Devil in Disguise (Kai Parker)

Chapter Fifteen: A matter of Cowardice

‘Nirvana.’ Meg listed, as Kai threw a CD into the shopping cart. ‘Zima. Soundgarden. Baseball cards?’

‘Hey, don’t judge me.’

‘These are your “supplies”?’

‘Don’t want to get homesick, now, do we?’ he darted over to the electronics section again, and held up an object. ‘Would it be weird to see a Walkman in the future?’

‘How should I know?’ Meg shrugged. ‘I’d guess so, though.’

He looked at the device, frowning, then threw them in anyway. ‘D’you want anything, Nut-Meg? 1994’s been all you’ve truly known, after all.’

‘I don’t exactly want to commemorate the year I died, surprisingly enough.’

‘C’mon, it was a good year. Well, beside all the imprisonment and torture. Oh, and Cobain killing himself – that was a blow, I’ll admit. Remember, Meg, that was the year we were finally gonna go to Woodstock! Granted, the coven guaranteed we didn’t make it, but still.’ he crossed over to the candy section and threw in three packets of Bubble Tape.

‘That was the year Friends started. But we missed that by about five months as well.’ she frowned. ‘We missed just about everything, actually.’

He threw a gumball at her. ‘Stop being depressing. Soon as we get out, we can go to festivals and watch Friends as much as we want.’

His enthusiasm was contagious, but Meg wasn’t in the best of moods right now. That scene by the car had shocked her to her very core. And while Kai seemed to be ignoring it quite easily, a lot of Meg’s energy was going into not thinking about it.

‘You know what,’ she said, after several minutes of silence. ‘I’m gonna go look at the CDs. I’ve gone through Bonnie’s phone, and modern music sucks.’

‘I knew you’d want something.’ he smiled triumphantly, and she rolled her eyes.

‘Shut up.’

***

Meg shouldered her black backpack, which she had filled with cassettes, CDs and – Kai had talked her into it – her own pager. She didn’t know how it happened, but she had sold out. Hugely.

They were back in the woods. She looked at her watch; it was 11.57 AM. The shopping trip had taken shorter than she expected. Damon would be just about finished by now. Sure enough, as they approached the clearing again, there was a rumble of dislodged dirt and the tunnel revealed itself.

‘Looks like we got back just in time.’ Kai drawled, draping an arm around Meg’s shoulder again. She tensed as it came into contact with her neck, scared of falling into another trap, and he grinned at her.

Damon zoomed up, and grabbed Kai’s backpack. ‘Zima. Grunge. Every baseball card known to man… and a pager? Really?’

‘555-Hiya-Kai. No way am I giving those digits up.’

‘These are the important supplies you needed to get?’ Damon looked dubious.

‘I’ve already explained this to Meg. Look, the future sounds great. I’m super excited about the internet, but 1994 has been my home for most of my life; I’d hate to get homesick. So, let’s get down there –’

‘No.’ Bonnie interrupted, getting to her feet. Her face was stormy, and she refused to meet Meg’s eyes. ‘We are not going anywhere until you show me the spell.’

Meg groaned at her choice of words. Kai smiled blandly, taking his arm off her and shoving his hands in his pockets. ‘Okay.’ he dragged out the word.

Three minutes passed in confused silence before Damon said, ‘Are we literally “not going anywhere”?’

Bonnie looked irritated. ‘Fine. You don’t wanna show me the spell then you can do it yourself. I mean, you want my magic. Take it.’

‘Bonnie, what are you doing?’ Meg asked sharply.

‘She’s being brave.’ Kai drawled.

‘I’m serious, Kai. This was your big threat, wasn’t it? If I don’t do the spell and let us outta here, then you’ll just take my magic, leave me for dead and do the spell yourself. So, go ahead. Take all of it.’

There was a calculating look in his eyes as he studied the witch, before he said, ‘Don’t mind if I do.’ and grabbed hold of Bonnie’s arms.

‘Kai!’ Meg shouted.

Bonnie gasped as her magic was taken away, eyes wide with shock. It was clear she hadn’t expected the pain to come so quickly. ‘Bonnie…’ Damon said.

‘It’s OK.’ she said through a clenched jaw. ‘He won’t hurt me.’

‘Doesn’t look like that from here…’ Meg said.

Kai’s arms tightened and the witch let out an involuntary groan. ‘Hey! Bonnie! Whoa, hey! Kai, stop.’

Bonnie wrenched herself out of his grip, looking shaken. Then her face melted into a look of triumph. ‘He doesn’t know the spell. Which means,’ she said delicately, while Kai looked troubled for the first time they had seen him, ‘we don’t need him. Modus!’

She thrust her hand forward, and the pickaxe flew off the ground. Meg screamed as it buried itself in Kai’s chest, right through to the other side. ‘What? No!’ Damon yelped, but she wasn’t paying any attention. He tried to breathe, but it looked like his lungs were punctured. With an awful thud, he fell to the floor.

‘Kai... Oh, god, Kai…’ Meg knelt by him, but he couldn’t hear her. He was already dead. ‘Oh god oh god oh god. You killed him!’

‘She did. Good work, Bonnie.’ Damon patted her on the back.

‘He needed to die, Meg.’ her eyes were burning. ‘He was a psychopath. He’s killed people, for god sakes. He. Needed. To. Die.’ her eyes froze over, and she looked over Meg with distrust. ‘You’ve killed people too. With that train.’

‘That technically wasn’t my fault… oh, whatever. I did nothing to stop them dying, anyway. I ran to save my own skin.’ There were tears pricking at the back of her eyes.

Bonnie looked disgusted, but Meg spoke before she could. ‘You can call me a coward, Bonnie, but it’s pointless. I know what I am. I could’ve saved those people on the train, but I jumped off to save myself. I killed my father because I couldn’t cope with him leaving me. I was going to risk your life so I could return to the living, and not have to… dissolve, like the other spirits. When I was alive, I fell for a sociopath, and I never had the courage to stop. I’m a murderer and a coward and a liar and a traitor, but at least I’m not so self-righteous I pretend I’m none of these things.’ she looked coldly at the witch. ‘You’ve just killed him. Does that make you any better than he is?’

She gulped, and Damon looked down at Meg. ‘We do what we have to do, Meg. And we can’t release him into the world. You understand that, right?’

‘Of course I do. I was around when he killed for the first time.’ she sniffed. ‘But I am sick of all the hypocrisy around here. We’ve all killed. Let’s just call it even, OK?’

Damon just shrugged. ‘Sure.’

Bonnie looked away, biting her lip, and said, ‘I need to get my Grimoire. I’ll need it to figure out what I’m doing.’

‘Wait, you don’t know what you’re doing?’ the vampire said sharply. ‘You killed him, even though he was the only one that knew how to get the hell outta here?’

‘I’ll find out.’ she snapped. ‘Just go get the book, will you?’