“Well, perhaps the Northern Lights are paying us a visit. But you’re right, I should get you into bed.”
“Oh, no! Oh, yes! Oh, no! Nononoyes!”
“Shh.”
“SHHHHHH!”
Terrific, Damon thought; I’ve overdone it.
“I meant, get you into a bed,” he said firmly. “Just you. Here, I’ll walk you to the first-floor bedroom.”
“Because I might fall on the stairs?”
“You might say that. And this bedroom is much nicer than the one you share with Meredith. Now you just go to sleep and don’t tell anyone about our rendezvous.”
“Not even Elena?”
“Not even anybody. Or I might get angry at you.”
“Oh, no! I won’t, Damon: I swear on your life!”
“That’s — pretty accurate,” Damon said. “Good night.”
Moonlight cocooned the house. Fog misted the moonlight. A slender, hooded dark figure took advantage of shadows so skillfully that it would have passed unnoticed even if someone had been watching out for it — and no one was.
Bonnie was in her new first-floor bedroom, and was feeling very bewildered. Black Magic always made her feel giggly, and then very sleepy, but somehow tonight her body refused to sleep. Her head hurt.
She was just about to turn the bedside light on, when a familiar voice said, “How about some tea for your headache?”
“Damon?”
“I made some from Mrs. Flowers’s herbs and I decided to make you a cup as well. Aren’t you the lucky girl?” If Bonnie had been listening closely, she might have heard something almost like self-loathing behind the light words — but she wasn’t.
“Yes!” Bonnie said, meaning it. Most of Mrs. Flowers’s teas smelled and tasted good. This one was especially nice, but grainy on her tongue.
And not only was the tea good, but Damon stayed to talk to her while she drank it all. That was sweet of him.
Strangely, this tea made her feel not exactly sleepy, but as if she could only concentrate on one thing at a time. Damon swam into her field of view. “Feeling more relaxed?” he asked.
“Yes, thank you.” Weirder and weirder. Even her voice sounded slow and dragging.
“I wanted to make sure nobody was too hard on you for the silly mistake about Elena,” he explained.
“They weren’t, really,” she said. “Actually everybody was more interested in seeing you and Matt fight—” Bonnie put a hand over her mouth. “Oh, no! I didn’t mean to say that! I’m so sorry!”
“It’s all right. It should heal by tomorrow.”
Bonnie couldn’t imagine why anyone would be so afraid of Damon, who was so nice as to pick up her mug of tea and say he’d put it in the sink. That was good because she was feeling as if she couldn’t get up to save her life. That cozy. That comfy.
“Bonnie, can I ask you just one little thing?” Damon paused. “I can’t tell you why, but…I have to find out where Misao’s star ball is kept,” he said earnestly.
“Oh…that,” Bonnie said fuzzily. She giggled.
“Yes, that. And I am truly sorry to ask you, because you’re so very young and innocent…but I know you’ll tell me the truth.”
After this praise and comfort, Bonnie felt she could fly. “It’s been in the same place all the time,” she said with sleepy disgust. “They tried to make me think they’d moved it…but when I saw him chained and going down to the root cellar I knew they hadn’t really.” In the dark, there was a short shake of curls and then a yawn. “If they were really going to move it…they should have sent me away or something.”
“Well, maybe they were concerned for your life.”
“Wha’?…” Bonnie yawned again, not sure what he meant. “I mean, an old, old safe with a combination? I told them…that those old safes…could be…really be… easy to…to…” Bonnie let out a sound like a sigh and her voice stopped.
“I’m glad we had this talk,” Damon murmured in the silence.
There was no answer from the bed.
Pulling Bonnie’s sheet up as high as it would go, he let it drift down. It covered most of her face. “Requiescat in pace,” Damon said softly. Then he left her room, not forgetting to take the mug.
Now…“him chained and going down to the root cellar.” Damon mused as he washed out the mug carefully and put it back in the cupboard. The line sounded strange but he had almost all the links now, and it was actually simple. All he needed were twelve more of Mrs. Flowers’s sleeping cachets and two plates heaped with raw beef. He had all the ingredients…but he’d never heard of a root cellar.
Shortly thereafter, he opened the door to the basement. Nope. Didn’t match the criteria for “root cellar” he’d looked up on his mobile. Irritated and knowing that any moment someone was likely to wander downstairs for something, Damon turned around in frustration. There was an elaborately carved wooden panel across from the basement, but nothing else.
Curse it, he would not be thwarted at this point. He would have his life as a vampire back, or he didn’t want any life at all!
To punctuate the sentiment, he slammed a fist against the wooden panel in front of him.
The knock sounded hollow.
Immediately all frustration vanished. Damon examined the panel very carefully.
Yes, there were hinges at the very edge, where no sane person would expect them. It wasn’t a panel but a door — undoubtedly to the root cellar where the star ball was.
It didn’t take long for his sensitive fingers — even his human fingers were more sensitive than most — to find a place that clicked — and then the whole door swung open. He could see the stairs. He tucked his parcel under one arm and descended.
By the illumination of the small flashlight he’d taken from the storage room, the root cellar was just as described: a damp, earthy room to store fruit and vegetables before refrigerators had been invented. And the safe was just as Bonnie had said: an ancient, rusty combination safe, which any whiz cracker could have opened in about sixty seconds. It would take Damon about six minutes, with his stethoscope (he’d heard once that you could find anything in the boardinghouse if you looked hard enough and it seemed to be true) and every atom of his being concentrating on hearing the tumblers quietly click.
First, however, there was the Beast to conquer. Saber the black hellhound had unfolded, awake and alert from the moment the secret door had opened.
Undoubtedly, they had used Damon’s clothes to teach him to howl madly at his scent.
But Damon had his own knowledge of herbs and had ransacked Mrs. Flowers’s kitchen to find a handful of witch hazel, a small amount of strawberry wine, aniseed, some peppermint oil, and a few other essential oils she had in stock, sweet and sharp. Mixed, this created a pungent lotion, which he had gingerly applied to himself. The concoction formed for Saber an impossible tangle of strong smells.
The only thing the now-sitting dog knew was that it was surely not Damon sitting on the steps and tossing him hearty balls of hamburger and delicate strips of filet mignon — each of which he gulped down whole. Damon watched with interest as the animal devoured the mix of sleeping powder and raw meat, tail whisking on the floor.
Ten minutes later Saber the hellhound was sprawled out happily unconscious.
Six minutes after that, Damon was opening an iron door.
One second later he was pulling a pillowcase out of Mrs. Flowers’s antique safe.
In the glow of the flashlight he found that he did indeed have a star ball, but that it was just a little more than half full.
Now what did that mean? There was a very neat hole drilled and corked at the top so that not one precious droplet more need be wasted.
