Лиза Смит: The Return: Shadow Souls

Elena crossed her arms over her chest. She also tried to make sure that her aura was pulled in decorously.

“You look like Wendy,” Damon said, and his smile was wicked, flashing, and definitely appreciative. He cocked his head to the side coaxingly.

Elena refused to be coaxed. “Wendy who?” she said, and at just that moment remembered the last name of the young girl in Peter Pan , and winced inwardly. Elena had always been good at repartee of this kind. The problem was that Damon was better.

“Why, Wendy… Darling ,” Damon said, and his voice was a caress.

Elena felt an inward shiver. Damon had promised not to Influence her — to use his telepathic powers to cloud or manipulate her mind. But sometimes it felt as if he got awfully close to the line. Yes, it was definitely Damon’s fault, Elena thought. She didn’t have any feelings for him that were — well, that were anything other than sisterly. But Damon never gave up, no matter how many times she rejected him.

Behind Elena was a thump and squelch that undoubtedly meant Matt had finally gotten off the roof of the Jag. He jumped into the fray immediately.

“Don’t call Elena, Elena darling !” he shouted, continuing as he turned to Elena, “Wendy’s probably the name of his latest little girlfriend. And — and — and do you know what he did ? How he woke me up this morning?” Matt was quivering with indignation.

“He picked you up and threw you on top of the car?” Elena hazarded. She talked over her shoulder to Matt because there was a faint morning breeze that tended to mold her nightgown to her body. She didn’t want Damon behind her just now.

“No! I mean, yes! No and yes! But — when he did, he didn’t even bother to use his hands! He just went like this”—Matt waved an arm—“and first I got dropped into a mud hole and next thing I know I got dropped on the Jag. It could have broken the moonroof — or me ! And now I’m all muddy,” Matt added, examining himself with disgust, as if it had only just occurred to him.

Damon spoke up. “And why did I pick you up and put you down again? What were you actually doing at the time when I put some distance between us?”

Matt flushed to the roots of his fair hair. His normally tranquil blue eyes were blazing.

“I was holding a stick,” he said defiantly.

“A stick. A stick like the kind you find along the roadside? That kind of stick ?”

“I did pick it up along the roadside, yes!” Still defiant.

“But then something strange seems to have happened to it.” From nowhere that Elena could see, Damon suddenly produced a very long, and very sturdy-looking stake, with one end that had been whittled to an extremely sharp point. It had definitely been carved from hardwood: oak from the look of it.

While Damon was examining his “stick” from all sides with a look of acute bafflement, Elena turned on a sputtering Matt.

“Matt!” she said reproachfully. This was definitely a low point in the cold war between the two boys.

“I just thought,” Matt went on stubbornly, “that it might be a good idea. Since I’m sleeping outdoors at night and a… another vampire might come along.”

Elena had already turned again and was making appeasing noises at Damon when Matt burst out afresh.

“Tell her how you actually woke me up!” he said explosively. Then, without giving Damon a chance to say anything, he continued, “I was just opening my eyes when he dropped this on me!” Matt squelched over to Elena, holding something up. Elena, truly at a loss, took it from him, turning it over. It seemed to be a pencil stub, but it was discolored dark reddish-brown.

“He dropped that on me and said ‘scratch off two,’” Matt said. “He’d killed two people — and he was bragging about it!”

Elena suddenly didn’t want to be holding the pencil anymore.

“Damon!” she said in a cry of real anguish, as she tried to make something out of his no-expression expression. “Damon — you didn’t — not really—”

“Don’t beg him, Elena. The thing we’ve got to do—”

“If anybody would let me get a word in,” Damon said, now sounding truly exasperated, “I might mention that before I could explain about the pencil someone attempted to stake me on the spot, even before getting out of his sleeping bag. And what I was going to say next was that they weren’t people. They were vampires, thugs, hired muscle — but these were possessed by Shinichi’s malach. And they were on our trail. They’d gotten as far as Warren, Kentucky, probably by asking questions about the car. We’re definitely going to have to get rid of it.”

“No!” Matt shouted defensively. “This car — this car means something to Stefan and Elena.”

“This car means something to you ,” Damon corrected. “And I might point out that I had to leave my Ferrari in a creek just so we could take you on this little expedition.”

Elena held up her hand. She didn’t want to hear any more. She did have feelings for the car. It was big and brilliantly red and flashy and buoyant — and it expressed how she and Stefan had been feeling on the day that he bought it for her, celebrating the start of their new life together. Just looking at it made her remember the day, and the weight of Stefan’s arm around her shoulder and the way he’d looked down at her, when she’d looked up at him — his green eyes sparkling with mischief and the joy of getting her something she really wanted.

To Elena’s embarrassment and fury, she found that she was shaking slightly, and that her own eyes were full of tears.

“You see,” Matt said, glaring at Damon. “Now you’re making her cry.”

“ I am? I’m not the one who mentioned my dear departed younger brother,” Damon said urbanely.

“ Just stop it! Right now! Both of you,” Elena shouted, trying to find her composure. “And I don’t want this pencil , if you don’t mind,” she added, holding it at arm’s length.

When Damon took it, Elena wiped her hands on her nightgown,

feeling vaguely light-headed. She shivered, thinking of the vampires on their trail.

And then, suddenly, as she swayed, there was a warm, strong arm around her and Damon’s voice beside her saying, “What she needs is some fresh air, and I’m going to give it to her.”

Abruptly Elena was weightless and she was in Damon’s arms and they were going higher.

“Damon, could you please put me down?”

“Right now, darling? It’s quite a distance…”

Elena continued to remonstrate with Damon, but she could tell that he had tuned her out. And the cool morning air was clearing her head a bit, although it also made her shake.

She tried to stop the shivering, but couldn’t help it. Damon glanced down at her and to her surprise, looking completely serious, began to make motions as if to take his jacket off. Elena hastily said, “No, no — you just drive — fly, I mean, and I’ll hang on.”

“And watch for low-going seagulls,” Damon said solemnly, but with a quirk at the side of his mouth. Elena had to turn her face away because she was in danger of laughing.

“So, just when did you learn you could pick people up and drop them on cars?” she inquired.

“Oh, just recently. It was like flying: a challenge. And you know I like challenges.”

He was looking down at her with mischief in his eyes, those black on black eyes with such long lashes that they were wasted on a boy. Elena felt as light as if she were dandelion fluff, but also a little light-headed, almost tipsy.

She was much warmer now, because — she realized — Damon had enfolded her in his aura, which was warm. Not just in temperature, either, but warm with a heady, almost drunken appreciation, as he took her in, her eyes and her face and her hair floating weightlessly in a cloud of gold around her shoulders. Elena couldn’t help but blush, and she almost heard his thought, that blushing suited her very well, pale pink against her fair complexion.