What's At Stake, Part Nine

Woo! Finally up to the point where we left off for the hiatus (well, where Elijah left off, anyway). Next section, the fun REALLY begins. :-D


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


Elijah’s cell phone beeped just as he was pulling into the Salvatore driveway. He checked the display and took the call. “Jonas.”

“Hey. Any luck with the property search this morning?”

“It’s difficult to say. There are a couple of areas that might correspond, but I’ll need your expertise to tell me if what we need is there.”

“I marked some possibles in an atlas that I wanted you to look at; I figured you’d stop by last night.”

Elijah parked and exited the car. “I did. From the yelling, it seemed an inopportune time. More teenage drama?”

“Don’t even get me started.”

“I’ll stop over later. Right now I’m attending a dinner party at the Salvatore house.”

“Um…”

“Exactly. Later.” Elijah slid the phone into his pocket and rang the doorbell. Damon answered in short order. “Good evening,” Elijah greeted him.

“Thank you for coming. Please, come in.” Damon plastered a smile on his face and stepped to the side to motion him in.

“One moment.” Elijah ran his fingers down the wood of the door frame. “Can I just say that, if you have less than honorable intentions about how this evening is going to proceed, I suggest you reconsider.”

“No, nothing dishonorable," he said, perfectly innocent. "Just, uh, getting to know you.”

Someone was certainly putting on the good, little, cowed vampire act. Elijah didn’t believe it for a second. “Hmm. Well that’s good.” Stepping through the doorway, he stopped next to Damon, speaking quietly. “Because, you know, although Elena and I have this deal, if you so much as make a move to cross me, I’ll kill you and I’ll kill everyone in this house. Are we clear?”

Damon’s smile faltered infinitesimally. “Crystal.”

Jenna stepped out into the foyer at that moment. She had spurned the blouse and jeans she’d been wearing earlier in favor of a form-fitting cocktail dress in midnight blue. The material along the sleeves and collar bones was sheer, giving him a tantalizing glimpse of what was under the denser fabric below. “Jenna! Wonderful to see you again,” he called, holding his hands out and touching her shoulders as he drew near. “How are you? You look incredible.”

“Oh, this old thing…” she said, blushing and obviously pleased by the compliment.

They made their way into the large living room, where Andie Starr was standing in front of the fireplace, talking with a man Elijah recognized as John Gilbert, Elena’s ersatz uncle and biological father. Saltzman stood a little off to the side, idly flipping through a leather-bound book and looking daggers at Elijah as he stepped into the room with Jenna, one hand resting lightly on the small of her back as he gestured her ahead of him with the other.

“Ric! You made it. I’m pleased to see you were able to free yourself up after all.” Elijah's smile made it plain he was anything but.

“I’m sure you are,” Ric smiled back, just as sincere.

“Elijah!” Andie motioned John to follow and came over to take his hands in greeting. “John Gilbert, Elijah Smith,” she said, by way of introduction. The two men shook hands and made the requisite mouth noises at each other, in keeping with the pretense that each didn’t know full well who – and what – the other was.

“Yeah,” Jenna turned toward him and stage-whispered, “We don’t know why he’s here either.”

Damon came in through a smaller door at the other end of the room, carrying two bottles of wine and some glasses. Passing the latter around, he peeled the label from the first bottle of wine and popped the cork. “Let’s get this party started!”

                                                         ~~~~~

By the time they sat down to dinner – a Tuscan herbed chicken, roasted red potatoes, asparagus, a pear and spinach salad, and bread with dipping oil – they had consumed three bottles of wine and were well into the fourth. The spirits had made Jenna flushed and even more prone to giggling than usual, a fact that probably wouldn’t have charmed him so much if it weren’t for this nagging predisposition to find everything the woman did charming.

In sharp contrast to her joviality, Alaric was quiet, as was John Gilbert, save for the occasional barbed volley shot back and forth between the two. Elijah was certain he was missing part of the story there, but whatever the reason, it was clear that the two shared a profound dislike of one another.

