The Vampire Diaries: The Return: Midnight

by L. J. Smith

  Be calm! Be calm! Stefan’s Influence flooded into her.

  Meredith was not calm.

  “But before that I have to kill my brother.” She flung down a photograph on Mrs. Flowers’s kitchen table. “It turns out that Klaus or someone has been sending these since Cristian was four—on my real birthday. For years! And in every picture you could see his vampire teeth. Not ‘kitten teeth.’ And then they stopped coming when I was about ten. But they had shown him growing up! With pointed teeth! And last year this one came.”

  Elena leaped for the photo, but it was closer to Stefan and he was faster. He stared in astonishment. “Growing up?” he said. She could feel how shaken he was—and how envious. No one had given him that option.

  Elena looked at the pacing Meredith and around at Stefan. “But it’s impossible, isn’t it?” she said. “I thought that if you were bitten, that was it, right? You never got any older—or bigger.”

  “That’s what I thought too. But Klaus was an Old One and who knows what they can do?” Stefan answered.

  Damon will be furious when he finds out, Elena told Stefan privately, reaching for the picture even though she’d already seen it through Stefan’s eyes. Damon was very bitter about Stefan’s height advantage—about anyone’s height advantage.

  Elena brought the picture to Mrs. Flowers and looked at it with her. It showed an extremely handsome boy, with hair that was just Meredith’s dark color. He looked like Meredith in his facial structure and olive skin. He was wearing a motorcycle jacket and gloves, but no helmet, and he was laughing merrily with a full set of very white teeth. You could easily see that the canines were long and pointed.

  Elena looked back and forth from Meredith to the picture. The only difference she could see was that this boy’s eyes seemed lighter. Everything else screamed “twins.”

  “First I kill him,” Meredith repeated tiredly. “Then I kill myself.” She stumbled back to the table and sat, almost knocking over her chair.

  Elena hovered near her, snatching two mugs from the table, to prevent Meredith’s clumsy arm from sweeping them to the floor.

  Meredith…clumsy! Elena had never seen Meredith ungraceful or clumsy before. It was frightening. Was it somehow due to being—at least partly—a vampire? The kitten teeth? Elena turned apprehensive eyes on Stefan, felt Stefan’s own bewilderment.

  Then both of them, without consultation, turned to look at Mrs. Flowers. She gave them an apologetic little-old-lady smile.

  “Gotta kill…find him, kill him…first,” Meredith was whispering as her dark head lowered to the table, to the pillow of her arms. “Find him…where? Grandpa…where? Cristian…my brother…”

  Elena listened silently until there was only soft breathing to be heard.

  “You drugged her?” she whispered to Mrs. Flowers.

  “It was what Mama thought best. She’s a strong, healthy girl. It won’t harm her to sleep from now through the night. Because I’m sorry to tell you, but we have another problem right now.”

  Elena glanced at Stefan, saw fear dawning on his face, and demanded, “What?” Absolutely nothing was coming through their link. He’d shut it down.

  Elena turned to Mrs. Flowers. “What?”

  “I’m very worried about dear Matt.”

  “Matt,” agreed Stefan, looking around the table as if to show that Matt wasn’t there. He was trying to protect Elena from the chills racing through him.

  At first Elena wasn’t alarmed. “I know where he might be,” she said brightly. She was remembering stories that Matt had told of being in Fell’s Church while she and the others had been in the Dark Dimension. “Dr. Alpert’s place. Or out with her, making the rounds of home visits.”

  Mrs. Flowers shook her head, her expression bleak. “I’m afraid not, Elena dear. Sophia—Dr. Alpert—called me and told me she was taking Matt’s mother, your own family, and several other people with her and escaping Fell’s Church entirely. And I don’t blame her a bit—but Matt wasn’t one of those going. She said he meant to stay and fight. That was around twelve thirty.”

  Elena’s eyes automatically went to the kitchen clock. Horror shot through her, flipping her stomach and reverberating out to her fingertips. The clock said 4:35—4:35 P.M.! But that had to be wrong. She and Stefan had only joined minds a few minutes ago. Meredith’s rage hadn’t lasted that long. This was impossible!

