The Hunters: Moonsong Chapter Seven

It would shed been difficult to recuperate a group of settlers less suited to building a bran-new spreadony than the one hundred and five workforce who sailed up the river from the Chesapeake embayment in 1607 and founded Jamest consume, prof Campbel lectured from the preliminary of Elenas anatomy. While there were a correspond of carpenters, a mason, a dimsmith, and maybe a dozen laborers among them, they were far unwrapnumbered by the self-proclaimed gentlemen who made up almost half the party.He paused and smiled sardonical y. Gentlemen in this upshot signifies men without a profession or trade. Many of them were lazy, idle men who had joined the London Companys expedition in the hope of making a profit without literalizing how oft terms work founding a colony in the New World was real y going to entail. The settlers landed in the spring, and by the end of September, half of them were curtly. By January, when Captain Newport returned with supplies and more coloni sts, only thirty-eight of the original settlers remained.Lazy and clueless, Elena wrote neatly in her notebook.Dead in less than a year.History of the South was her very first class, and col ege was already proving to be an eye-opening experience. Her high school teachers had always stressed courage and enterprise when they talked rough Virginias early settlers, not haplessness.On Thursday, wel talk about the legend of John Smith and Pocahontas. Were going to discuss the facts and how they differ from Smiths own account, as he had a tendency toward self-promotion, Professor Campbel announced.The reading duty assignment is in the syl abus, so please come prepared for a grand discussion next time. He was a plump, energetic little hu military manity, whose smal dispirited eyeball swept the class and landed unerringly on Elena as he added, Elena Gilbert? Please stay after class for a moment. Id uniform to speak with you.She had time to wonder, nervously, how he knew which of hi s students she was as the rest of the class straggled out of the room, a few stopping to ask him questions. She hadnt spoken up during his lecture, and there were about fifty students in the class.As the last of her classmates disappeared out the door, she approached his desk.Elena Gilbert, he verbalise avuncularly, his b respectable eyes searching hers. I do apologize for taking up your time. But when I heard your name, I had to ask. He paused, and Elena dutiful y replied, Had to ask what, Professor?I inhabit the name Gilbert, you see, he verbalize, and the more I determine at you, the more you remind me of someone two someones who were once very dear friends of mine.Could you by chance be the female child of Elizabeth Morrow and Thomas Gilbert?Yes, I am, said Elena slowly. She ought to have expected that she might meet someone who knew her parents here at Dalcrest, barely it felt weird to hear their names, al the same.Ah He laced his fingers crosswise his stomach and gave her a satisfied smile. You look so much like Elizabeth. It startled me when you came into the room. But theres a touch of Thomas in you, too, obtain out no mistake about that.Something about your rumination, I think. Seeing you takes me right suffer to my own days as an undergraduate. She was a adorable girl, your sire, vertical lovely.You went to school here with my parents? Elena asked.I certainly did. Professor Campbel s smal black eyes widened. They were two of my best friends here. Two of the best friends I perpetually had. We lost track of each other over the age, Im afraid, but I heard about the accident. He unlaced his fingers and hesitantly touched her arm. Im so sorry.Thank you. Elena bit her lip. They never talked much about their col ege years. maybe as I got older, they would have Her voice trailed off, and she realized with dismay that her eyes had fil ed with tears.Oh, my dear, I didnt mean to upset you. Professor Campbel patted his jacket pockets. And Ive never got a tissue when I need one. Oh, please dont cry. His comical expression of distress made Elena give him a watery-eyed smile, and he relaxed and smiled in return. There, thats better, he said. You know, if youd like to hear more about your parents and what they were like back then, Id be happy to tel you about them. Ive got al kinds of stories.Real y? Elena said hopeful y. She felt a flicker of excitement. Aunt Judith talked with Elena about her mother sometimes, but the memories she shared were mostly from their childhood. And Elena real y didnt know much about her fathers past at al hed been an only child and his parents were dead.Certainly, certainly, Professor Campbel said cheerful y. Come to my office hours, and Il tel you al about our high jinks back in the old days. Im there every Monday and Friday from three to five, and Il trust out a welcome mat for you. Metaphorical y speaking, of course. perform you some of the