“Yes, it’s the right one,” Elena confirmed. “I remember the shape — pretty elaborate, yes?” She took it from Meredith’s hand.
“What are you going to—”
“Might as well test it,” Elena said with a mischievous smile. She walked to the door of the room, shut it, said, “The den downstairs,” inserted the winged key in the lock, and opened the door, stepping through and shutting the door behind her.
Before anyone could speak, she was back, with the poker from the den held aloft in triumph.
“It works!” Stefan cried.
“That’s amazing,” Matt said.
Stefan looked almost feverish. “But don’t you realize what it means? It means we can use this key. We can go anywhere we like without using Power. Even to the Dark Dimension! But first — while he’s still here — we ought to do something about Shinichi.”
“You’re in no condition to do that now, dear Stefan,” Mrs. Flowers said, shaking her head. “I’m sorry, but the truth is that we have been very, very lucky. That wicked kitsune was off guard back then. He won’t be now.”
“I still have to try,” Stefan said quietly. “Every one of you has been tormented or had to fight — whether with your fists or your minds,” he added, bowing slightly to Mrs. Flowers. “I’ve suffered but I’ve never had a chance to fight him. I have to try.”
Matt said, just as quietly, “I’ll go with you.”
Elena added, “We can all fight together. Right, Meredith?”
Meredith nodded slowly, taking Stefan’s poker from his fireplace. “Yes. It may be a low blow, but — together.”
“I say it’s a higher blow than letting him live and go on hurting people. Anyway, we’ll take care of it…together,” Elena said firmly. “Right now!”
Matt started to get up, but his motion was frozen in midair as he stared in horror.
Simultaneously, with the grace of hunting lionesses or ballet dancers the two girls closed in on Stefan, and simultaneously they swung their separate pokers; Elena hitting him in the head and Meredith hitting him squarely in the groin. Stefan reeled away from the blow to the head, but simply said, “Ow!” when Meredith hit him. Matt knocked Elena out of the way and then, turning as precisely as if he were on the football field, got Meredith out of “Stefan’s” way too.
But this imposter had obviously decided not to fight back. Stefan’s form melted.
Misao, green leaves woven into her scarlet-tipped black hair, stood before them.
To Matt’s shock, her face was pinched and pale. She was obviously very ill, although still defiant. But there was no mockery in her voice tonight.
“What have you done with my star ball? And my brother?” she demanded feebly.
“Your brother’s safely locked up,” Matt said, hardly knowing what he was telling her. Despite all the crimes Misao had committed he couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. She was clearly desperate and ill.
“I know that. I was going to say my brother will kill you all — not as a game, but in anger.” Now Misao looked wretched and frightened. “You’ve never seen him really angry.”
“You’ve never seen Stefan angry either,” Elena said. “At least not when he had all his Power.”
Misao just shook her head. A dried leaf floated from her hair. “You don’t understand!”
“I doubt we understand anything. Meredith, have we searched this girl?”
“No, but surely she wouldn’t have brought the other one—” Elena said crisply, “Matt, take a book and read it. I’ll tell you when we’re done.”
Matt was reluctant to turn his back on a kitsune, even a sick one. But when even Mrs. Flowers nodded gently he obeyed. Still, back turned or not, he could hear noises. And the noises suggested that Misao was being held tightly and searched thoroughly. At first the sounds were all negative murmurs.
“Huh-uh…huh-uh…huh-uh…huh-oops!” There was a rattle of metal on wood.
Matt only turned when Elena said, “Okay, you can look. It was in her front pocket.” She added to Misao, who was looking as if she might faint, “We didn’t want to have to hold you and search you. But this key — where in heaven’s name did you get keys like this, anyway?”
A pink spot showed on Misao’s cheeks. “Heaven is right. They’re the only two left of the Master Keys — and they belong to Shinichi and me. I figured out how to steal them from the Celestial Court. That was…a long time ago.”
At that moment they heard a car on the road — Stefan’s Porsche. In the dead silence that followed, they could also see the car through Stefan’s window as it swung into the driveway.
“No one goes down,” Elena said tersely. “No one invites him in.”
Meredith shot her a keen glance. “Shinichi could have tunneled out like a mole by now. And he’s already been invited in.”
“My fault for not warning you all — but anyway, if it is Shinichi and he’s done anything to hurt Stefan he’s going to see me when I’m angry. The words Wings of Destruction just popped into my head and something inside me wants to say them.”
There was a chill in the room.
No one met Stefan, but in a moment they could all hear running footsteps. Stefan appeared at his door, burst through, and found himself confronted with a row of people all looking at him suspiciously.
“What the hell is going on?” he demanded, staring at Misao, who was being held up between Meredith and Matt. “Misao—” Elena took two steps toward him — and wound herself around him, drawing him into a deep kiss. For a moment he resisted, but then, bit by bit, his opposition collapsed despite the roomful of observers.
When Elena finally let go, she just leaned against Stefan, breathing hard. The others were all crimson with embarrassment. Stefan, flushed as he was, held her tightly.
“I’m sorry,” Elena whispered. “But you’ve already ‘come home’ twice. First, it was Shinichi and we locked him in the root cellar. Then it was her.” She pointed, without looking, toward the cowering Misao. “I didn’t know how to make sure that Shinichi hadn’t escaped somehow—”
“And you’re sure now?”
“Oh, yes. I recognize you. You’re always ready to let me in.”
Matt realized that she was shaking and quickly stood up so she could sit, for at least a minute or two, in peace.
The peace lasted less than a minute.
“I want my star ball!” Misao cried. “I need to put Power in it or I’ll go on weakening — and then you’ll have murdered me.”
“Go on weakening? Is the liquid evaporating out of the star ball or something?”
Meredith asked. Matt was thinking about what he’d seen on his home block before the Ridgemont sheriffs had got him.
“You’ve gathered Power to put in it?” he asked mildly. “Power from yesterday, maybe?”
“Power from ever since you took it. But it isn’t joined with…me. With my star ball.
It’s mine, but not yet.”
“Like maybe some Power from making Cole Reece eat his guinea pig while it was alive? From making kids burn down their own houses?” Matt’s voice was gravelly.