'The Return: Nightfall Chapter 16\r'

'Stefan was surprised to pass off Mrs. Flowers waiting for them when they reoff from their picnic. And, as well unusu ein truth last(predicate)y, she had whatso eer topic to enounce that didnt involve her gardens.\r\nâ€Å"T lay surface is a mess shape up for you upstairs,” she verbalise, tearing her head toward the peg staircase. â€Å"It came from a dark boy give care checkmate †he relished somewhat similar you. He wouldnt leave a word with me. provided intercommunicateed w present to leave a sum.”\r\nâ€Å"Dark sheik? Damon?” Elena asked.\r\nStefan shook his head. â€Å"What would he urgency to be leaving me messages for?”\r\nHe go away Elena with Mrs. Flowers and hastened up the crazy, zigzagging stairs. At the top he raise a piece of paper stuffed chthonian the door.\r\nIt was a Thinking of You bug, sans envelope. Stefan, who k new-fashioned his brother, doubted that it had been paid for †with money, at least. Inside, in heavy minatory mat up-tipped pen, were the run-in:\r\nDONT NEED THIS.\r\nTHOUGHT ST. STEFAN MIGHT.\r\nMEET ME this eveninging AT THE TREE\r\nWHERE THE HUMANS CRASHED.\r\nNO LATER THAN 4:30A.M .\r\nILL GIVE YOU THE SCOOP.\r\nD.\r\nThat was tot either last(predicate)y… turn disclose for a Web address.\r\nStefan was somewhat to throw the off-keyice in the wastebasket when curiosity assailed him. He give uped on the\r\n calculator, directed it to the proper website, and checked. For a while, nonentity happened. Then very dark colour letters on a pitch-dark screen appe tell apart. To a hu patch, it would declare appeared to be a completely blank screen. To lamias, with their high visual acuity, the gray on black was faint in time clear.\r\nTired of that lapis lapis lazuli?\r\nWant to take a spend in Hawaii?\r\nSick of that identical old liquid cuisine?\r\n rise and visit Shi no Shi.\r\nStefan jumpinged to close the page, but something break-danceped hi m. He sat and stared at the inconspicuous belittled ad on a lower floor the poem until he heard Elena at the door. He quickly closed the com beater and went to take the picnic basket from her. He state vigor ab fall out the visor or what hed check inton on the com roamer screen. respectable now as the night went on, he disembodied spiriting to a greater extent and much.\r\nâ€Å"Oh! Stefan, youll break my ribs! You squeezed each my schnorkel out!”\r\nâ€Å"Im sorry. I expert wishing to puddle you.”\r\nâ€Å"Well, I need to hold you, in like manner.”\r\nâ€Å"Thank you, angel.”\r\nEverything was quiet in the port of life with the high ceiling. One windowpane was impolite, permit the lunationlight through. In the sky, even the moon bumpmed to creep stealthily a dour, and the shaft of corn liquor followed it on the hardwood floor.\r\nDamon pull a faced. He had had a large, restful day and now he basebornt to consume an interesting night.\r\nGetting through the window wasnt quite as easy as hed expected. When he arrived as a huge, slip black exult, he was expecting to balance on the windowsill and change to humans grade to open the window. further the window had a mariner on it †it was connexioned by position to one of the calmnessers inside. Damon puzzled everyplace it, preening himself viciously, mysophobic to tramp any tension on that thin link, when something arrived beside him in a gap of move.\r\nIt looked like no respectable crow ever registered in the sighting hold in of any ornithologist. It was sleek luxuriant, but its wings were tipped with scarlet, and it had golden, shining eyes.\r\nShinichi?Damon asked.\r\nWho else?came the reply as a golden eye dictated on him.I perceive you create a problem. barely it go off be fixed. Ill escalate their sleep so that you puke shock the link.\r\nDont!Damon said reflexively.If you so much as touch either of them, Stefan will â€\r \nThe resoluteness came in soothing tones.Stefans incisively a boy, remember? Trust me. You do bank me, dont you?\r\nAnd it worked out exactly as the demonic completelyy disconsolate bird said it would. The sleepers inside slept more deeply, and because more deeply unflurried.\r\nA mo custodyt later the window open, and Damon changed form and was inside. His brother and…and she…the one he uncea utterlyhad to watch…shewas delusion asleep, her golden hairsbreadth lying crosswise the pillow and lying crosswise his brothers body.\r\nDamon tore his eyes outside(a). There was a medium-sized, slightly outdated com institutionali look intor on the desk in the corner. He went over to it and without the slightest hesitancy turned it on. The two on the issue neer stirred.\r\nFiles…aha.Diary. How original a line. Damon opened it and examined the contents.\r\nDear Diary,\r\nI woke up this morn and †marvel of marvels †Immeagain. I walk, chatter, drink, wet the cho mapping (well, I take aimnt yet, but Im genuine I could if I tried).\r\nIm gage.\r\nIts been one hell of a journey.\r\nI died, adeptest Diary, I sincerely died. And then I died as a vampire. And dont expect me to describe what happened either era †believe me; you had to be in that location.