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have a star ball?”

“I have twenty-eight star balls,” Damon said, and looked at her quizzically.

That wasn’t what Bonnie meant at all; she meant one to record onto. “Can you

remember three things?” she said to Damon.

“I’d gamble on it.” This time Damon kissed her softly on the forehead.

“First, you ruined my very brave death.”

“We can always go back and you can have another try.” Damon’s voice was less

choked now; more his own.

“Second, you left me at that horrible inn for a week—”

As if she could see inside his mind, she saw this slice into him like some kind of

wooden sword. He was holding her so tightly that she really couldn’t breathe. “I…I

didn’t mean to. It was really only four days, but I never should have done it,” he

said.

“Third.” Bonnie’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I don’t think any star ball was ever

stolen at all. What never existed can’t be stolen, can it?”

She looked at him. Damon was looking back in a way that normally would have

thrilled her. He was obviously, blatantly distressed. But Bonnie was just barely

hanging on to consciousness at this point.

“And…fourth…” She puzzled out slowly.

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

“I have to say this—” She dropped her head down on Damon’s shoulder,

gathered all of her energy, and concentrated.

Damon loosened his grip a little. He said, “I can hear a faint murmuring sound in

my head. Just tell me normally. We’re well away from anyone.”

Bonnie was insistent. She scrunched her whole tiny body together and then

explosively sent out a thought. She could tell that Damon caught it.

Fourth, I know the way to the seven legendary kitsune treasures, Bonnie sent

to him. That includes the biggest star ball ever made. But if we want it, we have to

get to it—fast.

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

S omeone was still knocking on Stefan’s door.

“It’s a woodpecker,” Elena said when she could speak. “They knock, don’t they?”

“On doors inside houses?” Stefan said dazedly.

“Ignore it and it will go away.”

A moment later the knocking resumed.

Elena moaned, “I don’t believe this.”

Stefan whispered, “Do you want me to bring you its head? Unattached from its

neck, I mean?”

Elena considered. As the knocking continued, she was getting more worried and

less confused. “Better see if it is a bird, I guess,” she said.

Stefan rolled away from her, somehow got on his jeans, and went reeling to the

door. In spite of herself, Elena pitied whoever was on the other side.

The knocking started again.

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

“What the—” He stopped, suddenly moderating his voice. “Mrs. Flowers?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Flowers said, deliberately not seeing Elena, who was wearing a

sheet and directly in her line of vision.

“It’s poor dear Meredith,” Mrs. Flowers said. “She’s in such a state, and she

says she has to see you now, Stefan.”

Elena’s mind switched tracks as suddenly and smoothly as a train. Meredith? In

a state? Demanding to see Stefan, even if, as Elena was sure she must have, Mrs.

Flowers had delicately indicated just how…busy Stefan was at the moment?

Her mind was still solidly linked with Stefan’s. He said, “Thank you, Mrs. Flowers.

I’ll be down in just a moment.”

Elena, who was slipping into her clothes as fast as she could, while crouching on

the far side of the bed, added a telepathic suggestion.

“Maybe you could make her a nice cup of tea—I mean, a cup of tea,” Stefan

added.

“Yes, dear, what a good idea,” Mrs. Flowers said gently. “And if you should see

Elena, perhaps you could say that dear Meredith is asking for her, too?”

“We will,” Stefan said automatically. Then he turned around and hastily shut the

door.

Elena gave him time to put his shirt and shoes on, and then they both hurried

down to the kitchen, where Meredith was not having a nice cup of tea, but pacing

around like a caged leopard.

Stefan began, “What’s—”

“I’ll tell you what’s wrong, Stefan Salvatore! No—you tell me! You were in my

mind before, so you must know. You must have been able to see—to tell—about

me.”

Elena was still mindlocked with Stefan. She felt his dismay. “To tell what about

you?” he asked gently, pulling out a chair at the kitchen table so Meredith could sit.

The very simple act of sitting down, of pausing to respond to civility, seemed to

calm Meredith slightly. But still Elena could feel her fear and pain like the taste of a

steel sword on her tongue.

