Vampire Diaries - The Return Nightfall Part 30

At first his mind flew to ridiculous alternatives, like dark red paint. But his flashlight had caught reddish brown stains on the roadside just as the road made a sharp curve. That wasblood on the road there. And not just a little blood.

Being careful to walk well around the red-brown marks, running his flashlight over and over the far side of the road, Matt began to put together what must have happened.

Elena had jumped.

Either that or Damon had pushed her out of a speeding car-and after all the trouble he'd taken to get her, that didn't make much sense. Of course, he might have already bled her until he was satisfied-Matt's fingers went up to his sore neck instinctively-but then, why take her in the car at all?

To kill her by pus.h.i.+ng her out?

A stupid way to do it, but maybe Damon had been counting on his little pets to take care of the body.

Possible, but not very likely.

Whatwas likely?

Well, the Dunstans' house was coming up on this side of the road, but you couldn't see it from here. And it would be just like Elena to jump out of a speeding car as it rounded a sharp corner. It would take brains, and guts, and a breathtaking trust in sheer luck that it wouldn't kill her.

Matt's flashlight slowly traced the devastation of a long hedge of rhododendron bushes just off the road. My G.o.d, that's what she did. Yeah. She jumped out and tried to roll. Jeez, she was lucky not to break her neck. But she kept rolling, grabbing at roots and creepers to stop herself. That's why they're all torn up.

A bubble of elation was rising in Matt. He was doing it. He was tracking Elena. He could see her fall as clearly as if he'd been there.

But then she got flipped by that tree root, he thought as he continued to follow her trail. That would have hurt. And she'd slammed down and rolled on the concrete for a bit-that must have been agony; she'd left a lot of blood here, and then back into the bushes.

And then what? The rhododendron showed no more signs of her fall. What had happened here? Had Damon reversed the Ferrari fast enough and gotten her back?

No, Matt decided, examining the earth carefully. There was only one set of footprints here, and it was Elena's. Elena had gotten up here-only to fall down again, probably from injury. And then she'd managed to get up again, but the marks were weird, a normal footprint on one side and a deep but small indentation on the other.

A crutch. She found herself a crutch. Yeah, and that dragging mark was the mark of her bad foot. She walked up to this tree, and then around it-or hopped, actually, that's what it looked like. And then she'd headed for the Dunstans'.

Smart girl. She was probably unrecognizable by now, and anyway, who cared if they noticed the resemblance between her and the late, great Elena Gilbert? She could be Elena's cousin from Philadelphia.

So she'd gone, one, two, three...eight steps-and there was the Dunstan house. Matt could see lights. Matt could smell horses.

Excitedly, he ran the rest of the way-taking a few falls that didn't do his aching body any good, but still heading straight for the back porch light. The Dunstans weren't front porch people.

When he got to the door, he pounded on it almost frenziedly. He'd found her. He'd found Elena!

It seemed a long time before the door opened a crack. Matt automatically wedged his foot in the crack while thinking, Yes, good, you're cautious people. Not the type to let a vampire in after you'd just seen a girl covered in blood.

"Yes? What do you want?"

"It's me, Matt Honeycutt," he said to the eye that he could see peering out of the slit of open door. "I've come for El-for the girl."

"What girl are you talking about?" the voice said gruffly.

"Look, you don't have to worry. It's me-Jake knows me from school. And Kristin knows me, too. I've come to help."

Something in the sincerity of his voice seemed to strike a chord in the person behind the door. It was opened to reveal a large, dark-haired man who was wearing an under-s.h.i.+rt and needed a shave. Behind him, in the living room was a tall, thin, almost gaunt woman. She looked as if she had been crying. Behind both of them was Jake, who'd been a year senior to Matt at Robert E. Lee High.

"Jake," Matt said. But he got no answer back except a dull look of anguish.

"What's wrong?"Matt demanded, terrified. "A girl came by here a while ago-she was hurt-but-but-you let her in, right?"

"No girl's come by here," said Mr. Dunstan flatly.

"She had to have. I followed her trail-she left a trail inblood , do you understand, almost up to yourdoor ." Matt wasn't letting himself think. Somehow, if he kept telling the facts loudly enough, they would produce Elena.

"More trouble," Jake said, but in a dull voice that went with his expression. Mrs. Dunstan seemed the most sympathetic. "We heard a voice out in the night, but when we looked, there was no one there. And we have troubles of our own."

It was then, right on cue, that Kristin burst into the room. Matt stared at her with a feeling of deja vu. She was dressed up something like Tami Bryce. She had cut off the bottoms of her jeans shorts until they were practically nonexistent. On top she was wearing a bikini top, but with-Matt hastily turned his eyes away-two big round holes cut just where Tami had had round pieces of cardboard. And she'd decorated herself with glitter glue.

G.o.d! She's only, what, twelve? Thirteen? How could she possibly be acting this way?

But the next moment, his whole body was vibrating in shock. Kristin had pasted herself against him and was cooing, "Matt Honey- b.u.t.t! You came to see me!"