Andie played the roll of hostess to the hilt, making sure everyone’s glasses remained full and keeping the conversation going whenever a lull threatened. Elijah could have done without her cloying and near constant displays of affection toward Damon. Between the adolescent-like infatuation and the conspicuous scarf around her neck, he suspected that she was Damon’s chew toy as well as his bedmate, though she lacked that caged look behind the eyes that one typically saw in victims of chronic compulsion. He wondered suddenly if Damon were ignorant of the technique of applying a little of his own blood topically to close a bite wound, or if he merely enjoyed having a visual display of his dominance over his playthings. Given that he was sired – and immediately abandoned – by Katerina Petrova, Elijah assigned even odds to either possibility.

“I hate to break it to you, Damon,” Jenna said, following a discussion of various Founder’s Day activities, “but according to Elijah, your family is so not a founder of this town.”

“Hmm, do tell.” The younger vampire eyed him speculatively.

“Well, as I mentioned to Jenna earlier, a faction of settlers migrated from Salem after the witch trials in the 1690’s. Over the next hundred years they developed this community where they could feel safe from persecution.”

“Because they were witches,” Jenna announced, as though the concept were prurient and slightly wicked.

“You know, there is no tangible proof that there were witches in Salem.” This from Andie, who didn’t appear to have had anywhere near as much wine as Jenna.

“Andie’s a journalist. Big on facts,” Damon explained, unnecessarily.

“Well, the lore says there was this wave of anti-witch hysteria," Elijah continued. "It broke out in a neighboring settlement. So these witches were rounded up. They were tied to stakes in a field together and burned. Some say you could hear the screams for miles around as they were consumed by the fire.” He remembered it all quite fondly, actually. Good times. “Could you pass the…” he gestured toward the wine.

“I wouldn’t repeat this to the historical society,” Jenna cautioned.

“Sounds a little like a ghost story to me.” John looked skeptical, though that could have been a cover for a familial knowledge passed down through the generations of the Gilbert family. The first John Gilbert had been ridiculously troublesome, always digging at things better left alone.

“So, why do you want to know the location of these alleged massacres?” Damon asked, sipping his wine.

“Oh, healthy historian’s curiosity, of course.”

“Of course.” Damon’s expression made it plain that he believed no such thing. He wasn’t stupid, Elijah would give him that. More and more, he found himself hoping that Damon Salvatore didn’t do anything that would necessitate him having to kill him. He appreciated a quick mind.

With everyone apparently done eating, Andie rose and starting stacking the plates. “The gentlemen should take their drinks in the study,” she suggested, a little too brightly. Elijah wondered anew just how much the woman was under Damon’s compulsion, especially after the ‘good girl!’ look he shot her.

“I have to say, the food was almost as wonderful as the company,” Elijah complimented her.

“I like you!” she said, flirty and charming. And not looking at all compelled.

Elijah mulled it over as he followed Damon to the study. There was no way the young vampire could be that skilled at manipulation, not at a mere 145 years old. Perhaps the journalist was one of those driven, career women who liked to play the dominance-submission game at home. It was moot anyway, he decided, running his hands over the mahogany wood of the banister. One didn’t ask another vampire impertinent questions about his 'toys'. It simply wasn’t done.

“So let me guess,” Damon said, pouring a deep, richly colored brandy into two crystal snifters. “In addition to the moonstone, the doppelganger, the lion, the witch and the wardrobe, you need to find this witch burial ground.”

Quick, and perceptive. “Because I feel we’ve grown so close, Damon, I’ll tell you: yes.” He studied him for a moment. “Do you know where it is?”

“Maybe.” Damon handed him one of the brandies. “Tell me why it’s so important.”

“Not that close.” At least not until such time as he could be assured of a certain amount of loyalty from the younger vampire.

Elijah turned his attention to the shelves lining the room. Floor to ceiling, leather-clad spines abounded. He recognized many of them. The classics, history, military history, philosophy… “It’s quite the collection you have here,” he said, impressed.

