25 | A Bloody Dinner Party

"𝐇𝐎𝐖'𝐃 𝐈𝐓 𝐆𝐎?" 𝐌𝐀𝐗𝐈𝐌𝐄 𝐀𝐒𝐊𝐄𝐃 as soon as Mary reached him.

She just entered Rousseau's and sat across from Maxime, placing her arms on the table before she sighed. "They don't know a thing."

The black-haired vampire nodded. He smiled at the waitress when she delivered his order for himself and the ones he ordered for his best friend. He waited for the innocent to leave their presence before Maxime proceeded to converse with Mary about their agenda.

"Do you plan on telling them?" He asked, briefly looking at her before setting his eyes upon his food.

After he turned, human food wasn't as appetizing to him anymore. But it was what kept him in check when he was too taken by the scent of blood. He used it to distract himself just like he was distracting himself now from all the human blood he could smell around him.

Nevertheless, he still had better control than the woman before him.

"The witches we've visited so far haven't the faintest idea on how to help me. I doubt they can." Mary said. While Maxime was quite enjoying his meal, Mary was simply playing with it with her fork. "There's no need to burden them with this problem when they've already got themselves stacked with their own."

"Far more immediate than a spiteful witch spirit living inside you more unwilling to leave now that you've turned out to be one of the very, very few heretics that exist in the face of the planet?" Maxime laid it all out.

Mary gave him an unenthused glare. He was right about her condition. There wasn't exactly an instructions manual on how to turn a siphoner into a vampire. One of the general rules in the supernatural was that a person could not be both a witch and a vampire. Only one or the other. But when the term witches were involved, they exempted siphoners from it, like they always did. Because they were abominations.

Just like what the witches called her now.

"Actually, yes. Let's just ask the French Quarter Coven to help us and if they refuse, we kill them." Mary said, dropping the fork to her plate before leaning back.

Maxime stopped eating and placed both his elbows on top of the polished table as he clasped his hands together. He raised his eyebrows at her as if he was about to tease her.

"Do you have a body count goal or something?" Maxime said, which gained an eye roll from the redhead.

"It's not my fault they can't be compelled." Mary complained. She saw the reluctance in Maxime's face as he shook his head and looked away before focusing attention back on his meal.

Mary sighed deeply before leaning forward again, getting the man's attention.

"Let me remind you of what you need to learn about witches. They are either with you or against you." She explained, locking eyes with the vampire. "If they don't help me, that means they think I'm an abomination and they will do whatever it takes to kill me."

"So you kill them first." Maxime added, and Mary nodded.

"Yes. I don't do them for fun." Mary assured him. Despite how others view her, her rampage wasn't because she was just a psycho vampire. Murder could not be justified let alone a massacre. But the difference between her and a cold blooded murderer was that she felt remorse. She just acted like she didn't so they'd fear her. Because if kindness didn't work, she was hoping fear would.

"I know. And you know I'll always be here for you. It's just..." Maxime brought his palms to his face as he sighed deeply before bringing his hands back down on the table again. "We've been at this for over a year and a half. They either don't want to help or just don't know how. I'm almost certain that at the end of this year alone, we've already killed half the population of witches in the country."

The former queen nervously tapped her fingers against the polished wood tabletop, the sound soothing her a bit. "Well then we better hope this coven helps me."

Maxime stared at her for a while longer, observing her behavior, studying her so he could figure out what he needed to do next. But as usual, Mary was hard to read.

"There's a possibility that brutally murdering some of the French Quarter Witches and decorating them at the Mikaelson Compound will fail to make them comply. I assume you have another plan. So, what do you need me to do?" He asked. The auburn haired vampire—apparently, now heretic—smirked before she placed her chin on her palm as her elbow rested on the table. She looked like she was planning something funny, at least funny and amusing for her.

"I heard stories about the little witch we met earlier, Davina Claire. Take her to dinner." Mary suggested, though, more like she commanded.

Maxime furrowed his eyebrows and squinted his eyes as a scoff left his lips, a laugh that implied absurdity on the matter escaping his lips while he leaned back on his chair and crossed his arms against his chest.

"I'm not taking a teenage girl on a date." Maxime said, shaking his head.

"I didn't say it was a date." She answered, though she could not hold back the entertained smile as well as the little giggle she slipped out. Maxime narrowed his eyes at her when he caught her smile and giggle.

