Curses and Blessings

October 22, 2010; Early Morning

Kol’s PoV

A millennium is a long time. A lot has changed in a thousand years, so it took me half an hour of staring at a map of modern Mystic Falls to orient myself and figure out where the clearing I used to spend time in as a boy currently is situated. I worried for a few minutes that it might not be there anymore, but I think I found it. However, it took me another half an hour to figure out how to work Elijah’s fancy modern automobile before I was on my way.

Pulling up to the end of the access road I park the vehicle and get out. Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath in through my nose and then sigh as I exhale. The air in this day and age smells so different after a thousand years of progress. I chuckle humorlessly, progress my ass. The air stinks of so many chemicals now it’s a wonder humans haven’t managed to kill themselves off yet with everything I smell in the air.

Orienting myself again, I begin walking in the direction I’m pretty sure my clearing should be in. It takes me five minutes to find it and my tree. I look around making sure I’m truly alone when I see a brightly wrapped gift sitting at the base of my tree. Seeing no one I scent my surroundings again — Magick. The air is thick with it.

Slowly I walk towards the box. Nothing happens. When I get closer, I see that there is a tag on it with my name scrawled on it in a beautiful cursive. Curious. I don’t know anyone in this town or this time and the handwriting doesn’t belong to any of my siblings.

Hmm, what to do? I’m a curious bloke by nature, and I’d be willing to bet the person who left the gift is banking on that fact.

After pacing in front of the box for a few minutes, I sigh and throw up my arms in defeat before stomping back over to the package and tearing the lid off it.

I’m knocked on my ass by an invisible force, and a glow expands from the box so quickly I can’t move away from it before it envelopes me and then the light disappears in a flash. I sit there for a second and then I notice something I haven’t felt in over one thousand years as my magick fills me and reawakens that part of me that was so cruelly snuffed out all those years ago.

After catching my breath, I pick up the box and look to see if there is any clue inside it as to who left such a gift for me. There is a letter in the bottom of the box, so I pick it up, unfold it and then read.

“Dear Kol, If you’re reading this, then you have your magick back. You don’t know me or have any reason to trust me, but your mom isn’t on the up and up. I don’t know the details yet, but I know she’s going to try to kill you and your siblings. I also know she will try to use my mom and me to do it. I don’t know if giving you back your magick will help or not, but I found the spells to do all of this and figured why not. At the very least it rights a wrong and gives us a fighting chance. Your mom has Abby and me locked down so I don’t know if I’ll be able to do another spell without Esther finding out so I hope you’ll be able to figure out a solution that won’t cost my mom or me our lives. Best of Luck. —Bonnie Bennett (A descendant of Ayana) P.s. The first spell below should hide the fact that you have your magick back from your mom for a few days at least. The herb you need to cast it grows in this clearing. It’s the little blue flowers in case you don’t know. After all, it’s been a while since you did any spell work. ;o) The second spell should make it so you can detect magick. However, if your mother uses the first spell too, the second one won’t work, but I figured it can’t hurt to be prepared. P.p.s. Be wary of Damon. He will stab you in the back if he thinks it will help or save Elena.”

Nik, Elijah, and Rebekah have mentioned Damon Salvatore to me, so I file the information into the back of my mind and look around the clearing noticing that the little blue flowers I need for the cloaking spell are in fact growing in this field.

Getting up I brush off my backside and then pick up three of the little flowers and prepare to do magick for the first time in a thousand years.

Ten minutes later, I’ve done both spells, and I leave the clearing with a bit of a pep in my step that hasn’t been there for more than a millennium.

October 23, 2010; Nighttime

My mother did use the spell to cloak her magick so I didn’t know about the spelled champagne last night until after we’d all drunk it. However once Elijah’s little doppelgänger friend told him what they had done I was able to unlink us all without Mother being any the wiser, which means if Finn dies, only he will die.

My brothers and I are on our way to the place Mother plans to do the spell that will turn us human so she can kill us. I frown and finger the fabric around the hole in the front of my shirt from where the teacher stabbed me with the White Oak Ash Dagger. Ms. Bennett was spot on about Damon even if I was wounded in the chest and not the back. Well, no matter, I’ll get him back eventually.

My brothers and I have a secret weapon to try to talk Finn down from trying to kill himself. Sage is silent while we walk through the woods but her excitement at the prospect of seeing my brother again after being separated for more than 900 years is palpable.

The four of us walk out of the trees, and I’m not surprised when Mother says, “My sons, come forward.”

Finn tells her, “Stay beside me, Mother.”

She walks into the pentagram and tells him, “ It’s okay. They can’t enter.”  Well shit, that means she already closed the circle and can still kill Finn. I know he’s not willingly helping her because she hasn’t hidden the magick she’s used forcing him to help her. What to do, what to do?

