Лиза Смит - The Return - Midnight

“But how will you fight?” Matt asked, sounding dazed.

“With this. That nice young man, Sage, left it for me with a note apologizing for using Misao’s star ball. I used to be quite good with these when I was young.” From her capacious purse, Mrs. Flowers pulled out something pale and long and thin as it unwound and Mrs. Flowers whirled it and snapped it with a loud crack at the empty half of the basement. It hit a Ping-Pong ball, curled around it, and brought it back to Mrs. Flowers’s open hand.

A bullwhip. Made of some silvery material. Undoubtedly magical. Even Matt looked scared of it.

“Why don’t Ava and Jake teach the children to play Ping-Pong while we’re gone — and we really must go, my dears. There’s not a minute to waste. A terrible tragedy is coming, Mama says.”

Meredith had been watching — feeling as dazed as Matt looked. But now she said, “I have a weapon too.” She picked up the stave and said, “I’m fighting, Matt.

Ava, the children are yours to care for.”

“And mine,” Jacob said, and immediately proved his usefulness by adding, “Isn’t that an axe hanging back there near the furnace?”

Matt ran and snatched it up. Meredith could see from his expression what he was thinking: Yes! One heavy axe, a tiny bit rusty, but still plenty sharp enough.

Now if the kitsune sent plants or wood against them, he was armed.

Mrs. Flowers was already going up the basement stairs. Meredith and Matt exchanged one quick glance and then they were running to catch up with her.

“You drive your mom’s SUV. I’ll sit in back. I’m still a little bit…well, dizzy, I guess.”

Meredith didn’t like to admit to a personal weakness, but better that than crashing the vehicle.

Matt nodded and was good enough not to comment on why she felt so dizzy. She still couldn’t believe her own stupidity.

Mrs. Flowers said only one thing. “Matt, dear, break traffic laws.”

Elena felt as if she had been doing nothing in all her life except walk under a shady canopy of high branches. It wasn’t cold here, but it was cool. It wasn’t dark, but it was dim. Instead of the constant crimson sunlight from the bloated red sun in the first Dark Dimension, they were walking in a constant dusk. It was unnerving, always looking up for the sky and never seeing the moon — or moons — or the planet — that might well be up there. Rather than sky, there was nothing but tangled tree branches, clearly heavy and so intricately entwined as to take up every bit of space above.

Was she crazy, thinking that maybe they were on that moon, the diamond bright tiny moon that you could see from the outside of the Nether World Gatehouse?

Was it too tiny to have an atmosphere? Too small for proper gravity? She had noticed that she felt lighter here and that even Bonnie’s steps seemed quite long.

Could she…? She tensed her legs, let go of Stefan’s hand, and jumped.

It was a long jump, but it hadn’t taken her anywhere near the canopy of woven branches above. And she didn’t land neatly on her toes, either. Her feet flew out from under her on millennia of leaf mold and she skidded on her rear end for maybe three feet, before she could dig her fingers and feet in and stop.

“Elena! Are you all right?” She could hear Stefan and Bonnie calling from behind her, and a quick, impatient: Are you crazy? from Damon.

“I was trying to figure out where we were by testing the gravity,” she said, standing up on her own and brushing leaves off the seat of her jeans, mortified.

Damn! Those leaves had gone up the back of her T-shirt, had even gotten inside her camisole. The group had left most of their furs behind at the Gatehouse, where Sage could guard them, and Elena didn’t even have spare clothes. That had been stupid, she told herself angrily now. Embarrassed, she tried to walk and shimmy at the same time, to get the crumbled leaves out of her top. Finally she had to say, “Just a second, everybody. Guys, could you turn around? Bonnie, could you come back here and help me?” Bonnie was glad to help and Elena was astonished at how long it took to pick gunk away from her own flinching back.

Next time you want a scientific opinion, try asking, Damon’s scornful telepathy commented. Aloud, he added, “I’d say it’s about eighty percent Earth’s gravity here and we could well be on a moon. Doesn’t signify. If Sage hadn’t helped us with this compass, we’d never be able to find the tree’s trunk — at least not in time.”

“And remember,” Elena said, “that the idea that the star ball is near the trunk is just a guess. We have to keep our eyes open!”

“But what should we look for?” Once, Bonnie would have wailed this. Now she simply asked quietly.

“Well…” Elena turned to Stefan. “It will look bright, won’t it? Against this horrible half-light?”

“This horrible camouflage-green half-light,” Stefan agreed. “It should look like a slightly shifting bright light.”

“But put it like this,” Damon said, walking backward gracefully and flashing his old

250-kilowatt smile for a second at them. “If we don’t follow Sage’s suggestion, we’ll never find the trunk. If we try to wander randomly around this world, we will never find anything — including our way back. And then not only Fell’s Church, but we will all die, in this order. First, we two vampires will break with all civilized behavior, as starvation—”

“Stefan won’t,” cried Elena, and Bonnie said, “You’re just as bad as Shinichi, with his ‘revelations’ about us!”

Damon smiled subtly. “If I were as bad as Shinichi, little redbird, you would already be punctured like an empty juice box — or I would be sitting back with Sage, enjoying Black Magic—”

“Look, this is pointless,” Stefan said.

Damon feigned sympathy. “Maybe you have…problems…in the canine area, but I do not, little brother.” He deliberately held the smile this time so everyone could see his pointed teeth.

Stefan wouldn’t be baited. “And it’s holding us up—”

“Wrong, little brother. Some of us have mastered the art of speaking and walking at the same time.”

“Damon — stop it! Just stop!” Elena said, rubbing her hot forehead with cold fingers.

Damon shrugged, still moving backward. “You only had to ask,” he said, with just the slightest emphasis on the first word.

Elena said nothing in return. She felt feverish.

It wasn’t all just straight walking. Frequently there were huge mounds of knotted roots in their way that had to be climbed. Sometimes Stefan had to use the axe from his backpack to make footholds.

Elena had come to hate the deep green demi-light more than anything. It played tricks on her eyes, just as the muffled sound of their feet on the leaf-strewn ground played tricks on her ears. Several times she stopped — and once Stefan did — to say, “There’s someone else here! Following us!”

Each time they had all stopped and listened intently. Stefan and Damon sent telepathic probes of Power as far as they could reach, seeking another mind. But either it was so well disguised as to be invisible or it didn’t exist at all.

And then, after Elena felt as if she had been walking her whole life, and would keep walking until eternity ended, Damon stopped abruptly. Bonnie, just behind him, sucked in her breath. Elena and Stefan hurried forward to see what it was.

What Elena saw made her say, unsteadily, “I think maybe we missed the trunk and…found…the edge…”

On the ground in front of her and as far as she could see, was the star-studded darkness of space. But washing out the light of the stars was a huge planet and two huge moons, one swirled blue and white and one silver.