A.N.: Hi everyone, thank you for being so patient with me.
Dangerous Beauty
22
Sacrifice
She bristled, coming brutally into awareness all of a sudden, her foggy head pounding with every step someone carrying her took. She was aware she was being carried – that something chaffed against her wrists, around her ankles. Her feet were bare, her heels long gone, to her short-lived relief. But she felt squished and constricted in the pretty dress Caroline had forced her into, and her face felt clogged up and gross from the makeup she hadn't taken off.
Elena felt like she had the first time she ever had a hangover.
And she felt the same fear she had then. Only, this time she wasn't afraid her parents knew and were going to ground her until she graduated. She was afraid because the dark face she could vaguely see in the gloom of a poorly-lit, abandoned house was not one she recognised.
She remembered leaving the Masquerade. Reinforcing her breakup with Stefan… She needed to know the people she loved were safe, and in a stomach-dipping moment Elena swallowed a churn of nausea that bubbled up in her stomach, where…where was she? Who was this guy?
What was he going to do to her?
What had he done to her?
She'd been walking to her car…
She didn't…except for her head, she didn't feel like anything was wrong. Her body…felt like her body, still. No aches where they shouldn't be any. She swallowed against the nausea induced by panic.
"Please…" she whimpered, squirming in the man's arms. He held her in a way that suggested her weight didn't even bother him. Not a sack of potatoes – maybe a load of folded laundry. An inconvenience but not heavy; with another churn of dread, she noted the rays of sunlight, dust motes whirling idly, and realised whoever was carrying her pointedly avoided those glowing shards of light spearing through a dusty old room. All around her, the scent of amp and closeness, humid and uncomfortable, pressed against her, and she squirmed slightly and tried to peer around her, her head lolling with the effort sapping her strength. Whatever she had been given had clearly been meant to keep her out for a good long while, and keep her docile. What could she do, though?
She was human.
She had never taken self-defence classes. She had never stepped foot inside a gym – she wasn't Giulia, she couldn't kick ass at a second's warning, completely confident in her strength and skills. She was Elena. Ninety pounds of shiny hair and that was about it – she was barefoot, in a party-dress and had lost her clutch-purse. She had no cell-phone, no clue where she was, and certain in the knowledge that a vampire had her captive.
Who, though?
Damon had once told her they didn't have any special kind of radar to home in on each other. They didn't all hang out at the local Vamp n' Grill. If another vampire had come to Mystic Falls and been discreet in their feeding habits, there was no way for Stefan or Damon to know there was another vampire in town. And that was why Damon tended to kill other vampires who crossed into his territory – Mystic Falls. It was his; his home, his hunting-ground. He wouldn't allow other vampires to come in and make a mess of whatever end-game he had. Although, since they had discovered Katherine wasn't in the tomb, Elena wondered what was keeping Damon in town. She'd thought he'd told Stefan he'd leave town since Katherine wasn't in Mystic Falls.
Giulia had killed the other vampires desiccating in the tomb. Disposed of the ones who had tortured Stefan for information on Katherine – Elena was still pissed at Giulia for drugging her, but even she knew there was little Elena could do against a horde of angry vampires. She hadn't had Giulia's training, and she wasn't about to ask Giulia for any. They'd reached a certain point in their relationship – the night the Gilbert device had gone off, nearly killing Stefan, Damon and half their friends, the night Caroline had been put in the hospital because of Tyler – and Elena didn't think there was any coming back from it. Giulia seemed to have made her choice. She didn't want to be friends with them anymore – with her or Bonnie.
And, much as she hated to admit it, right now Elena could really have used a friend like Giulia to get her out of this. She'd know what was going on – would figure out what happened, where Elena was, who had her, why, and how to get her out safe. She and Jeremy had flicked onto an episode of Criminal Minds the other night and both agreed that if Giulia didn't wind up the head of a crime syndicate, she'd make an amazing profiler. Hell, she'd probably get away with being both.
Elena couldn't even fight off an attacker who'd drugged her from the front. She could just imagine Giulia's withering look, her eye-roll as she reached back to braid her hair away from her face, gearing up for immediate action, enacting a seamless plan she and Damon could come up with in moments.
"Please," she whispered again, as footsteps echoed off the still air, and she gasped as she lurched out of the guy's arms, onto a faded old velvet chaise. She drew her knees up instinctively, hugging them, and stared around the room frantically. Huge windows boarded up, greenery pushing its way through the cracks in the walls and broken windows, old furniture piled high with fat books. She didn't have much experience with them, but she'd guess this wasn't a crackhouse. The floor was dusty, a few leaves scattered about, and a few books piled here and there but there were no battered mattresses, no used needles or little packets of foil. She would hazard a guess vampires wouldn't find junkies tolerable as roommates, or very tasty to snack on. And they made poor vampires – they had learned that the hard way through Vicki Donovan.
So…poor vampires? She had always kind of assumed most vampires had money. Like Stefan and Damon. Maybe some of them weren't clever enough to make investments. Maybe they just didn't care. Giulia would say half the vampires alive were old enough to remember the New World being discovered; their life-experiences were very different to what Elena's was. Cleanliness and hygiene had come into play only in the last couple of centuries, if that.
