Moonsong (5 page)

Bonnie had always admired the way that Elena managed to get what she wanted. Elena just went after it and nothing got in her way. When Stefan had first come to Fel ’s Church, he hadn’t wanted anything to do with Elena, certainly not to fal into her arms and start some kind of amazing eternal romance. But Elena hadn’t cared. She was going to have Stefan, even if it kil ed her.

And, wel , it had kil ed her, hadn’t it?

Bonnie shivered. Bonnie shook her head a little. The point was, if you wanted to find love, you couldn’t be afraid of trying, could you?

She stuck her chin determinedly into the air. At least she wasn’t blushing anymore. Her cheeks were so cold, she was probably as white as a snowwoman, but she definitely wasn’t blushing. So that was something.

Before she could change her mind again, she walked quickly around the corner back into the aisle where Zander stood reading.

“Hi!” she said, her voice squeaking a tiny bit. “Zander!” He looked up, and that amazing, beautiful smile spread across his face.

“Bonnie!” he said enthusiastical y. “Hey, I’m real y glad to see you. I was thinking about you earlier.”

“You were?” Bonnie asked, and immediately wanted to kick herself at how overly enthusiastic she sounded.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “I was.” His sky-blue eyes held hers. “I was wishing I’d gotten your phone number.”

“You were?” Bonnie asked again, and this time didn’t even worry about how she sounded.

“Sure,” he said. He scuffed his feet against the carpet, like he was a little nervous, and a warmth blossomed inside Bonnie. He was nervous talking to her! “I was thinking,” Zander went on, “maybe we could do something sometime.

I mean, if you wanted to.”

“Oh,” Bonnie said. “I mean, yes! I would want to. If you did.”

Zander smiled again, and it was as if their little corner of the fiction section was lit up with a glowing light. Bonnie had to keep herself from staggering backward, he was so gorgeous.

“How about this weekend?” Zander asked, and Bonnie, feeling suddenly as light and buoyant as though she could float up into the air, smiled back.

Meredith stepped her left foot behind her and raised her right heel, moving into a back stance as she brought her hands up sharply, fists together, in a blocking move. Then she slid her foot sideways into a front stance and punched forward with the fist of her left hand. She loved running through a taekwondo form. Each movement was choreographed, and the only thing to do was to practice over and over until the whole form flowed in a model of precision, grace, and control. Taekwondo forms were perfectible, and Meredith enjoyed perfection.

The most glorious thing about them was that once she knew her forms so wel that they were as natural as breathing, she could be ready for anything. In a fight, she would be able to sense what her opponent’s next move would be and counter with a block or a kick or a punch without even thinking.

She turned swiftly, blocked high with her right hand and low with her left. It was the preparation, Meredith knew. If she was so prepared that her body could sense what move she needed to make without her brain having to get involved, then she would be able to truly protect herself and everyone else around her.

A few weeks ago, when she and her friends had been under attack from the phantom and she’d sprained her ankle, only Stefan had been left with Power enough to defend Fel ’s Church.

Stefan, a vampire.

Meredith’s lips tightened as she automatical y kicked forward with her right foot, slid into a tiger stance, and blocked with her left hand.

She liked Stefan, and she trusted him, she real y did, but stil … She could picture generation upon generation of Sulezes rol ing over in their graves, cursing her, if they knew that she had left herself and her friends so vulnerable, with only a vampire between themselves and danger. Vampires were the enemy.

Not Stefan, of course. She knew, despite al her training, that she could put her faith in Stefan. Damon, on the other hand… However useful Damon had been in a couple of battles, however reasonably pleasant and, frankly, out-of-character he had behaved for the last few weeks, Meredith couldn’t bring herself to trust him.

But if she trained hard, if she perfected herself as a warrior, Meredith wouldn’t have to. She moved into a right front stance and, sharp and clean, punched forward with her right hand.

“Nice punch,” said a voice behind her.

Meredith turned to see a short-haired African American girl leaning against the door of the practice room, watching her.

“Thanks,” said Meredith, surprised.

The girl strol ed into the room. “What are you,” she asked, “a black belt?”

