Hi.
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
The voice fills the empty streets. A few blocks from the revelry of the Quarter, time takes on a more staid approach, and natives of the city lie sleeping, serenaded by the far-off sound of jazz and blues that serve as the faintest backdrop for this singular voice.
that saved a wretch like me!
It soars over tangled bedsheets, a deep basso with a hint of rasp, a voice bigger than even the confines of the city, it seems to Klaus. He crouches on a set of low steps that lead to a screened-in porch, palms together and fingertips grazing the weathered wood, and lets the voice wash over him.
I once was lost
This isn't the first time Klaus has heard the singer - he's actually thought of turning him before, but there's a madness that glints in the man's deep-set eyes that makes Klaus think better of it. So instead he keeps it safe, this incomparable, heart-achingly beautiful, transcendent voice. He kills those who dare to silence the beauty, and vamps have learned to give this meal a wide berth.
but now am found
The song is an old Christian hymn penned by an Englishman, and is Klaus' favorite in the singer's repertoire. Something about the singular devotion and loyalty that humanity gives to a power that they cannot see nor touch nor speak to fascinates him. But tonight, in this singer's voice he hears the sweet grace of faith in every syllable, he hears it and it reminds him - of faith and loyalty and the look in her eyes as she disappeared. He stands abruptly, as if to escape his thoughts, and walks slowly towards the voice.
was blind, but now -
Her first clue that something is wrong is the water filling her lungs as she takes a breath. With a panic borne from a summer long past, Caroline flails in the water, disoriented, until she spots a familiar archway that shyly reveals itself in the light that slants in, a golden unveiling. OK, she thinks, right place, wrong universe. Pulling her bag close to her chest, her heart aching for Abhi's letter that lies inside, she surges toward the light and climbs the steps she's only ever seen dry, water sluicing off as she surfaces. There's more clues here - a thick wall of some plastic-y looking material rises where a fence should stand - and while there is noise, it's a constant whirring drone that sounds nothing like the chaos of Delhi traffic she's used to.
There's no one inside the confines of this well's odd plastic walls. Caroline take a moment to untangle her bag from her shoulder and dumps out the contents, tearing at the seal on the envelope from Abhi and pulling out sheets dampened by her unexpected plunge. She pulls them apart, spreading them on the stone that crowns the step well, the water still lapping against the top stair as it calms to stillness. The bubble-wrap lining of the envelope has done a surprisingly good job of keeping the paper dry, and there's minimal smearing of ink across Abhi's incongruously girlish handwriting. Caroline shifts from her crouch to sit, staring at the looping words across the top of the page.
Caroline -
I've been thinking of our conversation about good and evil and choices and their effects on others, and I thought of an Indian proverb: 'The good exercise compassion by making the case of others their own.' And i think to myself - is this too simple? Or is it that I simply do not understand the depths of motives? Because I think on that line and I examine recent events and I think to myself -
You, Caroline are good, just as Bonnie is, just as I am, and just...as Klaus is, if only for you.
Caroline stares at the words and the meaning inherent in them, the forgiveness that Abhi embodies, the read-between-the-lines urging. She thinks if Abhi was here right now he'd nod sagely and look away, embarrassed, and she smiles at the thought before her mind screeches to a halt at the next words.
But Caroline, I am afraid. It was not something I could articulate until I set pen to paper - my wife oft complained I could only talk about difficult things by scrawling them across a page, and while I've worked on it considerably over the years, there's still a part of me that lets the words dry in my throat. So I write, and I say that I am afraid. I fear the prophecy, I fear that there is more to this than we know, that Lamashtu may -
Shit. Lamashtu. In her underwater panic Caroline's somehow managed to ignore reality. There's a demon here, and even if this isn't her universe, or...her other universe...Caroline can't let a psychotic vampire demon bird thing loose. But where is she? Did she come to the same place? Did she leave the step well already? Caroline folds Abhi's damp letter and slides it back in the padded envelope, her fingertips grazing something stuffed in the bottom. She'll have to look and see what present Abhi gave her later, time is ticking and who knows how long whatever magic Lamashtu saw in her would remain active.
The last thing she wants is to be stuck in this weird place with an insane original vampire.
"Why is it taking so long to find her?" Rebekah breezes into the bar, curling a finger at the server in an imperious request before sliding smoothly into the seat across from Bonnie. She spins the book Bonnie's been studying around, lifting a brow at the Urdu and tapping a finger on a crude drawing of a woman with snakes for hair. "Ah, Medusa. It's a shame we never met."
