Rue | Klaus Mikaelson

Chapter 35

Vincent confirmed Hope's suspicions.

Freya's Locator Spells were proving unsuccessful. Ibeth stood beside Hayley as they watched her work her magic, hands hovering delicately over a map of New Orleans, her blood remaining stationary, try as she might to make it move.

They heard a rattling noise behind them. The jaw bone was wiggling around on the table again, turning circles to get their attention.

"That's her," said Vincent as he arrived. "That's The Hollow. She has Elijah, and now she wants the bone."

"In exchange for Elijah?" gasped Hayley.

"No, you don't understand," said Vincent sharply. "There won't be an exchange. She needs Elijah to die in order to channel the energy from his sacrifice. She's already poisoned him with the rose thorns. She wants this bone by sundown. If she doesn't get it, then she's gonna come here and she's gonna take it. And when she does, she's gonna burn this entire city to the ground."

Ibeth reached for her phone, informing Klaus to come back. "Then we need to figure out what the hell to do about this. I'll ask Kurt if any of the wolves have seen suspicious activity in any of the abandoned houses out in the Bayou. She's used them before, she could be using them again."

Vincent sat patiently beside her while they waited for Klaus and Marcel to arrive. He didn't seem happy to be there, but it didn't appear like he could bring himself to leave, either.

"You want a plan of attack," he began when the other two walked into the ballroom, "it comes down to this. Use the element of surprise. Now, Marcel will hand over the bone, and then stab the Hollow with Hayley's blood, and then I'm gonna cast the spell that buries her."

"The Ancestors' spell requires a sacrifice," Hayley recalled. "An Original has to die."

"Yeah," said Vincent, "and right now, The Hollow is gonna use Elijah's death to come back, but there's a window where I can use the sacrifice to shove her back into her grave."

Klaus scoffed. "You'll forgive me for stating the obvious, but your plan does nothing to save my brother. In fact, it relies entirely upon his death."

"Easy," warned Marcel as Ibeth motioned for Klaus to keep his comments to himself until Vincent was done explaining. "He's just trying to help."

Vincent glared at the hybrid. "Klaus, Elijah's already dead. Now, the only thing that we can do right now is figure out whether or not that death is gonna count for something."

"That's not a call any of us get to make," said Hayley, causing Vincent to turn away so he could roll his eyes. "Especially not you. There has to be a way to save him."

Ibeth had a feeling that, given what she'd heard about the previous day's events where Elijah offered to die in Klaus's place, he wouldn't mind dying to defeat the enemy, but he would prefer a chance to come back to life. She didn't voice her opinion.

"Freya," inquired Klaus, "you still have the antidote we used to cure Marcel's bite?"

"I have it, yes," said Freya. "But I don't know if it'll work against the poison of the rosebush."

"You guys aren't listening, okay?" said Vincent, frustrated. "Even if we do cure Elijah, we still have a big problem, that's called The Hollow. And it's just gonna keep coming at us until it resurrects. And when that happens, we're talking about an ancient, primal power that's made flesh and blood. It will wipe out this entire city in an afternoon, and ain't a damn thing that you or anybody else here can do about it. Now, my way? We take her out while she's still a spirit. Elijah dies, but at least his death counts for something."