The Return: Shadow Souls

“We Also Walk Dogs — at least Sage does,” Damon said slyly.

“Oh — that reminds me. I should use that de-parasiting trick on my two friends. Saber! Talon! Heel!” He added a whistle that Matt could never have imitated.

In any case, Matt was operating in a dream. A huge dog, almost as big as a pony, seemingly, and a falcon came out of the darkness.

“Now,” the fit vampire said, and once again the soft light shone.

And then: “There. If you don’t mind; I prefer to sleep out-of-doors with my friends. I am grateful for all your kindnesses, Madame, and my name is Sage. The hawk is Talon; the dog, Saber.”

Elena said, “Dibs on Stefan’s bath for Stefan and me, and Mrs. Flowers’s bath for the girls. You boys can work things out on your own.”

“I,” Mrs. Flowers said gravely, “will be in the kitchen, making sandwiches.” She turned to go.

That was when Shinichi arose from the earth above them.

Or rather when his face arose. It was clearly an illusion, but a terrifying and marvelous one. Shinichi actually seemed to be there, a giant, perhaps supporting the world on his shoulders. The black part of his hair blended in with the night, but the scarlet tips made a flaming halo around his face. Having come from a land that was dominated by a giant red sun, night and day, it was an odd sight.

Shinichi’s eyes were red as well, like two small moons in the sky, and they focused on the group by Mrs. Flowers’s house.

“Hello,” he said. “What, you look so surprised? You shouldn’t be. I really couldn’t let you come back without popping up to say ‘hello.’ After all, it’s been a long time — for some of you,” the giant face said, grinning. “Also, of course, to share in the festivities — we’ve saved little Stefan, and, my, we even fought an oversized chicken to do it.”

“I’d like to see you take Bloddeuwedd on, one on one, and get a secret key out of her nest, at the same time,” Bonnie began indignantly, but stopped when Meredith squeezed her arm.

Sage, meanwhile was murmuring something about what his own “oversized chicken,” Talon, would do if Shinichi were brave enough to show up in person.

Shinichi ignored all this. “Oh, yes, and the mental calisthenics you had to go through. Truly formidable. Well, never again will we mistake you for blunder-headed idiots who never really asked why my sister would give you any clues in the first place, much less clues that Outsiders could understand. I mean”—he leered—“why not just go and swallow the key in the first place, hmm?”

“You’re bluffing,” Meredith said flatly. “You underestimated us, plain and simple.”

“Maybe,” said Shinichi. “Or maybe it was something else entirely.”

“You lost,” said Damon. “I realize that may be an entirely new concept for you, but it’s true. Elena has gained much more control over her Powers.”

“But will they work here?” Shinichi smiled eerily. “Or will they suddenly disappear in the light of a pale yellow sun? Or in the depths of true darkness?”

“Don’t let him bait you, Madame,” Sage shouted. “Your Powers come from a place he cannot enter!”

“Oh, yes, and the renegade. The Rebel’s rebel son. I wonder…what are you calling yourself this time? Cage? Rage? I wonder what these children will think when they learn who you really are?”

“It won’t matter who he is,” Bonnie cried. “We know that. We know that he’s a vampire, but that he can be gentle and kind and he’s saved us over and over again.” She shut her eyes, but held her ground against the gale of Shinichi’s laughter.

“So ‘Madame,’” Shinichi mocked, “you think you have gained ‘Sage.’ But I wonder if you know what in chess we call a ‘gambit’ is? No? Well, I’m sure your intellectual friend will be glad to inform you.”

There was a pause. Then Meredith said, with no expression at all, “A gambit is when a chess player sacrifices something — for instance, a pawn — deliberately — just to get something else. A position on the chessboard that they want, for instance.”

“I knew you’d be able to tell them. What do you think of our first gambit?”

Another silence, then Meredith said: “I presume you mean you’ve given us back Stefan to achieve something better.”

“Oh, if you only had golden hair — as your friend Elena has so generously displayed.”

There were various exclamations on the theme of “Huh?”—most of them directed at Shinichi, but some at Elena.

Who promptly exploded. “You took Stefan’s memories—?”

“Now, now, nothing so drastic, my dear. But a thirty-meld-a-session beautician — now, she was most cooperative.”

Elena turned her gaze up at the giant face with a look of utter contempt. “You… cad.”

“Oh, I’m stricken to the heart.” But the thing was, Shinichi’s giant face did look stricken — angry and dangerous. “Between you, all such close friends: do you know how many secrets there are? Of course, Meredith is a mistress of secrecy, keeping her secrets from her friends all these years. You think you’ve already pumped her dry, but the best is yet to come. And then, of course, there is Damon’s secret.”

“Which if spoken of here and now will mean instant war,” Damon said. “And you know, it’s strange, but I got the feeling that you came here tonight to negotiate.”

This time Shinichi’s laughter really was a gale, and Damon had to leap behind Meredith to prevent her being knocked into the hole the elevator had made.

“Very gallant,” Shinichi boomed again, shattering glass somewhere on Mrs. Flowers’s house. “But I really must be going. Shall I leave a synopsis of the prizes you still have to search for before your little company can look each other in the eye?”

“I think we already have them. And you are no longer welcome around this home,” Mrs. Flowers said coolly.

But Elena’s mind was still working. Even standing here, knowing that Stefan needed her, she was searching for the reasons behind this: Shinichi’s second gambit. Because she was sure that this was one.

“Where are the pillowcases?” she said in a sharp voice that frightened and bewildered half the group, and simply frightened the rest.

“I was holding one, but then I decided to hold on to Saber instead.”—Sage.

“I had one, at the bottom of the hole, but I dropped it when somebody lifted me out.”—Bonnie.

“I’ve still got one, although I don’t understand what good—” Damon began.

“Damon!” Elena whirled to him. “Trust me! We’ve got yours and

Sage’s safe—what’s happening to Bonnie’s in the hole?”

The moment she had said “trust me” Damon had dumped his pillowcase on top of Sage’s, and by the time she was finished, he had leaped into the hole, which was still so bright with leylight as to hurt any vampire’s eyes.

But Damon made no complaint. He said, “I have it safe now — no, wait! A root! A damned root is curled around one of the star balls! Someone toss me a knife, quick!”

While everyone else was slapping their pockets for knives, Matt did something that Elena couldn’t believe. First he glanced down into the six-foot-deep hole while pointing — a revolver, was it? Yes — she recognized it as the twin of Meredith’s. Then without trying to let himself down easily, he simply jumped as Damon had, into the hole.

“DON’T YOU WANT TO KNOW—” roared Shinichi, but no one was paying any attention to him.

Matt’s jump didn’t end lightly as Damon’s had. It ended with a gasp and a stifled curse. But Matt didn’t waste time; still on his knees, he handed the gun up to Damon.

“Blessed bullets — shoot it!”

Damon moved very fast. He didn’t even seem to aim. But he must have clicked the safety off and aimed immediately, for the root was now streaking for the soft wall of the hole, its end wrapped tightly around something round.

Elena heard two shattering revolver shots; three. Then Damon stooped and picked up a vine-wrapped ball,