KLAUS

The smell of lavender has never been an enticing smell when laced with blood. She makes herself obvious to us in that way, thinking herself a siren of vicious sailors. Every time I look upon the purple flora, my mind latches onto a charientism that targets my weakness and Aurora recognizes that.

Elijah kneels beside a freshly dead woman in our courtyard this morning, holding the poem left with the vulgar gift.

"I remember her to be a better poet," I sigh.

Elijah shakes his head. "I don't think this is lacking in poetry... We have two menacing women on our hands."

There is no shortage of malignant belles here, and I suppose our family is simply the blood honey that attracts the timeless uprooted maniacs once in a while. I could neglect to picture Aurora De Martel as the malevolent force that works on the same plane as a venomous witch, but this city is known to bring out the worst in others. It's how we intended it; and for us to be the judge of friend and foe illusions.

Our mystery witch could wait. I had to see Aurora for myself.

I touch Elijah lightly on the shoulder. "She wants to be found. Shall we?"

"Are you so incredibly eager? You haven't said her name in a millennium and neither have we, at your command," recalls Elijah.

I stop in my tracks, reckoning, "I won't wait so that she can place her calling cards all over my home, Elijah."

"If you're going... Listen to me first. The vision Alexis bestowed upon me...Aurora was in one of them, but she wasn't the only thrill of the past that bubbled to surface," he quickly summarizes.

He cannot to shy me away from the topic. Not after what she did to me and will attempt to do to me again.

"If you wish to tell me something that could possibly divide us then te absolvo, brother. We find her, we'll kill her together," I resolve.

I can see it in his face that he's not satisfied with that, but I simply can't heed to it.

AURORA

I'll be patient. I won't place too much hope into this reunion, although I am quietly confident that I can make this right. That you'll love me again, my dear Niklaus. A sweet agenda I've looked forward to since the break of morning.

Just this morning, I confirmed the florist girl was delivered with a clear and lovely message to him. Perhaps, I could've compelled her away, but where's the stage drama in that?
I secured the floral shop to myself—it will be a quiet place for us to spend time alone. I consider all supernatural personae to be the exact same: offer them blood or sacrifice (or both) and you are in their good graces. I've never failed to predict these things, I swear I could be just as great of a wizard as the one Lucien is lusting after right now. Poor thing; though, I can't say it doesn't breed me approval at least one witch dies a day around here. They're the real nationalists, praying for their own private America in which all vampires suddenly drop dead. Maybe the flower wench was a witch; maybe I had performed a service to the community.

I thought I'd remembered to turn the "open" sign over to relay a contrary message. I suppose some can't take a hint. A dainty clacking noise appears behind me, a small tap to end the concert of noise suggesting someone is in front of the counter.

I'm admiring the custom orders on the shelves, asserting to the customer, "We're closed."

