The Vampire Diaries #12: Unspoken (The Salvation #2)

Unspoken

Author: L.J. Smith

Category: Fantasy , Young Adult

Series: The Vampire Diaries: The Salvation

Unspoken (The Vampire Diaries: The Salvation #2)

An epic battle looms - one that will not only determine Elena's own fate, but that of her entire world.

Since her true love Stefan was staked through the heart, everything has changed for Elena.

Stefan was hunted down by a scientist who has created a new race of genetically-engineered vampires to take over the paranormal world.

Intent on eliminating all the natural vampires left on earth, Damon is the scientist's next target.

It's a race against time to find the kryptonite of these strange creatures, before they hurt everyone Elena loves.


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Chapter 1

Meredith desperately struggled against the metal restraints binding her arms and legs to the operating table. She closed her eyes, straining her muscles, adrenaline surging through her, but the restraints wouldn’t budge.

“Please,” she begged, hot tears running down her cheeks.

Jack ignored her pleas, focusing intently on her neck as he slowly slid a hypodermic needle beneath her skin.

“Almost done,” he said, depressing the plunger. Meredith’s neck was too numb to feel the needle, but the injection burned as it spread through her veins. She gasped and tried once more to rip her arm away from her captor.

Jack’s eyes were on hers as she writhed. The same warm hazel eyes as they’d been when Meredith had thought of him as a mentor, as one of the best hunters she’d ever met. Before she knew Jack was a vampire. Before he had murdered Stefan.

Before she’d known he was changing her.

“I don’t want to be a vampire,” she whispered, her voice shaking. Her eyes blurred with tears. Meredith thought of Cristian, the vampire brother she’d had to kill, of the generations of her family whose life mission had been to destroy the supernatural race. She couldn’t become one of the enemy, not after everything she’d been through.

A brief smile crossed Jack’s face, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “It’s done.”

Meredith ached everywhere. She began to shake her head slowly, back and forth, as her breath came in ragged, anxious spurts. “I’ll kill myself,” she said desperately.

Jack grinned more widely. “Go ahead and try,” he said. “I’ve perfected the treatments. We’re unkillable.”

With a fresh flare of panic, Meredith again slammed her arms and legs against the restraints. The heavy, numb feeling was fading, and metal bit sharply into her wrists. In a burst of effort, she snapped the metal bands and was free. Meredith tumbled off the operating table and, still shaky on her feet, hit the floor hard.

On her hands and knees, she scrabbled for the door, expecting Jack to hoist her back onto the table at any moment. But Jack didn’t make a move toward her, just watched as she struggled. She could hear herself breathing, a harsh, desperate panting, as she pulled herself across the floor. She just needed to get out.

She made it to the door and pulled herself up, hanging onto the knob.

“You’ll be back,” Jack said, his voice an eerie calm.

Wrenching the door open, Meredith burst through and ran as fast as she could, stumbling through the hall. It was long and fluorescent-lit, the floors dark gray tile like those of a hospital or a school. She listened for Jack’s footsteps in the hall behind her, but there was only his laughter, bubbling maniacally, from the room she had left behind.

“You’ll be back,” he called again. “You won’t be able to help it.”

Not letting herself think of anything but escape, Meredith looked around frantically. Double doors at the end of the hall led toward a stairway, and she pushed through, her feet slapping at the concrete stairs, heading down and—she hoped—out.

The stairs seemed to go on forever. Finally, she burst through another set of double doors and onto the sidewalk. She paused for a moment, gasping for breath as she gazed around. Office buildings stretched behind her. She had no idea where she was. It was still dark out, but the sky was beginning to lighten toward gray.

Everything in her was screaming, get away, her heart still hammering in panic. What if Jack’s fierce, invulnerable vampires were nearby? Meredith pressed her back against the cold brick wall of the building behind her, trying to conceal herself in the darkness, and looked around cautiously. No one.

She sucked in a deep breath, trying to calm her pounding heart. There’d be no sense in running at random. She clenched her fists and deliberately relaxed, forcing the tension out of her body. She was steadier on her feet now, her arms and legs tingling as the numbness wore off. There was no one in sight. To her left, Meredith heard the sound of cars racing past on a highway. She headed in that direction, ready to find her way home.

Dawn was breaking as Meredith opened the door to her apartment and walked quietly through the entryway, dropping her keys on the table. I’m all right now, she told herself. Jack had said she was a vampire, but Meredith didn’t feel any different. Maybe the treatment didn’t take.

She took a deep breath as she glanced around her familiar bedroom. Early morning light was beginning to come through the curtained windows, and everything seemed comfortingly ordinary. Her law books were lined up on the shelf across from the bed, her and Alaric’s wedding picture stood on top of her bureau. Without even bothering to take off her clothes, Meredith pulled back the cool sheets and slipped into bed. Next to her, Alaric muttered something in his sleep and burrowed deeper into the pillows.

She was safe. Everything was terrible: Stefan was dead, Jack was a vampire, but the worst hadn’t happened. I’m fine, she told herself.

Experimentally, she ran a finger across her teeth. Normal. No extra-sharp canines. Her hands were warm, her heart was beating at a quick, human rate. She was fine. Her body must have fought off whatever Jack had tried to do.

She shifted closer to Alaric, then frowned. There was something in her jeans pocket. She reached inside, and her fingers closed around a thin cardboard rectangle. A business card. Meredith squinted as she pulled it out and held it up to catch the dim morning light. Printed on the card was an infinity symbol in black type and a company name: Lifetime Solutions. Below that, handwritten in black ink, a phone number.

Jack had been pretty sure of himself, she thought angrily. She tightened her fingers around the card, crumpling it a little, before shoving it into the drawer of her bedside table. She didn’t ever want to see Jack again.

According to her clock, it wasn’t even five A.M. yet. Meredith took another deep breath and closed her eyes, trying to relax into sleep, trying to forget Jack’s face as he slid the final needle into her arm.

Her bed was soft, and the sheets smelled faintly of detergent. There was another smell, too. Something… salty. Slightly metallic. Meredith frowned a little, trying to identify it.

Gradually, she became aware of a sound as well. All around her came a slow, regular rushing that reminded her of the ocean, a deep, slow thudding beneath the steady sound of the surf. Breathing in time with the sounds, Meredith sank deeper into almost-sleep.

Something kept tugging at the edges of her attention, though, sharpening her appetite. Without conscious intent, she licked her lips. That salty, metallic smell… there was something about it more delicious than the roasted chicken her mother made, sweeter than fresh-baked apple pie. So familiar, somehow, and yet she couldn’t quite place it.

Meredith’s mouth was watering hungrily when something suddenly shifted in her jaw. In surprise, her hands flew to her mouth.

Her jaw moved again. Tentatively, she touched her lips. They were so sensitive, she winced at the pain-pleasure when her careful fingers met her teeth. More cautiously, she touched again.

Her canines were long and sharp. Fangs.

The rushing, thudding sound, the smell of salt and something else—copper—was almost overwhelming. With each thud, her stomach ached and her teeth ached.

It was Alaric. She was hearing Alaric’s heart beating. She was smelling Alaric’s blood.

Horrified, Meredith scrambled out of bed. She stared down at Alaric below her, so peaceful and oblivious.

Jack had done it. He’d turned her into a vampire.

And she was famished.

Chapter 2

Dear Diary,

I’ve lost everything. I’ve lost myself.

I don’t know who I am without Stefan.

For days now, I haven’t been able to write in here. I felt like, if I wrote down everything that’s happened, it would make it real.

But it is real, whether I write it down or not.

Stefan is dead.

Elena pulled her hands away from her laptop as if it had burned her, then pressed her fingers tightly against her mouth. Stefan was dead. Her eyes filled with hot tears, and she roughly wiped them away. All she’d done lately was cry, and it wasn’t making anything better.

It seems like the earth should have stopped turning. If Stefan is dead, the sun shouldn’t rise in the morning. But time passes and every day, there’s a new day. Except it means nothing to me, because Stefan is still dead.

We all trusted Jack. He and Stefan hunted side by side, tracking down one of the Old ones, Solomon. But while we were all celebrating Solomon’s defeat, feeling happy and safe at last, Jack plunged his stave through Stefan’s heart. Jack killed him.

Elena stopped typing again and rested her head in her hands, remembering. Stefan’s eyes had met Elena’s, and he’d given her a soft smile. She’d known that they were both thinking the same thing: Now that the Old Ones are gone, our real life together can begin.

It had all happened so fast. Elena had seen that something was wrong, but before she could shout a warning, Jack had thrust his stave through Stefan’s heart. She’d been too late.

The smile had faded from Stefan’s face as his eyes widened. For just a moment, he’d looked innocently surprised, and then Stefan had simply gone blank. His eyes—those leaf-green eyes that had looked at her with such love—lost focus. His body crumpled to the floor, but Stefan was already gone.

It was true that Jack was hunting the Old Ones, just as we were. But he didn’t want to make the world safer. Jack had created a new kind of vampire through drugs and surgeries instead of blood and magic. The vampires Jack made are terrifying: immune to sunlight and vervain and, according to Damon, impossible to kill by any of the usual methods.

Jack didn’t want any competition for his lab-created race of vampires. So he set out to eliminate the most dangerous vampires, the oldest ones. Not just the ancient Old Ones, but also the clever, long-lived vampires who have lasted a few centuries. Vampires like Katherine and Damon. Like Stefan.

Jack used us all—my Guardian Power, Stefan and Meredith’s fighting ability, Bonnie’s magic—as weapons against Solomon. The Old One was too well hidden for Jack to find on his own. But once Solomon was dead, Stefan was just another obstacle in Jack’s way.

We don’t know where Jack is now, or what he’s planning next. The hunters who traveled with him—Trinity, Darlene, and Alex—were as fooled by him as we were. They’ve left town, trying to track Jack. But they haven’t got a clue where he might be.

Elena swallowed hard and wiped her eyes again with the sleeve of her bathrobe.

Meredith and Damon don’t think Jack’s really gone at all. A few days ago, Meredith fought one of his strange synthetic vampires. The vampire escaped, and Meredith barely survived. Is Jack continuing his experiments here in Dalcrest?

I should care. I should want vengeance. But instead, I’m numb.

