CHAPTER 15: BLOOD AND MEMORY - PART 1
POV: Alen
Pre-dawn New Orleans bled darkness across the horizon as Klaus drove through empty streets like death itself pursued them. The city slept uneasily around their passage—witches' wards humming low warnings, vampire courts sensing the Original's urgency, werewolf packs stirring restlessly in the bayou. Even the architecture seemed to press closer, French Quarter buildings leaning inward as if trying to listen to secrets carried on morning wind.
Hope's hand gripped Alen's with bone-crushing intensity, her tribrid nature manifesting in small ways—enhanced hearing tracking their target, golden eyes flickering with predatory focus, muscles coiled like springs beneath human skin. The Hollow remained dormant in his presence, but her anxiety fed other instincts.
"She's terrified," Alen realized, feeling the tremor in her fingers despite supernatural strength. "Invincible Hope Mikaelson, reduced to a daughter who might lose her mother. This is what vulnerability looks like on someone who's never been allowed to be vulnerable."
Klaus's phone displayed Freya's tracking spell—magical signature pulsing steadily from an abandoned church outside the city proper. Sacred ground turned profane, consecrated space twisted into something that reeked of ritual sacrifice and ancient hatred.
"Target confirmed," Freya's voice crackled through the speaker, clinical precision barely masking family concern. "Three dozen magical signatures surrounding the church. Greta's coven, plus something else. Vampires. Old ones."
"How old?" Klaus asked, though his tone suggested he already knew the answer wouldn't be encouraging.
"Pre-Original. Maybe eighth century."
Klaus's jaw tightened, hybrid fury building beneath human features. "She's allied with the ancients. This isn't just about Hope anymore—she's planning something larger."
The church materialized through morning mist like something from nightmares—Gothic spires reaching toward heaven while shadows pooled around foundations that had absorbed too much blood over too many centuries. Spelled barriers shimmered around the perimeter, layers of protection that spoke of paranoid preparation.
Alen stepped from the car and immediately felt the magical resonance pressing against his consciousness. Dozens of witches channeling power through ritual focus. Vampire magic twisted into unnatural configurations. And underneath it all, something that made his enhanced senses recoil—the signature of deliberate torture, pain refined into magical component.
"Hayley's in there," he thought, studying the barriers with analytical precision. "Suffering. Being used as bait while Greta weaves whatever larger horror she's planning. Time to introduce her to consequences."
"The wards," Hope said, her voice tight with barely contained violence. "Can you—"
"Yes." Alen was already moving, hands extended toward the nearest magical barrier. "But once I start, they'll know we're coming."
Klaus smiled with predatory satisfaction. "Let them know."
POV: Alen
Alen pressed his palms against the first ward and felt its structure immediately—complex weaving designed to repel vampire, werewolf, and witch intrusion simultaneously. Elegant work, layered over months of preparation. Unfortunately for its creators, siphoners existed outside normal magical classifications.
He pulled.
The ward collapsed with an audible snap, magical energy flooding into his reserves while protective barriers crumbled like paper in rain. Each subsequent layer fell faster than the last as he absorbed their power and turned it against remaining defenses.
"Thirty seconds," he announced, feeling the building magical pressure as Greta's followers realized their sanctuary had been breached. "They're mobilizing."
The church doors burst open and hell poured forth.
Witches emerged first—robed figures hurling fire and lightning with practiced coordination. Behind them came vampires moving in supernatural blurs, fangs extended and eyes black with bloodlust. Ancient predators who'd perfected violence before Klaus was born, now allied with fanatics who viewed Hope's existence as cosmic abomination.
Hope's tribrid nature exploded into full manifestation. Bones shifted beneath skin as she embraced the wolf, vampire fangs descending while preternatural speed turned her into a living weapon. She moved through the first wave of attackers like death given form, claws parting flesh while supernatural strength reduced ancient vampires to torn meat.
Klaus became nightmare incarnate—Original power unleashed without restraint, hybrid nature allowing impossible combinations of speed and savagery. He tore through enemies with artistic brutality, each kill a masterpiece of controlled violence honed over a millennium of warfare.
Freya crafted shields of crystallized air while sending bolts of pure force into clustered opponents. Her magic sang with family fury, protective instincts given lethal expression.
Alen coordinated.
Witches hurled flame at Hope—he siphoned the magic mid-flight and redirected it back, turning their own spells into weapons. Vampires blurred toward Klaus—Alen spoke with quiet authority: "SLEEP!" Three ancients collapsed instantly, supernatural speed reduced to motionless vulnerability.
His throat burned from the command, fifteen percent of his reserves draining in a single word, but the tactical advantage was immediate. Hope took heads while they lay helpless.
"This is warfare," Alen thought, crafting chains of crystallized light that wrapped around five witches simultaneously. "Not self-defense or rescue—warfare. And I'm good at it. That should disturb me more than it does."
They pushed through the church doors like an unstoppable tide, leaving carnage in their wake.
