Bonnie's barrier could bind a vampire.
It couldn't bind Hawk.
He took one step, Cosmos flaring—and the witch's seal in front of him rippled like a calm lake in the wind.
With the ripples spreading,
Hawk walked in without resistance. He met the wary stare of the woman inside, who'd reflexively hissed and flashed two fangs like a bristling kitten. "Good evening, Ms. Katherine Pierce." (vampirediaries.fandom.com)
Calling a stranger by their first name is rude.
Especially with a woman.
Hawk wasn't starting a harem and didn't intend to—least of all did he want Gwen thinking he had the impulse.
So at NYU, when female classmates came looking for him—or at Empire State when he was with Gwen—unless it was someone they both knew well, he stuck to "Ms." plus the surname.
Just like now with Katherine.
Katherine had retreated a step the moment he entered. She eyed him, expression tight and wary. "Who are you—Klaus's man?" (vampirediaries.fandom.com)
"Heh."
Hawk recalled Damon mistaking him for Klaus earlier, and now Katherine pegged him as Klaus's goon.
He could understand it.
Like how he'd once felt about the Seventh Sense:
Before he'd even glimpsed a corner of it, the Seventh Sense looked like the moon from a well—distant, unreachable, yet visible.
But the instant he actually glimpsed it, he understood: he was a mayfly staring up at the sky.
Damon and Katherine looked at him the same way.
In their world, an Original was the ceiling. Hard to imagine anything stronger.
Hawk smiled and shook his head. "I don't know any Klaus. I came here for you."
"…"
At that, Katherine's delicate features softened into a sultry smile. Her aura shifted—sly, inviting, all warmth and confidence—as she stepped toward him.
Hawk eased back two paces.
Last thing he needed was to go back smelling like a stranger's perfume and have Gwen pick up on it.
Again:
No harem energy here, and he wouldn't make Gwen worry. Out and about, he kept a strict distance from other women.
Trust isn't conjured from nothing; it accretes with time.
As of now—
Even if Gwen's best friend Mary flew back from L.A. swearing up and down that Hawk had someone on the side, Gwen wouldn't buy it.
Because Hawk always kept that distance.
Which was why she hadn't even asked what he was heading out to do tonight.
Trust.
Katherine's smile froze as he stepped back.
Seriously—retreating on reflex?
Are you even a man?
Hawk stayed calm and cut straight to it. "Let's make a deal, Ms. Pierce."
"What deal?"
Her smile was gone; the wariness—and chill—were back.
"I can get you out of here," he said plainly. "In return, let me look at your soul."
"How about it."
Yes—
That was why he'd come in the middle of the night. The instant he saw Katherine, he knew the soul-scent on the captured Dr. Merrick and the soul-scent on Katherine came from the same place.
Just like souls from Hell bear Hell's stamp,
Katherine's—and Merrick's—were stamped by another dimension that governs life and death.
Hawk was curious—and contemptuous of Mephisto.
The old fiend loved to say, "All souls belong to Hell. Sacred. Inviolable."
And yet?
Buddy, someone's stealing from your pantry.
Katherine blinked at his ask.
Then—
Whoosh!
She blurred, trying to slip past him.
Hawk's smile didn't change. With a thought, his telekinesis slammed down; in the same instant her blur began, Katherine was pinned back where she'd started.
Feeling that invisible morass locking her in from every side, she struggled, panic and helplessness stripping away the mask and exposing the truest Katherine—uneasy, fearful, unwilling.
Hawk chuckled softly and withdrew the force.
Katherine, who'd thought she was dead a heartbeat ago, froze when freedom returned, then looked at him.
She'd expected him to kill her.
He'd said "soul"—so of course she'd tried to bolt.
And yet…
She frowned at his still, level gaze. "You said you want to…"
"Look at your soul. In return I'll get you out. And no, you don't have to come with me afterward."
His tone stayed easy.
He was already one hundred percent certain the "found" Dr. Merrick was a clone—with a soul.
All Hawk wanted to confirm was which dimension that soul came from.
That's it.
If Katherine agreed, nice bonus. If not, fine—he already had what he needed.
Katherine barely hesitated.
"Then I refuse."
"Great."
Hawk was just as crisp. He turned to leave.
"Wait."
He stepped back inside the seal and met her eyes.
"You're just going to look—won't… do anything to it?"
"I won't."
"And after you look, you'll help me get out. You won't demand I go with you?"
Hawk blinked. "I'm engaged, Ms. Pierce. I love her."
Katherine's mouth twitched. She drew a steadying breath. "How are you going to 'look'?"
"Simply."
He smiled, raised his right hand, and the Cosmos shimmered there like a projection. In his palm, the underworld seemed to unfold.
An underworld in the palm.
In an instant,
his law of life and death turned. Katherine's eyes went vacant—and Hawk stepped into her soulscape.
What does a vampire's soul look like?
Ugly?
Bloody?
Filthy?
Often, yes—Damon's certainly did.
But Katherine's—
Holy.
Light, warmth—by any measure, her soul read more like…
An angel.
Hawk's mind flicked to the bound angelic skeleton in the Forbes annex vault.
Not that Katherine's soul was the skeleton's; rather, he recalled something William Forbes had said:
"After three days, Jesus rose."
The next thought that surfaced was Elena Gilbert—face, voice, every detail a mirror of Katherine's. (Wikipedia)
And then—
Doppelgänger.
