Ethan was cocky, but Stefan was pretty sure he hadn't been a vampire for very long. If Ethan was stil human, if he had never become a vampire, Stefan guessed he would look more or less the same as he did now.
Ethan crouched down in front of Stefan's chair to look up into his face, wearing the same warm, friendly smile as when he'd tried to convince Stefan to join them. He looked like a pleasant fel ow, someone you wanted to relax with and trust, and Stefan glared at him. The smile was a lie.
Ethan was a kil er whose mask was less obvious than those of the other Vitale vampires, that was al .
"You're probably right about that," Ethan said thoughtful y. "I imagine there are al kinds of tricks you've picked up in, what is it, more than five hundred years?
Tricks that I don't know yet. You could be very useful to me in that way, if you decide to join us after al . There are lots of things you can teach us about al this vampire stuff." He flashed that appealing smile again. "I've always been a good student."
Vampire stuff. "What do you want from me, Ethan?" Stefan asked wearily. It had been a long night, a long few weeks, and the vervain-soaked ropes were hurting his arms, muddying his thoughts.
Ethan knew how old he was. Ethan knew what to offer him when they first talked about the Vitale Society. It wasn't a coincidence that he was the one in this room, then; Ethan wasn't looking for just any vampire. "What's your plan here?" Stefan asked.
Ethan's smile grew wider. "I'm building an invincible vampire army, of course," he said cheerful y. "I know it sounds a little ridiculous, but it's al about power. And power's never ridiculous." He licked his lips nervously, showing a flash of thin pink tongue. "See, I used to just be one of the ordinary little people. I was just like everyone else on campus. My biggest achievements were good grades on exams or the fact that I had the leadership of some secret col ege club. You wouldn't believe how lame the Vitale Society used to be. Just white magic and nature worship." He made a little self-deprecating grimace: See how silly I was once. I'm telling you something embarrassing about myself, so trust me. "But then I figured out how to get some real power."
One of the black-clad figures came up behind Ethan, and Ethan held up a finger to Stefan. "Hang on a sec, okay?" He rose and turned to talk to his lieutenant.
After tying Stefan up, Ethan had efficiently gone back to draining the pledges, one after another, dropping the bodies as soon as he finished with them. They had al gone through their transitions now and were back on their feet.
They seemed irritable and disoriented, growling and snapping at one another and gazing at Ethan with undisguised adoration.
Typical new vampires. Stefan eyed them warily. Until they had fed thoroughly, they would hover on the brink of madness, and it would be easy for Ethan to lose control of them. Then they would be even more dangerous.
"The pledges need to eat," Ethan said calmly to the robed woman behind him. "Five of you should take them out and teach them how to hunt. You lead the hunting party and pick whoever you want to go with you. The rest wil stay here and help guard our guest."
Stefan watched as the Vitales sorted themselves out.
Eight of Ethan's fol owers remained, stationing themselves by the sides of the room. Stefan had managed to kil one other during the fight, ripping her throat out, but the body had been tidied away somewhere.
Stefan gave a little involuntary moan. It was hard to think straight - he was so tired, and the vervain was starting to hurt him al over, not just on his aching wrists, but anywhere the ropes touched him through his clothes. Damon, please come quickly. Please, Damon, he thought.
"You're going to unleash nine newly made vampires on the campus?" he asked Ethan, his mind snapping back to the matter at hand. "Ethan, they'l kill people. People who were your friends, maybe. You'l draw attention to yourselves. There are already police al over campus.
Please, take them to the woods to hunt animals. They can live on animal blood." He heard a pleading note enter his own voice as Ethan only smiled absently at him, as if he was a child begging to go to Disneyland. "Come on, Ethan, it hasn't been very long since you were a human, too. You can't want to stand by and have innocent students murdered."
Ethan shrugged, patting Stefan lightly on the shoulder as he started to walk over to confer with another of his henchmen. "They need to be strong, Stefan. I want them at their peak by the next equinox. And we've kil ed plenty of innocent students already," he said over his shoulder.
"Equinox? Ethan," Stefan shouted after him in frustration. He looked frantical y at the door by which the pledges and their escort had left. It would take them a while to select victims. Not as many students were walking the campus alone at night these days. If he could get free, if Damon came now and freed him, they could stil stop the slaughter. If al these brand-new vampires were al owed loose on campus, there would be a massacre.
Ethan couldn't have changed the rest of the Vitale Society al at once, he realized. The number of murders they would have committed newly made as a group would have been impossible to disguise as a few disappearances. This must have been the first mass initiation. And who had made Ethan? he wondered. Was there an older vampire somewhere on campus?
Damon, where are you? He had no doubt that Damon would come if he could.
Despite their rift over Elena, things had changed enough between him and Damon that he knew he could rely on his brother to rescue him. He had saved him before, after al , when they fought Katherine, when they fought Klaus. There was something rock solid between them now, something that wasn't there a year ago, or in the hundreds of years before that. He closed his eyes and heard himself give a dry, painful chuckle. It seemed like an inopportune moment to start having revelations about his own family issues.