Chapter 44

On the smallest moon of the Nether World fine ash was falling. It fell on two already ash-covered bodies. It fell on ash-choked water. It blocked the sunlight so that an endless midnight covered the moon's ash-coated surface.

And something else fell. In the smallest imaginable droplets, an opalescent fluid fell, colors swirling as if to try and make up for the ugliness of the ashes. They were tiny drops, but there were trillions upon trill ions of them, falling endlessly, concentrated over the spot where they had once been part of the largest container of raw Power in three dimensions.

There was a body on the ground on this spot - not quite a corpse. The body had no heartbeat; it did not breathe, and there was no brain activity. But somewhere in it there was a slow pulsing, that quickened very slightly as the tiny drops of Power fell upon it.

The pulsing was made up of nothing but a memory. The memory of a girl with dark blue eyes and golden hair and a small face with wide brown eyes. And the taste: the taste of two maidens' tears. Elena. Bonnie.

Putting the two of them together they formed what was not exactly a thought, not exactly a picture. But to someone who only understood words, it might be translated: They are waiting for me. If I can figure out who I am.

And that sparked a fierce determination.

After what seemed like centuries but was only a few hours, something moved in the ash. A fist clenched.

And something stirred in the brain, a self-revelation. A name.

Damon.

Chapter 43

"Elena?"Stefan said quietly. "Could you ask me to come in?

You have to invite me in if you want to - to talk - "

Invite him in? He was already in - inside her heart. She had told the Guardians that everyone would have to accept Stefan as her boyfriend of almost a year.

It didn't matter. In a low voice she said, "Come in, Stefan."

"The window's locked from your side, Elena."

Numbly, Elena unlocked the window. The next moment she was encompassed by warm, strong arms in a desperate, fervent embrace. But the moment after that, the arms dropped, leaving her frozen and lonely.

"Stefan? What's wrong?"Her eyes had adapted and by the starlight through the window she could see him hesitating before her.

"I can't - It isn't - It's not me you want,"he said in a rush that sounded as if it came through a constricted throat. "But I wanted you to know that - that Meredith and Matt are holding Bonnie. Comforting her, I mean. They're all okay and so is Mrs. Flowers. And I thought that you - "

"They put me to sleep! They said they wouldn't put me to sleep!"

"You fell asleep, lo - Elena. While we were waiting for them to send us home. We all watched over you: Bonnie, Sage, and I." He was Still speaking in that formal, unusual tone. "But I thought - Well, that you might want to talk tonight, too. Before I - I left." He put a finger up to stop his lip from shaking.

"You swore you wouldn't leave me!"Elena cried. "You promised, not for any reason, not for any length of time, no matter how noble the cause!"

"But - Elena - that was before I understood..."

"You Still don't understand! Do you know - "

His hand flew to cover her mouth and he put his lips to her ear. "Lo - Elena. We're in your house. Your aunt - "

Elena felt her eyes widen, although of course subconsciously she had known this all along. The air of familiarity. This bed - it was her bed, and the spread was her beloved gold and white bedspread. The obstacles she'd known how to avoid in the dark - the tapping at her window...she was home.

Like a climber who has negotiated an impossible-seeming section of rock, and almost fallen, Elena felt a tremendous rush of adrenaline. And it was this - or, perhaps, simply the power of the love that flooded through her - that achieved what she had been so clumsily trying to reach. She felt her soul expand and come out of her body. And meet Stefan's.

She was appalled by the hastily swept-away desolation in his spirit, and humbled by the surge of love that flooded every part of him at the touch of her mind.

Oh, Stefan. Just - say that - that you can forgive me, that's all. If you forgive me I can live. Maybe you can even be happy with me again - if you just give it a little time.

I'm already happy with you. But we have all the time in the world, Stefan reassured her. But she caught the shadow of a dark thought whisked quickly out of the way. He had all the time in the world. She, however...

Elena had to choke back a laugh but then clutched at Stefan suddenly. My backpack - did they take it? Where is it?

Right beside your nightstand. I can reach it. Do you want it?

He reached in the darkness and pulled up something heavy and rough and none too pleasant-smelling. Elena thrust one frantic hand inside it while Still holding on to Stefan with the other.

Yes! Oh, Stefan, it's here!

He was beginning to suspect - but he only knew when she drew out the bottle labeled Evian Water and held it to her cheek. It was icy cold, although the night was mild and humid.

And as it effervesced violently, it glowed in a way that no ordinary water did.

I didn't mean to do it, she told Stefan, suddenly worried that he might not like to associate with a thief. At least - not at first. Sage said to get the water from the Fountain of Eternal Youth and Life into bottles. I dug up a big bottle and this little one, and somehow I stashed the smaller one in my backpack - I'd've put the big one in, too, but it didn't fit. And I didn't even think about the little one again until after they took away my Wings and my telepathy.

And a good thing, Stefan thought. If they had caught you -

oh, my lovely love! His arms squeezed the breath from Elena's lungs. So that's why you were suddenly so eager to leave!

"They took almost everything else supernatural about me,"Elena whispered, placing her lips close to Stefan's ear.

"I have to live with that, and if they'd given me a chance I'd have agreed - for the sake of Fell's Church - if I'd been logical - "She broke off as she suddenly realized that she had been literal y out of her mind. She'd been worse than a thief. She'd tried to use a lethal attack on a group of - mostly - innocent people. And the worst thing was that a part of her knew that Damon would have understood her madness, while she wasn't sure Stefan ever could.

"But you don't have to change me into - you know,"she began whispering frenetically again. "A sip or two of this and I can be with you forever. Forever and - for - forever - Stefan - "She stopped, trying to get her breath and her mental balance.

His hand closed over hers on the cap. "Elena."

"I'm not crying. It's because I'm happy. Forever and ever, Stefan. We can be together, just...just us two...forever."

"Elena, love."His hand kept hers from twisting open the bottle.

"It - isn't what you want?"

With his other arm, Stefan pulled her tightly to him. Her head fell forward onto his shoulder and he rested his chin on her hair. "It's what I want more than anything. I'm...dazed, I guess. I have been ever since - "He stopped and tried again.

"If we have all the time in the world, we have tomorrow,"he said in a voice muffled by hair. "And tomorrow is time enough for you to start to think it through. There's enough in that bottle for maybe four or five people. You're the one who's going to have to decide who drinks it, love. But not tonight. Tonight is for..."

With a sudden rush of joy Elena understood. "You're talking about - Damon."Amazing how difficult it was to simply say his name. It almost seemed a violation, and yet...

When he could talk - like this - for a moment to me, he told me what he wanted, she sent. Stefan stirred a little in the darkness, but said nothing. Stefan, he only asked for one thing before he...went. It was not to be forgotten. That's all.

And we're the ones who remember the most. Us and Bonnie.

Aloud she added, "I will never forget him. And I will never let anyone else who knew him forget him - for as long as I live."

She knew she'd spoken too loudly, but Stefan didn't try to quiet her. He gave one quick shudder and then held her tightly again, his face buried in her hair.

I remember, he sent to her, when Katherine asked him to join her - when we three were in Honoria Fell's crypt. I remember what he said to her. Do you?

Elena felt their souls intertwine as they both saw the scene through the other's eyes. Of course, I remember too.

Stefan sighed, half-laughing. I remember trying to take care of him later in Florence. He wouldn't behave, wouldn't even Influence the girls he fed on. Another sigh. I think he wanted to get caught at that point. He couldn't even look me in the face and talk about you.

I made Bonnie send for you. I made sure she got both of you out here, Elena told him. Her tears had begun to flow again, but slowly - gently. Her eyes were shut and she felt a faint smile come to her lips.

Do you know - Stefan's mental voice was startled, astonished -  I remember something else! From when I was very young, maybe three or four years old. My father had a terrible temper, especially right after my mother died. And back then, when I was little, and my father was furious and drunk, Damon would deliberately get in between us. He'd say something obnoxious and - well, my father would end up beating him instead of me. I don't know how I could have forgotten about that.

I do, Elena thought, remembering how frightened she had been of Damon when he'd first turned human - even though he'd put himself in between her and the vampires who wanted to Discipline her in the Dark Dimension. He had a gift for knowing exactly what to say - how to look - what to do - to get under anyone's skin.

She could feel Stefan chuckle faintly, wryly. A gift, was it?

Well, I certainly couldn't do it, and I can manage most people, Elena replied softly. Not him, though. Never him.

Stefan added, But he was almost always kinder to weak people than to strong ones. He always did have that soft spot for Bonnie... He broke off, as if frightened he'd ventured too near something sacred.

But Elena had her bearings now. She was glad, so glad, that in the end Damon had died to save Bonnie. Elena herself needed no more proof of his feelings about her. She would always love Damon, and she would never allow anything to diminish that love.

And, somehow, it seemed fitting that she and Stefan should sit in her old bedroom and speak of what they remembered of Damon in hushed tones. She planned on taking the same thing up with the others tomorrow.

When she finally fell asleep in Stefan's arms, it was hours after midnight.

Chapter 42

"It's not a problem,"the fair ruler, Ryannen, said unexpectedly. "We can make it so that your Mr. Tanner repelled an apparent vampire attack and the school called in Alaric Saltzman to take his place and investigate. All right, Idola?" - to the redhead, and to the dark one - "All right, Susurre?"

Elena wasn't All right. Despite the example she'd just had of turn-on-a-dime plotting and scheming, she was scarcely listening. Al she knew was that her voice had gone husky and that tears blurred her eyes. "And...for the Master Key - I want - "

Stefan squeezed her hand. Elena suddenly realized that they were all standing, all three of them, beside her. And the look on every face was the same. Dead resolve.

"I want Damon back."Elena hadn't heard quite this note in her voice since the day she'd been told both her parents had died. If there had been a table, she would have put her clenched fists on it and did her best to loom over the women.

As it was, she simply leaned toward them, speaking in a low and grating voice. "If you do that - bring him back, exactly as he was before he walked into the Gatehouse - then you get the Master Key and the treasures. You say no - and you lose everything. Everything. This is non-negotiable, get it?"

She kept staring into Idola's green eyes. She refused to see dark Susurre drop her forehead onto three fingertips and begin to rub it in small circles. She wouldn't give a glance to blond Ryannen, who was looking at her steadily, having gone into people-management mode. She stared directly into those green eyes under their will full eyebrows. Idola gave a little huff and shook her gorgeous head.

"Look, someone clearly has screwed up in preparing you for this interview."A glance at Susurre. "The other things you've asked for - all together, it forms a very heavy ransom. Do you understand that? Do you understand that it involves changing the memories of all the people for miles around your town, and changing them for every day of ten months?

That it means changing everything in print about Fell's Church - and that there is a lot in print - not to mention other media outlets? It means begging for three human spirits and weaving flesh around them again. I'm not sure we even have the personnel for this - "

Blond Ryannen put a hand on the redhead's arm. "We have it. Susurre's women have little to do in the Nether World. I can lend you perhaps thirty percent of mine - after all , we're going to have to send up a petition to a higher Court for those spirits - "

Idola the redhead interrupted. "All right. What I was saying is that we might just be able to manage - if you throw in the Key. However, your vampire companion - we can't give life back to the lifeless. We can't work with vampires. Once they're gone - they're gone."

"That's what you tell us!"Stefan cried, trying to get in front of Elena. "But why are we so particularly damned, of all creatures? How do you know it's impossible? Have you ever even tried? "

Red-haired Idola was making a disgusted gesture, when Bonnie interrupted, her voice shaking. "It's ridiculous! You can rebuild a town, you can kill the person who's really behind all Shinichi and Misao did, but you can't bring one little vampire back? You brought Elena back!"

"Elena's death as a vampire allowed her to become the Guardian she was original y meant to be. As for the person who gave orders to Shinichi and Misao: It was Inari Saitou -

Obaasan Saitou, as you knew her - and she is already dead, thanks to your friends in Fell's Church, who weakened her - and to you, who destroyed her star ball ."

"Inari? You mean Isobel's grandma? You're saying it was her star ball in the Great Tree's trunk? That's impossible!"Bonnie cried.

"No, it's not. It's the truth,"blond Ryannen said simply.

"And she's dead now?"

"After a long battle which nearly killed your friends. Yes - but what actual y killed her was having her star ball destroyed."

"So,"dark Susurre said quietly, "if you follow the curve...in a way your Damon did die to save Fell's Church from another massacre like the one on that Japanese island. He kept saying that was what he'd come to the Nether World to do. Do you not think he would be...satisfied? At peace?"

"At peace?"Stefan spat bitterly, and Sage growled.

"Woman,"he said, "you obviously have never met Damon Salvatore before."The tone in his voice - more resonant, more threatening somehow - made Elena final y break off her staredown with the red-haired Idola. She turned and looked - - and saw the enormous room filled with Sage's out-spread wings.

They weren't like any of her ephemeral Wings Powers. They were clearly part of Sage. They were velvety and reptilian, and, unfurled like this, they stretched from distant wall to wall , and touched the grand, golden ceiling. They also demonstrated why Sage didn't usual y wear shirts.

He was beautiful this way, bronze skin and hair against those giant, leathery soft-looking arches. But Elena, after one look at him, knew that the time had come to play the ace up her sleeve. She turned around to meet Idola's green gaze squarely.

"Al this time we've been bargaining for a Gatehouse full of treasures,"she said, "and - one Master Key."

"A Master Key, stolen by the kitsune ages upon ages ago,"Susurre explained quietly, lifting her dark eyes.

"And you've said that it's not enough for you to bring Damon back."Elena forced her voice not to waver.

"Not even if it were your only request."Ryannen tossed a golden lock of hair over her shoulder.

"So you say. But...what if I throw into the pot...another Master Key?"

There was a pause, and Elena's heart began to pound in sick terror. Because it was the wrong kind of pause. There were no shocked gasps. No astonished glances from one Guardian ruler to another. No looks of disbelief.