Without Stefan, it’s like I’m dead, too.

A key rattled in the lock of the front door, and Elena looked up from her computer screen to see Damon coming in. The cold apartment warmed a bit, as if the sleek, dark-haired vampire had brought some of the late summer breeze into the air-conditioned room. He seemed to get smaller as he came in, though, hunching his shoulders. Through the bond between them, Elena sensed his wistful ache at finding himself once again surrounded by Stefan’s possessions, resenting the reminder that his brother was gone.

“You’ve been feeding,” she commented, looking at the near-human flush of his cheeks.

“If you want to call it that.” Damon curled his lip in disgust. “Stefan’s animal diet is utterly vile, just as I always suspected.”

Elena flinched, and Damon glanced up, his face falling. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know I shouldn’t—” She could see her own pain at the mention of Stefan reflected in his eyes.

“It’s okay,” she said, shaking her head hard. “You should be able to say his name, he’s your brother. I just—” Tears were rising up in her eyes again, and she willed them back. She needed to stop crying.

Damon took her hand, his fingers cool and smooth. “I promise you that Jack will pay,” he said quietly, his eyes as dark as night. “Whatever it takes.”

A wave of panic hit Elena, knocking the breath out of her, and she clutched Damon’s hand between hers. “No,” she said. “Damon, you have to be careful. Even if it means letting Jack go.”

Damon stiffened, his dark eyes fixed on hers. “We promised each other we would take vengeance on Jack,” he said firmly. “We owe it to Stefan.”

Elena shook her head. “I can’t lose you, too.” She hated the weak waver in her voice, but she straightened her shoulders and looked at Damon levelly, her face resolute. Sometimes it felt like Damon’s presence was the thin barrier between her and madness. Damon was the only one who understood, who’d really loved Stefan as deeply as she had.

Every night, she heard Damon’s soft footfalls pacing through the apartment, living room to kitchen to hall, hesitating sometimes outside her bedroom but never coming in, even when she yearned for his comfort. Guarding her as he wandered, and also pacing out the slow beats of his own sorrow, unable to settle. The thought of Damon falling like Stefan had, his handsome face suddenly blank and still, made Elena’s heart pound frantically. “Please, Damon,” she begged.

His eyes softening, Damon sighed and brushed a finger gently over her knuckles, then pulled his hand back quickly, his jaw tightening. “I won’t do anything foolish. Remember, I’m good at taking care of myself.”

Elena started to nod gratefully, then paused as she thought through what he’d said. He hadn’t promised to stay out of danger, not really. “You can’t kill anyone,” she reminded him stubbornly. “The Guardians told you, if you kill anyone, I’ll die. So there’s not much point in looking for revenge.”

Damon smiled without humor, his features sharp. “Vampires aren’t human,” he said. “I can kill Jack, and I will.”

Elena let go of his hand. Damon would never stop hunting Jack.

Damon would die on this hunt, she was sure of it. And then Elena would truly have nothing.

Chapter 3

Damon paced across Elena’s living room, glaring at the afternoon sunlight stretching through the windows and across the floor. When he’d woken from his restless sleep an hour earlier, the apartment had already been empty.

Brushing his fingers across his chest absently, he let Elena’s emotions thrum through the bond between them. Nothing had changed; he still felt the same sharp, angry grief that had brought him back to Dalcrest, that had let him know his brother was dead. But nothing new. Wherever Elena had gone, she wasn’t in danger.

He ached to be out hunting Jack, to find him and tear him apart. Rage burned under his skin—how dare anyone touch his little brother. Even when he and Stefan had hated each other, no one else had been allowed to hurt him.

But for now, Damon was keeping a low profile, guarding Elena, waiting for the right time.

Meredith had tried laying down the law to him after Stefan’s funeral. “As far as Jack knows, you’re still in Europe,” she’d said. “We need to keep it that way. You might be the best weapon we’ve got.”

Every line of the gray-eyed hunter’s body had been tense with irritation at having to ask Damon for something; and under other circumstances, this would have amused him. Meredith had no right to tell him what to do, and he had no reason to do what she asked.

But then Elena, with a desperate pleading look in her eyes, had said, “Please, Damon. I can’t lose you, too.” And Damon had agreed to do whatever she wanted.

He sighed and sat down on the couch, glancing around. He was beginning to loathe this room, pretty as it was, with its heavy antique furniture and art on the walls. It was decorated to Stefan’s taste: dark, traditional, cozy. Stefan’s taste, Stefan’s possessions, Stefan’s Elena.

On the table beside the couch lay a thick notebook bound in brown leather: Jack’s journal, the record of the series of experiments he had done to create his new race of vampires. Damon had found it when he’d infiltrated Jack’s company in Switzerland.

Near the end was a list of vampires Jack had destroyed—and a list of those he still planned to hunt down. Damon picked up the journal and turned to the long column of names. Many were vampires Damon had known over the years, their names scratched through. Near the bottom of the page, three names, not yet crossed out: Katherine von Swartzchild. Damon Salvatore. Stefan Salvatore.

Damon traced the names lightly with his finger, remembering how Katherine’s face had paled as her life ebbed away. He felt again the sudden spike of anguished horror from Elena that had told him Stefan was dead. At least Damon had stolen the book before Jack had the opportunity to cross out their names.

Clenching his jaw, he flipped forward through its pages again. If he couldn’t just go out and hunt Jack down—yet—he could still look for clues on how to defeat him.

But there was nothing new written here. He’d gone through it dozens of times. After a few minutes, he groaned softly and closed his eyes, bringing a hand up to rub his temples.

There was plenty about the weaknesses of Jack’s creations, true. But the journal was a record of how Jack had overcome those flaws. Sunlight, fire, decapitation, stake to the heart: As far as Damon could tell, there was no way to kill these manmade vampires.

It was hopeless. Maybe Damon should give up, do what Elena wanted and hide.

No. His eyes snapped open and he gritted his teeth. He was Damon Salvatore. No mad scientist was going to defeat him.

He snapped the book closed. Any true danger to these manufactured vampires would have to be something Jack hadn’t thought of.

Almost unwillingly, Damon let his gaze travel to the heavy mahogany cabinet against the wall. Stefan’s talismans sat on top of it, a collection of objects from his long life. Coins, a stone cup, a watch. An apricot hair ribbon of Elena’s, acquired before Stefan had even really known her, before Damon had known her at all. What would have been different, Damon wondered, if he had been the one to meet Elena first?

Damon stood and went slowly over to the cabinet, where he touched the things lightly: iron box, golden coins, ivory dagger, silken ribbon.

Damon didn’t hang on to things the way Stefan had. He never saw the point of keeping objects he’d outgrown, dragging his past around the world with him.


Stefan had carried their past for him, he realized. The thought gave him a hollow feeling in his chest. With Stefan and Katherine both dead, there was no one left now who remembered Damon when he had been alive.

He drew one finger along the blade of the ivory-handled dagger and pulled his hand back with a hiss. Stefan had kept it sharp, although it had probably been centuries since he’d used it.

Their father had carried this dagger for years, Damon remembered, hanging in a sheath at his belt. A beautiful object, its fine glossy hilt curving above a well-cut, and useful, blade. He had given it to Stefan for his fifteenth birthday.

“Every gentleman should wear one,” Giuseppe Salvatore had said, grasping his younger son’s shoulder affectionately. “Not for aggression or fighting in the streets like a peasant—” Damon had felt his father’s sidelong gaze light upon him, and hadn’t that been as pointed as the dagger itself? “—but in case you need it. This blade is forged of the finest steel. It’s served me well.”

Stefan’s green eyes had shone as he looked up at their father. “Thank you, Father,” he’d said. “I’ll treasure it.”

Lounging elegantly beside them, left out of the moment between his father and little brother, Damon had touched his own quite beautiful bone-handled dagger, and his mouth had suddenly filled with bitterness.

He blinked the memory away. He’d wasted a lot of time resenting Stefan, his sweet-faced tagalong of a baby brother.

He was wasting time now. Damon’s slow heart thumped hard, the hollow ache in his chest increasing. His earnest, loving, irritating little brother was gone. Murdered. And Damon was cowering in the shadows? His face twisted in disgust. He could imagine what their father would have said about that.

In one smooth motion, he scooped up the dagger and headed for the door. He would keep his promise to Elena; he would be careful. But he wasn’t going to hide, not anymore. Damon was a Salvatore—the last of the Salvatores, now—and that meant he wasn’t afraid of anything.

It was time to take control of the fight. And the first thing he needed to do was to figure out where Jack might be hiding.

The river lapped gently against the small stones on its bank, sunlight glinting off its ripples. Elena instinctively moved deeper into the shade of one of the moss-covered trees by the riverside.

The rectangle of earth that marked Stefan’s grave still stood out clearly. There hadn’t been time yet for the soil to harden, for the grass to grow over it and erase where they’d blanketed Stefan with dirt.

It hadn’t been long at all since Stefan had been alive.

A wave of anguish washed over Elena, and she dropped to her knees by the graveside. Reaching out, she placed a gentle hand on the recently turned earth.

She wanted to say something, to tell him how much she missed him, but when she opened her mouth, all that came out was his name. “Stefan,” she said miserably, her voice catching in her throat. “Oh, Stefan.”

Just a couple of weeks ago, they’d been together. Not long before that, he had surprised her with the key to her old home—he’d bought the house that she’d grown up in from her Aunt Judith. “We’re going to go everywhere,” he’d told her, his hands strong and steady around hers. “But we’ll always have this to come home to.”

It turned out always lasted less than a week after that. They hadn’t even had time to visit the house together. Elena dug her fingers deep into the dirt, trying not to think about Stefan’s body six feet below.

“Elena?”

Bonnie came forward from the trees. Elena pulled her hands away from Stefan’s grave. It seemed too intimate a gesture to let anyone see it, even Bonnie. “Thank you for coming,” she said quietly, rising to her feet.

“Of course.” Bonnie’s brown eyes were huge and anxious. She stepped forward and pulled Elena into a hug. “How are you doing? We’ve been—Zander and I wanted to know if there was any way we could help you.”

“Actually, I think there is,” Elena told her. She took Bonnie’s hand in her own and led her over to Stefan’s grave.

