Chapter Five:

Don't Answer the Knocking.


New Orleans: The French Quarter: The Abattoir

The Living Room.

"She doesn't know what we are. Not to her. She doesn't know we're Bonded."

Niklaus turned away from the mantle at the sound of Elijah's voice, checking the clock.

Ten minutes left.

"Apparently not, and if we say anything now she'll think it's a ploy to ingratiate ourselves and possibly steal Henrik out from under her."

At Rebekah's glare, Klaus shrugged.

"It's what I would think in her shoes, and evidence by the current state of the walls around us, she doesn't trust us much already."

Elijah sat down in a chair, crossing one long leg over the other.

"Then we need to decide what our next steps shall be, and quickly."

Kol, who had thus far been uncharacteristically silent, rolled his eyes and turned from the window.

"By Odin's beard, has it really been so long that all of you have forgotten what seduction means?"

Rebekah scoffed in reply.

"I think it's been long enough that you have begun to overestimate your charm, brother."

Kol took the blow in stride, working his way deeper into the room, closer to his siblings.

"The fact of the matter is that Henrik is here and alive. We're clearly not going to step back from that, and by the offer laid on the table for us in all its sunshine wrappings, Hemlock isn't either. Therefore, very soon, we're going to have to get along in this cramped little town for a while. That gives us plenty of time to… erase any perceived suspicions and misgivings she might have about us, and then we can tell her the truth of it all."

Elijah, by the way his jaw rolled, was tasting the idea, testing it against his teeth.

"I believe Kol may have a point. We have, crucially, time now. We should use that to our advantage."

Rebekah shifted in her heels, before she folded her arms tightly over her chest.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but I concur with Kol. We take the deal, and not only do we get Henrik back, but we might also get a chance to overwrite our rather dismal first impressions."

Klaus clapped his hands together.

"Then we're all in agreement?"

His grin turned toothy, voice dropping silky and low-slung.

"Then this is what we should do-"


New Orleans: The French Quarter: The Abattoir

The Outside Steps

Hemlock came to a quiet sit beside Henrik on the steps of the house behind them, keeping just enough distance between the two that should Henrik wiggle he wouldn't touch her.

"You didn't scare them too much, did you?"

Hemlock grinned.

"Only enough to show them that they need to wind their necks in before someone comes along and breaks them."

"Hemlock-"

"I know… I know. We just… Talked."

Henrik blankly stared back at her, seeing through the bravado, and Hemlock broke under the soft dark gaze of the small boy.

"And I may have threatened them a little. Just enough."

"Hemlock!"

"I just want to make sure you're safe."

That was it. The truth. The driving force behind the last mad-dashed twenty-four hours.

Hemlock just wanted to make sure Henrik was safe.

It was… Strange, Hemlock would say, being a parent in any kind of way, even for a embryonic Eldritch horror like herself. You spent so much time and energy and-

And love trying to protect and shield, you spend days and weeks and years bending a life around another, that… That you can only ever see, only ever want, for it to be that way.

Her and Henrik, until the end of time.

But then you also teach them to stand on their own, because the world was a cruel fuckin' place, and you knew, deep down, that they would have to learn some hard lessons, lessons you never wanted them to know but they would all the same, and they have to get stronger on their own, know enough about the harsh world out there that should the day come, that horrible, terrible day, the day that came for every child and parent when the little one would take their first lone step out into the bitter fuckin' world-

To live their own life, to fly the nest, that they must know how to protect themselves when you weren't there.

It was a contradiction of nature, and one all mother's and father's, blooded or not, must face.

Hemlock thought she understood her own mother then, sitting on those cold, stone steps, staring at the open, innocent face of Henrik.

Lily must have been so confused, so bloody terrified when she awoke with a stomach full of an entirely grown cosmic babe, as bewildered and frightened as, perhaps, Hemlock had been when she awoke and found a fresh, shiny soul in the palm of her hand of a long dead boy.