Or this place was only a temporary base. No, Elena thought. She wasn't Giulia but she still had powers of observation; the books. The Salvatores kept theirs in a polished library with a roaring fire, a fully-stocked bar and plush leather seats. Whoever these vampires were, they kept their library stacked on table-tops, wide-open with pages fluttering in an invisible breeze.
"Trevor?!" a voice called through the empty halls, and Elena jumped, glancing frantically around the room, at the man in the dark jeans and hoodie, casually throwing off a pair of huge sunglasses so they clattered on a table piled high with old-looking books. Some were leather-bound, some looked like they were modern novels with colourful paperback bindings.
"In the ballroom!" Trevor called back, eyeing her with a kind of guarded curiosity, digging his hands into his hoodie-pockets and glancing up as a woman appeared at the top of the dilapidated split-staircase. Spiky brunette hair fanned from an oval face, and Elena could see even in the dim light that she was very pretty, perfect almond-shaped eyes that were hazel or green – she flinched instinctively and darted forward out of a shard of light that illuminated her features, before she could start to burn. Her eyes were hazel, her cheekbones high and her lips were pretty. She had clear, milky skin and the light danced off a braided necklace of diamantes, suede-cord and delicate chains; compared to Trevor she seemed to take more care in her appearance, with fitted dark jeans and a cognac leather jacket that Elena admitted to herself she really liked. Low-heeled boots clicked softly on the dusty floor, and she moved slowly, as if more from habit than wanting to lull Elena into a feeling of safety. She was elegant, Elena realised. Even hissing away from the sunlight, even with her spiky hair, her chain necklace and jeans, there was an elegance to her movements that seemed out of place with her surroundings, her outfit. Another vampire.
She swallowed, and wished they couldn't hear her heartbeat thumping frantically away against her ribcage.
"My God, you look just like her," the woman said, her voice soft, almost musical. She was English. Elena had seen the colour of her pretty hazel eyes and it may have just been her panic, but Elena swore she saw them glow with interest as the woman stared at her.
"What do you want with me?" Elena asked quietly, glancing at the woman through her lashes, fear spiking through her. The guy wasn't the dangerous one, he didn't seem to care what was going on. But this woman…she seemed clear-headed and cool. And she knew Elena wasn't Katherine…
"But I'm not – Please, whatever you – I'm not –" Elena stammered. Everyone wanted Katherine. And she had the poor luck to share the psychotic vampire's face. Share was a generous word – from the way Damon and Stefan spoke about her, she was sure Katherine wouldn't hesitate to rip Elena's face off, so vain she'd never stand to have someone look exactly like her.
"Be quiet," the vampire said sharply, glancing at her.
"But I'm not Katherine!" Elena said plaintively, climbing off the sofa, aware that without her heels she was a good few inches shorter than the woman. Vampirism aside, Elena would be no match for her. "My name is Elena Gilbert. You don't have to do this."
"I know who you are, I said be quiet," the woman all but hissed.
"What do you want with me?" Elena persisted, utterly confused.
She blacked out before she hit the couch, the backhanded hit coming out of nowhere so fast her mind couldn't even register it.
Rosemary sighed. "I want you to be quiet," she said coolly, turning on her heel to leave the room, safe in the knowledge the doppelgänger would not be going anywhere very soon. Not in ripped hose and a party-dress. The benefits of the isolated locale would forever be tainted by the drawbacks, the constant reminder – they remained in the shadows, hiding in the deep countryside or vast cities, never settling, never getting close to too many people, never trusting they would not be betrayed… The Originals' grid of information was not quite the Internet but they had their methods. She had heard through the grapevine that only Niklaus and Elijah remained conscious – whispers of the hedonist cousin Kol in New Orleans persisted, but with the civil war simmering down there, news was distorted at best, and it would be months before the final tallies were made.
At least it was Elijah.
None of the others would have cared. The message she had sent out was worth far too much for even an Original to ignore – she was surprised they had had the fortune to secure the doppelgänger, her face was on social-media, for heaven's sake! Weighing the Salvatore brothers into the mix gave the whole thing a little more clarity, they protected her without ever knowing. Rose and Trevor, they were two of perhaps a handful still living who knew the doppelgänger by sight – and knew the truth behind the myths that had persisted for a thousand years. In his rage, she had heard Klaus had destroyed the estate his family had lived in, in Hampshire, in the 1490s… Talk about hedonism. Oh, she had loved it. Not Klaus, he had always been too smug, too arrogant – but Elijah, he was always the surprising one. And he had always been kind to her, in a very unkind time.
Just once in the last five centuries their paths had crossed. Rather, she had seen him from a distance and put as many miles between them over the next few weeks as possible. Elijah's face was not one she was ever likely to forget – and Elijah had a long memory. He would not forget her part in Katerina's escape.
They had this one chance to ask his forgiveness for it.
And even that had always seemed beyond all hope.
The doppelgänger was a game-changer, whatever she said her name was. To Rose, for Trevor, to Elijah and the other Originals, she was merely a means to an end. Sad as it was, this was not Rose's first rodeo where the doppelgänger was concerned.
Katerina had come to her door, innocent and frightened, gasping for breath and bleeding in the sunlight. Rose could still remember the heat of it through the crack in the door, the perfume of the honeysuckle trailing over the cottage, the brief glimpse of fluffy white clouds and a gentle honeyed breeze through the leaves of the wood.
