The Return: Shadow Souls

candlesticks in the shape of rearing dragons; the Egyptian funerary mask with its dark, elongated eyeholes seeming to watch out of its brilliantly painted features…all were here. It wasn’t even as if her ladyship kept anything of great value here, but still, “This room is not part of the public display,” he told Damon, who merely clasped Elena closer.

Yes, Damon seemed very determined to put on a good show for the steward…or something like that. But hadn’t they already…done so? Elena’s thoughts were losing coherency. The last thing…the very last thing that they could afford…was to…lose the chance of…finding the fox key. Elena started to pull away, and then realized that she mustn’t.

Mustn’t. Not couldn’t. She was property, expensive property to be sure, decked out the way she was tonight, but Damon’s to dispose of as he chose. While someone else was looking on, she must not seem to disobey her master’s wishes.

Still, Damon was taking this too far…farther than he had ever taken liberties with her, although, she thought wryly, he didn’t know that. He was caressing the skin left unprotected by the ivory goddess dress, her arms, her back, even her hair. He knew how she liked that, how she could somehow feel it when her hair was held and the ends caressed softly or gently crushed in a fist.

Damon! She was down to the last resort now: pleading. Damon, if they detain us, or do anything to us that keeps us from finding the key tonight — when will we have another chance?…She let him feel her desperation, her guilt, even the treacherous desire she had to forget everything and let each minute carry her further on this wave of ardor that he had created. Damon, I’ll…say it if you want. I’m…begging you. Elena could feel her eyes prickling as tears flooded them.

No tears. Elena heard Damon’s telepathic voice gratefully. There was something strange about it, though. It couldn’t be starvation — he’d had her blood not much more than two hours ago. And it wasn’t passion, for she could hear — and sense — that, all too clearly. Yet Damon’s telepathic voice was so taut with control that it almost frightened her. More, she knew he could feel that it frightened her and that he chose to do nothing about it. No explanation. No exploration, either, she realized as she found that behind the control, his mind was entirely shut to her.

The only thing she could liken the feeling that she got from his steely control was pain. Pain that was just on the edge of the endurable.

But from what? Elena wondered helplessly.

What could cause him pain like that?

Elena couldn’t waste their time on wondering what was wrong with Damon. She turned up the Power of her own hearing and began to listen at the doors before they entered.

It was while she was listening that suddenly a new idea solidified in Elena’s mind, and she stopped Damon in a pitch-dark hallway and tried to explain to him what kind of room she was looking for. What, in modern days, would be called a “home office.”

Damon, familiar with the architecture of great mansions, took her, after only a few false starts, into what was clearly a lady’s writing room. Elena’s eyes were by now as keen as his in the dimness as they searched by the light of a single candle.

While Elena was being frustrated after searching a remarkable desk with pigeonholes for secret drawers, and not finding any, Damon was checking the hallway.

“I hear someone outside,” he said. “I think it’s time to leave now.”

But Elena was still looking. And — as her eyes raced across the room — she saw a small writing desk with an old-fashioned chair and an assortment of various pens, from ancient to modern, flaunting themselves from elaborate holders.

“Let’s go while it’s still clear,” Damon murmured impatiently.

“Yes,” Elena said distractedly. “All right…”

And then she saw.

Without an instant’s hesitation she strode across the room to the desk and picked up a pen with a brilliant silver plume. It wasn’t a genuine quill pen, of course; it was a fountain pen made to look elegant and old-fashioned — with a plume. The pen itself was curved to fit her hand, and the wood felt warm.

“Elena, I don’t feel very…”

“Damon, shhh,” Elena said, ignoring him, too absorbed in what she was doing to really hear. First: try to write. No go. Something was blocking the cartridge. Second: unscrew the fountain-pen carefully, as if to refill its cartridge, while all the time her heart was clamoring in her ears and her hands were shaking. Keep moving slowly…don’t miss anything…for God’s sake don’t let anything fall away and bounce in this dimness. The two parts of the pen parted in her hand…

…and onto the dark green desk pad fell a small, heavy, curved piece of metal. It had just fit inside the widest part of the pen. She had it in her hand and was reassembling the pen before she could get a good look at it. But then…she had to open her hand and see.

The small crescent-shaped object dazzled her eyes in the light, but it was just like the description Bonnie had given Elena and Meredith. A tiny representation of a fox with a nominal body and a jewel-encrusted head that sported two flat ears. The eyes were two sparkling green stones. Emeralds?

“Alexandrite,” Damon said in a bedroom whisper. “Folklore has it that they change color in candlelight or firelight. They reflect the flame.”

Elena, who had been leaning back against him, recalled with a chill the way Damon’s eyes had reflected flame when he had been possessed: the bloodred flame of the malach — of Shinichi’s cruelty.

“So,” Damon demanded, “how did you do it?”

“This is really one of the two pieces of the fox key?”

“Well, it’s hardly something that belongs in a fountain pen. Maybe it’s a Crackerjack prize. But you went right to it the moment we entered the room. Even vampires need time to think, my precious princess.”

Elena shrugged. “It’s too easy, actually. When it was clear that all those harp keys were no goes, I asked myself what else was an instrument that you’d find in someone’s house. A pen is a writing instrument. Then I just had to find out whether Lady Fazina had a study or writing room.”

Damon let out a breath. “Hell’s demons, you little innocent. You know what I’ve been looking for? Trap doors. Secret entries to dungeons. The only other instrument I could think of was an ‘instrument of torture’ and you’d be surprised at how many of them you’ll find in this fair city.”

“But not in her house—!” Elena’s voice rose dangerously, and they were both silent a moment to make up for it, listening, on tenterhooks, for any sound from the hallway.

There was none.

Elena let out her breath. “Quick! Where, where will it be safe?” She was realizing that the one fault of the goddess dress was that there was absolutely no place to hide anything. She’d have to speak to Lady Ulma about that for next time.

“Down, down in the pocket of my jeans,” Damon said, seeming to be as urgent and shaking as badly as she was. When he had jammed it deep into the recesses of his black Armani jeans he caught her by both hands. “Elena! Do you realize? We’ve done it. We’ve actually done it!”

“I know!” Tears were leaking out of Elena’s eyes and all of Lady Fazina’s music seemed to be swelling in one great, perfect chord. “We did it together!”

And then somehow — like all the other “somehows” that were getting to be a habit with them, Elena was in Damon’s arms, sliding her own arms under his jacket to feel his warmth, his solidity. She wasn’t surprised, either, to feel a double piercing at her throat when she dropped her head back: her lovely panther was really only a little tamed, and needed to learn a few basics of dating etiquette; such as you kiss before you bite.

He had said he was hungry earlier, she remembered, and she had ignored him, too enthralled by the silver pen to put the words together. But she put them together now, and understood — except why he seemed to be so exceptionally hungry tonight.

Maybe even…excessively hungry.

Damon, she thought gently, you’re taking a lot.

She could feel no response but the raw hunger of the panther.

Damon, this could be dangerous…for me. This time Elena put as much Power as