Chapter 13

2010

After the Founder’s Day event – which was highly enlightening as John Gilbert addressed the entire council while Myriam was present about the ongoing vampire problem, she headed home and relaxed in her room before her demon attached to Stefan alerted her that Damon had left Stefan alone with a glass of human blood and that he was about to drink it.

She made her way downstairs and pulled the glass out of his hands. “Don’t you even think about it!” She growled as she threw it in the fireplace. “You need to tell your brother the truth about your little problem here, Stef.”

“Why did you do that!”

“I’m trying to help you!”

“Then let me drink that blood! I have it under control!”

“No, you obviously don’t,” she said calmly. “And I know you don’t like this side of you either. Let me help you, Stefan. Please. I want Mystic Falls to remain intact, and I don’t want you to tear everyone to shreds.”

“I have it under control, Myriam.”

“Yep, and I’m the Queen of Italy. Oh wait…” she thought for a moment. “Look, Damon isn’t buying your crap either, and I know about the recent blood bank thefts. You’ve been going through blood like you’re drinking water. That ends now.”

“Nope, can’t,” he said as he shook his head. “I’m Elena’s date to the Founder’s Court tomorrow.”

“Damon can do it. Or Matt. Or anyone else, but not you,” she said as she snapped his neck and dragged him off to the basement. “Damon! Stefan’s calling in sick for the rest of the week! Time for some vampire detox before he does something stupid!”

“What!” Damon came back downstairs and saw Myriam dragging his brother down the stairs. “What are you doing?”

“He’s still drinking human blood, Damon. There’s a fridge filled with blood bags in the basement that he’s been hiding from you. I’m doing what you should have been doing,” she told him sternly. “I’m going to bleed him out, and I need you to find me some animal blood… Might take a while before he’s really clean and all. I might as well desiccate him to make sure.”

“But why?”

She sighed as she dropped Stefan to the floor. “You’ve seen him change ever since Elena fed him her blood, haven’t you? He’s unhinged. He doesn’t have the control you have, and that’s not because he’s been on animal blood for so long. Stefan’s a Ripper. You must have heard of Rippers, haven’t you? No? Well, let me tell you that I’ve seen a few in my life. Rippers enjoy to abuse, manipulate and to mutilate their victims. Once they have a taste of human blood, they can’t stop drinking. You can stop. You know the limits of a human body but Stefan will keep going because all he hears is his victim’s heart and he keeps on going until that stops beating,” she explained to him. “They’re not to be reasoned with, they’re closer to being a predator than we regular vampires are. Rippers blackout and just… let loose. All sense of morality out of the window.”

“Well I don’t have a sense of morality,” Damon huffed.

“You pretend not to have a sense of morality, but even you care about people, and you know when you’re taking things too far. If we allow Stefan to be consumed by his bloodlust, we’ll have a harder time of bringing him back, and we might have to kill him. Do you want that?”

“Well…”

“He’s your fucking brother, of course not!” She angrily shot at him. “I know you two don’t often see eye to eye, but he’s your brother, and when you live as long as we’ve been living, of course, you hate each other for the most part, but he’s still family and family is important. We’re not going to kill him. Not when this is easily fixed.”

“Fine,” Damon sighed. “I’ll call the school and tell him he has the flu or something.”

“Good, now, are you going to help me to get him downstairs or what?”

Damon let out a long sigh. “I suppose… can’t have the town go looking for him and draw attention to us, can we?”

Myriam took extreme pleasure in bleeding Stefan out and pumping him full of vervain. Hearing his cries of agony turn into moans over the days, sounded like music to her ears. He refused to drink animal blood or anything else, so she decided to torture him instead – all the while telling Damon and reassuring Elena, that this was the only way to cure him.

“Come on, Stefan,” Myriam sighed as she kneeled down in front of him. “You barely have anything left in your system and believe me, desiccation is a bitch. You won’t survive.”

“I don’t want to survive.”

“What?”

“And you need to stop Elena from visiting me. No more. After all that I’ve done, it has to end. I just want it over.”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” she huffed as she pulled a large bore syringe out of her pocket filled with animal blood and injected him with it, causing the weakened Stefan to cry out in pain. “I’ll force feed you instead. You can thank me later.”

Stefan let out a whine. “You don’t understand. Whenever I’m like this… I lose control. I actually want to kill people just for sports, and I enjoy it. And that’s wrong. I don’t deserve to live. Lexi brought me back a few times but… I keep falling off the wagon!”

