Elena gave a half-asleep mmph rolling over, and muttered, "What? What?" in irritation before she blinked all the way awake.
"Shh," Meredith told her, and said gently to Bonnie, "Who doesn't like to be alone, Bon?"
"Klaus," Bonnie answered in that same deadened voice, and Elena's eyes widened in comprehension. Elena sat up, her golden hair tousled with sleep, and reached for a notebook and pen on her desk. Meredith sat down on Bonnie's bed and waited, staring at the smaller girl's sleeping face beside her.
"Klaus wants his old friends," Bonnie told them. "He's calling for one now." Still sleeping, she raised one thin, white arm out above her and crooked her finger, beckoning into the darkness. "There's so much blood," she added in that flat voice, as her hand flopped back down by her side. The skin on Meredith's arms pebbled into goose bumps.
Elena scribbled something in her notebook and held it up: in big letters she'd written ASK HER WHO. They'd found in the past that it was better for just one person to question Bonnie when she was seeing visions, to keep her from getting confused and snapping out of her trance.
"Who is Klaus calling for?" Meredith asked, keeping her voice calm. Her heart was pounding hard at the idea, and she pressed one hand against her chest as if to calm it. Anyone Klaus considered a friend was definitely dangerous.
Bonnie's mouth opened to answer, but she hesitated. "He calls them to join his fight," she said after a moment, her voice hollow. "The fire's so bright, there's no way to tell who's coming. It's just Klaus. Klaus and blood and flames in the darkness."
"What is Klaus planning?" Meredith asked. Bonnie didn't answer, but her eyelids fluttered, her lashes looking thick and dark against the paleness of her cheeks. She was breathing more heavily now.
"Should we try to wake her up?" Meredith wondered. Elena shook her head and wrote on the pad again. ASK HER WHERE KLAUS IS.
"Can you tell where Klaus is right now?" Meredith asked.
Restlessly, Bonnie moved her head back and forth against the pillow. "Fire," she said. "Darkness and flames. Blood and fire. He wants them all to join his fight." A thick chuckle forced its way out of her mouth, although her expression did not change. "If Klaus has his way, everything will end in blood and fire."
"Can we stop him?" Meredith asked. Bonnie said nothing, but grew more restless. Her hands and feet started to drum against the mattress, lightly and then more heavily, a rapid patter. "Bonnie!" Meredith said, and leaped to her feet.
With a great gasp, Bonnie's body stilled. Her eyes flew open.
Meredith grabbed the smaller girl's shoulders. A second later, Elena was beside them on the bed, reaching out and taking hold of Bonnie's arm.
Bonnie's brown eyes were wide and blank for a moment, and then she frowned and Meredith could see the real Bonnie flooding back in.
"Ow!" Bonnie complained. "What are you doing? It's the middle of the night!" She pulled away from them. "Cut it out," she said indignantly, rubbing at her arm where Elena had grabbed her.
"You had a vision," Elena said, shifting back to give her some room. "Can you remember anything?"
"Ugh." Bonnie made a face. "I should have known. My mouth always tastes funny when I come out of one of those. I hate that." She looked at Elena and Meredith. "I don't remember anything. What'd I say?" she asked tentatively. "Was it bad?"
"Oh, blood and fire and darkness," Meredith said dryly. "The usual sort of thing."
"I wrote it down," Elena said, and handed Bonnie her notebook.
Bonnie read Elena's notes and paled. "Klaus is calling someone to come to him?" she asked. "Oh, no. More monsters. We can't - there's no way this is good for us."
"Any guesses about who he might be calling?" Elena wondered.
Meredith sighed and stood, beginning to pace between the beds. "We don't really know that much about him," she said.
"Thousands of years of being a monster," Elena added. "I imagine Klaus has a lot of evil in his past."
Despite her quick strides across the room, a cold shiver ran down Meredith's back. One thing was certain: anyone Klaus wanted to join him would be the last person they would want here. Decisively, she clicked her laptop closed and went to her closet to pull out the weapons trunk. There was no time to be a student now. She had to prepare for war.
Chapter 13
"I think I can see better in the dark now," Elena told Stefan as she pushed back a tree branch and held it so that he could pass.
The night seemed alive with sounds and motion, from the rustle of leaves to the scurry of some sort of tiny rodent in the undergrowth. It felt so different from the last time she and Stefan had patrolled the woods together. Elena didn't know if this new awareness was directly linked to the Power she could feel spreading steadily inside her, or if knowing she had the Power just made her more alert to everything else.
Stefan smiled, but didn't answer. She could tell that he was focused on sending out his own Power, looking for vampires in the woods.
When she concentrated, she could see that Stefan's aura was a beautiful clear blue, shot with tendrils of soft gray that she thought might be the doubts and guilt that never fully left him. But the living blue was so much stronger than the gray. She wished that Stefan could see his aura for himself.
She reached out and touched it, her hand hovering right above his skin. The blue enveloped her hand, but she couldn't feel anything. She wiggled her fingers, watching Stefan's aura flow around them.