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

Chapter 30

"Strip to your underwear and get in on the other side,"Damon said. His voice was neither angry nor fatuous.

He added shortly, "Elena is dying."

The last three words seemed to affect Stefan particularly, although Elena couldn't parse them. Stefan wasn't moving, just breathing hard, his eyes wide. "Bonnie and I have been gathering hay and fuel and we're All right."

"You've been exercising - moving about - wearing clothes that kept you warm. She's been dunked in ice water and sitting Still - high up in the wind. I got the other thurg to break off wood from the dead trees around here and try it on the fire. Now get the hell in, Stefan, and give her some body warmth, or I'm going to make her a vampire."

"Nnn,"Elena tried to say, but Stefan didn't seem to understand.

Damon, however, said, "Don't worry. He's going to warm you up from the other side. You won't have to become a vampire just yet. For God's sake,"he added suddenly, explosively,

"some prince you picked!"

Stefan's voice was quiet and tense. "You tried putting her in a thermal envelope?"

"Of course I tried, you idiot! No magic works beyond the Mirror except telepathy."

Elena had no sense of time going by, but suddenly there was a familiar body pressed against hers from the other side.

And somewhere directly in her mind: Elena? Elena? You're All right, aren't you, Elena? I don't care whether you're playing a joke on me. But you're really All right, aren't you?

Just tell me that, love.

Elena wasn't able to answer at all.

Dimly, fragments of sound came to her ears: "Bonnie...on top of her and...pack ourselves back on either side."

And dull feelings stirred her sense of touch: a small body, almost weightless, like a thick blanket, pressing down on her.

Someone sobbing, tears dripping on her neck from above.

And warmth on either side.

I'm asleep with the other kittens, she thought, dozing. Maybe we'll have a nice dream.

"I wish we could know how they're doing,"Meredith said, on a pause from one of her pacing bouts.

"I wish they knew how we're doing,"Matt said wearily as he taped another note card amulet onto a window. And another.

"Do you know, my dears, I kept hearing a child crying last night in my dreams,"Mrs. Flowers said slowly.

Meredith turned, startled. "So did I! Right out on the front porch, it sounded like. But I was too tired to get up."

"It might mean something - or nothing at all."Mrs. Flowers frowned. She was boiling tap water for tea. The electricity was sporadic. Matt and Saber had driven back to the boardinghouse earlier that day so that Matt could gather Mrs.

Flowers's most important instruments - her herbs for teas, compresses, and poultices. He hadn't had the heart to tell her about the state of the boardinghouse, or what those maggot malach had done to it. He'd had to find a loose board from the garage to get from the hall to the kitchen.

There was no third floor anymore and very little second.

At least he hadn't run into Shinichi.

"What I'm saying is that maybe there's some real kid out there,"Meredith said.

"At night alone? Sounds like a Shinichi zombie,"Matt said.

"Maybe. But maybe not. Mrs. Flowers, do you have any idea of when you hear the crying? Early in the night or late?"

"Let me think, dear. It seems to me that I hear it whenever I wake up - and old people wake up quite frequently."

"I usual y hear it toward the morning - but I usual y sleep without dreaming for the first few hours and wake up early."

Mrs. Flowers turned to Matt. "What about you, Matt, dear?

Do you ever hear a sound like crying?"

Matt, who deliberately overworked himself these days to try to get a solid six hours of sleep at night, said, "I've heard the wind kind of moaning and sobbing around midnight, I guess."

"It sounds as if we have an al -night ghost, my dears,"Mrs. Flowers said calmly and poured them each a mug of tea.

Matt saw Meredith glance at him uneasily - but Meredith didn't know Mrs. Flowers as well as he did.

"You don't real y think it's a ghost,"he said now.

"No, I don't. Ma ma hasn't said a word about it, and then it's your house, Matt, dear. No gruesome murders or hideous secrets in its past, I should think. Let me see..."She shut her eyes and let Matt and Meredith go on with their tea. Then she opened her eyes and gave them a puzzled smile.

"Ma ma says 'search the house for your ghost. Then listen well to what it has to say.'"

"Okay,"Matt said poker-faced. "Since it's my house, I guess I'd better search for it. But when? Should I set an alarm?"

"I think the best way would be to arrange a watch rota," Mrs. Flowers said.

"Okay,"Meredith agreed promptly. "I'll take the middle watch, from midnight to four; Matt can have the first one; and Mrs.

Flowers, you can have the early-morning one, and get a nap in the afternoon if you want."

Matt felt uneasy. "Why don't we just break it up into two watches and the two of you can share one? I'll take the other."

"Because, dear Matt,"Meredith said, "we don't want to be treated like 'ladies.'And don't argue" - she hefted the fighting stave - "because I'm the one with the heavy equipment."

Something was shaking the room. Shaking Matt with it. Stillhalf-asleep, he put his hand under his pillow and pulled out the revolver. A hand grabbed it and he heard a voice.

"Matt! It's me, Meredith! Wake up, will you?"

Groggily, Matt reached for the lamp switch. Again, strong, slim cold fingers prevented him from doing what he wanted.

"No light,"Meredith whispered. "It's very faint, but if you come with me quietly, you can hear it. The crying."

That woke Matt up the rest of the way. "Right now?"

"Right now."

Doing his best to walk quietly through the dark halls, Matt followed Meredith to the downstairs living room.

"Sh!"Meredith warned. "Listen."

Matt listened. He could hear some sobbing All right, and maybe some words, but they didn't sound al that ghostly to him. He put his ear to the wall and listened. The crying was louder.

"Do we have a flashlight?"Matt asked.

"I have two, my dears. But this is a very dangerous time of night."Mrs. Flowers was a shadow against darkness.

"Please give the flashlights to us,"said Matt. "I don't think our ghost is very supernatural. What time is it, anyway?"

"About twelve forty A.M.,"Meredith answered. "But why do you think it isn't supernatural?"

"Because I think it's living in our basement,"Matt said. "I think it's Cole Reece. The kid who ate his guinea pig."

Ten minutes later, with the stave, two flashlights, and Saber, they had caught their ghost.

"I didn't mean anything bad,"Cole sobbed, when they had lured him upstairs with promises of candy and "magic"tea that would let him sleep.

"I didn't hurt anything, honest,"he choked, wolfing down Hershey bar after Hershey bar from their emergency rations.

"I'm scared that he's onto me. Because after you hit me with that sticky note, I haven't been able to hear him in my head anymore. And then you came here" - he gestured around Matt's house - "and you had amulets and I figured it would be better to stay inside them. Or it could be my Last Midnight too."

He was babbling. But something about the last words made Matt say, "What do you mean...'your Last Midnight too'?"

Cole looked at him in terror. The rim of melted Hershey bar around his lips made Matt remember the last time he'd seen the boy.

"You know, don't you?"Cole faltered. "About the midnights?

The countdown? Twelve days till the Last Midnight? Eleven days till the Last Midnight? And now...tonight is one day till the Last Midnight..."He began to sob again, even while cramming chocolate into his mouth. It was clear that he was starving.

"But what happens on the Last Midnight?" Meredith asked.

"You know, don't you? That that's the time when... you know." Maddeningly Cole seemed to think they were testing him.

Matt put his hands on Cole's shoulders, and to his horror felt bones under his fingers. The kid really was starving, he thought, forgiving him all the Hershey bars. His eyes met Mrs.

Flowers's eyes and she immediately went to the kitchen.

But Cole wasn't answering; he was mumbling incoherently.

Matt forced himself to apply pressure to those bony shoulders.

"Cole, talk louder! What's this Last Midnight about?"

"You know. That's when...all the kids... you know, they wait up and at midnight...they get knives or guns. You know. And we go into our parents' room while they're asleep and..."Cole broke down again, but Matt noticed he had slipped into saying "we" and "our" by the end.

Meredith spoke in her calm, steady voice. "The children are going to kill their parents, is that right?"

"He showed us where to slash or stab. Or if there's a gun - "

Matt had heard enough. "You can stay - in the basement,"he said. "And here are some amulets. Put them on you if you feel like you're in danger."He gave Cole a whole packet of Post-it Notes.

"Just don't be afraid,"Meredith added, as Mrs. Flowers came in with a plate of sausages and fried potatoes for Cole. At any other time the smell would have made Matt hungry.

"It's just like that island in Japan,"he said. "Shinichi and Misao made it happen there, and they're going to do it again."

"I say time's running out. Actual y it's already the Last Midnight day - it's nearly one thirty in the morning,"Meredith said. "We have less than twenty-four hours. We should either get out of Fell's Church or do something to arrange a confrontation."

"A confrontation? Without Elena or Damon or Stefan?"Matt said. "We'll be murdered. Don't forget Sheriff Mossberg."

"He didn't have this."Meredith tossed the fighting stave into the air, caught it neatly, and put it at her side.

Matt shook his head. "Shinichi will Stillkil you. Or some little kid will , with the semi-automatic from Daddy's closet."

"We have to do something."

Matt thought. His head was pounding. Final y he said, head lowered, "When I got the herbs I got Misao's star ball, too."

"You're kidding. Shinichi still didn't find it?"

"No. And maybe we could do something with it."

Matt looked at Meredith, who looked at Mrs. Flowers. Mrs. Flowers said, "What about pouring out the liquid in different places in Fell's Church? Just a drop here and a drop there?

We could ask the Power in it to protect the town. Maybe it would listen."

Meredith said, "That was the exact reason we wanted to get Shinichi's and Misao's star balls in the first place. The star balls control their owners, according to legend."

Matt said, "It may be old-ways thinking, but I agree."

Meredith said, "Then let's do it right now."

While the other two waited, Matt got Misao's star ball . It had a very, very little liquid on the bottom.

"After the Last Midnight she plans to fil it to the top with the energy of the new lives that get taken,"Meredith said.

"Well, she's not going to get a chance to do that,"Matt said flatly. "When we're done we'll destroy the container."

"But we probably should hurry,"Meredith added. "Let's get some weapons together: something silver, something long and heavy, like a fire iron. Shinichi's little zombies are not going to be happy - and who knows who's on his side?"

