by L. J. Smith
“Then he suddenly stood up.” Mrs. Flowers stood suddenly and Matt heard all sorts of alarming little pops and crackles in her delicate old body. “He went walking—striding—down into that thicket. That evil thicket.”
She set off for the thicket as Sheriff Rich Mossberg had when Matt had watched him. Matt and Tyrone went hurrying after her, ready to stop her if she showed any signs of entering the remnant of Old Wood that still lived.
Instead, she walked around it, with the badge held to eye height. Tyrone and Matt nodded at each other and without speaking, each took one of her arms. This way they skirted the edge of the thicket, all the way around, with Matt going first, Mrs. Flowers next, and Tyrone last. At some point Matt realized that tears were making their way down Mrs. Flowers’s withered cheeks.
At last, the fragile old woman stopped, took out a lacy handkerchief—after one or two tries—and wiped her eyes with a gasp.
“Did you find him?” Matt asked, unable to hold in his curiosity any longer.
“Well—we’ll have to see. Kitsune seem to be very, very good at illusions. Everything I saw could have been an illusion. But”—she heaved a sigh—“one of us is going to have to step into the Wood.”
Matt gulped. “That’ll be me, then—”
He was interrupted. “Hey, no way, man. You know their ops, whatever they are. You’ve got to get Mrs. Flowers out of this—”
“No, I can’t risk just asking you to come over here and get hurt—”
“Well, what am I doing out here, then?” Tyrone demanded.
“Wait, my dears,” Mrs. Flowers said, sounding as if she were about to cry. The boys shut up immediately, and Matt felt ashamed of himself.
“I know a way that you both can help me, but it’s very dangerous. Dangerous for the two of you. But perhaps if we only have to do it once, we can cut the risk of danger and increase our chance of finding something.”
“What is it?” Tyrone and Matt said almost simultaneously.
A few minutes later, they were prepped for it. They were lying side by side, facing the wall formed by the tall trees and tangled underbrush of the thicket. They were not only roped together, but they had Mrs. Saitou’s Post-it notes placed all over their arms.
“Now when I say ‘three’ I want you both to reach in and grab at the ground with your hands. If you feel something, keep hold of it and pull your arm out. If you don’t feel anything, move your hand a little and then pull it out as fast as you can. And by the way,” she added calmly, “if you feel anything trying to pull you in or immobilize your arm, yell and fight and kick and scream, and we’ll help you to get out.”
There was a long, long minute of silence.
“So basically, you think there are things all around on the ground in the thicket, and that we might get hold of them just by reaching in blindly,” Matt said.
“Yes,” Mrs. Flowers said.
“All right,” said Tyrone, and once again Matt glanced at him approvingly. He hadn’t even asked “What kind of things could pull us into the Wood?”
Now they were in position and Mrs. Flowers was counting “One, two, three,” and then Matt had thrust his right arm in as far as it would go and was sweeping his arm while groping.
He heard a shout from beside him. “Got it!” And then instantly: “Something’s pulling me in!”
Matt pulled his own arm out of the thicket before trying to help Tyrone. Something dropped down on it, but it hit a Post-it note and it felt as if he’d been whacked by a piece of a Styrofoam.
Tyrone was thrashing wildly and had already been dragged in to his shoulders. Matt grabbed him by the waist and used all his strength to haul backward. There was a moment of resistance—and then Tyrone came popping out as if suddenly released like a cork. There were scratches on his face and neck, but none where the overcoats had covered him or where the Post-it notes were.
Matt felt a desire to say “Thank you,” but the two women who had made him amulets were far away, and he felt stupid saying it to Tyrone’s coat. In any case, Mrs. Flowers was fluttering and thanking people enough for three.
“Oh, my, Matt, when that big branch came down I thought your arm would be broken—at least. Thank the dear Lord that the Saitou women make such excellent amulets. And, Tyrone dear, please take a swig out of this canteen—”
“Uh, I don’t really drink much—”
“It’s just hot lemonade, my own recipe, dear. If it weren’t for both you boys, we wouldn’t have succeeded. Tyrone, you found something, yes? And then you were caught and would never have been released if Matt hadn’t been here to save you.”
