What's At Stake, Part Eleven

I had hoped to keep on a daily roll, but most of what I wrote yesterday ended up on the cutting room floor, so to speak.



To Elena Winchester: I tried to work in a flashback for you, but it just didn't fit. It's now a deleted scene. If you want, I can clean it up and PM it to you, since you've been so cool about reviewing and all. :-)


And finally: These two!! Jeez!! I feel like they're always this close to some truly epic hate-sex; the only thing that stops me from actually writing it is the fact that I don't think I can possibly out-epic Bill and Lorena on True Blood. [And as an attestation to Nina Dobrev's acting ability in distinguishing between Elena and Katherine: I love the idea of Elijah & Kat; any thought of Elijah with Elena completely squicks me out.]


Anyway...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Elijah rejoined Andie in the study after slipping outside to make some phone calls. Being dead and incommunicado for a fortnight was proving to be a considerable inconvenience. He was fortunate that Andie had thought to pocket his cell phone before his body was dragged down to the basement. Now that he had people scurrying to perform certain errands for him, such as procuring another car to replace the one now sitting at the bottom of a ravine – and we will be discussing that at length, Damon – he felt the crisis of confidence waning somewhat. Perhaps the situation could still be saved. He just needed to regroup.

Andie looked up from her notebook as he seated himself. "We should leave," she said. "Figure out where to hide you, since Klaus is on his way."

“No.”

“There are a bunch of cabins on the lake that – wait, what do you mean, 'no?' You can’t be seen, Elijah. As it is, I’m going to have to put a glamour on the room downstairs so that no one will realize you’re not in it anymore.”

“I have no intention of hiding behind a glamour, or anything else.”

Andie stared at him as though he were being particularly dimwitted. “Did you miss the part where I said Klaus is coming to town?" She started singing, "You know, 'You better not shout, you better not cry, you better not pout, I'm telling you why –'”

He cut her off with a look. “We have what, a week, now, until the full moon? If I’m back in the equation then it throws him off his game and divides his attention from any other last-minute preparations he may be making.” Let Klaus be the one scrambling to keep up for a change.

Elijah walked to the fireplace, running his hands over the stone mantle. "Can you gather them all here tonight?"

"Them?"

"The Salvatores, Elena, and whoever else needs to be included?"

"Uh, probably, but..."

"Good. I may as well address them all at once, have everyone on the same page."

Andie slid her notebook back into her bag and studied him for a few moments. "Can I make a suggestion?"

"By all means."

"This... 'Master of the Universe' thing that you've been doing? You might wanna take that down a notch. Or ten."

"Excuse me?"

"You know, the thing where you're all, 'I'm a big bad Original Vampire. Do as I say and don’t ask questions, or else?'"

"I prefer to think of it as maintaining control of the situation," he said stiffly.

"Yeah... how's that workin' for ya?" She sat forward in her chair. "News flash: This isn't the Middle Ages; it's 21st century America. There are no serfs anymore. They're not going to jump to do your bidding. People expect information like they expect air to breathe. If you want them to work with you – and please note I said 'with you,' not 'for you,' – then you need to collaborate, not dictate."

Several replies sprang to mind, but he bit them off.

"Not your strong suit, I know." She brightened. "But we can work on it! So, what are you going to do in the meantime?”

"I believe you said that Katerina is staying here." He smiled, and could feel it going feral around the edges. "I'll wait for her."

Whatever Andie saw on his face made her slide out of the chair, on the side away from him. "Ooookay then! Well, I'm gonna go." She put her bag over her shoulder and headed toward the foyer. "I'll try and get everyone here later." She stopped short as she glanced out the glass doors toward the back of the hallway, seeing again the mass devastation outside. "A little landscaping, some mulch, maybe they won't notice. Bye!"

Elijah paced the library as he listened to her drive off, and considered her words regarding the approach to take with the Salvatores and their little band. Though it galled him enormously to admit it, she had a certain point. Autocracy had gotten him nowhere thus far. Perhaps a more collaborative spirit... The mere thought of it gave him a tremendous urge to go back outside and do a little more damage. With a snarl, he went upstairs to seek out the room currently being occupied by Katerina.

