Guess what, I'm back already! And I really had fun writing this chapter, so I hope you like it too!
Just… I have to up the rating because of this…xD.
Now, thank you my dear readers and reviewers, you are the best. And I bow to my lovely beta AVECIA, I couldn't do this without you!
AND, before I forget: there are a few things in there that might sound… not so nice, but I'm NOT a racist, I just needed to be really crude to make this chapter work!
As always, I don't own anything about the Vampire Diaries, and no –
On with it!
xoxoxoxoxoxoxox
Walking up to the house Isobel had taken for herself, the first thing Elena did was shake her head.
It was always the same with her birthmother – all you had to do was to look for the most expensive, biggest place around and voila, there she'll be.
She hadn't bothered to knock on the door; knowing Isobel, the music inside would be too loud, and she wouldn't hear a hoard or raging horses galloping through the front yard.
And she had been right too, because as she went inside she could practically feel the bass vibrating through her very bones.
The big living room was in quite the state – furniture overturned, clothes strewn around everywhere (and what a cliché: a bra hanging from the ceiling light).
If it wasn't for the clothes, she would have thought that there had been a fight in here, but as it was, she had a pretty good idea what happened instead.
And people thought she and Damon had no shame. At least they hadn't trashed the whole room in the process.
Sighing, she kicked a pair of boxer shorts aside and went around a flimsy little thing of a thong (and she knew that Isobel wouldn't wear something in this radioactive shade of pink – the woman preferred it darker).
As she finally had made her way to the bedroom she just rolled her eyes.
It seemed that Isobel would never grow tired of her little threesomes.
A pretty young woman and a man with too much muscle for her taste were lying – cuddling – on the bed. Isobel was nowhere in sight, but as she went to the CD-player and shut it off she could hear someone tinkering around in the kitchen.
Glad that she wouldn't have to deal with Isobel's newest tag-alongs she went back into the living room, maneuvered her way around the warzone, and entered the kitchen.
Isobel was sitting by a table, coffee cup in her hands and immaculately dressed.
Without saying anything, Elena got herself a cup of the freshly brewed, still hot coffee before she sat down opposite the other woman.
They were silent for a few minutes, just sipping on their coffee and enjoying the silence of midmorning.
But after she was already half through her cup, Elena decided she had wasted enough time with nothing.
"So… found out anything we could use?"
"Well, hello and good morning to you too, my dearest daughter."
Rolling her eyes – again – Elena plastered on a saccharine smile, showing as much teeth (making it as false as possible) as she could.
"Good morning mommy, I hope you had the best night ever! You had no trouble on your travel, I hope?… and did you find anything we could use?"
Her face returned back to a serious, emotionless mask at the last part. Isobel just flashed her an amused grin.
"You spent too much time with Katherine, you know? She ruined you."
"And you should stop channeling Damon – because he said the exact same thing. Now, I wonder which is worse. Me, having a few of Katherine's traits, or you, having a few of Damons; considering that you can't stand him, but I like her, I guess it's pretty obvious."
Isobel looked like she bit into a lemon at this, but soon had her features schooled into her usual suave way again.
"Right. Down to business now. As I can't run around compelling people into telling me what I want to know, I had to do it the hard, old-fashioned way. But the folks here are just too damn paranoid when there is someone knew in town, so I couldn't get my hand on much information.
I know that she was here a long time ago – that she had been dead for a long time before she came back with you.
There have been a few murders in the last few weeks. The police are trying to not let anything go public, but it's getting harder. I saw one of the victims – and it was a gruesome sight indeed. Even my stomach protested… and I've seen… and done… a few not so nice things in my time.
But this? It was… the woman had been mauled. Barely recognizable as a human anymore. And by the looks of it, she had been tortured before she was killed. She had no finger- or toenails left, and her eyes had been burned beyond a chance of repair. And that's just a few things.
So, whoever she is, there is a lot of hate in her. Nobody is born like this – and nobody is turned into such a hateful being without a reason.
