Elena hurried after her, her chest tight with excitement. She would see Stefan again. She could tell him how hard it was without him, every day, and he would hold her in his arms and comfort her. It would be like coming home.
They walked on into the darkness, the light of their auras surrounding them both. But then, slowly, the glow of their entwined auras began to fade. Elena called out, but her voice stuck in her throat. Where was Bonnie? Elena tried to run after her, but her friend grew smaller and smaller, finally disappearing from view.
Elena stopped, half-sobbing.
“Stefan!” she called. Her voice echoed back to her. “Stefan!”
She was alone in the darkness.
Elena’s eyes fluttered open. She was standing on the riverbank, her toes chilled by the lapping waves. Bonnie blinked up at her, her face pale and wet with tears.
“I’m so sorry, Elena,” she said. “I couldn’t find him. He’s not anywhere we can reach.”
Elena leaned into her friend, letting Bonnie’s arms circle her shoulders, and sobbed.
Bonnie felt terrible. As she toed off her damp sneakers in the entryway of her and Zander’s apartment, she sniffled experimentally. Maybe spending the afternoon at the river had given her a cold. That would be an easy explanation for the rotten, hollow sensation in her chest.
But, no, if Bonnie was honest with herself, she had to admit the feeling was guilt. The first thing Elena had asked her for since Stefan had died—the only thing Elena had asked anybody for at all—and Bonnie couldn’t do it.
Remembering Elena’s strained smile when she thanked her for trying, Bonnie almost tripped over Zander’s mud-caked work boots, catching herself with a hand against the wall. Now, the end of summer, was the time when his landscaping business planted shrubs and trees, and every day he came home absolutely filthy.
That was what Bonnie needed. Zander. He’d pull her into his arms, smelling of grass and sunshine, and tell that it was okay, that she’d done the best she could.
She heard Zander’s voice and followed his low tones to the kitchen. As she turned the corner from the hallway, she stopped for a moment to simply look at him. He was standing with his back to her, all long lean muscles and tanned skin, his moonlight-blond hair curling at the nape of his neck, still damp with sweat. They’d been together for years now, but the sight of him still sometimes made her want to melt into a puddle on the floor.
“I know,” he said sharply into the phone. “I’m not changing my mind.”
“Hey,” she whispered, stepping forward and lightly brushing her fingers across his back. Zander jumped.
“Bonnie’s here,” he said tightly, turning around to face her. “I have to go. I’ll call you later.” He clicked the phone off.
“Who was that?” Bonnie asked, leaning forward for a kiss. Zander’s lips met hers, warm and soft. When he pulled away, though, he avoided her eyes.
“No one important,” he said. “You want pizza for dinner? Jared told me the secret of that crust he makes. Cornmeal.”
“Sounds good,” Bonnie said, but she couldn’t help frowning. “Are you okay?”
Zander looked at her then, and his face split into a smile, his sky-blue eyes crinkling at the corners. “Never better,” he said.
“Okay.” Bonnie smiled back tentatively. Zander’s gaze had skidded away from hers again, and his shoulders were stiff.
She pushed away the tickle of worry at the back of her mind. They’d all been tense since Stefan’s death. There was nothing more to it than that.
Thinking of Stefan, Bonnie sighed, and Zander turned back toward her, instantly alert. “What’s up?” he asked, his face full of concern.
“I tried to contact Stefan today so Elena could say good-bye. But I couldn’t find him.”
“Oh, Bonnie,” he said. And just as she’d known he would, he put an arm around her shoulders. Bonnie automatically snuggled into it, taking comfort in his strength. “She knows you did everything you could,” Zander went on reassuringly. “There’s nothing you wouldn’t do for her.”
But Elena had looked so broken, Bonnie thought. Nothing like the proud girl Bonnie had known since they were kids. Elena loved Stefan with everything she had, and now she was left with nothing.
Bonnie shivered and cuddled against Zander. “I love you,” she told him. Without a word, Zander pulled her even closer.
Chapter 4
The sun was just beginning to sink behind Dalcrest’s science lab, sending long golden rays across the college’s lawns. On the branch of a maple tree overhanging the path, a large crow stretched out its glossy blue-black wings. Its gaze was fixed intently on the side entrance to the lab.
Damon shifted his talons along the branch, then smoothed an errant feather with his beak. He’d been searching Dalcrest all day, in both crow and human form.
Assuming that Jack was using medical facilities to get the supplies he needed to create his monstrosities, there were a limited number of possible locations in town. There had been no sign of Jack at the busy hospital or the quieter medical practices, most closed for the weekend. So now Damon was at campus, staking out the Dalcrest science lab. It was a long shot, he figured, that Jack would still be this close to where he was last seen, but he had to try. Stefan was dead, and all Damon could think of right now was finding the monster who’d killed him.
The campus was deserted; it was the time of year when the summer students had finally gone home and the professors hadn’t yet begun to prepare for their fall classes. But now a stocky, dark-haired man was coming out of the science lab, and Damon straightened on his branch. The man, who was wearing a pack on his back and carrying a large box, fit the description he’d gotten of Jack—right coloring, build, age—although probably a hundred other humans in Dalcrest would fit the same description. Clicking his beak thoughtfully, Damon sent out a tendril of Power to see if he could find anything that suggested the man was other than human.
Was there the tiniest shift in his aura? These vampires had learned to shield themselves, to appear human so as not to alert their prey. But here he would think he was alone, no one watching him but a bird in a tree. Now that Damon was concentrating his attention fully on this man, there seemed to be something not quite natural, something wrong shimmering through his protective mask. Damon spread his wings wide. Got you now, he thought, rather smugly, as he fluttered quietly down onto the path behind the man, shifting to his own form as he landed.
Damon’s perfectly polished black boots hit the path without a sound, but Jack whipped around immediately. Definitely a vampire.
