Chapter twenty six
Yvette entered the mausoleum on her sister's property and sighed into the cell phone. "I don't like this, Mother. It's not right."
"Stop fussing and find that bag." Julianna said firmly."You have no idea the amount of not right we'll be dealing with if you don't do what I tell you."
"Why are we still pursuing this? The woman is dead and in the grave. I fail to see where the obligation lies." Yvette said as she looked through her sister's workshop, wrinkling her nose periodically. "Do you realize that Alexandra gives that … thing… willow and angelica? He's a vampire, Mother. It's embarrassing the way they look at each other and … touch… in public."
"Yes well we have Katherine Pierce to thank for that amongst other things. At least we finally have the stone back, now we need the book. Keep looking for Timon's bag. "
Yvette made a face and stuck her tongue out at the phone. "Hang on." She said and put it on speaker and lay it down on the bench turned into a work table so that she could use both hands to move things around.
She found a bag and opened it but there were only her sister's tools. She remembered when they had made their own tools when their father had been teaching them. It seemed an eternity ago. She couldn't help but think that her father would never approve of any of this.
Yvette moved on around the room and peered into the cut outs for the caskets that her sister was using for storage "What have we here." She said pulling out a box from the back of the last site. She rifled through the loose things in the bottom as she walked back over to sit before the work bench. "I think I have it." She said taking out a black bag. "What do you need out of here?"
"Tell me what you see." Julianna said sharply.
Yvette stiffened and glared at the phone. There were days that her mother was very clearly a witch. She began to read off what she had found. Basic tools for augury, for containing spirits, for breaking the undead, various herbs and powders and tinctures. " And more of Damon's blood than I like to see, well except maybe spilled over the pavement. I'd like it then. "
"Don't be bitter, darling, it doesn't suit you."
"I'm not bitter. What do you need me to take out of here?" She didn't like taking from her sister. No matter the cause. Some things were sacred. Unfortunately her mother had gotten them into an arrangement that was not going to end well for any of them. Especially Alexandra.
"Hmmm… perhaps the word I am looking for is jealous." Julianna sighed. "Take the blood. All of it. Don't sigh at me. Just do it. " She then listed a few other items.
Yvette put the glass vials into her purse and pocketed the tools before putting the box back. "please tell me this is all you need ."
"For the rings that they want to work there are specific bones you will need. Lift the false bottom of the bag and you will find what you need for Alexandra's." Julianna said quietly. "For Damon's you will need to go digging."
"He had… " She said looking at the bone digits in the bottom of the bag. She thought for a moment she would be ill. "And you knew? You knew he had pieces of Papa with him and you still worked with him?"
"Pull yourself together, girl. This is not the time to go soft like your sister. " She hissed. "Now tonight, you need to dig up Giuseppe Salvatore. No one, and I do mean no one is to know where these bones came from, do you understand me child?"
"Yes, mother." She said, still disgusted by what she was hearing.
"Good, now go make sure nothing happens to your sisters between now and then. " She hung up.
"love you too, Mother." Yvette said and hung up. "About as much as root canal." She muttered as she put the room back as she had found it and exited the mausoleum.
Jeremy sat on the edge of the bed and looked hopefully at Avril. "Is it something that would work?"
She looked over the spell carefully and nodded. "It's fairly basic even if powerful." Avril said. "It would require having Tyler in the disk, and being able to contain Klaus while the spell is completed. But it's a viable spell."
Stefan sighed. "Which means luring Klaus out of hiding."
Damon grinned a little. "Well we have two things in this town that he might be interested in. Katherine and Caroline."
"He let Katherine go to bring you the cure for the wolf bite. He was through with her. "
"Really?" Damon said. "I think he was hoping she would head for the hills and leave me to die so that he could send you out after her in all that ripper glory. Besides, she's been working against him ever since then. It's got to be a lure. Besides, I don't really want Caroline anywhere near Klaus. She'll be too worried about hurting Tyler to protect herself."
"I think you are underestimating her." Alexandra said. "And the amount of anger she has that he is in that body to begin with. Tyler isn't in there and she knows how durable vampires are."
"Yeah well that one has teeth that can kill her with a love bite." Damon pointed out.
