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Insistent that he break his vow and take human blood. And Stefan had been walking out on it, despite the knowledge that it would help him to kill the monster preying on Fell’s Church, despite the danger to all of them if he failed. He had actually walked out the door when something else had sparked in his brain.
“Wait,” Bonnie had said authoritatively. “Can’t you feel it? It’s Elena. She wants you to do this. Can’t you tell?”
Stefan had looked at her blankly. If this was some new way of manipulating him. . . .
But Bonnie had been serious, her small head tilted as if listening to faraway music; her expression almost beatific.
And then he had felt it too. Like a benison from the heavens, a whisper from his goldenhaired angel. Do it, Stefan. Let them make their sacrifice for Fell’s Church, let them give what they can. As you are. It will be to their credit afterward, even if they don’t survive. As for breaking your vow; well, let the condemnation for that be weighed against the merit you’ve gained by staying to protect these humans who—many of them—hate and fear you. Beloved, you are very brave, but sometimes a little too stubborn to be practical.
Voices from beyond? But that was Elena; that was the way she spoke, and that was the way he felt when she spoke. The next words were not just for him, and something inside him watched Matt and Meredith as they heard the voice too, Matt astonished; Meredith with her usual composure.
This is our reunion and I give you to each other. I give my friends to you, Stefan, so that you can fight with all your combined strength. And to you, my friends, I give Stefan . . . who may be able to keep you alive. Take each other. . . and trust.
And then trust. Aye, there was the rub. How to trust even the beneficence of heaven after what that monsterinhumanform had done to this innocent little town.
But when Elena commanded, he listened. When Elena spoke, even from the afterlife, he obeyed. He’d promised her that in his heart, long ago.
And so he had agreed, his only condition being that they do this one at a time, with the other two waiting in the car. He, Stefan Salvatore, who had given up drinking human blood so long ago, and bound himself with fearsome oaths not to do it, was going to do it.
The only thing left was to determine the order, which Meredith did with three twigs from the white ash branch. Meredith. Bonnie. Then Matt.
Stefan was glad that Meredith was going to be first. Meredith would remain calm during The Last Judgment. She was a rock. He was relying on her to help steady him a little as he broke this pledge that had been his one guidance since becoming a vampire nearly half a millennium ago.
Bonnie and Matt headed for the car. Stefan looked around the landing for Mrs.
Flowers, but the landlady had disappeared. Together, he and Meredith went back upstairs.
“If Bonnie were here,” Meredith said, “she’d be sure it was a good omen that Mrs.
Flowers was gone.”
“Fortunately, the door has a good sturdy lock. We don’t have any need for good omens; it can make sure nothing human gets in, and I can keep anything inhuman out. I don’t suppose I can talk you out of this right now?” Stefan spoke without changing his tone in the slightest on the last sentence.
Meredith smiled. “And flout an edict of Elena’s? I’m not that dumb.”
“That’s what all three of you think it was? An edict?” Stefan looked at Meredith pleadingly. “I was hoping to get you to talk some sense into Matt. You’ll be alone with him while I’m with Bonnie.”
“Sense? Matt? Now? In the same sentence?”
“Yes. We have to get him to give this up. You have to, Meredith, because I don’t think he’ll listen to a word I say. It’s all very fine and noble, offering your blood to make me stronger so I can fight that . . . thing. But Matt can’t handle it.” Meredith’s bright dark eyes were as sad as he had ever seen them, like still water in deep pools. "You don’t know Matt well enough by now? He wants to save Fell’s Church even if it kills him. And do you have any idea how he’d feel if you said you’d take blood from Bonnie and me, but not him?"
“I thought we could fob him off with something about the two of you being girls.” Meredith laughed shortly. “Nyet, Yvette. He knows Damon takes blood from guys. He knows about Mr. Tanner. He knows it’s not a sexual thing.” Stefan groaned. “It’s not. But—how do I explain?”
He studied Meredith, the quiet elegance of line of her body, the timeless beauty of her high cheekbones, arched eyebrows, and the striking features that had been the downfall of countless males in Fell’s Church. He studied the way her eyelashes tangled together when she shut her eyes. And even as he looked at her he was aware that she was studying him from under those seemingly demure eyelashes. Meredith was like the abyss that looked back at you when you looked into it.
He sighed.
“Meredith—can I try to explain something to you? I know there’s no time, but we have to make time for it. Unless you want one of your friends ending up in a psychiatric hospital—
do you remember Vicky?”
She didn’t snap off a su
perficial answer, pointing out that of course she knew a girl she’d gone to school for years with. He watched her face as her mind roved back over the seasons until she could picture what he wanted her to picture: Vicky, a splash of white as she stumbled down a dark country road, wearing nothing but a thin torn slip; her hair disarrayed; her eyes like two black holes to some other dreadful dimension; her mouth one long silent scream.
“I remember,” Meredith whispered. Stefan could feel her shock. “But Vicky was—she was attacked and forced, and God only knows what horrible things she saw or—or felt. This is totally different—”
“Tell me that again after you’ve taken your turn.” Stefan deliberately spoke in harsh, clipped tones, and hardly glanced at Meredith as he continued. “Vicky was forced.” He stared off into a middle distance. “Matt’s forcing himself. Vicky was attacked. Matt has the selfdiscipline to hold himself down. Vicky saw or experienced things that, to put it crudely, drove her crazy. And whether those things were in the mind of a supernatural creature, or in her mind, or in the world around them, I don’t know and Vicky isn’t saying.” He swung back toward her, letting the harshness drain out of his voice, his eyes pleading with her to understand. “Meredith, if vampire and donor are, well, friends, with no need to overcome mental or physical resistance—either by mind control or by physical force, then everything should be fine. But it isn’t, always. There are monsters lurking in human minds scarier than anything I’ve ever imagined in my own nightmares. And vampires are just the sort of things likely to make them pop up.”
