Sunlight spilled through the gaps in the curtains beside the hospital bed, a harsh glare that caused Tyler's eyes to briefly flutter open.
His back ached from sleeping on a chair. He grunted, twisting in the chair to work out the stiffness that gripped his back.
The private room's door was closed. Mike was sitting at the foot of the hospital bed, looking down at his own feet.
A taped cotton pad covered Mike's neck, showing two small points of dried blood where the skin had been broken. Mike realized Tyler was up and said, "That fucker is a vampire, Tyler, I am sure of it. I could feel my blood getting sucked out. It felt fucking disgusting."
Tyler groaned. "Even if it's true, you should think about what you planned if that guy decided to finish the job."
"We kill it," Mike said.
Tyler looked dumbfounded. Kill it? He wished he had Mike's enthusiasm. Unfortunately, that guy wasn't easy to kill. "How, you genius?"
"I don't know."
Silence settled over the room. Tyler said, "I contacted your mom and told her you'll be sleeping at my house. Are you thirsty?"
He picked up the water bottle, handed it to Mike, and watched him drink.
He had placed vervain in the water before Mike woke. Dealing with this new threat was going to be troublesome.
Meanwhile, he messaged his dad, letting him know he was up and heading straight to school.
After a moment, they left for school.
...
Not much happened after the attack at the party. That was expected, as the Salvatores knew about the Council's existence. Meanwhile, Damon must have focused on annoying his brother, since Stefan had worn a sullen face all week and refused to join the football team.
Another troubling issue surfaced: he saw Anna.
She must have turned people, judging by the bartender Ben. Tyler had forgotten about him until he sensed the change in the man's energy while hanging out with Caroline, Elena, Stefan, and Bonnie at the Mystic Grill.
Yesterday, he received a call from Sheila. She wanted to meet him, having agreed to help him and, in the process, help her family.
It looked like Bonnie was involved too. She kept trying to corner him and ask questions, but he always made sure Caroline was around, denying Bonnie the chance.
Now he was outside the Bennett property again. He knocked on the door, patiently waiting.
The door unlocked and opened to reveal Sheila. This time she didn't test him. "Come in."
Tyler nodded and went to the same couch where he had sat last time. At the low table in front of him lay a thick, leather-bound notebook. His eyebrows rose, instantly drawn to the object. Sheila sat opposite him, smiling slightly as she watched him observe it. She had a hint of a proud smile as she said, "Take it."
Tyler took a good look at her. It must be her research on his request.
He excitedly opened the first page. The thick pages contained a summary of Sheila's research into werewolves and vampires, though the focus was clearly on the wolf curse.
It explained the differences, the commonality between the races, and also explained the nature of the werewolves.
The most detailed section concerned the nature of the full moon and its triggering effects. Werewolves all had the power within, which only surfaced during the full moon. So the moon itself didn't give any power. It was simply a scheduled trigger for transformation.
The second page discussed potential ways to remove this shackle, primarily by granting control back to the werewolf. It would require both magic and the werewolf's will. It would take a few years at least.
The third page detailed how to spread the influence of the full moon's trigger to every night—a process that would essentially improve the curse.
Unlike the previous page this had a ritual where the werewolf would gain more control over their transformation each night as they forcefully transform, only needing a few months before it's ingrained into their bones.
For this ritual, he would need to achieve full consciousness while in wolf form. And Sheila would need the power of the full moon itself to succeed. But he was nowhere near enough to get such control so there was a note where she would transform him to get the related experience.
Both paths led to the same conclusion: control. The first option, however, remained theoretical, lacking any formal ritual, and was never a true possibility for him.
And he liked the second option more anyway. Repeated transformation of each night would make him embrace the wolf in matter of days rather than months to years. Thirty days were too long of a distance each time to adapt.
While he read, he noticed Sheila bringing a cup of tea for each of them, and she sipped hers.
He took a sip as well, the hot black tea sharpening his focus as he turned to the fourth page.
That's where it got interesting. It involved changing the nature of the werewolf venom. For vampires, it would act the same, but on humans, it would act like a vampire turning others. Instead, they would receive a duplication of his werewolf curse. Sheila named it the 'werewolf gene.'
This meant they would receive his thousands of years of evolution in an instant. After all, werewolves weren't like this at first. They only reached their current stage by marrying different packs and going through unification rituals.
Unfortunately, Sheila lacked the power to instantly transfer the full curse through his bite. She could only integrate a drop of the werewolf gene into the recipient. They would have to let full moon slowly trigger it and transform them fully. Thankfully, they would inherit his werewolf evolution including the curse, letting it spread each night instead of every full moon.
So she had already decided he would need to go through the ritual. It was cruel, yet expected. After all, she couldn't even remove the tomb restriction without dying; how could she remove the full moon curse?
Maybe if she knew how to make a Moonlight Ring, but again, that would mean he couldn't transform a new werewolf even if his bite could transfer his gene. They would need continuous, forceful wolf transformation to spread the gene throughout their existence before they could even turn into their wolf form.