For five hundred years, long before the game had been invented, Rose had tortured herself with the game What If? What if she had simply bound Katerina, or concussed her until nightfall could come? What if she had refused the girl entry into her home, sent her on her way into the woods. What if she had let the girl bleed out while carrying her through the woods to the manor-house? Perhaps she might have been granted a life in the sun for stopping the doppelgänger's escape.
Did she feel bad, for the purpose for which Katherine had been kept like a princess in that great house? Certainly not. Five hundred years ago the world had been an unrecognisable place. Full of violence and blood and rape, disease and hunger and constant war. Serfdom, slavery had been the norm, social hierarchy very strict, feminism non-existent. Katerina had been known as a ward with a little money and no English family that she could speak of, and was getting old at eighteen, unmarried, in a time when brides of twelve were married off for dowries that could build modern cities.
While Trevor unravelled, his fear tangible on the stagnant air, she had to maintain at least the appearance of being calm and collected for both their sakes. If he got the message she'd have a legitimate Viking warlord on her doorstep in a matter of hours, ready to either pardon them or carve out the blood-eagle…a punishment she remembered Klaus describing centuries ago, the harshest execution his father had ever meted out on an enemy in front of their entire community as a warning.
"…you know how this works," she sighed, several hours later. The waiting-game was getting on her nerves, and Trevor's were already fried. If she had to snap his neck to keep her friend here, to receive either absolution or meet their fates, she would.
"Did you or did you not get the message to Elijah?" Trevor asked, more agitated than she had seen him in decades. Over the centuries he had become incredibly blasé, irreverent, he had seen it all.
"They say he got it," Rose shrugged, reorganising the books, placing those she wished to keep on a pile. They accumulated so many; she tended to keep ten favourites from each decade and the rest she collected, read and passed on. Exquisite literature deserved to be shared, not hoarded; she had come from a time when women were seldom educated at all, and appreciated education, using the fortune she had accumulated and yet never used to fund scholarships to deserving, underprivileged girls.
"Wonderful. And, what?" Trevor prompted, gripping his arms tightly across his chest, a sure sign of stress. The moment he started biting her nails she'd know he was at his limit.
"So, that's it, Trevor," Rose said calmly. "He either got it or he didn't. We just have to wait." They had only been waiting five-hundred years for an opportunity like this – Trevor had been sceptical, weighing the risks as too great; Rose had pushed aside whatever feelings of dread, guilt and fear might have gotten in her way to get things done, set things in motion. They were lucky in their friends, taking more care now than they had back then… Trevor was her best-friend, her partner through half a millennium – but his judgement was clouded when it came to pretty women with an exotic flair and she'd be damned if she let his soft heart ruin them again. She was relieved to see all vestiges of his softness for Katerina had been eradicated in the last five centuries, unmoved by the doppelgänger's resemblance to her.
"Look, it's not too late, we can leave her here!" Trevor blurted anxiously. "We don't have to go through with this!"
"I'm sick of running," Rose said sharply, enunciating every word. They had had this argument dozens of times since Slater sent them the photo that had set the ball rolling.
"Yeah? Well, running keeps us from dying," Trevor exclaimed.
"Elijah's old-school," Rose said sternly. "If he accepts our deal, we're free." The doppelgänger was too precious to pass up, even for an Original. He would accept their deal; he would indulge them their offer. He had never been the kind to get blood all over him, too conscious of how much expense and effort went into his wardrobe – a nobleman from an ancient time and a frozen place where cloth had been worth more than gold. Distracted by their argument, she let the muffled, timid footsteps of the girl grow closer, almost to the door before she finally addressed them – cruel, to let her get so far, indulge her hope, and take it.
She'd have to get used to it.
"You!" She strode forward, aware that Trevor clenched his jaw, gripped the doorframe until the ancient paint powered to the floor and over his black sweater sleeve, before ducking out of eyesight – where he could no longer set eyes on the doppelgänger. "There's nothing around here for miles. If you think you're getting out of here, you're tragically wrong, understand?"
"Who's Elijah?" the girl asked, her heartbeat hammering in Rose's ears.
"He's your worst nightmare." No point sugar-coating it. She'd see first-hand soon – hopefully. Just what they were dealing with. Why this had all been a necessary evil. She had nothing against the girl – less than Trevor, who loathed her on sight for being a living, breathing double of the girl who had betrayed him – but she was old, and tired. She wanted to retire somewhere pretty with some horses and invite friends for cocktail-parties, nurture a vegetable-garden and teach children… Of course, in all of those scenarios she was bathed in gorgeous sunlight, and even she didn't have enough nerve to try and wrangle daylight-jewellery out of Elijah.
Asking for their freedom was more than enough.
For now.
She kept herself busy, organising their books, listening all the while – to Trevor, pacing and muttering to himself, the sharp clip of him biting his thumbnail; to the girl, wandering what had once been a pretty ballroom with a dilapidated chandelier on the dusty floor and a moth-eaten sofa. She quirked an eyebrow, listening to the girl's footsteps getting closer; she had got bold, realising they wouldn't hurt her any more than Rose smacking her for the sake of some peace and quiet. She didn't quite seem to grasp that Rose was more than happy to smack her again; she started asking questions.
"Why am I here?"