“I keep expecting him to show up,” Bonnie admitted, her eyes fixed on the grave. “It’s hard to believe he’s gone, y’know?”

No, Elena didn’t know. From the moment she woke up in the morning until she finally tossed and turned her way into a restless sleep, she couldn’t forget that Stefan was gone. His absence even followed her into her dreams. She didn’t say that, though, just moved a little closer to Bonnie, as if she could shelter in her friend’s warmth.

“Remember how you talked to me after I died?” Elena asked, squeezing Bonnie’s hand in hers.

Tearing her eyes away from the ground, Bonnie looked back up at Elena. “Oh, Elena, I don’t think—”

“You managed to bring Stefan to see me,” Elena went on doggedly, holding tight to her friend’s arm.

Bonnie tried to pull away. “But you weren’t supposed to be dead! Klaus had you in some kind of halfway place—you were a prisoner, not dead-dead.” She hesitated, and then asked in a low voice, “And do you remember how the Guardians said vampires just… end?”

“It’s worth a try, though, isn’t it?” Elena said quickly. “Guardians don’t know everything, we’ve proved that before. If you could help me to see him, Bonnie…” She was holding on to Bonnie too tightly, she realized, and forced her hands to relax. “Please,” she added quietly.

Bonnie chewed her lip. Elena could feel the moment when she gave in, her shoulders slumping. “I don’t want you to be hurt any more than you already are,” Bonnie said quietly.

“We have to try,” Elena insisted.

Bonnie hesitated, then finally nodded. “Okay.” She narrowed her eyes thoughtfully and stepped toward the river, pulling Elena along with her. “When I did it for Stefan, I went into a trance and made contact with you, then brought him in. But I think maybe we’ll have to try something different.”

Their feet crunched over the rocky sand as Bonnie pulled Elena with her to the very edge of the river. Water lapped against their sneakers, soaking through the fabric and chilling Elena’s toes.

“I want you to let me use your Power,” Bonnie said, squeezing Elena’s hand. “It’ll help me search for Stefan. When I communicated with you, you came to me first, so I knew how to find you. I imagine he’ll be hard to find.”

“Of course,” Elena said.

She held tightly to Bonnie’s hand and tried to channel her own Power into her friend. Taking a deep, slow breath, Elena forced herself to relax until, out of the corners of her eyes, she began to see her own golden aura. It was dulled with gray patches of grief, but still stretched wide around her, entwining with the rose-pink of Bonnie’s aura.

Bonnie took a deep breath of her own and fixed her eyes on the patterns of the sunlight reflecting off the water. “Just as good as a candle for focusing,” she said absently. Elena watched as Bonnie’s small face became intent, her pupils as wide as a cat’s. Elena closed her own eyes.

Darkness. But ahead of her, a glimmer of rose and gold. Bonnie’s aura entwined with her own, leading her on. Bonnie’s small figure, very straight and determined, walked swiftly into the distance.

Elena hurried after her, her chest tight with excitement. She would see Stefan again. She could tell him how hard it was without him, every day, and he would hold her in his arms and comfort her. It would be like coming home.

They walked on into the darkness, the light of their auras surrounding them both. But then, slowly, the glow of their entwined auras began to fade. Elena called out, but her voice stuck in her throat. Where was Bonnie? Elena tried to run after her, but her friend grew smaller and smaller, finally disappearing from view.

Elena stopped, half-sobbing.

“Stefan!” she called. Her voice echoed back to her. “Stefan!”

She was alone in the darkness.

Elena’s eyes fluttered open. She was standing on the riverbank, her toes chilled by the lapping waves. Bonnie blinked up at her, her face pale and wet with tears.

“I’m so sorry, Elena,” she said. “I couldn’t find him. He’s not anywhere we can reach.”

Elena leaned into her friend, letting Bonnie’s arms circle her shoulders, and sobbed.

Bonnie felt terrible. As she toed off her damp sneakers in the entryway of her and Zander’s apartment, she sniffled experimentally. Maybe spending the afternoon at the river had given her a cold. That would be an easy explanation for the rotten, hollow sensation in her chest.

But, no, if Bonnie was honest with herself, she had to admit the feeling was guilt. The first thing Elena had asked her for since Stefan had died—the only thing Elena had asked anybody for at all—and Bonnie couldn’t do it.

Remembering Elena’s strained smile when she thanked her for trying, Bonnie almost tripped over Zander’s mud-caked work boots, catching herself with a hand against the wall. Now, the end of summer, was the time when his landscaping business planted shrubs and trees, and every day he came home absolutely filthy.

That was what Bonnie needed. Zander. He’d pull her into his arms, smelling of grass and sunshine, and tell that it was okay, that she’d done the best she could.

She heard Zander’s voice and followed his low tones to the kitchen. As she turned the corner from the hallway, she stopped for a moment to simply look at him. He was standing with his back to her, all long lean muscles and tanned skin, his moonlight-blond hair curling at the nape of his neck, still damp with sweat. They’d been together for years now, but the sight of him still sometimes made her want to melt into a puddle on the floor.

“I know,” he said sharply into the phone. “I’m not changing my mind.”

“Hey,” she whispered, stepping forward and lightly brushing her fingers across his back. Zander jumped.

“Bonnie’s here,” he said tightly, turning around to face her. “I have to go. I’ll call you later.” He clicked the phone off.

“Who was that?” Bonnie asked, leaning forward for a kiss. Zander’s lips met hers, warm and soft. When he pulled away, though, he avoided her eyes.

“No one important,” he said. “You want pizza for dinner? Jared told me the secret of that crust he makes. Cornmeal.”

“Sounds good,” Bonnie said, but she couldn’t help frowning. “Are you okay?”

Zander looked at her then, and his face split into a smile, his sky-blue eyes crinkling at the corners. “Never better,” he said.

“Okay.” Bonnie smiled back tentatively. Zander’s gaze had skidded away from hers again, and his shoulders were stiff.

She pushed away the tickle of worry at the back of her mind. They’d all been tense since Stefan’s death. There was nothing more to it than that.

Thinking of Stefan, Bonnie sighed, and Zander turned back toward her, instantly alert. “What’s up?” he asked, his face full of concern.

“I tried to contact Stefan today so Elena could say good-bye. But I couldn’t find him.”

“Oh, Bonnie,” he said. And just as she’d known he would, he put an arm around her shoulders. Bonnie automatically snuggled into it, taking comfort in his strength. “She knows you did everything you could,” Zander went on reassuringly. “There’s nothing you wouldn’t do for her.”

But Elena had looked so broken, Bonnie thought. Nothing like the proud girl Bonnie had known since they were kids. Elena loved Stefan with everything she had, and now she was left with nothing.

Bonnie shivered and cuddled against Zander. “I love you,” she told him. Without a word, Zander pulled her even closer.

Chapter 4

The sun was just beginning to sink behind Dalcrest’s science lab, sending long golden rays across the college’s lawns. On the branch of a maple tree overhanging the path, a large crow stretched out its glossy blue-black wings. Its gaze was fixed intently on the side entrance to the lab.

Damon shifted his talons along the branch, then smoothed an errant feather with his beak. He’d been searching Dalcrest all day, in both crow and human form.

Assuming that Jack was using medical facilities to get the supplies he needed to create his monstrosities, there were a limited number of possible locations in town. There had been no sign of Jack at the busy hospital or the quieter medical practices, most closed for the weekend. So now Damon was at campus, staking out the Dalcrest science lab. It was a long shot, he figured, that Jack would still be this close to where he was last seen, but he had to try. Stefan was dead, and all Damon could think of right now was finding the monster who’d killed him.

The campus was deserted; it was the time of year when the summer students had finally gone home and the professors hadn’t yet begun to prepare for their fall classes. But now a stocky, dark-haired man was coming out of the science lab, and Damon straightened on his branch. The man, who was wearing a pack on his back and carrying a large box, fit the description he’d gotten of Jack—right coloring, build, age—although probably a hundred other humans in Dalcrest would fit the same description. Clicking his beak thoughtfully, Damon sent out a tendril of Power to see if he could find anything that suggested the man was other than human.

Was there the tiniest shift in his aura? These vampires had learned to shield themselves, to appear human so as not to alert their prey. But here he would think he was alone, no one watching him but a bird in a tree. Now that Damon was concentrating his attention fully on this man, there seemed to be something not quite natural, something wrong shimmering through his protective mask. Damon spread his wings wide. Got you now, he thought, rather smugly, as he fluttered quietly down onto the path behind the man, shifting to his own form as he landed.

Damon’s perfectly polished black boots hit the path without a sound, but Jack whipped around immediately. Definitely a vampire.

“Hello,” Damon said, giving a blindingly bright smile. Jack’s face twitched in confusion, and Damon attacked, knocking him to the ground and sending the box flying out of Jack’s hands. “We haven’t met,” he growled, pinning Jack’s shoulders hard against the path. “But I hear you’ve been looking for me.”

Fangs extending, Damon tore at the other vampire’s throat. There had to be some way to kill him. If there was one thing Damon knew for certain, it was that every being, natural or supernatural, had a weakness. You just had to know how to find it.

Maybe if he could get Jack’s head off fast enough that the other vampire couldn’t heal… Blood filled his mouth, acidic and chemical, and Damon spat it to the side, grimacing. With a grunt of effort, Jack managed to flip Damon off, and they were both on their feet in an instant, circling each other. Jack fumbled at his side and pulled a stake from his pocket.

Damon wasn’t worried. He had a weapon of his own. Eyeing Jack, he drew Stefan’s ivory-handled dagger—his dagger, now—and held it guardedly, his arms spread. The dagger was poised to strike in his right hand, his left hand open and ready to grapple with his opponent. Usually he preferred to rely on his own hands and teeth in a fight, but using Stefan’s dagger seemed fitting. The lessons of dagger fighting he’d learned centuries earlier all came back to him now.

Watching Jack carefully, Damon waited for an opening. He was pretty sure he could take the false vampire. The vampires who had hunted Damon, who had killed Katherine, had been strong and fast, but no faster or stronger than Damon and Katherine. The problem had been that there were too many of them, and that they didn’t stay dead. Jack by himself should be easy.

