Лиза Смит - The Return - Nightfall

And a red-tipped black vixen’s tail fell twisting to the ground, while Misao shrieked in pain and rage. As the tail fell it writhed, and it lay in the middle of the clearing, squirming like a snake that wasn’t quite defeated yet. Then it became transparent and faded away.

That was when Shinichi really screamed, “Do you know what you’ve done, you ignorant bitch? I’ll bring this place down on top of you! I’ll tear you apart!”

“Oh, yes, of course you will. But first,” Damon spoke each word deliberately, “you have to get past me.”

Elena barely registered their words. It hadn’t been easy for her to squeeze those shears. It had meant thinking about Meredith with the shears in her own hands, and Bonnie lying on the altar, and Matt, earlier, writhing on the ground. And Mrs. Flowers, and the three lost little girls, and Isobel and — a great deal — about Stefan.

But as for the first time in her life she drew another’s blood with her own hands, she had a sudden strange sense of responsibility — of new accountability. As if an icy wind had blown her hair back sharply and said into her frozen, gasping face: Never without reason. Never without necessity. Never unless there’s no other solution available.

Elena felt something inside her grow up, all at once. Too fast to say good-bye to childhood, she had become a warrior.

“You all thought I couldn’t fight,” she called to the assembled group. “You were wrong. You thought I was powerless. You were wrong there, too. And I’ll use the last drop of my Power in this fight, because you twins are real monsters. No, you’re — abominations. And if I die I’ll rest with Honoria Fell, and I’ll watch over Fell’s Church again.”

Fell’s Church will rot and die writhing with maggots, a voice near her ear said, and it was a deep bass voice, nothing like Misao’s shrill screaming. Elena knew even as she turned that it was the white pine tree. A hard scaly bough, laden with those serrated, resin-sticky needles, slammed into her midriff, throwing her off balance — and making her involuntarily open her hands. Misao promptly escaped, and burrowed into the Christmas-tree-like branches.

“Bad…trees…go…to…Hell,” Elena cried, throwing her entire body weight into digging the shears she held into the base of the branch that had tried to crush her. It tried to pull away, and she twisted the shears in the wounded dark bark, relieved when a large piece fell off, with only a long string of resin left to show where it had been.

Then she looked for Misao. The fox wasn’t finding it as easy as she might have thought, navigating a tree. Elena looked at the cluster of tails. Strangely, there was no stump, no blood, no sign that the fox had been injured.

Was that why she wasn’t turning human? The loss of a tail? Even if she were naked when she changed back to her human self — as some stories of werewolves had it — she’d be in better condition to climb down.

Because Misao seemed finally to have chosen the slow but sure method of descent — to have branch after branch take hold of her fox body and pass it down to the next. Which meant she was only about ten feet below Elena.

And all Elena had to do was to coast over the needles down to her and then — by wings or other means — stop. If she believed in her wings. If the tree didn’t throw her off.

“You’re too slow,” Elena shouted. Then she began the coast to overcome the distance — not far in human body-lengths — to her goal.

Until she saw Bonnie.

Bonnie’s slight body was still lying on the altar, pale and cold-looking. But now four of the hideous Tree-Men had hold of her, one at each hand and one at each foot. They were already pulling so hard that she was lifted up into the air.

And Bonnie was awake. But not screaming. Not making a noise to attract attention to herself; and Elena realized with a rush of love and horror and desperation that that was why she hadn’t been making a fuss before. She wanted the major players here to fight their fight without the bother of rescuing her.

The Tree-Men leaned back.

Bonnie’s face contorted in agony.

Elena had to get to Misao. She needed the double fox key to free Stefan, and the only people who could tell her where it was were Misao and Shinichi. She looked up at the darkness above and noticed that it seemed a little less dark than when she had last seen it, the sky a dark swirling gray instead of dead black — but there was no help there. She looked down. Misao, making a little better time with her escape. If Elena let her get away…Stefan was her love. But Bonnie — Bonnie was her friend — ever since childhood….

And then she saw Plan B.

Damon was fighting Shinichi — or trying.

But Shinichi was always an easy centimeter away from where Damon’s fist was. Shinichi’s fists, on the other hand, always connected solidly with their targets, and right now Damon’s face was a bloody mask.

“Use wood!”Misao was coaching in a shriek, her childlike manner having suddenly vanished. “You men, you idiots, all you think of is your fists!”

Shinichi broke a pillar support from the widow’s walk one-handed, showing his true strength. Damon smiled beatifically. He was, Elena knew, going to enjoy this, even though it meant all the many little wounds those wooden splinters would entail.

It was in the middle of this that Elena shouted, “Damon, look down!” Her voice seemed weak over the cacophony of shrieks and sobs and screams of fury all around. “Damon! Look down — at Bonnie!”

Nothing so far had been able to break Damon’s concentration — he seemed determined to find out where Stefan was being kept — or to kill Shinichi trying.

Now, to Elena’s slight surprise, Damon’s head jerked around immediately. He looked down.

“A cage,” shouted Shinichi. “Build me a cage.”

And tree branches leaned in from all sides to pin him and Damon into their own little world, a lattice to keep them contained.

The Tree-Men leaned back farther. And despite herself, Bonnie screamed.

“You see?” laughed Shinichi. “Each of your friends will die in that agony or worse. One by one, we will take you!”

That was when Damon really seemed to go crazy. He began moving like quicksilver, like a leaping flame, like some animal with reflexes far faster than Shinichi’s. Now there was a sword in his hand, undoubtedly conjured up by the magical house key, and the sword slashed through the branches even as the branches reached out to trap him. And then he was airborne, leaping over the railing for the second time that night.

This time Damon’s balance was perfect, and far from breaking bones, he made a graceful, catlike landing just beside Bonnie. And then his sword was flashing in an arc, sweeping all around Bonnie, and the tough, fingerlike tips of the branches that held her were cut cleanly away.

A moment later, Bonnie was being lifted, being held by Damon as he leaped easily off the rough-hewn altar and was lost in the shadows near the house.

Elena let out the breath she’d been holding and turned back to her own affairs. But her heart was beating more strongly and faster, with joy and with pride and with gratitude, as she slid down the painful, cutting-edged needles, and almost flashed past Misao, who was being whisked out of her way — not quite in time.

She got a good grip on the nape of the fox’s neck. Misao keened a strange animal lament and sank her teeth into Elena’s hand so hard that it felt as if they were going to meet. Elena bit her lip until she felt blood come, trying not to scream.

Be crushed, and die, and turn to loam,the tree said in Elena’s ear.Your kind can feed my kin for once. The voice was ancient, malevolent and very, very frightening.