"You keep asking me questions like I'm going to answer them," Rose said, striding across the dusty room to pick up an old canvas. Not pretty, but useful to block the sun's rays. They couldn't have found a doppelgänger in London? At least she'd have been able to go and do some decent shopping – there were bookstores on every street and she had a fascination with Indian food, Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions and Liberty William Morris prints and was a 'friend' of the Royal Opera House with special treats in thanks for her donations. London was never dull even in torrential rain. It never had been.
"Why won't you?" the girl asked.
"There's another one!" Rose chuckled, placing the frame over an open window, blocking the light.
"You got me," the girl said. "Okay? It's not like I can go anywhere. The least you can do is tell me what you want with me."
"I personally want nothing," Rose said honestly. "I'm just a delivery service."
"Delivery to who? Elijah?" the girl prompted. Rose laughed.
"Two points to the eavesdropper."
"Who is he?" the girl asked. "Is he a vampire?"
"He's one of the vampires, an Original," Rose sighed, combing through faded titles on the spines of books. She had turned a lamp on more for the girl's benefit than her own, shedding light on the precarious floorboards the termites had feasted on for decades.
"What do you mean, an Original?" the girl asked behind her.
"Again with the questions. Haven't the Salvatores been teaching you your vampire-history?" she asked, flicking through the pages of a book Slater had asked her to find in her collection. He had made a new friend…
"So you know Stefan and Damon?"
"I know of them," Rose clarified. "A hundred years back a friend of mine tried to set me up with Stefan. She said he was one of the good ones. More of a sucker for the bad boys though, but I digress. Anyway, I'm surprised your friend Giulia Salvatore hasn't told you the genesis of the vampire race."
"Giulia and I aren't really friends anymore," the girl said in a clipped voice, her tone that of muted spite.
"That's a shame," Rose sighed softly, adding a couple of books to her pile. "From what I've heard, everyone needs a friend like Giulia Salvatore in their lives."
"Who are the Originals?" the girl asked forcefully. Rose closed the faded hardback cover of the book she had been flipping through, turning to the girl. She really was tiny – she remembered Katerina Petrova having more to her, but then they had worn so many more layers back then, everything embellished, heavily embroidered. Silks, velvets…oh, the pearls. She still had a string of them, dainty Scotch pearls from an old lover, with exquisite gold filigree work. Sometimes she would lie them on the windowsill in a beam of sunlight and watch the way the gold warmed, glinting, and the pearls gleaming softly like milky stars. Few of her things from her human life had followed her into her vampire existence; the rope of filigree and pearls, a delicate embossed pomander and a posy ring hiding an ancient promise.
She had been a young vampire when Katerina Petrova appeared at her door. The pearls had still been her most prized possession, but she had been learning how to take the finer things she desired with her newfound powers. The human Katerina had been treated like a princess when she appeared in Hampshire, fresh from the Continent and the religious wars plaguing her home-country. Clothes, jewels, a beautiful mare Rose had envied – it wasn't until they discovered her part in Klaus' ritual that she had realised they were just trussing a corpse. The girl was as good as dead – she imagined to this day that it had been Elijah who insisted on treating the girl well, rather than lock her in a cellar until the next full-moon.
There must be death: Elijah had once told Rose that cruelty was a last resort.
"Trevor and I have been running for five-hundred years," she said, unemotional. "We're tired. We want it over. We're using you to negotiate ourselves out of an old mess."
"But why me?" the girl asked.
"Because you're a Mikaelson doppelänger," Rose said quietly. "You're the key to breaking the curse."
"Curse?" the girl frowned. Then something seemed to click. "The Sun and the Moon Curse?"
"So you do know your history," Rose said, raising an eyebrow.
"What do you mean, I'm the key?" the girl asked, frowning still. "The moonstone is what breaks the curse."
"No," Rose said, Clearly doesn't know as much as she thinks she does, she thought. "The moonstone is what binds the curse. Sacrifice is what breaks it."
"Sacrifice?"
"The blood of the doppelgänger," Rose said, not sugar-coating it. She should at least know what she was getting herself in for, for no other reason than being born who she was. "You're the doppelgänger. Which means, in order to break the curse, you're the one that has to die." She couldn't believe the Salvatore brothers hadn't told her; but then again, they were still babies, and from the New World. They wouldn't know about the Curse. Lexi would know about it, of course – and Rose wondered very much how her loyalty to Stefan had superseded her devotion to Elijah, her sire.
The girl's face fell, dawning realising horrifying her.
Footsteps approached, and Rose glanced past the girl at Trevor. He looked less on-edge than he had when he had slipped away at the mere sight of the girl, but he still wasn't himself. His fingernails had suffered for his stress.
"Tell me more," the girl demanded on a sigh.
"Captivity's made her pushy, eh?" Trevor smirked. "What d'you wanna know, Doppelicious?"
"Who are you running from?"
"The Originals."
"Yeah, she said that," the girl said negligently. "What does that mean?"
"The first family," Trevor said, punting a book with his toe so the girl jumped, shying away. "The Old World. Rose and I pissed 'em off –"
"Un-uh," Rose interjected.
"Correction – I pissed them off; Rose had my back; and for over half a millennium they've wanted us dead," Trevor amended, and Rose smiled, nodding. He tossed a slim red hardback at the girl's feet, making her jump.
"What did you do?" Trevor gave her a pointed look.
"He made the same mistake countless others did," Rose said ambivalently, until the girl glanced up at her. "He trusted Katerina Petrova."
