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Chapter 019

A Loving and Loyal Family

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Monday, June 04, 2012; just before 7:11 a.m.

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It's been two years almost to the day since I died from a Werewolf bite I got protecting Caroline and Matt from Tyler as he changed after Klaus kidnapped him and Care. To say my world has changed for the better since that night is pretty much the understatement of my entire 490,456 years on this earth.

My family that at the time of my death consisted of Stefan, Elena, Caroline, Jeremy, and me has grown to include eleven Vampires other than me, including the four remaining Originals, a Hybrid, four Humans, and a Witch. The Witch, Bonnie, at the time I died, hated me through and through and now, well now she loves me as though she's my sister, and right now she's preparing the spell we'll need to turn the Vampires, Humans and herself into Vampire Hybrids using the reworked Pervonachalnyue spell.

The only reason we waited two years was so that Jeremy could graduate from high school as a Human at least once. We had a party for him the night before last after the ceremony. Now we're sitting in Bonnie's Magick workroom at the round table that sits all 18 members of our family comfortably.

Laraina, Carys, and Reyna are watching everything Bonnie does as she prepares to stir the spell. They've been very clear that this is one of the very few spells that requires a live Witch or Briseis to stir it.

Jeremy is handing things to Bonnie as she asks for them. He hands her a bottle of some dried herb and asks, "So will we all need nifty day rings too?"

Bonnie laughs and looks around the table at each member of our family as she says, "No right now, the rings and necklace Drago, Dante, Asya, and Lilith wear are merely decorative. They don't need them anymore and just as those who've already experienced the original version of this spell are immune to the rays of the sun we'll be immune to it too. Besides, Tyler doesn't need one after being turned into a Hybrid and since we'll all be Hybrids too we won't need them either."

Jer smiles and sort of bounces as he says, "Cool."

She smiles and then looks at me, "It's time. I have to add everyone's blood in the order of oldest to youngest."

Lexi speaks up then, "Uh where do I fall on that list, I mean on the one hand I was 350 when I died the last time, but now I've only been Human again for less than two years."

Bonnie smiles at the question and says, "Well, the spell we did to bring you back brought you back as a 21-year-old Human so now you're technically three months' shy of 23, so you're after Ric but before Me, Tyler, Matt, and Jer in that order."

We all nod and Bonnie walks to me with the dagger Lilith and Balthazaar's daughter used to feed me the first time I woke as a Vampire. I hold up my hand and she slices my palm over the bowl Jeremy's holding for her. There are 18 of us who need to drink this potion, so I keep my wound open as long as possible as she holds my bleeding hand for a long while to make sure she has enough blood from each of us.

She slowly goes around the table collecting blood from everyone, though she collects blood from Briseis three times, once with her own blood between Balthazaar and Lilith, once with Klaus' blood after Finn but before Kol, and once with Elena's blood after Matt but before Jeremy. When Bonnie has everyone's blood she stands back at her seat and begins adding various herbs to the mixture. When she's done with that, she begins chanting and after three minutes she stops then adds another herb, which I'm surprised to see is Vervain.

I raise my brow towards her but she just smiles and says, "This will make us all immune to Vervain. It'll even allow us to compel those who have it on or in them. I wasn't going to do it but the 316 dead Witches and most of my ancestors all visited me and told me we're all now worthy of this gift, so here we are. Incidentally, in a second I'm going to add Wolf's Bane and we'll be immune to that too."

Wow, for one Witch to think Vampires or even Hybrids are worthy of those gifts is amazing but hundreds, possibly thousands of Witches? Just wow.

Still I nod and watch as the mixture begins to boil and bubble likely from the Vervain reacting to the Vampire blood in the bowl. She says some more words over it and then a puff of smoke erupts from the bowl as the bubbling stops. The three Witch Vampires and the Originals all smile so I know it was supposed to do that. Then she repeats her actions with the Wolf's Bane.

My muscles are quivering and twitchy and there are butterflies that feel like they're break dancing in my stomach. I can admit, even if only to myself, that I am pretty nervous, not about adding Vampires to my family, but about whether the spell will work. Don't get me wrong I trust Bonnie implicitly, but if the Magick chooses not to work then my Human family members will be permanently dead.

She opens her eyes and smiles at all of us before pouring some of the concoction into each of our goblets, which she had commissioned specifically for this day and are sitting in front of each of us.

When she finishes she smiles and says, "Okay, it's time, everyone drink up."