"Oh, you find this funny, don't you?" Maxime accused her as a smile of his own crept its way to his face. "You...you just love this."

"What? I think it's cute that she has a little crush on you." The former queen stated with short laughs escaping her lips in between a couple of words.

"I'm like, eight years older than her." He justified, arching his eyebrows at the woman.

"Well, if we're getting technical, you're actually 461 years older than her. Granted, you were...dead for about 95 percent of that. But hey who's counting?" She joked, though she was telling the truth.

Maxime held Mary's pleading gaze and the man could only shake his head and sigh deeply, giving up. He never really was one to refuse her. He didn't have the stomach for it. Especially when they'd had each other's back for a long time.

"Just a friendly dinner. I'm not going to date someone who's not even old enough to have a legal drink." The black-haired vampire paused as he looked away and rephrased his sentence. "Or just...not legal."

"Yes, just one dinner. That's all I'm asking." Mary said, her smile not faltering.

Maxime watched as the smile on the auburn haired heretic's face lingered. A genuine smile. One that was rare to see these days. The emotions he would often see her with was guilt, hurt, sorrow, misery, sometimes even indifference. It wasn't that she wasn't capable of smiling anymore. She was, it just wasn't sincere. It was...unnerving. Like seeing that smile meant that something terrible was going to happen in the next few seconds.

Kol would've been happy to finally see her smile, Maxime thought. Maxime and Kol might not have spent a lot of time getting to know each other past Mary and Kol's game stage, but he knew how much they meant to each other. Did it weird him out? At first, yes. Because how could you fall in love with some who had tormented you?

But that was how he found out how complex love really was. It wasn't black and white. It's deeper. Some might even call it an anomaly because no matter how much they thought they knew love, they really didn't.

• ─────────────── •

Three members of the Original family were strolling into the cemetery in their witch bodies. Esther, in a Harvest Girl named Cassie, Finn, in one of the most respected witches in the city named Vincent, and Kol in a male teenage witch with a natural charming pull named Kaleb.

"Cordelia is not with Mary and Max. It's just the two of them and they have not expressed their intention on why they're here." Kol reported to his mother, much to his dismay.

"The ancestors have told me exactly what they intend here." Esther said as the three of them walked side by side through one of the narrow paths in the cemetery.

Kol furrowed his eyebrows in curiosity. "What?"

Esther took a brief moment to herself as she contemplated on how she would tell Kol that it was not something that she wished to tell him given his impulsive nature. She knew he'd be running back to her when he found out that she was in a horrible state. She couldn't have that.

"Exactly what their intentions were when she went to the covens prior to ours." She vaguely said, avoiding answering the question directly.

Kol's hands that were tucked inside the pocket of his jacket moved outwards, showing the shirt hidden inside more. "Which is?"

"That's all you need to know." Esther answered.

The original scoffed before pulling his hands out of his pockets and neared his mother, leaning toward her a bit as they continued to walk down the path.

"Now, hold on. You've got me spying on my own girlfriend like some creepy stalker, reporting everything I've picked up including how even more beautiful she has become after all these months, and yet you refuse to tell me something crucial about her in return?" He complained.

"The only thing you've reported before this was how good her hair looked wavy rather than curly." Finn stated, rolling his eyes at his brother.

Kol shrugged. "It was important. Just like the question I'm asking."

"There are questions that I simply cannot answer." Their mother said, keeping her composure calm and collected while her son pestered her about the former Scottish Queen.

"How about this question: When can I finally tell her that I'm back?" Kol asked. He had been dying to tell her that he was alive again. In a different body, yes. But alive, nevertheless. He had wanted to hold her, kiss her, never let her go again from the moment he was resurrected. The only thing standing in the way of that was his hateful mother.

"When the time is right."

"When exactly is that?"

Esther stopped walking and turned around to face Kol, which caused both him and his brother Finn to halt their steps as their mother spoke.

"I will no longer entertain these nonsensical questions of yours, Kol." Esther semi-glared at her irritated son, watching him tighten his jaw at her command. He never really was one to do as they were told. Especially not by their own mother. Which was why he hated how much power she had over him. He knew that if he disobeyed her and he was rendered useless in this plan of hers, he'd be sent back to his death. "If you want to be with Mary again then do as I say. Take a break from following Mary and Max. Check on Davina. She's hiding something. I need you to find out what."

