The Vampire Diaries #10: Destiny Rising (The Hunters #3) (2012)

Chapter 10

"A headless body found in the woods near Dalcrest College last week has now been identified as Dalcrest senior Ethan Crane," announced the pretty newscaster on the TV morning show, her forehead crinkling seriously. "Police have not yet released a statement on whether Crane was the victim of a murder or a freak accident, but judging from the difference in wounds, Crane's death appears unrelated to the most recent animal attacks in the woods."

As the newscaster went on to another story, Meredith flipped off the TV, hissing in irritation.

"They must think everyone who watches the news is a moron," she muttered. "How could someone lose their head in a freak accident in the woods?"

Even though the student lounge was empty except for the five of them - Elena, Bonnie, Meredith, Stefan, and Zander - Elena lowered her voice and glanced around before answering. "They don't want people to panic any more than they are already."

The empty lounge was a sign of how frightened everyone already was, Elena thought. The first couple of weeks of school, the lounge had been packed in the evenings, guys and girls hanging out to watch TV or flirt or even study.

Now, though, everyone was wary, sticking to their rooms in case one of the friendly faces on campus was masking a killer. Elena was constantly on edge, too. She and her friends checked and rechecked their weapons, tried to anticipate what Klaus might do. And yet he'd done nothing, as far as they could tell.

"My psychology class was canceled this week," Bonnie told the others. "And there's hardly anyone left in my English section. A lot of people have left." She hesitated, her wide brown eyes flicking between Elena and Zander. "My father wants me to come home and see if we can get the tuition refunded. He says I could come back next year if they get to the bottom of all the attacks and disappearances," she confessed.

"You're not going home, are you?" Elena asked her. Bonnie's dad had always been superprotective of Bonnie and her older sisters, so Elena wasn't surprised by this news.

"Of course I'm not going," Bonnie said stoutly. "You guys need me here." She snuggled closer to Zander and tipped her head back against his chest to smile up at him. He smiled back, wide and warmly, and Elena found herself smiling, too. Zander was such a guy's guy, not really Elena's type at all, but it was wonderful to see Bonnie with someone who liked her so much that pure contentment just shone out of him whenever they were together.

Stefan cleared his throat to get their attention. "I don't know where Klaus is feeding, but I don't think the bodies that have been found in the woods are people he killed. The news reports are saying they look like animal attacks, and, uh" - he looked down at his feet, his face slightly embarrassed - "I compelled a police officer to find out what the police have seen. The kills are really sloppy; they look like an animal actually is attacking people, so it's not just a cover story as far as the police are concerned."

"So you think it's the new vampires who are killing people, not one as experienced as Klaus," Elena said. Stefan met her eyes and she knew he was thinking the same thing she was: not Damon, either. A great wave of relief broke over her.

If Damon crossed that line, if he started killing again, she didn't know what they would do. She couldn't imagine that they'd betray him, turn him over to the others, or hunt him down. So much had changed between Stefan and Damon. Elena knew Stefan would protect his brother now, choose him over anyone else except perhaps Elena herself.

But it hadn't come to that yet. It never would, Elena told herself fiercely. Damon might have lost control once, but no lasting harm had been done. The girl was fine. And it was the new vampires, the ones Ethan had turned, who were killing.

Meredith was watching her, her gray eyes sympathetic. "People are still dying, even if the killer is not Klaus," she said gently. With a start, Elena realized that she'd given away her relief that it wasn't Damon. Luckily, Meredith had misinterpreted Elena's reaction. "We can't guess what game Klaus is playing or what his plans are until he reveals himself," Meredith went on. A lock of dark hair fell over her cheek and she tucked it back behind her ear. "But we can target the Vitale vampires. Gassing the tunnels didn't work, and we can't make more gas unless we can get a lot more vervain than we have now. We should be patrolling regularly to keep the students safer."

She dug into her backpack and pulled out a campus map, carefully annotated in red ink, and traced an area on the map with one finger. "I've marked their hunting grounds here, and I think we can focus our patrols on the woods and on the playing fields on the edge of campus. We need to organize and make sure we've got nightly patrols that have enough strong fighters in them to take down a group of young vampires."

"What about during the day?" Bonnie asked, frowning and reaching for the map. "They've all got lapis lazuli, don't they? So they could be out hunting anytime."

Stefan stirred restlessly next to Elena on the couch. "Even though the sunlight doesn't kill them, they'll be laying low during the day," he explained. "Sunlight bothers vampires even with the lapis lazuli. Night is a vampire's natural habitat, and they won't leave it unless they're forced to."

Elena looked at him in surprise, but said nothing. Stefan lived in the day with her, slept at night. Did it hurt him, too? Had he changed so much, just to be with Elena?

"So nighttime patrols ought to be enough, at least for now," Meredith said.

Zander examined the map closely, his white-blond head close to Bonnie's red one. "I can organize the guys to take some of the patrols," he offered. Stefan nodded to Zander in acknowledgment. Meredith turned to Elena, her gray eyes sharp. "What about Damon?" she asked. "We could really use him."

Elena hesitated. Beside her, Stefan cleared his throat. "My brother isn't available right now," he said, his voice expressionless. "But I'll let you know if anything changes."

Meredith's lips tightened. Elena could imagine what was going through her friend's head: Damon, irritating but always there, had finally, over the past summer and fall, proven himself as a worthwhile ally, only to disappear when the campus was falling into chaos around them?

If that was what Meredith was thinking, she didn't say anything, just narrowed her eyes and let out a long sigh, then asked, "What about you, Bonnie? Are there any spells that will help the patrols?"

"There are a few protection spells I already know that could be useful," Bonnie said thoughtfully. "I'm going to call Mrs. Flowers and see what else she recommends."

Elena smiled across at her friend. With the discovery of her talent for witchcraft, Bonnie had found a new confidence. Bonnie looked up and caught her eye, then smiled back.

"We'll beat them, won't we, Elena?" she said softly. "And Klaus, too, when he shows up again."

"We did before, after all," Elena said lightly. Bonnie's expression sobered, and Meredith picked up the map again, turning it over thoughtfully in her hands. Next to Elena, Stefan reached to take her hand in his. They all knew just what it had taken to beat Klaus the first time they had faced him: Damon and Stefan united, and an army of the dead of Fell's Church, rising up from the land where they had fallen in battle. Not something they could duplicate. And even then, they had barely survived.

"We're stronger now," Bonnie said uncertainly. "Right?"

Elena forced herself to smile. "Of course we are," she said. Meredith's hand took hold of Elena's, and Elena felt comforted and strengthened by Stefan, her love, on one side, and Meredith, her friend, on the other. Bonnie raised her head proudly, her small face defiant, and Zander straightened beside her.

"We're invincible when we're together," Elena told them, and looking around at their resolute faces, she almost believed it.

Chapter 11

Elena was pulling on her sturdiest boots - perfect for a night of tromping through the woods - when her phone rang.

"Hello?" she said, glancing at the clock. In less than five minutes, she was supposed to be meeting Stefan and three of Zander's Packmates to patrol the campus. She tucked the phone between her ear and her shoulder and hurriedly finished lacing up the boots.

"Elena." James's voice came through the phone, sounding exuberant. "I have good news. Andres has arrived."

Elena stiffened, her fingers fumbling on her bootlaces. "Oh," she said faintly. The human Guardian was here at Dalcrest? She swallowed and spoke more firmly. "Does he want to meet with me right now?" she asked. "I'm on my way somewhere, but I could . . ."

"No, no," James broke in. "He's exhausted. But if you come here around nine tomorrow morning, he'd be delighted to talk to you." He dropped his voice, as if not wanting to be overheard. "Andres is extraordinary, Elena," he said happily. "I can't wait for you two to meet."

Pulling her hair back into a tight, businesslike ponytail, Elena thanked James and got off the phone as quickly as she could. Extraordinary, she thought apprehensively. That could mean a lot of different things. The Celestial Guardians she had met had been extraordinary, and they had taken away her parents and Power, crippling her. Still, James clearly thought Andres was good.

She tried to push her thoughts about the Earthly Guardian away as she jogged across campus to join the others. There was no point in worrying about him now; she'd meet him soon enough.

Stefan and the werewolves were waiting for her on the outskirts of the woods. Tristan and Spencer had already changed into their wolf forms and were restlessly sniffing the air, ears cocked for any sound of trouble. Shaggy-haired Jared, in human form, stood with Stefan, his hands stuffed into his pockets.

"There you are," Stefan said as Elena came up to them, and pulled her close to him in a brief embrace. "Ready?"

They set off into the woods, Tristan and Spencer pacing on each side of them, their heads and tails up, and their eyes alert. There had been too many attacks on and near the campus, and Elena knew the Pack felt that they were failing in their responsibility to keep the Dalcrest students safe. She and her friends felt the same way: they were the only ones who really knew what supernatural horrors were out there, and so were the only ones who could keep other people safe.

Bonnie, Meredith, Zander, and two more of his Packmates were patrolling the playing fields, trying to keep another section of the campus safe. Elena would have liked to have Matt's quiet, stubborn strength beside her, but he was still sequestered away with Chloe. Stefan had been checking on them daily, and said Chloe was making progress, but that she was still not ready to be near anyone else.

It was a clear, starry night, and everything seemed peaceful so far.

"Sorry I was late," Elena told Stefan, linking her arm through his. "James called just as I was leaving. He said Andres is here. I'm going to meet him tomorrow."

Stefan opened his mouth to say something when the wolves stopped, their ears cocked, and stared into the distance. Stefan's head swung up, too. "Check it out," he told them, and Spencer and Tristan were gone, racing into the forest. Stefan and Jared stood still, alertly tracking their progress, until a howl came in the distance.

"False alarm," Jared translated, and Stefan relaxed. "An old scent."

The two wolves came trotting back through the woods, their tails arched high over their backs. Despite being very different as humans, Tristan and Spencer made similar wolves, sleek and gray and not as large as Zander was in wolf form. Only the black tips of Spencer's ears made it possible to tell them apart.

Watching them come back, Jared hunched his shoulders and shoved his long bangs out of his eyes. "I need to learn to change without the moon," he said irritably. "I feel blind trying to scout as a human."

"How does that work, anyway?" Elena asked curiously. "Why can some of you change without the moon, but not all of you?"

"Practice," Jared said glumly, letting his hair flop back over his face. "It's hard, and it takes a long time to learn, and I haven't managed to do it yet. We can learn how to stop ourselves from changing when the moon's full, too, but that's even harder, and they say it hurts. Nobody does that unless it's really necessary."

Spencer sniffed the breeze again and gave a short bark. Jared laughed, not bothering to translate. Stefan turned to follow their gaze, and Elena wondered what Stefan and the wolves - even Jared - could sense in the night that she couldn't. She was the only true human here, she realized, and so the blindest of them all.

"Do you want me to come with you?" Stefan asked as they started walking again. "To meet Andres?"

Elena shook her head. "Thanks, but I think I should do this by myself." If she was going to become something new, she had to be strong enough to face it alone.

They patrolled the woods throughout the night without finding any vampires or any bodies. As dawn began to break over the horizon, Elena could see the two wolves plodding along next to her in the dim light, their heads hanging low. She was so sleepy, she held on to Stefan's arm for support and just focused on moving one foot in front of the other. Then Spencer's and Tristan's heads snapped up and they began to run, lean muscles stretching under their gray fur.

"Did they smell vampires?" Elena asked Jared, alarmed, but he shook his head.

"It's just the others," he said, and then he was running, too, faster than Elena could go.

As she and Stefan came over the next small hill, Elena could see the edge of the woods and the campus stretching out ahead of her again. She'd been so tired that she hadn't realized they'd looped back around. Halfway down the hill, Spencer and Tristan were greeting the great white wolf that was Zander and another gray wolf, their tails wagging, as Jared hurried toward them. Bonnie, Meredith, and another human-form member of Zander's Pack watched. Bonnie said something and waved them off. The werewolves, human and wolf, turned as one and ran back into the woods, Zander in the lead.

"What's that about?" Elena asked, as she and Stefan came up to Bonnie and Meredith.

"Oh, since patrol's over, they have to go change back and do Pack stuff," Bonnie said casually. "I told Zander we'd be fine. Did you find anything?"

Elena shook her head. "Everything was quiet."

"For us, too," Meredith said, swinging her stave jauntily as they turned and began to head back toward their dorm. "Maybe the new vampires have made it through the blood-craze of changing and they'll lay low for a while."

"I hope so," Stefan said. "Maybe we can find them before someone else dies."

Bonnie shivered. "I know it's stupid," she said, "but I almost wish Klaus would do whatever he's going to do. I'm on edge all the time. It's like he's watching me from the shadows."

Elena knew what Bonnie meant. Klaus was coming after them all. She knew it: she could still feel the ghostly sensation of his cold lips on hers like a promise. We've defeated Klaus before, she tried to tell herself. But a new conviction nagged at her. It was as if something inside her knew, beyond all arguing, that the life she'd lived was coming to an end.

"I'm sorry," she said impulsively to Bonnie. "Klaus wants to punish me, and so we're all in danger. This is my fault, and I don't even have any Power now to protect you all."

