by L. J. Smith
Warmth and welcome surrounded her, infused her. She seemed to be floating in a roseate sunrise, with ravishingly beautiful colors all about. Palest peach and coral-reef and apricot blended with dazzling shades of corn yellow and old gold that heralded the sun. Amethyst and iris-ice showed where the blue of the new day’s sky would be coming, while blush rose and pink lotus tinted the clouds.
This wasn’t the rough magic of passion. It was the peace of heavenly adulation. It was the wonderful mystery of Stefan’s love for her. And with it came the stunning ability to explore the world through another individual’s senses.
I’m floating very high . . . for very long, Elena thought, dazzled. Stefan was so cautious when biting her that often she had only the barest glimpse of this glorious place in his heart. Usually she was forced to try to remember what the colors had looked like afterward, never quite able to put her finger on them. But now she could practically touch the wondrous hues.
It never occurred to her—or to Stefan, who was joined with her—that for her to hover at the peak of emotional bliss like this had to mean that Stefan was still drinking her blood. It never occurred to her that the higher they floated together, the longer they stayed, the less capable of rational thought both of them became.
That was how it had happened, then. Disaster had struck because Elena had been so happy for so long, and because Stefan had wanted her to be that happy always.
After a while things became foggy and muzzy. But that was rapture, too: surrendering herself completely to the drowsiness that shaded the world in plum and gentian, and even softly shimmering silver-gray. Bright shadows beckoned to her.
Elena sank down through the layers of color. Her eyes were shut now; she could sense the sparkling ebony into which she was descending directly on her skin. A voice from her own mind whispered to her: Sleep, for you have already chosen your path. Did you think you could float forever without sinking? Sleep now.
It was only then that Elena had realized that she was dying. The process had gone too far for her to rise back up through the layers of color to find the world of life. But Stefan . . . Stefan couldn’t die with her. That would be a tragedy. She gathered herself to make a momentous effort and managed to disengage his spirit from hers. He was healthy, she could tell, and why shouldn’t he be? He had more than half her blood supply empowering him.
But he would be unhappy when he discovered what had happened to Elena. Elena had collected the last of her strength to send a message winging upward after him.
Stefan . . . this was my fault . . . not yours. Please . . . I’m not afraid . . .
That was the important thing. She wasn’t afraid of anything anymore. She added her last wish.
Dream of me now and then . . .
And, whimsically, Nothing is ever really forgotten . . .
Then she was exhausted. But it was all right. She had done all she needed to do. It was time to rest.
During all the commotion afterward, she slept the deepest sleep of her life, unable to respond to Stefan’s calls to her, unheeding of the tumult around her motionless body.
She was resting in the black satin peace of her own grave.
* * *
It was 2:00 A.M. before Stefan felt that Elena had stabilized enough for him to remove his life support and let her heart and lungs work on their own. They did work, sweetly and handsomely, closing his throat with gratitude. Elena was still receiving IV fluids and blood products.
Stefan felt new strength flood him at the knowledge that Elena’s body was going to live, although now he was free to worry about what oxygen deprivation might have done to her diamond-bright mind.
Just be glad that Elena was fragile only in comparison to vampire-strength, he told himself. She had always bloomed with health, even in the most malodorous of environments; scarcely falling sick for even a day, and recovering quickly from injuries.
However, right now it was Stefan who had all her healthy blood inside him, while her veins were filled with the donations of strangers: strangers to whom Stefan suddenly felt the deepest gratitude. Their contributions had saved Elena’s life, and it briefly crossed Stefan’s mind that he might thank some regular blood donors in the future. After all, he was going to have a lot of time on his hands soon enough.
He had figured it all out while he stood by Elena’s bedside, silently Influencing new doctors and nurses who hastened in and out of the room. As the hours passed, he had meticulously planned every detail of what had to happen next.
Now was the time to put his plan into action.
