Potential (Book Four, The Vampire Diaries)

Chapter 22__The Walking Dead

Stefan and Damon were doing everything they could to distract Elena, including bringing Caroline into it.

Damon called Stefan for us to meet at the hospital, both of us walking in.

"You just missed the doughnuts," Damon told us.

"Yeah, I was with Elena, burning off a few thousand hate-filled calories, and having trouble in convincing Nicola into going to the hospital," Stefan told him, looking at me as he finished. I shrugged. "What happened to you helping me?"

"Help, yes," Damon told him. "Prolong the inevitable? Waste of my time."

"Mm, you're avoiding," I told him. "How unexpected."

"I'm not avoiding," Damon told me. "Elena's only goal is to end Katherine's life, and that's not gonna just magically disappear with pilates and a juice cleanse."

Sheriff Forbes approached us. "Hey, guys, thanks for coming."

"Hey," I told her.

"Why were we invited?" Damon asked.

"Well, the hospital has kept the blood banks empty ever since they were raided last month," Sheriff told us. "We thought at the very least it would help keep the vampire population away."

"And it didn't?" Stefan asked.

"See for yourself," Sheriff told us, leading us into a patient's room where a body laid on a bed, its wrists bloodied.

"Whoa," I said.

"There are four other victims in this wing, each one almost completely drained of blood," Sheriff told us. "You think it's Silas?"

"Or a doctor with some very questionable bedside manners," Damon told us.

"But five victims?" Sheriff asked. "That's a lot of blood, and it's not like he can take it with him."

"Unless he's fueling up for something big," I told them.

"Big?" Sheriff repeated. "Any details would be helpful, considering I'm dealing with five grieving families out there and a psychic killer on the loose."

"Silas wants Bonnie to do a spell to drop the Veil from the Other Side," I told her.

Sheriff shook her head. "I have no idea what that means."

"It's an invisible wall that separates our plane from the plane of all dead supernatural creatures," I explained. "Now, Silas wants that to go away so he can take the Cure, die, and not have to spend an eternity in a supernatural purgatory."

"And when do you suppose Silas plans on doing this?" Sheriff asked.

"Next full moon," I answered. "Tomorrow night."

 ~~~~

The power had gone out.

We looked over a map by the light of Sheriff's flashlight.

Sheriff marked the map with a marker as she talked. "The power outages originated at three different places in town: the Young farm, the Lockwood estate, and a blown transformer off Old Miller Road."

Stefan picked up the marker and connected the dots. "Well, these are the locations of the Silas massacres. It's the Expression Triangle. Bonnie must be doing the spell."

"So much for needing a full moon," I said.

"And there's something else," Sheriff told us. "One of the power company guys has a daughter who goes to school with Bonnie. He saw her leaving the Young farm an hour ago... with Elena."