Bonnie stared at her. "If it weren't for you, Klaus would have destroyed us all long ago," she said dryly.

Stefan nodded. "No one thinks this is your fault," he said.

Elena blinked. "I guess you're right," she said uncertainly.

Bonnie rolled her eyes. "And we're not total wimps, in case you hadn't noticed," she said.

"If you want to be ready to fight Klaus, maybe you should start developing your Guardian Powers," Meredith told her.

Warm sunlight was beginning to spread over the campus, and Elena instinctively slowed and straightened, tipping her face back to the sun. Meredith was right, she realized. If she wanted to help keep her friends safe, to keep the campus safe, she needed to be stronger. She needed to be a Guardian.

After only a few hours of sleep, Elena staggered across the quad, clutching a cup of coffee. She was heading for James's house just off campus, and trying to remember the little she knew about Andres. He was twenty years old, James had told her, and had been taken from his family by the Guardians when he was twelve.

What would that do to a person? Elena wondered. The Guardians she had met, the ones of the Celestial Court, had taken their duties seriously. Surely Andres would be well versed in all the Powers and responsibilities of Guardianship, everything Elena herself didn't know, and would have been adequately cared for, at least physically.

But how would it affect a human child to be raised by creatures as cold and emotionless as the Guardians? Her skin crawled at the idea.

By the time she got to James's door, Elena was anticipating a cold-eyed, unemotional greeting from an Earthly Guardian who would teach her exactly as much as he thought Elena should know.

Well, he would have to learn that he couldn't push her around. The Celestial Court full of Guardians at the peak of their Power hadn't been able to make Elena obey them, and there was only one of Andres. Elena rang James's doorbell with determination.

James's face was serious, but not apprehensive, when he opened the door. He looked wide-eyed and solemn, as if, Elena thought, he was witnessing something momentous he didn't fully understand.

"My dear, I'm glad you could come," he said, ushering her in with little beckoning waves of his hand and taking her empty coffee cup. "Andres is in the backyard." He escorted her through his small, extremely neat house, and showed her out the back door.

The door closed behind her and, with a start of surprise, Elena realized James had sent her out alone.

The yard was lit in gold and green by sunlight filtering through the leaves of a large beech tree. On the grass beneath the tree sat a young, dark-haired man who raised his head to look at Elena. As she met his eyes, the nervousness drained out of her and she felt a great peace settle on her. Without even meaning to, she found herself smiling.

Andres rose unhurriedly and came to her. "Hello, Elena," he said, and wrapped his arms around her.

At first, Elena tensed in surprise at the hug, but then a calming warmth seemed to flow through her, and she laughed. Andres let go of her and laughed, too, a pure note of joy.

"I'm sorry," he said. His English was fluent, but he had a slight South American accent. "But I've never met another human Guardian before, and I just . . . felt like I knew you."

Elena nodded, hot tears pricking at her eyes. She could feel a connection between them, humming with energy and joy, and she realized with happy surprise that it wasn't just emotions sent to her by Andres. They were coming from her as well, her own happiness rushing toward him. "It's like I'm seeing family for the first time in ages," she told him. They couldn't seem to stop smiling at each other. Andres took her hand and tugged her gently over to the tree, and they sat down beneath it together.

"I had a Guide, of course," he said. "My beloved Javier, who raised me. But he passed away last year" - Andres suddenly looked ineffably sad, his brown eyes liquid - "and since then I have been alone." He brightened again. "But now you are here, and I can help you as Javier helped me."

"Javier was a Guardian?" Elena asked, surprised. Andres had loved Javier, clearly, and love was not something she associated with the Guardians.

Andres gave a mock shudder. "God forbid," he said. "The Guardians wish the world well, but they are cold, yes? Imagine one of them in charge of a growing child. No, Javier was a Guide. A good man, a wise man, but fully human. A priest, actually, and a teacher."

"Oh." Elena thought for a while, carefully plucking a blade of grass and pulling it to pieces, looking down at her hands. "I thought that the Guardians themselves raised the human children they took. I don't - my parents didn't want to let me go. I guess I would have had a Guide if I had gone with them when I was little."

Andres nodded, his face solemn. "James has told me of your situation," he said. "I'm sorry about what happened to your parents, and I wish I could offer some kind of explanation. But since you don't have a Guide assigned to you, I hope I can help you with what I know."

"Yes," Elena said. "Thank you. I mean, I really do appreciate it. Do you - " She hesitated, ripping another blade of grass apart. There was something she had wondered. It wasn't something she could imagine asking a stranger, but that curious, happy connection between them made her relax enough to turn to Andres. "Do you think it would have been better if my parents had let them take me? Are you glad the Guardians took you away from your family?"

Andres leaned his head back against the tree and sighed. "No," he admitted. "I never stopped missing my parents. I wish they had tried to keep me with them. But they saw me as a child who belonged to the Guardians, not to them. They're lost to me now." He turned to look at her. "But I did come to love Javier, and I was glad to have someone with me when I went through the transformation."

"Transformation?" Elena asked, sitting up straight and hearing her own voice go high and panicky. "What do you mean, transformation?"

Andres smiled at her reassuringly, and despite herself, Elena instinctively relaxed a bit at the warmth in his eyes.

"It will be all right," he said quietly, and part of Elena believed him. Andres sat up, too, wrapping his arms around his knees. "It's nothing to be afraid of. When your first task as a Guardian comes up, a Principal Guardian will come and explain to you what you must do. Your Powers will start developing when you have a task. Until you've finished your task, you won't be able to think of anything else. You'll feel this overwhelming need to complete it. The Principal Guardian returns when the task is done and releases you from your compulsion." He shrugged, looking self-conscious. "I've only had a few tasks, but when they ended, I couldn't wait for the next one. And the Powers I've developed for a task, I've kept over time."

"Is that the transformation you're talking about?" Elena said dubiously. "Developing Powers?" She wanted the Power to defeat Klaus, but she didn't like the idea of changing, of something making her change.

Andres smiled. "Working as a Guardian makes you stronger," he told her. "It makes you wiser and more powerful. You'll still be you, though," he said.

Elena swallowed. This was the crux of her plan. With Klaus out there, Powers would be more than useful, but she needed to access them now rather than waiting around until a Principal Guardian decided to appear.

"Is there any way to wake up these Powers before I have a task?" she asked. Andres was opening his mouth to ask her why, a puzzled frown forming on his face, and she pushed forward with her explanation. "There's a monster here," she said. "A very old, very cruel vampire, and he wants to kill me and my friends. And probably a lot of other people. The more we have to fight him with, the better."

Andres nodded, his expressive face earnest. "My Powers aren't very warlike, but they may be useful, and I will help you however I can. No two Guardians have the same Powers. There's got to be some way to find yours, though, and to turn them on."

A glow of excitement shone through Elena. If she could access the Powers the Guardians gave her by herself, she wouldn't be their tool; she'd be a weapon. Her own weapon. "Maybe you could tell me about the first time you accessed yours?" she prompted.

"Okay." Andres sat up straighter and let his knees fall so that he was sitting cross-legged on the grass. "The first thing you have to understand," he said, "is that Costa Rica is very different from here." He waved an arm around, indicating the little yard and house, the rows of houses beside and behind them, the sunshiny but chilly autumn skies. "Costa Rica has a great deal of unspoiled land, land that is protected by our country's laws for the animals and plants. The people of Costa Rica have a phrase we use a lot: pura vida - it means pure life, and when we say that - at least when I say it - we're talking about our connection to the natural world."

"I'm sure it's beautiful there," Elena said.

Andres chuckled. "Of course it is," he said. "And you're wondering why I'm talking about ecology when I should be talking about Power. Watch."

Closing his eyes, he seemed to gather his strength, then placed both his hands flat, palms down, against the ground.

A gentle rustling noise began, so quiet at first that Elena barely noticed it, but soon grew louder. She glanced up at Andres's face, which was closed off and intent, still listening to something she couldn't hear.

As she watched, the grass where his hands rested grew longer, the blades poking up between his fingers and rising higher to frame his hands. Andres's mouth opened a tiny bit and he breathed harder. From above them came a creaking and Elena looked up to find new leaves unfurling from the beech tree's branches, their fresh spring green strange among the yellow-tinted autumn leaves already there. There was a soft thump behind her, and Elena turned to realize that a small pebble had rolled closer to them. Looking around, she saw a ring of pebbles and small stones, all gently sliding toward them.

Andres's hair rose lightly, individual strands crackling with energy. He looked powerful and benevolent.

"So," he said, opening his eyes. Some of the intensity in his posture faded. The sounds of the quickly growing plants and the movement of the pebbles stopped. There was still a sense of expectant energy in the air around them. "I can tap into the power of the natural world and channel it to defend against the supernatural. If I need to, I can make boulders fling themselves through the air, or tree roots drag my enemies down to the ground. My strength feeds nature, and nature increases my strength. It's more effective in Costa Rica, because there are so many more uncultivated places and therefore so much more wild energy than there is here."

"It looks like your talents are pretty strong even here," Elena said, picking up a smooth, white pebble from the ground and turning it over curiously in her fingers.

Andres grinned and ducked his head modestly. "Anyway," he said, "my first task came to me when I was seventeen. Javier had been teaching me for about five years, and I was dying to prove myself. A creature was killing young married women in the town where we lived, and a Principal Guardian - who was quite terrifying in her way, very powerful and focused - came to me and told me my job was to track and kill it."

"How did you find it?" Elena asked.

Andres shrugged. "The beast was easy to find. Once I had my assignment, something in me drew me toward it. It turned out to be a demon in the shape of a black dog. A pure demon, not a half creature like a vampire or a werewolf. It was attracted by guilt, especially the guilt of adultery. Javier had taught me the principles of accessing my Power, but the first time I actually did it, I felt like I was sucking the whole world into myself. I was able to call a wind and blast the black dog away." He smiled again shyly at Elena.

"Maybe if I try to tap into nature the same way, it'll help unlock whatever my Powers are," Elena said.

Andres knelt directly in front of Elena. "Close your eyes," he said, and Elena did as she was told. "Now," Andres continued, and Elena felt him gently touch her cheek, "take deep breaths and concentrate on your connection to the earth here. Your talents won't be the same as mine, but they'll be rooted in this land, the place where you began, just as mine are."

Elena breathed deeply and slowly, concentrating on the ground beneath her, the warmth of the sunlight on her shoulders and the tickle of the grass against her legs. It felt comfortable, but she didn't sense any mystical connection between herself and the world around her. She gritted her teeth and tried harder.

"Stop," Andres said soothingly. "You're too tense." His hand left her cheek and she felt him sit beside her, his thigh touching hers, and take her hand. "Let's try it this way. I'll channel some of my connection with the earth into you. At the same time, I want you to visualize sinking deeper into yourself. All the doors that are usually shut inside you will open and let your Power flow through."

Elena wasn't quite sure how to "visualize sinking deeper into herself," but she took another slow breath and tried to imagine it, consciously making herself relax. She pictured herself walking along a passageway of closed doors, the doors flying open as she passed them. Her hand felt pleasantly warm and tingled slightly where it touched Andres's hand.

But when she had possessed the Power of Wings, before the Guardians had taken them, she had felt a lot more than this, hadn't she? There had been the feeling of amazing potential inside her, of these tightly furled, powerful things that were part of her, and that she could release when the time was right.

She wasn't feeling anything special now. The doors flying open were only in her imagination, nothing more. Elena opened her eyes. "I don't think this is working," she told Andres.

"No, I don't think so either," he said regretfully, opening his eyes to look at her. "I am sorry."

"It's not your fault," Elena said. "I know you're trying to help me."

"Yes." Andres tightened his hold on her hand and looked at her thoughtfully. "I don't think that relaxation and visualization are really your strengths," he said. "Let's try something else. Instead, we will work with your protective instincts."

This sounded more likely.

"Close your eyes again," Andres went on, and Elena obeyed. "I want you to think about evil," he said. "Think about the evil you have seen in your adventures, the evil that you - that both of us - must fight."

Elena opened her mind to her memories. She remembered Katherine's pretty, half-mad face twisting as she screamed with rage and tore at Damon's bleeding chest. The dogs of Fell's Church, vacant-eyed and snarling, turning on their owners. Tyler Smallwood's teeth lengthening into fangs and the glee in his eyes as he tried to attack Bonnie. Klaus gathering the lightning in his hands and throwing it at her friends, his face alight with vicious glee.

Images spun through her mind faster and faster. The kitsune, Misao and Shinichi, cruel and careless, laughing as they turned the children of Fell's Church into savage killers. The phantom that set Stefan and Damon tearing at each other's throats, mad with jealous fury, their mouths full of blood. Ethan, foolish Ethan, raising the cup of blood above his head, calling Klaus back to life.

Golden, terrifying Klaus stepping out of the fire.

And then different faces, other scenes, flooded her mind. Bonnie giggling in her ice-cream-cone pajamas. Meredith, her slim body graceful in a perfect swan dive. Matt holding her in his arms at their junior prom. Stefan, his eyes soft, taking Elena in his arms.

