Contents 24 страница

expression she’d been wearing a minute ago. He glanced at her and she

blushed.

“ Pardonnez-moi, Monsieur,” she said, looking away quickly.

“ Parlez-vous français, Madame? ”

“ Un peu,” Elena said humbly—an unusual condition for her. “I

can’t really keep up a serious conversation. But I loved going to

France.” She was about to say something else, when Saber barked once,

sharply, to attract attention and then sat bolt upright at the curb.

“They came or left in a carriage or litter,” Sage translated.

“But what did they do in the house? I need a trail going the other

way,” Damon said, looking up at Sage with something like raw

desperation.

“All right, all right. Saber! Contremarche! ”

The black dog instantly turned around, put its nose to the ground as

if it afforded him the greatest delight, and began running back and forth

across the stairs and the lawn that formed the “Great Ballroom”—now

becoming pitted with holes as people took shovels, pickaxes, and even

large spoons to it.

“Kitsune are hard to catch,” Elena murmured into Damon’s ear.

He nodded, glancing at his watch. “I hope we are, too,” he

murmured back.

There was a sharp bark from Saber. Elena’s heart leaped in her

chest.

“What?” she cried. “What is it?” Damon passed her, grabbed her

hand, and dragged her in his wake.

“What has he found?” Elena gasped as they all reached the same

point simultaneously.

“I don’t know. It’s not part of the Great Ballroom,” replied

Meredith. Saber was sitting up proudly in front of a bed of tall,

clustering pale lavender (deep violet) hydrangeas.

“They don’t look like they’re doing too well,” said Bonnie.

“And it’s not below any of the upper ballrooms, either,” Meredith

said, stooping to get at Saber’s height and then look up. “There’s just the

library.”

“Well, I know one thing without a question,” Damon said. “We’re

going to have to dig up this flower patch and I don’t fancy asking Ms.

Larkspur-eyes-Now-I-have-to-kill-you for her permission.”

“Oh, did you think they were larkspur, her eyes? Because I thought

of bluebells, rahthah,” said a guest behind Bonnie.

“Did she really say she had to kill you? But why?” another guest,

nearer to Elena asked nervously.

Elena ignored them. “Well, let’s put it this way, she’s certainly not

going to like it. But it’s the only clue we’ve got.” Except, I suppose, if

the kitsune meant to leave it here, but then took off in a coach, she added

voicelessly to Damon.

“So that means the show can commence,” cried one of the young

vampire fans, stepping toward Elena.

“But I don’t have my amulet back,” Damon said flatly, moving in

front of Elena like an impenetrable wall.

“But you will in minutes, surely. Look, couldn’t some fellows

backtrack with the dog to wherever the bad guys came from—came to

the estate from, if you get me? And meanwhile we can be getting on

with the show?”

“Can Saber do that?” Damon asked. “Follow a carriage?”

“With a fox in it? But of course. Actually, I could go with them,”

Sage said quietly. “I could make sure that these two enemies are caught

if they are on the other end of the trail. Show them to me.”

“These are the only shapes I know.” Damon reached out two

fingers and touched Sage’s temple. “But, of course, they’ll have more

forms, possibly infinite ones.”

“Well, they are not our priority, I assume. The, ah, amulet is.”

“Yes,” Damon said. “Even if you don’t land a blow on them, get

the key half and race back.”

“So? Even more important than revenge,” Sage said softly, shaking

his head in wonder. Then he added quickly. “Well, I will wish us good

luck. Any adventurous types who want to go with me? Ah, good,

four—very well, five, Madame —is enough.”

And he was gone.

Elena looked at Damon, who was looking back with blank, black

eyes. “You really expect me to do—that—again?”

“All you need to do is stand there. I’ll make sure you lose as little

blood as possible. And if you ever want to stop we can have a signal.”

“Yes, but now I understand. And I can’t handle it.”

His face went cold suddenly. Shutting her out.

“You’re not required to handle anything. Besides, isn’t it enough if

I say it’s a fair bargain for Stefan?”

