Meredith shot Celia a nasty look. "Oh, yes," she said quietly. "Teeth, how fascinating." Celia's mouth flattened into a line, but she didn't reply.
Alaric took the magazine with a polite murmur of interest, and Meredith frowned.
Stefan frowned, too. Al the tension humming between Meredith, Celia, and Alaric - and now that he was watching, he could tel that Alaric knew exactly what was going on between the two young women and was flattered, irritated, and anxious in equal parts - was interfering with Stefan's Powers.
While he'd sat and sipped his first cup of tea, reluctantly fol owing Elena's command to "stay," Stefan had been sending out tendrils of Power, trying to sense whether Elena had made it home, whether anything had stopped her on her way. Whether Caleb had stopped her. But he hadn't been able to find her, even with his senses extended to their utmost. Once or twice, he'd caught what felt like a fleeting impression of what might be the very specific sound, scent, and aura that unmistakably meant Elena, but then it slipped away from him.
He'd blamed the fact that he couldn't locate her on his weakening Powers, but now it was clear to him what was keeping him from finding her. Al the emotion in this room: the pounding hearts, the flushes of anger, the acrid scent of jealousy.
Stefan pul ed himself back, tried to quel the rage rising within him. These people - his friends, he reminded himself
- were not purposely interfering. They couldn't help their emotions. He took a swig of his rapidly cooling tea, trying to relax before he lost control, and winced at the taste. Tea wasn't what he was craving, he realized. He needed to get out to the forest soon and hunt. He needed blood. No, he needed to find out exactly what Caleb Smal wood was up to. He stood up so abruptly, so violently, the chair rocked unsteadily beneath him.
"Stefan?" Matt asked in an alarmed voice.
"What is it?" Bonnie's eyes were enormous.
Stefan glanced around the circle of distracted faces, now al watching him. "I have to go." Then he turned on his heels and ran.
Chapter 16
He walked for a long, long time, though it seemed his surroundings never changed. The same dim light filtered through a constant cloud of ash. He plodded on through grime, through mud, through ankle-deep pools of dark water.
Occasional y, he unclenched his fist and gazed again at the locks of hair. Each time, the magic liquid cleaned them a little more, changing a scrap of fibrous blackness to two locks of shining hair, red and gold.
He walked on.
Everything hurt, but he couldn't stop. If he stopped he would sink back below the ash and mud, back to the grave back to death.
Something whispered around the edges of his mind. He didn't know quite what had happened to him, but words and phrases spun in his head.
Words like abandoned, words like alone.
He was very cold. He kept walking. After a while, he realized he was mumbling. "Left me al alone. They'd never have left him here." He couldn't remember who this him was, but he felt a sick sort of satisfaction from the glow of resentment. He held on to it as he continued his march. After what felt like an unchanging eternity, something happened. Ahead of him he could see the gatehouse he had imagined: spired like a fairy-tale castle, black as night. He walked faster, his footsteps shuffling through the ash. And then the earth opened suddenly beneath his feet. In the space of a heartbeat, he was fal ing into nothingness. Something inside him howled, Not now, not now. He grabbed and clawed at the earth, his arms holding him afloat, his feet swinging into the emptiness below him.
"No," he moaned. "No, they can't... Don't leave me here. Don't leave me again." His fingers slipped, mud and ash sliding beneath his hands.
"Damon?" an incredulous voice roared. A great muscular figure stood above him, silhouetted against the moons and planets in the sky, his chest bared, long, spiraling tangles of hair spil ing over his shoulders. This statue of a man reached down and grasped him by the arms, lifting him up. He yelped in pain. Something beneath the earth had latched onto his legs and was pul ing him back down.
"Hold on!" The other man grunted, muscles rippling. He strained and heaved against whatever was clinging onto Damon - Damon, the man had cal ed him, and that felt right, somehow. The other man gave a great tug, and final y the force below released him, and he shot out of the earth, knocking his rescuer backward.
Damon lay panting on the ground, spent.
"You are supposed to be dead," the other man told him, climbing to his feet and holding out a hand to steady Damon. He pushed a long lock of hair away from his face and gazed at Damon with serious, troubled eyes. "The fact that you are not... wel , I am not as surprised as I should be."
Damon blinked at his savior, who was watching him attentively. He wet his lips and tried to speak, but his voice wouldn't come.
"Everything has been disturbed here since your friends left," the man said. "Something essential has shifted in this universe. Things are not right." He shook his head, his eyes troubled. "But tel me, mon cher, how does it come to be that you are here?"
Final y Damon found his voice. It came out rough and quavering. "I... don't know."
The man immediately was al courtesy. "I think the situation cal s for some Black Magic, oui? And some blood, perhaps, and a chance to clean up. And then, Damon, we must talk."
He gestured toward the dark castle ahead of them. Damon hesitated for a moment, glancing at the emptiness and ash around them, then trudged after him toward the open doors.
After Stefan swept out of the room so suddenly, everyone could only stare after him as the front door banged, signaling that he had left the house just as quickly. Bonnie hugged her arms around herself, shivering. A little voice in the back of her head told her that something was very, very wrong.
Celia final y broke the silence. "Interesting," she said. "Is he always so... intense? Or is it a vampire thing?"
Alaric chuckled dryly. "Believe it or not, he's always seemed very low-key and practical to me. I don't remember him being so volatile." He ran a hand through his sandy hair and added thoughtful y, "Maybe it was the contrast with his brother that made him seem so reasonable. Damon was pretty unpredictable."
Meredith frowned thoughtful y. "No, you're right. This isn't the way Stefan usual y acts. Maybe he's emotional because Elena's threatened? But that doesn't make sense... she's been in danger before. Even when she died - he was heartbroken, but, if anything, it made him more responsible, not wilder."