Curse of Ravens // Mikaelson

33 How to Make a Real Threat

"Where have you been?" Caroline asked the moment Hope and I walked through the doors to the compound. Almost immediately my mother's face changed from frustrated to concerned as she took in the dried blood on my face. The vampire flashed before me and grabbed my chin.

"It's not my blood."

"That's even worse!" My mother scolded. I cracked a smirk. "This isn't funny, Alice. What did you do?" She demanded. Hope gave me a look like you're on your own. I looked around the main floor and noticed everyone was there. Other than Hayley, that was. Most of them were watching me and my mother, like they knew this was coming.

"Anastasia I need the most powerful neutralizing spell you got." I told her, and the witch stood up.

"What happened, Alice?" My mother repeats, even more urgently now that I had asked for such magic.

"Kramer marks." I deadpanned, turning to show my Mum the back of my neck. Caroline touched the markings there, but her brows came together in confusion. "Experimental magic. The vampire clan Onyx could use these marks for any number of things. Which means every moment that we stand here debating where I've been and what I've been doing, gives them more time to do- well- anything to me."

Freya was already in motion, darting this way and that, grabbing her grimoire. She wasn't the only one, immediately Anastasia was at her side, crushing herbs.

"How did they manage that?" Aleksandr was at my side so fast that he may as well have been a vampire.

"If I knew that, I'd already have dealt with them." I growled, not upset at him per se, but broiling over with rage at the fact anyone could've used magic on me to track my movements without me knowing the moment it happened. I curled my fingers into fists, and the candles in the room all came to light.

"What's Onyx?" Elizabeth asked. I walked over to the table, handing Anastasia the salt. She mixed it into the herbs.

"It's an underground network of vampires across the world who believe in Original supremacy." Freya explains as she works. She moved the candles aside and gestured for me. I hopped up on the surface, and took my jacket off. "Onyx has survived by living in the shadows for hundreds of years. Members are kept quiet about it. Since Tristen de Martel and Lucien Castle died, they've been a little more active in the daylight. When the sirelines broke, they broke free of the shadows so to speak."

I pulled my hoodie off, leaving me in a tank top. Anastasia poured hot water and added the herbs and salt, handing me the cup. I screwed up my face and drank the bitter salty liquid. The witch pressed her fingers to my forehead as the mixture immediately started to take effect. Aleksandr fetched a few things he had brought with him, and his twin mixed kohl and water. The warlock opened his grimoire, and flicked through the pages rapidly.

"Kramer marks are considered soul magic." I told the twins, following what they were trying to do. My skin broke out in a sweat as the fever ripped through me from the herbs. My hands started to shake.

"Aurora de Martel now leads them." Kol walked into the compound, and Hope brightens at his appearance. The flowers in the compound begin to wilt in real-time, and I shared a look with Freya. "What is going on?" My uncle walked over to where I sat, and I notice Davina entering after him.

Aleksandr dipped a paint brush into the kohl and water mixture and took my hand, beginning to paint runes up my arms. Freya watched curiously.

"The runes draw the magic away from the marks. It will help identify the properties of the magic. The salt purifies the blood. The snakeroot and hemlock raises the temperature of the body to stimulate heartrate." Anastasia explains to the witch. I tried not to be too satisfied with the fact that Anastasia was teaching Freya how to neutralize magic with an unknown source.