Chapter 5: Doubts and Confirmation
"So, we have hunters here?" Stefan asks his brother with a frown.
"Yes, and get this, they're tied somehow to that hunter that came by in 1992." Damon says with an annoyed sigh.
"A hunter came here in 1992, and wait you were here?" Elena asks.
"Yes, I had business to attend to." Damon answers vaguely.
Elena frowns at that, "What business?"
"Wait, you said you took care of the hunter." Stefan inquires a little angrily.
"I did, I mean, I compelled him into thinking we were just ghosts or something and to leave, but apparently that wasn't good enough. I'll just kill the new guys this time to avoid complications." Damon says simply.
"Damon, they're my friends, you are not going to kill them." Ric says sternly.
Damon shakes his head in frustration and groans.
"Oh, don't you dare start grumbling to me about this. They told me what they think is going on, vengeful spirits. You compelled John into thinking that it was a simple case of a salt and burn and then told him to leave." Ric crosses his arms over his chest.
Stefan sighs, "Damon, seriously?"
Damon looks from Ric to Stefan and then to Elena, "Come on, guys, it was funny."
Stefan rolls his eyes, "Okay, so we just compel them into leaving."
"And leave this town open to more hunters looking to close the case?" Damon frowns, "No thank you." Then he turns to Ric, "Hey, why don't you tell them that you've got it handled here, and then they'll leave."
Ric rolls his eyes, "They want me to help them, Damon, it's not going to work."
"Why does this have to be so complicated?" Damon grumbles. There's a knock at the door, and Damon gets up to get it, followed by the other three. He opens the door to see Dean Winchester standing there. "Well, well, speak of the devil." Damon grins.
"Dam—" Stefan's about to scold his brother.
"Stevie, please, we have a guest." Damon quickly interrupts. Stefan shuts up and gives his brother a quizzical and questioning look.
Dean can't help but catch that, but he doesn't say anything, "Is Elena Gilbert here? I was told she might be here."
"Oh, I'm Elena Gilbert, what's wrong?" She frowns as she forces her way in front of Damon.
"Nothing's wrong, but I was hoping to ask you a couple questions." Dean amends. "May we talk out here, in private?"
She nods and steps out of the house, closing the door behind her.
Damon walks back into the living room, "Anyone want a drink?" He asks, lazily as he walks over to his cabinet.
"No thank you, but Damon, what was that about? Why am I Stevie, now?" Stefan asks with narrow eyes.
Damon sighs, "Well, with them hunting the original Salvatore brothers, we can't exactly be named Damon and Stefan, now can we?"
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"Well, that led nowhere." Dean mutters as he walks inside of the hotel room, to find Bobby and Sam, still researching.
Sam looks up from his computer, "So, you talked to Elena Gilbert?"
"Yes, and as I already mentioned it was a dead end, she didn't know anything of what I was asking her, but something tells me that we're not following the right leads for this case." Dean explains.
Bobby suddenly looks up from the book that he's reading, "What do you mean?"
"I don't know, but when I was at the house, I could have sworn that Derek's little brother was about to call him Damon." Dean answers as he sits on the bed.
"So, you're thinking that it's not vengeful spirits?" Sam frowns, "But then why would Dad, say it is, it's not like him."
"I don't know, but something isn't sitting right about this town, and you know as well as I do, that Ric came down here searching for vampires." Dean mutters.
Bobby frowns, "So, what are you saying?"
"I don't know, but I think that we should break into the boardinghouse tonight, and look for signs." Dean states.
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"Where's Zach?" Damon asks as he comes down the stairway to see his brother sitting in the parlor.
"He went to go deal with his niece, apparently there's a situation regarding some papers or something." Stefan explains.
Damon nods, "So, now that our dull nephew is out of the house, what do you want to do, Stef?" Damon says as he sits on the couch in front of the fire place.
Stefan frowns and looks at him. Did Damon just ask him…does he want to bond? "What?" He manages to choke out, from underneath the shock.
Damon sits straighter and looks at him with a mischievous grin, "Oh, come on, Stef…you don't want brother bond, I thought you'd be all for that, after all these years."
"What are you playing at, Damon?" Stefan asks bluntly. He must not have seen Damon's reaction right, because for a fraction of a second it almost looked like hurt crossed his features, but it's gone so suddenly that Stefan's not sure that he saw it.
Damon shrugs and leans back against the couch, "Nothing."
"Why did you compel John into thinking that we were ghosts?" Stefan asks, changing the subject. He was always curious about what happened with that hunter, but now that he knows what his brother did, it just makes no sense. Couldn't he have just compelled him into thinking that there was no trouble here?
Damon shrugs, "I don't know, I was sort of drunk and bored at the time. It was sort of funny for him to leave thinking that we were ghosts, besides I didn't realize that it'd cause his sons or whatever to find their way here to the town, and reopen the hunt."
Stefan shakes his head and laughs, "Well, that's not nearly as destructive as you get when you're bored most times, so I suppose I shouldn't complain."
Damon smirks at that, "Yeah."
A window shattering and a grunt of pain end the Salvatore brother's bonding time. "Hello, boys, you remember us?"