Meredith accepted a hug and became a little calmer yet. A little more herself and

less like a caged animal. But the struggle was so visceral and so clear within her

that Elena couldn’t bear to leave her, even when Mrs. Flowers deposited four mugs

of tea around the table and took another chair Stefan offered.

Then Stefan sat down. He knew Elena would stand or sit or share a chair with

Meredith, but whatever it was, she would be the one to decide.

Mrs. Flowers was gently stirring honey into her mug of tea and then passing the

honey along to Stefan who gave it to Elena who put just the little bit that Meredith

liked into Meredith’s mug and stirred it gently, too.

The ordinary, civilized sounds of two spoons quietly clinking seemed to relax

Meredith still further. She took the mug Elena gave her and sipped, then drank

thirstily.

Elena could feel Stefan’s mental sigh of relief as Meredith floated down another

few levels. He politely sipped his own tea, which was hot but not burning hot and

made from naturally sweet berries and herbs.

“It’s good,” Meredith said. She was almost a human now. “Thank you, Mrs.

Flowers.”

Elena felt lighter. She relaxed enough to pull over her own cup of tea and

squeeze lots of honey in and stir it and take a gulp. Good! Calming down tea!

That’s chamomile and cucumber, Stefan told her.

“Chamomile and cucumber,” Elena said, nodding wisely, “for calming down.” And

then she blushed, for Mrs. Flowers’s bright smile had knowledge in it.

Elena hastily drank more tea and watched Meredith have more tea and

everything began to feel almost all right. Meredith was completely Meredith now,

not some fierce animal. Elena squeezed her friend’s hand tightly.

There was just one problem. Humans were less frightening than beasts but they

could cry. Now Meredith, who never wept, was shaking and tears were dripping into

the tea.

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

Elena nodded hesitantly. “We had it sometimes in stew at your house?” she said.

“And for tapas?” Elena had grown up with the blood sausage as a meal or a snack

at her friend’s house, and she was used to the bite-sized pieces as a delicious

food only Mrs. Sulez made.

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

“It turns out my mother didn’t always make it,” Meredith said, looking at Stefan

now. “And my parents had a very good reason for changing my birthday.”

“Just tell it all,” Stefan suggested softly. And then Elena felt something she hadn’t

before. A surge, like a wave—a long gentle swell that spoke right into the center of

Meredith’s brain. It said: Just tell it and be calm. No anger. No fear.

But it wasn’t telepathy. Meredith felt the thought in her blood and bones, but didn’t

hear it with her ears.

It was Influence. Before Elena could brain her beloved Stefan with her mug for

using Influence on one of her friends, Stefan said, just to her, Meredith’s hurting,

feeling scared and angry. She has reason to, but she needs peace. I probably

won’t be able to hold her anyway, but I’ll try.

Meredith wiped her eyes. “It turns out that nothing was like what I thought

happened—that night when I was three.” She described what her parents had told

her, about everything that Klaus had done. Telling the story, even quietly, was

undoing all the calming influences that had helped Meredith maintain herself. She

was beginning to shake again. Before Elena could grab her, she was up and

striding around the room. “He laughed and said that I’d need blood every week—

animal blood—or I’d die. I didn’t need much. Just a tablespoon or two. And my poor

mother didn’t want to lose another child. She did what he told her to. But what

happens if I have more blood, Stefan? What happens if I drink yours?”

Stefan was thinking, desperately trying to see if in all his years of experience

he’d come across anything like this. Meanwhile he answered the easy part.

“If you drank enough of my blood you’d become a vampire. But so would anyone.

With you—well, it might take less. So don’t let any vampire trick you into blood

exchange. Once might be enough.”

“So I’m not a vampire? Now? Not any kind? Are there different kinds?”

Stefan answered seriously. “I’ve never heard of ‘different kinds’ of vampires in

my life, except for Old Ones. I can tell you that you don’t have a vampire’s aura.

