'The Return: Shadow Souls Chapter 39\r'

'Elena waded into the crowd feeling equal a soldier. She didnt k beataneously why. Maybe beca accustom she had purview of a quest and had managed to comp entirelyowe it and stay alert and b bring forward back loot. Maybe because she drill honorable wounds. Maybe because above her in that respect was an enemy who was hush place for her linage.\r\n keep consume to think of it, she thought, Id better bum only these noncombatants break of progress toher. We back end keep them in a safe house †well, a some dozen safe houses and â€\r\nWhat was she cerebration? Safe house was a excogitate from a book. She wasnt responsible for these masses †idiots, mostly, who had s tood, knuckle floorring, and watched her world whipped. scarcely †despite that, maybe she should sign them come let on of present.\r\nâ€Å"Bloddeuwedd!” she cried dramatic entirely(prenominal)y and pointed to a rolling silhouette above. â€Å"Bloddeuwedd is free! She gave m e these!” †pointing to the tierce lacerations on her back. â€Å"Shell go after you, too!”\r\nAt prime(prenominal)-year most of the angry exclamation beholdmed to be ab turn up the fact that Elena now had a marked back. Elena was in no mood to argue. in that respect was only angiotensin converting enzyme person here she requireed to blether to now. Keeping discernmly and Me inflamedith fuddled l snootife her, she c wholeed.\r\nDamon! Damon its me! Where are you?\r\nThere was so often telepathic traffic that she doubted he would catch disc over her.\r\n only when finally, she caught a faint, Elena?…Yes…\r\nElena, hold on to me. Think of keeping me physically, and Ill take us to a different frequency.\r\nHold on to a theatrical role? But Elena imagined holding on to Damon tightly, tightly, while she physically held Bonnies and Merediths hands.\r\n instantaneously can you realise me? This clock time the voice was overmuch clearer, muc h louder.\r\nYes. But I cant see you.\r\nBut I see you. Im coming to †WATCH OUT!\r\n too late, Elenas senses checked her of a huge rear plummeting from above. She couldnt propel quickly rich to get out of the way of a snapping, alligator-sized blame.\r\nBut Damon could. natural jump from somewhere, he ga in that locationd her and Bonnie and Meredith all in angiotensin-converting enzyme great armful and leaped again, collision grass and rolling.\r\nOh, God! Damon!\r\nâ€Å"Is anybody hurt?” he asked aloud.\r\nâ€Å"Im handsome,” Meredith state quietly, calmly. â€Å"But I venture I owe you my life. Thank you.”\r\nâ€Å"Bonnie?” Elena asked.\r\nIm okay. I mean, â€Å"Im okay. But Elena, your back †â€Å"\r\nFor the first time, Damon was able to turn Elena and see the wounds on her back. â€Å"I…did that? But…I thought…”\r\nâ€Å"Bloddeuwedd did that,” Elena state sharply, flavour up(a) for a circling s hape in the deep red tilt. â€Å"She erect barely touched me. She has talons the wish wells of knives, a give care steel. We chip in to go, now!”\r\nDamon enthrone some(prenominal) hands on her shoulders. â€Å"And take after back when things switch calmed down, you mean.”\r\nâ€Å"And neer shine back! Oh, God, here she coifs!”\r\nSomething out of the street coigne of her eye became baseball-sized in an instant, volleyball-sized in a second, human-sized in a mo custodyt. And wherefore they were all scattering, leaping, rolling, nerve-racking to get away, boot out Damon, who seized Elena and shouted, â€Å"This is my slave! If you maintain any argument with her, you first argue with me!”\r\nâ€Å"And I am Bloddeuwedd, created by the gods, condemned to be a murderer either night. Ill kill you first, consequently eat her, the buccaneer!” Bloddeuwedd called back in her raucous parvenue voice. â€Å"Two stings is all it will take .”\r\nDamon, I require to tell you something!\r\nâ€Å"Ill fight you, that my slave is out of it!”\r\nâ€Å"First bite; here I come!”\r\nDamon, we expect to go!\r\nA scream of discern disquiet and fury.\r\nDamon was standing s mildly crouched with a huge piece of glass held in his hand like a mark and great black pearls of air were drip from where he had †oh, God! Elena thought †hed position out one of Bloddeuwedds eyeball!\r\nâ€Å"YOU result ALL DIE! ALL!”\r\nBloddeuwedd do a charge at a random vampire directly at a lower place her and Elena screamed as the vampire screamed. The black beak had caught him by one leg and was lifting him.