I shook my head silently, all attention and Power focused on Cora inside the house.
“Suit yourself,” he said, putting a large wad in his mouth. “Aren’t you proud of me, brother? Going along with this whole ‘saving the prime minister’ plan? Even if it might be among your most ridiculous.”
“I don’t really care what you think,” I murmured reflexively.
“Stefan.” Damon shook his head. “Always wanting to get the last word in.” He chuckled.
“Right,” I said shortly. “Let’s just focus on Cora and the task at hand. Shouldn’t we protect people while we still can?”
Damon shrugged. “We’re vampires, Stefan, not gods. We’re merely death’s messengers.”
That was the difference between me and my brother. I believed we did have a choice. We may have been meant to die that night in Mystic Falls. But certainly, all of our victims over the past few decades weren’t fated to be food and Power for monsters.
I cocked my head, trying to listen for any sound within the house. But there was nothing beyond hushed murmurs, beating heartbeats, and clinking dishes—the sounds of a house that had no idea what was going on within its very walls.
I rose to my knees and peeked through the window into what appeared to be a small library. Shelves of books lined the room, two leather club chairs were set up so they faced each other, and a looking glass in the far corner of the room reflected my expression: I was pale with red veins visible under my skin.
Suddenly I heard a shriek, then racing footsteps. Soon, Cora came into view. She dove out of the window, getting a cut on her upper arm in the process, and fell on top of me.
“Did you do it?” Damon asked roughly.
Cora nodded. “We need to go. Get me out of here!”
Damon picked her up, slung her over his shoulder, and ran away from the house at vampire speed. I tried to follow, but was pulled back by one of the guards who’d rushed around to the back of the house. He put two fingers in his mouth and whistled, causing five more guards to race over, pointing rifles at me.
And then, one of them turned and saw the prone body of the guard Damon had knocked unconscious. He was lying perfectly still, and from a distance, he looked like a murder victim.
“Harry is dead!” the guard screamed. “We’re under attack!” A shot rang out.
I turned to face the circle of guards and bared my fangs, anything to buy Damon and Cora a few more minutes to escape. A ripple of panic spread through the group.
“Fire!” One of the guards shot his gun, and I bolted. A bullet grazed my shoulder as I ran at vampire speed into the darkness. Behind me, I could hear a shout: “Stop that man!”
But they were too late.
I
fled down the streets, listening for the sound of Cora’s heart. I could hear it, fast and jerky, and followed it until I found the source. Damon and Cora were sitting underneath the awning of a bakery, which provided little protection from the now pelting rain. Cora was lying in Damon’s lap, sobbing.
“What happened?” I demanded. “Is she all right?”
“Cora is. But the compelled vampire wasn’t so lucky. Cora did a great job.”
I gingerly rubbed Cora’s back. She was crying into Damon’s shirt and seemed oblivious to my presence. “Cora, it’s all right,” I said. “You did exactly what we wanted.”
Cora turned and stared at me, tears running down her cheeks. Her expression looked as broken and terrified as it had after she killed Violet.
“Cora, you did everything you were supposed to. You’re safe. Now, what happened?” I asked, using my shirtsleeve to wipe the tears rolling down her cheeks.
“I killed the vampire,” she said in a low, monotone voice. “I took the stake and I just reached back and stabbed her in the heart. And she shrieked, and then her whole body began
shriveling
…it was awful.”
“She was just a vampire. She’d have killed you if given half a chance,” Damon said, clearly uncomfortable with playing the role of comforter.
“Like Violet was
just a vampire
?” Cora asked. “Don’t you see? I’m a killer now. And not just in self-defense, like it was with Violet. I went into that house for one reason, and one reason only. To kill that woman. And what was the point? Samuel’s still on the loose. What I did just seems so stupid right now.” She shook her head angrily.
“It wasn’t stupid, it was necessary,” Damon said.
I nodded; I understood why Cora was so upset. There was something about that first kill that changes you, but it’s how easy it is to murder again that’s truly terrifying. As if the first time hadn’t been just a fluke, but something you’d secretly enjoyed. I moved closer to Cora, putting my arm around her in what I hoped was a comforting embrace.
She pulled away from me and rose to her feet. “I’m sorry if I disappointed you. I just need some time.” She turned and raced down the alley.
“Cora!” I called into the darkness.
“Don’t.” Damon shook his head.
“We can’t just have her running around the city when there are vampires everywhere. I’ll go get her.”