“Mmm.”

“Here’s a funny thing about books: Before they existed, people actually had memories.”

Before he could ruminate further on that thought, Alaric entered the study, Andie following closely on his heels. “Ah, gentlemen, we forgot dessert.”

“Elijah?” Andie flirtily held her hand out to him.

“Miss Starr,” he drawled, playing along. He took her hand and spun her out of the room, startling a laugh out of her.

“I bet you would cut quite a figure on the dance floor. Hmm?” She eyed him speculatively.

“I’ve been known to dance, a time or two.”

“Well we’re just going to have to try that out sometime.”

“There’ll probably be an opportunity for that if you’re in town long enough, Elijah, what with all the fundraisers and festivals Carol has us throwing,” Jenna said, poking her head out of the kitchen for a moment and handing Andie a coffee pot. “Sorry guys. Dessert is taking longer than I thought. I usually just unwrap food.”

She slipped back into the kitchen as Alaric and Damon filed out of the study, joining him and John at the table while Andie poured the coffee. “So, I know this is a social thing,” Andie said, once she’d sat down, “but I would really love to ask you some more questions about the work that you’re doing here.”

She was persistent. “I’d love to answer,” he capitulated, if only to pass the time.

“Great! That’s great. Alaric, would you hand me that notebook out of my bag?” The schoolteacher went to go fetch.

“Elijah,” Damon said, apropos of nothing, “did John tell you that he’s Elena’s uncle-slash-father?”

“Yes, I’m well aware of that.” And apparently there was no love lost between he and Damon, understandably so. Which made the man’s presence all the more perplexing.

“Of course, she hates him, so there’s absolutely no need to keep him on the endangered species list.”

“No Ric, it’s in the front pocket, on the… You know what? Excuse me guys, sorry.” Andie jumped up to go retrieve her notebook, a task apparently beyond Alaric.

Ignoring Damon, John leaned forward, elbows on the table. “What I’d like to know, Elijah, is how you intend on killing Klaus?”

So was that the purpose of this little gathering? They’d all break bread together, have a few glasses of wine, and he’d just open up and unroll his entire plan before them? Suddenly weary of the whole charade, Elijah lowered his voice, dead serious. “Gentlemen, there are a few things we should probably get clear right now.” He pointed his fork at Damon. “I allow you to live solely to keep an eye on Elena. I allow Elena to remain in her house, living her life with her friends, as she does, as a courtesy. If you become a liability, I’ll take her away from you and you’ll never see her again.”

Notebook finally in hand, Andie reclaimed her seat across the table. “Okay, my first question is… when you got here to Mystic Falls…”

The pain that suddenly tore like lightning through his chest was absolute agony. He cried out as his heart erupted into a white-hot ball of flame, sending boiling acid pulsing through his veins with every weakening pulse. Gulping for breath – to say what, he didn’t know – he saw, through his graying vision, the point of a narrow dagger protruding from his chest. He had just long enough to realize what it was before he no longer felt or thought anything.

                                                    ~~~~~~

When he could feel and think again, he was lying on a cold stone floor. A small amount of light, enough for him to see by, filtered in through the window and under the door. The room looked to be in a basement. There was a heavy-looking wooden door with a high, barred window, not that he expected it would so much as slow him down if he wanted out.

Listening, he heard voices upstairs, the same voices with whom he’d so recently been conversing. They took it out! That could mean one of two things: either they had had no intention of killing him, and just wanted to make a – heh – point; or, and this was the more likely scenario, they didn’t know.

Yet they had the dagger. No one – no one – had known its whereabouts for the last two centuries. There had been any number of stories, rumors, theories, etc., but none had borne any fruit. God knew Klaus had looked high and low for it, to no avail. And now, here it was. Had the Gilbert family kept it squirreled away all this time? Had the first Jonathan Gilbert been that lucky in his endless research? Somehow he doubted luck had had as much to do with it as the presence of one Katerina Petrova, here in Mystic Falls as a contemporary of Gilbert's.

