I stood at the railing at the staircase and perked my ears as I heard a car pull up to the house. It didn't sound like Elijah's car or Klaus' car. I gripped the railing tightly as I listened to the engine shut off and the door opened, and I heard a woman's voice with the same accent as Klaus and Elijah.
"If not answering your phone is part of your clever plan to get me back to this godforsaken city, then well done." The female said. "I'm here, and I'm worried. Now pic up before I kick in your bloody door." Footsteps stomped up the front porch as Hayley approached me from the left side with a fire poker in her hands. I looked at the fire poke and up to her ash brown eyes and gave her a really? look. The front door opened and before I could stop Hayley, she was walking down the steps, fire poker raised.
"Hayley." I growled at her, racing down the steps behind her. A sandy blonde hair woman in her early twenties entered the house, closing the door behind her.
"Who the hell are you?" Hayley questioned the woman. There was only one sister of the Original family. This must be Rebekah Mikaelson. Rebekah looked up at us.
"Aah." Rebekah exclaimed. "You must be the maid. My bags are in the car. Get them, will you?" A growl rumbled in my chest as I squeeze past Hayley to walk first down the steps.
"Hello. Not the maid." Rebekah closed her eyes and sighed heavily.
"Right. You're that hybrid and werewolf girl my brother Klaus knocked up. I was expecting to see some kind of baby bump. Guess you're not showing yet. It's Hayley, isn't it?"
"You have your brother's manners." I snapped, surveying her, and making sure she kept a healthy distance away from Hayley. Rebekah snapped her head in my direction and threw daggers at me with her eyes.
"And his temper, too, so watch it. Where's Elijah?" I looked to Hayley for an answer considering that she was the last one to see Elijah.
"Beats me." Hayley said, shrugging her shoulders. "He's long gone." Rebekah cocked her head to the side.
"What do you mean long gone?"
"Well, one minute he was here making epic promises about protecting me in this predicament that a bottle of Scotch and some bad decisions got me into, he was all poetic about how we're family, and then Klaus told me he bailed. Guess that's what I get for trusting a vampire."
"Elijah is not just any vampire, and he doesn't break promises, which means Niklaus has done something dastardly and Klaus-like." Rebekah turned on her heel and stormed through the parlor, yelling. "Klaus, get out here and tell me what you've done with our brother, your narcissistic, back-stabbing wanker!" Hayley went to go follow Rebekah, but I held out an arm to stop her which earned me a glare.
"Enough with all the shouting." I heard Klaus say from the other room. "Little sister."
"I should have known."
"I assume the six dead vampires were your doing."
"They were very rude… trying to victimize a poor, innocent girl. Just trying to find her way to the quarter. So sorry. Were they friends of yours? Oh, that's right. You don't have any friends."
"I do have friends. I have Marcel. You remember him, don't you? Yes, of course you do. He fancies himself. The king of the quarter now, and he has these rules about killing vampires. It will be fun to see what sort of punishment he comes up with for you."
"I don't care about Marcel or his rules. Elijah doesn't welsh on deals. What did you do to him?"
"Perhaps he's on holiday or taking a long autumn nap upstairs. Well, go on take a look around. You remember this house as well as I."
"I remember everything." I guided Hayley back to the stairs and signaled for her to walk up them and she glared at me once more.
"You're very pushy." Hayley snapped at me as I once again gave her a gentle push to walk up the steps and away from these two lunatics.
"I told you I would protect you." I snarled. "As soon as you give birth to that abomination then we are leaving this city and going back to the Appalachian Mountains."
"Well, he wasn't good enough for you." I heard Klaus tell Rebekah as both of them came into the foyer and I stood closely to Hayley's side as I faced them and observed them.
"No one was ever good enough for me, Nik." Rebekah barked. "You made sure of that. Now where's Elijah?" Klaus made his way over to the front doors. "Where are you going?" "
"It appears the night is not quite over yet. I'm off for another drink with Marcel."
"Elijah told me your plan to take apart Marcel's empire piece by piece. I don't remember it involving you two drinking New Orleans dry together."
"I know you don't have many friends, Rebekah, but what some friends do when they get together is they drink, and when they drink, they tell secrets. Marcel has somehow found a way to control the entirety of witches in the quarters, and I aim to uncover the how so I might take it for myself. Finding Elijah didn't make my to-do list." He opened the front door and when he was halfway through it, he turned back around and smirked at his sister. "Oh. And welcome home, little sister." He shut the door behind, and Rebekah rounded on us.
"You, wolves. I'm gonna search this house inch by inch until I find what my evil brother has done to my good one. You're helping." Rebekah stormed to the other side of the house and after a glance in my direction Hayley followed her. Determined to not let Hayley alone with an Original, I quickly took off after both of them. Rebekah opened a door that led down to a cellar of some sorts. While the rest of the house was impeccable and clean and pristine, the cellar was musty and dark and damp. The stone walls seemed to close in on you, the stairs leading you deeper and deeper underground. "The governor has lots of secret rooms. I'll show you his favorite." The stairs led to a dark room, the only light being the flashlight that Rebekah had brought with her. Three dusty mahogany coffins sat in the far corner of the cellar. I looked around in disgust.
"This was his favorite?" I muttered.
"You think Klaus killed him." Hayley stated.
"We can't be killed, silly girl, but that doesn't stop Klaus from finding ways to torture us. He has a set of mystical silver daggers. One in the heart sends up into a deep slumber. Klaus gets his jollies from keeping us in a box until he decides to pull the dagger out. That must be what's he done to Elijah. This one's mine."
"He keeps your coffin on standby."
"He likes to be prepared for when his family members inevitably disappoint him. Elijah's isn't here. He must have stashed him elsewhere."
"I feel sick."
