by L. J. Smith
She turned to whisper something to Damon about it but was caught again by the sheer unexpectedness of him, of him here. He just didn’t fit in the drab and ordinary library computer station—it was like finding a wild animal curled up on your desk. Like a dark angel fixing oatmeal in your kitchen.
Had she ever seen him under fluorescent lights before?
Something about the lighting brought out the clean paleness of his skin, cast long shadows along his cheekbones, and fel without reflection into the black velvet of his hair and eyes. A couple of buttons on the col ar of his shirt were undone, and Elena found herself almost mesmerized by the subtle shifts of the long muscles in his neck and shoulders.
“What would a Vital Society be?” he asked suddenly, breaking her out of her reverie.
“What?” she asked, confused. “What are you talking about?”
Damon clicked the mouse and shifted the zoom, focusing this time on the notebook in her mother’s lap. Her mother’s hands—pretty hands, Elena noticed, prettier than her own, which had slightly crooked pinkies—were splayed over the open book, but between the fingers, Elena could read: Vit l Soci y
“I assume that’s what it says,” Damon said, shrugging.
“Since you’re looking for something that starts with V. It could say something else of course. Vital Social y, maybe?
Was your mother a social queen bee like you?” Elena ignored the question. “The Vitale Society,” she said slowly. “I always thought it was a myth.”
“Leave the Vitale Society alone.” The hiss came from behind them, and Elena whipped around.
The librarian seemed curiously impressive framed against the bookshelves despite her tennis shoes and pastel sweater set. Her hawklike face was tense and focused on Elena, her body tal and, Elena felt instinctively, threatening.
“What do you mean?” Elena asked. “Do you know something about them?”
Confronted by a direct question, the woman seemed to shrink from the almost menacing figure she had been a second before to an ordinary, slightly dithering old lady. “I don’t know anything,” she muttered, frowning. “Al I can say is that it’s not safe to mess with the Vitales. Things happen around them. Even if you’re careful.” She started to wheel her book cart away.
“Wait!” Elena said, half rising. “What kind of things?” What had her parents been involved in? They wouldn’t have done anything wrong, would they? Not Elena’s parents. But the librarian only walked faster, the wheels of her cart squeaking as she rounded the corner into another aisle.
Damon gave a low laugh. “She won’t tel you anything,” he said, and Elena glared at him. “She doesn’t know anything, or she’s too scared to say what she does know.”
“That’s not helpful, Damon,” Elena said tightly. She pressed her fingers against her temples. “What do we do now?”
“We look into the Vitale Society, of course,” Damon said. Elena opened her mouth to object, and Damon shushed her, drawing one cool finger over her mouth. His touch was soft on her lips, and she half raised a hand toward them. “Don’t worry about what a foolish old woman has to say,” he told her. “But if we real y want to find out the secrets of this society of yours, we probably need to look somewhere other than the library.”
He got to his feet and held out his hand. “Shal we?” he asked. Elena nodded and took his hand in hers. When it came to finding out secrets, to digging up what people wanted to keep concealed, she knew she could put her faith in Damon.
“Pick up, Zander,” Bonnie muttered into the phone.
The ringing stopped, and a precise mechanical voice informed her that she was welcome to leave a message in the voice mailbox. Bonnie hung up. She had already left a couple of voicemails, and she didn’t want Zander thinking she was any crazier or more clueless than he inevitably would when he saw his missed-cal list.
Bonnie was pretty sure she was going through the Five Stages of Being Ditched. She was almost done with Denial, where she was convinced something had happened to him, and was moving quickly into Anger.
Later, she knew, she would slide into Bargaining, Depression, and eventual y (she hoped) Acceptance.
Apparently her psych class was already coming in handy.
It had been days since he had abruptly run off, leaving her al alone in front of the music building. When she found out that a girl disappeared that same night, at first Bonnie was angry and scared for herself. Zander had left her alone.
What if Bonnie had been the one to vanish? Then she began to worry about Zander, to be afraid that he was in trouble. He seemed so sweet, and so into her, that it was almost impossible for her to believe Zander would just be avoiding her al of a sudden.
