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the corner of her eye. Her psychic senses were open enough to catch his

thoughts. He was going over the valuables in the room with an

experienced but bored gaze. The exquisite miniature vase with the

trailing roses picked out in rubies and emerald-encrusted vines; the

magically preserved 5,000-year-old wooden Sumerian lyre; the twin pair

of solid gold candlesticks in the shape of rearing dragons; the Egyptian

funerary mask with its dark, elongated eyeholes seeming to watch out of

its brilliantly painted features…all were here. It wasn’t even as if her

ladyship kept anything of great value here, but still, “This room is not

part of the public display,” he told Damon, who merely clasped Elena

closer.Y es, Damon seemed very determined to put on a good show for

the steward…or something like that. But hadn’t they already…done so?

Elena’s thoughts were losing coherency. The last thing…the very last

thing that they could afford…was to…lose the chance of…finding the

fox key. Elena started to pull away, and then realized that she mustn’t.

Mustn’t. Not couldn’t. She was property, expensive property to be

sure, decked out the way she was tonight, but Damon’s to dispose of as

he chose. While someone else was looking on, she must not seem to

disobey her master’s wishes.

Still, Damon was taking this too far…farther than he had ever

taken liberties with her, although, she thought wryly, he didn’t know

that. He was caressing the skin left unprotected by the ivory goddess

dress, her arms, her back, even her hair. He knew how she liked that,

how she could somehow feel it when her hair was held and the ends

caressed softly or gently crushed in a fist.

Damon! She was down to the last resort now: pleading. Damon, if

they detain us, or do anything to us that keeps us from finding the key

tonight—when will we have another chance? …She let him feel her

desperation, her guilt, even the treacherous desire she had to forget

everything and let each minute carry her further on this wave of ardor

that he had created. Damon, I’ll…say it if you want. I’m…begging you.

Elena could feel her eyes prickling as tears flooded them.

No tears. Elena heard Damon’s telepathic voice gratefully. There

was something strange about it, though. It couldn’t be starvation—he’d

had her blood not much more than two hours ago. And it wasn’t passion,

for she could hear—and sense—that, all too clearly. Yet Damon’s

telepathic voice was so taut with control that it almost frightened her.

More, she knew he could feel that it frightened her and that he chose to

do nothing about it. No explanation. No exploration, either, she realized

as she found that behind the control, his mind was entirely shut to her.

The only thing she could liken the feeling that she got from his

steely control was pain. Pain that was just on the edge of the endurable.

But from what? Elena wondered helplessly.

What could cause him pain like that?

Elena couldn’t waste their time on wondering what was wrong

with Damon. She turned up the Power of her own hearing and began to

listen at the doors before they entered.

It was while she was listening that suddenly a new idea solidified

in Elena’s mind, and she stopped Damon in a pitch-dark hallway and

tried to explain to him what kind of room she was looking for. What, in

modern days, would be called a “home office.”

Damon, familiar with the architecture of great mansions, took her,

after only a few false starts, into what was clearly a lady’s writing room.

Elena’s eyes were by now as keen as his in the dimness as they searched

by the light of a single candle.

While Elena was being frustrated after searching a remarkable

desk with pigeonholes for secret drawers, and not finding any, Damon

was checking the hallway.

“I hear someone outside,” he said. “I think it’s time to leave now.”

But Elena was still looking. And—as her eyes raced across the

room—she saw a small writing desk with an old-fashioned chair and an

assortment of various pens, from ancient to modern, flaunting

themselves from elaborate holders.

“Let’s go while it’s still clear,” Damon murmured impatiently.

“Yes,” Elena said distractedly. “All right…”

And then she saw.

Without an instant’s hesitation she strode across the room to the

desk and picked up a pen with a brilliant silver plume. It wasn’t a

genuine quill pen, of course; it was a fountain pen made to look elegant

and old-fashioned—with a plume. The pen itself was curved to fit her

hand, and the wood felt warm.

