by Julie Plec
Klaus and Rebekah ran up the stairs together, and she could hear Luc trailing behind them. There was a tapestry at the end of the hall, with a melodramatic maiden and a weeping unicorn—a sentimental piece of work that Rebekah had chosen for the certainty that it would irritate Klaus. It concealed a humble wooden door that led to the attic, where he liked to paint and brood, and to Rebekah’s keen eye the tapestry was already a little askew.
Klaus led the way, silently signaling which parts of the creaky old steps to avoid. The attic above was eerily quiet, with nothing to mask the sound of their approach, but Rebekah could feel Tomás in front of her.
Klaus opened the door, and the three of them stepped into the attic.
Tomás held a knife that glittered in the candlelight, and Rebekah could see a long, vertical cut on each of Elijah’s forearms. Lisette held a chalice to catch the blood that dripped from them, careful not to spill a drop. Dozens of Klaus’s paintings ringed the sloping walls, creating an unnerving backdrop for the scene. Rebekah knew a ritual when she saw one, and her heart beat faster in her chest.
Tomás turned at the sight of them, smiling pleasantly. “Welcome,” he said, drawing a blood-soaked amulet from the chalice and placing it around his own neck. “You’re just in time to see your home destroyed.”
“This house will still be standing long after the flesh has rotted off your bones,” Rebekah told him. “It’s too late to save your own life, Tomás, but if you release my brother and Lisette right now, I’ll make sure to give you a quicker death than your sister got.”
“I don’t think so, my dear.”
An invisible, soundless something surrounded Rebekah. She felt the air sucked out of her lungs, like she was trapped in the middle of a lightning storm. Then with one loud crack, the feeling was gone and the pressure in the room returned to normal. She had no idea what Tomás had just done, but it couldn’t be good.
Only after taking a shaky breath did she risk looking at Elijah, who showed no sign of interest or fear. He simply watched Tomás, waiting for his next orders, completely ensnared once again by the vinaya powder. Rebekah couldn’t bear the sight of him and Lisette so unlike their usual, powerful selves. Tomás had already brought him so much pain.
Tomás only smirked at Rebekah. “Your time is over, monsters,” he said. “The protection spell that you’ve hidden behind for so long is gone, and now you are exposed to the world.”
“That’s not possible,” Klaus scoffed, circling sideways with his eyes on Elijah. “That spell has held for decades, and you’re hardly the first to take a run at it.”
“How many of the others were inside the house?” Tomás asked, and Rebekah knew that he was telling the truth. Tomás had yet to make an empty threat, and besides, she had felt the spell collapse in on itself. She had known what the sensation was, even though she hadn’t been able to put it into words. That change in the air had felt like vulnerability, like fear.
Before any of them managed a reply, Tomás turned to Lisette. “Kill them,” he ordered.
Rebekah had just enough time to wonder why he had spoken to her and not Elijah before Lisette’s body crashed into her own, slamming her back against the doorjamb so hard that Rebekah felt her spine crack in two.
Luc threw his burly arm around Lisette’s throat and dragged her backward, giving Rebekah the spare moment she needed for her back to repair itself. Klaus lunged past her, his turquoise eyes riveted on Tomás.
Elijah intercepted him, and Rebekah watched in horror as Elijah threw Klaus through one of the tall windows that ringed the attic. Its glass shattered into thousands of pieces, and Klaus vanished into the smoky night. Rebekah, able to move again, blocked Elijah’s arm before he had a chance to behead Luc.
Elijah wanted to kill her, Rebekah realized as his burning stare turned her way. He didn’t need to be ordered to, because Alejandra’s vinaya powder had poisoned him to the point that he wasn’t even her brother anymore. And the cure hadn’t worked yet, not with one of the one hundred vampires still left alive.
Luc and Lisette rolled around on the floor, neither able to get the upper hand. Luc was stronger, but Lisette was possessed by a greater desire to win. Cursing her own hesitation, Rebekah hoped that one of them would just kill the other and spare her from having to make the choice.