Damon feinted to the left. Jack flinched, and Damon moved in on the right, slashing a deep cut along Jack’s stomach. Jack growled, a low, animal sound, and thrust his stake toward Damon’s heart. He missed, and it sank into Damon’s shoulder instead, tearing a gaping wound in his flesh.

Sucking in a shocked breath, Damon stumbled for a second before he caught himself. Jack quickly stabbed him again with the stake, this time in the side. Twisting, Damon slashed down, cutting a long bloody stripe along Jack’s leg. They grappled hand-to-hand for a moment, both breathing hard, then shoved apart, coming to a halt a few feet from each other.

“Damon Salvatore,” Jack said, smiling as if they were friends. “You’re the clever brother, aren’t you? Not like Stefan.”

Damon suppressed the hot flare of rage that rose up at his brother’s name. It wouldn’t do him any good to get angry now. He had to keep cool if he was going to defeat Jack. He was stronger than Damon had thought he would be, stronger than the other manmade vampires Damon had fought. A trickle of blood ran down Damon’s side, and he realized his shirt was soaked with it. Blood was pulsing from the wounds the stake had left in him even as his flesh began to try to knit itself together.

Jack’s clothes were ruined, too, but Damon saw that beneath the slashed fabric his skin was already whole again. He healed as fast as his minions had.

Damon leaped at Jack, moving before the other vampire could prepare, and sank his fangs into one side of Jack’s throat. Not delicately, as he did while feeding, but with a rough, tearing bite. He worked his teeth against one side of Jack’s throat as he brought his dagger up to stab repeatedly at the other, ripping the dagger from side to side. If he could do enough damage…

But there was more resistance than there should be to his bite and the dagger’s thrust. Jack’s skin was thicker and stronger than a human’s—or even an ordinary vampire’s. Damon shook with a sudden shock as Jack sank the stake into him again, through the back this time. The tip grated painfully on one of Damon’s ribs. He ripped more fiercely at Jack’s throat, but Jack’s next blow knocked the wind out of him.

Letting go of Jack, Damon staggered backward. He wiped at his mouth with the back of one hand and realized blood—his own blood—was running down his chin. He coughed and choked again.

Jack must have nicked Damon’s lung. He needed time to heal before he could fight again; he needed to feed.

“Huh. Maybe not the clever brother after all,” Jack said. The wounds on his neck had already closed, Damon saw with dismay.

Damon backed up a few steps, keeping his eyes on Jack, who moved closer. A bubble of blood rose in Damon’s throat and he spat, staining the path with a blossom of bright red. There was a wall behind him, he realized. Jack was blocking him in.

Jack swung the pack off his back and reached inside, pulling something out. Something metal, with a grip and a nozzle—

A flamethrower? Damon drew on his last reserves of strength and leaped to one side, the flames so close he felt them scorch his jeans.

“Thoughtful of you to come right to me,” Jack said, aiming the flamethrower again. “I assumed you were still in Paris.”

Damon gathered his last vestiges of energy to dodge again. Like a rat in a trap, he thought dimly. He tried to tense for another leap, but his body gave out and he staggered to the side, his legs collapsing underneath him. Black spots danced before his eyes. His mouth was full of blood.

Jack gripped the nozzle of the flamethrower in both hands and lifted it up, taking aim—and then, suddenly, flew backward. Like a rag doll shot by a slingshot, he sailed through the air, hitting the side of the building behind him with a satisfying crunch. He slid into the grass, a limp, broken form.

Damon blinked in dazed shock. After a moment, he thought to look behind him.

Over the top of the hill behind the science building, Elena appeared, her face coldly ferocious, her Guardian Powers clearly in full force. “My hero,” Damon muttered wryly, and his knees buckled.

Damon blinked back to full consciousness and found himself lying propped up against the trunk of a tree, Elena’s arms around him. She smelled sweet and her skin was soft; Damon let himself luxuriate in lying next to her for a moment before he licked the blood away from his lips and coughed.

“Are you all right?” Elena asked as he tried to sit up.

“Not particularly,” Damon said weakly, and patted along his chest. The wounds were only half-closed, and he was still bleeding. He couldn’t breathe properly. “Where’s Jack?”

“He got away while I was helping you,” Elena admitted.

“Next time, then.” Damon coughed again, wincing.

“What were you thinking, Damon?” In contrast to her stern words, her hands stroking his hair were gentle, and her face was creased with concern. “You promised to be careful, and then you go chasing after Jack.”

Damon squinted up at her. “I had my reasons,” he said. He couldn’t talk about how hard it was to do nothing when Stefan was dead. Anyway, Elena knew. She could feel it through their connection; he didn’t have the strength to hide his thoughts from her right now.

“We’ll talk later,” Elena said. “First, we need to get you back on your feet.” Damon coughed again, and her eyes widened at the spatter of blood that came from his mouth. “You need to feed,” she said instantly, pulling her hair aside. “Here.”

She smelled so good, the blood pulsing beneath her skin less than an inch from his lips. Damon recalled clearly how sweet and rich Elena’s blood had always been—the best he’d ever tasted, something special. He could imagine gulping it down, feeling it heal his wounds and fill him with warmth and Power.

Still, he hesitated. She was his brother’s, bound to Stefan now by death even more securely than in life. It would be different to drink her blood now, feeling her grief over Stefan. “Are you sure?” he murmured.

Elena nodded, her face white and strained, but determined. “I’m sure,” she said, and pulled him closer.

Damon couldn’t resist any longer. I’m sorry, little brother. He slipped his canines beneath Elena’s skin as gently as he could and teased them lightly back and forth, encouraging the flow of her blood into his mouth. Those first swallows were warm and sweet, as heady as wine, filling him with life. He could feel the blood streaming down his throat as he gulped, quenching his thirst and hunger, helping to heal his injuries. The stab wound in his back closed, and the pain disappeared. Elena was sharing her Power with him, and he would be strong again soon.

His mind brushed hers, and he had such a strong feeling of Elena, stronger even than came through their bond. He wanted to dive into her, curl up in her essence. There was grief there, and passion—and, abruptly, an overwhelming sense from Elena of off limits. Damon pulled back as if he’d been burned. He tried to shut his own mind off, to give her some privacy. It was like pressing your body against another person’s, but both averting your eyes.

Still, images and emotions came through their bond. Frustration. Worry. Fear. And a deep, painful sense of loss. A picture of Stefan’s ivory-handled dagger, clutched in Damon’s bloodstained hand, came to him from Elena, and he winced. The dagger belonged to her as much as it did to Damon.

I had to take it, he told her silently.

I know, came back to him immediately, and with it a wave of sorrow and of love. She was torn apart inside, but she was there. He still had her. Damon drank deeply, letting Elena’s blood, Elena’s sorrow, Elena’s love, fill him once again.

Chapter 5

“But is Damon okay?” Alaric asked, his fork suspended halfway to his mouth.

“Damon’s always all right,” Meredith said swiftly. That wasn’t quite true, of course—Damon had died once—but there was so much going on at the steakhouse Alaric had brought her to that she couldn’t concentrate on their conversation. Alaric had thought it would be nice for them to have a real date night, but Meredith wasn’t sure she was going to be able to cope with the crowd.

The waitress set down their sides—potato, creamed spinach, salad—and Meredith flinched. It was one of her favorite meals, but it smelled terrible, cloying, like sweet-rotting vegetation. The waitress herself, though, smelled delicious, warm and salty and ripe. Meredith averted her eyes and took a tiny sip of ice water. She was always thirsty these days, but if she drank too much water, it made her sick. It wasn’t what her body wanted.

She took a deep breath and concentrated. I am stronger than this, she told herself. She hadn’t fed, not even from an animal. If she drank blood, the vampire inside her would get the upper hand, defeat the real Meredith. Tears prickled at the corners of her eyes, and she took another sip of water. The vampire would never be the real her. There had to be a way to fix this.

Behind her, plates clattered and Meredith jumped. She could hear twenty different conversations, all overlapping one another—why don’t you think it’s a good idea, I’d better call the sitter and let her know, the client isn’t always right, you know what I mean, I don’t think she’s as hot as she thinks she is, we’d been trying and trying, did you see the preview for, not potatoes, rice, well, why did you come, then—on and on, and it was making it really hard to concentrate. There was a sudden, raucous burst of laughter from the table in the corner, and Meredith flinched again. If this was how vampires experienced the world, she didn’t know how they ever managed to focus.

And the smells. Half of them were sickening—the food, someone’s overly floral perfume, the harsh cleanser they’d used on the carpet—but the warm, living smell of the other diners was tantalizing.

It was way too bright in here. Meredith pressed a hand to her temple.

“Are you okay?” Alaric asked, his golden-brown eyes warm with concern. “I thought this would take our minds off everything that’s been going on.”

Determinedly, Meredith yanked her attention away from a disturbing medical conversation three tables away. “I’m great,” she answered, forcing a smile. “You’re right, this is a nice night away from it all.”

She couldn’t tell him. Every time she tried to open her mouth and confide in Alaric, the one person she loved most in the world, it felt like a rough hand was squeezing her lungs, leaving her breathless and silent. He’d stood by her through so much. She was a hunter, with all the danger that entailed. She’d had to kill her own brother, and it had scarred her, made her angry and silent for a while. Law school ate up so much of her time and energy. She was uptight and hard to please. They had survived all that, but this—this was different. She was going to fix this, somehow. He would never have to know.

Alaric smiled. “Try your steak,” he suggested. “Rare enough for you?”

Hesitantly, she picked up her fork and knife and cut into it. She did like her steaks rare, she always had. It was red and juicy inside, almost bloody. She was so hungry. And Alaric was watching her, his forehead furrowing into a frown of concern. Meredith cut off a piece of meat and put it into her mouth.

Bile rose in her throat, and Meredith stifled a gag. It was foul, like she’d bitten into something rotten. Pretending to wipe her lips, Meredith spat the bite into her napkin and smiled half-heartedly at Alaric. Her mouth felt coated in rot, and she tried to discreetly scrape her tongue against her teeth.

She’d seen Damon eat human food at least a hundred times. Not very much, but he’d seemed to enjoy it. Even if she was different now, why couldn’t she eat?