horrible department coffee.Thank you, Professor Campbel , Elena said. Id love that.Cal me James, he said. Its nada at al . Anything I can do to make you feel at home here at Dalcrest. He cocked his transport to one side and looked at her quizzical y, his eyes as glimmery and curious as a smal animals. aft(prenominal) al , as the daughter of Elizabeth and Thomas, you must be a very special girl.The big black crow outside the open lecture-room window paced back and forth, clenching and unclenching its powerful talons virtually the branch on which it was perched.Damon wanted to transform back into his vampire self, heighten through the window, and have a quick but effective enquiry session with that professor.But Elena wouldnt like that.She was so naive, dammit.Yes, yes, she was his lovely, bril iant, clever princess, but she was ludicrously naive, too they al were. Damon irritably preened his ruffled feathers back into iridescent sleekness. They were honourable so young. At this point, Damon was able to look back and say th at no one learned anything in life, not for her first hundred years or so. You had to be immortal, real y, to have the time to learn to look out for yourself properly.Take Elena, gazing so trustful y at her professor. After al shed been through, al shed seen, she was so easy to lul into complacency al the man had to do was dangle the promise of information about her parents in front of her, and shed happily trot off to meet him in his office whenever he suggested. Sentimental ninny. What could the man possibly tel her that would be of any real grandeur? Nothing could bring her parents back.The professor wasnt a danger, most likely. Damon had probed him with his Power, felt nothing but the flickering of a human mind, no dark kick of answering Power coming from the little man, no sWellof disturbing or violent emotion.But he couldnt be sure, could he? Damons Power couldnt chance every monster, couldnt predict every twist of the human heart.But the real problem here was Elena. Shed forgotten, clearly, that shed lost al her Power, that the Guardians had stripped her back to creation just a vulnerable, fragile mortal girl again. She thought, wrongly, that she could protect herself.They were al like that. Damon had been infuriated at first to slowly realize that he was starting to feel like al of them were his humans. Not just his lovely Elena and the little redbird, but all of them, the witch Mrs. Flowers and the hunter and that meathead of a boy as Well. Those last two didnt even like him, but he felt compel ed to keep an eye on them, to resist them from damaging themselves through their innate stupidity.Damon wasnt the one who wanted to be here. No, the lets al join hands and dance off to further our educations together judgment wasnt his, and hed treated it with the proper scorn. He wasnt Stefan. He wasnt going to waste his time pretending to be one of the mortal children.But he had found, to his dismay, that he didnt want to lose them, either.It was emba rrassing. Vampires were not pack animals, not like humans. He wasnt supposed to care what happened to them. These children should be prey, and nothing more.But being dead and coming back, fighting the jealousy phantom and letting go of the dotty envy and misery that had held him captive ever since he was a human, had changed Damon. With that stiff bal of hate gone from the middle of his chest, where it had lived for so long, he found himself vox populi lighter. Almost as if he cared.Embarrassing or not, it felt amazingly comfortable, having this connection to the little group of humans. Hed have died again rather than admit it aloud, though.He clacked his beak a few times as Elena said good-bye to her professor and left the classroom. Then Damon spread his wings and flapped calibrate to a head next to the buildings entrance.Nearby, a thin young man was posting a beak with a girls picture on other tree, and Damon flew over to get a closer look. Missing Student, the top of t he flyer said, and below the picture were details of a nighttime disappearance no clues, no leads, no evidence, no idea where nineteen-year-old Taylor Harrison might be.Suspicion of implike play. The promise of a reward from her anxious family for information leading to her honorable return.Damon let out a rough caw. There was something wrong here. Hed cognize it already had felt something a little off about this campus as soon as hed arrived two days ago, although he hadnt been able to kind of put his finger on it. Why else would he have been so worried about his princess?Elena came out of the building and started across the quad, tucking her long princely hair behind her ears, oblivious to the black crow that swooped from tree to tree above her. Damon was going to find out what was going on here, and he was going to do it before whatever it was touched any of his humans.especial(prenominal) y Elena.