A/N- Getting to the action now.

Caroline stood on the steps of St Anne's Church, the adrenaline coursing through her veins was making the wait unbearable.

She wanted to run, to scream, to fight and to kill.

But doing any of those things right now would be suicide.

Katherine comes out and stands beside her but almost immediately begins shivering in the cold air.

She never seemed to dress warmly enough, usually favoring fashion over comfort and would steal Elijah's suit jacket when she decided she was done looking hot and feeling cold.

Except that he wasn't with them now to chide her while draping his jacket over her shoulders and rubbing her arms affectionately before stepping away and going back to whatever he'd been doing.

He wasn't with them and nobody knew where he was.

"I'm sure he's fine." Caroline blurted, eager for something to say and Katherine smiled,

"Of course he's fine," she replies, "They'd need a white oak stake to kill him and we would have noticed by now if he was dead."

Caroline realized that they weren't talking about the same Mikaelson brother,

"I meant Elijah," she explains and Katherine winces,

"He better be," she mutters darkly, "Otherwise I'll kill him myself."

The French Quarter had been cleared of civilians by the chief of police who knew about the supernatural and was pulling rank to claim that a gas leak had happened.

Obviously, there would be questions later about the gun shots and grenades that must have been heard by the humans but for now, everyone was just doing their best with what they had.

Which was why the music had stopped. All music across the quarter, no jazz, no pop, no vinyl, no bands, not even a radio had been left on.

Caroline wondered when was the last time the Quarter had fallen silent?

Probably Katrina.

She takes a moment to be thankful that at least this time they wouldn't have to worry about flooding and then she sees the bright light crawling over the brick buildings and highlighting the white lines on the road.

They had arrived.

The motorcade pulls up and Caroline allows herself a grim smile as Annabelle Mason steps out of the first car and nods to her politely.

She has to climb the steps to speak to her, because the night becomes noisy with the sounds of people filing from the cars and marching to the trunks where they pulled out protective gear and weapons.

Enough weapons for a small army.

Caroline's army.

"Thanks." she tells Annabelle, who offers her hand to shake,

"Of course, Caroline, I'm more than glad to do you and Klaus this favour."

Favour.

But Caroline had known that this wouldn't be a gift, that Annabelle would expect her to pay her back in some way, however, she hadn't really had a choice, and besides it wasn't like Caroline herself was uber powerful- Annabelle would only care about getting something from her as long as Klaus was alive and willing to do anything for her.

She leads Annabelle and the spare cache of weapons inside where the vampires are gathered,

"Anyone who knows how to fire a gun or work a grenade help yourself," she orders, before turning to the mercenaries and pulling the tourist map she'd grabbed from a nearby information desk from her pocket.

"See here," she holds the map to the leader, pointing at the area she'd marked in pen, "That is the Cauldron, it's the area where the strongest concentration of witches is, I want you to go stake out there and- if I give the order- I want you to put as many bullets in the buildings as you can."

The man looks at her silently but she doesn't stop, "Don't aim specifically for people but create as much damage as possible."

Katherine had left her side to help herself to a dagger but returns when she hears her orders,

"Care?" she whispers under her breath; current Katherine speak for 'Are you insane?'

"I am done playing nice with witches," Caroline explains, "They don't want to live with vampires, fine. But they can't just keep attacking us and think that we're not going to fight back. How many warnings have they had now?"

Katherine gives her a grim smile, "I agree with you one hundred percent," she says, a little louder than necessary so the vampires across the church can hear her,

"I only wish we could light them up like it was sixteenth century Smithfield in here."

Caroline wants to shake her head at the gruesome thought but if it meant keeping her friends and loved ones safe?

Who knew what she was willing to do anymore.

"You all need to come with me," she announces, wishing she'd phrased that better or sounded more regal but it worked at least,

"We're going to find Klaus and Rebekah and kill anyone in our way."

When Cary had received the call from Raina, he had stolen a car and broken every traffic law to get to the location she had sent him.

