Devil in Disguise (Kai Parker)

Chapter Seventeen: One Down

The witch was knocked backwards, crashing against the stone wall before collapsing to the floor. An arrow was embedded in her stomach, and already blood was gushing out, staining her white blouse a shocking scarlet. Meg twisted around instinctively, but when she saw the perpetrator her face went blank with shock. ‘Forgetting someone?’ Kai Parker, very much alive and armed with a crossbow, smiled vindictively.

Oh, crap.

The realisation hit her like a sledgehammer. ‘He can’t die here.’ she breathed, ‘You can kill him, but he’ll just keep coming back to life.’ There was some quality of glee in her emotions as she remembered. Her mind was racing. He wasn’t dead… and he was probably going to kill them all.

‘And you didn’t think to mention this before?’ Damon snarled, making her jump.

‘I forgot. Sorry.’

‘Did you really think I hadn’t tried to kill myself before?’ he continued, notching another arrow. ‘Because I had. Lots of times. Lots of ways.’

Damon’s eyes flicked to the Ascendant, lying abandoned in a circle of light. If he touched it now, he’d be able to go home.  ‘Grab that and the next arrow goes in her heart.’ Kai threatened, raising his crossbow. ‘Your choice.’

There was a look of indecision on the vampire’s face. Meg nearly cried out when he zoomed away, but he wasn’t going to seize the Ascendant; he was going to kneel by Bonnie. She couldn’t see what was happening behind her, and she couldn’t bear to take her eyes off Kai, but an awful sucking noise told her Damon had removed the arrow.

Kai’s eyes had been fixed on Meg, but for a moment they flitted to the Ascendant. He threw away the crossbow and started running. Bonnie cried out a warning, ‘Damon! No!’ but Meg was already on it. She rammed into Kai, knocking him over and falling to the floor herself. There was a disturbing crack as her shoulder blade connected with the rocky ground, but she had to ignore it.

‘Even if I am supremely confused about you being alive right now,’ she hissed in Kai’s ear, ‘I will make sure they get home. OK?’

He growled, rolling over her in a bid to reach the contraption. Damon zoomed forward, picked him up and forced him against the wall. His head jarred sickeningly, hitting the wall, but he didn’t seem dazed. He grabbed an arrow from the rocky shelf behind him and rammed it into the vampire’s stomach, making him grunt with pain.

Meg forced herself to her feet, but there wasn’t much she could do to help. The two were wrestling, Kai trying to dig the arrow deeper, Damon trying to get it out. Considering he was a vampire, Damon wasn’t doing too well.

Kai pinned him against a low ridge of stone and began to force the arrow into his heart. Meg cried out and clawed at his back, but every motion made her shoulder hurt like hell. The pain was making her sick; she was going to throw up…

‘Bonnie…’ Damon forced through clenched teeth, ‘You have to get outta here.’

‘I’m not gonna make it…’ she choked. ‘But you are. Modus!’

There was a ripple in the air as Bonnie cast the spell, throwing Kai away from Damon. Meg got caught in the blast and let out an agonised scream as she flew through the air with him and collided with the floor. Tears were forming in her eyes at the look of her mangled arm, sprawled against the stone.

Damon turned, with every intention of killing Kai, but something seemed to be stopping him. An invisible force was pulling him back, into the circle of light cast by the eclipse above. ‘Don’t!’ Kai yelled, desperate.

Bonnie threw him the Ascendant and the vampire caught it automatically, before realising what it meant. The device whirred and moved a little more, and he muttered, ‘No.’ The light around him intensified and his mutter turned into a shout, ‘NO!’

The light burnt Meg’s retinas and she found herself having to close her eyes – it was like the burning white she had experienced when the Other Side collapsed. When she opened them again, Damon was gone and the Ascendant was in pieces upon the floor.

Kai let out a primal, animalistic noise of rage and she flinched. Never before has she seen him so angry. The noise seemed to please Bonnie, who gave a small smile before gasping and laying down her head. Meg would’ve gone to her, but as she started to force her way over there, a blurriness distorted her sight and she found herself falling… falling…

***

There were noises outside this horrible dream she was having.

A sort of clicking noise, like puzzle pieces being fit together.

‘Ah, look… awake. How… you feel?’ the voice was hazy and indistinguishable.

‘Like… shot me… arrow.’ another voice said, rather bluntly.

‘Right… no idea… shatter the Ascendant into a billion pieces… put it back together… 12.28… help? I know… puzzle person.’

‘I don’t wanna help.’ This time there was a coherent sentence. She must be waking up. ‘You’re… psychopath. This place is… prison. Not letting you out. Besides… kill me the minute… get out.’

‘You’ve been through a trauma.’ That voice was Kai’s. ‘Your memory’s… little fuzzy. So you might be thinking… magic… protect you. But all I have to do… hold your hand… your magic suddenly becomes mine.’

A loud, squelching noise shattered her sleep and Meg jerked awake to the sight of Bonnie shoving a pen into Kai’s carotid artery. ‘Gah… ah.’ she made a noise in the back of her throat, eyes flitting wildly from the witch to the dying boy.

‘C’mon, Meg. Help me.’ Bonnie crossed the room, opened up Meg’s old backpack and swept the Ascendant’s pieces into it. The girl remained where she was, trying desperately to catch up with her surroundings. She seemed to be in the Salvatore Boarding house… how did she get here? The last thing she remembered was a feeling like molten lava in her shoulder, and lying on a cold, moist floor…

Damon was gone, back to the real world. Bonnie had been shot with an arrow. The Ascendant was broken. Kai wasn’t dead… She’d definitely have to sort through her emotions sometime soon.

‘Meg!’ Bonnie shook her shoulder. ‘We need to go!’

‘Right. Going… err, going where?’ Meg puzzled, hopping to her feet. Her arm felt strangely stiff. Kai had put it in a sling.

‘I don’t know; the hospital, maybe?’ she grabbed Meg’s hand and started pulling her to the door. Kai was still convulsing on the floor, blood spurting out of his wound, and she felt awful leaving him in such obvious pain, but at least this time Meg knew he wouldn’t die. Although she really shouldn’t be happy at that fact.

***

The hospital was an ostentatious building, all white pillars and grand windows. Meg would never have guessed it was the hospital if Bonnie hadn’t been there. It looked more like a town hall. The girls staggered into the building, Bonnie leading the way through halls and corridors and medicinal rooms, to a room right at the back.

‘Antibiotics…’ she muttered, tearing apart the first aid cupboards. ‘Painkillers.’

‘I’ll take some of those.’ Meg muttered as the witch scattered the little tablets on a desk and got a new pad to stick to her stomach. She popped several of the pills in her mouth and looked at her watch; they had one hour, forty-three minutes until the eclipse. She hoped they got it done in time.