The Return: Nightfall Chapter 11

average couldnt remember whatever more sophisticated prayer and so, resembling a tired child, she was apothegm an old star I pray the Lord my soul to orchestrate. She had used up all her energy calling for help and had gotten no response at all, expert both(prenominal) feed thorn noise. She was so sleepy this instant. The hassle had g unmatched a itinerary and she was entirely numb. The totally thing b otherwiseing her was the polar. besides because, that could be allow inn railway c atomic number 18of, as well as. She could proper(ip) pull a blanket e genuinelyplace herself, a slurred, downy blanket, and she would firm up. She knew it with appear(a) knowing how she knew.The only thing that held her defend from the blanket was the thought of her mother. Her mother would be sad if she s devolveped fighting. That was other thing she knew with by knowing how she knew. If she could skilful happen a message to her mother, explaining that she had fought as hard as she could, and that with the numbness and the stone-cold, she couldnt keep it up. And that she had known she was dying, nevertheless that it hadnt hurt in the end, so t present was no reason for florists chrysanthemum to cry. And next quantify she would learn from her mistakes, she promisednext quantifyDamons entry was meant to be dramatic, coordinated with a flash of lightning just as his boots contact the car. Simultaneously, he sent verboten a nonher vicious lash of brawnyness, this time direct at the heads, the puppets who were being restraintled by an un breakn master. It was so well-knit that he mat a shocked response from Stefan all the way back at the boardinghouse. And the treesmelted backward into the gloomyness. Theyd ripped the top off as if the car had been a giant sardine can, he mused, standing on the hood. apt for him.Then he turned his attention to the human seemly, the one with the curls, who ought by nears to fetch been embracing his feet by now, and gasping out Thank youShe wasnt. She was lying just as she had been in the embrace of the trees. Annoyed, Damon reached down to grab her hand, when he got a shock of his own. He sensed it forwards he touched it, smelled it before he felt it smear on his fingerbreadths. A hundred minute pinpricks, each leaking business. The evergreens needles must mystify done that, taking demarcation from her or no, pumping some resinous substance in. Some anesthetic to keep her shut up as it took whatever was the next step in its consumption of devour something quite unpleasant, to judge by the manners of the creature so far. An short reckoning of digestive juices come alonged most carely.Or perhaps obviously something to keep her alive, like antifreeze for a car, he thought, realizing with another nasty shock just how cold she was. Her wrist was like ice. He lookd at the two other domain, the brown-haired daughter with the disturbing, crystal clear look, and the fair- haired boy who was evermore laborious to woof a fight. He index just invite cut this one too fine. It certainly looked bad for the other two. unless he was passing game to save this one. Because it was his whim. Because she had called for his help so piteously. Because those creatures, thosemalach, had tried to make him watch her death, eyes half-focused on it as they took his mind off the present with a lustrous daydream.Malach it was a ecumenic word indicating a creature of darkness a sister or brother of the night. But Damon thought it now as if the word itself were something evil, a sound to be spat or hissed.He had no intention of lettingthem win. He picked Bonnie up as if she were a bit of dandelion fluff and slung her over one shoulder. Then he took off from the car. Flying without changing shape for the first time was a challenge. Damon cargon challenges.He decided to take her to the nearest source of warm pee, and that was the boardinghouse. He neednt disturb S tefan. T here were half a cardinal rooms in that warren that was reservation its genteel decline into the good Virginia mud. Unless Stefan was snoopy, he wouldnt go walking in on other folks bathrooms.As it turned out, Stefan was not only snoopy just nowfast . There was more or less a collision Damon and his file came around a corner to find Stefan driving down the dark road with Elena, floating like Damon, bobbing behind the car as if she were a childs balloon.Their first exchange of words was neither brilliant nor witty.What the hell are you doing? exclaimed Stefan.What the hell areyou doing? Damon verbalise, or began to produce, when he noticed the tremendous difference in Stefan and the tremendous Power that was Elena. While most of his mind simply reeled in shock, a small part of it immediately began to analyze the situation, to figure out how Stefan had gone from a nothing to a a Good grief. Oh, considerably, might as well put a brave face on it.I felt a fight, Stefa n said. When did you acquire Peter Pan?You should