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approached the window she breathed on it to refresh the words.

And at last he saw it.

He jumped backward nearly two feet. Then he slowly crept back to the window.

Elena refreshed the writing for him. This time, instead of jumping, he simply ran a

hand over his eyes and then slowly peeked out again.

“Hey, Mr. Spook-chaser,” said Celia. “Are you all right?”

“I don’t know,” Alaric admitted. He passed his hand over his eyes again, but

Celia was coming and Elena didn’t breathe on the window.

“I thought I saw a—a message to send copies of the pictures of these jars to

Meredith.”

Celia raised an eyebrow. “Who is Meredith?”

“Oh. She—she’s one of my former students. I suppose this would interest her.”

He looked down at the camcorder.

“Bones and urns?”

“Well, you were interested in them quite young, if your reputation is correct.”

“Oh, yes. I loved to watch a dead bird decay, or find bones and try to figure out

what animal they were from,” Celia said, dimpling again. “From the age of six. But I

wasn’t like most girls.”

“Well—neither is Meredith,” Alaric said.

Elena and Bonnie were eyeing each other seriously now. Alaric had implied that

Meredith was special, but he hadn’t said it, and he hadn’t mentioned their

engagement to be engaged.

Celia came closer. “Are you going to send her the pictures?”

Alaric laughed. “Well, all this atmosphere and everything—I don’t know. It might

just have been my imagination.”

Celia turned away just as she reached him and Elena blew once more across the

message. Alaric threw his hands up in a gesture of surrender.

“I don’t suppose the Island of Doom has satellite coverage,” he said helplessly.

“Nope,” Celia said. “But the ferry will be back in a day, and you can send pictures

then—if you’re really going to do it.”

“I think I’d better do it,” Alaric said. Elena and Bonnie were both glaring at him,

one from each side.

But that was when Elena’s eyelids started to droop. Oh, Bonnie, I’m sorry. I

wanted to talk to you after this, and make sure you’re okay. But I’m falling…I

can’t…

She managed to pry her lids open. Bonnie was in a fetal position, fast asleep.

Be careful, Elena whispered, not even sure who she was whispering it to. And as

she floated away, she was aware of Celia and the way Alaric was talking to this

beautiful, accomplished woman only a year or so older than he was. She felt a

distinct fear for Meredith, on top of everything else.

T he next morning Elena noticed that Meredith still looked pale and languid, and that

her eyes slid away if Stefan happened to glance at her. But this was a time of

crisis, and as soon as the breakfast dishes were washed, Elena called a meeting

in the parlor. There she and Stefan explained what Meredith had missed during the

visit from the sheriffs. Meredith smiled wanly when Elena told how Stefan had

banished them like stray dogs.

Then Elena told the story of her out-of-body experience. It proved one thing, at

least, that Bonnie was alive and relatively well. Meredith bit her lip when Mrs.

Flowers said this, for it only made her want to go and get Bonnie out of the Dark

Dimension personally.

But on the other hand, Meredith wanted to stay and wait for Alaric’s photographs.

If that would save Fell’s Church…

No one at the boardinghouse could question what had happened on the Island of

Doom. It was happening here, on the other side of the world. Already a couple of

parents in Fell’s Church had had their children taken away by the Virginia

Department of Child Protective Services. Punishments and retaliations had begun.

How much longer would it be before Shinichi and Misao turned all the children into

lethal weapons—or let loose those already turned? How long before some

hysterical parent killed a kid?

The group sitting in the parlor discussed plans and methods. In the end, they

decided to make jars identical to those Elena and Bonnie had seen, and prayed

that they could reproduce the writing. These jars, they were sure, were the means

by which Shinichi and Misao were originally sealed off from the rest of the Earth.

Therefore Shinichi and Misao had once fit into the rather cramped

accommodations of the jars. But what did Elena’s group have now that could lure

them back inside?

Power, they decided. Only an amount of Power so great that it was irresistible to

the kitsune twins. That was why the priestess had tried to lure them back with her

own blood. Now…it meant either the liquid in a full star ball…or blood from an

extraordinarily powerful vampire. Or two vampires. Or three.

