9 страница. “You’re beautiful,” Stefan answered absently, not moving

 

“You’re beautiful,” Stefan answered absently, not moving. Then suddenly he rocketed up.“You’re talking!”

 

“I know I am.”

 

“And making sense!”

 

“Thank you kindly.”

 

“And in sentences!”

 

“I’ve noticed.”

 

“Go on, then, and say something long—please,” Stefan said as if he didn’t believe it.

 

“You’ve been hanging out too much with my friends,” Elena said. “That sentence has Bonnie’s impudence, Matt’s courtesy, and Meredith’s insistence on the facts.”

 

“Elena, it’s you!”

 

Instead of keeping up the silly dialogue with “Stefan, itis me!” Elena stopped to think. Then, carefully she got out of bed and took a step. Stefan hastily looked away, handing her a robe.Stefan? Stefan?

 

Silence.

 

When Stefan turned around after a decent interval, he saw Elena kneeling in the sunlight holding the robe.

 

“Elena?” She knew that to him, she looked like a very young angel in meditation.

 

“Stefan.”

 

“But you’re crying.”

 

“I’m human again, Stefan.” She lifted a hand, let it fall into the clutches of gravity. “I’m human again. No more, no less. I guess it just took me a few days to get fully back on track.”

 

She looked into his eyes. They were always suchgreen green eyes. Like green crystal with some offside light behind them. Like a summer leaf held up before the sun.

 

I can read your mind.

 

“But I can’t read yours, Stefan. I can only get a general sense, and even that may be going…we can’t count on anything.”

 

Elena, I have all I want in this room.He patted the bed.Sit by me and I can say “all I want is on this bed.”

 

Instead she got up and threw herself at him, arms around his neck, legs tangled with his. “I’m still very young,” she whispered, holding him tightly. “And if you count it in days, we haven’t had many days together like this, but—”

 

“I’m still far too old for you. But to be able to look at you and seeyou looking back at me—”

 

“Tell me you’ll love me forever.”

 

“I’ll love you forever.”

 

“No matter what happens.”

 

“Elena, Elena—I’ve loved you as mortal, as vampire, as pure spirit, as spiritual child—and now as human again.”

 

“Promise we’ll be together.”

 

“We’ll be together.”

 

“No. Stefan, this isme.” She pointed to her head as if to emphasize that behind her gold-flecked blue eyes there was a bright active mind spinning in overdrive. “Iknow you. Even if I can’t read your mind I can read your face. All the old fears—they’re back, aren’t they?”

 

He looked away. “I will never leave you.”

 

“Not for a day? Not for an hour?”

 

He hesitated and then looked up at her.If that’s what you really want. I won’t leave you, even for an hour. Now he was projecting, she knew, for she could hear him.

 

“I release you from all your promises.”

 

“But, Elena, I mean them.”

 

“I know. But when you do go, I don’t want you to have the guilt of breaking them looming over you as well.”

 

Even without telepathy, she could tell what he was thinking to the tiniest shade of a nuance:Humor her. After all, she’d just woken up. She was probably a little confused. And she wasn’t interested in becoming less confused, or in making him less confused. That must be why she was nipping his chin gently. And kissing him. Certainly, Elena thought, one of the two of them was confused….

 

Time seemed to stretch and then stop around them. And then nothing was confusing at all. Elena knew that Stefan knew what she wanted, and he wanted whatever she wanted him to do.

 

Bonnie stared at the numbers on her phone, concerned. Stefan was calling. Then she ran a hasty hand through her hair, fluffing the curls out, and took the video call.

 

But instead of Stefan it was Elena. Bonnie started to giggle, started to tell her not to play with Stefan’s grown-up toys—and then she stared.

 

“Elena?”

 

“Am I going to get this every time? Or only from my sister-witch?”

 

“Elena?”

 

“Awake and good as new,” Stefan said, getting in the picture. “We called as soon as we woke up—”

 

“Ele—but it’s noon!” Bonnie blurted out.

 

“We’ve been occupied with this and that,” Elena cut in smoothly, and oh, wasn’t it good to hear Elena talk that way! Half innocent and wholly smug about it, making you want to shake her and beg her for every wicked detail.