Meredith straightened her shoulders, reminding herself that she was strong. She could fight this. If science could cause her to feel this way, then science must be able to fix her.

She had gone back to where Jack had operated on her, but he’d been gone, the operating room just another bland office in a medical center. She hadn’t dared to try the phone number and address on the business card he had given her.

Alaric was saying something, gesturing happily with one hand as he talked, eating more of his own steak. Meredith blinked at him and tried to smile and nod. She couldn’t hear him properly, his voice drowned out by the millions of noises all around them and the welter of scents filling her nose.

Alaric’s smell in particular, warm and fresh. She could hear his heart again, pounding steadily in her ears, her own heart speeding to match it. Her canines slowly began to lengthen, and Meredith clamped her mouth shut. She couldn’t stop staring at the side of his throat, at the tendon and vein there. She imagined leaping across the table and sinking her fangs into him. She could almost feel how satisfying it would be for Alaric’s flesh to rip beneath her teeth.

Meredith swallowed hard and closed her eyes. I have to fix this, she thought desperately.

The ball slid neatly into the pins, knocking them all down in a perfect strike. “Wooo!” Jasmine whooped. “I am the champion!” Her long dark curls flew out around her as she spun, arms raised in a victory pose.

“Yes, you’re completely awesome,” Matt said, rolling his eyes. “I’m still winning, though.”

“How can that be possible?” Jasmine said with mock surprise, looking up at the scoreboard over the lane. “Are you cheating?”

Matt laughed. “How could I be cheating?” he asked. “I roll the ball, the ball knocks down the pins, the computer counts how many I knocked down. I’ve gotten five strikes and you’ve gotten one. Don’t be a sore loser.”

Jasmine raised an eyebrow at him. “Everyone you know is magic. Bonnie or Elena would spell a scoreboard for you any time.”

“I repeat. Sore. Loser,” Matt said, smiling at her, admiring the flush of her cheeks and her wide, bright eyes. Her curls flew loose and wild around her shoulders, and Matt just wanted to bury his face in them, breathe in the mint-and-citrus scent of her shampoo.

Instead, he stepped closer and brushed his hand against hers. It occurred to him suddenly that, despite every terrible thing that had happened lately, he was happy. He couldn’t help feeling guilty. Stefan had been his friend, his comrade-in-arms, and now he was dead.

What kept him from feeling guiltier, though, was that Stefan would have wanted him to be happy. Stefan had approved of Jasmine. “A very nice girl,” Stefan had called her once, raising a glass and giving Matt that faint, privately amused smile he saved for his more human moments.

And wasn’t it Matt’s turn to find love, finally? He’d spent so long hopelessly infatuated with Elena, and then he’d fallen for poor, doomed Chloe.

After the bleakness of Chloe’s death, Jasmine had been like a gift: funny, smart, and beautiful. And she loved Matt back.

A month ago, he’d had to let her know about the true darkness beneath the logical, serene place that had always been her reality. His worst fear had come true: Jasmine had run away from him.

But she had come back. Because she loved him, and because she wanted to help fight that darkness. Now she was able to joke about the supernatural craziness that suffused his life, and he felt closer to her than ever.

The crash of bowling pins in the next lane brought Matt out of his thoughts and he smiled at Jasmine, brushing a long curl away from her face.

“I love you,” he told her, his eyes steady on hers.

Jasmine’s face brightened with pleasure, and she reached up to catch his hand, her warm fingers entwining with his. “I love you, too,” she said. “I’m all in now. No more secrets.” She looked determined, her mouth firmly set. She meant it.

Jasmine’s ball rattled in the ball return, and Matt slid an arm around her waist as she reached for it. “I’ll share one secret now,” he said, dropping a kiss on the back of her neck. “The secret of my athletic skill. Let me show you my moves, lady.” He slid his hand down to hers to help support the ball and moved in closer.

“Oldest line in the book,” Jasmine said, leaning back against him, smirking, her serious tone abandoned. Her hair was soft against his cheek. “Go ahead, show me everything.”

Chapter 6

“Meredith, call me,” Elena said. She clicked off the phone, dropping it onto the passenger seat beside her. It had been a couple of days since she’d been able to reach Meredith. Of course her friend was busy—between law school and patrolling for vampires, she was always busy—but she usually kept in close contact with Elena. They worked together, Elena thought, and it was bewildering to have Meredith drop out of touch.

Elena’s palm itched suddenly, and she rubbed it against the steering wheel as she drove.

Without warning, a cool chill, like a trickle of cold water, ran down her back. Elena jerked, automatically pressing down on the gas pedal. There was someone following her, she was certain. Her eyes flicked up to the rearview mirror.

A dark SUV crept up closely behind her. She couldn’t make out the driver’s face.

Elena let her eyes shift, using her Guardian Power to search for nearby auras, and blinked in surprise. The aura of whoever was driving was pure white, spreading out around the SUV in a great cloud of light. Beautiful, really, but not human. Not vampire or werewolf either.

And it was aggravatingly familiar. No wonder the figure-eight-shaped scar on her hand had itched—the cut Mylea had given her was probably some sort of homing device. It would be like the Guardians to mark Elena in a way that made her easy to track.

Elena pulled over onto the shoulder and turned off the engine. Climbing out of the car, she felt her heart beat faster at the sight of the tall woman with smooth blond hair.

Mylea herself stepped out of the SUV, the Celestial Guardian who had initiated Elena into her own Guardianship, and who had bound her and Damon together.

Celestial Guardians were not her favorite people, not by a long shot. Self-righteous, judgmental, and dangerous were about the right words for them. But they were also Powerful. If Mylea had come here about Jack and his vampires, she could give Elena Power that would help her defeat them. Elena would be able to take revenge for Stefan. She could protect Damon.

Elena took a deep breath and walked toward the Guardian, roadside gravel crunching beneath her feet.

“Elena Gilbert,” the tall, golden-haired Guardian said levelly as soon as they were face-to-face. Her eyes, the same dark blue as Elena’s own, were cool and assessing. “The Celestial Court requires your service. It is time for your next Task.”

“We’ve been looking for Jack Daltry,” Elena told her. “He killed Stefan, and countless others, and we don’t know where he’s hiding. Can you help us?”

Mylea’s forehead creased slightly, a small line appearing between her perfectly arched brows. “That is not why I’ve come. Jack Daltry is not your concern,” she said.

“Not my concern?” Outrage flooded over Elena, and she clenched her fists involuntarily. Biting back her anger, she tried to speak as calmly as Mylea did. “He killed Stefan. That makes him my concern.”

Mylea’s frown deepened. “It is not your place to avenge the death of vampires,” she said. “Your duty is to protect the human race from the supernatural, not the other way around.”

“I know!” Elena’s voice was almost a shout, and she took a deep breath and forced her fists to unclench. Emotion would do nothing to influence Mylea. “But Jack is a danger to humans,” she argued, more calmly. “He’s been changing them into vampires. And he feeds on humans, just like any other vampire.”

Celestial Guardians didn’t shrug, in Elena’s experience—it was too human a gesture—but the tilt of Mylea’s head as she listened gave the same impression: What Elena was saying might be true, but it was irrelevant. “Everything in the universe balances eventually, but Jack Daltry and his creations are not your responsibility,” she said. “They are not supernatural.”

“They’re vampires,” Elena said, losing her grip on her temper again.

“They are an imitation of true vampires, created by a human,” Mylea said sternly.

Elena gritted her teeth and glared at the Celestial Guardian. “I had forgotten how fixated Guardians are on technicalities.”

Mylea ignored this. “You have other duties,” she said.

She took Elena’s hand—her own hand was cold, as cold as any vampire’s, Elena realized—and turned it palm upward. Elena’s scar was itching more than ever and shimmering silver against the pale skin of her palm. Mylea ran a finger across it, and Elena shuddered. Her anger was ebbing under Mylea’s touch, she realized, and wondered if Mylea was using her own Power to calm Elena. She yanked her hand out of the Guardian’s grip.

“You swore a blood oath,” Mylea said, her gold-flecked blue eyes fixed on Elena’s, “to obey the Celestial Court’s instructions.”

“I know.” Elena sighed, resigned. There was no use in fighting Mylea. This was what she was made for, to protect people. It didn’t mean she couldn’t concentrate on finding Jack as well. “Tell me what you want.”

“An old vampire has come to this part of the world. She’s been feeding on humans and killing them,” Mylea said. “We’ve known of her for a long time, but she’s only gotten more dangerous the older she gets. She kills for pleasure now, not just for food, and she needs to be stopped. Her name is Siobhan.” She abruptly fell silent, and Elena’s palm immediately stopped itching.

Elena waited a moment, but Mylea seemed to be finished. “That’s it? You can’t tell me anything else?”

Mylea tilted her head again. “What would you like to know?”

“Anything. Where she is? What she looks like?”

Turning to walk back toward her car, Mylea spoke back over her shoulder. “You’ll have the Power to find her and to defeat her when you need to. Have faith in yourself.” When she reached her SUV, she glanced at Elena again. “One thing I will tell you. Siobhan is very clever, and, unlike most of the Old Ones you have hunted, the long years of her life have not driven the more passionate human emotions out of her.”

Elena straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin defiantly. “I’m still going to hunt Jack.”

“It’s not necessary, but we know you will pursue your own way,” Mylea said calmly. “Your attention should, however, be elsewhere. Use caution, Elena. Remember who you are.”

Mylea swung the door of her SUV open. As she stepped into the car, there was a bright flash of white light and Elena closed her eyes against it automatically. When she opened them again a second later, the SUV, and Mylea with it, were gone. The side of the highway was empty. A breeze, chilly with the first signs of autumn, lifted Elena’s hair, and she shivered, rubbing absently at her scar.

Chapter 7

Damon slipped from shadow to shadow, from alleyway to darkened doorway. The main street of Dalcrest was almost deserted this time of night—occasionally a car’s headlights swept quickly across the fronts of the closed shops and restaurants, and one or two late wanderers hurried down the sidewalks. But he made sure the few people he encountered did not see him.

Stealth was one of his best talents, Damon thought with a small private smile as he lingered in the shadows of a storefront awning, his back pressed against the building’s cold brick. Thanks to Elena’s blood, he’d recovered from the beating he’d taken at Jack’s hands the day before, and he felt strong and fierce.

