by L. J. Smith
“A car tried to run me and Damon down last night,” Elena said. “We had been trying to investigate something weird in the library, but I don’t know if that’s why. I couldn’t get a look at the driver.”
Meredith paused in her knife sharpening. “I told you that Samantha and I chased away someone attacking a girl on campus,” she said thoughtful y, “but I didn’t tel you one thing, because I wasn’t sure. I’m stil not sure.” She told Elena about her impressions of the black-clad figure, including the momentary impression of paleness below the hoodie, of almost white hair.
Elena frowned, her fingers faltering on the staff.
“Zander?” she asked.
They both looked at Bonnie’s unmade bed.
“She real y likes him,” Meredith said slowly. “Wouldn’t she know if there was something wrong with him? You know…” She made a vague gesture around her head, trying to indicate Bonnie’s history of visions.
“We can’t count on that,” Elena said, frowning. “And she doesn’t remember the things she sees. I don’t think he’s right for Bonnie,” she continued. “He’s so—I mean, he’s good-looking, and friendly, but he seems off somehow, doesn’t he? And his friends are jerks. I know it’s a long way from having terrible friends to being dangerous enough to do something like this, but I don’t trust him.”
“Can you ask Stefan to watch him?” Meredith asked. “I know you’re taking a break from dating, but this is important, and a vampire would be the best one to keep an eye on him.” Stefan looked so sad the other night, she thought distantly. Why shouldn’t Elena cal him? Life was short. She felt the blade of the knife against her thumb again. Better. Putting the sharpened knife down, she reached for another.
Elena wasn’t answering, and Meredith looked up to see her staring hard at the stave, her mouth trembling. “I—
Stefan isn’t talking to me,” she said in a little burst. “I don’t think—I don’t know if he’d help us.” She closed her mouth firmly, clearly not wanting to talk about it.
“Oh,” Meredith said. It was hard to imagine Stefan not doing what Elena wanted, but it was also clear that Elena didn’t want to ask him. “Should I cal Damon?” she suggested reluctantly. The older vampire was a pain, and she didn’t real y trust him, but he was certainly good at being sneaky.
Elena sucked in a breath and then nodded briskly, her mouth set. “No, I’l cal him,” she said. “I’l ask Damon to investigate Zander.”
Meredith sighed and leaned back against the wal , letting the knife drop onto her bed. Suddenly, she was terribly tired. Waiting for Samantha in the gym that morning seemed like a mil ion years ago, but it stil wasn’t even lunchtime. She and Elena both looked at Bonnie’s bed again.
“We have to talk to her about Zander, don’t we?” Elena asked quietly. “We have to ask her whether he was with her al last night. And we have to warn her.” Meredith nodded and closed her eyes, letting her head rest against the coolness of the wal , then opened them again. Tired as she was, she knew the images of Samantha’s death would come back to her if she let herself pause for even a moment. She didn’t have time to rest, not while the kil er was out there. “She’s not going to be happy about it.”
27
Bounce
Bounce
Bounce
Swish
Catch
Bounce
Bounce
Swish
Catch
Stefan stood on the free-throw line of the empty basketbal court, mechanical y dribbling and throwing the bal through the net. He felt empty inside, an automaton making perfect identical shots.
He didn’t real y love basketbal . For him, it lacked both the satisfying contact of footbal and the mathematical precision of pool. But it was something to do. He’d been up al night and al morning, and he couldn’t stand the endless pacing of his own feet around the campus, or the sight of the four wal s of his room.
What was he going to do now? There didn’t seem to be much point to going to school without Elena beside him. He tried to block out his memories of the centuries of wandering the world alone, without her, without Damon, that preceded his coming to Fel ’s Church. He was shutting down his emotions as hard as he could, forcing himself numb, but he couldn’t help dimly wondering if centuries of loneliness were in store for him again.
“Quite a talent you got there,” a shadow said, stepping away from the bleachers. “We should have recruited you for the basketbal team, too.”
“Matt,” Stefan acknowledged, making another basket, then tossing the bal to him.