 

“Elena,”Bonnie gasped, using the nearest wall for support, and then sliding down it, and allowing an armload of socks, shirts, pajamas, and underwear to shower down onto the carpet, while tears began to leak out of her eyes. “Elena, they said you’d have to leave Fell’s Church—will you?”

 

Elena bridled. “They saidwhat?”

 

“That you and Stefan would have to leave for your own good.”

 

“Never in this world!”

 

“Little lovely lo—” began Stefan, and then abruptly he stopped, opening and shutting his mouth.

 

Bonnie stared. It had happened at the bottom of the screen, out of sight, but she could almost swear that Stefan’s little lovely love had just elbowed him in the stomach. “Ground zero, two o’clock?” Elena was asking.

 

Bonnie snapped back to reality. Elena never gave you time for reflection. “I’llbe there!” she cried.

 

“Elena,” Meredith breathed. And then “Elena!” like a half-chocked sob. “Elena!”

 

“Meredith. Oh, don’t make me cry, this blouse is pure silk!”

 

“It’s pure silk because it’s my pure silk sari blouse, that’s why!”

 

Elena suddenly looked as innocent as an angel. “You know, Meredith, I seem to have grown much taller lately—”

 

“If the end of that sentence is ‘so it really fitsme better’”—Meredith’s voice was threatening—“then I’m warning you, Elena Gilbert…” She broke off, and both girls began to laugh and then to cry. “You can have it! Oh, you can have it!”

 

“Stefan?” Matt waved his phone—first cautiously, then banging it into the wall of the garage. “I can’t see—” He stopped, swallowed. “E-le-na?” The word came out slowly, with a pause between each syllable.

 

“Yes, Matt. I’m back. Even up here.” She pointed to her forehead. “Will you meet with us?”

 

Matt, leaning on his newly purchased, almost-running car, was muttering, “Thank God, thank God,” over and over.

 

“Matt? I can’t see you. Are you okay?” Shuffling sounds. “I think he fainted.”

 

Stefan’s voice: “Matt? Shereally wants to see you.”

 

“Yeah, yeah.” Matt lifted his head up, blinking at the phone. “Elena, Elena…”

 

“I’m so sorry, Matt. You don’t have to come—”

 

Matt laughed shortly. “Are yousure you’re Elena?”

 

Elena smiled the smile that had broken a thousand hearts. “In that case—Matt Honeycutt, I insist that you come and meet with us at Ground Zero at two o’clock. Is that more like it?”

 

“I think you’ve almost got it down. The old Elena Imperial Manner.” He coughed theatrically, sniffed, and said, “Sorry—I’ve got a little cold; or allergies, maybe.”

 

“Don’t be silly, Matt. You’re bawling like a baby and so am I,” Elena said. “And so were Bonnie and Meredith, when I called them. SoI’ve been crying nearly all day—and at this rate I’ll have to scramble to get a picnic ready and be on time. Meredith’s planning to pick you up. Bring something to drink or eat. Love ya!”

 

Elena put down the phone, breathing hard.

 

“Nowthat was tough.”

 

“He still loves you.”

 

“He’d rather that I stayed a baby all my life?”

 

“Maybe he liked the way you used to say ‘hello’ and ‘good-bye.’”

 

“Now you’re teasing me.” Elena quivered her chin.

 

“Never in this world,” Stefan said softly. Then, suddenly, he grabbed her hand. “Come on—we’re going shopping for a picnic and a car, too,” he said, pulling her up.

 

Elena startled both of them by flying up so quickly that Stefan had to grab her by the waist to keep her from shooting toward the ceiling.

 

“I thought you had gravity!”

 

“So did I! What do I do?”

 

“Think heavy thoughts!”

 

“What if it doesn’t work?”

 

“We’ll buy you an anchor!”

 

At two o’clock Stefan and Elena arrived at the Fell’s Church graveyard in a brand-new red Jaguar; Elena was wearing dark glasses under a scarf with all her hair pinned up under it, a muffler around her lower face, and black lace mitts borrowed from Mrs. Flowers’ younger days, which she admitted she didn’t know why she was wearing. She made quite a picture, Meredith said, with the violet sari top and jeans. Bonnie and Meredith had already spread a cloth for a picnic, and the ants were sampling sandwiches and grapes and low-fat pasta salad.

