The Hunters: Destiny Rising

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."

"I'm sure it's beautiful there," Elena said.

Andres chuckled. "Of course it is," he said. "And you're wondering why I'm talking about ecology when I should be talking about Power. Watch."

Closing his eyes, he seemed to gather his strength, then placed both his hands flat, palms down, against the ground.

A gentle rustling noise began, so quiet at first that Elena barely noticed it, but soon grew louder. She glanced up at Andres's face, which was closed off and intent, still listening to something she couldn't hear.

As she watched, the grass where his hands rested grew longer, the blades poking up between his fingers and rising higher to frame his hands. Andres's mouth opened a tiny bit and he breathed harder. From above them came a creaking and Elena looked up to find new leaves unfurling from the beech tree's branches, their fresh spring green strange among the yellow-tinted autumn leaves already there. There was a soft thump behind her, and Elena turned to realize that a small pebble had rolled closer to them. Looking around, she saw a ring of pebbles and small stones, all gently sliding toward them.

Andres's hair rose lightly, individual strands crackling with energy. He looked powerful and benevolent.

"So," he said, opening his eyes. Some of the intensity in his posture faded. The sounds of the quickly growing plants and the movement of the pebbles stopped. There was still a sense of expectant energy in the air around them. "I can tap into the power of the natural world and channel it to defend against the supernatural. If I need to, I can make boulders fling themselves through the air, or tree roots drag my enemies down to the ground. My strength feeds nature, and nature increases my strength. It's more effective in Costa Rica, because there are so many more uncultivated places and therefore so much more wild energy than there is here."

"It looks like your talents are pretty strong even here," Elena said, picking up a smooth, white pebble from the ground and turning it over curiously in her fingers.

Andres grinned and ducked his head modestly. "Anyway," he said, "my first task came to me when I was seventeen. Javier had been teaching me for about five years, and I was dying to prove myself. A creature was killing young married women in the town where we lived, and a Principal Guardian - who was quite terrifying in her way, very powerful and focused - came to me and told me my job was to track and kill it."

"How did you find it?" Elena asked.

Andres shrugged. "The beast was easy to find. Once I had my assignment, something in me drew me toward it. It turned out to be a demon in the shape of a black dog. A pure demon, not a half creature like a vampire or a werewolf. It was attracted by guilt, especially the guilt of adultery. Javier had taught me the principles of accessing my Power, but the first time I actually did it, I felt like I was sucking the whole world into myself. I was able to call a wind and blast the black dog away." He smiled again shyly at Elena.

"Maybe if I try to tap into nature the same way, it'll help unlock whatever my Powers are," Elena said.

Andres knelt directly in front of Elena. "Close your eyes," he said, and Elena did as she was told. "Now," Andres continued, and Elena felt him gently touch her cheek, "take deep breaths and concentrate on your connection to the earth here. Your talents won't be the same as mine, but they'll be rooted in this land, the place where you began, just as mine are."

Elena breathed deeply and slowly, concentrating on the ground beneath her, the warmth of the sunlight on her shoulders and the tickle of the grass against her legs. It felt comfortable, but she didn't sense any mystical connection between herself and the world around her. She gritted her teeth and tried harder.

"Stop," Andres said soothingly. "You're too tense." His hand left her cheek and she felt him sit beside her, his thigh touching hers, and take her hand. "Let's try it this way. I'll channel some of my connection with the earth into you. At the same time, I want you to visualize sinking deeper into yourself. All the doors that are usually shut inside you will open and let your Power flow through."

Elena wasn't quite sure how to "visualize sinking deeper into herself," but she took another slow breath and tried to imagine it, consciously making herself relax. She pictured herself walking along a passageway of closed doors, the doors flying open as she passed them. Her hand felt pleasantly warm and tingled slightly where it touched Andres's hand.

But when she had possessed the Power of Wings, before the Guardians had taken them, she had felt a lot more than this, hadn't she? There had been the feeling of amazing potential inside her, of these tightly furled, powerful things that were part of her, and that she could release when the time was right.

She wasn't feeling anything special now. The doors flying open were only in her imagination, nothing more. Elena opened her eyes. "I don't think this is working," she told Andres.

"No, I don't think so either," he said regretfully, opening his eyes to look at her. "I am sorry."

"It's not your fault," Elena said. "I know you're trying to help me."

"Yes." Andres tightened his hold on her hand and looked at her thoughtfully. "I don't think that relaxation and visualization are really your strengths," he said. "Let's try something else. Instead, we will work with your protective instincts."

This sounded more likely.

"Close your eyes again," Andres went on, and Elena obeyed. "I want you to think about evil," he said. "Think about the evil you have seen in your adventures, the evil that you - that both of us - must fight."

