to the vampires that entrapped Stefan and the others in a net of bodies. "By casting that spell, that hoodoo witch turned me into my own Original Vampire, free to create my own lineage, not hindered to the restrictions of sunlight and stakes like these," Darius eyed Elena, Katherine and Stefan like they were garbage left on the roadside.
"Is that why you became a house servant on Abilene Rosenbaum's plantation? Because you were so advanced?" Stefan had been raised in a century when slavery was an accepted part of life, but even as a child he would never show disrespect to them, because they were still people, people who didn't deserve their treatment. This didn't apply to Darius anymore. "Or did sleeping with her keep you in your shackles for so long?" Stefan grasped the iron chain that connected him to Darius' and rattled it.
The minute noises of the forest floor seemed to come to the forefront, a twig snapping, a robin lighting onto a branch with a new piece for its nest. Darius' face shifted like the noise shifted, taking Stefan's words in and the same moment he took the chain in his hand and pulled in an arch slamming Stefan's bad leg out from under him. Stefan heard the cracks in as the twigs failed to break his fall, but the fall didn't fail to break his other leg.
Stefan's scream escaped him like a sheet of canvas being torn apart. The world exploded, first bright red like he was looking at it through burst capillaries, then hot white like something had exploded into his eyes and left him blind.
"Stefan!" Elena screamed Stefan's name more than she had said it the last few days. She could smell Stefan's blood from the bone that had sliced through his skin like a knife. She moved towards him, but her path was blocked by one of the female vampires, a blonde with hair that glowed like Caroline's but whose expression was one that Caroline could never pull off, something completely malicious.
"I don't think so bitch!" The vampire growled, a mouthful of needlelike teeth descended over her regular ones and she lunged forward.
Elena met the attack head on, there was a moment where she could have gone for the throat of the other vampire and tore it off, it's what Damon would have done, what Katherine would have done, even what Stefan would have done if the situation had been dire enough. But she couldn't. Not because she was physically unable too, but because she never relished in killing anyone. And it was what gave the vampire the upper hand, because she had no problems with it. She flipped Elena backwards onto the forest floor, her black hiking boot pinned against her throat. It wasn't stylish, it was animalistic. True fighting was never about style, or form, it was about hurting someone more that you were being hurt.
Elena felt her breath being crushed by the traction bumps of the shoe. From across the forest rot she could see Stefan's sternum being crushed by one of the other vampires. The months in the safe, and the flashbacks had drained Stefan, reversing his and Elena's roles, making her his protector this time.
"Let him go!" Elena grabbed the ankle of the vampire and tried to snap it off her, but she only pulled up a few inches before she was flung back down to the branches.
"How quaint are you?" The female vampire glanced over to the man in a black leather jacket who took it as an invitation and crushed Stefan's sternum harder with his shoe. Elena heard him scream again. "Sticking up for your stray mongrel trash?" She leaned down and jerked Elena's had back up, then down hard enough to make her vision swim.
"Lydia, Tyler," Darius stood a foot ahead of them like a teacher about to scold his class for ruining their art projects by playing with their finger paints before they were supposed to. "Mr. Salvatore and I go far back, let's not be rude to him and his lady friend shall we? Remember we need all the warm bodies we can for these trials."
"Come on Darius!" 'Tyler' cut in snarky, almost like Damon's. "Let's just kill them! We have enough experiments!"
Darius' eyes seemed to freeze over like miniature lakes, "I am the Alpha, you will not address me so informally-" Darius took a threatening step towards Tyler. "Is that clear?"
Tyler's smile was snide, angry. "You've been ruling for too long Darius," he stared down at Stefan and grabbed a broken branch from the ground, snapping it into a jagged point. "We're doing things my way-"
"No!" Elena screamed. There came commotion behind Elena, something that turned Lydia's head away from her, her hair moving above Elena like the wings of a bird.
"No!" Lydia screamed, and she released Elena's neck, Elena coughed once and was on her feet in time and watched Tyler's head fall clean off his neck. His head tumbled one direction and his body in another, like a garish curtain revealing the form of Sam Winchester gripping to a bloody machete.
