The Beautiful and the Faultless | Cami O'Connell

Chapter 2

Cami went to the Compound the next morning.

She hadn't been able to stop thinking about Ingrid the entire time. Of course, given she didn't know her name, she just pictured her face over and over. It refused to exit her mind.

Why had she left so suddenly? Why had she been so casual about saying that she had people to kill?

Cami was starting to think she actually had a problem. First she liked Marcel, who turned out to be a vampire. Then, she'd liked Klaus, despite all the harm he'd brought her way. And now, was she seriously thinking this mystery lady was hot?

Fuck.

Thus, when she woke up (which was hardly able to be called 'waking up' given she'd hardly slept in the first place), she immediately made her way to the Compound, thinking to drop by only for a moment before work.

Klaus and Elijah seemed to be in a hurry, and she did her best to make it brief. "I don't want to make any assumptions," she stated, "but I figured it would be in Hope's best interest for you both to be aware of a potential out-of-town vampire in the city."

"An out-of-town vampire?" inquired Elijah. "What do you mean?"

"Listen," said Cami, "I've met all of Marcel's vampires, and I know all of you. But last night, a woman came in, and she had this... very mysterious aura around her. She quite literally said, as she was leaving, that she had people to kill. And it didn't sound like she was joking. Not to mention that when I made her a shot with a pretty high alcohol concentration, she downed it like it was water. Even I flinch each time I drink that thing. I'm thinking she could be a vampire, unless one of Francesca's loyal wolves is still lingering around."

The two brothers shared a look. "Could you describe her?" asked Elijah.

Cami thought for a moment. "Tall, dark hair, dark eyes... cold and calculating expression."

"Did you get her name?" asked Klaus a bit impatiently.

"No. Just her birth year— 1987."

Elijah did the math in his head. "That would make her twenty-six. Rather young for a vampire, though, of course, the birth year might be fake. However, why would one need an identification card with a fake birth year when one could compel?"

"She might have smelled the vervain on me," said Cami. "I take it every day."

Elijah shook his head. "Even I can hardly smell the vervain on you. I highly doubt she is very old, she wouldn't be able to sense you have it unless she's been watching you. I will speak to Marcel, perhaps one of his men can find her and tail her." He and his brother shared a look, the both of them suspecting that it might actually be Ingrid, not some random out-of-town vampire. If this was the case, then they needed to be worried.

Ingrid, on the other hand, wasn't worried at all. She knew she couldn't be tracked easily (by witches, at least; she had never had to hide from a group of vampires, and as it turned out, Marcel and his pals could be quite efficient when they wanted to be).

She'd already performed a spell, bouncing her magical signal across different parts of the world. If anyone tried to track her, they would see her in Japan at one point, and in France the next time they looked. This was mostly a precaution when it came to Freya, who would no doubt be searching madly for her. She was walking calmly through the city, confident no one would recognize her, because she doubted Freya had been smart enough to tell her siblings to keep a look out for her. If Freya were intelligent, she might have had Klaus sketch a picture of Ingrid and Dahlia to post around the city. But, of course, she hadn't thought to do that. So, Ingrid assumed she was safe.