Chapter 31

Elena woke up feeling stiff and cramped. But that wasn't surprising. Three other people seemed to be on top of her.

Elena? Can you hear me?

Stefan?

Yes! You're awake?

I'm all cramped...and hot.

A different voice interrupted. Just give us a moment and you won't be cramped anymore. Elena felt Damon move away. Bonnie rolled into his place.

But Stefan clung to her for a moment. Elena, I'm sorry. I never even realized what condition you were in. Thank God for Damon. Can you forgive me?

Despite the heat, Elena cuddled closer to him. If you can forgive me for putting the whole party in danger. I did that, didn't I?

I don't know. I don't care. All I know is that I love you.

It was several minutes before Bonnie woke up. Then she said feebly, "Hey! Whachoo doin'in my bed?"

"Getting out of it,"Elena said, and tried to roll over and get up.

The world was wobbly. She was wobbly - and bruised. But Stefan was never more than a few inches away, holding her, righting her when she started to fall . He helped her get dressed without making her feel like a baby. He examined her backpack, which fortunately hadn't gone into the water, and then he took out anything heavy inside. He put the heavy things in his own pack.

Elena felt much better after being given some food, and after seeing the thurgs - both of them - eating too; either stretching their great double trunks up to break off pieces of wood from the barren trees, or scooping away snow to find dry grass underneath. They clearly were not going to die after all .

Elena knew everyone was watching her to gauge whether or not she was up to any more that day. She hurried to finish drinking the tea heated over a dung fire, trying to conceal the fact that her hands shook. After forcing some jerky down, she said in her most cheerful voice, "So what next?"

How do you feel? Stefan asked her.

"Little sore, but I'll be fine. I guess everyone expects me to have pneumonia, but I don't even have any cough."

Damon, after one heavy-lidded glance at Stefan, took both her hands and stared at her. She couldn't - she didn't dare -

meet his eyes, so she focused on Stefan, who was looking at her comfortingly.

At last Damon dropped Elena's hands abruptly. "I went in as far as I could. You should know how far that is,"he added to Stefan. "She's sound, her nose is wet, and her coat is shiny."

Stefan looked as if he were going to smack him one, but Elena took his hand soothingly. "I'm healthy,"she said. "So that's two votes for me going on to save Fell's Church."

"I've always believed in you,"Stefan said. "If you think you can go on, you can go on."

Bonnie sniffled. "Just don't take any more chances, okay?"she said. "You scared me."

"I'm real y sorry,"Elena said gently, feeling the void of Meredith's absence. Meredith would be a great help to both of them now. "So, shall we continue? And where are we heading? I'm all turned around."

Damon stood. "I think we just keep in a straight line. The path is narrow after this - and who knows what the next trial is?"

The path was narrow - and misty. Just as before, it started in filmy veils and ended up blinding them. Elena let Stefan, with his catlike reflexes, go first, and she held on to his pack.

Behind her, Bonnie clung like a burr. Just when Elena thought she was going to scream if she had to keep traveling through the white blanket any farther, it cleared.

They were near the top of some mountain.

Elena took off after Bonnie, who had hurried ahead at the sight of transparent air. She was just fast enough to grab on to Bonnie's pack and pull her backward as she reached the place where the land stopped.

"No way!"Bonnie cried, setting up a clamoring echo from below. "There is no way I'm going across that!"

That was a chasm with a very thin bridge spanning it.

The chasm was frosty white on either side at the top, but when Elena gripped the bridge's ice-cold metal poles and leaned a little forward she could see glacial blues and greens at the very bottom. A chill wind hit her face.

The gap between this bit of the world and the next bit directly in front of them was about a hundred yards long.

Elena looked from the shadowy depths to the slender bridge, which was made of wooden slats and just wide enough for one person to walk on. It was supported here and there by ropes which ran to the sides of the chasm and were sunk with metal posts into barren, icy rock.

It also swooped magnificently down and then back up again.

Even looking at it gave the eye a sort of mini�Cthril ride. The only problem was that it didn't include a safety belt, a seat, two handrails, and a uniformed guide saying, "Hands and feet must be kept inside the attraction at all times!" It did have a single, thin, creeper-woven rope to hold on to on the left.

"Look,"Stefan was saying, as quietly and intently as Elena had ever heard him speak, "we can hold onto each other. We can go go one by one, very slowly - "

"NOOO!" Bonnie put into that one word a psychic shriek that almost defeaned Elena. "No, no, no, no, NO! You don't understand! I can't DO IT!" She flung her backpack down.

Then she began laughing and crying at the same time in a full -blown attack of hysterics. Elena had an impulse to dash water in her face. She had a stronger impulse to throw herself down beside Bonnie and shriek, "And neither can I!

It's insane!"But what good would that do?

A few minutes later Damon was talking quietly to Bonnie, unaffected by the outburst. Stefan was pacing in circles.

Elena was trying to think of Plan A, while a little voice chanted inside her head, You can't do it, you can't do it, you can't do it, either.

This was all just a phobia. They could probably train Bonnie out of it - if, say, they had a year or two.

Stefan, on one of his circular trips near her, said, "And how are you about heights, love?"

Elena decided to put a brave face on it. "I don't know. I think I can do it."

Stefan looked pleased. "To save your hometown."

"Yes...but it's too bad nothing works here. I could try to use my Wings for flying, but I can't control them - "

And that kind of magic is simply not available here, Stefan's voice said in her mind.

But telepathy is. You can hear me, too, can't you?

They thought of the answer simultaneously, and Elena saw the light of the idea breaking on Stefan's face even as she began to speak.

"Influence Bonnie! Make her think she's a tightrope walker -

a performer since she was a toddler. But don't make her too playful so she doesn't bounce the rest of us off!"

With that light in his face, Stefan looked...too good. He seized both Elena's hands, whirled her around once as if she weighed nothing, picked her up, and kissed her.

And kissed her.

And kissed her until Elena felt her soul dripping off her fingertips.

They shouldn't have done it in front of Damon. But Elena's euphoria was clouding her judgment, and she couldn't control herself.

Neither of them had been trying for a deep mind probe. But telepathy was all they had left, and it was warm and wonderful and it left them for an instant in the circle of each other's arms, laughing, panting - with electricity flashing between them. Elena's whole body felt as if she'd just gotten a sizable jolt.

Then she pulled herself out of his arms, but it was too late.

Their shared gaze had gone on much too long, and Elena felt her heart pounding in fear. She could feel Damon's eyes on her. She barely managed to whisper, "Wil you tell them?"

"Yes,"Stefan said softly. "I'll tell them."But he didn't move until she actual y turned her back on Bonnie and Damon.

After that she peeked over her shoulder and listened.

Stefan sat down by the sobbing girl and said, "Bonnie, can you look at me? That's all I want. I promise you, you don't have to go across that bridge if you don't want to. You don't even have to stop crying, but try to look me in the eye. Can you do that? Good. Now..."His voice and even his face changed subtly, becoming more forceful - mesmerizing.

"You're not afraid of heights at all, are you? You're an acrobat who could walk a tightrope across the Grand Canyon and never turn a hair. You're the very best of all your family, the flying McCulloughs, and they're the best in the world. And right now, you're going to choose whether to cross over that wooden bridge. If so, you'll lead us. You'll be our leader."

Slowly, while listening to Stefan, Bonnie's face had changed.

With swollen eyes fixed on Stefan's, she seemed to be listening intently to something in her own head. And final y, as Stefan said the last sentence, she jumped up and looked at the bridge.

"Okay, let's go!"she cried, picking up her backpack, while Elena sat staring after her.

"Can you make it?"Stefan asked, looking at Elena. "We'll let her go first - there's really no way she can fall off. I'll go after her. Elena can come after me and hold on to my belt, and I'm counting on you, Damon, to hold on to her. Especially if she starts to faint."

"I'll hold her,"Damon said quietly. Elena wanted to ask Stefan to Influence her, too, but everything was happening so fast.

Bonnie was already on the bridge, only pausing when called back by Stefan. Stefan was looking behind him at Elena, saying, "Can you get a good grip?"Damon was behind Elena, putting a strong hand on her shoulder, and saying,

"Look straight ahead, not down. Don't worry about fainting; I'll catch you."

But it was such a frail wooden bridge, and Elena found that she was always looking down and her stomach floated up outside her body and above her head. She had a death-grip on Stefan's belt with one hand, and on the woven creeper with the other.

They came to a place where a slat had detached and the slats on either side looked as if they might go at any moment.

"Careful with these!"Bonnie said, laughing and leaping over all three.

Stefan stepped over the first chancy slat, over the missing one, and put his foot on the next.

Crack!

Elena didn't scream - she was beyond screaming. She couldn't look. The sound had shut her eyes.

And she couldn't move. Not a finger. Certainly not a foot.

She felt Damon's arms around her waist. Both of them. She wanted to let him support her weight as he had many times before.

But Damon was whispering to her, words like spells that allowed her legs to stop shaking and cramping and even let her stop breathing so fast that she might faint. And then he was lifting her and Stefan's arms were going around her and for a moment they were both holding her firmly. Then Stefan took her weight and gently put her feet down on firm slats.

Elena wanted to cling to him like a koala, but she knew that she mustn't. She would make them both fall . So somewhere, from inner depths she didn't know she had, she found the courage to take her own weight on her feet and fumbled for the creeper.

Then she lifted her head and whispered as loudly as she could, "Go on. We need to give Damon room."

"Yes,"Stefan whispered back. But he kissed her on the forehead, a quick protective kiss, before he turned and stepped toward the impatient Bonnie.

Behind her, Elena heard - and felt - Damon jumping catlike over the gap.

Elena raised her eyes to stare at the back of Stefan's head again. She couldn't compass al the emotions she was feeling at that moment: love, terror, awe, excitement - and, of course, gratitude, all at once.

She didn't dare turn her head to look at Damon behind her, but she felt exactly the same things for him.

"A few more steps,"he kept saying. "A few more steps."