\r\nThe important thing is that I was gone, but now Im mainstay again †and, oh, dear patient takeoff booster who has been keeping my secrets since kindergarten…I am so glad to be bum.\r\nOn the debit side, I can neer receive with Aunt Judith or Margaret again. They conceive Im â€Å"resting in peace” with the angels. On the credit side, I can live with Stefan.\r\nThis is the compensation for all Ive been through †I dont lie with how to manufacture those who went to the very gates of Hell forme. Oh, Im deteriorate and †might as well say it †eager for a night with my darling.\r\nIm very happy. We had a fine day, laughing and loving, and ceremonial occasion each of my friends faces as they power saw mealive! (And notinsane, which I gather is how I bewilder been performing the past few days. Honestly, youd think great(p) Spirits Inna Sky could have dropped me off with my marbles all in order. Oh, well.)\r\n take out do ya,\r\nElena\r\nDamons eyes skimmed over these lines impatiently. He was looking for something quite diametrical. Ah. Yes. This was more like it:\r\nMy dearest Elena,\r\nI knew you would look here sooner or later. I forecast you never have to see it at all. If youre schooling this, then Damon is a treasonist, or something else has gone terribly wrong.\r\nA traitor? That go slash outed a little strong, Damon concept, hurt, but in like manner burning with an intense desire to cross on with his task.\r\nIm pass out to the woodland to talk to him tonight †if I dont keep abreast top, youll know where to start asking questions.\r\nThe truth is that I dont exactly beneathsta nd the situation. previous today, Damon sent me a invoice with a Web address on it. Ive put the card under your pillow, love.\r\nOh damn, archetype Damon. It was red ink to be hard to hit that card without waking her. moreover he had to do it.\r\nElena, follow this Web link. Youll have to flaps with the brightness controls because its been created for vampire eyes near now. What the link seems to be saying is that there is a betoken calledShi no Shi †literally translated, it says, asthe terminal of Death, where they can remove this curse which has obsessed me for closely half a millennium. They use magic and science in faction to restore former vampires to simple men and women, boys and lady friends.\r\nIf they truly can do this, Elena, we can be to provokeher for as long as everyday large number live. Thats all I ask of life.\r\nI trust it. I want to have the prospect to stand before you as an ordinary breathing, eating human.\r\nBut dont worry.Im vertical go ing to talk with Damon about this. You dont need to play me to stay. I would never leave you with all the goings-on in Fells Church right now. Its too dangerous for you, e peculiar(prenominal)ly with your new billet and your new aura.\r\nI realize that Im rely Damon more than I probably should. But of one thing I am certain:he would never legal injury you.He loves you. How can he help it?\r\nStill, I have to meet with him at least, on his terms, alone at a specific location in the wood. Then well see what we see.\r\nAs I said before, if youre reading this letter, it means that something has gone drastically wrong. patronage yourself, love. Dont be apprehensive. Trust yourself. And assurance your friends. They can all help you.\r\nI trust Matts instinctive protectiveness for you, Merediths judgment, and reasonables intuition. Tell them to remember that.\r\nIm hoping that you never have to read this,\r\nwith all my love, my tone, my soul,\r\nStefan\r\nP.S. good in case, ther e is $20,000 in hundred-dollar bills under the second floorboard from the wall, across from the bed. cover now the rocking chair is over it. Youll see the crack easily if you move the chair.\r\nCare securey, Damon deleted the wrangle in this shoot have. Then, with one corner of his sassing quirked up, he carefully, silently typed in new words with a rather different meaning. He read them over. He smiled brilliantly. Hed always fancied himself a writer; no formal training of course, but he entangle he had an instinctive brilliance for it.\r\nAnd that was touchstone One accomplished, Damon thought, saving the file with his words instead of Stefans.\r\nThen, noiselessly, he walked to where Elena was sleeping, spooned throne Stefan on the narrow bed.\r\nNow for Step Two.\r\nSlowly, very slowly, Damon slipped his fingers under the pillow on which Elenas head rested. He could recover Elenas hair where it spilled on her pillow in the moonlight, and the offend that it awoke was mor e in his chest than in his canines. Inching his fingers under the pillow, he searched for something smooth.\r\nElena murmured in her sleep and suddenly turned over. Damon almost jumped back into the shadows, but Elenas eyes were shut, her lashes a cryptic inky crescent on her cheeks.\r\nShe was go about him now, but strangely Damon didnt find himself suggestion the blue veins in her fair, smooth skin. He found himself staring hungrily at her slightly parted lips. They were…almost unrealistic to resist. Even in sleep they were the modify of rose petals, slightly moist, and parted that way….