by L. J. Smith
Matt spoke up. "I think it's our duty to cure him."
"All we have to do is relieve him of one of his members," Bonnie agreed.
"I can think of one right off," Meredith said under her breath.
Tyler's eyes were starting to bulge. Under the dirt and blood his normally ruddy face had gone pale. "You're bluffing!"
"Get the ax, Matt," said Stefan. "Meredith, you take off one of his shoes."
Tyler kicked when she did, aiming for her face. Matt came and got his head in a hammer-lock. "Don't make it any worse on yourself, Tyler."
The bare foot Meredith exposed was big, the sole as sweaty as Tyler's palms. Coarse hair sprouted from the toes. It made Meredith's skin crawl.
"Let's get this over with," she said.
"You're joking!" Tyler howled, thrashing so that Bonnie had to come and grab his other leg and kneel on it. "You can't do this! You can't!"
"Keep him still," Stefan said. Working together, they stretched Tyler out, his head locked in Matt's arm, his legs spread and pinned by the girls. Making sure Tyler could see what he was doing, Stefan balanced a branch perhaps two inches thick on the lip of the tomb. He raised the ax and then brought it down hard, severing the stick with one blow.
"It's sharp enough," he said. "Meredith, roll his pants leg up. Then tie some of that cord just above his ankle as tight as you can for a tourniquet. Otherwise he'll bleed out."
"You can't do this!" Tyler was screaming. "You can't dooooooo this!"
"Scream all you want, Tyler. Up here, nobody's going to hear you, right?" Stefan said.
"You're no better than I am!" Tyler yelled in a spray of spittle. "You're a killer too!"
"I know exactly what I am," Stefan said. "Believe me, Tyler. I know. Is everybody ready? Good. Hold on to him; he's going to jump when I do it."
Tyler's screams weren't even words anymore.
Matt was holding him so that he could see Stefan kneel and take aim, hefting the ax blade above Tyler's ankle to gauge force and distance.
"Now," said Stefan, raising the ax high.
"No! No! I'll talk to you! I'll talk!" shrieked Tyler.
Stefan glanced at him. "Too late," he said, and brought the ax down.
It rebounded off the stone floor with a clang and a spark, but the noise was drowned by Tyler's screaming. It seemed to take Tyler several minutes to realize that the blade hadn't touched his foot. He paused for breath only when he choked, and turned wild, bulging eyes on Stefan.
"Start talking," Stefan said, his voice wintry, remorseless.
Little whimpers were coming from Tyler's throat and there was foam on his lips. "I don't know his name," he gasped out. "But he looks like you said. And you're right; he's a vampire, man! I saw him drain a ten-point buck while it was still kicking. He lied to me," Tyler added, the whine creeping back into his voice. "He told me I'd be stronger than anybody, as strong as him. He said I could have any girl I wanted, any way I wanted. The creep lied."
"He told you that you could kill and get away with it," Stefan said.
"He said I could do Caroline that night. She had it coming after the way she ditched me. I wanted to make her beg—but she got out of the house somehow. I could have Caroline and Vickie, he said. All he wanted was Bonnie and Meredith."
"But you just tried to kill Meredith."
"That was now. Things are different now, stupid. He said it was all right."
"Why?" Meredith asked Stefan in an undertone.
"Maybe because you'd served your purpose," he said. "You'd brought me here." Then he went on, "All right, Tyler, show us you're cooperating. Tell us how we can get this guy."
"Get him? You're nuts!" Tyler burst into ugly laughter, and Matt tightened the arm around his throat. "Hey, choke me all you want; it's still the truth. He told me he's one of the Old Ones, one of the Originals, whatever that means. He said he's been making vampires since before the pyramids. He said he's made a bargain with the devil. You could stick a stake in his heart and it wouldn't do anything. You can't kill him." The laughter became uncontrolled.
"Where's he hiding, Tyler?" Stefan rapped out. "Every vampire needs a place to sleep. Where is it?"
