Nightfall Read online

  On the other hand, the Tree-Men were growing. It was like some childhood nightmare of giants, and at first it made Elena feel that it was she who was shrinking. But the hideous creatures were actually overtopping the house now, and their upper, snakelike branches slashed into her legs while Misao lashed out with her whip. Elena’s jeans were in shreds now. She swallowed a cry of pain.

  I have to fly higher.

  I can do it.

  I’m going to save you all.

  I believe.

  Faster than the swoop of a hummingbird, she was darting up in the clear air again, still holding Misao by her long black-and-red hair. And Misao was screaming, screams that Shinichi echoed even as he fought with Damon.

  And then, just as she and Damon had planned, just as she and Damon had hoped, Misao turned into her true form and Elena was holding a large and heavy, writhing vixen by the scruff of its neck.

  There was a difficult moment while Elena got the balance right. She had to remember that there was more weight in back because Misao had six tails and was heaviest where a real fox would be lightest.

  By then she had swooped back to her perch in the tree, and she stood there, able to look down on the scene below, the Tree-Men too slow to keep up. The plan had gone perfectly, except that Damon, of all people, had forgotten what he was supposed to be doing. Far from retreating into possession, he had fooled Shinichi and Misao beautifully—and Elena, too. Now, according to their plan he was supposed to be taking care of any innocent bystanders, letting Elena lure Shinichi on.

  Instead something inside him seemed to have snapped; and he was methodically beating the human-shaped Shinichi’s head against the house, shouting: “Damn…you! Where…is…my…brother?”

  “I—could kill you—right now—” Shinichi shouted back, but he was short of breath. He wasn’t finding Damon an easy opponent.

  “Do it!” Damon returned immediately. “And then she”—pointing to the perching Elena—“will cut your sister’s throat!”

  Shinichi’s contempt was scathing.

  “You expect me to believe that a girl with an aura like that will kill—”

  There comes a time when you have to make a stand. And for Elena, blazing with defiance and glory, this was that time. She took a deep breath, begged the Universe’s forgiveness, and leaned down, positioning the pruning shears. Then she squeezed as hard as she could.

  And a red-tipped black vixen’s tail fell twisting to the ground, while Misao shrieked in pain and rage. As the tail fell it writhed, and it lay in the middle of the clearing, squirming like a snake that wasn’t quite defeated yet. Then it became transparent and faded away.

  That was when Shinichi really screamed, “Do you know what you’ve done, you ignorant bitch? I’ll bring this place down on top of you! I’ll tear you apart!”

  “Oh, yes, of course you will. But first,” Damon spoke each word deliberately, “you have to get past me.”

  Elena barely registered their words. It hadn’t been easy for her to squeeze those shears. It had meant thinking about Meredith with the shears in her own hands, and Bonnie lying on the altar, and Matt, earlier, writhing on the ground. And Mrs. Flowers, and the three lost little girls, and Isobel and—a great deal—about Stefan.

  But as for the first time in her life she drew another’s blood with her own hands, she had a sudden strange sense of responsibility—of new accountability. As if an icy wind had blown her hair back sharply and said into her frozen, gasping face: Never without reason. Never without necessity. Never unless there’s no other solution available.

  Elena felt something inside her grow up, all at once. Too fast to say good-bye to childhood, she had become a warrior.

  “You all thought I couldn’t fight,” she called to the assembled group. “You were wrong. You thought I was powerless. You were wrong there, too. And I’ll use the last drop of my Power in this fight, because you twins are real monsters. No, you’re—abominations. And if I die I’ll rest with Honoria Fell, and I’ll watch over Fell’s Church again.”

  Fell’s Church will rot and die writhing with maggots, a voice near her ear said, and it was a deep bass voice, nothing like Misao’s shrill screaming. Elena knew even as she turned that it was the white pine tree. A hard scaly bough, laden with those serrated, resin-sticky needles, slammed into her midriff, throwing her off balance—and making her involuntarily open her hands. Misao promptly escaped, and burrowed into the Christmas-tree-like branches.

