"Oh, we'l leave you alone...in time, I assure you,"Shinichi said with an unnerving smile. He had a smile like Damon's, which wasn't meant to say "Hel o; I won't hurt you."It was more like "Hul o! Here's my lunch!"
"I find it...curious,"Shinichi went on, Stillfiddling with the cord.
"Very curious that just in the middle of our little dispute, you arrive here in the Dark Dimension again, alone, apparently without fear, and manage to bargain for a star bal . An orb that just happens to detail the location of our most priceless treasures that were stolen from us...a long, long time ago."
You don't care about anybody but yourself, Bonnie thought.
You're suddenly acting al patriotic and stuff, but in Fel 's Church you didn't pretend to care about anything but hurting people.
"In your little town, as in other towns throughout history, I had orders to do what I did,"Shinichi said, and Bonnie's heart plunged right down to her shoes. He was telepathic. He knew what she was thinking. He'd heard her thinking about the jars.
Shinichi smirked. "Little towns like the one on Unmei no Shima have to be wiped off the face of the earth,"he said.
"Did you see the number of ley lines of Power under it?"Another smirk. "But of course you weren't really there, so you probably didn't."
"If you can tel what I'm thinking, you know that story about treasures was just a story,"Bonnie said. "It was in the star bal cal ed Five Hundred Stories for Young Ones. It's not real."
"How strange then that it coincides so exactly with what the Seven Kitsune Gates are supposed to have behind them."
"It was in the middle of a bunch of stories about the - the Düz-Aht-Bhi'iens. I mean the story right before it was about a kid buying candy,"Bonnie said. "So why don't you just go get the star bal instead of trying to scare me?"Her voice was beginning to tremble. "It's at the inn right across the street from the shop where I was - arrested. Just go and get it!"
"Of course we've tried that,"Shinichi said impatiently. "The landlady was quite cooperative after we gave her some...compensation. There is no such story in that star bal ."
"That's not possible!"Bonnie said. "Where did I get it, then?"
"That's what I'm asking you."
Stomach fluttering, Bonnie said, "How many star bal s did you look at in that brown room?"
Shinichi's eyes went blurry briefly. Bonnie tried to listen, but he was obviously speaking telepathical y to someone close, on a tight frequency.
Final y he said, "Twenty-eight star bal s, exactly."
Bonnie felt as if she'd been clubbed. She wasn't going crazy - she wasn't. She'd experienced that story. She knew every fissure in every rock, every shadow in the snow. The only answers were that the real star bal had been stolen, or - or maybe that they hadn't looked hard enough at the ones they had.
"The story is there,"she insisted. "Right before it is the story about little Marit going to a - "
"We probed the table of contents. There is the story about a child and" - he looked scornful - "a sweetshop. But not the other."
Bonnie just shook her head. "I swear I'm tel ing the truth."
"Why should I believe you?"
"Why does it matter? How could I make something like that up? And why would I tel a story I knew would get me in trouble? It doesn't make any sense."
Shinichi stared at her hard. Then he shrugged, his ears flat against his head. "What a pity you keep saying that."
Suddenly Bonnie's heart was pounding in her chest, in her tight throat. "Why?"
"Because,"Shinichi said cool y, pul ing the blinds completely open so that Bonnie was abruptly drenched in the color of fresh blood, "I'm afraid that now we have to kil you."
The ogre holding her strode toward the window. Bonnie screamed. In places like this, she knew screams went unheard.
She didn't know what else to do.
Chapter 17
Meredith and Matt were sitting at the breakfast table, which seemed sadly empty without Bonnie. It was amazing how much space that slight body had seemed to fil , and how much more serious everyone was without her. Meredith knew that if Elena had done her best, she could have offset it. But she also knew that Elena had one thing on her mind above al others, and that was Stefan, who was stricken with guilt for al owing his brother to abduct Bonnie. And meanwhile Meredith knew that both she and Matt were feeling guilty too, because today they would be leaving the other three, even if only for the evening. They each had been summoned home by parents who demanded to see them for dinner.
Mrs. Flowers clearly didn't want them to feel too badly. "With the help you've given, I can make our urns,"she said. "Since Matt has found my wheel - "
"I didn't exactly find it,"Matt said under his breath. "It was there in the storage room al the time and it fel on me."
" - and since Meredith has received her pictures - along, I'm sure, with an email from Mr. Saltzman - perhaps she could get them enlarged or whatever."
"Of course, and show them to the Saitous, too, to make sure that the symbols say the things we want them to,"Meredith promised. "And Bonnie can - "
She broke off short. Idiot! She was an idiot, she thought.
And, as a hunter-slayer, she was supposed to be clear-minded and at al times maintain control. She felt terrible when she looked at Matt and saw the na**d pain in his face.
"Dear Bonnie wil surely be home soon,"Mrs. Flowers finished for her.
And we al know that's a lie, and I don't have to be psychic to detect it, Meredith thought. She noticed that Mrs. Flowers hadn't weighed in with anything from Ma ma.