Everyone was wearing white and/or red clothing; children ran through the street carrying flags, while adults mingle on the sidewalks. A parade of parishioners marched up the main street in white and red robes, some of whom were carrying their own statues covered in red sheets. Among the crowd, Nik and I rushed trying to find Finn while talking to Marcel.

"I've searched the entire French Quarter- Finn has vanished. I can't remove the barrier that has you trapped until I have my hand around his throat." Nik told him making Marcel sigh in exhaustion.

"I was hoping you had a Plan B." Marcel told him.

"Davina. She doesn't know it yet, but she's going to help me break his spell." Nik told him. "Your job? Keep Kol alive. At least until we learn Rebekah's whereabouts. Are you listening to me?" Nik asked him impatiently.

"Yeah." Marcel sounding distracted. "Uh, that all sounds fine and good, but listen... when I was getting the werewolves out, I got bit." Nik and I stopped walking and Nik closed his eyes, sighing, stressed by this new revelation.

"I will get you my blood. I will get you out of that house, Marcellus. Whatever it takes." Nik swore before hanging up.

"I'll call Davina." I told him before doing so.


Davina agreed to meet us at St. Anne's. Nik was pacing around in front of the sacristy while Davina set up what she needed for what I thought was a locater spell.

"Haven't you found Finn yet?" Nik asked her, but she just ignored him and continued to work on setting up. "I must say, for a witch of your caliber, your spells are not particularly efficient."

"This doesn't look like a locater spell." I mentioned.

"Finn is blocking my locator spell. So, I'm trying something new. But, I need to concentrate, and it would help a lot if someone would stop standing over me like a stalker." She said pointedly at Nik.

"No need to get testy, love. We all have the same goal." Nik reminded her before she lit a match and began to use it to light the candles in her circle.

"Really? Because my goal is to get Kol out of your house alive. Which seems to be about number ten on your list." Davina pointed out.

"Number nine, at least!" Nik smirked.

"What is wrong with you? He's your brother!" Davian nearly shouted at him.

"Yes! And, I also have a sister, one who I happen to care about more." Nik told her making her roll her eyes even knowing he had a point.

"Kol tricked us, Davina." I reminded her. "He put Rebekah in another body and didn't tell us."

"So, until he tells me where she is, Kol can rot, as far as I'm concerned. And you might wanna get your villains straight, love, because Finn is the architect of this fiasco. So, pick up the pace! Find out where he's getting his power from, so we can stop it." Nik demanded. Davina raised her eyebrows at him, clearly amused, before she made a face and started her spell.

"We du le mon ennemi on ton. We du le mon ennemi on ton." She chanted. "I saw glimpses of him. He's combining sacred objects. Totems. Representational magic."

"Where?" Nik asked her.

"Lafayette No. 1. The Lyonne tomb." She told us.

"What's he channeling?" I asked her.

"He's channeling Mikael and Esther!" she told us shocked.

"And here I thought I was the poster-child for least grateful offspring!" Nik said grinning widely.

"Looks like you've been upstaged." I told him.

"Well, then. Shall you and I go crash their little party?" Nik asked before we started for the door with Davina behind us. Suddenly Nik stopped in his tracks, gasping for breath.

"Nik?" I asked looking at him worriedly.

"Now who needs to pick up the pace?" Davina asked getting annoyed. Nik suddenly lost consciousness and fell to the floor. "Klaus?"

"What the hell just happened?" I asked before I started struggling for breath.

"Not you too." Davina begged before I was suddenly in what looked like a wooden shed with mounted heads on the walls near the low ceiling.

"Niklaus. Nicole." Elijah said.

"You three." Kol said, drawing attention to him in the far corner.

"What is this?" Elijah asked getting annoyed. Kol too notice of the heads and looked unnerved.

"It's a chambre de chasse. A hunt room. It's where witches bring their prey for mental target practice. Our bodies are in the real world, lying dead on the floor, whilst our minds are in here, represented by these creepy animal heads." Kol told us.

"Let me take a wild guess as to who is the author of this nightmare." Nik said unimpressed. "FINN! Show yourself!" Finn entered the room through the front door and Nik reached out to grab him in a choke-hold, but his hand didn't even come close to his elder brother's throat.

"Save your strength. In here I am untouchable." Finn said motioning to the room. "My magic, my rules. So, make yourselves at home. We're gonna be here for a while. At the very least, this prison is a bit more comfortable than the box you held me in for..." he paused and thought for a moment. "Almost nine hundred years?"

"The heads are a nice touch. Let me guess—" Nik pointed to each of the animals as he spoke. "I'm the big, bad wolf? Kol, the wily fox. Elijah is the noble stag. Which leaves the owl for Nicole, and you, fittingly enough, are the boar! Bit obvious, as far as symbolism goes. Why are we here? Don't tell me- it's about Mother? I didn't force her to drink blood and betray everything she holds dear. That was her choice."

"This isn't about Mother, this is about you. I want you to know how it feels to be powerless! So, I'm going to take the thing that matters most to you- the city you've come to love so much." Finn told him.