"He'd kill me if I told you that. He'd eat me, man. God, if I told you what he did to that buck before it died…" Tyler's laughter was turning into something like sobs.
"Then you'd better help us destroy him before he can find you, hadn't you? What's his weak point? How's he vulnerable?"
"God, that poor buck…" Tyler was blubbering.
"What about Sue? Did you cry over her?" Stefan said sharply. He picked up the ax. "I think," he said, "that you're wasting our time."
The ax lifted.
"No! No! I'll talk to you; I'll tell you something. Look, there's one kind of wood that can hurt him—not kill him, but hurt him. He admitted that but didn't tell me what it was! I swear to you that's the truth!"
"Not good enough, Tyler," said Stefan.
"For God's sake—I'll tell you where he's going tonight. If you get over there fast enough, maybe you can stop him."
"What do you mean, where he's going tonight? Talk fast, Tyler!"
"He's going to Vickie's, okay? He said tonight we get one each. That's helpful, isn't it? If you hurry, maybe you can get there!"
Stefan had frozen, and Meredith felt her heart racing. Vickie. They hadn't even thought about an attack on Vickie.
"Damon's guarding her," Matt said. "Right, Stefan? Right?"
"He's supposed to be," Stefan said. "I left him there at dusk. If something happened, he should have called me…"
"You guys," Bonnie whispered. Her eyes were big and her lips were trembling. "I think we'd better get over there now."
They stared at her a moment and then everyone was moving. The ax clanged on the floor as Stefan dropped it.
"Hey, you can't leave me like this! I can't drive! He's gonna come back for me! Come back and untie my hands!" Tyler shrieked. None of them answered.
They ran all the way down the hill and piled into Meredith's car. Meredith took off speeding, rounding corners dangerously fast and gliding through stop signs, but there was a part of her that didn't want to get to Vickie's house. That wanted to turn around and drive the other way.
I'm calm; I'm the one who's always calm, she thought. But that was on the outside. Meredith knew very well how calm you could look on the outside when inside everything was breaking up.
They rounded the last corner onto Birch Street and Meredith hit the brakes.
"Oh, God!" Bonnie cried from the backseat. "No! No!"
"Quick," Stefan said. "There may still be a chance." He wrenched open the door and was out even before the car had stopped. But in back, Bonnie was sobbing.
Eleven
The car skidded in behind one of the police cars that was parked crookedly in the street. There were lights everywhere, lights flashing blue and red and amber, lights blazing from the Bennett house.
"Stay here," Matt snapped, and he plunged outside, following Stefan.
"No!" Bonnie's head jerked up; she wanted to grab him and drag him back. The dizzy nausea she'd felt ever since Tyler had mentioned Vickie was overwhelming her. It was too late; she'd known in the first instant that it was too late. Matt was only going to get himself killed too.
"You stay, Bonnie—keep the doors locked. I'll go after them." That was Meredith.
"No! I'm sick of having everybody tell me to stay!" Bonnie cried, struggling with the seat belt, finally getting it unlocked. She was still crying, but she could see well enough to get out of the car and start toward Vickie's house. She heard Meredith right behind her.
The activity all seemed concentrated at the front: people shouting, a woman screaming, the crackling voices of police radios. Bonnie and Meredith headed straight for the back, for Vickie's window. What is wrong with this picture? Bonnie thought wildly as they approached. The wrongness of what she was looking at was undeniable, yet hard to put a finger on. Vickie's window was open—but i
t couldn't be open; the middle pane of a bay window never opens, Bonnie thought. But then how could the curtains be fluttering out like shirttails?
Not open, broken. Glass was all over the gravel pathway, grinding underfoot. There were shards like grinning teeth left in the bare frame. Vickie's house had been broken into.
"She asked him in," Bonnie cried in agonized fury. "Why did she do that? Why?"
"Stay here," Meredith said, trying to moisten dry lips.
"Stop telling me that. I can take it, Meredith. I'm mad, that's all. I hate him." She gripped Meredith's arm and went forward.
The gaping hole got closer and closer. The curtains rippled. There was enough space between them to see inside.
