BK
The thought that Mama T has made a fool of him crosses his mind, and his hands twitch; they want to shoot out and snap her slight, mole covered neck, but he reminds himself that Mama T is the child of a human who had been kind to him, one of the very few beings to ever be so over the millennia of his existence, and more importantly, she is the only witch who will perform magic within a 50 mile radius of New Orleans.
Marcel Gerard, Klaus's former ward and current King of New Orleans, had banned it in the city and its surrounding parishes for the last seventy-five years and has executed any witch practicing.
Of course, this law did not apply to Marcel's witches.
Klaus stands abruptly, his eyes flashing from blue to yellow, "What games are you playing old woman?" He asks, allowing Mama T to explain herself, a grace he has rarely allowed a human, especially one who he presently believes has just sold him a pipe dream.
Unfazed, Mama T tilts her head defiantly up at the angry hybrid and purses her lips together, sizing him up, "I tell you no lies, Niklaus; she's your witch, and she is dead. This is the truth," She stresses, pointing a bony, crooked finger at him, "But, Mama T is gon' fix that."
Klaus grimaces down at Mama T, "And why would you be so generous in helping me to obtain the witch?" He anticipates her specifying what part of the spoils she wants after he takes New Orleans back from Marcel.
She gently pushes her feet on the rickety wooden floors and slowly rocks, "Like I see you in yo' future, I see in mine. I'm 'posed to bring that baby back."
Glancing around the shabby living room, he observes the thin walls bearing stains from water damage, the broken television sitting on the threadbare rug, and the small holes and wide cracks in the hardwood letting cool air out in the summer, and cold wind in in the winter. Klaus runs his hands through his hair, "Name a price and I will pay it," He orders, because he is uncomfortable. He doesn't want to owe anyone, even if they think it's a part of their destiny.
She tells him to save his pennies.
But when he growls about how he does not entertain negotiating after a deal is made, she shuts her eyelids close, whispering that when she dies, she wants him to foot the bill.
Smirking, he bows and picks up her hand and kisses it, "You will have a funeral fit for a queen," He says, satisfied with the arrangement.
BK
On a private plane to an isolated airspace in Virginia; Klaus is accompanied by his plans as he is the lone passenger besides the compelled pilot.
Klaus circles a finger around the rim of the gin filled glass in his hand, deep in thought, envisioning his coup, explicitly, the pleasure he will have in seeing Marcel -the boy he made into a man- crumble.
There will be no more confusion on who is and always has been the King.
The pilot's voice comes on over the intercom, cheery, informing Klaus that the time is 8:30 PM and the weather is 75 degrees, slightly cloudy and they will be descending in the next fifteen minutes.
He does not have much time in Virginia; he has to return to New Orleans for tomorrow's nightfall so Mama T can carry out the rites of resurrection.
Before departing from Mama T's home, he had been very displeased that she would not reanimate the Bennett Witch then and there, but she told him she had everything a witch needed to welcome a soul back to this world, but there was one object required for her invocation to succeed.
There was the matter of obtaining the girl's body.
BK
Caroline is surprised to see him. She stops mid-stride on the tree-lined walkway from her dorm, and shakes her head in disbelief, her blonde waves brushing her shoulders with each movement, "What are you doing here? She asks, clearly struggling with not knowing whether to be giddy or alarmed.
When he was tasked with getting the one article needed for Mama T, he had presumed it would be a simple issue. He would go to the cemetery where the Bennett was buried and dig up her corpse. Done.
But the old witch said she wasn't in a coffin, that the girl lay in a stony pocket under the earth, where it was dark and wet.
Driving towards Mystic to begin his search for the body, he impulsively turned his black Suburban back to Hwy 80 in the direction of Whitmore College. He reasoned that his last-minute decision was influenced by Caroline's deep affection for the Bennett witch, demonstrated by her willingness to kill twelve witches for her. In Klaus's mind, Caroline was the key to finding out where in the world the Bennett witch's remains were located. And the turnaround was not because he would like to see her.
