Phantom (15 page)

E
lena couldn’t breathe. She could vaguely feel her mouth opening and closing, but she found she wasn’t able to say anything. Her hands and feet had gone numb.

Damon gave her an almost shy smile—which was funny, because Damon didn’t do shy—and shrugged. “Well, princess? You wanted me to be here with you, didn’t you?”

As if a rubber band holding her back had snapped, Elena leaped out of bed and hurtled into Damon’s arms.

“Are you real?” she said, half sobbing. “Is this real?” She kissed him fiercely, and he met her kiss with equal fervor. He
felt
real, cool skin and leather, the surprising softness of his lips familiar under hers.

“Here I am,” he murmured into her hair as he pulled her close to him. “It’s real, I promise you.”

Elena stepped back and smacked him hard across the face. Damon glared at her and reached up to rub his cheek. “Ouch,” he said, and then cracked a narrow, irritating smile. “I can’t say that was completely unexpected—I get slapped by women more often than you’d think possible—but not a nice welcome for the long-lost love, sweetheart.”

“How could you?” Elena said, dry-eyed now and furious. “How
could
you, Damon? We’ve all been mourning you. Stefan’s falling apart. Bonnie blames herself. I . . . I . . . A piece of my heart
died
. How long have you been watching us? Didn’t you care? Was this all some kind of joke to you? Did you laugh when we cried?”

Damon winced. “Darling,” he said. “My princess. Aren’t you glad to see me at all?”

“Of course I am!” said Elena indignantly. She took a breath and cooled down a little. “But, Damon, what were you thinking? We all thought you were dead!
Permanently
dead, not show-up-in-my-bedroom-a-few-days-later-looking-perfectly-healthy dead!
What’s going on?
Did the Guardians do this? They told me they couldn’t when I begged them to, that death is permanent for a vampire once it happens.”

Damon graced her with a genuine, laughing smile. “Well, you of all people ought to know that death isn’t always permanent.”

Elena shrugged and wrapped her arms around herself. “They told me that when I came back, it was different,” she said in a small voice, her emotions zigzagging all over the place.
Because you’re in shock,
a tiny voice at the back of her head said wisely. “Mystical stuff, you know. My time wasn’t up. Hey!” She poked him with one finger, perking up. “Are you human now? I was human when I returned.”

Damon gave a long, theatrical shudder. “God forbid. I had enough of that when that meddling kitsune made me a mortal. Thank heaven—or whoever—I don’t have to go looking for an obliging vampire princess to turn me back this time.” He grinned slyly at Elena. “I’m as bloodsucking as ever, darling.” He eyed her neck. “Speaking of which, I’m rather hungry. . . .”

Elena smacked him again, though more gently this time. “Knock it off, Damon.”

“Can I sit down now?” Damon asked and, when she nodded, settled himself on the foot of her bed and drew her down to sit beside him. Elena looked searchingly into his eyes, then gently traced her hand over his sharp cheekbones, his sculpted mouth, his soft raven hair.

“You
were
dead, Damon,” she said quietly. “I know it. I saw you die.”

“Yes,” he said, and sighed. “I felt myself die. It was horribly painful and it seemed to both go on forever and be over in a few moments.” He shuddered. “There was a little bit left of me even then though”—Elena nodded—“and Stefan told me, told him, to fly away. And you held him—held me—and told me to close my eyes. And then that last little bit of me was gone, too, and even the pain was gone. And then . . . I came back.” Damon’s dark eyes were wide with remembered wonder.

“But how?” asked Elena.

“Remember the star ball?”

“How could I forget? It was the root of all our problems with the kitsune. It was vaporized when I . . . Oh, Damon, I used my
Wings of Destruction
on the tree on the Nether World’s moon. But they destroyed the kitsune’s star ball, too, and I had to go to the Guardians to save Fell’s Church. The
Wings of Destruction
were . . . like nothing I’ve ever seen or felt before.” She shivered.

“I’ve seen what you did to that moon,” Damon said, smiling slightly. “Would it make you feel better, my lovely angel, if you knew that using your Powers like that and destroying the star ball is what saved me?”

