The Vampire Diaries #6: Shadow Souls (The Return Trilogy #2) (2010)

Chapter 40

Matt and Mrs. Flowers were in the bunker - the addition to the house that Mrs. Flowers's uncle had put onto the back for woodwork and other hobbies. It had fallen into even more neglect than the rest of the house, being used as a storage space for things Mrs. Flowers didn't know where else to put - such as Cousin Joe's folding cot and that old sagging couch that didn't match a stick of furniture inside anymore.

Now, at night, it was their haven. No child or adult from Fell's Church had ever been invited inside. In fact, except for Mrs. Flowers, Stefan - who'd helped move large furniture into it - and now Matt, no one had even been in for as long as Mrs. Flowers could remember.

Matt clung to this. He had been, slowly but surely, reading through the material Meredith had researched and one precious excerpt had meant a lot to him and Mrs. Flowers. It was the reason they were able to sleep at night, when the voices came.

The kitsune is often thought to be a sort of cousin to Western vampires, seducing chosen men (as most fox spirits take on a female form) and feeding directly on their chi, or life spirit, without the intermediary of blood. Thus one may make a case that they are bound by similar rules to the vampire. For example, they cannot enter human dwellings without invitation...

And oh, the voices...

He was profoundly glad now that he'd taken Meredith and Bonnie's advice and gone to Mrs. Flowers's first before going home. The girls had convinced him he'd only be putting his parents in danger by facing up to the lynch mob that awaited him, ready to kill him for allegedly assaulting Caroline. Caroline seemed to have found him at the boardinghouse immediately, anyway, but she never brought any kind of mob with her. Matt thought that perhaps it was because that would have been useless.

He had no idea what might have happened if the voices had belonged to ex-friends long ago invited to his house while he was at home.

Tonight...

"Come on, Matt," Caroline's voice, lazy, slow, and seductive purred. It sounded as if she were lying down, speaking into the crack under the door. "Don't be such a spoilsport. You know you have to come out sometime."

"Let me talk to my mom."

"I can't, Matt. I told you before, she's undergoing training."

"To be like you?"

"It takes a lot of work to get to be like me, Matt." Suddenly Caroline's tone was not flirtatious any longer.

"I bet," Matt muttered, and added, "You hurt my family and you're going to be sorrier than you can imagine."

"Oh, Matt! Come on, get real. Nobody is going to hurt anybody."

Matt slowly opened his hands to look at what he had clenched between them. Meredith's old revolver, filled with the bullets blessed by Obaasan.

"What is Elena's middle name?" he asked - not loudly, even though there were the sounds of music and dancing in Mrs. Flowers's backyard.

"Matt, what are you talking about? What are you doing in there, making a family tree?"

"I asked you a simple question, Care. You and Elena played since you were practically babies, right? So what is her middle name?"

A flurry of activity. When Caroline finally answered he could clearly hear the whispered coaching, as Stefan had heard so long ago, just a beat before her words.

"If all you're interested in is playing games, Matthew Honeycutt, I'll go find someone else to talk to."

He could practically hear her flounce away.

But he felt like celebrating. He allowed himself a whole graham cracker and half a cup of Mrs. Flowers's homemade apple juice. They never knew when they might be locked in here for good, with only the supplies they had, so whenever Matt went out of the bunker he brought back as many things as he could find that might be useful. A barbeque lighter and hairspray equaled a flame thrower. Jar after jar of Mrs. Flowers's delicious preserves. Lapis rings in case the worst happened and they ended up with pointy teeth.

Mrs. Flowers turned in her sleep on the couch. "Who was that, Matt dear?" she asked.

"Nobody at all, Mrs. Flowers. You just go back to sleep."

"I see," Mrs. Flowers said in her sweet-old-lady voice. "Well, if nobody at all comes back you might ask her her own mother's first name."

"I see," Matt said in his best imitation of her voice and then they both laughed. But underneath his laughter there was a lump in his throat. He had known Mrs. Forbes a long time, too. And he was scared, scared of the time that it would be Shinichi's voice calling.

Then they were going to be in trouble for good.

"There it is," shouted Sage.

"Elena!" screamed Meredith.

"Oh, God!" screamed Bonnie.

The next instant, Elena was thrown, and something landed on top of her. Dully, she heard a cry. But it was different from the others. It was a choking sound of pure pain as Bloddeuwedd's beak thunked into something made of flesh. Me, Elena thought. But there was no pain.

Not...me?

There was a coughing sound above her.

"Elena - go - my shields - won't hold - "

"Damon! We'll go together!"

Hurts...

It was just the shadow of a telepathic whisper and Elena knew Damon didn't think she'd heard it. But she was circling her Power faster and faster, done with deception, caring only about getting those she loved out of danger.

I'll find a way, she told Damon. I'll carry you. Fireman's lift.

He laughed at that, giving Elena some hope that he wasn't dying. Now Elena wished she'd taken Dr. Meggar in the carriage with them so he could use his healing powers on the injured -

- and then what? Leave him to the mercies of Bloddeuwedd? He wants to build a hospital here, in this world. He wants to help the children, who surely don't deserve all the evils that I've seen visited on them -

She shunted the thoughts aside. This was no time for a philosophical debate about doctors and their obligations.

It was time to run.

Reaching behind her, she found two hands. One was slick with blood so she reached farther, thanking her late mother for all the ballet lessons, all the children's yoga, and she grabbed the sleeve above it. And then she put her back into it and pulled.

To her surprise she hauled Damon up with her. She tried to heft him farther up on her back, but that didn't work. And then she even managed a wobbly step forward, and another -

And then Sage was there picking both of them up and they were going into the lobby of the building of the Shi no Shi.

"Everyone, get out! Get out! Bloddeuwedd's after us and she'll kill anything in her way!" Elena shouted. It was the strangest thing. She hadn't meant to shout. Hadn't formulated the words, except perhaps in the deepest parts of her subconscious. But she did shout them into the already frenzied lobby and she heard the cry taken up by others.

What she didn't expect was that they would run, not out into the street, but down toward the cells. She ought to have, of course, but she hadn't. And then she felt herself and Sage and Damon going down, down the way they had last night...

But was it really the right way? Elena clamped one hand over the other and saw, judging by foxlight, that they needed to head off to the right.

"WHAT ARE THOSE CELLS TO THE RIGHT OF US? HOW DO WE GET THERE?" she shouted to the young vampire gentleman next to her.

"That's Isolation and Mentally Disturbed," the vampire gentleman shouted back. "Don't go that way."

"I have to! Do I need a key?"

"Yes, but - "

"Do you have a key?"

"Yes, but - "

"Give it to me now!"

"I can't do that," he wailed in a way that reminded her of Bonnie at her most difficult.

"All right. Sage!"

"Madame?"

"Send Talon back to peck this man's eyes out. He won't give me the key to Stefan's ward!"

"As good as done, Madame!"

"W-wait! I cha-changed my mind. Here's the key!" The vampire fished through a ring of keys and handed one to her.

It looked like the other keys on his ring. Too much alike, Elena's suspicious mind said.

"Sage!"

"Madame !"

"Can you wait till I pass with Saber? I want him to tear the you-know-what off this guy if he's lied to me."

"Of course, Madame!"

"W-w-w-wait," gasped the vampire. It was clear that he was completely terrified. "I may - may have given you the wrong key - in this - this light - "

"Give me the right key and tell me anything I need to know or I'll have the dog backtrack you and kill you," Elena said, and at that moment, she meant it.

