Лиза Смит - The Return - Nightfall

“I don’t care if you’re triplets. Elena said somebody besides Damon was behind this. And so did Stefan before he — hey, what did you do to Stefan?What did you do to Elena?”

While the two strange males were bristling at each other — quite literally in Shinichi’s case, since his hair was almost standing on end — Meredith was picking out Bonnie, Dr. Alpert, and Mrs. Flowers by eye. Then she glanced at Matt and touched herself lightly on the chest. She was the only one strong enough to woman handle him, although Dr. Alpert gave a quick nod that said she would be helping.

And then, while the boys were working up to shouting volume, Misao was giggling at the ground, and Damon was leaning against a door with his eyes shut, they moved. With no signal at all to unite them, they were running, instinctively, as one group. Meredith and Dr. Alpert grabbed Matt from either side and simply lifted him off his feet, just as Isobel quite unexpectedly jumped on Shinichi with a guttural scream. They hadn’t expected anything from her, but it was certainly convenient, Bonnie thought as she hurtled over obstacles without even seeing them. Matt was still shouting and trying to run the other way and take out some primitive frustration on Shinichi, but he couldn’t quite manage to get free to do it.

Bonnie could scarcely believe it when they made it into the Wood again. Even Mrs. Flowers had kept up and most of them still had their flashlights.

It was a miracle. They had even escaped Damon. The thing now was to be very quiet and to try to get through the Old Wood without disturbing anything. Maybe they could find their way back to the real boardinghouse, they decided. Then they could figure out how to save Elena from Damon and his two friends. Even Matt finally had to admit that it was unlikely that they would be able to overcome the three supernatural creatures by force.

Bonnie just wished they’d been able to take Isobel with them.

“Well, we have to go to the real boardinghouse anyway,” Damon said, as Misao finally got Isobel subdued and semi-conscious. “That’s where Caroline will be.”

Misao stopped glaring at Isobel and seemed to start slightly. “Caroline? Why do we want Caroline?”

“It’s all part of the fun, isn’t it?” Damon said in his most charming, flirtatious voice. Shinichi immediately stopped looking martyred and smiled.

“That girl — she’s the one you’ve been using as a carrier, right?” He looked mischievously at his sister, whose smile seemed slightly strained.

“Yes, but—”

“The more the merrier,” Damon said, more cheerful with every minute. He didn’t seem to notice Shinichi smirking at Misao behind his back.

“Don’t sulk, darling,” he said to her, tickling her under the chin while his golden eyes gleamed. “I’ve never set eyes on the girl. But of course, if Damon says it’ll be fun, it will be.” The smirk became a full-fledged gloating smile.

“And there’s no chance of any of them actually getting away at all?” Damon said, almost absently, staring into the darkness of the Old Wood.

“Give me a little credit, please,” the kitsune snapped. “You’re a damned — a vampire, aren’t you?You’re not supposed to hang out in the woods at all.”

“It’s my territory, along with the cemetery—” Damon was beginning mildly, but Shinichi was determined to finish first this time. “I live in the woods,” he said. “I control the bushes, the trees — and I’ve brought a few of my own little experiments along with me. You’ll all see them soon enough. So, to answer your question, no, not one of them is going to escape.”

“That was all I asked,” Damon said, still mildly, but locking gazes with the golden eyes for another long moment. Then he shrugged and turned away, eyeing the moon that could be seen between swirling clouds on the horizon.

“We’ve got hours before the ceremony yet,” Shinichi said, behind him. “We’re hardly going to be late.”

“We’d better not,” Damon murmured. “Caroline can do an awfully good impression of that pierced girl in hysterics when people are late.”

As a matter of fact, the moon was riding high in the sky as Caroline drove her mother’s car to the porch of the boardinghouse. She was wearing an evening dress that looked as if it had been painted on her, in her favorite colors of bronze and green. Shinichi looked at Misao, who giggled with one hand covering her mouth and looked down.

Damon walked Caroline up the porch steps to the front door and said, “This way to the good seats.”

There was some bewilderment as people got themselves sorted out. Damon spoke cheerfully to Kristin and Tami and Ava: “The peanut gallery for you three, I’m afraid. That means you sit on the ground. But if you’re good, I’ll let you come sit up with us the next time.”

The others followed him with more or less exclamation, but it was Caroline who looked annoyed, saying, “Why do we want to go inside? I thought they were supposed to be outside.”

“Closest seats not in danger,” Damon said briefly. “We can get the best view from up there. Royal box seats, come on, now.”

The fox twins and the human girl followed him, switching on lights in the darkened house all the way up to the widow’s walk on the roof.

“And now where are they?” Caroline said, peering down.

“They’ll be here any minute,” Shinichi said, with a glance that was both puzzled and reproving. It said: Who does this girl think she is? He didn’t spout any poetry.

“And Elena? She’ll be here, too?”

Shinichi didn’t answer that at all, and Misao just giggled. But Damon put his lips close to Caroline’s ear and whispered.

After that, Caroline’s eyes shone green as a cat’s. And the smile on her lips was the one of a cat who has just put its paw on the canary.

Elena had been waiting in her tree.

It wasn’t, as a matter of fact, all that different from her six months in the spirit world, where she had spent most of her time watching other people, and waiting, and watching them some more. Those months had taught her a patient alertness that would have astounded anyone who knew the old, wildfire Elena.

Of course, the old, wildfire Elena was still inside her, too, and occasionally it rebelled. As far as she could see, nothing was happening in the dark boardinghouse. Only the moon seemed to move, creeping slowly higher into the sky.

Damon said this Shinichi had a thing about 4:44 in the morning or evening, she thought. Maybe this Black Magic was working to a different schedule than any she’d heard of.

In any case, it was for Stefan. And as soon as she thought that she knew that she would wait here for days, if that’s what it took. She could certainly wait until daybreak, when no self-respecting Black Magic-worker would ever thing of beginning a ceremony.

And, in the end, what she was waiting for came to rest right below her feet.

First came the figures, walking sedately out of the Old Wood and toward the gravel pathways of the boardinghouse. They weren’t hard to identify, even at long range. One was Damon, who had aje ne sais quois about him that Elena couldn’t miss at a quarter of a mile — and then again there was his aura, which was a very good facsimile of his old aura: that unreadable, un-breachable ball of black stone. Avery good imitation, in fact. Actually, it was almost exactly like the one…

It was then, Elena later realized, that she felt her very first qualm.

But right now she was so caught up in the moment that she brushed the uneasy thought away. The one with the deep gray aura with crimson flashes would be Shinichi, she guessed. And the one with the same aura as the possessed girls: a sort of muddy color slashed with orange must be the twin sister Misao.