Something must have happened when she was here the first time around, because whatever she is doing, it looks like revenge to me."
Elena looked into her cup for a few minutes, processing what Isobel had said. So this person had a grudge against the people here. Some score to settle with Mystic Falls.
And it probably had something to do with the way she died.
Emptying her coffee cup, she stood up and finally looked her birthmother into the eyes.
"I need you to tell the others what you found out. Every single detail. And then we need the police reports of the murders. Maybe there is a pattern. And then we have to find someone who was powerful, and could have a reason to hate Mystic Falls."
With that, she turned around and went for the front door.
Nearly there, she looked over her shoulder, and called back inside.
"Well, are you coming?"
Xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
"Tell me teacher, why are we down here, again?"
Alaric was this close to just jump – head first – off of one of the ladders to knock himself out. It wasn't like it would kill him – and even if it would, he would just return after a few minutes.
Instead he just used his teacher-to-stupid-pupil voice on the other man, and explained it again. Even if he knew that the other man did this on purpose to rile him up.
"Because Elena called, and said we need to find someone that could have been more than human, and would have – for some reason or the other –had a grudge on Mystic Falls. Someone who had been dead for at least 50 years. Killed, most likely. And down here are the oldest police reports."
"Yeah well, I get why you are here. You're a history teacher – bound to find anything resembling a book or an authentic report of times-long-gone interesting.
And these dust-gathering folders are fitting that description perfectly. I just don't know why I had to tag along. It's boring!"
With that he heaved another box full of folders down – and promptly got showered in a rain of dust.
Three sneezes and a disgusted headshake later, he opened the next folder and leafed through it; all the while trying to ignore the sniggering teacher, and the whipping noises he made.
He just never was good at ignoring the teacher when he tried to be an ass.
"Yeah yeah, I get it. I'm whipped and I'm not trying to do anything against it. But it's not that you are better. At least I'm getting some – tell me, when's the last time you got Jenna to scream so loud that she woke up the whole house? And I don't mean the kind of screaming that ensued because you forgot some anniversary or the other."
Alaric didn't answer his question – but he stopped his sniggering and went back to work, so Damon guessed he had made his point.
"So… how do we know that we'll find something down here? I mean, it's not as if there will be a red 'ATTENTION, WAS A POWEFUL BEING BEFORE WE KILLED HER' sign."
Sighing Alaric shut another one of the folders – the robbery of a seventy-something year old man wouldn't help them.
"Come on, man. Don't play stupid. I know that your brain is working quite fine. Sometimes. When you're not drunk to all hell, at least. We have to find something unusual. There are a lot of 'animal attacks' over the years – which I guess are due to mostly you or a rogue Lockwood here and there. But we don't need a bloodless corpse or a wolf's chew toy.
What we need, is someone who had a horrible death; someone who maybe even was tortured beforehand, not some random act of violence. We sort out those, and answer the 'powerful' question later."
Half an hour later they were still elbows deep in dusty boxes, as Damon caught sight of something that let his blood run cold.
With slow, deliberate movements he got a box down from the highest shelf and the back of the room.
It read 1869, B. and nothing else. But he had a damn good idea of what he would find inside.
He opened the box slowly, and took the folder that lay atop of a few pieces of evidence.
Taking a deep breath, he began to read the report - though it seemed to be more like a diary than anything else.
We have her, finally. For long months everything we could do, was to watch out for everything unnatural, but she had been careful, very much so. Until last night.
We followed her into a meadow, and there she began to chant in a barbaric, godless language, and the clear sky grew suddenly a midnight black with clouds.
We wasted no time, but rushed to her, and knocked her unconscious before she knew what happened – she was so deep in her concentration that she never heard us coming…
Closing his eyes for a moment, he opened the folder a few pages ahead, already fearing what he would read next.
