The Vampire Diaries: A Cage of Burning Light (Kindle Worlds Novella)

by L. J. McDonald

  “He must be in there,” she whispered, and had no idea how they were going to get him out.

  “Maybe. Look.” Bonnie drew her car to a stop and pointed forward through the windshield.

  Elena looked. The buildings were arranged around a central road that passed through them, an outer fence surrounding all. The road they’d taken didn’t end at the complex, but passed through a second gate on the opposite side from the first and began to wind up through the wooded hills. A white cube truck was on the road beyond the fence, about to pass out of sight amongst the trees.

  Bonnie looked at her, her eyebrows drawn together and her hands tight on the steering wheel. “You think that’s them?”

  Elena didn’t know what to say. Maybe. Damon might be in the building right now, tied up in the same room she had been. Or he could be in that truck, and if it got away, she’d never be able to find him.

  Damon would have been able to tell. All he’d have to do was lift his nose to the wind and he’d have been able to say exactly who was in the warehouse and who in the truck. She didn’t have that kind of sensitivity. Her sense of smell was increased, certainly, but that didn’t mean she knew how to use it. None of the smells she picked up meant anything to her.

  She could only think of one thing to do and so looked at her friend. “Get out.”

  Bonnie blinked at her. “Excuse me?”

  Elena reached for the wheel and started shouldering the witch out of the car. “Get out. Call Caroline and when she gets here, look for Damon in that warehouse. I’m going after that truck.”

  “What? I’m not letting you go after it alone!”

  “We don’t have time!” Elena reached across her and opened the door. “Bonnie, please. Just do as I say!”

  Bonnie glared, but she got out of the car. “Fine. But we’re going to have a long talk about this later.”

  Elena nodded but didn’t say anything as she slammed the door shut and stomped on the gas. Bonnie’s car leaped forward, racing along the road after the truck. She sped through the complex, out the back gate, and then she was in among the trees, deep in shadow but able to see through the darkness as if it were the height of day.

  She had absolutely no idea how she was going to stop that truck. It was twice the size of Bonnie’s car, and she doubted they’d just pull over if she honked at them, not unless they actually were innocent people that only happened to be driving by.

  She didn’t know if she wanted that to turn out to be true, since it would mean that she’d left Bonnie behind to face danger alone.

  No, she wouldn’t be alone. Bonnie was a powerful witch, and she’d call Caroline for help. They’d take care of each other. Bonnie would be safe.

  “Please let her be safe,” she whispered as she sent the car around a turn as fast as she dared. It was a very windy route through these hills, and the road itself wasn’t much wider than needed to let two cars pass each other. She was fairly certain of where she was now, and if she was right, then the road would cross the top of the hills, and at the base on the other side it would join one of the main thoroughfares that crossed the valley and the river. Beyond that was the exit to the main highway and the local airfield.

  If they reached the highway, she didn’t think she’d be able to stop them.

  She let that thought fight her fear as the sedan she was driving raced around another corner and then the cube truck was right ahead of her, chugging its way up the hill with the fading afternoon sunlight dappling through the forest leaves and onto its dirty white sides.

  Elena didn’t let herself think and just pushed on the gas, forcing the sedan up and beside the truck as it reached the top of that hill and a short straightaway before it started on the next. She started hammering on the horn before she was even fully beside them and leaned over in the driver’s seat to try and see through the passenger window who was driving the truck.

  He was no one she recognized, stocky and dark with an angry expression on his face as he rolled down his side window and shouted at her.

  “What the hell’s wrong with you, you crazy bi-”

  “Stop!” Elena shouted at him. “You have to stop!” If he’d had nothing to do with it, maybe he saw something, and asking him at least one question would make her feel less of a total idiot if she turned out to be wrong about all of this.

  “Are you crazy, lady?” the man shouted, but the truck did begin to slow down.

  A moment later, Wilson leaned over from the passenger side of the truck, and he and Elena saw each other at the same time. She yanked back into her seat with a gasp of surprised fright, but her hearing could still make out what he said to his partner.