"H-here." This time the key didn't look like a key. It was round, slightly convex, with a hole in the middle. Like a donut that's been sat on by a police officer, part of Elena's mind said, and began laughing hysterically.

Shut up, she told her mind sharply.

"Sage!"

"Madame?"

"Can Talon see the man I'm holding by the hair?" She had to go on tiptoe to grasp him.

"But of course, Madame!"

"Can she remember him? If I can't find Stefan I want her to show him to Saber so he can track him."

"Uh...ah...got it, Madame!"

A hand, dripping blood from the wrist, lifted a falcon high, at the same time as there was a serendipitous crash from the top of the building.

The vampire was almost sobbing. "Turn r-right at the n-next right. Use the k-key in the slot at h-head height to g-get into the corridor. There m-may be guards there. But...if - if you don't have a key to the individual cell you want - I'm sorry, but - "

"I do! I have the cell key and I know what to do after that! Thank you, you've been very kind and helpful."

Elena let go of the vampire's hair.

"Sage! Damon! Bonnie! Look for a corridor, locked, going right. Then don't get swept away. Sage, hold Bonnie and have Saber bark like crazy. Bonnie, hold on to Meredith in front of the guys. The corridor leads to Stefan!"

Elena never knew how much any one of her allies heard of this message, sent by voice and telepathy. But ahead she heard a sound that to her was like choirs of angels singing.

Saber was barking madly.

Elena would never have been able to stop by herself. She was in a raging river of people and the raging river was taking her right around the barrier made by four people, a falcon, and a mad-seeming dog.

But eight hands reached out to her as she was swept by - and a snarling, snapping muzzle leaped ahead of her to divide the crowd. Somehow she was being run into, bruised, cradled, shoved, and, grasped and grasping, forced all the way to the right wall.

But Sage was looking at that same wall in despair. "Madame, he tricked you! There is no keyhole here!"

Elena's throat went raw. She prepared to shout, "Saber, heel," and go after the vampire.

But then, just below her, Bonnie's voice said, "Of course there is. It's shaped like a circle."

And Elena remembered.

Smaller guards. Like imps or monkeys. Bonnie's size.

"Bonnie, take this! Shove it into the hole. Be careful! It's the only one we've got."

Sage immediately directed Saber to stand and snarl just ahead of Bonnie in the tunnel, to keep the stream of panicked demons and vampires from jostling her.

Carefully, solemnly, Bonnie took the large key, examined it, cocked her head, turned it in her hands - and placed it in the wall.

"Nothing's happening!"

"Try turning or pushing - "

Click.

The door slid open.

Elena and her group more or less fell into the corridor, while Saber stood between them and the herd pounding by, barking and snapping and leaping.

Elena, lying on the ground, legs entwined with who-knew-who-else's, cupped a hand around her ring.

The fox eyes shone straight ahead and a bit to the right.

They were shining into a cell ahead.

Chapter 41

"Stefan!" Elena screamed and knew that she sounded like a madwoman when she screamed it.

There was no answer.

She was running. Following the light. "Stefan! Stefan!"

An empty cell.

A yellowed mummy.

A pyramid of dust.

Somehow, subconsciously, she suspected one of these things. And any one would have caused her to run out to fight Bloddeuwedd with her bare hands.

Instead, when she reached the right cell, she saw a weary young man, whose face showed that he had given up all hope. He lifted a stick-thin arm, rejecting her utterly.

"They told me the truth. You were exported for aiding a prisoner. I'm not susceptible to dreams anymore."

"Stefan!" She fell to her knees. "Do we have to go through this every single time?"

"Do you know how often they re-create you, bitch?"

Elena was shocked. More than shocked. But the next moment the hatred had faded from his face.

"At least I get to look at you. I had...I had a picture. But they took that, of course. They cut it up, very slowly, making me watch. Sometimes they made me cut it. If I didn't cut it, they would - "

"Oh, darling! Stefan, darling! Look at me. Listen to the prison. Bloddeuwedd is destroying it. Because I've stolen the other half of your key from her nest, Stefan, and I am not a dream. Do you see this? Did they ever show you this?" She held out the hand with the double fox ring on it. "Now - now - where do I put it?"

"You are warm. The bars are cold," Stefan said, clutching her hand and speaking as if reciting out of a children's book.

"Here!" Elena cried triumphantly. She didn't need to take the ring off. Stefan was holding her other hand, and this lock worked like a seal ring. She placed it straight into a circular depression in the wall. Then, when nothing happened, she turned it right. Nothing. Left.

The cell bars slowly began to lift into the ceiling.

Elena couldn't believe it and for an instant thought she was hallucinating. Then when she turned sharply to look at the ground she saw that the bars were already at least a foot above it.

Then she looked at Stefan, who was standing again.

Both of them fell back to their knees. They would have both gotten down and wriggled like snakes if necessary, the need to touch was so great. The horizontal struts on the bars made it impossible for them to hold hands as the bars lifted.

Then the bars were over the top of Elena's head and she was holding Stefan - she was holding Stefan in her arms! - appalled to feel bones under her hands, but holding him, and no one could tell her he was a hallucination or a dream, and if she and Stefan had to die together, then they would die together. Nothing mattered but that they not be separated again.

She covered the unfamiliar, bony face with kisses. Strange, no half-grown, gone-to-the-wild beard, but vampires didn't grow beards unless they had them when they became vampires.

And then there were other people in the cell. Good people. People laughing and crying and helping her create a makeshift litter out of stinking blankets and Stefan's pallet and no one screamed when lice jumped on them because everyone knew that Elena would have turned and ripped their throat out like Saber. Or rather, like Saber, but as Ms. Courtland had always said, with feeling. To Saber it was just a job.

Then somehow - things had begun to become disconnected - Elena was watching Stefan's beloved face and gripping his litter, and running - he didn't weigh anything - up a different corridor than the one she'd fought and shouldered and pushed and floundered in on her way in. Apparently all the Shi no Shi's salmon had chosen the other corridor to swim up. Undoubtedly there was a safe place for them at the end on that side.

And even as Elena wondered how a face could be so pure, and handsome, and perfect, even when it looked almost like a skull, she was thinking, I can run and stoop. And she bent over Stefan and her hair made a shield around them, so that it was just the two of them inside it. The entire outside world was shut out, and they were alone, and she said in his ear: "Please, we need you to be strong. Please - for me. Please - for Bonnie. Please - for Damon. Plea - "

She would have gone on naming all of them, and probably some over and over, but it was too much already. After his long deprivation, Stefan was in no mood to be contrary. His head darted up and Elena felt more than the usual pain because he was at the wrong angle, and Elena was glad because Stefan had struck a vein down its length and blood was flowing into his mouth in a steady stream.

They had to go a little more slowly now, or Elena would have tripped and colored Stefan's face maroon like a demon's, but they were still jogging. Someone else was guiding them.

Then, very suddenly they stopped. Elena, eyes shut, mind locked on to Stefan's, would not have looked up for the world. But in a moment they were moving again, and there was a feeling of spaciousness all around Elena and she realized that they were in the lobby and she had to make sure everyone knew.

It's on the left side of us now, she sent to Damon. It's close to the front. It's a door with all sorts of symbols above.

I believe I'm familiar with the species, Damon sent back dryly, but even he couldn't hide two things from her. One was that he was glad, actually glad to feel Elena's elation, and to know that it was he, in the main part, that had brought it about.

The other was simple. That if there was a choice between the life of himself and the life of his brother, he would give his own life. For Elena's sake, for his own pride.

