Elena stepped through the door and then back out. There was nothing stopping her. “Do you think he’s got a human living in there?” she whispered.

Damon shrugged. “Must be. It wouldn’t stop the vampires he’s made, only the ones like me.”

“Right. Just like sunlight or running water or stakes,” Elena agreed. The security guard was peering suspiciously at them now, and she forced a laugh. “I can’t believe you forgot it,” she said loudly and nonsensically. Damon was looking at her like she was insane, so she flicked her eyes toward the outer door. “Let’s go get it.”

“New plan,” she said, once they were outside and out of sight of the guard. “Draw me a map of how to get to Jack’s office.” They’d agreed, if he kept the poison anywhere in the building, his private office would be the most likely place. The journal had been there.

Damon tensed. He didn’t like her going in alone, Elena knew. But it was the only solution. “You’ll be careful?” he asked reluctantly.

“Of course.” Elena forced a smile as she took the keycard from his hand. “Make me that map.”

Her heels seemed to echo unnaturally loudly as she walked across the lobby a second time. But the security guard paid no attention as she used the keycard to pass through the automatic door.

Once the elevator doors had safely shut between them, Elena took a deep breath and pulled the map Damon had made out of her attaché case. Up to the fourth floor.

The elevator doors opened onto a sleek and empty reception area, all grays and whites under soft lighting. It was completely silent; there was no one in sight.

The route Damon had marked out led her past a lab full of caged rats and through a corridor lined with cubicles. She gripped her attaché case in one hand. It was partly intended for camouflage, partly so she’d have something to put the poison in if—no, when, she told herself fiercely—she found it.

She hoped it was in Jack’s office, she thought, frowning through a window overlooking a laboratory full of medical equipment.

Lifetime Solutions looked just like any kind of medical research lab. She’d expected something a little more threatening, somehow.

The lights were on everywhere, fluorescent bulbs humming up above her. Even a few computers were still on, but she didn’t see a single person, not until she turned the corner of the hall that led to Jack’s office.

There was a man sitting at a desk outside Jack’s office, a stack of papers in front of him. When Elena turned, he was clearly already expecting her, his head up and his eyes fixed on where she approached.

He must have heard her footsteps. Human? Elena wondered. Vampire? She hadn’t been particularly stealthy, and the office was quiet. It was perfectly reasonable that he might have heard her, even if he lacked any special powers.

Elena tried to slow her heartbeat, to calm herself down, and kept the smile fixed on her face as she approached him. He watched her placidly, but she thought she saw an eager look cross his face for just a moment, the expression of a predator who scented prey. Was she imagining it?

As she came to a halt in front of his desk, he smiled back up at her, a bland, professional smile. “Kann ich der helfen, bitte?” he asked politely.

Oh no. They spoke more than one language in Switzerland, didn’t they? She hadn’t accounted for that in her plans. At dinner, Damon had ordered for her in French. Elena only spoke English. She could only remember a few phrases from the summer she’d spent in Paris, just enough to be sure this vampire wasn’t speaking French.

“Jack sent me for some papers from his office,” she said. She kept her voice level and the smile pinned to her face. Did she look as fake as she felt? She tried to channel the persona she had used in the time she’d worked as an executive assistant: calm, polite, professional, slightly bored. “I’ve come all the way from Virginia, in the United States. It’s very important.”

For just a moment, something flashed through the man’s aura. Something wrong, a neon red slicing through the muddy blue. Vampire. Definitely a vampire, Elena thought, and just managed to stop herself from taking a step backward.

The vampire’s eyes sharpened at her miniscule flinch, taking on an even more predatory gleam. But when he spoke again, his voice was perfectly cordial. “Certainly, Miss. What does Dr. Daltry require?”

All of sudden, it was like something clicked into place, and her Guardian Power bloomed. A new power this time, like she was seeing inside him, watching the rhythms of the vampire’s heart and mind. Elena took a quick, excited breath, her heart speeding up again.

“Listen carefully,” she told him, and there was a funny, deep echo behind her words, as if someone else, someone Powerful, was speaking in time with her. The vampire relaxed, his mouth tilting into a faint smile, and Elena could see that he wanted to obey her.

She wondered…

“Why don’t you come with me?” she said, and the echo was still there. “Help me look.”

With perfect readiness, the vampire rose to his feet. Elena glanced around hurriedly. She was fizzing with nervous excitement. She’d never been able to compel anyone to do what she wanted before. Would this work on everyone? Only on vampires? If her control snapped, he would kill her, she was sure. She forced herself to concentrate, holding onto her Power over him.

There. On the other side of the hall was a plain white door with a bolt. She walked over to it, the vampire following her docilely. It was a supply closet, its shelves neatly lined with envelopes of various sized pads of paper, boxes of paper clips and staples. It was like any supply closet in any office in the world, and Elena felt a funny little pang at the sight of it. It had been good, working in an office, living the daylit life with Stefan. She wouldn’t ever be that girl again.

“Go in,” she told the vampire, listening to the echo of Power behind her own words. He hesitated, though, a small frown creasing his forehead. He was clearly struggling between the force of Elena’s command and his natural inclinations. “Go on,” she said, and tried to put an extra force of will behind it. She could feel him bending beneath her words, and Elena gritted her teeth and pushed.

The vampire’s face smoothed out. “Yes, fräulein.” He stepped forward, into the closet.

“Stay,” Elena said hurriedly. “You’re fine there. You won’t need anything.”

