Tree-Men had disappeared in the full sunlight and in their place was a wide patch of sorrel dotted with fossilized trees in odd shapes. Some looked almost human. For a moment Elena regarded the scene, puzzled, and then she realized what else was different. All the real humans were gone.
“I never should have brought you here!” And that, to Elena’s surprise, was Misao’s voice. She was speaking to her brother. “You spoiled everything because of that girl. Shinichi no baka!”
“Idiot, yourself!” Shinichi shouted at Misao. “Onore!You’re reacting just the way they want—”
“What else am I supposed to do?”
“I heard you giving the girl clues,” Shinichi snarled. “You’d do anything for the sake of your looks, you selfish—”
“You can say that to me? While you haven’t lost even one tail yourself?”
“Just because I’m faster—” Misao cut him off. “That’s a lie and you know it! Take it back!”
“You’re too weak to fight! You should have run long ago! Don’t come crying to me about it.”
“Don’t you dare speak to me like that!” And Misao leaped from Elena’s grasp and attacked Shinichi. He had been wrong. She was a good fighter. In a second they were a destruction zone, rolling over and over as they fought changing forms all the while. Black and scarlet fur flew. Out of the ball of turning bodies came scraps of speech“— still won’t find the keys—”
“—not both of them, anyway—”
“—even if they did—”
“—what would it matter?”
“—still have to find the boy—”
“—I say it’s only sporting to let them try—” Misao’s horrible shrill giggle. “And see what they find—”
“—in the Shi no Shi!”
Abruptly the fight ended and they both became human. They were battered, but Elena felt that there was nothing more that she could do if they chose to fight again.
Instead Shinichi said, “I’m breaking the globe.Here,” he turned to Damon and shut his eyes, “is where your precious brother is. I’m putting it into your mind — if you can decode the map. And once you get there, you’ll die. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
To Elena he bowed and said, “I regret that you’ll be dying, too. But I’ve memorialized you in an ode.
Wild rose and lilac, Bee’s balm and daisy, Elena’s smile chases The winter away.
Bluebell and violet, Foxglove and iris, Watch where she treads And then watch the grass sway.
Wherever her feet pass, White flowers part the grass—”
“I’d rather hear a straight explanation of where the keys are,” Elena said to Shinichi, knowing that after that song she wouldn’t get any more from Misao. “Frankly, I’m sick and tired of all your bullshit.”
She noticed that once again everyone was staring at her and she could feel why. She could feel a difference in her voice, in her stance, in her patterns of speech. But mostly,inside, what she felt was freedom.
“We’ll give you this much,” Shinichi said. “We won’t move them. Find them from the clues — or by other means, if you can.” He winked at Elena and turned away — to meet a pale and trembling Nemesis.
Caroline. Whatever else she’d been doing for the last few minutes, she had been crying, and rubbing her eyes, and wringing her hands — or so Elena guessed from the distribution of her makeup.
“You, too?” she said to Shinichi.“You, too?”
Shinichi smiled his lazy smile. “And what two am I?” He held up two fingers in the V symbol to differentiate his two from Caroline’s.
“You’ve fallen for her, too? Making up songs — giving her clues to find Stefan—”
“They’re not very good clues,” Shinichi said comfortingly and smiled again.
Caroline tried to hit him, but he caught her fist. “And you think you’re leaving now?” Her voice was pitched at a scream — not as high as Misao’s glass-splintering shriek, but with its own fearsome vibrato.
“I know we’re leaving.” He glanced at the sullen Misao. “After one more item of business. But not with you.”
Elena tensed up, but Caroline was trying to attack Shinichi again. “After what you said to me? After all that you said?”
Shinichi looked her up and down, seeming to actually see her for the first time. He also looked genuinely bewildered. “Said to you?” he asked. “Have we spoken before tonight?”
There was a high-pitched giggle. Everyone turned. Misao was standing, giggling, her hands over her mouth.
“I used your image,” she said to her brother, her eyes on the floor as if confessing to a minor fault. “And your voice. In the mirror, when I would give her orders. She was on the rebound from some guy who’d dumped her. I told her I’d fallen in love with her and that I wanted to get revenge on her enemies — if she’d just do a few little things for me.”
“Like spreading malach through little girls,” Damon said grimly.
Misao giggled again. “And a boy or two. I know what it feels like to have those malach inside you. It doesn’t hurt at all. They’re just — there.”
“Have you ever had one force you to do something you didn’t want to?” Elena demanded. She could feel her blue eyes blazing. “Do you think that would hurt, Misao?”
“It wasn’t you?” Caroline was still looking at Shinichi; she obviously couldn’t keep up with the script. “It wasn’t you?”
He sighed, smiling slightly. “Not me. Golden hair is my undoing, I’m afraid. Golden…or fiery red against black,” he added hastily, glancing at his sister.
“So it was all a lie,” Caroline said, and for a moment, desperation was written on her face larger than anger, with sadness larger than both. “You’re just another Elena fan.”
“Look,” Elena said bluntly, “I don’t want him. I hate him. The only guy I care about is Stefan!”
“Oh, he’s the only guy, is he?” Damon asked, with a glance toward Matt, who had carried Bonnie up close to them while the fox-fight was going on. Mrs. Flowers and Dr. Alpert had followed.
“You know what I mean,” Elena told Damon.
Damon shrugged. “Many a golden-haired lassie ends as the rough yeoman’s bride.” Then he shook his head. “Why am I spouting drek like this?” His compact body seemed to tower over Shinichi.
“It’s just a residual effect…from being possessed…you know.” Shinichi fluttered his hands, his eyes still on Elena. “My thought patterns…”
It looked as if another fight was brewing, but then Damon just smiled and said, narrow-eyed, “So you let Misao have her way with the town while you went after Elena and me.”
“And—”
“Mutt,” Damon said hastily and automatically.
“I was going to say Stefan,” Elena said. “No, I would guess that Matt was the victim of one of Misao and Caroline’s little schemes before he and I ran into you when you were completely possessed.”
“And now you think you can just walk away,” Caroline said, in a shaking, menacing voice.
“We are walking away,” Shinichi said stiffly.
“Caroline, wait,” Elena said. “I can help you — with Wings of Purification. You’re being controlled by a malach.”
“I don’t need your help! I need a husband!”
There was utter silence on the roof. Not even Matt stepped up to the plate on this one.
“Or at least a fiance,” Caroline muttered, one hand on her abdomen. “My family would accept that.”
“We’ll work it out,” Elena said softly — then, firmly, “Caroline, believe it.”
“I wouldn’t believe in you if…” Caroline’s answer was obscene. Then she spat in Elena’s direction. And then she was silent, by her own choice or because the malach inside her wanted it.
“Back to business,” Shinichi said. “Let’s see, our price for the service of the clues and the location is a little block of memory. Let’s say…from the time I first met Damon until now. Taken from Damon’s mind.” He smiled nastily.
“You can’t do that!” Elena felt panic shoot through her, starting in her heart and flying out to the farthest reaches of every limb. “He’s different now: he’s remembered things — he’s changed. If you take that memory away—”