  “That clock—it’s not right!” She appealed to Mrs. Flowers, but heard at the same time Stefan’s telepathic voice, It’s the mind-blending. I didn’t want to rush. But I was lost in it too—it’s not your fault, Elena!

  “It is my fault,” Elena snapped back aloud. “I never meant to forget about my friends for the entire afternoon! And Matt—Matt would never scare us by keeping us waiting for his call! I should have called him! I shouldn’t have been—” She looked at Stefan with unhappy eyes. The only thing burning inside her right now was the shame of failing Matt.

  “I did call his mobile number,” Mrs. Flowers said very gently. “Mama advised me to do so, all the way back at half past twelve. But he didn’t answer. I’ve called every hour since. Mama won’t say more than that it’s time we looked into things directly.”

  Elena ran to Mrs. Flowers and wept on the soft cambric lacework at the old woman’s neck. “You did our job for us,” she said. “Thank you. But now we have to go and find him.”

  She whirled on Stefan. “Can you put Meredith in the first-floor bedroom? Just take off her shoes and put her on top of the covers. Mrs. Flowers, if you’re going to be alone here, we’ll leave Saber and Talon to take care of you. Then we’ll keep in touch by mobile. And we’ll search every house in Fell’s Church—but I guess we should go to the thicket first…”

  “Wait, Elena my dear.” Mrs. Flowers had her eyes shut. Elena waited, shifting impatiently from one foot to the other. Stefan was just returning from putting Meredith in the front room.

  Suddenly, Mrs. Flowers smiled, eyes still shut. “Mama says she will do her utmost for you two, since you are so devoted to your friend. She says that Matt is not anywhere in Fell’s Church. And she says, take the dog, Saber. The falcon will watch over Meredith while we are away.” Mrs. Flowers’s eyes opened. “Although we might plaster her window and door with Post-it Notes,” she said, “just to make sure.”

  “No,” Elena said flatly. “I’m sorry, but I won’t leave Meredith and you on your own with only a bird for protection. We’ll take you both with us, covered in amulets if you like, and then we can take both animals, too. Back in the Dark Dimension, they worked together when Bloddeuwedd was trying to kill us.”

  “All right,” Stefan said at once, knowing Elena well enough to realize that a half-hour-long argument could ensue and Elena would never be moved an inch from her position. Mrs. Flowers must have known it too, for she rose, also immediately, and went to get ready.

  Stefan carried Meredith out to her car. Elena gave a tiny whistle for Saber, who was instantly underfoot, seeming bigger than ever, and she raced him up the stairs to Matt’s room. It was disappointingly clean—but Elena fished a pair of briefs from between bed and wall. She gave these to Saber to delight in, but found she couldn’t stand still. Finally, she ran up to Stefan’s room, snatched her diary from under the mattress, and began scribbling.

  Dear Diary,

  I don’t know what to do. Matt has disappeared. Damon has taken Bonnie to the Dark Dimension—but is he taking care of her?

  There’s no way to know. We don’t have any way to open a Gate ourselves and go after them. I’m afraid Stefan will kill Damon, and if something—anything—has happened to Bonnie, I’ll want to kill him too. Oh, God, what a mess!

  And Meredith…of all people, Meredith turns out to have more secrets than all of us combined.

  All Stefan and I can do is hold each other and pray. We’ve been fighting Shinichi so long! I feel as if the end is coming soon…and I’m afraid.

  “Elena!” Stefan’s shout came from below. “We’re all ready!�
��

  Elena quickly stuffed the diary back under the mattress. She found Saber waiting on the stairs, and followed him down, running. Mrs. Flowers had two overcoats covered in amulets.

  Outside, a long whistle from Stefan was met by an answering keeeeeeee from above and Elena saw a small dark body circling against the white-streaked August sky. “She understands,” Stefan said briefly, and took the driver’s seat of the car. Elena got into the backseat behind him, and Mrs. Flowers into the front passenger seat. Since Stefan had buckled up Meredith into the middle of the backseat, this left Saber a window to put his panting head through.

