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

Chapter 30

Unlike his brother, who had gone so far as to join the Robert E. Lee High School football team in Fell's Church, Damon did not enjoy playing football. He had never liked team sports, even when he was young and alive. The feeling of being an anonymous part of an a group, just one cog in a great machine designed to get a ball from one end of a field to another, felt like an affront to his dignity. It didn't help that Matt - Mutt, Damon now had to remind himself to say - loved the sport. He was the star here on the Dalcrest field; Damon had to give him some credit for that.

But now, some five hundred years after he had stopped breathing, he certainly didn't bother to waste his time watching humans try to get a ball from one side of a field to another.

The crowd, on the other hand . . . he'd found that he liked the crowd at a football game.

Full of energy, they all focused on the same thing and their blood pounded under their skin, flushing their cheeks. He liked the smells of the stadium: sweat and beer and hot dogs and enthusiasm. He liked the cheerleaders' colorful uniforms and the possibility of a fight breaking out in the stands as passions ran high. He liked the brightness of the lights on the fields during a night game, and the darkness in the corners of the stands. He liked . . .

Damon lost his train of thought as his eyes caught on a girl with pale gold hair, her back to him, sitting alone in the bleachers. Every line of that figure was etched in his memory forever: he'd watched her with passion and devotion, and finally with hatred. Unlike everyone else, he'd never confused her for Elena.

"Katherine," he breathed, cutting through the crowd toward her.

No human would have heard him in the crowd, but Katherine turned her head and smiled, such a sweet smile that Damon's first instinct to attack her was swept away by a rush of memory. The shy little German girl who had come to his father's palazzo, so many years ago, back when Damon was a human and Katherine was almost as innocent as one, had smiled at him like that.

So instead of fighting, he slipped onto the seat beside Katherine and just looked at her, keeping his face neutral.

"Damon!" Katherine said, the smile taking on a tinge of malice. "I've missed you!"

"Considering that the last time we saw each other you tore my throat out, I can't say the same," Damon told her dryly.

Katherine made a little face of wry regret. "Oh, you never could let bygones be bygones," she said, pouting. "Come, I'll apologize. It's all water under the bridge now, isn't it? We live, we die, we suffer, we heal. And here we are." She laid a hand on his arm, watching him with sharp, bright eyes.

Damon pointedly moved her hand away. "What are you doing here, Katherine?" he asked.

"I can't visit my favorite pair of brothers?" Katherine said, mock-hurt. "You never forget your first love, you know."

Damon met her eyes, keeping his own face carefully blank. "I know," he said, and Katherine froze, seeming uncertain for the first time.

"I . . ." she said, and then her hesitation was gone and she smiled again. "Of course, I owe Klaus something as well," she said carelessly. "After all, he brought me back to life, and thank goodness for that. Death was terrible." She quirked an eyebrow at Damon. "I hear you'd know all about that."

Damon did, and yes, death had been terrible, and for him at least, those first moments coming back had been worse. But he pushed that aside. "How do you intend to repay Klaus?" he asked, keeping his tone light and almost idle. "Tell me what's going on in that scheming little head of yours, Fraulein."

Katherine's laugh was still as silvery and bubbly as the mountain stream Damon had compared it to in a sonnet, back when he was young. Back when he was an idiot, he thought fiercely. "A lady has to have her secrets," she said. "But I'll tell you what I told Stefan, my darling Damon. I'm not angry with your Elena anymore. She's safe from me."

"I don't really care, to be honest," Damon said coolly, but he felt a tight knot of worry loosen inside his chest.

"Of course you don't, dear heart," Katherine said comfortingly, and when she put her hand on Damon's arm this time, he let it stay. "Now," she said, patting him. "Shall we have a little fun?" She tilted her head toward the football field, toward the cheerleaders shaking their pompoms on the sidelines. Damon felt a soft pulse of Power go out of her, and as he watched, the girl on the far end of the line dropped her pompoms and her smile. With a dreamy, distant expression on her face, she began to move, her body tracing out what Damon recognized as the slow and stately steps of a bassadanza, a dance he hadn't seen for hundreds of years.

"Remember?" Katherine said softly beside him. They had danced this together, Damon couldn't forget, in the great hall of his father's house, the night that he had come home from university in disgrace and first laid eyes on her. He took control of another cheerleader, moved her into the still-familiar steps of the male partner in the dance. Step forward on the ball of one foot, step forward on the other, incline your body toward your partner, feet together, hand to the side, and the lady follows you. He could almost hear the music, coming down the centuries.

The crowd around them stirred uneasily, their attention distracted from the players on the field. The formality of the dance and the blank distance on the faces of the cheerleaders were confusing them. A vague sense of something not quite right permeated the stadium.

Letting out another low, silvery laugh, Katherine kept the beat with her hand as all the cheerleaders paired off, moving in time, the elegance of their steps at odds with their bright, short costumes. On the field, the football players played on, oblivious.

Katherine smiled at Damon, her eyes gleaming with what looked almost like affection. "We could have fun together, you know," she said. "You don't have to hunt alone."

Damon considered this. He didn't trust her; he'd have to be a fool to trust her after all that Katherine had done. But, still . . . "Perhaps it won't be so bad having you back after all," he told her. "Perhaps."

Chapter 31

Cell phone clamped to her ear, Elena hit the button to replay the message. James couldn't possibly have said what she'd thought she'd heard.

But the message was exactly the same. "Elena, my dear," James said, a thread of excitement running through his voice. "I think I've got it. I think there's a way we can kill Klaus." He paused, as if he was thinking hard, and when he spoke again, his voice was more cautious. "We have to plan carefully, though. Come to my house as soon as you get this and we'll talk. This method . . . it'll take some preparation." The message ended, and Elena frowned at her phone in exasperation. Honestly, it was just like James to be cryptic rather than leave some useful information.

But, if he really had found something . . . A bubble of joyous excitement rose in Elena's chest. The knowledge that Klaus was out there, and that her Guardian Powers were focused on Damon instead, had been like a heavy weight on her shoulders. She didn't know when, but she had the constant nagging feeling that disaster could come at any moment. If James had a new idea, perhaps there would be an end in sight.

As she hurried across the sun-drenched campus toward James's house, Elena quickly texted Stefan to meet her there. He'd taken command of their anti-Klaus army, making the decisions and organizing the patrols while she tried to expand her Guardian Powers, and she wanted him there if James had found a solution.

She hadn't heard back from Stefan yet when she reached James's front door. He was probably in class; he'd told her that his philosophy seminar had started up again, now that it had been more than a week since the body of a student had appeared on campus. Oh, well, they could fill him in as soon as he arrived.

Elena rang the doorbell and waited impatiently. After a minute, she tried again, then knocked on the door. No one came. Andres, she remembered, had planned to spend the afternoon at the library, and then go out to dinner.

James had probably had a quick errand. Pulling out her phone again, Elena dialed his number. It rang, and rang again. Elena cocked her head. She was pretty sure she could hear James's ringtone coming from inside the house.

So he had gone out and forgotten his phone, Elena thought nervously, shifting from one foot to the other. That didn't mean anything was wrong.

Should she just sit on the porch and wait for James? Stefan would probably be here soon, too. She looked at her watch. It was five o'clock. She was pretty sure Stefan's class let out around five thirty. It would be dark soon, though. She didn't really want to wait here alone after dark. Not with Klaus's army out there somewhere.

And what if something was wrong? Why would James have left, when he'd asked Elena to come over? If he was in there, and he wasn't answering . . . Elena's heart was pounding hard. She tried to look in the window over the porch, but the shades were drawn and she only saw her own worried reflection.

Making up her mind, Elena reached out and twisted the doorknob. It turned easily in her hand, and the door opened. Elena stepped inside. It wasn't the way she had been raised - Aunt Judith would be horrified to know Elena was walking into someone's house uninvited - but she was sure James would understand.

Elena had already closed the door behind her when she noticed the streak of blood. It was wide and still wet, a long stripe of blood just at hand-level, as if someone with bloody hands had strode down the hall, carelessly wiping the blood on the walls as he went.

Elena froze, and then, her mind blank, walked forward. Something in her was screaming stop stop, but her feet just kept going as if they weren't even under her control anymore, down the hall and into the usually neat and cheerful kitchen.

The kitchen was still flooded with sunlight through its western-facing windows. The copper pots hanging from the ceiling reflected the light back, illuminating all the corners.

And everywhere, on all the shining surfaces, were great dark splashes of blood.

James's body was slumped over the kitchen table. Elena knew at a glance that he was dead. He must be dead - no one could live with their insides spilled across the floor like that - but she went to him anyway. She still felt numb, but she realized she had clapped one hand over her own mouth, holding back the whimpering noise that wanted to come out. She made an effort and pulled the hand away from her mouth, swallowed hard. Oh, God.

"James," she said, and pressed her fingers against his neck, trying to find a pulse. His skin was still warm and sticky with blood, but there was no heartbeat at all. "Oh, James, oh, no," she whispered again, horrified and so, so sorry for him.

He had been half in love with her mother when he was a student, she remembered; he'd been her father's best friend. He could be stuffy and wasn't always brave, but he had helped her. And he had been funny and smart, and he really hadn't deserved to die this way just because he had helped Elena. There was no question in her mind that this was because of her: Klaus had come after James because he was on Elena's side.

She reached for her Guardian Powers, tried to sense his aura, to see if there was anything she could do, but there was no aura left around him. James's body was here, but everything that made him a person was gone.

Hot tears were running down her face and Elena wiped furiously at them. Her hand was sticky with James's blood, and, sickened, she wiped it on one of the kitchen towels before pulling out her phone again. She needed Stefan. Stefan could help.

No answer. Elena left a brief, tense message and tucked the phone away. She had to get out of here. It would be unbearable to stay any longer in this room with its slaughterhouse smell and James's sad, accusing shell at the table. She could wait for Stefan outside.

As she was about to leave, something caught her eye. On the kitchen table, the only thing not spattered with blood, sat a single pristine sheet of expensive-looking stationery. Elena hesitated. There was something familiar about it.

Almost against her will, she walked slowly back toward the table, where she picked up the paper and turned it over. It was just as blank and clean on the other side.