Tomás edged toward the sloping walls, watching the fight while slowly distancing himself from the vampires. When he saw Rebekah watching him, he spun his cloak and flung some of his deadly powder into her face.
Rebekah ducked, but it was too late. Luc had seen the motion as well, and he rolled and twisted so that Lisette’s face came up between Rebekah and Tomás at the last instant, and she inhaled all of the vinaya. Lisette coughed and gasped and then screamed, digging at her eyes until Rebekah saw them bleed.
“Let them go, you son of a bitch!” Rebekah shouted, unsure if Tomás even had the power to undo what he had done to her brother and her friend. “You can have the city if you want it so badly, but I won’t let you take Elijah!”
“It was the humans’ city first,” Tomás snarled, clutching something unseen in one hand that caused Rebekah to hang back warily. “Alejandra and I were happy here, until our father disappeared one night and our mother had to return to a life of indentured servitude to pay off his debts. She came home dirty and exhausted when she was able to come home at all, and no one was brave enough to help us try to seek justice, or even learn what had become of our papá.”
“Anything might have happened to him,” Rebekah pointed out coldly. “In spite of our best efforts to establish order, New Orleans has always been a dangerous place.”
“You are the danger!” Tomás screamed, veins standing out from his neck in his attempt to make her understand his suffering. “One of you killed my father, and that one right there”—his hand shot out at Klaus, who had just returned—“killed my twin sister.”
Tomás released the object he had been holding and let it fly. The object—a little sphere of metal Rebekah didn’t recognize—struck Klaus squarely in the chest, and he reeled back, stunned. His body crashed against one of the large canvases, and Rebekah cursed Tomás’s endless supply of tricks.
Try as she might, she couldn’t get close to him again. Elijah blocked her, swinging at her head and tripping her up as she tried to dodge away. She lashed out with both legs, tangling them with Elijah’s ankles and bringing him to the floor with her. “You don’t have to do this,” she whispered, and she thought she saw a fleeting expression cross his face. It was a look of unbearable torment, and the sight of it made Rebekah furious for him. No matter what wrongs Tomás believed had been committed against his family in the past, it was no excuse to torture someone like this.
“Elijah, we’re trying to help you,” Klaus called out as he stumbled to his feet.
“You’ve done enough to me already,” he hissed, and Rebekah grabbed his hands and held them, trying desperately to communicate how much she loved him.
Lisette broke free from Luc and kicked Rebekah squarely in the face, knocking her away from Elijah and shattering her cheekbone in the process. Klaus, shaking off whatever talisman Tomás had thrown at him, grabbed Lisette’s arm and twisted it so far up behind her back that everyone in the room could hear it splinter.
Rebekah lurched to her feet, shaking her head to clear away the red stars that seemed to blossom everywhere she looked. Tomás was carving symbols into the rafters with a knife, driving traces of Elijah’s blood into the very fabric of their home. He worked quickly, almost scribbling the runes in order to finish whatever he was doing before he was swept up in the fighting again. All Rebekah needed to do was reach him, and she could put an end to all of this. Tomás was only mortal, and no matter what tricks he had, he would still die like a human.
Tomás reached for the pouch at his belt as he saw her approach, but Luc stumbled backward ag
ainst him, reeling from a blow by Lisette, and knocked Tomás off balance. Tomás still parried Rebekah’s first blow even as he fell back against the rafters, and he clawed at his belt again for the powder that would render Rebekah helpless against him.
But the pouch was gone, and his green eyes widened in fear and understanding as Rebekah caught him by the throat and lifted him, pressing him up against the wall and holding him there. “This isn’t the end,” he croaked. “You will never be safe.”
“I don’t need to be safe,” Rebekah told him grimly. “I am a Mikaelson.”
She pressed against his windpipe, savoring her ability to stop his endless stream of threats at last. Tomás’s hand scratched at the designs he had cut into the wood of the rafters, no doubt trying to accomplish one final piece of destruction before he died.
Rebekah squeezed harder, forcing the life out of his pale green eyes. Tomás died silently, and Rebekah hoped that whatever he had left unfinished in the mansion would haunt him for the rest of eternity. She let his limp body drop to the floor and took in her first full breath in weeks. Their meeting at the White Oak tree seemed almost a lifetime ago, and in some ways, it was.
