Chapter 19

Her demon had been present but had been unable to relay any information about what had happened in the room with Elena and Esther. It wasn’t until Elijah asked Elena about whether or not he should be concerned about his mother, that Myriam’s demon could read Elena’s thoughts and give Myriam the information she needed.

But it was already too late for Myriam to do something about it as the special champagne was already being passed along. “Don’t drink it,” she whispered to Klaus as she was standing next to him and told the demon in Kol to take over and not drink the champagne, either while Esther made her speech.

“Why?”

“Trust me.”

“Myriam.”

Mon LouLou, I’ll tell you later,” she sighed frustratedly. “Just don’t drink it.”

After the toast, Klaus gently guided Myriam outside where they pretended to look at the horses that were in front of the carriages. “Now, tell me what that was all about.”

“Your mother isn’t here for forgiveness or to be a family with you and the rest of the family, Klaus,” Myriam replied softly as she gently ruffled the horse’s mane. “Elena had willingly parted with some of her blood when she was with your mother so she could perform a spell to bind you all together as one.”

“I don’t see anything wrong with that.”

“Bind you as in, if one of you dies, so do all of you, Klaus,” she snarled. “I managed to save you and Kol from that, but to save the rest of your siblings will require some heavy duty magic.”

“That’s preposterous,” Klaus huffed. “Mother said she’d forgiven me. And-”

“And here we go again,” Myriam rolled her eyes.

“Alright, even if you were right…”

“I am!”

“Who’s willing to die so eagerly?”

“Who do you think?” Myriam retorted. “It’s not Elijah, not Rebekah and not Kol!”

“Finn. Of course,” he growled. “What you’re saying is that they’re still linked together and risk of dying? Why would mother want to do this?”

“For the same reason she created your Father the way that he was; she still finds that turning you was a mistake, a blight, and she wants to set things straight. Make things right again,” she looked at him. “She hasn’t changed, Klaus. She never will. Like Mikael, she wants you, and your siblings, dead.”

“I’m going to kill her!” Klaus growled. “Again!”

“Can’t you at least wait until we’ve found a witch powerful enough to undo this so you can safely get rid of Finn, too?” Myriam asked as she pulled him back to her. “Granted, I don’t like Elijah much, but you do need a dose of him in your life every once in a while. And Rebekah is fun to hang around with too when she’s not being bitchy.”

“And are you suggesting not to tell anyone either?”

“I think you should tell Elijah, Kol and Rebekah, but not Finn. And definitely not that I saved the both of you from being linked in that spell because then they’ll start asking why they weren’t saved. But not tonight. Tomorrow,” she said as she softly kissed his lips. “And, speaking of leaving me out of things, I think it’s best if I move back behind you, instead of right next to you.”

Klaus blinked at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m afraid of your mother, Klaus. It’s either me running away, which I’m not going to do, or take a few steps back and let you handle this shit. The chances of you surviving this is bigger than me surviving it.”

He sighed and nodded. “But then I don’t want to hear you yell at me for doing things differently.”

“I won’t, I’ll be doing normal wifey stuff. Apart from cleaning. I might do some cooking when I feel like it,” she smiled at him. “Because my husband will fix what his mother is doing to her children and will keep his wife safe from his mother, yes?”

“But you’re not running?”

“No,” she kissed him again. “I’m staying. I’m not able to do much against your mother, but you’re less afraid of her than you were of Mikael. So, I’m staying. With you.”

There was some commotion on the balcony above them, and it was Kol breaking Matt’s hand. And then it was Kol flying off the balcony and Damon jumping after him. As Kol was lying on the ground, Myriam yelled for Damon to leave Kol alone, and Damon broke Kol’s neck. Stefan came running out, and shortly everyone at the ball came outside too.

While everyone was just standing there and looked at Damon’s retreating back, she pulled off her stiletto shoes and launched both of them at his back with such a speed that they got lodged into his back. “Asshole! You really had to go and spoil this evening, didn’t you?”