And yet, somewhere along the way, maybe even from that very first moment, beneath the fear and dread of suddenly holding a life within your own, love set in. Love that had seen Lily step in front of Hemlock's cradle and take the Killing Curse aimed for her daughter, unsure of whether it would even scratch something like Hemlock but not willing to take the risk. Love that, Hemlock thought, would see her do the same for Henrik.

Exactly the same.

No hesitation.

Not an inch of it.

Hemlock had spent so long running and hiding, abandoning everything she once knew and loved, and in the last day she had blown that cover straight into the sky, shed the shroud that had kept herself safe and hidden, and-

And she would do it all again for Henrik.

Without a lick of uncertainty.

"I know."

Henrik said, something tense in his face finally, finally, soothing out.

"I know… It's just they're my… That's my-…"

"They're your family."

Henrik went to open his mouth, to refute her perhaps, maybe to tell Hemlock she was family too, but there was no need.

Hemlock got it.

She didn't like it, her Old One heart was, like every other Old One, a little bit greedy, a little more selfish, but she got it.

Henrik had brothers and a sister, charcoal sketches without their faces, and they were, against the odds, alive, relatively speaking, and standing just behind them-

Henrik couldn't give that up. Hemlock didn't expect him to. Love wasn't jealously.

It was acceptance.

"It's fine, Henrik. I understand."

"You do?"

"Of course I do. If I had a chance to get my Sirius back-"

Hemlock quickly shook her head, even after all this time, all these years, the memory of-

It still hurt.

Hurt she would spare Henrik from enduring, despite the desperate whispering of her Old One heart telling her to Dream-Dream, Die-Die, Take-Take in the pitter-patter of its aching beat.

"I understand."

Henrik went to reach for her, but thankfully, swiftly enough, realized his mistake, letting his hand flop uselessly between them. Always distance, between her and everyone.

"You weren't… You weren't scared today, were you, Henrik?"

You weren't scared of me?

Was what Hemlock truly wanted to ask, but couldn't bring herself to, couldn't really face the answer if it was yes-

Henrik had seen her do things before, but never-

She broke vases and turned things to ash and sometimes shone a little too bright, and he had once heard her hiss a string of curses in R'lyehian when she had stubbed her toe, which had made him vomit-… Just a little, but he had never seen her truly angry before, had only caught a glimpse of that anger today, and… And Hemlock remembered how scared she used to be when she saw Vernon angry, how terrified that he might turn and take that anger out on-

She couldn't bear the thought of it if Henrik thought she would… she would…

Henrik grinned up at her.

"Not once. I always knew you were coming for me."

It was that, right there, that broke her. That naïve innocence, that childlike purity, that sole belief in there being nothing to be scared of because he knew she was coming for him, that he wasn't scared of her-

Even Hermione and Ron had been scared of her, towards the end, when her Divine gifts had really started to mature enough to show.

And here Henrik was, doe-eyed and smiling, so sure-

So sure she was good.

That she was worth believing in.

It hurt something terrible, it soothed even more, spoke to that Old One part of her that should never be spoke to, and it only reinforced Hemlock's conviction.

This boy was hers.

Her little brother.

Her little soft-dark light that helped her see in the night.

"And I'll always come for you, Henrik. Never forget that. Whenever you need me, I'll be there."

"I know."

He chirped; grin dimpled, again so fuckin' sure.

"And I'll be there for you too. That's what family is for, I think."

Hemlock-

Hemlock swallowed hard against the sudden lump on her throat, and, very British-ly she might add, slapped her hands down on her thighs and stood up from the steps, trying to distance herself from the emotion trying to choke her, nodding for Henrik to do the same.

"Come, let's go see what's been decided."

Henrik frowned.

"It's only been seven minutes. I thought I heard you say they had fifteen?"

Hemlock cocked a brow, and Henrik had the decency to appear sheepish.

"You were listening at the door."

"Only for the last part!"

Hemlock grinned, and made her way up the stairs.

"What am I going to do with you, aye?"

"Buy me that new surround sound TV I saw?"

"Don't push it."

Hemlock chuckled as she swung open the front door.


New Orleans: The French Quarter: The Abattoir

The Living Room

By the time Hemlock and Henrik made it into the hall of the house leading to the living room where she had left the gaggle of Vampires-

Parliament of Vampires? Murder of Vampires? What did you call a group of Vampires?

