The Vampire Diaries #9: Moonsong (The Hunters #2)（2012）

Chapter Forty

Damon was moving fast, and Elena and the others had to almost race to keep up with him as they headed for the library. "Typical Stefan, sacrificing himself," he muttered angrily. "He could have asked for help when he realized something was going on." He stopped for a second to let the others catch up and glared at them all . "If Stefan can't handle a few newly made vampires by himself, I'm ashamed of him," he said. "Maybe we should just leave him after all . Survival of the fittest."

Elena touched his hand lightly, and, after a moment, Damon hurried on toward the library. She didn't for an instant believe he would leave Stefan a captive. None of them did. The taut, strained lines of his face showed that Damon was entirely focused on the danger his brother was in, their rivalry temporarily forgotten.

"It's not just a few vampires," Matt said. "There are about twenty-five of them. I'm sorry, you guys, I've been a moron." He swung the stave Meredith had given him -

Samantha's stave - determinedly in one hand.

"It's not your fault," Bonnie said. "You couldn't have known your frat - or whatever - was evil, could you?" If anyone had spotted them as they crossed the campus, Elena was sure they would have been an alarming sight: she and Bonnie were clutching the large, sharp hunting knives Meredith had given them only half concealed under their jackets. Matt was holding the stave, and Meredith had her own stave in one hand. But it was past midnight, and the path they were following was deserted.

Only Damon wasn't carrying a weapon, and he clearly was a weapon.

His human façade seemed to have lifted, and his angry expression could have been carved out of stone, except for the glimpse of sharp white teeth between his lips and the seemingly bottomless darkness of his eyes.

When they reached the closed library, Damon didn't pause, forcing its metal doors open with the grinding sound of splitting metal. Elena glanced around nervously. The last thing they needed was campus security showing up. But the paths near the library were dark and empty.

They all followed Damon down to the basement and into the hall ways of administrative offices. Finally, he stopped outside the door marked Research Office where he and Elena had once met Matt. "This is the entrance?" he asked Matt and, at his nod, efficiently broke the lock on the door.

"You're all staying up here. Just Meredith and I are going down." He looked at Meredith. "Want to kill some vampires, hunter? Let's fulfil your destiny, shall we?" Meredith slashed her stave in the air, and a slow smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. "I'm ready," she said at last.

"I'm coming, too," Elena said, keeping her voice steady.

"I'm not waiting up here while Stefan's in danger." Damon drew a breath, and she thought he was going to argue with her, but instead he sighed.

"Al right, princess," he said, his voice gentler than it had been since Matt told them what had happened to Stefan.

"But you do what I - or Meredith - tell you."

"I'm not waiting up here," Matt said stubbornly. "This is my fault."

Damon turned on him, his mouth twisting into a sneer.

"Yes, it is your fault. And you told us Ethan can control you. I don't want to get your knife in my back while we're fighting your enemies."

Matt dropped his head, defeated. "Okay," he said. "Go down two flights of stairs, and you'll see the doors to the room they're in." Damon nodded sharply and pulled up the trapdoor.

Meredith followed him down the stairs, but Matt caught Elena's arm as she headed after them. "Please," he said quickly. "If any of the pledges still seem rational, even if they're vampires, try to get them out. Maybe we can help them. My friend Chloe..." In the grim lines of his face, his pale blue eyes were frightened.

"I'll try," Elena said, and squeezed his hand. She exchanged a glance with Bonnie, then followed Meredith through the trapdoor.

When they reached the entrance to the Vitale Society's chamber, Meredith and Damon pressed their backs against the elaborately carved wooden doors. Watching, Elena could see a similarity for the first time between them.

Now that they were facing a battle, Meredith and Damon were both wearing eager smiles.

One ... two ... came Damon's silent count ... three.

They pushed together. The double doors flew inward, and the chains that had held them closed went flying.

Damon stalked in, still smiling a vicious gleaming smile, Meredith erect and alert behind him, her stave poised.

Dark figures rushed at them, but Elena was looking past them, searching for Stefan.