For Stefan.

Elena didn't dwell on these secret things she had no right to know. She simply embraced them, let Stefan feel them in all their raw vibrancy, and made sure there was no feedback to tell Damon that Stefan knew. Angels were singing in heaven for her. Black Magic rose petals were scattering around her body. There was a release of doves and she felt their wings. She was happy.

But she was not safe.

She only learned it as she entered the lobby, but they were very lucky that the Dimensional Door was on the side it was. Bloddeuwedd had methodically destroyed the other side until it had collapsed into a mound that was nothing but splintered wood. Elena and Bloddeuwedd's feud might have started out as a quarrel between a hostess who thought her guest had broken the house rules and a guest who just wanted to run away, but it had become a war to the death. And given the way vampires, werewolves, demons, and other folk down here in the Dark Dimension reacted, it had created a sensation. The Guardians had their hands full keeping people out of the building. Dead bodies lay strewn on the street.

Oh, God, the people! The poor people! Elena thought, as this at last came into her field of view. As for the Guardians, who were keeping this place clear and fighting Bloddeuwedd on her behalf - God bless you for that, Elena thought, envisioning a standing-room-only lobby as they tried to race with Stefan across the floor. As it was, they were alone.

"Now we need your key again, Elena," Damon's voice, just above her, said.

Elena gently pried Stefan off her throat. "Just for a moment, my darling. Just for a moment."

Looking at the door, Elena was confounded for several moments. There was a hole, but nothing happened when she put the ring in it and pushed, jammed, or twisted left or right. Out of the corner of her eye she saw some dark shadow above her, dismissed it as irrelevant, and then had it come screaming at her like a dive-bomber, steel talons reaching for her.

There was no roof. Bloddeuwedd's talons had methodically ripped it away.

Elena knew it.

Because somehow Elena suddenly saw the whole of the situation, not just her part in it, but as if she were someone outside her body, who understood many more things than puny little Elena Gilbert did.

The Guardians were here to prevent collateral damage.

They could or would not stop Bloddeuwedd.

Elena knew that, too.

All the people running down the other corridor had been doing what an owl's prey normally does. They had been dashing for the bottom of their burrow. There was an enormous safe room there.

Somehow, Elena knew it.

But now, blurrily but definitely, Bloddeuwedd saw the ones she had been after in the first place, the nest robbers, the ones who had forever put out one of her huge round orange far-seeing eyes, and cut her so deeply that the other eye was filling with blood.

Elena could feel it.

Bloddeuwedd could see they were the ones who had caused her to smash her beak. The criminals, the savages, the ones she would tear to pieces slowly, slowly, a limb at a time, switching from one to another as she clutched five or six in one set of claws, or as she watched them, unable to run from lack of limbs, writhing beneath her.

Elena could sense it.

Beneath her.

Right now...they were directly beneath Bloddeuwedd.

Bloddeuwedd dove.

"Saber! Talon!" shouted Sage, but Elena knew that there would be no distraction now. There would be nothing but killing and tearing, slowly, and screams echoing off the single lobby wall.

Elena could picture it.

"It won't open, damn it," shouted Damon. He was manipulating Elena's wrist to move the key in the hole. But no matter how he pulled or pushed, nothing happened.

Bloddeuwedd was almost upon them.

She accelerated, throwing telepathic images before her.

Sinew stretching, joints cracking, bone splintering...

Elena knew -

NOOOOO!

Elena's cup of rage ran over.

Suddenly she saw everything she needed to know in one great sweeping epiphany. But it was too late to get Stefan inside the door, so the first thing she shouted was "Wings of Protection!"

Bloddeuwedd, barely six feet away, slammed into a barrier that a nuclear missile could not have harmed. She slammed into it at the speed of a racing car and with the mass of a medium-sized airplane.

Horror exploded beak first against Elena's wings. They were clear green at the top, dotted with flashing emeralds, and shading into a dawn pink covered with crystals at the bottom. The wings enwrapped all six humans and two animals - and they did not move by one millimeter when Bloddeuwedd smashed into them.

Bloddeuwedd had made herself roadkill.

Shutting her eyes, and trying not to think of the maiden who had been made of flowers (and who had killed her husband! Elena told herself desperately) with dry lips, and wetness trickling down her cheeks, Elena turned back to the door. Put the ring in. Made sure it was flush.

And said, "Fell's Church, Virginia, USA, Earth. Near the boardinghouse, please."

It was well after midnight. Matt was sleeping on the bunker's cot, while Mrs. Flowers slept on the couch, when they were suddenly wakened by a thump.

"What on earth?" Mrs. Flowers got up and stared out the window, which should have been dark.

"Be careful, ma'am," Matt said automatically, but couldn't help adding, "What is it?" - as always, expecting the worst and making sure the revolver with the blessed bullets was ready.

"It's...light," Mrs. Flowers said helplessly. "I don't know what else to say about it. It's light."

Matt could see the light, throwing shadows on their bunker floor. There was no sound of thunder, and hadn't been since he woke up. Hastily he ran to join Mrs. Flowers at the window.

"Did you ever...?" exclaimed Mrs. Flowers, lifting her hands and dropping them again. "Whatever could it mean?"

"I don't know, but I remember everybody talking about ley lines. Lines of Power in the ground."

"Yes, but those run along the surface of the earth. They don't point upward, like - like a fountain!" Mrs. Flowers said.

"But I heard that wherever three ley lines come together - I think Damon said - they can form a Gate. A Gate to where they were going."

"Dear me," said Mrs. Flowers. "You mean you think one of those Gateway things is out there? Maybe it's them, coming back."

"It couldn't be." The time Matt had spent with this particular old woman had made him not only respect her, but love her. "But I don't think we should go outside, anyway."

"Dear Matt. You are such a comfort to me," Mrs. Flowers murmured.

Matt didn't really see how. It was all her stored food and water they were using. Even the fold-up cot was hers.

If he had been on his own he might have investigated this...extraordinary thing. Three spotlights shining out of the ground at an angle so that they met just about at the height of a human being. Bright lights. And getting brighter every minute.

Matt sucked in his breath. Three ley lines, huh? God, it was probably an invasion of monsters.

He didn't even dare to hope.

Elena didn't know if she had needed to say USA or Earth, or even if the door could take her to Fell's Church, or if Damon would have to give her the name of some gate that was close to it. But...surely...with all those ley lines...

The door opened, revealing a small room like an elevator.

Sage said quietly, "Can you four carry him if you have to fight, too?" And - after a second to unravel what this meant - three shrieks of protest, in three different feminine tones, came.

"No! Oh, please, no! Oh don't leave us!!" - Bonnie, begging.

"You're not coming home with us?" - Meredith, straight-from-the-shoulder.

"I order you to get in - and make it quick!" - Elena.

"Such a dominant woman," murmured Sage. "Ah, well, it seems the Great Pendulum has swung again. I am only a man. I obey."

"What? Does that mean you're coming?" Bonnie cried.

"It means I am coming, yes." Gently, Sage took Stefan's wasted body in his arms and stepped into the little cubicle inside the door. Unlike the first keys Elena had used today, this one seemed to work more like a voice-activated elevator...she hoped. After all, Shinichi and Misao had each only needed one key for themselves. Here, a number of people might want to go to the same place at once.

She hoped.

Sage back-kicked Stefan's old bedding away. Something rattled on the ground. "Oh - " Stefan reached helplessly for it. "It's my Elena diamond. I found it on the floor after..."

