Chapter Text
For the first time in two hundred years, Lilith was breathing again.
The dull, throbbing pain in her chest, the one that had lingered even in the vast nothingness she'd been trapped in for so long, was ripped from her with a sudden, excruciating yank.
Had she been conscious, she might have screamed.
Now her lungs filled with water, each inhale more painful than the last, until something, or someone, pulled her free with a grip far stronger than expected.
Sputtering and gasping for air, her wet lashes parted just enough to catch a glimpse of bright blue eyes hovering above her. They belonged to a man she didn’t recognize. Square-jawed, dark-haired, and clearly just as stunned as she was
For a moment they just stared at each other in bewilderment.
He seemed just as surprised as Lilith was. But when he opened his mouth to speak, his words were drowned out by the pulse of power she felt thrumming beneath her fingertips, where their skin touched.
This man wasn't human.
It felt good. Unreasonably good — to feel again, to use her abilities again after so many years, centuries, who even knew, of lying dormant. Maybe she wouldn't drain him entirely. Maybe just enough to leave him crawling back to whatever hole he’d slithered out of.
Was he a Heretic? A witch-man, or something else entirely? She didn't care. But she certainly hoped so. A little revenge as an appetizer never hurt anyone. Well, except him.
So instead of saying thank you like a normal person, she focused on the strenght returning to her limbs, with each greedy pull of his essence, along with the sudden urge for… blood? It disturbed her, but not enough to stop. She'd been asleep for two centuries. Manners could wait.
Before the man could even realize what she had been doing, she slammed him against the wall with her stolen strength. Though it was a lot more strength than a mortal man should possess— the wall begun to crack like spiderwebs beneath the force of the body's impact, dust raining down around them.
In an eye-blink however, she was the one against the wall, a hand tightly constricting her slender throat, just enough to make breathing difficult. She gasped in surprise, feebly and to no avail, struggling against the man's hard frame pinning her down mercilessly.
“Easy there, Sleeping Beauty,” he drawled and the corners of his mouth twitched into a small smirk as he tightened his grip. "Let's not get grabby on the first date."
Lilith winced in pain and her chapped nails, still caked with years old blood from Heretic's and herself alike, clawed thin red lines into his wrists. She could only watch in horror as they immediately healed as soon as they were drawn.
Vampire.
She hadn't often crossed paths with true vampires. Not hybrids like the Heretics. And if she did, they tried to kill her on sight. This one was… different. Lilith softened in his grip, her grey eyes were now searching his face instead of trying to incinerate him with her glare alone.
The vampire must have noticed the shift in her attitude. His thick brows furrowed for a moment, before he scoffed and released his hold on her.
Her legs buckled beneath her, graceless and weak. The stone caught her knees with a crack, skin splitting open before she could feel it. The power flooding her veins, had vanished again. And for the first time since waking, she had a moment to take in her surroundings.
She wasn't familiar with the place, which was either very good or very bad.
It seemed some sort of undercroft. The space was dominated by a large pond. The water lay completely still, a dark depth that seemed to stretch into eternity, and if one looked closer, a faint but luminous swirl moved just beneath the surface.
She could feel witchcraft residue emanating from the stone pool. Weak, dissolving into nothing more than an afterthought. This must have been where she was submerged for the past years.
What remained of her white dress was no more than paper-thin threads, clinging to water-slicked skin. Slowly the cold settled into her bones, like a thousand splintered shards twisting and burrowing under her flesh.
It hurt. But it felt more real than any time that passed here, alone, had.
Her gaze shifted down to her thin hands. When did she curl them into fists? She slowly tried relaxing her fingers, and felt her bones scream in protest.
Her knuckles were scraped raw. Bare tissue, where a few fingernails had been ripped off, throbbed in frantic beat with her heart as the cold air kissed the wounds.
What happened? She tried to rack the shattered mess of her mind for something, anything that was not the darkness lingering in every corner. She was rewarded with a wave of nausea that made her briefly close her eyes and contemplate whether being unconscious had actually been the better option.
“So, are you gonna tell me who the hell you are, or am I gonna regret not snapping that pretty neck?“ Lilith's gaze flicked up to the man standing in front of her. She had forgotten about him. Which was impressive, considering he was currently her only source of entertainment in this delightful underground chamber.
“I mean,” He held up his hands and his lips quirked into a wry smile. “We can still pick up on that,”
Lilith observed him through the veil of her tangled black hair that partially obscured her vision. Only now she noticed the strange clothing he wore, fitted in a way that was certainly scandalous by her standards. How many years was she trapped down here?
