something electric passed between them. It made Elena tingle all over, that look did.
Then she refocused: Caroline was screaming again; Misao was using her whip to get a grip on Elena’s leg and was calling on Tree-Men to give her a lift. Elena needed to fly higher. She had no idea how she was controlling her golden gossamer wings, but nothing seemed to snarl them; and they obeyed her slightest whim as though she had always had them. The great trick was to not think of how to get somewhere, but just to imagine being there.
On the other hand, the Tree-Men were growing. It was like some childhood nightmare of giants, and at first it made Elena feel that it was she who was shrinking. But the hideous creatures were actually overtopping the house now, and their upper, snake-like branches slashed into her legs while Misao lashed out with her whip. Elena’s jeans were in shreds now. She swallowed a cry of pain.
I have to fly higher.
I can do it.
I’m going to save you all.
I believe.
Faster than the swoop of a hummingbird, she was darting up in the clear air again, still holding Misao by her long black-and-red hair. And Misao was screaming, screams that Shinichi echoed even as he fought with Damon.
And then, just as she and Damon had planned, just as she and Damon had hoped, Misao turned into her true form and Elena was holding a large and heavy, writhing vixen by the scruff of its neck.
There was a difficult moment while Elena got the balance right. She had to remember that there was more weight in back because Misao had six tails and was heaviest where a real fox would be lightest.
By then she had swooped back to her perch in the tree, and she stood there, able to look down on the scene below, the Tree-Men too slow to keep up. The plan had gone perfectly, except that Damon, of all people, had forgotten what he was supposed to be doing. Far from retreating into possession, he had fooled Shinichi and Misao beautifully — and Elena, too. Now, according to their plan he was supposed to be taking care of any innocent bystanders, letting Elena lure Shinichi on.
Instead something inside him seemed to have snapped; and he was methodically beating the human-shaped Shinichi’s head against the house, shouting: “Damn…you! Where…is…my…brother?”
“I — could kill you — right now—” Shinichi shouted back, but he was short of breath. He wasn’t finding Damon an easy opponent.
“Do it!” Damon returned immediately. “And then she”—pointing to the perching Elena—“will cut your sister’s throat!”
Shinichi’s contempt was scathing.
“You expect me to believe that a girl with an aura like that will kill —” There comes a time when you have to make a stand. And for Elena, blazing with defiance and glory, this was that time. She took a deep breath, begged the Universe’s forgiveness, and leaned down, positioning the pruning shears. Then she squeezed as hard as she could.
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.
