We drive back to the center of town and go to a small restaurant called the "Mystic Grill". No four star restaurants here like Isolde prefers, but she's flexible. She's drinking a glass of red wine, and looking at her little computer that she takes on trips. Fortunately there must be Wi-Fi here, because she's on the internet.
Tristan slides in next to her and kisses her. "Find anything, cherie?"
She shakes her head, "No, no 'original vampires' or any nonsense like that. Weren't these vampires from Bulgaria, or somewhere in the Balkans? They quit being civilized when the Roman Empire dissolved. If they were villagers they wouldn't have known much about the greater world at large, even the priest wouldn't have been very educated, except for the church's teachings."
"I've looked up werewolves and nowhere can I find any reference to a werewolf's bite killing a vampire. Since no one really believes in these things, maybe it's true and we don't know it. I know I didn't believe in vampires." She looked up and saw people staring at her. "This is a very strange little town," she said under her breath.
We all ordered dinner for appearance's sake. I still crave solid food sometimes, even though I don't need it. When Isolde sits down and eats, sometimes I eat too. We usually open a couple of bottles of red wine and Claude and Fabi will join us. We laugh and joke and talk and if an outsider were to see us, he wouldn't know anything was out of the ordinary. That's the kind of front we're trying to present now.
The hotel isn't much, but it's comfortable and clean. Tristan and Isolde have their own room away from us. Claude, Fabi, and I hang out in the room for a while, then decide to go to the Mystic Grill to play pool.
We get there and see Damon and Elena. He motions us over like he wants something. We look at each other and Fabi shrugs and we go over there. I remind myself that Elena is off limits. We don't want trouble and for some reason, this is feeling important.
They're both good at playing pool, but I'm no slouch myself. Damon wins the game, and I'm up. He lets me rack, trying to be nice, I'm sure he figures he'll beat me.
"So when are you leaving?" It seems a harmless question, but I bet this guy doesn't do anything without reason.
While I busy myself with clearing the table, Fabi takes over. "We're leaving tomorrow, we'll probably take about three days to get there. We're staying at the Hilton until we decide how long we'll stay. We don't exactly have letters of introduction, so we don't know how long it will take to find him." We all know what "him" means.
"We've spent time in New Orleans, we know the city fairly well. I'm sure many of the old haunts are still there, we just want to be careful. Claude and Stephen will need to be careful, but they will be looked after. If he hears about us, he may seek us out, saving us the trouble. Once we make contact, we'll decide what to do from there."
Damon put his pool cue away, and Claude, who is almost as good as me at pool, takes over. We let Fabi and Damon talk, it's our job to listen and watch. I can see Elena's interest in her eyes. I bet she wants to go, too. She's interested, skeptical, and a little scared.
I asked her if she'd like to go outside with me while I have a cigarette—a habit I've picked up from the others. It's not like it's going to kill me now. Damon starts to object, but Fabi's chocolate eyes—so like Elena's—lock with his, and he shrugs.
I get my jacket and help her on with hers. She wants to go, I can tell. I hope I can get her to tell me why.
I light the cigarette that I bummed from Fabi, take a few hits, then put it out in disgust. Elena finds this very funny and ask me why I wanted to smoke in the first place and I explain to her that Fabi's cigarette tastes really bad. She then takes a pack of Marlboros out of pocket and offers me one.
I light mine, then hers and ask her why do you want to come? She looks at me for a moment, and I see tears welling in her eyes.
"Klaus killed my Aunt Jenna, and me. No one's strong enough around here to do anything about it, but it sounds like Tristan can. Klaus has threatened me, he's threatened my brother. He turned Stefan into a monster, for a while at least. I want to help you, I want him brought down. Does that sound like a good enough reason?" Her beautiful eyes plead with me, and my heart breaks at the sight of her. I want to kiss her, but don't want to cross her boyfriend Damon, he's more than I can handle and I know it.
"I don't think anyone could say it's not." I want to hold her hand, hug her, something, but she's off limits.
I suddenly feel very clever because I have an idea. "Why don't you come with us, Elena? Stefan is coming." I see her react to this, maybe she still cares for him. I push on. "You'd be very safe. This Klaus guy, whoever he is, is going to be no match for Tristan and Fabi. I doubt he's ever seen a vampire as old as Tristan. He thinks all vampires are vulnerable to werewolf bites, but he doesn't know that Tristan and Fabi can take him out in a heartbeat, no matter how many times he bite them. They're immune, and if he hurts you or me or Claude or Stefan, Tristan can force the blood out of him to cure us. You'd like to get even with Klaus, wouldn't you?"
Bingo, I've got her, I can tell. My biggest fear is that that jerk Damon is going to come along to keep an eye on her, ruining whatever chance I might have. She lays a slender hand on my cheek and kisses it, then goes back in to the grill. That's as far as I'm probably going to get with her, but it was better than nothing at all.
In the morning all three of them are waiting for us. Damon and Stefan both know where Klaus is, so Stefan will ride with us. I'm disappointed, but it's not unexpected. There's not enough room for all of us in the Rover, and if he wants to make a quick retreat, Damon has his car.
The only reason he's coming is because of Elena. If I were him, I'd do the same thing. He's driving a blue Chevy Camaro SS and I'd give my eyeteeth to own one just like it. I may ask Tristan for one of those instead of the Corvette I asked for, but nah, I'll stick with the 'Vet.
