by Julie Plec
“Drink!” he shouted, and bottles were raised in the air all across the warehouse. Klaus could smell the heavy liquor permeating the windowless room; the place was filling with it.
“They’ll be stumbling fools by the time the humans get here,” Rebekah said. “Tomás isn’t going to walk into a trap laid by a bunch of drunks.”
“We want them drunk,” Klaus disagreed, “but my soldiers will fall into line when the time comes.” His warriors were loyal to him; they practically revered him. It would be a terrible blow to lose his legion, but at least he could ensure that the entire city would share in his loss. If Klaus couldn’t have his army, than no one else in New Orleans would have one, either. “Keep them drinking.”
Klaus elbowed his way through the sea of carousing vampires and made his way toward the door. As he stepped through, he was surprised to see Luc heading away from the warehouse with his hands shielding his face and his head bowed.
“Benoit!” Klaus called, and Luc startled and turned. “Go back in to my sister and enjoy the celebration while it lasts. I’ll keep an eye out for any messengers. We’ll have plenty of warning when the humans are on their way.”
Luc glanced at the door of the warehouse, looking tempted by the raucous laughter within. “I promised Sampson I would give him one last report before moonrise,” he explained. “Once the wolves transform, communication will be effectively cut off.”
“That sounds like Sampson’s problem, not mine.” Klaus shrugged. “The werewolves know where we are, and they know when to close in. If they need more coddling than that, they’re in the wrong war.”
“Agreed.” Luc hesitated for one last moment, as if he was trying to think of more to say, but Klaus only watched him steadily. “Well, then,” the vampire said. “Back to the celebration it is.”
He strolled toward the warehouse door, and Klaus began his prowl around the shipping district that sprawled along the river. The March night was dark and empty, a shock to his senses after the festivities inside the warehouse. But he began to pick up the telltale signs of life around him: footsteps along the wharf, horses whickering in a nearby stable, and the shifting of warm bodies in the cold night air. A steady breeze danced among the warehouses, and Klaus could see some quick-moving clouds on the horizon, promising that a strong wind was on its way. Perfect.
Klaus moved carefully along an unpaved street, alert for signs of the three armies that would soon converge on the warehouse. He could smell the smoke of torches drifting downstream on the wind—those must belong to the witches. The werewolves wouldn’t burden themselves with such things so close to moonrise, and the humans still thought they were meeting in secret. Klaus could already see the bright haze where the moon would soon edge into the sky. He stayed alert for the first howl, the confirmation that Sampson’s pack had begun to change.
Then, at last, Klaus heard the muted footsteps of a human coming his way. There was another person in the next alley over, and a third slyly approaching from the wharf.
It was all about to begin, and Klaus breathed in the sweet smell of his coming victory.
Klaus ran silently for the warehouse, crossing the distance of a dozen city blocks in the blink of an eye. He only had a few minutes to shut down the liquor-fueled party before Tomás’s foot soldiers got close enough to notice.
“Silence!” he roared as he closed the warehouse doors behind him, and the drunken vampires did their best to obey. “The humans are approaching,” he went on more quietly. “We want them all inside before they realize we’re here. No one flees, no one escapes.”
His vampires dispersed like a flock of starlings, fitting into hiding places above and behind the crates that ringed the walls. They took their empty rum bottles with them, but the floor was already well-saturated with the liquor. The humans would notice the smell, but there was a world of difference between the stench of spilled liquor and the sight of a hundred drunken vampires.
The first of the cultists cracked the doors open just enough to creep inside, wary of the cloying darkness that greeted him. He stopped on the threshold, his nostrils flaring a little, then another conspirator paused behind him.
“Don’t light your lantern yet,” the first one whispered. “Do you smell that?”
“Did one of those cases of rum get knocked down?” the second one muttered, sounding more irritated than afraid. “I told the boy not to stack them that way, but of course he didn’t listen.”
