by L. J. Smith
“Is there anything you can do?” Stefan asked Andrés. He could hear the pleading note in his own voice.
All around them, the others looked tense, waiting for the answer. Bonnie was tending to Shay’s shoulder, bandaging a nasty vampire bite, and her deft fingers stiffened with anxiety until Shay gave a quiet grunt.
“I hope I can,” said Andrés. “I’ll try.” He knelt and laid his palms flat against the ground beneath the trees. Watching him, Stefan felt the cracklings of Power in the air. Andrés held very still, brown eyes narrowed and focused. New blades of grass poked through the earth, curling around his fingers.
“This isn’t as effective as Elena’s tracking Power,” he explained, “but sometimes I can sense people. If she’s touching the Earth, I will know where she is.”
Andrés sat there for what seemed like a long time, his face peaceful and alert. As he sank his fingers deeper into the ground, digging the tips into the soil at the base of a white birch tree, the tree unfurled new leaves.
“Faster,” Damon ordered, his voice low and dangerous, but Andrés did not respond with even a twitch. It was as if he had sunk so deeply into himself—or into his communion with the soil, Stefan wasn’t sure which—that he couldn’t hear them anymore.
Stefan’s pulse was pounding faster than he could remember since before he’d become a vampire. He clenched and unclenched his fists, keeping himself from shaking Andrés. The Guardian was doing the best he could, and distracting him would not make him work faster. But Elena, oh, Elena.
Farther away, he could hear Matt searching the woods, calling, “Chloe! Chloe!” The young vampire had made it out of the stables; Stefan was sure he had seen her, blackened with ash but otherwise unhurt. Now, however, she was nowhere to be found. Stefan’s heart ached in sympathy. The girl Matt loved was missing, too.
“Strange,” Andrés said. It was the first word he had spoken in a while, and Stefan’s attention immediately snapped back to him. Andrés tilted his head back to look up at Damon and Stefan, his forehead crinkling in confusion. “Elena’s alive,” he said. “I’m sure she’s alive, but it feels like she’s underground.”
Stefan sagged in relief: alive. He looked at Damon for confirmation. “The tunnels?” he asked, and Damon nodded. Klaus must have taken her to the tunnels that crisscrossed the ground underneath the campus, the ones the Vitale Society had used.
Meredith, sitting nearby with Alaric, jumped to her feet. “Where’s the closest entrance?” she asked.
Stefan tried to picture the maze of passages Matt had sketched for him before their battle against the Vitale vampires. There were many blank areas and half-drawn entrances on his mental map, because Matt had only traveled a little way in what seemed to be a vast, twisting labyrinth underlying the campus and maybe the town. But, of what he knew . . .
“The vampires’ safe house,” Stefan said decisively.
Chapter 37
Elena’s shoulder banged against something hard, and she made a small sound of protest. All she wanted to do was sleep, but someone wouldn’t let her rest. Her legs hurt.
Her head jolted against something, and Elena’s perspective shifted. Someone was pulling her along by her legs, she realized, the rest of her body sliding along on the ground. Her hair caught, jerking her head before it came loose, and she groaned again. Slowly, she opened her eyes.
“Back with me, little one?” Klaus said, sounding disconcertingly jovial. He was the one dragging her, Elena realized, and although it was dark, he clearly had sensed when she awoke. He laughed, his dark, disturbing chuckle making her cringe. “I can’t kill you with my teeth, or with my dagger, but an ordinary knife will work, won’t it? I could tie you up and drop you in the lake to drown. What do you think?”
Elena’s mouth was dry, and it took a couple of tries to get any sound out. “I think,” she said at last, thickly, “that Stefan is going to save me.”
Klaus laughed again. “Your precious Stefan won’t be able to find you,” he said. “No one can save you now.”
They hadn’t been to the safe house since they had left with Chloe, the night of Klaus’s resurrection. When they arrived, the faint scent of vervain still lingered in the basement, and Stefan’s skin itched in reaction. Meredith pried up a trapdoor in the floor, and Stefan lowered himself in first, the others following.
