Phantom (4 page)

“A
re you excited for Alaric to arrive tomorrow?” Matt asked. “He’s bringing his researcher friend Celia, right?”

Meredith kicked him in the chest.

“Oof!” Matt staggered backward, knocked breathless despite the protective vest he had on. Meredith followed up with a roundhouse kick to Matt’s side, and he fell to his knees, barely managing to raise his hands and block a straight punch to his face.

“Ow!” he said. “Meredith, time-out, okay?”

Meredith dropped into a graceful tiger stance, her back leg supporting her weight while her front foot rested lightly on her toes. Her face was calm, her eyes cool and watchful. She looked ready to pounce if Matt showed any sign of sudden movement.

When he’d arrived to spar with Meredith—to help her keep her hunter-slayer skills in top-notch shape—Matt had wondered why she had handed him a helmet, mouth guard, gloves, shin guards, and vest, while she wore only sleek black workout clothes.

Now he knew. He hadn’t even come close to hitting her, while she’d pummeled him mercilessly. Matt eased a hand up under the vest and rubbed ruefully at his side. He hoped he hadn’t cracked a rib.

“Ready to go again?” Meredith said, her eyebrows raised in challenge.

“Please, no, Meredith,” Matt said, raising his hands in surrender. “Let’s take a break. It feels like you’ve been punching me for hours.”

Meredith walked over to the small fridge in the corner of her family’s rec room and tossed Matt a bottle of water, then sank down next to him on the mat. “Sorry. I guess I got carried away. I’ve never sparred with a friend before.”

Looking around as he took a long, cool drink, Matt shook his head. “I don’t know how you managed to keep this place secret for so long.” The basement room had been converted into a perfect place to train: throwing stars, knives, swords, and staves of various kinds were mounted on the walls; a punching bag hung in one corner, while a padded dummy leaned in another. The floor was lined with mats, and one wall was completely mirrored. In the middle of the opposite wall hung
the
fighting stave: a special weapon for battling the supernatural that had been handed down through generations of Meredith’s family. It was deadly but elegant-looking, the hilt covered with jewels, the ends spiked with silver, wood, and white ash, and the needles steeped in poison. Matt eyed it warily.

“Well,” said Meredith, looking away, “the Suarez family has always been good at keeping secrets.” She began to move through a tae kwon do form: back stance, double fist block, left front stance, reverse middle punch. She was graceful as a slim black cat in her workout gear.

After a moment, Matt capped his water bottle, climbed to his feet, and began to mirror her movements. Left double front kick, left inside block, double-handed punch. He knew he was half a beat behind and felt shambling and awkward next to her, but frowned and concentrated. He’d always been a good athlete. He could do this, too.

“Besides, it’s not like I was bringing my prom dates down here,” Meredith offered after a cycle, half smiling. “It wasn’t that hard to hide.” She watched Matt in the mirror. “No, block low with your left hand and high with your right hand, like this.” She showed him again, and he shadowed her movements.

“Okay, yeah,” he said, only half concentrating on his words now, focused on the positions. “But you could have told
us
. We’re your best friends.” He moved his left foot forward and mimicked Meredith’s backward elbow blow. “At least, you could have told us after the whole thing with Klaus and Katherine,” he amended. “Before that, we would have thought you were crazy.”

Meredith shrugged and dropped her hands, and Matt followed before he realized that the gestures weren’t part of the tae kwon do form.

Now they stood side by side, staring at each other in the mirror. Meredith’s cool and elegant face looked pale and pinched. “I was brought up to keep my heritage as a hunter-slayer a deep, dark secret,” she said. “Telling
anybody
wasn’t something I could consider. Even Alaric doesn’t know.”

Matt turned away from Meredith’s mirror image to gape at the real girl. Alaric and Meredith were practically
engaged
. Matt had never been that serious with anyone—the girl he’d come closest to loving was Elena, and obviously that hadn’t worked out—but he’d sort of figured that, if you committed your heart to somebody, you told them everything.

“Isn’t Alaric a paranormal researcher? Don’t you think he would understand?”

Frowning, Meredith shrugged again. “Probably,” she said, sounding irritated and dismissive, “but I don’t want to be something for him to study or research, any more than I want him to freak out. But since you and the others know, I’ll have to tell him.”

“Hmm.” Matt rubbed his aching side again. “Is that why you’re pounding on me so aggressively? Because you’re worried about telling him?”