Stefan! Elena’s entire body went through some sort of elemental

change. “Let me share it,” she begged, and knew that she was begging

and knew what Damon was going to say.

“Stefan is going to need you when we get out. Just make sure you

can handle that. ”

Stop. Think. Don’t bash his head in, Elena’s brain told her. He’s

pushing your buttons. He knows how to do it. Don’t let him push your

buttons.

“I can handle both,” she said. “Please, Damon. Don’t treat me as if

I were—one of your one-nighters, or even your Princess of Darkness.

Talk to me as if I were Sage.”

“Sage? Sage is the most frustrating, cunning—”

“I know. But you talk to him. And you used to talk to me, and now

you’re not. Listen to me. I can’t bear to go through this scenario again.

I’ll scream.”

“Now you’re threatening—”

“No! I’m telling you what will happen. Unless you gag me, I’ll

scream. And scream. As I would scream for Stefan. I can’t help it.

Maybe I’m breaking down….”

“But don’t you see?” Suddenly he had whirled around and taken

hold of her hands. “We’re almost at the end. You, who’ve been the

strongest all along—you can’t break down now.”

“The strongest…” Elena was shaking her head. “I thought we were

right there, on the verge of understanding each other.”

“All right.” His words came as hard chips of marble now. “What if

we do five?”

“Five?”

“Five strokes instead of ten. We’ll promise to do the other five

when the ‘amulet’ is found, but we’ll run when we do find it.”

“You would have to break your word.”

“If it takes that—”

“No,” she said flatly. “You say nothing. I’ll tell them. I’m a liar

and a cheat and I’ve always played with men. We’ll see if I can’t finally

put my talents to good use. And there’s no point in trying any of the

other girls,” she added, glancing up. “Bonnie and Meredith are wearing

gowns that would fall right off if you slashed them. Only I have a bare

back.” She pirouetted in place to show off how her dress met only very

high at the neck in a halter and very low in the back in a V.

“Then we’re agreed.” Damon had a slave refill his goblet and

Elena thought: we’re going to be the tipsiest act in history, if nothing

else.

She couldn’t help but shiver. The last time she had felt an inner

trembling was from Damon’s warm hand on her bare back as they

danced. Now, she felt something much icier, just a draft of cold air

perhaps. But it drew her mind to the feeling of her own blood running

down her sides.

Suddenly Bonnie and Meredith were there beside her, forming a

barricade between her and the increasingly curious and excited crowd.

“Elena, what’s happened? They said a barbarian human girl was to

be whipped—” began Meredith.

“And you just knew it had to be me,” completed Elena. “Well, it’s

true. I don’t see how I can get out of it.”

“But what have you done?” Bonnie asked frantically.

“Been an idiot. Let some fraternity-type vampire boys think that it

was a sort of magic act,” Damon put in. His face was still grim.

“That’s a little unfair, isn’t it?” Meredith asked. “Elena told us

about the first time. It sounded as if they jumped to the conclusion that it

was an act all by themselves.”

“We should have denied it then. Now, we’re stuck with it,” Damon

said flatly. Then, as if he were making an effort, “Oh, well, maybe we’ll

get what we came for, anyway.”

“That was how we found out—some idiot came running down the

steps yelling about an amulet with two green stones.”

“It was all we could think of,” Elena explained wearily. “It’s worth

it for Damon and I to do this if only we can find the other half of the

key.”

“You don’t have to do it,” Meredith said. “We can just leave.”

Bonnie stared at her. “Without the fox key?”

Elena shook her head. “We’ve already been through all that. The

unanimous decision was to do it this way. She looked around. “Now

where are the guys that wanted to see it so much?”

“Looking in the field—that used to be a ballroom,” Bonnie replied.

“Or getting shovels—lots of ’em—from Bloddeuwedd’s gardening

compound. Ow! Why’d you pinch me, Meredith?”

“Oh, my, did that pinch? I meant to do this —”

But Elena was already striding away, as eager now as Damon was

to get it over with. Half over with. I just hope he remembers to change

into his leather jacket and black jeans, she thought. In white tie—the

blood—

I won’t let there be any blood.

