The Hunters: Destiny Rising

Stefan clenched his fists together, the bite of his nails against his palms helping to stave off the fog of misery that was enfolding him. Elena wasn't dead. He wouldn't believe that.

Full dark had fallen, and firefighters had finally put out the blaze that had consumed the old stables. They were carefully working through the debris, dragging out body after body.

Outside the protective barriers, screened by a stand of trees, Stefan and the others waited. Meredith and Bonnie clung to each other, Bonnie in tears. Andres was seated, dazed and silent, on the ground, his eyes fixed on the slow movements of the firefighters.

Stefan remembered the look on Elena's face as the fiery wall had come down upon her. She had seemed so resigned, so peaceful as she looked back at him one last time, the flames she had put between them rising faster. The wall had fallen so fast - how could she possibly have escaped?

A hand landed on his shoulder, and Stefan looked up to see Damon frowning past him at the remains of the stable. "She's not in there, you know," Damon said. "Elena's got the luck of the devil. She'd never get trapped in there."

Stefan leaned into his brother's hand, just a little. He was tired and grief-stricken, and there was a comfort in Damon's familiarity. "She died twice before her high-school graduation," he told Damon bitterly. "I don't know if I'd call that lucky. And both times, it was our fault."

Damon sighed. "She came back, though," he said gently. "Not everyone gets to do that. Hardly anyone, really." His lips twitched into a half smile. "Me, of course."

Stefan twisted away, his eyes burning. "Don't joke," he said in a furious, low mutter. "How can - even you - how can you joke about this now? Do you care at all?" But he shouldn't have been surprised. Damon had spent the last few weeks showing - violently, capriciously - how little he cared, for any of them.

Damon looked at him, his dark eyes steady. "I care," he said. "You know I do. Even when I don't want to. But I know she's not dead. If you don't trust Elena's luck, think of Klaus. It would take more than a fire to kill him."

"Fire kills vampires," Stefan said stubbornly. "Even old ones."

"He played with lightning," Damon said, and shuddered. "I don't think there's much that could kill Klaus."

The firefighters had stopped their investigation, every inch of burned wood and earth turned over, and were covering the bodies with dark canvases.

I'll check it out, Damon told Stefan silently, and transformed into a crow, flapping through the night to land in a tree near the corpses.

A few moments later, he was back, becoming himself again before his feet had even hit the ground so that he stumbled a few paces, less polished and poised than usual. Stefan was vaguely aware of everyone, all their allies, gathering around, but his eyes were fixed beseechingly on Damon. He opened his mouth, but the question he needed to ask wouldn't come. Is Elena there? he thought desperately. Is she?

If Elena was gone, if she had sacrificed herself to save them, Stefan would be dead by morning. There was nothing for him without her.

"Elena's not there," Damon said shortly. "Neither is Klaus. It's all Klaus's descendants."

Bonnie gave one short, broken sob of relief and Meredith squeezed her hand hard, knuckles whitening.

"Klaus must have her," Stefan said, the world swimming back into focus now that he had a purpose. "We have to find them before we're too late."

His eyes met Damon's, leaf-green and black holding, for once, exactly the same expression: fear and hope in equal measure. Damon nodded. Stefan's fingers relaxed where they still clutched Damon's shirt and he pulled his brother to him in a brief embrace, trying to send him all the love and gratitude he would never be able to put into words. Damon was back. And if anyone could help Stefan save Elena, it was Damon.

"Is there anything you can do?" Stefan asked Andres. He could hear the pleading note in his own voice.

All around them, the others looked tense, waiting for the answer. Bonnie was tending to Shay's shoulder, bandaging a nasty vampire bite, and her deft fingers stiffened with anxiety until Shay gave a quiet grunt.

"I hope I can," said Andres. "I'll try." He knelt and laid his palms flat against the ground beneath the trees. Watching him, Stefan felt the cracklings of Power in the air. Andres held very still, brown eyes narrowed and focused. New blades of grass poked through the earth, curling around his fingers.

"This isn't as effective as Elena's tracking Power," he explained, "but sometimes I can sense people. If she's touching the Earth, I will know where she is."

Andres sat there for what seemed like a long time, his face peaceful and alert. As he sank his fingers deeper into the ground, digging the tips into the soil at the base of a white birch tree, the tree unfurled new leaves.

"Faster," Damon ordered, his voice low and dangerous, but Andres did not respond with even a twitch. It was as if he had sunk so deeply into himself - or into his communion with the soil, Stefan wasn't sure which - that he couldn't hear them anymore.

Stefan's pulse was pounding faster than he could remember since before he'd become a vampire. He clenched and unclenched his fists, keeping himself from shaking Andres. The Guardian was doing the best he could, and distracting him would not make him work faster. But Elena, oh, Elena.

Farther away, he could hear Matt searching the woods, calling, "Chloe! Chloe!" The young vampire had made it out of the stables; Stefan was sure he had seen her, blackened with ash but otherwise unhurt. Now, however, she was nowhere to be found. Stefan's heart ached in sympathy. The girl Matt loved was missing, too.

"Strange," Andres said. It was the first word he had spoken in a while, and Stefan's attention immediately snapped back to him. Andres tilted his head back to look up at Damon and Stefan, his forehead crinkling in confusion. "Elena's alive," he said. "I'm sure she's alive, but it feels like she's underground."

Stefan sagged in relief: alive. He looked at Damon for confirmation. "The tunnels?" he asked, and Damon nodded. Klaus must have taken her to the tunnels that crisscrossed the ground underneath the campus, the ones the Vitale Society had used.

Meredith, sitting nearby with Alaric, jumped to her feet. "Where's the closest entrance?" she asked.

Stefan tried to picture the maze of passages Matt had sketched for him before their battle against the Vitale vampires. There were many blank areas and half-drawn entrances on his mental map, because Matt had only traveled a little way in what seemed to be a vast, twisting labyrinth underlying the campus and maybe the town. But, of what he knew . . .

"The vampires' safe house," Stefan said decisively.