Лиза Смит - The Return - Midnight

Everyone nodded. Elena felt sorry for Matt and Stefan, who were the most honest and sensitive of all of them.

“One,” she whispered softly, “two, three.”

On three Meredith hit the concealed wall switch. And then things began to happen in very slow motion.

By “two” Elena had already begun to shove Misao toward the door. On “three” the others joined her.

But the door seemed to take forever to open. And before the ending of forever, everything went wrong.

The greenery around Misao’s head spread twigs in all directions. One strand shot out and snagged Elena around the wrist. She heard a yell of outrage from Matt and knew that another strand had gotten him.

“Push!” Meredith shouted and then Elena saw the stave coming at her. Meredith whisked with the stave through the greenery connected to Misao. The vine that had been cutting into Elena’s wrist fell to the floor.

Any remaining misgivings about throwing Misao down the stairs vanished. Elena joined in the crowd trying to push her through the opening. But there was something wrong in the basement. For one thing, they were shoving Misao into pitchdarkness…and movement.

The basement was full of — something. Some things.

Elena looked down at her ankle and was horrified to see a gigantic maggot that seemed to have crawled out of the root cellar. Or at least a maggot was the first thing she could think of to compare it to — maybe it was a headless slug. It was translucent and black and about a foot long, but far too fat for her to have put a hand around it. It seemed to have two ways of moving, one by the familiar hunchand-straighten method and the other by simply sticking to other maggots, which were exploding up over Elena’s head like a hideous fountain.

Elena looked up and wished she hadn’t.

There was a cobra waving over them, out of the root cellar and into the kitchen. It was a cobra made of black translucent maggots stuck together, and every so often one would fall off and land among the group and there would be a cry.

If Bonnie had been with them, she would have screamed until the wineglasses in the cupboards shattered, Elena thought wildly. Meredith was trying to attack the cobra with the stave and reach into her jeans pocket for Post-it Notes at the same time.

“I’ll get the notes,” Elena gasped, and wriggled her hand into Meredith’s pocket.

Her fingers closed on a small sheaf of cards and she tugged it out triumphantly.

Just then the first glistening fat maggot fell on her bare skin. She wanted to scream with pain as its little feet or teeth or suckers — whatever kept it attached to her — burned and stung. She pulled a thin card from the sheaf, which was not a Post-it Note but the same amulet on a small rather flimsy note card, and slapped it on the maggot-like thing.

Nothing happened.

Meredith was thrusting the stave into the middle of the cobra now. Elena saw another of the creatures fall almost onto her upturned face and managed to turn away so that it hit her collar instead. She tried another card from the sheaf and when it just floated away — the maggots looked gooey but weren’t — she gave a primal scream and ripped with both hands at the ugly things attached to her. They gave way, leaving her skin covered with red marks and her T-shirt torn at the shoulder.

“The amulets aren’t working,” she yelled to Meredith.

Meredith was actually standing under the swaying, hooded head of the maggotcobra, stabbing and stabbing as if to reach the center. Her voice was muffled. “Not enough amulets anyway! Too many of these grubs. You’d better run.”

An instant later Stefan shouted, “Everybody get away from here! There’s something solid in there!”

“That’s what I’m trying to get!” Meredith shouted back.

Frantically, Matt yelled, “Where’s Misao?”

The last time Elena had seen her she had been diving into the writhing mass of segmented darkness. “Gone,” she shouted back. “Where’s Mrs. Flowers?”

“In the kitchen,” said a voice behind her. Elena glanced back and saw the old woman pulling down herbs with both hands.

“Okay,” Stefan shouted. “Everybody, take a few steps back. I’m going to hit it with Power. Do it — now!”

His voice was like a whiplash. Everyone stepped back, even Meredith who had been probing the snake with her stave.

Stefan curled his hand around nothingness, around air, and it turned to sparkling, swirling bright energy. He threw it point-blank into the cobra made of maggots.

There was an explosion, and then suddenly it was raining maggots. Elena had her teeth locked so as to keep herself from screaming. The oval translucent bodies of the maggots broke open on the kitchen floor like overripe plums, or else bounced. When Elena dared look up again she saw a black stain on the ceiling.

Beneath it, smiling, was Shinichi.

Meredith, lightning quick, tried to put the stave through him. But Shinichi was faster, leaning out of her way, and out of the next thrust, and the next.

“You humans,” he said. “All the same. All stupid. When Midnight finally comes you’ll see how stupid you were.” He said “Midnight” as if he were saying “the Apocalypse.”

“We were smart enough to discover that you weren’t Stefan,” Matt said from behind Shinichi.

Shinichi rolled his eyes. “And to put me into a little room roofed with wood. You can’t even remember that kitsune control all plants and trees? The walls are all full of malach grubs by now, you know. Thoroughly infested.” His eyes flickered — and he glanced backward, Elena saw, looking toward the open door of the root cellar.

Her terror soared, and at the same time Stefan shouted, “Get out of here! Out of the house! Go to somewhere safe!”

Elena and Meredith stared at each other, paralyzed. They were on different teams, but they couldn’t seem to let go of each other. Then Meredith snapped out of it and turned to the back of the kitchen to help Mrs. Flowers. Matt was already there, doing the same thing.

And then Elena found herself swept off her feet and moving fast. Stefan had her and was running toward the front door. Distantly, she heard Shinichi shout, “Bring me back their bones!”

One of the maggots that Elena batted out of the way burst its skin and Elena saw something crawling out. These really were malach, she realized. Smaller editions of the one that had swallowed Matt’s arm and left those long, deep scratches when he pulled it out again.

She noticed that one was stuck on Stefan’s back. Reckless with fury, she grabbed it near one end and ripped it off, yanking relentlessly even though Stefan gasped in pain. When it came free she got a glimpse of what looked like dozens of small children’s teeth on the bottom side. She threw it against a wall as they reached the front door.

There they almost collided with Matt, Meredith, and Mrs. Flowers, coming through the den. Stefan wrenched the door open and when they all were through Meredith slammed it shut. A few malach — grubs and still-wet flying ones — made it out with them.

“Where’s safe?” snapped Meredith. “I mean, really safe, safe for a couple of days?” Neither she nor Matt had released their grip on Mrs. Flowers and from their speed Elena guessed that she must be almost as light as a straw figure. She kept saying, “My goodness! Oh, gracious!”

“My house?” Matt suggested. “The block’s bad, but it was okay the last time I saw it, and my mom’s gone with Dr. Alpert.”

“Okay, Matt’s house — using the Master Keys. But let’s do it from the storage room. I do not want to open this front door again, no matter what,” Elena said.

When Stefan tried to pick her up she shook her head. “I’m fine. Run as fast as you can and smash any malach you see.”