The Vampire Diaries #7: Midnight (The Return Trilogy #3) (2011)

Chapter 20

Meredith usual y found her parents funny and silly and dear.

They were solemn about all the wrong things like, "Make sure, honey, that you real y get to know Alaric - before - before - "Meredith had no doubts about Alaric at all , but he was another of those silly, dear, gal ant people, who talked al around things without getting to the point.

Today, she was surprised to see that there was no cluster of cars around the ancestral home. Maybe people had to stay home to fight it out with their own children. She locked the Acura, conscious of the precious contents given by Isobel, and rang the doorbell . Her parents believed in chain locks.

Janet, the housekeeper, looked happy to see her but nervous. Aha, Meredith thought, they have discovered that their dutiful only child has ransacked the attic. Maybe they want the stave back. Maybe I should have left it back at the boardinghouse.

But she only realized that things were truly serious when she came into the family room and saw the big La-Z-Boy deluxe lounging chair, her father's throne: empty. Her father was sitting on the couch, holding her mother, who was sobbing.

She had brought the stave with her, and when her mother saw it, she broke into a fresh burst of tears.

"Look,"Meredith said, "this doesn't have to be so tragic. I've got a pretty good idea of what happened. If you want to tell me about how Grandma and I real y got hurt, that's your business. But if I was...contaminated in some way..."

She stopped. She could hardly believe it. Her father was holding out an arm to her, as if the somewhat rank condition of her clothes didn't matter. She went to him slowly, uncomfortably, and let him hug her regardless of his Armani suit. Her mother had a glass with a few sips left of what looked like Coke in front of her, but Meredith would bet it wasn't al Coke.

"We'd hoped that this was a place of peace,"her father orated. Every sentence her father spoke was an oration. You got used to it. "We never dreamed..."And then he stopped.

Meredith was stunned. Her father didn't stop in the middle of an oration. He didn't pause. And he certainly didn't cry.

"Dad! Daddy! What is it? Have kids been around here, crazy kids? Did they hurt somebody?"

"We have to tell you the whole story from that time long ago,"her father...said. He spoke with such despair that it wasn't anything like an oration. "When you were...al attacked."

"By the vampire. Or Grandfather. Or do you know?"

Long pause. Then her mother drained the contents of her glass and called, "Janet, another one, please."

"Now, Gabriel a - "her father said, chiding.

"'Nando - I can't bear this. The thought that mi hija inocente..."

Meredith said, "Look, I think I can make this easier for you. I already know...Well, first, that I had a twin brother."

Her parents looked horrified. They clung together, gasping.

"Who told you?"her father demanded. "At that boardinghouse, who could know - ?"

Calming down time. "No, no. Dad, I found out - Well, Grandpa talked to me."That was true enough. He had. Just not about her brother. "Anyway, that was how I got the stave. But the vampire that hurt us is dead. He was the serial killer, the one who killed Vickie and Sue. His name was Klaus."

"You thought that there was only one vampire?"her mother got out. She pronounced the word the Hispanic way, which Meredith always found more scary. Vahm-peer.

The universe seemed to start moving slowly around Meredith.

"That's just a guess,"her father said. "We don't real y know that there was more than the very strong one."

"But you know about Klaus - how?"

"We saw him. He was the strong one. He killed the security guards at the gate with one blow each. We moved to a new town. We hoped you would never have to know you had a brother."Her father brushed his eyes. "Your grandfather spoke to us, right after the attack. But the next day...nothing.

He couldn't talk at all ."

Her mother put her face in her hands. She only lifted it to call ,

"Janet! Another, por favor!"

"Right away, ma'am."Meredith looked to the housekeeper's blue eyes for the solution to this mystery and found nothing - sympathy, but no help. Janet walked away with the empty glass, blond French braid receding.

Meredith turned back to her parents, so dark of eye and hair, so olive of skin color. They were huddling together again, eyes on her.

"Mom, Dad, I know that this is real y hard. But I'm going after the kind of people who hurt Grandpa, and Grandma, and my brother. It's dangerous, but I have to do it."She dropped into a Taekwondo stance. "I mean you did have me trained."

"But against your own family? You could do that?"her mother cried.

Meredith sat down. She had reached the end of the memories that she and Stefan had found. "So Klaus didn't kil him like Grandmother. He took my brother with him."

"Cristian,"wailed her mother. "He was just un bebe. Three years old! That was when we found the two of you...and the blood...oh, the blood..."

Her father got up, not to orate, but to put his hand on Meredith's shoulder. "We thought it would be easier not to tell you - that you wouldn't have any memories of what was happening when we came in. And you don't, do you?"

Meredith's eyes were filling with tears. She looked to her mother, trying to silently tell her she couldn't understand this.

"He was drinking my blood?"she guessed. "Klaus?"

"No!"cried her father as her mother whispered prayers.

"He was drinking Cristian's, then."Meredith was kneeling on the floor now, trying to look up into the face of her mother.

"No!"cried her father again. He choked.

"La sangre!" gasped her mother, covering her eyes. "The blood!"

"Querida - " her father sobbed, and went to her.

"Dad!"Meredith went after him and shook his arm. "You've ruled out all the possibilities! I don't understand! Who was drinking blood?"

"You! You!" her mother almost screamed. "From your own brother! Oh, el aterrorizar!"

"Gabriel a!"moaned her father.

Meredith's mother subsided into weeping.

Meredith's head was whirling. "I'm not a vampire! I hunt vampires and kill them!"

"He said,"her father whispered hoarsely: "'Just see she gets a tablespoon a week. If you want her to live, that is. Try a blood pudding.'He was laughing."

Meredith didn't need to ask if they had obeyed. At her house, they had blood sausage or pudding at least once a week.

She had grown up with it. It was nothing special.

"Why?"she whispered hoarsely now. "Why didn't he kill me?"

"I don't know! We Stilldon't know! That man with his front al dripping with blood - your blood, your brother's blood, we didn't know! And then at the last minute he grabbed for the two of you but you bit his hand to the bone,"her father said.

"He laughed - laughed! - with your teeth clamped in him and your little hands pushing him away, and said, 'I'll just leave you this one, then, and you can worry about what she will turn out to be. The boy I'm taking with me.'And then suddenly I seemed to come out of a spell , for I was reaching for you again, ready to fight him for both of you. But I couldn't! Once I had you, I couldn't move another inch. And he left the house Still laughing - and took your brother, Cristian, with him."

Meredith thought. No wonder they didn't want to hold any kind of celebration on the anniversaries of that day. Her grandmother dead, her grandfather going crazy, her brother lost, and herself - what? No wonder they celebrated her birthday a week early.

Meredith tried to stay calm. The world was falling to pieces around her but she had to stay calm. Staying calm had kept her alive all her life. Without even having to count, she was breathing out deep, and in through her nostrils, and out through her mouth. Deep, deep, cleansing breaths. Soothing peace throughout her body. Only part of her was hearing her mother:

"We came home early that night because I had a headache - "

"Sh, querida - "her father was beginning.

"We got home early,"her mother keened. "O Virgen Bendecida, what would we have found if we had been late?

We would have lost you, too! My baby! My baby with blood on her mouth - "

"But we got home early enough to save her,"Meredith's father said huskily, as if trying to wake her mother from a spell .

"Ah, g racias, Princesa Divina, Vigen pura y impoluto..."Her mother couldn't seem to stop crying.

"Daddy,"Meredith said urgently, aching for her mother but desperately needing information. "Have you ever seen him again? Or heard about him? My brother, Cristian?"

"Yes,"her father said. "Oh, yes, we have seen something."

Her mother gasped. "'Nando, no!"

"She has to learn the truth sometime,"her father said. He rummaged among some cardboard file folders on the desk.

"Look!"he said to Meredith. "Look at this."

Meredith stared in utter disbelief.

In the Dark Dimension Bonnie shut her eyes. There was a lot of wind at the top of a tall building's window. That was al her mind had a thought for when she was out of the window and then back into it and the ogre was laughing and Shinichi's terrible voice saying, "You don't real y think we'd let you go without questioning you thoroughly?"

Bonnie heard the words without them making sense, and then suddenly they did. Her captors were going to hurt her.

They were going to torture her. They were going to take her bravery away.

She thought she screamed something at him. Al she knew, though, was that there was a soft explosion of heat behind her, and then -  unbelievably - all dressed up in a cloak with badges that made him look like some kind of military prince, there was Damon.

Damon.

He was so late she'd long ago given up on him. But now he was flashing a there-and-gone brilliant smile at Shinichi, who was staring as if he'd been stricken dumb.

And now Damon was saying, "I'm afraid Ms. McCullough has another engagement at that moment. But I will be back to kick your ass -  immediately. Move from this room and I'll kill you all , slowly. Thank you for your time and consideration."

And before anyone could even recover from their first shock at his arrival, he and Bonnie were blasting off through the windows. He went, not out of the building backward as if retreating, but straight ahead forward, one hand in front of him, wrapping them both in a black but ethereal bundle of Power. They shattered the two-way mirror in Bonnie's room and were almost al the way through to the next room before Bonnie's mind tagged the first "empty."Then they were crashing through an elaborate videoset-window - made to let people think they had a view of the outdoors, and flying over someone lying on a bed. Then...it was just a series of crashes, as far as Bonnie was concerned. She barely got a glimpse of what was going on in each room. Final y...

The crashing stopped. This left Bonnie holding on to Damon koala-style - she wasn't stupid - and they were very, very high in the air. And mobilizing in front of them, and off to the sides, and as far as Bonnie could see, were women who were also flying, but in little machines that looked like a combination of a motorcycle and a Jet Ski. No wheels, of course. The machines were al gold, which was also the color of each driver's hair.

So the first word Bonnie gasped to her rescuer, after he had blasted a tunnel through the large slave-owner's building to save her, was, "Guardians?"

"Indispensable, considering the fact that I didn't have the first idea where the bad guys might have taken you and I suspected that there might be a time limit. This was actual y the very last of the slave-sellers we were due to check. We finally...lucked out."For someone who had lucked out, he sounded a little strange. Almost...choked up.

Water was on Bonnie's cheeks but it was being flicked away too fast for her to wipe it. Damon was holding her so that she couldn't see his face, and he was holding her very, very tightly.

It real y was Damon. He had called out the cavalry and, despite the city-wide mind-gridlock, he had found her.

"They hurt you, didn't they, little redbird? I saw...I saw your face,"Damon said in his new choked-up voice. Bonnie didn't know what to say. But suddenly she didn't mind how hard he squeezed her. She even found herself squeezing back.

Suddenly, to her shock, Damon broke her koala-grip and pulled her up and kissed her on the lips very gently. "Little redbird! I'm going to go now, and make them pay for what they did to you."

Bonnie heard herself say, "No, don't."

"No?"Damon repeated, bewildered.

"No,"Bonnie said. She needed Damon with her. She didn't care what happened to Shinichi. There was a sweetness unfolding inside her, but there was also a rushing in her head. It real y was a pity, but in a few moments she would be unconscious.

Meanwhile, she had three thoughts in mind and all of them were clear. What she was afraid of was that they would be less clear later, after she had fainted. "Do you have a star ball?"

"I have twenty-eight star balls,"Damon said, and looked at her quizzical y.

That wasn't what Bonnie meant at all ; she meant one to record onto. "Can you remember three things?"she said to Damon.

"I'd gamble on it."This time Damon kissed her softly on the forehead.

"First, you ruined my very brave death."

"We can always go back and you can have another try."Damon's voice was less choked now; more his own.

"Second, you left me at that horrible inn for a week - "

As if she could see inside his mind, she saw this slice into him like some kind of wooden sword. He was holding her so tightly that she real y couldn't breathe. "I...I didn't mean to. It was real y only four days, but I never should have done it,"he said.

"Third."Bonnie's voice dropped to a whisper. "I don't think any star ball was ever stolen at all . What never existed can't be stolen, can it?"

She looked at him. Damon was looking back in a way that normal y would have thrilled her. He was obviously, blatantly distressed. But Bonnie was just barely hanging on to consciousness at this point.

"And...fourth..."She puzzled out slowly.

"Fourth? You said three things."Damon smiled, just a little.

"I have to say this - "She dropped her head down on Damon's shoulder, gathered al of her energy, and concentrated.

Damon loosened his grip a little. He said, "I can hear a faint murmuring sound in my head. Just tell me normal y. We're well away from anyone."

Bonnie was insistent. She scrunched her whole tiny body together and then explosively sent out a thought. She could tell that Damon caught it.

Fourth, I know the way to the seven legendary kitsune treasures, Bonnie sent to him. That includes the biggest star ball ever made. But if we want it, we have to get to it - fast.

Then, feeling that she had contributed enough to the conversation, she fainted.

Chapter 21

Someone was still knocking on Stefan's door.

"It's a woodpecker,"Elena said when she could speak. "They knock, don't they?"

"On doors inside houses?"Stefan said dazedly.

"Ignore it and it will go away."

A moment later the knocking resumed.

Elena moaned, "I don't believe this."

Stefan whispered, "Do you want me to bring you its head? Unattached from its neck, I mean?"

Elena considered. As the knocking continued, she was getting more worried and less confused. "Better see if it is a bird, I guess,"she said.

Stefan rolled away from her, somehow got on his jeans, and went reeling to the door. In spite of herself, Elena pitied whoever was on the other side.

The knocking started again.

Stefan reached the door and nearly wrenched it off its hinges.

"What the - "He stopped, suddenly moderating his voice.

"Mrs. Flowers?"

"Yes,"Mrs. Flowers said, deliberately not seeing Elena, who was wearing a sheet and directly in her line of vision.

"It's poor dear Meredith,"Mrs. Flowers said. "She's in such a state, and she says she has to see you now, Stefan."

Elena's mind switched tracks as suddenly and smoothly as a train. Meredith? In a state? Demanding to see Stefan, even if, as Elena was sure she must have, Mrs. Flowers had delicately indicated just how...busy Stefan was at the moment?

Her mind was Still solidly linked with Stefan's. He said,

"Thank you, Mrs. Flowers. I'll be down in just a moment."

Elena, who was slipping into her clothes as fast as she could, while crouching on the far side of the bed, added a telepathic suggestion.

"Maybe you could make her a nice cup of tea - I mean, a cup of tea,"Stefan added.

"Yes, dear, what a good idea,"Mrs. Flowers said gently. "And if you should see Elena, perhaps you could say that dear Meredith is asking for her, too?"

"We will ,"Stefan said automatically. Then he turned around and hastily shut the door.

Elena gave him time to put his shirt and shoes on, and then they both hurried down to the kitchen, where Meredith was not having a nice cup of tea, but pacing around like a caged leopard.

Stefan began, "What's - "

"I'll tell you what's wrong, Stefan Salvatore! No - you tell me!

You were in my mind before, so you must know. You must have been able to see - to tell  - about me."

Elena was Still mind locked with Stefan. She felt his dismay.

"To tell what about you?"he asked gently, pulling out a chair at the kitchen table so Meredith could sit.

The very simple act of sitting down, of pausing to respond to civility, seemed to calm Meredith slightly. But Still Elena could feel her fear and pain like the taste of a steel sword on her tongue.

Meredith accepted a hug and became a little calmer yet. A little more herself and less like a caged animal. But the struggle was so visceral and so clear within her that Elena couldn't bear to leave her, even when Mrs. Flowers deposited four mugs of tea around the table and took another chair Stefan offered.

Then Stefan sat down. He knew Elena would stand or sit or share a chair with Meredith, but whatever it was, she would be the one to decide.

Mrs. Flowers was gently stirring honey into her mug of tea and then passing the honey along to Stefan who gave it to Elena who put just the little bit that Meredith liked into Meredith's mug and stirred it gently, too.

The ordinary, civilized sounds of two spoons quietly clinking seemed to relax Meredith Still further. She took the mug Elena gave her and sipped, then drank thirstily.

Elena could feel Stefan's mental sigh of relief as Meredith floated down another few levels. He politely sipped his own tea, which was hot but not burning hot and made from natural y sweet berries and herbs.

"It's good,"Meredith said. She was almost a human now.

"Thank you, Mrs. Flowers."

Elena felt lighter. She relaxed enough to pull over her own cup of tea and squeeze lots of honey in and stir it and take a gulp. Good! Calming down tea!

That's chamomile and cucumber, Stefan told her.

"Chamomile and cucumber,"Elena said, nodding wisely, "for calming down."And then she blushed, for Mrs. Flowers's bright smile had knowledge in it.

Elena hastily drank more tea and watched Meredith have more tea and everything began to feel almost al right.

Meredith was completely Meredith now, not some fierce animal. Elena squeezed her friend's hand tightly.

There was just one problem. Humans were less frightening than beasts but they could cry. Now Meredith, who never wept, was shaking and tears were dripping into the tea.

"You know what morcillo is, right?"she asked Elena at last.

Elena nodded hesitantly. "We had it sometimes in stew at your house?"she said. "And for tapas?"Elena had grown up with the blood sausage as a meal or a snack at her friend's house, and she was used to the bite-sized pieces as a delicious food only Mrs. Sulez made.

Elena felt Stefan's heart sinking. She looked back and forth from him to Meredith.

"It turns out my mother didn't always make it,"Meredith said, looking at Stefan now. "And my parents had a very good reason for changing my birthday."

"Just tell it all ,"Stefan suggested softly. And then Elena felt something she hadn't before. A surge, like a wave - a long gentle swell that spoke right into the center of Meredith's brain. It said: Just tell it and be calm. No anger. No fear.

But it wasn't telepathy. Meredith felt the thought in her blood and bones, but didn't hear it with her ears.

It was Influence. Before Elena could brain her beloved Stefan with her mug for using Influence on one of her friends, Stefan said, just to her, Meredith's hurting, feeling scared and angry. She has reason to, but she needs peace. I probably won't be able to hold her anyway, but I'll try.

Meredith wiped her eyes. "It turns out that nothing was like what I thought happened - that night when I was three."She described what her parents had told her, about everything that Klaus had done. Telling the story, even quietly, was undoing al the calming influences that had helped Meredith maintain herself. She was beginning to shake again. Before Elena could grab her, she was up and striding around the room. "He laughed and said that I'd need blood every week - animal blood - or I'd die. I didn't need much. Just a tablespoon or two. And my poor mother didn't want to lose another child. She did what he told her to. But what happens if I have more blood, Stefan? What happens if I drink yours?"

Stefan was thinking, desperately trying to see if in all his years of experience he'd come across anything like this.

Meanwhile he answered the easy part.

"If you drank enough of my blood you'd become a vampire.

But so would anyone. With you - Well, it might take less. So don't let any vampire trick you into blood exchange. Once might be enough."

"So I'm not a vampire? Now? Not any kind? Are there different kinds?"

Stefan answered seriously. "I've never heard of 'different kinds'of vampires in my life, except for Old Ones. I can tell you that you don't have a vampire's aura. What about your teeth? Can you make your canines sharp? Usual y it's best to test over human flesh. Not your own."

Elena promptly stuck out her arm, wrist vein-side up.

Meredith, eyes closed in concentration, made a great effort, which Elena felt through Stefan. Then Meredith opened her eyes, mouth also open for a dental inspection. Elena stared at her canines. They looked a little bit sharp, but so did anybody's, didn't they?

Careful y Elena reached a fingertip in. She touched one of Meredith's canines.

Tiny pinch.

Startled, Elena pulled back. She stared at her finger where a very small drop of blood was welling up.

Everyone watched it, mesmerized. Then Elena's mouth said without pausing to consult her brain, "You have kitten teeth."

The next moment Meredith had brushed Elena aside and was pacing wildly al around the kitchen. "I won't be one! I won't be! I'm a hunter-slayer, not a vampire! I'll kill myself if I'm a vampire!"She was deadly serious. Elena felt Stefan feeling it, the quick thrust of the stave between her ribs and into the heart. She would go on the Internet to find the right area. Ironwood and white ash piercing her heart, Stilling it forever...sealing off the evil that was Meredith Sulez.

