Chapter 15

Damon held his breath, fangs extracted, ready to bite his way out if he had to. She was supposed to be scared of him, for Pete's sake! He barely had time to sneak a look at the sketch before the founding members circled it like vultures. When the sketch made its way to him, he felt his eyes widen even more. The resemblance was uncanny. He had never been happier that his face looked all scary and veiny and that his fangs completely altered the shape of his mouth before. It was him alright, with his vampire face on.

"Keep it people. It's a copy. I've made copies for everyone."

Liz said. And then, when the buzz faded, she turned to Bella.

"Who made the sketch?"
"Jeremy did. He thinks it's my Halloween mask."

Jenna answered instead, waving the implications away with a shake of her hand. Liz nodded

"I spent the morning on the phone with your father, talking about how he dealt with the nest there."

Bella shook her head

"They were passing nomads; the nest was my boyfriend's family. They left of their own soon after the nomads were disposed of. The nomads were killed in a joint effort."
"Joined effort?"

Logan asked, his pen flying on the notepad sitting on the arm of his chair.

"My hometown's area is home to a breed of a shape shifters. They turn to wolves and their saliva, along with their blood and pretty much everything about them, is deadly to vampires. All my father did was ask them to coat bullets, metallic stakes etc with the stuff. Some of them assisted in taking down the nomads physically too."

Damon noticed Richard shudder slightly at the word "wolves". His nostrils flared as he took in a deep breath, but the man reeked of human and not wolf.

"I don't know if this herb of yours is similar, but I cannot see why it can't work the same way. Super soakers do sound silly but..."

She shrugged one shoulder. The move so similar to that of her vampire twin that Damon nearly had a flashback.

Liz took over then and soon she and Richard were talking quietly among themselves. Logan was writing furiously and paid him no mind while Carol, whose fake tan looked more orange than cheetos all of a sudden, abandoned the coffee and the vervain infused water and opened a bottle of red wine instead.

Jenna turned to look at Bella who had a faraway look in her eyes.

"You alright?"

She asked quietly

"Yeah. Just remembering."

Bella shook her head in silent disagreement with her words and rubbed her fingers against the inside of her right wrist.

"I'll get us drinks and then we can go. I wanna show you where I used to sneak in as a teen with Mason."

Bella's nod was slow, her mind cast back to her stay in Forks, her relationship with her vampire suitor, the blasted baseball game. How her relationship ended when she realized that while having a romance with her tall and brooding Edward, it wasn't exactly good for her health. The two had kept in casual contact.

Jenna was pulled in conversation with carol about lending a hand in career night when she realized that Bella had never shared with her that vampires wear large blue jewelry but when she threw a look over her shoulder, she saw her friend talking with the piece of hunk called Damon. Then she decided to keep Carol talking, it had been a while since Bella had relaxed and taken a man in for a bit of fun.

"You seem to just run into undead trouble."

Damon said lightly, the ring that protected him from the sun's deathly consequences magically, glistening at the lights before he shoved that hand in his pocket.

"What can I say, I'm a danger magnet."

Bella's response was just as light. Then a slightly crooked smile graced her lips.

"We both know that my bridge attacker was you. All vamped up, but you. So why are you here, now, Mr. Salvatore?"
"To make sure you keep that little tidbit of information to yourself."
"Why would I do that? The 'bridge killer' murdered my best friend's sister and brother in law."

Damon leaned in closer

"Because if you do, I'll out your little vampire status and paint you as the killer. You did insert youself into this community and while the local cops are useless, they'll latch onto the opportunity of quickly closing this."

Bella's heart skipped a beat at the accusation, but she forced a light laughter to get past her lips

"Except I'm no vampire, so you might want to keep those accusations to yourself, if you don't feel like waking up to a very different kind of morning wood."

She sneered, not realizing a pair of fangs had began to extend in her own mouth. Then she stepped back, doused Damon with her vervain laced water, kneed him in the balls and spoke loudly

"NO Damon, I will not have sex with you for 20 bucks!"

Damon blinked feeling lucky that his black shirt ended up with most of the water rather than his face and watched as the women gathered themselves around Bella looking at him like scum, while the men shook their heads.

"You really shouldn't have tried to turn me into an "eat as much you like" buffet."

Bella spoke softly with a smirk that plainly said she had won, that he knew it and that she knew he knew it. Damon fought the desire to snap someone's neck and contended himself with making his way to the men for a stiff drink and a cigar.

Perhaps Zach had a point and he did have to get out town for a while.

A/N: I'm so sorry to have disappeared on you guys but I have a good reason for it. Two weeks ago I had an accident and broke my arm. I'm on the mend, slowly but surely, but writing one handed isn't exactly my forte. Updates are coming, just perhaps a tad slower than normally.
And now on the good stuff.
What do you think is going on in the madhouse commonly known as Mystic Falls?