Everyone but Matt had come, weapons in hand, carrying flashlights and lanterns, tense and ready to fight. Matt had stayed behind to search for Chloe. Bonnie, Alaric, and Meredith stuck close together, their faces pale and strained. Shay, Zander, and the other werewolves stayed together, too, alert to every noise or scent in the darkness. And Damon, Stefan, and Andrés formed the vanguard, each one of them straining for some sign of Elena.
They seemed to walk for miles, through underground passages that narrowed as they went, changing from concrete passages to dusty tunnels carved from dirt. Andrés stopped frequently and touched the floor and walls, listening with his hands before picking a direction.
“Did you come this way when you smoked the tunnels?” Stefan asked Meredith as they waited impatiently during one of these stops, and she shook her head, wide-eyed.
“We’re a lot deeper underground than I knew the tunnels went,” she said. “I had no idea the Vitale Society had anything this elaborate.”
“I wonder if it was the Vitale Society, actually,” Bonnie interjected suddenly. “They used these tunnels, but I keep getting a sense that there’s something older here. Something creepy.”
Silently, Alaric raised his flashlight higher, illuminating a series of runes carved deep into the rock above them. “I can’t read them,” he said, “but these must predate Dalcrest by centuries.”
The darkness that pressed in from all sides, now that Stefan focused on it, seemed to breathe with ageless secrets. It was as if there was something huge and sleeping, just out of sight, wrapped in itself and waiting to awaken. His chest ached with anxiety. Elena . . .
The steady thump of Klaus’s footsteps stopped, but Elena was still sliding forward. With a shock, she realized that he was pulling her to him and she flailed desperately, trying to jerk herself away.
She was so tired, though. She’d used more of her Power than she ever had before, and she felt drained and helpless. Elena could do no more than struggle weakly as Klaus picked her up, gathering her in his arms as gently as if she was a baby.
“No,” she whispered hoarsely.
She felt Klaus’s hand stroking her hair back, and she shuddered with repulsion at the gentle touch in the dark. She struggled weakly, but his Power was holding her in place.
“I could have let the fire kill you,” he whispered, his voice intimate and almost tender, “but what’s poetic in that? My bite may not hurt you, but I want a taste of the girl that fascinates vampires so much. I’ve never tasted a Guardian before. Is your blood especially sweet?”
He pressed his mouth against her neck and Elena cringed. She couldn’t fight anymore. His fangs pushed into her, rough and demanding, and it felt as if her throat was being split open. She tried to scream, but only a whimper came out.
He can’t kill me this way, she reminded herself desperately. And yet it felt as if her life was draining away.
Andrés was standing perfectly still, one hand pressed against the rock.
“What is it?” Stefan said sharply.
Andrés opened his eyes. His face was desolate. “I’ve lost her,” he said. “She was so close but now . . . she’s not touching the Earth anymore. I don’t know where she is.”
“Elena! Elena!” Stefan shouted as he ran, bursting past the rest of the group. She couldn’t be gone. Behind him, he could hear the pounding of Damon’s boots close on his tail.
Ahead of the flashlights, they rounded the corner into complete darkness. Stefan funneled Power to his eyes so that he could see.
Just ahead of them, Klaus raised his head, blood streaming from his mouth and dripping down his chin. In his arms, Elena lay limply,
her silken, golden hair tangled and dirty, hanging down over Klaus’s arm. Stefan snarled and rushed forward.
Klaus licked at his lips, his pink tongue slow, and then he shuddered, a smile on his face. Slowly, still smiling, he collapsed to the ground, Elena landing with a thud in front of him. Stefan’s heart plummeted even as he leaped toward her. Elena lay in the center of the path. She was motionless and very pale, her head turned to one side, eyes closed.
Blood was everywhere, staining her once-white top a deep, rich red. Her throat was covered with gore.
And beyond her, as limp as a discarded toy, lay Klaus. Although there was no mark on him other than a thin streak of blood at the corner of his mouth, Stefan had no doubt that he was dead. No one living looked like that, as if everything that had been part of him was gone, leaving a wax dummy in his place. Especially not the lightning-handler Klaus, who had shimmered with golden, filthy rage. He looked like a badly preserved corpse.
