"The million-dollar question: should we go in?" Matt asked.

"NoKEEP OUT signs-and hardly any houses on this side of the wood. Across the street and down a way there's the Dunstans'."

"So we go in?"

"We go in. Just go slowly. It's later than I thought."

Meredith, of course, was the one to calm down first. "Allright , Bonnie," she said. "Stop it! Now! It's not going to do any good here!"

Bonnie didn't think shecould stop it. But Meredith had that special look in her dark eyes; the one that meant she was serious. The look she'd had before laying Caroline out on Stefan's floor.

Bonnie made a supreme effort and found that somehow she was able to hold in the next shriek. She looked dumbly at Meredith, feeling her own body shake.

"Good. Good, Bonnie. Now." Meredith swallowed. "Pulling doesn't do any good, either. So I'm going to try...peeling her fingers off. If anything happens to me; if I get-pulled under the bed or anything, then yourun , Bonnie. And if you can't run, then you call Elena and Matt. You call until you get an answer."

Bonnie managed something almost heroic then. She refused to picture Meredith being pulled under the bed. She wouldn't let herself imagine how that would look as Meredith, struggling, disappeared, or how she would feel, all alone, after that. They'd both left their purses with their mobile phones in the entryway to carry Mrs. Forbes, so Meredith wasn't saying to call them in any normal sense. She meant Call them.

A sudden radical burst of indignation swept through Bonnie. Why did girls carry purses anyway? Even the efficient, reliable Meredith often did it. Of course Meredith's purses were usually designer handbags that enhanced her outfits and were full of useful things like small notebooks and keychain flashlights, but still...a boy would have his mobile phone in his pocket.

From now on, I'm wearing a waist pouch, Bonnie thought, feeling as if she were raising a rebel flag for girls everywhere, and for just a moment also feeling her panic recede.

Then she saw Meredith stooping, a hunched figure in the dim light, and at the same moment she felt the grip on her own ankle tighten. Despite herself she glanced down, and saw the outline of Caroline's tanned fingers and long bronze nails against the creamy white of the rug.

Panic burst out in her again, full force. She made a choked sound that was a strangled scream, and to her own astonishment she spontaneously hit trance and began to Call.

It wasn't the fact that she was Calling that surprised her. It was what she was saying.

Damon! Damon! We're trapped at Caroline's house and she's gone crazy! Help!

It flowed out of her like an underwater well that had been suddenly tapped, releasing a geyser.

Damon, she's got me by the ankle-and she won't let go! If she pulls Meredith under, I don't know what I'll do! Help me!

Vaguely, because the trance was good and deep, she heard Meredith say, "Ah-hah! It feels like fingers, but actually it's a vine. It must be one of those tentacles that Matt told us about. I'm-trying-to break one of the loops-off..."

All at once there was a rustling from under the bed. And not just from one place, either, but a ma.s.sive whipping and shaking that actually bounced the mattress up and down, even with poor little Mrs. Forbes on it.

There must be dozens of those insects under there.

Damon, it's thosethings! Lots of them. Oh, G.o.d, I think I'm going to faint. And if I faint-and if Caroline pulls me under...Oh, please come and help!

"d.a.m.n!" Meredith was saying. "I don't know how Matt managed to do this. It's too tight, and-and I think there's more than one tentacle here."

It's all over,Bonnie sent in quiet conclusion, feeling herself start to go at the knees.We're going to die.

"Undoubtedly-that's the problem with humans. But not justyet ," a voice said from behind her, and a strong arm went around her, taking up her weight easily. "Caroline, the fun's over. I mean it. Letgo!"

"Damon?" Bonnie gasped. "Damon? You came!"

"All that wailing gets on my nerves. It doesn't mean-"

But Bonnie wasn't listening. She wasn't even thinking. She was still half in trance and not responsible (she decided later) for her own actions. She wasn'therself . It was someone else who went into rapture when the grip on her ankle loosened, and someone else who whirled around in Damon's grip and threw her arms around his neck and kissed him on the mouth.

