"Hey…" Alaric held the phone between his ear and his shoulder as he filled out the release forms in the hospital. The nurse, a squat peasant-looking frog of a woman narrowed her eyes at him. Right. Cell phone police. He capped the pen as he finished a scrappy signature and headed over to the lobby. "How's it going?"

"Awesome," Damon answered fake-excitedly. "Me and Elijah here just kicking it, listening to some vinyl and swinging back some beers. Or mead, as they might call it."

"Still in England?"

"Yup. And loving it. It's got this awesome dampness to it. I mean, if you like mildew, you'll love it over here."

He'd been to England once. Just once, with Isobel. They'd gone to Old Trafford for a soccer match. It hadn't been his thing, winter-time soccer. Too cold, too boring, too wet… Isobel had liked it though. She'd had the time of her life. She'd called him 'boxed-in' when he'd complained about his fingers going numb. "Cherish that mildew, my friend. I take it he didn't just hand the sword over. Are you being tortured right now? Cough once for yes."

"Torture? Please." He could hear Damon smirking. "Elijah? He's braiding my hair. So what's up? I'm hearing sirens and hospital beeps. Everybody still alive?"

"Mostly…" Alaric put a five dollar bill in the drinks machine. A Coke? Or Orange Fanta?

The line was silent for a while, then, "What's that supposed to mean? Everybody's mostly alive? Mostly everybody's alive? Someone's slightly dead?"

How do I break this? "There was a fire."

"And…"

"And nothing, really. There was a fire, some minor burns... They just discharged Elena–"

"Jeremy? What about Jeremy? He died in the fire?"

"No."

"He died on arrival?"

For the love of God… "Jeremy's not dead. Hold off on the back-flips."

"Who's dead, then?" Damon snorted. "Tyler? Matt, at least?"

"Nobody's dead." Orange Fanta it is.

"Now I'm confused."

"Well, Stefan's kinda dead."

"Stefan?"

"Stefan. Your brother."

"Stefan's dead?"

"Kinda dead."

"Stefan's been kinda dead since 1864. Please, clarify what you mean by - open quotation marks - kinda dead – closed fucking quotation marks."

Attitude?

That was attitude, right?

Ignore it?

Why not? You didn't go to Brazil when I told you to. You wanted to stay and be Buffy, so deal.

"Well, that's the thing. What's the difference between a dead vampire and a live one? Not like he has a pulse to check if you get what I'm saying."

"So, he's what? Unconscious."

"You could say that. Or we can just say 'dead'. I tried putting some blood down his throat, but there wasn't any change. His body's back at Elena's. Everybody's there with him so he's safe–"

"Elena's? I thought you said there was a fire? Why are they still at Elena's?"

"Hm?"

"Why don't they go over to the boarding house?"

"Oh yeah… Well, the thing about the fire… It was at the boarding house."

"Come again?"

"Yeah, the fire was at you place. So… you'll have to deal with that when you get back. Spread some plastic or something."

"How'd the fire even start?"

"Yeah… We're still kinda vague on that, but I'm thinking Bonnie."

"Bonnie burnt down the boarding house?"

"That's a strong maybe."

"As I said, kinda vague with the details."

"I don't need details, just a general scenario. What happened? She was playing with her candles near the liquor cabinet?"

"Not really. No. As far as I heard, about an hour or two after you left, she shut herself up in your room. According to Elena, Stefan tried to get her out and the next thing they know your entire bedroom is up in flames and Stefan is comatose. Your room is gone entirely. And the fire sorta spread from there downwards. So… the whole living room area is pretty much ruined. A good bit of your library. The study. Two guest rooms. The garage roof–"

"So pretty much everything on my half of the house?"

"Yeah."

"And nobody knows why? Was it good Bonnie, or evil Bonnie"

"I don't have the whole story, as I've said. Stefan's not talking, as I've also said. Elena's in panic mode. She's just been treated for smoke inhalation so I haven't had time to interrogate her yet. Sorry. And Caroline is… Well, you know how Caroline is."

"As reliable as E-news."

"Just about. Oh, and Bonnie's missing. She is nowhere to be found."

"For a school teacher, Ric, I thought you'd be more responsible. You let your students play with fire… go missing… "

"Put in a formal complaint, like everybody else. Between the fire, and the smoke inhalation, and the comatose slash dead vampire, I got distracted. And there's this other witch. Lucy. She's Bonnie's cousin or sister or something. Gives off an extremely menacing vibe, you know her? Very evil-feeling."

Damon barked a laugh. "Yeah. She's not evil, just extremely bitchy. What does she want?"

"To help? I have no fucking idea. She just makes my blood crawl, in a bad way. But I figure we can use her to replace Bonnie in the resurrection spell, yeah? One witch is as good as another, right? And since Bonnie's AWOL…"

"Yeah, about that. Bonnie's with me. She teleported."

"Across the Atlantic?"

"Yup. She's with me and Elijah. We're going to teleport to Klaus, which should give us a two second element of surprise at least, which should be enough for one of us to grab a handful of guts. Then we teleport back to Mystic Falls, resurrect Geraldine and live happily ever after. Assuming, we still have the items, or are they among the things we lost in the fire?"