I approach the pentagram even knowing what will happen and sigh when the torches around it flare up.  I take a step back and tell them, “That’s lovely. We’re stuck out here, while the favorite son plays sacrificial lamb.  How pathetic you are, Finn.”

Mother frowns and tells me, “Be quiet Kol. Your brother knows virtue you cannot even imagine.”

Sage smartly stays silent because right now we need to reason with our mother, not Finn, so Elijah tries to talk Esther out of her plan, “Whatever you think of us, killing your own children will be an atrocity.”

Mother’s frown deepens before she tells us, “My only regret is that I did not let you die a thousand years ago.”

Most people call me the impatient one but Nik is probably tied with me on that front, so I’m not surprised when he says, “Enough. All this talk is boring me. End this now, Mother, or I’ll send you back to Hell.”

She takes a step closer to us and tells us, “For a thousand years, I’ve been forced to watch you. Felt the pain of every victim, suffered while you shed blood. Even you, Elijah, with your claim to nobility, you’re no better. All of you, you’re a curse on this Earth. Stretched out over generations. If you’ve come to plead for your lives, I’m sorry, you’ve wasted your time.”

While she was talking two women step out of the house behind Mother and race towards us. I move towards them and smile when Mother keeps her eyes on Nik and Elijah.  The women stop when they’re standing beside me. The younger one hands me a slip of paper, so I look down and read, “Feed Abby your blood and snap her neck. It’ll cut your mother off from our magick.”

I agree with her plan, so I bite my wrist and hold it out to the older woman.  She grabs my arm and brings her lips to the wound before drinking as quickly as she can.  When she’s had enough I whisper, “Thank you.” And then I snap her neck before gently laying her on the ground.

Mother shouts, “No, Sisters, do not abandon me.”

Bonnie grabs my hand, and I feel her connect to my magick before she shouts, “Spermatophyta,” and freezes Mother and Finn where they stand.

Nik huffs and asks, “Well that’s great, now how do we break the circle so that we can reach her and kill her?”

Bonnie just turns and smiles at him before whispering another spell, and I notice that Finn is slowly moving toward the edge of the circle and his feet are dragging on the dirt as he slides closer and closer to the perimeter of the pentagram.  When he crosses the salt and breaks the circle, Nik advances and has Mother by the throat but before he can rip her heart out a second time Bonnie shouts, “Wait, I have a spell we can do that will make sure she can never come back and try this again.”  She finishes her statement by taking a square of paper out of her pocket and handing it to me.

Nik raises his eyebrow at me silently asking if it’ll do what she says it will so I read it and then nod before looking at my older brother and telling him, “It should do as she says.   Let’s bring Mother back to our house.  She should have the necessary ingredients in her room.”

Bonnie offers, “And if not, I know I have what’s needed at my house so I can run over there and get it if necessary.”

Nik nods and then throws Mother over his shoulder before heading back the way we came.  Sage throws Finn over her shoulder and follows after Nik because Finn won’t be released from Mother’s magick until she dies, so we have to wait to unfreeze him.

Leaning down, I gently pick up my future childe and then say, “Follow me,” before leading Bonnie through the woods to Elijah’s car.  When we get there, Nik pops open the trunk and throws Esther inside none too gently.  Sage sighs but then gently places Finn inside with our mother and after leaning down and placing a soft kiss on his forehead closes the door.  Nik and Sage get into the car, so I open the back door and tell Bonnie, “After you.”  She slides in, and I place her mother over Sage and Bonnie’s laps before sliding in under her head.  Elijah gets into the driver’s seat, and we head home.

Arriving at the house, we pile out of the car.  Bonnie just stands beside the car, so I tell her, “Follow me.  I’ll lay your mother down in my bed for now, and we can do the spell to end our mother, and then we can sit and wait for your mother to wake in transition.”

She nods and follows me inside.  I lead her up the stairs to my room and gently lay Abby down before taking off her shoes and pulling the covers up over her.  Bonnie smiles and says, “You know your mother has been going on and on for days about how evil you all are, but I’m pretty sure she’s wrong.”

Frowning I tell her, “We’ve all been evil from time to time, but we grew bored with it after a few centuries.  Though I can admit, I was the last to give up that past time.”

She nods so I tell her, “Wait here, I’ll go get what we need, and we can do the spell.”

She nods again so running to Mother’s room I rifle through her herbs before I find what we need.  I return to Bonnie with a bowl and the herbs.  I place the herbs in the dish and then light it on fire with my magick and whisper the words to the spell.  The flames rise and then completely die out.  I say softly, “That should do the trick, Brother.”

He asks from downstairs, “Do you not want to watch?”

Shaking my head even though he can’t see it, I tell him softly, “I think it best to stay with Abby and Bonnie.  I don’t want to leave them alone in case Abby wakes early.”

