CHAPTER 4: WITCH WATCHING
Three days of resurrection had established a routine, fragile and strange, but a routine nonetheless.
Morning: Wake in the corner of Davina's attic he'd claimed as his space, careful not to demolish anything before coffee—or the vampire equivalent. The daylight ring Davina had retrieved from Kol's belongings fit perfectly on his finger, cool metal inscribed with protective runes. His original, apparently. The fact that it still worked suggested the resurrection had been more complete than he'd feared.
Breakfast: Blood bags from Marcel's supply, delivered by Josh with running commentary about vampire dietary habits that Kol suspected was meant to ease the horror of drinking human blood. It helped, marginally. The blood still tasted like copper and regret, but at least it stopped the gnawing hunger that made his teeth ache.
Training: Hours with the grimoire, learning to control vampire strength enough to hold a pen without shattering it. Davina supervised, offering corrections and trying not to laugh when he accidentally put his foot through the floor. Again.
Afternoon: Spell practice. The grimoire fed him knowledge in steady streams, spells Kol had known in life now accessible through the book's interface. Basic protective wards, locator spells, minor telekinesis. Nothing flashy, nothing that would drain his magic reserves to dangerous levels. Just slow, steady skill-building.
Evening: Reconnaissance.
"You know this is a terrible idea," Josh said for the third time, trailing Kol across rooftops with the grace of a vampire half his age. "If Marcel finds out we're spying on the witches without permission—"
"Marcel told me to gather intelligence on ancestral activity," Kol interrupted, leaping to the next building with controlled precision. Finally getting the hang of vampire movement. "That's exactly what I'm doing."
"He meant through official channels, like asking Vincent or Sophie nicely, not perching on a cathedral like a gargoyle."
"Where's the fun in that?"
Josh groaned but followed, pulling out his phone to text Marcel updates. Probably something along the lines of "your new asset is insane, send help."
Kol settled on the cathedral roof overlooking Jardin Gris, the garden square where New Orleans' witch community gathered for rituals. Below, Sophie and Jane-Anne Deveraux were setting up for evening spellwork—candles arranged in protective circles, herbs scattered in precise patterns, power humming through the air.
He manifested the grimoire, and it opened eagerly. Pages turned themselves to a blank section, ready to record whatever magic the Deveraux sisters cast.
"This is basically magical piracy," Kol muttered, watching the book's faint glow as it prepared to absorb spell knowledge.
The grimoire's page turned itself, displaying a single word in flowing script: Exactly.
"Your book's sarcastic," Josh observed, peering over Kol's shoulder. "That's new."
Below, Sophie began her incantation. The boundary spell wove itself through the air, visible to Kol's enhanced senses as threads of golden light connecting to anchor points throughout the Quarter. Protection magic, designed to alert the coven if anyone crossed established territorial lines.
The grimoire absorbed it, diagrams sketching themselves across the page with impossible speed. Information flooded Kol's awareness—spell structure, power requirements, modification options. In seconds, he understood the boundary spell as completely as if he'd created it himself.
"Tenth new spell this week," Kol murmured, checking the grimoire's index. The book had informed him of limits: ten spells per week maximum, with complex magic counting double against the cap. They'd hit that threshold exactly.
Josh glanced at his phone. "Marcel wants to know what you've learned."
"Tell him the Deveraux sisters are reinforcing territorial boundaries. Defensive posture, not offensive. They're worried about something."
Josh typed rapidly, then paused. "Worried about what?"
"If I knew that, this reconnaissance would be unnecessary." Kol watched Sophie and Jane-Anne complete their ritual, power settling into the earth like roots. "But my guess? They're expecting trouble. Either from the ancestors or from whoever opposes them."
The void sense prickled suddenly, sharp and urgent. Kol stiffened, familiar warning signs flashing through his awareness.
"What's wrong?" Josh tensed immediately, vampire instincts responding to perceived threat.
"I don't—" Kol started, then the world shifted.
Void energy surged through him without warning, cold and overwhelming. His vision whited out, reality dissolving into formless potential. He felt himself falling, disconnecting from his body, consciousness tumbling through that endless darkness between dimensions.
Then the visions hit.
Klaus standing in a compound courtyard, hybrid eyes gold with barely-contained violence. "The child is MINE."
Hayley Marshall, pregnant and defiant, magic crackling around her hands. "I won't let you control her."
A baby crying, power radiating from her tiny form in waves that made reality ripple. Hope. Her name was Hope.
The city burning. Werewolves massacred in the bayou, bodies piled high. Marcel's vampires fighting something ancient and terrible.
Davina bleeding out, magic torn from her body by ancestral spirits. Her eyes finding Kol's. "You couldn't save me."
Mikael the Destroyer arriving with white oak stake, hunting his children with single-minded purpose.
Kol's own reflection, grey and desiccated, silver dagger protruding from his chest. Klaus's voice: "I'm sorry, brother. But you left me no choice."