Then her eyes found him, and all the breath rushed out of her. He was hurt. Tied firmly to a chair, he raised a pale face to greet her, his leaf-green eyes agonized. From his arm, dark red blood dripped steadily, pooling on the floor beneath his chair.

Elena went a little mad.

Charging across the room toward Stefan, she was only half aware of one of the hooded figures leaping at her, and of Damon catching it in midstride, casually snapping its neck and letting the body fall to the floor. Absently, she registered the smack of wood against flesh as Meredith caught another attacker with her stave so that it fell in convulsions as the concentrated essence of vervain from the stave's spikes hit its bloodstream.

And then she was crouching next to Stefan, and, for a moment at least, nothing else mattered. He was shaking slightly, just the faintest tremors, and she stroked his hand, careful of the wound on his forearm. Raised red ridges ran around his wrists below the rope, spots of blood on their surface. "Vervain on the ropes," he muttered. "I'm okay, just hurry." And then, "Elena?" Below the pain in his voice, a dawning note of joy.

She hoped he could read all the love she felt in her eyes as she met his gaze. "I'm here, Stefan. I'm so sorry." She took out the knife Meredith had given her and began to saw at the ropes that held him, careful not to cut him, trying not to pull the ropes any tighter. He winced in pain, and then the ropes around his wrists snapped. "Your poor arm," she said, and felt in her pockets for something to staunch the blood, final y just pulling off her jacket and holding it against the cut. Stefan took the jacket from her. "You'll have to cut through the rest of the ropes, too," he said, his voice strained. "I can't touch them because of the vervain." She nodded and went to work on the ropes holding his legs. "I love you," she told him, concentrating on her work, not looking up. "I love you so much. I hurt you, and I never wanted to. Never, Stefan. Please believe me." She finished cutting through the ropes around his knees and ankles and chanced a glance up at Stefan's face. Tears, she realized, were running down her own face, and she wiped them away.

The thud of another body hitting the floor and a screech of rage came from behind them. But Stefan's eyes held hers unwaveringly. "Elena, I..." he sighed. "I love you more than anything in the world," he said simply. "You know that. No conditions."

She took a long, shuddering breath and wiped the tears away again. She had to be able to see, had to keep her hands from shaking. The ropes around his torso were looped and twisted together. She pulled at them, finding where there was enough give to start cutting, and Stefan hissed in pain.

"Sorry, sorry," she said hurriedly, and began to slice through the rope as rapidly as she dared. "Stefan," she began again, "the kiss with Damon - Well, I can't lie and say I don't feel anything for him - but the kiss wasn't anything I'd planned on. I didn't even mean to be with him that night, it just happened. And when you saw us, that kiss, he'd just saved my life..." She was stumbling over her words now, and she let them trail off. "I don't have any real excuses, Stefan," she said flatly. "I just want you to forgive me. I don't think I can live without you."

The last of the ropes parted, and she eased them from around him before she looked up, frightened and hopeful.

Stefan was gazing at her, his sculpted lips turning up in a half smile. "Elena," he said and pulled her to him in a brief, tender kiss. Then he pushed her to the wall . "Stay out of this, please," he said, and limped toward the fight, still weak from the vervain, but reaching to pull a vampire away from Meredith and sinking his own fangs into its neck.

Not that she needed his help. Meredith was amazing.

When had she gotten so good? Elena had seen her fight before, of course, and she'd been strong and quick, but now the tall girl was as graceful as a dancer and as deadly as an assassin.

She was fighting three vampires, who circled her angrily. Spinning and kicking, moving almost as fast as the monsters she was fighting, despite the fact that their speed was supernatural, she knocked one off his feet, sending him flying, and, in a smooth follow-up blow, bashed another in the face, leaving the vampire staggering backward with his hands up, half blinded.

There were bodies littered across the floor, evidence of Meredith's skill and Damon's vicious rage. As Elena watched, Stefan tossed down the drained body of the vampire he had been fighting and looked around. Only Ethan and the three vampires surrounding Meredith remained on their feet.

