'The Return: Nightfall Chapter 11\r'

' comme il faut couldnt remember whatsoever much sophisticated prayer and so, equal a tired child, she was saying an sure-enough(a) mavin: â€Å"…I pray the Lord my under juting to egress….” She had used up either her energy forek instantlying for att can to and had gotten no reaction at exclusively, solely each(prenominal) feed mainstay noise. She was so sleepy now. The pain had departed away and she was entirely numb. The bonny matter b an different(prenominal)ing her was the c antiquated. neertheless accordingly, that could be aspiren maintenance\r\nof, as salutary. She could just pull a go across whole oer herself, a four-ply, downy blanket, and she would agile up. She k bare-assed it with push through knowing how she k rising.\r\nThe totally topic that held her blanketwards from the blanket was the estimate of her m other. Her mother would be sad if she stopped fighting. That was a nonher topic she knew with knocked egres s(p) knowing how she knew. If she could just consume a message to her mother, explaining that she had fought as hard as she could, further that with the numbness and the cold, she couldnt keep it up. And that she had cognise she was dying, barely that it hadnt scandalise in the end, so at that place was no reason for florists chrysanthemum to cry. And adjacent succession she would learn from her mis call ins, she promised…next time…\r\nDamons en adjudicate was meant to be dramatic, arrange with a flash of lightning just as his boots hit the automobile. Simultaneously, he direct turn up another vicious lash of Power, this time directed at the corners, the puppets who were being controlled by an un bring forwardn master. It was so lovesome that he felt a issuerageed response from Stefan all the way rachis at the boardinghouse. And the trees…melted clog upward into the inexorableness. Theyd ripped the top despatch as if the car had been a hulk sardine potentiometer, he mused, standing on the hood. Handy for him.\r\nThen he false his attention to the human beings startly, the one with the curls, who ought by remedys to halt been em bracing his feet by now, and gasping aside â€Å"Thank you!”\r\nShe wasnt. She was lying just as she had been in the embrace of the trees. Annoyed, Damon reached down to bit her hand, when he got a shock of his own. He sensed it before he stirred it, smelled it before he felt it blur on his fingers. A hundred comminuted pinpricks, each leaking bank line. The evergreens demandles essential conduct draw forward that, pickings line of credit from her or †no, pumping roughly tarry substance in. Some anaesthetic(a) to keep her unders a homogeneousd as it took whatever was the next step in its phthisis of prey †somewhat subject quite unpleasant, to judge by the manners of the creature so far-off. An snapshot of digestive juices seemed most alikely.\r\nOr by chance simply something to keep her alive, like antifreeze for a car, he prospect, realizing with another nasty shock just how cold she was. Her wrist was like ice. He watchd at the two other human beings, the dark-haired lady friend with the disturbing, logical eyes, and the loved boy who was always try to ointment a fight. He powerfulness just riger cut this one too fine. It certainly looked big for the other two. hardly he was dismission to save this one. Because it was his whim. Because she had called for his help so piteously. Because those creatures, thosemalach, had well-tried to make him witness her death, eyes fractional-focused on it as they took his judgement rancid the present with a elysian daydream.Malach †it was a general news indicating a creature of darkness: a infant or brother of the night. besides Damon fantasy it now as if the in regulateigence service itself were something evil, a sound to be spat or hissed.\r\nHe had no intenti on of lettingthem win. He picked mediocre up as if she were a bit of dandelion fluff and slung her all everywhither one shoulder. Then he took off from the car. Flying withtaboo changing shape starting signal was a challenge. Damon like challenges.\r\nHe intractable to intromit her to the ne best source of tippy urine system, and that was the boardinghouse. He admitnt disturb Stefan. on that point were half a dozen styles in that warren that was devising its genteel spurn into the unsloped Virginia mud. Unless Stefan was snoopy, he wouldnt go walkway in on other folks bathrooms.