by L. J. Smith
* * *
Stefan hurried down the stairs. Talking with Damon had taken longer than he’d thought. It had given Elena’s Aunt Judith and Robert time to quiz the nurses. Fortunately, there weren’t many doctors around at 5:00 A.M. on a Sunday morning, and any who did interact with Elena seemed to be shooing the family out and concentrating on the patient, who was magically getting better and better, as they did nothing but pump liquids and blood components into her. Stefan gathered all this from a peek into Aunt Judith’s mind.
All right, now for one big abracadabra, he thought. He certainly had enough Power; he could feel it thrilling down his spine and out to his fingertips. He gathered it all together and then let it loose in the ICU.
Motion stopped.
Everyone stood like statues, from the janitor who had been happily banging her trash collector into sleeping patients’ rooms to the nurse filling out information about Elena’s vital signs onto a clipboard, to Aunt Judith and company, temporarily banished to the waiting room, a bleak space with one working coffee pot and a TV eternally stuck on a home buyer’s channel.
Stefan stepped into the crowd of statues. He dropped his neurological virus, which he had been improving all the time he spoke with Damon, into Aunt Judith’s mind. He had added a slightly pleasant, fuzzy effect to the basic software, and in a moment Aunt Judith was wearing a bemused smile despite the streaks of tears on her face. Robert and Dr. Alpert joined her.
Then Stefan turned to the little girl who was sitting on a plastic chair holding a much-loved brown teddy bear in her arms. Her hair was the same sunlight color as Elena’s, and so fine that it stood up a bit from static electricity. She was entranced, but very lightly. Stefan put gentle fingertips on her temple.
Margaret?
Yes? She clutched the bear more tightly to her chest. She shouldn’t be able to do that, to move at all, but she did it anyway.
Do you remember me? Are you scared of me?
Yes, Margaret said flatly, obviously to both questions.
You don’t have to be scared of me. I would never hurt you in any way.
I brought this bear for Elena. It’s not my bear. It’s hers.
Elena is going to be fine, honestly. But I’m sure the bear will make her feel even better. What’s his name?
She’s a her-bear!
Of course. I’m sorry. What is her name, please?
Missus Kissus. Margaret watched him closely for any sign of levity.
Stefan didn’t even smile with his eyes. He didn’t want to. A memory struck him ruthlessly: Elena cuddled up under his chin, telling him how she gave her precious keepsake to a squalling eighteen-month-old, and how little Margaret—never Margie, never Meg—had stopped crying at once and had never started again.
I think that’s a wonderful name, he told the child. A precious gift from an even more precious sister. Now, Margaret . . . He hesitated.
I want to see Elena.
I know you do. But first—is it all right if I just do something so that you won’t ever accidentally tell anyone about me?
No.
Stefan sat back on his heels, startled.
I don’t want a computer virus in my head, Margaret told him flatly. I don’t want to be sick.
Oh . . . neither would I. But this isn’t like being sick. It’s to make you forget.
Forget what?
Forget me. And . . . I’m sorry, Margaret, but I have to do it, even if you don’t want me to. Otherwise Elena may be the one to get sick . . . so sick that she has to go away.
Margaret seemed to be thinking. He gave her a long-drawn-out minute.
All right, she said when fifty-seven seconds had gone by. If it’s for Elena.
It’s for Elena, Stefan told her softly. All for Elena. Goodbye, Margaret. I wish I could have watched you grow up.
He expected her to be bewildered. Goodbye, Stefan, she whispered and two tears fell on Missus Kissus’ worn fur. She watched him with wet eyes—with Elena’s lapis lazuli eyes—as he slipped the neuro-virus into her mind. As it took effect, her feathery eyelashes swept down to lie on her cheeks. The last thing he heard her whispering was: “Elena, I’ll take care of you now.”
I just pray you won’t have to, Stefan thought. He slowly got up, feeling old and creaky, only to see motion in a room full of statues.
“Mrs. Flowers.”
She was sipping from a cup. “Hello, Stefan. Can I convince you to have a nice cup of raspberry tea with me?”