Damon had Ethan on the run, backing nervously away as Damon stalked toward him, peppering him with sharp open-handed blows. "... my brother," she heard Damon muttering. "Insolent pup. You think you know anything, child, you think you want power?" With a sudden, violent movement, he grabbed Ethan's arm and jerked. Elena could hear the bone snap.

Stefan passed Elena, heading toward Meredith again, and paused for a moment. "Ethan was laying a trap for Damon," he told her dryly. "I don't know why I was worried.

Clearly, he didn't know what he was trying to catch." Elena nodded again, suppressing a grin. The idea of any brand-new vampire getting the better of Damon, with all his experience and cunning, seemed ridiculous.

Then the tide of the battle suddenly turned.

One of the vampires Meredith was fighting dodged her blow and, half bent over, flung itself at her, knocking the slender girl into the air. There was an endless moment where Meredith looked like she was flying, arms akimbo, and then she slammed headfirst into the heavy altarlike table at the front of the room.

The table wobbled and fell over with a heavy thud.

Meredith lay still , her eyes closed, unconscious. Elena ran to her and knelt down, cradling her head in her lap.

The three vampires Meredith had been fighting were worse for the wear. One had blood steadily streaming down his face, another was limping, and the last was doubled over as if something had been injured inside her, but they could still move fast. In an instant, they had surrounded Stefan.

As Damon growled and turned, shifting his stance to help his brother, Ethan saw his chance and launched himself at Damon. Faster than Elena's eye could follow, his teeth were gouging at Damon's throat, bright spurts of blood flying up. He had a knife in one hand and was trying to cut at Damon at the same time as he bit.

With a cry of pain and shock, Damon clawed at Ethan, trying to fling him away. Elena picked up her knife again and rushed toward them.

But two of the remaining vampires were on Damon in a split second, pulling his arms back. One caught Damon's midnight dark hair in his hand, yanking the older vampire's head back to expose his throat more fully to Ethan's teeth.

Off balance, Damon staggered backward and for a moment caught Elena's eye, his face soft with dismay.

Terrified, Elena grabbed at the back of one of the vampires, and it threw her to the floor without even looking at her. Stefan, meanwhile, was caught in a struggle with another vampire, desperate to get to his brother. Damon was a better and a more experienced warrior than any of the vampires attacking him. But if they pushed their momentary advantage, used their superior numbers, they might bring him down before he could recover.

She clutched her knife tighter and jumped to her feet again, knowing in her heart that she'd be too late to save him but that she needed to try.

A snarling blur shot past her, and Stefan, free of his adversary, slammed into Ethan, throwing him across the room, sending his knife flying. Without pausing, he ripped one of the other vampires from Damon's arm and snapped his neck. By the time the body hit the floor, Damon had neatly dispatched the other one.

The brothers, both panting, exchanged a long look that seemed to carry a lot of unspoken communication. Damon wiped a smear of crimson blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.

Suddenly an arm was around Elena's throat, and the knife was wrenched out of her hand. She was being dragged upward. Something sharp was poking her in the tender hollow at the bottom of her neck.

"I can kill her before you could even get over here," Ethan's voice said, too loud by her ear. Elena flailed an arm backward, trying to grab at his hair or face, and he kicked viciously at her legs, knocking her off-balance, and pulled her closer. "I could snap her neck with one arm. I could stab her with her own knife and let her bleed out. It would be fun." He was holding her knife, Elena realized, pressed against her throat. His other arm hung loose, and curiously bent. Damon had broken it, Elena remembered.

Stefan and Damon froze and then very slowly turned toward Elena and Ethan, both their faces shuttered and wary. Then Damon's broke into a rictus of rage.

"Let her go," he snarled. "We'd kill you the second she hit the ground."

Ethan laughed, a remarkably genuine laugh for someone in a life-or-death standoff. "She'll still be dead, though, so I think it might be worth it. You're not planning to let me leave here anyway, are you?" He turned to Stefan, his voice mocking. "You know, I heard all about the Salvatore brothers from some of Klaus's other descendants. They said you were aristocratic and beautiful and terribly hot tempered. That Stefan was moral, and that Damon was remorseless. But they also said that you were both fools for love, always for love. It's your fatal flaw. So, yeah, I think my chances are a lot better when I've got your girlfriend in my power. Whose girlfriend is she, actual y? I can't tell ." Elena flinched.

