The Vampire Diaries: The Return: Midnight

by L. J. Smith

  “Call me Gwen,” a voice whispered beside him, and Matt looked to see a girl with brown eyes and brown hair back in a ponytail. She wasn’t exactly pretty, but she looked honest and straightforward, which made her the prettiest thing in the room.

  “I’m Matt—well, obviously,” Matt said.

  “Is this your girl, Carolyn?” Gwen was whispering, showing a picture of the old Caroline at some dance, wearing stilts, and with tanned legs that went up and up to almost meet before a miniskirt took over, black and lacy. She had on a white blouse so tight at the bust that it hardly seemed able to contain her natural assets. Her makeup was exactly the opposite of subtle.

  “Her name’s Caroline and she’s never been my girl, but that’s her—the real her,” Matt whispered. “Before Klaus came and did something to her boyfriend, Tyler Smallwood. But I have to tell you what happened when she found out she was pregnant—”

  She’d gone nuts, was what had happened. No one knew where Tyler was—dead after the final fight against Klaus, turned into a full wolf in hiding; whatever. So Caroline had tried to pin it on Matt—until Shinichi appeared and became her boyfriend.

  But Shinichi and Misao were playing a cruel joke on her, pretending that Shinichi would marry her. It was after she realized that Shinichi didn’t care at all that Caroline had gone totally ballistic, and had really tried to make Matt fit the gaping hole in her life. Matt did his best to explain this to Gwen so she could explain it to the jury, until the judge’s voice interrupted him.

  “We will dispense with opening arguments,” said Judge Holloway, “since the hour is so late. Will the prosecution call its first witness?”

  “Wait! Objection!” Matt shouted, ignoring Gwen’s tugging at his arm and her hissing: “You can’t object to the judge’s rulings!”

  “And the judge can’t do this to me,” Matt said, twitching his T-shirt back from between her fingers. “I haven’t even had a chance to meet with my public defender yet!”

  “Maybe you should have accepted a public defender earlier,” replied the judge, sipping from a glass of water. He suddenly thrust his head at Matt and snapped, “Eh?”

  “That’s ridiculous,” cried Matt. “You wouldn’t give me my phone call to get a lawyer!”

  “Did he ever ask for a phone call?” Judge Holloway snapped, his eyes traveling around the room.

  The two officers who had beat Matt up solemnly shook their heads. At this, the bailiff, whom Matt suddenly recognized as the guy who’d kept him in the jury room for around four hours, began wagging his head back and forth in the negative. They all three wagged, almost in unison.

  “Then you forfeited that right by not asking for it,” the judge snapped. It seemed to be his only way of speaking. “You can’t demand it in the middle of a trial. Now, as I was saying—”

  “I object!” Matt shouted even louder. “They’re all lying! Look at your own tapes of them interrogating me. All I kept saying—”

  “Counselor,” the judge snarled at Gwen, “control your client or you will be held in contempt of court!”

  “You have to shut up,” Gwen hissed at Matt.

  “You can’t make me shut up! You can’t have this trial while you’re breaking all the rules!”

  “Shut your trap!” The judge belted out the words at a surprising volume. He then added, “The next person to make a remark without my express permission shall be held in contempt of court to the tune of a night in jail and five hundred dollars.”

  He paused to look around to see if this had sunk in. “Now,” he said. “Prosecution, call your first witness.”

  “We call Caroline Beulah Forbes to the stand.”

  Caroline’s figure had changed. Her stomach was sort of upside-down-avocado-shaped now. Matt heard murmurs.

  “Caroline Beula Forbes, do you swear that the testimony you shall give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”

  Somewhere deep inside, Matt was shaking. He didn’t know if it was mostly anger or mostly fear or an equal combination of both. But he felt like a geyser ready to blow—not necessarily because he wanted to, but because forces beyond his control were taking hold of him. Gentle Matt, Quiet Matt, Obedient Matt—he had left all those behind somewhere. Raging Matt, Rampaging Matt, that was about all he could be.

  From a dim outside world, voices came filtering into his reverie. And one voice pricked and stung like a nettle.

  “Do you recognize the boy you have named as your former boyfriend Matthew Jeffrey Honeycutt here in this room?”