Elena, though . . .
To Stefan’s wonder, Elena stirred, her eyelashes fluttering.
Stefan gathered her into his arms. She was so pale, but her heartbeat was steady. Above him, Damon hovered, his mouth twisted with anxiety.
“She’ll live,” Damon muttered, partly to himself, partly to Stefan.
Stefan opened his mouth to agree, but all that came out was a broken sob. He began to kiss Elena, peppering her cheeks and mouth and forehead and hands with light kisses.
“Stefan,” she murmured weakly, and smiled. “My Stefan.”
“What happened?” Bonnie asked as the others rounded the bend and ran forward. Only Andrés stood still just past the bend in the tunnel, staring at Elena, his face full of wonder.
“She’s the One,” he breathed.
“The One what?” Elena asked, still smiling dazedly. She raised her hand and stroked Stefan’s cheek.
Andrés seemed to be having trouble speaking. He swallowed, licked his lips, and swallowed again, looking a little lost. “There’s a legend,” he said finally, hesitantly. “A Guardian legend. It says that one day a sworn Guardian, one born of a Principal Guardian, will come to Earth. Her blood, the blood of Guardians carried through generations, will be anathema to the Oldest creatures of darkness.”
“What does that mean?” Stefan asked sharply.
Andrés lifted his flashlight, lighting up Klaus’s pathetic, diminished corpse. “It means,” he said, his voice full of wonder, “that Elena’s blood has killed Klaus. It would kill any of the Old Ones, the handful of vampires and demons that have walked the Earth since the dawn of human civilization . . . maybe before. It means,” he said, “that Elena is a very valuable weapon.”
“Hang on,” Damon said. “That can’t be right. I’ve drunk Elena’s blood. Stefan’s drunk Elena’s blood.”
Andrés shrugged. “Perhaps its qualities are only fatal to the Old Ones. That’s all the legend tells of.”
“And her blood is special,” Stefan said, his voice rough. He and Damon exchanged quick, embarrassed glances. Elena’s blood was rich and heady, countless times more potent than any other blood Stefan had ever tasted. He had thought the difference was because of the love they shared.
“But . . .” Bonnie said, frowning. “Your parents weren’t Guardians, were they?” she asked Elena. Elena shook her head, but her eyes were clouding over and her eyelids drooping. She needed rest, and proper medical care.
“We can talk about this later,” Stefan said abruptly, and stood, lifting Elena carefully and gently into his arms. “She needs to get out of here.”
“Well, whether she’s the One or not,” Meredith said, looking at the dead monster at her feet, “Elena killed Klaus.” They all straightened unconsciously, smiling. They had nothing left to fear.
Chapter 38
“Chloe?” Matt called cautiously, sticking his head into one of the empty sheds that surrounded the burned-out stables. The sky was starting to lighten in the east, signifying the end of a long night. There were still a few firefighters and EMTs near the blocked-off stables, turning over the ashes, so he had to be quiet. He took a deep breath, trying to calm down. Chloe had to be somewhere, he reminded himself. He had seen her after the fight, weary but not seriously hurt. She had probably just retreated, overwhelmed by all the blood and by the adrenaline from the fight. She would turn up soon.
The shed was silent and dark. Matt raised his flashlight and shone it around the empty walls of the tiny space: nowhere here for anyone to hide. As he was about to move on, a faint scratching noise caught his attention. Not completely empty, then.
Focusing the flashlight on the ground, he caught a glimpse of bright eyes and a long tail before a mouse zipped out of sight again. Nothing else.
“Chloe!” he hissed, heading for the old barn, the last outbuilding he hadn’t yet searched.
Three werewolves, the most battered and bloody of the Pack after the battle, had stayed behind after the rest had left to hunt for Klaus and Elena. But they were gone now. They’d offered to help Matt search for Chloe, but he’d waved them off: at that point, he’d still been sure that he’d find her any minute.
“I’ll be fine,” Matt had told Spencer. “Go take care of your injuries. I’ll find her. It’s probably stupid to be so worried.”