Her tongue flicked out to wet her dry lips, before she began to speak. “Lilith.“ Her voice was slightly rusty from the misuse, but she quickly found back to her familiar cadence. “My name is Lilith.“
The vampire clicked his tongue, nodding to himself as Lilith braced herself against the wall and slowly stood on weak legs. “Right. Lilith. Foreboding. Very helpful. I was thinking more of an explanation, you know?“
This time Lilith didn't flinch as he was towering over her again, holding an ornate dagger, stained with blood, to her chest. His smirk was gone now, no traces of amusement on his angular features. “Or I can easily slip this dagger snugly back where it came from,” he asserted lowly.
An unpleasant shiver ran down her spine as his breath brushed her earlobe. “That might hurt a bit, though. It was wedged real deep. Might have to twist it around some."
She firmly met his penetrative glare with one of her own. “That's all I remember.“ It was obviously a lie. She remembered everything. Everything but the hours before she was put to sleep in this crypt. The one thing that actually mattered. But she couldn't for crying out loud remember. Frustration clawed up her throat, dry and hot. She swallowed it back, jaw tight.
Lifting her delicate chin, she nodded toward the dagger. “You are physically stronger, vampire, there's no need for this.“
She watched the muscles in his jaw visibly strain as he clenched his teeth. “Fine… fine!” he exclaimed, pushing away from Lilith, and let the dagger clatter to the floor.
As if a switch flipped, that smirk that seemed to be a trademark of him, appeared back on his face. “So, my lady, care to share? No pressure, of course.“
She ignored him as she bent down to retrieve the ornate dagger. “I was trapped here for a long time,” Her gaze lifted briefly, scrutinizing his strange clothing. Tight pants and a too-short coat made of gleaming, pitch-black fabric. It was kind of… intriguing. “Quite a few years, apparently.“
“So, a little witch?” he offered, shifting with impatience. “I mean,” he gestured around the crypt with both hands, “Nothing says 'ancient witch lair' like a mysterious glowing pool. I was expecting more... I don't know, crystal balls and cats."
“Something close,” She weighed the dagger in her hand. It felt lighter than it should have. The enchantment it had been hexed with was fading now that it wasn't actively being used to keep her in magical sleep. Still, the phantom pain lingered. Of metal parting her ribs, forcing the wound to stay open for what had felt like an eternity.
Maybe there was still enough left to… She had to try.
She gripped the dagger tight and drew it across the burned flesh of her palm. Pain flared, sharp and immediate, she barely stopped herself from crying out.
The vampire’s alarmed, 'What the hell are you doing?' barely reached her ears. All her focus tunneled into the flare of magic that sparked the moment blood touched the blade. Fleeting, unstable, but she seized it and shaped it. Dragged it into something solid. A memory.
Suddenly, flashes of the past tore through her mind. She saw, them, the Heretic's, her so called friends lowering her lifeless body into the enchanted pool after they daggered her. Now she remembered.
The vision faded but her anger didn't.
In a fit of temper, she hurled the dagger across the room. It struck stone with a loud, metallic clang. “Those spineless bastards!“ she shrieked, her words piercing the air. A high-pitched, enraged sound. “The gall to betray me like this!“
“Look at that. The princess has claws—”
She whirled towards the other man, her face contorted with rage that made her look like an avenging angel. Or possibly a very attractive demon.
He was watching her with raised eyebrows, clearly entertained by her display. “I assume you remembered something… less pleasant?“
“Tell me where I am,“ she hissed sharply, her tone brooking no room for argument, but he only snorted. Snorted. Like she was some petulant child throwing a tantrum.
“Yeah, no.“ His smirk seemed to mock her, and Lilith felt the sudden urge to punch it off his face. “That's not how it works. You answer my question and I answer yours. Simple, really.“
Lilith bit down hard on her bottom lip as she felt another frustrated scream claw its way up her throat. Instead she forced on a smile, even though it almost physically hurt her.
"I'm from the eighteen hundreds,” she responded swiftly as she gathered the fabric of her soaked dress around her hips and rushed past the vampire, with as much dignity as she could muster. Her blood-caked, black curls bounced with each furious step.
“Eighteen-hundreds? So you're like a really hot mummy?“
"I was betrayed by my circle—you don't want to know, or ask, why," she hissed, barely pausing for breath as she climbed the heavy stone stairs toward what she hoped was freedom. "And now I seek to find my place in a time I don't belong to. And perhaps extract a little bloody revenge on the side."
She stopped dead in her tracks as the light flooding her vision, momentarily blinded her. When her vision cleared and eyes adapted, she found herself outside, in front of a crumbling, long-forgotten house that looked like it had seen better centuries.