"Welcome to the family, love. You should have run the second you realized Elijah was gone."
"Yeah." I agreed. "Well, I would have loved to do exactly that, but the witches put some sort of hex on her. As long as she's carrying that thing, she can't leave New Orleans. If she does, they kill her."
"Well, knowing Klaus, he's planning a box for you the second you give birth to whatever's cooking in your tum. I'm leaving as soon as I find Elijah. Being daggered in a box for decades sucks. Trust me. You best find a way to break that hex and run."
TO
This woman was going to be the death of me. I padded through the shadows of the city with Hayley's scent hot on my nose. These witches take her hostage. Werewolves are not allowed in the quarter. She's carrying some kind of abomination that's related to a raging lunatic and now she wants to sneak out of the house, and I follow her sent to the outskirts of the quarter. My ears perked at the sound of a woman grunting and my muscles tensed as I recognized Hayley's voice. I raced down through the park, whipping around trees as I spotted Hayley by a park bench trying to fend off three vampires. Pushing all of my energy to my legs, I leapt over the fence and barreled into the one that had his hand around Hayley's arm. My fangs closed on his throat tearing out his esophagus, leaving his head attached to his body by just tendons. A squeamish noise sounded behind me and I turned to see Rebekah's hands through the other two vampire's chests before she ripped out their hearts and dropped them on the concrete beside the bodies with a splat. Blood dripped from my chin as I looked around for any witnesses.
"Now that is no way to treat a pregnant lady." Rebekah snapped. "I do hate bad manners." Taking one quick glance around, I pushed Hayley into the shadows of the park and escorted her back home.
TO
I stood in the middle of the courtyard of the plantation, panting as Klaus angrily dragged body after body after body to the burn pile he had going. Every corner we turned on our way home a vampire popped out like a jack in the box. They were just rookies, a breeze to take care of but we also led a line of bodies straight to our doorstep that Klaus was now cleaning up.
"This is why I told you never to leave the house." Klaus barked at Hayley, throwing another body onto the pile. "Werewolves are banned in the quarter. I had a plan, and your little nighttime stroll put it all in peril." Rebekah tried to grab one of the men who was still moving but Klaus' snarl stopped her. "Leave him! You've done enough, don't you think? Leaving a trail of bodies like a roadmap to my door?"
"If I hadn't overheard this lot bragging about werewolf heads, everyone here would be screwed and don't give me that crap about having a plan." Rebekah shouted back at her older brother. "You've had all the time in the world to execute a plan, and no one's seen you do a damn thing! Elijah made a deal to protect your child so that he could save you from your selfish, rotten self. You obviously don't give a damn about the child or Elijah because what have you done to honor it?" Klaus glared at Rebekah.
"I have done everything. Let me spell it out for you, shall I? From the day I arrived, Marcel hasn't trusted me. From day one, he's had his vampires ingest toxic vervain which as you know, Little Sister, protect them from my mind control. I needed a spy, someone on the inside with me who Marcel would never suspect, so I created a day zero and got there first. Marcel had just lost six vampires thanks to your little murder spree, and he needed new recruits, so I made the new one mine before he'd had even a drop of vervain. But we all know the real way to a man is through his heart, so… I compelled sweet Camille to keep tabs on him." Klaus stopped his rant to point to the still alive vampire on the ground. "And this one, I'm gonna drain him of vervain, compel him to believe his mates found religion and moved to Utah so that he can explain to Marcel why he lost three more vampires tonight." Klaus grabbed the vampire by the cuff of his shirt and began to drag him up the steps and into the house with us behind him. Klaus dropped him in the middle of the foyer and turned to us. "Does anyone have any more questions?" We didn't answer him. "No? Because I have a question, Hayley. What were you doing in the bloody French quarter in the first place?" Hayley remained quiet. "Answer me!"
"Leave her be." Hayley stormed up to Klaus until she was just mere inches away from him and glared up at him.
"You want to know what I was doing?" She demanded. "I was buying poison so I could put your little baby out of its misery." Klaus' hand was around Hayley's throat and pinning her against the wall fast than I could react. Acting impulse, I leapt at him and sank my teeth in the top of his bicep, using my hind paws to rake my nails down his side. Using his free hand, he shoved me aside with ease and I went skidding across the wood floor as Rebekah stepped in to try to pry her older brother off of a now gagging Hayley.
"Nik! Nik!" By the time, I scrambled to my paws and charged back across the room, Rebekah had Klaus pinned against the staircase. I took a defensive stance in front of Hayley as she gagged and coughed, clutching her throat, and breathing heavily. I kept my head low and eyes fixated on Klaus, my ears pinned back, and teeth bared. A growl continuously rumbled through my chest, daring Klaus to make another move. Hayley placed a hand on top of my head to steady herself as she inhaled deeply and loudly to fill her aching lungs with oxygen. "Keep your hands off her. She is pregnant, for God's sake! All of this bluster about not wanting the child, and then the second she tells you she's ready to get rid of it… it's ok to care. It's ok to want something. That's all Elijah was trying to do, all he's ever wanted for you, all we've ever wanted." Klaus pushed Rebekah off of him and went to go sit down on the steps and Rebekah sat dow next to him.
"I gave Elijah to Marcel." Klaus admitted quietly and Rebekah whipped her head around to stare at Klaus in astonishment.
"What?"
"Marcel was nervous. It was bad enough one Original returned to town, but two? His crew was antsy. He wanted Elijah gone, so I gave him a peace offering."
"You bartered our brother."
"I have a plan. Gain Marcel's trust dismantle his empire, honor Elijah's wish that that baby be born. I am executing that plan the only way I know how. If you don't like it, there's the door. See if I care." Without waiting for a response from his little sister, Klaus stood up and left the room.
