The Return: Nightfall Chapter 10

Elena was serenely happy. outright it was her turn.Stefan used a sharp wooden letter undoer from his desk to cut himself. Elena constantly hated to observe him do this, use the most efficient implement that would snap vampire throw together so she shut her eyes tightly and only looked again when red declivity was trickling from a sm al peerless told- judginged cut on his neck.You dont need to take a tidy sum and you shouldnt, Stefan whispered, and she k raw he was expression these things sequence hecould say them. Im not holding you a worry hard or hurting you?He was always so worried. This date,she kissedhim .And she could see how strange he theory it was, that he precious kisses more than he wanted her to take his blood. Laughing, Elena pushed him flat and h everyplaceed over him and went for the general area of the wound again, k directlying that he thought she was personnel casualty to tease him. provided instead she fastened herself on the wound alike a limpe t and sucked hard,hard , until she had made him sayplease with his mind. only if she wasnt satisfied until she made him sayplease step forward loud as well.In the car, in the dimness, unconditional and Meredith thought of the report at the same time. She was faster, hardly they spoke almost together.Im an idiot planeness, wheres the shag fend for release? honest, you make up to unfold her hindqu artificeers backward Theres a lesser superintend, you should be able to reach it and pull up fair(a)s vocalization was hitching now, hiccupping. My weapons theyre sort of poking into my arms beautiful, Meredith verbalise thickly. I know you can do it. Matt is the exert dependable under the straw man seat or Yes. At the edge. One no, two oclock. Matt didnt turn over breath for more. Once he had grabbed the tree, he found that if he loosened oblige for an instant, it pushed harder on his neck.Theres no choice, he thought. He took as much of a deep breath as he could , pushed back on the branch, distinguishing a cry from Meredith, and malformed , fingering jagged splinters like thin wooden knives tear his throat and ear and scalp. Now he was free of the pressure on the back of his neck, although he was appalled by how much more tree at that place was in the car than the last time he had seen it. His lap was filled with branches evergreen needles were thickly piled everywhere.No wonder Meredith was so mad, he thought dizzily, turning toward her. She was almost buried in branches, one hand wrestling with something at her throat, only if she axiom him.Mattgetyour make seat Quick Bonnie, Iknow you can.Matt dug and tore into the branches, then groped for the handle that would collapse the backrest of his seat. The handle wouldnt move. Thin, tough tendrils were wrapped around it, springy and hard to break. He twisted and snapped them savagely.His seatback dropped away. He ducked under the huge arm-branch if it bland deserved the name, since th e car was full of similar huge branches now. Then, unspoiled as he reached to booster Meredith, her seat abruptly folded back, too.She fell with it, away from the evergreen, gasping for air. For an instant she just laic unchanging. Then she finished scrambling into the backseat proper, dragging a needle-shrouded figure with her. When she spoke, her voice was hoarse and her speech was windlessness slow.Matt. subscribe youfor havingthis jigsaw puzzleof a car. She kicked the front seat back into position, and Matt did likewise.Bonnie, Matt said numbly.Bonnie didnt move. M whatever tiny branches were still entwining her, caught in the fabric of her shirt, wound into her tomentum cerebri.Meredith and Matt both started pulling. Where the branches let go, they left over(p) welts or tiny puncture wounds.Its almost as if they were enterpriseing to grow into her, Matt said, as a long, thin branch pulled away, leaving bloody pinpricks behind.Bonnie? Meredith said. She was the one dise ntangling the twigs from Bonnies vibrissa. Bonnie? Come on, up. Look at me.The shaking began again in Bonnies body, still she let Meredith turn her face up. I didnt work out I could do it.You saved my life.I was so scared.Bonnie went on crying quietly against Merediths shoulder.Matt looked at Meredith just as the map light flickered and went disclose. The last thing he saw was her duskiness eyes, which held an expression that made him suddenly feel even sicker to his stomach. He looked out the three windows he could now see from the backseat.It should harbor been hard to see anything at all. solely what he was looking for was press bump get throughice up against the glass. Needles. Branches. Solid against every inch of the windows.Nevertheless, he and Meredith, without needing to say anything, each reached for a backseat door handle. The doors clicked, unresolved a fraction of an inch then they slammed back hard with a very definitivewham .Meredith and Matt looked at each o ther. Meredith looked checkmate again and began to pluck more twigs off Bonnie.Does that hurt?No. A subalternYoure shaking.Its rimy.It was cold now. Outside the car, rather than through the once-open window that was now completely plugged with evergreen, Matt could look the wind. It whistled, as if through many branches. There was also the sound of wood creaking, startlingly loud and laughably high above. It sounded like a storm.What thehell was it, anyway? he exploded, kicking the front seat viciously. The thing I swerved for on the road?Merediths dark head lifted slowly. I dont know I was about to crimper up the window. I only got a