Rebekah turned to Luc, who held the little pouch of vinaya powder in one hand, weighing it with an uncharacteristic thoughtfulness in his twinkling blue eyes. “That was well done,” she told him. “Even I didn’t see you take it.”
“We’ll burn that,” Klaus decided, holding out his hand for the pouch. “It’s too dangerous to exist, even in our hands.”
“Our hands?” Luc repeated, looking down at the pouch in his palm. Rebekah stepped closer to him, an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. When Luc turned toward her, she froze in place. “The powder is in my hands,” he corrected. “And so is this.”
Carefully, watching Klaus and Rebekah as he did it, Luc bent down and pulled the White Oak stake from its hiding place in his boot. Rebekah gasped and covered her mouth with her hands in shock.
In just a matter of minutes, Luc—her simple, straightforward, easygoing Luc—had managed to obtain vinaya powder from Tomás and the White Oak stake that Lisette must have been carrying for Elijah.
Lisette didn’t even seem to notice the stake was gone. She crouched on the floor, holding her head in her hands as if it might split in two. Rebekah remembered how lost and broken Elijah had seemed after Alejandra had been killed—a puppet with its strings cut, Alejandra had said. She suspected that Lisette might be experiencing something similar, but one way or another her suffering was almost over. Elijah himself looked no better off, standing still and purposeless behind Lisette, as if his entire reason for living had ended with Tomás’s death.
“I knew you were up to no good,” Klaus muttered. “Rebekah has the worst taste in men.”
Rebekah couldn’t even spare the time to be offended. It was true, even if this was a particularly sensitive moment for Klaus to bring it up. Klaus’s eyes shifted toward her, trying to signal for a coordinated attack, but Rebekah gave him a tiny shake of her head, hoping that he wouldn’t do anything rash. Both of Luc’s weapons could mean the end of either one of them, and Elijah, if they made a misstep now. They didn’t have another hundred vampires to kill, and there weren’t any witches left to make another silver candle. If Luc or Lisette got away, all hope was lost.
“What are you doing, Luc?” she asked, as calmly as she could force her voice to sound. “Sweetheart, put those things down now.”
“Why would I put them down?” Luc asked, turning the stake in his hand as if he was testing for the perfect grip. “With these things, I can create my own destiny.”
“You found Tomás after we left Mystic Falls,” Rebekah realized. “Those times I didn’t know where you were, you were meeting with him.”
“That’s how Tomás was able to stay ahead of our movements,” Klaus added, and Rebekah could hear raw murder in his voice. “You even betrayed the secrets of our house’s protection spell.”
“Whatever he promised you, Luc, you can see that he won’t be able to deliver on it now.” Rebekah forced herself to sound soft, understanding, even though all she wanted to do was rip his heart out.
“He had nothing to offer me except the truth.” Luc shrugged, glancing with some disgust at Tomás’s limp corpse. “All I’ve wanted my entire life was freedom. I thought that was what you were offering me when you turned me, but that turned out to be a lie. You three have more power than anyone ever should. You control and compel the rest of us to obey your every whim—even you, Rebekah, when it suits you.”
“Tomás controlled you,” Rebekah whispered. “He used that powder in your hand and made you try to kill me.”
“And yet you lived,” Luc pointed out, “and you trusted me more than ever. Tomás saw the advantage in that, and so did I.”
Klaus caught Rebekah’s eye again, and she clenched her fists until her nails dug into her palms. Somewhere on the floor below them, the silver candle was burning low. They couldn’t afford to stand around talking all night. If Luc wouldn’t give up his weapons willingly—and it was becoming increasingly clear he would not—they were just going to have to take the risk and attack.
Then Lisette stirred and moaned, and Elijah jerked forward at the sound. “Let her go,” he growled, lurching unsteadily toward Luc. Rebekah stared at him, amazed by his strength. He was still possessed, still tortured, yet Lisette’s suffering drove him to reclaim some control over his mind and body. “I’ll shove that powder down your throat and make you choke on it.”