What about your teeth? Can you make your canines sharp? Usually it’s best to test

over human flesh. Not your own.”

Elena promptly stuck out her arm, wrist vein-side up. Meredith, eyes closed in

concentration, made a great effort, which Elena felt through Stefan. Then Meredith

opened her eyes, mouth also open for a dental inspection. Elena stared at her

canines. They looked a little bit sharp, but so did anybody’s, didn’t they?

Carefully Elena reached a fingertip in. She touched one of Meredith’s canines.

Tiny pinch.

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

blood was welling up.

Everyone watched it, mesmerized. Then Elena’s mouth said without pausing to

consult her brain, “You have kitten teeth.”

The next moment Meredith had brushed Elena aside and was pacing wildly all

around the kitchen. “I won’t be one! I won’t be! I’m a hunter-slayer, not a vampire!

I’ll kill myself if I’m a vampire!” She was deadly serious. Elena felt Stefan feeling it,

the quick thrust of the stave between her ribs and into the heart. She would go on

the Internet to find the right area. Ironwood and white ash piercing her heart, stilling

it forever…sealing off the evil that was Meredith Sulez.

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

Meredith was not calm.

“But before that I have to kill my brother.” She flung down a photograph on Mrs.

Flowers’s kitchen table. “It turns out that Klaus or someone has been sending

these since Cristian was four—on my real birthday. For years! And in every picture

you could see his vampire teeth. Not ‘kitten teeth.’ And then they stopped coming

when I was about ten. But they had shown him growing up! With pointed teeth! And

last year this one came.”

Elena leaped for the photo, but it was closer to Stefan and he was faster. He

stared in astonishment. “Growing up?” he said. She could feel how shaken he was

—and how envious. No one had given him that option.

Elena looked at the pacing Meredith and around at Stefan. “But it’s impossible,

isn’t it?” she said. “I thought that if you were bitten, that was it, right? You never got

any older—or bigger.”

“That’s what I thought too. But Klaus was an Old One and who knows what they

can do?” Stefan answered.

Damon will be furious when he finds out, Elena told Stefan privately, reaching

for the picture even though she’d already seen it through Stefan’s eyes. Damon

was very bitter about Stefan’s height advantage—about anyone’s height

advantage.

Elena brought the picture to Mrs. Flowers and looked at it with her. It showed an

extremely handsome boy, with hair that was just Meredith’s dark color. He looked

like Meredith in his facial structure and olive skin. He was wearing a motorcycle

jacket and gloves, but no helmet, and he was laughing merrily with a full set of very

white teeth. You could easily see that the canines were long and pointed.

Elena looked back and forth from Meredith to the picture. The only difference

she could see was that this boy’s eyes seemed lighter. Everything else screamed

“twins.”

“First I kill him,” Meredith repeated tiredly. “Then I kill myself.” She stumbled back

to the table and sat, almost knocking over her chair.

Elena hovered near her, snatching two mugs from the table, to prevent

Meredith’s clumsy arm from sweeping them to the floor.

Meredith…clumsy! Elena had never seen Meredith ungraceful or clumsy before.

It was frightening. Was it somehow due to being—at least partly—a vampire? The

kitten teeth? Elena turned apprehensive eyes on Stefan, felt Stefan’s own

bewilderment.

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

them an apologetic little-old-lady smile.

“Gotta kill…find him, kill him…first,” Meredith was whispering as her dark head

lowered to the table, to the pillow of her arms. “Find him…where? Grandpa…

where? Cristian…my brother…”

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

“You drugged her?” she whispered to Mrs. Flowers.

“It was what Ma ma thought best. She’s a strong, healthy girl. It won’t harm her to

sleep from now through the night. Because I’m sorry to tell you, but we have

another problem right now.”

Elena glanced at Stefan, saw fear dawning on his face, and demanded, “What?”

Absolutely nothing was coming through their link. He’d shut it down.

Elena turned to Mrs. Flowers. “What?”

“I’m very worried about dear Matt.”