“Elena, I don’t feel very…”

“Damon, shhh,” Elena said, ignoring him, too absorbed in what she

was doing to really hear. First: try to write. No go. Something was

blocking the cartridge. Second: unscrew the fountain-pen carefully, as if

to refill its cartridge, while all the time her heart was clamoring in her

ears and her hands were shaking. Keep moving slowly…don’t miss

anything…for God’s sake don’t let anything fall away and bounce in this

dimness. The two parts of the pen parted in her hand…

…and onto the dark green desk pad fell a small, heavy, curved

piece of metal. It had just fit inside the widest part of the pen. She had it

in her hand and was reassembling the pen before she could get a good

look at it. But then…she had to open her hand and see.

The small crescent-shaped object dazzled her eyes in the light, but

it was just like the description Bonnie had given Elena and Meredith. A

tiny representation of a fox with a nominal body and a jewel-encrusted

head that sported two flat ears. The eyes were two sparkling green

stones. Emeralds?

“Alexandrite,” Damon said in a bedroom whisper. “Folklore has it

that they change color in candlelight or firelight. They reflect the flame.”

Elena, who had been leaning back against him, recalled with a chill

the way Damon’s eyes had reflected flame when he had been possessed:

the bloodred flame of the malach—of Shinichi’s cruelty.

“So,” Damon demanded, “how did you do it?”

“This is really one of the two pieces of the fox key?”

“Well, it’s hardly something that belongs in a fountain pen. Maybe

it’s a Crackerjack prize. But you went right to it the moment we entered

the room. Even vampires need time to think, my precious princess.”

Elena shrugged. “It’s too easy, actually. When it was clear that all

those harp keys were no goes, I asked myself what else was an

instrument that you’d find in someone’s house. A pen is a writing

instrument. Then I just had to find out whether Lady Fazina had a study

or writing room.”

Damon let out a breath. “Hell’s demons, you little innocent. You

know what I’ve been looking for? Trap doors. Secret entries to

dungeons. The only other instrument I could think of was an ‘instrument

of torture’ and you’d be surprised at how many of them you’ll find in

this fair city.”

“But not in her house—!” Elena’s voice rose dangerously, and

they were both silent a moment to make up for it, listening, on

tenterhooks, for any sound from the hallway.

There was none.

Elena let out her breath. “Quick! Where, where will it be safe?”

She was realizing that the one fault of the goddess dress was that there

was absolutely no place to hide anything. She’d have to speak to Lady

Ulma about that for next time.

“Down, down in the pocket of my jeans,” Damon said, seeming to

be as urgent and shaking as badly as she was. When he had jammed it

deep into the recesses of his black Armani jeans he caught her by both

hands. “Elena! Do you realize? We’ve done it. We’ve actually done it!”

“I know!” Tears were leaking out of Elena’s eyes and all of Lady

Fazina’s music seemed to be swelling in one great, perfect chord. “We

did it together!”

And then somehow—like all the other “somehows” that were

getting to be a habit with them, Elena was in Damon’s arms, sliding her

own arms under his jacket to feel his warmth, his solidity. She wasn’t

surprised, either, to feel a double piercing at her throat when she

dropped her head back: her lovely panther was really only a little tamed,

and needed to learn a few basics of dating etiquette; such as you kiss

before you bite.

He had said he was hungry earlier, she remembered, and she had

ignored him, too enthralled by the silver pen to put the words together.

But she put them together now, and understood—except why he seemed

to be so exceptionally hungry tonight.

Maybe even…excessively hungry.

Damon, she thought gently, you’re taking a lot.

She could feel no response but the raw hunger of the panther.

Damon, this could be dangerous…for me. This time Elena put as

much Power as she could into the words she sent.

Still no response from Damon, but she was floating now, down

into darkness. And that gave her the vague thread of an idea.

Where are you? Are you here? she called, picturing the little boy.

And then she saw him, chained to his boulder, curled up in a ball,

with his fists covering his eyes.

What’s wrong? Elena asked immediately, floating near to him,

concerned.