Meredith met his eyes. The lines of her face were still tense, but a mischievous glimmer shone in her eyes. “Aggressive?” she asked sweetly, falling back into the tiger stance. Matt felt an answering smile tug at the corners of his mouth. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”

Elena surveyed the restaurant Judith had picked with a kind of bemused horror. Beeping video game machines vied for attention with old-fashioned arcade games like Whac-A-Mole and Skee-Ball. Bouquets of brightly colored balloons bobbed over every table, and a cacophony of song rose from various corners as singing waiters delivered pizza after pizza. What seemed like hundreds of children ran loose across the floor, shrieking and laughing.

Stefan had walked her to the restaurant, but, eyeing the neon paint job with alarm, he’d declined to come in.

“Oh, I shouldn’t intrude on girls’ night,” he’d said vaguely, and then disappeared so quickly Elena suspected he’d used vampiric speed.

“Traitor,” she’d muttered, before warily opening the bright pink door. After their time together in the graveyard, she felt stronger and happier, but she would have liked some support here, too.

“Welcome to Happytown,” chirped an unnaturally cheery hostess. “Table for one, or are you meeting a party?”

Elena repressed a shudder. She couldn’t imagine anyone choosing to come to a place like this by themselves. “I think I see my group now,” she said politely, catching sight of Aunt Judith waving to her from a corner.

“This is your idea of a fun girls’ night out, Aunt Judith?” she asked when she reached the table. “I was picturing something more like a cozy bistro.”

Aunt Judith nodded toward the other side of the room. Peering over, Elena spotted Margaret, happily whacking away at toy moles with a mallet.

“We’re always dragging Margaret to grown-up places and expecting her to behave,” Aunt Judith explained. “I thought it was time she got a turn to do something she enjoyed. I hope Bonnie and Meredith won’t mind.”

“She certainly
looks
like she’s enjoying herself,” Elena said, studying her little sister. Her memories of Margaret from the last year were of strain and anxiety: During the fall Margaret had been upset by Elena’s fighting with Judith and Robert and by the mysterious happenings in Fell’s Church, and then, of course, devastated by Elena’s death. Elena had watched her through the windows afterward and seen her sobbing. She’d suffered more than any five-year-old should, even if she didn’t remember any of it now.

I’ll take care of you, Margaret,
she promised fiercely and silently, watching the studious concentration on her sister’s face as Margaret practiced a little old-fashioned carnival violence.
You won’t have to feel like that again in this world.

“
Are
we waiting for Bonnie and Meredith?” Aunt Judith prompted gently. “Did you end up inviting them to join us?”

“Oh,” said Elena, jarred out of her reverie. She reached for a handful of popcorn from the basket in the middle of the table. “I couldn’t get ahold of Meredith, but Bonnie’s coming. She’ll love this.”

“I absolutely, totally do love this,” a voice agreed from behind her. Elena turned to see Bonnie’s silky red curls. “Especially the expression on your face, Elena.” Bonnie’s wide brown eyes were dancing with amusement. She and Elena shared a look that was full of all the
we’re back, we’re back, they did what they said and Fell’s Church is the way it should be again
that they couldn’t say in front of Aunt Judith, then fell into each other’s arms.

Elena squeezed Bonnie tightly, and Bonnie buried her face in Elena’s shoulder for a moment. Her petite body quivered slightly in Elena’s arms, and Elena realized that she wasn’t the only one walking a fine line between delight and devastation. They’d gained so much—but it had come at a very high price.

“Actually,” said Bonnie with careful cheer as she released Elena, “I had my ninth birthday at a place very much like this. Remember the Hokey-Pokey Grill? That was
the
place to be when we were in elementary school.” Her eyes held a bright sheen that might be tears, but her chin stuck out determinedly. Bonnie, Elena thought with admiration, was going to have fun if it killed her.

“I remember that party,” Elena said, matching Bonnie’s lightness. “Your cake had a big picture of some boy band on it.”

“I was mature for my age,” Bonnie told Aunt Judith merrily. “I was boy crazy way before any of my friends were.”

Aunt Judith laughed and waved Margaret over toward their table. “We’d better order before the stage show starts,” she said.

Elena, eyes wide, mouthed,
Stage show?
at Bonnie, who smirked and shrugged.

“Do you girls know what you want?” Aunt Judith asked.

“Do they have anything besides pizza?” Elena asked.

“Chicken fingers,” answered Margaret, climbing into her chair. “And hot dogs.”

Elena grinned at her sister’s tousled hair and expression of delight. “What are you going to have, bunny?” she asked.

