Initiation night for the newest members of the Vitale Society had arrived at last. The cavernous room was lit only by golden candlelight from long tapers placed around the space and by the fire of high-flaming torches against the wal s. In the flickering light, the animals carved in the wood of the pil ars and arches almost seemed to be moving.
Matt, dressed in a dark hooded robe like the other initiates, gazed around proudly. They'd worked hard, and the room looked amazing.
At the front of the room, beneath the highest arch, a long table had been placed, draped in a heavy red satin cloth and looking like some kind of altar. In the center of the table sat a huge deep stone bowl, almost like a baptismal font, and around it roses and orchids were set. More flowers had been scattered on the floor, and the scent of the crushed blossoms underfoot was so strong that it was dizzying. The pledges were lined up, evenly spaced, before the altar.
As if she'd picked up on his pride at how everything had turned out, Chloe pushed her dark hood back a bit and leaned toward him to mutter, "Pretty fabulous, huh?" Matt smiled at her. So what if she was dating someone else? He stil liked her. He wanted to stay friends, even if that was al there could be between them.
He tugged at his robe self-consciously; the fabric was heavy, and he didn't like the way it blocked his peripheral vision.
The current masked members of the Vitale Society wove silently among the pledges, handing out goblets ful of some kind of liquid. Matt sniffed his and smel ed ginger and chamomile as Wellas less familiar scents: so this was where the herbs had been used.
He smiled at the girl who gave it to him, but got no response. Her eyes behind the mask slid over him neutral y, and she moved on. Once he was a ful member of the Vitale Society, he would know who these current members were, would see them without their masks. He sipped from his goblet and grimaced: it tasted strange and bitter.
The soft rustlings of cloaked figures moving across the floor were silenced as the last of the goblets was handed out and the masked Vitales quietly retreated under the arch behind the altar to watch. Ethan stepped forward, up to the altar, and pushed back his hood.
"Welcome," he said, holding out his hands to the assembled pledges. "Welcome to true power at last." The candlelight flickered over his face, twisting it into something unfamiliar and almost sinister. Matt twitched nervously and took another swal ow of the bitter herbal mixture.
"A toast!" Ethan cal ed. He raised his own goblet, and before him, the pledges raised theirs. He hesitated for a moment, then said, "To moving beyond the veil and discovering the truth."
Matt raised his goblet and drained it with the other pledges. The mixture left a gritty feeling on his tongue, and he scraped it absently against his teeth.
Ethan looked around at the pledges and smiled, locking gazes with one after another. "You've al worked so hard," he said affectionately. "Each of you has reached his or her personal peak of intel igence, strength, and leadership ability now. Together, you are a force to be reckoned with. You have been perfected."
Matt managed to politely restrain himself from rol ing his eyes. It was nice to be praised, of course, but sometimes Ethan was a little too over the top: perfected? Matt doubted it was even possible. It seemed to him that you could always strive to be a little more, or a little less, something.
You could always wish to be better. But even if he could, after al , be perfected, he suspected that it would take more than a few obstacle courses and group problem-solving exercises to do it.
"And now it is time to at last discover your purpose," Ethan continued. "Time to complete the final stage in your transformation from ordinary students into true avatars of power." He took a clean and shining silver cup from the altar and dipped it into the deep stone bowl in front of him.
"With every step forward in evolution, there must be some sacrifice. I regret any pain this wil cause you. Be comforted by the knowledge that al suffering is temporary. Anna, step forward."
There was a slight uneasy stirring among the pledges.
This talk of suffering and sacrifice was different than Ethan's usual emphasis on honor and power. Matt frowned.
Something was wrong here.
But Anna, looking tiny in her long robe, walked without hesitation up to the altar and pushed back her hood.
"Drink of me," Ethan said, handing her the silver cup.
Anna blinked uncertainly and then, her eyes on Ethan, tipped back her head and drained the cup. As she handed it back to Ethan, she licked her lips automatical y, and Matt tried to peer more closely at her. In the flickering candlelight, her lips looked unnatural y red and slick.
Then Ethan led her around the side of the altar and into his arms. He smiled, and his face twisted, his eyes dilating and his lips pul ing back in a snarl. His teeth looked so long, so sharp. Matt tried to shout a warning but realized with horror that he couldn't move his lips, couldn't draw the breath to cal out.
He knew, suddenly, that he had been a fool.
Ethan sank his fangs deep into Anna's neck. Matt strained, trying to run toward them, to attack Ethan and throw him away from Anna. But he couldn't move at al . He must be under some kind of compulsion. Or perhaps something in the drink, some magic ingredient, had made them al docile and stil . He watched helplessly as Anna struggled for a few moments, then went limp, her eyes rol ing back in her head.