 

Elena told the story of how she had woken up this morning, and then there was more hugging and kissing and crying than the males could stand.

 

“You want to see the woods around here? Check if those malach things are around?” Matt said to Stefan.

 

“They’d better not be,” Stefan said. “If the trees this far from where you had your accident are infested—”

 

“Not good?”

 

“Serious trouble.”

 

They were about to go when Elena called them back.

 

“You can stop looking all male and superior,” she added. “Suppressing your emotions isbad for you.Expressing them keeps you well balanced.”

 

“Listen, you’re tougher than I thought,” Stefan said. “Having picnics at a cemetery?”

 

“We used to find Elena here all the time,” Bonnie said, pointing to a nearby headstone with a celery stick.

 

“It’s my parents’ gravesite,” Elena explained simply. “After the accident—I always felt closer to them here than anywhere. I would come here when things got bad, or when I needed to have a question answered.”

 

“Did you ever get any answers?” Matt asked, taking a home-preserved cucumber pickle from a glass jar and passing the jar on.

 

“I’m not sure, even now,” Elena said. She had taken off the dark glasses, muffler, headscarf, and mitts. “But it always made me feel better. Why? Do you have a question?”

 

“Well—yeah,” Matt said unexpectedly. Then he flushed as he suddenly found himself the center of attention. Bonnie rolled over to stare at him, the stalk of celery at her lips, Meredith scooted in, Elena sat up. Stefan, who had been leaning against an elaborate headstone with unconscious vampire grace, sat down.

 

“What is it, Matt?”

 

“I was going to say, you don’t look right today,” Bonnie said anxiously.

 

“Thankyou,” Matt snapped.

 

Tears pooled in Bonnie’s brown eyes. “I didn’t mean—”

 

But she didn’t get to finish. Meredith and Elena drew in protectively around her in the solid phalanx of what they called “velociraptor sisterhood.” It meant that anybody messing with one of them was messing with them all.

 

“Sarcasm instead of chivalry? That’s hardly the Matt I know.” Meredith spoke with one eyebrow raised.

 

“She was only trying to be sympathetic,” Elena pointed out quietly. “And that was a cheap comeback.”

 

“Okay, okay! I’m sorry—reallysorry, Bonnie”—he turned toward her, looking ashamed—“It was a nasty thing to say and I know you were only trying to be nice. I just—I don’t really know what I’m doing or saying. Anyway, do you want to hear the thing,” he finished, looking defensive, “or not?”

 

Everyone did.

 

“Okay, here it is. I went to visit Jim Bryce this morning—you remember him?”

 

“Sure. I went out with him. Captain of the basketball team. Nice guy. A little bit young, but…” Meredith shrugged.

 

“Jim’s okay.” Matt swallowed. “Well, it’s just—I don’t want to gossip or anything, but—”

 

“Gossip!” the three girls commanded him in unison, like a Greek chorus.

 

Matt quailed. “Okay, okay! Well—I was supposed to be over there at ten o’clock, but I got there a little early, and—well, Caroline was there. She was leaving.”

 

There were three little shocked gasps and a sharp look from Stefan.

 

“You mean you think she spent the night with him?”

 

“Stefan!” Bonnie began. “This isn’t how proper gossip goes. You never just outright say what you think—”

 

“No,” Elena said evenly. “Let Matt answer. I can remember enough from before I could talk to be worried about Caroline.”

 

“More than worried,” Stefan said.

 

Meredith nodded. “It’s not gossip; it’s necessary information,” she said.

 

“Okay, then.” Matt gulped. “Well, yeah, that was what I thought. He said she’d come early to see his little sister, but Tamra is only about fifteen. And he turned bright red when he said it.”

 

There were sober glances between the others.

 

“Caroline’s always been…well, sleazy…” began Bonnie.

 

“But I’ve never heard that she even gave Jim a second glance,” finished Meredith.

 

They looked to Elena for an answer. Elena slowly shook her head. “I certainly can’t see any earthly reason for her visiting Tamra. And besides”—she looked up quickly at Matt—“you’re holding out on us somehow. What else happened?”

