Bonnie couldn’t get to sleep after Damon’s words to her. She wanted to talk to Meredith, but there was an unseeing, unhearing lump in Meredith’s bed.
The only thing she could think of was to go down to the kitchen and huddle up with a cup of cocoa in the den, alone with her misery. Bonnie wasn’t good at being alone with herself.
But as it turned out, when she got to the bottom floor, she didn’t head for the kitchen after all. She went straight to the den. Everything was dark and strange-looking in the silent dimness. Turning on one light would just make everything else even darker. But she managed, with shaking fingers, to twist the switch of the standing lamp beside the couch. Now if only she could find a book or something…
She was holding on to her pillow as if it were a teddy bear, when Damon’s voice beside her said, “Poor little redbird. You shouldn’t be up so late, you know.”
Bonnie started and bit her lip.
“I hope you’re not still hurting,” she said coldly, very much on her dignity, which she suspected was not very convincing. But what was she supposed to do?
The truth was that Bonnie had absolutely no chance of winning a duel of wits with Damon—and she knew it.
Damon wanted to say, “Hurting? To a vampire, a human fleabite like that was…”
But unfortunatelyhe was a human too. And it did hurt.
Not for long, he promised himself, looking at Bonnie.
“I thought you never wanted to see me again,” she said, chin trembling. It almost seemed too cruel to make use of a vulnerable little redbird. But what choice did he have?
I’ll make it up to her somehow, someday—I swear it, he thought. And at least I can make it pleasant now.
“That wasn’t what I said,” he replied, hoping that Bonnie wouldn’t remember exactly what hehad said. If he could just Influence the trembling woman-child before him…but he couldn’t. He was a human now.
“You told me you would kill me.”
“Look, I’d just been knocked down by a human. I don’t suppose you know what that means, but it hasn’t happened to me since I was twelve years old, and still an original human boy.”
Bonnie’s chin kept trembling, but the tears had stopped. Youare bravest when you’re scared, Damon thought.
“I’m more worried about the others,” he said.
“Others?” Bonnie blinked.
“In five hundred years of life, one tends to make a remarkable amount of enemies. I don’t know; maybe it’s just me. Or maybe it’s the simple little fact of being a vampire.”
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“Oh. Oh,no!” Bonnie cried.
“What does it matter, little redbird? Long or short, life seems all too brief.”
“But—Damon—”
“Don’t fret, kitten. Have one of Nature’s remedies.” Damon pulled out of his breast pocket a small flask that smelled unquestionably of Black Magic.
“Oh—you saved it! How clever of you!”
“Try a taste? Ladies—strike that—young women first.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I used to get awfully silly on that.”
“The world is silly. Life is silly. Especially when you’ve been doomed six times before breakfast.” Damon opened the flask.
“Oh, all right!” Clearly thrilled by the notion of “drinking with Damon,” Bonnie took a very dainty sip.
Damon choked to cover a laugh. “You’d better take bigger swigs, redbird. Or it’s going to take all night before I get a turn.”
Bonnie took a deep breath, and then a deep draft. After about three of those, Damon decided she was ready.
Bonnie’s giggles were nonstop now. “I think…Do I think I’ve had enough now?”
“What colors do you see out here?”
“Pink? Violet? Is that right? Isn’t it nighttime?”
“Well, perhaps the Northern Lights are paying us a visit. But you’re right, I should get you into bed.”
“Oh, no! Oh, yes! Oh, no! Nononoyes!”
“Shh.”
“SHHHHHH!”
Terrific, Damon thought; I’ve overdone it.
“I meant, getyou into a bed,” he said firmly. “ Just you. Here, I’ll walk you to the first-floor bedroom.”
“Because I might fall on the stairs?”
“You might say that. And this bedroom is much nicer than the one you share with Meredith. Now you just go to sleep and don’t tell anyone about our rendezvous.”
“Not evenElena?”
“Not even anybody. Or I might get angry at you.”
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“Oh, no! I won’t, Damon: I swear on your life!”
“That’s—pretty accurate,” Damon said. “Good night.”
Moonlight cocooned the house. Fog misted the moonlight. A slender, hooded dark figure took advantage of shadows so skillfully that it would have passed unnoticed even if someone had been watching out for it—and no one was.
7
Bonnie was in her new first-floor bedroom, and was feeling very bewildered. Black Magic always made her feel giggly, and then very sleepy, but somehow tonight her body refused to sleep. Her head hurt.
She was just about to turn the bedside light on, when a familiar voice said, “How about some tea for your headache?”
“Damon?”
“I made some from Mrs. Flowers’s herbs and I decided to make you a cup as well. Aren’t you the lucky girl?” If Bonnie had been listening closely, she might have heard something almost like self-loathing behind the light words—but she wasn’t.
