"HERE," JUDAS SAID. "JEREMY MADE A LITTLE GILBERT BLOOD DONATION."

"Thanks," Bonnie whispered, barely opening her lips, but Judas flashed her a smile all the same.

"I have to do this with you two lurking over me?" She threw over her shoulder to Damon and Klaus. 

"You're still mad at me for what happened to Abby. Let me apologize. I'm sorry Elijah forced us to turn your mother into a vampire to save Elena's life. Didn't exactly have a choice," Damon said.

Judas' shoulders shook from his chuckle, "Heartfelt apology."

Bonnie pursed her lips. "There's always a choice. Whenever you make one someone else suffers."

"Let's cut the dramatics and begin, shall we?" said the Hybrid, rolling his blue eyes.

Without another word, Bonnie began the spell. "Phasmatos Tribum Nas Ex Veras, Sequita Saguines, Ementas Asten Mihan Ega Petous."

Judas gazed at the map, slightly baffled when the blood did not move.

"Esther is fighting you," He realized.

"Esther couldn't possibly have this much power," Klaus paced. "Unless she's channeling something."

"A hotspot?"

Klaus snapped his fingers. "Get the humans ready. I know where she is."

---- Δ ----

"He'll wake soon. When he does he may, for a time, be his old self. If so you can say your goodbyes before his transition is complete."

The moon had risen high and the Draconi, itching to do something, had gone off into the night. To where, Elena didn't know, but she was done caring for an unresponsive Lilura.

The Draconi obviously wanted to be left alone.

Silent tears ran down Elena's cheeks. "You said you wanted to undo the evil that you created," She said, shaking her head. "But this...This is just as evil!"

"Alaric will never be what my children became. I have granted him enough power to complete his task. Then when the time is right, he will die. They both will."

"How, if he's immortal?"

"All you need to know is that when this is over we will have rid the earth of vampires once and for all."

"Yeah, but you'll be killing the good along with the bad, you're no better than Klaus!" seethed Elena.

"Am I not? I desire a world where you and your loved ones will not suffer at the hands of vampires like your Aunt Jenna did."

"Don't you dare use Jenna as an excuse for what you've done."

Esther stared at the girl in a foreign mixture of pity and amusement. The witch looked genuinely confused. "You may draw comfort knowing that your aunt is not in the place that I was. She doesn't know the torment of The Other Side. Though made a vampire, she remained pure. She knows peace. Which is all any of us can hope for."

The grass outside ruffled, but not because of the wind. Esther knew this well. The ancient witch had been anticipating company, and it seemed the Mystic Fall's scooby gang delivered on that promise.

She slipped from Elena's sight and found two humans in the middle of the cemetery.

"Don't move!" yelled the blond one with a rifle in his hands.

The other cocked his crossbow menacingly, "Where's Elena?"

Before Esther could say anything, Elena joined the trio. "Jeremy!"

"Let her go," her little brother said to Esther, knees buckling at the sight of the Original Witch.

Esther smiled coldly. "How foolish of you, to risk your lives in defense of those who will kill you. But if that is your choice."

Suddenly, Matt and Jeremy were turning on each other. Their weapons, which had once been comforting allies, were now their civil undoing.

"Matt! Matt drop your gun!"

"I can't! I'm not controlling it!" bellowed the Donovan.

"Esther stop it!"

And she did. The Original Witch fell down in a heap, the perpetrator holding a rock the size of a heart standing behind her with a dazed frown.

"Oh my god," Alaric breathed."Where's my ring? Tell me what happened."

---- Δ ----

Klaus looked down from the stars when he heard Stefan's slow gait round the corner of the high school. He half wished the moody vampire would trip and fall, but then again Stefan had already made a fool of himself numerous times without Klaus' ill thinking.

"You know this is your fault," stated the Hybrid. "You set us on this path when you released my mother. I wonder if revenge will prove worth the cost."

"Oh, I'm done with revenge. As far as Esther; we've stopped her before, we'll stop her again."

Klaus chuckled dryly. "We're strange bedfellows, you and I. You know, all of this, reminds me of our time together in the twenties."

"You say that like I'm supposed to have happy memories about it," Stefan deadpanned.

"Well, there were moments. Real friendship," Klaus confessed. "Brotherhood."

"Well, he already has a brother. Not to be, you know, territorial or anything," Damon licked his lips.

"Oh no, of course, the Salvatores. And their unshakeable bond. I wonder what'll happen when Elena finally makes her choice. Will we see you shake just a little bit?"

Damon hadn't been listening in the slightest. A flash of silver madness and raven hair caught his eyes. 

"What's that?" 

Stefan stared at the forest and felt his blood run cold.

Rustling leaves. Flashing silver. Ominous grey clouds. Gray veins under purple eyebags and jagged teeth.

"Lilura," Klaus whispered. The woman had not shown herself yet, but he could already hear her tinkling laughter.

