by L. J. Smith
People were coming into the room. Someone else began screaming and it spread, and then everyone was trying to get out, pushing each other in panic, knocking into the partitions.
“Get the lights on!” Elena shouted, and heard the shout taken up by others. “Meredith, quick, get to a phone, in the gym and call an ambulance, call the police…. Get those lights on!”
When the lights snapped on, Elena looked around, but she could see no adults, no one entitled to take charge of the situation. Part of her was ice-cold, her mind racing as it tried to think what to do next. Part of her was simply numb with horror. Mr. Tanner … She had never liked him, but somehow that only made it worse.
“Get all the kids out of here. Everybody but staff out,” she said.
“No! Shut the doors! Don’t let anybody out until the police get here,” shouted a werewolf beside her, taking off his mask. Elena turned in astonishment at the voice and saw that it was not Matt, it was Tyler Smallwood.
He’d been allowed back in school only this week, and his face was still discolored from the beating he had taken at Stefan’s hands. But his voice had the ring of authority, and Elena saw the bouncers close the exit door. She heard another door close across the gym.
Of the dozen or so people crowded into the Stonehenge area, Elena recognized only one as a worker. The rest were people she knew from school, but none she knew well. One of them, a boy dressed as a pirate, spoke to Tyler.
“You mean … you think somebody in here did it?”
“Somebody in here did it, all right,” said Tyler. There was a queer, excited sound to his voice, as if he were almost enjoying this. He gestured to the pool of blood on the rock. “That’s still liquid; it can’t have happened too long ago.
And look at the way his throat’s cut. The killer must have done it with that.” He pointed to the sacrificial knife.
“Then the killer might be here right now,” whispered a girl in a kimono.
“And it’s not hard to guess who it is,” said Tyler. “Somebody who hated Tanner, who was always getting in arguments with him. Somebody who was arguing with him earlier tonight. I saw it.”
So you were the werewolf in this room, thought Elena dazedly. But what were you doing here in the first place? You’re not on staff.
“Somebody who has a history of violence,” Tyler was continuing, his lips drawing back from his teeth. “Somebody who, for all we know, is a psychopath who came to Fell’s Church just to kill.”
“Tyler, what are you talking about?” Elena’s dazed feeling had burst like a bubble. Furious, she stepped toward the tall, husky boy. “You’re crazy!”
He gestured at her without looking at her. “So says his girlfriend—but maybe she’s a little prejudiced.”
“And maybe you’re a little prejudiced, Tyler,” said a voice from behind the crowd, and Elena saw a second werewolf pushing his way into the room. Matt.
“Oh, yeah? Well, why don’t you tell us what you know about Salvatore? Where does he come from? Where’s his family? Where did he get all that money?” Tyler turned to address the rest of the crowd. “Who knows anything about him?”
People were shaking their heads. Elena could see, in face after face, distrust blossoming. The distrust of anything unknown, anything different. And Stefan was different. He was the stranger in their midst, and just now they needed a scapegoat.
The girl in the kimono began, “I heard a rumor—”
“That’s all anybody’s heard, rumors!” Tyler said. “No one really knows a thing about him. But there’s one thing I do know. The attacks in Fell’s Church started the first week of school—which was the week Stefan Salvatore came.”
There was a swelling murmur at this, and Elena herself felt a shock of realization. Of course, it was all ridiculous, it was just a coincidence. But what Tyler was saying was true. The attacks had started when Stefan arrived.
“I’ll tell you something else,” shouted Tyler, gesturing at them to be quiet. “Listen to me! I’ll tell you something else!” He waited until everyone was looking at him and then said slowly, impressively, “He was in the cemetery the night Vickie Bennett was attacked.”
“Sure he was in the cemetery—rearranging your face,” said Matt, but his voice lacked its usual strength. Tyler grabbed the comment and ran with it.
“Yes, and he almost killed me. And tonight somebody did kill Tanner. I don’t know what you think, but I think he did it. I think he’s the one!”
