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  The Return: Midnight

  ( The Vampire Diaries - 7 )

  Лиза Джейн Смит

  The devil you know. .

  With the help of charming and devious Damon, Elena rescued her vampire love, Stefan, from the depths of the Dark Dimension. But neither brother returned unscathed. Stefan is weak from his long imprisonment and needs more blood than Elena alone can give him, while a strange magic has turned Damon into a human. Savage and desperate, Damon will do anything to become a vampire again, even travel back to hell. But what will happen when he accidentally takes Bonnie with him? Stefan and Elena hurry to rescue their innocent friend from the Dark Dimension, leaving Matt and Meredith to save their hometown from the dangerous spirits that have taken hold of Fell's Church. One by one, children are succumbing to demonic designs. But Matt and Meredith soon discover that the source of the evil is darker and closer than they ever could have imagined. .

  For Anne, the animal-whisperer

  With thanks to the real Princess Jessalyn, and to Louise Beaudry for her help with French translations.

  1

  “Dear Diary,

  I’m so frightened I can hardly hold this pen. I’m printing rather than writing in cursive, because that way I have more control.

  What am I terrified of, you ask? And when I say “of Damon” you don’t believe the answer, not if you’d seen the two of us a few days ago. But to understand, you have to know a few facts.

  Have you ever heard the phrase “All bets are off”?

  It means that anything, anything, can happen. So that even somebody who figures out odds and takes bets from people gives them back their money.

  Because a wild card has entered the situation. You can’t even figure the odds to take a bet.

  That’s where I am. That’s why my heart is pounding in my throat and head and ears and fingertips in fear.

  All bets are off.

  You can see how shaky even my printing is. Suppose my hands shake like this when I go in to see him? I might drop the tray. I might annoy Damon. And then anything might happen.

  I’m not explaining this right. What I should be saying is that we’re back: Damon and Meredith and Bonnie and me. We went to the Dark Dimension and now we’re home again, with a star ball — and Stefan.

  Stefan was tricked into going there by Shinichi and Misao, the brother and sister kitsune, or evil fox-spirits, who told him that if he went to the Dark Dimension he could get the curse of being a vampire removed and become human again.

  They lied.

  All they did was leave him in a stinking prison, with no food, no light, no warmth…until he was at the point of death.

  But Damon — who was so different back then — agreed to lead us to try to find him. And, oh, I can’t even begin to describe the Dark Dimension itself. But the important thing is that we finally found Stefan, and that by then we’d found the Twin Fox key we needed to release him. But — he was a skeleton, poor boy. We carried him out of the prison on his pallet, which later Matt burned; it was so infested with creepy-crawlies. But that night we gave him a bath and put him to bed…and then we fed him. Yes, with our blood. All the humans did it except Mrs.

  Flowers, who was busy making poultices for where his poor bones were almost sticking out of his skin.

  They had starved him to that point! I could kill Them with my own hands — or my Wings Powers — if only I could use them properly. But I can’t. I know there is a spell for Wings of Destruction, but I have no idea how to summon it.

  At least I got to see how Stefan blossomed when being fed with human blood. (I admit that I gave him a few extra feedings that weren’t on his chart, and I’d have to be an idiot not to know that my blood is different from other people’s — it’s much richer and it did Stefan amazing amounts of good.)

  And so Stefan recovered enough that the next morning he was able to walk downstairs to thank Mrs. Flowers for her potions!

  The rest of us, though — all the humans — were totally exhausted. We didn’t even think about what had happened to the bouquet, because we didn’t know it had anything special in it. We’d gotten it just as we were leaving the Dark Dimension, from a kind white kitsune who’d been in the cell across from Stefan’s before we arranged a jailbreak. He was so beautiful! I never knew a kitsune could be kind. But he had given Stefan these flowers.

  Anyway, that morning Damon was up. Of course, he couldn’t contribute any of his own blood, but I honestly think he would have, if he could. That was the way he was back then.

  And that’s why I don’t understand how I can feel the fear I feel now. How can you be terrified of someone who’s kissed you and kissed you…and called you his darling and his sweetheart and his princess? And who has laughed with you with his eyes dancing with mischief? And who’s held you when you were frightened, and told you there was nothing to be afraid of, not while he was there?

  Someone you only had to glance at to know what he was thinking? Someone who has protected you, no matter what the cost to himself, for days on end?

  I know Damon. I know his faults, but I also know what he’s like inside. And he’s not what he wants people to think he is. He’s not cold, or arrogant, or cruel.

  Those are façades he puts on to cover himself, like clothes.

  The problem is that I’m not sure he knows he isn’t any of these things. And right now he’s all mixed-up. He might change and become all of them — because he’s so confused.

  What I’m trying to say is, that morning only Damon was really awake. He was the only one who saw the bouquet. And one of the things Damon definitely is, is curious.

  So he unwrapped all the magical wards from it and it had a single pitch-black rose in the center. Damon has been trying to find a black rose for years, just to admire it, I think. But when he saw this one he smelled it…and boom! The rose disappeared!

