Unmasked (The Vampire Diaries 13)

Moving too quickly for their eyes to follow, Damon was gone.

“He’s beautiful,” Katherine said, “but he’s always had that rage inside him. When he was human, I thought it was romantic.”

“We have to stop him,” Elena said to Stefan. “In this mood, he’ll kill anyone who gets in his way.”

“You promised me I would save them,” Katherine said. Her face began to crumble with disappointment. “You said I’d be a hero.”

There was a glimmer of violence in Katherine’s eyes. Elena remembered the white tiger Katherine could become, the cruelty of the Katherine she’d met the first time she’d gone through this. Elena’s lips parted. She had to say something to defuse the situation.

“I want what you wanted for us, Katherine,” Stefan cut in. His face was more open than Elena had seen it in this time. “You sacrificed everything for us, and I won’t forget that. But we have to find Damon before it’s too late. Before your sacrifice was for nothing.”

In a moment of sympathy and understanding, Katherine approached Stefan. Elena saw in Katherine what she’d been feeling for the past few weeks—loss of true love. Katherine pressed her lips to Stefan’s cheek, as gently as a human would. And then in the blink of an eye, Katherine was gone.

“Come on,” Elena said, gripping Stefan by the hand and pulling him out the door of the Torture Chamber. “We have to find him.”

A giggling group of girls pushed past them into the Torture Chamber, and Elena hesitated in the passageway, looking both ways. The Haunted House was teeming with people. Which way would Damon have gone?

Stefan pushed her gently toward her left. “You go that way,” he said grimly. “I’ll work my way back toward the entrance. There are only so many places he could be.”

“Check on the Druid Room first,” Elena said. They needed to make sure he wasn’t anywhere near Mr. Tanner. “We’ll find him, Stefan.”

Of course, we don’t know what we’ll be able to do if we find him, a nagging voice remarked in the back of Elena’s mind. Still, she headed through the maze of rooms, her eyes raking the shadows, looking for the Grim Reaper. There were a lot of people in black-robed costumes, but none of them were Damon.

An engine revved behind her, and Elena was shoved sideways by a shrieking group as a chainsaw-wielding masked man chased them down the hall. She took a turn between two partitions and found herself suddenly alone.

“On your way to Grandma’s, Little Red?” someone whispered throatily behind her.

Elena turned to see a werewolf, its mask’s muzzle dripping with gruesomely realistic blood. “Matt?” she asked uncertainly.

“Didn’t they tell you to stay on the path?” The werewolf’s voice got a little louder as he leered at her.

Tyler, Elena realized with disappointment. “Have you seen Matt?” she asked, her voice flat.

“There’s more than one wolf in these woods, Little Red,” Tyler told her, laying a large, hairy paw on her shoulder.

Elena shrugged it off. “Look, Tyler, I really need to find Matt. Or Meredith,” she added. If she knew where they were, maybe she could hide them from Damon.

Tyler scowled. “No, I don’t know where they are.” He leaned against her, his breath hot on her neck. “Come play with me instead, pretty girl. I’ll show you the way to Grandma’s house.”

“If you see them—or Caroline or Bonnie—tell them I’m looking for them, okay?”

He huffed a sigh. “Whatever.” Two girls Elena didn’t know turned the corner into the other end of the hall, and Tyler lost interest in Elena. “Full moon, ladies,” he shouted, walking toward them, and tipped his head back in a throaty howl as they giggled.

Elena passed through the Spider Room next, but there was no one there but a bunch of rowdy junior-high boys, batting the rubber spiders at each other. The Living Dead Room was teeming with people, one of whom, moaning, “Braaaaains,” pretended to take a bite out of Elena’s face. But there was no black-clad Meredith in a witch costume, no werewolf Matt, no Egyptian Caroline.

Dread settled in the pit of Elena’s stomach. Could Damon have trapped them all in the fated Druid Room? Could Stefan be outnumbered? Bonnie ought to be there too, playing a priestess sacrificing Mr. Tanner. At least she knew where Bonnie was supposed to be.

I told her it was going to be all right, Elena remembered. Half running, she headed for the Druid Room.

Bonnie wasn’t there. There was no one poised above the altar, although Elena could hear shrieks and laughter coming from not far away. Strobe lights flashed, giving the whole room a dizzying, dreamlike quality. Beneath the cardboard Stonehenge, Mr. Tanner was stretched out across the sacrificial stone altar, his robes heavily stained with blood, his eyes blankly staring up at the ceiling. Beside him lay the ritual knife in a pool of blood.

The chill in Elena’s center hardened into a frightened little ball. She rushed toward him, trying to see if Mr. Tanner was breathing. His eyes were rolled back in his head, showing little more than the whites.

She bent over the still figure, working up the nerve to touch him. “Mr. Tanner?” she said softly. Too late, too late, the little voice in the back of her head mourned. If Damon had managed to kill Mr. Tanner, then Elena was dead, Damon was dead, Stefan was dead.

Elena extended a shaking hand, her heart hammering, to touch Mr. Tanner’s neck, to feel for a pulse.

Just before her hand made contact, Mr. Tanner sat up. “AAAAARRRGGGGGHHHH!” he shrieked into her face.