CHAPTER 5: THE HARVEST TRUTH
Week two of resurrection, and Kol still felt like an imposter wearing someone else's accomplishments.
The grimoire hovered at his shoulder, its index showing sixty-five spells collected—a number that would have taken most witches decades to accumulate. But the book did the heavy lifting, absorbing magical knowledge while Kol simply... watched. Like inheriting a fortune he hadn't earned.
His vampire abilities had improved, at least. No more accidentally demolishing furniture when he reached for a blood bag. The telekinesis came easier now, muscle memory from Kol's centuries of practice finally syncing with Marcus's consciousness. Small objects floated around the attic in lazy orbits—books, candles, a chipped coffee mug Davina insisted was lucky.
Kol sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by texts pulled from Kol's memory—Esther's notes on sacrificial magic, treatises on ley line manipulation, ancient grimoires describing power transference rituals. Most hung suspended in the air around him, pages turning themselves as he cross-referenced information.
The door creaked open. Davina stepped inside, backpack slung over one shoulder, and froze.
"How are you doing that?"
Kol glanced up, momentarily confused, then realized what she was staring at. Right. The floating library. "Telekinesis. Fairly basic once you get the hang of it."
"Basic," Davina repeated flatly. She dropped her backpack and approached the circle of hovering texts, eyes wide with fascination. "You're maintaining concentration on what, twelve different objects?"
"Fourteen, actually." Kol gestured, and one of the books drifted toward her. "It's easier than it looks. The grimoire handles most of the heavy lifting—I just direct the flow."
She caught the book, fingers tracing the worn leather cover. "This is Esther's work. Your mother's." Her voice held careful neutrality, the kind that suggested she knew exactly how complicated that relationship was.
"Unfortunately." Kol pulled another text closer, squinting at the faded script. "But her notes on sacrificial magic are disturbingly thorough. I've been researching the Harvest ritual."
Davina's posture shifted, shoulders tensing. "Why?"
"Because it doesn't make sense." Kol lowered the books gently to the floor, giving her his full attention. "Sit. I want to show you something."
She hesitated, then settled across from him. Magic crackled faintly around her hands—not hostile, just ready. He didn't blame her for the caution.
Kol opened the grimoire, and its pages flipped to the organizational system he'd been building. Categories and subcategories, spells indexed by type and power requirement, annotations in both Kol's elegant script and Marcus's messier handwriting.
"This is brilliant," Davina breathed, leaning forward. "You've catalogued everything by—wait, is that color-coding?"
"Makes it easier to find things quickly." Kol pulled up the section on power transference rituals. "Now, look at this. The Harvest is supposed to be a sacrifice ritual—four girls die, their power flows into the earth, the ancestral magic is restored. Correct?"
"That's what they told us." Her voice had gone quiet.
"But here's the thing." Kol tapped the relevant passage in Esther's notes. "Power transference rituals require a closed system. Energy has to go somewhere specific, be channeled into a particular vessel or purpose. The ancestors claim the girls' deaths restore magic to the community at large, but that's not how this type of magic works."
Davina's brow furrowed as she studied the text. Her finger traced the diagrams, lips moving silently as she worked through the logic. Kol could practically see the gears turning in her mind—she was brilliant, he realized. Quick and intuitive, her brain hungry for knowledge that Marcel had never provided.
"The ley lines," she said suddenly. "If magic is fading, it's not because there's less of it. It's because access is being restricted."
"Exactly." Kol felt a spike of excitement that had nothing to do with Kol's memories and everything to do with Marcus's love of puzzle-solving. "Why kill four girls to restore magic when the ley lines already exist as a natural power source? Unless—"
"Unless it's not about restoration at all," Davina finished. Her eyes widened. "It's about control. The ancestors want to consolidate power, channel it through themselves so every witch in New Orleans has to go through them to access magic."
"It's a power grab," Kol confirmed. "Corporate takeover dressed up as religious necessity."
Davina stared at him. "Did you just compare the Harvest to a corporate takeover?"
"Bad metaphor?"
"No, it's—" She laughed suddenly, sharp and disbelieving. "It's perfect. The board of directors eliminating competition and establishing a monopoly." Her laughter died as quickly as it came. "They lied. Marcel, the elders, the ancestors—everyone lied."
The grief in her voice made something twist in Kol's chest. He reached out, hesitated, then gently touched her shoulder. "I'm sorry."
"I almost died for a lie." Davina's magic flared, making the candles gutter. "The other girls—Monique, Abigail, Cassie—they did die. For nothing."
"Maybe not nothing," Kol said carefully. "But definitely not what they were told."
Davina looked up at him, tears tracking down her face. "Can we prove it?"
"I think so." Kol stood, offering his hand. "But I'll need your help. And we'll need to visit Lafayette Cemetery."
She took his hand without hesitation. "When?"
"Tonight. Midnight. When the ancestral magic is strongest." Kol pulled her to her feet. "I want to test something with my void sense, but I'll need you there to interpret what I'm feeling."
"Your void sense," Davina repeated. "The thing that let you detect the ancestors through the ley lines."
"Among other things." Kol dismissed the grimoire, and it vanished into whatever pocket dimension it called home. "I'm still figuring out what it can do. But if my theory's correct, I should be able to sense where the Harvest girls' power actually went."
Davina's expression hardened. "Let's go."
Lafayette Cemetery at midnight tasted of secrets and old death.
Kol stood at the entrance, Davina beside him, and extended his void sense experimentally. The sensation was still new, still strange—like closing his eyes and feeling with a limb he hadn't possessed until two weeks ago.
