The Return: Shadow Souls

she was giving him pleasure, when she suddenly realized.

Oh! Damon, please let me go — I have to go have a fitting right now!

Deeply flushed, he slowly, reluctantly put her down, grabbed her before she could fall, and put her down again.

I think I shall have to go have a fit right now as well, he told her earnestly as he stumbled out of the room, missing the door the first time.

Not a fit — a fitting! Elena called after him, but she never knew if he had heard. She was pleased, though, that he had let her go, without really understanding anything except that she was saying no. That was quite a bit of improvement.

Then she hurried in to Lady Ulma’s room, which was filled with all sorts of people, including two male models, who had just been garbed in trousers and long shirts.

“Sage’s clothes,” said Lady Ulma, nodding at the large one, “and Damon’s.” She nodded at the smaller man.

“Oh, they’re perfect!”

Lady Ulma looked at her with just the slightest doubt in her eyes. “These are made of genuine sacking,” she said. “The meanest, lowest cloth in the slave hierarchy. Are you sure they will wear them?”

“They’re wearing them or they aren’t going at all,” Elena said flatly and winked.

Lady Ulma laughed. “Good plan.”

“Yes — but what do you think of my other plan?” Elena asked, genuinely interested in Lady Ulma’s opinion, even while she blushed.

“My dear benefactress,” Lady Ulma said. “I used to watch my mother put together such outfits…after I had turned thirteen, of course — and she told me that they always made her happy, for she was bringing joy to two at once, and that the purpose was nothing but joy. I promise you, Lucen and I will be done in no time. Now, should you not be getting ready?”

“Oh, yes — oh, I do love you, Lady Ulma! It’s so funny that the more people you love, the more you want to love!” And with that Elena went running back to her own rooms.

Her maids-in-waiting were all there and all ready. Elena took the quickest, briskest bath of her life — she was keyed up — and found herself on a couch in the middle of a smiling, keen-eyed bunch, each neatly doing her job without interfering with the others.

There was a depilatory, of course — in fact one for each leg, one for her armpits, and one for her eyebrows. While these women and the women with soft creams and unguents were at work, creating a unique fragrance for Elena, another one thoughtfully considered her face and body as a whole.

This woman touched up Elena’s eyebrows to darken them, and gilded Elena’s eyelids with metallic cosmetic paint before using something that added at least a quarter-inch to Elena’s eyelashes. Then she extended Elena’s eyes with exotic horizontal lines of kohl. Finally, she carefully made Elena’s lips a rich glossy red that somehow gave the impression that they were continually puckered for a kiss. After this the woman sprinkled the faintest of iridescence all over Elena’s body. Finally, a very large canary diamond that had been sent up from Lucen’s jewelry bench was firmly cemented into her navel.

It was while the hairdressers were seeing to the last of the little curls on her forehead that the two boxes and a scarlet cape came from Lady Ulma’s women. Elena thanked all her ladies-in-waiting and beauticians sincerely, paid them all a bonus that had them twittering, and then asked them to leave her alone. When they dithered, she asked them again, just as politely, but in louder tones. They went.

Elena’s hands were trembling as she took out the outfit Lady Ulma had created. It was quite as decent as a bathing suit, but it looked like jewelry strategically placed on wisps of golden tulle. It all coordinated with the canary diamond: from the necklace to the armlets to the golden bracelets that denoted that, however expensively Elena was dressed, she was still a slave.

And that was it. She was going clad in tulle and jewelry, perfume and paint, to see her Stefan. Elena put the scarlet cloak on very, very carefully to avoid rumpling or smearing anything below, and slipped her feet into delicate golden sandals with very high heels.

She hurried downstairs and was exactly on time. Sage and Damon were wearing cloaks tightly closed — which meant that they were dressed in the sacking outfits underneath. Sage had had Lady Ulma’s coach made ready. Elena settled her matching golden bracelets on her wrists,

hating them because she had to wear them, pretty as they were against the white fur trim on her scarlet cloak. Damon held out a hand to help her into the coach.

“I get to ride inside? Does that mean I don’t have to wear—” But looking at Sage, her hopes were crushed.

“Unless we want to curtain all the windows,” he said, “you’re legally traveling outside without slave bracelets.”

Elena sighed and gave her hand to Damon. Standing against the sun, he was a dark silhouette. But then, as Elena blinked in the light, he stared in astonishment. Elena knew he’d seen her gilded eyelids. His eyes dropped to her pursed-to-be-kissed lips. Elena blushed.

“I forbid you to order me to show you what’s under the cloak,” she said hastily. Damon looked thwarted.

“Hair in tiny curls all over your forehead, cloak that covers everything from neck to toes, lipstick like…” He stared again. His mouth twitched as if he were being compelled to fit it to hers.

“And it’s time to go!” Elena caroled, hastily getting into the carriage. She felt very happy, although she understood why freed slaves would never wear anything like a bracelet again.

She was still happy when they reached the Shi no Shi — that large building that seemed to combine a prison with a training facility for gladiators.

And she was still happy as the guards at the large Shi no Shi checkpoint let them into the building without showing any signs of ill feeling. But then, it was hard to say if the cloak had any effect on them. They were demons: sullen, mauve-skinned, bullock-steady.

She noticed something that was at first a shock and then a river of hope inside her. The front lobby of the building had a door in one side that was like the door in the side of the depot/slaveshop: always kept shut; strange symbols above; people walking up to it in different costumes and announcing a destination before turning the key and opening the door.

In other words: a dimensional door. Right here in Stefan’s prison. God alone knew how many guards would be after them if they tried to use it, but it was something to keep in mind.

The guards on the lower floors of the Shi no Shi building, in what was most definitely a dungeon, had clear and obnoxious reactions to Elena and her party. They were some smaller species of demon — imps, maybe, Elena thought — and they gave the visitors a hard time over everything. Damon had to bribe them to be allowed in to the area where Stefan’s cell was, to go in alone, without one guard per visitor, and to allow Elena, a slave, to go in to see a free vampire.

And even when Damon had given them a small fortune to get past these obstacles, they sniggered and made harsh guttural gurglings in their throats. Elena didn’t trust them.

She was correct.

At a corridor where Elena knew from her out of body experiences they should have turned left, instead they went straight through. They passed another set of guards, who almost collapsed from sniggering.

Oh — God — are they taking us to see Stefan’s dead body? Elena wondered suddenly. Then it was Sage who really helped her. He put out a large arm and bodily held her up, until she found her legs again.

They went on walking, deeper into what was a filthy and stinking stone-floored dungeon now. Then abruptly they turned right.

Elena’s heart raced on before them. It was saying wrong, wrong, wrong, even before they got to the last cell in the line. The cell was completely different from Stefan’s old cell. It was surrounded, not by bars, but by a sort of curlicued chicken wire that was lined with sharp spikes. No way to hand in a bottle of Black Magic. No way to get the bottle top in position to pour into a waiting mouth on the other side. No room, even, to get a finger or the mouth of a canteen through for the cellmate to suck. And the cell itself wasn’t filthy, but it was bare of everything except a supine Stefan. No food, no water, no bed to hide anything in, no straw.