Elena was pulling on her sturdiest boots - perfect for a night of tromping through the woods - when her phone rang.
"Hello?" she said, glancing at the clock. In less than five minutes, she was supposed to be meeting Stefan and three of Zander's Packmates to patrol the campus. She tucked the phone between her ear and her shoulder and hurriedly finished lacing up the boots.
"Elena." James's voice came through the phone, sounding exuberant. "I have good news. Andres has arrived."
Elena stiffened, her fingers fumbling on her bootlaces. "Oh," she said faintly. The human Guardian was here at Dalcrest? She swallowed and spoke more firmly. "Does he want to meet with me right now?" she asked. "I'm on my way somewhere, but I could . . ."
"No, no," James broke in. "He's exhausted. But if you come here around nine tomorrow morning, he'd be delighted to talk to you." He dropped his voice, as if not wanting to be overheard. "Andres is extraordinary, Elena," he said happily. "I can't wait for you two to meet."
Pulling her hair back into a tight, businesslike ponytail, Elena thanked James and got off the phone as quickly as she could. Extraordinary, she thought apprehensively. That could mean a lot of different things. The Celestial Guardians she had met had been extraordinary, and they had taken away her parents and Power, crippling her. Still, James clearly thought Andres was good.
She tried to push her thoughts about the Earthly Guardian away as she jogged across campus to join the others. There was no point in worrying about him now; she'd meet him soon enough.
Stefan and the werewolves were waiting for her on the outskirts of the woods. Tristan and Spencer had already changed into their wolf forms and were restlessly sniffing the air, ears cocked for any sound of trouble. Shaggy-haired Jared, in human form, stood with Stefan, his hands stuffed into his pockets.
"There you are," Stefan said as Elena came up to them, and pulled her close to him in a brief embrace. "Ready?"
They set off into the woods, Tristan and Spencer pacing on each side of them, their heads and tails up, and their eyes alert. There had been too many attacks on and near the campus, and Elena knew the Pack felt that they were failing in their responsibility to keep the Dalcrest students safe. She and her friends felt the same way: they were the only ones who really knew what supernatural horrors were out there, and so were the only ones who could keep other people safe.
Bonnie, Meredith, Zander, and two more of his Packmates were patrolling the playing fields, trying to keep another section of the campus safe. Elena would have liked to have Matt's quiet, stubborn strength beside her, but he was still sequestered away with Chloe. Stefan had been checking on them daily, and said Chloe was making progress, but that she was still not ready to be near anyone else.
It was a clear, starry night, and everything seemed peaceful so far.
"Sorry I was late," Elena told Stefan, linking her arm through his. "James called just as I was leaving. He said Andres is here. I'm going to meet him tomorrow."
Stefan opened his mouth to say something when the wolves stopped, their ears cocked, and stared into the distance. Stefan's head swung up, too. "Check it out," he told them, and Spencer and Tristan were gone, racing into the forest. Stefan and Jared stood still, alertly tracking their progress, until a howl came in the distance.
"False alarm," Jared translated, and Stefan relaxed. "An old scent."
The two wolves came trotting back through the woods, their tails arched high over their backs. Despite being very different as humans, Tristan and Spencer made similar wolves, sleek and gray and not as large as Zander was in wolf form. Only the black tips of Spencer's ears made it possible to tell them apart.
Watching them come back, Jared hunched his shoulders and shoved his long bangs out of his eyes. "I need to learn to change without the moon," he said irritably. "I feel blind trying to scout as a human."
"How does that work, anyway?" Elena asked curiously. "Why can some of you change without the moon, but not all of you?"
"Practice," Jared said glumly, letting his hair flop back over his face. "It's hard, and it takes a long time to learn, and I haven't managed to do it yet. We can learn how to stop ourselves from changing when the moon's full, too, but that's even harder, and they say it hurts. Nobody does that unless it's really necessary."
Spencer sniffed the breeze again and gave a short bark. Jared laughed, not bothering to translate. Stefan turned to follow their gaze, and Elena wondered what Stefan and the wolves - even Jared - could sense in the night that she couldn't. She was the only true human here, she realized, and so the blindest of them all.
"Do you want me to come with you?" Stefan asked as they started walking again. "To meet Andres?"
Elena shook her head. "Thanks, but I think I should do this by myself." If she was going to become something new, she had to be strong enough to face it alone.
They patrolled the woods throughout the night without finding any vampires or any bodies. As dawn began to break over the horizon, Elena could see the two wolves plodding along next to her in the dim light, their heads hanging low. She was so sleepy, she held on to Stefan's arm for support and just focused on moving one foot in front of the other. Then Spencer's and Tristan's heads snapped up and they began to run, lean muscles stretching under their gray fur.
