Dark Reunion

Originals, whatever that means. He said he's been making vampires since before the pyramids. He said he's made a bargain with the devil. You could stick a stake in his heart and it wouldn't do anything. You can't kill him.' The laughter became uncontrolled.

'Where's he hiding, Tyler?' Stefan rapped out. 'Every vampire needs a place to sleep. Where is it?'

'He'd kill me if I told you that. He'd eat me, man. God, if I told you what he did to that buck before it died…' Tyler's laughter was turning into something like sobs.

'Then you'd better help us destroy him before he can find you, hadn't you? What's his weak point? How's he vulnerable?'

'God, that poor buck…' Tyler was blubbering.

'What about Sue? Did you cry over her?' Stefan said sharply. He picked up the ax. 'I think,' he said, 'that you're wasting our time.'

The ax lifted.

'No! No! I'll talk to you; I'll tell you something. Look, there's one kind of wood that can hurt him—not kill him, but hurt him. He admitted that but didn't tell me what it was! I swear to you that's the truth!'

'Not good enough, Tyler,' said Stefan.

'For God's sake—I'll tell you where he's going tonight. If you get over there fast enough, maybe you can stop him.'

'What do you mean, where he's going tonight? Talk fast, Tyler!'

'He's going to Vickie's, okay? He said tonight we get one each. That's helpful, isn't it? If you hurry, maybe you can get there!'

Stefan had frozen, and Meredith felt her heart racing. Vickie. They hadn't even thought about an attack on Vickie.

'Damon's guarding her,' Matt said. 'Right, Stefan? Right?'

'He's supposed to be,' Stefan said. 'I left him there at dusk. If something happened, he should have called me…'

'You guys,' Bonnie whispered. Her eyes were big and her lips were trembling. 'I think we'd better get over there now.'

They stared at her a moment and then everyone was moving. The ax clanged on the floor as Stefan dropped it.

'Hey, you can't leave me like this! I can't drive! He's gonna come back for me! Come back and untie my hands!' Tyler shrieked. None of them answered.

They ran all the way down the hill and piled into Meredith's car. Meredith took off speeding, rounding corners dangerously fast and gliding through stop signs, but there was a part of her that didn't want to get to Vickie's house. That wanted to turn around and drive the other way.

I'm calm; I'm the one who's always calm, she thought. But that was on the outside. Meredith knew very well how calm you could look on the outside when inside everything was breaking up.

They rounded the last corner onto Birch Street and Meredith hit the brakes.

'Oh, God!' Bonnie cried from the backseat. 'No! No!'

'Quick,' Stefan said. 'There may still be a chance.' He wrenched open the door and was out even before the car had stopped. But in back, Bonnie was sobbing.

ELEVEN

The car skidded in behind one of the police cars that was parked crookedly in the street. There were lights everywhere, lights flashing blue and red and amber, lights blazing from the Bennett house.

'Stay here,' Matt snapped, and he plunged outside, following Stefan.

'No!' Bonnie's head jerked up; she wanted to grab him and drag him back. The dizzy nausea she'd felt ever since Tyler had mentioned Vickie was overwhelming her. It was too late; she'd known in the first instant that it was too late. Matt was only going to get himself killed too.

'You stay, Bonnie—keep the doors locked. I'll go after them.' That was Meredith.

'No! I'm sick of having everybody tell me to stay!' Bonnie cried, struggling with the seat belt, finally getting it unlocked. She was still crying, but she could see well enough to get out of the car and start toward Vickie's house. She heard Meredith right behind her.

The activity all seemed concentrated at the front: people shouting, a woman screaming, the crackling voices of police radios. Bonnie and Meredith headed straight for the back, for Vickie's window. What is wrong with this picture? Bonnie thought wildly as they approached. The wrongness of what she was looking at was undeniable, yet hard to put a finger on. Vickie's window was open—but it couldn't be open; the middle pane of a bay window never opens, Bonnie thought. But then how could the curtains be fluttering out like shirttails?

Not open, broken. Glass was all over the gravel pathway, grinding underfoot. There were shards like grinning teeth left in the bare frame. Vickie's house had been broken into.

'She asked him in,' Bonnie cried in agonized fury. 'Why did she do that? Why?'

'Stay here,' Meredith said, trying to moisten dry lips.

'Stop telling me that. I can take it, Meredith. I'm mad, that's all. I hate him.' She gripped Meredith's arm and went forward.

The gaping hole got closer and closer. The curtains rippled. There was enough space between them to see inside.

At the last moment, Meredith pushed Bonnie away and looked through first herself. It didn't matter. Bonnie's psychic senses were awake and already telling her about this place. It was like the crater left in the ground after a meteor has hit and exploded, or like the charred skeleton of a forest after a wildfire. Power and violence were still thrumming in the air, but the main event was over. This place had been violated.

Meredith spun away from the window, doubling over, retching. Clenching her fists so that the nails bit into her palms, Bonnie leaned forward and looked in.

The smell was what struck her first. A wet smell, meaty and coppery. She could almost taste it, and it tasted like an accidentally bitten tongue. The stereo was playing something she couldn't hear over the screaming out front and the drumming-surf sound in her own ears. Her eyes, adjusting from the darkness outside, could see only red. Just red.

Because that was the new color of Vickie's room. The powder blue was gone. Red wallpaper, red comforter. Red in great gaudy splashes across the floor. As if some kid had gotten a bucket of red paint and gone crazy.

The record player clicked and the stylus swung back to the beginning. With a shock, Bonnie recognized the song as it started over.

It was 'Goodnight Sweetheart.'

'You monster,' Bonnie gasped. Pain shot through her stomach. Her hand gripped the window frame, tighter, tighter. 'You monster, I hate you! I hate you!'

Meredith heard and straightened up, turning. She shakily pushed back her hair and managed a few deep breaths, trying to look as if she could cope. 'You're cutting your hand,' she said. 'Here, let me see it.'

Bonnie hadn't even realized she was gripping broken glass. She let Meredith take the hand, but instead of letting her examine it, she turned it over and clasped Meredith's own cold hand tightly. Meredith looked terrible: dark eyes glazed, lips blue-white and shaking. But Meredith was still trying to take care of her, still trying to keep it together.

'Go on,' she said, looking at her friend intently. 'Cry, Meredith. Scream if you want to. But get it out somehow. You don't have to be cool now and keep it all inside. You have every right to lose it today.'

For a moment Meredith just stood there, trembling, but then she shook her head with a ghastly attempt at a smile. 'I can't. I'm just not made that way. Come on, let me look at the hand.'

Bonnie might have argued, but just then Matt came around the corner. He started violently to see the girls standing there.

'What are you doing—?' he began. Then he saw the window.

'She's dead,' Meredith said flatly.

'I know.' Matt looked like a bad photograph of himself, an overexposed one. 'They told me up front. They're