10: This is not a test

[City of the Dead, LaFayette Cemetery 1, New Orleans, LA. February 20th, 2020. 11:31 pm.]

Because the locator spell was cast by three powerful witches, it was fast and accurate, and it showed the children to be the deep in the Bayou. It was fairly obvious why they had been taken there, whoever took the children, wanted the protection from the werewolves.

“Let’s go,” Klaus growled as he started to barge out of the building followed by Bella and Kol.

“I can help, let me help, please,” Davina said as she ran after the group. “I- I think I am responsible for this. I should have put an end to it before-”

“What?” Klaus turned around as he sneered at her. “What did you do, little witch?”

Her eyes shifted between the three faces in front of her as she rubbed her neck. “I uh… some witches and I had a brainstorming session on how to hurt you the most and um…” Davina stammered as she looked at the floor, ready for whatever came her way. “Some of my witches are quite fanatic and… they might have suggested taking the girls and…” her eyes flickered up, and she defensively held up her hands. “I shot them down, immediately. It’s not what I do. They don’t have anything to do with my beef with you.”

“Who are they?” Kol asked as he narrowed his eyes on her.

“Ahvitahl and Aixa, but I swear, I told them to stop it!” She replied with a squeaky voice, panicked, but slightly relieved when Klaus’ expression turned less hostile. At this point, she was happy that the hybrid could tell if someone was lying to him.

“You’re staying here, Davina,” Bella finally spoke up, her fists clenched so tightly that her knuckles had turned white. “You have done enough, but I’m not done with you yet,” she then turned around and followed Klaus and Kol out of the building. She was going to give her a piece of her mind later, what was more important that they were going to get the girls back.

He knew of Ahvitahl and Aixa, two members of the Ninth Ward Coven, who tended to be a bit more radical than other covens. His least favourite coven as well. Sure, they had balls and talent, but they needed to be controlled, every witch in that coven and Davina clearly didn’t have the respect to exert that control. Kol was going to make sure that once this was over, once they had the kids back, he was going to end the entire coven. It would make Davina’s life easier and the threat to Klaus even less.

Kol drove his and Bella’s rental car towards the Bayou while Klaus fumed in the backseat, angered by Davina and frustrated that Kol and Bella weren’t vampires so they couldn’t get to the Bayou faster. Ahvitahl and Aixa were present at the wedding, and Klaus knew something was off and he didn’t do anything about it because they had been invited as a courtesy towards the entirety of the New Orleans Coven. He should have sent them away. Hope and Nina being taken was his fault as much as it was Davina’s.

Witches. He hated witches. They couldn’t be trusted. The only witches he did trust were his brother and his wife. The rest of them could burn for eternity.

It took them 30 minutes to get to the Bayou; luckily there wasn’t any traffic otherwise it would have taken them longer. As soon as they were out of the car, Klaus caught a scent and started to walk off. Sighing, Bella looped her arm through Kol’s and followed the hybrid quietly. Once this was over, and once they had pleased Klaus with days of celebrating the wedding, she and Kol were definitely going to take Nina and go away again.

Five minutes into their walk, Klaus stopped walking and sighed. “We have company,” he said with a smirk on his face. “Wolves.”

“Keep walking,” Bella said as she put up a shield around them. “They can’t touch us.”

“Aw, you’re spoiling my fun, little Swan.”

“We’re not here for fun, Klaus. We’re here to get our girls back. Keep walking,” she demanded angrily.

He pouted. “And once we have the girls?”

“And when we get our girls, you get to kill a witch. I’ll kill the other. And then, while we’re walking back to the car, you can go after the wolves, how does that sound?”

An even wider grin appeared on Klaus’ face. “You’re my new favourite sibling, Isabella,” he approved as he continued to walk.

“Hey!” Kol whined. “That was my idea too!”

“I didn’t hear you speak up, brother.”

As they continued their hunt for the girls and the witches who took them, the wolves tried to advance on them and kept bouncing off the shield. “I thought the wolves were on our side?” Bella asked with a frown on her face.

