Contents 22 страница

feels like…”

“Come on,” Meredith said. “We have to make sure that it doesn’t kill her.”

The dazed look passed from Matt’s eyes. “We have to do this,” he agreed

simply.

“Right,” said Meredith, finally releasing him. Together they got out of the car to

stand by Mrs. Flowers—no, by Theo.

Theo had hair that hung almost to her waist; so fair that it looked silver in the

moonlight. Her face was—electrifying. It was young; young and proud, with classic

features and a look of quiet determination.

Somehow during the drive, her clothes had changed too. Instead of a coat

covered with bits of paper, she was wearing a sleeveless white gown that ended in

a slight train. In style, it reminded Meredith a little of the “mermaid” dress she

herself had worn when going to a ball in the Dark Dimension. But Meredith’s dress

had only made her look sultry. Theo looked…magnificent.

As for the Post-it Note amulets…somehow the paper had disappeared and the

writing had grown enormously, changing into very large scrawls that wrapped

around the white gown. Theo was literally swathed in haute couture arcane

protection.

And although she was reed slender, she was tall. Taller than Meredith, taller than

Matt, taller than Stefan, wherever he was in the Dark Dimensions. She was this tall

not only because she had grown so much, but because the train of her dress was

just brushing the ground. She had entirely overcome gravity. The whip, Sage’s

present to her, was coiled into a circle attached to her waist, shining as silver as

her hair.

Matt and Meredith simultaneously closed the SUV’s doors. Matt left the engine

running for a quick getaway.

They walked around the garage so that they could see the front of the house.

Meredith, not caring what she looked like or whether she seemed cool or in control,

wiped her hands, one and then the other, on her jeans. This was the stave’s first—

and possibly only—true battle. What counted was not appearance, but

performance.

Both she and Matt stopped dead when they saw the figure standing at the bottom

of the steps in front of the porch. It was no one they could identify from the house.

But then the crimson lips opened, the delicate hands flew up to cover them, and

wind-chime laughter came from somewhere behind the hands.

For a moment they could only stare, fascinated, at this woman who was dressed

all in black. She was fully as tall as Theo, fully as slender and graceful, and she was

floating equally high off the ground. But what Meredith and Matt were staring at was

the fact that her hair was like Misao’s or Shinichi’s—but reversed. Whereas they

had black hair with a crimson fringe on the bottom, this woman had crimson hair—

yards and yards of it, with a black fringe all around it. Not only that, but she had

delicate black fox ears emerging from the crimson hair, and a long sleek crimson

tail, tipped with black.

“Obaasan?” Matt gasped in disbelief.

“Inari!” Meredith snapped.

The lovely creature didn’t even look at them. She was staring at Theo in

contempt. “Tiny witch of a tiny town,” she said. “You’ve used nearly all your Power

just to stand up to my level. What good are you?”

“I have very small Powers,” Theo agreed. “But if the town is worthless, why has it

taken you so long to destroy it? Why have you watched others try—or were they all

your pawns, Inari? Katherine, Klaus, poor young Tyler—were they your pawns,

Kitsune Goddess?”

Inari laughed—still that chiming, girlish giggling, behind her fingers. “I don’t need

pawns! Shinichi and Misao are my bond-servants, as all kitsune are! If I have left

them some freedom, it has been so they can get experience. We’ll go on to larger

cities now, and ravage them.”

“You have to take Fell’s Church first,” Theo said steadily. “And I won’t let you do

that.”

“You still don’t understand, do you? You are a human, with almost no Power left!

Mine is the largest star ball in the worlds! I am a Goddess!”

Theo lowered her head, then lifted it to look Inari in the eyes. “Do you want to

know what I think the truth is, Inari?” she said. “I think that you have come to the

end of a long, long, but not immortal life. I think you have dwindled so that at last you

need to use a great deal of Power from your star ball—wherever it is—to appear

this way. You are a very, very ancient woman and you have been setting children

against their own parents, and parents against children across the world because

you envy the children’s youth. You have even come to envy Shinichi and Misao,

and let them be hurt, as revenge.”