Although they do not speak a word after mine, I can feel eyes on the back of my neck. It makes the curly red tresses on the back of my neck stand on end as I recognize the moment is finally here.
"Nik," I softly smile.
I turn to face him. The name does not fit the personage.
On my far left, a girl in a vintage black babydoll dress appears to be browsing the fresh boquets.
"I'm sorry, did you not see the sign? We're closed," I buttress my warning.
She turns her head slightly to me, her round multitone eyes ogling at me while her gentle fingers graze the fissured petal of a mauve callalily.
"Oh, I'm not buying, I just came to pick something up? It's addressed to Tristan De Martel." puzzled, she reads the tag on the oriental fabric box.
A delivery of flowers? To my brother?
"What for? What's going on?" I frown.
She shows me her empty, ringed palms. "I'm just the messenger."
As I stroll away to get the bouquet, I keep an eye on her reflection in the glass over the framed portrait above the front counter.
"You know, in Japan, they call them higanbana. Flowers that draw lost souls to their next reincarnation," I state.
Her voice scrapes gravel, "I hear they only tell people those things to keep them from losing hope. After all, living in a monastery on the side of a dormant volcano? Kind of disheartening, no?"
My heart skips a beat. I whip around, grabbing her throat and pinning her on her back to the cashier counter, leaning over her.
"Who the hell are you?" I demand.
"Your guardian angel," the woman jokes.
The hand I don't use to squeeze her lovely neck pushes one long baby hair out of her green eye. "Such pretty eyes, I'm sure I'd have remembered them."
The girl's facade of a graveyard statue follows the remote wandering of her eyes, away from my face.
"You can tear them out if you like. They tend to grow back."
I interrogate, "I'll keep that in mind. What do you want with my brother?"
"You ever think maybe he's the one who picked the fight?" she mumbles.
"That wasn't my question."
"I don't see why you're protecting him. He's only brought you pain."
"What do you know?"
"I do my research. The De Martels are high on the list of the first vampire families. In any mainstream gamble, I'd bet high that you're one of the strongest. The ones times like this will have to do without. I don't want to kill you. Just pick up a few stolen goods and...watch you reap the consequences."
"Consequences?" I chortle. "I take it your a witch with those kind of vague threats."
"Not the kind you're used to."
The girl brushes past my right shoulder, picking up the fresh, softly hued crimson lilies, examining them carefully between her fleshy talons. She plucks out a useless leaf amidst the floral heap and maneuvers toward the back of the shop.
"Meaning?" I scoff.

The pliers punctuate my words with one loud shnk. The flowers drop like dead birds from the sky back onto the table, the bottom of their stems still in her white grip. She turns to me, face like a tranquilized beast who hasn't closed their eyes.

She decrees, "I'm the reason they still exist; that you're ten times my age."
She takes my hands and wraps them around the spider lilies she holds while she maneuvers around the back room as if she had been here before.
"And if you hurt me, if you can't do what I ask, Aurora... I can change that in a heartbeat. For everyone just like you."

She reaches behind me, her lioness breath brushing my shoulder as she tears a thick black ribbon from the stand just behind the supply chests. She finishes tying the ribbon around the arrangement.

"Mira. I may not be in the business of teaching others a lesson, but I have a good gauge of what girls like you will do for some attention. Even if it kills you. So, while we're talking in demands... This needs to be the last time you see Klaus. It's better for both of you—"

The bell on the shop door rings like a little bird.
Both of our heads snap around like two twigs under foot. Niklaus looks us both in the eye, his wariness of me transferring into a sort of terror when he sees her.
"Jezebel..." he swallows.
She looks back at him, almost brighter in the eyes than before. Is this it? They know each other; is this where she steals my spotlight.
"You knew about this. You wanted to ruin it," I growled at her.
She rolls her eyes, licking her lips as she turns her head back to me.
"Remember what we talked about. Le acompaño en el sentimiento. I have places to be."
Klaus reaches out to her, but he's a step behind.
The power in the room fleets for the moment, just enough time for her to disappear without the slightest trace of her presence prior.

VINCENT GRIFFITH

The gravel below my shoe soles crackles with every step. I look around the concaving row of crypts, struggling to stand tall on hilly terrain.

"Serve Her well, Seraphim, saved not by Heaven but by the sweet sound of jazz," I taunt her out of hiding.

An insect with long flappy wings brushes past my ear, making an itch in my heel rotate me around to see Jezebel, standing directly on the moon's lit path. The shiny white butterfly crawls across her left cheek and disappears into her black cloak of hair.

"So, you're still alive. Not aging well, apparently," she greets, pacing around to the front of me.

I greet her, "By aging poorly, you mean aging in general, right? I don't have to stall my youth like everyone else to get things done. Speaking of, I expected more of an entrance."

"Well, that's the whole point. People talk, don't they?" gradually, she responds. "Last time, I disturbed the peace, it was a literal hurricane."

Jezebel walks past me and into the threshold of the Black Clay Graveyard, the moonlight seeping down her back the further into the deadly garden she goes.