"Plenty more where that came from," Meredith said.

"It's important to him," Damon, who was already inside, said. Instead of crowding farther into the elevator, the little room that might disappear at any second, that might be gone for Fell's Church before he could turn back, he walked out into the lobby, looked closely at the floor, and knelt. Then, quickly, he reached down and then got up and hurried into the little room again.

"Do you want to hold it or shall I?"

"You hold it...for me. Take care of it."

Anyone who knew of Damon's track record, especially with regards to Elena or even an old diamond that had belonged to Elena, would have said Stefan had to be a madman. But Stefan wasn't mad.

He clasped his hand over his brother's that held the diamond.

"And I'll hold on to you," he said with a faint, wry smile.

"I don't know if anyone is interested," Meredith said, "but there is a single button on the inside of this contraption."

"Push it!" cried Sage and Bonnie, but Elena cried more loudly, "No - wait!"

She'd spotted something. Across the lobby, the Guardians had been unable to stop a single, apparently unarmed citizen from entering the room and crossing the floor at a high-paced graceful glide. He must have been over six feet tall, wearing an entirely white tunic and breeches, which matched his long white hair, alert foxlike ears, and the long flowing silky tail that waved behind him.

"Shut the door!" bellowed Sage.

"Oh, my!" breathed Bonnie.

"Can someone tell me what the hell is going on?" snarled Damon.

"Don't worry. It's only a fellow prisoner. A silent fellow. Hey, you got out, too!" Stefan was smiling and that was enough for Elena. And the intruder was holding out something to him that - well, it couldn't be what it looked like - but it was getting quite close now and it looked like a bouquet of flowers.

"That is a kitsune, is it not?" Meredith asked, as if the world had gone mad around her.

"A prisoner - " said Stefan.

"A THIEF!" shouted Sage.

"Hush!" said Elena. "He can probably hear even if he can't speak."

By then the kitsune was upon them. He met Stefan's eye, glanced at the others and held out the bouquet, which was heavily sealed in plastic wrap and some kind of long stickers with magical-looking inscriptions on them.

"This is for Stefan," he said.

Everyone, including Stefan, gasped.

"Now I must deal with some tiresome Guardians." He sighed. "And you must press the button to make the room go, Beauty," he said to Elena.

Elena, who had momentarily been fascinated by the whisking of a fluffy tail around silken breeches suddenly blushed scarlet. She was remembering certain things. Certain things that had seemed very different...in a lonely dungeon...in the dark of artificially formed night....

Oh, well. Best to put a brave face on it.

"Thank you," she said, and pushed the button. The doors began to close. "Thank you again!" she added, bowing slightly to the kitsune. "I'm Elena."

"Yoroshiku. I am - "

The door shut between them.

"Is it that you have gone crazy?" Sage cried. "Taking a bouquet from a fox!"

"You're the one who seems to know him, Monsieur Sage," Meredith said. "What's his name?"

"I do not know his name! I do know he stole three-fifths of the Seine Cloister Treasure from me! I know that he is expert, but expert at cheating at the cards! Ahh!"

The last was not a cry of rage but an exclamation of alarm, for the little room was moving sideways, plunging downward, almost stopping, before it resumed its former steady motion.

"Will it really take us to Fell's Church?" Bonnie asked timidly, and Damon put an arm around her.

"It'll take us somewhere," he promised. "And then we'll see. We're a pretty able set of survivalists."

"Which reminds me," Meredith said. "I think Stefan looks better." Elena, who had been helping to buffer him from the dimensional elevator's motion, glanced up at her quickly.

"Do you really? Or is it just the light? I think he should be feeding," she said anxiously.

Stefan flushed, and Elena pressed fingers to her lips to stop them trembling. Don't, darling, she said voicelessly. Every one of these people have been willing to give their life for you - or for me - for us. I'm healthy. I'm still bleeding. Please don't waste it.

Stefan murmured, "I'll stop the bleeding." But when she bent to him, as she had known he would, he drank.

Chapter 42

By now Matt and Mrs. Flowers couldn't ignore the blinding lights anymore. They had to go outside.

But just as Matt opened the door there was - well, Matt didn't know what it was. Something blasted straight out of the ground and into the sky, where it got smaller and smaller, became a star, and disappeared.

A meteor that had gone through the Earth? But wouldn't that mean tsunamis and earthquakes and shockwaves and forest fires and maybe even the Earth ripping apart? If one meteor that hit the surface could kill off all the dinosaurs...

The light that had been shining upward had faded slightly.

"Well, bless my soul," said Mrs. Flowers in a small, shaken voice. "Matt, dear, are you all right?"

"Yes, ma'am. But..." Matt's vocabulary couldn't stand the strain. "What the hell was it?"

And to his slight surprise, Mrs. Flowers said, "My sentiments exactly!"

"Wait - there's something moving. Get back!"

"Dear Matt, be careful with that gun..."

"It's people! Oh, my God! It's Elena." Matt abruptly sat down on the ground. He could only whisper now. " Elena. She's alive. She's alive!"

From what Matt could see, there were a group of people climbing and helping others climb out of a perfectly rectangular hole, perhaps five feet deep, in Mrs. Flowers's angelica patch.

They could hear voices. "All right," Elena was saying, as she bent down. "Now grab my hands."

But the way she was dressed! A scrap of scarlet that showed all sorts of scratches and cuts on her legs. On top - well, the remains of the gown covered about what a bikini would. And she was wearing the largest, most sparkly costume jewelry that Matt had ever seen.

More voices, going on through Matt's shock.

"Be careful, yes? I will lift him to you - "

"I can climb out my own." - surely that was Stefan!

"You see?" Elena rejoiced. "He says he can climb out his own!"

"Oui, but perhaps one small lift - "

"This is hardly the time for machismo, little brother." And that, Matt thought, fingering the revolver, was Damon. Blessed bullets...

"No, I want - to do it myself - okay - got it. There."

"There! You see! He's better every second!" Elena caroled.

"Where's the diamond? Damon?" Stefan sounded anxious.

"I have it safe. Relax."

"I want to hold it. Please."

"More than you want to hold me?" Elena asked. There was a blur and then Stefan was lying back in her arms, while she said, "Easy, easy."

Matt stared. Damon was right behind them, almost as if he belonged there. "I'll watch the diamond," he said flatly. "You watch your girl."

"Excuse me - I'm sorry, but...could somebody please lift me out?" And that was Bonnie! Bonnie, sounding plaintive but not afraid or unhappy. Bonnie giggling! "Have we got all the sacks of star balls?"

"We've got all the ones from that house we found." And that was Meredith. Thank God. They'd all made it out. But despite his thoughts, his eyes were drawn again to one figure - the one who seemed to be supervising things - the one with golden hair.

"We need the star balls because any one of them might be - " she was beginning, when Bonnie cried out "Oh, look! Look! It's Mrs. Flowers and Matt!"

"Now, Bonnie, they'd hardly be waiting for us," Meredith put in.

"Where? Bonnie, where?" Elena demanded.

"If it's Shinichi and Misao in disguise I'm going to - hey, Matt!"

"Will someone please tell me where?"

"Right there, Meredith!"

"Oh! Mrs. Flowers! Um...I hope we didn't wake you."

"I have never had a happier awakening," Mrs. Flowers said solemnly. "I can see what you have been through in the Dark Place.

Your - er - lack of sufficient clothing..."

A sudden silence. Meredith glanced at Bonnie. Bonnie glanced at Meredith.

