Chapter 32: The Device Heist
Midnight at the Gilbert lake house, and my Sensory clone was painting me a picture I really didn't want to see. John Gilbert inside with three armed guards, all of them wide awake and paranoid. The device hidden in a basement vault with a combination lock I had no hope of cracking.
"Motion sensors on the perimeter, backup generator for the alarm system, and at least two escape routes mapped out. He's taking this seriously."
I sat in my car a quarter-mile away, all four clones deployed around the property. This wasn't just theft—this was preventing mass murder. The Gilbert device would kill every vampire in Mystic Falls during Founder's Day, innocent and guilty alike. Pearl, Harper, even Stefan and Damon.
Not happening. Not on my watch.
My phone buzzed. Bonnie's text was short: "I'm ready. Grams' grimoire has what we need."
Bonnie Bennett had become something extraordinary in the weeks since her grandmother's death. Grief had crystallized her power, turned her from a scared teenager into a witch who could make ancestral spirits sit up and take notice. She'd agreed to help with the device heist after I'd explained what it would do.
"Some magic is meant to protect," she'd said. "And some magic needs to be stopped."
"Beginning infiltration," I murmured to myself, activating the mental link with my clones. "Shield, create the distraction on the north perimeter. Sensory, guide me through the blind spots. Mind Shield and Strength, you're with me."
Shield clone moved to the far side of the property and triggered the motion sensors. Alarms screamed into the night, and I watched through Sensory clone's enhanced vision as two guards rushed toward the false breach.
That left one guard inside with John Gilbert. Manageable odds.
Bonnie emerged from the treeline, her hands already glowing with soft purple light. The spell she'd learned from Sheila Bennett's grimoire was old magic, the kind that predated modern witchcraft by centuries.
"Invisibility won't last long," she whispered, touching my shoulder. The world shimmered, and suddenly I could see through my own hand. "Twenty minutes, maybe less."
Mind Shield clone became invisible beside me, the spell extending to include him. We moved toward the house while Strength clone circled to the back entrance.
Inside, the basement vault was exactly where Sensory clone had said it would be. A heavy steel door with an electronic combination lock that looked military-grade. John Gilbert wasn't taking any chances.
"Guard's upstairs, John's in the kitchen making coffee. Combination lock has six digits, and I can hear the mechanism when you turn the dial."
I placed my hand on the lock, letting Sensory clone's enhanced hearing guide me through the mental link. Click. The first tumbler fell. Click. The second.
It was painstaking work, requiring absolute silence and perfect coordination between my consciousness and my clone's supernatural senses. Minutes crawled by as I felt for each subtle click, each tiny vibration that indicated a correct number.
Six digits. John Gilbert's birthday? Too obvious. Elena's? Possible, but he barely knew his biological daughter.
"Third tumbler," Sensory clone reported. "Keep going. Guards are still focused on the false alarm."
Click. Fourth tumbler. I was sweating now, despite the cool basement air. If this took much longer, the invisibility spell would wear off and—
Click. Click. The lock disengaged with a heavy mechanical sound.
The vault was small, lined with weapons and documents that screamed "paranoid founding family member." But in the center, sitting in a foam-lined case like a holy relic, was the Gilbert device.
It looked disappointingly mundane. A black metal box covered in etched symbols, maybe the size of a hardcover book. No glowing lights, no ominous humming. Just a piece of supernatural technology designed to cause agonizing pain to every vampire within a mile radius.
I grabbed it and the case, my invisibility flickering as the spell began to fail. Time to go.
"Company upstairs," Sensory clone warned. "John's coming down to check on something."
Footsteps on the basement stairs. Heavy. Purposeful.
I pressed myself against the vault wall as John Gilbert appeared at the bottom of the stairs, flashlight in one hand, gun in the other. He swept the beam across the basement, and I held my breath as it passed inches from my face.
The invisibility spell chose that moment to fail completely.
"You," John said, gun snapping up to point at my chest. "I knew something like you would come eventually."
I raised my hands slowly, device case still clutched in my left. "Mr. Gilbert. We need to talk."
"About how you're stealing the one weapon we have against the monsters infesting our town?" His finger tightened on the trigger. "That makes you a traitor, boy."
"It makes me someone who won't stand by while you commit genocide." I kept my voice calm, even as Mind Shield clone moved to flank him. "This device doesn't discriminate between good vampires and evil ones. It would kill Stefan, who's saved Elena's life multiple times."
"There are no good vampires," John snarled. "They're all monsters wearing human faces."
"Like Isobel was?" The words came out harsher than I'd intended. "Your ex-wife who chose to become a vampire? Who died tonight because Katherine turned her into a weapon?"
Something flickered in his eyes. Pain, maybe. Or just rage.
"Isobel is dead?"
"Alaric killed her. Put her out of the misery Katherine created." I took a half-step forward. "How many more people have to die because of supernatural politics? How many more Isobels?"
"All of them," he said simply, and pulled the trigger.
Mind Shield clone's barrier erupted between us, the bullet sparking off supernatural energy. John's eyes went wide as the impossible became visible.
That's when Damon walked down the stairs like he owned the place.
"Johnny boy," he said conversationally, "you really need to work on your people skills."