\r\nBut Damon was running forward, jumping, slashing. With a scream of fury, Bloddeuwedd took to the sky again.\r\nNow everyone understood the d sharpen. Two some former(a) vampires rushed to take their comrade from Damon, and Elena was successful that her fri ends were non responsible for a non her life. She had too much on her hands already.\r\nDamon, Im go forth now. You can come with me or not. Ive got the key.\r\nElena move the words on the frequency that they were much or less alone on, and she move it without dramatics. She had no room for drama left(p). Shed been unfinished of everything except the need to get to Stefan.\r\nThis time, she k bracing Damon comprehend her.\r\nAt first, she thought Damon was dying. That Bloddeuwedd had somehow come back and pierced him through and through his entire body, as with a spear do of light. and on that pointfore she certainized that the feeling was rapture, and cardinal tiny child hands r all(prenominal)ed out of the light and clung to hers, allowing her to pull a thin, ragged, besides laughing child away free.\r\nNo chains, she thought dizzily. Hes not even so draining slave gewgaws.\r\nâ€Å"My brother!” he told her. â€Å"My unfore raftful brothers spill to live!”\r\nâ€Å"Well, thats a fin e thing,” Elena express shakily.\r\nâ€Å"Hes passing game to live!” A tiny frown line appeared. â€Å"If you belt along! And take good care of him! And †â€Å"\r\nElena seat two fingers over his lips, very gently. â€Å"You dont need to worry about anything like that. You provided be happy.”\r\nThe modest boy laughed. â€Å"I will! I am!”\r\nâ€Å"Elena!”\r\nElena came out of †well, she supposed it was a daze, although it had been much real than many other things shed experienced recently.\r\nâ€Å"Elena!” Damon was nerve-wracking desperately to restrain himself. â€Å"Show me the key!”\r\nSl snooty, majestically, Elena lifted her hand.\r\nDamons shoulders tensed, for †something †went down.\r\nâ€Å"Its a ring,” he said dully. The slow and majestic bit hadnt worked on him at all.\r\nâ€Å"Thats what I thought at first. Its a key. Im not asking you, or seeing if you agree with me; Im telling you. Its a key. The light from its eyes points to Stefan.”\r\nâ€Å"What light?”\r\nâ€Å"Ill shew you later. Bonnie! Meredith! Were leaving.”\r\nâ€Å"YOURE NOT IF I evidence YOURE NOT!”\r\nâ€Å"Watch out!” screamed Bonnie.\r\nThe owl was diving again. And again, at the last second, Damon ga in that respectd the three girls and leaped. The owls beak struck not grass nor shards of glass yet the stain steps. They cracked. There was a scream of hurting and another, as Damon, nimble as a dancer, slashed at the giant birds one good eye. He got in a cut right field above it. affinity began to fill the eye.\r\nElena couldnt stand any more. ever so since lead-inting out on this voyage with Damon and Matt, she had been a vial filling with anger. decrease by drop, with each new out peevishness, that anger had filled and filled the vial. Now her rage was about to fill it to overflowing.\r\nBut because…what would happen?\r\nShe didnt want to know . She was afraid she wouldnt make it it.\r\nWhat she did know was that she couldnt watch any more pain and blood and anguish right now. Damon genuinely enjoyed fighting. Good. Let him. She was going to Stefan if she had to passing game the whole way.\r\nMeredith and Bonnie were silent. They knew Elena in this mood. She wasnt cozen nearly. And neither of them wanted to be left behind.\r\nIt was exactly at that moment that the rigging came rumbling up to the base of the marble stairs.\r\n keen-sighted, who obviously knew something about human nature, beastly nature, vampiric nature, and various kinds of bestial nature, jumped out of the walker with two swords drawn. He in any case whistled. In a moment a shadow †a small one †came streaking to him out of the sky.\r\nLast, slowly, stretching each leg like a tiger, came Saber, who instanter pulled back his lips to constitute an amazing number of teeth.\r\nElena leaped toward the carriage, her eyes run into Sages. supporter me, she thought desperately. And his eyes said just as plainly, Have no idolize.\r\nBlindly, she reached behind her with both hands. iodine small, fine-boned, lightly trembling hand was thrust into hers. One slim, cool hand, hard as a boys that with long tapering fingers grabbed her other one.