"Did they smell vampires?" Elena asked Jared, alarmed, but he shook his head.
"It's just the others," he said, and then he was running, too, faster than Elena could go.
As she and Stefan came over the next small hill, Elena could see the edge of the woods and the campus stretching out ahead of her again. She'd been so tired that she hadn't realized they'd looped back around. Halfway down the hill, Spencer and Tristan were greeting the great white wolf that was Zander and another gray wolf, their tails wagging, as Jared hurried toward them. Bonnie, Meredith, and another human-form member of Zander's Pack watched. Bonnie said something and waved them off. The werewolves, human and wolf, turned as one and ran back into the woods, Zander in the lead.
"What's that about?" Elena asked, as she and Stefan came up to Bonnie and Meredith.
"Oh, since patrol's over, they have to go change back and do Pack stuff," Bonnie said casually. "I told Zander we'd be fine. Did you find anything?"
Elena shook her head. "Everything was quiet."
"For us, too," Meredith said, swinging her stave jauntily as they turned and began to head back toward their dorm. "Maybe the new vampires have made it through the blood-craze of changing and they'll lay low for a while."
"I hope so," Stefan said. "Maybe we can find them before someone else dies."
Bonnie shivered. "I know it's stupid," she said, "but I almost wish Klaus would do whatever he's going to do. I'm on edge all the time. It's like he's watching me from the shadows."
Elena knew what Bonnie meant. Klaus was coming after them all. She knew it: she could still feel the ghostly sensation of his cold lips on hers like a promise. We've defeated Klaus before, she tried to tell herself. But a new conviction nagged at her. It was as if something inside her knew, beyond all arguing, that the life she'd lived was coming to an end.
"I'm sorry," she said impulsively to Bonnie. "Klaus wants to punish me, and so we're all in danger. This is my fault, and I don't even have any Power now to protect you all."
Bonnie stared at her. "If it weren't for you, Klaus would have destroyed us all long ago," she said dryly.
Stefan nodded. "No one thinks this is your fault," he said.
Elena blinked. "I guess you're right," she said uncertainly.
Bonnie rolled her eyes. "And we're not total wimps, in case you hadn't noticed," she said.
"If you want to be ready to fight Klaus, maybe you should start developing your Guardian Powers," Meredith told her.
Warm sunlight was beginning to spread over the campus, and Elena instinctively slowed and straightened, tipping her face back to the sun. Meredith was right, she realized. If she wanted to help keep her friends safe, to keep the campus safe, she needed to be stronger. She needed to be a Guardian.
After only a few hours of sleep, Elena staggered across the quad, clutching a cup of coffee. She was heading for James's house just off campus, and trying to remember the little she knew about Andres. He was twenty years old, James had told her, and had been taken from his family by the Guardians when he was twelve.
What would that do to a person? Elena wondered. The Guardians she had met, the ones of the Celestial Court, had taken their duties seriously. Surely Andres would be well versed in all the Powers and responsibilities of Guardianship, everything Elena herself didn't know, and would have been adequately cared for, at least physically.
But how would it affect a human child to be raised by creatures as cold and emotionless as the Guardians? Her skin crawled at the idea.
By the time she got to James's door, Elena was anticipating a cold-eyed, unemotional greeting from an Earthly Guardian who would teach her exactly as much as he thought Elena should know.
Well, he would have to learn that he couldn't push her around. The Celestial Court full of Guardians at the peak of their Power hadn't been able to make Elena obey them, and there was only one of Andres. Elena rang James's doorbell with determination.
James's face was serious, but not apprehensive, when he opened the door. He looked wide-eyed and solemn, as if, Elena thought, he was witnessing something momentous he didn't fully understand.
"My dear, I'm glad you could come," he said, ushering her in with little beckoning waves of his hand and taking her empty coffee cup. "Andres is in the backyard." He escorted her through his small, extremely neat house, and showed her out the back door.
The door closed behind her and, with a start of surprise, Elena realized James had sent her out alone.
The yard was lit in gold and green by sunlight filtering through the leaves of a large beech tree. On the grass beneath the tree sat a young, dark-haired man who raised his head to look at Elena. As she met his eyes, the nervousness drained out of her and she felt a great peace settle on her. Without even meaning to, she found herself smiling.
Andres rose unhurriedly and came to her. "Hello, Elena," he said, and wrapped his arms around her.
At first, Elena tensed in surprise at the hug, but then a calming warmth seemed to flow through her, and she laughed. Andres let go of her and laughed, too, a pure note of joy.
"I'm sorry," he said. His English was fluent, but he had a slight South American accent. "But I've never met another human Guardian before, and I just . . . felt like I knew you."
