The Return: Shadow Souls

Meredith and Bonnie were silent. They knew Elena in this mood. She wasn’t fooling around. And neither of them wanted to be left behind.

It was exactly at that moment that the carriage came rumbling up to the base of the marble stairs.

Sage, who obviously knew something about human nature, demonic nature, vampiric nature, and various kinds of bestial nature, jumped out of the carriage with two swords drawn. He also whistled. In a moment a shadow — a small one — came streaking to him out of the sky.

Last, slowly, stretching each leg like a tiger, came Saber, who immediately pulled back his lips to show an amazing number of teeth.

Elena leaped toward the carriage, her eyes meeting Sage’s. Help me, she thought desperately. And his eyes said just as plainly, Have no fear.

Blindly, she reached behind her with both hands. One small, fine-boned, lightly trembling hand was thrust into hers. One slim, cool hand, hard as a boy’s but with long tapering fingers grabbed her other one.

There was no one here to trust. No one to say good-bye to, or leave messages of good-bye with. Elena scrambled into the carriage. She got into the backseat, the farthest from the front, to accommodate incoming humans and animals.

And in they did come, like an avalanche. She had dragged Bonnie with her, and Meredith had followed, so that when Saber leaped into his accustomed place he landed on three soft laps.

Sage hadn’t wasted a moment. With Talon clamped on his left wrist, he left just enough room for Damon’s final spring — and a spring it was. Cracked and broken, oozing black fluid, Bloddeuwedd’s beak hit the end of the marble stairs where Damon had been standing.

“Directions!” shouted Sage, but only after the horses were heading at a gallop — somewhere, anywhere, away.

“Oh, please don’t let her hurt the horses,” Bonnie gasped.

“Oh, please don’t let her split this roof like cardboard,” said Meredith, somehow able to be wry even when her life was in danger.

“Directions, s’il vous plait!” roared Sage.

“The prison, of course,” panted Elena. She felt that it had been a long time since she had been able to get enough air.

“The prison?” Damon seemed distracted. “Yes! The prison!” But then, he added, pulling up something like a pillowcase filled with billiard balls, “Sage, what are these?”

“Loot. Booty. Spoils! Plunder!” As the horses swung in a new direction, Sage’s voice seemed to get more and more cheerful. “And look around your feet!”

“More pillowcases…?”

“I wasn’t prepared for a big haul tonight. But things worked out well anyway!”

By now, Elena was feeling one of the pillowcases for herself. The case was, indeed, full of clear, sparkling hoshi no tama. Star balls. Memories. Worth…

Worthless?

“Priceless…although of course we don’t know what’s on them.” Sage’s voice changed subtly. Elena remembered the warning about “forbidden spheres.” What, in the name of the yellow sun, could they possibly forbid down here?

Bonnie was the first to pick up a disk and put it to her temple. She did it so quickly, with such flashing, birdlike movements, that Elena couldn’t stop her.

“What is it?” Elena gasped, trying to pull the star ball away.

“It’s…poetry. Poetry I can’t understand,” said Bonnie crossly.

Meredith had also picked up a sparkling orb. Elena reached for her but once again she was too late.

Meredith sat as if in a trance for a moment, then grimaced and put the sphere down.

“What?” demanded Elena.

Meredith shook her head. She wore a delicate expression of distaste.

“What?” Elena almost yelled. Then as Meredith put the star ball by her feet, Elena lunged at it. She clapped it to her own temple and immediately was dressed in black leather from head to toe. There were two broad, square men in front of her, without a lot of muscle tone. And she could see all of their musculature because they were stark naked except for rags such as beggars wore. But they weren’t beggars — they looked well-fed and oily and it was clearly an act when one of them groveled, “We have trespassed. We beg your forgiveness, O master!”

Elena was reaching to take the sphere off her temple (they stuck gently, if you put a little pressure there) and saying, “Why don’t they use the space for something else?”

Something else was immediately all around her. A girl, in poor clothing, but not sacking. She looked terrified. Elena wondered if she were being controlled.

And Elena was the girl.

Pleasedon’tletitgetmepleasedon’tletitgetme—

Let what get you? Elena asked, but it was like watching a movie or book character while they were going into a lonely house in a howling storm and the music had turned eerie. The Elena who was walking in fear could not hear the Elena who was asking practical questions.

I don’t think I want to see how this one comes out, she decided. She put the star ball back at Meredith’s feet.

“Do we have three sacks?”

“Yes, ma’am, yes, ma’am; three sacks full.”

Oh. That didn’t work out very well. Elena was opening her mouth again, when Damon added quietly: “And one sack empty.”

“Really? We do? Then let’s all try to divide these. Anything — forbidden — goes in one sack. Weird stuff like Bonnie’s poetry reading goes into another. Any news of Stefan — or of us — goes in the third. And nice things, like summer days, go in the fourth,” Elena said.

“I think you are being optimistic, me,” Sage said. “To expect to find an orb with Stefan on it so quickly —”

“Everybody, hush!” Bonnie said frantically. “This is Shinichi and Damon talking him into it.”

Sage stiffened, as if taking a lightning bolt from the stormy sky, then he smiled. “Speak of the devil,” he murmured. Elena smiled at him and squeezed his hand before taking another ball.

“This one seems to be some kind of legal stuff. I don’t understand it. A slave must be taking it because I can see all of them.” Elena felt her facial muscles tighten with hatred at the sight — even in a sort of dream — of Shinichi, the kitsune who had done so much harm. His hair was black, except for an irregular fringe around the edges, which made it look as if it had been dipped in red-hot lava.

And then, of course, Misao. Shinichi’s sister — allegedly. This star ball must have been made by a slave, because she could see both of the twins and a lawyerly-looking man.

Misao, Elena thought. Delicate, deferential, demure…demonic. Her hair was the same as Shinichi’s, but it was held up and back in a ponytail. You could see the demonic part if she raised her eyes. They were effervescent, golden, laughing eyes, just like her brother’s; eyes that had never had a regret — except perhaps for not exacting enough revenge. They took no responsibility. They found anguish funny.

And then something odd happened. All three of the figures in the room suddenly turned around and looked straight at her. Straight at whoever had made the sphere, Elena corrected herself, but it still was disconcerting.

It was even more disconcerting when they continued to advance. Who am I? Elena thought, feeling half- frantic with anxiety. Then she tried something she had never done before, or seen or heard of being done. She carefully extended her Power into the Self around the orb. She was Werty, a sort of lawyer’s secretary. She/he took notes when important deals were done.

And Werty definitely didn’t like the way things were going right now. The two clients and his boss closing in on him like this, in a way they never had before.

Elena pulled herself out of the clerk and put the ball down to one side. She shivered, feeling as if she’d been plunged into ice-cold water.

And then the roof crashed in.