"How could you be sure she'd been bitten?" Elena asked.
"There was medical evidence. Traces of saliva in her wounds that were similar to human saliva-but not quite the same. It contained an anticoagulatory agent similar to that found in the saliva of leeches..." Alaric caught himself and hurried on.
"Anyway, I was sure. And that was how it started. Once I was convinced something had really happened to the woman, I started to look up other cases like hers. There weren't a lot of them, but they were out there. People who'd encountered vampires.
"But you've never actually seen a vampire," Elena interrupted. "Until now, I mean. Is that right?"
"Well-no. Not in the flesh, as it were. But I've written monographs... and things." His voice trailed off.
Elena bit her lip. "What were you doing with the dogs?" she asked. "At the church, when you were waving your hands at them."
"Oh..." Alaric looked embarrassed. "I've picked up a few things here and there, you know. That was a spell an old mountain man showed me for fending off evil. I thought it might work."
"You've got a lot to learn," said Damon.
"Obviously," Alaric said stiffly. Then he grimaced. "Actually, I figured that out right after I got here. Your principal, Brian Newcastle, had heard of me. He knew about the studies I do. When Tanner was killed and Dr. Feinberg found no blood in the body and lacerations made by teeth in the neck... well, they gave me a call. I thought it could be a big break for me-a case with the vampire still in the area. The only problem was that once I got here I realized they expected me to take care of the vampire. They didn't know I'd dealt only with the victims before. And... well, maybe I was in over my head. But I did my best to justify their confidence-"
"You faked it," Elena accused. "That was what you were doing when I heard you talking to them at your house about finding our supposed lair and all that. You were just winging it."
"Well, not completely," Alaric said. "Theoretically, I am an expert." Then he did a double take. "What do you mean, when you heard me talking to them?"
"While you were out searching for a lair, she was sleeping in your attic," Damon informed him dryly. Alaric opened his mouth and then shut it again.
"What I'd like to know is how Meredith comes into all this," Stefan said. He wasn't smiling.
Meredith, who had been gazing thoughtfully at the jumble of papers on Alaric's desk during all this, looked up. She spoke evenly, without emotion.
"I recognized him, you see. I couldn't remember where I'd seen him at first, because it was almost three years ago. Then I realized it was at Granddad's hospital. What I told those men was the truth, Stefan. My grandfather was attacked by a vampire."
There was a little silence and then Meredith went on. "It happened a long time ago, before I was born. He wasn't badly hurt by it, but he never really got well. He became... well, sort of like Vickie, only more violent. It got so that they were afraid he'd harm himself, or somebody else. So they took him to a hospital, a place he'd be safe."
ago, before I was born. He wasn't badly hurt by it, but he never really got well. He became... well, sort of like Vickie, only more violent. It got so that they were afraid he'd harm himself, or somebody else. So they took him to a hospital, a place he'd be safe."
"I know. I could have... but I couldn't. The family's kept it a secret so long-or tried anyway. From what Caroline wrote in her diary, she'd obviously heard. The thing is, nobody ever believed Granddad's stories about the vampire. They just thought it was another of his delusions, and he had a lot of them. Even I didn't believe them... until Stefan came. And then-I don't know, my mind started to put little things together. But I didn't really believe what I was thinking until you came back, Elena."
"I'm surprised you didn't hate me," Elena said softly.
"How could I? I know you, and I know Stefan. I know you're not evil." Meredith didn't glance at Damon; he might as well not have been present for all the acknowledgment she gave him. "But when I remembered seeing Alaric talking to Granddad at the hospital I knew he wasn't, either. I just didn't know exactly how to get all of you together to prove it."
"I didn't recognize you, either," Alaric said. "The old man had a different name- he's your mother's father, right? And I may have seen you hanging around the waiting room sometime, but you were just a kid with skinny legs then. You've changed," he added appreciatively.
Bonnie coughed, a pointed sound.
Elena was trying to arrange things in her mind. "So what were those men doing out there with a stake if you didn't tell them to be?"
"I had to ask Caroline's parents for permission to hypnotize her, of course. And I reported what I found to them. But if you're thinking I had anything to do with what happened tonight, you're wrong. I didn't even know about it."
"I've told him about what we've been doing, how we've been looking for the Other Power," Meredith said. "And he wants to help."
"I said I might help," Alaric said cautiously.
"Wrong," said Stefan. "You're either with us or against us. I'm grateful for what you did out there, talking to those men, but the fact remains that you started a lot of this trouble in the first place. Now you have to decide: are you on our side-or theirs?"
Alaric looked around at each of them, at Meredith's steady gaze and Bonnie's raised eyebrows, at Elena kneeling on the floor and at Stefan's already-healing scalp. Then he turned to glance at Damon, who was leaning against the wall, dark and saturnine. "I'll help," he said at last. "Hell, it's the ultimate case study."