Chapter 19

Elijah brought his eyes back to the shooter, who was recovering from the sight of the nude Katherine and was about to charge from the doorway. Elijah grabbed him by the arm and jerked him off balance, so that he slumped against the doorframe. "You are not going anywhere. Why are you doing this. Answer me!"

The man swore at him and tried to pull free. "This is a place of the devil! All of you are evil monsters!"

"I am a normal human being."

"That doesn't matter. This whole place is a nest of vipers, a nest that needs to be cleaned out!"

"I see. You are bleeding badly. One of the vampires that live here could save your life with their blood," Elijah said, knowing a big artery in the man's shoulder was cut.

"Never! I'd rather die than have that poison in my body."

"I hear the ambulances," Elijah told him. "Perhaps the medics can save your life. But tell me, why now? Why have you attacked today?"

The man snarled and gave his reason. He was the brother of the man Elijah had killed the day before, and the uncle of the boy who had killed himself.

"Me and Ralph intended to clean out this snake pit."

"With one handgun?"

"I have plenty of ammo. And Ralph has an AK," the man gasped, slumping further down in the doorway. The front of his shirt was soaked with blood.

It was then that Elijah realized that the shooting he had heard had come from more than one gun. There was someone else in the building, acting to kill students. But, in fact, there was no further sound of gunfire. Had the other man been captured or killed? What students had been injured or killed?

Down in the lobby, new voices could be heard. One of them belonged to Sheriff Matt Donovan.

"Donovan, up here," Elijah called down. "I have one of the gunmen." He noticed that Katherine was not in sight.

The sheriff came bounding up the stairs, his weapon in his hand. "Elijah. I should have known you'd be in the midst of this." He saw the gun on the hall floor and he saw the bloodied shooter, pale and shaking, sinking down to the floor in the doorway. "How badly are you wounded?"

"Only slightly. Nothing serious. But this man is bleeding to death. Knife wound to the upper chest."

"That knife?" Donovan asked, seeing the one in Elijah's hand.

"Yes. And that is his gun."

The sheriff called for the paramedics to come upstairs and take care of the wounded man, whom he handcuffed, just in case. Downstairs, deputies and other people were hurrying around, looking for the wounded and the other shooter. As it turned out, the other man had been shot by Salzmann, who had been armed even as he lectured to a class. It was a minor wound, but the man was incapacitated. As with the day before, there were wounded students, but so far, no deaths.

Elijah was briefly checked by a paramedic, but his wound was very superficial. Most of the blood on his clothing was from the shooter. Going downstairs, he was relieved to see that Gayle had not been hurt.

"I don't know if I can take this," she admitted, her hands shaking, her face pale. She eyed the blood on his clothes and looked as if she would faint.

"This situation is unusual, Gayle. Really. It all had to do with the boy who took his own life. To say his family is upset is an understatement." He hesitantly put an arm around the woman's shoulders, while trying not to get blood on her. "Here, sit down." She sat in a chair near the receptionist's desk. He glanced up the stairs, wondering where Katherine was. Probably back in his room. She still needed clothes other than the bathrobe.

Mrs. Flowers came along the hall using her cane. She took Gayle away, back to the private apartment. Elijah had to talk to Donovan and other officers before he went up to the second floor and to his room, where he looked for Katherine. She wasn't there. Had she walked away or had she been taken away by the power behind all this coming and going?

There was a full-length mirror on the back of one of the doors and he looked at himself. The shirt he had put on not so long ago had blood on it, some his, but most that of the shooter. The blood had run down onto the jeans. He needed fresh clothes again. Would Alaric lend him some more?

He took off the shirt and looked at the wound. It was just in the skin of the left side of his chest. He now had wounds on both sides of his body, but at this point, none were serious, although they didn't feel good. Assuming he still had a bit of Hope's vampire blood in his body, he would heal quickly. He took the shirt into the bathroom and let it soak in water in the bathroom sink. He made no move to seek out Alaric again to ask for another shirt. As for the jeans, there was not much blood on the side of them, so he decided to ignore it.

Two hours passed before things really quieted down and the law officers were gone. Elijah found out that the second gunman had become strangely incapable of talking or moving around without help. There was no question that one of the witch students had used his or her power to incapacitate the man. He was unlikely to ever be normal again. No student admitted to being the cause and none of them was arrested. No evidence pointed to any one of them. Elijah wondered if the person manipulating him, was in some way responsible for that man's situation instead of one of the students. Among the students wounded, none died.

Hope arrived at the door to Elijah's room. She carried another set of clothes for her uncle.

"Mr. Salzmann says try not to ruin these. He doesn't have an unlimited amount of clothing," she said with a grin. "By the way, you look really cool in blue jeans. I so seldom have seen you wear them."

"Once in a while, depending on what I am doing," Elijah admitted. "I've always been very comfortable in my suits. And I had plenty of them." They had been custom-made and expensive. He suddenly wondered what he would be wearing if and when he went back to the "other side."