And just what did Elena Gilbert know? Damon had said she’d gone away with Stefan for a little R&R, and to get away from the werewolf threat. Was that true, or had she simply put herself out of his immediate reach in case this attempt on his life had gone awry?

Oh, it had most assuredly gone awry.

Getting silently to his feet, Elijah weighed his options. He could do as he had threatened Damon: he could go upstairs and kill each and every one of them, up to and including Jenna, leaving nothing but a pile of broken and lifeless bodies in his wake. They would all be dead before any of them even realized that he had awakened. Or, he could make an object lesson out of just one of them… he wracked his brain for a moment, trying to recall just who had been where. Damon had been at one end of the table, John at the other. Andie was sitting across from him… that left just Jenna and… Alaric.

But what if Elena hadn’t known? What if Damon, or John, or Alaric had dreamt this whole thing up while she was away, without her knowledge or approval? He’d given his word to her – to her – that he would protect her loved ones from harm. Could he in good conscience slaughter over half the people on that list, no matter how viciously provoked, without first knowing?

She isn’t Katerina.

And that thought, above all else, really left him with only one option. He had to get to Elena.

                                                 ~~~~~~~~~~~

Not wanting to alert them to his resurrection by driving away in his car, Elijah ran, at speed, through the woods until he reached town and the Martins’ apartment complex. Taking the stairs two at a time, he burst into the apartment without knocking, startling both Jonas and Luka where they sat at the table.

Jonas took in the state of his torn, dirty and bloodied clothing. “What happened?!”

“I need you to find Elena. Now.”

"What did they – "

"Now!"

Jonas swallowed the urge to say more and turned toward the cupboard, rummaging inside for the items he had stolen from Elena. "Luka, get the candles ready," he instructed his son.

The boy didn't move, just sat staring at Elijah, as he had since he'd burst into the room.

"Luka!" Jonas raised his voice to get his attention.

"I'm sorry," Luka murmured.

"What?" Jonas stood up, hands on his hips.

"I'm sorry, Dad. I didn't mean to. I don't even know... I'm sorry!"

Elijah stepped toward the table. Luka shrank back in his chair. "Jonas, do the damn spell," Elijah gritted out. Easing himself into the chair across from Luka, he tried for a calm, even tone. "Luka, what are you sorry for?"

To the horror of all three of them, Luka burst into tears.

Jonas would have left off preparing the spell again and headed toward his son had Elijah not looked him off with a particularly vicious glare. He took a deep breath to get himself under control before turning back to the boy.

"Please," Luka begged, before Elijah could say anything. "Please, I'm sorry, I didn't mean say anything, but they did something, I don't know what, and I must have told them something." Luka swiped his sleeve across his face. "Just don't take it out on Dad and Greta, okay?" Another sob shook the boy. "It's my fault, don't take it out on them. Help him get Greta back. Please!"

Elijah rose from the chair and walked around the table.

"Is that why you were so late last night, Luka?" Jonas asked. "Did Bonnie Bennett do some kind of a spell on you?"

"I'm s-s-s-sorry, Dad." He wiped at his face again, then buried his face in his hands. "Punish me, it's okay," he said to Elijah, his words muffled, "just help Dad find Greta."

Elijah took Luka by the shoulders. The boy stiffened under his hands, and he saw, out of his peripheral vision, Jonas start to move toward them, then hesitate. "Luka, look at me," he said softly. Luka drew in a shuddering breath, sniffled, and did as he was told. "I gave your father my word that we would go and get Greta as soon as Klaus is out of the way. I have no intention of breaking it because that Bennett girl used magic on you to try and obtain information that you don't even possess. You couldn't have told her anything of importance."

"What if I t-told her about the doppelganger? That you plan to k-k-kill her?"