"We have them."

"Okay, then… if everything goes according to plan. We'll be back in about half an hour. Ask Lucy if she could help set things up and save time."

"Copy that."

…

"Elena…" He pulled up the brakes and sighed. "You might want to stay in the car…"

Something was off. You don't get to be a middle-aged vampire hunter without getting a sense for when something goes off.

Maybe not when it came to household chores – he'd made that omelette with the bad milk last week and that had fucked him up – but when it came to his night job, you could bet your bottom dollar that he'd be firing on all cylinders.

The girl peered out into the darkness and locked her door. "Maybe we both want to stay in the car."

"No shit." The streetlights were down so low they could as well be off. The windows and doors of the house were strewn open, curtains were billowing… A sheet of newspaper and a Styrofoam cup were blowing down the driveway. A little mini-storm was brewing overhead. A flash of lightning was dancing across the sky. The only thing missing was a coyote on the doorstep. "Define 'bad idea'." His hand fondled the door handle considering his options. "There's Jeremy in there," he said, to himself and Elena next to him.

"Jeremy's got his ring."

"Right." And I don't. Why? Because your shit-eating dad blackmailed me out of mine. And guess what, Jenna's dead, anyway. Should have told him to suck it. "Who else is in there? Stefan's unconscious. Caroline's got her vampire powers and Tyler, who has his werewolf powers. That leaves Lucy…The hell-bitch…"

"What? She's pretty cool. She came through for us in the end, at least."

"After pledging loyalty to Katherine? That's proof that's she's not trustworthy"

"She's Bonnie's cousin."

"And that's supposed to mean what?" he twisted to look at her. "I have a cousin Ronnie. Lives in DC. Killed both his parents. Stifled them in their sleep. Schizophrenic."

Elena stared.

Sharing too much?

Am I the worst fake godfather ever? Alaric sighed. There was nothing to be done for it now. He'd chosen his path down crazy street that day he'd bought his first crossbow.

"This track's going out to Jenna from Mark to keep her company on the late night shift," the DJ came through the static on the radio.

Don't wish it away
Don't look at it like it's forever
Between you and me
I could honestly say
That things can only get better

And while I'm away
Dust out the demons inside
And it won't be long
Before you and me run
To the place in our hearts
Where we hide–

He switched it off. "Someone's gotta go. We can't both hide out from whatever's going on in there, and I'm dead sure that something beyond the ordinary is going on in that house."

She nodded in slow agreement. "I'm no expert at magic, but this little tropical depression doesn't seem natural," she said with her brown eyes wide and Bambie looking. Even as she spoke, a gigantic raindrop went splat against the windscreen.

Magic was in the air. Definitely. And not Bonnie's good kind of candle-lighting magic. This was bad magic. "Why would Lucy be doing this? What's she doing?"

"I don't know, but I trust her."

You trust everybody, and it's because of you and all this misplaced trusting that Jenna dead. He could say that and be hurtful, but what was the point of being hurtful for hurtful's sake. He'd been to blame there, too.

Elena was just a girl.

A pretty, naïve, seventeen year old girl and they'd let her have her way instead of taking things in hand. Not evil. Not malicious. Not like she wanted her aunt dead. Just too trusting.

Alaric fished out his knife from the from the rubble heap of empty soda cups in the back seat. "Maybe I should stay in the car, then," he joked, "And you go ask your friend what's up. If you don't come back out in five minutes, I'll assume you're dead and call the sheriff."

"So she can come shoot my brother again?" Elena squinted. "You go check it out. I'll stay here."

He killed the engine and threw her the keys. "If I don't come back in five minutes, start up and split. Go to the mall or somewhere with a lot of people."

"I know the drill."

"Right." He pulled his jacket up over his head and got out the car.

Right. His feet nearly slipped on the wet driveway tiles. Inch by inch, millimetre by millimetre he crept towards the house.

Knock? Don't knock? Knock?

Why the fuck would you knock? He peeped through the glass, saw nothing, pushed the door open and flipped on the light switch.

Right. The temperature was so high, he was sweating in an instant. Like the sun is farting on me…

"So…"

They were all just sitting there on the sofa. Caroline, Tyler and Jeremy. Stefan… They'd managed to get him up, apparently… He was in the love-seat by himself looking spectacularly ghastly. And Lucy…

Lucy was drawing a circle on the floor in what looked like blood. The woman looked up at him, her black eyes twinkling in the dim light, a fake, plastic smile distorting her face…

"So," Alaric started again, "Why do I get the feeling that if I say something wrong here I'll end up in the cornfield?"

"Cornfield?" the witch wrinkled her face. "You might end up in a cemetery, if you're lucky, but I don't usually go for cornfields." Then she went back to finishing her bloody artwork. The four of them did not, except sit and look on. He'd guess compulsion except Caroline and Stefan were both vamps and Lucy was just a witch. Far as he knew, witches couldn't do compulsions. Not on vamps, at least.

