Morrigan Brooks
AS much as I liked the real thing, I settled with blood bags most of the time. People were messy, especially when they were bleeding out.
I walked down the street, sucking the blood through a straw, and thanking my parents for having magic. As much as I hated them, I got a ton of magic, meaning that I was creating the illusion of an innocent 19-year-old girl walking down the street holding a take-out cup.
Obviously without the blood.
I dumped the empty bag in a bin and kept walking in the direction of Central park since I was getting bored of Manhattan after staying here for over a month.
Central park was comforting since it reminded me of a place I used to go to when I was still human. I walked slowly, looking at all the trees and the ducks and the squirrels.
Those sort of annoyed me but they were vaguely cute.
I was a minute from the end of the path, meaning a three-minute walk to the hotel, when Eliza called me.
"Hey, what's up?" I ask.
"Nothing much, where are you though?"
"Three minutes away. Edge of the park."
"Alright," she says and hangs up. I keep walking. When I get to the building, I go straight up and slide the keycard in the door just to see Eliza sitting on the bed with a tube of pringles, watching what I can only assume to be re-runs of Full House.
"Oh, thank god you're here!" She says and groans when I go for her chips but doesn't fight when I take some. "So I was thinking... No more manhattan!" She says it like it's the idea of the century and honestly, I thought it was pretty close to it.
"I was thinking too, but I don't know where we would go," I say. "So we need ideas."
"I was hoping miss 600 years old has an idea," she asks with a glint of mirth in her eyes. I just roll mine.
"I'm not 600 yet, bitch." I reply with a laugh. "Do we have any living friends?" I ask and we both think for a second.
"What about the Grey sisters?" She asks and I shake my head.
"No, they're eighty now."
"What? I would've thought at the most forty!"
"Iris Hinders?" I ask and she shakes her head.
"No, she didn't have a daylight jewel and had a bit of an accident... OH, what about the Salvatores!"
"Don't they hate each other?" I ask though I was wondering why I didn't think of them sooner. "Are they still in the country?"
"Mhm," Eliza says. "I heard that at least one of them is back in Mystic Falls. Think of the nostalgia!"
"Mystic Falls?" I say incredulously, but nevertheless, I pull out my suitcase and start to pack.
"HOW long have we been on the road?" Eliza asks, feeding me another sour gummy worm.
"Check the screen," I reply, looking at the screen myself. Only two hours? Bullshit.
"Only two hours? What the fuck?" Eliza says, verbalising my thoughts. "We have like three more!"
"You're the one who wanted to go to Mystic fucking Falls at four in the morning," I say. The sun hadn't even risen yet, but in all honesty, I was totally on board with leaving early, since then we could find ourselves a house to take over by nine instead of doing it throughout the day.
"You love my ideas," she says, throwing a gummy worm and catching it in her mouth.
"Just give me another one please," I say and she presents the packet for me and I pick one out and continue to drive.
"I LIKE this one," I say pointing up at the house. It wasn't new in any way but it seemed to have plumbing, electricity and everything else a house needed. It was one of those ancesteral mansions that probably should have been abandoned but rich people refurbished it.
"It's definitely big," Eliza says, nodding. "And it's pretty far from the town but not too far." She makes another good point onto the pile of pros.
"Let's get it." I say and we share a glance.
"Shot not!" She basically shouts and I groan.
"I did it last time." I groan and she shakes her head.
"No, I did it last time." I think and she was right, so rolling my eyes and dragging my feet up the many stone stairs, I knock on the big door. I'm liking the place more and more.
After a few moments, an old woman open the door. "Hello dearie," she says and I plaster on a fake smile.
"Hello ma'am," I start my compulsion. "Do you have anyone in line to inherit this house when you die?" I ask and she shakes her head. "Is it just you living in this house? Husband? Wife? Anyone?"
"Yes, my husband." She says in a very frail voice.
"Can you bring him to the door please?" I ask and she shouts up to her husband.
"Louis! Come here!" We both wait about a minute before an equally old man hobbles down the stairs.
"What do you want Harriet?"
