Elijah's POV.

The night was over, Elijah was in a state of true happiness and completely enamoured by Elena; their kiss had knocked him off his feet and he felt like he was flying. He entered the bar, they had all finished cleaning and organising the bar and Marcel had Davina cradled in his arms, fast asleep.

He had left her for just a minute, whilst he collected the others and readied for their departure; Klaus had grabbed the keys and they all exited the bar but they where met with only an empty street, there wasn't a soul in sight.

"Elena?" Elijah called out, his gaze flickering around the surrounding area as concern began to set in; when he heard no response from her, he was in full blown panic mode.

"Where's Elena?" Klaus asked, his concern overcoming him too; the original vampire and hybrid had began speeding around the surrounding areas, searching every inch of the streets in attempt to find her. They returned to the bar a few minutes later with no information and they were distraught, panicked and their rage was starting to grow.

"Someone has took her," Elijah said, Klaus and Marcel looked at each other, their worry apparent in their eyes; Elijah was a mix of emotions but the one that was winning out was his anger, "we have to find her now!"

"I'll get Davina to the compound and send out my guys, meet me there, we'll find her," Marcel spoke before disappearing into the night.

"How could you leave her alone, brother?" Klaus snapped at Elijah and squared up to him; he was feeling vulnerable and had to find someone to blame, "you have endangered her life, you should know better than to leave her alone in the dead of the night."

Elijah shoved him back and away from his face, he too was looking for an outlet for his frustration and Klaus made it to easy to want to inflict pain on him, he was particularly cruel when he wanted to be, "we don't have time to fight, we have to find her."

"To be continued," Klaus snarled at his brother before they both sped off towards the compound, in hopes Marcel had a lead.

Elena's POV.

There was a searing pain radiating through Elena's head as she started to come back to a state of consciousness; her vision was blurry and she couldn't calm the dizziness. She went to place her hand on the top of her head but came to realise her hands were bound in rope, her eyes shot open as the fear and adrenaline took over.

She was tied to a wooden chair, her hands and arms bound so tight to the back of the chair that they restricted her blood flow; each of her legs was tied to a leg of the chair and she was completely immobilised, she quickly looked around the room she was housed in and it had a familiar feel but she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

There was voodoo type dolls hanging around the room, some from the ceiling and others from the wall, there was unfamiliar symbols painted on the floor and walls in what appeared to be blood and there was an alter opposite her on the far wall, on it there was bones, relics, and jars of herbs and potions.

The room was made of large stone bricks in a grey colour and the only form of light was several lit torches in the corners; there was a pool of blood beneath her feet and she sat in the centre of a pentagram, each point had a symbol drew on it.

That's when she saw something in the corner of her eye, a body wrapped in a sheet of clear plastic with blood covering it's entirety; she started breathing heavy and fear overcame her as she stared at the person so brutally murdered beside her, an uncontrollable scream burst from her lips and the tears started to trickle down her face. She tried to break free, she pulled and kicked at her bindings but they wouldn't budge.

She was stuck in a blood filled horror show and there was nothing she could do.

Elijah's POV

They where back at that compound, several hours had passed and the morning had arrived, they where pacing up and down the room as the vampires bustled around them; Marcel had been giving orders and sending his vampires out to every area within the city but none returned successful.

Elijah was becoming mad with rage and impatience, his poor decision in leaving her for that one terrible moment had meant he had endangered her life and he wouldn't forgive himself if anything happened to her. But he wouldn't let his emotions be readable by anyone, he seemed like his usual calculating and collected self, even though on the inside, he was far from it.

Klaus was different, he laid his rage bare for all to see and suffer through, he had already threatened several vampires and almost killed one in his lack of patience; he was the one that brought Elena here in the first place, he swore to protect her forever and he had failed in that.

"I've tried three different locator spells but nothing is showing, whoever has her is using an ancient cloaking spell that I can't break through," Davina spoke with frustration as she leaned over the table that held all of her magical equipment.

"It's not good enough, she has to be somewhere," Klaus barked.