Esther turned around to continue walking and Finn followed closely behind. Kol, however, stayed a bit late behind while he glared at the backs of his mother and older brother that was keeping him from reuniting with the love of his life.

"As you wish, Mother." He muttered.

• ─────────────── •

Mary had received a text from Maxime that the dinner was going really well. She hadn't heard from Klaus or Elijah so she assumed they were too busy dealing with their own problems. Thus, instead of stopping by the compound unannounced again, Mary dressed casually to go back to Rousseau's that same night, just to act as chaperone for her best friend.

She was looking at herself as she passed all the store windows, seeing her own reflection. If someone had told her that this was how she would look like four centuries later, she would've laughed at their face because one, she would never have thought that she would live beyond sixty, let alone have a 400th birthday. And two, because she never wanted to look this matured. But that was her sixteen-year-old self talking. Mary liked the way she looked. Sure, she was used to her hair being the curly auburn that it was. But the invention of hair straighteners was the best thing to ever happen for her.

Her hands were tucked inside the pockets of her black leather jacket, her wavy auburn hair falling against it with the colors contrasting, her boot heel clicked against the pavement of the sidewalk as she took her time to get to the bar where Maxime and Davina were having their dinner.

The heretic's tracks halted when she heard a commotion coming from inside Rousseau's. She only took a mere second before she sped inside.

When she got inside, the scene she found was Davina, Maxime, and another guy whom she recognized as Kaleb, surrounded by a pack of werewolves. The little witch was trembling on the floor clutching her bracelet, the stalker was thrown against the tall shelf of liquor behind the bar counter, and the black-haired vampire was struck down with a wooden leg of a stool jabbed through his stomach and a werewolf bite in his left arm.

Mary, given that she had entered the bar as discreetly as possible, took the werewolves by surprise. She grabbed the werewolf near her, which was at the far back of the group. The yelp that the werewolf let out when Mary grabbed a fistful of his hair earned the attention of his fellow friends, their eyes landing on the auburn haired heretic.

The woman didn't give them enough time to react to her arrival as she threw the werewolf in the air still grasping his hair with one hand before pulling him down and deliberately crashing him brutally against the counter, roughly separating his head from his body. Blood was splattered everywhere. Given that Mary was nearest, she caught most of the splatters, decorating her newly bought outfit with crimson splashes while still holding the head of the werewolf by the hair.

She turned toward her audience and there she witnessed the horrified look of the people before her—even Davina, Maxime, and Kaleb—Kol—was astounded by what just happened. They'd seen savage things happen before their eyes, most of the time, it was committed by them. But never had they seen that woman's type of savagery.

With her eyes darkened and reddened while veins pulsed around them, Mary tossed the head to the side and began stripping herself of her jacket.

"I'm gonna need a really long bath after this." She muttered under her breath.

And then almost everything was a blur.

The auburn haired heretic did as much as she could without the use of her magic, as she always did. Werewolves came after her all at the same time, throwing punches at her and trying to get a bite of her flesh to strike her down as well with their venom. But Mary was not about to let that happen.

One by one, she collected their blood on her clothes. She tore their limbs apart, ripped out their hearts, decapitated their heads. Mary stopped looking around her as the remaining werewolves surrounded her. She looked like she was bathing in blood because of how much of it was covering her body and face. Kol himself didn't know how to feel about seeing the woman like this. She was powerful, fearless, and fierce. And he loved that for her. But from the look in her eyes, she looked like she was out of control.

And when everything was beginning to feel overwhelming, she received help from the person she least expected to show up.

Mikael.

"You filthy dogs." the original vampire slash vampire hunter growled at the werewolves.

Mikael gave Mary one look, and that one look was enough for her fear to creep up her spine before the werewolves decided to attack again. Right now, the werewolves were the only ones keeping Mary from being slaughtered by Mikael. He remembered her. The frail human he used to know as Dakota Grant who stuck by Klaus.

Everything went by so fast. One minute the bar was neat and tidy, and the next, everything was destroyed, the walls and floor were painted crimson from blood, and the mutilated bodies were scattered around the room.

When the werewolves were finally taken care of, the first thing Mary did was run toward Maxime. He was already sweating due to the werewolf venom that was now coursing through his veins.

