Destiny Rising (8 page)

“Is that the transformation you’re talking about?” Elena said dubiously. “Developing Powers?” She wanted the Power to defeat Klaus, but she didn’t like the idea of changing, of something
making
her change.

Andrés smiled. “Working as a Guardian makes you stronger,” he told her. “It makes you wiser and more powerful. You’ll still be you, though,” he said.

Elena swallowed. This was the crux of her plan. With Klaus out there,
Powers
would be more than useful, but she needed to access them now rather than waiting around until a Principal Guardian decided to appear.

“Is there any way to wake up these Powers before I have a task?” she asked. Andrés was opening his mouth to ask her why, a puzzled frown forming on his face, and she pushed forward with her explanation. “There’s a monster here,” she said. “A very old, very cruel vampire, and he wants to kill me and my friends. And probably a lot of other people. The more we have to fight him with, the better.”

Andrés nodded, his expressive face earnest. “My Powers aren’t very warlike, but they may be useful, and I will help you however I can. No two Guardians have the same Powers. There’s got to be some way to find yours, though, and to turn them on.”

A glow of excitement shone through Elena. If she could access the Powers the Guardians gave her by herself, she wouldn’t be their tool; she’d be a weapon. Her own weapon. “Maybe you could tell me about the first time you accessed yours?” she prompted.

“Okay.” Andrés sat up straighter and let his knees fall so that he was sitting cross-legged on the grass. “The first thing you have to understand,” he said, “is that Costa Rica is very different from here.” He waved an arm around, indicating the little yard and house, the rows of houses beside and behind them, the sunshiny but chilly autumn skies. “Costa Rica has a great deal of unspoiled land, land that is protected by our country’s laws for the animals and plants. The people of Costa Rica have a phrase we use a lot:
pura vida
—it means
pure life
, and when we say that—at least when I say it—we’re talking about our connection to the natural world.”

“I’m sure it’s beautiful there,” Elena said.

Andrés chuckled. “Of course it is,” he said. “And you’re wondering why I’m talking about ecology when I should be talking about Power. Watch.”

Closing his eyes, he seemed to gather his strength, then placed both his hands flat, palms down, against the ground.

A gentle rustling noise began, so quiet at first that Elena barely noticed it, but soon grew louder. She glanced up at Andrés’s face, which was closed off and intent, still listening to something she couldn’t hear.

As she watched, the grass where his hands rested grew longer, the blades poking up between his fingers and rising higher to frame his hands. Andrés’s mouth opened a tiny bit and he breathed harder. From above them came a creaking and Elena looked up to find new leaves unfurling from the beech tree’s branches, their fresh spring green strange among the yellow-tinted autumn leaves already there. There was a soft thump behind her, and Elena turned to realize that a small pebble had rolled closer to them. Looking around, she saw a ring of pebbles and small stones, all gently sliding toward them.

Andrés’s hair rose lightly, individual strands crackling with energy. He looked powerful and benevolent.

“So,” he said, opening his eyes. Some of the intensity in his posture faded. The sounds of the quickly growing plants and the movement of the pebbles stopped. There was still a sense of expectant energy in the air around them. “I can tap into the power of the natural world and channel it to defend against the supernatural. If I need to, I can make boulders fling themselves through the air, or tree roots drag my enemies down to the ground. My strength feeds nature, and nature increases my strength. It’s more effective in Costa Rica, because there are so many more uncultivated places and therefore so much more wild energy than there is here.”

“It looks like your talents are pretty strong even here,” Elena said, picking up a smooth, white pebble from the ground and turning it over curiously in her fingers.

Andrés grinned and ducked his head modestly. “Anyway,” he said, “my first task came to me when I was seventeen. Javier had been teaching me for about five years, and I was dying to prove myself. A creature was killing young married women in the town where we lived, and a Principal Guardian—who was quite terrifying in her way, very powerful and focused—came to me and told me my job was to track and kill it.”

“How did you find it?” Elena asked.

