by L. J. Smith
Guess what? You can’t afford the luxury of brooding over feminine behavior right now, the little voice in his head said distinctly. Only Shakespearean actors get away with soliloquizing when their ass is on the line.
“Caroline.” He was suddenly, excruciatingly aware of the complexities of the job he was going to have to do inside her mind to pare away everything else supernatural and leave werewolf intact. At the same time, he became conscious of the smell of her blood, which was sweeter and far more tantalizing than the musky perfume she was wearing.
Mrs. Flowers said it was going to happen, he thought, forcing himself to ignore the fact that Damon had also said so. And: yes, this girl is pregnant, but I don’t intend to do anything that might affect her offspring. I won’t be giving anything to her, only taking.
Only taking, he thought again sadly, and realized that he was somehow holding and stroking Caroline’s hand.
“What’s the matter?” she asked. “On the rebound? I know all about that, sweetie.”
“I suppose you do, and I’m sorry, Caroline. But—I don’t suppose you can tell me why you hate Bonnie and Meredith and Elena so much?” There, he thought. No soliloquy, just a quick question.
Except that Caroline’s eyes were mocking. “Can I answer in essay format?”
“There’s not enough time. Matt and I helped them get this room together for you. I mean, your parents bought most of the actual stuff, but we all worked on making it as nice—as homelike—as we could. They enjoyed doing it for you.” He glanced around the room, which was bright and warm and softly cheerful; where he thought he could see signs of Elena’s good taste, and Bonnie’s tenderness, and Meredith’s sensible use of every inch of available space. All Elena had done so far in her own room was place a couple of lamps.
“Well, that’s why people do the charity thing, isn’t it? So that they’ll feel better inside. ‘Oh, poor Caroline: got herself in trouble; she shouldn’t even stand on a chair at this point; we’d better do something for her.’ But you know what, Stefan? One on one, I’m dead certain that I could take any of them down, right now. So much for standing on chairs.”
You know what, Caroline? Stefan thought. I’m dead certain that you could, too, especially since Meredith has forgotten her martial arts skills. He felt a sinking in his stomach. Had he left Elena and her human friends vulnerable at just the wrong time?
“There’s just one problem,” he said aloud. “You should know that Damon had to take all three of the girls under his protection.” Stefan went on silently: And Damon’s word on subjects of that nature means something to him.
“Then count me as number one in his fan club,” Caroline said, not surprised by the telepathy. “A guy whose word actually means something to him—fancy that!”
“And one more thing. I’m taking those three—yes, and Matt as well—under my protection, too. And, Caroline?” Stefan gently pulled on the hand he held.
She herself put her other arm around him, embracing him. “What?”
“When I say that, I mean more by it than I ever have before. I’m afraid that Saint Stefan had to go away on a vacation, and he left a monster behind to clean up his messes.” He bit her before she could say another word and in a moment was fiddling with her mind.
It wasn’t a pleasant experience. Caroline’s mind was a labyrinth that led to a fortress. Normally, Stefan would have worried about breaching the fortress but today he simply slipped in through a small crack he noticed in an unexpected dimension.
Inside the fortress was another intricate maze, full of ambushes and dead ends and dark crannies. Once again Stefan managed to slide into a locked citadel at the far end without doing much damage—and he found himself in the first labyrinth once more.
Stefan paused, aware that he was still drinking. He was thirsty, but there was no other reason he needed to be drawing her blood. He made himself stop.
I would have sworn, he thought, aware of every second that was passing, that Elena’s mind would be the most complex.
But then, the little counterpoint voice murmured, Elena herself opened her mind up to you. All you did was ask. And it’s hardly as if it was your first visit there.
“Caroline?” he asked aloud, using no Influence. “Will you open your mind, please? It’s full of delicate things that I don’t want to harm. I promise I won’t hurt you or look at anything you don’t want me to see, but I have to make you forget about me.”