“I don't recall this place…” she whispered to herself as she observed the decaying structure. The stone was completely different than the one used down in the crypt. This building must have been built here, without knowing what laid dormant beneath the ground.
Still, even here, she was surrounded by an ancient hum of magic, as if it was woven into the very fabric of these walls. But not only that— she could sense the presence of individual forces. Spirits. Not familiar ones.
“It's some kind of old witch graveyard.“
Lilith shot the vampire an annoyed look over her shoulder, as he dusted off his pants from the climb. “I already forgot about you.”
And again, the corner of his mouth lifted into a lopsided grin. “Me? Never,” he drawled in a sing-song voice as he approached her with a sort of swagger in his step that rubbed her the wrong way. “You don't forget your 'knight in shining armor'. Vampire in shining armor? Bloodied Vogue-Model in—“
“Thank you.“
The vampire faltered, and Lilith watched with slight amusement as his eyebrows shot up. “What was that? I didn't quite hear you there.“
“I said, thank you,” she repeated, softer, now fully turning towards him. “You did save me. You could've left me daggered.“ For a moment her thoughts drifted back to the past years of her unconscious existence. She could have been there so, so, much longer, with nothing but her own thoughts and the endless nothingness as company…
What was left of her nails dug into her burned palms. “How do you say it…” she trailed off, trying to think of the phrase Ethel had always used after asking her for a favor. She tried not to think of her… or the others, too much.
“I owe you one, vampire.“
He whistled, burrowing his hands in the pockets of that strange blazer of his. “Well, put that on my list of, 'Did not expect'.“
Lilith commented his words with a scoff. “Don't get used to it.“
He just tilted his head slightly to the side, amused. "So, eighteen hundreds, huh? That's more than two hundred years. What's the last thing you remember? Besides the whole betrayal-and-stabbing situation."
Lilith's didn't respond — couldn't respond. Her mind raced, struggling to process the information.
She had been gone for two hundred years? Not years, not decades. Centuries. She gazed up to the clouded sky above them. The sky that remained the same even after two hundred years had passed.
Everything she knew… was gone. So much for revenge.
“Does it matter?“ She asked quietly, more to herself than the vampire.
He shrugged one shoulder dismissively. “I still don't know if you're a threat. A witch that happened to be taking a little nap right next to Mikaelson's storage unit? That's not suspicious at all."
Her delicate brows furrowed in genuine confusion. “What is a… Mikaelson?“
His stare bore into her, studying her face intently, as if he was trying to discern any kind of lie behind those doe eyes. “Doesn't matter. Can't have you wandering around loose. No offense, but mysterious witches tend to cause... problems, around here."
Lilith observed him for a moment as her teeth sunk down into her bottom lip. He seemed serious about that. This wouldn't do.
With a sharp toss of her hair, she closed the distance between them. She could see his eyes widen, just briefly, in alarm, but to his credit, he didn't back down.
Lilith simply held out her less-injured hand. As soon as he took it, she felt herself siphoning his essence. A controlled pull that fed his vampiric strength into her temporarily. Only as much as she needed. She wasn't a monster, after all.
Or something like that.
“What's your name?“ she asked, staring up at the male vampire firmly. Her expression was unreadable, but her grey eyes bore into his with an intensity that bordered on hypnotic.
He held her stare, and just as she had hoped, he was too distracted by her face to notice the the faint glow that emanated from her fingertips. “Damon,” he responded, lifting his other hand in a mock salute, “At your service.“
Lilith slowly released his hand. “Damon…” she repeated and nodded to herself, deciding to file the name away for later. The smile she gave him was cold as ice. “I'm sorry in advance, Damon.“
Damon frowned at that. “Why do you—”
He didn't get to finish his sentence as Lilith suddenly appeared behind him and snapped his neck with swift hands. The wet crack of bones echoed through the empty house like a gunshot, ricocheting off the crumbling halls. Her eyes impassively tracked the body's lifeless crumple as it hit the ground with a dull thud.
“I said, I am sorry,” Lilith told the dead vampire, as she knelt down beside him and regarded his slack face with pursed lips. “It's nothing personal.“ She pinned Damon’s arm down into the dust with both hands. Her black curls settled over him like a veil as she leaned in and slowly sank her dull teeth into the unmarred flesh, tearing through muscle and vein until his blood flooded her mouth.
She gulped it down greedily, before pulling back and spitting out a chunk of flesh. It hit the floor with a wet splatter.