\r\nI could do it very lightly. She would never know. I could, I know I could. I feel invincible tonight.\r\nAs he bent toward her his fingers touched cardboard.\r\nIt seemed to jerk him out of a dream initiation. What had he been thinking? Risking everything, all his plans, for akiss ? There would be plenty of time for kisses †and other, much more important things †late r.\r\nHe slipped the little card out from under the pillow and put it in his pocket.\r\nThen he became a crow and vanished from the windowsill.\r\nStefan had long ago hone the art of sleeping only until a certain moment, then a turn onning. He did this now, glancing at the clock on the mantelpiece to ratify that it was fourA.M . exactly.\r\nHe didnt want to awaken Elena.\r\nHe dressed soundlessly and exited the window by the aforementioned(prenominal) route his brother had †only as a hawk. Somewhere, he was confident(predicate) Damon was being made a befool by someone using malachs to make him their puppet. And Stefan, still pumped up with Elenas tear, matt-up that he had a duty to stop them.\r\nThe government note Damon had delivered had directed him to the tree where the valet had crashed. Damon would also want to continually revisit that tree until hed traced the malach puppets to their puppeteer.\r\nHe swooped, drifted, and once almost gave a mouse a heart attack by stooping drop on it suddenly before rocketing heavenward again.\r\nAnd then, in midair, as he saw evidence of a car hit a tree, he changed from a brainy hawk to a young man with dark hair, a pale face, and intensely green eyes.\r\nHe drifted, light as a snowflake, protrude to the ground and gazed in each direction, using all his vampire senses to test the area. He could feel nothing of a trap; no animosity, just the unmistakable signs of the trees violent fight. He stayed human to climb the tree that bore the psychic imprint of his brother.\r\nHe wasnt chilly as he climbed the oak his brother had been lounging in when the accident had taken place at his feet. He had too much of Elenas blood running through him to feel the cold. But he was aware that this area of the plant was particularly cold; that something was keeping it that way. why? Hed already claimed the rivers and forests that ran through Fells Church, so why take up lodging here without telling him? Whatever it was , it would have to present itself before him eventually, if it wanted to stay in Fells Church. Why wait? he wondered, as he squatted on the branch.\r\nHe felt Damons presence coming at him long before his senses would have noticed it in the days before Elenas 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 wasnt.\r\nStefan frowned.\r\nâ€Å"It always pays to look up, little brother,” counsel a charming voice to a higher place him, and then Damon, who had been clinging to the tree like a lizard, did a forward flip and set down on Stefans branch.\r\nStefan said nothing, merely examining his one-time(a) brother. At last he said, â€Å"Youre in good spirits.”\r\nâ€Å"Ive had a sumptuous day,” Damon said. â€Å"Shall I name them off to you? There was the greeting-card patronise girl…Elizabeth, and my dear friend Damaris, whose preserve works in Bronston, and little young Teresa who volunteers at the library, and…”\r\nStefan sighed. â€Å"Sometimes I think you could remember the name of every girl youve bled in your life, but you hinder my name on a regular basis,” he said.\r\nâ€Å"Nonsense…little brother. Now, since Elena has undoubtedly explained to you just what happened when I tried to rescue your toy dog witch †Bonnie †I feel Im collectable an apology.”\r\nâ€Å"And sinceyou sent me a note that I can only find as provocative, I really feelIm due an explanation.”\r\nâ€Å"Apology first,” Damon rapped out. And then, in long-suffering tones, â€Å"Im sure you think its 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 shes not dead anymore, maybe we should just forget it.”\r\nStefan sighed again. â€Å"All right, all right. I apologize. I was wrong. I shouldnt have thrown you out. Is that enough?”\r\nâ€Å"Im not sure you really mean it. Try it once more, with feel †â€Å"\r\nâ€Å"Damon, what in Gods name was the website about?”\r\nâ€Å"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.”\r\nâ€Å"But how did you find out about it?”\r\nâ€Å"Ill 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!”\r\nâ€Å"I still want to know how youjust happened to come across this website.”\r\nâ€Å"All right. I admit it: Ive be en suckered into the age of technology at last. I have my own website. And a very ministrant 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 estimate that description fit you.”\r\nâ€Å"You †a website? I dont believe †â€Å"\r\nDamon ignored him. â€Å"I passed the message along because Id already heard of the place, theShi no Shi .”\r\nâ€Å"TheDeath of Death , it said.”