Contents 25 страница

But then, miraculously, the tail went up again. Sage estimated that

there could not be even one molecule of the kitsune’s scent left in

Saber’s nostrils now…

… but the memory of the scent…that was still there.

Saber was once again in hunting mode, with head down, tail

straight, all his Power and intelligence concentrated on one goal and one

goal only: to find another molecule that matched the three-dimensional

memory of the one in his mind. Now that he was not blinded by the

searing smell of all those different concentrated odors, he was able to

think more clearly. And thinking alerted him to slip in between streets,

causing a commotion behind him.

“What about the carriage?”

“Forget about the carriage! Don’t lose sight of that guy with the

dog!”

Sage, trying to keep up with Saber himself, knew when a chase

was about to end. Tranquillité! he thought to Saber. He also barely

whispered the word. He had never been certain if his animal friends

were telepathic or not, but he liked to believe that they were, while

behaving as if they were not. Tranquillité! he told himself.

And so, when the huge black dog with the shining dark eyes and

the man ran up the steps to one particular ramshackle building, they did

it silently. Then, as if he’d had a pleasant stroll in the country, Saber sat

and looked at Sage in the face, laughing-panting. He opened and closed

his mouth in a silent parody of a bark.

Sage waited for the young vampires to catch up with him before be

opened the door. And, as he wanted the element of surprise, he didn’t

knock. Instead he smashed a fist with the Power of a sledgehammer

through the door and groped for locks and chains and bolts. He could

feel none. He did feel a knob.

Before opening the door, and going into who knew what peril, he

said to those behind him, “Any loot we take is the property of Master

Damon. I am his foreman and it was only through my dog’s skills that

we have made it so far.”

There was agreement, ranging from grumbling to indifferent.

“By the same token,” Sage said, “whatever danger is in there, I

face first. Saber! NOW!”

They burst into the room, nearly taking the door off its hinges.

Elena cried out involuntarily. Bloddeuwedd had just done what

Damon would not, and lined her back with bloody furrows from her

talons.But even as Elena managed to find the glass door to the outside,

she could feel other minds surging to help sustain her, to lift and share

some of the pain.

Bonnie and Meredith were picking their way through huge shards

of glass to get to her. They were screaming at the owl. And Talon,

heroically, was attacking from above.

Elena couldn’t stand it any longer. She had to see. She had to know

that this metallic-feeling thing that she’d picked out of Bloddeuwedd’s

nest wasn’t some bit of filthy rubbish. She had to know now.

Rubbing the tiny scrap of metal against the ill-fated scarlet dress,

she took a moment to glance downward, to see crimson sunlight sparkle

against gold and diamonds and two folded-back little ears and two bright

green alexandrite eyes.

The duplicate of the first fox key half, but facing the other way.

Elena’s legs almost gave way underneath her.

She was holding the second half of the fox key.

Hurriedly, then, Elena brought up her free hand and plunged her

fingers down into the carefully made little pocket behind the diamond

insert. It concealed a tiny pouch, specially sewn there by Lady Ulma

herself. In it was the first half of the fox key, replaced there as soon as

Saber and Talon had finished with it. Now, as she shoved the second

half-key into the pocket with the first, she was disconcerted to feel

movement in the pouch. The two pieces of the fox key were—what,

becoming one?

A black beak slammed into the wall beside her.

Without even thinking, Elena ducked and rolled to escape it. When

her fingers flew back to make sure that the pouch was tied up and

secure, she was astonished to feel a familiar shape resting inside.

Not a key?

Not a key!

The world was spinning wildly around Elena. Nothing mattered;

not the object; not her own life. The kitsune twins had tricked them, had

made fools of the idiot humans and the vampire who had dared to face

up to them. There was no double fox key.

Still, hope refused to die. What was it Stefan used to say? Mai dire

mai —never say never. Knowing what a chance she was taking, knowing

she was a fool for taking it, Elena thrust her finger again into the pouch.

Something cool slipped onto one finger and stayed there.