Elena's lab partner. The girls in her dorm. Strange faces from the cafeteria, others she'd glimpsed only in class. All the people Elena needed to protect, her friends and innocent strangers.

Meredith's vampire-hunter friend Samantha, fierce and funny, until the Vitale vampires had killed her. Matt's sweet roommate Christopher, murdered on the campus quad.

The girl Damon had left in the woods, dazed and frightened, blood streaming from the bites on her neck.

Inside herself, Elena felt something unfurl, not swinging open like a door or spreading like Powerful wings, but gently blossoming, like a flower.

She opened her eyes slowly, and saw Andres close beside her. A glow of pure green light surrounded him, and Elena's chest tightened. The light was so beautiful, and without knowing exactly how she knew it, she knew the light was good in the simplest, most definite sense.

"It's beautiful," she said, awed. Andres opened his eyes and smiled back at her.

"Something?" he said, an undercurrent of excitement running through his voice.

Elena nodded. "I can see light around you," she said.

Andres almost bounced with happiness. "This is wonderful," he told her. "I've heard of this. You must be seeing my aura."

"Aura?" Elena said skeptically. "Is that really going to help us fight evil?" It seemed like a flaky, New Agey power.

Andres grinned. "It will help you sense if someone is good or evil right from the start," he said. "And with practice, I've heard you can use it to track and seek out your enemies."

"I guess I can see how that might be useful," she agreed. "Not as useful as blasting away evil things with my hands like you can, but it's a start."

Andres stared at her for a moment and then began to laugh. "Maybe you'll get to the blasting part soon," he said.

Unable to stop herself, Elena laughed, too, and leaned against him helplessly, giggling. She was so relieved, so simply, fiercely glad. She had found a Power without having to wait for a Principle Guardian to give her a task. And now that she had accessed one, she thought that she could feel more Power curled up inside her, more flowers waiting to open.

This was just the beginning.

By the central gates to the campus, Meredith paced, her sneakers making tracks in the dust at the edge of the road. In the past, she'd always been able to school herself into calm, but since she'd moved from training as a vampire hunter to actually using her skills to fight vampires, she'd gotten more and more restless. She always wanted to be moving, wanted to be doing something - especially now when she knew monsters haunted the campus. She knew that with Samantha gone - a part of her still choked at the memory - she was one of the only protectors left. Her skin was tingling and tight with the sense of something evil, something wrong, just out of sight.

She couldn't wait to see Alaric.

As if that thought had conjured him up, there was Alaric's little gray Honda turning down the road toward campus at last. Meredith waved to him as he parked, and started to run toward the car, aware that she was grinning like an idiot but not caring.

"Hey," she said, coming up to him as Alaric stretched and got out of the car, and then she kissed him hard. She knew they needed to strategize and plan - that with luck, Alaric had found something in his research that could help them fight Klaus. But for now, she just treasured the feeling of Alaric solid and real in her arms, his lips soft on hers, the smell of him that was made up of leather and soap and something sort of herbal and just essential Alaric.

"I've missed you," he said, resting his forehead against hers for a moment after they finally broke the kiss. "Talking on the phone isn't the same."

"Me too," Meredith said, and she had, so much. "I love your freckles," she told him inconsequentially, and brushed her lips across the golden spots on his cheek.

They headed into the campus, holding hands as they walked. Meredith pointed out sites of interest: the library, the cafeteria, the student center, her dorm. The few people they passed hurried by in groups, heads down, not making eye contact.

When they came to the gym, Meredith hesitated before stopping in front of it. "This is where I train. It's hard . . . I used to come here with Samantha," she told Alaric. "She was so competitive and smart. She pushed me, in a really good way." She leaned against Alaric for a moment, and felt him drop a kiss on the top of her head.

They walked on, but Meredith couldn't stop thinking about Samantha. Before Samantha, Meredith had never met anyone else from a family of hereditary vampire hunters. Her parents had left the hunter community behind. Because Samantha's parents had been killed when she was young, she hadn't really known any other hunters either.

They had taught each other so much. Meredith loved Elena and Bonnie - they were her best friends, her sisters - but no friend had ever understood as much about Meredith as Samantha had.

And then Ethan and the Vitale vampires had killed her. Meredith had been the one to find Samantha's body. She had been ripped apart so violently that her room had been soaked in blood.

Meredith felt her face twist, and her voice came out thick and fierce. "Sometimes I feel like it's never going to stop," she told Alaric. "There's always more monsters. And now Klaus is back, even though we killed him. He should be gone."

"I know," Alaric said. "I wish I could make things better. Klaus destroyed your family, and you defeated him. You're right, this should have ended then." They paused by a bench underneath a clump of trees, and he sat, pulling Meredith down beside him. Taking her hand, he looked into her eyes, his face filled with love and concern. "Tell me the truth, Meredith," he said. "Klaus destroyed your family. How are you feeling?"

Meredith caught her breath, because that fact was exactly what she had been avoiding ever since Klaus stepped out of the fire.

Klaus had attacked Meredith's grandfather and driven him into madness. He had kidnapped her twin brother, Cristian, and made him into a vampire. And he had made Meredith herself into a living half vampire, something every hunting family had a right to loathe.

And then the Guardians had changed everything, making a reality out of what would have happened if Klaus had never come to Fell's Church. Cristian was a human now - Meredith didn't remember ever meeting him, but he had grown up with her in this reality - and in army boot camp in Georgia. Their grandfather was happy and sane, living in a retirement village down in Florida. And Meredith didn't need blood, didn't have sharp kitten teeth. But she and her friends still remembered the way things used to be. No one else in her family remembered, but she did.

"I'm terrified," Meredith confessed. She twisted her hand around, playing with Alaric's fingers. "There's nothing Klaus wouldn't do, and knowing that he's out there somewhere, waiting, planning something, is . . . I don't know what to do with that."

She clenched her jaw and looked up, meeting Alaric's eyes. "He has to die," she said softly. "He can't start over, not now."

Alaric nodded. "Okay," he said, shifting from sympathetic to businesslike. "I have some good news, I think." He unzipped the black messenger bag he'd been carrying over his shoulder and pulled out his notebook, flipping over a few pages until he found the information he wanted. "We know that white ash wood is the only wood deadly to Klaus, right?" he asked.

"That's what they say," Meredith told him. "Last time, we made Stefan a weapon of white ash, but it didn't turn out to be that useful." She remembered Klaus tearing the white ash spear out of Stefan's hand, breaking it, and using it to stab at Stefan himself. Stefan's screams as a thousand deadly splinters had torn into him had been . . . unforgettable. He had almost died.

Damon had wounded Klaus with the spear of white ash after that, but in the end, Klaus had managed to pull the bloody wood out of his own back and had stood triumphant, still powerful, still able to bring Stefan and Damon to their knees.

And this time, we don't even have Damon, Meredith thought bleakly. She'd given up on asking Elena and Stefan where Damon was. He'd always been unpredictable.

"Well," said Alaric with a little smile, "there's an Appalachian folk legend I found in my research that says a white ash tree planted at the full moon under certain conditions is more powerful against vampires than any other wood. A white ash with that kind of magic in its origins ought to pack a real punch against Klaus."

"Sure, but how are we going to find something like that?" Meredith asked, and then she cocked an eyebrow. "Oh. You already know where one is, don't you?"

Alaric's smile grew wider. After a second, Meredith wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. "You're my hero," she said.

Alaric blushed, the pink rising from his neck to his forehead, but he looked pleased. "You're the hero," he said. "But with luck, we'll have a real weapon against Klaus."

"Road trip," Meredith said. "But not until we've made sure the campus is as safe as we can get it. Klaus is lying low and we don't have any leads on where he is, so we have to focus on the newly made vampires for now." She smiled ruefully at Alaric, scuffing her sneakers below the bench. "It's important to face the immediate threat first. But this is good."

Alaric pressed her hand between both of his. "Whatever you need, I'll help," he said earnestly. "I'll stay here as long as I'm useful. As long as you want me."

Despite the seriousness of their problems, despite the gory mess that was her past and the almost definite horror of her future, Meredith had to laugh. "As long as I want you?" she said, flirting, glancing up at him through her lashes, basking in Alaric's smile. "Oh, you're never getting away from me now."

Chapter 12

Chloe stalked silently through the forest, every move precise. She tilted her head alertly, her eyes tracking some near-invisible movement in the undergrowth.

Matt followed her, messenger bag slung over his shoulder. He was trying to walk quietly, too, but sticks and leaves crackled under his feet, and he winced.

Stopping, Chloe blinked for a moment, sniffed the air, and then stretched her hands out toward the bushes to their left. "Come on," she murmured, almost too low for Matt to hear.

There was a rustling, and slowly a rabbit nosed its way out from between the leaves, staring up at Chloe with wide, dark eyes, its ears quivering. With a quick swoop, Chloe snatched it up. There was a shrill squeak, and then the little animal was still and docile in her arms.

Chloe's face was buried in the rabbit's light brown fur, and Matt watched with a sort of detached approval as she swallowed. A drop of blood made a long, sticky track down the animal's side before dripping to the forest floor.

Waking from its doze, the rabbit spasmed once, kicking out with its hind legs, and then lay still. Chloe wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and laid the rabbit onto the ground, looking down at it mournfully.

"I didn't mean to kill it," she said, her voice low and sad. She pushed back her short ringlets of hair and looked up at Matt beseechingly. "I'm sorry. I know how gross and weird this is."

Matt opened his messenger bag and pulled out a bottle of water to hand to her. "You don't have to apologize," he said. Yeah, watching her feed on animals was sort of weird and gross, but less so now than the first time he'd seen it. And it was a hundred percent worth it: Chloe hadn't relapsed at all, seemed content with drinking animal blood instead of hunting humans. That was all that mattered.

Chloe rinsed out her mouth, spitting pink-tinged water into the bushes, then took a drink. "Thanks," she said shakily. "It's been hard, I guess. Sometimes I dream about blood. Real human blood. But the things I did, in those days with Ethan, I can't really forgive myself for. I don't think I'll ever be able to. And Ethan - why did I ever trust him?" Her Cupid's-bow mouth trembled.

"Hey." Matt caught her arm and shook it lightly. "Ethan had us all fooled. If Stefan hadn't saved me, I'd be in the same situation you are."

"Yeah." Chloe leaned against him. "I guess you're saving me, too."

Matt tangled his fingers with hers. "I wasn't ready to lose you."

Chloe tipped her face up to his, her eyes widening. Matt brushed his mouth against her cheek and then her mouth, just a light brush of lips at first, and then more deeply. Matt closed his eyes, feeling the softness of her lips against his. He felt like he was falling. Each day he spent with Chloe, helping her turn toward the light, seeing her strength, he loved her just a little more.

Meredith stretched and groaned quietly to herself. The room was dark, except for the light of her laptop screen. Elena and Bonnie were fast asleep in their beds, and Meredith glanced longingly at her own bed. Nights of patrolling and days spent at the gym meant that she had been collapsing gratefully into deep dreamless sleep as soon as she lay down lately.

But unlike many of the classes on campus, her English section was still meeting, and Meredith had a paper due. She'd been a straight-A student in high school, and her pride wouldn't let her miss the deadline on a paper or do a shoddy job, no matter how tired she was. Forcing herself back into student mode, Meredith yawned and typed: From their first encounter Anna and Vronsky's relationship is clearly doomed to end in mutual destruction.

Student mode or not, she was still a hunter, still an exquisitely balanced weapon, still a Sulez, and she snapped to attention as soon as Bonnie's voice rose from her bed on the other side of the room.

"He doesn't like to be alone," Bonnie said abruptly. Her usually expressive voice had that flat, almost metallic quality that signaled one of her visions.

"Bonnie?" Meredith said tentatively. Bonnie didn't answer, and Meredith turned on her desk light to illuminate the rest of the room, careful not to shine it directly in Bonnie's face.

Bonnie's eyes were shut, although Meredith could see them moving beneath their lids as if she were trying to wake, or trying to see something in her dreams. Her face was strained, and Meredith made a soothing sound in her throat as she crept across the room and shook Elena gently by the shoulder.

Elena gave a half-asleep mmph rolling over, and muttered, "What? What?" in irritation before she blinked all the way awake.

"Shh," Meredith told her, and said gently to Bonnie, "Who doesn't like to be alone, Bon?"

"Klaus," Bonnie answered in that same deadened voice, and Elena's eyes widened in comprehension. Elena sat up, her golden hair tousled with sleep, and reached for a notebook and pen on her desk. Meredith sat down on Bonnie's bed and waited, staring at the smaller girl's sleeping face beside her.

"Klaus wants his old friends," Bonnie told them. "He's calling for one now." Still sleeping, she raised one thin, white arm out above her and crooked her finger, beckoning into the darkness. "There's so much blood," she added in that flat voice, as her hand flopped back down by her side. The skin on Meredith's arms pebbled into goose bumps.

Elena scribbled something in her notebook and held it up: in big letters she'd written ASK HER WHO. They'd found in the past that it was better for just one person to question Bonnie when she was seeing visions, to keep her from getting confused and snapping out of her trance.