“Don’t call me that,” said Elena, scowling. The Guardians were the closest thing she had ever seen to real angels, and she did not have fond memories of them. “How did it save you?”

“Do they explain how condensation works in modern schools?” Damon asked with the supercilious expression he always wore when he teasingly criticized her world in comparison to the one he had grown up in. “Is it all sex education, empathy, and second-rate novels now, or do they still tell the children a little about science? I know they’ve dropped Latin and Greek in favor of theater and consciousness-raising.” His voice dripped with contempt.

Elena told herself not to rise to his bait. Instead she folded her hands neatly in front of her in her lap. “I think you may be a few decades out-of-date. But please, O wise one,” she said, “assume that my education didn’t include the connection between condensation and rising from the dead, and enlighten me.”

“Nice.” Damon smirked. “I like to see a young woman who is respectful of her elders and betters.” Elena cocked an eyebrow at him warningly. “Anyway,” he continued, “the liquid
in
the star ball, the pure magic, didn’t vanish. It’s not that easy to get rid of really strong magic. As the atmosphere cooled, the magic turned from vapor back into liquid and fell down on me, with the rain of ash. I was soaking in pure Power for hours, gradually being reborn.”

Elena’s mouth dropped open. “Those
sneaks
,” she said indignantly. “The Guardians told me you were gone for good, and they took all the treasures we bribed them with, too.” She thought briefly of the one last treasure she still had, a water bottle full of the Water of Eternal Youth, hidden high up on the shelf in her closet, and pushed the thought away. She couldn’t even acknowledge that hidden treasure to herself for more than a moment, for fear the Guardians would realize she had it, and she couldn’t
use
it . . . not yet, maybe not ever.

Damon shrugged one shoulder. “They do cheat, sometimes, I hear. But it’s more likely this time that they thought they were telling the truth. They don’t know everything, even though they like to pretend they do. And kitsune and vampires are both a little outside their area of expertise.”

He told her how he had woken, buried deep in ash and mud, clawed his way to the surface, and set off across the desolate moon, not knowing who he was or what had happened to him, and how he had almost died again, and that Sage had saved him.

“And then what?” Elena asked eagerly. “How did you remember everything? How did you get back to Earth?”

“Well,” said Damon, turning a slight, fond smile on her, “that’s a funny story.” He reached into an inner pocket of his leather jacket and pulled out a neatly folded white linen handkerchief. Elena blinked. It looked like the same handkerchief he had given her in her dream. Damon noticed her expression and smiled more widely, as though he knew where she was recognizing it from. He unfolded it and held it out for Elena’s inspection.

Cradled inside the handkerchief were two strands of hair. Very familiar hair, Elena realized. She and Bonnie had each cut off a lock of hair and placed them on Damon’s body, wanting to leave a part of themselves with him, since they couldn’t take his body off the desolate moon with them. Before her now lay a curling red lock and a waving gold one, as bright and shiny as if they had just been cut from freshly washed heads, rather than left on a world with ash falling all around.

Damon gazed at the locks with an expression made up of tenderness and a little awe. Elena thought that she had never seen such an open, almost hopeful look from him.

“The Power from the star ball saved these, too,” he said. “First they were burned almost to ash, but then they regenerated. I held them and studied them and cherished them, and you started to come back to me. Sage had given me my name, and it sounded right to me, but I couldn’t recall anything else about myself. But as I held these locks of hair, I gradually remembered who you were, and what we had been through together, and all the things I . . .” He paused. “What I knew and felt about you, and then I remembered the little redbird, too, and then everything else came flooding back and I was myself again.”

He glanced away and lost the sentimental look, smoothing his face into its usual cool expression, as if embarrassed, then folded the locks of hair back inside the handkerchief and tucked it carefully away into his jacket.

“Well,” he said briskly, “then it was just a matter of having Sage lend me some clothes, fill me in on what I had missed, and give me a lift back to Fell’s Church. And now here I am.”