In the same fluid movement that had severed Tyler's head from his neck, the Hunter reached down with his weaponless hand and reached and pulled Stefan to his feet.
Lydia's face melted into something so feral, it was more anger than expression, she tore at Sam with a scream that rattled the ground like an earthquake, dodging the 'swishing' of the hunter's blade in acrobatic misses. She lunged again, harder, and Elena ran at her in a blur of wind and fast movement.
Which wasn't fast enough to beat the sound of Dean Winchester's blade slicing across the sinews of Lydia's neck, rolling her severed head to the ground.
Elena backed away from Dean in a startle; and he met her eyes. Hunter and hunted lines blurred because of where she stood beside his brother, and where the body of Lydia stood at his feet.
Elena's breaths threatened to out run the beating of her heart, leaving her feeling like she was out of her body, it was only with this feeling that she suddenly realized that their party was missing someone.
Katherine.
"Where's the key?"
Elena's thoughts were torn from her head at the growled sound of Sam Winchester's voice, his knife pressed tight to Darius' neck.
Darius' eyed Sam like the entire idea of what was happening was amusing to him. "I can kill you Sam." He looked over at the remaining group of vampires that stood around him, waiting for their signal to attack.
"You can try," Sam returned in a voice of ice.
"I never try anything boy, I get it done!" Darius' eyes flickered over to Stefan who looked like the only thing that kept him from killing Darius' was the consequences of such an action. "I know of your conquests Sam, those vans, I created this project, did you not think I would? Darius's smile widened. "And I had to see it for myself, Sam Winchester, aiding my wishes."
"Shut up!" Sam gritted his teeth and pushed the knife in deeper.
"Who do you think convinced an elitist group of paranoid rich socialites to privatize the destruction of a particular race of vampires?-" he rattled the chain, and eyed Stefan like he was a dog on a leash. Stefan eyed him back like he wanted to rip his throat out.
"I said shut. up!" Sam growled back, his voice booming like thunder in Elena's ears.
"What's wrong Sam? You don't want your prey, or your brother to know about the bribes that lined your pockets tricking out all those pretty little things over to me? Do you think that saving them now when it's too late will matter anymore?"
"He said shut up!" Dean stepped in-between Darius and Sam. His machete blade was raised in an arc, and he brought it down hard by Stefan's hand.
Elena almost screamed, but saw in an instant that it had severed the chain between Stefan and Darius leaving Stefan manacled to nothing but the open air. There was a moment where Elena considered that Darius had been lying about what would happen to Stefan if he lost the contact from the chain, but the moment the link was severed by the machete's blade Stefan's body lit up like a bone fire.
Dean moved back from the heat, and this time Elena screamed, her voice only being drowned out by Stefan's own agonized screams. It didn't matter that Darius was about 500 years older than her, she ran at him anyway to save the life of her friend.
She was literally a breath away from attacking Darius when ducked at just the last moment and pushed the daylight ring onto one of Stefan's fingers.
The flames died out like water being poured over a campfire, but Stefan's agonized grunts took longer to die. His body bowed on the ground, on masticated and broken legs. His flesh was red and crackled like overcooked chicken skin.
"The old plantation house is less than five miles from here," Darius raised his head and pointed to through a thicket of tall evergreens. "That's where the project has its 'base of operations' we'll call it, that's where Damon is." Darius looked over to the two remaining living vampires with him. "We'll take our leave of you, I'm sure you remember the rest of the way Stefan, just like you remember that your brother won't last two seconds out here without this," Darius held out Damon's daylight ring in between his thumb and forefinger. "So when we meet up again, I suggest you remember that before you chose to act."
The shattered bones in Stefan's legs now felt like metal filings scraping against metal filings. His skin felt like it was cooking. But hate for Darius superseded above everything else. Stefan had done things to Damon in his eternal existence that weren't innocent, he'd staked him, vervained him, abandoned him. But none of that mattered over one key element: Damon was his brother, and no one else was allowed to hurt him.
Stefan pulled himself up on a body that, had he still been human, would no longer have been functioning. But by the time he was back on two semi-somewhat functioning legs, the clearing of vampires had vanished.