For a moment she just tilted her head back and closed her eyes, concentrating on the feeling of her body healing in seconds, after years. She shuddered as fractured bones and joints mended together, sighed as skin recovered and smoothed. When her dark lashes fluttered open again, she appraised her fully healed body. Just like she remembered it. The same body she once used to seduce the circle’s male witches for a scrap of bread, when they’d locked her away for days on end, again.
With a flourish she stood up and once again let her gaze wander over the old structure.
The veiling spell, that probably had kept the secret crypt hidden, had stopped working. That could only mean the last descendant of the original witch's bloodline had died. It seemed death had gotten to them before Lilith could have her revenge.
But Damon must have been here for a reason when he stumbled upon the entrance to her tomb.
She looked down at the vampire lying at her feet. Now, in death, his face was pale and expressionless. No traces of a smirk anymore.
Lifting her trembling hands to her face, Lilith gingerly touched her lips and instead met with warm blood still dripping from her chin.
She jerked back, gasping.
An overwhelming wave of revulsion crashed over her like a tide. Her stomach dropped with nausea, and for a moment the ground beneath her feet simply disappeared. Nothing existed besides the pure disgust eating her alive from the inside out.
What did she do. Why, again?
She only registered she had been running when she tripped over a root and hit the forest ground, hard. Her stomach tied itself into knots, but she couldn't move. Why couldn't she move?
She needed to leave, she needed to hide.
They all died.
They were dead.
Through blurry eyes she watched her fingers dig into damp soil and for the first time in forever — Lilith screamed.
She screamed until her throat was sore, she screamed until she chased her own thoughts away, like the birds fleeing the trees.
Until the only thing she could hear was the frantic beat of her own heart.
Later, when she dragged Damon's body away from the latch, deeper into the forest, and tears dried on her cheeks, she quietly hummed to herself.
“If you down go creeping…” Lilith paused, panting from the exertion. “And go wake what's sleeping…” She tugged, hard, and with a last exasperated groan, she released the vampire's legs, collapsing in a heap of black curls. “Good God, what are you made of? Bricks?“
Brushing her dirtied hair out of her vision, she swiftly got up and began gathering moss and scattered leaves blown down by the dying trees.
The latch slammed shut with a final bang as she covered it as good as she could. Anyone determined to find it wouldn't be fooled by amateur camouflage, but then again, she wasn't exactly a professional grave-robber. She certainly wasn't able to cast another veiling spell.
Out of sight, out of mind — or so the saying went.
She regarded her handiwork for a silent moment, and as she turned her back towards the godforsaken place she had been trapped in for an eternity — for the first time in her whole life, as the tall grass grazed her bare calves and the wind gently played with the locks framing her face, she finally felt free.
Lilith stood perfectly still and simply breathed. No voices screamed through locked doors while she desperately covered her ears. The weight of a thousand judging eyes, watching her every breath, was finally gone
Who would have thought, the very ones that wanted her death, would liberate her in the end. Life's little ironies.
A smile tugged at her lips as she approached the old building.
It was certainly big, overgrown with poison ivy and vines. The door was missing completely. Lilith stepped forward, about to cross the doorstep on her way inside— the next thing she realized, she was being thrown across the lawn like a mere ragdoll.
She hit the ground with a pained cry, feeling every single bump and pebble digging into her bare skin as she rolled a few feet, before finally coming to a chaotic stop.
Catching her breath, Lilith glared at the house in absolute bewilderment. You have got to be kidding me.
She was sick of witches, and sick of being thrown around by them. She stormed back towards the house, ignoring the throbbing pain of her scraped knees as her anger grew with each furious step. Face contorted, crimson flush spreading across her slender neck, she slammed her fists against the invisible force shielding the doorway. “Let me in you foul wretches,” she screamed into the air. “I know you can hear me!“
There was no answer. Of course. Lilith buried her fingers in her tangled locks, tugging until tears sprang to her eyes. Taking a deep shaky breath, she released her hair and took a few steps back, beholding the whole house that now, somehow, seemed to dreadfully loom over her.
“You think you are so clever?“ She asked into the silence, her light voice cracking with barely suppressed rage. She must have looked like a lunatic. She wasn't. She knew they were listening.
“You seem to know what I am.“ She placed her hands against the barrier again, fingers spread, attuning herself to the magic flowing through the very walls of this building. Slowly, a faint white glow shimmered between her fingers, like filtered sunlight bleeding through. “I'll siphon every trace of magic from this building and watch it crumple right on your corpses,”
The moment the words left her lips, she stumbled forward through the barrier that no longer existed. She barely caught herself from tripping over, again.
Inside it was quiet, and stale. The air hung heavy with the scent of mold and dampness. Lilith could taste the dust in the back of her throat and barely suppressed the urge to cough.
