Chapter twenty four
Jeremy looked down at his body. What little he could see of it, with the tubes and wires and bandages. A complication in surgery they had said and now he was staring down at himself wondering if he was supposed to force his way back inside or just leave and go into the metaphorical light. Not that he saw any light other than the florescent bulbs that flickered over head.
"It's not time for you to go." Tyler said. "Trust me. "
Jeremy smiled "You have no idea how many people have been looking for you. "
"Oh believe me I know. I've been dodging most of them, which is why I couldn't get through to you when you were awake. That and I'm not really dead. Well okay I am." He said laughing a little "but I'm not a ghost."
"Yeah, we know. Damon saw it. Not while it was happening, but long story. We know that Klaus is in your body. How did that happen anyway?"
"My mom and Mrs. Forbes called me and Caroline. She told us that Saltzman had outed us to the counsel. They'd come up with money and fake IDs for us to run. We'd gone to pack a few things, Caroline was going to help you guys as much as she could first, and then I got this call from Bonnie. She said she had something to give us to help protect us from detection. So I went over to her house. Next thing I know I can't move and she starts mumbling in this weird language I don't understand. " Tyler told him. "She pressed this thing against my chest and it looked like she was unlocking it and suddenly I'm fighting with Klaus and man even without a body he was kicking my ass. I was in that thing for a second and I could see the key hole and I bolted before she could lock it down again. "
"You're sure it was Bonnie and not Emily Bennett possessing her?" Jeremy asked.
"Dude, she put you in the hospital. Wise up. "Tyler said. "We gotta get you back in your body. As much as I'd enjoy the company I need your help getting back in my own head as soon as possible. He's got it bad for Caroline and as long as he's out there she isn't safe."
Alexandra slipped out of the bedroom where Damon lay sleeping, albeit fitfully. "What is it?" She asked Alaric in a whisper.
"Damon's taken the disk and hidden it." He said. "I'm not sure if that's something to worry about. We all have a healthy case of paranoia around here in case you haven't noticed, especially with Klaus and Katherine both presumably in town. What was odd was where he put it."
Alex looked at him quizzically.
"He took it out to his mother's grave. She's the only one in the Mausoleum. It was built for her alone."
She nodded "I've seen the graves of the rest of his family, including the places that had been reserved for him and Stefan. " Cold and empty holes in the earth created to keep the illusion of them both being truly dead.
"Yeah, well the sarcophagus Lid is carved with a strange scene for a roman catholic. " The family being Italian after all. "It's a night scene. Full moon, Willow tree, a woman in a hooded cloak with a wolf at her feet and an owl on her shoulder"
"Hecate." She said. "Not uncommon motif for the dead. Unusual for the time and their faith but not unheard of." Alexandra had seen more than her fair share of crypts, sarcophagi and grave stones.
"Do they also fill the sarcophagus to the brim with Willow branches?" He asked.
"Now that is odd." She said nodding. "How did he react?"
"He thought it was odd but he was more concerned with the condition of the place and that she had been neglected all these years. "Alaric said.
"And this is where he put the disk?"
He nodded.
"He's going into the hospital at some point tonight. " She said looking at the clock, "When he does I want you to show me this place. I want to take a look at the rest of the symbology."
Alaric nodded. "What makes you so sure he's going to the hospital?"
"Because he's Damon, and he hasn't done anything self destructive and certain to annoy everyone in days," She pointed out.
"Good point." He said, fading from sight.
Alex slipped back into bed and nestled in close to Damon resting her head on his chest. Unlike him she needed sleep, even if it was just a nap.
Avril pulled a chair into the cell and took a seat. "We need to talk, girl." She said folding her hands primly in her lap.
"I have nothing to say to you." Bonnie told her. "You've betrayed your own kind to help vampires and necromancers. You may as well be one of them."
"No. I have helped prevent the dead from interfering with the living. Surely you know that extended contact is unnatural. The living are not intended to become the vessels of the dead." Avril said watching the girl pace. She could see the mania that the vampiress had described.
"I wasn't their vessel. They were guiding me. Teaching me." Bonnie snapped.
"Is that why you created a vampire?" She asked. "Because these dead servants of nature bade you do so? And that was sufficient reason for you?"
Bonnie glared at her. "They were trying to restore balance by destroying the vampires." Even though she hadn't been able to allow a certain line to fall.
"And that restores balance how?" Avril asked.
"Vampires are unnatural. Walking dead that feeds on human blood. You can't tell me that's natural."
"Evolution is completely natural." Avril said.
"Its not evolution, its magical manipulation." Bonnie practically yelled.
"Ah, so magical manipulation is unnatural?" She asked.
"That's not what I said."
