Лиза Смит - The Return - Nightfall

The malach that she had seen before inside Damon, and the one Matt had described had been huge for insects — as long as an arm, maybe. But now in Damon she sensed something…huge. Monstrous. Something that inhabited him completely, its transparent head inside his beautiful features, its chitinous body as long as his torso; its backward-twisted legs inside his legs. For a moment she thought she would faint; but then she controlled herself. Staring at the ghostly image, she thought, What Would Meredith Do?

Meredith would stay calm. She wouldn’t lie, but she would find some way to help.

“Damon, it’s bad. But there has to be some way to get it out of you — soon. I’m going to find that way. Because as long as it’s in you, Shinichi can make you do anything.”

“Will you listen to why I think it’s grown so large? That night, when Stefan dismissed me from his room, everyone else went home like good little girls and boys, but you and Stefan took a walk. A fly. A glide.”

For a long time it meant nothing to her, even though it had been the last time she’d seen Stefan. In fact, that was its only significance to her: it was the last time she and Stefan had…

She felt herself freeze over inside.

“You went into the Old Wood. You were still the little spirit child who didn’t really know what was right and what was wrong. But Stefan should have known better than to do that — on my own territory. Vampires take territory seriously. And in my own resting place — right in front of my eyes.”

“Oh, Damon! No!”

“Oh, Damon, yes! There you were, sharing blood, too absorbed to have noticed me even if I had leaped out and tried to pry you apart. You were wearing a high-necked white nightgown and you looked like an angel. I wanted to kill Stefan right then.”

“Damon—”

“And it was right then that Shinichi appeared. He didn’t need to be told what I was feeling. And he had a plan, an offer…a proposition.”

Elena shut her eyes again and shook her head. “He’d prepared you beforehand. You were already possessed and ready to be full of anger.”

“I don’t know why,” Damon went on as if he hadn’t heard her, “but I scarcely thought about what it would mean to Bonnie and Meredith and the rest of the town. All I could think of was you. All I wanted was you, and revenge on Stefan.”

“Damon, will you listen? By then, you had already been deliberately possessed. I could see the malach in you. You admit”—as she felt him swelling up to speak out—“that something was influencing you before that, forcing you to watch Bonnie and the others die at your feet that night. Damon, I think these things are even harder to get rid of than we imagine. For one thing, you wouldn’t normally stay and watch people do — private things, would you? Doesn’t the fact that you did in itself prove that something was wrong?”

“It’s…a theory,” Damon granted, not sounding happy.

“But don’t you see? That was what made you tell Stefan you only saved Bonnie out of whim, and that was what made you refuse to tell everyone that the malach weremaking you watch the trees’ attack, hypnotizing you. That and your stupid, stubborn pride.”

“Watch it on the compliments. I may dry up and blow away.”

“Don’t worry,” Elena said flatly, “whatever happens to the rest of us, I have a feeling your ego will survive. What happened next?”

“I made my deal with Shinichi. He would lure Stefan somewhere out of the way where I could see him alone, then smuggle him out of this place to somewhere Stefan couldn’t find you—” Something bubbled up explosively again inside Elena. It was a tight hard ball of compressed elation. “Not kill him?” she managed to get out.

“What?”

“Stefan’s alive? He’s alive? He…he’s really alive?”

“Steady,” Damon replied coldly. “Steady on, Elena. We can’t have you fainting.” He held her by the shoulders. “You thought I meant to kill him?”

Elena was trembling almost too hard to answer. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“I apologize for the omission.”

“He’s alive — for sure, Damon? You’re absolutely sure?”

“Positive.”

Without a thought of herself, without a thought of any kind, Elena did what she did best — gave in to impulse. She threw her arms around Damon’s neck and kissed him.

For a moment Damon just stood rigid with shock. He had contracted with killers to hijack her lover and decimate her town. But Elena’s mind would never see it that way.

“If he were dead—” He stopped and had to try again. “Shinichi’s whole bargain depends on keeping him alive — alive and away from you. I couldn’t risk you killing yourself or really hating me”—again the note of distant coldness. “With Stefan dead, what hold would I have over you, princess?”

Elena ignored all this. “If he’s alive, I can find him.”

“If he remembers you. But what if every memory he had of you were taken away?”

“What?” Elena wanted to explode. “If every memory of Stefan were taken away from me,” she said icily, “I would still fall in love with him the very moment I saw him. And if every memory of me were taken away from Stefan, he would wander all over the world looking for something without knowing what he was looking for.”

“Very poetic.”

“But, oh, Damon, thank you for not letting Shinichi kill him!”

He shook his head at her, looking bewildered at himself. “I couldn’t — seem to — do that. Something about giving my word. I figured that if he were free and happy and didn’t remember, that would satisfy enough…”

“Of your promise to me? You figured wrong. But it doesn’t matter now.”

“It does matter. You’ve suffered for it.”

“No, Damon. All that really matters is that he’s not dead — and he didn’t leave me. There’s still hope.”

“But Elena,” Damon’s voice had life now; it was both excited and inflexible: “Can’t you see? Past history aside, you have to admit that we’re the ones that belong together. You and I are simply better suited to each other by nature. Deep down you know that, because we understand each other. We’re on the same intellectual level—”

“So is Stefan!”

“Well, all I can say is that he does a remarkable job of hiding it, then. But can’t you feel it? Don’t you feel”—his grip was becoming uncomfortable now—“that you could be my princess of darkness — that something deep inside you wants to? I can see it, if you can’t.”

“I can’t be anything to you, Damon. Except a decent sister-in-law.”

He shook his head, laughing harshly. “No, you’re only suited for the main role. Well, all I can say is that if we live through the fight with the twins, you’ll see things in yourself that you’ve never seen before. And you’ll know that we’re more suited together.”

“And all I can say is that if we live through this fight with the Bobbsey twins from Hell, it sounds as if we’re going to need all the spiritual power that we can get afterward. And that means getting Stefan back.”

“We may not be able to get him back. Oh, I agree — even if we drive Shinichi and Misao away from Fell’s Church, the likelihood that we’re going to be able to do away with them completely is about zero. You’re no fighter. We’re probably not even going to be able to hurt them very much. But even I don’t know exactly where Stefan is.”

“Then the twins are the only ones who can help us.”

“If they still can help us — oh, all right, I’ll admit it. The Shi no Shi are probably complete frauds. They probably take a few memories from vampire chumps — memories are the coin of choice in the realm of the Other Side — and then send them away while the cash register is still jingling. They’re frauds. The whole place is a giant slum and freak show — sort of like a rundown Vegas.”