The Hunters: Phantom

 

Elena leaped backward as the phantom caught fire. She was so close that the heat of the flames burned her cheeks, and she could smel her own hair smoking. Shielding her face with her hands, she eased her way forward as silently and sneakily as she could, closer and closer to the phantom. Her legs shook, but she wil ed them stil and steady.



She was consciously not letting herself look at or think about Stefan's body crumpled on the floor of the garage, in the same way she had kept herself from looking at Damon and Stefan's fight when she needed to think. Suddenly a burst of flames shot into the air, and for one dazzling second, Elena dared to hope that Damon had done it. The phantom was burning. Surely no creature of ice could withstand that.



But then she realized that the phantom was not only burning. She was also laughing.



"You fool," the phantom said to Damon, in a soft and almost tender voice. "You think fire can hurt me? Jealousy can burn hotter than fire as wel as colder than ice. You of al people should know that, Damon." She laughed her strange clinking laugh. "I can feel the jealousy, the anger that burns in you al the time, Damon, and it burns so hot I can smel the hatred and despair that live in you, and your little petty hurts and rages are meat and drink to me. You clutch them to you and pore over them like treasure. You may have succeeded in casting out a tiny piece of the multitudes of hurts that burden you, but you'l never be free of me."



Around the phantom's feet, tiny blue lines of flame ignited and spread quickly across the floor of the garage. Elena watched in horror: Were these burning traces of oil left by Mrs. Flowers's ancient car? Or was it simply the phantom's maliciousness made solid, spreading fire among them?



It didn't real y matter. What mattered was that the garage was on fire, and while the phantom might be impervious to the flames, the rest of them weren't. Smoke fil ed the musty space, and Elena and her friends began to cough. She covered her nose and mouth with her hand.



Streaking past Elena, Damon snarled and leaped for the phantom's throat.



Even in their current dire situation, Elena couldn't help admiring Damon's speed and grace. He col ided with the phantom and knocked it to the floor, then recoiled, protecting his face with his leather-clad arm. Fire, Elena remembered with a frisson of terror. Fire is one of the few things that can kill a vampire.



Her eyes watered from the smoke, but she forced them to stay open as she moved closer, circling around behind the phantom, who was back on its feet. She could hear her friends shouting, but she concentrated on the fight. The phantom was moving more awkwardly than it had been earlier, and did not immediately attack Damon. Through the flames, Elena could see that thick greenish fluid was stil trickling down its solid torso from the wound Meredith had given it. Where the liquid touched the flames, they flickered with a greenish blue tint.



Damon lunged for the phantom again, and it flung him off with a shrug. Snarling, they circled each other warily. Elena skittered around behind them, trying to stay out of Damon's way, trying to see how she could help.



A crackling from across the room distracted Elena for a second, and she glanced back to see fire climbing the far wal , reaching for the wooden shelves set around the room. She missed seeing what exactly happened next, but suddenly Damon was skidding across the floor on his back, an angry red burn glowing on his cheek.



He was up again in a second and prowling back toward the phantom, but his eyes had a slightly wild glint to them that made Elena nervous. Even injured, the phantom was stronger than Damon, and, after his long fight with Stefan, Damon's reserves must be waning. He was growing reckless. Elena gathered her courage and moved closer to the phantom again, as close to the flames as she could stand. The phantom glanced back at her for a second and then away, focusing on the stronger threat.



It sprang forward to meet Damon, its fiery arms spread wide and a savagely joyous smile on its face. And suddenly Meredith was there beside Damon. She looked solemn and pale as a young martyr, her lips tight and her eyes wary, but she moved as fast as lightning. Her stave sliced through the air almost too quickly to see, leaving another long cut across the phantom's stomach. The phantom howled, and the flames on its torso hissed as more greenish fluid gushed from the wound.



But the phantom remained upright. It snarled and reached for Meredith, who danced rapidly backward, just out of range. Meredith and Damon exchanged a wordless look and moved to flank the phantom, one on either side, so that it couldn't watch both of them at once. Damon cuffed Jealousy, a short, intense blow, and pul ed back a reddish, blistering hand. Meredith swung her stave again, nearly catching the phantom on the arm but instead cleaving only a wisp of smoke.



There was a crash as a burning shelf col apsed onto the floor. The smoke grew thicker. Away from the fight, Elena could hear Bonnie and Matt coughing.



Elena moved closer stil , again coming toward the phantom from behind, safely out of Meredith and Damon's way. The phantom's heat was like a bonfire.



Meredith and Damon were moving in tandem now, as smoothly as if they had rehearsed, dancing in and back, sometimes catching the phantom with a blow, more often passing through a curl of smoke or mist as the phantom transformed its parts from solid to airy shapes. A voice rang out. "Impera te desistere." Mrs. Flowers leaned against the supporting arms of Matt and Alaric. But her eyes were clear and her voice was steady. Power crackled in the air around her.



The phantom slowed only slightly in its fight, perhaps no more than a half second behind in its thrusts and transformations. But this was enough to make at least a little difference. More of Damon's and Meredith's blows landed, and they were able to dodge a few more of the phantom's.