After another moment Idola said smugly, "If you mean the other stolen key that your friends had on Earth - it was confiscated as soon as they hid it. It was stolen property. It belonged to us."

She's been here too long, in the Dark Dimensions, Elena thought with one part of her mind. She's enjoying herself.

Idola leaned toward her, as if to confirm Elena's guess. "It - simply - is not - possible,"she said emphatically.

"Real y, it isn't,"the fair Ryannen added briskly. "We don't know what happens to vampires. But they don't pass through our purview. We never see them after death. The simplest explanation is that they just - go out."She snapped her fingers.

"I don't believe that!" Elena was aware that her voice had risen in volume. "I don't believe that for one moment!"

Voices, not attached to anyone in particular, burst into a clamor of argument around Elena, forming a sort of poem: Not possible. It's simply not possible! ( But please...) No!

Damon is gone, and to ask where is like asking where a candle flame goes when it's blown out. ( But shouldn't you try to bring him back, at the least? ) Whatever has happened to gratitude? You four should be grateful that the other things you asked for can be done. ( But in exchange for both Master Keys - ) No Power we can command could bring Damon back! Elena must try to reconcile herself to reality.

She has been pampered too much already! ( But what harm can it do to try again? ) All right! If you must know, Susurre has already forced us to try. And nothing came of it!

Damon...is...gone! His spirit was nowhere to be found in the ether! That is what happens to vampires, and everyone knows it!

Elena found herself looking down at her own hands, which were very clean but with broken nails and every knuckle bleeding. The outside world had become unreal again. She was inside herself, struggling with her grief, struggling with the knowledge that Idola, the central ruler of Guardians, hadn't even mentioned before that they had looked for Damon's spirit. And that it was...gone.

Suddenly, the room was pressing in on her. There wasn't enough air. There were only these women: these powerful, magical Guardian women; who Still did not have enough power or magic to save Damon - or at least didn't even care enough to try twice.

She wasn't sure what was happening to her. Her throat felt puffed out, her chest was both huge and tight. Each heartbeat sounded through her as if trying to shake her to death.

To death. In her mind's eye, she saw a hand hold up a glass of Clarion Loess Black Magic.

And then, Elena knew that she had to stand a certain way, and hold her arms a certain way, and whisper certain words in her own mind. But the last, the naming of the spell , had only to be said aloud at the end.

At the end - when things slowed. When green-eyed Idola -

what a perfect name for someone who idolized herself, Elena thought - and fair businesslike Ryannen and nurturing Susurre - al stared at her with open mouths, too shocked to move even a finger as, quietly and calmly, Elena said,

"Wings of Destruction - "

It was a soldier, just an ordinary one of the rank and file, one of the dark women, who stopped it. She leaped up onto the dais, and, with inhuman speed, slapped her hand over Elena's mouth, so that the final syllable was a mumble, and the golden, green, and blue hall did not explode into fragments with hot metal running in rivulets like lava, and the flower-fountain did not vaporize, and the stained-glass windows didn't shatter into atoms.

Then there were more arms around Elena, holding her down, scarcely letting her breathe, even when she went limp for lack of air. Elena fought like an animal, with her teeth and nails, to escape. But she eventually was completely restrained, pinned to the floor. She could hear Sage's deep voice raging and Stefan, in between desperate telepathic bursts to her, pleading and explaining, "She's Still not in reality! She doesn't even know what she's doing!"

But louder, she could hear the voices of the Guardians. "She would have killed us all !""Those Wings - I've never seen anything so deadly!" "A human! And with just three words, she could have wiped us out!" "If Lenea hadn't tackled her - ""Or if she had been another few feet away - ""She destroyed a moon, you know! No life on it at all now, and ashes Still falling from the sky!" "That isn't the point. The point is that she shouldn't have Wings powers at all. She's got to be clipped of them." "That's right - clip her Wings! Do it! "

Elena recognized Ryannen's and Idola's voices at the end there. She was Still trying to fight, but they held her so tightly and piled on her so ruthlessly that it had become a fight simply to get air and al she did was exhaust herself.

And then they clipped her Wings. It was quick, at least, and Elena felt very little. What hurt most was her heart. Some proud, stubborn streak had been brought out with the fighting, and now she was ashamed to feel each pair cut off.

First went Wings of Redemption, those great rainbow-hued arches. Then Wings of Purification, white and iridescent as frosted cobwebs. Wings of the Wind, like honey-colored thistledown. Wings of Remembrance, soft violet and midnight blue. And then Wings of Protection - emerald green and gold, the Wings that had saved her friends from Bloddeuwedd's frenzied attack on them the first time they had entered the Dark Dimensions.

And, finally, Wings of Destruction - high, ebony arches with edges as delicate as black lace.

Elena tried to keep silent as each power was taken. But after the first one or two had fallen at her sides, in shadows that perhaps only she could see, she heard a small gasp, and realized that it was her own voice. And with the next cut, an involuntary little cry.

For a moment there was silence. And then suddenly there was overwhelming noise. Elena could hear Bonnie keening and Sage roaring, and Stefan, gentle Stefan, shouting blasphemies and curses at the Guardians. Elena guessed from the stifled sound of his voice that he was fighting them, fighting to get to her.

He reached her, somehow, just as the deadly, delicate Wings of Destruction were sheared from her shoulders and mind, and fell like tall shadows to the ground. It was good that he did reach her then, because at last, when Elena was the least dangerous she had been since the Powers of Wings had begun awakening in her, suddenly the Guardians seemed afraid. They stepped back from her, these strong and dangerous women, and only Stefan was there to catch her and hold her in his arms.

Stunned, dazed, she was an eighteen-year-old girl who was ordinary. Except for her blood. They wanted to rob her of her blood as well...to "purify" it. The three rulers and their attendants had already gathered in a determined, multihued triangle around her and were working their magic when Sage bel owed, "Stop!"

Elena, drooping over Stefan's shoulder, could see him vaguely, his velvety black wings Still spread from wall to wall , Still touching the golden ceiling. Bonnie clung to him like a bit of stray dandelion fluff. "You have already diminished her aura to almost nothing," he growled. "If you 'purify' the blood of this pauvre petite completely, she will die - and then she will awaken. You will have created un vampire, Mesdames. Is that what you wish?"

Susurre reeled back. For the ruler of such a harsh and unyielding realm, she seemed almost too gentle - but not too soft to shear off my Wings, Elena thought, wriggling her shoulders to ease them. Maybe she didn't know how much it would hurt, another part of her mind offered vaguely.

Then all her mind came together in an emergency meeting.

Something warm and cooling was sliding down the back of her neck, in tiny droplets. Not blood. No, this was infinitely more precious than what the Guardians had taken away.

Stefan's tears.

She rocked hard, trying to take her own weight on her feet.

Somehow, shakily, she managed it. She only realized just how shaky she was when she tried to lift a hand and wipe the tears off Stefan's cheeks with her thumb. Her whole hand wobbled as if she were making a childish joke. Her thumb struck his cheek with enough force to make anyone else wince. She looked at him with dumb apology, too shocked to try to speak.

Stefan was speaking. Over and over. "It doesn't matter,"he was saying. "It's All right, love. Oh, lovely love, it will be All right."He wiped her eyes with a hand that was rock steady, and all the time he was looking only at her, and - she knew -

thinking only of her.

She knew that because she also knew the moment when it changed.

Red hair was in her line of sight, blurred through new tears.

Red hair and narrow green eyes, too close to her. That was when Elena felt Stefan remember that there was anything other than Elena in the world.

His face changed. He didn't snarl or stick out his chin. The change was an entire alteration, but it centered around his eyes, which became deadly hard while everything else became sharp and fierce.

"If you touch her again, you vicious bitch, I will rip out your throat,"Stefan said, and each word was like a chip of ice-cold iron dropped onto the floor.

Elena's tears stopped with the shock of it. Stefan didn't talk that way to women. Even Damon didn't - hadn't. But the words were Still echoing in the sudden silence of the cathedral-like room. People were backing away.

Idola was backing away too, but her lip was curled. "Do you think that because we are Guardians that we cannot harm you - ?"she was beginning, when Stefan's voice cut through hers cleanly.

"I think that because you are 'Guardians'you can kill sanctimoniously and get away with it,"Stefan said, and his lip made a far more compelling - and frightening - line of scorn than Idola's had. "You would have killed Elena if Sage hadn't stopped you. Damn you,"he added softly, but with such utter conviction that Idola took another step backward. "Yes, you'd better rally all your little friends around,"he added. "I might just decide to kill you anyway. I killed my own brother, as I'm sure you realize."

"But surely - that was only after taking a mortal blow yourself."Susurre was between the two of them, trying to intercede.

Stefan shrugged. He looked at her with the same contempt as he had the other ruler. "I Still had the use of my arm,"he said deliberately. "I could have decided to drop my sword, or to merely wound him. Instead I chose to put a blade straight through his heart."He showed his teeth in a distinctly unfriendly smile. "And now I don't even need a weapon."

"Stefan,"Elena managed at last to whisper.

"I know. She's weaker than I am and you don't want to see me kill her. That's why she's Still alive, love. It's the only reason."As Elena lifted half-frightened eyes to him, Stefan added in a voice only she could hear, Of course, there are some things about me you don't know, Elena. Things I'd hoped you'd never have to see. Knowing you - loving you - made me almost forget about them.

Stefan's voice in her head woke something inside Elena.

She lifted her head and looked at the blurry mass of Guardians around them. She saw strawberry-blond curls suspended in midair. Bonnie. Bonnie fighting. Doing it weakly, but only because a pair of the fair Guardians and another pair of dark ones were holding her in the air, one to each limb. As Elena stared at her she seemed to regain energy and fought harder. And Elena could hear...

something. It was faint and far away, but it almost sounded like...her name. Like her name spoken by whispering branches or the whirring of passing bicycle wheels. lay...nah...eee...lay...

Elena reached inwardly for the sound. She tried desperately to grasp whatever came after, but nothing happened. She tried a trick she would have found easy yesterday -

channeling Power to the center of her telepathy. It didn't work. She tried her telepathy.

Bonnie! Can you hear me?

There wasn't even the slightest change in the smaller girl's expression.

Elena had lost her link to Bonnie.

She watched as Bonnie realized the same thing, watched the fight go out of the small body. Bonnie's face, upturned in blank despair, was indescribably sad, and somehow indescribably pure and beautiful, all at once.

That will never happen to us, Stefan's voice in her mind told her fiercely. Never! I give you my -

No! Elena thought back, superstitiously terrified of a jinx. If Stefan swore, something might happen - she might have to become a vampire or a spirit - to ensure that he didn't break his word.

He stopped, and Elena knew that he had heard her. And somehow this knowledge, that Stefan had heard a single word from her, Stilled her. She knew he wasn't spying. He'd heard because she'd sent the thought to him. She wasn't alone. She might be ordinary again; they might have taken her wings and most of the Power of her blood, but she wasn't alone. She leaned toward him, her forehead against Stefan's chin.

"No one is alone." She'd told Damon that. Damon Salvatore, a being who no longer existed. But who Still called forth from her one more word, one final cry. His name.

Damon!

He'd died four dimensions away. But she could feel Stefan backing her, amplifying her transmission, sending it like one last beacon through the multitude of worlds that separated them from his cold and lifeless body.

Damon!

There wasn't the slightest glimmer of an answer. Of course not. Elena was making a fool of herself.

Suddenly something stronger than grief, stronger than self-pity, even stronger than guilt, took hold of her. Damon wouldn't have wanted her to be carried out of this hall  - even by Stefan. Especially by Stefan. He would have wanted her to show no sign of weakness to these women who'd shorn her and humiliated her.

Yes. That was Stefan. Her love, but not her lover, willing to love her chastely from now until the end of her days....

The end...of her days?

Elena was suddenly glad that she couldn't project to strangers telepathically and that Stefan had set shields around them when he'd taken her into his arms. She turned to Ryannen, who was watching...warily, but Still with business in her eyes.

"I'd like to go now, if you don't mind,"she said, picking up her backpack and slinging it over her shoulder with a gesture as arrogant as she could make it. There was a bolt of agony as the weight of the strap hit the place from which most of her wings had sprung, but she kept her face contemptuous and indifferent.

Bonnie, back on the ground since she wasn't fighting any longer, followed Elena's lead. Stefan had left his backpack in the Gatehouse, but he gently cupped a hand around Elena's elbow, not guiding her, but showing that he was there for her.

Sage's wings folded back into themselves and were gone.

"You understand that for the return of these treasures which are ours by right - but which we were barred from retrieving - you will be granted your requests with the exception of the imposs - "

"I understand,"Elena said flatly, just as Stefan said, much more brusquely, "She understands. Just do it, will you?"

"It is already being organized."Ryannen's eyes, dark blue splashed with gold, met Elena's with a look not entirely unsympathetic.

"The best thing,"Sussure added hastily, "would be for us to put you to sleep and send you to your - your old, new dwellings. By the time you awaken, al will have been accomplished."

Elena forced her face not to change. "Send me to Maple Street?"she asked, looking at Ryannen. "Aunt Judith's house?"

"In your sleep, yes."

"I don't want to be asleep."Elena moved even closer to Stefan. "Don't let them put me to sleep!"

"No one's going to do anything to you that you don't want,"Stefan said, and his voice was like the edge of a razor.

Sage rumbled his support, and Bonnie stared at the fair woman hard.

Ryannen bowed her head.

Elena woke up.

It was dark, and she'd been asleep. She couldn't remember exactly how she'd fallen asleep, but she knew she wasn't on the palanquin, and she knew she wasn't in a sleeping bag.

Stefan? Bonnie? Damon? she thought automatically, but there was something odd about her telepathy. It felt almost as if it were confined to her own head.