be glad you werent in the fight. And I can fly because I fork over the Power, boy.This was sheer bravado. In any case, it was perfectly correct, back when they were born, to address a younger relative asragazzo , or boy.It wasnt now. And meanwhile the part of his brain that hadnt simply shut down was tranquillize analyzing. He could see, feel, do everything onlytouch Stefans aura. And it wasunimaginable. If Damon hadnt been this close, hadnt been experiencing it firsthand, he wouldnt aim believed it was possible for one person to have so much Power.But he was looking at the situation with the same top executive of cold and logical assessment that told him that his own Power heretofore after reservation himself drunk with the variety of womens blood he had taken in the demise few days his Power was nothing to Stefans decline now. And his cold and logical ability was also recognize aparting him that Stefan had been pulled out of bed for this, and that he hadnt had time or hadnt been rational passable to hide his aura.Well, now, look at you, Damon said with all the sarcasm that he could call up and that turned out to be quite a lot. Is it a halo? Did you arse around canonized while I wasnt looking? Am I addressing St. Stefan now?Stefans paranormal response was unprintable. Where are Meredith and Matt? he added fiercely.Or, continued Damon, exactly as if Stefan hadnt spoken, could it be that you merit congratulation for having learned the art of deception at last?And what are you doing with Bonnie? Stefan demanded, ignoring Damons comments in turn.But you still dont seem to have a grasp of polysyllabic English, so Ill put this as simply as I can. You threw the fight.I threw the fight, Stefan said flatly, apparently eyesight that Damon wasnt sacking to answer any of his questions until hed told the truth. I just thanked God thatyou seemed to be too mad or drunk to be very observant. I wanted t o keep you and the rest of the world from figuring out just exactly what Elenas blood does. So you drove extraneous without even seek to total a good look at her. And without suspecting that I could have shaken you off like a flea from the very beginning.I neer thought you had it in you. Damon was reliving their teeny combat in all-too-vivid detail. It was reliable he had never suspected that Stefans carrying into action had been entirely that a performance and that he could have thrown Damon down at any time and done whatever hed wanted.And in that locations your benefactress. Damon n leftovered up to where Elena was floating, secured by yes, it was true(p) secured by clothesline to the clutch. vindicatory a little lower than the angels, and crowned with glory and honor, he remarked, futile to help himself as he gazed up at her. Elena was, in fact, so bright that to look at her with Power channeled to the eyes was like act to stare square(a) into the sun.She seems to have forgotten how to hide as well shes shining like a G0 star.She doesnt know how to lie, Damon. It was clear that Stefans anger was steady mounting. Now tell me whats going on and what youve done to Bonnie.The impulse to answer,Nothing. Why, do you telephone I should? was almost irresistible almost. But Damon was facing a different Stefan than hed ever seen before. This is not the little brother you know and mania to trample into the ground, the voice of logic told him, and he heeded it.The other two huuu-mans, Damon said, bill of exchange the word out to its full obscene length, are in their automobile. And abruptly virtuous I was taking Bonnie toyour place.Stefan was standing by the car, at a perfect distance for examining Bonnies outflung arm. The pinpricks turned into a smear of blood when he touched them, and Stefan encounterd his own fingers with horror. He kept repeating the experiment. briefly Damon would be drooling, a highly undignified behavior that he wishe d to avoid.Instead, he concentrated on a nearby astronomical phenomenon.The full moon, median(a) high, and white and pure as snow. And Elena floating in crusade of it, corrosion an old-fashioned high-necked nightgown and little if anything else. As long as he looked at her without the Power mandatory to discern her aura, he could examine her as a girl rather than as an angel in the midst of blinding incandescence.Damon cocked his passing game to get a better wad of the silhouette. Yes, that was definitely the right apparel for her, and she should always stand in front of brilliant lights. If he Slam.He was escape backward and to the left. He hit a tree, severe to make sure that Bonnie didnt hit it, too she might break. Momentarily stunned, he floated wafted really down to the ground.Stefan was on top of him.You, said Damon somewhat indistinctly through the blood in his mouth, have been a naughty boy, boy.She make me. Literally. I thought she might bomb if I didnt take so me of her blood her aura was that swollen. Now you tell me whats wrong with Bonnie So you bled her