REBEKAH

When I got out of that coffin, my heart was fleeting with joy to see Elijah's face. I've been staked by his ex and drowned by Nik's. That's quite a combination I've been through.
He brought me fresh clothes and promised to explain the "new situation at hand" once I returned to his side in the car. I think I've figured it out. I check the pockets of the jacket he lent me: there lives the phone number of Jezebel Zaragoza. I think it might be a joke at first, but then, what would we have to laugh about if she caused so much heartache? I love my brothers, but they are stupid enough to forget when it's time to make the right decision and leave the past in the past. So much so, I'm not sure they know what the term present day is.
"Still hungry, are we?" Elijah asks when he sees my unhappy face.
"Aya, Aurora and now, Jezebel?" I sigh, holding up the paper. "You two need a lesson in women."
"Have you not damned some to an eternity and viciously antagonized others? You claimed you left things on better terms with Jezebel above the three," Elijah says as he retrieves it.
That's only because she did me a favor so large it was unrepayable. A smart move for a smart girl. But lest we forget, big favors can be withdrawn or even turned into a curse.
"You know what she did. Why bring her into this?" I frown.
Elijah leans on the car door, looking as though he's having complications explaining himself. He silently opens a new blood bag for himself, slitting open the top with a graceful slice of his nail.
"Alright. Does this posse of ex-sweethearts believe in this prophecy, too?" I scoff.
The silence has gone on so long, I can't remember Elijah's tone of voice.
"You don't," I pray of him.
"You'd be foolish to ignore the manifestation of witchcraft and premonitions in this time."
"We can't be killed!"
"The prophecy does say one will fall by family," Elijah responds.
I analyze, "Well, I wouldn't hurt you. Freya hates traitors, but she has an allegiance to Finn of sorts...so that leaves Nik."
"If we're to be morally correct...it isn't out of the question for any of us to find needles in the fruit at this point. It is not the role of family that has me wanting to pack up and leave now. It's Jezebel. When Aurora spoke out about her compulsion issue, Niklaus and I had one of our infamous quarrels. I dread if Jezebel speaks out next...the one who falls by family could be the most guilty-hearted of brothers," he frets for himself.
I wish I were able to console him or to change his mind. I remember 1820; time and reality warped like never before. Elijah was happy, engaged to be married, moving on from all this. Niklaus had shaped up from his addiction to mischief and took on the form of a better man all for the sake of the beautiful foreigner he'd fallen for. And me? It felt like I had a future again; a life that had a beginning and end that involved love and change. All because of that girl. She gave Klaus and I everything, and then she took it away, adding the vulnerable Elijah to the mix.
"Elijah?" I mutter.
He holds the car door open for me when he returns from the nearby counter.
"...Did Jezebel say why she hurt her? Celeste?" I questioned.
Elijah leans on the door, putting his hand in his pocket as I slowly took my seat inside.
"I've made my peace with the insignificant past. If you haven't, I suggest you keep your distance, Rebekah. We needn't a brand new haul of melodramatics to discourage this family," he indirectly claims, "and please try not to provoke her. It's harmful enough we've put her in the middle a second time."