  And suddenly he was sick and dizzy and he couldn’t smell anything and all his other senses were dulled as well. That was when Sage — oh, I haven’t even mentioned Sage, but he’s a tall bronze gorgeous hunk of a vampire who’s been such a good friend to all of us — told him to suck in air and to hold it, to push it down into his lungs.

  Humans have to breathe that way, you see.

  I don’t know how long it took Damon to realize that he really was a human, no joke, nothing anyone could do about it. The black rose had been for Stefan; and it would have given him his dream of being human again. But when Damon realized it had worked its magic on him…

  That’s when I saw him look at me and lump me in with the rest of my speciesa species he’s come to hate and scorn.

  Since then I haven’t dared look him in the eye again. I know he loved me just days ago. I didn’t know that love could turn to — well, to all the things he feels now about himself.

  You’d think it would be easy for Damon to become a vampire again. But he wants to be as powerful a vampire as he used to be — and there isn’t anyone like that to exchange blood with him. Even Sage disappeared before Damon could ask him. So Damon is stuck like this until he finds some strong, powerful, and prestigious vampire to go through the whole process of changing him.

  And every time I look into Stefan’s eyes, those jewel-green eyes that are warm with trust and gratitude — I feel terror, too. Terror that somehow he’ll be snatched away again — right out of my arms. And…terror that he’ll find out how I’ve come to feel about Damon. I hadn’t even realized myself how much Damon has come to mean to me. And I can’t…stop…my feeling…for him, even if he hates me now.

  And, yes, damn it, I’m crying! In a minute, I have to go take him his dinner. He must be starving, but when Matt tried to take him something earlier to
day, Damon threw the whole tray at him.

  Oh, please, God, please don’t let him hate me!

  I’m being selfish, I know, in just talking about what’s going on with Damon and me. I mean, things in Fell’s Church are worse than ever. Every day more children become possessed and terrify their parents. Every day, parents get angrier with their possessed children. I don’t even want to think about what’s going on. If something doesn’t change, the whole place will be destroyed like the last town Shinichi and Misao visited.

  Shinichi…he made a lot of predictions about our group, about things we’ve kept secret from the others. But the truth is, I don’t know if I want to hear any of his riddles solved.

  We’re lucky in one way. We have the Saitou family to help us. You remember Isobel Saitou, who pierced herself so horribly while she was possessed? Since she’s gotten better, she’s become a good friend, and her mother, Mrs. Saitou, and her grandmother, Obaasan, too. They give us amulets — spells to keep evil away, written on Post-it Notes or little cards. We’re so grateful for that kind of help. Someday maybe we can repay them all.

  Elena Gilbert put down the pen reluctantly. Shutting her diary meant having to face the things she had been writing about.

  Somehow, though, she managed to make herself walk downstairs to the kitchen and take the dinner tray from Mrs. Flowers, who smiled encouragingly at her.

  As she set out for the boardinghouse’s storage room, she noticed that her hands were trembling so that the entire tray of food she was carrying jingled. Since there was no access to the storage room from inside, anyone who wanted to see Damon had to go out the front door and around to the addition tacked on near the kitchen garden. Damon’s lair, people were calling it now.

  As she passed the garden Elena glanced sideways at the hole in the middle of the angelica patch that was the powered-down Gateway where they’d come back from the Dark Dimension.

  She hesitated at the storage room door. She was still trembling, and she knew that was not the right way to face Damon.

  Just relax, she told herself. Think of Stefan.

  Stefan had had a grim setback when he’d found that there was nothing left of the rose, but he had soon recovered his usual humility and grace, touching Elena’s cheek and saying that he was thankful just to be there with her. That this closeness was all he asked of life. Clean clothes, decent food — freedom — all these were worth fighting for, but Elena was the most important. And Elena had cried.

  On the other hand, she knew that Damon had no intention of remaining as he now was. He might do anything, risk anything…to change himself back.

  It had actually been Matt who had suggested the star ball as a solution for Damon’s condition. Matt hadn’t understood either the rose or the star ball until it was explained that this star ball, which was probably Misao’s, contained within it most or all of her Power, and that it had become more brilliant as it absorbed the lives that she took. The black rose had probably been created with a liquid from a similar star ball — but no one knew how much or whether it was combined with unknown ingredients. Matt had frowned and asked, if the rose could change a vampire to a human, could a star ball change a human to a vampire?

  Elena hadn’t been the only one to see the slow rising of Damon’s bent head, and the glimmer in his eyes as they traveled the length of the room to the star ball filled with Power. Elena could practically hear his logic. Matt might be totally off track… but there was one place a human could be sure to find powerful vampires. In the Dark Dimension — to which there was a Gateway in the boardinghouse’s garden.

  The Gateway was closed right now…for lack of Power.

  Unlike Stefan, Damon would have absolutely no qualms about what would happen if he had to use all the star ball’s liquid, which would result in the death of Misao.

  After all, she was one of the two foxes who had abandoned Stefan to be tortured.

  So all bets were off.

  Okay, you’re scared; now deal with it, Elena told herself fiercely. Damon’s been in that room for almost fifty hours now — and who knows what he’s been plotting to do to get hold of the star ball. Still, somebody’s got to get him to eat — and when you say “somebody,” face it, it’s you.