She glanced down and for a moment was arrested by the sight.

There, on her ring finger, gleamed a gold, diamond-encrusted ring. It

represented two abstract foxes curled together, one facing each way.

Each fox had two ears, two green alexandrite eyes, and a pointed nose.

And that was all. Of what use was a trinket like this to Stefan? It

bore no resemblance to the double-winged keys shown in the pictures of

kitsune shrines.

As treasure, it was surely worth a million times less than what they

had already spent to get it.

And then Elena noticed something.

A light shone from the eyes of one of the foxes. If she hadn’t been

staring at it so closely, or if she hadn’t been by now in the White Waltz

Ballroom, where colors showed true, she might not have noticed it. But

the light was shining straight ahead of her as she turned her hand

sideways. Now it was shining from four eyes.

It was shining in exactly the direction of Stefan’s prison cell.

Hope rose up like a phoenix in Elena’s heart, and took her soaring

on a mental journey out of this labyrinth of glass rooms. The music

playing was the waltz from Faust. Away from the sun, deep into the

heart of the city, that was where Stefan was. And that was where the

pale green light from the fox’s eyes was shining.

Riding high on hope, she turned the ring. The light winked out of

both fox’s eyes, but when she turned the ring so that the second fox was

in line with Stefan’s cell, it winked on.

Secret signals. How long could she have owned a ring like that and

done nothing if she hadn’t already known where Stefan’s prison was?

Longer than Stefan had left to live, probably.

Now she only had to survive long enough to reach him.

E lena waded into the crowd feeling like a soldier. She didn’t know why.

Maybe because she had thought of a quest and had managed to complete

it and stay alive and bring back loot. Maybe because she bore honorable

wounds. Maybe because above her there was an enemy who was still out

for her blood.

Come to think of it, she thought, I’d better get all these

noncombatants out of here. We can keep them in a safe house—well, a

few dozen safe houses and—

What was she thinking? Safe house was a phrase from a book. She

wasn’t responsible for these people—idiots, mostly, who had stood,

slavering, and watched her being whipped. But—despite that, maybe she

should get them out of here.

“Bloddeuwedd!” she cried dramatically and pointed to a wheeling

silhouette above. “Bloddeuwedd is free! She gave me these!”—pointing

to the three lacerations on her back. “She’ll go after you, too!”

At first most of the angry exclamation seemed to be about the fact

that Elena now had a marked back. Elena was in no mood to argue.

There was only one person here she wanted to talk to now. Keeping

Bonnie and Meredith close behind her, she called.

Damon! Damon it’s me! Where are you?

There was so much telepathic traffic that she doubted he would

hear her.

But finally, she caught a faint, Elena?…Yes…

Elena, hold on to me. Think of holding me physically, and I’ll take

us to a different frequency.

Hold on to a voice? But Elena imagined holding on to Damon

tightly, tightly, while she physically held Bonnie’s and Meredith’s

hands. Now can you hear me? This time the voice was much clearer,

much louder.

Yes. But I can’t see you.

But I see you. I’m coming to—WATCH OUT!

Too late, Elena’s senses warned her of a huge shadow plummeting

from above. She couldn’t move quickly enough to get out of the way of

a snapping, alligator-sized beak.

But Damon could. Leaping from somewhere, he gathered her and

Bonnie and Meredith all in one great armful and leaped again, hitting

grass and rolling.

Oh, God! Damon!

“Is anybody hurt?” he asked aloud.

“I’m fine,” Meredith said quietly, calmly. “But I suspect I owe you

my life. Thank you.”

“Bonnie?” Elena asked.

I’m okay. I mean, “I’m okay. But Elena, your back—”

For the first time, Damon was able to turn Elena and see the

wounds on her back. “I…did that? But…I thought…”

“Bloddeuwedd did that,” Elena said sharply, looking upward for a

circling shape in the deep red sky. “She just barely touched me. She has

talons like knives, like steel. We have to go, now!”

Damon put both hands on her shoulders. “And come back when

things have calmed down, you mean.”

