The Vampire Diaries: The Return: Shadow Souls (18 page)

E
lena had seldom felt such relief as she did when she heard Damon’s knock at Dr. Meggar’s door.

“What happened at the Meeting Place?” she asked.

“I never made it there.” Damon explained about the ambush, while the others covertly studied Sage with varying degrees of approval, gratitude, or sheer lust. Elena realized that she’d had too much Black Magic when she felt ready to pass out at several points—although she was sure that the wine had helped Damon to survive a mob attack which might otherwise have killed him.

They, in turn, explained Lady Ulma’s story as briefly as possible. The woman was looking white and shaken by the end.

“I do hope,” she said timidly to Damon, “that when you inherit Old Drohzne’s property”—she paused to swallow—“that you’ll decide to keep me. I know the slaves you brought with you are beautiful and young…but I can make myself very useful as a needlewoman and such. It’s just my back that’s lost its strength, not my mind….”

Damon was perfectly still for a moment. Then he walked over to Elena, who happened to be closest to him. He reached up, unclasped the last loop of rope that had been trailing from Elena’s wrist, and threw it hard across the room. It whipped and wiggled like a snake. “Anyone else wearing one can do the same thing, as far as I’m concerned,” he said.

“Except the throwing,” Meredith said quickly, seeing the doctor’s eyebrow clashing as he looked at the many breakable glass beakers stacked along the walls. But she and Bonnie lost no time in losing any final vestige of rope that was still trailing.

“I’m afraid mine are…permanent,” Lady Ulma said, pulling the fabric away from her wrists to expose the welded-on iron bracelets. She looked ashamed at being unable to obey her new master’s first command.

“Do you mind a moment of cold? I have enough Power to freeze them so they’ll shatter,” Damon said.

There was a soft sound from Lady Ulma. Elena thought she had never heard such desperation in any one human noise. “I could stand in snow to my neck for a year to get these awful things off,” the Lady said.

Damon put his hands on either side of one bracelet and Elena could feel the rush of Power that emanated from him. There was a sharp cracking sound. Damon moved his hands and came up with two separate pieces of metal.

Then he did it again, on the other side.

The look in Lady Ulma’s eyes made Elena feel more humble than proud. She had saved one woman from terrible degradation. But how many more remained? She would never know, or be able to save them all if she found out. Not with her Power in the state it was now.

“I think Lady Ulma really ought to get some rest,” Bonnie said, rubbing her own forehead under tumbled strawberry curls. “And Elena, too. You should have seen how many stitches her leg took, Damon. But what do we do, go look for a hotel?”

“Use my house,” said Dr. Meggar, one eyebrow up and one down. Obviously, he had become enmeshed in this story, swept along by its sheer power and beauty—and brutality. “All I ask is that you don’t destroy anything, and that if you see a frog, don’t kiss it, and don’t kill it. There are plenty of blankets and chairs and couches.”

He wouldn’t take a single link from the heavy gold chain Damon had brought to use as income in exchange.

“I…by rights I should help you all get ready for bed,” Lady Ulma murmured faintly to Meredith.

“You’re the worst hurt of all; you should get the best bed,” Meredith replied tranquilly. “And
we
will help
you
get into it.”

“The most comfortable bed…that would be in my daughter’s old room.” Dr. Meggar fumbled with a ring of keys. “She married a porter—how I hated to see her go. And this young lady, Miss Elena, can have the old bridal chamber.”

For an instant Elena’s heart was torn by conflicting emotions. She was afraid—yes, she was very sure it was fear she felt—that Damon might sweep her up in his arms and make for the bridal suite with her. And on the other hand…

Just then Lakshmi looked up at her uncertainly. “Do you want me to leave?” she asked.

“Do you have anywhere to go?” Elena asked in turn.

“The street, I guess. I usually sleep in a barrel.”

“Stay here. Come with me; a bridal bed sounds big enough for two people. You’re one of us, now.”

The look Lakshmi gave her was one of sheer thunderstruck gratitude. Not at being given a place to stay, Elena understood. For the statement,
“You’re one of us, now.”
Elena could feel that Lakshmi had never been “one of” any group before.

Things were quiet until almost “dawn” the next “day,” as the city’s inhabitants called it, although the light hadn’t varied all night.

This time a different sort of crowd had gathered outside the doctor’s complex. It was mostly made up of elderly men wearing threadbare but clean robes—but there were a few old women, too. They were led by a silver-haired man who had a strange air of dignity.

Damon, with Sage as backup, went outside the doctor’s complex and spoke to them.

Elena was dressed but still upstairs in the quiet bridal suite.

“Elena.”

The voice behind Elena made her jump. She slammed the diary shut and turned around.

“Yes, Damon?”

“How are you feeling?”

“Oh, great. Fine. Even my leg is b—I mean, I’m fine all over. How are you feeling?”

“I’m…well enough,” he said, and he smiled—and it was a real smile, not a snarl twisted into something else at the last second, or an attempt to manipulate. It was just a smile, if a rather worried and sad one.

Elena somehow didn’t notice the sadness until she remembered it later. She simply suddenly felt that she weighed nothing; that if she lost grip on herself she could be miles high before anyone could stop her—miles away, maybe even as far as this insane place’s moons.

She managed a shaky smile of her own at him. “That’s good.”

“I came to talk to you,” he said, “but…first—”

In another moment, somehow, Elena was in his arms.

“Damon—we can’t keep on…” She tried to pull away gently. “We really can’t keep doing this, you know.”

But Damon didn’t let go of her. There was something in the way he held her that half terrified her, and half made her want to cry with joy. She forced back the tears.

“It’s all right,” Damon said softly. “Go ahead and cry. We’ve got a situation on our hands.”

Something in his voice frightened Elena. Not in the half-joyful way she’d been fearful a minute ago, but entirely frightened.