A brief eternity later, they were on solid ground, facing a medium-sized cavern, and Elena fell to her knees. She was sick and faint, but she tried to thank Damon as he passed by her on the snowy mountain trail.

"You were in my way,"he said shortly and as coldly as the wind. "If you had fallen you might have upset the entire bridge. And I don't happen to feel like dying today."

"What are you saying to her? What did you just say?"Stefan, who had been out of earshot, came hurrying back. "What did he say to you?"

Damon, examining his palm for creeper thorns, said without looking up, "I told her the truth, that's al . So far she's zero for two on this quest. Let's hope that as long as you make it through they let you in the Gatehouse, because if they're grading on performance we've flunked. Or should I say, one of us has flunked?"

"Shut up or I'll shut you up," Stefan said in a different voice than Elena had ever heard him use before. She stared. It was as if he'd grown ten years in one second. "Don't you ever talk to her or about her that way again, Damon!"

Damon stared at him for a moment, pupils contracted. Then he said, "Whatever,"and strolled away.

Stefan bent down to hold Elena until her shaking stopped.

And that's that, Elena thought. An ice-cold rage gripped her.

Damon had no respect for her at all; he had none for anyone but himself. She couldn't protect Bonnie from Bonnie's own feelings - or stop him from insulting her. She couldn't stop Bonnie for forgiving. But she, Elena, was done with Damon.

This last insult was the end.

The fog came in again as they walked through the cavern.

Chapter 32

"Damon doesn't mean to be such a - a bastard,"Bonnie said explosively. "He's just - so often he feels like it's the three of us against him - and - and - "

"Well, who started that? Even back riding the thurgs,"Stefan said.

"I know, but there's something else,"Bonnie said humbly.

"Since it's only snow and rock and ice - he's - I don't know.

He's al tight. Something's wrong."

"He's hungry,"Elena said, stricken by a sudden realization.

Since the thurgs there had been nothing for the two vampires to hunt. They couldn't exist, like foxes, on insects and mice.

Of course Lady Ulma had provided plenty of Black Magic for them, the only thing that even resembled a substitute for blood. But their supply was dwindling, and of course, they had to think of the trip back, as well .

Suddenly Elena knew what would do her good.

"Stefan,"she murmured, pulling him into a nook in the craggy stone of the cave entrance. She pushed off her hood and unrolled her scarf enough to expose one side of her neck.

"Don't make me say 'please'too many times,"she whispered to him. "I can't wait that long."

Stefan looked into her eyes, saw that she was serious - and determined - and kissed one of her mittened hands.

"It's been long enough now, I think - no, I'm sure, or I would never even attempt this,"he whispered. Elena tipped her head back. Stefan stood between her and the wind and she was almost warm. She felt the little initial pain and then Stefan was drinking and their minds slid together like two raindrops on a glass window.

He took very little blood. Just enough to make the difference in his eyes between Stillgreen pools and sparkling, effervescent streams.

But then his gaze went Stillagain. "Damon..."he said, and paused awkwardly.

What could Elena say? I just severed all ties with him? They were supposed to help one another along these trials; to show their wit and courage. If she refused, would she fail again?

"Send him quick then,"she said. "Before I change my mind."

Five minutes later Elena was again tucked into the little nook, while Damon turned her head back and forth with dispassionate precision, then suddenly darted forward and sank his fangs into a prominent vein. Elena felt her eyes go wide.

A bite that hurt this much - Well, she hadn't experienced it since the days when she had been stupid and unprepared and had fought with al her strength to get free.

As for Damon's mind - there was a steel wall. Since she had to do this, she had been hoping to see the little boy who lived in Damon's inmost soul, the one who was the unwilling Watch-Keeper over all of his secrets, but she couldn't even thaw the steel a little.

After a minute or two, Stefan pulled Damon off of her - not gently. Damon came away sullenly, wiping his mouth.

"Are you okay?"Bonnie asked in a worried whisper, as Elena rummaged through Lady Ulma's medicine box for a piece of gauze to staunch the unhealed wounds in her neck.

"I've been better,"Elena said briefly, as she wrapped up her scarf again.

Bonnie sighed. "Meredith is the one who real y belongs here,"she said.

"Yes, but Meredith real y belongs in Fell's Church, too. I only hope they can hold on long enough for us to come back."

"I only hope that we can come back with something that will help them,"Bonnie whispered.

Meredith and Matt spent the time from 2:00 A.M. to dawn pouring infinitesimal drops from Misao's star ball onto the streets of the town, and asking the Power to - somehow -

help them in the fight against Shinichi. This brisk movement from place to place had also netted a surprising bonus: kids.

Not crazy kids. Normal ones, terrified of their brothers and sisters or of their parents, not daring to go home because of the awful things they had seen there. Meredith and Matt had crammed them into Matt's mother's second-hand SUV and brought them to Matt's house.

In the end, they had more than thirty kids, from ages five to sixteen, all too frightened to play, or talk, or even to ask for anything. But they'd eaten everything Mrs. Flowers could find that wasn't spoiled in Matt's refrigerator and pantry, and from the pantries of the deserted houses on either side of the Honeycutts'.

Matt, watching a ten-year-old girl cramming plain white bread into her mouth with wolfish hunger, tears running down her grimy face as she chewed and swallowed, said quietly to Meredith, "Think we've got any ringers in here?"

"I'd bet my life on it,"she replied just as quietly. "But what are we going to do? Cole doesn't know anything helpful. We'll just have to pray that the un-possessed kids will be able to help us when Shinichi's ringers attack."

"I think the best option when confronted by possessed kids who may have weapons is to run."

Meredith nodded absently, but Matt noticed she took the stave everywhere with her now. "I've devised a little test for them. I'm going to smack every one with a Post-It, and see what happens. Kids who've done things they regret may get hysterical, kids who're already just terrified may get some comfort, and the ringers will either attack or run."

"This I have to see."

Meredith's test lured out only two ringers in the whole mob, a thirteen-year-old boy and a fifteen-year-old girl. Each of them screamed and darted through the house, shrieking wildly.

Matt couldn't stop them. When it was all over and the older kids were comforting the younger ones, Matt and Meredith finished boarding up the windows and pasting amulets between the boards. They spent the evening scouting for food, questioning the kids about Shinichi and the Last Midnight, and helping Mrs. Flowers treat injuries. They tried to keep one person on guard at alltimes, but since they had been up and moving since 1:30 A.M., they were all very tired.

At a quarter to eleven Meredith came to Matt, who was cleaning the scratches of a yellow-haired eight-year-old.

"Okay,"she said quietly, "I'm going to take my car and get the new amulets Mrs. Saitou said she'd have done by now. Do you mind if I take Saber?"

Matt shook his head. "No, I'll do it. I know the Saitous better, anyway."

Meredith gave what, in a less refined person, might have been called a snort. "I know them well enough to say, excuse me, Inari-Obaasan; excuse me, Orime-san; we're the troublemakers who keep asking for huge amounts of anti-evil amulets, but you don't mind that, do you?"

Matt smiled faintly, let the eight-year-old go, and said, "Well, they might mind it less if you got their names straight.

'Obaasan'means 'grandma,'right?"

"Yes, of course."

"And 'san'is just a thingy you put at the end of a name to be polite."

Meredith nodded, adding, "And 'a thingy at the end'is called an 'honorific suffix.'"

"Yeah, yeah, but for all your big words you've got their names wrong. It's Orime-grandma and Orime-Isobel's-mother. So Orime-Obaasan and Orime-san, too."

Meredith sighed. "Look, Matt, Bonnie and I met them first.

Grandma introduced herself as Inari. Now I know she's a little wacky, but she would certainly know her own name, right?"

"And she introduced herself to me and said not just that she was named Orime, but that her daughter was named after her. Talk your way out of that one."

"Matt, shall I get my notebook? It's in the boardinghouse den - "

Matt gave a short sharp laugh - almost a sob. He looked to make sure Mrs. Flowers wasn't around and then hissed, "It's somewhere down at the center of the earth, maybe. There is no den anymore."

For a moment Meredith looked simply shocked, but then she frowned. Matt glared darkly. It didn't help to think that they were the two most unlikely of their group to quarrel. Here they were, and Matt could practical y see the sparks flying. "All right,"Meredith said final y, "I'll just go over there and ask for Orime-Obaasan, and then tell them it was all your fault when they laugh."

Matt shook his head. "Nobody's going to laugh, because you're going to get it right that way."

"Look, Matt,"Meredith said, "I've been reading so much on the Internet that I even know the name Inari. I've come across it somewhere. And I'm sure I would have made...made the connection..."Her voice trailed off. When Matt turned his eyes down from the ceiling, he started. Meredith's face was white and she was breathing quickly.

"Inari..."she whispered. "I do know that name, but..."Suddenly she grabbed Matt's wrist so hard that it hurt.

"Matt, is your computer absolutely dead?"

"It went when the electricity went. By now even the generator is gone."

"But you have a mobile that connects to the Internet, right?"

The urgency in her voice made Matt, in turn, take her seriously. "Sure,"he said. "But the battery's been kaput for at least a day. Without electricity I can't recharge it. And my mom took hers. She can't live without it. Stefan and Elena must've left their stuff at the boardinghouse - "He shook his head at Meredith's hopeful expression and whispered, "Or, should I say, where the boardinghouse used to be."

"But we have to find a mobile or computer that works! We have to! I need it to work for just a minute!"Meredith said frantically, breaking away from him and beginning to pace as if trying to beat some world record.

Matt was staring at her in bewilderment. "But why?"

"Because we have to. I need it, even just for a minute!"

Matt could only gaze at her, perplexed. Final y he said, "I guess we can ask the kids."

"The kids! One of them has got to have a live mobile! Come on, Matt, we have to talk to them right now."She stopped and said, rather huskily, "I pray that you're right and I'm wrong."

"Huh?"Matt had no idea what was going on.

"I said I pray that I'm wrong! You pray, too, Matt -  please!"

Chapter 33

Elena was waiting for the fog to disperse. It had come in as always, bit by bit, and now she was wondering if it would ever leave, or if it were actual y another trial itself. Therefore, when she suddenly realized she could see Stefan's shirt in front of her, she felt her heart bound for joy. She hadn't messed anything up lately.