Everyone was sober, thinking of this. They didn’t know how much blood would be

needed—but Elena feared that it would be more than they can afford to lose. It had

certainly been more than the priestess could afford.

And then there was a silence that only Meredith could fill. “I’m sure you’ve all

been wondering about this,” she said, producing the staff thing from thin air, as far

as Elena could see. How did she do that? Elena wondered. She didn’t have it with

her and then she did.

They all stared in the bright sunlight at the sleek beauty of the weapon.

“Whoever made that,” Matt said, “had a twisted imagination.”

“It was one of my ancestors,” Meredith said. “And I won’t contest that.”

“I have a question,” Elena said. “If you’d had that from the beginning of your

training; if you’d been raised in that kind of world, would you have tried to kill

Stefan? Would you have tried to kill me when I became a vampire?”

“I wish I had a good answer to that,” Meredith said, her dark gray eyes pained.

“But I don’t. I have nightmares about it. But how can I ever say what I would have

done if I’d been a different person?”

“I’m not asking that. I’m asking you, the person you are, if you’d had the training

—”

“The training is brainwashing,” Meredith said harshly. Her composed façade

seemed about to break.

“Okay, forget that. Would you have tried to kill Stefan, if you’d just had that staff?”

“It’s called a fighting stave. And we’re called—people like my family, except that

my parents dropped out—hunter-slayers.”

There was a sort of gasp around the table. Mrs. Flowers poured Meredith more

herbal tea from the pot sitting on a trivet.

“Hunter-slayers,” repeated Matt with a certain relish. It wasn’t hard to tell who he

was thinking about.

“You can just call us one or the other,” Meredith was saying. “I’ve heard that out

west they’ve got hunter-killers. But we hang on to tradition here.”

Elena suddenly felt like a lost little girl. This was Meredith, her big sister Meredith,

saying all of this. Elena’s voice was almost pleading. “But you didn’t even tell on

Stefan.”

“No, I didn’t. And, no, I don’t think I’d have had the courage to kill anyone—unless

I’d been brainwashed. But I knew Stefan loved you. I knew he would never make

you into a vampire. The problem was—I didn’t know enough about Damon. I didn’t

know that you were fooling around so much. I don’t think anybody knew that.”

Meredith’s voice was anguished, too.

“Except me,” Elena said, flushing, with a lopsided smile. “Don’t look so sad,

Meredith. It worked out.”

“You call having to leave your family and your town because everyone knows

you’re dead, working out?”

“I do,” Elena replied desperately, “if it means I get to be with Stefan.” She did her

best not to think about Damon.

Meredith looked at her blankly for a moment, then put her face in her hands. “Do

you want to tell them or should I?” she asked, coming up for air and facing Stefan.

Stefan looked startled. “You remember?”

“Probably as much as you got from my mind. Bits and pieces. Stuff I don’t want

to remember.”

“Okay.” Now Stefan looked relieved, and Elena felt frightened. Stefan and

Meredith had a secret together?

“We all know that Klaus made at least two visits to Fell’s Church. We know that

he was—completely evil—and that on the second visit he planned to be a serial

murderer. He killed Sue Carson and Vickie Bennett.”

Elena interrupted quietly. “Or at least he helped Tyler Smallwood to kill Sue, so

that Tyler could be initiated as a werewolf. And then Tyler got Caroline pregnant.”

Matt cleared his throat as something occurred to him. “Uh—does Caroline have

to kill somebody to be a full werewolf, too?”

“I don’t think so,” Elena said. “Stefan says that having a werewolf litter is enough.

Either way, blood is spilled. Caroline will be a full werewolf when she has her twins,

but she’ll probably begin changing involuntarily before that. Right?”

Stefan nodded. “Right. But getting back to Klaus: What was it he was supposed

to have done on his first visit? He attacked—without killing—an old man who was a

full hunter-slayer.”

“My grandfather,” Meredith whispered.

