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  With a sudden brutal kick, Stefan burst through the door, raising his arms to fend off an attack.

  At the end of the room farthest from the door, a curly-haired girl cowered, her arms up to protect her face, her eyes wide with fright. She looked so vulnerable that Stefan hesitated for a moment, even though he knew immediately what she was.

  Meredith shot past him and held her stave to the girl’s chest, right above her heart.

  “No!” Matt shouted from the doorway, pushing his way through the crowd of werewolves. “Stop, you guys.” He crossed the room and stopped in front of the girl. The girl lowered her arms, her face wondering.

  “Matt?” she whispered.

  “Oh, Chloe,” Matt said mournfully. He raised a hand toward her but hesitated before making contact, his hand hanging in midair.

  Matt’s friend Chloe, Stefan remembered. Chloe, the first girl Matt had seemed to care about since he’d dated Elena, since before Stefan had met him.

  Matt’s hand dropped back to his side and Stefan wondered if Matt was remembering the vicious murderer his friend Beth had become, if he was already resigning himself to Chloe’s fate.

  “Where are the other vampires?” Meredith asked coldly, pressing the stave against the other girl’s chest.

  “They’ve gone to the woods,” Chloe said in a small, terrified voice. “They’re going to do the resurrection spell there.”

  Stefan shook his head. “Ethan can’t do the resurrection spell without Damon’s blood,” he said, hearing the almost pleading tone in his own voice.

  Chloe half shrugged, looking back and forth between him and the others. “I don’t know,” she said helplessly. “He said he had everything he needed.”

  Ethan had cut Damon during the fight. It was just possible that he had managed to collect some blood, or find enough after the battle, for what he needed. Stefan swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry.

  “Why aren’t you with them?” Meredith asked.

  “I didn’t want to go,” the girl said, her voice shaking. Her gaze settled on Matt, and she frowned anxiously, as if it was important that Matt understand her. “I feel like . . . with part of me I feel like Ethan is the center of the universe, but with my mind, I know how terrible he is. I’m trying to fight it. I don’t want to hurt anyone.” Her eyes were full of tears, and Matt clenched his jaw, looking miserable and uncertain.

  “You’re trying to fight off the sire bond,” Stefan said gently. “It’s hard, but it can be done. And your compulsion toward Ethan will wear off before long. You can reject this life if you really want to.”

  “I want to,” Chloe said desperately. “Please. Can you help me?”

  Stefan began to speak, but Matt broke in. “Stop,” he said again. “Stefan, Beth said the same thing—that she didn’t want to hurt anyone, that she needed help. But she was lying.”

  Zander, swift and silent, padded forward. Approaching Chloe slowly, he sniffed at her hands. He rose up on his back legs, placing his front paws on Chloe’s shoulders. She cringed, but he nosed her face unconcernedly and, for a long moment, stared directly into her eyes.

  “Is she telling us the truth?” Meredith asked.

  The huge white wolf dropped back to all fours and turned away, glancing at the human-formed members of his Pack.

  “He says she’s being honest,” Daniel reported, “but that she’s weak. Fighting her nature is almost too much for her.”

  Chloe sobbed, a rough, hopeless sound.

  Meredith, still poised with her stave for the kill, raised a questioning eyebrow at Stefan, irresolute. Matt turned to him, too, his eyes shining with anxious hope. They were all looking to him, he realized, to make the decision.

  “We’ll help you,” he said slowly, “but first you need to help us.”

  Matt let out a breath of relief and closed the distance between him and Chloe. She leaned against him gratefully but nodded at Stefan, tears running down her face. “If you want to stop Ethan,” she said, “we’ll have to hurry.”

  Chapter 7

  As Elena and the others entered the woods, the sun was setting. She had caught up with her friends as they left the safe house and Stefan, his voice low, filled her in on what had happened as they followed Chloe’s lead. They wandered in the dark woods for what felt like a long time, all of them tense and quiet.

  Branches smacked Elena in the face and she wished for the night vision of a vampire or a werewolf, or for Meredith’s well-honed hunter’s instincts. Even Matt, tromping along stoically beside her, his eyes fixed on Chloe up ahead, seemed to be running into fewer things than Elena was.