Spencer had always struck Matt as being more about hair gel than brains, but he’d pinned him with a surprisingly shrewd look. “Listen, man,” he’d drawled in his preppy, rich-surfer-boy accent, still managing to sound sort of laid-back despite the pain in his voice. “I’m wishing you the best here, I am, but vampires . . .”
“I know,” Matt had said, wincing. He did know; he could have written the book on reasons not to date vampires, but that was when he’d been thinking of Elena, not himself, and before he had met Chloe. Now it was different. “I’ll find her,” he had said, absurdly touched by Spencer’s concern. “Thanks, though. Really.”
He’d felt wistful while he watched Spencer and his friends walk off, like he would be the last person left in the world once the werewolves were out of sight.
Where could Chloe be? They had been shoulder-to-shoulder coming out of the stable after half the roof fell in. Chloe had been shaking, her pupils dilated and her hands streaked with blood, but she had been with him.
And then, sometime during the rise of panic as they realized that Elena had been under the fiery roof when it collapsed, Chloe was just gone.
Thinking of Elena in Klaus’s grasp gave him a pang of guilt. This was Elena, his friend and the girl who’d been the sun he orbited around for so long. He wanted to be searching for her with the rest of them. But he needed to find Chloe, too.
The barn was rickety, one of its broad double doors hanging crookedly by a single hinge. Matt approached it with caution—he wouldn’t do Chloe any good if he was caught and pinned under a falling barn door.
The half-broken door wobbled and creaked, but did not fall as he edged his way through the gap between it and the side of the barn, shining his flashlight inside. Dust rose in the beam of light, specks floating thickly in midair.
Inside, something shifted, and Matt walked forward, sweeping the flashlight back and forth. Far in the back, he saw something white.
As he came closer, Matt realized that it was Chloe’s face staring into the flashlight’s beam, wild with panic. After such a long search, it took Matt a moment to process what was going on: his first reaction was a simple swell of relief—thank God he’d found Chloe at last. Then he realized that Chloe was streaked with blood and that, quiet in her arms, lay Tristan.
Chloe blinked at Matt blankly for a moment, and then her face filled with dismayed realization. She pushed Tristan away from her, horrified. The werewolf let out a weak cry of distress as he hit the floor with a thump, then lay still.
“Oh, no,” Chloe said, dropping to her knees beside him. “Oh, no. I didn’t mean to.”
Matt ran toward her. “Is he alive?” he asked.
Chloe had tried so hard, and he’d been the
re every step of the way, helped her as much as he could. Life was unfair enough. But now Chloe’s head was bent over Tristan and she was patting her hand urgently over his body, trying to wake him.
Matt got down on the other side of Tristan and tried to check the werewolf’s injuries. God, the poor guy was bleeding everywhere. He must have smelled like a banquet to Chloe.
“I’m so sorry, Tristan,” Chloe whispered. “Please wake up.”
“Tristan, can you hear me?” Matt asked, checking his pulse. The werewolf’s heart was beating slowly and steadily, and he was breathing well. The Pack was tough. But the werewolf’s eyes were unfocused, and he didn’t respond when Matt called his name again, shaking him gently.
“I think I might have, um, calmed him down,” Chloe said, stricken. “Like the rabbits.”
“We should get him some help,” Matt said brusquely, not looking at her.
She didn’t answer. Matt looked up and saw the horror and guilt on her face, tears running over her rounded cheeks, making tracks through the blood around her mouth. She’d joked to him once that she was an ugly crier, and now she scrubbed at her running nose with the back of her sleeve. In the semidarkness, her eyes seemed like black pits of misery.
“Come on,” he said, more gently. “This isn’t the end of the world. We’ll start over. You shouldn’t have been in a battle right now. It was too hard on you to be around all that action. All that blood.” Despite himself, his voice stumbled a little over the word blood. Matt gulped unhappily and went on, working to make his voice confident. “Everyone slips up when they’re breaking an addiction. We’ll get back to the boathouse, away from everyone. It’s going to be fine.” He sounded desperate, even to himself.