The Compelled Page 3

  When I finally managed to snake my way down to our makeshift camp, I was relieved to see Cora lying peacefully next to a small fire.

  “Cora,” I said.

  She started awake, her eyes widening as she took in the figure in my arms.

  “Is that Damon? Is he dead?” Her voice was tinged with hysteria.

  “No! No, it’s not Damon,” I said hurriedly, trying to assuage her fears. “It’s a girl Samuel attacked. I got there before he could kill her.” I slowly placed the girl on the ground. Instinctively, she curled her small body toward the fire.

  “He was trying to kill her?” Cora asked, wrinkling her nose. “But I don’t understand. He’s already framed Damon. And he has all the blood he could want.”

  “I know,” I said. Briefly, I tried to explain what I’d seen. The odd words Mary Jane had been muttering to keep Samuel away. The way Samuel seemed intent on killing her with a knife, rather than his fangs. The fact she’d known we were both vampires. The fact that she’d known I hadn’t been lying when I’d said I wouldn’t hurt her.

  The fire had burned down to its last embers, casting a flickering orange glow on Cora’s face.

  “I think you were right. We need to talk to Ephraim,” she said in resignation.

  I nodded in agreement, not able to tear my eyes off the sleeping girl. Was she a witch? An image of Margaret Sutherland swam into my mind. Margaret, sister of Bridget, the girl I’d married in New York, was a witch. She had always known when someone was lying. In fact, that trait had once saved Damon and me: When Margaret came home to find her family brutally slaughtered, she’d been the only person who believed we hadn’t killed them. For my sake, I hoped this girl had the same skill.

  “What can I do to help?” Cora asked, gently tucking a frayed flannel blanket around Mary Jane’s thin shoulders.

  “I don’t think anything right now,” I said. “We’ll see Ephraim at midnight tomorrow. There’s nothing we can do in the meantime.”

  Cora nodded and settled back into her pile of blankets, turning to face the wall. I’m not sure how long I sat, silently keeping watch. Like Samuel would just burst in, I thought. If he wanted to, he could. But he wouldn’t. Here, in the dank tunnel, I felt safe. It was only out there—where Damon was right now—that was the problem.

  I contemplated building up the fire, but didn’t. Eventually, the sound of the girls’ even inhalations and exhalations lulled me into a daze.

  But I was startled out of my stupor when I heard the rustlings of Mary Jane coming to.

  “Where am I?” she asked, in a panicked voice. The quaver in her voice hurt my heart.

  “You’re safe,” I said, trying to calm her. “You fainted. I brought you here to protect you from Samuel. I saved you, remember?”

  The girl nodded, relaxing. “You’re the vampire.”

  “And you’re a witch.”

  “That I am,” the girl said softly. “I’m Mary Jane Kelly. And you, vampire?” she asked pointedly.

  “Stefan…” I paused. I was never sure whether to give my full name. But it didn’t matter. She knew I was a vampire. She knew when I was telling the truth. “I’m Stefan Salvatore. And this is Cora Burns. She’s human,” I added, gesturing to Cora, who had awoken at the noise.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Cora said. “Stefan, can you start the fire?”

  “Of course,” I said quickly, grabbing a match from the cold, wet earth and hoping it wasn’t too damp to light.

  “A fire?” Mary Jane asked. “I can do that.” She closed her eyes. “Incendia.”

  Immediately, a fire crackled in the fire pit, casting ghostly shadows on the earthen walls. Cora’s eyes widened in surprise. Despite everything, a glimmer of a smile crossed Mary Jane’s face. It was clear she was pleased with her work.

  “Can you tell me what you did to hold him back?” I asked, once we were all situated around the fire. “It’s important that we know. Because Samuel—the vampire who tried to kill you—has captured my brother.”

  “Unfortunately, I’m much better at starting fires than staving off vampires,” Mary Jane said wryly. “And warding off vampires isn’t exactly a skill I’d like more practice in.”

  “But you did something. He was trying to pin you down, but it was like you were pushing him back with your eyes. What was it?” I asked urgently, thinking back to the scene. It was more than just pushing Samuel back. I glanced at her peculiar pupils again. What else could she do?