"Sir, come here to the door." I compel him. When they're standing next to each other I snap their necks and drag them out. I test the barrier and when I know it's down, I throw Louis' body to Eliza, and we chuck them in the hole she dug. Thankfully it was deep enough that we could fit both in and then a generous amount of dirt over them.
"I swear to god, I always have to talk to the old people," I say to Eliza as we both walk in and inspect what we have to go off.
"Sucks I guess." She says, looking around the room. It was actually pretty nice. Polished wooden floors with the same wood on the stairs. The stairs had two possible ways, one on the left and one on the right, which was a typical mansion, but nevertheless, it was really nice. I ran to the staircase on the right side and went down that way. When I saw a room that was pretty untouched, I shout through the house.
"Dibs, Eliza!" I say and she shouts back.
"Whatever, I dibs this one!" She was on the left side which I was fine with. I chuckle but turn back to my door.
I chanted for a second before an Algiz rune, or a protection rune appeared on my door.
"Can you do that for me again?" Eliza says, materialising behind me.
"Mhm, be patient, crazy." She speeds off and I follow her. When we get to her room I do the same and the rune appears.
"What do we do now?" I ask and she smiles.
"Well I think our friends the Salvatores deserve a visit, don't they?" She says and I smile with her.
That's how we ended up in the seemingly one place where people socialise in this town. The Mystic Grill.
"All we need to do is compel someone to tell us." Eliza whispers.
"Just remember what happened last time. There are probably still crazies that believe in vamps and are on vervain." I say with a smile and she smiles back. "Him," I say, pointing at a random worker. Thankfully, when he sees us he comes over.
"Can I get you guys a table?" He asks.
"No thank you," Eliza says, compelling him. "Do either of the Salvatores live here?"
"Damon and Stefan Salvatore live here." He says flatly. I'm excited to see both of them.
"Where?"
"Up at the old Salvatore boarding house."
"I know where it is," I say to her confused look and she just looks back to the worker.
"Forget this." She says and we both walk out the door.
"Not driving this time," I say, chucking the keys to her over the top of the car and she catches them and opens it. When we're driving, she just follows my directions.
There were a few cars parked near the place, which made me slightly nervous that this was actually a boarding house, but we could just compel if it was or maybe pretend to be lost tourists.
"Should we give them a little scare?" Eliza asks and my smile only widens.
"We'd be doing them a favour by keeping them on their feet," I reason and she smiles with me.
We quietly break in the top window and see half a dozen people in their massive living room. We both do a lap of the room at top vamp speed which makes all six people freeze.
"Hello?" Damon says, stepping into the middle of the room. "Whoever you are, come out come out wherever you are!" He says in a sing song voice and we both do another lap. This draws Stefan out and they both stand there, looking for us. We do another lap of the perimeter, but in addition, we knock them on their asses.
"Alright, come out now and we'll kill you quickly!" Damon says and I need to one-up his dramaticism.
"I'd like to see you try, Salvatore," I say, sitting on the stair railing on the level above them, but I jump down so I'm standing on the same level as them.
"Rory?" Damon says first and then his brother snaps out of his dumbfoundment.
"Rory!" Stefan says and he comes over to hug me.
"Don't give all the love to her!" Eliza says from behind me and Damon goes to hug her since he's gotten over the shock of us being here.
"Morrigan Brooks and Elizabeth Dennings in our house. Thought I'd have to go another decade without seeing both of your pretty faces," Damon says, still on Eliza, but when he moves to me, he lifts me up and spins me around. I'd hope I get that treatment, though, since I was awesome.
"I can't believe you guys are here! Back!" Stefan says and we shrug it off. "Rory, I thought you said 'Mystic Falls is the suckiest town ever,' and that you're 'never coming back'?"
"You tend to get over those things. Plus, it was just the founding families that made it unbearable. Mostly you two." Damon has a shit-eating grin, but I don't have time to analyse it.
"Uh, Damon? Stefan? You want to introduce us?" The one who looked physically the oldest asked and the brothers complied.
"Ror, Liza, this is Alaric, Jeremy, Bonnie, and Caroline," Stefan said and Damon piped up.