And you think that takes opening my whole mind? Caroline’s voice replied mockingly. You flatter yourself. But you could always try: this way. A closed door in the wall around the labyrinth sudden glowed with light. Stefan opened the door and found—strewn about on the metaphorical floor—Caroline’s pet hatreds and grudges. He was grateful to see that he was prominent among them, and he dropped his neuro-virus into his area directly. Then he pulled up the entire floor and began to peel layers like an onion.
He was surprised to find Matt’s image on one of the layers. Apparently, Caroline had resented Elena’s taking Matt as a boyfriend and then cheating on him with the handsome Jean-Claude while on summer vacation. It turned out that Jean-Claude was fictional, but by the time Caroline knew that Elena had already called it quits with Matt—and had seen Stefan. The lightning bolt had hit.
All this needs to go, Stefan realized, as he saw how bound-up it was with Caroline’s anger at Matt’s continued devotion to Elena; of the way everyone seemed to defect from Caroline to Elena, Stefan included. Stefan now realized that his casual choice of Caroline as a barrier against Elena in the beginning had been about the worst decision that he could possibly have made.
I didn’t mean to do any harm. I just wanted to protect Elena from what I thought I was—what I turned out to be, he thought.
And then: Damon will keep her safe. He’ll keep the world away from her. She’s never died in his care.
He stripped out the last layer of Caroline’s memories that pertained to vampires in general and to himself in particular. There. Now he had never bruised her ego; now she had never seen him defect to Elena.
Even a telepath wouldn’t be able to unravel that, he thought, vaguely proud, although he was strapped for time. The neuro-virus was still working away when he left Caroline—via her window—as a falcon and flew to the Porsche, which was parked legally on a street a mile from campus. Next stop: Fell’s Church.
Damon had been right. Mrs. Flowers had, of course, been right. Stefan had drunk human blood tonight, because that was what was had been needed to finish the job.
But after Caroline, it was back to animal blood only, he reminded himself sternly. No question about that. At all.
* * *
The ICU nurse glided smoothly into Elena’s room. She wasn’t one of those trash-can bangers who didn’t care if they woke the patient or not. She was healthy, honey-skinned, with an aura that Damon was perfectly willing to call beautiful. He let her chart Elena’s vital signs and then slid into her mind while deepening Elena’s sleep. The nurse’s blood was fresh and tasted faintly of ginger. Damon went back to watching over Elena, absently rubbing his chest just to the left of his breastbone. There was no scar where the Tree on the Nether World’s moon had impaled him. Vampire flesh healed too well for that. But Damon could still feel the shadow of the stake. He supposed he would always feel it, just as he would always dream of it.
Just as he would always wonder what exactly had been in his subconscious when he had chosen to trade his life for Bonnie’s while Elena looked on.
Damon didn’t spend a second wondering why he had dropped everything and come winging to the hospital when he’d heard Bonnie’s eldritch scream. He knew exactly why he had done that and he knew that she knew. But it wasn’t a thing to be spoken of. It came from the time when he had been dead.
* * *
They have to let me out sometime or other, Elena thought. After all, I’m good as new.
When she woke in the afternoon the day after being rushed into the emergency de
partment, she was radiant with health. The doctors on their evening rounds, however, were polite but skeptical. No one expected her to stay well. After they left, she spent hours visiting with Bonnie and Meredith and Matt, all of whom brought her flowers and stuffed animals and candy—none of which was strictly allowed in the ICU. Aunt Judith and Robert came, with Margaret, who was not, strictly, old enough to be allowed to visit.
But the nurses were strangely lenient about the rules—Elena thought perhaps it might be due to the large boxes of chocolates she shared with the ICU desk—and Margaret took home an armful of stuffed toys to mother.
Both Bonnie and Aunt Judith had brought Elena toiletries and fresh clothing which also weren’t actually allowed in the ICU room, but which were stored under a small table with a machine on it where they wouldn’t be in the way.
That evening Meredith also brought textbooks and assignments from sympathetic teachers who wanted Elena to keep up with her classes if she felt well enough. Bonnie brought photocopies of notes she’d sweet-talked out of Elena’s classmates in Physics 101 and Nonfiction and Memoir Writing.
