Part 4 (2/2)

Stefan stood up. It was dark now inside the small room with its dusty window, and Stefan's shadow was thrown before him by the bedside lamp. Bonnie looked at it and then poked Meredith, as the hairs tingled on her arms and neck. The shadow was surprisingly dark and surprisingly tall. Caroline's shadow was weak, transparent, and short-an imitation shadow beside Stefan's very real one.

The thunderstorm feeling was back. Bonnie was shaking now; trying not to, but unable to stop the s.h.i.+vering that had come on as if she had been thrown into icy water. It was a cold that had gotten directly into her bones and was ripping layer after layer of heat off them like some greedy giant, and now she was beginning to shakehard ....

Something was happening to Caroline in the darkness-something was coming from her-or comingfor her-or maybe both. In any case, it was all around her now, and all around Bonnie, too, and the tension was so thick that Bonnie felt choked, her heart pounding. Beside her, Meredith-practical, level-headed Meredith-stirred uneasily.

”What-?” Meredith began in a whisper. Suddenly, as if it had all been exquisitely ch.o.r.eographed by the things in the dark-the door to Stefan's room slammed shut...the lamp, an ordinary electric one, went off...the ancient rolled-up shutter over the window came rattling down, dropping the room into sudden and complete darkness.

And Caroline screamed. It was an awful sound-raw, as if it had been stripped like meat from Caroline's backbone and yanked out of her throat.

Bonnie screamed, too. She couldn't help it, although her scream sounded too faint and too breathless, like an echo, not the coloratura job that Caroline had done. Thank G.o.d that at least Caroline wasn't screaming any longer. Bonnie was able to stop the new scream building in her own throat, even though her shaking was worse than ever. Meredith had an arm around her tightly, but then, as the darkness and the silence went on and Bonnie's shaking only continued, Meredith got up and heartlessly pa.s.sed her to Matt, who seemed astonished and embarra.s.sed, but tried awkwardly to hold her.

”It's not as dark once your eyes get used to it,” he said. His voice was creaky, as if he needed a drink of water. But it was the best thing that he could have said, because of all things in the world to fear, Bonnie was most afraid of the dark. There werethings in it, things that only she saw. She managed, despite the terrible shaking, to stand with his support-and then she gasped, and heard Matt gasp, too.

Elena was glowing. Not only that, but the glow extended out behind her and far to either side of her in a pair of what were beautifully defined, and undeniablythere ...wings.

”She h-has wings,” Bonnie whispered, the stutter caused by her shaking rather than by awe or fear. Matt was clinging toher now, like a child; he obviously couldn't answer.

The wings moved with Elena's breathing. She was sitting on thin air, steady now, one hand held out with her fingers all spread in a gesture of denial.

Elena spoke. It wasn't any language that Bonnie had heard before; she doubted it was any language people on Earth used. The words were sharp, thin-edged, like the splintering of myriad shards of crystal that had fallen from somewhere very high and very far away.

The shape of the wordsalmost made sense in Bonnie's head as her own psychic abilities were sparked by Elena's tremendous Power. It was a Power that stood tall against the darkness and now was sweeping it aside...making the things in the dark scamper away before it, their claws scritching in all directions. Ice-sharp words followed them all the way, dismissive now....

And Elena...Elena was as heartbreakingly beautiful as when she'd been a vampire, and seemed almost as pale as one.

But Caroline was shouting, too. She was using powerful words of Black Magic, and to Bonnie it was as if the shadows of all sorts of dark and horrible things were coming from her mouth: lizards and snakes and many-legged spiders.

It was a duel, a face-off of magic. Only how had Caroline learned so much dark magic? She wasn't even a witch by lineage, like Bonnie.

Outside Stefan's room, surrounding it, was a strange sound, almost like a helicopter.Whipwhipwhipwhipwhip... It terrified Bonnie.

But she had to do something. She was Celtic by heritage and psychic because she couldn't avoid it, and she had to help Elena.

Slowly, as if making her way against gale-force winds, Bonnie stumbled to put her hand on Elena's hand, to offer Elena her power.

When Elena clasped hands with her, Bonnie realized that Meredith was on her other side. The light grew. The scrabbling lizard things ran from it, screaming and tearing at each other to get away.

The next thing Bonnie knew, Elena had slumped over. The wings were gone. The dark scrabbling things were gone, too. Elena had sent them away, using tremendous amounts of energy to overwhelm them with White Power.”She'll fall,” Bonnie whispered, looking at Stefan. ”She's been using magic so strong-”

Just then, as Stefan started to turn to Elena, several things happened very fast, as if the room was caught in the flashes of a strobe light.

Flash. The window shade rolled back up, rattling furiously.

Flash. The lamp went back on, revealing it was in Stefan's hands. He must have been trying to fix it.

Flash. The door to Stefan's room opened slowly, creaking, as if to make up for slamming shut before.

Flash. Caroline was now on the floor, on all fours, groveling, breathing hard. Elena had won....

Elena fell.

Only inhumanly fast reflexes could have caught her, especially from across the room. But Stefan had tossed the lamp to Meredith and was across the distance faster than Bonnie's eyes could follow. Then he was holding Elena, encircling her protectively.

”Oh,h.e.l.l ,” said Caroline. Black trails of mascara ran down her face, making her look like something not quite human. She looked at Stefan with unconcealed hatred. He looked back soberly-no,sternly .

”Don't call on h.e.l.l,” he said in a very low voice. ”Not here. Not now. Because h.e.l.l might hear and call back.”

”As if it already hadn't,” Caroline said, and in that moment, she was pitiful-broken and pathetic. As if she had started something she didn't know how to stop.

”Caroline, what are you saying?” Stefan knelt. ”Are you saying that you've already-made some bargain-?”

”Ouch,” Bonnie said, suddenly and involuntarily, shattering the ominous mood in Stefan's room. One of Caroline's broken nails had left a trail of blood on the floor. Caroline had knelt in it, too, making things pretty messy. Bonnie felt a sympathetic throb of pain in her own fingers until Caroline waved her b.l.o.o.d.y hand at Stefan. Then Bonnie's sympathy turned to nausea.

”Want a lick?” she said. Her voice and face had changed entirely, and she wasn't even trying to hide it. ”Oh, come on, Stefan,” she went on mockingly, ”youdo drink human blood these days, don't you? Human or-whatever she is, whatever she's become. You two fly like bats together now, do you?”

”Caroline,” Bonnie whispered, ”didn't yousee them? Her wings-”

”Just like a bat-or another vampire already. Stefan's made her-”

”I saw them too,” Matt said flatly, behind Bonnie. ”They weren't bat wings.”

”Doesn't anybody have eyes?” Meredith said from where she stood by the lamp. ”Look here.” She bent. When she stood again she was holding a long white feather. It shone in the light.

”Maybe she's a white crow, then,” Caroline said. ”That would be appropriate. And I can't believe how you're all-all-fawning on her as if she were some sort of princess. Always everybody's little darling, aren't you, Elena?”

”Stop it,” Stefan said.

”Everybody's, that's the key word,” Caroline spat.

”Stop it.”

”The way you were kissing people one after another.” She gave a theatrical shudder. ”Everyone seems to have forgotten, but that was more like-”

”Stop, Caroline.”

”Thereal Elena.” Caroline's voice had become pretend-prissy, but she couldn't keep the venom out, Bonnie thought. ”Because anyone who knows you knows what youreally were before Stefanblessed us with hisirresistible presence. You were-”

”Caroline, stop right there-”

”A s.l.u.t! That's all! Just a cheap, anybody'ss.l.u.t !”

7.

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