"I know these clothes and gems may seem a little too much..."

Matt found his voice. "Those jewels? They're real?"

"Oh, they're nothing. And we're all dirty...."

"Forgive me. We stink - which is my fault - " Stefan began, only to have Elena cut in.

"Mrs. Flowers, Matt: Stefan's been a prisoner! All this time! Starved and tortured - oh, God!"

"Elena. Shhh. You got me back."

"We got you back. Now, I'll never let you go. Ever, ever."

"Easy, love. I really need a bath and - " Stefan stopped suddenly. "There're no iron bars! Nothing to shut off my Powers! I can..." He stepped away from Elena, who clung with one hand. There was a soft, silvery flash of light, like a full moon appearing and disappearing in their midst.

"Over here!" he said. "Anyone who doesn't want little beastly parasites, I can take care of you."

"I'm your girl," said Meredith. "I have a phobia about fleas, and Damon never even got me any flea powder. What a master!"

There was laughter at this, laughter Matt didn't understand. Meredith was wearing - well, it had to be costume jewelry - but still it looked like about a few million dollars' worth of sapphires.

Stefan took Meredith's hand. There was the same soft flash of light. And then Meredith stepped back saying, "Thanks."

Stefan's low response was, "Thank you, Meredith." Meredith's blue dress was at least in one piece, Matt observed.

Bonnie - whose dress had been slashed into starlight-colored ribbons - was raising a hand. "Me, too, please!"

Stefan took her hand, and it happened all over again. "Thank you, Stefan! Oooh! I feel so much better! I hated itching!"

"Thank you, Bonnie. I hated to think I was dying alone."

"Other vampires, take care of yourselves!" Elena said, as if she had a clipboard and were checking items off. "And, Stefan, please - " She held out her hands to him.

He knelt in front of her, kissed both her hands, then enshrouded them in the soft white light.

"But I'd still like a bath..." said Bonnie pleadingly, as the new vampire - the tall fit one - and Damon had each sparked a moonlight glow around themselves.

Mrs. Flowers spoke up. "There are four working bathtubs in that house: in Stefan's room, in my room, in the rooms on either side of Stefan's. Be my guest. I'll put some bath salts in each right now." And then she added, holding her arms out to the whole ragged, bleeding, dirty bunch of them: "My house is yours, my dears."

There was a chorus of passionate "thank yous."

"I'll arrange a rota. For feeding Stefan, I mean. If you girls are willing," Elena added quickly, looking at Bonnie and Meredith. "He doesn't need much, just a little every hour until morning."

Elena still seemed very shy of Matt. Matt was very shy of her. But he stepped forward, empty hands held up to show that he was harmless. "Is it a rule that it's only girls? Because I've got blood, too, and I'm healthy as a horse."

Stefan quickly looked at him. "No rule about only girls. But you don't have to - "

"I want to help you."

"Okay, then. Thank you, Matt."

The proper response seemed to be "Thank you, Stefan," but Matt couldn't think of anything until, "Thanks for taking care of Elena."

Stefan smiled. "Thank Damon for that. He and the others all helped me - and each other."

"We Also Walk Dogs - at least Sage does," Damon said slyly.

"Oh - that reminds me. I should use that de-parasiting trick on my two friends. Saber! Talon! Heel!" He added a whistle that Matt could never have imitated.

In any case, Matt was operating in a dream. A huge dog, almost as big as a pony, seemingly, and a falcon came out of the darkness.

"Now," the fit vampire said, and once again the soft light shone.

And then: "There. If you don't mind; I prefer to sleep out-of-doors with my friends. I am grateful for all your kindnesses, Madame, and my name is Sage. The hawk is Talon; the dog, Saber."

Elena said, "Dibs on Stefan's bath for Stefan and me, and Mrs. Flowers's bath for the girls. You boys can work things out on your own."

"I," Mrs. Flowers said gravely, "will be in the kitchen, making sandwiches." She turned to go.

That was when Shinichi arose from the earth above them.

Or rather when his face arose. It was clearly an illusion, but a terrifying and marvelous one. Shinichi actually seemed to be there, a giant, perhaps supporting the world on his shoulders. The black part of his hair blended in with the night, but the scarlet tips made a flaming halo around his face. Having come from a land that was dominated by a giant red sun, night and day, it was an odd sight.

Shinichi's eyes were red as well, like two small moons in the sky, and they focused on the group by Mrs. Flowers's house.

"Hello," he said. "What, you look so surprised? You shouldn't be. I really couldn't let you come back without popping up to say 'hello.' After all, it's been a long time - for some of you," the giant face said, grinning. "Also, of course, to share in the festivities - we've saved little Stefan, and, my, we even fought an oversized chicken to do it."

"I'd like to see you take Bloddeuwedd on, one on one, and get a secret key out of her nest, at the same time," Bonnie began indignantly, but stopped when Meredith squeezed her arm.

Sage, meanwhile was murmuring something about what his own "oversized chicken," Talon, would do if Shinichi were brave enough to show up in person.

Shinichi ignored all this. "Oh, yes, and the mental calisthenics you had to go through. Truly formidable. Well, never again will we mistake you for blunder-headed idiots who never really asked why my sister would give you any clues in the first place, much less clues that Outsiders could understand. I mean" - he leered - "why not just go and swallow the key in the first place, hmm?"

"You're bluffing," Meredith said flatly. "You underestimated us, plain and simple."

"Maybe," said Shinichi. "Or maybe it was something else entirely."

"You lost," said Damon. "I realize that may be an entirely new concept for you, but it's true. Elena has gained much more control over her Powers."

"But will they work here?" Shinichi smiled eerily. "Or will they suddenly disappear in the light of a pale yellow sun? Or in the depths of true darkness?"

"Don't let him bait you, Madame," Sage shouted. "Your Powers come from a place he cannot enter!"

"Oh, yes, and the renegade. The Rebel's rebel son. I wonder...what are you calling yourself this time? Cage? Rage? I wonder what these children will think when they learn who you really are?"

"It won't matter who he is," Bonnie cried. "We know that. We know that he's a vampire, but that he can be gentle and kind and he's saved us over and over again." She shut her eyes, but held her ground against the gale of Shinichi's laughter.

"So 'Madame,'" Shinichi mocked, "you think you have gained 'Sage.' But I wonder if you know what in chess we call a 'gambit' is? No? Well, I'm sure your intellectual friend will be glad to inform you."

There was a pause. Then Meredith said, with no expression at all, "A gambit is when a chess player sacrifices something - for instance, a pawn - deliberately - just to get something else. A position on the chessboard that they want, for instance."

"I knew you'd be able to tell them. What do you think of our first gambit?"

Another silence, then Meredith said: "I presume you mean you've given us back Stefan to achieve something better."

"Oh, if you only had golden hair - as your friend Elena has so generously displayed."

There were various exclamations on the theme of "Huh?" - most of them directed at Shinichi, but some at Elena.

Who promptly exploded. "You took Stefan's memories - ?"

"Now, now, nothing so drastic, my dear. But a thirty-meld-a-session beautician - now, she was most cooperative."

Elena turned her gaze up at the giant face with a look of utter contempt. "You...cad."

"Oh, I'm stricken to the heart." But the thing was, Shinichi's giant face did look stricken - angry and dangerous. "Between you, all such close friends: do you know how many secrets there are? Of course, Meredith is a mistress of secrecy, keeping her secrets from her friends all these years. You think you've already pumped her dry, but the best is yet to come. And then, of course, there is Damon's secret."