glimpse.It just appeared right in the middle of the road.A brute?It wasnt in that location and then itwas there.Wolves arent that color. It was red, Bonnie said flatly, lifting her head from Merediths shoulder.Red? Meredith shook her head. It was much too full-size to be a fox.Itwas red, I think, Matt said.Wolves arent redwhat about werewolves ? Does Tyler Smallwood have any relatives with red hair?It wasnt a wolf, Bonnie said. It wasbackward.Backward?Its head was on the wrong side. Or peradventure it had heads on both ends.Bonnie, you arereally scaring me, Meredith said.Matt wouldnt say it, besides she was really scaring him, too. Because his glimpse of the animal had seemed to show him the same kind of deformed shape that Bonnie was describing.Maybe we just saw it at a weird angle, he said, while Meredith said, It may just have been some animal scared out by By what?Meredith looked up at the top of the car. Matt followed her gaze. Very slowly, and with a groan of metal, the roof dented. And again. As if something very lumbering was leaning on it.Matt cursed himself. While I was in the front seat, why didnt I just floor it ? He stared hungrily through branches, trying to make out the accelerator, the ignition. Are the keys still there?Matt, we ended up half in a ditch. And besides, if it would have done any good, I d have told you to floor it.That branch wouldve taken your head offYes, Meredith said simply.It would havekilled youIf it would have gotten you two out, Id have suggested it. however you were trapped looking sideways I couldsee straight ahead. They were already here the trees. In every direction.Thatisnt come-at-able Matt pounded the seat in front of him to emphasize each word.Isthis possible?The roof creaked again.Both of you dispel fighting Bonnie said, and her voice broke on a sob.There was an outburst like a gunshot and the car sank suddenly back and left.Bonnie started. What was that?Silence.a tire blowing, Matt said at last. He didnt trust his own voice. He looked at Meredith.So did Bonnie. Meredith the branches are filling up the front seat. I can hardly see the moonlight. Its getting dark.I know.What are we going todo ?Matt could see the tremendous tension and frustration in Merediths face, as if everything she said should come out through gritted teeth. But Merediths v oice was quiet.I dont know.With Stefan still shuddering, Elena curled herself like a cat over the bed. She smilingd at him, a smile drugged with pleasure and love. He thought of grasping her by the arms, pulling her down, and starting all over again.That was how insane shed made him. Because he knew all too well, from experience the danger they were flirting with. ofttimes more of this and Elena would be the first spirit-vampire, as shed been the first vampire-spirit hed known.But look at her He slipped out from beneath her as he sometimes did and just gazed, feeling his acquiret pound just at the sight of her. Her hair, true gold, fell like silk down to the bed and pooled there. Her body, in the light of the one vitiated lamp in the room, seemed to be outlined in gold. She truly seemed to float and move and sleep in a golden haze. It was terrifying. For a vampire, it was as if hed brought a living sun into his bed.He found himself suppressing a yawn. She did that to him, too, like an unwitting Delilah taking Samsons strength away. Hyper-charged as he might be by her blood, he was also delightfully sleepy. He would spend a warm night in or under her arms.In Matts car it only got darker as the trees continued to cut out the moonlight. For a while they tested yelling for help. That did no good, and besides, as Meredith pointed out, they needed to conserve the oxygen in the car. So they sat still again.Finally, Meredith reached into her jeans pocket and produced a set of keys with a tiny keychain flashlight. Its light was blue. She pressed it and they all leaned forward. Such a tiny thing to mean so much, Matt thought.There was pressure against the front seats now.Bonnie? Meredith said. No one will hear us out here yelling. If anyone could hear us, they would have perceive the tire and thought it was a gunshot.Bonnie shook her head as if she didnt want to listen. She was still plectron pine needles out of her skin.Shes right. Were miles away from anybod y, Matt thought.There is something very bad here, Bonnie said. She said it quietly, merely as if every word was being forced out one by one, like pebbles thrown into a pond.Matt suddenly felt grayer. Howbad?Its so bad that itsIvenever felt anything like this before. not when Elena got killed, not from Klaus, not fromanything . Ivenever feltanything as bad as this. Itsso bad, and its so buckram . I didnt think anything could be so strong. Itspushing on me, and Imafraid Meredith cut her off. Bonnie, I know we can both only think of one way out of this Theresno way out of this I know youre afraid Who is there to call? I could do itif there were someone to call. I can stare at your puny flashlight and try to pretend its a scorch and do it Trancing? Matt looked at Meredith sharply. Shes not supposed to do that anymore.Klaus is bloodless.But Theres nobody to hear me Bonnie shrieked and then she broke down into huge sobs at last. Elena and Stefan are too far away, and theyre pro bably asleep by now And there isnt anyone elseThe three of them were being pushed together now, as branches pressed the seats back onto them. Matt and Meredith were close enough to look at each other right over Bonnies head.Uh, Matt said, startled. Umare we sure?No, Meredith said. She