Unceremoniously, Ethan let her body drop to the ground. "Don't be afraid," he said kindly, gazing around at the horrified, frozen pledges. "Al of us" - he gestured toward the silent, masked Vitale behind him - "went through this initiation recently. You must brace yourself to suffer what is only a smal , temporary death, and then you wil be one of us, a true Vitale. Never growing old, never dying.
Powerful forever."
Sharp white teeth and golden eyes shining in the candlelight, Ethan reached out toward the next pledge as Matt struggled again to shout, to fight. Ethan continued,
"Stuart, step forward."
Elena smel ed so good, rich and sweet like an exotic ripe fruit. Damon wanted to simply bury his head in the soft skin at the crook of her neck and just inhale her for a decade or two. Snaking his arm through hers, he pul ed her closer.
"You can't come in with me," she told him for the second time. "I might be able to get James to talk to me because it's a question about my parents, but I don't think he'l tel me anything if someone else is there. Whatever the truth is about the Vitale Society and my parents, I think he's embarrassed about it. Or afraid, or ... something." Without paying attention to what she was doing, Elena shifted her grip and held on to Damon's arm more firmly.
"Fine," Damon said stubbornly. "I'l wait outside. I won't let him see me. But you're not to walk across campus at night by yourself. It's not safe."
"Yes, Damon," Elena said in a convincing imitation of meekness, and rested her head on his shoulder. The lemony scent of her shampoo mixed with the more essential Elena smel of her. Damon sighed with contentment.
She cared for him, he knew that, and Stefan had taken himself out of the picture. She was stil young, his princess, and a human heart could heal. Maybe, with Stefan gone, she would final y see how much closer she was, mind and soul, to Damon, how perfectly they fit together.
In any case, she was his for now. He lifted his free hand and stroked her head, her silky hair pliant beneath his fingers, and smiled.
The professor's house was barely off campus, just across the street from the gilded entrance gates. They'd almost reached the edge of campus when a familiar presence that had been lurking nearby at last came very close.
Damon wheeled to scan the shadows, pul ing Elena with him.
"What is it?" Elena said, alarmed.
Come out, Damon thought with exasperation, sending his silent message toward the thickest shadows at the base of a crowd of oak trees. You know you can't hide from me.
One dark shadow detached itself from the rest, stepping forward on the path. Stefan simply gazed at the ground, shoulders slumped, his hands loose and open by his sides. Elena gasped, a smal hurt sound.
Stefan looked terrible, Damon thought, not without sympathy. His face seemed hol ow and strained, his cheekbones more prominent than usual, and Damon would have bet that he wasn't feeding properly. Damon felt a twinge of disquiet. He didn't take pleasure in causing his brother pain. Not anymore.
"Well?" Damon said, raising his eyebrows.
Stefan glanced up at him. I don't want to fight with you, Damon, he said silently.
So don't, Damon shot back at him, and Stefan's mouth twitched in a half smile of acknowledgment.
"Stefan," Elena said suddenly, sounding like the word had been jerked out of her. "Please, Stefan." Stefan stared down at the path under his feet, not meeting her eyes. "I sensed you were nearby, Elena, and I felt your anxiety," he said wearily. "I thought you might have been in trouble. I'm sorry, I was mistaken. I shouldn't have come."
Elena stiffened, and her long dark lashes fel over her eyes, hiding, Damon was almost sure, the beginnings of tears.
A long silence stretched between them. Final y, irritated by the tension, Damon made an effort to ease it. "So," he said casual y, "we broke into the campus security office last night."
Stefan looked up with a flicker of interest. "Oh? Did you find anything useful?"
"Crime scene photos, but they weren't very helpful," Damon said, shrugging. "The folders were marked with black Vs, so we're trying to figure out what that means.
Elena's going to talk to her professor about the Vitale Society, see if it could have anything to do with them."
"The... Vitale Society?" Stefan said hesitantly.
Damon waved a hand dismissively. "A secret society from back in the day when Elena's parents were here," he said. "Who knows? It may be nothing."
Drawing a hand across his face, Stefan seemed to be thinking hard. "Oh, no," he muttered. Then, looking at Elena for the first time, he asked, "Where's Matt?"
"Matt?" Elena echoed, startled out of her wistful contemplation of Stefan. "Um, I think he had some kind of meeting tonight. Footbal stuff, maybe?"
"I have to go," Stefan said tightly, and was immediately gone. With his enhanced abilities, Damon could hear Stefan's light footsteps racing away. But to Elena, he knew, Stefan had been nothing but a silently vanishing blur.
Elena turned to Damon, her face crumpling in what he recognized as a prelude to more tears. "Why would he fol ow me if he doesn't want to talk to me?" she said, her voice hoarse with sorrow.
Damon gritted his teeth. He was trying hard to be patient, to wait for Elena to give him her heart, but she kept thinking of Stefan. "He told you," he said, keeping his voice even. "He wants to make sure you're safe, but he doesn't want to be with you. But I do." Firmly recapturing her arm with his, he tugged her lightly forward. "Shal we?"