Elena opened her mind to her memories. She remembered Katherine's pretty, half-mad face twisting as she screamed with rage and tore at Damon's bleeding chest. The dogs of Fell's Church, vacant-eyed and snarling, turning on their owners. Tyler Smallwood's teeth lengthening into fangs and the glee in his eyes as he tried to attack Bonnie. Klaus gathering the lightning in his hands and throwing it at her friends, his face alight with vicious glee.

Images spun through her mind faster and faster. The kitsune, Misao and Shinichi, cruel and careless, laughing as they turned the children of Fell's Church into savage killers. The phantom that set Stefan and Damon tearing at each other's throats, mad with jealous fury, their mouths full of blood. Ethan, foolish Ethan, raising the cup of blood above his head, calling Klaus back to life.

Golden, terrifying Klaus stepping out of the fire.

And then different faces, other scenes, flooded her mind. Bonnie giggling in her ice-cream-cone pajamas. Meredith, her slim body graceful in a perfect swan dive. Matt holding her in his arms at their junior prom. Stefan, his eyes soft, taking Elena in his arms.

Elena's lab partner. The girls in her dorm. Strange faces from the cafeteria, others she'd glimpsed only in class. All the people Elena needed to protect, her friends and innocent strangers.

Meredith's vampire-hunter friend Samantha, fierce and funny, until the Vitale vampires had killed her. Matt's sweet roommate Christopher, murdered on the campus quad.

The girl Damon had left in the woods, dazed and frightened, blood streaming from the bites on her neck.

Inside herself, Elena felt something unfurl, not swinging open like a door or spreading like Powerful wings, but gently blossoming, like a flower.

She opened her eyes slowly, and saw Andres close beside her. A glow of pure green light surrounded him, and Elena's chest tightened. The light was so beautiful, and without knowing exactly how she knew it, she knew the light was good in the simplest, most definite sense.

"It's beautiful," she said, awed. Andres opened his eyes and smiled back at her.

"Something?" he said, an undercurrent of excitement running through his voice.

Elena nodded. "I can see light around you," she said.

Andres almost bounced with happiness. "This is wonderful," he told her. "I've heard of this. You must be seeing my aura."

"Aura?" Elena said skeptically. "Is that really going to help us fight evil?" It seemed like a flaky, New Agey power.

Andres grinned. "It will help you sense if someone is good or evil right from the start," he said. "And with practice, I've heard you can use it to track and seek out your enemies."

"I guess I can see how that might be useful," she agreed. "Not as useful as blasting away evil things with my hands like you can, but it's a start."

Andres stared at her for a moment and then began to laugh. "Maybe you'll get to the blasting part soon," he said.

Unable to stop herself, Elena laughed, too, and leaned against him helplessly, giggling. She was so relieved, so simply, fiercely glad. She had found a Power without having to wait for a Principle Guardian to give her a task. And now that she had accessed one, she thought that she could feel more Power curled up inside her, more flowers waiting to open.

This was just the beginning.

By the central gates to the campus, Meredith paced, her sneakers making tracks in the dust at the edge of the road. In the past, she'd always been able to school herself into calm, but since she'd moved from training as a vampire hunter to actually using her skills to fight vampires, she'd gotten more and more restless. She always wanted to be moving, wanted to be doing something - especially now when she knew monsters haunted the campus. She knew that with Samantha gone - a part of her still choked at the memory - she was one of the only protectors left. Her skin was tingling and tight with the sense of something evil, something wrong, just out of sight.

She couldn't wait to see Alaric.

As if that thought had conjured him up, there was Alaric's little gray Honda turning down the road toward campus at last. Meredith waved to him as he parked, and started to run toward the car, aware that she was grinning like an idiot but not caring.

"Hey," she said, coming up to him as Alaric stretched and got out of the car, and then she kissed him hard. She knew they needed to strategize and plan - that with luck, Alaric had found something in his research that could help them fight Klaus. But for now, she just treasured the feeling of Alaric solid and real in her arms, his lips soft on hers, the smell of him that was made up of leather and soap and something sort of herbal and just essential Alaric.

"I've missed you," he said, resting his forehead against hers for a moment after they finally broke the kiss. "Talking on the phone isn't the same."

"Me too," Meredith said, and she had, so much. "I love your freckles," she told him inconsequentially, and brushed her lips across the golden spots on his cheek.

They headed into the campus, holding hands as they walked. Meredith pointed out sites of interest: the library, the cafeteria, the student center, her dorm. The few people they passed hurried by in groups, heads down, not making eye contact.

When they came to the gym, Meredith hesitated before stopping in front of it. "This is where I train. It's hard . . . I used to come here with Samantha," she told Alaric. "She was so competitive and smart. She pushed me, in a really good way." She leaned against Alaric for a moment, and felt him drop a kiss on the top of her head.

