Open Coffin - The Crescent Descent

Chapter 02 "Lovely Day For A Riot"

The written word was everlasting. King to Beggar, Poets to Wallflowers, Monsters to Saints - they all had the opportunity to be immortalized, to be remembered once they've turned to bone or ash.

That, you always thought, was why your brother Stefan resorted to writing in his diary and why you chose to write letters to Kol when you were last here in 1914. To leave something behind in case your almost immortal life ended sooner than you thought. Now those letters served as a reminder of what might never be again. Yet, with uncertainty came the need to check on them in their hiding spot.

So that's what you did.

And it was as if you ́d stepped back in time. The cemetery was untouched in almost every way. Only the weathered stones and visible marked lines of the flooding after Katrina were reminders of how much time had actually passed.

Another change that was eerily unnoticeable once you reached the older part of the cemetery, was the relocation of gravesites the City council had ordered. You thought it macabre to relocate someone's resting place as if they were nothing but a waste of space.

What was once the Voodoo Queen ́s Laveau's tomb was now only a monument in her honour. But what the tourist who resorted to smearing words with permanent marker on that very stone didn't know was the hidden compartment in the back. It was sealed with numerous spells, followed by a specific order of bricks you had to push in.

Panic filled your senses when you saw the bricks already pushed in and the secret compartment opened wide. There was a dirt film on the stone surface and nothing but empty space in the compartment beneath all the dust.

You reached in, hoping they just shifted back, but all you grasped was a layer of leaves that found their way inside.

The letters were gone.

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You could not wrap your head around who could have had access to your letters, and who would even care to steal them from you. They were not just letters, they were confessions of loneliness, frustrations, confessions of love. Whoever had them now, they knew your deepest emotions, some buried six feet under others worn on your sleeve - but all secret.

Even now staring at the grimoire in front of you, surrounded by Kol's hideout, you couldn't think of anyone who knew about them. The only one you told was Kol back in Mystic Falls when you thought you were dying. But there was no time to dwell or be embarrassed by your secrets laid bare.

You had work to do, and you had to focus. Unfortunately, focus was hard to come by when you had someone breathing down your neck.

"How frustrating. A novice trying to interpret the work of a master." Mikael paraded around, sighing dramatically.

"Can you shut for one second?" You glared at him "I'm busy here."

You had summoned him back in New York with the promise of delivering Klaus on a silver platter. He was another part of your plan, one that was - by a longshot - the most dangerous. But you had to have an insurance and Mikael was the only one who knew Esther better than anyone else. If Esther would trick you into a wrong spelling, Mikael would be able to tell.

"It's a simple de-linking spell," You explained further "It's not that hard."

"Simple? You're trying to erase the link between Klaus and every single vampire he's sired.

"No. All I care about is Marcel and my brothers. You kill Klaus? They die, too. I can fix that. I have Esther's grimoire, it's just a matter of time."