"Wait a second, Ethan." Stefan held out his hands placatingly. "Hold on. If you agree not to bring back Klaus and let Elena go safely, we'll give you whatever you want.

Get out of town, and we won't come after you. You'll be safe. If you know about us, you know we'll keep our word." Behind him, Damon nodded reluctantly, his eyes on Elena's face.

Ethan laughed again. "I don't think you have anything I want anymore, Stefan," he said. "The rest of the Vitale Society, including our newest initiates, will be coming back soon, and I think they'll tip the scales back in my favor." He tightened his arm around Elena's throat. "We've killed so many students on this campus. Surely one more won't be missed."

Damon hissed in rage and started forward, but Ethan called out, "Stop right there, or - "

Suddenly, he jerked, and Elena felt a sharp, stinging pain in her throat. She squeaked in horror and grabbed at her own neck. But it was only a scratch from the knife.

As Stefan and Damon stood helpless and furious, Ethan's arm loosened from around her throat. He made a hideous gurgling noise. Elena yanked away as soon as his grip weakened.

Blood was running in long thick rivulets from Ethan's torso, and his mouth opened in shock as he clutched at himself and slowly fell forward, a round hole in his chest filling with blood.

Behind him, Meredith stood, hair flying, her usually cool gray eyes burning like dark coals in her face. Her stave was coated in Ethan's blood.

"I got him in the heart," she said, her voice fierce.

"Thank you," Elena murmured politely. She was feeling... real y ... very peculiar, and it wasn't until she was actual y starting to fall that she thought, Oh no, I think I'm going to faint.

Blurrily, she saw both Damon and Stefan rushing forward to catch her, and when she came to a moment later, she was held tightly in two pairs of arms.

"I'm okay," she said. "It was just ... for a second, I was..." She felt one pair of arms pull her closer for a moment, and then they released her, shifting her weight over to the other set. When she looked up, Stefan was clutching her tightly to him. Damon stood a few feet away, his face unreadable.

"I knew you'd come to save me," Stefan said, holding Elena but looking at Damon.

Damon's lips twitched into a tiny, reluctant smile. "Of course I did, you idiot," he said gruffly. "I'm your brother." They looked at each other for a long moment, and then Damon's eyes flicked to Elena, still in Stefan's arms, and away. "Let's put out the torches and go," he said briskly.

"We've still got about fourteen vampires to find."

Chapter Forty-One

It seemed like he and Bonnie had been waiting forever in the tiny back office of the library, Matt thought. They had strained to catch a sound, to try and learn anything at all about what was happening down there. Bonnie paced, wringing her hands and biting her lips, and he leaned against the wall , head lowered, and kept a good grip on Samantha's stave. Just in case.

He knew about all the doors and passages and tunnels down there, many of which he had no idea where they led, but he didn't realize the soundproofing was so good. They hadn't heard a thing.

Then suddenly the trapdoor was pushing up, and Matt tensed, raising the stave, until he saw Elena's face.

Meredith, Elena, Stefan, and Damon climbed out, covered in blood, but basically fine, if the eager way Elena and Meredith were telling Bonnie what happened, their words tumbling over each other, was any indication.

"Ethan's dead," Stefan told Matt. "There were some other Vitales down there in the fight, but none of the pledges. He'd sent them out to hunt."

Matt felt sick and weirdly happy at the same time. He'd pictured them dead at Damon and Stefan's hands, Chloe, all his friends from pledging. But they weren't. Not dead, not real y. But transformed, vampires now.

"You're going to hunt them," he said, aiming his words at Stefan and Damon, and at Meredith, too. She nodded, her face resolved, and Damon looked away.

"We have to," Stefan told him. "You know that." Matt stared hard at his shoes. "Yeah," he said, "I know.

But, if you get a chance, maybe talk to some of them? If you can, if they're reasonable and no one's in danger? Maybe they could learn to live without killing people. If you showed them how, Stefan." He rubbed at the back of his neck.