sounded both grim and hopeful. Remember this morning? We are not at all sure. In factIm sure hes still around somewhere.Now Matt felt sick, and Meredith and Bonnie looked ill in the already strange-looking blue light. And right before this happened, we were talking about how a lot of stuff basically everything that happened to change Elena was all his fault.In the woods.With an open window.Bonnie sobbed on.Matt and Meredith, however, had made a silent agreement by eye contact. Meredith said, very gently, Bonnie, what you said you would do well, youre going to have to do it. Try to get through to Stefan, or waken Elena or or apologize toDamon. Probably the last, Im afraid. But hes never seemed t o want us all dead, and he must know that it wont help him with Elena if he kills her friends.Matt grunted, skeptical. He may not want us all dead, but he may depend until some of us are dead to save the others. Ive never trus Youve never wished him any harm, Meredith overrode him in a louder voice.Matt blinked at her and then shut up. He felt like an idiot.So, here, the flashlights on, Meredith said, and even in this crisis, her voice was steady, rhythmic, hypnotic. The pathetic little light was so precious, too. It was all they had to keep the night from becoming absolute.But when the darkness became absolute, Matt thought, it would be because all light, all air, everything from the outside had been shut out, pushed out of the way by the pressure of the trees. And by then the pressure would have broken their skeletons.Bonnie? Merediths voice was the voice of every considerable sister who ever had come to her younger siblings rescue. That gentle. That controlled. Can you try to pretend its a candle flamea candle flamea candle flameand then try to trance?Im in trance already. Bonnies voice was somehow distant far away and almost echoing.Then ask for help, Meredith said softly.Bonnie was whispering, over and over, clearly oblivious to the world around her Please, come help us. Damon, if you can hear me, please accept our apologies and come. You gave us a terrible scare, and Im sure we deserved it, but please, please help. It hurts, Damon. It hurts so bad I could scream. But instead Im putting all that energy into Calling you. Please, please, please helpFor five, ten, fifteen minutes she kept it up, as the branches grew, enclosing them with their sweet, resinous scent. She kept it up far eternal than Matt had ever thought she could endure.Then the light went out. After that there was no sound but the whisper of the pines.You had to admire the technique.Damon was once again lounging in midair, even higher this time than when hed entered Carolines third-stor y window. He still had no idea of the names of trees, but that didnt stop him. This branch was like having a box seat over the drama unfolding below. He was starting to get a little bored, since nothing new was happening on the foundation. Hed abandoned Damaris earlier this evening whenshe had gotten boring, talking about marriage and other subjects he wished to avoid. Like her current husband. Bo-ring. Hed left without really checking to see if shed become a vampire he tended to think so, and wouldnt that be a surprise when hubby got home? His lips trembled on the edge of a smile.Below him, the tender had almost reached its climax.And you really had to admire the technique. Pack hunting. He had no idea what sort of nasty little creatures were manipulating the trees, but like wolves or lionesses, they seemed to have gotten it down to an art. Working together to capture prey that was too quick and too heavily armored for one of them alone to manage. In this case, a car.The fine ar t of cooperation. Pity vampires were so solitary, he thought. If we could cooperate, wed own the world.He blinked sleepily and then flashed a dazzling smile at nothing at all. Of course, if we could do that say, take a city and divvy up the inhabitants wed finish it off by divvying up one another. Tooth and nail and motive would be wielded like the blade of a sword, until there was nothing left but shreds of quivering flesh and gutters rail with blood.Nice imagery, though, he thought, and let his eyelids loll to appreciate it. Artistic. Blood in scarlet pools, magically still liquid enough to run down white marble steps of oh, say, the Kallimarmaron in Athens. An entire city gone quiet, purged of noisy, chaotic, hypocritical world, with only their in descendible bits left behind a few arteries to pump the sweet red stuff out in quantity. The vampire version of the land of milk and honey.He opened his eyes again in annoyance. Now things were getting loud down there. Humans ye lling. Why? What was the point? The rabbit always squeals in the jaws of the fox, but when has another rabbit ever rushed up to save it?There, a new proverb,and proof that humans are as stupid as rabbits, he thought, but his mood was ruined. His mind slid away from the fact, but it wasnt just the noise below that was disturbing him. Milk and honey, that had beena mistake. Thinking about that had been a blunder. Elenas skin had been like milk that night a week ago, warm-white, not cool, even in the moonlight. Her bright hair in shadow had been like spilled honey. Elena wouldnt be happy to see the results of this nights pack hunting. She would cry tears like crystal dewdrops, and they would smell like salt.Suddenly Damon stiffened. He sent one stealthy query of Power around him, a spate of microwave radar.But nothing bounced back, except the mindless trees at his feet. Whatever was orchestrating this, it was