"Yeah, you might remember their ancestors. The founding families?" Oh shit, I just bad-mouthed them. Whoops. "Other than Ric, Jeremy Gilbert," Gilbert. Now there are some memories I don't want to unpack, I think but listen to the rest of their names that Damon was rattling off. " Bonnie Bennett and Caroline-" I interrupt him. Verbally this time
"Forbes. Oh god, you look exactly like Poppy," I marvel.
"Yes," Damon said a bit awkwardly. "Now that you mention it."
"Oh my god, I'm so sorry, that was rude. I'm Morrigan, call me Rory."
"I'm Eliza," she says and we nod at them.
"I'm assuming you guys are from like the 1860s?" Popp- Caroline says and Damon laughs.
"Eliza, yes, but Rory, she's old." I flip him off.
"Well, we only wanted to stop by, say hello and all but we'll get going and leave you to your..." Eliza starts looking around. "Vampire hate club? We'll be in town for however long... um, nice to meet you all."
I looked around now and saw that my friend's description was accurate. The number of stakes was probably more than I had ever seen in one place.
"Oh, no. You two will like this." Stefan says, assumingly inviting us to stay.
"Okay," I say cautiously. "What are you doing?"
"Killing Kathrine," Damon says and I laugh, and so does Eliza. It wasn't doubling over or anything, but we both knew it was ridiculous.
"We are going to do it," Jeremy Gilbert says.
"Good luck," I say and Damon rolls his eyes.
"Rory, why aren't you specifically on board? Didn't she leave you in a burning building?" The older Salvatore asks and I nod.
"Well yes, she left me in a burning building. Damon, I love you, I really do but I don't care whether Kathrine lives or dies."
"Why?" Caroline Forbes asks. "Usually this is a bit morbid for me but for that, I would say an eye for an eye." I smile at her and explain.
"She stays out of my way. Don't get me wrong, we'll help you, but I just don't care." I say and Damon encouragingly nods.
"That's good enough, huh? Bonnie, you'll like this, Rory's a very powerful witch."
"Yes," Stefan says. I realised the brothers were going to do this with or without help, but obviously, they would prefer help. "Plus she's had multiple centuries' worth of practice."
"I already said I would help," I mutter but it goes unnoticed.
"Wait are you a vampire or a witch?" Bonnie Bennett asks and I smile.
"I'm both," I say really calmly.
"I thought that was impossible- how?" I look to Damon and Stefan apologetically.
I take the pillow from the chair in front of me and rip it open. I make the feathers that fell out, float, but even everyone thinks that that's the end of the trick, I make the feathers as hard and sharp as knives and send them flying straight into the two vampires.
"Ah!" They both say.
"Morrigan, what the fuck?" Damon says, looking cautious as he walks past the now soft feathers, but I just turn back to Bonnie.
"Let's just say I'm pretty good." I walk back to Eliza.
"What do you think? Do we take some pity on their pointless quest for glory?" Eliza mocked and I chuckled.
"I reckon it could be fun," I say.
"Yeah, I'm in," Eliza says and Damon moves in between us and puts and arm over each of our shoulders.
"Pimps always pimpin'," I say and he chuckles.
"It's a lifestyle sweetheart," he says and smiles at each of us before he lets us go, telling us the plan.
"So, there's a masquerade ball tonight-" Damon aks but Eliza and I both shriek in excitement.
"Sorry, keep going," I say and he does.
"So Kathrine is after the moonstone, which is important to her for some reason, but the why is irrelevant at the momentSo Bonnie, and maybe you Ror, will do a spell similar to the one that is on the tomb under the church, you two remember that?" He continues when we both nod. "And then we lure her out to the lake, she gets suspicious and goes to Caroline because she thinks that Blondie's malleable, Caroline lures her to where Stefan and I actually are and we kill her, plans easy peasy, though we might need one of you on the ground with the teenagers so they don't screw up, and one of you with Stefan and me for extra manpower.
"You stay with the boys," Eliza says. "You're older and stronger out of both of us and Kathrine." I nod, knowing she's right.
"You get to hang out with the couple. Lucky you." I say teasingly and she rolls her eyes.