"Who is Klaus calling for?" Meredith asked, keeping her voice calm. Her heart was pounding hard at the idea, and she pressed one hand against her chest as if to calm it. Anyone Klaus considered a friend was definitely dangerous.

Bonnie's mouth opened to answer, but she hesitated. "He calls them to join his fight," she said after a moment, her voice hollow. "The fire's so bright, there's no way to tell who's coming. It's just Klaus. Klaus and blood and flames in the darkness."

"What is Klaus planning?" Meredith asked. Bonnie didn't answer, but her eyelids fluttered, her lashes looking thick and dark against the paleness of her cheeks. She was breathing more heavily now.

"Should we try to wake her up?" Meredith wondered. Elena shook her head and wrote on the pad again. ASK HER WHERE KLAUS IS.

"Can you tell where Klaus is right now?" Meredith asked.

Restlessly, Bonnie moved her head back and forth against the pillow. "Fire," she said. "Darkness and flames. Blood and fire. He wants them all to join his fight." A thick chuckle forced its way out of her mouth, although her expression did not change. "If Klaus has his way, everything will end in blood and fire."

"Can we stop him?" Meredith asked. Bonnie said nothing, but grew more restless. Her hands and feet started to drum against the mattress, lightly and then more heavily, a rapid patter. "Bonnie!" Meredith said, and leaped to her feet.

With a great gasp, Bonnie's body stilled. Her eyes flew open.

Meredith grabbed the smaller girl's shoulders. A second later, Elena was beside them on the bed, reaching out and taking hold of Bonnie's arm.

Bonnie's brown eyes were wide and blank for a moment, and then she frowned and Meredith could see the real Bonnie flooding back in.

"Ow!" Bonnie complained. "What are you doing? It's the middle of the night!" She pulled away from them. "Cut it out," she said indignantly, rubbing at her arm where Elena had grabbed her.

"You had a vision," Elena said, shifting back to give her some room. "Can you remember anything?"

"Ugh." Bonnie made a face. "I should have known. My mouth always tastes funny when I come out of one of those. I hate that." She looked at Elena and Meredith. "I don't remember anything. What'd I say?" she asked tentatively. "Was it bad?"

"Oh, blood and fire and darkness," Meredith said dryly. "The usual sort of thing."

"I wrote it down," Elena said, and handed Bonnie her notebook.

Bonnie read Elena's notes and paled. "Klaus is calling someone to come to him?" she asked. "Oh, no. More monsters. We can't - there's no way this is good for us."

"Any guesses about who he might be calling?" Elena wondered.

Meredith sighed and stood, beginning to pace between the beds. "We don't really know that much about him," she said.

"Thousands of years of being a monster," Elena added. "I imagine Klaus has a lot of evil in his past."

Despite her quick strides across the room, a cold shiver ran down Meredith's back. One thing was certain: anyone Klaus wanted to join him would be the last person they would want here. Decisively, she clicked her laptop closed and went to her closet to pull out the weapons trunk. There was no time to be a student now. She had to prepare for war.

Chapter 13  

"I think I can see better in the dark now," Elena told Stefan as she pushed back a tree branch and held it so that he could pass.

The night seemed alive with sounds and motion, from the rustle of leaves to the scurry of some sort of tiny rodent in the undergrowth. It felt so different from the last time she and Stefan had patrolled the woods together. Elena didn't know if this new awareness was directly linked to the Power she could feel spreading steadily inside her, or if knowing she had the Power just made her more alert to everything else.

Stefan smiled, but didn't answer. She could tell that he was focused on sending out his own Power, looking for vampires in the woods.

When she concentrated, she could see that Stefan's aura was a beautiful clear blue, shot with tendrils of soft gray that she thought might be the doubts and guilt that never fully left him. But the living blue was so much stronger than the gray. She wished that Stefan could see his aura for himself.

She reached out and touched it, her hand hovering right above his skin. The blue enveloped her hand, but she couldn't feel anything. She wiggled her fingers, watching Stefan's aura flow around them.

"What're you doing?" Stefan said, turning his hand to thread his fingers between hers. He still looked out at the darkness around them.

"Your aura - " Elena said, and then stopped.

Something was coming.

Stefan made a soft questioning noise and when Elena drew a breath to speak again, something dark and clammy swept over her, chilling her as thoroughly as if she'd been swept beneath an icy river.

Evil. She was sure of it.

"This way," she said urgently, and pulling Stefan by the hand, started to run through the forest. Branches slapped at her as she pushed past them, one leaving a long stinging scratch on her cheek. Elena ignored it. She could feel something tugging at her, its urgency claiming all her attention.

Evil. She needed to stop it.

Her feet slipped and skidded on the dead leaves underfoot, and Stefan caught her by the arm before she could fall, pulling her upright. She stood still for a moment, gasping to catch her breath.

Ahead, she could see streaks of a dirty rust-red cut with sickly bile-yellow. Nothing like the soothing colors of Stefan's or Andres's auras, not at all. As Elena watched, the rust-red - the color of dried, old blood - contracted and expanded around the bilious yellow in a steady pulse. Two auras, she realized - one dominating the other. Elena's sense of urgency grew.

"I can see it," she said desperately. "Something bad is happening. Come on."

They ran on. Elena could tell when Stefan's Power picked up on what she was sensing, because he suddenly sped up, pulling her on instead of following her.

A vampire was pressing his victim back against a tree; the two figures huddled together into one dark, hulking shape. The pulsating auras wrapped around them, almost nauseating to watch. Elena barely had a moment to realize she'd found what she'd been hunting when Stefan yanked the vampire off the human and snapped his neck with one efficient twist of his hands. Then he tore a branch from the tree and staked him through the chest.

The vampire's victim fell to his hands and knees with a muffled thump. His yellowish aura lost its sickly tint almost immediately, but dimmed to a thin gray as the guy slumped down into the heap of leaves beneath the tree.

Elena dropped to her knees beside him and dug out her flashlight to check him over as Stefan dragged the vampire's body - one of the Vitale pledges - away into the bushes. The victim had very short black hair and was pale, but his pulse was steady, and his breathing shallow but regular. Blood trickled from a bite on his neck, and Elena pulled off her jacket and used it to put pressure against the wound.

"I think he's okay," she told Stefan when he came back to stand beside her.

"Good work, Elena," he told her, and then inhaled deeply. "There's blood still flowing somewhere on him, though."

Elena ran the flashlight over the guy. He was wearing pajama pants and a T-shirt and his feet were bare. The soles of his feet were bleeding.

"The vampire must have compelled him out of his dorm," she realized. "That's how he ended up in the woods."

"They're getting more skilled," Stefan said. "We'll organize more patrols around campus. Maybe we can stop some of them before they catch their victims in the first place."

"For now, we'd better get this guy back home," Elena said. The black-haired guy whimpered as Stefan and Elena gently pulled him up. The grayness of his aura began to fill with agitated strands of color, and Elena could tell he was starting to wake. "It's all right," she said soothingly, and felt a whisper of Stefan's Power as he began to murmur to him, calming him for the trip back to his dorm.

She couldn't focus on helping him, though. Her skin itched and she felt a tugging deep inside. There was still something out there. Evil, close by. Elena let Stefan take the full weight of the vampire's victim and stepped away, reaching out with her Power to try to sense in what direction the evil lay.

Nothing. Nothing specific, anyway - just that heavy, dreadful certainty that something was wrong, not too far away. She strained her senses, looking and feeling for a trace of some aura.

Nothing.

"Elena?" Stefan asked. He was supporting the vampire's victim easily and giving her a questioning look.

Elena shook her head. "There's something," she said slowly. "But I don't know where." She stared out into the darkness for a moment, but there was still no clue to tell her where the oppressive feeling was coming from. "We should call it a night," she said finally.

"Are you sure?" Stefan asked. At her nod, he hiked the guy higher on his shoulder and turned back toward campus. As Elena followed him, she took one last uneasy glance around. Whatever it was, it was shielding itself from her and from Stefan better than the young vampires could.

Something old, then. And evil. Was Klaus nearby? If he wanted to, he could kill them right now, Elena realized with a dizzying flare of panic. He was stronger than Elena and Stefan were. The woods around her looked darker, more ominous, as if Klaus might be lurking behind any tree. She walked faster, sticking close to Stefan, eager to see the lights of campus ahead.

Bonnie kept hold of Zander's hand as they followed Meredith around the edge of the soccer field. They hadn't seen any vampires tonight, but the stars were incredibly bright above them.

"I like patrolling with you," she told him. "It's almost like a romantic stroll, except for, you know, the possibility of being attacked by vampires."

Zander grinned down at her and swung their clasped hands. "Don't you worry yourself, little lady," he said in a terrible imitation of a western drawl. "I'm the toughest werewolf in this here town and I'm looking out for you."

"Is it weird that I find that voice sexy?" Bonnie asked Meredith.

Meredith, striding along ahead of them, looked back to raise an expressive eyebrow at Bonnie. "Yes," she said simply. "Very weird."

A long, drawn-out howl echoed from the direction of the hills just outside of campus and Zander cocked his head, listening. "The guys haven't found anything," he said. "They're heading out to get some pizza once Camden changes back."

"Do you want to meet up with them?" Bonnie asked.

Zander pulled her closer, putting his arm around her shoulders. "Not unless you do," he said. "I thought maybe we could hang out in my room, watch a movie or something."

"Passing up food, Zander?" a dry voice said behind them. "It must be true love." Meredith whipped around, and Bonnie knew she was kicking herself for not sensing the girl coming up to them.

"Hi, Shay," Bonnie said resignedly. "Meredith, meet Zander's old friend Shay." Werewolf, she mouthed to Meredith when she was sure Shay wasn't looking.

"I hope you don't mind me catching up with you," Shay said, falling into step with them on Zander's other side. "Spencer told me you'd be patrolling over here."

"The more the merrier," Bonnie told her, very consciously not gritting her teeth.

"I'd love to get some fighting in," Shay said, rolling her shoulders. "Feels like I've been doing nothing but sitting around since I got here. Zander could tell you how restless we get when we're cooped up."

"Yeah, I've noticed," Bonnie said. Zander had sped up his pace to match Shay's quicker one, and his arm dropped from Bonnie's shoulders. She took his hand again, but found herself having to hurry to keep up.

Meredith hesitated, glancing between them, and was just opening her mouth to say something to Shay when Shay suddenly stopped.

"Hear that?" she said, and Zander, Meredith, and Bonnie all stopped and listened, too.

Bonnie didn't hear anything, but Zander smiled and nudged Shay with one elbow. "White-tailed deer on the ridge," he said.

They shared a private smile.

"What are you guys talking about?" Bonnie asked.

Shay turned to Bonnie. "The High Wolf Council divides us into Packs-to-be when we're children, and we grow up playing together. When Zander and I and the others were about fifteen, our Pack spent a week roaming the mountains near where we grew up." She grinned at Zander, and Bonnie tensed at the intimacy that was clear between them.

"Anyway," Shay went on, "on this trip, after we'd been out running with the Pack all night, Zander and I went to drink from a pond tucked away in the pinewoods. We found deer there, and we could have killed one of them easily - we were wolves right then, and it's natural for us to hunt in that form - but they just looked at us, the sun coming up behind them. And" - she shrugged - "they were beautiful. It was like that moment was just for us." She smiled, and for once, it didn't seem like she was trying to needle Bonnie. Shay was just remembering. She tipped her face into the breeze. "Smell that?" she asked Zander.

Bonnie didn't smell anything, but Zander sniffed the breeze and shot Shay another nostalgic smile. "Pine," he said. Shay grinned back, her nose crinkling.

After a moment, Meredith cleared her throat and they started walking again, scanning the area for trouble, and Zander squeezed Bonnie's hand. "So," he said. "Movie?"

"Sure," Bonnie said, distracted. She couldn't help seeing the similarities in Zander's and Shay's movements and how, even when Zander was talking to her, he had one ear cocked for faraway sounds Bonnie would never be able to hear. There was a distance between Bonnie and Zander, she thought, that they might never be able to cross.

Maybe Bonnie would never belong in Zander's world. Not like Shay.

Chapter 14

Elena turned over restlessly in her bed, the sheet wrapping around her, and flipped her pillow over so that she could rest her cheek on the cooler side. Across the room, Meredith muttered something in her sleep and then quieted.

Elena was exhausted, but she couldn't sleep. It had taken so long to maneuver the guy the vampire had attacked from the woods back to his dorm, and longer still for Stefan to Influence him to forget what had happened. And they didn't know if Stefan's Power had entirely worked on the guy: Stefan's animal-blood diet kept his Power from being as strong as that of other vampires his age who fed on humans.

It wasn't that worry, though, keeping Elena awake now. She couldn't sleep because she couldn't shake the sense she'd had in the woods, of something dark and evil pulling at her, her Power trying to lead her somewhere.

If anything, that sense was stronger now. Something insistent tugged at the center of her, telling her now and hurry.

Elena sat up in bed. The Power inside her wanted her to go out after the wrong that was out there, wanted her to make things right. She had to - there was no question about it.