Was she in Stefan's room? It must be pitch-black outside, since she couldn't even see the outline of the trapdoor that led to the widow's walk.

"Stefan?"she whispered, while various bits of information pooled in her mind. There was a smell , at once familiar and unfamiliar. She was lying on a comfortable double bed, not one of Lady Ulma's silken-and-velvet extravaganzas, but not any lumpy featherbed from the boardinghouse, either. Was she in a hotel?

As these various thoughts came together in her brain, there was a soft quick rapping. Knuckles on glass.

Elena's body took over. She tossed off the bedspread and ran to the window, mysteriously avoiding obstacles without thinking about them at all. Her hands wrenched aside curtains that she somehow knew were there and her skyrocketing heart brought a name to her lips.

"Da - !"

And then the world stopped and did its slowest somersault of all. The sight of a face, fierce and concerned and loving and yet strangely frustrated, just on the other side of the second-story window, brought Elena's memories back.

All of them.

Fell's Church was saved.

And Damon was dead.

Her head bent slowly until her forehead touched the cool pane of glass.

Chapter 41

Stefan didn't move or speak for long moments. Elena's heart swelled. Suddenly she was as afraid as he clearly was. She went to him and took both his hands, which were shaking.

Darling, don't cry, she sent. There must still be time to save Fell's Church. There must. It can't end this way. And besides, Shinichi is gone! We can get to the children; we can break the conditioning..." She stopped. It was as if the word "conditioning"echoed in her ears. Stefan's green eyes were filling her vision. Her mind was getting...it was getting fuzzy. Everything was becoming unreal again. In a minute she wouldn't be able to...

She wrenched her eyes away, breathing hard.

"You were Influencing me,"she said. She could hear the anger in her own voice.

"Yes,"Stefan whispered. "I've been Influencing you for half an hour."

How dare you? Elena thought, just for him.

"I'm stopping it...now,"Stefan said quietly.

"As am I,"Sage added, sounding exhausted.

And the universe did a slow spin and Elena remembered what it was that they were all keeping from her.

With a wild sob, she rose, scattering droplets, coming to her feet like an avenging goddess. She looked at Sage. She looked at Stefan.

And Stefan proved how brave he was, how much he loved her. He told her what she already knew. "Damon is gone, Elena. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry if...if I kept you from being with him as much as you wanted to. I'm sorry if I came between you. I didn't understand - how much you loved each other. I do now."And then he dropped his face into his hands.

Elena wanted to go to him. To scold him, to hold him. To tell Stefan that she loved him just as much, drop for drop, grain for grain. But her body had gone numb, and the darkness was threatening again...all she could do was hold out her arms as she crumpled onto the grass. And then somehow Bonnie and Stefan were both there, the three of them al sobbing: Elena with the intensity of new discovery; Stefan with a lost sound that Elena had never heard before; and Bonnie with a dry, wrenching exhaustion that seemed to want to shatter her small body.

Time lost all meaning. Elena wanted to grieve for every moment of Damon's painful death, and for every moment of his life, too. So much had been lost. She couldn't get her head around it, and she didn't want to do anything but cry until the kind darkness took her mind again.

That was when Sage broke.

He grabbed Elena and pulled her up, and shook her by the shoulders. It snapped her head back and forth.

"Your town is in ruins!"he shouted, as if this was her fault.

"Midnight may or may not bring disaster. Oh, yes, I saw it all in your mind when I went in to Influence you. Little Fell's Church is already devastated. And you won't even fight for it!"

Something blazed through Elena. It melted the numbness, the iciness. "Yes, I'll fight for it!" she screamed. "I'll fight for it with every breath in my body, until I stop the people who did it, or until they kill me!"

"And how, puis-je savoir, will you get back in time? By the time you walk back the way you came, it wil al be over!"

Stefan was beside her, bracing her, shoulder to shoulder.

"Then we'll force you to send us some other way - so that we can get back in time!"

Elena stared. No. No. Stefan couldn't have said that. Stefan didn't force his way - and she wouldn't have him changing himself. She whirled back on Sage. "There's no need to fight! I have a Master Key in my backpack, and magic works here inside the Gatehouse!"she cried.

But Stefan and Sage were staring each other down, each fierce and intent. Elena wanted to go to Stefan but the world was doing another of its slow somersaults. She was afraid that Sage would attack Stefan, and that she couldn't even fight for him.

But instead, suddenly, Sage threw back his head and laughed wildly. Or perhaps it was something between thunderous laughing and crying. It was as eerie as the sound of a wolf baying, and Elena felt Bonnie's small , trembling body hug her - to comfort both of them.

"What the hell !"Sage bel owed, and now there was a wild look in his eyes, too. "Mais oui, what the Hell?"He laughed again. "After all , I am the Gatekeeper, and I have already broken the rules by al owing you through two different doors."

Stefan was Still breathing hard. Now he reached out and grabbed Sage by his broad shoulders and shook him with the strength of a vampire gone mad. "What are you talking about? There's no time for talk!"

"Ah, but there is, mon ami. My friend, there is. What you need is the firepower of the heavens to save Fell's Church -

and to undo the damage that has already been done. To wipe it out, to make it as if it had never happened.

And,"Sage added deliberately, looking directly at Elena,

"perhaps - just perhaps - to undo this day's events, also."

Suddenly every inch of Elena's skin was tingling. Her whole body was listening to Sage, leaning toward him, yearning, while her eyes widened with the only other question that mattered.

Sage said, very softly, very triumphantly, "Yes. They can bestow life upon the dead. They have that Power. They can bring back mon petit tyran Damon - as they brought you back."

Stefan and Bonnie were holding Elena up. She couldn't stand on her own.

"But why would they help?"she whispered painful y. She wouldn't al ow herself even a breath of hope, not until she understood everything.

"In exchange for what was stolen from them mil ennia ago,"Sage replied. "You are in a fortress of Hell , you know.

That is what the Gatehouse is. The Guardians cannot enter here. They cannot storm the gate and demand back what is inside...the seven -  pardon, now six - kitsune treasures."

Not a breath of hope. Not a breath. But Elena heard herself give a wild laugh.

"How do we give them a park? Or a field of black roses?"

"We give them the rights to the land that the park and the field of roses lie upon."

Not a breath, even though the bodies on either side of Elena were shaking now. "And how do we offer them the Fountain of Eternal Youth and Life?"

"We do not. However, I have here various containers, waiting to be collected as garbage. The threat of a gal on bottle of La Fontaine randomly spread all over your Earth...that would devastate them. And, of course,"Sage added, "I know the kinds of gems with enchantments already upon them that they would most desire. Here, let me open the doors all at once! We take all we can - the rooms, strip them bare!"

His enthusiasm was contagious. Elena half-turned, breath held, eyes widened to catch the first glowing of a door's light.

"Wait."Stefan's voice was hard suddenly. Bonnie and Elena turned back and froze, embracing each other, trembling.

"What is your - your father - going to do to you when he finds out that you al owed this?"

"He will not kill me,"Sage said brusquely, the wild tone back in his voice. "He may even find it as amusant as I do, and we will be sharing a bel y laugh tomorrow."

"And if he doesn't find it amusing? Sage, I don't think...

Damon wouldn't have wanted - "

Sage whirled around and for the first time since she had met him, Elena could believe with her whole soul that he was the son of his father. His eyes had even seemed to change color, to the yellow of a flame, with diamond pupils like a cat's. His voice was like steel splintering, harder even than Stefan's. "What is between my father and me is my own business - mine! Stay here if you want. He never bothers himself about vampires, anyway - he says they're cursed already. But I am going to do everything I can to bring mon cheri Damon back."

"Whatever the cost to you?"

"The hel with the cost!"

To Elena's surprise, Stefan gripped Sage's shoulders for a moment and then simply hugged as much of him as he could hold.

"I just wanted to make sure,"he said quietly. "Thank you, Sage. Thank you."Then he turned and strode over to the Royal Radhika plant, and with one yank, pulled it out of its bower.

Elena, heart beating in her lips and throat and fingertips, ran to gather the empty containers and bottles Sage was tossing out of a ninth doorway that had appeared in between the mine shaft and the field of black roses. She snatched up a gal on container and an Evian water bottle, both with secure caps intact. They were made of plastic, which was good, because she dropped them both just going across the room to the bubbling fountain. Her hands were shaking that badly; and all the time she was sending up a monotonous prayer, Oh, please. Oh, please. Oh, please!

She got water into both containers at the Fountain and capped them. And then she realized that Bonnie was Still standing in the middle of the Gatehouse. She looked bewildered, frightened.

"Bonnie?"

"Sage?"Bonnie said. "How do we get these things to the Celestial Court to bargain with them?"

"Have no worries,"Sage said kindly. "I am certain that Guardians will be waiting just outside to arrest us. They will take us to the Court."

Bonnie didn't stop trembling, but she nodded and hurried to help Sage get bottles of Black Magic - and break them. "A symbol,"he said. "Un signe of what we will do to this area if the Celestials don't agree. Be careful not to cut your pretty hands."

Elena thought she heard Bonnie's husky voice then, and that it was not a happy tone. But Sage's rumbling murmur was reassuring. And Elena would neither al ow herself to hope nor despair. She had a task in hand, a scheme. She was making private Plans for the Celestial Court.

When she and Bonnie had all the plunder they could carry, and their backpacks were full as Well, when Stefan had two narrow black boxes that held deeds, and when Sage looked like a cross between Santa Claus and a bronzed, gorgeous, long-haired Hercules, as he carried two sacks made of pillowcases, they gave one last look around at the ravaged Gatehouse.

"All right,"Sage said then. "Time to face the Guardians."He smiled reassuringly at Bonnie.

As usual, Sage was right. The moment they came out with their booty, Guardians from two different dimensions were ready for them. The first type were the ones who looked vaguely like Elena: blond hair, dark blue eyes, slender. The Guardians of the Nether World seemed senior to these, and were lithe women with skin so dark it was almost ebony, and hair that curled tightly in a cap over their heads. Behind them were brilliant golden air cars.

"You are under arrest,"one of the dark ones said, not looking as if she enjoyed her job, "for removing treasures that rightful y belong to the Celestial Court out of the sanctuary where it was agreed that they would be kept, under the laws of both our dimensions."

And then it was only a matter of hanging on to the golden air cars while hanging on at the same time to their unlawful booty.

The Celestial Court was...celestial. Pearly white with a faint hint of blue. Minarets. It was a long distance from the heavily guarded gate - where Elena had seen a third type of Guardian, one with short red hair and slanted, piercing green eyes - to the actual palace, which seemed to encompass a city.

But it was when Elena's group was guided to the throne room that the real culture shock hit. It was far larger and far more glorious than any room Elena had ever imagined. No ball or gala in the Dark Dimensions could have prepared her in the least for it. The cathedral ceiling seemed to be made entirely of gold, as were the double line of stately columns that marched vertical y across the floor. The floor itself was of intricately patterned malachite and gold-threaded lapis lazuli, with gold seemingly used as grouting - and with a heavy hand at that. The three golden fountains in the middle of the room (the central one was the largest and most elaborate) threw into the air not water, but delicately perfumed flower petals that sparkled like diamonds in turning at their apex and then floated down again. Stained-glass windows in brilliant colors that Elena couldn't remember ever having seen before threw rainbow light like a benediction from high on every wall, giving warmth to the otherwise cool engraved gold.

Sage and Elena and Stefan and Bonnie were seated in small comfortable chairs just a few feet back from a great dais, draped with a fantastical y woven golden cloth. The treasures were spread out in front of them, as attendants dressed in flowing blue and gold took the objects one by one up to the current ruling triumvirate in back.

The rulers comprised one each of the groups of Guardians - fair, dark, redheaded. Their seats on the dais ensured that they were far from - and high above - their petitioners. But with Power sent to her eyes, Elena could see perfectly well that they each sat on an exquisitely jeweled golden throne. that they each sat on an exquisitely jeweled golden throne.

They were speaking softly together, admiring the Royal Radhika flower - blue delphiniums at the moment. Then the dark one smiled and sent one of her attendants running for a pot with soil for the plant to survive in.

Elena stared sightlessly at the other treasures. A gal on of water from the Fountain of Eternal Youth and Life. Six bottles of unbroken Black Magic wine, and the shards of at least that many around them. A blazing rainbow to rival the stained-glass windows in fist-sized gems, some raw, some already faceted and polished, but most of them not only faceted, but also hand-carved with mysterious gold or silver inscriptions.

Two long, black, velvet-lined boxes with yellowing cylinders of papyrus or paper inside them, one with a pure black rose lying next to it, and the other with a simple spray of light springtime-green leaves. Elena knew what the yellowed documents with their cracked waxen seals were. The deeds to the field of black roses and the kitsune paradise.

When you saw al the treasures together like this, it almost seemed too much, Elena thought. Any one object from any one of the Seven - no, now Six - kitsune Treasures was enough to trade worlds for. One sprig of the Royal Radhika, which was even now being returned, (pink larkspur changing to a white orchid) properly potted again, was immeasurably precious. So was a single velvety black rose, with its power to hold the most powerful of magics. One jewel from the hoard in the mining cavern, maybe a double-fist-sized diamond that put the Star of Africa and the Golden Jubilee to shame. One day in the kitsune paradise, where a day could seem like a perfect lifetime. One sip of that effervescent water that could make a human live as long as the oldest Old One...

Of course there should also have been the largest star ball in existence, full of eldritch Power, but Elena was hoping that the Guardians would overlook that.

Hoping? She wondered and shook her head at nothing, causing Bonnie to squeeze her hand tightly. Not hoping. She didn't dare hope. Not a breath yet.

Another attendant, red-haired, flashing them a cold green-eyed look, picked up the plastic gal on bottle that said Sector 3 Water on the label. Sage rumbled as she left, "Qu'est-ce qui lui prend? I mean, what is her problem? I like the water in the vampire sector. I don't like the pump water in the Nether World."