  She was on the verge of wishing her Guardian Powers would just kick in already; this was probably the kind of thing they’d be good for, never mind whether she actually wanted those Powers or not.

  Finally, a sliver of flickering orange light appeared in the distance, and they headed toward it without speaking. Elena was jogging, her breath coming in harsh pants. At least now that Stefan and the Pack had slowed their pace to accommodate Meredith and Matt, she could just manage to keep up with the group.

  As they got closer, she realized the flickering light was from a bonfire. The wolves ahead of her pricked their ears up. Then, suddenly, they and Stefan were running, long strides eating up the distance and leaving the humans behind. Chloe trailed a few paces after them.

  Matt’s and Meredith’s strong hands closed over Elena’s arms and they pulled her along between them, running after the others. She stumbled, a sharp pain shooting through her side, but they held her up and she kept moving.

  A moment later, they could hear what Stefan and the Pack had heard. A heavy chant of many voices seemed to throb and reverberate through Elena’s head. Above the murmur rose a single voice, calling out sharply.

  She couldn’t tell what language they were speaking, although it sounded ancient and guttural. Not Latin, she thought, but it could have been Greek or Old Norse or something much older, from the early days of the world. Sumerian, she thought wildly. Incan. Who knew?

  As she broke into a clearing, her eyes stung from the smoke and light of the fire, and at first all she saw was a confusion of writhing dark shapes against the light. As her eyes adjusted, she saw Ethan, still looking incongruously like the preppy college senior he had been not long ago, leading the chant. His forehead was slightly wrinkled in concentration, and he held up a goblet full of rich, dark blood as if it was nothing more than wine.

  Why aren’t they stopping him? Elena thought, and then the struggling bodies before her came into focus.

  Stefan, brutally graceful, was ripping into the throat of a tall, slightly stooped vampire. Elena recognized him vaguely as someone she’d seen around campus, before the Vitale Society pledges had all been changed into vampires. Nearby, the werewolves fought, too, the wolves flanking and protecting the humans as they battled together, each perfectly attuned to the others’ positions. The vampires not currently locked in battle had formed a circle around Ethan, blocking him from attack as he continued his ritual.

  Meredith pitched herself into the fight, the silver ends of her stave flashing in the firelight. Elena and Matt, all too aware of their lack of supernatural Power, hung back at the edge of the clearing. Chloe stood at a little distance from them, her eyes fixed on the battle. She was biting at her lip, her arms wrapped around herself, and Elena felt a sharp pang of sympathy for her: she remembered the anxious cravings of being a new vampire, and the way your sire’s every move seemed to call out to you. It must be agony for Chloe to keep from flinging herself into the fight.

  Matt was watching Chloe, his forehead creased with worry, but he kept his distance, angling himself to protect Elena from Chloe as well as from the other Vitale vampires. He must remember how volatile a new vampire could be, too. Elena pressed his arm gratefully. Once again, she thought: If I have to be a Guardian anyway, now would be a good time for some Powers to kick in.

  She tried to sense if anything might be changing inside her, feeli
ng as if she was probing a loose tooth with her tongue, but she didn’t feel any different. There was no sense of potential unfurling within her, as she had felt during the brief period after her resurrection, when she had been ripe with the mysterious and dangerous Wing Powers. Just mortal, everyday Elena, with no way to help now.

  As she watched, a vampire gripped the sides of a huge white wolf—Zander—and with great agility and strength, tossed him aside. The wolf’s body slammed heavily to the ground near the edge of the clearing and lay still. Elena’s heart froze. Oh, no, she thought, stepping forward involuntarily, but Matt held her back. Oh, Bonnie.

  The wolf lay still for a moment, and Elena couldn’t see if he was breathing. Then, slowly, he clambered to his feet, his sides heaving. There were streaks of blood and mud on his pure white fur. Zander wavered on his feet, then seemed to find his balance and, snarling, threw himself back into the fight. With a sudden charge, he brought a vampire to her knees and Daniel, stake in hand, finished her off with one quick blow.