“But where is he?” shouted someone from the crowd.
Tyler looked around. “If he did it, he must still be here,” he shouted. “Let’s find him.”
“Stefan hasn’t done anything! Tyler—” cried Elena, but the noise from the crowd overrode her. Tyler’s words were being taken up and repeated. Find him … find him … find him. Elena heard it pass from person to person. And the faces in the Druid Room were filled with more than distrust now; Elena could see anger and a thirst for vengeance in them too. The crowd had turned into something ugly, something beyond controlling.
“Where is he, Elena?” said Tyler, and she saw the blazing triumph in his eyes. He was enjoying this.
“I don’t know,” she said fiercely, wanting to hit him.
“He must still be here! Find him!” someone shouted, and then it seemed everyone was moving, pointing, pushing, at once. Partitions were being knocked down and shoved aside.
Elena’s heart was pounding. This was no longer a crowd; it was a mob. She was terrified of what they would do to Stefan if they did find him. But if she tried to go warn him, she would lead Tyler right to him.
She looked around desperately. Bonnie was still staring into Mr. Tanner’s dead face. No help there. She turned to scan the crowd again, and her eyes met Matt’s.
He was looking confused and angry, his blond hair ruffled up, cheeks flushed and sweaty. Elena put all her strength of will into a look of pleading.
Please, Matt, she thought. You can’t believe all this. You know it isn’t true.
But his eyes showed that he didn’t know. There was a tumult of bewilderment and agitation in them.
Please, thought Elena, gazing into those blue eyes, willing him to understand. Oh, please, Matt, only you can save him. Even if you don’t believe, please try to trust … please …
She saw the change come over his face, the confusion lifting as grim determination appeared. He stared at her another moment, eyes boring into hers, and nodded once. Then he turned and slipped into the milling, hunting crowd.
Matt knifed through the crowd cleanly until he got to the other side of the gym. There were some freshmen standing near the door to the boys’ locker room; he brusquely ordered them to start moving fallen partitions, and when their attention was distracted he jerked the door open and ducked inside.
He looked around quickly, unwilling to shout. For that matter, he thought, Stefan must have heard all the racket going on in the gym. He’d probably already cut out. But then Matt saw the black-clad figure on the white tile floor.
“Stefan! What happened?” For a terrible instant, Matt thought he was looking down on a second dead body. But as he knelt by Stefan’s side, he saw movement.
“Hey, you’re okay, just sit up slowly … easy. Are you all right, Stefan?”
“Yes,” said Stefan. He didn’t look okay, Matt thought. His face was dead white and his pupils were dilated hugely. He looked disoriented and sick. “Thank you,” he said.
“You may not thank me in a minute. Stefan, you’ve got to get out of here. Can’t you hear them? They’re after you.”
Stefan turned toward the gym, as if listening. But there was no comprehension on his face. “Who’s after me? Why?”
“Everybody. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve got to get out before they come in here.” As Stefan continued simply to stare blankly, he added, “There’s been another attack, this time on Tanner, Mr. Tanner. He’s dead, Stefan, and they think you did it.”
Now, at last, he
saw understanding come to Stefan’s eyes. Understanding and horror and a kind of resigned defeat that was more frightening than anything Matt had seen tonight. He gripped Stefan’s shoulder hard.
“I know you didn’t,” he said, and at that moment it was true. “They’ll realize that, too, when they can think again. But meanwhile, you’d better get out.”
“Get out … yes,” said Stefan. The look of disorientation was gone, and there was a searing bitterness in the way he pronounced the words. “I will … get out.”
“Stefan …”
“Matt.” The green eyes were dark and burning, and Matt found he could not look away from them. “Is Elena safe? Good. Then, take care of her. Please.”
“Stefan, what are you talking about? You’re innocent; this will all blow over….”
“Just take care of her, Matt.”
Matt stepped back, still looking into those compelling green eyes. Then, slowly, he nodded.