"I can see it!"Stefan said, pulling her up beside him. And then, "Voilïe - but in a whisper.

"What, what?"cried Bonnie, bounding forward. And then she stopped too.

Damon didn't bound. He strolled. But Elena was turning toward Bonnie at the time, and she saw his face as he saw it.

In front of them was a sort of small castle, or large gateway with spires that pierced the low clouds that hung above it.

There was some kind of writing over the huge cathedral-like black doors in front, but Elena had never seen anything like the squiggles of whatever foreign language it was.

On either side of the building, there were black walls that were nearly as tall as the spires. Elena looked left and right and realized that they disappeared only off at the vanishing point. And without magic, it would be impossible to fly over them.

What the boy and girl in the story had discovered only by following the walls for days, they had simply walked straight into.

"It's the Gatehouse of the Seven Treasures, isn't it, Bonnie?

Isn't it? Look!"Elena shouted.

Bonnie was already looking, both hands pressed against her heart, and for once without a word to say. As Elena watched, the diminutive girl fell to her knees in the light, powdery snow.

But Stefan answered. He picked up Bonnie and Elena at the same time and whirled them both. "It is!"he said, just as Elena was saying "It is!" and Bonnie, the expert, gasping,

"Oh, it real y, really is!"with tears freezing on her cheeks.

Stefan put his lips to Elena's ear. "And you know what that means, don't you? If that is the Gatehouse of the Seven Treasures, you know where we are standing now?"

Elena tried to ignore the warm, tingling sensation that shot up from the soles of her feet at the feeling of Stefan's breath on her ear. She tried to focus on his question.

"Look up,"Stefan suggested.

Elena did - and gasped.

Above them, instead of a fog bank or incessant crimson light from a sun that never stopped setting, were three moons.

One was enormous, covering perhaps a sixth of the sky, shining in swirls of white and blue, hazy at the edges. Just in front of it was a beautiful silvery moon at least three quarters as big as it was.

Last, there was a tiny moon in high orbit, white as a diamond, that seemed to be deliberately keeping its distance from the other two. Al of them were half full and shone down with gentle, soothing light on the unbroken snow around Elena.

"We're in the Nether World,"Elena said, shaken.

"Oh...it's just like in the story,"Bonnie gasped. "Exactly like.

Even the writing! Even the amount of snow!"

"Exactly like the story?"Stefan asked. "Even to the phase of the moons? How ful they are?"

"Just exactly the same."

Stefan nodded. "I thought they would be. That story was a precognition, given to you with the purpose of helping us find the largest star ball ever made."

"Well, let's go inside!"cried Bonnie. "We're wasting time!"

"Okay - but everyone on your guard. We don't want anything to go wrong now,"Stefan said.

They went into the Gatehouse of the Seven Treasures in this order: Bonnie, who found that the great black doors swung open at a touch, but that she could see nothing, coming in from bright sunlight; Stefan and Elena, hand in hand; and Damon, who waited outside for a long time in the hopes, Elena thought, of being deemed "a different party."

Meanwhile the others were having the most pleasant shock since they'd taken the Master Keys from the kitsune.

"Sage - Sage!"Bonnie shrilled as soon as her eyes adjusted. "Oh, look, Elena, it's Sage! Sage, how are you?

What're you doing here? Oh, it's just so good to see you!"

Elena blinked twice, and the dim interior of the octagonal room came into focus. She went around the only piece of furniture in the room, the large desk in the middle. "Sage, do you know how long it seems? Did you know that Bonnie almost got sold for a slave at a public auction? Did you know about her dream?"

Sage looked as he always had to Elena's eyes. The bronzed, terminal y fit body, like a model of a Titan, the bare chest and bare feet, the black Levi's, the long spiraling tangles of bronze hair, and the strange bronze eyes that could cut steel, or be as gentle as a pet lamb.

"Mes deux petits chatons," Sage was saying. "My two little kittens, you have astounded me. I have been following your adventures. The Gatekeeper is not provided with much entertainment and is not allowed to leave this fortress, but you were most brave and amusing. Je vous felicite."He kissed first Elena's hand and then Bonnie's, then embraced Stefan with the Latin two-cheeked kiss. Then he resumed his seat.

Bonnie was climbing Sage as if she were a real kitten. "Did you take Misao's star ballful of Power?"she demanded, kneeling on his thigh. "Did you take half of it, I mean? To get back here?"

"Mais oui, I did. But I also left Madame Flowers a little - "

"Do you know that Damon used the other half to open the Gate again? And that I fel in too, even though he didn't want me? And that because of that I almost got sold as a slave?

And that Stefan and Elena had to come after me, to make sure I was okay? And that on the way here Elena almost fell off the bridge, and we're not sure if the thurgs are going to make it? And do you know that in Fell's Church the Last Midnight is coming, and we don't know - "

Stefan and Elena exchanged a long, meaningful glance and then Stefan said, "Bonnie, we have to ask Sage the most important question."He looked at Sage. "Is it possible for us to save Fell's Church? Do we have enough time?"

"Eh bien. As far as I can tell from the chronological vortex, you have enough time and a little to spare. Enough for a glass of Black Magic to see you off. But after that, no dawdling!"

Elena felt like a crumpled piece of paper that had been straightened and smoothed. She took a long breath. They could do it. That allowed her to remember civilized behavior.

"Sage, how did you get stuck way out here? Or were you waiting for us?"

"Helas, no - I am assigned here as punishment. I got an Imperial Summons that I could not ignore, mes amis."He sighed and added, "I am just Out of Favor again. So now I am the ambassador to the Nether World, as you see."He waved a languid hand around the room. "Bienvenue."

Elena had a sense of time ticking away, of precious minutes being lost. But maybe Sage himself would do something for Fell's Church. "You really have to stay in here?"

"But assuredly, until mon pïere - my father" - Sage said the word savagely and resentfully - "relents and I am allowed to return to the Infernal Court, or, much better, to go my ways without ever returning. At least until someone takes the pity on me and kills me."He looked inquiringly around the group, then sighed, and said, "Saber and Talon, they are well?"

"They were when we left,"Elena said, itching to get on with their real business here.

"Bien," Sage said, looking at her kindly, "but we should have your entire group in here for the viewing, no?"

Elena glanced at the doors and then again at Stefan, but Sage was already calling - both with voice and telepathy -  "Damon, mon poussinet, do you not want to come in with your comrades?"

There was a long pause, and then the doors opened and a very sullen Damon stepped in. He wouldn't reply to Sage's friendly, "Bienvenue," instead saying, "I didn't come here to socialize. I want to see the treasures in time to save Fell's Church. I haven't forgotten about the damned hick town, even if everyone else has."

"Alors maintenant," Sage said, looking wounded. "You have al passed the tests in your way and may look upon the treasures. You may even use magic again, although I am not sure that it will help you. It all depends upon which treasure you seek. Felicitations! "

Everyone but Damon made some gesture of embarrassment.

"Now,"Sage continued, "I must show each gate to you before you can pick. I will try to be quick, but be cautious, s'il vous pla?t. Once you choose a treasure, that is the only door that will open again for any of you."

Elena found herself clutching at Stefan's hand - which was already reaching for hers - as one by one the doors shone with a faint, silvery light.

"Behind you,"said Sage, "is the very gate you entered to get into this room, yes? But next to it, ah..."A door brightened to show an impossible cavern. Impossible because of the gems lying on the ground or sticking out of the cave wal s.

Rubies, diamonds, emeralds, amethysts...each one as big as Elena's fist, lying thick in great piles for the taking.

"It's beautiful, but...no, of course!"she said firmly, and reached out to put a hand on Bonnie's shoulder.

The next door lit up, brightened, then brightened more so that it seemed to disappear. "And here,"Sage sighed, "is the famous kitsune paradise."

Elena could feel her eyes widen. It was a sunny day in the most beautiful park she had ever seen. In the background a little waterfall spilled into a creek, which ran down a green hill , while directly in front of her was a stone bench, just the size for two, underneath a tree that looked like a cherry in full bloom.

Blossoms were flying in a breeze that rustled other cherry and peach trees nearby - causing a rain of dawn-colored petals. Although Elena had only seen the place for a moment, it already seemed familiar to her. She could just walk into it...

"No, Stefan!"She had to touch his arm. He had been walking right into the garden.

"What?"he said, shaking his head like someone in a dream.

"I don't know what happened. It just seemed as if I were going to an old, old home..."His voice broke off. "Sage, go on, please!"

The next door was already lighting, showing a scene with rack after rack of Clarion Loess Black Magic wine. In the distance, Elena could make out a vineyard with lush grapes hanging heavily, fruit that would never see the light of the sun until it was made into a famous liquid.

Everyone was already sipping at their glasses of Black Magic, so it was easy to say "no"even to the luscious grapes.

As the next door brightened Elena heard herself gasp. It was brilliant midday. Growing in a field as far as she could see were tall bushes thick with long-stemmed roses - the blossoms of which were a velvety-looking black.

Startled, she saw that everyone was looking at Damon, who had taken a step toward the roses as if involuntarily. Stefan put an arm out, barring his way.

"I didn't look very closely,"Damon said, "but I think these are the same as the one I...destroyed."

Elena turned to Sage. "They're the same, aren't they?"

"But yes,"Sage said, looking unhappy. "These are al Midnight roses, noir pur - the sort in the white kitsune's bouquet. But these are all blanks. The kitsune are the only ones who can put spells on them - like the removal of the curse of a vampire."

There was a general sigh of disappointment among his listeners, but Damon just looked more sullen. Elena was about to speak up, to say that Stefan shouldn't be put through this, when she tuned in to Sage's words and the next gate, and felt a surge of simple, selfish longing herself.

"I suppose you would call it ' La Fontaine of Eternal Youth and Life,'"Sage said. Elena could see an ornate fountain playing, the effervescent spray at the top making a rainbow. Small butterflies of all colors flew around it, alighting on the leaves of the bower that cradled it in greenery.