He had still been too late.

The werewolf part of him wants to comfort himself thinking that the shattered phone and the torn bits of wall in the underground passage mean that Raina put up a real fight and maybe killed one of her attackers but the human part of him knows better.

She would never have risked Erik's safety like that. She would rather have been captured and still be with the kid than dead and him alone.

Especially considering what had happened in his life already.

He stares in horror at the phone and clutches it in his hand, pretending that he could reach out and find Raina.

That he could protect her and the future of his pack.

But he can't.

Not as a werewolf anyway.

But as a human?

He gets back above ground, emerging in the overgrown grass and broken bottles of the riverside where the passage led out, he'd had to force the old door open with a crowbar which now lay in two pieces, he keeps the sharper half in his hand. The second he has a signal he rings Annabelle who answers immediately,

"The child?" she asks and he shakes his head,

"Gone," he blurts quickly, "Both Erik and Raina have been taken. What about Klaus?"

"Caroline Forbes and Katherine Pierce are about to lead an army to recover him," She answers, "But I'm going to ring Scarlet and have her meet you at the corner of Bourbon and Conti, the only thing you two have to worry about tonight is finding Erik and keeping him safe."

A part of him wants to point out that Annabelle Mason is not his Alpha, she's not his boss and the whole point of the secret meetings he'd been having with her, Raina and Scarlet was that they were all equals.

Except that right now, it is some small measure of comfort to not have to be the one making the decisions and taking the fall if everything goes wrong.

So, he promises that he'll be at the rendezvous point in twenty minutes, hangs up the phone and starts heading to Conti St at a dead run.

On a hunch, he leaves his car stranded and when he nears the Quarter his hunch is confirmed. Police barricades have been set up with media outlets, tourists, locals and curious bystanders filling the road, some shouting questions, others shouting insults, complaining and demanding their rights be upheld.

Cary runs a hand through his hair, breathing in the night air and looking about for another way to get through.

He can't go back through the passage, whoever had attacked the Mikaelson's could have left someone there to pick off the rescue effort.

He can't push his way through, he doesn't have any friends in the police force, he doesn't have an address in Bourbon St and he can't fight this many cops this publicly.

What are his options?

A hand grabs his arm and yanks and suddenly he's flying through the air and landing in an alleyway, scrambling to stay on his feet and throwing out his hands to catch his balance,

"Cary?" An accented voice asks, his attacker stepping into the shadows with him,

"You're Scarlet's wolf?"

The woman is a vampire at least, and he reckons that there aren't any vampires in New Orleans stupid enough to have gone to war with the Original family so he nods, "Yeah, you're a friend of hers?"

The woman nods, her brunette ponytail bouncing behind her and Cary notes that she looks slightly familiar,

"When she found out that I was on the wrong side of the barricades, she told me to find you. Apparently, you are on a rescue mission?"

He looks up at the long brick walls of the alleyway, "I won't be unless I can get into Bourbon St and figure out where I have to be."

The woman takes his arms, pinning them to his sides with a wicked grin on her face, "The trick is not to tense up."

Before he can figure out what she means, he's flying through the air again, up this time, up several feet and then across and by sheer miracle, he rolls when he lands on the rooftop, lessening the impact that he can only pray he won't be feeling until after everything is done.

The woman lands next to him with admirable and predatory grace, looking over the edge of the building to see if they've been spotted. When she's satisfied that they're hidden, she holds out a hand to help him up, "My name is Nadia," she introduces as he's pulled to his feet, "Nadia Petrova."

Oh.

That's why she looked familiar.

"Nice to meet you. Cary." He offers, slightly winded and notes with a small touch of instinctive anxiety that vampires were following them, a good dozen at least, landing on the roof with supernatural silence.

Nadia follows his gaze and gives him a grim smile but a nonchalant shrug,

"It is not a unit of Janissaries, but it'll do."

And truth be told, whatever happened tonight, he'd rather be risking the lives of vampires than his pack.