“Oh no, this evening was long spoiled when Stefan snapped my neck so that Elena could go and talk with your mother-in-law, so yeah, don’t mind me for taking my revenge!”

“On my best friend!”

“He was hurting Matt!”

“Who the fuck cares about the quarterback?!”

“Elena does!”

“Fuck Elena!”

“I’d love to!”

Myriam started to laugh then and pulled her shoes out of his back. “Don’t you ever hurt my best friend out of frustration ever again, hear me?”

“He’ll live,” Damon muttered.

Her eyebrow arched as she dropped her arms to her side. “Perhaps. But will you, if you piss off the wrong person? Watch yourself, Damon. I can only protect you so far from my family, and I don’t want to protect your brother at all. I want to kill him myself.”

“Yeah well, feel free. Then maybe, maybe, the world will regain some common sense.”

“So I can go and kill him right now?” She smiled widely. “Really? I can?”

“No! Of course not!” Damon countered annoyed. “This is just a spat between siblings, stay out of it.”

“But nobody will stop me, you know. If I turn back and kill him… nobody will bat an eye except for maybe Elena and the blondie… oh, wait… I can kill her too!”

“Myriam!”

“What!”

“Since when are you so vengeful and ready to kill everyone?”

She sighed. “I always have been, Damon, I was merely careful about it and biting my tongue all the times I’ve been to Mystic Falls. If someone wrongs me, they usually end up dead. Not you, though. But I’ve always hated your brother for doing what he did. Forcing you to turn… Killing Zak… And Zach…”

“Zach was me, but Stefan set Zach up for that by locking me up and stuff. I had no reason to kill Zach, although he hated me. Loooooved Stefan because Stefan is the good one from both of us.”

“Yeah right.”

“You’re not killing Stefan.”

“We’ll see,” Myriam shrugged as she put her shoes back on and walked back to the party.

~o.O.o~

The next day Kol managed to drag Klaus away from the house to go and have some fun. Myriam still kept her demons on them, just in case, but she tried to relax and found that she couldn’t do that in her own home because of Esther and Finn. Instead, she drove to Richmond and treated herself to some retail therapy and a mani and pedi. Because why not? She said she’d be more the wife instead of the protector, and this is what a wife did.

She didn’t interfere in anything for days, not even when Meredith Fell drove a stake through Elijah’s heart and causing nearly everyone to pass out. Almost everyone, because Klaus and Kol hadn’t been linked. She didn’t complain when Klaus sent Kol away to Denver, Colorado to make friends with Jeremy and she didn’t mind. Jeremy was harmless, and she knew that Klaus needed leverage over Elena and the Scoobies at some point. Kol was the right person to do so.

At least Kol would be still alive and not boxed.

She was happily sipping a glass of wine while she was reading a book on the porch of her home. With Esther and Finn in the wind, her home felt like a home again, and she’d done an immediate cleansing of the house after they had failed to return. Myriam hadn’t missed the sound of a car stopping in the driveway and two people getting out. “The Doppelganger and the Witch…” she said as she didn’t look up from her book. “What can I do for you?”

“We need your help.”

Myriam looked up then, in surprise. “My help? For what?”

“We’re having a problem with… Alaric. Bonnie isn’t confident that she can help him and the herbs that Meredith Fell gave him to suppress… don’t work,” Elena replied. “Alaric’s in trouble.”

“And I should care, why?”

“He’s killing all the council members!”

“And?”

“It’s Ric. We want Ric back.”

Myriam sighed. “And why should I help you? I know that you’re still planning on killing my family, one way or another.”

“Because,” Bonnie said simply. “With Alaric insane and on the loose, he’ll be a danger to Elena as she’s from the founding families. He’ll also be a danger to you because your name is on that list too. Despite it being a fake name, he knows it’s you.”

“Again, Elena isn’t my problem. And let him come. He’s human. I’m a vampire. I’ll kill him first,” she replied. “Problem solved.”

“You don’t get it. Alaric is a vampire hunter. And now he’s possessed by a killer. You won’t hear him coming.”