Elena nodded, hot tears pricking at her eyes. She could feel a connection between them, humming with energy and joy, and she realized with happy surprise that it wasn't just emotions sent to her by Andres. They were coming from her as well, her own happiness rushing toward him. "It's like I'm seeing family for the first time in ages," she told him. They couldn't seem to stop smiling at each other. Andres took her hand and tugged her gently over to the tree, and they sat down beneath it together.
"I had a Guide, of course," he said. "My beloved Javier, who raised me. But he passed away last year" - Andres suddenly looked ineffably sad, his brown eyes liquid - "and since then I have been alone." He brightened again. "But now you are here, and I can help you as Javier helped me."
"Javier was a Guardian?" Elena asked, surprised. Andres had loved Javier, clearly, and love was not something she associated with the Guardians.
Andres gave a mock shudder. "God forbid," he said. "The Guardians wish the world well, but they are cold, yes? Imagine one of them in charge of a growing child. No, Javier was a Guide. A good man, a wise man, but fully human. A priest, actually, and a teacher."
"Oh." Elena thought for a while, carefully plucking a blade of grass and pulling it to pieces, looking down at her hands. "I thought that the Guardians themselves raised the human children they took. I don't - my parents didn't want to let me go. I guess I would have had a Guide if I had gone with them when I was little."
Andres nodded, his face solemn. "James has told me of your situation," he said. "I'm sorry about what happened to your parents, and I wish I could offer some kind of explanation. But since you don't have a Guide assigned to you, I hope I can help you with what I know."
"Yes," Elena said. "Thank you. I mean, I really do appreciate it. Do you - " She hesitated, ripping another blade of grass apart. There was something she had wondered. It wasn't something she could imagine asking a stranger, but that curious, happy connection between them made her relax enough to turn to Andres. "Do you think it would have been better if my parents had let them take me? Are you glad the Guardians took you away from your family?"
Andres leaned his head back against the tree and sighed. "No," he admitted. "I never stopped missing my parents. I wish they had tried to keep me with them. But they saw me as a child who belonged to the Guardians, not to them. They're lost to me now." He turned to look at her. "But I did come to love Javier, and I was glad to have someone with me when I went through the transformation."
"Transformation?" Elena asked, sitting up straight and hearing her own voice go high and panicky. "What do you mean, transformation?"
Andres smiled at her reassuringly, and despite herself, Elena instinctively relaxed a bit at the warmth in his eyes.
"It will be all right," he said quietly, and part of Elena believed him. Andres sat up, too, wrapping his arms around his knees. "It's nothing to be afraid of. When your first task as a Guardian comes up, a Principal Guardian will come and explain to you what you must do. Your Powers will start developing when you have a task. Until you've finished your task, you won't be able to think of anything else. You'll feel this overwhelming need to complete it. The Principal Guardian returns when the task is done and releases you from your compulsion." He shrugged, looking self-conscious. "I've only had a few tasks, but when they ended, I couldn't wait for the next one. And the Powers I've developed for a task, I've kept over time."
"Is that the transformation you're talking about?" Elena said dubiously. "Developing Powers?" She wanted the Power to defeat Klaus, but she didn't like the idea of changing, of something making her change.
Andres smiled. "Working as a Guardian makes you stronger," he told her. "It makes you wiser and more powerful. You'll still be you, though," he said.
Elena swallowed. This was the crux of her plan. With Klaus out there, Powers would be more than useful, but she needed to access them now rather than waiting around until a Principal Guardian decided to appear.
"Is there any way to wake up these Powers before I have a task?" she asked. Andres was opening his mouth to ask her why, a puzzled frown forming on his face, and she pushed forward with her explanation. "There's a monster here," she said. "A very old, very cruel vampire, and he wants to kill me and my friends. And probably a lot of other people. The more we have to fight him with, the better."
Andres nodded, his expressive face earnest. "My Powers aren't very warlike, but they may be useful, and I will help you however I can. No two Guardians have the same Powers. There's got to be some way to find yours, though, and to turn them on."
A glow of excitement shone through Elena. If she could access the Powers the Guardians gave her by herself, she wouldn't be their tool; she'd be a weapon. Her own weapon. "Maybe you could tell me about the first time you accessed yours?" she prompted.
"Okay." Andres sat up straighter and let his knees fall so that he was sitting cross-legged on the grass. "The first thing you have to understand," he said, "is that Costa Rica is very different from here." He waved an arm around, indicating the little yard and house, the rows of houses beside and behind them, the sunshiny but chilly autumn skies. "Costa Rica has a great deal of unspoiled land, land that is protected by our country's laws for the animals and plants. The people of Costa Rica have a phrase we use a lot: pura vida - it means pure life, and when we say that - at least when I say it - we're talking about our connection to the natural world."