John spun, firing twice at the vampire. Damon was already moving, inhuman speed carrying him across the basement in a blur. He disarmed John with casual efficiency, tossing the gun aside like a toy.
"Now then," Damon said, gripping John's head with both hands. "Let's have a little chat about selective memory."
Compulsion. John's eyes went glassy, pupils dilating as Damon's supernatural will invaded his mind.
"You'll forget the device was stolen. A gas leak explosion destroyed it, along with most of your weapons cache. Very tragic. You barely escaped with your life."
John nodded slowly, and Damon released him. The founding family extremist looked around the basement in confusion, seeing only empty shelves where his arsenal had been.
"What... what happened here?"
"Gas leak," Damon said helpfully. "Better get upstairs before the fumes kill you."
John stumbled toward the stairs, completely convinced that his basement had been destroyed by accident. The compulsion would hold for weeks, maybe months. Long enough for Founder's Day to pass safely.
"Backup plan?" I asked Damon as we climbed out of the basement.
"I don't do backup plans. I do contingencies." He grinned, all predatory charm. "Pearl mentioned you might need help tonight. Something about preventing a massacre."
The ancient vampire had kept her word. Our alliance was holding.
We met Bonnie at the old church ruins as dawn started to lighten the eastern sky. She looked exhausted but determined, grimoire open to a page covered in symbols that seemed to writhe when I wasn't looking directly at them.
"This is it?" She touched the device case. "This little box could have killed hundreds of vampires?"
"And werewolves. And probably any human with supernatural abilities." I set the case on the broken altar. "Your ancestors knew about this kind of magic?"
"The Bennetts have been stopping magical atrocities for centuries," Bonnie said quietly. "Grams told me stories about devices like this. Blood magic and pain, used to hunt our kind when we tried to protect people."
She opened the case, revealing the device's etched symbols more clearly. They seemed familiar, like something I'd seen in the show but couldn't quite place.
"Ancient binding magic," she continued, hands already beginning to glow. "Designed to cause suffering. But any spell can be unmade if you know how."
Power filled the air, making my hair stand on end. Bonnie's magic had grown exponentially since Sheila's death, fed by grief and determination. She was channeling not just her grandmother's knowledge but the collective power of every Bennett witch who'd ever lived.
The device began to vibrate in its foam housing. The etched symbols flared with harsh light, then began to fade as Bonnie's spell unraveled the centuries-old enchantment.
"I can feel them," she whispered, eyes closed in concentration. "The witches who made this. They were in pain, forced to create something that went against everything they believed."
The light grew brighter, and I had to shield my eyes. My clones formed a protective circle around us, watching for threats as Bonnie worked.
"I forgive you," she said to the long-dead witches. "Your pain ends now."
The device shattered. Not exploded—shattered like crystal, fragments dissolving into motes of light that danced in the dawn air before fading completely.
Bonnie collapsed to her knees, and I caught her before she could hit the stone floor.
"You did it," I said. "You just saved dozens of lives."
She smiled weakly. "Good. I'm tired of magic only being used to hurt people."
Pearl and Harper arrived as we were cleaning up the last fragments. The ancient vampire studied the empty case with something like relief.
"It's done?" she asked.
"Completely destroyed," Bonnie confirmed, accepting Harper's help to stand. "The spell matrix is unraveled. Even the memory of how to rebuild it is gone."
Pearl nodded slowly. "Then my people and I are in your debt, Miss Bennett. Again."
"We're even," Bonnie said firmly. "Your help with the tomb vampires saved lives too."
I watched the interaction with satisfaction. Alliances building, debts acknowledged, mutual respect developing between traditional enemies. This was how we survived the supernatural world—not through power alone, but through understanding.
[QUEST COMPLETED: DISABLE THE GILBERT DEVICE] [REWARD: +2,000 EXP GAINED] [MAJOR CANON DIVERGENCE ACHIEVED] [TOTAL EXP: 3,200/10,500 TO LEVEL 11]
The sun was fully up by the time we parted ways. Bonnie headed home to sleep off the magical exhaustion. Pearl and Harper melted back into whatever shadows ancient vampires used for daytime refuge. Damon disappeared with a casual wave and a promise to "try not to kill anyone today."
That left me sitting on the church steps, surrounded by my four clones and feeling the weight of what we'd accomplished.
No Gilbert device meant no Founder's Day massacre. No vampire genocide, no werewolf casualties, no accidental deaths from the indiscriminate supernatural weapon. Another major piece of canon successfully derailed.
But Klaus was still coming. Katherine was still scheming. The moonstone ritual still loomed on the horizon.
"One crisis at a time," I told myself, echoing something Sheila Bennett had once said. "Save who you can, when you can, and trust that it's enough."
My phone buzzed. Caroline again, because of course it was.
"Breakfast? Mom wants to thank you for whatever you did to help with her cancer. Also, you look tired and I'm making pancakes."
I smiled and typed back: "On my way. Fair warning: I smell like church dust and ancient magic."
"Sexy," came her immediate reply, followed by three heart emojis.
My clones exchanged amused glances as we walked back to the car.
"She really doesn't scare easily," Sensory clone observed.
"Good thing," I replied. "She's going to need that fearlessness for what's coming next."
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