She glanced over at Meredith's and Bonnie's beds. Meredith lay on her back, one slim arm thrown across her eyes, while Bonnie was curled up tightly on one side, a hand tucked under her cheek, looking impossibly young.

They would want her to wake them, to take them with her.

She discarded the idea almost immediately. She thought of Stefan, a few floors above, probably reading or sitting on his balcony watching the stars, but she reluctantly pushed away the idea of calling to him, too. Whatever was out there, her Power was telling her it was just for her. She trusted her Power: Andres had told her that her skills would unlock as she needed them. Her Power would keep her safe.

Elena slipped out of bed, careful to move so quietly that even Meredith wouldn't wake, and pulled on jeans and a sweater. Picking up her boots to put on in the hall, she tiptoed out the door.

It was very dark as she crossed the quad, the moon hovering low over the roofs of campus. Elena hurried, not sure if it was the chill in the air or the tingling feeling urging her on that was making her shiver.

That pull got stronger as she left campus and ventured into the woods. Even without switching on the flashlight in her pocket, Elena found herself as sure-footed as if it were broad daylight.

The sense of wrongness grew stronger and stronger. Elena's heart was pounding. Maybe she should have told someone what was going on, she thought. At least she could have left a note. Would Stefan be able to find her if she didn't come back? What if, alone in the forest, she met Klaus? Could her Power protect her then?

Suddenly, with a sharp shock, the pulling feeling in her chest became intense, suffocating, and just as suddenly, left her. Something moved in the darkness in front of her, and Elena switched on her flashlight.

Seated on a log in the middle of the forest, in the dark, was Damon. His eyes glittered beetle-black in the glow of the flashlight.

Damon. Seeing him was like a kick in the stomach, and Elena gasped. Damon. She'd spent more than a year wrapped up with him, focused on Damon and Stefan and herself and the twisted, complicated relationships between them all. Then, with no warning, he'd been gone.

And now, here he was.

He looked . . . well, he looked as touchable as always, all smooth skin and sleek hair, powerful, lean muscles. Like a wild animal she wanted to stroke while knowing it was too dangerous to touch. She'd made her choice between the brothers and she was purely, simply glad about it: Stefan was the one she wanted. But that didn't mean she was blind to Damon's beauty.

But, touchable or not, Damon's face looked as hard now as if it had been carved from white marble. He turned his unfathomable eyes toward her, raising a hand to block the flashlight's beam.

"Damon?" Elena asked uncertainly, lowering the flashlight. Usually, something in Damon seemed to soften when he saw her, but now he stiffened and stayed silent.

After a moment, she reached inside herself, pulled at that new Power she'd found, and tried to see Damon's aura.

Oh. This was really bad. There was a dark cloud around Damon. It wasn't simple evil, but there was evil in it, and pain, and something else - a sort of dull distance, as if he was numbing himself against some hurt. Black and gray and a curious dull blue swirled around him, tendrils shooting out unexpectedly and then pulling back in so close to his body she could barely see him. Damon wasn't moving a muscle as he stared at her, but his aura was agitated.

And winding through everything was a fine net of that same dried-blood color that had permeated the aura of the vampire Stefan had killed earlier that night.

"Were you just feeding on someone?" she asked him abruptly. Would that explain the strength of the pull, the wrongness, she'd felt on the way here?

Damon smirked a little and cocked his head, studying her. When the pause had gone on long enough that Elena was sure he wasn't going to answer, he shrugged one shoulder indifferently and said, "It doesn't really matter, does it?"

"Damon, you can't just - " Elena began, but Damon cut her off.

"This is who I am, Elena," he said in the same flat, indifferent voice. "If you've thought differently, you were lying to yourself, because I never lied to you about it."

Elena sank down on the log beside him, resting the flashlight between them, and took Damon's hand. He stiffened, but didn't immediately pull away. "You know I care about you, right?" she asked him. "No matter what. I always will."

Damon stared at her, his dark eyes cold, and then deliberately began untangling his fingers from hers, his hands cool and firm as he pushed her away. "You've made your choice, Elena," he said. "I'm sure Stefan's waiting for you."

Elena shifted away from him, since that was what Damon seemed to want, and put her hands in her lap. "Stefan cares about you," she told him. "I love Stefan, but I need you, too. We both do."

Damon's mouth twisted. "Well, you can't always get everything you want, can you, princess?" he said, a mocking bite to his words. "Like I told Stefan, I'm done."

She stared at him and pushed herself, trying to see his aura again. Using her new Power so much today was like straining muscles she'd never known she had. When she managed it once more, she flinched: Damon's aura had gotten darker as they talked, and was now a stormy gray shot with red and black, a sullen cloud thick around him. The blue had been swallowed by the darker colors.

"I can see your aura, Damon," she said. "I've got Power now." Damon frowned. "It's dark, but there's still good in you." Surely there must be. She didn't know if she could read it in his aura - she didn't know enough about auras yet; she needed to learn - but she knew Damon. He was complicated and selfish and mercurial, but there would always be good in him. "Please, come back to us."

Damon's face was still turned away from her, his eyes fixed on something out in the darkness that Elena couldn't see. Sliding to her knees next to the log, Elena put her hands on his cheeks and turned his face toward her. The ground was freezing and there was a stone digging into her leg, but it didn't matter. "Please, Damon," she said. "You're the one doing this. It doesn't have to be this way." He glared back at her mutely. "Damon," she said, her eyes stinging. "Please."

Damon stood up abruptly, pushing her away, and Elena lost her balance, falling backward onto the hard ground. Scrambling up, she brushed herself off and grabbed the flashlight. "Fine," she said. "I'll go, if that's what you want. But listen to me." She made an effort to soften her voice again. "Don't do anything you'll regret, no matter how angry you are at me. When you're ready, we'll be waiting for you. We love you. Stefan and I both love you. And it may not be the way you want me to care about you, but it's worth something."

Damon's eyes glistened again in the flashlight's glow. She thought for a moment that he was going to speak, but he only stared at her, his face hard and defiant.

There wasn't anything left to say, really. "Good-bye, Damon," Elena said, and backed away a few paces before turning to find her way out of the forest.

There was a huge, hard mass of sobs building in her chest and she needed to get home before it overwhelmed her. If she started to cry now, she might never stop.

Chapter 15

Dear Diary,

I can't stop worrying about Damon.

Meredith and Bonnie have gone to the mountains in pursuit of the blessed white ash tree, and our room is too quiet. When I'm alone in here, the empty space fills up with thoughts of how angry and distant Damon seemed when I found him in the woods last night. His aura was so dark that it frightened me.

I haven't told Stefan yet about my Power leading me to Damon. I'm going to tell him, though, as soon as we're alone - I've learned my lesson at last about letting secrets come between us.

But Stefan's been so busy. He's pulling us all together: sparring with Meredith, researching with Alaric, and now that Zander's gone to the mountains with them and Bonnie, Stefan's been working with the Pack, too. He's determined to protect me from Klaus, to protect us all.

Wherever Klaus is, his plan is working - I'm always on edge now. I know he wants me to be afraid; he even told me so - but I can't stop myself from jumping at every shadow. Every day I get more frightened, and angrier at myself: I don't want to feel the way Klaus intends me to. But when I'm with Stefan, we can slide into our private world. Despite the danger that hovers near us, it's safe there. In Stefan's arms, I feel like maybe we can defeat Klaus. Sometimes I believe we can do anything, together. We can save ourselves, and save Damon, too, even if he doesn't want to be saved.

A knock came at the door of Elena's room, and she slipped her journal back under her mattress and ran to let Stefan in. He'd been with the Pack most of the day, since Zander and the others had left, and how much she'd missed him sank in as soon as she finally saw him.

His curly dark hair was hanging over his forehead and he had a streak of dried mud over one eye. "What's this?" Elena asked, brushing a finger across it.

Stefan grimaced. "Apparently being accepted by a werewolf Pack means they try to knock you down a lot," he told her. "Shay pushed me into a bush."

Elena tried to keep a straight face, but she couldn't help giggling at the mental image, and Stefan's face lightened, too, the weary lines around his mouth disappearing.

"I think she's mad about Zander leaving town with Bonnie," Elena told him, and reached past him to close the door.

As soon as the door was shut, Stefan pulled her against him. He drew back Elena's hair and kissed her softly on the throat, just above her pulse point. She arched back, leaning into him as he wrapped his arms around her waist.

"Did you work the patrol routes out with the Pack in between wrestling matches?" she asked him. "Can we manage without the others until they get back?"

"Mmhm, I think so," Stefan answered, gently tracing her cheek with one finger, his eyes intent on her face. "I just wish that we had some idea where Klaus was," he went on, his voice growing somber. "He could be anywhere, ready to strike."

"I know." Elena shivered. "I feel like there's this black cloud hanging over us all the time. I just wish I could figure out all my Guardian Powers. If I'm going to have real Power, why won't they let me have it now? We're all in danger, and it's so frustrating knowing that I ought to be able to protect everyone, but I can't."

"What about the evil you sensed in the woods yesterday?" Stefan asked. "Have you felt it since?"

Elena hesitated. Now was her chance. She'd promised herself she would tell Stefan what had happened as soon as they had a moment alone. But she didn't want to hurt him, didn't want to tell him how angry and distant his brother seemed. "I felt it again last night," she said finally, "but I don't feel it now."

"You did?" Stefan asked. "Did you get more of an idea where it might be coming from?" When Elena still hesitated, he gently tipped her face up to look at him. "Elena, this is important. These feelings could be our first real clue as to where Klaus is. Is there something you're not telling me?"

Elena felt herself flinch, but Stefan just waited patiently, his mouth soft and serious. "What is it, love?" he asked.

"I followed it into the woods late last night," she told him, nervously fiddling with the bracelet on her arm. "I, um, I found the source." With the feeling of jumping off a cliff, she told him, "It wasn't Klaus, or the Vitale vampires. It was Damon."

"But you were sensing evil," Stefan said, sounding confused.

"Yeah." Elena sighed. "Maybe not entirely evil. Damon's not, I know that. But he's not doing well. I don't think that girl we found is the only one he's attacked. His aura was . . . violent. Angry."

Stefan's shoulders slumped, and he leaned against her desk. "I know," he said. "I told you what he was like when I tried to talk to him. I think we need to give him some space. You can't push Damon. He's just going to do exactly what he wants, especially if you try to control him."

"There must be something we can do," Elena said. Her voice sounded scratchy to her own ears, rough with misery.

Crossing the space between them in one step, Stefan took her hand and looked down at her, his eyes dark and troubled. "It's never going to be just us, is it?" he said sadly. "Damon will always be standing between us, even when he's not here."

"Stefan, no!" she said fiercely. Stefan cast his gaze down sadly at their entwined fingers. "Look at me!" she urged. He slowly raised his eyes to meet hers again. "I love you, Stefan. I care for Damon, he's part of me now, but that's nothing compared to what I feel for you. It's just us, you and me, and that's how it's going to be. Always."

Elena pulled him closer, desperate to show him this truth. Their lips met in a long kiss.

Stefan, she thought, oh, Stefan. Elena let herself open fully to him. Exposed and vulnerable, she showed Stefan the love she had for him, her joy at having come back to him at last. Wonderingly, Stefan gradually took in her emotions. She could feel him pushing gently at the walls she'd always kept in her mind, the little shameful secrets, the part of herself she'd always wanted to hide from him. But Elena pulled the barriers down, showing him that there was nothing there but love for him, only him.

Stefan sighed against her lips, a tiny exhalation of breath, and she felt peace flood through him as he understood that, at last, he was the only one for her.

As the couple inside clung to each other, a large crow clenched its claws tightly around a tree branch in the darkness outside the dorm room's window. It wasn't as if he had been holding out hope, though. He had tried his best with Elena, had given her what he thought she wanted, had shown her what he had to offer. He had changed himself for her.

And she had turned away from him and chosen Stefan. She still felt nothing for him, not compared to her feelings for Stefan.

Fine. Damon should have known better than to care. What he had told Stefan, what he had told Elena, was right: he was done with them, done with all of them. Why should he follow around one human girl when there was a wide world out there waiting for him?

Damon spread his wings and pitched himself off the tree branch and into the night. Riding the soft breezes over campus, he tried to think about where he should go next. Thailand, maybe. Singapore. Japan. He had never spent much time in Asia; perhaps it was time to conquer new places, to be the mysterious, cold-eyed stranger again, to feel the rushing sea of humanity surging all around him while he held himself separate and alone.

It will be good to be alone again, he told himself. Vampires weren't pack animals, after all.

As he pondered his future, he watched the paths of the campus and then the streets of the town beneath him in an absentminded, habitual way. A lone female jogger, young and blond, was running along below him, hair pulled into a ponytail, earbuds in place. Idiot, he thought scathingly. Doesn't she know how dangerous this place is right now?

Without letting himself consider what he intended, Damon glided down and resumed his human form, landing silently on the sidewalk a few yards behind the jogger. He stopped for a moment and fastidiously adjusted his clothing, long-ago words of his father's echoing in his mind: a gentleman can be told by the care he takes of his appearance and by the precision of his dress.

