Chapter 11

Klaus had had dreams about one of his favourite operas for the nights that Myriam was missing. Les Huguenots was grandiose and spectacular and very few operas were this way. The story was a gripping one as well, a tale of forbidden love, akin to Romeo and Juliet. Family. Long-festering hatred. Betrayal. The massacre of thousands.

He hadn’t been trying to fall asleep, he was turning New Orleans upside down to try and find his wife but hadn’t been able to find her. Not even her trustworthy witches were able to, and she wasn’t at Débauche. But for some reason, he found himself nodding off while brooding. Or when feeding and he couldn’t quite understand why. Yet.

He was supposed to go to the opera with Myriam after his new business partner had given him some tickets, but how was he supposed to go without her?

Did you forget about us?”

Klaus looked around and saw no one. “Show yourself!”

I can’t. I’ve been trying to instruct you to go to the opera house for two days now, and you’re not listening. Miss Myriam is there.”

“You could have told me that to begin with!” Klaus fumed.

I’m not strong. I was instructed to tell you but not to weaken you. Be careful. Mikael took her.”

“Mikael!” Klaus immediately took off and once he arrived at the Opera House. The crowd was laughing, and Mikael was standing proudly on the stage surrounded by people Klaus cared about, stopping him briefly in his tracks when he saw an unconscious Myriam hanging from a rack, reminding him of his own predicament when his father and his mother cursed the werewolf side of him. There were smoke fumes coming off of her as the ropes burned her, there were holes in her clothes from where Mikael had stabbed her to drain her of blood.

“Oh, yes, she’s a sight to behold, isn’t she, boy?” Mikael taunted him. “A wise decision to have her ingest vervain so nobody can compel her. She’s strong because even while torturing her she didn’t want to give up your location. Now, Marcel, however…” Mikael pointed at Marcel who was hanging from a cross. “He and Rebekah summoned me here, and he was more than happy to tell me where you lived. Have you found Elijah yet?”

He jumped on the stage to try and release Myriam, but the vervain burned his hands. Mikael pulled him away from her and held the white oak stake in front of his face.

“No!” Rebekah said as she tried to pull Mikael away from him, causing Mikael to stab her and throwing Klaus across the stage, impaling him on a pole. Klaus thought that Rebekah was trying to save him, but all she wanted was to free Marcel from his bonds.

It wasn’t until Elijah came and pulled the pole out of Klaus that they both quickly undid Myriam’s ropes. “There’s no helping Marcel,” Elijah said as he pushed the unconscious Myriam into his brother’s arms while Mikael was occupied with killing Marcel. “We must run.” Elijah pulled Rebekah off the floor, and they ran.

Mikael was calling for them as they walked into a side street and Elijah carefully placed Rebekah on the floor as he tore a metal spike from one of the nearby windows. “He’s coming. Feed our sister your blood, brother, and leave.”

“Marcel,” was the first thing she said as she woke.

He looked over to the Opera House as it burned.

“He’s gone, sister,” Elijah said calmly.

“No! No!”

“The three of you must flee the city,” Elijah said bravely. “I’ll hold him off, Niklaus.”

“No, we fight him together,” Klaus replied as he helped his sister to her feet before tending to Myriam, feeding some of his blood to her to help speed up the healing.

“We cannot fight him,” Elijah took a few steps towards his siblings. “All we can do is what we’ve done. We deceive him. We lead him astray. Now, I can do that as well as anyone. You take them far away from here. I’ll find you.”

“No, Elijah! No! You can’t!” Rebekah cried. “You can’t, Elijah!” She looked at Klaus with tears on her face. “This is my fault. This is all my fault!”

“It’s not your fault,” Klaus kindly said as Myriam was still unresponsive. “We could really use your demons, love,” he whispered as he pulled her up and put her over his shoulder. “It’s my fault, Rebekah. I’m so sorry.” The sound of the opera house collapsing drew his attention back to the building. “Marcel…” he said in barely a whisper. “I believed we had found a home here…”

“Niklaus, please,” Elijah said breathlessly. “You must leave. Go.” When Klaus opened his mouth to say something, Elijah raised his voice. “Leave!”