“I bet he was amazed,” said Elena, “and ecstatic.” The vampire Keeper of the Gates Between Worlds was a dear friend of Damon’s, the only
friend
of Damon’s she knew of, other than herself. Damon’s acquaintances tended to be enemies or admirers more often than friends.

“He was quite pleased,” Damon admitted.

“So you just now made it back to Earth?”

Damon nodded.

“Well, you’ve missed a lot here,” Elena said, launching into an explanation of the past few days, starting with Celia’s name written in blood and ending on Caleb’s hospitalization.

“Wow.” Damon let out a low whistle. “But I have to assume the problem is more than my little brother acting like a madman with Caleb? Because, you know, that may be simple jealousy. Jealousy has always been Stefan’s biggest sin.” He said the last with a smug twist to his lips, and Elena elbowed him gently in the ribs.

“Don’t put Stefan down,” she said reprovingly, and smiled to herself. It felt so
good
to be scolding Damon again. He really was his own maddening, changeable, wonderful self again. Damon was
back.

Wait. Oh, no.
“You’re in danger, too!” Elena gasped, remembering suddenly that he could still be taken from her. “Your name appeared earlier, written in the weeds that were holding Meredith underwater. We didn’t know what it could mean, because we thought you were dead. But, since you’re alive, it seems you’re the next target.” She paused. “Unless falling through the surface of the moon was the attack on you.”

“Don’t worry about me, Elena. You are probably right about the attack on the moon being my ‘accident.’ But they haven’t been very successful attempts, have they?” Damon said thoughtfully. “Almost as if whatever this is isn’t trying very hard to kill us. I have a faint inkling about what might be causing this.”

“You do?” asked Elena. “Tell me.”

Damon shook his head. “It’s just a glimmer right now,” he said. “Let me get some sort of confirmation.”

“But Damon,” Elena pleaded, “even a glimmer is much more than the rest of us have been able to come up with. Come with me tomorrow morning and tell everyone about it, and we can all work together.”

“Oh, yes,” said Damon, with a mock shudder. “You and me and Mutt and the vampire hunter, a cozy group. Plus my pious brother and the little red witch. And the old lady witch and the teacher. No, I’m going to do some more digging on my own. And what’s more, Elena,” he said, fixing her with a dark stare, “you’re not to tell anyone that I’m alive. Especially not Stefan.”

“Damon!” Elena protested. “You don’t know how absolutely devastated Stefan is, thinking you’re dead. We have to let him know you’re all right.”

Damon smiled wryly. “I think there’s probably a part of Stefan that’s glad enough to have me out of the picture. He doesn’t have any reason to want me here.” Elena shook her head in furious denial, but he went on. “It’s true. But maybe it’s time for things to be different between us. To that end, I have to show him that I can change. In any case, I can’t investigate this properly if everyone knows I’m around. Keep quiet for now, Elena.” She opened her mouth to object further, but he silenced her with a quick, fierce kiss. When they broke apart, he said, “Promise me for now, and I’ll promise you that as soon as I figure this out, you can announce my resurrection to the world.”

Elena nodded doubtfully. “If that’s what you really want, Damon, and you really think it’s necessary,” she said. “But I’m not happy about it.”

Damon got to his feet and patted her shoulder. “Things are going to be different now,” he said. He looked down at her, his face serious. “I’m not the same as I was, Elena.”

Elena nodded again, more firmly this time. “I’ll keep your secret, Damon,” she promised.

Damon gave her a small, tight smile, then took three steps toward her open window. In a moment he was gone, and a large black crow flew out into the night.

T
he next morning, Elena felt light and joyful, as if she was hugging an enormous, wonderful secret to herself. Damon was still alive. He had been in her room last night.

Right?

She’d been through so much, she could hardly trust it. She climbed out of bed, noting that the clouds outside were still pink and gold from the sunrise, so it must be very early. She carefully moved toward the window. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but she went down on her hands and knees and scanned the floor carefully.

There. A tiny piece of dirt on the squeaky board, fallen from someone’s shoe. And there, on the windowsill, the long scratches of a bird’s claws. That was proof enough for Elena.