Hemlock shook her head, it didn't matter, and caught the tail end of a quickly silenced conversation when, at least one of them, must have heard her approaching footsteps.

They didn't shut up fast enough for her own supernatural hearing to miss, however.

"You heard her, she said Old One. I've read The Dunwich Horror, Nik! How do we know we're not going to wake up with tentacles like Cthulhu? How do we-…"

Hemlock rolled around the bend, smiling, grinning, soaking in the alarm of her sudden appearance that gently lapped at her face from the room of debating Vampires.

"Actually, it's pronounced C̝̯̞̳̈͢t̩̯̜͕hͥͦ̓ͥͪ̾ͬu̖͎̯̪̗̫ͫ̊̿ͬ̈́̓̀ĺ̠͓ͣ͐h̦̬u̱͔̲̮̣̿̂̇̀̿."

Henrik, from her side, groaned sickeningly, just as the siblings in the front room, and a still strapped down tight Marcel, similarly winced, thunderstruck by the voice. The Voice.

The one in the suit even staggered a bit to the side.

"Please don't speak R'lyehian, 'Lock. You know it makes me feel nauseous."

Hemlock rolled her eyes at Henrik's tight-fisted gripe, pricking the fun out of her balloon, kicking back against the door frame in a fluid sweep.

"It's my native tongue, Henrik, it's going to slip out at some points… Technically speaking, Cthulhu is my uncle."

Hemlock shrugged noncommittedly at the small boy.

"He's not that bad once you get to know him. Quite funny if a little creepy, and he does smell like gone off calamari… But he's not bad. He once told me this joke. A man walked into a bar at Ulthar and he turns to the waiter and says, excuse me, waiter? This San-nakji I ordered doesn't look too fresh. It's not moving, is it dead? And the waiter replies with ah, no sir, it's not dead, only dreaming."

Hemlock laughed, loudly, a little breathlessly, more briskly, a cold wind howling, waiting for Henrik to chuckle too.

He didn't.

Neither did anyone else in the room.

"Get it? San-nakji as in the dish made out of live octopus arms… Not dead, only dreaming because Old One's never die merely sleep… the tentacles-"

Hemlock's laughter did die as Henrik slowly blinked at her, shaking his head ruefully, and she huffed, crossing her arms over her chest with a frown pinching at her brows, hooding her eyes.

"I suppose you'd have to have been there to really get it."

And she promptly shook her own head, turning back to the siblings in the room.

Enough games.

"And you don't have to worry about big mean uncle C̝̯̞̳̈͢t̩̯̜͕hͥͦ̓ͥͪ̾ͬu̖͎̯̪̗̫ͫ̊̿ͬ̈́̓̀ĺ̠͓ͣ͐h̦̬u̱͔̲̮̣̿̂̇̀̿ any way. He's still moping about his favourite Acolyte Lovecraft's death, and he still hasn't chosen another to write more of his bridges into existence on bookshop shelves, so everybody is safe and tentacle free for now. Whatever deal is struck, it's between me and no one else."

Klaus mirrored her, frowning, down to the serious bones to pick.

"A deal you said we had fifteen minutes to think over. It's been eight."

Hemlock unwound one arm from her chest, lifted it, and snapped her gloved fingers-

The hands of the clock on the wall sped up, gliding around the clock, spinning in a spiral of seven turns, a burnished whir on the pale face dotted with numbers.

The light from the window dimmed a little outside, night-time hastened-

"There you go. Fifteen minutes over and done with."

Rebekah spluttered, speeding for the window, staring outward to the thicker night.

"Did you just fast-forward time?"

Hemlock scoffed, kicking away from the door frame, though she made no bid to leave the crux of the shadowed door.

"Strictly speaking, I slowed your perseverance of time in this room. Time outside moved as it normally did. You lot just didn't… move along with it. Now, answers people. You're fifteen minutes are up and I'm getting rather bored. You're confusion and astonishment at every little thing I did was cute in the beginning, but now I find it wearing thin."