Be calm! Be calm! Stefan's Influence flooded into her.

Meredith was not calm.

"But before that I have to kill my brother."She flung down a photograph on Mrs. Flowers's kitchen table. "It turns out that Klaus or someone has been sending these since Cristian was four - on my real birthday. For years! And in every picture you could see his vampire teeth. Not 'kitten teeth.'And then they stopped coming when I was about ten.

But they had shown him growing up! With pointed teeth! And last year this one came."

Elena leaped for the photo, but it was closer to Stefan and he was faster. He stared in astonishment. "Growing up?"he said. She could feel how shaken he was - and how envious.

No one had given him that option.

Elena looked at the pacing Meredith and around at Stefan.

"But it's impossible, isn't it?"she said. "I thought that if you were bitten, that was it, right? You never got any older - or bigger."

"That's what I thought too. But Klaus was an Old One and who knows what they can do?"Stefan answered.

Damon will be furious when he finds out, Elena told Stefan privately, reaching for the picture even though she'd already seen it through Stefan's eyes. Damon was very bitter about Stefan's height advantage - about anyone's height advantage.

Elena brought the picture to Mrs. Flowers and looked at it with her. It showed an extremely handsome boy, with hair that was just Meredith's dark color. He looked like Meredith in his facial structure and olive skin. He was wearing a motorcycle jacket and gloves, but no helmet, and he was laughing merrily with a full set of very white teeth. You could easily see that the canines were long and pointed.

Elena looked back and forth from Meredith to the picture.

The only difference she could see was that this boy's eyes seemed lighter. Everything else screamed "twins."

"First I kill him,"Meredith repeated tiredly. "Then I kill myself."She stumbled back to the table and sat, almost knocking over her chair.

Elena hovered near her, snatching two mugs from the table, to prevent Meredith's clumsy arm from sweeping them to the floor.

Meredith...clumsy! Elena had never seen Meredith ungraceful or clumsy before. It was frightening. Was it somehow due to being - at least partly - a vampire? The kitten teeth? Elena turned apprehensive eyes on Stefan, felt Stefan's own bewilderment.

Then both of them, without consultation, turned to look at Mrs.

Flowers. She gave them an apologetic little-old-lady smile.

"Gotta kill ...find him, kill him...first,"Meredith was whispering as her dark head lowered to the table, to the pillow of her arms. "Find him...where? Grandpa...where? Cristian...my brother..."

Elena listened silently until there was only soft breathing to be heard.

"You drugged her?"she whispered to Mrs. Flowers.

"It was what Ma ma thought best. She's a strong, healthy girl.

It won't harm her to sleep from now through the night.

Because I'm sorry to tell you, but we have another problem right now."

Elena glanced at Stefan, saw fear dawning on his face, and demanded, "What?"Absolutely nothing was coming through their link. He'd shut it down.

Elena turned to Mrs. Flowers. "What?"

"I'm very worried about dear Matt."

"Matt,"agreed Stefan, looking around the table as if to show that Matt wasn't there. He was trying to protect Elena from the chills racing through him.

At first Elena wasn't alarmed. "I know where he might be,"she said brightly. She was remembering stories that Matt had told of being in Fell's Church while she and the others had been in the Dark Dimension. "Dr. Alpert's place. Or out with her, making the rounds of home visits."

Mrs. Flowers shook her head, her expression bleak. "I'm afraid not, Elena dear. Sophia - Dr. Alpert - called me and told me she was taking Matt's mother, your own family, and several other people with her and escaping Fell's Church entirely. And I don't blame her a bit - but Matt wasn't one of those going. She said he meant to stay and fight. That was around twelve thirty."

Elena's eyes automatically went to the kitchen clock. Horror shot through her, flipping her stomach and reverberating out to her fingertips. The clock said 4:35 - 4:35 P.M.! But that had to be wrong. She and Stefan had only joined minds a few minutes ago. Meredith's rage hadn't lasted that long.

This was impossible!

"That clock - it's not right!"She appealed to Mrs. Flowers, but heard at the same time Stefan's telepathic voice, It's the mind-blending. I didn't want to rush. But I was lost in it too - it's not your fault, Elena!

"It is my fault,"Elena snapped back aloud. "I never meant to forget about my friends for the entire afternoon! And Matt -

Matt would never scare us by keeping us waiting for his call !

I should have called him! I shouldn't have been - "She looked at Stefan with unhappy eyes. The only thing burning inside her right now was the shame of failing Matt.

"I did call his mobile number,"Mrs. Flowers said very gently.

"Ma ma advised me to do so, all the way back at half past twelve. But he didn't answer. I've called every hour since.

Ma ma won't say more than that it's time we looked into things directly."

Elena ran to Mrs. Flowers and wept on the soft cambric lacework at the old woman's neck. "You did our job for us,"she said. "Thank you. But now we have to go and find him."

She whirled on Stefan. "Can you put Meredith in the first-floor bedroom? Just take off her shoes and put her on top of the covers. Mrs. Flowers, if you're going to be alone here, we'll leave Saber and Talon to take care of you. Then we'll keep in touch by mobile. And we'll search every house in Fell's Church - but I guess we should go to the thicket first..."

"Wait, Elena my dear."Mrs. Flowers had her eyes shut. Elena waited, shifting impatiently from one foot to the other. Stefan was just returning from putting Meredith in the front room.

Suddenly, Mrs. Flowers smiled, eyes Still shut. "Ma ma says she will do her utmost for you two, since you are so devoted to your friend. She says that Matt is not anywhere in Fell's Church. And she says, take the dog, Saber. The falcon will watch over Meredith while we are away."Mrs. Flowers's eyes opened. "Although we might plaster her window and door with Post-it Notes,"she said, "just to make sure."

"No,"Elena said flatly. "I'm sorry, but I won't leave Meredith and you on your own with only a bird for protection. We'll take you both with us, covered in amulets if you like, and then we can take both animals, too. Back in the Dark Dimension, they worked together when Bloddeuwedd was trying to kill us."

"All right,"Stefan said at once, knowing Elena well enough to realize that a half-hour-long argument could ensue and Elena would never be moved an inch from her position. Mrs. Flowers must have known it too, for she rose, also immediately, and went to get ready.

Stefan carried Meredith out to her car. Elena gave a tiny whistle for Saber, who was instantly underfoot, seeming bigger than ever, and she raced him up the stairs to Matt's room. It was disappointingly clean - but Elena fished a pair of briefs from between bed and wall. She gave these to Saber to delight in, but found she couldn't stand Still. Final y, she ran up to Stefan's room, snatched her diary from under the mattress, and began scribbling.

Dear Diary,

I don't know what to do. Matt has disappeared. Damon has taken Bonnie to the Dark Dimension - but is he taking care of her?

There's no way to know. We don't have any way to open a Gate ourselves and go after them. I'm afraid Stefan will kill Damon, and if something - anything - has happened to Bonnie, I'll want to kill him too. Oh, God, what a mess!

And Meredith...of all people, Meredith turns out to have more secrets than all of us combined.

All Stefan and I can do is hold each other and pray. We've been fighting Shinichi so long! I feel as if the end is coming soon...and I'm afraid.

"Elena!"Stefan's shout came from below. "We're all ready!"

Elena quickly stuffed the diary back under the mattress. She found Saber waiting on the stairs, and followed him down, running. Mrs. Flowers had two overcoats covered in amulets.

Outside, a long whistle from Stefan was met by an answering keeeeeeee from above and Elena saw a small dark body circling against the white-streaked August sky. "She understands,"Stefan said briefly, and took the driver's seat of the car. Elena got into the backseat behind him, and Mrs.

Flowers into the front passenger seat. Since Stefan had buckled up Meredith into the middle of the backseat, this left Saber a window to put his panting head through.

"Now,"Stefan said, over the purring of the engine, "where are we going, exactly?"

Chapter 22

"Ma ma said not in Fell's Church," Mrs. Flowers repeated to Stefan. "And that means not the thicket."

"All right," Stefan said. "If he's not there, then where else?"

"Well," Elena said slowly, "it's the police, isn't it? They've caught him." Her heart felt as if it were in her stomach.

Mrs. Flowers sighed. "I suppose so. Ma ma should have told me that, but the atmosphere is full of strange influences."

"But the sheriff's department is in Fell's Church. What there is of it," Elena objected.

"Then,"Mrs. Flowers said, "what about the police in another city close by? The ones who came looking for him before - "

"Ridgemont,"Elena said heavily. "That's where those police that searched the boardinghouse were from. That's where that Mossberg guy came from, Meredith said." She looked at Meredith, who didn't even murmur. "That's where Caroline's dad has al his big-shot friends - and Tyler Small wood's dad does too. They belong to all those no-women clubs with does too. They belong to all those no-women clubs with secret handshakes and stuff."

"And do we have anything like a plan for when we get there?" Stefan asked.

"I have a sort of Plan A," Elena admitted. "But I don't know that it will work - you may know better than I do."

"Tell me."

Elena told him. Stefan listened and had to stifle a laugh. "I think," he said soberly afterward, "that it just might work."

Elena immediately began to think about Plans B and C so that they wouldn't be stuck if Plan A should fail.

They had to drive through Fell's Church to get to Ridgemont.

Elena saw the burnt-out houses and the blackened trees through tears. This was her town, the town which, as a spirit, she had watched over and protected. How could it have come to this?

And, worse, how could it ever possibly be put back together again?

Elena began to shiver uncontrollably.

Matt sat grimly in the jury conference room. He had explored it long ago, and had found that the windows were boarded over from the outside. He wasn't surprised, as all the windows he knew back in Fell's Church were boarded up, and besides, he had tried these boards and knew that he could break out if he cared to.

He didn't care to.

It was time to face his personal crisis. He would have faced it back before Damon had taken the three girls to the Dark Dimension, but Meredith had talked him out of it.

Matt knew that Mr. Forbes, Caroline's father, had all his cronies in the police and legal system here. And so did Mr.

Small wood, the father of the real culprit. They were unlikely to give him a fair trial. But in any kind of trial, at some point they would at least have to listen to him.

And what they would hear was the plain truth. They might not believe it now. But later, when Caroline's twins had as little control as werewolf babies were reputed to have over their shapes - Well, then they'd think of Matt, and what he'd said.

He was doing the right thing, he assured himself. Even if, right now, his insides felt as if they were made of lead.

What's the worst they can do to me? he wondered, and was unhappy to hear the echo of Meredith's voice come back.

"They can put you in jail, Matt. Real jail; you're over eighteen. And while that may be good news for some genuine, vicious, tough old felons with homemade tattoos and biceps like tree branches, it is not going to be good news for you." And then after a session on the Internet, "Matt, in Virginia, it can be for life. And the minimum is five years.

Matt, please; I beg you, don't let them do this to you!

Sometimes it's true that discretion is the better part of valor.

They hold all the cards and we're walking blindfolded in the dark..."

She had gotten surprisingly worked up about it, mixing her metaphors and all, Matt thought dejectedly. But it's not exactly as if I volunteered for this. And I bet they know those boards are pretty flimsy and if I break out, I'll be chased from here to who-knows-where. And if I stay put at least I'll get to tell the truth.

For a very long time nothing happened. Matt could tell from the sun through the cracks in the boards that it was afternoon. A man came in and offered a visit to the bathroom and a Coke. Matt accepted both, but also demanded an attorney and his phone call.

"You'll have an attorney," the man grumbled at him as Matt came out of the bathroom. "One' ll be appointed for you."

"I don't want that. I want a real attorney. One that I pick."

The man looked disgusted. "Kid like you can't have any money. You'll take the attorney appointed to you."

"My mom has money. She'd want me to have the attorney we hire, not some kid out of law school."

"Aw,"the man said, "how sweet. You want Mommy to take care of you. And her all the way out in Clydesdale by now, I bet, with the black lady doctor."

Matt froze.

Shut back in the jury room he tried frantically to think. How did they know where his mom and Dr. Alpert had gone? He tried the sound of "black lady doctor" on his tongue and found it tasted bad, sort of old-time-ish and just plain bad. If the doctor had been Caucasian and male, it would've sounded silly to say "...gone with the white man doctor." Sort of like an old Tarzan film.

A great anger was rising in Matt. And along with it a great fear. Words slithered around his mind: surveillance and spying and conspiracy and cover-up. And outwitted.

He guessed it was after five o'clock, after everybody who normal y worked at court had left, that they took him to the interrogation room.

They were just playing, he figured, the two officers who tried to talk to him in a cramped little room with a video camera in one corner of the wall, perfectly obvious even though it was small .

They took turns, one yelling at him that he might as well confess everything, the other acting sympathetic and saying things like, "Things just got out of hand, right? We have a picture of the hickey she gave you. She was hot stuff, right?"Wink, wink. "I understand. But then she started to give you mixed signals..."

Matt reached his snapping point. "No, we were not on a date, no, she did not give me a hickey, and when I tell Mr.

Forbes you called Caroline hot stuff, winkey winkey, he's gonna get you fired, mister. And I've heard of mixed signals, but I've never seen them. I can hear 'no' as well as you can, and I figure one 'no' means 'no'!"

After that they beat him up a little bit. Matt was surprised, but considering the way he had just threatened and sassed them, not too surprised.

And then they seemed to give up on him, leaving him alone in the interrogation room, which, unlike the jury room, had no windows. Matt said over and over, for the benefit of the video camera, "I'm innocent and I'm being denied my phone call and my attorney. I'm innocent..."

At last they came and got him. He was hustled between the good and bad cops into a completely empty courtroom. No, not empty, he realized. In the first row were a few reporters, one or two with sketchbooks ready.

When Matt saw that, just like a real trial, and imagined the pictures they'd sketch - just like he'd seen on TV, the lead in his stomach turned into a fluttering feeling of panic.

But this was what he wanted, wasn't it, to get the story out?

He was led to an empty table. There was another table, with several well-dressed men, all with piles of papers in front of them.

But the thing that held Matt's attention at that table was Caroline. He didn't recognize her at first. She was wearing a dove gray cotton dress. Gray! With no jewelry on at all, and subtle makeup. The only color was in her hair - a brazen auburn. It looked like her old hair, not the brindled color it had been when she was starting to become a werewolf. Had she learned to control her form at last? That was bad news. Very bad.

And final y, with an air of walking on eggshells, in came the jury. They had to know how irregular this was, but they kept coming in, just twelve of them, just enough to fil the jury seats.

Matt suddenly realized that there was a judge sitting at the desk high above him. Had he been there all along? No...

"All rise for Justice Thomas Holloway," boomed a bailiff. Matt stood and wondered if the trial was really going to start without his lawyer. But before everyone could sit, there was a crash of opening doors, and a tall bundle of papers on legs hurried into the courtroom, became a woman in her early twenties, and dumped the papers on the table beside him.

"Gwen Sawicki here - present,"the young woman gasped.

Judge Holloway's neck shot out like a tortoise's, to bring her into his realm of sight. "You have been appointed on behalf of the defense?"

"If it pleases Your Honor, yes, Your Honor - al of thirty minutes ago. I had no idea we had gone to night sessions, Your Honor."

"Don't you be pert with me!"Judge Holloway snapped. As he went on to al ow the prosecution attorneys to introduce themselves, Matt pondered on the word "pert."It was another of those words, he thought, that was never used toward males. A pert man was a joke. While a pert girl or woman sounded just fine. But why?

"Cal me Gwen,"a voice whispered beside him, and Matt looked to see a girl with brown eyes and brown hair back in a ponytail. She wasn't exactly pretty, but she looked honest and straightforward, which made her the prettiest thing in the room.

"I'm Matt - Well, obviously,"Matt said.

"Is this your girl, Carolyn?"Gwen was whispering, showing a picture of the old Caroline at some dance, wearing stilts, and with tanned legs that went up and up to almost meet before a miniskirt took over, black and lacy. She had on a white blouse so tight at the bust that it hardly seemed able to contain her natural assets. Her makeup was exactly the opposite of subtle.

"Her name's Caroline and she's never been my girl, but that's her - the real her,"Matt whispered. "Before Klaus came and did something to her boyfriend, Tyler Small wood. But I have to tell you what happened when she found out she was pregnant - "

She'd gone nuts, was what had happened. No one knew where Tyler was - dead after the final fight against Klaus, turned into a full wolf in hiding; whatever. So Caroline had tried to pin it on Matt - until Shinichi appeared and became her boyfriend.

But Shinichi and Misao were playing a cruel joke on her, pretending that Shinichi would marry her. It was after she realized that Shinichi didn't care at all that Caroline had gone total y ballistic, and had real y tried to make Matt fit the gaping hole in her life. Matt did his best to explain this to Gwen so she could explain it to the jury, until the judge's voice interrupted him.

"We will dispense with opening arguments,"said Judge Holloway, "since the hour is so late. Wil the prosecution call its first witness?"

"Wait! Objection!"Matt shouted, ignoring Gwen's tugging at his arm and her hissing: "You can't object to the judge's rulings!"

"And the judge can't do this to me,"Matt said, twitching his T-shirt back from between her fingers. "I haven't even had a chance to meet with my public defender yet!"

"Maybe you should have accepted a public defender earlier,"replied the judge, sipping from a glass of water. He suddenly thrust his head at Matt and snapped, "Eh?"

"That's ridiculous,"cried Matt. "You wouldn't give me my phone call to get a lawyer!"

"Did he ever ask for a phone call ?"Judge Holloway snapped, his eyes traveling around the room.

The two officers who had beat Matt up solemnly shook their heads. At this, the bailiff, whom Matt suddenly recognized as the guy who'd kept him in the jury room for around four hours, began wagging his head back and forth in the negative. They all three wagged, almost in unison.

"Then you forfeited that right by not asking for it,"the judge snapped. It seemed to be his only way of speaking. "You can't demand it in the middle of a trial. Now, as I was saying - "

"I object!" Matt shouted even louder. "They're all lying! Look at your own tapes of them interrogating me. Al I kept saying - "

"Counselor,"the judge snarled at Gwen, "control your client or you will be held in contempt of court!"

"You have to shut up,"Gwen hissed at Matt.

"You can't make me shut up! You can't have this trial while you're breaking all the rules!"

"Shut your trap!" The judge belted out the words at a surprising volume. He then added, "The next person to make a remark without my express permission shall be held in contempt of court to the tune of a night in jail and five hundred dollars."

He paused to look around to see if this had sunk in. "Now,"he said. "Prosecution, call your first witness."

"We call Caroline Beulah Forbes to the stand."

Caroline's figure had changed. Her stomach was sort of upside-down-avocado-shaped now. Matt heard murmurs.

"Caroline Beula Forbes, do you swear that the testimony you shall give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?"

Somewhere deep inside, Matt was shaking. He didn't know if it was mostly anger or mostly fear or an equal combination of both. But he felt like a geyser ready to blow - not necessarily because he wanted to, but because forces beyond his control were taking hold of him. Gentle Matt, Quiet Matt, Obedient Matt - he had left all those behind somewhere. Raging Matt, Rampaging Matt, that was about all he could be.

From a dim outside world, voices came filtering into his reverie. And one voice pricked and stung like a nettle.

"Do you recognize the boy you have named as your former boyfriend Matthew Jeffrey Honeycutt here in this room?"

"Yes," the prickly nettle voice said softly. "He's sitting at the defense table, in the gray T-shirt."

Matt's head flew up. He looked Caroline straight in the eye.

"You know that's a lie," he said. "We never went on one date together. Ever."

The judge, who had seemed to be asleep, now woke up.

"Bailiff!" he snapped. "Restrain the defendant immediately."

Matt tensed. As Gwen Sawicki moaned, Matt suddenly found himself being held while duct tape was wrapped round and round his mouth.

He fought. He tried to get up. So they duct-taped him around his waist to the chair. As they final y left him alone, the judge said, "If he runs off with that chair, you will pay it out of your own salary, Miz Sawicki."