Andrés shrugged. “The beast was easy to find. Once I had my assignment, something in me drew me toward it. It turned out to be a demon in the shape of a black dog. A pure demon, not a half creature like a vampire or a werewolf. It was attracted by guilt, especially the guilt of adultery. Javier had taught me the principles of accessing my Power, but the first time I actually did it, I felt like I was sucking the whole world into myself. I was able to call a wind and
blast
the black dog away.” He smiled again shyly at Elena.

“Maybe if I try to tap into nature the same way, it’ll help unlock whatever my Powers are,” Elena said.

Andrés knelt directly in front of Elena. “Close your eyes,” he said, and Elena did as she was told. “Now,” Andrés continued, and Elena felt him gently touch her cheek, “take deep breaths and concentrate on your connection to the earth here. Your talents won’t be the same as mine, but they’ll be rooted in this land, the place where you began, just as mine are.”

Elena breathed deeply and slowly, concentrating on the ground beneath her, the warmth of the sunlight on her shoulders and the tickle of the grass against her legs. It felt comfortable, but she didn’t sense any mystical connection between herself and the world around her. She gritted her teeth and tried harder.

“Stop,” Andrés said soothingly. “You’re too tense.” His hand left her cheek and she felt him sit beside her, his thigh touching hers, and take her hand. “Let’s try it this way. I’ll channel some of my connection with the earth into you. At the same time, I want you to visualize sinking deeper into yourself. All the doors that are usually shut inside you will open and let your Power flow through.”

Elena wasn’t quite sure how to “visualize sinking deeper into herself,” but she took another slow breath and tried to imagine it, consciously making herself relax. She pictured herself walking along a passageway of closed doors, the doors flying open as she passed them. Her hand felt pleasantly warm and tingled slightly where it touched Andrés’s hand.

But when she had possessed the Power of Wings, before the Guardians had taken them, she had felt a lot more than this, hadn’t she? There had been the feeling of amazing potential inside her, of these tightly furled, powerful
things
that were part of her, and that she could release when the time was right.

She wasn’t feeling anything special now. The doors flying open were only in her imagination, nothing more. Elena opened her eyes. “I don’t think this is working,” she told Andrés.

“No, I don’t think so either,” he said regretfully, opening his eyes to look at her. “I am sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Elena said. “I know you’re trying to help me.”

“Yes.” Andrés tightened his hold on her hand and looked at her thoughtfully. “I don’t think that relaxation and visualization are really your strengths,” he said. “Let’s try something else. Instead, we will work with your protective instincts.”

This sounded more likely.

“Close your eyes again,” Andrés went on, and Elena obeyed. “I want you to think about evil,” he said. “Think about the evil you have seen in your adventures, the evil that you—that both of us—must fight.”

Elena opened her mind to her memories. She remembered Katherine’s pretty, half-mad face twisting as she screamed with rage and tore at Damon’s bleeding chest. The dogs of Fell’s Church, vacant-eyed and snarling, turning on their owners. Tyler Smallwood’s teeth lengthening into fangs and the glee in his eyes as he tried to attack Bonnie. Klaus gathering the lightning in his hands and throwing it at her friends, his face alight with vicious glee.

Images spun through her mind faster and faster. The
kitsune
, Misao and Shinichi, cruel and careless, laughing as they turned the children of Fell’s Church into savage killers. The phantom that set Stefan and Damon tearing at each other’s throats, mad with jealous fury, their mouths full of blood. Ethan, foolish Ethan, raising the cup of blood above his head, calling Klaus back to life.

Golden, terrifying Klaus stepping out of the fire.

And then different faces, other scenes, flooded her mind. Bonnie giggling in her ice-cream-cone pajamas. Meredith, her slim body graceful in a perfect swan dive. Matt holding her in his arms at their junior prom. Stefan, his eyes soft, taking Elena in his arms.

Elena’s lab partner. The girls in her dorm. Strange faces from the cafeteria, others she’d glimpsed only in class. All the people Elena needed to protect, her friends and innocent strangers.

Meredith’s vampire-hunter friend Samantha, fierce and funny, until the Vitale vampires had killed her. Matt’s sweet roommate Christopher, murdered on the campus quad.