He ran his tongue across his lips, remembering. Elena’s blood had tasted so sweet. She’d shielded herself against him, but no matter—she was filled with tenderness for Damon, he had felt it through their bond, mixed with her grief and love for Stefan.

Stefan. Damon winced, gritting his teeth. Jack had to pay. He was going to be clever about it this time, though, he told himself sternly. No leaping into action without getting a full picture of the situation. He would have to be patient. Not, unfortunately, one of his best talents.

Damon narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. He was following just a trace of wrongness, something he’d sensed that felt slightly off—similar to what he’d sensed from Jack. His nose wrinkled. There was something acidic about the almost-human scent. Like a drop of something sour in a glass of water.

It was one of Jack’s synthetic vampires, he was almost sure, hunting a human. The creature was about two blocks away. He let it cross another street before he pushed off the building to follow, melting into the night. If he could catch the vampire, he could learn more about what Jack was up to and where he was hiding. Maybe he could even figure out how to kill them.

Hurrying down the street, Damon kept his senses pinned on the figures ahead. The synthetic vampire was too loud and yet hesitant. It was a girl, he realized, listening to the weight of her feet pattering along behind the human, sometimes fast and close as if she was getting ready to pounce, sometimes slowing as if she was almost ready to let her victim go. Inexperienced, Damon thought. Frightened. Jack must have made this one recently.

He stretched out his Power, listening, trying to sense the minds of the vampire and victim. There it was again, that flash of something almost human, but just slightly off. This one wasn’t as good at hiding it yet as Jack was, more evidence that the vampire was freshly made.

The footsteps suddenly stopped, and Damon heard a cut-off shriek. There was a surge of fear—the human—and he quickened his pace. A feeding vampire would be distracted and easier to catch.

The fear in the air drew him toward a deserted parking lot behind a Mexican restaurant. The restaurant was closed for the night, but Damon could still smell the tacos and enchiladas as he rounded the corner of the building. And, overpoweringly, the scent of blood. Damon licked his lips, his canines automatically lengthening. His mouth was watering, and he wanted.

But he couldn’t drink. He couldn’t take an unwilling human, not without hurting Elena. He would never hurt her.

The synthetic vampire and her victim were almost concealed by a wide-spreading tree at the edge of the parking lot. The victim, a young woman, was struggling feebly, whimpering.

Silently, Damon slipped closer to the entangled figures. Balancing on the balls of his feet, he was ready to leap, to take the young false vampire down. Closer… closer still…

He crouched to spring, and then froze. Something familiar about the scent. And the way the vampire moved, smooth as a predator, her long dark hair pulled back at the nape of her neck. Shock ran through him like lightning as his mind caught up with his senses, and he was frozen for a moment.

Then he dashed forward and pulled the vampire off her victim with one hand. “Meredith?”

Meredith Sulez—vampire hunter, always composed, always contemptuous of Damon, even when they fought side by side—swung around to face him. He couldn’t stop staring, trying to make some sense of what he was seeing. Meredith’s thick black eyelashes were wet with tears and bright blood was smeared across her mouth and down her chin.

She gave a quick, broken sob, her eyes dropping as her face colored with shame. “Damon,” she said, pleading. “Damon, I didn’t mean to. I’ve kept myself from feeding for so long, and I just couldn’t stop this time. I don’t want to kill her. I can’t—I can’t let her go like this—”

He swallowed and pushed away his shock. Meredith was clinging tightly to her victim, who seemed close to unconscious, her head sagging on Meredith’s shoulder. Of course she couldn’t influence the girl to make her forget: Jack’s vampires had no magic or Power, they were creatures of science.

“Please,” Meredith begged, bringing her desperate gaze up to meet Damon’s. She was biting her lip nervously, and a thin trail of her own blood trickled down her chin.

Slipping a cool mask over his surprise—When did this happen? How could I not have known?—Damon heaved a theatrical sigh and tugged the human out of Meredith’s arms. “Wake up,” he said, and shook her gently. The girl’s head bobbled from side to side, her short hair sweeping forward across her cheeks. Meredith had really made a mess of her victim’s neck—it was raw and ripped, blood still streaming out. Damon wrinkled his nose fastidiously. “Come on, now.” He shook her again, until she blinked blearily up at him.

Efficiently, Damon bit his own wrist and pressed it against the girl’s lips. He forced her to drink a few swallows, enough to make the bites on her throat begin to heal. “That’s enough.” Without waiting for an answer, he stroked his Power along her mind, pushing for obedience. “You won’t remember what happened. You were out late, and you fell, that’s how you hurt your neck. Everything’s fine. Go home.”

The girl stared at him blankly and dragged her tongue across her dry lips. “I have to go home,” she muttered. “I was out too late.”

“Good girl,” Damon said, setting her on her feet and straightening her top. It was a pity about the bloodstains, but there was nothing he could do. “Go on.”

The girl nodded and staggered off through the parking lot. Damon watched her go and then turned his attention to Meredith.

She was staring at him, her eyes wide and horrified, her chest heaving with panicky panting breaths. Damon could feel warmth radiating off her, and her heart was pounding hard. If Damon hadn’t known better—if he hadn’t seen her long, sharp canines and sensed that little bit of wrongness under her false aura, he would have thought Meredith was still human.

“So…” he said, enjoying her distress just a little bit, now that his shock had faded. “What’s new with you?”

Meredith gulped unhappily. “I was just so hungry,” she said, her voice strained.

Damon shrugged, keeping his expression bland. “You don’t need to explain to me, hunter,” he said. “How long since Jack changed you?”

Meredith rubbed at her face, trying to wipe away the blood and only smearing it across her cheek. “A week,” she said, her eyes downcast. It felt odd, seeing Meredith so humbled. “He was working on me before that, taking me in the middle of the night. I thought I was dreaming. I couldn’t see his face.”

Damon nodded. “Does anyone else know?” he asked. It wouldn’t be the first time that they’d kept him out of the loop, but he couldn’t believe Elena had known. He would have sensed her shock through the bond between them, and he’d felt nothing but her constant, aching grief.

Eyes widening in horror, Meredith grabbed the front of his shirt, pulling him close to her. “You can’t tell them,” she said fiercely. “No one else can know. I’m going to find some way to reverse it.”

Damon unwrapped Meredith’s fingers from his shirt. With a little thrill, he realized that Meredith’s predicament could be good. He could use this. “Fine,” he told her. “I won’t breathe a word. But there’s something I want you to do.”

Meredith’s eyes narrowed. It was admirable, Damon thought, how she could go from a quivering wreck to sharply suspicious, pulling herself together in an instant. “What do you want, Damon?”

“Don’t worry,” he assured her with a bitter laugh. “It won’t hurt. Probably.” She flinched, and he sighed, feeling guilty. “I want you to connect with Jack,” he went on, in a softer tone. “He made you for a reason. Surely he must want you to work with him.”

Meredith’s mouth opened in an automatic denial, and then she stopped. “You want me to spy on him for you,” she said thoughtfully.

“If we’re going to hunt him, hunter, we need eyes on the inside,” Damon told her. “So, yes, I want you to spy. Where he’s hiding, how many of… you there are, what he’s planning. How to kill him. You said once that I might be the best weapon we had, but I think you are.”

Meredith’s face was still streaked with blood and tears, but she wasn’t crying anymore. Her eyes, no longer full of shame, were speculative as she thought through the nuances of Damon’s idea. She’d always been practical, this hunter, Damon thought, and was surprised by a flare of affection. Meredith wasn’t his friend, but he did respect her, which was more than he could say for most humans—or vampires.

The corners of the hunter’s mouth went up in a smile—a small one, but a real one. “A secret weapon? That I can do.”

A weapon, Damon thought. He finally had a weapon against Jack. No, not a weapon, he corrected himself, as Meredith looked up at him and smiled in grim determination. An ally.

Chapter 8

Elena knew she was dreaming. She’d had this dream before.

The apartment stretched out before her, shadowed and deserted. “Stefan?” she called uneasily. Her voice sounded small in her own ears.

As she walked down the endless hall in search of Stefan, the lights snapped off behind her, one after the other, leaving pools of darkness. At the end of the hall, the bedroom door was closed. A tendril of worry curled inside her. There was something wrong, something about Stefan, but she couldn’t quite remember what it was.

“Stefan?” She already knew what would be behind the door—a dark, empty room, the bedroom curtains billowing in the breeze from the open windows. No Stefan. No one anywhere, just loneliness and silence. Full of dread, she slowly lifted one hand to twist the knob.

This time, though, everything changed.

Instead of her familiar bedroom, the door opened to reveal a room she had never seen before.

Inside, a fire burned in a large stone fireplace, throwing flickering shadows across the log walls. It was warm and cozy, but the woman sitting on the couch looked as cold as ice.

She was wearing a long white dress, and her dark hair hung past her shoulders. Her blue eyes were looking straight at Elena. Elena’s heart pounded in terror, and yet, there was something that wouldn’t let her leave. But the woman didn’t move. Blue eyes gazed straight through Elena and off into the distance.

Of course, Elena realized, she wasn’t really there. This was a dream, and the woman couldn’t see her.

No longer afraid to stare, she looked the woman over. She was young, maybe in her twenties, and beautiful in an unusual way. Skin so pale Elena could see the blue veins running underneath, and oddly tilted, large, light blue eyes. The woman’s hair spilled in an inky cloud over her shoulders. Her eyebrows arched dramatically dark against that pale skin. Her lips were red.

Snow White, Elena thought, remembering the fairy tale she had read to her little sister Margaret not too long ago. The Queen said, I wish I had a child with skin as white as this cold snow, and hair as black as this ebony needle, and lips as red as my hot blood.

As soon as she thought the word “blood,” there was an uncomfortable itch at the back of Elena’s mind.

Elena focused her Power, intent on seeing the woman’s aura. As her Guardian vision slotted into place, she had to grab at the doorframe, holding on so hard that the edges of the door cut into her hand.

The woman’s aura was the bright red of fresh blood, and it spread far, half-filling the room. Elena had never seen an aura so large and vivid, and it reeked of Power and violence. Vampire. A real one, not one of Jack’s creations.