“Hello,” Damon said, giving a blindingly bright smile. Jack’s face twitched in confusion, and Damon attacked, knocking him to the ground and sending the box flying out of Jack’s hands. “We haven’t met,” he growled, pinning Jack’s shoulders hard against the path. “But I hear you’ve been looking for me.”
Fangs extending, Damon tore at the other vampire’s throat. There had to be some way to kill him. If there was one thing Damon knew for certain, it was that every being, natural or supernatural, had a weakness. You just had to know how to find it.
Maybe if he could get Jack’s head off fast enough that the other vampire couldn’t heal… Blood filled his mouth, acidic and chemical, and Damon spat it to the side, grimacing. With a grunt of effort, Jack managed to flip Damon off, and they were both on their feet in an instant, circling each other. Jack fumbled at his side and pulled a stake from his pocket.
Damon wasn’t worried. He had a weapon of his own. Eyeing Jack, he drew Stefan’s ivory-handled dagger—his dagger, now—and held it guardedly, his arms spread. The dagger was poised to strike in his right hand, his left hand open and ready to grapple with his opponent. Usually he preferred to rely on his own hands and teeth in a fight, but using Stefan’s dagger seemed fitting. The lessons of dagger fighting he’d learned centuries earlier all came back to him now.
Watching Jack carefully, Damon waited for an opening. He was pretty sure he could take the false vampire. The vampires who had hunted Damon, who had killed Katherine, had been strong and fast, but no faster or stronger than Damon and Katherine. The problem had been that there were too many of them, and that they didn’t stay dead. Jack by himself should be easy.
Damon feinted to the left. Jack flinched, and Damon moved in on the right, slashing a deep cut along Jack’s stomach. Jack growled, a low, animal sound, and thrust his stake toward Damon’s heart. He missed, and it sank into Damon’s shoulder instead, tearing a gaping wound in his flesh.
Sucking in a shocked breath, Damon stumbled for a second before he caught himself. Jack quickly stabbed him again with the stake, this time in the side. Twisting, Damon slashed down, cutting a long bloody stripe along Jack’s leg. They grappled hand-to-hand for a moment, both breathing hard, then shoved apart, coming to a halt a few feet from each other.
“Damon Salvatore,” Jack said, smiling as if they were friends. “You’re the clever brother, aren’t you? Not like Stefan.”
Damon suppressed the hot flare of rage that rose up at his brother’s name. It wouldn’t do him any good to get angry now. He had to keep cool if he was going to defeat Jack. He was stronger than Damon had thought he would be, stronger than the other manmade vampires Damon had fought. A trickle of blood ran down Damon’s side, and he realized his shirt was soaked with it. Blood was pulsing from the wounds the stake had left in him even as his flesh began to try to knit itself together.
Jack’s clothes were ruined, too, but Damon saw that beneath the slashed fabric his skin was already whole again. He healed as fast as his minions had.
Damon leaped at Jack, moving before the other vampire could prepare, and sank his fangs into one side of Jack’s throat. Not delicately, as he did while feeding, but with a rough, tearing bite. He worked his teeth against one side of Jack’s throat as he brought his dagger up to stab repeatedly at the other, ripping the dagger from side to side. If he could do enough damage…
But there was more resistance than there should be to his bite and the dagger’s thrust. Jack’s skin was thicker and stronger than a human’s—or even an ordinary vampire’s. Damon shook with a sudden shock as Jack sank the stake into him again, through the back this time. The tip grated painfully on one of Damon’s ribs. He ripped more fiercely at Jack’s throat, but Jack’s next blow knocked the wind out of him.
Letting go of Jack, Damon staggered backward. He wiped at his mouth with the back of one hand and realized blood—his own blood—was running down his chin. He coughed and choked again.
Jack must have nicked Damon’s lung. He needed time to heal before he could fight again; he needed to feed.
“Huh. Maybe not the clever brother after all,” Jack said. The wounds on his neck had already closed, Damon saw with dismay.
Damon backed up a few steps, keeping his eyes on Jack, who moved closer. A bubble of blood rose in Damon’s throat and he spat, staining the path with a blossom of bright red. There was a wall behind him, he realized. Jack was blocking him in.
Jack swung the pack off his back and reached inside, pulling something out. Something metal, with a grip and a nozzle—
A flamethrower? Damon drew on his last reserves of strength and leaped to one side, the flames so close he felt them scorch his jeans.
“Thoughtful of you to come right to me,” Jack said, aiming the flamethrower again. “I assumed you were still in Paris.”
Damon gathered his last vestiges of energy to dodge again. Like a rat in a trap, he thought dimly. He tried to tense for another leap, but his body gave out and he staggered to the side, his legs collapsing underneath him. Black spots danced before his eyes. His mouth was full of blood.
Jack gripped the nozzle of the flamethrower in both hands and lifted it up, taking aim—and then, suddenly, flew backward. Like a rag doll shot by a slingshot, he sailed through the air, hitting the side of the building behind him with a satisfying crunch. He slid into the grass, a limp, broken form.
Damon blinked in dazed shock. After a moment, he thought to look behind him.
Over the top of the hill behind the science building, Elena appeared, her face coldly ferocious, her Guardian Powers clearly in full force. “My hero,” Damon muttered wryly, and his knees buckled.
Damon blinked back to full consciousness and found himself lying propped up against the trunk of a tree, Elena’s arms around him. She smelled sweet and her skin was soft; Damon let himself luxuriate in lying next to her for a moment before he licked the blood away from his lips and coughed.
“Are you all right?” Elena asked as he tried to sit up.
“Not particularly,” Damon said weakly, and patted along his chest. The wounds were only half-closed, and he was still bleeding. He couldn’t breathe properly. “Where’s Jack?”