“Yes,” Meredith said, and couldn’t help adding proudly,

“in taekwondo and karate.”

“Hmm,” the girl said, her eyes sparkling. “I do taekwondo and aikido myself. My name’s Samantha. I’ve been looking for a sparring partner. Interested?” Despite the casualness of her tone, Samantha was bouncing eagerly on the bal s of her feet, a mischievous smile flickering at the corners of her mouth, and Meredith’s eyes narrowed.

“Sure,” she said, her attitude light. “Show me what you’ve got.”

Samantha’s smile broadened. She kicked off her shoes and stepped onto the practice mat next to Meredith. They faced off, assessing each other. She was a head shorter than Meredith, thin, but wiry and sleekly muscled, and she moved as graceful y as a cat.

The anticipation in the girl’s eyes betrayed Samantha’s belief that Meredith would be easy to beat. She was thinking that Meredith was one of those trainees who was al form and technique with no real fighting instinct. Meredith knew that kind of fighter wel , had met them often enough in competitions. If that was what Samantha thought of Meredith, she was in for a surprise.

“Ready?” Samantha asked. At Meredith’s nod, she immediately launched a punch while bringing the opposite-side foot around in an attempt to sweep Meredith off her feet. Meredith reacted instinctively, blocking the blow, dodging the foot, then sweeping a kick of her own, which Samantha avoided, grinning with simple pleasure.

They exchanged a few more blows and kicks, and, against her wil , Meredith was impressed. This girl was fast, faster than most of the fighters Meredith had faced before, even at the black-belt level, and much stronger than she looked.

She was too cocky, though, an aggressive fighter instead of a defensive one; the way she’d hurried to strike the first blow showed that. Meredith could use that cockiness against her.

Samantha shifted her weight, and Meredith slid in below her defenses, giving a fast spin heel kick that hit Samantha firmly on the upper thigh. She staggered a bit, and Meredith moved out of range quickly.

Samantha’s face changed immediately. She was getting angry now, Meredith could tel , and that, too, was a weakness. She was frowning, her lips tight, while Meredith kept her own face purposeful y blank. Samantha’s fists and feet were moving quickly, but she lost some accuracy as she sped up.

Meredith pretended to fal back under the assault, feinting to keep her opponent off-balance, al owing herself to be backed toward a corner while stil blocking Samantha’s blows. When she was almost cornered, she jammed her arm against Samantha’s fist, stopping her before she could ful y extend her blow, and swept a foot under hers.

Samantha tripped, caught by Meredith’s low kick, and fel heavily to the mat. She lay there and just stared up at Meredith for a moment, face stunned, while Meredith hovered over her, suddenly uncertain. Had she hurt Samantha? Was the girl going to be angry and storm off?

Then Samantha’s face blossomed into a wide, glowing smile. “That was awesome!” she said. “Can you show me that move?”

6

Cautiously, Matt felt along the path with his foot until he found grass, then inched his way onto it, holding his hands out in front of him until he was touching the rough bark of a tree. There probably weren’t too many people hanging around outside the main campus gate, but he’d just as soon have no one see him, blindfolded, dressed in his weddings-and-funerals suit and tie, and looking, he was sure, like an idiot.

On the other hand, he did want whoever was coming to get him to be able to spot him. It would be better to look like an idiot out in the open now and become part of the Vitale Society than to hide and spend the rest of the night blindfolded in the bushes. Matt inched his way back toward where he thought the gate must be and stumbled. Waving his hands, he managed to catch his balance again.

He suddenly wished he had told someone where he was going. What if somebody other than the Vitale Society had left him the note? What if this was a plan to get him on his own, some kind of trap? Matt ran his finger beneath his sweaty too-tight col ar. After al the weird things that had happened to him in the last year, he couldn’t help being paranoid.

If he vanished now, his friends would never know what had happened to him. He thought of Elena’s laughing blue eyes, her clear, searching gaze. She would miss him if he disappeared, he knew, even if she had never loved him the way he wanted her to. Bonnie’s laugh would lose its carefree note if Matt were gone, and Meredith would become more tense and fierce, push herself harder. He mattered to them.