Myriam ruffled his hair as she got to her feet. “And yet, you keep on doing your best. Fighting our bloodlust is a constant struggle every single day, Stefan. I know someone who has difficulties controlling himself, but he just about manages… if his brother doesn’t get in his way, but he manages, and he’s a bigger monster than you are. I know that your bloodlust is different. You can’t actually help yourself, so snacking on animals instead is admirable. More vampires like you should do that to keep the world a safer place. And yeah, you’re not my favourite person in the world, and perhaps you do need to die, but I’d rather see you alive and struggle with your demons than to give you an easy way out.” She then walked towards the door. “I’ll be back in a few hours with a bottle of blood. If you’re not drinking on your own by then, I will continue to inject it, and the syringes will become bigger and blunter. Stop feeling sorry for yourself, get over it.”

Stefan was back to his usual self before Founder’s Day, and Myriam moved out of the boarding school into her old, now remodelled and renovated home. While she had proven to Liz Forbes that she was, in fact, human, she checked in on Myriam anyway.

“What a lovely home you have here, quite an upgrade from your rental home, isn’t it?” She said as she stood on the stoop and looked up. “You know, this house was built by-”

“My ancestor, Myriam Hawthorne,” Myriam replied kindly and invited the sheriff in when she saw the dumbfounded look on her face. “Forgive me for my deception, sheriff. When you come from money and want to live a normal life for once, you’d like to keep a low profile.”

“So you are related?”

Myriam nodded. “I was named after her, of course. Her maiden name was Jenkins, she’s like my great great great aunt?” She said a bit confused, blinking for emphasis as she lead the sheriff into the study. “Our family always had money, like… an excessive amount of it and I wanted to get away from it for a bit, renovating this home gave me the perfect excuse to rent.” She sighed then. “I’m not directly related to her, so I’m not a part of the founding family, or at least her. She’s like royalty. She was an amazing woman, and I’ve known for a very long time that we look alike, so it’s a bit…”

“Awkward?”

“Yeah,” Myriam smiled at her. “And strange. I’m nothing like her, but if you wish for me to donate to the town then-”

“Oh, no, don’t you worry about that!” Liz laughed, waving away the idea. “I was just curious, that’s all, I didn’t mean to pry.”

“You’re more than welcome to, but I do hope you understand why I deceived you when it came to my ancestor. Once someone learns you have money…”

“Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me,” the sheriff nodded. “For all everyone else knows is that someone won the lottery and bought you a proper house in our lovely little town. Speaking of our little town, what are you doing for Founder’s Day? There’s a parade and everything!”

“Oh, yeah,” Myriam smiled. “I heard about that!”

“Are you coming?”

“Nah, I still have a lot to do inside the house, and I think I’m going to set up a herb garden in the backyard. Grow you some more vervain, grow some aconite and other good stuff,” Myriam shrugged. “Make the most from my day off from the Grill.” In fact, Myriam had an excellent reason to stay away from the town’s centre for Founder’s Day. Some of the tomb vampires were planning on something, and the council had plans now that they had yet another Gilbert device in their hands. Maybe she should warn Stefan and Damon… Nah. What mattered was that Elena was safe.

Besides, one of her demons that she had attached to a certain someone had returned to Mystic Falls. It was best if Myriam stayed out of sight to have an element of surprise.

“I thought you didn’t believe in vampires?”

“I don’t, but you do,” Myriam smiled at her. “And if you, and the council, feel safe with a boatload of vervain, I’ll happily supply you guys with it. But, just out of curiosity… Since you believe in vampires and all… what would you do if your own daughter turned out to be one?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Caroline isn’t a vampire.”

She wasn’t satisfied with that answer. “Come on, believe for a second that I believe in vampires and that they’re real. What if Caroline is a vampire? What would you do?”

“She’s my daughter.”

“Of course, but you and the council are hell bent on killing vampires, so…”

“She’s my daughter. Should, or if, she’s a vampire then I’ll make sure she won’t be able to harm anyone,” Liz replied, slightly agitated. “What kind of a question was that anyway?”

Myriam shrugged. “I tend the bar at the Grill, I like playing these kinds of games sometimes. And to me, your answer showed that you need to work on your standards, your own morality. Like… you would arrest anyone if they’d shoplift, but your daughter? Nah. You’ll just tell her to bring the items back and ground her for the rest of her life.”