Elena had already figured out the color code for the Guardians. The blond ones were all business, impatient only with delays. The dark ones were the kindest - maybe there was less work for them to do in the Nether World. The green-eyed redheads were just plain bitchy. Unfortunately, the young woman on the central throne up there on the dais was a redhead.

"Bonnie?"she whispered.

Bonnie had to gulp and sniff before she could get out, "Yes?"

"Have I ever told you how much I like your eyes?"

Bonnie gave her a long brown-eyed gaze before beginning to shake with laughter. At least it started out like laughter, and then Bonnie burrowed her head into Elena's shoulder and simply shook.

Stefan squeezed Elena's hand. "She's been trying so hard - for you. She - she loved him too, you see. I didn't even know that. I guess...I guess I've just been blind on all sides."

He ran his free hand through his already-tousled hair. He looked very young, like a little boy who had been suddenly punished for doing something he hadn't been told was wrong. Elena remembered him in the backyard of the boardinghouse, dancing with her feet on his feet, and then in his attic room, kissing her hands, her knuckles bruised with hammering, the pulsing inside of her wrists. She wanted to tell him that everything was going to be All right, that the laughter would come back to his eyes, but she couldn't stand the chance of lying to him.

Suddenly Elena felt like a very, very old woman, who could hear and see only dimly, whose every movement caused her terrible pain, and who was cold inside. Her every joint and every bone was filled with ice.

At last, when all the treasures, including a sparkling, diamond-set, golden Master Key, had been taken up for the young women on the thrones to handle, heft, examine, and discuss, a warm-eyed dark-skinned woman came to Elena's group. "You may approach Their High Judgments now.

And,"she added in a voice as soft as the stroke of a dragonfly's wing, "they are very, very impressed. That doesn't often happen. Speak meekly and keep your heads low and I think you shall have your hearts' desires."

Something inside Elena gave a bound that would have sent her leaping to clutch at the retreating attendant's robe, but fortunately Stefan had her in an embrace of iron. Bonnie's head came off Elena's shoulder, and Elena had to restrain her, in turn.

They walked, the very portrait of meekness, to where four scarlet cushions blazed against the golden weave of the floor cloth. Once, Elena would have refused to abase herself.

Now, she was thankful for a soft resting place for her knees.

This close, she could see that the rulers each wore a circlet of some metal, from which a single stone hung on to her forehead.

"We have considered your petition,"the dark one said, her white-gold circlet with its diamond pendant dazzling Elena with pinpricks of lilac and red and royal blue. "Oh, yes,"she added, laughing. "We know what you want. Even a Guardian on the street would have to be very bad at her job not to know. You want your town...renewed. The burned buildings rebuilt. The victims of the malach pestilence re-created, their souls swathed again in flesh, and their memories - "

"But, first,"interrupted the fair one, waving a hand, "don't we have business at hand? This girl - Elena Gilbert - may not be eligible to be a spokesman for her group. If she becomes a Guardian, she doesn't belong with the petitioners."

The redhead tossed her head like an impatient fil y, causing the rose gold of her circlet to flash, and its ruby to shimmer.

"Oh, go on then, Ryannen. If your recruitment levels are so low - "

The businesslike fair one ignored this, but bent forward, some of her hair held back from her face by her circlet of yellow gold with its sapphire pendant. "What about it, Elena?

I know our first encounter was - unfortunate. You must believe that I am sorry for that. But you were well on your way to becoming a full Guardian when we had orders from Above to weave you into a new body so that you could take up your life as a human again."

"You did that? Of course you did." Elena's voice was soft and low and flattering. "You can do anything. But - our first encounter? I don't remember - "

"You were too young, and you saw just a flash of our air car as it passed your parents' vehicle. It was meant to be a minor accident with one apparent casualty - you. But instead..."

Bonnie's hands flew to her mouth. She was clearly getting something Elena wasn't. Her parents'"vehicle"...? The last time she'd driven with her father and mother - and little Margaret - had been the day of the crash. The day she'd distracted her father, who'd been driving...

"Look, Daddy! Look at the pretty - "

And then had come the impact.

Elena forgot about being meek and keeping her head low. In fact, she raised her head, and met gold-splattered blue eyes very much like hers. Her own gaze, she knew, was piercing and hard.

"You... killed my parents?"she whispered.

"No, no!"the dark one cried. "It was an operation gone sour.

We only had to intersect with the Earth dimension for a few minutes. But, quite unexpectedly, your talent flared. You saw our air car. Instead of a crash with only one apparent casualty: you, your father turned to look and..."Slowly her voice trailed off as Elena's turned unbelieving eyes on her.

Bonnie was staring sightlessly into the distance, almost as if she were in trance. "Shinichi,"she breathed. "That weird riddle of his - or whatever it was. That one of us had murdered, and that it was nothing to do with being a vampire or a mercy killing..."

"I'd always assumed it was me,"Stefan said quietly. "My mother never real y recovered after my birth. She died."

"But that doesn't make you a murderer!"Elena cried. "Not like me. Not like me! "

"Well, that was why I was asking you now,"the businesslike blond woman said. "It was a flawed mission, but you understand that we were only trying to recruit you, yes? It's the traditional method. Our genes have honed us to be the best at managing powerful, irrational demons, who don't respond to traditional strength but require on-the-spot recalculation - "

Elena choked back a scream. A scream of wrath - agony - disbelief - guilt -  she didn't know what. Her Plans. Her schemes. The way she had handled boisterous boys in the bad old days - it was all genetic. And...her parents...what had they died for?

Stefan stood up. His jaw was hard, his green eyes were burning brilliantly. There was no gentleness in his face. He clasped Elena's hand and she heard, If you want to fight, I'm in.

Mais, non. Elena turned around and saw Sage. His telepathic voice was unmistakable. She was compelled to listen. We cannot fight them on their own territory and win.

Even I cannot. What you can do is make them pay! Elena, my brave one, your parents' spirits have undoubtedly found new homes. It would be cruel to drag them back. But let us demand of the Guardians anything you desire. For a year and a day in the past, demand whatever you wish! I think that we all will back you.

Elena paused. She looked at the Guardians and she looked at the treasures. She looked at Bonnie and Stefan, who were waiting. There was permission in their eyes.

Then she said slowly to the Guardians, "This is really going to cost you. And I don't want to hear that any of it is impossible. For all your treasures back and the Master Key too...I want my old life. No, I want a new life, with my real old life behind me. I want to be Elena Gilbert, exactly as if I'd graduated with my high school class, and I want to go to Dalcrest College. I want to wake up in my aunt Judith's house in the morning and find that no one realizes I've been gone for almost ten months. And I want a 4.5 grade point average for my last year in high school - just in case of emergencies.

And I want Stefan to have lived in the boardinghouse peacefully all that time, and to have everyone accept him as my boyfriend. And I want every single thing that Shinichi and Misao and whoever they were working for did undone and forgotten. I want the person they were working for dead. And I want everything that Klaus did in Fell's Church undone as well. I want Sue Carson back! I want Vickie Bennett back! I want everyone back! "

Bonnie said faintly, "Even Mr. Tanner?"

Elena understood. If Mr. Tanner had not died - mysteriously drained of blood - then Alaric Saltzman would never have been called to Fell's Church. Elena remembered Alaric from the out-of-body experience: sandy hair, laughing hazel eyes.

She thought of Meredith and his almost-engagement to her.

But who was she to play God? To say, yes, this person can die because he was unlovely and unloved, but this one has to live because she was my friend.

Chapter 40

But after an endless time in the soft, kind darkness, something was forcing Elena back up into light. Real light.

Not the terrible green half-light of the Tree. Even through shut eyelids she could see it, feel its heat. A yellow sun. Where was she? She couldn't remember.

And she didn't care. Something was saying inside her that the gentle darkness was better. But then she remembered a name.

Stefan.

Stefan was...?

Stefan was the one who...the one she loved. But he'd never understood that love was not singular. He'd never understood that she could be in love with Damon and that it would never change an atom's worth of her love for him. Or that his lack of understanding had been so wrenching and painful that she had felt torn into two different people at times.

But now, even before she opened her eyes, she realized that she was drinking. She was drinking the blood of a vampire, and that vampire wasn't Stefan. There was something unique in this blood. It was deeper and spicier and more heavy, all at once.

She couldn't help opening her eyes. For some reason she didn't understand, they flew open and she tried immediately to focus on the scent and feeling and color of whoever was bending over her, holding her.

She couldn't understand, either, her sense of letdown when she slowly realized that it was Sage leaning over her, holding her gently but securely to his neck, with his bronze chest bare and warm from the sunlight.

But she was lying down flat, on grass, from what her hands could feel...and for some reason her head was cold. Very cold.

Cold and wet.

She stopped drinking and tried to sit up. The light grip became firmer. She heard Sage's voice say, and felt the rumbling in his chest as he said it, "Ma pauvre petite, you must drink more in a moment or so. And your hair has Still some of the ashes in it."

Ashes? Ashes? Didn't you put ashes on your head for...now what had she been thinking about? It was as if there was a block in her mind, keeping her from getting close to...

something. But she wasn't going to be told what to do.

Elena sat up.

She was in - yes, she was very sure - the kitsune paradise, and until a moment ago her body had been arched back, so that her hair had been in the clear little stream that she had seen earlier. Stefan and Bonnie had been washing something pitch-black out of her hair. They both were smudged with black as well: Stefan had a big swath across one cheekbone, and Bonnie had faint gray streaks below her eyes.

Crying. Bonnie had been crying. She was Still crying, in little sobs that she was trying to suppress. And now that Elena looked harder she could see that Stefan's eyelids were swollen and that he had been crying too.

Elena's lips were numb. She fell back onto the grass, looking up at Sage, who was wiping his eyes furtively. Her throat ached, not just inside, where sobbing and gasping might make it hurt, but outside, too. She had a picture of herself slashing at her own neck with a knife.

Through her numb lips, she whispered, "Am I a vampire?"

"Pas encore,"Sage said unsteadily. "Not yet. But Stefan and I, we both had to give you massive amounts of blood. You must be very careful in the next days. You are right on the brink."

That explained how she felt. Probably Damon was hoping that she would become one, wicked boy. Instinctively, she held out her hand to Stefan. Maybe she could help him.

"We just won't do anything for a little while,"she said. "You don't have to be sad."But she herself Still felt very wrong. She hadn't felt this wrong since she'd seen Stefan in prison and had thought that he would die at any moment.

No...it was worse...because with Stefan there had been hope and Elena had the feeling that now hope was gone.

Everything was gone. She was hollow: a girl who looked solid, but whose insides were missing.

"I'm dying,"she whispered. "I know it...Are you all going to say good-bye now?"

And with that Sage - Sage! - choked up and began to sob.

Stefan, Still looking so oddly mussed, with those traces of soot on his face and arms and his hair and clothes soaking wet, said, "Elena, you're not going to die. Not unless you choose to."

She had never seen Stefan look like this before. Not even in prison. His flame, his inner fire that he showed to almost no one but Elena, had gone out.

"Sage saved us,"he said, slowly careful y, as if it cost him great effort to speak. "The ash that was falling - you and Bonnie would have died if you'd had to breathe any more of it. But Sage put a door back to the Gatehouse right in front of us. I could barely see it; my eyes were so full of ashfall , and it's only getting worse on that moon."

"Ashfall ,"Elena whispered. There was something at the bottom of her mind, but once again her memory failed her. It was almost as if she'd been Influenced to not remember. But that was ridiculous.

"Why were ashes falling?"she asked, realizing that her voice was husky, hoarse - as if she'd cheered too long at a football game.

"You used Wings of Destruction,"Stefan said steadily, looking at her with his swollen eyes. "You saved our lives. But you killed the Tree - and the star ball disintegrated."

Wings of Destruction. She must have lost her temper. And she'd killed a world. She was a murderer.

And now the star ball was lost. Fell's Church. Oh, God. What would Damon say to her? Elena had done everything - everything wrong. Bonnie was sobbing now, her face turned away.

"I'm sorry,"Elena said, knowing how inadequate this was. For the first time she looked around miserably. "Damon?"she whispered. "He won't speak to me? Because of what I did?"

Sage and Stefan looked at each other.

Ice went down Elena's spine.

She started to get up, but her legs weren't the legs she remembered. They wanted to unlock at the knees. She was staring down at herself, at her own wet and smudged clothes - and then something like mud came down her forehead.

Mud or congealing blood.

Bonnie made a sound. She was Still sobbing, but she was speaking, too, in a new husky voice that made her sound much older. "Elena - we didn't get the ashes out of the top of your hair. Sage had to give you an emergency transfusion."

"I'll get the ashes out,"Elena said flatly. She let her knees bend. She fell onto them, jarring her body. Then, twisting, she leaned down to the little brook and let her head fall forward.

Through the icy shock she could dimly hear exclamations from the people above water, and Stefan's sharp, Elena, are you All right? in her head.

No, she thought back. But I'm not drowning, either. I'm washing out my hair. Maybe Damon will at least see me if I'm presentable. Maybe he'll come with us and fight for Fell's Church.

Let me help you up, Stefan sent quietly.

Elena had come to the end of her air. She pulled her heavy head out of the water and flipped it, soaking but clean, so that it fell down her back. She stared at Stefan.

"Why?"she said - and then, with a sudden panic - "Has he left already? Was he angry...with me?"

"Stefan."It was Sage, speaking tiredly. Stefan, who was staring out of his green eyes like a hunted animal, made some faint sound.

"The Influence, it is not working,"Sage said. "She will remember on her own."

Chapter 39

Elena clutched the child to her. Damon had understood, even in his dazed and confused state. Everyone was connected.

No one was alone.

"And he asked something else. He asked if you would hold me, just like this - if I got sleepy."Velvety dark eyes searched Elena's face. "Would you do that?"