"Chloe was ... special. And the other pledges, they were good people. They didn't know what they were getting into. They deserve a chance."

Everyone was silent, and, after a moment, Matt looked up to find Stefan regarding him, his eyes dark green with sympathy, his mouth pulled taut in lines of pain. "I'll do my best," he said kindly. "I can promise you that. But new vampires - vampires in general, real y - can be unpredictable. We might not be able to save any of them, and our priority has to be the innocent. We will try, though." Matt nodded. His mouth tasted sour and his eyes burned. He was beginning to realize just how tired he was.

"That's about the best I can expect," he said roughly. "Thank you."

"So there's a whole room full of dead vampires down there?" Bonnie asked, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

"Pretty much," said Elena. "We chained the doors closed again, but I wish we could close the chamber off more permanently. Someone's going to go down there eventually, and the last thing this campus needs is another murder investigation, or another gruesome legend."

"Ta-da!" Bonnie said, grinning brightly and pulling a little bag out of her pocket. "Finally something I can do." She held the bag up. "Remember all the hours Mrs. Flowers made me spend studying herbs? Well, I know spells for locking and warding, and I've got the herbs to use right here. I thought they might come in handy, as soon as Matt told us we were going to a secret underground chamber." She looked so pleased with herself that Matt had to smile a little despite the heaviness inside him at the thought of Chloe and the others somewhere out in the night. "They might not work for more than a day or two," she added modestly, "but they'll definitely discourage people from investigating the trapdoor for that long."

"You're a wonder, Bonnie," Elena said, and spontaneously hugged her.

Stefan nodded. "We can get rid of the bodies tomorrow," he said. "It's too close to dawn to do it now." Bonnie got right to work, sprinkling dried plants across the trapdoor. "Hyssop, Solomon's seal, and damiana leaves," she said when she saw Matt watching her. "They're for strengthening of locks, protection from evil, and general protection. Mrs. Flowers drilled me on this stuff so much I finally got them all down. It's too bad I didn't have her helping me with my homework in high school. Maybe I would have learned some of those French verbs." Damon was watching them, his eyes half hooded. "We should look for the new vampires, too," he said. "You know vampires aren't pack animals. They won't hunt together for long. Once they split up, we can pick them off," he told Stefan.

"I'm coming, too," Meredith said. She looked at Damon challengingly. "I'll just walk Matt home and then meet up with you both."

Damon smiled, a peculiarly warm smile that Matt had never seen him direct at Meredith before. "I was talking to you, too, hunter," he said. "You've gotten better." After a second, she smiled back, a humorous twist of her lips, and Matt thought he saw something that might be the beginnings of friendship flickering between them.

"So the Vitales were definitely behind all the murders and disappearances?" Matt asked Stefan, feeling sick.

How could he have spent so much time with Ethan and not suspected that he was a murderer?

Bonnie's face went so white that her few freckles showed like little dark dots on plain paper. And then her color came flooding back, her cheeks and ears turning a bright pink. She climbed unsteadily to her feet. "I should go see Zander," she said.

"Hey," Matt said, alarmed, and moved to block the door.

"There's still a whole bunch of vampires outside, Bonnie. Wait for somebody to walk you over."

"Not to mention that you have other commitments," Damon said dryly, looking meaningfully at the herbs scattered across the trapdoor. "After you work your witchy mojo, then you can go see your pet."

"We're sorry, Bonnie," Meredith said, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to another. "We should have trusted you to know a good guy when you saw one."

"Right! All is forgiven," Bonnie said brightly, and plopped down in front of the trapdoor again. "I just need to say the spell ." She ran her hands through the herbs. "Existo signum," she muttered. "Servo quis est intus." As she scooped some of the herbs back into her bag, Bonnie kept smiling, and stopping, and staring into space, and then bouncing a little. Matt smiled at her tiredly. Good for Bonnie. Someone ought to have a happy ending.

He felt a strong, thin hand take his and turned to see Meredith beside him. She smiled sympathetically at him.

