"Maybe," Solomon said again, sounding pleased. Meredith couldn't see what he was doing to Trinity-his body was blocking her view of his hands, but they were on Trinity's face. Then he stepped back and Meredith had a moment to feel relief: The girl was unchanged, her mouth still frozen in shock.
But as Meredith watched in horror, a thin tendril of blood began to run from Trinity's open mouth, tracing over her chin and onto the floor. A moment later, blood was running from her nose, dripping like tears from her eyes. So much blood, much more than had come from Stefan or Meredith. Solomon cocked his head, watching Trinity closely, his tongue running across his lips. Her hair matted as blood began to run from her ears.
"Pretty," Solomon said, his voice a warm purr. "I like this one."
No, no, no, Meredith thought frantically. I have to do something! The blood was freezing on Trinity's face, her nostrils caking with dark red ice. She was still motionless, but now there was the faintest choking noise coming from her. Solomon leaned forward, intent. Help! Meredith thought, still unable to move.
Near the window, something shifted.
Meredith stared as one of the vines in the wallpaper twisted, lengthening across the wall. Was she going crazy? Suddenly the wallpaper was writhing with vines, the flowers expanding as the tendrils reached the carpet and continued to spread.
And the room was getting warmer. The blood on Trinity's face was thawing and beginning to flow again.
Andres, she thought. It must be Andres. He had Power over life and growing things; this warmth and motion must come from him.
Solomon, focused on Trinity, didn't seem to notice the wallpaper. A single vine ran across the table, nudging the fake suckling pig with a scraping noise, and Meredith held her breath. Whatever was happening, they needed Solomon unaware.
Wait a second, she realized-she held her breath. However Solomon had frozen her in place, taken her power over her own body, his Influence was fading. Carefully, she flexed her muscles, and her fingers tightened slowly on her stave. She couldn't move her arms, not yet, but she blinked and shifted her gaze to Stefan. He had straightened and was glaring at Solomon, his whole body tensed.
A vine wrapped itself around Solomon's ankle. With a grunt, he pulled away, his concentration on Trinity broken. Another, thicker vine whipped itself around his waist, and he snarled, tearing it off.
In that moment, Stefan struck. He leaped forward and swung his machete high overhead, its blade coated in Elena's blood, slamming it down to slice cleanly through Solomon's skull and torso.
For one moment, Solomon held together, a line of blood running straight down from his forehead to his waist. Then, with a sickening squelch, his body fell in two clean pieces onto the floor.
Everything was very quiet.
Solomon's control over her broke with a sudden snap. Shuddering, Meredith took a long, shaky gasp of air, and everything came back into focus.
Stefan was breathing hard, his eyes wide and dark, his canines extended. Meredith hurried to his side and began kicking the sections of Solomon's body apart, just in case he had some regenerative Power. "We did it," she started to say, "we-" But she broke off as Trinity collapsed behind her, her body shaking in sudden and terrifying convulsions.
Jack rushed to kneel beside his fellow hunter. "She's still bleeding," he said urgently, his hands moving carefully over her.
The doors at both ends of the dining room slammed open as the others started to spill in. "We were frozen in that parlor upstairs," Darlene explained, then gasped, seeing Trinity. "Oh my God!" She ran to kneel on the girl's other side. Alex and Roy followed, their faces shocked. Shay scrambled back through the window, girl formed again and swearing, her face and arms dotted with tiny cuts.
There was a pounding of boots in the hall, and Matt pushed his way through a crowd of werewolves, dangling a crossbow from one hand and pulling Andres with the other. "Andres did it," he announced. "He just pulled the life force out of that garden and sent it racing through here. The whole picture of what was going on was hanging before us like some kind of vision or something. I've never seen anything like it." Andres nodded, looking drained but triumphant.
The smiles dropped off both their faces as they saw Trinity's body, now terribly still, lying surrounded by her friends. "Is she ...?" Matt asked, a quaver in his voice.
Zander rose to his feet, changing from wolf to man in one motion. "We have to get her to a hospital," he said, nodding to his Pack. "Jared, Dan, find something you can use as a stretcher." The two nodded and began to rise, but Jack stepped forward, shaking his head firmly.
"Stop," he said. "We can't take her to a hospital like this. I don't think it'll help. Whatever Solomon did to her, they can't fix. And those are impossible injuries. There will be too many questions." He and Zander stared at each other, both steely with determination.
"We can't let her die," Roy protested, a note of desperation in his voice.
"No one's going to die," Stefan said quietly. There was blood running through his hair and spattered across his face from the death blow he'd dealt Solomon, but his voice was so full of authority that both Jack and Zander, each a leader in his own right, turned to listen. "We'll take her to my apartment." He swiftly bit at his wrist and held it to Trinity's slack mouth, rubbing her throat with his other hand to force the unconscious girl to swallow. "My blood will help for now. I just hope it's enough."
Zander and Jack both nodded. At the gesture, Daniel and Jared went and cleared the dining table, taking the cloth to put carefully under Trinity. The girl moaned in pain, her head turning restlessly from one side to the other as they tried to shift her, her eyes moving frantically beneath their lids. Meredith wasn't sure whether it was a good or bad sign that Trinity didn't wake up.