"Medusa was real?" Bonnie can't help but reply and catches herself at Rebecca's shrug, deliberately spinning the book back towards her before continuing. "I guess at this point all those stories I read as a kid should be considered real," she says wryly. "Anyways, this is about some sort of demon vampire queen, not Medusa. She's tied to the pishachas in some way, but there's so little information on her that it's been a struggle. Some books have her as a woman with a bird's head, some are like th-"
"What do the pishachas have to do with anything? Have you seen my brother? He's losing both his grip and the city, and I'm tired of coddling him."
Bonnie considers Rebekah for a moment. She's spent enough time with the Original to know not to take her words at face value and to see the concern underneath, so she decides to tell her what she knows. "Because they're tied to this all, along with Caroline. Some sort of prophecy that I'm trying to unravel, to understand what magic can bring Caroline back." She pauses, tapping at the picture of the demon goddess. "Or if I even need to."
"Well then I have no idea why you've asked for Kol's help and not mine. I was always mother's best student." Rebekah spins the book once more towards her and reaches without looking with her other hand, snagging the waitress' wrist with an iron grip. "Grey Goose martini, and if you are slow to respond again I will -" Rebecca turns to give the waitress a sunny smile - "drink you dry instead." The waitress scuttles away, confused and terrified, and Bonnie shakes her head, pulling another Urdu tome from her bag.
The whirring sound, as it turns out, comes from the cars that hover just over the roads. The city skyline is shockingly clear, the smog that typically obscures Delhi's facade like a sickly veil is gone, and a clear light shines unbroken from the sun, glinting off the windshields with an ocean's sparkle. Even in the depths of her frustration Caroline stops for a moment to marvel, the breadth of the skyline staggering, an almost hilariously ramshackle collection of buildings broken by the graceful minarets and domes of places of worship. She turns to the south, towards the ancient tower that still reaches up to the sky in such unbroken, thousand-year fealty, and she hears it. A wailing cry, almost a lament, and then the rising storm of panicked voices.
She races towards the sound, trying to get her heart under control. She can't fight Lamashtu, but she thinks she knows what the demon wants, and that's to go home. There - a red sandstone building, a crowd thundering out like a burst dam. She locks eyes with a young girl's terrified gaze, pushes past a bearded man caught mid-scream, and races inside. It's an auditorium, and on the stage lies a body still pumping blood from the stump of its neck. Caroline's gorge rises just as her monster does, and there - she spots Lamashtu, almost cowering on the stage, the source of the inhuman screech, the sound that has the escaping crowd clutching at their ears as if that noise is somehow worse than what they've just witnessed.
Sensing her, the demon's head jerks up in a bizarrely-avian tilt and focuses on Caroline. "Where are my children?" she asks above the fleeing crowd's roar, and as Caroline crests the stage she sees that Lamashtu is cradling the decapitated head, running her fingers through strands now sodden with blood. Lamashtu's face shifts at Caroline's banked horror and something more calculating locks into place behind her eyes. "How many more will be killed in your name, Caroline? Before I see my children? Why do you keep me from them?" Lamashtu raises the head like a gruesome chalice and tips it back, throat working.
Caroline's hand tightens into a white-knuckled fist. The demon isn't wrong, here are her choices again resulting in the deaths of others and god she doesn't have time for this, the world doesn't have time for this, she just needs to get a grip -
She rushes towards Lamashtu and can't help her smile at the demon's surprise, time shifting to slow motion as the head drops and fangs are bared and a clawed hand swipes at her, secures on a shoulder and Lamashtu laughs then, teeth darkened with blood. There's that oily feeling that slinks over her skin and she can feel the sickening creep of unbidden thoughts but she's prepared this time and clamps down on every bit of her control. She turns and cuts her own hand through the air, somewhat surprised that there's not a tearing sound to accompany, because she sees the sparkle of a night sky where the stage curtains should be and she places her hand on Lamashtu's and thinks of Klaus and pulls. Halfway through, the demon claws her way out of Caroline's grip and they separate and Caroline wants to scream because she's in a puddle on the edge of an alley, some chick draped in strands of shiny beads is staring at her with confusion, and Lamashtu is nowhere to be seen.
