Лиза Смит - The Return - Midnight

“This needs to go in the root cellar too,” Meredith said. “And there are probably earth tracks coming out of the cellar, and blood in the kitchen. Two places.”

“Blood?” Elena began, furious with Damon, but then she shook her head and refocused. In the light of dawn, she could see a police car, cruising like some great white shark toward the house.

“Let’s go,” Elena said. “Go, go, go!”

They all dashed back to the boardinghouse, crouching to stay low to the ground as they did it. As they went, Elena hissed, “Stefan, you’ve got to Influence them if you can. Meredith, you try to clean up the soil and blood. I’ll get Matt; he’s less likely to punch me when I tell him he has to hide.”

They hastened to their appointed duties. In the middle of it all, Mrs. Flowers appeared, dressed in a flannel nightgown with a fuzzy pink robe over it, and slippers with bunny heads on them. As the first hammering knock on the door sounded, she had her hand on the door handle, and the police officer, who was beginning to shout, “POLICE! OPEN THE—” found himself bawling this directly over the head of a little old lady who could not have looked more frail or harmless. He ended almost in a whisper, “—door?”

“It is open,” Mrs. Flowers said sweetly. She opened it to its widest, so that Elena could see two officers, and the officers could see Elena, Stefan, and Meredith, all of whom had just arrived from the kitchen area.

“We want to speak to Matt Honeycutt,” the female officer said. Elena noted that the squad car was from the Ridgemont Sheriff’s Department. “His mother informed us that he was here — after serious questioning.”

They were coming inside, shouldering their way past Mrs. Flowers. Elena glanced at Stefan, who was pale, with tiny beads of sweat visible on his forehead.

He was looking intently at the female officer, but she just kept talking.

“His mother says he’s been virtually living at this boardinghouse recently,” she said, while the male officer held up some kind of paperwork.

“We have a warrant to search the premises,” he said flatly.

Mrs. Flowers seemed uncertain. She glanced back toward Stefan, but then let her gaze move on to the other teenagers. “Perhaps it would be best if I made everyone a nice cup of tea?”

Stefan was still looking at the woman, his face looking paler and more drawn than ever. Elena felt a sudden panic clutch at her stomach. Oh, God, even with the gift of her blood tonight, Stefan was weak — far too weak to even use Influence.

“May I ask a question?” Meredith said in her low, calm voice. “Not about the warrant,” she added, waving the paper away. “How is it out there in Fell’s Church?

Do you know what’s going on?”

She was buying time, Elena thought, and yet everyone stopped to hear the answer.

“Mayhem,” the female sheriff replied after a moment’s pause. “It’s like a war zone out there. Worse than that because it’s the kids who are—” She broke off and shook her head. “That’s not our business. Our business is finding a fugitive from justice. But first, as we were driving toward your hotel we saw a very bright column of light. It wasn’t from a helicopter. I don’t suppose you know anything about what it was?”

Just a door through space and time, Elena was thinking, as Meredith answered, still calmly, “Maybe a power transmitter blowing up? Or a freak shaft of lightning?

Or are you talking about…a UFO?” She lowered her already soft voice.

“We don’t have time for this,” the male sheriff said, looking disgusted. “We’re here to find this Honeycutt man.”

“You’re welcome to look,” Mrs. Flowers said. They were already doing so.

Elena felt shocked and nauseated on two fronts. “This Honeycutt man.” Man, not boy. Matt was over eighteen. Was he still a juvenile? If not, what would they do to him when they eventually caught up to him?

And then there was Stefan. Stefan had been so certain, so…convincing…in his announcements about being well again. All that talk about going back to hunting animals — but the truth was that he needed much more blood to recover.

Now her mind spun into planning mode, faster and faster. Stefan obviously wasn’t going to be able to Influence both of those officers without a very large donation of human blood.

And if Elena gave it…the sick feeling in her stomach increased and she felt the small hairs on her body stand up…if she gave it, what were the chances that she would become a vampire herself?

High, a cool, rational voice in her mind answered. Very high, considering that less than a week ago, she had been exchanging blood with Damon. Frequently.

Uninhibitedly.

Which left her with the only plan she could think of. These sheriffs wouldn’t find Matt, but Meredith and Bonnie had told her the whole story of how another Ridgemont sheriff had come, asking about Matt — and about Stefan’s girlfriend. The problem was that she, Elena Gilbert, had “died” nine months ago. She shouldn’t be here — and she had a feeling that these officers would be inquisitive.

They needed Stefan’s Power. Right now. There was no other way, no other choice. Stefan. Power. Human blood.

She moved to Meredith, who had her dark head down and cocked to one side as if listening to the two sheriffs clomping above on the stairs.

“Meredith—” Meredith turned toward her and Elena almost took a step back in shock.

Meredith’s normally olive complexion was gray, and her breath was coming fast and shallowly.

Meredith, calm and composed Meredith, already knew what Elena was going to ask of her. Enough blood to leave her out of control as it was being taken. And fast.

That terrified her. More than terrified.

She can’t do it, Elena thought. We’re lost.

Damon was making his way up the beautiful rose-covered trellis below the window of the bedchamber of M. le Princess Jessalyn D’Aubigne, a very wealthy, beautiful, and much-admired girl who had the bluest blood of any vampire in the Dark Dimension, according to the books he’d bought. In fact, he’d listened to the locals and it was rumored that Sage himself had changed her two years ago, and had given her this bijoux castle to live in. Delicate gem that it appeared, though, the little castle had already presented Damon with several problems. There had been that razor-wire fence, on which he ripped his leather jacket; an unusually dexterous and stubborn guard whom it had really been a pity to strangle; an inner moat that had almost taken him unawares; and a few dogs that he had treated with the Sabertranquilizer routine — using Mrs. Flowers’s sleeping powder, which he’d brought with him from Earth. It would have been easier to poison them, but Jessalyn was reputed to have a very soft heart for animals and he needed her for at least three days. That should be long enough to make him a vampire — if they did nothing else during those days.

Now, as he pulled himself silently up the trellis, he mentally added long rose thorns to the list of inconveniences. He also rehearsed his first speech to Jessalyn. She had been — was — would forever be — eighteen. But it was a young eighteen, since she had only two years’ experience at being a vampire. He comforted himself with this as he climbed silently into a window.

Still silently, moving slowly in case the princess had guardian animals in her bedchamber, Damon parted layer after layer of filmy, translucent black curtains that kept the blood-red light of the sun from shining into the chamber. His boots sank into the thick pile of a black rug. Making it out of the enfolding curtains, Damon saw that the entire chamber was decorated in a simple theme by a master of contrast. Jet-black and off-black.