At the last moment, Meredith pushed Bonnie away and looked through first herself. It didn't matter. Bonnie's psychic senses were awake and already telling her about this place. It was like the crater left in the ground after a meteor has hit and exploded, or like the charred skeleton of a forest after a wildfire. Power and violence were still thrumming in the air, but the main event was over. This place had been violated.
Meredith spun away from the window, doubling over, retching. Clenching her fists so that the nails bit into her palms, Bonnie leaned forward and looked in.
The smell was what struck her first. A wet smell, meaty and coppery. She could almost taste it, and it tasted like an accidentally bitten tongue. The stereo was playing something she couldn't hear over the screaming out front and the drumming-surf sound in her own ears. Her eyes, adjusting from the darkness outside, could see only red. Just red.
Because that was the new color of Vickie's room. The powder blue was gone. Red wallpaper, red comforter. Red in great gaudy splashes across the floor. As if some kid had gotten a bucket of red paint and gone crazy.
The record player clicked and the stylus swung back to the beginning. With a shock, Bonnie recognized the song as it started over.
It was "Goodnight Sweetheart."
"You monster," Bonnie gasped. Pain shot through her stomach. Her hand gripped the window frame, tighter, tighter. "You monster, I hate you! I hate you!"
Meredith heard and straightened up, turning. She shakily pushed back her hair and managed a few deep breaths, trying to look as if she could cope. "You're cutting your hand," she said. "Here, let me see it."
Bonnie hadn't even realized she was gripping broken glass. She let Meredith take the hand, but instead of letting her examine it, she turned it over and clasped Meredith's own cold hand tightly. Meredith looked terrible: dark eyes glazed, lips blue-white and shaking. But Meredith was still trying to take care of her, still trying to keep it together.
"Go on," she said, looking at her friend intently. "Cry, Meredith. Scream if you want to. But get it out somehow. You don't have to be cool now and keep it all inside. You have every right to lose it today."
For a moment Meredith just stood there, trembling, but then she shook her head with a ghastly attempt at a smile. "I can't. I'm just not made that way. Come on, let me look at the hand."
Bonnie might have argued, but just then Matt came around the corner. He started violently to see the girls standing there.
"What are you doing—?" he began. Then he saw the window.
"She's dead," Meredith said flatly.
"I know." Matt looked like a bad photograph of himself, an overexposed one. "They told me up front. They're bringing out…" He stopped.
"We blew it. Even after we promised her…" Meredith stopped too. There was nothing more to say.
"But the police will have to believe us now," Bonnie said, looking at Matt, then Meredith, finding one thing to be grateful for. "They'll have to."
"No," Matt said, "they won't, Bonnie. Because they're saying it's a suicide."
"A suicide?. Have they seen that room? They call that a suicide?" Bonnie cried, her voice rising.
"They're saying she was mentally unbalanced. They're saying she—got hold of some scissors…"
"Oh, my God," Meredith said, turning away.
"They think maybe she was feeling guilty for having killed Sue."
"Somebody broke into this house," Bonnie said fiercely. "They've got to admit that!"
"No." Meredith's voice was soft, as if she were very tired. "Look at the window here. The glass is all outside. Somebody from the inside broke it." And that's the rest of what's wrong with the picture, Bonnie thought.
"He probably did, getting out," Matt said. They looked at each other silently, in defeat.
"Where's Stefan?" Meredith asked Matt quietly. "Is he out front where everyone can see him?"
"No, once we found out she was dead he headed back this way. I was coming to look for him. He must be around somewhere…"
"Sh!" said Bonnie. The shouting from the front had stopped. So had the woman's screaming. In the relative stillness they could hear a faint voice from beyond the black walnut trees in the back of the yard.
"—while you were supposed to be watching her!"
The tone made Bonnie's skin break out in gooseflesh. "That's him!" Matt said. "And he's with Damon. Come on!"
Once they were among the trees Bonnie could hear Stefan's voice clearly. The two brothers were facing each other in the moonlight.