“She needs some time, brother. And we need to turn around, go back to the prime minister’s house, and kill Samuel. Finish what we started.”
Just as I was about to answer, I heard the sound of footsteps, far too quick to be human, passing by the alley.
“Bloody disaster. Must have been those damned Salvatore brothers again. Meddling was not part of our deal. All bets are off now. I’ll kill them both with my bare hands.”
“Quite right, Mortimer,” Lord Ainsley said.
“Can I have the girl?” Molly asked.
“Have the girl,” Samuel spat. “She’s caused me nothing but trouble. Her blood is spoiled for me.”
I turned to Damon. Without a word, he nodded to me, and we took off into the night, following the sound of Samuel’s conversation. Soon, I realized, we were headed down to the warehouses on the water.
“A killer always comes back to the scene of a crime,” Damon said as we walked toward the low, squat wooden buildings where Samuel had first begun his reign of terror. We were too far back, keeping a safe distance, to know which warehouse they’d gone into. But I knew it would only be a matter of time before we found them.
Damon cocked his head and sniffed the air. “Hold on,” he said. “Always best to power up before a fight.” With that, he turned and sped off in the direction of several drunken revelers. Of course. Damon was going to drain the blood of some degenerate. I felt a surge in my veins and wondered if I, too, should do the same. Damon was right: Wasn’t feeding just one way to prepare for the battle to come? But Samuel had already turned me into more of a monster than I’d been in twenty years, and I wasn’t about to let him turn me into something worse.
Before I could start to second-guess myself, Damon returned.
“Brother,” Damon said curtly. The scent of hot, fresh blood wafted from his mouth, and it was all I could do to keep my fangs from making an appearance. “Shall we?” he asked, indicating the warehouse where Samuel had hosted one of his famous dock parties.
I stepped onto a rotting crate and peered through a filthy window. A dozen people wandered about the room, wearing well-tailored clothes and looking like they had made a wrong turn on the way to a ball. I knew they must be Samuel’s vampires. In the center of the warehouse was a pile of bodies. Blood still dripped from some of the wounds on their necks, like a fountain in the center of a town square.
All of a sudden, one of the vampires turned toward
me, fangs flashing. I jumped down, hoping I hadn’t been seen.
“Let me see.” Damon pushed me aside so he could look in the window. But it was too late. The window and door were suddenly smashed open, and two vampires barreled out, pinning me to the dock as I desperately writhed under their crushing weight. For being newly turned, they were surprisingly strong, and every time I seemed to loosen one of my limbs, it would be pinned down all over again.
I heard a crash as another vampire jumped down through the broken window. The sound was followed by a snarl. I twisted my head to see Damon and Lord Ainsley locked in combat. Lord Ainsley was growling and gnashing his fangs as Damon struggled to wrestle him to the ground. Damon ended up flat on his back instead.
“Hold off, Ainsley!” Samuel’s voice echoed as all the vampires looked up expectantly, as though he were a priest who’d just ascended an altar at a church service. “And hold off on the brother, too. They’re mine.”
He placed the heel of his boot on Damon’s chest and leaned his weight into his foot. Damon gasped, and I heard the crunch of a rib breaking.
“Let this be a lesson to you,” Samuel said, glancing at the vampires around him. More vampires had circled the two who’d pinned me down, and I could no longer see Samuel. All I could see were eight bloodthirsty vampires
glaring at me, their newly formed murderous drive practically glowing in their eyes. “Damon here is a vampire who might have made quite a good foot soldier at one point. He’s smart. Devious. Charming. We could have been quite a team if he hadn’t made some unfortunate blunders in his youth. He set his sights on women he didn’t deserve. As if my long-ago love, Katherine, would ever truly have taken him seriously! But he persevered, only to kill carelessly. Not to mention choosing the wrong teammate.” At this, Samuel kicked Damon’s ribs and stalked toward me, leaving him gasping for breath.
A shaft of moonlight fell on Samuel, giving him a sort of spotlight. At that moment, I had a feeling those eight vampires would have been easier to fight off than Samuel alone. He looked tall, refreshed, and utterly triumphant. He was the hunter, and I was the felled prey. Samuel had two choices: kill or compel. I wasn’t sure which would be the worse fate.
He knelt down until his face was only inches from mine. “I’m done playing games.” Samuel cupped my chin and forced me to look him in the eyes. I squeezed mine shut.