Nearby, Elena laid her hand tentatively on Stefan's arm, and they both had their eyes on Bonnie. Damon stood still , watching them al with an almost fond expression.

Matt leaned against Meredith, comforted. No matter what happened, at least they were together. His true friends were with him; he had come home to them at last.

The sun was low in the east when Bonnie climbed up the fire escape, her feet clanging on each step. As she came over the side of the building, she saw Zander sitting with his back against the rough concrete wall at the edge of the roof. He turned to stare at her as she came toward him.

"Hi," she said. She'd been so excited to see him on her way over here, enough so that Elena and Meredith got over their guilt and started to laugh at her, but now she felt weird and uncomfortable, like her head was too big. It was, she realized, totally possible that he wouldn't want to talk to her.

After all , she'd accused him of being a murderer, which was a pretty big mistake for a girlfriend to make.

"Hi," he said slowly. There was a long pause, and then he patted the concrete next to him. "Want to sit down?" he asked. "I'm just watching the sky." He hesitated. "Full moon in a couple of days."

Mentioning the full moon felt like a challenge, and Bonnie settled next to him, then squeezed her hands together and jumped right in. "I'm sorry I called you a killer," she said. "I know now that I was wrong to accuse you of being responsible for the deaths on campus. I should have trusted you more. Please accept my apology," she finished in a little rush. "Because I miss you."

"I miss you, too," Zander said. "And I understand it was a shock."

"Seriously, though, Zander," Bonnie said, and shoved him a little with her hip. "You just tell me you're a werewolf?

Did you get bitten when you were a kid or something?

Because I know getting bitten is the only way to become a werewolf without killing someone. And, okay, I know you're not the killer now, but Meredith saw you with a girl who'd just been attacked. And ... and you had bruises, really bad bruises everywhere. I think I had every right to think something was hinky with you."

"Hinky?" Zander laughed a little, but there was an edge of sadness to it, Bonnie thought. "I guess it's kind of hinky, if you want to put it that way."

"Can you explain?" Bonnie asked.

"Okay, I'll try," Zander said thoughtful y. He reached down and took her hand, turning it over in his and playing with her fingers, pulling them lightly. "As you apparently know, most werewolves are created either by being bitten, or by having the werewolf virus in their family and activating it by killing someone in a special ritual. So, either a terrible attack, which usually screws the victim up, or a deliberate act of evil to grab the power of the wolf." He grimaced. "It kind of explains why werewolves have such a bad reputation. But there's another kind of werewolf." He glanced at Bonnie with a sort of shy pride. "I come from the Original pack of werewolves." Original. Bonnie's mind raced. Immortal, she thought, and remembered Klaus, who had never been a human. "So... you're real y old, then?" she asked hesitantly.

It was fine, she guessed, for Elena to date guys who had seen centuries go by. Romantic, even. Sort of.

Despite the crush she'd had on Damon, though, Bonnie always pictured dating someone close to her own age.

Even Meredith's cute, smart Alaric seemed kind of old to her, and he was only in his twenties.

Zander snorted with sudden laughter and squeezed her hand tight. "No!" he said. "I just turned twenty last month!

Werewolves aren't like that - we're alive. We live, we die.

We're like everybody else, we just..."

"Turn into superstrong, superfast wolves," Bonnie said tartly.

"Yeah, fine," Zander said. "Point taken. Anyway, the Original pack is like, the original family of werewolves. Most werewolves are infected by some kind of mystical virus. It can be passed down, but it's dormant. The Original pack is descended from the very first werewolves, the ones that were cavemen except during the full moon. It's in our genes.

We're different from regular werewolves. We can stop ourselves from changing if we need to. We can learn to change when the moon's not full , too, although it's difficult."

"If you can stop yourself from changing, do some of you stop being werewolves?" Bonnie asked.

Zander pulled her closer. "We would never stop being werewolves, even if we never changed at all . It's who we are. And it hurts to not change when the moon is full . It's like it sings to us, and the song gets louder and clearer the closer it gets to being full . We're aching to change by the time it happens."