Elena tried to keep steady. "I'll hold you,"she promised.

"And you won't let go ever?"

"And I won't let go ever,"Elena told him, because he was a child, and there was no point in frightening him if he had no fear. And because maybe this part of Damon - this small , innocent part - would have some kind of "forever."She had heard that vampires didn't come back, didn't reincarnate the way humans did. The vampires in the top Dark Dimension were Still "alive" - adventurers or fortune-seekers, or condemned there as a prison by the Celestial Court.

"I'll hold you,"Elena promised again. "Forever and ever."

Just then his small body went into another spasm, and she saw tears on his dark eyelashes, and blood on his lip. But before she could say a word, he added, "I have more messages. I know them by heart. But" - his eyes begged her forgiveness - "I have to give them to the others."

What others? Elena thought at first, bewildered. Then she remembered. Stefan and Bonnie. There were other loved ones.

"I can...tell them for you,"she said hesitantly, and he gave a tiny smile, his first, just the corner of one lip up.

"He left me a little telepathy, too,"he said. "I kept it in case I had to call to you."

Still fiercely independent, Elena thought. Al she said was,

"You go ahead, then."

"The first one is for my brother, Stefan."

"You can tell him in just a moment,"Elena said. She held on to the small boy in Damon's soul, knowing that this was the last thing she had left to give him. She could sacrifice a few priceless seconds, so that Stefan and Bonnie could say their own good-byes. She made some sort of enormous adjustment to her real body - her body outside Damon's mind, and found herself opening her eyes, blinking and trying to focus.

She saw Stefan's face, white and stricken. "Is he - ?"

"No. But soon. He can hear telepathy, if you think clearly, as if you were speaking. He asked to talk to you."

"To me?"Stefan bent down slowly and put his cheek against his brother's. Elena shut her eyes again, guiding him down through the darkness to where one small light was Still shining. She felt Stefan's wonder as he saw her there, Still holding the little dark-haired boy in her arms.

Elena hadn't realized that through her link to the child, she would be able to hear every word spoken. Or that Damon's messages would come in the words of a child.

The little boy said, "I guess you think I'm pretty stupid."

Stefan started. He'd never seen or heard the child-Damon before. "I could never think that,"he said slowly, marveling.

"But it wasn't much like... him, you know. Like... me."

"I think,"Stefan said unsteadily, "that it's terribly sad - that I never real y knew either of you very well ."

"Please don't be sad. That's what he told me to say. That you shouldn't be sad...or afraid. He said it's a little bit like going to sleep, and a little bit like flying."

"I'll ...remember that. And - thank you - big brother."

"I think that's all . You know to watch over our girls...."There was another of the terrible spasms that left the child breathless. Stefan spoke quickly.

"Of course. I'll take care of everything. You fly."

Elena could feel the grief slash at Stefan's heart, but his voice was calm. "Fly away now, my brother. Fly away."

Elena felt something through the link - Bonnie touching Stefan's shoulder. He quickly got up so that she could lie down. Bonnie was almost hysterical with sobbing, but she had done a good thing, Elena saw. While Elena had been in her own little world with Damon, Bonnie had taken a dagger and cut off a long lock of Elena's hair. Then she had cut one of her own strawberry curls, and placed the locks - one wavy and golden, one curling and red-blond - on Damon's chest. It was all they could do on this flowerless world to honor him, to be with him forever.

Elena could hear Bonnie, too, through her link with Damon, but at first al Bonnie could do was sob, "Damon, please! Oh, please! I didn't know - I never thought - that anyone would get hurt! You saved my life! And now - oh, please! I can't say good-bye!"

She didn't understand, Elena thought, that she was talking to a very young child. But Damon had sent the child a message to repeat.

"I'm supposed to tell you good-bye, though."For the first time the child looked uneasy. "And - and I'm supposed to tell you

'I'm sorry,'too. He thought you'd know what that meant and you'd forgive me. But...if you don't...I don't know what will happen - oh!"

Another of the hateful spasms went through the child. Elena held on to him hard, biting her own lip until the blood came; at the same time trying to shield the little boy completely from her own feelings. And deep in Damon's mind, she saw Bonnie's expression change, from tearful penance to astonished fear to careful control. As if Bonnie had grown up al in an instant.

"Of course - of course I understand! And I forgive you - but you haven't done anything wrong. I'm such a silly girl - I..."

"We don't think you're a silly girl,"the child said, looking vastly relieved. "But thank you for forgiving me. There's a special name I'm supposed to call you, too - but I..."He sank back against Elena. "I guess - I'm...getting sleepy..."

"Was it 'redbird'?"Bonnie asked careful y, and the little boy's pale face lit up.

"That was it. You knew already. You're all ...so nice and so smart. Thank you...for making it easy...But can I say one more thing?"

Elena was about to answer, when abruptly she was jarred completely out of Damon's mind and back into reality. The Tree had slammed down another spider's leg set of branches, trapping them and Damon's body between two circles of wooden bars.

Elena had no plans. No idea how to get to the star ball that Damon had died for. Either the Tree was intelligent, or it was wired to have such efficient defenses that it might as well have been. They were lying on the evidence that many, many people had tried for that star ball  - and left behind their bones ground to sand.

Come to that, she thought, I wonder why it hasn't gone for us, too - especially for Bonnie. She's been in, and then out, and back in again, which I should never have let her do except that we were all thinking about Damon. Why didn't it go for her again?

Stefan was trying to be strong, trying to organize something out of this disaster that was so stunning that Elena herself simply sat. Bonnie was sobbing again, making heart-wrenching sounds.

Between both circular sets of bars a wooden network was spreading - too close-knit for even Bonnie to squeeze through. Elena's group was efficiently separated from anything outside the sand pit, and just as efficiently separated from the star ball .

"The axe!"Stefan called to her. "Throw me - "

But there was no time. A rootlet had curled around it and was swiftly dragging it into the upper branches.

"Stefan, I'm sorry! I was too slow!"

"It was too fast!"Stefan corrected.

Elena held her breath, waiting for the last crash from above, the one that would kill them all . When it didn't come, she realized something. The Tree was not only intelligent, but sadistic. They were to be trapped here, away from their supplies, to die slowly of thirst and starvation, or to go mad watching the others die.

The best that they could hope for was that Stefan would kill both Bonnie and her - but even he would never get out.

These wooden branches would come crashing down again and again, as often as the Tree felt necessary, until Stefan's crushed bones joined the others that had been milled to fine sand.

That was what did it, the thought of all of them, trapped with Damon, making a mockery of his death. The thing that had been swelling inside Elena for weeks now, at hearing the stories about children who ate their pets, at creatures who delighted in pain, had, with Damon's sacrifice, finally gotten so big that she could no longer contain it.

"Stefan, Bonnie - don't touch the branches,"she gasped.

"Make sure you're not touching any part of the branches."

"I'm not, love, and Bonnie isn't either. But why?"

"I can't keep it in anymore! I have to stand like this - "

"Elena, no! That spell  - "

Elena could no longer think. The hateful demi-light was driving her mad, reminding her of the pinpoint of green in Damon's pupils, the horrible green light of the Tree.

She understood exactly about the Tree's sadism to her friends...and in the corner of her eye she could see a bit of black...like a rag doll . Except that it was no doll ; it was Damon. Damon with al of his wild and witty spirit broken.

Damon...who must be gone from this and all worlds by now.

His face was covered with her blood. There was nothing peaceful or dignified about him. There was nothing the Tree had not taken from him.

Elena lost her mind.

With a scream that peeled raw and bleeding from her backbone and came hoarsely out of her throat, Elena grabbed a branch of the Tree that had killed Damon, that had murdered her beloved, and that would murder her and these two others she loved as well.

She had no thoughts. She wasn't capable of thinking. But instinctively she held a high bough of the Tree's cage and let the fury explode out of her, the fury of murdered love.

Wings of Destruction.

She felt the Wings arch behind her, like ebony lace and black pearls, and for a moment she felt like a deadly goddess, knowing that this planet would never harbor any life ever again.

When the attack flared out, it turned the twilight al around her to matte black. What a fitting color. Damon will like this, she thought in confusion, and then she remembered again, and it slammed blistering out of her again, the Power to destroy the Tree all over this small world. It shattered her from the inside but she let it keep coming. No physical pain could compare with what was in her heart, with the pain of losing what she had lost. No physical pain could express how she felt.

The huge roots in the ground underneath them were bucking as if there was an earthquake, and then -

There was a deafening sound as the trunk of the Great Tree exploded straight upward like a rocket, disintegrating to fine ash as it went. The spider's-leg bars around them simply disappeared along with the canopy above. Something in Elena's mind noted that very far away the same destruction was going on, racing to turn branches and leaves into infinitesimal bits of matter that hung in the air like haze.

"The star ball !"Bonnie cried in the eerie silence, anguished.

"Vaporized!" Stefan caught Elena as she sank to her knees, her ethereal black wings fading. "But we'd never have gotten it anyway. That Tree had been protecting it for thousands of years! Al we'd have gotten would have been a slow death."

Elena had turned back to Damon. She had not been touching the stake that ran through him - in seconds it would be the only remnant of the Tree on this world. She could hardly dare hope that there was a spark of life left in him now, but the child had wanted to speak with her and she would make that possible or die trying. She scarcely felt Stefan's arms around her.

Once again, she plunged into the very depths of Damon's mind. This time she knew exactly where to go.

And there, by a miracle, he was, although obviously in hideous pain. Tears were rolling down his cheeks and he was trying not to sob. His lips were bitten raw. Her Wings had not been able to destroy the wood inside him - it had already done its poisonous damage - and there was no way to reverse that.

"Oh, no, oh God!"Elena caught the child in her arms. A teardrop fell on her hand. She rocked him, scarcely knowing what she was saying. "What can I do to help?"

"You're here again,"he said, and in his voice, she heard the answer. This was all that he wanted. He was a very simple child.

"I'll be here - always. Always. I'm never letting go."

This didn't have the effect that she wanted. The boy gasped, trying to smile, but was torn with a horrible spasm that almost arched his body out of her arms.

And Elena realized that she was turning the inevitable into slow, excruciating torture.

"I'll hold you,"she modified her words for him, "until you want me to let go. All right?"

He nodded. His very voice was breathless with pain. "Could you - could you let me shut my eyes? Just...just for a moment?"

Elena knew, as perhaps this child did not, what would happen if she stopped badgering him and let him sleep. But she couldn't stand to see him suffering any longer, and nothing was real again, and there was no one else in the world for her, and she didn't even care if doing it this way meant she would follow him into death.

Carefully steadying her voice, she said, "Maybe...we can both shut our eyes. Not for a long time - no! But...just for a moment."

She kept rocking the small body in her arms. She could Still feel a faint pulse of life...not a heartbeat, but Still, a pulsing.

She knew that he hadn't shut his eyes yet; that he was Still fighting the torture.

For her. Not for anything else. For her sake only.

Putting her lips close to his ear, she whispered, "Let's close our eyes together, All right? Let's close them...at the count of three. Is that All right?"

There was such relief in his voice and such love. "Yes. Together. I'm ready. You can count now."

"One."Nothing mattered except holding him and keeping herself steady. "Two. And..."

"Elena?"

She was startled. Had the child ever said her name before?

"Yes, sweetheart?"

"Elena...I...love you. Not just because of him. I love you too."

Elena had to hide her face in his hair. "I love you, too, little one. You've always known that, haven't you?"

"Yes - always."

"Yes. You've always known that. And now...we'll close our eyes - for a moment. Three. "

She waited until the last faint movement stopped, and his head fell back, and his eyes were shut and the shadow of suffering was gone. He looked, not peaceful, but simply gentle - and kind, and Elena could see in his face what an adult with Damon's features and that expression would look like.

But now even the small body was evaporating right out of Elena's arms. Oh, she was stupid. She'd forgotten to close her eyes with him. She was so dizzy, even though Stefan had stopped the bleeding from her neck. Closing her eyes...

maybe she would look as he had. Elena was so glad that he'd gone gently at the end.

Maybe the darkness would be kind to her, too.

Everything was quiet now. Time to put away her toys and draw the curtains. Time now to get in bed. One last embrace...and now her arms were empty.

Nothing left to do, nothing left to fight. She'd done her best.

And, at least, the child had not been frightened.

Time to turn off the light now. Time to shut her own eyes.

The darkness was very kind to her, and she went into it gently.

Chapter 38

Damon had stopped and was kneeling behind an enormous broken tree branch. Stefan pulled both girls to him and caught them so that they all three landed just behind his brother.

Elena found herself staring at a very large tree trunk. Still as big as it was, it was nowhere near as large as she had been expecting. It was true; the four of them certainly couldn't have held hands around it. But in the back of her mind had been lurking images of moons and trees and trunks that were as tall as skyscrapers, in which a star ball could be hidden on any "floor,"in any "room."

This was simply a grand oak tree trunk sitting in a sort of fairy circle - perhaps twenty feet in diameter on which no dead leaf had strayed. It was a paler color than the loam they had been running on, and even sparkled in a few places. Overall , Elena was relieved.

More, she could even see the star ball . She'd feared -

among other things - that it might be up too high to climb, that it might be so entangled with roots or branches that today, certainly after hundreds or even thousands of years, it would be impossible to chop out. But there it was, the greatest star ball that had ever been, fully the size of a beach ball , and it nestled freely in the first crutch of the tree.

Her mind was racing ahead. They'd done it; they'd found the star ball . But how much time would it take to get it back to where Sage was? Automatically, she glanced at her compass and saw to her surprise that the needle now pointed southwest - in other words, back to the Gatehouse.

That was a thoughtful touch of Sage's. And perhaps they didn't have to go through the trials backward; they could simply use their Master Key to go back to Fell's Church, and then...Well, Mrs. Flowers would know what to do with it.

