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Despite its age and strength, Klaus’ heart only lasts as long as one of a normal vampire. Beating one, two more times before it falls still.
The fire around them recedes and a deadly quiet settles over the clearing.
The blond Salvatore brother stumbles closer.
“Is he dead?” he asks, wide eyed and breathless.
“Yes,” Elijah says, and his voice does not waver. “It is done.”
The Salvatore’s gaze flickers to the body on the ground and back. It is filled with pity.
“Thank you, Elijah,” he says, sincerely.
Elijah wants to rip out his heart too.
Instead, he nods.
“I’ll take the body. Go home.”
Klaus’ body is light in his arms as carries it to the cave where Katarina was held. He places it on a stone bench with gentle precision.
All of his carefully constructed plans have brought him to this moment.
Finally he has his revenge. For his siblings. For Rebekah.
There is no joy. No victory.
Instead, there is only emptiness.
Footsteps echo through the cave, and a figure appears in its entrance.
“Ding dong. The big bad wolf is dead.”
Katarina.
No longer bounded by Klaus’ compulsion, she must have escaped whatever place he had kept her in.
“You’re free now,” Elijah says without looking at her.
Katarina approaches him and trails her hand up his arm, her warm, seductive body pressed close.
“So are you,” she whispers.
Her hands slips under his jacket, and his skin tingles at her light touch.
He turns towards her, looking down on her familiar face. Her heart is pounding, proud, fierce and alive.
He could try to lose himself in her. Drown out the act he had committed. He trails his fingers over her cheek, his hand still covered in his brother’s blood, and places his thumb on her chin. She stares up at him with large brown eyes.
She would be using him, too, aligning herself to the most powerful vampire still alive, now that Klaus is dead.
He steps back, putting some distance between them.
Immediately, a scowl twists her face.
“It was necessary,” Katarina snarls. “He terrorized us all.”
Elijah cannot bring himself to care.
“Leave, Katarina.”
She scoffs. “You’re pathetic.”
Angrily, she spins around and storms away, probably more upset by her thwarted plans than by his rejection. He wonders if he will ever see her again. He is not sure if he would like to.
Halfway towards the exit, she freezes. Her heart skips a beat, and her hand flies to her throat.
Elijah frowns, wary, unsure if it is another trick.
“Something… something is wrong,” she gasps, her voice strained by something he has never heard from her before.
Fear.
Elijah catches her when her legs give out. Quickly, he bites his own wrist, but tremors keep running through her body even after she drinks from it.
“Elijah?” she whisper, clutching his arm. For a split second, he sees the girl he met in England over five hundred years ago.
“I’m here,” he says in old Bulgarian.
“I don’t… I don’t want to die.”
He presses his lips against her forehead and holds her close. A few moments later, she goes still.
Slowly, he lowers her to the ground.
Katarina Petrova is dead.
With shift movements, her checks her body for wounds or wolf bites, but there is nothing to indicate what could have killed her.
Elijah glances at his brother’s body and back at Katarina’s. Then he stands and flashes out of the cave.
****
He finds Elena in the abandoned plantation house.
She is clutching Stefan to her chest, and tears are running down her cheeks. Next to her, Alaric is holding Damon, while the Bennet witch and Elena’s brother sit on the couch with their hands clasped together. Elena’s father, John, is nowhere to be seen.
Elena looks up when he enters, and it is jarring, for a moment, to see her alive while Katarina is dead.
As soon as Alaric notices him, he stands.
“What did you do?” he yells. He grabs Elijah’s lapels and slams him against the wall. Elijah lets him.
“I killed my brother,” he says calmly.
“Then how-” Alaric says, “Is it magic? A fail-safe? Did Klaus do this?”
Elijah shakes his head. Klaus would never have planned for his own death. He would not have believed it possible.
He turns to Elena.
“Katarina is dead as well.”
“I don’t…”
Her eyes widen in realisation. Smart girl.
“They were all turned by Klaus.”
Frantically, she scrambles for her phone.
“Caroline? Pick up. Please pick up.”
“Did you know this?” Alaric hisses.
Elijah ignores him.
“Tyler?” Elena gasps. “Wha… No…”
The phone falls from her hand and hits the ground with a thud. Her face contorts in fear and devastation.
The blond haired vampire is dead too then.
Elijah turns to leave, but Alaric grabs his arm forcefully.
“Did you know?” he asks again.
It is Elena’s pleading eyes that make him answer.
“No. Klaus is the first of us who has died.”
He would not be the last.
Elijah leaves the humans to their grief. They would recover, and ultimately, their lives might be happier this way.
As for Elijah himself, there was only one option left.
It was time he found his father, and the White Oak stake he was carrying.