Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Return of the destroyer

I was back in New Orleans this time with only Rebekah and one other vampire that Rebekah had sired, the young woman that I rescued from the dragon attack in Greece, her name was Alexandria. As it turned out, she was orphaned in the attack and had no other family, so I took her in, raising her as my own for five years until I thought she was ready to become a vampire. Rebekah had turned her knowing that I usually only turned syphoners. She was the closest thing I could get to having a child of my own, vampires, of course, being infertile. Although I wonder if there is a loophole in that part of the spell as all magic has loopholes. Now she joined us in returning to New Orleans, Elijah once again inviting. I was tempted to turn his invitation down this time, but unfortunately, Rebekah insisted that we go see him.

We were to meet him at a local theatre as he had booked tickets to a local show for us all, our other siblings joining us there. Walking through the streets of New Orleans, I could not help but admire what they had made of it, from a backwater civilisation into a thriving city, quite similar to what I had done across Europe. I did not doubt that Elijah had been the main one to improve the city; he always did need something to do, to make better, er, and he had definitely achieved that. Although a dark shadow loomed over the city, not from the vampires lurking in the shadows, nor the witches committing dark rituals under the cover of darkness, and even the werewolves did not inspire this fear. No, it was an entirely human monster causing the fear, an axe man haunting the streets, he had already claimed multiple lives, and the only thing that seemed to keep him away was jazz music. You could tell the citizens were scared, as almost every home you passed had jazz playing out loud enough for you to hear from quite a distance. Honestly, the amount of terror the axe man inspired reminds me of Jack the Ripper, having been in London at the time he was active, I can still remember the terror inspired by just a man.

We arrived at the theatre, which seemed more of an opera house, and outside stood my siblings, each one dressed as impeccably as I and Rebekah. Kol noticed us first and called out a greeting, a massive grin across his face, "Rebekah, Asmund, you took your time getting here, and what's this, you brought little Alexandria with you, how nice?". "Good to see you too, brother. How have you been these last few years?" I said while approaching him. "Not too bad, just enjoying life like usual" he responded. Kol and Finn had both left our family home in Greece some time ago, Finn returning a couple of times a year whereas we only heard from Kol in his occasional letters.

After we reunited and caught up on what had been going on in our lives over the last few years we started to head inside. The opera house was truly an amazing piece of architecture, I could see why it was a main attraction in the city. We continued inside before being led to our seats, some of the best in the house from what Elijah had told us, then we sat in for the night ahead. The show consisted of two parts first being opera music for about an hour, then afterwards a show, a play of some kind that Elijah assured us would be spectacular.

I will admit opera was definitely not for me, but I did still enjoy the opportunity to spend time with my family, especially since I did not see most of them often. The venue was also very nice with comfortable seats that you could sink into, although they went a bit over the top with security, dozens of well-dressed men lined the top of the aisles, looking down onto the audience, It struck me as a bit odd but I did not think too much of

[it.

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](http://it.At) the end of the opera section of the night, the audience clapped, sending the performers on their way with applause before the great back curtain closed slowly. I looked around the entire theatre in darkness apart from the occasional soft glow of a lamp, not that the darkness had any effect on my vision. I could see across the entire theatre as though it was lit up by daylight. I scanned the entire room, through the several hundred men and women in the audience up to the guards at the top of the aisles. I thought there seemed to be more than before, and the audience itself seemed all too quiet. Usually, there would at least be some noise, the low chatter of conversation that blended into one, even more strange, they all remained seated throughout the break, not one got up to go to the toilet or get refreshments. No, instead they all remained seated, quiet, wearing blank looks on their faces. It hit me suddenly that only they had been compelled, that was the only explanation.

Turning to face my sibling, I managed to get out a single sentence before the curtain began, to open "something's wrong here, we need to leave". Before I could continue, the curtain started opening to the applause of the audience, and the audience did not stop when the carnage on stage came into view. Every member of the cast was torn to pieces on stage, some hung from hooks while others lay nailed onto props. In the middle, a man was lashed to a cross, blood covered him entirely, even more surprising was the fact that I recognised him, Marcel my brother's adopted son. I was not too sure whether he existed in this world but he did. It also hit me that a similar event happened in the show, but the perpetrator could not have done it here as he sat dessicated at the bottom of a flooded cave.