The visions fragmented, overlapping, futures and possibilities bleeding together. Klaus arriving. Hope's birth. Threats converging on New Orleans from every direction. Death and fire and family dysfunction at apocalyptic scales.
Kol crashed back into his body with force that made his teeth crack together. He was falling—had been falling, he realized distantly—the cathedral roof rushing away from him, three stories to the ground below.
Strong arms caught him mid-plummet. Josh, moving with vampire speed, arrested their fall and landed in a crouch. "What the hell was that?"
Kol's hands shook. His vision still flickered with afterimages of possible futures, Klaus's face overlaying Josh's concerned expression. "Vision. I saw—" He swallowed hard. "I saw what's coming."
"You saw the future?" Josh's voice climbed an octave. "Since when can you do that?"
"Since apparently right now." Kol forced himself upright, legs unsteady. The void energy still churned through his system, cold and foreign. "I need to get back to Davina."
"Whoa, you just had some kind of supernatural seizure and fell off a building. Maybe we should—"
Kol was already moving, vampire speed carrying him across rooftops toward the attic. Josh cursed and followed.
Davina was practicing when Kol burst through the door, magic flowing through her hands in controlled streams as she worked on defensive spells. She looked up, surprise shifting to alarm when she saw his expression.
"What happened?"
"Klaus is coming," Kol blurted out, words tumbling over themselves. "Not now, but soon. And when he does, there'll be a baby. A hybrid baby that everyone will want dead."
Davina stared at him. "What?"
"I had a vision. The void energy—it showed me possible futures." Kol paced, unable to stand still, adrenaline and supernatural power making his movements jerky. "Klaus gets someone pregnant. A werewolf named Hayley. The baby's a tribrid—werewolf, vampire, witch all at once. Every faction will either want to kill her or control her."
"That's ridiculous," Davina said, but her laugh was nervous, uncertain. "Klaus can't have children. Vampires are dead."
"Hybrids apparently can. And he will." Kol met her eyes, desperation leaking through his careful control. "I saw it, Davina. As clearly as I'm seeing you now. The city burns. People die. You—" He stopped himself before saying she died too. That future was one he intended to prevent. "We need to prepare."
Davina's magic flared, responding to her emotional state. "You're serious."
"Completely."
She processed that, warring emotions flickering across her face. Finally, she nodded. "Okay. If Klaus is coming, if there's going to be a baby that powerful, we need plans. Defenses. Allies." Her jaw set with determination. "When?"
"Two years, maybe less. Hard to tell—the visions weren't clear on timeline."
"Two years." Davina exhaled slowly. "That's time to work with."
They spent the next hours brainstorming, mapping potential threats and resources, building contingencies for a crisis that existed only in Kol's void-touched visions. Josh arrived halfway through with updates from Marcel, took one look at their planning session, and settled in to help despite his obvious confusion.
Much later, after Josh had left and Davina had finally gone to sleep, Kol sat alone with the grimoire.
The book opened without prompting, pages turning to a new section. Bold letters appeared at the top: Void Sight - See echoes of possible futures.
"First power documented," Kol murmured, running his fingers over the page. The grimoire continued writing, detailing the ability in clinical terms. Range: unknown. Accuracy: variable. Triggers: apparently random or stress-induced. Cost: severe disorientation and potential unconsciousness.
More powers surely dormant, the grimoire added in its flowing script. The void touched your soul. Changed it. Made it into something that shouldn't exist in this reality. Other abilities will manifest as you grow into what you've become.
"And what's that?" Kol asked the book. "What am I?"
The grimoire's response appeared slowly, as if considering the question: Something new. Something necessary. Something that might save them all or doom them completely. Time will reveal which.
Helpful. Truly.
Kol closed the book and stared out the broken window at New Orleans sprawled below. Somewhere out there, Sophie Deveraux was lighting candles, completely unaware that a vampire had been cataloguing her magic. The ancestors watched through their ley lines, plotting Davina's death. Marcel's vampires patrolled their territory, maintaining order through violence and fear.
And beyond it all, in distant Mystic Falls, Klaus Mikaelson was beginning to wonder about the impossible presence he'd sensed days ago. Soon he'd come to investigate. And when he did, everything would change.
The void whispered at the edge of Kol's awareness, promising more visions, more knowledge, more power. But it also promised a price he didn't yet understand.
Kol touched his chest where the grimoire had bonded to his soul, felt the cold pulse of void energy threaded through his being.
What else followed me back from that darkness?
The question haunted him as dawn approached and the city below prepared for another day of supernatural drama.
In Lafayette Cemetery, Sophie Deveraux finished her ritual and felt the faintest tingle of observation magic. She frowned, scanning the area, but found nothing.
Still, she made a note to strengthen her wards tomorrow.
Something was watching. And in New Orleans, being watched usually meant trouble was coming.
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