“Yes!” Bonnie said, meaning it. Most of Mrs. Flowers’s teas smelled and tasted good. This one was especially nice, but grainy on her tongue.
And not only was the tea good, but Damon stayed to talk to her while she drank it all. That was sweet of him.
Strangely, this tea made her feel not exactly sleepy, but as if she could only concentrate on one thing at a time. Damon swam into her field of view. “Feeling more relaxed?” he asked.
“Yes, thank you.” Weirder and weirder. Even her voice sounded slow and dragging.
“I wanted to make sure nobody was too hard on you for the silly mistake about Elena,” he explained.
“They weren’t, really,” she said. “Actually everybody was more interested in seeing you and Matt fight—” Bonnie put a hand over her mouth. “Oh, no! I didn’t mean to say that! I’m so sorry!”
“It’s all right. It should heal by tomorrow.”
Bonnie couldn’t imagine why anyone would be so afraid of Damon, who was so nice as to pick up her mug of tea and say he’d put it in the sink. That was good because she was feeling as if she couldn’t get up to save her life. That cozy. That comfy.
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“Bonnie, can I ask you just one little thing?” Damon paused. “I can’t tell you why, but…I have to find out where Misao’s star ball is kept,” he said earnestly.
“Oh…that,” Bonnie said fuzzily. She giggled.
“Yes, that. And I am truly sorry to ask you, because you’re so very young and innocent…but I know you’ll tell me the truth.”
After this praise and comfort, Bonnie felt she could fly. “It’s been in the same place all the time,” she said with sleepy disgust. “They tried to make me think they’d moved it…but when I saw him chained and going down to the root cellar I knew they hadn’t really.” In the dark, there was a short shake of curls and then a yawn. “If they were really going to move it…they should have sent me away or something.”
“Well, maybe they were concerned for your life.”
“Wha’?…” Bonnie yawned again, not sure what he meant. “I mean, an old, old safe with a combination? I told them…that those old safes…could be…really be…easy to…to…” Bonnie let out a sound like a sigh and her voice stopped.
“I’m glad we had this talk,” Damon murmured in the silence.
There was no answer from the bed.
Pulling Bonnie’s sheet up as high as it would go, he let it drift down. It covered most of her face. “Requiescat in pace,” Damon said softly. Then he left her room, not forgetting to take the mug.
Now…“him chained and going down to the root cellar.” Damon mused as he washed out the mug carefully and put it back in the cupboard. The line sounded strange but he had almost all the links now, and it was actually simple. All he needed were twelve more of Mrs. Flowers’s sleeping cachets and two plates heaped with raw beef. He had all the ingredients…but he’d never heard of a root cellar.
Shortly thereafter, he opened the door to the basement. Nope. Didn’t match the criteria for “root cellar” he’d looked up on his mobile. Irritated and knowing that any moment someone was likely to wander downstairs for something, Damon turned around in frustration. There was an elaborately carved wooden panel across from the basement, but nothing else.
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Curse it, he wouldnot be thwarted at this point. He would have his life as a vampire back, or he didn’t want any life at all!
To punctuate the sentiment, he slammed a fist against the wooden panel in front of him.
The knock sounded hollow.
Immediately all frustration vanished. Damon examined the panel very carefully. Yes, there were hinges at the very edge, where no sane person would expect them. It wasn’t a panel but a door—undoubtedly to the root cellar where the star ball was.
It didn’t take long for his sensitive fingers—even his human fingers were more sensitive than most—to find a place that clicked—and then the whole door swung open. He could see the stairs. He tucked his parcel under one arm and descended.
By the illumination of the small flashlight he’d taken from the storage room, the root cellar was just as described: a damp, earthy room to store fruit and vegetables before refrigerators had been invented. And the safe was just as Bonnie had said: an ancient, rusty combination safe, which any whiz cracker could have opened in about sixty seconds. It would take Damon about six minutes, with his stethoscope (he’d heard once that you could findanything in the boardinghouse if you looked hard enough and it seemed to be true) and every atom of his being concentrating on hearing the tumblers quietly click.
First, however, there was the Beast to conquer. Saber the black hellhound had unfolded, awake and alert from the moment the secret door had opened. Undoubtedly, they had used Damon’s clothes to teach him to howl madly at his scent.
But Damon had his own knowledge of herbs and had ransacked Mrs. Flowers’s kitchen to find a handful of witch hazel, a small amount of strawberry wine, aniseed, some peppermint oil, and a few other essential oils she had in stock, sweet and sharp. Mixed, this created a pungent lotion, which he had gingerly applied to himself. The concoction formed for Saber an impossible tangle of strong smells. The only thing the now-sitting dog knew was that it was surelynot Damon sitting on the steps and tossing him hearty balls of hamburger and delicate strips of filet mignon—each of which he gulped down whole. Damon watched with interest as the animal devoured the mix of sleeping powder and raw meat, tail whisking on the floor.
