Лиза Смит - The Return - Midnight

They made it to the storage room, but now a sound like vipvipvip — a sort of highpitched buzzing that could only have been produced by the malach — was following them.

“What now?” Matt panted, helping Mrs. Flowers to sit on the bed.

Stefan hesitated. “Is your house really safe, do you think?”

“Is anywhere safe? But it’s empty, or it should be.”

Meanwhile, Meredith drew Elena and Mrs. Flowers aside. To Elena’s horror, Meredith was holding one of the smaller grubs, gripping it so that its underside was turned upward.

“Oh, God—” Elena protested, but Meredith said, “They look a lot like a little kid’s teeth, don’t they?”

Suddenly Mrs. Flowers became animated. “They do indeed! And you’re saying that the femur we found in the thicket—”

“Yes. It was certainly human but maybe not chewed by humans. Human children,” Meredith said.

“And Shinichi yelled to the malach to bring back our bones…” Elena said and swallowed. Then she looked at the grub again. “Meredith, get rid of that thing somehow! It’s going to pop out as a flying malach.”

Meredith looked around the storage room blankly.

“Okay — just drop it and I’ll step on it,” Elena said, holding her breath to hold in her nausea.

Meredith dropped the fat, translucent, black thing, which exploded on impact.

Elena stamped on it, but the malach inside didn’t crush. Instead, when she lifted her foot, it tried to skitter under the bed. The stave cut it cleanly in two.

“Guys,” Elena said sharply to Matt and Stefan, “we have to go now. Outside are a bunch of flying malach!”

Matt turned toward her. “Like the one that—”

“Smaller, but just like the one that attacked you, I think.”

“Okay, here’s what we figured out,” Stefan said in a way that immediately made Elena uneasy. “Somebody has to go to the Dark Dimension anyway to check on Bonnie. I guess I’m the only one to do that, since I’m a vampire. You couldn’t get in

—”

“Yes, we could,” Meredith said. “With these keys, we could just say ‘Take us to Lady Ulma’s house in the Dark Dimension.’ Or ‘Take me to wherever Bonnie is.’ Why shouldn’t it work?”

Elena said, “Okay. Meredith, Matt, and Mrs. Flowers can stay here and try to figure out what ‘Midnight’ is. From the way Shinichi said it, it sounded bad.

Meanwhile, Stefan and I go to the Dark Dimension and find Bonnie.”

“No!” Stefan said. “I won’t take you to that horrible place again.”

Elena looked him straight in the eye. “You promised,” she said, indifferent to the other people in the room. “You promised. Never to go again on a quest without me.

No matter how short the time, no matter what the cause. You promised.”

Stefan looked at her desperately. Elena knew he wanted to keep her safe — but which world was truly safe now? Both were filled with horror and danger.

“Anyway,” she said with a grim smile, “I have the key.”

“Now you know how it’s done?” Elena asked Meredith. “You put the key in the keyhole and say where you want to go. Then open the door and go through. That’s it.”

“You three go first,” Stefan added. “And quick.”

“I’ll turn the key,” Meredith told Matt. “You take care of Mrs. Flowers.”

Just then Elena thought of something that she didn’t want to say aloud, only to Stefan. But she and he were physically so close, she knew he would pick it up.

Saber! she thought to Stefan. We can’t leave him to these malach!

We won’t, she heard Stefan’s voice in her head say. I showed him the way to Matt’s house, and told him to go there and take Talon and protect the people who will be coming.

At the same time Matt was saying, “Oh, my God! Saber! He saved my life — I can’t just leave him.”

“Already taken care of,” Stefan reassured him and Elena patted him on the back.

“He’ll be at your house in a little while, and if you go somewhere else he’ll track you.”

Elena turned her pats into gentle pushes. “Be good!”

“Matt Honeycutt’s bedroom in Fell’s Church,” Meredith said, thrusting the key at the door handle, and opening the door. She and Mrs. Flowers and Matt all stepped forward. The door shut.

Stefan turned to Elena. “I’m going first,” he said flatly. “But I’m holding on to you.

I’m not going to let you go.”

“Never let me go, never let me go,” Elena whispered in an imitation of Misao’s

“Have nightmares.” Then she had a thought.

“Slave bracelets!”

“What?” Stefan said. Then, “Oh, I remember, you told me. But what are they supposed to look like?”

“Like any two bracelets, matching if possible.” Elena was scrambling around the back of the room, where furniture was piled up, opening drawers, closing them.

“Come on, bracelets! Come on! This house is supposed to have everything!”

“What about these things you wear in your hair?” Stefan asked. Elena looked back and he tossed her a bag of soft cotton ponytail holders.

“You’re a genius! They won’t even hurt my wrists. And here are two white ones so they’ll match!” Elena said happily.

They arranged themselves in front of the door, with Stefan to Elena’s left so he could see what was out there before they stepped in. He also had a firm grip on Elena’s left arm.

“Wherever our friend Bonnie McCullough is,” Stefan said, and thrust the key into the lockless door handle, turning it. Then, after giving Elena the key, he gingerly opened the door.

Elena wasn’t sure what she was expecting. A blaze of light maybe, as they traveled through dimensions. Some kind of spiraling tunnel, or shooting stars. At least a feeling of motion.

What she got was steam. It soaked through her T-shirt and dampened her hair.

And then she got noise.

“Elena! Eleeeeeeeeeeeeeeena! You’re here!”

Elena recognized the voice but couldn’t locate the screamer in the steam.

Then she saw an immense bathtub made of tiles of malachite, and a frightenedlooking girl tending a charcoal fire at the bath’s foot, while two other young attendants holding scrubbing brushes and pumice stones cowered against the other wall.

And in the bath was Bonnie! It was obvious that the tub was very deep, because Bonnie wasn’t able to touch bottom in the middle but she was half-leaping out of the water like a foam-covered dolphin over and over to attract attention.

“There you are,” gasped Elena. She dropped to her knees on a thick, soft blue rug. Bonnie made a spectacular leap and just for a moment Elena could feel a small soapy, sudsy body in her arms.

Then Bonnie went down again and came up laughing.

“And is that Stefan? It’s Stefan! Stefan, hello! Helloooo!”

Stefan glanced back, as if trying to assess the suds situation. He seemed satisfied with it, turned slightly, and waved.

“Hey, Bonnie?” he asked, voice muffled by the sounds of continual splashing.

“Where are we?”

“It’s Lady Ulma’s house! You’re safe — you’re all safe!” She turned a small hopeful face to Elena. “Where’s Meredith?”

Elena shook her head, thinking of all the things about Meredith that Bonnie didn’t know yet. Well, she decided, this wasn’t the time to mention them. “She had to stay behind, to protect Fell’s Church.”

“Oh,” Bonnie looked down, troubled. “Still bad, is it?”

“You wouldn’t believe it. Really; it’s — indescribable. That’s where Matt and Mrs.

Flowers and Meredith are. I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m just so glad to see you! Oh my God, but you’re hurt.” She was looking at the small tooth wounds on Elena’s arm, and the blood on her torn T-shirt. “I’ll get out and — hey, no, you get in! There’s plenty of room; plenty of hot water, and…plenty of clothes! Lady Ulma even designed some for us, for ‘when we came back’!”