Five:

Moonrise


Mystic Falls; Mikaelson Mansion

Six hours before moonrise.

Klaus paced by the fireplace, five steps left, turn, five steps right. Rinse and repeat.

"It's false. There are no, and never has been, such a thing as the All-blood. It's a bloody fairy-tale made by scared witches hiding in the dark, meant to ward off nasty vampires and nothing else. I cannot believe we are taking this conversation seriously."

Caroline crossed her arms over her chest, cocking her hip out, none too impressed by the reality before her.

She had come here for help not morose indignation and useless back and forth.

Hello, Caroline wanted to shout at the group in the room.

Hello! Apocalyptic monster alert! Get it together!

"Well you should go tell your mother that because she's convinced my friends she has it secreted away somewhere."

Kol, sitting on the sofa, arms flung wide over the back with one long leg slung over the other, sided with Klaus.

"It's a bogeyman. Mother's merely blowing smoke, and hiding what she's truly up to."

Elijah, standing by the window with his back to the room, a heavy silhouette in the setting sun outside, however, didn't seem as convinced as his brothers.

"Then, perhaps, wouldn't it be best to keep that bogeyman where it belongs? Under the bed and not out walking and talking amongst us?"

Rebekah came striding into the room in a breeze of blond curls, heels clacking on the hardwood, frowning, and Caroline's stomach knotted in the bottom of her belly.

Oh dear.

"Mother and Finn are gone. Their rooms are cleared. They must have left this morning when no one was watching."

Klaus stalled by the fireside, a jump to the muscle of his clenching jaw, a dip of a crawling growl to his voice.

"Of course they are bloody gone."

Caroline sagged pathetically.

"Then what are we going to do?"

Klaus glanced over his shoulder, lifting a curious, sarcastic brow in her direction.

"We?"

Caroline huffed, flinging her arms out wide in a challenge. Was she the only one seeing the bigger picture here?

"You're not the only ones on the buffet menu if this thing gets woken up! Vampires includes me too! I'm not just going to sit around and wait for the fang-y antichrist to come nipping at my neck!"

Elijah turned away from the window, shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his pressed slacks.

"Not just vampires."

Caroline frowned.

"Excuse me?"

Elijah strolled further into the room.

"Everything not mortal. Witches, werewolves, vampires, unicorns, goblins, if it can find them, if it has a slither of supernatural in its blood, it will feed."

Caroline shuffled on the spot, arms falling to dangle at her sides listlessly.

"And you know this how?"

Elijah shrugged his broad shoulders.

"I read Miss Forbes, and the All-blood has been extensively written about since Babylonian times. Quite a fascinating subject, for one such as myself. It'll be faster than us, stronger than us, some stories say it will be boneless, but recent historians interpreting the myth have refuted the claim stating the translation was wrong, not boneless but flexible."

Rebekah scoffed as she flopped down onto the couch by Kol.

"Yes, let us waste more time by discussing it's calcium content. Wonderful."

Elijah glared down at Rebekah.

"Knowledge is power, and if this All-blood is, in fact, real, then we will need all the power we can get."

Klaus, of course, butted in, having spent far too long out of the discussion for his own tastes Caroline suspected.

"Which it won't, for it is not real. Mother is simply trying to scare us like we are children still."

Kol chuckled deep and darkly.

"Scare us with a plan that she had no intention of us knowing? Come, Niklaus, even you can't be so dense."

"Why you little-"

Caroline intervened before they could get off topic… Again.

"Stop! This is getting us nowhere. Real or not… Plan for the worst, and hope for the best, right? If an All-blood is the worst-case scenario, then we should prepare for it, and anything that comes after will be better handled, correct?"

Elijah smiled at her softly.

"Not a All-Blood. The All-blood. There is to be but one… But quite right, Miss Forbes."

Caroline rolled her eyes.

"Caroline. The name is Caroline. Miss Forbes is my mother."

She searched the room.

"Now, what do we do?"

Klaus rolled his jaw, nimble hand inching up to scratch idly at his chin.

"Mother has all she needs according to you. The right moon tonight, the sarcophagus…"

Klaus frowned and squinted her way.

"You said she had Elena take Damon's blood? Why would she need Damon's blood?"

Silence, until Rebekah slumped back into her seat.

"When the father weeps for what he has lost… That's what you believed the Bennet witch said, wasn't it?"

Caroline nodded; Rebekah looked forlornly to Elijah.

"Maybe it doesn't mean cry. Blood can weep too."

Caroline laughed, only to find the room not laughing with her. It was a little… Disconcerting.

Yet, not quite as disconcerting as the outlandish belief that Damon out of all vampires could have some Satan spawn slumbering away in a box.

"Are you serious? You think… You think Damon is it's dad?"

Elijah leant heavy on the back of the sofa, lazily picking at the stitches of the cushion.

"A ten-year slumber… We do not know where exactly this All-blood was sent into the sleep, how old they were when entombed, but we do know at least ten years have passed since. Damon was not in Mystic falls ten years ago. He could be the sire."

Caroline repeated herself, the only thing she could do.

"You can't be serious!"

Klaus made for the door.

"It is simple then. We kill Damon and-"

Rebekah stood in a flash of blond and blue and a peek of fang.