Ten minutes later Saber the hellhound was sprawled out happily unconscious.
Six minutes after that, Damon was opening an iron door.
One second later he was pulling a pillowcase out of Mrs. Flowers’s antique safe.
In the glow of the flashlight he found that he did indeed have a star ball, but that it was just a little more than half full.
Now what did that mean? There was a very neat hole drilled and corked at the top so that not one precious droplet more need be wasted.
But who had used the rest of the fluid—and why? Damon himself had seen the star ball brimful of opalescent, shimmering liquid just days ago.
Somehow between that time and now someone had used about a hundred thousand individuals’ life energy.
Had the others tried to do some remarkable deed with it and failed, at the cost of burning so much Power? Stefan was too kind to have used so much, Damon was certain of that. But…
Sage.
With an Imperial Summons in his hand, Sage was likely to do anything. So, sometime after the sphere had been brought into the boardinghouse, Sage had poured out almost exactly half the life force from the star ball and then, undoubtedly, left the rest behind for Mutt or someone to cork.
And such a colossal amount of Power could only have been used for…opening the Gate to the Dark Dimensions.
Very slowly, Damon let out his breath and smiled. There were only a few ways to get into the Dark Dimensions, and as a human he obviously could not drive to Arizona and pass through a public Gateway as he had the first time with the girls. But now he had something even better. A star ball to open his own private Gateway. He knew of no other way to cross, unless one was lucky enough to hold one of the almost-mythical Master Keys that allowed one to roam the dimensions at will.
Doubtless, someday in the future, in some nook, Mrs. Flowers would find another thank-you note: this time along with something that was literally invaluable—something exquisite and priceless and probably from a dimension quite far from Earth. That was how Sage operated.
All was quiet above. The humans were relying on their animal companions to keep them safe. Damon gave the root cellar a single look around and saw nothing more than a dim room completely empty except for the safe, which he now closed. Dumping his own paraphernalia into the pillowcase, he patted Saber, who was gently snoring, and turned toward the steps.
That was when he saw that a figure was standing in the doorway. The figure then stepped smoothly behind the door, but Damon had seen enough.
In one hand the figure had been holding a fighting stave almost as tall as it was.
Which meant that it was a hunter-slayer. Of vampires.
Damon had met several hunter-slayers—briefly—in his time. They were, in his consideration, bigoted, unreasonable, and even more stupid than the average human, because they’d usually been brought up on legends of vampires with fangs like tusks who ripped out the throats of their victims and killed them. Damon would be the first to admit that there were some vampires like that, but most were more restrained. Vampire hunters usually worked in groups, but Damon had a hunch that this one would be alone.
He now ascended the steps slowly. He was fairly certain of the identity of this hunter-slayer, but if he was wrong he was going to have to dodge a stave launched straight down at him like a javelin. No problem—if he were still a vampire. Slightly more difficult, unarmed as he was and at a severe tactical disadvantage.
He reached the top of the stairs unharmed. This was really the most dangerous part of climbing steps, for a weapon of just the right length could send him crashing all the way back down. Of course a vampire wouldn’t be permanently injured by that, but—again—he was no longer a vampire.
But the person in the kitchen allowed him to climb all the way out of the root cellar unhindered.
A killer with honor. How sweet.
He turned slowly to measure up his vampire hunter. He was immediately impressed.
It wasn’t the obvious strength that allowed the hunter to be able to whip off a figure eight with the fighting stave that impressed him. It was the weapon itself. Perfectly balanced, it was meant to be held in the middle, and the designs picked out in jewels around the handhold showed that its creator had had excellent taste. The ends showed that he or she had a sense of humor as well. The two ends of the stave were made of ironwood for strength—but they were also decorated. In shape, they were made to resemble one of humankind’s oldest weapons, the flint-tipped spear. But there were tiny spikes extruding from each of these “spear flakes,” set firmly into the ironwood. These tiny spikes were of different materials: silver for werewolves, wood for vampires, white ash for Old Ones, iron for all eldritch creatures, and a few that Damon couldn’t quite work out.
“They’re refillable,” the hunter-slayer explained. “Hypodermic needles inject on impact. And of course different poisons for different species—quick and simple for humans, wolfsbane for those naughty puppies, and so on. It really is a jewel of a weapon. I wish I had found it before we met Klaus.”
Then she seemed to shake herself back into reality.
“So, Damon, what’s it going to be?” asked Meredith.
8
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