Chapter 9

They quietly made their way along the deserted hall until they came to a door that reeked of the perfume. The girl's dorm room. However, the scent of Aaron and Elena was also there, almost undetectable amid the stronger scent. The two vampires stood there in silence, listening. What they could hear was the heartbeat and whimpering of the human captive. She wasn't speaking, but they could sense her fear and some of her chaotic thoughts.

"I'll speak to him. You try to get through to her," Elijah murmured.

Damon nodded and focused his mind on the girl. He needed her to invite them in because otherwise they could not walk in. They probably could not even open the door. The building was open to the general public, but not the personal rooms.

Elijah spoke evenly. "Aaron Whitmore, I wish to speak with you."

"Who the hell are you?"

"I am Elijah."

"Where is Damon?"

"Does it matter?" Elijah asked, realizing that the young man inside the room was not sensing Damon. That was good. "He is looking for Elena. Why have you taken her body?"

"Because he wants her. Damon. The love of his life. I'm sure you know that, since you and him have been trailing me."

"It doesn't matter if he loves her. She is dead, for all practical purposes."

"She isn't real dead. I can tell that. Damon's waiting for her to wake up. Bonnie admitted that. Maybe in sixty or seventy years. That's a long wait, but not for a vampire. How old are you, Mr. Elijah?"

"Older than Damon by a few years. I understand he betrayed you and killed you," Elijah said calmly. He was trying to keep the conversation going while he watched Damon mentally communicating with the perfume girl.

"Yeah. The bastard did that, all right. I was warned before hand. Of course, I had to choose to become a vampire. That sucks, but it has it's upsides."

"Yes, it does. Damon lacks a moral code sometimes."

"The bastard! He murdered my whole family! Did he tell you that?"

"No," Elijah lied. "He's a monster if he did that. I do not know him well."

Damon glowered at Elijah and could see a hint of humor in the dark eyes. He then went back to mentally talking to the girl. She was very frightened, not only of Aaron, but also of Damon, himself a vampire. He told her he was there to rescue her and Elena from the crazy Aaron and that he meant her no harm. He urged her to mentally invite both him and Elijah into her room, since they could not otherwise get in. They couldn't even open the door. He could feel the girl struggle to concentrate on this task.

You are invited in. He is invited in. Please come in! Please hurry! Help me!

Cautiously, Damon reached out to touch the doorknob and found that he could. The door would open inward and to the right when he was ready. He looked at Elijah, who noted this success.

"Do you still have the gun, Aaron? The one you shot Damon with?" Elijah asked.

"Larry shot Damon and, yeah, I have it right here and if you come through that door, I pull the trigger. It's an automatic, Elijah. AK-47. Lots of vervained bullets, so stay back."

"I cannot come into the room, Aaron. You know that. What do you plan to do now? It is just Elena's body that we want."

"Yeah, sure," Aaron muttered and added some profanity.

To Damon, Elijah murmured, "I'll go left; you go right."

Damon nodded and turned the doorknob, shoving the door wide open. Even as they moved in a blur, Aaron was ready and he pulled the trigger. The automatic weapon fired a volley of rounds in the general direction of the two vampires as Aaron swept the muzzle around, hoping to hit the fast-moving targets. Despite the blurred speed of the two, both of them were wounded. Damon felt one bullet enter his right chest and then another one thumped into the right side of his head, knocking him back against a dresser.

Elijah was hit in the right shoulder and upper abdomen. He too was knocked backward and hit the wall behind him. The shoulder wound was the most crippling because it shattered his shoulder joint and made his right arm useless. It was a very painful wound, made more so by the vervain on the bullet. He bounced off the wall and headed toward Aaron, but no longer in a blur. He tripped on some clothes that had fallen from the clothes basket the girl must have been carrying. Losing his balance, he fell momentarily to the floor, causing terrible pain in his shoulder. The bullets from the weapon passed over him. In this time, he then saw Aaron throw Elena over his shoulder and jump through the window, glass flying everywhere. He still had the weapon. The girl who had let them into the room, ran out the door screaming.