\r\nThere was no one here to trust. No one to say cheerio to, or leave messages of good-bye with. Elena go into the carriage. She got into the backseat, the farthest from the front, to accommodate incoming manhood and animals.\r\nAnd in they did come, like an avalanche. She had dragged Bonnie with her, and Meredith had followed, so that when Saber leaped into his accustomed place he landed on three haywire laps.\r\nSage hadnt wasted a moment. With Talon clamped on his left wrist, he left just enough room for Damons final spring †and a spring it was. Cracked and broken, run black fluid, Bloddeuwedds beak hit the end of the marble stairs where Damon had been standing.\r\nâ €Å"Directions!” shouted Sage, provided only after the horses were mattering at a gallop †somewhere, anywhere, away.\r\n â€Å"Oh, please dont let her hurt the horses,” Bonnie gasped.\r\nâ€Å"Oh, please dont let her split this roof like cardboard,” said Meredith, somehow able to be humorous even when her life was in danger.\r\nâ€Å"Directions, sil vous plaît!” roared Sage.\r\nâ€Å"The prison, of persist,” panted Elena. She felt that it had been a long time since she had been able to get enough air.\r\nâ€Å"The prison?” Damon seemed distracted. â€Å"Yes! The prison!” But then, he added, draw up something like a gaffe filled with billiard balls, â€Å"Sage, what are these?”\r\nâ€Å"Loot. Booty. Spoils! loot!” As the horses swung in a new direction, Sages voice seemed to get more and more cheerful. â€Å"And look nigh your feet!”\r\nâ€Å"More pillow fictional characters…?”\r\n â€Å"I wasnt prepared for a big hale tonight. But things worked out well anyhow!”\r\nBy now, Elena was feeling one of the pillowcases for herself. The case was, indeed, full of clear, sparkling hoshi no tama. wizardry balls. Memories. Worth…\r\nWorthless?\r\nâ€Å"Priceless…although of course we dont know whats on them.” Sages voice changed subtly. Elena remembered the pattern about â€Å"f revolveidden plains.” What, in the concern of the yellow sun, could they possibly forbid down here?\r\nBonnie was the first to calve up a disk and target it to her tabernacle. She did it so quickly, with such flashing, birdlike movements, that Elena couldnt stop her.\r\nâ€Å"What is it?” Elena gasped, hard to pull the ace ball away.\r\nâ€Å"Its…poetry. poem I cant understand,” said Bonnie crossly.\r\nMeredith had also picked up a sparkling orb. Elena reached for her notwithstanding once again she was too late.\r\nMeredith sit as if in a enthrall for a moment, then grimaced and set up the sphere down.\r\nâ€Å"What?” demanded Elena.\r\nMeredith shook her head. She wore a delicate flavour of distaste.\r\nâ€Å"What?” Elena about yelled. Then as Meredith put the star ball by her feet, Elena lunged at it. She clapped it to her own temple and immediately was togged up in black leather from head to toe. There were two b itinerary, square men in front of her, without a fix of muscle tone. And she could see all of their muscular structure because they were stark naked except for rags such as beggars wore. But they werent beggars †they looked well-fed and fatty and it was clearly an act when one of them groveled, â€Å"We have trespassed. We beg your for giveness, O master!”\r\nElena was reaching to take the sphere get through her temple (they stuck gently, if you put a little nip there) and saying, â€Å"Why dont they use the space for something else?”\r\nSomething else w as immediately all around her. A girl, in poor clothing, notwithstanding not enlightening. She looked terrified. Elena wondered if she were existence controlled.\r\nAnd Elena was the girl.\r\nPleasedontletitgetmepleasedontletitgetme â€\r\nLet what get you? Elena asked, but it was like watching a movie or book character while they were going into a lonely house in a howling storm and the euphony had turned eerie. The Elena who was walking in fear could not hear the Elena who was asking pragmatical questions.\r\nI dont think I want to see how this one comes out, she decided. She put the star ball back at Merediths feet.\r\nâ€Å"Do we have three sacks?”\r\nâ€Å"Yes, maam, yes, maam; three sacks full.”\r\nOh. That didnt work out very well. Elena was fountain her mouth again, when Damon added quietly: â€Å"And one sack empty.”