After turning the fourth page, there was nothing on the fifth.
Sheila put down her cup of tea and asked, "What do you think?"
Tyler looked at her, searching for any hidden safeguard or ulterior motive. He found none. Her lack of ill intention made him doubtful—maybe he had thought too harshly of her. "Are you sure you can do this?" he asked. "Don't die on me by overwhelming yourself."
Sheila laughed, her hand gripping her knees. She shook her head. "You should be the one who should worry. From tonight onward, I need to transform you each night, preparing you for the full moon when we will perform the ritual. However, for the venom modification, I need your venom and vampire blood to prepare. That ritual doesn't exist yet and I might need a lot of vampire blood."
Tyler understood. She probably didn't need those 26 vampires, just the supply of vampire blood and his venom.
Tyler asked after some thought. "Are you good with syringes?"
…
Half an hour later, they went to the Lockwood cellar.
After opening the gates, Sheila took a good look and also noticed the bottle of water mixed with a wolfsbane leaf.
She asked, "Do you drink it before transforming?"
Tyler deliberately avoided looking at the wolfsbane. He had avoided drinking it that day with the excuse of needing a clear mind for his meeting with a powerful witch, but he knew deep down it was to avoid it even if for a day. That thing was no joke. "No. I'm trying to see if I would get some form of resistance."
Sheila shook her head. "That's not like vervain where you are cursed. Wolfsbane itself also has toxic substances to humans. You should be careful with that. Your supernatural healing might not expel some of it and it would be troublesome when you reach my age."
Tyler didn't care about aging. His focus remained on the next dozen years. After that, Legacies would start with monsters and gods. By then he would have gone through many more modifications. No way he would go through all this and then get beaten like a dog by the next powerful being that will come.
Tyler's gaze reached the window on the ceiling. He opened the camera to record. The ritual might be useful at some point. "The moon is visible."
Sheila looked at the inner bars where he would transform. "Are you sure that would hold you? I don't want to kill you if you escape."
Tyler's spine tingled at her words. "Last time the wolf tried for a few minutes and gave up."
Sheila looked serious. "You should hope it would be the same today. Get in there."
Sheila realized transforming him was actually not that hard. The bone structure was the telltale sign of the wolf. By stimulating the same initial transformations, the ancient curse would take over and do the rest. As for how to spread its influence from the full moon to every night? That would need to be done during the full moon while he is in the wolf form, transformed by the full moon itself. By then he must be able to have full consciousness in wolf form to accept the curse changes because if the wolf resists, she wouldn't be able to force such an ancient curse to change. She could only do this because it wasn't making it any better for the person. It would problably kill her ten times over if she tried to change it in another way. Even those vampires wouldn't be enough.
Tyler's thoughts stilled as he gripped the rails. A full moon transformation was forceful yet natural. Sheila forcefully transforming him wasn't trouble for her, but for him, it would take hours of pain.
After locking it up, he set the timer to ten hours.
The air shimmered as the whole room shook with the rails at the center. It didn't move an inch.
Tyler wished he had magic seeing this. If it was focused on him, it would've shattered his bones. It unnerved him as Sheila asked, "Are you ready? I won't stop once I start."
Tyler's breath evened out as he focused. He nodded and put his hands forward. "Start from here."
He waited for a second before Sheila raised her fingers, and a force took control of his hands and with a pull, his entire hand structure elongated. The pain came after that, making his knee buckle, but he didn't let his hands touch the ground.
With another movement, his wrists to shoulders changed their structure, and his nerves deformed and reformed around the new structure, the pain signals firing one after the other.
His screams spilled into the room as his vision blurred. A shocking, intrusive force entered his fingers, stretching and shaping them into bone-crushing wolf claws, with rough black hairs sprouting around the location.
Seeing the success, his eyes gleamed with manic relief. He wanted to laugh, to scream 'it worked,' but the euphoria was ripped away. His wrists deformed again, turning his entire hands into fully formed wolf paws, the skin rupturing as his claws elongated to their final shape.
He could feel his heart racing, not from pain, but from the curse that's taking control of his transformation. The next jolt came from his neck, but this time it was the curse from an unknown source that snapped it a tiny bit to angle upward, his neck sprouting the next batch of wolf hairs.
His throat spasmed, wanting to scream, but no voice came out due to the impossible angle of his neck. His eyes widened in despair. He couldn't breathe.
Thankfully, Sheila triggered his spine to allow the flow of breath, making him hunch forward, getting on his front paws.
His hands had already formed. Now, he had to deal with the full transformation.
His mind was clearer than the full moon. Pain made his mind sink or float at times but the irritation was hell of a lot easier. His eyes gleamed, and his fangs sprouted.
Sheila sent a sponge, "Here bite this."
Tyler did, and felt a liquid move through his fangs and spill over.
With a shake of his head, he threw it over, and he buckled as he screamed.
It was due to the same shift of the bone over his ass. Fuck.
This bone will be the death of me.