Enigmatic Fears: A Klaus Mikaelson Story {7}

Chapter 24: The Stuff of Dreams

"RISE AND SHINE, NIGHT WALKER NATION!" Klaus yelled as the three of us stormed into the living quarters of the uncooperative vampires. "If it was your aim to gather my attention, then I must say your plight has been wildly successful. I am now singularly focused on your impending suffering."

"Are you forgetting something Nik?" I asked, making him smirk as he turned to face me.

"Oh yes, my mistake." He told them. "We are now singularly focused on your impending suffering."

"Better."

"And to whoever sent this coin and took my son's mother..." Nik broke the chair that was closest to him with a simple kick. I bent down to pick up one of the chair legs, toying with it in my hands. "It's time to show your face."

I threw the stake that was in my hand and it landed in the chest of one unlucky vampire. He was soon to be joined by his friends however as Nik had picked up the others and the two of us descended upon the remaining vampires in the hopes of discovering the culprit.

I wiped the blood that was on my hands onto the ripped shirts of one of the dead before turning to the vampire that was scrambling away from me. He got to his feet and attempted to flee, only to be brought down by Marcel's arm.

"Don't look to me for help. Y'all lost your chance to trade loyalty for protection." Marcel said as he looked at his pleading subordinates.

I grabbed his leg and dragged him to the covered curtain as he looked back at me with a petrified gaze.

"This is your last opportunity to confess, love." I told him. "It would do you well to take it."

"I don't know anything." He told me his hands up in surrender. I nodded in understanding, before scrunching my nose up.

"Do you smell that?" I asked.

"Smell what?"

I pulled open the curtain and held him up, the sun causing his body to immediately start to burn up. Once he was engulfed in flames I chucked him on the floor and smirked down at him.

"Charred flesh."

Klaus chuckled in amusement at my joke when we heard the voice of an unharmed vampire. Greta picked up the coin and turned to us with a defiant look.

"It's me you're looking for." She told us. "Perhaps we should talk."

~Klaus POV~

"You know, for someone who organised this little summit," Klaus began. "You are woefully short on details."

He turned to Greta who had just awoken, hung upside down from the ceiling at his wife's demand. She had wanted to inflict the suffering herself but Klaus knew in her state, she would not know where to stop and would end up killing the person who knew of Hayley's whereabouts. He had appeased her with the assurance that her torture would be the stuff of her dreams.

"Now I'm going to ask you one last time: where are you keeping Hayley?"

Greta remained silent and so Klaus sighed before picking her up and forcing her down onto a slab of concrete and forcing large nails into her hands.

"You knew we'd have this little chat." Klaus told her. "No doubt, binging on vervain until your throat was red and raw. And now, sadly drip, drip, drip, all over the floor it goes."

"Sein Mangel an vision... wird sein untergang sein."

"The lack of vision will be his downfall." Klaus translated.

"That's what he always said about you." Greta elaborated, grabbing Klaus' attention.

"He?" The hybrid repeated as he drew near to her.

"You and I have a friend in common." She replied.

"Oh, I sincerely doubt that." Klaus said as he sat down opposite her.

"It's true." She continued. "August Muller."

Klaus' smirk dropped as she continued with a deep fire in her eyes as they filled with tears. "I don't blame you for forgetting. It was a long time ago. Rostock, Germany, spring, 1933."

Klaus sat in a lounge that was rife with debauchery, opposite a man he thought to be vaguely interesting but more so full of stupidity. Which Klaus found himself enjoying. He had been on the search for something that might make him feel better after Fiore had left him and proved borderline impossible to find.

"The purpose of art is to portray life as it is." August told him. "When our world is joyous, art must reflect that beauty. But when our existence is beset with unrest, upset and humiliation, hyperinflation, the dignity of reparations. Art must necessarily be equally ugly and drab."

"Or perhaps, August, the ugliness is a result of the artist lacking any discernible talent." Klaus retorted with a chuckle. "The mission of art is to engage our most primal selves." He grabbed the neck of the woman that was sat beside him. "Enflame our passion, invoke our insides and inspire us to drink ad brawl and let our sensual self of the reigns."

"Derivative." Klaus sat up properly, pushing the woman away at the sound of his brother's voice. "And so extraordinarily tedious."

Klaus rolled his eyes, but the smirk on his face showed his delight at the sound of Elijah's return. "I wouldn't argue with this fool, he's not listening to a single word you say." The brunette continued. "He's simply waiting for you to draw breath so that he might pontificate anew."

"I believe you're thinking of my brother Elijah." Klaus countered as he got to his feet. "He's the pompous, controlling one."

"Interesting, I'd always heard Elijah was the mysterious and charming one." Elijah countered with a smirk. "The truly distinguished element of the family."

Klaus grinned at his brother who grinned back. "Thirteen years and you don't look a day over a thousand. How are you doing Niklaus?"

The sight of a familiar face amongst all his loneliness served to appease the numbness that was always on the brink of consuming him.

"Bloody hell, have I missed you." Klaus told him as he attempted to break the hug, but Elijah held on tighter.

"I fear word of your presence in Germany had spread." Elijah informed the terrified vampire. "Rumours of Mikael amongst Europe are numerous."

"Come." Klaus said as he led his brother further into the lounge. "Sit tight August. I'll be back momentarily."

The two brothers sat down on a table together in a more secluded area as they prepared to discuss their father in more detail.

"Little friend of yours?" Elijah inquired.

"Hardly." Klaus replied with a smug grin.

"Do you remember him now?" Greta queried.

"As an elephant considers a gnat, merely a trifle." Klaus replied as he got to his seat, clearly shaken by the implications of her words.

"What you call a trifle, is my Bodhidharma!" She shot back at him. "My guru nanak, my Jesus! August is the touchstone to everything I believe and the reason that I and my friends, have taken your sweet Hayley."