Matt breathed carefully to get over his shock.Matt Honey-b.u.t.t . She couldn't know that. She didn't even go to the same school as Tami did. Why would Tami have called her and-told her something like that?

He shook his head, as if to clear it. Then he looked at Mrs. Dunstan, who had seemed kindest. "Can I use your phone?" he asked.

"I need-Ireally need to make a couple of calls."

"The phone's been down since yesterday," Mr. Dunstan said harshly. He didn't try to move Kristin away from Matt, which was odd because he was clearly angry. "Probably a fallen tree. And you know mobile phones don't work out here."

"But-" Matt's mind spun into overdrive. "You really mean that no teenage girl came up to your house asking for help? A girl with blond hair and blue eyes? I swear, I'm not the one who hurt her. I swear I want to help her."

"Matt Honey-b.u.t.t? I'm making a tattoo, just for you." Still pressed up behind him, Kristin extended her left arm. Matt stared at it, horrified. She had obviously used needles or a pin to p.r.i.c.k holes in her left forearm, and then opened a fountain pen's cartridge of ink to supply the dark blue color. It was your basic prison-type tattoo, done by a child. The straggling letters M A T were already visible, along with a smudge of ink that was probably going to be another T.

No wonder they weren't thrilled about letting me in, Matt thought, dazed. Now Kristin had both arms around his waist, making it hard to breathe. She was on tiptoe, talking to him, whispering rapidly some of the obscene things Tami had said.

He stared at Mrs. Dunstan. "Honest, I haven't even seen Kristin for-it must be nearly a year. We had an end of the year carnival, and Kristin helped with the pony rides, but..."

Mrs. Dunstan was nodding slowly. "It's not your fault. She's been acting the same way with Jake. Her own brother. And with- with her father. But I'm tellingyou the truth; we haven't seen any other girl. No one but you has come to the door today."

"Okay." Matt's eyes were watering. His brain, attuned first of all to his own survival, was telling him to save his breath, not to argue.

Telling him to say, "Kristin-I really can't breathe-"

"But Ilove you, Matt Honey-b.u.t.t. I don't want you toever leave me. Especially for that old wh.o.r.e. That old wh.o.r.e with worms in her eye-sockets..."

Again Matt felt the sense of the world rocking. But he couldn't gasp. He didn't have the air. Pop-eyed, he turned helplessly toward Mr. Dunstan, who was closest.

"Can't-breathe-"

How could a thirteen-year-old be so strong? It was taking both Mr. Dunstan and Jake to pry her off him. No, even that wasn't working. He was beginning to see a gray network pulsating before his eyes. He needed air.

There was a sharp crack that ended with a meaty sound. And then another. Suddenly he could breathe again."No, Jacob! No more!" Mrs. Dunstan cried. "She let him go-don't hit her anymore!"

When Matt's vision cleared, Mr. Dunstan was doing up his belt. Kristin was wailing, "Just youwaaa -hate! Just youwaa-haate!

You'll besor- ry!" Then she rushed from the room.

"I don't know if this helps or makes it worse," Matt said when he'd gotten his breath back, "but Kristin isn't the only girl acting this way. There's at least one other one in the town-"

"All I care about is my Kristin," Mrs. Dunstan said. "And that...thingisn't her."

Matt nodded. But there was something he needed to do now. He had to find Elena.

"If a blond girl does come to the door and asks for help, will you please let her in?" he asked Mrs. Dunstan. "Please? But don't let any guys in-not even me if you don't want," he blurted.

For a moment his eyes and Mrs. Dunstan's eyes met, and he felt a connection. Then she nodded and hastened to get him out of the house.

All right, Matt thought. Elena was headed for here, but she didn't quite get here. So look at the signs.

He looked. And what the signs showed him was that, within a few feet of the Dunstan property, she had inexplicably turned sharply right, deeply into the forest.

Why? Had something scared her? Or had she-Matt felt sick to his stomach-somehow been tricked into hobbling on and on, until at last she left all human help behind?

All he could do was to follow her into the woods.

29.

"Elena!"

Something was bothering her.

"Elena!"

Please, no more pain. She couldn't feel it right now, but she could remember...oh, no more fighting for air...

"Elena!"

No...just let it be. Mentally, Elena pushed away the thing that bothered her ears and her head.

"Elena, please..."

All she wanted was sleep. Forever.

"d.a.m.n you,s.h.i.+nichi!"

Damon had picked up the snow globe with the miniature forest when s.h.i.+nichi found Elena's smudged glow radiating from it. Inside it, dozens of spruce, hickory, pine, and other trees grew-all from a perfectly transparent inner membrane. A miniature person- given that someone could be miniaturized and placed into such a globe, would see trees ahead, trees behind, trees in every direction-and could walk a straight line and come back to their starting point no matter which way they went. "It's an amus.e.m.e.nt," s.h.i.+nichi had said sullenly, watching him intently from under his lashes. "A toy, for children, usually. A play- trap."

"And you findthis amusing?" Damon had smashed the globe against the driftwood coffee table in the exquisite cabin which was s.h.i.+nichi's secret hideout. That was when he had discovered why these were games for children-the globe was unbreakable.