“When the fuck did that happen?” Myriam blinked. Insane was one thing, possessed another. “Who’s possessing him?”

“We don’t know. It’s the darkness, likely from being killed too much and wearing the Gilbert ring,” Elena said as she handed Myriam an old Gilbert journal. “It happened in 1912 too.”

Myriam quickly read the diary and hummed. “Well, Samantha was just plain crazy from what I can tell, it wasn’t the ring,” she replied as she downed her glass and got to her feet. “Very well, take me to the patient. I’ll see what I can find out about what’s going on with him.”

They brought her to the Salvatore house where Alaric was sitting on the sofa, a big flask of some herbal mixture sitting right next to him. “Right, Bonnie, thank you. You can go. Elena can stay if she so wishes.”

“But…”

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep Elena and Alaric alive, that’s a promise,” Myriam smiled sweetly. “I believe you have a mother to attend to?”

Bonnie grumbled something before walking out. Myriam sat down next to Alaric on the couch and slapped his knee. “So, I hear you’re being a dick, and they’ve been trying to fix you.”

“I can’t believe they thought you can help me,” Alaric sighed as he relaxed into the couch. “I’m not in the mood for any jokes, Myriam.”

“I might be your only chance, Ric,” she said as she took his hand and took off the ring for her to fiddle with, for her demons and spirits to check it over. “So, how does this ring work? You die, you come back to life?”

“But every time you die, you end up further away from your body, so it takes a while to come back. And after you do, you don’t remember what you’ve seen or experienced on the other side,” Ric replied.

“So… for all you know someone’s been messing with your soul on the other side, and you wouldn’t know?”

“No, I- what? Is that even possible?”

Myriam shrugged. “A lot is possible with magic. It’s how Esther came back, wasn’t it? These rings were spelt by a Bennett witch to bring you back to life. Magic requires balance. Magic needs balance. Getting back to life after death could piss off the entire witch population on the other side.”

“I hadn’t even thought about that.”

“Nobody likely thought about that,” Myriam muttered as she started to get images from her demons about the ring, about Ric’s state of mind, about everything concerning him. And Esther. Every time Ric died, Esther found him. And spoke about her hatred towards her children, vampires, and about killing them. That she had plans for him. The rest was the effect of the ring itself, but she had been polluting his soul. “Yeah, I can fix you,” she eventually said with a nod. “Might take a few sessions, but I can fix you. I need to get a few things from my home, and then we can start, what do you say?”

“You’re not a witch.”

“No, but I am a Voodoo priestess, and I have more tricks on my sleeve, I don’t need magic to fix you,” she ruffled his hair as she looked at Elena. “I’m keeping the ring and don’t you dare to refuse me.”

“I’m not!” Elena said quickly. “You can have it, just please, fix him.”

“Call your friend Caroline to keep an eye on him, I don’t want you to be alone with Alaric for long, but I’ll be back shortly, and then we can start,” Myriam said as she got to her feet and pocketed the ring. She was a little bit rusty on her rituals and would need to call Isabella for some help in preparation.

Myriam didn’t care for Alaric, but after realising that Esther was behind it, she was more than happy to one-up the bitch. And it wasn’t as if she was busying herself with Klaus’ affairs, this was a little project of her own, and it didn’t have anything to do with the spell most of his siblings were affected by.

She returned an hour later, after having spoken to Isabella and gathered all the things she needed for the ritual she was going to perform on Alaric and cleared one of the rooms upstairs for her to do her work in. She drew some symbols on the floor and asked Alaric to lay down in the middle of it. Both Elena and Caroline were standing in the doorway, both having apprehensive looks on their faces.

“Oh don’t worry, everything will be alright,” Myriam assured them as she used her demons to keep Alaric pinned down to the floor and directed some demons inside of him while she chanted.

Everyone believed that possession was done by spirits or evil entities, and in a way, people were right. Some possessions were done by ghosts, but there were multiple layers of existence in the world. Different planes where demons and other creatures live. Alaric wasn’t possessed. His subconscious had been manipulated on a different plane; the Other Side, and to fix that, she needed to draw strength from her demons to mend his soul back into one piece, and not fragmented and heightened as it was now.