"Business in Mystic," He smiles and lifts her hair from her shoulder, letting it fall from his hand over her back, "Which can wait as I could not resist seeing where the mini fridge I gave to you now resides."
Inviting him up to her room, she fidgets while he inspects the lofty space, and she tells him she has the place to herself as Elena is on sabbatical with Damon.
"Your vocabulary has improved," He says, earning him an eye roll and a jut of her hip.
"There's the fridge and there's the door," She says, gesturing her hands like an air traffic controller to the closed door.
Ignoring her, he leans over her messy desk. It seems she had been doing some scrapbooking earlier and he glances up at a large corkboard hanging over the desk and sees what has facilitated all of the clippings of pictures and pink glitter.
"It's a mood board," She says, folding her arms defensively, "Something for me to look at when I get sad."
Pulling out the desk chair, he sits and arranges the alphabet letters she had cut with fine precision, "Why should you ever be sad?" He asks, expecting her to speak of her departed friend.
"I know it's foreign to you, Klaus, but when you aren't dead inside, you have feelings and one of those feelings can be sadness."
He snorts at Caroline's naiveté and as he looks for the 'K' to complete the spelling of his name, he overturns a glossy postcard of the Grand Canyon and eyes it quickly to see it is marked with a recent date and is signed, 'Bonnie Bennett'.
His interest piques and he reads the letter to Caroline.
Blah Blah Blah. She was having a great summer. Blah Blah Blah. The canyon was beautiful and she wished Caro' could be there. Blah Blah Blah. She was traveling to California next.
"And here I thought it might be because of over lamenting a death or perhaps having to experience college without your flaky Elena."
She snatches the postcard from his fingers, "No one died, Klaus. I just miss my friends."
"From the postcard and your attitude, I take that your witch friend is not joining you here at Whitmore?"
Caroline holds the card with both hands, and plops down on the end of her bed, "She doesn't say; and I haven't had a chance to ask her." She sulks and throws up her hands, "She refuses to check her email and because she's traveling I don't have an address to mail a letter to, I mean, I'd start to worry if I didn't get these stupid postcards," She says and Klaus hears the choke of tears in her voice.
Noting that there is someone aware of the witch's location, and that it isn't Caroline; he thinks it is best he leaves.
He stands and tells her if there are any other appliances she requires for an adequate stay at university, that she please not hesitate to request them from him.
And then she is the one to surprise him.
She hugs him; her arms wrap tightly around his neck and she lays her head where his heart would beat if he had one and says with her mouth muffled against his chest, "I need an iron."
His chest vibrates with laughter and he buries his nose in her hair and tells her he will have one delivered in the morning.
As he exits down the hall, she tells him to wait and she stands there in the empty and badly lit hallway, one hand on the doorknob and a wide smile on her face, "Where is this favorite place you were talking about on my voicemail, the place with all the culture, and food and art that you wanted to show me?"
His upper lip quirks, "Are you willing to pick up and leave your life here and never look back?"
She squints for a moment and then finally says, "I'm with Tyler, Klaus."
His jaw ticks at the sound of his name from her lips. There is still a Tyler. Tyler over him. As there had been a Stefan over him, and a Mikael over him.
Turning from her without a goodbye, he heads down the stairs and says, "Then it shall remain a mystery."
BK
When he's able to break into Bonnie Bennett's home, he realizes that it is not only Bonnie who is dead.
The house is silent.
Upstairs, he slowly goes down the row of bedrooms, twisting each knob, looking to see what prize lies behind each door.
In her father's bedroom, things look as if he were in the process of leaving. A half packed rolling suitcase is on the bed, there are business suits in navy and charcoal covered in dry-cleaning plastic hanging on top of the closet door, and there are plane tickets to Hong Kong and Tokyo for flights that had departed a week ago neatly stacked next to his passport on his dresser.
A blinking red light on the nightstand grabs Klaus's attention. He presses the grey button on the answering machine, and listens to a series of messages from Abby and a secretary from Papa Bennett's job, all inquiring, "Where are you?"