Matt could feel Gwen Sawicki trembling beside him. Not with fear. He could recognize the about-to-explode expression and realized that she was going to be next. And then the judge would hold her in contempt and who would speak up for him?

He met her eyes and shook his head firmly at her. But he also shook his head at every lie Caroline came up with.

"We had to keep it a secret, our relationship," Caroline was saying demurely, straightening the gray dress. "Because Tyler Small wood, my previous boyfriend, might have found out. Then he would have - I mean, I didn't want any trouble between them."

Yeah, Matt thought bitterly: you'd better walk careful y -

because Tyler's dad probably has as many good friends in here as yours does. More. Matt tuned out until he heard the prosecutor say, "And did anything unusual happen on the night in question?"

"Well, we went out together in his car. We went over near the boardinghouse...no one would see us there...Yes, I - I'm afraid I did give him a...a love-bite. But after that I wanted to leave, but he didn't stop. I had to try to fight him off. I scratched him with my nails - "

"The prosecution offers Peoples'Exhibit 2 - a picture of the deep fingernail scores on the defendant's arm - "

Gwen's eyes, meeting Matt's, looked dull . Beaten. She showed Matt a picture of what he remembered: the deep marks made by the huge malach's teeth when he had pulled his arm out of its mouth. "The defense will stipulate..."

"So admitted."

"But no matter how I screamed and fought...Well, he was too strong, and I - I couldn't - "Caroline tossed her head in agony of remembered shame. Tears flooded from her eyes.

"Your Honor, perhaps the defendant needs a break to freshen her makeup," Gwen suggested bitterly.

"Young lady, you are getting on my nerves. The prosecution can care for its own clients - I mean witnesses - "

"Your witness..." - from the prosecution.

Matt had scribbled as much of the real story as he could onto a blank sheet of paper while Caroline's theatrics had gone on. Gwen was now reading this.

"So," she said, "your ex, Tyler Small wood, is not and has never been a" - she swallowed - "a werewolf."

Through her tears of shame Caroline laughed lightly. "Of course not. Werewolves aren't real."

"Like vampires."

"Vampires aren't real either, if that's what you mean. How could they be?" Caroline was looking into every shadow of the room as she said this.

Gwen was doing a good job, Matt realized. Caroline's demure patina was beginning to chip.

"And people never come back from the dead - in these modern times, I mean," Gwen said.

"Well, as to that" - malice had crept into Caroline's voice - "if you just go to the boardinghouse in Fell 's Church, you can see that there's a girl called Elena Gilbert, who was supposed to have drowned last year. On Founder's Day, after the parade. She was Miss Fell's Church, of course."

There was a murmur among the reporters. Supernatural stuff sold better than anything else, especial y if a pretty girl was involved. Matt could see a smirk making the rounds.

"Order! Miz Sawicki, you will keep to the facts in this case!"

"Yes, Your Honor."Gwen looked thwarted. "Okay, Caroline, let's go back to the day of the alleged assault. After the events you have narrated, did you call the police at once?"

"I was...too ashamed. But then I realized I might be pregnant or have some horrid disease, and I knew I had to tell."

"But that horrid disease wasn't lycanthropy - being a werewolf, right? Because that couldn't be true."

Gwen looked anxiously down at Matt and Matt looked bleakly up at her. He'd hoped that if Caroline were forced to keep talking about werewolves she would eventual y start to twitch.

But she seemed to have complete control over herself now.

The judge seemed furious. "Young lady, I won't have my court made a joke with any more supernatural nonsense!"

Matt stared at the ceiling. He was going to jail. For a long time. For something he hadn't done. For something he would never do. And besides, now, there might be reporters going over to the boardinghouse to bother Elena and Stefan.

Damn! Caroline had managed to get that in despite the blood oath she'd made never to give their secret away.

Damon had signed that oath as well. For a moment Matt wished that Damon were back and right here, to take revenge on her. Matt didn't care how many times he got called "Mutt" if Damon would just appear. But Damon didn't.

Matt realized that the duct tape around his middle was low enough that he could slam his head against the defense table. He did this, making a small boom.

"If your client wishes to be completely immobilized, Miz Sawicki, it can be - "

But then they all heard it. Like an echo, but delayed. And much louder than the sound of a head striking a table.

BOOM!

And again.

BOOM!

And then the distant, disturbing sound of doors slamming open as if they had been hit by a battering ram.

At this point the people in the courtroom Still could have scattered. But where was there to go?

BOOM! Another, closer door slamming open.

"Order! Order in the courtroom!"

Footsteps sounded down the wooden floor of the corridor.

"Order! Order!"

But no one, not even a judge, could stop this many people from muttering. And late in the evening, in a locked courthouse, after all that talk of vampires and werewolves...

Footsteps coming closer. A door, quite near, crashing and creaking.

A ripple of...something...went through the courtroom.

Caroline gasped, clutching at her bulging stomach.

"Bar those doors! Bailiff! Lock them!"

"Bar them how, Your Honor? And they only lock from the outside!"

Whatever it was, it was very close -

The doors to the courtroom opened, creaking. Matt put a calming hand on Gwen's wrist, twisting his neck to see behind him.

Standing in the doorway was Saber, looking, as always, as big as a small pony. Mrs. Flowers walked beside him; Stefan and Elena drew up the rear.

Heavy clicking footsteps as Saber, alone, went up to Caroline, who was gasping and quivering.

Utter silence as everyone took in the sight of the giant beast, his coat ebony black, his eyes dark and moist as he took a leisurely look around the courtroom.

Then, deep in his chest, Saber went hmmf.

Around Matt people were gasping and writhing, as if they itched all over. He stared and saw Gwen staring along with him as the gasping became a panting.

Final y Saber tilted his nose to the ceiling and howled.

What happened after that wasn't pretty from Matt's point of view. Not seeing Caroline's nose and mouth jut out to make a muzzle. Not seeing her eyes recede into small , deep, fur-lined holes.

And her hands, fingers shrinking into helplessly waving paws, widespread, with black claws. That wasn't pretty.

But the animal at the end was beautiful. Matt didn't know if she'd absorbed her gray dress or shucked it off or what. He did know that a handsome gray wolf leaped from the defendant's chair to lick up at Saber's chops, rolling all the way on the floor to frolic around the huge animal, who was so obviously the alpha wolf.

Saber made another deep hmmf sound. The wolf that had been Caroline rubbed her snout lovingly against his neck.

And it was happening in other places in the room. Both of the prosecutors, three of the jurors...the judge himself...

They were all changing, not to attack, but to forge their social bonds with this huge wolf, an alpha if ever there was one.

"We talked to him all the way," Elena explained in between cursing the duct tape in Matt's hair. "About not being aggressive and snapping off heads - Damon told me he did that once."

"We didn't want a bunch of murders," Stefan agreed. "And we knew no animal would be as big as he was. So we concentrated on bringing out all the wolf in him we could - wait, Elena - I've got the tape on this side. Sorry about this, Matt."

A sting as tape ripped free - and Matt put a hand to his mouth. Mrs. Flowers was snipping the duct tape that held him to the chair. Suddenly he was entirely free and he felt like shouting. He hugged Stefan, Elena, and Mrs. Flowers, saying, "Thank you!"

Gwen, unfortunately, was being sick in a trash can. Actual y, Matt thought, she was lucky in having secured one. A juror was being sick over the railing.

"This is Ms. Sawicki,"Matt said proudly. "She came in after the trial had begun, and did a real y good job for me."

"He said 'Elena,'" Gwen whispered when she could speak.

She was staring at a small wolf, with patches of thinning hair, that came limping down from the judge's chair to cavort around Saber, who was accepting al such gestures with dignity.

"I'm Elena," said Elena, in between giving Matt mighty hugs.

"The one who's...supposed to be dead?"

Elena took a moment out to hug Gwen. "Do I feel dead?"

"I - I don't know. No. But - "

"But I have a pretty little headstone in the Fell's Church cemetery," Elena assured her - then suddenly, with a change in countenance, "Did Caroline tell you that?"

"She told the whole room that. Especial y the reporters."

Stefan looked at Matt and smiled wryly. "You may just live to have your revenge on Caroline."

"I don't want revenge anymore. I just want to go home. I mean - "He looked at Mrs. Flowers in consternation.

"If you can think of my house as 'home' while your dear mother is away, I am very happy," said Mrs. Flowers.

"Thank you," Matt said quietly. "I real y mean that. But Stefan...what are the reporters going to write?"

"If they're smart, they won't write anything at all."

Chapter 23

In the car, Matt sat by the sleeping Meredith with Saber crammed in at their feet, listening in shock and horror as they recounted Meredith's story. When they were done, he was able to speak about his own experiences.

"I'm going to have nightmares all my life about Cole Reece," he admitted. "And even though I slapped an amulet on him, and he cried, Dr. Alpert said he was Still infected.

How can we fight something this far out of control?"

Elena knew he was looking at her. She dug her nails into her palms. "It isn't that I haven't tried to use Wings of Purification over the town. I've tried so hard that I feel as if I'll burst. But it's no good. I can't control any Wings Powers at all! I think -

after what I've learned about Meredith - that I may need training. But how do I get it? Where? From who?"

There was a long silence in the car. At last Matt said, "We're all in the dark. Look at that courtroom! How can they have so many werewolves in one town?"

"Wolves are sociable," Stefan said quietly. "It looks as if there is a whole community of werewolves in Ridgemont. Seeded among the various Bear and Moose and Lions Clubs of course. For spying on the only creatures they're scared of: humans."

At the boardinghouse Stefan carried Meredith to the first-floor bedroom and Elena pulled the covers over her. Then she went to the kitchen, where the conversation was continuing.

"What about those were wolves' families? Their wives?" she demanded as she rubbed Matt's shoulders where she knew the muscles must hurt fiercely from being handcuffed behind his back. Her soft fingers soothed bruises, but her hands were strong, and she kept kneading and kneading until her own shoulder muscles began to swear at her...and beyond.

Stefan stopped her. "Move over, love, I've got evil vampire magic. This is necessary medical treatment," he added sternly to Matt. "So you have to take it no matter how much it hurts." Elena could Still feel him, if faintly, through their connection and she saw how he anesthetized Matt's mind and then dug into the knotted shoulders as if he was kneading stiff dough, meanwhile reaching out with his Powers of healing.

Mrs. Flowers came by just then with mugs of hot, sweet cinnamon tea. Matt drained his mug and his head fell back slightly. His eyes were shut, his lips parted. Elena felt a huge wave of pain and tension flood away from him. And then she hugged both of her boys and cried.

"They picked me up on my own driveway," Matt admitted as Elena sniffled. "And they did it by the book, but they wouldn't even look at the - the chaos al around them."

Mrs. Flowers approached again, looking serious. "Dear Matt, you've had a terrible day. What you need is a long rest."She glanced at Stefan, as if to see how this would impact him, with so few blood donors. Stefan smiled reassuringly at her. Matt, Still being kneaded pliant, had just nodded. After that his color started coming back and a little smile curved his lips.

"There's m'main man,"he said, when Saber butted his way through traffic to pant directly in Matt's face. "Buddy, I love your dog breath,"he declared. "You saved me. Can he have a treat, Mrs. Flowers?"he asked, turning slightly unfocused blue eyes on her.

"I know just what he'd like. I have half a roast left in the refrigerator that just needs to be heated a bit."She punched buttons and in a short while, said, "Matt, would you like to do the honors? Remember to take the bone out - he might choke on it."

Matt took the large pot roast, which, heated, smelled so good it made him aware that he was starving. He felt his morals col apse. "Mrs. Flowers, do you think I could make a sandwich before I give it to him?"

"Oh, you poor dear boy!"she cried. "And I never even thought - of course they wouldn't give you lunch or dinner."

Mrs. Flowers got bread and Matt was happy enough with that, bread and meat, the simplest sandwich imaginable -

and so good it curled his toes.

Elena wept just a little more. So easy to make two creatures happy with one simple thing. More than two - they were all happy to see Matt safe and to watch Saber get his proper reward.

The enormous dog had followed every movement of that roast with his eyes, tail swishing back and forth on the floor.

But when Matt, Still chomping, offered him the large piece of meat that was left, Saber just cocked his head to one side, staring at it as if to say, "You have to be joking."

"Yes, it's for you. Go on and take it now,"Mrs. Flowers said firmly. Final y, Saber opened his enormous mouth to take hold of the end of the roast, tail twirling like a helicopter blade. His body language was so clear that Matt laughed out loud.

"This once on the floor with us,"Mrs. Flowers added magnificently, spreading a large rug over the kitchen floorboards.

Saber's joy was only surpassed by his good manners. He put the roast on the rug and then trotted up to each of the humans to push a wet nose into hand or waist or under a chin, and then he trotted back and attacked his prize.

"I wonder if he misses Sage?"Elena murmured.

"I miss Sage,"Matt said indistinctly. "We need all the magic help we can get."

Meanwhile Mrs. Flowers was hurrying around the kitchen making ham and cheese sandwiches and bagging them like school lunches. "Anybody who wakes up tonight hungry must have something to eat,"she said. "Ham and cheese, chicken salad, some nice crisp carrots, and a big hunk of apple pie."Elena went to help her. She didn't know why, but she wanted to cry some more. Mrs. Flowers patted her. "We are all feeling - er, strung out, "she announced gravely. "Anyone who doesn't feel like going right to sleep is probably running on too much adrenaline. My sleeping aid will help with that.

And I think we can trust our animal friends and the wards on the roof to keep us safe tonight."

Matt was practical y asleep on his feet now. "Mrs. Flowers -

someday I'll repay you...but for now, I can't keep my eyes open."

"In other words, bedtime, kiddies,"Stefan said. He closed Matt's fingers firmly around a packed lunch, then steered him toward the stairs. Elena gathered several more lunches, kissed Mrs. Flowers twice, and went up to Stefan's room.

She had the attic bed straightened and was opening a plastic bag when Stefan came in from putting Matt to bed.

"Is he okay?"she said anxiously. "I mean, will he be okay tomorrow?"

"He'll be okay in his body. I got most of the damage healed."

"And in his mind?"

"It's a tough thing. He just ran smack into Real Life. Arrested, knowing they might lynch him, not knowing if anybody would be able to figure out what had happened to him. He thought that even if we tracked him it would come down to a fight, which would have been hard to win - with so few of us, and not much magic left."

"But Saber fixed 'em,"Elena said.

She looked thoughtful y at the sandwiches she'd laid out on the bed. "Stefan, do you want chicken salad or ham?"she asked.

There was a silence. But it was moments before Elena looked up at him in astonishment. "Oh, Stefan - I - I actual y forgot. I just - today has been so strange -  I forgot - "

"I'm flattered,"Stefan said. "And you're sleepy. Whatever Mrs. Flowers puts in her tea - "

"I think the government would be interested in it,"Elena offered. "For spies and things. But for now..."She held her arms out, head bent back, neck exposed.

"No, love. I remember this afternoon, if you don't. And I swore I was going to start hunting, and I am,"Stefan said firmly.

"You're going to leave me?"Elena said, startled out of her warm satisfaction. They stared at each other.

"Don't leave,"Elena said, combing her hair away from her neck. "I had it all planned out, how you'll drink, and how we'll sleep holding each other. Please don't leave, Stefan."

She knew how hard he found it to leave her. Even if she was grimy and worn out, even if she was wearing grungy jeans and had dirt under her fingernails. She was endlessly beautiful and endlessly powerful and mysterious to him. He longed for her. Elena could feel it through their bond, which was beginning to hum, beginning to warm up, beginning to draw him in close.

"But, Elena,"he said. He was trying to be sensible! Didn't he know she didn't want sensible at this particular moment?

"Right here."Elena tapped the soft spot on her neck.

Their bond was singing like an electric power line now. But Stefan was stubborn. "You need to eat, yourself. You have to keep your strength up."

Elena immediately picked up a chicken salad sandwich and bit into it. Mmm...yummy. Really good. She would have to pick Mrs. Flowers a wildflower bouquet. They were all so well taken care of here. She had to think of more ways to help.

Stefan was watching her eat. It made him hungry, but that was because he was used to being fed round the clock, and not used to exercise. Elena could hear everything through their connection and she heard him thinking that he was glad to see Elena renewing herself. That he had learned discipline now; that it wouldn't do him any harm to go to bed one night feeling hungry. He would hold his sleepy adorable Elena al night.

No! Elena was horrified. Since he'd been imprisoned in the Dark Dimension, anything that hinted at Stefan going without filled her with appalling terror. Suddenly she had trouble swallowing the bite she'd taken.

"Right here, right here...please?" she begged him. She didn't want to have to seduce him into it, but she would if he forced her to. She would wash her hands into pristine cleanliness, and change into a long, clinging nightgown, and stroke his stubborn canines in between kisses, and touch them with her tongue tip gently, just at the base where they wouldn't cut her as they responded and grew. And by then he would be dizzy, he would be out of control, he would be hers completely.

All right, All right! Stefan thought to her. Mercy!

"I don't want to give you mercy. I don't want you to let me go," she said, holding her arms out to him, and heard her own voice soft and tender and yearning. "I want you to hold me and keep me forever, and I want to hold you and keep you forever."

Stefan's face had changed. He looked at her with the look he'd worn in prison when she had come to visit him in an outfit - very unlike the grubby one she wore now - and he'd said, bewildered, "Al this...it's for me?"

There had been razor wire between them then. Now there was nothing to separate them and Elena could see how much Stefan wanted to come to her. She reached a little farther and then Stefan came into the circle of her arms and held her tightly but with infinite care not to use enough strength to hurt her. When he relaxed and leaned his forehead against hers, Elena realized that she would never be tired or sad or frightened without being able to think of this feeling and that it would uphold her for the rest of her life.

At last they sank down together on the sheets, comforting each other in equal measure; exchanging sweet, warm kisses. With each kiss, Elena felt the outside world and al its horrors drift farther and farther away. How could anything be wrong when she herself felt that heaven was near? Matt and Meredith, Damon and Bonnie would surely al be safe and happy too. Meanwhile, every kiss brought her closer to paradise, and she knew Stefan felt the same way. They were so happy together that Elena knew that soon the entire universe would echo with their own joy, which overflowed like pure light and transformed everything it touched.

Bonnie woke and realized she had only been unconscious for a few minutes. She began to shiver, and once she started she couldn't seem to stop. She felt a wave of heat envelop her, and she knew that Damon was trying to warm her, but Still the trembling wouldn't go away.

"What's wrong?"Damon asked, and his voice was different from usual.

"I don't know,"Bonnie said. She didn't. "Maybe it's because they kept starting to throw me out the window. I wasn't going to scream about that,"she added hastily, in case he assumed she would. "But then when they talked about torturing me - "

She felt a sort of spasm go through Damon. He was holding her too hard. "Torturing you! They threatened you with that?"

"Yes, because, you know, Misao's star ball was gone. They knew that it had been poured out; I didn't tell them that. But I had to tell them that it was my fault that the last half got poured out, and then they got mad at me. Oh! Damon, you're hurting me!"

"So it was your fault it got poured out, was it?"

"Well, I figure it was. You couldn't have done it if I hadn't gotten drunk, and - wh-what's wrong, Damon? Are you mad too?"He really was holding her so that she real y couldn't breathe.

Slowly, she felt his arms loosen a little. "A word of advice, little redbird. When people are threatening to torture and kill you, it might be more - expedient - to tell them that it's someone else's fault. Especial y if that happens to be the truth."

"I know that!" Bonnie said indignantly. "But they were going to kill me anyway. If I'd told about you, they'd've hurt you, too."

Damon pulled her roughly back now, so that she had to look him in the face. Bonnie could also feel the delicate touch of a telepathic mind probe. She didn't resist; she was too busy wondering why he had plum-colored shadows under his eyes. Then he shook her a little, and she stopped wondering.