While she was chanting, she smeared some oil over his body, burned a few herbs and walked around him, intensely watching how Alaric responded to her demons dealing with his fractured psyche. Her demons kept him on the ground, but he was screaming and trying to break free. Both Elena and Caroline were horrified by what they were seeing.

After thirty minutes, Alaric passed out, and Myriam kept going for another fifteen until she decided to take a small break. “Good news is, I think that it’s working. Bad news? I’ll have to continue in about an hour after a feed and some rest. Do you want me to continue this all night long or do you want me to come back a few times?”

“Whatever you feel is necessary, Myriam,” Elena replied. “Is he okay?” she wanted to approach him, but Myriam stopped her.

“It’s not a good thing to touch him now. Leave him be. He’s alright, I promise,” she said as she guided Elena and Caroline away from the door. “Go get some food, this is going to be a loooong night.”

~o.O.o~

By morning, Stefan rushed in. “You need to stop what you’re doing right now!”

“I’m almost done, relax,” Myriam said with a shrug. “If I stop now, I’ll have to do it all over again because his soul will fracture again, and trust me, I do not want to go through this again.”

“You need to stop,” Stefan grabbed her by her shoulders to make her look at him. “His evil alter ego is the only one who knows where he hid the White Oak Stake.”

“Whi- what?” Myriam blinked. “What the hell have you guys been up to? Planning on killing some Originals? Where the fuck did you find White Oak? Didn’t Rebekah burn it all?”

“She forgot the sign,” Stefan shrugged. “But we need that stake so we can kill Klaus.”

“No, you don’t need that stake. Let it be lost forever for all I care. You’re not going to kill Klaus! Finn died, I know that much. How is the rest of his line doing? Sage? Troy? They’re dead, aren’t they? Guess what happens when you kill my husband? You kill me, and I don’t want to die, thank you very much.”

“Tough. We handed over all of our stakes because Damon was being held by Rebekah.”

“I don’t care, I’m not stopping this ritual,” Myriam angrily said as she broke Stefan’s neck and threw him out of the room. Oh, she knew where Dark!Alaric had hidden the stake, and as soon as she was done, she was going to get it with the help of a compelled human and burn it. She had received the news from one of her demons that Finn was dead and her heart had rejoiced. To know that there was more White Oak around, though, was a problem.

She had finished the ritual by breakfast and made sure that her ‘glue’ was steadily in place. Alaric was going to be back to his usual self quite quickly, but he was going to have a hell of a hangover. And Myriam needed sleep.

However, when she arrived home, she was greeted by an anxiously pacing hybrid. “What’s gotten your tail all in a twist?”

“Where have you been!”

“Dealing with another victim of your mother’s, thank you very much.”

“What?”

“Alaric,” she told him. “You know… the vampire hunter with a dark side? Your mother manipulated his soul whenever he died and ended up on the Other Side. I fixed that. Can’t have a crazy human walking around like that.”

Klaus’ face fell for a moment, disappointment etched on his face before the rage took over. “He has the one remaining White Oak Stake!”

“Well, Alaric won’t know where he hid it,” Myriam countered as a matter of factly. “His dark self did, and I know where he hid it, so why are you acting like someone pissed in your cereal?”

“You know where it is?”

“Yes.”

“Get it. Now, and take Rebekah with you.”

“But…”

“Love, please. You know I can’t rest until all the weapons that can kill us are destroyed.”

She sighed and nodded. “I know that mon Loulou, but the stake is safe. No vampire can get to it.”

“But you can.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You have your trinkets to appear human.”

“Yeah, but it didn’t fool those witches in that house where the coffins were, how do you expect it to work in the cave system?!”

“You’ll find a way. I trust you, and only you, to handle this.”

“I can’t rest up first? I’ve had a terribly long day and night.”

“Please.”