"Which if spoken of here and now will mean instant war," Damon said. "And you know, it's strange, but I got the feeling that you came here tonight to negotiate."

This time Shinichi's laughter really was a gale, and Damon had to leap behind Meredith to prevent her being knocked into the hole the elevator had made.

"Very gallant," Shinichi boomed again, shattering glass somewhere on Mrs. Flowers's house. "But I really must be going. Shall I leave a synopsis of the prizes you still have to search for before your little company can look each other in the eye?"

"I think we already have them. And you are no longer welcome around this home," Mrs. Flowers said coolly.

But Elena's mind was still working. Even standing here, knowing that Stefan needed her, she was searching for the reasons behind this: Shinichi's second gambit. Because she was sure that this was one.

"Where are the pillowcases?" she said in a sharp voice that frightened and bewildered half the group, and simply frightened the rest.

"I was holding one, but then I decided to hold on to Saber instead." - Sage.

"I had one, at the bottom of the hole, but I dropped it when somebody lifted me out." - Bonnie.

"I've still got one, although I don't understand what good - " Damon began.

"Damon!" Elena whirled to him. "Trust me! We've got yours and Sage's safe - what's happening to Bonnie's in the hole?"

The moment she had said "trust me" Damon had dumped his pillowcase on top of Sage's, and by the time she was finished, he had leaped into the hole, which was still so bright with leylight as to hurt any vampire's eyes.

But Damon made no complaint. He said, "I have it safe now - no, wait! A root! A damned root is curled around one of the star balls! Someone toss me a knife, quick!"

While everyone else was slapping their pockets for knives, Matt did something that Elena couldn't believe. First he glanced down into the six-foot-deep hole while pointing - a revolver, was it? Yes - she recognized it as the twin of Meredith's. Then without trying to let himself down easily, he simply jumped as Damon had, into the hole.

"DON'T YOU WANT TO KNOW - " roared Shinichi, but no one was paying any attention to him.

Matt's jump didn't end lightly as Damon's had. It ended with a gasp and a stifled curse. But Matt didn't waste time; still on his knees, he handed the gun up to Damon.

"Blessed bullets - shoot it!"

Damon moved very fast. He didn't even seem to aim. But he must have clicked the safety off and aimed immediately, for the root was now streaking for the soft wall of the hole, its end wrapped tightly around something round.

Elena heard two shattering revolver shots; three. Then Damon stooped and picked up a vine-wrapped ball, medium-sized and crystal clear where its true surface could be seen.

"PUT THAT DOWN!" Shinichi's rage was beyond all measure. The two burning red spots of his eyes were like flames - like moons of fire. He seemed to be trying to get them to comply by sheer volume. "I SAID, DON'T TOUCH THAT WITH YOUR FILTHY HUMAN HANDS!"

"Oh, my God!" gasped Bonnie.

Meredith said simply, "It's Misao's - it has to be. He'd gamble with his own; but not with hers. Damon, hand it up to me, along with the revolver. I bet it's not bulletproof." She knelt, reaching into the hole.

Damon, with a raised eyebrow, did as she said.

"Oh, God," Bonnie cried, from the edge of the hole. "Matt's sprained his ankle - at least."

"I TOLD YOU," roared Shinichi. "YOU'LL BE SORRY - "

"Here," Damon said to Bonnie, taking not the slightest notice of Shinichi. Without any more ado, he picked up Matt and floated up out of the hole. He deposited the fair-haired boy beside Bonnie, who looked at him with the wide brown eyes of utter confusion.

Matt, though, was a Virginian through and through. After swallowing only once, he got out a "Thank you, Damon."

"No problem, Matt," Damon said, and then "What?" as someone gasped.

"You remembered," Bonnie cried, "You remembered his - Meredith!" she broke off, looking at the tall girl. "The grass!"

Meredith, who had been examining the star ball with a strange expression, now tossed the revolver to Damon and tried with her free hand to tear away the grass that had twined around her feet and up her ankles already. But even as she did so, the grass seemed to leap upward and grab her hand, binding it to her feet. And now it was sprouting, growing, racing up her body toward the ball which she held high in the air.

At the same time, it was tightening around her chest, forcing air out of her lungs.

It all happened so fast that it was only when she gasped, "Somebody take th' ball," that the others leaped to her aid. Bonnie was the first to get there, tearing with her fingernails at the greenery that was squeezing Meredith's chest. But each blade was like steel, and she couldn't rip away even one of them. Neither could Matt or Elena. Meanwhile, Sage was trying to lift Meredith bodily - to pluck her from the earth - and having no more success than the rest.

Meredith's face, clearly visible in the light still shining from the hole, was going white.

Damon snatched the star ball from her fingers just before the tangled greenery running up her arm could reach it. He then began moving literally faster than the human eye could track, never stopping in any one place long enough for any plant to grasp him.

But still, the grass around Meredith was tightening. Now her face was turning blue. Her eyes were wide, her mouth open for a breath that would not come.

"Stop it!" Elena screamed at Shinichi. "We'll give you the star ball! Just let go of her!"

"LET GO OF HER?" Shinichi bellowed laughter. "MAYBE YOU'D BETTER LOOK TO YOUR OWN INTERESTS FIRST BEFORE ASKING ME A FAVOR."

Wildly, Elena looked around - and saw that grass had almost completely enveloped a kneeling Stefan, who had been too weak to move as quickly as the others had.

And he had never made a sound to call attention to himself.

"No!" Elena's desperate scream almost drowned out Shinichi's laughter. "Stefan! No!" Even knowing it was futile, she threw herself at him and tried to rip the grass away from his thin chest.

Stefan simply gave her the faintest of smiles and shook his head sadly.

That was when Damon came to a stop. He held the star ball up toward Shinichi's lowering visage. "Take it!" he shouted. "Take the ball, damn you, but let the two of them go!"

This time the gale of Shinichi's laughter went on and on. A spiral of grass grew from a point beside Damon and an instant later had formed a hideous, shaggy green fist, which almost reached the star ball.

But -

"Not yet, my dears," gasped Mrs. Flowers. She and Matt had come breathlessly from the boardinghouse storage room - Matt limping badly - and they both held what looked like Post-it notes in their hands.

The next thing Elena knew, Damon was moving at ferocious speed again, away from the fist, and Matt was slapping a bit of paper on the grass covering Stefan, while Mrs. Flowers did the same to the greenery on Meredith.

As Elena watched in disbelief, the grass seemed to melt, dying away into hay-colored blades that fell to the ground.

The next moment she was holding Stefan.

"Let's get inside, my dears," Mrs. Flowers said. "It's safe in the storage room - the able help the wounded, of course."

Meredith and Stefan were taking great gasping breaths.

But Shinichi had the last word.

"Don't you worry," he said, strangely calm as if he realized he'd lost - for now. "I'll get that sphere back soon enough. You don't know how to use that kind of Power anyway! And besides all that, I'm going to tell you what you've been hiding from your so-called friends. Just a few secrets, yes?"

"The hell with your secrets," shouted Bonnie.

"Language, language! How about this: One of you has kept a secret all their life, and is doing so even now. One of you is a murderer - and I am not speaking of a vampire, or a mercy killing, or anything like that. And then there is the question of the true identity of Sage - good luck on your research there! One of you has already had their memory erased - and I don't mean Damon or Stefan. And what about the secret, stolen kiss? And then there is the question of what happened the night of the motel, that it seems that nobody but Elena can recall. You might ask her sometime about her theories about Camelot. And then - "

That was when the sound as loud as Shinichi's giant-sized gales of laughter interrupted him. It tore through the face in the sky, leaving it drooping ridiculously. Then the face disappeared.

