13: Play Me

“Isabella,” he warned. “One splinter comes off it…”

Her watery eyes met his. “I know. I know it can kill us, but we know where it is and only few do now, and they are friends. And if it should get out and something were to happen, Niklaus Mikaelson, I expect nothing less but your wrath to avenge us. But darling, he did let another know,” she whispered her words.

A growl let out from deep within as his eyes glowed yellow. “Who?”

“You shall get your time in, do not worry. I am certain there has not been an opportunity for communications,” she smiled. “Even in my – departure, I knew how everyone operated.”

~o.O.o~

Myriam sat perched on the back of the antique armchair, legs crossed and her finger tapping on her lip as she eyed the Cold Ones in the sitting room. Her knowledge of their race had her vampire senses going off that the couple was far from the innocent duo they attempted to appear.

If there was ever a skill she picked up by having a bar, it was detecting when someone was lying. And you didn’t need a heartbeat to indicate such things.

“You really shouldn’t put your feet on the furniture. If Isa or Elijah were to come in and see you, your next would be broken before you could blink,” Kol warned as he walked in and handed her a glass of alcohol.

“I’m certain of it, but they have their own problems and I am no so certain it’s over with these two,” she hummed as she leaned closer to him. “They aren’t being honest.”

“Darling, they haven’t spoken to anyone since my brother took them captive,” he smiled at her.

“Well, I want to play. You won’t let me play with the ones that were outside, and you say those two are off limits. I’m bored, Kol!” she whined.

He rolled his eyes and looked towards what she was looking at, trying to understand what she was thinking. “Well, I don’t recall actually asking you to come back with us. For that matter, I didn’t know you would be at that bar, let alone own it.”

Myriam rolled her eyes, her smile growing as she continued to watch the Cold Ones. “You’d be bored to tears if I didn’t come along. You couldn’t be creative enough with her wardrobe. It was a valiant attempt, but admit it. I play the pet game so much better.”

“I will concede you do make things interesting,” the Original admitted. “However, I do know you quite well, as well. I know the rat in your head has that wheel turning up something rather devious. I want to know.”

Her eyes darted to him for but a moment as the amusement filled her. “Oh, Kol. You know me much better than that! I am no rat! My spirit animal is the wiley fox! Just how trustworthy do you think these…” Myriam’s face scrunched up as she struggled to find a civilized word for the few of the Cold Ones that she knew that her friend did seem to take a friendly interest in.

“Nik’s known the Major for some time. How well, I don’t know. I was boxed up for most of that period, which we covered already. Where are you going with this?”

“One of these things aren’t being honest. That’s what I’m saying,” she replied. “I don’t know why anyone hasn’t figured it out yet, or what, but when your brother gets here and he hears this, hoh, oh, oh!”

“Pardon me, but we already suspected that Carlisle and Esme were keeping things so that’s why they’ve been with us the entire time and not allowed any communication,” Jasper interrupted as he came back inside, hearing the conversation.

Myriam turned and eyed him, once, twice, and smiled. “You’re the empath, no?”

“Yeah,” he confirmed, narrowing his eyes on her.

“What do you sense from me?” she asked, a flirty smile gracing her lips, fingers coming up to play with her necklace.

Kol watched curiously, knowing her history and hadn’t said anything to the man since they arrived about her. While he knew she had been a witch when he took her, but she had her own particular specialty that drew him to her.

Jasper eyed the female warily, sensing his brother approach from behind to watch. Despite the smile and flirtatious gaze, which he was certain he should be getting something of the amorous sort from her, he could feel – nothing. “How? How are you blocking me? I mean, I know that your kind can turn off your humanity. Bella did, but there were still emotions there. She had anger, fear underlying it all. She just couldn’t express it.”

She gave a coy shrug, looking back over the other Cold Ones. “I have a little help,” she admitted with a conspiratorial whisper.

Jasper looked at Kol, who smiled back, keeping mum. “I’m almost afraid to ask.”

“Trust me, you don’t want to know,” Peter muttered. “From what I understand, we keep our distance from that one and we are fine.”

Myriam grinned at Peter, a dark giggle escaping. “Aw, shucks. I’m really not that bad. Am I, Kol?”

“You’re a demon bitch, Myriam,” he flatly replied.