Last time, she remembered, there were dirty fingerprints. Perhaps Klaus had washed his hands after wiping them on the walls. A deep, warming anger was building inside her. It felt like such a violation that, after . . . doing that to poor James, Klaus might wash his hands in the porcelain sink James had kept clean, dried his fingers on James's carefully arranged towels.

She knew what to expect from Klaus's message, but she still stiffened, hissing involuntarily through her teeth as black letters began to appear on the paper, written with long jagged downstrokes as if slashed with an invisible knife. She read them with a growing sense of dread.

Elena -

I told you I'd find out the truth. He had plenty to say by the time I let him die.

Until next time,

Klaus

Elena doubled over as if she had been punched in the stomach. No, she thought. Please, no. After everything they'd been through, Klaus had found out her secret. He'd find a way to kill her now - she was sure of it.

She had to pull herself together. She had to keep going. Elena shuddered once, her body jerking, and then took a deep breath. Carefully, she folded the paper and put it in her pocket. Stefan and the others ought to see it.

She was still operating on automatic as she walked outside, shutting James's front door firmly behind her. There was a spot of blood on her jeans and she rubbed at it absently for a moment, then raised her hand and stared at the red streaks. Without warning, she convulsed, retching into the bushes by the door.

He knew. Oh, God, Klaus knew.

Chapter 32

Thanks for meeting me," Cristian said. He grinned up at Meredith from his seat on the weight bench. "I know you don't remember," he added, "but we used to work out together a lot."

"Really?" Meredith said, interested. She could believe it, easily: anyone raised by her father would try hard to excel physically. "Which one of us was better?"

Cristian's smile widened. "That was pretty hotly disputed, as a matter of fact," he said. "You were a little faster than me, and better with the stave and martial arts, but I was stronger and better with knives and bows."

"Huh." Meredith was good with knives, she thought. Of course, in her reality - the real reality, she reminded herself - she'd had a lot more actual battle experience than Cristian. "Maybe we should see if that's still true," she said challengingly. "You know, I've gotten pretty strong."

Cristian chuckled. "Meredith," he said. "I'm a vampire now. I'm pretty sure I've gotten stronger, too."

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, his face fell. "A vampire," he repeated, rubbing one hand across his mouth. "It's hard to believe, you know?" He shook his head. "I've become the thing I'm supposed to hate." He raised his eyes to meet Meredith's, and his face was bleak.

A pang of pity swamped Meredith. She could remember how she'd felt, before the Guardians changed everything, when she'd learned that Klaus had left her wrong, a living girl with kitten vampire teeth and a need for blood.

It had gone away. But now Cristian was changed, and desolate.

"There are good vampires, you know," she told him. "My friends Stefan and Chloe, they fought with us against Klaus. Stefan's saved a lot of people." Cristian nodded, acknowledging her words, but didn't speak.

"Okay," Meredith said, mimicking her father's time-to-train, no-nonsense tone as best she could. It wouldn't help Cristian to dwell on his misery. "Enough flapping of the lips. Show me what you've got."

Cristian grinned, welcoming the change of mood, and stretched back on the weight bench, his hands on the racked barbell overhead. "Load me up," he said. "I want to see how strong I am now."

Part of this achingly reminded her of Samantha, Meredith thought, of how they'd trained together, goading each other to fight harder, longer, better. Maybe, Meredith thought as she added weight plates to the bar above Cristian, he'd want to try sparring later.

Meredith started Cristian at about two hundred pounds, which he pressed easily, his mouth giving a wry twist. "Come on," he said. "I could press this when I was alive."

There was no one else in the weight room, and so Meredith didn't have to be subtle about loading on the weights. Cristian handled as much as she could give him, his muscled but thin arms moving up and down like pistons.

"I'm so strong," he said giddily, smiling up at her.

Meredith recognized his smile. It was the smile she'd seen in the mirror on her own face when she was suddenly, startlingly happy. When she'd gotten her black belt. The night after Alaric had kissed her for the first time.

Maybe they could get past all this, become a team. Meredith let herself picture hunting with Cristian, fighting beside him. He was a vampire - a good vampire, she told herself fiercely, like Stefan - but he was a hunter, too. A Sulez.

"Your turn," Cristian said, clunking the bar back up into its support. It was so heavily loaded with weight plates now that the bar itself was bending.

Meredith laughed. "You know I can't lift that much. You win, okay?"

"Aw, come on," Cristian said. "I'll cut you some slack since you're human. And, you know, a girl." Meredith looked up to snap at him that being a girl had very little to do with how much she'd be able to press, and caught a teasing glint in his eye. Right then, she could believe he was her brother. Cristian started taking the plates off and putting them back in their racks.

"All right," Meredith said, and fastidiously, showily wiped off the bench, although it wasn't actually sweaty: apparently sweating was one of those things vampires didn't do.

Cristian started her off at a hundred and fifty pounds, heavy but manageable, and watched as Meredith began a set of reps.

"So," she said, keeping her voice casual and focusing on raising and lowering the bar. "What's it like?"

"What's what like?" Cristian asked absently. She could just glimpse him out of the corner of her eye, examining the weights, picking what to put on next.

"Being a vampire."

"Oh." Cristian moved across the room, just out of Meredith's sight, but his voice was clear and thoughtful, a little dreamy. "It's a rush, really," he said. "I can hear everything and smell everything. All my senses are heightened, like, a million percent. They say I'll get more Power, I'll be able to turn into animals and birds, make people do whatever I want."

He sounded excited at the prospect, his tone losing the bitterness it had held when he talked about becoming something he hated, and Meredith wished she could see his face.

"More?" he said brightly when he was right above her, extra weight plates in hand. His smile was bland, giving nothing away.

"Okay," she said, and instead of helping her get the bar back onto its support, he simply steadied it with one hand and slid more weight onto each side. Meredith grunted as he let go: it was heavier than she usually made it now, but still manageable. Almost too much, but she didn't want to let Cristian know that. In a funny way they were still competing despite his vampire strength, and she was going to take as much as she could.

Cristian was still really close, spotting her as she lifted, and Meredith's arms shook and strained after a couple of reps.

"The details are sharper, you know?" Cristian said suddenly. "I can even hear the blood rushing through your veins from here."

Meredith went cold and breathless. There had been something almost hungry about the way he spoke about her blood. "Take the bar," she ordered. "This is too much." She needed to get up.

Cristian reached for the bar, but instead of guiding it back into its support, he carefully added still more weight to each side.

"Stop it," Meredith croaked. It was far too heavy now, and Cristian must know that. She was in trouble here, real trouble, but she needed to stay calm, needed Cristian not to realize that she was scared.

"You forgot something about vampires," Cristian said, and smiled down at her, that same teasing, brotherly smile. "Dad would be so disappointed." He let go of the bar and it crashed down toward Meredith's chest; she was unable to support its weight.

She grunted as it fell, managing to slow it enough to keep it from cracking her rib cage, but with no breath or energy to focus on anything except protecting her chest from the dead weight of the bar. She couldn't breathe, couldn't speak, and she turned her head to look at him, her heart beating hard, and made a muffled, breathless moan. No one would hear her. She could die right here, at the hands of her brother.

Cristian went on. "A vampire, as you should know from our training, Meredith, is completely focused on his or her sire when they're first turned."

Maybe she could shift it, this weight pressing down on her, driving all the breath from her lungs. She couldn't breathe. Black spots swam in front of her eyes.

"All that matters to me is Klaus, what Klaus wants," Cristian told her. "If you were a good hunter, you would have remembered that bond trumps everything else. I don't know how you could have imagined my human family" - his voice curdled on the word, like there was something disgusting in it - "would matter to me more than that."

Meredith pushed at the bar helplessly, dizzy now with pain. She tried to signal Cristian with her eyes, desperately: fine, whatever, be Klaus's if you must, but don't kill me like this. Let me up so we can fight as we've been trained.

Cristian was kneeling beside her now, his face so close to hers. "Klaus wants you dead," he whispered, "you and all your friends. And I'll do whatever I can to make him happy." His gray eyes, just like her mother's eyes, held hers as he took hold of the bar she was clutching and pushed it down onto her chest.

Everything went black for a moment. Red flowers bloomed and burst in the darkness, and Meredith realized muzzily that it was her brain sending out random signals as it began to shut down from lack of oxygen.

She was beginning to float, as if she was suspended in a black sea. It would be good to rest. She was so tired.

Then a voice snapped through the darkness in Meredith's mind, her father's voice. Meredith! it said. It was impatient, firm but not unkind, the exact tone that had gotten her out of bed to run laps before school, encouraged her to practice a tae kwon do form when all she wanted to do was go out with her friends. You're a Sulez, the voice said. You must fight!

With a nearly superhuman effort, Meredith opened her eyes. Everything was blurry and she felt so slow, as if she was trying to move underwater.

Cristian's hand had relaxed on the bar. He must have thought all the fight in her was gone.

Meredith took every bit of strength she had gathered and pushed the bar up and away from her, tumbling her unwary vampire brother over with the bar on top of him. She had one glimpse of Cristian's startled, infuriated face before she ran as fast as she could, legs weak, heart pounding, gasping for breath, straight out of the weight room, out of the gym, and onto the paths of campus.

She had to slow as she approached her dorm, her legs sore and her lungs burning now that that original surge of adrenaline had worn off. Meredith tried to push herself onward, but she was stumbling now. At any moment, Cristian might grab her. He could have caught her by now, of course.

Just outside the dorm, she gathered her courage and spun around. No one was there. He had intended to kill her alone and in secret, and he would no doubt try again. Meredith unlocked the door and staggered in, flopping down to sit on the bottom step of the staircase.

She was still gasping for breath, and she choked on a sob. Meredith had wanted to know her brother, but he was already gone; he was Klaus's family now.

As she rubbed at her strained muscles, Meredith realized dully what she was going to have to do. She was going to have to kill Cristian.

Chapter 33

Damon licked a trace of blood carefully from the back of his hand and smiled at Katherine. They'd come across a couple walking through the woods just after dawn and fed together, and now it was midmorning, sunlight streaming down through the trees and casting black and golden shadows on the path. Damon felt full and content, ready to go home and sleep away the brightest of the daylight hours. A slight unease crossed his mind as he remembered the expression of panic on his victim's face, and he pushed it away: he was a vampire; this was what he was supposed to do.