They walked on, but Meredith couldn't stop thinking about Samantha. Before Samantha, Meredith had never met anyone else from a family of hereditary vampire hunters. Her parents had left the hunter community behind. Because Samantha's parents had been killed when she was young, she hadn't really known any other hunters either.

They had taught each other so much. Meredith loved Elena and Bonnie - they were her best friends, her sisters - but no friend had ever understood as much about Meredith as Samantha had.

And then Ethan and the Vitale vampires had killed her. Meredith had been the one to find Samantha's body. She had been ripped apart so violently that her room had been soaked in blood.

Meredith felt her face twist, and her voice came out thick and fierce. "Sometimes I feel like it's never going to stop," she told Alaric. "There's always more monsters. And now Klaus is back, even though we killed him. He should be gone."

"I know," Alaric said. "I wish I could make things better. Klaus destroyed your family, and you defeated him. You're right, this should have ended then." They paused by a bench underneath a clump of trees, and he sat, pulling Meredith down beside him. Taking her hand, he looked into her eyes, his face filled with love and concern. "Tell me the truth, Meredith," he said. "Klaus destroyed your family. How are you feeling?"

Meredith caught her breath, because that fact was exactly what she had been avoiding ever since Klaus stepped out of the fire.

Klaus had attacked Meredith's grandfather and driven him into madness. He had kidnapped her twin brother, Cristian, and made him into a vampire. And he had made Meredith herself into a living half vampire, something every hunting family had a right to loathe.

And then the Guardians had changed everything, making a reality out of what would have happened if Klaus had never come to Fell's Church. Cristian was a human now - Meredith didn't remember ever meeting him, but he had grown up with her in this reality - and in army boot camp in Georgia. Their grandfather was happy and sane, living in a retirement village down in Florida. And Meredith didn't need blood, didn't have sharp kitten teeth. But she and her friends still remembered the way things used to be. No one else in her family remembered, but she did.

"I'm terrified," Meredith confessed. She twisted her hand around, playing with Alaric's fingers. "There's nothing Klaus wouldn't do, and knowing that he's out there somewhere, waiting, planning something, is . . . I don't know what to do with that."

She clenched her jaw and looked up, meeting Alaric's eyes. "He has to die," she said softly. "He can't start over, not now."

Alaric nodded. "Okay," he said, shifting from sympathetic to businesslike. "I have some good news, I think." He unzipped the black messenger bag he'd been carrying over his shoulder and pulled out his notebook, flipping over a few pages until he found the information he wanted. "We know that white ash wood is the only wood deadly to Klaus, right?" he asked.

"That's what they say," Meredith told him. "Last time, we made Stefan a weapon of white ash, but it didn't turn out to be that useful." She remembered Klaus tearing the white ash spear out of Stefan's hand, breaking it, and using it to stab at Stefan himself. Stefan's screams as a thousand deadly splinters had torn into him had been . . . unforgettable. He had almost died.

Damon had wounded Klaus with the spear of white ash after that, but in the end, Klaus had managed to pull the bloody wood out of his own back and had stood triumphant, still powerful, still able to bring Stefan and Damon to their knees.

And this time, we don't even have Damon, Meredith thought bleakly. She'd given up on asking Elena and Stefan where Damon was. He'd always been unpredictable.

"Well," said Alaric with a little smile, "there's an Appalachian folk legend I found in my research that says a white ash tree planted at the full moon under certain conditions is more powerful against vampires than any other wood. A white ash with that kind of magic in its origins ought to pack a real punch against Klaus."

"Sure, but how are we going to find something like that?" Meredith asked, and then she cocked an eyebrow. "Oh. You already know where one is, don't you?"

Alaric's smile grew wider. After a second, Meredith wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. "You're my hero," she said.

Alaric blushed, the pink rising from his neck to his forehead, but he looked pleased. "You're the hero," he said. "But with luck, we'll have a real weapon against Klaus."

"Road trip," Meredith said. "But not until we've made sure the campus is as safe as we can get it. Klaus is lying low and we don't have any leads on where he is, so we have to focus on the newly made vampires for now." She smiled ruefully at Alaric, scuffing her sneakers below the bench. "It's important to face the immediate threat first. But this is good."

Alaric pressed her hand between both of his. "Whatever you need, I'll help," he said earnestly. "I'll stay here as long as I'm useful. As long as you want me."

Despite the seriousness of their problems, despite the gory mess that was her past and the almost definite horror of her future, Meredith had to laugh. "As long as I want you?" she said, flirting, glancing up at him through her lashes, basking in Alaric's smile. "Oh, you're never getting away from me now."