Contents 28 страница

her feet on the no-slip guard and ready to try to support Stefan’s lanky

weight. But they could not be playful now.

The shower’s spray had been very helpful, too—at concealing the

teardrops that kept flowing down Elena’s cheeks. She could—oh, dear

heaven—count and feel each one of his ribs. He was just bones and skin,

her beautiful Stefan, but his green eyes were alive, sparkling and

dancing in his pale face.

After they were dressed in nightclothes they simply sat on the bed

for a little while. Sitting together, both breathing—Stefan had got into

the habit from being around humans so much and, recently, from trying

to eke out the small amount of nutrition he received—in synchronicity,

and both feeling the other’s warm body beside them…it was almost too

much. Then, almost tentatively, Stefan groped for Elena’s hand, and

catching it, held it in both of his, turning it over wonderingly.

Elena was swallowing and swallowing, trying to make a start in a

conversation, felt herself practically radiating bliss. Oh, I never want

anything more, she thought, although she knew that soon enough she

would want to talk, and to hold, and to kiss, and to feed Stefan. But if

someone had asked her if she would have accepted just this, sitting

together, communicating by touch and love alone, she would have

accepted it.

Before she knew it, she was talking, words that came like bubbles

out of molasses, only these were bubbles from her soul. “I thought that

somehow I might lose this time. That I’d won so many times, and that

this time something would teach me a lesson and you…wouldn’t make

it.”

Stefan was still wondering over her hand, bending industriously to

kiss each separate finger. “You call ‘winning’ dying in pain and sunlight

to save my worthless life—and my even more worthless brother’s?”

“I call this a better kind of winning,” Elena admitted. “Any time

we get to be together is winning. Any moment—even in that

dungeon…”

Stefan winced, but Elena had to finish her thought. “Even there, to

look in your eyes, to touch your hand, to know that you were looking at

me and touching me—and that you were happy—well, that’s winning, in

my book.”

Stefan lifted his eyes to hers. In the dim light, the green looked

suddenly dark and mysterious. “And one more thing,” he whispered.

“Because I am what I am…and because your crowning glory isn’t that

glorious golden cloud of hair, but an aura that is…ineffable.

Indescribable. Beyond any words…”

Elena had thought they would sit and simply gaze at each other,

drowning in each other’s eyes, but that wasn’t happening. Stefan’s

expression had slipped and Elena realized how close to bloodlust—and

to death—he still really was.

Hurriedly, Elena pulled her damp hair to one side of her neck, and

then she leaned back, knowing Stefan would catch her.

He did this, but although Elena tilted her chin back, he tilted it

down in his two hands to look at her.

“Do you know how much I love you?” he asked.

His entire face was masked now, enigmatic and strangely thrilling.

“I don’t think you do,” he whispered. “I’ve watched and watched how

you were willing to do anything, anything to save me…but I don’t think

you know how much that love has been building up, Elena….”

Delicious shivers were going down Elena’s spine.

“Then you’d better show me,” she whispered. “Or I might not

believe that you mean it—”

“I’ll show you what I mean,” Stefan whispered back. But when he

bent down it was to kiss her softly. The feelings inside Elena—that this

starving creature wanted to kiss her instead of going at once for her

throat, reached a peak that she could not explain in thoughts or words,

but only by drawing Stefan’s head so that his mouth rested on her neck.

“Please,” she said. “Oh, Stefan, please. ”

Then she felt the quick sacrificial pains, and then Stefan was

drinking her blood, and her mind, which had been fluttering around like

a bird in a lighted room, now saw its nest and its mate and swooped up

and up and up to at last reach unity with its best-beloved.

After that there was no need for clumsy things like words. They

communicated in thoughts as pure and clear as shimmering gems, and

Elena rejoiced because all of Stefan’s mind was open to her, and none of

it was walled off or dark and there were no boulders of secrets or

chained and weeping children…

What! she heard Stefan exclaim voicelessly. A child in chains? A

mountain-sized boulder? Who could have that in their mind—?

Stefan broke off, knowing the answer, even before Elena’s

lightning-swift thought could tell him. Elena felt the clear green wave of

his pity, spiced by the natural anger of a young man who has gone

through the depths of hell, but untainted by the terrible black poison of

hatred of brother for brother.

When Elena had finished explaining all she knew about Damon’s

mental processes, she said, And I don’t know what to do! I’ve done

everything I could, Stefan, I’ve—I’ve even loved him. I gave him

everything that wasn’t yours alone. But I don’t know if it’s made even

the slightest difference.

He called Matt “Matt” instead of Mutt, Stefan interrupted.

Yes. I…noticed that. I’d kept asking him to, but it never seemed to

matter.

It mattered this way: you managed to change him. Not many

people can.

