I'm surprised about myself but after this veeery long break I actually felt like picking up this story again! I've actually written quite a bit ahead and only need to edit it to make it more readable, so I hope to manage to publish more chapters shortly. Thanks a lot if you're giving this story another chance. I appreciate it a lot! (And obviously let me know what you think in the comments!)
"How did go?" Marcel asked.
"Oh, just splendid," Briony said as she violently took off her coat. "We come back with about as much information as we had before. But those witch hunters are angrier now than ever, which is apparently all we wanted. Really excellent work."
"Don't pretend like you had a better plan! He had a dagger in his pocket! What were you gonna do? Wait until that guy stabbed you? How would that help us?!" Nik said, annoyed.
Briony ignored him and marched up the stairs. Nik followed her.
"Not well I take it?" Marcel asked, turning to Elijah and Rebekah.
"It went alright. We found out a few things, got some faces. And then Niklaus decided to break someone's neck, and all hell broke loose."
"Your usual Tuesday then," Marcel murmured, hiding a smile.
"I would have paid more attention if I had expected him to act so impulsively. He hasn't done that in forever. Everything had been so uneventful in the last few years," Elijah said.
Davina raised an eyebrow. "Uneventful? You haven't been here."
"What do you mean?" Elijah asked doubtfully.
He had a feeling he wouldn't like what was coming next.
"These two for sure have done some impulsive and stupid decisions in the last few years. Niklaus once accidentally killed half of an opera's cast because he wanted to put it on hold for Briony, then forgot about it until half of them starved to death. And then Briony had this weird feud with a witch from the Southbank, and that witch lost an eye and a hand. And not to forget that one time where our whole neighbourhood was flooded with sulfuric clay. The smell didn't go away for months. That's when I decided it was time to go to university."
"Also, there's a sinkhole in Hyde Park," Marcel joined in.
Before Elijah could ask, Marcel added quickly: "You don't want to know."
Rebekah looked at Marcel reproachfully. "You were supposed to look after them! Be the buffer so that these things wouldn't happen!"
Marcel raised his hands in defence. "What was I supposed to do?! I'm not exactly a match for either of the two. I might have had a chance if they were fighting with each other and I had to get between them, but they never did. I think just now was the first time I've seen them fighting. They were always on the same side with their stupid vendettas with other people."
"I'm sorry I left. It was just better to get out of their way," he added. "We would have told you if they were up to something really bad, of course."
Elijah had no interest in worrying about sink holes. With one point, Briony was right. They had the society's attention now, and that wasn't exactly a good thing.
As he paced the empty living room, Rebekah suddenly appeared in the doorway.
"I remember where I saw that sign, Elijah."
"You do?" Elijah looked up, interested. "Why didn't you say anything before?"
"I tried. But there wasn't room for sensible conversation on our way home."
"Where did you see the sign before?" Elijah asked in anticipation.
"It's a long time ago and I can't really place all my memories in the right order. Do you remember the first time we wanted to go to New York? 17th century? I remember how we wanted to go there, but then we turned around and went to Ireland. Because you and Nik wanted to look for a witch there."
Elijah knew exactly what she was talking about. It was from the time when he and Nik did a regression to travel back in time to the 17th century to talk to a very powerful wizard. And that man ended up helping them save the lives of Rebekah and Finn and turn them back into humans.
"That's when we visited that wizard, Clement. He gave us the spell that resurrected you 5 years ago, when you and Finn returned as humans," he explained.
"Exactly. And then he was caught by the villagers because they had found out about his powers. They wanted to burn him, so Nik and I went after him, while you and Kol tried to save the mother and children."
"Yeah?"
"That's where I remember the sign from! There on the market square when they wanted to burn the man. There were a few men who had the sign on their coats in a bright red colour."
"What else do you remember?" Elijah asked.
Rebekah thought. "Something was very odd. When the man, Clement, died, it didn't look like normal fire. He didn't slowly catch fire and then burn like you'd expect. He was hit with something, like an arrow, and he got up in flames and turned into ash within seconds. There was nothing we could do about it. It had happened so fast! These weird purple-ish flames that had taken over him in a blink of an eye."
Elijah shuddered. The same must have happened to Katherine. He didn't want to think about that.
He tried to connect to the dots. "So… Clement was caught by these hunters in cloaks because he had done a spell to resurrect his family back then. The same spell we used five years ago to resurrect you. That's probably not a coincidence."
Rebekah shook her head. "I believe not."
"But why now? Why didn't they come for us five years ago?" she added.
Elijah shrugged. A piece of the puzzle was still missing. Elijah was sure that the prime target would be Briony, who had done the spell. However, the rest of them would be in danger as well. Last time, those hunters tried to kill anyone who knew about the spell. He couldn't explain to himself what they were waiting for. Especially Rebekah, Finn and Davina were such easy targets these days. Was it because they were so many? Do they have a special weapon now?
"Perhaps they were waiting for something they didn't have before."
With impatience, Niklaus watched the first rays of dawn announcing themselves in the front yard. Finn and Freya were going to arrive early in the morning, and with nothing else to keep himself busy, he waited at the front steps for them to arrive. He needed something to keep himself busy.
Why Briony behaved like this, Niklaus couldn't understand. They had rarely fought in the last years. He had thought about it the whole night. He was not as annoyed with her as the day before, but that sure would change when she woke up again.