POV: Alen
The church basement reeked of despair and systematic cruelty. Magical implements designed for torture lined stone walls while arcane symbols carved into the floor spoke of rituals that required suffering as primary component. This wasn't just imprisonment—this was ritualized agony refined into magical art.
Hayley hung chained in the center of the space, and Alen's enhanced senses immediately cataloged the damage. Cursed manacles drained her werewolf healing while dark magic ate at her life force like acid through cloth. Her skin had turned the gray of impending death, pulse fluttering weakly against supernatural constitution pushed beyond its limits.
Hope screamed—raw sound of daughter witnessing maternal destruction—and rushed forward with tribrid desperation.
Klaus caught her with Original strength. "It's trapped!"
He was right. Alen could see the magical web woven around Hayley's position—proximity triggers designed to complete whatever curse currently consumed her. Step too close and accelerate her death, ensuring Greta's victory even in defeat.
"Clever," Alen admitted grimly. "Turn rescue attempt into execution method. Force us to watch while she dies slowly or die quickly in our desperation to save her."
But Greta hadn't planned for siphoners.
Alen extended his magical senses and touched the curse directly. Dark magic flooded his consciousness—nauseating blend of hatred and systematic torture, power fueled by innocent suffering and shaped by fanatic conviction. The curse was embedded deep, woven into Hayley's life force itself.
He began to pull.
The process felt like swallowing poison. Greta's magic carried the weight of every victim she'd tortured, every innocent destroyed in service to her vision of supernatural purity. Dark power coursed through Alen's enhanced systems, testing limits he'd never approached.
But underneath the horror lay tactical clarity. The curse was sophisticated but not impregnable. Remove its anchoring points, disrupt its energy flow, and Hayley would stabilize long enough for other solutions.
Hayley gasped awake as magical pressure lifted. "Hope... baby..."
Hope, sobbing: "I'm here, Mom. I'm here."
But Alen could feel the curse's deeper roots. He'd bought time, not victory. Hayley's pulse remained erratic, her life force damaged beyond simple magical intervention.
"The curse is killing her," Freya announced with clinical precision that barely masked desperation. "Minutes, maybe. I can't—the damage is too extensive."
Klaus's composure cracked completely. "There has to be something. Anything."
Alen's mind raced through possibilities. He had one resurrection coin—not enough, unless he could find another way to save her first. The curse had been partially disrupted but not eliminated. Without intervention, Hayley Marshall would die in this basement while her family watched helplessly.
"Think," he commanded himself. "There's always another option. Always another angle. What resources are available? What power can be leveraged? What—"
Footsteps echoed from the basement stairs. Measured, precise, carrying the weight of ancient authority and terrible confusion.
Elijah Mikaelson descended toward them, and Alen's heart broke at the sight.
POV: Alen
The Original vampire moved with characteristic elegance, each step perfectly measured despite the chaos surrounding him. Thousand-year-old presence reduced to polite bewilderment, family loyalty erased by magical manipulation that left only surface mannerisms intact.
"Who are you people?" Elijah asked with genuine curiosity, studying the assembled group like interesting specimens. "And why are you trespassing in Ms. Sienna's facility?"
Klaus froze as if someone had driven a stake through his chest. The hybrid's accumulated power meant nothing against this particular torture—watching his brother, his closest ally through a millennium of warfare, fail to recognize his own family.
"Brother?" The word came out broken, thousand years of shared history reduced to desperate plea.
Elijah's expression remained politely distant. "I'm sorry, but I don't know you. Though you seem upset. Are you in need of assistance?"
Hope's realization cut through the basement like physical blow. "Greta erased his memories."
"Perfect strategy," Alen admitted with grudging respect for his enemy's tactical thinking. "Take away the one person whose Original blood could save Hayley, leave him just present enough to watch Klaus suffer. Psychological warfare at its most refined."
Freya's analytical mind seized on possibilities even through family grief. "If we restore him, his power could help save Hayley. Original blood, properly applied—"
"How?" Klaus demanded, anguish bleeding through centuries of emotional control. "Memory magic of this scale—it's beyond anything we've ever attempted."
Alen stared at Elijah and felt cosmic forces aligning around a single, terrible choice. His Word of Command experiments had shown promise on small scales—restoring forgotten passwords, recovering misplaced objects, compelling simple recollections. But this? This was erasing a thousand years of accumulated identity and reconstructing it from nothing.
"Remember" worked on a glass of water I'd made someone forget. But this is an Original vampire's complete identity, magically obliterated by someone who knew exactly what she was doing. The power requirement alone could kill me. And if I fail, Hayley dies while I'm unconscious."
Hayley's breathing grew more labored, each breath a struggle against cursed magic eating her from within. Hope knelt beside her mother, tears streaming down face painted with others' blood.
"Please," Hope whispered to no one in particular. "Someone. Anyone."
Alen stepped forward and locked eyes with the stranger wearing Elijah's face.
"Trust me," he said quietly. "This will hurt."
"For both of us."
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