He nods, hoping his determination hides his youth and the fact that he'd never fought in a war like this before, "Good, let's go."

Scarlet is waiting for them in a house on the corner of Conti St, one she'd broken into and was rifling through with abandon.

"This house belongs to the Mikaelson's," she explains, "They only moved out when they needed more space but I'm hoping they left something here we can use…"

Nadia snorts, "Like a semi-automatic weapon? A grimoire? They're vampires, vampires don't use modern weaponry and anything of use they would have taken with them."

Scarlet concedes her point with a sigh, "Then I will have to use magic," she looks out the window to the street with a moue of disgust,

"It shall not be easy, the witches of New Orleans do their best to block magic not their own, but at the very least I can alter the weather slightly. Perhaps create a heavy fog, give you the cover to make an attack?"

"We still have to figure out where this attack of ours is going to take place," Nadia points out and moves to the dining table, standing at the head and pausing for a moment, looking up in momentary confusion and then waving her hand.

Nobody understands the gesture and she snaps her fingers, "I miss the palace," she grumbles,

"Get over here."

Belligerently, the vampires, Cary and Scarlet gather around the table and she uses her nail to carve an X into the wood,

"This is us," she begins, "And this," she carves a straight line, "Is Bourbon St, now imagine the Quarter around that and think- where would you hide a child?"

"And his babysitter," Cary adds quickly, hopefully, "They also took Raina."

Nadia gives him a doubtful look, "You believe that she's still alive?"

He nods because he doesn't want to consider the alternatives, and she seems to accept this,

"Alright, assuming that they haven't had the time to take the two of them out of the city, with the roads being closed off and their stronghold here, where would they be?"

One of the vampires comes forward and smacks a salt shaker down north of the X,

"There's a condemned nightclub here, it caught fire a year ago and nobody's torn it down or developed it yet. The witches have been using it as a storage space or to practise spells, but nothing too hardcore because vampires can still enter the building."

Nadia nods and points to the vampire who had spoken, "Take two people with you and scout the building, if you see anything, report back and we'll join you."

The vampire frowns, "Hey, sweetheart, I'm grateful that you led us out of the club but I'm not…"

Before he can finish she's grabbed him by the back of the neck, thrown him onto the table and has a dagger pressed to his back,

"I am tired of not having my orders followed," she snapped,

"I am in charge because I am the oldest here and the most deadly, if you doubt my willingness to kill you, you should know I am also Katerina Petrova's daughter," she releases him and he staggers back, readjusting his jacket and she looks around,

"Anymore complaints?"

Klaus Mikaelson was beginning to tire.

And that troubled him.

Because he couldn't remember the last time he had been tired during a battle.

Not that this was an ordinary battle.

He was warring against bloody gun wielding werewolves with flash grenades and the regular grenades that weren't only blinding and deafening his senses, but also destroying centuries old architecture and valuables that were irreplaceable.

Elijah would be bloody ropable.

Klaus gives himself a moment of thankfulness that his older brother wasn't here to see the damage to the building he had spent so much time and effort renovating, although a great part of him was deeply concerned that he didn't know where his big brother was.

It was also the part of him that had one eye trained on Rebekah at all times and his left wrist ready to be bitten into, to offer his blood when she was bitten.

Which she had been four times now.

Five times now.

Three werewolves had just jumped her and she'd thrown off two easily but the third one had sunk his teeth into her shoulder, into the part of skin exposed by her torn clothes. She knocked him into the wall and he scarpered away before she could kill him but the damage had been done.

This was their plan. They were trying to knock Rebekah out of the fight, to leave Klaus vulnerable and take him out and they were closer to achieving their aim than he would prefer to admit.

He flashes over to her and shoves his wrist into her mouth, counteracting the poison but he can feel the toll it's taking on his body, he needs blood and can't exactly call time out to feed.

There probably isn't a human nearby, all the wolves are on vervein- which he discovered about an hour ago- and there wasn't a fridge in the basement containing bags of blood.