  “Drive faster, She’s a vampire!”

  “Oh, for the love of….” The van put on as much of a burst of acceleration as it could manage and swerved into the middle of the road. Elena was left behind it, and with a deep breath, she put the gas pedal to the floor in pursuit.

  Bonnie cursed until Elena and her car were out of sight. Crazy stupid…. If Elena got hurt, she’d never forgive herself. She better just be chasing after some normal little delivery truck. She hoped she was. She’d tease her endlessly if she was.

  Bonnie eyed the somber expanse of the green warehouse. If she was, then there was someone really unpleasant inside that building. She pulled out her phone.

  Five minutes later, Caroline pulled up and stepped out of her car, her blonde hair tossed back over her shoulder as she eyed her friend.

  “So this is the place where Elena’s been stuck?”

  “Damon now,” Bonnie told her. “Elena got free a while ago.”

  “What? You could have told me!”

  Bonnie winced. “Sorry, Care. It’s been a rotten day. So much is happening…. I’m sorry. I should have called you a lot sooner.”

  Caroline frowned and then obviously forgave her. “So tell me what’s going on.”

  Bonnie did. She told her Elena’s story about what happened after she was kidnapped, about Wilson and his experiments, and how she escaped to be picked up by Bonnie, only for them both to realize that Damon was now a prisoner in her place.

  Caroline listened, but once she’d heard everything and she knew that Elena was all right, there was an amused smirk on her face. She and Elena were friends, but there’d always been that level of rivalry and competition between the two of them. Bonnie saw it and had to resist the urge to ask her how well she would have done if she’d been the one Wilson attacked. Caroline would likely have had a long answer to that question, and she didn’t really want to hear it.

  “Damon could be inside that warehouse,” she said instead. “We need to go in and make sure.”

  Caroline looked a little dubious. “Can’t Damon take care of himself?”

  Bonnie sighed. The history between Caroline and Damon could be called interesting at best. Bonnie knew she wouldn’t have forgiven Damon for some of the things he’d done to Caroline. Still, Caroline had.

  “Can we just go and see? I’m worried about him.”

  Caroline blinked. “That’s unusual.”

  “You didn’t see Elena when I found her. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”

  “All right,” Caroline said and her voice was softer now. She lifted her head and scented the air. “I don’t smell anyone in there.”

  Bonnie started toward the building anyway. “Elena didn’t say she couldn’t smell anyone inside.”

  “Elena’s a baby at this,” Caroline replied smugly. “She wouldn’t know what she was smelling.”

  She had a point. Bonnie still gave her a fond glare. “Well, what do you smell?”

  Caroline hesitated, even as she sniffed again. “Blood,” she said.

  Bonnie felt cold. “Then we’re going in anyway.”

  She went to the door, Caroline following behind with her hands casually laced behind her back. Caroline had started out life as one of the most anxious people Bonnie knew, but being a vampire had been good for her confidence levels. Hopeful
ly not too much, as she pushed past Bonnie and kicked the warehouse door—which already looked as if it had been kicked in once already—in. Elena had been hurt badly by Wilson, and Caroline was so much of a rival to her she could ignore any danger that might exist for her as well.

  “So much for subtle,” Bonnie muttered as she stared at the smashed door.

  “Anyone home?” Caroline yelled as she sauntered inside. “Look at me, I’m a poor feeble little vampire just looking to be caught! Whee!”

  “Care,” Bonnie hissed as she followed her. “Knock it off.”

  Her friend grinned at her. “I’m just having fun. There’s no one here, honest. No heartbeat, no nothing.”

  “You said you smelled blood.”

  “Yes, but it’s not fresh anymore.” The two of them walked across an open storage area that was littered with garbage and abandoned equipment. “Trust me, there’s a huge difference between the two. Besides, I’m sorry that Elena got hurt, I really am, but I just can’t see myself getting too worked up about one nutty guy with a test tube. It’s not like I’m not ready for him.”