The Vitale Society’s invitation was clear, though: tel no one. If he wanted to get in the game, he had to play by their rules. Matt understood rules.

Without warning, someone—two someones—grabbed his arms, one on each side. Instinctively, Matt struggled, and he heard a grunt of exasperation from the person on his right.

“Fortis aeturnus,” hissed the person on his left like a password, his breath warm on Matt’s ear.

Matt stopped fighting. That was the slogan on the letter from the Vitale Society, wasn’t it? It was Latin, he was pretty sure. He wished he’d taken the time to find out what it meant. He let the people holding his arms guide him across the grass and onto the road.

“Step up,” the one on his left whispered, and Matt moved forward careful y, climbing into what seemed to be the back of a van. Firm hands pushed his head down to keep him from banging it on the van’s roof, and Matt was reminded of that terrible time this past summer when he’d been arrested, accused of attacking Caroline. The cops had pushed his head down just like that when they put him handcuffed into the back of the squad car. His stomach sank with remembered dread, but he shook it off. The Guardians had erased everyone’s memories of Caroline’s false accusations, just as they’d changed everything else.

The hands guided him to a seat and strapped a seat belt around him. There seemed to be people sitting on each side of him, and Matt opened his mouth to speak—to say what, he didn’t know.

“Be stil ,” the mysterious voice whispered, and Matt closed his mouth obediently. He strained his eyes to see something past the blindfold, even a hint of light and shadow, but everything was dark. Footsteps clattered across the floor of the van; then the doors slammed, and the engine started up.

Matt sat back. He tried to keep track of the turns the van took but lost count of the rights and lefts after a few minutes and instead just sat quietly, waiting to see what would happen next.

After about fifteen minutes, the van came to a halt. The people on either side of Matt sat up straighter, and he tensed, too. He heard the front doors open and close and then footsteps come around the van before the back doors opened.

“Remain silent,” the voice that spoke to him earlier ordered. “You wil be guided toward the next stage of your journey.”

The person next to Matt brushed against him as he rose, and Matt heard him stumble on what sounded like gravel underfoot as he was led away. He listened alertly, but, once that person had left, Matt heard only the nervous shifting of the other people seated in the van. He jumped when hands took his arms once more. Somehow they’d snuck up on him again; he hadn’t heard a thing.

The hands helped him out of the van, then guided him across what felt like a sidewalk or courtyard, where his shoes thudded against first gravel, then pavement. His guides continued to lead him up a series of stairs, through some kind of hal way, then back down again. Matt counted three flights down before he was stopped again.

“Wait here,” the voice said, and then his guides stepped away.

Matt tried to figure out where he was. He could hear people, probably his companions from the van, shifting quietly, but no one spoke. Judging by the echoes their little motions produced, they were in a large space: a gym? a basement? Probably a basement, after al those stairs down.

From behind him came the quiet click of a door closing.

“You may now remove your blindfolds,” a new voice, deep and confident, said.

Matt untied his blindfold and looked around, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the light. It was a faint, indirect light, which supported his basement theory, but if this was a basement, it was the fanciest one he’d ever seen.

The room was huge, stretching into dimness at its other end, and the floor and wal s were paneled in a dark, heavy wood. Arches and pil ars supported the ceiling at intervals, and there were some kinds of carvings on them: the clever, twisted face of what might be a sprite leered at him from a pil ar; the figure of a running deer spanned one archway.

Red-velvet-seated chairs and heavy wooden tables lined the wal s. Matt and the others were facing a great central archway, topped by a large ornate letter V made of different kinds of glittering, highly polished metals elaborately welded together. Below the V ran the same motto that had appeared on the letter: fortis aeturnus.

Glancing at the people near him, Matt saw that he wasn’t the only one feeling confused and apprehensive.

There were maybe fifteen other people standing there, and they seemed like they came from different classes: there was no way that tal , stooping guy with the ful beard was a freshman.

A smal , round-faced girl with short ringlets of brown hair caught Matt’s eye. She raised her eyebrows at him, widening her mouth in an exaggerated expression of bewilderment. Matt grinned back at her, his spirits lightening. He shifted closer to her and had just opened his mouth to whisper an introduction when he was interrupted.