After that Damon had taken a moment-just one moment-to get hold of himself. Elena had perhaps seconds to live. He needed to be precise with his words.

After that single moment, a long flow of words had spilled out from his lips, mostly in English, and mostly without unnecessary curses or even insults. He didn't care about insulting s.h.i.+nichi. He had simply threatened-no, he hadsworn -to carry out on s.h.i.+nichi the kind of violence that he had seen sometimes in a long life filled with humans and vampires with skewed imaginations.

Eventually, it had gotten through to s.h.i.+nichi that he was serious, and Damon had found himself inside the globe with a drenched Elena in front of him. She was lying at his feet, and she was worse off than his worst fears had allowed him to picture. She had a dislocated right arm with multiple fractures and a hideously shattered left tibia.

Horrified as he had been to imagine her staggering through the forest of the globe, blood streaming from her right arm from shoulder to elbow, left leg dragging behind her like a wounded animal's, this was worse. Her hair had been soaking with sweat and mud, straggling over her face. And she'd been out of her mind, literally, delirious, talking to people who weren't there.

And she was turning blue.

She had been able to snap exactly one creeper with all her effort. Damon clawed up huge armfuls of them, ripping them from the earth viciously if they tried to fight or wrap around his wrists. Elena gasped in one deep breath just as suffocation would have killed her, but she didn't regain consciousness.

And she wasn't the Elena he remembered. When he'd picked her up, he'd felt no resistance, no acceptance, nothing. She didn't know him. She was delirious with fever, exhaustion, and pain, but in one moment of half-consciousness had kissed his hand through her damp, disheveled hair, whispering "Matt...Find...Matt." She didn't know who he was-she scarcely knew who she was, but her concern was for her friend. The kiss had gone through his hand and up his arm like the touch of a branding iron, and since then he'd been monitoring her mind, trying to divert the agony she was feeling away-away anywhere-into the night-into himself.

He turned back to s.h.i.+nichi and, in a voice like an icy wind, said, "You'd better have a way to cure all her wounds-now."

The charming cabin was surrounded by the same evergreens, hickory, and pines as grew in the snow globe. The fire burned violet and green as s.h.i.+nichi poked it.

"This water is just about ready to boil. Make her drink tea made with this." He handed Damon a blackened flagon-once beautiful chased silver; now a battered remnant of what it had been-and a teapot with some broken leaves and other unsavory-looking things at the bottom. "Make sure she drinks a good three quarters of a cup, and she'll fall asleep and wake up almost as good as new."

He dug an elbow into Damon's ribs. "Or you can just let her have a few sips-heal her partway, and then let her know it's in your power to give her more...or not. You know...depending on how cooperative she is..."

Damon remained silent and turned away. If I have to look at him, he thought, I'll kill him. And I might need him again.

"And if you really want to accelerate the healing, add some of your blood. Some people like to do it that way," s.h.i.+nichi added, his voice picking up speed with excitement again. "See how much pain a human can take, you know, and then when they're dying, you can just feed them tea and blood and start over...if they remember you from last time-which they hardly ever do; they'll usually go through more pain just to get a chance to fight you...," he giggled, and Damon thought he sounded not quite sane.

But when he had suddenly turned to s.h.i.+nichi, he had to hold himself very still inside. s.h.i.+nichi had become a blazing, glowing, outline of himself, with tongues of light lapping from his projection, rather like close-up solar flares. Damon was nearly blinded, and knew he was meant to be. He clutched the silver flagon as if he were holding on to his own sanity.Maybe he was. He had a blank s.p.a.ce in his mind-and then there were suddenly memories of trying to find Elena...or s.h.i.+nichi.

Because Elena had abruptly been absent from his company, and it could only be the fault of the kitsune.

"There's a modern bathroom here?" Damon asked s.h.i.+nichi.

"There's whatever you want; just decide before you open a door and unlock it with this key. And now..." s.h.i.+nichi stretched, his golden eyes half shut. He ran a languid hand through his s.h.i.+ny black hair tipped with flame. "Now, I think I'll go sleep under a bush."

"Is that all you ever do?" Damon made no attempt to keep the biting sarcasm out of his voice.

"And have fun with Misao. And fight. And go to the tournaments. They-well, you'll have to come and see one for yourself."

"I don't care to go anywhere." Damon didn't want to know what this fox and his sister considered fun.

s.h.i.+nichi reached out and took the miniature cauldron full of boiling water off the fire. He poured the boiling water over the collection of tree bark, leaves, and other detritus in the battered metal teapot.

"Why don't you go find a bushnow ?" Damon said-and it wasn't a suggestion. He'd had enough of the fox, who had served his purpose now anyway, and he didn't care a bit about whatever mischief s.h.i.+nichi might make for other people. All he wanted was to be alone-with Elena.

"Remember; get her to drink it all if you want to keep her for a while. She's pretty much unsalvageable without it." s.h.i.+nichi poured through a fine sieve the infusion of dark green tea. "Better try before she wakes up."

"Will you justget out of here ?"