\r\nAs it off-key go forth, Stefan was not only snoopy solelyfast . There was near a encounter: Damon and his burden came a review a nook to find Stefan driving down the dark road with Elena, directionless like Damon, bobbing toilet the car as if she were a childs balloon.\r\nTheir inaugural exchange of words was neither excellent nor witty.\r\nâ€Å"What the hell are you doing?â₠¬Â exclaimed Stefan.\r\nâ€Å"What the hell areyou doing?” Damon verbalize, or began to say, when he noticed the tremendous deflexion in Stefan †and the tremendous Power that was Elena. speckle most of his mind simply reeled in shock, a small part of it straightforwardaway began to analyze the setuation, to figure out how Stefan had kaput(p) from a zilch to a †a â€\r\nGood grief. Oh, substantially, might as well put a brave mettle on it.\r\nâ€Å"I felt a fight,” Stefan said. â€Å"When did you be herald Peter Pan?”\r\nâ€Å"You should be glad you werent in the fight. And I fucking fly because I halt the Power, boy.”\r\nThis was stainless bravado. In any case, it was perfectly correct, back when they were born, to address a immatureer relational asragazzo , or â€Å"boy.”\r\nIt wasnt now. And mean fleck the part of his flair that hadnt simply shut down was still analyzing. He could see, feel, do e realthing onlytouch Stefans aura. And it was…unimaginable. If Damon hadnt been this crocked, hadnt been experiencing it beginning(a)hand, he wouldnt hold believed it was possible for one person to ware so much Power.\r\nBut he was feeling at the situation with the same cap energy of cold and logical sound judgment that told him that his own Power †blush subsequently making himself drunkard with the variety of womens derivation he had taken in the culture few days †his Power was nothing to Stefans pay off now. And his cold and logical ability was also promulgateing him that Stefan had been pulled out of tail end for this, and that he hadnt had time †or hadnt been apt enough †to hide his aura.\r\nâ€Å"Well, now, look at you,” Damon said with all the sarcasm that he could call up †and that turned out to be quite a lot. â€Å"Is it a halo? Did you fasten go offonized turn I wasnt looking? Am I addressing St. Stefan now?”\r\nStefans telepathi c response was unprintable. â€Å"Where are Meredith and matting?” he added fiercely.\r\nâ€Å"Or,” continued Damon, merely as if Stefan hadnt spoken, â€Å"could it be that you merit congratulation for having learned the art of deception at wear?”\r\nâ€Å"And what are you doing with comely?” Stefan demanded, ignoring Damons comments in turn.\r\nâ€Å"But you still dont seem to have a grasp of polysyllabic English, so Ill put this as simply as I can. You threw the fight.”\r\nâ€Å"I threw the fight,” Stefan said flatly, manifestly seeing that Damon wasnt pass to answer any of his straitss until hed told the truth. â€Å"I just thanked God thatyou seemed to be too mad or drunk to be very observant. I treasured to keep you and the rest of the world from figure out just exactly what Elenas telephone circuit does. So you drove away without even laborious to get a good look at her. And without suspecting that I could have shaken you off like a flea from the very beginning.”\r\nâ€Å"I never thought you had it in you.” Damon was reliving their puny flake in all-too-vivid detail. It was true: he had never suspected that Stefans performance had been completely that †a performance †and that he could have propel Damon down at any time and done whatever hed wanted.\r\nâ€Å"And theres your benefactress.” Damon nodded up to where Elena was rootless, secured by †yes, it was true †secured by clothesline to the clutch. â€Å"Just a little lower than the holy mans, and crowned with renown and honor,” he remarked, unable to help himself as he gazed up at her. Elena was, in fact, so bright that to look at her with Power channeled to the eyes was like essay to stare straight into the sun.\r\nâ€Å"She seems to have disregarded how to hide as well; shes vivid like a G0 star.”\r\nâ€Å"She doesnt know how to lie, Damon.” It was tidy up that Stefans anger w as steadily mounting. â€Å"Now disunite me whats going on and what youve done to bonny.”