“Matt,” agreed Stefan, looking around the table as if to show that Matt wasn’t

there. He was trying to protect Elena from the chills racing through him.

At first Elena wasn’t alarmed. “I know where he might be,” she said brightly. She

was remembering stories that Matt had told of being in Fell’s Church while she and

the others had been in the Dark Dimension. “Dr. Alpert’s place. Or out with her,

making the rounds of home visits.”

Mrs. Flowers shook her head, her expression bleak. “I’m afraid not, Elena dear.

Sophia—Dr. Alpert—called me and told me she was taking Matt’s mother, your own

family, and several other people with her and escaping Fell’s Church entirely. And I

don’t blame her a bit—but Matt wasn’t one of those going. She said he meant to

stay and fight. That was around twelve thirty.”

Elena’s eyes automatically went to the kitchen clock. Horror shot through her,

flipping her stomach and reverberating out to her fingertips. The clock said 4:35—

4:35 P.M.! But that had to be wrong. She and Stefan had only joined minds a few

minutes ago. Meredith’s rage hadn’t lasted that long. This was impossible!

“That clock—it’s not right!” She appealed to Mrs. Flowers, but heard at the same

time Stefan’s telepathic voice, It’s the mind-blending. I didn’t want to rush. But I

was lost in it too—it’s not your fault, Elena!

“It is my fault,” Elena snapped back aloud. “I never meant to forget about my

friends for the entire afternoon! And Matt—Matt would never scare us by keeping

us waiting for his call! I should have called him! I shouldn’t have been—” She

looked at Stefan with unhappy eyes. The only thing burning inside her right now was

the shame of failing Matt.

“I did call his mobile number,” Mrs. Flowers said very gently. “Ma ma advised me

to do so, all the way back at half past twelve. But he didn’t answer. I’ve called every

hour since. Ma ma won’t say more than that it’s time we looked into things directly.”

Elena ran to Mrs. Flowers and wept on the soft cambric lacework at the old

woman’s neck. “You did our job for us,” she said. “Thank you. But now we have to

go and find him.”

She whirled on Stefan. “Can you put Meredith in the first-floor bedroom? Just

take off her shoes and put her on top of the covers. Mrs. Flowers, if you’re going to

be alone here, we’ll leave Saber and Talon to take care of you. Then we’ll keep in

touch by mobile. And we’ll search every house in Fell’s Church—but I guess we

should go to the thicket first…”

“Wait, Elena my dear.” Mrs. Flowers had her eyes shut. Elena waited, shifting

impatiently from one foot to the other. Stefan was just returning from putting

Meredith in the front room.

Suddenly, Mrs. Flowers smiled, eyes still shut. “Ma ma says she will do her

utmost for you two, since you are so devoted to your friend. She says that Matt is

not anywhere in Fell’s Church. And she says, take the dog, Saber. The falcon will

watch over Meredith while we are away.” Mrs. Flowers’s eyes opened. “Although

we might plaster her window and door with Post-it Notes,” she said, “just to make

sure.”

“No,” Elena said flatly. “I’m sorry, but I won’t leave Meredith and you on your own

with only a bird for protection. We’ll take you both with us, covered in amulets if you

like, and then we can take both animals, too. Back in the Dark Dimension, they

worked together when Bloddeuwedd was trying to kill us.”

“All right,” Stefan said at once, knowing Elena well enough to realize that a halfhour-

long argument could ensue and Elena would never be moved an inch from her

position. Mrs. Flowers must have known it too, for she rose, also immediately, and

went to get ready.

Stefan carried Meredith out to her car. Elena gave a tiny whistle for Saber, who

was instantly underfoot, seeming bigger than ever, and she raced him up the stairs

to Matt’s room. It was disappointingly clean—but Elena fished a pair of briefs from

between bed and wall. She gave these to Saber to delight in, but found she couldn’t

stand still. Finally, she ran up to Stefan’s room, snatched her diary from under the

mattress, and began scribbling.

Dear Diary,

I don’t know what to do. Matt has disappeared. Damon has taken Bonnie to the

Dark Dimension—but is he taking care of her?