Leaving the father's room for the teenaged witch's, he discovers that Bonnie Bennett might have been a tad OCD. The room is meticulously arranged and organized, with everything in its right place—from her award ribbons hung according to color scheme to her trophies lined from tallest to shortest. Even the letters on her desk are piled according to length, all properly slit open by a letter opener.
He scrutinizes the heap of collegiate embossed envelopes and reads the many acceptance letters to schools that weren't anywhere near Caroline and Elena.
"At least the ol' girl attempted to have a life away from the dreadful doppelganger," he whispers to no one as the security light outside her window glows into her bedroom, timed for when the living would prepare for sleep.
And he finds a letter with her handwriting to the prestigious one in California, and her big curly cursive does not match the handwriting on the many postcards in Caroline's possession.
Not any closer to finding Bonnie's body and growing impatient with the knowledge that someone is covering up her death, he senses his victory slipping through his fingers. Frustrated, he angrily knocks her trophies from the shelf, sending them crashing across the bedroom. The biggest trophy crashes right through the floor-level air conditioning vent, revealing the hiding place of her familial grimoire.
Tucked as a place holder in the wrinkled pages is an illustration of an expression triangle -one he has recently seen- where each point of the triangle signifies where sacrifices are made and the final spot in which a certain witch could drop the veil and unleash hell on earth.
And he snorts.
He knows now where Bonnie Bennett lies.
BK
Underneath Mystic Falls High, in a damp, rat infested tunnel, was the perfect center of the triangle, where she could harness the energy to drop the veil.
And as he descends down the rusted ladder under the sewage cover in the school's parking lot, a grim smile crosses his face, confirming his hypothesis. He can smell her.
The gagging stench of death leads him to her and when he finds her, well, what is left of her, he determines by the sight of her rotted body that she has been down there for longer than three months.
Crouching down, he sticks his finger right through what should be her firm chest, touching the toxic water flowing underneath her.
Klaus is unaffected.
He has seen too much.
The Black Plague had destroyed 20 million people, Hitler had exterminated 10 million more, he alone slaughtered several thousand, so here, in Mystic Falls squatting in front of a body of a nineteen-year old girl, half eaten by rats and bloated with maggots, the other half of her a gleaming white skeletal frame, only serves to pique his curiosity.
Death is a peculiarity for a being that cannot die.
If he were to speculate on cause of death, he would attribute it to exhaustion from constantly saving her friends.
Although he couldn't recall many details about the witch, aside from her potent lineage and bold demeanor, what resonated with him as he sought her corpse was her unwavering loyalty to those she cared about.
And here she lay at his feet, this was her honorable burial.
BK
The following evening, Mama T leads Klaus to where not even the full moon can penetrate, into the thick of the Louisiana bayou.
Black moss hangs from the cypress trees, the Goliaths of the swamp, while cicadas sing their midnight tune to one another. And mere feet away, the water ripples, as sleeping gators bask, their jaws clamping down on their prey with a ferocious splash.
Mama T is dressed in all white, and her head wrap is high enough to reach God with her linen floor length skirt and billowy blouse making her look like a ghost as he lights the two torches she made him set into the ground, mainly for the mosquitoes she complained about than for the ritual.
He asks if she has cloaked their location from being detected by Marcel and she laughs so hard that Klaus is no longer amused and listens intently for any sound that he has been set up.
Pulling from her bag an unlabeled bottle of brown liquor and a battered leather-bound bible, she says, "If Marcel was gon' kill me cher' he would have done it a long time ago, way before you come asking 'bout your future and Bonnie. "
Klaus respects her defiance and he tells her so.
"Its 'pealing to you cause you on the other side, remember that when you get that crown you want so bad, and don't forget when you keep people down under your boot long enough, eventually they get tired, figure out how to get that boot off they neck." She sets the bottle at her feet and holds the book in her hand, turning to a desired page and reads Psalms 23:4.
"….Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil…."
And Klaus thinks about the old gods, the ones for the age of iron and seas, dead and gone for him, and how the only being he has found worthy of worship over a thousand years is himself.
