The Return: Shadow Souls

39

Elena waded into the crowd feeling like a soldier. She didn’t know why. Maybe because she had thought of a quest and had managed to complete it and stay alive and bring back loot. Maybe because she bore honorable wounds. Maybe because above her there was an enemy who was still out for her blood.

Come to think of it, she thought, I’d better get all these noncombatants out of here. We can keep them in a safe house — well, a few dozen safe houses and—

What was she thinking? Safe house was a phrase from a book. She wasn’t responsible for these people — idiots, mostly, who had stood, slavering, and watched her being whipped. But — despite that, maybe she should get them out of here.

“Bloddeuwedd!” she cried dramatically and pointed to a wheeling silhouette above. “Bloddeuwedd is free! She gave me these!”—pointing to the three lacerations on her back. “She’ll go after you, too!”

At first most of the angry exclamation seemed to be about the fact that Elena now had a marked back. Elena was in no mood to argue. There was only one person here she wanted to talk to now. Keeping Bonnie and Meredith close behind her, she called.

Damon! Damon it’s me! Where are you?

There was so much telepathic traffic that she doubted he would hear her.

But finally, she caught a faint, Elena?…Yes…

Elena, hold on to me. Think of holding me physically, and I’ll take us to a different frequency.

Hold on to a voice? But Elena imagined holding on to Damon tightly, tightly, while she physically held Bonnie’s and Meredith’s hands.

Now can you hear me? This time the voice was much clearer, much louder.

Yes. But I can’t see you.

But I see you. I’m coming to — WATCH OUT!

Too late, Elena’s senses warned her of a huge shadow plummeting from above. She couldn’t move quickly enough to get out of the way of a snapping, alligator-sized beak.

But Damon could. Leaping from somewhere, he gathered her and Bonnie and Meredith all in one great armful and leaped again, hitting grass and rolling.

Oh, God! Damon!

“Is anybody hurt?” he asked aloud.

“I’m fine,” Meredith said quietly, calmly. “But I suspect I owe you my life. Thank you.”

“Bonnie?” Elena asked.

I’m okay. I mean, “I’m okay. But Elena, your back—”

For the first time, Damon was able to turn Elena and see the wounds on her back. “I…did that? But…I thought…”

“Bloddeuwedd did that,” Elena said sharply, looking upward for a circling shape in the deep red sky. “She just barely touched me. She has talons like knives, like steel. We have to go, now!”

Damon put both hands on her shoulders. “And come back when things have calmed down, you mean.”

“And never come back! Oh, God, here she comes!”

Something out of the corner of her eye became baseball-sized in an instant, volleyball-sized in a second, human-sized in a moment. And then they were all scattering, leaping, rolling, trying to get away, except Damon, who seized Elena and shouted, “This is my slave! If you have any argument with her, you first argue with me!”

“And I am Bloddeuwedd, created by the gods, condemned to be a murderer every night. I’ll kill you first, then eat her, the thief!” Bloddeuwedd called back in her raucous new voice. “Two bites is all it will take.”

Damon, I need to tell you something!

“I’ll fight you, but my slave is out of it!”

“First bite; here I come!”

Damon, we have to go!

A scream of primal pain and fury.

Damon was standing slightly crouched with a huge piece of glass held in his hand like a sword and great black drops of blood were dripping from where he had — oh, God! Elena thought — he’d put out one of Bloddeuwedd’s eyes!

“YOU WILL ALL DIE! ALL!”

Bloddeuwedd made a charge at a random vampire directly below her and Elena screamed as the vampire screamed. The black beak had caught him by one leg and was lifting him.

But Damon was running forward, jumping, slashing. With a scream of fury, Bloddeuwedd took to the sky again.

Now everyone understood the danger. Two other vampires rushed to take their comrade from Damon, and Elena was glad that her friends were not responsible for another life. She had too much on her hands already.

Damon, I’m leaving now. You can come with me or not. I’ve got the key.

Elena sent the words on the frequency that they were more or less alone on, and she sent it without dramatics. She had no room for drama left. She’d been stripped of everything except the need to get to Stefan.

This time, she knew Damon heard her.

At first, she thought Damon was dying. That Bloddeuwedd had somehow come back and pierced him through his entire body, as with a spear made of light. Then she realized that the feeling was rapture, and two tiny child hands reached out of the light and clung to hers, allowing her to pull a thin, ragged, but laughing child away free.

No chains, she thought dizzily. He’s not even wearing slave bracelets.

“My brother!” he told her. “My little brother’s going to live!”

“Well, that’s a fine thing,” Elena said shakily.

“He’s going to live!” A tiny frown line appeared. “If you hurry! And take good care of him! And—”

Elena put two fingers over his lips, very gently. “You don’t need to worry about anything like that. You just be happy.”

The little boy laughed. “I will! I am!”

“Elena!”

Elena came out of — well, she supposed it was a daze, although it had been more real than many other things she’d experienced recently.

“Elena!” Damon was trying desperately to restrain himself. “Show me the key!”

Slowly, majestically, Elena lifted her hand.

Damon’s shoulders tensed, for — something — went down.

“It’s a ring,” he said dully. The slow and majestic bit hadn’t worked on him at all.

“That’s what I thought at first. It’s a key. I’m not asking you, or seeing if you agree with me; I’m telling you. It’s a key. The light from its eyes points to Stefan.”

“What light?”

“I’ll show you later. Bonnie! Meredith! We’re leaving.”

“YOU’RE NOT IF I SAY YOU’RE NOT!”

“Watch out!” screamed Bonnie.

The owl was diving again. And again, at the last second, Damon gathered the three girls and leaped. The owl’s beak struck not grass nor shards of glass but the marble steps. They cracked. There was a scream of pain and another, as Damon, nimble as a dancer, slashed at the giant bird’s one good eye. He got in a cut right above it. Blood began to fill the eye.

Elena couldn’t stand any more. Ever since starting out on this journey with Damon and Matt, she had been a vial filling with anger. Drop by drop, with each new outrage, that anger had filled and filled the vial. Now her rage was about to fill it to overflowing.

But then…what would happen?

She didn’t want to know. She was afraid she wouldn’t survive it.

What she did know was that she couldn’t watch any more pain and blood and anguish right now. Damon genuinely enjoyed fighting. Good. Let him. She was going to Stefan if she had to walk the whole way.