Contents 7 страница

heat—putting herself in greater danger. And, incidentally, losing her

chance to find Stefan.

Should she have gone with Matt? But Damon had said they

couldn’t get into this Dark Dimension place, not two humans by

themselves. He’d said they needed him with them. And Elena still had

some doubts as to whether Damon would take the trouble to even drive

to Arizona, much less search for Stefan, if she wasn’t with him every

step of the way.

Besides, how could Matt have protected her on the dangerous road

she and Damon were following? Elena knew that Matt would die for

her—and that’s just what he would do, too, if they came up against

vampires or werewolves. Die. Leaving Elena facing her enemies alone.

Oh, yes, Elena knew what Damon did each night when she slept in

the car. He put some kind of dark spells around her, signing them with

his name, sealing them with his seal, and they kept random creatures of

the night away from the car until morning.

But their greatest enemies, the kitsune twins, Shinichi and Misao,

they had brought with them.

Elena thought about all this before raising her head to look Damon

in the eyes. Eyes which, at that moment, reminded her of those of a

ragged child chained to a rock.

“You’re not going to leave, are you?” he whispered.

Elena shook her head.

“You’re really not afraid of me?”

“Oh, I’m afraid.” Again Elena felt that inward shiver. But she was

flying somewhere now, she had set the course, and there was no way

that she could stop. Especially not when he looked at her like that. It

reminded her of the fierce joy, the almost reluctant pride he always

showed when they took down an enemy together.

“I won’t become your Princess of Darkness,” she told him. “And

you know that I could never give up Stefan.”

A ghost of his old mocking smile touched his lips. “There’s plenty

of time to convince you to my way of thinking on those matters.”

No need, Elena thought. She knew that Stefan would understand.

But even now, when it seemed the whole world was whirling

around her, something rose up in Elena to challenge Damon. “You say

it’s not Shinichi. I believe you. But is all this because—of what Caroline

said?” She could hear the sudden hardness in her own voice.

“Caroline?” Damon blinked as if thrown off his stride.

“She said that before I met Stefan I was just a—” Elena found it

impossible to get the last word out. “That I was…promiscuous.”

Damon’s jaw hardened and his cheeks flushed quickly—as if he’d

been struck from an unexpected direction. “That girl,” he muttered.

“She’s already fixed her destiny and if it were anyone else I might be

inclined to take some pity. But she

goes…beyond…she’s…beyond…any propriety…” As he spoke his

words slowed, and a look of bewilderment clouded his face. He was

gazing at Elena and she knew he could see the tears standing in her eyes,

because he reached up to brush them away with his fingers. As he did,

however, he stopped dead in midmotion, and, his face suddenly

bemused, he brought one of his hands up to his lips, tasting her tears.

Whatever they tasted like to him, he didn’t seem to believe it. He

brought the other hand up to his lips as well. Elena was openly staring at

him now; he should have been put out of countenance—but he wasn’t.

Instead a kaleidoscope of expressions passed over his face, too quickly

for her human eyes to catch them all. But she did see astonishment,

disbelief, bitterness, more astonishment, and then finally a kind of joyful

shock and a look almost as if there were tears in his own eyes.

And then Damon laughed. It was a quick, self-mocking laugh, but

it was genuine, euphoric, even.

“Damon,” Elena said, still blinking back tears—it had all happened

that fast—“what is wrong with you?”

“Nothing’s wrong, everything’s right,” he said, while raising a

scholarly finger. “You should never try to fool a vampire, Elena.

Vampires have many senses humans don’t—and some we don’t even

know we have until we need them. It’s taken me long enough to realize

what I know about you. Because, of course, everyone was telling me one

thing, and my own mind was telling me something else. But I’ve figured

it out, at last. I know what you really are, Elena.”

For half a minute Elena sat in shocked silence. “If you do, then I

might as well tell you right now that no one will believe you.”