She claims, "This place just gets worse and worse. You'd think tourism would have spread enough wealth for some obvious renovations."
"Well, when a girl known to cause monsoons has a habit of coming back to tie up loose ends, we like to keep things temporary," I mocked her.
Unamused, she stops beside the grave sculpture of a child being overlooked by a marble angel, turning her head slightly.
"Is that supposed to be—"
I interpose, "A joke? It's a warning. Jez, you're as good as they come, but you have a century-long streak of bad luck trailing behind you. You know Tristan De Martel is dying?"

Her eyes glow a pale white in the light of the moon like a blind cat. I watch her disappear behind the corner of the Gibson musician crypt, the clack of her pointed boots going down the candlelit walkway.
"Oh, of course, you do. You think getting him out of the way makes stopping the Murder of Seraphi any easier?" my voice echoes.

She intimidatingly appears in the grave doorway inches from my side.

"Tristan had no right to try and exploit me for his own gain. Regardless, that means he knows what my enemies would do to get their hands on me. He's going to make a deal with them. I had to do something," she purrs. "But, at least, now I know who has my body. It's him. It has to be him."

I mumble a charm beneath my breath that mystically awakens the undead candles of the junk candelabras of the Laveau grave.

I exclaim, "You're speculating, Jez! You always do this when you've got no plan. Now, I heard you the day I found your vinyl all those years ago. My ancestor, Celeste, she's on the prowl god knows where. And if we want to stop her for good, we gotta have numbers. So let me help you! Just heal Tristan, leave the sirelines alone. Look, I— I came lookin' for you tonight because the coven is afraid. They know you're here, you're still guilty under several pretenses that they haven't forgotten. The least you could do is make a statement of surrender to our laws. Maybe we can help you."

Her cat-like lashes doubtfully flutter an inch to closing, her head's horse tail of thick hair slipping over her bronze-plated collarbone.
"Let's not pretend your coven's done me any good."
"And you don't deserve their crap. You're a good kid, Jez, this I know. But you reinforced their fear of you when you fell off the deep end all those years ago. Tsunamis in Japan, earthquakes in California, mass hysteria in Italy, cult suicides in Switzerland- You aren't bending to natural law, and for some witches, that's a big deal."
Her spiteful tone slowly deteriorates to a regretful mutter.
"I did those things for the right reason," she narrowly pleads.
"See, but I wasn't there!" I assert. "So how do I know that?"
She falls silent again, more susceptible to my disappointment than anyone else's.
"Jez. C'mon. Just surrender. The Murder will win when it's only you putting up the fight against them," I lecture. "Ask for help."

Jezebel asserts, her voice scraping a pile of bones, "I can save myself. I do that, and your precious coven has enough room to make it another millennium or so. I survived my family long before I met you. So don't pretend we're anything closer."
Her nimble hands slip away from the frame of the Henderson mausoleum, and she disappears into thin air just as the sun is coming up.

AYA

He's broken a sweat so noticeable it appears as though he's been for a swim. They have his hands in theirs, Tristan's grip nearly bone-breaking. The snake venom coursing through his veins causes extensive pain in his major arteries and in his cranium.

"Her name—is Jezebel Zaragoza," Tristan swallows, bloodshot eyes glowering up at me. "She is what the witches call a Seraph...one of the oldest species of supernatural beings on the planet. She lacks a human form, and she's relying on spiritual energy to keep her afloat in this world. She can't do us much more harm than this without a human body, which...holds most of her power—"

He winces from another stroke of intense quivering.

I evade voicing my doubts, still questioning, "You still haven't told us why. Why does she have to be a part of this."
"She's leverage. A priceless tool which...can speak of the end or a new beginning for vampires, werewolves...witches...! Her Holy Roller comes to collect in a month. If we don't have her, they'll—they'll kill us all. Everything we've built will be destroyed."

He tries to sit up, but I have the other members present lay him back on his loveseat. He is in no position to strain himself to be a leader at the moment.