“Ah, just you wait until you have children of your own.”

“Ha! Never!”

~o.O.o~

Mason Lockwood had returned to Mystic Falls, and he was a werewolf. Plain and simple. Myriam could sense it, smell it even, kinda like wet dog, especially after he had gone for a run early in the morning. Maybe it was a good thing Mason was in Mystic Falls, his cousin Tyler had been spiralling out of control and causing many accidents. Now that his father was dead, thanks to the Gilbert device, he’d need someone to tell him about his heritage.

It was no secret to Myriam that the Lockwoods were werewolves, and she knew that Damon and Stefan didn’t even know about the existence of werewolves. She wasn’t going to enlighten them, either. It was something they’d had to discover for themselves.

Anna and the tomb vampires were dead. Yay Mystic Falls Council! Good job! Damon nearly died in the process. And Myriam had spotted Katerina a few times, pretending to be Elena or spying on the rest of the village. So far, she managed to stay out of her way, observing the bitch in return.

Myriam had finally found a use for Caroline. Under the threat of ‘I killed you before, and I won’t hesitate to do that again’ Caroline was now Myriam’s spy amongst Damon, Stefan, and Elena. And Bonnie. Caroline definitely had to keep an eye on the Bennett witch, but also keep Elena safe. With Katerina in town, Elena’s safety was up in the air – even though Elena was likely not Katerina’s reason to be in town.

No, Myriam figured it would be because she wanted Stefan and Damon back. Stefan more than Damon. And, likely the moonstone that Myriam had been after but had managed to snag it from the Lockwood vault during the last Founders party. Klaus was happy, relieved that Myriam had procured that exact stone and trusted her to keep it safe.

Should Katerina find out that Myriam was in town and in possession of the moonstone – the Lockwood family heirloom, then Myriam was going to make sure the bitch wouldn’t get it. She wanted to save Katerina alive and well for her husband to torture, but Myriam was sure that he would love her head on a spike as a gift when keeping her alive wasn’t possible. Because Myriam could be tempted.

But, for now, she was too busy with the Salvatore brothers to care about anything but them and Elena. Which was good, it meant that Myriam still had some freedom left before she could start making Katerina’s life a living hell again.

Myriam needed to keep Mason Lockwood alive, too. Klaus needed a werewolf for his ritual and- It suddenly dawned on her that this was the actual reason why Katerina was in town. She wanted the moonstone and a werewolf to appease Klaus and have him stop hunting her down, wasn’t it?

Well, that wasn’t going to happen.

Katerina was a toy, not someone who was allowed to be free from the wrath of Klaus Mikaelson.

“Hi Mason,” Myriam smiled sweetly at him as she looped her arm through his. “How’s your day going?”

“Just fine, Myriam, what can I do for you?”

She turned him around to start walking towards her home. Her demons had told her that the Scoobies were going to try to hurt him – or worse – and she wasn’t going to let that happen. Despite Bonnie’s mother having taken care of Mikael in the 1990’s, Myriam couldn’t allow the Bennett witch to mess up her plans. And so, Mason had to be taken out of the equation. “I have an issue at my home that I could use your help with if you don’t mind?”

“Of course not, always happy to help, but I’m busy with-”

“I know, the ball’s preparations. I’m sure they can miss you for a bit,” she pleasantly smiled at him. “I really need to get this heavy thing lifted and you…” she sighed happily as she put her hand on his biceps and squeezed it a little. “You sure look like you are the right person to help me out.”

Mason barked out a laugh. “Sure thing, Myriam.”

She lead him back to her house, which was just outside of town and headed straight into their basement. Like their home in New Orleans, Myriam had made sure that they had a sturdy, soundproof, basement in case they’d have guests to entertain. Her demons would do the rest. She had made sure that she had a few strong ones to subdue the werewolf and her dark objects would make sure he couldn’t leave either.

Klaus was going to kill her if he’d turn and bit her.

She watched as the demons pushed Mason against the wall and she started to search his body for his phone and other things. “So, here’s the thing,” she said as she fumbled with Mason’s phone. “I know what you are and I know that you and Katherine are an item.”

“How!”

