Stefan slipped away from them around the side of the cabins. A minute later, his voice chimed in. "In position."
The earpieces belonged to Jack's team, another clever tool from their arsenal. Meredith couldn't believe she had never thought of using them before. It allowed them all-except for the Pack, who were in wolf form right now-to coordinate their attack from all over the museum and its grounds, fully aware of what everyone else was doing. And the Pack had their own forms of communication, could fight as a unit with no need for speech.
They were all here, and ready. Everyone but Elena. It felt weird to go into a fight without Elena, but Stefan had insisted: Solomon wanted Elena dead, and she would stay as far from him as possible. Elena had argued, but finally had agreed to go to the movies; Solomon wouldn't come after her in the middle of a crowded theater. Or so they all hoped.
Elena's lethal blood was with them, though. A thin coat, mixed with water, had been applied to the killing edge of every weapon they carried, and filled the tiny hypodermics in the ends of Meredith's special hunter's stave. Meredith only hoped there would be enough to do the job.
The sun sank below the horizon, and the dim security lamps around the museum snapped on. Meredith tested her bowstring and fitted an arrow carefully into place.
At first she'd instinctively objected to the idea of coming after a vampire at night. But the Plantation Museum was full of visitors and workers during the day, and none of them were willing to endanger innocent people if they could possibly help it.
Now Andres just had to use his Power, strengthened by the life force of the plants in the garden, to sense if Solomon was still seeing the museum, and they could begin. Meredith's earpiece crackled again, and Andres's voice came through, hushed and excited. "He's here. Solomon's inside the house. He's facing a wall, so I can't tell which floor he's on."
Meredith adjusted her grip on her crossbow and slipped forward. The night was silent, almost as if she were alone, but she knew that all around her the others were coming forward, tightening around Solomon's hiding place like a noose.
A shadowy figure crossed in front of the mansion-a guard, Meredith realized, and she glanced to her right. One of the wolves was already skulking through the bushes toward the figure. He raised his head and looked back at her, cocking his ears forward in a prearranged signal. A vampire, not a compelled human.
Without hesitating, Meredith aimed the crossbow and fired. There was a soft thwack as the bolt found its mark. The vampire fell with a thud. Meredith hurried across the open lawn, staying low, the wolf keeping pace beside her.
She knelt to check the vampire and found the bolt had gone through his heart. The wolf-Daniel, she now realized-sniffed cautiously at the wound and then looked up at Meredith, giving her a single tail wag of approval.
"Guard down. Ready," she said softly, touching her earpiece. In a single movement, she dropped the crossbow, took her stave from its sheath. The others were heading through windows and side doors. Meredith rested her hand for a moment on the rough gray fur of Daniel's back for reassurance; then together they slipped through the museum's front entrance.
By the door stood a hoopskirted mannequin, its blank face framed by a full curled wig, meant to represent the lady of the house back in the old plantation days. It filled so much space that it took Meredith a moment to realize there was a person at the admissions desk behind it.
She hesitated for a second too long. The tall, elegant blonde behind the desk looked natural there, like any museum docent-except for the fangs that she bared at them. Another vampire of Solomon's. She started to lunge at Meredith, and Meredith ducked quickly, raising her stave, knowing she was too late, that her split second of delay would prove fatal.
Then there was a crash of shattering glass as, faster than any human could move, Stefan hurtled through the window, grabbing the woman and swinging her around. He snapped her neck in a single, clean motion. Meredith moved forward to stake the woman in the heart, her movements perfectly matched to Stefan's, as they always were.
"Thanks," she said, when she'd caught her breath. He nodded in response, turning toward the hall. Meredith turned with him, raising her stave in anticipation.
They could hear the others all over the mansion, glass shattering and the sound of blows. A wolf snarl came from a room farther down. Daniel tensed and slipped quietly past them, the fur on his shoulders bristling. Footsteps thudded down the stairs.
Stefan stood a little in front of her, his whole body tense and ready, his teeth bared. He held his machete easily in one hand. He looked like something primal and wild, Meredith thought fleetingly, like a warrior out of prehistory.
And then Solomon's minions burst through the door.
Meredith didn't think after that, just slid smoothly into battle, kicking and leaping and twisting as her hunter instincts commanded, her stave slicing through the air. A dark-haired vampire girl lunged for her throat, and Meredith stabbed her smoothly through the heart.
She was aware of Stefan working fluidly next to her, their blows and parries complementing each other's instinctively. They turned together, cutting the heads neatly off a pair of vampires. Blood geysered up from the vampires' throats, splattering the walls, and the bodies fell to the floor with a thud.
Then the room was empty, except for the four vampire corpses, lying on a floor slick with blood. Meredith and Stefan finally turned to look at each other, breathing heavily.
They could hear the sounds of the battle still going on throughout the lower floor of the mansion-a muffled cry, the angry clang of metal weapons colliding, the sharp barks of the Pack. Nodding at Stefan, Meredith raised her stave once more, and they went forward together into the fight.