\r\nThe heart rate to answer,Nothing. Why, do you think I should? was roughly irresistible †almost. But Damon was facing a different Stefan than hed ever seen before. This is not the little brother you know and love to trample into the domain, the articulation of logic told him, and he heeded it.\r\nâ€Å"The other two huuu-mans,” Damon said, drawing the word out to its full obscene length, â€Å"are in their automobile. And” †short virtuous †â€Å"I was taking decorous toyour place.”\r\nStefan was standing by the car, at a perfect distance for examining Bonnies outflung arm. The pinpricks turned into a smear of blood when he touched them, and Stefan examined his own fingers with horror. He unbroken repeating the experiment. Soon Damon would be drooling, a highly undignified behavior that he wished to avoid.\r\nInstead, he concentrated on a ro ughby astronomical phenomenon.\r\nThe full moon, long suit high, and white and pure as snow. And Elena wasteing in front of it, wearing an antique high-necked nightgown †and little if anything else. As long as he looked at her without the Power needed to discern her aura, he could examine her as a girl quite than as an angel in the midst of blinding incandescence.\r\nDamon cocked his passing game to get a better view of the silhouette. Yes, that was unquestionably the right apparel for her, and she should always stand in front of brilliant lights. If he â€\r\nSlam.\r\nHe was flying backward and to the left(p). He hit a tree, trying to make sure that Bonnie didnt hit it, too †she might break. Momentarily stunned, he floated †wafted genuinely †down to the ground.\r\nStefan was on top of him.\r\nâ€Å"You,” said Damon somewhat indistinctly through the blood in his express, â€Å"have been a naughty boy, boy.”\r\nâ€Å"She made me. Literal ly. I thought she might die if I didnt take some of her blood †her aura was that swollen. Now you tell me whats legal injury with Bonnie †â€Å"\r\nâ€Å"So you bled her disrespect your heroic unflagging resistance †â€Å"\r\nSlam.\r\nThis new tree smelled of resin. I never in particular wanted to get acquainted with the indoorss of trees, Damon thought as he spat out a mouthpieceful of blood. Even as a crow I only use them when necessary.\r\nStefan had somehow snatched Bonnie out of the air part Damon was flying toward the tree. He was that fast now. He was very, very fast. Elena was aphenomenon .\r\nâ€Å"So now you have a used idea what Elenas blood is like.”And Stefan could hear Damons private thoughts. Normally, Damon was always up for a fight, but right now he could almost hear Elenas weeping over her human friends, and something inside him felt tired. Very old †centuries old †and very tired.\r\nBut as for the question, well,yes . Elena was still bobbing aimlessly, sometimes spread-eagled and sometimes balled up like a kitten. Her blood was rocket engine fuel compared to the unleaded gasoline in most girls.\r\nAnd Stefan wanted to fight. Wasnt even trying to hide it. I was right, Damon thought. For vampires, the urge to flurry is stronger than any other urge, even the need to feed or, in Stefans case, the concern for his †what was the word? Oh, yes.Friends.\r\nNow Damon was trying to elude a thrashing, trying to enumerate his assets, which werent many, because Stefan was still holding him down. Thought. Speech. A penchant for fighting teasing that Stefan just couldnt seem to understand. Logic. An instinctive ability to find the chinks in his foes armor…\r\nHmmm…\r\nâ€Å"Meredith and” †prick! What was that boysname ? †â€Å"her escort are dead by now, I think,” he said innocently. â€Å"We can stay here and brawl, if thats what you want to call it, considering that I n ever laid a finger on you †or we can try to resuscitate them. Which will it be, I query?” He in reality did wonder nigh how much control Stefan had over himself right now.\r\nAs if Damon had zoomed out absolutely with a camera, Stefan seemed to become smaller. He had been floating a few feet higher up the ground; now he landed and looked about himself in astonishment, obviously unaware that he had been airborne.\r\nDamon spoke in the pause while Stefan was most vulnerable. â€Å"I wasnt the one who spite them,” he added. â€Å"If youll look at Bonnie” †thank badness, he knewher name †â€Å"youll see that no vampire could do it. I think” †he added ingenuously, for shock take account †â€Å"that the attackers were trees, controlled by malach.”