Of course, before the plan, he had conducted a trial in his own head. He had been judge and jury, and now he took his rightful place as executioner.
He would do what had to be done to keep Elena safe. Counterintuitive and drastic as the action might be, he had relentlessly followed the prosecutor’s argument to the only possible conclusion.
His chance to put his scheme into motion came immediately. There was a lull in the activity around Elena; Stefan used Influence to make it longer. He leaned in and very gently touched Elena’s temple, just above her oxygen mask, where blue veins showed beneath translucent skin. This process would have worked far better if he could have bitten her, but that, of course, was out of the question.
Stefan put the full Power of his stolen blood to work.
Elena was going to be the hardest of all the people he had to Influence deeply, he kept telling himself, as he encountered blocks and areas of obstinate resistance in her mind. Elena was naturally the most difficult because with her he had to do so much by hand, rather than simply using a seek-and-destroy memory neuro-virus.
By hand it was a little like doing surgery with a steak knife, unfolding the layers of Elena’s mind and examining them closely and cutting necessary bits out. Now and then Stefan came across something that seared his soul, and those things he made sure to destroy so thoroughly that even adjacent areas were obliterated.
For instance, a memory of a conversation about himself in the horrible prison in the Dark Dimension. He had been close to death for lack of feeding. For three days when the ancient metal bucket of slaughtered bull blood had arrived at his cell as the least senior vampire prisoner, there had been nothing inside but rusty stains. He had sworn to himself that he would not behave like an animal, but on the third day he had fallen on the bucket like a starving tiger and had clawed at the rusty flakes and sucked them off his fingernails. He had no hope of survival to see a fourth day.
And then, from beyond all hope, Elena had come to him. She had been dreaming of him, and dreaming had somehow loosed the tether of her body to her spirit. Astral projection, or out of body experience, the scientists in their universities called it. Elena had come to him because she was starving, too—starving for the sight of him, for the feeling of their arms around each other.
Her choking horror at the sight of his cell and his own ragged, white-faced and filthy condition had nearly overwhelmed her, he knew. But, Elena—being Elena—had refused to be overwhelmed or to show pity that would wrest away the last scraps of dignity that he possessed. She had listened with childlike complicity to his lie about having a secret store of Black Magic wine, which helped a vampire when no blood was to be had. She had held him with insubstantial arms and kissed him with ethereal lips, while ghostly tears had rolled down her cheeks and fallen onto his face. She had wept because her spectral blood could do him no good.
Every tear was like a cup of cool water spilled onto his burning body. It had taken him long bewildered minutes to understand, but in the end he solved the mystery. The phantom tears of a pure maiden could cure all ills.
Her tears had saved his life.
And he had whispered, thinking with a fully sane mind for the first time in a week:
“And when all wells are drawne dry,
I'll drink a tear out of thine eye.”
“Is that Shakespeare?” Elena had asked between soft sobs. She had allowed herself to give in to the wrenching s
orrow because it would help him.
“Richard Lovelace,” he’d whispered. “He lived in the seventeenth century, and died alone and a pauper. He was the one who said, ‘Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage.’ ”
Stefan had glanced with derisive humor at the iron bars of his own cell, which certainly made a cage for him, especially now that he was so feeble. When vampires were kept close to death they fell to the general supernatural weakness against iron.
Elena had understood. She always understood him, and she’d wept even harder. “I’m coming to get you out,” she’d said. “Nothing will stop me from getting to you.”
And Stefan had shaken his head, holding her insubstantial form so carefully, so precisely, as if she were brittle rather than untouchable. “It doesn’t matter,” he’d murmured. “Not now. You’re with me already. Elena, if something happens to me before you do arrive in person—”
“Nothing will happen to you before that!” Elena had cried, showering him with tears.
“But if something does, remember. Always remember, my heart:
‘If I have freedom in my love
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.’”
“Lovelace?” she had whispered.
“Yes. Written while he was in prison.”
“When you’re free, you can write poetry for me.”