“And he supposedly messed with Meredith’s grandfather’s mind so much that this

old man tried to kill his wife and his three-year-old granddaughter. So what is wrong

with this picture?”

Elena was truly frightened now. She didn’t want to hear whatever was coming.

She could taste bile, and she was glad that she’d only had toast for breakfast. If

only there had been someone to take care of, like Bonnie, she would have felt

better.

“I give up. So what is wrong?” Matt asked bluntly.

Meredith was staring into the distance again.

Finally Stefan said, “At the risk of sounding like a bad soap opera…Meredith

had, or has, a twin brother.”

Dead silence fell over the group in the parlor. Even Mrs. Flowers’s Ma ma didn’t

put in a word.

“ Had or has?” Matt said finally, breaking the silence.

“How can we know?” Stefan said. “He may have been killed. Imagine Meredith

having to watch that. Or he could have been kidnapped. To be killed at a later time

—or to become a vampire.”

“And you really think her parents wouldn’t tell her?” Matt demanded. “Or would try

to make her forget? When she was—what, three already?”

Mrs. Flowers, who had been quiet a long time, now spoke sadly. “Dear Meredith

may have decided to block out the truth herself. With a child of three it’s hard to

say. If they never got her professional help…” She looked a question at Meredith.

Meredith shook her head. “Against the code,” she said. “I mean, strictly

speaking, I shouldn’t be telling any of you this, and especially not Stefan. But I

couldn’t stand it anymore…having such good friends, and constantly deceiving

them.”

Elena went over and hugged Meredith hard. “We understand,” she said. “I don’t

know what will happen in the future if you decide to be an active hunter—”

“I can promise you my friends won’t be on my list of victims,” Meredith said. “By

the way,” she added, “Shinichi knows. I’m the one who’s kept a secret from my

friends all my life.”

“Not any longer,” Elena said, and hugged her again.

“At least there are no more secrets now,” Mrs. Flowers said gently, and Elena

looked at her sharply. Nothing was ever that simple. And Shinichi had made a

whole handful of predictions.

Then she saw the look in the mild blue eyes of the old woman, and she knew that

what was important right then was not truth or lies, or even reckonings, but simply

comforting Meredith. She looked up at Stefan while still hugging Meredith and saw

the same look in his eyes.

And that—made her feel better somehow. Because if it was truly “no secrets”

then she would have to figure out her feelings about Damon. And she was more

afraid of that than of facing Shinichi, which was saying quite a lot, really.

“At least we’ve got a potter’s wheel—somewhere,” Mrs. Flowers was saying.

“And a kiln in the back, although it’s all grown over with Devil’s Shoestring. I used to

make flowerpots for outside the boardinghouse, but children came and smashed

them. I think I could make an urn like the ones you saw if you can draw one for me.

But perhaps we’d better wait for Mr. Saltzman’s pictures.”

Matt was mouthing something to Stefan. Elena couldn’t make it out until she

heard Stefan’s voice in her mind. He says Damon told him once that this house is

like a swap meet, and you can find anything here if you look hard enough.

Damon didn’t make that up! I think Mrs. Flowers said it first, and then it sort of

got around, Elena returned heatedly.

“When we get the pictures,” Mrs. Flowers was saying brightly, “we can get the

Saitou women to translate the writing.”

Meredith finally moved back from Elena. “And until then we can pray that Bonnie

doesn’t get into any trouble,” she said, and her voice and face were composed

again. “I’m starting now.”

Bonnie was sure she could stay out of trouble.

She’d had that strange dream—the one about shedding her body, and going with

Elena to the Island of Doom. Fortunately, it had seemed to be a real out-of-body

experience, and not something she had to ponder over and try to find hidden

meanings in. It didn’t mean she was doomed or anything like that.

Plus, she’d managed to live through another night in this brown room, and Damon

had to come and get her out soon. But not before she had a sugarplum. Or two.

Yes, she had gotten a taste of one in the story last night, but Marit was such a

good girl that she had waited for dinner to have any more. Dinner was obtained in

the next story about the Dustbins, which she’d plunged into this morning. But that

contained the horror of little Marit tasting her first hand-caught piece of raw liver,

fresh from the hunt. Bonnie had hastily pulled the little star ball off her temple, and

had determined not to do anything that could possibly get her on a human hunting

range.