"Hey, I care about Elena too and I'm trying my best," Davina argued back, refusing to be the brunt of his temper, "all you're doing is standing there, so keep your vile opinions to yourself."

A low growl escaped his lips and he lunged towards her but she saw it coming, she held out her hand in front of him and twisted her wrist as she started to break the bones in his body, he fell to his knees groaning and growling at the pain.

Elijah sped beside him, breaking Davina's spell and pulling him onto his feet, "this is not the time for your temper, Niklaus, control yourself or you'll have to deal with me."

Klaus pushed him back, breaking free from his grip and walked to the other side of the room; Elijah placed his hand on Davina's shoulder and looked at her reassuringly, "are you alright?"

"Oh yeah, erratic vampires are easy to handle," she waved her hand dismissively and smirked before returning to the table, "I have nothing of hers to channel, there is no way I can find her."

Elijah thought for a long moment, his eyes scanning across the table as he made sense of the items in front of him; there was talismans and relics, herbs, potions, ingredients of all kinds, a brass bowl, a map of the city and a sharp dagger.

"You have a lot of items of power here, Davina and if you need something to channel, use me and my brother, we are connected to Elena on profound levels, if anyone can help you find her, it's us," he turned to face her, her expression changing as the thought into it.

"If I do that, I'll be able to see inside your head, both of you," Davina spoke as Klaus neared them, his vampiric hearing eavesdropping on their conversation.

"Do it," Klaus agreed, "I won't see Elena in harms way any longer, we have to find her."

"Whatever it takes," Elijah nodded his head at his brother and they turned to face Davina, "what do you need?"

"A bit of time to set up the spell and your blood."

Elena's POV.

She was becoming weak, she had screamed several times and fought against her bindings more but she was still no closer to an escape than before, nor did she know who her captors were; she studied the room around her, taking in all the symbols and brutality in their practices, whatever this was, it was old, there where passages written on the wall in languages that she either didn't know or were long dead and she knew her kidnappers where ancient.

Possibly even older than The Mikaelson's themselves.

Was this the threat that they had spoken about a few weeks ago? Was this The Great Evil that had been hiding in waiting? Where they finally attacking now that they where fixing the imbalance?

She heard the loud clank of a large bolt unlocking on a door, a loud gasp escaped her lips as she heard the door creak open and footsteps slowly descend several stone steps; in that moment, she knew she was in a basement, she'd already knew she was underground somehow, there was no windows and there was an earthy smell surrounding her.

The footsteps had stopped and she felt a darkness and chill behind her, whoever was there was standing behind her, watching her struggle against her bindings and fighting in her panicked state; she refused to turn around, the true evil she felt around her was overpowering and she felt her airways close off.

All of a sudden, she felt a sharp pain in her back and weakness began to overcome her; the evil behind her had emitted a low and and hollow growl as he performed some kind of silent spell on her, she felt her energy leave her and she became weaker by the second until she felt a slight emptiness within her core. Everything faded to black and she returned to her state of unconsciousness.

Elijah's POV.

The two brothers waited patiently as Davina prepared the spell, they had given their blood and they where ready to be used as a source of power to find Elena; Klaus was particularly nervous about the channelling, he had many dark secrets hidden within his mind and he feared them being revealed to a potential enemy. But this was Elena, what choice did he have?

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking, brother?" Klaus spoke quietly to his brother, walking towards the exit of the compound and standing in the threshold.

"That this is the threat that we have been waiting for?" Elijah responded, his brow furrowed.

"It's too convenient that just 12 hours before the full moon, Elena was taken, meaning we would be unable to perform the awakening ritual for another month," he tried piecing the puzzle together.

"If they are as powerful as everyone is claiming to be, why would they fear the ritual?" He spoke his thoughts out loud.

"If we are to find her and gain answers to our questions, then we need to figure out who they are," Klaus suggested, there voices still low as they spoke.

"We had the theory of our oldest and most powerful enemy," Elijah offered his next thought for debate.