“I’m afraid not, Mrs. Flowers. It takes a lot of Power to keep everyone still like this, so I haven’t got much time to talk.”
“That’s a pity,” Mrs. Flowers said. “I don’t suppose this scrawny old neck has much to offer you, either.”
Stefan blinked. “You want me to bite you?”
“Theophilia does. She’s still inside me. Old humans never really feel old to themselves, you know; they just feel like youngsters trapped in aging bodies. But I’m old enough that Theo is a step removed.”
“I’m sorry,” Stefan said. “I could never bite you, or Theo, either. I will never bite another human again for any reason.”
“Boldly spoken. Come and have one sip of Black Magic.”
Stefan opened his mouth, but then wove his way through the motionless figures and slid into a plastic chair opposite Mrs. Flowers. She had a stainless steel hipflask set beside the steaming cup of tea on the coffee table before her. She nodded at the flask and smiled sadly at him.
Stefan examined the hipflask: unscrewed the top, smelled the liquid inside. Pure, strong Black Magic. He tried to figure out where she had gotten the wine, when he suddenly realized that he was parched—desperately thirsty—and he took two long swigs.
It braced him. He looked up into Mrs. Flowers’ blue eyes, which usually were amiable but vague, and just now were more like two blue-hot stars. “And I don’t suppose I can get you to reconsider this tragic course you’ve embarked upon,” she said.
“No, you can’t. I’m a danger to Elena—and that means I have to go away.”
“You’re going to need more human blood if you really mean to erase yourself from this world.”
“No. I won’t. I’ll manage.”
Mrs. Flowers just shook her head, her eyes sad. “Well, in any case, I give you my permission to hunt on my property, whether the prey goes on two legs or four, or flies.”
“Thank you. And now I really should—” Stefan stopped halfway out of the chair. He sat down again. “Mrs. Flowers. Have you spoken to Mama or Grandmama about this?”
Mrs. Flowers’ Mama and Grandmama had departed from this earthly realm in centuries past, but Mrs. Flowers still remained in contact with them. They could see the spiritual dominion, and were occasionally helpful.
The white-haired woman sighed. “Yes, Stefan, I have spoken to both dear Mama, and dear Grandmama, too. I’m afraid they’re being a bit oracular today. Mama says—she was quite a fan of the playwright Christopher Marlowe; the one, I’m afraid, who wrote about . . . well, Mephistopheles, you know.”
Stefan kept his face grave. “The Devil, in other words.”
“A devil, at least, although I always think that people are more unpredictable than demons. A devil will always do the things he’s done before. In any case, she quoted this famous bit that Mephistopheles said:
‘Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.
Think’st thou that I who saw the face of God,
And tasted the eternal joys of Heaven,
Am not tormented with ten thousand hells,
In being depriv’d of everlasting bliss?’”
Stefan no longer had to force a grim expression. The words sank into his subconscious immediately. He said: “Do you know what that means?”
“Aside from the obvious? I’m afraid I haven’t a clue, Stefan dear.”
“I see. Thank you.” Stefan found that he was unconsciously twisting the lapis lazuli ring he wore. He stopped himself immediately. No vampire could survive sunlight wit
hout a lapis talisman, and he had long ago learned not to do anything that might cause it to slip off.
“I’m very sorry,” Mrs. Flowers said, “but Grandmama’s communication is quite obscure. She says this:
‘Now the hungry lion roars
And the wolf behowls the moon,
Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,
All with weary task fordone . . .
‘If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended—
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear . . .
‘Give me your hands if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.’”
“Isn’t that all from A Midsummer Night’s Dream?” Stefan asked.
“Oh, yes. Dear Grandmama was a Shakespearean buff. But I’m sorry to say that she likes to pull sections together out of context or even skip bits. Still they’re all Puck’s lines, you know. Quite a character, that Robin Goodfellow.”
“Right.” With difficulty, Stefan dragged himself back to the real world. He was burning too much Power too fast. He could afford only one more minute with Mrs. Flowers.
“Thank you,” he said formally, standing and bowing over her hand, which he brought to his lips. Mrs. Flowers smiled like a Duchess. “Any last words for me?”