She stood up and gave a funny little hop of joy, clapping her hands together sharply once, an unstoppable grin spreading across her face. Damon was alive!

Then she took a deep breath and stood still, willing her face into blankness. If she was really going to keep this secret—and she supposed she would have to; she’d promised, after all—she was going to have to act like nothing had changed. And really, things were pretty bad still, she told herself. If she thought about the facts, she shouldn’t be celebrating just yet.

Damon’s return hadn’t altered the fact that something dark was after Elena and her friends, or that Stefan was acting irrationally and violently. Her heart sank a little as she thought of Stefan, but still a bubble of happiness went through her. Damon was alive!

And, what was more, he had an idea of what might be going on. It was exactly like Damon at his most infuriating to play this idea close to his chest and not let her know what he was thinking, but still, his glimmer was more hope than anyone else had been able to offer yet. Perhaps there was light at the end of the tunnel after all.

A pebble pinged against Elena’s window.

When she looked out, she saw Stefan, shoulders hunched, hands in his pockets, watching her from the lawn. Elena waved to him to stay where he was, threw on jeans, a lacy white tank top, and shoes, and went downstairs to meet him. There was dew on the grass, and Elena’s steps left footprints. The cool of dawn was already being replaced by dazzling hot sunshine: It was going to be another sticky Virginia summer day.

As she approached Stefan, Elena slowed down. She didn’t quite know what to say to him. Since last night, every time she had thought of Stefan, she had involuntarily pictured Caleb’s body flying through the air, the sickening crunch as he hit the marble monument. And she couldn’t stop seeing Stefan’s savage anger as he had attacked him, although Damon had been sure there must have been a reason.
Damon.
How would she ever keep Stefan from guessing the truth about his brother?

From the pained look on Stefan’s face, it was clear he sensed her apprehension. He held out his hand. “I know you don’t understand why I did what I did yesterday,” he said, “but there’s something you have to see.”

Elena stopped, but she didn’t take his outstretched hand. His face fell a little further. “Tell me where we’re going,” she said.

“I need to show you something that I found,” Stefan said patiently. “You’ll understand when we get there. Please, Elena. I would never hurt you.”

Elena stared at him. She knew without a doubt that it was true that Stefan would never hurt her.

“Okay,” she said, making up her mind. “Wait here for a minute. I’ll be right back.”

She left Stefan on the lawn in the early morning sunshine as she retreated into the quiet dimness of the house. Everyone else was still asleep: A quick glance at the clock in the kitchen told her it was barely six o’clock. She scribbled a note to Aunt Judith, saying she was going to grab breakfast with Stefan and would be back later. Reaching for her purse, she paused and made sure that a dried sprig of vervain was still tucked inside it. Not that she thought Stefan would ever do anything to her . . . but it never hurt to be prepared.

When she came out of the house, Stefan ushered her into his car parked at the curb, opening the passenger-side door for her and hovering over her as she fastened her seat belt.

“How far away is it?” Elena asked.

“Not far,” Stefan said simply. Watching him drive, Elena noticed the worry lines at the corners of his eyes, the unhappy droop of his mouth, the tension in his shoulders, and wished she could put her arms around him and comfort him, raise her hand and wipe those lines by his eyes away. But her memories of the rage on his face the day before held her back. She just couldn’t make herself reach out to him.

They hadn’t driven for long when Stefan turned onto a cul-de-sac of expensive houses.

Elena leaned forward. They were pulling up to a large white house fronted by a spacious pillared porch. She knew that porch. After junior prom, she and Matt had sat on its steps and watched the sun rise, still wearing their clothes from the dance. She had kicked off her satin sandals and laid her head against Matt’s tuxedoed shoulder, listening dreamily to the music and voices coming from the after-prom party in the house behind them. It had been a good night from a different lifetime.

She stared at Stefan accusingly. “This was Tyler Smallwood’s house, Stefan. I don’t know what you’re planning, but Caleb’s not here. He’s in the hospital.”

Stefan sighed. “I know he’s not here, Elena. His aunt and uncle haven’t been here either, not for several days, at least.”