Just then, those pale, tilted eyes shifted and met Elena’s. And the woman’s bloodred lips curled into a smile.

Elena sat up with a jolt, gasping in surprise. She was lying in her own big—too big, too empty—bed. Her mattress was soft, her pillows plumped up under her head. Words were completely clear in her mind, as if she had just spoken them. Get up now. Without stopping to think, she climbed out of bed and padded across the floor to the window.

The moon was full and sailing high over the apartment buildings on the other side of the street. Beyond them, Elena could see the bloodred path of an aura hanging in the air, leading farther into town.

Siobhan. It must be. Already, she could feel the insistent pull of her Guardian Powers. She had to find Siobhan and kill her, before anyone else died. No time to waste. If she lost the trail of Siobhan’s aura, it might take weeks before she found it again. Weeks when the vampire could be murdering innocent people. Hurrying, Elena slipped her feet into sandals and ran out the door of her apartment.

She had pounded down the stairs and out the front door of her building before she realized she was still dressed in her long lacy white nightgown. It didn’t matter, she decided. She would just scope out Siobhan’s situation, find the room from her dream—a cabin, it looked like—and drive away. She would come back later, with Damon.

At the thought of Damon, something inside Elena twisted. When he had held her in his arms and slipped his fangs into her throat, it had felt so right, like a homecoming. She couldn’t betray Stefan, not now. But she had always cared for Damon. Stefan had known that.

Driving her little Mini Cooper through the mostly empty roads of Dalcrest, Elena kept glancing up, following the smoky red tendrils of Siobhan’s aura. She expected them to lead straight through town and off into the hills nearby, places you might find a cozy cabin like the one Elena had dreamed of. But instead the trail led to the drive-in movie theater at the edge of town.

Elena had never been there, but she had heard about it—it had just opened earlier that summer, playing old movies to lure in families and the student crowd. The marquee outside read:

DOUBLE MIDNIGHT FEATURE

DRACULA

SON OF DRACULA

Ironic, Elena thought. It seemed like Siobhan had a sense of humor.

An old black-and-white film flickered on a huge screen, just visible over the top of the fence. Elena pulled up to the gate, and a white-haired man came out of his little booth to take her money. “First movie’s almost over,” he said genially. “Half price, sweetheart.”

Elena thanked him and pulled the car into the lot below the big screen. There were only about twenty cars there. As she parked, she saw Siobhan’s aura trace across the lot to a big old boat of a black car parked near the back.

Siobhan was leaning against the car.

In a moment, everything in Elena went on alert. She slammed open the door of her car, fumbling off her seat-belt, her gaze fixed on Siobhan. The vampire was tall and elegant lounging there, her long black hair cascading down her shoulders just as in Elena’s dream. As Elena watched, she wiped her mouth daintily with the back of one pale hand and raised her other hand in greeting, fanning her fingers at Elena in a ta-ta gesture.

Elena’s feet hit the asphalt, and the doors of her Power flew open. She felt something burst from her, a huge silent wave of Power crashing toward Siobhan, ready to drag the vampire under.

But it was too late. By the time Elena reached the car, the vampire was gone, moving so fast that Elena saw only a blur. Power from Elena hit the side of the black car, and its back panel crumpled, denting in with the sharp sound of bending metal.

Elena dashed toward the blur, her long white nightgown blowing against her legs. Maybe there was still time. The lot was full, but no one else had seen, their eyes fixed on the movie.

Above her on the screen, Mina Harker was saying, “I felt its breath on my face and then my lips.…” and then gasped. There was no sign of Siobhan anywhere. The trail of her aura had vanished.

Elena turned back to the car. Two figures were silhouetted in the front seat, leaning together. As Elena got closer, she could see long dark hair, the girl’s face pressed close against the neck of the guy. It almost looked like another feeding vampire, but they were too still. Maybe they were just unconscious, but dread pooled in Elena’s stomach.

She reached for the passenger door of the car and yanked it open.

When the door opened, the couple slumped sideways like rag dolls, any illusion of life disappearing. The girl’s arm flopped limply over the seat onto the floor of the car. Her neck was destroyed. The guy’s cheek rested upon hers and he gazed vacantly past Elena, his eyes empty. Tentatively, Elena reached out and touched the guy’s neck, then felt the girl’s wrist for a pulse. They were both dead, but their skin was still warm, their blood still wet.

Elena’s heart pounded, blood rushing dizzyingly in her ears. She had been just a few moments too late.

On the flickering black-and-white screen above Elena’s head, Mina, her voice full of horror, was telling the vampire hunter Van Helsing, “She looked like a hungry animal… a wolf. And then she turned and ran back into the dark.”

Elena turned the steering wheel and noticed, with a shiver of disgust, that there was a smudge of blood on the back of her hand. Pulling a tissue out of her glove compartment, she wiped it away.

In the end, she’d left Siobhan’s victims where she found them. Everyone in the audience had their eyes fixed on the screen above them; no one had seen her. It hurt to abandon them like that—their broken bodies gazing glassily at her, as if silently asking for some kind of acknowledgment—but getting tied into a police case would cause complications.

Once, finding two dead bodies would have horrified and traumatized Elena. The girl she used to be would have called the police, would have wept. She’d seen so much since then. Now all she could muster up was pity and a hard determination to catch Siobhan, to stop her. Elena didn’t know when she had become this colder, tougher person.

Before she could really think about it, about how she had changed, she caught a flicker of a peacock blue and rust-red aura in the woods to the side of the highway. Damon. Their bond tugged insistently in her chest, and she pulled over.

She could feel him coming toward her, and a moment later, the passenger side door opened and Damon climbed into the car. He was smiling, and Elena felt a sharp pull of excitement, not her own. Damon was up to something. She found herself smiling back at him, her heart lifting.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“I could ask you the same question. You’re a little underdressed.” Damon said, his gaze skating curiously across her lacy nightgown. Then he stiffened. “Are you bleeding?”

“What?” Elena said, and realized. “No, not me. I got a Guardian task and I wasn’t… I didn’t find the vampire, but I found some victims.”

“Jack’s your task?” Through the bond, she could feel his pleasure that the Guardians might finally be on their side.

Elena sighed. “No,” she said. “A different vampire, a real one.”

“Don’t let this distract you,” Damon said quickly. His voice was flat, but there was urgency underneath it, and pain. “Jack’s the most important thing. For Stefan.”

“Damon…” she said, reaching for his hand.

There was a cracking noise like a gunshot, and the roof of the car suddenly dented in. Elena screamed as a figure leaped from the roof of the car, kicking in the window. Damon was outside in a flash, blue pieces of safety glass scattering everywhere.

Elena barely had time to draw a shocked breath when Damon ripped the back door of the car open and shoved in a struggling figure dressed in black. A vampire, she realized. One thin-fingered hand flailed out and caught Elena’s hair, dragging her head back against the seat. She shrieked as sharp pain shot through her scalp, and then again as Damon jerked the vampire’s arm back, long strands of Elena’s hair still dangling from its fingers.

“Don’t touch her!” Damon hissed, throwing himself on top of the other vampire and clamping one heavy hand on the back of its neck. Elena could feel Damon’s vicious satisfaction in the violence, his pleasure in being able to act, to win against an enemy again.

“What are you doing?” Elena asked, pressing a hand against her aching scalp as she twisted around in the driver’s seat to get a better look. The vampire was young, looked younger than she was. He writhed and growled as Damon shoved his face down against the seat and hit him hard between the shoulder blades. Finally, he grew still, trapped beneath Damon and panting hard. His dark eyes were fixed on Elena, his face distorted with hatred and fury. He bared his teeth at her, his canines long and sharp. If he managed to get loose…

It must be one of Jack’s synthetic vampires, she realized, because his aura seemed just like a human’s.

“I can tell now,” Damon said breathlessly, picking up on her curiosity. “There’s a touch of something wrong about them. I don’t know what exactly. It’s like a chemical taint.” The vampire bucked under him and Damon hit him on the back of the head, forcing out a grunt of pain. “He was lurking outside our building. He thought he could get to us.”

Elena’s stomach lurched.

Picking up on her fear, Damon wrapped a hand around the younger vampire’s throat, squeezing. See how much stronger I am than he is, his face seemed to say. I’ll protect us.

“Don’t kill him in my car, Damon,” Elena objected, her eyes drawn back to the young vampire’s furious face.

“I can’t kill him, I don’t know how,” Damon said, but he was grinning. The vampire growled, the sound muffled against the backseat, and Damon smacked him lightly on the back of the head, his other hand still tight around his throat. “I’m going to do some research. Where can we keep him?”

“Not the apartment, that won’t hold him,” Elena said quickly. “Let me think.”

“Somewhere no one will overhear,” Damon said. “Somewhere we can keep him under control.”

Elena started the engine and pulled out on the highway, heading for campus. “My old dorm. It’ll be empty for a few more weeks, and there are storage rooms, like cages, in the basement.” Damon looked doubtful, and she added quickly, “They’re strong. And no one will hear him down there.”

“Excellent,” Damon said, and Elena felt another flare of excitement from him. “There’s something I want to try.”

Chapter 9

Meredith dug her nails into the palms of her hands and tried not to breathe. The vampire—the young vampire, he looked like a high school kid—was watching her, leaning against the bars of his cage. Beneath his shaggy black bangs, his dark eyes shone with hate as he looked at the group staring at him. Both of his wrists were chained to the steel bars of one of the dorm’s basement storage cages, and he twisted his wrists against them unceasingly, testing the handcuffs for weakness. Damon must have found a way to weaken him, so the chains were enough to hold him.

Damon tapped the bars between them, poking at the vampire’s face, and the kid lunged, snapping at him with sharp teeth. Damon pulled his hand back with a laugh. “You see, he’s fast, but no faster than I am,” he explained. Meredith, Alaric, Bonnie, Matt, Jasmine, and Elena had all gathered to see Damon’s latest development. “I wanted to show him to you all, because I want your help in figuring out how Jack made him, and how to kill him.”

The trapped vampire was growling, softly but steadily, like a savage animal. The sound grated on Meredith’s nerves, and when Alaric’s hand brushed against her arm, she jerked away.