“Patrick!” Samuel barked, and one of the young vampires pried my eyelids open with his stubby fingers. I writhed, looking up at the stars, trying as hard as I could to pinpoint the constellations, anything that wasn’t Samuel.
“Look at me!” Samuel ordered, grabbing a fistful of my hair and pulling my head up from the wooden dock.
“No!” I averted my gaze and focused on a spot of dried blood on Samuel’s cheek. What could I do to resist his compulsion? I tried to think of anything—Katherine, Mystic Falls, Cora, Violet—anything to take me to another time and place. I knew I had to resist looking in his eyes, but I felt my head being turned without my control, and I knew it would only be a matter of time before…
A blur raced toward Samuel, and a jolt caused him to release his grip. Damon had regained his strength and fought off Lord Ainsley. He jumped on Samuel’s back, but before he could get a good hold on him, five more vampires piled on top of Damon and pulled him off, leaving Samuel free to reinstate his death grip on me.
“Your brother won’t help you now, although your familial ties are admirable,” Samuel said. “As you know, I had a brother once. And then you two murdered him. And I’m afraid I’m the type of man who holds a grudge. Terrible character flaw, I know, but luckily, I have an eternity to attempt to correct it.”
I bit the inside of my lip and continued to look up at the sky. But then, I felt a burning sensation on my skin and realized one of the young vampires was holding a match to my cheek as Samuel continued to hold me down. I involuntarily jerked my head and locked eyes with Samuel.
“Good.” Samuel smiled. “Just stay there, and the fire will be over before you know it. But if you resist, then we’ll have to add more flames. It’s your choice.” I could smell my burning flesh and feel the flames heading toward my hairline. In the center of Samuel’s eyes, I was entranced by two tiny figures.
“That’s it,” Samuel repeated, his voice sounding like he was talking underwater. “Now, your brother was never good to you, was he? Always disappointed you? Always caused trouble?”
I couldn’t break my gaze. In Samuel’s left eye, I immediately recognized Damon. Or, at least, Damon’s body, consumed by flames. And in the right eye was a version of me. I was with a woman—whether I was kissing her or feeding from her neck, I wasn’t quite sure.
Was that the past? Was it the future? I didn’t know, but I was transfixed, wanting to see more. Samuel was still speaking, but I barely listened. All that existed in my mind was an image of Damon, dead.
“You may have turned your brother into a vampire, but he’s been the one to kill you, countless times. He’s destroyed your soul. And the only thing left to do is destroy him.” I nodded, almost unbidden as the image in Samuel’s eyes began to morph and suddenly, Damon was the one bent over the woman,
his
lips on her neck, brushing away her red hair. And I knew who the woman was. Callie.
The flames were getting hotter, and all of a sudden, I was no longer on the dock. I was back in New Orleans, on a hot, sticky September night. I was about to kiss Callie, when she staggered into me, a knife sticking out of her back. I’d lunged toward Damon, but I’d been too late. Callie was dead, but I still wanted more than anything to destroy Damon. I knew it wouldn’t bring her back to life, but it would give me the closure I so desperately craved. So Damon despised me for turning him into a vampire? Fine. Then let me kill him and be done with it.
But going after innocent people just to torture me? To prove some point about what happened in the past? I had wanted to kill Damon, then, back when he’d stabbed Callie. But I hadn’t. I’d held off. Deep down, I’d thought maybe something would change. Deep down, I’d thought I’d regret killing my brother. But some people didn’t deserve a chance. I thought of how Cora had killed Violet. She’d cried, but she’d realized that the creature she killed wasn’t truly her sister. Why couldn’t I do the same?
Samuel must have sensed my vulnerability. He knelt down next to me and whispered in a low voice, “Kill Damon.”
“Kill Damon,” I repeated. It felt as if a cloud had lifted from my mind, and everything suddenly clicked together with unflinching clarity. It was so simple. I couldn’t believe it had taken me so long to realize what I had to do to finally feel free. I had to kill my brother.
If Damon were dead, I wouldn’t have to wonder who he was torturing, or being tortured by. I wouldn’t have to worry about his moods, or his temper, or his tendency to laugh in the face of death. Most important, I wouldn’t have to worry if Damon was going to turn on me and kill me at any given moment. If Damon were dead, I wouldn’t have to worry at all.
I looked Samuel directly in the eyes, a smile forming on my face.
Samuel handed me a stake. “You know what you have to do.”
I did. The whole time I’d been in London, I’d been fighting the wrong enemy. The enemy was Damon. Now I had a new mission: Destroy my brother.