  Elena had been standing at the door so long that her knees were starting to lock.

  She took a deep breath and knocked.

  There was no answer, and no light went on inside. Damon was human. It was quite dark outside now.

  “Damon?” It was meant to be a call. It came out a whisper.

  No answer. No light.

  Elena swallowed. He had to be in there.

  Elena knocked harder. Nothing. Finally, she tried the knob. To her horror it was unlocked, and it swung open to reveal an interior as dark as the night around Elena, like the maw of a pit.

  The fine hairs at the back of Elena’s neck were standing up.

  “Damon, I’m coming in,” she managed in a bare whisper, as if to convince herself by her quietness that there was nobody there. “I’ll be silhouetted against the very edge of the porch light. I can’t see anything, so you have all the advantages.

  I’m carrying a tray with very hot coffee, cookies, and steak tartar, no seasonings.

  You should be able to smell the coffee.”

  It was odd, though. Elena’s senses told her that there was no one standing directly in front of her, waiting for her to literally run into him. All right, she thought.

  Start with baby steps. Step one. Step two. Step three — I must be well into the room now, but it’s still too dim to see anything. Step four…

  A strong arm came out of the darkness and locked in an iron grip around her waist, and a knife pressed against her throat.

  Elena saw blackness shot with a sudden gray network, after which the dark closed in overwhelmingly.

  2

  Elena couldn’t have been out for more than a few seconds. When she came to, everything was the same — although she wondered how she hadn’t lethally cut her own throat on the knife.

  She knew that the tray with the dishes and cup had gone flying into the darkness in that first instant when she couldn’t help flinging out her arms. But now she recognized the grip, she recognized the scent, and she understood the reason for the knife. And she was glad that she did, because she was about as proud of fainting as Sage would have been of doing it. She wasn’t a fainter!

  Now she willed herself to sag in Damon’s arms, except for where the knife was.

  To show him that she was no threat.

  “Hello, princess,” a voice like black velvet said into her ear. Elena felt an inner shiver — but not of fear. No, it was more as if her insides were melting. But he didn’t change his grasp on her.

  “Damon…” she said huskily, “I’m here to help you. Please let me. For your sake.”

  As abruptly as it had come, the iron grip was withdrawn from her waist. The knife stopped pressing into her flesh, although the sharp, stinging feeling at her throat was quite enough to remind her that Damon would have it ready. Substitute fangs.

  There was a click, and suddenly the room was too bright.

  Slowly, Elena turned to look at Damon. And even now, even when he was pale and rumpled and haggard from not eating, he was so gorgeous that her heart seemed to plummet into darkness. His black hair, falling every which way over his forehead; his perfect, carven features; his arrogant, sensual mouth — right now compressed into a brooding line…

  “Where is it, Elena?” he asked briefly. Not what. Where. He knew she wasn’t stupid, and, of course, he knew the humans in the boardinghouse were hiding the star ball from him deliberately.

  “Is that all you have to say to me?” Elena whispered.

  She saw the helpless softening in his eyes, and he took one step toward her as if he couldn’t help himself, but the next instant he looked grim. “Tell me, and then maybe I’ll have more.”

  “I…see. Well, then, we made a system, two days ago,” Elena said quietl
y.

  “Everyone draws lots for it. Then the person who gets the paper with the X takes it from the center of the kitchen table and everyone goes to their rooms and stays there until the person with the star ball hides it. I didn’t get the lot today, so I don’t know where it is. But you can try to — test me.” Elena could feel her body cringing as she said the last words, feeling soft and helpless and easily hurt.

  Damon reached over and slowly slipped a hand beneath her hair. He could slam her head against a wall, or throw her across the room. He could simply squeeze her neck between knife and hand until her head fell off. Elena knew that he was in the mood to take out his emotions on a human, but she did nothing. Said nothing.

  Just stood and looked into her eyes.

  Slowly, Damon bent toward her and brushed his lips — so softly — against hers.

  Elena’s eyes drifted shut. But the next moment Damon winced and slid the hand back out of her hair.

  That was when Elena gave another thought as to what must have become of the food she had been bringing to him. Near-scalding coffee seemed to have splashed her hand and arm and soaked her jeans on one thigh. The cup and saucer were laying in pieces on the floor. The tray and the cookies had bounced off behind a chair. The plate of steak tartar, however, had miraculously landed on the couch, right side up. There was miscellaneous cutlery everywhere.

  Elena felt her head and shoulders droop in fear and pain. That was her immediate universe right now — fear and pain. Overwhelming her. She wasn’t usually a crier, but she couldn’t help the tears that filled her eyes.

  Damn! Damon thought.

  It was her. Elena. He’d been so certain an adversary was spying on him, that one of his many enemies had tracked him down and was setting a trap…someone who had discovered that he was as weak as a child now.

  It hadn’t even occurred to him that it might be her, until he was holding her soft body with one arm, and smelling the perfume of her hair as he held an ice-slick blade to her throat with the other.