Dabbing delicately at the corners of her mouth, Katherine cocked her head at him, as dainty and quizzical as a little songbird. "Why didn't you kill yours?" she asked.

Shrugging defensively, Damon slipped his sunglasses out of his pocket and over his eyes. He wasn't, to be completely honest, sure why he hadn't killed the girl this morning, or why he hadn't killed any of his victims since the blond jogger he'd hunted down more than a week before. He could remember how good the kill had felt, the rush as her life passed into him, but he wasn't eager to repeat the experience, not when the lingering aftertaste was guilt. He didn't want to feel anything for them; he wanted to take the blood and go. If that meant letting them live, that was fine with Damon.

Shielded behind the sunglasses, he said none of this, but merely smirked at Katherine and asked, "Why didn't you?"

"Oh, we're all keeping a low profile. Too many deaths and this campus will panic again. Klaus wants to keep the humans happy and easy to hunt while he finishes off your girl and her friends." Katherine eyed Damon as she smoothed her long golden hair, and he kept his expression carefully blank. Whatever Katherine wanted from him, she wasn't going to get it by bringing up Elena.

"Of course," Damon said, and added, "You know, you came back from death much saner and more practical, my dear." Katherine dimpled at him, and mock-curtsied gracefully.

They walked peacefully together, listening to the chirps and calls of sparrows, finches, and robins overhead. The quick rattle of a woodpecker drilling a tree sounded a little way away, and Damon could hear the rustle and patter of small, furry creatures in the undergrowth. He stretched luxuriously, thinking of his bed.

"So," Katherine said, breaking the comfortable silence between them. "Elena." She said it again, stretching the syllables of the word out as if she was tasting them: "E-ley-na."

"What about her?" Damon asked. His voice was careless, but he felt an uncomfortable heat at the back of his neck.

Katherine fixed him knowingly with her jewel-blue gaze, and Damon frowned at her behind his sunglasses.

"Tell me about her," she said softly, her expression coaxing. "I want to know."

Damon stopped walking and pulled Katherine to face him. "I thought you weren't angry at Elena anymore," he said, deflecting the question. "You're supposed to leave her alone, Katherine."

Katherine shrugged gracefully. "I'm not angry at her," she said. "But Klaus is." Her eyes glittered. "I thought you didn't care about Elena anymore. You were quite clear about it, you know. Why won't you tell me anything?"

"I . . ." Damon's heart fluttered in his chest, quicker than its usual vampire-slow beat. "I just don't want to," he said finally.

Katherine laughed quietly, her beautiful bell-like laugh. "Oh, Damon," she said, and shook her head mockingly. "You might be wicked in theory, but your heart is so pure. What happened?"

Grimacing, Damon turned away from her, letting go of her hand. "My heart is not pure," he said pettishly.

"You've gotten soft," Katherine said. "You don't like hurting people anymore."

Damon shoved his sunglasses farther up his nose and shrugged. "It'll pass."

Cool hands touched his cheeks and then Katherine gently pulled off Damon's sunglasses, gazing into his eyes. "Love changes you," she said. "And it never fades, no matter how much you might want it to." Rising onto her tiptoes, she kissed him lightly on the cheek. "Don't make the mistakes I've made, Damon," she said sadly. "Don't fight love, whatever form it takes."

Damon brought his hand up to touch the spot where Katherine's lips had kissed him. He felt stunned and lost.

Handing him his sunglasses, Katherine sighed. "I don't really owe you any favors, Damon," she told him, "but I'm feeling sentimental. Your Elena's in class right now. Rhodes Hall. I don't know exactly what Klaus is going to do, but he's planning something. You might want to get over there and stop it."

Gripping the sunglasses, Damon stared at her in confusion. "What?" he asked.

There was something soft and wistful in Katherine's eyes, but her voice was firm. "Better hurry," she said, raising an eyebrow.

Damon felt as if a living creature was clawing its way through his chest, something huge and painful. Was this what love felt like, after all?

"Thank you," he said absently. He walked away from Katherine a few paces, then sped into a run. He gathered his Power and began transforming, feeling his body twist as he changed into a crow. A moment later, he was aloft, stretching his wings to catch the airstream as he flapped his way quickly toward campus.

Chapter 34

Elena trailed out of her freshman English section near the end of the crowd, still stuffing her notebook into her bag. Zipping it closed, she looked up to see Andres waiting patiently in the hall directly outside her classroom.

"Hey," she said. "What's going on?"

"Stefan and I think it's not a great idea for you to be on your own right now," he said, falling into step beside her. "He and Meredith both have class, so I'll walk you wherever you're going."

"I have Powers of my own, you know," Elena said, a little haughtily. "Even if they're not really fighting ones yet, I'm not a damsel in distress."

Andres nodded, a slow, solemn dip of his head. "Forgive me," he said formally. "I don't think any of us should be alone now. James's death proves that."

"I'm sorry," Elena said. "I know it's been hard for you, especially since you were living at James's house."

Andres nodded. "It has," he said, and then made a visible effort to be more cheerful, throwing back his shoulders and pasting on a smile. "But I must take advantage of the chance that allows me more time with my charming and beautiful friend."

"Oh, in that case," Elena said, following his lead, and took Andres's proffered arm. As they moved down the hall, she examined him carefully out of the corner of her eye. Despite his courtliness, Andres looked haggard and worn, the lines at the corners of his eyes more pronounced. He looked older than twenty now.

James's death had hit them all hard. It felt more real, somehow, than Chad's death. It had happened in James's house, not on a battlefield, and so proved that death could come for them anywhere. When Elena had looked in the mirror the last few mornings, the face gazing back at her was grimmer, her eyes rimmed with gray circles.

Still, they had to keep going, for one another. Whistling in the dark, people called it, when you kept your own spirits up by finding any happiness you could.

Squeezing Andres's arm affectionately, Elena asked, "How are you settling into Matt's room?" The police had sealed James's house, so Matt had offered up his own empty room to their visitor. Matt himself was back to camping out in the half-burned boathouse with Chloe.

"Ah," Andres said, his face relaxing into a smile as they stepped onto the elevator and pushed the button for the ground floor. "The dormitory life is very strange to me. There is always something happening."

Elena was laughing at Andres's tale of a drunken freshman wandering into his room at three in the morning, and Andres's own polite and befuddled attempts to steer the intruder back to his own dormitory, when the elevator jerked violently to a stop.

"What's happening?" Elena said warily.

"Maybe it's an electrical problem," Andres said, but his voice was doubtful.

Elena pushed the button for the ground floor again, and the elevator gave a deep groan and then began to shake. They both gasped and steadied themselves, hands against the walls.

"I'll try the emergency button," Elena said. She pushed it, but nothing happened.

"Weird," she said, and flinched at the uncertain note in her own voice. "It seems disconnected, too." She hesitated. "Do you have a weapon?" she asked. Andres shook his head, his face pale.

The elevator rattled again, and then the lights went out, leaving them in the dark. Elena found Andres's warm hand and clutched it.

"Is this . . . do you think this could just be a coincidence?" she whispered. Andres squeezed her hand reassuringly.

"I don't know," he said, his voice troubled. "Can you see anything?"

Of course not, Elena was about to say. The elevator was pitch-black. She couldn't even see Andres despite the fact that he was holding her protectively close to him. Then she realized what he meant, and closed her eyes for a moment to reach deep inside herself, calling on her Power.

When she opened her eyes again, she could see the warm, living green of Andres's aura, lighting up the darkness. But at the edges of her consciousness was something else.

There was an even thicker blackness moving closer. It hurt to look at it as it seemed to breathe through the cracks in the elevator doors, as amorphous as fog. Elena instinctively shut her eyes and turned her head away, burying it in Andres's shoulder.

"Elena!" he said, alarmed. "What is it?"

For a long time nothing happened. There was a moment when she relaxed despite herself - nothing's here, she thought, caught in a wave of relief, nothing's here.

"It's okay," she said, with half an embarrassed laugh behind her words. "I just - "

Then a tile from the elevator roof was kicked in, and the blackness was all around her. Flinching, Elena looked up, straining to see something.

"Hello, my pretty one." Klaus's voice came from above. "You've been waiting for me, haven't you?" His voice was as casual as if he'd just come by to chat.

"Hello, Klaus," Elena said, trying to keep her voice steady. She pressed herself against Andres. She felt like she was falling.

"I know what you are," Klaus said smugly, his voice a singsong. A loud bang came against the side of the elevator, and Elena and Andres both jumped, sucking in their breath. "I know what your secret is." Bang. "I can't kill you with anything magic." Bang. "And I can't kill you with my vampires." Bang. He was banging his big black boots against the side of the elevator, Elena realized. He must be sitting on the edge of the service access hatch in the roof, his legs dangling down. His boots banged once more and then Klaus said gaily, "But you know what? If I cut the cable here at the top of the elevator, you won't survive."

Elena cringed. She rode in elevators every day and it had never before occurred to her how vulnerable they were. Her English class was on the ninth floor. They were dangling above a long, long drop, and the cables were the only thing keeping them from falling straight through to the basement.

Andres sucked in a quiet breath next to her, and Elena saw the life-green aura around him begin to grow. He was trying to form a protective shield to shelter them with, she realized, as he had done in the battle against Klaus and his vampires.

"Stop that," Klaus snapped from above them, and a bolt of blackness flew from him and hit Andres's growing shield of green, which snapped and deflated like a popped balloon. Andres cried out in pain.

Elena wrapped her arms around Andres protectively, but she could feel him tensing to try again. His breath sounded rough and panicky. "My power comes from the earth, Elena," he whispered. "Dangling so far above it, I'm not sure if I can help. But I will try."

Above them in the darkness, Klaus laughed jeeringly. "Might be too late there, boy," he said, and a strange scraping noise came once and then again, a screech of metal on metal.

"He's cutting through the cable," Andres breathed in her ear. There was a faint green light around him again as he tried to expand his aura, but it wasn't going to grow fast enough to protect them, Elena knew.