  “Yes,” the prickly nettle voice said softly. “He’s sitting at the defense table, in the gray T-shirt.”

  Matt’s head flew up. He looked Caroline straight in the eye.

  “You know that’s a lie,” he said. “We never went on one date together. Ever.”

  The judge, who had seemed to be asleep, now woke up. “Bailiff!” he snapped. “Restrain the defendant immediately.”

  Matt tensed. As Gwen Sawicki moaned, Matt suddenly found himself being held while duct tape was wrapped round and round his mouth.

  He fought. He tried to get up. So they duct-taped him around his waist to the chair. As they finally left him alone, the judge said, “If he runs off with that chair, you will pay it out of your own salary, Miz Sawicki.”

  Matt could feel Gwen Sawicki trembling beside him. Not with fear. He could recognize the about-to-explode expression and realized that she was going to be next. And then the judge would hold her in contempt and who would speak up for him?

  He met her eyes and shook his head firmly at her. But he also shook his head at every lie Caroline came up with.

  “We had to keep it a secret, our relationship,” Caroline was saying demurely, straightening the gray dress. “Because Tyler Smallwood, my previous boyfriend, might have found out. Then he would have—I mean, I didn’t want any trouble between them.”

  Yeah, Matt thought bitterly: you’d better walk carefully—because Tyler’s dad probably has as many good friends in here as yours does. More. Matt tuned out until he heard the prosecutor say, “And did anything unusual happen on the night in question?”

  “Well, we went out together in his car. We went over near the boardinghouse…no one would see us there…Yes, I—I’m afraid I did give him a…a love-bite. But after that I wanted to leave, but he didn’t stop. I had to try to fight him off. I scratched him with my nails—”

  “The prosecution offers Peoples’ Exhibit 2—a picture of the deep fingernail scores on the defendant’s arm—”

  Gwen’s eyes, meeting Matt’s, looked dull. Beaten. She showed Matt a picture of what he remembered: the deep marks made by the huge malach’s teeth when he had pulled his arm out of its mouth. “The defense will stipulate…”

  “So admitted.”

  “But no matter how I screamed and fought…well, he was too strong, and I—I couldn’t—” Caroline tossed her head in agony of remembered shame. Tears flooded from her eyes.

  “Your Honor, perhaps the defendant needs a break to freshen her makeup,” Gwen suggested bitterly.

  “Young lady, you are getting on my nerves. The prosecution can care for its own clients—I mean witnesses—”

  “Your witness…”—from the prosecution.

  Matt had scribbled as much of the real story as he could onto a blank sheet of paper while Caroline’s theatrics had gone on. Gwen was now reading this.

  “So,” she said, “your ex, Tyler Smallwood, is not and has never been a”—she swallowed—“a werewolf.”

  Through her tears of shame Caroline laughed lightly. “Of course not. Werewolves aren’t real.”

  “Like vampires.”

  “Vampires aren’t real either, if that’s what you mean. How could they be?” Caroline was looking into every shadow of the room as she said this.

  Gwen was doing a good job, Matt realized. Caroline’s demure patina was beginning to chip.

  “And people never come back from the dead—in these modern times, I
mean,” Gwen said.

  “Well, as to that”—malice had crept into Caroline’s voice—“if you just go to the boardinghouse in Fell’s Church, you can see that there’s a girl called Elena Gilbert, who was supposed to have drowned last year. On Founder’s Day, after the parade. She was Miss Fell’s Church, of course.”

  There was a murmur among the reporters. Supernatural stuff sold better than anything else, especially if a pretty girl was involved. Matt could see a smirk making the rounds.

  “Order! Miz Sawicki, you will keep to the facts in this case!”

  “Yes, Your Honor.” Gwen looked thwarted. “Okay, Caroline, let’s go back to the day of the alleged assault. After the events you have narrated, did you call the police at once?”

  “I was…too ashamed. But then I realized I might be pregnant or have some horrid disease, and I knew I had to tell.”

  “But that horrid disease wasn’t lycanthropy—being a werewolf, right? Because that couldn’t be true.”