“Maybe not,” Damon said, “especially if they’re human. But

vampires are programmed to recognize the aura of a maiden. And you

are unicorn-bait, Elena. I don’t know or care how you got your

reputation. I was fooled by it myself for a long time, but I’ve finally

found the truth.” Suddenly he was bending over her so that she could see

nothing but him, his fine hair brushing her forehead, his lips close to

hers, his dark eyes, fathomless, capturing her gaze.

“Elena,” he whispered. “This is your secret. I don’t know how

you’ve managed it, but…you’re a virgin.”

He leaned in toward her, his lips just brushing hers, sharing his

deliberate breaths with hers. They stayed like that for a long, long time,

Damon seeming enthralled to be able to give Elena something from his

own body: the oxygen that both she and he needed, but acquired in

different ways. For many humans, the stillness of their bodies, the

silence, and the sustained eye contact, for neither of them had shut their

eyes, might have been too much. It might have felt as if they had

plunged themselves into their partner’s personalities too far, that they

were losing definition and becoming an ethereal part of each other

before one kiss had even been completed.

But Elena was floating on air: on the breath that Damon gave

her—and in the literal sense. If Damon’s strong, long, slender hands had

not held her shoulders, she would have escaped his grip entirely.

Elena knew that there was another way that he could keep her

down. He could Influence her to let gravity have its way with her. But so

far, she had felt not the slightest touch of attempted Influence. It was as

if he still wanted to give her the honor of choice. He would not seduce

her by any of his many accustomed methods, the tricks of domination

learned over half a millennium of nights.

Only the breathing, which was coming more and more quickly, as

Elena felt her senses begin to swim and her heart began to pound. Was

she truly sure that Stefan wouldn’t mind this? But Stefan had given her

the greatest honor possible by trusting in her love and her judgment. And

she was beginning to feel Damon’s true self, his overwhelming need for

her; his vulnerability because that need was becoming like an obsession

to him. Without attempting to Influence her, he was still spreading great

soft dark wings all around her so that there was nowhere to run, nowhere

to escape. Elena felt herself begin to swoon with the intensity of the

passion they had wrought between them. As a final gesture, not of

repudiation, but of invitation, she arched her head back, exposing to him

her bare throat, and let him feel her longing.

And as if great, crystal bells were ringing in the distance, she felt

his jubilation at her voluntary surrender to the velvet darkness that was

overtaking her.

She never felt the teeth that broke her skin and claimed her blood.

Before that happened she was seeing stars. And then the universe was

swallowed up in Damon’s dark eyes.

T he next morning Elena got up and dressed quietly in the motel room,

grateful for the extra space. Damon was gone, but she had expected that.

He usually got his breakfast early while they were on the road, preying

on waitresses at all-night truck stops or early-morning diners.

She was going to discuss that with him someday, she thought as

she put the packet of ground coffee in the little two-cup percolator the

motel provided. It smelled good.

But more urgently, she needed to talk to someone about what had

happened last night. Stefan was her first choice, of course, but she’d

found that out of body experiences weren’t just to be had for the asking.

What she needed to do was call Bonnie and Meredith. She had to talk to

them—it was her right—but now, of all times, she couldn’t. Intuitively,

she felt that any contact between her and Fell’s Church might be bad.

And Matt had never checked in. Not once. She had no idea where

he was on the road, but he had better be in Sedona on time, that was all.

He had deliberately cut off all communication between them. Fine. As

long as he showed up when he had promised.

But…Elena still needed to talk. To express herself.

Of course! She was an idiot! She still had her faithful companion

that never said a word, and never kept her waiting. Pouring herself a cup

of scalding black coffee on the way, Elena dug her diary out of the

bottom of her duffel bag and opened it to a fresh, clean page. There was

nothing like a fresh page and an ink pen that ran smoothly to start her

writing.

