Book One: Panacea (A. Saltzman)

Chapter Thirty-Three

Diana takes a deep breath and nods to herself. Readying herself. Behind her, Damon, Alaric, and Elena get ready, or not in Elena's case, to take on the vampires.

"You ready?" Alaric asks her. The two of them share a look.

"Yeah" She answers and then turns to the jeep behind her.

"Find the home owner" Damon tells them both.

"Stay in the jeep" Diana tells Elena. She caved a little and allowed Elena to come with them on the promise that she would stay in the jeep. "And here" Diana holds out her electrified baton to Elena. "If you use it, hit them somewhere soft..." Diana explains as she shows Elena the button. "Between the legs works" Elena stares at her. "If you catch them just right, right on the balls...they go down and twitch for hours..." Diana chuckles to herself. Damon and Alaric are both staring at her.

"You're terrifying" Damon tells her.

"Thank you" Diana comments with a smirk.

"Let's go" Alaric offers giving her a weird look, she raises an eyebrow back at him as she walks at his side. "You ever actually done that?" he asks her, she hums a little.

"Yeah" She answers. "Some guys like it" he snaps his head to her, she smirks and chuckles a little.

"You are way to happy for what we're about to do" he points out.

"I like killing vampires, Alaric" She admits. "It makes me happy" she looks at him. "Doesn't it make you happy? To know that you're taking an evil out of the world that could have hurt many people?" He looks at her and shrugs a little.

..............

Diana crouches and readies a flashbang arrow into her bow. Alaric glances back at her from the house, she nods and he turns to the door. He raises his fist and knocks. A vampire, Frederick answers it.

"Oh, good, someone's home. Uh, could I use your phone? My car broke down a few miles up the road. This was the first house I saw."

"Well, lucky you." Frederick offers.

"Yeah. Lucky me. It's no trouble, is it?" Alaric asks.

"Not in the slightest."

"Great." Frederick steps closer to the doorway. Alaric has his hand behind his back, he motions with his fingers and an arrow flies through the door and into the house. Alaric ducks behind the wall and shields his eyes just before the flashbang explodes. By the time it starts to die down, Diana runs through the front door and knees Frederick in the chest, throwing him backward. She pulls her gun from the back of her trousers and throws it back towards Alaric who catches it and joins her. Diana raises her bow. Three vampires appear and Diana takes a breath.

"Go, I got this" She assures him as she fires another arrow, and quickly loads another. Alaric nods and heads through to the kitchen, the gun raised in front of him.

...............

In the kitchen, another vampire attempts to attack Alaric with a stake. Alaric fires the gun, hitting him in the chest with a wooden bullet, killing him. An older woman stands at the back of the kitchen looking confused. She is obviously the human. Covered in bite marks. Their feed bag.

"What's happening?" Miss Gibbons asks Alaric.

"I'm really sorry. But you're gonna need to invite a friend of mine inside." Alaric opens the backdoor and Damon is standing outside.

"Oh, I'm sorry. He's not allowed in the house." Miss Gibbons tells Alaric.

Alaric: I know that. But you've gotta make an exception."