Лиза Смит - The Return - Midnight

“Because we have to. I need it, even just for a minute!”

Matt could only gaze at her, perplexed. Finally he said, “I guess we can ask the kids.”

“The kids! One of them has got to have a live mobile! Come on, Matt, we have to talk to them right now.” She stopped and said, rather huskily, “I pray that you’re right and I’m wrong.”

“Huh?” Matt had no idea what was going on.

“I said I pray that I’m wrong! You pray, too, Matt — please!”

Elena was waiting for the fog to disperse. It had come in as always, bit by bit, and now she was wondering if it would ever leave, or if it were actually another trial itself. Therefore, when she suddenly realized she could see Stefan’s shirt in front of her, she felt her heart bound for joy. She hadn’t messed anything up lately.

“I can see it!” Stefan said, pulling her up beside him. And then, “Voilà…”—but in a whisper.

“What, what?” cried Bonnie, bounding forward. And then she stopped too.

Damon didn’t bound. He strolled. But Elena was turning toward Bonnie at the time, and she saw his face as he saw it.

In front of them was a sort of small castle, or large gateway with spires that pierced the low clouds that hung above it. There was some kind of writing over the huge cathedral-like black doors in front, but Elena had never seen anything like the squiggles of whatever foreign language it was.

On either side of the building, there were black walls that were nearly as tall as the spires. Elena looked left and right and realized that they disappeared only off at the vanishing point. And without magic, it would be impossible to fly over them.

What the boy and girl in the story had discovered only by following the walls for days, they had simply walked straight into.

“It’s the Gatehouse of the Seven Treasures, isn’t it, Bonnie? Isn’t it? Look!”

Elena shouted.

Bonnie was already looking, both hands pressed against her heart, and for once without a word to say. As Elena watched, the diminutive girl fell to her knees in the light, powdery snow. But Stefan answered. He picked up Bonnie and Elena at the same time and whirled them both. “It is!” he said, just as Elena was saying “It is!”

and Bonnie, the expert, gasping, “Oh, it really, really is!” with tears freezing on her cheeks.

Stefan put his lips to Elena’s ear. “And you know what that means, don’t you? If that is the Gatehouse of the Seven Treasures, you know where we are standing now?”

Elena tried to ignore the warm, tingling sensation that shot up from the soles of her feet at the feeling of Stefan’s breath on her ear. She tried to focus on his question.

“Look up,” Stefan suggested.

Elena did — and gasped.

Above them, instead of a fog bank or incessant crimson light from a sun that never stopped setting, were three moons. One was enormous, covering perhaps a sixth of the sky, shining in swirls of white and blue, hazy at the edges. Just in front of it was a beautiful silvery moon at least three quarters as big as it was.

Last, there was a tiny moon in high orbit, white as a diamond, that seemed to be deliberately keeping its distance from the other two. All of them were half full and shone down with gentle, soothing light on the unbroken snow around Elena.

“We’re in the Nether World,” Elena said, shaken.

“Oh…it’s just like in the story,” Bonnie gasped. “Exactly like. Even the writing!

Even the amount of snow!”

“Exactly like the story?” Stefan asked. “Even to the phase of the moons? How full they are?”

“Just exactly the same.”

Stefan nodded. “I thought they would be. That story was a precognition, given to you with the purpose of helping us find the largest star ball ever made.”

“Well, let’s go inside!” cried Bonnie. “We’re wasting time!”

“Okay — but everyone on your guard. We don’t want anything to go wrong now,” Stefan said.

They went into the Gatehouse of the Seven Treasures in this order: Bonnie, who found that the great black doors swung open at a touch, but that she could see nothing, coming in from bright sunlight; Stefan and Elena, hand in hand; and Damon, who waited outside for a long time in the hopes, Elena thought, of being deemed “a different party.”

Meanwhile the others were having the most pleasant shock since they’d taken the Master Keys from the kitsune.

“Sage — Sage!” Bonnie shrilled as soon as her eyes adjusted. “Oh, look, Elena, it’s Sage! Sage, how are you? What’re you doing here? Oh, it’s just so good to see you!”

Elena blinked twice, and the dim interior of the octagonal room came into focus.

She went around the only piece of furniture in the room, the large desk in the middle. “Sage, do you know how long it seems? Did you know that Bonnie almost got sold for a slave at a public auction? Did you know about her dream?”

Sage looked as he always had to Elena’s eyes. The bronzed, terminally fit body, like a model of a Titan, the bare chest and bare feet, the black Levi’s, the long spiraling tangles of bronze hair, and the strange bronze eyes that could cut steel, or be as gentle as a pet lamb.

“Mes deux petits chatons,” Sage was saying. “My two little kittens, you have astounded me. I have been following your adventures. The Gatekeeper is not provided with much entertainment and is not allowed to leave this fortress, but you were most brave and amusing. Je vous félicite.” He kissed first Elena’s hand and then Bonnie’s, then embraced Stefan with the Latin two-cheeked kiss. Then he resumed his seat.

Bonnie was climbing Sage as if she were a real kitten. “Did you take Misao’s star ball full of Power?” she demanded, kneeling on his thigh. “Did you take half of it, I mean? To get back here?”

“Mais oui, I did. But I also left Madame Flowers a little—”

“Do you know that Damon used the other half to open the Gate again? And that I fell in too, even though he didn’t want me? And that because of that I almost got sold as a slave? And that Stefan and Elena had to come after me, to make sure I was okay? And that on the way here Elena almost fell off the bridge, and we’re not sure if the thurgs are going to make it? And do you know that in Fell’s Church the Last Midnight is coming, and we don’t know—” Stefan and Elena exchanged a long, meaningful glance and then Stefan said, “Bonnie, we have to ask Sage the most important question.” He looked at Sage. “Is it possible for us to save Fell’s Church? Do we have enough time?”

“Eh bien. As far as I can tell from the chronological vortex, you have enough time and a little to spare. Enough for a glass of Black Magic to see you off. But after that, no dawdling!”

Elena felt like a crumpled piece of paper that had been straightened and smoothed. She took a long breath. They could do it. That allowed her to remember civilized behavior. “Sage, how did you get stuck way out here? Or were you waiting for us?”

“Hélas, no — I am assigned here as punishment. I got an Imperial Summons that I could not ignore, mes amis.” He sighed and added, “I am just Out of Favor again.

So now I am the ambassador to the Nether World, as you see.” He waved a languid hand around the room. “Bienvenue.”

Elena had a sense of time ticking away, of precious minutes being lost. But maybe Sage himself would do something for Fell’s Church. “You really have to stay in here?”

“But assuredly, until mon père — my father”—Sage said the word savagely and resentfully—“relents and I am allowed to return to the Infernal Court, or, much better, to go my ways without ever returning. At least until someone takes the pity on me and kills me.” He looked inquiringly around the group, then sighed, and said, “Saber and Talon, they are well?”