I do not own TVD or TO.
This chapter didn't get crazy long, but I still split it in two because there was a natural stopping point in between. The next chapter should be up within the next twenty-four hours pending one last read through.
There is another chapter after that one (the epilogue), so two chapters left.
Outside the window rain fell, battering against the pavement, making the whole world slick. She had always found something magical in rainfall, especially when it was coupled with a light fog.
The small town of Mystic Falls was grey and dismal, and bleeding with the supernatural.
She tore her eyes from the window when she sensed the other chairs around the table being pulled out.
"Good morning or…" she gave a pointed look at her watch, "… should I say afternoon?" One eyebrow lifted in question.
"Sorry we're late," Rebekah draped her purse over the back of a chair. "We had to consult with Freya for a spell."
"That's a four vampire job?" Lexa's gaze slid from Rebekah and Marcel to Elena and Elijah. The youngest vampire flushed, her eyes sparkling with affection when she stole a glance at Elijah; he made no attempt to hide the way he was looking at her.
"Marcel and I were under the impression that you had company already," Rebekah cast her brother a curious glance, but quickly decided she didn't want to know how he had spent what she was sure was a lazy morning.
Elena's eyes dropped to the open folder in front of Lexa. A child's painting was on one side and a blank map on the other.
"No, I haven't had any luck," Lexa followed her eyes.
"What spell were you consulting Freya on?" Elijah turned his attention to his sister. He was still mildly surprised that she had elected to join them in Mystic Falls.
"One that might be needed," Rebekah turned her head enough to see the opening door, "depending on what our lunch companion has to say."
Elena looked beyond Rebekah's shoulders to where a blonde was closing an umbrella and dropping it in the stand; she shrugged out of her rain jacket and draped it over her arm on the path to the table.
"Hey Care," she greeted when her friend sat down. Her smile dropped when she read her best friend's expression. "Jumping right into it then?"
"I for one would love to know why we have been summoned to Mystic Falls," Elijah studied the headmistress, wondering if she had somehow heard from Niklaus.
Caroline crossed her arms over the table; her eyes flickered from Elijah to Rebekah.
"You niece went full on delinquent the other night –"
"Hardly a surprise given who her father is," Rebekah smirked.
Elena tried and failed to hide her giggle while Caroline glared.
"She's Klaus' kid. I was expecting her to be devious at some point in her school career," her forehead creased, "but the point isn't that she was breaking school rules by using magic after curfew. The point is the spell she used."
They paused for a moment when the waitress came over to take their orders. Lexa had thought they would need a little longer but it appeared everyone knew the menu like the back of their hands, and she had spent the last thirty minutes perusing it while stealing glances at her stationary spell.
"What spell did she use?" Elena leaned closer after the waitress left.
"Some sort of astral projection spell or spirit projection… I'm really sure," Caroline shrugged one shoulder. "Whatever she did she had to have an anchor on this plain – Landon helped her. She went looking for Klaus, but after the little snoop hid in my office and visited her mother first under the guise of invisibility she couldn't find him."
"She knows," Lexa breathed. She could practically feel the tension coiling around the table.
"I wish that was the least of your problems." Caroline sighed. She chewed her bottom lip and leaned back in her chair. She wasn't proud of how she had gotten all of the information she was about to divulge, but Hope had been asleep and not sure of everything she had heard; her emotions had made her omit details without thinking about it, so Caroline had dipped into the young witch's mind.
"Hayley has been trying to break through the gates for about a week now," she admitted, "ever since you left for Rebekah, but she was having no luck. That's primarily because the witch aiding her is expanding most of her energy on a spell to conceal the Hollow from being located via magic or technology."
"Then it might be time to call up Freya," Rebekah inhaled sharply. She had once considered Hayley a friend of sorts, but any sentimental feelings were muted by her anger. The she-wolf had tried to take Hope away more than once, always under the guise of protecting the child. Part of Rebekah was beginning to suspect that the only reason she had saved them all after Marcel took his revenge fueled power trip was because she had fancied herself in love with Elijah and to save the noble brother she had to save them all.
Lexa cleared her throat, gesturing to herself with a finger.
