Unseen (The Vampire Diaries: The Salvation #1) 3

"So," Bonnie said playfully, "I couldn't help noticing a little tension between you and Stefan last night, and then this morning you're so chipper. Everything work out all right?" She waggled her eyebrows at Elena as she stirred her coffee, her spoon clinking gently against the side of the cup.

Elena could feel her cheeks heating up, which was ridiculous: She and Stefan had been living together for years. "That is a lot of pastry," she said, deflecting Bonnie's attention. "What did you do, buy out the bakery?"

They were back at Bonnie's place for breakfast, just the two of them, and Bonnie and Zander's kitchen table was heaped high with croissants, Danish, muffins, and doughnuts, as well as a big glass bowl of cut fruit and a pot of coffee.

"I know, right?" Bonnie said. "It's all Zander. It's either his way of showing how happy he is I'm home, or of making sure I get too big to get out the door again. I've never figured out if throwing all this food at me is a wolf thing or a guy thing or just a Zander thing. He's a nurturer, I guess." She stirred her coffee again and then frowned sternly at Elena. "But you're not off the hook yet. Are you and Stefan fighting?"

"I don't think it's a guy thing," Elena sidetracked. "Stefan doesn't eat and barely remembers that I do. If I didn't go to the store, there'd be nothing but blood bags and bottled water in our fridge." Bonnie shot her a look, and Elena sighed. "We're not fighting anymore. But we've still got to convince everyone else not to kill Trinity."

"I still don't understand about that. Why does everybody think Solomon is in Trinity's body?" Bonnie asked.

Elena explained. She hadn't seen Solomon-or the guy they had thought was Solomon-die, but she remembered everything Stefan and Meredith had told her, how he'd examined all of them, his intense concentration on Trinity as she'd jittered and bled. How they'd thought that Solomon was dead, but then Trinity had escaped them and turned into a powerful vampire with Solomon's yellow gaze. How the "Solomon" they'd fought wasn't originally Solomon at all, but a man named Gabriel Dalton.

Bonnie listened intently, picking at an apple turnover and asking an occasional question. When Elena finished, she shook her head, puzzled. "It doesn't sound like body-swapping to me," she said stubbornly.

"I forgot you were the expert on this," Elena said, with just a touch of sarcasm, and Bonnie made a face at her.

"Listen," Bonnie said. "All I've been doing this last month is working with people's energies. Everybody's got a very distinct flavor that's all their own."

"Like their auras," Elena said, nodding in understanding. Everyone's aura was different. "But I still haven't been able to see Solomon's aura."

"Auras, energies. Potato, potahto," Bonnie said. "Just because you couldn't see it doesn't mean it wasn't there. Somehow, Solomon can shield it from you." She put down her fork and leaned forward, fixing Elena earnestly with her wide brown eyes. "My point is, if Solomon swapped bodies with Trinity, everyone would have known right away, before Solomon-or Gabriel, or whoever-died. They'd be able to tell that it wasn't the same person." Elena started to object, and Bonnie held up her hand. "Think about it," she said. "Nobody ever thought Katherine was you for more than a few minutes, even though you looked so much alike. Different energy. Similar shells, but different inside. If the people who knew her thought it was still Trinity in there-and they hunted with her, they must know her really well-then it was Trinity."

"But when Meredith saw her, she was a vampire," Elena said helplessly. "And she had Solomon's eyes. Do you think she's possessed? That was Alaric's other theory."

"I'm pretty sure you have to be a demon to possess somebody," Bonnie said dismissively. "Old Ones aren't demons; they're just really powerful, ancient vampires." She went back to picking at her turnover, frowning thoughtfully. "I think I know what it is, though," she said.

Elena stared at her. "Go on."

Bonnie rested her elbows on the table and cupped her chin in her hands. "I can do a lot of things now that I couldn't do before, some of them by drawing on other people's energy, like I did last night." Elena nodded. She'd felt Bonnie tugging at her, knew she had somehow used Elena's own Power to levitate Enrique. "And if I were a bad person, a really Powerful one"-Bonnie looked at Elena-"like an Old One, I think I could go the other way."

"What do you mean?" Elena asked.

"If I were strong enough, I could take my own energy and force it into someone else instead of using their energy. I could fill them up with myself and make them do whatever I wanted. It would just be flipping the switch the other way, really."

"That sounds like possession," Elena said, confused, but Bonnie shook her head impatiently.

"No," she explained. "In possession, the demon is actually going inside the person and taking their body for their own. This would be more like a really powerful kind of compulsion.

Solomon isn't inside Trinity; he's just using her. Since he's so strong, he could transfer his own attributes-like the yellow eyes, and being a vampire-but she's just compelled. She's still there, underneath all this Power he's forcing into her."

Hope bloomed in Elena's chest. This was scary stuff, but it was also the first real suggestion that saving Trinity was a viable plan. "So you're saying Solomon does have a body, still out there somewhere," she said breathlessly. "We've been hunting the wrong targets all along-first Gabriel, and then Trinity-while the right one, the real Solomon, has stayed hidden."

Bonnie grinned and jumped up from the table, rattling the plates. She held her hand out to Elena. "Come on," she said impatiently. "If you've been looking for the wrong people all this time, maybe it's time to start trying to find the right one."

In the bedroom, Bonnie spread out a map out over the king-size bed. "This is the whole state," she told Elena. "This kind of compulsion must take a lot of Power. I don't think he could do it from somewhere farther away." She placed a purple candle on each post of the bed, carefully, then lit them all. "Purple's good for divination and psychic stuff," she explained.

She stepped across from Elena, the bed and the map between them, and stretched out her hands. "I need you to use your Guardian Power," she told her.

Elena shook her head. "It doesn't work on Solomon," she said. "I've been searching and searching for him. I couldn't find Gabriel or Trinity, either. There's no trace of them."

"Like I said, he must be able to shield himself from you somehow," Bonnie said. "He knows that you can find evil and is doing something to protect himself from you." She grinned mischievously, her teeth white in the candlelight. "But he doesn't know what I can do. Trust me."

And Elena did. She reached for Bonnie's hands, then, shutting her eyes for a moment, felt for her Power. She thought of the evil Solomon had done: taking over Trinity and the unknown Gabriel Dalton; killing gentle Andres, his blood flowing red across the bed; poor little broken Sammy.

When she opened her eyes, Elena could see Bonnie's aura, gentle and rosy pink all around her, and her own golden one next to it, but there was no trace of evil, nothing for her to follow. "You see the problem," she said.

"Just wait," Bonnie told her. She began to mutter words in some ancient language, and the candle flames stretched higher, flickered wildly, although there was no breeze. The little hairs on Elena's arms prickled.

Then, Bonnie's aura was mixing with her own, the rose and the gold looking like the shifting colors of a summer dawn. At the same time, Elena felt a gentle, insistent tugging somewhere near her collarbone-Bonnie asking let me in, let me in. Gulping nervously, she tried to open herself and let Bonnie take what she needed.

Bonnie spoke faster, the ancient words tumbling over one another in a low monotone, and then, suddenly, she fell silent. From each candle a golden ray arced over Bonnie and Elena, over the bed, to meet above the map. A single point of flame fell, scorching the map. And then the candles flickered out.

"There," Bonnie said, laying her finger on the scorch mark. "It worked."

Elena stared numbly. "We've been looking in the wrong places all along," she whispered. "Solomon's not even in Dalcrest."