He’s hurting! He’s hurting!

Are you hurt? Show me, Elena said instantly.

No! He’s hurting you. He could kill you!

Husshh. Husshhh. She tried to cradle him.

We have to make him hear us!

All right, Elena said. She really was feeling odd and weak. But she

turned, along with the child, and cried voicelessly: Damon! Please!

Elena says stop!

And a miracle happened.

Both she and the child could feel it. The little sting of fangs being

withdrawn. The stop of energy flow from Elena to Damon.

And then, ironically, the miracle began to take her away from the

child, with whom she really wanted to speak.

No! Wait! she tried to tell Damon, clinging to the child’s hands as

hard as she could, but she was being catapulted back to consciousness as

if by a hurricane. The darkness faded. In its place was a room, too

bright, its one candle blazing like a police searchlight aimed directly at

her. She shut her eyes and felt the warmth and heaviness of the corporeal

Damon in her arms.

“I’m sorry! Elena, can you speak? I didn’t realize how much—”

There was something wrong with Damon’s voice. Then she understood.

Damon’s fangs were unretracted.

Wha—? Everything was wrong. They’d been so happy, but—but

now her right arm felt wet.

Elena pulled away from Damon entirely, staring at her arms, which

were red and with something that wasn’t paint.

She was still too worked up to ask questions properly. She slipped

behind Damon and pulled his black leather jacket off him. In the brilliant

light she could see his black silk shirt marred by line after line of dried,

partially dried, or just plain wet blood.

“Damon!” Her first reaction was horror without a touch of guilt or

understanding. “What happened? Did you get in a fight? Damon, tell

me!”

And then something in her mind presented her with a number.

Since she had been a child, she had been able to count. In fact. she’d

learned to count to ten before her first birthday. Therefore, she’d had

seventeen full years of learning to count the number of irregular, deep,

still-bleeding cuts in Damon’s back.

Ten.

Elena looked down at her own bloody arms and at the goddess

dress, which was now the horror dress because its pure milky whiteness

was marred with brilliant red.

Red that should have been her blood. Red that must have felt like

sword slashes into Damon’s back as he channeled the pain and the

marks of the Night of her Discipline from her to him.

And he carried me all the way home. The thought came swimming

in from nowhere. Without a word about it. I would never have known….

And he still hasn’t healed. Will he ever heal?

That was when she started screaming on all frequencies.

S omeone was trying to make her drink out of a glass. Elena’s sense of

smell was so acute that she could taste what was in the glass

already—Black Magic wine. And she didn’t want that! No! She spat it

out. They couldn’t make her drink.

“ Mon enfant, it is for your own good. Now, drink it.” Elena turned

her head away. She felt the darkness and the hurricane rushing up to take

her. Yes. That was better. Why wouldn’t they leave her alone?

In the very deepest trenches of communication, a little boy was

with her in the dark. She remembered him, but not his name. She held

out her arms and he came into them and it seemed that his chains were

lighter than they had been…when? Before. That was all she could

remember.

Are you all right? she whispered to the child. Down here, deep in

the heart of communion, a whisper was a shout.

Don’t cry. No tears, he begged her, but the words reminded her of

something she couldn’t bear to think of, and she put her fingers to his

lips, gently silencing him.

Too loud, a voice from Outside came rumbling in. “So, mon

enfant, you have decided to become un vampire encore une fois.”

Is that what is happening? she whispered to the child. Am I dying

again? To become a vampire?

I don’t know! the child cried. I don’t know anything. He’s angry.

I’m afraid.

Sage won’t hurt you, she promised. He’s already a vampire, and

your friend.

Not Sage…

Then who are you afraid of?

If you die again, I’ll be wrapped in chains all over. The child

showed her a pitiable picture of himself covered by coil after coil of

heavy chains. In his mouth, gagging him. Pinning his arms to his sides

and his legs to the ball. Moreover, the chains were spiked so that

everywhere they dug into the child’s soft flesh, blood flowed.

