The Vampire Diaries: The Return: Nightfall (16 page)

He felt Damon’s presence coming at him long before
his senses would have noticed it in the days before Elena’s transformation, and he kept himself from flinching. Instead he turned with his back to the trunk of the tree and looked outward. He could feel Damon speeding toward him, faster and faster, stronger and stronger—and then Damon should have been there, standing before him, but he wasn’t.

Stefan frowned.

“It always pays to look up, little brother,” advised a charming voice above him, and then Damon, who had been clinging to the tree like a lizard, did a forward flip and landed on Stefan’s branch.

Stefan said nothing, merely examining his older brother. At last he said, “You’re in good spirits.”

“I’ve had a sumptuous day,” Damon said. “Shall I name them off to you? There was the greeting-card shop girl…Elizabeth, and my dear friend Damaris, whose husband works in Bronston, and little young Teresa who volunteers at the library, and…”

Stefan sighed. “Sometimes I think you could remember the name of every girl you’ve bled in your life, but you forget my name on a regular basis,” he said.

“Nonsense…little brother. Now, since Elena has undoubtedly explained to you just what happened when I tried to rescue your miniature witch—Bonnie—I feel I’m due an apology.”

“And since
you
sent me a note that I can only construe
as provocative, I really feel
I’m
due an explanation.”

“Apology first,” Damon rapped out. And then, in long-suffering tones, “I’m sure you think it’s bad enough, having promised Elena when she was dying that you would look after me—forever. But you never seem to realize that I had to promise the same thing, and I’m not exactly the caretaking type. Now that she’s not dead anymore, maybe we should just forget it.”

Stefan sighed again. “All right, all right. I apologize. I was wrong. I shouldn’t have thrown you out. Is that enough?”

“I’m not sure you really mean it. Try it once more, with feel—”

“Damon, what in God’s name was the website about?”

“Oh. I thought it was rather clever: they got the colors so close that only vampires or witches or such could read it, whereas humans would just see a blank screen.”

“But how did you find out about it?”

“I’ll tell you in a moment. But just think of it, little brother. You and Elena, on the perfect little honeymoon, just two more humans in a world of humans. The sooner you go, the sooner you can sing ‘Ding Dong, the Corpse Is Dead’!”

“I still want to know how you
just happened
to come across this website.”

“All right. I admit it: I’ve been suckered into the age of technology at last. I have my own website. And a very
helpful young man contacted me just to see whether I really meant the things I said on it or if I was just a frustrated idealist. I figured that description fit you.”

“You—a website? I don’t believe—”

Damon ignored him. “I passed the message along because I’d already heard of the place, the
Shi no Shi
.”

“The
Death of Death
, it said.”

“That’s how it was translated to me.” Damon turned a thousand-kilowatt smile on Stefan, boring into him, until finally Stefan turned away, feeling as if he’d been exposed to the sun without his lapis ring.

“As a matter of fact,” Damon went on chattily, “I’ve invited the fellow himself to come and to explain it to you.”

“You did
which
?”

“He should be here at 4:44 exactly. Don’t blame me for the timing; it’s something special to him.”

And then with very little fuss, and certainly no Power at all that Stefan could discern, something landed in the tree above them and dropped down to their branch, changing as it did.

It was, indeed, a young man, with fire-tipped black hair and serene golden eyes. As Stefan swung toward him, he held up both hands in a gesture of helplessness and surrender.

“Who the hell are you?”

“I’m the hell Shinichi,” the young man said easily. “But, as I told your brother, most people call me just
Shinichi. Of course, it’s up to you.”

“And you know all about the Shi no Shi.”

“Nobody knows all about it. It’s a place—and an organization. I’m a little partial to it because”—Shinichi looked shy—“well, I guess I just like to help people.”

“And now you want to help me.”

“If you truly want to become human…I know a way.”

“I’ll just leave the two of you to talk about it, shall I?” said Damon. “Three’s a crowd, especially on this branch.”

Stefan looked at him sharply. “If you have any slightest thought of stopping by the boardinghouse…”

“With Damaris already waiting for me? Honestly, little brother.” And Damon changed to crow form before Stefan could ask him to give his sworn word.

Elena turned over in bed, reaching automatically for a warm body next to her. What her fingers found, however, was a cool, Stefan-shaped hollow. Her eyes opened. “Stefan?”