“Pizza!” Margaret answered. “Pizza, pizza, pizza.”

“I’ll have pizza, too, then,” Elena decided.

“It’s the best thing here,” Margaret confided. “The hot dogs are weird-tasting.” She squirmed in her chair. “Elena, are you coming to my dance recital?” she asked.

“When is it?” Elena asked.

Margaret frowned. “The day after tomorrow,” she said. “You
know
that.”

Elena glanced quickly at Bonnie, whose eyes were wide. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she told Margaret affectionately, and her sister nodded firmly and stood up on her chair to reach the popcorn.

Under cover of Aunt Judith’s scolding and the semimelodious sound of their singing waiter approaching, Bonnie and Elena exchanged a smile.

Dance recitals. Singing waiters. Pizza.

It was good to live in
this
kind of world for a change.

T
he next morning was clear and hot again, another beautiful summer day. Elena stretched lazily in her comfy bed, then pulled on a T-shirt and shorts and padded down to the kitchen for a bowl of cereal.

Aunt Judith was braiding Margaret’s hair at the table.

“Morning,” Elena said, pouring milk into her bowl.

“Hi, sleepyhead,” said Aunt Judith, and Margaret gave her a big smile and a finger-wiggling wave. “Keep still, Margaret. We’re about to leave for the market,” she told Elena. “What are you doing today?”

Elena swallowed her mouthful of cereal. “We’re going to pick up Alaric and his friend at the train station and just hang out and catch up,” she said.

“Who?” Aunt Judith asked, her eyes narrowing.

Elena’s mind spun. “Oh, uh, you remember, he subbed for Mr. Tanner teaching history last year,” she said, wondering if that was in fact true in this world.

Aunt Judith frowned. “Isn’t he a little old to be socializing with high school girls?”

Elena rolled her eyes. “We’re not in high school anymore, Aunt Judith. And he’s only about six years older than us. And it’s not just girls. Matt and Stefan are coming, too.”

If this was Aunt Judith’s reaction to the news of their spending time with Alaric, Elena could tell why Meredith was hesitant to tell people about their relationship. It made sense to wait a couple of years, until people thought of her as a grown-up. Since no one here knew all that Meredith had seen and done, she seemed like any other eighteen-year-old to them.

It’s a good thing Aunt Judith doesn’t know Stefan’s five hundred years older than I am,
Elena thought with a secret smirk.
She thinks
Alaric’s
too old.

The doorbell rang.

“That’s Matt and everybody,” Elena said, rising to put her bowl in the sink. “See you guys tonight.”

Margaret widened her eyes at Elena in silent appeal, and Elena detoured on her way to the door to squeeze the little girl’s shoulder. Was Margaret still worried Elena wouldn’t come back?

Out in the foyer, she ran her fingers through her hair before opening the door.

Standing in front of her was not Stefan, though, but a perfect stranger. A really good-looking stranger, Elena noted automatically, a boy about her age with curly golden hair, sculpted features, and bright blue eyes. He was holding a deep red rose in one hand.

Elena stood a little straighter, unconsciously pulling her shoulders back and pushing her hair behind her ears. She adored Stefan, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t
look
at other boys, or talk to them. She wasn’t dead, after all.
Not anymore,
she thought, smiling at her private joke.

The boy smiled back. “Hey, Elena,” he said cheerfully.

“Caleb Smallwood!” Aunt Judith said, coming into the hall. “There you are!”

Elena felt herself recoil, but she kept the smile on her face. “Any relation to Tyler?” she said, outwardly calm, and ran her eyes over him, trying to be subtle, checking for . . . for what? For signs of his being a werewolf? She realized she didn’t even know what those would be. Tyler’s good looks had always had a flavor of an animal about them, with his large white teeth and broad features, but had that been a coincidence?

“Tyler’s my cousin,” Caleb answered, his smile beginning to turn to a quizzical frown. “I thought you knew that, Elena. I’m staying with his folks while Tyler’s . . . gone.”

Elena’s mind raced. Tyler Smallwood had run away after Elena, Stefan, and Damon had defeated his ally, the evil vampire Klaus. Tyler had left his girlfriend—and sometimes hostage—Caroline pregnant. Elena hadn’t discussed Tyler and Caroline’s fate with the Guardians, so she had no idea what had happened with them in this reality. Was Tyler even a werewolf now? Was Caroline pregnant? And if she was, was it with werewolf or human babies? She shook her head slightly. Brave new world, indeed.