  “Now,” Stefan said, over the purring of the engine, “where are we going, exactly?”

  22

  “Mama said not in Fell’s Church,” Mrs. Flowers repeated to Stefan. “And that means not the thicket.”

  “All right,” Stefan said. “If he’s not there, then where else?”

  “Well,” Elena said slowly, “it’s the police, isn’t it? They’ve caught him.” Her heart felt as if it were in her stomach.

  Mrs. Flowers sighed. “I suppose so. Mama should have told me that, but the atmosphere is full of strange influences.”

  “But the sheriff’s department is in Fell’s Church. What there is of it,” Elena objected.

  “Then,” Mrs. Flowers said, “what about the police in another city close by? The ones who came looking for him before—”

  “Ridgemont,” Elena said heavily. “That’s where those police that searched the boardinghouse were from. That’s where that Mossberg guy came from, Meredith said.” She looked at Meredith, who didn’t even murmur. “That’s where Caroline’s dad has all his big-shot friends—and Tyler Smallwood’s dad does too. They belong to all those no-women clubs with secret handshakes and stuff.”

  “And do we have anything like a plan for when we get there?” Stefan asked.

  “I have a sort of Plan A,” Elena admitted. “But I don’t know that it will work—you may know better than I do.”

  “Tell me.”

  Elena told him. Stefan listened and had to stifle a laugh. “I think,” he said soberly afterward, “that it just might work.”

  Elena immediately began to think about Plans B and C so that they wouldn’t be stuck if Plan A should fail.

  They had to drive through Fell’s Church to get to Ridgemont. Elena saw the burnt-out houses and the blackened trees through tears. This was her town, the town which, as a spirit, she had watched over and protected. How could it have come to this?

  And, worse, how could it ever possibly be put back together again?

  Elena began to shiver uncontrollably.

  Matt sat grimly in the jury conference room. He had explored it long ago, and had found that the windows were boarded over from the outside. He wasn’t surprised, as all the windows he knew back in Fell’s Church were boarded up, and besides, he had tried these boards and knew that he could break out if he cared to.

  He didn’t care to.

  It was time to face his personal crisis. He would have faced it back before Damon had taken the three girls to the Dark Dimension, but Meredith had talked him out of it.

  Matt knew that Mr. Forbes, Caroline’s father, had all his cronies in the police and legal system here. And so did Mr. Smallwood, the father of the real culprit. They were unlikely to give him a fair trial. But in any kind of trial, at some point they would at least have to listen to him.

  And what they would hear was the plain truth. They might not believe it now. But later, when Caroline’s twins had as little control as werewolf babies were reputed to have over their shapes—well, then they’d think of Matt, and what he’d said.

  He was doing the right thing, he assured himself. Even if, right now, his insides felt as if they were made of lead.

  What’s the worst they can do to me? he wondered, and was unhappy to hear the echo of Meredith’s voice come back. “They can put you in jail, Matt. Real jail; you’re over eighteen. And while that may be good news for some genuine, vicious, tough old felons with homemade tattoos and biceps like tree branches, it is not going to be good news for you.” And then after a session on the Internet, “Matt, in Virginia, it can be for life. And the minimum is five years. Matt, please; I beg you, don’t let them do this to you! Sometimes it’s true that discretion is the better part of valor. They hold all the cards and we’re walking blindfolded in the dark…”

  She had gotten surprisingly worked up about it, mixing her metaphors and all, Matt thought dejectedly. But it’s not exactly as if I volunteered for this. And I bet they know those boards are pretty flimsy and if I break out, I’ll be chased from here to who-knows-where. And if I stay put at least I’ll get to tell the truth.

  For a very long time nothing happened. Matt could tell from the sun through the cracks in the boards that it was afternoon. A man came in and offered a visit to the bathroom and a Coke. Matt accepted both, but also demanded an attorney and his phone call.

  “You’ll have an attorney,” the man grumbled at him as Matt came out of the bathroom. “One’ll be appointed for you.”

  “I don’t want that. I want a real attorney. One that I pick.”