Meredith, with her cool head and straightforward logic wasn't there, so Elena dug her nails into her palms and cried "No!

Next one!"as quickly and forceful y as she could.

Sage was speaking again. She made herself listen. "The Royal Radhika Flower, which legends say was stolen from the Celestial Court many mil ennia ago. It changes shape."

A simple enough thing to say...but actual y to see it...

Elena watched in astonishment as a dozen or so thick, twining stems, topped by gorgeous white call a lily blossoms, trembled slightly. The next instant she was looking at a cluster of violets with velvet leaves and a drop of dew shining on a petal. A moment later, the stems were topped with radiant mauve snapdragons - with the dewdrop Stillin place.

Before she could remember not to reach out and touch them, the snapdragons had become deep, ful y open red roses.

When the roses became some exotic golden flower that Elena had never seen, she had to turn her back.

She found herself bumping into a hard, masculine, bare chest while forcing herself to think realistically. Midnight was coming - and not in the form of a rose. Fell's Church needed all the help it could get and here she was staring at flowers.

Abruptly, Sage swung her off her feet and said, "What a temptation, especial y for a lover of la beaute like you, belle madame. What a foolish rule to keep you from taking just a bud! But there is something even higher and more pure than beauty, Elena. You, you are named for it. In old Greek, Elena means 'light'! The darkness is coming fast - the Last, Everlasting Midnight! Beauty will not hold it back; it is a bagatelle, a trinket, useless in times of disaster. But light, Elena, light will conquer the darkness! I believe this as I believe in your courage, your honesty, and your gentle, loving heart."

With that, he kissed her on the forehead and set her down.

Elena was dazed. Of all the things she knew, she knew best that she could not defeat the darkness that was coming - not alone.

"But you're not alone,"Stefan whispered, and she realized that he was right beside her, and that she must be wide open, projecting her thoughts as clearly as if she were speaking.

"We're all here with you,"Bonnie said in a voice twice her size. "We're not afraid of the dark."

There was a pause while everyone tried not to look at Damon. At last he said, "Somehow I got talked into this insanity - I'm Still wondering how it happened. But I've come this far and I'm not going to turn around now."

Sage turned toward the final door and it brightened. Not by much, however. It looked like the shady underside of a very large tree. What was odd, though, was that there was nothing at all growing under it. No ferns or bushes or seedlings, not even the normal y ever-present creepers and weeds. There were a few dead leaves on the ground, but otherwise it was just dirt.

Sage said, "A planet with only one corporeal form of life upon it. The Great Tree that covers an entire world. The crown covers all but the natural freshwater lakes it needs to survive."

Elena looked into the heart of the twilit world. "We've come so far, and maybe together - maybe we can find the star ball that will save our town."

"This is the door you pick?"asked Sage.

Elena looked at the rest of the group. They all seemed to be waiting for her confirmation. "Yes - and right now. We have to hurry."She made a motion as if to put her cup down and it disappeared. She smiled thanks at Sage.

"Strictly speaking, I shouldn't give you any help,"he said. "But if you have a compass..."

Elena had one. It was always dangling from her backpack because she was always trying to read it.

Sage took the compass in his hand and lightly traced a line on it. He gave the compass back to Elena and she found that the needle no longer pointed to the north, but at an angle northeast. "Follow the arrow,"he said. "It will take you to the trunk of the Great Tree. If I had to guess at where to find the largest star ball , I would go this way. But be wary! Others have tried this path. Their bodies have nourished the Great Tree - as fertilizer."

Elena scarcely heard the words. She had been terrified at the thought of searching an entire planet for a star ball . Of course, it might be a very small world, like...like...

Like the little diamond moon you saw over the Nether World?

The voice in Elena's mind was both familiar and not. She glanced at Sage, who smiled. Then she looked around the room. Everyone seemed to be waiting for her to take the first step.

She took it.

Chapter 34

"You've been fed and taken care of as best as we can manage,"Meredith said, looking at all the taut, frightened young faces turned toward her in the basement. "And now there's just one thing I want to ask of you in return."She made an effort and steadied her voice. "I want to know if anybody knows of a mobile phone that connects to the Internet, or a computer that is Still working. Please, please - if you even think you know where one might be, tell me."

The tension was like a thick rubber cord, dragging Meredith toward each of the pale, strained faces, dragging them to her.

It was just as well that Meredith was essentially well -

balanced. About twelve hands went up immediately, and their lone five-year-old whispered, "My mommy has one. And my daddy."

There was a pause before Meredith could say, "Does anybody know this kid?"and an older girl spoke up before she could.

"She just means they had them before the Burning Man."

"Is the Burning Man called Shinichi?"Meredith asked.

"'Course. Sometimes he would make the red parts of his hair burn up way over his head."

Meredith filed that little fact away under Things I do not want to see, honest, cross my heart, ever.

Then she shook herself free from the image.

"You guys and girls, please, please think. I only need one, one mobile phone with Internet access that Still has power right now. One laptop or computer that is Still working now, maybe because of a generator Still making electricity. Just one family with a home generator Still working. Anybody?"

The hands were down now. A boy she thought she recognized as being one of the Loring siblings, maybe age ten or eleven, said, "The Burning Man told us that mobile phones and computers were bad. That was why my brother got in a fistfight with my dad. He threw al the mobiles at home in the toilet."

"Okay. Okay, thanks. But anybody who's seen a working mobile or computer? Or a home generator - "

"Why, yes, my dear, I've got one."The voice came from the top of the stairs. Mrs. Flowers was standing there, dressed in a fresh sweat suit. Strangely, she had her voluminous purse in her hand.

"You had - have a generator?"Meredith asked, her heart sinking. What a waste! And if disaster came al because she, Meredith, hadn't finished reading over her own research! The minutes were ticking away, and if everyone in Fell's Church died, it would be her fault. Her fault. She didn't think she could live with that.

Meredith had tried, all her life, to reach the state of calm, concentration, and balance that was the other side of the coin from the fighting skills her various disciplines had taught her. And she had become good at it, a good observer, a good daughter, even a good student for all that she was in Elena's fast-paced, high-flying clique. The four of them: Elena, Meredith, Caroline, and Bonnie had fit together like four pieces of a puzzle, and Meredith Still sometimes missed the old days and their daring, dominating pseudo-sophisticated capers that never real y hurt anyone - except the silly boys who had milled around them like ants at a picnic.

But now, looking at herself, she was puzzled. Who was she?

A Hispanic girl named for her mother's Welsh best friend in college. A hunter-slayer of vampires who had kitten canines, a vampire twin, and whose group of friends included Stefan, a vampire; Elena, an ex-vampire - and possibly another vampire, although she was extremely hesitant to cal Damon a "friend."

What did that all add up to?

A girl trying to do her best to keep her balance and concentration, in a world that had gone insane. A girl Still reeling from what she'd learned about her own family, and now tottering from the need to confirm a dreadful suspicion.

Stop thinking. Stop! You have to tell Mrs. Flowers that her boardinghouse has been destroyed.

"Mrs. Flowers - about the boardinghouse - I have to talk to you..."

"Why don't you use my BlackBerry first?"Mrs. Flowers came down the basement stairs careful y, watching her feet, and then the children parted before her like waves on the Red Sea.

"Your...?"Meredith stared, choked up. Mrs. Flowers had opened her enormous purse and was now proffering a rather thick al -black object to her.

"It Still has power," the old lady explained as Meredith took the thing in two shaking hands, as if receiving a holy object. "I just turned it on and it was working. And now I'm on the Internet!" - proudly.

Meredith's world had been swallowed up by the small , grayish, antiquated screen. She was so amazed and excited at seeing this that she almost forgot why she needed it. But her body knew. Her fingers clutched; her thumbs danced over the mini-keyboard. She went to her favorite search page and entered the word "Orime."She got pages of hits - most in Japanese. Then feeling a trembling in her knees, she typed in "Inari."

6,530,298 results.

She went to the very first hit and saw a web page with a definition. Key words seemed to rush out at her like vultures.

Inari is the Japanese Shinto deity of rice...and...foxes. At the entrance to an Inari shrine are...statues of two kitsune...one male and one female...each with a key or jewel carried in mouth or paw...These fox-spirits are the servants and messengers of Inari. They carry out Inari's orders....

There was also a picture of a pair of kitsune statues, in their fox forms. Each had a front paw resting on a star ball.

Three years ago, Meredith had fractured her leg when she was on a skiing trip with her cousins in the Blue Ridge Mountains. She had run straight into a small tree. No martial arts skills could save her at the last minute; she knew she was skiing off the groomed areas, where she could run into anything: powder, crud, or iced-over ruts. And, of course, trees. Lots of trees. She was an advanced skier, but she had been going too fast, looking in the wrong direction, and the next thing she knew, she was skiing into the tree instead of around it.

Now she had the same sensation of waking up after a head-on into wood. The shock, the dizziness and nausea that were, initial y, worse than the pain. Meredith could take pain.

But the pounding in her head, the sickening awareness that she had made a big mistake and that she was going to have to pay for it were unbearable. Plus there was a curious horror about the knowledge that her own legs wouldn't hold her up.

Even the same useless questions ran through her subconscious, like: How could I be so stupid? Is this possibly a dream? and, Please, God, can I hit the Undo button?

Meredith suddenly realized that she was being supported on either side by Mrs. Flowers and their sixteen-year-old, Ava Wakefield. The mobile was on the cement floor of the basement. She must have actual y started to black out.

Several of the younger kids were screaming Matt's name.

"No - I - I can stand up alone..."Al she wanted in the world was to go into the darkness and get away from this horror.

She wanted to let her legs go slack and her mind go blank, to flee...

But she couldn't run away. She had taken the stave; she had taken the Duty from her grandfather. Anything supernatural that was out to harm Fell's Church on her watch was her problem. And the problem was that her watch never ended.

Matt came clattering down the stairs, carrying their seven-year-old, Hailey, who continual y shook with petit mal seizures.

"Meredith!"She could hear the incredulity in his voice. "What is it? What did you find, for God's sake?"