And that’s what he did. Carrying Myriam over his shoulder and pushing his sister along, they went to their safe house in Arkansas to plot their next move, to heal and to think of ways to move forward. Perhaps Elijah would be back in time before they’d leave again.

~o.O.o~

“You can’t be serious!”

“I nearly died, Klaus! I nearly died!” Myriam countered. “This is exactly what we’ve discussed so long ago, that in case Mikael would find you again, I’d run. That I’d become your gatekeeper. I’m not as durable as you, remember? I can keep myself safe and keep an eye on you, but if we’re together, it’s going to make things even more difficult. I can’t be with you, Klaus. Not until Mikael is dead.”

“I don’t want you to leave, you’re my wife!”

“And I don’t want to leave!” she yelled at him. “But I have to! Besides, it’ll be just you and Rebekah travelling, if I’m with you, it can get suspicious very fast!”

“Then promise me that you will check in every once in a while!”

“Why are we still shouting?!”

“Promise me!”

“I promise!”

~o.O.o~

2009

For the past 80 years, Myriam had been the buffer between Klaus and anyone who had been looking for him. She had killed most of the people as they were enemies. She had also done some digging into that curse of his. What was needed and why. Why there were doppelgangers, how often did they show up and when was the next popping up? Who was Katerina Petrova? Could she find information on her? A baby picture to aid Myriam in her search for the next doppelganger?

Myriam loved doing research, and because this concerned her husband, she went way down the rabbit hole to get what she needed. And now, she had all of her ducks in a row. Soon, her husband was going to join her again, and his curse would be broken. One less problem for the Mikaelson family.

Mikael had been desiccated and locked away in a tomb in North Carolina in 1995, making the world a much safer space for the time being, and she had briefly considered to rejoin Klaus at that time. However, as by divine happenstance, the next Petrova doppelganger had been born in Mystic Falls in 1992, and Elena Gilbert looked like a carbon copy of Katerina Petrova. An exact copy. As a child, but even more so when she grew into a teenager.

Myriam decided to move back to Mystic Falls, compel the city council to give her a rental home and find a job to keep an eye on the teenager. Teenagers could be so impulsive and didn’t see danger when it was staring them right in the face. She could have gone to the Mansion she had built two hundred years prior, but truth be told, time hadn’t been kind to it, and it needed to be renovated first. But there was no way in hell that she was going to stay in that fleabag motel when her home was being renovated. And humans were slow. She knew this was going to take some time.

She lived as human as possible. After leaving Klaus, she had briefly lived without a daylight ring and only moved around in the dark. The ring Klaus had given her was still, to this day, very expensive looking and vampires knew about Klaus having a wife. It was a hazard. It was a beautiful ring, there was no doubt about it, but a hazard. She had to wait for some of her belongings to arrive from Florence, which included some of her dark objects and one of her self-made daylight rings.

But even with her new ring and her wedding ring safely tucked away, she pretended to be human. Her demons made her appear even more human-like they’d done before, and she was happily living under the radar. She had to get to know the town of Mystic Falls and all of the key players all over again. Luckily, nothing had changed much, she had to deal with the same families, just generations apart, and they weren’t as trustworthy as their ancestors. No, this city council was smart.

They had Zach Salvatore as their vervain supplier, and Myriam tried to stay away from him because Zak Salvatore was his ancestor. A great uncle. Her Zak. The man that had been so kind as to take her in. The man who didn’t like her building the Mikaelson mansion because it was too much.

The council knew about vampires, that was a given. Would they know about werewolves? Would the Lockwoods know about werewolves? Perhaps it was one big family secret! Oh, Myriam loved unearthing secrets, but she had already established that none of the Lockwoods had triggered their curse yet. Otherwise, they’d stink terribly.

“You’ve been trying to avoid me for months,” Zach sounded as he came from the back of the Mystic Grill with a grin on his face. “They let me in, seeing as you’re keeping me coming in from the front while you’re working.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Myriam huffed, as she followed him to the storage room for some privacy. “Vicky, I’m going to take five!” She called out to the teenager who worked with her. “This is a big town, why would I avoid you?” Myriam then asked Zach.