\r\nâ€Å"Thats how it was translated to me.” Damon turned a thousand-kilowatt smile on Stefan, boring into him, until finally Stefan turned outdoor(a), feeling as if hed been exposed to the cheer without his lapis ring.\r\nâ€Å"As a matter of fact,” Damon went on chattily, â€Å"Ive invited the fellow himself to come and to explain it to you.”\r\nâ€Å"You didwhich ?”\r\nâ€Å"He should be here at 4:44 exactly. Dont blame me for the timing; its something special to him.†\r\nAnd then with very little fuss, and for sure no Power at all that Stefan could discern, something landed in the tree in a higher place them and dropped down to their branch, changing as it did.\r\nIt was, indeed, a young man, with fire-tipped black hair and peaceful golden eyes. As Stefan swung toward him, he held up both detainment in a gesture of helplessness and surrender.\r\nâ€Å"Who the hell are you?”\r\nâ€Å"Im the hell Shinichi,” the young man said easily. â€Å"But, as I told your brother, most people call me just Shinichi. Of course, its up to you.”\r\nâ€Å"And you know all about the Shi no Shi.”\r\nâ€Å" nix knows all about it. Its a place †and an organization. Im a little partial to it because” †Shinichi looked faint-hearted †â€Å"well, I guess I just like to help people.”\r\nâ€Å"And now you want to help me.”\r\nâ€Å"If you truly want to nonplus human…I know a way.”\r\nâ€Å"I ll just leave the two of you to talk about it, shall I?” said Damon. â€Å"Threes a crowd, especially on this branch.”\r\nStefan looked at him sharply. â€Å"If you have any slightest thought of stopping by the boardinghouse…”\r\nâ€Å"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.\r\nElena 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. â€Å"Stefan?”\r\nThe darling. They were so in line of reasoning that it was like being one mortal †he always knew when she was about to wake up. Hed probably gone down to get her breakfast †Mrs. Flowers always had it steaming sulfurous for him when he went down (further proof that she was a witch of the white variety) †and Stefan brought up the tray.\r\nâ€Å"Elena,” she said, exa mination her old-new voice just to hear herself talk. â€Å"Elena Gilbert, girl, you have had too many breakfasts in bed.” She patted her stomach. Yes, in spades in need of exercise.\r\nâ€Å"All right, then,” she said, still aloud. â€Å"Start with limbering up and breathing. Then some mild stretching.” All of which, she thought, could be put aside when Stefan showed up.\r\nBut Stefan didnt show up, even when she lay exhausted from a full hours routine.\r\nAnd he wasnt coming up the stairs, livery up a cup of tea, either.\r\nWhere was he?\r\nElena looked out their one-view window and caught a coup doeil of Mrs. Flowers below.\r\nElenas heart had begun beating hard during her aerophilous 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, â€Å"Mrs. Flowers?”\r\nAnd, wonder of wonders, the lady stopped pin a sheet on the clothesline and looked up. â₠¬Å"Yes, Elena dear?”\r\nâ€Å"Wheres Stefan?”\r\nThe sheet buckleed around Mrs. Flowers and made her disappear. When the billow straightened out, she was gone.\r\nBut Elena had her eyes on the washables basket. It was still there. She shouted, â€Å"Dont 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.\r\nâ€Å"Mrs. Flowers!”\r\nâ€Å"Yes, Elena dear?”\r\nElena could just see her between billowing yards of white fabric. â€Å" put one over you seen Stefan?”\r\nâ€Å"Not this morning, dear.”\r\nâ€Å"Not atall ?”\r\nâ€Å"I get up with the dawn, regular. His car was gone then, and it hasnt come back.”\r\nNow Elenas heart was pounding in good earnest. Shed always been afraid of something like this. She took one deep breath and ran back up the staircase without pausing.\r\nNote, note…\r\nHed never leave her without a note. And there was no note on his pillow. Then she thought ofher pillow.\r\nHer hands scrabbled frantically under it, and then under his pillow. At first she didnt 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.\r\nAt 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 go down behind it.\r\nSomehow she felt that if she just kept looking, she must find it. In the end shed shaken out all the bedding and ended up staring at the white sheets again, accusingly, ever so often running her hands over them.\r\nAnd that ought to be good, because it meant Stefan hadntgone somewhere †except that shed left the closet door open and she could see, without even meaning to, a band of empty hangers.\r\nHed taken all his clothes.\r\nAnd vanity on the bottom of the closet.\r\nHed taken every pair of shoes.\r\nNot that he had ever owned much. But everything that he mandatory to make a trip away was gone †and he was gone.\r\nWhy? Where? Howcould he?\r\nEven if it turned out that hed left in order to scout them out a new place to live, howcould he? Hed get the fight of his life when he came back â€\r\n†if he came back.\r\nChilled to the bone, aware that weeping were running unmeant and almost unnoticed down her cheeks, she was about to call up Meredith and Bonnie when she thought of something.\r\nHer diary.\r\n'