Chapter 19
"Stop. Let him go." Caroline snarls at the hybrid pinning Damon to the wall and lunges for them.
Jo swings her arm out and a magical force slams Caroline into the wall. Damon struggles against the hybrid, but the forearm jammed against his neck presses harder, cutting off his air supply. Yellow eyes glow bright as the hybrid's fangs descend. Damon grabs at his attacker's shoulders and face to keep the poison bite at bay, but the hybrid is too strong. He rips into Damon's shoulder eliciting a painful groan from the older vampire. Scrambling back to her feet, Caroline rushes to Damon's aid. After a vamp-sped heart snatch, the hybrid's cold, lifeless body slumps to the ground.
"Took you long enough," Damon says. He cringes as he grabs at his injured shoulder and rips away what's left of his shirt sleeve. He watches the bite heal with relief before looking back at the blonde vampire, but Caroline's blue-green gaze fills with an alarming amount of concern. The wound reopens with a sharp pain, and small, black veins spread across his pale skin.
"What the hell?"
"Fix him," Caroline demands, spinning around to face her children. Jo and Lizzie look at each other with matching smiles before turning their identical blue eyes on Caroline.
"Not until you give us what we want," Jo says.
"And we want the Ripper of Monterey," Lizzie says.
"You're not going to let your Uncle Damon die," Caroline says, waving a hand at the Salvatore brother behind her.
"He's not Uncle Damon. Just because he looks and acts like him, doesn't make him so."
"If it talks like duck and walks like a duck, roast me over a hot fire and serve duck a l'orange," Damon says, earning confused expressions from the twins.
"Ducks are extinct, you idiot," Caroline says.
"Really? What happened to all the ducks?"
"The point is that in this world, he is your Uncle Damon, so you can't let him die."
"This world?" Lizzie sneers at her mother. "It was Uncle Damon that suggested these time portals aren't actually doorways. We aren't opening a rift from one identical world to another, but creating a temporary duplicate. Once we close the portal, this world will disappear. And everything we do to it in the meantime means nothing."
"Uh, what?" Damon asks with no small amount of alarm. Caroline glances over her shoulder at him with dismissive eye roll.
"You know that your Uncle is an idiot, and he has no idea how magic actually works," she says. "Everything you do here matters, Lizzie. The damage you've caused has changed this world in ways we'll probably never fully understand."
"We like our theory better. Besides, it explains why we've never been able to return to any of the universes we've already visited. Because they're gone," Jo says.
"What do you mean gone?" Damon asks, leaning against the wall for support. His head pounds like a drum, and a bead of sweat drips from his brow.
"Gone, gone. Like poof, disappeared into oblivion."
"Don't listen to them. They just want to believe that the atrocities they've committed in the last 24 hours won't haunt them after they return home," Caroline says to Damon.
"You're pathetic," Lizzie says. "You're so certain that we're going to come crawling back home to you and Dad, full of regret and apologies. Not this time, Mother."
Jo glances at her sister, alarmed by her angry tone, and grasps Lizzie's hand.
"Careful, Lizzie. Your humanity is showing," Caroline says with a smirk. Jo frowns at the barb and lifts her free hand into the air. Caroline steps back, afraid of the power her daughters can wield. Jo just smiles at her victims, seeming to enjoy the anticipation. Then she twists her fingers and palms in a circle before forming a strong fist.
Damon screams in agony and falls to his knees. Caroline runs to his side to check his wound and finds viscus ooze seeping from it. She watches the dark veins stretch across his chest and neck. Sweat coats his smooth skin, and he squirms from the pain.
"What are you doing to him?"
"Just a new trick that Hope taught us," Jo says. "It speeds up the affects of the werewolf venom. He'll be dead within minutes if you don't tell us what we want to know."
"Stefan and Damon will be here soon. From our world. How do you think they'll respond when I tell them what you did? Do you think it'll bother your Uncle Damon that you killed him in this world?" Caroline says to her daughters as she watches Damon writhe on the ground. She covers her face when tears flood her eyes, and she sucks in a shaky breath.
Lizzie chuckles. "I hate to break this to you, Mother, but they're not coming."
Caroline drops her hands and narrows her eyes at the heretic. "What to you mean?"
"Klaus likes his distractions, and he picked the perfect one to keep anyone from following us. It's amazing that you and Elena made it through before everything kicked off back home. But rest assured, no one else is coming through that portal."
Silent tears slip down Caroline's cheek, and she turns away from her children to lay a hand on Damon's chest. She watches him strain against the pain, and the black veins cover everything. Growling, she shakes her head then stops to run her hands through her hair with a sigh.
"Fine," she says to the twins without looking at them. "Heal him, and I'll tell you."
Lizzie steps forward, crouching down to Damon's side opposite of her mother. Her icy blue eyes meet the blonde's teary gaze before Lizzie touches the hybrid bite and siphons the deadly magic away. The dark veins marring Damon's skin ebb then disappear, and his cries of pain cease. He opens his eyes to find Caroline and Lizzie staring down at him. He cringes when the heretic smiles coldly at him, then she sneers at Caroline's sobbing gasps.
"I used to think you were the strongest person in the world. You were smart, brave, and beautiful. I wanted to be just like you. But I never imagined you on your knees crying and sniveling like a scared child. You can stop blubbering now. He's going to live."
Frowning, Caroline stares at her daughter. When she speaks, her tone is stern and unforgiving, and her words are clear and concise.
"I'm not crying for Damon. I'm crying for you. You and Jo were supposed to be better than us. You were supposed to be good. But you'll never forgive yourself for what you've done here. Those people you killed. They will haunt your dreams and plague your conscience for the rest of eternity."
"No, they won't." Lizzie says. When she moves to step away, Caroline grabs her arm.
"But they should."