"They don't exist on this plane, they wouldn't be able to physically capture her and regardless, they where imprisoned in their own personal hell 900 years ago by the elder witches of Qetsiyah after they ripped through countless cities and devoured thousands of innocent people."

"They've existed for thousands of years on record but I fear they have been around for a lot longer than that,". Elijah furthered their theory.

"It can't be," Klaus finalised, "there an old bedtime horror story that stretches as far back as the Egyptians, it seems unlikely they would be here in New Orleans, it's impossible."

"Is it, brother?" Elijah looked him dead in the eye, an eyebrow raising as he watched the cogs in Klaus' mind turn in attempt to make sense of this.

"It's ready," Davina called out to them, breaking their conversation and trains of thoughts before they joined her at the spell table, "take my hands, whatever you do don't let go, if we break the spell, I won't be able to perform it again."

They nodded their heads in understanding and they each gripped onto her hand; she began to chant and the atmosphere in the room instantly changed, there was whirls of wind around them, windows breaking and vampires being hurled across the room, the magic she channelled from them was immense and she had a powerful spell to break through, she only hoped it would work.

Elijah and Klaus had felt the strain of how powerful her magic was and struggled to hold it but they had too, they held on for dear life as the spell became stronger.

"I can see her," Davina paused her chant and called out, "she's in a basement, I see blood, a lot of it."

"Where is she, Davina?" Elijah spoke over the chaos of the spell, his grip of the witch and his brother becoming tighter the more it tried to resist.

A loud gasp flew from her lips as images flashed across her mind and the spell came to a sudden stop; she was flung to the floor and she landed on her back, the spell was so powerful it had sent a blast of energy into her; Elijah was beside her in a blur, followed by Marcel and Klaus, they all helped her to her feet and she started trying to compose herself.

"She's in the church," her voice was shaky and she was coming down from the overload of magic she used, "there was a massacre in there, whatever evil I just felt was channelling it, it was ancient and empty, only a void of darkness, be careful."

Elijah looked at Klaus and they both shared in a look of concern, their deepest fears becoming a reality and they were powerless against it.

Elena's POV

She was finally starting to come too; as her eyes slowly opened, she saw a dark, silhouetted figure in front of her and she started to panic, pulling and thrashing, gasps and whimpers escaping her lips and a desperation to escape.

As her vision began to clear and the flames flickered at another angle, his silhouette began to turn to colour and she inspected him further, as much as she could anyway in her frantic state.

He had his hands held tight behind his back as he stared at the altar table in front him; he was bald, wore a short sleeved, black t-shirt that revealed what looked to be Egyptian hieroglyphs tattooed onto his skin and he felt so dark and evil, that she felt empty even being around him.

He started mumbling an ancient chant before her, his voice was deep and he had gone onto his knees; the lit torches began to roar and a spark of a flame landed in a chalice on the table, starting a fire within it.

"Stop!" Elena screamed, thrashing on her chair once again, an attempt from distracting him from his spell but it wasn't working; she had threw her body too hard and the chair fell to the floor, her head had landed right next to the dead and covered body beside her and she saw something in it, an image she never thought possible.

A loud and frantic scream burst from her lips as she saw what looked like a man but half of his face was just skull and straggles of tight skin that held it together; she further inspected it and from what she could see beneath the clouded and thick wrapped cover was his hands and half of his stomach was the same, she could actually see his rib cage on the side that would house his heart and it was made of black charcoal.

She continued to thrash and struggle against her binds and the spell came to a sudden stop; the man, she assumed he was a man but he was far from it, had stopped chanting and stood up, he slowly turned to face her and revealed his true form, he looked exactly the same as the dead creature in the covers, his face was half gone and the other half had tribal tattoos spread across it, this was pure evil and she was terrified.

He lifted his skeletal hand and held it out flat, she instantly felt a crushing feeling on her chest and her weakness grew even further when he slowly started to close his hand into a fist.