It was someone else, too, who felt Damon startle, with his arms still around her, and who noticed that he made no attempt to pull away from the kiss. That person also noticed, when at last she leaned back, that Damon's skin, pale in the dim light, looked almost as if he had flushed.And that was when Meredith straightened up slowly, painfully, from the other side of the bed, which was still jouncing up and down.

She hadn't seen anything of the kiss, and looked at Damon as if she couldn't believe he was really here.

She was at a great disadvantage, and Bonnie knew she knew it. This was one of those situations where anyone else would have been too fl.u.s.tered to speak, or even stammer.

But Meredith just took a deep breath and then said quietly, "Damon. Thank you. Do you think-would it be too much trouble to make the malach let go of me, as well?"

Now Damon looked like his old self. He gave a brilliant smile aimed at something no one else could see and said sharply, "And as for the rest of you down there-heel!" He snapped his fingers.

The bed stopped moving instantly.

Meredith stepped away, and closed her eyes for a moment in relief.

"Thank you again," she said, with the dignity of a princess, but fervently. "And now, do you think you could do anything about Caro-"

"Right now," Damon cut in even more roughly than usual, "I have to run." He glanced at the Rolex on his wrist. "It's past 4:44, and I had an appointment I'm already late for. Come around here and prop up this dizzy bundle. She's not quite ready to stand by herself."

Meredith hastened to switch places with him. At that point, Bonnie discovered that her legs were no longer wobbling.

"Wait a minute, though," Meredith said rapidly. "Elenaneeds to talk to you-desperately-"

But Damon was gone, as if he'd mastered the art of simply disappearing, not even waiting for Bonnie's thanks. Meredith looked astonished, as if she'd been certain that the mention of Elena's name would stop him, but Bonnie had something else on her mind.

"Meredith," Bonnie whispered, putting two fingers to her lips in amazement. "I kissed him!"

"What?When? "

"Before you stood up. I-don't even know how it happened but I did it!"

She expected some kind of explosion from Meredith. Instead, Meredith looked at her thoughtfully and murmured, "Well, maybe it wasn't such a bad thing to do, after all. What I don't understand is why he turned up in the first place."

"Uh. That was me, too. I Called him. I don't know how that happened either-"

"Well, there's no point in trying to figure it out in here." Meredith turned toward the bed. "Caroline, are you coming out of there?

Are you going to stand up and have a normal conversation?"

There was a menacing and reptilian hiss from under the bed, along with the whipping of tentacles and another noise that Bonnie had never heard before but which terrified her instinctively, like the snapping of giant pincers.

"That's answer enough for me," she said, and grabbed Meredith to drag her out of the room.

Meredith didn't need dragging. But for the first time today they heard Caroline's taunting voice, lifted childishly high.

"Bonnie and Damon sitting in a tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G.First comes love, then comes marriage; Then there comes a vampire in a baby carriage."

Meredith paused in the hallway. "Caroline, you know that that isn't going to help matters. Come out-"

The bed went into a frenzy, bucking and heaving. Bonnie turned and ran, and she knew Meredith was right behind her. They still didn't manage to outpace the singsong words: "You're notmy friends; you're thewh.o.r.e's friends. Just you wait! Just youwait !"

Bonnie and Meredith grabbed their purses and left the house.

"What time is it?" Bonnie asked, when they were safely in Meredith's car.

"Almost five."

"It seemed like so much longer!"

"I know, but we've got hours of daylight left. And, come to that, I have a text message from Elena."

"About Tami?"

"I'll tell you about it. But first-" It was one of the few times Bonnie had seen Meredith look awkward. Finally she blurted, "How was it?"

"How was what?"

"Kissing Damon, you nitwit!"

20.

"Ohhhh." Bonnie melted back into the bucket seat. "It was like...kapow! Zap! Zowie!Like...fireworks."

"You're smirking."

"I am not smirking," Bonnie said with dignity. "I am smiling in fond remembrance. Besides-"

"Besides, if you hadn't Called him, we'd still be stuck in that horror of a room. Thank you, Bonnie. You saved us." Abruptly Meredith was at her most serious and sincere.