 

“Somethingmore happened? Did Caroline flash her lingerie?” Bonnie was laughing until she saw Matt’s red face. “Hey—c’mon, Matt. This isus. You can tell us anything.”

 

Matt drew in a deep breath and shut his eyes.

 

“Okay, well—as she was going out, I think—I think Caroline…propositioned me.”

 

“She didwhat?”

 

“She wouldnever —”

 

“How, Matt?” Elena asked.

 

“Well—Jim thought she’d left, and he went to the garage to get his basketball, and I turned around and suddenly Caroline was back again, and she said—well, it doesn’t matter what she said. But it was about her liking football better than basketball and did I want to be a sport.”

 

“And what did you say?” Bonnie breathed, fascinated.

 

“I didn’t say anything. I just stared at her.”

 

“And then Jim came back?” Meredith suggested.

 

“No! And then Caroline left—she gave me this look, you know, that made things pretty clear as to what she meant—and thenTami came in.” Matt’s honest face was flaming by now. “And then—I don’t know how to say it. Maybe Caroline said something about me to make her do it to me, because she—she…”

 

“Matt.” Stefan had scarcely spoken until this point; now he leaned forward and spoke quietly. “We’re not asking just because we want to gossip. We’re trying to find out if there’s something seriously wrong happening in Fell’s Church. So—please—just tell us what happened.”

 

 

Matt nodded, but he was blushing to the fair roots of his hair. “Tami…pressed herself against me.”

 

There was a long pause.

 

Meredith said levelly, “Matt, do you mean she hugged you? Like a biiiiiig hug? Or that she…” She stopped, because Matt was already shaking his head vehemently.

 

“It was no innocent biiiiiig hug. We were alone, in the doorway there, and she just…well, I couldn’t believe it. She’s only fifteen, but she acted like an adult woman. I mean…not that I’ve ever had an adult woman dothat to me.”

 

Looking embarrassed but relieved at having got this off his chest, Matt’s gaze went from face to face. “So what do you think? Was it just a coincidence that Caroline was there? Or did she…say something to Tamra?”

 

“No coincidence,” Elena said simply. “It’d be toomuch of a coincidence: Caroline coming on to you and then Tamra acting like that. I know—I used to know Tami Bryce. She’s a nice little girl—or she used to be.”

 

“She still is,” Meredith said. “I told you, I went out with Jim a few times. She’s a very nice girl, and not at all mature for her age. I don’t think she would normally do anything inappropriate, unless…” She stopped, looking into the middle distance, and then shrugged without finishing her sentence.

 

Bonnie looked serious now. “But we have to stop this,” she said. “What if she does that to some guy who’s not nice and shy like Matt? She’s going to get herself assaulted!”

 

“That’s the whole problem,” Matt said, turning red again. “I mean, it’s pretty difficult…. If she had been some other girl, that I was going on a date with—not that I go out with other girls on dates…” he added hastily, glancing at Elena.

 

“But youshould be going out on dates,” Elena said firmly. “Matt, I don’t want eternal fidelity from you—there’s nothing I’d like better than to see you dating a nice girl.” As if by accident, her gaze wandered over to Bonnie, who was now trying to crunch celery very quietly and neatly.

 

“Stefan, you’re the only one who can tell us what to do,” Elena said, turning to him.

 

Stefan was frowning. “I don’t know. With only two girls, it’s pretty hard to draw any conclusions.”

 

“So we’re going to wait and see what Caroline—or Tami—does next?” Meredith asked.

 

“Not just wait,” Stefan said. “We’ve got to find out more about it. You guys can keep an eye on Caroline and Tamra Bryce, and I can do some research on it.”

 

“Damn!” Elena said, hitting the ground with one fist. “I can almost—” She stopped suddenly and looked at her friends. Bonnie had dropped her celery, gasping, and Matt had choked on his Coke, going into a coughing fit. Even Meredith and Stefan were staring at her. “What?” she said blankly.

 

Meredith recovered first. “It’s just that yesterday you were—well, very young angels don’t swear.”