The ley lines appeared first in his awareness, glowing threads of power crisscrossing beneath the earth. They pulsed with natural magic, steady and strong. Not fading. Not depleted. Just... restricted. Choked at certain points where ancestral influence had built up like plaque in arteries.
"What do you feel?" Davina whispered.
"The ley lines are fine," Kol murmured, extending his sense deeper. "The magic's there, it's just being throttled." He pushed further, following the flow of power toward its source.
The ancestral well blazed in his perception—a reservoir of accumulated magic fed by generations of dead witches. But the flow was wrong, corrupted somehow. Instead of distributing power evenly, it funneled through narrow channels controlled by the most powerful ancestral spirits.
And there—
Kol gasped. Four distinct soul fragments, trapped in magical stasis, suspended in the space between life and death. Not dead. Not alive. Just... held. Their power siphoned slowly into the ancestral well, feeding the corruption.
"The Harvest girls," he breathed. "They're not dead. They're imprisoned."
Davina's face drained of color. "What?"
Kol opened his eyes, breaking the connection. "The ancestors didn't let them die and pass on. They trapped their souls, using them as batteries to feed their power monopoly." He met her horrified gaze. "You were supposed to be the fifth."
"I don't—" Davina's breath came short and sharp. "They were going to—I would have been—"
Her magic exploded outward.
The cemetery gates blasted open. Tombstones cracked. Dead leaves whirled in a vortex of power that tasted like grief and rage and betrayal all mixed together.
Kol threw up a hasty barrier, protecting them both from the worst of the backlash. "Davina, breathe. Focus on my voice."
"They lied," she gasped. "Everyone lied. Marcel knew—he had to know—"
"Marcel protected you," Kol said firmly, gripping her shoulders. "Whatever else he did wrong, he kept you away from the Harvest. He saved your life."
"But the others—"
"We'll save them too." The words came out before Kol could stop them, a promise he had no business making. But watching Davina break down, magic tearing through her control, he couldn't stay silent. "Listen to me. I'm not a good man. Kol wasn't, and I'm not sure I am either. But I promise you this—we'll save those girls and burn this conspiracy down."
Davina looked up at him, searching his face for lies. Whatever she saw there made her nod slowly. "You mean it."
"I do."
Her magic settled gradually, pulling back into her skin like a retreating tide. The cemetery looked like a hurricane had touched down—gates twisted, stones toppled, earth scarred—but the worst had passed.
The grimoire manifested without prompting, floating between them. Its pages glowed with warm golden light, pulsing in what Kol had learned to interpret as approval.
"Even your book thinks we can do it," Davina said with a shaky laugh.
"The book's usually right." Kol glanced around at the destruction. "We should go before someone investigates."
They walked back toward the Quarter in silence, both lost in thought. Kol's mind raced with implications—if the Harvest was a scam, what else had the ancestors lied about? What other conspiracies were buried in New Orleans' supernatural politics?
"You're getting invested," whispered a voice in his head that sounded like Marcus Chen. "This isn't your fight. These aren't your people. You're just borrowing a dead man's life until you figure out how to survive."
But watching Davina's determined profile as she walked beside him, Kol realized the voice was wrong. Maybe he hadn't earned this life. Maybe he was just a corporate drone who'd gotten impossibly lucky—or unlucky, depending on perspective. But these people were real, their pain was real, and he had power to help.
That made it his fight whether he'd asked for it or not.
"We'll need a strategy," Davina said suddenly. "The ancestors won't just let us free the girls. And we can't go public with accusations without proof they can't dismiss."
"Corporate strategy applies to magical conspiracies too," Kol said. "First, we document everything. Build an airtight case. Then we identify key stakeholders—which witches might be sympathetic, which ancestors might be convinced to break ranks."
"Stakeholders," Davina repeated, lips twitching. "You're doing the business metaphors again."
"Would you prefer I compare it to a heist movie? Because we're basically planning to rob the ancestors of their ill-gotten power."
That got a real laugh from her, bright and surprised in the darkness. "Ocean's Fourteen: Magical Edition."
"Now you're getting it."
They planned late into the night, sprawled on the attic floor with the grimoire open between them, mapping out approach vectors and contingencies. Kol translated concepts from his corporate experience into magical terms—expose the board's corruption, rally the shareholders, force a hostile restructure. Davina provided context about New Orleans' supernatural politics, who held influence and who might be turned.
Somewhere around three AM, she fell asleep mid-sentence, head pillowed on her arms. Kol carefully levitated a blanket over her, then settled against the wall to keep watch.
The grimoire floated closer, pages rustling softly. A message appeared in flowing script: You care about her.
"Is that a problem?" Kol whispered.
No. But it changes things. You're not just surviving anymore. You're building connections. Forming attachments. These people will expect things from you.
"I know."
Good. Because what's coming will test every bond you forge. The void showed you fragments of the future—Klaus, Hope, the wars to come. You'll need allies to survive that.
Kol glanced at Davina's sleeping form. "She deserves better than being used as a strategic asset."
Then be better than Kol was, the grimoire wrote. Be the person she thinks you are.
The words hung there, challenge and encouragement mixed together.
Outside, New Orleans prepared for another day of supernatural drama. The ancestors plotted in their cemetery, unaware their conspiracy had been uncovered. Marcel's vampires maintained their careful peace. And somewhere, in dimensions Kol could barely comprehend, the void whispered warnings about convergences and consequences yet to come.
But for now, in this moment, watching over a sleeping witch who'd decided to trust him, Kol made a choice. He'd been handed impossible power and a borrowed life. The least he could do was use both to protect the people who'd somehow become his.
Even if it killed him.
Again.
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