“Because I know who you are, perhaps?” He smiled at her. “You have nothing to worry about, your secret is safe with me.”

“What secret?”

Zach sighed as he produced a diary from his bag and opened it to a page where she could see Zak’s handwriting and his drawing of her. “You’re her.”

“No, that’s not me, sugar,” she shook her head. “Have you had too much to drink?”

“I know about your kind, Myriam. My uncles are like you, although I believe you’re far more kind than they are. As I said, your secret is safe with me, but I do suggest you’re careful with your feeding habits. Your last… snack was a wealthy businessman.”

“I tore him apart and tossed him in the river. He might have been a wealthy businessman, but I have it on good authority that he was into some shady shit and was about to bankrupt one of the store owners.”

“They found him this morning,” he replied with a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. “While feeding on the bad guys is commendable, feed elsewhere. We do need a decent dose of bad guys in town so that the sheriff has something to do. Come join me for a drink after work sometime, okay? I’d love to hear stories about my great-great-great-uncle.”

“Sorry sugar, but I’m not a history book,” she said as she moved past him and pulled her phone out of her pocket. Dear Mr Jenkins. I seem to have gotten myself into a pickle regarding my food. Is there any way you can assist me?

Are you in Mystic Falls, again?!

Relax, mon Loulou. Trust me. Would you be so kind as to send bags of food to my home on a regular basis?

I’ll have something arranged. One of my underlings will arrive today with a cooler.

I’m working, he can’t!

Working?

I have to earn rent somehow 😉 Your underling can come by at 3 am tonight. No sooner.

Those blasted emoticons!

Thank you, Mr Jenkins, I’m going back to my shift now!

Zach followed Myriam out with a smirk. “So you’ll be coming by the Boarding House for that drink, right?”

Myriam sighed as she turned around to face him. “Fine… I suppose I owe you one.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Sure,” she sighed again. “Now shoo, I’m working here.”

The next day Myriam dutifully found her way to the Salvatore Boarding House. She could have gotten a room there instead of going through the painful process of acquiring a rental home, but she needed to stay out of Salvatore territory. And now she was right in it.

She had to admit, it was a beautiful home with a large driveway and a fantastic entrance. “Tadaa,” Zach greeted her with a smile. “Come on in, let me give you the grand tour!”

“Who built this place?” she asked in awe as they walked through the corridor. She had already sent her demons over to scope the place and find out about Zach’s true intentions, but they had come back with nothing. There wasn’t an evil bone in Zach’s body.

“Zak Salvatore,” he said with a smirk on his face. “Our line has a habit of calling their firstborns after ourselves. Uh, the son of Stefan and Damon’s half-brother. I suppose Giuseppe wanted to name a son after his brother with his lover.”

“Did Zak find happiness?”

Zach winced then. “You’re going to want a drink when I tell you his story,” he said as he led her to the parlour and poured her a large glass of bourbon. “Did you ever come back to Mystic Falls after you left?”

“No,” Myriam shook her head. “Not even to check up on Stefan and Damon, but to hear that that bitch turned them made me feel sick. They didn’t deserve this kind of life. It’s one thing to have a choice, but to have it forced upon you…”

Zach shrugged. “It happens, I believe that Stefan is happy about it, but I haven’t seen them both in a very long time. Stefan keeps his things here in his room, but that’s it. When he visits, it’s usually brief, and I’m usually never home when he does. I only know about his visits because he leaves some expensive bottles of bourbon behind,” he then let out a breath. “But those two are nothing but trouble. They’re not like you.”

She took a sip of her drink and looked at him. “All vampires are monsters, Zach. Some of us are better at controlling ourselves than others.”

“You’re nothing like them.”

“You don’t know that,” she pointed out. “Perhaps I’m merely being civil with you because I’m working on some evil master plan.”

“Yeah right,” he huffed as he pat on the journal next to him. “Zak did love you, you know.”

