“Brother?” Damon asked again, this time in confusion, attempting to wriggle out of my grip. “You’re being compelled. Stefan, this isn’t you. This is Samuel, the one you’ve been fighting for weeks. Don’t let him win, don’t let him do this to you.”
“No, Damon. That’s where you’re wrong. This is all I’ve thought about for the past twenty years. Now I finally have my chance.” I raised the stake and was about to plunge it into Damon’s chest when he shoved me away, sending the stake flying from my grasp. I pushed him back and we began wrestling on the pier. A remote part of my brain registered that we used to wrestle like this as children, testing our strength on the grounds of Veritas. But we weren’t children anymore.
“Stefan, you don’t know what you’re doing,” Damon said, an edge of panic rising in his voice. “If you’re going to kill me, kill me as Stefan Salvatore, not as one of Samuel’s minions.” His face was red, and sweat was beading on his temples.
“This is who I am, brother.” The stake was still a few feet out of reach. Around us, the ring of vampires watched the fight. Blind rage overtook me. I’d rip Damon’s heart out with my hands if I had to.
“Come on, Stefan. Show your brother who’s the boss.” Samuel’s smooth voice rose over the crowd. He reached down and handed me the stake. I pulled it back and aimed it at the center of Damon’s heart. I couldn’t wait to see his blood, rich and red thanks to all his hundreds of conquests, spill onto the pier. I couldn’t wait for his limp, lifeless body to be thrown into the Thames.
“Good-bye forever,” I growled. I used the stake to pop off one of the buttons from Damon’s shirt, then gently scratched Damon’s skin. Blood spurted from the wound.
“If you do this, you’ll regret it for eternity, and that’s a promise,” Damon said, pushing me off him. He’d been holding off on truly fighting me, I realized, thinking that he’d be able to talk me out of killing him. It just showed how little he knew me.
I quickly jumped on him, pinning him back down. He was stronger than me, but I had adrenaline and twenty years of hatred surging in my veins. There was no way he’d get away from me again. I pushed Damon’s shoulders into the dock.
“Stefan, don’t do this. I swear, you’ll hate yourself more than you already do if you go through with it.” I wasn’t listening. I closed my eyes and pulled the stake back until a crack of lightning lit up the night sky, illuminating Damon’s face. Just then, fire sprang up from a spot on the dock and quickly formed a ring around us. I heard shrieks and whirled around in confusion and anger. Why was there a fire? I had important work to do.
That’s when I saw Cora running toward us, her hair loose and wild around her face. Behind her was Lady Alice. It was a shock to my system to see anyone other than Damon. It didn’t feel like they belonged in this world, in this place of battle.
Lady Alice lifted her hands to the sky and began chanting a low, guttural ah sound over and over again.
“Samuel?” I called in confusion. The fire had circled around Damon and me, and I couldn’t see an easy way to escape without burning myself and losing my grip on Damon. Was this a trap? Were both of us destined to die? I couldn’t tell if Lady Alice had set the fire or was trying to stop it. Based on our last conversation, I assumed the former.
“Put down the stake,” Damon breathed, bringing me back to the task at hand. He was struggling against my grasp, and I knew it would only be a few seconds before he wrestled free.
“No.” I shook my head and clutched the stake tighter. But I looked over my shoulder, and Samuel was no longer watching us. Instead, he was pinned against the wall by an invisible force. Lady Alice was pointing her finger toward him.
“Stupid witch!” Samuel yelled. “You’re ruining everything.”
“No, I’m making things right,” she said. “I believe in an eye for an eye.”
Samuel squirmed under whatever spell Lady Alice was using to keep him glued to the building. He seemed far less powerful than I’d ever seen him before. Lady Alice turned her face toward the sky and began chanting again, a loud sound that matched the sound of the thunder rumbling all around us. All of the sudden, the flames that had encircled us leapt like a fireball through the sky and against the wall of the warehouse, silhouetting Samuel.
“Exuro in abyssus,” Lady Alice yelled. The sky lit up with hundreds of lightning bolts, but the driving rain stopped. Then, the warehouse burst into flames, igniting Samuel’s body like a firecracker. The vampires on the dock fell to their knees under an invisible force. Was Samuel dead? Had Lady Alice just saved us all?
Samuel’s charred body fell to the pier in a heap. The fire quickly spread, killing every one of Samuel’s vampires in its wake. Alice continued to chant until all of them had been burned to an unrecognizable state. The scent of smoldering flesh permeated the air.
I stood shakily. Several feet away, my brother was lying on the ground, his chest exposed and bloody.
Kill him.
I wasn’t sure where the voice was coming from. It was like the half-remembered dialogue in a nightmare. Kill Damon? I couldn’t. Even the thought made my stomach turn in revulsion.
I looked down. Flecks of blood were on my hands, and there was an indentation where I’d gripped the
stake. What had just happened? Had I actually tried to kill my brother? Samuel’s compulsion must have been broken with his death. I turned to look at Damon, guilt filling my conscience. I was a monster capable of almost anything, but I could never have killed my brother. Damon leaned over and grabbed the stake, throwing it in the Thames. I pulled the sleeve from my shirt, intending to use it to stanch the blood from Damon’s wound. I moved toward him, and our eyes locked. There was something flickering in Damon’s eyes that I’d never seen before. It was terror.
In the distance, police bells sounded. The entire pier was on fire. My head was pounding in the smoke, my feet felt disconnected from my body, and I couldn’t comprehend how I’d gotten so close to killing Damon.
Then suddenly everything faded to black.
16
I woke on a white eiderdown blanket. The sun-dappled mahogany table next to me was laden with several vases of flowers. I turned over on the pillow, trying to get my bearings. The room was far too luxurious to be my simple abode at Abbott Manor, and yet the bed and the night table were delicate, not at all like the rough-hewn furniture at Veritas. Suddenly, warm water was being dabbed on my forehead. I blinked. Above me sat a woman wearing a white gown. Was she an angel? The image swam into focus, and I realized it was Lady Alice.
“The fire,” I croaked as images from the night before sprang back into my mind. My throat hurt.
“Shh, just keep quiet. You swallowed quite a bit of ash. This is a rosemary poultice. It should calm you a bit,” she said.