It wasn't difficult to find. Five hundred years had done nothing to improve upon her tidiness, or lack thereof. The bed was unmade, with blankets sloughing off the sides and pillows knocked askew. Clothes littered every conceivable piece of furniture and spilled over onto the floor. There was a trail of wet towels leading out of the bathroom, the state of which Elijah didn't even want to contemplate. Baubles, beads, make-up and hair accessories ran riot over the bureau, which sported a scorch mark in the wood next to whatever hair-styling contraption lay there. He accidentally kicked a discarded shoe and sent it flying under the bed, where its mate already cowered, as though hoping to escape notice.

The room was a sharp contrast to Elena's.

And that's quite enough of making comparisons between the two, he warned himself firmly. The exercise was futile, and had caused him more than enough trouble already. No more. No more comparisons, period.

He heard her from the time she turned off of the road and into the driveway. He thought about meeting her downstairs, as she walked into the house, but some perversity of nature made him choose to surprise her here, in her room, instead. Hearing her footsteps on the stairs, Elijah removed a robe from the armchair to sit, uncovering when he did so a black, lacy, and barely-there... something. He wondered which brother she had sought to entice with it, and whether she had succeeded. Pinching the edge of it between thumb and forefinger, he was about to toss it onto a pile of clothing already on the floor when she walked through the door.

She looked ready to rush the intruder, until she registered who it was. Recognition pulled her up short.

Elijah smiled at her, and instead of tossing the garment as he had intended, he held it up like an exhibit. "Special occasion?"

Katerina crossed her arms and shrugged. "If I’d known you were coming, I could have modeled it for you. All those long, cold nights in prison... a girl gets lonely."

"That’s right… you aren't where I left you, are you?"

"Ditto."

Elijah brushed a couple of remaining garments out of the chair and seated himself. "I must admit, I’m surprised to find you still in town, what with Klaus on the way. I would have thought you’d be across the state line about ten minutes after you were freed.” He tilted his head to the side, looking up at her. “Why are you still here?”

"The same reason you are: I want Klaus dead."

"My, aren't we brave all of a sudden."

She crossed to the window and looked out. "I’m tired of running. This is the best opportunity to take him out."

He snorted. "You’re as likely to drop to your knees and service him as you are to try and kill him, if you see a greater advantage in it.”

She whirled back around, her eyes narrowed to slits. “Not after what he did to my family.”

Ah, yes. That. “You expect me to believe that, 500 years after the fact, you’re ready to take up arms and oppose Klaus now, to avenge a family who I’m guessing, knowing what I know now, ran you out in disgrace?”

“Believe what you want. It changes nothing.” When he didn’t answer, she crossed her arms and leaned against the windowsill. “We have a common goal here, Elijah.”

“Hmm… I don’t recall it being a particular goal of mine to be killed with the dagger.” He bent in the chair, giving her a little mock bow. “Nicely done, by the way.”

“Don’t look at me. I was in the tomb, remember?” A flicker of triumph ghosted through her eyes, belying her denial.

“Mm-hmm. And the fact that it turned up with John Gilbert, descendant of the John Gilbert whom you just happened to know when you were here in the 1860’s, who just happened to have researched the dagger and the lore behind it… purely coincidental, I'm sure.”

A little smirk betrayed her before she got up to pace the room. “Maybe we should work together.”

“And I would trust you because…?”

“Because, as I said, we both want the same thing.”

He leaned back and crossed his legs, making an expansive gesture with his arms. “Since I’ve been told I should be more collaborative, let’s assume that I’m foolish enough to believe you. What’s your plan?”

She started another circuit, window to closet, closet to the other window. “There’s full moon next week.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“Klaus will try to break the curse. Although…” She made a show of pausing in front of one of the windows and putting her chin in her hands, a puzzled expression on her face.

Elijah rolled his eyes, but opted to play along. “Although?”