"Are we quite done here?" Elijah asked rolling his eyes. "You will release us now."

I will! After sundown. Because at sundown, when the marchers of Carillon Eve take to the streets, my barrier spell drops. Marcel and his hungry vampires will be unleashed to kill their way through the Quarter! I imagine that, after their atrocities, the supernatural community of New Orleans will be forced to find another place to call home." Finn said.

"Look, I don't care about the city. What I care about is that my very human body is laying at the feet of some very hungry vampires." Kol reminded him. "Your fight is with them, it's not with me!"

"All you care about is your own fragile mortality. But, what if you were made vulnerable? What then?" Finn asked him before flicking his wrist. Kol's body tensed up as blood started to run from his nose. He wiped the blood away, but Finn just used the spell again.

"Okay. Point made. Now, nobody loves a joke like old fox-boy here, but if you could just get me back to my body—" Kol said.

"I must confess, I rather enjoy watching you twist in the wind." Elijah said before pulling out a handkerchief from his pocket and handing it to Kol to wipe the blood. "Not unlike the way you left Rebekah, I imagine."

"Yes!" Finn said looking gleeful as he pointed to Elijah. "What did you do to Rebekah?"

"For goodness sake, she crossed me, so I crossed her back! Look, if you could just get me back to my body, I will tell anybody anything that they need to know!" Kol told us. Finn rolled his eyes and hit Kol with a pain inflicting spell, which hurt him enough to stop talking.

"How narrow-minded of me!" Finn laughed. "Rebekah. You don't know where she is, and the only thing standing between you and our sister is this selfish fool. Maybe it's time for you to go enjoy the rest of your mortal life while you still can." Finn made a fist with his hand and Kol disappeared. Finn seemed pleased by this outcome. "So, what shall we talk about while we wait for nightfall? Oh! I know! Let's talk about our parents." Finn told us,

"You know, I figured you wouldn't be kind to Mother, but imagine my surprise to learn that Mikael met the same fate! Bravo, brother." Nik said.

"You see, the parent I was interested in talking about was your father. Your real one? I mean, you longed to know him your whole life, yet at the first opportunity, you murdered him! Why, I wonder?" Finn asked.

"Possibly the same reason you took out Esther." Nik suggested approaching him. "Severing parental ties has a way of freeing one up to recognize one's true potential."

"Quite. But, Esther was no fool. She pinpointed your wants, and knowing your true father was at the top of the list!" Finn said before making a noise to mimic the sound of killing someone for emphasis. "No, something else occupies the top of your list of affections. And it's not your favorite city." Finn smacked Nik on the back, which startled him enough to turn and get in his face as Finn continued to taunt him. "Because I'm about to take that from you, using your own vampires, and I barely get a rise out of you! I thought maybe it was Rebekah, but you remain calm, even when the one who knows her fate probably just met his."

"I am fighting the monumental urge to mount your severed head upon one of these walls..." Elijah sighed in boredom.

"And then, I thought it was your favorite brother, but Mother broke him into a thousand pieces, and rather than fix him, you left him to fend for himself God knows where. Now, that just leaves your beloved wife, Nicole." Finn said turning to me. "But you've been leaving her with the wolves, letting her take control of them with her little pet. You know, if I didn't know better, I'd say you were hiding something from me. Something big. Something dark. Maybe your real father found out what it was, and you had to kill him?" Finn asked.

"You want to know why I killed my father?" Nik asked him angrily.

"Yeah!" Finn told him.

"Because when blood relations let me down, I don't stop to reason with them- I remove them." Nik told him.

"So, the secret is there is no secret? You long for nothing, care for no one?" Finn asked skeptically. Nik smiled fakely at him, but Finn just shook his head.

"The problem is, brother, I don't believe you. It's clear to me that you're hiding something. And, as I control your presence here, we've got all the time in the world to figure out just what that might be." Finn walked away from him and while Elijah's face was blank of emotion, Nik and I shared a both furious and terrified look of Finn learning the truth.


We were each seated in the chairs under our animal heads in the hunt room as we talked. Finn was trying to bait Nik into exposing his secret.

"It's a shame, really, for you to lose New Orleans. You've worked so hard to make this city a home. On the other hand, this city hasn't given you much in the way of good fortune. You have Marcel's betrayal, Father's attack, the loss of your children..." Elijah looked worriedly to us, but we maintain our cover.

"It is a delicate craft." Elijah said trying to distract him from the topic the three of wished to avoid. "Representational magic? One must be ever so precise. If you misrepresent us, the very enchantment that this room was built upon would collapse, would it not?" Nik looked to Elijah curiously before turning his attention to Finn.

"I assure you, you have not been misrepresented." Finn told him.

