We'll Go Down In History

Chapter 40

It's my birthday today :)

*****

Lizzie's pov

My vampire senses are on high alert as I race through the French Quarter. A throbbing sensation is exploding all over my nervous cells. It's without a doubt that siphoning away the magic in Aya's door-locking artifact is what caused this feeling to appear. The artifact was filled with a strange type of magic, one that would have made me feel as though my skin was getting torn apart, had my humanity been on when I had siphoned up the magic inside of it.

But now that I have abandoned my emotions, I can't feel anything. I can't feel pain.

I come to a stop in front of the Mikaelson Compound. Almost immediately, I realize something is wrong. It's too quiet here. This place should be bustling around with witches, werewolves, and vampires who are all on Klaus's payroll. So why I can't I hear anything?

I slip in through the front gates. The expanded courtyard is filled with nearly three hundred supernaturals, but not a single one of them notices me, for they are too busy focusing on somebody else.

I squeeze my way to the front of the crowd, to see that Elijah and Aya are standing in the middle of the courtyard as though they own the place.

"Niklaus!" Elijah shouts.

From the looks of things, I arrived only a few seconds after Elijah and Aya did.

"Do not make me repeat myself again, brother," Elijah says loudly.

Klaus walks out of his room and stares down at the only brother he has left in this world. Clearly, he's shocked at Elijah's appearance, though he's doing a very good job at hiding it. Klaus grabs the staircase railing with one hand, and swings himself over. He falls onto the ground before us, landing gracefully on his two feet.

When I reentered New Orleans a few hours ago, I was terrified of running into Klaus. It was like all of my deepest, darkest fears had taken root inside of the night he had killed me.

But now, as I stare at the Original Hybrid... I feel nothing.

"'Brother'?" Klaus says, letting an amused smile play onto his lips. "I believe you're mistaken, Elijah. You are no brother of mine."

From beside him, another figure drops onto the ground. Hayley Marshall, looking like a true werewolf queen under the faint glow of the moon, takes her place at Klaus's side.

"Let us skip past your pointless games, Niklaus," Elijah says in a calm voice. "I have come to request something of you."

"Request?" Klaus laughs. "You manage to break into my city, into my home, and you have the nerve to show your face and 'request' something of me?" he roars.

Elijah's face remains placid, though the same cannot be said for Aya, whose eyes are jumping around the Compound nervously.

"I've got a little surprise for you, Elijah," Klaus says, a small twinkle being visible in his eyes. "Bring him out for us, will you?" he calls to a few of his vampires in the back.

The crowd shuffles around to make way for two vampires, who are dragging along an unconscious body between them. A closer look tells me that this 'body' is in fact Tristan. I don't know what happened to him, but it looks like he's been mauled apart by a pack of mountain lions or something. Blood drenches his clothes, and sweat covers his forehead. He's mumbling things to himself, and his fingers are twitching uncontrollably.

"My vampires found him just a few minutes before you arrived," Klaus tells Elijah. "He'd been torn apart by Hayley's wolves."

Hayley's wolves. In other words, the wolves that Klaus and Hayley bribed by using moonlight rings.