If it came to that, maybe they could just blackmail Her, whoever She was, to go away forever in exchange for the star ball . Although - could they live with the thought that she might do this again - and again - and again to other towns?

Even as she planned, Elena watched the expressions of her comrades: the childlike wonder on Bonnie's heart-shaped face; the keen assessment in Stefan's eyes; Damon's dangerous smile.

They were viewing their hard-won reward, at last.

But she couldn't look for too long. Things had to be done.

Even as they watched, the star ball brightened, showing such brilliant, incandescent colors that Elena was half-blinded.

She shielded her eyes just as she heard Bonnie inhaling sharply.

"What?"Stefan asked, a hand in front of his eyes, which, of course were much more sensitive to light than human eyes.

"Someone's using it right now!"Bonnie replied. "When it went bright like that, it sent out Power! A long, long way out!"

"Things are heating up in what's left of poor old Fell's Church,"said Damon, who was staring intently upward at the branches above him.

"Don't talk about it like that!"Bonnie exclaimed. "It's our home. And now we can final y defend it!"Elena could practical y see what Bonnie was thinking: families embracing; neighbors smiling at neighbors again; the entire town working to fix the destruction.

This is how great tragedies sometimes happen. People with a single goal, yet who are not in sync. Assumptions.

Presumptions. And, maybe, most important of all , the failure to sit down and talk.

Stefan tried, even though Elena could see that he was Still blind from the brilliance of the star ball . He said quietly, "Let's talk this over for a while and brainstorm ways to get it - "

But Bonnie was laughing at him, though not unkindly. She said, "I can get up there as fast as a squirrel. Al I need is someone strong to catch it when I knock it down. I know I can't climb down with it; I'm not that silly. Come on, you guys, let's go!"

That's how it happened. Different personalities, different modes of thinking. And one laughing, light-headed girl, who didn't have a precognition when it was needed.

Elena, who was envying Meredith the fighting stave, didn't even see the beginning. She was watching Stefan, who was blinking rapidly to get his eyesight back.

And Bonnie was scrambling as lightly as she had boasted, up on top of the dead tree branch that sheltered them. She even gave them a little laughing salute just before she leaped into the barren, sparkling circle around the tree.

Then microseconds stretched infinitely. Elena felt her eyes slowly getting wider, even though she knew they were flying open. She saw Stefan leisurely reach across her to try to twine his fingers around Bonnie's leg, even though she knew that what she was seeing was a lightning-fast grab for the petite girl's ankle. She even heard Damon's instantaneous telepathy: No, little fool! as if he were speaking the words in his accustomed lazy tones of superiority.

Then, Still in slow motion, Bonnie's knees bent and she launched into the air above the circle.

But she never touched the ground. Somehow, a black streak, stunningly fast even in the slow-motion horror film that Elena was watching, landed where Bonnie would have landed. And then Bonnie was being thrown, being hurled too fast for Elena's eyes to track, outside of the barren circle and then there was a dull thud - too fast for Elena's mind to track as being Bonnie's landing.

Quite clearly, she heard Stefan cry "Damon!"in a terrible voice. And then Elena saw the thin dark objects - like curving lances - that were already shooting downward. Another thing her eyes couldn't follow. When her vision adjusted, she saw that they were long, curved black branches, spaced evenly around the tree like thirty spider legs, thirty long spears that were meant to either imprison someone inside them like the bars of a cell , or to - pin them into the strange sand beneath her feet.

"Pin"was a good word. Elena liked the sound of it. Even as she was staring at the sharp recurved barbs on the branches, meant to keep anything caught by them held permanently in the ground, she was thinking of Damon's annoyance if a shaft had pierced his leather jacket. He would curse at them, and Bonnie would try to pretend he hadn't - and...

She was close enough by now to see that it wasn't as simple as that. The branch, which was proper javelin size, had gone through Damon's shoulder, which must hurt like hell , in addition to having splattered a blood drop right at the corner of his mouth. But far more annoying than that was the fact that he had closed his eyes against her. That was how Elena thought of it. He was shutting them out deliberately - maybe because he was angry; maybe because of the pain in his shoulder. But it reminded her of the steel wall feeling she'd gotten the last time she'd tried to touch his mind - and, damn, couldn't he tell he was scaring them?

"Open your eyes, Damon,"she said, flushing, because that was what he wanted her to say. He real y was the greatest manipulator of all . "Open your eyes, I said!"Now she was real y irritated. "Don't play possum, because you're not fooling anyone, and we've real y had enough!"She was about to shake him hard when something lifted her into the air, into Stefan's line of vision.

Stefan was in pain, but surely not as badly as Damon, so she was looking back to curse Damon when Stefan said harshly,

"Elena, he can't!"

For just the tiniest fleeting instant the words sounded like nonsense to her. Not only garbled, but meaningless, like saying someone couldn't stop their appendix from doing -

whatever it was an appendix did. That was all the respite that she got, and then she had to deal with what her eyes were showing her.

Damon wasn't pinned by his shoulder. He'd been staked, just slightly to the left of center of his torso.

Exactly where his heart was.

Words drifted back to her. Words that someone had once said - although she couldn't remember who right now. "You can't kill a vampire so easily. We only die if you stake us through the heart...."

Die? Damon die? This was some kind of mistake...

"Open your eyes!""Elena, he can't!"

But she knew, without knowing how, that Damon wasn't dead. She wasn't surprised that Stefan didn't know it; it was a hum on a private frequency between her and Damon.

"Come on, hurry, give me your axe,"she said, so desperately, and with such an air of knowledge that Stefan handed it over wordlessly, and obeyed when she told him to steady the curving spider-leg branch from above and below. Then with a few quick strokes of the axe she cut through the black branch that was thick enough in circumference that she couldn't have clasped her fingers around it. It was done in a spurt of pure adrenaline, but she knew it awed Stefan and al owed him to let her continue doing it.

When she was finished, she had a loose spider-leg branch that drooped back to the tree, anchored to nothing - and something that looked more like a proper stake in Damon.

It wasn't until she began pulling upward on the stake that a horrified Stefan made her stop.

"Elena! Elena, I wouldn't lie to you! This is just what these branches are for. For intruders who are vampires. Look, love -  see."He was showing her another of the spider legs that was anchored in the sand, and the barbs on it. Just like the backward-facing tines of a primitive stone arrowhead.

"These branches are meant to be like this,"Stefan was saying. "And if you pulled up on it hard enough, you'd just -

just end up pulling out chunks of - his heart."

Elena froze. She wasn't sure she really could understand the words - she couldn't allow herself to, or she might picture it.

But it didn't matter.

"I'll destroy it some other way," she said shortly, looking at Stefan but not able to see the true green of his eyes because of the olive light. "You wait. Just wait and watch. I'll find a Wings power that will dissolve this - this -  damned abomination." She could think of many other words to call the stake, but she had to stay in some sort of control.

"Elena."Stefan whispered her name as if he could barely get it out. Even in the twilight she could see the tears on his cheeks. He continued, nonverbal y, Elena, look at his closed eyes. This Tree is a vicious killer, with wood like nothing I've ever seen, but I've heard about it. It's...it's spreading. Inside him.

"Inside him?"Elena repeated stupidly.

Along his arteries and veins - and his nerves - everything connected to his heart. He's - oh, God, Elena, just look at his eyes!

Elena looked. Stefan had knelt and gently pulled up the lids of Damon's eyes and Elena began screaming.

Deep in the fathomless pupils that had held endless night skies full of stars, there was a glimmer - not of starlight, but of green. It seemed to glow with its own hellish luminescence.

Stefan looked at her with agony and compassion. And now, with one gentle pass, Stefan was closing those eyes - forever, she knew he was thinking.

Everything had become strange and dreamlike. Nothing made sense anymore. Stefan was careful y laying Damon's head down - he was letting Damon go.

Even in her fuzzy world of nonsense Elena knew she could never do that.

And then, a miracle happened. Elena heard a voice in her mind that wasn't hers.

All this is rather unexpected. I acted, for once, without thinking. And this is my reward. The voice was a hum on their private frequency, Damon's and hers.

Elena ripped herself away from Stefan, who was trying to restrain her, and fell , grasping Damon's shoulders with her hands. I knew it! I knew you couldn't be dead!

It was only then that she realized that her face was dripping wet, and she used her soft leather sleeve to wipe it. Oh, Damon, you gave me such a scare! Don't you ever, ever do that again!

I think I can give my word on that, Damon sent - in different tones than his usual ones - sober but at the same time whimsical. But you have to give me something in return.

Yes, of course, Elena said. Just let me get some of my hair off my neck. It worked best like this when Stefan was lying down - when we were carrying him out on his pallet from the prison -

Not that, Damon told her. For once, angel, I don't want your blood. I need you to give me your most solemn word that you will try to be brave. If it helps at all, I know that females are better than males at this sort of thing. They're less cowardly at facing - what you have to face now.

Elena didn't like the tone of these words. The dizziness that was making her lips numb was traveling al over her body.

There was nothing to be brave about. Damon could stand pain. She would find a Wings power that would obliterate al that wood that was poisoning him. It might hurt, but it would save his life.

Don't talk to me like that! she snapped harshly, before she could remember to be gentle. Everything had begun to float, and she couldn't even remember why she had to be gentle, but there was a reason. Still, it was difficult, when she was using every ounce of her concentration and strength to search for a Wings power she had never heard of.

Purification? Would that take away the wood or would it just leave Damon without his wicked smile? There was no harm in trying it, anyway, and she was getting desperate -

because Damon's face was so pale.

But even the stance for Wings of Purification eluded her.

Suddenly, a huge shudder - a convulsion - went through Damon's entire body. Elena heard broken words behind her.

"Love, love - you real y have to let him go. He's living in - in intolerable pain, just because you're keeping him here,"the voice said, and it was Stefan's. Stefan, who would never lie to her.

For just an instant Elena wavered, but then a blazing rage came rushing up through her body. It gave her the strength to cry hoarsely, "I... won't! I won't ever let him go! Damn you, Damon, you have to fight! Let me help you! My blood - it's special. It'll give you strength. You drink it!"

She fumbled for her knife. Her blood was magical. Maybe if she gave enough, it would give Damon the strength to fight off the wooden fibers that were Still spreading through his body.

Elena slashed at her throat. Maybe subconsciously she avoided doing more than nicking her carotid artery, but if so it was entirely subconsciously. She simply reached down, found a metal knife, and with one sweep set the blood to gushing out. Bright red arterial blood, that even in the semi-darkness was the color of hope.

"Here, Damon. Here! Drink this. As much as you want - all you need to heal yourself."She got into the best position that she could, hearing but not hearing Stefan's horrified gasp behind her at the recklessness of her slashing, not heeding his grip on her.

But - Damon didn't drink. Not even the heady blood of his Princess of Darkness - and how did the phrase go? It was like rocket fuel compared to the gasoline found in other girls' veins. Now it just ran out of the sides of his mouth. It flowed onto his pale face, soaking his black shirt and pooling in his leather jacket.

No...

Damon, Elena sent, please. I'm - begging you. Please. I'm begging you for me, for Elena. Please drink. We can do this - together.

Damon didn't move. Blood spilled into the mouth she'd opened and it filled and spilled out again. It was as if Damon were taunting her, saying, "You wanted me to give up human blood? Well, I have - forever."

Oh, dear God, please...

Elena was dizzier than ever now. Outside events passed dimly around her, like an ocean that only slightly bobbed a person out deep in the swell s. She was entirely focused on Damon.

But one thing she did feel. Her bravery - Damon had been wrong about that. Huge sobs were rising from somewhere deep inside her. She had made Stefan let go of her and now she couldn't hold herself up any longer.

She fell right on top of her blood and Damon's body. Her cheek fell against his cheek.

And his cheek was cold. Even under the blood, it was cold.

Elena never knew when the hysterics began. She simply found herself shrieking and sobbing, beating on Damon's shoulders, cursing him. She had never properly cursed him before, not directly to his face. As for the shrieking, that wasn't just a sound. She was once again screaming at him to find some way to fight.

And final y, she began the promises. Promises that deep in her heart, she now knew were lies. She was going to find a way to fix him in a moment. She already felt a new Wings power coming to save him.

Anything so as to not face the truth.

"Damon? Please?"It was an interlude in the shrieking, when she was talking softly in her new husky, hoarse voice.

"Damon, just do one thing for me. Just squeeze my hand. I know you can do that. Just squeeze one of my hands."

But there was no pressure on either of her hands. Only blood that was turning sticky.

And then the miracle happened and she once again heard Damon's voice - very faintly - in her head.

Elena? Don't...cry, darling. It's not...as bad as Stefan said. I don't feel much of anything, except on my face. I...feel your tears. No more weeping...please, angel.

Because of the miracle, Elena steadied herself. He'd called Stefan "Stefan"and not "little brother."But she had other things to think about right now. He could Still feel things on his face! This was important information, valuable information.

Elena immediately cupped his cheeks with her hands and kissed him on the lips.

I just kissed you. I'm kissing you again. Can you feel that?

Forever, Elena, Damon said. I'll...take that with me. It's part of me now...do you see?

Elena didn't want to see. She kissed his lips - icy cold - again. And again.

She wanted to give him something else. Something good to think about. Damon, do you remember when we first met?

At school, after the lights went out, when I was measuring for the Haunted House decorations. I almost let you kiss me then - before I even knew your name - when you just came drifting out of the darkness.

Damon surprised her by answering immediately. Yes...and you...you astonished me by being the first girl I couldn't Influence right away. We had...fun together - didn't we?

Some good times? We went to a party...and we danced together. I'll take that with me too.

Through her daze, Elena had one thought. Don't confuse him anymore. They'd gone to that "party"only to save Stefan's life.

She told him, We had fun. You're a good dancer. Imagine us waltzing!

