The Return: Shadow Souls

“I can feed you Black Magic wine,” Elena translated. “With his little pouch I can hold it and fill the syringe. Dr. Meggar could fill the syringe, too. But there’s no time, so I’m going to do it.”

“I—” began Stefan.

“You are going to drink as fast as you can.” Elena loved Stefan, wanted to hear his voice, wanted to fill her eyes with him, but there was a life to be saved, and the life was his. She took the little pouch with a bow of thanks to the kitsune and left her cloak on the floor. She was too intent on Stefan to even remember how she was dressed.

Her hands wanted to shake but she wouldn’t let them. She had three bottles of Black Magic here: her own, in her cloak, Dr. Meggar’s,

and somewhere, in his cloak, Damon’s.

So with the delicate efficiency of a machine, she repeated what the kitsune had shown her over and over. Dip, pull up lever, push through bars, squirt. Over and over and over.

After about a dozen of these Elena developed a new technique, the catapult. Filling the tiny bag with wine and holding it by the top until Stefan got his mouth positioned, and then, all in one motion, smashing the bag with her palm and squirting a fair amount straight into Stefan’s mouth. It got the bars sticky, it got Stefan sticky; it would never have worked if the steel had been razor-sharp for him, but it actually forced a surprising amount down his throat.

The other bottle of Black Magic wine she put in the kitsune’s cell, which had regular bars. She didn’t quite know how to thank him, but when she could spare a second, she turned to him and smiled. He was chugging the Black Magic straight from the bottle, and his face was set in an expression of cool, appreciative pleasure.

The end came too quickly. Elena heard Sage’s voice booming, “It is no fair! Elena will not be ready! Elena has not had enough time with him!”

Elena didn’t need an anvil dropped on her head. She shoved the last bottle of Black Magic wine into the kitsune’s cell, she bowed for the last time and gave him back his tiny pouch — but with the canary diamond from her navel in it. It was the largest piece of jewelry she had left and she saw him turn it over precisely in long-nailed fingers and then rise to his feet and make a tiny bow to her. There was a moment for a mutual smile and then Elena was cleaning up Dr. Meggar’s bag, and pulling on her red cloak. Then she was turning to Stefan, jelly inside once more, gasping: “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to make it a medical visit.”

“But you saw the chance to save my life and just couldn’t pass it up.”

Sometimes the brothers were very much alike.

“Stefan, don’t! Oh, I love you!”

“Elena.” He kissed her fingers, pressed to the bars. Then, to the guards: “No, please, please, don’t take her away! For pity’s sake, give us one more minute! Just one!”

But Elena had to let go of his fingers to hold her cloak together. The last she saw of Stefan, he was pounding on the bars with his fists and calling, “Elena, I love you! Elena!”

Then Elena was dragged out of the hallway and a door shut between them. She sagged.

Arms went around her, helped her to walk. Elena got angry! If Stefan was being put back in his old lice-ridden cell — as she supposed he was, right about now — he was being made to walk. And these demons did nothing gently, she knew that. He was probably being driven like an animal with sharp instruments of wood.

Elena could walk, too.

As they reached the front of the Shi no Shi lobby Elena looked around. “Where’s Damon?”

“In the coach,” Sage answered in his gentlest voice. “He needed some time.”

Part of Elena said, “I’ll give him time! Time to scream once before I rip his throat out!” But the rest of her was just sad.

“I didn’t get to say anything I wanted to say. I wanted to tell him how sorry Damon is; and how Damon’s changed. He didn’t even remember that Damon had been there—”

“He talked to you?” Sage seemed astonished.

The two of them, Sage and Elena, walked out of the final marble doors of the building of the Gods of Death. That was the name Elena had chosen for it in her own mind.

The carriage was at the curb in front of them, but no one got in. Instead, Sage gently steered Elena a little distance from the others. There he put his large hands on her shoulders and spoke, still in that very soft voice,

“Mon Dieu, my child, but I do not want to say this to you. It is that I must. I fear that even if we get your Stefan out of jail by the day of Lady Bloddeuwedd’s party that — that it will be too late. In three days he will already be…”

“Is that your medical opinion?” Elena said sharply, looking up at him. She knew her face was pinched and white and that he pitied her greatly, but what she wanted was an answer.

“I am not a medical man,” he said slowly. “I am just another vampire.”

“Just another Old One?”

Sage’s eyebrows went up. “Now, what gave you that little idea?”

“Nothing. I’m sorry if I’m wrong. But will you please get Dr. Meggar?”

Sage looked at her for a long minute more, then departed to get the doctor. Both men came back.

Elena was ready for them. “Dr. Meggar, Sage only saw Stefan at the beginning, before you gave him that injection. It was Sage’s opinion that Stefan would be dead in three days. Given the effects of the injection, do you agree?”

Dr. Meggar peered at her and she could see the shine of tears in his short-sighted eyes. “It is — possible — just possible that if he has enough willpower, he could still be alive by then. But most likely…”

“Would it make any difference to your opinion if I said that he drank maybe a third of a bottle of Black Magic wine tonight?”

Both men stared at her. “Are you saying—”

“Is this just a plan you have now?”

“Please!” Forgetting about her cape, forgetting everything, Elena grasped Dr. Meggar’s hands. “I found a way to get him to drink about that much. Does it make a difference?” She squeezed the elderly hands until she could feel bone.

“It certainly should.” Dr. Meggar looked bewildered and afraid to hope. “If you really got that much into his system, he would be almost certain to live until the night of Bloddeuwedd’s party. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

Elena sank back, unable to resist giving his hands a little kiss as she let go.

“And now let’s go tell Damon the good news,” she said.

In the carriage, Damon was sitting bolt upright, his profile outlined against a blood-red sky. Elena got in and shut the door behind her.

With no expression at all, he said, “Is it over?”

“Over?” Elena wasn’t really this dense, but she figured it was important that Damon be clear in his own mind as to what he was asking.

“Is he — dead?” Damon said wearily, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers.

Elena allowed the silence to go on for a few beats longer. Damon must know Stefan was not likely to actually die in the next half hour. Now that he wasn’t getting instant confirmation of this his head snapped up.

“Elena, tell me! What happened?” he demanded, urgency in his voice. “Is my brother dead?”

“No,” Elena said quietly. “But he’s likely to die in a few days. He was coherent this time, Damon. Why didn’t you speak to him?”

There was an almost palpable drawing-in on Damon’s part. “What do I have to say to him that matters?” he asked harshly. “‘Oh, I’m sorry I almost killed you’? ‘Oh, I hope you make it another few days’?”

“Things like that, maybe, if you lose the sarcasm.”

“When I die,” Damon said cuttingly, “I’m going to be standing on my own two feet and fighting.”

Elena slapped him across the mouth. There wasn’t room to get much leverage here, but she put as much Power behind the motion as she dared without risking breaking the carriage.

Afterward, there was a long silence. Damon was touching his bleeding lip, accelerating the healing,