  Gwen looked anxiously down at Matt and Matt looked bleakly up at her. He’d hoped that if Caroline were forced to keep talking about werewolves she would eventually start to twitch. But she seemed to have complete control over herself now.

  The judge seemed furious. “Young lady, I won’t have my court made a joke with any more supernatural nonsense!”

  Matt stared at the ceiling. He was going to jail. For a long time. For something he hadn’t done. For something he would never do. And besides, now, there might be reporters going over to the boardinghouse to bother Elena and Stefan. Damn! Caroline had managed to get that in despite the blood oath she’d made never to give their secret away. Damon had signed that oath as well. For a moment Matt wished that Damon were back and right here, to take revenge on her. Matt didn’t care how many times he got called “Mutt” if Damon would just appear. But Damon didn’t.

  Matt realized that the duct tape around his middle was low enough that he could slam his head against the defense table. He did this, making a small boom.

  “If your client wishes to be completely immobilized, Miz Sawicki, it can be—”

  But then they all heard it. Like an echo, but delayed. And much louder than the sound of a head striking a table.

  BOOM!

  And again.

  BOOM!

  And then the distant, disturbing sound of doors slamming open as if they had been hit by a battering ram.

  At this point the people in the courtroom still could have scattered. But where was there to go?

  BOOM! Another, closer door slamming open.

  “Order! Order in the courtroom!”

  Footsteps sounded down the wooden floor of the corridor.

  “Order! Order!”

  But no one, not even a judge, could stop this many people from muttering. And late in the evening, in a locked courthouse, after all that talk of vampires and werewolves…

  Footsteps coming closer. A door, quite near, crashing and creaking.

  A ripple of…something…went through the courtroom. Caroline gasped, clutching at her bulging stomach.

  “Bar those doors! Bailiff! Lock them!”

  “Bar them how, Your Honor? And they only lock from the outside!”

  Whatever it was, it was very close—

  The doors to the courtroom opened, creaking. Matt put a calming hand on Gwen’s wrist, twisting his neck to see behind him.

  Standing in the doorway was Saber, looking, as always, as big as a small pony. Mrs. Flowers walked beside him; Stefan and Elena drew up the rear.

  Heavy clicking footsteps as Saber, alone, went up to Caroline, who was gasping and quivering.

  Utter silence as everyone took in the sight of the giant beast, his coat ebony black, his eyes dark and moist as he took a leisurely look around the courtroom.

  Then, deep in his chest, Saber went hmmf.

  Around Matt people were gasping and writhing, as if they itched all over. He stared and saw Gwen staring along with him as the gasping became a panting.

  Finally Saber tilted his nose to the ceiling and howled.

  What happened after that wasn’t pretty from Matt’s point of view. Not seeing Caroline’s nose and mouth jut out to make a muzzle. Not seeing her eyes recede into small, deep, fur-lined holes.

  And her hands, fingers shrinking into helplessly waving paws, widespread, with black claws. That wasn’t pretty.

  But the animal at the end was beautiful. Matt didn’t know if she’d absorbed her gray dress or shucked it off or what. He did know that a handsome gray wolf leaped from the defendant’s chair to lick up at Saber’s chops, rolling all the way on the floor to frolic around the huge animal, who was so obviously the alpha wolf.

  Saber made another deep hmmf sound. The wolf that had been Caroline rubbed her snout lovingly against his neck.

  And it was happening in other places in the room. Both of the prosecutors, three of the jurors…the judge himself…

  They were all changing, not to attack, but to forge their social bonds with this huge wolf, an alpha if ever there was one.

  “We talked to him all the way,” Elena explained in between cursing the duct tape in Matt’s hair. “About not being aggressive and snapping off heads—Damon told me he did that once.”

  “We didn’t want a bunch of murders,” Stefan agreed. “And we knew no animal would be as big as he was. So we concentrated on bringing out all the wolf in him we could—wait, Elena—I’ve got the tape on this side. Sorry about this, Matt.”

  A sting as tape ripped free—and Matt put a hand to his mouth. Mrs. Flowers was snipping the duct tape that held him to the chair. Suddenly he was entirely free and he felt like shouting. He hugged Stefan, Elena, and Mrs. Flowers, saying, “Thank you!”

