Chapter twenty eight

Alexandra sighed in relief as she entered their home. It had been an insanely busy day and all she wanted to do was get a bath and go to bed. She dropped her keys into the bowl on the entry table and smiled seeing Damon's keys there. His car was in the drive, but that didn't always mean he was home. He always carried his keys though.

"Damon?" she called out and was startled by the sudden appearance of Alaric Saltzman in front of her. "I swear to god I'm going to put a bell on you." She whispered. "Where's Damon?"

"Sleeping. Has he mentioned his mother to you or her gravesite?" Ric asked.

"No. Not at all." She answered.

"He spent the better part of the afternoon and part of the evening cleaning up the mausoleum. He was… different." Alaric said. "I think he's becoming obsessed."

"I'll go out there and have a look again tomorrow. I'll take Avril with me. One of us should sense something."

"Do you think this is part of what Timon did to him? "

"It's possible, although I don't know why." She said. "None of it is making any sense."

"He's not going anywhere but there when he isn't with Stefan or you." Alaric said.

"I'll find out what's going on. Thank you for following him. Have you found out anything about his mother?"

"Not yet. Some things are harder to influence people to do than others." He said.

"I'll ask Meredith to help. She's bored out of her mind waiting on the medical board to review her case files. Not that they'll find anything. Certainly not any complaining patients." They all recovered miraculously after all and vampire blood wasn't exactly something the mass spectrometer could pick up yet. "But… for now… I need to see to Damon and a long hot bath. "

"That is my clue to vacate." He said and was gone as quickly as he had appeared.

Alex sighed once more before going into the bathroom and starting the water running. Bubbles were added and she went to fetch a bottle of wine and two glasses from the kitchen which she set on the tub side table.

Damon was asleep, draped across the bed kitty corner as if he had dropped down to just rest for a moment and had drifted off.

"Hey sleepy head." She said as she nestled in beside him. He smelled of chemicals and polish, dust and dried leaves. "I've got a bath running."

Damon drew in a long slow breath and stretched. "I like the sound of that." He said and propped up on one elbow. "You look exhausted."

"Flatterer " She teased, smiling a little. "And you smell like a handy man."

He frowned and smelled his hand. "That's weird. Good thing you have a bath running. " He wrinkled his nose as sniffed again. "huh." He said and sat up. "Want me to get the wine?"

"Already in there. The only thing missing is us." And that was all the reaction? Something was definitely wrong.

"Then I guess we'd better get on that." He told her as he rose to his feet and offered his hand.

She took it and let him lead her to the bath. "So what have you been up to today?" Alexandra asked, enjoying the view as her man undressed. Leanly built, but muscular, a whipcord strong body even without the vampiric enhancements. He still looked like a man fresh from the war front and ready for battle.

Damon paused "Just … errands." He said and blinked a couple times. "So what about you?"

Had he been right? Should she have fixed what was wrong in his head? He was blacking out now. Still it was just tending his mother's grave. It shouldn't be so ominous.

She gave him a rundown of her day, classes, meeting Avril over at the boarding house and Tyler being put into the disk. "I am starting to see a correlation between local supernatural activity and certain people skipping school." She said sliding into the hot sudsy water.

"I think you may be right. Should I have a word with my brother?" He asked with a grin. "Kids these days."

She laughed and broke off a piece of chocolate while Damon poured the wine.

"Chocolate… you're stressed." He said. "What aren't you telling me?" He asked.

"Not used to being on the protected list is all." She said. He'd made her promise to be cautious, promise not to go anywhere alone especially not at night. The only time she'd had alone in days had been the drive from dropping Avril off at her apartment to home. Strangely he counted Alaric as having someone with her. As if the ghost could protect her from hybrids or wayward necromancers.

"I'm sorry." He said gently.

"It's not your fault."

"Sure it is. I asked you here." Damon took a drink of his wine.

"Babe, I chose to come here, I chose to stay, I'm responsible for me being here, not you."

He turned her around so that her back was pressed against his chest and he picked up the bar of soap. "I'm going to be selfish and not try and talk you into leaving."

"Good cause it wouldn't work. Especially when you are doing that." She said. "Mother called. She sent out a pair of rings they should get to Yvette tomorrow. " Alexandra sighed in pleasure as he began to bathe her. One of the many things she had missed over the years. Damon was a hedonist by nature and who was she to deny him that?

"Yvette? Why not just send them here?" He asked. Not that he was completely comfortable with her mother handling things. Something about that woman had always given him the cold horrors.

"She didn't have the address and neither did Yvette so they figured it was easier to send them to her and have done with it. "

"Do you think they'll work?" Not that he was taking the tincture any more, but he still liked the idea of being able to block someone else.

"Mother is certain. She added vervain to both, so it's possible we can both stop taking it. So we're going to be careful when you put yours on. If there is the slightest pain you take it off. You're the only one who can."