This is it, Elena thought, and took Andres's hand. She had never been afraid of falling before, but now she was terrified.

Then a thud came from above, and another, and a series of shuffling, thumping noises, and suddenly a body plummeted past them and landed heavily on the floor. Two bodies, Elena realized, thrashing and growling at their feet. She tried to concentrate, breathing hard, and after a moment, saw Klaus's aura again, darker than dark, and clashing with it, bloodred and sulky gray and flaring blue all tangled together.

"Damon," she whispered.

Shadowed, the barely-visible Damon managed to push off Klaus and scramble to his feet. "Elena," he gasped, and then a surge of Power from Klaus slammed him against the wall. He let out a pained grunt. Elena reached forward and tried to pull him toward her, but he was crushed tightly, his body jammed against the wall. Klaus chuckled darkly.

There was a flash of green.

Suddenly, all at once, Damon came loose. He fell back from the wall into Elena, and she staggered, holding him up in the second it took for him to regain his balance.

"Get her out of here!" Andres shouted. "I can't hold it!"

Klaus, face twisted with rage, was trapped by the glowing green barrier of Andres's protective aura, the eerie green lighting his face. As Elena stared openmouthed, Klaus forced a hand through the green. Damon grabbed her in his arms and leaped straight up into the elevator shaft.

Elena barely had time to take a breath before Damon was kicking his way through a door at the top of the shaft, and she found herself slumped on the tiles outside the elevator door on the top floor of the building. There were no classrooms here, just offices, and the hall was quiet.

Damon lay beside her, still clutching her, and panting harshly. Blood was trickling from his nose and he unwrapped one of his arms from around her to wipe at it with his sleeve.

"We have to go back," she told him, as soon as she could speak.

Damon stared at her. "Are you kidding me?" he gasped. "We barely got away as it is."

Elena shook her head stubbornly. "We can't abandon Andres," she said.

Damon's stare sharpened to a glare. "Your friend from the elevator made his choice," he said coldly. "He wanted me to save you. Do you think he'll thank me if I drop right back down there instead of getting you out of here?"

A crash came from inside the elevator shaft, rattling the building. Elena pulled herself to her feet, steadying herself against the walls. She felt fragile, but determined, as if she was made of glass and steel.

"We're both going back," she said. "I don't care what Andres would choose. I'm not leaving here without him. Take me down."

Damon clenched his jaw and glared harder. Elena simply stood and waited, immovable.

Finally, Damon swore to himself and climbed to his feet. "Let the record show," he said, grabbing her by the arms again and pulling her close to him, "that I tried to save you, and that you are the most infuriatingly stubborn person I've ever known."

"I missed you, too, Damon," Elena said, closing her eyes and pressing her face against his chest.

On the way up the shaft, Elena realized, Damon must have wrapped her in some stray edge of his Power, because the trip had been smooth and almost momentary. On the way down, apparently he wasn't bothering to protect her. Her hair flew upward and the skin on her face stung with the passing wind. He's got me, she told herself, but her body screamed that she was plummeting.

They landed on the top of the elevator amid a plume of dust, and Elena choked and coughed for several minutes, wiping at the tears on her face.

"We have to get in there," she said frantically, feeling around in the dark, as soon as she could speak again. The elevator must have collapsed when it hit the bottom of the shaft. Instead of a neat box of metal, she could feel the sharp edges and long, broken pieces of shattered beams and the remains of walls. "Andres could still be alive," she told Damon. She knelt and began to feel along what had been the elevator's top. The space Klaus and Damon had come through must still be here somewhere.

Damon grabbed her hands. "No," he said. "You say you can see auras now? Use your Power. There's no one in there."

He was right. As soon as Elena really looked, she could see that there was no trace of Andres's green or that terrible chilling blackness that Klaus carried with him.

"Do you think they're dead?" she whispered.

Damon let out a short, bitter laugh. "Hardly," he said. "It would take more than a fall down an elevator shaft to kill Klaus. And if your human pal with the shield was dead in there, I'd be able to smell his blood." He shook his head. "No, Klaus escaped again. And he took your Andres with him."

"We have to save him," Elena said, and, when Damon didn't reply immediately, she yanked on his leather jacket, pulling him closer so she could stare demandingly into his unfathomable black eyes. Damon was going to help her whether he wanted to or not. She wasn't letting him get away again. "We have to save Andres."

Chapter 35
  
Elena moved fast. She couldn't stop, couldn't think about what might be happening to Andres, or that they might be too late. She had to stay cool, stay focused. She pulled out her phone and called the others, filling them in on the situation and telling them to prepare for a fight and meet her in a clearing in the woods just on the edge of campus.

"We're taking the battle to Klaus," she told Damon, shoving her phone briskly back into her bag. "This time, we're going to win."

They stopped by Elena's room to drop off her schoolbag and, by the time they reached the clearing, the others had already gathered. Bonnie and Alaric were looking through a spell book together, while Stefan, Meredith, Zander, and Shay talked tactics on the other side of the clearing. Zander's eyes, Elena noticed, glanced in Bonnie's direction, but she was focused on her book. Everyone else was busily sharpening stakes or organizing weapons.

Silence fell over the clearing when Elena entered with Damon. Meredith's hand tightened on her stave, and Matt drew Chloe a little closer to him, protectively.

Elena was looking at Stefan, who stepped forward, his mouth grim.

"Damon saved me from Klaus," she announced, loud enough so everyone could hear. "He's fighting for us now."

Stefan and Damon stared at each other from opposite sides of the clearing. After a moment, Stefan nodded awkwardly. "Thank you," he said.

Damon shrugged. "I tried to stay away," he said, "but I guess you can't manage without me." Stefan's mouth tugged up into a reluctant half smile, and then the brothers turned away from each other, Damon wandering over toward Bonnie and Alaric while Stefan came to Elena.

"Are you sure you're all right?" he asked her, running his hands lightly over her shoulders as if to reassure himself that she wasn't obviously injured.

"I'm fine," Elena answered, and kissed him. Stefan pulled her closer and she leaned into his embrace, taking comfort in the strength of his arms around her. "Andres held Klaus off, Stefan. He was so brave, and he told Damon to get me away. They saved me." She swallowed back a sob. "We can't let Klaus kill him."

"We won't," Stefan promised, his mouth against her hair. "We'll get there in time."

Elena sniffed back her tears. "You can't know that."

"We'll do our best," Stefan told her. "It will have to be good enough."

The sun was low in the sky, and afternoon sunlight spread across the grass between the trees. Elena spent the next few minutes sharpening stakes. They didn't have wood from the blessed tree, but ordinary white ash would at least hurt Klaus. And any wood would kill his vampire descendants.

"All right," Stefan said at last, calling everyone together. "I think we're as ready as we're going to be." Elena looked around at the gathered group: Meredith and Alaric, hand in hand, looking strong and ready for anything. Bonnie, her cheeks flushed and her curls going in every direction, but sticking her chin out defiantly. Matt and Chloe, pale but determined. Zander, still human-form for now, shooting wistful, confused glances at Bonnie, flanked by Shay and the other werewolves, an empty space among them.

Damon stood alone on the other side of the circle, watching Elena. When Stefan cleared his throat, preparing to speak, Damon shifted his eyes to watch his brother instead. He looked, Elena thought, resigned. Not happy, but not angry anymore.

Stefan smiled softly at Elena beside him and looked around at rest of the group. "We'll find Andres," he said. "Today we're going to rescue him, and we're going to kill Klaus and his vampires. We're a team now, all of us. No one - none of us here, and no one else on this campus or in this town - will be safe as long as Klaus and his followers are alive. We've already seen what they are capable of. They killed James, who was kind and knowledgeable. They killed Chad, who was smart and loyal." The werewolves shifted angrily, and Stefan went on. "They've attacked innocent people across this campus and across this town in the last few weeks, and before that, the vampires in Klaus's army slaughtered the innocent all over the world. We have to do what we can. We're the only ones who can fend off the darkness, because we're the only ones here who know the truth." His eyes caught on Damon's and they held each other's gaze for a long moment until Damon finally glanced away, fiddling with the cuff of his jacket. "It's time for us to take a stand," Stefan said.

There was a murmur of agreement, and everyone was turning to one another, picking up their weapons and gathering themselves, ready to fight. Elena grabbed Stefan in a tight, hard hug, her heart bursting with love. He tried so hard to take care of everyone.

"Are you ready, Elena?" Stefan asked her, and she let him go and nodded, wiping a hand quickly across her eyes.

Breathing deeply, she reached deep inside herself, thinking protection, thinking evil, trying to trigger her Power in the way Andres had taught her.

When she opened her eyes, she felt a strong, almost undeniable pull, jerking her toward Damon. Unable to stop herself, she stepped forward before she felt Stefan's hand on her arm, restraining her.

"No," he breathed. "You must find Klaus."

Elena nodded, avoiding Damon's startled eyes. The pull to Damon was intense: she tried to ignore it, but she knew it was her Guardian task calling to her. Closing her eyes again, she breathed and concentrated on Klaus. Images flew in rapid succession across her mind: his cold, brutal kiss, his laughter as he kicked his feet at the top of the elevator, the way he had thrown Chad's poor wrecked body across the clearing.

This time, when she opened her eyes, the dark tug inside her was leading out of the clearing, away from Damon, and she felt like she could almost taste the thick, black, noxious fog of Klaus's aura.

Elena headed where her Power led her, and her friends followed, walking close together. As they went, Zander and Shay and the other werewolves who could change without the moon transformed, loping along beside the humans with their ears cocked for any sounds of attack, their mouths open to catch the scents the wind carried.

They skirted around the edge of campus, sticking to the trees and trying to stay out of sight. Elena expected her Power to lead them farther into the woods, toward where they had fought Klaus before, but instead it tugged her back onto the campus.

At the back of the campus lay the old stables. As they approached, the miasma of darkness seemed to be pulling her along toward the building, and an equal darkness was gathering overhead. Black clouds were hovering over the stables, low and threatening. Zander cocked his ears forward, his tail stiffening, and one of the human-form werewolves - Marcus, Elena thought - tilted his head as if he were listening.