“They’re out of town,” Elena said automatically. “Aunt Judith talked to them yesterday.”

“That’s good,” Stefan said grimly. “Then they’re safe.” He cast a worried glance up and down the street. “You’re sure Caleb won’t be out of the hospital today?”

“Yes,” said Elena acidly. “He was too injured. They’re keeping him for observation.”

Elena got out of the car, slammed the door, and marched toward the Smallwoods’ house, not looking back to see whether Stefan was following.

He caught up to her instantly. She cursed his vampiric speed in her head and walked faster.

“Elena,” he said, circling in front of her and forcing her to a stop. “Are you angry that I want to keep you safe?”

“No,” she said scathingly. “I’m angry that you almost killed Caleb Smallwood.”

Stefan’s face sagged with exhaustion and sorrow, and Elena instantly felt guilty. Whatever was going on with Stefan, he still needed her. But she didn’t know how to deal with his violence. She’d fallen in love with Stefan for his poetic soul, for his gentleness.
Damon
was the dangerous one.
Dangerous looks much better on Damon than it does on Stefan,
a dry observing voice at the back of her mind said, and Elena couldn’t deny the truth of it.

“Just show me what you wanted me to see,” she finally said.

Stefan sighed, then turned and led her up the drive of the Smallwoods’ house. She had expected him to go to the Smallwoods’ front door, but he cut around the side of the house and toward a small shed in the backyard.

“The toolshed?” asked Elena quizzically. “Do we have a lawn mowing emergency we need to address before breakfast?”

Stefan ignored her joke and went to the shed door. Elena noticed that a padlock that had held the double door shut had been wrenched apart, pulled to pieces. A half loop of metal hung uselessly from the shackle. Stefan had clearly broken in earlier.

Elena followed him in. At first, after the dew-bright morning outside, she couldn’t see anything in the dimness of the shed. Gradually, she realized that the walls of the shed were lined with loose papers. Stefan reached out and shoved the doors wider, letting the sunshine stream into the space.

Elena peered at the papers on the walls and then stepped back with a sharp gasp: The first thing she had been able to make out was a picture of her own face. She yanked the paper off the wall and looked at it more closely. It was a clipping from the local paper, showing her dressed in a silver gown, dancing in Stefan’s arms. The caption under the picture read: “Robert E. Lee High School prom queen Elena Gilbert and prom king Stefan Salvatore.”

Prom queen?
Despite the seriousness of the situation, her lips curled up in a smile. She really had finished high school in a blaze of glory, hadn’t she?

She pulled another clipping from the wall and her face fell. This one showed a coffin carried through the rain by pallbearers, grim-faced mourners standing by. In the crowd, Elena recognized Aunt Judith, Robert, Margaret, Meredith, and Bonnie, lips set, cheeks streaked with tears. The caption here read: “Town mourns local high school student Elena Gilbert.”

Elena’s fingers tightened unconsciously, crumpling the clipping. She turned to look at Stefan. “This shouldn’t be here,” she said, a note of hysteria creeping into her voice. “The Guardians changed the past. There shouldn’t be any newspaper articles or anything left.”

Stefan stared back at her. “I know,” he said. “I’ve been thinking, and the best guess I can make is that maybe the Guardians just changed people’s
minds
. They wouldn’t see any evidence of what we asked the Guardians to erase. They’d just see what supported their new memories, the memories of a normal small town and of a bunch of ordinary teenagers. Just another school year.”

Elena brandished the paper. “But then why is this here?”

Stefan dropped his voice. “Maybe it doesn’t work on everybody. Caleb’s got some notes scribbled in a notebook I found, and it seems from them as though he’s remembering two different sets of events. Listen to this.” Stefan scrabbled through the papers littering the floor and pulled out a notebook. “He writes: ‘There are girls in town now that I know were dead. There were monsters here. The town was destroyed, and we left before they could get us too. But now I’m back and we never left, even though no one but me remembers. Everything’s normal: no monsters, no death.’”