He didn’t notice the stake, not even when Luc aimed it at Elijah’s heart. Rebekah could see her real brother in Elijah’s brown eyes, and realized that the powder Tomás used on him and Lisette must be wearing off at last. But too slowly, too unsteadily, and it showed in her brother’s every movement.
“Elijah!” Rebekah shouted, throwing herself forward to intercept him. She was too far away, and so was Klaus, yet she knew Elijah couldn’t hope to overpower Luc without their help.
As Rebekah watched, sick with fear, Elijah lurched and then hesitated at exactly the wrong moment, leaving his chest unprotected for Luc’s strike. Rebekah dove forward, trying to cover the last of the distance between them by sheer force of will, but Lisette was closer. With a last, desperate scream, the young vampire rose to her feet, placing herself directly between Elijah’s heart and the White Oak stake in Luc’s hand.
It plunged into her chest with a sickeningly wet noise, piercing her flesh as easily as if it had been silk. Lisette’s clear gray eyes widened for a moment, staring at Luc in surprise. He hesitated, shocked by the sight of the stake protruding from her chest instead of his target’s.
Elijah collapsed to the floor, unconscious. The cure was working, Rebekah realized through the haze of the moment. Lisette’s death must have triggered it, although there was no telling how long his healing would take. Rebekah wanted to run to him, to cradle his dark-haired head in her lap and watch the witches’ spell do its work. But she couldn’t quite yet—there was one more piece of business standing between her and her fallen brother.
Rebekah grabbed the vinaya powder from Luc’s other hand while Klaus twisted the stake free from Lisette’s rib cage. “I made you, you stupid bastard,” she hissed, throwing Luc back against a pile of Klaus’s paintings, just a few feet from Tomás’s corpse. “There’s only one way for you to be free of me—and if you want it so badly, it’s yours.”
Suddenly Rebekah saw sunlight again, and heard the far-off laughter of her brothers as she chased them around the trees of Mystic Falls.
“Rebekah,” Klaus called, and tossed her the White Oak stake. Her hand shot out to catch it.
“Rebekah,” Luc began, but she didn’t need to hear any more of what he had to say. New Orleans was burning, and in the morning things would start anew. There would be no place in that reborn city for Luc. He still had Liset
te’s blood on his hands, and his time was over.
Rebekah plunged the stake into Luc’s chest, striking squarely for his heart, and then everything seemed to happen at once.
Luc’s hand shot out, not to block the stake but to press Lisette’s drying blood into the wall behind him. His hand reached Tomás’s carved symbols, and they seemed to soak up the blood as if they were thirsty for more.
Klaus never used the fireplaces in the attic, and they contained no wood, yet all four of them burst to life with a roar. The sound was far too loud for the attic alone: It sounded as if every fireplace in the massive house had ignited at the same time. The fire burned the very air, and it ate into the stone of the chimneys surrounding it, spreading quickly toward the wooden walls.
Luc’s body fell to the ground as the life edged out of him. His long blond hair tangled with Tomás’s dark locks, their two profiles looked in opposite directions—like Janus, the god who looked toward the future and the past. Rebekah had had enough of gods for a good long while.
Somewhere behind her, Elijah rose to his feet. His face was drawn, and his brown eyes blazed with almost feverish strength. “The house will burn,” he said. His voice was hoarse at first, but it began to clear as he spoke. Rebekah could almost see him growing stronger by the moment, shaking off the last traces of his curse. “Tomás used witchcraft, and we won’t be able to stop it now.”
Klaus clapped his brother on the back, his eyes suspiciously damp. Rebekah threw herself into Elijah’s arms for just a moment, wanting to cry with the relief of seeing him well at last, but there wasn’t time. Elijah was right, as usual: The fire was spreading fast.
“Kol’s and Finn’s coffins are in the east wing,” Klaus said gruffly, stepping away to pull a few canvases from their stacks. He tossed them through the broken window, not bothering to check if they landed safely. “I’ll go get them, and bring out whatever else I can find.”