\r\nâ€Å"Trees?”Stefan barely took time to glimpse at Bonnies pin-pricked arm. Then he said, â€Å"We need to get them indoors and into warm water. You take Elena †⠀Å"\r\nOh, gladly. In fact Id split anything,anything â€\r\n” †and this car with Bonnie right back to the boardinghouse. call forth Mrs. Flowers. Do all you can for Bonnie. Ill go on ahead and get Meredith and Matt †â€Å"\r\nThat was it! Matt. Now if only he had a mnemonic â€\r\nâ€Å"Theyre just up the road, right? That was where your first strafe of Power seemed to come from.”\r\nA strafe, was it? Why not be honest and just call it a feeble wash?\r\nAnd while it was gratifying in his mind…M for Mortal, A for Annoying, T for Thing. And there you had it. The pity was that it utilize to all of them and yet not all of them were called MAT. Oh, damn †was there supposed to be another T at the end? Mortal, Annoying, Troublesome Thing? Annoying frightful Thing?\r\nâ€Å"I said, is that all right?”\r\nDamon returned to the present. â€Å"No, its not all right. The other cars wrecked. It wont drive.”\r\nâ€Å"Ill float it behin d me.” Stefan wasnt bragging, just making a statement of fact.\r\nâ€Å"Its not even in one piece.”\r\nâ€Å"Ill bind the pieces. Come on, Damon. Im high-risk I strafed you; I had a whole abuse idea about what was going on. But Matt and Meredith may authentically be dying, and even with all my new Power, and all of Elenas, we may not be able to save them. Ive raised Bonnies plaza temperature a few degrees but I dont dare to stay and bring it up slowly enough.Please , Damon.” He was place Bonnie in the passenger seat.\r\nWell, thatsounded like the old Stefan, but coming from this powerhouse, the new Stefan, it had kinda different undertones. Still, as long as Stefanthought he was a mouse, he was a mouse. End of discussion.\r\nEarlier Damon had felt like Mount Vesuvius exploding. Now he suddenly felt as if he werestanding near Vesuvius, and the mountain was rumbling. Ye gods! He actually felt seared just being this smashed to Stefan.\r\nHe called on all his considerable resources, mentally packing himself in ice, and hoped that at least a breath of nervelessness underlay his answer. â€Å"Ill go. See you later †hope the human beings arent dead yet.”\r\nAs they parted, Stefan sent him a powerful message of condemnation †not strafing him with sheer elemental pain, as he had before when throwing Damon against the tree, but making sure that his opinion of his brother was stamped crossways every word.\r\nDamon sent Stefan a last message as he went.I dont understand, he thought innocently toward the disappearing Stefan.Whats premature with saying that I hope the humankind are still alive? Ive been in greeting card shops, you know †he didnt mention that it wasnt for the cards but for the five-year-old cashiers †and they had sections like â€Å"Hope you get well” and â€Å"Sympathy,” which I suppose means that the antecedent cards spell wasnt strong enough. So whats wrong with saying â€Å"I hope theyre not dead”?\r\nStefan didnt even twoer to answer. But Damon flashed a quick and brilliant pull a face anyway, as he turned the Porsche around and set off for the boardinghouse.\r\nHe tugged on the clothesline that kept Elena bobbing above him. She floated †nightgown billow †above Bonnies head †or rather where Bonnies head should have been. Bonnie had always been small, and this freezing illness had her crumpled into the fetal position. Elena could practically sit on her.\r\nâ€Å"Hello, princess. expression gorgeous, as always. And youre not too bad yourself.”\r\nIt was one of the worst opening lines of his life, he thought dejectedly. But he wasnt aroma quite himself. Stefans transformation had startled him †that must be whats wrong, he decided.\r\nâ€Å"Da…mon.”\r\nDamon started. Elenas voice was slow and hesitant…and absolutely good-looking: molasses dripping sweetness, honey falling straight from the comb. It was lower in pitch, he was sure, than it had been before her transformation, and it had become a true southerly drawl. To a vampire it resembled the sweet drip-drip of a newly opened human vein.\r\nâ€Å"Yes, angel. restrain I called you ¡®angel before? If not, it was purely an oversight.”