Elijah Mikaelson & The Dragon's Legacy

Chapter 22

Days turned into weeks that turned into months and Elijah Mikaelson had settled in to life in New York City. He had become more active in AEM projects, specifically a development that Angelica had been working on that would rejuvenate a decaying part of the City, one that included that park they had cleaned out of that criminal street gang. It was an exciting venture together and Angelica and Elijah were operating in synchronicity just as they had done 400 years ago when they revitalized the dukedom in Montecito.

Elijah and Angelica had agreed to take things slow between them. Elijah was happy to be with Angelica but both wanted to be certain that Elijah had time to truly get over his heartbreak at losing Hayley. Angelica was his wife but she would not be a rebound relationship so they maintained their separate bedrooms and resisted the temptation toward greater intimacy until they both decided they were ready to truly be together as husband and wife.

Niklaus and Rebekah seemed to be taking turns calling Elijah, making sure he was alright, finding out how he had been spending his time in New York City. Elijah assured them he was fine but he kept the details light, turning the calls into opportunities for them to update him on how well they were doing.

Elijah began to spend more time with The Seven and found them to be quite an admirable group of men. They were all military men, heroic men, who were more comfortable in wartime than peacetime. They were quietly humble and did not boast about their wartime exploits. They had an unwavering loyalty toward Angelica and dedicated themselves to protecting a woman who needed no protection.

As a 400 year old vampire, The Seven combined would not be able to best Angelica in a fight. Elijah learned that her quest to improve her fighting skills continued on long after rescuing Mason. The Seven each taught her their varied fighting styles and she would be found in the gym, alone, practicing over and over. At times, she would spar with The Seven. They did not understand her motivation but Elijah knew that she harbored the same fears, the product of the violence she had endured. "She was still driven to prepare herself for a battle that would never come," thought Elijah.

Angelica had found Rafe and Albee first after World War I, after she had saved Marcel Gerard from death, after Mason came to New Orleans and convinced her to return to New York City when it was obvious she had missed another opportunity with Elijah. She met them in a bar she owned in New York City. The two brothers, whose real names were Rafael and Alberto Bagnetto, grew up in New York City. Their father, Antonio Bagnetto, was a Sicilian immigrant. He had settled in New Orleans and was a fruit peddler. Elijah recalled the name and realized that these men were the surviving sons of one of the victims of the largest mass lynching in the United States, when eleven Italian men were lynched by an angry racist mob in 1891. Antonio had been hung and shot by the mob, his body left hanging for all to see. Their mother fled New Orleans with the boys and other family members to the Little Italy area of New York City. They were very young and did not witness the murder but were raised hearing the terrible story in their household. Rafe and Albee hated the City of New Orleans and harbored that resentment to this day. The two young men enlisted in the Army when World War I began and excelled in the infantry, earning medal after medal. After the war, they roamed around until they met Angelica in 1923. They developed a friendship and she ultimately turned them into vampires with their consent.

The three of them would be inseparable over the next two decades, and Rafe and Albee began recruiting and turning other former military men they deemed worthy into vampires. Rafe and Albee would enlist in World War II and there they ended up in the European Theater and met Conrad and Mick Stone, Royal Air Force men, heroes in their own right. Rafe and Albee found them to be exceptional and introduced them to Angelica. She agreed with Rafe and Albee's assessment of the two men and she personally turned them into vampires.

Next came the Korean War where Angelica's four vampires were now locating, assessing and turning former military men into their ranks. "She was building her own army," thought Elijah. During the Korean War it was Rafe who met Leroy Odell Nelson, who went by the nickname Lonnie. Lonnie was a US Army Ranger and Rafe brought his three brethren to meet Lonnie. The four agreed that he should meet Angelica. Lonnie became the fifth member of the group that would eventually be known as The Seven.

The five men continued the quest to increase the ranks of Angelica's personal army and her sire line was growing exponentially as result. When the Vietnam War came they once again sought out the best of the best and met David Epstein, a Green Beret, with a string of well-earned medals. They selected him for their private team and Angelica agreed, turning him into a vampire once he was discharged.

After the Vietnam War, Angelica and her six first generation vampires made a contact in the Central Intelligence Agency and became off-the-book contractors for a variety of missions in the 1970s and 1980s. Through this contact they met Colonel Charlie McCain. Charlie was a former Marine, a bonafide Navy Seal, and a Central Intelligence Agency operative. Charlie was a Gulf War veteran and inherited Angelica and her six vampires from his mentor after that operative was killed during a CIA operation in the mid-1980s. Charlie became their new handler and after a great deal of research into Charlie's background, he became the final member of the group known as The Seven, the only vampires that Angelica turned personally. They were her private military unit, her bodyguards, her business partners, her confidants, and her sons.

They worked as hard as they played, and Elijah appreciated their focus. He would spar with them in the gym, and if he had errands to run Conrad and Mick always went with him. The Seven had accepted Elijah from the first moment he came back into Angelica's life and he was happy that she had them by her side over these last 100 years. Angelica had told them to keep nothing secret from Elijah and they answered any question that he had, without hesitation.

Charlie gave Elijah a tour of his war room, of his beloved computer network, and it was here that Elijah learned the details of how far Angelica had gone for the Mikaelsons. Elijah asked about the operation that eliminated those unsired from Nicklaus. Charlie pulled up the archived files and showed Elijah the extensive records of that operation, of those eliminated, and of Angelica's decision to personally handle the executions of those who had wronged Niklaus. Elijah sat down in the chair as he took in the depth of the operation, of how many Angelica destroyed, of Angelica's dedication to the Mikaelson family, and of something Elijah himself has spoken years before, "no one hurts my family and lives." Angelica never stopped being a Mikaelson, she may have adopted the Dragonetti name, but she was a Mikaelson through and through, and he reflected upon that with pride.