“Witchcraft, they probably used some magic to have the wolves protect them. It’s easy. Once the werewolves are in their wolf form, their minds are easier to manipulate,” Klaus replied as he watched another wolf bounce off the shield. “For instance, they should realize by now that they can’t get through but yet, they keep coming. It’s fascinating.”

After a good twenty minutes, they came upon a cottage that was surrounded by werewolves. “Oh, can I please?” Kol grinned as he stretched out his arm and made a scattering movement with his hand, causing the wolves to run away in fear when something invisible hit them.

“I’ll probably won’t be able to enter that cabin, but please do throw out one of the witches holding our girls so I can snack?” Klaus asked playfully, thirsty for blood and revenge.

“I promised you a witch, didn’t I?” Bella replied as they continued towards the cabin, and she swung open the door with her magic before setting foot inside, followed quickly by Kol. The cabin was a one room cabin, sparsely decorated with a table, a couch and a bed. There was also a small kitchenette and a burning fireplace and two witches, she assumed Ahvitahl and Aixa, who looked dumbstruck.

“Mommy!” Nina cheered as she ran over to her mother and clung to her for life. “Bad people.”

“I know sweetie,” Bella protectively put her arm around her daughter and created a shield around her and Hope while she looked at the two frightened witches. “You have no idea what you got yourself into, ladies,” she said in a low, threatening voice. “Going after my child? My niece?”

Kol took hold of Hope and held her close, as he worryingly looked at Bella. She was pissed off, so was he, but there were kids present, she would not like it if Klaus would shed blood in front of the children. He wanted to shed blood, but Bella would not appreciate it and it wasn’t his desire to spend his wedding night on the couch.

“We have no business with you,” Ahvitahl piped up, readying herself to cast a spell to shoot at the fuming hybrid outside. “Our deal is with the hybrid.”

“No, your deal is with me!” Bella said as she used her magic to push Aixa into Klaus’ waiting arms. Klaus caught her as if he was a dog with a treat and turned round the corner to sink his teeth into her, out of sight from the children. “You took my child; it made it my business!”

“Bella, calm down,” Kol gently said as he looked at his wife. “Why don’t you take the girls outside?”

“Why don’t you take the girls outside?” Bella shot at Kol before focusing her attention on Ahvitahl, casting a spell at the witch that would make her feel as if she was burning up from the inside, much like she’d hurt a vampire. The girl collapsed on the floor as she screamed in agony, her hands were in her hair, almost as if she was trying to contain the fire within. It was all an illusion, of course, but it felt real and Bella had to admit, she loved seeing the young witch struggle so much.

“Bella, stop, you don’t want Nina to see this,” Kol said as he muttered a tiny spell to temporarily blind the girls. He was angry too, livid, even, but what about the girls? They were too young to witness this; even Klaus went out of sight to feed on the other witch.

“I can’t see!” Nina cried out as she stomped her feet. “Mommy! I can’t see!”

Thinking that the squirming witch had blinded her daughter, Bella stopped the spell currently affecting her and slammed her into the wall. “Why the fuck did you think that going after kids was a good idea?” She spat. “Yes, you can hurt Klaus the most by going after his family but the kids are fucking off limits!”

“Mommy! I can’t see! Daddy!”

“Stop that,” Bella growled at the witch as she slumped to the floor. “Don’t ever cast a spell on my child.”

“I’m not doing it! I swear!” Ahvitahl said defensively, rubbing her head as she got to her feet. This caused Bella to snap her head towards Kol and narrowed her eyes at him.

“Stop,” Kol said calmly.

“You stop.”

“No, you stop.”

“Don’t make me fight you.”

“I don’t even want to fight you, but you have to stop, what will Nina say to people? ‘Mommy killed a person’?”

“I don’t care!”

“Well, I do. Stop this now.”

With the two newlyweds bickering, Ahvitahl tried to make it out of the cabin but the hybrid blocked her way, Aixa’s blood was all over his face and his clothes as he smirked at her. “I could go for seconds,” he said playfully.

“Unun!” Nina cried out. “I can’t see!”

“Don’t worry, love,” Klaus spoke gently. “I’m sure your father will remove the spell soon enough.”