"Don't you understand even the basics of self-preservation?"he said, and she thought he looked angry again. He was certainly different from any other time that she'd seen him - except once, she thought, and that was when Elena had been "Disciplined" for saving Lady Ulma's life, back when Ulma had been a slave. He'd had the same expression then, so menacing that even Meredith had been frightened of him, and yet so filled with guilt that Bonnie had longed to comfort him.

But there had to be some other reason, Bonnie's mind told her. Because you're not Elena, and he's never going to treat you the way he treats Elena. A vision of the brown room rose before her, and she felt certain that he would never have put Elena there. Elena wouldn't have let him, for one thing.

"Do I have to go back?" she asked, realizing that she was being petty and silly and that the brown room had seemed like a haven just a little while ago.

"Go back?" Damon said, a little too quickly. She had the feeling that he'd seen the brown room too, now, through her eyes. "Why? The landlady gave me everything in the room.

So I have your real clothes and a bunch of star balls down there, in case you weren't through with one. But why would you think you might have to go back?"

"Well, I know you were looking for a lady of quality, and I'm not one," Bonnie said simply.

"That was just so I could change back into a vampire," Damon said. "And what do you think is holding you up in the air right now?" But this time Bonnie knew somehow that the sensations from the "Never Ever" star balls were Stillin her mind and that Damon was seeing them too. He was a vampire again. And the contents of these star balls were so abominable that Damon's stony exterior final y cracked.

Bonnie could almost guess what he thought of them, and of her, left to shiver under her one blanket every night.

And then, to her total astonishment, Damon, the ever-composed, brand-new vampire blurted, "I'm sorry. I didn't think about how that place would be for you. Is there anything that will make you feel better?"

Bonnie blinked. She wondered, seriously, if she were dreaming. Damon didn't apologize. Damon famously didn't apologize, or explain, or speak so nicely to people, unless he wanted something from them. But one thing seemed real.

She didn't have to sleep in the brown room anymore.

This was so exciting that she flushed a little, and dared say,

"Could we go down to the ground? Slowly? Because the truth is that I'm just terrified of heights."

Damon blinked, but said, "Yes, I think I can manage that. Is there anything else you'd like?"

"Well  - there are a couple of girls who'd be donors - happily - if - well  - if there's any money left - if you could save them..."

Damon said a little sharply, "Of course there's some money left. I even wrung your share back out of that hag of a landlady."

"Well, then, there's that secret that I told you, but I don't know if you remember."

"How soon do you think you'll feel well enough to start?" asked Damon.

Chapter 24

Stefan woke early. He spent the time from dawn until breakfast just watching Elena, who even in sleep had an inner glow like a golden flame through a faintly rose-colored candle.

At breakfast, everyone was more or less Still wrapped up in thoughts of the day before. Meredith showed Matt the picture of her brother, Cristian, the vampire. Matt briefly told Meredith about the inner workings of the Ridgemont court system and painted her a picture of Caroline as werewolf. It was clear that both of them felt safer at the boardinghouse than anywhere else.

And Elena, who had woken up with Stefan's mind al around her, embracing her, and her own mind Still full of light, was completely at a loss for a Plan A or any other letter. She had to be told gently by the others that only one thing made sense.

"Stefan,"Matt said, draining a mug of Mrs. Flowers's pitch-black coffee. "He's the only one who might be able to use his mind instead of Post-it Notes on the kids."

And, "Stefan,"said Meredith. "He's the only one Shinichi might be afraid of."

"I'm no use at all,"Elena said sadly. She had no appetite. She had gotten dressed with a feeling of love and compassion toward al humankind and a desire to help protect her hometown, but as everyone pointed out, she was probably going to have to spend the day in the root cellar. Reporters might come to call.

They're right, Stefan sent to Elena. I'm the only logical person to find out what's really going on in Fell's Church.

He actually went while the rest of them were finishing breakfast. Only Elena knew why; only she could feel him at the limits of her telepathic range.

Stefan was hunting. He drove into the New Wood, got out, and finally startled a rabbit out of the brush. He Influenced it to rest and not be frightened. Surreptitiously, in this thin woodland without cover, he took a little blood from it...and choked.

It tasted like some kind of hideous liquid flavored with rodent.

Was a rabbit a rodent? He had been lucky enough to find a rat one day in his prison cell and it had tasted vaguely like this.

But now, for days, he had been drinking human blood. Not just that, but the rich, potent blood of strong, adventurous, and in several cases paranormal y talented individuals - crème de la crème. How could he have gotten used to it so quickly?

It shamed him now, to think of what he'd taken. Elena's blood, of course, was enough to drive any vampire wild. And Meredith, whose blood had the deep crimson taste of some primordial ocean, and Bonnie, who tasted like a telepath's dessert. And final y Matt, the Al -American red-blooded boy.

They'd fed him and fed him by the hour, far past what he needed to survive. They'd fed him until he'd begun to heal, and seeing that he was healing, they'd fed him more. And it had gone on and on, ending with Elena last night - Elena, whose hair was taking on a silvery cast and whose blue eyes seemed almost radiant. Back in the Dark Dimension, Damon hadn't exercised any restraint at all. Elena hadn't exercised any on her own behalf.

That silvery cast...Stefan's stomach clenched when he thought about it, about the last time he'd seen her hair that way. She'd been dead then. On her feet, but dead just the same.

Stefan let the rabbit scamper away. He was taking another oath. He must not make Elena into a vampire again. That meant no significant blood exchange between the two of them for at least a week - either giving or taking might tip her over the edge.

He must once again adjust to the taste of animal blood.

Stefan shut his eyes briefly, remembering the horror of the first time. The cramps. The shakes. The agony that seemed to tell his entire body that it wasn't getting fed. The feeling that his veins might explode into flame at any moment, and the pain in his jaws.

He stood up. He was lucky to be alive. Luckier than he ever could have dreamed he would be in having Elena beside him. He would work through the readjustment without bothering her by telling her, he decided.

Just two hours later Stefan was back at the boardinghouse, limping slightly. Matt, who met him at the heavy front door, noticed the limp. "You okay? You'd better get in and ice it."

"Just a cramp," Stefan said briefly. "I'm not used to exercise.

Didn't get any back there in - you know." He looked away, flushing. So did Matt, hot and cold and furious at the people who had put Stefan in this condition. Vampires were pretty resilient, but he had the feeling - no, he knew - that Stefan had almost died in his prison cell. One day under lock and key had convinced Matt that he never wanted to be imprisoned again.

He followed Stefan to the kitchen where Elena, Meredith, and Mrs. Flowers were - what else? - drinking mugs of tea.

And Matt felt a twinge when Elena instantly noticed the limp and got up and went to Stefan, and Stefan held her tightly, running reassuring fingers through her hair. Matt couldn't help but wonder, though - was that glorious golden hair turning lighter? More like the silvery gold it had been when Elena had first gone with Stefan and was on her way to turning into a vampire? Stefan certainly seemed to be inspecting it closely, turning each handful as he raked his fingers through it.

"Any luck?" Elena asked him, tension in her voice.

Wearily, Stefan shook his head. "I went up streets and down streets and wherever I found a - a young girl who was contorted, or whirling round and round, or doing any other of the things the papers mentioned, I tried to Influence them.

Well, maybe I shouldn't have bothered with the whirling girls. I couldn't catch their eyes. But the final count is zero for eleven."

Elena turned toward Meredith in agitation. "What do we do?"

Mrs. Flowers busily began rummaging through bundles of herbs that hung above her stove. "You need a nice cup of tea."

"And a rest," Meredith said, patting him lightly on the hand.

"Can I get you anything?"

"Well  - I've got a new idea - scrying. But I need Misao's star ball to see if it will work. Don't worry," he added, "I won't use any of the Power in it; I just need to look at the surface."

"I'll bring it," Elena offered, getting up promptly from where she was sitting on his lap. Matt started slightly and looked at Mrs. Flowers as Elena went to the door of the root cellar and pushed. Nothing moved and Mrs. Flowers simply watched benignly. It was Stefan who rose to help her, Still limping.

Then Matt and Meredith got up, Meredith asking, "Mrs. Flowers, are you sure we should keep the star ball in that same safe?"

"Ma ma says we're doing the right thing,"Mrs. Flowers answered serenely.

After that things happened very fast.

As if they'd rehearsed it, Meredith pressed the exact place to open the root cellar door. Elena fell to her hands and knees.

Faster than even he had imagined he could go, Matt went barreling toward Stefan with one shoulder down. Mrs. Flowers was frantically pulling great swaths of dried herbs down from where they hung above the kitchen table.

And then Matt was hitting Stefan with all the power in his body and Stefan was stumbling over Elena, his head going down and down and meeting no resistance on the way.

Meredith was coming at him sideways and helping him do a complete forward flip in the air. As soon as the flip took him out of the doorway and he was cartwheeling down the stairs, Elena got up and shut the door and Meredith leaned against it, as Matt shouted, "How do you keep in a kitsune?"

"These might help,"gasped Mrs. Flowers, stuffing odiferous herbs into the crack under the door.

"And - iron!"cried Elena, and she and Meredith and Matt al ran to the den where there was an enormous, tripartite iron fire screen. Somehow they bundled it back to the kitchen and set it upright against the root cellar door. Just then the first crash came from the inside against it, but the iron was heavy and the second crash against the door was weaker.

"What are you doing? Have you all gone crazy?"Stefan shouted plaintively, but as the entire group began to cover the door in Post-it Note amulets, he cursed instead and became pure Shinichi. "You'll be sorry, damn you! Misao's not right. She cries and cries. You'll make it up to her with your blood, but not before I introduce you to some special friends of mine. The kind who know how to cause real pain!"

Elena lifted her head, as if hearing something. Matt watched her frown. Then she called to Shinichi, "Don't even try to probe for Damon. He's gone. And if you try to track him I'll fry your brains."

Sullen silence greeted her from the root cellar.

"My goodness gracious, what next?" murmured Mrs. Flowers.

Elena simply nodded for the others to follow her, and they went all the way to the very top of the house - Stefan's room - and spoke in whispers.

"How did you know?"

"Did you use telepathy?"

"I didn't know at first,"Matt admitted, "but Elena was acting as if the star ball was in the root cellar. Stefan knows it's not there. I guess,"he added with a guilty start, "that I invited him in."

"I knew as soon as he started groping my hair,"Elena said with a shudder. "Stefan and D - I mean, Stefan knows I only like it touched lightly, and at the ends. Not mauled like that.

Remember al Shinichi's little songs about golden hair? He's a nutcase. Anyway, I could tell from the feel of his mind."

Matt felt ashamed. Al his wondering about Elena maybe changing into a vampire...and this was the answer, he thought.

"I noticed his lapis ring,"Meredith said. "I saw him with it on his right hand as he went out earlier. When he came back he had it on his left hand."

There was a brief pause as they all stared at her. She shrugged. "It was part of my training, noticing little things."

"Good point,"Matt said at last. "Good point. He wouldn't be able to change it in sunlight."

"How did you know, Mrs. Flowers?"Elena asked. "Or was it just the way we were behaving?"

"Goodness, no, you're all very good little actors. But as soon as he stepped over the threshold Ma ma fairly shrieked at me: 'What are you doing, letting a kitsune into your house?'So then I knew what we were in for."

"We beat him!"Elena said, beaming. "We actual y caught Shinichi off guard! I can hardly believe it."

"Believe it,"Meredith said with a wry smile. "He was off guard for a moment. He'll be thinking up revenge right now."

Something else was worrying Matt. He turned to Elena. "I thought that you said that both you and Shinichi had keys that could take you anywhere, anytime. So why couldn't he have just said, 'Take me inside the boardinghouse where the star ball is'?"

"Those were different keys from the Twin Fox key,"Elena said, her brows drawn together. "They're, like, the Master Keys and Shinichi and Misao Still have them both. I don't know why he didn't use his. Although it would have given him away the moment he was inside."

"Not if he went inside the root cellar, and stayed there the whole time,"Meredith said. "And maybe a Master Key can override the 'not invited inside' rule."

Mrs. Flowers said, "But Ma ma Still would have told me. Also there are no keyholes in the root cellar. at all."

"'No keyholes' wouldn't matter, I don't think," Elena answered.

"I think he just wanted to show how clever he was, and how he could fool us into giving him Misao's star ball."

Before anyone else could say a word, Meredith held out her palm, with a shining key on it. The key was golden with diamonds inset and had a very familiar outline.

"That's one of the Master Keys!"cried Elena. "It's what we thought the Twin Fox key would look like!"

"It sort of came out of his jeans pocket when he did that flip,"Meredith said innocently.

"When you were flipping him over me, you mean,"said Elena.

"I suppose you picked his pocket too."

"So, right now, Shinichi doesn't have a key to escape with!"Matt said excitedly.

"No key to make keyholes,"Elena agreed, dimpling.

"He can have fun changing into a mole and burrowing out of the root cellar,"Meredith said cool y. "That's if he's got his transforming gear or whatever with him."She added, with a troubled change in her voice, "I wonder...if we should have Matt tell one other person where he's actually hidden the star ball . Just...Well, just in case."

Matt saw knitted brows all around him. But suddenly the realization hit him that he had to tell someone that he'd hidden the star ball in his closet. The group - including Stefan - had picked him to hide it because he had so stubbornly resisted when Shinichi was using Damon's body as a puppet to torture him a month ago. Matt had proved then that he would die in hideous pain rather than endanger his friends. But if Matt were to die now, Misao's star ball might be lost to the group forever. And only Matt knew how close he had come today to tumbling down the stairs along with Shinichi.

Far below they all heard a shout. "Hello! Is anybody home? Elena!"

"That's my Stefan,"Elena said and then, without a shred of dignity, she ran to launch herself from the foyer into his arms.

He looked startled, but managed to break her fall before they both went down on the porch.

"What's been going on?"he said, his body vibrating infinitesimally, as with the urge to fight. "The whole house smells like kitsune!"

"It's All right,"Elena said. "Come and see."She led him upstairs to his room. "We've got him in the root cellar,"she added.

Stefan looked confused. "You've got who in the root cellar?"

"With iron against the door,"Matt said triumphantly. "And herbs and amulets all over it. And, anyway, Meredith got his key."

"His key? You're talking about - Shinichi?"Stefan turned on Meredith, green eyes wide. "While I've been gone?"

"It was mostly an accident. I sort of stuck my hand in his pocket when he was upside down and off balance. And I lucked out and got the Master Key - unless this is an ordinary house key."

Stefan stared at it. "It's the real thing. Elena knows that. Meredith, you're incredible!"

"Yes, it's the right one,"Elena confirmed. "I remember the shape - pretty elaborate, yes?"She took it from Meredith's hand.

"What are you going to - "

"Might as well test it,"Elena said with a mischievous smile.

She walked to the door of the room, shut it, said, "The den downstairs," inserted the winged key in the lock, and opened the door, stepping through and shutting the door behind her.

Before anyone could speak, she was back, with the poker from the den held aloft in triumph.

"It works!"Stefan cried.

"That's amazing,"Matt said.

Stefan looked almost feverish. "But don't you realize what it means? It means we can use this key. We can go anywhere we like without using Power. Even to the Dark Dimension!

But first - while he's Still here - we ought to do something about Shinichi."

"You're in no condition to do that now, dear Stefan,"Mrs. Flowers said, shaking her head. "I'm sorry, but the truth is that we have been very, very lucky. That wicked kitsune was off guard back then. He won't be now."

"I Still have to try,"Stefan said quietly. "Every one of you has been tormented or had to fight - whether with your fists or your minds,"he added, bowing slightly to Mrs. Flowers. "I've suffered but I've never had a chance to fight him. I have to try."

Matt said, just as quietly, "I'll go with you."

Elena added, "We can all fight together. Right, Meredith?"

Meredith nodded slowly, taking Stefan's poker from his fireplace. "Yes. It may be a low blow, but - together."

"I say it's a higher blow than letting him live and go on hurting people. Anyway, we'll take care of it...together,"Elena said firmly. "Right now!"

Matt started to get up, but his motion was frozen in midair as he stared in horror. Simultaneously, with the grace of hunting lionesses or ballet dancers the two girls closed in on Stefan, and simultaneously they swung their separate pokers; Elena hitting him in the head and Meredith hitting him squarely in the groin. Stefan reeled away from the blow to the head, but simply said, "Ow!"when Meredith hit him. Matt knocked Elena out of the way and then, turning as precisely as if he were on the football field, got Meredith out of "Stefan's"way too.

But this imposter had obviously decided not to fight back.

Stefan's form melted. Misao, green leaves woven into her scarlet-tipped black hair, stood before them. To Matt's shock, her face was pinched and pale. She was obviously very ill , although Still defiant. But there was no mockery in her voice tonight.

"What have you done with my star ball ? And my brother?"she demanded feebly.

"Your brother's safely locked up,"Matt said, hardly knowing what he was telling her. Despite all the crimes Misao had committed he couldn't help feeling sorry for her. She was clearly desperate and ill .

"I know that. I was going to say my brother will kill you all  - not as a game, but in anger."Now Misao looked wretched and frightened. "You've never seen him really angry."

"You've never seen Stefan angry either,"Elena said. "At least not when he had all his Power."

Misao just shook her head. A dried leaf floated from her hair.

"You don't understand!"

"I doubt we understand anything. Meredith, have we searched this girl?"

"No, but surely she wouldn't have brought the other one - "

Elena said crisply, "Matt, take a book and read it. I'll tell you when we're done."

Matt was reluctant to turn his back on a kitsune, even a sick one. But when even Mrs. Flowers nodded gently he obeyed.

Still, back turned or not, he could hear noises. And the noises suggested that Misao was being held tightly and searched thoroughly. At first the sounds were al negative murmurs.

"Huh-uh...huh-uh...huh-uh...huh- oops!"There was a rattle of metal on wood.

Matt only turned when Elena said, "Okay, you can look. It was in her front pocket."She added to Misao, who was looking as if she might faint, "We didn't want to have to hold you and search you. But this key - where in heaven's name did you get keys like this, anyway?"

A pink spot showed on Misao's cheeks. "Heaven is right. They're the only two left of the Master Keys - and they belong to Shinichi and me. I figured out how to steal them from the Celestial Court. That was...a long time ago."

At that moment they heard a car on the road - Stefan's Porsche. In the dead silence that followed, they could also see the car through Stefan's window as it swung into the driveway.

"No one goes down,"Elena said tersely. "No one invites him in."

Meredith shot her a keen glance. "Shinichi could have tunneled out like a mole by now. And he's already been invited in."

"My fault for not warning you all  - but anyway, if it is Shinichi and he's done anything to hurt Stefan he's going to see me when I'm angry. The words Wings of Destruction just popped into my head and something inside me wants to say them."

There was a chill in the room.

No one met Stefan, but in a moment they could al hear running footsteps. Stefan appeared at his door, burst through, and found himself confronted with a row of people al looking at him suspiciously.

"What the hell is going on?" he demanded, staring at Misao, who was being held up between Meredith and Matt. "Misao - "

Elena took two steps toward him - and wound herself around him, drawing him into a deep kiss. For a moment he resisted, but then, bit by bit, his opposition collapsed despite the roomful of observers.

When Elena finally let go, she just leaned against Stefan, breathing hard. The others were all crimson with embarrassment. Stefan, flushed as he was, held her tightly.

"I'm sorry,"Elena whispered. "But you've already 'come home' twice. First, it was Shinichi and we locked him in the root cellar. Then it was her."She pointed, without looking, toward the cowering Misao. "I didn't know how to make sure that Shinichi hadn't escaped somehow - "

"And you're sure now?"

"Oh, yes. I recognize you. You're always ready to let me in."

Matt realized that she was shaking and quickly stood up so she could sit, for at least a minute or two, in peace.

The peace lasted less than a minute.

"I want my star ball!"Misao cried. "I need to put Power in it or I'll go on weakening - and then you'll have murdered me."

"Go on weakening? Is the liquid evaporating out of the star ball or something?" Meredith asked. Matt was thinking about what he'd seen on his home block before the Ridgemont sheriffs had got him.