The thought was sudden and Elena didn’t know where it came

from. But in the deepest reaches of her being, she thought: he’s been

punished enough. He was trembling in the litter. He thought about

another person’s well-being from minute to minute. It’s enough now.

Stefan wouldn’t want him to be hurt any more.

She glanced up to see one of the Dark Dimension’s small,

misshapen moons moving visibly above her. This time the surrender she

made to it was bright red, a feather shining in sullen crimson light. But

she gave herself up to it unreservedly, body and soul, and it rested on the

hallowed spring of eternal blood that was her womanhood. And then she

knew what she had to do.

“Bonnie, Meredith, look: we’re a triumvirate. We have to try to

share this with Damon.”

No one looked enthusiastic.

Elena, whose pride had been entirely broken from the moment she

first saw Stefan in his cell, knelt down in front of them on the hard

marble step. “I’m begging you—”

“Elena! Stop that!” Meredith gasped.

“Please get up! Oh, Elena—” Bonnie was a breath away from

tears.

And so, it was small, softhearted Bonnie who turned the tide. “I’ll

try to teach Meredith how. But anyway, we’ll at least share it between

the three of us.”

Hug. Kiss. A murmur into strawberry hair, “I know what you see

in the dark. You’re the bravest person I know.”

And then, leaving a stunned Bonnie behind, Elena went to collect

spectators for her own whipping.

E lena had been tied, like someone in a B-movie who will soon be

released, standing upright against a pillar. Digging on the field was still

going on in a dilatory way as the vampires who had put her up to this

fetched an ash stick they had brought, and allowed Damon to inspect it.

Damon himself was moving in slow motion. Trying to find points to

kibitz about. Waiting for the rattling of coach wheels that would tell him

the carriage was back. Acting brisk, but inside feeling as sluggish as

half-cooled lead.

I’ve never been a sadist, he thought. I’ve always tried to give

pleasure—except in fights. But it should be me in that prison cell. Can’t

Elena see that? It’s my turn beneath the lash now.

He had changed into his “magician clothes,” taking as long as he

dared without looking as if he wanted to put this off. And now there

were somewhere between six and eight hundred creatures, waiting to see

Elena’s blood spill, to watch Elena’s back cut and miraculously heal

again.

All right. I’m as ready as I’ll ever be to do this.

He came into his body, into the now of what was happening.

Elena swallowed. “Share the pain” she’d said—without in the least

knowing how to do it. But here she was, like a sacrifice tied to a pillar,

staring at Bloddeuwedd’s house and waiting for the blows to come.

Damon was giving the crowd an introductory speech, talking

gibberish and doing it very well. Elena found a particular window of the

house to stare at. And then she realized that Damon was no longer

speaking.

A touch of the rod against her back. A telepathic whisper.

Are you ready?

Yes, she said immediately, knowing that she wasn’t. And then

hearing, against dead silence, a swish through the air.

Bonnie’s mind floating into hers. Meredith’s mind flowing like a

stream. The blow was a mere cuff, although Elena felt blood spill.

She could feel Damon’s bewilderment. What should have been a

sword slash was a mere slap. Painful, but definitely bearable.

And once again. The triumvirate portioned out the pain before

Damon’s mind could receive it.

Keep the triangle moving. And a third.

Two more to go. Elena allowed her gaze to wander over the house.

Up to the third floor where Bloddeuwedd had to be enraged at what had

become of her party.

One more to go. The voice of a guest coming back to her. “That

library. She has more orbs than most public libraries, and” —with his

voice dropping for a moment— “they say she has all sorts of spheres up

there. Forbidden ones. You know.”

Elena hadn’t known and still could still hardly imagine what might

be forbidden here.

In her library, Bloddeuwedd, a single, lonely figure, moved in the

brilliantly lighted great sphere to find a new orb. Inside the house music

would be playing, different music in each different room. Outside, Elena

could hear nothing.

