The Fury

'Yes, that's it. They're the other ones the dogs will be after. Make them go somewhere—like the cellar. Keep them there!' 'I'll do it. You three take the dance!' Bonnie turned to run after Alaric. Meredith raced back to her car.

The dance was in the last stages of breaking up. As many couples were outside as inside, starting toward the parking lot. Alaric shouted at them as he and Matt and Bonnie came pounding up.

'Go back in! Get everybody inside and shut the doors!' he yelled at the sheriff's officers.

But there wasn't time. He reached the cafeteria just as the first lurking shape in the darkness did. One officer went down without a sound or a chance to fire his gun.

Another was quicker, and a gunshot rang out, amplified by the concrete courtyard. Students screamed and began to run away from it, into the parking lot. Alaric went after them, yelling, trying to herd them back.

Other shapes came out of the darkness, from between parked cars, from all sides. Panic ensued. Alaric kept shouting, kept trying to gather the terrified students toward the building. Out here they were easy prey.

In the courtyard, Bonnie turned to Matt. 'We need fire!' she said. Matt darted into the cafeteria and came out with a box half-full of dance programs. He threw it to the ground, groping in his pockets for one of the matches they'd used to light the candle before.

The paper caught and burned brightly. It formed an island of safety. Matt continued to wave people into the cafeteria doors behind it. Bonnie plunged inside, to find a scene just as riotous as outside.

She looked around for someone in authority but couldn't see any adults, only panicked kids. Then the red and green crepe paper decorations caught her eye.

The noise was thunderous; even a shout couldn't be heard in here. Struggling past the people trying to get out, she made it to the far side of the room. Caroline was there, looking pale without her summer tan, and wearing the snow queen tiara. Bonnie towed her to the microphone.

'You're good at talking. Tell them to get inside and stay in! Tell them to start taking down the decorations. We need anything that'll burn—wood chairs, stuff in garbage cans, anything. Tell them it's our only chance!' She added, as Caroline stared at her, frightened and uncomprehending: 'You've got the crown on now—so do something with it!'

She didn't wait to see Caroline obey. She plunged again into the furor of the room. A moment later she heard Caroline's voice, first hesitant and then urgent, on the loudspeakers.

It was dead quiet when Elena opened her eyes again.

'Elena?'

At the hoarse whisper, she tried to focus and found herself looking into pain-filled green eyes.

'Stefan,' she said. She leaned toward him yearningly, wishing she could move. It didn't make sense, but she felt that if they could only hold each other it wouldn't be so bad.

There was a childish laugh. Elena didn't turn toward it, but Stefan did. Elena saw his reaction, saw the sequence of expressions passing across his face almost too quickly to identify. Blank shock, disbelief, dawning joy —and then horror. A horror that finally turned his eyes blind and opaque.

'Katherine,' he said. 'But that's impossible. It can't be. You're dead…'

'Stefan…' Elena said, but he didn't respond.

Katherine put a hand in front of her mouth and giggled behind it.

'You wake up, too,' she said, looking on the other side of Elena. Elena felt a surge of Power. After a moment Damon's head lifted slowly, and he blinked.

There was no astonishment in his face. He leaned his head back, eyes wearily narrowed, and looked for a minute or so at his captor. Then he smiled, a faint and painful smile, but recognizable.

'Our sweet little white kitten,' he whispered. 'I should have known.'

'You didn't know, though, did you?' Katherine said, as eager as a child playing a game. 'Even you didn't guess. I fooled everyone.' She laughed again. 'It was so much fun, watching you while you were watching Stefan, and neither of you knew I was there. I even scratched you once!' Hooking her fingers into claws, she mimicked a kitten's slash.

'At Elena's house. Yes, I remember,' Damon said slowly. He didn't seem so much angry as vaguely, whimsically amused. 'Well, you're certainly a hunter. The lady and the tiger, as it were.'

'And I put Stefan in that well,' Katherine bragged. 'I saw you two fighting; I liked that. I followed Stefan to the edge of the woods, and then—' She clapped her cupped hands together, like someone catching a moth. Opening them slowly, she peered down into them as if she really had something there, and giggled secretly. 'I was going to keep him to play with,' she confided. Then her lower lip thrust out and she looked at Elena balefully. 'But you took him. That was mean, Elena. You shouldn't have done that.'

The dreadful childish slyness was gone from her face, and for a moment Elena glimpsed the searing hatred of a woman.

'Greedy girls get punished,' Katherine said, moving toward her, 'and you're a greedy girl.'

'Katherine!' Stefan had woken from his daze, and he spoke quickly. 'Don't you want to tell us what else you've done?'

Distracted, Katherine stepped back. She looked surprised, then flattered.

'Well—if you really want me to,' she said. She hugged her elbows with her hands and pirouetted again, her golden hair twisting on the floor. 'No,' she said gleefully, turning back and pointing at them. 'You guess. You guess and I'll tell you 'right' or 'wrong.' Go on!

Elena swallowed, casting a covert glance at Stefan. She didn't see the point of stalling Katherine; it was all going to come out the same in the end. But some instinct told her to hang on to life as long as she could.

'You attacked Vickie,' she said, carefully. Her own voice sounded winded to her ears, but she was positive now. 'The girl in the ruined church that night.'

'Good! Yes,' Katherine cried. She made another kitten swipe with clawed fingers. 'Well, after all, she was in my church,' she added reasonably. 'And what she and that boy were doing—well! You don't do that in church. So, I scratched her!' Katherine drew out the word, demonstrating, like somebody telling a story to a young child. 'And… I licked the blood up!' She licked pale pink lips with her tongue. Then she pointed at Stefan. 'Next guess!'

'You've been hounding her ever since,' Stefan said. He wasn't playing the game; he was making a sickened observation.

'Yes, we're done with that! Go on to something else,' Katherine said sharply. But then she fiddled with the buttons at the neck of her dress, her fingers twinkling. And Elena thought of Vickie, with her startled-fawn eyes, undressing in the cafeteria in front of everyone. 'I made her do silly things.' Katherine laughed. 'She was fun to play with.'

Elena's arms were numb and cramped. She realized that she was reflexively straining against the ropes, so offended by Katherine's words that she couldn't hold still. She made herself stop, trying instead to lean back and get a little feeling into her deadened hands. What she was going to do if she got free she didn't know, but she had to try.

'Next guess,' Katherine was saying dangerously.

'Why do you say it's your church?' Damon asked. His voice was still distantly amused, as if none of this affected him at all. 'What about Honoria Fell?'

'Oh, that old spook!' Katherine said maliciously. She peered around behind Elena, her mouth pursed, her eyes glaring. Elena realized for the first time that they were facing the entrance to the crypt, with the ransacked tomb behind them. Maybe Honoria would help them…

But then she remembered that quiet, fading voice. This is the only help I can give you. And she knew that no further aid would come.

As if she'd read Elena's thoughts, Katherine was saying, 'She can't do anything. She's just a pack of old bones.' The graceful hands made gestures as if Katherine were breaking those bones. 'All she can do is talk, and lots of times I stopped you from hearing her.' Katherine's expression was dark again, and Elena felt an acid twinge of fear.

'You killed Bonnie's dog, Yangtze,' she said. It was a random guess, thrown out to divert Katherine, but it worked.