The Vampire Diaries: The Return: Midnight

by L. J. Smith

  They also played various card games, using stiff little place cards (had Lady Ulma thought they might give a dinner party on the way?) as playing cards, after carefully marking them with the four suits. And of course, the vampires hunted. Sometimes this took quite a long time, since game was scarce. The Black Magic Lady Ulma had stocked helped them stretch the time between hunts.

  When Damon visited the palanquin, it was as if he were crashing a private party and thumbing his nose at the hosts.

  Finally Elena couldn’t stand it any longer, and had Stefan float her up the side of the thurg (looking down or climbing up were definitely not options) while flying magic still worked. She sat down on the saddle beside Damon and gathered her courage.

  “Damon, I know you have a right to be angry with me. But don’t take it out on the others. Especially Bonnie.”

  “Another lecture?” Damon asked, giving her a look that would freeze a flame.

  “No, just a—a request.” She couldn’t bring herself to say “a plea.”

  When he didn’t answer and the silence became unbearable, she said, “Damon, for us—we’re not going on a quest for treasure out of greed or adventure or any normal reason. We’re going because we need to save our town.”

  “From Midnight,” a voice just behind her said. “From the Last Midnight.”

  Elena whirled to stare. She expected to see Stefan holding Bonnie clasped to him hard. But it was only Bonnie at her head level, hanging on to the thurg ladder.

  Elena forgot she was afraid of heights. She stood up on the swaying thurg, ready to climb down on the sun side if there wasn’t enough room for Bonnie to sit down fast in the driver’s saddle.

  But Bonnie had the slimmest hips in town and there was just room for all three of them.

  “The Last Midnight is coming,” Bonnie repeated. Elena knew that monotonous voice, knew the chalk-white cheeks, the blank eyes. Bonnie was in trance—and moving. It must be urgent.

  “Damon,” Elena whispered. “If I speak to her, she’ll break trance. Can you ask her telepathically what she means?”

  A moment later she heard Damon’s projection. What is the Last Midnight? What’s going to happen then?

  “That’s when it starts. And it’s over in less than an hour. So…no more midnights.”

  I beg your pardon? No more midnights?

  “Not in Fell’s Church. No one left to see them.”

  And when is this going to happen?

  “Tonight. The children are finally ready.”

  The children?

  Bonnie simply nodded, her eyes far away.

  Something’s going to happen to all the children?

  Bonnie’s eyelids drooped to half mast. She didn’t seem to hear the question.

  Elena needed to hold on to something. And suddenly she was. Damon had reached across Bonnie’s lap and taken her hand.

  Bonnie, are the children going to do something at midnight? he asked.

  Bonnie’s eyes filled and she bowed her head.

  “We’ve got to go back. We have to go to Fell’s Church,” Elena said, and scarcely knowing what she was doing, unclasped Damon’s hand and climbed down the ladder. The bloated red sun looked different—smaller. She tugged at the curtain and almost bumped heads with Stefan as he rolled it up to let her in.

  “Stefan, Bonnie’s in trance and she said—”

  “I know. I was eavesdropping. I couldn’t even catch her on the way up. She jumped onto the ladder and climbed like a squirrel. What do you think she means?”

  “You remember in the out-of-body experience she and I had? A little spying on Alaric? That’s what’s going to happen in Fell’s Church. All the children, all at once, just at midnight—that’s why we have to get back—”

  “Easy. Easy, love. Remember what Lady Ulma said? Nearly a year here came out to be only days in our world.”

  Elena hesitated. It was true; she couldn’t deny it. Still, she felt so cold…

  Physically cold, she realized suddenly, as a blast of frigid air swirled around her, cutting through her leather like a machete.

  “We need our inner furs,” Elena gasped. “We must be getting near the fracture.”

  They yanked down the palanquin covers and secured them and then hastily rummaged through the neat cabinet that was set on the rump of the thurg.

  The furs were so sleek that Elena could fit two under her leather easily.

  They were disturbed by Damon coming inside with Bonnie in his arms.

  “She stopped talking,” he said, and added, “Whenever you’re warm enough, I suggest that you come out.”