"I guess Elena was maybe right when she said he didn't hate all humans," Bonnie said slowly. "But, you know, I just realized. I couldn't see his aura at all. All I could see was black: smooth hard black, like a sh.e.l.l around him."

"Maybe that's how he protects himself. He makes a sh.e.l.l so no one can see inside."

"Maybe," Bonnie said, but there was worried note in her voice. "And what about that message from Elena?"

"It says that Tami Bryce is definitely acting strangely and that she and Matt are going out to check out the Old Wood."

"Maybe that's who they're going to meet-Damon, I mean. At 4:44, like he said. Too bad we can't call her."

"I know," Meredith said grimly. Everyone in Fell's Church knew that there was no reception in the Old Wood or the cemetery area. "But go ahead and try anyway." Bonnie did, and as usual got a no-service message. She shook her head. "No good. They must already be in the woods."

"Well, what she wants is for us to go ahead and get a look at Isobel Saitou-you know, because she's Jim Bryce's girlfriend."

Meredith made a turn. "That reminds me, Bonnie: did you get a look atCaroline's aura? Do you think she has one of those things- inside her?"

"I guess so. I saw her aura, and yuck, I never want to see it again. She used to be a kind of deep bronzy-green, but now she's muddy brown with black lightning zigzagging all through. I don't know if that means one of those things was inside her, but she sure didn't mind cuddling up to them!" Bonnie shuddered.

"Okay," Meredith said soothingly. "I know what I would say if I had to make a guess-and if you're going to be sick, I'll stop."

Bonnie gulped. "I'm all right. But we're seriously going to Isobel Saitou's house?"

"We're very seriously going there. As a matter of fact, we're almost there. Let's just brush our hair, take a few deep breaths, and get it over with. How well do you know her?"

"Well, she's smart. We didn't have any cla.s.ses together. But we both got out of athletics at the same time-she had a jumpy heart or something, and I used to get that terrible asthma...."

"From any exertion except dancing, which you could keep up all night," Meredith said dryly. "I don't know her very well at all.

What's she like?"

"Well, nice. Looks a bit like you, except Asian. Shorter than you-Elena's height, but skinnier. Sort of pretty. A little shy-the quiet type, you know. Sort of hard to get to know. And...nice."

"Shy and quiet and nice sounds good to me."

"Me, too," Bonnie said, pressing her sweaty hands together between her knees. What sounded even better, she thought, was for Isobel to be not at home.

However, there were several cars parked in front of the Saitou house. Bonnie and Meredith knocked on the door hesitantly, mindful of what had happened the last time they had done this.

It was Jim Bryce who answered, a tall, lanky boy who hadn't filled out yet and stooped a bit. What Bonnie found amazing was the change in his face as he recognized Meredith.

When he'd answered he'd looked awful; his face white under a medium tan, his body somehow crumpled. When he saw Meredith, some of the color came to his cheeks and he seemed to...well, to smooth out like a piece of paper. He stood taller.

Meredith didn't say a word. She just stepped forward and put her arms around him. He clutched at her as if he was afraid she'd run away, and buried his face in her dark hair.

"Meredith."

"Just breathe, Jim. Breathe."

"You don't know what it's been like. My parents left because my great-grandpa's really sick-I think he's dying. And then Tami- Tami-"

"Tell me slowly. And keep breathing."

"She threw knives, Meredith. Butcher knives. She got me in the leg here." Jim plucked at his jeans to show a small slit of a hole in the fabric over the lower part of one thigh."Have you had a teta.n.u.s shot recently?" Meredith was at her most efficient.

"No, but it's not really a big cut. It's a puncture wound, mainly."

"Those are exactly the kind that are most dangerous. You need to call Dr. Alpert right away." Old Dr. Alpert was an inst.i.tution in Fell's Church: a doctor who even made house calls, in a country where carrying around a little black bag and stethoscope was pretty much unheard-of behavior.

"Ican't . I can't leave...." Jim jerked his head backward toward the interior of the house as if he couldn't bring himself to say a name.