Was that what had set this evening's chain of events in motion? Elijah doubted very much that that would be news to Elena. To her friends, perhaps, but not to her. And if he had his way, it was old news at that. "Luka. You did nothing wrong. Everything will be fine." Elijah straightened, giving Luka's shoulder a pat as he released him. "Go on. Let me speak to your father." Luka nodded and went to his room, shutting the door behind him.

Elijah turned to Jonas. "Find Elena, and then – for Christ sake! – get your ass over there and do something about that little witch!"

                                                               ~~~~~~~

He parked Jonas's car well away from the house on the lake, wanting to keep his approach a secret for as long as possible. Stefan Salvatore worried him not at all, but he didn't want to take the chance that Elena would bolt and injure herself, or worse, running through the woods at the water's edge in the dead of night. As he walked quietly down the driveway, he could see lights on in the house, and hear movement. He suspected they were waiting for him.

Crouching down, he scooped up a handful of rocks from the driveway, shifting them from hand to hand as he contemplated both the windows and the door.

“He’s here,” he heard Stefan say.

So much for the element of surprise. Elijah drew his arm back and aimed the stones at the door. They shattered it on impact, taking it completely off its hinges.

“You need to go," Elena told Stefan. "I have to talk to him alone.”

“Elena -- ”

“Stefan, it’s okay. He can’t come in the house.”

“You know, I might not be able to enter this house, but I’m a very patient man,” he called, stepping onto porch. “I’ll wait you out.”

Elijah heard footsteps, and Elena shuffled around a corner, into view, her arms crossed protectively in front of her. “They shouldn’t have done with they did.”

Indeed. “The deal is off.” He needed to make that clear to her; whether she'd known beforehand or only learned of it afterward, she needed to understand that, as far as he was concerned, the others were now fair game.

“I’m renegotiating.”

“You have nothing left to negotiate with,” he reminded her.

Elena uncrossed her arms to reveal a knife, though what she thought she might accomplish with such a paltry weapon, he didn't know. “I’d like to see you lure Klaus into Mystic Falls after the doppelganger bleeds to death.”

A hollow threat. “Stefan won’t let you die.”

“No, he won’t. He’ll feed me his blood to heal me, and then I’ll kill myself and become a vampire just like Katherine did. So unless you want that to happen again, promise me the same as before. Promise me that you won’t harm anyone that I love, even if they’ve harmed you.”

She isn't Katerina. Katerina had used Rose and Trevor mercilessly to insure such a fate for herself, never caring what became of anyone else. But Elena... Elena cared. It was in her eyes as she pleaded with him, in her voice, in her hand that trembled even now, holding the knife. She might threaten to harm herself, yet even as she did so, she begged for the lives of her loved ones. She wouldn't put them all at risk by turning now and drawing Klaus's ire down on the whole lot of them.

“I’m sorry, Elena," he told her softly. "I’m going to have to call your bluff.”

He saw her swallow once, hard, and look down at the knife in her hand. She turned it a little, and took a deep breath as though to brace herself. Elijah had a split second to watch the resolve harden in her eyes, to realize that he had misread her; then her arm came up, and she plunged the knife into her abdomen.

“NO!!!” He roared, surging forward, only to slam up against the barrier of the threshold. Elena writhed in pain, dropping the bloodied knife to the floor as she curled in upon herself, upon the pain. He looked around wildly, trying to gauge how much of the house he might have to tear apart before that barrier gave way and he could reach her, could save her. Too long. Too long! “Yes!" he capitulated. "Yes, you can have your deal. Let me heal you!”

She moaned, gritting her teeth against the pain. “Give me your word!”

“I give you my word,” he agreed.

Elena staggered toward him, popping free of the threshold and into his waiting arms. Relief flared quickly – and died just as suddenly as fire once again exploded in his chest. Shock mingled with the agony, an agony magnified a thousand-fold by virtue of whose hand had dealt it. He clung to her still as his flesh started to grey and his knees gave out, unable to believe how badly he had misjudged her, seeing what he had wanted to see instead of what was there...

And thus, I die a fool.