Then he moved quickly and gracefully after the girl, letting loose a little Power so that he was faster than any human could be.

He jerked her off her feet as easily as plucking a flower from its stem, and pulled her into his arms. She gave one sudden, aborted squeak and struggled briefly as he sank his sharp canines into her throat, then grew still. He had no reason to stop himself, not now.

It was so good. He'd been soothing his girls, making it painless for them for so long, and the pure adrenaline of her fear rocketed through his system. It was even better than the girl in the woods, who had already been dizzy and pliant with blood loss when he let the calming compulsion drop.

Damon drank down deep gulps of blood, feeding his Power. Her heart slowed, staggered, and he felt that dizzyingly sweet moment when her slackened pulse matched the unnatural pace of his own. Her life flowed into him steadily, warming his cold bones.

And then everything - her heartbeat, the blood flow - stopped.

Damon let her body drop to the sidewalk and wiped his mouth with one hand. He felt drunk on her, buzzing with the energy he'd taken into himself. Here I am, he thought with sour triumph, the real Damon, back again.

On the back of his hand was a smear of the girl's blood. He licked it off, but it tasted wrong, not as sweet as it should have. As the sheer physical pleasure of taking the blood, of taking it all the way to death, wore off, Damon could feel a sharp ache just below his breastbone. He pressed one hand to his chest.

There was an empty place inside him: a hole in his chest that all the blood, all the blood of the prettiest girls in the world, could never fill.

Unwillingly, he looked down at the body at his feet. He would have to hide it, he supposed. He couldn't leave her here, exposed on the sidewalk.

The girl's eyes were open in a flat, unseeing stare, and she seemed to be gazing back at him. She was so young, Damon thought.

"I'm sorry," he said, his voice small. He reached down and carefully pressed her eyes closed. She seemed more peaceful that way. "I am sorry," he said again. "It wasn't your fault."

There didn't seem to be anything else to say or do. With an effortless swoop, he picked up the girl's body and walked on, into the night.

Chapter 16

"Okay," Alaric said, panting a little. "According to these directions, the white ash tree should be on the bank of a stream, only about half a mile farther from here."

"Is it all still uphill?" Bonnie moaned, pushing sweaty red ringlets out of her eyes. They'd spent the previous night in a dingy motel and started out on their trek early that morning. By now, it felt like they'd been on this narrow mountain trail forever. It had been fun at first; it was a beautiful sunny day and a bright blue jay had flown from tree to tree before them for a while, which seemed like a good omen. But after several hours she was hot and thirsty and they still had to keep going.

"Come on, Bonnie," Meredith said. "Not far now." Meredith was striding cheerfully along at the front of the group, looking as cool and comfortable as if she was taking a little stroll down one of the paths on campus. Bonnie scowled at her back: sometimes Meredith being in such good shape was utterly infuriating.

Defiantly, Bonnie stopped for a minute and drank some water from her canteen as the others waited for her.

"So, once we find this magic white ash tree, what's the plan?" Zander asked, shifting restlessly from one foot to the other as he waited.

Shay wouldn't have had to stop to rest, Bonnie thought sourly. Then Zander nudged her companionably with his elbow as he took out his own canteen, and she felt a little better.

"Well, we can't chop down the tree," Alaric said seriously. "It's got a lot of spiritual significance and gives protection to this area as well as being the only weapon that might be effective against Klaus. But it's a pretty big tree, reportedly, so we should be able to take several branches without doing too much damage."

"I brought an axe," Meredith said enthusiastically as they started walking again. "We'll make as many stakes as we can, and distribute them to everyone." She glanced at Zander. "Everyone who's not going to be a wolf when we fight Klaus, anyway."

"Hard to hold a stake with paws," Zander agreed.

"We should gather leaves, too," Bonnie said. "I've been looking through spell books, and I think we could use the ash leaves to make potions and tinctures that might help us get some protection from Klaus. Like the effect vervain has on a regular vampire's Powers."

"Good thinking," Zander said, throwing an arm around her shoulders. Bonnie leaned against him, letting him take some of her weight. Her feet hurt.

"We're going to need all the help we can get," Meredith said, and she and Bonnie exchanged a glance. Of the four of them on this mountainside, they were the only ones who had fought Klaus the first time, and the only ones who knew how much trouble they were really in.

"I wish Damon were working with us," Bonnie said fretfully. "He'd give us much better odds in a fight." She had always felt a special bond with Damon, ever since the days when she'd had a crazy, embarrassing crush on him. When they had traveled through the Dark Dimension together, they had looked out for each other. And Damon had sacrificed himself for her, pushing her out of the way and taking the fatal blow from the tree on that Nether World moon. The locks of hair Bonnie and Elena had left with his body had helped to remind Damon who he was when he was resurrected. It ached that he had turned his back on her now.

Meredith frowned. "I've tried to talk to Elena about Damon, but she won't tell me what's going on with him. And Stefan just says Damon needs time and that he'll come around."

"Damon would do anything for Elena, wouldn't he? If she just asked him," Bonnie said, biting her lip. Damon had been obsessed with Elena for so long; it was weird and disturbing to have Elena in danger and Damon nowhere to be found.

Meredith just shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "I've never understood him."

"Almost there," Alaric said encouragingly. "It should be right up ahead." Bonnie could hear the rushing of a stream.

Zander stopped. "Do you smell that?" he said, sniffing the air. "Something's burning."

Just around the next bend in the path, a long finger of black smoke spread across the sky. Bonnie and Meredith exchanged alarmed glances and broke into a jog, Bonnie forgetting all about her aching feet. Alaric and Zander sped up, too, and as they rounded the corner, they were all running.

Alaric stopped first, his face devastated. "That's it," he said. "That's the white ash tree."

It was engulfed in roaring flames and already charred black. As they watched, a branch fell heavily to the ground, shooting up sparks as it landed, and crumbled into soot. Alaric stripped off his shirt, soaking it with his water bottle as he ran forward, toward the flames.

Bonnie rushed after him. She had the impression of two figures ducking away down the path and Zander and Meredith running after them, but she couldn't focus on that now: she had to try to save the tree. As she got nearer, the heat was incredible, almost like a wall forcing her away. Gritting her teeth, she stamped at the small flames springing up in the grass around the burning tree. Smoke stung her eyes and seeped into her mouth, so that she coughed and wheezed.

Her arm burned painfully and she brushed away the hot ash that had fallen on her. Closer to the trunk, Alaric beat at the flames with his wet shirt and then stumbled backward, choking, his face streaked black. They weren't having any effect on the fire at all.

Bonnie grabbed his arm and pulled him farther back, her heart dropping. "It's too late," she said.

When she turned around, she saw Zander and Meredith shepherding two people back up the path toward them. Zander had a firm grip on a beefy dark-haired guy as Meredith held her stave across the throat of a girl. She looked familiar, Bonnie thought dazedly. After a moment, the sense of familiarity sharpened into certainty, and then Bonnie was flooded with outrage.

The tall girl with the long auburn hair had once been as close to her as Meredith and Elena were: Caroline. They'd celebrated each other's birthdays, gotten dressed for high school dances together, spent the night at each other's houses.

But then Caroline had changed. She'd betrayed them all, and the last time Bonnie had seen her, Caroline had been pregnant with werewolf twins and infected by the kitsune demons, vicious and insane.

Bonnie started forward, a hot ball of anger in her stomach. How dare Caroline turn up now, after all that had happened, and still be working against them?

Then the beefy guy yanked away from Zander, who wrenched him back onto the path. Bonnie saw his face for the first time. She stopped, the hot anger turning to ice. She could remember those thick features twisting grotesquely into a snarling, feral snout. He'd been a killer. He'd leered at her, called her names, and wanted to eat her.

Tyler Smallwood. The werewolf who had killed Sue Carson and run away from Fell's Church, leaving Caroline pregnant. The werewolf who had helped Klaus.

"Stop! Meredith, stop," Caroline begged. Meredith could see one side of Caroline's face from where she held her, and tears were running down it, cutting clean tracks through the soot from the fire.

What was left of the trunk of the tree crashed to the ground, sending up more sparks and thick black smoke, and Meredith felt Caroline start at the sound. Slowly, Meredith released her grip on Caroline, pulling the stave away from her throat so she could look Caroline in the eye. Caroline took a deep, sobbing breath and turned to face Meredith fully. Her cat-shaped green eyes were wide with terror.

Meredith glared at her. "How could you help him, Caroline?" she asked fiercely. "Don't you remember how Klaus kidnapped you?"

Caroline shook her head. "You're crazy," she said, and Meredith was amazed that bedraggled, tearful Caroline could still sound so disdainful. "I'm not helping anyone."

"So you just decided to burn down a tree today?" Meredith asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"I . . . guess," Caroline said, frowning. She crossed her arms defensively across her chest. "I think it was an accident."

There was something wrong here, Meredith realized. Caroline didn't look guilty or defiant. Freaked out, absolutely, but it seemed like she was being honest. Meredith sighed. It would be nice to get her hands on someone responsible for the destruction of their only weapon, but she was beginning to suspect Caroline wasn't that person.

Beside them, Zander growled, tussling with Tyler.

"Let him go, Zander," Meredith said. "I need you to tell me if Caroline's telling the truth."

Zander snarled again, kneeing Tyler in the chest and knocking him onto the ground. Meredith stared at him. She'd never seen the easygoing Zander like this: his white teeth bared in fury. He even looked bigger, and somehow more feral, his hair disordered as if it was trying to stand on end.

Zander had once told her, Meredith remembered, that those who had been turned into werewolves didn't smell right to him, not like Original werewolves.

From behind her, closer to the fire, Bonnie spoke, her voice rough from the smoke. "Zander," she said. "Zander, let him go."

Zander heard Bonnie as he hadn't seemed to hear Meredith, reluctantly releasing Tyler and standing up. He was tense, though, poised to attack again as Tyler slowly climbed to his feet, brushing dirt from himself. They watched each other carefully.

"All right," Zander said. He backed away from Tyler slowly, his lips still pulled back in a snarl, and looked at Caroline. Zander got close to her, close enough to sniff at her neck. "Tell me what you're doing here," he said.

Caroline pulled away indignantly, but Meredith took her arm and forced her back toward Zander. "Why are you here, Caroline?" she asked sternly.

The auburn-haired girl glared at them. "I don't have to explain myself to you," she said. "We're just camping. The fire was an accident."

"So Klaus didn't send you here?" Bonnie asked skeptically. "You've never been the camping type, Caroline."

"This doesn't have anything to do with Klaus," Caroline said steadily.

"What about you, Tyler?" Meredith asked. "Did your old master send you here?"

Tyler shook his head hurriedly. "I don't want anything to do with that guy," he said.

"Well, Zander?" Meredith asked quietly.

"They're telling the truth, as far as they know it," Zander said. "But there's something wrong. They smell . . . off."

"Klaus compelled them," Meredith said flatly. "They only know what Klaus told them was true. And Klaus must have told them to go camping here. We can't hold them responsible for burning down the tree. It's not their fault."

"That's ridiculous," Caroline said. "No one compelled us to do anything." But her voice sounded nervous and unsure, and Tyler wrapped his arm around her protectively.

"It's not a big deal," Tyler assured her. "Even if we'd meant to burn down that tree, it's just a tree. Why would Klaus even care?"

Meredith let her stave rest loosely against her leg. She wasn't going to fight anyone here. The Tyler she'd known back in the worst days in Fell's Church might have deserved killing, but judging by the way he was trying to shield Caroline, that wasn't who he was now. "It was a pretty important tree," she said quietly.

"I'm sorry," Caroline said. Caroline had never been good at apologies, Meredith remembered. "You've got no reason to believe me, to believe us, but I wouldn't have done anything to hurt you, not even kill a tree. If the memories I have of Fell's Church are real, we used to be friends. Real friends," she said, looking from Meredith to Bonnie, "and I ruined it all."

"Yeah, you did," Bonnie said bluntly. "But it's in the past now." Caroline gave her a crooked half smile, and, after a moment, Bonnie smiled back awkwardly.

"What do you remember? About Fell's Church?" Meredith asked them.

Tyler visibly swallowed and pulled Caroline closer to him. "The monsters and everything, that's the truth?" he asked, his voice shaking.

Bonnie nodded. Meredith knew she couldn't even bear to put all that history into words.

A drop of blood rolled down Tyler's forehead from a scrape Zander must have inflicted, and he wiped it away with the hand that wasn't holding on to Caroline. "One day I woke up, and I remembered normal life, but I also remembered this crazy story where I was a werewolf and did, uh . . ." His cheeks flushed. "Bad things."

"The bad things happened, but then everything changed," Meredith told him. "Most people don't remember, but everything you think you know is true." It would be too complicated to explain to them how Elena had saved Fell's Church by blackmailing the Guardians into changing the events of the last year. For almost everyone, their senior year had been completely normal: no vampires, no werewolves, no kitsune. But a handful of people, all with supernatural Powers or Influences of one kind or another, could remember both timelines.

"Do you remember Klaus?" Alaric asked. "Did you see him at all after you left Fell's Church? Maybe in your dreams?"