  “Bad…trees…go…to…Hell,” Elena cried, throwing her entire body weight into digging the shears she held into the base of the branch that had tried to crush her. It tried to pull away, and she twisted the shears in the wounded dark bark, relieved when a large piece fell off, with only a long string of resin left to show where it had been.

  Then she looked for Misao. The fox wasn’t finding it as easy as she might have thought, navigating a tree. Elena looked at the cluster of tails. Strangely, there was no stump, no blood, no sign that the fox had been injured.

  Was that why she wasn’t turning human? The loss of a tail? Even if she were naked when she changed back to her human self—as some stories of werewolves had it—she’d be in better condition to climb down.

  Because Misao seemed finally to have chosen the slow but sure method of descent—to have branch after branch take hold of her fox body and pass it down to the next. Which meant she was only about ten feet below Elena.

  And all Elena had to do was to coast over the needles down to her and then—by wings or other means—stop. If she believed in her wings. If the tree didn’t throw her off.

  “You’re too slow,” Elena shouted. Then she began the coast to overcome the distance—not far in human body-lengths—to her goal.

  Until she saw Bonnie.

  Bonnie’s slight body was still lying on the altar, pale and cold-looking. But now four of the hideous Tree-Men had hold of her, one at each hand and one at each foot. They were already pulling so hard that she was lifted up into the air.

  And Bonnie was awake. But not screaming. Not making a noise to attract attention to herself; and Elena realized with a rush of love and horror and desperation that that was why she hadn’t been making a fuss before. She wanted the major players here to fight their fight without the bother of rescuing her.

  The Tree-Men leaned back.

  Bonnie’s face contorted in agony.

  Elena had to get to Misao. She needed the double fox key to free Stefan, and the only people who could tell her where it was were Misao and Shinichi. She looked up at the darkness above and noticed that it seemed a little less dark than when she had last seen it, the sky a dark swirling gray instead of dead black—but there was no help there. She looked down. Misao, making a little better time with her escape. If Elena let her get away…Stefan was her love. But Bonnie—Bonnie was her friend—ever since childhood….

  And then she saw Plan B.

  Damon was fighting Shinichi—or trying.

  But Shinichi was always an easy centimeter away from where Damon’s fist was. Shinichi’s fists, on the other hand, always connected solidly with their targets, and right now Damon’s face was a bloody mask.

  “Use wood!” Misao was coaching in a shriek, her childlike manner having suddenly vanished. “You men, you idiots, all you think of is your fists!”

  Shinichi broke a pillar support from the widow’s walk one-handed, showing his true strength. Damon smiled beatifically. He was, Elena knew, going to enjoy this, even though it meant all the many little wounds those wooden splinters would entail.

  It was in the middle of this that Elena shouted, “Damon, look down!” Her voice seemed weak over the cacophony of shrieks and sobs and screams of fury all around. “Damon! Look down—at Bonnie!”

  Nothing so far had been able to break Damon’s concentration—he seemed determined to find out where Stefan was being kept—or to kill Shinichi trying.

  Now, to Elena’s slight surprise, Damon’s head jerked around immediately. He loo
ked down.

  “A cage,” shouted Shinichi. “Build me a cage.”

  And tree branches leaned in from all sides to pin him and Damon into their own little world, a lattice to keep them contained.

  The Tree-Men leaned back farther. And despite herself, Bonnie screamed.

  “You see?” laughed Shinichi. “Each of your friends will die in that agony or worse. One by one, we will take you!”

  That was when Damon really seemed to go crazy. He began moving like quicksilver, like a leaping flame, like some animal with reflexes far faster than Shinichi’s. Now there was a sword in his hand, undoubtedly conjured up by the magical housekey, and the sword slashed through the branches even as the branches reached out to trap him. And then he was airborne, leaping over the railing for the second time that night.