Wouldn’t his friends have sounded the alarm if Zander was missing, though? And when she thought that, Bonnie realized that she didn’t know how to contact any of those guys; she hadn’t seen any of them around campus since that night.
Bonnie stared at her phone as fresh tendrils of worry grew and twisted inside her. Real y, she was having a very tough time moving on to Anger when she was stil not quite sure that Zander was safe.
The phone rang.
Zander. It was Zander.
Bonnie snatched up her phone. “Where have you been?” she demanded, her voice shaking.
There was a long pause on the other end of the line.
Bonnie was almost ready to hang up when Zander final y spoke. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to freak you out. Some family stuff came up, and I’ve had to be out of touch. I’m back now.”
Bonnie knew that Elena or Meredith would have said something pithy and cutting here, something to let Zander know exactly how little they appreciated being forgotten about, but she couldn’t bring herself to. Zander sounded rough and tired, and there was a break in his voice when he said he was sorry that made her want to forgive him.
“You left me outside alone,” she said softly. “A girl disappeared that night.”
Zander sighed, a long sad sound. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “It was an awful thing to do. But I knew you would be okay. You have to believe that. I wouldn’t have left you in danger.”
“How?” Bonnie asked. “How could you know?”
“Just trust me, Bonnie,” Zander said. “I can’t explain it now, but you weren’t in danger that night. I’l tel you about it when I can, okay?”
Bonnie shut her eyes and bit her lip. Elena and Meredith would never have settled for this kind of half explanation, she knew. Not even half an explanation, just an apology and an evasion. But she wasn’t like them, and Zander sounded sincere, so desperate for her to believe him. It was her choice, she knew: trust him, or let him go.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay, I believe you.” Zander let out another sigh, but it sounded like one of relief this time. “Let me make it up to you,” he said.
“Please? How about I take you out this weekend, anywhere you want to go?”
Bonnie hesitated, but she was starting to smile despite herself. “There’s a party at Samantha’s dorm on Saturday,” she said. “Want to meet there at nine?”
“There’s something peculiar going on at the library,” Damon said, and Stefan twitched in surprise at his sudden appearance.
“I didn’t see you there,” he said mildly, looking out onto his dark balcony, where Damon leaned against the railing.
“I just landed,” Damon said, and smiled. “Literal y. I’ve been flying around campus, checking things out. It’s a wonderful feeling, riding the breezes as the sun sets. You should try it.”
Stefan nodded, keeping his face neutral. They both knew that one of the few things Stefan envied about Damon was his ability to change into a bird. It wasn’t worth it, though—he would have to drink human blood regularly to have Power as strong as Damon’s.
Elena’s face rose up in his mind’s eye, and he pushed her image away. She was his salvation, the one who connected him to the world of humans, who kept him from sinking into the darkness. Believin
g that their separation was only temporary was what was keeping him going.
“Don’t you miss Elena?” Stefan asked, and Damon’s face immediately closed off, becoming hard and blank.
Stefan sighed inwardly. Of course Damon didn’t miss Elena, because he was undoubtedly seeing her al the time.
He’d known Damon wouldn’t abide by the rules.
“What’s the matter?” Damon asked him. His voice was almost concerned, and Stefan wondered what his own face looked like to get that kind of reaction from Damon. Damon who had probably just seen Elena.
“Sometimes I’m a fool,” Stefan told him dryly. “What do you want, Damon?”
Damon smiled. “I want you to come do some detective work with me, little brother. Real y, anything’s better than seeing this sulking, forehead-wrinkling brooding expression on your face.”
Stefan shrugged. “Why not?” Stefan leaped down from the balcony with perfect grace, and Damon fol owed swiftly behind.
As Damon led the way to their destination, he fil ed Stefan in on the details. Or rather, the vague scenario Stefan could gather from Damon’s explanation. Damon never was one for ful disclosure. Al Stefan knew was that some research at the library had prompted a sketchy warning from an old librarian. Stefan inwardly chuckled at the thought of a frail old woman squaring against Damon over library fines.