"This some kind of evil spell?" Who's the hick? Put me in suspenders.

"Some kind of evil spell…" Lucy echoed, putting the last touches on her macabre design. she propped herself on her knees. "My, my… Here's the inquisitive mind I love so much." She got to her feet. Her bare feet. "A man like you with such a sharp eye and inquisitive mind… I figure a man like you might know a thing or two about the goings on in this place. A man like you might have answers, and a man like you might – just might – be smart enough to give me those answers. So what do you think? Feeling lucky? Would you like to take a chance at a question or two?"

"Not really…"

He'd never been threatened by a woman before. He'd always imagined that it would be sultry. Seductive… But it wasn't. Not at all. Whatever the opposite of a hard-on was... that was what he had. He was decisively, definitely, irresolutely, irreconcilably turned off. Weirdly, because the witch wasn't bad looking. Not at all. She was just… really… portentous… and marrow-chillingly evil.

"Heh…" she wiped her bloody hands in her floral pattern top. "Come on…" she coaxed. "Be a good boy. You might get lucky. Lucky in a life-or-death way…"

"And it's too late for me to go back out the door, right?"

"Oh, it's most definitely too late for that."

"Split personalities acting up on you today or something?"

"It might be PMS, I'm not sure. And that's enough of the friendly banter. Let's get down to the threats. Tell me where Bonnie is–"

"I don't know where she is."

"Aren't you the baby-sitter?"

"Yeah, but I'm not certified. I get sloppy sometimes with the details."

"Huh, I'd believe that except your heart's beating just the teeniest bit faster which tells me that you know exactly where she is. Bring Bonnie to me or I kill Jeremy. I let you go, and I give you half an hour to come back from wherever you stashed the girl. Every half an hour more you don't show up, I kill one of these lovely youths until I run out of people, then I come find you and kill you, the girl and Damon. I make it home in time for the repeat of Letterman. Deal?"

"No deal?"

"If you pick 'no deal', I kill Jeremy. Right here, right now."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"What the fuck kind of witch are you? Witches don't go around killing people, as far as I know. You light candles and make the wind blow. What do you want with Bonnie?"

The woman sighed and wiped her hands again in her top. So much blood…"No one takes me seriously until I start killing people. Jeremy," she called the boy, waving him over like if he was a puppy.

Like a puppy, he came.

"Whoa…" Alaric reached out to grab the boy and the next thing he knew he was flying backwards up into the ceiling. He hit the back of his head hard and crash landed through the glass coffee table. No one moved to help him.

Ahhh… He tugged his hand free of a jagged shard of glass. You'll never be an artist, now. But you like this, right? The worse it hurts, the better you sleep.

Lucy nudged his face with her foot. Dragged the sole of her feet down his cheek… Traced his lip with her big toe… Then kicked him. Hard. "I've been waiting here for about… I don't know… hours! You had me going with the whole 'she disappeared into thin air' ruse, but I'm not just a pretty face. This girl's got a brain." She grabbed Jeremy by the throat. Raised him off the ground like he was weightless… All that poundage… "I've got places to go and a whole long list of people to fuck with, and frankly…" she snapped Jeremy's neck with a sickening cracking of bone and cartilage. So fiercely, she ripped the skin. "I'm bored with this now. "

"Ah…" Caroline gasped… but did nothing more. Not one of them even moved.

"What?" the woman giggled, flipped her hair over her shoulder and smiled as she let Jeremy's body fall. "He's going to come back! It's what he does! Oh… No… Wait…" she held up the ring to the light, studying it with a grin for a moment, as if she was a pawnshop broker. Then she crushed it. "Oops. Shit... Did he need that? I'm so clumsy. Happens when I get nervous."

Alaric groaned, tried to shake the blood out his eyes but there was too much. He was bleeding from his scalp badly and from other places. A piece of wood had gone through his belly… it kept him pinned down but it didn't hurt too bad. The hand that had been run through didn't work, and there was a gnawing, acid pain in his throat. A taste of bile and metal.

Was it like this for Jenna? Or faster?

"New deal," he heard Lucy go on… "Somebody tell me where Bonnie is, and I leave you a body to bury. Otherwise, Jeremy Love Hewitt and I are going to have ourselves a bit of a barbeque. Yes, that's right, I'm gonna cook him. Then I'm gonna eat him. And worse, I'm gonna make all of you share a nibble. Unless somebody starts talking."

AN- Did over this chapter at least four times and I still don't like it. Don't know how to make it better. I'll probably write it over when the whole thing is finished. The next chapter goes back to Damon and Bonnie and Elijah... but I don't like it too much either, so I'm thinking a mini-rewrite on that too. I'm making Klaus too evil, yeah? Or no? Not too much jokes in this one or for the next two to come... More moving the plot forward a bit. Sorry for the lack of Bamon action, too.

Reading this over, it almost makes me feel sad. Is Alaric sad in this? Weird that I can't tell?

As always thanks for the reviews from everybody still following up with my long-winded tale. Big, big thanks.