Destiny Rising (The Vampire Diaries 10)

Farther away, he could hear Matt searching the woods, calling, "Chloe! Chloe!" The young vampire had made it out of the stables; Stefan was sure he had seen her, blackened with ash but otherwise unhurt. Now, however, she was nowhere to be found. Stefan's heart ached in sympathy. The girl Matt loved was missing, too.

"Strange," Andres said. It was the first word he had spoken in a while, and Stefan's attention immediately snapped back to him. Andres tilted his head back to look up at Damon and Stefan, his forehead crinkling in confusion. "Elena's alive," he said. "I'm sure she's alive, but it feels like she's underground. "

Stefan sagged in relief: alive. He looked at Damon for confirmation. "The tunnels?" he asked, and Damon nodded. Klaus must have taken her to the tunnels that crisscrossed the ground underneath the campus, the ones the Vitale Society had used.

Meredith, sitting nearby with Alaric, jumped to her feet. "Where's the closest entrance?" she asked.

Stefan tried to picture the maze of passages Matt had sketched for him before their battle against the Vitale vampires. There were many blank areas and half-drawn entrances on his mental map, because Matt had only traveled a little way in what seemed to be a vast, twisting labyrinth underlying the campus and maybe the town. But, of what he knew . . .

"The vampires' safe house," Stefan said decisively.

Chapter 37

Elena's shoulder banged against something hard, and she made a small sound of protest. All she wanted to do was sleep, but someone wouldn't let her rest. Her legs hurt.

Her head jolted against something, and Elena's perspective shifted. Someone was pulling her along by her legs, she realized, the rest of her body sliding along on the ground. Her hair caught, jerking her head before it came loose, and she groaned again. Slowly, she opened her eyes.

"Back with me, little one?" Klaus said, sounding disconcertingly jovial. He was the one dragging her, Elena realized, and although it was dark, he clearly had sensed when she awoke. He laughed, his dark, disturbing chuckle making her cringe. "I can't kill you with my teeth, or with my dagger, but an ordinary knife will work, won't it? I could tie you up and drop you in the lake to drown. What do you think?"

Elena's mouth was dry, and it took a couple of tries to get any sound out. "I think," she said at last, thickly, "that Stefan is going to save me. "

Klaus laughed again. "Your precious Stefan won't be able to find you," he said. "No one can save you now. "

They hadn't been to the safe house since they had left with Chloe, the night of Klaus's resurrection. When they arrived, the faint scent of vervain still lingered in the basement, and Stefan's skin itched in reaction. Meredith pried up a trapdoor in the floor, and Stefan lowered himself in first, the others following.

Everyone but Matt had come, weapons in hand, carrying flashlights and lanterns, tense and ready to fight. Matt had stayed behind to search for Chloe. Bonnie, Alaric, and Meredith stuck close together, their faces pale and strained. Shay, Zander, and the other werewolves stayed together, too, alert to every noise or scent in the darkness. And Damon, Stefan, and Andres formed the vanguard, each one of them straining for some sign of Elena.

They seemed to walk for miles, through underground passages that narrowed as they went, changing from concrete passages to dusty tunnels carved from dirt. Andres stopped frequently and touched the floor and walls, listening with his hands before picking a direction.

"Did you come this way when you smoked the tunnels?" Stefan asked Meredith as they waited impatiently during one of these stops, and she shook her head, wide-eyed.

"We're a lot deeper underground than I knew the tunnels went," she said. "I had no idea the Vitale Society had anything this elaborate. "

"I wonder if it was the Vitale Society, actually," Bonnie interjected suddenly. "They used these tunnels, but I keep getting a sense that there's something older here. Something creepy. "

Silently, Alaric raised his flashlight higher, illuminating a series of runes carved deep into the rock above them. "I can't read them," he said, "but these must predate Dalcrest by centuries. "

The darkness that pressed in from all sides, now that Stefan focused on it, seemed to breathe with ageless secrets. It was as if there was something huge and sleeping, just out of sight, wrapped in itself and waiting to awaken. His chest ached with anxiety. Elena . . .

The steady thump of Klaus's footsteps stopped, but Elena was still sliding forward. With a shock, she realized that he was pulling her to him and she flailed desperately, trying to jerk herself away.

She was so tired, though. She'd used more of her Power than she ever had before, and she felt drained and helpless. Elena could do no more than struggle weakly as Klaus picked her up, gathering her in his arms as gently as if she was a baby.

"No," she whispered hoarsely.

She felt Klaus's hand stroking her hair back, and she shuddered with repulsion at the gentle touch in the dark. She struggled weakly, but his Power was holding her in place.

"I could have let the fire kill you," he whispered, his voice intimate and almost tender, "but what's poetic in that? My bite may not hurt you, but I want a taste of the girl that fascinates vampires so much. I've never tasted a Guardian before. Is your blood especially sweet?"

He pressed his mouth against her neck and Elena cringed. She couldn't fight anymore. His fangs pushed into her, rough and demanding, and it felt as if her throat was being split open. She tried to scream, but only a whimper came out.

He can't kill me this way, she reminded herself desperately. And yet it felt as if her life was draining away.

Andres was standing perfectly still, one hand pressed against the rock.

"What is it?" Stefan said sharply.

Andres opened his eyes. His face was desolate. "I've lost her," he said. "She was so close but now . . . she's not touching the Earth anymore. I don't know where she is. "