  This time Damon’s balance was perfect, and far from breaking bones, he made a graceful, catlike landing just beside Bonnie. And then his sword was flashing in an arc, sweeping all around Bonnie, and the tough, fingerlike tips of the branches that held her were cut cleanly away.

  A moment later, Bonnie was being lifted, being held by Damon as he leaped easily off the rough-hewn altar and was lost in the shadows near the house.

  Elena let out the breath she’d been holding and turned back to her own affairs. But her heart was beating more strongly and faster, with joy and with pride and with gratitude, as she slid down the painful, cutting-edged needles, and almost flashed past Misao, who was being whisked out of her way—not quite in time.

  She got a good grip on the nape of the fox’s neck. Misao keened a strange animal lament and sank her teeth into Elena’s hand so hard that it felt as if they were going to meet. Elena bit her lip until she felt blood come, trying not to scream.

  Be crushed, and die, and turn to loam, the tree said in Elena’s ear. Your kind can feed my kin for once. The voice was ancient, malevolent and very, very frightening.

  Elena’s legs reacted without pausing to consult her mind. They pushed off hard and then the golden butterfly wings unfurled again, not beating but undulating, holding Elena steady above the altar.

  She pulled the snarling vixen’s muzzle up—not too close—to her own face. “Where are the two pieces of the fox key?” she demanded. “Tell me or I’ll take off another tail. I swear I will. Don’t fool yourself—it’s not just your pride that you’re losing, is it? Your tails are your Power. What would it feel like to have none at all?”

  “Like being a human—except you, you freak.” Now Misao was laughing again in her panting-dog way, her fox ears flat to her head.

  “Just answer the question!”

  “As if you would understand the answers I could give. If I told you that one was inside the silver nightingale’s instrument, would that give you any kind of idea?”

  “It might if you explained it a little more clearly!”

  “If I told you that one was buried in Blodwedd’s ballroom, would you be able to find it?” Again the panting grin as the fox gave clues that led nowhere—or everywhere.

  “Are those your answers?”

  “No!” Misao shrieked suddenly and kicked with her feet, as if they were dog’s legs scrabbling in the dirt. Except that the dirt was Elena’s midriff, and the scrabbling legs felt as if they might well puncture her entrails. She felt her camisole tear.

  “I told you; I’m not playing around here!” Elena cried. She lifted the vixen with her left arm, even though it ached with tiredness. With her right hand, she positioned the shears.

  “Where is the first part of the key?” Elena demanded.

  “Search for yourself! You only have the whole world to look through, and every thicket besides.” The fox went for her throat again, white teeth actually scoring Elena’s flesh.

  Elena forced that arm to hold Misao higher. “I warned you, so don’t say that I didn’t or that you have any reason to complain!”

  She squeezed the shears.

  Misao gave a squeal that was almost lost in the general commotion. Elena, feeling more and more tired, said, “You’re a complete liar, aren’t you? Look down if you want. I didn’t cut anywhere close to you. You just heard the shears click and screamed.”

  Misao very nearly got a claw into Elena’s eye. Oh, well. Now, for Elena, there were no more moral or ethical issues. She wasn’t causing pain, she was simply draining Power. The shears went snap, snap, snap, and Misao screamed and cursed her, but below them the Tree-Men were shrinking.

  “Where is the first part of the key?”

  “Let me go and I’ll tell.” Suddenly Misao’s voice was less shrill.

  “On your honor—if you can say that without laughing?”

  “On my honor and my word as a kitsune. Please! You can’t leave a fox without a real tail! That’s why the ones you cut didn’t hurt. They’re badges of honor. But my real tail is in the middle, it’s tipped with white, and if you cut me there; you’ll see blood and it will leave a stump.” Misao seemed thoroughly cowed, thoroughly ready to cooperate.

  Elena knew about judging people and intuition, and both her mind and her heart were telling her not to trust this creature. But she wanted so much to believe, to hope….