"Come...look."Meredith was remembering detail after detail that should have set off warning bel s in her mind. Matt was somehow already beside her, even as she remembered Bonnie's very first description of Isobel Saitou.

"The quiet type. Hard to get to know. Shy. And...nice."

And that first visit to the Saitou house. The horror that quiet, shy, nice Isobel Saitou had become: the Goddess of Piercing, blood and pus oozing from every hole. And when they had tried to carry dinner to her old, old grandmother, Meredith had noticed absently that Isobel's room was right under the doll -like old lady's. After seeing Isobel pierced and clearly unbalanced, Meredith had assumed that any evil influence must be trying to travel up, and had worried in the back of her mind about the poor, old, doll -sized grandmother.

But the evil could just as easily have traveled down. Maybe Jim Bryce hadn't given Isobel the malach madness after all.

Maybe she had given it to him, and he had given it to Caroline and to his sister.

And that children's game! The cruel, cruel song that Obaasan - that Inari-Obaasan had crooned. "Fox and turtle had a race..." And her words: "There's a kitsune involved in this somewhere." She'd been laughing at them, amusing herself! Come to that, it was from Inari-Obaasan that Meredith had first heard the word "kitsune."

And one more additional cruelty, that Meredith had only been able to excuse before by assuming Obaasan had very poor sight. That night, Meredith had had her back to the door and so had Bonnie - they had both been concentrating on "poor decrepit old Grandma."But Obaasan had been facing the door, and she was the only one who could have seen - must have seen - Isobel sneaking up behind Bonnie. And then, just as the cruel game song told Bonnie to look behind her...

Isobel had been crouching there, ready to lick Bonnie's forehead with a forked pink tongue...

"Why?"Meredith could hear her own voice saying. "Why was I so stupid? How could I not have seen from the beginning?"

Matt had retrieved the BlackBerry and read the web page.

Then he just stood, fixed, his blue eyes wide. "You were right,"he said, after a long moment.

"I want so much to be wrong..."

"Meredith - Shinichi and Misao are Inari's servants...If that old lady is Inari we've been running around like crazy after the wrong people, the hired muscle..."

"The damn note cards,"Meredith choked out. "The ones done by Obaasan. They're useless, flawed. Al those bullets she blessed should have been no good - but maybe she did bless them - as a game. Isobel even came to me and changed all the characters the old lady had done for the jars to hold Shinichi and Misao. She said that Obaasan was almost blind. She left a tear on my car seat. I couldn't understand why she should be crying."

"I Still can't. She's the granddaughter - probably the third generation of a monster!"Matt exploded. "Why should she cry? And why do the Post-it Notes work?"

"Because they're done by Isobel's mother,"Mrs. Flowers said quietly. "Dear Matt, I truly doubt that the old woman is related to the Saitous at all. As a deity - or even a powerful magic-user named after a deity - and undoubtedly a kitsune herself, she surely just moved in with them and used them. Isobel's mother and Isobel had no choice but to carry on the charade for fear of what she'd do to them if they didn't."

"But Mrs. Flowers, when Tyrone and I pulled that leg bone out of the thicket, didn't you say that the Saitou women made such excellent amulets? And didn't you say that we could get the Saitou women to help translate the words on the clay jars when Alaric sent the pictures of them from that Japanese Island?"

As for my belief in the Saitou women, Well, I'll have to quibble a little here,"Mrs. Flowers said. "I couldn't know that this Obaasan was evil, and there are Still two of them who are gentle and good, and who have helped us tremendously -

and at great risk to themselves."

Meredith could taste the bitterness of bile in her mouth.

"Isobel could have saved us. She could have said 'My fake grandmother is really a demon.'"

"Oh, my dear Meredith, the young are so unforgiving. This Inari was probably installed in her house when she was a child. Al she knows at first is that the old woman is a tyrant, with a god's name. Then perhaps some demonstration of power - what happened to Orime's husband, I wonder, to make him go back to Japan - if indeed he went there? He may well be dead. And then Isobel is growing up: shy, quiet, introverted - frightened. This is not Japan; there are no other priestesses here to confide in. And you saw the consequences when Isobel reached out to someone outside of the family - to her boyfriend, Jim Bryce."

"And to us - Well, to you and Bonnie,"Matt said to Meredith.

"She sicced Caroline on you."

Scarcely knowing what they were doing, they were talking faster and faster.

"We have to go there right now,"said Meredith. "Shinichi and Misao may be the ones bringing on the Last Midnight, but it's Inari who gives the orders. And who knows? She may dole out the punishments as well. We don't know how big her star ball is."

"Or where,"said the old woman.

"Mrs. Flowers,"Matt said hastily, "you'd better stay here with the kids. Ava, here, is reliable, and where's Jacob Lagherty?"

"Here,"said a boy who looked older than fifteen. He was as tall as Matt was, but gangly.

"Okay. Ava, Jake, you're in charge under Mrs. Flowers. We'll leave Saber with you too."The dog was a big hit among the kids, on his best behavior, even when the younger ones chewed his tail. "You two just listen to Mrs. Flowers, and - "

"Matt, dear, I won't be here. But the animals will surely help to protect them."

Matt stared at her. Meredith knew what he was thinking. Was Mrs. Flowers, so reliable up until now, going somewhere to hide alone? Was she abandoning them?

"And I'll need one of you to drive me to the Saitou house -

quickly! - but the other can stay and protect the children as well."

Meredith was both relieved and worried, and clearly Matt was too.

"Mrs. Flowers, this is going to be a battle. You could get hurt or be taken hostage so easily - "

"Dear Matt, this is my battle. My family has lived in Fell's Church for generations, all the way back to the pioneering times. I believe this is the battle for which I was born.

Certainly the last of my old age."

Meredith stared. In the dim light of the basement, Mrs.

Flowers seemed suddenly different somehow. Her voice was changing. Even her small body seemed to be changing, steadying, standing tall .

"But how will you fight?"Matt asked, sounding dazed.

"With this. That nice young man, Sage, left it for me with a note apologizing for using Misao's star ball. I used to be quite good with these when I was young."From her capacious purse, Mrs. Flowers pulled out something pale and long and thin as it unwound and Mrs. Flowers whirled it and snapped it with a loud crack at the empty half of the basement. It hit a Ping-Pong ball , curled around it, and brought it back to Mrs. Flowers's open hand.

A bull whip. Made of some silvery material. Undoubtedly magical. Even Matt looked scared of it.

"Why don't Ava and Jake teach the children to play Ping-Pong while we're gone - and we really must go, my dears.

There's not a minute to waste. A terrible tragedy is coming, Ma ma says."

Meredith had been watching - feeling as dazed as Matt looked. But now she said, "I have a weapon too."She picked up the stave and said, "I'm fighting, Matt. Ava, the children are yours to care for."

"And mine,"Jacob said, and immediately proved his usefulness by adding, "Isn't that an axe hanging back there near the furnace?"

Matt ran and snatched it up. Meredith could see from his expression what he was thinking: Yes! One heavy axe, a tiny bit rusty, but Still plenty sharp enough. Now if the kitsune sent plants or wood against them, he was armed.

Mrs. Flowers was already going up the basement stairs.

Meredith and Matt exchanged one quick glance and then they were running to catch up with her.

"You drive your mom's SUV. I'll sit in back. I'm Still a little bit...Well, dizzy, I guess."Meredith didn't like to admit to a personal weakness, but better that than crashing the vehicle.

Matt nodded and was good enough not to comment on why she felt so dizzy. She Still couldn't believe her own stupidity.

Mrs. Flowers said only one thing. "Matt, dear, break traffic laws."

Chapter 35

Elena felt as if she had been doing nothing in all her life except walk under a shady canopy of high branches. It wasn't cold here, but it was cool. It wasn't dark, but it was dim.

Instead of the constant crimson sunlight from the bloated red sun in the first Dark Dimension, they were walking in a constant dusk. It was unnerving, always looking up for the sky and never seeing the moon - or moons - or the planet - that might well be up there. Rather than sky, there was nothing but tangled tree branches, clearly heavy and so intricately entwined as to take up every bit of space above.

Was she crazy, thinking that maybe they were on that moon, the diamond bright tiny moon that you could see from the outside of the Nether World Gatehouse? Was it too tiny to have an atmosphere? Too small for proper gravity? She had noticed that she felt lighter here and that even Bonnie's steps seemed quite long. Could she...? She tensed her legs, let go of Stefan's hand, and jumped.

It was a long jump, but it hadn't taken her anywhere near the canopy of woven branches above. And she didn't land neatly on her toes, either. Her feet flew out from under her on millennia of leaf mold and she skidded on her rear end for maybe three feet, before she could dig her fingers and feet in and stop.

"Elena! Are you All right?"She could hear Stefan and Bonnie calling from behind her, and a quick, impatient: Are you crazy? from Damon.

"I was trying to figure out where we were by testing the gravity,"she said, standing up on her own and brushing leaves off the seat of her jeans, mortified. Damn! Those leaves had gone up the back of her T-shirt, had even gotten inside her camisole. The group had left most of their furs behind at the Gatehouse, where Sage could guard them, and Elena didn't even have spare clothes. That had been stupid, she told herself angrily now. Embarrassed, she tried to walk and shimmy at the same time, to get the crumbled leaves out of her top. Final y she had to say, "Just a second, everybody.

Guys, could you turn around? Bonnie, could you come back here and help me?"Bonnie was glad to help and Elena was astonished at how long it took to pick gunk away from her own flinching back.

Next time you want a scientific opinion, try asking, Damon's scornful telepathy commented. Aloud, he added, "I'd say it's about eighty percent Earth's gravity here and we could well be on a moon. Doesn't signify. If Sage hadn't helped us with this compass, we'd never be able to find the tree's trunk - at least not in time."

"And remember,"Elena said, "that the idea that the star ball is near the trunk is just a guess. We have to keep our eyes open!"

"But what should we look for?"Once, Bonnie would have wailed this. Now she simply asked quietly.

"Well..."Elena turned to Stefan. "It will look bright, won't it?

