The Ripper (The Vampire Diaries 17)

SALVATORE—I SHALL HAVE MY REVENGE

I glanced at the words, feeling as though the wind had been knocked out of me. This was a challenge, as real as if I’d been dealt a blow by an unseen hand. Someone was after us. And that someone wasn’t Damon. Worse still, what if Damon was the one in trouble? I wouldn’t put it past my brother to find himself at the center of a deadly vampire disagreement. After all, that’s what had happened in New York.

I blinked. I’d only seen a gruesome message like that once in my infinite lifetime—at the Sutherlands’ in New York, when Lucius, Klaus’s minion, was fulfilling the Original’s desire for vengeance against me and my brother. Twenty years ago, we’d just narrowly escaped him. Could he be back for more?

If Klaus had returned, I owed it to my brother to warn him. Suddenly everything—my terrifying dreams, my unsettled feelings—made sense. Damon was in trouble. And like it or not, I’d heard the message and come running. No matter what, my connection to the murder was no longer just a hunch—I was a part of this now. There was no going back.

“Help! Anyone!” Violet shrieked. She was starting to panic, her eyes wide.

I ran toward her and clapped my hand over her mouth to keep her from crying out again. I may have been hunting Damon, but now I was being hunted. Together, we were just two foxes, desperately darting through the city, unsure whether the hunter in charge of our fates was in front of us or behind us or lying in wait, ready to strike when we least expected it.

Chapter 5

In that moment, staring at the bloody message, time stood still. Or rather, time flew backward, back twenty years and across the ocean, until I was in the formal drawing room of the Sutherlands’ Central Park mansion, surrounded by carnage, gazing at a similarly garish, violent message.

Damon had been by my side back then, and it was at that moment I realized that the two of us were truly just babes in t

he woods, boys masquerading as monsters. When we saw the message written in the Sutherlands’ blood, we’d finally grasped that evil beyond our imaginations existed.

And it had only gotten worse. When Lucius, the minion of Klaus, had found and captured Damon and me, he’d entombed us in a mausoleum as if we were buried alive, heedless of our cries. Klaus and his ilk were Originals, creatures straight from hell who didn’t even have the smallest memory of human kindness, and, as such, there was no end to their evil. And now one of them was after me.

But for a moment, I felt something else inside me. It was a flickering sensation, so subtle and foreign I barely noticed it. Until I realized what it was. It was hope.

This time, I wasn’t unprepared. I was older, wiser, stronger. I could stop them.

I would make sure of that.

“Violet!” I said sharply, my hand still firm against her mouth. She stared at me with wild, unseeing eyes.

“I’m Stefan. From the bar. You can trust me. You have to trust me,” I said urgently. The edge of the park was only a hundred yards away. It would only take a few seconds to get out using vampire speed. I felt unsafe here. I didn’t feel much safer in London’s claustrophobic streets, but at least there, with pedestrians nearby, the killer would be less likely to strike. “We need to leave.”

She took a deep breath, but continued to struggle against my grip. “Violet, listen to me,” I said, summoning my Power. I heard a snap of a twig in the forest and I jumped. We had no time. Klaus could be anywhere. “Violet, trust me. You will be quiet, and you will listen to me. Is that understood?”

I felt my thoughts reach her mind, and I sensed the moment when her brain seemed to yield. I nodded to try to speed the process.

Then I saw a flicker in her eyes. I wasn’t sure if my compulsion had worked or if it was exhaustion, but I had to believe it. I took my hand off her mouth and she blinked dazedly at me.

“You’ll be safe with me. We have to leave the park. I’ll carry you,” I explained as I picked Violet up and draped her over my shoulders. I sped out of the woods and darted into the streets. Faster and faster, I ran on the uneven cobblestones, always following the Thames River, its glassy surface reflecting the moon and the stars. I ran through alleys and back streets until we reached a part of the city with plenty of gas lamps and pedestrians. Even at this late hour, they were walking the streets as though it were broad daylight. I allowed myself to stop, ducking under an awning. Despite the heat that still clung to the late-summer night, the women had furs draped over their bare shoulders while the men were wearing top hats and three-piece suits. Dozens of marquees lit up either side of every street.

I allowed Violet to slip off my shoulders and the two of us stood, facing each other, as throngs of pedestrians passed on either side of us.

Immediately, Violet began to panic again, and I could tell she wanted to scream, with only my compulsion holding her back.

“Shhh!” I tried to calm her. “Shhh!” I said again, rubbing her shoulders. A few passersby turned to stare.

“Listen to me,” I whispered, hoping that she’d take a hint from my lowered voice. “You’re safe. I’m your friend.”

She continued to sniffle. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and her hair was tangled in thick vines around her freckled face. “You’re safe,” I said, not breaking eye contact. She nodded slowly.

“You have to trust me. Can you do that, Violet? Remember, I’m a good man. You said so yourself.” I fished in my pocket and pulled out a white handkerchief, just purchased from the tailor. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

I handed it to her and Violet whimpered noisily. The few passersby who’d stopped to watch us on the street continued walking, obviously satisfied that nothing untoward was happening between us.

I let go of her, not wanting to compel her for a second longer than necessary. She seemed so innocent that I felt guilty for doing it, even though I knew it was for her own good.

“St-St-Stefan . . .” she said, gasping for breath. “The blood . . . and the words . . . was it the murderer?” Her voice broke into another wail. She was bordering on hysteria again.

“Shhh,” I said, trying to make my voice sound like the soothing whoosh of waves I’d heard on the boat to Britain. “Shhh,” I repeated.