“You did that?” Bella fumed at Kol. “You put a spell on our daughter?” She said as she pushed him with her free hand. “You fucker! Cancel the spell now!”

“No.”

“I’ll do it,” Hope said shrugging and waved her hand, smiling when she could see again. She let go of her uncle Kol and ran to her father, hugging him tightly. “Thank you for coming for us, daddy.”

Nina blinked as she got used to seeing again and could now see her parents fight. She let out a deep breath and noticed that no one was keeping an eye on the evil woman who had taken her and Hopey. The woman had a jar in her hands and was ready to throw it at them, and she wasn’t sure what would happen, but it could be bad. She let go of her mother and put up her hands, just as she had seen her mother and father do often enough. “No!” the little girl screamed from the top of her lungs causing the adults look at her.

The jar in Ahvitahl’s hands shattered but the contents did not fall to the floor. Instead, the shards and the things in it flew up into the face of the witch. The glass sliced her face and the contents of the jar settled inside the cuts. It took a few seconds, but the herbs exploded in tiny little sparks before igniting a fire. The witch stumbled backwards against the drapes as she screamed, the flames already licking the walls of the small cabin.

Bella had been too enthralled with what was happening to notice that the fire was actually spreading quite fast and only moved when Kol was pulling her and Nina out of the cabin. Nina giggled as she saw the cabin go up in flames. “Cool!”

Klaus checked the girls over as Bella and Kol were still calming down from their fight. For a moment there, he had feared for his brother’s life, Bella had been consumed by her anger and if he had, to be honest, he was so proud of her. She was a Mikaelson alright; she was going to fit right in with the rest of them. Here he and Kol were, trying to save their children from seeing their parents shed blood. Only because Bella would not like it and she wanted to do shed it instead, there had been absolutely no control, and that was fantastic.

Nina was still giggling as her uncle pat her down and checked her for any cuts or bruises. “That was fun, Unun.”

“Was it, love?” he smiled at her.

She nodded as she pulled off her shirt and pushed it against his face to clean up the blood a little, or at least make an attempt to as she nearly fell over. “Again?”

“Again what, love?” Klaus smiled at her as he took her shirt and cleaned his face. She was like her mother in that, always wanting to clean up the blood, and he didn’t mind humoring the little girl.

“Find new bad people. Make them fiery angels.”

He wanted to reply with ‘maybe when you’re older’ but Kol had overheard the conversation. “Absolutely not, Nina,” he said as he lifted the girl in his arms. “However, daddy is so proud of you! How about we go back home and get a nice long sleep?”

Nina shook her head. “They ruined the day!”

“That’s okay,” he said soothingly. “What’s important is that we have you two back, all right?”

“Okay.”

[Accessing current feeds]
[New Orleans, LA. Decatur Street. January 25th, 2311. 5:01 am.]

They had been waiting a good fifteen minutes for the arrival of Klaus and most of his army at the Joan of Arc statue. Kol had insisted that he would be going off on his own to get to Bella. It was faster and more under the radar, but to wait for the cavalry to arrive in the middle – that’s right, not on the edge but right in the middle – of werewolf territory and try to stay unnoticed, was quite the task with an unconscious witch in his arms.

Her heartbeat had started to pick up a little bit, which delighted him as that meant that she was perking up. Her broken ankle wasn’t difficult to miss, he had observed it swell even further while they were resting out of sight. Kol was going to kill the witches who were interfering with his wife’s health. He couldn’t give her his blood to heal, and he wouldn’t want to risk anyone else’s blood either because having her go through another round of vomiting all day was out of the question.

It was fortunate that it didn’t seem like the werewolf population had reached the French Quarter just yet. Or at least, the streets were quiet, and it was rather safe for Bella at the moment. He didn’t care much for himself; he’d survive a wolf attack, but one wrong move made by him could cause him to lose Bella.

When he heard some noise, he popped up to see what was going on and was glad to see his siblings accompanied by surprisingly a still large quantity of vampires. If Kol had to be honest, he hadn’t expected much from their rush job in creating as many as possible, but he was impressed. “Well done, brother, you managed to keep most of them alive.”

Klaus huffed. “I don’t know what they’re teaching the wolves these days, but they were easy.”