The last blow. The triumvirate managed to handle it, allotting

agonizing pain amongst four people. At least, Elena thought, my dress

was already as red as it could be.

And then it was over, and Bonnie and Meredith were quarrelling

with some of the vampire ladies who wanted to help bathe the blood

from Elena’s back, showing it once again unblemished and perfect,

glowing golden in the sunlight.

Better keep them away, Elena thought rather drowsily to Damon;

some of them may be compulsive nail-biters or finger-lickers. We can’t

afford for anyone to taste my blood and feel the life-force in it; not when

I’ve gone through so much to conceal my aura.

Although there was clapping and cheering everywhere, no one had

thought to untie Elena’s wrists. So she stood leaning against the pillar,

gazing at the library.

And then the world froze.

All around her was music and motion. She was the still point in a

turning universe. But she had to get moving, and fast. She yanked hard

at her bonds, lacerating herself.

“Meredith! Untie me! Cut these ropes, quick!”

Meredith obeyed hastily.

When Elena turned, she knew what she would see. The

face—Damon’s face, bewildered, half-resentful, half-humble. It was

good enough for her, right then.

Damon, we need to get to the —

But then they were engulfed by a riot. Well-wishers, fans, skeptics,

vampires begging for “a tiny taste,” gogglers who wanted to make sure

that Elena’s back was real and warm and unmarked. Elena felt too many

hands on her body.

“Get away from her, damn you!” It was the primal savage roar of a

beast defending its mate. People backed away from Elena, only to close

in…very slowly and timidly…on Damon.

All right, Elena thought. I’ll do it alone. I can do it alone. For

Stefan, I can.

She shouldered her way through the crowd, accepting bunches of

hastily dug-up flowers from admirers—and feeling more hands on her

body. “Hey, she really isn’t marked!” At last, Meredith and Bonnie

helped her to get out—without them she would never have made it.

And then she was running, running into the house, not bothering to

use the door that was near to Saber’s barking place. She thought she

knew what was there anyway.

On the second floor she spent a minute being bewildered before

seeing a thin red line in nothingness. Her blood! See how many things it

was good for? Right now it highlighted the first of the glass steps for

her, the one she had stumbled into before.

And at that time, cradled in Damon’s strong arms, she hadn’t been

able to imagine even crawling up these steps. Now she channeled all the

Power she had into her eye nodes—and the stairs lit up. It was still

terrifying. There were no handholds on either side, and she was woozy

from excitement, fear, and loss of blood. But she forced herself up, and

up, and up.

“Elena! I love you! Elena!”

She could hear the cry as if Stefan were beside her now.

Up, up, up…

Her legs ached.

Keep going. No excuses. If you can’t walk, hobble. If you can’t

hobble, crawl.

She was crawling as she finally reached the top, the edge of the

nest of the owl Bloddeuwedd.

At least it was still a pretty, if insipid-looking, maiden who greeted

her. Elena realized at last what was wrong with Bloddeuwedd’s looks.

She had no animal vitality. She was, at heart, a vegetable.

“I am going to kill you, you know.”

No, she was a vegetable with no heart.

Elena glanced around her. She could see outside from here,

although in between was the dome that was made of shelves and shelves

upon shelves of orbs, so everything was weirdly distorted.

There were no hanging creepers here, no flagrant displays of

exotic, tropical blooms. But she was already in the center of the room, in

Bloddeuwedd’s owl nest. Bloddeuwedd was nowhere near it; she was on

the contraption that let her reach her star balls.

The key could only be buried in that nest.

“I don’t want to steal from you,” Elena promised, breathing hard.

Even as she spoke, she plunged two arms into the nest. “Those kitsune

played a trick on both of us. They stole something of mine and put the

key to it in your nest. I’m just taking back what they put in.”

“Ha! You—human slave! Barbarian! You dared to violate my

private library! People outside are digging up my beautiful ballroom, my

precious flowers. You think you’re going to get away again this time,

but you’re not! This time you’re going to DIE! ”

It was an entirely different voice than the flat, nasal, but still

maidenlike tones that had greeted Elena before. This was a powerful

voice, a heavy voice…

…a voice to go with the size of the nest.