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"Okay, so what do you think is going on in this town?" Bobby asks. Dean just returned to the room, after being out all day. He interviewed Elena Gilbert, as well as a few others, and now he's not sure if his father got the facts right.
"I don't know, but somehow I think that the answer's been staring us in the face all along, we've just been trying to look at it like vengeful spirits for so long, that it's almost as though we're missing the key issues here. I mean the reports of the dead, don't even look at all like vengeful spirits, they look more like vampire attacks." Dean explains. He walks over to the table in their small motel room and grabs an article. "Okay, here, look at this, there's a body found and the news says it's an animal attack, and that the body was drained of blood. Everything points to vampires, and here we are looking into vengeful spirits. I even took the liberty of looking into the articles that date back to the 1860s, and all the articles are the same. They all say it's an animal attack, with people dying of a bite wound and blood loss. It's vampires, it has to be."
"Why would Dad say that it's vengeful spirits, I mean, how could Dad just mistake this. It's not like him to have missed these facts." Sam frowns.
"I don't know, and that's what's bugging, me. I can't seem to figure out how Dad would have missed these facts either, but I guess he did, and I think that Derek is hiding something. There's something weird about him, and I think that he knows more about this scenario than he's letting on." Dean states matter-of-factly.
"So, you want to go interview them?" Bobby asks.
"Yes, but I think that we should bring our weapons with us just in case, because my hunter instincts go off when I see him, but I can't quite figure out why." Dean replies.
"Okay, then let's go." Bobby says.
Sam, Dean, and Bobby all go to the boardinghouse, only to find that the windows are shattered inward and the door is open.
"What the hell?" Dean frowns. He immediately pulls out his gun and starts slowly approaching the house, after he gets out of the car.
"Something about this don't sit right with me." Bobby says sternly.
They all enter the house together, and are startled when they hear a cry of pain.
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"OW! Gosh, why?" Damon screams.
"I'll tell you, why?" Fredrick states, "Because me and twenty-six others, including Bethann, here were sentenced to rot for eternity for you and your brother's infatuation for Katherine Pierce. We spent one hundred and forty some odd years rotting and desiccating, with nothing better to do than plan our revenge, and the fact that boys are still around, just makes it all the sweeter." He explains, before he walks over and jams another stake into Damon's gut.
Damon tries to curl in on himself as he cries in pain.
"We thought you two might've wanted to get a taste of what it feels like to be starving, before we end you." Bethann explains with a snarl.
"Awe, how thoughtful of you." Damon manages.
"Damon." Stefan barely manages to warn.
Damon pulls the stakes out of himself, "Come on now, what ever happened to letting bygones be bygones?" He tries to say as lightly as he can.
Fredrick laughs menacingly.
"So, what are you going to do, huh? Torture us, bleed us out. I hope you know that we tend to bounce back fairly quickly." Damon sneers.
"That's okay, it gives us more time to torture the two of you." Bethann says as she jams another stake just shy of Stefan's heart.
Stefan loses consciousness, before he can cry out in pain.
Damon's eyes go wild with rage, "I'm going to kill you both."
"That would be a neat trick, now wouldn't it, because we are older and therefore stronger, but yet you're going to kill us." Fredrick mocks.
Bethann smiles at that, "That would be interesting, but too bad your brother won't be around to see it." Just before Bethann jams a stake into Stefan's heart. Damon launches himself at her, using what strength he has left.
She and Damon wind up crashing through the wall of the entrance to the house. Damon takes no notice of the three hunters standing at the entrance of the house with gaping expressions as he relentlessly punches her.
"I'm going to rip your heart out, you're not going to kill my little brother, you bitch!" Damon screams in a fit of rage. She can barely makes sense of his movements, and Fredrick is there in no time, pulling Damon off of his girlfriend.
"How about I kill you instead?" Fredrick shouts as he throws Damon in the direction of the three hunters.
"Dean!" Sam screams as Damon lands on top of Dean and they both topple over each other down the stairs.
"Come and get me." Damon manages to spit out as he stands up on wobbly legs.
Bethann and Fredrick immediately walk out of the door, they push the two standing hunters down, and they fall to the ground with a grunt. They approach, Damon, and Bethann's wounds are healing.
Damon rushes them, and manages to knock them both to the ground beside each other. He slams Fredrick's head against the ground as hard as he can, and then goes for Bethann. His energy is waning on him, and he can feel it. When Bethann manages to push her assailant off of her, Fredrick and her run after him, after he manages to speed away, they chase him into the forest surrounding the boardinghouse.
"What the hell was that?" Sam, asks. He hears a groan of pain and immediately remembers that Dean took a fall down the porch. "Dean, are you all right?" Dean, looks to be in bad shape as he approaches.
Bobby rushes over to help Sam, pick Dean up. Together they prop him up against the steps.
They're in the process of assessing a barely conscious Dean, when two headlights show up at the boardinghouse.
Sam tenses up, as he sees the man rush out of his car. The man barely takes notice of them as he rushes into the house. He then returns; his expression frantic. He looks at the three hunters, just now taking notice of them.
"Ric?" Bobby asks with wide eyes.
Ric swallows, "Where's Damon and Stefan?"