𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬 | TO [2] (MAJOR EDITING)

XXIII • GATHER UP THE KILLERS

twenty-three | rassambler les tueurs

Five Years Later (2019)...

St. Anne's Catholic Church

"It's a beautiful day outside. Streets are packed with tourists. They're drinking beers, they're chasing beads, headed out on the vampire walking tour of New Orleans. They think it's just a myth. Just part of our city's charm. Well, we know better. Just like we know that there's a storm coming. This week marks five years since the fall of the Mikaelsons. Five years of peace. And we paid a high price for that peace. We witches, we earned that peace. We snatched back our freedom, we severed our link with our Ancestors. To take back our city, we backed Marcel Gerard. Now, since then, we fought hard to build this community. And in the next week, as we celebrate our independence, that community will be challenged because every year, we get visitors." Vincent Griffith announced to his own audience.

"Vampires from all over the world. They come here, and they want to see firsthand the suffering of Klaus Mikaelson. Now some of those vampires, they're going to be well-behaved. Others...not so much. You see, out-of-town vampires, they don't care about our city. They don't follow our rules. They will instigate trouble. They will attempt to upset our peace and the only way that we're going to get through that is if we get through that together. Now, this ain't the first time that we faced conflict. Each and every single one of us here has faced their fair share of monsters. I swear, I feel sometimes the city just has evil lurking in the shadows. For a long time, we've managed to keep our monsters buried. And now we've got to make sure that they stay buried. Otherwise, we will lose everything that we've built...we will lose it, forever."

❋❋❋

Monique Deveraux's Safe House

Monique is walking up the set of stairs to the second floor above, in which she climbs up through a small opening into the attic, she hoists herself up and examines the four coffins with the sleeping Originals. She opens one, disclosing a slumbering Elijah Mikaelson. Meanwhile, downstairs, an older Hope Mikaelson, who has now grown an odd seven, is in her own bedroom, colouring from an open book on the queen-sized bed as Hayley Kenner comes in, watching her daughter, and they hear a vehicle approaching.

Hope looks up at her mother in adorable wonder, "Is that her?"

She incurs a smile on Hayley's lovely face, "Let me check. Stay inside."

Hayley speed-walks down the stairs, after Monique, as they're expecting someone to come over, and steps out onto the main porch, in which they find Mary Dumas' truck parked in the front yard as the old woman herself steps out of it. A wide smile comes upon Mary's face as they walk up to her.

"Well, now, aren't you two a sight?" Who would have thought? Hayley Kenner and Monique Deveraux ending up together under the same roof with the former's daughter, who grew up here, for five whole years of serenity.

"Hey Mary." Monique embraces her into a welcoming hug, "How are you?" She gently rubs the woman's back, considering how long they're apart.

Mary reciprocates the hug as she pats the woman's back, "Good, good."

"You're sure no one followed you?" Hayley mentioned once they pull away.

"I've been avoiding trouble since well before you were born. Now, where's that little girl?" Her grandmother in-law brought up impatiently.