VINCENT

A light knock at my door invites me to unchain and unlock all its bolts. I had them put on as soon as this town got a few new rogue assets. Jezebel's eyes follow me without the rotation of her head as I step aside to let her in.
She holds up a small cage with an even tinier bird fluttering around on the inside.
"Never show up to the home of a warlock without an offering," she intones.
She sets it on my coffee table, removing her jacket while she watches me close the door slowly. Almost immediately, I've started to rethink what I called her for.
"I want to control it. My ancestral magic," in spite of my hesitations, I tell her.
I could have asked just about no one else for the favor. Old magic is out of the question in the French Quarter; those people who go off into the night and strip down for a dance with the devil are the same people that wake up the next morning shunned and with a due execution. There are reasons the DuBois name was scorned for complying to the rules of the Knot and changed to Griffith.
She crosses her arms, looking up at me from the edge of the coffee table. I seat myself across from her.
"That's a quick change of heart for a man who was so adamant to abstain from all witchcraft," Jezebel comments.
"That's just it. I failed to control it before, but I can't afford it anymore. Marcel Gerard is in full swing of being the Strix's middleman. He tells me they're bribing a local, Van Nguyen, to become the new Regent," I begin.
"You said you were the Regent," she frowns.
"I give my provisions and support, but I ain't no leader. Until now. Marcel all but attacked my methods of keeping witch business as witch business. He got to me. On top of that, I'm not letting vampire scumbags like Tristan De Martel take control of nine different Louisiana covens by making a puppet of a college kid," I ranted. "You said my ancestral magic was derived from the Murder that your mother belonged to. You should know enough to teach me—and you're the only full-blooded Seraph in town."
"Vincent, adapting a new way of life will not suddenly make you a leader. I can think of so many more things that make you more qualified than some child," Jezebel advises.
"You have to understand! What the New Orleans witches see in me is a man who has made too many mistakes and has had nothing to lose in the last twenty years. They immediately think about a compassionate flake who helped the Mikaelsons once or twice along the way," I doubt myself.
"What do the Mikaelsons have to do with running for Regent?" Jezebel questions.
"The witches have been under their feet for centuries! You of all people should know," I complain.
She stands, her platformed boots clapping on my floors in her light pacing.
"Vincent, when I urged you to live up to your birth magic, I meant for the sake of having emergency leverage; not to prove someone wrong," she lectures me.
"So, you wouldn't mind being the only one with this kind of power in a place where everyone hates you when the Murder comes marching in?" I bellow, standing up. "It's you against an angry majority. Come on, Jez, even one person of your own caliber will do you some good."
Hearing my command, her hands swim from the adjustment of her tribal tube top to her hips, her curvy and lean legs strutting towards me like a hungry panther.
"I could teach you how to take over all of Northern America in twenty-four hours with just a cellphone. How willing will you be to help the outlaw when you're as good as that? You're a wonderful man, Vincent, but you're a follower. Whether or not you want to help me or yourself, I can't encourage you anymore," she suggests casually.
Her phone chimes, and she immediately directs her attention to its glowing screen. I grab her arm before she can excuse herself.
"They're gonna pick tonight!" I snap.
She rips her arm away, glaring into my frustrated eyes.
"There's nothing I can do!" she cries. "Not without my human body."
Coming down from the heat of our conversation, she exhales heavily outside my door.
"Treat this like a typical Thursday, Vincent. It might help you clear your mind," she suggests.

JEZEBEL

I roll my eyes to the sound of jovial trumpets and tambourines in the distance. New Orleans wouldn't be New Orleans without the sound of overreaching jazz everywhere you go, but maybe I would hate it less if it took to terrible indie rock more often. I spent a lot of time in California in the seventies; I guess I've developed a culture bias.
I twist my phone from the small pocket of my jacket made of a werewolf's coat. I get sent straight to Klaus's voicemail.
"I've been told by a man to wait in a graveyard several times before, but at least they showed up on time. Ten more minutes, and then, I leave. Call me," I warn him.
The loose cobblestones in the floor grind behind me, causing me to stop my step and put the phone away. I turn to face my company. The young man stands his ground against my vicious gaze, looking sorry as ever.
"You're the old one," He begins.
I don't answer. He licks his lips stepping towards me.
"My name is Van Nguyen. I hear you're trying to turn Vincent Griffith into a devil worshipper to get the better of me," he whispers to me. "What right do you have sticking your nose into a coven's business?"
Word travels fast. I pray I am not standing of an aftermath that Vincent might have achieved overstepping his boundaries.
I smirk, "I'm the one who is under arrest? Tristan gave you a good amount of money to be his bitch for the time being. Do you know where all that money will go in the end? What are your sisters going to think when they hear you took money from vampires?"
He clasps his hands together, holding them to his lips.
"What Tristan did or did not offer me is even less of your concern," Van says. "As the new Regent, I'm going to run you out of here. We all know war follows the Murder wherever it goes."
A hoard of women and men, youthful or spending their last breath protesting me, remove themselves from the dark shadows beyond and between the graves of the Black Clay Cemetery once I've called them out.
"You threaten our land, powerful or not. Having a Seraph in the Quarter can imbalance the divided authority and relative peace we've worked hard to keep," the girl in a glimmering sari says to me.
"Peace? Really?" I mock her concern. "You're alright being shoved into a few square miles of land while vampires get the rest?"
"The Ancestors—"
"Are ghosts with a gossip column," I finish for Van.
I remove my hands from the warmth of fur pocket lining and cross my arms.
"The Ancestors have warned us of you, Jezebel Zaragoza. You, your own ancestors, your mother—you have all ruined our system and used your lineage as an excuse," A woman with a Nigerian accent calls from the front. "Now, you're going to let your rejected sisters upset the balance of nature!"