This was the first time his families habit of live feeding had been an inconvenience.

Rebekah releases his wrist with a gasp and takes his arm, leading him further into the house- they'd already breached the courtyard, and the adjoining rooms, they'd had to cede them the main hallway and were now retreating to the far corner where Elijah had lovingly set up his library.

If they lost this last bit of territory and any harm came to Elijah's books- they were all dead.

"How many more of them can there bloody be?" Rebekah gasps, ripping a piece of fabric from her shirt and using it to tie her hair back from her face, and Klaus growls,

"We haven't killed that many," he points out, "They're attacking to exhaust us, to leave us vulnerable and weak and fleeing before we manage to kill them."

Rebekah exhales and straightens,

"Right," she reaches over and squeezes his hand, "We'll have to bloody fix that won't we?"

He grins, "There is no-one I would rather at my side."

They brace themselves for the next attack, hearing the werewolves clambering up the stairs, shouting to each other excitedly and the shrill ringing of his phone seems to shock everyone that hears it.

Quickly, knowing the attack will come at any second, he answers without looking to the screen, "Hello?"

"Hey!" Caroline's voice manages to fill him with warmth and terrify him,

"Listen, whatever happens, don't come out to the courtyard until I call for you. This is going to get messy."

Because he's Niklaus Mikaelson, he speaks without thinking and probably sets any development in this personal relationship back a good five months,

"What the hell are you doing here?!" he demands, "You're supposed to be safe at bloody…"

He hears the gunfire on the other end of the line and the screams, an explosion that rings both from the phone and in his ears, and he has to toss the phone to the side as a contingent of wolves attack him and Rebekah. Two flying at him and snaps the neck of the first one and loses time scrambling with the other, caving his chest in with his knee and looks to his sister who has grabbed the wolf attacking her and his backup, bringing them together with such force that their skulls cave in and blood splatters everywhere.

Blood.

God he's thirsty.

One of the werewolves looks over his shoulder, realizes that the backup isn't arriving and begins to flee.

His innards are ripped out and Klaus punts his body up the hall so that the blood won't be at any risk of spreading into Elijah's library.

Unfortunately, just as the body begins its descent, Caroline appears in the doorway with a look of relief on her face, "There you ar-ah!"

The body collides with her and sends her stumbling backwards out onto the staircase and Klaus flashes forward, catching her just as she begins to topple over the railing. His hands are on her thighs and he yanks her towards him, ending with their legs tangled together and his head swims so he leans back against the wall, trying to just catch his balance.

The world goes dark for a moment and he thinks Caroline's hair must be in his eyes but then everything feels as though it's spinning and his hands are decidedly empty and…

Smack.

He blinks a few times and tries to focus his vision, confused when he sees what is most definitely a ceiling above him, and then part of the ceiling is blocked by an angry Caroline.

His least favourite type of Caroline.

He starts ranking his Caroline's, first place being a toss-up between loving Caroline and horny Caroline and he wonders if naked Caroline gets her own ranking and he giggles at that.

"What is wrong with you?" angry Caroline shouts, shaking his shoulders and he pouts, now that there's a violent Caroline he'll have to figure out the rankings again.

How long should this list be?

Ten is a good number.

He holds up his hands and spreads out his fingers to keep track.

"He's lost too much blood," tired Rebekah informs angry Caroline and Klaus doesn't like tired Rebekah because tired means grumpy and in his family, grumpy quickly becomes violent.

"He needs to feed before he completely loses his mind."

Caroline runs a hand through her hair and curses, biting into her wrist and shoving it in his mouth and Klaus closes his eyes in bliss as the warm, stolen and freely given blood cascades over his tongue and pours down his throat, filling and replenishing his exhausted body and he realizes that his new favourite Caroline is blood-sharing Caroline and…

What the bloody hell is he on about?