There’s no way to know. We don’t have any way to open a Gate ourselves and

go after them. I’m afraid Stefan will kill Damon, and if something—anything—has

happened to Bonnie, I’ll want to kill him too. Oh, God, what a mess!

And Meredith…of all people, Meredith turns out to have more secrets than all

of us combined.

All Stefan and I can do is hold each other and pray. We’ve been fighting

Shinichi so long! I feel as if the end is coming soon…and I’m afraid.

“Elena!” Stefan’s shout came from below. “We’re all ready!”

Elena quickly stuffed the diary back under the mattress. She found Saber waiting

on the stairs, and followed him down, running. Mrs. Flowers had two overcoats

covered in amulets.

Outside, a long whistle from Stefan was met by an answering keeeeeeee from

above and Elena saw a small dark body circling against the white-streaked August

sky. “She understands,” Stefan said briefly, and took the driver’s seat of the car.

Elena got into the backseat behind him, and Mrs. Flowers into the front passenger

seat. Since Stefan had buckled up Meredith into the middle of the backseat, this left

Saber a window to put his panting head through.

“Now,” Stefan said, over the purring of the engine, “where are we going,

exactly?”

“M a ma said not in Fell’s Church,” Mrs. Flowers repeated to Stefan. “And that

means not the thicket.”

“All right,” Stefan said. “If he’s not there, then where else?”

“Well,” Elena said slowly, “it’s the police, isn’t it? They’ve caught him.” Her heart

felt as if it were in her stomach.

Mrs. Flowers sighed. “I suppose so. Ma ma should have told me that, but the

atmosphere is full of strange influences.”

“But the sheriff’s department is in Fell’s Church. What there is of it,” Elena

objected.

“Then,” Mrs. Flowers said, “what about the police in another city close by? The

ones who came looking for him before—”

“Ridgemont,” Elena said heavily. “That’s where those police that searched the

boardinghouse were from. That’s where that Mossberg guy came from, Meredith

said.” She looked at Meredith, who didn’t even murmur. “That’s where Caroline’s

dad has all his big-shot friends—and Tyler Smallwood’s dad does too. They belong

to all those no-women clubs with secret handshakes and stuff.”

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

“I have a sort of Plan A,” Elena admitted. “But I don’t know that it will work—you

may know better than I do.”

“Tell me.”

Elena told him. Stefan listened and had to stifle a laugh. “I think,” he said soberly

afterward, “that it just might work.”

Elena immediately began to think about Plans B and C so that they wouldn’t be

stuck if Plan A should fail.

They had to drive through Fell’s Church to get to Ridgemont. Elena saw the

burnt-out houses and the blackened trees through tears. This was her town, the

town which, as a spirit, she had watched over and protected. How could it have

come to this?

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

Elena began to shiver uncontrollably.

Matt sat grimly in the jury conference room. He had explored it long ago, and had

found that the windows were boarded over from the outside. He wasn’t surprised,

as all the windows he knew back in Fell’s Church were boarded up, and besides, he

had tried these boards and knew that he could break out if he cared to.

He didn’t care to.

It was time to face his personal crisis. He would have faced it back before

Damon had taken the three girls to the Dark Dimension, but Meredith had talked

him out of it.

Matt knew that Mr. Forbes, Caroline’s father, had all his cronies in the police and

legal system here. And so did Mr. Smallwood, the father of the real culprit. They

were unlikely to give him a fair trial. But in any kind of trial, at some point they would

at least have to listen to him.

And what they would hear was the plain truth. They might not believe it now. But

later, when Caroline’s twins had as little control as werewolf babies were reputed to

have over their shapes—well, then they’d think of Matt, and what he’d said.

He was doing the right thing, he assured himself. Even if, right now, his insides

felt as if they were made of lead.