Mama T picks up a broken piece of wood and draws a circle in the dirt around Bonnie, which is not Bonnie at all, just bone and decayed tissue, a husk for her missing organs, blood, and heart.
She shakes her head as she stares down at the body, "Poor cher', she was rotting and no one cared, she may say to hell with this world," she says, fanning Klaus over to the body, then orders, "Come over here and give her your blood, Niklaus."
Klaus narrows his eyes at Mama T and then his fangs extend from his gums, sharp and menacing, and he bites into the palm of his hand, four holes bleeding in the white skin, and he balls a fist, blood dripping onto the enamel of the corpse's teeth, and he threatens, "She does not have a choice. I traveled to Mystic Falls, I scrounged up her bones. She must come."
"You can growl and gnash all you want, but it ain't gon' bring her back. You ain't the boss over there, she come 'cause she want to."
"Then what good are you?" He seethes through clenched teeth.
"Mama T can only do her part. All my energy gon' be on opening those gates, I gotta chat with the Gatekeeper so he can allow us to talk to her and he gon' want to discuss the cost, so that means you gotta be the one to do the pleadin', you gon' be the one to call her back."
He huffs, "Calling her back to life is your line of work, is it not?
"You want her on your side don't cha? Well, you gon' have to charm her like how you was boastin' about the other day," She says, grinning from ear to ear.
He's unsettled by the fact that the actual attainment of the witch does not depend on him sludging through a sewer to get her, but rather on him playing nice with her soul. He confesses to Mama T that he and the Bennett witch weren't exactly the best of chums when she was alive.
"She may have tried killing me a time or two," He enlightens Mama T, "It might pose a bit of an issue when it comes to her enthusiasm for coming back to life for me.
Mama T waves her hand like it isn't a big deal, and picks up the bottle. "Think of what you can give her that would make her want to leave the dead, focus on that, and if you sincere, then she'll come."
Before he can voice another gripe, he watches her fill her mouth with the contents of the bottle and spit it out unceremoniously over the corpse and then pick up the matchbox and light a match, throwing the lit matchstick onto the body.
"For, lo, the wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string that they may privily shoot at the upright in the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do…"
The corpse blazes. Crackles and melts. And Klaus concentrates on the fire, fear rising in him that the ritual will end before he has made any plea to the witch and it will have all been for naught.
He reflects on the one time she was in his home and how she exuded more power than even she recognized, and he thinks of that wasted potential in the land of the dead, and he thinks praising her power is a decent starting point to win her favor.
But he knows its just flattery, that he's full of shit, and that it definitely won't be enough.
The Bennett witch had been a consummate warrior for the people she loved and called friends, yet in the end, who was there for her?
"Now Klaus!" Mama T yells.
And privately, Klaus addresses Bonnie, though she is dead, and he's uncertain, he makes a vow.
Red-orange flames fire up to the sky, blowing back Klaus from where he stood. He pounces to his feet, worried that the same has happened to Mama T, only to see her feet are firmly planted to the ground, in the mist of the blaze with Bonnie, untouched by the flames, and before he has a moment to question how, the fire instantly dies.
"Mama T is gon sit down for a bit," She coughs, out of breath and holding her hand over her heart as she shuffles over to a fallen log.
Lying in the middle of the scorched circle is the miracle of a corpse made human, supple brown flesh covers the skeleton, and the body gently rises and falls with its each breath.
Klaus approaches the young woman's body cautiously, how Adam might have done when he first saw Eve sleeping upon his wake under the forbidden tree. And for a moment, while inspecting her perfect unblemished and very naked body, Klaus is taken aback by a strange sense of feeling protective over her.
Hovering his face inches from her heart-shaped own, he caresses her jawline and says, "Bonnie," his voice deep and commanding her to confirm their ritual has worked by opening her eyes.
No response.
He quickly shoots a look at the witch who nods for him to try again.
"Bonnie," he says gently, leaning down to stress his next words directly into her ear, "This. Is. Klaus."
And her eyes flash open.