Matt and Meredith looked at each other with wide eyes. Inari was breathing

rapidly, but it seemed she couldn’t think of anything to say.

“You’ve even pretended to have entered a ‘second childhood’ to behave girlishly.

But none of it satisfies you, because the plain, sad truth is that you have come to

the end of your long, long lifetime—no matter how great your Power. We must all

take that final journey, and it is your turn now.”

“Liar!” shrieked Inari, looking for a moment more glorious—more radiant than

before. But then Meredith saw why. Her scarlet hair had actually begun to smolder,

framing her face in a dancing red light. And at last she spoke venemously.

“Well, then, if you think this is my last battle, I must be sure to cause all the pain I

can. Starting with you, witch.”

Meredith and Matt both gasped. They were afraid for Theo, especially as Inari’s

hair was braiding itself into thick ropes like serpents that floated around her head

as if she were Medusa.

The gasps were a mistake—they attracted Inari’s attention. But she didn’t move.

She only said, “Smell that sweet scent on the wind? A roast sacrifice! I think the

result will be oishii —delicious! But perhaps you two would like to speak to Orime or

Isobel one last time. I’m afraid they can’t come out to see you.”

Meredith’s heart was pounding violently in her throat, as she realized that the

Saitous’ house was on fire. It seemed as if there were several small fires burning,

but she was terrified at the implication that Inari had already done something to the

mother and daughter.

“No, Matt!” she cried, grabbing Matt’s arm. He would have charged straight at

the laughing black-clad woman and tried to attack her feet—and seconds were

invaluable now. “Come help me find them!”

Theo came to their aid. Drawing up the white bullwhip, she whirled it once around

her head and cracked it precisely on Inari’s raised hands, leaving a bloody gash on

one. As a furious Inari turned back to her, Meredith and Matt ran.

“The back door,” Matt said as they careered around the side of the house. Up

ahead they saw a wooden fence, but no gate. Meredith was just considering using

the stave to pole-vault, when Matt panted, “Here!” and made a cradle of his hands

for her to step into. “I’ll boost you over!”

Meredith hesitated only an instant. Then, as he skidded to a stop she jumped to

place one foot in his inter-locked fingers. Suddenly she was flying upward. She

made the most of it, landing, catlike, on the fence’s flat top, and then jumping down.

She could hear Matt scrambling up the fence as she was suddenly surrounded by

black smoke. She jumped backward three feet and yelled, “Matt, the smoke is

dangerous! Get low; hold your breath. Stay outside to help them when I bring them

out!”

Meredith had no idea whether Matt would listen to her or not, but she obeyed her

own rules, crouching low, breath held, opening her eyes briefly to try to find the

door.

Then she almost jumped out of her skin at the sound of an axe crashing into

wood, of wood splintering, and of the axe crashing again. She opened her eyes

and saw that Matt hadn’t listened to her, but she was glad because he’d found the

door. His face was black with soot. “It was locked,” he explained, hefting the axe.

Any optimism Meredith might have felt splintered like the door as she looked

inside and saw only flames and more flames.

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

But where had that thought come from? Her knowledge or her fear? Meredith

couldn’t just stop now. She took a step into searing heat and shouted, “Isobel! Mrs.

Saitou! Where are you?”

There was a weak, choking cry. “That’s the kitchen!” she said. “Matt, it’s Mrs.

Saitou! Please go get her!”

Matt obeyed, but threw over his shoulder, “Don’t you go farther in.”

Meredith had to go farther in. She remembered very well where Isobel’s room

was. Directly under her “grandmother’s.”

“Isobel! Isobel! Can you hear me?” Her voice was so low and husky from smoke

that she knew she had to keep going. Isobel might be unconscious or too hoarse to

answer. Meredith dropped to her knees, crawling on the ground where the air was

slightly cooler and more clear.

