beside you,” and picked up a vase and hit the rising Damon over the head with it. Hard.
And Elena dashed through the bathroom door, crying, “Robert E. Lee High School last fall — just as the bell’s rung!”
And then she was swimming against the flow, with dozens of students trying to get to their classes on time — but then one of them recognized her, and then another, and while apparently she’d successfully traveled to a time when she wasn’t dead — no one was screaming “ghost”—neither had anyone at Robert E. Lee ever seen Elena Gilbert wearing a boy’s shirt over a camisole, with her hair falling wildly over her shoulders.
“It’s a costume for a play!” she shouted, and created one of the immortal legends about herself before she had even died by adding, “Caroline’s house!” and stepping into a janitor’s closet. An instant later, the most gorgeous boy that anyone had ever seen appeared behind her, and rocketed through the same doors saying words in a foreign language. And when the janitor’s closet opened, neither boy nor girl was there.
Elena landed running down a hallway and almost crashed into Mr. Forbes, who looked rather wobbly. He was drinking what seemed to be a large glass of tomato juice that smelled like alcohol.
“We don’t know where she’s gone, all right?” he shouted before Elena could say a word. “She’s gone right out of her mind, as far as I can tell. She was talking about the ceremony at the widow’s walk — and the way she was dressed! Parents don’t have any control over children anymore!” He slumped against the wall.
“I’m so sorry,” murmured Elena.The ceremony. Well, Black Magic ceremonies were usually held at moonrise or midnight. And it was just a few minutes before midnight. But in those minutes, Elena had just come up with scheme B.
“Excuse me,” she said, taking the drink out of Mr. Forbes’s hand and dashing it directly into the face of Damon, who had appeared out of a closet. Then she shouted, “Some place their kind can’t see!” and stepped into…
Limbo?
Heaven?
Some place their kind couldn’t see.At first Elena wondered about herself, because she couldn’t see much of anything at all.
But then she realized where she was, deep in the earth, beneath Honoria Fell’s empty tomb. Once, she had fought down here to save the lives of Stefan and Damon.
And now, where there should have been nothing but darkness and rats and mildew, was a tiny, shining, light. Like a miniature Tinkerbell — just a speck, it hovered in the air, not leading her, not communicating, but… protecting, Elena realized. She took the light, which felt bright and cool in her fingers, and around her she traced a circle, big enough for a full-grown person to lie down in.
When she turned back, Damon was sitting in the middle.
He looked strangely pale for someone who had just fed. But he said nothing, not a word, just gazed at her. Elena went to him and touched him on the neck.
And a moment later, Damon was again drinking deep, deep, of the most extraordinary blood in the world.
Usually, he would be analyzing by now: taste of berry, taste of tropical fruit, smooth, smoky, woody, rounded with a silken aftertaste…But not now. Not this blood, which far surpassed anything for which he had words. This blood that was filling him with power such as he had never known before….
Damon…
Why was he not listening? How had he come to be drinking this extraordinary blood that tasted somehow of the afterlife, and why was he not listening to the donor?
Please, Damon. Please fight it…
He ought to recognize that voice. He’d heard it enough times.
I know they’re controlling you. But they can’t control all of you. You’re stronger than they are. You’re the strongest….
Well, that was certainly true. But he was getting more and more confused. The donor seemed to be unhappy and he was a past-master at making donors happy. And he didn’t quite remember…he really should remember how this had started.
Damon, it’s me. It’s Elena. And you’re hurting me.
So much pain and bewilderment. From the beginning, Elena had known better than to outright fight the tapping of her veins. That would only cause agony, and it wouldn’t do her the slightest bit of good except to stop her brain from working.
So she was trying to make him fight off the horrible beast inside him. Well, yes, but the change had to come from inside. If she forced him, Shinichi would notice and just possess him again. Besides, the simple Damon, be strong gig wasn’t working.
Was there nothing to do but die, then? She could at least fight that, although she knew that Damon’s strength would make it pointless. With every swallow he took of her new blood, he got stronger; he changed more and more into…
Into what? It washer blood. Maybe he would answer its call, which was also her call. Maybe, somehow inside, he could beat the monster without Shinichi noticing.
But she needed some new power, some new trick…
And even as she thought it, Elena felt the new Power moving in her, and she knew that it had always been there, just waiting for the right occasion to use it. It was a very specific power, not to be used for fighting or even for saving herself. Still, it was hers to tap. Vampires who preyed on her got only a few mouthfuls, but she had an entire blood supply filled with its enormous vigor. And calling upon it was as easy as reaching toward it with an open mind and open hands.
As soon as she did, she found new words coming to her lips, and most strangely of all, new wings springing from her body, which Damon was holding bent sharply back from the hips. These ethereal wings were not for flying, but for something else, and when they fully unfurled they made a huge, rainbow-colored arch whose very tip circled back again, surrounding and enfolding Damon and Elena both.
And then she said it telepathically.Wings of Redemption.
And inside, soundlessly, Damon screamed.
Then the wings opened slightly. Only one who had learned a great deal about magic would have seen what was happening inside them. Damon’s anguish was becoming Elena’s anguish as she took from him every painful incident, every tragedy, every cruelty that had ever gone into making up the stony layers of indifference and unkindness that encased his heart.
Layers — as hard as the stone at the heart of a black dwarf star — were breaking up and flying away. There was no stopping it. Great chunks and boulders fractured, fine pieces shattered. Some dissolved into nothing more than a puff of acrid smelling smoke.
There was something at the center, though — some nucleus that was blacker than hell and harder than the horns of the devil. She couldn’t quite see what happened to it. She thought — she hoped — that at the very end even it blasted open.
Now, and only now, could she call for the next set of wings. She hadn’t been sure that she would live through the first attack; she certainly didn’t feel as if she could live through this one. But Damon had to know.
Damon was kneeling on one knee on the floor, with his arms clasped tightly around him. That should be all right. He was still Damon, and he’d be a lot happier without the weight of all that hatred and prejudice and cruelty. He wouldn’t keep remembering his youth and the other young blades who’d mocked his father for being an old fool, with his disastrous investments and his mistresses younger than his own sons. Neither would he endlessly dwell on his own childhood, when that same father had beaten him in drunken rages when he neglected his studies or took up with objectionable companions.
And, finally, he would not go on savoring and contemplating the many terrible things he’d done himself. He had been redeemed, in heaven’s name and in heaven’s time, by words put into Elena’s mouth.
But now…there was something that he needed to remember. If Elena was right.
If only she were right.
“Where is this place? Are you hurt, girl?”
In his confusion, he couldn’t recognize her. He had knelt; now she knelt beside him.
He gave her a keen glance. “Are we at prayer or were we making love? Was it the Watch or the