Elena looked up. She couldn’t make anything of what she saw. An

enormous fur coat in a very exotic pattern? Some huge stuffed animal’s

back?

The creature in the library turned toward her. Or rather, its head

swiveled toward her, while its back remained perfectly still. It rotated its

head sideways and Elena knew that what she was seeing was a face. The

head was even more hideous and more indescribable than she could have

imagined. It had a sort of single eyebrow which dipped from the edge of

one side of its forehead down toward the nose (or where the nose should

have been) and then went up again. The feature was like a gigantic

V-shaped brow and below it were two huge round yellow eyes that often

blinked. There was no nose or mouth like a human’s, but instead there

was a large, cruel, hooked black beak. The rest of the face was covered

in feathers, mostly white, turning mottled gray at the bottom, where the

neck seemed to be. It was also gray and white in two hornlike

projections that shot up from the top of the head—like a demon’s horns,

Elena thought wildly.

Then, with the head still staring at her, the body turned toward

Elena. It was the body of a sturdy woman, covered in white and grizzled

feathers, Elena saw. Talons peeked out from under the lowest feathers.

“Hello,” the creature said in a grating voice, its beak opening and

closing to bite off the words. “I’m Bloddeuwedd, and I never let anyone

touch my library. I am your death.”

The words Can’t we at least talk about it first? were on Elena’s

lips. She didn’t want to be a hero. She certainly didn’t want to take on

Bloddeuwedd while searching for the key that must be

here—somewhere.

Elena kept on trying to explain while frantically feeling inside the

nest, when Bloddeuwedd extended wings that spanned the room and

came at her.

And then, like a streak of lightning, something zipped between

them, giving out a raucous cry.

It was Talon. Sage must have given the hawk orders when he left

her.

The owl seemed to shrink a little—the better to attack, thought

Elena. “Please let me explain. I haven’t found it yet, but there is

something in your nest that doesn’t belong to you. It’s mine—and—and

Stefan’s. And the kitsune hid it the night you had to chase them off your

estate. Do you remember that?”

Bloddeuwedd didn’t answer for a moment. Then she showed that

she had a simple, one-size-fits-all-situations philosophy.

“You set foot into my private quarters. You die,” she said and this

time when she swooped by Elena, Elena could hear the clack of her beak

coming together.

Again something small and bright dove at Bloddeuwedd, aiming

for her eyes. The great owl had to take her attention off Elena in order to

deal with it.

Elena gave up. Sometimes you just needed help. “Talon!” she

cried, unsure of how much human speech Talon understood. “Try to

keep her occupied—just for a minute!”

As the two birds darted and wheeled and shrieked around her,

Elena tried to search with her arms, while ducking when she needed to.

But that great black beak was always too close. Once it sliced into her

arm, but Elena was on an adrenaline high, and she hardly felt the pain.

She kept searching without a pause.

Finally, she realized what she should have done from the

beginning. She snatched up an orb from its transparent rack.

“Talon!” she called. “Here!”

The falcon dove down toward her and there was a snap. But

afterward Elena still had all her fingers and the hoshi no tama was gone.

Now, now, Elena truly heard a shriek of rage from Bloddeuwedd.

The giant owl went after the hawk, but it was like a human trying to slap

a fly—an intelligent fly.

“Give that orb back! It’s priceless! Priceless!”

“You’ll get it back as soon as I find what I’m looking for.” Elena,

mad with terror and soaked in hormones, climbed all the way inside the

nest and began searching the marble bottom with her fingers.

Twice Talon saved her by dropping orbs with a crash to the ground

as the huge owl Bloddeuwedd was headed toward Elena. Each time, the

noise of the crash caused the owl to forget about Elena and try to attack

the hawk. Then Talon snatched another orb and swept at great speed

right under the owl’s nose.

Elena was beginning to have a nightmare feeling that everything

she had known just a half hour before was wrong.