“Hello?” she called out hesitantly, adjusting the short sleeve of her dress back over her shoulder. “Is someone there?”
She hadn’t even considered that Damon might not have come here alone. Her mind had been all over the place too be able to think clearly. But it was unlikely anyone would just be sitting here and waited, especially after she’d… taken care of him.
And as expected, the house stayed silent. So carefully, she advanced forward. The old wood creaked beneath her light-footed steps, and even though there was no one else here, besides the vengeful spirits of deceased witches, she felt the need to be quiet. Some habits died hard.
Rounding the corner, the sight before her, made her gasp out loud. “I'll be damned—” she blurted out in disbelief.
In the middle of the room stood five large coffins made of dark, polished mahagony. They were beautiful in their own macabre way. Clearly expensive, clearly important.
Lilith's heart hammered as she stepped into the room. This was definitely what Damon had come for.
“Is this what you tried to hide from me?“ She asked into the silence, knowing well enough that the witches were watching. She could feel their attention like insects crawling across her skin. “Cheers to that…”
She hesitantly reached out, half expecting someone or something to jump out, as she trailed her fingertips over the polished wood. “This seems like a bad idea…“ Still, she grabbed the edge of the lid and heaved it open with all the strenght she could muster.
Inside was a woman. Or, at least she vaguely resembled one. She seemed to be in Lilith's age, and at the same time, a thousand years old. Her skin was grey and leathery, as if a mere touch would crumple her into dust. But not in a rotten way like a corpse.
A vampire.
Lilith's wide eyes took in the garment she wore. Nothing of the kind she had ever seen before. And even in this state, there was something strangely beautiful about her.
Only then, she noticed the intricately designed handle of a long, black dagger protruding out of the woman's chest.
Lilith's stomach sank.
What a coincidence.
She didn't know who this woman was, why she had been ripped from her life, or if she would pose a threat. But if she was sure of one thing— as she gripped the handle of the dagger tightly and pulled— she knew what it was like to be buried alive, without even slightest the chance at redemption.
Staring down at the weapon, now in her hands, Lilith could sense the slightest remains of magic radiating from the silver.
It felt ancient.
But that didn’t protect it from gracelessly clattering to the floor, as soon as Lilith dropped it. For a moment, she just gazed down at the weapong. It was just a piece of metal now. Her lips curled back into a sneer as she spat on it.
The other coffins were opened quickly. Inside were three more vampires. Men. They were in the same state as the woman, and Lilith wasted no time, removing each dagger from their chests. She didn’t know how much time she had, but she probably wanted to disappear before a group of, undoubtedly starving, vampires, woke up.
The last coffin, however, refused to budge. She tugged, she pried, she even kicked it, which turned out to be a spectacularly bad idea. Naturally.
"Bloody hell," she cursed, wincing as pain shot through her foot. Glaring at the coffin like it had personally insulted her ancestors, she knelt and placed her hands on its surface. But just as she began to siphon the spell keeping it sealed, a sound from outside made her freeze.
In a flash, Lilith got to her feet. She rushed toward the broken windows that faced the east side of the building.
The spot just by the trees, where she had left Damon, was abandoned.
Lilith's breath hitched in her throat. Shit, shit, shit. Her heart hammered against her ribs, each beat a frantic drum against the suddenly dreadful silence of the empty house. She buried her hands in her curls, mind racing.
She felt she had forgotten about something rather important. That something was a vampire which neck she had snapped.
With a final glance toward the unconscious vampires, she turned and ran. The doorway was clear. No barrier stopped her this time. She slipped through it and burst outside, hair whipping behind her as she scanned the woods.
Nothing.
It was too quiet. Even the wind through the underbrush felt wrong.
Maybe he left.
He's a vampire, revenge is their middle name, idiot.
A twig snapped nearby. Lilith flinched, but didn’t look back. She darted around the side of the house, sprinting flat out, forcing her focus on the slap of her bare feet against uneven ground rather than the growing certainty that she was being hunted.
Stone figures appeared in her line of sight. A cemetery? Lilith paused for a moment to catch her breath. A mistake.
She screamed as an arm snapped around her throat, crushing her against a solid chest. Her windpipe compressed agonizingly, each attempted breath a study in futility. The harder she struggled, the tighter the grip became.
“You know, most people just say 'thanks for the rescue' and move on. But neck-snapping? That's just rude,” a low voice mumured into her ear and before she could even think of using her powers, he gripped both of her hands with his, like a vice.
Lilith whimpered as her vision started swimming, and her head felt like it was bursting as the pressure in her lungs built. The last thing she saw were specks of light dancing at the edge of her sight before everything went dark.