“They haven’t had a challenge for fifty years, of course they think that certain things require not a lot of effort,” Elijah quietly replied as he was cleaning his hands with his faithful white handkerchief. Kol wondered if his brother would still use a cloth to clean his hands if the cloth weren’t white, or would it send him into a mild panic attack?

Kol huffed as he twirled his baseball bat that was now covered with werewolf blood. “Tell that to the wolves in the Ninth Ward, it’s mental out there.”

“How is she?”

“She’ll be fine,” Kol replied as he gently lifted Bella into his arms again, holding her safely with him as she served as a bat holder. “Give her a little more time.”

Rebekah growled as she took a few steps towards Kol and his wife as she bit into her hand. “Just feed her your blood, you idiot.”

“No!” Klaus pulled his sister back as Kol turned Bella away from her. “We do not feed her our blood if we want her at least somewhat capable of doing spells. We have been down this road before.”

Sam eyed the exchange and impatiently started to go ahead. She had so much adrenaline surging through her body from the fights, and she wanted more. The Machine had helped them navigate through most of the area, and Klaus had been right, they hadn’t been met with much resistance. Sam couldn’t help but think that the Machine looked out for most of the vampires, still that preservative nature of hers. Most of the vampires had been created for the sole purpose to not survive. What were they going to do with them once this was all over? Send them off to live happily ever after?

“Where do you think you’re going?” Rebekah questioned his brother’s mate.

“Home,” Sam muttered. “What else? You want to stick around here? We’re in a vast open space, everyone can see us. We’re going home.” she absentmindedly waved in the direction of Bella. “The girl will be fine.”

Rebekah huffed as she looked at her brother, confused as he followed his mate’s lead. “Nik?”

“Sameen’s right, let’s go home.”

[New Orleans, LA. Royal Street. January 25th, 2311. 5:13 am.]

“Heads up,” Sam said as she rounded the corner onto Royal Street. “They’ve been alerted to our presence.”

Klaus huffed as he saw the row of werewolves standing in front of the Abattoir. “They don’t want to give us our home back, what a pity.”

“I guess we’ll have to make them,” Kol smirked, itching for another fight but realized that he still had Bella in his arms. Then there was the case of an excessive amount of vampires behind them to do the fighting for them. “Eh. Send in the calvary, I think she’s coming to.”

“Good,” Klaus said approvingly.

The group made quick work of the werewolves. These were a little bit tougher than the ones they had encountered before. The probable reason was that the other wolves had become too domestic; these were trained and harder to kill, but more fun to kill too. He stayed out of range of flying limbs and bodies as he gently caressed Bella’s cheek. “We’re about to take our home back, are you going to help us, Cuddles?”

Bella let out a soft groan as she slowly opened her eyes.

“Hello,” he smiled at her. “I promise I won’t put you down on your feet but once we’re done, we’re going to set that ankle of yours.”

She shook her head almost as if she was in slow motion and sighed. “Doctor. Hospital. Anything.”

“We’ll see what we can do,” Kol said as he brushed her hair out of her face. “Seeing as we’re in the middle of taking back New Orleans, I doubt there’ll be-”

“We’ll get her the help she needs, Kol,” Klaus’ voice could be heard. “Don’t be such a twat.”

Bella managed to get a victorious smile on her face as she looked at Kol. “He likes me better than you.”

“No, you’re ridiculously helpless right now, that’s all.”

Klaus watched as his siblings ran towards the entrance of their home and hung back, just like Sameen. Both were watching in fascination as they managed to get a few feet inside before getting ejected from the building again, causing both of them to land flat on their ass in the street. The look on their faces was quite entertaining. “Niklaus, what is this?” Elijah demanded as he got up and dusted himself off as if nothing had happened. “We’ve never had a problem entering our home before after you put the deed back into your name.”

“Did I?”

“Don’t play games, brother, we are very close to regaining our home. All we need is to round up the witches and werewolves inside that building, and we’re home,” Elijah pointed at the Compound to make his words count.

“If you’d taken a good look first, brother,” Klaus sneered as he nodded towards the entrance. “You’d see that the witches have boobytrapped the entire place. Going in without thinking straight would certainly end up in more casualties and damage to the building.”