"Isn't it? When we manipulate a plant in our garden to make it more capable of survival we don't think twice about it. Because it's ensuring survival. That was what was done to create vampires. Ensuring survival against the werewolves. Not merely for themselves but ultimately humanity as a whole. "
"Who's to say the wolves weren't there to keep humanity in check?" Bonnie asked, folding her arms across her chest.
"No one." Avril said. "Nature evolves on her own as well as with assistance from various sources. Once it's evolved there is no going back. Vampires will not be unmade, but that's not what you are worried about. There is no concern for the balance of nature."
Bonnie frowned.
"You are worried about your own sphere of influence, your family, your friends, and your power base." Avril said. "You would do whatever you needed to do to protect them."
"And thanks to you I can't do that anymore."
"You are the one they currently need protection from." Avril said. "You tried to kill three of them. It is possible you will have succeeded with one. The boy. "
"You're lying. They would have given him blood. He's healed. Jeremy is fine." Bonnie insisted.
"He refused, made his sister promise not to let anyone give it to him. He was not wearing his enchanted ring because of what your dead friends did to his guardian each time he died. "
"no!" Bonnie yelled. "Jeremy is fine."
"There is always a risk with any surgery. The human body is fragile. Any time one is put under anesthesia there is the risk that they will not wake up. Jeremy has not wakened."
"No no no you're lying." Bonnie insisted. "You're lying."
"I have no need to lie, child." Avril said.
"Why are you here?" She asked. Her pacing became more agitated, her arms held tightly around herself.
"To determine if you are the threat or if the threat has been eliminated by neutralizing the hot spot." Avril said honestly.
"Everything was fine before your sister arrived. If anyone is a threat around here it's Alexandra. They warned me about her."
"Hmm… yes. A group of ghosts who happen to have been witches in their mortal life believe that a necromancer is a threat. " She chuckled softly. "These are the same ghosts that drove you to force a man to transition into a vampire."
"To destroy all vampires." She pointed out. "He was tied to Elena's mortal life. There would have been no vampires but him in a short time and then he would be gone in less than a century."
"Don't you call some of these vampires friend?"
"You know what, I'm done. Just get out of here." She said going to sit on the bunk.
"You honestly don't see it." Avril said sadly.
Bonnie glared at her then turned her head away, ignoring her entirely.
Damon moved quietly through the dimmed halls of the hospital. They were sparsely populated at three in the morning. Those who saw him with a little encouragement quickly forgot, and went about their business as though he didn't exist. He slipped into Jeremy's hospital room and looked the boy over and sighed.
"Why did you have to make her promise?" He asked knowing there would be no answer. "Things would be so much simpler if I could just slip you a little blood and let nature take its course. " he grumbled. "No you made it so I had to go and break into your room" he said pulling the ring from his pocket and placing it on the boy's finger. "And figure out where you've been hiding this."
"What are you doing?" Jeremy asked, but Damon couldn't hear him without being tied into a spell or actively connected to Alex. "Damon, you jerk, no."
"Sorry kid, I really am. Here's hoping I'm not bringing back a monster." He said and snapped the boy's neck and pulled the chair over to his bedside to sit and wait.
"What is it with you and neck's?" Jeremy asked, as he faded.
Damon frowned watching the boy for signs of life, looking at the clock impatiently, then back at the boy. Five minutes passed, and he grew nervous, ten and he became worried. By the end of fifteen he was up and pacing, sure he'd made a mistake and resigned himself to a bitter war with Elena when he heard a choking sound from the bed.
He pressed the call button and grabbed Jeremy's hands to keep him from pulling the tubes from his own throat. "Hang in there kid, they're coming. " He said slipping the ring off and pocketing it before the nurse arrived.
"What are you doing in here?" She asked pushing him aside to look at her patient.
"I'm not." He told her, compelling her to forget that she'd seen him, and he disappeared back the way he had come.
"Wow he wasn't kidding about the vervain." Alexandra said as she stepped over the plant to get into the mausoleum. "And what's with all the mausoleums around here?"
"I wondered the same thing. Honestly I think that's all because the neighboring families wanted to keep up with Giuseppe Salvatore. They started construction on this a full five years before she died. He imported marble and travertine, commissioned the sculptures ahead of time. "
"How did you find that out?" She asked.
"It's amazing what a ghost can influence people to do, particularly if they are into books and history in the first place." Alaric said with an almost impish grin.
"Nice. " She said shaking her head and laughing softly. "So she had some sort of lingering sickness. What was her name?"
"Madelena," Ric said, "Madelena Andreassi. Apparently she was supposed to marry his older brother. They eloped and hopped on the first boat to the US after some sort of duel. "
"I'd say that was romantic but it's really not." She said, having watched it vicariously over the years with Damon even though he didn't have the joy of having been able to fulfill his love with either woman. "Although I suspect they thought so at the time. " Alexandra frowned. "Andreassi… that name is familiar. Hmm." She said as she went to the lower level.