“Oh, I’m sure he’d’ve got out,” Matt said hurriedly, because it must be embarrassing for anybody like The Tyreminator to admit they needed help.
Tyrone, however, just said soberly, “I know. Thanks, Matt.”
Matt felt himself blush.
“But I didn’t get anything after all,” Tyrone said disgustedly. “It felt like a piece of old pipe or something—”
“Well, let’s have a look,” Mrs. Flowers said very seriously.
She turned the strongest flashlight on the object Tyrone had risked so much to bring out of the thicket.
At first Matt thought it was a gigantic rawhide dog bone. But then an all-too-familiar shape made him look closer.
It was a femur, a human femur. The biggest bone in the body, the one from the leg. And it was still white. Fresh.
“It doesn’t seem to be plastic,” Mrs. Flowers said in a voice that seemed very far away.
It wasn’t plastic. Matt could see where little tiny bits had curled up and away from the exterior. It wasn’t rawhide, either. It was…well, real. A real human leg bone.
But that wasn’t the most horrifying thing; the thing that sent Matt spiraling out into darkness.
The bone was polished clean and marked with the imprints of dozens of tiny little teeth.
32
Elena was radiantly happy. She had gone to sleep happy, only to wake up again happy, serene in the knowledge that soon—soon she would visit Stefan, and that after that—surely very soon—she would be able to take Stefan away.
Bonnie and Meredith weren’t surprised when she wanted to see Damon about two things: one being who should go and two being what she was going to wear. What did surprise them were her choices.
“If it’s all right,” she said slowly at the beginning, tracing a finger round and round on the large table in one of the parlors as everyone gathered the next morning, “I would like for just a few people to go with me. Stefan’s been badly treated,” she went on, “and he hates to look bad in front of other people. I don’t want to humiliate him.”
There was sort of a group blush at this. Or maybe it was a group flush of resentment—and then a group blush of culpability. With the western windows slightly open, so that an early-morning red light fell over everything, it was hard to tell. Only one thing was certain: everyone wanted to go.
“So I hope,” Elena said, turning to look Meredith and Bonnie in the eye, “that none of you are hurt if I don’t choose you to come with me.”
That tells both of them they’re out, Elena thought as she saw understanding blossom in both faces. Most of her plans depended on how her two best friends reacted to this.
Meredith gallantly stepped up to bat first. “Elena, you’ve been through hell—literally—and almost died doing it—to get to Stefan. You take with you the people who will do the most good.”
“We realize it isn’t a popularity contest,” Bonnie added, swallowing, because she was trying not to cry. She really wants to go, Elena thought, but she understands. “Stefan may feel more embarrassed in front of a girl than a boy,” Bonnie said. And she didn’t even add “even though we would never do anything to embarrass him,” Elena thought, going around for a hug and feeling Bonnie’s soft little birdlike body in her arms. Then she turned and felt Meredith’s warm and slim hard arms, and as always felt some of her tension drain away.
&nb
sp; “Thank you,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes afterward. “And you’re right, I think it would be harder to face girls than boys in the situation he’s in. Also it will be harder to face friends he already knows and loves. So I would like to ask these people to go with me: Sage, Damon, and Dr. Meggar.”
Lakshmi leaped up as interested as if she had been chosen. “Where’s he in jail?” she asked, quite cheerfully.
Damon spoke up. “The Shi no Shi.”
Lakshmi’s eyes became round. She stared at Damon for a moment, and then she was bounding out the door, her shaken voice floating behind her: “I’ve got chores to do, master!”
Elena turned to look directly at Damon. “And what was that little reaction?” she asked in a voice that would have frozen lava at thirty meters.