  “To be honest, I’m not sure what I did to him. I just focused all my energy into hurting him, and that’s what happened,” Mary Jane said. “Thank goodness you found me. I’d be dead otherwise. Why were you down at the docks, anyway?”

  “I was following Samuel, hoping he would lead me to where he’s keeping my brother, Damon. Then I realized he’d captured you. Do you know why?”

  “I think he was trailing me. This time, he got me,” Mary Jane said, knitting her eyebrows together. “I’ve seen him a few times around the East End, near the lodging house where I work as a maid. I only noticed him because he’s not the usual type that we see in those parts. And then when everyone was talking about how the Ripper may have been a count or something…well, I paid attention. You can’t be too careful these days.”

  “Did you know the girls who were killed?”

  Mary Jane shook her head. “No, I didn’t. I just keep my head down and do my work.”

  “So why did Samuel attack you?” Cora asked.

  “How would I know?” Mary Jane asked in exasperation. “It wasn’t on my mind to ask him why when he was grabbing me right off the street.”

  “It’s fine, Mary Jane,” I interjected. “Just tell us what happened.”

  “I’d gotten off work early and was about to meet my friends for a pint,” she explained. “But as I walked by an alleyway, he came out of nowhere and snatched me up. I tried screaming and kicking, but we were going too fast for anyone to notice. At first, I thought I was being taken by Jack the Ripper. But he isn’t, is he? Because why would a vampire kill like that?”

  “You just asked the million-pound question,” Cora said, shrugging her shoulders.

  Before I could further explain, a rat came out of its hiding spot. I reached for a stone, ready to attack. But Mary Jane held up a hand.

  “I’ve got it,” she said, placing her fingers on the floor. “Shh! Come here, love,” she cooed at the animal. The rat halted and cocked its head at her. “Right here,” Mary Jane urged. Quickly, the rat ran into her palm and stood on its hind legs. She raised her eyebrows at us and smiled crookedly. “See, they’re not so bad.”

  “How did you learn to do that?” I asked.

  Mary Jane shrugged. “I didn’t learn. I was born like this,” she explained.

  “And your parents…?”

  “Are dead,” she said flatly.

  “I’m sorry,” Cora and I said in unison.

  A flicker of a smile crossed Mary Jane’s face. “Or they might as well be. They might be alive somewhere, but I don’t rightly know. I don’t know anything about my parents. I only know that I’ve always had a sense about people, and animals, and can sometimes have them do what I want.”

  “Do you think you can help us?” I asked eagerly. My stomach rumbled, and I had to turn away to avoid automatically reaching out and killing the rodent cupped in Mary Jane’s hands.

  “I could try. I’ve never really used my spells on vampires before,” Mary Jane said uncertainly. “I’ve never used them for anything important. Just for little things. To make the rent collector go away, or to get a rat to do tricks like this. But I don’t know if I’m strong enough to defeat a vampire. Unless…I have friends who could help,” she finished, letting the rat free. It squeaked, then skittered away into the shadows. “Only I’m not sure they’ll like you. We keep to ourselves, mainly. But I’ll tell them you saved me. I can’t say whether that’ll sway them, seeing as you kill our kind, but I can take you to them.”

  “That wou
ld be very kind,” I said. “Are your friends like you?”

  “You mean, are they witches?” Mary Jane asked matter-of-factly. “Why, I suppose so. Although I don’t know what makes a witch a witch. But I do know we all have magical powers,” Mary Jane said, giving me a lopsided smile. I smiled back encouragingly.

  “How many?” Cora breathed.

  “Not many. There’s just five of us. Me, Billy, Gus, and Vivian. And Jemima of course, but she’s…”

  “She’s what?” I asked.

  “She’s the one who might not like you,” Mary Jane said. “She doesn’t trust others. But when I tell her that you saved my life, she might reconsider.”

  “But the rest of them?” I asked.

  A fond smile crossed Mary Jane’s face. “They’re lovely. They’re my family, really. I never had a proper one. When I was twelve, I thought I’d be adopted. I used to dream about what it’d be like to have a mother, a home, and a bed with a feather mattress…” Mary Jane shook her head and set her mouth in a firm line. “That didn’t come true. But I got something better. I got people who’d never let me down.”