"You've gathered Power to put in it?" he asked mildly. "Power from yesterday, maybe?"

"Power from ever since you took it. But it isn't joined with... me. With my star ball. It's mine, but not yet."

"Like maybe some Power from making Cole Reece eat his guinea pig while it was alive? From making kids burn down their own houses?"Matt's voice was gravel y.

"What does it matter?"Misao retorted sullenly. "It's mine. They were my ideas, not yours. You can't keep me away - "

"Meredith, keep me away from her. I've known that kid Cole since he was born. I'll always have nightmares..."

Misao perked up like a wilting plant getting water. "Have nightmares, have nightmares," she whispered.

There was a silence. Then Meredith said, careful y and expressionlessly, as if she were thinking of the stave, "You're a nasty little thing, aren't you? Is that your food? Bad memories, nightmares, fear of the future?"

Misao was plainly stumped. She couldn't see the catch. It was like asking a regular hungry teenager "How about some pizza and a Coke? Is that what you want?"Misao couldn't even see that her appetites were wrong, so she couldn't lie.

"You were right before,"Stefan said forceful y. "We have your star ball. The only way to make us give it back would be to do something for us. We're supposed to be able to control you anyway because we have it - "

"Old-ways thinking. Obsolete,"Misao growled.

There was a dead silence. Matt felt his stomach plummet.

They had been betting on "old-ways thinking" all along. To get Shinichi's star ball by making Misao tell them where it was.

Their ultimate goal had been to control Shinichi using his star ball.

"You don't understand,"Misao said, pitiful y and yet angrily at the same time. "My brother will help me fil my star ball again.

But what we did in this town - it was an order, not just for fun."

"Could'a fooled me," Elena murmured, but Stefan's head jerked up and he said, "An order? From who?"

"I...don't...know!" Misao screamed. "Shinichi gets the orders. Then he tells me what to do. But whoever it is should be happy by now. The town is almost destroyed. He ought to give me some help here!" She glared at the group, and they stared back.

Without knowing that he was going to say it, Matt said, "Let's put her in the root cellar with Shinichi. I've got this feeling that we might al be sleeping in the storage room tonight."

Chapter 25

"Sleeping in the storage room with every wall covered in Post-it Note amulets," added Meredith grimly. "If we have enough. I got another packet, but it doesn't go very far when you're trying to cover a room."

"Okay," Elena said. "Who's got Shinichi's key?"

Matt raised his hand. "In my - "

"Don't tell me!" exclaimed Elena. "I've got hers. We can't lose them. Stefan and I are one team; you guys are the other."

They half-led and half-supported Misao out of Stefan's room and down the stairs. Misao didn't try to run away from them, to struggle, or to speak to them. This only made Matt more suspicious of her. He saw Stefan and Elena glance toward each other and knew they were feeling the same way.

But what else was there to do with her? There was no other way, humanely, or even inhumanely, to restrain her for days.

They had her star ball , and according to books that was supposed to al ow them to control her, but she was right, it seemed to be an obsolete notion, because it didn't work.

They'd tried with Stefan and Meredith holding her tightly, while Matt got the star ball from where he'd been keeping it in a shoebox on the upper shelf above the clothes in his closet.

He and Elena had tried to get Misao to do things while holding the almost empty sphere: to make Misao tell where her brother's star ball was, and so on. But it simply didn't work.

"Maybe when there's so little Power in it, it doesn't apply,"Elena said final y. But that was small comfort at best.

As they took Misao to the kitchen, Matt thought that it had been a stupid plan of the kitsune: imitating Stefan twice.

Doing it the second time, when the humans were on guard, that was stupid. Misao didn't seem as stupid as that.

Matt had a bad feeling.

Elena had a very bad feeling about what they were doing. As she looked around at the faces of the others, she saw that they did too. But nobody had come up with a better plan.

They couldn't kill Misao. They weren't murderers who could kill a sickly, passive girl in cold blood.

She figured that Shinichi must have very keen hearing, and had already heard them walking on the creaking kitchen floorboards. And she had to assume that he knew - by mindbond, or just logic, or whatever - that Misao was right above him. There was nothing to lose by shouting, through the closed door, "Shinichi, we've got your sister here! If you want her back you'll stay quiet and not make us throw her down the stairs."

There was silence from the root cellar. Elena chose to think of it as submissive silence. At least Shinichi wasn't yelling threats.

"Okay,"Elena whispered. She'd taken a position directly behind Misao. "When I count to three, we push as hard as we can."

"Wait!"Matt said in a miserable whisper-shout. "You said we wouldn't throw her down the stairs."

"Life isn't fair,"Elena said grimly. "You think he doesn't have some surprise for us?"

"But - "

"Leave it, Matt,"said Meredith quietly. She had the stave ready in her left hand and with her right was ready to push on the panel for opening the door. "Everybody ready?"

Everyone nodded. Elena felt sorry for Matt and Stefan, who were the most honest and sensitive of all of them.

"One,"she whispered softly, "two, three."

On three Meredith hit the concealed wall switch. And then things began to happen in very slow motion.

By "two"Elena had already begun to shove Misao toward the door. On "three"the others joined her.

But the door seemed to take forever to open. And before the ending of forever, everything went wrong.

The greenery around Misao's head spread twigs in all directions. One strand shot out and snagged Elena around the wrist. She heard a yell of outrage from Matt and knew that another strand had gotten him.

"Push!" Meredith shouted and then Elena saw the stave coming at her. Meredith whisked with the stave through the greenery connected to Misao. The vine that had been cutting into Elena's wrist fel to the floor.

Any remaining misgivings about throwing Misao down the stairs vanished. Elena joined in the crowd trying to push her through the opening. But there was something wrong in the basement. For one thing, they were shoving Misao into pitch-darkness...and movement.

The basement was full of - something. Some things.

Elena looked down at her ankle and was horrified to see a gigantic maggot that seemed to have crawled out of the root cellar. Or at least a maggot was the first thing she could think of to compare it to - maybe it was a headless slug. It was translucent and black and about a foot long, but far too fat for her to have put a hand around it. It seemed to have two ways of moving, one by the familiar hunch-and-straighten method and the other by simply sticking to other maggots, which were exploding up over Elena's head like a hideous fountain.

Elena looked up and wished she hadn't.

There was a cobra waving over them, out of the root cellar and into the kitchen. It was a cobra made of black translucent maggots stuck together, and every so often one would fall off and land among the group and there would be a cry.

If Bonnie had been with them, she would have screamed until the wineglasses in the cupboards shattered, Elena thought wildly. Meredith was trying to attack the cobra with the stave and reach into her jeans pocket for Post-it Notes at the same time.

"I'll get the notes," Elena gasped, and wriggled her hand into Meredith's pocket. Her fingers closed on a small sheaf of cards and she tugged it out triumphantly.

Just then the first glistening fat maggot fell on her bare skin.

She wanted to scream with pain as its little feet or teeth or suckers - whatever kept it attached to her - burned and stung. She pulled a thin card from the sheaf, which was not a Post-it Note but the same amulet on a small rather flimsy note card, and slapped it on the maggot-like thing.

Nothing happened.

Meredith was thrusting the stave into the middle of the cobra now. Elena saw another of the creatures fall almost onto her upturned face and managed to turn away so that it hit her collar instead. She tried another card from the sheaf and when it just floated away - the maggots looked gooey but weren't - she gave a primal scream and ripped with both hands at the ugly things attached to her. They gave way, leaving her skin covered with red marks and her T-shirt torn at the shoulder.

"The amulets aren't working," she yelled to Meredith.

Meredith was actual y standing under the swaying, hooded head of the maggot-cobra, stabbing and stabbing as if to reach the center. Her voice was muffled. "Not enough amulets anyway! Too many of these grubs. You'd better run."

An instant later Stefan shouted, "Everybody get away from here! There's something solid in there!"

"That's what I'm trying to get!" Meredith shouted back.

Frantically, Matt yelled, "Where's Misao?"

The last time Elena had seen her she had been diving into the writhing mass of segmented darkness. "Gone," she shouted back. "Where's Mrs. Flowers?"

"In the kitchen," said a voice behind her. Elena glanced back and saw the old woman pulling down herbs with both hands.

"Okay," Stefan shouted. "Everybody, take a few steps back.

I'm going to hit it with Power. Do it - now!"

His voice was like a whiplash. Everyone stepped back, even Meredith who had been probing the snake with her stave.

Stefan curled his hand around nothingness, around air, and it turned to sparkling, swirling bright energy. He threw it point-blank into the cobra made of maggots.

There was an explosion, and then suddenly it was raining maggots. Elena had her teeth locked so as to keep herself from screaming. The oval translucent bodies of the maggots broke open on the kitchen floor like overripe plums, or else bounced. When Elena dared look up again she saw a black stain on the ceiling.

Beneath it, smiling, was Shinichi.

Meredith, lightning quick, tried to put the stave through him.

But Shinichi was faster, leaning out of her way, and out of the next thrust, and the next.

"You humans," he said. "All the same. All stupid. When Midnight final y comes you'll see how stupid you were." He said "Midnight" as if he were saying "the Apocalypse."

"We were smart enough to discover that you weren't Stefan," Matt said from behind Shinichi.

Shinichi rolled his eyes. "And to put me into a little room roofed with wood. You can't even remember that kitsune control al plants and trees? The walls are all full of malach grubs by now, you know. Thoroughly infested." His eyes flickered - and he glanced backward, Elena saw, looking toward the open door of the root cellar.

Her terror soared, and at the same time Stefan shouted, "Get out of here! Out of the house! Go to somewhere safe!"

Elena and Meredith stared at each other, paralyzed. They were on different teams, but they couldn't seem to let go of each other. Then Meredith snapped out of it and turned to the back of the kitchen to help Mrs. Flowers. Matt was already there, doing the same thing.

And then Elena found herself swept off her feet and moving fast. Stefan had her and was running toward the front door.

Distantly, she heard Shinichi shout, "Bring me back their bones!"

One of the maggots that Elena batted out of the way burst its skin and Elena saw something crawling out. These real y were malach, she realized. Smaller editions of the one that had swallowed Matt's arm and left those long, deep scratches when he pulled it out again.

She noticed that one was stuck on Stefan's back. Reckless with fury, she grabbed it near one end and ripped it off, yanking relentlessly even though Stefan gasped in pain.

When it came free she got a glimpse of what looked like dozens of small children's teeth on the bottom side. She threw it against a wall as they reached the front door.

There they almost collided with Matt, Meredith, and Mrs.

Flowers, coming through the den. Stefan wrenched the door open and when they all were through Meredith slammed it shut. A few malach - grubs and Still-wet flying ones - made it out with them.

"Where's safe?" snapped Meredith. "I mean, real y safe, safe for a couple of days?" Neither she nor Matt had released their grip on Mrs. Flowers and from their speed Elena guessed that she must be almost as light as a straw figure. She kept saying, "My goodness! Oh, gracious!"

"My house?"Matt suggested. "The block's bad, but it was okay the last time I saw it, and my mom's gone with Dr. Alpert."

"Okay, Matt's house - using the Master Keys. But let's do it from the storage room. I do not want to open this front door again, no matter what,"Elena said.

When Stefan tried to pick her up she shook her head. "I'm fine. Run as fast as you can and smash any malach you see."

They made it to the storage room, but now a sound like vipvipvip - a sort of high-pitched buzzing that could only have been produced by the malach - was following them.

"What now?"Matt panted, helping Mrs. Flowers to sit on the bed.

Stefan hesitated. "Is your house real y safe, do you think?"

"Is anywhere safe? But it's empty, or it should be."

Meanwhile, Meredith drew Elena and Mrs. Flowers aside. To Elena's horror, Meredith was holding one of the smaller grubs, gripping it so that its underside was turned upward.

"Oh, God - "Elena protested, but Meredith said, "They look a lot like a little kid's teeth, don't they?"

Suddenly Mrs. Flowers became animated. "They do indeed! And you're saying that the femur we found in the thicket - "

"Yes. It was certainly human but maybe not chewed by humans. Human children,"Meredith said.

"And Shinichi yelled to the malach to bring back our bones..."Elena said and swallowed. Then she looked at the grub again. "Meredith, get rid of that thing somehow! It's going to pop out as a flying malach."

Meredith looked around the storage room blankly.

"Okay - just drop it and I'll step on it,"Elena said, holding her breath to hold in her nausea.

Meredith dropped the fat, translucent, black thing, which exploded on impact. Elena stamped on it, but the malach inside didn't crush. Instead, when she lifted her foot, it tried to skitter under the bed. The stave cut it cleanly in two.

"Guys,"Elena said sharply to Matt and Stefan, "we have to go now. Outside are a bunch of flying malach!"

Matt turned toward her. "Like the one that - "

"Smaller, but just like the one that attacked you, I think."

"Okay, here's what we figured out," Stefan said in a way that immediately made Elena uneasy. "Somebody has to go to the Dark Dimension anyway to check on Bonnie. I guess I'm the only one to do that, since I'm a vampire. You couldn't get in - "

"Yes, we could," Meredith said. "With these keys, we could just say 'Take us to Lady Ulma's house in the Dark Dimension.'Or 'Take me to wherever Bonnie is.' Why shouldn't it work?"

Elena said, "Okay. Meredith, Matt, and Mrs. Flowers can stay here and try to figure out what 'Midnight' is. From the way Shinichi said it, it sounded bad. Meanwhile, Stefan and I go to the Dark Dimension and find Bonnie."

"No!"Stefan said. "I won't take you to that horrible place again."

Elena looked him straight in the eye. "You promised,"she said, indifferent to the other people in the room. "You promised. Never to go again on a quest without me. No matter how short the time, no matter what the cause. You promised."

Stefan looked at her desperately. Elena knew he wanted to keep her safe - but which world was truly safe now? Both were filled with horror and danger.

"Anyway,"she said with a grim smile, "I have the key."

Chapter 26
     
"Now you know how it's done?"Elena asked Meredith. "You put the key in the keyhole and say where you want to go. Then open the door and go through. That's it."

"You three go first,"Stefan added. "And quick."

"I'll turn the key,"Meredith told Matt. "You take care of Mrs. Flowers."

Just then Elena thought of something that she didn't want to say aloud, only to Stefan. But she and he were physical y so close, she knew he would pick it up. Saber! she thought to Stefan. We can't leave him to these malach!

We won't, she heard Stefan's voice in her head say. I showed him the way to Matt's house, and told him to go there and take Talon and protect the people who will be coming.

At the same time Matt was saying, "Oh, my God! Saber! He saved my life - I can't just leave him."

"Already taken care of,"Stefan reassured him and Elena patted him on the back. "He'll be at your house in a little while, and if you go somewhere else he'll track you."

Elena turned her pats into gentle pushes. "Be good!"

"Matt Honeycutt's bedroom in Fell's Church,"Meredith said, thrusting the key at the door handle, and opening the door.

She and Mrs. Flowers and Matt al stepped forward. The door shut.

Stefan turned to Elena. "I'm going first," he said flatly. "But I'm holding on to you. I'm not going to let you go."

"Never let me go, never let me go," Elena whispered in an imitation of Misao's "Have nightmares."Then she had a thought.

"Slave bracelets!"

"What?" Stefan said. Then, "Oh, I remember, you told me. But what are they supposed to look like?"

"Like any two bracelets, matching if possible." Elena was scrambling around the back of the room, where furniture was piled up, opening drawers, closing them. "Come on, bracelets! Come on! This house is supposed to have everything!"

"What about these things you wear in your hair?" Stefan asked. Elena looked back and he tossed her a bag of soft cotton ponytail holders.

"You're a genius! They won't even hurt my wrists. And here are two white ones so they'll match!" Elena said happily.

They arranged themselves in front of the door, with Stefan to Elena's left so he could see what was out there before they stepped in. He also had a firm grip on Elena's left arm.

"Wherever our friend Bonnie McCullough is," Stefan said, and thrust the key into the lockless door handle, turning it. Then, after giving Elena the key, he gingerly opened the door.

Elena wasn't sure what she was expecting. A blaze of light maybe, as they traveled through dimensions. Some kind of spiraling tunnel, or shooting stars. At least a feeling of motion.

What she got was steam. It soaked through her T-shirt and dampened her hair.

And then she got noise.

"Elena! Eleeeeeeeeeeeeeeena! You're here! "

Elena recognized the voice but couldn't locate the screamer in the steam.

Then she saw an immense bathtub made of tiles of malachite, and a frightened-looking girl tending a charcoal fire at the bath's foot, while two other young attendants holding scrubbing brushes and pumice stones cowered against the other wall.

And in the bath was Bonnie! It was obvious that the tub was very deep, because Bonnie wasn't able to touch bottom in the middle but she was half-leaping out of the water like a foam-covered dolphin over and over to attract attention.

"There you are," gasped Elena. She dropped to her knees on a thick, soft blue rug. Bonnie made a spectacular leap and just for a moment Elena could feel a small soapy, sudsy body in her arms.

Then Bonnie went down again and came up laughing.

"And is that Stefan? It's Stefan! Stefan, hello! Helloooo! "

Stefan glanced back, as if trying to assess the suds situation. He seemed satisfied with it, turned slightly, and waved.

"Hey, Bonnie?" he asked, voice muffled by the sounds of continual splashing. "Where are we?"

"It's Lady Ulma's house! You're safe - you're al safe!"She turned a small hopeful face to Elena. "Where's Meredith?"

Elena shook her head, thinking of all the things about Meredith that Bonnie didn't know yet. Well, she decided, this wasn't the time to mention them. "She had to stay behind, to protect Fell's Church."

"Oh,"Bonnie looked down, troubled. "Still bad, is it?"

"You wouldn't believe it. Real y; it's - indescribable. That's where Matt and Mrs. Flowers and Meredith are. I'm sorry."

"No, I'm just so glad to see you! Oh my God, but you're hurt."She was looking at the small tooth wounds on Elena's arm, and the blood on her torn T-shirt. "I'll get out and - hey, no, you get in! There's plenty of room; plenty of hot water, and... plenty of clothes! Lady Ulma even designed some for us, for 'when we came back'!"

Elena, smiling reassuringly at the bath girls, was already stripping as fast as she could. The tub, which was big enough for six to swim in, looked too luxurious to miss and, she reasoned, it made sense to be clean when you greeted your hostess.

"Go have fun,"she shouted to Stefan. "Is Damon here?"she added in a whispered aside to Bonnie, who nodded.

"Damon's here, too,"Elena caroled. "If you find Lady Ulma, tell her Elena's coming, but she's getting washed up first."She didn't actual y dive into the pearl pink steaming water, but she got onto the second step down and let herself slide from there.

Instantly, she was immersed in delicious heat that seeped straight into her body, pulling some magic string that relaxed al her muscles at once. Perfumes suffused the air. She flung her wet hair back and saw Bonnie laughing at her.

"So you got out of your hole and you've been here wallowing in luxury while we've been worried sick?"Elena couldn't help but hear the way her voice went up at the end, making it a question.

"No, I got picked up by some people, and - "Bonnie broke off. "Well...the first few days were tough, but never mind.

Thank God we got to Lady Ulma's in the end. Want a bath brush? Some soap that smells just like roses?"

Elena was looking at Bonnie with slightly narrowed eyes.

She knew that Bonnie would do just about anything for Damon. That included covering up for him. Delicately, all the while enjoying the brushes and unguents and many kinds of soaps laid out on a shelf for easy reach, she began an inquisition.

Stefan got out of the steamy room before he was soaking wet. Bonnie was safe and Elena was happy. He found he had stepped into another room, in which were a number of couches made of some soft spongy material. For drying?

Massage? Who knew?

The next room he entered had gas lanterns that were turned high enough to rival electrical light. Here were three more couches - he had no idea what for - a full -length silvered-glass mirror, and smaller mirrors in front of chairs. Obviously a place for makeup and beautifying.

