"There are more problems," Damon got out huskily, and she knew he'd read her thoughts. "They - they tried to make it impossible for me to speak to you about this. They did it in grand old fairy tale style: by making up lots of conditions. I couldn't tell you inside a house, nor could I tell you outside. Well, a widow's walk isn't inside, but you can't say it's outside, either. I couldn't tell you by sunlight or by moonlight. Well, the sun's gone down, and it's another thirty minutes before the moon rises, and I say that that condition is met. And I couldn't tell you while you were clothed or naked." Elena automatically glanced down at herself in alarm, but nothing had changed as far as she could tell.
"And I figure that that condition is met, too, because even though he swore to me he was letting me out of one of his little snow globes, he didn't do it. We're in a house that's not a house - it's a thought in somebody's mind. You're wearing clothes that aren't real clothes - they're figments of imagination."
Elena opened her mouth again, but he put two fingers to her lips and said, "Wait. Just let me go on while I still can. I seriously thought that he might never stop with the conditions, which he had picked up out of fairy tale literature. He's obsessed with that, and with old English poetry. I don't know why, because he's from the other side of the world, from Japan. That's who Shinichi is. And he has a twin sister...Misao."
Damon stopped breathing hard after that, and Elena figured that there must have been some internal conditions against him telling her.
"He likes it if you translate his name asdeath-first , ornumber one in the matters of death . They're both like teenagers, really, with their codes and their games, and yet they're thousands of years old."
"Thousands?" Elena prodded gently as Damon coasted to a stop, looking exhausted but determined.
"I hate to think of howmany thousands of years the two of them have been doing mischief. Misao's the one who's been doing all the things to the girls in town. She possesses them with her malach and then she makes the malach make them do things. You remember your American history? The Salem witches? That was Misao, or someone like her. And it's happened hundreds of times before that. You might look up the Ursuline nuns when you're out of this. They were a quiet convent who became exhibitionists and worse - some went mad, and some who tried to help them became possessed."
"Exhibitionists? Like Tamra? But she's only a child - "
"Misao's only a child, in her head."
"And where does Caroline come in?"
"In any case like this, there's got to be an instigator - someone who's willing to bargain with the devil - or a demon, really - for their own ends. That's where Caroline comes in. But for an entire town, they must be giving her something really big."
"An entire town? They're going to take over Fell's Church...?"
Damon looked away. The truth was that they were going todestroy Fell's Church, but there was no point in saying that. His hands were loosely fastened around his knees as he sat on a rickety old wooden chair on the widow's walk.
"Before we can do anything to help anyone, we have to get out of here. Out of Shinichi's world. This is important. I can - block him for short periods of time from watching us - but then I get tired and need blood. I need more than you can regenerate, Elena." He looked up at her. "He's put Beauty in with the Beast here and he'll leave us to see which one will triumph."
"If you mean kill the other, he's in for a long wait on my end."
"That's what you think now. But this is a specially made trap. There'snothing in here except the Old Wood as it was when we started driving around it. It's also minus any other human habitations. Theonly house is this house, the only real living creatures are the two of us. You'll want me dead soon enough."
"Damon, I don't understand. What do theywant here? Even with what Stefan said about all the ley lines crossing under Fell's Church and making a beacon..."
"It wasyour beacon that drew them, Elena. They're curious, like kids, and I have a feeling that they may already have been in trouble wherever it is they really live. It's possible they were here watching the end of the battle, watching you be reborn."
"And so they want...to destroy us? To have fun? To take over the town and make us puppets?"
"All three, for a while. They could be having fun while someone else pleads their case in a high court in another dimension. And yes, fun, to them, means taking apart a town. Although I believe that Shinichi means to go back on his bargain with me for something he wants more than the town, so they may end up fighting each other."
"What bargain withyou , Damon?"
"For you. Stefan had you. I wanted you. He wants you."
Despite herself, Elena felt cold pooling in her midriff, felt the distant shaking that began there and worked its way outward. "And the original bargain was?"
He looked away from her. "This is the bad part."
"Damon, what have you done?"she cried, almost screaming it."What was the bargain?" Her whole body was shaking.
"I made a bargain with a demon and, yes, I knew what he was when I did it. It was the night after your friends were attacked by the trees - after Stefan banished me from his room. That and - well, I was angry, but he took my anger and boosted it. He was using me, controlling me; I see that now. That's when he started with the deals and conditions."
"Damon - " Elena began shakily, but he went on, speaking rapidly as if he had to get through this, to see it to its conclusion, before he lost his nerve. "The final deal was that he would help me get Stefan out of the way so I could have you, while he got Caroline and the rest of the town to share with his sister. Thus trumping Caroline's bargain for whatever she was getting from Misao."