L. Smith - Moonsong

Alaric gave a smal huff of surprised laughter. “Don’t cal my bluff,” he said. “I have a reputation for being logical.” Meredith heard the creak of Alaric’s desk chair on the other end of the line and imagined him leaning back, phone tucked into his shoulder, hands behind his head. “I’m so sorry about Samantha,” he said, voice sobering.

Meredith nestled farther into her bed, pressing her face against the pil ow. “I can’t talk about it yet,” she said, closing her eyes. “I just have to figure out who kil ed her.”

“I don’t know if this is going to be useful,” Alaric said,

“but I’ve been doing some research on the history of Dalcrest.”

“Like the ghosts and weird mysteries around campus Elena’s professor was talking about in class?”

“Wel , there’s even more to the history of the col ege than he told them about,” Alaric said. Meredith could hear him shuffling papers, probably flicking through the pages of one of his research notebooks. “Dalcrest appears to be something of a paranormal hotspot. There have been incidents that sound like vampire and werewolf attacks throughout its history, and this isn’t the first time there’s been a string of mysterious disappearances on campus.”

“Real y?” Meredith sat up. “How can the col ege stay open if people disappear al the time?”

“It’s not al the time,” Alaric replied. “The last major wave of disappearances was during the Second World War.

There was a lot of population mobility at the time, and, although the missing students left worried friends and family behind, the police assumed that the young men who disappeared had run off to enlist and the young women to marry soldiers or to work in munitions factories. The fact that the students never turned up again seems to have been disregarded, and the cases weren’t viewed as related.”

“Super work on the police department’s part,” Meredith said acidly.

“There’s a lot of weird behavior on campus, too,” Alaric said. “Sororities in the seventies practicing black magic, that kind of thing.”

“Any of those sororities stil around?” Meredith asked.

“Not those specific ones,” Alaric said, “but it’s something to keep in mind. There might be something about the campus that makes people more likely to experiment with the supernatural.”

“And what is that?” Meredith asked, flopping down on her back again. “What’s your theory, Professor?”

“Wel , it’s not my theory,” Alaric said, “but I found someone online who suggested that Dalcrest may be somewhere with a huge concentration of crossing ley lines, the same way that Fel ’s Church is. This whole part of Virginia has a lot of supernatural power, but some parts even more than others.”

Meredith frowned. Ley lines, the strong lines of Power running beneath the surface of the earth, shone like beacons to the supernatural world.

“And some people theorize that, where there are ley lines, the barriers between our world and the Dark Dimensions are thinner,” Alaric continued. Wincing, Meredith remembered the creatures she, Bonnie, and Elena had faced in the Dark Dimension. If they were able to cross over, to come to Dalcrest as the kitsune had come to Fel ’s Church, everyone was in danger.

“We don’t have any proof of that, though,” Alaric said reassuringly, hurrying to fil up the silence between them.

“Al we know is that Dalcrest has a history of supernatural activity. We don’t even know for sure if that’s what we’re facing now.”

An image of Samantha’s blank dead eyes fil ed Meredith’s mind. There had been a smear of blood across her cheek below her right eye. The murder scene had been so gruesome, and Samantha had been kil ed so horrifical y.

Meredith believed in her heart of hearts that Alaric’s theories must be correct: there was no way Samantha had been murdered by a human being.

29

“You should be proud.” The Vitale Society pledges were lined up in the underground meeting room, just like they had been the first day when they removed their blindfolds.

Under the arch in front of them, the Vitales in black masks watched quietly.

Ethan paced among the pledges, eyes bright. “You should be proud,” he repeated. “The Vitale Society offered you an opportunity. The chance to become one of us, to join an organization that can give you great power, help you on your road to success.”

Ethan paused and gazed at them. “Not al of you were worthy,” he said seriously. “We watched you, you know. Not just when you were here, or doing pledge events, but al the time. The candidates who couldn’t cut it, who didn’t merit joining our ranks, were eliminated.”

Matt looked around. It was true, there were fewer of them now than there had been at their first meeting. That tal bearded senior who was some kind of biogenetics whiz was gone. A skinny blonde girl who Matt remembered doggedly grinding her way through the run wasn’t there either. There were only ten pledges left.

“Those of you who remain?” Ethan lifted his hands like he was giving them some kind of benediction. “At last it is time for you to be initiated, to ful y become members of the Vitale Society, to learn our secrets and walk our path.” Matt felt a little swel of pride as Ethan smiled at them al . It felt like Ethan’s eyes lingered longer on Matt than on the others, like his smile for Matt was just a bit warmer. Like Matt was, among al these exceptional pledges, special.

Ethan started to walk through the crowd and talk again, this time about the preparations that needed to be made for their initiation. He asked a couple of pledges to bring roses and lilies to decorate the room—it sounded like he was expecting them to buy out a couple of flower stores—

others to find candles. One person was assigned to buy a specific kind of wine. Frankly, it reminded Matt of Elena and the other girls planning a high school dance.

“Okay,” Ethan said, indicating Chloe and a long-haired girl named Anna, “I’d like you two to go to the herb store and get yerba mata, guarana, hawthorn, ginseng, chamomile, and danshen. Do you want to write that down?” Matt perked up a little. Herbs were slightly more mystical and mysterious, befitting a secret society, although ginseng and chamomile just reminded him of the tea his mom drank when she had a cold.

Ethan moved on from the girls, his eyes fixed on Matt, and Matt prepared to be sent in search of punch or ranch dip.

But Ethan, locking eyes with Matt, inclined his head a little, indicating that Matt should join him a little apart from the rest of the group. Matt jogged over to meet Ethan, slightly intrigued. What couldn’t Ethan say in front of the others?

“I’ve got a special job for you, Matt,” Ethan said, rubbing his hands together in obvious pleasure at the prospect. “I want you to invite your friend Stefan Salvatore to join us.”

“Sorry?” Matt said, confused.

“To be a Vitale Society member,” Ethan explained. “We missed him when we selected candidates at the beginning of the year, but now that I’ve met him, I think—we think”—

and he waved a hand at the quietly watching masked figures on the other side of the room—“that he would be an ideal fit for us.”

Matt frowned. He didn’t want to look like an idiot in front of Ethan, but something struck him as off about this. “But he hasn’t done any of the pledge stuff. Isn’t it too late for him to join this year?”

Ethan smiled slightly, just a thin tilting of his lips. “I think we can make an exception for Stefan.”

“But—” Matt began to protest, then instead smiled back at Ethan. “I’l cal him and see if he’s interested,” he promised.

Ethan patted him lightly on the back. “Thank you, Matt.