“I’ll be sure to beat him in the morning,” another voice drawled sarcastically. Klaus heard a match strike against wood, and then a lantern popped and sizzled to life. “It’s just on the floor,” the man went on. “You won’t burn to death just because I’m holding a lantern all the way up here.”
The glow from the flame he had lit grew steadily, illuminating each new arrival. There had to be several hundred of them, and the warehouse soon filled with their voices and warmth. Klaus could hardly believe that none of them had noticed that they were surrounded, but he was sure his luck wouldn’t hold for much longer. He had never intended to start without Tomás, but he was starting to worry that there might be no choice. Hold...hold...he thought silently to his vampires, hoping that none of them would give away their position before the cult’s ringleader arrived.
“What’s that?” one of the humans asked suddenly, staring raptly into the shadows of the northern wall.
“Attack!” Klaus bellowed, unable to risk another second’s delay.
Vampires sprang from everywhere at once, and the humans in the center of the room screamed and collided with one another in their panic. Klaus positioned himself beside the door, ready to kill anyone who approached it from the inside but still hoping against hope that Tomás might come running to his friends’ aid.
A dozen of them were killed immediately in the first onslaught, but the rest quickly organized themselves. As Klaus had suspected, they had not come unarmed, and he saw at least three vampires go down writhing in the grip of some kind of otherworldly smoke.
A human threw an amulet onto the alcohol-soaked floor, and sparks rose up out of it, swirling and coalescing into the glittering shape of a dragon. Klaus stared at it, impressed in spite of himself, as it roared, snapped its jaws, and beheaded one of his soldiers where she stood. A vampire reached a hawk-nosed woman and sank his fangs into her throat, only to reel back, gasping and spitting as if he had been poisoned.
The humans were putting up a good fight, especially considering they were without their leader. “Where the hell is he?” Rebekah demanded, catching Klaus by his arm. “Your idiot vampires gave themselves away too soon.”
“Amalia and Sampson will be driving any stragglers here,” Klaus reminded her. “If he’s nearby, they’ll bring him in.”
The door burst open almost before he had finished speaking, and Amalia Giroux stood framed in the moonlight outside. Her black hair and dark red gown billowed around her in the rising wind, and the nearest humans fell back just at the sight of her. The sound of a vicious wolf’s howl followed behind her: Klaus’s final guests had arrived at last.
Werewolves sprang through the open door, led by a massive, muscular beast with a distinctive lantern jaw who could only be Sampson Collado. More witches eased their way in behind the wolves, casting their torches aside with a carelessness that made Klaus wince. He had made the warehouse into a tinderbox, and he had no intention of being inside when he decided it was time to set it on fire.
Klaus grabbed a young witch by the collar of his frock coat and spun him around. “Did you find Tomás on your way here?” he asked. The witch flinched away from the expression on Klaus’s face and shook his head mutely.
“It’s not like we can ask the wolves,” Rebekah fumed. “But it doesn’t matter. Niklaus, he would never let himself get caught up in this. He’s too smart for this. Tomás has been a step ahead of us the entire time, and
now he’ll slip through our fingers once again.”
A werewolf fell to the floor, writhing and whimpering in a net of woven purple wolfsbane the humans had produced, seemingly from nowhere. A few people were struggling to open some of the crates, and Klaus realized that he had laid his ambush squarely in the middle of the Cult of Janus’s armory. Every weapon Tomás had spent his life amassing was here, and yet he had apparently just walked away. The only way he could leave such treasures behind was if there was something more alluring in his sights.
“Perhaps he had a more pressing matter to deal with,” Klaus reasoned, half to himself. “Or perhaps he got wind of our attack.”
“A more pressing matter,” Rebekah repeated, watching as two vampires tore a human in half between them. “What could be—?”
Klaus realized it at the same moment as Rebekah, and the two of them stared at each other in horror. “Elijah,” he said. “Tomás knew we would be here, and Elijah would be all but unguarded.”