  Elena laid Bonnie down on one of the two benches inside the palanquin and piled blanket after blanket over her, tucking them in around her. Then Elena made herself climb back up.

  For a moment she felt blinded. Not by the surly red sun—they had left that behind some mountains, which it turned a pink sapphire color—but by a world of white. Seemingly endless, flat, featureless whiteness stretched out before her until a bank of fog obscured whatever was behind it.

  “According to legend, we should be headed toward the Silver Lake of Death,” Damon’s voice said from behind Elena. And, oddly, throughout all this chill, his voice was warm—almost friendly. “Also known as Lake Mirror. But I can’t change into a crow to scout ahead. Something’s hindering me. And that fog in front of us is impenetrable to psychic probing.”

  Elena instinctively glanced around her. Stefan was still inside the palanquin, obviously still tending to Bonnie.

  “You’re looking for the lake? What’s it like? I mean, I can guess why it might be called Silver and Lake Mirror,” she said. “But what’s the Death bit?”

  “Water dragons. At least that’s what people say—but who has been there to bring back the story?” Damon looked at her.

  He took care of Bonnie while she was in trance, Elena thought. And he’s talking to me at last.

  “Water…dragons?” she asked him and she made her voice friendly, too. As if they’d just met. They were starting over.

  “I’ve always suspected kronosaurus, myself,” Damon said. He was right behind her now; she could feel him blocking the icy wind—no, more than that. He was generating an envelope of heat for her to stand in. Elena’s shivering stopped. She felt for the first time that she could unwrap her arms from clutching herself.

  Then she felt a pair of strong arms folding around her, and the heat abruptly got quite intense. Damon was standing behind her, holding her, and all at once she was very warm indeed.

  “Damon,” she began, not very steadily, “we can’t just—”

  “There’s a rock outcropping over there. No one could see us,” the vampire behind her offered—to Elena’s absolute shock. A week of not speaking at all—and now this.

  “Damon, the guy in the palanquin just below us is my—”

  “Prince? Don’t you need a knight, then?” Damon breathed this directly into her ear. Elena stood like a statue. But what he said next rocked her entire universe. “You like the story of Camelot, don’t you? Only here you’re the queen, princess. You married your not-quite-fairy-tale prince, but along came a knight who knew even more of your secrets, and he called to you…”

  “He forced me,” Elena said, turning to meet Damon’s dark eyes straight on, even as her brain screamed for her to let it go. “He didn’t wait for me to hear his call. He just…took what he wanted. Like the slavers do. I didn’t know how to fight—then.”

  “Oh, no. You fought and fought. I’ve never seen a human fight so hard. But even when you fought, you felt the call of my heart to yours. Try to deny that.”

  “Damon—why now—all of a sudden…?”

  Damon made a move as if to turn away, then turned back. “Because by tomorrow we may be dead,” he said flatly. “I wanted you to know how I felt about you before I died—or you did.”

  “But you haven’t told me a word about how you feel about me. Only about what you think I feel about you. And I’m sorry
that I slapped you the first day I was here, but—”

  “You were magnificent,” Damon said outrageously. “Forget it now. As for how I feel—maybe I’ll get a chance to really show it to you someday.”

  Something sparked inside Elena—they were back to fencing with words, as they had been when they’d first met. “Someday? Sounds convenient. And why not now?”

  “Do you mean that?”

  “Do I habitually say things I don’t mean?”

  She was waiting for some kind of apology, some words spoken as simply and sincerely as she had been speaking to him. Instead, with the utmost gentleness, and without glancing around to see if anyone was watching them, Damon cupped Elena’s scarf-bound cheeks with his bare hands, pulled the scarf just below her lips with his thumbs, and kissed her softly. Softly—but not briefly, and something in Elena kept whispering to her that of course she had heard his call from the moment she first saw him, first felt his aura call to her. She hadn’t known that it was an aura then; she hadn’t believed in auras. She hadn’t believed in vampires. She’d been an ignorant little idiot…

  Stefan! A voice like crystal sounded off two notes in her brain, and suddenly she was able to step back from Damon’s embrace and look at the palanquin again. No sign of motion there.