My chest is hosting a wildfire of restlessness and burning up my self-control. If they really knew shit, they'd know killing me was the opposite of what they're trying to achieve. I guess there was one person who could be blamed, one who didn't get the message.
Marcel Gerard steps out into the corner of my eye. He holds out my vessel for everyone to see. He must have seen Vincent hide it for me. Or their feud was less sour and still sweet enough to share dangerous grounds. The enthusiastic coven aggressively asserts Marcel to do their dirty work.
The vessel snaps in half before my sight. The elasticity in the skin of my arm snaps like a twig; a dark and jagged line is visible from my wrist to my elbow. The world disappears and a blank screen enfolds my eyes.

REBEKAH

Sitting down with my family the moment I got home felt like a dream that had taken a long time to come true. An entire bottle of Jack Daniel's split evenly and empty between us, night unfolding with a prelude of grey-purples and orange above our heads in the courtyard. Freya's hand is in mine and Niklaus, though trying his best to enjoy, stewing in worry of his latest phone call.
"Did he say what it was about?" Elijah asked the troubled Niklaus.
Jezebel.
"It was about Jezebel. There was an incident with the witches; he wouldn't disclose it explicitly in his location," Klaus hesitantly tells us. "It's fair to have anticipated the presence of bad blood when she chose to stay."
I look to Elijah, who asserts with his returned gaze he is aware of nothing on the subject.
"Let's just hope she hasn't killed anyone this early in the night," Freya relies on the most common outcome.
Vincent Griffith presents himself coming through our gates.
"It's the other way around, actually," Vincent replies to my statement. "Her vessel was destroyed. We don't know by who. She's not tethered to the living any longer."
Klaus stands, exchanging glances with Elijah.
I ask bewilderedly, "What does it matter? She's a part of the prophecy, she could have been an accomplice to any one of our deaths."
"Precisely," Elijah agrees.
Klaus isn't so reluctant to take a breath. "That's impossible, the vessel was hidden in our home. She gave it to me—"
He pauses, looking to Elijah once more.
"Unless it was a fake. She asked me to hide it, she must have been testing me with some gift shop imitation she dug up," he sighs.
"Well, she gave me the real one. While I was out dealing with witch business, someone left my door wide open. I've never invited any vampires inside," Vincent insinuates, looking over at Freya.
Aggressively, she asserts, "Are you accusing me of something?"
"Not really. But if not for my initial explanation, you'd be my second. Look, I know how Jezebel ties into your prophecy. And believe me, she's gotta be alive in order for you find a way around it," Vincent cautions us.
Elijah wants to know, "She's tried to poison and maul just about everyone in her way, how could she possibly help us?"
"Because we never considered what we were in the way of," Klaus answers before Vincent. "She was going to tell me about the Murder of Seraphi. Someone or something didn't want her to tell us what was happening."
Vincent was silent long enough for use to draw a silence with him. No one knows what to do.
Then, he speaks, "You still interested?"