Elena wrapped him in a tight embrace, stopped, worried that it was

too tight, and glanced at him. He smiled and shook his head. He was

already looking like a person rather than a death camp survivor.

You should keep using it, Stefan said voicelessly. Your influence

over him is strongest.

I will—without any artificial Wings, Elena promised. Then she

worried that Stefan would think her too presumptuous—or too attached.

But one look at Stefan was enough to assure her that she was doing

the right thing.

They clung to each other.

It wasn’t as hard as Elena had imagined it would be—handing

Stefan over to other humans to be bled. Stefan had a clean pair of

pajamas on, and the first thing he said to all three donors was, “If you

get frightened or change your mind, just say so. I can hear perfectly

well, and I’m not in bloodlust. And anyway, I’ll probably sense it if

you’re not enjoying it before you do, and I’ll stop. And finally—thank

you—thank you all. I’ve decided to break my oath tonight because

there’s still some little chance that if I slept I wouldn’t wake up

tomorrow without you.”

Bonnie was horrified and indignant and furious. “You mean you

couldn’t sleep all that time because you were afraid to—to…?”

“I did fall asleep from time to time, but thank fortune—thank

God —I always woke up again. There were times when I didn’t dare

move to conserve energy, but somehow Elena kept finding ways to

come to me, and every single time she came, she brought me some kind

of sustenance.” He gave Elena a look that sent her heart spinning out of

her chest and high into the stratosphere.

And then she set up a schedule, with Stefan being fed every hour

on the hour, and then she and the others left the first volunteer, Bonnie,

alone, so as to be more comfortable.

It was the next morning. Damon had already been out to visit

Leigh, the antiques-seller’s niece, who had seemed very glad to see him.

And now he was back, to look with scorn at the slug-a-beds who were

distributed all around the boardinghouse.

That was when he saw the bouquet.

It was heavily sealed down with wards—amulets to help get it

through the dimensional gap. There was something powerful in there.

Damon cocked his head to one side.

Hmm…I wonder what?

Dear Diary,

I don’t know what to say. We’re home.

Last night we each had a long bath…and I was half-disappointed,

because my favorite long-handled back-scrubbing brush wasn’t there,

and there was no star ball to make dreamy music for Stefan—and the

water was LUKEWARM! And Stefan went to see if the water heater was

turned on all the way and met Damon going to do the same thing! Only,

they couldn’t because we’re home again.

But I woke up a couple of hours ago for a few minutes to see the

most beautiful sight in the world…a sunrise. Pale pink and eerie green

in the east, with nighttime still full dark in the west. Then deeper rose in

the sky, and the trees all wreathed in dew clouds. Then a shiny glory

from the edge of the horizon and dark rose, cream, and even a green

melon color in the sky, Finally, a line of fire and in an instant all the

colors change. The line becomes an arc, the western sky is deepest

deepest blue, and then up comes the sun bringing warmth and light and

color to the green trees and the sky begins to become celestial

blue—celestial just means heavenly, although somehow, I have a

delicious shivery feeling when I say it. The sky becomes a gemlike,

celestial, cerulean blue and the golden sun begins to pour energy, love,

light, and every good thing onto the world.

Who could not be happy to watch this while Stefan held her?

We who are so lucky as to be born into the light—who see it every

day and never think about it, we’re blessed. We could have been born

shadow souls who live and die in crimson darkness, never even knowing

that somewhere there is something better.

E lena was wakened by shouting. She’d already once awakened to

unbelievable bliss. Now she was awake again—but surely that was

Damon’s voice. Shouting? Damon didn’t shout!

Throwing on a robe, she went dashing out the door and downstairs.

Raised voices—confusion. Damon was kneeling on the floor. His

face was blue-white. There wasn’t a plant in the room that could be

strangling him.

Poisoned, was the next thing Elena thought and immediately her

eyes darted around the room to see a spilled drink, a dropped plate, any

sign that poison had done this. There was nothing.

Sage was clapping Damon on the back. Oh, God, could he have

choked? But that was idiocy. Vampires didn’t breathe, except for talking

and building Power.

But then what was happening?

“You have to breathe,” Sage was shouting in Damon’s ear. “Take a

breath, as if you were going to speak, but then hold on to it, as if for

raising your Power. Think about your insides. Get those lungs working!”

The words only confused Elena.

“There!” cried Sage. “You see?”

“But it only lasts an instant. Then I need to do it again.”

“But, yes, that is the point!”

“I tell you I’m dying and you laugh at me?” a disheveled Damon

shouted. “I’m blind, deaf, my senses are haywire—and you laugh!”

Disheveled, thought Elena, bothered by something.

