Elena’s eyes were shut, her lashes a thick inky crescent on her cheeks.
She was facing him now, but strangely Damon didn’t find himself tracing the blue veins in her fair, smooth skin. He found himself staring hungrily at her slightly parted lips. They were…almost impossible to resist. Even in sleep they were the color of rose petals, slightly moist, and parted that way….
I could do it very lightly. She would never know. I could, I know I could. I feel invincible tonight.
As he bent toward her his fingers touched cardboard.
It seemed to jerk him out of a dream world. What had he been thinking? Risking everything, all his plans, for akiss? There would be plenty of time for kisses — and other, much more important things — later.
He slipped the little card out from under the pillow and put it in his pocket.
Then he became a crow and vanished from the windowsill.
Stefan had long ago perfected the art of sleeping only until a certain moment, then awakening. He did this now, glancing at the clock on the mantelpiece to confirm that it was four A.M. exactly.
He didn’t want to awaken Elena.
He dressed soundlessly and exited the window by the same route his brother had — only as a hawk. Somewhere, he was sure Damon was being made a fool by someone using malachs to make him their puppet. And Stefan, still pumped up with Elena’s blood, felt that he had a duty to stop them.
The note Damon had delivered had directed him to the tree where the humans had crashed. Damon would also want to continually revisit that tree until he’d traced the malach puppets to their puppeteer.
He swooped, drifted, and once almost gave a mouse a heart attack by stooping down on it suddenly before rocketing skyward again.
And then, in midair, as he saw evidence of a car hitting a tree, he changed from a glorious hawk to a young man with dark hair, a pale face, and intensely green eyes.
He drifted, light as a snowflake, down to the ground and gazed in each direction, using all his vampire senses to test the area. He could feel nothing of a trap; no animosity, just the unmistakable signs of the trees’ violent fight. He stayed human to climb the tree that bore the psychic imprint of his brother.
He wasn’t chilly as he climbed the oak his brother had been lounging in when the accident had taken place at his feet. He had too much of Elena’s blood running through him to feel the cold. But he was aware that this area of the forest was particularly cold; that something was keeping it that way. Why? He’d already claimed the rivers and forests that ran through Fell’s Church, so why take up lodging here without telling him? Whatever it was, it would have to present itself before him eventually, if it wanted to stay in Fell’s Church. Why wait? he wondered, as he squatted on the branch.
He felt Damon’s presence coming at him long before his senses would have noticed it in the days before Elena’s transformation, and he kept himself from flinching. Instead he turned with his back to the trunk of the tree and looked outward. He could feel Damon speeding toward him, faster and faster, stronger and stronger — and then Damon should have been there, standing before him, but he wasn’t.
Stefan frowned.
“It always pays to look up, little brother,” advised a charming voice above him, and then Damon, who had been clinging to the tree like a lizard, did a forward flip and landed on Stefan’s branch.
Stefan said nothing, merely examining his older brother. At last he said, “You’re in good spirits.”
“I’ve had a sumptuous day,” Damon said. “Shall I name them off to you? There was the greeting-card shop girl…Elizabeth, and my dear friend Damaris, whose husband works in Bronston, and little young Teresa who volunteers at the library, and…”
Stefan sighed. “Sometimes I think you could remember the name of every girl you’ve bled in your life, but you forget my name on a regular basis,” he said.
“Nonsense…little brother. Now, since Elena has undoubtedly explained to you just what happened when I tried to rescue your miniature witch — Bonnie — I feel I’m due an apology.”
“And since you sent me a note that I can only construe as provocative, I really feel I’m due an explanation.”
“Apology first,” Damon rapped out. And then, in long-suffering tones, “I’m sure you think it’s bad enough, having promised Elena when she was dying that you would look after me — forever. But you never seem to realize that I had to promise the same thing, and I’m not exactly the care taking type. Now that she’s not dead anymore, maybe we should just forget it.”
Stefan sighed again. “All right, all right. I apologize. I was wrong. I shouldn’t have thrown you out. Is that enough?”
“I’m not sure you really mean it. Try it once more, with feel—”
“Damon, what in God’s name was the website about?”
“Oh. I thought it was rather clever: they got the colors so close that only vampires or witches or such could read it, whereas humans would just see a blank screen.”
“But how did you find out about it?”
“I’ll tell you in a moment. But just think of it, little brother. You and Elena, on the perfect little honeymoon, just two more humans in a world of humans. The sooner you go, the sooner you can sing ‘Ding Dong, the Corpse Is Dead’!”
“I still want to know how you just happened to come across this website.”
“All right. I admit it: I’ve been suckered into the age of technology at last. I have my own website. And a very helpful young man contacted me just to see whether I really meant the things I said on it or if I was just a frustrated idealist. I figured that description fit you.”
“You — a website? I don’t believe—” Damon ignored him. “I passed the message along because I’d already heard of the place, the Shi no Shi.”
“The Death of Death, it said.”
“That’s how it was translated to me.” Damon turned a thousand-kilowatt smile on Stefan, boring into him, until finally Stefan turned away, feeling as if he’d been exposed to the sun without his lapis ring.
“As a matter of fact,” Damon went on chattily, “I’ve invited the fellow himself to come and to explain it to you.”
“You did which?”
“He should be here at 4:44 exactly. Don’t blame me for the timing; it’s something special to him.”
And then with very little fuss, and certainly no Power at all that Stefan could discern, something landed in the tree above them and dropped down to their branch, changing as it did.
It was, indeed, a young man, with fire-tipped black hair and serene golden eyes. As Stefan swung toward him, he held up both hands in a gesture of helplessness and surrender.
“Who the hell are you?”
“I’m the hell Shinichi,” the young man said easily. “But, as I told your brother, most people call me just Shinichi. Of course, it’s up to you.”
“And you know all about the Shi no Shi.”
“Nobody knows all about it. It’s a place — and an organization. I’m a little partial to it because”—Shinichi looked shy—“well, I guess I just like to help people.”
“And now you want to help me.”
“If you truly want to become human…I know a way.”
“I’ll just leave the two of you to talk about it, shall I?” said Damon. “Three’s a crowd, especially on this branch.”
Stefan looked at him sharply. “If you have any slightest thought of stopping by the boardinghouse…”
“With Damaris already waiting for me? Honestly, little brother.” And Damon changed to crow form before Stefan could ask him to give his sworn word.
Elena turned over in bed, reaching automatically for a warm body next to her. What her fingers found, however, was a cool, Stefan-shaped hollow. Her eyes opened. “Stefan?”
The darling. They were so in tune that it was like being one person — he always knew when she was about to wake up. He’d probably gone down to get her breakfast — Mrs. Flowers always had it steaming hot for him when he went down (further proof that she was a witch of the white variety) — and Stefan brought up the tray.
“Elena,” she said, testing her old-new voice just to hear herself talk. “Elena Gilbert, girl, you have had too many breakfasts in bed.” She patted her stomach. Yes, definitely in need of exercise.
