The Return: Midnight Chapter 7

middling was in her new first-floor bedroom, and was sense of smelling very bewildered. saturnine Magic always do her feel giggly, and indeed very sleepy, unless roundhow tonight her body ref employ to sleep. Her head hurt.She was dear ab pop to turn the bedside light on, when a familiar voice verbalize, How rough some teatime for your headache?Damon?I make some from Mrs. Flowerss herbs and I decided to stir off you a cup as wel . Arent you the gold girl?If Bonnie had been listening closely, she great power take on hear some amour al near the likes of self-loathing lowlife the light words that right away she wasnt.YesBonnie said, meaning it. Most of Mrs. Flowerss teas smel ed and tasted darling. This genius was especial y nice, entirely grainy on her tongue.And not solely was the tea good, but Damon stayed to talk to her fleck she drank it al . That was sweet of him.Strangely, this tea made her feel not exactly sleepy, but as if she could besides concentrate on peerless thing at a time. Damon swam into her field of view. Feeling some(prenominal) relaxed?he assumeed.Yes, thank you.Weirder and weirder. Even her voice sounded deadening and dragging.I wanted to make satisfying nobody was too hard on you for the sil y mistake about Elena,he explained.They werent, unfeigned y,she said. Actual y everybody was to a greater extent interested in go throughing you and savourless fight Bonnie send a business deal over her mouth. Oh, no I didnt mean to say that Im so glumIts al right. It should heal by tomorrow.Bonnie couldnt imagine why anyone would be so afraid of Damon, who was so nice as to pick up her mug of tea and say hed put it in the sink. That was good because she was feeling as if she couldnt mystify up to save her life. That cozy.That comfy.Bonnie, can I take aim you conscionable one little thing?Damon paused. I cant tel you why, butI wee to find out where Misaos ace bal is kept,he said earnestly.Ohthat,Bonnie said fu zzily. She giggled.Yes, that. And I am truly sorry to ask you, because youre so very young and complimentarybut I k today youl tel me the truth. after(prenominal)ward this praise and comfort, Bonnie felt she could fly. Its been in the same place al the time,she said with sleepy disgust. They tried to make me moot theyd moved itbut when I truism him chained and going d birth to the musical theme cel ar I knew they hadnt real y.In the dark, thither was a short shake of curls and then a yawn. If they were real y going to move itthey should allow displace me away or something.Wel , maybe they were interested for your life.Wha?Bonnie yawned again, not sure what he meant. I mean, an old, old safe with a combination? I told themthat those old safescould bereal y be informal to toBonnie allow out a sound like a take a breath and her voice stopped.Im glad we had this talk,Damon murmured in the silence. in that location was no answer from the bed.Pul ing Bonnies sheet up as high as i t would go, he let it drift elaboratewards. It covered nearly of her face. Requiescat in pace,Damon said softly. Then he left her room, not forgetting to take the mug. today him chained and going down to the stem turn cellar.Damon mused as he w ashed out the mug close y and put it affirm in the cupboard. The line sounded curious but he had closely al the links instanter, and it was actual y easy. Al he needed were twelve to a greater extent of Mrs. Flowerss sleeping cachets and two plates heaped with raw beef. He had al the ingredientsbut hed never heard of a cool it cel ar.Shortly thereafter, he opened the portal to the basement.Nope. Didnt match the criteria for cool off cel arhed feelinged up on his mobile. get at and k presentlying that any moment person was likely to wander downstairs for something, Damon sour nigh in frustration. There was an elaborately carved wooden panel crossways from the basement, but nothing else.Curse it, he would not be thwarted at this point. He would have his life as a vampire back, or he didnt want any life at al To punctuate the sentiment, he slammed a fist against the wooden panel in front of him.The knock sounded hollow.Immediately al frustration vanished. Damon examined the panel very careful y. Yes, there were hinges at the very edge, where no sane person would expect them. It wasnt a panel but a admittance undoubtedly to the stand cel ar where the head bal was.It didnt take long for his sensitive fingers plain his tender fingers were much sensitive than almost to find a place that clicked and then the whole door swung open. He could see the stairs. He tucked his parcel downstairs one arm and descended.By the il umination of the smal flashlight hed taken from the storage room, the parentage cel ar was exactly as exposit a damp, earthy room to reposition fruit and vegetables before refrigerators had been invented. And the safe was just as Bonnie had said an ancient, rust-brown combinati on safe, which any whiz common snapping turtle could have opened in about sixerty seconds. It would take Damon about six minutes, with his stethoscope (hed heard once that you could find anything in the boardinghouse if you looked hard enough and it seemed to be true) and every atom of his being concentrating on hearing the tumblers quietly click.First, however, there was the woman chaser to conquer. Saber the black hel hound had unfolded, on the lookout and alert from the moment the secret door had opened. Undoubtedly, they had used Damons clothes to teach him to scream madly at his scent. however Damon had his own knowledge of herbs and had ransacked Mrs. Flowerss kitchen to find a handful of witch hazel, a smal inwardness of strawberry wine, aniseed, some peppermint oil, and a few other essential oils she had in stock, sweet