"Max, come on!" She exclaimed, her heart pounding from knowing that they were in the same room as the notorious vampire who hunted vampires.

As soon as the auburn haired heretic knelt down next to Maxime, a loud whimper escaped her lips when she felt herself being pulled away by her hair. Her hands flew to her hair, trying to remove Mikael's grip on her as he pulled her up and forced her to face him.

"Well, now...what an interesting turn of events." Mikael said, his low growling voice igniting another wave of fear inside her.

Out of the blue, someone threw Mikael harshly against the wall, causing him to let go of the heretic before she dropped to the ground. She swore she felt the entire bar shake from the contact of Mikael's body on the wall. When she looked up, there she found Elijah standing in the middle of the bar, his eyes wide at the sight of his father once again in the flesh.

"Father?" Elijah uttered, his expression resembling that of disbelief as he registered the resurrection of Mikael.

"Hello, son. I'd hoped to see your brother first, but we have some unfinished business as well." Mikael replied.

Elijah landed the first punch before it turned into a full blown fight. Mikael retaliated by tossing Elijah against the counter. He quickly grabbed the white oak stake that was tucked behind him before speeding toward the suited vampire. Mary acted on impulse as she threw herself in between the two originals. She grabbed a hold of Mikael's hand that held the stake and twisted his wrist, causing a groan to escape his lips. Mary was overwhelmed by the strength Mikael had, which wasn't supposed to be a surprise for her since despite being already over 400 years old, she became a vampire only recently.

"Stupid girl." He snarled at her before headbutting her, causing the woman to stagger backwards and slump against the counter. "This is what you get for aligning yourself with that bastard."

Mary barely had time to react before Mikael tried to land the white oak stake to her heart. If not for her hands quickly flying to stop him, he would've staked her in an instant. But that was all for nothing when he suddenly shoved his left hand into her chest. A scream erupted from her throat at the feeling of his hand grasping her pounding heart. Her lungs felt like there wasn't enough air coming in and with valid reason. It didn't take long before she started choking on her own blood, filling up her mouth and trickling down her chin and neck.

Kol could not just sit back and watch the love of his life get murdered right in front of him. It was already painful seeing her beheaded the first time, he was not about to let her death happen. He shot up from behind the counter and gathered enough strength for a powerful spell that would temporarily subdue or at the very least, distract the vampire from ripping his girl's heart out.

"Phasmatos Pyrox Morsinus Illum!" Kol chanted and held out his trembling hand. The original vampire reacted to the pain infliction spell as he should. Kol himself whimpered at how much energy and magic he was taking out of himself for the spell to be strong enough to work on him.

While the original vampire was too busy fighting the magic that was frying his brain, Mary channeled every bit of her anger to surface. She clenched her jaw and glared at the vampire before grabbing his wrist and pulling his hand out of her chest then bringing her boot to his torso and kicking him off of her.

Mary straightened her composure as her breathing became too heavy and uneven. Something was wrong with her. Her hands were trembling, her lower lip was quivering, and her eyes were different. She turned to look at Kol, who she still thought was a teenage witch named Kaleb. He witnessed the sudden change of her eyes from normally brown eyes to sparks of blue hidden in them.

Oh, Mary, he thought. After everything, he realized that the spirit was still inside her.

"Stay down." Mary warned him. Kol nodded once at her before temporarily crouching down behind the counter just until Mary looked away from him. Her gaze went back to the original vampire and she glared at him.

Mary held out her hand toward Mikael and the original vampire stiffened as if he was suddenly strapped with magic, which he was. She brought down her hand and Mikael was forced to his knees with a grunt.

"Delfan eoten cor." Mary chanted with her hand mimicking the act of drawing something out.

A scream erupted from his throat as he felt his own heart slowly snapping from its blood vessels. Mary's eyes were glistening as she teared up, her lower lip still quivering and her entire body shaking uncontrollably from the amount of magic bubbling in her tiny body. A series of whimpers left the heretic's lips because of two things. One, she was exerting too much magic. Second, exerting too much magic meant letting the witch inside her get more influence on her. Elijah, Kol, Davina, and Marcel all watched in disbelief and astonishment. Maxime, on the other hand, was worried.

"No!" Davina protested. "Ossox."