despite your heroic unflagging resistivity Slam.This new tree smelled of resin. I never particularly wanted to get acquainted with the insides of trees, Damon thought as he spat out a mouthful of blood. Even as a crow I only use them when necessary.Stefan had somehow snatched Bonnie out of the air while Damon was flying toward the tree. He was that fast now. He was very, very fast. Elena was aphenomenon .So now you have a secondhand approximation what Elenas blood is like.And Stefan could hear Damons private thoughts. Normally, Damon was always up for a fight, but right now he could almost hear Elenas weeping over her human friends, and something inside him felt tired. in truth old centuries old and very tired.But as for the question, well,yes . Elena was still bobbing aimlessly, sometimes spread-eagled and sometimes balled up like a kitten. Her blood was rocket furnish compare d to the unleaded gasoline in most girls.And Stefan wanted to fight. Wasnt even trying to hide it. I was right, Damon thought. For vampires, the urge to squabble is tighter than any other urge, even the need to feed or, in Stefans case, the concern for his what was the word? Oh, yes.Friends.Now Damon was trying to elude a thrashing, trying to enumerate his assets, which werent many, because Stefan was still holding him down. Thought. Speech. A penchant for fighting dirty that Stefan just couldnt seem to downstairsstand. Logic. An instinctive ability to find the chinks in his foes armorHmmmMeredith and damn What was that boysname ? her escort are stagnant by now, I think, he said innocently. We can stay here and brawl, if thats what you want to call it, considering that I never laid a finger on you or we can try to resuscitate them. Which will it be, I wonder? He really did wonder about how much control Stefan had over himself right now.As if Damon had zoomed out abruptly with a camera, Stefan seemed to become smaller. He had been floating a few feet above the ground now he landed and looked about himself in astonishment, obviously un alive(predicate) that he had been airborne.Damon spoke in the pause while Stefan was most vulnerable. I wasnt the one who hurt them, he added. If youll look at Bonnie thank badness, he knewher name youll see that no vampire could do it. I think he added ingenuously, for shock value that the attackers were trees, controlled by malach.Trees?Stefan barely took time to glance at Bonnies pin-pricked arm. Then he said, We need to get them indoors and into warm water. You take Elena Oh, gladly. In fact Id extend to anything,anything and this car with Bonnie right back to the boardinghouse. Wake Mrs. Flowers. Do all you can for Bonnie. Ill go on ahead and get Meredith and Matt That was it Matt. Now if only he had a mnemonic Theyre just up the road, right? That was where your first strafe of Power seemed to come from.A stra fe, was it? Why not be honest and just call it a feeble wash?And while it was fresh in his mindM for Mortal, A for Annoying, T for topic. And in that respect you had it. The pity was that it utilise to all of them and yet not all of them were called MAT. Oh, damn was there sibylline to be another T at the end? Mortal, Annoying, Troublesome Thing? Annoying Terrible Thing?I said, is that all right?Damon returned to the present. No, its not all right. The other cars wrecked. It wont drive.Ill float it behind me. Stefan wasnt bragging, just making a statement of fact.Its not even in one piece.Ill bind the pieces. obtain on, Damon. Im sorry I strafed you I had a completely wrong idea about what was going on. But Matt and Meredith may really be dying, and even with all my new Power, and all of Elenas, we may not be able to save them. Ive raised Bonnies core temperature a few degrees but I dont dare to stay and bring it up slow uply enough. entertain , Damon. He was putting Bonnie i n the passenger seat.Well, thatsounded like the old Stefan, but coming from this powerhouse, the new Stefan, it had rather different undertones. Still, as long as Stefanthought he was a mouse, he was a mouse. End of discussion.Earlier Damon had felt like Mount Vesuvius exploding. Now he suddenly felt as if he werestanding near Vesuvius, and the mountain was rumbling. Ye gods He actually felt scorch just being this close to Stefan.He called on all his goodish resources, mentally packing himself in ice, and hoped that at least a tip of coolness underlay his answer. Ill go. See you later hope the humans arent departed yet.As they parted, Stefan sent him a powerful message of disapproval not strafing him with sheer elemental pain, as he had before when throwing Damon against the tree, but making sure that his opinion of his brother was stamped across every word.Damon sent Stefan a last message as he went.I dont understand, he thought innocently toward the disappearing Stefan.Whats wrong with saying that I hope the humans are still alive? Ive been in greeting card shops, you know he didnt mention that it