The chair he inhabited sat kitty-corner to the bed, which was a large, four-poster affair. Katerina came over and leaned against the post facing him, just a few feet away. “The so-called ‘curse’ keeps the werewolves pretty handily in check; meanwhile, Klaus isn’t really even inconvenienced by it, nor is anyone else with the werewithal to have a witch make a daylight charm for them. Have you ever considered it a little curious that Klaus has gone to so much trouble to try and break it?”

He had, and on more than one occasion. But Klaus was one who, once he took something into his head, would stop at nothing until he got what he wanted. “Continue.”

“I don’t think the breaking of the curse is the point, at least not for the reason we’ve always assumed. Something else must happen when it’s broken, something that’s to his advantage. I think it goes back to the ritual that set the curse. And,” she said, sauntering over to perch on the arm of the chair, “I think he was the one who set that whole thing up in the first place.”

Elijah considered it for a millisecond, discarded it. “No. Why set up a curse he would then spend a thousand years trying to break? It makes no sense, even for him.”

“I didn’t say he intended to set the curse, just that he set up the ritual. I think whoever performed it was supposed to do something else, but double-crossed him.” She leaned an elbow on the back of the chair, and shifted onto one hip, so she was draped along the arm, her head a little higher than his. “But then, maybe you’d know better than me. You were there, after all, weren’t you?”

He had been there, outside the circle, kept out by a mystical barrier that wouldn’t allow a vampire to pass, no matter how frantically he had tried. As had Klaus.

Klaus, who was already there when Elijah and the others had learned of what was happening. Klaus, who had spent a great deal of time and coin with the caravan of gypsies, from whose ranks came the witch who had stood in the circle and cast the spell. Klaus, who had murdered every last one of those gypsies the night after the curse took effect. Klaus, who had purchased a very similar moonstone to the one binding the curse from some Silesian merchant on one of their northern sojourns.

Klaus, who had told him that Irina had gone to assist the midwife with the birthing of a child, and would be late in returning home that evening.

“No.” He shook his head, denying the possibility. “No. You’re reaching too far.”

Katerina tilted her head, studying his face. Her hand slid down from where it draped across her thigh, and trailed down his chest. “Am I?”

Elijah smacked her hand away, annoyed. “Do you even stop to consider it anymore, or is ‘whore’ simply your natural default?”

She removed her hand, but didn’t remove herself from the chair. “Fine, you hate me, I get it,” she said, rolling her eyes. “That doesn’t make me wrong, though. About Klaus.” When he said nothing, she swung around and perched sideways on his knee, wearing an expression of mock primness. “Would the theory be more palatable to you if I said it all ‘sweet and sincere,’ like Elena? Or… what was her name… Irina?”

He looked up at her with a small, cold smile. Taking her wrist, he tugged so she was off-balance, then turned her so she was facing him. He grasped her hips and pulled her closer, and ran his hand up her back. Katerina leaned her face down toward his, a small, triumphant smile on her face – a smile that died just as quickly as it had flared to life when he dug his fingers into the back of her neck, deep into the flesh, and snapped her spinal cord.

Her body went limp, as though she were a marionette whose strings had been cut. Her eyes went wild around the edges, and her mouth moved, but he had severed the cord high enough that she could draw no breath to speak. Lifting her with him, Elijah stood and deposited her on the bed, straightening her limbs out. “The only reason that wasn’t your heart coming out of your chest," he told her, "is because you may still, somehow, prove to be of use to me.”

Tears coursed down her cheeks from eyes that glared up at him. He sat down on the bed next to her and wiped them away in a parody of tenderness. “At your age, without blood between now and then, it will take seven to eight hours for your spinal cord to heal itself back together. I suggest you use that time to consider just how useful you might be.”

Standing, Elijah drew a blanket over her, for what purpose he didn’t know. He paused on his way out the door, and turned back, drumming his fingers on the door casing. “I like this collaborating,” he said, and closed the door.

Now, he had only to deal with the other Petrova doppelganger.