"Katherine," the girl breathed.
"Mm. The one and only," Rose said, tamping down whatever emotion she felt. "The first Mikaelson doppelgänger."
"I helped her escape her fate," Trevor expanded, flicking through a pile of books. "And now I – sorry, we – have been marked ever since."
"Which is why we're not going to make the same mistake again!" Rose called. Trevor set another book down roughly, striding past the girl a little too closely for her comfort, and they heard the girl's heart thudding as they strode away. Rose went to the room she had claimed as her bedchamber, starting to pack. If things went south they had mere seconds to escape. And Elijah Mikaelson would have the benefit of the sun – they should have called the meeting for sunset but…well, she knew Elijah would show up when and if he chose to.
She had put her books in the car – tinted windows, lots of space to lug everything around as they moved continuously, poor miles per gallon; they had spent fifty years travelling the US after exhausting themselves in Asia, trying to evade Kol and the exquisitely terrifying Lagertha, the lesser of the Original evils – and gathered her carpet-bag and boots from the ballroom where the girl sat curled on the sofa, blood rushing through her veins so quickly it was making Rose thirsty.
"He's here!" Trevor blurted frantically, skimming down the split staircase that had once been very grand. "This was a mistake!"
"No, I told you I would get us out of this," Rose said sternly, voice calm, glad no heartbeat would betray her to Elijah. "You have to trust me."
"No! He wants me dead, Rose!" Trevor blurted.
"He wants her more," Rose said soothingly.
"I can't do this! You give her to him! He'll have mercy on you, but I have to get out of here!" Trevor exclaimed, wild-eyed, rubbing his palms on his jeans.
"Hey!" Rose said, grabbing his forearms in her hands, catching his eye. Just a look, and he was already calming down. "What are we?"
Trevor took a few deep, calming breaths, nodding. "We're family. Forever." Rose nodded, smiling. If this worked… Freedom. She had never tasted it – too soon after her transition she had learned there was no reprieve from rigid social hierarchy even in death. What would she do, when she no longer had to keep looking over her shoulder?
A pounding knock echoed through the dilapidated halls, and the girl behind them breathed, disbelievingly, "You're scared."
Rose glanced from her to Trevor, all steely resolve, squashing any misgivings. She had to do this. It was the only way. They couldn't keep going like this; she was so tired.
"Stay here with her. And don't make a sound," she said warningly, more for the girl than Trevor.
Her footsteps echoed through the empty house, light from cheap bulbs casting shadows from precarious towers of books and the skeletal remains of chandeliers and expensive furniture. A creaking groan muffled her footsteps as she approached the foyer; the front-door was opening seemingly of its own accord. No living being lived here; their guest could have invited himself in.
Ever the gentleman, she thought fleetingly, her stomach disappearing with dread. Sunlight she couldn't step into washed over half the foyer as the peeling door groaned open, her eyes dazzled by the painful light leaving nothing but a crisp shadow on the threshold. She stepped down into the foyer in the safety of the shadows.
He looked handsome and terrifying as ever – exquisite Italian-cut suit, spotless. Savile Row. Shining chestnut hair neatly combed and glinting in a hundred different hues picked out by the sun, gold and copper and garnet mixed in with the chocolate, mahogany and whisky. Gloriously expensive Italian-leather shoes. Cufflinks glinting subtly. The hint of a pocket-scarf and an understated tie. Legitimate Omega watch. An almost dainty, very ancient ring on his middle-finger set with a tiny blue stone more precious to a vampire than any diamond. Cheekbones that could cut glass and that jaw. Dark eyes that were like whisky mixed with dark chocolate, warm and kind and lethal at the same time. Of all the Originals she had met, Elijah terrified her the most. Beneath that exquisite exterior and despite his charm, he was the most dangerous of them.
Just the sight of him on her doorstep froze the breath in her lungs, made her stomach evaporate, her heart clench painfully. Elijah Mikaelson. Old-school classy, formidable, exquisitely terrifying. He was a vampire.
He was everything modern pop-culture had forgotten their species had once been depicted as. Charming, timeless and above all, dangerous.
"Rosemary," he said cordially, and he was almost smiling as she swallowed nervously. Nobody had called her that in years. Centuries. Five-hundred years of running from this man didn't make it easy to shake the dread and fear curdling her last meal in her stomach, but despite her fear she was thrown back centuries to another time, a simpler life, a family whole and human.
This modern look suited him better than any she might have imagined him wearing the last few centuries, always on the alert for him or one of his siblings. Elegant, meticulous, deceptively simple.
"Is there somewhere we can talk?" he asked politely.
"Yes," she breathed out a sigh. Relief; he hadn't killed her yet. That he was willing to discuss things with her was a positive sign. "In here. Please forgive the house."
"Oh, what's a little dirt?" Elijah said negligently. They had both grown up in little more than glorified huts, and the both knew it. At one time, too long ago and too briefly to matter now, they had been lovers. Elijah, the calm, gentle one, the intriguing brother – what a surprise he had been. Delicious, she remembered. "I completely understand." He reached behind him, closing the door, and she followed him into the side-chamber, where a shard of sunlight speared through the air, dust-motes whirling idly where he disturbed them to lift the cover of a book on a pile on a time-savaged piano.