This last room opened onto a hall way. Stefan stepped out and hesitated, spreading delicate tendrils of Power in different directions, hoping to find Damon before Damon noticed his presence in the estate. The Master Key had proved that it could overcome the fact that he hadn't been invited here. That meant that maybe he could...

At that moment he got a hit, and withdrew his probe immediately, startled. He stared down the long corridor. He could actually see Damon, pacing in the room at the end, talking to someone Stefan couldn't see behind the door.

Stefan crept very quietly down the hall way, stalking. He made it to the door without his brother even noticing, and there he saw that the person Damon was talking to was a woman wearing what looked like buckskin breeches and shirt, who had weathered skin, and a general aura of being more at home outside civilization than inside it. Damon was saying,

"Make sure there are enough warm clothes for the girl. She's not exactly hardy, you know - "

"Then where are you taking her - and why?" Stefan asked, leaning against the doorjamb.

He had the good fortune to once - just this once - take Damon unaware. His brother glanced up, and then jerked like a startled cat. It was priceless to watch Damon scrambling for a mask until he decided on the fa?ade of absent amiability. Stefan guessed that no one had ever put so much effort into walking over to a desk chair, sitting down, and forcing himself to lounge.

"Well, well! Little brother! You dropped in for a visit! How... nice. What a pity, though, that I'm practical y running out the door on a journey, and there's no room for you."

At this point the weather-beaten woman who had been taking notes - and who had risen when Stefan entered the room - spoke up. "Oh, no, my lord. The thurgs won't mind the extra weight of this gentleman. They probably won't notice it.

If his baggage can be ready by tomorrow you can start out in the early morning just as you planned."

Damon gave her his best "shut up or die" glare. She shut up.

Through clenched teeth, Damon managed to say, "This is Pelat. She's the coordinator of our little expedition. Hello, Pelat. Good-bye, Pelat. You may go."

"As you wish, my lord."

Pelat bowed and left.

"Aren't you taking this 'my lord' thing a bit too seriously?" Stefan asked. "And what is that costume you're wearing?"

"It's the uniform of the captain of the guard of Madame le Princess Jessalyn D'Aubigne,"Damon said coldly.

"You got a job?"

"It was a position."Damon bared his teeth. "And it's none of your business."

"Got your canines back, too, I see."

"And that's none of your business either. But if you want me to knock you out and trample over your undead body, I'll be delighted to oblige."

Something was wrong, Stefan thought. Damon should be through the taunting phase and be actually trampling on him by now. It only made sense if...

"I've already spoken to Bonnie,"he said. And so he had, to ask where he was. But to a guilty mind, apparent foreknowledge often worked wonders.

And Damon hastily said exactly what Stefan hoped he wouldn't. "I can explain!"

"Oh, God,"Stefan said.

"If she'd just done as I told her - "

"While you were off becoming a princess's captain of the guard? And she was - where?"

"She was safe, at least! But, no, she had to go out into the street and then to that shop - "

"Shocking! She actually walked in the street?"

Damon ground his teeth. "You don't know how it is around here - or how the slave trade works. Every day - "

Stefan slammed both hands on the desk, now truly angry.

"She was picked up by slavers? While you were sleazing around with a princess?"

"Princess Jessalyn does not sleaze,"Damon replied icily.

"Nor do I. And anyway it all turned out to be a good thing because now we know where the Seven Kitsune Treasures are."

"What treasures? And who cares about treasures when there's a town being destroyed by kitsune?"

Damon opened his mouth, shut it, then looked narrowly at Stefan. "You said that you'd talked to Bonnie about all this."

"I did talk to Bonnie,"Stefan said flatly. "I said hello."

Damon's dark eyes flared. For a moment Stefan thought he was going to snarl or start a fight. But then, through clenched teeth, he said, "It's all for the damned town, don't you see that? Those treasures include the largest star ball ever to be filled with Power. And that Power may be enough to save Fell's Church. At least to stop its total annihilation. Maybe to even clear out every malach that exists and destroy Shinichi and Misao with a single blow. Is that noble enough for you, little brother? Is it reason enough?"

"But taking Bonnie - "

"You stay with her here if you like! Spend your lives here! I might mention that without her I would never have been able to set up an expedition, and that she's determined to go.

Besides, we're not coming back this way. There has to be an easier route from the Gatehouse to Earth. We wouldn't survive coming back, so you'd better hope like hell that there is one."

Stefan was surprised. He had never heard his brother speak with such passion about anything that involved humans. He was about to reply, when behind him there came a scream of pure, unadulterated rage. It was frightening - and worrying, too, because Stefan would recognize that voice anywhere, anytime. It was Elena's.

Chapter 27

Stefan whirled around and saw Bonnie, with only a towel wrapped around her, trying to physically restrain Elena, who was similarly clad. Elena's hair was wet and uncombed.

Something had caused her to leap out of the bathing pool and run directly into the corridor.

Stefan was surprised by Damon's reaction. Was that a spark of alarm in the endlessly dark eyes that had remained impassive watching a thousand disasters, calamities, cruelties?

No, it couldn't be. But it certainly looked like one.

Elena was getting closer. Her voice rang out clearly through the hall way, which was spacious enough to give it a slight echo. "Damon! I see you! You wait right there -  I'm coming to kill you! "

This time the flicker was unmistakable. Damon glanced at the window, which was partly open.

Meanwhile Bonnie had lost the fight and Elena was running like a gazelle toward the office. Her eyes, however, were definitely not doe-like. Stefan saw them glitter dangerously as Elena herself eluded him - mainly because he didn't dare grab her by the towel, and every other part of her was slippery. Elena was now facing Damon, who had risen from his chair.

"How could you?"she cried. "Using Bonnie like that -

Influencing her, drugging her - al to get at what didn't belong to you! Using almost all the Power that was left in Misao's star ball  - what did you think Shinichi would do when you did that? He came after us, that's what he did - and who knows if the boardinghouse is Still standing?"

Damon opened his mouth, but Elena wasn't finished.

"And then to bring Bonnie to the Dark Dimension with you - I don't care if you didn't want to waste opening the Gate or not. You knew you shouldn't be taking her here."

Damon was angry now. "I - "

But Elena cut him off without even hesitating. "Then once you drag her here you abandon her. You leave her terrified, alone, in a room where she's not even al owed to look out of the window, with a collection of star balls that you don't even bother to examine - but which are completely unsuitable and give her nightmares! You - "

"If the little dolt had just had the sense to wait quietly - "

"What? What did you say? "

"I said, if the little dolt had just had the sense - "

Stefan, who was already on the move, shut his eyes briefly.

He opened them again in time to see the slap and to feel Elena putting all her Power into it. It snapped Damon's head around.

What astonished him - even though he positioned himself precisely in case of it - was to see Damon's hand flash up as quick as a cobra's strike. There was no follow-through, but Stefan had already picked Elena up bodily and pulled her back out of range.

"Let go!"Elena cried, struggling to get out of Stefan's arms, or at least get her feet on the ground. "I'm going to kill him!"

The next astonishing thing - discontinuing the raw fury that Stefan could feel coursing through Elena's aura - was that Elena was actual y winning the struggle, despite the fact that he was orders of magnitude stronger than she was. Part of it had to do with the towel, which was threatening to drop at any moment. The other part was that Elena had acquired a unique style of fighting stronger opponents - at least those with any conscience. She deliberately threw herself against any point at which it would hurt her to restrain her, and she didn't give up. Eventual y he was going to have to choose between injuring her and letting her go.

At that moment, however, Elena stopped moving. She froze, head turned as she looked behind him.

Stefan glanced backward too, and felt an electrical shock shoot through him.

Bonnie was standing directly behind them, looking at Damon, her lips parted in anguish, tears in her wide brown eyes and streaming down her cheeks.

Instantly, even before he could register Elena's pleading glance, Stefan released her. He understood: Her mood and the dynamics of this situation had just been turned upside down.

Elena adjusted her towel and turned to Bonnie, but by then Bonnie was running away down the corridor. Elena's longer strides al owed her to reach Bonnie in a moment and she caught the smaller girl and held her, not so much by force as by sisterly magnetism. "Don't worry about that snake, "Elena's voice came back to them clearly, as it was obviously meant to. "He's a - "And here Elena indulged in some very creative cursing.

Stefan could hear all of it distinctly and noticed that it broke off into tiny hushing sounds just as Elena turned into the door of the bathing salon.

Stefan glanced sideways at Damon. He didn't mind fighting his brother in the least right now; he was full of rage himself on behalf of Bonnie. But Damon ignored him as if he were part of the wall paper, staring at nothing with an expression of icy fury.

At that moment Stefan heard a faint sound from the farthest end of the corridor, which was quite a distance away. But his vampire senses informed him that surely the person in front was a woman of consequence, probably their hostess. He stepped forward so that at least she could be greeted by someone who was wearing clothing.

However, at the last moment, Elena and Bonnie appeared in front of him, clad in dresses - gowns, rather - that were both casual and works of genius. Elena's was an informal robe of deep lapis blue, with her hair drying into a soft golden mass around her shoulders. Bonnie was wearing something shorter and lighter: pale violet, shot with threads of silver in no particular pattern. Both outfits, Stefan grasped suddenly, would look as good in the interminable sunlight as in a closed room with no windows and gas lamps.

He remembered the stories Elena had told about Lady Ulma designing gowns for her, and he realized that whatever else his hostess might be, she was truly a genius couturier.

And then Elena was running, dainty gold sandals flying, and Bonnie's silver slippers were following and Stefan began to run too, fearing some unknown danger. They all arrived at the far end of the hall way at the same time, and Stefan saw that the woman standing there was dressed even more splendidly than the girls. She was wearing a deep red raw silk gown with a heavy diamond-and-ruby necklace and ring - but no bracelets.

The next minute the girls were both curtseying, deep, graceful curtseys. Stefan made his best bow.

Lady Ulma held out both hands to Elena, who seemed to be almost frantic over something that Stefan didn't understand.

Elena took the extended hands, breathing quickly and shallowly. "Lady Ulma - you're so thin - "

Just then the babbling of a baby could be heard. Elena's face lit up and she smiled at Lady Ulma, letting out a quick breath. A young servant - even younger-looking than Bonnie - gently put a tiny bundle made of lace and sheerest lawn into Lady Ulma's arms. Both Elena and Bonnie blinked away tears, all the while beaming at the child and making little nonsense noises. Stefan could understand that - they'd known the Lady since she was a whip-torn slave, trying not to miscarry.

"But how - ?"Elena began spluttering. "We saw you only a few days ago, but this baby is months old - "

"A few days? Is that how long it seems to you?"asked Lady Ulma. "To us, it has been many months. But the magic Still works, Elena! Your magic remained! It was an easy delivery - easy! And then Dr. Meggar says that you saved me before she suffered injury from the abuse I went through. She is trying to speak already! It is you, Elena, it is your magic!"

At this the Lady made a movement as if to kneel at Elena's feet. She got no farther than a few inches, though, because Elena caught her hands, crying, "Lady Ulma, no!"while Stefan, at his best speed, slipped beside the girl servant and caught the Lady by her elbows, supporting her weight.

"And I'm not magic,"Elena added. "Stefan, tell her that I'm not magic."

Obediently, Stefan leaned toward the ear of the tall woman.

"Elena is the most magic I've ever encountered,"he stage-whispered. "She has Powers that I can't even understand."

"Ahh!" Elena made a wordless exclamation of frustration.

"Do you know what I'm naming her?"the Lady continued. Her face, if not conventionally beautiful, was striking, with an aristocratic combination of Roman nose and high cheekbones.

"No."Elena smiled - and then "No!"Elena cried. "Please!

Don't condemn her to a life of expectations and terror. Don't tempt anyone to hurt her while she's Still a child. Oh, Lady Ulma!"

"But my dear savior..."

Then Elena began to manage things. Once she took a situation in hand there was no way not to go with the flow of it. "Lady Ulma,"she said clearly, "forgive me for interfering in your affairs. But Bonnie has told me - "She stopped, hesitated.

"Of the troubles of strong and hopeful young girls, for the most part poor or enslaved, who have taken on the names of the three bravest young women who ever graced our world,"Lady Ulma finished for her.

"Something like that,"Elena said, flushing.

"Nobody's calling themselves Damon,"put in the young nurse cheerful y and with the utmost goodwill . "Neither boys nor girls."

Stefan could have kissed her.

"Oh, Lakshmi!"Elena hugged the coltish-looking teenager. "I didn't even see you properly. Let me look at you."She held the girl at arm's length. "Do you know, you've grown at least an inch since I last saw you?"

Lakshmi beamed.

Elena turned back to Lady Ulma. "Yes, I am afraid for the child. Why not call her Ulma?"

The patrician lady half shut her eyes. "Because, my dear Elena, Helena, Aliena, Al iana, Laynie, El a - I would not wish 'Ulma'on anyone, much less my lovely daughter."

"Why not call her Adara?"Lakshmi put in suddenly. "I always thought that was pretty, since I was a kid."

There was a silence - almost a stunned silence. Then Elena said, "Adara - it's a lovely name."

"And not at all dangerous," Bonnie said.

Stefan said, "It wouldn't stop her from starting a revolution if she wanted to."

There was a pause. Everyone looked at Damon, who was looking out the window expressionlessly. Everyone waited.

He finally turned. "Oh, excellent,"he said blankly, clearly having no idea - and less interest - in what they were talking about.

"Oh come on, Damon."Bonnie's eyes were Still swollen, but she spoke brightly. "Make it unanimous! That way Lady Ulma will be sure."Good God, Stefan thought, she must be the most forgiving girl in the universe.

"Certainly, then,"Damon said indifferently.

"Forgive us,"Elena said tightly to the room in general. "We've all been going through a bit of a hard time."

That gave Lady Ulma her cue. "Of course you have,"she said, smiling the smile of one who has known bitter suffering.

"Bonnie has told us of the destruction of your town. I am deeply sorry. What you need now is food and rest. I'l have someone conduct you to your rooms."

"I should have introduced Stefan at the start, but I was so worried I forgot to,"Elena said. "Stefan, this is Lady Ulma, who was so good to us before. Lady Ulma - Well, you know who this is."She went on tiptoe to kiss Stefan lingeringly.

Lingeringly enough that Stefan had to gently detach her and put her down. He was almost frightened at this display of bad manners. Elena was really angry at Damon. And if she didn't forgive him, the scenes would only continue to escalate - and if he was right, Elena was truly getting closer to being able to cast Wings of Destruction.

He didn't even consider asking Damon to forgive anyone.

After the girls had whispered raptures over the baby again, they were conducted to opulent bed chambers, each furnished in excellent taste, down to the smallest decoration.

As usual, though, they all congregated in one room, which happened to be Stefan's.

There was more than enough space on the bed for the three of them to sit or flop. Damon wasn't present but Stefan would bet his undead life that he was listening in.

"All right,"Elena said briskly, and went into storytelling mode.

She explained to Bonnie everything that had happened through their taking the Master Keys from Shinichi and Misao, to their flight to Lady Ulma's bathing chamber.

"To have so much Power suddenly torn away from you in an instant..."Bonnie had her head down, and it wasn't hard to guess who she was thinking about. She looked up. "Please, Elena. Don't be so angry at Damon. I know he's done some bad things - but he's been so unhappy..."

"That's no excuse,"Elena began. "And, frankly, I'm - "

Don't, Elena! Don't tell her that you're ashamed of her for putting up with it! She's already ashamed of herself!

"I'm surprised at him,"Elena said with only the smallest hesitation. "I know for a fact that he cares for you. He even has a pet name for you: his little redbird."

Bonnie sniffed. "You always say that pet names are stupid."

"Well, but I meant names like - oh - if he called you 'Bonbon'or something."

Bonnie's head came up. "Even that would be okay for the baby,"she said, with a sudden smile, like a rainbow after a storm.

"Oh, yes, isn't she adorable? I never saw such a happy baby.

Margaret used to just look at you with big eyes. Adara - if she is Adara - should have such a happy life..."

Stefan settled back against the headboard. Elena had the situation in hand.

Now he could worry about where Damon was going. After a moment he tuned back in, to find Bonnie talking about treasure.

"And they kept asking me and asking me and I couldn't figure out why since the star ball with the story on it was right there.

Only the story is gone now - Damon checked. Shinichi was going to throw me out the window, and that was when Damon rescued me, and the Guardians asked me about the story too."

"Strange,"Stefan said, sitting up alertly. "Bonnie, tell me how you first felt this story; where you were and all ."

Bonnie said, "Well, first I saw a story about a little girl named Marit going to buy a sugarplum - that was why I tried to do the same thing the next day. And then I went to bed, but I couldn't sleep. So then I picked up the star ball again and it showed me the story about the kitsune treasures. The stories are shown in order, so it had to be the one right after the sweetshop story. And then suddenly I was out of my body, and I was flying with Elena right over Alaric's car."

"Did you do anything in between experiencing the story and going to bed?"Stefan asked.

Bonnie thought; her rosebud mouth pursed. "I suppose I turned down the gas lamp. Every night I would turn the lamp way down so that it was only a flicker."

"And did you turn it back up again when you couldn't sleep and reached for the star ball again?"

"Um...no. But they're not books! You don't have to see to experience a story."

"That wasn't what I meant. How did you find the star ball in that dim room? Was it the only star ball on the floor near you?"

Bonnie's brows came together. "Well ...no. There were twenty-six. Two others were hideous; I'd kicked those into a corner. Twenty-five were soap operas - so boring. It's not as if I had shelves or anywhere else to put them - "

"Bonnie, do you want to know what I think happened?"

Bonnie blinked and nodded.

"I think that you read a children's story and then you went to bed. And you actual y fell asleep very quickly, even though you dreamed you were awake. Then you dreamed a premonition - "

Bonnie groaned. "Another one of those? But there wasn't even anyone to tell it to then!"

"Exactly. But you wanted to tell it to someone, and that longing brought you - your spirit - to where Elena was. But Elena was so worried about getting word across to Alaric that she was having an out-of-body experience. She'd been asleep too, I'm sure of it."Stefan looked at Elena. "What do you think of that?"

Chapter 28

Elena was nodding slowly. "It would work with what happened to me. At first I was alone out of my body, but then I saw Bonnie beside me."

Bonnie bit her lip. "Well ...the first thing I saw was Elena and we were both flying. I was a little behind her. But Stefan, why do you think I fell asleep and dreamed a whole story? Why can't my version just be true?"

"Because I think the first thing you'd have done would be to turn the light on - if you really were lying there awake.

Otherwise, you might well have picked up a soap opera - so boring!"

Bonnie's forehead smoothed at last. "That would explain why nobody believed me even when I told them exactly where the story was! But why didn't I tell Elena about the treasure?"

"I don't know. But sometimes when you wake up - and I think you did wake up to have the out-of-body experience - you forget the dream if something interesting is going on. But then you might remember it later if something reminds you of it."

Bonnie stared into a middle distance, thinking. Stefan was silent, knowing that only she could unravel the riddle for herself.

At last Bonnie nodded. "It could be that way! I woke up and the first thing I thought of was the sweetshop. And after that I never gave another thought to the treasure dream until somebody asked for stories. And it just popped into my head."

Elena pushed the deep blue-green velvet coverlet one way to make it green, then the other way to smooth it into blueness.

"I was going to forbid Bonnie to go on the expedition," she said: this slave who didn't have a gem on her body except Stefan's pendant which hung from a fine chain around her neck, and was Still in the simplest kind of after-bath robe.

"But if it's something we have to do, I'd better talk to Lady Ulma. It sounds as if time is precious."

"Remember - time runs differently here than back on Earth.

But we're supposed to leave in the morning," Bonnie said.

"Then I definitely need to talk to her - right now."

Bonnie jumped up, excited. "I'll help!"

"Wait." Stefan put a gentle hand on Bonnie's arm. "I have to say this. I think you're a miracle, Bonnie!" Stefan knew his eyes must be shining in a way that showed he could hardly rein in his excitement. In spite of the danger - in spite of the Guardians - in spite of everything...the largest star ball  - full of Power!