“And never come back! Oh, God, here she comes!”

Something out of the corner of her eye became baseball-sized in an

instant, volleyball-sized in a second, human-sized in a moment. And

then they were all scattering, leaping, rolling, trying to get away, except

Damon, who seized Elena and shouted, “This is my slave! If you have

any argument with her, you first argue with me!”

“And I am Bloddeuwedd, created by the gods, condemned to be a

murderer every night. I’ll kill you first, then eat her, the thief!”

Bloddeuwedd called back in her raucous new voice. “Two bites is all it

will take.”

Damon, I need to tell you something!

“I’ll fight you, but my slave is out of it!”

“First bite; here I come!”

Damon, we have to go!

A scream of primal pain and fury.

Damon was standing slightly crouched with a huge piece of glass

held in his hand like a sword and great black drops of blood were

dripping from where he had—oh, God! Elena thought—he’d put out one

of Bloddeuwedd’s eyes!

“YOU WILL ALL DIE! ALL!”

Bloddeuwedd made a charge at a random vampire directly below

her and Elena screamed as the vampire screamed. The black beak had

caught him by one leg and was lifting him.

But Damon was running forward, jumping, slashing. With a

scream of fury, Bloddeuwedd took to the sky again.

Now everyone understood the danger. Two other vampires rushed

to take their comrade from Damon, and Elena was glad that her friends

were not responsible for another life. She had too much on her hands

already.

Damon, I’m leaving now. You can come with me or not. I’ve got

the key.

Elena sent the words on the frequency that they were more or less

alone on, and she sent it without dramatics. She had no room for drama

left. She’d been stripped of everything except the need to get to Stefan.

This time, she knew Damon heard her.

At first, she thought Damon was dying. That Bloddeuwedd had

somehow come back and pierced him through his entire body, as with a

spear made of light. Then she realized that the feeling was rapture, and

two tiny child hands reached out of the light and clung to hers, allowing

her to pull a thin, ragged, but laughing child away free.

No chains, she thought dizzily. He’s not even wearing slave

bracelets.

“My brother!” he told her. “My little brother’s going to live!”

“Well, that’s a fine thing,” Elena said shakily.

“He’s going to live!” A tiny frown line appeared. “If you hurry!

And take good care of him! And—”

Elena put two fingers over his lips, very gently. “You don’t need to

worry about anything like that. You just be happy.”

The little boy laughed. “I will! I am!”

“Elena!”

Elena came out of—well, she supposed it was a daze, although it

had been more real than many other things she’d experienced recently.

“Elena!” Damon was trying desperately to restrain himself. “Show

me the key!”

Slowly, majestically, Elena lifted her hand.

Damon’s shoulders tensed, for—something—went down.

“It’s a ring,” he said dully. The slow and majestic bit hadn’t

worked on him at all.

“That’s what I thought at first. It’s a key. I’m not asking you, or

seeing if you agree with me; I’m telling you. It’s a key. The light from

its eyes points to Stefan.”

“What light?”

“I’ll show you later. Bonnie! Meredith! We’re leaving.”

“YOU’RE NOT IF I SAY YOU’RE NOT!”

“Watch out!” screamed Bonnie.

The owl was diving again. And again, at the last second, Damon

gathered the three girls and leaped. The owl’s beak struck not grass nor

shards of glass but the marble steps. They cracked. There was a scream

of pain and another, as Damon, nimble as a dancer, slashed at the giant

bird’s one good eye. He got in a cut right above it. Blood began to fill

the eye.

Elena couldn’t stand any more. Ever since starting out on this

journey with Damon and Matt, she had been a vial filling with anger.

Drop by drop, with each new outrage, that anger had filled and filled the

vial. Now her rage was about to fill it to overflowing.

But then…what would happen?

She didn’t want to know. She was afraid she wouldn’t survive it.

What she did know was that she couldn’t watch any more pain and

blood and anguish right now. Damon genuinely enjoyed fighting. Good.

Let him. She was going to Stefan if she had to walk the whole way.

