The Vampire Diaries: The Salvation: Unseen (15 page)

“Marisol’s amazing,” Andrés said happily. “We’ve been doing research in the rain forest, classifying plants no one knew about before, and we both love it. The life force there is so wonderful; even though she’s not a Guardian, I think she feels it as much as I do.”

Elena watched Andrés’s smile light up his face, his warm brown eyes shine. She remembered how much sorrow he’d carried with him when they first met, after the death of the man who’d raised him. It was good to see the joy shining through him now.

“I’m so happy for you,” she said, squeezing her friend’s hand. “Have you told her you’re a Guardian?”

“Of course.” Andrés sounded surprised. “How could we love each other if she didn’t know the truth about me?”

Elena thought of Matt’s insistence on keeping the supernatural hidden from Jasmine, and shook her head. “I don’t think you could, not forever,” she agreed, feeling a pang of sorrow for Matt.

Stefan’s key rattled in the lock, and Elena and Andrés looked up, smiling in welcome. Stefan smiled back automatically, his eyes searching out Elena’s as they always did. As he leaned over to kiss her hello, Elena noticed tight lines of tension around his mouth.

“Did something happen?” she asked.

“I talked to Damon,” Stefan told her.

“You did?” Relief flooded through Elena, mixed with a slightly miffed feeling: Damon had called Stefan, but not her? After all the messages she had left him? “Is he okay? Where is he?”

“He’s fine,” Stefan said. “He’s in Monaco.”

Monaco. Glamorous, full of life. Sounded like Damon. But then, why the angry, anxious emotions that had streamed—were
still
streaming—through the connection between them? “Did he get my messages?” she asked hesitantly. “And the e-mails?”

“He didn’t say,” Stefan told her. “We didn’t talk for very long.”

Elena frowned. “Well, why—” But Stefan was avoiding her eyes, his face closed off tightly. There was something he didn’t want to tell her. Elena bit her lip. Maybe she should let it rest for now. “I’m glad he’s all right, anyway,” she said. “And wait till you hear what we figured out.”

Andrés cleared his throat and broke into a grin, his eyes sparkling with excitement. “We were talking over the situation,” he said, “and I thought of something that may help. Once, back when I first came into my Powers, I needed to trace an animal spirit who had been making trouble in town. The problem was, no one knew who the spirit was: She could have taken any kind of human disguise. My mentor, Javier, and I worked together and I learned how to do, er …” He waved his hand impatiently, looking for the words. “I guess you’d call it a vision spell? I was able to channel my Power through something we knew the spirit had seen in the past and find my way back to what she was seeing in the present.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” Stefan said.

Elena bounced on her heels, tugging at his sleeve in her excitement. “If we find something that we know Solomon has looked at, Andrés might be able to see what Solomon’s looking at
now
!” she exclaimed. “We could figure out where he’s hiding!”

“But we don’t know what he’s seen,” Stefan said, frowning. “The things that happened here, with Sammy and my stave, he must have compelled humans to do.”

“The ice?” Elena wondered. “He wasn’t there, but he must have seen it somehow, right? Could we use the windows, or the bed …?”

Andrés was shaking his head. “I think it has to be something more specific,” he said. “Something Solomon actually laid eyes on, rather than controlling from a distance. And something recent, so a lot of people haven’t seen it since he did. Too many people have been in and out of this apartment since then.”

There was a baffled silence as they all thought.

“The car accident,” Stefan said suddenly. Andrés and Elena stared at him, and then Elena began to smile.

“Of course,” she said. “He would have watched, wouldn’t he? That open road, surrounded by tree cover. It would have been easy for him.” She got up and disappeared into the bedroom. “I haven’t worn this shirt since that day,” she said, coming out with a white shirt in one hand. “I washed out as much of the blood as I could, but it still needs to be dry-cleaned.”

Andrés took it from her, turning the soft fabric over in his hands. “I’ll try,” he said. “Help me. The more Power we can put into this, the better.” Elena took his hand and they both closed their eyes. For several moments, the only sound in the room was their breathing, deep and slow and in time with each other. Stefan held perfectly still.

Elena’s blue eyes and Andrés’s brown ones flew open at the same moment.

“Shining metal,” Andrés said. “A young girl, fighting a tall dark-haired man. No, they’re working out, very formal movements. A big open room.”

“That’s what Jack’s seeing, not Solomon,” Elena said instantly. “Jack saw me in that shirt, too. He must be training with his team.”

“Okay, yes.” Andrés’s eyes were tracking back and forth rapidly, but Elena was sure he wasn’t seeing the room they were in. “A library. Wooden tables, books. Oh, this one feels familiar. Meredith.” He swallowed and tried again, his eyes moving faster. “Oh! I’m seeing through Stefan’s eyes now.” His gaze focused for a moment, snapping out of the trance. “That was curious, seeing myself from outside.”

“Try again,” Elena said. “Push past the people you recognize if you can. I think, other than Jack, Solomon would be the only stranger.”

“Okay.” They closed their eyes and breathed together for a moment, then began again. This time Andrés didn’t speak immediately, his eyes moving more slowly back and forth, as if he was looking hard for something. There was a silence.

Elena was frowning, still holding tightly to Andrés hand, but her gaze shifted to meet Stefan’s. “The apple men,” she said slowly. “The ones who attacked us. They said something about Solomon having yellow eyes.”