Matt lined up careful y to the basket and shot, and it circled the rim before dropping through.
Stefan waited while Matt ran to get the bal , then turned to him. “Were you looking for me?” he asked, careful y not asking if Elena had sent him.
Looking surprised, Matt shook his head. “Nah. I like to shoot baskets when I’ve got some thinking to do. You know.”
“What’s going on?” Stefan asked.
Matt rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassed. “There was this girl who I kind of liked, who I’ve been thinking about for a while, wanting to ask out. And, uh, it turns out she already has a boyfriend.”
“Oh.” After a few minutes, Stefan realized he ought to respond with something more. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Yeah.” Matt sighed. “She’s real y special. I thought—I don’t know, it would be nice to have something like what you and Elena have. Someone to love.”
Stefan winced. It felt like Matt had twisted a knife in his gut. He flung the bal at the basket, not aiming this time, and it bounced back at them hard off the backboard. Matt jumped to catch it, then moved toward him, holding out a hand. “Hey, hey, Stefan. Take it easy. What is it?”
“Elena and I aren’t seeing each other anymore,” Stefan said flatly, trying to ignore the stab of pain from saying the words. “She—I saw her kissing Damon.”
Matt looked at Stefan silently for what felt like a long time, his pale blue eyes steady and compassionate. Stefan was struck sharply by the memory that Matt had loved Elena, too, and that they had been together before Stefan came into the picture.
“Look,” Matt said final y. “You can’t control Elena. If there’s one thing I know about her—and I’ve known her for our whole lives—it’s that she’s always going to do what she wants to do, no matter what gets in her way. You can’t stop her.” Stefan began to nod, hot tears burning behind his eyes. “But,” Matt added, “I also know that, in the end, you’re the one for her. She’s never felt the way she does about you for anyone else. And, y’know, I’m starting to discover that there are other girls out there, but I don’t think you’re going to. Whatever’s going on with Damon, Elena wil come back to you. And you’d be an idiot not to let her, because she’s the only one for you.”
Stefan rubbed the bridge of his nose. He felt breakable, like his bones were made of glass. “I don’t know, Matt,” he said tiredly.
Matt grinned sympathetical y. “Yeah, but I do.” He tossed Stefan the bal and Stefan caught it automatical y.
“Want to play Horse?”
He was tired and heartsick, but, as he dribbled the bal , thinking that he’d have to take it a tiny bit easy to give Matt a chance, Stefan felt a stirring of hope. Maybe Matt was right.
“Are you crazy?” Bonnie shouted. She had always thought that “seeing red” was just a metaphor, but she was so angry that she actual y was seeing the faintest scarlet touch on everything, as if the whole room had been dipped in blood-tinged water.
Meredith and Elena exchanged glances. “We’re not saying there is anything wrong with Zander,” Meredith said gently. “It’s just that we want you to be careful.”
“Careful?” Bonnie gave a mean, bitter little laugh and shoved past them to grab a duffel bag out of her closet.
“You’re just jealous,” she said without looking at them. She unzipped the bag and started to dump in some clothes.
“Jealous o
f what, Bonnie?” Elena asked. “I don’t want Zander.”
“Jealous because I’m final y the one who has a boyfriend,” Bonnie retorted. “Alaric is back in Fel ’s Church, and you broke up with both your boyfriends, and you don’t like seeing me happy when you’re miserable.” Elena shut her mouth tightly, white spots showing on her cheekbones, and turned away. Eyeing Bonnie careful y, Meredith said, “I told you what I saw, Bonnie. It’s nothing definite, but I’m afraid that the person who attacked that girl might have been Zander. Can you tel me where he was after you two left the party last night?” Focusing on stuffing her favorite jeans into what was already starting to seem like an overcrowded bag, Bonnie didn’t answer. She could feel an annoying tel tale flush spreading up her neck and over her face. Fine, this was probably enough clothes. She could grab her toothbrush and moisturizer from the bathroom on her way down the hal .