"What was that - "

"Who has the gun - ?"

"What kind of gun could do that to him?"

"One with blessed bullets," Damon said coolly, showing them the revolver, pointed down.

"You mean you did that?"

"Good for Damon!"

"Forget Shinichi!"

"He is a liar when it suits him, that I can tell you."

"I think," Mrs. Flowers said, "that we can retire to the boardinghouse now."

"Yeah, and let's go get our baths."

"Just one last thing." Shinichi's voice, giant-sized seemed to come from everywhere around them; from the sky, from the earth.

"You're really going to love what I have in mind next for you. If I were you, I'd start negotiating for that star ball right NOW." But his laughter was off and the muffled feminine sound behind him was almost like crying, as if Misao couldn't help herself.

"YOU'RE GOING TO LOVE IT!" Shinichi insisted in a roar.

Chapter 43

Elena had a feeling she couldn't quite describe. It wasn't letdown. It was...let up. For what seemed like most of her life she had been searching for Stefan.

But now she had him back again, quite safe and clean (he'd had a long bath while she insisted on scrubbing him gently with all sorts of brushes and pumice stones, and then a shower, and then a rather cramped shower with her). His hair was drying into the silky soft dark shock - a little longer than he usually kept it - that she knew. He hadn't had energy for frivolities like keeping his hair short and clean before. Elena understood that.

And now...there were no guards or kitsune around to spy on them. There was nothing to keep them from each other. They had been playful in the shower, splashing each other, Elena always making sure to keep her feet on the no-slip guard and ready to try to support Stefan's lanky weight. But they could not be playful now.

The shower's spray had been very helpful, too - at concealing the teardrops that kept flowing down Elena's cheeks. She could - oh, dear heaven - count and feel each one of his ribs. He was just bones and skin, her beautiful Stefan, but his green eyes were alive, sparkling and dancing in his pale face.

After they were dressed in nightclothes they simply sat on the bed for a little while. Sitting together, both breathing - Stefan had got into the habit from being around humans so much and, recently, from trying to eke out the small amount of nutrition he received - in synchronicity, and both feeling the other's warm body beside them...it was almost too much. Then, almost tentatively, Stefan groped for Elena's hand, and catching it, held it in both of his, turning it over wonderingly.

Elena was swallowing and swallowing, trying to make a start in a conversation, felt herself practically radiating bliss. Oh, I never want anything more, she thought, although she knew that soon enough she would want to talk, and to hold, and to kiss, and to feed Stefan. But if someone had asked her if she would have accepted just this, sitting together, communicating by touch and love alone, she would have accepted it.

Before she knew it, she was talking, words that came like bubbles out of molasses, only these were bubbles from her soul. "I thought that somehow I might lose this time. That I'd won so many times, and that this time something would teach me a lesson and you...wouldn't make it."

Stefan was still wondering over her hand, bending industriously to kiss each separate finger. "You call 'winning' dying in pain and sunlight to save my worthless life - and my even more worthless brother's?"

"I call this a better kind of winning," Elena admitted. "Any time we get to be together is winning. Any moment - even in that dungeon..."

Stefan winced, but Elena had to finish her thought. "Even there, to look in your eyes, to touch your hand, to know that you were looking at me and touching me - and that you were happy - well, that's winning, in my book."

Stefan lifted his eyes to hers. In the dim light, the green looked suddenly dark and mysterious. "And one more thing," he whispered. "Because I am what I am...and because your crowning glory isn't that glorious golden cloud of hair, but an aura that is...ineffable. Indescribable. Beyond any words..."

Elena had thought they would sit and simply gaze at each other, drowning in each other's eyes, but that wasn't happening. Stefan's expression had slipped and Elena realized how close to bloodlust - and to death - he still really was.

Hurriedly, Elena pulled her damp hair to one side of her neck, and then she leaned back, knowing Stefan would catch her.

He did this, but although Elena tilted her chin back, he tilted it down in his two hands to look at her.

"Do you know how much I love you?" he asked.

His entire face was masked now, enigmatic and strangely thrilling. "I don't think you do," he whispered. "I've watched and watched how you were willing to do anything, anything to save me...but I don't think you know how much that love has been building up, Elena...."

Delicious shivers were going down Elena's spine.

"Then you'd better show me," she whispered. "Or I might not believe that you mean it - "

"I'll show you what I mean," Stefan whispered back. But when he bent down it was to kiss her softly. The feelings inside Elena - that this starving creature wanted to kiss her instead of going at once for her throat, reached a peak that she could not explain in thoughts or words, but only by drawing Stefan's head so that his mouth rested on her neck.

"Please," she said. "Oh, Stefan, please."

Then she felt the quick sacrificial pains, and then Stefan was drinking her blood, and her mind, which had been fluttering around like a bird in a lighted room, now saw its nest and its mate and swooped up and up and up to at last reach unity with its best-beloved.

After that there was no need for clumsy things like words. They communicated in thoughts as pure and clear as shimmering gems, and Elena rejoiced because all of Stefan's mind was open to her, and none of it was walled off or dark and there were no boulders of secrets or chained and weeping children...

What! she heard Stefan exclaim voicelessly. A child in chains? A mountain-sized boulder? Who could have that in their mind - ?

Stefan broke off, knowing the answer, even before Elena's lightning-swift thought could tell him. Elena felt the clear green wave of his pity, spiced by the natural anger of a young man who has gone through the depths of hell, but untainted by the terrible black poison of hatred of brother for brother.

When Elena had finished explaining all she knew about Damon's mental processes, she said, And I don't know what to do! I've done everything I could, Stefan, I've - I've even loved him. I gave him everything that wasn't yours alone. But I don't know if it's made even the slightest difference.

He called Matt "Matt" instead of Mutt, Stefan interrupted.

Yes. I...noticed that. I'd kept asking him to, but it never seemed to matter.

It mattered this way: you managed to change him. Not many people can.

Elena wrapped him in a tight embrace, stopped, worried that it was too tight, and glanced at him. He smiled and shook his head. He was already looking like a person rather than a death camp survivor.

You should keep using it, Stefan said voicelessly. Your influence over him is strongest.

I will - without any artificial Wings, Elena promised. Then she worried that Stefan would think her too presumptuous - or too attached.

But one look at Stefan was enough to assure her that she was doing the right thing.

They clung to each other.

It wasn't as hard as Elena had imagined it would be - handing Stefan over to other humans to be bled. Stefan had a clean pair of pajamas on, and the first thing he said to all three donors was, "If you get frightened or change your mind, just say so. I can hear perfectly well, and I'm not in bloodlust. And anyway, I'll probably sense it if you're not enjoying it before you do, and I'll stop. And finally - thank you - thank you all. I've decided to break my oath tonight because there's still some little chance that if I slept I wouldn't wake up tomorrow without you."

Bonnie was horrified and indignant and furious. "You mean you couldn't sleep all that time because you were afraid to - to...?"

"I did fall asleep from time to time, but thank fortune - thank God - I always woke up again. There were times when I didn't dare move to conserve energy, but somehow Elena kept finding ways to come to me, and every single time she came, she brought me some kind of sustenance." He gave Elena a look that sent her heart spinning out of her chest and high into the stratosphere.

And then she set up a schedule, with Stefan being fed every hour on the hour, and then she and the others left the first volunteer, Bonnie, alone, so as to be more comfortable.