  “I have to go back,” she told Damon brusquely. “I have to know what’s going on with Bonnie.”

  “You mean to see what’s going on with Stefan,” he said. “You needn’t worry. He’s fast asleep, and so is our little girl.”

  Elena tensed. “You Influenced them? Without seeing them?” It was a wild guess, but one side of Damon’s mouth crooked up, as if congratulating her. “How dare you?” she said.

  “To be honest, I don’t know how I dare.” Damon leaned in close again, but Elena turned her cheek, thinking, Stefan!

  He can’t hear you. He’s dreaming about you.

  Elena was surprised at her own reaction to that. Damon had caught and held her eyes again. Something inside her melted in the intensity of his steady black gaze.

  “I’m not Influencing you; I give you my word”—in a whisper. “But you can’t deny what happened between us the last time we were in this dimension.” His breath was on her lips now—and Elena didn’t turn aside. She trembled.

  “Please, Damon. Show some respect. I’m—oh, God! God!”

  “Elena? Elena! Elena! What’s wrong?”

  Hurts—that was all Elena could think. A terrible agony had lanced through her chest on the left side. As if she’d been stabbed through the heart. She stifled a scream.

  Elena, talk to me! If you can’t send your thoughts, speak!

  Through numb lips, Elena said, “Pain—heart attack—”

  “You’re too young and healthy for that. Let me check.” Damon was unfastening her top. Elena let him. She could do nothing for herself, except gasp, “Oh God! It hurts!”

  Damon’s warm hand was inside her leather and furs. His hand came to rest slightly to the left of center, with only her camisole between his probing fingers and her flesh. Elena, I’m going to take the pain away now. Trust me.

  Even as he spoke, the stabbing anguish drained. Damon’s eyes narrowed, and Elena knew he’d taken the pain into himself, to analyze it.

  “It’s not a heart attack,” he said a moment later. “I’m as sure as I can be. It’s more as if—well, as if you’d been staked. But that’s silly. Hmm…it’s gone now.”

  For Elena it had been gone since he’d taken it, protecting her. “Thank you,” she breathed, suddenly realizing that she had been clinging to him, in utter terror that she was dying. Or that he was.

  He gave her a rare, full, genuine smile. “We’re both fine. It must have been a cramp.” His gaze had dropped to her lips. “Do I deserve a kiss?”

  “I…” He had comforted her; he had taken the terrible pain away. How could she sanely say no? “Just one,” she whispered.

  A hand under her chin. Her eyelids wanted to melt closed, but she widened her eyes and wouldn’t let them.

  As his lips touched hers, his arm around her…changed somehow. It was no longer trying to restrain her. It seemed to be wanting to comfort her. And when his other hand stroked her hair softly at the very ends, crushing the waves gently, and just as gently smoothing them out, Elena felt a rush of shivering warmth.

  Damon wasn’t deliberately trying to batter her with the strength of his aura, which at the moment was filled with nothing but his feelings for her. The simple fact, though, was that although he was a new-made vampire, he was exceptionally strong and he knew all the tricks of an experienced one. Elena felt as if she had stepped into clear calm water, only to find herself caught in a fierce undertow that there was no resisting; no bargaining with; and certainly no possibility of reaching by reason. She had no choice but to surrender to it and hope that it was taking her, eventually, to a place she could breathe and live. Otherwise, she would drown…but even that possibility didn’t seem so dire, now that she could see the tide was made of a chain of little moments strung like pearls. In each one of them was a tiny sparkle of admiration that Damon had for her: pearls for her courage, for her intelligence, for her beauty. It seemed that there was no slightest motion she had made, no briefest word that she had said, that he had not noticed and locked in his heart as a treasure.

  But we were fighting then, Elena thought to him, seeing in the undertow a sparkling moment when she had cursed him.

  Yes—I said you were magnificent when you were angry. Like a goddess come to put the world to rights.

  I do want to put the world to rights. No, two worlds: the Dark Dimension and my home. But I’m no goddess.