"Wow," said Bonnie. Then her eyes widened. "So, all your friends are members of the Original pack, too? Like, you're all related?"

"Um," Zander said. "I guess. But the relationship can go back pretty far - it's not like we're all first cousins or anything."

"Weird," Bonnie said. "Okay, Original pack, got it." She snuggled her head comfortably against Zander's shoulder.

"Tel me the rest."

"Okay," Zander said again. He pushed his hair out of his eyes and wrapped one arm around Bonnie. It was getting a little cold sitting on the concrete, and she nestled gratefully against the warmth of his side. "So, Dalcrest is on what's sort of a hot spot for paranormal activity. There's these things called ley lines, see..."

"Already know it," Bonnie said briskly. "Go on with your part."

Zander stared at her. "O ... kay," he said slowly.

"Anyway, the High Wolf Council sends some of us to Dalcrest every year as students. So that we can monitor any dangers. We're kind of like watchdogs, I guess. The original watchdogs."

Bonnie snorted. "The High Wolf Council." Zander poked her in the ribs.

"Shut up, it's not funny," he said. "They're very important." Bonnie giggled again, and he elbowed her gently. "So, with all the disappearances and attacks, things have been bad on campus this year," he continued, sobering. "Much worse than they usually are. We've been investigating. A pack of vampires in a secret society on campus is behind it, and we've been fighting them off and protecting people when we can. But we're not as strong as they are, except at the full moon, even if we change. And so the bruises. And your friend seeing me guarding a girl who'd just been attacked."

"Don't worry. We took care of the Vitale Society tonight," Bonnie said smugly. "Well, the leader at least, and some of the others," she amended. "There's still a bunch of vampires on campus, but we'll get rid of them." Zander turned and stared at her for a long moment before he spoke. "I think," he said at last in a carefully neutral voice, "that it's your turn to explain." Bonnie wasn't actually that great at properly organized, logical explanations, but she did her best, going back and forth in time, adding side notes and remembering things as she went along. She told him about Stefan and Damon, and how everything had changed when the vampire brothers came to Fell's Church last year and Elena fell in love with them. She told him about Meredith's sacred duty as a vampire hunter, and she told him about her own psychic visions and her training as a witch.

She left a lot of stuff out - everything about the Dark Dimension, and Elena's bargain with the Guardians, for instance, because that was really confusing, and maybe she should tell him about it later so he didn't just overload -

but the telling still took a long time.

"Huh," Zander said when she was finished, and then he laughed.

"What?" Bonnie asked.

"You're a weird girl," Zander said. "Pretty heroic, though."

Bonnie pushed her face into his neck, happily breathing in the essential Zander smell of him: fabric softener, worn cotton, and clean guy.

"You're weird," she said, and then, admiringly, "and the real hero. You've been fighting off vampire attacks for weeks and weeks, to protect everybody."

"We're quite a pair," Zander said.

"Yeah," Bonnie said. She sat up and faced him, then reached out and ran her hand through his soft pale hair, pulling his head closer to her. "Still ," she said, just before their lips touched, "normal is overrated."

Chapter Forty-Two

Elena, Stefan, and Damon headed toward Elena's dorm together, and tension thrummed sharply between them.

Elena had taken Stefan's hand automatically as they walked, and he had stiffened and then gradually relaxed, so that now his hand felt natural in hers.

Things weren't back the way they had been between them, not yet. But Stefan's green eyes were full of a shy affection when they looked at her, and Elena knew she could make things right. Something had shifted in Stefan when Damon came to rescue him, when Elena untied him and told him how sorry she was. Maybe Stefan just needed to know that whatever was between her and Damon, he was first for her. No one was shutting him out.

Elena unlocked her door, and they all went inside. It had been only a few hours since she was last there, but so much had happened that it seemed like somewhere from a long time ago, the posters and clothes and Bonnie's teddy bear all relics of a lost civilization.

"Oh, Stefan," Elena said, "I'm so glad that you're safe." She reached out and wrapped her arms around him and, just like when she took his hand, he tensed for a moment before hugging her back.