  The man looked disgusted. “Kid like you can’t have any money. You’ll take the attorney appointed to you.”

  “My mom has money. She’d want me to have the attorney we hire, not some kid out of law school.”

  “Aw,” the man said, “how sweet. You want Mommy to take care of you. And her all the way out in Clydesdale by now, I bet, with the black lady doctor.”

  Matt froze.

  Shut back in the jury room he tried frantically to think. How did they know where his mom and Dr. Alpert had gone? He tried the sound of “black lady doctor” on his tongue and found it tasted bad, sort of old-time-ish and just plain bad. If the doctor had been Caucasian and male, it would’ve sounded silly to say “…gone with the white man doctor.” Sort of like an old Tarzan film.

  A great anger was rising in Matt. And along with it a great fear. Words slithered around his mind: surveillance and spying and conspiracy and cover-up. And outwitted.

  He guessed it was after five o’clock, after everybody who normally worked at court had left, that they took him to the interrogation room.

  They were just playing, he figured, the two officers who tried to talk to him in a cramped little room with a video camera in one corner of the wall, perfectly obvious even though it was small.

  They took turns, one yelling at him that he might as well confess everything, the other acting sympathetic and saying things like, “Things just got out of hand, right? We have a picture of the hickey she gave you. She was hot stuff, right?” Wink, wink. “I understand. But then she started to give you mixed signals…”

  Matt reached his snapping point. “No, we were not on a date, no, she did not give me a hickey, and when I tell Mr. Forbes you called Caroline hot stuff, winkey winkey, he’s gonna get you fired, mister. And I’ve heard of mixed signals, but I’ve never seen them. I can hear ‘no’ as well as you can, and I figure one ‘no’ means ‘no’!”

  After that they beat him up a little bit. Matt was surprised, but considering the way he had just threatened and sassed them, not too surprised.

  And then they seemed to give up on him, leaving him alone in the interrogation room, which, unlike the jury room, had no windows. Matt said over and over, for the benefit of the video camera, “I’m innocent and I’m being denied my phone call and my attorney. I’m innocent…”

  At last they came and got him. He was hustled between the good and bad cops into a completely empty courtroom. No, not empty, he realized. In the first row were a few reporters, one or two with sketchbooks ready.

  When Matt saw that, just like a real trial, and imagined the pictures they’d sketch—just like he’d seen on TV, the lead in his stomach turned into a fluttering feeling of panic.

  But this was what he wanted, wasn’t it, to get the story out?

  He was led to an empty t
able. There was another table, with several well-dressed men, all with piles of papers in front of them.

  But the thing that held Matt’s attention at that table was Caroline. He didn’t recognize her at first. She was wearing a dove gray cotton dress. Gray! With no jewelry on at all, and subtle makeup. The only color was in her hair—a brazen auburn. It looked like her old hair, not the brindled color it had been when she was starting to become a werewolf. Had she learned to control her form at last? That was bad news. Very bad.

  And finally, with an air of walking on eggshells, in came the jury. They had to know how irregular this was, but they kept coming in, just twelve of them, just enough to fill the jury seats.

  Matt suddenly realized that there was a judge sitting at the desk high above him. Had he been there all along? No…

  “All rise for Justice Thomas Holloway,” boomed a bailiff. Matt stood and wondered if the trial was really going to start without his lawyer. But before everyone could sit, there was a crash of opening doors, and a tall bundle of papers on legs hurried into the courtroom, became a woman in her early twenties, and dumped the papers on the table beside him. “Gwen Sawicki here—present,” the young woman gasped.

  Judge Holloway’s neck shot out like a tortoise’s, to bring her into his realm of sight. “You have been appointed on behalf of the defense?”

  “If it pleases Your Honor, yes, Your Honor—all of thirty minutes ago. I had no idea we had gone to night sessions, Your Honor.”

  “Don’t you be pert with me!” Judge Holloway snapped. As he went on to allow the prosecution attorneys to introduce themselves, Matt pondered on the word “pert.” It was another of those words, he thought, that was never used toward males. A pert man was a joke. While a pert girl or woman sounded just fine. But why?