He and Hope talked for a few minutes and then she left. He changed clothes and left his room, going downstairs to see how Gayle was faring. He found that she was much calmer now that time had passed and the blood had been cleaned up. The school was quiet except for the hushed chatter of the teenagers. Except that three of them had been wounded, they were not seriously upset.

Elijah intended to talk to Gayle for a few minutes, but Salzmann came along and asked him to go with him to his office. When the two of them arrived there, they found the man's two daughters already there. To his surprise, they told him that they had been working on his problem. He sat in one of the chairs and faced them.

"We haven't invited Hope to this discussion because we feel she is too close," the girl called Jo told him. "Her very closeness has influenced you."

"How?"

"We have come to a conclusion," her non-identical twin said.

"And?" What did Hope have to do with this?

"You're dreaming," Jo said evenly. "And you're worried about Hope."

"That is ridiculous! Of course I worry about Hope, but I am not dreaming any of this! People have died!" The idea that these girls were saying that none of this was real angered him.

"Elijah, my daughters have spent hours using their powers to try to find out what is going on," Alaric said from his seat at his desk.

"If none of this is real, then why would they spend hours trying to come up with answers?"

"You have dragged us into your dream," the girls said almost simultaneously.

"No. You are wrong. This is too complicated to be the product of my imagination," Elijah insisted. "Someone else is manipulating us. All of us!"

"Maybe, but we believe no one has died, except the student who killed himself recently," Alaric said calmly. "His parents understood that he was very depressed."

"How would I have known that?" Elijah argued. "Why would I have them come to shoot up this place?"

"Those are Hope's fears and you have come to think they are real. That's why we said Hope is too close to this," Jo said. "Her fears reached you on the 'other side.' All this is a dream as you try to handle it."

Elijah shook his head. "I do not believe you. There are too many people involved. Too many people I do not even know."

"But Hope does," Alaric said. "For instance, she knew, as do all the students, that Gayle Hunter was coming here to teach, that she was flying into Charlottesville, renting a car and driving here. Hope wondered if she would have a problem finding her way. She also admitted to us that she worried if Gayle would be able to handle some of the things that happen here, considering that all the students have emotional concerns due to their special, individual supernatural problems."

"And all of us are aware of the school shootings elsewhere," one of the girls said. "All of us are a little worried, even is we don't show it."

Elijah stood up from the chair. "I have to give this much thought. Something is not right about your theory." Without a further word he walked from the room. As he walked down the hallway, he noticed that no one looked at him. Why? Was he now invisible? It occurred to him that he should go to the hospital and try to find Elena. She would be honest with him. So would Damon Salvatore. What about Matt Donovan? And where was Katherine?

He suddenly felt a wave of panic. What if the Salzmann girls were right? Then he didn't belong here at all!

"Elijah! Elijah, wake up! Open your damned eyes, brother!"

Elijah did open his eyes. He found himself lying on some hard surface and the face above him was that of Niklaus! His brother. His dead brother whom he had joined in death.

"What? Where?" he stammered, sitting up. His mind swirling with confusing thoughts and images.

"What do you mean?" Klaus asked. "You're right here. With me. You must have been having a hell of a dream. I had trouble waking you. Where did you go?"

The thoughts and images were fading fast and Elijah couldn't hold onto them. "Mystic Falls, I believe. I am quite sure I talked to Hope."

"Is she all right?"

"Yes. She is all right, Niklaus." He decided not to try to tell his brother what had happened, especially since it all now seemed remote. He also decided he must try not to worry about Hope. And it annoyed him that Alaric Salzmann's daughters had been right. A dream.

"Yes. She is all right, Niklaus." He decided not to try to tell his brother what had happened, especially since it all now seemed remote. He also decided he must try not to worry about Hope. And it annoyed him that Alaric Salzmann's daughters had been right. A dream.

"I do not know if I mentally actually went there or if it was a dream. A very complicated and seemingly-real dream. I wonder why this occurred."

"It was the tea," Klaus said. He helped his brother stand up and then held onto his arm.

"What tea?"

"Don't you remember that we ran into old Nero and he invited us to try various teas that he was mixing. The two I had were quite flavorful. You tried two or three, but one of them knocked you out. Nero and I discussed the tea ingredients and concluded that one of them was not good for us vampires. It wasn't vervain, but it had some similar properties. And it obviously caused an hallucinogenic trip for you."

"In part, not a good trip," Elijah said. He was relieved to learn the cause of his strange experience, although he was not totally convinced it was the only cause. It didn't matter now. He was back with his brother.

A/N I know saying it was all a dream is taking the easy way out, but I could see that the story could go on and on by repeating over and over. Also, I couldn't decide who was behind the manipulations, so I went with the tea. Thanks for reading, guys.