"That isn't fair-"

Hemlock glared fiercely at Rebekah, and the blond Vampire stalled, the curtain falling from her hand.

"Life isn't fair. So, what's it going to be?"

Elijah sighed, stepping between the two.

"You have a deal."

Hemlock grinned, clapping her gloved hands together.

"Fantastic. We should be off then-"

"But Hemlock-"

"No buts, Henrik. You missed school today, it's late, and you have an exam on Friday. You need to study and go to sleep for morning classes."

Hemlock turned and began leaving, Rebekah, again, calling at her retreating back, peeking over Elijah's broad shoulder.

"How are we meant to see Henrik if you just leave-"

Hemlock waved a flippant hand.

"You'll find us, I'm sure. Just across the road is my flower shop-"

This time, it was Hemlock's turn to wince.

"You can't miss it. It's sort of… Exploded."

And then she was gone, Henrik waving goodbye with a bright little see you soon! as he too jogged to catch up.

Whatever magic that was holding Marcel to the chair waned with the slam of the front door, sending the youngest Vampire falling to the floor in the rubble of a broken chair, scrubbing gingerly at his bruised wrists and ankles.

"What the fuck just happened?!"


New Orleans: The French Quarter: The Road To The Abattoir

Hemlock paused at the end of the road, Henrik beside her, on their way home, and turned one last time, eyeing the house they had walked away from. She frowned deeply at it, imagining the people inside and came up conflicted.

Hemlock had flared back there, momentarily lost control of her shine at one point, quite brightly.

Really brightly.

They had only been a few steps away. They should have been dust. They should have burned.

Everyone else, Vampires with their bloody magic rings too, had sizzled to cinders with less-

So why hadn't they?

Furthermore, if they hadn't burned, if they could stand the shine, could she reach out and-

"Hemlock?"

Henrik asked inquisitively when he realized his guardian had stopped in her unforgiving march forward. Hemlock shook her head at his bewildered question, and turned back around, smiling.

"Let's go home."


New Orleans: The French Quarter: Pushing Up Daisies

The Shop Floor

It was a sunny, bright new day in New Orleans, and the last twenty-four hours had seemingly been swept under the rug of the collective consciousness. The morning news had reported a mass Gas leak from the local power plant, giving reason, to the Muggles and Mortals, of the last days strange happenings. Mass hallucination. No frogs, no blood showers, no hailstorms and swarms of flies, just carbon monoxide poisoning coming up in fumes from the sewer drains.

Merlin, Hemlock loved the Muggles and the Mortals, particularly for their steadfast refusal to see or acknowledge anything that didn't fit into their own neat box of possibility.

And she was also, that bright sunny morning, doing her own sweeping.

The glass tinkled as she swept it over to the dust pan lying in wait, silver and grey in the powder of the decimated flowers and plants that had once made her store front a technicolour wonder-

And now a pallid graveyard of petrified twigs, piles of ash, age cracked plaster and shattered windows.

Hemlock should have been used to it by now.

Everything she touched dies.

It was going to take weeks to fix her shop.

"You know, it's rude to stare."

Giving one last sweep of her broom, Hemlock propped it against her reception desk, turning to face the tall man standing in the rubble of her shop's doorway.

Suit man.

ElijahHenrik had told here when they had gotten home last night. The eldest brother, apart from someone called Finn who hadn't been there last night.

"I have been told so before, yes."

Hemlock snorted.

"Henrik's at school. You should come back later, after half three, he should be back by then-"

"Actually, I came here to talk to you."

Hemlock cocked a keen brow, unable to temper down the smile breaking across her face.

"Well that's fuckin' ballsy. I thought we said all there was really to say yesterday... Or do you need a reminder?"

Elijah politely ignored her warning, instead motioning inside the shop.

"Are you going to invite me in, or must we have this conversation halfway on the street?"

Hemlock hesitated before waving the larger man in.

"Come in then, if you really must talk."

Elijah Mikaelson stepped over the blown off door Hemlock had found in the street and dragged back inside that morning, taking a moment to set a dark gazed sweep of the destruction around them.

"What happened here?"