“Yes, my boy, and not oracular advice at all. Stop this plan right now, where you are. Don’t use your mind to make a hell of heaven. Go back to your friends, tell them everything. Tell Elena and ask for her help. Because you’re never going to be able to let go of her, nor she of you.”
Stefan didn’t mention the fact that Elena couldn’t by any means recognize him; that he had actually blasted away a not insignificant part of Elena’s brain in order to get all references to himself out of her memory. Not that it would leave her any less intelligent than before; just that there were many nodes in her mind that led only to dark spots in the gray matter now.
“Thank you,” he said to the white-haired woman. “Thank you for all your help in the past, and for all I know you will do for Elena in the future. I need to leave now. Goodbye, Theophilia Flowers. I never told you, but you always made me feel young.”
Tears suddenly wet Mrs. Flower’s blue eyes. She stood. “Goodbye, Stefan. And good luck, my dear boy.”
Stefan made himself turn around and walk away, threading once again between the motionless humans. He headed down the hall to Elena’s room. There was a police officer just outside it, as frozen and unseeing as everyone else on this floor of the hospital.
Ignoring her, Stefan edged in so that he could see Elena.
Oh, beautiful! Elena’s hair, all shades of gold, was fanned upon the crisp hospital sheet. Her face had color in it, not hectic red, but the translucent pale rose of apple blossoms. Her lips were parted. Her lashes lay heavy against her softly rounded cheeks.
But that wasn’t what Stefan was praising. He loved Elena for too many reasons to be attracted merely to her physical form. Stefan was looking triumphantly at the bag that was now hooked up to the IV in Elena’s left arm. The bag was full of rich, red packed cells—type A negative by the smell. They were giving Elena properly typed blood! That and her steady vital signs meant that she was not only going to survive; she was going to be superbly, splendidly well again.
No time, though—no time, no time. Stefan took Elena’s right hand gently. He dipped into her mind again, erasing, rearranging, and creating memories so that she would think she had stopped keeping a diary back before her senior year in high school.
Sometime later, he found himself stroking her hand, and felt a spurt of panic. What if she woke up now? What if his Power burned out as Mrs. Flowers had predicted?
“I can’t stay to say it properly,” he told Elena, feeling wretched. He kissed her forehead, which was delightfully warm. “But you knew it all, anyway, before I took it from you. You loved me for the best of reasons. I loved you for the best of reasons. But what I told you nearly a year ago was the truth . . . I am a monster. I’m a devil. I can’t even love without destroying.” His voice cracked and he bent down one more time, to kiss her lips. When he felt no response from her at this, he knew that it was time to go. “I will always belong to you, Elena,” he whispered. “To you and no one else. There is no one else. Goodbye.”
He turned on his heel and left the ICU room.
In the darkness just a few rooms away the three motionless figures were exactly where he had left them: Bonnie lying on the bed, Meredith sitting in the chair and Matt propped against the wall. He took some information from each of them. He made some minor adjustments to their cell phones. Then he spoke.
“I want you each to count to thirty and then wake up and leave this room without remembering that you were ever inside it. I want you to think only about Elena. I say this to Bonnie May McCullough, Matthew Jeffrey Honeycutt, and Meredith Teresa Consolacion Maria Sulez.”
He didn’t wait to see if it worked. He knew it would. Instead he began to run.
He ran out into the corridor. Past the central ICU nurses’ station, past the waiting room where Aunt Judith, Robert, Margaret and Dr. Alpert were beginning to stir. He ran through the great doors that opened on the ICU and down another corridor to the stairs beside the elevator. Six floors down and he was jogging through the emergency department. People were moving freely here; he had only frozen the ICU. He stopped, spotting the red-haired man who had interrogated him when Elena first arrived.
“I’m with Elena Gilbert—the girl who had the massive transfusion protocol,” he said, sending out a coil of Influence. “I need her property right now.”
A few moments later he was presented with Elena’s clothing—cut off her, except the cap. He saw a gleam among the ribbons of fabric and caught up the black diamond and ruby locket.