Who would do such a thing? Elena cried. I’ll make him wish he’d

never been born. Tell me who’s going to do this!

The child’s face was sad and perplexed. I will, he said sadly. He

will. He/I. Damon. Because we’ll have killed you.

But if it’s not his fault…

We have to. We have to. But maybe I’ll die, the doctor says…

There was a definite lilt of hope in the last sentence.

It decided Elena. If Damon was not thinking clearly, then maybe

she wasn’t thinking clearly, she reasoned out slowly. Maybe…maybe

she should do what Sage wanted.

And Dr. Meggar. She could discern his voice as if through a thick

fog. “—sake, you’ve been working all night. Give someone else a

chance.”

Yes…all night. Elena had not wanted to wake up again, and she

had a powerful will.

“Maybe switch sides?” someone—a girl—a young girl—was

suggesting. Little in voice, but strong-willed, too. Bonnie.

“Elena…It’s Meredith. Can you feel me holding your hand?” A

pause, then very much louder, excitedly, “ Hey, she squeezed my hand!

Did you see? Sage, tell Damon to get in here quick.”

Drifting…

“…drink a little more, Elena? I know, I know, you’re sick of it.

But drink un peu for my sake, will you?”

Drifting…

“ Très bon, mon enfant! Maintenant, what about a little milk?

Damon believes you can stay human if you drink some milk.”

Elena had two thoughts about this. One was that if she drank any

more of anything, she might explode. Another was that she wasn’t going

to make any foolish promises.

She tried to speak but it came out in a thread of a whisper. “Tell

Damon—I won’t come up unless he lets the little boy free.”

“Who? What little boy?”

“Elena, sweetie, all the little boys on this estate are free.”

Meredith: “Why not let her tell him?”

Dr. Meggar: “Elena, Damon is right here on the couch. You’ve

both been very sick, but you’re going to be fine. Here, Elena, we can

move the examination table so you can talk to him. There, it’s done.”

Elena tried to open her eyes, but everything was ferociously bright.

She took a breath and tried again. Still much too bright. And she didn’t

know how to dim her vision anymore. She spoke with her eyes shut to

the presence she felt in front of her: I can’t leave him alone again.

Especially if you’re going to load him with chains and gag him.

Elena, Damon said shakily, I haven’t led a good life. But I haven’t

kept slaves before, I swear. Ask anyone. And I wouldn’t do that to a

child.

You have, and I know his name. And I know that all he’s made of is

gentleness, and kindness, and good nature…and fear.

The low rumble of Sage’s voice, “…agitating her…” the slightly

louder murmur of Damon’s: “I know she’s off her head, but I’d still like

to know the name of this little boy I’m supposed to have done this to.

How does that agitate her?”

More rumbling, then: “But can’t I just ask her? At least I can clear

my name of these charges.” Then, out loud: “Elena? Can you tell me

what child I’m supposed to have tortured like this?”

She was so tired. But she answered aloud, whispering, “His name

is Damon, of course.”

And Meredith’s own exhausted whisper, “Oh, my God. She was

willing to die for a metaphor.”

M att watched Mrs. Flowers go over Sheriff Mossberg’s badge, holding

it lightly in one hand and running her fingers over it with the other.

The badge came from Rebecca, Sheriff Mossberg’s niece. It had

seemed entirely a coincidence when Matt had almost run into her earlier

that day. Then he’d noticed that she was wearing a man’s shirt as a

dress. The shirt had been familiar—a Ridgemont sheriff’s shirt.

Then he had seen the badge still attached to it. You could say a lot

of things about Sheriff Mossberg, but you couldn’t imagine him losing

his badge. Matt had forgotten all sense of gallantry and snatched at the

little metal shield before Rebecca could stop him. He’d had a sick

feeling in his stomach then, and it had only gotten worse since. Mrs.

Flowers’s expression was doing nothing to comfort him.

“It wasn’t in direct contact with his skin,” she said softly, “so the

images I get are hazy. But oh, my dear Matt”—she lifted shadowed eyes

to his—“I am afraid.” She shivered, sitting at her kitchen table chair,

where two mugs of hot spiced milk sat untouched.