The demon's ancient eyes give away nothing as they take in the scene before her, here, in this right place at the wrong time because her children - oh. Her demons lie ravaged by a brutality that calls to her bones. A grey form hangs limply from the wall, suspended by two shafts of metal tunnelled in place of his eyes into the rockface behind. Another sits, breathing shallow, puffing breaths as his form shifts between shapes, as if caught in transition. It sits up at the sight of her, attempting gurgling speech.
"My….goddess…you...have come."
"Shhh, shhh my dearest," Lamashtu coos, laying a hand gently on the pishacha's shifting forehead. It settles into a shape, a dark-haired female, doe eyes wide and expressive. It struggles to say more and Lamashtu cuts her off with a taloned finger pressed to lips. "You will tell me all I need to know, but not like this." Her voice is hard and brittle, cracking at the edges with an ancient rage unbound.
Lamashtu cocks her head, raptor's eyes meeting her prey, and the pishacha nods once, bowing her head in acquiescence. "Yes, my liege. Always and forever." The creature reaches up with a hand, offering it palm up, and Lamashtu tears into the skin with a hunger unbidden. It is not human flesh, not human blood, but the purpose here is not satiation but knowledge. The first sip brings a face to her mind, an attractive male, brow low and strong and mouth stretched wide in a killer's grin. Intriguing. She takes another deep pull of the thick demon blood and watches the battle at the step well, watches her demon children fall, witnesses the power that seems to echo off the rooftops of the city when the male roars with double-fanged jaws.
She sees the battle's aftermath, her demons feeding on the police who came unwittingly to their slack-jawed demise, energy drained to heal the deep wounds. Her anger surges to the forefront and she pushes it back, keeping it banked. The utter gall of this upstart creature - for even she does not hold a name for this vampire with wolven jaws - the utter gall of him.
Another sip, another scene. She hears alarmed shouts and watches her children - for even demons have mothers, and they are her creation - fall to the impressive fury of this half-wolf, half-vampire. He is alone this time, and there's something unhinged about him that belies the control she saw earlier. His eyes flash with anger, but now that she's looking Lamashtu sees something else and she files it away; for motivations are a powerful thing, and there's something behind his rage that tells a truer tale than his ire. She watches him question, screaming demands and then turning quiet, impaling one of the demons with a cold, furious power that has her shuddering in arousal.
She wonders if he'll think himself a match for her vengeful fury and cackles a bloody-mouthed laugh, realizing she's beyond eager to find out.
Caroline's Volant phone is waterlogged and useless, so she takes to the New Orleans streets, because there's no mistaking this place for any other from that first flash of beads. Even amidst her urgency she finds herself caught up in the buoyant revelry of the city, musicians seeming to herald her arrival on every corner, the bright sound of brass echoing in the evening air. She searches, trying to spot a familiar face - she knows it's ridiculous, but she hopes she can at least use her senses to spot a vampire or a witch that could lead her to Klaus or Bonnie, because she's sure of it, this is the right place, the right time. She ducks into a bar, scans the faces inside. A band is onstage, and the singer's bright smile and sheer presence capture her eye.
Vampire.
She locks eyes with him and his own narrow mid-lyric and it's as if his voice turns only to her as the chorus strings out its refrain.
So how you like me now?
How you like me now?
The music rings out its final notes, and while the bar is densely packed, the post-set applause is scattered - it's late in the evening and the dipping of heads indicates quite a few patrons are either too drunk on blood or alcohol to really pay attention. There's enough, though, for Caroline to catch a name whooped in support - Marcel - and she watches as Marcel prowls towards her, passing out high fives and that easy megawatt smile.
"How do you like the city so far?" He slides in next to her, leans his elbows on the round table in front of them, head cocked in solicitous attention.
She can't help but smile back. "How do you know I'm not a local? What gave it away?"
His grin snakes out from the corner of his mouth. "Please. You have to be new in town. I'd notice a girl like you."
She dips her lashes, cheeks coloring. She may not be interested in his advances but she can certainly appreciate charm when she sees it. She wonders what Bonnie thinks of him, and the thought jars her into action. "I'm actually here to visit a friend. You may know her - Bonnie Bennett?"
His eyes narrow and she's glad she didn't say Klaus because there's something predatory that's just crawled into his gaze.
"Klaus' witch? Known her since she was a kid," Marcel says almost distractedly, glancing behind Caroline. "My question is," he says as she feels a hand clamp on each of her arms and god - how could she have been so stupid -"why I've never heard of you."