"We hold the most recruits of high status witches than any coven around the world. We'll keep her at bay, surely," I take a chance on a promise.
He pants heavily as though a new explanation will outdo his health.
"Aya...that girl is vital. She is more than a witch," he swallows, bloodshot eyes glowering up at me, "She's one of the things that has created them."
The unsightly terror in his ending syllable sends a ripple of discomfort down my spine. I even see some of our surrounding company becoming unsure of their position.

"Tristan," someone new breathes in our space.

A spastic head of fragile red curls comes speed-walking in, at her brother's side in an instant.

"Aurora. Aurora, what have you—"

"I escaped. I had to come, you know that," Miss De Martel pleas. "That wretched girl. What did she do to you!"

Tristan shushes his frantic sister with a gentle squeeze atop her knuckles.

Tristan commands, "You mustn't trifle with her, sister. Stay out of her way, unless you've already come to meddle with our sires. She's here for them. If you are not careful..."

This won't do. I don't know Aurora personally, but I know her reputation: a lunatic beyond one's sympathy. However, today is not the day I plan on upsetting her by sending her back or demanding she lock herself in a sanctuary somewhere on these streets. A display of truth, in which I am anxious of her, would make Aurora liable to do something far too precarious. Then, we are a step closer to defeat.

"You can trust me! I've already moved Rebekah. She's safe. If I can get to her brothers, they shall be—"

Tristan barks, sweat flying, "What?"

This can go on for some time.

"I suppose we'll begin with a standard sweep," I sigh.

I snap my fingers at the two newest men to join the Strix, Mario and Refta.
"When you see her, don't hesitate. Take Arianne with you."
They equip themselves with stakes, Refta leaving to find one of our witches.

I see him second guess his large strut and pause at the front entry.
He bends down, a sample of the sunny day reflecting off something in his hands and into our eyes.

"This was outside," Refta tells me as he turns back to us.

He's holding a bouquet of ripe white lilies, a card attached to its bundle. I look from the ailing Tristan to Refta, shooing him away. I am handed the bouquet's card, where the sender's initials are mockingly signed off with a devil's horns and tail.

"Ella no es peligrosa por saber lo que quiere, lo es por saber lo que vale." - dice D. Sant

KLAUS

Watching her stand on the curbside with the rest of the on-looking tourists, my fingers twitched on the handle of the car door from pins and needles in my anxious veins.
Her pensive expression gleams brighter than the burnt out streetlight bulbs in the SUV side mirror. Not one to acknowledge the trend in the jovial nature of city nightlife, she stays in one place with eyes on the horizon of tourists heads and the parallel side of the street, dissociating for all to see.

Elijah shuts the passenger door, though, I have yet to tear my eyes away from the passenger-side mirror. His puzzled silence tells me he has seen the same ghost.
"What did she say to you?" he wonders.
I lazily set me head against the passenger's headrest. "If she'd told me anything, I wouldn't be constantly quoting Aurora on what's be said, or for that matter, threatened."
"This came to Marcel from the Strix gala photographer this morning," Elijah sighed.
He put it on the dashboard for me, but I needn't look.
"Jezebel Zaragoza was the uninvited guest at that party. Marcel confirmed she is the witch Tristan had in custody," continues my brother.
"Why aren't we going out there and setting the record straight?" spitefully, I questioned. "You saw her die, Elijah!"
"I was told she was dead, Niklaus, I didn't see the body which is the liable reason she is standing out there, people watching."
My eyes collapse onto the photograph Elijah had brought to the dashboard. In the crowds of ballgowns and tuxedos, with red sharpie Marcel circled the reflection of the youngest person in the picture, eyes on me in the captured reflection of the localized decorations.
Elijah stresses. "What do we do, brother? Why is she here?"
"I'd rather focus my efforts on the sireline war at hand," I lie to myself aloud. "There will be consequences for her, Elijah, but in good time. Even if it means...I must do what I couldn't bring myself to long ago," I admit at last.
The live mirage of Jezebel in my side mirror startles me. Once capturing my glance, she does well not to break it until the very last second when she is absorbed by the crowd.