Was it enough, though? The phantom flinched when a punch hit home, and it bled horrible green goo where the stave cut it, but it was stil steady on its feet as Meredith and Damon hacked and choked in the smoke and stumbled away from the flames. The rose in Jealousy's chest pulsed a steady dark red. Elena exhaled in frustration and immediately began to cough again. The phantom wasn't staying in one place long enough for Elena to get a good shot at grabbing the rose-heart.



Meredith sliced at it with her fighting stave, and this time the stave slid through smoke, and the phantom grabbed the stave in one hand, swinging Meredith toward Damon. Col iding, they both fel heavily to the ground, and the phantom, stil slightly hobbled by Mrs. Flowers's spel , strained toward them.



"I've envied Meredith for her brains!" shouted Bonnie. Her face was smudged with smoke and tears, and she looked incredibly smal and fragile, but she was standing straight-backed and proud, yel ing at the top of her lungs. "I know I'l never be as good at school as she is, but that's okay. I cast my jealousy out!"



The phantom's rose dimmed to a dark pink for a moment, and it staggered ever so slightly. It glanced at Bonnie and hissed. It was only a tiny pause in the phantom's advance, but it was enough for Damon to spring to his feet. He stepped in front of Meredith, shielding her as she clambered up. Without even looking at each other, Meredith and Damon began circling in opposite directions again. "I've been jealous that my friends have more money than I do!" Matt shouted, "but I cast the jealousy out!"



"I envy the way Alaric truly believed in something unproven, and turned out to be right!" Celia yel ed. "But I cast it out!"



"I've envied Elena's clothes!" Bonnie cried. "I'm too short to look good in lots of things! But I cast that out!"



Damon kicked at the phantom, pul ing his smoldering leg back quickly. Meredith swung her stave. Mrs. Flowers chanted in Latin, and Alaric joined her, his low voice in counterpoint to hers, reinforcing her spel . Bonnie, Celia, and Matt kept shouting: dredging up smal jealousies and hurts that they were probably usual y hardly aware of, casting them out to pepper the phantom with tiny blows. And for the first time, the phantom looked... baffled. It swung its head slowly from one to another of its opponents: Damon stalking toward it, fists raised; Meredith, her stave swinging surely as she watched the phantom with a cool and considering gaze; Alaric and Mrs. Flowers reciting strings of Latin words, hands lifted; Bonnie, Matt, and Celia shouting confessions as if they were throwing rocks at it. Jealousy's glassy eyes passed over Elena without real y seeming to notice her: Standing stil and quiet among the entire hubbub, she was not a threat.



This was the best chance Elena was going to get. She nerved herself to move forward, then froze as the phantom turned toward her.



Then, miraculously, Stefan was there. He grappled at the phantom's back, throwing one arm around its neck as the flames licked at him. His shirt caught fire. The phantom, briefly, was pul ed backward past Elena, its torso toward her, unprotected.



Without hesitation, Elena plunged her hand into the fire. For a moment, she barely felt the flames, just a gentle, almost cool touch against her hand as the flames flickered around her. Not so bad, she had a moment to think, and then she felt the pain.



It was pure and agonizing, and dark fireworks of shock went off behind her eyes. She had to fight to overcome the almost irresistible instinct to pul her hand back out of the fire. Instead, she groped at the phantom's torso, searching for the cut Meredith had made just above its rose. It was slippery and smooth, and her hand fumbled. Where is it?



Where is it?



Damon had thrown himself into the flames alongside Stefan, yanking at the phantom's arms and neck, keeping its torso clear for Elena, preventing the phantom from ripping free and throwing her across the room. Meredith beat at Jealousy's side with her stave. Behind her, her friends' voices rose in a babble of confessions and spel s as they did their part to keep the phantom off balance and disoriented.



At last Elena's hand found the cut and she pushed inside. It was icy cold in the phantom's chest, and Elena yelped at the contrast - the cold was excruciating after the heat, and the flames stil licked at her wrist and arm. The freezing liquid inside the phantom's chest was so thick, it was like feeling through gelatin. Elena shoved and reached, and the phantom screamed with pain.



It was a horrible sound and, despite al that the phantom had done to her and her friends, Elena could not help flinching in sympathy. A moment later, Elena's hand closed on the rose's stem and a thousand thorns pierced her burned flesh. Ignoring the pain, she pul ed the rose out of the freezing liquid, out of the fire, and staggered backward, away from the phantom.



She didn't know what she'd expected to happen, exactly. For the phantom to melt like the Wicked Witch of the West, perhaps, leaving nothing but a puddle of vile greenish water. Instead, the phantom stared at her, its mouth open, its pointed, shining teeth on ful display. The tear in its chest had expanded, and fluid oozed rapidly, like an untended faucet. The flames burned low and green where the liquid tracked down its body and dripped to the floor.



"Give it to me," Stefan said, appearing at Elena's side. He took the rose from her hand and ripped at its petals, now fading to a lighter pink, and scattered the petals into the fire burning up the sides of the garage. The phantom watched with a stunned expression, and gradual y its blazing fire thinned to smoke, its solid form slowly vaporizing. For a moment, a smoky, malevolent image hung in the air before them, its eyes fixed sul enly upon Elena. And then it was gone.