The girl Damon had left in the woods, dazed and frightened, blood streaming from the bites on her neck.

Inside herself, Elena felt something unfurl, not swinging open like a door or spreading like Powerful wings, but gently blossoming, like a flower.

She opened her eyes slowly, and saw Andrés close beside her. A glow of pure green light surrounded him, and Elena’s chest tightened. The light was so beautiful, and without knowing exactly how she knew it, she knew the light was
good
in the simplest, most definite sense.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, awed. Andrés opened his eyes and smiled back at her.

“Something?” he said, an undercurrent of excitement running through his voice.

Elena nodded. “I can see light around you,” she said.

Andrés almost bounced with happiness. “This is wonderful,” he told her. “I’ve heard of this. You must be seeing my aura.”

“Aura?” Elena said skeptically. “Is that really going to help us fight evil?” It seemed like a flaky, New Agey power.

Andrés grinned. “It will help you sense if someone is good or evil right from the start,” he said. “And with practice, I’ve heard you can use it to track and seek out your enemies.”

“I guess I can see how that might be useful,” she agreed. “Not as useful as blasting away evil things with my hands like you can, but it’s a start.”

Andrés stared at her for a moment and then began to laugh. “Maybe you’ll get to the blasting part soon,” he said.

Unable to stop herself, Elena laughed, too, and leaned against him helplessly, giggling. She was so relieved, so simply, fiercely
glad.
She had found a Power without having to wait for a Principle Guardian to give her a task. And now that she had accessed one, she thought that she could feel more Power curled up inside her, more flowers waiting to open.

This was just the beginning.

By the central gates to the campus, Meredith paced, her sneakers making tracks in the dust at the edge of the road. In the past, she’d always been able to school herself into calm, but since she’d moved from training as a vampire hunter to actually using her skills to fight vampires, she’d gotten more and more restless. She always wanted to be moving, wanted to be doing something—especially now when she knew monsters haunted the campus. She knew that with Samantha gone—a part of her still choked at the memory—she was one of the only protectors left. Her skin was tingling and tight with the sense of something evil, something
wrong
, just out of sight.

She couldn’t wait to see Alaric.

As if that thought had conjured him up, there was Alaric’s little gray Honda turning down the road toward campus at last. Meredith waved to him as he parked, and started to run toward the car, aware that she was grinning like an idiot but not caring.

“Hey,” she said, coming up to him as Alaric stretched and got out of the car, and then she kissed him hard. She knew they needed to strategize and plan—that with luck, Alaric had found something in his research that could help them fight Klaus. But for now, she just treasured the feeling of Alaric solid and real in her arms, his lips soft on hers, the smell of him that was made up of leather and soap and something sort of herbal and just essential
Alaric
.

“I’ve missed you,” he said, resting his forehead against hers for a moment after they finally broke the kiss. “Talking on the phone isn’t the same.”

“Me too,” Meredith said, and she had, so much. “I love your freckles,” she told him inconsequentially, and brushed her lips across the golden spots on his cheek.

They headed into the campus, holding hands as they walked. Meredith pointed out sites of interest: the library, the cafeteria, the student center, her dorm. The few people they passed hurried by in groups, heads down, not making eye contact.

When they came to the gym, Meredith hesitated before stopping in front of it. “This is where I train. It’s hard . . . I used to come here with Samantha,” she told Alaric. “She was so competitive and smart. She pushed me, in a really good way.” She leaned against Alaric for a moment, and felt him drop a kiss on the top of her head.

They walked on, but Meredith couldn’t stop thinking about Samantha. Before Samantha, Meredith had never met anyone else from a family of hereditary vampire hunters. Her parents had left the hunter community behind. Because Samantha’s parents had been killed when she was young, she hadn’t really known any other hunters either.

They had taught each other so much. Meredith loved Elena and Bonnie—they were her best friends, her sisters—but no friend had ever understood as much about Meredith as Samantha had.

And then Ethan and the Vitale vampires had killed her. Meredith had been the one to find Samantha’s body. She had been ripped apart so violently that her room had been soaked in blood.