"I happened here."

That, seemingly, was answer enough.

Hemlock reclaimed her broom and set back to work. If she was going to be talked to, she may as well get some actual work done as well. This shop wasn't going to fix itself.

"Me and my family are having a dinner tonight. We were wondering if you and Henrik would like to-"

"Henrik can go once he finishes his homework."

Hemlock didn't look up, carried on with her sweeping, but, by the flare of awareness she felt prickling at the back of her neck, she knew Elijah was watching.

"And you?"

"I don't eat."

Picking up the full dust pan, Hemlock dumped the whole lot in a black bin bag, setting back to the cool routine she had found herself slipping into this morning of sweeping, dumping, sweeping, dumping.

"Or I don't need to anymore. I outgrew that human milestone a while ago. I'm still pretty fond of treacle tarts, though."

"All living things must eat. It's a law of the universe, of the cosmos. Even suns consume hydrogen."

"Says the Vampire who drains blood."

Hemlock paused, glanced his way, and sighed. The big bastard had Henrik's eyes. Large, soulful, dark like chocolate.

Big fuckin' puppy dog eyes.

"I don't eat food. I eat belief."

Elijah frowned, diverted from his idle searching of a scorched and petrified orchid.

"Belief?"

"Mortal belief, yeah. It's what I-… It's what us Old One's run on. Powerful stuff too. Maybe the most powerful thing in this place we call the Milky Way. Like snorting an expresso shot and then jacking yourself up to a plug socket. Makes your bones feel like their too big for your body."

Sweep, dump, sweep.

"Of course, I didn't know that until I won the war, had a whole civilisation start believing I was their saviour-"

The sweeping came faster.

"Doesn't matter. It was too late by then. We feed on belief. I got a shot of it early on, and it kick started my… Gifts. The energy I am inside. Woke it right up. The belief got stronger the more I did, I got worse the more they believed, a nasty fuckin' cycle there was no escape from and… Here we are."

Hemlock heard the click of dress shoes on her floorboards.

"You're in hiding?"

It wasn't a question, even if Elijah was polite enough to make it seem like one.

"Yep. The less people that know that I exist, the less people there are who don't know to believe in me, the more…"

"The more human you stay."

Hemlock paused in her sweeping, glancing up, balancing against the rod of her broom, willing herself not to burn to bright.

"It's only temporary, of course. Eventually I'll outgrow the need for belief too, this world, and… Boom."

Elijah made his way to her reception desk, running a finger over her ash covered partially melted till.

"Boom?"

Hemlock sighed, thrumming a gloved thumb against the handle of her broom.

She had never spoken about this to anyone.

Never really needed to outside-

She didn't know how to explain it.

The broken flower pot caught her gaze, and Hemlock nodded over to it, diverting Elijah's attention from the till to the pot.

"See that flower pot there? This world-… This dimension, all of it, is that flower pot. Time and space, stars and worlds, black holes and Mrs Martha who lives down the way, they are the soil inside."

Hemlock rolled her jaw, tapping her tongue on the back of her teeth, feeling like she could taste regret.

"An Old One lives outside of that flower pot, but they can dip their fingers in, maybe a whole hand occasionally. Sometimes, they play with the ants that live in there… Every so often, they burn the ant hill down. Sometimes… Sometimes they take a part of themselves, just a tiny seed, and they plant it in the soil."

"You're that seed?"

"Sort of. I was a seed without a case. Nergal chose Lily as that protective shell, the shell that could genetically pass me… The real me, the energy I am, a physical body, and then he planted me in this dimensions soil, this universe… I wasn't born from Lily. I'm still, in Old One ways, in the womb."

Hemlock let Elijah soak that in, gave him time to try and understand what she was saying, half expecting him to, like everyone else who knew, as little as those numbers were, as small as they had to be, get lost in the abstract concept of Old One conception.

"This soil, this dimension, it's rich with humans, and therefore belief."

Or maybe, just maybe, a thousand odd year-old Vampire could understand.

Hemlock beamed.

