despises me and blames me for what he has become. I had forced him to feed from Alice, a bartender at the local tavern, which had completed his transformation. But does that make me a villain? I think not, especially as the act had saved his life. Finally, I see Damon the way Father had seen him: too imperious, too willful, too quick to make up his mind, and too slow to change it. And as I had also realized earlier this evening as I stood just outside the dim glare of the gas lamp, the body of the dead nurse at my feet: I am alone. A full orphan. Just as Katherine had presented herself when she came to Mystic Falls and stayed in our guesthouse. So that’s how vampires do it, then. They exploit vulnerability, get humans to trust them, and then, when all the emotions are firmly in place, they attack. So that is what I will do. I know not how or who my next victim will be, but I know, more than ever, that the only person I can look out for and protect is myself. Damon is on his own, and so am I.
I heard Damon steal through the city, moving at vampire speed down the streets and alleys. At one point, he paused, whispering Katherine’s name over and over again, like a mantra or a prayer. Then, nothing . . .
Was he dead? Had he drowned himself? Or was he simply too far away for me to hear him?
Either way, the result was the same. I was alone—I’d lost my only connection to the man I’d once been: Stefan Salvatore, the dutiful son, the lover of poetry, the man who stood up for what was right.
I wondered if that meant that Stefan Salvatore, with no one to remember him, was really, truly dead, leaving me to be . . . anyone.
I could move to a different city every year, see the whole world. I could assume as many identities as I’d like. I could be a Union soldier. I could be an Italian businessman.
I could even be Damon.
The sun plunged past the horizon like a cannonball falling to earth, dipping the city into darkness. I turned from one gaslit street to the next, the soles of my boots rasping over the gravelly cobblestones. A loose newspaper blew toward me. I stomped on the broadsheet, examining an etched photo of a girl with long, dark hair and pale eyes.
She looked vaguely familiar. I wondered if she was a relative of one of the Mystic Falls girls. Or perhaps a nameless cousin who’d attended barbecues at Veritas. But then I saw the headline: BRUTAL MURDER ABOARD THE ATLANTIC EXPRESS .
Lavinia. Of course.
I’d already forgotten her. I reached down and crumpled the paper, hurling it as far as I could into the Mississippi. The surface of the water was muddy and turbulent, dappled with moonlight. I couldn’t see my reflection—couldn’t see anything but an abyss of blackness as deep and dark as my new future. Could I go for eternity, feeding, killing, forgetting, then repeating the cycle?
Yes. Every instinct and impulse I had screamed yes .
The triumph of closing in on my prey, touching my canines to the paper-thin skin that covered their necks, hearing their hearts slow to a dull thud and feeling a body go limp in my arms. . . . Hunting and feeding made me feel alive, whole; they gave me a purpose in the world.
It was, after all, the natural order of things. Animals killed weaker animals. Humans killed animals. I killed humans. Every species had their foe. I shuddered to think what monster was powerful enough to hunt me.
The salty breeze wafting from the water was laced with the odor of unwashed bodies and rotting food—a far cry from the aroma across town, where scents of floral perfume and talcum powder hung heavy in the air of the wide streets. Here shadows hugged every corner, whispers rose and fell with the flowing of the river, and drunken hiccups pierced the air. It was dark, here. Dangerous.
I quite liked it.
I turned a corner, following my nose like a bloodhound on the trail of a doe. I flexed my arms, ready for a hunt—a gin-soaked drunk, a soldier, a lady out after dark. The victim didn’t matter.
I turned again, and the iron-scent of blood came closer. The smell was sweet and smoky. I focused on it, on the anticipation of sinking my fangs into a neck, of wondering whose blood I’d be drinking, whose life I’d be stealing.
I continued to walk, picking up my pace as I traced the scent to an anonymous back street lined with an apothecary, a general store, and a tailor. The street was a replica of our own Main Street back in Mystic Falls. But while we’d only had one, New Orleans must have had dozens, if not hundreds, of these corridors of commerce.
The rusty smell of iron was stronger now. I followed twists and turns, my hunger building, burning, searing my very skin until finally, finally I came to a squat, peach-colored building. But when I saw the painted sign above the door, I stopped short. Sausages in their casings hung in the building’s grimy window; slabs of cured meat dangled from the ceiling like a grotesque child’s mobile; carved ribs were nestled in ice beneath a counter, and in the far back, whole carcasses were strung up, draining blood into large vats.
This was a . . . butcher shop?
I sighed in frustration but my hunger forced me to push the door open anyway. The iron chain snapped easily, as if it were no sturdier than thread. Once inside, I gazed at the bloodied carcasses, momentarily mesmerized by the blood falling into the vats, one drip at a time.
Over the sound of the raining blood, I heard the slightest ping, no louder than the twitch of a mouse’s whiskers. Then came the light shuffle of toes passing over concrete.
I reared back, my eyes darting from corner to corner. Mice scuttled beneath the floorboards, and someone’s watch ticked in the building next door. All else was quiet. But the air around me suddenly felt thicker, and the ceiling lower somehow, and I became acutely aware that there was no back exit in this room of death.
“Who goes there?” I called into the darkness, whirling around, my fangs bared. And then came movement. Fangs, eyes, the thud of footsteps closed in around me from all corners.
A low, guttural growl echoed off the bloodstained walls of the shop, and I realized with a sickening jolt that I was surrounded by vampires who looked all too ready to pounce.
I crouched low, my fangs elongated. The heady scent of blood permeated every corner of the room, making my head spin. It was impossible to know where to attack first.
The vampires growled again, and I emitted a low snarl in response. The circle closed in tighter around me. There were three of them, and I was caught, like a fish in a net, a deer surrounded by wolves.
“What do you think you’re doing?” one of the vampires asked. He looked to be in his mid-twenties and had a scar that ran the length of his face, from his left eye to the corner of his lip.
“I’m one of you,” I said, standing at my full height, fangs on display.
“Oh, he’s one of us!” an older vampire said in a sing-songy voice. He wore glasses and a tweed vest over a white-collared shirt. But for the fangs and red-rimmed eyes, he could have been an accountant or a friend of my father’s.
I kept my face impassive. “I have no ill business with you, brothers.”
“We are not your brothers,” said another with tawny hair. He looked not a day over fifteen. His face was smooth, but his green eyes were hard.
The older one stepped forward, poking his bony finger against my chest as if it were a wooden stake. “So, brother, nice evening to dine . . . or die. What do you think?”
The young vampire kneeled next to me, gazing into my eyes. “Looks like he’ll do both tonight. Lucky boy,” he said, ruffling my hair. I tried to kick him, but my foot simply flopped harmlessly against air.
“No, no, no.” While the scarred vampire watched wordlessly, the boy grabbed my arms and wrenched them so sharply and abruptly behind my back that I gasped. “Don’t be disrespectful. We’re your elders. And you’ve already done quite enough disrespecting already, if Miss Molly’s house is any indication.” He drawled her name as if he were a benign, genteel Southern gentleman. Only the steel grip on my limbs betrayed that he wasn’t anything of the sort.
“I didn’t do anything,” I said, kicking again. If I were to die, then I’d die in a fight.
“Are you sure?” he asked, looking down at me in disgust. I attempted to twist away, but still I couldn’t budge.
The elder vampire chuckled. “Can’t control his urges. Impulsive, this one. Let’s give him a taste of his own medicine.” With a flourish, he released me from his grasp, pushing me forward with strength I’d never before felt. I hit the plaster wall with a crash and fell on my shoulder, my head cracking against the wooden floorboards.
I cowered beneath my attackers, the realization sinking in that if I were to survive this encounter, it would