Damon sent slowly, fuzzily, I'm sorry...I've been so horrible lately. Tell...her that. Bonnie. Tell her...

Elena steadied herself. I'll tell her. I'm kissing you again.

Can you feel me kissing you?

It was a rhetorical question, so she got a shock, when Damon only answered slowly and sleepily. Did I...take a vow to tell you the truth?

Yes, Elena lied instantly. She needed the truth from him.

Then...no, to be honest...I can't. I don't seem to have...a body now. It's comfortable and warm, and nothing hurts anymore. And - I almost feel as if I'm not alone. Don't laugh.

You're not alone! Oh, Damon, don't you know that? I'll never, ever let you be alone. Elena choked, wondering how to make him believe her. Just for a few more seconds...now.

Here, she sent in a telepathic whisper, I'll give you my precious secret. I'll never tell anyone else. Do you remember the motel we stayed in on our road trip, and how everyone - even you - wondered what happened that night?

A...motel? A road trip? He was sounding very unsure now.

Oh...yes. I remember. And...the next morning - wondering.

Because Shinichi took your memories, Elena said, hoping that hateful name would revivify Damon. But it didn't. Like Shinichi, Damon was done with the world now.

Elena leaned her cheek against his cold and bloody one. I held you, darling, just like this - well, almost like this. All night. That was all you wanted, to not feel alone.

There was a long pause and Elena began to panic in the few parts of her that were not numb or already hysterical. But then the words came slowly to her.

Thank you...Elena. Thank you...for telling me your precious secret.

Yes, and I'll tell you something even more precious. No one is alone. Not really. No one is ever alone.

You're with me...so warm...nothing to worry about anymore...

Nothing more, Elena promised him. And I'll always be with you. No one is alone; I promise it.

Elena...things are beginning to feel strange now. Not pain.

But I have to tell you...what I know you already know.... How I fell in love with you...you'll remember, won't you? You won't forget me?

Forget you? How could I ever forget you?

But Damon was speaking on and suddenly Elena knew that he couldn't hear her, not even by telepathy anymore.

Will you remember? For me? Just that...I loved once - just once, really, in my whole life. Can you remember that I loved you? That makes my life...worth...something... His voice faded.

Elena was so dizzy now. She knew she was Still losing blood fast. Too fast. Her mind was not sharp. And she was suddenly shaken by a fresh storm of sobbing. At least she would never yell again - there was no one to yell at. Damon had gone away. He had run away without her.

She wanted to follow. Nothing was real. Didn't he understand? She could not imagine a universe, no matter how many dimensions there were, without a Damon in it.

There was no world for her, if there was no Damon.

He couldn't do this to her.

Neither knowing nor caring what she was doing, she plunged deep, deep into Damon's mind, wielding her telepathy like a sword, slashing at the wooden connections that she found everywhere. And, at last, she found herself plunging into the very deepest part of him...where a little boy, the metaphor for Damon's unconscious, had once been loaded with chains and set to guard the great stone that Damon kept his feelings locked in.

Oh, God, he must be so frightened, she thought. Whatever the cost, he must not be al owed to go away frightened....

Now she saw him. The child-Damon. As always, she could see in the sweetly rounded face, the sharp-cheekboned young man that Damon would become, in the wide black eyes, the potential for his look of fathomless darkness.

But although he was not smiling, the child's look was open and welcoming, in a way that Damon's older self had never been. And the chains...the chains were gone. The great stone was gone too.

"I knew you'd come,"the boy whispered, and Elena took him into her arms.

Easy, Elena told herself. Easy. He's not real. He's what's left of Damon's mind, the deepest part of his hindbrain. But Still, he's even younger than Margaret, and he's just as soft and warm. No matter what, please God, don't let him know what's real y happening to him.

But there was knowledge in the wide, dark child eyes that turned up to her face. "I'm so glad to see you,"he confided. "I thought that I might never talk to you again. And -  he - you know - he left some messages with me. I don't think he could say anything more, so he sent them to me."

Elena understood. If there was anywhere the wood had not reached, it was into this last part of the brain, the most primitive part. Damon Still could speak to her - through this infant.

But before she could speak herself, she saw that there were tears in the child's eyes and then his body spasmed and he bit his lip very hard - to keep from crying out, she guessed.

"Does it hurt?"she asked, trying to believe that it didn't.

Desperate to believe it.

"Not so much."But he was lying, she realized. Still, he hadn't shed any tears. He had his pride, this child-Damon.

"I have a special message for you,"he said. "He told me to tell you that he'll always be with you. And that you're never alone. That no one is really alone."

Chapter 37

Then Meredith saw something that was not smoke or fire.

Just a glimpse of a door frame - and a tiny breath of cool air.

With this hope to sustain her, she scuttled straight for the door to the backyard, dragging Isobel behind her.

As she passed the threshold, she felt blessedly cold water somehow showering down onto her body. When she pulled Isobel into the spray, the younger girl made the first voluntary sound she had during the entire journey: a wordless sob of thanks.

Matt's hands were helping her along, were taking away the burden of Isobel. Meredith got up to her feet and staggered in a circle, then dropped to her knees. Her hair was on fire!

She was just recalling her childhood rehearsal of stop, drop, and roll , when she felt the cold water turned on it. The hose water went up and down her body and she turned around, basking in the feeling of coolness, until she heard Matt's voice say, "The flames are out. You're good now."

"Thank you, Matt. Thank you."Her voice was hoarse.

"Hey, you were the one who had to go all the way to the bedrooms and back. Getting Mrs. Saitou out was pretty easy - there was the kitchen sink full of water, so as soon as I cut her free from the kitchen chair we just got all wet and dashed outside."

Meredith smiled and looked around quickly. Isobel had become her responsibility now. To her relief, she saw that the girl was being hugged by her mother.

And al it had taken was the nonsense choice between a thing - however precious it was - and a life. Meredith gazed at the mother and daughter and was glad. She could have another stave made. But nothing could replace Isobel.

"Isobel said to give this to you,"Matt was saying.

Meredith turned toward him, the fiery light making the world crazy, and for one moment didn't believe her eyes. Matt was holding the fighting stave out to her.

"She must have dragged it with her free hand - oh, Matt, and she was almost dead before we started..."

Matt said, "She's stubborn. Like someone else I know."

Meredith wasn't quite sure what he meant by that, but she knew one thing. "We'd all better get to the front yard. I doubt the volunteer fire department is going to come. Besides - Theo - "

"I'll get them moving. You scout the gate side,"Matt said.

Meredith plunged into the backyard, which was hideously illuminated by the house, now fully engulfed in flames.

Fortunately, the side yard was not. Meredith flicked the gate open with the stave. Matt was right behind her, helping Mrs.

Saitou and Isobel along.

Meredith quickly ran by the flaming garage and then stopped. From behind her she heard a cry of horror. There was no time to try to soothe whoever had cried, no time to think.

The two fighting women were too busy to notice her - and Theo was in need of help. Inari was truly like a fiery Medusa, with her hair writhing around her in flaming, smoking snakes.

Only the crimson part burned, and it was that part that she was using like a whip, using one snake to wrest away the silver bull whip from Theo's hand, and then another to wrap around Theo's throat and choke her. Theo was desperately trying to pull the blazing noose from her neck.

Inari was laughing. "Are you suffering, petty witch? It will all be over in seconds - for you and for your entire little town! The Last Midnight has finally come!"

Meredith glanced back at Matt - and that was all it took. He ran forward, passing her, all the way up to the space below the fighting women. Then he bent slightly, cupping his hands.

And then Meredith sprinted, putting everything she had left into the short run, leaving her just enough energy to leap and place one foot into Matt's cupped hands, and then she felt herself soaring aloft, just within distance for the stave to slice cleanly through the snake of hair that was choking Theo.

After that Meredith was in free fall , with Matt trying to catch her from below. She landed more or less on top of him and they both saw what happened next.

Theo, who was bruised and bleeding, slapped out a part of her gown that was smoldering. She held out a hand for the silver bull whip and it flew to meet her outstretched fingers.

But Inari wasn't attacking. She was waving her arms wildly, as if in terror, and then suddenly she shrieked: a sound so anguished that Meredith drew in her breath sharply. It was a death-scream.

Before their eyes she was turning back into Obaasan, into the shrunken, helpless, doll -like woman Matt and Meredith knew. But by the time this shriveled body hit the ground it was already stiff and dead, her expression one of such unrepentant malice that it was frightening.

It was Isobel and Mrs. Saitou then who came forward to stand over the body, sobbing with relief. Meredith looked at them and then up at Theo, who slowly floated to the ground.

"Thank you,"Theo said with the faintest of smiles. "You have saved me - yet again."

"But what do you think happened to her?"Matt asked. "And why didn't Shinichi or Misao come to help her?"

"I think they all must be dead, don't you?"Theo's voice was soft over the roar of the flames. "As for Inari - I think that perhaps someone destroyed her star ball . I'm afraid I was not strong enough to defeat her myself."

"What time is it?"Meredith abruptly cried, remembering. She ran to the old SUV, which was Still running. Its clock showed 12:00 midnight exactly.

"Did we save the people?"Matt asked desperately.

Theo turned her face outward toward the center of the town.

For nearly a minute she was Still, as if listening for something. At last, when Meredith felt that she might shatter from tension, she turned back and said quietly, "Dear Ma ma, Grand mama, and I are one, now. I sense children who are finding themselves holding knives - and some with guns. I sense them standing in their sleeping parents' rooms, unable to remember how they got there. And I sense parents, hiding in closets, a moment ago frightened for their very lives, who are seeing weapons dropped and children falling onto master bedroom floors, sobbing and bewildered."

"We did it, then. You did it. You held her off,"Matt panted.

Still gentle and sober, Theo said, "Someone else - far away - did much more. I know that the town needs healing. But Grand mama and Ma ma agree. Because of them, no child has killed a parent this night, and no parent has killed a child.

The long nightmare of Inari and her Last Midnight is over."

Meredith, grimy and bedraggled as she was, felt something rise and swell inside her, bigger and bigger, until, for all her training, she couldn't contain herself any longer. It exploded out of her in a yell of exultation.

She found that Matt was shouting too. He was as grubby and unkempt as she was, but he seized her by the hands and whirled her around in a barbarian victory dance.

And it was fun, whirling around and yelling like a kid. Maybe - maybe in trying to be calm, in always being the most grown-up, she had missed out on the essence of fun, which always felt as if it had some childlike quality to it.

Matt had no trouble in expressing his feelings, whatever they were: childlike, mature, stubborn, happy. Meredith found herself admiring this, and also thinking that it had been a long time since she'd really looked at Matt. But now she felt a sudden wave of feeling for him. And she could see that Matt felt the same way about her. As if he'd never really looked at her properly before.

This was the moment...when they were meant to kiss.

Meredith had seen it so often in movies, and read about it in books, that it was almost a given.

But this was life, it wasn't a story. And when the moment came, Meredith found herself holding Matt's shoulders while he held hers, and she could see that he was thinking exactly the same thing about the kiss.

The moment stretched...

Then, with a grin, Matt's face showed that he knew what to do. Meredith did too. They both moved in, and hugged each other. When they drew back, they were both grinning. They knew who they were. They were very different, very close friends. Meredith hoped that they always would be.

They both turned to look at Theo, and Meredith felt a pang in her heart, the first since she had heard they'd saved the town. Theo was changing. It was the look on her face as she watched them that gave Meredith the pang.

After being young, and while watching youth at its peak, she was once again aging, wrinkling, her hair going white instead of moonlit silver. At last, she was an old woman wearing a raincoat covered with bits of paper.

"Mrs. Flowers!" This person, it was perfectly safe and right to kiss. Meredith flung her arms about the frail old woman, lifting her off her feet in excitement. Matt joined them, and they boosted her above their heads. They carried her like this to the Saitous, mother and daughter, who were watching the fire.

There, sobered, they put her down.

"Isobel,"Meredith said. "God! I'm so sorry - your home..."

"Thank you,"Isobel said in her soft, slurred voice. Then she turned away.

Meredith felt chilled. She was even beginning to regret the celebration, when Mrs. Saitou said, "Do you know, this is the greatest moment in the history of our family? For hundreds of years, that ancient kitsune - oh, yes, I've always known what she was - has been forcing herself upon innocent humans.

And for the last three centuries it has been my family line of samurai mikos that she has terrorized. Now my husband can come home at last."

Meredith looked at her, startled. Mrs. Saitou nodded.

"He tried to defy her and she banished him from the house.

Ever since Isobel was born, I have feared for her. And now, please forgive her. She has trouble expressing what she feels."

"I know about that,"Meredith said quietly. "I'll go have a little talk with her, if it's All right."

If ever in her life she could explain to a fellow traveler what fun having fun was, she thought, it was now.

Chapter 36

Matt broke a lot of traffic rules on the way to the Saitous' street. Meredith leaned on the console between the two front seats so that she could see the digital clock ticking down to midnight, and so that she could watch the transformation of Mrs. Flowers. At last her recently sane, sensible mind forced words out of her mouth. "Mrs. Flowers - you're changing."

"Yes, Meredith, dear. Some of it is due to the little present that Sage left for me. Some of it is my own will  - to return to the days when I was in my prime. I believe that this will be my last fight, so I don't mind using all my energy in it. Fell's Church must be saved."

"But - Mrs. Flowers - the people here - Well, they haven't always been - exactly nice - "Matt stammered his way to a stop.

"The people here are like people everywhere,"Mrs. Flowers said calmly. "Treat them as you'd like to be treated, and things will be fine. It was only when I'd let myself become a bitter, lonely old woman, always resentful of the fact that I had had to turn my home into a boardinghouse just to make ends meet, that people began to treat me - Well, at best as a loony old hag."

"Oh, Mrs. Flowers - and we've been such a bother to you!"Meredith found the words coming without her volition.