"Precisely. I've still got my umbilical cord attached. Human belief is the nutrients that will see me grow. But like all tree seedlings that break the surface, that flower pot at some point will become too small for me. And what do you do with a tree in a too small flower pot?"

She met Elijah's eye. They really were... Soft looking. Like velvet.

For a moment, she wanted to ̰͙̤͈p̣̱͇̼͖̟l̰̝̘͚͚̞̺̇̇͋ͭ͐͛̅́u͍͍ͪc̡͓̏͌̐̉̉̾k̤͙͕͙̐̈ ̘ͮͫͥt͆h̘̖̑ͯ̈́e͉̤͒̋̿͛m̱̰̤̗̹̭ͨ̅͋̏̐ ̗̻̼̱͖͚͛͌͠o͍̘̲͇̹̔͂̄̎̉͛͜ͅŭ̝͕̜̌ͭ̆ͫͭͦ͠t̰̮͕̪̙̖ ̡̜̮̯̤̝̖̺́å̲͎͚̝̈́n̢͙̻̭̩̰̂̍͌͗ͪ͛d ̅̀k͍̯̥͍e̹͚ͮͫͨë́ͪ̾̎́p͗̈́͌ͦ̉̑ͥ ̝̜̠̹̹̄͌̇͌͌̑͌͞t̢̪̽̃̏̅ͅh̰͈̪̲͐͛̓ͦͯ̓͢ȩ̦̞̓m̸̰-͈͐͆̈́̑ͪ̽̾

No!

Hemlock wasn't acknowledging that voice.

"You take it out and plant it outside the flower pot with all the other trees."

Hemlock nodded.

"Or the roots eventually crack it open by themselves and shatter the whole thing. The ants will have no home then, will they? They can't exist outside that flower pot. Their bound to their soil."

Elijah blinked, weighing her words.

He must have found them as heavy as Hemlock did.

"Are you saying you're going to destroy this dimension? That… What? You'll eventually grow so large; this universe can't contain you and you… Break out?"

Hemlock sighed and went back to sweeping.

He nearly had it.

"Not on my watch. My father and all his brethren can go fuck themselves. I like this womb. It's safe and warm, and the ants are my friends. Wherever the Old Ones sleep… I refuse to go there. Now, or in a million fuckin' years."

Hemlock, from the corner of her eye, spotted the moment it struck, that little glimmer of understanding in Elijah's dark eye.

"Belief. That's why you're in hiding. You stay away from belief as much as possible, and you stunt your own embryonic growth. You become-"

"Root bound. Can't get me out the nursery flower pot if I'm all tangled up in it, can they?"

Elijah stepped away from the desk he was standing behind, coming around to face her, standing closer-

He really was a brave one.

"You also eventually starve to death and wilt."

Hemlock shrugged.

"I don't really have any other choice. No one does in the end. Everything dies. You know this. Even Vampires… We all die eventually. Some of us just have longer than others. Plus, it will take me… Oh, a couple of billion years before I get to that stage? Old One's are slow growers. Trees. Plenty of life for anyone, even a Demigod or an Eldritch horror, to have their fill of it."

"Your father, Nergal-"

"Oh, he tries his hand sometimes, when he manages to get his fingers in the soil. So do my uncles and aunts… They send some cults after me to try and amp me up on belief… Tries to tempt me with devoted followers and gifts and sacrifices-… Belief is… To me, to us… It's… Enticing. Like offering heroin to a recovering drug addict that's only just stepped out of rehab. They know what they're doing, especially my father, he wants me to grow, he wants me to join him outside the flower pot-"

"But you've so far refused."

Hemlock snickered.

"They-… My family, if you must call them that, they find it funny at the moment. They think I've hit my teenage rebellion while still in the womb. They'll find it less funny in a few thousand years when time really begins running out to get me out of here before I become bound up in the fabric of this dimension. That's when I suspect they'll get desperate, really start trying to persuade me to come out and play, but… Well, we have a few thousand years until then, and they'll see I'm just as stubborn as they are."

Hemlock glanced out the broken door, up to the sky above.

"Hear that, arseholes?! I'm staying right here!"