Lizzie pauses at her mother's gentle touch and the harshness of her words. When she meets Caroline's imploring gaze, something flickers in the heretics cold eyes. Caroline's heart leaps at the sign of emotion and holds her breath, but the searing pain from her fingers destroys that tiny bit of hope. The hand holding Lizzie's arm turns cold and drains of color before Caroline lets go.
"Don't touch me," Lizzie whispers with a smirk as she rejoins her sister.
"We did our part. It's time for you to pony up your end of the deal," Jo says.
"Get up." Caroline helps Damon to his feet.
He's pale, but the bite wound has healed. He doesn't know what the psycho twins have planned for his brother, and Damon definitely doesn't want to hand him over.
"What are you doing?" he asks Caroline.
"What else would you have me do, Damon? Let you die?" Caroline sneers at her sire before turning back to her kids. "Stefan is the ripper."
The twins stare at Caroline before bursting into giggles. Damon frowns, unsure what to make of their odd reaction. He glances at Mama Bear to find her arms crossed and her lips pressed thin with annoyance.
Lizzie stops laughing long enough to ask, "Do you really expect us to believe that?"
"We know rippers feed uncontrollably." Jo says. "From what we've heard, the Ripper of Monterey is the worst in recorded history. The number of bodies he left behind were rivaled only by the savagery of their murders."
"Yep, that's my little bro," Damon says. "With his switch on he's as harmless as a little puppy. Drops the humanity, and he's Kujo on steroids."
"Damon." Caroline scolds him, to which he responds with pointed shrug.
"You're lying." Jo's eyes shift from one vampire to the other. "Rippers can't drink human blood without slipping into a frenzy. We've both seen Dad drink human blood without any problems."
"Did you just say, 'Dad'?"
"Only from blood bags. Have you ever seen him drink from the vein? No? Didn't think so," Caroline says, ignoring Damon's stunned expression. "Your father has an incredible amount of control because he has to. The moment he falters, a lot of people die."
"Once again, you've been lying to us," Lizzie says to her mother. "How many more secrets are you hiding, Caroline."
"We weren't lying. We were protecting you. We wanted you two to have as normal a life as we could give you."
"Look how that turned out," Jo says, glancing at her uncle. Caroline fidgets and looks away from him with a downturned mouth, but Damon doesn't notice.
"Oh God, the future is so weird," Damon says as he rubs a hand across his tired eyes. He uses his free hand to point at the twins and then Caroline. "Stefan is your dad? And your husband?"
"Why do you think we call you Uncle Damon?"
"I figured it was a term of endearment. Kind of like how Caroline calls Elena her sister." Damon pauses mid-shrug. "Wait..oh, crap."
"Seriously, I do not remember you being this slow. It's like that lightening strike fried all your brain cells or something," Caroline says.
"I'm sorry, it's kind of hard to put together a jigsaw puzzle when someone refuses to give you all the pieces. It's almost like a certain manipulative, blonde vampire doesn't want me to know everything about the future."
"That's why I told you about Elena," Caroline says. "So I could fill you in on everything."
"Well, you missed a few things."
"Yeah, because the girls interrupted…" Caroline stops mid rant as she motions toward the twins, only to find them gone. "Dammit."
"Where'd they go?" Damon spins around to check every corner of his large bedroom.
"It's a cloaking spell," she says, but continues when his bewildered expression didn't ease. "It lets them disappear completely. They could be hiding in plain sight and we'd never find them."
"That's not creepy at all," Damon says as he inches toward his bed. His eyes dart around as though he expects the heretics to jump out at any second.
"Give me your phone, I need to call Stefan and warn him about the girls." Caroline holds out her hand to Damon, to which he makes a condescending face.
"You had it last."
"Oh, you're right." She checks her pockets, trying to remember what she did with the missing phone.
Damon points at the bedside table near the door. "There it is. Is that your burner next to it?"
"Yeah," Caroline says, and walks toward it. "How did they get over there?"
About a foot from the table, Caroline squeals and jerks back her hand. Damon rushes over to find it blistering like it's been dipped in a tub of vervain.
"What the hell?"
"It's a containment spell for vampires. It's basically a magic wall of vervain," Caroline says as she wipes her hand with Damon's bedding. Ooze from the blisters stain the white sheets, but once she removes the vervain, her hand starts to heal. Meanwhile, Damon slips a hand out to see how far the invisible barrier extends. After several colorful curse words, he determines the spell is only about eight feet in diameter.
"Fantastic. They obviously don't want us warning Stefan, so I'm betting they witchy-wooed the phones from you and set them there to taunt us," Damon says. He frowns at the stains on his perfectly white sheets. He'll never get them out. The whole set will need to be tossed. Oh, well, it's not like he can't afford it.
"Or they just pick-pocketed them."
"Oh, you've raise a fine pair of upstanding citizens, haven't you? You and Stefan must be so proud."
"Shove it, Damon."
"How do we 'Prison Break' this thing?"
"It'll dissipate once we escape it," Caroline says as she tugs off her shirt, followed by her shorts. Damon watches her with a raised eyebrow.
"And we do that by…getting naked?"
"We escape by walking through the barrier." She tugs off the last of her clothes and tosses them through the barrier. "The barrier only affects vampires and the items they touch. If I toss my clothes through, they won't be dripping in vervain when I'm on the other side."
"But you will be," he says.
"Well yeah, that part's going hurt like a bitch. But that's why I'm making a break for the shower." Damon watches Caroline's bare breast bounce a bit with her movement before she snaps her fingers in his face. "Hey, let's focus here. Unless you want to spend your eternity desiccating in this tiny bubble, I suggest you strip."
Check out my short story blog at kellyanixDOTcom or my new Fantasy Adventure novel series at kellyanixDOTcom/kajiwarriors.