"Isn't she - you know - crazy? More so than usual?" Damon asked.

The Hybrid squared his shoulder. "Unfortunately, but maybe that'll play in our favor."

"I highly doubt it," replied Stefan, observing the school grounds suspiciously.

"Oh, I think it will," argued the Hybrid. "She's impulsive, no longer calculated. All we have to do is wait for her to crack."

"Salvatoresssss!" trilled the Siren. Both of the men turned around, trying in vain to pinpoint her voice.

"Can she get in?" Damon pointed to the salt line.

"Only one way to find out!" sang the Siren, finally stepping into sight.

Stefan felt the hairs on his neck rise. Damon blindly groped for something in his jeans, a weapon of some sort. The last man stood silently, but his face was the most expressive out of them all.

"Miss me, boys?"

"Jesus Christ," whispered Damon. "What happened there?" He looked away as if the sight of her deformity and soulless eyes disgusted him. 

The Siren snarled, "What? This is the face I was born with, Damon Salvatore. The old one was a ruse. A disguise for the gullible."

The Siren wiggled her bare feet above the salt line. She could cross it. 
"Might want to run, boys."

Stefan eyed her, mind racing a hundred miles per hour. If Lilura was unstable, she might attack the school. "Don't do this. Think of all the innocent lives. Think of all the blood you'd spill."
Stefan glanced at the doors."They're just children."

The Siren slowly smirked, "Oh, how chivalrous. How noble, Stefan Salvatore. You'll be happy to hear that I'm not here for the humans."

And then the Siren pounced.

Damon and Stefan stiffened, preparing for the gravitational impact but opened their eyes a heartbeat later when nothing happened.

"What-" muttered Damon. "Where did she go?"

Stefan whipped his head from the left to the right. He caught sight of Klaus' blazer.

"Where's Klaus?"

The doors flung open.

"It's done. Esther's not fighting me any more. The boundary spell is broken," Bonnie said, joining the pale -faced vampires.

"What's wrong?" inquired Judas. "You two look like you've seen a ghost."

"She took him," Stefan croaked.

Bonnie and Judas exchanged glances.

"Who?" asked Bonnie. 

"Damn!" The young hunter laughed in frustration as he looked at the ashen faces of the Salvatores. "Damn, you guys are useless."

---- Δ ----

"This is quite dark," Klaus Mikaelson smirked. "Even for your tastes, love."

Kill.

The Siren had chained the Original to a cement cross. In crude afterthought, she had arranged his arms and legs to resemble Jesus Christ when the Romans had taken him.

The kidnapper was pacing back and forth, occasionally slapping sense back into herself, literally.

"Stop it," Klaus said. "You'll ruin that pretty face."

Kill.

She whipped around, smacking him in the face with her greasy black hair.

It had lost its shine, Klaus observed sadly.

"Don't lie to me, Niklaus. I am not beautiful or kind. I am the Draconi."

"Alright," He nodded. "Draconi, what are you waiting for? Why not kill me now?"

"If you weren't so thick," The monster hissed, shoving her face close to Klaus', "You would have noticed that I have no white oak stake."

Kill him. Kill him.

"Who says you need one?" He retorted. "What did Esther call you? A weapon? You know you can kill me. You know you want to. So why don't you?"

Kill. Kill. Kill.

She continued pacing, trying to think clearly through the chanting in her head.

"Why don't you grab that rock there, sweetheart, and plunge it into my jugular vein? Why don't you rip these chains and tie them around my neck? What's stopping you? Fear? My wretched witch of a mother? Do it! You know you want to."

KILL! KILL! KILL THE VAMPIRE!

"Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up! Stop talking!" She didn't know who exactly she was talking to - Klaus or the voices in her head. 

KILL HIM.

In the blink of an eye, the Draconi struck. Her cold hand round themselves around Klaus' neck and squeezed; she watched as the life slowly escaped Klaus and diminished in his icy blue eyes.

Her fingers itched to squeeze and crumble his vertebrae once and for all, but something about his expression made her stop. She had never seen something like it before.

"What?" Klaus breathed raggedly. "Afraid I'll die?"

Maybe. Maybe not.

"Don't look at me like that," the Siren hissed.

"Like what?"

"Like you'd let me do anything. Like you would die right now if I wished it."

Klaus smiled sadly.

"Ad somnum, forti feram. fallat. somnia ex coelo. Ut dolor tuus tibi requiem depite," Bonnie chanted, eliciting a yelp of agony from the Siren.

She crumpled to the floor with Bonnie stood over her, arms extended in an effort to prolong the sleeping spell.

And for the slightest moment, Lilura's beautiful blue-green eyes returned.

"There is a way." She grabbed Bonnie's shoulder. "That it will never come again is what makes life sweet."

The last thing Lilura remembered was Bonnie's round cocoa eyes staring back at her deeply in thought.

Then, darkness her old friend.