Elijah frowned deeply, wondering who exactly she was speaking to, before-

Before the remaining flower pots in the shop cracked and splintered and blew.

Elijah flinched as broken shards of pottery bounced off the walls, across the floor, backing into the desk, but Hemlock simply chuckled, shaking her head at him.

"So dramatic… Pay them no mind. I have New Orleans on lockdown. No bridges in, no bridges out. Not a single copy of Mesopotamian mythology on a book shelf, a Bokrug idol stashed in a closet, or a single scrap of paper containing Nergal's name. The most they can do here is-"

She waved her hand around the shop.

"Knock on the door."

Elijah eyed the shop wearily, as if waiting for something else to explode. Fortunately, nothing else did.

"That was knocking?"

"Of course it is. What would you call it?"

Elijah scanned the room.

"A threat."

Hemlock-

Hemlock laughed.

"You really have never ran into an Old One before, have you?"

Elijah didn't answer, but that was telling enough.

"Oh, bless you… Trust me, you'll know when they're threatening you. That was just a hello."

Elijah cocked a brow, smiling softly, mouth opening-

"Hello-"

"Don't fuckin' respond, you mad bastard!"

Hemlock cut in sharply, slightly wide-eyed.

"No acknowledgement, remember?! I clearly remember telling you yesterday the trouble you can get into when you speak back to them!"

She shook her head incredulously.

"You don't invite them in. You never invite them in… Or you'll get more than a bloody hello!"

Elijah, rather gracefully given Hemlock's sharp turn of temperament, backtracked.

"But you just spoke to them-"

"I can because I've made sure no mortal or human, once upon a time or otherwise, has been talking to them in New Orleans. I created a void… a Place with no bridges. They're power doesn't rely on my belief, in my acknowledgement-"

"But it can on mine, and I could… Open the door to the knocking."

"Yes."

Hemlock huffed, but, seeing those dark eyes wince, sagged.

"Just… Be careful. Don't… Don't speak to them. Don't say their name. Don't draw an image of them or write their words down or… Just pretend they don't exist and we'll all be grand."

"Rebekah said Cthulhu's name earlier."

Hemlock dashed her broom down and began tying off the black bag.

"But she wasn't speaking to him. She didn't know he was real or-… She didn't believe before she said it. As my mother didn't believe in Nergal until the strange things in camp starting happening, even if she didn't know it was him precisely… Knowing something was doing it was enough."

"Ah."

Elijah hummed.

"And now that I do believe, given what you've told me this morning, if I do say his name now, acknowledge them-"

"You open the door and... Trust me when I say none of us want that to happen."

Elijah gave an uneasy smile.

"Duly noted."

Hemlock felt… Soothed by that.

Elijah, despite being a Vampire, seemed pretty smart. Not someone reckless enough to go researching things best left in the dark.

In the dead and dreaming.

"Good… Good."

"And on that note, dinner?"

Hemlock heaved up the bin bag, placing it on the mounting pile as Elijah made his way for the door.

"I told you, I don't eat."

"You said you don't have to eat, and you said you were quite fond of treacle tarts so I now you can, even if you gain no sustenance from it. Neither do we. Given that I am a rather excellent baker, I can assure you that there will be some waiting for you."

Hemlock glared hotly over.

"Are you-… Are you bribing me with sugar?"

Elijah smoothly shrugged.

"I am sure Henrik would be more comfortable with you present."

"And now you're trying to bribe me with Henrik!"

Elijah smiled unrepentantly.

"Is it working?"

Hemlock owlishly blinked, taken aback.

"I-… You know what I am, what I can do, and you… You still want me around?"

There was something raw in her voice, something Hemlock didn't want slipping out but had anyway, something small and aching and-

Elijah smiled brighter.

"See you at seven."

And he paid her back for yesterday, turning on his heel, heading out the door.

Hemlock didn't like it when she was the one on the receiving end of someone else having the last word.

"I never agreed!"

No answer came back.

Elijah was already gone.

Hemlock huffed.

"Mad bastards. The lot of them."

She almost respected them for it.

Almost.


New Orleans: The French Quarter: The Abattoir

The Reading Room.