"I trusted you, Damon. I trusted you!" Stefan was saying. Bonnie had never seen him so angry, not even with Tyler in the graveyard. But it was more than anger.
"And you just let it happen," Stefan went on, without glancing at Bonnie and the others as they appeared, without giving Damon a chance to reply. "Why didn't you do something? If you were too much of a coward to fight him, you could at least have called for me. But you just stood there!"
Damon's face was hard, closed. His black eyes glittered, and there was nothing lazy or casual about his posture now. He looked as unbending and brittle as a pane of glass. He opened his mouth, but Stefan interrupted.
"It's my own fault. I should have known better. I did know better. They all knew, they warned me, but I wouldn't listen."
"Oh, did they?" Damon snapped a glance toward Bonnie on the sidelines. A chill went through her.
"Stefan, wait," Matt said. "I think—"
"I should have listened!" Stefan was raging on. He didn't even seem to hear Matt. "I should have stayed with her myself. I promised her she would be safe—and I lied! She died thinking I betrayed her." Bonnie could see it in his face now, the guilt eating into him like acid. "If I had stayed here—"
"You would be dead too!" Damon hissed. "This isn't an ordinary vampire you're dealing with. He would have broken you in two like a dry twig—"
"And that would have been better!" Stefan cried. His chest was heaving. "I would rather have died with her than stood by and watched it! What happened, Damon?" He had gotten hold of himself now, and he was calm, too calm; his green eyes were burning feverishly in his pale face, his voice vicious, poisonous, as he spoke. "Were you too busy chasing some other girl through the bushes? Or just too uninterested to interfere?"
Damon said nothing. He was just as pale as his brother, every muscle tense and rigid. Waves of black fury were rising from him as he watched Stefan.
"Or maybe you enjoyed it," Stefan was continuing, moving another half step forward so that he was right in Damon's face. "Yes, that was probably it; you liked it, being with another killer. Was it good, Damon? Did he let you watch?"
Damon's fist jerked back and he hit Stefan.
It happened too fast for Bonnie's eye to follow. Stefan fell backward onto the soft ground, long legs sprawling. Meredith cried out something, and Matt jumped in front of Damon.
Brave, Bonnie thought dazedly, but stupid. The air was crackling with electricity. Stefan raised a hand to his mouth and found blood, black in the moonlight. Bonnie lurched over to his side and grabbed his arm.
Damon was coming after him again. Matt fell back before him, but not all the way. He dropped to his knees beside Stefan, sitting on his heels, one hand upraised.
"Enough, you guys! Enough, all right?"
he shouted.
Stefan was trying to get up. Bonnie held on to his arm more firmly. "No! Stefan, don't! Don't!" she begged. Meredith grabbed his other arm.
"Damon, leave it alone! Just leave it!" Matt was saying sharply.
We're all crazy, getting in the middle of this, Bonnie thought. Trying to break up a fight between two angry vampires. They're going to kill us just to shut us up. Damon's going to swat Matt like a fly.
But Damon had stopped, with Matt blocking his way. For a long moment the scene remained frozen, nobody moving, everybody rigid with strain. Then, slowly, Damon's stance relaxed.
His hands lowered and unclenched. He drew a slow breath. Bonnie realized she'd been holding her own breath, and she let it out.
Damon's face was cold as a statue carved in ice. "All right, have it your way," he said, and his voice was cold too. "But I'm through here. I'm leaving. And this time, brother, if you follow me, I'll kill you. Promise or no promise."
"I won't follow you," Stefan said from where he sat. His voice sounded as if he'd been swallowing ground glass.
Damon hitched up his jacket, straightening it. With a glance at Bonnie that scarcely seemed to see her, he turned to go. Then he turned back and spoke clearly and precisely, each word an arrow aimed at Stefan.
"I warned you," he said. "About what I am, and about which side would win. You should have listened to me, little brother. Maybe you'll learn something from tonight."
"I've learned what trusting you is worth," Stefan said. "Get out of here, Damon. I never want to see you again."