“I have my sources,” she knowingly smiled as she looked at him. “In any case, your relationship with Katherine is false. You may love her, but she only wants to use you. To gift you to someone so he can break his curse. I don’t want that to happen, so I’m keeping you safe here.”

“They’ll go looking for me.”

“They can try, but trust me, I don’t want you to be found, so even if they’d search this basement, they wouldn’t be able to see you or hear you,” Myriam said as she closed the cell he was in. “Bonnie, Damon, and Stefan want to kill you because they believe you’re a threat. And you are. To them.”

“How?”

“Again, I have my sources,” she knowingly smiled as she typed away furiously on Mason’s phone. “Right now I’m sending an email to your sister-in-law and your nephew. You’re leaving town, heading back to California.”

“Tyler.”

“Yeah, once he kills someone, I’ll have my ways of telling him your family’s history and lineage. Don’t worry, he’s a good boy. I’ve been keeping an eye on him for a while now.” Once she had finished sending the email, she turned off the GPS and crushed it with her bare hands. “You’re Katherine’s toy. That makes you my toy. So, what do you want to have for dinner?”

“You’ll pay for this.”

“Nah. Be a good boy and I’ll keep you safe,” Myriam smiled at him before leaving him in the company of her demons and her toys. Oh, she was definitely going to have some fun with sharp objects on the wolf later.

“Hey!” Mason called out, causing Myriam to turn around and look at him. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I’m willing to help you, but that doesn’t mean I have to like you. You’re not here because I want to be friends with you, but because of what you are.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that the only concern right now for you is that your girlfriend and her exes want you dead, both for different reasons. I kind of like throwing wrenches into your girlfriend’s plans. Keeping you alive will upset her, and my partner and I love it when she’s upset. You’re safe here. I’ll feed you, I’ll give you water, but that’s as far as things go.”

Myriam then went upstairs, closing the big door separating the basement from the house and drowned out Mason’s cries before pouring herself a stiff drink. She was curious what Katerina was going to do next now that Myriam had taken away one of her toys.

She opened her laptop and browsed through the emails she’d received from Isabella, her friend in New Orleans who was still running Myriam’s club for her. Isabella had kept her up to speed on everything over the years. Either by post nor now, by email. They were still going strong, and Myriam gave the go-ahead to expand the building as much as the city would allow them to.

If they wouldn’t allow them to, then Myriam had to go and look for different options. Perhaps finally branching out to the other coast so that they could help more people.

Isabella also kept Myriam apprised of the comings and goings of Marcel Gerard. After the Mikaelsons had fled New Orleans because of Mikael and believed Marcel to be dead, Marcel miraculously survived and had started to take up the mantle of ‘King of New Orleans.’ Was Myriam informing her husband about this? No. Because their priority was to break his curse and then maybe New Orleans.

But Myriam wasn’t quite liking hearing about Marcel treating the witches poorly and all the whispers about a new powerful Claire witch having been born a few years after the doppelganger was born unnerved her. Claire witches needed to be protected and to be raised properly, and she just knew that eventually, Marcel would get his dirty hands on her. Myriam wasn’t a fan of New Orleans witches, especially Claire witches, because they were power hungry and backstabbing bitches.

She had hooked up Klaus with a witch from a lesser-known New Orleans witch family to help with the plans they had for his safety. Maddox was a male witch who was observant and strong, powerful. Isabella had hired him several times to check the wardings and spells on Débauche, and she trusted him. Klaus himself had found a witch to help him, but according to Isabella, Greta Martin had a crush on him, and she didn’t like that. At all. So Maddox was there to keep an eye on Greta as well.

With having taken Mason, Myriam now had to keep an eye on Tyler Lockwood, because there was no doubt that Katerina would want another werewolf and would do anything to have Tyler trigger his curse. Ugh. What a mess. Maybe she should kill Mayor Lockwood’s wife and kidnap Tyler just in case. But that would raise far too many red flags in Mystic Falls.

The good thing was, nobody knew that she was in possession of the Moonstone already. And everyone believed that everyone else had it. It was possible that this situation could escalate, but at least it were vampires that were involved, and Elena being the only human. But knowing Katerina, she might actually attack Elena’s family to get the Moonstone back. Which was fine. The less family Elena had left, the easier it would be to have her offer herself to the sacrifice willingly.

The good thing was that Katerina was now kept safely in the tomb underneath the church, courtesy of Damon and Bonnie. Katerina was out of harm’s way, lonely, and would painfully desiccate. Myriam knew exactly where she was, and that felt great.