  Making a slow curving descent so that the vixen was close to the ground—she would not give in to the temptation to drop her from sixty feet up—Elena said, “Well? On you honor, what are the answers?”

  Six Tree-Men came to life around her and plunged at her, with greedy, grasping finger branches.

  But Elena wasn’t taken completely off guard. She hadn’t let go of her grip on Misao; only slackened it. Now she tightened the grip again.

  A wave of strength buoyed her so that she lifted fast and swept by the widow’s walk and a furious Shinichi and weeping Caroline. Then Elena met Damon’s eyes. They were filled with hot, fierce pride in her. She was filled with hot, fierce passion.

  “I am not an angel,” she announced to any of the group who hadn’t quite managed to grasp this yet. “I am not an angel and I am not a spirit. I’m Elena Gilbert and I’ve been to the Other Side. And right now I’m ready to do whatever needs to be done, which seems to include kicking some ass!”

  There was a clamor below that at first she couldn’t identify. Then she realized it was the others—it was her friends. Mrs. Flowers and Dr. Alpert, Matt and even wild Isobel. They were cheering—and they were visible because suddenly the backyard was in daylight.

  Am I doing that? Elena wondered, and realized that somehow she was. She was lighting up the clearing in which Mrs. Flowers’ house stood, while leaving the woods around dark.

  Maybe I can extend it, she thought. Make the Old Wood into something younger and less evil.

  If she had been more experienced, she would never have attempted it. But right here and right now she felt that she could take anything on. She looked at the four directions of the Old Wood around her quickly, and she cried, “Wings of Purification!” and watched the huge, frosty, iridescent butterfly wings spread high and wide, and then wider, and then spread some more.

  She was aware of a silence, of being so enrapt in something she was doing that even Misao’s struggles didn’t matter. It was a silence that reminded her of something: of all the most beautiful strains of music coming together into one, single, powerful chord.

  And then the Power blasted out from her—not destructive Power like that Damon had sent many times, but a Power of renewal, of springtime, of love, youth, and purification. And she watched as the light spread farther and farther, and the trees grew smaller and more familiar, with more clearings in between thickets. Thorns and hanging creepers disappeared. On the ground, spreading out like a circle expanding, flowers of all colors bloomed, sweet violets in clumps here and banks of Queen Anne’s lace there, and wild roses climbing everywhere. It was so beautiful that it made her chest ache.

  Misao hissed. Elena’s trance was finally broken, and she looked around to see that the shambling, hideous Tree-Men had disappeared in the full sunlight and in their pl
ace was a wide patch of sorrel dotted with fossilized trees in odd shapes. Some looked almost human. For a moment Elena regarded the scene, puzzled, and then she realized what else was different. All the real humans were gone.

  “I never should have brought you here!” And that, to Elena’s surprise, was Misao’s voice. She was speaking to her brother. “You spoiled everything because of that girl. Shinichi no baka!”

  “Idiot, yourself!” Shinichi shouted at Misao. “Onore! You’re reacting just the way they want—”

  “What else am I supposed to do?”

  “I heard you giving the girl clues,” Shinichi snarled. “You’d do anything for the sake of your looks, you selfish—”

  “You can say that to me? While you haven’t lost even one tail yourself?”

  “Just because I’m faster—”

  Misao cut him off. “That’s a lie and you know it! Take it back!”

  “You’re too weak to fight! You should have run long ago! Don’t come crying to me about it.”

  “Don’t you dare speak to me like that!” And Misao leaped from Elena’s grasp and attacked Shinichi. He had been wrong. She was a good fighter. In a second they were a destruction zone, rolling over and over as they fought changing forms all the while. Black and scarlet fur flew. Out of the ball of turning bodies came scraps of speech—

  “—still won’t find the keys—”

  “—not both of them, anyway—”

  “—even if they did—”

  “—what would it matter?”

  “—still have to find the boy—”

  “—I say it’s only sporting to let them try—”

  Misao’s horrible shrill giggle. “And see what they find—”

  “—in the Shi no Shi!”