Meredith glanced at him approvingly. Klaus could dream-travel; they knew that. Maybe Tyler or Caroline would have some residual memory that could help them, even if they couldn't remember being Influenced.

But Tyler shook his head. "I haven't seen him since Fell's Church," he said.

"Not since you kidnapped Caroline to help bring Stefan to him, you mean?" Bonnie said tartly. "How did you two end up together again, anyway?"

Tyler was blushing miserably and Caroline took his hand, folding his meaty fingers in her long, elegant ones. "I was still expecting Tyler's babies. Both sets of memories were sure about that. So when we found each other we decided that the best thing we could do was try to raise our family." She shrugged. "All that stuff - Klaus and everything - it just seems like a dream now. We've been staying with my grandmother, and she's been helping to take care of the twins." And that - picking the version of events that was most convenient for her and sticking to it - was just like Caroline, Meredith realized. She'd never had any imagination.

"You know, Tyler," Bonnie said, "you should get in touch with your cousin Caleb. He was looking for you in Fell's Church, and he seemed really worried."

That was one way of putting it, Meredith supposed. Caleb had stalked them, put glamours on them, and cast spells to sow discord between Elena and the others, all because he suspected them of being behind Tyler's disappearance and his own dual memories.

Caroline put her hand on Tyler's shoulder, and Meredith noticed something. "You cut your nails off," she said. Caroline had always had long, perfectly polished nails, ever since they had stopped making mud pies and started talking about boys.

"Oh," Caroline said, glancing at her hands. "Yeah, I had to cut them short so they wouldn't scratch the twins. They like to suck on my fingers." She added hesitantly, "Do you want to see pictures?"

Bonnie nodded curiously, and Meredith joined her to look at Caroline's cell-phone pictures of two tiny babies. "Brianna and Luke," she told them. "See how blue their eyes are?"

That was when Meredith decided she might as well forgive Caroline and Tyler. If Caroline had changed enough that she cared more for her babies than her looks, and Tyler wasn't trying to throw his weight around, they were probably no threat. True, they had ruined everything by destroying the white ash, but they hadn't done it maliciously.

They exchanged a few more words, and then parted ways. Caroline and Tyler headed back down the trail, Caroline's long hair swinging against her tanned shoulders. It was strange, Meredith thought as she watched them. Caroline had been such a close friend, and then such a despised enemy, and now she felt nothing for her.

"That was the only lead I'd found in any of the references about defeating Klaus," Alaric said mournfully, looking at the heap of ash and scorched pieces of the blessed ash tree.

"Could we gather up the ashes and use them for something?" Bonnie asked hopefully. "Maybe make a salve and put it on a regular stake?"

Alaric shook his head. "It wouldn't work," he told her. "Everything I've read makes it clear that it's got to be undamaged wood."

"We'll find something else," Meredith said, gritting her teeth. "There has to be something he's susceptible to. But at least one good thing that came out of this."

"What?" Bonnie asked. "I hope you're not talking about Caroline, because a few pictures aren't going to erase everything that she's done. And those babies are clearly going to look more like Tyler than like her."

"Well," Meredith pointed out, "remember how we told you that when you were having your vision in our room, you said Klaus was calling an old friend to help him?" She waved a hand toward the retreating figures down the path. "If it was Tyler, he's not a threat after all. We're not facing a second enemy."

"Yeah," Bonnie said thoughtfully, and wrapped her arms around herself. "If the vision was talking about Tyler."

Chapter 17

Meredith moodily picked at the mud in the grooves of her hiking boots, flicking the little pieces of dirt onto the floor of the car.

Beside her, Alaric was driving them back to campus. There was a thoughtful crease between his eyebrows, and Meredith knew he was turning over possibilities, trying to approach the Klaus problem from every angle he could think of. She felt a wave of affection for him wash over her, and she reached over to squeeze his knee. Alaric glanced at her and smiled.

Turning to look into the backseat, she saw Bonnie fast asleep, her head on Zander's shoulder. Zander had cuddled her close, his cheek resting against her hair.

But as Meredith watched, Bonnie's peaceful face grew agitated, her mouth pinching together and her eyebrows drawing down into a worried frown. She twisted in her seat, pulling her legs up under her and burying her face in Zander's chest.

"No," she said, the word muffled against Zander.

Zander grinned and tightened his arm around her. "She's dreaming," he told Meredith. "It's so cute how she talks in her sleep."

"Alaric, pull over," Meredith said sharply. Alaric pulled the car onto the side of the road, and Meredith quickly rummaged through the glove compartment. Thank goodness Alaric carried paper and pens in the car.

"What is it?" Zander asked, alarmed. Pressed against him, Bonnie shook her head hard, her curls spreading across his chest, and murmured small noises of distress.

"She's not just dreaming, she's having a vision," Meredith told him. "Bonnie," she said, keeping her voice low and soothing, "Bonnie, what's happening?"

Bonnie moaned and thrashed, her body arching away from Zander. Eyes widening, Zander grabbed at her, trying to hold her still.

"Bonnie," Meredith said again. "It's okay. Tell me what you're seeing."

Bonnie sucked in a breath, and then her wide brown eyes flew open and she began to scream. Alaric jerked in surprise, banging his elbow on the steering wheel.

The scream went on and on, filling the car with noise.

"Bonnie, stop it!" Zander was pulling Bonnie to his chest, trying to calm her and to keep her from falling off the seat as she struggled.

Finally, she grew still, and the screams died off into whimpers. Then she looked around at the others. "What's going on?" she said thickly.

"You were having a vision, Bonnie," Meredith said. "Everything's okay."

Bonnie shook her head. "No," she whispered, her voice cracked and strained from screaming. "It wasn't a vision."

"What do you mean?" Alaric asked.

"It was a dream." Bonnie was visibly calmer, and Zander gingerly released her from the tight hold he had on her arms and took her hand instead.

"Just a dream?" Meredith said doubtfully.

Bonnie shook her head again, slowly. "Not exactly," she said. "Do you remember the dreams I had when Klaus was holding Elena prisoner? After . . ." She hesitated. "After Elena died. The dreams she sent me? That Klaus invaded? I think Klaus was sending me this dream."

Meredith exchanged a look with Alaric. "If he can get inside her mind like this, how are we going to protect her?" she asked quietly, and he shook his head.

"What happened in the dream?" Zander asked, stroking Bonnie's arm.

"It was . . . it was like a military camp or something," Bonnie said, frowning, clearly trying to remember. "There were trees everywhere. Klaus had a whole group of people around him. He was standing in front of them, telling them how strong they were and that they were ready."

"Ready for what?" Meredith asked quickly.

Bonnie grimaced. "He didn't say exactly, but nothing good, I'm sure," she said. "I couldn't see how many people there were or make out what they looked like exactly. But it seemed like there were a lot of them. It was all sort of clouded and vague, but I could see Klaus as clearly as anything."

"He's gathering an army," Meredith said, her heart sinking. They had no ash tree, no weapon against Klaus. And he wasn't alone.

"There's more," Bonnie said. She hunched her shoulders, curling into herself protectively, pressing closer to Zander. She looked miserable and frightened, her face sickly white and her eyes rimmed with red. "After he finished his speech, he looked right at me, and I knew he'd brought me there. He reached out like he was going to take my hand and just brushed it with his fingers." She reached her own hand out in front of her and stared at it, her lips trembling. "His hand was so cold. And he said, 'I'm coming, little one. I'm coming for you.'"

Chapter 18
  
Stefan pushed Elena behind him as he launched himself at a vampire, ripping into its throat with his elongated fangs. Beside him, Spencer, in wolf form, cannoned into another of the Vitale vampires and knocked her sprawling, only to be thrown violently into a row of bookshelves as the vampire regained her footing. The shelves wobbled and collapsed on top of the werewolf, blocking him from Elena's sight.

Elena gripped the stake in her hand firmly and gritted her teeth. She could sense evil all around her, pulling her to hurry, to do something about it. She didn't have the supernatural strength of Stefan or the werewolf, or of the vampires they were fighting against, but if she was quick and lucky, maybe she could take one or two of them out.

They hadn't really expected to find any vampires in the library at all. If they had, they would have been better prepared, weapons in hand, and would have brought more members of the Pack with them. They had been doing a quick after-hours sweep of the library, making sure the Vitale Society's meeting room was still chained up. And here, just a floor above the entrance to that room, they'd found what must be - Elena glanced around, calculating - all the remaining vampires of the Vitale Society, except for Chloe, still safely hidden with Matt.

Eight vampires. Until now, they'd been tracking down one vampire at a time, finding them alone midhunt. They'd had no idea the vampires were still allied, because it seemed like they had scattered. If they had known they were still working together, Elena and the others would have been more careful, or somehow managed to track them more closely.

Spencer was up again now, and snarling as he tore at the side of one of the vampires, who struggled frantically against him. Stefan was stronger than these younger vampires, and two bodies already lay at his feet, but they were still outnumbered. Two grabbed Stefan by the arm and swung him around so that another could pin him by the shoulder, stake held high.

"No!" Elena shouted, panic ripping through her. She charged toward the vampires holding Stefan, but a hand clamped down on her shoulder, and she turned to see a tall, dark-haired guy she was pretty sure had been in her chemistry class, back at the beginning of the year.

"No interfering, now," he said mockingly. "I think we can keep each other company." Elena struggled, but she couldn't move her arm, and he fisted his other hand in her hair, pulling her head back slowly to expose her neck.

Out of the corner of her eye, Elena saw Stefan fling one of the vampires off him, only to be pinned again. He was still fighting, though, not staked yet. The vampire holding her smiled, his canines descending, bigger and sharper, as she strained against him.

This can't be how it ends, she thought, dazed. I won't die like this. Elena wrested one of her hands free just as she heard a sudden clattering on the stairs, the sound of feet and bodies in motion. Another set of shelves fell, books skidding across the floor. The vampire holding her looked up and then released her, falling backward as a great splotch of blood bloomed on his chest.

Behind him, stave extended, was Meredith.

"Thanks," Elena said, her mouth dry with fear.

"Anytime," Meredith said, grinning savagely. "Just remind me to cut off his head later." Then she was gone, spinning through the room, stave raised. A huge, white wolf - Zander, of course - had joined Spencer on the other side of the room, and they were fighting side by side, snarling and tearing at their enemies' flesh. Alaric rushed past Elena, stake raised, and behind him stood Bonnie, her hands extended in front of her, chanting a spell of protection.

Alaric staked one of the vampires holding Stefan, and Stefan was able to take care of the others who had been restraining him. In a few minutes, the fight was over.

"You arrived just in the nick of time," Stefan said. "Thank you."

"It was Zander. He heard the fight when we drove past the library," Meredith said, looking up from where she and Alaric were dragging vampire bodies across the floor to pile neatly in the corner. "We'll have to burn these bodies, but it looks like this is the end of Ethan's vampires. Other than Chloe, of course."

"Thank goodness," Bonnie said. She'd pulled an assortment of herbs from her bag and was tracing patterns, casting charms of distraction and misdirection, in the hopes that no one would come near the bodies until they could dispose of them. "But we've got something bigger to deal with."

"Klaus," said Elena, her shoulders slumping.

"We couldn't get the wood. And Bonnie had a vision," Meredith said.

"A dream, not a vision," Bonnie interrupted sharply.

"Sorry, a dream," Meredith corrected herself. "She thinks Klaus was reaching out to her, threatening her, and from what he said, it sounds like he's ready to attack."

"I don't understand why he'd warn us, though," Zander said. He and Spencer were both human-form again, and as he spoke, Zander wrapped a bandage around Spencer's shoulder where he'd been hit by the row of shelves.

Meredith and Elena exchanged a look. "Klaus likes to taunt his victims," Meredith said. "It's all a game to him."

"Then maybe we should try to turn the tables on him," Elena suggested. Stefan nodded, guessing what she was planning, and gave her a subtle half smile. He'd been encouraging her to explore her new Powers more thoroughly. "I can try again to sense him," she told the others. "If we can find where he and his allies are hiding, maybe we can find out what he's doing, who he's working with, catch him off guard."

"Can you do it now?" Alaric asked, watching her with professional interest.

Elena nodded. Relaxing her body, she took a deep breath and closed her eyes. At first, she felt nothing special. Slowly, she became aware that the sense of evil that had been overwhelming when she was surrounded by the fight wasn't gone. There was still an insistent, low-key tugging, a feeling that something was wrong and that she had to fix it. That sense filled her, and she opened her eyes again.

Tendrils of black-and-rust-red aura hung smokelike in the air before her. Elena raised a hand toward them, but the colors swirled around her fingers without substance, the same way that Stefan's aura had. Her powers must be getting stronger: what had been just a feeling was now solid, a trail of black and red leading up the stairs and out of the library. She could picture it going farther, over the quad and across the athletic fields behind the campus. Elena followed the wisps of color, and the others followed her.

"The woods again," Bonnie said from behind Elena, but Elena barely heard her. The colors weren't leading her into the woods; they were stretching across the field and around an equipment shed. The pounding in Elena's head, the feeling of something being wrongwrongwrongwrongwrong intensified.