Not having time to think, I looked back again at what I assumed to be security, where there were once maybe a dozen men, and now stood hundreds armed with Thompson machine guns. I had no doubt that they did not possess ordinary bullets, most likely wooden ones instead. I dove onto Alexandria and Rebekah just in time before the first cracks of automatic fire began, aimed directly at us. My earlier thoughts were confirmed as the shots started pelting me, they were wood, which meant whoever it was knew that we were vampires. Luckily for me and my siblings, the ordinary wooden bullets would not kill us, most would not even penetrate our enhanced skin. If they did, the only way to hurt us was to get our hearts, although that would only put us down for a few minutes at most. Unfortunately, though, Alexandria was not an original meaning that a single bullet getting to her heart would kill her, hence me shielding her with my body. "Rebekah, you need to get Alexandria out of here, take Kol and Finn with you. Us three will buy you some time". I got out before the shooting stopped momentarily, and a familiar voice called out, "Where are my players, still hiding like animals, come out and face me?". It was Mikaels' voice, no doubt about it; somehow, he escaped the cave and had come for ****.

As soon as Mikael finished speaking, the cracks of gunfire resumed pelting us with wooden bullets, which I now realised must be coated in vervain as they burned with every successful hit. "Run, like I said, we will catch you up, go through the side door", I repeated, Finn hearing me pulled Kol and Rebekah up before shielding Alexandra and speeding away. "Well then, brother, care to show the old man how much stronger we have grown"? I said to Klaus and Elijah, a grin spreading across my face. The next break in the fire came a moment later, taking advantage, I pulled one of the seats from its frame before hurling it at the gun men, copying me, my brothers did the same. I truly had no idea how many we had taken down, but I did know some had fallen, as I could feel their blood starting to spill across the floor. I started pulling it, gathering the blood into tendrils before lashing out at other guns, men, taking out as many as I could before adding their blood to the tendrils.

Before I could continue my attack, a lantern sailed through the air, crashing into the still applauding audience, cascading burning oil across the theatre. More joined the fire, starting a quickly spreading blaze. Father intended to burn us out. More gunfire rained on us, although noticeably less than before. "We need to push forward lest we be overwhelmed by the flames and bullets, " I shouted to my two brothers. Both nodded in agreement, before, as one, we jumped further forward into the first row of gunmen. They were no threat to us being just compelled humans, each slash of our claws sending multiple to their graves. After a few minutes, we had thinned their numbers out by a large margin, fifty remained at most and in the centre stood Mikael, white oak stake in hand. "You two get out of here, I can take him and he won't waste the stake on me, so run", I again shouted at them both. Hearing my logic and finding no flaws in it, both of them sped away, leaving me alone to face Mikael and fifty armed humans.

"Father, it's been a while. How did you escape that cave? " I shouted at him while cutting down another man. "I was freed by someone who hates you all as much as I do", he spat out, his tone laced with venom. "Who would free you? Nobody knew where you were. I made sure of it", I shouted back, questioning his tale. "Does it matter, son?"? he again shouted out. "But I will make you an offer, one last chance to join me to exterminate that thing you call brother. Think, son, together we can rid the world of that beast, that abomination". I laughed at his words, a genuine smile spreading across my face. "You lost the right to call me son, you failed, you are the one who set us all on this path, and now you seek to destroy us. I know that Klaus would just be the start, then after him, you would hunt us all down, and I can't let you do that. I will stand against you for as long as I live to protect my family," I screamed at him before throwing the last remaining human at him. "Now fight me", I challenged.

I knew that in a physical fight, he would have the advantage, being a lot stronger and faster than I, so I did not let it come to that. With a thought I started to fire tendrils of blood at him, cutting deep and forcing him to focus on avoiding them. He started ducking and weaving, avoiding more and more of my strikes, while still attacking. I started to focus on his blood, attempting to pull at it but finding great resistance. It seemed as though his body was fighting my attacks so I went back to firing blood tendrils at him. With a single move of my hand, I started gathering all the spilt blood into one great wave before throwing it towards him. Much to my shock, he raised his hand, and the wave started to slow before stopping mid-air. Both of us fought against the other in an attempt to gain control of the wave. "After our last fight, I realised I should find out what other abilities we had", he shouted at me. Seeing that this was just wasting energy I released my control on the blood while jumping back into a shadow, slipping into it effortlessly. I heard the almighty crash as several hundred litres of blood crashed throughout the theatre, barely missing me.