“Thank you.” He dumped the rest of the clothing back into the redhead’s arms. Blurring his image right and left, he made his way to the entrance doors.
There were still several police officers outside, standing around their cruisers. Irritated, Stefan sent a great wave of Influence at them and was gratified in a moment to hear from one of the police: “Dispatch, this is Unit Five. Ten-twenty-four.” Which Stefan’s telepathy translated as “assignment completed.”
He was afraid that someone might have confiscated the Porsche, but he found it parked neatly in a space for hospital visitors. He puzzled a minute over this, and then discovered that the spare key he usually kept behind his license plate had been used. It wasn’t a very brilliant place to hide a spare, but Stefan had placed wards around it so that anyone touching the little magnetic box got zapped with a sizable electric shock if they had evil intentions, while someone with good intentions—like Matt, say, wanting to borrow the car without having time to ask Stefan—felt nothing except a slight tickling.
As Stefan wheeled out of the parking lot, he heard Damon’s voice in his head.
Hey, wait a minute, genius! Before I go downstairs, I have two questions for you. What about Alaric Saltzman—and Sage? What if either of them just appears—?
Stefan took a deep breath. Then you’ll have to deal with them yourself, brother, he replied as expressionlessly as possible. As you’ll have to deal with Meredith if Alaric calls or texts her.
He felt not the slightest guilt. Alaric was Meredith’s fiancé and only a human—Damon could take care of him easily. As for Sage, that mysterious young man whose home was farther down than the Nether World; he was entirely Damon’s acquaintance and entirely Damon’s problem.
Right, right, just leave all the fine detail work to me, Damon grumbled. You’re the big picture guy.
Stefan drove faster. He didn’t want to imagine what his brother was going to see in a moment: all that wonderful hair fanned over the white hospital sheets like a halo.
Damon’s voice interrupted his contemplations. You know what, little brother? I can feel how much weaker you are already. You’re going to need to feed soon, and-
Stefan cut off the conversation without answering. No one needed to tell him that he’d been unforgivably profligate with the use of Power in the hospital. He was already feeling hunger pangs.
* * *
Damon jumped off the roof of the hospital.
He landed easily in a shadowy corner of the parking lot where Stefan’s Porsche had recently been. He paused to sense his brother’s presence move off in the direction of Dyer, of Dalcrest. He shook his head, a brief, wild and almost beautiful smile touching his lips. Truly unfathomable. Elena was in trouble and her Stefan was running away from her.
But every cloud had a silver lining.
Suddenly, fiercely, Damon wanted to touch Elena; to hold her hands, to caress her hair. The desire was so strong that he deliberately decided to move slowly, to let the anticipation build. He moved into the artificial light in front of the emergency department and looked around leisurely.
No police anywhere. Inside, in the waiting room, sitting with their backs to Damon and watching a TV mounted on the wall, was a pair of young men, one with dark hair and one with auburn. The dark one bent over every so often to clutch his foot. Damon sent a tendril of Power into the waiting room and found out why.
. . . damn idiot to fall down the stairs . . . I didn’t have that much to drink . . . and right in front of Mia, too . . . at least Ethan was decent about driving me here . . . it’s good to know he’s a real friend . . . I was such a damn idiot to fall down the stairs . . .
And cut! Damon thought, like a director making a film. He turned the tendril of Power to the other young man’s mind and got:
So damn bored . . . I’ve seen this episode of Seinfeld twice before . . . I wonder what Jacob would think if he knew about me and Mia . . . if she hadn’t insisted on me driving we’d be doing it right now . . . and instead I’ve got to babysit this geek . . . maybe she’s cheating on me the way we’re cheating on Jacob . . .
Aha, Damon thought. And we have found a winner. A true bastard. Let’s see what’s in store for him.
Ethan, he sent musically. Oh, E-than . . . No, don’t look around; I’m not right behind you. I’m standing outside. Come here to the big sliding doors. That’s right. Don’t worry about Jacob, he’s busy with his foot . . . You can see me now, can’t you, Ethan? . . . Time to say, “Please come inside . . .”