Fifteen minutes later there was a rattle at one window and a minute

later Damon was stepping through. He had several paper bags with him

and Elena felt unaccountably pleased and homey. She had provided

coffee, which was rather good even if it came with dried cream

substitute, and Damon had supplied…

“Gasoline,” he said triumphantly, raising his eyebrows

significantly at her as he set the bags on the table. “Just in case they try

to use plants against us. No, thanks,” he added, seeing she was standing

with a full cup of coffee held in his direction. “I had a garage mechanic

while I was buying this. I’ll just go wash my hands.”

And he disappeared, walking right past Elena.

Walking right past her, without a glance, even though she was

wearing her only clean pair of clothes left: jeans and a subtly colored top

that looked white at first glance and only in the brightest light revealed

that it was ethereally rainbow-shaded.

Without a single look, Elena thought, feeling a strange sensation

that somehow her life had just lapped itself.

She started to throw the coffee away but then decided she needed it

herself and drank it in a few scalding gulps.

Then she went and stood by her diary, reading over the last two or

three pages.

“Are you ready to go?” Damon was shouting over the sound of

running water in the bathroom.

“Yes—in just a minute.” Elena read the diary pages from the

previous entry, and began skimming the one before that.

“We might as well go straight west from here,” Damon shouted.

“We can make it in one day. They’ll think it’s a feint for one particular

gate and search all the small ones. Meanwhile we’ll go on heading for

the Kimon Gate and be days ahead of anyone tracking us. It’s perfect.”

“Uh-huh,” Elena said, reading.

“We ought to be able to meet Mutt tomorrow—maybe even this

evening, depending on what kind of trouble they cause.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But first I wanted to ask you: do you think it’s a coincidence that

our window is broken? Because I always put wards on them at night and

I’m sure—” He passed a hand over his forehead. “I’m sure that I must

have done that last night, as well. But something got through and broke

the window and got away without a trace. That was why I bought all the

the gasoline. If they try something with trees, I’ll blast them all back to

Stonehenge.”

And half the innocent residents of the state, Elena thought grimly.

But she was in a state of such shock that not much could make an

impression on top of it.

“What are you doing now?” Damon was clearly ready to get up

and going.

“Getting rid of something I don’t need,” Elena said, and flushed

the toilet, watching the torn-up bits of her diary swirl round and round

before disappearing.

“I wouldn’t worry about the window, though,” she said, coming

back into the bedroom and slipping her shoes on. “And don’t get up for a

minute, Damon. I’ve got to talk to you about something.”

“Oh, come on. It can wait until we’re on the road, can’t it?”

“No, it can’t, because we’ve got to pay for that window. You broke

it last night, Damon. But you don’t remember doing it, do you?”

Damon stared at her. She could tell that his first temptation was to

laugh. His second temptation, to which he gave in, was to think that she

was nuts.

“I’m serious,” she said, once he had gotten up and started to pace

toward the window with a distinct look of wanting to be a crow flying

out of it. “Don’t you dare go anywhere, Damon, because there’s more.”

“More stuff I did that I don’t remember?” Damon lounged against

the wall in one of his old, arrogant poses. “Maybe I smashed a few

guitars, kept the radio on until four A.M.?”

“No. Not necessarily things from—last night,” Elena said, looking

away. She couldn’t look at him. “Other things, from other days—”

“Like maybe I’ve been trying to sabotage this trip all along,” he

said, his voice laconic. He eyed the ceiling and sighed heavily. “Maybe

I’ve done it just to be alone with you—”

“Shut up, Damon!”

Where had that come from? Well, she knew that, of course. From

her feelings about last night. The problem was that she also had to get

some other things settled—seriously, if he would take them. Come to

think of it, that might be a better way to go about this.

“Do you think that your feelings about Stefan—well, have changed

at all recently?” Elena asked.

“What?”

“Do you think”—oh, this was so difficult looking into black eyes

the color of endless space. Especially when last night they had been full

of myriads of stars—“do you think that you’ve come to think of him

differently? To honor his wishes more than you used to do?”

Now Damon was openly examining her, just as she was examining

him.

