Damon, meanwhile, was ruthlessly attacking from the front. As soon as Stefan had distracted the kitsune from the back, Damon slashed both Shinichi’s wristsone quickly on the upstroke, the other just as fast on the down-stroke. Then he went for a body blow just at the moment that Stefan, with Elena held like a baby on his hip, snicked away another phantom tail.
Elena was struggling. She was seriously worried that Damon would kill Bonnie to get to Shinichi. And besides, she herself would not be toted around like a piece of luggage! Civilization had tumbled down all around her and she was reacting from her deepest instincts: protect Stefan, protect Bonnie, protect Fell’s Church. Put the enemy down. She hardly realized that in her heightened state she had sunk her unfortunately still-human teeth into Stefan’s shoulder.
He winced slightly, but he listened to her. All right! Try to get Bonnie, then — see if you can ease her.
He let go of her just as Shinichi whirled to deal with him, channeling the black pain that, back on Earth, had flung Matt and Elena off their feet in seizures, directly toward Stefan.
Elena, just released, found that everyone was making a half turn, as if to oblige her, and suddenly she saw a chance. She snatched at the limp form of Bonnie, and Shinichi dropped the smaller girl into her arms.
Words were echoing in Elena’s brain. Get Bonnie. See if you can ease her.
Well, she had Bonnie now. Her own sense split Stefan’s two orders with another — get her away from Shinichi. She’s the priceless hostage.
Elena found that she could almost scream with fury even now. She had to keep Bonnie safe — but that meant leaving Stefan, gentle Stefan, at the mercy of Shinichi. She scrambled away with Bonnie — so small and light — and at the same time threw a backward glance at Stefan. He was wearing a slight frown of concentration now, but he was not only not overwhelmed with pain, he was pressing forward the attack.
Even though Shinichi’s head was on fire. The brilliant crimson tips of his black hair had burst into flames, as if nothing else would express his enmity and his certainty of winning. He was crowning himself with a flaming garland, a hellish halo.
Elena’s anger at that turned into chills down her spine as she watched something most people never lived to analyze: two vampires attacking together, perfectly in sync. There was the elemental savagery in it of a pair of raptors or wolves, but there was also the awesome beauty of two creatures working as a single, unified body. The distance in Stefan’s and Damon’s expressions said that this was a fight to the death. The occasional frown from Stefan or vicious smile from Damon meant that Shinichi was sending his searing dark Power through one or the other of them. But these weren’t weak humans Shinichi was playing with now. They were both vampires with bodies that healed almost instantly — and vampires who had both fed recently — from her — Elena. Her extraordinary blood was feuling them now.
So I’m already a part of this, Elena thought. I’m helping them right now. That would have to satisfy the savagery this no-holds-barred fight elicited in her. To ruin the perfect synchronicity with which the two vampires were handling Shinichi would be a crime, especially when Bonnie was still limp in her arms.
As humans, we’re both liabilities, she thought. And Damon wouldn’t hesitate to tell me so, even if all I wanted was to get in one single stroke.
Bonnie, come on, Bonnie, she thought. Hold on to me. We’re getting farther away. She picked up the smaller girl under the armpits and dragged her. She backed up into the olive dimness that stretched in all directions. When she tripped over a root and accidentally sat down, she decided that she’d gone far enough, and maneuvered Bonnie into her lap.
Then she cupped her hands around Bonnie’s little heart-shaped face and she thought of the most soothing things she could imagine. A cool plunge at Warm Springs back home. A hot bath at Lady Ulma’s and then a four-handed massage, lying comfortably on a drying couch with the scent of floral incense rising around her. A cuddle with Saber in Mrs. Flowers’s informal den. The decadence of sleeping late and waking up in her own bed — with her own mother and father and sister in the house.
As Elena thought of this last, she couldn’t help giving a tiny gasp, and a teardrop fell onto Bonnie’s forehead. Bonnie’s eyelashes fluttered.
“Now, don’t you be sad,” she whispered. “Elena?”
“I’ve got you, and nobody’s going to hurt you again. Do you still feel bad?”
“A little. But I could hear you, in my mind, and it made me feel better. I want a long bath and a pizza. And to hold baby Adara. She can almost talk, you know. Elenayou’re not listening to me!”
Elena wasn’t. She was watching the dénouement of the fight between Stefan and Damon and Shinichi. The vampires had the kitsune down now and were squabbling over him like a couple of fledglings over a particularly tasty worm. Or maybe like a pair of baby dragons — Elena wasn’t sure if birds hissed at each other.
