Dark Reunion

nightmares come true, free of charge. For instance,' he said, looking at Stefan, 'how'd you like to see what your sweetheart really looks like right now? Without her makeup?'

Elena made a soft sound, almost a moan. Stefan held her tighter.

'It's been how long since she died? About six months? Do you know what happens to a body once it's been in the ground six months?' Klaus licked his lips again, like a dog.

Now Stefan understood. Elena shivered, head bent, and tried to move away from him, but he locked his arms around her.

'It's all right,' he said to her softly. And to Klaus: 'You're forgetting yourself. I'm not a human who jumps at shadows and the sight of blood. I know about death, Klaus. It doesn't frighten me.'

'No, but does it thrill you?' Klaus's voice dropped, low, intoxicating. 'Isn't it exciting, the stench, the rot, the fluids of decomposing flesh? Isn't it a kick?'

'Stefan, let me go. Please.' Elena was shaking, pushing at him with her hands, all the time keeping her head twisted away so he couldn't see her face. Her voice sounded close to tears. 'Please.'

'The only Power you have here is the power of illusion,' Stefan said to Klaus. He held Elena to him, cheek pressed to her hair. He could feel the changes in the body he embraced. The hair under his cheek seemed to coarsen and Elena's form to shrink on itself.

'In certain soils the skin can tan like leather,' Klaus assured him, bright eyed, grinning.

'Stefan, I don't want you to look at me—'

Eyes on Klaus, Stefan gently pushed the coarsened white hair away and stroked the side of Elena's face, ignoring the roughness against his fingertips.

'But of course most of the time it just decomposes. What a way to go. You lose everything, skin, flesh, muscles, internal organs—all back into the ground…'

The body in Stefan's arms was dwindling. He shut his eyes and held tighter, hatred for Klaus burning inside him. An illusion, it was all an illusion…

'Stefan…' It was a dry whisper, faint as the scratch of paper blown down a sidewalk. It hung on the air a minute and then vanished, and Stefan found himself holding a pile of bones.

'And finally it ends up like that, in over two hundred separate, easy-to-assemble pieces. Comes with its own handy-dandy carrying case…' On the far side of the circle of light there was a creaking sound. The white coffin there was opening by itself, the lid lifting. 'Why don't you do the honors, Salvatore? Go put Elena where she belongs.'

Stefan had dropped to his knees, shaking, looking at the slender white bones in his hands. It was all an illusion—Klaus was merely controlling Bonnie's trance and showing Stefan what he wanted Stefan to see. He hadn't really hurt Elena, but the hot, protective fury inside Stefan wouldn't recognize that. Carefully, Stefan laid the fragile bones on the ground and touched them once, gently. Then he looked up at Klaus, lips curled with contempt.

'That is not Elena,' he said.

'Of course it is. I'd recognize her anywhere.' Klaus spread his hands and declaimed, ' 'I knew a woman, lovely in her bones…' '

'No.' Sweat was beading on Stefan's forehead. He shut out Klaus's voice and concentrated, fists clenched, muscles cracking with effort. It was like pushing a boulder uphill, fighting Klaus's influence. But where they lay, the delicate bones began trembling, and a faint golden light shone around them.

'' 'A rag and a bone and a hank of hair… the fool he called them his lady fair…' '

The light was shimmering, dancing, linking the bones together. Warm and golden it folded about them, clothing them as they rose in the air. What stood there now was a featureless form of soft radiance. Sweat ran into Stefan's eyes and he felt as if his lungs would burst.

' 'Clay lies still, but blood's a rover…' '

Elena's hair, long and silky gold, arranged itself over glowing shoulders. Elena's features, blurred at first and then clearly focused, formed on the face. Lovingly, Stefan reconstructed every detail. Thick lashes, small nose, parted lips like rose petals. White light swirled around the figure, creating a thin gown.

' 'And the crack in the teacup opens a lane to the land of the dead . . .' '

'No.' Dizziness swept over Stefan as he felt the last surge of Power sigh out of him. A breath lifted the figure's breast, and eyes blue as lapis lazuli opened.

Elena smiled, and he felt the blaze of her love arc to meet him. 'Stefan.' Her head was high, proud as any queen's.

Stefan turned to Klaus, who had stopped speaking and was glaring mutely.

'This,' Stefan said distinctly, 'is Elena. Not whatever empty shell she's left behind in the ground. This is Elena, and nothing you do can ever touch her.'

He held out his hand, and Elena took it and stepped to him. When they touched, he felt a jolt, and then felt her Powers flowing into him, sustaining him. They stood together, side by side, facing the blond man. Stefan had never felt as fiercely victorious in his life, or as strong.

Klaus stared at them for perhaps twenty seconds and then went berserk.

His face twisted in loathing. Stefan could feel waves of malignant Power battering against him and Elena, and he used all his strength to resist it. The maelstrom of dark fury was trying to tear them apart, howling through the room, destroying everything in its path. Candles snuffed out and flew into the air as if caught in a tornado. The dream was breaking up around them, shattering.

Stefan clung to Elena's other hand. The wind blew her hair, whipping it around her face.

'Stefan!' She was shouting, trying to make herself heard. Then he heard her voice in his mind. 'Stefan, listen to me! There is one thing you can do to stop him. You need a victim, Stefan—find one of his victims. Only a victim will know—'

The noise level was unbearable, as if the very fabric of space and time was tearing. Stefan felt Elena's hands ripped from his. With a cry of desperation, he reached out for her again, but he could feel nothing. He was already drained by the effort of fighting Klaus, and he couldn't hold on to consciousness. The darkness took him spinning down with it.

Bonnie had seen everything.

It was strange, but once she stepped aside to let Stefan go to Elena, she seemed to lose physical presence in the dream. It was as if she were no longer a player but the stage the action was being played upon. She could watch, but she couldn't do anything else.

In the end, she'd been afraid. She wasn't strong enough to hold the dream together, and the whole thing finally exploded, throwing her out of the trance, back into Stefan's room.

He was lying on the floor and he looked dead. So white, so still. But when Bonnie tugged at him, trying to get him on the bed, his chest heaved and she heard him suck in a gasping breath.

'Stefan? Are you okay?'

He looked wildly around the room as if trying to find something. 'Elena!' he said, and then he stopped, memory clearly returning.

His face twisted. For one dreadful instant Bonnie thought he was going to cry, but he only shut his eyes and dropped his head into his hands.

'Stefan?'

'I lost her. I couldn't hold on.'

'I know.' Bonnie watched him a moment, then, gathering her courage, knelt in front of him, touching his shoulders. 'I'm sorry.'

His head lifted abruptly, his green eyes dry but so dilated they looked black. His nostrils were flared, his lips drawn back from his teeth.

'Klaus!' He spat the name as if it were a curse. 'Did you see him?'

'Yes,' Bonnie said, pulling back. She gulped, her stomach churning. 'He's crazy, isn't he, Stefan?'

'Yes.' Stefan got up. 'And he must be stopped.'

'But how?' Since seeing Klaus, Bonnie was more frightened than ever, more frightened and less confident. 'What could stop him, Stefan? I've never felt anything like that Power.'