"And unfortunately there is no protection from that." Avril said.
"Still we can't just let him keep Tyler's body and go on about his mission of creating a hybrid army. " Elena said.
"We're not. That's why we're going to get Katherine to lure him out." Damon said. "What do you say, brother? Let s go pay a visit to the Ex."
Stefan nodded. "Let's go." He said leading the way out of the room. "Any idea where to find her?"
"Probably Isobel's so called safe house. " He said.
"The most expensive foreclosure in town."
Katherine poked her head out the door when Damon knocked. "Go away." She said and started to close the door, but the brothers pushed it open. "Seriously, go away. You hurt my feelings the other day and I want nothing to do with you."
"Sure you do." Damon said. "You love us." He purred as he walked past and into the living room.
Stefan merely smiled at her as he walked in and closed the door behind him. "Katherine." He said and followed his brother.
"Fine, what do you want?" She asked petulantly going back to her seat, picking up the book she was reading before Damon could snatch it out of the chair.
"There are some questions we have, about the good old days." Damon said sarcastically, looking at the title of the book she was holding. "That's a little high brow for you isn't it?" he asked. "The epic of Gilgamesh," He laughed.
"If you're going to be insulting you can leave."
"You were running things for the most part when you were in Mystic Falls with the rest of the tomb vampires." Stefan said.
"Yes… and no." She answered. "Pearl did the actual day to day controlling of the masses."
"You controlled Pearl." Stefan said.
"I prefer the word influenced."
"Which means you knew who all the major players in town were." Damon said.
"There were none." She said laughing. "That's why we came to Mystic Falls in the first place. There was this huge paranormal power vacuum waiting to be filled. "
"Thing is I don't remember there being anything supernatural in town before you got there." Damon said. "And power vacuums are created by something big leaving, not just something not being there to begin with."
"You were a child before I got here. You were practically a child when I left. " Katherine pointed out.
"Something Alexandra pointed out to me once. The children are where you find the signs. After all that's why you targeted a seventeen year old boy when you first arrived. " Damon told her. "They're easy marks, willing to believe things adults won't, willing to keep secrets because no one believes them anyway. You want to influence a town you influence the influential children"
"You learned that from her? I thought I taught you that." She said smiling.
"No, what you taught me is there is no such thing as the real thing." Damon said.
"You really are bitter."
"I prefer the word realistic." Damon said completely ignoring the concerned looks from his brother.
"There was a point in here somewhere I'm sure." Katherine said.
"No, we completely digressed. " Damon told her. "I want to know what was there before you were. What was there that we didn't see. "
"How should I know?" She asked.
"You know because you needed it to be gone before you arrived. " Stefan said. "You never do anything without a reason. You came to town for something. We think you found it and that's why you pulled the stunt that got all the other vampires entombed. Not to convince Klaus you were dead, but to cover up whatever it was you took. "
"Well sounds like you two know everything. There's nothing for me to say anything at all." Katherine said raising one delicately arched eyebrow.
"Sure there is. " Damon said. " For instance the details."
"No." She told him. "You don't need the details. It doesn't affect you." She got up and walked toward the kitchen. "I'm starving, you two want a bite… drink… what ever?" She called as she went.
The brothers looked at each other and sped for the kitchen.
Stefan leaned against the back door just as her hand touched the knob.
"Going somewhere?" Damon asked.
"I told you two I don't want to talk to you. What happened a hundred and fifty years ago isn't your problem anymore." Katherine said.
"This is one of those situations where they always say something about the lady and protesting." Stefan said.
"I don't think this is what Shakespeare had in mind when he wrote the word Lady." Damon said and blinked as he was slapped by Katherine. "You weren't that insulted." He said, after all if she'd wanted to hurt him she could knock him across the room without half trying. "And you aren't protesting nearly as much as Stefan thinks you are."
"Were there necromancers in Mystic Falls ?" Stefan asked.
"I don't know." Katherine said. "There were rumors. Eventually we thought that it was something they said to keep the vampires out of the area when the war began to uproot us all. Believe me nothing says keep out to a vampire like stories of a powerful necromancer. Something you wouldn't understand since you're shacking up with a light weight."
