The truth is that I don't exactly understand the situation. Earlier today, Damon sent me a card with a Web address on it. I've put the card under your pillow, love.
Oh damn, thought Damon. It was going to be hard to get that card without waking her. But he had to do it.
Elena, follow this Web link. You'll have to dither with the brightness controls because it's been created for vampire eyes only. What the link seems to be saying is that there is a place calledShi no Shi - literally translated, it says, asthe Death of Death, where they can remove this curse which has haunted me for almost half a millennium. They use magic and science in combination to restore former vampires to simple men and women, boys and girls.
If they truly can do this, Elena, we can be together for as long as ordinary people live. That's all I ask of life.
I want it. I want to have the chance to stand before you as an ordinary breathing, eating human.
But don't worry.I'm just going to talk with Damon about this. You don't need to command me to stay. I would never leave you with all the goings-on in Fell's Church right now. It's too dangerous for you, especially with your new blood and your new aura.
I realize that I'm trusting Damon more than I probably should. But of one thing I am certain:he would never harm you.He loves you. How can he help it?
Still, I have to meet with him at least, on his terms, alone at a particular location in the wood. Then we'll see what we see.
As I said before, if you're reading this letter, it means that something has gone drastically wrong. Defend yourself, love. Don't be afraid. Trust yourself. And trust your friends. They can all help you.
I trust Matt's instinctive protectiveness for you, Meredith's judgment, and Bonnie's intuition. Tell them to remember that.
I'm hoping that you never have to read this,
with all my love, my heart, my soul,
Stefan
P.S. Just in case, there is $20,000 in hundred-dollar bills under the second floorboard from the wall, across from the bed. Right now the rocking chair is over it. You'll see the crack easily if you move the chair.
Carefully, Damon deleted the words in this file. Then, with one corner of his mouth quirked up, he carefully, silently typed in new words with a rather different meaning. He read them over. He smiled brilliantly. He'd always fancied himself a writer; no formal training of course, but he felt he had an instinctive flair for it.
And that was Step One accomplished, Damon thought, saving the file with his words instead of Stefan's.
Then, noiselessly, he walked to where Elena was sleeping, spooned behind Stefan on the narrow bed.
Now for Step Two.
Slowly, very slowly, Damon slipped his fingers under the pillow on which Elena's head rested. He could feel Elena's hair where it spilled on her pillow in the moonlight, and the ache that it awoke was more in his chest than in his canines. Inching his fingers under the pillow, he searched for something smooth.
Elena murmured in her sleep and suddenly turned over. Damon almost jumped back into the shadows, but Elena's eyes were shut, her lashes a thick inky crescent on her cheeks.
She was facing him now, but strangely Damon didn't find himself tracing the blue veins in her fair, smooth skin. He found himself staring hungrily at her slightly parted lips. They were...almost impossible to resist. Even in sleep they were the color of rose petals, slightly moist, and parted that way....
I could do it very lightly. She would never know. I could, I know I could. I feel invincible tonight.
As he bent toward her his fingers touched cardboard.
It seemed to jerk him out of a dream world. What had he been thinking? Risking everything, all his plans, for akiss ? There would be plenty of time for kisses - and other, much more important things - later.
He slipped the little card out from under the pillow and put it in his pocket.
Then he became a crow and vanished from the windowsill.
Stefan had long ago perfected the art of sleeping only until a certain moment, then awakening. He did this now, glancing at the clock on the mantelpiece to confirm that it was fourA.M . exactly.
He didn't want to awaken Elena.
He dressed soundlessly and exited the window by the same route his brother had - only as a hawk. Somewhere, he was sure Damon was being made a fool by someone using malachs to make him their puppet. And Stefan, still pumped up with Elena's blood, felt that he had a duty to stop them.
The note Damon had delivered had directed him to the tree where the humans had crashed. Damon would also want to continually revisit that tree until he'd traced the malach puppets to their puppeteer.
He swooped, drifted, and once almost gave a mouse a heart attack by stooping down on it suddenly before rocketing skyward again.
And then, in midair, as he saw evidence of a car hitting a tree, he changed from a glorious hawk to a young man with dark hair, a pale face, and intensely green eyes.
He drifted, light as a snowflake, down to the ground and gazed in each direction, using all his vampire senses to test the area. He could feel nothing of a trap; no animosity, just the unmistakable signs of the trees' violent fight. He stayed human to climb the tree that bore the psychic imprint of his brother.
He wasn't chilly as he climbed the oak his brother had been lounging in when the accident had taken place at his feet. He had too much of Elena's blood running through him to feel the cold. But he was aware that this area of the forest was particularly cold; that something was keeping it that way. Why? He'd already claimed the rivers and forests that ran through Fell's Church, so why take up lodging here without telling him? Whatever it was, it would have to present itself before him eventually, if it wanted to stay in Fell's Church. Why wait? he wondered, as he squatted on the branch.
He felt Damon's presence coming at him long before his senses would have noticed it in the days before Elena's transformation, and he kept himself from flinching. Instead he turned with his back to the trunk of the tree and looked outward. He could feel Damon speeding toward him, faster and faster, stronger and stronger - and then Damon should have been there, standing before him, but he wasn't.