Devil in Disguise (Kai Parker)

Chapter Fourteen: Gotcha

Meg smiled from where she leaned against the arch. Damon and Bonnie were in the kitchen, Bonnie feasting on pancakes and Damon downing his sorrows with even more bourbon. ‘You called this place your hell. That means you feel remorse.’ she said softly, playing with her fork. ‘That’s what makes you different from Kai. I think there’s hope for you.’

‘Look, we can still get out of here, Bonnie. We can steal that Ascendant contraption, find out what Kai knows, and then we’ll ditch him. He doesn’t have any powers anyway.’

‘Actually, it’s not that simple.’ Kai suddenly appeared behind Meg. She exhaled sharply, caught off guard, and slowly backed into the kitchen.

‘You’ve gotta stop doing that.’ he snapped, wrapping an arm around Meg. ‘It’s creepy.’

‘Here’s the thing: I have a… killer effect on magic. I can’t generate it myself, but I can consume it from others. Temporarily.’ he gesticulated as he walked casually into the room, unbothered by all the stares. ‘My family called me an abomination; that hurt my feelings.’

He took hold of Bonnie’s wrist in a way Meg found oh so familiar, and the Bennett screamed. A pulsing magenta glow shone from where Kai’s fingers touched her skin, almost like fire. Raising a hand, he made the oven burn and Damon collapse to the floor with a magical aneurism. Meg yelped as her hand sizzled against the smouldering metal, but otherwise she remained conspicuously unharmed.

‘OKAY!’ Damon shouted, head in his hands. ‘We get it!’

Bonnie managed to wrench her hand out of his grip, and retreated as fast as she could against the far wall. ‘You can see why my coven and I didn’t get along.’ he grinned.

‘I smell an ultimatum.’ Damon said bitterly.

‘If he consumes all of Bonnie’s magic, he’ll kill her.’ Meg breathed.

‘Exactly. But, if we work together, we can all go home as friends.’ he added cheerily, sitting in Bonnie’s abandoned chair and spearing a piece of pancake on her abandoned fork. ‘Or, I can devour her magic, kill you both and go home alone.

‘What’s it going to be?’

***

Surprise, surprise; they were doing the spell. Damon, Bonnie and Meg were trekking through the woods, harsh Virginian sunlight pouring down on them, and Bonnie was being pessimistic.

‘Stop that,’ she swiped at the branch Damon was swishing around, like a sword.

‘It is very annoying.’ Meg agreed, coming at him from the other side. He side-stepped them both, smirking insufferably.

‘I’m gonna have a hot date with my girl,’ he drawled, whacking the both of them with the stick. ‘I think I deserve to be happy right now.’

‘Yeah, assuming Kai’s telling the truth.’

‘He is.’ Meg piped up, but Bonnie ignored her.

‘I’m thinking dinner and a movie…’ Damon looked into the distance as though he could see it already. Then he shook his head, ‘You know what, screw dinner and a movie. Let’s skip straight to the good part.

‘And assuming I can do the spell, which I won’t know until I see it.’ she ploughed on, and Meg rolled her eyes. The two had really swapped places.

‘Whatever happened to hope, Bon? Remember how I was all like, “boo, grr,” and you were all “hooray, hooray, we’re getting outta here!”?’

‘Look, I wanna go home. More than anything. But Kai is a sociopath; who’s to say he won’t screw us over?’ Bonnie glanced at Meg as if expecting her to say ‘me!’.

‘Me. I say.’ Damon said stonily. ‘Because I will kill Kai, and anyone that gets in the way of me going home.’ he declared, swinging his crude sword.

‘Trouble incoming,’ Meg muttered, spotting the approaching figure.

‘I heard my name.’ Kai said cheerily. ‘All good, I hope. The eclipse will happen directly overhead. In perfect alignment with the Gemini constellation. You,’ he pointed at the vampire, ‘need to dig in the tunnels bellow us, we’ll do the spell there.’ he threw Damon a shovel and a pickaxe.

‘Why?’ Bonnie asked suspiciously.

Kai mocked looking amazed. ‘Have you never portal-jumped through an eclipse before?’ he said, ‘OK, look: the light of the eclipse will shine down, and activate the Ascendant. You add a little witchy-woo, and poof. Anyone standing in the circle of light, holding the Ascendant, goes home.’

‘By “witchy-woo”, I assume you mean the spell. Let me see it.’

There was a shifty pause before Kai said, ‘When the time comes.’

He pushed past Bonnie and grabbed Meg’s hand, dragging her in the opposite direction he had come from. Damon immediately zoomed in front of him, and the witch soon followed. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Into town.’ Kai said, surprisingly normally. ‘I need to gather some important supplies.’ His grip tightened on her wrist.

‘And why are you taking Meg?’ Bonnie asked, putting a hand on her shoulder protectively. Meg smiled at her. She hadn’t thought they were getting along particularly well.

‘Because we have some issues we need to discuss. Don’t we, Nut-Meg?’ he smiled down at her blandly.

‘What kind of “issues”?’ Damon snarled, and that stick in his hand suddenly looked a lot more threatening.

‘Well, look at that. Meg’s made herself some friends.’ Kai drawled. ‘That’s unusual. Last time Meg was around a lot of strangers, she destroyed the train they were on.’

Bonnie removed her hand like it burnt. So much for getting along. ‘What?’

‘Yeah. How many died again, Meg? You’ve got a good memory for numbers, you should remember.’ Kai bit his lip as he grinned, the way he did when he was particularly impish, and started pulling Meg away again. She tried to explain about her magic, but he wrapped his arm around her shoulders, smothering her mouth with one hand.

‘If you harm a hair on her head, I will skin you. That’s a promise.’ Damon called, picking up pickaxe.

‘How nice.’ Kai whistled a mindless tune, swinging around a tree and nearly giving Meg a concussion. She threw the witch one more wistful look, but Bonnie wasn’t watching.

***

‘What do you want, Kai?’ she asked bluntly. They were in a car, zooming away back into Mystic Falls.

‘So tetchy. What’d I do to you to make you so rude lately?’ he grinned.

‘You’ve just made Bonnie hate me.’ she pointed out. ‘You’ve threatened my friends a dozen times in the past few hours. You locked me in a hotel room for months. You tried to get my magic back, even though I don’t want it. You kissed me so you could kill your siblings’ easier.’ her voice faltered on the last one.

The car screeched to a stop and he looked at her. ‘That was pretty evil of me.’ he admitted, but it was marred slightly by the manic look in his eyes. ‘And yet,’ he said softly, ‘You still freaked out when I flirted with Bonnie yesterday.’

‘Did not.’ came her immediate response.

‘Did too. You looked at your watch, which you only do when you’re nervous.’

‘That doesn’t mean I freaked out.’ she said crossly, opening the car door and stepping out. ‘Why would I?’

Kai shrugged, getting out with her. ‘Oh, I dunno.’ His hand brushed hers as they walked together, up to the front of the car. As they reached the hood, he turned quickly and said, ‘Maybe because of this?’

He was much closer than she was prepared for. Her breath hitched as she looked up to his eyes, only a few centimetres away from her. They were still screaming insanity, but Meg found herself lost in it. Their noses were touching. His hands were pressed into the car hood, right next to her hips, to stop himself falling over as he leaned forward…

‘Gotcha.’ he whispered on her lips, and he let her go, walking away.