The fact had gotten lost in everyone’s excitement over the supposed clue to
where
Solomon was going to be, but that was a clue, too, wasn’t it? The idea of yellow eyes teased at the back of her mind, reminding her of something, but she couldn’t quite place it.

“Does knowing he has yellow eyes help, Andrés?” Stefan asked quietly.

Andrés didn’t answer, but his eyes moved a little faster. When he spoke, he sounded breathless. “A big room,” he said. “Wainscoting, paneling. I can see a formal garden through the windows.” He frowned. “There’s a woman. No, a mannequin. In a long dress, blue, with a full skirt. A large fireplace.”

Stefan looked baffled. “An old mansion?” he asked doubtfully. “Something at the college, maybe?”

But Elena knew. “The Plantation Museum,” she gasped. “Down near the river. It’s got to be.”

Spontaneously, she hugged Andrés, then jumped to her feet and hurled herself into Stefan’s arms. “We can do it,” she said, her voice muffled against his shoulder. “We’ve finally got him.”

Stefan nodded and held her close for a second. His arms were strong around her, and, when he kissed her, soft and sweet, she felt a flash of how he wanted to protect her, hold her here forever safe in his arms.

Finally he let go and headed for the closet where they kept his weapons. “Call the others,” he said. “We should attack tonight.”

M
eredith felt as tense as the string of a bow, taut and ready to fire. “And I have a crossbow,” she muttered to herself, “so that’s convenient.”

The weapon was smooth and reassuringly heavy in her hand, and she had her hunter’s stave strapped to her back. When she got close enough for the stave to be useful, she would drop the bow.

The sun was setting, its last long rays coloring the horizon. Meredith, Alaric, and Stefan were coming up on the east side of the Plantation Museum, concealed behind the remnants of what had once been slave cabins. Jack’s team, Matt, and the Pack would be circling around the house, ready to approach from any angle.

Her earpiece crackled to life as Jack’s voice said, “In position,” and Trinity answered “In position.”

“In position,” Meredith repeated. Alaric glanced over as he pulled out a crossbow of his own and headed farther into the garden: As the least powerful fighters, he and Matt were supposed to stick to the long-range weapons, keeping their distance from Solomon and whoever was in the house with him. Andrés would hang back, too, wielding his Guardian Powers if he could.

Stefan slipped away from them around the side of the cabins. A minute later, his voice chimed in. “In position.”

The earpieces belonged to Jack’s team, another clever tool from their arsenal. Meredith couldn’t believe she had never thought of using them before. It allowed them all—except for the Pack, who were in wolf form right now—to coordinate their attack from all over the museum and its grounds, fully aware of what everyone else was doing. And the Pack had their own forms of communication, could fight as a unit with no need for speech.

They were all here, and ready. Everyone but Elena. It felt weird to go into a fight without Elena, but Stefan had insisted: Solomon wanted Elena dead, and she would stay as far from him as possible. Elena had argued, but finally had agreed to go to the movies; Solomon wouldn’t come after her in the middle of a crowded theater. Or so they all hoped.

Elena’s lethal blood was with them, though. A thin coat, mixed with water, had been applied to the killing edge of every weapon they carried, and filled the tiny hypodermics in the ends of Meredith’s special hunter’s stave. Meredith only hoped there would be enough to do the job.

The sun sank below the horizon, and the dim security lamps around the museum snapped on. Meredith tested her bowstring and fitted an arrow carefully into place.

At first she’d instinctively objected to the idea of coming after a vampire at night. But the Plantation Museum was full of visitors and workers during the day, and none of them were willing to endanger innocent people if they could possibly help it.

Now Andrés just had to use his Power, strengthened by the life force of the plants in the garden, to sense if Solomon was still seeing the museum, and they could begin. Meredith’s earpiece crackled again, and Andrés’s voice came through, hushed and excited. “He’s here. Solomon’s inside the house. He’s facing a wall, so I can’t tell which floor he’s on.”

Meredith adjusted her grip on her crossbow and slipped forward. The night was silent, almost as if she were alone, but she knew that all around her the others were coming forward, tightening around Solomon’s hiding place like a noose.

A shadowy figure crossed in front of the mansion—a guard, Meredith realized, and she glanced to her right. One of the wolves was already skulking through the bushes toward the figure. He raised his head and looked back at her, cocking his ears forward in a prearranged signal.
A vampire, not a compelled human.

Without hesitating, Meredith aimed the crossbow and fired. There was a soft thwack as the bolt found its mark. The vampire fell with a thud. Meredith hurried across the open lawn, staying low, the wolf keeping pace beside her.

She knelt to check the vampire and found the bolt had gone through his heart. The wolf—Daniel, she now realized—sniffed cautiously at the wound and then looked up at Meredith, giving her a single tail wag of approval.

“Guard down. Ready,” she said softly, touching her earpiece. In a single movement, she dropped the crossbow, took her stave from its sheath. The others were heading through windows and side doors. Meredith rested her hand for a moment on the rough gray fur of Daniel’s back for reassurance; then together they slipped through the museum’s front entrance.

By the door stood a hoopskirted mannequin, its blank face framed by a full curled wig, meant to represent the lady of the house back in the old plantation days. It filled so much space that it took Meredith a moment to realize there was a person at the admissions desk behind it.

She hesitated for a second too long. The tall, elegant blonde behind the desk looked natural there, like any museum docent—except for the fangs that she bared at them. Another vampire of Solomon’s. She started to lunge at Meredith, and Meredith ducked quickly, raising her stave, knowing she was too late, that her split second of delay would prove fatal.