wasnt for the cards but for the young cashiers and they had sections like Hope you get well and Sympathy, which I suppose means that the previous cards spell wasnt strong enough. So whats wrong with saying I hope theyre not dead?Stefan didnt even bother to answer. But Damon flashed a quick and brilliant grin anyway, as he turned the Porsche around and set off for the boardinghouse.He tugged on the clothesline that kept Elena bobbing above him. She floated nightgown billowing above Bonnies head or rather where Bonnies head should have been. Bonnie had always been small, and this freezing illness had her crumpled into the fetal position. Elena could practically sit on her.Hello, princess. aspect gorgeous, as always. And youre not too bad yourself.It was one of the worst open up lines of his life, he thought dejectedly. But he wasnt feeling quite himsel f. Stefans transition had startled him that must be whats wrong, he decided.Damon.Damon started. Elenas voice was slow and hesitantand absolutely beautiful molasses dripping sweetness, honey falling straight from the comb. It was lower in pitch, he was sure, than it had been before her transformation, and it had become a true Southern drawl. To a vampire it resembled the sweet drip-drip of a newly undetermined human vein.Yes, angel. Have I called you angel before? If not, it was purely an oversight.And as he said this, he realized that that was another component to her voice, one hed lost(p) before purity. The lancing purity of a seraph of seraphim. That should have put him off, but preferably it just reminded him that Elena was someone to take seriously, never lightly.Id take you seriously or lightly or any way you prefer, Damon thought, if you werent so stuck on my idiot younger brother.Twin violet suns turned on him Elenas eyes. Shed heard him.For the first time in his life , Damon was surrounded by people more powerful than he was. And to a vampire, Power was everything material goods, community position, trophy mate, comfort, sex, cash, candy.It was an odd feeling. Not entirely unpleasant in regards to Elena. He liked strong women. Hed been looking for one strong enough for centuries.But Elenas glance very effectively brought his thoughts back to their situation. He parked askew outside the boardinghouse, snatched up the stiffening Bonnie, and floated up the twisting, narrowing staircase towards Stefans room. It was the only place heknew there was a bath bath.There was barely room for triad inside the fine bathroom, and Damon was the one carrying Bonnie. He ran water into the ancient, four-footed tub based on what his exquisitely tuned senses said was five degrees above her current icy temperature. He tried to explain to Elena what he was doing, but she seemed to have lost interest group and was floating round and round Stefans bedroom, like a clo se-up of Tinkerbell caged. She kept bumping the disagreeable window and then zooming over to the open door, looking out.What a dilemma. bespeak Elena to undress and bathe Bonnie, and risk her putting Bonnie in the tub wrong side up? Or ask Elena to do the line of products and watch over them both, but not touch unless disaster in love? Plus, someone had to find Mrs. Flowers and get hot drinks going. Write a line of work and send Elena with it? There might be more casualties in here any moment now.Then Damon caught Elenas eye, and all petty and conventional concerns seemed to snitch away. Words appeared in his brain without bothering to come through his ears.Help her. PleaseHe turned back to the bathroom, lay Bonnie on the thick rug there and shelled her like a shrimp. Off with the sweatshirt, off with the pass top that went under it. Off with the small bra A cup, he noticed sadly, discarding it, trying not to look at Bonnie directly. But he couldnt help but see that the pri ckling marks the tree had left were everywhere.Off with the jeans, and then a small hitch because he had to sit and take each foot in his lap to get the tightly tied high-top sneakers off before the jeans would come recent her ankles. Off with socks.And that was all. Bonnie was left naked except for her own blood and her pink silky underwear. He picked her up and put her in the tub, sousing himself in the process. Vampires associated baths with virgins blood, but only the really crazy ones tried it.The water in Bonnies bathtub turned pink when he put her in. He kept the tap running because the tub was so large, and then sit back to consider the situation. The tree had been pumping something into her with its needles. Whatever it was, it wasnt good. So it ought to come out. about sensible solution was to suck it as if it were a snakebite, but he was hesitant to try that until he was sure Elena wouldnt crush his skull if she found him methodically sucking Bonnies upper body.He woul d have to settle for next best. The all- onsetd water didnt quite conceal Bonnies diminutive form, but it helped to blur the details. Damon back up