“What were you looking at?” Stefan asked, trying to get any more substantial information. “What did she want you to stay away from?” He shifted on the rough branch of the oak tree they were both sitting on, trying to get comfortable.
Damon had a habit of sitting in trees, Stefan realized. It must be a side effect of spending so much time as a bird.
They were on a stakeout outside the librarian’s home, but what exactly they were looking for, Stefan wasn’t sure.
“Just some old photographs from the school’s history,” Damon said. “It doesn’t matter. I just want to make sure she’s human.” He peered through the window nearest their tree, where an elderly woman was sipping tea and watching television.
Stefan noted with irritation that Damon seemed a lot more at ease in the tree than Stefan did. He was leaning forward, resting graceful y on one knee, and Stefan could sense his sending questing strands of Power at the woman, trying to find out whether there was anything unusual about her.
His balance seemed awful y precarious, and he was completely focused on the old woman. Stefan inched toward Damon on the branch, stretched out a hand, and suddenly shoved him.
It was extremely satisfying. Damon, his composure shaken for once, let out a muffled yelp and fel out of the tree. In midair, he turned into a crow and flew back up, perching on a branch above Stefan and eyeing him with a baleful glare. Damon cawed his annoyance at Stefan loudly.
Stefan glanced through the window again. The woman didn’t seem to have heard Damon’s shout or the crow’s caw—she was just flipping channels. When he looked back at Damon, his brother had regained his usual form.
“I would think playing a trick like that would go against your precious moral code,” Damon said, fastidiously smoothing his hair.
“Not real y,” Stefan said, grinning. “I couldn’t help myself.”
Damon shrugged, seeming to accept Stefan’s playfulness as good-natured, and looked through the librarian’s window again. She had gotten up to make herself another cup of tea.
“Did you sense anything from her?” Stefan asked.
Damon shook his head. “Either she’s bril iantly hiding her true nature from us or she’s just a peculiar librarian.” He pushed himself off the branch and leaped, landing lightly on the grass far below. Either way, I’ve had enough, he added silently.
Stefan fol owed him, landing beside Damon at the bottom of the tree. “You didn’t need me for any of that, Damon,” he said. “Why did you ask me to come with you?” Damon’s smile was bril iant in the darkness. “I just thought you could use some cheering up,” he said simply.
Clearly, it wasn’t the librarian Stefan should be worried about acting peculiarly.
20
This is way worse than the obstacle course, thought Matt.
And building a house out of newspaper. And the firewalk.
This is definitely the worst pledge event yet.
He twisted the toothbrush in his hand to real y get into the little niche running along the bottom of the paneling on the Vitale Society’s pledge room wal s. The toothbrush came out black with ancient dirt and dangling cobwebs, and Matt grimaced in disgust. His back was already sore from hunching over.
“How’s it going, soldier?” Chloe asked, squatting down next to him, a dripping sponge in one hand.
“Honestly, I’m not sure how scrubbing out this room is going to help us develop honor and leadership and al the stuff Ethan keeps talking about,” Matt said. “I think this might just be a way to save a couple of bucks on a cleaning service.”
“Wel , they say cleanliness is next to godliness,” she reminded him. Chloe laughed. He real y liked her laugh. It was sort of bubbly and silvery.
Internal y, he gave himself a little eye rol . Bubbly and silvery. She had a nice laugh, was al he meant.
They’d been spending a lot of time together since Christopher’s death. Matt had felt like nothing could be as bad as living with al of Christopher’s stuff when Christopher himself was gone, but then Chris’s parents came and packed it up, gently patting Matt on the back as if he deserved some kind of sympathy when they had lost their only son. And with just empty space where Christopher’s things had been, everything was a mil ion times worse.
Meredith, Bonnie, and Elena had tried to comfort him.
They wanted so badly for him to be okay again that he’d felt guilty he wasn’t, making it harder for him to be around them.