  Suddenly she felt that keenly. She was a schoolgirl who hadn’t even finished high school—and it was in part because of the person who was kissing her wildly now.

  Oh, think of what you’re learning on this trip! Things that no one else in the universe knows, Damon said in her mind. Now pay attention to what you’re doing!

  Elena paid attention, not because Damon wanted her to, but because she couldn’t help it. Her eyes drifted shut. She realized that the way to calm this maelstrom was to become part of it, neither giving in nor forcing Damon to, but by meeting the passion in the undertow with what was inside her own heart.

  As soon as she did, the undertow became wind, and she was flying and not drowning. No, it was better than flying, better than dancing, it was what her heart always yearned for. A high still place where nothing could ever harm them or disturb them.

  And then, when she was most vulnerable, the pain came again, drilling through her chest, a little to the left. This time Damon was so mindlocked with her that he felt it from the beginning. And she could hear clearly a phrase in Damon’s mind: staking is just as effective on humans as it is on vampires, and his sudden fear that this was a precognition.

  In the swaying little room, Stefan was asleep holding Bonnie by his side, with the sparkling of Power engulfing them both. Elena, who had a good grip on the palanquin’s ladder, vaulted the rest of the way inside. She put a hand on Stefan’s shoulder and he woke.

  “What is this? Is something wrong with her?” she asked, with a third question: “Do you know?” buzzing around in her head.

  But when Stefan lifted his green eyes to her, they were simply worried. Clearly he was not invading her thoughts. He was focused entirely on Bonnie. Thank God, he’s such a gentleman, Elena thought for the thousandth time.

  “I’m trying to get her warm,” Stefan said. “After she came out of trance, she was shivering. Then she stopped shivering, but when I took her hand, it was colder than ever. Now I’ve put an envelope of heat around her. I guess I dozed off for a little while after that.” He added, “Did you find anything?”

  I found Damon’s lips, Elena thought wildly, but she forced herself to blank out the memory. “We’re looking for Lake Silver Death Mirror,” she said. “But all I could see was white. The snow and the fog seem to go on forever.”

  Stefan no
dded. Then he carefully went through the motions of plucking apart two layers of air and slid in a hand to touch Bonnie’s cheek. “She’s warming up,” he said, and smiled.

  It took a long while before Stefan was satisfied that Bonnie was warm. When he did, he gently unwrapped her from the heated air that had formed the “envelope” and lay her on one bench, coming to sit with Elena on the other. Eventually Bonnie sighed, blinked, and opened her eyes.

  “I had a nap,” she said, obviously aware that she had lost time.

  “Not exactly,” Elena said, keeping her voice gentle and reassuring. Let’s see, how did Meredith do this? “You went into trance, Bonnie. Do you remember anything about it?”

  Bonnie said, “About the treasure?”

  “About what the treasure is for,” Stefan said quietly.

  “No…No…”

  “You said that this was the Last Midnight,” Elena said. As far as she could remember, Meredith was pretty direct. “But we think you were talking about back at home,” she added hastily, seeing terror leap in Bonnie’s eyes.

  “The Last Midnight—and no morning afterward,” Bonnie said. “I think—I heard someone saying those words. But no more.”

  She was as skittish as a wild colt. Elena reminded her about time running differently between the two worlds but it didn’t seem to comfort her. Finally, Elena just sat by her and held her.

  Her head was spinning with thoughts of Damon. He’d forgiven her. That was good, even though he’d taken his own time about it. But the real message was that he was willing to share her. Or at least willing to say he would to get in her good graces. If she knew him at all, if she ever agreed—oh, God, he might murder Stefan. Again. After all, that was what he had done when Katherine had had the same sentiment.

  Elena could never think of him without longing. She could never think of him without thinking of Stefan. She had no idea what to do.

  She was in trouble.

  29

  “Oi!” Damon shouted from outside the palanquin. “Is anybody else looking at this?”

  Elena was. Both Stefan and Bonnie had their eyes shut; Bonnie was wrapped in blankets and cuddled against Elena. They had rolled down all the curtains of the palanquin except one.