“Tell me what happened to him.”

Zach sighed deeply. “You’re not going to like this. On the day that you left, Giuseppe killed Stefan and Damon, but Katherine had been feeding them her blood for weeks, so they woke up in transition. Stefan had a fight with Giuseppe and inadvertently killed him. Zak walked in on Stefan and…”

Knowing what it had felt like when she turned herself, the endless hunger, the feeling of dread and horror filled her heart. “He didn’t!”

“I’m sorry.”

It was only more reason to hate Katerina for what she had done to the boys. This was personal now, much more personal than it had been in the beginning. She hurt someone Myriam cared about! “I’m going to kill her!”

“Don’t you mean ‘him’?”

“Oh, no, because if that bitch hadn’t been feeding Stefan and Damon with her blood, they wouldn’t have turned in the first place. Zak’s death is on her, not Stefan,” she said as she downed her glass. “Fucking bitch!”

“Ah, get in line. She’s trapped underneath Fell’s Church with her friends ever since the council rounded them up in 1864.”

“No, she’s not,” Myriam spat before she took a deep breath to calm herself. “But you’re right. Killing her is not my objective. Yet. She’s a side plot to the bigger story.”

“Why are you here, back in Mystic Falls?”

She took a moment to refill her drink and looked at Zach with a coy smile. “What? Can’t a girl feel a little homesick and want to visit for a while to see how things changed?”

“Sure, but this isn’t your home,” Zach pointed out. “Not like how it’s Stefan’s home.”

“I still lived here. Besides, I’m not in anyone’s way. I have a job.”

“You’re not going to stir up trouble?”

Myriam huffed. “Of course not. Unless that bitch Katerina comes back too, then she might have a problem but don’t worry, the humans of Mystic Falls are safe from me. I won’t harm them.”

“Good. Just checking. Otherwise, I would have told you to leave. We’ve had a good thing going for the last couple of years. No vampires, no werewolves, no witches apart from Sheila Bennett and she’s harmless.”

“She’s a Bennett witch, they’re not harmless.”

“She’s kooky, but a well-respected member of the community.”

“And her mother, and grandmother weren’t harmless. Watch your back with that one. Bennett witches are powerful, manipulative and love power. They can easily get addicted to it, and they’d likely want more, like an addict.”

“You’re just biased,” Zach let out a chuckle. “People change. Families change.”

Myriam pursed her lips before she heard some footsteps on the roof. “Do you have a rat infestation?”

“Nah, that’s likely Stefan coming back home, he loves the roof, allows him to see the entirety of Mystic Falls and what not.”

“I gotta go,” she said as she got to her feet.

“Why? He’d love to see you again!”

Myriam looked up to the ceiling as she could now hear him walk around on the first floor. While she was very angry with Katerina for turning Stefan and Damon and thus causing Stefan to kill her Zak, she wasn’t ready to face him yet. Nor was it the time to reveal that she was still alive.”Not yet,” she said in a whisper before running out of the house back to her own little home, which she decided to immediately check over for security flaws. If one of her Dark Objects left a gap somewhere. There was no doubt that where there was a Stefan, a Damon followed or would soon follow and she wanted to keep unwanted guests out.

Her own home was far from being finished from renovating, and this rental home was difficult to protect as it was part of the city council’s new scheme that everybody should be able to live in a home – they were desperate to keep their numbers up as it was only a small town. Small towns had it difficult, and Myriam wasn’t sure if she had to donate some money to the council again.

No.

She was Myriam Jenkins, Mystic Grill waitress who earned minimum wage and she did not have the money to donate to a town. Not this time. She was here for different reasons than entertainment.

Satisfied by her security issues, she opened her fridge and got a blood bag out of it, one of a week’s worth of blood, brought to her by one of Klaus’ underlings the night before.

The next day it was a little hard to get to work due to a freak storm, but she managed to get to her job anyway, providing shelter for anyone who needed it, but nobody showed up. It was almost as if she saw tumbleweeds rolling through the establishment out of sheer boredom.

