Phantom Page 0,90

out his hands, his face horrified.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Mrs. Flowers, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you. I don't know what came over me... I'm just so worried about Elena and the others."

"I know, Stefan," Mrs. Flowers said gravely. She had regained her balance and she looked stronger, calm and wise again. "We will get them back, you know. You must have faith. Mama does."

Stefan sat down, turning back to the book, his lips pressed together into a straight line.

Her skin prickling with apprehension, Meredith gripped her stave more tightly as she watched him. When she had revealed to the others that the members of her family were hereditary vampire hunters and that it was now her turn to take on the duty, she had told Elena and Stefan that she would never turn on Stefan, that she understood that he wasn't like other, evil vampires, that he was good: harmless and benign to humans.

She had made no such promises about Damon, and Elena and Stefan hadn't asked her to. They al shared an unspoken understanding that Damon couldn't real y be characterized as harmless, not even when he begrudgingly worked with them, and that Meredith would need to keep her options open when it came to him.

But Stefan... she had never thought this would happen, but now Meredith was worried that someday she might not be able to keep her promises about Stefan. She had never seen him acting the way he had been lately: irrational, angry, violent, unpredictable. She knew his behavior was probably caused by the phantom, but was Stefan becoming too dangerous? Could she kil him if she had to? He was her friend.

Meredith's heart was racing. She realized that her knuckles had whitened against her fighting stave, and her hand ached. Yes, she realized, she would fight Stefan and try to kil him, if she had to. It was true that he was her friend, but her duty had to come first.

She took a deep breath and consciously relaxed her hands. Stay calm, she coached herself. Breathe. Stefan was keeping himself more or less under control. It wasn't a decision she had to make. Not yet, anyway.

A few minutes later, Stefan stopped flipping pages. "Here,"

he said. "I think this is it." He handed the book to Mrs. Flowers. She scanned the page quickly and nodded. "That feels like the right ritual," she said seriously. "I ought to have everything we need to perform it right here in the house."

Alaric reached for the book. He read the spel , too, frowning. "Does it have to be a blood spel ?" he asked Mrs. Flowers. "If it backfires, the phantom might be able to turn it against us."

"I'm afraid it's going to have to be a blood spel ," Mrs. Flowers replied. "We'd need more time to experiment to change the spel , and time is the one thing we don't have. If the phantom is able to use its captives the way we think it can, it's only going to get more powerful."

Alaric began to speak again but was interrupted.

"Wait," said Celia, a slightly shril note in her usual y husky voice. "A blood spel ? What does that mean? I don't want to get involved in anything" - she searched for a word - "unsavory."

She reached for the book, but Stefan slammed his hand down on it. "Unsavory or not, this is what we're doing," he said quietly, but with a voice as hard as steel. "And you're a part of it. It's too late for you to back out now. I won't let you."

Celia gave a convulsive shudder and cringed back in her chair. "Don't you dare threaten me," she said, her voice quavering.

"Everybody calm down," Meredith said sharply. "Celia, no one is going to make you do anything unless you agree to it. I'l protect you myself if need be." Her eyes flew quickly to Alaric, who was glancing back and forth between them, looking worried. "But we need your help. Please. You may have saved us al by finding the spel , and we're grateful, but Stefan's right - you're part of this, too. I don't know if it'l work without you." She hesitated a beat. "Or, if it does, it might leave you as the phantom's only target," she added cunningly.

Celia shivered again and wrapped her arms around herself. "I'm not a coward," she said miserably. "I'm a scientist, and this... irrational mysticism worries me. But I'm in.