Klaus is sitting in the table's end armchair, swirling his drink like he always does when he's prepared to have his time wasted.
Vincent crosses his arms over until his hands are inside his underarms, taking a breath before he begins. "The story goes back to the Maya. Refugees from Egypt had made it to Mesoamerica by boat. They were taken captive by the leading Mayan territory, and by order of the emperor and chief, the women would be sacrifices to an old universal deity to stop a draught. However, a shaman had fallen in love with a girl chosen for sacrifice, so he looked to alchemy to bring her back to life—from clay—"
"Alright, now you've lost me. A girl made from clay?" I doubt.
"You've got to understand, some of this is going to be a bunch of made up crap. Unless you've got papers to prove otherwise, this is what happened," Vincent asserts to me. "Anyway, this girl, Carmila, took advantage of the shaman and forced him to revive the other girls who had been killed. This was the first time the balance of nature had been upset. The village believed they were winged messengers sent from the deity to deliver them harvest. With the upset balance came a logical dip in a parallel dimension, which is in and of itself, the Veil. Purgatory. If they could make that happen, they could do other things, ands they did. They wanted to make more magical beings."
"Witches," Freya guessed.
"Now, that's a hell of a story. Let's get to the part where they come into play in this murder mystery, shall we?" Elijah mocks the issue before any of us.
Vincent corrects him, "This ain't a joke, man, this is history. You can't see the future without knowing the history first. Carmila is a past mistake what we are trying to prevent!"
It fails to make sense until Vincent takes a breath to add the most important detail.
"So, Jezebel was essentially trying to prevent another dictatorship where, apparently, Celeste was not supplemental," Klaus expels his most recent theory. "Why should we care?"
"Because Jezebel is Carmila's daughter. Somebody who you couldn't care less is the key to who lives and who dies," Vincent hisses.
It clicks for all of us at one time. Did Jezebel ever mention a mother? To any of us? No. In fact, we knew almost nothing about her at this point.
Vincent's gestures get crazier and crazier the deeper into this explanation he goes. He had to have studied this, studied her, or even been obsessed with her long enough to know all this word for word. "Jezebel killed her mother when she was born, but there was one complication; there was a transfer of magic from Carmila into Jezebel. The magic she took was the only thing keeping Carmila alive. Once Carmila was gone, the Murder was certain that they'd all become extinct. But Celeste had a theory that to get their leader back without disturbing the balance...Carmila had to return in a way that was acceptable to nature and to the rival witch species. She had to be reborn."
My heart skipped a beat.
"What do you mean?" Klaus catches on.
"The only way Carmila could return with powers, and with a beating heart, is by doing to Jezebel what Jezebel did to her. She had to be reborn, and Jezebel would have to die. It's the only way to patch up the hole we leave in the Veil when a strong entity enters and escapes. Celeste put Carmila in Jezebel."
Klaus cup of swishing Bourbon freezes like a lake in winter. Elijah inhales quietly as he exchange glances with me, going over synchronized theories in our heads.
I couldn't help myself. I blurted agitatedly, "Great. And the bloody bitch tried to put Carmila in me!"
No wonder the girl had the nerve to keep her mouth shut about all this. Celeste was conducting it and waiting for all our untimely deaths!
My head shifts over at Elijah, just wondering what is happening behind those blank eyes, or if there is deep thought at all. Celeste just became a stranger to him; a stranger he was going to give his heart to traditionally at an altar of marriage. He can't hide his feelings if he tries.
Elijah swallows his painful experience and dismay, proclaiming, "If they tried it once, they'll try it again. At least, if they've not realized the child made it."
"They know. Believe me, they know. Yet, Jezebel still exists and that still tips the balance. The balance is the one thing the Murder has unanimously promised to keep on track for their own good. No balance, no magic, no supernatural, no control."
I'm waiting for Klaus to put an end to this drama. For once, I just needed him to stand up and say "to hell with this." We were done with Jezebel, it was over. And with our own prophecy to worry about, who needs a new set of problems without our names on them?
Freya inquires, "And I suppose you want us to do something about it."
"Well, there's only one thing to do and if you know anything about it, you need to speak up now. Where's the body?" Vincent interrogates us.
I frown, "...What body? Her body?"
Klaus sets his empty glass down harshly, rising from his velvety seat. "Tristan is the only one who knows."
"Not quite," Vincent glowers.
He rocks his arms into the back of one of the dining chairs as he looks at Nik out of the corner of his eyes.
"He knows where it was dumped, but he doesn't know how to get to it. Friends of mine seen Kingmaker contractors rooting around in the bayou near the waters. They make like it's a potential site for a new Kingmaker tower, but really they just keep missing the mark. My guess is she's buried out there somewhere, but that's as far as Tristan could figure. "
He turns away from the imposing silence that has left us all paralleling a specific sort of suspicion about each other. I'd like to say what we're all thinking. This has got to be misunderstood. We didn't just find out centuries later an innocent girl died and the contending maker of our prophecy lived.
"So, I guess we're to play scavenger hunt, too. Just be honest, don't you think this is a lot of fuss for one witch?" I sigh, crossing my arms and swiveling my hips calmly to observe each of my brothers.
Freya leans into my shoulder. "Maybe we shouldn't take this lightly, Rebekah. If the Strix and Lucien had plans for her in the first place, she's a factor of the prophecy. Now, somebody did kill her, what if it was the Murder, after all? If they were supposed to kill her when that baby was born—"
Elijah interrupts her, "They couldn't have, the child didn't make it, either. And Celeste was the only Seraph for miles at the time; Jezebel put an end to that fairly quickly."
Klaus is at a loss for words, a rarity if I ever saw one. His eyes down, his mouth parted and sickened.
"...Elijah—" He tries to reach out.
Elijah stops Klaus with a somber hand outstretched from across the table, the other hand in Elijah's pocket to make him seem more adjusted than he truly is to the truth. "It doesn't matter who's to blame for this. Jezebel kept quiet and that is why she is gone today. Let's just get through this petty puzzle, and stop an unavoidable threat. The Strix will be glad to have a bit of time to gather up a strategy before the angel of chaos returns."