  She was looking at Bonnie as she spoke, striding carelessly forward, and Bonnie saw the pit hidden in the shadows before she did. She grabbed Caroline’s arm and yanked her back right before she could step into it. Caroline gasped and the two women stood there for a frozen moment, hanging onto each other and staring down into the big hole dug through the floor. From the look of it, it was an opening into the building’s basement, and some sadist had set long, sharpened spikes into it, all pointing up. Even with the dimming light and her ordinary, human eyes, Bonnie could see the blood that coated them.

  Beside her, Caroline swallowed. “You said Damon’s missing?”

  Bonnie nodded, still staring at the spikes. The blood was thick on them and coated them far down their length.

  “Elena never mentioned anything about pits, did she?”

  “No. Not to me. She … she managed to avoid this when she was escaping.”

  Which left no doubt for either of them as to who hadn’t avoided it. “Oh, Damon,” Caroline breathed, all her bravado and amusement gone, and Bonnie looked back over her shoulder to the ruined door and the little bit of road she could see outside. The road that her dearest friend had taken. Suddenly, she wished that she was the one in her car and not Elena, even if she had no idea what to do. At least she’d know when to stop chasing after him, and that was something she knew Elena would never be able to do.

  “I’m calling my mother,” Caroline decided and headed back outside to get better cell reception. Bonnie let her and went forward, edging around the pit and giving it a lot of clearance, just in case the edges weren’t sound. Every step she took now was cautious and hesitant. If there was one trap, Wilson might have made more.

  If he did, she didn’t find any of them just yet, which she hoped meant that the pit was Wilson’s one big secret. Still, she hoped that Caroline was warning her mother of what they’d found, and resolved to make sure she let the Sheriff know about any possible extra booby traps in this place when she showed up. It probably should be checked out by the bomb squad, not a couple of young women who didn’t even know what sort of threats could be hiding in here.

  Still, an absurd curiosity pulled her forward, wanting to see for herself what her friend had gone through. At the back of the room, Bonnie came to another door, this one left open and seemingly safe. Bonnie peeked inside and her eyes widened.

  This was the room Elena told her about, the one she’d been kept prisoner in. It was a fraction of the size of the main part of the warehouse, likely an office used by the managers when the building was still being used. There was a work bench against the wall and some litter, but otherwise the room had been cleaned out. She could see the jagged hole in the concrete floor where Elena had broken herself free.

  She could also see the effect of the skylights, faded now with the sun close to setting but still there. Light lanced down everywhere in the room, forming a circle of bars around the central, dark section, all forming the bars of a cage and unmoving except for the dust that danced through them, specks of brilliance that she could almost imagine singing some kind of impossible song.

  Caroline appeared at her shoulder and peered in. “Wow,” she breathed. “That’s actually beautiful.”

  Bonnie gave a slow nod, never taking her eyes off the cage. “It is.”

  “Somebody’s a really twisted person to come up with something like this.”

  Bonnie thought of Elena, chasing that truck and what she now knew was inside it, and closed her eyes in worried grief. “Yes,” she agreed. “They are.”

  The man Jennings sent to drive Wilson out, who was called Greedy by Damon and by no name at all by Wilson, actually used the name Sternes. He was no witch, but since his boss got into reaping the financial rewards of the supernatural, he’d learned all about them and the various monsters that went bump in the night. Unlike Wilson, who was brilliant at science but otherwise idiotically naïve, he knew exactly what it meant to have a vampire chasing you. He’d had it happen before, after all.

  Sternes was still around. That vampire wasn’t.

  The moment Wilson identified Elena to him, Sternes pulled ahead of her and put the truck in the center of the road, so she wouldn’t have the space she needed to pass him. Wilson sat beside him, his face impassive but his hand white knuckled while he held onto the bar above his door that Sternes always like to call the panic bar. At least he wasn’t trying to get in the way of Sternes doing his job. Jennings said he was a cold one. Not impervious to emotions, but certainly less flappable than a lot of the people Sternes’s boss sent him to help, to shake down, and sometimes to kill. His orders with Wilson were actually a combination of the first and the third. He was to help Wilson if he had a vampire in his possession or kill him if he’d lied about it.