\r\nâ€Å"Really? We do? Then lets all try to divide these. Anything †forbidden †goes in one sack. Weird stuff like Bonn ies poetry reading goes into another. Any intelligence activity of Stefan †or of us †goes in the third. And exquisite things, like summer days, go in the fourth,” Elena said.\r\nâ€Å"I think you are being optimistic, me,” Sage said. â€Å"To expect to find an orb with Stefan on it so quickly †â€Å"\r\nâ€Å"Everybody, tranquilize!” Bonnie said frantically. â€Å"This is Shinichi and Damon talking him into it.”\r\nSage stiffened, as if taking a lightning thunderbolt from the stormy sky, then he smiled. â€Å" tell of the devil,” he murmured. Elena smiled at him and squeezed his hand to begin with taking another ball.\r\nâ€Å"This one seems to be some kind of legal stuff. I dont understand it. A slave must(prenominal) be taking it because I can see all of them.” Elena felt her facial nerve muscles tighten with hatred at the sight †even in a sort of dream †of Shinichi, the kitsune who had done so much harm. His hair was black, except for an irregular hit around the edges, which made it look as if it had been dipped in red-hot lava.\r\nAnd then, of course, Misao. Shinichis babe †allegedly. This star ball must have been made by a slave, because she could see both of the twins and a lawyerly-looking man.\r\nMisao, Elena thought. Delicate, deferential, demure…demonic. Her hair was the selfsame(prenominal) as Shinichis, but it was held up and back in a ponytail. You could see the demonic part if she raise her eyes. They were effervescent, golden, laughing eyes, just like her brothers; eyes that had never had a regret †except perhaps for not exacting enough revenge. They took no responsibility. They found anguish funny.\r\nAnd then something odd happened. All three of the figures in the room suddenly turned around and looked back-to-back at her. Straight at whoever had made the sphere, Elena corrected herself, but it still was disconcerting.\r\nIt was even more disconc erting when they proceed to advance. Who am I? Elena thought, feeling half-frantic with anxiety. Then she tried something she had never done before, or seen or heard of being done. She conservatively extended her Power into the Self around the orb. She was Werty, a sort of lawyers secretary. She/he took notes when fundamental deals were done.\r\nAnd Werty definitely didnt like the way things were going right now. The two clients and his boss cloture in on him like this, in a way they never had before.\r\nElena pulled herself out of the clerk and put the ball down to one side. She shivered, feeling as if shed been plunged into ice-cold water.\r\nAnd then the roof crashed in.\r\nBloddeuwedd.\r\nEven with her crippled beak, the huge owl tore off quite a bit of the roof of the carriage.\r\nEveryone was screaming and no one was handsome much good advice. Saber and Damon had both damaged her: Saber by ski tow right off the three cushy laps he was sitting on and lunging dead on tar get up for Bloddeuwedds feet. He had torn and agitate one before letting go to fall back into the carriage, where he almost slid off the back. Elena, Bonnie, and Meredith grabbed at whatever portions of laniary anatomy they could reach, and hauled the huge animal into the backseat again.\r\nâ€Å" dart over! Give him his own seat,” wailed Bonnie, looking at the shreds of her pearl-colored dress where Saber had taken off and ripped right through the vapourous material. Hed left red welts in his path.\r\nâ€Å"Well,” Meredith said, â€Å" side by side(p) time well request steel petticoats. But I really hope there isnt going to be a next time, anyway!”\r\nElena prayed fervently that she was right. Bloddeuwedd was skimming in from a lower rake now, undoubtedly hoping to snap off a few heads.\r\nâ€Å"Everybody grab wood. And spheres! Throw the spheres at her as she comes close to us.” Elena was hoping that the sight of star globes †Bloddeuwedds co mpulsion †might slow her down.\r\nAt the same time Sage shouted, â€Å"Dont waste the star balls! Throw anything else! Besides, were almost there. Hard left, then straightaway!”\r\nThe words gave Elena new hope. I have the key, she thought. The ring is the key. All I have to do now is get Stefan †and get all of us to the doorstep with the keyhole. All in one make. Im very much home.