She helped with the clean up the next day before work and headed home after her shift while she had to assure a concerned husband that she was alright and no, not hurt at all. And that yes, she was going to come to him that weekend.

But the next day, the entire town was mourning the lives of Greyson and Miranda Gilbert, who had an accident after picking up their daughter Elena from a bonfire party after a fight with her boyfriend. Elena survived the crash, miraculously, but her, and her brother Jeremy’s, parents did not.

Myriam wasn’t sure if this was a good thing or not. A child should not be without her parents, losing her own mother at 15 still hurt after so long. But on the other hand, the fewer family members Elena Gilbert had, the easier it would be to use her as Klaus’ salvation. Maybe Myriam should get rid of Jeremy and her aunt Jenna, too.

Elena and Jeremy Gilbert spent the summer at the Forbes house while Jenna made preparations to become their legal guardian. Jenna was still a child herself, Myriam could see nothing but trouble come from it.

Myriam’s demons told her that Katerina was in California playing with a Lockwood. No doubt it was Mason who was hanging around with a bunch of werewolves without knowing he was a werewolf himself. Until he triggered the curse.

People were stupid.

Somewhere in the first week of September Zach angrily walked into the Grill and pulled Myriam away from the bar. “What’s wrong, sugar?”

“I told you not to feed on people!” He hissed. “You can’t tell me that an animal killed the two you killed on the road last night! Torn apart or not, the council is smarter than that!”

“It wasn’t me!” Myriam growled. “I’ve been a good girl and have been feeding on blood bags and only feed on servants when I go and join my husband for a couple of days. Maybe it’s Stefan!”

“No. As far as I know, he’s not fallen off the wagon and is still feeding on bunnies.”

Myriam blinked then. “He doesn’t feed on humans?”

“He’s a ripper. The taste of human blood drives him insane, insatiable and always wanting more and more. He likes to play with his food too. He uh, told me this. But he has it under control.”

“Have you asked him?”

Zach sighed and shook his head. “He’s enrolling into school right now. I came to you first because I know you’re not on the animal diet.”

“And never will be, thank you very much!” Myriam huffed. “When I do feed, I am careful and won’t kill anyone. I even heal their wounds when necessary. Unless I’m angry. Then I can tear through an entire village like it’s nothing. But I’m here on a mission, and I have excellent self-control. It’s not me you have to worry about. Ask the Ripper,” she shot at him. “How dare you to ask me if I killed and mutilated two people,” she walked away from him and returned to her duties. Asshole. She wasn’t coming over for more drinks any time soon. Not even during the day when Stefan was supposedly in school. Asshole.

Humans were fickle. Vampires were fickle.

She missed her family.

~o.O.o~

Damon got back into town. Oh, he was good at hiding in the shadows, but she’d overheard some girls talking about a tall, dark and handsome stranger with the most piercing blue eyes and then another mentioning he was Stefan’s brother so yeah. Those bodies from a couple of days ago and Vicki Donovan’s attack were Damon’s fault.

But, so far, so good. He hadn’t actually seen her, and she had managed to avoid him while helping everyone to prepare for the Comet party. The same comet that passed by the day Myriam had left Mystic Falls and the same comet which energy was used to seal the vampires underneath Fell’s Church.

But she never attended the celebrations. To make sure that she’d stay out of Damon and Stefan’s way, no matter how curious she was, she needed to be more invisible. She couldn’t stay invisible forever especially with the bodies dropping left and right, but for now, she lead her own life. Damon and Stefan weren’t crucial to her mission, but Elena was. And in a way, Myriam was grateful that Stefan gave Elena a necklace filled with vervain, even if it wasn’t his to give away or his to have in his possession.

She’d reveal herself during the Founders Party that she had been invited to attend, there was this whole heritage thing going on, and Myriam was curious to see how things have endured the test of time. No doubt Elena was going to take Stefan to the ball, and Damon was abusing Caroline so no doubt he was coming with her. Myriam couldn’t care less about Caroline. In fact, the girl might be the only reason why Myriam would kill in Mystic Falls.

Founders Party first, killing Caroline later even if it meant taking away Damon’s toy.

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