\r\nAnd as he said this, he agnise that that was another component to her voice, one hed missed before: purity. The lancing purity of a seraph of seraphim. That should have put him off, but instead it just reminded him that Elena was someone to take seriously, never lightly.\r\nId take you seriously or lightly or any way you prefer, Damon thought, if you werent so stuck on my idiot younger brother.\r\nTwin purple suns turned on him: Elenas eyes. Shed heard him.\r\nFor the first time in his life, Damon was surrounded by bulk more powerful than he was. And to a vampire, Power was everything: material goods, club position, trophy mate, comfort, sex, cash, candy.\r\nIt was an odd feeling. Not entirely unpleasant in regards to Elena. He liked strong women. Hed been looking for one strong enough for centuries.\r\nBut Elenas glance very effectively brought his thoughts back to their situation. He pose gestateew outside the boardinghouse, snatched up the rigidifying Bonnie, and floated up the twisting, narrowing staircase towards Stefans room. It was the only place heknew there was a bathtub.\r\nThere was barely room for threesome inside the tiny bathroom, and Damon was the one carrying Bonnie. He ran water into the ancient, four-footed tub based on what his exquisitely tuned senses said was five degrees above her current icy temperature. He tried to explain to Elena what he was doing, but she seemed to have lost interest and was floating round and round Stefans bedroom, like a close-up of Tinkerbell caged. She kept bumping the closed window and then zooming over to the open door, looking out.\r\nWhat a dilemma. request Elena to undress and bathe Bonnie, a nd risk her putting Bonnie in the tub wrong side up? Or ask Elena to do the job and watch over them both, but not touch †unless catastrophe struck? Plus, someone had to find Mrs. Flowers and get hot drinks going. Write a brand and send Elena with it? There might be more casualties in here any moment now.\r\nThen Damon caught Elenas eye, and all small-minded and conventional concerns seemed to drop away. Words appeared in his brain without bothering to come through his ears.\r\n tending her. Please!\r\nHe turned back to the bathroom, lay Bonnie on the thick rug there and shelled her like a shrimp. Off with the sweatshirt, off with the summer top that went under it. Off with the small bra †A cup, he noticed sadly, discarding it, trying not to look at Bonnie directly. But he couldnt help but see that the prickling marks the tree had left were everywhere.\r\nOff with the jeans, and then a small hitch because he had to sit and take each foot in his lap to get the tightly fa sten high-top sneakers off before the jeans would come past her ankles. Off with socks.\r\nAnd that was all. Bonnie was left naked except for her own blood and her pink silky underwear. He picked her up and put her in the tub, soaking himself in the process. Vampires associated baths with virgins blood, but only the really bats ones tried it.\r\nThe water in Bonnies bathtub turned pink when he put her in. He kept the tap rail because the tub was so large, and then sit down back to consider the situation. The tree had been pumping something into her with its needles. any(prenominal) it was, it wasnt good. So it ought to come out. Most sane solution was to suck it as if it were a snakebite, but he was hesitant to try that until he was sure Elena wouldnt crush his skull if she found him methodically sucking Bonnies upper body.\r\nHe would have to settle for next best. The all- burnd water didnt quite conceal Bonnies little form, but it helped to blur the details. Damon supported Bonnies head against the edge of the tub with one hand, and with the other he began to squeeze and massage the poison out of one arm.\r\nHe knew he was doing the right thing when he smelled the resinous scent of pine. It was so thick and sticking itself that it hadnt yet disappeared into Bonnies body. He was getting a small amount of it out this way, but was it enough?\r\nCautiously, watching the door and cranking his senses up to cover their broadest spectrum, Damon lifted Bonnies hand to his lips as if he were going to kiss it. Instead, he took her wrist in his mouth and, suppressing every urge he had to bite, instead simply sucked.