What’s the worst they can do to me? he wondered, and was unhappy to hear the

echo of Meredith’s voice come back. “They can put you in jail, Matt. Real jail;

you’re over eighteen. And while that may be good news for some genuine,

vicious, tough old felons with homemade tattoos and biceps like tree branches, it

is not going to be good news for you.” And then after a session on the Internet,

“Matt, in Virginia, it can be for life. And the minimum is five years. Matt, please; I

beg you, don’t let them do this to you! Sometimes it’s true that discretion is the

better part of valor. They hold all the cards and we’re walking blindfolded in the

dark…”

She had gotten surprisingly worked up about it, mixing her metaphors and all,

Matt thought dejectedly. But it’s not exactly as if I volunteered for this. And I bet they

know those boards are pretty flimsy and if I break out, I’ll be chased from here to

who-knows-where. And if I stay put at least I’ll get to tell the truth.

For a very long time nothing happened. Matt could tell from the sun through the

cracks in the boards that it was afternoon. A man came in and offered a visit to the

bathroom and a Coke. Matt accepted both, but also demanded an attorney and his

phone call.

“You’ll have an attorney,” the man grumbled at him as Matt came out of the

bathroom. “One’ll be appointed for you.”

“I don’t want that. I want a real attorney. One that I pick. ”

The man looked disgusted. “Kid like you can’t have any money. You’ll take the

attorney appointed to you.”

“My mom has money. She’d want me to have the attorney we hire, not some kid

out of law school.”

“Aw,” the man said, “how sweet. You want Mommy to take care of you. And her

all the way out in Clydesdale by now, I bet, with the black lady doctor.”

Matt froze.

Shut back in the jury room he tried frantically to think. How did they know where

his mom and Dr. Alpert had gone? He tried the sound of “black lady doctor” on his

tongue and found it tasted bad, sort of old-time-ish and just plain bad. If the doctor

had been Caucasian and male, it would’ve sounded silly to say “…gone with the

white man doctor.” Sort of like an old Tarzan film.

A great anger was rising in Matt. And along with it a great fear. Words slithered

around his mind: surveillance and spying and conspiracy and cover-up. And

outwitted.

He guessed it was after five o’clock, after everybody who normally worked at

court had left, that they took him to the interrogation room.

They were just playing, he figured, the two officers who tried to talk to him in a

cramped little room with a video camera in one corner of the wall, perfectly obvious

even though it was small.

They took turns, one yelling at him that he might as well confess everything, the

other acting sympathetic and saying things like, “Things just got out of hand, right?

We have a picture of the hickey she gave you. She was hot stuff, right?” Wink,

wink. “ I understand. But then she started to give you mixed signals…”

Matt reached his snapping point. “ No, we were not on a date, no, she did not give

me a hickey, and when I tell Mr. Forbes you called Caroline hot stuff, winkey

winkey, he’s gonna get you fired, mister. And I’ve heard of mixed signals, but I’ve

never seen them. I can hear ‘no’ as well as you can, and I figure one ‘no’ means

‘no’!”

After that they beat him up a little bit. Matt was surprised, but considering the way

he had just threatened and sassed them, not too surprised.

And then they seemed to give up on him, leaving him alone in the interrogation

room, which, unlike the jury room, had no windows. Matt said over and over, for the

benefit of the video camera, “I’m innocent and I’m being denied my phone call and

my attorney. I’m innocent…”

At last they came and got him. He was hustled between the good and bad cops

into a completely empty courtroom. No, not empty, he realized. In the first row were

a few reporters, one or two with sketchbooks ready.

When Matt saw that, just like a real trial, and imagined the pictures they’d sketch

—just like he’d seen on TV, the lead in his stomach turned into a fluttering feeling of

panic.

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

He was led to an empty table. There was another table, with several well-dressed

men, all with piles of papers in front of them.

But the thing that held Matt’s attention at that table was Caroline. He didn’t

recognize her at first. She was wearing a dove gray cotton dress. Gray! With no

jewelry on at all, and subtle makeup. The only color was in her hair—a brazen

auburn. It looked like her old hair, not the brindled color it had been when she was

starting to become a werewolf. Had she learned to control her form at last? That