Valor | Marcel Gerard

Chapter 26

It went just as planned.

Neither Tristan nor Aya were among those who snuck in to get the Serratura. Freya had placed a magical alarm system over the decoy, and Ryan and Andra had taken the kids to the Jardin Gris while the Mikaelsons handled the start of the invasion.

The two golems swept in near the end to finish off a few vampires together, pretending that Hayley had called for reinforcements. The injuries were minimal: Freya had been stabbed, but recovered easily with Elijah's blood. Andra's heart had been ripped out and Ryan's neck had been broken after a topple down the staircase. Klaus, Elijah, and Kol were indestructible, so they'd sustained no major injuries. Rebekah had only sprained an ankle when ducking behind her brothers to avoid a body sailing their way. Overall, a great turnout.

And, of course, they kept it up and put on the performance of a lifetime afterward.

"What the hell were you thinking?" said Andra sharply as Marcel came by her apartment, a much less secure area where anyone could be listening. They'd purposely left the faucets and television off this time, inviting someone to eavesdrop. "Marcel, if the Mikaelsons find out you helped with this plan, they'll kill you! They may not know now, and you may be able to get away with lying and pretending they didn't say anything, but it'll come back to bite you in the ass sooner or later. You have to demand protection, you have to ask that they be ready to defend you at a moment's notice!"

"I will," he said. "I just– I thought that it would be better, that if they were put away, we could all be safe."

"I know," she sighed, hugging him and holding the back of his head. "But you were willing to risk your life for me, for Landon, for Davina. As heroic as you think it is, none of us want you to die for us!"

"I'll do anything for you all, and for this city, you know that."

"I know that, and it scares me."

They pulled away from each other, smirking and hoping that some Strix vampire had, in fact, been sent to spy, and was now convinced that Marcel had nothing to do with the Mikaelsons' defenses that day.

"The attack was a success," said Andra when they met in the Compound the next day (with Marcel on the phone from the gym). "Tristan has agreed to protect Marcel. After he helped cure some of those bitten vampires and let them think they nearly got the Serratura– while also becoming well-aware that the Mikaelsons are not as weak as they think them to be– he's become much more valuable and steadily making his way to the inner circle. Twenty-one Strix vampires were lost in yesterday's struggle. Many very old, and probably leaving some open seats at that round table. Marcel is much more likely to find out about further plans now, and he will be able to tell us sufficiently in advance if anything else is planned. As long as we manipulate the situation each time to make sure it's not obvious an attack is expected... we can work things out, or see if we can have the information leaked somehow. Make it seem like someone else is a traitor, like someone else is letting things slip. Elijah, how possible would it be to get a mole in there?"

He pursed his lips. "Possible, yes, but unlikely to be simple or even run smoothly. To isolate any one of The Strix will be extremely difficult. To hold them long enough to bleed them fully of vervain without detection would be harder."

"And as we saw from Shen Min," said Kol, voice laced with venom at the idea that The Strix were after his girlfriend, "the blokes have trained to resist compulsion as best as they can and would rather die than spill secrets."

"We need to try," urged Andra. "I don't think it's safe for Marcel to be the only inside man, they could expect it even after yesterday if something in the future is foiled. That, or we need to see if anyone in there would be willing to betray The Strix of their own volition."