Chapter 30
"Good morning, Damon, Stefan," greeted Elijah as he opened the door into his home, welcoming them in and gesturing at them to follow Kol further into the house. "Miss Branson," he said, looking in surprise at Lexi, who followed behind Stefan. "What a pleasure it is to see you again. Please, do come in." Lexi smiled at him and followed the Salvatores into the mansion.
They walked into a large room, comfortably furnished with sofas and armchairs, and a large, roaring fire, in front of which, Klaus Rebekkah, and a woman that they didn't recognise were seated, each nursing a cup of coffee. Klaus stood as the three entered the room. "Greetings," he said formally. "How is the little Miss Ottilie? Fully recovered, I hope?"
Stefan smiled at him, nodding. "Yes, thank you, Klaus. She's back at school for the first time in almost a month actually. We're all a little on edge," he said, sending a look over at Damon who smirked at him.
Klaus smiled, pleased to hear that his little friend was well on the mend. "Let me introduce you," he gestured to the blond woman sitting next to Rebekkah, sipping her coffee daintily. "This is Camille, she's um… staying with us."
Rebekah snorted into her coffee cup, trying her best not to laugh.
"Oh I'm sorry, sister," Klaus sneered, "Is something funny?" She looked up at him, ready to retort with a sassy remark when some more people entered the room.
Caroline, Tyler and Bonnie entered, followed by Alaric and Jeremy. "What a gathering…" remarked Damon, raising his eyebrows in surprise at seeing everyone together, outside of the grill for once.
Elijah stood by the fire once everyone had a drink and the pleasantries had been exchanged, and spoke to them all. "Thank you for coming, my friends. I apologise for the formalities, but my siblings and I felt it was necessary to get everyone together in one place. I'm afraid to tell you, but once again, our existence, not only in Mystic Falls, but perhaps all together, is once again threatened."
The others exchanged concerned looks, wondering what he was talking about.
"What do you mean?" asked Caroline, voicing everyone else's thoughts.
"Not so long ago, as I'm sure you'll all remember, there was an attack staged on vampires on the night of the carnival." He gazed fixedly at Damon who looked away, almost physically sickened at the memories of that night. Lexi, noticing the look on his face and knowing what Elijah was eluding to, gently took a hold of one of Damon's hands, and smiled reassuringly at him.
"Whilst myself and my siblings were not present at the attack, some of you were, and we took it upon ourselves to look more into what happened, and who orchestrated it."
"Well?" asked Tyler, impatiently, "who was it? Let's just go and sort them out."
"Alas," continued Elijah, unperturbed by the interruption, "we were unable to ascertain who was the culprit."
Tyler scoffed and rolled his eyes and Klaus growled, annoyed by the young hybrids disrespect. "Klaus…" whispered Camille, placing a soothing hand on his arm to stop him getting up to go over to Tyler.
Elijah shot Tyler a look of badly masked disdain. "Mr Lockwood, you are here purely as a curtesy to our friends. Should there be a need to remove you from this meeting, please be assured, I will not hesitate to do so."
Tyler, sobered by Elijah's cool remarks, nodded silently and sat back, resolving to keep his comments to himself and hear what the Original had to say.
"Whilst we do not yet know who exactly was behind this attack, we do have some informants who we have been, ahem… questioning…" Elijah scrunched his nose up at the memories of getting his hands dirty, his fingers reaching subconsciously for the white handkerchief he kept in his pocket.
Klaus took over at this point, "We compelled some of the humans who had been collecting vampires to tell us who told them to do so. They told us they had no recollection, only that they knew they must carry out the task."
"So they were compelled… the attack was arranged by vampires," said Stefan, as the others looked at each other in shock, each of them wracking their brains, trying to think which vampires they knew would want to do this.
"Do you have any idea which vampires would want to attack vampires in Mystic Falls?" asked Caroline, shaken by this news.
Kol shrugged, "Well there are plenty of vampires who hate us, but they'd surely know that that attack couldn't harm us in the long term. So it must be someone who has a vendetta against one of you lot," he said, gesturing at the people in the room.
