So, after the whole come visit your family day… or was it settle scores with the living type of situation?
Honestly, hard to keep track at this point. Either way, the souls were back where they belonged on the other side.
Kudos to Bonnie for that one with a gold star. At least one apocalyptic moment has bee postponed. Yay.
Unfortunately, the damage receipt did not get the memo. Six people were dead because of that confrontational and over a dozen more were in the hospital most of them courtesy of Michael versus Ankhar. The flying debris, shockwaves, collapsing structures, and one particularly enthusiastic explosion that Michael would absolutely not deny responsibility for had caused. Mystic High was closed indefinitely, its roof partially caved in where Ankhar had been launched clean across it, another wing reduced to rubble by a blast of hellfire.
Michael had written a very generous check for the repairs, medical bills and emergency funds. And of course Cara was here to take care of the witnesses along with Tamara to help alter the memory of the man fighting the mummy.
But none of that was the problem. The real problem sat heavy in the air.Lexi folded her arms, watching Michael pace the sitting room of the place Brandon had secured for him. It was definitely spacious like the Salvatore house.
"What are you saying exactly?" she asked finally.
Michael stopped pacing.
"From what I can understand," he said slowly, "and from what we saw at the site… Cade must've gotten quite the harvest from the souls they collected."
Harry leaned against the back of a chair, suspiciously quiet.
"But," Michael continued, turning slightly, "that's not what's bothering me."
Lexi raised a brow. "Then what exactly is bothering you?"
Michael exhaled through his nose. "It's the residual energy I felt when I got there?"
"There was something left behind," he said. "It feels more like a dent in the energy of the place kind of like an echo of a process that didn't finish properly."
His gaze snapped to Harry.
"So," Michael said, voice firm now, "tell me exactly what you saw when you got to the tunnel."
Harry rubbed the back of his neck as he thought back to what he saw the moment he arrived there, "Uh… I saw her about to attack Damon," he said slowly. "She'd just absorbed Tyler's brother. The pentagram was on the ground, and there was this… blot in the middle. Like a black stain that didn't belong."
Michael's eyes narrowed. "Describe what you felt."
Harry hesitated. "I—I don't really know how to describe it. It was just… i don't know boss it was just weird."
Lexi clicked her tongue. "Well, that's not helpful."
"No," Michael agreed calmly. Then something shifted in his expression and a thought surfaced on his mind.
"But there is something I can try."
Harry blinked. "What's that?" Michael turned toward him. "This might be uncomfortable."
Without warning harry saw Micheal's claws slid free with a soft and dangerous sound. Harry stiffened. "Uh, what are you doing?"
Michael smirked faintly. "I'm about to take a little dive into your head. Front-row seats to see what you saw and feel what you felt."
Lexi opened her mouth then closed it. It wasn't anything new to her as a vampire after all.
Harry swallowed. "…Great."
Michael stepped behind him. "Try to relax."
"Not comforting," Harry muttered as he sat properly on the couch.
"Here goes."
The claws sank into the back of Harry's skull—
—
Michael opened his eyes and he was back in the cave.
Everything was drained of color, washed in gray. Time itself felt frozen, damon stood mid-motion, locked in place. The banshee screamed silently as a gunshot hung suspended in the air. And there on the ground was the pentagram.
The pulsing blot also froze in time. Michael moved closer, crouching beside it.
"So," he murmured, "what exactly were you doing?" Then sudden, world lurched and the memory resumed.
The banshee staggered as Harry fired again and again while Damon shouted as the sound snapped back into place. Michael watched himself move out of the way as the banshee collapsed near the blot.
Then she moved and slipped something from her grasp and flicked it into the blot just before she leapt back and vanished.
Michael's brow furrowed. "No… that's not right." The scene rewound itself again and he moved to see it from another angle.
This time he saw what the banshee had done clearly. It was a small statue, it looked tiny,crudely made and looked animal-like in shape.
Michael leaned closer as the memory slowed, the object settling into the darkness of the blot.
"What exactly is that?" he murmured.
He turned toward the banshee, watching her posture, how she adjusted herself before standing, before disappearing.
Then suddenly, the realization dawned on him, "So," Michael said softly, eyes narrowing, "you didn't send all of those souls to Cade… did you?"