“Hmm.” Elena took the notebook from him and scanned through the pages. Caleb had lists there. Vickie Bennett, Caroline, her. All of them. Everyone who was different in this world than in the other one. There were notes about how he remembered them—how he thought Elena was dead and what was going on now. She turned a few pages, and her eyes widened. “Stefan, listen. Tyler told him about us: ‘Tyler was afraid of Stefan Salvatore. He thought he killed Mr. Tanner and that there was something else strange about him, something unnatural. And he thought Elena Gilbert and her friends were tangled up in whatever was going on.’ And there’s an asterisk referring back to Mr. Tanner being dead in one set of memories and alive in the other.” Elena quickly scanned a few pages. “It looks like he focused in on
us
as the cause of the changes. He figured out we were at the center of everything. Because we’re the people the most changed—other than the vampire and kitsune victims—and because he knew Tyler was suspicious of us, he’s blaming us for Tyler’s disappearance.”

“Two sets of memories,” Stefan repeated, frowning. “What if Caleb’s not the only one remembering both realities? What if supernatural beings, or people aware of the supernatural, weren’t affected by the spell?”

Elena froze. “Margaret—I wondered if she remembered something. She seemed so upset when she first saw me. Remember how she was afraid I was going to go away again? Do you think she’s remembering me dying along with the memories the Guardians gave her?”

Stefan shook his head. “I don’t know, Elena. Do you have any reason to think Margaret is anything other than a perfectly normal little girl? Little kids can be very dramatic without needing a reason. Margaret’s got a lot of imagination.”

“I don’t know,” Elena said in frustration. “But if the Guardians just covered over the old memories with new ones, that would explain why my old journal was still hidden in my bedroom just where I left it, and everything that had happened up until I left home written in it. So you think that Caleb suspects something is going on because he
is
a werewolf after all?”

“Look,” Stefan said, gesturing around the shed.

For the first time, Elena took in the whole scene and its implications. Pictures of her. Pictures of Bonnie and Meredith. Even pictures of poor Caroline, ranging from the haughty green-eyed debutante to a feral half monster, heavily pregnant with Tyler’s . . . baby? Pup? Elena realized with a shock that she hadn’t thought of Caroline in days. Was Caroline still pregnant? Was she still transforming into a werewolf because she was carrying Tyler’s baby? There were, Elena remembered, an awful lot of werewolves in Fell’s Church. Powerful, important werewolves, and if that hadn’t changed, and if the pack remembered everything, or enough of everything, then they were probably just biding their time.

There were not only clippings but original photographs around the room. She saw a picture taken through the boardinghouse window of herself leaning forward excitedly to talk to Meredith, who was caressing her deadly hunting stave. Based on her outfit, it had been taken right after they picked up Alaric and Celia. Caleb had been not only researching the two sets of memories over the last few months but also spying on Elena and her friends.

Then she noticed something else. In the far corner on the floor was a huge bunch of roses. “What . . . ?” Elena said, reaching for them. And then she saw. A pentagram was drawn around the roses. And encircling the pentagram was a bunch of photographs: herself, Bonnie, Meredith, Matt, Stefan, Damon.

“Those are the same kinds of roses as the one Caleb gave you, aren’t they?” Stefan asked softly. Elena nodded. They were perfect, delicate blooms in a dark luscious red that made her want to touch them.

“The rose that started it all,” she whispered. “It pricked Bonnie’s finger, and her blood spelled Celia’s name. It must have come from here.”

“Caleb isn’t just a werewolf,” Stefan said. “I don’t know exactly what he did here, but it looks like pretty dark magic to me.” He looked at her pleadingly. “I discovered it all yesterday,” he continued. “I had to fight him, Elena. I know I scared you, but I had to protect you—and everyone else—from him.”

Elena nodded, too stunned to speak. Now she understood why Stefan had acted the way he had. He thought she was in danger. But still . . . she couldn’t help feeling sick when she remembered the arc of Caleb’s body as he was thrown. Caleb might have attacked them with dangerous magic, but his notes sounded confused and frightened. Elena and her friends had changed his world, and now he couldn’t tell what was reality.