“Well.” Sage seemed to be at least trying not to laugh. “Perhaps,

mon petit chou, you should not have opened something that was not

addressed to you?”

“I put wards all around me before I did it. The house was safe.”

“But you were not— breathe! Breathe, Damon!”

“It looked completely harmless—and admit it—we were all

going—to open it last night—when we got too tired—!”

“But to do it alone, to open a present from a kitsune…that was

foolish, yes?”

A choking Damon snapped, “Don’t lecture me. Help me. Why am

I muffled in cotton wool? Why can’t I see? Or hear? Or

smell—anything? I’m telling you I can’t smell a thing!”

“You are fit and sharp as any human could be. You could probably

defeat most vampires if you fought with one right now. But human

senses are very few and very dull.”

Words were swimming in Elena’s head…opening things not

addressed to you…bouquet from a kitsune…human…

Oh, my God!

Apparently, the same words were going through the mind of

someone else, because suddenly a figure dashed in from the kitchen

area. Stefan.

“You stole my bouquet? From the kitsune?”

“I was very careful—”

“Do you realize what you’ve done?” Stefan shook Damon.

“Ow. That hurts! Do you want to break my neck?”

“ That hurts? Damon, you’re in for a world of hurt! Do you

understand? I talked to that kitsune. Told him the whole story of my life.

Elena came to visit and he saw her practically…well, never mind—he

saw her crying over me! Do…you…realize…what…you…have…

done?”

It was as if Stefan had started climbing a series of steps, and that

each one lifted him to a higher level of fury than the last. And here, at

the top…

“I’ll KILL YOU!” Stefan shouted. “You took it—my humanity!

He gave it to me— and you took it!”

“You’ll kill me? I’ll kill you, you—you bastard! There was one

flower in the middle. A black rose, bigger than I have ever seen. And it

smelled…heavenly…”

“It’s gone!” Matt reported, producing the bouquet. He displayed it.

There was a gaping hole in the center of the mixed flower arrangement.

Despite the hole, Stefan ran to it, and stuck his face into the

bouquet, sucking in great heaving breaths of air. He kept coming up and

snapping his fingers and each time lightning flared between his

fingertips.

“Sorry, bud,” Matt said. “I think it’s gone.”

Elena could see it all now. That kitsune…he was one of the good

ones, like the stories Meredith had told them about. Or at least good

enough to sympathize with Stefan’s plight. And so, when he had gotten

free, he had made up a bouquet—kitsune could do anything with plants,

although surely this was a great feat, something like finding the secret of

eternal youth…to turn vampires into humans. And after Stefan had

endured and endured and endured and should have finally gotten his

reward…right now…

“I’m going back,” Stefan shouted. “I’m going to find him!”

Meredith said quietly, “With or without Elena?”

Stefan stopped. He looked up at the stairway, and his eyes met

Elena’s.

Elena…

We’ll go together.

“No,” Stefan shouted. “I would never put you through that. I’m not

going after all. I’m just going to murder you!” He swung back on his

brother.

“Been there, done that. Besides, I’m the one that’s going to kill

you, you bastard! You took my world away from me! I am a vampire!

I’m not a”—some creative cursing—“human!”

“Well you are now,” Matt said. He was just barely not laughing out

loud. “So I’d say you’d better get used to it.”

Damon leaped at Stefan. Stefan didn’t step aside. In an instant

there was a ball of thrashing, kicking, and punching, and cursing in

Italian that made it sound as if there were at least four vampires fighting

five or six humans.

Elena sat down helplessly.

Damon…a human?

How were they going to deal with this?

Elena looked up to see that Bonnie had carefully made up a tray of

all sorts of things that tasted good to humans, and that she’d undoubtedly

done it for Damon before he had worked his way into hysteria.

“Bonnie,” Elena said quietly, “don’t give it to him yet. He’ll just

throw it at you. But perhaps later…”

“Later he won’t throw it?”

Elena winced.

“How is Damon going to deal with being human?” she asked

herself aloud.

Bonnie looked at the cursing, spitting ball of vampire/human fury.

“I’d say…kicking and screaming the whole way.”

Just then Mrs. Flowers came out of the kitchen. She had a huge

mound of fluffy waffles stacked on several plates on a tray. She saw the

rolling, swearing, snarling ball that was Stefan and Damon.

“Oh, my,” she said. “Did something go wrong?”

Elena looked at Bonnie. Bonnie looked at Meredith. Meredith

looked at Elena.

“You…could say so,” gasped Elena.

And then the three of them gave way to it. Gales and gales of

helpless laughter.

You’ve lost a powerful ally, said a voice in Elena’s mind. Do you

know that? Can you foresee the consequences? Today, when you have

just come back from a world of Shinichis?

We’ll win, Elena thought. We have to.