Damons eyes blazed. He rushed toward me with the speed of a galloping horse. His shoulder, hard as stone, plowed into me, throwing me back into a tree. The trunk split with a loud crack. "She lovedme."
"Then why did she turn me, too?" I challenged, rolling to my feet as I rebuffed his next blow.
The words had their desired effect. Damons shoulders sagged, and he staggered backward. "Fine. Ill just do it myself," he murmured, grabbing another stick and running the sharp end along his chest.
I slapped the stake out of his hand and twisted his arms behind his back. "You are my brother--my flesh and blood. So long as I stay alive, so shall you. Now, come." I pushed him toward the woods.
"Come where?" Damon asked listlessly, allowing me to drag him along.
"To the cemetery," I answered. "We have a funeral to attend."
Damons eyes registered a dull spark of interest. "Whose?"
"Fathers. Dont you want to say good-bye to the man who killed us?"
Chapter 2~3
Chapter 2
Damon and I crouched in the cemeterys hemlock grove behind the mausoleums that housed the bones of Mystic Falls founders. Despite the early hour, already the townspeople stood stoop-shouldered around a gaping hole in the ground. Puffs of air curled into the cerulean blue sky with the crowds every exhalation, as if the entire congregation were smoking celebratory cigars rather than trying to calm their chattering teeth.
My heightened senses took in the scene before us. The cloying smell of vervain--an herb that rendered vampires powerless--hung heavy in the air. The grass was laden with dew, each drop of water falling to the earth with a silvery ping, and far off in the distance church bells chimed. Even from this distance, I could see a tear lodged in the corner of Honoria Fellss eye.
Down at the pulpit, Mayor Lockwood shuffled from foot to foot, clearly eager to get the crowds attention. I could just make out the winged figure above him, the angel statue that marked my mothers final resting place. Two empty plots lay just beyond, where Damon and I should have been buried.
The mayors voice sliced through the cold air, his voice as loud to my sensitive ears as if he were standing right next to me. "We come together today to say farewell to one of Mystic Falls greatest sons, Giuseppe Salvatore, a man for whom town and family always came before self."
Damon kicked the ground. "The family he killed. The love he destroyed, the lives he shattered," he muttered.
"Shhh," I whispered as I pressed my palm against his forearm.
"If I were to paint a portrait of this great mans life," Lockwood continued over the sniffles and sighs of the crowd, "Giuseppe Salvatore would be flanked by his two fallen sons, Damon and Stefan, heroes of the battle of Willow Creek. May we learn from Giuseppe, emulate him, and be inspired to rid our town of evil, either seen or unseen."
Damon let out a low, rattling scoff. "The portrait he paints," he said, "should contain the muzzle flash of Fathers rifle." He rubbed the place where Fathers bullet had ripped through his chest only a week earlier. There was no physical wound--our transformation healed all injuries--but the betrayal would be etched in our minds forever. "Shhh," I said again as Jonathan Gilbert strode up to stand beside Mayor Lockwood, holding a large veiled frame. Jonathan looked to have aged ten years in seven short days: lines creased his tanned forehead, and streaks of white were visible in his brown hair. I wondered if his transformation had something to do with Pearl, the vampire he loved but had condemned to death after finding out what she really was.
I spotted Clementines parents in the crowd, arms clasped, not yet aware that their daughter was not among the somber-faced girls in the back of the crowd.
Theyd find out soon enough.
My thoughts were interrupted by an insistent clicking, like a watch counting or a fingernail tapping against a hard surface. I scanned the crowd, trying to trace the ticking to its point of origin. The sound was slow and steady and mechanical, steadier than a heartbeat, slower than a metronome. And it seemed to be coming directly from Jonathans hand. Clementines blood rushed to my head.
The compass.
Back when Father first became suspicious of vampires, hed created a committee of men to rid the town of the demonic scourge. Id attended the meetings, which had taken place in Jonathan Gilberts attic. Hed had plans for a contraption to identify vampires, and Id witnessed him using it in action the week before. It was how hed discovered Pearls true nature.
I elbowed Damon. "We have to go," I said, barely moving my jaw.
Just then Jonathan looked up, and his eyes locked directly onto mine.
He let out an unholy shriek and pointed to our mausoleum. "Demon!"
The crowd turned toward us as one, their stares cutting through the fog like bayonets. Then something rushed past me, and the wall behind me exploded. A cloud of powder billowed around us, and chips of marble slashed across my cheek. I bared my fangs and roared. The sound was loud, primal, terrifying. Half the crowd knocked over chairs in their haste to flee the cemetery, but the other half remained.
"Kill the demons!" Jonathan cried, brandishing a crossbow.
"I think they mean us, brother," Damon said with a short, humorless laugh.
And so I grabbed Damon and ran.