“Are you serious?” he said.

“Completely,” she said, and, with a supreme effort, she sent her

tears back where they were supposed to go.

“Something did happen last night,” he said. He was looking

intently at her face. “Didn’t it?”

“ Something happened, yes,” Elena said. “It was—it was more of

a—” She had to let out her breath, and with that almost everything went.

“Shinichi! Shinichi, che bastardo! Imbroglione! That thief! I’m

going to kill him slowly!” Suddenly Damon was everywhere. He was

beside her, his hands on her shoulders; the next minute he was shouting

imprecations out the window, then he was back, holding both her hands.

But only one word mattered to Elena. Shinichi. The kitsune with

his black, scarlet-tipped hair, who had made them give up so much just

for the location of Stefan’s cell.

“ Mascalzone! Maleducato— ” Elena lost track of Damon’s cursing

again. So it was true. Last night had been completely stolen from

Damon, taken from his mind as simply and completely as the interval

when she had used Wings of Redemption and Wings of Purification on

him. The latter he had agreed to. But last night—and what other things

had the fox been taking?

To cut out an entire evening and night—and this evening and night

in particular, implied that…

“He never shut down the connection between my mind and his. He

still can reach inside me any time he chooses.” Damon had finally

stopped swearing, and stopped moving. He was sitting on the couch

opposite the bed with his hands drooping between his knees. He looked

singularly forlorn.

“Elena, you have to tell me. What did he take from me last night?

Please!” Damon looked as if he might fall on his knees in front of her,

without melodrama. “If—if—it was what I think—”

Elena smiled, although tears were still running down her face. “It

wasn’t—what anyone would think, exactly, I suppose,” she said.

“But—!”

“Let’s just say that this time—was mine,” Elena said. “If he’s

stolen anything else from you, or if he tries to do it in the future, then

he’s fair game. But this…will be my secret.” Until maybe someday you

break into your huge boulder of secrets, she thought.

“Until I tear it out of him, along with his tongue and his tail!”

snarled Damon, and it was truly the snarl of an animal. Elena was glad it

wasn’t directed at her. “Don’t worry,” Damon added in a voice so

chilling that it was almost more frightening than the animal fury. “I will

find him, no matter where he tries to hide. And I will take it from him. I

might just take his entire little furry hide off with it. I’ll make you a pair

of mittens out of it, how’s that?”

Elena tried to smile and did a pretty good job. She was just coming

to terms with what had happened herself, although she didn’t believe for

a minute that Damon would really leave her alone on the subject until he

forced the memory back out of Shinichi. She realized that on some level

she was punishing Damon for what Shinichi had done, and that was

wrong. I promise no one will know about last night, she told herself. Not

until Damon does. I won’t even tell Bonnie and Meredith.

This made things a lot harder on her, and therefore probably more

equitable.

As they were cleaning up the debris from Damon’s most recent fit

of fury, he suddenly reached up to brush a stray tear from Elena’s cheek.

“Thank you—” Elena began. Then she stopped. Damon was

touching his fingers to his lips.

He looked at her, startled and a little disappointed. Then he

shrugged. “Still unicorn bait,” he said. “Did I say that last night?”

Elena hesitated, then decided that his words didn’t fall within the

crucial time limits of secrecy.

“Yes, you did. But—you won’t give me away, will you?” she

added, suddenly anxious. “I’ve promised my friends not to say

anything.”

Damon was staring at her. “Why should I say anything about

anybody? Unless you’re talking about the little redheaded one?”

“I told you; I’m not saying anything. Except that obviously

Caroline isn’t a virgin. Well, with all the ruckus about her being

pregnant—”

“But you remember,” Damon interjected, “I came to Fell’s Church

before Stefan did; I just lurked in the shadows longer. The way you

talked—”

“Oh, I know. We liked boys and boys liked us, and we already had

reputations. So we just talked any way we felt like talking. Some of it

may have been true, but a lot of it you could take two ways—and then of

course you know how boys talk—”

Damon knew. He nodded.