“I will write you books full of poetry—when I am free,” Stefan had promised, knowing that he couldn’t write even a simple sonnet properly. He was trying to keep Elena from realizing that he was going to die before she arrived—even given the boon of her tears.
But Elena had rescued him from the very brink of death. And she had never again referred to his promise, and he had never written her as much as a couplet.
* * *
Something round and wet fell on the back of Elena’s hand, which Stefan was holding. He looked down at his own tear without recognition.
I’m going to have to take Lovelace from her, he thought, his heart pounding in slow, sick beats. I’m going to have to remove the poet’s name and works entirely from her mind, most carefully, most thoroughly. Not to mention taking away the concept of astral projection. Why does it matter so much, though? I’ve had to destroy so many cherished memories already.
Somehow, taking away the gift of Elena’s tears was worse than anything else he could think of at the moment. That gave him the strength to do what he had to. He sat with narrowed eyes—dry eyes—and destroyed the end of every neuron chain in Elena’s mind that led to the poet, or “iron bars” or the tears that she had shed while she was out of her body.
Just another brick in the wall between you and your damned demon lover, he thought to Elena, not swearing, but stating a fact about himself.
It took him over half an hour of delicate tinkering, but at last he was satisfied that Lovelace was gone, that the prison was gone, that astral projection was gone. Stefan continued on his search and destroy mission for another hour, while the neuro-virus worked side by side with him.
At last, he withdrew from Elena’s brain and scanned it at ultra-high-speed. When he was done he nodded emotionlessly. Everything was stable. He’d accomplished his goal.
He had removed every trace of memory of Stefan Salvatore from Elena’s mind. As far as she was concerned, he had never existed.
Now he could release the red-haired man he had Influenced in the ED and allow him to call Elena’s Aunt Judith.
And now there were phone calls he himself had to make, to Elena’s friends who deserved to know what was happening. He pulled out his mobile and in a tight voice said, “Bonnie: dorm.”
* * *
Bonnie and Meredith arrived amazingly quickly. It was the first time Stefan had seen elegant Meredith walk into a building looking rumpled. She had clearly thrown on the jeans and violet top she had worn the day before and had only taken a few swipes at her dark, shoulder-length hair. Moreover, there was a pallor beneath her perfect olive complexion and her dark gray eyes were wide with barely-controlled fear.
Bonnie, on the other hand, looked almost disturbingly neat. She was wearing an unwrinkled apple-green sweater that complemented her strawberry curls perfectly, and, Stefan remembered, had answered the phone after a single ring without sounding sleepy at all.
Bonnie might be a problem, Stefan realized.
Still, he kept to his plan and drew Meredith aside first. “I want to ask you something,” he said softly as they moved away from Bonnie and Elena. “But we need complete privacy . . . in here.” He nodded at a dark and empty room ICU room he’d noticed a few minutes ago.
“What’s wrong? What’s happened to her?” Meredith said in a low voice.
“I’ll have to whisper,” Stefan said, hating himself. He leaned forward as if to whisper in her ear, and at the same time gently took hold of her left shoulder and right upper arm.
Then, with a swift dart he bit her like a snake. Meredith automatically brought up her knee and simultaneously wrenched her arm free to throw him in a martial arts move. But as the first spurt of her blood hit the roof of his mouth Stefan was Influencing her, calming her, forcing her to relax. Physically strong as she was, she never stood a chance.
When she became still, Stefan set loose his neuro-virus in her head.
As the virus began its work, he moved cautiously around in Meredith’s keen and organized mind, handling some of the more delicate erasures himself. For Meredith, Stefan Salvatore was melting into non-existence.
“Sit down on that chair,” he commanded her softly. “and just keep quiet until I tell you to wake up by using your full name. If you understand, acknowledge by speaking your full name.”
“Meredith Teresa Consolacion Maria Sulez.”
“That’s right. Stay here and wait.”
