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Elena pushed the button for the ground floor again, and the elevator gave a deep groan and then began to shake. They both gasped and steadied themselves, hands against the walls.
"I'll try the emergency button," Elena said. She pushed it, but nothing happened.
"Weird," she said, and flinched at the uncertain note in her own voice. "It seems disconnected, too. " She hesitated. "Do you have a weapon?" she asked. Andres shook his head, his face pale.
The elevator rattled again, and then the lights went out, leaving them in the dark. Elena found Andres's warm hand and clutched it.
"Is this . . . do you think this could just be a coincidence?" she whispered. Andres squeezed her hand reassuringly.
"I don't know," he said, his voice troubled. "Can you see anything?"
Of course not, Elena was about to say. The elevator was pitch-black. She couldn't even see Andres despite the fact that he was holding her protectively close to him. Then she realized what he meant, and closed her eyes for a moment to reach deep inside herself, calling on her Power.
When she opened her eyes again, she could see the warm, living green of Andres's aura, lighting up the darkness. But at the edges of her consciousness was something else.
There was an even thicker blackness moving closer. It hurt to look at it as it seemed to breathe through the cracks in the elevator doors, as amorphous as fog. Elena instinctively shut her eyes and turned her head away, burying it in Andres's shoulder.
"Elena!" he said, alarmed. "What is it?"
For a long time nothing happened. There was a moment when she relaxed despite herself - nothing's here, she thought, caught in a wave of relief, nothing's here.
"It's okay," she said, with half an embarrassed laugh behind her words. "I just - "
Then a tile from the elevator roof was kicked in, and the blackness was all around her. Flinching, Elena looked up, straining to see something.
"Hello, my pretty one. " Klaus's voice came from above. "You've been waiting for me, haven't you?" His voice was as casual as if he'd just come by to chat.
"Hello, Klaus," Elena said, trying to keep her voice steady. She pressed herself against Andres. She felt like she was falling.
"I know what you are," Klaus said smugly, his voice a singsong. A loud bang came against the side of the elevator, and Elena and Andres both jumped, sucking in their breath. "I know what your secret is. " Bang. "I can't kill you with anything magic. " Bang. "And I can't kill you with my vampires. " Bang. He was banging his big black boots against the side of the elevator, Elena realized. He must be sitting on the edge of the service access hatch in the roof, his legs dangling down. His boots banged once more and then Klaus said gaily, "But you know what? If I cut the cable here at the top of the elevator, you won't survive. "
Elena cringed. She rode in elevators every day and it had never before occurred to her how vulnerable they were. Her English class was on the ninth floor. They were dangling above a long, long drop, and the cables were the only thing keeping them from falling straight through to the basement.
Andres sucked in a quiet breath next to her, and Elena saw the life-green aura around him begin to grow. He was trying to form a protective shield to shelter them with, she realized, as he had done in the battle against Klaus and his vampires.
"Stop that," Klaus snapped from above them, and a bolt of blackness flew from him and hit Andres's growing shield of green, which snapped and deflated like a popped balloon. Andres cried out in pain.
Elena wrapped her arms around Andres protectively, but she could feel him tensing to try again. His breath sounded rough and panicky. "My power comes from the earth, Elena," he whispered. "Dangling so far above it, I'm not sure if I can help. But I will try. "
Above them in the darkness, Klaus laughed jeeringly. "Might be too late there, boy," he said, and a strange scraping noise came once and then again, a screech of metal on metal.
"He's cutting through the cable," Andres breathed in her ear. There was a faint green light around him again as he tried to expand his aura, but it wasn't going to grow fast enough to protect them, Elena knew.
This is it, Elena thought, and took Andres's hand. She had never been afraid of falling before, but now she was terrified.
Then a thud came from above, and another, and a series of shuffling, thumping noises, and suddenly a body plummeted past them and landed heavily on the floor. Two bodies, Elena realized, thrashing and growling at their feet. She tried to concentrate, breathing hard, and after a moment, saw Klaus's aura again, darker than dark, and clashing with it, bloodred and sulky gray and flaring blue all tangled together.
"Damon," she whispered.
Shadowed, the barely-visible Damon managed to push off Klaus and scramble to his feet. "Elena," he gasped, and then a surge of Power from Klaus slammed him against the wall. He let out a pained grunt. Elena reached forward and tried to pull him toward her, but he was crushed tightly, his body jammed against the wall. Klaus chuckled darkly.
There was a flash of green.
Suddenly, all at once, Damon came loose. He fell back from the wall into Elena, and she staggered, holding him up in the second it took for him to regain his balance.
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"Get her out of here!" Andres shouted. "I can't hold it!"