"I've been sending feelers out," continued Klaus, "I got my hybrids to check on certain old… friends… who might want to lash out at me, and only one seemed to be acting differently to normal. An old acquaintance of mine by the name of Marcel." He looked over at Camille who nodded at him, encouragingly. "We turned Marcel hundreds of years ago, and we considered him family. He now lords over New Orleans, until recently, when we found out that he'd been making regular trips to Portland."
"In the last year or so, he's been visiting Portland religiously, every two months. This is totally new for him as he never usually leaves New Orleans more than once or twice a year." Camille spoke for the first time, and everyone turned to look at her. "He's unpredictable, and he has a strong dislike for Klaus and Elijah, in particular. I always keep an eye on him, and when I noticed there was pattern in his absences, I thought I'd better tell Klaus."
Klaus smiled over at her, and Damon noticed a slight blush come to her cheeks.
"Okay, but if this Marcel guy knows you so well, surely he'd know that you lot can't be killed?" countered Damon, gesturing with his mug at the originals, seated around the room.
Elijah nodded, acknowledging Damon's point before continuing. "As you say, Damon, and so we got to thinking. Marcel's trips coincided with Miss Ottilie's powers starting on her 12th birthday." Damon's head snapped over to Elijah's direction at the mention of Ottilie.
"You think this involves my daughter?" he snapped, horrified at the thought of someone being after his little girl.
"I think it is wise to consider the opportunity," replied Elijah, diplomatically. "Marcel is widely known to have an interest in witches, especially powerful ones, and we did wonder whether this might be a motive."
"We think that the attack was carried out on the vampires of Mystic Falls in a bid to leave Otti unprotected so that she could be delivered to Marcel. Unfortunately for them, Ottilie was of course mistaken for a vampire, and so they didn't manage to kidnap her before the vampires woke up, or before we were notified of the attack. Any of them who realised who she was would have realised too late, when Damon and Stefan brought her out of the Lockwood mansion in a condition from which they perhaps didn't think she'd recover…"
Damon turned suddenly pale, the memories of that night flooding back to him. "I need some air," he managed to choke out, before bolting for the door and heading for the garden, standing under the tree where Ottilie had been climbing to escape the wolf all that time ago.
"Damon?" he heard a female voice calling softly to him. "Damon, where are you?"
Looking up, he saw Lexi gazing out of the open door, looking for him. "Damon, are you alright?" She spotted him and came over to him, wrapping her arms around him gently and holding him in a hug.
He didn't say anything, but held her close, a little taken aback by her open sign of affection. He didn't think she had much time for him, after his less than chivalrous actions all those years ago.
"It's okay, sweetie," she whispered, "she's okay, remember? She's at school having a wonderful time, and she has you, and me and all of us to keep her safe." She felt Damon relax a little in her arms, and kept up her soothing words, trying to make him feel more at ease.
Eventually, Damon pulled away from her, subtly wiping his eyes with the back of his hand as Lexi pretended not to notice. "Ready to go back?" she asked, gently, not wanting to rush him back into the room. He nodded, and taking her hand, walked back into the house.
Stefan looked up as they entered the room. He'd wanted to go after Damon, but Lexi had promised him that she would help him, and he'd stayed put, thinking furiously over all of the information that Elijah had just dropped on them. As Damon and Lexi walked in, he noted Damon gripping his best friend's hand tightly, and made a mental note to make some sort of snarky comment about it later on when they were back home.
"So, what do we do to sort this bastard out?" demanded Damon.
Elijah smiled at him, "Whilst I admire your proactiveness, Damon, let us not be rash. We must first make certain that it is indeed Marcel who poses this threat, and we must also know why. Be assured, we will continue our questioning, and we will keep you updated. For now, you must continue as normal, but with extra precautions around Ottilie, just in case our suspicions prove to be true. If that is the case, they cannot know that we suspect them. You must continue as normal, do you understand?"
The rest of the room nodded, not liking the instruction but understanding it's necessity.