“Oh, no — yuck!” Bonnie saw what Elena was watching and collapsed, hiding her head against Elena’s shoulder. Okay, Elena thought. I get it. There’s no savagery at all in you, is there, Bonnie? Mischief, but nothing like bloodlust. And that’s good.
Even as she thought this, Bonnie abruptly sat up straight, bumping Elena’s chin, and pointing into the distance. “Wait!” she cried. “Do you see that?”
That was a very bright light, which flared brighter as each vampire found a place to his liking on Shinichi’s body and bit simultaneously.
“Stay here,” Elena said, a little thickly, because when Bonnie had bumped her chin she’d accidentally bitten her tongue. She ran back to the two vampires and knocked them as hard as she could over the heads. She had to get their attention before they got completely locked into feeding mode.
Not surprisingly, Stefan detached first, and then helped her to pull Damon off his defeated enemy.
Damon snarled and paced, never taking his eyes off Shinichi as the beaten kitsune slowly sat up. Elena noticed drops of blood scattered around. Then she saw it, tucked into Damon’s belt, black and crimson-tipped and sleek: Shinichi’s real tail.
Savagery fled…fast. Elena wanted to hide her head against Stefan’s shoulder but instead turned up her face for a kiss. Stefan obliged.
Then Elena stepped back so that they formed a triangle around Shinichi.
“Don’t even think of attacking,” Damon said pleasantly.
Shinichi gave a weak shrug. “Attack you? Why bother? You’ll have nothing to go back to, even if I die. The children are pre-programmed to kill. But”—with sudden vehemence—“I wish we’d never come to your damned little town at all — and I wish we’d never followed Her orders. I wish I’d never let Misao near Her! I wish we hadn’t—” He stopped speaking suddenly. No, it was more than that, Elena thought.
He froze, eyes wide open and staring. “Oh, no,” he whispered. “Oh, no, I didn’t mean that! I didn’t mean it! I have no regrets—” Elena had the feeling of something coming at them at tremendous speed, so fast, in fact, that she just had time to open her mouth before it hit Shinichi.
Whatever it was, it killed him cleanly and passed by without touching anyone else.
Shinichi fell facedown onto the dirt.
“Don’t bother,” Elena said softly, as Stefan reflexively moved toward the corpse.
“He’s dead. He did it to himself.”
“But how?” Stefan and Damon demanded in chorus.
“I’m not the expert,” Elena said. “Meredith is the expert on this. But she told me that kitsune could only be killed by destroying their star balls, shooting them with a blessed bullet…or by the ‘Sin of Regret.’ Meredith and I didn’t know what that meant back then — it was before we had even gone into the Dark Dimension. But I think we just now saw it in action.”
“So you can’t be a kitsune and regret anything you’ve done? That’s — harsh,” Stefan said.
“Not at all,” Damon said crisply. “Although, if it had operated for vampires, no doubt you would have been permanently dead when you woke up in the family vault.”
“Earlier,” Stefan said expressionlessly. “I regreted striking you a mortal blow, even as I was dying. You’ve always said I feel too guilty, but that is one thing I would give my life to take back.”
There was a silence that stretched and stretched. Damon was at the front of the group now, and no one but Bonnie could see his face.
Suddenly Elena grabbed Stefan’s hand. “We still have a chance!” she told him.
“Bonnie and I saw something bright that way! Let’s run!” He and Elena passed Damon running and he grabbed Bonnie’s hand too. “Like the wind, Bonnie!”
“But with Shinichi dead — well, do we really have to find his star ball or the biggest star ball or whatever is hidden in this awful place?” Bonnie asked. Once, she would have whined, Elena thought. Now, despite whatever pain she felt, she was running.
“We do have to find it, I’m afraid,” Stefan said. “Because from what he said, Shinichi wasn’t at the top of the ladder after all. He and his sister were working for someone, someone female. And whoever She is, She may be attacking Fell’s Church right now.”
“The odds have just shifted,” Elena said. “We have an unknown enemy.”
“But still—”
“All bets,” Elena said, “are off.”
Matt broke a lot of traffic rules on the way to the Saitous’ street. Meredith leaned on the console between the two front seats so that she could see the digital clock ticking down to midnight, and so that she could watch the transformation of Mrs.
Flowers. At last her recently sane, sensible mind forced words out of her mouth.