Matt had to clear his throat and touch the scalding milk to his lips.

“You think we need to go out to look.”

“We must,” said Mrs. Flowers. She shook her head, with its soft,

wispy white curls, sadly. “Dear Ma ma is most insistent, and I can feel it

too; a great disturbance in this artifact.”

Matt felt the faintest shade of pride tingeing his fear for having

secured the “artifact”—and then he thought, yeah, robbing badges from

the shirts of twelve-year-old girls is really something to be proud of.

Mrs. Flowers’s voice came from the kitchen. “You’d best put on

several shirts and sweaters as well as a pair of these.” She emerged

sideways through the kitchen door, holding several long coats,

apparently from the closet in front of the kitchen door, and several pairs

of gardening gloves.

Matt jumped up to help her with the armfuls of coats and then went

into a coughing fit as the smell of mothballs and of—something else,

something spicy—surrounded him.

“Why do—I feel—like Christmas?” he said, forced to cough

between each few words.

“Oh, now that would be Great-Aunt Morwen’s clove preservation

recipe,” Mrs. Flowers replied. “Some of these coats are from Mother’s

time.”

Matt believed her. “But it’s still warm out. Why should we wear

coats at all?”

“For protection, dear Matt, for protection! These clothes have

spells woven into the material to safeguard us from evil.”

“Even the gardening gloves?” Matt asked doubtfully.

“Even the gloves,” Mrs. Flowers said firmly. She paused and then

said in a quiet voice, “And we’d better gather some flashlights, Matt

dear, because this is something we’re going to have to do in the

darkness.”

“You’re kidding!”

“No, sadly, I am not. And we should get some rope to tie ourselves

together. Under no circumstances must we enter the thicket of the Old

Wood tonight.”

An hour later, Matt was still thinking. He hadn’t had any appetite

for Mrs. Flowers’s hearty Braised Eggplant au Fromage dinner, and the

wheels in his brain just wouldn’t stop turning.

I wonder if this is how Elena feels, he thought, when she’s putting

together Plans A, B, and C. I wonder if she ever feels this stupid doing

it.

He felt a tightening around his heart, and for the

three-hundred-thousandth time since he’d left her and Damon, he

wondered if he’d done the right thing.

It had to be right, he told himself. It hurt the worst, and that’s the

proof of it. Things that really, really hurt are the right thing to do.

But I just wanted to say good-bye to her….

But if you’d said good-bye, you’d never have left. Face it, moron,

as far as Elena goes you’re the world’s biggest loser. Ever since she

found a boyfriend she liked better than you, you’ve been working like

you were Meredith and Bonnie to help her keep him and keep away The

Bad Guy. Maybe you should get you all little matching T-shirts saying: I

am a dog. I serve the Princess Ele—

SMACK!

Matt leaped up, and landed crouching, which was more painful

than it looked in movies.

Rattle-Smick!

It was the loose shutter on the other side of the room. That first

bang had really been a slam, though. The exterior of the boardinghouse

was in pretty bad shape, and the wooden shutters there sometimes

suddenly came free of their wintertime nails.

But was it really just a coincidence? Matt thought, as soon as his

heart had stopped galloping. In this boardinghouse where Stefan had

spent so much time? Maybe somehow there were still remnants of his

spirit around, tuned to what people thought within these halls. If so, Matt

had just been given a solid whack to the solar plexus, from the way he

felt.

Sorry, bud, he thought, almost saying it out loud. I didn’t mean to

trash your girl. She’s under a lot of pressure.

Trash his girl?

Trash Elena?

Hell, he’d be the first person to knock out anybody who trashed

Elena. Provided Stefan didn’t use vampire tricks to get in front of him!

And what was it Elena always said? You can’t be too prepared.

You can’t have too many subplans because, just as sure as God made a

pesky shell around a peanut, your major plan was going to have some

flaws.