Chloe had taken to coming by the room, hanging out with him or getting him to come to the cafeteria or wherever with her, keeping him in touch with the world when he felt like locking himself away. There was something so easy about her. Elena, the only girl he’d ever loved—before now, part of him whispered—was much more work to be around.
Inside, he flinched at his own disloyalty to Elena, but it was true.
Now he was starting to wake up and take an interest in things again. And he kept noticing with fresh surprise the cute dimple Chloe had in her right cheek, or how shiny her curly dark hair was, or how graceful and pretty her hands were despite the fact that they were often stained with paint.
So far, though, they were just friends. Maybe … maybe it was time to change that.
Chloe snapped her fingers in front of his face, and Matt realized he had been staring at her. “You al right, buddy?” she asked, a little frown wrinkling her forehead, and Matt had to restrain himself from kissing her right then.
“Yeah, just spacing out,” he said, feeling a flush creep over his cheeks. He was smiling like a goof, he knew.
“Want to help with these wal s?”
“Sure, why not?” Chloe answered. “I’l soap down the wal part, and you keep doing whatever you’re doing there with that little toothbrush.”
They worked companionably together for a while, Chloe now and then accidental y-on-purpose dripping soapy water onto the top of Matt’s head.
As they worked further along the paneling, the niche under the baseboard got deeper, until it was not so much a niche as a gap. Matt slid the toothbrush underneath to scrub—man, but it got grimy down there—and felt something shift.
“There’s something under here,” he told Chloe, pressing his hand flat against the floor and working his fingers into the gap. He slid his hands and the toothbrush around, trying to shimmy whatever was down there toward them, but he couldn’t quite get a grip on it.
“Look,” said Chloe after a moment, “I think the paneling might slide up here.” She wiggled the section of wood until it gave a raucous screech and she was able to work it up.
“Huh,” she said, puzzled. “Wow, it’s like a secret compartmen
t. Seems like it hasn’t been opened for a while, though.”
Once she managed to ease the paneling up, they could see the space behind it was smal , only a foot or so in height and width and a few inches deep. It was ful of cobwebs. Inside was something rectangular, wrapped in a cloth that had probably once been white but was now gray with dust.
“It’s a book,” Matt said, picking it up. The grime on the outside of the cloth was thick and soft and came away on his hands. Unwrapping it, he found the book inside was clean.
“Wow,” Chloe said softly.
It looked old, real y old. The cover was flaking dark leather, and the edges of the pages were rough as if they’d been hand cut instead of by a machine. Tilting the book a little, Matt could see the remains of gilt that must have once been the title, but it was worn away now.
Matt opened it to the middle. Inside, it was handwritten, black ink inscribing neat strong strokes. And total y indecipherable.
“I think it’s Latin. Maybe?” said Matt. “Do you know Latin at al ?”
Chloe shook her head. Matt flipped back to the first page, and one word popped out at him. Vitale.
“Maybe it’s a history of the Vitale Society,” Chloe said.
“Or ancient secrets of the founders. Cool! We should give it to Ethan.”
“Yeah, sure,” Matt said, distracted. He turned a few more pages, and the ink changed from black to a dark brown. It looks like dried blood, he thought, and shuddered, then pushed the image away. It was just some kind of old ink, faded brown with time.
One word he recognized, written three—no, four—times on the page: Mort. That meant death, didn’t it? Matt traced the word with his finger, frowning. Creepy.
“I’l show it to Ethan,” Chloe said, jumping up and taking the book from him. She crossed the room and interrupted Ethan’s conversation with another girl. From the other side of the room, Matt watched Ethan’s face break into a slow smile as he took the book.
After a few minutes, Chloe returned, grinning. “Ethan was real y excited,” she said. “He said he’l tel us al about it after he gets someone to translate the book.” Matt nodded. “That’s terrific,” he said, pushing the last of his unease away. This was Chloe, lively, laughing Chloe, and he would try not to think about death or blood or anything morbid around her. “Hey,” he said, pushing away the dark thoughts, focusing on the golden highlights in her dark hair. “Are you going to the party at McAl ister House tonight?”