 

“Just because I died a couple of times, it means I have to say ‘darn’ for the rest of my life?” Elena shook her head. “Not. I’m me and I’m going to stay me—whoever I am.”

 

“Good,” said Stefan, leaning over to kiss the top of her head. Matt looked away and Elena gave Stefan an almost dismissive pat, but thinking,I love you forever, and knowing that he would pick it up even if she couldn’t hear his thought in return. In fact she found shecould pick up his general response to it, a warm rose color seemed to hang around him.

 

Was this what Bonnie saw and called an aura? She realized that most of the day she’d seen him with a light, cool, emerald sort of shadowing around him—if shadows could be light. And the green was returning now as the pink faded away.

 

Immediately she glanced over the rest of the picnickers. Bonnie was surrounded by a roselike color, shading to the palest of pinks. Meredith was a deep and profound violet. Matt was a strong clear blue.

 

It reminded her that up until yesterday—only yesterday?—she’d seen so many things that no one else could see. Including something that had scared her silly.

 

What had itbeen? She was getting flashes of images—little details that were scary enough by themselves. It could be as small as a fingernail or as large as an arm. Bark-like texture, at least on the body. Insect-like antennae, but far too many of them, and moving like whips, faster than any insect ever moved them. She had the general crawly feeling she got whenever she thought about insects. It was a bug, then. But a bug built on a different body plan than any insect she knew of. It was more like a leech in that respect, or a squid. It had a completely circular mouth, with sharp teeth all around, and far too many tentacles that looked like thick vines whipping around in back.

 

It could attach itself to a person, she thought. But she had a terrible feeling that it could do more.

 

It could turn transparent and pull itself inside you and you would feel no more than a pinprick.

 

Andthen what would happen?

 

Elena turned to Bonnie. “Do you think that if I show you what something looks like, you could recognize it again? Not with your eyes, but with your psychic senses?”

 

“I guess it depends on what the ‘something’ is,” Bonnie answered cautiously.

 

Elena glanced over at Stefan, who gave her briefest of nods.

 

“Then shut your eyes,” she said.

 

Bonnie did so, and Elena put her fingertips on Bonnie’s temples, with her thumbs gently brushing Bonnie’s eyelashes. Trying to activate her White Powers—something that had been so easy before today—was like striking two rocks together to make a fire and hoping one was flint. Finally she felt a small spark, and Bonnie jerked backward.

 

Bonnie’s eyes snapped open.“What was that?” she gasped. She was breathing hard.

 

“That’s what I saw—yesterday.”

 

“Where?”

 

Elena said slowly, “Inside Damon.”

 

“But what does it mean? Was he controlling it? Or…or…” Bonnie stopped and her eyes widened.

 

Elena finished the sentence for her. “Was it controlling him? I don’t know. But here’s one thing I do know, almost for certain. When he ignored your Calling, Bonnie, he was being influenced by the malach.”

 

“The question is,if not Damon, who was controlling it?” Stefan said, standing up again restlessly. “I picked that up, and the kind of creature Elena showed you—it’s not something with a mind of its own. It needs an outside brain to control it.”

 

“Like another vampire?” Meredith asked quietly.

 

Stefan shrugged. “Vampires usually just ignore them, because vampires can get what they want without them. It would have to be a very strong mind to get a malach like that to possess a vampire. Strong—and evil.”

 

“Those,” Damon said with biting grammatical precision, from where he was sitting on a high limb of an oak, “are they. My younger brother and his…associates.”

 

“Marvelous,” murmured Shinichi. He had draped himself even more gracefully and languidly against the oak than Damon had. It had become an unspoken contest. Shinichi’s golden eyes had flared once or twice—Damon had seen it—upon seeing Elena and at the mention of Tami.

 

“Don’t even try to tell me you’re not involved with those rowdy girls,” Damon added dryly. “From Caroline to Tamra and onward, that’s the idea, isn’t it?”

 

Shinichi shook his head. His eyes were on Elena and he began to sing a folksong softly.

 

“With cheeks like blooming roses

 

And hair like golden wheat…”

 

“I wouldn’t try it onthose girls.” Damon smiled without humor. His eyes were narrow. “Granted, they look about as strong as wet tissue paper—but they’re tougher than you’d think, and they’re toughest of all when one of them is in danger.”

