Like Fire

by AlexisKeller

Chapter 05

I definitely hadn't quite yet registered what he just said because I was far too busy staring at him.

He had what I called a deceptively friendly face—it didn't necessarily mean he wasn't friendly. He just had a face that made you think he was, even though I knew how capable he was of inflicting harm as evidenced by last night. He had brown eyes, almost dark enough to match his hair. Almost, I supposed, as magnetic as how he looked right then with his lips curled up at the side, an almost mischievous look about him. I felt lost in my study of him, even though I was sure it had to have been a minute since he'd last spoken.

He allowed me to do so, his eyes roaming over my face casually as I did.

"Kol Mikaelson," he suddenly introduced himself with a smile that immediately made my brain turn foggy and my chest feel warm. "You should know my name, darling. We're allies now."

Kol.

It sounded good, I noted.

Suited him.

He went on, "And you are?"

"Eve Huntington," I answered after a beat, my voice quiet as I managed to turn away back to my cola.

It was probably for the best I didn't look at him—just looking at him made my mind somewhat hazy. Suddenly Caroline's advice seemed a lot more important.

"Lovely name. So do tell me, what it is that a siren does?" He asked, his tone almost sounding mocking. "Charming and entrancing sailors to their doom, no?"

"Funny." I snapped flatly.

"No. No, of course not. You sing people to their destruction." He said this almost gleefully.

I turned to look at him, which I knew wasn't a good idea. "Why does it have to be doom and destruction?"

"Isn't it?"

"The same way that you look into someone's eyes to compel them, I sing. How is it different?"

"Touché," he conceded. "But then again, vampires are and will always be doom and destruction, darling."

I narrowed my eyes at him, trying to figure out exactly what that meant. Strangely enough, it didn't feel like a threat. Or even a warning.

It felt like a promise.

I subtly inched away from the beautiful Original vampire who considered himself to be doom and destruction.

"Right," he smiled suddenly at me again like all this had been amusing and the smile once more gave me an odd, sunny feeling I couldn't quite place. "Unfortunately, your friend is back. But this was nice and I really hope we get to do it again. Take care now."

And then he was gone. Just like that.

It was only a few moments later that Caroline walked over, groaning, "Okay, I am so over everything, I don't even know where to begin."

That was when I blinked at my drink, wondering what exactly this alliance meant.

"How did you guys manage this?" I asked the brothers. After finishing up our drinks, Caroline and I were back at the Salvatore House to get the details.

Caroline's attention sparked at that as she looked up from fiddling with her phone. "Yeah. I mean, I understand we were probably in their good books, but why would they want an alliance with us in the first place?"

"They want us to work together to take down Esther," replied Stefan from his spot on the sofa and then it all made sense. "In return, they'll watch our backs and keep from stirring up trouble in town."

"Hey, I see it as a win-win," Damon put in, definitely looking happy with himself. "Damn, things are good."

"So we had to pick one or the other," I summarized, and the older brother nodded, adding, "Exactly. There are two sides to this war. The Originals and Angry Mommy. If we didn't pick the Originals, then we better have been ready for bodies to drop because they made it clear that if Esther was willing to do what she did last night, then she wouldn't stop at anything to put an end to them."

"And we can't allow that," Stefan put in firmly.

"But do we really need to cross their mother?" Caroline questioned warily.

Damon continued. "Of course, I considered making a deal with her to spare the town and cooperate with her on this, but if I'm honest, I kinda don't want to. I prefer the Originals much more. Don't ever tell anyone that. I mean, she was ready to kill her own children so I doubt she'd hesitate to backstab us if we did choose her. Not to mention the fact that Stefan was adamant to side with them anyway, so I think all in all, we picked good."

I just nodded, understanding where this was going. Considering we had to pick, I felt like we'd done the right thing. It disturbed me how surely Esther wanted to kill them. How could that ever be okay? And considering we had an alliance now, they wouldn't be hurting anyone either. That strengthened what I already knew: we had to help them. We were going to help the Originals.

Meaning I was going to help gorgeous Kol Mikaelson.