Meredith and Bonnie were silent. They knew Elena in this mood.

She wasn’t fooling around. And neither of them wanted to be left

behind.

It was exactly at that moment that the carriage came rumbling up

to the base of the marble stairs.

Sage, who obviously knew something about human nature,

demonic nature, vampiric nature, and various kinds of bestial nature,

jumped out of the carriage with two swords drawn. He also whistled. In

a moment a shadow—a small one—came streaking to him out of the

sky.

Last, slowly, stretching each leg like a tiger, came Saber, who

immediately pulled back his lips to show an amazing number of teeth.

Elena leaped toward the carriage, her eyes meeting Sage’s. Help

me, she thought desperately. And his eyes said just as plainly, Have no

fear.

Blindly, she reached behind her with both hands. One small,

fine-boned, lightly trembling hand was thrust into hers. One slim, cool

hand, hard as a boy’s but with long tapering fingers grabbed her other

one.

There was no one here to trust. No one to say good-bye to, or leave

messages of good-bye with. Elena scrambled into the carriage. She got

into the backseat, the farthest from the front, to accommodate incoming

humans and animals.

And in they did come, like an avalanche. She had dragged Bonnie

with her, and Meredith had followed, so that when Saber leaped into his

accustomed place he landed on three soft laps.

Sage hadn’t wasted a moment. With Talon clamped on his left

wrist, he left just enough room for Damon’s final spring—and a spring it

was. Cracked and broken, oozing black fluid, Bloddeuwedd’s beak hit

the end of the marble stairs where Damon had been standing.

“Directions!” shouted Sage, but only after the horses were heading

at a gallop—somewhere, anywhere, away.

“Oh, please don’t let her hurt the horses,” Bonnie gasped.

“Oh, please don’t let her split this roof like cardboard,” said

Meredith, somehow able to be wry even when her life was in danger.

“Directions, s’il vous plaît!” roared Sage.

“The prison, of course,” panted Elena. She felt that it had been a

long time since she had been able to get enough air.

“The prison?” Damon seemed distracted. “Yes! The prison!” But

then, he added, pulling up something like a pillowcase filled with

billiard balls, “Sage, what are these?”

“Loot. Booty. Spoils! Plunder! ” As the horses swung in a new

direction, Sage’s voice seemed to get more and more cheerful. “And

look around your feet!”

“More pillowcases…?”

“I wasn’t prepared for a big haul tonight. But things worked out

well anyway!”

By now, Elena was feeling one of the pillowcases for herself. The

case was, indeed, full of clear, sparkling hoshi no tama. Star balls.

Memories. Worth…

Worthless?

“Priceless…although of course we don’t know what’s on them.”

Sage’s voice changed subtly. Elena remembered the warning about

“forbidden spheres.” What, in the name of the yellow sun, could they

possibly forbid down here?

Bonnie was the first to pick up a disk and put it to her temple. She

did it so quickly, with such flashing, birdlike movements, that Elena

couldn’t stop her.

“What is it?” Elena gasped, trying to pull the star ball away.

“It’s…poetry. Poetry I can’t understand,” said Bonnie crossly.

Meredith had also picked up a sparkling orb. Elena reached for her

but once again she was too late.

Meredith sat as if in a trance for a moment, then grimaced and put

the sphere down.

“What?” demanded Elena.

Meredith shook her head. She wore a delicate expression of

distaste.

“What?” Elena almost yelled. Then as Meredith put the star ball

by her feet, Elena lunged at it. She clapped it to her own temple and

immediately was dressed in black leather from head to toe. There were

two broad, square men in front of her, without a lot of muscle tone. And

she could see all of their musculature because they were stark naked

except for rags such as beggars wore. But they weren’t beggars—they

looked well-fed and oily and it was clearly an act when one of them

groveled, “We have trespassed. We beg your forgiveness, O master!”

Elena was reaching to take the sphere off her temple (they stuck

gently, if you put a little pressure there) and saying, “Why don’t they use

the space for something else?”

