Лиза Смит - The Return - Midnight

Celia turned away just as she reached him and Elena blew once more across the message. Alaric threw his hands up in a gesture of surrender.

“I don’t suppose the Island of Doom has satellite coverage,” he said helplessly.

“Nope,” Celia said. “But the ferry will be back in a day, and you can send pictures then — if you’re really going to do it.”

“I think I’d better do it,” Alaric said. Elena and Bonnie were both glaring at him, one from each side.

But that was when Elena’s eyelids started to droop. Oh, Bonnie, I’m sorry. I wanted to talk to you after this, and make sure you’re okay. But I’m falling…I can’t…

She managed to pry her lids open. Bonnie was in a fetal position, fast asleep.

Be careful, Elena whispered, not even sure who she was whispering it to. And as she floated away, she was aware of Celia and the way Alaric was talking to this beautiful, accomplished woman only a year or so older than he was. She felt a distinct fear for Meredith, on top of everything else.

The next morning Elena noticed that Meredith still looked pale and languid, and that her eyes slid away if Stefan happened to glance at her. But this was a time of crisis, and as soon as the breakfast dishes were washed, Elena called a meeting in the parlor. There she and Stefan explained what Meredith had missed during the visit from the sheriffs. Meredith smiled wanly when Elena told how Stefan had banished them like stray dogs.

Then Elena told the story of her out-of-body experience. It proved one thing, at least, that Bonnie was alive and relatively well. Meredith bit her lip when Mrs.

Flowers said this, for it only made her want to go and get Bonnie out of the Dark Dimension personally.

But on the other hand, Meredith wanted to stay and wait for Alaric’s photographs.

If that would save Fell’s Church…

No one at the boardinghouse could question what had happened on the Island of Doom. It was happening here, on the other side of the world. Already a couple of parents in Fell’s Church had had their children taken away by the Virginia Department of Child Protective Services. Punishments and retaliations had begun.

How much longer would it be before Shinichi and Misao turned all the children into lethal weapons — or let loose those already turned? How long before some hysterical parent killed a kid?

The group sitting in the parlor discussed plans and methods. In the end, they decided to make jars identical to those Elena and Bonnie had seen, and prayed that they could reproduce the writing. These jars, they were sure, were the means by which Shinichi and Misao were originally sealed off from the rest of the Earth.

Therefore Shinichi and Misao had once fit into the rather cramped accommodations of the jars. But what did Elena’s group have now that could lure them back inside?

Power, they decided. Only an amount of Power so great that it was irresistible to the kitsune twins. That was why the priestess had tried to lure them back with her own blood. Now…it meant either the liquid in a full star ball…or blood from an extraordinarily powerful vampire. Or two vampires. Or three.

Everyone was sober, thinking of this. They didn’t know how much blood would be needed — but Elena feared that it would be more than they can afford to lose. It had certainly been more than the priestess could afford.

And then there was a silence that only Meredith could fill. “I’m sure you’ve all been wondering about this,” she said, producing the staff thing from thin air, as far as Elena could see. How did she do that? Elena wondered. She didn’t have it with her and then she did.

They all stared in the bright sunlight at the sleek beauty of the weapon.

“Whoever made that,” Matt said, “had a twisted imagination.”

“It was one of my ancestors,” Meredith said. “And I won’t contest that.”

“I have a question,” Elena said. “If you’d had that from the beginning of your training; if you’d been raised in that kind of world, would you have tried to kill Stefan? Would you have tried to kill me when I became a vampire?”

“I wish I had a good answer to that,” Meredith said, her dark gray eyes pained.

“But I don’t. I have nightmares about it. But how can I ever say what I would have done if I’d been a different person?”

“I’m not asking that. I’m asking you, the person you are, if you’d had the training

—”

“The training is brainwashing,” Meredith said harshly. Her composed façade seemed about to break.

“Okay, forget that. Would you have tried to kill Stefan, if you’d just had that staff?”

“It’s called a fighting stave. And we’re called — people like my family, except that my parents dropped out — hunter-slayers.”

There was a sort of gasp around the table. Mrs. Flowers poured Meredith more herbal tea from the pot sitting on a trivet.

“Hunter-slayers,” repeated Matt with a certain relish. It wasn’t hard to tell who he was thinking about.

“You can just call us one or the other,” Meredith was saying. “I’ve heard that out west they’ve got hunter-killers. But we hang on to tradition here.”

Elena suddenly felt like a lost little girl. This was Meredith, her big sister Meredith, saying all of this. Elena’s voice was almost pleading. “But you didn’t even tell on Stefan.”

“No, I didn’t. And, no, I don’t think I’d have had the courage to kill anyone — unless I’d been brainwashed. But I knew Stefan loved you. I knew he would never make you into a vampire. The problem was — I didn’t know enough about Damon. I didn’t know that you were fooling around so much. I don’t think anybody knew that.”

Meredith’s voice was anguished, too.

“Except me,” Elena said, flushing, with a lopsided smile. “Don’t look so sad, Meredith. It worked out.”

“You call having to leave your family and your town because everyone knows you’re dead, working out?”

“I do,” Elena replied desperately, “if it means I get to be with Stefan.” She did her best not to think about Damon.

Meredith looked at her blankly for a moment, then put her face in her hands. “Do you want to tell them or should I?” she asked, coming up for air and facing Stefan.

Stefan looked startled. “You remember?”

“Probably as much as you got from my mind. Bits and pieces. Stuff I don’t want to remember.”

“Okay.” Now Stefan looked relieved, and Elena felt frightened. Stefan and Meredith had a secret together?

“We all know that Klaus made at least two visits to Fell’s Church. We know that he was — completely evil — and that on the second visit he planned to be a serial murderer. He killed Sue Carson and Vickie Bennett.”

Elena interrupted quietly. “Or at least he helped Tyler Smallwood to kill Sue, so that Tyler could be initiated as a werewolf. And then Tyler got Caroline pregnant.”

Matt cleared his throat as something occurred to him. “Uh — does Caroline have to kill somebody to be a full werewolf, too?”

“I don’t think so,” Elena said. “Stefan says that having a werewolf litter is enough.

Either way, blood is spilled. Caroline will be a full werewolf when she has her twins, but she’ll probably begin changing involuntarily before that. Right?”

Stefan nodded. “Right. But getting back to Klaus: What was it he was supposed to have done on his first visit? He attacked — without killing — an old man who was a full hunter-slayer.”

“My grandfather,” Meredith whispered.

“And he supposedly messed with Meredith’s grandfather’s mind so much that this old man tried to kill his wife and his three-year-old granddaughter. So what is wrong with this picture?”