Whispers in the Dark

Black Velvet

Kol made his way toward Igor's room alone, leaving the interrogation of the adults to Eve. He gently knocked on the door first to his right, then entered without waiting for a response. The boy was sitting at his desk, and appeared to be drawing something.

"Hey. You must be Igor," Kol spoke, taking careful steps toward the kid, who paid him no mind. "I'm Kol, and I'm here to help."

"Go away," the boy replied.

Being used to the reaction, Kol knew how to play his cards. "I know you didn't make it up." He was now standing directly behind the boy, and had a good view of his drawing. It was of a large, black dog being lead on a leash by a man dressed entirely in black. "Is that what you saw?"

Igor shook his head, still not looking up.

"What did you see, then?"

No response.

"Igor, please. I'm a professional with these things. If you want the dog to go away, you're gonna have to talk to me about it. Is it okay if I ask you a couple questions?"

Reluctantly, the boy nodded.

"Thank you very much, Igor. From what I've read about it, it seems like the ghost lead you into the forest. Is that right?"

"Yep."

"What happened then?"

Igor didn't respond.

"Did the dog attack you?"

Igor stopped drawing. "Yea. He barked a whole lot."

"And it only attacked you after leading you into the forest?"

"Nope," the boy said.

"What do you mean? Did the dog chase you into the forest?"

Igor shook his head, then pointed to the man in black. "He took me there, and then the dog ran me out."

It was the first Kol heard anything about a man's ghost. "Why do you think the man was a ghost, Igor?"

The kid looked more shaken the more he talked, and Kol knew he didn't have long before it became too much. "Saw him walk into shadows and disappear."

"It was the man who disappeared? Not the ghost?"

Igor nodded, and his eyes started filling with tears. "Is he gonna come for me."

Kol smiled. "No, of course not."

"How do you know?"

Reaching into his back pocket, Kol pulled out a hand-carved wooden medallion. "See this? This is something special I made. If you keep it under your pillow over night, no ghost will be able to get close to you the following day. I use it all the time. How about I give you this one?"

Igor immediately perked up. "You mean it?"

Kol nodded, and it only then hit him that the kid was speaking English. He gave Igor the medallion, and as the boy reached for it, he saw his arm was injured. "How'd that happen?"

Igor hurriedly put the medallion under his pillow. "Where the ghost touched me."

"The ghost of the man?"

"Yep."

"He grabbed on tight, huh?"

Igor shook his head. "No, but it started burning later."

Nodding, Kol started to leave the room. "Thanks a lot for your help, Igor. Real brave of ya."

"Mister?"

"Yes?"

"Could you give my mom one, too?" the boy asked. "She can't sleep at all. She thinks the ghost was my dad, and is scared he'll be coming for her next. Please give her one, too. Please?"

Kol smiled reassuringly. "Of course. I have plenty to go around."

That was a lie. He had only made a few, and only used them with kids. They were nonsense, really, but thinking they had power might as well make them real. Ghosts tended to stay out of people's business unless they went looking for trouble. The ghost of a man taking a little kid into the woods was not normal.

After explaining to Olivia about the medallion, the woman translated to Ana Milkovich, telling her to lie.

"Got everything we need?" Eve asked him, and he gave her a thumbs up.

"It's solved already?" Olivia inquired, looking stunned. "That was fast."

Kol chuckled. No, no. Nothing's solved yet. I'm just done with the kid. Keep him out of the woods, will ya?"

"Yeah, sure."

"One more thing, though."

"Yes?"

Kol put on his best poker face. "The report we got never mentioned the ghost of a man, and now the kid tells me it was a man who dragged him in there?"

Olivia frowned. "You believe that bit?"

"What?"

"She's about to say something really stupid," Eve whispered. "Wait for it."

"Well," the redhead started, "we all assumed he wandered off into the forest by himself, and made up the thing about the man so he wouldn't get in trouble. Are you telling me there's two ghosts?"

"Who knows?" Kol replied. "Thanks for your cooperation. We'll keep in touch."

As they slowly walked back to Natasha's house, Kol was surprised to see the sun was already setting. "Learn anything?"

Eve sighed. "Just spent the time telling me about all the people who claim to have seen the ghost dog."

"Anything unusual?"

"Seems like they're fakes to me. Nothing they mentioned even remotely implies the dog is a ghost. Only what Igor said-"

"It wasn't the dog who disappeared," Kol cut in. "It was the man. He told me."

"But then-"

"They thought he made that part up to avoid getting into trouble over being in the woods. But Olivia lied about that part."

Eve sighed again. "They always do. What is it this time?"

"The kid's arm is bandaged up. Says there are burn marks where the man touched him. I think that pretty much confirms he's not from our world."

"But ghosts aren't hot. They freeze the things they touch."

Kol looked into the setting sun. "That's exactly what's so confusing about this. I didn't wanna ask the kid to take his bandages off, but I guess we'll have to get to that eventually. Either there's nothing there, or we're not dealing with a ghost. Or..."

Eve cocked her head. "What is it?"

Suppressing a memory he wasn't fond of, Kol waved her off. "Let's just go rescue Luke."

The girl laughed at that, and when the two of them returned, they weren't at all surprised to see Luke sitting at the table in the kitchen, looking dead inside as Natasha rambled on about something.

"Took you long enough. Where'd you go? France?" the old woman scoffed. "Dinner's done soon. Go wash up first, or I'm starving you."

Kol leaned down to smell his arm pits, and wasn't at all pleased by his discovery.