Sam pulled a device out of her pocket and shook it with a smile on her face before activating it and threw it through the entrance to the courtyard before it set off a small charge. “All technological traps have now been deactivated. Most of their personal devices won’t work either so they can’t call for more backup.” She walked over to Kol and started to pull Bella out of his arms. “Come on, Super Witch, time to do your thing. Kick them out and get us inside.”

“Don’t let her walk!”

Sam smirked at Kol as he handed her over and pretended to drop her, causing Bella to giggle as she put her arms around Sam’s neck. “Are you up for this?” she asked as she brought Bella to the entrance. “I’ll be right here to catch you should you pass out again.”

“I’ll try not to,” Bella promised and looked over Sam’s shoulder to see Klaus. “Be ready for whatever comes out of this place, okay?”

“Don’t worry, love, we’re ready,” he said with a hungry smile on his face. “Simply round them up and kick them out.”

She had done the spell a few times over the years after Klaus insisted that she’d learn it by heart for situations like these. Granted, she had been on full power back then, and she was currently only a little charged, but she could do the spell. Clean the entire place out of supernatural messes, people and spells protecting the compound. It had been a thing of beauty to develop together with Kol, making the spell elegant and thorough.

“Sam, could you get me up on the first-floor balcony? You’re invited to come in, of course,” Bella whispered in her ear, loving the confused faces of Rebekah and Elijah. She then cast a small spell that allowed the both of them to remain undetected for a short period.

“Of course,” Sam said as she threw Bella over her shoulder and ran around the corner before climbing the drain. Once having reached the balcony, she quietly opened the door and checked to see if the room was empty before walking Bella towards the walkway and hid her behind a pillar. “Will you be okay?” she whispered. “I don’t want to get a headache when you revoke my access again.”

Bella smiled at her and nodded. “Thanks, have fun.”

“Oh, I will.” Sam grinned before making her way out the same way as she got in.

As Bella was holding on to the pillar, she could feel her own energy buzz through the stone, it was a pleasant feeling that some of her old spells were still active. They had been minor repair spells, but it would be enough for her to tap into it to do the spell. She didn’t want to move because she refused to cast a spell to temporarily heal her ankle again. It was useless, she had only made it worse by using it to full control as she was running from the wolves earlier.

She put up her shield for protection as the spell she cast earlier wore off and had started to alert the witches and wolves. She retrieved a small plastic bag filled with ground up Wolfsbane and Lobelia flower and scattered it on the balustrade, careful not to touch the Lobelia flower herself as it’d weaken her even further.

Next was lighting a match; she needed the fire to purify the building of all witchcraft, including her old spells. It would be as if they’d begin with a clean slate, which wasn’t always that bad. Bella started to mutter the spell, creating a dust cloud of her herbs and sent it on its way. It was supposed to weave through every room and affect every wolf and witch in the building. She then lit a match and dropped it to create a fireball, safe for furniture, but it’d go after every supernatural being inside the home, except for her. Everyone had it programmed inside of their genetic makeup; fire bad. Run.

She thought she’d be more under attack from the witches by now, but they were freaking out as the fire kept growing, and Bella heard some spells being cast to try and kill the fire, but it didn’t work. She couldn’t help but let out a maniacal cackle before she started on the next portion of the spell, which wasn’t much of a spell. “My name is Isabella Marie Mikaelson-Swan. My name is on the deed of this building, and I hereby revoke all access to all supernatural beings not having my name. Get the fuck out of my house!” She could feel how her shield expanded outward and started pushing people out, they didn’t have a choice anymore. They had to leave.

Once everyone was out, Bella had to focus, she needed to invite people back in, but it sounded like they were too busy snacking downstairs for them to hear the invitation. When it stopped, she spoke again. “Kol, Klaus and Sam, please come inside. If Stefan and Damon are with you, they can come too. The rest just has to find a different place to rest up.”

“Hey!” Rebekah whined. “What about me?”

“Maybe tomorrow! Payback for calling me a whore!” Bella yelled as she slid down the pillar and sighed happily. She was home, and she could nap now.

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