The two still, however, kept a wide berth from her as she tilted her head. Her eyes narrowed as the one Cold One was on their cell phone, seemingly bored by everything. Zipping over and snatching it from their grasp, she check the messages before there was chance for them to be erased. “You know, Kol, I’ve learned a lot in the time that we’ve been apart.”

“You mean while Nik and Bella had me daggered and dragged me around in a coffin,” he clarified, frowning as the two mentioned walked in.

Klaus frowned at the way he found everyone positioned, his eyes asking his brother what was going on. Bella, both confused and terrified as she stared at what was inevitably about to go down with her brother’s former lover.

“Welcome back,” Kol muttered, earning him a smile from Bella before they turned back to Myriam, whom cleared her throat and demanded attention.

“As I was saying, I’ve learned a lot. Met some – interesting people,” she started. “There was this one vampire, fairly young by most standards, but far from naive. She was a fighter, and to be a physician when she was human. Only problem was she realized she had a mental disorder.”

“That’s lovely, Myriam. However, what does that have to do with the situation here? Why are you even here?” Klaus questioned.

She fiddled with the phone, smiling. “Well, as it turned out, she diagnosed herself with what she called an Axis II personality disorder. Now, before she admitted it to me, I actually had thought she had her humanity turned off – no offense Bella. But this bitch was completely sadistic, practically psychotic, passive-aggressive to the point it puts Elijah to shame. Well, then she told me about the disorder and boy, if she did flip that switch, I thought about you Klaus. How much alike you two were. But you actually care about people. Well, your family and Bella. So not so much alike…” she trailed off in thought.

“Myriam,” Bella warned, growing agitated.

“Hm? Oh, yes. Sorry. Well, anyway, she taught me a few things about human behavior and I taught her about being a vampire, and we parted ways. I moved down to Baltimore and opened my bar and club, and, well, learned even more,” she said turning to look at the Cold One. “I know that sociopaths, good ones, can hide their lack of emotions very well to the eye. However, how does one do that living with an empath? Well, they would need access to a witch. Right?”

Jasper glanced between his sibling and the traditional, not liking the insinuation she was making. “What are you implying?”

“Oh, just you’ve believed that your little traitor in the midst was Mommy and Daddy, because they favored that golden boy that Bella killed. Am I right? Kol only gave me the cliff notes version. Well, something didn’t add up. If the sparkly moron had info, enough to freak out Klaus Mikaelson’s own wife, then it was big. Something that would be able to say, oh, kill an Original?”

“What?” Kol jumped up. “Is this true? I thought the last stake burned with Father!”

Klaus glared at the former witch with the usual irritation he held for her. “How could you have known that?”

“Please,” she scoffed. “You know how I get my information. I ran with your family for a period before you boxed Kol and I took off. My safety wasn’t guaranteed being around you because of my allegiance to him. But I’m right, aren’t I?”

“You are,” Bella admitted. “But who…?”

“This big one,” Myriam eyeballed. “He was way too happy, fast talking, and just generally rubbed me the wrong way from the moment we got here. And he’s been on his phone texting with someone, who – should be visiting shortly. I’ll be right back…” she said as she zipped out of the house.

Klaus raised a hand, pointing towards the door as he eyed his brother. “Please tell me you have a good excuse for bringing that back here.”

“I didn’t know she was going to be at that bar that we went to! I just wanted to scare the seer a bit, have some fun! Next thing I know, it’s her that’s handing me a drink that I didn’t order!”

“Other than the white oak, she’s possibly the only being capable of destroying us!” he shouted.

Kol grimaced and shrugged. “Technically speaking, not her, but she’s really harmless. She just doesn’t like being messed with or lied to, or threatened… Really, she’s a female you…”

Bella raised an eyebrow at that. “So what you are saying is you’re secretly attracted to your brother?”

“NO!” both objected venomously.

Jasper scratched the back of his head and eyed the brothers. “That’s kinda how it sounded.”

The two turned to glare at him as well. “So where did she run off to after dropping that suggestion that he is the traitor all the while?” Klaus questioned as he went to grab Emmett and move him to join Carlisle and Esme. “If you are smart, blondie, you will move on your own.”

Rosalie glared at Emmett and moved to the sofa, crossing her arms. “What did you do?” she hissed at him.