He nodded. "I like that little feature." Damon said. "Although I suppose it could be cut off."

"Damon!"

"Well it can. I mean it's what I'd do if there wasn't any other way to get something off of a guy." He shrugged.

Alexandra laughed. "You're something else, you know that right."

"I think your favorite word this time around is incorrigible." He said grinning. "Last time it was unbelievable."

"And in the beginning it was Impossible." She laughed. "You're getting better with age."

"What do you mean the necklace is gone?" Klaus demanded, one hand going around the witches neck. "Who did you tell about its existence?"

"No one." Bonnie managed to get out around tightening fingers. "I didn't tell anyone. I didn't want them to know."

"Someone had to tell them it was important."

"Not necessarily." Abby said quickly, hoping to divert the elder vampire's anger. "The Salvatores have another witch. The necromancer's sister. They might have just been scavenging her belongings. If it was put some place safe they might be trying to figure out what it is instead of knowing."

Klaus lessened his grip and let Bonnie go. "Sounds like you need to get rid of their witch before that happens. See that you are more efficient about it than you were getting rid of dear Alexandra." He left the house and got into a car to drive away. There were hybrids on the property; ostensibly to keep them safe but not one of those living there had any illusion as to what they were actually there for.

"You listen to me." Abby said taking her daughters hands in her own. "You need to stop using magic against these people. With your hot spot destroyed you are no match for a witch that old."

"Then what do I do?" Bonnie asked, her dark eyes wide and a little wild.

"You do it the old fashioned way. Witches and Necromancers are human beings with powers, sweetheart. You kill them the same way you kill anyone else. "

"I don't know if I can." She said.

"If you don't, Klaus will go after Jeremy, and then he'll kill Jamie and then me. You can do anything you have to do in order to protect the ones that you love."

She nodded nervously. "You're right… I know… "

Stefan was restless. The entire situation was out of his control, which wasn't all that surprising or unusual, and generally didn't lead to the loss of sleep. The troubling point was that he couldn't figure out who exactly was in control. Before Klaus had been in control, before that all the troubles in his life had been under his brothers well practiced hand.

Damon was not a forgiving man on the best of days. There was too much of their father in him. Not that he could ever tell his brother that. They had the same temper, the same instinct to lash out when hurt, the same ability to hold a grudge. Stefan had tried to be a buffer between them but it had rarely worked. Damon had seemed determined to push their father to the edge; it seemed to Stefan that his brother had actually wanted the man to hit him. More often than Stefan liked to remember their father had been willing to give Damon exactly what he had wanted. Was that why Damon inferred their father was a monster?

Before his mother had become ill he could remember hearing the arguments between his parents when Giuseppe would take his temper too far in her eyes. Their mother would always champion Damon. Stefan was surprised to find that this still rankled a little. The woman had barely spared a moment for him. Then again… she had been ill for a significant part of his childhood really.

He slid out from under Elena and dressed quietly. Bonnie was out there somewhere under Klaus's thumb. Katherine was in town. His brother was falling in love with a necromancer whose sister was pure evil as far as Stefan was concerned, yet the pair of them ignored how she treated the vampire under her control. Henry weighed heavily on his mind.

He left the house and began to walk. He had no destination in mind. There was too much there vying for his attention already to give a destination much thought at all. He could remember walking these same streets in the evenings. He'd walked them with a number of young women in his mortal life. As a young man, especially with his brother far from home, he'd been quite popular.

Damon had been right about Elizabeth Lockwood, and Clarissa Fell. He'd been hopelessly school boy crush in love with both of them growing up. Damon had teased him mercilessly about them both and had seduced Elizabeth Lockwood when he'd come home on leave to recover from an injury the year before he'd resigned his commission, and he'd laughed about it after Stefan had caught them together.

Aside from her beauty, and obvious charms the one thing that had drawn him to Katherine more than any other was that she had never laid eyes on Damon. During the months before Damon's not so triumphant return to Mystic Falls he had walked Katherine along these streets and through the park. They had talked endlessly about everything and nothing. Somehow talking with her had made the world come even more alive before his eyes. He had believed that they shared a poetic, romantic nature.

1863

"I want to know everything about you." Katherine said as she wrapped herself around Stefan's arm.

"There isn't much to know. " He said blushing a little. "I work with my father when I'm not at school." He said. "you already know all about what I am studying. You've seen my life play out in front of you for weeks now."

"Silly boy, that isn't all there is to a persons life." Katherine told him. "There's your favorite poet, your favorite book, where you got that scar on your arm, why your father is always so sulky… what happened to your mother and why she isn't buried with the rest of the family."