It’s because
he’s
afraid, she thought suddenly in wonderment. She had seen Damon angry, wistful, cold, mocking, seductive—even subdued, ashamed—but she had never seen him afraid of
anything
. She could hardly get her mind around the concept. Damon…frightened…for
her
.

“It’s because of what I did yesterday, isn’t it?” she asked. “Are they going to kill me?” She was surprised at how calmly she said it. She felt nothing except a vague distress and the desire to make Damon not afraid anymore.

“No!” He held her at arm’s length, staring. “At least not without killing me and Sage—and all the people in this house, too, if I know them.” He stopped, seeming out of breath—which was impossible, Elena reminded herself. He’s playing for time, she thought.

“But that’s what they want to do,” she said. She didn’t know why she was so certain. Maybe she was picking up something telepathically.

“They have…made threats,” Damon said slowly. “It’s not the case of Old Drohzne really; I guess there are murders around here all the time and winner takes all. But apparently overnight word of what you did has been spreading. Slaves in nearby estates are refusing to obey their masters. This entire quarter of the slums is in turmoil—and they’re afraid of what will happen if other sectors hear about it. Something has to be done as soon as possible or the whole Dark Dimension may just explode like a bomb.”

Even as Damon spoke, Elena could hear the echoes of what he’d been told by the assembly who had come to Dr. Meggar’s door.
They
had been afraid, too.

Maybe this could be the start of something important, Elena thought, her mind soaring away from her own small problems. Even death wouldn’t be too high a price to pay to free these wretched people from their demonic masters.

“But that’s not what will happen!” Damon said, and Elena realized that she must be projecting her thoughts. There was genuine anguish in Damon’s voice. “If we had planned things, if there were leaders who could stay here and oversee a revolution—if we could even
find
leaders strong enough to do it—then there might be a chance. Instead,
all
the slaves are being punished, everywhere that the word has spread. They’re being tortured and killed on mere suspicion of sympathy with you. Their masters are making examples all over the city. And it’s only going to get worse.”

Elena’s heart, which had been soaring on a dream of actually making a difference, came crashing down to the ground and she stared, horrified, into Damon’s black eyes. “But we’ve got to stop that. Even if I have to die—”

Damon pulled her back in close to him. “You—and Bonnie and Meredith.” His voice sounded hoarse. “Plenty of people saw the three of you together. Plenty of people now see all three of you as the troublemakers.”

Elena’s heart went cold. Maybe the worst thing was that she could see from a slave economy’s point of view that if one incident of such insolence went unpunished and word of it spread…the tale would grow in the telling….

“We became famous overnight. We’ll be legends tomorrow,” she murmured, watching, in her mind, a domino toppling into another which hit another until a long string had fallen down spelling the word “Heroine.”

But she didn’t want to be a heroine. She had just come here to get Stefan back. And while she could have faced giving her life to stop slaves from being tortured and killed, she would herself kill anyone who tried to lay a hand on Bonnie or Meredith.

“They feel the same way,” Damon said. “They heard what the congregation had to say.” He held her arms hard as if trying to brace her. “A young girl named Helena was beaten and hung this morning because she had a similar name to yours. She was fifteen.”

Elena’s legs gave out, as so often they had done in Damon’s arms…but never for this reason. He went with her. This was a conversation you had sitting on bare floorboards. “It wasn’t your fault, Elena! You are what you are! People love you for what you are!”

Elena’s pulse was hammering frantically. It was all so bad…but she had made it worse. By not thinking. By imagining that her life was the only one at stake. By acting before evaluating the consequences.

But in the same situation she would do it again. Or…with shame, she thought, I would do something like it. If I knew that I would put everyone I loved in danger I would have begged Damon to bargain with that slave-owner worm. Buy her for some outrageous price…if we had the money. If he would have listened…If another stroke of the whip hadn’t killed Lady Ulma…

Suddenly her brain went hard and cold.

That is the past.

This is the present.

Deal with it.

“What can we do?” She tried to pull free and shake Damon; she was that frantic. “There must be something we can do now! They can’t kill Bonnie and Meredith—and Stefan will die if we don’t find him!”

Damon just held her more tightly. He was keeping his mind shielded from hers, Elena realized. This could either be good or bad. It might be that there was a solution he was reluctant to put to her. Or it could mean that the death of all three of the “rebel slaves” was the only thing the city leaders would accept.

“Damon.” He was holding her much too tightly to get free, so Elena couldn’t look him in the face. But she could visualize it, and she could also try to address him squarely, mind to mind.

Damon, if there’s
anything—
even any way we can save Bonnie and Meredith—you have to tell me. You have to. I
order
you to!

Neither of them were in a mood to find that amusing or even to notice the “slave” giving orders to the “master.” But at last Elena heard Damon’s telepathic voice.

They say that if I take you back to Young Drohzne now and you apologize, that you can be let off with just six strokes of
this. From somewhere Damon produced a pliant cane made of some pale wood. Ash, probably, Elena thought, surprised at how calm she was. It’s the one substance equally effective on everyone: even on vampires—even on Old Ones, which they undoubtedly have around here.

But it has to be in public so that they can get the rumors started the other way. They think then that the turmoil will stop, if you—the one who started the disobedience—will admit your slave status.

Damon’s thoughts were heavy, and so was Elena’s heart. How many of her principles would she be betraying if she did this? How many slaves would she be condemning to lives of servitude?

Suddenly Damon’s mental voice was angry.
We didn’t come here to reform the Dark Dimension,
he reminded her, in tones that made Elena wince away. Damon shook her slightly.
We came to get Stefan, remember? Needless to say, we’ll never have a chance to do that if we try to play Spartacus. If we start a war that we
know
we can’t win. Even the Guardians can’t win it.