There was a sudden crash behind her, Elijah and Klaus had flew in and the Original vampire was instantly by her side; Klaus had looked the creature in the eye and a wave of fear washed over him but he pushed him back, releasing the hold he had of Elena whilst Elijah broke her bindings.

The creature had not fell, nor did he seem to care about the attack; he simply concentrated his gaze onto Klaus and he had the same effect on him as Elena did, like his very essence was being removed from him.

Elijah sped towards the lit torch and used his speed and strength to throw it at the creatures face; a loud screech raged from his lips as he forced it from his skin. By the time the smoke had cleared, they were gone, Elijah had sped them out of there in a heartbeat and returned them to the compound.

More hours had passed and Elena was still unconscious, she was lying on a bed in one of the spare rooms of the compound, all three vampires/hybrid where waiting patiently for her to wake but she was in a deep slumber.

Davina had been completely drained of energy and magic during her last spell and was passed out in a heavy sleep in the room next door; Marcel walked between both of them, checking over the people he cared about continuously.

"What the hell happened in there? The King of the Quarter asked, his wait for answers would be over and it was time to face the evil.

Elijah and Klaus shot another glance at each other as if they where speaking telepathically before exiting the room with Marcel; Elijah pressed his shoulder onto the wall beside her room and Klaus was leaning on the balcony bars, the hybrid began to speak, "this is a terrible enemy, one you have never faced before and they only exist on a spiritual plane usually."

"The earliest record of there tyranny was during Egyptian times when they were feared amongst magical creatures, pharaohs and even the gods themselves couldn't defeat them," Elijah continued.

"The story we were told as boys by our mother was that, in the beginning, they weren't good nor evil, they were neutral, there sole purpose of existence was to eradicate a force of power that tampered with the balance," Klaus started the tale.

"But do not be mistaken, they are evil, pure and unfiltered evil that makes us look like Boy Scouts," Elijah somewhat mused.

"There are many versions of them throughout history, each myth and lore has a description of them that doesn't quite match each other and they could be as old as time, some call them reapers, others refer to them as the ferryman and the list goes on," Klaus continued.

"But we have come to know them as Soul Eaters, the last account we had of them was 900 years ago when a sacred and infamous coven of elders channelled the bloodline of a powerful witch by the name of Qetsiyah and exiled them from the plane of the living; Qetsiyah was powerful enough to conjure worlds, reach into dimensions and control different realities to this one, when they channelled her entire ancestry, they managed to rid the world of them and place them on the plane between life and death, leaving them to suffer in a hunger and ravenous state without souls to sate them," Elijah spoke.

"We'll never truly know what they are or their sole purpose because so very few have lived to tell the tale, they ravaged through villages and cities, stealing the essence and souls of every living creature they come to pass, it took them mere days to level kingdoms and destroy regimes and they are untouchable, they can't be killed, they've only ever been banished and they have returned several times in the past."

"I believe they can return when the balance is threatened, there is a nexus of dark energy they can feed on to break the lock between planes and they must take advantage of that, there is no other explanation," Elijah thought more into his theory, some things starting to make sense and come together, "a thousand years ago, mother performed the vampire ritual, before that, Qetsiyah made the immortality potion and the Egyptians had been known to delve into ancient and sometimes dark magic, each time this has occurred, there have been reports of them returning."

"What could have been so catastrophic that made them return now?" Marcel queried, shock riddled across his facial features.

"Maybe it wasn't just one event, maybe it was the many that had occurred over the past few years," Elijah responded, trying to think further onto his theory, "Niklaus did perform the sun and moon ritual to unleash hybrids onto the earth, another doppelgänger was born, there are more covens out there now that practice dark magic and vampires and werewolves are as feral as ever."

"And there was something that Sophie told me when she tried to reverse vampirism," Klaus admitted reluctantly, "Elena comes from a line of powerful ancestors, her existence alone is of a magical and somewhat dark history but yet, she was the innocence and light that prevailed from it, the world depended on the existence of her shadow-selves and because of her truly good and pure nature, she brought a light to the world, and I'm the complete opposite."