"So, tell me. What is it that gives you the courage to contact me?" Elijah asked idly, as if he was almost bored. Bored was better than murderous, she'd take his indifference any day.
"I wanted my freedom," Rose said honestly. "I'm tired of running. You in a position to grant me that?"
"I have complete authority to grant pardon to you and your little pet – what is his name these days? Trevor. – if I so see fit," Elijah said idly.
"Katerina Petrova," Rose said, all but holding her breath. Elijah closed the book and turned to her, his expression mild.
"I'm listening." He draped himself oh so elegantly on the only whole chair in the room, as if he was just waiting for someone to bring him a cocktail and cigar.
"She didn't burn in the church in 1864."
"Continue."
"She survived."
"Where is she?"
"You don't seem surprised by this," Rose said softly, disappointed. If he wasn't surprised, that meant he already knew – that meant the value of her leverage was dwindling by the second.
"Oh, when you contacted me and invited me to this armpit of civilisation, which is a mere three hours from the town we know as Mystic Falls, I surmised this had everything to do with Katerina," Elijah said, and Rose stifled a wince at the backhanded insult. He was a master of passive-aggression – his brother Klaus? He was just malicious-aggressive. He gave her a gentle, almost teasing smile. "Do you have her in your possession?"
"No. But I have better. I have another doppelgänger."
"That's impossible," Elijah said, brushing her off. "The Petrova line died out years ago, I know this for a fact."
"Nature will always make contingencies for what has been made to be destroyed. You taught me that," Rose said gently.
"Well, show her to me," Elijah challenged her, smiling gently.
"Elijah… You're a man of honour, you're to be trusted…" Rose said anxiously, swallowing as she stepped forward hesitantly, gazing at him, entranced. He was the flame; she, the moth. "But I want to hear you say it again."
He gave her that tiny, taunting smile again. "You have my word that I will pardon you."
Rose gazed at him a second more, and nodded, gesturing for him to follow her. Strangely, she felt almost embarrassed to show her through the crumbling halls, the bare lightbulbs flickering slightly, plaster and ancient wallpaper on the termite-brutalised floor… She remembered the great stately home in Hampshire that had been filled to the rafters with fine art, antiques even for the 1400s, beautiful people, expensive furnishings, the first feather bed she had ever slept in, the clothes and those diamonds his youngest sister used to thread through her glorious hair, the exquisite rose-garden she used to indulge at dusk when the great house blocked the sun's rays. She remembered that place, glowing with candlelight, expensive oil paintings glistening on the walls, perfumed ladies gliding through the corridors, the library and the hand-carved four-poster bed that told the stories of his gods… Galling, to have to throw her shoulders back in this place like she was proud of it as her home.
The girl was pacing. A piece of paper crumpled in her hand, her heartbeat thrumming fast as a hummingbird's, she could smell fear and sweat – not just hers, Trevor's too, and she glanced over her shoulder as Elijah paused at the top of the split staircase, gazing down into the ballroom, his expression now careful, shrewd, frowning. Hiding any amazement.
In a second he was gone, down to the girl, whose gasp lingered on the close air inside the room, jumping back. She looked tinier and frail behind him, a dark elegant slash amid the debris. He leaned in closer, the girl barely took a breath as dark eyes gazed imploringly over his shoulder at Rose, who stood frozen, powerless to do anything but wait for the verdict.
"Human. It's impossible," Elijah said softly. Rose didn't see his expression, but could imagine the tiny smile on his face as he said gently, "Hello, there." Rose glanced down at Trevor, who dared briefly to glance her way and give her one tangible expression of relief mingled with terror, before Elijah spoke again. "Well, we have a long journey ahead of us, we should be going." As if they had just stopped by for tea.
"Please, don't let him take me!" the girl whimpered, her voice tremulous and so young. One thing Rose could say about Katerina, she had never sounded young. Even when they had known her, she had lost any innocence.
"One last piece of business," Elijah said softly. "Then we're done." He turned to Trevor, who barely lifted his eyes from the felled chandelier to glance at the equivalent of the vampire king.
"I've waited so long for this day, Elijah," he admitted. "I'm truly very sorry."
"Oh, no, your apology's not necessary," Elijah said blithely.
"Yes, it is," Trevor breathed. "You trusted me with Katerina…and I failed you."
"Well, yes, you are the guilty one. Rosemary aided you because she was loyal to you – that, I honour… Where was your loyalty?"
"I beg your forgiveness," Trevor breathed, every fibre in his being sincere. For a moment, Elijah regarded him.
"So granted," he said, his voice so gentle. In one swift, unexpected motion, a practiced slash, and Elena was still fixed on the disbelieving look of relief on Trevor's face as his body crumpled to the dusty floor, blood seeping over the pages of the books scattered about – his head had thumped halfway across the room, completely detached.
"Text." Damon fidgeted in his seat, plucking his phone out of his pocket. The drawback of a vintage muscle car was the lack of Bluetooth connectivity to channel his calls through the car. "It's from Giulia. Oh."
"What?" Stefan asked, his panic ratcheting up with every mile Damon added to his odometer. "What is it? Did she find something?"
"Guess so," Damon mused. "It's an address. Hey, get the road map out."
"Road map? Screw that, I'll use my phone," Stefan frowned, tapping away at his cell-phone like the seventeen-year-old guy he masqueraded as, feeding the address Giulia had texted Damon into the search.