MARCEL

"You know, I never liked churches. They're full of fables. Guardian angels, patron saints... But cemeteries, cemeteries I don't detest. They prove not one of those things can save you from the inevitable," Tristan states.
Vincent gave me the call, but apparently I wasn't the only one. Tristan makes himself comfortable in Vincent's peaceful presence, over an array of various candles, dried flowers, and relics. He comes down off the steep stairway to the Ancestral Mausoleum, walking towards Tristan and his posse.
"I hear the Strix has been watching me. Somebody keeps telling the witches about my relationship to Jezebel. Well, let me save you the trouble, I'm no easy target for you to manipulate. And I'm sick and tired of the trash the Originals bring to town. Now, normal people can't get one over on vampires, but for hell's sake, I will. You can keep your eyes on me all you like, but I'm looking right back at you," Vincent asserts, adjusting the crooked of Tristan's designer tie.
Tristan's buddies nearly step up to his defense, but he wards them off with a single hand.
"A frenzied witch without a fear of vampires. You are one in a million, my friend. Just remember: knowledge is power. You cannot defy what you do not know," cryptically, Tristan gives his goodbye.
My foot stomps back on the gravel of the cemetery floor when Vincent mirages behind them, awaiting their undivided gaze.
His eyes glimmer with a violent grey, pupiless and silvered like empty spoons.
"The outlook is mutual," a vibrantly multitoned voice spills from Vincent's mouth.
I'm watching a light show of blazing fires, like tall trees collapsing from a wildfire. Tristan and his boys glow an icy white as they fall to ashes, Vincent walking through their particles and irritably twitching in his head as he walks on through the rows of ancestors who gave him way to do it.
My breast thumps rapidly and I find the next five minutes filled with a strange, immovable silence. I just watched a nine-hundred-year-old vampire die—and not return.