Meredith was thrusting the stave into the middle of the cobra now. Elena saw another of the creatures fall almost onto her upturned face and managed to turn away so that it hit her collar instead. She tried another card from the sheaf and when it just floated away — the maggots looked gooey but weren’t — she gave a primal scream and ripped with both hands at the ugly things attached to her. They gave way, leaving her skin covered with red marks and her T-shirt torn at the shoulder.
“The amulets aren’t working,” she yelled to Meredith.
Meredith was actually standing under the swaying, hooded head of the maggotcobra, stabbing and stabbing as if to reach the center. Her voice was muffled. “Not enough amulets anyway! Too many of these grubs. You’d better run.”
An instant later Stefan shouted, “Everybody get away from here! There’s something solid in there!”
“That’s what I’m trying to get!” Meredith shouted back.
Frantically, Matt yelled, “Where’s Misao?”
The last time Elena had seen her she had been diving into the writhing mass of segmented darkness. “Gone,” she shouted back. “Where’s Mrs. Flowers?”
“In the kitchen,” said a voice behind her. Elena glanced back and saw the old woman pulling down herbs with both hands.
“Okay,” Stefan shouted. “Everybody, take a few steps back. I’m going to hit it with Power. Do it — now!”
His voice was like a whiplash. Everyone stepped back, even Meredith who had been probing the snake with her stave.
Stefan curled his hand around nothingness, around air, and it turned to sparkling, swirling bright energy. He threw it point-blank into the cobra made of maggots.
There was an explosion, and then suddenly it was raining maggots. Elena had her teeth locked so as to keep herself from screaming. The oval translucent bodies of the maggots broke open on the kitchen floor like overripe plums, or else bounced. When Elena dared look up again she saw a black stain on the ceiling.
Beneath it, smiling, was Shinichi.
Meredith, lightning quick, tried to put the stave through him. But Shinichi was faster, leaning out of her way, and out of the next thrust, and the next.
“You humans,” he said. “All the same. All stupid. When Midnight finally comes you’ll see how stupid you were.” He said “Midnight” as if he were saying “the Apocalypse.”
“We were smart enough to discover that you weren’t Stefan,” Matt said from behind Shinichi.
Shinichi rolled his eyes. “And to put me into a little room roofed with wood. You can’t even remember that kitsune control all plants and trees? The walls are all full of malach grubs by now, you know. Thoroughly infested.” His eyes flickered — and he glanced backward, Elena saw, looking toward the open door of the root cellar.
Her terror soared, and at the same time Stefan shouted, “Get out of here! Out of the house! Go to somewhere safe!”
Elena and Meredith stared at each other, paralyzed. They were on different teams, but they couldn’t seem to let go of each other. Then Meredith snapped out of it and turned to the back of the kitchen to help Mrs. Flowers. Matt was already there, doing the same thing.
And then Elena found herself swept off her feet and moving fast. Stefan had her and was running toward the front door. Distantly, she heard Shinichi shout, “Bring me back their bones!”
One of the maggots that Elena batted out of the way burst its skin and Elena saw something crawling out. These really were malach, she realized. Smaller editions of the one that had swallowed Matt’s arm and left those long, deep scratches when he pulled it out again.
She noticed that one was stuck on Stefan’s back. Reckless with fury, she grabbed it near one end and ripped it off, yanking relentlessly even though Stefan gasped in pain. When it came free she got a glimpse of what looked like dozens of small children’s teeth on the bottom side. She threw it against a wall as they reached the front door.
There they almost collided with Matt, Meredith, and Mrs. Flowers, coming through the den. Stefan wrenched the door open and when they all were through Meredith slammed it shut. A few malach — grubs and still-wet flying ones — made it out with them.
“Where’s safe?” snapped Meredith. “I mean, really safe, safe for a couple of days?” Neither she nor Matt had released their grip on Mrs. Flowers and from their speed Elena guessed that she must be almost as light as a straw figure. She kept saying, “My goodness! Oh, gracious!”
“My house?” Matt suggested. “The block’s bad, but it was okay the last time I saw it, and my mom’s gone with Dr. Alpert.”
“Okay, Matt’s house — using the Master Keys. But let’s do it from the storage room. I do not want to open this front door again, no matter what,” Elena said.
When Stefan tried to pick her up she shook her head. “I’m fine. Run as fast as you can and smash any malach you see.”
They made it to the storage room, but now a sound like vipvipvip — a sort of highpitched buzzing that could only have been produced by the malach — was following them.
“What now?” Matt panted, helping Mrs. Flowers to sit on the bed.
Stefan hesitated. “Is your house really safe, do you think?”
“Is anywhere safe? But it’s empty, or it should be.”
Meanwhile, Meredith drew Elena and Mrs. Flowers aside. To Elena’s horror, Meredith was holding one of the smaller grubs, gripping it so that its underside was turned upward.
“Oh, God—” Elena protested, but Meredith said, “They look a lot like a little kid’s teeth, don’t they?”
Suddenly Mrs. Flowers became animated. “They do indeed! And you’re saying that the femur we found in the thicket—”
“Yes. It was certainly human but maybe not chewed by humans. Human children,” Meredith said.
“And Shinichi yelled to the malach to bring back our bones…” Elena said and swallowed. Then she looked at the grub again. “Meredith, get rid of that thing somehow! It’s going to pop out as a flying malach.”
Meredith looked around the storage room blankly.
“Okay — just drop it and I’ll step on it,” Elena said, holding her breath to hold in her nausea.
Meredith dropped the fat, translucent, black thing, which exploded on impact.
Elena stamped on it, but the malach inside didn’t crush. Instead, when she lifted her foot, it tried to skitter under the bed. The stave cut it cleanly in two.
“Guys,” Elena said sharply to Matt and Stefan, “we have to go now. Outside are a bunch of flying malach!”
Matt turned toward her. “Like the one that—”
“Smaller, but just like the one that attacked you, I think.”
“Okay, here’s what we figured out,” Stefan said in a way that immediately made Elena uneasy. “Somebody has to go to the Dark Dimension anyway to check on Bonnie. I guess I’m the only one to do that, since I’m a vampire. You couldn’t get in
—”
“Yes, we could,” Meredith said. “With these keys, we could just say ‘Take us to Lady Ulma’s house in the Dark Dimension.’ Or ‘Take me to wherever Bonnie is.’ Why shouldn’t it work?”
Elena said, “Okay. Meredith, Matt, and Mrs. Flowers can stay here and try to figure out what ‘Midnight’ is. From the way Shinichi said it, it sounded bad.
Meanwhile, Stefan and I go to the Dark Dimension and find Bonnie.”
“No!” Stefan said. “I won’t take you to that horrible place again.”