“Although I don’t know why you couldn’t take Biology 101 and English 101 like me,” she said as she handed the papers over, “and then we could have passed or failed together. Especially instead of physics!”
“Oh, no, physics is interesting—if you can just get your head wrapped around it. It’s all about relativity and faster than light travel and black holes and atoms . . .” Elena realized that she was flushed with excitement and leaning forward, so that the saline IV that was still attached to her left arm strained and throbbed. She quickly sat back again. “Anyway . . . ah, Damon knows all about it. He can teach me.”
“He does?” Meredith said at the same time as Matt said, “He can?”
Damon smiled shyly while inwardly damning Stefan’s soul to hell for talking Elena into taking such a ludicrous subject. “It’s something we talk about when we’re alone,” he said, as confiding as a crocodile. “I hold her close and whisper in her ear that one teaspoon of a neutron star would weigh the same as nine hundred of the Great Pyramids of Giza on earth. It sends chills down her spine.”
“It sends chills down my spine, too,” Meredith said. “And Einstein’s relativity’s even worse.”
“Hey, I should have mentioned,” Matt broke in. “I got you some notes from your classes, too, Damon. I didn’t bring any textbooks because I couldn’t get into your room, but here’re the notes from your classes today.”
Damon slowly took the proffered papers. What the hell do I say? he wondered frantically. If it had been Meredith or Bonnie, he could have smiled lazily into their eyes. But it wasn’t, it was Mutt, no, damn it: Matt, Matt, Matt.
Act like Stefan, something inside him seemed to counsel, and without stopping to think further he slapped a humble expression on his face. “You really shouldn’t have,” he said. “I mean . . . really you shouldn’t.”
Getting the notes would have meant asking a favor of a couple of juniors, and that must have been difficult for Matt, who was only a freshman. “Really,” Damon said for a third time.
Glances were exchanged between the three girls. Knowing glances, and for a moment Damon tensed. But then Bonnie said, her innocent brown eyes on the ceiling, “I think somebody doesn’t want to do his homework,” and all the humans laughed.
“What are you taking, anyway?” Meredith asked, just as Damon began to wonder. He had no idea, just as he had no idea why he’d allowed Stefan to sign him up as if he were going to attend classes. He must have been drunk, or mad, or thinking about girls. In other words, pretty much of in his normal state, so: classes, why?
“It’s Latin and History of the Italian Renaissance,” Matt supplied helpfully.
“Ah, yes. Of course.” Damon tried on a knowing look himself. He’d been thrown out of three Universities in Italy before he became a vampire, and had had Latin beaten into him by a tutor since he was a child. “Do, das, dat, damus, datis, dant, damon. I give, you give, he gives, we give, y’all give, they give, run away.”
Elena smiled. “So ‘Damon’ means ‘run away’ in Latin?” She reached to smooth his hair, which ought to have annoyed him, but the large IV needle still in her left arm gave a twinge and her smile froze. Damon hastily took her hand and pushed the pain out of her mind. She blinked at him with fuzzy love.
“Damon means ‘run away’ in every language,” he said softly. “Even in the original Greek, δαμαω, where it also means ‘to tame.’ But princeps tenebrarum has no need to worry about such things.”
“What’s that?” Bonnie asked instantly.
“It’s—just a nickname.” Hastily Damon Influenced four minds to forget the second word. I have to be more careful than that, he scolded himself. I can’t just keep wiping their memories. And Elena may be my princess, but she’s not my princess of darkness yet.
“In any case, thank you . . . Matt,” he said, drawing on all his memories of human manners. His recollections indicated that it might be a good time for a manly handshake about now, but Matt wasn’t exactly a man yet, so instead Damon clapped him heartily on the back. He’d seen some college-age kid do that once to another.
Matt nearly turned a somersault. “Um—no problem,” he choked when Meredith had started him breathing again. “Glad to—help out.”
And for the god’s sake, remember that they breathe for their lives, Damon added to his internal memo. Not just to speak or to concentrate Power, but because they die otherwise.