He gave Bonnie a sudden impetuous hug, sweeping her off the bed and whirling her before putting her down again. "You and your precognitions!"

"Oooh..."Bonnie said dizzily, gazing up at him. "Damon was excited, too, when I told him about the Gateway of the Seven Treasures."

"You know why, Bonnie? It's because everybody has heard about those seven treasures - but no one had any idea where they are...until you dreamed it. You do know exactly where they are?"

"Yes, if the precognition was true." Bonnie was flushed with pleasure. "And you agree that that giant star ball will save Fell's Church?"

"I'd bet my life on it!"

"Woo-hoo!"cried Bonnie, pumping a fist. "Let's go!"

"So you see,"Elena was saying, "it'll mean twice as much of everything. I don't see how we can start tomorrow."

"Now, now, Elena. As we discovered, oh, eleven months ago when you left, any job can be done quickly if we summon enough hands. I am now the regular employer of all those women we used to call in to make your ball gowns." As Lady Ulma spoke she quickly and graceful y took Elena's measurements - why do only one thing when you can do two at once? She glanced at her measuring tape. "Still exactly the same as when I last saw you. You must lead a very healthy life, Elena."

Elena laughed. "Remember, for us it's only been a few days."

"Oh, yes."Lady Ulma laughed, too, and Lakshmi, who was seated on a stool amusing the baby, made what Elena knew was one last appeal.

"I could go with you," she said earnestly, looking at Elena. "I can do all sorts of helpful things. And I'm tough - "

"Lakshmi," Lady Ulma said gently, but in a voice that wore the hat of authority. "We're already doubling the size of the wardrobe needed to accommodate Elena and Stefan. You wouldn't want to take Elena's place, would you?"

"Oh, no, no," the young girl said hastily. "Oh, Well," she said, "I'll take such good care of little Adara that she's no bother to you while you supervise Elena's and Stefan's clothes."

"Thank you, Lakshmi," Elena said from her heart, noting that Adara now seemed to be the baby's official name.

"Well, we can't let out any of Bonnie's things to fit you, but we can call in reinforcements and have a full set of garments ready for you and Stefan by the morning. It's just a matter of leather and fur to keep you warm. We use the pelts of the animals up north."

"They're not nice, cuddly baby animals, either," Bonnie said.

"They're vicious nasty things that are used for training, or they might come up from the dimension below and attack all the people on the northern fringes here. And when they finally get killed, the bounty hunters sell the leather and fur to Lady Ulma."

"Oh, well ...good," Elena said, deciding not to make an animal rights speech just now. The truth was that she was Still very shaken by her actions - her reactions - toward Damon. Why had she acted that way? Was it just to let off pressure? She Still felt as if she could smack him a good one for taking poor Bonnie away, and then leaving her alone. And...and...for taking poor Bonnie -  and not taking her!

Damon must hate her now, she thought, and suddenly the world developed a sickening, out-of-control motion, as if she were trying to balance on a seesaw. And Stefan - what else could he think but that she was a woman scorned, the kind that Hel had no fury like? How could he be so kind, so caring, when anyone in their right mind would know she'd gone mad with jealousy?

Bonnie didn't understand either. Bonnie was a child, not a woman. Although, although, she'd grown somehow - in goodness, in understanding. She was willfully blind, like Stefan. But - didn't that take maturity?

Could Bonnie be more of a woman than she, Elena, was?

"I'll have a private supper sent up to your rooms,"Lady Ulma was saying, as she quickly and deftly used the measuring tape on Stefan. "You get a good night's sleep; the thurgs -

and your wardrobes - will be waiting tomorrow." She beamed at all of them.

"Could I have - I mean, is there any Black Magic at all?" Elena stumbled. "The excitement...I'm going to sleep in my room alone. I want to get a good night's rest. We're going on a quest, you know?" All the truth. All a lie.

"Of course, I'll have a bottle sent to - "Lady Ulma hesitated and then quickly recovered. "To your room, but why don't we all have a nightcap now? It looks just the same outside,"she added to Stefan, the newcomer, "but it's really rather late."

Elena drank her first glass in one draft. The attendant had to refill it immediately. And again a moment later. After that her nerves seemed to relax a bit. But the seesaw feeling never entirely left, and though she slept alone in her room, Damon didn't visit to quarrel with her, mock her, or kill her - and certainly not to kiss.

Thurgs, Elena discovered, were something like two elephants stitched together. Each had two side-by-side trunks and four wicked-looking tusks. Each also had a high, wide, long ridged tail, like a reptile. Their small yellow eyes were placed all around their domelike heads, so that they could see 360 degrees around, looking for predators.

Predators that could take down a thurg!

Elena imagined a sort of saber-toothed cat, enormous, with a milk-white pelt big enough to line several garments of hers and Stefan's. She was pleased with her new outfits. Each one was essential y a tunic and breeches, soft, pliable, rain-shedding leather on the outside; and warm, luxurious fur on the inside. But they wouldn't be genuine Lady Ulma creations if that was all there were to them. The inner bodysuit of white fur was reversible and removable so you could change depending on the weather. There were triple-thick wind-around collars, which trailed behind or could be turned into scarves that wrapped a face up to the eyes. The white pelts spilled out of the leather at the wrists to make mittens you couldn't lose. The guys had straight leather tunics that just met at the breeches, and fastened with buttons. The girls' tunics were longer and flared out a bit. They were neatly fringed, but not stained or dyed except for Damon's, which, of course, were black with sable fur.

One thurg would carry the travelers and their baggage. A second, larger and wilder looking, would carry heating stones to help cook human food and al the food (it looked like red hay) that the two thurgs would eat on the way to the Nether World.

Pelat showed them how to move the giant creatures, with the lightest of taps of a very long stick, which could scratch a thurg behind its hippo-like ears or give it a ferocious tap at that sensitive spot, signaling it to hasten forward. that sensitive spot, signaling it to hasten forward.

"Is it safe, having Biratz carry all the thurg food? I thought you said she was unpredictable,"Bonnie asked Pelat.

"Now, miss, I wouldn't give her to you if she wasn't safe.

She'll be roped to Dazar so al she has to do is follow,"Pelat replied.

"We ride these?"Stefan said, craning his neck to get a look at the small , enclosed palanquin on top of the very large animal.

"We have to,"Damon said flatly. "We can hardly walk all the way. We're not all owed to use magic like that fancy Master Key you used to get here. No magic but telepathy works up at the very top of the Dark Dimension. These dimensions are flat like plates, and according to Bonnie, there's a fracture, just at the far north of this one - not too far from here, in other words. The crack is small by dimensional standards, but big enough for us to get through. If we want to reach the Gatehouse of the Seven Treasures we start on thurgs."

Stefan shrugged. "All right. We're doing it your way."

Pelat was putting a ladder up. Lady Ulma, Bonnie, and Elena were weeping and laughing over the baby together.

They were Still laughing as they left on their way.

The first week or so was boring. They sat in the palanquin on the back of the thurg named Dazar, with a compass from Elena's backpack dangling from the roof. They general y kept al the sides of the palanquin's curtains rolled up, except the one facing west, where the bloated, bloody red sun - too bright to look at in the higher, cleaner air outside the city - constantly loomed on the horizon. The view al around them was dreadful y monotonous - mind-bendingly so, with few trees and many miles of dried brown grassy hills. Nothing interesting to a non-hunter ever showed up. The only thing that changed was as they traveled farther north, it got colder.

It was difficult for all of them, living in such close quarters.

Damon and Elena had reached an equilibrium - or at least a pretense - of ignoring each other, something Elena would never have imagined could be possible. Damon made it easier by working on a different sleep cycle than the others - which helped to guard them as the thurgs trudged onward, day and night. If he was awake when Elena was, he would ride outside the palanquin, on the thurg's enormous neck.

They both had such stiff necks, Elena thought. Neither of them wanted to be the first to bend.

Meanwhile those inside the palanquin began to play little games, like picking the long dried grasses from the side of the road and trying to weave them into dolls, fly whisks, hats, whips. Stefan proved to be the one who made the tightest weave, and he made fly whisks and broad fans for each of them.

They also played various card games, using stiff little place cards (had Lady Ulma thought they might give a dinner party on the way?) as playing cards, after careful y marking them with the four suits. And of course, the vampires hunted.

Sometimes this took quite a long time, since game was scarce. The Black Magic Lady Ulma had stocked helped them stretch the time between hunts.

When Damon visited the palanquin, it was as if he were crashing a private party and thumbing his nose at the hosts.

Finally Elena couldn't stand it any longer, and had Stefan float her up the side of the thurg (looking down or climbing up were definitely not options) while flying magic Still worked.

She sat down on the saddle beside Damon and gathered her courage.

"Damon, I know you have a right to be angry with me. But don't take it out on the others. Especially Bonnie."

"Another lecture?"Damon asked, giving her a look that would freeze a flame.

"No, just a - a request."She couldn't bring herself to say "a plea."

When he didn't answer and the silence became unbearable, she said, "Damon, for us - we're not going on a quest for treasure out of greed or adventure or any normal reason.

We're going because we need to save our town."

"From Midnight,"a voice just behind her said. "From the Last Midnight."

Elena whirled to stare. She expected to see Stefan holding Bonnie clasped to him hard. But it was only Bonnie at her head level, hanging on to the thurg ladder.

Elena forgot she was afraid of heights. She stood up on the swaying thurg, ready to climb down on the sun side if there wasn't enough room for Bonnie to sit down fast in the driver's saddle.

But Bonnie had the slimmest hips in town and there was just room for all three of them.

"The Last Midnight is coming,"Bonnie repeated. Elena knew that monotonous voice, knew the chalk-white cheeks, the blank eyes. Bonnie was in trance - and moving. It must be urgent.

"Damon,"Elena whispered. "If I speak to her, she'll break trance. Can you ask her telepathically what she means?"

A moment later she heard Damon's projection. What is the Last Midnight? What's going to happen then?

"That's when it starts. And it's over in less than an hour. So...

no more midnights."

I beg your pardon? No more midnights?

"Not in Fell's Church. No one left to see them."

And when is this going to happen?

"Tonight. The children are final y ready."

The children?

Bonnie simply nodded, her eyes far away.

Something's going to happen to all the children?

Bonnie's eyelids drooped to half mast. She didn't seem to hear the question.

Elena needed to hold on to something. And suddenly she was. Damon had reached across Bonnie's lap and taken her hand.

Bonnie, are the children going to do something at midnight? he asked.

Bonnie's eyes filled and she bowed her head.

"We've got to go back. We have to go to Fell's Church,"Elena said, and scarcely knowing what she was doing, unclasped Damon's hand and climbed down the ladder. The bloated red sun looked different - smaller. She tugged at the curtain and almost bumped heads with Stefan as he rolled it up to let her in.

"Stefan, Bonnie's in trance and she said - "

"I know. I was eavesdropping. I couldn't even catch her on the way up. She jumped onto the ladder and climbed like a squirrel. What do you think she means?"

"You remember in the out-of-body experience she and I had?

A little spying on Alaric? That's what's going to happen in Fell's Church. Al the children, all at once, just at midnight - that's why we have to get back - "

"Easy. Easy, love. Remember what Lady Ulma said? Nearly a year here came out to be only days in our world."

Elena hesitated. It was true; she couldn't deny it. Still, she felt so cold...

Physically cold, she realized suddenly, as a blast of frigid air swirled around her, cutting through her leather like a machete.

"We need our inner furs,"Elena gasped. "We must be getting near the fracture."

They yanked down the palanquin covers and secured them and then hastily rummaged through the neat cabinet that was set on the rump of the thurg.

The furs were so sleek that Elena could fit two under her leather easily.

They were disturbed by Damon coming inside with Bonnie in his arms.

"She stopped talking,"he said, and added, "Whenever you're warm enough, I suggest that you come out."

Elena laid Bonnie down on one of the two benches inside the palanquin and piled blanket after blanket over her, tucking them in around her. Then Elena made herself climb back up.

For a moment she felt blinded. Not by the surly red sun - they had left that behind some mountains, which it turned a pink sapphire color - but by a world of white. Seemingly endless, flat, featureless whiteness stretched out before her until a bank of fog obscured whatever was behind it.

"According to legend, we should be headed toward the Silver Lake of Death,"Damon's voice said from behind Elena. And, oddly, throughout all this chill, his voice was warm - almost friendly. "Also known as Lake Mirror. But I can't change into a crow to scout ahead. Something's hindering me. And that fog in front of us is impenetrable to psychic probing."

Elena instinctively glanced around her. Stefan was Still inside the palanquin, obviously Still tending to Bonnie.

"You're looking for the lake? What's it like? I mean, I can guess why it might be called Silver and Lake Mirror,"she said. "But what's the Death bit?"

"Water dragons. At least that's what people say - but who has been there to bring back the story?"Damon looked at her.

He took care of Bonnie while she was in trance, Elena thought. And he's talking to me at last.

"Water...dragons?"she asked him and she made her voice friendly, too. As if they'd just met. They were starting over.

"I've always suspected kronosaurus, myself,"Damon said. He was right behind her now; she could feel him blocking the icy wind - no, more than that. He was generating an envelope of heat for her to stand in. Elena's shivering stopped. She felt for the first time that she could unwrap her arms from clutching herself.

Then she felt a pair of strong arms folding around her, and the heat abruptly got quite intense. Damon was standing behind her, holding her, and all at once she was very warm indeed.

"Damon,"she began, not very steadily, "we can't just - "

"There's a rock outcropping over there. No one could see us,"the vampire behind her offered - to Elena's absolute shock. A week of not speaking at all - and now this.

"Damon, the guy in the palanquin just below us is my - "

"Prince? Don't you need a knight, then?"Damon breathed this directly into her ear. Elena stood like a statue. But what he said next rocked her entire universe. "You like the story of Camelot, don't you? Only here you're the queen, princess.

You married your not-quite-fairy-tale prince, but along came a knight who knew even more of your secrets, and he called to you..."

"He forced me,"Elena said, turning to meet Damon's dark eyes straight on, even as her brain screamed for her to let it go. "He didn't wait for me to hear his call . He just...took what he wanted. Like the slavers do. I didn't know how to fight - then."

"Oh, no. You fought and fought. I've never seen a human fight so hard. But even when you fought, you felt the call of my heart to yours. Try to deny that."

"Damon - why now - al of a sudden...?"

Damon made a move as if to turn away, then turned back.

"Because by tomorrow we may be dead,"he said flatly. "I wanted you to know how I felt about you before I died - or you did."

"But you haven't told me a word about how you feel about me. Only about what you think I feel about you. And I'm sorry that I slapped you the first day I was here, but - "

"You were magnificent,"Damon said outrageously. "Forget it now. As for how I feel - maybe I'll get a chance to really show it to you someday."

Something sparked inside Elena - they were back to fencing with words, as they had been when they'd first met.

"Someday? Sounds convenient. And why not now?"

"Do you mean that?"

"Do I habitually say things I don't mean?"

She was waiting for some kind of apology, some words spoken as simply and sincerely as she had been speaking to him. Instead, with the utmost gentleness, and without glancing around to see if anyone was watching them, Damon cupped Elena's scarf-bound cheeks with his bare hands, pulled the scarf just below her lips with his thumbs, and kissed her softly. Softly - but not briefly, and something in Elena kept whispering to her that of course she had heard his call from the moment she first saw him, first felt his aura call to her. She hadn't known that it was an aura then; she hadn't believed in auras. She hadn't believed in vampires.

She'd been an ignorant little idiot...

Stefan! A voice like crystal sounded off two notes in her brain, and suddenly she was able to step back from Damon's embrace and look at the palanquin again. No sign of motion there.

"I have to go back,"she told Damon brusquely. "I have to know what's going on with Bonnie."

"You mean to see what's going on with Stefan,"he said. "You needn't worry. He's fast asleep, and so is our little girl."

Elena tensed. "You Influenced them? Without seeing them?" It was a wild guess, but one side of Damon's mouth crooked up, as if congratulating her. "How dare you?"she said.

"To be honest, I don't know how I dare."Damon leaned in close again, but Elena turned her cheek, thinking, Stefan!

He can't hear you. He's dreaming about you.

Elena was surprised at her own reaction to that. Damon had caught and held her eyes again. Something inside her melted in the intensity of his steady black gaze.

"I'm not Influencing you; I give you my word" - in a whisper.

"But you can't deny what happened between us the last time we were in this dimension."His breath was on her lips now - and Elena didn't turn aside. She trembled.

"Please, Damon. Show some respect. I'm -  oh, God! God! "

"Elena? Elena! Elena! What's wrong? "

Hurts - that was all Elena could think. A terrible agony had lanced through her chest on the left side. As if she'd been stabbed through the heart. She stifled a scream.

Elena, talk to me! If you can't send your thoughts, speak!

Through numb lips, Elena said, "Pain - heart attack - "

"You're too young and healthy for that. Let me check."Damon was unfastening her top. Elena let him. She could do nothing for herself, except gasp, "Oh God! It hurts!"

Damon's warm hand was inside her leather and furs. His hand came to rest slightly to the left of center, with only her camisole between his probing fingers and her flesh. Elena, I'm going to take the pain away now. Trust me.

Even as he spoke, the stabbing anguish drained. Damon's eyes narrowed, and Elena knew he'd taken the pain into himself, to analyze it.

"It's not a heart attack,"he said a moment later. "I'm as sure as I can be. It's more as if - Well, as if you'd been staked. But that's silly. Hmm...it's gone now."

For Elena it had been gone since he'd taken it, protecting her. "Thank you,"she breathed, suddenly realizing that she had been clinging to him, in utter terror that she was dying.

Or that he was.

He gave her a rare, full, genuine smile. "We're both fine. It must have been a cramp."His gaze had dropped to her lips.

"Do I deserve a kiss?"

"I..."He had comforted her; he had taken the terrible pain away. How could she sanely say no? "Just one,"she whispered.

A hand under her chin. Her eyelids wanted to melt closed, but she widened her eyes and wouldn't let them.

As his lips touched hers, his arm around her...changed somehow. It was no longer trying to restrain her. It seemed to be wanting to comfort her. And when his other hand stroked her hair softly at the very ends, crushing the waves gently, and just as gently smoothing them out, Elena felt a rush of shivering warmth.

Damon wasn't deliberately trying to batter her with the strength of his aura, which at the moment was filled with nothing but his feelings for her. The simple fact, though, was that although he was a new-made vampire, he was exceptional y strong and he knew all the tricks of an experienced one. Elena felt as if she had stepped into clear calm water, only to find herself caught in a fierce undertow that there was no resisting; no bargaining with; and certainly no possibility of reaching by reason. She had no choice but to surrender to it and hope that it was taking her, eventual y, to a place she could breathe and live. Otherwise, she would drown...but even that possibility didn't seem so dire, now that she could see the tide was made of a chain of little moments strung like pearls. In each one of them was a tiny sparkle of admiration that Damon had for her: pearls for her courage, for her intelligence, for her beauty. It seemed that there was no slightest motion she had made, no briefest word that she had said, that he had not noticed and locked in his heart as a treasure.

But we were fighting then, Elena thought to him, seeing in the undertow a sparkling moment when she had cursed him.

Yes - I said you were magnificent when you were angry.

Like a goddess come to put the world to rights.

I do want to put the world to rights. No, two worlds: the Dark Dimension and my home. But I'm no goddess.

Suddenly she felt that keenly. She was a schoolgirl who hadn't even finished high school - and it was in part because of the person who was kissing her wildly now.

Oh, think of what you're learning on this trip! Things that no one else in the universe knows, Damon said in her mind.

Now pay attention to what you're doing!

Elena paid attention, not because Damon wanted her to, but because she couldn't help it. Her eyes drifted shut. She realized that the way to calm this maelstrom was to become part of it, neither giving in nor forcing Damon to, but by meeting the passion in the undertow with what was inside her own heart.