“Are you okay?” he asked her quietly, and she nodded, not looking at him.

“I’m fine.” She had to keep her distance from Alaric. She felt sick, thinking about it, but she could still smell the tantalizing, salty scent of his blood.

“It’s so creepy, the way he’s just staring at us,” Bonnie said. Her small face was wrinkled with disgust, and she clung to Zander’s arm. With a jolt, Meredith realized she was the only one who could hear the vampire’s growling.

Meredith felt dizzy. She was just like this kid huddled against the bars. What would Elena say if she knew what Meredith was now? Or Bonnie? Would they want to chain her up the same way?

Damon knew about her, but Damon was practical: He thought Meredith was his best route to finding Jack. Not to mention that he’d given his word, and Meredith knew that once he gave it, Damon never broke his word. Besides, she’d find a cure before anyone else found out the truth, she promised herself, stuffing her hands into her pockets so no one could see them shake.

Behind her, Jasmine pressed her back against the wall, as far from the imprisoned vampire as she could get. She was holding tightly to Matt’s hand, and Meredith could hear her quick, panicked little breaths. This was Jasmine’s first face-to-face encounter with an unfriendly vampire, Meredith realized. Matt was stroking her hair with his other hand, comforting, his attention on Jasmine. The vampire thrashed and kicked, straining against his bonds, the handcuffs clanging against the bars of his cage, and Jasmine yelped, burying her face in Matt’s shoulder.

“Let me try something,” Damon said, and picked up a stake from the floor. The vampire in the cage stopped twisting at his handcuffs and stood very still, his eyes narrowed.

“We know that won’t kill him,” Elena said, her voice even. She and Damon glanced at each other, clearly in perfect accord. They were strangely alike, Meredith thought.

“It’ll hurt, though,” Damon said cheerfully. Turning, he slammed the stake between the bars and into the vampire’s chest. The kid gasped, a long rattling breath, and his eyes flew wide open. Damon pulled the stake out. A bright bubble of blood swelled out of the wound and trickled down the vampire’s chest, but Meredith could already see the hole closing up, leaving the vampire’s chest unmarked.

“You see how quickly he heals,” Damon told them.

Meredith flinched. The kid probably hadn’t asked for this to happen to him, either. That was true of most vampires, she supposed. They’d all been victims once. It wasn’t something she’d worried about, until now.

She pulled her hand from her pocket and rubbed at her forehead. It was too much—the noise and the smells of her friends’ blood, all of them crowded together down here—and she was so hungry. She hadn’t had any blood since that shameful night Damon had found her.

“Want to tell us where Jack’s hiding?” Damon said, his voice friendly. Meredith glanced between Damon and Elena. Elena was nibbling on her lip, her eyes bright. This was about Stefan, of course. It wasn’t just a vampire hunt. If they couldn’t take vengeance on Jack directly, torturing one of his creations would help.

The vampire bared his teeth at Damon. “I don’t need to tell you,” he said. He sounded sulky, like the human teenager he had been probably only a month or two before. “Jack’ll find you, and then you’ll be sorry. I hope he lets me help kill you.”

“Wrong answer.” Damon shoved the stake through his chest again, and the kid screamed, a high shrill sound. Meredith shuddered.

When Damon pulled the stake out with a sickening squelch, the kid hung against the bars for a moment, panting, before the sullen expression settled back on his face. “He’ll get me out,” he muttered, and his eyes fixed on Meredith’s. Frozen to the spot, she met his gaze. Did he know what she was?

Damon grinned, an angry, deadly grin, and gripped the stake again.

Alaric coughed. “Instructive as this is,” he said dryly, “weren’t we going to discuss our plans?”

“Right.” Damon loosened his grip on the stake and turned away from the young vampire.

In that second, the vampire lunged at him with teeth and clawed fingers, reaching through the bars between them, moving so fast Meredith’s eyes could barely follow. Without thinking, she charged forward, shoving the kid away, her hands slamming against the bars of his cage.

“Thank you.” Damon stepped back, rubbing at his neck. He glanced at the trapped vampire, his eyes sharp. “We’ll talk about this later,” he said, his tone threatening. The kid hadn’t been able to reach far, bound as he was, but there were bloody scrapes across the side of Damon’s throat.

Relief loosened Meredith’s chest, and she took a deep breath. When it had come down to it, she was still on the right side. All this hunger she was feeling, the way all her friends, except Damon, smelled like food, was just a technicality. She was going to be fine.

“Damon found this vampire outside our building,” Elena told them all. “We have to assume it means that Jack knows that Damon’s living there and will send more vampires after him. He’s on Jack’s list, and we all know how far Jack will go to… eliminate his enemies.” She sounded businesslike, but Meredith could hear the undercurrent of fear in her voice. Elena couldn’t handle losing anyone else.

“So we need to step up our game,” Bonnie said cheerfully. “I’ll pull out all the tracking spells I can think of and make some more protection charms for all of us. Zander and the Pack can—”

“Uh.” Zander broke in, looking uncomfortable. “We’ve got a lot of official Pack business going on right now. I mean, I’ll do whatever I can, but I don’t think you can count on the whole Pack.”

“But…” Bonnie looked confused.

Zander shifted from one foot to the other, his white-blond hair falling into his eyes. “We’ll patrol like we usually do, I just don’t know how much else the guys are up for.” He wasn’t looking at Bonnie, or at any of them.

Meredith frowned. Zander was acting peculiar. Then she caught a full whiff of Zander’s scent as he moved and couldn’t think of anything else. His blood would be strong and wild, she knew, and she couldn’t help imagining how an alpha werewolf might taste. Her teeth ached, and she stepped back away from him. Clearly, she wasn’t fine yet. She had to fix this.

Damon’s eyes met hers for a moment, and she was surprised by the sympathy in his gaze.

“Okay,” Elena said briskly. “Bonnie, that sounds great, and Zander, just have the Pack do what they can.” Zander nodded. Bonnie was still staring at him, her lips slightly parted.

“You and I will work on this fellow,” Damon said to Elena, with a vicious glance at the trapped vampire, who snarled back at him. “If we can’t get information on Jack out of him, maybe we’ll be able to figure out how to kill him.”

“If I can get some of his blood, I can analyze it at the hospital to see how Jack is making his vampires,” Jasmine offered shyly. “Maybe Matt can help me.”

“And I’d like to try to track down Jack’s history,” Alaric added. “The more we learn about who he was before he became a vampire, the better we’ll be able to fight him.”

From behind Alaric, Damon caught Meredith’s eye and cocked an eyebrow at her. They’d already discussed Meredith’s next step.

“I want to head down to Atlanta for a while, talk to Darlene and the other hunters who were working with Jack,” she said, slipping easily into the lie they’d decided on. “They’ve got to know something they haven’t told us, something that will help us track him.”

Alaric took a half step toward her, his mouth opening in a question. Of course he was surprised—she hadn’t discussed this with him at all.

“It’s important,” she said, begging him with her eyes to understand. Alaric bit his lip, and then his face softened. He knew how she had admired Jack, back when she thought he was a hunter, and Meredith could see him deciding that this would be good for her.

“Okay,” he said. “Don’t be gone long, though. We should all be sticking together right now.”

Elena frowned. “You’re probably the best one to figure out how to kill this vampire.”

Damon put a hand on Elena’s shoulder, and she leaned toward him. “I can handle the fake vampire,” he said smoothly. “Meredith should do what she has to do.”

It would be good to get away, Meredith thought. She had to get away before she hurt the people she loved.

She couldn’t live like this. Jack must know something. There had to be a way to undo what he had done to her. All she had to do was make him trust her.

Meredith left the next day, amid a flurry of a send-off. She kissed Alaric, hugged Elena and Bonnie and the others. Damon hung back, watching her with sharp, half-amused eyes. Meredith promised to touch base often, told them she’d let them know when she got to Atlanta. The whole time she concentrated on not breathing, to avoid catching anyone’s scent, and managed to keep herself from sinking her teeth into anyone’s throat.

Once she had driven a few miles away from home, Meredith pulled onto the shoulder to take a breath and let herself think.

“We can find out more by infiltrating Jack’s group than by capturing him,” Damon had said. “That’s where you come in.”

Licking her lips nervously, she reached into her bag and pulled out the business card she had found in her pocket that first terrible day, now creased and fuzzy at the edges. I can do this, she told herself. I am a hunter. It doesn’t matter if I’m afraid, I’ll still keep fighting. Then she pulled out her phone and dialed the number written on the card.

“It’s Meredith,” she said when Jack picked up. “You were right. Please. I have to see you.”

Jack’s hideout wasn’t far away. Following the directions he’d given her over the phone, Meredith found a road that ended outside a long-abandoned warehouse at the edge of town. She got out of the car, slamming the door behind her, and crunched her way across the gravel parking lot.

The warehouse was dilapidated, and there were no cars in the lot except hers. A fast-food wrapper blew across the ground in front of her. Everything was eerily silent.

It didn’t matter. She knew Jack was here.

The warehouse’s big metal door rattled when Meredith knocked on it. She could hear footsteps coming. When it opened, there stood Jack, his face carefully neutral.

“Meredith,” he said, a little warily.

“I still hate you,” Meredith said quickly. “You killed Stefan, and I can’t forgive that. But—” She paused, her heart pounding, uncomfortably aware that what she was about to say was only partially a lie. “I don’t belong anywhere else. I can’t—all I want to do is bite people. I need to be in a place where my friends are safe from me. I need to be away from them.”

There was a long pause while Jack looked her up and down, his mouth pursed. Meredith shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. Could he tell that she had come to spy on him, that she and Damon were working together?

“Please,” she dropped her voice as if she was telling him a shameful secret. “You were right. It feels good. I didn’t—don’t—want to be a vampire, but physically, I feel alive for the first time in my life. I want you to show me what I’m capable of.”

Jack stared at her, his face unreadable. Meredith kept her eyes steady on his, trying to project sincerity and pleading. She needed him to believe her, or she’d lose all chance of finding a cure.

Jack frowned, and for a moment she thought he’d slam the heavy metal door in her face. But then his lips turned up in the warm smile she had loved, back when she thought he was her friend. “Come on in,” he said. “We’ve all been waiting.”