"Klaus is hiding back here somewhere?" Zander said, sounding confused. "Isn't it kind of exposed?"

No, Elena thought, not Klaus. And suddenly, she realized what a huge mistake she'd made. The trail, the feeling of wrong she got, was familiar. Damon. She was leading everyone right to him.

There was a split second between when Elena realized this and when the whole group rounded the corner of the equipment shed. Her steps faltered, but it was too late to change their direction.

Damon was feeding, another fair-haired girl pulled tightly against his chest, his mouth open against her neck, his eyes tightly shut. Blood ran down both their necks, making a gory, wet patch on Damon's black shirt.

There was a moment when everyone, even Meredith, froze. Without consciously thinking about it, Elena moved, throwing herself between the others and Damon.

"No," she said, directing her words at Meredith. Meredith was the one who mattered here, the one who wouldn't hesitate to kill Damon. "You can't," she told her. She glanced quickly at Damon, who opened his eyes briefly and gave her an irritated look, the look of a cat interrupted at its food dish. Then he closed his eyes again, working his fangs deeper into the girl's throat. Bonnie gave a soft, horrified moan.

"What the hell, Elena?" Meredith shouted. "He's killing her!" Balanced on the balls of her feet, she dodged to the side, stave raised, and Elena shifted quickly to stay between her and Damon. Someone was slipping past Elena on the other side, and she half turned to try to stop them, but it was Stefan, who pushed Damon away from his prey. Damon snarled but didn't try to grab her again. Stefan watched his brother tensely as he supported the girl and passed her carefully to Alaric.

"Meredith, please," Elena said, her voice thin and desperate to her own ears. "Please stop. There's something wrong with him. But it's Damon, he's saved us before. He's fought on our side in so many battles. You can't kill him. We have to figure out what's going on."

Stefan had hold of Damon by the arms now, but his brother shrugged him off with an irritated twitch of his shoulders. As Elena looked over at them, Damon straightened up and settled his clothing into place, shooting Elena a brilliant, unfriendly smile. There was still blood streaking his mouth and chin. "I don't need you to protect me, Elena," he said. "I've taken care of myself for a long time now."

"Please, Meredith," Elena said again, ignoring his words, and stretched out her hands to her friend pleadingly.

"Oh, yes," Damon said mockingly, turning his sharp smile on Meredith. "Please, Meredith. Are you sure about who your allies are here, hunter?"

Meredith had lowered her stave a couple of inches, but her eyes were flat and hard as she glared at Elena. "You and Stefan jumped in to protect him awfully quickly," she said coldly. "How long has this been going on?"

Elena flinched. "I've known for a few days that Damon was hunting again," she said. "The girls were all right at the end, though." She knew how weak that protest was. Worse, she wasn't sure she quite believed it - Damon had abandoned the girl she and Stefan found in the woods; she could have died. What else had he done?

But she couldn't let Meredith kill him.

"I'll take responsibility for him," she said quickly. "Stefan and I. We'll make sure he doesn't hurt anyone else. Please, Meredith." Stefan nodded, his hand tight again around his brother's arm, as if he was restraining a disobedient child. Damon sneered at them both.

Meredith hissed through her teeth with frustration. "What about you?" she said, jerking her chin at Damon. "Do you have anything more to say for yourself?"

Damon tilted his chin and gave her a cool, arrogant smile, but said nothing. Elena's heart sank: Damon had clearly decided to be as irritating as possible. After a moment, Meredith jabbed the stave at Elena, stopping well short of touching her.

"Don't forget," she said. "This is your problem. Your responsibility, Elena. If he kills anyone, he'll be dead the next day. And we're not done talking about this."

Elena felt Stefan, pulling Damon with him, move up behind her, a strong, supportive figure at her shoulder. "We understand," he said solemnly.

Meredith glared at them all, shaking her head, and then turned and walked off without a word. Alaric and Bonnie followed her, supporting Damon's victim between them, her choking sobs the only sound Elena could hear. Zander and Spencer gave Elena and the Salvatore brothers long, thoughtful looks before following the others. Elena trembled inwardly: the Pack could be a dangerous enemy, if it decided Elena wasn't on the right side.

As soon as her friends had rounded the bend in the path and were out of sight, Elena whirled angrily to face Damon. But Stefan, still clutching Damon by one arm, spoke before she could.

"You idiot," he said coldly, punctuating his words with a little shake of Damon's arm. "What were you thinking, Damon? You want to undo all the good you've done?" With each question, he shook his brother a little more.

Damon shoved Stefan's hand away, the mocking smile he'd worn dropping off his face. "I was thinking that I'm a vampire, little brother," he said. "Clearly a lesson you still have to learn." He wiped the blood from his mouth.

"Damon - " Elena said in exasperation, but Damon was already turning away. Quicker than her eyes could see, he was gone. A moment later, from a tree on the other side of the athletic field a large crow flew up, letting out a raucous caw.

"We might not be able to save Damon," Stefan said in a troubled voice, taking her hand. "Not this time."

Elena nodded. "I know," she said. "But we have to try." Her eyes followed the bird, just a dot in the sky now, as it flew above the campus. Regardless of what she had promised Meredith, she didn't know if she could stop Damon from doing anything he wanted. But she and Stefan wouldn't let Damon die. Somehow, at some point, saving him had become more important than anything else.

Chapter 19

Elena had been no stranger to battle in the past year. Her younger self would never have dreamed about weapons practice and defensive maneuvers. That Elena had focused on trips to France and beautiful dresses. But now, the fight against evil was what gave Elena a thrill, as much as she hated to admit it. Now, she walked united with her friends and allies, all looking to her for guidance.

Usually they were all united and looking to her for guidance, anyway. Since she and Stefan had defended Damon, Meredith had been distant. The Pack had been eyeing them so suspiciously that Elena could almost see the hair bristling on their heads as they shied away from her. Elena had turned the other day to find Shay staring at her menacingly. Even Bonnie had seemed to be avoiding her for the last few days. Only Andres, although she'd told him what had happened, remained unchanged in his attitude toward Elena. They'd worked together the previous day, trying to unlock more of Elena's Powers, but hadn't been successful yet.

The fact that her other friends were suddenly suspicious of her hurt. The night after they found Damon feeding, Elena had been with Stefan in his room. "We're doing the right thing, aren't we?" she had asked him, hot tears stinging the corners of her eyes. "Even though our friends are scared, we can't abandon Damon."

Stefan had dragged a heavy, comforting hand across her back. "Everything will be okay," he said, but Elena could hear the doubt and pain in his voice, mirroring her own.

Elena had to beg Meredith to follow her again as she tried to locate Klaus. But finding Klaus before he attacked was the best plan, Elena was sure, and this time they had all the fighters they could bring together. Klaus was so powerful; maybe the element of surprise would give them some advantage. Although a small comfort, they hoped that the daylight might also work in their favor.

The sunlight certainly seemed to be bothering Chloe, Elena thought. The curly-haired girl's dimples were nowhere in sight as she clung close to Matt's side, her head bowed. She looked strained and miserable, and Matt, although standing straight and alert as a soldier, seemed weary, his features sharper and paler than they'd been just a couple of weeks before.

Zander and his Pack of Original werewolves, on the other hand, were hyped up and practically bouncing off the walls. As Elena watched, Zander grabbed tall, shaggy Marcus in an armlock and forced him to his knees, both of them laughing and swearing as Marcus kicked at him. Even Shay, who usually seemed a little removed from the rest of the Pack, was getting in on the act, gleefully screeching from her perch on Jared's shoulders as he spun around and around, trying to dislodge her. Tonight would be a full moon, and the werewolves, sensing the change coming, were high on adrenaline.

Stefan was moving among their friends, calmly offering instructions and words of encouragement. The werewolves quieted to listen to him, their expressions alert. Bonnie and Alaric, looking through a book of spells Alaric had located, turned to show Stefan what they had found, obviously asking his advice. They might be angry at him for protecting Damon, Elena realized with a surge of pride, but when push came to shove, they all trusted Stefan.

Meredith remained silent as she prepared for the battle. She sharpened her knives and polished her stave with her face tight and closed off, refusing to look at Stefan or Elena. Impulsively, Elena started toward her hunter friend. She didn't know what she could say, but Meredith understood loyalty: she'd be able to forgive Elena even if she didn't agree with her. But before she made it more than a few steps, Elena felt a hand on her arm. She turned and there was Andres, smiling tentatively at her.

"You came," she said, simple pleasure bubbling up inside her.

"You called me," he answered. "We have to stick together against the evil things of this world, yes?"

"Absolutely," Stefan said as he joined them. Elena introduced Stefan and Andres, watching as Andres frowned and pulled back a little, clearly realizing for the first time that the Stefan she'd told him about was a vampire. But then he shook Stefan's hand enthusiastically, and Elena relaxed. She'd thought Andres would see through to the good person Stefan was, vampire or not, but she hadn't been entirely sure. The Guardians of the Celestial Court had not, after all, not really.

After greeting Andres, Stefan turned back to Elena. "I think we're all good to go," he told her. "Are you ready?"

"Okay," Elena said. Closing her eyes, she breathed deeply, feeling Andres feed her his Power, opening herself up to let it stream into her.

"Think of protection," Andres told her, his voice barely more than a whisper. "Think of defending those you love against Klaus." Elena concentrated, and as before, it was like blossoms unfolding within her, one by one.

She felt the familiar ominous gray and blue of Damon's aura off across campus, and pushed it away, concentrated harder. Klaus. Klaus. There was something else, greasy and dark, like a pall of foul smoke. Worse than Damon's aura, much worse.

Her eyes snapped open. "This way," she said.

Even to Meredith, who was easily the best human hiker in the group, it felt like they'd been trekking for hours. They were deep into the woods now, and the sun had passed overhead and was hanging above the horizon; they were going to lose the advantage daylight would have given them. But Elena still walked on, as straight and certain as if she was following a clearly laid-out road through the trees.

Meredith pulled the hair off her neck into a ponytail, trying to cool off, and continued after Elena, pushing away the memory of the last time she'd let Elena lead them, of Damon's vicious feeding. A good warrior focused on the battle ahead of her, not conflicts within her own army.

The ground was growing swampy, their steps leaving little puddles of water seeping through the mud behind them, when Elena suddenly halted and gestured the others to come closer to her.

"We're almost there," she said. "Just through that next stand of trees."

"Are you sure it's Klaus?" Meredith asked, and Elena shook her head.

"It's a big group of vampires, anyway," she said. "I can sense that. Who else could it be?"

Stefan nodded. "I feel them, too."

Now that everyone knew where they were going, Elena dropped back to walk with Alaric and Bonnie, who began muttering spells of protection and concealment, their hands extended. Andres, breathing deeply and seeming to draw Power into himself, joined them. It was time for the fighters to take the lead.

Stefan and Meredith moved side by side, Meredith balancing her stave. Stefan was poised on the balls of his feet. His mouth was slightly ajar, and Meredith could see that his sharp canine teeth had descended in anticipation of their attack. She felt a slight, unexpected pang: not long ago, Damon had fought beside her and he had been a worthy comrade, quick and brave and relentless. Stefan was all of that; but he didn't take the same pleasure in a fight that Damon did. If only Damon could be trusted.

Zander, Shay, and the four other Pack werewolves who could shift without the full moon at its peak had changed, and they flanked Stefan and Meredith. Moving quietly, they paced ahead with their tails held out straight behind them and their ears pricked forward, lips pulling back in silent snarls. Zander and Shay, leading the Pack on each side, moved in tandem, each one's step perfectly in time with the other's. The five remaining werewolves, who would not be able to change until the moon rose, walked behind them, as alert and focused as their lupine family. Matt and Chloe came next, halfway between the warriors and the others.

They shouldered their way through the last grove of trees, placing their feet carefully to avoid making noise. Bonnie and Alaric mouthed quiet spells, muffling their approach.

But when they came at last into the open, they found Klaus, dressed now in the shabby raincoat Meredith remembered with a stab of terror from their encounters in Fell's Church, his face alight with terrifying good humor, laughing. There was a huge group of vampires there, easily outnumbering their own forces, and every eye was already fixed upon them.

In that frozen moment, Meredith could see all the vampires in sharp definition. Her brain snagged on a face and stopped in confusion. Elena. But Elena was behind her, and Meredith had never seen Elena's face hold so much malice. Then she realized: the paler gold of the hair, the lighter blue of the eyes, the slightly mad glee in the pretty face. This wasn't Elena. It was Katherine, somehow reborn.

And then, just behind Katherine, Meredith saw another face she knew, and her heart froze. It couldn't be Cristian. Her brother was human now; the Guardians made sure of that. Didn't they?

But there was Cristian, his face familiar only from the pictures at home, and he smiled at her intimately across the clearing, his vampire canines visible. For a fraction of second, Meredith's hands loosened on her stave and she swayed on her feet. But then she tightened her grip again and took a fighting stance. She'd thought her family was safe, that Cristian had been returned to them. Everything was crumbling again at this very moment, but she still had a battle to fight.