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There was plenty about the weaknesses of Jack’s creations, true. But the journal was a record of how Jack had overcome those flaws. Sunlight, fire, decapitation, stake to the heart: As far as Damon could tell, there was no way to kill these manmade vampires.
It was hopeless. Maybe Damon should give up, do what Elena wanted and hide.
No. His eyes snapped open and he gritted his teeth. He was Damon Salvatore. No mad scientist was going to defeat him.
He snapped the book closed. Any true danger to these manufactured vampires would have to be something Jack hadn’t thought of.
Almost unwillingly, Damon let his gaze travel to the heavy mahogany cabinet against the wall. Stefan’s talismans sat on top of it, a collection of objects from his long life. Coins, a stone cup, a watch. An apricot hair ribbon of Elena’s, acquired before Stefan had even really known her, before Damon had known her at all. What would have been different, Damon wondered, if he had been the one to meet Elena first?
Damon stood and went slowly over to the cabinet, where he touched the things lightly: iron box, golden coins, ivory dagger, silken ribbon.
Damon didn’t hang on to things the way Stefan had. He never saw the point of keeping objects he’d outgrown, dragging his past around the world with him.
Stefan had carried their past for him, he realized. The thought gave him a hollow feeling in his chest. With Stefan and Katherine both dead, there was no one left now who remembered Damon when he had been alive.
He drew one finger along the blade of the ivory-handled dagger and pulled his hand back with a hiss. Stefan had kept it sharp, although it had probably been centuries since he’d used it.
Their father had carried this dagger for years, Damon remembered, hanging in a sheath at his belt. A beautiful object, its fine glossy hilt curving above a well-cut, and useful, blade. He had given it to Stefan for his fifteenth birthday.
“Every gentleman should wear one,” Giuseppe Salvatore had said, grasping his younger son’s shoulder affectionately. “Not for aggression or fighting in the streets like a peasant—” Damon had felt his father’s sidelong gaze light upon him, and hadn’t that been as pointed as the dagger itself? “—but in case you need it. This blade is forged of the finest steel. It’s served me well. ”
Stefan’s green eyes had shone as he looked up at their father. “Thank you, Father,” he’d said. “I’ll treasure it. ”
Lounging elegantly beside them, left out of the moment between his father and little brother, Damon had touched his own quite beautiful bone-handled dagger, and his mouth had suddenly filled with bitterness.
He blinked the memory away. He’d wasted a lot of time resenting Stefan, his sweet-faced tagalong of a baby brother.
He was wasting time now. Damon’s slow heart thumped hard, the hollow ache in his chest increasing. His earnest, loving, irritating little brother was gone. Murdered. And Damon was cowering in the shadows? His face twisted in disgust. He could imagine what their father would have said about that.
In one smooth motion, he scooped up the dagger and headed for the door. He would keep his promise to Elena; he would be careful. But he wasn’t going to hide, not anymore. Damon was a Salvatore—the last of the Salvatores, now—and that meant he wasn’t afraid of anything.
It was time to take control of the fight. And the first thing he needed to do was to figure out where Jack might be hiding.
The river lapped gently against the small stones on its bank, sunlight glinting off its ripples. Elena instinctively moved deeper into the shade of one of the moss-covered trees by the riverside.
The rectangle of earth that marked Stefan’s grave still stood out c
learly. There hadn’t been time yet for the soil to harden, for the grass to grow over it and erase where they’d blanketed Stefan with dirt.
It hadn’t been long at all since Stefan had been alive.
A wave of anguish washed over Elena, and she dropped to her knees by the graveside. Reaching out, she placed a gentle hand on the recently turned earth.
She wanted to say something, to tell him how much she missed him, but when she opened her mouth, all that came out was his name. “Stefan,” she said miserably, her voice catching in her throat. “Oh, Stefan. ”
Just a couple of weeks ago, they’d been together. Not long before that, he had surprised her with the key to her old home—he’d bought the house that she’d grown up in from her Aunt Judith. “We’re going to go everywhere,” he’d told her, his hands strong and steady around hers. “But we’ll always have this to come home to. ”
It turned out always lasted less than a week after that. They hadn’t even had time to visit the house together. Elena dug her fingers deep into the dirt, trying not to think about Stefan’s body six feet below.
“Elena?”
Bonnie came forward from the trees. Elena pulled her hands away from Stefan’s grave. It seemed too intimate a gesture to let anyone see it, even Bonnie. “Thank you for coming,” she said quietly, rising to her feet.
“Of course. ” Bonnie’s brown eyes were huge and anxious. She stepped forward and pulled Elena into a hug. “How are you doing? We’ve been—Zander and I wanted to know if there was any way we could help you. ”
“Actually, I think there is,” Elena told her. She took Bonnie’s hand in her own and led her over to Stefan’s grave.
“I keep expecting him to show up,” Bonnie admitted, her eyes fixed on the grave. “It’s hard to believe he’s gone, y’know?”