Damon also saw Aaron escape again, but the head wound made him so dizzy that he fell to his knees. He staggered to his feet and tried to follow out the window, but his control was off and he fell to the ground outside, adding a couple of glass cuts to his wounds. He heard the truck motor start and the tires squeal as Aaron once again eluded them. Cursing angrily, he then looked up at the broken window. He saw Elijah appear there and, holding onto his right arm, in a moment the Original dropped down, landing beside him with a grunt of pain.

"He got away again," Damon gasped, one of his lungs having collapsed. "I just couldn't catch up to him. How badly are you hurt?"

"Seriously enough. My right shoulder joint is shattered. Let us get to my vehicle and leave here before the campus security and the police arrive," Elijah said with a grimace. "We know they are alerted and close by."

He and Damon, the walking wounded, made their way to the nearby SUV where they saw Bonnie's face in one of the windows. Elijah went to unlock the driver's door, but the key was in his right pocket and he could not reach it with his useless arm.

"The key is in my trouser pocket," he said, turning his right side toward Damon.

The younger vampire moved the corner of the coat aside, put his hand in the pocket, grabbed the key and moved to open the door. "I'll drive," he said, seeing Elijah's useless right arm which could not shift gears.

"Fine," the Original said. He tucked his right hand into his belt for support and then hurried around to the other side.

In a moment, both men were inside and Damon started the vehicle.

"You are both hurt!" Bonnie said with alarm. "I heard the gunfire and then saw Aaron jump out the window. He had Elena!"

"He won this battle," Elijah snarled though gritted teeth, "but he hasn't won the war. Damon and I just need time to regroup."

"You certainly need time to heal. I know you heal quickly, but still…" Bonnie noticed that Damon was steering the SUV a bit erratically. "Damon, let me drive before you run into something." As they passed a streetlight, she could see the blood that had run down the side of his face and guessed that he might be seeing double or he was dizzy.

"I'm alright," he insisted. "I'm going to the Whitmore house and see if the place is crawling with the law." As he approached the mansion, he saw no other vehicles except for the security guard's. "Didn't he call for backup? That doesn't make sense. Where are the sheriff and his deputies?"

"Not here," Elijah said. "They could be on their way or involved in some other emergency."

"So now the question is, should we chance going inside so I can treat your shoulder?"

"Aaron likewise could be waiting to go inside, or perhaps he already has," Elijah said. "He could go right back in the window he jumped out of."

"How the hell does that weasel manage to keep beating us? And hauling Elena around while he's doing it?"

"Being a vampire and having an automatic weapon loaded with wooden ammunition dipped in vervain has given him a serious advantage," Elijah growled. "The bullet in my abdomen is wooden and is coated with vervain. The one that hit my shoulder is not wood, but is coated with vervain. How about your wounds, Damon?"

"The one in my chest feels like wood and vervain. Hurts like hell. The one that grazed my skull had vervain on it. I don't know if it was wood or not. Maybe he had a limited supply of wooden bullets. The wound in my back isn't totally healed, I think."

"I sincerely hope that Aaron has exhausted his supply already. Nevertheless, the metal ones with vervain can slow us down, especially you."

"Thanks for pointing that out," Damon muttered. He pulled to a stop by the back door of the mansion which they had left not long before. He spotted Aaron's vehicle further down the street and parked in an unlighted spot. "I don't see him. I guess he went inside. If we go in that basement door, he may be waiting, gun in hand again."

"One would think he would have driven away from this area entirely instead of coming back here," Elijah commented.

"Maybe he thought that was what we would think, so he came here anyway, figuring we wouldn't check here again," Damon muttered.

"Or he is playing games with us. Taunting us," Elijah added. "Especially you."

"One of us should check to see if he left Elena in the van," Bonnie said, while Damon swore at the devious antics of Aaron.