"Zander says that's not a natural storm brewing," Marcus said apprehensively.

"No," Elena said. "Klaus can handle lightning." The werewolves stared at her in alarm for a moment, their shaggy heads going up, ears erect, then refocused their attention on the door to the stables, looking even warier than before.

"He knows we're coming," Stefan said tensely. "That's what the storm clouds are showing. He's ready for us. Bonnie, Alaric, to the sides. Stay clear of the fighting, but keep casting as many spells as you can. Damon, Meredith, Chloe, I want you with me in the first wave. Zander, whatever you think best for the Pack. Matt and Elena, take weapons but hang back."

Elena nodded. Part of her wanted to rebel against being kept in the rear while her friends were in battle, but it made sense. She and Matt were strong, but not as strong as vampires or werewolves, and not as well able to protect themselves and others as the magic-users. If she was supposed to kill Damon, she assumed some magic fighting Powers would show up eventually, but she didn't know how handy aura-reading and tracking would be now that they'd found Klaus.

As they reached the door, there was a beat of hesitation.

"For God's sake," Damon said scornfully. "They already know we're out here." Slamming one elegant Italian-made boot into the center of the stable doors, he kicked them wide open.

It was only because of the speed of his vampiric reflexes that Damon survived at all. As soon as the doors opened, a heavy pointed beam that had been carefully rigged on top of them slammed down. Damon was able to twitch automatically aside just enough so that the blow caught him in the shoulder, propelling him backward and out the door, rather than through the chest. Clutching his shoulder, he folded over and fell into the dirt.

Automatically, Elena ran forward, only half-aware of Matt keeping pace beside her. The others, the fighters, were streaming through the doors: Meredith with her stave swinging, Stefan's face twisted with fury, werewolves leaping into the fray.

With Matt's help, Elena pulled Damon out of the way and felt at his chest, checking his injury. The beam had pierced his shoulder, leaving a gaping wound that both Elena's fists could have fit inside. The ground below him was already black and swampy with blood.

"It looks pretty bad," Matt said.

"Won't kill me," Damon gasped, clutching at the wound with one hand as if he could pull its edges back together. "Get back to the fight, you idiots."

"It could kill you if anyone passes by with a stake," Elena snapped. "You can't defend yourself like this." The pull of her Power toward Damon was making her itch again. He's defenseless, something inside her said. Finish him.

She felt a presence behind her and turned hurriedly as Stefan, back out of the fight, knelt in the bloody mud beside his brother, running his eyes over him clinically. They exchanged a long glance, and Elena knew they were communicating silently.

"Here," Stefan said. He bit neatly at his own wrist and held it to his brother's mouth. Damon eyed him, then drank deeply, his throat working.

"Thanks," he said at last. "Save me some vampires. I'll be there in a second." He lay back, breathing deeply. Elena could see that the wound was already knitting itself together, new flesh and muscle raw beneath the torn skin.

Stefan whirled and ran back to the stable, Matt behind him. Elena bent over Damon in the mud and waited until he pushed himself wearily up on his elbows, then to his feet.

"Ugh," he said. "I'm not at my best now, princess. But they've ruined my jacket, and that gives me a reason to fight." He shot her a pale echo of his usual brilliant smile.

"Well, since you've come all this way," Elena answered, keeping her voice light with difficulty. She resisted the urge to support him toward the stables, and by the time they reached the doors, he was walking strongly.

Inside, it looked like hell. Damon swore and slipped past her, throwing himself into the battle.

Her friends were fighting hard; she could see that at a glance. Meredith was engaged in a near-dance of thrust and parry with an olive-skinned, quick-footed vampire who could only be her twin brother. Bonnie and Alaric stood at opposite corners of the stable, their arms raised above their heads, chanting loudly, raising some sort of protective spell over their allies. Andres was here, too, she saw, tied and slung carelessly beside one wall, but he was pressing his bound hands into the earth and raising a green swell of protective Power as well.

Werewolves wove throughout the crowd, fighting together, human-form and wolf-form, as a Pack. Damon, Stefan, and even Chloe grappled with vampires, while Matt quickly staked Chloe's opponent from behind.

Suddenly, Elena's mind cleared. She'd been hanging back as Stefan had ordered, used to being the fragile one, less of a fighter than the others. But she couldn't be killed by the supernatural now.

Clutching her stake tightly, Elena threw herself into the battle, exhilarated. Her Power tugged at her, and she looked to see Damon wrestling with one of Klaus's vampires, his teeth bared and bloody. Her Power urged her to attack him, and she clamped down on her emotions. Not Damon, she told herself sternly.

A dark-skinned vampire swung her around by the shoulder, his face gleeful, and tried to sink his fangs into her neck. With a stroke of luck and speed, Elena shoved the stake into his chest.

At her first push, it didn't go deep enough to reach the vampire's heart. For a second, both Elena and the vampire stared down at the stake halfway into his chest, and then Elena gathered her strength and slammed it home. The vampire crumpled to the ground, looking pale and somehow smaller. Elena, savagely triumphant, looked around for her next opponent.

But there were so many vampires. And, in the center of everything, his face alight with glee, was Klaus. A few feet away from him, Stefan staked his opponent and charged toward Klaus, fangs bared.

Klaus raised his hands above his head to an opening in the ruined roof and, with a crash of thunder, lightning struck. Klaus laughed and aimed it toward Stefan, but Bonnie, fast as lightning herself, threw up her hands and shouted in Latin. The bolt changed direction in midair, hitting one of the old stalls and blowing its door off. The stall began to burn merrily. Klaus shouted, a high screech of rage, and shoved his hands up, blasting Stefan off his feet.

Elena screamed and tried to run to Stefan, but there was too much in the way, too many struggling fighters. Why couldn't she release more of her Powers? She could feel them there, beneath those locked doors in her mind, and she knew she'd be stronger if she could just reach them.

Her Power itched at her, and Elena involuntarily glanced away from where Stefan had fallen, to see Damon rip the throat out of his opponent.

In a flash, Elena understood. "Damon!" she called, and he was instantly at her side, wiping blood from his mouth on the back of his sleeve.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"Fight me," Elena said, and he stared at her, bewildered. "Fight me!" she said again. "That is how I unlock my Power."

Damon frowned. Then he nodded, and hit her in the arm. It wasn't a hard hit, certainly not by Damon's standards, but it hurt and jolted her backward.

Something inside Elena broke wide open, and Power rushed into her. Suddenly, she knew how to do this. She was full of Power now, ready to unleash, and it was all focused on Damon. Not him, she told her Power again. Not Damon. With what felt like a huge physical effort, she tore her attention away from him, back toward Klaus and Stefan.

She waved a hand and one of the beams from the hayloft came free, and she slammed it toward Klaus, knocking him backward as Stefan scrambled up.

There was a thin squeal, barely audible over the now louder crackle of the flames, and Elena wheeled to see Bonnie in the grasp of one of Klaus's vampires, kicking furiously at him as she struggled. His hand was clamped over her mouth to prevent her from casting any spells.

With a pulse of fury, Elena shoved a jagged board through the vampire's chest and watched him fall lifeless to the ground.

Klaus was on his feet again now. Stefan had been tackled by another of Klaus's descendants, and nearer to her, Damon struggled with a huge, red-haired, brutal-looking vampire. A Viking, thought Elena. Klaus was calling lightning all around him, and the air was thick with dark, choking smoke.

No, Elena thought, and walked toward Klaus, pushing the fire ahead of her. She had to keep it away from her friends, keep it tight around Klaus himself.

The flames were all around her now. Looking back, though, she could see the air was clearer where her friends fought, and it looked like they might be winning. As she watched, Meredith pressed her stave against her brother's heart, and he said something to her. They were too far away and the flames were too loud for Elena to hear his words, but Meredith's face twisted into the saddest smile as she rammed the stave through his heart.

Elena coughed and coughed again. It was hard to catch her breath amid all this smoke, and her eyes were stinging. She used her mind to shove the flames closer to Klaus. It was so tiring, though, this new Power of hers, and she was so dizzy. She could feel the Power draining out of her now that it was no longer focused on Damon, and she tried to cling to it. Elena hacked and wheezed again. Klaus was glaring at her, reaching for her, and his filthy hands, splattered with ash and mud and blood, brushed her arm.

She gathered the last of her energy and poured her strength into her new Power, forcing the flames higher between her friends and Klaus's vampires, forcing them apart, forcing her friends backward, away from the end of the stable where she faced Klaus. Around Klaus and Elena, the fire roared.

"Elena! Elena!" She could hear their voices shouting, and she caught sight of Stefan's agonized face just before the walls collapsed on top of her and Klaus, bringing them down.

Chapter 36

Stefan clenched his fists together, the bite of his nails against his palms helping to stave off the fog of misery that was enfolding him. Elena wasn't dead. He wouldn't believe that.

Full dark had fallen, and firefighters had finally put out the blaze that had consumed the old stables. They were carefully working through the debris, dragging out body after body.

Outside the protective barriers, screened by a stand of trees, Stefan and the others waited. Meredith and Bonnie clung to each other, Bonnie in tears. Andres was seated, dazed and silent, on the ground, his eyes fixed on the slow movements of the firefighters.

Stefan remembered the look on Elena's face as the fiery wall had come down upon her. She had seemed so resigned, so peaceful as she looked back at him one last time, the flames she had put between them rising faster. The wall had fallen so fast - how could she possibly have escaped?

A hand landed on his shoulder, and Stefan looked up to see Damon frowning past him at the remains of the stable. "She's not in there, you know," Damon said. "Elena's got the luck of the devil. She'd never get trapped in there."

Stefan leaned into his brother's hand, just a little. He was tired and grief-stricken, and there was a comfort in Damon's familiarity. "She died twice before her high-school graduation," he told Damon bitterly. "I don't know if I'd call that lucky. And both times, it was our fault."

Damon sighed. "She came back, though," he said gently. "Not everyone gets to do that. Hardly anyone, really." His lips twitched into a half smile. "Me, of course."

Stefan twisted away, his eyes burning. "Don't joke," he said in a furious, low mutter. "How can - even you - how can you joke about this now? Do you care at all?" But he shouldn't have been surprised. Damon had spent the last few weeks showing - violently, capriciously - how little he cared, for any of them.