  When Elena had arrived at the clearing, the fighters had seemed evenly matched, and there was no way to break through the wall of vampires to stop Ethan as he performed the ritual. But Meredith had gone in whirling like a dervish, her weapon flying, and the tide of the battle was slowly but clearly turning.

  Meredith and Stefan exchanged a glance and she began to fight her way closer to the fire, moving steadily toward Ethan even as she angled her stave to strike a vampire, bringing him to the ground. Elena’s eyes could barely follow her as she unsheathed a hunting knife from her side and, with one vicious swing of the blade, cut off his head. The body toppled backward, and suddenly a path opened through the crowd between Stefan and Ethan.

  Stefan pushed away the vampire he had been fighting and leaped in one great bound over Meredith’s head, landing on his feet in front of Ethan.

  The chant stuttered to a halt. Stefan reached out and wrapped his hand around Ethan’s throat just over the windpipe, tightened, and squeezed. The younger vampire choked and mouthed wordlessly, his hands desperately scrabbling at Stefan’s. Reaching down with the hand not holding Ethan by the throat, Stefan felt at his side and brought out a stake. Ethan’s golden eyes widened as Stefan pressed the stake against his chest. Elena heard Chloe whimper slightly, but the vampire girl didn’t move.

  “Good-bye, Ethan,” Stefan said. His voice was quiet and matter-of-fact, not angry, but Elena heard, and so did the others. Everyone had paused in their fight, arms straining against one another, eyes turned toward Stefan and Ethan. It was as if they were all holding their breath. Then the vampires began to snarl and shriek, fighting to reach their sire. But the wolves moved faster than Elena could have imagined, flooding into the circle around Ethan and Stefan, holding the vampires back. Elena sucked in a long, relieved breath. Stefan had gotten there in time. The worst wouldn’t happen. Klaus, the madman, the Original vampire, would stay dead.

  Ethan glared at Stefan, but his lips slowly curled upward into a terrible smile.

  Too late, he mouthed silently, and the glass in his hand toppled backward. Rich, red blood poured out onto the fire.

  As soon as the blood touched the fire, it exploded into high blue flames. Elena cringed and shielded her eyes against the sudden burst of light. All around her, the others cowered, vampire, human, and werewolf alike.

  The flames and the clearing filled with smoke. Elena was shaking, coughing, her eyes watering, and she could feel Matt wheezing and shuddering beside her.

  As the smoke began to clear, a tall, golden-skinned figure took shape and stepped out of the flames. Elena knew him. She thought, as she had the first time she saw him, that he looked like the devil, if the devil were handsome.

  He was naked as he came out of the fire, his body lithe and well muscled, and he held his head up proudly. His hair was white, his eyes blue. His smile was joyous and insane, and every move held the promise of destruction.

  Lightning cracked overhead, and he threw back his head and laughed with what sounded like sheer malevolent pleasure.

  Klaus had risen.

  Chapter 8

  Elena couldn’t move. She felt numb, her limbs heavy and frozen. Her heart beat faster and faster, the rush of blood thundering in her ears, but she stayed still.

  Before the fire, Klaus stretched and smiled, holding his hands out in front of him. He turned them slowly, examining them, admiring his long fingers and strong forearms.

  “Unscarred,” he said. He spoke softly, but his words resonated across the clearing. “I’m whole again.” He tipped his head back to see the three-quarter moon high above him and his smile widened. “And back home,” he said.

  Ethan wriggled out of a shocked Stefan’s loosened grip and dropped to his knees. “Klaus,” he said worshipfully. Klaus glanced down at him with an indifferent sort of curiosity. Ethan opened his mouth to say more, his face ecstatic, but before he could, Klaus reached out, wrapped his strong, graceful hands around Ethan’s jaw, and pulled.

  With a terrible noise of tendons ripping, Ethan’s head came away from his neck like a stopper lifting from a jar. His body slumped lifelessly to one side, abandoned. Klaus lifted up the head and held it above him as blood streamed down his arms. Around him, Ethan’s followers quivered in fear, but none of them moved. Near Elena, Chloe gasped.

  Stefan, his face spattered with Ethan’s blood, was watching Klaus narrowly, angling his body to find a good position to attack. No, Elena thought, frightened, willing Stefan back. She hadn’t forgotten how strong Klaus was. As if he’d heard her thoughts, Stefan eased back a little, darting an alert glance at their assembled troops, all watching Klaus now with horror.

