It was in the middle of this that Elena shouted, “Damon, look down!” Her voice seemed weak over the cacophony of shrieks and sobs and screams of fury all around. “Damon! Look down — at Bonnie!”
Nothing so far had been able to break Damon’s concentration — he seemed determined to find out where Stefan was being kept — or to kill Shinichi trying.
Now, to Elena’s slight surprise, Damon’s head jerked around immediately. He looked down.
“A cage,” shouted Shinichi. “Build me a cage.”
And tree branches leaned in from all sides to pin him and Damon into their own little world, a lattice to keep them contained.
The Tree-Men leaned back farther. And despite herself, Bonnie screamed.
“You see?” laughed Shinichi. “Each of your friends will die in that agony or worse. One by one, we will take you!”
That was when Damon really seemed to go crazy. He began moving like quicksilver, like a leaping flame, like some animal with reflexes far faster than Shinichi’s. Now there was a sword in his hand, undoubtedly conjured up by the magical house key, and the sword slashed through the branches even as the branches reached out to trap him. And then he was airborne, leaping over the railing for the second time that night.
This time Damon’s balance was perfect, and far from breaking bones, he made a graceful, catlike landing just beside Bonnie. And then his sword was flashing in an arc, sweeping all around Bonnie, and the tough, fingerlike tips of the branches that held her were cut cleanly away.
A moment later, Bonnie was being lifted, being held by Damon as he leaped easily off the rough-hewn altar and was lost in the shadows near the house.
Elena let out the breath she’d been holding and turned back to her own affairs. But her heart was beating more strongly and faster, with joy and with pride and with gratitude, as she slid down the painful, cutting-edged needles, and almost flashed past Misao, who was being whisked out of her way — not quite in time.
She got a good grip on the nape of the fox’s neck. Misao keened a strange animal lament and sank her teeth into Elena’s hand so hard that it felt as if they were going to meet. Elena bit her lip until she felt blood come, trying not to scream.
Be crushed, and die, and turn to loam,the tree said in Elena’s ear.Your kind can feed my kin for once. The voice was ancient, malevolent and very, very frightening.
Elena’s legs reacted without pausing to consult her mind. They pushed off hard and then the golden butterfly wings unfurled again, not beating but undulating, holding Elena steady above the altar.
She pulled the snarling vixen’s muzzle up — not too close — to her own face. “Where are the two pieces of the fox key?” she demanded. “Tell me or I’ll take off another tail. I swear I will. Don’t fool yourself — it’s not just your pride that you’re losing, is it? Your tails are your Power. What would it feel like to have none at all?”
“Like being a human — except you, you freak.” Now Misao was laughing again in her panting-dog way, her fox ears flat to her head.
“Just answer the question!”
“As if you would understand the answers I could give. If I told you that one was inside the silver nightingale’s instrument, would that give you any kind of idea?”
“It might if you explained it a little more clearly!”
“If I told you that one was buried in Blodwedd’s ballroom, would you be able to find it?” Again the panting grin as the fox gave clues that led nowhere — or everywhere.
“Are those your answers?”
“No!”Misao shrieked suddenly and kicked with her feet, as if they were dog’s legs scrabbling in the dirt. Except that the dirt was Elena’s midriff, and the scrabbling legs felt as if they might well puncture her entrails. She felt her camisole tear.
“I told you; I’m not playing around here!” Elena cried. She lifted the vixen with her left arm, even though it ached with tiredness. With her right hand, she positioned the shears.
“Where is the first part of the key?” Elena demanded.
“Search for yourself! You only have the whole world to look through, and every thicket besides.” The fox went for her throat again, white teeth actually scoring Elena’s flesh.
Elena forced that arm to hold Misao higher. “I warned you, so don’t say that I didn’t or that you have any reason to complain!”
She squeezed the shears.
Misao gave a squeal that was almost lost in the general commotion. Elena, feeling more and more tired, said, “You’re a complete liar, aren’t you? Look down if you want. I didn’t cut anywhere close to you. You just heard the shears click and screamed.”
Misao very nearly got a claw into Elena’s eye. Oh, well. Now, for Elena, there were no more moral or ethical issues. She wasn’t causing pain, she was simply draining Power. The shears went snap, snap, snap, and Misao screamed and cursed her, but below them the Tree-Men were shrinking.
“Where is the first part of the key?”
“Let me go and I’ll tell.” Suddenly Misao’s voice was less shrill.
“On your honor — if you can say that without laughing?”
“On my honor and my word as a kitsune. Please! You can’t leave a fox without a real tail! That’s why the ones you cut didn’t hurt. They’re badges of honor. But my real tail is in the middle, it’s tipped with white, and if you cut me there; you’ll see blood and it will leave a stump.” Misao seemed thoroughly cowed, thoroughly ready to cooperate.
Elena knew about judging people and intuition, and both her mind and her heart were telling her not to trust this creature. But she wanted so much to believe, to hope….
Making a slow curving descent so that the vixen was close to the ground — she would not give in to the temptation to drop her from sixty feet up — Elena said, “Well? On you honor, what are the answers?”
Six Tree-Men came to life around her and plunged at her, with greedy, grasping finger branches.
But Elena wasn’t taken completely off guard. She hadn’t let go of her grip on Misao; only slackened it. Now she tightened the grip again.
A wave of strength buoyed her so that she lifted fast and swept by the widow’s walk and a furious Shinichi and weeping Caroline. Then Elena met Damon’s eyes. They were filled with hot, fierce pride in her. She was filled with hot, fierce passion.
“I am not an angel,” she announced to any of the group who hadn’t quite managed to grasp this yet. “I am not an angel and I am not a spirit. I’m Elena Gilbert and I’ve been to the Other Side. And right now I’m ready to do whatever needs to be done, which seems to include kicking some ass!”
There was a clamor below that at first she couldn’t identify. Then she realized it was the others — it was her friends. Mrs. Flowers and Dr. Alpert, Matt and even wild Isobel. They were cheering — and they were visible because suddenly the backyard was in daylight.
Am I doing that? Elena wondered, and realized that somehow she was. She was lighting up the clearing in which Mrs. Flowers’ house stood, while leaving the woods around dark.
Maybe I can extend it, she thought. Make the Old Wood into something younger and less evil.
If she had been more experienced, she would never have attempted it. But right here and right now she felt that she could take anything on. She looked at the four directions of the Old Wood around her quickly, and she cried, “Wings of Purification!” and watched the huge, frosty, iridescent butterfly wings spread high and wide, and then wider, and then spread some more.
She was aware of a silence, of being so enrapt in something she was doing that even Misao’s struggles didn’t matter. It was a silence that reminded her of something: of all the most beautiful strains of music coming together into one, single, powerful chord.
And then the Power blasted out from her — not destructive Power like that Damon had sent many times, but a Power of renewal, of springtime, of love, youth, and purification. And she watched as the light spread farther and farther, and the trees grew smaller and more familiar, with more clearings in between thickets. Thorns and hanging creepers disappeared. On the ground, spreading out like a circle expanding, flowers of all colors bloomed, sweet violets in clumps here and banks of Queen Anne’s lace there, and wild roses climbing everywhere. It was so beautiful that it made her chest ache.
Misao hissed. Elena’s trance was finally broken, and she looked around to see that the shambling, hideous