Against this horrible half-light?"

"This horrible camouflage-green half-light,"Stefan agreed. "It should look like a slightly shifting bright light."

"But put it like this,"Damon said, walking backward graceful y and flashing his old 250-kilowatt smile for a second at them.

"If we don't follow Sage's suggestion, we'll never find the trunk. If we try to wander randomly around this world, we will never find anything - including our way back. And then not only Fell's Church, but we will all die, in this order. First, we two vampires will break with al civilized behavior, as starvation - "

"Stefan won't,"cried Elena, and Bonnie said, "You're just as bad as Shinichi, with his 'revelations' about us!"

Damon smiled subtly. "If I were as bad as Shinichi, little redbird, you would already be punctured like an empty juice box - or I would be sitting back with Sage, enjoying Black Magic - "

"Look, this is pointless,"Stefan said.

Damon feigned sympathy. "Maybe you have...problems...in the canine area, but I do not, little brother."He deliberately held the smile this time so everyone could see his pointed teeth.

Stefan wouldn't be baited. "And it's holding us up - "

"Wrong, little brother. Some of us have mastered the art of speaking and walking at the same time."

"Damon - stop it! Just stop!"Elena said, rubbing her hot forehead with cold fingers.

Damon shrugged, Still moving backward. "You only had to ask,"he said, with just the slightest emphasis on the first word.

Elena said nothing in return. She felt feverish.

It wasn't al just straight walking. Frequently there were huge mounds of knotted roots in their way that had to be climbed.

Sometimes Stefan had to use the axe from his backpack to make footholds.

Elena had come to hate the deep green demi-light more than anything. It played tricks on her eyes, just as the muffled sound of their feet on the leaf-strewn ground played tricks on her ears. Several times she stopped - and once Stefan did - to say, "There's someone else here! Following us!"

Each time they had al stopped and listened intently. Stefan and Damon sent telepathic probes of Power as far as they could reach, seeking another mind. But either it was so well disguised as to be invisible or it didn't exist at all.

And then, after Elena felt as if she had been walking her whole life, and would keep walking until eternity ended, Damon stopped abruptly. Bonnie, just behind him, sucked in her breath. Elena and Stefan hurried forward to see what it was.

What Elena saw made her say, unsteadily, "I think maybe we missed the trunk and...found...the edge..."

On the ground in front of her and as far as she could see, was the star-studded darkness of space. But washing out the light of the stars was a huge planet and two huge moons, one swirled blue and white and one silver.

Stefan was holding her hand, sharing the wonder with her, and tingles ran up her arm and into her suddenly weak knees, just from his feather-light touch on her fingers.

Then Damon said caustically, "Look up."

Elena did and gasped. For just an instant her body was completely unmoored. She and Stefan automatically wound their arms around each other. And then Elena realized what they were seeing, both above and below.

"It's water,"she said, staring at the pool spread out before them. "One of those freshwater seas Sage told us about.

And not a ripple on it. Not a breath of wind."

"But it does look as if we're on that smallest moon,"Stefan said mildly, his eyes deceptively innocent as he looked at Damon.

"Yes, Well, then there's something exceedingly heavy at the core of this moonlet, to al ow for eight-tenths the gravity we normally experience, and to hang on to so much atmosphere

- but who cares about logic? This is a world we reached through the Nether World. Why should logic apply?"He looked at Elena with slightly narrowed, hooded eyes.

"Where is the third one? The grave one?"

The voice came from behind them - Elena thought. She was

- they all were - turning from looking at brilliant light into half-darkness. Everything shimmered and danced before her eyes.

"Grave Meredith; laughing Bonnie;

And Elena with golden hair.

They whisper and then are silent...

They plot and I no longer care...

But I must have Elena,

Elena with the Golden Hair..."

"Well, you're not going to have me!"cried Elena. "And that poem is a complete misquote, anyway. I remember it from freshman English class. And you're crazy! "Even through her anger and fear she wondered about Fell's Church. If Shinichi was here, could he bring about the Last Midnight there? Or could Misao simply set it off with a languid wave?

"But I will have you, golden Elena,"the kitsune said.

Both Stefan and Damon had knives out. "That's just where you're wrong, Shinichi,"Stefan said. "You will never, ever touch Elena again."

"I have to try. You've taken everything else."

Elena's heart was pounding now. If he'll talk sense to any of us, he'll talk to me, she thought. "Shouldn't you be getting ready for the Last Midnight, Shinichi?"she asked in a friendly tone, inwardly trembling in case he should say, "It's already over."

"She doesn't need me. She wouldn't protect Misao. Why should I help Her?"

For a moment Elena couldn't speak. She? She? Other than Misao, what other She was involved in this?

Damon had a crossbow out now, with a quarrel loaded in it.

But Shinichi just went rambling on.

"Misao couldn't move anymore. She had put all her Power into her star ball , you see. She never laughed or sang any longer - never made up any plots with me. She just...sat.

"Finally she asked me to put her into myself. She thought we'd become one that way. So she dissolved and merged right into me. But it didn't help. Now...I can barely hear her.

I've come to get my star ball . I've been using its energy to travel through the dimensions. If I put Misao into my star ball , she'll recover. Then I'll hide it again - but not where I left it last. I'll put it farther up where no one else will ever find it."He seemed to focus on his listeners. "So I guess it's Misao and I who are talking to you right now. Except that I'm so lonely - I can't feel her at all."

"You will not touch Elena,"Stefan said quietly.

Damon was looking grimly at the rest of the group at Shinichi's words, "...I'll put it farther up..."

"Go on, Bonnie, keep moving,"Stefan added. "You too, Elena. We'll follow."

Elena let Bonnie go some feet ahead before saying telepathically, We can't break up, Stefan; there's only one compass.

Watch out, Elena! He might hear you! came Stefan's voice, and Damon added flatly, Shut up!

"Don't bother telling her to shut up,"Shinichi said. "You're mad if you think that I can't just pick your thoughts right out of your minds. I didn't think you were that stupid."

"We're not stupid,"Bonnie said hotly.

"No? Then did you figure out my riddles for you?"

"This is hardly the time for that,"Elena snapped. It was a mistake, for it caused Shinichi to focus on her again.

"Did you tell them what you think about the tragedy of Camelot, Elena? No, I didn't think you'd have the courage. I'll tell them, then, shall I? I'll read it as you put it in your diary."

"No! You can't have read my diary! Anyway - it's no longer applicable! "Elena flared.

"Let me see...these are your own words now."He assumed a reading voice. 'Dear Diary, one of Shinichi's riddles was what I thought of Camelot. You know, the legend of King Arthur, Queen Guinevere, and the knight she loved, Lancelot.

And here's what I thought. A lot of innocent people died and were miserable because three selfish people - a king, a queen, and a knight - couldn't behave in a civilized way.

They couldn't understand that the more you love, the more you find to love. But those three couldn't give in to love and just share - all three of them...'"

"Shut up!"screamed Elena. "Shut up!"

My God, Damon said, my life just lapped itself.

So did mine. Stefan sounded dizzy.

Just forget about all of it, Elena told them. It's not true anymore. Stefan, I'm yours forever, and I always was. And right now we've got to get rid of this bastard, and run for the trunk.

"Misao and I used to do that,"Shinichi said. "Talk alone together on a special frequency. You're certainly a good manipulator, Elena, to keep them from killing each other over you."

"Yes, it's a special frequency I call the truth," Elena said. "But I'm not half as good a manipulator as Damon is. Now attack us or let us go away. We're in a hurry!"

"Attack you?"Shinichi seemed to be thinking over the idea.

And then, faster than Elena could track it, he went for Bonnie.

The vampires, who had been expecting him to try to get to Elena, were caught off guard, but Elena, who had seen the flicker of his eyes toward the weaker girl, was already diving for him. He moved back so quickly that she found herself heading for his legs, but then she realized she had a chance to throw him off balance. She deliberately went for a headbutt with his kneecap, at the same time stabbing deep into his foot with her knife.

Forgive me, Bonnie, she thought, knowing what he would do. It was the same as what he'd had his puppet, Damon, do when he'd held Elena and Matt hostage before - except that he didn't need a pine branch to direct the pain. Black energy erupted directly from his hands into Bonnie's small body.

But there was another factor he hadn't taken into account.

When he'd had Damon attack Matt and Elena he'd had the sense to keep away from them while directing agony into their bodies. This time, he'd seized Bonnie and wrapped his arms around her. And Bonnie was a most excellent telepath herself, especial y at projecting. When the first wave of agony hit her, she screamed - and redirected the pain toward Shinichi.

It was like completing a circuit. It didn't hurt Bonnie any less, but it meant that anything Shinichi did to her he felt in his own body, amplified by Bonnie's terror. That was the system that Elena slammed into as hard as she could. When her head impacted with his knee, his kneebone was the more fragile of the two, and something inside it crackled. Dazed, she concentrated on twisting the knife she'd stabbed through his foot and into the soil below.

It wouldn't have worked if she hadn't had two extremely agile vampires right behind her. Since Shinichi didn't fall over, she would just have been putting her neck at the perfect level for him to snap cleanly.

But Stefan was only a split second behind her. He seized her and was out of Shinichi's reach before the kitsune could even assess the situation properly.

"Let me go,"Elena gasped at Stefan. She was determined to get Bonnie. "I left my knife,"she added craftily, finding a more concrete reason for forcing Stefan to let her back into the fray.

"Where?"

"In his foot, of course."

She could feel Stefan trying not to laugh out loud. "I think that's a good place to leave it. Take one of mine,"he added.

If you've quite finished your little chat, you might get rid of his tails, came Damon's cold telepathy.

At that moment Bonnie passed out, but with her own telepathic circuits Still wide open and directed back toward Shinichi. And now Damon had gone into offensive mode, as if he cared nothing about Bonnie's well-being, as long as he could get through her to Shinichi.

Stefan, quick as a striking snake, went for one of the many tails that now waved behind Shinichi, advertising his tremendous Power. Most of them were translucent, and they surrounded his real tail - the flesh-and-blood tail that every fox had.