  He still might. Jennings wouldn’t care about Sternes being tempted by the vamp’s money. He’d have just laughed. Sternes had worked for him for years, and Jennings knew he’d just double-cross the creature and hand him over later anyway. But Jennings also didn’t like to have outsiders complaining about his people to him, and despite being on the payroll, Wilson was definitely an outsider. If Wilson looked about to really rat Sternes out to the boss, he’d end him and blame it on the vampires. Perhaps even on this pretty little thing chasing them right now.

  If she was the one Wilson had in chains before the mouthy bastard in the back, then Sternes really regretted the fact he’d lost hold of her.

  The truck was no powerhouse, the gears in crappy shape and the engine slow. It certainly wasn’t designed to be used as an escape vehicle, but at least it had the advantage of enough bulk to be hard to pass.

  He swung the wheel back and forth, swerving the truck from side to side in order to keep her from getting by. The sedan behind hugged his rear bumper, moving from side to side as well, opposite to how he did, but the driver didn’t have the nerve to take the chance of racing past him. Given what she was driving, he didn’t really blame her, and he grinned as he crested a hill and the truck’s tires almost came off the asphalt.

  Wilson gave him a flat look. Sternes doubted the man had even the slightest sense of humor.

  “You’re enjoying this,” he noted.

  “Hey, this is better than just a boring pick-up job.” He swung a bit far to the left, and the vampire tried to pass on the right. Sternes yanked the wheel hard and jerked back over. She slammed on the brakes before he hit her.

  Wilson jerked at the motion, still hanging onto the panic bar. “We need to get rid of her! Do you want her following us all the way to the airport?”

  “Don’t worry, princess, I know what I’m doing,” Sternes grinned. Ahead was another curve, one tight enough that he didn’t dare to take it less than properly. He eased off on the gas as he entered it, and then pushed on the pedal more as he went around the turn to keep control. The truck leaned heavily to the right, enough that he started to worry
and he heard Wilson’s breath hissing through his teeth beside him.

  A moment later, they were through and on a straightaway along the edge of a hill that sloped down through thin pine trees to their right. From the look of it, ahead of them the road switch backed into a curve even tighter than this one had been in order to cross over the face of the hill again in the other direction. In a real car with a tuned engine and proper tires, this road would be a blast to drive on.

  Still, fun as it was, he didn’t want to take any more of these turns at high speed, even if that high speed was the crawling pace that was all this beast could manage. He also agreed with Wilson in not wanting to deal with an angry vampire that wasn’t chained to a chair when they reached the airport.

  He let the van drift slightly to the left, as if he’d overcompensated while straightening out of the turn. Through the passenger wing mirror, he saw the sedan move over to the right side of the road, nearly onto the soft shoulder.

  “Hang onto your panties,” he told Wilson.

  Wilson looked at him. “What?”

  The vampire gunned her motor and raced forward into the free space he’d so conveniently left beside him. If he had been drifting due to overcompensation, she likely would have been able to get in front of them. Instead, Sternes pulled the wheel hard to the right and the truck responded.

  There was a massive, crashing sound as the side of the cube truck hit the sedan. The truck shook at the impact, but Sternes kept the wheel turned hard into the car. The vampire driving it frantically pushed back, but while she was stronger than he was, there was no contest when it came to the relative weights of their vehicles and the laws of physics.

  Her right side front wheel caught the soft shoulder of the road, thick with pine needles and the heavy roots of trees. He pushed harder against her, Wilson ducking despite the closed passenger window as sparks flew up past him, and suddenly Sternes could see the sedan itself as it was launched up off something hidden on the shoulder, something slanted enough to form a ramp. The car dropped back down again and went over the edge of the steep hill beside the road, crashing in amongst the trees and bushes below.