“Well and so pretty soon everyone was talking about us as if we’d

done everything with everyone. They even wrote stuff about it in the

paper and the yearbook and on the bathroom walls. But we had a little

poem, too, and sometimes we even wrote it with our signatures on it.

How did it go?” Elena cast her mind back a year, two years, more. Then

she recited:

“Just because you heard it, doesn’t make it true.

Just because you read it, doesn’t make it so.

The next time that you hear it, it may be about you.

Don’t think that you can change their minds, just ’cause you

know—you know!”

As Elena finished, she looked at Damon, suddenly feeling the

urgent need to get to Stefan. “We’re almost there,” she said. “Let’s

hurry.”

A rizona was as hot and barren a state as Elena had imagined. She and

Damon drove directly to the Juniper Resort, and Elena was depressed, if

not surprised, to see that Matt was not checked in.

“It can’t have taken him longer than us to get here,” she said, as

soon as they’d been shown up to their rooms. “Unless—oh, God,

Damon! Unless Shinichi caught him somehow.”

Damon sat down on a bed and regarded Elena grimly. “I guess I

hoped I wouldn’t have to tell you this—that the jerk would at least have

the courtesy to tell you himself. But I’ve been tracking his aura ever

since he left us. It’s been getting steadily farther away—in the direction

of Fell’s Church.”

Sometimes, really bad news takes a while to sink in.

“You mean,” Elena said, “that he’s not going to show up here at

all?”

“I mean that, as the crow flies, it wasn’t all that far from where we

got the cars to Fell’s Church. He went in that direction. And he didn’t

come back.”

“But why?” Elena demanded, as if logic could somehow conquer

fact. “Why would he go off and leave me? Especially, why would he go

to Fell’s Church, where they’re looking for him?”

“As for why he’d leave: I think he got the wrong idea about you

and me—or maybe the right idea a little early”—Damon raised his

eyebrows at Elena and she threw a pillow at him—“and decided to let us

have some privacy. As for why Fell’s Church…” Damon shrugged.

“Look, you’ve known the guy longer than I have. But even I can tell

he’s the Galahad type. The parfait gentil knight, sans peur et sans

reproche. If I had to say I’d say he went to meet Caroline’s charges.”

“Oh, no,” Elena said, going to the door as a knock sounded. “Not

after I told him and told him—”

“Oh, yes,” Damon said, assuming a slight crouching position.

“Even with your sage advice ringing in his ears—”

The door opened. It was Bonnie. Bonnie, with her petite frame, her

curly strawberry hair, her wide, soulful brown eyes. Elena, in a state to

disbelieve the evidence of her own eyes, and still not through with the

argument with Damon, shut the door on her.

“Matt’s going to get lynched,” Elena almost screamed, vaguely

annoyed that some knocking was going on somewhere.

Damon uncrouched. He passed Elena on the way to the door, said,

“I think you’d better sit down,” and then sat her down by putting her in a

chair and holding her there until she stopped trying to get up again.

Then he opened the door.

This time it was Meredith knocking. Tall and willowy, with her

hair falling in dark clouds around her shoulders, Meredith radiated the

intention to go on knocking until the door stayed open. Something

happened inside Elena, and she found that she could get her mind around

more than one subject at once.

It was Meredith. And Bonnie. In Sedona, Arizona!

Elena leaped up from the chair where Damon had put her and flung

her arms around Meredith, saying incoherently, “You came! You came!

You knew I couldn’t call you, so you came!”

Bonnie edged around the embrace and said to Damon in an

undertone, “Is she back to kissing everyone she meets?”

“Unfortunately,” Damon said, “no. But be prepared to be squeezed

to death.”

Elena turned on him. “I heard that! Oh, Bonnie! I just can’t believe

you two are really here. I wanted to talk to you so much!”