"Don't remind me." She says rolling her eyes. We go over to the group who was marvelling at Alaric Saltzman who was holding a stake ejector thingy. We walked closer to see what the fuss was about and he punched it and aimed it straight at my chest.
"No offence taken," I say and he mutters an apology, saying he didn't think I was there.
He keeps showing everyone how to kill a vampire, though not very effectively, and I get bored and wander over to Bonnie Bennett who was absentmindedly flicking through her grimoire.
"You alright?" I ask and she looks slightly startled.
"Uh, yeah, thanks." She says jumpily, so I simply nod and sit down in one of the chairs, waiting for her to ask me the questions. "Actually..." Bingo. "I don't want anyone to get hurt, is that possible?" She asks desperately. Sadly, for her sake, I shake my head.
"Someone always gets hurt, over the years I've grown to accept it. You just have to trust that you put your loyalties in the right place, and then hopefully the one who gets hurt is someone like Kathrine." She wordlessly nods, grabbing her grimoire and opening it on her lap so I could see it as well.
"Do you think you could help me with this? I keep getting nosebleeds when I do too much." She says and I nod.
"Of course, it seems easy together," I say, but then note another thing she said. "How long have you been practising magic?"
"A month or so?" She says and that makes so much sense.
"Oh, yes. That happened to me, I think, it was so long ago, but magic is like a muscle," I say, mentally questioning my own analogy, honestly thinking 'what the fuck', but I kept going. "The more you use it, the easier and bigger it gets. I think."
"You think?" She says, thankfully smiling.
"A lot can happen in six hundred years. Excuse me for a minute, Bonnie." I say and I walk towards the skulking vampire.
"Who is she? Hm?" I ask and he rolls his eyes.
"Broke up with me." He said and I slap him on the back.
"Why?" He looks at me.
"Because she's protecting her family." I nod, finding that a valid reason. "She's Kathrine's doppelganger so you can imagine Kathrine's not fond of her." He said and I nod in more understanding.
"Oh, well yes that's generally what they do when they meet. Torment each other and make each other's lives miserable. Though in this case, it doesn't seem like the girl stands a chance at making Kathrine miserable." Stefan sadly nods.
"What's her name?" I ask.
"Elena Gilbert. Jeremy's older sister. She's amazing." He says with a smile.
"She sounds amazing," I say but Stefan just wraps an arm around me.
"Yes, but I'm really glad you're here, Ror." He says, a smile finally finding its way onto his face.
"I'm glad I'm here too, Stef," I say putting my arm around his waist for a second until we see that the group is coming together.
I sit on the arm of the chair Eliza's sitting on and everyone else takes their respective places.
"Ric, you can't be there. Your job is to keep Elena out of the loop. She can't know anything or she'll try to stop us." Stefan says and Alaric nods.
"Are you sure you guys don't want me there?" Alaric confirms and Stefan once again shakes his head.
"No, I need you to stay with Elena, I don't want her to know about this."
"Ok, well I'll make sure Elena doesn't leave my sight." Stefan nods.
"Alright, if anyone wants to back out, I'll understand."
"Yeah, cold feet speak now." Damon reiterated for his brother. "I don't want this going wrong because someone chickens out. Caroline?" The blonde looked at him with a serious look.
"I won't. Look she killed me, fair's fair. As long as there are no werewolves around."
"Oh, I took care of Mason," Damon says with a sinister smile.
"As long as Tyler doesn't kill anyone, he won't turn." Jeremy Gilbert says.
"Bonnie?" Stefan asks, looking at the younger witch. "You with us?"
She nods slightly. "But no one gets hurt."
"Except Kathrine," Damon says with a smile. "Tonight Kathrine gets a stake through her heart."
"That's all well and good, but what is everyone wearing, because I have like nothing," Eliza says and I nod, agreeing that we have to quickly come up with something.
"Like a short little cocktail dress," Caroline says. "I've got a red one, Bonnie's got a black one." I nod.
"We need to go shopping then," I say turning away. "Nice meeting you all, we'll see you this evening," I say walking towards the door with Eliza.
"Wear something pretty," Damon says, just for old times sake.
"Always do," I answer, for the same reason.