"I'm right here," she looked between the vampires. "If you want to call your sister go ahead, but you've got a witch right here. My only objections would be to murder, but she's still your niece's mother so I doubt that's where you're going with this."
"It's not," Rebekah shook her head. As much as she wanted to maim the hybrid for what she had inflicted on their family, a separation that might have continued had Elijah not bumped into Elena, she wouldn't. She knew the pain of losing a mother and no matter how ostracized Hayley had made herself and no matter what Hope had overheard Hayley was still her mother.
"What exactly are you thinking Rebekah?" Elijah tilted his head. He had been attempting to come up with a suitable punishment that would not be noticed by Klaus in an attempt to spare Hayley's life or one that would satisfy his brother on the very likely odds he got wind of her treachery.
"We can't exactly put the information before custody lawyers so I propose a custody arrangement of our own. Supervised visitation once a month, assuming Hope consents to seeing her mother, reinforced by a curse."
"The crescent curse?" Marcel brow furrowed.
"What's the crescent curse?" Lexa's voice echoed Elena's.
Elijah exchanged a look with Rebekah before turning to explain how Marcel had gotten a witch to 'cleanse' the French Quarter decades before by flipping nature around on the werewolves.
"So it's a reverse werewolf curse?" Elena tilted her head.
"She'll be a wolf for most of the month," Rebekah nodded, turning her gaze to Lexa. "Could you do it?"
"I remember most of the spell," Marcel interjected. "I could talk you through what Brynn did, and I'm sure you could fill in the blanks. Any witch capable of disposing of the Hollow shouldn't have a problem with this."
"It would have the added benefit of keeping Hayley from trying to break through the school gates," Caroline pursed her lips.
"What about the witch?" Elena tucked her hair behind her ear. "She's got an ally somewhere in town."
"I'd never seen her before," Caroline shook her head. She felt their eyes on her and realized what she had said. "I took a look at Hope's memory to make sure I had all of the details. I'd never seen the witch, but she's young. I'd say in her twenties with brown hair, blue eyes, and doll like features. Hayley called her…"
"Davina," Rebekah took a deep breath.
"Kol's Davina?" Elena's question went unanswered in favor of Marcel's outburst.
"Leave Davina out of this!"
"She's already involved herself," Elijah reasoned. He squeezed Elena's hand under the table. His eyes narrowed when Marcel's flooded with red. "Control yourself, Marcellus. This is not New Orleans."
Marcel took a deep breath, reining in his features before he could draw further attention to their table.
"I think it's clear Davina is untouchable," Rebekah ventured after a moment of tense silence. "At least her life is," she went on, glancing at Marcel. "We do need her magic to be cut off though."
"I can do that," Lexa swallowed. She felt five sets of inquisitive eyes on her. "My coven has a spell in case a witch goes… coo-coo. It essentially block's a witch's link to their magic, and halts all on-going spells."
"She would be alive, but not a witch?" Rebekah's brows drew together.
"Technically she'd still be a witch," Lexa's nose crinkled. "I can't take away something she was born with, but I can keep her from using it. All I have to do is find her to cast the spell."
"For the record I'm not okay with this," Marcel crossed his arms, eyeing the car that came to a stop outside the library.
"The way I see it Marcel," Lexa tucked a curl behind her ear, "this is the only option that lets her live. Isn't it?"
"It is," he nodded, "Klaus will kill her, and if we turn her she'll never complete the transition so she'll die anyway. It's the only option that let's Davina live, but that doesn't mean I like it."
"Is that her?" She nodded to the brunette as she locked the car. From the corner of her eye she saw the vampires nod. "Great, wait here; I'll be back."
She jogged across the street and slipped into the dark building a few minutes after Davina. Her eyes adjusted to the interior quickly before she spotted the brunette in the music section. She was perusing the selection of jazz when Lexa caught up with her.
"Hi," she tilted her head, smiling, "are you Davina Claire by any chance?"
She saw the wide blue eyes harden, the slim fingers twitch. She felt the air shift around them and knew she had the right woman before she nodded with a terse reply.
"Who are you?"
