Лиза Смит - The Return - Nightfall

Ages later, Elena woke up sluggishly. Damon was still enjoying himself, clearly lost in the experience of having Elena Gilbert. And there was no time to make different plans.

Her body simply took over by itself, startling her almost as much as it startled Damon. Even as he lifted his head, her hand plucked the magical house key off his finger. Then she gripped, twisted, lifted her knees as high as she could, and kicked outward, sending Damon smashing through the splintered, rotted wood that formed the outside railing of the widow’s walk.

Elena had once fallen off that balcony and Stefan had jumped and caught her before she could hit the ground. A human falling from that height would be dead on impact. A vampire in full possession of his or her reflexes would simply twist in the air like a cat and land lightly on their feet. But one in Damon’s particular circumstances tonight…

From the sound of it, he had tried to twist, but had only ended up landing on his side and breaking bones. Elena deduced the latter from his cursing. She didn’t wait to listen for more specifics. She was off like a rabbit, down to the level of Stefan’s room — where instantaneously and almost unconsciously, she sent out a wordless plea — and then down the stairs. The cabin had turned completely into a perfect duplicate of the boardinghouse. Elena didn’t know why, but instinctively she ran to the side of the house that Damon would know the least: the old servant’s quarters. She got that far before she dared whispering things to the house, asking for them rather than demanding them, and praying that the house would obey her as it had obeyed Damon.

“Aunt Judith’s house,” she whispered, thrusting the key into a door — it went in like a hot knife into butter and turned almost of its own volition, and then suddenly she was there again, in what had been her home for sixteen years, up until her first death.

She was in the hallway, with her little sister Margaret’s open door showing her lying on the floor of her bedroom, staring with wide-open eyes over a coloring book.

“It’s tag, sweetie!” she announced as if ghosts appeared every day in the Gilbert household and Margaret was supposed to know how to deal with it. “You go running to your friend Barbara’s and then she has to be It. Don’t stop running until you get there, and then go see Barbara’s mom. But first you give me three kisses.” And she lifted Margaret and hugged her tightly and then almost threw her at the door.

“But Elena — you’re back—”

“I know, darling, and I promise to see you again another day. But now — run, baby—”

“I told them you would come back. You did before.”

“Margaret!Run!”

Choking on tears, but maybe recognizing in her childlike way the seriousness of the situation, Margaret ran. And Elena followed, but zagging toward a different staircase when Margaret zigged.

And then she found herself confronted by a smirking Damon.

“You take too long to talk to people,” he said as Elena frantically counted her options. Go over the balcony into the entry way? No. Damon’s bones might still hurt a little but if Elena jumped even one story, she would probably break her neck. What else? Think!

And then she was opening the door into the china closet, at the same time shouting out, “Great-aunt Tilda’s house,” unsure if the magic would still work. And then she was slamming the door in Damon’s face.

And she was in her Aunt Tilda’s house, but the Aunt Tilda’s house of the past. No wonder they accused poor Auntie Tilda of seeing strange things, Elena thought, as she saw the woman turning while holding a large glass casserole dish full of something that smelled mushroomy, and screaming, and dropping the dish.

“Elena!” she cried. “What — it can’t be you — you’re all grown up!”

“What’s the trouble?” demanded Aunt Maggie, who was Aunt Tilda’s friend, coming in from the other room. She was taller and fiercer than Aunt Tilda.

“I’m being chased,” cried Elena. “I need to find a door, and if you see a boy after me—” And just then Damon stepped out of the coat closet, and at the same time Aunt Maggie tripped him neatly and said, “Bathroom door beside you,” and picked up a vase and hit the rising Damon over the head with it. Hard.

And Elena dashed through the bathroom door, crying, “Robert E. Lee High School last fall — just as the bell’s rung!”

And then she was swimming against the flow, with dozens of students trying to get to their classes on time — but then one of them recognized her, and then another, and while apparently she’d successfully traveled to a time when she wasn’t dead — no one was screaming “ghost”—neither had anyone at Robert E. Lee ever seen Elena Gilbert wearing a boy’s shirt over a camisole, with her hair falling wildly over her shoulders.

“It’s a costume for a play!” she shouted, and created one of the immortal legends about herself before she had even died by adding, “Caroline’s house!” and stepping into a janitor’s closet. An instant later, the most gorgeous boy that anyone had ever seen appeared behind her, and rocketed through the same doors saying words in a foreign language. And when the janitor’s closet opened, neither boy nor girl was there.

Elena landed running down a hallway and almost crashed into Mr. Forbes, who looked rather wobbly. He was drinking what seemed to be a large glass of tomato juice that smelled like alcohol.

“We don’t know where she’s gone, all right?” he shouted before Elena could say a word. “She’s gone right out of her mind, as far as I can tell. She was talking about the ceremony at the widow’s walk — and the way she was dressed! Parents don’t have any control over children anymore!” He slumped against the wall.

“I’m so sorry,” murmured Elena.The ceremony. Well, Black Magic ceremonies were usually held at moonrise or midnight. And it was just a few minutes before midnight. But in those minutes, Elena had just come up with scheme B.

“Excuse me,” she said, taking the drink out of Mr. Forbes’s hand and dashing it directly into the face of Damon, who had appeared out of a closet. Then she shouted, “Some place their kind can’t see!” and stepped into…

Limbo?

Heaven?

Some place their kind couldn’t see.At first Elena wondered about herself, because she couldn’t see much of anything at all.

But then she realized where she was, deep in the earth, beneath Honoria Fell’s empty tomb. Once, she had fought down here to save the lives of Stefan and Damon.

And now, where there should have been nothing but darkness and rats and mildew, was a tiny, shining, light. Like a miniature Tinkerbell — just a speck, it hovered in the air, not leading her, not communicating, but…protecting, Elena realized. She took the light, which felt bright and cool in her fingers, and around her she traced a circle, big enough for a full-grown person to lie down in.

When she turned back, Damon was sitting in the middle.

He looked strangely pale for someone who had just fed. But he said nothing, not a word, just gazed at her. Elena went to him and touched him on the neck.

And a moment later, Damon was again drinking deep, deep, of the most extraordinary blood in the world.

Usually, he would be analyzing by now: taste of berry, taste of tropical fruit, smooth, smoky, woody, rounded with a silken aftertaste…But not now. Not this blood, which far surpassed anything for which he had words. This blood that was filling him with power such as he had never known before….

Damon…

Why was he not listening? How had he come to be drinking this extraordinary blood that tasted somehow of the afterlife, and why was he not listening to the donor?