Curse of Ravens // Mikaelson

9 Stake Through the Heart

My handwriting was neat cursive. Invitation after invitation, I wrote out individually, blew the ink until it dried, and sprayed it with perfume. Castor watched me from across the table at the Grill later that day, after I had fetched the things I needed from the stores in Mystic Falls. Xavier slid into the booth beside the werewolf with two shots of liquor. He must've compelled the bartender.

"Why are you spraying the paper with perfume?" The wolf finally asked, taking the shot that the vampire handed to him. His face screwed up as the liquor went down his throat. I didn't look up from the invitations as I replied.

"Vampire culture." It was a simple response that didn't warrant further explanation. Castor seemed to accept that, and absently looked through the random things I had gathered through the day.

"What is this?" He held up a few small black objects.

"Charred knuckle bones from a doppelgänger." I answer.

"What?" The wolf immediately dropped the bones. "Where the hell did you get those?"

"While you were playing poker with the kids from Mystic Falls High School, I was burning the remains of Katerina Petrova." The name tumbled off my accented tongue like it belonged there.

"I wondered why you were gone for so long." Xavier pulled a wad of cash out of his pocket and set it on the tabletop. "This was our bounty." The vampire shared a proud look with Cas. I looked between them, and my blue eyes lingered on the vampire.

"What do you need the cash for, Old Money?" I raised an eyebrow. Xavier's smirk vanished, and he scooped up the cash and tucked it away.

"Oh I do not need the money. I like besting mortals." He looked at me from his eyelashes. "You have been all business, no play today." The observation was true.

My playful nature had vanished once I started to take things off my mental ingredient list. And then it became an obsession for hours. I had left the boys to their whims in the town, while I did the leg work. Most of the common ingredients I had gathered. Others, like the charred bones, I needed to go a little further for. I was lucky to locate Katerina's remains, and luckier still to be in the place she died- because if I hadn't been in the general location she died when I charred the bones- then they wouldn't have worked for the ritual.

There were other things I still needed. Ribs of a half-transitioned werewolf and the heart of a dark witch were two of the many ingredients that would require more leg work to produce. In this case, leg work meaning murder. But I would not discuss such details with Xavier when Castor was here. There would be other opportunities. And if Hope hadn't told me to come to a party in the woods tonight, I might've spent the night instead deciding on which of my werewolf classmates would be perfect to harvest the ribs for.

The thought did cross my mind- Castor was right here and he would be easy to manipulate since he clearly liked my company. In fact, he might believe we were on the fast track to being friends. I realized that I was looking at him across the table and quickly flicked my gaze back to Xavier.

"I'm planning a party." I hold up an invitation. "In the case you forgot."

"I did not." The vampire tilted his head ever so slightly at me. I wondered if he knew what I was thinking, if he knew I considered killing our companion of late.

"I decided to make it a masquerade. It's basically vampire tradition and the south has seen plenty of elitist masquerade parties over the years." I slide the card across the table, and Xavier reads the invitation.

"You are inviting Kol Mikaelson?"

"He's the only Mikaelson who won't scold me for holding such a party. He'd only scold me for not inviting him. So yes, of course." And, Hope wasn't invited. So there wouldn't be any risk of him being there.