“Don’t worry,” Elena said flatly, “whatever happens to the rest of us, I have a feeling your ego will survive. What happened next?”
“I made my deal with Shinichi. He would lure Stefan somewhere out of the way where I could see him alone, then smuggle him out of this place to somewhere Stefan couldn’t find you—” Something bubbled up explosively again inside Elena. It was a tight hard ball of compressed elation. “Not kill him?” she managed to get out.
“What?”
“Stefan’s alive? He’s alive? He…he’s really alive?”
“Steady,” Damon replied coldly. “Steady on, Elena. We can’t have you fainting.” He held her by the shoulders. “You thought I meant to kill him?”
Elena was trembling almost too hard to answer. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“I apologize for the omission.”
“He’s alive — for sure, Damon? You’re absolutely sure?”
“Positive.”
Without a thought of herself, without a thought of any kind, Elena did what she did best — gave in to impulse. She threw her arms around Damon’s neck and kissed him.
For a moment Damon just stood rigid with shock. He had contracted with killers to hijack her lover and decimate her town. But Elena’s mind would never see it that way.
“If he were dead—” He stopped and had to try again. “Shinichi’s whole bargain depends on keeping him alive — alive and away from you. I couldn’t risk you killing yourself or really hating me”—again the note of distant coldness. “With Stefan dead, what hold would I have over you, princess?”
Elena ignored all this. “If he’s alive, I can find him.”
“If he remembers you. But what if every memory he had of you were taken away?”
“What?” Elena wanted to explode. “If every memory of Stefan were taken away from me,” she said icily, “I would still fall in love with him the very moment I saw him. And if every memory of me were taken away from Stefan, he would wander all over the world looking for something without knowing what he was looking for.”
“Very poetic.”
“But, oh, Damon, thank you for not letting Shinichi kill him!”
He shook his head at her, looking bewildered at himself. “I couldn’t — seem to — do that. Something about giving my word. I figured that if he were free and happy and didn’t remember, that would satisfy enough…”
“Of your promise to me? You figured wrong. But it doesn’t matter now.”
“It does matter. You’ve suffered for it.”
“No, Damon. All that really matters is that he’s not dead — and he didn’t leave me. There’s still hope.”
“But Elena,” Damon’s voice had life now; it was both excited and inflexible: “Can’t you see? Past history aside, you have to admit that we’re the ones that belong together. You and I are simply better suited to each other by nature. Deep down you know that, because we understand each other. We’re on the same intellectual level —”
“So is Stefan!”
“Well, all I can say is that he does a remarkable job of hiding it, then. But can’t you feel it? Don’t you feel”— his grip was becoming uncomfortable now—“that you could be my princess of darkness — that something deep inside you wants to? I can see it, if you can’t.”
“I can’t be anything to you, Damon. Except a decent sister-in-law.”
He shook his head, laughing harshly. “No, you’re only suited for the main role. Well, all I can say is that if we live through the fight with the twins, you’ll see things in yourself that you’ve never seen before. And you’ll know that we’re more suited together.”
“And all I can say is that if we live through this fight with the Bobbsey twins from Hell, it sounds as if we’re going to need all the spiritual power that we can get afterward. And that means getting Stefan back.”
“We may not be able to get him back. Oh, I agree — even if we drive Shinichi and Misao away from Fell’s Church, the likelihood that we’re going to be able to do away with them completely is about zero. You’re no fighter. We’re probably not even going to be able to hurt them very much. But even I don’t know exactly where Stefan is.”
“Then the twins are the only ones who can help us.”
“If they still can help us — oh, all right, I’ll admit it. The Shi no Shi are probably complete frauds. They probably take a few memories from vampire chumps — memories are the coin of choice in the realm of the Other Side — and then send them away while the cash register is still jingling. They’re frauds. The whole place is a giant slum and freak show — sort of like a rundown Vegas.”
“But they’re not afraid that the vampires they cheat will want revenge?”
Damon laughed, this time musically. “A vampire who doesn’t want to be a vampire is about the lowest object on the totem pole on the Other Side. Oh, except for humans. Along with lovers who’ve fulfilled suicide pacts, kids who jump off the roof because they think their Superman cape can make them fly—” Elena tried to pull away from him, to reprove him, but he was surprisingly strong. “It doesn’t sound like a very nice place.”
“It isn’t.”
“And that’s where Stefan is?”
“If we’re lucky.”
“So basically,” she said, seeing things, as she always did, in terms of Plans A, B, C, and D, “first we have to find out where Stefan is from these twins. Second, we have to get the twins to heal the little girls they’ve possessed. Third, we have to get them to leave Fell’s Church alone — for good. But before any of that, we have to find Stefan. He’ll be able to help us; I know he will. And then we just hope we’re strong enough for the rest.”
“We could use Stefan’s help, all right. But you missed the real point — for now, what we have to do is keep the twins from killing us.”
“They still think you’re their friend, yes?” Elena’s mind was flickering through options. “Make them sure you are. Wait until a strategic moment comes, and then take the chance. Do we have any weapons against them?”
“Iron. They do badly against iron — they’re demons. And dear Shinichi is obsessed with you, although I can’t say his sister will approve when she realizes it.”
“Obsessed?”
“Yes. With you and with English folk songs, remember? Although I can’t fathom why. The songs, I mean.”
“Well, I don’t know what we can make of that—”
“But I’ll bet that his obsession with you will make Misao angry. It’s just a hunch, but she’s had him to herself for thousands of years.”
“Then we set them against each other, pretend that he’s going to get me. Damon — what?” Elena added in tones of alarm as he tightened his grip on her as if concerned.
“He’s not going to get you,” Damon said.
“I know that.”
“I don’t quite like the idea of anyone else getting you. You were meant to be mine, you know.”
“Damon, don’t. I’ve told you. Please—”
“Meaning ‘please don’t make me hurt you’? The truth is that you can’t hurt me unless I let you. You can only hurt yourself against me.”
Elena could at least pull their upper bodies farther apart. “Damon, we just made an agreement, made plans. Now, what are we doing, throwing them all away?”
“No, but I thought of another way to get you a grade-A superhero, right now. You’ve been saying I should take more of your blood for ages.”
“Oh…yes.” It was true, even if that had been before he had admitted to her the terrible things he’d done. And…
“Damon, what happened with Matt in the clearing? We went looking all over for him, but we didn’t find him. And you were glad.”
He didn’t bother to deny it. “In the real world I was angry at him, Elena. He seemed to be just another rival. Part of the reason we’re here is so I can remember exactly what happened.”
“Did you hurt Matt, Damon? Because now you’re hurting me.”