Sanity returns to his brain at the same time the blood flow does and he quickly calculates how much blood he'll need to function before cutting off the source, taking Caroline's wrist and momentarily fighting with her as she struggles to keep it in place before winning and pushing her away.

"Thank-you, sweetheart," he murmurs, kissing her palm and putting his hands on the floor to push himself into a standing position. Rebekah and Caroline both hold their own hands out, ready to catch him if he begins to fall again but he's steady and alert so they pull back.

He looks down at the stairs but doesn't want to push his luck yet so he begins moving through the house to the gallery, determinedly not assessing the damage done to his home.

"How many dead?" he asks Caroline, who is walking beside him,

"Vampires that are with me? Three. Werewolves that were attacking you? Most of them. Six got away and I think they were the ringleaders, they were at a car and had the engine running so they must have been planning to bail if things went south."

He accepts this with a nod and steps onto the gallery, looking down at the courtyard turned battlefield that was strewn with bodies that would have to be dealt with and blood that would have to be washed away.

His kingdom.

His castle.

His vengeance would know no bounds.

The vampires are watching him and he nods curtly before noting the weapons in their hands and turning back to his girlfriend, "You led them into battle?"

She gives her quick, eager series of nods, "Me and Katherine, she's taking a call- something about reinforcements."

He takes her shoulders and steals a kiss, smiling with pride, "My Queen."

He's given himself enough time to recover and descends what's left of the staircase to the courtyard, noting with displeasure that all the attackers were dead and thus couldn't be interrogated or made an example of.

Ah well.

He'd make do with their corpses.

He claps the shoulders of the vampires he passes, making note of their faces and offering blood to those who had been bitten. He would reward them when the night was over, show them favour and friendship.

A human woman steps through the arch and Klaus catches her scent before she enters his sight.

Human.

With a heart pumping blood through her veins.

Delicious human.

Edible human.

He grins, baring his teeth and starts forward but Caroline jumps over the railing and stands between him and his meal,

"Klaus, she's working with us," she explains, her feet sliding against the paving as he pushes forward,

"She's the only reason we were able to rescue you so you can't eat her."

With a growl of frustration and lingering hunger, he turns away and focuses on Katherine- another inedible human- coming into the courtyard with a familiar façade on her face.

She was trying to hide her fear.

"What news of my brother?" he inquires, storming right up until he was an inch from her, breathing in the air she exhaled. He knows he can't offer any comfort in his presence but after so many years of enmity between them, his close and threatening proximity would cause adrenaline to race through her body and give her the edge she needed to survive the night.

She gives the merest flicker of her eyelid at his question and instead of posing with her hand on her hip and smirking, she lays a hand on his shoulder.

Elijah.

Any air that he had inhaled leaves his body, and he wants to burn her face from his retinas but she insists on remaining in his vision and worse, breaking his heart,

"It's not your brother, my…people called me, these werewolves have Raina and Erik."

No.

His son.

He has lost him again.

Once again, he had broken his promise to keep him safe.

His own failure threatens to crush him, to break him down in a way that centuries of Mikael hunting him had never been able to do.

The woman, the one Caroline had protected comes forward and clears her throat,

"I have also been speaking with Ms Pierce's friends," she offers, in a polite British accent that he places from upper-class London.

"They have his location and are planning to retrieve him but they are worried that reinforcements are on the way."

He turns to her with the savage grin that had made him the very thing of nightmares.

"Reinforcements are on the way," he promises, "Shall we?"

"Stupid, vampire whore!" Francesca spat as the car eased through the French Quarter,

"How the hell did she get her hands on weapons?!"

Her brother can only shrug as he turns the steering wheel to the left, navigating the armoured vehicle,

"It doesn't matter," he assures her quietly, "We still have the boy."

"And Elijah," Celeste reminds her from the back, "We can regroup and make this work."

Not only had Francesca not been able to capture the two Mikaelson siblings, but because the attack had been foiled, she'd also not had time for Celeste to be executed.