Okay. Isobel’s room. She didn’t want to touch the door handle with her hand, so

she wrapped her T-shirt around it. The handle wouldn’t turn. Locked. She didn’t

bother to investigate how, she simply turned around and mule-kicked the door right

beside the handle. Wood splintered. Another kick, and with a wooden scream the

door swung free.

Meredith was feeling dizzy now, but she needed to see the entire room. She took

two strides in, and—there!

Sitting up on the bed in the smoky, hot, but otherwise scrupulously tidy little room

was Isobel. As Meredith neared the bed she saw—to her fury—that the girl was

tied to the brass headboard with duct tape. Two slashes of the stave took care of

that. Then, amazingly, Isobel moved, raising a blackened face up to Meredith’s.

That was when Meredith’s fury peaked. The girl had duct tape across her mouth,

to prevent her from making any cry for help. Wincing herself to show that she knew

this was going to be painful, Meredith grasped the duct tape and stripped it off.

Isobel didn’t cry out; instead she took in lungful after lungful of smoky air.

Meredith stumbled toward the closet, snatched two identical-looking white shirts,

and swerved back to Isobel. There was a full tumbler of water right beside her, on

the nightstand. Meredith wondered if it had been put there deliberately to increase

Isobel’s agony, but she didn’t hesitate to use it. She gave Isobel a quick sip, took

one herself, and then soaked each shirt. She held one over her own mouth and

Isobel mimicked her, holding the wet shirt over her nose and mouth. Then Meredith

grabbed her and guided her back to the door.

After that it simply became a nightmare journey of crawling and kneeling and

choking, pulling Isobel with her all the time. Meredith thought it would never end, as

each inch forward became harder and harder. The stave was an unbearable

weight to heave along with her, but she refused to let go of it.

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

No, Meredith thought. Not my life, but who knows what else will be out there if I

get Isobel into the cool darkness?

You’ll never get her there if you die because of—an object.

It’s not an object! Painfully Meredith used the stave to clear some smoldering

debris from her path. It belonged to Grandpa in the time when he was sane. It fits

my hand. It’s not just a thing!

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

Meredith was beginning to run into more debris now. Despite the cramping in her

lungs, she was sure that she could make it out of the back door. She knew there

should be a laundry room on her right. They should be able to feel a space there.

And then suddenly in the dark something reared up and struck her a blow on the

head. It took her dimming mind a long time to come up with a name for the thing that

had hurt her. Armchair.

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

Meredith was flooded with horror. They’d gone too far—and they couldn’t go out

the front door into the midst of magical battle. They would have to backtrack, and

this time make sure to find the laundry room, their gate to freedom.

Meredith turned around, pulling Isobel with her, hoping the younger girl would

understand what they had to do.

She left the stave on the burning living room floor.

Elena sobbed to get her breath, even though she was allowing Stefan to help her

now. He ran, holding Bonnie by one hand and Elena by the other. Damon was

somewhere in front—scouting.

It can’t be far now, she kept thinking. Bonnie and I both saw the brightness—we

both did. Just then, like a lantern put into a window, Elena saw it again.

It’s big, that’s the problem. I keep thinking we should reach it because I have the

wrong idea of what size it is in my mind. The closer we get, the bigger it gets.

And that’s good for us. We’ll need a lot of Power. But we need to get there soon,

or it could be all the Power in the universe and it won’t matter. We’ll be too late.

Shinichi had indicated that they would be too late—but Shinichi had been born a

liar. Still, surely just beyond that low branch was…

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

T hen Meredith saw something that was not smoke or fire. Just a glimpse of a door

frame—and a tiny breath of cool air. With this hope to sustain her, she scuttled

straight for the door to the backyard, dragging Isobel behind her.