The mausoleum looked as though it had once been exquisite. It was well made and with a little care it could be exquisite again. She set the lantern in the corner of the room and took out her camera to photograph the inscriptions and reliefs.
"I can't feel anything here." She said as she worked. "It must be the Willow in the sarcophagus. Even when a spirit has passed on I can get a sense of their earthly remains." She said. "A lot of these are protective symbols. Giuseppe went through a lot of trouble to get things precisely right. Their mother died before the vampire invasion of the town so he had to have known about things before then. "
"I remember the boys saying that their father would take his secrets to the grave. Maybe it wasn't just his he was talking about."
"I'm not going to be able to be the one to find out. Not by investigating the sarcophagus anyway. It may be nothing more than a man with a little knowledge trying to protect the woman he loved in death. But why did Damon bring the disk here? It was safer from Katherine at our house. Maybe who I should be speaking to is Katherine. "
"I don't know. Madelena died when Damon was sixteen and Stefan was twelve. That was several years before Katherine's arrival in 1864."
"I need to head back to the house before Damon gets back. " She said shutting down her camera. "I will show these to my sister. See if you can get your history buff friend to research the name Andreassi. The more obscure and fringe sounding the reference the better.
Avril poured a cup of coffee in Stefan's kitchen and leaned against the counter to drink it. She was tired. The previous day had been exhausting and now the girl wasn't helping. She smiled as Stefan entered the room.
"How is she?" He asked getting his own cup. Stefan liked Avril. She had a quiet soothing presence.
"She's angry. " Avril said. "And honestly I don't think she understands what all has been happening. She knows what she's been doing but she doesn't understand the ramifications or that she's been manipulated maliciously. Every challenge is met with more parroting of the dead witch Doctrine."
Stefan sighed. "I was afraid of that. What do we do?"
"I don't know." Avril said honestly. "She needs help. She needs proper training but there is too much to undo to make things right again. Another day and the vervain will be out of her system. I think perhaps you or Damon should compel her to forget about the so called Witch House and its influence. Maybe then things will right themselves on their own."
"Or she'll be worse than she was in the beginning." Stefan said with a sigh. "I'll give it some thought. At the very least we can make it so that she can't hurt anyone else magically again."
"Good. " She said. "Is there any news on the boy?"
"Not yet. He's alive but to be honest if he wakes up again it will be a miracle." Stefan said finishing his coffee and putting the cup in the drain. "There's quite a few bedrooms here. I'm only using one. If you want you can go catch a nap in one of them. It's just a couple hours till dawn and you look dead on your feet. "
"Thank you. I think I will." She said putting her own cup in the sink and disappearing up the back stairs.
Stefan sighed tiredly and ran a hand through his hair.
Elena appeared in the doorway fully clothed. "The hospital called. Jeremy is awake." She said. "And apparently has made a miraculous recovery."
"Damon." Stefan said.
"Damon." She repeated. "With any luck Jeremy won't remember and Alex won't flunk me out of French after I kill your brother."
"Death is a little harsh for saving Jeremy's life don't you think? Maybe we should just torture him a little instead." He said grabbing his keys and heading for the door.
"I don't know. Seems like everyone is doing it these days. I hate to be part of a fad."
Damon found the lights on when he got home. "Hey." He said walking inside. "I didn't wake you when I left did I?" He asked.
"I wasn't asleep." She answered honestly. "So how is Jeremy and am I going to have to fend off Elena?"
"Jeremy is awake." Damon said. "I didn't break her promise so she shouldn't be too angry. If they haven't called with an update, how did you know where I'd gone? Maybe I had gone off slumming with Katherine."
"Nope, didn't even cross my mind." She said watching him go to pour a glass of whiskey. "I expect we'll be getting a call soon enough. No point in going back to bed." She took a seat on the sofa. "So if you didn't give him blood what did you do?"
Damon came to sit beside her. "This." He said pulling the ring from his pocket. "There used to be two of these, they were Gilbert family artifacts. This will bring a non supernatural being back to life if they are killed by supernatural means. So I put it on his finger and broke his neck. "
Alexandra shook her head, then took it from his hand and looked it over. "What happened to the other one?"
"Esther melted it and coated the white oak stake with it so that it won't burn up and disappear when it's used on an original." He took a long drink off his whiskey.
Alexandra turned it over in her hands. "This isn't witch make… this was created by a necromancer, a really powerful one. I don't think even Timon could do this sort of work. "She said frowning. "Damon… were there necromancers in Mystic Falls back then?"
"Hmm… I don't know. Katherine didn't mention anything about them. Then again there was a lot that Katherine wasn't mentioning back in the day. Maybe we should find her and pay her a visit sometime soon." Damon said.