“Well, don’t leave Caleb out on the porch. Let him in,” Aunt Judith instructed from behind her. Elena stood aside, and Caleb moved past her into the hall.

Elena tried to reach out with her mind and sense Caleb’s aura, to read him to see if he was dangerous, but once again came up against that brick wall. It would take some time to get used to being a normal girl again, and suddenly Elena felt horribly vulnerable.

Caleb shifted from foot to foot, looking uncomfortable, and she quickly composed herself. “How long have you been in town?” she asked, and then kicked herself for treating this boy she obviously was supposed to know like a stranger again.

“Well,” he said slowly, “I’ve been in town all summer. Did you hit your head over the weekend, Elena?” He grinned teasingly at her.

Elena lifted a shoulder, thinking of all she
had
suffered over the weekend. “Something like that.”

He held out the rose. “This must be for you.”

“Thank you,” said Elena, confused. A thorn pricked her finger as she took it by the stem, and she stuck the finger in her mouth to stanch the blood.

“Don’t thank me,” he said. “It was just sitting on the front steps when I got here. You must have a secret admirer.”

Elena frowned. Plenty of boys had admired her through school, and if this had been nine months ago, she could have made a good guess at who would leave her a rose. But now she didn’t have a clue.

Matt’s battered old Ford sedan pulled up outside and honked. “I’ve got to run, Aunt Judith,” she said. “They’re here. Nice seeing you, Caleb.”

Elena’s stomach twisted as she walked toward Matt’s car. It wasn’t just the strangeness of meeting Caleb that was affecting her, she realized, turning the rose’s stem absently between her fingers. It was the car itself.

Matt’s old Ford was the car she had driven off Wickery Bridge back in the winter, panicked and pursued by evil forces. She’d died in this car. The windows had shattered as she hit the creek, and the car had filled with icy water. The scratched steering wheel and the dented hood of the car, covered with water, had been the last things she’d seen in that life.

But here the car was—as whole again as she was. Pushing the memory of her death from her mind, she waved at Bonnie, whose eager face was visible through the passenger window. She could forget about all those old tragedies, because now they had never happened.

Meredith perched elegantly on the swing on her front porch, pushing herself gently back and forth with one foot. Her strong, tapered fingers were still; her dark hair fell smoothly across her shoulders; her expression was as serene as ever.

There was nothing about Meredith that might show how tensely and busily her thoughts were churning, worries and contingency plans whirring away behind her cool facade.

She had spent yesterday trying to figure out what the Guardians’ spell had changed for her and her family—particularly her brother, Christian, who Klaus had kidnapped over a decade ago. She still didn’t understand it all, but it was dawning on her that Elena’s bargain had more far-reaching consequences than any of them had imagined.

But today her thoughts were occupied with Alaric Saltzman.

Her fingers tapped anxiously against the arm of the swing. Then she schooled herself into stillness again.

Self-discipline was where Meredith found her strength, and if Alaric, her boyfriend—or at least, he had been her boyfriend . . . actually her perhaps engaged-to-be-engaged, sort of almost fiancé, before he left town—turned out to have changed toward her in the months they’d been apart, well, no one, not even Alaric, would see how that would hurt her.

Alaric had spent the past several months in Japan, investigating paranormal activity, a dream come true for a doctoral student in parapsychology. His study of the tragic history of Unmei no Shima, the Island of Doom, a small community where children and parents had turned against one another, had helped Meredith and her friends to understand what the kitsune were doing to Fell’s Church, and how to fight it.

Alaric had been working at Unmei no Shima with Dr. Celia Connor, a forensic pathologist who, despite her full academic credentials, was the same age as Alaric, only twenty-four. So, clearly, Dr. Connor was brilliant.

From his letters and emails, Alaric had been having the time of his life in Japan. And he’d certainly found a lot of interests in common with Dr. Connor. Perhaps more so than with Meredith, who had only just graduated from a small-town high school, no matter how mature and intelligent she might be.

Meredith gave herself a mental shake and sat up straighter. She was being ridiculous, worrying about Alaric’s relationship with his colleague. She was pretty sure she was being ridiculous, anyway. Fairly sure.

She gripped the arms of the swing more tightly. She was a vampire hunter. She had a duty to protect her town, and she
had
, with her friends, protected it well already. She wasn’t just an ordinary teenager, and if she needed to prove that to Alaric again, she was confident she could, Dr. Celia Connor or no Dr. Celia Connor.