\r\nThe next sweep came in even lower. Bloddeuwedd, blind in one eye, with blood filling the other one, and her olfactory senses block off by her own dried blood, was trying to ram the carriage and knock it over.\r\nIf she manages it, well be dead, Elena thought. And any whore still writhing like worms on the intellect, she can pick off.\r\nâ€Å" deflect!” She screamed the word both vocally and telepathically.\r\nAnd then something like an airplane flew so close to her that she felt tufts of hair being pulled out, caught in its claws.\r\nElena heard a cry of pain from the fro nt seat but didnt raise her head to see what it was. And that was good, for while the carriage suddenly slammed to a halt, the next instant a whirling, screaming, bird of death came searing out on the same course. Now Elena require all of her attention, all her faculties, to avoid this fanatic that was buzzing them even lower.\r\nâ€Å"The carriage, she is finished! choose out! Run!” Sages voice came rumbling to her.\r\nâ€Å"The horses,” screamed Elena.\r\nâ€Å"Finished! Get out, damn you!”\r\nElena had never heard Sage swear before. She dropped the subject.\r\nElena never knew how she and Meredith did get out, tumbling over each other, trying to help and only get in each others way. Bonnie was already out, by virtue of the coach having hit a pole and sending her dissipated. Fortunately, it had move her into a square of ugly but springy red clover, and she wasnt seriously injured.\r\nâ€Å"Ahhh, my bracelet †no, there it is,” she cried, grabb ing something glittering out of the clover. She neglect a cautious look upward into the crimson night. â€Å"Now what do we do?”\r\nâ€Å"We run!” came Damons voice. He came around the wreckage of the corner where they had fallen in a heap. There was blood on his mouth, on the antecedently immaculate white at his throat. It reminded Elena of those people who drank cows blood as well as milk for nutrition. But Damon only drank from humans. He would never stoop to equine blood…\r\nThe horses will still be here and so will Bloddeuwedd, a acid voice explained in her head. She would play with them; there would be pain. This way was quick. It was…a whim.\r\nElena reached for his hands, gasping. â€Å"Damon! Im muddied!”\r\nâ€Å"GET OUT OF HERE,” Sage was roaring.\r\nâ€Å"We have to get to Stefan,” Elena said, and grabbed Bonnie with her other hand. â€Å"Help guide me, please. I cant see the ring very well.” Meredith, she trusted, would get to the Shi no Shi building on her own resources.\r\nAnd then there was a nightmare of running and flinching and saturnine alarms by a shaken Bonnie. in two ways the horror from above came skimming straight toward them only to crash just in front of them, or a little to the side, breaking wood and tile road alike, throwing up clouds of dust. Elena didnt know about all owls, but Bloddeuwedd swooped down at an angle on her prey, then opened her go and dropped at the last moment. Part of the shoot thing about the giant owl was her silence.\r\nThere was no rustling to warn them of where she might be. Something in her own feathers quiet the sound, so that they never knew when she was going to drop next.\r\nIn the end they had to crawl through all sorts of rubbish, going as fasting as they could, holding wood, glass, anything sharp over their heads, as Bloddeuwedd made another pass.\r\nAnd all the time Elena was trying to use her Power. It was not a Power she had used befor e, but she could feel its name shaping her lips. What she could not feel, could not force, was a connection amidst the words and the Power.\r\nIm useless as a heroine, she thought. Im pathetic. They should have given these Powers to soul who already knew how to control such things. Or, no, they should have given them to someone and then given the someone a course on how to use them. Or †no â€\r\nâ€Å"Elena!” Rubbish was flying in front of her, but then she was cutting left and somehow get around it. And then she was on the ground and looking up at Damon, who had defend her with his body.\r\nâ€Å"Thank you,” she speak.\r\nâ€Å"Come on!”\r\nâ€Å"Im sorry,” she whispered and held out her right hand, with the ring on it, for him to take.\r\nAnd then she doubled up, heaving with sobs. She could hear the flapping of Bloddeuwedd right above her.\r\n'