She punches the glove box and releases a scream of frustration before seeing the building where the brat was being held and climbing out of the still moving car.

"Talk to me!" she orders the man who approaches her first,

"We got the kid and his nanny," he reports, "They're inside, and we have armed guards on them and we got the people you were after."

She lets him lead her around the side of the building to the tiny parking lot where a group of scrappily dressed people stand together.

"You're the Crescent pack," Francesca says, marching right up to the one standing one step in front of the rest, "Jackson Parsons?"

He nods but doesn't hold out his hand, "Yeah, and you're the lady that kidnapped Hayley's child."

She keeps her face placid, "We're the werewolf pack who is finally going to chase the vampire scum from New Orleans," she begins,

"And yes, we took the…Erik as leverage to make that happen, but also because he's a peace offering between our two packs. Since Hayley died, you're out of options for alpha's and if you have him, you have a future which is a lot more than you have now."

He blinks slowly and she can read the doubt in his eyes, face and shoulders, "Really?" he drawls,

"You're just going to hand him over to us? Just like that?"

She shrugs, "Why not? After all, he's young, he'll forget his father in time and instead of being raised to become a ruthless Mikaelson monster, he can become a good alpha for your pack,"

"Provided you take him now," she adds, "We don't want to waste our time protecting him and taking out the vampires."

Jackson sighs and runs a hand through his shoulder-length hair, "It's not like we really have a choice in the matter," he grumbles, "But okay."

She bites her cheek in frustration and leads him into the building, looking around until she sees the woman sitting in one of the corner booths, bruised and bloodied but determinedly holding the kid in her arms.

She raises her head as they approach and the hatred is radiating off her in waves.

"Hand him over," Francesca orders, the men guarding her pointing their guns at her when she doesn't comply, "Now!"

The kid whimpers and buries his face in the woman's neck as she rubs his back soothingly,

"I won't fight," she swears, "But wherever he goes, I go."

Francesca gives a little laugh through her nose, "You think you have the power to make demands right now? Hand him over or we'll put a bullet through your skull while he watches."

The woman bares her teeth at her and Francesca wants to laugh at how ridiculous this powerless bitch looks, but she settles for checking her watch as she snaps her fingers.

"Ina," the kid mumbles, "Ina, stay."

"Erik," the woman kisses his nose, "Baby, I love you so much and your daddy will come get you soon. Everything is okay."

The brat releases ear-splitting screams as the guard grabs his hips, gripping his nanny's hair with his tiny fists and the other guard has to pry his fingers loose.

He's handed over to Jackson who quickly bundles him out and Francesca turns to watch them leave, glad that at least one thing is going right tonight.

She opens her mouth to issue the kill order but exhales as the air is pushed from her lungs.

By the shard of wood that has been plunged into her back.

"You should have done your research," the nanny hisses in her ear before the guns fire.

It had been a well-meaning, good Samaritan that had found him.

An elderly man walking his toy poodle had seen the open door and gone to investigate, to make sure all was right in the upper-middle class suburb where neighbours knew each other's names and held Christmas street parties every year.

Elijah regrets that he ate the pet first. That the man had time to know the horrified grief of seeing a beloved pet die and the fear that came with the discovery that monsters were only too real.

It can't have been more than a minute between the time that he tore out the throat of the trusting dog and the time that he drained the life from the man, but it would have been a lifetime of terror for his victim.

Truly he wishes it could have been different, but he had no choice.

He drinks every last drop of the two, dog and man, needing every bit of strength that he can steal from their lives. When he has finished, he climbs to his feet and throws his head back, breathing painlessly for the first time in hours.

He wants to flash from the cursed house but settles for running, he needs to conserve his strength for the fight ahead.

He needs to find his siblings.

He needs to find Katherine.

He stands in the middle of the street and looks towards the French Quarter, seeing only darkness instead of the bright lights that had always graced the night sky.

Still, for the first time in months he knows his way.

He resumes running.

A/N- Let me know what you think and thanks for reading!