But then, compulsively, she had counted up her money. She had money. She

knew where a shop was. And that meant…shopping!

When her bathroom break came around, she managed to get into a

conversation with the boy who usually led her to the outdoor privy. This time she

made him blush so hard and tug at his earlobe so often that when she begged him

to give her the key and let her go by herself—it wasn’t as if she didn’t know the way

—he had relented and let her go, asking only that she hurry.

And she did hurry—across the street and into the little store, which smelled so

much of melting fudge, toffee being pulled by hand, and other mouth-watering

smells that she would have known where she was blindfolded.

She also knew what she wanted. She could picture it from the story and the one

taste Marit had had.

A sugarplum was round like a real plum, and she’d tasted dates, almonds, spices,

and honey—and there may have been some raisins, too. It should cost five soli,

according to the story, but Bonnie had taken fifteen of the small coppery-looking

coins with her, in case of a confectionary emergency.

Once inside, Bonnie glanced warily around her. There were a lot of customers in

the shop, maybe six or seven. One brown-haired girl was wearing sacking just like

Bonnie and looked exhausted. Surreptitiously, Bonnie inched toward her, and

pressed five of her copper soli into the girl’s chapped hand, thinking, there—now

she can get a sugarplum just like me; that ought to cheer her up. It did: the girl gave

her the sort of smile that Mother Dustbin often gave to Marit when she had done

something adorable.

I wonder if I should talk to her?

“It looks pretty busy,” she whispered, ducking her head.

The girl whispered back, “It has been. All yesterday I kept hoping, but at least one

noble came in as the last one left.”

“You mean you have to wait until the shop’s empty to—?”

The brown-haired girl looked at her curiously. “Of course—unless you’re buying

for your mistress or master.”

“What’s your name?” Bonnie whispered.

“Kelta.”

“I’m Bonnie.”

At this Kelta burst into silent but convulsive giggles.

Bonnie felt offended; she’d just given Kelta a sugarplum—or the price of one,

and now the girl was laughing at her.

“I’m sorry,” Kelta said when her mirth had died down. “But don’t you think it’s

funny that in the last year there are so many girls changing their names to Alianas

and Mardeths, and Bonnas—some slaves are even being allowed to do it.”

“But why?” Bonnie whispered with such obvious genuine bewilderment that Kelta

said, “Why, to fit into the story, of course. To be named after the ones who killed

old Bloddeuwedd while she was rampaging through the city.”

“That was such a big deal?”

“You really don’t know? After she was killed all her money went to the fifth sector

where she lived and there was enough left over to have a holiday. That’s where I’m

from. And I used to be so frightened when I was sent out with a message or

anything after dark because she could be right above you and you’d never know,

until—” Kelta had put all her money into one pocket and now she mimed claws

descending on an innocent hand.

“But you really are a Bonna,” Kelta said, with a flash of white teeth in rather dingy

skin. “Or so you said.”

“Yeah,” Bonnie said feeling vaguely sad. “I’m a Bonna, all right!” The next

moment she cheered up. “The shop’s empty!”

“It is! Oh, you’re a good-luck Bonna! I’ve been waiting two days.”

She approached the counter with a lack of fear that was very encouraging to

Bonnie. Then she asked for something called a blood jelly that looked to Bonnie like

a small mold of strawberry Jell-O, with something darker deep inside. Kelta smiled

at Bonnie from under the curtain of her long, unbrushed hair and was gone.

The man who ran the sweetshop kept looking hopefully at the door, clearly hoping

a free person—a noble—would come in. No one did, however, and at last he

turned to Bonnie.

“And what is it you want?” he demanded.

“Just a sugarplum, please?” Bonnie tried hard to make sure her voice didn’t

quaver.

The man was bored. “Show me your pass,” he said irritably.

It was at that point that Bonnie suddenly knew that everything was going to go

horribly wrong.