  I nodded. I had so many questions and scarcely knew where to begin. A memory from years before flashed through my mind. I’d been sitting on a rock in the middle of the forest on the edge of Mystic Falls, listening to Katherine explain how she’d turned others into vampires like her. But witches were different. They didn’t become witches—they were born witches. The craft was in their blood.

  “How did you find the others?” Cora asked softly. Her knees were pulled close to her chest, and she looked like a child being told a bedtime story.

  “Well, once you know what you’re looking for, you start to notice things,” Mary Jane explained. “Jemima and I found each other first. We were in the same orphanage together, and as soon as she came in, I realized she was special. She could fix things. Her chores would magically get done while she was up in bed sleeping. Or she’d accidentally spill ink on a book, and seconds later, it would look good as new. I finally got the courage to ask her about it, and then we started working on spells together.”

  Hope flickered in me. It sounded like Mary Jane and Jemima were both very powerful. If so, then maybe we really did have a chance of defeating Samuel. Although he was strong, magic overrode all other Powers. We had to do anything we could to get Jemima to agree to help us.

  “What about the others?” Cora asked.

  Mary Jane wrinkled her forehead. “Well, I saw Vivian making a concoction with some leftover whiskey at a tavern where she was a scullery maid. Gus was a paperboy who Jemima saw talking to sparrows in his spare time. And we found Billy putting a spell on a roll he was eating outside a bakery. Before he took the last bite, he conjured up four more fresh ones.” Mary Jane smiled.

  “It will be a pleasure to meet them,” I said. A witch, a human, and a vampire, teaming up to fight evil. It sounded like the premise of a penny-paper serial. But thanks to the monster who was plotting our deaths, this was our lives.

  4

  The next day, Cora and I followed Mary Jane to the home she shared with the orphans. The foggy, gray morning matched my mood. What if Mary Jane’s friends wouldn’t help? Or what if it was too late to save Damon? Out of the tunnel, I could see the dark circles under Mary Jane’s eyes, the frayed hem of her faded brown dress. She looked every inch the orphan she was. No matter how hard I tried to push it out of my mind, I kept wondering: If she was so powerful, why wasn’t she able to rise in society? Why were she and her witch friends living in a slum at all? Damon would have asked. But I didn’t. Because why did it matter? The point was, she was all we had.

  “Here we are. Home sweet home,” Mary Jane said brightly as she turned a tight corner into a tiny alley. The buildings on either side of the street were dilapidated, with boarded-up windows and, in some cases, huge holes in their outer walls.

  She pushed her shoulder against a door and let Cora and me step inside.

  I blinked inside the dark foyer of the hovel that Mary Jane called home, taking in the uneven ceiling, the sloped floor missing half its boards, and the endless strands of cobwebs glimmering in the darkness.

  “Shh.” Mary Jane put a cautionary finger to her lips as she crept up the staircase—if it could be called that. The banister had been ripped from the wall, and several steps had rotted away. The ones that remained were off-kilter, and it seemed a miracle—or magic—that the entire house hadn’t collapsed.

  At the top of the stairs, Mary Jane opened a thin door. “I’m home!” she announced grandly.

  I blinked. In the center of a room was a fire, ringed and contained by concrete slabs most likely stolen from the street. A skylight was directly above it. The glass must have fallen out long ago, leaving only a gaping hole that offered a view of the cloudy sky. Around the fire sat two boys and one girl, all no older than eighteen. One of the boys, the youngest, looked like he was only twelve. The room smelled of mildew and damp. I coughed.

  “Mary Jane!” The youngest boy sprang up and wrapped his bony arms around Mary Jane’s waist. She smiled fondly and ruffled his blond hair. “You’re home! I thought the Ripper got you!”

  “Don’t be upset, Gus. I’m home now. But it’s all thanks to Stefan here. If it wasn’t for him, I would have been hacked to pieces,” Mary Jane explained.

  “By the R-r-ripper?” Gus asked, stuttering in fear.

  “Worse than that,” Mary Jane said. “Stefan and Cora, this is Gus, Vivian, and Billy. My family. Jemima must be in another room,” she said, making a short introduction to the group sitting around the fire. I wondered whether Mary Jane would tell them I was a vampire. I wondered if they, too, knew just by looking at me.

  “What’s worse than Jack the Ripper?” the girl, who must have been Vivian, asked in disbelief. Her lilting voice held an Irish accent similar to Cora’s. Cora perked up, but didn’t speak.