"You've got an app for that," Damon sneered, rolling his eyes. Stefan heaved a sigh, butting his head back against the headrest. His cell-phone screen was black. Damon smiled sweetly, reaching back behind the front-passenger seat to retrieve the battered road map book, dropping it in his baby-bro's lap. "Have fun."
"Damon – this is from 1987!" Stefan growled, and Damon chuckled.
"Come on, you gotta work for it!" Damon laughed, taunting, "Nothing worth having ever came easy!"
"Who d'you think took her?" Stefan asked, keeping his voice curious rather than paranoid and on the verge of a total psychotic break unleashing the Ripper. Full on Jekyll and Hyde, his baby-bro.
"Someone from Katherine's past; she said she was running from someone," Damon shrugged unconcernedly. Truthfully, he could pretend to be in this only for Elena's sake just to get a rise out of his brother, but deep down, Damon had lost any interest in pursuing the girl who had in one instant reminded him so strongly of Katherine's betrayal. Manipulating him for information like he was her toy. You two have a lot more in common than just your looks, he'd told her, and he'd meant it. Katerina had been born in the 1470s, in a country torn apart by religious warfare; Elena was the sheltered version, used to getting her own way. He added sceptically, "Maybe they got the wrong girl."
"Thank you for helping me," Stefan said sombrely.
"Can we not do the whole road-trip bonding thing?" Damon scowled. "The cliché of it all makes me itch."
"Oh, come on, Damon," Stefan sighed. "We both know that you being in this car has nothing to do with me anyway." Damon quirked an eyebrow.
"The elephant in the car lets out a mighty roar!"
"Well, it doesn't have to be an elephant – let's talk about it," Stefan suggested casually. He'd been spoiling for a fight, for action, ever since they had all realised Elena was gone.
"There's nothin' to talk about," Damon assured him. Once bitten, twice shy, he thought tiredly. He'd not be going down that road again. He would have to be the stupidest guy in the world – he was a lot of things: stupid wasn't one.
"That's not true! Sure there is!" Stefan blurted. "Let's get it out. I mean, are you in this car because you wanna help your little brother save the girl he loves, or is it – is it because you love her too? Hm? Express yourself! I happen to like road-trip bonding."
"Keep it up, Stefan. I can step out of helping as easy as I stepped in," Damon warned, uncomfortable with the topic.
"Nope. See, that's the beauty of it," Stefan said smugly, smiling at him. "You can't."
Damon quirked an eyebrow, jerked on the wheel and stamped on the brake and clutch, knocking the gearstick into neutral as Stefan lurched in his seat, dark eyebrows lowering dangerously as he braced a hand against the dash. "What the hell?!"
"See, Stefan, it's like this. In all honesty I thought I had a thing for Elena – she showed me exactly who she is under those fluttering eyelashes and all I can see now when I look at her is a more demure Katherine, who, coincidentally, I loathe, because she treated the both of us, and especially me, like crap," Damon said warningly. They should just get this all out in the open once and for all, put his brother in his place and set the record straight for anyone who even cared what he felt and for whom. His private personal feelings were just that – his. But his baby-bro loved exposition and it was either listen to him passive-aggressively allude to the fact he knew Damon had made a move on his girl, or have a full-on brawl at the side of the dusty highway.
"Now you can accept that I was the only one in town who can actually contribute to any rescue-attempt without turning into a liability, and is willing to get their hands dirty to get the end-result we all want, and wants to be here to make sure you didn't get the heart yanked out of your chest, and quit acting like a little bitch. Or I dump your ass on the side of the road and you can hitchhike and find your ladylove, because you are not taking my map-book with you." '87 had been a good year. "I get it; you're hero-hair over heels for this girl and believe everyone in their right minds should be too, but to be honest she's almost as big a bore as you and that is saying something, my friend, ever since you detoxed. And I won't be manipulated again, certainly not by a faded, mediocre copy of the same girl. Not happening… So, satisfied? Am I putting this thing back in gear or are you thumbing your way to Satan's Ass Crack, Middle-of-Nowhere?"
Stefan sighed heavily, but didn't answer. Didn't fling open his door, so Damon shrugged as his brother did that annoying scoffing thing he did when Stef couldn't think of any witty retort for a life-altering, uncomfortable truth, and put the car back in gear.
"I'm not a bore," Stefan muttered sullenly half an hour later. Damon laughed, and kept driving.
Blood oozed all over the dusty floor, seeping into some of the books strewn there, and the terrifyingly cool vampire Rose's wordless exclamation of shock, grief and anger all mingled into one as she collapsed down the stairs, tears sparkling in her eyes.
There wasn't a speck of blood on Elijah the Original's suit.
"Don't, Rose," Elijah said softly, giving an odd sort of movement that spoke of…discomfort, "now that you are free." Elena stood breathless with terror, needing a restroom, her eyes burning for the brutal death of this man who had kidnapped her, for his friend now crying, distracted as the immaculate and horrifyingly calm Elijah held out a hand to Elena, as if requesting the next dance. "Come."
"What about the moonstone?" Elena blurted, hand fluttering at her throat, as if that might protect her.
"What do you know about the moonstone?" Elijah said sharply. The girl was so slender, so frail. All doe-eyes peering through unnaturally straight curtains of dark hair, Katerina's opposite in demeanour as much as she was a match in looks.