Female screaming and grunting could be heard coming closer. When the front doors flew open on their own, every vampire flitted as far back from it as possible. “Myriam’s back,” Kol murmured, watching with eager eyes.

A body was thrown into the foyer and landed, moving slightly with a groan. Myriam walked in behind, calmly and sighed. “When you make deals with Cold Ones, you should anticipate getting some kind of infection. They are parasites after all. The thing is, you fucked up Girl. You took a call and made deals without the full picture. And then you just had to get yourself involved with it further, complicating it more,” she lectured as she reached down to grab the vampire by the hair, revealing Katherine Pierce.

“Katherine?” Bella blinked. “But – you helped me… You got me away from Nik when I didn’t want to deal with them when I was off.”

She turned her eyes over to the Original but was unable to say anything as outside, Myriam had managed to shove a stalk of vervain down her throat so she was unable to speak. “Oh, we all know that Miss Pierce loves playing the long game. She got an offer on some white oak and couldn’t refuse. My sources told me that because of her debt to you, she had to get you out of the way so that she could try to get her hands on it to use on the rest of the family. Seems you’re the only likable one. I do would like to debate that one day.”

Bella growled, her eyes glowing yellow as she took a step towards Myriam. Kol quickly moved to step in between the girl, his hands held up in surrender. “Whoa, whoa, calm down. I know you just got your emotions back and they may still be a bit wonky but let’s calm down and find out more about this deal with Katherine and the sparkly, okay? Let’s not hurt our friend. She’s here to help us, remember?”

“Put your bitch on a leash Kol. I’ll kill her myself,” she snapped before returning to Klaus, who was still feeling overwhelmed himself with the rollercoaster of behavior from his wife.

Kol turned and glared at Myriam, who only pouted. “I was only being honest,” she replied innocently.

“Just get to the facts,” he ordered.

Rolling her eyes, Myriam snapped Katherine’s neck and let her body fall to the ground. “She was going to buy the info off that fucker, obviously. I don’t need to tell you what for. I don’t know why he didn’t try selling it to the Volturi, but I know they would love to get their hands on it.”

Klaus’ eyes narrowed at that and turned to Emmett. “Did you tell anyone else other than Katherine? Because we’ve been waiting on the Volturi tracker and he has never shown.”

“You called for Demetri? Why?” Bella asked.

“To track your crazy wolf ass down,” Myriam emotionlessly answered, bored. “Look, you don’t like me. I’m not particularly fond of you. But we do have mutual interests. Neither of us want that wood in the hands of the wrong people. You lose your family and I lose,” she glanced at Kol with hesitance before continuing, “my life if he dies.”

Klaus frowned and sighed as he had not missed what she wordlessly. Shaking his head, he pulled out his phone and dialed the number he had for the tracker he despised for his interest in his wife. As he waited for the Cold One to answer, he eyed his brother’s creation. “You said that this bloody maggot needed a witch to fool the Major.”

Myriam stared at him like the moron she always believed him to be. Pointing back at the unconscious vampire at her feet, she raised an eyebrow. “Who the hell has been her best friend for the last fifteen years or so? As I understand, Maria has a new vampire that as a witch had the capability of causing brain aneurysms. Now she can literally make a vampire’s venom boil. You think Jane is bad? Congratulations Bella. You gave Maria a weapon she’d been hoping for – if she could just get a vampire in the girl’s eyesight without losing it. You are lucky to leave Mexico when you did because other than Klaus’ enemies, the great, sweet, Isabelle Mikaelson made an official enemy of the Mexican warlord, Maria all on her own.”

Seeing his sister’s face fall with each word, Kol could not help but be sympathetic. “That’s enough Myriam,” he quietly told her, trying to ease the anger and hate she held for the Cold Ones and the guilt that was growing within Bella. “Do your pets know if there is anyone else involved?”

She looked back at him, drawing a deep breath and kicking Katherine in the face hard enough to snap her neck again when she began to stir awake. Reaching up to her pendant, she closed her eyes as she waited for communication with its inhabitants.

Klaus stared at her, pissed off as hung up the phone as Demetri’s went unanswered. “Aro is going to be losing his hound.”

Bella had remained quiet as she realized just how far her family had truly gone to try to get her back because of what she had done in her reaction to the new white oak. “Are we really losing everyone we had once believed an ally?”