As she passed the threshold, she felt blessedly cold water somehow showering

down onto her body. When she pulled Isobel into the spray, the younger girl made

the first voluntary sound she had during the entire journey: a wordless sob of

thanks.

Matt’s hands were helping her along, were taking away the burden of Isobel.

Meredith got up to her feet and staggered in a circle, then dropped to her knees.

Her hair was on fire! She was just recalling her childhood rehearsal of stop, drop,

and roll, when she felt the cold water turned on it. The hose water went up and down

her body and she turned around, basking in the feeling of coolness, until she heard

Matt’s voice say, “The flames are out. You’re good now.”

“Thank you, Matt. Thank you.” Her voice was hoarse.

“Hey, you were the one who had to go all the way to the bedrooms and back.

Getting Mrs. Saitou out was pretty easy—there was the kitchen sink full of water,

so as soon as I cut her free from the kitchen chair we just got all wet and dashed

outside.”

Meredith smiled and looked around quickly. Isobel had become her responsibility

now. To her relief, she saw that the girl was being hugged by her mother.

And all it had taken was the nonsense choice between a thing—however

precious it was—and a life. Meredith gazed at the mother and daughter and was

glad. She could have another stave made. But nothing could replace Isobel.

“Isobel said to give this to you,” Matt was saying.

Meredith turned toward him, the fiery light making the world crazy, and for one

moment didn’t believe her eyes. Matt was holding the fighting stave out to her.

“She must have dragged it with her free hand—oh, Matt, and she was almost

dead before we started…”

Matt said, “She’s stubborn. Like someone else I know.”

Meredith wasn’t quite sure what he meant by that, but she knew one thing. “We’d

all better get to the front yard. I doubt the volunteer fire department is going to

come. Besides—Theo—”

“I’ll get them moving. You scout the gate side,” Matt said.

Meredith plunged into the backyard, which was hideously illuminated by the

house, now fully engulfed in flames. Fortunately, the side yard was not. Meredith

flicked the gate open with the stave. Matt was right behind her, helping Mrs. Saitou

and Isobel along.

Meredith quickly ran by the flaming garage and then stopped. From behind her

she heard a cry of horror. There was no time to try to soothe whoever had cried,

no time to think.

The two fighting women were too busy to notice her—and Theo was in need of

help. Inari was truly like a fiery Medusa, with her hair writhing around her in flaming,

smoking snakes. Only the crimson part burned, and it was that part that she was

using like a whip, using one snake to wrest away the silver bullwhip from Theo’s

hand, and then another to wrap around Theo’s throat and choke her. Theo was

desperately trying to pull the blazing noose from her neck.

Inari was laughing. “Are you suffering, petty witch? It will all be over in seconds—

for you and for your entire little town! The Last Midnight has finally come!”

Meredith glanced back at Matt—and that was all it took. He ran forward, passing

her, all the way up to the space below the fighting women. Then he bent slightly,

cupping his hands.

And then Meredith sprinted, putting everything she had left into the short run,

leaving her just enough energy to leap and place one foot into Matt’s cupped

hands, and then she felt herself soaring aloft, just within distance for the stave to

slice cleanly through the snake of hair that was choking Theo.

After that Meredith was in free fall, with Matt trying to catch her from below. She

landed more or less on top of him and they both saw what happened next.

Theo, who was bruised and bleeding, slapped out a part of her gown that was

smoldering. She held out a hand for the silver bullwhip and it flew to meet her

outstretched fingers. But Inari wasn’t attacking. She was waving her arms wildly, as

if in terror, and then suddenly she shrieked: a sound so anguished that Meredith

drew in her breath sharply. It was a death-scream.

Before their eyes she was turning back into Obaasan, into the shrunken,

helpless, doll-like woman Matt and Meredith knew. But by the time this shriveled

body hit the ground it was already stiff and dead, her expression one of such

unrepentant malice that it was frightening.