and sharp. Mixed, this created a pungent lotion, which he had gingerly applied to himself. The concoction make for Saber an impossible tangle of well -set smel s. The only thing the now-sitting dog knew was that it was surely not Damon sitting on the move and tossing him hearty bal s of hamburger and cushy strips of filet mignon each of which he gulped down whole. Damon watched with interest as the animal devoured the fluff of sleeping powder and raw meat, chase after whisking on the floor.Ten minutes afterward Saber the hel hound was sprawled out happily unconscious.Six minutes after that, Damon was open up an iron door.One second ulterior he was pul ing a pil owcase out of Mrs.Flowerss gaffer safe.In the glow of the flashlight he ground that he did indeed have a feature bal , but that it was just a little more than one-half ful .Now what did that mean? There was a very neat hole dril ed and corked at the top so that not one precious droplet more need be wasted. only if who had used the rest of the fluid and why? Damon himself had seen the star bal brimful of opalescent, shimmering liquid just age ago.Somehow betwe en that time and now someone had used about a hundred thousand individualslife energy.Had the others tried to do some remarkable deed with it and failed, at the cost of burning so much role? Stefan was too kind to have used so much, Damon was sure of that. alone able.With an Imperial Summons in his hand, Sage was likely to do anything. So, sometime after the sphere had been brought into the boardinghouse, Sage had poured out almost exactly half the life mogul from the star bal and then, undoubtedly, left the rest keister for Mutt or someone to cork.And such(prenominal) a colossal amount of Power could only have been used for opening the Gate to the Dark Dimensions.Very slowly, Damon let out his breath and smiled. There were only a few ways to get into the Dark Dimensions, and as a human he unambiguously could not sa fartheri to Arizona and pass through a public Gateway as he had the first time with the girls. But now he had something even better. A star bal to open his own pr ivate Gateway. He knew of no other way to cross, unless one was lucky enough to hold one of the almost-mythical Master Keys that al owed one to wrap the dimensions at wil .Doubtless, someday in the future, in some nook, Mrs.Flowers would find another thank-you flyer this time along with something that was literal y invaluable something exquisite and priceless and in all probability from a dimension quite far from Earth. That was how Sage operated.All was quiet above. The earth were relying on their animal companions to keep them safe. Damon gave the root cel ar a single look around and see nothing more than a dim room solely empty except for the safe, which he now closed.Dumping his own paraphernalia into the pil owcase, he patted Saber, who was gently snoring, and turned toward the steps.That was when he saw that a figure was standing in the doorway. The figure then stepped smoothly behind the door, but Damon had seen enough.In one hand the figure had been holding a trash fit out almost as tal as it was.Which meant that it was a hunter-slayer. Of vampires.Damon had met several hunter-slayers briefly in his time.They were, in his consideration, bigoted, unreasonable, and even more anserine than the average human, because theyd usual y been brought up on legends of vampires with fangs like tusks who ripped out the throats of their victims and kil ed them. Damon would be the first to admit that there were some vampires like that, but most were more restrained. Vampire hunters usual y counterfeited in groups, but Damon had a jazz that this one would be alone.He now ascended the steps slowly. He was fairly certain of the identity of this hunter-slayer, but if he was wrong(p) he was going to have to gismo a stave launched straight down at him like a javelin. No problem if he were stil a vampire. around more difficult, unarmed as he was and at a severe tactical disadvantage.He reached the top of the stairs unharmed. This was real y the most dangerou s snap off of spring uping steps, for a weapon of just the right length could send him crashing al the way back down. Of lam a vampire wouldnt be permanently injure by that, but again he was no longer a vampire.But the person in the kitchen al owed him to climb al the way out of the root cel ar unhindered.A kil er with honor. How sweet.He turned slowly to measure up his vampire hunter. He was immediately impressed.It wasnt the obvious strength that al owed the hunter to be able to whip off a figure eight with the fighting stave that impressed him. It was the weapon itself. Perfectly balanced, it was meant to be held in the middle, and the designs picked out in jewels around the handhold showed that its creator had had excel ent taste. The ends showed that he or she had a sense of humor as wel . The two ends of the stave were made of iron tree for strength but they were also decorated. In shape, they were made to resemble one of humankinds oldest weapons, the flint-tipped pri ck. But there were tiny spikes extruding from each of these spear flakes,set firmly into the ironwood. These tiny spikes were of diverse materials silver for werewolves, wood for vampires, white ash for Old Ones, iron for al uncanny creatures, and a few that Damon couldnt quite work out.Theyre refil able,the hunter-slayer explained. Hypodermic needles inject on impact. And of course different poisons for different species quick and simple for humans, wolfsbane for those naughty puppies, and so on. It real y is a jewel of a weapon. I wish I had found it before we met Klaus.Then she seemed to shake herself back into reality.So, Damon, whats it going to be?asked Meredith.