…She is stubborn, trying to tell us she only prayed. We all know that those black women have no religion! They are barbaric; believe in no sacred, good power. And this one, she is a whore of the devil. We should have known from the beginning. After all, she came with that godless creature, Katherine Pierce, who corrupted my sons…
He should have known that his father had his hands in this. It seemed that the man had a hand in nearly everything that went downhill in his life.
…She is still holding strong, even after days without food or water. We have decided that we have to move at a faster pace. Who knows, maybe there are more of her kind nearby, just waiting for the right moment to destroy this town, to lead us off the right path, down the road of their sins. Never can we allow for that to happen – we worked so hard, had built this city out of nothing. It cannot be that a being so putrid can wander free, without any punishment.
So we will do anything in our might to bring this one down, to make an example out of her…
...We finally have a plea of guilt. It took us long enough as it is. And as she finally confessed to have used the powers that the devil gave her, she tried to make us believe that she helped us. It's laughable; never would we believe such outrageous fabrications of the mind. The most ridiculous tale was, that the device John Gilbert invented himself – the one that enabled us to find the vampires – would have been useless without her.
That it only worked because she had woven her magic into it. The sooner we get rid of her and her poisonous whispers, the better…
… We wanted a public execution for that wench, but now we can't. The noble citizens of Mystic Falls can't see her like this. They can't know that we literally had to skin her to get her to confess her crimes – to see what lies beneath the human shell. So we will bring her to the ground right outside of the cemetery. There is a stake already built there – the citizens will believe that the fire is just a funeral pyre. It is time now. The witch shall burn…
"Fuck… hey teacher? I think we really have a problem."
Xoxoxoxoxoxoxo
The kitchen in the boarding house was – again – not a very comfortable place to be.
It seems that even though Katherine's presence here was slowly starting to be accepted, Isobel still had a long way to go.
The fact that not even Elena was all too fond of her wasn't easing the thick air in the least.
And Jenna kept on giving her the evil eye – she was still not sure if she hated the woman more for abandoning Elena, or leaving Alaric behind. Then again, if she hadn't left Elena with her sister and brother-in-law, she would've never got to know her. And if she still would be with Alaric, she herself wouldn't…
As nobody wanted Isobel to be privy on anything personal, the conversations had quickly died down, and now they were only waiting for Damon and Alaric to return – they had called about ten minutes ago, to tell them that they found something.
As they finally heard a car pulling into the driveway, they all had to make an effort to not just jump up and rush outside.
But suddenly they heard a shout from outside, quickly followed by something heavy crashing against the outside wall of the house.
Elena was the first one to reach the door, and she threw it open, nearly ripping it off its hinges.
She came to a halt halfway down the front steps, standing so still she looked like she had turned to stone.
Crouching in front of a knife wielding Alaric was a… thing that looked like it came straight out of a movie.
Two red, bushy tails, pointed ears, blank, red eyes, fangs that any vampire would envy and claws fit to rip right through a man– but other than that, eerily human.
Bonnie stumbled out right after Elena, trying to remember what that thing could be, and how it could be killed.
The thing made a leap forward, aiming right for the man's throat. Luckily Alaric was used to things with a much faster speed, so he moved aside just in time, and even delivered a kick.
Then Bonnie registered that Elena still hadn't moved – hadn't even tried to come to Alaric's aid.
Frowning she finally looked into her face and instantly regretted it – the expression would make all the demons from hell tug their tail and run for their very lives - but followed the line of her sight anyway… right to where Damon was.
As she let her eyes wander between him and Elena, she just couldn't decide what frightened her more.
The fact that her best friend looked like was wanted to rip something, someone, to pieces – literally; or that Damon was lying in a growing pool of blood and wasn't moving.
Xoxoxoxoxoxo
So, apart from my little cliffhanger – for which most of you will probably hate me – I hope you liked this chapter. Also, you should have a pretty good guess at who my villain is, now.
Anyone care to try?
And I KNOW that there is a VD episode tonight, but PLEASE don't forget my review… I life for them people!
So long,
Zora