It was Isobel and Mrs. Saitou then who came forward to stand over the body,

sobbing with relief. Meredith looked at them and then up at Theo, who slowly floated

to the ground.

“Thank you,” Theo said with the faintest of smiles. “You have saved me—yet

again.”

“But what do you think happened to her?” Matt asked. “And why didn’t Shinichi or

Misao come to help her?”

“I think they all must be dead, don’t you?” Theo’s voice was soft over the roar of

the flames. “As for Inari—I think that perhaps someone destroyed her star ball. I’m

afraid I was not strong enough to defeat her myself.”

“What time is it?” Meredith abruptly cried, remembering. She ran to the old SUV,

which was still running. Its clock showed 12:00 midnight exactly.

“Did we save the people?” Matt asked desperately.

Theo turned her face outward toward the center of the town. For nearly a minute

she was still, as if listening for something. At last, when Meredith felt that she might

shatter from tension, she turned back and said quietly, “Dear Ma ma, Grand mama,

and I are one, now. I sense children who are finding themselves holding knives—

and some with guns. I sense them standing in their sleeping parents’ rooms, unable

to remember how they got there. And I sense parents, hiding in closets, a moment

ago frightened for their very lives, who are seeing weapons dropped and children

falling onto master bedroom floors, sobbing and bewildered.”

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

Still gentle and sober, Theo said, “Someone else—far away—did much more. I

know that the town needs healing. But Grand mama and Ma ma agree. Because of

them, no child has killed a parent this night, and no parent has killed a child. The

long nightmare of Inari and her Last Midnight is over.”

Meredith, grimy and bedraggled as she was, felt something rise and swell inside

her, bigger and bigger, until, for all her training, she couldn’t contain herself any

longer. It exploded out of her in a yell of exultation.

She found that Matt was shouting too. He was as grubby and unkempt as she

was, but he seized her by the hands and whirled her around in a barbarian victory

dance.

And it was fun, whirling around and yelling like a kid. Maybe—maybe in trying to

be calm, in always being the most grown-up, she had missed out on the essence of

fun, which always felt as if it had some childlike quality to it.

Matt had no trouble in expressing his feelings, whatever they were: childlike,

mature, stubborn, happy. Meredith found herself admiring this, and also thinking

that it had been a long time since she’d really looked at Matt. But now she felt a

sudden wave of feeling for him. And she could see that Matt felt the same way

about her. As if he’d never really looked at her properly before.

This was the moment…when they were meant to kiss. Meredith had seen it so

often in movies, and read about it in books, that it was almost a given.

But this was life, it wasn’t a story. And when the moment came, Meredith found

herself holding Matt’s shoulders while he held hers, and she could see that he was

thinking exactly the same thing about the kiss.

The moment stretched…

Then, with a grin, Matt’s face showed that he knew what to do. Meredith did too.

They both moved in, and hugged each other. When they drew back, they were both

grinning. They knew who they were. They were very different, very close friends.

Meredith hoped that they always would be.

They both turned to look at Theo, and Meredith felt a pang in her heart, the first

since she had heard they’d saved the town. Theo was changing. It was the look on

her face as she watched them that gave Meredith the pang.

After being young, and while watching youth at its peak, she was once again

aging, wrinkling, her hair going white instead of moonlit silver. At last, she was an

old woman wearing a raincoat covered with bits of paper.

“Mrs. Flowers!” This person, it was perfectly safe and right to kiss. Meredith

flung her arms about the frail old woman, lifting her off her feet in excitement. Matt

joined them, and they boosted her above their heads. They carried her like this to

the Saitous, mother and daughter, who were watching the fire.

There, sobered, they put her down.

“Isobel,” Meredith said. “God! I’m so sorry—your home…”

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

Meredith felt chilled. She was even beginning to regret the celebration, when Mrs.

Saitou said, “Do you know, this is the greatest moment in the history of our family?