Meredith came toward her, hands open and outstretched placatingly. “Bonnie,” she said gently, “we do want you to be happy. We real y do. But we want you to be safe, too, and we’re worried that Zander might not be everything you think he is. Maybe you could stay away from him, just for a little while? While we check things out?” Bonnie zipped up her bag, threw it over her shoulder, and headed for the door, brushing past Meredith without a glance. She was planning to just walk out but, at the last minute, wheeled around in the doorway to face them again, unable to bite back what she was thinking.
“What’s kil ing me here,” she said, “is what hypocrites you two are. Don’t you remember when Mr. Tanner was murdered? Or the tramp who was almost kil ed under Wickery Bridge?” She was actual y shaking with fury.
“Everyone in the whole town thought Stefan was responsible. Al the evidence pointed at him. But Meredith and I didn’t think so, because Elena told us she knew Stefan couldn’t have done it, that he wouldn’t have done it.
And we believed you, even though you didn’t have any proof to give us,” she said, staring at Elena, who dropped her eyes to the floor. “I would have thought you could trust me the same way.” She looked back and forth between them. “The fact that you’re suspecting Zander even though I’m standing here, tel ing you he would never hurt anybody, makes it clear that you don’t respect me,” she said coldly.
“Maybe you never did.”
Bonnie stomped out of the room, hitching the strap of the duffel bag higher on her shoulder.
“Bonnie” she heard behind her and turned to look back one more time. Meredith and Elena were both reaching after her, identical expressions of frustration on their faces.
“I’m going to Zander’s,” Bonnie told them curtly. That would show them what she thought about their suspicions of him.
She slammed the door behind her.
28
“Of course Bonnie’s upset,” Alaric said. “This is her first real boyfriend. But the three of you have been through a lot together. She’l come back to you, and she’l listen to you, once she gets a chance to cool down.” His voice was deep and loving, and Meredith squeezed her eyes shut and held the phone more tightly to her ear, picturing his grad-student apartment with the cozy brown couch and the milk-crate bookshelves. She had never wished so hard that she was there.
“What if something happens to her, though?” Meredith said. “I can’t wait around for Bonnie to get over being mad at me if she’s in danger.”
Alaric made a thinking noise into the phone, and Meredith could picture his forehead scrunching in that cute way it did when he was analyzing a problem from different angles.
“Wel ,” he said at last, “Bonnie’s been spending a lot of time with Zander, right? A lot of time alone? And she’s been fine thus far. I think we can conclude that, even if Zander is the one behind the attacks on campus, he’s not planning to hurt Bonnie.”
“I think your reasoning is sort of specious there,” Meredith said, feeling oddly comforted by his words nevertheless.
Alaric gave a smal huff of surprised laughter. “Don’t cal my bluff,” he said. “I have a reputation for being logical.” Meredith heard the creak of Alaric’s desk chair on the other end of the line and imagined him leaning back, phone tucked into his shoulder, hands behind his head. “I’m so sorry about Samantha,” he said, voice sobering.
Meredith nestled farther into her bed, pressing her face against the pil ow. “I can’t talk about it yet,” she said, closing her eyes. “I just have to figure out who kil ed her.”
“I don’t know if this is going to be useful,” Alaric said,
“but I’ve been doing some research on the history of Dalcrest.”
“Like the ghosts and weird mysteries around campus Elena’s professor was talking about in class?”
“Wel , there’s even more to the history of the col ege than he told them about,” Alaric said. Meredith could hear him shuffling papers, probably flicking through the pages of one of his research notebooks. “Dalcrest appears to be something of a paranormal hotspot. There have been incidents that sound like vampire and werewolf attacks throughout its history, and this isn’t the first time there’s been a string of mysterious disappearances on campus.”
“Real y?” Meredith sat up. “How can the col ege stay open if people disappear al the time?”
“It’s not al the time,” Alaric replied. “The last major wave of disappearances was during the Second World War.