"Don't be so foolish. Mother already has his blood thanks to the Doppelganger you kept alive. It's too late on that front. The ship's sailed."

Klaus whirled on his sister.

"Then what do we do then, Rebekah? Sit here all day and bicker?"

Caroline, herself, made for the door.

"We… We need to find Damon, tell him-"

She never got to finish her sentence as Klaus sped before her, taking her by the arm, halting her in her tracks.

"Can't let you do that, love. Trust me, familial ties can make murder… Messy. It's best we keep the Salvatore's blissfully in the dark for now."

Caroline hesitated.

If, and it was a big, big if, somehow, someway, Damon was the dad to this… Being, then he, at the very least, deserved to know, right?

And yet, if Esther succeeded, if this being was awoken, then it would go on to kill them all according to Bonnie.

That included Damon.

Would knowing he was the father help any in the seconds before he died?

How was-

Caroline did not move for the door again.

Maybe keeping him and Stefan in the dark, for right now, was for the best.

For all of them.

It wasn't like any of those in the Mikaelson mansion were any more illuminated on the matters at hand. Apparently all they had was some age old prophecy and some dusty books the eldest Original in the room had read.

Elijah interjected.

"When the silent dead howl and the Hybrid bleeds. That is the first stage of its awakening. The silent dead, quite clearly, due to the Bennet's admittance to Caroline-"

He pointedly looked at her.

"Is her ancestors magic. Which means come moonrise-"

Kol whistled low.

"Mother, Finn and the sarcophagus will be at the old Bennet Witch House. It's where her ancestors spirits will be closest… And more powerful. Where they can howl away."

Rebekah grinned.

"Then it's straightforward! we keep Klaus far, far away from the place and any pointy objects that could give him a papercut. No Hybrid blood, no grand awakening."

Right.

Yes.

Of course.

Everyone would be alright. Bonnie and Elena, Damon and Stefan, Tyler-

If Caroline still had a heartbeat, it might have stopped entirely then.

"Oh god."

Caroline scrambled for her coat pocket, plucking out her phone, shakily stumbling into her call logs and hitting dial as Klaus and Elijah inquisitively watched on.

The phone rang out.

The device fell from her ear.

"Yeah… That would have worked if Klaus had not gone and broke the curse upon him and went on a Hybrid turning spree not a year ago. Tyler… Tyler's not picking up."

Rebekah slapped the cushion at her hip, scowling at her brother.

"Well done Nik! You're little Hybrid army plan has doomed us all!"

"How was I supposed to know our sycophant of a mother would try raising the beast to kill us all, and use my Hybrids as the key?"

Finally, Kol stood from the sofa.

"Perhaps mother's return was more… Planned than we first thought. She was just in time for all the pretty pieces to fall exactly where she needed them to."

Elijah regarded the room keenly.

"Then there is only one piece left. When the sanctified lay despoiled at the sarcophagus's feet."

Klaus and Kol spoke as one.

"Finn."

Caroline shook her head softly.

"What? Finn is a Vampire, he can't be holy-"

Klaus cut her off.

"But he's never wanted to be one of us. He's always believed himself better-"

Elijah sighed.

"He's always tried to be better. Perhaps that is enough."

Kol nodded along.

"He also married Sage, remember? In that tacky little woodland hand binding ceremony. He's sanctified in marriage."

Caroline huffed.

"Then how is he going to get despoiled? Is… Is Esther going to kill him? If we can stop Finn from dying then-"

Kol cavalierly smiled, all teeth and bite.

"Not that he wouldn't mind that, clearly, but… No. There's only one way for Finn to feel he is tarnished."

Klaus glanced to the ceiling.

"He's going to drink from an innocent… All for the greater good, I suppose, he thinks."

Caroline stumbled to the closest seat and dropped.

Okay. Alright. Then there was…

Nothing at all.

"Then we have nothing. Esther has all she needs and come moonrise…"

Elijah, plucking up his suit jacket from over the back of the sofa in a sweep of silk and cotton, shirked it on, clasping buttons, strolling for the door to the hallway.

"No. We know where she will be. There must be some preparation needed for the ritual to wake the All-blood. We just need to stop her before she begins, and the moon gets high enough. She has one night to do this, if we stop it this night she won't have another chance."

Klaus's shoulders squared as he too turned, following his elder brother.

"Then we have till moonrise to find mother, take that sarcophagus, and ensure this never comes to pass."

Caroline glanced over at Klaus as he stormed passed.

"And if we don't? Do the myths say anything about that?"

Klaus grinned over his shoulder at her.

"We won't have very long to regret our failure."

Rebekah and Kol spared on last glance to one another before leaving on the tail of their siblings and Caroline…

Caroline pushed off from the seat and followed.

It would appear that it was do or die, and she had no intention of dying-

Again.


A.N: Next chapter is the Big One lol. Hemlock is waking up, all hell (or should that be All-blood?) breaks loose, and heads get stomped lol, but not a single thing goes how anyone expects it will. So not long to wait now!

THANK YOU all for the followers, favourites and the lovely reviews! I hope you all liked this chapter, and if you have a spare moment or two, please drop a review, and I will hopefully see you all soon!