The darling. They were so in tune that it was like being one person—he always knew when she was about to wake up. He’d probably gone down to get her breakfast—Mrs. Flowers always had it steaming hot for him when he went down (further proof that she was a witch of the white variety)—and Stefan brought up the tray.

“Elena,” she said, testing her old-new voice just to hear herself talk. “Elena Gilbert, girl, you have had too many breakfasts in bed.” She patted her stomach. Yes, definitely in need of exercise.

“All right, then,” she said, still aloud. “Start with limbering up and breathing. Then some mild stretching.” All of which, she thought, could be put aside when Stefan showed up.

But Stefan didn’t show up, even when she lay exhausted from a full hour’s routine.

And he wasn’t coming up the stairs, bringing up a cup of tea, either.

Where was he?

Elena looked out their one-view window and caught a glimpse of Mrs. Flowers below.

Elena’s heart had begun beating hard during her aerobic exercise and had never really slowed down properly. Though it was likely impossible to start a conversation with Mrs. Flowers this way she shouted down, “Mrs. Flowers?”

And, wonder of wonders, the lady stopped pinning a sheet on the clothesline and looked up. “Yes, Elena dear?”

“Where’s Stefan?”

The sheet billowed around Mrs. Flowers and made her disappear. When the billow straightened out, she was gone.

But Elena had her eyes on the laundry basket. It was still there. She shouted, “Don’t go away!” and hastened to
put on jeans and her new blue top. Then, hopping down the stairs as she buttoned, she burst out into the back garden.

“Mrs. Flowers!”

“Yes, Elena dear?”

Elena could just see her between billowing yards of white fabric. “Have you seen Stefan?”

“Not this morning, dear.”

“Not at
all
?”

“I get up with the dawn, regular. His car was gone then, and it hasn’t come back.”

Now Elena’s heart was pounding in good earnest. She’d always been afraid of something like this. She took one deep breath and ran back up the staircase without pausing.

Note, note…

He’d never leave her without a note. And there was no note on his pillow. Then she thought of
her
pillow.

Her hands scrabbled frantically under it, and then under his pillow. At first she didn’t turn the pillows over, because she wanted so badly for the note to be there—and because she was so afraid of what it might say.

At last, when it was clear that there was nothing under those pillows but the bed sheet, she flipped them and stared at the empty white blankness for a long time. Then she pulled the bed away from the wall, in case the note had fallen down behind it.

Somehow she felt that if she just kept looking, she must find it. In the end she’d shaken out all the bedding
and ended up staring at the white sheets again, accusingly, ever so often running her hands over them.

And that ought to be good, because it meant Stefan hadn’t
gone
somewhere—except that she’d left the closet door open and she could see, without even meaning to, a bunch of empty hangers.

He’d taken all his clothes.

And emptiness on the bottom of the closet.

He’d taken every pair of shoes.

Not that he had ever owned much. But everything that he needed to make a trip away was gone—and he was gone.

Why? Where? How
could
he?

Even if it turned out that he’d left in order to scout them out a new place to live, how
could
he? He’d get the fight of his life when he came back—

—if he came back.

Chilled to the bone, aware that tears were running unmeant and almost unnoticed down her cheeks, she was about to call up Meredith and Bonnie when she thought of something.

Her diary.

I
n the first days after she’d come back from the afterlife, Stefan had always put her to bed early, made sure she was warm, and then allowed her to work on his computer with her, writing a diary of sorts, with her thoughts on what had happened that day, always adding his impressions.

Now she called up the file desperately, and desperately scrolled to the end.

And there it was.

Elena finished the letter.

And then she just sat there.

After all her hunting, she’d found the answer.

And she didn’t know what to do now but scream.

If you need help go to Damon…. Trust Damon’s judgment….
It couldn’t be a more blatant ad for Damon if Damon had written it himself.

And Stefan was gone. And his clothes were gone. And his boots were gone.

He’d left her.

Make a new life….

And that was how Bonnie and Meredith found her, alarmed by an hour-long bounce-back of their telephone calls. It was the first time they hadn’t been able to get through to Stefan since he’d arrived, at their request, to slay a monster. But that monster was now dead, and Elena…

Elena was sitting in front of Stefan’s closet.

“He even took his shoes,” she said emotionlessly, softly. “He took everything. But he paid for the room for a year. And yesterday morning he bought me a Jaguar.”

“Elena—”

“Don’t you see?” Elena cried. “
This
is my Awakening. Bonnie predicted that it would be sharp and sudden and that I would need both of you. And Matt?”

