Chapter 1

After spending a well-deserved night feeding, killing, and fucking, the vampires retreated back to The Authority base. The Sanguinistas were in an especially giddy mood after being confronted with their most holy patron saint, Lilith. They took it as a sign that they were right all along about their approach with humans. After all, she only revealed herself as they were draining the life from a mass of humans, high on her blood.

"I can't believe it!" Nora was praising, clasping her hands together in sheer joy as tears welled in her eyes. "It was Lilith, we saw Lilith!"

"Of course, my dear," Salome cued in her ear, gently massaging Nora's shoulders. "It is what I have said all along; Vampires are the true children of God. We should be blessed with whatever we wish to achieve happiness. Humans are nothing."

"Let me be the first to say it-our Goddess has great tits!" Russell Edginton jived as he fell back into a recliner, wiping blood from his face. "I'm not really the religious type, but praise Lilith!" He drunkenly took gulp of a red wine and blood concoction straight from the bottle, letting it pour down the sides of his face.

"Praise her!" Everyone cheered after him.

Eric gave a strained smile, finding it harder to play along with them now that the spiked vamp blood was wearing off. His mind had been racing ever since Godric appeared before him in the bar. His maker was right, they were acting with iniquity. Thousands of years had hardened Eric's heart and rendered his morals practically nonexistent, but even he could recognize this was a deadly game the Sanguinistas were playing. Roman, with all his faults, had been the only wise member of the Authority. Mainstreaming was the only way, or it was over for both vampires and humans alike.

The Viking was itching to escape form these lunatics. He stole looks with Bill, or he tried to. But to his complete horror, Mr. Compton seemed to be enjoying himself. He laughed as he held Salome in his arms and kissed her neck, fitting in almost too perfectly with the Sanguinistas. Either he was a really good actor, or he had fallen pray to these absurd ideals. Hopefully it was the former.

Eric stepped forward and spoke, with as much leisure as he could muster. "Well, I think we've had enough fun for the night. Haven't we, Bill?"

He gave Bill a sharp look, one he took understandingly and nodded, adding, "Eric is right, the sun will be up soon. We'll crash for the night."

The room of satiated and dazed vampires didn't seem to mind their premature exit, and they all went back to snickering and hooting and making out for no apparent reason. Salome eyed them carefully, giving them her sweetest smile, and said, "Goodnight, boys. We'll see you tomorrow."

Eric waited until they were far enough away to not be heard, and then turned to Bill as a cloud of dark fell over his face. "Bill, we need to get out of here. The Authority is corrupted, it's dangerous if we stay."

"Dangerous?" Bill laughed, patting Eric on the shoulder. "On contra, things could not be better now that Roman is gone. He was the one who wanted us dead. Salome has welcomed us with open arms."

"Yes, but what do you think she'll do once she finds out we still believe in mainstreaming? We'll certainly meet the true death, right then and there," Eric hissed under his breath. "You saw what happened to Dieter."

"Actually, Eric, I've been having some considerations concerning my ideals. You saw what we saw in the bar. That was Lilith. It couldn't just be coincidence. What if the Sanguinistas were right?"

Eric was taken aback. He swallowed hard, and then leaned forward to whisper in Bill's ear, "I hope for your sake, dear friend, that you're still under the influence of Lilith's blood."

"Why, because I'm actually considering some other truth? I've seen enough evidence today to..."

Eric cut him off. "What you saw was a drug-induced hallucination. Obviously the blood we drank was spiked. It led us to see things that weren't there."

"So we shared the same hallucination?" Bill questioned, and Eric looked away. He couldn't account for everything, "And what if it wasn't spiked? What if that is really Lilith's blood, and she truly appeared before us tonight?"

"And what if?" Eric demanded, and then quickly lowered his voice. "Would you really follow this she-witch of a vampire into total chaos? A war with humans, that's what we're looking at. Could you of all people slaughter humans as if they were cattle?"

Bill doubled back and looked down in contemplation. It was true, he thought quite highly of humans. He loved a human woman. He raised human children. "You're right," Bill admitted, running his fingers through his hair. "I was just so enamored with the vision of Lilith and the blood... I had completely lost my way." Bill felt utterly shameful and rubbed his temples in disgust at himself.

"Don't feel bad. Even I was lost for a moment," Erik conceded.

The brown haired vampire looked up to him with surprise. "What brought you back?"

The answer was Godric, but Eric wasn't ready or willing to share that much with his new friend. He wasn't sure he trusted him enough, and admitting to seeing the ghost of your maker on a constant basis didn't come off as very sane. Just then a gust of wind whipped by the two vampires, heading towards the room the Sanguinistas were partying in.

"Did you feel that?" Eric asked Bill, eyes wide as Bill nodded. With an unspoken consent they both raced back to the room and stopped just by the door, gazing in at a figure dressed in black, facing a room of now fully aware vampires. He had dirty blond hair and wore a leather jacket, with matching black jeans and boots.

"How dare you come here uninvited?" Kibwe began, but Salome silenced him with a wave of her hand and rose from her seat next to Nora to approach the stranger, with a cautious smile plastered across her bloodied face. It was obvious the stranger was a vampire, but none Eric or Bill had ever seen before.

"Stranger, who are you? How have you found this place?" Salome asked, voice filled with pleasantries.

"If you were trying to hide it, you did a terrible job," a British voice replied with sarcasm. He wasn't even trying to be polite. Eric and Bill exchanged nervous glances. "A little birdy whispered in my ear about some nasty things you lot are planning. Something to do with a vampire's purpose and our reason for existence? To enslave humans?" His voice cracked at the end as he gave a chuckle at the absurdity of the infamous Sanguinista.

Within a second Russell was standing face-to-face with this new vampire and jammed his hand in his chest. The blond vampire, expression unchanging and placid, merely grasped Russell's wrist and pulled it out of his chest, bending it back until Russell fell to his knees in agony, the bones in his wrist cracking and popping out of place.

The room was deathly silent. No one could believe what they were seeing. Russell Edginton on his knees? Up until this point, no one knew of a vampire older than Russell in the United States. They took another look at this stranger; he appeared young, maybe mid-twenties, with short wavy blond hair and blue eyes. His lips were cheery red and curved back in a devilish grin at the site of Edginton's torment.

"Children these days. No respect for their elders," he tisked, looking down pitilessly at the older man in languishing pain. The stranger's chest healed quickly as if a wound was never inflicted.

"May I ask again, stranger," Salome spoke, voice quivering ever so slightly as she tried to remain confident and graceful. "Who are you?"

His eye's rose to hers, filled with what could only be described as disgust. "The question love, is who are you? Who are you to claim to know Lilith's word? To know her wants and needs for vampire-kind? You think you know everything, don't you?"

"Lilith-" Salome began.

"Oh, shut up. You can't seriously be stupid enough to wage a war with humans, can you? How pathetically ignorant are you lot?"

"It is what Lilith commands!" Rosalyn cried, standing up. "I have to admit, even I didn't believe in this bullshit until I saw it, with my own two eyes."

"What you saw? Oh, how adorable. You get high off ruffied blood and share a bullshit fantasy with one another and take it as Lilith? Let me tell you something about Lilith. She doesn't exist."

"Who the fuck are you to say such things?" Russell hissed from beneath him, venom spewing from his mouth in rage. "What the fuck do you know about Lilith? We've witnessed her grace!"

"I know Lilith doesn't exist because I exist. You asked who I am, and I shall tell you. My name is Niklaus Mikaelson, and I am the Original Vampire. If you don't want to die, you'll stop with this mission to conquer the world."

End Chapter.