He looked back at the pentagram.
The spell structure looked rather simple but also complicated at some points, layers of it unfolded in his mind as he turned to decipher it.
"An absorbing spell," he muttered. "She poured the souls out… and the spell took them in."
His voice trailed off.
Michael replayed the memory once more while watching the banshee's deliberate movements, the placement, the timing and finally when the blot vanished into the statue and its eyes seemed to have a small glow in it before she disappeared with it.
His eyes widened.
"Oh," he breathed. "That's what she did."
—
Harry gasped.
Both of them snapped back into the living room.
Harry tumbled forward off the couch, disoriented, barely catching himself before hitting the floor. Lexi was at his side instantly.
"Hey, hey, easy," she said, steadying him. "You're okay."
Harry blinked up at Michael, breathing hard. "So?" he asked. "What did you see?"
Michael stood still, frowning deeply.
"It would seem," he said slowly, "that we're going to have more trouble to deal with."
Lexi straightened. "What?"
She looked between Michael and Harry. "Why? What's wrong?"
Michael met her gaze, voice grim.
"She wasn't just harvesting souls," he said. "She was initiating a process."
Lexi's stomach dropped. "A process for what?"
Michael exhaled.
"To create another monster," he said. "Using the souls she absorbed."
The room fell silent as the realization dawned on both Lexi and Harry. Whatever was coming next, it had already begun.
—————-
Bonnie stepped out of Alaric's apartment, the night air cool against her skin.
She had brought Elena's necklace to him after he called asking for the damn thing. She'd done the spell right when she closed every door to send the ghosts back where they belonged after Jeremy had brought her the necklace last night, and together with her grams they had finished it.
And yet…
It had reconstituted itself, it refused to stay destroyed.
Bonnie frowned, lost in thought, when—
"Oof."
She collided with someone solid, "What's going on in that witchy head of yours?" a familiar voice drawled.
Bonnie looked up to see Damon, "Seriously?" She sidestepped him, clearly intending to keep walking.
"Rude," Damon said, turning to follow her.
"What do you want?" Bonnie shot back. "Shouldn't you be somewhere else?"
"Nope," Damon replied easily. "Stefan's with Elena. They're squeezing Rebekah for every drop of ancient, traumatic information she's got. I'm here, stuck babysitting Alaric."
Bonnie blinked. "Huh. Well… at least that's something."
She looked away and her expression tightened up to a frown so suddenly that it would have gone unnoticed by most.
But Damon noticed it, "I heard what happened," he said with a playful tone, "You know. Jeremy. Anna."
Bonnie's jaw clenched.
Damon shifted, then added in a more sarcastic, but careful tone, "Guess the upside of being a ghost is that awkward family dinners are officially canceled."
Bonnie snorted despite herself. Then frowned. "That's… surprisingly kind of you."
Damon shrugged. "I get it, wanting something that wants something else. Story of my life."
She shook her head slowly. "How could he do that?"
Damon frowned. "Who?"
"Michael," Bonnie said quietly. "He's the one who made her permanent on this plane. Why would he do that?"
Damon exhaled, hands in his pockets. "No idea why the guy did that, I don't even pretend to understand what goes on in that guy's head. For all I know, he flipped a cosmic coin."
Bonnie sighed, clearly unsettled by the fact that her relationship with Jeremy just shattered.
She turned to leave.
"Okay," Damon said suddenly. "Enough of this sad moping stuff. It's getting boring. Let's go."
Bonnie stopped. "I'm not going anywhere with you."
"Oh yes, you are."
"No, I'm not."
"Yes. You are. We're going to drink."
Bonnie stared at him. "Shouldn't you be helping Alaric?"
Damon thought about it for half a second. "Nah. He's good."
He turned and started walking.
"Let's go."
Bonnie didn't move from her spot. Without looking back, Damon added, "I can drag you, y'know."
Bonnie scoffed. "You wouldn't get the chance." Damon smirked as he kept walking.
Bonnie stood there a moment longer, then sighed.
"Bad decision, Bonnie," she muttered and then looked up before sighing.
And then, she followed after him.
"…But a drink wouldn't be too bad."
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