  Gwen, unfortunately, was being sick in a trash can. Actually, Matt thought, she was lucky in having secured one. A juror was being sick over the railing.

  “This is Ms. Sawicki,” Matt said proudly. “She came in after the trial had begun, and did a really good job for me.”

  “He said ‘Elena,’” Gwen whispered when she could speak. She was staring at a small wolf, with patches of thinning hair, that came limping down from the judge’s chair to cavort around Saber, who was accepting all such gestures with dignity.

  “I’m Elena,” said Elena, in between giving Matt mighty hugs.

  “The one who’s…supposed to be dead?”

  Elena took a moment out to hug Gwen. “Do I feel dead?”

  “I—I don’t know. No. But—”

  “But I have a pretty little headstone in the Fell’s Church cemetery,” Elena assured her—then suddenly, with a change in countenance, “Did Caroline tell you that?”

  “She told the whole room that. Especially the reporters.”

  Stefan looked at Matt and smiled wryly. “You may just live to have your revenge on Caroline.”

  “I don’t want revenge anymore. I just want to go home. I mean—” He looked at Mrs. Flowers in consternation.

  “If you can think of my house as ‘home’ while your dear mother is away, I am very happy,” said Mrs. Flowers.

  “Thank you,” Matt said quietly. “I really mean that. But Stefan…what are the reporters going to write?”

  “If they’re smart, they won’t write anything at all.”

  23

  In the car, Matt sat by the sleeping Meredith with Saber crammed in at their feet, listening in shock and horror as they recounted Meredith’s story. When they were done, he was able to speak about his own experiences.

  “I’m going to have nightmares all my life about Cole Reece,” he admitted. “And even though I slapped an amulet on him, and he cried, Dr. Alpert said he was still infected. How can we fight something this far out of control?”

  Elena knew he was looking at her. She dug her nails into her palms. “It isn’t that I haven’t tried to use Wings of Purification over the town. I’ve tried so hard that I feel as if I’ll burst. But it’s no good. I can’t control any Wings Powers at all! I think
—after what I’ve learned about Meredith—that I may need training. But how do I get it? Where? From who?”

  There was a long silence in the car. At last Matt said, “We’re all in the dark. Look at that courtroom! How can they have so many werewolves in one town?”

  “Wolves are sociable,” Stefan said quietly. “It looks as if there is a whole community of werewolves in Ridgemont. Seeded among the various Bear and Moose and Lions Clubs of course. For spying on the only creatures they’re scared of: humans.”

  At the boardinghouse Stefan carried Meredith to the first-floor bedroom and Elena pulled the covers over her. Then she went to the kitchen, where the conversation was continuing.

  “What about those werewolves’ families? Their wives?” she demanded as she rubbed Matt’s shoulders where she knew the muscles must hurt fiercely from being handcuffed behind his back. Her soft fingers soothed bruises, but her hands were strong, and she kept kneading and kneading until her own shoulder muscles began to swear at her…and beyond.

  Stefan stopped her. “Move over, love, I’ve got evil vampire magic. This is necessary medical treatment,” he added sternly to Matt. “So you have to take it no matter how much it hurts.” Elena could still feel him, if faintly, through their connection and she saw how he anesthetized Matt’s mind and then dug into the knotted shoulders as if he was kneading stiff dough, meanwhile reaching out with his Powers of healing.

  Mrs. Flowers came by just then with mugs of hot, sweet cinnamon tea. Matt drained his mug and his head fell back slightly. His eyes were shut, his lips parted. Elena felt a huge wave of pain and tension flood away from him. And then she hugged both of her boys and cried.

  “They picked me up on my own driveway,” Matt admitted as Elena sniffled. “And they did it by the book, but they wouldn’t even look at the—the chaos all around them.”

  Mrs. Flowers approached again, looking serious. “Dear Matt, you’ve had a terrible day. What you need is a long rest.” She glanced at Stefan, as if to see how this would impact him, with so few blood donors. Stefan smiled reassuringly at her. Matt, still being kneaded pliant, had just nodded. After that his color started coming back and a little smile curved his lips.