Okay, so he knew I was a siren. So what? We were allies now. It was okay. It had to be okay.

Alright, I could do this. We could do this.

That was when Bonnie hurried into the room. "Guys, I've got it! I finally have something that can help!"

"I told you," Damon rolled his eyes at her. "We're not going after the Origina—"

"Yeah, yeah. Their mom. I get it. That's what this is about," she snapped, effectively shutting him up before looking to the rest of us. "When Damon said Esther wanted to link the Originals to kill them off, I started looking into it. The thing is, linking people isn't an easy spell, let alone at that scale."

"Esther is the original witch," Stefan reminded her.

"I know that, I do. But believe me when I say this isn't a spell that can be done alone, not at this level. It would drain her completely. She has another witch with her, for sure. An older witch with a firmer grasp on her magic."

"Okay," Stefan's expression was cautious.

"So where do you think the witch you need to perform an important spell should be?"

Damon harrumphed. "This feels like a quiz."

Stefan, on the other hand, narrowed his eyes in thought. "Where you would need her? And since Esther's here, I'd say right here in Mystic Falls."

Bonnie grinned at him. "You're right. That's where she should be. I tried to find a witch with that kind of power level in Mystic Falls but nada."

"Wait, maybe it wouldn't make sense for Esther to keep a witch that strong that close by," I voiced my thought out slowly, seeing Bonnie's grin getting wider at that and thinking that was probably the right direction.

"This doesn't sound like it's good news, Bon-Bon," grumbled Damon.

"Maybe she's hidden?" Caroline took a shot. "With her power level cloaked or something?"

Bonnie shook her head. "A witch can't do that. That's one of the first things Grams taught me. That's one of the few things you can't disguise. Another witch can always feel your power level, you can't cloak it."

"But why would Esther keep a witch she needs away?" Caroline asked her, not understanding.

"Because Esther knows she has a secret weapon and that secret weapon needs to stay secret," that was what came to my mind, but I still had no way of being sure. "Or to ensure her safety too, I guess."

A beat of silence went by as my words were processed.

"Okay, that totally makes sense," accepted Caroline.

"So Esther's witch is not in Mystic Falls," Stefan summarized.

"Nope. Not in Mystic Falls or anywhere within a ten mile radius from it. But she's in the region. I don't know where, but within the state of Virgina."

"Huh," Damon crossed his arms. "So you want us to hunt the entire state for her. How many cities is that? Hell, how are we ever going to find that witch?"

There was another beat of silence, this one much more uncomfortable as we tried to piece together this bit of news that helped us a little, but not nearly enough.

"Let's... split up I guess," Stefan murmured.

"I'm sorry, what?" Caroline demanded, whipping her head to face him seated on her right. "Do you not watch movies? Nothing works out when people split up!"

"I think it could," he responded. "It's not a take down. We just need to find a witch. Maybe what comes after might be a mess, but the finding part isn't dangerous."

"Ugh. Of course we'd have to split up. Goddamn, this is going to be so much work," groaned Damon as he rubbed his face.

"You won't have to search all the cities. I have it narrowed down to a few sets of coordinates," announced Bonnie and Damon looked up hopefully.

"Really? Okay, that's not that bad." A pause. "Except how the hell do we even find her? I don't suppose you have a name or picture?"

The helpless sigh from Bonnie didn't really say good things. "Hey, at least I have the coordinates, right? I'll give one each to you guys for using."

"Wait, you aren't coming?" Caroline asked.

Bonnie shook her head. "I'll stay here and try to get more of a lock on where she could be."

"How do we even find her?" Damon repeated his previous question.

"Intuition?" I shrugged a shoulder.

"Suspicion?" Caroline threw out.

"Just use your brain, Damon," Stefan said not so patiently.

Damon simply gave us all a dirty look, and Stefan went on, "Okay, so we should probably set out tomorrow morning?"

Damon's ensuing sigh was answer enough for all of us.

Guys, so many of you have favorited and followed, it'd be nice if I could get some sort of response in support of the story! I hope you could review and let me know what you think so far :)