There was a lot of population mobility at the time, and, although the missing students left worried friends and family behind, the police assumed that the young men who disappeared had run off to enlist and the young women to marry soldiers or to work in munitions factories. The fact that the students never turned up again seems to have been disregarded, and the cases weren’t viewed as related.”
“Super work on the police department’s part,” Meredith said acidly.
“There’s a lot of weird behavior on campus, too,” Alaric said. “Sororities in the seventies practicing black magic, that kind of thing.”
“Any of those sororities stil around?” Meredith asked.
“Not those specific ones,” Alaric said, “but it’s something to keep in mind. There might be something about the campus that makes people more likely to experiment with the supernatural.”
“And what is that?” Meredith asked, flopping down on her back again. “What’s your theory, Professor?”
“Wel , it’s not my theory,” Alaric said, “but I found someone online who suggested that Dalcrest may be somewhere with a huge concentration of crossing ley lines, the same way that Fel ’s Church is. This whole part of Virginia has a lot of supernatural power, but some parts even more than others.”
Meredith frowned. Ley lines, the strong lines of Power running beneath the surface of the earth, shone like beacons to the supernatural world.
“And some people theorize that, where there are ley lines, the barriers between our world and the Dark Dimensions are thinner,” Alaric continued. Wincing, Meredith remembered the creatures she, Bonnie, and Elena had faced in the Dark Dimension. If they were able to cross over, to come to Dalcrest as the kitsune had come to Fel ’s Church, everyone was in danger.
“We don’t have any proof of that, though,” Alaric said reassuringly, hurrying to fil up the silence between them.
“Al we know is that Dalcrest has a history of supernatural activity. We don’t even know for sure if that’s what we’re facing now.”
An image of Samantha’s blank dead eyes fil ed Meredith’s mind. There had been a smear of blood across her cheek below her right eye. The murder scene had been so gruesome, and Samantha had been kil ed so horrifical y.
Meredith believed in her heart of hearts that Alaric’s theories must be correct: there was no way Samantha had been murdered by a human being.
29
“You should be proud.” The Vitale Society pledges were lined up in the underground meeting room, just like they had been the first day when they removed their blindfolds.
Under the arch in front of them,
the Vitales in black masks watched quietly.
Ethan paced among the pledges, eyes bright. “You should be proud,” he repeated. “The Vitale Society offered you an opportunity. The chance to become one of us, to join an organization that can give you great power, help you on your road to success.”
Ethan paused and gazed at them. “Not al of you were worthy,” he said seriously. “We watched you, you know. Not just when you were here, or doing pledge events, but al the time. The candidates who couldn’t cut it, who didn’t merit joining our ranks, were eliminated.”
Matt looked around. It was true, there were fewer of them now than there had been at their first meeting. That tal bearded senior who was some kind of biogenetics whiz was gone. A skinny blonde girl who Matt remembered doggedly grinding her way through the run wasn’t there either. There were only ten pledges left.
“Those of you who remain?” Ethan lifted his hands like he was giving them some kind of benediction. “At last it is time for you to be initiated, to ful y become members of the Vitale Society, to learn our secrets and walk our path.” Matt felt a little swel of pride as Ethan smiled at them al . It felt like Ethan’s eyes lingered longer on Matt than on the others, like his smile for Matt was just a bit warmer. Like Matt was, among al these exceptional pledges, special.
Ethan started to walk through the crowd and talk again, this time about the preparations that needed to be made for their initiation. He asked a couple of pledges to bring roses and lilies to decorate the room—it sounded like he was expecting them to buy out a couple of flower stores—
others to find candles. One person was assigned to buy a specific kind of wine. Frankly, it reminded Matt of Elena and the other girls planning a high school dance.
“Okay,” Ethan said, indicating Chloe and a long-haired girl named Anna, “I’d like you two to go to the herb store and get yerba mata, guarana, hawthorn, ginseng, chamomile, and danshen. Do you want to write that down?” Matt perked up a little. Herbs were slightly more mystical and mysterious, befitting a secret society, although ginseng and chamomile just reminded him of the tea his mom drank when she had a cold.