She was woken up by the demon she had put with Elena, to keep an eye on the doppelganger to make sure she was being kept safe by the Salvatores. And apparently, they hadn’t made sure of her safety. Elena had been taken, and she was currently in transit towards the south. Groaning, Myriam instructed the demon to relay what was being said and keep her apprised of the location before she got into her car and drove off.

Myriam wasn’t far behind. After about an hour drive on high speed, Elena was handed over to a vampire, likely one without a daylight ring due to the tinted windows of the car, and Myriam was close. She had just missed it. She spotted the fresh dead body on the ground and kept driving.

Elena was taken to an abandoned house by the vampire, and Elena finally came to, which made it easier for Myriam’s demon to communicate with her. She told him to press Elena to ask questions. Who are they? What do they want? Did they know she wasn’t Katherine? And, of course, the English lady vampire knocked Elena out for not remaining quiet.

Were this Rose and Trevor? Myriam couldn’t believe that they were still alive! While Myriam had never met them in person, Klaus had told her about their involvement in Katerina’s betrayal. She had her demon follow the two vampires through the house as she continued to drive and didn’t like hearing Rose and Trevor mention Elijah.

Fucking Elijah.

There was no doubt that Elijah wanted Elena for himself and to kill Klaus because of the little white lie that Klaus had told him back in Germany. Myriam hadn’t been there, but Klaus had written to her with the story. The story was that Elijah lied to Klaus about things. Klaus had pretended that Rebekah was still out and about with someone by writing Elijah letters in her name and handwriting, then Elijah lied again. Something about Nazi werewolves, from what Myriam could remember and then Klaus telling Elijah he dropped all of their siblings in seas all over the world in their cosy little coffins.

It was a lie, of course. Kol, Rebekah, and Finn were all safe and sound. They always had been. But there was no doubt that Elijah wanted to kill Klaus, and the only way for Elijah was to do that was to allow Klaus to break the curse and then kill him during the initial transition where he’d be at his weakest.

If Myriam could, she would kill Elijah instead. But, for now, sabotaging his plans would have to do. He had to back off and stay away.

Myriam pushed her demon to wake Elena and to force her to her feet. To continue to ask questions, but Myriam didn’t like the answers that she heard. Rose and Trevor were going to hand Elena over to Elijah. There was no way in hell that she’d allow that to happen.

She parked the car next to the blacked out van and gently knocked on the door.

“That can’t be Elijah already, can it?” Trevor wondered as he walked to the door and opened it, revealing Myriam. “I’m sorry, love, but-”

“I’m here for the girl,” Myriam said as she pushed past Trevor. “Elijah’s delayed.”

“But you’re human!”

“Am I?” Myriam continued to walk inside the house. “Hey, Elena.”

“Myriam?”

“Don’t worry, you’re safe now. Damon and Stefan are on their way as well, they’re about two hours behind me,” she said as she moved between Rose and Elena. “Did you really think Elijah wouldn’t have known about Elena already? I’ve been in Mystic Falls for years, making sure the Doppelganger was safe, and you made me go all the way out here to come and pick her up again. Are you two completely off your rocker?”

“Can you grant us the same forgiveness as Elijah can?”

“Forgiveness for your hand in Katerina’s betrayal?” Myriam huffed. “Why would I do that? So you could have a cushy life and not have to look over your shoulders anymore? Please. If it hadn’t been for you two, the curse would have been broken already, and the world would have been a lot safer.”

“W-wait,” Elena stammered as she looked at Myriam. “You’re a vampire?”

“Of course I am, Elena.”

“But why didn’t Stefan and Damon tell me? Or Bonnie?”

“Bonnie is an idiot who can’t see a cheap spell from miles away, and Stefan and Damon know to keep my secret because I’ll kill them before they spill the beans on me anyway,” Myriam explained. “I’m older than Stefan and Damon, but I have a particular fondness for their family. It’s a long and boring story.”

“And how do you know about the Originals?”

“Who doesn’t?” Myriam shrugged.

“Stefan and Damon?”

“I didn’t say they were smart or the seekers of more knowledge. Their sire didn’t teach them right, and I had to leave town before I could educate them properly.”

“Their sire? But that’s Katherine!”

“Hooray! You’re definitely the sharpest tool in the toolbox!”

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