Something else was immediately all around her. A girl, in poor

clothing, but not sacking. She looked terrified. Elena wondered if she

were being controlled.

And Elena was the girl.

Pleasedon’tletitgetmepleasedon’tletitgetme—

Let what get you? Elena asked, but it was like watching a movie or

book character while they were going into a lonely house in a howling

storm and the music had turned eerie. The Elena who was walking in

fear could not hear the Elena who was asking practical questions.

I don’t think I want to see how this one comes out, she decided.

She put the star ball back at Meredith’s feet.

“Do we have three sacks?”

“Yes, ma’am, yes, ma’am; three sacks full.”

Oh. That didn’t work out very well. Elena was opening her mouth

again, when Damon added quietly: “And one sack empty.”

“Really? We do? Then let’s all try to divide these.

Anything—forbidden—goes in one sack. Weird stuff like Bonnie’s

poetry reading goes into another. Any news of Stefan—or of us—goes

in the third. And nice things, like summer days, go in the fourth,” Elena

said.

“I think you are being optimistic, me,” Sage said. “To expect to

find an orb with Stefan on it so quickly—”

“Everybody, hush!” Bonnie said frantically. “This is Shinichi and

Damon talking him into it.”

Sage stiffened, as if taking a lightning bolt from the stormy sky,

then he smiled. “Speak of the devil,” he murmured. Elena smiled at him

and squeezed his hand before taking another ball.

“This one seems to be some kind of legal stuff. I don’t understand

it. A slave must be taking it because I can see all of them.” Elena felt her

facial muscles tighten with hatred at the sight—even in a sort of

dream—of Shinichi, the kitsune who had done so much harm. His hair

was black, except for an irregular fringe around the edges, which made it

look as if it had been dipped in red-hot lava.

And then, of course, Misao. Shinichi’s sister—allegedly. This star

ball must have been made by a slave, because she could see both of the

twins and a lawyerly-looking man.

Misao, Elena thought. Delicate, deferential, demure…demonic.

Her hair was the same as Shinichi’s, but it was held up and back in a

ponytail. You could see the demonic part if she raised her eyes. They

were effervescent, golden, laughing eyes, just like her brother’s; eyes

that had never had a regret—except perhaps for not exacting enough

revenge. They took no responsibility. They found anguish funny.

And then something odd happened. All three of the figures in the

room suddenly turned around and looked straight at her. Straight at

whoever had made the sphere, Elena corrected herself, but it still was

disconcerting.

It was even more disconcerting when they continued to advance.

Who am I? Elena thought, feeling half-frantic with anxiety. Then she

tried something she had never done before, or seen or heard of being

done. She carefully extended her Power into the Self around the orb. She

was Werty, a sort of lawyer’s secretary. She/he took notes when

important deals were done.

And Werty definitely didn’t like the way things were going right

now. The two clients and his boss closing in on him like this, in a way

they never had before.

Elena pulled herself out of the clerk and put the ball down to one

side. She shivered, feeling as if she’d been plunged into ice-cold water.

And then the roof crashed in.

Bloddeuwedd.

Even with her crippled beak, the huge owl tore off quite a bit of the

roof of the carriage.

Everyone was screaming and no one was giving much good

advice. Saber and Damon had both damaged her: Saber by raising right

off the three soft laps he was sitting on and lunging straight up for

Bloddeuwedd’s feet. He had torn and shaken one before letting go to fall

back into the carriage, where he almost slid off the back. Elena, Bonnie,

and Meredith grabbed at whatever portions of canine anatomy they

could reach, and hauled the huge animal into the backseat again.

“Scoot over! Give him his own seat,” wailed Bonnie, looking at

the shreds of her pearl-colored dress where Saber had taken off and

ripped right through the gauzy material. He’d left red welts in his path.

“Well,” Meredith said, “next time we’ll request steel petticoats.

But I really hope there isn’t going to be a next time, anyway!”

Elena prayed fervently that she was right. Bloddeuwedd was

skimming in from a lower angle now, undoubtedly hoping to snap off a

few heads.

