Лиза Смит - The Return - Nightfall

“Help me!” Bonnie cried. She was suddenly hanging on to a bucking, kicking bronco that lashed out in every direction. Isobel seemed to have gone crazy, and she went crazier every time that tune was repeated.

“I’ve got her,” Matt said, closing in on her with a bear hug, but even the two of them couldn’t hold Isobel still.

“I’m getting her another sedative,” Dr. Alpert said, and Bonnie saw the glances between Matt and Meredith — glances of suspicion.

“No — no, let Mrs. Flowers make her something,” Bonnie said desperately, but the hypodermic needle was already almost at Isobel’s arm.

“You’re not giving her anything,” Meredith said flatly, dropping the charade, and with one chorus-girl kick, she sent the hypodermic flying.

“Meredith! What’s wrong with you?” the doctor cried, wringing her wrist.

“It’s what’s wrong with you that’s the matter. Who are you? Where are we? This can’t be the real boardinghouse.”

“Obaasan! Mrs. Flowers! Can’t you help us?” Bonnie gasped, still trying to hold on to Isobel.

“I’ll try,” Mrs. Flowers said determinedly, heading toward her.

“No, I meant with Dr. Alpert — and maybe Jim. Don’t you — know any spells — to make people take on their true forms?”

“Oh!” Obaasan said. “I can help with that. Just let me down, Jim dear. We’ll have everyone in their true forms in no time.”

Jayneela was a sophomore with large, dreamy, dark eyes that were generally lost in a book. But now, as it neared midnight and Gramma still hadn’t called, she shut her book and looked at Ty. Tyrone seemed big and fierce and mean on the playing field, but off it he was the nicest, kindest, gentlest big brother a girl could want.

“You think Gramma’s okay?”

“Hm?” Tyrone had his nose in a book, too, but it was one of those help-you-get-into-the-college-of-your-dreams books. As a senior-to-be, he was having to make some serious decisions. “Of course she is.”

“Well, I’m going to check on the little girl, at least.”

“You know what, Jay?” He poked her teasingly with one toe. “You worry too much.”

In moments he was lost again in Chapter Six, “How to Make the Most of Your Community Service.” But then the screams started coming from above him. Long, loud, high screams — his sister’s voice. He dropped the book and ran.

“Obaasan?” Bonnie said.

“Just a moment, dear,” Grandma Saitou said. Jim had put her down and now she was facing him squarely: she looking up, and he looking down. And there was something…very wrong about it.

Bonnie felt a wave of pure terror. Could Jim have done something evil to Obaasan as he carried her? Of course he could. Why hadn’t she thought of that? And there was the doctor with her syringe, ready to tranquilize anyone who got too “hysterical.” Bonnie looked at Meredith, but Meredith was trying to deal with two squirming little girls, and could only glance helplessly back.

All right, then, Bonnie thought. I’ll kick him where it hurts most and get the old lady away from him. She turned back to Obaasan and felt herself freeze.

“Just one thing I have to do…,” Obaasan had said. And she was doing it. Jim was bent at the waist, folded in half toward Obaasan, who was on her tiptoes. They were locked in a deep, intimate kiss.

Oh, God!

They had met four people in a wood — and assumed that two were sane and two insane. How could they tell which were the insane ones? Well, if two of them see things that aren’t there…

But the house was there; Bonnie could see it, too. Was she insane?

“Meredith, come on!” she screamed. Her nerve breaking completely, she began to run away from the house toward the forest.

Something from the skies plucked her up as easily as an owl picks up a mouse and held her in an unrelenting iron grip.

“Going somewhere?” Damon’s voice asked from above her as he glided in the last few yards to a stop, with her neatly tucked under one steely arm.

“Damon!”

Damon’s eyes were slightly narrowed, as though at a joke only he could see. “Yes, the evil one himself. Tell me something, my fiery little fury.”

Bonnie had already exhausted herself trying to make him let go. She hadn’t even succeeded in tearing his clothes.

“What?” she snapped. Possessed or not, Damon had last seen her when she had Called him to save her from Caroline’s insanity. But according to Matt’s reports, he had done something awful to Elena.

“Why do girls love to convert a sinner? Why can you feed them almost any line if they feel that they’ve reformed you?”

Bonnie didn’t know what he was talking about, but she could guess. “What did you do with Elena?” she said ferociously.

“Gave her what she wanted, that’s all,” Damon said, his black eyes twinkling. “Is there anything so awful about that?”

Bonnie, frightened by that twinkle, didn’t even try to run again. She knew it was no use. He was faster and stronger, and he could fly. Anyway, she had seen it in his face: a sort of distant remorselessness. They were not just Damon and Bonnie here together. They were natural predator and natural prey.

And now here she was back with Jim and Obaasan — no, with a boy and girl she’d never seen before. Bonnie was in time to watch the transformation. She saw Jim’s body shrink and his hair turn black, but that wasn’t the striking thing about it. The striking thing was that all around the edges, his hair was not black but crimson. It was as if flames were licking up from the tips into darkness. His eyes were golden and smiling.

She saw Obaasan’s doll-like old body grow younger and stronger and taller. This girl was a beauty; Bonnie had to admit it. She had gorgeous sloe-black eyes and silky hair that fell almost to her waist. And her hair was just like her brother’s — only the red was even brighter, scarlet instead of crimson. She was wearing a barely-there laced black halter that showed how delicately built she was on top. And, of course, low-rise black leather pants to show the same thing on the bottom. She was wearing expensive-looking black high-heeled sandals, and her toenails were enameled the same brilliant red as the tips of her hair. At her belt, in a sinuous circle, was a curled-up whip with a scaly black handle.

Dr. Alpert said slowly, “My grandchildren…?”

“They don’t have anything to do with this,” the boy with the strange hair said charmingly, smiling. “As long as they mind their own business, you don’t have to worry about them a bit.”

“It’s suicide or an attempted suicide — or something,” Tyrone told the police dispatcher, almost weeping. “I think it was a guy named Jim who went to my high school last year. No, this is nothing to do with any drugs — I came here to watch my little sister Jayneela. She was baby-sitting — look, just come over, will you? This guy’s chewed off most of his fingers, and as I came in, he said, ‘I’ll always love you, Elena,’ and he took a pencil and — no, I can’t tell if he’s alive or dead. But there’s an old lady upstairs and I’m sure she’s dead. Because she’s not breathing.”

“Who the hell are you?” Matt was saying, eyeing the strange boy belligerently.

“I’m the—”

“—and what the hell are you doing here?”

“I’m the hell Shinichi,” the boy said in a much louder voice, looking annoyed to be interrupted. When Matt just stared at him, he added in an annoyed voice, “I’m the kitsune — the were-fox, you could say — who’s been messing with your town, idiot. I came halfway around the world to do it, and I’d think you’d at least have heard of me by now. And this is my lovely sister, Misao. We’re twins.”