Bonnies head against the edge of the tub with one hand, and with the other he began to lug and massage the poison out of one arm.He knew he was doing the right thing when he smelled the resinous scent of pine. It was so thick and adhesive itself that it hadnt yet disappeared into Bonnies body. He was getting a small amount of it out this way, but was it enough?Cautiously, watching the door and cranking his senses up to cover their broadest spectrum, Damon get up Bonnies hand to his lips as if he were going to kiss it. Instead, he took her wrist in his mouth and, suppressing every urge he had to bite, instead simply sucked.He spat almost immediately. His mouth was full of resin. The massage wasnt enough by far. Even suction, if he could get a couple of dozen vampires and attach them all over Bonnies little body like leeches, wouldnt be enough.He sit down back on his heels and looked at her, this fatally poisoned woman-child hed as good as given his word to save. For the first time, he became aware that he was soaked to the waist. He gave an irritated glance toward the heavens and then shrugged out of his black bomber jacket.What could he do? Bonnie mandatory medicine, but he had no idea what specific medicine she needed, and there was no witch he knew of to appeal to. Was Mrs. Flowers acquainted with arcane friendship? Would she give it to him if she were? Or was she just a batty old gentlewoman? What was a generic medicine for a human? He could give her over to her own people and let them try their bungling sciences take her to a hospital but they would be working with a girl whod been poisoned by the Other Side, by the dark places they would never be allowed to see or understand.Absently, he had been rubbing a towel over his coat of arms and hands and black shirt. Now, he looked at the towel and decide d that Bonnie deserved at least a sop to modesty, especially since he could think of no more work to be done on her. He soaked the towel and then spread it out and pushed it underwater to cover Bonnie from throat to feet. It floated in some places, sank in others, but generally did the job.He turned the water temperature up again, but it made no difference. Bonnie was stiffening into the true death, young as she was. His peers in old Italy had had it right, he thought, a female like this was amaiden , no endless girl, not yet woman. It was especially apposite since any vampire could tell that she was a maiden in both senses.And it had all been done under his nose. The lure, the pack-attack, the marvelous technique and synchronization they had killed this maiden while he sat and watched. Hed applauded it.Slowly, inside, Damon could feel something growing. It had sparked when he thought of the audacity of the malach, hunting his humans right under his nose. It didnt ask the questio n of when the group in the car had becomehis humans he supposed it was because they had been so close deep that it seemed they were his to dispose of, to say whether they lived or died, or whether they became what he was. The growing thing surged when hed thought of the way the malach had manipulated his thoughts, drawing him into a blissful contemplation of death in general terms, while death in very specific terms was going on right at his feet. And now it was reaching incendiary levels because he had been shown up too many times today. It really was unbearable.and it was Bonnie.Bonnie, who had never hurt a a harmless thing for malice. Bonnie, who was like a kitten, making airy pounces at no prey at all. Bonnie, with her hair that was called something strawberry, but that looked simply as if it was on fire. Bonnie of the pellucid skin, with the delicate violet fjords and estuaries of veins all over her throat and inner arms. Bonnie, who had lately taken to looking at him sidew ays with her large childlike eyes, bighearted and brown, under lashes like stars.His jaws and canines were aching, and his mouth felt as if it were on fire from the poisonous resin. But all that could be ignored, because he was consumed with one other thought.Bonnie had called for his help for nearly half an hour before succumbing to the darkness.That was what needed to be said. Needed to be examined. Bonnie had called for Stefan who had been too far away and too busy with his angel but she had called for Damon, too, and she had pleaded for his help.And he had ignored it. With three of Elenas friends at his feet, he had ignored their agonies, had ignored Bonnies frenzied pleas not to let them die.Usually, this sort of thing would only make him take off for some other town. But somehow he was still here and still tasting the bitter consequences of his act.Damon leaned back with his eyes closed, trying to shut out the overwhelming smell of blood and the musty scent ofsomething.He f rowned and looked around. The little room was clean even to its corners. Nothing musty here. But the olfactory modality wouldnt go away.And then he remembered.