“Come on, come on, snap it up!” Still looking at his accounting books, the man

snapped his fingers.

Meanwhile Bonnie was running a hand over her sack-cloth smock, in which she

knew perfectly well there was no pocket, and certainly no pass.

“But I thought I didn’t need a pass, except to cross sectors,” she babbled finally.

The man now leaned over the counter. “Then show me your freedom pass,” he

said, and Bonnie did the only thing she could think of. She turned and ran, but

before she could reach the door she felt a sudden stinging pain in her back and

then everything went blurry and she never knew when she hit the ground.

B onnie woke slowly, coming up from some dark place.

Then she wished she hadn’t. She was in some out-of-doors place—only

buildings blocked the horizon where the sun hung forever. Around her were a lot of

other girls, all approximately her own age. That was puzzling, first of all. If you took

a random sampling of females off the street there would be little girls crying for their

mothers, and there would be mother-aged women taking care of them. There might

be a few older women. This place looked more like—

—oh, God, it looked like one of those slave warehouse places that they had had

to pass the last time they had come to the Dark Dimension. The ones that Elena

had ordered them not to look at or listen to. But now Bonnie felt sure she was

inside one herself, and there was no way not to look at the still faces, at the

terrified eyes, at the quivering mouths around her.

She wanted to speak, to find the way—there would have to be a way, Elena

would insist—to get out. But first she gathered all the Power at her command,

wrapped it into a cry, and soundlessly screamed Damon! Damon! Help! I really

need you!

All she heard in return was silence.

Damon! It’s Bonnie! I’m at a slave warehouse! Help!

Suddenly she had a hunch, and lowered her psychic barriers. She was instantly

crushed. Even here, at the edge of the city, the air was choked full of long

messages and short: cries of impatience, or camaraderie, of greeting, of

solicitation. Longer, less impatient conversations about things, instructions,

teasings, stories. She couldn’t keep up with it. It turned into a menacing wave of

psychic sound that was curled like a wave about to break over her head, to crush

her into a million pieces.

And then, all of a sudden, the telepathic melee vanished. Bonnie was able to

focus her eyes on a blond girl, a little older than her and about four inches taller.

“I said, are you okay?” the girl was repeating—obviously she’d been saying it for

a while.

“Yes,” Bonnie said automatically. No! Bonnie thought.

“You might want to get ready to move. They’ve sounded the first dinnertime

whistle, but you looked so out of it, I waited for the second one.”

What am I supposed to say? Thank you seemed safest. “Thanks,” Bonnie said.

Then her mouth said all on its own, “Where am I?”

The blond girl looked surprised. “The depot for runaway slaves, of course.”

Well, that was that. “But I didn’t run away,” she protested. “I was going right back

after I got a sugarplum.”

“I don’t know about that. I was trying to run away, but they finally caught me.” The

girl slammed one fist into an open hand. “I knew I shouldn’t have trusted that litter

carrier. Carried me right to the authorities and me blind and without a clue.”

“You mean you had the litter curtains down—?” Bonnie was asking, when a shrill

whistle interrupted her. The blond girl took hold of her arm and began dragging her

away from the fence. “That’s the second service dinnertime whistle—we don’t want

to miss that, because after that they shut us up for the night. I’m Eren. Who’re

you?”

“Bonnie.”

Eren snorted and grinned. “All right by me.”

Bonnie allowed herself to be led up a dirty stairway and into a dirty cafeteria. The

blond girl, who seemed to regard herself as Bonnie’s keeper, handed her a tray,

and pushed her along. Bonnie didn’t get any choice in what she was to have, not

even to veto the noodles that were squirming slightly, but she did manage to snatch

an extra bread roll in the end.

Damon! Nobody was telling her not to send a message, so she kept on doing it.

If she was going to be punished, she thought defiantly, she was going to be

punished for trying to get out of here. Damon, I’m in a slave warehouse! Help me!

Blond Eren grabbed a spork, so Bonnie did too. There were no knives. There

were thin napkins, which relieved Bonnie, because that was where the Squirmy

Noodles were going to end up.