In fact, it wouldn’t do him any harm to start breathing right now, when he wasn’t speaking. Just for practice. He took in a huge lungful of air, felt his Power sharpen, and let out the entire lungful in one go. It sounded like a heavy sigh.
“You’re sad,” Bonnie said. “Well, of course you are. Elena’s sick.”
“Elena is not sick!” cried Elena. “Elena’s perfectly fine except that she’s attached to a horrible metal needle and several stupid mechanical contrivances. “Bonnie: look at me! I mean, not just me, but my—my—”
Damon watched as Elena struggled to find the word aura. Clearly, she knew what she meant, but the word itself was missing from her vocabulary and therefore the concept was missing, too. Clever, clever little brother, he thought.
Elena collapsed back against the bed. “I’m healthy,” she said disconsolately, reaching for Damon’s hand for comfort. “Tell them, darling.”
“Elena is as healthy as fruit bat,” Damon declared instantly, smiling.
Elena’s classmates all looked doubtful.
“Actually,” Meredith said slowly, “I think it’s ‘as healthy as a hog.’ Or a horse. But neither of them sound very flattering. I suppose in Australia you could say ‘healthy as a wombat.’”
“One of my aunts married an Ozzie,” Matt said. “I know it’s ‘chuck a sickie’ if you pretend to be sick when you’re really fine.”
“Well, then I’m sicking a chuckie,” Elena said. “Except that it’s not me; it’s the doctors doing it. I shouldn’t have to stay.”
Meredith was still clearly traveling on her own track. “Or you could say ‘healthy as a vampire bat . . . in a blood bank.’”
“Meredith!” Bonnie cried. “Ixnay on the udblay.”
“Why?” Elena asked. “I don’t mind blood. I was thinking of kissing some donors. I’m alive because of donors.” She glanced at Damon, not for permission, but for backup.
“Ah,” he said, feeling trapped. “Hm. I was just going to make them rich beyond their wildest dreams of avarice. Does it have to come with a kiss?”
There was a long pause.
“Damon,” Bonnie said wistfully at last, “I brought Elena her toothbrush; will you buy me a Ferrari?”
“Bonnie!” Meredith and Matt got it out in chorus.
“It’s all right,” Elena said peaceably. “As long as she doesn’t ask to be my sister-wife.”
“Heh,” Bonnie said. “And exactly what were we back in the dark . . . in
the dark . . . I mean, when we were personal . . .”
In the Dark Dimension when you were my “personal assistants” because you wouldn’t say “concubines” out loud, Damon thought, fascinated. You’re all trying to swim back to memories that you don’t have anymore. I suppose I should break this up before it gets too complicated.
“Look,” he said, “let’s just agree on what’s really important, okay?”
“About wombats or polygamists?” Meredith said ironically.
“No, and not about bats or Ferraris, either,” Bonnie cut in. “It’s like I said, about Elena being sick. I know you don’t want to hear it, Elena, but you have to stay here. What if they let you go and whatever happened happens again? What if Damon’s not around next time? What if nobody is? I know it’s not any fun for you in the hospital, but what if they let you out and next time this happens you die?” Tears were streaming down her cheeks. “They have to figure out how to prevent that.”
This time the pause was longer, as well as being darker. Physically darker, Damon thought; the ICU lights had been turned down for the evening.
He glanced at Elena, who was looking back at him, clearly nonplussed. “I . . . what should I do?” she asked in a small voice.
A bolt of ice shot down Damon’s spine. He opened his mouth but nothing came out.
Elena—without a plan? Asking what to do?
I’m Stefan to her, he thought; I’m in Stefan’s place, right? Since when did she ever ask Stefan for advice?
But no, his mind argued back. You’re not just Stefan to her. You had your own relationship as well. Granted, it mostly consisted of fighting and kissing, but there were times when you two simply worked together seamlessly.
I suppose there were a few times she did consult me, Damon thought, loath to admit how infrequent those times might have been. And given that I’m so much older than she is, maybe she was listening more carefully than I realized when I answered.