When Stefan hastened back to Elena’s room, Bonnie was huddled forlornly beside Elena, holding her hand. Elena was still deeply asleep, to Stefan’s great relief, but Bonnie was shivering and crying.
“Where’s Meredith?” She looked at Stefan out of doe’s eyes in a pathetically pale face. But she didn’t stop there. She went straight on to, “Oh, my God, Stefan, all night I knew that something awful was going to happen. But who did this to Elena? It must have been a vampire, right? A werewolf would have killed her. I keep trying to catch her thoughts, but it’s all just whirly darkness. Are you all right?” She reached out to touch him and Stefan shook his head, fending her off with a warning wave.
Touching would only increase Bonnie’s telepathic ability. But she’d given him an idea with her “Are you all right?”
“I’m—still alive,” he said, pulling color out of his face. “But I need to ask you a favor, Bonnie. Only you can help me with this.”
“Anything,” Bonnie said instantly, and Stefan’s heart slammed against his ribs, tearing at his mask of careful disinterest. Bonnie’s naiveté was so much harder to face than Meredith’s sophistication.
Here she was, willing to do anything for a monster like him, without even asking what it was, or what the price might be.
“Has Elena woken at all?” he said, as if he didn’t know.
“Not even for a second.” Tears welled up in the doe eyes.
“Good,” Stefan said absently. “I—I mean, that means we can leave her for a few minutes,” he added quickly, cursing himself as Bonnie blinked at him. “I have to tell you something in private, and it’s good that she’s not awake yet. Please, Bonnie. You’re the only one who can help me.”
At that, Bonnie let go of Elena’s hand. She was needed: she would help. She followed Stefan into the room where he had taken Meredith, as docile as any lamb to the abattoir.
It was very dark in the room, so Stefan hoped to get an instant’s grace, but Bonnie rushed to the chair immediately. “Meredith! Are—are you all right? Stefan, what happened?”
“That’s what I want to tell you,” Stefan improvised. He allowed his voi
ce to tremble as he pulled her away from Meredith. “Now just let me tell you what it is. I have to whisper it—”
Vampire eyes are made to see clearly in what humans find pitch blackness. So Stefan saw everything that happened next: the way Bonnie turned to look at him, the expression on her face. She wasn’t fooled for an instant by the “Let me whisper in your ear” line. Instead, she was utterly, unmercifully terrified. And Stefan, once he had his hands clamped on her small round shoulders, didn’t even bother to keep up a pretense for her. He simply tilted up her chin and bit.
Bonnie’s mind was far less organized than Meredith’s, and Stefan could only hope the seek-and-destroy neuro-virus would be able to navigate through the chaos.
He spent a few minutes fine-tuning, then pulled out before he could drain too much blood from the fragile body in his arms.
Afterward, he did exactly what he’d done to Meredith, sealing Bonnie into coma-like sleep until he summoned her by name. He put her on the bed.
He glanced at his watch as soon as Bonnie was lying down. He really had to hurry now. Matt should already be here at the hospital, and Elena’s Aunt Judith was due to arrive at any minute.
This time Stefan hastened past Elena’s room and down into the ED lobby. There he found Matt with his fair hair all standing up like the feathers of a thrush, looking sleep-creased and dazed and sick.
“Stefan! This guy says that a blond girl was brought in here hours ago and that . . . He said she was—” Matt stopped to gulp.
So, Stefan thought, the rumor mill was already grinding out stories. It was lucky that Matt hadn’t heard anything specific about blood loss yet.
“Come quick,” he replied, matching Matt’s tone of urgency, and took the elevator back up. “There’s something I have to tell you before you see her, though. I have to tell you in private,” he added.
“But just one word,” Matt begged. “Just tell me if she’s going to be—”
“She’s going to be all right if you’ll just listen to me,” Stefan said, rapidly scanning the corridor before the double ICU doors for any private spaces. He spotted what looked like a supply closet. It would have to do.
