"So," Ethan said chattily, returning to his side and pul ing up a chair, "we were talking about the equinox."
"Yes," Stefan said, an acid bite to his tone.
He wasn't going to let Ethan see how he was yearning toward the door, expectant. He needed to keep his cool, so that Damon could have the element of surprise on his side.
He should keep Ethan talking, keep him distracted in case Damon came, so he fixed an expression of interest on his face and looked at Ethan attentively.
"At the time of the equinox, when day and night are perfectly balanced, the line between life and death is at its most weak and permeable. This is the time when spirits can cross between the worlds," Ethan began dramatical y, moving one hand in a wide sweep.
Stefan sighed. "I know that, Ethan," he said impatiently.
"Just cut to the chase." He might have to keep Ethan distracted, but surely he didn't have to feed his ego.
Ethan dropped his hand. "You remember Klaus, don't you?" he asked. "The originator of your bloodline? We're resurrecting him. With him at the head of our ranks, we'l be invincible."
Everything went stil for a moment, as if Stefan's slow-beating heart had final y stopped. Then he sucked in a breath. He felt as if Ethan had punched him in the face. He couldn't speak for a moment. When he could, he gasped,
"Klaus? Klaus the vampire who..." He couldn't even finish the sentence. His mind was ful of Klaus: the Old One, the Original vampire, the mad man. The vampire who had control ed lightning, who had bragged that he had not been made, that he just was. In Klaus's earliest memories, he had told Stefan, he carried a bronze axe; he was a barbarian at the gate, among those who destroyed the Roman Empire. He claimed that he began the race of vampires.
Klaus had held Elena's spirit hostage and tortured innocent Vickie Bennett to death for fun. He turned Katherine, first into a vampire, then into a cruel dol instead of a person, changed her until she was vicious and mindless, eager only to torment those she once loved.
Stefan, Damon, and Elena kil ed him at last, but it was nearly impossible, would have been impossible without the spirits of a battalion of unquiet ghosts from the Civil War tied to the blood-soaked battlegrounds of Fel 's Church.
"Klaus who made the vampire who made you," Ethan said cheerful y. "It was another of his descendants who I found in Europe this summer on my trip abroad. I convinced her to turn me into a vampire. She taught me some tricks, too, like how to use vervain, and how lapis lazuli can protect us from the sun. I put lapis lazuli in the pins we wear now, so al the members have it on them at al times. She was very helpful, this vampire who changed me. And she told me al about Klaus." He smiled warmly at Stefan again. "See, you should like me, Stefan. We're practical y cousins." Stefan shut his eyes for a moment. "Klaus was insane," he tried to explain. "He won't work with you, he'l destroy you."
Ethan sighed. "I real y think I can work it out with him, though," he said. "I'm very persuasive. And I'm offering him soldiers. I hear he likes war. There's no reason for him to turn us down; we want to give him everything he wants." He paused and looked at Stefan, stil smiling, but there was a note now in that wide smile that Stefan didn't like, a false innocence. Whatever Ethan was going to ask Stefan now, he already knew the answer. "Does this mean you're not interested in joining our army, cousin?" he asked with mock surprise.
Gritting his teeth, Stefan strained against the ropes once more, but they didn't budge. He glared up at Ethan. "I won't help you," he said. "Never."
Ethan came closer, bent down until his face was level with Stefan's. "But you wil help," he said lightly, a trace of self-satisfaction in his eyes. "Whether you want to or not.
See, what I need most of al to bring back Klaus is blood." He ran his hands through his curls, shaking his head. "It's always blood for this kind of thing, have you noticed?" he added.
"Blood?" asked Stefan uneasily. Young vampires were never sane, in his opinion - the initial rush of new senses and Powers were enough to bewilder anyone. He was starting to think, though, that Ethan's grasp on sanity might not have been that strong to begin with. He'd convinced someone to turn him into a vampire?
"The blood of his descendants, specifical y." Ethan nodded smugly. "That's why I was so delighted to find that you were right here on campus. I made a hobby of tracking down the descendants of Klaus this summer, after I'd talked the first one I met into changing me into what she was.
Some of them gave me blood wil ingly, when they heard what I wanted to do. Not al of Klaus's descendants are as ungrateful as you. I only need a little more, and then I'l have enough. Yours, of course," and his eyes flicked up toward the door that Stefan had been surreptitiously watching al this time, waiting for Damon, "and your brother's. I assume he'l be here any minute?"
Stefan's heart plummeted, and he stared openly at the door. Damon, please stay away, he thought desperately.
Chapter Forty
Damon was moving fast, and Elena and the others had to almost race to keep up with him as they headed for the library. "Typical Stefan, sacrificing himself," he muttered angrily. "He could have asked for help when he realized something was going on." He stopped for a second to let the others catch up and glared at them al . "If Stefan can't handle a few newly made vampires by himself, I'm ashamed of him," he said. "Maybe we should just leave him after al . Survival of the fittest."
Elena touched his hand lightly, and, after a moment, Damon hurried on toward the library. She didn't for an instant believe he would leave Stefan a captive. None of them did. The taut, strained lines of his face showed that Damon was entirely focused on the danger his brother was in, their rivalry temporarily forgotten.