For hundreds of years, that ancient kitsune—oh, yes, I’ve always known what she

was—has been forcing herself upon innocent humans. And for the last three

centuries it has been my family line of samurai mikos that she has terrorized. Now

my husband can come home at last.”

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

“He tried to defy her and she banished him from the house. Ever since Isobel

was born, I have feared for her. And now, please forgive her. She has trouble

expressing what she feels.”

“I know about that,” Meredith said quietly. “I’ll go have a little talk with her, if it’s all

right.”

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

she thought, it was now.

D amon had stopped and was kneeling behind an enormous broken tree branch.

Stefan pulled both girls to him and caught them so that they all three landed just

behind his brother.

Elena found herself staring at a very large tree trunk. Still as big as it was, it was

nowhere near as large as she had been expecting. It was true; the four of them

certainly couldn’t have held hands around it. But in the back of her mind had been

lurking images of moons and trees and trunks that were as tall as skyscrapers, in

which a star ball could be hidden on any “floor,” in any “room.”

This was simply a grand oak tree trunk sitting in a sort of fairy circle—perhaps

twenty feet in diameter on which no dead leaf had strayed. It was a paler color than

the loam they had been running on, and even sparkled in a few places. Overall,

Elena was relieved.

More, she could even see the star ball. She’d feared—among other things—that

it might be up too high to climb, that it might be so entangled with roots or branches

that today, certainly after hundreds or even thousands of years, it would be

impossible to chop out. But there it was, the greatest star ball that had ever been,

fully the size of a beach ball, and it nestled freely in the first crutch of the tree.

Her mind was racing ahead. They’d done it; they’d found the star ball. But how

much time would it take to get it back to where Sage was? Automatically, she

glanced at her compass and saw to her surprise that the needle now pointed

southwest—in other words, back to the Gatehouse. That was a thoughtful touch of

Sage’s. And perhaps they didn’t have to go through the trials backward; they could

simply use their Master Key to go back to Fell’s Church, and then…well, Mrs.

Flowers would know what to do with it.

If it came to that, maybe they could just blackmail Her, whoever She was, to go

away forever in exchange for the star ball. Although—could they live with the

thought that she might do this again—and again—and again to other towns?

Even as she planned, Elena watched the expressions of her comrades: the

childlike wonder on Bonnie’s heart-shaped face; the keen assessment in Stefan’s

eyes; Damon’s dangerous smile.

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

But she couldn’t look for too long. Things had to be done. Even as they watched,

the star ball brightened, showing such brilliant, incandescent colors that Elena was

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

“What?” Stefan asked, a hand in front of his eyes, which, of course were much

more sensitive to light than human eyes.

“Someone’s using it right now!” Bonnie replied. “When it went bright like that, it

sent out Power! A long, long way out!”

“Things are heating up in what’s left of poor old Fell’s Church,” said Damon, who

was staring intently upward at the branches above him.

“Don’t talk about it like that!” Bonnie exclaimed. “It’s our home. And now we can

finally defend it!” Elena could practically see what Bonnie was thinking: families

embracing; neighbors smiling at neighbors again; the entire town working to fix the

destruction.

This is how great tragedies sometimes happen. People with a single goal, yet

who are not in sync. Assumptions. Presumptions. And, maybe, most important of

all, the failure to sit down and talk.

Stefan tried, even though Elena could see that he was still blind from the

brilliance of the star ball. He said quietly, “Let’s talk this over for a while and

brainstorm ways to get it—”

But Bonnie was laughing at him, though not unkindly. She said, “I can get up there

as fast as a squirrel. All I need is someone strong to catch it when I knock it down. I

know I can’t climb down with it; I’m not that silly. Come on, you guys, let’s go!”

That’s how it happened. Different personalities, different modes of thinking. And

one laughing, light-headed girl, who didn’t have a precognition when it was needed.

Elena, who was envying Meredith the fighting stave, didn’t even see the

beginning. She was watching Stefan, who was blinking rapidly to get his eyesight