“He wasn’t mentioned by name,” Bonnie said gloomily.

“But I think we’ll need his help,” Meredith said grimly.

“When Stefan and I were first together—before
I
became a vampire—I always knew,” Elena whispered, “that there would come a time when he would try to leave me for my own good.” Suddenly she hit the floor with her fist, hard enough to hurt herself. “I knew, but I thought I would be there to talk him out of it! He’s so noble—so self-sacrificing! And now—he’s
gone
.”

“You really don’t care,” Meredith said quietly, watching her, “whether you stay human or become a vampire.”

“You’re right—I
don’t
care! I don’t care about anything, as long as I can be with him. When I was still half a spirit, I knew that nothing could Change me. Now I’m human and as susceptible as any other human to the Change—but it doesn’t matter.”

“Maybe that’s the Awakening,” Meredith said, still quietly.

“Oh, maybe him not bringing her breakfast is an awakening!” Bonnie, said, exasperated. She’d been staring into a flame for more than thirty minutes, trying to get psychically in touch with Stefan. “Either he won’t—or he can’t,” she said, not seeing Meredith’s violently shaking head until after the words were out.

“What do you mean ‘can’t’?” Elena demanded, popping back off the floor from where she was slumped.

“I don’t know! Elena, you’re hurting me!”

“Is he in danger? Think, Bonnie! Is he going to be hurt because of me?”

Bonnie looked at Meredith, who was telegraphing “no” with every inch of her elegant body. Then she looked at Elena, who was demanding the truth. She shut her eyes. “I’m not sure,” she said.

She opened her eyes slowly, waiting for Elena to explode. But Elena did nothing of the kind. She merely shut her own eyes slowly, her lips hardening.

“A long time ago, I swore I’d have him, even if it killed us both,” she said quietly. “If he thinks he can just walk away from me, for my own good or for any other reason…he’s wrong. I’ll go to Damon first, since Stefan seems to want it so much. And then I’m going after him. Someone will give me a direction to start in. He left me twenty thousand dollars. I’ll use that to follow him. And if the car breaks down, I’ll walk; and when I can’t walk anymore, I’ll crawl. But I
will
find him.”

“Not alone, you won’t,” Meredith said, in her soft, reassuring way. “We’re with you, Elena.”

“And then, if he’s done this of his own free will, he’s going to get the bitch-slapping of his
life
.”

“Whatever you want, Elena,” Meredith said, still soothingly. “Let’s just find him first.”

“All for one and one for all!” Bonnie exclaimed. “We’ll get him back and we’ll make him sorry—or we won’t,” she added hastily as Meredith again began shaking her head. “Elena, don’t! Don’t cry,” she added, the instant before Elena burst into tears.

“So Damon was the one to say he’d take care of Elena, and Damon should have been the one last to see Stefan this morning,” Matt said, when he had been fetched from his house and the situation was explained to him.

“Yes,” Elena said with quiet certainty. “But Matt, you’re wrong if you think Damon would do anything to keep Stefan away from me. Damon’s not what you all think. He really was trying to save Bonnie that night. And he truly felt hurt when you all hated him.”

“This is what is called ‘evidence of motive,’ I think,” Meredith remarked.

“No. It’s character evidence—evidence that Damon
does
have feelings, that he can care for human beings,” Elena countered. “And he would never hurt Stefan, because—well, because of me. He knows how I would feel.”

“Well, why won’t he answer me, then?” Bonnie said querulously.

“Maybe because the last time he saw us all together, we were glaring at him as if we hated him,” said Meredith, who was always fair.

“Tell him I beg his pardon,” Elena said. “Tell him that I want to talk with him.”

“I feel like a communications satellite,” Bonnie complained, but she clearly put all her heart and strength into
each call. At last, she looked completely wrung out and exhausted.

And, at last, even Elena had to admit it was no good.

“Maybe he’ll come to his senses and start calling
you
,” Bonnie said. “Maybe tomorrow.”

“We’re going to stay with you tonight,” Meredith said. “Bonnie, I called your sister and told her you’d be with me. Now I’m going to call my dad and tell him I’ll be with you. Matt, you’re not invited—”

“Thanks,” Matt said dryly. “Do I get to walk home, too?”

“No, you can take my car home,” Elena said. “But please bring it back here early tomorrow. I don’t want people to start asking about it.”