“I will,” he said quietly. And watched Stefan go.
13
Elena stood within the circle of adults and police, waiting for a chance to escape. She knew that Matt had warned Stefan in time—his face told her that—but he hadn’t been able to get close enough to speak with her.
At last, with all attention turned toward the body, she detached herself from the group and edged toward Matt.
“Stefan got out all right,” he said, his eyes on the group of adults. “But he told me to take care of you, and I want you to stay here.”
“To take care of me?” Alarm and suspicion flashed through Elena. Then, almost in a whisper, she said, “I see.” She thought a moment and then spoke carefully. “Matt, I need to go wash my hands. Bonnie got blood on me. Wait here; I’ll be back.”
He started to say something in protest, but she was already moving away. She held up her stained hands in explanation as she reached the door of the girls’ locker room, and the teacher who was now standing there let her through. Once in the locker room, however, she kept on going, right out the far door and into the darkened school. And from there, into the night.
Zuccone! Stefan thought, grabbing a bookcase and flinging it over, sending its contents flying. Fool! Blind, hateful fool. How could he have been so stupid?
Find a place with them here? Be accepted as one of them? He must have been mad to have thought it was possible.
He picked up one of the great heavy trunks and threw it across the room, where it crashed against the far wall, splintering a window. Stupid, stupid.
Who was after him? Everybody. Matt had said it. “There’s been another attack…. They think you did it.”
Well, for once it looked as if the barbari, the petty living humans with their fear of anything unknown, were right. How else did you explain what had happened? He had felt the weakness, the spinning, swirling confusion; and then darkness had taken him. When he’d awakened it was to hear Matt saying that another human had been pillaged, assaulted. Robbed this time not only of his blood, but of his life. How did you explain that unless he, Stefan, were the killer?
A killer was what he was. Evil. A creature born in the dark, destined to live and hunt and hide there forever. Well, why not kill, then? Why not fulfill his nature? Since he could not change it, he might as well revel in it. He would unleash his darkness upon this town that hated him, that hunted him even now.
But first … he was thirsty. His veins burned like a network of dry, hot wires. He needed to feed … soon … now.
The boarding house was dark. Elena knocked at the door but received no answer. Thunder cracked overhead. There was still no rain.
After the third barrage of knocking, she tried the door, and it opened. Inside, the house was silent and pitch black. She made her way to the staircase by feel and went up it.
The second landing was just as dark, and she stumbled, trying to find the bedroom with the stairway to the third floor. A faint light showed at the top of the stairs, and she climbed toward it, feeling oppressed by the walls, which seemed to close in on her from either side.
The light came from beneath the closed door. Elena tapped on it lightly and quickly. “Stefan,” she whispered, and then she called more loudly, “Stefan, it’s me.”
No answer. She grasped the knob and pushed the door open, peering around the side. “Stefan—”
She was speaking to an empty room.
And a room filled with chaos. It looked as if some great wind had torn through, leaving destruction in its path. The trunks that had stood in corners so sedately were lying at grotesque angles, their lids gaping open, their contents strewn about the floor. One window was shattered. All Stefan’s possessions, all the things he had kept so carefully and seemed to prize, were scattered like rubbish.
Terror swept through Elena. The fury, the violence in this scene of devastation were painfully clear, and they made her feel almost giddy.
Somebody who has a history of violence, Tyler had said.
I don’t care, she thought, anger surging up to push back the fear. I don’t care about anything, Stefan; I still want to see you. But where are you?
The trapdoor in the ceiling was open, and cold air was blowing down. Oh, thought Elena, and she had a sudden chill of fear. That roof was so high….
She’d never climbed the ladder to the widow’s walk before, and her long skirt made it difficult. She emerged through the trapdoor slowly, kneeling on the roof and then standing up. She saw a dark figure in the corner, and she moved toward it quickly.
“Stefan, I had to come—” she began, and broke off short, because a flash of lightning lit the sky just as the figure in the corner whirled around. And then it was as if every foreboding and fear and nightmare she’d ever had were coming true all at once. It was beyond screaming at; it was beyond anything.