As soon as she did, the undertow became wind, and she was flying and not drowning. No, it was better than flying, better than dancing, it was what her heart always yearned for.

A high Still place where nothing could ever harm them or disturb them.

And then, when she was most vulnerable, the pain came again, drilling through her chest, a little to the left. This time Damon was so mindlocked with her that he felt it from the beginning. And she could hear clearly a phrase in Damon's mind: staking is just as effective on humans as it is on vampires, and his sudden fear that this was a precognition.

In the swaying little room, Stefan was asleep holding Bonnie by his side, with the sparkling of Power engulfing them both.

Elena, who had a good grip on the palanquin's ladder, vaulted the rest of the way inside. She put a hand on Stefan's shoulder and he woke.

"What is this? Is something wrong with her?"she asked, with a third question: "Do you know?"buzzing around in her head.

But when Stefan lifted his green eyes to her, they were simply worried. Clearly he was not invading her thoughts. He was focused entirely on Bonnie. Thank God, he's such a gentleman, Elena thought for the thousandth time.

"I'm trying to get her warm,"Stefan said. "After she came out of trance, she was shivering. Then she stopped shivering, but when I took her hand, it was colder than ever. Now I've put an envelope of heat around her. I guess I dozed off for a little while after that."He added, "Did you find anything?"

I found Damon's lips, Elena thought wildly, but she forced herself to blank out the memory. "We're looking for Lake Silver Death Mirror,"she said. "But all I could see was white.

The snow and the fog seem to go on forever."

Stefan nodded. Then he careful y went through the motions of plucking apart two layers of air and slid in a hand to touch Bonnie's cheek. "She's warming up,"he said, and smiled.

It took a long while before Stefan was satisfied that Bonnie was warm. When he did, he gently unwrapped her from the heated air that had formed the "envelope"and lay her on one bench, coming to sit with Elena on the other. Eventual y Bonnie sighed, blinked, and opened her eyes.

"I had a nap,"she said, obviously aware that she had lost time.

"Not exactly,"Elena said, keeping her voice gentle and reassuring. Let's see, how did Meredith do this? "You went into trance, Bonnie. Do you remember anything about it?"

Bonnie said, "About the treasure?"

"About what the treasure is for,"Stefan said quietly.

"No...No..."

"You said that this was the Last Midnight,"Elena said. As far as she could remember, Meredith was pretty direct. "But we think you were talking about back at home,"she added hastily, seeing terror leap in Bonnie's eyes.

"The Last Midnight - and no morning afterward,"Bonnie said.

"I think - I heard someone saying those words. But no more."

She was as skittish as a wild colt. Elena reminded her about time running differently between the two worlds but it didn't seem to comfort her. Finally, Elena just sat by her and held her.

Her head was spinning with thoughts of Damon. He'd forgiven her. That was good, even though he'd taken his own time about it. But the real message was that he was willing to share her. Or at least willing to say he would to get in her good graces. If she knew him at all, if she ever agreed - oh, God, he might murder Stefan. Again. After all , that was what he had done when Katherine had had the same sentiment.

Elena could never think of him without longing. She could never think of him without thinking of Stefan. She had no idea what to do.

She was in trouble.

Chapter 29

"Oi!" Damon shouted from outside the palanquin. "Is anybody else looking at this?"

Elena was. Both Stefan and Bonnie had their eyes shut; Bonnie was wrapped in blankets and cuddled against Elena.

They had rolled down all the curtains of the palanquin except one.

But Elena had watched through the single window, and had seen how tendrils of fog had begun drifting by, first just filmy tatters of mist, but then longer, fuller veils, and final y blankets, engulfing them whole. It seemed to her that they were being deliberately cut off from even the perilous Dark Dimension, that they were passing a border into a place they weren't meant to know about, much less enter.

"How do we know we're going in the right direction?"Elena shouted to Damon after Stefan and Bonnie woke. She was glad to be able to talk again.

"The thurgs know,"Damon called back. "You set them on a line and they walk that line until somebody stops them, or - "

"Or what?"Elena yelled out of the opening.

"Until we get to a place like this."

This was obviously bait, and neither Stefan nor Elena could resist taking it - especial y when the thurg they were riding stopped.

"Stay here,"Elena said to Bonnie. She pushed a curtain out of the way and found herself looking too far down at white ground. God, these thurgs were big. The next moment, though, Stefan was on the ground holding up his arms.

"Jump!"

"Can't you come up and float me?"

"Sorry. Something about this place inhibits Power."

Elena didn't give herself time to think. She launched into the air and Stefan caught her neatly. Spontaneously, she clung to him, and felt the familiar comfort of his embrace.

Then he said, "Come look at this."

They had reached a place where the land ended and the mist divided, like curtains being held to either side. Directly in front of them was a frozen lake. A silvery frozen lake, almost perfectly round in shape.

"Lake Mirror?"Damon said, cocking his head to one side.

"I always thought that was a fairy tale,"Stefan said.

"Welcome to Bonnie's storybook."

Lake Mirror formed a vast body of water in front of them, frozen right into the ice sheet below her feet, or so it seemed.

It did look like a mirror - a purse mirror after you'd breathed softly on it.

"But the thurgs?"Elena said - or rather whispered. She couldn't help whispering. The silent lake pressed on her, as did the lack of any kind of natural sound: There were no birds singing, no rustling in the bushes - no bushes! No trees!

Instead, just the mist surrounding the frozen water.

"The thurgs,"Elena repeated in a slightly louder voice. "They can't possibly walk on that!"

"Depends on how thick the lake ice is,"Damon said, flashing his old 250-kilowatt smile at her. "If it's thick enough, it'll be just like walking on land for them."

"And if it isn't?"

"Hmm...Do thurgs float?"

Elena gave him an exasperated glance and looked at Stefan. "What do you think?"

"I don't know,"he said doubtful y. "They're very large animals.

Let's ask Bonnie about the kids in the fairy tale."

Bonnie, Stillwrapped in fur blankets that began collecting chunks of ice as they dragged on the ground, looked at the lake grimly. "The story didn't go into detail,"she said. "It just said that they went down, down, down, and that they had to pass tests of their courage and - and - wittiness - before they got there."

"Fortunately,"Damon said, smiling, "I have large enough amounts of both to make up for my brother's entire lack of either - "

"Stop it, Damon!"Elena burst out. The moment she'd seen the smile, she'd turned to Stefan, pulled him down to her height, and begun kissing him. She knew what Damon would see when he turned back toward them - her and Stefan locked in an embrace, Stefan hardly aware of anything being said. At least they could Still touch with their minds. And it was intriguing, Elena thought, Stefan's warm mouth when everything else in the world was cold. She looked quickly at Bonnie, to make sure she hadn't upset her, but Bonnie was looking quite cheerful.

The farther I seem to drive Damon away, the happier she is, Elena thought. Oh, God...this is a problem.

Stefan spoke up quietly. "Bonnie, what it comes down to is that it has to be your choice. Don't try to use courage or wit or anything except your inner feelings. Where do we go?"

Bonnie glanced back at the thurgs, then looked at the lake.

"That way,"she said, without hesitation, and she pointed straight across the lake.

"We'd better carry some of the cooking stones and fuel and backpacks with iron rations in them,"Stefan said. "That way, if the worst happens, we'll Still have basic supplies."

"Besides,"said Elena, "it'll lighten that thurg's load - if only by a little."

It seemed a crime to put a backpack on Bonnie, but she insisted. Final y, Elena arranged one fil ed entirely with the warm, curiously light fur clothes. Everyone else was carrying furs, food, and poop - the dried animal dung that would from now on be their only fuel.

It was difficult from the first. Elena had only had a couple of experiences with ice that she had reason to be wary of - but one of those had almost been disastrous for Matt. She was ready to jump and whirl at any crack - any sound that the ice was breaking. But there were no cracks; no water flowing up to slosh onto her boots.

The thurgs were the ones who seemed actual y built for walking on frozen water. Their feet were pneumatic, and could spread out to almost half again their original size, avoiding putting too much pressure on any one section of ice.

Crossing the lake was slow, but Elena didn't see anything particularly deadly about it. It was simply the smoothest, slickest ice she had ever encountered. Her boots wanted to skate.

"Hey, everybody!"Bonnie was skating, exactly as if she were in a rink, backward and forward and sideways. "This is fun!"

"We're not here to have fun,"Elena shouted back. She longed to try it herself, but was afraid to make cuts - even scuffs - in the ice. And beside that, Bonnie was expending twice as much energy as she needed to.

She was about to call out to Bonnie and tell her this, when Damon, in a voice of exasperation, made all the points she had thought of, and a few more.

"This isn't a pleasure cruise,"he said shortly. "It's for the fate of your town."

"As if you care,"Elena murmured, turning her back on him and touching the unhappy Bonnie's hand both to give comfort and to get them going at arm's length again. "Bonnie, do you sense anything magical about the lake?"

"No."But then Bonnie's imagination seemed to fly into high gear. "But maybe it's where the mystics from both dimensions all gathered to exchange spells. Or maybe it's where they used the ice like a real magic mirror to see faraway places and things."

"Maybe both of them,"Elena said, secretly amused, but Bonnie nodded solemnly.

And that was when it came. The sound Elena had been waiting for.

Nor was it a distant booming which could be ignored or discussed. They had been walking at arm's length from one another to avoid stressing the ice, while the thurgs walked behind them, and to either side - like a flock of geese with no leaders.

This noise was a dreadful y near crack like the report of a gun. Immediately, it sounded again, like a whiplash, and then a crumbling.

It was to Elena's left, on Bonnie's side.

"Skate, Bonnie,"she shouted. "Skate as fast as you can.

Scream if you see land."

Bonnie didn't ask a single question. She took off like an Olympic speed skater in front of Elena, and Elena swiftly turned.

It was Biratz, the thurg Bonnie had asked Pelat about. She had one monstrous back leg in the ice, and as she struggled, more ice cracked.

Stefan! Can you hear me?

Faintly. I'm coming for you.

Yes - but only come as close as you need to Influence the thurg.

Influence the - ?

Make her calm, put her out, whatever. She's ripping up the ice and it'll just make it harder to get her out!

This time there was a pause before Stefan's answer came.

She knew though, by faint echoes, that he was talking telepathically with someone else. All right, love, I'll do it. I'll take care of the thurg, too. You follow Bonnie.

He was lying. Or, not lying, but keeping something from her.

The person he'd been sending thoughts to was Damon. They were humoring her. They didn't mean to help at all.

Just at that moment she heard a shrill scream - not so far away. It was Bonnie in trouble - no! Bonnie had found land!

Elena didn't lose another second. She dumped her backpack on the ice and skated straight back to the thurg.

There it was, so huge, so pathetic, so helpless. The very thing that had kept it safe from other Godawful Hel acious monsters in the Dark Dimension - its great bulk - was now turned against it. Elena felt her chest tighten as if she were wearing a corset.

Even as she watched, though, the animal became calmer.

She stopped trying to get her left hind leg out of the ice, which meant that she stopped churning up the ice around it.

Now Biratz was in a sort of crouching position, trying to keep her three dry legs from going under. The problem was that she was trying too hard, and that there was nothing to push against except breakable ice.

"Elena!"Stefan was within earshot now. "Don't get any closer!"

But even as he said it, Elena saw a Sign. Just a few feet away, lying on the ice was the tickle-prod that Pelat had used to get the thurgs going.

She picked it up as she skated by and then she saw another Sign. Reddish hay and the original covering for the hay - a giant tarpaulin - were lying behind the thurg. Together they formed a broad wide path that was neither wet nor slick.

"Elena!"

"This is going to be easy, Stefan!"

Elena pulled a pair of dry socks out of her pocket and drew them up over her boots. She fastened the tickle stick to her belt. And then she started the run of her life.

Her boots were fur with something like felt underneath and with the socks to aid them, they caught on the tarpaulin and propelled her forward. She leaned into it, vaguely wishing Meredith were here, so she could do this instead, but all the time getting closer. And then she saw her mark: the end of the tarp and beyond it floating chunks of ice.

But the thurg looked climbable. Very low in back, like a dinosaur halfway into a tar pit, but then rising up along the curved backbone. If she could just somehow land there...

Two steps till jump-off. One step till jump-off.

JUMP!

Elena pushed off with her right foot, flew through the air for an endless time, and - hit the water.

Instantly, she was soaked from head to foot and the shock of the icy water was unbelievable. It caught hold of her like some monster with a handful of jagged ice shards. It blinded her with her own hair, it squeezed al the sound out of the universe.

Somehow, clawing at her face, she freed her mouth and eyes from hair. She realized that she was only slightly below the surface of the water, and that was all she needed to push upward until her mouth broke the surface and she could suck in a lungful of delicious air, after which she had a coughing fit.

First time up, she thought, remembering the old superstition that a drowning person will rise three times and then sink forever.

But the strange thing was that she wasn't sinking. There was a dull pain in her thigh but she wasn't going under.

Slowly, slowly, she realized what had happened. She had missed the back of the thurg, but landed on its thick reptilian tail. One of the serrated fins had gashed her, but she was stable.

So...now...all I have to do is climb the thurg, she puzzled out slowly. Everything seemed slow because there were icebergs bobbing around her shoulders.

She put up a fur-lined gloved hand and reached for the next fin up. The water, while making her soaking clothes heavier, supported some of her weight. She managed to pull herself up to the next fin. And the next. And then here was the rump, and she had to be careful - no more footholds. Instead she grabbed for handholds and found something with her left hand. A broken strap from the hay carrier.

Not a good idea - in retrospect.

For a few minutes that qualified as among the worst in her life she was showered with hay, pounded with rocks, and smothered in the dust of old dung.

When it was final y over she looked around, sneezing and coughing, to find that she was Still on the thurg. The tickle stick had been broken but enough remained for her to use.

Stefan was frantically asking, both aloud and by telepathy, if she was All right. Bonnie was skating back and forth like a Tinker Bel guide, and Damon was cursing at Bonnie to get back to land and stay there.

Meanwhile Elena was inching up the rump of the thurg. She made it through the crushed supply basket. She finally reached the thurg's summit, and she settled just behind the domed head, in the seat where a driver would sit.

And then she tickled the thurg behind the ears.

"Elena!"Stefan shouted, and then Elena, what are you trying to do?

"I don't know!"she shouted back. "Trying to save the thurg!"

"You can't,"Damon interrupted Stefan's answer in a voice as cold and Still as the place they were in.

"She can make it!"Elena said fiercely - precisely because she herself was having doubts about whether the animal could. "You could help by pulling on her bridle."

"There's no point,"Damon shouted, and turned about-face, walking quickly into the mist.

"I'll give it a try. Throw it out in front of her,"Stefan said.

Elena threw the knotted bridle as hard as she could. Stefan had to run almost to the edge of the ice to grab it before it fell in. Then he held it aloft triumphantly. "Got it!"

"Okay, pull ! Give her a direction to start in."

"Wil do!"

Elena tapped Biratz again behind her right ear. There was a faint rumble from the animal and then nothing. Elena could see Stefan straining at the bridle.

"Come on," Elena said, and slapped sharply with the stick.

The thurg lifted up a giant foot, placed it farther on the ice, and struggled. As soon as she did, Elena smacked hard behind the left ear.

This was the crucial moment. If Elena could keep Biratz from crushing al the ice between her back legs, they might have a chance.

The thurg tentatively lifted her left hind leg and stretched it until it made contact with the ice.

"Good, Biratz! Now! "Elena shouted. Now if Biratz would only surge forward...

There was a great upheaval underneath her. For several minutes Elena thought that perhaps Biratz had broken through the ice with all four legs. Then the thrashing changed to a rocking motion and suddenly, dizzyingly Elena knew that they had won.

"Easy, now, easy,"she called to the animal, giving her a gentle tickle with the stick. And slowly, ponderously, Biratz moved forward. Her domed head drooped farther and farther as she went, and she foundered at the edge of a bank of mist, breaking the ice again. But there she only sank a few inches before meeting mud.

A few more steps and they were on solid ground. Elena had to suck in her breath to stifle a scream as the thurg's domelike head slumped, giving her a short and scary ride to where the tusks re-curved on themselves. Somehow she slid right between them and had to hastily scramble off Biratz's trunks.

"It was pointless, you know, doing that,"Damon said from somewhere in the mist beside her. "Risking your own life."

"What d-do you mean p-pointless?"Elena demanded. She wasn't frightened; she was freezing.

"The animals are going to die anyway. The next trial is one they can't manage and even if they could, this isn't a place where anything grows. Instead of a quick clean death in the water, they're going to starve, slowly."

Elena didn't answer; the only answer she could think of was,

"Why didn't you tell me earlier?"She had stopped shivering, which was a good thing, because a moment ago her body had felt as if she might shake herself apart.

Clothes, she thought vaguely. That was the problem. It certainly couldn't be as cold here in the air as it had been in that water. It was her clothes that were making her so cold.

She began, with numb fingers, to take them off. First, she unfastened her leather jacket. No zippers here: buttons. That was a real problem. Her fingers felt like frozen hot dogs, and only nominal y under her direction. But somehow or other she managed to undo the fastenings and the leather dropped to the ground with a muffled thump - it had taken a layer of her inner fur off with it. Ick. The smell of wet fur. Now, now she had to -

But she couldn't. She couldn't do anything because someone was holding her arms. Burning her arms. Those hands were annoying, but at least she knew who they belonged to. They were firm and very gentle but very strong. All that added up to Stefan.

Slowly, she raised her dripping head to ask Stefan to stop burning her arms.

But she couldn't. Because on Stefan's body there was Damon's head. Now that was funny. She'd seen a lot of things that vampires could do, but not this swapping heads business.

"Stefan-Damon - please stop,"she gasped between hysterical whoops of laughter. "It hurts. It's too hot!"

"Hot? You're frozen, you mean."The deft, searing hands were rubbing up and down her arms, pushing back her head to rub her cheeks. She let it happen, because it seemed to be only sense that if it was Damon's head, they were Stefan's hands.

"You're cold but you're not shivering?"a grim Damon-voice said from somewhere.

"Yes, so you see I must be warming up."Elena didn't feel very warmed up. She realized that she Still had on a longer fur garment, one that reached to her knees under her leather breeches. She fumbled with her belt.

"You're not warming up. You're going into the next stage of hypothermia. And if you don't get dry and warm right now, you're going to die."Not roughly, he tilted her chin up to look into her eyes. "You're delirious now - can you understand me, Elena? We need to really get you warm."

Warm was a concept as vague and faraway as life before she had met Stefan. But delirious she understood. That was not a good thing. What to do about it except laugh?

"All right. Elena, just wait for a moment. Let me find - "In a moment he was back. Not quick enough to stop her from unwrapping the fur down to her waist, but back before she could get her camisole off.

"Here."He stripped off the damp fur and wrapped a warm, dry one around her, over her camisole.

After a moment or two she began to shiver.

"That's my girl," Damon's voice said. It went on: "Don't fight me, Elena. I'm trying to save your life. That's all . I'm not going to try to do anything else. I give you my word."

Elena was bewildered. Why should she think that Damon -

this must be Damon, she decided - would want to hurt her?

Although he could be a bastard sometimes...

And he was taking off her clothes.

No. That shouldn't be happening. Definitely not. Especial y since Stefan must be somewhere around.

But by now Elena was shivering too hard to talk.

And now that she was in her underwear, he was making her lie down on furs, tucking other furs around her. Elena didn't understand anything that was happening, but it was all starting not to matter. She was floating somewhere outside herself, watching without much interest.

Then another body was slipping in under the furs. She snapped back from the place she had been floating. Very briefly she got a look at a bare chest. And then a warm, compact body slid into the makeshift sleeping bag with her.

Warm, hard arms went around her, keeping her in contact all over her body.

Through the mist she vaguely heard Stefan's voice.

"What the hell are you doing?"