"Well, that depends upon how well the hunter knows his prey." Elijah told him. Elijah pointed to himself while standing and looking at the stag head mounted above him. "This façade, this illusion that I have created over the course of my life- the noble stag. It is nothing more than a deception. To myself. To everyone." He turned to Nik, looking distraught about what he was saying. "If I were a truly noble brother, I would not withheld from you a vile deed. One that I, like a coward, allowed Mother to erase from my memory. It was I who killed Tatia." Nik was stunned by this confession, and the room started to shake and warp. "I hunted her down, and mercilessly, I feasted upon her flesh. I tore her from us. Mother took the blame." Elijah knelt in front of Nik looking disgusted and ashamed of himself. "Brother, I felt certain if you knew, you would in no way forgive me." Elijah looked up at Nik pleadingly, but he simply looked back at him with a sad expression on his face.

"The act may be reprehensible, but your admitting to it proves you to be the man I thought you to be! My magic stands!" Finn told us.

"Does it?" Nik asked him smiling weakly as he got an idea making Finn's triumphant smile start to fall. "It turns out my brother is even more depraved than I am." Elijah looked at him with tears in his eyes, and Finn once again became alarmed as Nik stood and looked at the severed animal heads. "He is the noble stag no longer. Indeed, another altogether different beast is creeping through the cracks. And you have also failed in your representation of Nicole. The owl is the announcer of death." He said looking at me.

"But I was a mother." I said smiling at what he was getting at. "A mother brings life into the world, not death. I've been deceived by others masks and haven't had much wisdom when I was raising my son. The owl doesn't represent me." I said and the room shook some more as I stood.

"You have also failed in your representation of me, because there is one thing you never thought me capable of." Nik turned back to Elijah, who looked surprised when Nik squeezed his shoulder comfortingly instead of becoming angrier. "Forgiveness." The room suddenly began to shake, and Finn looked scared for the first time since they entered the room. "You, Finn, have remained a boar for centuries, but here is where your true fault lies- you never learnt that the bonds of family far outweigh anything else! Such bonds trump petty jealousies. They overcome ancient feuds. And, yes, they are capable of allowing one monster to pardon the great sins of another." Finn looked up to see the wolf head to up in flames and was startled so much that he leapt to his feet. When Elijah looked over, the stag head was also set ablaze. I turned to see the owl was burning brightly along. The room began to shake even more.

"How is this possible?" Finn asked stunned.

"Your magic is as flawed as your perception of your own siblings. I wonder... just how untouchable are you?" we lunged for Finn, but before we could reach him, Finn released the spell, which returned us to our bodies.

"What happened? Is Kol okay?" Davina asked us the moment we gasped awake.

"We're fine, thank you for your concern. The same, however, cannot be said for your friends and the people of the French Quarter. Now, I can stand here and explain to you the specifics, or you can show a little trust and come with me." Nik told her. Davina simply shrugged and grabbed her coat from the nearby pew.

"I'm the one who's been waiting for you to move your asses. Let's go!" she pushed past us and we headed for the compound.


When we arrived, we saw the parade of marchers, but nothing out of the ordinary.

"Everything's fine out here. Where the hell are they?" Davina asked.

"You look around, I'll see if I can track them down." Nik told her.


Nik and I were in Marcel's loft looking around as Nik talked on the phone with Elijah.

"How's my children?" he asked him.

"They're in good hands. As am I. However, if you say the word, I shall return." Elijah told him.

"No, you're needed where you are." Nik told him.

"So, the city is safe?" Elijah asked and I looked at the many blood bags on Marcel's floor

"Well, I wouldn't exactly go flinging around terms like "safe." Marcel and all his vampires have inexplicably disappeared. Kol is in the wind, Rebekah is still lost, and Finn is dangerously suspicious of the secrets we keep. Speaking of which... I meant what I said. I am capable of forgiveness." Nik told him. "We need to remain focused on our common enemies. I'll be in touch." They hang up and we turned to see Aiden walking in. "Ah! The cavalry has arrived! And right on time. No doubt eager to save your precious Josh."

"Yes. Just tell me what you need." Aiden told us.

"You can start by questioning your wolves. Find out what Finn has done with Marcel and his vampires." Nik told him.

"Well, I would, but most of the wolves took off for the Bayou, waiting for Hayley and Jackson to finish their wedding trials." Aiden said.

"And what trials might those be?" Nik asked suspiciously.

"Your basic old-school werewolf stuff. They go out into the woods and smoke this blue calamus root out of a peace pipe." Aiden said.

"Blue calamus?" Nik asked concerned. A rather specific plant. Known by many for its unique properties as a truth serum. In generations past, it was used as among the wolves for divulgement rituals. Ancient rites where secrets are confessed. I don't suppose they mentioned such a thing?"

"They just said they had to do a bunch of rituals and ceremonial stuff." Aiden told us.

"Where are Jackson and Hayley now?" I asked him.

"Back country. Deep Bayou. Why?" he asked us.

"That'll be all." Nik said before we headed for the door. "Stay on point!"

"Wait, that's it? Where are you going?" Aiden asked him.

"I'm going to have a little chat with the bride-to-be. Remind her that some secrets need to stay buried."