Damon looked at him, his dark eyes steady. "I care," he said. "You know I do. Even when I don't want to. But I know she's not dead. If you don't trust Elena's luck, think of Klaus. It would take more than a fire to kill him."

"Fire kills vampires," Stefan said stubbornly. "Even old ones."

"He played with lightning," Damon said, and shuddered. "I don't think there's much that could kill Klaus."

The firefighters had stopped their investigation, every inch of burned wood and earth turned over, and were covering the bodies with dark canvases.

I'll check it out, Damon told Stefan silently, and transformed into a crow, flapping through the night to land in a tree near the corpses.

A few moments later, he was back, becoming himself again before his feet had even hit the ground so that he stumbled a few paces, less polished and poised than usual. Stefan was vaguely aware of everyone, all their allies, gathering around, but his eyes were fixed beseechingly on Damon. He opened his mouth, but the question he needed to ask wouldn't come. Is Elena there? he thought desperately. Is she?

If Elena was gone, if she had sacrificed herself to save them, Stefan would be dead by morning. There was nothing for him without her.

"Elena's not there," Damon said shortly. "Neither is Klaus. It's all Klaus's descendants."

Bonnie gave one short, broken sob of relief and Meredith squeezed her hand hard, knuckles whitening.

"Klaus must have her," Stefan said, the world swimming back into focus now that he had a purpose. "We have to find them before we're too late."

His eyes met Damon's, leaf-green and black holding, for once, exactly the same expression: fear and hope in equal measure. Damon nodded. Stefan's fingers relaxed where they still clutched Damon's shirt and he pulled his brother to him in a brief embrace, trying to send him all the love and gratitude he would never be able to put into words. Damon was back. And if anyone could help Stefan save Elena, it was Damon.

"Is there anything you can do?" Stefan asked Andres. He could hear the pleading note in his own voice.

All around them, the others looked tense, waiting for the answer. Bonnie was tending to Shay's shoulder, bandaging a nasty vampire bite, and her deft fingers stiffened with anxiety until Shay gave a quiet grunt.

"I hope I can," said Andres. "I'll try." He knelt and laid his palms flat against the ground beneath the trees. Watching him, Stefan felt the cracklings of Power in the air. Andres held very still, brown eyes narrowed and focused. New blades of grass poked through the earth, curling around his fingers.

"This isn't as effective as Elena's tracking Power," he explained, "but sometimes I can sense people. If she's touching the Earth, I will know where she is."

Andres sat there for what seemed like a long time, his face peaceful and alert. As he sank his fingers deeper into the ground, digging the tips into the soil at the base of a white birch tree, the tree unfurled new leaves.

"Faster," Damon ordered, his voice low and dangerous, but Andres did not respond with even a twitch. It was as if he had sunk so deeply into himself - or into his communion with the soil, Stefan wasn't sure which - that he couldn't hear them anymore.

Stefan's pulse was pounding faster than he could remember since before he'd become a vampire. He clenched and unclenched his fists, keeping himself from shaking Andres. The Guardian was doing the best he could, and distracting him would not make him work faster. But Elena, oh, Elena.

Farther away, he could hear Matt searching the woods, calling, "Chloe! Chloe!" The young vampire had made it out of the stables; Stefan was sure he had seen her, blackened with ash but otherwise unhurt. Now, however, she was nowhere to be found. Stefan's heart ached in sympathy. The girl Matt loved was missing, too.

"Strange," Andres said. It was the first word he had spoken in a while, and Stefan's attention immediately snapped back to him. Andres tilted his head back to look up at Damon and Stefan, his forehead crinkling in confusion. "Elena's alive," he said. "I'm sure she's alive, but it feels like she's underground."

Stefan sagged in relief: alive. He looked at Damon for confirmation. "The tunnels?" he asked, and Damon nodded. Klaus must have taken her to the tunnels that crisscrossed the ground underneath the campus, the ones the Vitale Society had used.

Meredith, sitting nearby with Alaric, jumped to her feet. "Where's the closest entrance?" she asked.

Stefan tried to picture the maze of passages Matt had sketched for him before their battle against the Vitale vampires. There were many blank areas and half-drawn entrances on his mental map, because Matt had only traveled a little way in what seemed to be a vast, twisting labyrinth underlying the campus and maybe the town. But, of what he knew . . .

"The vampires' safe house," Stefan said decisively.

Chapter 37

Elena's shoulder banged against something hard, and she made a small sound of protest. All she wanted to do was sleep, but someone wouldn't let her rest. Her legs hurt.

Her head jolted against something, and Elena's perspective shifted. Someone was pulling her along by her legs, she realized, the rest of her body sliding along on the ground. Her hair caught, jerking her head before it came loose, and she groaned again. Slowly, she opened her eyes.

"Back with me, little one?" Klaus said, sounding disconcertingly jovial. He was the one dragging her, Elena realized, and although it was dark, he clearly had sensed when she awoke. He laughed, his dark, disturbing chuckle making her cringe. "I can't kill you with my teeth, or with my dagger, but an ordinary knife will work, won't it? I could tie you up and drop you in the lake to drown. What do you think?"

Elena's mouth was dry, and it took a couple of tries to get any sound out. "I think," she said at last, thickly, "that Stefan is going to save me."

Klaus laughed again. "Your precious Stefan won't be able to find you," he said. "No one can save you now."

They hadn't been to the safe house since they had left with Chloe, the night of Klaus's resurrection. When they arrived, the faint scent of vervain still lingered in the basement, and Stefan's skin itched in reaction. Meredith pried up a trapdoor in the floor, and Stefan lowered himself in first, the others following.

Everyone but Matt had come, weapons in hand, carrying flashlights and lanterns, tense and ready to fight. Matt had stayed behind to search for Chloe. Bonnie, Alaric, and Meredith stuck close together, their faces pale and strained. Shay, Zander, and the other werewolves stayed together, too, alert to every noise or scent in the darkness. And Damon, Stefan, and Andres formed the vanguard, each one of them straining for some sign of Elena.

They seemed to walk for miles, through underground passages that narrowed as they went, changing from concrete passages to dusty tunnels carved from dirt. Andres stopped frequently and touched the floor and walls, listening with his hands before picking a direction.

"Did you come this way when you smoked the tunnels?" Stefan asked Meredith as they waited impatiently during one of these stops, and she shook her head, wide-eyed.

"We're a lot deeper underground than I knew the tunnels went," she said. "I had no idea the Vitale Society had anything this elaborate."

"I wonder if it was the Vitale Society, actually," Bonnie interjected suddenly. "They used these tunnels, but I keep getting a sense that there's something older here. Something creepy."

Silently, Alaric raised his flashlight higher, illuminating a series of runes carved deep into the rock above them. "I can't read them," he said, "but these must predate Dalcrest by centuries."

The darkness that pressed in from all sides, now that Stefan focused on it, seemed to breathe with ageless secrets. It was as if there was something huge and sleeping, just out of sight, wrapped in itself and waiting to awaken. His chest ached with anxiety. Elena . . .

The steady thump of Klaus's footsteps stopped, but Elena was still sliding forward. With a shock, she realized that he was pulling her to him and she flailed desperately, trying to jerk herself away.

She was so tired, though. She'd used more of her Power than she ever had before, and she felt drained and helpless. Elena could do no more than struggle weakly as Klaus picked her up, gathering her in his arms as gently as if she was a baby.

"No," she whispered hoarsely.

She felt Klaus's hand stroking her hair back, and she shuddered with repulsion at the gentle touch in the dark. She struggled weakly, but his Power was holding her in place.

"I could have let the fire kill you," he whispered, his voice intimate and almost tender, "but what's poetic in that? My bite may not hurt you, but I want a taste of the girl that fascinates vampires so much. I've never tasted a Guardian before. Is your blood especially sweet?"

He pressed his mouth against her neck and Elena cringed. She couldn't fight anymore. His fangs pushed into her, rough and demanding, and it felt as if her throat was being split open. She tried to scream, but only a whimper came out.

He can't kill me this way, she reminded herself desperately. And yet it felt as if her life was draining away.

Andres was standing perfectly still, one hand pressed against the rock.

"What is it?" Stefan said sharply.

Andres opened his eyes. His face was desolate. "I've lost her," he said. "She was so close but now . . . she's not touching the Earth anymore. I don't know where she is."

"Elena! Elena!" Stefan shouted as he ran, bursting past the rest of the group. She couldn't be gone. Behind him, he could hear the pounding of Damon's boots close on his tail.

Ahead of the flashlights, they rounded the corner into complete darkness. Stefan funneled Power to his eyes so that he could see.

Just ahead of them, Klaus raised his head, blood streaming from his mouth and dripping down his chin. In his arms, Elena lay limply, her silken, golden hair tangled and dirty, hanging down over Klaus's arm. Stefan snarled and rushed forward.

Klaus licked at his lips, his pink tongue slow, and then he shuddered, a smile on his face. Slowly, still smiling, he collapsed to the ground, Elena landing with a thud in front of him. Stefan's heart plummeted even as he leaped toward her. Elena lay in the center of the path. She was motionless and very pale, her head turned to one side, eyes closed.

Blood was everywhere, staining her once-white top a deep, rich red. Her throat was covered with gore.

And beyond her, as limp as a discarded toy, lay Klaus. Although there was no mark on him other than a thin streak of blood at the corner of his mouth, Stefan had no doubt that he was dead. No one living looked like that, as if everything that had been part of him was gone, leaving a wax dummy in his place. Especially not the lightning-handler Klaus, who had shimmered with golden, filthy rage. He looked like a badly preserved corpse.

Elena, though . . .

To Stefan's wonder, Elena stirred, her eyelashes fluttering.

Stefan gathered her into his arms. She was so pale, but her heartbeat was steady. Above him, Damon hovered, his mouth twisted with anxiety.

"She'll live," Damon muttered, partly to himself, partly to Stefan.

Stefan opened his mouth to agree, but all that came out was a broken sob. He began to kiss Elena, peppering her cheeks and mouth and forehead and hands with light kisses.