The most "out there" concept in The Vampire Diaries:
Not just two people who look alike. "Doppelgänger" meant destiny-chosen duplicates—identical DNA, identical faces and voices, identical everything… even identical souls.
That was why one look at Katherine had told Hawk that Merrick was a clone with a soul.
He hadn't compared Merrick to Katherine first.
He'd seen Elena—and then Katherine—and the conclusion clicked:
Elena's soul and Katherine's were a perfect match.
The difference: Elena's lacked the sanctified radiance now shining at the deepest stratum of Katherine's.
And—
That "Merrick" didn't seem to realize he was a clone.
That question remained open.
As for the holy glow in Katherine's core, Hawk already had a theory.
It went back to the Heaven-vs-Hell war over Earth's jurisdiction.
Hell—Mephisto—won. Heaven withdrew.
Angels fell. Many.
You could infer as much from one angel skeleton under the Forbes estate, let alone the rest.
Those dead angels' souls, in theory, should have gone to the victor—Mephisto.
So—
"Mephisto."
With Katherine's soul laid bare, Hawk didn't hesitate. He stepped into the rift between spaces, followed the pull of his death-law to Hell's gate, and drove a fist clean through it.
He never slept on a grudge.
"Roooar!"
"Hawk!!!"
Hell's gate thundered. Mephisto, grasping the situation at once, bellowed in his true demonic form. "Keep pushing me and I will start a god-war!"
Hawk's face didn't move. "You sure it's me who wants that?"
"What?"
The big demon went momentarily blank—then roared again, "You swore to Death herself! Now you break your vow and slander me on top of it?"
Mephisto—
Aggrieved.
If Death granted him a do-over, he'd swear never to cross Hawk again.
Because—he could sense it—Hawk had gotten stronger. Again.
That wasn't science.
That wasn't even mysticism.
Hawk's brow tipped. "So it wasn't you. You didn't set me up with Hydra?" (Wikipedia)
"What are you talking about?"
"Hydra? What even is that?" Mephisto snarled.
Hawk frowned, skipped the argument, and let Katherine's soul appear below his hand.
Mephisto's eyes followed.
A beat later,
he jolted—then his voice dropped, heavier and angrier. "Jehovah."
Hawk's eyes thinned. "Didn't you drive Heaven off this turf?"
Mephisto sneered, never looking away from Katherine's soul. "Apparently they slipped back in."
His hand opened, demonic fingers reaching to snatch the soul.
Hawk flexed. Boom. His palm met the demon's, power colliding.
The rift churned.
Mephisto roared.
"HAWK!"
"Oh, shut it."
Hawk idly dug a finger in his ear. "You're a dimension lord. Try a little dignity. She's not dead. Souls of the dead are yours."
"She is dead," Mephisto growled.
"She's a vampire. She isn't." Hawk corrected him, then laid out the chain: Dr. Merrick the "clone with a soul," the Elena–Katherine identical soul, the Heaven–Hell war—how it all led him to suspect Mephisto working with Hydra.
Mephisto listened and fell silent, his dead-fish demon eyes on Hawk.
They stared at each other.
For a moment, Hawk felt… uneasy under that look.
After a while, Mephisto spoke, voice even. "Hawk."
"Mm?"
"I am a god. Hydra is a human toy. They have no standing to 'ally' with me."
"Ghost Rider, then?" Hawk asked mildly. (Marvel Database)
"My emissary," Mephisto said. "You think I'd partner with a mortal's club to fight you? That insults me. I have plans for you, sure—but I haven't sunk to conspiring with my food."
He said it without heat now.
Who was he?
Lord of Hell.
Who was Hydra? A playpen of mortals, even at their most dangerous.
Not that it mattered.
To him—even the "Big Five" were all the same label:
Food.
He might scheme to eat—but he didn't scheme with the food.
Hawk met the demon's steady gaze. "My mistake."
When you're wrong, you own it.
He could be a tyrant—but not a fool.
Still—
He pivoted straight to the twin souls. "I thought a soul was singular."
"It is."
"Except Heaven's birds," Mephisto said flatly.
Hawk's brow jumped.
"Every realm has a property," Mephisto went on. "Hell's is demonhood.
"Demons don't 'eat'—we deal in souls.
"Heaven has its own property.
"A soul in a dual state."
"With that, they've slipped into other death-lords' pastures again and again."
In brief:
Angel-souls can run in two states. On worlds Heaven governs, that means angels revive even after a first death.
Like Jesus on the third day.
But on another death-lord's world, the manifestation changes.
You don't waltz into someone else's domain and pop resurrection miracles in the town square. That's announcing an invasion.
So in foreign lands, the dual state adapts.
Take Katherine.
She was human. She became a vampire—supernatural, yes, but also "the living dead."
Thus—
The angel's dual state took effect and split off an identical soul. To keep the local death-lord from noticing, that soul went to Hell in Katherine's stead, cycled through the wheel, and was reborn—now bearing a "new" soul-name: Elena.
That was Heaven's incursion method.
One hell-tainted soul alone? Not much.
Two. Three…
By the time the local death-lord clocked it, Heaven had the daggers sharpened.
"No," Mephisto snapped, as if to himself. "I need to go."
"I didn't set you up—not this time," he tossed back. "Stop punching my door."
And with that, thinking on Heaven's quiet stratagem and whatever it implied, Mephisto bailed.
As for Hawk—
Ignored.
In fact,
Mephisto was secretly pleased—he'd be thrilled to see Hawk tangle with Heaven.
(End of Chapter)
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