"I know that you n-need it, and I know where it is," the girl stammered breathlessly.
"Yes." A stubborn set appeared around the girl's jaw, her eyes hardening a little.
"I can help you get it."
"Tell me where it is."
"It doesn't work that way," the girl said. Elijah raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms over his chest and glancing at Rose.
"Are you negotiating with me?" He sounded almost amused, Elena thought.
"It's the first I've heard of it," Rose said sharply, her face crumpling as she wiped tears from her cheeks the second Elijah looked away. If Elijah felt a stab of sympathy he pummelled it into his long-abused heart for later perusal. Emotions were an indulgence he craved and rarely let himself give in to. The last few weeks had been an anomaly. And strangely, it was the first time he had ever entered into anything of the like with both parties completely aware of the dangers.
Then he caught the girl's dark gaze intently, and after a second, smiled to himself.
"Aaah," he said softly, using a pinkie-finger to lift the silver chain from which an ancient, familiar pendant dangled, reeking of a plant he forever associated with making love to his wife on their old straw mattress, his mother's hearth, the scent of his children's hair as they cuddled around him, tiny little warm bodies wriggling annoyingly – what he wouldn't give to experience that again.
He had seen it in photographs on the Internet – wasn't social-media a wonderful thing?! – but to see it, draped around this girl's slender neck, a human doppelgänger wearing the pendant his sister had kept with her for a thousand years – brutally confirmed what he had suspected.
Doppelgänger or not, key to breaking Niklaus' curse or not, his sister would have torn the girl to pieces if she had ever caught a glimpse of her wearing her pendant.
His expression sobered, wondering how… "Where did you get that?"
The girl didn't answer; he snapped the clasp of the chain without effort and tucked the pendant in an inside jacket-pocket, mind already spinning with the possibilities of using the pendant. It had a very long history, and deep ties with Rebekah.
He might be able to use one to find the other.
He gripped the girl by the back of the neck, drawing her closer, and she was powerless to evade his questions without the protection of vervain the pendant had been laced with.
"Tell me where the moonstone is," he ordered.
"I think Giulia has it," the girl said dreamily.
"Giulia Salvatore," Elijah smiled. Moves and counter-moves, he thought to himself. This would make the game more interesting. So she had been playing for weeks now, while he had been waiting to make his first move. "Now, I've heard of her. Why should she have the moonstone?"
"Mason Lockwood had it. He got it for Katherine. I think Mason gave the moonstone to Giulia when he left Mystic Falls," the girl sighed.
"Interesting," Elijah said thoughtfully. That she suspected Giulia had it made things more interesting; she most likely did. And Giulia Salvatore was the wiliest, most creative mind he had ever encountered – he said that; she wasn't malicious, paranoid and destructive like his brother and so he could not compare the two, but Giulia was indisputably genius. Trying to figure out where she might hide it would be futile; his best move was to seduce, tease, torment the information out of her – even then, he suspected she wouldn't be wholly honest. She'd never divulge so much that she became expendable, hyper-aware of the situation and her tenuous position in it.
"And where is Katherine now?" he asked, wondering what she knew.
"I think Giulia killed her." Elijah chuckled softly. Despite her declaration to Rose earlier that they were not friends, this girl still had enough faith in Giulia's abilities that she suspected her capable of putting a half-millennium-old nuisance in her place. But she underestimated Giulia: They could always kill their enemies, but they couldn't bring them back. And Katerina had made such a delightful adversary over the last five centuries; why ruin the possibility of the game starting again? Something to look forward to…
She jerked awake in the living-room, wearing her pyjamas, her reading-glasses still propped at the end of her nose and the corner of her hardback research book digging painfully into her breast, draped with a blanket and Firenze purring in his sleep across her feet, disoriented and groggy and a little too warm, hyper-aware that something had woken her.
Footsteps. Peering blearily through the dim amber light, she fidgeted, letting her books fall with a thunk onto the floor as she writhed out from under the blanket, displacing Firenze.
Elijah stepped into the circle of light. She sighed, taking in his appearance.
"And it was Armani, too."
He divested himself of his tie, dropping it to the floor with his jacket, his ruined shirt, and she quirked an eyebrow, drawn closer like a moth to that dangerous flame, reaching to help unbuckle his belt, unzip his sharply-tailored trousers. Blood smeared his torso, right at his heart. To heal from a shattered sternum – and a heart pierced by a makeshift oak lance – was no small feat, and hardly painless. It explained Elijah's dark glower – and why he stripped her of all but her reading-glasses, lifting her to his waist and striding determinedly to the stairs.
She smoothed away the tense lines carved deeply into his face with a fingertip trailing gently over his cool skin, cuddled flush to his side, her favourite place, the ache of him between her thighs, relaxed and happy, nuzzling his neck when his hand tightened on her hip. He sighed, gentling his grip, pressing an apologetic kiss to her temple.
He hadn't been killed in decades.
A.N.: Thank you all for being so patient and sticking with me, with Giulia. I thought I'd end the chapter on a delicious note for all you die-hard Giulijah fans as a little treat. It's just sod's law though that I couldn't figure out how to write this chapter until 11:30 at night, the night before I have to be up early to start a new job. Oh well! A regular 9-to-5 means better writing hours!