"You've been the saving of me, child. Dear Stefan was the start, but as you can imagine, he didn't want to explain all his little differences to me, and I was suspicious of him. But he was always cordial and respectful and Elena was like sunlight, and Bonnie like laughter. Eventual y, when I dropped my hidebound barriers, so did you young ones. I won't say more about those who are present so as not to embarrass you, but you've done me a world of good."

Matt ran another stop sign and cleared his throat. Then, the steering wheel wavering slightly, he cleared his throat again.

Meredith took over. "I think what Matt and I both want to say is...Well, it's that you've become very special to us, and we don't want to see you get hurt. This battle - "

"Is a battle for all I hold dear. For all my memories. Back when I was a child and the boardinghouse was built - it was just a home, then, and I was very happy. As a young woman, I was very happy. And now that I have lived long enough to be an old woman - Well, besides you children, I Still have friends like Sophia Alpert and Orime Saitou. They are both healing women, and very good at it. We Still talk about different uses for my herbs."

Matt snapped his fingers. "That's another reason I was confused,"he said. "Because Dr. Alpert said that you and Mrs. Saitou were such good people. I thought she meant the old Mrs. Saitou - "

"Who is not a 'Mrs. Saitou'at all,"Mrs. Flowers said, almost sharply. "I have no idea what her name real y is - perhaps she is real y Inari, a deity gone bad. Ten years ago, I didn't know what made Orime Saitou suddenly so diffident and quiet. Now I realize that it began just around the time her

'mother' moved in with her. I was quite fond of young Isobel, but she suddenly became - aloof - in an unchildlike way.

Now I understand. And I am determined to fight for her - and for you - and for a town that is worth saving. Human lives are very, very precious. And now - here we are."

Matt had just turned onto the Saitous' block. Meredith took a moment to openly stare at the figure in the front passenger seat. "Mrs. Flowers!" she exclaimed.

This made Matt turn to stare in his turn and what he saw made him clip a Volkswagen Jetta parked by the sidewalk.

"Mrs.... Flowers?"

"Please park now, Matt. You needn't call me Mrs. Flowers if you don't want to. I have returned to the time when I was Theophilia - when my friends called me Theo."

"But - how - why - ?"Matt stuttered.

"I told you. I felt that it was time. Sage left me a gift that helped me change. An enemy beyond your powers to fight has arisen. I felt this back at the boardinghouse. This is the time that I have been waiting for. The last battle with the true enemy of Fell's Church."

Meredith's heart actual y seemed ready to fly out of her chest. She had to be calm - calm and logical. She had seen magic many times. She knew the look of it, the feel of it. But frequently she had been too busy comforting Bonnie, or too worried about aiding Bonnie to take in what she was facing.

Now, it was just her and Matt - and Matt had a stricken, stupefied look, as if he hadn't seen enough magic before. As if he might crack.

"Matt,"she said loudly, and then even louder, "Matt!" He turned, then, to look at her, with his blue eyes wild and dark.

"They'll kill her, Meredith!"he said. "Shinichi and Misao - you don't know what it feels like..."

"Come on,"Meredith said. "We have to make sure that it doesn't kil her."

The dazed look passed from Matt's eyes. "We have to do this,"he agreed simply.

"Right,"said Meredith, final y releasing him. Together they got out of the car to stand by Mrs. Flowers - no, by Theo.

Theo had hair that hung almost to her waist; so fair that it looked silver in the moonlight. Her face was - electrifying. It was young; young and proud, with classic features and a look of quiet determination.

Somehow during the drive, her clothes had changed too.

Instead of a coat covered with bits of paper, she was wearing a sleeveless white gown that ended in a slight train.

In style, it reminded Meredith a little of the "mermaid"dress she herself had worn when going to a ball in the Dark Dimension. But Meredith's dress had only made her look sultry. Theo looked...magnificent.

As for the Post-it Note amulets...somehow the paper had disappeared and the writing had grown enormously, changing into very large scrawls that wrapped around the white gown. Theo was literal y swathed in haute couture arcane protection.

And although she was reed slender, she was tall . Taller than Meredith, taller than Matt, taller than Stefan, wherever he was in the Dark Dimensions. She was this tall not only because she had grown so much, but because the train of her dress was just brushing the ground. She had entirely overcome gravity. The whip, Sage's present to her, was coiled into a circle attached to her waist, shining as silver as her hair.

Matt and Meredith simultaneously closed the SUV's doors.

Matt left the engine running for a quick getaway.

They walked around the garage so that they could see the front of the house. Meredith, not caring what she looked like or whether she seemed cool or in control, wiped her hands, one and then the other, on her jeans. This was the stave's first - and possibly only - true battle. What counted was not appearance, but performance.

Both she and Matt stopped dead when they saw the figure standing at the bottom of the steps in front of the porch. It was no one they could identify from the house. But then the crimson lips opened, the delicate hands flew up to cover them, and wind-chime laughter came from somewhere behind the hands.

For a moment they could only stare, fascinated, at this woman who was dressed all in black. She was full y as tall as Theo, fully as slender and graceful, and she was floating equal y high off the ground. But what Meredith and Matt were staring at was the fact that her hair was like Misao's or Shinichi's - but reversed. Whereas they had black hair with a crimson fringe on the bottom, this woman had crimson hair -

yards and yards of it, with a black fringe al around it. Not only that, but she had delicate black fox ears emerging from the crimson hair, and a long sleek crimson tail, tipped with black.

"Obaasan?"Matt gasped in disbelief.

"Inari!"Meredith snapped.

The lovely creature didn't even look at them. She was staring at Theo in contempt. "Tiny witch of a tiny town,"she said.

"You've used nearly all your Power just to stand up to my level. What good are you?"

"I have very small Powers,"Theo agreed. "But if the town is worthless, why has it taken you so long to destroy it? Why have you watched others try - or were they all your pawns, Inari? Katherine, Klaus, poor young Tyler - were they your pawns, Kitsune Goddess?"

Inari laughed – Still that chiming, girlish giggling, behind her fingers. "I don't need pawns! Shinichi and Misao are my bond-servants, as al kitsune are! If I have left them some freedom, it has been so they can get experience. We'll go on to larger cities now, and ravage them."

"You have to take Fell's Church first,"Theo said steadily. "And I won't let you do that."

"You Still don't understand, do you? You are a human, with almost no Power left! Mine is the largest star ball in the worlds! I am a Goddess!"

Theo lowered her head, then lifted it to look Inari in the eyes.

"Do you want to know what I think the truth is, Inari?"she said.

"I think that you have come to the end of a long, long, but not immortal life. I think you have dwindled so that at last you need to use a great deal of Power from your star ball  -

wherever it is - to appear this way. You are a very, very ancient woman and you have been setting children against their own parents, and parents against children across the world because you envy the children's youth. You have even come to envy Shinichi and Misao, and let them be hurt, as revenge."

Matt and Meredith looked at each other with wide eyes. Inari was breathing rapidly, but it seemed she couldn't think of anything to say.

"You've even pretended to have entered a 'second childhood' to behave girlishly. But none of it satisfies you, because the plain, sad truth is that you have come to the end of your long, long lifetime - no matter how great your Power.

We must all take that final journey, and it is your turn now."

"Liar!"shrieked Inari, looking for a moment more glorious -

more radiant than before. But then Meredith saw why. Her scarlet hair had actual y begun to smolder, framing her face in a dancing red light. And at last she spoke venemously.

"Well, then, if you think this is my last battle, I must be sure to cause al the pain I can. Starting with you, witch."

Meredith and Matt both gasped. They were afraid for Theo, especial y as Inari's hair was braiding itself into thick ropes like serpents that floated around her head as if she were Medusa.

The gasps were a mistake - they attracted Inari's attention.

But she didn't move. She only said, "Smell that sweet scent on the wind? A roast sacrifice! I think the result will be oishii - delicious! But perhaps you two would like to speak to Orime or Isobel one last time. I'm afraid they can't come out to see you."

Meredith's heart was pounding violently in her throat, as she realized that the Saitous' house was on fire. It seemed as if there were several small fires burning, but she was terrified at the implication that Inari had already done something to the mother and daughter.

"No, Matt!"she cried, grabbing Matt's arm. He would have charged straight at the laughing black-clad woman and tried to attack her feet - and seconds were invaluable now.

"Come help me find them!"

Theo came to their aid. Drawing up the white bull whip, she whirled it once around her head and cracked it precisely on Inari's raised hands, leaving a bloody gash on one. As a furious Inari turned back to her, Meredith and Matt ran.

"The back door,"Matt said as they careered around the side of the house. Up ahead they saw a wooden fence, but no gate. Meredith was just considering using the stave to pole-vault, when Matt panted, "Here!"and made a cradle of his hands for her to step into. "I'll boost you over!"

Meredith hesitated only an instant. Then, as he skidded to a stop she jumped to place one foot in his inter-locked fingers.

Suddenly she was flying upward. She made the most of it, landing, catlike, on the fence's flat top, and then jumping down. She could hear Matt scrambling up the fence as she was suddenly surrounded by black smoke. She jumped backward three feet and yelled, "Matt, the smoke is dangerous! Get low; hold your breath. Stay outside to help them when I bring them out!"

Meredith had no idea whether Matt would listen to her or not, but she obeyed her own rules, crouching low, breath held, opening her eyes briefly to try to find the door.

Then she almost jumped out of her skin at the sound of an axe crashing into wood, of wood splintering, and of the axe crashing again. She opened her eyes and saw that Matt hadn't listened to her, but she was glad because he'd found the door. His face was black with soot. "It was locked,"he explained, hefting the axe.

Any optimism Meredith might have felt splintered like the door as she looked inside and saw only flames and more flames.

My God, she thought, anyone in there is roasting, is probably dead already.

But where had that thought come from? Her knowledge or her fear? Meredith couldn't just stop now. She took a step into searing heat and shouted, "Isobel! Mrs. Saitou! Where are you?"

There was a weak, choking cry. "That's the kitchen!"she said.

"Matt, it's Mrs. Saitou! Please go get her!"

Matt obeyed, but threw over his shoulder, "Don't you go farther in."

Meredith had to go farther in. She remembered very well where Isobel's room was. Directly under her "grandmother's."

"Isobel! Isobel! Can you hear me?"Her voice was so low and husky from smoke that she knew she had to keep going.

Isobel might be unconscious or too hoarse to answer.

Meredith dropped to her knees, crawling on the ground where the air was slightly cooler and more clear.

Okay. Isobel's room. She didn't want to touch the door handle with her hand, so she wrapped her T-shirt around it.

The handle wouldn't turn. Locked. She didn't bother to investigate how, she simply turned around and mule-kicked the door right beside the handle. Wood splintered. Another kick, and with a wooden scream the door swung free.

Meredith was feeling dizzy now, but she needed to see the entire room. She took two strides in, and - there!

Sitting up on the bed in the smoky, hot, but otherwise scrupulously tidy little room was Isobel. As Meredith neared the bed she saw - to her fury - that the girl was tied to the brass headboard with duct tape. Two slashes of the stave took care of that. Then, amazingly, Isobel moved, raising a blackened face up to Meredith's.

That was when Meredith's fury peaked. The girl had duct tape across her mouth, to prevent her from making any cry for help. Wincing herself to show that she knew this was going to be painful, Meredith grasped the duct tape and stripped it off. Isobel didn't cry out; instead she took in lungful after lungful of smoky air.

Meredith stumbled toward the closet, snatched two identical-looking white shirts, and swerved back to Isobel. There was a full tumbler of water right beside her, on the nightstand.

Meredith wondered if it had been put there deliberately to increase Isobel's agony, but she didn't hesitate to use it. She gave Isobel a quick sip, took one herself, and then soaked each shirt. She held one over her own mouth and Isobel mimicked her, holding the wet shirt over her nose and mouth.

Then Meredith grabbed her and guided her back to the door.

After that it simply became a nightmare journey of crawling and kneeling and choking, pulling Isobel with her all the time.

Meredith thought it would never end, as each inch forward became harder and harder. The stave was an unbearable weight to heave along with her, but she refused to let go of it.

It's precious, her mind said, but is it worth your life?

No, Meredith thought. Not my life, but who knows what else will be out there if I get Isobel into the cool darkness?

You'll never get her there if you die because of - an object.

It's not an object! Painful y Meredith used the stave to clear some smoldering debris from her path. It belonged to Grandpa in the time when he was sane. It fits my hand. It's not just a thing!

Have it your own way, the voice said, and disappeared.

Meredith was beginning to run into more debris now.

Despite the cramping in her lungs, she was sure that she could make it out of the back door. She knew there should be a laundry room on her right. They should be able to feel a space there.

And then suddenly in the dark something reared up and struck her a blow on the head. It took her dimming mind a long time to come up with a name for the thing that had hurt her. Armchair.

Somehow they'd crawled too far. This was the living room.

Meredith was flooded with horror. They'd gone too far - and they couldn't go out the front door into the midst of magical battle. They would have to backtrack, and this time make sure to find the laundry room, their gate to freedom.

Meredith turned around, pulling Isobel with her, hoping the younger girl would understand what they had to do.

She left the stave on the burning living room floor.

Elena sobbed to get her breath, even though she was al owing Stefan to help her now. He ran, holding Bonnie by one hand and Elena by the other. Damon was somewhere in front - scouting.

It can't be far now, she kept thinking. Bonnie and I both saw the brightness - we both did. Just then, like a lantern put into a window, Elena saw it again.

It's big, that's the problem. I keep thinking we should reach it because I have the wrong idea of what size it is in my mind.

The closer we get, the bigger it gets.

And that's good for us. We'll need a lot of Power. But we need to get there soon, or it could be al the Power in the universe and it won't matter. We'll be too late.

Shinichi had indicated that they would be too late - but Shinichi had been born a liar. Still, surely just beyond that low branch was...

Oh, dear God, she thought. It's a star ball.