I dived out of a different shadow behind him and slashed across his back with my claws, before disappearing again into another shadow. He screamed in fury before wildly swinging his claws, fortunately only hitting empty air. Diving out, I slashed again while pulling some of the blood up, wrapping it around his ankle, too focused on my slashes, he did not see the blood tighten around his leg before it was too late. With a pull I took him off balance before starting to slam him around the theatre, pulling him toward shadows before popping out to slash him, before disappearing again. Although by the seventh time I jumped out he had already started fighting against the tendril wrapped around his leg. Letting go I watched as he dropped to the ground with a heavy thud.

Standing, he charged straight at me, dodging to the side, I delivered a kick to his back, sending him sprawling across the floor before raising my hand and sending a wave of fire at him. It missed, but it bought me a few seconds, allowing me to pick up a broken piece of wood and throw it at him. He dodged then came at me again, white oak stake in hand trying to drive it into me. I grabbed his wrist, fighting against him with all my strength, but it was no use, his strength pushed past mine, bringing the stake closer to my heart.

Without another thought, I grabbed his wrist tighter before spinning us both and starting up into the air. At the sudden change, his grip on the stake loosened, but not enough for him to drop it. Looking around quickly, I saw the all-consuming fire mere feet away and dragged us both closer to it. We crashed straight into it, slamming through a support beam with an almighty crash. The pain I expected did not come, as if the fire did not burn me, I looked down at my body and realised the fire was not burning me. The dragon, it could only be due to that, perhaps the blood I consumed gave me immunity to fire, perhaps it was the dragon magic, it did not matter.

I grabbed Mikaels' wrist harder, noticing that the stake had been dropped, and started pushing him further into the flame, his skin blistering and blackening under the heat. He fought, driving a fist into my face with a crack, then another, more followed, but I did not let up, I tightened my grip and continued holding him in place. I pulled the blood around us again wrapping it around his wrists to stop his punches as he screamed in hate, pain and fury. I just had to hold on a bit longer until he was too badly burned to fight back.

Suddenly, he gained a burst of strength, breaking the blood tendrils tying him down and delivering a punch to my face, knocking me back. As soon as I was off him, he sped out of the fire, I realised something then, at that moment my skin had begun to redden. Heat started washing over me, what I thought was total immunity to fire must only be temporary. I tried to get out of the flames only to be hit by a chair thrown at me with **** ****. Mikael, mirroring the tactic my brothers and I used earlier, started lobbing the seats at me. My flesh was burning, with blisters appearing on my flesh. I had to end this quickly and get out of the flames.

With everything I had I pulled at Mikael, blood tendrils wrapped around him, as my magic telekinetically pulled him in. He could not fight both forces pulling him into the flames and he soon joined me again in the fire. His skin, having not healed fully, continued to blacken and char, matching my own. Wrapping my arms around him, I started grappling, attempting to hold him down, but he rose off the ground, dragging me with him. Pushing myself opposite to him, we started flying madly, crashing through supports with reckless abandon, each one that fell releasing strained groans from the roof. Raising one arm, I brought it down on his head, making him fall to the floor. As I pushed off to the side, my body crashed through another beam. He started to rise despite most of his flesh being burned away, but I responded quickly, with a thought, I grasped at the roof with my magic and pulled.

The roof gave way sending a massive amount of rubble crashing down onto us both as the flames shot even higher. I saw Mikael get buried under tons of debris and smiled before pulling myself towards the exit. My body still a flame I managed to pull myself out of the fire and started to run, hopefully before Mikael freed himself. Pain was still lancing through my body, my healing factor working overtime to counteract the damage the flames had done, even as I reached the outskirts of New Orleans, my body had not fully recovered.

I looked back once my eyes scanned the city, seeing the fire still raging, even worse, it had begun spreading, taking most of the street the opera house inhabited with it. Deciding I did not have enough time to look back on the carnage, I ran as far and fast as I could, hoping I would escape the country within a couple of days at most.