“I don’t know. Truly, I don’t. Shinichi showed me kanji characters and said that they were pronounced ‘Shi no Shi’ and they meant ‘the Death of Death’—as in lifting the curse of death from a vampire.”
Sage coughed. “Oh, my trusting little one. Mon cher idiot. To not get a second opinion…”
“I did, actually. I asked a middle-aged Japanese lady at a library if the romaji—that’s the Japanese words written out in our letters, meant the Death of Death. And she said yes.”
“And you turned on your heel and walked out,” Sage said.
“How do you know?” Damon was getting angry.
“Because, mon cher, those words mean many things. It all depends upon the Japanese characters first used—which you did not show her.”
“I didn’t have them! Shinichi wrote it in the air for me, in red smoke.” Then in a kind of angry anguish: “What other things do they mean?”
“Well, they can mean what you said. They also could mean ‘the new death.’ Or ‘the true death.’ Or even—‘The Gods of Death.’ And given the way Stefan has been treated…”
If stares had been stakes, Damon would have been a goner by now. Everyone was looking at him with hard, accusing eyes. He turned like a wolf at bay and bared his teeth at them in a 250-kilowatt smile. “In any case, I didn’t imagine it was anything remarkably pleasant,” he said. “I just thought it would help him to get rid of the curse of being a vampire.”
“In any case,” Elena repeated. Then she said, “Sage, if you would go and make sure that they’ll let us in when we arrive, I would be enormously grateful.”
“As good as done, Madame.”
“And—let me see—I want everyone to wear something a little different to go visit him. If it’s all right I’ll go talk to Lady Ulma.”
She could feel Bonnie’s and Meredith’s bewildered looks on her back as she left.
Lady Ulma was pale, but bright of eye when Elena was escorted into her room. Her sketchbook was open, a good sign.
It took only a few words and a heartfelt look before Lady Ulma said firmly, “We can have everything done in an hour or two. It’s just a matter of calling the right people. I promise.”
Elena squeezed her wrist very, very gently. “Thank you. Thank you—miracle worker!”
“And so I am to go as a penitent,” Damon said. He was right outside Lady Ulma’s door when Elena came out and Elena suspected him of some eavesdropping.
“No, that never even occurred to me,” she said. “I just think that slave’s clothing on you and the other guys will make Stefan less self-conscious. But why should you think I wanted to punish you?”
“Don’t you?”
“You’re here to help me save Stefan. You’ve gone through—” Elena had to stop and look in her sleeves for a clean handkerchief, until Damon offered her a black silk one.
“All right,” he said, “we won’t get into that. I’m sorry. I think of things to say and then I just say them, no matter how unlikely I think they are, considering the person I’m speaking to.”
“And don’t you ever hear another little voice? A voice that says that people can be good, and may not be trying to hurt you?” Elena asked wistfully, wondering how loaded with chains the child was now.
“I don’t know. Maybe. Sometimes. But, as that voice is generally wrong in this wicked world, why should I pay it any attention?”
“I wish sometimes you would just try,” Elena whispered. “I might be in a better position to argue with you, then.”
I like this position just fine, Damon told her telepathically and Elena realized—how did this happen over and over?—that they had melted into an embrace. Worse, she was wearing her morning attire—a long silky gown and a peignoir of the same material, both in the palest of pearly blues, which turned violet in the rays of the ever-setting sun.
I—like it too, Elena admitted, and felt shockwaves go through Damon from his surface, through his body, and deep, deep into that unfathomable hole that one could see by looking into his eyes.
I’m just trying to be honest, she added, almost frightened by his reaction. I can’t expect anyone else to be honest if I’m not.
Don’t be honest, don’t be honest. Hate me. Despise me, Damon begged her, at the same time caressing her arms and the two layers of silk that were all that stood between his hands and her skin.
“But why?”
Because I can’t be trusted. I’m a wicked wolf, and you’re a pure soul, a snow-white newborn lamb. You mustn’t let me hurt you.
Why should you hurt me?