"Elijah's back. He said they're coming over at seven and then… Began baking in the kitchen."

Niklaus, stretched across the couch in the upstairs reading room of their families home, peeked over the old book he was scanning.

"Baking? Whatever for?"

Rebekah, who came wondering into the room, thumbing through the books on the shelves, shrugged.

"No idea. He wouldn't say, but he was smiling so… Good news, hopefully? Got any further in your research?"

Klaus plucked the pencil from behind his ear up, scribbled down a note on the scrap of paper he had on one side of the book, and slapped the thing shut before dashing it onto the table between him and his sister.

"Not far. Every reference to an Old One is… Missing. As if someone has come along and tore all the pages out that has so much as a name written inside. I ordered some books online, but they said they didn't deliver here."

"To this road?"

Niklaus grinned.

"To New Orleans."

Rebekah whistled long and low.

"Strange."

Niklaus shrugged.

"I'm guessing our resident Demigod has some sort of… Spell running, and doesn't want anyone digging into her past. Makes me wonder what secrets she's hiding."

Rebekah turned away from the bookshelf.

"And we're digging into said past without Elijah's knowledge because…"

Niklaus stood from the couch.

"Because, dear sister, noble Elijah will demand that we drop it, or ask said Demigod ourselves, and we know she won't be so willing to answer. You saw how fast she hightailed it out of here last night."

He met Rebekah's gaze.

"Don't you want to know what our souls are bonded to exactly? Soul bonds are extremely rare, and have so far, to the best of my knowledge, only been between Vampire's and mortals. Aren't you curious to know why ours is different? Why all of us, all four very powerful Originals are Bonded to one person? Don't you want to know what she's capable of? How powerful she is-"

Wrong thing to say.

Rebekah scowled.

"So that's what this is then? Another Nik power trip. Is that why you said we should have this dinner? So you can try and pick her apart across the broccoli? I thought this was just us trying to get to know her better-… Clearly I was wrong. You just want to know how powerful the new player on the board is."

Niklaus scoffed.

"It's not like that-"

"Isn't it? Look me in the eye and tell me it isn't."

Niklaus couldn't.

"Alright, I wouldn't mind knowing that too, but that isn't all it is. You heard her yourself-"

Rebekah rolled her eyes and swivelled, marching for the door.

"You're unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable. You've finally found the other half of your bloody soul, whatever small black bit of it that's left, and you want to find out how you can use it to your advantage. I'm not helping you with this."

Klaus was hot on his sisters trail.

"I'm not expecting you to… But I would be grateful if you kept my… Research out from under Elijah's nose for the moment-"

"Unbelievable!"

The bickering siblings left the room, arguing-

The piece of paper wedged between the book fluttered in an invisible wind. The cover slammed open unseen by eyes and unheard by ears.

The page lifted-

The writing, the middle word, glowed green and somehow, impossibly, darkly.

A simple note, a reminder, just a little prompt written in cursive writing.

Research Cthulhu mythos.

The name seeped into the paper, black veins spreading, seeping, alive-

The paper fell back to the table with a flutter, burned around the edges, one word less than what it had been before.

Research... Mythos.

The door to the reading room slammed shut as a shadow, as pale as madness and as thick as grief, darted across the ceiling of the hall and into the belly of the house.


Woo or Boo?


A.N: I think some of you knew where this was going for a while now, given some of the brilliant reviews I've read, I'm clearly not as subtle as I like to believe I am lol, so... Surprise! Guess who's coming to town! I obviously can't give any preview notes this chapter for the next, as it would give way too much away, but I do hope you're all looking forward to it anyway. I also know this chapter was a bit heavy on dialogue and exposition, but again, it was sort of needed right now to finally get the ball rolling. I do promise more action starts to begin next chapter, and romance steadily picks up, so, ready, set, go!

I am also hoping the edited way I have Cthulhu and some words has worked, but I won't know for sure until it is posted, so please let me know if you see it in the Zalgo font or not.

Thank you all for the lovely response to this fic. I hope you liked this chapter, and if you can, don't forget to drop a review. Hopefully, I will see you all soon