"You made it!" Nik said, as Finn and Freya got out of their taxi.
Even though he was glad that Finn and Freya had made it safely to London, the relief mostly came from not having to think about Briony anymore.
"So you got here with no problems?" he asked, after he led them inside the house.
Finn put down in his bag and exchanged a look with Freya.
"Not exactly," he said.
"What happened?"
"It looks like those cloaked figures have a wide network," Freya sighed.
Concerned, Niklaus looked back and forth between them.
Finn began: "It happened the same day we talked on the phone, only a few hours later. We already packed and on our way back, waiting at the small port where a boat was going to take us back to the main island. Already when we arrived, I could sense there was something wrong. It felt … deserted."
Finn paused. "We realized we were completely alone on that dock. Perhaps we were already alert because of your call earlier, but it didn't take more than a few minutes and we saw a car coming down the only road. There was nowhere we could go. These guys with cloaks exited out of the car."
"What did you do?"
"What could we do?" Finn said. "We fought them off. In retrospect, we were extremely lucky we were on that dock alone. Freya thought quick and used a spell to throw them into the water."
"I don't wanna claim all the credit for our safety," Freya weighed in. "Finn basically wrestled two of them at the same time. One guy grabbed my neck and tried to strangle me, but Finn fought him off."
Now that Freya mentioned it, Niklaus also noticed that Finn was in extremely good shape. He assumed that training and staying fit was supposed to compensate for losing his vampire strength.
"What happened then?" Niklaus asked.
After a pause, Finn said: "I killed him."
Niklaus nodded, not sure what to respond to that.
"I told him not to beat himself up about it too much," Freya added, putting her hand on Finn's arm. "It was self-defense."
Steps echoed through the hallway upstairs and then on the stairs, and a moment later, Briony appeared in the foyer. The second she saw Niklaus, she tensed up and threw him an icy look.
"What's up with you?" Finn asked, picking up on the change of atmosphere in the room.
"Niklaus killed a man because he tried to stab me," Briony said gloomily.
Finn looked at her, confused. "…we're upset about that?"
"Honestly, what did you want me to do, Briony?" Nik snapped.
"We had a plan! You were supposed to stick to the plan!"
"The plan wasn't for you to get stabbed!"
Briony took a deep and meaningful breath and then turned to Finn and Freya.
"And how are you two?" she asked briskly.
They repeated the story they had just told Niklaus. Briony looked equally terrified.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
She turned to Freya. "All good?"
Freya nodded. "Yes, I'm okay. Actually, there is something I want to talk to you about."
She gestured Briony to follow her to the kitchen. Nik had no idea what this was about, but was relieved that Briony left.
"I have a feeling this argument was not just about that someone tried to stab Briony, right?" Finn asked knowingly.
"Perhaps," Nik said.
He had trouble putting into words what that fight was about.
"I'm sure the others will come down shortly," he said, assuming that Finn wanted to get settled.
Finn stopped him from leaving. "Since we're alone now. There is something I want to tell you," Finn said with some hesitance. "Actually, you might not be the right person I should tell this…"
"What?"
"It's just… it felt weird on that dock. When I killed that hunter, I felt little remorse."
"Well, you shouldn't. He tried to kill you and Freya first. Kill or be killed."
"I know that. But that hadn't been enough for me to kill people in the past."
"What do you mean?"
"As a vampire, I vowed to not sink down on that level ever again. But there on the island, as a human with a survival instinct, I suddenly had very different priorities."
Niklaus paused to think. "I suppose the urgency of surviving a fight is bigger as a human."
Finn nodded, pensive. "I guess so."
"How does that make you feel?" Niklaus asked.
Before he could reply, Freya reappeared in the door again.
"Peter is coming over tomorrow. I just called him," she announced.
Niklaus looked at her in surprise. "You are aware that people are trying to kill us? Is this the time to invite people over?"
She shook her head. "I had to tell Peter that I'm back in London."
"Aha," Niklaus said.
"What?" Freya asked, somewhat irritated.
Niklaus hesitated. "I wasn't sure if you were together anymore. I figured since you travelled to Indonesia alone, this thing with Paul might not be so serious anymore."
Freya crossed her arms. "His name is Peter. For your information, it's going very well. You can be a couple without spending every second of your life together."
Finn considered her and the laughed. "You might be on to something. There is probably a reason nobody in our family has been successful in this department so far."
"What is he going to do here?" Niklaus added warily. Why did he have to endure that bland man's presence now only because Freya didn't take him on her holiday before?
Freya shot him a mean look. "He has tried very hard to approach our family, and wanted to get to know you guys. And you weren't very welcoming in return."
"That's not true. We were all delightful to him in the past. For him we kept up the whole charade about being normal people in the first place."
"He's coming here because I want to see him. And that's the end of it," Freya declared, clarifying that she wouldn't be swayed in the matter.
The house was getting crowded. And having an outsider amongst them would only make this more difficult.
Niklaus thought about what Finn, and Freya had told him about their encounter. Whoever these people were, they had been following him and his siblings all around the world. He couldn't remember anyone else that had gone to such lengths to intimidate his family. This wasn't a onetime petty revenge. It was something bigger, something that has been planned for a long time, he was sure of it. And as long as he didn't know what these hunters were planning, he and his siblings were running at the risk of doing exactly what these strangers wanted.