Because I might—no, I don’t want to bite you—I only want to kiss you, just a little, like this. There was revelation in Damon’s mind-voice. And he did kiss so sweetly, and he always knew when Elena’s knees were going to give out and picked her up before she could fall on the floor.
Damon, Damon, she was thinking, feeling very sweet herself because she knew she was giving him pleasure, when she suddenly realized.
Oh! Damon, please let me go—I have to go have a fitting right now!
Deeply flushed, he slowly, reluctantly put her down, grabbed her before she could fall, and put her down again.
I think I shall have to go have a fit right now as well, he told her earnestly as he stumbled out of the room, missing the door the first time.
Not a fit—a fitting! Elena called after him, but she never knew if he had heard. She was pleased, though, that he had let her go, without really understanding anything except that she was saying no. That was quite a bit of improvement.
Then she hurried in to Lady Ulma’s room, which was filled with all sorts of people, including two male models, who had just been garbed in trousers and long shirts.
“Sage’s clothes,” said Lady Ulma, nodding at the large one, “and Damon’s.” She nodded at the smaller man.
“Oh, they’re perfect!”
Lady Ulma looked at her with just the slightest doubt in her eyes. “These are made of genuine sacking,” she said. “The meanest, lowest cloth in the slave hierarchy. Are you sure they will wear them?”
“They’re wearing them or they aren’t going at all,” Elena said flatly and winked.
Lady Ulma laughed. “Good plan.”
“Yes—but what do you think of my other plan?” Elena asked, genuinely interested in Lady Ulma’s opinion, even while she blushed.
“My dear benefactress,” Lady Ulma said. “I used to watch my mother put together such outfits…after I had turned thirteen, of course—and she told me that they always made her happy, for she was bringing joy to two at once, and that the purpose was nothing but joy. I promise you, Lucen and I will be done in no time. Now, should you not be getting ready?”
“Oh, yes—oh, I do love you, Lady Ulma! It’s so funny that the more people you love, the more you want to love!” And with that Elena went running back to her own rooms.
Her maids-in-waiting were all there and all ready. Elena took the quickest, briskest bath of her life—she was keyed up—and found herself on a couch in the middle of a smiling, keen-eyed bunch, each neatly doing her job without interfering with the others.
There was a depilatory, of course—in fact one for each leg, one for he
r armpits, and one for her eyebrows. While these women and the women with soft creams and unguents were at work, creating a unique fragrance for Elena, another one thoughtfully considered her face and body as a whole.
This woman touched up Elena’s eyebrows to darken them, and gilded Elena’s eyelids with metallic cosmetic paint before using something that added at least a quarter-inch to Elena’s eyelashes. Then she extended Elena’s eyes with exotic horizontal lines of kohl. Finally, she carefully made Elena’s lips a rich glossy red that somehow gave the impression that they were continually puckered for a kiss. After this the woman sprinkled the faintest of iridescence all over Elena’s body. Finally, a very large canary diamond that had been sent up from Lucen’s jewelry bench was firmly cemented into her navel.
It was while the hairdressers were seeing to the last of the little curls on her forehead that the two boxes and a scarlet cape came from Lady Ulma’s women. Elena thanked all her ladies-in-waiting and beauticians sincerely, paid them all a bonus that had them twittering, and then asked them to leave her alone. When they dithered, she asked them again, just as politely, but in louder tones. They went.
Elena’s hands were trembling as she took out the outfit Lady Ulma had created. It was quite as decent as a bathing suit, but it looked like jewelry strategically placed on wisps of golden tulle. It all coordinated with the canary diamond: from the necklace to the armlets to the golden bracelets that denoted that, however expensively Elena was dressed, she was still a slave.
And that was it. She was going clad in tulle and jewelry, perfume and paint, to see her Stefan. Elena put the scarlet cloak on very, very carefully to avoid rumpling or smearing anything below, and slipped her feet into delicate golden sandals with very high heels.