“Everybody grab wood. And spheres! Throw the spheres at her as

she comes close to us.” Elena was hoping that the sight of star

globes—Bloddeuwedd’s obsession—might slow her down.

At the same time Sage shouted, “Don’t waste the star balls! Throw

anything else! Besides, we’re almost there. Hard left, then

straightaway!”

The words gave Elena new hope. I have the key, she thought. The

ring is the key. All I have to do now is get Stefan—and get all of us to

the door with the keyhole. All in one building. I’m practically home.

The next sweep came in even lower. Bloddeuwedd, blind in one

eye, with blood filling the other one, and her olfactory senses blocked by

her own dried blood, was trying to ram the carriage and knock it over.

If she manages it, we’ll be dead, Elena thought. And any who’re

still writhing like worms on the ground, she can pick off.

“DUCK!” She screamed the word both vocally and telepathically.

And then something like an airplane flew so close to her that she

felt tufts of hair being pulled out, caught in its claws.

Elena heard a cry of pain from the front seat but didn’t raise her

head to see what it was. And that was good, for while the carriage

suddenly slammed to a halt, the next instant a whirling, screaming, bird

of death came searing out on the same course. Now Elena needed all of

her attention, all her faculties, to avoid this monster that was buzzing

them even lower.

“The carriage, she is finished! Get out! Run!” Sage’s voice came

rumbling to her.

“The horses,” screamed Elena.

“Finished! Get out, damn you!”

Elena had never heard Sage swear before. She dropped the subject.

Elena never knew how she and Meredith did get out, tumbling over

each other, trying to help and only getting in each other’s way. Bonnie

was already out, by virtue of the coach having hit a pole and sending her

flying. Fortunately, it had sent her into a square of ugly but springy red

clover, and she wasn’t seriously injured.

“Ahhh, my bracelet—no, there it is,” she cried, grabbing

something glittering out of the clover. She cast a cautious look upward

into the crimson night. “Now what do we do?”

“We run!” came Damon’s voice. He came around the wreckage of

the corner where they had fallen in a heap. There was blood on his

mouth, on the previously immaculate white at his throat. It reminded

Elena of those people who drank cow’s blood as well as milk for

nutrition. But Damon only drank from humans. He would never stoop to

equine blood…

The horses will still be here and so will Bloddeuwedd, a harsh

voice explained in her head. She would play with them; there would be

pain. This way was quick. It was…a whim.

Elena reached for his hands, gasping. “Damon! I’m sorry!”

“GET OUT OF HERE,” Sage was roaring.

“We have to get to Stefan,” Elena said, and grabbed Bonnie with

her other hand. “Help guide me, please. I can’t see the ring very well.”

Meredith, she trusted, would get to the Shi no Shi building on her own

resources.

And then there was a nightmare of running and flinching and false

alarms by a shaken Bonnie. Twice the horror from above came

skimming straight toward them only to crash just in front of them, or a

little to the side, breaking wood and tile road alike, throwing up clouds

of dust. Elena didn’t know about all owls, but Bloddeuwedd swooped

down at an angle on her prey, then opened her wings and dropped at the

last moment. Part of the worst thing about the giant owl was her silence.

There was no rustling to warn them of where she might be. Something in

her own feathers muffled the sound, so that they never knew when she

was going to drop next.

In the end they had to crawl through all sorts of rubbish, going as

fast as they could, holding wood, glass, anything sharp over their heads,

as Bloddeuwedd made another pass.

And all the time Elena was trying to use her Power. It was not a

Power she had used before, but she could feel its name shaping her lips.

What she could not feel, could not force, was a connection between the

words and the Power.

I’m useless as a heroine, she thought. I’m pathetic. They should

have given these Powers to someone who already knew how to control

such things. Or, no, they should have given them to someone and then

given the someone a course on how to use them. Or—no—

“Elena!” Rubbish was flying in front of her, but then she was

cutting left and somehow getting around it. And then she was on the