Tristan gets direction, draws a map, and we're off. It's a beautiful time of year, a beautiful spring day, perfect for a road trip. Isolde starts to make small talk with Stefan and soon she's drawing him out. Either he thinks this is perfectly normal, or he's impressed with Isolde's nonchalance at his being a vampire. Soon he is laughing and talking with the rest of us, as if we weren't the craziest group of vampires he's ever seen.
We reach the outskirts of a small town and it takes a few minutes for him to figure out why. It's obvious that the thought of hunting is making him anxious. We're not sure why, but we intend to find out. We don't drink out of blood bags, we're hunters. We don't ignore our vampire natures or urges.
"Okay boys, out of the car, you too, Stefan." Tristan has taken over. He's going to take care of whatever is bothering Stefan. He's a good guide, a good counselor. He has taught all of us how to be a vampire, how to deal with our natures. We were watched over from the time he created us, never leaving us on our own. It's been a year and he still nurse maids me, but I don't mind. Tristan has helped me transition, making me feel at ease, encouraging and comforting me when I was scared and unsure. He's a really good guy.
He puts his arm around Stefan's shoulders and they talk. Then I see him put his hands on either side of his head and begin to talk softly to him. I purposely don't listen to what he's telling him, but I see Stefan's shoulders slump and his posture soften. He claps him on his back and says something encouraging, and by the time they join us, Stefan's fear is gone.
The sun has gone down, and the moon is dark. Perfect. We are outside a small town and it is almost criminal the way we snatch people and feed. Tristan and Fabi feed much less than we do, but Stefan, Claude and I are greedy. Tristan gives his catch to Stefan, watching to make sure he doesn't take any more blood than he needs, and the victim is left alive. I know what will come next, Tristan and Fabi hypnotize their victims and erase their memories. Vampires with a heart, I guess you could call them, but neither really like killing. I guess the Roman Army cured that.
Stefan is looking much more relaxed, and I ask Claude what happened.
"Stefan is a ripper," Claude explained.
"What's that?"
"The kind of vampire Tristan has taught us not to be. Rippers are really fucked up, some can help it because they made themselves that way. Maybe it wasn't their choice, I guess trauma can trigger it. Every vampire has the potential to be a ripper, but most suppress those urges if they feel them. Stefan is a good guy." I nod in agreement, Stefan does seem to be a good guy. "But something happened to him and the Ripper took over. I take it Klaus was responsible for the last episode."
"Has Tristan cured him?" I'm hoping the answer is yes, but Claude shook his head.
"Tristan can teach him how to control himself, but it's up to Stefan to make the choice of what he wants to be. Look, Tristan has found Isolde a restaurant. I don't want to talk about Rippers right now, we've got plenty of evil to deal with when we get to New Orleans.
We were back on road early the next morning. We fed at Dawn while it was still dark, and Elena gave up any pretense of wanting to drink from the blood bags. I felt sort of bad, like we'd been a bad influence, but we didn't make up her mind for her. For me, I feel a kind of freedom in hunting that's hard to describe. Claude would only use bagged blood if there were no other choice and he needed to feed. Tristan and Fabi would just wait for the opportune moment, they weren't like us, so much time had passed that they fed only when they wanted to, not out of need.
I watched Elena stalk a teenage boy she had seen at a gas station. He'd looked at her, and she smiled, flirtatious. He started following her and she led him further and further away from us, into a small copse where the leaves on the trees still looked black in the dim light. A few minutes later she'd returned, wiping her mouth.
"What?" She looked kind of irritated at Damon's look of disapproval. Maybe she loved him, maybe not. She seemed too young and pretty for someone jaded like him. He was possessive, not liking to let her out of his sight, and now that she was with us she seemed to be rebelling. "Stop suffocating me," I heard her say to him as she stalked off.
We were making good time, in spite of our stops, and weren't far from New Orleans, now. We were gathering in Tristan and Isolde's room at night, Tristan asking questions about Klaus and his family. Stefan, Damon, and Elena could share what they'd learned from personal experience, but Tristan wasn't satisfied.
"We can't proceed without knowing what we're dealing with. We know about him, he doesn't know about us. The biggest risk is to you children—compared to Tristan and Fabi we were children, but Damon clearly didn't like being told he was a child.
"I can send Fabi in there, but what Klaus must have his numbers now. I'm not going to send Fabi in to be killed. The three of you," by this he meant, Stefan, Damon, and Elena, know him. Elena, I won't send you, but Stefan or Damon, one of you is going to have to pay him a visit before I introduce him to my brothers. And at all costs, we must find a safe place for Isolde. I was going to rent a hotel room in the Quarter, but I'm thinking about renting a house in the Garden District."
"There's other vampires in New Orleans besides Klaus and company. It shouldn't take long to find the vampire bars. I've learned that gossip can be a very useful tool. Someone is bound to know about them, someone who likes to talk. All we have to do is find him or her. I haven't been here in almost a hundred years, but I used to have a few friends who might still be around."
"We arrive in New Orleans tomorrow. I suggest you talk among yourselves and plan your strategy. For myself, I'd like to take this Klaus down, it sounds like he's doing too much damage, and I like for people to be able to live their lives without worrying about vampires, like a poorly written Bram Stoker novel. I've spent centuries living under the wire, and I don't want to have my peaceful kingdom disturbed. Good night, and we will see you in the morning. Now's the time to shares ideas amongst yourselves if you have any, and if you don't, figure out what you can do to get some."