Without Eren, Bonnie would never have found a place at the tables, which were

crammed with young girls eating. “Shove over, shove over,” Eren kept saying, until

there was room for Bonnie and her.

Dinner was a test of Bonnie’s courage—and also of how loud she could scream.

“Why are you doing all this for me?” she shouted into Eren’s ear, when a lull in the

deafening conversation gave her a chance.

“Oh, well, you being a redhead and all—it put me in mind of Aliana’s message,

you know. To the real Bonny.” She pronounced it oddly, sort of swallowing the y, but

at least it wasn’t Bonna.

“Which of them? Which message, I mean?” Bonnie screamed.

Eren gave her an are you kidding look. “Help when you can, shelter when you

have room, guide when you know where to go,” she said in a sort of impatient

chant, then looked chagrined and added, “And be patient with the slow.” She

attacked her food with an air of having said everything there was to say.

Oh, boy, Bonnie thought. Somebody had really taken the ball and run with it.

Elena had never said any of those things.

Yeah, but—but maybe she’d lived them, Bonnie thought, a tingling breaking out all

over her body. And maybe somebody had seen her and made up the words. For

instance, that crazy-looking guy she’d given her ring or bracelet or something to.

She’d given her earrings away to people with signs, too. Signs that said: POETRY

FOR FOOD.

The rest of dinner was a matter of picking up food with the spork and not looking

at it, crunching it once, and then deciding whether to spit into her still-writhing

napkin, or to try to swallow without tasting.

Afterward the girls were marched into another building, this one filled with pallets,

smaller and not so comfortable-looking as Bonnie’s at the inn. She was now

horrified at herself for leaving that room. There she had had safety, she had had

food that she could actually eat, she had had entertainment—even the Dustbins

were clothed in a golden glow of remembrance now—and she had had the chance

of Damon finding her. Here she had nothing.

But Eren seemed to have some mesmeric influence on the girls around, or else

they all were Aliana-ites too, because when she shouted “Where’s a pallet? I’ve got

a new girl in my bedroom. Think she’s gonna sleep on the bare floor?” And

eventually, a dusty pallet was passed hand over hand into Eren’s “bedroom”—a

group of pallets all spread with the heads together in the middle. In exchange, Eren

handed over the wriggling napkin Bonnie had given her. “Share and share alike,”

she said firmly, and Bonnie wondered if she thought Aliana had said that, too.

A whistle shrilled. “Ten minutes until lights-out,” a hoarse voice shouted. “Every

girl not on her pallet in ten minutes will be punished. Tomorrow section C goes up.”

“All right! We’re going to be bloody deaf before we’re sold,” Eren muttered.

“Before we’re sold?” Bonnie repeated stupidly, even though she had known what

would happen from the first moment she had recognized this as a warehouse for

slaves.

Eren turned and spat. “Yeah,” she said. “So you can have one more breakdown

and then that’s it. Only two per customer, and by tomorrow you may wish you’d

saved one up.”

“I wasn’t going to have a breakdown,” Bonnie said, with all the courage at her

command. “I was going to ask how we’re going to be sold. Is it at one of those

horrible public places, where you have to stand in front of a crowd in just a shift?”

“Yeah, that’s what most of us will be doing,” a young girl, who had been crying

quietly through dinner and the pallet-arranging time, spoke up in a soft voice. “But

the ones they pick out as special items will have to wait. They’ll give us a bath and

special clothes, but it’s all just so we look more presentable for the clients. So the

clients can inspect us more closely.” She shuddered.

“You’re frightening the new girl, Mouse,” Eren scolded. “We call her Mouse,

because she’s always so scared,” she told Bonnie.

Bonnie silently screamed, Damon!

Damon was decked out in his new captain of the guard suit. It was nice, being black

on black, with lighter black piping (even Damon recognized the necessity of

contrast). It had a cloak.

And he was a full vampire again, as powerful and prestigious as even he could

have imagined. For a moment he simply luxuriated in the feeling of a job well done.

Then he flexed his vampire muscles more strongly, urging Jessalyn, who was

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