"Now now, put away the kitten claws." Damon said.
"Why all the questions." She asked backing away from the door.
"Turns out some of the family artifacts in town were made by a necromancer instead of Emily." He told her.
"Can't say I'm surprised. I can honestly say I did not encounter a necromancer in mystic falls." She told them.
"Which is Katherine speak for …" Damon began.
"She encountered one somewhere else. " Stefan finished.
"Oh come on." Katherine said in frustration. "Yes I have encountered one before. No you don't need details because it has nothing to do with you. I promise. Nothing to do with you or your," She made a face "girlfriend."
"Fine, we'll table it for now." Stefan said. "The other issue at hand is as always Klaus."
"So you finally believe me." She said walking back toward the living room. "What has he done?"
"He's possessed Tyler." Damon told her.
"That's the werewolf he turned right?" Katherine asked. "He does have a fixation for being a hybrid."
"We need you to help us lure him out into the open." Stefan said.
"We'll protect you." Damon told her.
"Stop hounding me about the past and I'm in." Katherine told them with a smile.
"Do they know anything?" Klaus demanded sitting across Abby's kitchen table from Bonnie.
"I don't think so." Bonnie said rocking slightly in her seat.
"You aren't inspiring much confidence, my girl."
Bonnie leveled a scathing glare at the vampire. It was the hazard of wearing an all too familiar far from frightening face. He had lost a good deal of his impact.
" I'm not your girl," she said."It wasn't mentioned when they sent their witch down to examine me. They threw everything else in my face but that. Caroline wouldn't have been able to resist it either. She loves Tyler for some unknown reason."
"Good. I'm going to be testing that love very soon." Klaus said.
Bonnie laughed. "You're using his body like a cheap suit. That doesn't make you Tyler. And with him not in there with you, you don't have access to his memories. "
"Then perhaps we need to take a page from my brother's book and try and find the boy. "
Bonnie rolled her eyes at him.
"Have a little respect." Klaus said. "They may not care about you any longer but there is at least one of them that you do care about. And of course the people whose hospitality we are imposing upon might appreciate a little care regarding their well being." Something about the way he looked at her with Tylers coal black eyes sent a chill down her spine.
Henry brushed the dirt away from the top of the coffin. The last people to break in weren't so careful of the man's dignity. There was no need to pry it open as a large hole was visible in the top. He did so anyway knowing his mistresses exacting standards.
He leaped from the grave and simply nodded to her that he had completed his work. Yvette stepped closer and he gently lowered her down into the grave.
"I know you disapprove of your sons Mr. Salvatore, but you are just going to have to get over it." She said as she began to pull tools from her bag.
"You don't know as much as you think," Giuseppe said, sitting on the side of his grave looking down into it as the necromancer desecrated his remains.
"Why don't you explain it to me then. " She said, rolling her eyes. They always wanted to explain and as much as she hated listening to them it made her work that much easier if she just let them get on with it. Some days she felt like a therapist for restless dead. One day she was certain it would turn her into Alexandra.
Giuseppe laughed. It wasn't a pleasant sound. "I did what I did to protect my boys. So you go ahead with whatever it is you are doing. "
"Not that I need your permission." She said. "How exactly is it you protected those two with a bullet to the chest?" She asked. If the man had let them live out their mortal lives she wouldn't be where she was at the moment. Back in Mystic Fall's digging up bones.
"If I hadn't they would have died in the church when they set it ablaze. A gentler death don't you think."
"Fair point that." She said. "Guess you didn't know the Pierce woman had been feeding them her blood." Yvette said severing several digits and putting them into a bag.
"I knew." He said. "I never expected Stefan to kill me." He said chuckling a little. "I always expected it would be Damon."
Yvette lifted her arms and Henry pulled her from the grave, going down to take her place and seal things properly.
"What are you using the bones for?" Giuseppe asked rubbing at the ethereal version of the same hand. He was relieved to see his fingers still there. "And are you going to be… how did she explain it… removing me from them?"
"No." Yvette said. "It would render the bones useless." It wasn't like he wouldn't know after all.
"Good." He said. He slid down into his grave as the vampire began to cover the coffin once more.