She closed the door quietly behind him and flipped the lock. She hoped the command would be enough, and that it would still work when she wasn’t standing right there next to him. The lock wouldn’t be strong enough to hold a vampire for long.

She rapidly crossed the hall again and went into Jack’s office, shutting the door behind her. She leaned against it for a moment, taking a quick gulp of air. There was a lock, thank goodness, and she turned the latch as quietly as she could, her hands shaking.

How long did she have before this new Guardian Power’s effect wore off, she wondered. Or did she have even that long? Were there security cameras watching the hall, would someone have seen her lock him in?

She firmly put it out of her mind. She needed to concentrate on the job at hand. But she had to work fast.

The office had floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the plaza outside, a coat closet in the corner, and another door that led to a small bathroom. It looked like a normal executive office—desk, cabinets, chairs. Not too many places to hide something secret.

Damon had found Jack’s journal in a secret drawer at the back of the desk, so that was the place to start. Elena seated herself in the cushy leather chair behind the desk and slid the top drawer all the way out.

On the top of the back of the drawer, just as Damon had described, was a small keyhole. Pulling the lock picks Damon had given her out of her attaché case, she slid the straight piece of metal into the lock and turned it as far as she could, then carefully inserted the long curved pick. At first, it was just like she was fishing around, rubbing a few pieces of metal together with no effect. But at her fourth try, something shifted. It took a few more tries to manage to push back all the pins inside the cylinder of the lock. Finally, though, the lock turned as neatly and easily as if she’d had the key.

“Gorgeous,” Elena breathed to herself. “Let’s see.”

Nothing. The secret compartment was empty.

Frustrated, she shoved the drawer closed again a little too hard. There was an audible clunk. Elena froze and listened hard. There were probably other vampires in the building, and their hearing would be sharp. But there was no answering sound, and after a moment, she relaxed.

She looked quickly around the room. If the poison wasn’t in the secret compartment, where could it be hidden? She began to rifle through the other drawers, pulling them out and looking them over carefully. No more secret compartments, as far as she could see. No keyholes hidden in the backs of these drawers.

There was nothing in the desk, nothing fastened underneath it, either. She got to her feet and looked around. The cabinets? She froze. Had that been a noise? She drew the stake from her attaché case. If it was the vampire secretary, breaking free of her suggestion, maybe she’d be able to take him out for long enough that she could escape.

But there was no other sound. She must have imagined it. Her luck was holding, for now.

The cabinets held nothing but hanging files and, at the bottom of one, a bottle of gin.

Where else? Elena ran her hands under the cushions of the chairs, lifted the paintings on the walls and looked behind them to make sure there was no concealed safe. The closet was empty, except for a long black coat and an umbrella. Elena swung the door shut.

Wait. The memory of her favorite hiding place back home made her look in the closet again, more carefully.

There were the faintest lines across the floor. A square. Elena hurried back to the desk and found a thin bronze letter opener. She stuck it into one of the cracks and slowly pried up the panel.

Below the panel was another locked compartment.

Her hands were shaking now, and she dropped the thin pick twice before she got it in the lock properly.

Sitting at the bottom of this hidden compartment was a square box, maybe eight inches on each side, made of black metal. Please, Elena thought. Please. Carefully, she snapped back the latches and opened the box.

Inside, neatly clipped into place along the sides of the box, were six hypodermics full of shimmering blue liquid.

Elena took a moment to marvel that Siobhan had bothered to make her false poison the right color. Perhaps she really had possessed some of the poison, although she hadn’t given it to Elena and Damon. Maybe they should have searched the cave and Siobhan’s cabin in the woods.

Better still, there were some papers inside the box that, based on Elena’s quick glance, seemed like they might be the research notes on how Jack had developed the formula.

She sent a wave of victory, of joy, through the connection to Damon. He’d know what she meant.

As carefully as she could, hyperaware of how fragile a syringe was, she packed the box into her case and glanced around the room. If it held other secrets, she hadn’t uncovered them. And staying any longer would be pushing her luck.

Elena smoothed down her skirt and straightened her blouse. There was one last thing she needed to do.

Leaving Jack’s office, she was careful to leave the door slightly cracked, the way she’d found it. There was only silence in the hall, no sound coming from the supply closet. Her luck had held: no one seemed to have yet noticed that anything was amiss.

When she opened the supply closet, the vampire was facing the shelves of envelopes, calm and relaxed, just as she’d left him. Power thrummed through her, and she felt the tendril that held him in place, running straight from her to him. He turned to look amiably at her, awaiting her next instruction.

Elena whipped out the hypodermic she’d been holding behind her back, jammed it into the side of his throat, and pushed the plunger.

The effect was instantaneous. The vampire choked, his eyes bulging. He brought his hands up to claw at his throat, pushing the empty hypodermic away. The gentle spell he had seemed to be under snapped. “What are you doing to me?” he gasped, his voice strangled. “What did you do?”

He fell heavily to the floor, panting. A thin stream of drool ran out across his chin. He seemed to be struggling to move, tiny twitches of his arms and legs, but he wasn’t getting anywhere. His eyes, red and watering, fixed on Elena. “Help me,” he whispered.

Elena hardened her heart. “You would have killed me if you had the chance, you know you would,” she said. He only blinked, looking up at her with a dazed expression. “Wouldn’t you?” she demanded, letting a thread of the compelling echo slide into her voice.

The dying vampire twitched again. His eyes rolled back into his head. He was dead.