Kol moved in front of Myriam and peered in her eyes that had opened in small slits. He could make out that they had turned black and it had always freaked him out. “Well, when our family went from not one, but two Original hybrids, it sort of changes the shift of power against the rest of the factions. You can’t blame them for being upset.”

With a gasp, Myriam’s eyes opened up, back to her strange cognac color. “Your Cold One friend is still working in your favor,” she reported. Her disgust barely disguised in her tone. “He intercepted Katherine’s bid to sell the wood of the tree to the Volturi once she had gotten access and is in Washington negotiating with the shifters. I don’t see this going well in the long run.”

“Why not? They are our friends,” Bella questioned.

“Those shifters know what they can be used against you and they are in control of it,” Myriam pointed out. “The right threat, they will hand it over. You know this is a strong possibility Klaus. You’ve done it yourself.”

He nodded, unable to deny her point. “So all that is involved are the shifters, the tracker, and these two?”

Myriam looked over at the Cold Ones. “The blond wasn’t involved, but she knows now. That’s on you to decide how to handle it. I wouldn’t trust the other two. My issues aside, I’d destroy those three.”

Klaus pulled Bella to the side and pushed her hair back from her face to pull it up to face him. “We did discuss this possibility enroute here. This is how we survived for so long. We were wary of even our allies for many turned on us,” he said.

Bella reached up to hold her head as the stress begun to engulf her. Looking back at Kol and Myriam, she nodded. “Fine. Kill them,” she said. Remorse filled her and she couldn’t stop herself as she turned to seek out Jasper. “I’m so sorry…”

He smiled and waved her off. “No worries. I expected this outcome. It’s alright, Sugar.”

“Where’s Alice?” she asked.

He looked over at Myriam, who hid her smile as she shifted behind Kol’s form. “Kol tried to make her his pet, from my understanding. However, someone else took a claim and has been using her as a doll since. She’s upstairs and compelled at the moment.”

Bella was immediately curious. “A doll?”

“You have no idea, Poppet,” Kol replied. “I just had her covered to avoid sparkles but wasn’t concerned about fashion. But Myriam is particularly cruel.”

“I hate Cold Ones. You brought her to my bar,” Myriam reminded him as ran her hands around his waist from behind and receiving a surprised hiss from him.

Jasper rolled his eyes and elbowed Peter to move. “We’ll take care of these guys. I guess you should compel Rosalie with what you want her remember, Klaus. And deal with Katherine.”

Klaus was confused, about to question him when Kol’s eyes darkened and grabbed Myriam before disappearing with her. Pressing his lips together in annoyance, he shook his head. “Bloody wanker. We won’t be rid of that devil woman until he’s boxed or he pisses her off again.”

“Forget them. If she’s got Alice being miserable, she can stay!” Bella grinned, running up the stairs to find the annoying creature.

Jasper smiled as he waited, watching her husband. It was only a moment before her laughter broke out, filling the house. “Myriam has her dressed in a strange, giant cactus looking dress that even comes over her head with red tights. She swears that everything really comes off the runway so Alice has absolutely no excuse to complain.”

Ignoring everyone, Peter just began to make his way to grab Emmett, who attempted to fight him. Being the skilled fighter he was, he had little issues getting him outside and using him to get a bonfire started.

“So what happened to Elijah?” Jasper asked, ignoring Peter and Charlotte as they made their way back in to grab their next victim with eager smiles on their faces.

Klaus watched the pair carry the struggling and protesting Esme outside before answering. The two were clearly taking their time and enjoying the opportunity to take out Cullens. “Daggered and in the possession of one of my progeny. Once this here is resolved, Isabella and I are supposed to return to deal with him. For now, Rebekah is keeping Marcel company to assure they don’t do anything to him. Isabella refuses to allow to have his dagger removed. She hasn’t said why.”

“I wish I could help you there,” the empath said.

“I know,” Klaus sighed.

Peter returned inside for Carlisle and this time was skipping like a third grade school girl. He walked out with his body over his shoulder, tipping his invisible hat passing Klaus.

Klaus was silent for a moment, trying to put his thoughts in order. Staring towards the front door, he finally spoke after a moment as they took in the scent of burning Cold Ones. “Your friend is a strange one, Major.”

“Your family is strange.”