A/N- Meanwhile back in New Orleans.


A scream rent the night air, before getting lost in the moss covered trees and swamp water. Diego sighed, rolling his eyes as the werewolf sprinted across the forest floor and bore down on the witch, ripping her throat clean open and baring her teeth with pleasure at the sight of her spilling blood.

It had been this way for two months now, ever since had Marcel gone insane and died.

Klaus was King of New Orleans now and so far things had been going pretty well.

Provided you were a vampire.

The witches were steadily being chased out of the city, for some reason Klaus had offered a daylight ring to any vampire who brought him the head of half a dozen practising witches.

Five new daylight rings later and there was barely even a new age priestess or tarot reader to be seen in the old town.

He wasn't completely heartless however, any witch under the age of eighteen was to be brought to him alive, but Diego knew for a fact that he wasn't being merciful with them either. Covens and siblings were split up and flown the world over, to countries where they didn't speak the language and fostered with vampires who would keep a strict eye on them for Niklaus. They were forbidden to practise any magic or study it in any way.

Not that Diego disagreed with this method, in fact it seemed rather smart to him. Marcel had been content to stick a band-aid over a festering wound, the Original hybrid had cauterised the wound, amputated the limb and ensured New Orleans would be safe from witchcraft for a minimum two generations of witches.

He just wished he was as tough towards werewolves.

His second-in-command or his paramour whichever she was, Hayley was a werewolf who had free run of the Quarter and had been instrumental in the execution of the witches. Once a month Diego and a few others had to scour the Bayou the day after the full moon and throw stray body parts to the gators and burn down any hideouts the covens had retreated to.

She had even less mercy than Klaus.

The witch before him barely looked eighteen and was sobbing for mercy as she choked on her own blood. The wolf barked and raised her head to howl at the full moon, Diego ignored the theatrics and approached the corpse; Hayley growled and gnashed her teeth as he got too close to her.

"Chill" he held up his phone, waving it in his hand,

"Klaus wants a photo of every dead witch remember?"

The wolf huffed and pointedly turned her back on him, following a scent through the bushes. He snapped a picture and then wondered if he could drink the remaining blood, his eyes were dark with hunger but the last witch he'd drunk from had vervain in her system. It had burnt his lips clean off.
Hayley reappeared at his side with a huff; he looked at her and saw the finality in her yellow eyes,

"That was the last one huh?"

She nodded and loped off back in the direction of the car. He rolled his shoulders as he stood up glad his latest stint as pet sitter was over, perhaps tonight when he dropped her back home he'd have the balls to ask Klaus to be rotated off this duty.

He kept an eye on her as he drove back to the city, heard her whimper just as the sun came up and she started transforming back into human form.
Diego might hate werewolves but damn he felt sorry for her when her bones were cracking and snapping back into place. He pulled into Conti street just as Hayley was slipping a maxi dress over her head,

"God I'm exhausted" she yawned as she climbed out of the backseat, onto the street where Klaus was looking down at them from the second-floor wrap around veranda. They met at the foot of the stairs, Hayley pushing past him and stopping only long enough for them to whisper a few words to one another.

Diego shifted on his feet and Klaus turned his attention to him, he smelled of smoke, bourbon and the general scent of a night spent in bars. He expected that he would receive a curt nod and be dismissed but surprisingly the new King of New Orleans invited him up to his veranda where he had a drink cart set up. While his back was turned Diego took the chance to peek through the sheer curtains into the house that only Klaus' most trusted friends were allowed into.

The mansion was clean and warm with big open spaces and antique furniture blended with modern equipment. Klaus poured them both a drink and inquired about the night's events as they looked out over the skyline, watching the world lighten as the sun rose. Diego debriefed and then found himself with the courage to beg off wolf sitting duty next month, he froze wondering if he was in trouble but Klaus just smirked,

"My brother will be back by the end of the week and the way the witches are dropping, Hayley shan't be needing backup the next time she turns"

Good because Diego had seen firsthand what a werewolf bite did to a vampire.

