The Craving (The Vampire Diaries 16)

It felt good to be racing this way, with a few ounces of human blood zinging through my veins. I was almost able to lose myself in the flight, forgetting about what it was we were fleeing from.

Then there was a noise.

It started out like the beginning of a long roll of thunder, climbed into a crescendo of inhuman groaning, and ended in a screech of despair. The noise was everywhere, filling our ears, the valley we were descending into, the sky above us.

The three of us stopped, startled by the sound.

"Well, I guess the vampire is free," Damon huffed.

"Margaret - " I began.

"Trust me, she's fine. Did you see what she did to him?" Damon pointed out.

"What is she, though?" I asked.

"A witch. "

"Like Emily?" I wondered, my theory confirmed. Was the world simply full of witches, vampires, demons, and who knows what else, most of which were invisible to human eyes?

"I had a feeling there was something different about her when I couldn't compel her. . . " Damon explained. "So I asked. And she answered. Pretty straightforward, that one. "

"So she. . . "

"Cast a protective spell around herself and her family, and was burning his brain meats with some mental ability or other to buy us a little time. Emphasis on the word little," he added. "Hope that protective spell is still up. "

There was another roar.

"Keep moving," Lexi ordered, and we began again.

The woods grew blacker as if nature herself dreaded his approach, and we could feel the earth tremble with his every footstep.

Damon and I leaped over a giant log, and for one fleeting moment our motions were perfectly synchronized. But then the three of us came to skidding halt at the edge of a cliff that looked out over all of upper Manhattan.

"Huh," my brother said doubtfully, peering over its edge.

"We'll have to find some other way down," I said, starting to look back the way we came. "A path, or. . . "

With a cry, Lexi hurled herself over the edge of the cliff.

I watched her, wide-eyed with horror.

"Find another way down?" Damon said, shaking his head disappointedly at me. "Still thinking like a human, brother. " And he dove after her.

I swore under my breath, watching him disappear into the branches below. Then I followed.

As frightening as that fall was, there was something very freeing about it. I was weightless, swimming through the air. The world whistled through my outstretched fingers and hair. It almost felt as though I were flying.

I smashed down through thick leafy canopy and rolled into a ball, eventually coming right side up with a twisted ankle that reset itself almost before I noticed it.

Damon and Lexi were standing still. She had her head cocked, listening to the strange quiet we suddenly found ourselves in.

"He lost us," Damon said, triumphantly. "He didn't realize we went down the cliff! He's. . . "

"He's in front of us," Lexi breathed, eyes widening. The silence to the south was in fact complete, as if every living thing had quieted or died. We waited, unsure what to do, though it was hard to say for what.

Then came the sound of a single blade of grass bending and breaking.

"RUN!" Lexi screamed.