Oh, God … no. Her mind refused to make sense of what her eyes were seeing. No. No.
She wouldn’t look at this, she wouldn’t believe it….
But she could not help seeing. Even if she could have shut her eyes, every detail of the scene was etched upon her memory. As if the flash of lightning had seared it onto her brain forever.
Stefan. Stefan, so sleek and elegant in his ordinary clothes, in his black leather jacket with the collar turned up. Stefan, with his dark hair like one of the roiling storm clouds behind him. Stefan had been caught in that flash of light, half turned toward her, his body twisted into a bestial crouch, with a snarl of animal fury on his face.
And blood. That arrogant, sensitive, sensual mouth was smeared with blood. It showed ghastly red against the pallor of his skin, against the sharp whiteness of his bared teeth. In his hands was the limp body of a mourning dove, white as those teeth, wings outspread. Another lay on the ground at his feet, like a crumpled and discarded handkerchief.
“Oh, God, no,” Elena whispered. She went on whispering it, backing away, scarcely aware that she was doing either. Her mind simply could not cope with this horror; her thoughts were running wildly in panic, like mice trying to escape a cage. She wouldn’t believe this, she wouldn’t believe. Her body was filled with unbearable tension, her heart was bursting, her head reeling.
“Oh, God, no—”
“Elena!” More terrible than anything else was this, to see Stefan looking at her out of that animal face, to see the snarl changing into a look of shock and desperation. “Elena, please. Please, don’t …”
“Oh, God, no!” The screams were trying to rip their way out of her throat. She backed farther away, stumbling, as he took a step toward her. “No!”
“Elena, please—be careful—” That terrible thing, the thing with Stefan’s face, was coming after her, green eyes burning. She flung herself backward as he took another step, his hand outstretched. That long, slender-fingered hand that had stroked her hair so gently—
“Don’t touch me!” she cried. And then she did scream, as her motion brought her back against the iron railing of the widow’s walk. It was iron that had been there for nearly a centu
ry and a half, and in places it was nearly rusted through. Elena’s panicked weight against it was too much, and she felt it give way. She heard the tearing sound of overstressed metal and wood mingling with her own shriek. And then there was nothing behind her, nothing to grab on to, and she was falling.
In that instant, she saw the seething purple clouds, the dark bulk of the house beside her. It seemed that she had enough time to see them clearly, and to feel an infinity of terror as she screamed and fell, and fell.
But the terrible, shattering impact never came. Suddenly there were arms around her, supporting her in the void. There was a dull thud and the arms tightened, weight giving against her, absorbing the crash. Then all was still.
She held herself motionless within the circle of those arms, trying to get her bearings. Trying to believe yet another unbelievable thing. She had fallen from a three-story roof, and yet she was alive. She was standing in the garden behind the boarding house, in the utter silence between claps of thunder, with fallen leaves on the ground where her broken body should be.
Slowly, she brought her gaze upward to the face of the one who held her. Stefan.
There had been too much fear, too many blows tonight. She could react no longer. She could only stare up at him with a kind of wonder.
There was such sadness in his eyes. Those eyes that had burned like green ice were now dark and empty, hopeless. The same look that she’d seen that first night in his room, only now it was worse. For now there was self-hatred mixed with the sorrow, and bitter condemnation. She couldn’t bear it.
“Stefan,” she whispered, feeling that sadness enter her own soul. She could still see the tinge of red on his lips, but now it awakened a thrill of pity along with the instinctive horror. To be so alone, so alien and so alone …
“Oh, Stefan,” she whispered.
There was no answer in those bleak, lost eyes. “Come,” he said quietly, and led her back toward the house.
Stefan felt a rush of shame as they reached the third story and the destruction that was his room. That Elena, of all people, should see this was insupportable. But then, perhaps it was also fitting that she should see what he truly was, what he could do.