Unmasked (The Vampire Diaries 13)

Katherine frowned at her crossly. For a moment, her voice sounded young, a hurt child’s, but her eyes seemed terribly old. “There’s no happy ending in this for either of us. I hope you know that,” she said. “I’ve lived this once already. I know what it’s like to love them both, and to lose them.”

Heavy clouds loomed overhead, and the air seemed ominously electric, on the verge of a storm. Outside the Haunted House appeared a devilishly masked mannequin, its black clothing flapping in the wind and giving an appropriately nightmarish ambiance to this Halloween night.

Stefan and Elena stopped outside the Haunted House. Stefan’s face was drawn tight, and Elena felt sick and anxious. Pulling up the hood of her Red Riding Hood costume, she carefully covered her distinctive golden hair.

“This is the night Damon said he was going to turn Meredith and Matt and Caroline into vampires,” she whispered to Stefan. “He has to be here. They’re all here, and there’s so much confusion, it will be easy for him.”

Stefan nodded grimly. Looking up at him, Elena couldn’t help the little clench her heart gave. He looked so good in his tuxedo and cape, elegant and completely natural. A debonair vampire costume, what else? And people thought Stefan didn’t have a sense of humor.

She hadn’t been completely honest with him. For her plan to work, for the brothers to forgive each other, Katherine’s revelation that they hadn’t caused her death had to come as a surprise. So she had told him only that they needed to protect her friends from Damon.

“We’ll mingle with the crowd and keep an eye out for him,” she said as they approached the Haunted House entrance. “If you hang out in the Torture Room, that might be a good place. It shouldn’t be too crowded; it’s off the main path and it’s mostly dummies, not people in costume. It’s the kind of place Damon would be likely to take someone if he wanted to be alone.”

Despite Elena’s defection from the Haunted House committee—which Meredith had only reluctantly forgiven her for—and Bonnie’s missing most of the all-important planning stage, Meredith and the rest of her decorating committee had done an amazing job on the Haunted House. It looked nightmarishly creepy, the entrance enthusiastically draped in spider webs and handprints made with fake blood.

Now everything was in chaos as the seniors rushed to get the last pieces in place before the paying public was allowed in. Elena and Stefan ducked through the crowd and made their way along the twisting route of the tour.

Outside the Torture Chamber, Elena squeezed Stefan’s hand. “This is it,” she said. “Good luck.”

“I will protect them if I can, Elena,” Stefan told her, and slipped through the doorway to hide inside among the torture implements.

Elena went on, glancing in at the different sets as she passed. The Alien Encounter Room was already dark, lit only with phosphorescent paint, and zombies milled around the Living Dead Room, adjusting one another’s makeup.

The Druid Room was near the back of the warehouse, and Elena frowned. If she’d had time to really participate in the committee, maybe she could have made it more central, so that it would be more difficult for Damon to feed from—and kill—Mr. Tanner.

Love is powerful, Mylea had said, but should Elena have paid more attention to logistics and less to changing Damon’s heart? She should have made it impossible for Damon to kill Mr. Tanner instead of hoping she could make him not want to.

She swallowed hard. This was the right way to go. If she couldn’t change the relationship between the brothers, surely it was only a matter of time before Damon killed again. She could only hope that Katherine would pull through, for all their sakes. If it didn’t work, maybe there was never any hope for Elena’s mission.

And the

re Mr. Tanner was, upright and indignant, arguing with white-robed Bonnie in front of a cardboard Stonehenge. “But you’ve got to wear the blood,” she was saying pleadingly. “It’s part of the scene; you’re a sacrifice.”

“Wearing these ridiculous robes is bad enough,” Mr. Tanner told her. “No one informed me I was going to have to smear syrup all over myself.”

“It doesn’t really get on you,” Bonnie argued, but Elena had heard enough for now. She remembered this argument. She’d joined in the first time, trying to convince Mr. Tanner to cooperate, and then Stefan had finally compelled him. But Meredith, a witch in a tight black dress, was already approaching, and Elena realized she had faith that Meredith’s logic and persistence would be just as effective as Stefan’s Power had been.

Both Bonnie and Meredith were focused on Mr. Tanner, not even noticing Elena, and she hesitated, watching them. Meredith was talking softly and reasonably to Mr. Tanner while Bonnie looked harried but amused, a smile lurking at the edges of her mouth.

Elena’s heart ached with how much she loved them. Memories came rushing back to her: Meredith telling ghost stories at their junior high sleepovers, Bonnie’s face bright over her ninth birthday cake, the focused frown Meredith wore as she studied, the shine of Bonnie’s eyes on her wedding day. Damon wanted to change them, destroy their lives, make them unaging killers. She had to stop him.

It was almost time for the Haunted House to open. Time to look for Damon.

The Haunted House was like a maze this time, Elena realized. The warehouse was bigger than the school gym had been, and Meredith had filled the space with many more horrors than they’d been able to fit in the school gym the first time this Halloween had happened, when Elena had been in charge. Elena cut through the Séance Room and the Deaths from History Room, where she spotted Caroline, a nubile Egyptian priestess in a linen shift that left very little to the imagination, talking to Tyler in his werewolf costume. One potential victim, she thought, and looked for the others. She would have to keep them all safe.

Slipping between the temporary partitions, Elena cut through the Spider Room, where she had to push her way through dangling rubber spiders. She found Meredith and Bonnie again, and followed as they hurried back toward the entrance, ready to lead customers through the house. Outside the entrance to the fun house, she finally identified Matt, who had taken the head of his own werewolf costume off. Everyone in place, she thought, and glanced automatically toward the Torture Chamber.

The last of the seniors were getting in position. The doors were about to open. “Bonnie,” Elena said softly, coming up next to her.

Bonnie jumped a little. “Elena,” she said. She looked curiously at Elena’s costume. “I thought you were going to wear that Renaissance dress your aunt had made for you.”

“No, I lent that to someone else,” Elena told her. “Bonnie, can you do me a favor? Damon’s going to come here, dressed as the Grim Reaper. Be nice to him, okay? Don’t let on that you recognize him if you can help it, and steer him toward the Torture Chamber. I’ll take it from there.”

Bonnie paled, but she nodded. “I’ll try,” she said, and lowered her voice to a whisper. “What if he tries to bite me, Elena?”

Elena slipped an arm around her friend’s shoulders. “I don’t think he will, at least not here,” she said comfortingly. “You’ve got your bracelet and Mrs. Flowers’s sachet, so he can’t Influence you, and I don’t think he’ll try anything with this many people around. If he does, just scream as loudly as you can.”

Bonnie didn’t seem terribly comforted, but she nodded again and squared her shoulders. For a moment, she looked to Elena like a young soldier heading into battle. Frightened, but firmly determined to face down death if necessary. Suddenly filled with affection, Elena hugged her friend tightly. “It’ll be all right,” she breathed in Bonnie’s ear. “I promise.” Something twisted inside her, and she hoped, fervently, that she would be able to keep the promise.