\r\nHe spat almost immediately. His mouth was full of resin. The massage wasnt enough by far. Even suction, if he could get a couple of dozen vampires and attach them all over Bonnies little body like leeches, wouldnt be enough.\r\nHe sat back on his heels and looked at her, this fatally poisoned woman-child hed as good as given his word to save. For the first time, he became aware that he was askew to the waist. He gave an irritated glance toward the heavens and then shrugged out of his bootleg bomber jacket.\r\nWhat could he do? Bonnie needed medicine, but he had no idea what specific medicine she needed, and there was no witch he knew of to greet to. Was Mrs. Flowers acquainted with arcane knowledge? Would she give it to him if she were? Or was she just a cockamamie old lady? What was a generic wine medicine †for a human? He could give her over to her own people and let them try their bungling sciences †take her to a hospital †but they would be working with a girl whod been poisoned by the Other Side, by the dark places they would never be allowed to see or understand.\r\nAbsently, he had been rubbing a towel over his arms and hands and black shirt. Now, he looked at the towel and decided that Bonnie deserved at least a sop to modesty, peculiarly since he could think of no more work to be done on her. He soaked the towel and then spread it out and pushed it underwater to cover Bonnie from throat to feet. It floated in some places, sank in others, but generally did the job.\r\nHe turned the water temperature up again, but it made no difference. Bonnie was stiffening into the true death, young as she was. His peers in old Italy had had it right, he thought, a female like this was amaiden , no longer girl, not yet woman. It was especially apposite since any vampire could tell that she was a maiden in both senses.\r\nAnd it had all been done under his nose. The lure, the pack-attack, the grand technique and synchronization †they had killed this maiden while he sat and watched. Hed applauded it.\r\nSlowly, inside, Damon could feel something growing. It had sparked when he thought of the audacity of the malach, hunting his humans right under his nose. It didnt ask the question of when the group in the car had becomehis humans †he supposed it was because they had been so close l ately that it seemed they were his to dispose of, to say whether they lived or died, or whether they became what he was. The growing thing surged when hed thought of the way the malach had manipulated his thoughts, drawing him into a blissful contemplation of death in general terms, while death in very specific terms was going on right at his feet. And now it was reaching incendiary levels because he had been shown up too many times today. It really was unbearable….\r\n…and it was Bonnie….\r\nBonnie, who had never hurt a †a harmless thing for malice. Bonnie, who was like a kitten, making gossamer pounces at no prey at all. Bonnie, with her hair that was called something strawberry, but that looked simply as if it was on fire. Bonnie of the translucent skin, with the finespun violet fjords and estuaries of veins all over her throat and inner arms. Bonnie, who had lately taken to looking at him sideways with her large puerile eyes, big and brown, under lashes like stars….\r\nHis jaws and canines were aching, and his mouth felt as if it were on fire from the poisonous resin. But all that could be neglected, because he was consumed with one other thought.\r\nBonnie had called for his help for nearly half an minute before succumbing to the darkness.\r\nThat was what needed to be said. required to be examined. Bonnie had called for Stefan †who had been too far away and too busy with his angel †but she had called for Damon, too, and she had pleaded for his help.\r\nAnd he had ignored it. With three of Elenas friends at his feet, he had ignored their agonies, had ignored Bonnies frenzied pleas not to let them die.\r\nUsually, this fashion of thing would only make him take off for some other town. But somehow he was still here and still tasting the bitter consequences of his act.\r\nDamon leaned back with his eyes closed, trying to shut out the overwhelming smell of blood and the fusty scent of…something.\r\nHe frowne d and looked around. The little room was clean even to its corners. Nothing mouldy here. But the odor wouldnt go away.\r\nAnd then he remembered.\r\n'