CHAPTER 8

"Satan?" Penelope asked, calmly disposing of the empty yogurt container, lightly separating the post it Lizzie put on it denoting it as hers. "I really don't know why you started this name-calling game of yours; it certainly wasn't to make Josie feel better." Penelope ignored the furious look Lizzie sent her and poured herself some coffee.

"What?!" Lizzie whisper-yelled. If Penelope noticed some of the cutlery rattling in their drawers, she didn't show it.

"Your idea to start calling me horrible names, I read Harry Potter too you know. Though I will admit, I have heard Dr. Saltzman refer to Klaus Mikaelson as 'Voldemort' before. So your calling me 'You Know Who' is weirdly respectful in your own way, but only from a certain point of view," Lizzie just huffed, "I'm not evil," Penelope said firmly. Not giving Lizzie a chance to retort, Penelope promptly walked away, leaving Lizzie alone in the kitchen wondering what the hell just happened.

Elsewhere, in a private upstairs room at the Mystic Grill of all places, Hope, Freya, and Marcel were being seated. There was a long table on one side of the room, and a private bar. But they wanted their privacy, so the bar went untended. On the far side of the room were a couple pool tables complimented by an air-hockey table and decades out of commission pinball machine. "So, how have you been?" Freya asked, all traces of mirth gone from their earlier encounter.

Hope hummed in thought before replying, "I'm dealing." Freya raised an unimpressed eyebrow.

Marcel broke in, "If you were totally fine, I'd probably be more worried about you kid," Hope lightly punched his shoulder, the vampire blood in her ensured that Marcel actually felt it.

They all heard the feet on the stairs, their purple-haired server was returning with waters. Hope glanced at the girl's name-tag as she placed the waters down at their places; her name was Aya. "Have you three decided what you want, or would you like a few more minutes?" she asked pleasantly. She couldn't be that much older than Hope, maybe in her early twenties at the oldest.

"I'll have a chocolate milkshake and the Mystic burger, no pickles," Hope replied promptly. "With extra bacon," she added quickly, getting a chuckle out of Marcel.

Freya ordered the same thing as Hope–keeping the pickles, and a side-salad in lieu of fries. Marcel ordered fish and chips with a strawberry milkshake. Freya turned her nose up at the combination, but Aya nodded and wrote it all down in shorthand. And then the three of them were alone once more.

"Why do you two feel different?" Hope ventured. They hadn't spoken much in the car since Freya insisted on listening to NPR. The two immortals exchanged a look Hope wasn't sure how to categorize, but she knew it meant something. "Freya?"

"Since our family is down a couple heavy hitters," Freya started tactfully, though Hope still flinched, "The pair of us decided to magically bond. The long and short of it is, I'm as powerful as Aunt Dahlia now. Or perhaps even more powerful? I still need to test my limits, but either way, I'm practically un-killable. And Marcel gets a bump up in his physical abilities."

Hope looked between the two for a moment with wide eyes. "This will sink in for me later. But before it does, I'm gonna ask some questions."

"Shoot, kid," Marcel invited.

"So, do your wives know about this?" Hope asked immediately.

They both nodded. Hope's eyebrows climbed her forehead until Freya relented, "Yeah, it's sinking in for them too. There may be a certain conversation you'll be having with Keelin next you meet." Freya couldn't quite meet Hope's eyes.

"You mean make her a hybrid…like I did to my mom." Hope finished the thought.

Freya nodded, finally looking her niece in the eye. Hope sucked in her cheeks in contemplation, before nodding. "I'll sit on that one for a while too. Is it the vampirism that makes you so strong now?"

Freya nodded, "In part. Marcel's lethality to other vampires helps. As does his functional invincibility. It was important because when I did the spell, I added certain 'protocols' if you will, for different scenarios. And that subtlety wouldn't have worked with a normal vampire. They wouldn't have been strong enough to maintain the burden of being linked to me."

Hope's eyes lit up with something that slightly frightened Marcel and Freya. It was Klaus' 'I have a plan' look that neither had seen on the teenager's face. "So it's because of the wolf venom? Marcel isn't a hybrid, just an Uber vamp." She lightly punched Marcel's arm. Thanks to similar expressions on Alaric's face in the not so recent past, Hope knew when she was channelling her father around people who knew his darker side. She knew she inherited some of those expressions.

Marcel shrugged. He still wasn't 100% sure about the intricacies of the ritual and its effects on Freya, other than his invincibility helped both of them in the long run.

Hope's mind was running very fast down a path that didn't seem possible earlier today. If she turned the twins and bonded with them…what could ever stand in her way? I mean, they would be far more powerful than normal vampires, they'd be magic using hybrids. NOPE. Hope shook her head of that notion. She wouldn't turn the Saltzman twins, unless two conditions occured: 1) if Hope failed to protect them, and they died, turned, became hybrids anyway. Or 2) they needed a desperate tactical advantage AND she had their consent. Hope tried not to think too hard about the feeling snaking around in her gut that if Josie asked with absolute intent, Hope would turn her.

"Earth to Hope," Marcel ventured, seeing Hope's mind go elsewhere. He turned to Freya mouthing, 'did we fuck up?' Freya chuckled and shook her head.

"One day, you'll tell us where your thoughts went right then little missy," Freya said as Hope was roused back to the present when she heard Aya coming back up the stairs with her order.

Hope nodded numbly. She could hardly believe herself, she needed to understand why her thoughts went to some of the dark places they did. And not of assorted musings, she was seriously thinking about turning the twins for a moment, and whith her admittedly poor impulse control over important things, she'd need to pay very careful attention to herself going forward.

Aya set down their lunches and milkshakes, apologizing for having forgot to bring the drinks earlier. None of the three patrons were upset about it, or even notices. After all, they were focused on less frivolous matters than milkshakes.

"No worries," Marcel was quick to reassure the girl. But she looked to Freya, weirdly enough for reassurance.

"What he said," Freya said, when she noticed the worried eyes of Aya.

Aya quickly made herself scarce after that, but not before catching the teenager sending the taller blonde a raised eyebrow.

"I'm married, Hope, keep it in your pants," Freya shot at her niece, who chuckled.

Marcel looked between the two, slightly confused, knowing the interaction that must've took place with the server, but not catching it himself. He needed to understand lesbians better it seemed.

"So," Marcel said as he finished one of his fish and chips, they were rather good, "You got anything interesting to tell us Hope?"

Hope set down her burger and chuckled darkly, "You'll find out at dinner with the Saltzmans and Caroline. I really only want to explain it once, and it concerns the twins," Hope said before taking a long pull on her milkshake, "They should be there when I talk about it, it's actually more about them than me."

Whatever the two elders were expecting, it wasn't that. While they both felt a shiver of annoyance at Hope's delaying tactic, they shared a quick glance of pride. Their little girl was growing up.