The Return: Shadow Souls

“I don’t recall anything ever being said about ‘taking turns.’” Damon managed to give the word an inflection that made it sound like some rather wicked activity. “And if I go in a car, I drive the car.”

Elena cleared her throat. Neither of them even noticed her.

“I’m not getting into a car if you’re driving!” Matt said furiously.

“I’m not getting into a car if you’re driving!” Damon said laconically.

Elena cleared her throat more loudly, and Matt finally remembered her existence.

“Well, Elena can’t be expected to drive us all the way to wherever we’re going,” he said, before she could even suggest the possibility. “Unless we’re going to get there today,” he added, looking at Damon sharply.

Damon shook his dark head. “No. I’m taking the scenic route. And the fewer people who know where we’re going the safer we’re going to be. You can’t tell if you don’t know.”

Elena felt as if someone had just lightly touched the hairs on the back of her neck with an ice cube. The way Damon said those words…

“But they’ll already know where we’re going, won’t they?” she asked, shaking herself back to practicality. “They know we want to rescue Stefan, and they know where Stefan is.”

“Oh, yes. They’ll know we’re trying to get into the Dark Dimension. But by what gate? And when? If we can lose them the only thing we need to worry about is Stefan and the prison guards.”

Matt looked around. “How many gates are there?”

“Thousands. Wherever three ley lines cross, there’s the potential for a gate. But since the Europeans drove the Native Americans out of their homes, most of the gates aren’t used or maintained as they were in the old days.” Damon shrugged.

But Elena was tingling all over with excitement, with anxiety. “Why don’t we just find the nearest gate and go through it, then?”

“Travel all the way to the prison underground? Look, you don’t understand at all. First of all, you need me with you to get you into a gate — and even then it isn’t going to be pleasant.”

“Not pleasant for who? Us or you?” Matt asked grimly.

Damon gave him a long, blank look. “If you tried on your own it would be briefly and terminally unpleasant for you. With me, it should be uncomfortable but a matter of routine. And as for what it’s like traveling for even a few days down there — well, you’ll see for yourselves, eventually,” Damon said, with an odd smile. “And it would take much, much longer than going by a main gate.”

“Why?” Matt demanded — always ready to ask questions that Elena really, really didn’t want to know the answers to.

“Because it’s either jungle, where five-foot leeches dropping from the trees are going to be the least of your worries, or wasteland, where any enemy can spot you — and everyone is your enemy.”

There was a pause while Elena thought hard. Damon looked serious. Clearly, he really didn’t want to do it — and not many things bothered Damon. He liked fighting. More, if it would only waste time…

“All right,” Elena said slowly. “We’ll go on with your plan.”

Immediately, both boys reached for the driver’s side door handle again.

“Listen,” Elena said without looking at either of them. “ I am going to drive my Jaguar down to the next town. But first I am going to get in it and get changed into real clothes and maybe even catch a few minutes of sleep. Matt will want to find a brook or something where he can clean up. And then I’m going to whatever town is closest for some brunch. After that—”

“—the bickering can begin anew,” Damon finished for her. “You do that, darling. I’ll meet you at whatever greasy spoon you’ve selected.”

Elena nodded. “You’re sure you’ll be able to find us? I am trying to hold my aura down, really.”

“Listen, a fire-engine-red Jaguar in whatever flyspeck of a town you find down this road is going to be as conspicuous as a UFO,” Damon said.

“Why doesn’t he just come with…” Matt’s voice trailed off. Somehow, although it was his deepest grievance against Damon, he often managed to forget that Damon was a vampire.

“So you’re going to go down there first and find some young girl walking to summer school,” Matt said, his blue eyes seeming to darken. “And you’re going to swoop down on her and take her away where no one can hear her screaming and then you’re going to pull her head back and you’re going to sink your teeth into her throat.”

There was a fairly long pause. Then Damon said in a slightly injured tone, “Am not.”

“That’s what you — people — do. You did it to me.”

Elena saw the need for really drastic intervention: the truth. “Matt, Matt, it wasn’t Damon who did that. It was Shinichi. You know that.” She gently took Matt by the forearms and turned him until he was facing her.

For a long moment Matt wouldn’t look at her. Time stretched and Elena began to fear that he was beyond her reach. But then at last he lifted his head so that she could look into his eyes.

“All right,” he said softly. “I’ll go along with it. But you know that he’s going off to drink human blood.”

“From a willing donor!” Damon, who had very good hearing, shouted.

Matt exploded again. “Because you make them willing! You hypnotize them —”

“No, I don’t.”

“—or ‘Influence’ them, or whatever. How would you like it—”

Behind Matt’s back, Elena was now making furious go-away motions at Damon, as if she were shooing a flock of chickens. At first Damon just raised an eyebrow at her, but then he shrugged elegantly and obeyed, his form blurring as he took the shape of a crow and rapidly became a dot in the rising sun.

“Do you think,” Elena said quietly, “that you could get rid of your stake? It’s just going to make Damon completely paranoid.”

Matt looked everywhere but at her and then finally he nodded. “I’ll dump it when I go downhill to wash,” he said, looking at his muddy legs grimly.

“Anyway,” he added, “you get in the car and try to get some sleep. You look like you need it.”

“Wake me up in a couple hours,” Elena said — without the first idea that in a couple hours she was going to regret this more than she could say.

4

“You’re shaking. Let me do it alone,” Meredith said, putting a hand on Bonnie’s shoulder as they stood together in front of Caroline Forbes’s house.

Bonnie started to lean into the pressure, but made herself stop. It was humiliating to be shaking so obviously on a Virginia morning in late July. It was humiliating to be treated like a child, too. But Meredith, who was only six months older, looked more adult than usual today. Her dark hair was pulled back, so that her eyes looked very large and her olive-skinned face with its high cheekbones was shown to its best advantage.

She could practically be my babysitter, Bonnie thought dejectedly. Meredith had high heels on, too, instead of her usual flats. Bonnie felt smaller and younger than ever in comparison. She ran a hand through her strawberry- blond curls, trying to fluff them up a precious half inch higher.

“I’m not scared. I’m c-cold,” Bonnie said with all the dignity she could muster.

“I know. You feel something coming from there, don’t you?” Meredith nodded at the house before them.

Bonnie looked sideways at it and then back at Meredith. Suddenly Meredith’s adultness was more comforting than annoying. But before she looked at Caroline’s house again she blurted, “What’s with the spike heels?”

“Oh,” Meredith said, glancing down. “Just practical thinking. If anything tries to grab my ankle this time, it gets this.” She stamped and there was a satisfying clack from the sidewalk.

Bonnie almost smiled. “Did you bring your brass knuckles, too?”