“We haven’t cured him yet,” Rebekah said, taking in the massacre of the battle before her. “If we go now, we may lose our chance.”
“You go,” Klaus told her, opening the door wide enough for her to pass. “I’ll stay here and clean up.”
Rebekah turned to leave, then froze. “Damn it,” she muttered to herself, then wheeled back to face Klaus. “Tomás isn’t here, but Niklaus: I haven’t seen Luc, either. Not since before you went out to watch for the humans. I don’t know where he is.”
Klaus’s memory recalled everything in complete detail. He could see the range of troubled expressions that had crossed Luc’s face during their brief conversation, and he could count the steps the bandit had taken toward the warehouse. But Klaus had turned away before Luc had made it all the way to the doors and slipped inside. He’d been too focused on the bigger picture, and had underestimated the will of a single vampire. Of all people, he wasn’t going to let Luc be the one who let his plan come crumbling down.
Klaus could see his own emotion magnified on his sister’s face as they both registered the betrayal of a man they’d assumed to be harmless. Rebekah had always had horrible taste in men, and she couldn’t help but make the same mistakes over and over again. If only she wouldn’t drag the rest of her family down with her.
“We’ll track him down, too,” Klaus promised, although in his mind he could see the slender silver taper by Elijah’s bed, melting away into nothing before they had finished the sacrifice. If they failed, they wouldn’t get another chance, and Elijah would be trapped like this forever.
Amalia had been unable or unwilling to tell him how long the candle would take to burn, but from its size, it couldn’t possibly last until sunrise. In a few hours it would be gone, and ninety-nine vampires would have died for nothing...unless Lisette took Luc’s place and died for Elijah. Would she be prepared to sacrifice herself for him? It seemed like the answer would be yes, but some part of Klaus hated to cause his brother that further pain.
“Rebekah, one way or another, all of this will end tonight. Go to Elijah, and kill anyone or anything that gets in your way.”
Rebekah fled, and for a moment Klaus almost pitied Luc. If his sister did happen to find him first, she would happily rip him limb from limb. Then a witch screamed, a high, unearthly sound, and Klaus was jolted back to the matter at hand.
Death was everywhere in the warehouse, but there needed to be more. Even four armies clashing in an enclosed space would eventually have survivors, and Klaus didn’t intend for anyone to leave this battle alive.
He stepped outside and bolted the doors shut, trapping them all inside. He had intended to stay outside with Rebekah and ensure that no one escaped the doomed building, but it didn’t matter. In the chaos of combat no one would notice that they were locked inside, not until it was too late. The warehouse was a well-laid death trap, and Klaus didn’t need to watch it spring to be sure of that.
A few of the torches the witches had brought with them still smoldered on the dirt of the unpaved street, and Klaus picked one up and touched it to the wood of the warehouse’s outside wall. When the flames caught he used another torch to light the next section of wall, then moved along the length of the warehouse, methodically lighting it piece by piece.
The fire eagerly consumed the seasoned wood of the warehouse, and Klaus paused to enjoy his handiwork for a few more moments. Vampires, humans, witches, and werewolves alike would perish in the inferno that was just beginning to burn, and they would take all of Klaus’s problems with them. If Klaus had to lose his army, to give up his dreams of conquest, then the entire city would share in his loss.
He carried the last few torches to the neighboring warehouses, setting one fire after another in the rising wind. There would be nowhere to run, even if anyone managed to get through the burning walls and bolted doors. As far as Niklaus Mikaelson was concerned, New Orleans was over.
The fire spread quickly, devouring the buildings before his eyes, and Klaus wondered why he hadn’t thought of burning down the whole city years ago. When he caught Tomás, he’d have to thank him for the marvelous inspiration.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THE FIRE WAS spreading nearly as fast as Rebekah could run. The wind that whipped along the river carried it from one building to the next, allowing it to grow out of control. It leaped from the treasury to swallow a church, engulfing every house in its path. By the time the citizens woke to the threat, the inferno would be well beyond their ability to contain it. This was the morning of one of their holy days, Rebekah remembered dimly, and she hoped they would appreciate their own opportunity for resurrection.