She had been leaning against the canopy pole, exhausted, staring

up into the library and the maiden who inhabited it and the words had

simply flowed into her mind.

Bloddeuwedd’s orb room…

Bloddeuwedd’s globe room…

Bloddeuwedd’s…star ball room……Bloddeuwedd’s ballroom.

Two ways to take the same words. Two very different kinds of

rooms.

It was just as she was remembering this that her fingers touched

metal.

“T alon! Uh—heel!” Elena shouted and began to race as fast as she

could to get out of the room. This was strategy. Would the owl become

even smaller so as to get through the door or would it destroy its

sanctuary in order to stay on top of Elena?

It was a good strategy, but it didn’t amount to much in the end. The

owl shrank to dart through the door, and then resumed gigantic size to

attack Elena as she ran down the stairs.

Yes, ran. With all of her Power channeled to her eyes, Elena

leaped from step to step as Damon had before. Now there was no time

for fear, no time for thinking. There was only time to turn over in her

fingers a small, hard, crescent-shaped object.

Shinichi and Misao—they did make it into her nest.

There must be a ladder or something made of glass that even

Damon couldn’t see, in the flowerbed where Saber had stopped and

barked. No—Damon would have seen it, so they must have brought their

own ladder.

That’s why their trail ended there. They climbed straight up into

the library. And they ruined the flowers in the bed, which is why the

new flowers weren’t doing so well.

Elena knew from Aunt Judith, from her childhood, that

transplanted flowers took awhile to revive and perk up again.

Leap…jump…leap…I am a spirit of fire. I cannot miss a step. I am

a fire elemental. Leap…leap…leap.

And then Elena was looking at level ground, trying not to leap into

it, but a prisoner to her body which was already leaping. She fell hard

enough to numb one side, but she kept hold of the precious crescent

clenched in a deathgrip in her hand.

A gigantic beak smashed into glass where she had been a moment

before she slid. Talons raked her back.

Bloddeuwedd was still after her.

Sage and his group of sturdy young male and female vampires

traveled at the pace of a running dog. Saber could lead them, but only as

fast as he himself could go. Fortunately few people seemed to want to

instigate a fight with a dog that weighed as much as they did—that

weighed more than many of the beggars and children they encountered

as they reached the bazaar.

The children crowded around the carriage, slowing them further.

Sage took the time to exchange an expensive jewel for a purse full of

small change and he scattered the coins behind the carriage as they went,

allowing Saber free reign.

They passed dozens of stalls and crossing streets, but Saber was no

ordinary bloodhound. He had enough Power to confound most vampires.

With perhaps only one or two of the key molecules stuck to his nasal

membrane he could hunt down his goal. Where another dog might be

fooled by one of the hundreds of similar kitsune trails they were

traveling through, Saber examined and rejected each of them as being

not quite the right shape, size, or sculpture.

There came a time, though, when even Saber seemed defeated. He

stood in the center of a six-way crossroads, regardless of traffic, limping

slightly, and going in circles. He couldn’t seem to choose a path.

And nor could I, my friend, Sage thought. We’ve come so far, but

it’s clear they went on farther. No way to go up or dig down…Sage

hesitated, looking around the crimson-colored wheel of roads.

And then he saw something.

Directly across from him, but to his left was a perfumery. It must

sell hundreds of fragrances, and billions of scent molecules were

deliberately being released into the air.

Saber was blind. Not blind in his keen liquid dark eyes. But where

it mattered he was numbed and blinded by the billions of scents that

were being blown up his nose.

The vampires in the carriage were calling to go on or go back.

They had no sense of real adventure, them. They just wanted a nice

show. And undoubtedly many had slaves who were recording the

whipping for them so they could enjoy it at leisure at home.

At that moment a flash of blue and gold decided Sage. A

Guardian! Eh, bien…

“Heel, Saber!”

Saber’s head and tail drooped as Sage randomly picked one of the

directions and had him race alongside the running vampire to get out of

the thoroughfare and onto another street.