A shriek left Mary's lips when she felt her left leg snap as she dropped to the ground, causing her concentration to break and Mikael to be free from her magic. Mikael noticed that Davina was in possession of the bracelet that controlled him once again and he tried to go after her before the little witch held the bracelet out and the original vampire was forced to halt his tracks at her command.

"Stop." Davina ordered. Mikael, who was holding the stake in the air ready to stake the witch, sighed in frustration. "Go back now."

Mikael glared down at the witch before he sped out of the bar, leaving them there still shaken.

Maxime, despite being weakened by the werewolf venom in his system, stood up and staggered toward a distressed Mary. She was on the floor clutching her head as she cried. Kol took a step toward her before he stopped, remembering that he wasn't supposed to reveal his identity just yet.

"Mary. Hey." Maxime knelt in front of the sobbing heretic. Her fingers were tangled in her rich auburn waves that were damp and sticky with other people's blood while her palm was covering her ears, as if trying to tune out something.

The voice.

"Leave me alone." She said with a cracked voice. But Maxime knew that she wasn't referring to him. He knew very well who she was talking to.

"Maxime." Elijah called out as he tried to near the suffering woman until the black-haired vampire stopped him.

"No, stay there. I've done this multiple times." Maxime informed him.

Multiple times. Kol thought. She's been through this multiple times.

Kol's hands balled into fists as he struggled to watch Mary's suffering. He had to look away in some parts when her shrieks and cries were beginning to be too unbearable.

"I don't want this anymore. Please make it stop." Mary pleaded.

The original vampire in the witch's body felt his chest sink when his heart broke at how she was pleading to make it stop. She could barely even talk. Her voice was strained and everytime she would speak, it would come out in shallow breaths and cracks.

"Mary, it's Max. I'm going to help you now, alright?" Maxime told her.

Without looking at him, Mary removed her hands from her head and let Maxime replace it with his own hands. He gently placed his hands on the sides of her head before he forcefully snapped it to the side, breaking her neck and temporarily killing her.

The action caused both Elijah and Kol to take a step forward in shock. Mary slumped sideward and Maxime caught her upper body so that her head wouldn't hit the floor. Though, it caused an unpleasant and hurt groan to leave his lips when Mary made contact with the werewolf bite on Maxime's arm.

Elijah stepped forward to help carry Mary's body while Marcel, after attending to Davina, approached Maxime and offered him a hand. Maxime stared at the hand he was offering as he was not acquainted with the man yet, but he accepted it and he helped pull himself to his feet.

"I must articulate my perplexity." Elijah said as he looked at the auburn haired heretic in his arms before glancing to the vampire in front of him. "What exactly happened?"

"How about we take a second? But if you must know, Mary kills whoever holds the knowledge of this secret." Maxime explained before shifting his gaze toward Davina, Marcel, and Kol—still in Kaleb's body. "I recommend keeping your mouths shut."

"Niklaus will heal your werewolf bite. We should return to the compound." The well-suited original vampire said.

Elijah turned around to see the male witch still behind the counter, looking worriedly at the former queen that was in Elijah's arms. The original vampire slightly narrowed his eyes at the man as an act to intimidate him.

"Something to say?" Elijah said, though it was a rhetorical question and he hoped that the witch understood that.

Kol peeled his gaze away from the woman and settled them on his brother before he swallowed hard.

"Not me, mate. Not a bloody thing." he said. And then he watched as they exited the destroyed bar with the love of his life unconscious in their arms—wondering how he would be able to get news of how she would be doing in the next few days. Because he knew that his next couple of days would be filled with worry, paranoia, and guilt for leaving Mary behind in that state.

• ─────────────── •

I haven't been active for over a month. I'm not kidding when I said that I had multiple breakdowns over the course of these past couple of weeks. My dms were always exploding with things I needed to do as a student officer and goddamn, the exhaustion I felt was affecting me so much that in just a month, I lost so much weight. My boyfriend (whom have seen less of me as well because of how busy I was) also pointed out how much weight I've lost. The reason behind my weight loss is because I haven't been eating properly due to how busy I was. Yeah, I was THAT busy.

My mom is the sweetest person ever. When I broke down in front of her, she really demonstrated all five love languages. God, I can't imagine what would have happened to me without the people that stood by me while I was crying in public (like REALLY public, in front of my friends, my classmates, the basketball team that I'm handling/taking care of, oh my, the horror) this past month.

ANYWAY, that was my March journey, lmao. How 'bout you?