He thanks him and takes the chance to leave, determined to get some rest before the afternoon. He knew there was an end of season extravaganza tomorrow which meant tourists converging on the Quarter and every vampire gorging themselves stupid on blood. Klaus would be front and centre to ensure that there wasn't a complete massacre and to enjoy his newfound power.

If Marcel was still alive and King he would have been on one of the parade floats, waving to the crowd. Diego reckoned that the Original Hybrid would find a bar with a street view and watch the events quietly while supernaturals came to pay homage.

Diego didn't really know Klaus. It was hard to, the man didn't let anyone in and it didn't help that he was legendary. Millennia old and immortal.

Scary as hell but the right guy to serve, after all- who'd be stupid enough to take on the Original Hybrid?


Skye Walters hated the Salvatore Boarding House.

Everything was too antique, too grand, all dark colours and harsh masculine lines, all musty books and top price technology. The feng-shui was blocked by the arrangement of the furniture. The entire house jarred her juju.

The vampire standing in the corner openly drinking blood didn't help either.

She sighs and looks up from the grimoire, "Can I help you?" she asks, his penetrating gaze having bugged her for twenty minutes now,

"You could get out of my house" he suggested, taking a noisy slurp of blood just as his girlfriend enters the room,

"Damon stop being mean" she scolds in the understatement of Skye's very long week. She smacks him on the shoulder but then turns around so that he can wrap his arms around her,

"Can I get you anything?" she offers sweetly, "I'm about to drive into town, I could grab you some coffee"

The girl is a sweetie but really Skye doesn't think she's the sharpest tool in the shed, especially since she's been here a week and mentioned numerous times that she only drinks organic decaffeinated dandelion tea, something that is entirely unavailable in Mystic Falls and none of the vampires or numerous supernaturals were willing to make a two hour drive for.

So Skye shakes her head and once again tries not to stare at the woman identical to the body lying upstairs.

She'd seen identical twins before and she'd read of doppelgangers in the guides her coven had, but to see them in the flesh was disconcerting. Although it did help that they were dressed and styled differently and that one of them was a vampire.

Ironically the vampire had the purer aura and the human had the darker one.

The vampire couple leave the house just as another vampire enters it.

Caroline is blonde, bubbly and her aura fizzles with energy, she plops onto the sofa chatting away in a friendly manner whilst checking her phone and lifting a heavy pile of books onto the coffee table. Skye tunes her out while she flicks through another page of a poorly written grimoire. Honestly witches needed to be taught basic coherent handwriting before they were taught resurrection spells. Perhaps then she wouldn't be trying to figure out if she'd screwed up with Katherine Pierce.

She'd never brought a human back to life before but truthfully, the deal had been too good to pass up.

Skye wasn't a natural witch; she hadn't been born with magic she'd had to study hard for years to achieve the skill she had now and in the world of Nature and Balance, the born witches snubbed those who had to learn the art from scratch. She was part of a lower tier coven in San Francisco, one that had never encountered vampires or werewolves and had been used to begging for pages from ruined grimoires to practise spells.

Abbey Bennett had never even given her the time of day until she had rung to call in a supposed favour. Not that anyone in her coven owed Abbey Bennett anything.

Even in San Francisco they'd heard about the witch lost to Expression and the destruction of the Bennett line, if Abbey couldn't keep her own daughter from the deep end and had cost twelve witches their lives then no coven in the country wanted anything to do with her.

However, that had been before Skye had heard the offer coming with the job.

Two of the Bennett grimoires and the blood of a doppelganger.

In the end Skye had been the only one brave enough to set foot in Mystic Falls a national no-go zone for any sane witch or warlock and to attempt the spell that would bring Katherine Pierce back to life.

And judging by the violent intake of air she heard upstairs she had been successful.