  Klaus gazed at Ethan’s slack face for a moment, then tossed the head aside. Holding his right hand up to his mouth, he licked at Ethan’s blood thoughtfully with a long pink tongue, and Elena’s stomach turned uneasily. Seeing him kill Ethan so casually had been horrible enough, but there was something obscene in the thoughtless sensual pleasure he took in tasting the rivulets of blood.

  “Delicious,” Klaus said, his voice light. “I like the taste of human better than vampire, but that one was young and fresh. His blood was still sweet.” He glanced coolly around the clearing. “Who’s next?” he asked.

  Then, across the firelit clearing, his eyes locked on Elena’s, and his head went up like a dog catching a scent, his face changing from indifference to alertness. Elena swallowed, her throat dry, her heart still beating like a small, frantic bird trapped in her chest. His eyes were so blue, but not the kind light blue of Matt’s or Zander’s tropical sky blue. Klaus’s eyes were like thin ice over dark water.

  “You,” Klaus said to her, almost gently. “I’ve wanted to see you again,” and he smiled and opened his hands. “And here you are at my rebirth to welcome me. Come to me, little one.”

  Elena didn’t want to move, but she staggered forward toward Klaus anyway, her feet shuffling forward without her consent, as if they were being operated by someone else.

  She heard Matt’s panicked whisper behind her—“Elena!”—and he gripped her arm, bringing her to a grateful halt. There was no time to thank him, though: Klaus was closing in.

  “Should I kill you now?” he asked her, his tone as intimate as a lover’s. “You don’t seem to have your army of angry ghosts around you this time, Elena. I could finish you in seconds.”

  “No.” Stefan stepped forward, his face hard and defiant.

  Meredith came up beside him and they stood shoulder-to-shoulder, glaring at Klaus. Behind them Zander and his Pack, both wolf and human, crowded closer, staying between Elena and Klaus. Zander was staring at Klaus, his eyes wide, his hackles raised and quivering. Slowly, his lips peeled back from his teeth and the werewolf growled.

  Klaus looked at them all in mild surprise, then laughed in genuine amusement. “Still inspiring devotion, are you, girl?” he asked Elena across the crowd. “Maybe you have some of the spirit of my Katherine after all.”

  In one
smooth movement, he reached forward and picked Stefan up by the throat, then tossed him aside as easily as he might have thrown a scarecrow. Elena screamed as Stefan landed with a heavy thud on the other side of the fire and lay still.

  Meredith, poised and ready, instantly swung her stave toward Klaus’s head. Klaus put one hand up and grabbed the stave from midair, ripping it from Meredith’s grasp without even looking at her. He flung the stave aside as casually as he had thrown Stefan’s body and waded quickly through the crowd, knocking Zander’s Pack and Ethan’s vampires aside with a brutal, careless efficiency.

  On the other side of the fire, Stefan was climbing to his feet. But Elena knew that, even with his vampiric speed, he wouldn’t be able to get to Klaus before Klaus reached Elena.

  Before she could blink, Klaus was standing directly in front of her, his fingers holding her jaw bruisingly tight. He tipped back her head, turning her face up toward him, forcing her to meet his icy, laughing eyes.

  “I owe you a death, pretty one,” he said, smiling. Elena could feel Chloe quivering beside her and Matt’s hand on her arm, cold with fear but still holding tight.

  “Leave her alone,” Matt said, and Elena knew him well enough to know how hard he was working to keep his voice from shaking.

  Klaus ignored him, his eyes fixed on Elena’s. They stared at each other, and Elena tried to make her own eyes as defiant as possible. If Klaus was going to kill her now, she wouldn’t go down weeping and begging for mercy. She wouldn’t. She bit the inside of her cheek hard, trying to focus on the physical pain instead of her fear.

  Then Stefan was suddenly there, wrenching at Klaus’s arm with all his strength, but it didn’t make any difference. Klaus’s hand was as firm on her jaw as ever, his eyes steady on hers. The moment seemed to stretch out into years.