"I'm glad that both of you are safe," she amended, and looked at Damon. His black eyes met hers coolly, and she knew that, without their having to discuss it, he understood that things weren't going to go on the way they had been.

She loved Stefan. She had chosen.

When Stefan told them of Ethan's plan to take both of the brothers' blood and use it to resurrect Klaus, she was horrified. Not just because of the danger Stefan had been in, or because of the terrifying idea of Klaus alive again, and no doubt vengeful against them, but because of the trap Ethan had laid for Damon. He had planned to take the best of Damon - the reluctant, often marred, but still strong love he had for his brother - and use it to destroy him.

"I'm eternal y glad you're both okay," she said again, and reached out to hug Damon, too.

Damon came into her arms willingly, but, as she squeezed him tightly, he winced.

"What's wrong?" Elena asked, puzzled, and Damon frowned.

"Ethan cut me," he said, the frown turning into a grimace of pain. "I'm just a little sore." He tugged at his shirt, fingering a torn edge, and pulled it up, exposing a swath of pale taut skin. Against the white skin Elena saw the long cut was already healing.

"It's nothing," Damon said. He shot Elena a wicked smile. "A little drink from a willing donor and I'll be as good as new, I promise."

She shook her head at him reprovingly, but didn't answer.

"Good night, Elena," Stefan said, and brushed her cheek gently with the back of his hand. "Good morning, really, I guess, but try to get some sleep."

"Are you going after the vampires?" she asked anxiously. "Be careful." Damon laughed.

"I'll make sure he takes care with the nasty vampires," he said. "Poor Elena. Normal life isn't going so Well, is it?" Elena sighed. That was the problem, wasn't it? Damon would never understand why she wanted to be an ordinary person. He thought of her as his dark princess, wanted her to be like him, to be better than ordinary people. Stefan didn't think she was a dark princess; he thought she was a human being.

But was she? She thought briefly of telling them about the Guardians and the secrets of her birth, but she just couldn't. Not right now. Not yet. Damon wouldn't know why it upset her. And Stefan was so pale and tired after his ordeal with the vervain-soaked ropes that she couldn't bring herself to burden him with her fears about the Guardians.

As she thought this, Stefan staggered, just a fraction, and Damon reached out automatically to steady him.

"Thank you," Stefan said, "For coming to save me. Both of you."

"I'll always save you, little brother," Damon said, but he was looking at Elena, and she heard the echo of when he had said the same words to her. "Even though I might be better off without you," Damon added.

Stefan gave a tired smile. "Time to go," he said.

"I love you, Stefan." Elena brushed her lips against his softly.

Damon gave her a brief nod, his face neutral. "Sleep Well," he said.

Then the door was closed behind her, and Elena was alone. Her bed had never looked more comfortable or inviting, and she lay down with a sigh, looking up at the soft light that was beginning to break through the window.

The Vitale Society was gone. Ethan's plan had been stopped. The campus was safer, and a new day was dawning. Stefan had forgiven her, and Damon didn't leave, didn't turn against them.

It was, for now, the best she could hope for. Elena closed her eyes and fell willingly asleep at last. Tomorrow would be another day.

Epilogue

Ethan gasped, sucking in a long breath of air, and coughed his way awake, his whole body shaking.

Everything hurt.

Gingerly, he patted himself down, finding that he was sticky with half-dried blood, covered with a score of small injuries. Reaching up, he felt the already healing indentation in his back with delicate fingers. The stave the girl had thrust into him had brushed his heart, but it hadn't pierced it.

A half centimeter to one side, and he would have been dead. Really dead, this time, not undead.

Grabbing hold of a velvet-covered chair with one hand, Ethan pulled himself to his feet and looked around. His lieutenants in the Vitale Society, his friends, lay dead on the floor. The Salvatore brothers, and the girls who were with them, had escaped.

Nervously, he felt in one pocket and sighed in relief as his hand closed on a small vial. Pulling it out, he looked at the thick red liquid within. Stefan Salvatore's blood. He fished in the same pocket and drew out a cloth bearing a long reddish-brown stain. Damon Salvatore's blood.

He had what he needed.

Klaus would rise again.