"Stefan," she murmured weakly, and smiled. "My Stefan."

"What happened?" Bonnie asked as the others rounded the bend and ran forward. Only Andres stood still just past the bend in the tunnel, staring at Elena, his face full of wonder.

"She's the One," he breathed.

"The One what?" Elena asked, still smiling dazedly. She raised her hand and stroked Stefan's cheek.

Andres seemed to be having trouble speaking. He swallowed, licked his lips, and swallowed again, looking a little lost. "There's a legend," he said finally, hesitantly. "A Guardian legend. It says that one day a sworn Guardian, one born of a Principal Guardian, will come to Earth. Her blood, the blood of Guardians carried through generations, will be anathema to the Oldest creatures of darkness."

"What does that mean?" Stefan asked sharply.

Andres lifted his flashlight, lighting up Klaus's pathetic, diminished corpse. "It means," he said, his voice full of wonder, "that Elena's blood has killed Klaus. It would kill any of the Old Ones, the handful of vampires and demons that have walked the Earth since the dawn of human civilization . . . maybe before. It means," he said, "that Elena is a very valuable weapon."

"Hang on," Damon said. "That can't be right. I've drunk Elena's blood. Stefan's drunk Elena's blood."

Andres shrugged. "Perhaps its qualities are only fatal to the Old Ones. That's all the legend tells of."

"And her blood is special," Stefan said, his voice rough. He and Damon exchanged quick, embarrassed glances. Elena's blood was rich and heady, countless times more potent than any other blood Stefan had ever tasted. He had thought the difference was because of the love they shared.

"But . . ." Bonnie said, frowning. "Your parents weren't Guardians, were they?" she asked Elena. Elena shook her head, but her eyes were clouding over and her eyelids drooping. She needed rest, and proper medical care.

"We can talk about this later," Stefan said abruptly, and stood, lifting Elena carefully and gently into his arms. "She needs to get out of here."

"Well, whether she's the One or not," Meredith said, looking at the dead monster at her feet, "Elena killed Klaus." They all straightened unconsciously, smiling. They had nothing left to fear.

Chapter 38

"Chloe?" Matt called cautiously, sticking his head into one of the empty sheds that surrounded the burned-out stables. The sky was starting to lighten in the east, signifying the end of a long night. There were still a few firefighters and EMTs near the blocked-off stables, turning over the ashes, so he had to be quiet. He took a deep breath, trying to calm down. Chloe had to be somewhere, he reminded himself. He had seen her after the fight, weary but not seriously hurt. She had probably just retreated, overwhelmed by all the blood and by the adrenaline from the fight. She would turn up soon.

The shed was silent and dark. Matt raised his flashlight and shone it around the empty walls of the tiny space: nowhere here for anyone to hide. As he was about to move on, a faint scratching noise caught his attention. Not completely empty, then.

Focusing the flashlight on the ground, he caught a glimpse of bright eyes and a long tail before a mouse zipped out of sight again. Nothing else.

"Chloe!" he hissed, heading for the old barn, the last outbuilding he hadn't yet searched.

Three werewolves, the most battered and bloody of the Pack after the battle, had stayed behind after the rest had left to hunt for Klaus and Elena. But they were gone now. They'd offered to help Matt search for Chloe, but he'd waved them off: at that point, he'd still been sure that he'd find her any minute.

"I'll be fine," Matt had told Spencer. "Go take care of your injuries. I'll find her. It's probably stupid to be so worried."

Spencer had always struck Matt as being more about hair gel than brains, but he'd pinned him with a surprisingly shrewd look. "Listen, man," he'd drawled in his preppy, rich-surfer-boy accent, still managing to sound sort of laid-back despite the pain in his voice. "I'm wishing you the best here, I am, but vampires . . ."

"I know," Matt had said, wincing. He did know; he could have written the book on reasons not to date vampires, but that was when he'd been thinking of Elena, not himself, and before he had met Chloe. Now it was different. "I'll find her," he had said, absurdly touched by Spencer's concern. "Thanks, though. Really."

He'd felt wistful while he watched Spencer and his friends walk off, like he would be the last person left in the world once the werewolves were out of sight.

Where could Chloe be? They had been shoulder-to-shoulder coming out of the stable after half the roof fell in. Chloe had been shaking, her pupils dilated and her hands streaked with blood, but she had been with him.

And then, sometime during the rise of panic as they realized that Elena had been under the fiery roof when it collapsed, Chloe was just gone.

Thinking of Elena in Klaus's grasp gave him a pang of guilt. This was Elena, his friend and the girl who'd been the sun he orbited around for so long. He wanted to be searching for her with the rest of them. But he needed to find Chloe, too.

The barn was rickety, one of its broad double doors hanging crookedly by a single hinge. Matt approached it with caution - he wouldn't do Chloe any good if he was caught and pinned under a falling barn door.

The half-broken door wobbled and creaked, but did not fall as he edged his way through the gap between it and the side of the barn, shining his flashlight inside. Dust rose in the beam of light, specks floating thickly in midair.

Inside, something shifted, and Matt walked forward, sweeping the flashlight back and forth. Far in the back, he saw something white.

As he came closer, Matt realized that it was Chloe's face staring into the flashlight's beam, wild with panic. After such a long search, it took Matt a moment to process what was going on: his first reaction was a simple swell of relief - thank God he'd found Chloe at last. Then he realized that Chloe was streaked with blood and that, quiet in her arms, lay Tristan.

Chloe blinked at Matt blankly for a moment, and then her face filled with dismayed realization. She pushed Tristan away from her, horrified. The werewolf let out a weak cry of distress as he hit the floor with a thump, then lay still.

"Oh, no," Chloe said, dropping to her knees beside him. "Oh, no. I didn't mean to."

Matt ran toward her. "Is he alive?" he asked.

Chloe had tried so hard, and he'd been there every step of the way, helped her as much as he could. Life was unfair enough. But now Chloe's head was bent over Tristan and she was patting her hand urgently over his body, trying to wake him.

Matt got down on the other side of Tristan and tried to check the werewolf's injuries. God, the poor guy was bleeding everywhere. He must have smelled like a banquet to Chloe.

"I'm so sorry, Tristan," Chloe whispered. "Please wake up."

"Tristan, can you hear me?" Matt asked, checking his pulse. The werewolf's heart was beating slowly and steadily, and he was breathing well. The Pack was tough. But the werewolf's eyes were unfocused, and he didn't respond when Matt called his name again, shaking him gently.

"I think I might have, um, calmed him down," Chloe said, stricken. "Like the rabbits."

"We should get him some help," Matt said brusquely, not looking at her.

She didn't answer. Matt looked up and saw the horror and guilt on her face, tears running over her rounded cheeks, making tracks through the blood around her mouth. She'd joked to him once that she was an ugly crier, and now she scrubbed at her running nose with the back of her sleeve. In the semidarkness, her eyes seemed like black pits of misery.

"Come on," he said, more gently. "This isn't the end of the world. We'll start over. You shouldn't have been in a battle right now. It was too hard on you to be around all that action. All that blood." Despite himself, his voice stumbled a little over the word blood. Matt gulped unhappily and went on, working to make his voice confident. "Everyone slips up when they're breaking an addiction. We'll get back to the boathouse, away from everyone. It's going to be fine." He sounded desperate, even to himself.

Chloe shook her head. "Matt . . ." she began.

"It was a mistake," Matt told her firmly. "Tristan's going to be all right. So will you."

Chloe shook her head again, harder this time, the ringlets Matt had always found so adorable flying around her head. "I'm not," she said miserably. "I'm not going to be all right. I love you, Matt, I do." Her voice broke in a sob, and then she took a deep breath and began again. "I love you, but I can't live like this. Stefan was right; I'm not really living at all now. I'm not strong enough. It's not getting better for me."

"You are strong enough," Matt argued. "I'll help you." Dawn was breaking outside, and he could see the ash and blood streaked on Chloe's tear-blotched skin now, the deep circles beneath her eyes.

"I'm so glad I got to stay with you for a while," she said. "You took such good care of me." She leaned forward, across Tristan's unconscious body, and kissed him. Her lips were soft and tasted of copper and salt. Her hand found his, and she pressed something small and hard into his palm.

Pulling back from the kiss at last, she said, her voice thin, "I hope someday you'll find someone who deserves you, Matt," and got to her feet.

"Don't . . ." Matt said, panicking, and reached out for her. "I need you, Chloe."

Chloe looked down at him, her face calm and sure now. She even smiled a little. "This is the right thing," she told him.

In a few steps, she'd crossed the barn and was slipping out through the gap between the doors. The sunrise was well underway now, and her body was dark against the pink-and-golden light.

Then there was a burst of fire, and Chloe crumpled into a heap of ash.

Matt looked down at the small hard object she had pressed into his palm. It was a little pin in the shape of a V, made of blue stone. He had one, too: the Vitale badge Ethan had given all of them, back when he and Chloe and the other pledges were all human, all innocent. The lapis lazuli charm that defended Chloe from the daylight.

He closed his fist tightly around it, ignoring the pain as its sharp edges pressed into his palm, and gave a dry, heaving sob.

He would have to get up in a minute. Tristan needed his help. But for a moment, Matt bent his head and let the tears come.

Chapter 39

Stefan and Elena couldn't stop touching each other. Little touches, hands entwining, a light kiss, or a stroke to the cheek.

"You're alive," Stefan said to her, his eyes wide. "I thought I'd lost you."

"Never," said Elena, reaching up from her bed to tug him closer until he was sitting on the bed, his side against hers. "I'm not going anywhere without you."

Klaus was dead. And Elena had survived. The sheer amazement of it had her buzzing with joy.

But Stefan stroked her hair back from her face, and the look in his eyes - loving, but somehow still laced with concern - made her effervescence flatten.

"What is it?" she asked, suddenly apprehensive.

Stefan shook his head. "The task isn't gone," he said. "The Guardians still might take you away."

Elena had been avoiding that thought with everything she had, but at Stefan's words, she stilled and let the knowledge flood over her: the Guardians still expected her to kill Damon. And the punishment for not doing so would be leaving Earth. Losing Stefan.