A number of us let out nervous chuckles and a few of us rub the backs of our necks while everyone else pretty much bites their lips as we each pick up the goblet and then quickly drink the whole thing down. I notice we all take a sip and then chug the rest as apparently my memory of the horrible taste was not nearly as accurate as I thought and that's saying something because I always thought that it tasted like raw sewage and the most disgusting thing I'd ever put in my mouth.

When we've all finished drinking I stand and faster than the Humans can see I'm around the table and as agreed upon I snap each of the Vampires' necks, followed by Tyler's and then Ric's neck and then I quickly snap Lexi's, Matt's, Jer's and finally Bonnie's neck. Afterward I sit and wait for Dante to wake so he can snap my neck.

I rub my neck repeatedly and actually get up and begin pacing and occasionally looking at everyone who is either is in a heap on the floor or slumped over the table as they sit in their seats. I glance at the clock on the wall and realize they've been unconscious for 27 minutes when Dante sits up. I move over to him and he smiles at me before standing and snapping my neck.

According to the clock 27 minutes later, I wake to see Dante looking at me with a serene smile on his face. While I was unconscious each of the previously Vampire members of our family woke up, probably in order of age. We sit quietly all uncharacteristically fidgeting and shifting in our seats every few minutes obviously too nervous to talk.

As she was previously told to by Bonnie, once I wake Briseis walks around the room and, in order of age again, feeds each of the Vampires Elena's blood. When I drink from her I get really dizzy, which hasn't happened since I was dying from Tyler's bite, and then I feel my muscles and bones changing positions almost painlessly and the next thing I know I'm a Wolf.

I stand there on four legs for a minute trying to adjust to the change in perspective. I notice that I seem to have retained my, for lack of a better way to put it, Human mind and Humanity plus all of my control seems even stronger than it was an hour ago.

I watch through Wolf eyes as Dante feeds from Briseis and then changes form. When Briseis finishes feeding Balthazaar, she drinks Elena's blood left over from before she broke her spell and then she shifts into a Wolf. The four of us look at each other and then shift back. After Briseis puts on the clothes she brought down for this occasion she goes back to feeding everyone only stopping a couple times to drink from a few bags of Human blood.

I change into my own set of spare clothes and watch as everyone feeds and turns into a Wolf before changing back and then putting on some clothes that they also brought down here at Bonnie's instruction.

Finally, at the one-hour and twenty-first minute mark Ric moans and sits up on the floor before rubbing his neck and saying, "I'm not sure if I should be thanking you for doing that too fast for me to notice or if I should be angry that I didn't see it coming even though I knew it was coming."

I laugh, "Be happy, Ric, you hopefully weren't afraid for longer than absolutely necessary and I hope it hurt as little as possible." He nods as Briseis goes to him and feeds him her blood. He quickly shifts too and then the other formerly Human members of our family begin waking.

After we've all fed from Briseis and then shifted Bonnie stands up and smiles before saying, "Wow, everything is brighter, that's kind of neat." She pauses then says, "Holy shit, I can hear people talking and animals moving miles away. How the hell do you stand all the noise and not go crazy from it?"

I laugh and tell her, "You should figure out in an hour or two how to focus on one or two voices or sounds alone and zone out everyone else. After that you should be able to zone everything out if you choose too and then it won't drive you crazy."

She nods, as does everyone else since everyone, me included now has improved senses because of the spell. The spell basically added the strength, speed, senses, and control I had as the oldest to everyone else's strength, speed, senses and control. So now the formerly Humans have the strength, speed, senses, and control of a 490,456-year-old Hybrid and I now have everything a 980,912-year-old Hybrid would have. Everyone else's age has basically increased by my original age so for instance the Originals are now essentially 491,497 years old give or take a few years based on when they were born.

I pause as I myself work at tuning the noise out since my range apparently more than tripled, then turn to all of them and tell them, "Welcome to the family."

They beam at me as I sit and pour blood from blood bags into their goblets and motion everyone to drink. None of them reacts to the blood despite it being Human. Bonnie and the other Witches assured me beforehand that this time everyone even the newly turned Vampires will at least have control similar to my own just before Bonnie cast the spell. In fact, that's part of why her ancestors decided to rework the original Pervonachalnyue spell to keep everyone from killing anyone. And although I am certain eventually at some point each of them will lose control and possibly kill someone I am confident that the love of their family will help them learn from the experience. They will never be plagued by the guilt of having killed thousands of innocents the way the older of us have been.

I look around the room as my family enjoys the first of many Vampire meals together. After taking a sip of my blood I say, "Thank you Tianna." All those years ago she placed a spell on six entitled, disloyal, unloving, and spoiled Vampires and effectively turned us into a loving and loyal family who would willingly die to save the ones they love, their family.