"What are you getting at, brother?" Elijah asked impatiently, somewhat annoyed by the reminder of their relationship.

"Sophie Deveraux told us that the night Elena gave in to her darker temptations, that there was a surge of dark energy across the quarter, effecting every witch within New Orleans and I didn't think anything of it until now," he pressed his hand onto his forehead out of frustration, the answer was within his grasp and he couldn't quite get it, "she said it was cosmic and she didn't understand why it could effect every witch when Elena was blood bound to them."

"But she's a true servant of nature," they all turned to see a weakened Davina emerge from her room, her hand pressed to her head to relieve her magic fuelled headache, "the shadow-selves were created to maintain the balance when magic shifted it, they are connected to the earth itself and every witch who practices magic has a basic connection to the earth, that's where magic starts, it's not until they channel a coven and the ancestors that there power grows."

"So, Elena is a true witch?" Klaus asked, confusion riddling him.

"Yes, the balance is tied to her and when we awaken her suppressed magic, the balance will be tied to her even more, so that's why she is an essence of pure good and everything natural about the earth, if anything threatens that light, there are consequences without measure."

"Even Katerina was pure until your pursuit of hybrids tainted her and we've had centuries of darkness flood into our family, it's all making sense," Elijah dipped his head slightly, thinking more into it.

"So, when me and Elena," he paused for a moment, a small smile appearing and disappearing in a flash at the memories he held of her came flooding back, he chose his words carefully, "let our temptations win over, shall we put it, I threatened her light?"

"It would appear so," Elijah was riled up but he tried to contain it.

"No," Davina shook her head, her eyes locking onto the hybrid in front of her, "it's more than that, isn't it? Why it was cosmic and why it had so much power behind it that the Soul Eaters could tap into it."

"Stop, Davina," Klaus' voice changed and he stood up firm, his eyes glaring onto her.

"The whole reason why the world isn't covered in darkness right now isn't because she just gave in to some dark and evil temptations."

Elijah and Marcel watched carefully as the young witch pushed Klaus and they finally saw something in him they thought long dead.

Davina continued, taking a few more steps towards him and crossing her arms across her chest, she uttered the words that had been left unspoken and forced him to face his humanity, "you loved her."

"Absurd," he tried to resist, to ignore her words and push the notion aside, it wasn't him, not truly.

"And it was her love for you that tamed that darkness but that single moment of weakness is what the evil latched onto, it was that growing bond of love that kept it at bay," Davina pressed on, watching the all powerful Klaus start to crack.

"I won't listen to this anymore," he tried to leave but Elijah stopped him, forcing him back to the place where he just stood.

"Just admit it, Klaus," Davina pushed, "you threatened her purity with your thousand year old hatred and evil and instead, just like it was fated or prophesied, you fell in love and even you weren't a match for her goodness."

"Fine," he barked, shrugging the hold Elijah had of him and turned around to look away from them; he pressed his hands on the balcony railing and took a deep breath, trying to calm the temper within him; he realised in that moment that there had only ever been one person who could do that, only one he had to think about to quell his urge to rage and that was Elena, "I did, I loved her with every fibre of my being and she didn't feel the same, so I did what I do best and shut that part of me that she awakened down and refused to feel it."

"Elena does love you, brother," Elijah placed his hand reassuringly on his shoulder and as much as he hated the thought of him anywhere near Elena, it happened and his brother was struggling, he had to be there.

"Not like I did," his head hung low as he looked at the floor beneath him, a hint of sadness and humanity etching into his features, "I came to accept the love she has for me as something more profound than intimate, we reached places within ourselves that needed it and even though she wasn't in love, there was something big between us."

"I had no idea, Klaus," he tried to empathise with him, he knew what it was like to love and be loved by Elena and it was huge, intense and filled with light, he couldn't bare the thought of losing her connection.

"And now she is lost in this sleep, effected by the Soul Eaters power and I fear she won't return to us," Klaus looked into the bedroom, seeing her lying so still and lost brought a hurt to him he had never known.

"We will bring her back to us, brother, whatever it takes."