  “A vampire,” Mary Jane said simply. At the word, the orphans all turned to stare at me. Gus’s jaw dropped, and I wondered if, like Mary Jane, they immediately knew my true nature.

  “While I was on my way to meet up with you lot last night, I got taken from the streets and brought down to the docks,” Mary Jane explained. “Luckily, Stefan here saved me before my attacker could do any real damage.”

  “Yes, but why was Stefan there in the first place?” the older boy asked, rising to his feet and glaring at me. “He’s a vampire, too, you know.”

  I stepped forward, turning my palms to the air as if to show I had nothing to hide. “I am a vampire, it’s true. But that vampire, Samuel, kidnapped my brother. He’s evil, and he’ll stop at nothing to get what he wants. And what he wants includes Mary Jane. I was only able to wound him, and he’ll be back. Soon.” My gaze flicked between the witches. I knew I had to somehow convince them that Samuel was a worthy enemy—one we needed to work together to defeat.

  “So why are you here?” Gus asked. It was clear from the tone of his voice that his terror had turned into mistrust. He was wearing spectacles, and the flames reflected in them gave his moon-shaped, pimpled face a vaguely sinister sheen.

  “Because we need witches on our side to fight Samuel,” I said simply.

  “What if we say no?” the older boy asked, crossing his arms and stepping up toward me as if he were challenging me to a fight.

  “Billy!” Mary Jane said sharply, putting her hands on her hips and glaring at him. Then, she turned toward me. “Sorry. As I’m sure you know, we don’t trust vampires as a rule. But you’re different than most. We just have to adjust.”

  “If you saved Mary Jane, then I trust you,” Vivian said shyly. She looked about fifteen years old and had long curly brown hair that fanned over her thin shoulders. The irises of her eyes were so dark her pupils seemed to disappear into them.

  “Vivian helps with our spells,” Mary Jane said by way of introduction. “She reads everything, then she works out how to say it.”

  The girl nodded proudly, a flicker of a
smile crossing her face. “I do,” she affirmed. “Mostly I’m successful, but I’ll admit there are still some improvements I could make.”

  “She set the last place we lived on fire,” Gus piped up.

  “I did not! It was just a little hole in the floor. Gus, stop being dramatic.”

  “Well, whatever spells you can do would be a huge help,” I interrupted before the conversation turned into a verbal sparring match. “We know where Samuel lives. We know he’s the culprit behind the Jack the Ripper killings. And we know that something Mary Jane did staved him off. Now all we have to do is figure out how we can strengthen that spell and find a way to catch him off guard.”

  “What did you do?” Gus asked Mary Jane suspiciously. I noticed he was wearing newspapers tied to his feet instead of shoes and I wondered how badly off the orphans were. Couldn’t they use magic to procure clothes, or did some code of honesty prevent that?

  “Well, that’s just the thing, Gus. I don’t know. He attacked me and threw me to the ground, and I kept thinking of the magnets Vivian had shown us a while back,” Mary Jane explained as she sat and warmed her hands by the fire. I noticed Cora hugging her body tightly. I heard the wind whistling around the room and could see Mary Jane’s breath as she spoke. I nudged Cora, urging her to stand nearer to the fire, but she stayed at my side.

  Vivian leaned excitedly toward Mary Jane. “So the repel spell worked?”

  “Well, sort of,” Mary Jane said. “I couldn’t hold it for too long. Samuel broke through and was about to kill me, but then Stefan stepped in.”

  “All right,” Gus said, turning his attention to me. “So, let’s say we do come up with a few spells to defeat Samuel and help you save your brother. What’s in it for us? Why should we risk our lives for you?”

  “I can get you out of here,” I said confidently. “Into a far better home.”

  “Can you, vampire?” The door slammed shut as a girl entered the room. She strode toward me and pressed her index finger into my chest. Her face was all angles, reminding me of a bird, and her dishwater-blond hair was lifeless and strawlike. She wasn’t pretty, except for her large gray eyes, which darted back and forth as if she were a wolf tracking its prey. It was clear that Jemima acted as the ring-leader of this particular group, simultaneously serving as both mother and disciplinarian. I knew she was trying to protect the house, but I still didn’t appreciate her distrustful gaze.