Stefan laughed. "My favorite poet is William Blake, Wuthering Heights is my favorite book." He said indulging her. "My arm… that was a fight between me and my brother last summer, nothing glorious, he hit me and I hit the ground, the rock that happened to be between me and the ground took offense and hit harder than Damon did." His smile faded a little as he remembered his father's treatment of his brother after the fight, driving him back to the war before he'd completely healed of his injuries. "My father hasn't been truly happy since my mother became ill." He said. "He gets into moods, and he'll drink. It's best to avoid him in those moods." Not that Stefan had ever been victimized by them. He was the only one who seemed to be able to sooth his father.

"That is very romantic." Katherine said softly "I've known men to find a new wife before the first is yet cold in their grave. Your mother was a lucky woman. Tell me about her." She said as they neared a park bench.

"My brother knew her better." Stefan admitted. "I was very young when she became ill. She didn't have the strength to deal with an energetic child." This was how it had been explained to him; the fact that his mother wanted nothing to do with him. Yet she still had time for Damon. Who had been older and could at least pretend to be sedate in order to be in her presence. "I remember she was very beautiful, with raven black hair like yours." He said smiling a little. "My brother has her eyes. Pale like the morning sky. ")

He had let her probe and ask questions. At the time it had made him happy. Her questions had brought his mother to life again for him in some ways. She had made him realize that he knew more about her than he had ever thought possible. He hadn't thought anything of it other than she had latched on to a romantic notion as young girls do, and he had been genuinely seventeen at the time and had all the guile of a woolly lamb.

Looking back with older eyes he could see the strangeness of her questions. Where was she buried, did she keep a journal too. She asked questions about heirlooms and keepsakes. They were questions about things that didn't raise any alarms until he thought about the garnet stone found in the wine cellar, one that looked quite similar to the one that now housed Tyler's soul.

He turned up a walk and realized where it was he must have been going all along. With a heavy sigh he reached up and knocked on Katherine's door.

"Stefan." She said opening the door. "Is everything alright?" in spite of what the brothers thought she did care for both of them. She stepped aside and let him enter. "There's wine if you'd like."

Stefan walked inside and nodded. "I'd like that. "He said looking down a moment, before looking back into her near black eyes "I'd like to talk if we could."

"Sure." She said leading the way inside. Katherine brought a second glass for him to join her. "So tell me what's wrong. You wouldn't come to me at two in the morning if there wasn't something wrong." He didn't come to her at all unless he needed something, although she put those thoughts aside.

"I know you don't want to talk about it, but I need to." Stefan said as he took a seat and the offered glass of wine. "I need to know why you were asking so many questions about my mother."

Katherine sighed.

"I'm not here to badger you. I just want to know. " Stefan said.

"I was looking for information. " She said. "No that's not as vague an answer as it sounds. I told you there was a power vacuum. Well there had been a Necromancer in Mystic Falls. " Katherine told him. "A woman, with a vampire hand maiden. " She said. "I can't say about Alexandra. I hope for Damon's sake that she is as good to him as he thinks she is. " For her sake too, because there would a line forming for vengeance if it turned out to be otherwise. "They usually don't take any chances with their slaves. They effectively compel them to keep their secrets, they program them to a certain behavior. This programming doesn't go away when the necromancer dies. A friend of mine from my early days as a vampire… the one that actually helped me with my transition, had run up against one and she'd been taken by this female necromancer. By the way they aren't as weak as all of that. Some say they can be more powerful than the male. Which is the real reason they try to avoid training their daughters." She said.

"I have rarely found the female of any species to be truly weaker than the male." Stefan said with a faint smile. "So you were tracking this friend of yours for … altruistic reasons."

"No." Katherine said honestly. "She had the moonstone and I needed to get it back from her."

"Only to give it up to Lockwood in order to save your neck. Pretty ironic."

Katherine attempted to scowl at him and failed. "I found her in New Orleans. " She said "She'd started working with a witch there trying to break the programming. She couldn't talk. She was going through withdrawals, apparently necromancy can be addictive to some vampires and going cold turkey isn't exactly healthy. It's worse the longer you're exposed. It can drive you mad."

"Which is why Damon won't do anything about Henry," Stefan said understanding now his brother's reluctance, although Stefan was starting to think a stake through the heart would be a kindness. "If you found your friend in New Orleans why come to Mystic Falls?"

"She'd hidden the moonstone here. So I had to find out who the necromancer was that had kept her all that time. I knew it would be someone foreign and dead. " Katherine said honestly. "That was why I was asking so many questions about your mother. "

"You found it in my house didn't you." Stefan said as he finished off his glass of wine.

Katherine paused to refill their glasses. "Yes." She said finally. "I found it in your house."

"Are you saying my mother was a necromancer?" He couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"None of you, not even your father remembered my friend. It's possible that Veritas was just a convenient hiding place. Don't go reading things into it. God please don't go reading things into it in front of Damon. " She remembered all too clearly how much Damon had adored his mother. Even years after her death he adored her. Very latin of him she supposed.

"No… I think you are right about that. We don't tell Damon until we know for sure. "