 

“I told you, it’s not me doing it,” Shinichi said. He looked uneasy for the first time since Damon had seen him. Then he said, “Although I might know the originator.”

 

“Do tell,” Damon suggested, still narrow-eyed.

 

“Well—did I mention my younger twin? Her name is Misao.” He smiled winningly. “It means maiden.”

 

Damon felt an automatic stirring of appetite. He ignored it. He was too relaxed to think of hunting, and he wasn’t at all sure thatkitsune —fox-spirits, which Shinichi claimed to be—could be hunted. “No, youdidn’t mention her,” Damon said, absently scratching at the back of his neck. That mosquito bite was gone, but it had left behind a furious itching. “It must have somehow slipped your mind.”

 

“Well, she’s here somewhere. She came when I did, when we saw the flare of Power that brought back…Elena.”

 

Damon felt sure that the hesitation before the mention of Elena’s name was a fake. He tilted his head at thedon’t think you’re fooling me angle and waited.

 

“Misao likes to play games,” Shinichi said simply.

 

“Oh, yes? Like backgammon, chess, Go Fish, that sort of thing?”

 

Shinichi coughed theatrically, but Damon caught the glint of red in his eye. My, he reallywas overprotective of her, wasn’t he? Damon gave Shinichi one of his most incandescent smiles.

 

“I love her,” the young man with the black hair licked by fire said, and this time there was an open warning in his voice.

 

“Of course you do,” Damon said in soothing tones. “I can see that.”

 

“But, well, her games usually have the effect of destroying a town. Eventually. Not all at once.”

 

Damon shrugged. “This flyspeck of a village isn’t going to be missed. Of course, I get my girls out alive first.” Now it was his voice that held an open warning.

 

“Just as you like.” Shinichi was back to his normal, submissive self. “We’re allies, and we’ll keep to our deal. Anyway, it would be a shame to waste…all that.” His gaze drifted to Elena again.

 

“By the way, we won’t even discuss the little fiasco with your malach and me—or hers, if you insist. I’m pretty sure I’ve vaporized at least three of them, but if I see another one, our business relationship is over. I make a bad enemy, Shinichi. You don’t want to find out how bad.”

 

Shinichi looked suitably impressed as he nodded. But the next moment he was gazing at Elena again, and singing.

 

“…hair like golden wheat

 

all a-down her milk-white shoulders;

 

My pretty pink, my sweet…”

 

“And I’ll want to meet this Misao of yours. For her protection.”

 

“And I know she wants to meet you. She’s caught up in her game at the moment, but I’ll try to tear her away from it.” Shinichi stretched luxuriously.

 

Damon looked at him for a moment. Then, absent-mindedly, he too stretched.

 

Shinichi was watching him. He smiled.

 

Damon wondered about that smile. He had noticed that when Shinichi smiled, two little flames of crimson could be seen in his eyes.

 

But he was really too tired to think about it right now. Simply too relaxed. In fact he suddenly felt very sleepy….

 

“So we’re going to be looking for these malach things in girls like Tami?” Bonnie asked.

 

“Exactly like Tami,” said Elena.

 

“And you think,” Meredith said, watching Elena closely, “that Tami got it somehow from Caroline.”

 

“Yes. I know, I know—the question is: where did Caroline get it from? And that Idon’t know. But, again, we don’t know what happened to her when she was kidnapped by Klaus and Tyler Smallwood. We don’t know anything about what she’s been doing for the last week—except that it’s clear she never really stopped hating us.”

 

Matt held his head in his hands. “And then what are we going todo? I feel as if I’m responsible somehow.”

 

“No—Jimmy’s responsible, if anyone is. If he—you know, let Caroline spend the night—and then let her talk about it with his fifteen-year-old sister…. Well, it doesn’t make himguilty, but he sure could have been a little more subtle,” Stefan said.

 

“And that’s whereyou’re wrong,” Meredith told him. “Matt and Bonnie and Elena and I have known Caroline forages andwe know what she’s capable of. If anyone qualifies as their sister’s keeper—it’s us. And I think we’re in serious delinquency of duty. I vote we stop by her house.”