“Fine,” Myriam sighed. “But you bet your ass that I’ll be jetting off to a tropical destination after this!” She headed to her room where she had her trinkets and dark objects. It was going to require some serious mojo for her to fool the witches this time. And sure, she could compel a human to get it for her, but Klaus was right; he could only trust himself or her with this weapon.

After she had gathered what she wanted, she called for Rebekah, and they set off to the caves. “You know, it never seizes to amaze me what you do for my brother,” Rebekah said as they got out of the car. “For the family.”

“Yeah well, someone has to make sure you’re not making things worse for yourselves,” Myriam muttered. “Klaus is my husband. It’s my duty to be his wife and protect him. And thus, protect all of you. Besides, I’m the only one Kol truly listens to.”

Rebekah chuckled. “Kol listens just fine when threatened.”

“And that’s where you’re wrong. I’ve been telling you this for the last 300 years, you don’t get far with instilling fear, it’ll only cause them to hate you more,” Myriam said as she descended the stairs. “Anyway, once I’m done with getting the stake, would you like to come with me to the Maldives or something? Just to get away from it all?”

“Can’t, I have the school dance coming up, and I’m having far too much fun with the Salvatore boys.”

“Just don’t kill Damon.”

“Oh, you didn’t hear? I had him in my possession for a few days, torturing him. Oh, he’s so wonderful when he bleeds and squirms.”

“Well, at least you didn’t kill him.”

Rebekah sighed. “If it weren’t for Klaus demanding to get all the stakes… he’d still be hanging from the ceiling.”

Myriam shrugged as she continued to move down the cave system to where Esther’s empty coffin was standing. “Alright, here goes nothing,” she muttered as she ordered her demons, her tired demons, to create some distraction for the witches and she managed to get through the barrier after some time.

“Wow,” Rebekah said in awe. “I’ve never really seen you at work like that. That’s amazing!”

She let out a dark chuckle. “I live with you guys, I have to be able to protect myself one way or another.”

“Do you ever wish to kill one of us?”

“Just like you, Rebekah, I wish that I could kill Elijah every single day, but even with a white oak stake, I couldn’t do it. His skewed sense of morality is what Klaus needs from time to time to realise that Elijah is a fucking asshole,” Myriam replied. “And thank fuck Finn is dead.”

“But Nik is a monster.”

“He’s my husband. He’s not a monster, that’s what everyone else says,” Myriam replied angrily. “He’s a product of his upbringing, the bully of a father. I didn’t have to be there to know this. I learned enough through your stories and his to hate both of your parents and Elijah for what they had done to him. He’s a scared little boy, deep down who just wants to be accepted for who he is and what he is. And I’m the only one who does that. I don’t fear him. I love him, and I’d do anything to make sure that nothing happened to him.”

“You’re not our mother.”

“Thank fuck I’m not,” Myriam huffed as she pulled the stake out of the wall. “I understand that she believes she made a mistake by turning her children into vampires. That she hadn’t foreseen the bloodlust. But any mother would do what she’d done and love their children regardless. Just with humans, there are bad vampires, but apart from Elijah, you all merely want to live a happy life. It’s just sad that your mother doesn’t feel that way.”

“You’d think that a mother wants what’s best for her children.”

“And she did, but why think of it as a mistake? Instead, so many people got their lives enriched, including my own. I’ve travelled the world without having to worry about getting sick or tired. I’ve started a business, at first to protect the prostitutes, but it has now grown into a shelter for humans who are victims of the supernatural. I make charitable donations to charities, and I help where I can. If it hadn’t been for Kol or Klaus, I’d still be that orphan from Nice, and I would have likely ended up dead before I could actually do something with my life.”

“Are you going to use that stake?”

“On who? Elijah? Oh, I wish!” Myriam chuckled as she twirled the stake. “No, I’m going to hand it over to Klaus so he can burn it.”

“But what if I don’t want you to?” Rebekah said out of the blue. “What if I want all of the Originals to die?” She then stepped into the cave without any problems.

“Reb- Ohh, you’re not Rebekah.” Myriam sighed with resignation. Klaus was going to be pissed – again.

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