It was the next morning. Damon had already been out to visit Leigh, the antiques-seller's niece, who had seemed very glad to see him. And now he was back, to look with scorn at the slug-a-beds who were distributed all around the boardinghouse.

That was when he saw the bouquet.

It was heavily sealed down with wards - amulets to help get it through the dimensional gap. There was something powerful in there.

Damon cocked his head to one side.

Hmm...I wonder what?

Dear Diary,

I don't know what to say. We're home.

Last night we each had a long bath...and I was half-disappointed, because my favorite long-handled back-scrubbing brush wasn't there, and there was no star ball to make dreamy music for Stefan - and the water was LUKEWARM! And Stefan went to see if the water heater was turned on all the way and met Damon going to do the same thing! Only, they couldn't because we're home again.

But I woke up a couple of hours ago for a few minutes to see the most beautiful sight in the world...a sunrise. Pale pink and eerie green in the east, with nighttime still full dark in the west. Then deeper rose in the sky, and the trees all wreathed in dew clouds. Then a shiny glory from the edge of the horizon and dark rose, cream, and even a green melon color in the sky, Finally, a line of fire and in an instant all the colors change. The line becomes an arc, the western sky is deepest deepest blue, and then up comes the sun bringing warmth and light and color to the green trees and the sky begins to become celestial blue - celestial just means heavenly, although somehow, I have a delicious shivery feeling when I say it. The sky becomes a gemlike, celestial, cerulean blue and the golden sun begins to pour energy, love, light, and every good thing onto the world.

Who could not be happy to watch this while Stefan held her?

We who are so lucky as to be born into the light - who see it every day and never think about it, we're blessed. We could have been born shadow souls who live and die in crimson darkness, never even knowing that somewhere there is something better.

Chapter 44

Elena was wakened by shouting. She'd already once awakened to unbelievable bliss. Now she was awake again - but surely that was Damon's voice. Shouting? Damon didn't shout!

Throwing on a robe, she went dashing out the door and downstairs.

Raised voices - confusion. Damon was kneeling on the floor. His face was blue-white. There wasn't a plant in the room that could be strangling him.

Poisoned, was the next thing Elena thought and immediately her eyes darted around the room to see a spilled drink, a dropped plate, any sign that poison had done this. There was nothing.

Sage was clapping Damon on the back. Oh, God, could he have choked? But that was idiocy. Vampires didn't breathe, except for talking and building Power.

But then what was happening?

"You have to breathe," Sage was shouting in Damon's ear. "Take a breath, as if you were going to speak, but then hold on to it, as if for raising your Power. Think about your insides. Get those lungs working!"

The words only confused Elena.

"There!" cried Sage. "You see?"

"But it only lasts an instant. Then I need to do it again."

"But, yes, that is the point!"

"I tell you I'm dying and you laugh at me?" a disheveled Damon shouted. "I'm blind, deaf, my senses are haywire - and you laugh!"

Disheveled, thought Elena, bothered by something.

"Well." Sage seemed to be at least trying not to laugh. "Perhaps, mon petit chou, you should not have opened something that was not addressed to you?"

"I put wards all around me before I did it. The house was safe."

"But you were not - breathe! Breathe, Damon!"

"It looked completely harmless - and admit it - we were all going - to open it last night - when we got too tired - !"

"But to do it alone, to open a present from a kitsune...that was foolish, yes?"

A choking Damon snapped, "Don't lecture me. Help me. Why am I muffled in cotton wool? Why can't I see? Or hear? Or smell - anything? I'm telling you I can't smell a thing!"

"You are fit and sharp as any human could be. You could probably defeat most vampires if you fought with one right now. But human senses are very few and very dull."

Words were swimming in Elena's head...opening things not addressed to you...bouquet from a kitsune...human...

Oh, my God!

Apparently, the same words were going through the mind of someone else, because suddenly a figure dashed in from the kitchen area. Stefan.

"You stole my bouquet? From the kitsune?"

"I was very careful - "

"Do you realize what you've done?" Stefan shook Damon.

"Ow. That hurts! Do you want to break my neck?"

"That hurts? Damon, you're in for a world of hurt! Do you understand? I talked to that kitsune. Told him the whole story of my life. Elena came to visit and he saw her practically...well, never mind - he saw her crying over me! Do...you...realize...what...you...have... done?"

It was as if Stefan had started climbing a series of steps, and that each one lifted him to a higher level of fury than the last. And here, at the top...

"I'll KILL YOU!" Stefan shouted. "You took it - my humanity! He gave it to me -  and you took it!"

"You'll kill me? I'll kill you, you - you bastard! There was one flower in the middle. A black rose, bigger than I have ever seen. And it smelled...heavenly..."

"It's gone!" Matt reported, producing the bouquet. He displayed it. There was a gaping hole in the center of the mixed flower arrangement.

Despite the hole, Stefan ran to it, and stuck his face into the bouquet, sucking in great heaving breaths of air. He kept coming up and

snapping his fingers and each time lightning flared between his fingertips.

"Sorry, bud," Matt said. "I think it's gone."

Elena could see it all now. That kitsune...he was one of the good ones, like the stories Meredith had told them about. Or at least good enough to sympathize with Stefan's plight. And so, when he had gotten free, he had made up a bouquet - kitsune could do anything with plants, although surely this was a great feat, something like finding the secret of eternal youth...to turn vampires into humans. And after Stefan had endured and endured and endured and should have finally gotten his reward...right now...

"I'm going back," Stefan shouted. "I'm going to find him!"

Meredith said quietly, "With or without Elena?"

Stefan stopped. He looked up at the stairway, and his eyes met Elena's.

Elena...

We'll go together.

"No," Stefan shouted. "I would never put you through that. I'm not going after all. I'm just going to murder you!" He swung back on his brother.

"Been there, done that. Besides, I'm the one that's going to kill you, you bastard! You took my world away from me! I am a vampire! I'm not a" - some creative cursing - "human!"

"Well you are now," Matt said. He was just barely not laughing out loud. "So I'd say you'd better get used to it."

Damon leaped at Stefan. Stefan didn't step aside. In an instant there was a ball of thrashing, kicking, and punching, and cursing in Italian that made it sound as if there were at least four vampires fighting five or six humans.

Elena sat down helplessly.

Damon...a human?

How were they going to deal with this?

Elena looked up to see that Bonnie had carefully made up a tray of all sorts of things that tasted good to humans, and that she'd undoubtedly done it for Damon before he had worked his way into hysteria.

"Bonnie," Elena said quietly, "don't give it to him yet. He'll just throw it at you. But perhaps later..."

"Later he won't throw it?"

Elena winced.

"How is Damon going to deal with being human?" she asked herself aloud.

Bonnie looked at the cursing, spitting ball of vampire/human fury.

"I'd say...kicking and screaming the whole way."

Just then Mrs. Flowers came out of the kitchen. She had a huge mound of fluffy waffles stacked on several plates on a tray. She saw the rolling, swearing, snarling ball that was Stefan and Damon.

"Oh, my," she said. "Did something go wrong?"

Elena looked at Bonnie. Bonnie looked at Meredith. Meredith looked at Elena.

"You...could say so," gasped Elena.

And then the three of them gave way to it. Gales and gales of helpless laughter.

You've lost a powerful ally, said a voice in Elena's mind. Do you know that? Can you foresee the consequences? Today, when you have just come back from a world of Shinichis?

We'll win, Elena thought. We have to.

( The end )