He grunts in the affirmative, so I grab two chairs from my study and bring them to the bedside. Motioning to one of the seats, I tell Bonnie, “Take a load off while we wait.”

She nods and shuffles over to the chair before sitting and then turning her head to look at me sitting beside her before she asks, “So the spell in the box worked then?”

Laughing, I nod and tell her, “Exactly as you planned it.”

She nods back and says, “Good, I’m glad.  It was wrong that it was taken from you.  I think the same spell should work for your siblings too.”

My eyes widen at that before I ask, “You would make us all stronger and more powerful than we already are?”

She nods deeply and says, “The price for my help is that you, and by you I mean your whole family, don’t hurt anyone I consider mine so yeah, I’ll make you stronger.  Best my allies are as strong as possible, no?”

Laughing again I tell her, “Indeed, Darling. And for the record when I told my brothers and sister what you had done and that you were helping us they all swore not to harm you or those you care about.  And after the sacrifice your mother just made I think it’s safe to say they won’t betray you any more than I would after what you’ve done for us.”

She nods, and we just sit for a few minutes before I turn my face to look at her and ask, “Out of curiosity, why did you help us?”

Smiling she shrugs and says, “Purely selfish reasons and it’s the same reason I want you all to be as strong as possible.  My best friend is a vampire.  She was turned without her knowledge or consent.  I know that if the Original who sired Caroline’s line of vampires dies then she and the Salvatore’s will die.  While I don’t really care about Damon and Stefan or Katherine, for that matter, I don’t want to live in a world where Caroline Forbes doesn’t exist.  I don’t know which of you is the head of her sire-line and I know you’re all smart enough not to reveal that so I figure the best bet is to make sure none of you ever die.  Oh, and you should know that once Damon finds out about the sire-line stuff, he will do everything in his power to find out who sired Katherine’s line.  They already know her sire was Rose-Marie so they’ll be looking for who sired Rose and anyone before him or her in the sire-line.”

Nodding, I tell her.  “Mary Porter sired Rose Marie.  Now figuring out who sired her will be much more of a challenge because she was a bit of an original groupie so I’ll go to her in the coming days and make sure no one ever finds out who turned her.”

She nods but frowns before asking, “Will you kill her?  I really don’t want to be responsible for an innocent person being killed.”

Shaking my head, I ask her, “You… innocent?  You actually just called a vampire innocent?”

She nods so I nod back and tell her, “Well, based on how Mary has been in the past you’re probably not too far off the mark by calling her innocent.  Killing her won’t be necessary, though.  I’ll compel her and her mate not to ever do or say anything that would help anyone ever find out who her sire is and that should solve that problem without me having to end Mary, which is good because we’re all rather fond of her and she of us.  In fact, I won’t even need to force the compulsion onto her she’ll probably happily let me do it to protect all of us.”

She nods, and we lapse into silence again.  I clear my throat a few minutes later and ask, “Is your mother going to be upset that I killed her?”

Bonnie laughs and says, “No, it was actually her idea.  She doesn’t know I can give her back her magick though so let me be the one to tell her that because I want to see her face when she discovers she won’t be stuck without it for the rest of eternity.”

I nod again and tell her, “Will do.”

Bonnie’s not quite like any person I’ve ever met before, and I find myself hopeful about the coming years and the friendship I can already feel forming between us.  Hmm, maybe someday she’ll let me turn her too. After all, she won’t be relegated to living without magick either if I do the same spell she did on me.  Something to look forward to then.

A knock on my bedroom door brings me out of my thoughts, so I say, “Enter.”

My sister comes into the room carrying a glass of blood.  She sets it on the bedside table and turns to leave.  When she gets to the door, she turns her head slightly and tells Bonnie, “I’m not in the habit of owing people, but I owe you one.  Caroline’s lucky to have you as a friend.”

Bonnie nods and then surprises us both when she says, “If you stop trying to kill Elena you could be lucky for the same reason, all of you could be, for that matter.”

Rebekah smiles and nods and tells us, “I’ll keep that in mind then.”

Bonnie laughs and tells her, “You do that.”

When Rebekah has left the room Bonnie sighs and says, “Just between me and the houseful of vampires who could probably hear an ant fart a mile away Elena kind of deserves it after stabbing Rebekah in the back with the dagger.  But don’t tell anyone I said that.”

Chuckling I nod and then I sit up straighter a moment before Abby shoots up into a sitting position on the bed with her hand holding her neck.  Picking up the glass of blood I keep it close to me and ask her, “Do you want to finish the transition?”

She nods, so I hand her the glass and watch as she drinks it down in three big gulps.

Smiling at Abby when her fangs descend, I tell them, “Welcome to the family, both of you.”

They smile at me, and I smile back excited about what blessings the future holds for all of us.

The End