That was why Elena also worked with as many people as possible.

So what if C and D workers never needed to get involved. They were

there if they were needed.

Thinking this, and with his head feeling a lot clearer than it had

since he had sold the Prius and given Stefan’s money to Bonnie and

Meredith for plane fare plus, Matt went to work.

“And then we took a walk around the estate, and saw the apple

orchard, and the orange orchard, and the cherry orchard,” Bonnie told

Elena, who was lying down, looking small and defenseless, in her

four-poster bed, which had been hung with dusty-gold sheer panels,

right now held back by heavy tassels in various shades of gold.

Bonnie was sitting comfortably in a gold upholstered chair that had

been drawn to the bed. She had her small bare feet up on the sheets.

Elena was not being a good patient. She wanted to get up, she

insisted. She wanted to be able to walk around. That would do her more

good than all the oatmeal and steak and milk and five-times-a-day visits

from Dr. Meggar, who had come to live at the estate.

She knew what they were all really afraid of, though. Bonnie had

blurted it all out in one long sobbing, keening wail one night when the

little redhead had been on duty beside her.

“Y-you screamed and all the v-vampires heard it, and Sage just

picked up Meredith and me like two kittens, one under each arm, and he

ran to where the screaming was. But b-by then so many people had

gotten to you first! You were unconscious but so was Damon, and

somebody said, ‘They-they’ve been attacked and I th-think they’re

dead!’ And every-b-body was s-saying, ‘Call the G-Guardians!’ And I

fainted, a little.”

“Shhh,” Elena had said kindly—and cannily. “Have some Black

Magic to make it feel better.”

Bonnie had had some. And some more. And then she’d gone on

with the story. “But Sage must’ve known something because he said,

‘Here, I’m a doctor, and I’m going to examine them.’ And you would

really believe him, the way he said it!”

“And then he looked at both of you, and I guess he knew right

away what happened, because he said, ‘Fetch a carriage! I need to take

them t-to Dr. Meggar, my colleague.’ And the Lady Fazina herself came

and said that they could have one of her carriages, and just send it back

wh-whenever. She’s sooooo rich! And then, we got you two out the

back way because there were—were some bastards who said, let them

die. They were real demons, white like snow, called Snow Women. And

then, then, we were just in the carriage and, oh my God! Elena! Elena,

you died! You stopped breathing twice! And Sage and Meredith just

kept doing CPR on you. And I—I prayed so h-h-hard.”

Elena, fully into the story by now, had cuddled her, but Bonnie’s

tears kept coming back.

“And we knocked at Dr. Meggar’s as if we were going to burst the

door in—and—and someone told him—and he examined her and said,

‘She needs a transfusion.’ And I said, ‘Take my blood.’ Because

remember in school when we both gave blood to Jody Wright and we

were practically the only ones who could do it because we were the

same kind? And then Dr. Meggar got two tables ready like

that”—Bonnie had snapped her fingers—“and I was so scared I could

hardly hold still for the needle, but I did. I did, somehow! And they gave

you some of my blood. And, meanwhile, you know what Meredith did?

She let Damon bite her. She really did. And Dr. Meggar sent the carriage

back to the house to ask for servants who ‘wanted a bonus’ because

th-that’s what it’s called here—and the carriage came back full. And I

don’t know how many Damon bit, but it was a lot! Dr. Meggar said it

was the best medicine. And Meredith and Damon and all of us talked

and we convinced Dr. Meggar to come here, I mean to live, and Lady

Ulma is going to turn that whole building he was living in into a hospital

for the poor people. And ever after that we’ve just been trying to get you

well. Damon was fine the next morning. And Lady Ulma and Lucen and

he—I mean it was their idea but he did it, sent this pearl to Lady

Fazina—it was one that her father had never found a client rich enough

to buy, because it’s so big, like a good handful in size but irregular, that

means with twists and turns, and a sheen like silver. They put it on a

thick chain and sent it to her.”

Bonnie’s eyes had filled again. “Because she saved both you and