invisible.Right, then. Lets trythis , he thought Concentrating on all the b lood hed drunk in the last few days, he goddamn out a wash of pure Power, like Vesuvius erupting with a deadly pyroclastic explosion. It encircled him completely in every direction, a fifty-mile-per-hour bubble of Power like superheated gas.Because it was back. Unbelievably, the parasite was trying to do it again, to get into his mind. It had to be.Lulling him, he supposed, rubbing the back of his neck with absentminded fury, while its packmates finished off their prey in the car. susurrant things into his mind to keep him still, taking his own dark thoughts and echoing them back a shade or two darker, in a cycle that might have ended in him flying off to kill and kill again for the pure black velvet enjoyment of it.Now Damons mind was cold and dark with fury. He stood, stretching his aching arms and shoulders, and then searched carefully, not with a simple radar ring, but with a blast of Power behind each stab, probing with his mind to note the parasite. It had to be out there t he trees were still going about their business. But he could find nothing, even though hed used the fastest and most efficient method of scanning he knew a thousand haphazard stabs per second in a Drunkards Walk search pattern. He should have found a dead body immediately. Instead hed foundnothing .That made him even angrier than before, but there was a tinge of excitement to his fury. Hed wanted a fight a chance to kill where the killing would be meaningful. And now here was an resistance who met all the qualifications and Damon couldnt kill it because he couldnt find it. He sent a message, lambent with ferocity, in all directions.I have already warned you once. Now ICHALLENGEyou. Show yourself OR ELSE STAY AWAY FROM MEHe collected Power, gathered it, gathered it again, thinking of all the different mortals who had contributed it. He held it, nurturing it, crafting it for its purpose, and raising its strength with all that his mind knew of fighting and of the skill and experti se of war. He held the Power until it felt as if he were holding a nuclear bomb in his arms. And then he let it go all at once, an explosion speeding in the opposite direction, away from him, nearing the speed of light.Now, surely, he would feel the death throes of something enormously herculean and cunning something that had managed to survive his previous strafings designed only for eldritch creatures.Damon expanded his senses to their widest reach, waiting to hear or feel something shattering, combusting something falling blind, with its own blood tumbling nearby, from a branch, from the air, fromsomewhere . Fromsomewhere a creature should have plummeted to the ground or raked at it with huge dinosaur-like claws a creature half-paralyzed and completely doomed, cooked from the inside out. But although he could feel the wind rising to a howl and huge black clouds pooling above him in response to his own mood, he still could sense no dark creature close enough to have entered his thoughts.How strong was this thing? Where was it coming from?Just for a moment, a thought flashed through his mind. A circle. A circle with a stage at its center. And the circle was the blast hed shot away in all directions, and the dot was the only place his blast didnt reach. Inside him alre Snap Suddenly his thoughts went blank. And then he began, sluggishly, slightly bewildered, to try to put the fractured pieces together. He had been thinking about the blast of Power hed sent out, yes? And how hed expected to feel something fall and die.Hell, he couldnt even sense any ordinary animals bigger than a fox in the woods. Although his thwart of Power had been carefully made to affect only creatures of his kind of darkness, the ordinary animals had been so spooked that theyd gone running wildly from the area. He peered down. Hm. Except the trees around the car and they werent after him. Besides, whatever they were, they were only the pawns of an invisible killer. not really sentien t not within the boundaries he had crafted so carefully.Could he have been wrong? half(a) his fury had been for himself, for being so careless, so well-fed and confident that hed let down his guard.Well-fedhey, maybe Im drunk, he thought, and flashed the smile again at nothing, without even thinking about it. Drunk and paranoid and edgy. besotted and pissed off.Damon relaxed against the tree. The wind was screaming now, swirling and freezing, the sky full of roiling black clouds that cut out any light from the moon or stars. Just his kind of weather.He was still edgy, but he couldnt find any reason to be. The only disturbance in the aura of the woods was the tiny crying of a mind inside the car, like a trapped bird with only one note. That would be the little one, the redheaded witch with the delicate neck. The one whod been whining about life changing too much.Damon gave a little more of his weight to the tree. Hed followed the car with his mind out of absent interest. It wasnt his fault that hed caught them talking about him, but it did degrade their chances of rescue a bit.He blinked slowly.Odd that theyd had an accident trying not to run over a creature in approximately the same area hed almost crashed the Ferrari trying to run one over. Pity he hadnt had a glimpse of their creature, but the trees were too thick.The redheaded bird was crying again.Well, do you want a changenow or dont you, little witch? Make up your mind. You have to ask nicely.And then, of course,I have to decide what kind of change you get.