That night, the three girls prepared to make themselves comfortable, schoolgirl fashion, in Mrs. Flowers’ spare sheets and blankets (no wonder she washed so many sheets today—she must have known somehow, Elena thought), with the furniture pushed to the walls and the three makeshift sleeping bags on the floor. Their heads were together and their bodies radiated out like the spokes of a wheel.

Elena thought, So this is the Awakening.

It’s the realization that, after all, I can be left alone again. And, oh, I’m grateful to have Meredith and Bonnie sticking with me. It means more than I can tell them.

She had gone automatically to the computer, to write a little in her diary. But after the first few words she’d found herself crying again, and had been secretly glad when Meredith took her by the shoulders and more or less forced her to drink hot milk with vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and when Bonnie had helped her into her pile of sleeping blankets and then held her hand until she went to sleep.

Matt had stayed late, and the sun was setting as he drove home. It was a race against darkness, he thought suddenly, refusing to be distracted by the Jaguar’s expensive new-car smell. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was pondering. He hadn’t wanted to say anything to the girls, but there was something about Stefan’s farewell note that bothered him. The only thing was, he had to make sure it wasn’t just his injured pride speaking.

Why hadn’t Stefan ever mentioned
them
? Elena’s friends from the past, her friends in the here and now. You’d think he’d at least give the girls a mention, even if he’d forgotten Matt in the pain of leaving Elena permanently.

What else? There definitely was something else, but Matt couldn’t bring it to mind. All he got was a vague, wavering image about high school last year and—yeah, Ms. Hilden, the English teacher.

Even as Matt was daydreaming about this, he was
taking care with his driving. There was no way to avoid the Old Wood entirely on the long, single-lane road that led from the boardinghouse to Fell’s Church proper. But he was looking ahead, keeping alert.

He saw the fallen tree even as he came around the corner and hit the brakes in time to come to a screeching stop, with the car at an almost ninety-degree angle to the road.

And then he had to think.

His first instinctive reaction was: call Stefan. He can just lift the tree right off the ground. But he remembered fast enough that that thought was knocked away by a question. Call the girls?

He couldn’t make himself do it. It wasn’t just a question of masculine dignity—it was the solid reality of the mature tree in front of him. Even if they all worked together, they couldn’t move that thing. It was too big, too heavy.

And it had fallen from the Old Wood so that it lay directly across the road, as if it wanted to separate the boardinghouse from the rest of the town.

Cautiously, Matt rolled down the driver’s side window. He peered into the Old Wood to try to see the tree’s roots, or, he admitted to himself, any kind of movement. There was none.

He couldn’t see the roots, but this tree looked far too
healthy to have just fallen over on a sunny summer afternoon. No wind, no rain, no lightning, no beavers. No lumberjacks, he thought grimly.

Well, the ditch on the right side was shallow, at least, and the tree’s crown didn’t quite reach it. It might be possible—

Movement
.

Not in the forest, but on the tree right in front of him. Something was stirring the tree’s upper branches, something more than wind.

When he saw it, he still couldn’t believe it. That was part of the problem. The other part was that he was driving Elena’s car, not his old jalopy. So while he was frantically groping for a way to shut the window, with his eyes glued to the
thing
detaching itself from the tree, he was groping in all the wrong places.

And the final thing was simply that the beast was fast. Much too fast to be real.

The next thing Matt knew, he was fighting it off at the window.

Matt didn’t know what Elena had shown Bonnie at the picnic. But if this wasn’t a malach, then what the hell was it? Matt had lived around woods his entire life, and he’d never seen any insect remotely like this one before.

Because it was an insect. Its skin looked bark-like, but that was just camouflage. As it banged against the half-
raised car window—as he beat it off with both hands—he could hear and feel its chitinous exterior. It was as long as his arm, and it seemed to fly by whipping its tentacles in a circle—which should be impossible, but here it was stuck halfway inside the window.

It was built more like a leech or a squid than like any insect. Its long, snakelike tentacles looked almost like vines, but they were thicker than a finger and had large suckers on them—and inside the suckers was something sharp. Teeth. One of the vines got around his neck, and he could feel the suction and the pain all at once.

The vine had whipped around his throat three or four times, and it was tightening. He had to use one hand to reach up and rip it away. That meant only one hand available to flail at the headless thing—which suddenly showed it had a mouth, if no eyes. Like everything else about the beast, the mouth was radially symmetrical: it was round, with its teeth arranged in a circle. But deep inside that circle, Matt saw to his horror as the bug drew his arm in, was a pair of pincers big enough to cut off a finger.