"I shall do it. Stay here. If he starts firing again, leave without me," Elijah said. He had to reach across himself with his left arm to open the door, but in a moment he was outside. Despite the pain of his wounds and the slowing effect of the vervain, he moved almost in a blur to the passenger side of Aaron's vehicle. He could see immediately that no one was in the driver's seat. Cautiously he opened the passenger door. The dome light came on and he could see in a moment that no one was inside. He turned and walked back to his own rented SUV.

With that passenger door standing open, the interior was lighted and one thing was obvious to the three people. The two front seats were a bloody mess.

"I'm going to be charged for damages when I return this vehicle," Elijah observed aloud, standing by the open door and looking around. He looked down at his own clothes and noted that his suit was soaked red. Damon's jacket, T-shirt and jeans were just as bad.

"He will see us if he looks out a window and we have the dome lights on," Bonnie pointed out. She was not eager to get shot. Her sedation had mostly worn off and she was feeling almost normal, more normal than the two vampires, she suspected.

"One of us goes in the front door and one in the basement door," Damon said. "He can't be both places at once. I'll take the front door."

"What about me?" Bonnie asked.

"Do you have your phone?"

"No. He took it."

Damon handed over his own. "Call Stefan and tell him what is going on. I hate to admit it, but it looks like we need help against Aaron and his gun."

As planned, Damon went around to the front and found the door still unlocked. He cautiously opened it and stepped inside, half expecting another hail of bullets. He was already in a lot of pain and unsteady, and he really didn't want to add to it, but he had no choice. He entered the foyer and stood there for a moment, listening. Despite his new injuries, he was still sore in his back, his legs did not feel normal and the nerves tingled, even in his groin. He gave that area a quick scratch through the denim of his jeans. He heard no one as he looked around. Light from streetlights came in though the windows beside the front door, so he had little trouble seeing. If Aaron was anywhere close or moving at all, Damon could detect him, but there was no indication that he was.

Elijah slowly entered the stairway to the basement door where the bulkhead doors were still open. He was sure he could smell the vague scent of both Aaron and Elena, so he opened the door and moved to the side as much as possible. Like Damon, he did not want to get shot again. His shoulder felt on fire, but as long as he kept his heart from beating, the wound did not throb or bleed more. His abdominal wound felt little better than the shoulder. As recently as in the past year he had suffered in New Orleans at the hands of his mother and also his brothers Klaus and Finn. Pain was just one of those things he had to put up with now and then, but he hated it, along with all the blood that he detested on his clothing. He reeked of blood and it made him feel some nausea, anxiety and disgust.

None of that mattered at the moment as he listened for movement inside. He heard nothing and there were no gunshots. Silently, he stepped into the basement. No one was there, so he moved to the door to the lab, where the lights still glowed. He found the body of the security guard on the floor. The man had been shot and was dead.

He headed for the stairs that led to the main floor and went up them. The door was ajar. Again, he stopped and listened, sniffing the air. He could detect the faint scent of Aaron and Elena, but not very close.

Stepping to the hallway, he looked right and left and spotted Damon easing his way toward him.

"Nothing," Damon said softly.

"They passed this way," Elijah murmured. "Perhaps up to the second floor again. The security guard is dead in the basement."

They went to the stairway and proceeded upward cautiously. Following the fresh scent, they ended up outside the room where dead Larry lay. The door was closed and light shown under it. Standing to either side of the door, the men listened, but heard nothing.

"Aaron? Give it up, man," Damon said aloud.

There was no response. Was Aaron just standing there waiting for one of them to open the door? Damon reached sideways for the doorknob and turned it, giving the door a little push. In a second it stood open, but there was no response from inside. For a long moment, neither he nor Elijah moved, somewhat safe, although there was no reason bullets could not come through the wall and hit them. There was only one way to find out who was in the room.

A/N I hope you all like this little drama. I know it seems impossible that Aaron could outwit both Damon and Elijah, but he's managing to do it.