apocalypse

Elijah stood, offering his hand to the man behind the thick slab of glass that passed for a desk. It had probably been some interior designer’s idea of modern, impressive in a way that real money rarely was. A single blow and it would become nothing but glitter, dusting the floor and studding the man behind it – if things had gone badly, and they hadn’t. ”The funds will be in your account by the end of the day. I expect a report by the end of the week.” There was a flicker of anxiety that passed through across the man’s tanned face – another attempt to look the part of success – but he stood and took the offered hand. He was smart enough to handle things for now.

The receptionist outside offered him a sunny smile as he left. Elijah was sure he could feel her eyes on him still as he approached the elevators. Places like this had once been a playground for him, but his handful of years in Mystic Falls had cured him of any desire to dip his toe back into them. He’d taken to dealing with them remotely, unfortunately not everything could be handled that way.

Tomorrow morning he’d be back on a plane. Just a single night away from Mystic Falls, a small breather before he immersed himself in his family dramas again. Perhaps in that short time away Niklaus would have found some way to move past the disaster of his attempt to gather himself a pet coven. Only caging wild things had never worked out well, especially for their family. No matter how much gilding you put on the cage, they could never be tamed.

Manhattan had changed in the centuries since he had first set foot in the city – only then it had been known as New Amsterdam. Only a handful of years later the English had taken control of it, stamping out the Dutch hold on it. Decade by decade the city had grown, rising high above what had once been swamps. He’d huddled around the campfires in the fort in the dark, smelling the coffee that was being scorched among the embers. Now coffee shops sprouted by weeds on every corner, the menus offering hundreds of possibilities – except for those scorched grounds, the taste of which he’d have washed away with blood hours later. Huddled in a dark corner of that near lawless place. Fangs latched into a pale throat, the blank eyed human sent on its way when he was done. No blood staining his hands, death not on his conscience.

Mindless drones that wrung their fortunes out of the people here now buzzed past him, a slow wave of them heading for one of those shops. He could return to his hotel, order room service, or grab a coffee here, putting off the empty suite a while longer. Coffee it was.

Ten minutes later he was sat outside the shop, a double espresso in a cup before him. Brows faintly drown together, he studied a woman at another table, one in a suit that at least showed some signs of true class, the sharp lines and fine finishing of clothing that had been through a tailor’s skilled hands. He considered speaking to her, asking for their name, but the utterance of his name stopped the thought in its tracks.

Eyes narrowing, Elijah stopped and studied the man before him. His breath slipped out of him in a slow exhalation before he nodded at the seat before him. ”Hector … please do.” Reaching out, he shook the offered hand. Settling back, he took up the cup, finally taking a slow sip of the coffee. ”This is a surprise, although with Tristan back from whatever rock he’s been under for years, it perhaps shouldn’t have been. I take it you’re not here on his orders?” The Strix had stopped being his concern centuries ago, but his ties to the organisation would never entirely be severed while Tristan was in charge, if anybody’s ever truly could be.

Tagged: HECTOR DACRE * Word Count: 676

The Strix could’ve changed the world. Monsters they might have been, but they were monsters with great minds and the desire to do something with them. It would have been the first Great Enlightenment, centuries ahead of Kant and his philosophies. Elijah wished he could say the pox on the idea had come from his own father, but all Mikael had done was provide Tristan with the opportunity to poison it all. After centuries he had his retribution. The group had festered, rotting at the core but not having the good grace to fall apart.

Elijah’s eyes narrowed faintly at Hector as the vampire rolled his eyes and sighed. Perhaps there were still some who were a part of it who held onto the old ideals, but after centuries with Tristan as the controlling hand, he wouldn’t believe what he saw at first sight. Tristan was back for a reason – Aurora was back for a reason – and it wasn’t just to see the world. Mystic Falls had been a speck on the map when his own family had arrived there and it hadn’t exactly become a sprawling metropolis since. It was no New York, although it seemed Hector had little trouble finding him here. The only reason the de Martels were there was to finally square off against the Original family. The latest in the ridiculously long line of threats.

After Aurora had paid her visit to his apartment – and the damage had been put to rights – he’d tried to dig into their presence in town. If he could pry them loose then it would be one less reason to look over his shoulder. That had been as fruitless as warning Aurora to leave however. The stench of Tristan’s hypocrisy had hung over the town like a miasma still as he’d left that morning. For a few hours at least New York had been a breath of fresh air. Now Elijah was certain he was catching a whiff of Tristan again, despite Hector’s near silent protest. Perhaps the stench was just imagined but he would take no chances.

Fingertips tapped lightly against the side of the cup for a moment before Hector’s description of Tristan had him puffing out an amused breath. Few would admit such a thing, although they were far enough from Mystic Falls for the word to likely not reach Tristan’s ears. ”An apt description,” Elijah said dryly. ”You’ll have to forgive me for not taking you entirely at your word yet. There have been plenty who have said one thing about the de Martels and have felt the opposite.” In fact Tristan had probably encouraged them to seemingly switch their alliances. What better than a snake in the nest?

His own awareness of what Tristan was up to had faded shortly after he’d parted company with the Strix. The threat was half a world away, biding its time under the rock it had crawled beneath. Now it was back – ready to drive a hatchet into his back. Elijah’s lips curved almost sourly. ”As arrogant as it is, I would say that my presence in Mystic Falls has much to do with it. Taking control of what was mine was never enough for Tristan. He wants to end my family, to finally take his place as the most powerful vampire in existence.” The oldest at the very least. No matter how many centuries he plotted for, Tristan would never find the way to turn himself into one of them, to be truly immortal.

”By bar, you mean the club on the square?” One dark brow rose. Olivia had told him of Alice’s trip there, of the owner who seemed little bothered by the fact that his staff had allowed two teenaged girls to drink. ”Just what did Tristan try to threaten you with?” Hector had been around long enough to have built some dirt up in his past. He wouldn’t have put it past Tristan to have made finding skeletons in vampire’s closets a profitable pastime.

Tagged: HECTOR DACRE * Word Count: 669