"I will love you whatever happens," Stefan said. His brows were drawn tight, and Elena knew the terrors that warred in him: the fear of losing Elena after all, and the fear of losing Damon. "Whatever you decide, Elena, I trust you." He raised his head, and his gaze was steady and true, his eyes shining.

Elena reached up and ran her fingers over Stefan's forehead, trying to erase the lines of his frown. "I think . . ." she said slowly, "I think I can see a way that we can save both me and Damon. I hope."

Just then, Andres tapped gently on the half-open door to Elena's room and she greeted him with a smile.

"How are you feeling?" he asked seriously. "I can come back later if you're resting."

"No, don't," she said, patting the chair by her bedside. "I want you to fill me in on everything that's going on."

"If you want to talk Guardian business, I could leave you two here, maybe get Elena something to eat," Stefan said. "I didn't want to leave her alone."

Stefan kissed Elena once more and she tried to pour all the love and reassurance she felt into their embrace. When he finally pulled back, the lines of his face were softer, more relaxed. Whatever Elena was planning, his gaze assured her, he would be with her. As he left, Andres took the chair by her bed. "Stefan's been looking after you?" he asked.

"Oh, yes," Elena said, stretching luxuriously, and trying to turn off her serious thoughts for a moment. She'd almost died - she had the right to be babied and indulged for one day, surely. "He tried to make me something called a hot milk posset earlier today. Supposedly, I am at a delicate stage in my recovery." She started to laugh, but the laugh abruptly cut off when she caught the look in Andres's eyes. "What's the matter?" she said in a different, sharper tone, sitting up. "What's happened?"

Andres waved a hand dismissively. "Nothing has happened," he said. "Only, perhaps we should talk after you've had more time to recover. What I have to say is not bad news, I don't think, but it is . . ." He hesitated. "Surprising," he concluded at last.

"Now you have to tell me," Elena said. "Or I'll worry myself into a coma." Seeing the flicker of concern on Andres's face, she hurriedly added: "I'm joking."

"All right, then," Andres said. "You know how we found you in the tunnels, correct?"

Elena nodded. "Klaus was dead," she said. "You said that there was a legend that the blood of a Guardian born of a Principal Guardian would kill Old Ones." She shook her head. "That's the first thing I don't understand. How could I have that kind of family history without knowing it?"

"I'm having trouble understanding, too," Andres said. "Celestial Guardians don't have children, not that I'd ever heard. They're not" - he frowned - "people, not exactly. That is what I've believed, at least. I think we both have a lot to learn." He reached inside his jacket and withdrew a small leather-bound book. "I have brought you something that I hope will illuminate some of your questions," he told her. "I began to read it, and then I realized that it was intended for your eyes, not mine. The police finally let me return to James's house, and I found this there. I believe this is what he called you about, when he said he had found a way to kill Klaus, and that he hid it before Klaus killed him. It must have been sent to him after your parents died."

"My parents? What is it?" Elena asked, reaching out and taking the book. It felt oddly comfortable in her hand, as if it naturally belonged to her.

Andres hesitated for a long moment before he answered. "I think it's better that you find that out for yourself," he said at last. He stood and touched Elena on the shoulder briefly. "I'll let myself out."

Elena nodded and watched him go. Andres shot her a small smile as he closed the door behind him. Then, wonderingly, she turned her attention to the book. It was quite plain, without any patterns or words embossed on the outside, and was covered in a very soft pale-brown leather. Opening it, she saw that it was a journal, handwritten in a large, looping, dashing script, as if the writer had been in a hurry to get a million thoughts and feelings out onto the page.

I will not let them have Elena, she read, the words halfway down the first page, and gasped. Glancing down the page, names popped up at her: Thomas, her father, Margaret, her sister. Was this her mother's journal? Her chest felt tight suddenly, and she had to blink hard. Her beautiful, poised mother, the one who had been so clever with her hands and with her heart, who Elena had loved and admired so much - finding this was almost like hearing her speak once more.

After a moment, she composed herself and began to read again.

Elena turned twelve yesterday. I was getting down the birthday candles from the cabinet when the eternity mark on my palm began to itch and burn. It had almost faded into invisibility after so many years, but when I looked at my hand, it was suddenly as clear as the day I was first initiated into my duties.

I knew my sisters were calling for me, reminding me of what they think I owe them.

But I will not let them have Elena.

Not now, and maybe not ever.

I will not repeat the mistakes I have made, so disastrously, in the past.

Thomas understands. Despite what he agreed to when we were young, when Elena was just the idea of a child to him instead of her own funny, determined, sharp-witted self, he knows that we can't just let her go. And Margaret, sweet baby Margaret, the Guardians will want her, too, eventually, because of who I used to be.

The Powers my darling girls will have are almost unimaginable.

And so the Celestial Guardians, once my sisters and brothers, want to get their hands on them as early as possible, want to bring them up to be weapons instead of children, clear-eyed warriors with no trace of humanity about them.

Once, I would have let them. I stepped away from Katherine when she was only an infant, pretended that I had died, so that she could fulfill the destiny I believed was inevitable and right for her.

Elena stopped reading. Her mother had once had another child? The name must be a coincidence, though: the Katherine she knew, Damon's and Stefan's Katherine, was hundreds of years older than her. And about as far from being a Guardian as possible.

There were plenty of Guardians who looked rather like Elena, though. She reviewed in her mind's eye the faces that she'd seen in the Celestial Court: businesslike, blue-eyed blondes, crisp and cool. Could one of them have been her elder sister? Still, though, she couldn't shake off her unease: Katherine, her mirror image. She read on.

But Katherine was a sickly child, and the Guardians turned their backs on her, rejected the great power she could have been. She would not come into her Power for years, and they did not think she would survive long enough to see that day. A human child who probably wouldn't live to grow up wasn't worth their time, they thought.

My heart ached for her. I had abandoned my daughter for nothing. From a careful distance, I watched her grow: pretty and lively despite her illnesses, brave even in the shadow of the pain she suffered, adored by her father, loved by the household. She did not need the mother she had never known. Perhaps this was better, I thought. She could live a happy, human life, even if it was a short one.

Then, disaster struck. A servant, thinking it would save her, offered Katherine up to a vampire to be transformed. My sweet daughter, a creature of joy and light, was dragged unceremoniously into the darkness. And the creature who performed the deed was one of the worst of his kind: Klaus, an Old One. If Katherine had come into her Power, if the Guardians had made her one of them, Katherine's blood would have killed him. But without that protection, it merely bound them together, tying him to her with a fascination neither of them understood.

My darling girl was lost, all her charm and intelligence subverted into what, before long, seemed to be merely a vicious, broken doll, Klaus's plaything. I don't know if the real Katherine is still there underneath that shadowed life she must live now.

Elena gasped, a harsh sound to her own ears in the room's silence. There was no denying the truth now. Katherine's illness, Klaus's cruel gift, all the details Stefan had told her were here. Katherine, who had hated her and tried to kill her, who had loved Stefan and Damon centuries before Elena herself did, who had destroyed Stefan and Damon, was her half sister.

Part of her wanted to slam the book shut, to shove it to the back of her closet and never, never think about it again. But she couldn't stop herself from reading on.

I wandered for many years, mourning my daughter, turning my back on the Guardians who had once been my family. But, after centuries of loneliness, I met my sweet, honest, blindingly intelligent Thomas, and fell deeply, hopelessly, madly in love. We were so happy for a while.

And then the Guardians found us.

They came to us and told us that the Old Ones were gaining in Power. They were too strong, too cruel. They would destroy humanity if they could, would enslave the world in darkness and evil.

The Guardians begged me to have another child. Only an Earthly Guardian with the blood of a Principal Guardian could kill an Old One so that the Old One could never be resurrected. My peculiar situation - a Principal Guardian who had abandoned her post to live a human life, who had fallen in love - made me their only chance.

Thomas knew everything about my past. He trusted me to make the right choice, and I chose to say yes, under certain conditions. I would bear a child who could destroy the Old Ones, but she would not be taken from me. She would not be raised as a weapon but as a human girl. And, when she was old enough, she would be given a free choice: to come into her Power or not.

And they agreed. Elena's blood, Margaret's blood, was so precious that they would agree to anything.

But now they want to break that agreement. They want to take my darling Elena now, even though she is only twelve years old.

I will save Elena and Margaret, as I couldn't save Katherine. I will.

Elena is fiercely protective already of her friends and of her younger sister. I think she will choose to become a Guardian when she's given the choice, will decide to protect the larger world in the best way that she can. But it must be her decision, not theirs. Margaret is too young for me to tell yet whether she will have the makings of a Guardian. Perhaps she will choose another path. But no matter what I think they'll want in the end, they must have time to grow up before they have to make that decision.

I am afraid. The Guardians are ruthless, and they will not be pleased when I refuse to turn Elena over to them.

If anything should happen to me, and to Thomas, before the girls are grown, I have made arrangements to shield my daughters from the Guardians. Judith, my closest friend, will pretend to be my sister and raise Elena and Margaret to adulthood. I have already cast certain charms: as long as the girls are in her custody, the Guardians will not be able to locate them.

I would die, happily, to protect their innocence. The Guardians will never find them, not until they are grown women and can choose for themselves.

I cannot see the future. I do not know what will happen to any of my daughters any more than any parent does, but I have done my best to protect Elena and Margaret, as I was not wise enough to protect Katherine. I pray that this will be enough. And I pray that someday, somehow, Katherine, too, will find her way back into the light. That all three of my girls will be safe from harm.

Tears ran down Elena's cheeks. She felt as if a burden she'd been carrying for weeks had suddenly flown off her shoulders. Her parents hadn't planned to turn her over to the Guardians, hadn't had a child just to discard her. Her mother had loved her as much as Elena had always thought.

She had to think carefully now. Eyes narrowing, she shoved her pillows against the wall and sat up. Margaret was safe with Aunt Judith for the moment, and that was good. She couldn't consider all the ramifications of Katherine being her sister, not now.

But the fact that she, Elena, was special to the Guardians, precious to them, that her blood had unique Powers the Guardians were desperate to have on their side? The confirmation in her mother's journal might be the last piece she needed to put her plan to save Damon in motion.