Matt’s rattletrap of an old Ford sedan chugged up to the curb, Bonnie in front with Matt, Stefan and Elena sitting close together in the back. Meredith rose and crossed the lawn toward it.

“Is everything okay?” said Bonnie, round eyed, when she opened the door. “Your face looks like you’re heading off to battle.”

Meredith smoothed her features into impassivity and scrambled for an explanation that wasn’t,
I’m worried about whether my boyfriend still likes me
. Quickly and easily, she realized there was another reason she was tense, a true one.

“Bonnie, I have a duty to help look out for everyone now,” Meredith said simply. “Damon’s dead. Stefan doesn’t want to hurt humans, and that handicaps him. Elena’s Powers are gone. Even though the kitsune were defeated, we still need protection. We’ll always need to be careful.”

Stefan tightened his arm around Elena’s shoulders. “The things that make Fell’s Church so appealing to the supernatural, the ley lines that have attracted all kinds of beings here for generations, are all still here. I can sense them. And other people, other
creatures
, will sense them, too.”

Bonnie’s voice rose in alarm. “So it’s all going to happen
again
?”

Stefan rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I don’t think so. But something else might. Meredith’s right, we have to be vigilant.” He dropped a kiss onto Elena’s shoulder and rested his cheek against her hair. There was no question, Meredith thought wryly, why this particular supernatural being was drawn to Fell’s Church, anyway, and it wasn’t because of the ley lines running through the area.

Elena toyed with a single dark red rose, something Stefan must have brought her. “Is that the only reason you’re worried, Meredith?” she asked lightly. “Your duty to Fell’s Church?”

Meredith felt herself flush a little, but her voice was dry and calm. “I think that’s reason enough, don’t you?”

Elena grinned. “Oh, it’s reason enough, I suppose. But could there be another one?” She winked at Bonnie, whose anxious expression lightened in response. “Who do we know who will be fascinated by all the tales you have to tell?
Especially
when he finds out that the story’s not over yet?”

Bonnie turned all the way around in her seat, her smile growing. “Oh.
Oh.
I see. He won’t be able to think of anything else, will he? Or anyone else.”

Now Stefan’s shoulders relaxed, and up in the driver’s seat Matt let out a chuckle and shook his head. “You three,” he said affectionately. “Us guys never stood a chance.”

Meredith looked straight ahead and lifted her chin slightly, ignoring them all. Elena and Bonnie knew her too well, and the three of them had spent enough time scheming together that she should have known they’d see through her plan in a minute. But she didn’t have to admit to it.

The solemn mood in the car had lifted, though. Meredith realized they were all doing it on purpose, reaching out gently and carefully with jokes and lighthearted teasing, trying to ease the pain Elena and Stefan must both be feeling.

Damon was dead. And while Meredith had developed a cautious, wary respect for the unpredictable vampire during their time in the Dark Dimension, and Bonnie had felt, Meredith thought, something warmer, Elena had
loved
him. Really loved him. And even though Damon and Stefan’s relationship had been rocky, to say the least, for centuries, he had been Stefan’s brother. Stefan and Elena were hurting, and everyone knew it.

After a minute, Matt’s eyes flicked up to the rearview mirror to glance at Stefan. “Hey,” he said, “I forgot to tell you. In this reality you didn’t disappear on Halloween—you stayed the starting wide receiver and we took the football team all the way to the state championships.” He grinned, and Stefan’s face opened in simple pleasure.

Meredith had almost forgotten that Stefan had played with Matt on their high school football team before their history teacher, Mr. Tanner, died at the Halloween haunted house and everything went to hell. She had forgotten he and Matt had been real friends, playing sports and hanging out, despite the fact that they’d both loved Elena.

And maybe still do both love Elena?
she wondered, and glanced quickly at the back of Matt’s head from under her eyelashes. She wasn’t sure how Matt felt, but he had always struck her as the kind of guy who, when he fell in love, stayed in love. But he was also the kind of guy who would always be too honorable to try to break up a relationship, no matter what he felt.

“And,” Matt went on, “as the quarterback of the state champions, I guess I’m a pretty good prospect for colleges.” He paused and broke out in a wide, proud smile. “Apparently, I have a full athletic scholarship to Kent State.”

Bonnie squealed, Elena clapped, and Meredith and Stefan burst out with congratulations.

“Me, me now!” Bonnie said. “I guess I studied harder in this reality. Which was probably easier, since one of my best friends didn’t
die
first semester and was available to help tutor me.”

“Hey!” Elena said. “Meredith was always a better tutor than me. You can’t blame it on me.”