She wondered if Elijah could feel it as the vampires trapped inside the warehouse died one by one, whether each death brought him closer to his old self. Could he sense the sacrifice even as it was happening? Did he know his siblings had decided to condemn the entire city along with its vampires?
Rebekah had let herself be caught up in Klaus’s poetry of a clean slate, of a New Orleans forced to rise from its own ashes, but there could be no fresh start if Tomás was still on the loose, no cure for Elijah with Luc unaccounted for, and no peace for the Mikaelsons until every bit of the old city had been burned away. Klaus had orchestrated a spectacular fire, but there was still much work to be done.
Rebekah heard shouts and a few screams behind her, and she knew that the city was waking to its fate at last. They would form brigades to bring water from the river, and they would fight valiantly for their home—just like the Mikaelsons had always done, and like Tomás believed he was doing. Rebekah knew better than anyone how impossible it was to hold on to a home...and how unthinkable it was to give one up.
Rebekah could hear her heart pounding as she approached the mansion. She and Klaus had abandoned Elijah with only one guard, leading the bulk of their army to their deaths. And Tomás didn’t care how many of his followers died, not if it meant he got to the Originals. He couldn’t have planned it any better if he had tried.
The Mikaelsons’ mansion looked cold and unwelcoming, and Rebekah could sense that something was wrong inside as soon as it was in view. For more than sixty years, the house had belonged to her, Klaus, and Elijah, but there was something unfamiliar about it now. She knew that the powerful protection spell Ysabelle Dalliencourt had worked all those years ago made the house indestructible, but Tomás had once promised to destroy everything Rebekah loved. She loved that house, and had left her brother and her best friend behind the supposed safety of its walls.
She half expected the protection spell to stop her at the door, but she felt nothing as she charged inside. Any other supernatural being besides the three Originals would have required an invitation, but if a human like Tomás had managed to cross onto their land undetected, he could have walked right inside. Rebekah thought she could smell him in the air of the front hall: the lingering odor of smoke and vinaya
and mortality.
She started up the grand staircase, toward Elijah’s room and the end of the little candle that still burned there, but the soft scrape of a shoe against marble froze her in her tracks.
“Rebekah,” Luc whispered, and she spun. He stood in the hall, looking every bit as surprised as she was. “Thank God you’ve come.”
“Where have you been?” she demanded, lowering her voice to match his. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I went out to make one last report to the werewolves,” Luc explained hurriedly, his eyes flickering up the staircase behind her. “Some of them thought the humans were approaching already, but Sampson said it was too early. I got curious and found fresh boot prints, and they led me here. I think Tomás saw the ambush and escaped, but I couldn’t risk approaching him if he has some of that powder left.”
“I clearly remember ordering you to go back into the warehouse,” Klaus announced from the gaping space where the front door had been, and Luc paled at the sight of Rebekah’s brother. He was suddenly caught between two Original vampires, and Rebekah could imagine that was an uncomfortable place to be.
“Tomás is here, and he may already have Elijah,” Rebekah said to them both. There was no point in arguing among themselves when the real enemy was in their own house. “Stop quarreling and help me look.”
“They have to be upstairs somewhere,” Luc said. “I’ve been making a circuit of the staircases in case Tomás tried to take your brother away, but no one has come down since I got here.”
“How useful of you,” Klaus grumbled. Rebekah could hear imminent violence in his voice, but he only pushed past Luc to join Rebekah on the steps. Her brother’s cold-blooded cynicism cut both ways. As long as Tomás was unaccounted for, Klaus would be content to use Luc to defeat him. And then he would destroy Luc without a second thought...unless Lisette managed to get herself killed first. Rebekah barely knew what to hope for anymore. “I saw some candlelight in the attic from outside, and there’s no reason for anyone to be there.”