Meanwhile, she was hugging Bonnie, and Bonnie was hugging her,

and Meredith was hugging both of them. Subtle velociraptor sisterhood

signals were being passed from one to another at the same time—an

arched eyebrow here, a slight nod there, a frown and shrug ending with

a sigh. Damon didn’t know it, but he had just been accused, tried,

acquitted, and restored to duty—with the conclusion that extra

surveillance was necessary in the future.

Elena snapped out of it first. “You must have met with Matt—he

had to tell you about this place.”

“He did, and then he sold the Prius and we sort of packed on the

run and got plane tickets here and we’ve been waiting—we didn’t want

to miss you!” Bonnie said breathlessly.

“I don’t suppose that would have been just about two days ago that

you bought your tickets here,” Damon asked the ceiling wearily as he

lounged with an elbow on Elena’s chair.

“Let me see—” Bonnie began, but Meredith said flatly, “Yes it

was. What? It made something happen to you?”

“We were trying to keep things slightly ambiguous for the enemy,”

Damon said. “But as it turns out, it probably didn’t matter.”

No, Elena thought, because Shinichi can reach inside your brain

whenever he wants and try to take away your memories and all you can

do is try to fight him off.

“But it does mean that Elena and I should start off right away.”

Damon continued. “I have to do an errand first. Elena should pack. Take

as little as you can, just the absolute essentials—but include food for two

or three days.”

“You said…starting now?” Bonnie breathed, and then she sat down

abruptly on the floor.

“It makes sense, if we’ve already lost the element of surprise,”

Damon replied.

“I can’t believe you two came to say good-bye to me while Matt

watches over the town,” Elena said. “That is so sweet!” She smiled

radiantly before adding, in her own mind, And so dumb!

“Well—”

“Well, I still have an errand,” Damon said, waving without turning

around. “Let’s say we’ll leave here in half an hour.”

“Stingy,” Bonnie complained, when the door was safely shut

behind him. “That might have only given us a few minutes to talk before

we start.”

“I can pack in less than five minutes,” Elena said sadly, and then

got tangled up in Bonnie’s previous sentence. “‘ Before we start ’?”

“I can’t pack just essentials at all,” Meredith was fretting quietly.

“I couldn’t store everything on my mobile, and I have no idea when I’ll

be able to recharge the batteries. I’ve got a suitcase of stuff on paper!”

Elena was looking back and forth at them nervously. “Um, I’m

pretty sure I’m the one who’s supposed to be packing,” she said.

“Because I’m the only one going…right?” Another look back and forth.

“As if we would let you set off into some other universe without

us!” Bonnie said. “You need us!”

“Not another universe; only another dimension,” Meredith said.

“But the same principle applies.”

“But—I can’t let you come with me!”

“Of course you can’t. I’m older than you,” Meredith said. “You

don’t ‘let’ me do anything. But the truth is that we have a mission. We

want to find Shinichi’s or Misao’s star ball if we can. If we could do that

we think we could stop most of the stuff going on in Fell’s Church

immediately.”

“Star ball?” Elena said blankly, while somewhere in the depths of

her mind, an uneasy image stirred.

“I’ll explain later.”

Elena was shaking her head. “But—you left Matt to deal with

whatever supernatural stuff is going on? When he’s a fugitive and has to

hide from the police?”

“Elena, even the police are scared of Fell’s Church now—and

frankly, if they put him in custody in Ridgemont it might be the safest

place for him. But they’re not going to do that. He’s working with Mrs.

Flowers and they’re good together; they’re a solid team.” Meredith

stopped to take a breath, and seemed to be considering how to say

something.

Bonnie said it for her in a very small voice. “And I was no good,

Elena. I’d started—well, I started to get hysterical and see and hear

things that weren’t there—or at least to imagine them and maybe even

make them come true. I was scaring myself out of my mind, and I think I

actually was putting people in danger. Matt’s too practical to do that.”

She dabbed at her eyes. “I know the Dark Dimension is pretty bad, but at