Stefan's knife went snick and one of the phantom tails fell to the ground and then disappeared. There was no blood, but Shinichi keened in fury and pain.

Damon, meanwhile, was ruthlessly attacking from the front.

As soon as Stefan had distracted the kitsune from the back, Damon slashed both Shinichi's wrists - one quickly on the upstroke, the other just as fast on the down-stroke. Then he went for a body blow just at the moment that Stefan, with Elena held like a baby on his hip, snicked away another phantom tail.

Elena was struggling. She was seriously worried that Damon would kill Bonnie to get to Shinichi. And besides, she herself would not be toted around like a piece of luggage!

Civilization had tumbled down all around her and she was reacting from her deepest instincts: protect Stefan, protect Bonnie, protect Fell's Church. Put the enemy down. She hardly realized that in her heightened state she had sunk her unfortunately Still-human teeth into Stefan's shoulder.

He winced slightly, but he listened to her. All right! Try to get Bonnie, then - see if you can ease her.

He let go of her just as Shinichi whirled to deal with him, channeling the black pain that, back on Earth, had flung Matt and Elena off their feet in seizures, directly toward Stefan.

Elena, just released, found that everyone was making a half turn, as if to oblige her, and suddenly she saw a chance. She snatched at the limp form of Bonnie, and Shinichi dropped the smaller girl into her arms.

Words were echoing in Elena's brain. Get Bonnie. See if you can ease her.

Well, she had Bonnie now. Her own sense split Stefan's two orders with another -  get her away from Shinichi. She's the priceless hostage.

Elena found that she could almost scream with fury even now. She had to keep Bonnie safe - but that meant leaving Stefan, gentle Stefan, at the mercy of Shinichi. She scrambled away with Bonnie - so small and light - and at the same time threw a backward glance at Stefan. He was wearing a slight frown of concentration now, but he was not only not overwhelmed with pain, he was pressing forward the attack.

Even though Shinichi's head was on fire. The brilliant crimson tips of his black hair had burst into flames, as if nothing else would express his enmity and his certainty of winning. He was crowning himself with a flaming garland, a hellish halo.

Elena's anger at that turned into chills down her spine as she watched something most people never lived to analyze: two vampires attacking together, perfectly in sync. There was the elemental savagery in it of a pair of raptors or wolves, but there was also the awesome beauty of two creatures working as a single, unified body. The distance in Stefan's and Damon's expressions said that this was a fight to the death. The occasional frown from Stefan or vicious smile from Damon meant that Shinichi was sending his searing dark Power through one or the other of them. But these weren't weak humans Shinichi was playing with now. They were both vampires with bodies that healed almost instantly - and vampires who had both fed recently - from her -

Elena. Her extraordinary blood was feuling them now.

So I'm already a part of this, Elena thought. I'm helping them right now. That would have to satisfy the savagery this no-holds-barred fight elicited in her. To ruin the perfect synchronicity with which the two vampires were handling Shinichi would be a crime, especial y when Bonnie was Still limp in her arms.

As humans, we're both liabilities, she thought. And Damon wouldn't hesitate to tell me so, even if all I wanted was to get in one single stroke.

Bonnie, come on, Bonnie, she thought. Hold on to me.

We're getting farther away. She picked up the smaller girl under the armpits and dragged her. She backed up into the olive dimness that stretched in all directions. When she tripped over a root and accidentally sat down, she decided that she'd gone far enough, and maneuvered Bonnie into her lap.

Then she cupped her hands around Bonnie's little heart-shaped face and she thought of the most soothing things she could imagine. A cool plunge at Warm Springs back home.

A hot bath at Lady Ulma's and then a four-handed massage, lying comfortably on a drying couch with the scent of floral incense rising around her. A cuddle with Saber in Mrs.

Flowers's informal den. The decadence of sleeping late and waking up in her own bed - with her own mother and father and sister in the house.

As Elena thought of this last, she couldn't help giving a tiny gasp, and a teardrop fell onto Bonnie's forehead. Bonnie's eyelashes fluttered.

"Now, don't you be sad,"she whispered. "Elena?"

"I've got you, and nobody's going to hurt you again. Do you Still feel bad?"

"A little. But I could hear you, in my mind, and it made me feel better. I want a long bath and a pizza. And to hold baby Adara. She can almost talk, you know. Elena - you're not listening to me!"

Elena wasn't. She was watching the denouement of the fight between Stefan and Damon and Shinichi. The vampires had the kitsune down now and were squabbling over him like a couple of fledglings over a particularly tasty worm. Or maybe like a pair of baby dragons - Elena wasn't sure if birds hissed at each other.

"Oh, no - yuck!"Bonnie saw what Elena was watching and collapsed, hiding her head against Elena's shoulder. Okay, Elena thought. I get it. There's no savagery at all in you, is there, Bonnie? Mischief, but nothing like bloodlust. And that's good.

Even as she thought this, Bonnie abruptly sat up straight, bumping Elena's chin, and pointing into the distance.

"Wait!"she cried. "Do you see that?"

That was a very bright light, which flared brighter as each vampire found a place to his liking on Shinichi's body and bit simultaneously.

"Stay here,"Elena said, a little thickly, because when Bonnie had bumped her chin she'd accidentally bitten her tongue.

She ran back to the two vampires and knocked them as hard as she could over the heads. She had to get their attention before they got completely locked into feeding mode.

Not surprisingly, Stefan detached first, and then helped her to pull Damon off his defeated enemy.

Damon snarled and paced, never taking his eyes off Shinichi as the beaten kitsune slowly sat up. Elena noticed drops of blood scattered around. Then she saw it, tucked into Damon's belt, black and crimson-tipped and sleek: Shinichi's real tail.

Savagery fled...fast. Elena wanted to hide her head against Stefan's shoulder but instead turned up her face for a kiss.

Stefan obliged.

Then Elena stepped back so that they formed a triangle around Shinichi.

"Don't even think of attacking,"Damon said pleasantly.

Shinichi gave a weak shrug. "Attack you? Why bother? You'll have nothing to go back to, even if I die. The children are pre-programmed to kill. But" - with sudden vehemence - "I wish we'd never come to your damned little town at all - and I wish we'd never followed Her orders. I wish I'd never let Misao near Her! I wish we hadn't - "He stopped speaking suddenly.

No, it was more than that, Elena thought. He froze, eyes wide open and staring. "Oh, no,"he whispered. "Oh, no, I didn't mean that! I didn't mean it! I have no regrets - "

Elena had the feeling of something coming at them at tremendous speed, so fast, in fact, that she just had time to open her mouth before it hit Shinichi. Whatever it was, it killed him cleanly and passed by without touching anyone else.

Shinichi fell facedown onto the dirt.

"Don't bother," Elena said softly, as Stefan reflexively moved toward the corpse. "He's dead. He did it to himself."

"But how?" Stefan and Damon demanded in chorus.

"I'm not the expert,"Elena said. "Meredith is the expert on this. But she told me that kitsune could only be killed by destroying their star balls, shooting them with a blessed bullet...or by the 'Sin of Regret.' Meredith and I didn't know what that meant back then - it was before we had even gone into the Dark Dimension. But I think we just now saw it in action."

"So you can't be a kitsune and regret anything you've done?

That's - harsh,"Stefan said.

"Not at all,"Damon said crisply. "Although, if it had operated for vampires, no doubt you would have been permanently dead when you woke up in the family vault."

"Earlier,"Stefan said expressionlessly. "I regreted striking you a mortal blow, even as I was dying. You've always said I feel too guilty, but that is one thing I would give my life to take back."

There was a silence that stretched and stretched. Damon was at the front of the group now, and no one but Bonnie could see his face.

Suddenly Elena grabbed Stefan's hand. "We Still have a chance!"she told him. "Bonnie and I saw something bright that way! Let's run!"He and Elena passed Damon running and he grabbed Bonnie's hand too. "Like the wind, Bonnie!"

"But with Shinichi dead - Well, do we real y have to find his star ball or the biggest star ball or whatever is hidden in this awful place?"Bonnie asked. Once, she would have whined, Elena thought. Now, despite whatever pain she felt, she was running.

"We do have to find it, I'm afraid,"Stefan said. "Because from what he said, Shinichi wasn't at the top of the ladder after all .

He and his sister were working for someone, someone female. And whoever She is, She may be attacking Fell's Church right now."

"The odds have just shifted,"Elena said. "We have an unknown enemy."

"But Still - "

"Al bets,"Elena said, "are off."

Chapter 36

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Mrs.... Flowers?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Somehow during the drive, her clothes had changed too.

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

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

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

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

Matt and Meredith simultaneously closed the SUV's doors.

Matt left the engine running for a quick getaway.

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

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

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

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

"Obaasan?"Matt gasped in disbelief.

"Inari!"Meredith snapped.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Come help me find them!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Isobel might be unconscious or too hoarse to answer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Meredith was beginning to run into more debris now.

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

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

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

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

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

She left the stave on the burning living room floor.

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

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

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

The closer we get, the bigger it gets.

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

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

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

Chapter 37

Then Meredith saw something that was not smoke or fire.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Saitou and Isobel along.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The moment stretched...

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

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

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

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

There, sobered, they put her down.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 38

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Elena, he can't!"

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

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

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

Exactly where his heart was.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But it didn't matter.

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

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

"Inside him?"Elena repeated stupidly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

because Damon's face was so pale.

But even the stance for Wings of Purification eluded her.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No...

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

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

Oh, dear God, please...

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anything so as to not face the truth.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Can you feel me kissing you?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Forget you? How could I ever forget you?

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

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

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

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

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

He couldn't do this to her.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Desperate to believe it.

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

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

Chapter 39

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

No one was alone.

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

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

"And you won't let go ever?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You go ahead, then."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"It was too fast!"Stefan corrected.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Elena, no! That spell  - "

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

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

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

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

Elena lost her mind.

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

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

Wings of Destruction.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Elena?"

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

"Yes, sweetheart?"

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

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

"Yes - always."

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

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

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

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

Maybe the darkness would be kind to her, too.

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

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

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

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

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