"I'm Lexa," she held out her hand to shake, gripping the slim fingers when they were in her palm, "a friend of the Mikaelsons."
Davina didn't get a chance to pull away before Lexa whispered harshly in Latin. Her heart fluttered in her chest as her breath caught in her throat. She pulled back her hand as if she had been burned and fixed Lexa with frosty glare.
"What did you do to me?" Inside she felt an emptiness that she had never known; something was missing.
"I showed you the mercy Klaus Mikaelson never would have," she smiled sadly. "Now maybe you could help and tell me where to find Hayley Marshall."
"Probably out running through the woods," Davina frowned. A line etched between her brows as she tried to figure out what had been done; she realized it a moment later when Lexa walked out of the library.
Elena flipped open the suitcase she hadn't bothered to unpack yet and started sifting through the clothes with one hand. Her other hand was busy readjusting the knot in her towel.
She tugged out a pair of skinny jeans and a dark green sweater, but before she could reach for underwear she felt hands on her hips.
"I've got a habit of catching you in nothing but a bath towel," warm breath fanned over her shoulder, "are you sure you wouldn't rather wear this all day?"
She tilted her head for the chaste kisses he placed on her shoulders and throat; they were little more than a soft brush, but her abdomen still clenched almost painfully.
"I think you're the only one who appreciates this look," she spun in his arms, arching her neck to place a soft kiss to his cheek. "I'd probably be arrested for public indecency if I went out like this."
"Well then," he smirked, "you'll just have to stay inside."
"Could you two be any more nauseating?" Rebekah's voice called up from the living room.
"Of course," Elijah grinned. He gave Elena no time to interject before pinning her to the bed, tugging her towel open and attacking her sides with wiggling fingers.
She squealed and tried to get away, and he could practically hear Rebekah's eyes rolling.
Elena gasped. Using her hips she flipped them over and straddled his waist, pinning his hands on the bed by his head.
"I think this might be a better look," his eyes roamed over her appreciatively.
"You would," she rolled her eyes, laughing. Her towel was forgotten on the bedspread.
Elena leaned down with the intention of kissing along his jaw and maybe nibbling on his ear in the spot that drove him wild but before she could get there her phone rang.
She reached for the device and felt Elijah's blunt teeth drag over her pulse point. His now free hands slid up her sides, thumbs brushing over her ribs.
"Ignore it," he nipped at her throat.
She moaned and nearly did just that before reading the caller ID. She planted her palm on his chest and used it to push him back against the mattress. She tapped the screen a few times in her haste to click the right button.
"Kol?"
"It's about bloody time. I've been calling everyone on a loop for the last twenty-four hours since I found Nik."
"If you've been with Klaus then you were probably second hand cloaked."
"I'm assuming that spell is long gone now. Where shall we meet you?"
"At the moment we are in Mystic Falls," Elijah sat up.
"At my family lake house," Elena added.
"What was wrong with your actual house?"
"I burnt it to the ground about a month after…" she trailed off, pressing her lips together.
"After your brother shoved a white oak stake through my heart?" She heard him laugh on the other end of the line.
"Have we moved on to joking now?" Elena cocked an eyebrow.
"We're getting closer. The cloaking spell is done, did you figure out what witch was helping her?"
"Would you believe it was Davina?" Elijah sat up. He took the phone from Elena and put it on speaker. "Where is Niklaus?"
"Readying the plane; all we were waiting for was a location. Now that I have one I'll let him know and we'll land in Richmond as soon as possible."
"He believed you then?" Elena frowned; after the events of San Francisco she had been a little worried.
"Nik hasn't believed a word out of my mouth in centuries, and the fact that he has no memory of my part in the Hollow's first extraction doesn't help. He agreed to come back though, and he'll be more open to what I've said when he's in a room with you and Rebekah."
"You'll be flying from Germany to Richmond, and then driving to Mystic Falls, so that gives us sixteen hours to find Hayley before Niklaus arrives."
"She's there?"
"It's a long story," Elijah sighed.
"Best save it for another day then; Nik's coming back and the last thing I want to deal with right now is a murderous hybrid."
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Keep an eye out because next chapter we catch up with Hayley.