Phantom, p.27
Phantom, page 27
It didn’t really matter. What mattered was that the garage was on fire, and while the phantom might be impervious to the flames, the rest of them weren’t. Smoke filled the musty space, and Elena and her friends began to cough. She covered her nose and mouth with her hand.
Streaking past Elena, Damon snarled and leaped for the phantom’s throat.
Even in their current dire situation, Elena couldn’t help admiring Damon’s speed and grace. He collided with the phantom and knocked it to the floor, then recoiled, protecting his face with his leather-clad arm. Fire, Elena remembered with a frisson of terror. Fire is one of the few things that can kill a vampire.
Her eyes watered from the smoke, but she forced them to stay open as she moved closer, circling around behind the phantom, who was back on its feet. She could hear her friends shouting, but she concentrated on the fight.
The phantom was moving more awkwardly than it had been earlier, and did not immediately attack Damon. Through the flames, Elena could see that thick greenish fluid was still trickling down its solid torso from the wound Meredith had given it. Where the liquid touched the flames, they flickered with a greenish blue tint.
Damon lunged for the phantom again, and it flung him off with a shrug. Snarling, they circled each other warily. Elena skittered around behind them, trying to stay out of Damon’s way, trying to see how she could help.
A crackling from across the room distracted Elena for a second, and she glanced back to see fire climbing the far wall, reaching for the wooden shelves set around the room. She missed seeing what exactly happened next, but suddenly Damon was skidding across the floor on his back, an angry red burn glowing on his cheek.
He was up again in a second and prowling back toward the phantom, but his eyes had a slightly wild glint to them that made Elena nervous. Even injured, the phantom was stronger than Damon, and, after his long fight with Stefan, Damon’s reserves must be waning. He was growing reckless. Elena gathered her courage and moved closer to the phantom again, as close to the flames as she could stand. The phantom glanced back at her for a second and then away, focusing on the stronger threat.
It sprang forward to meet Damon, its fiery arms spread wide and a savagely joyous smile on its face.
And suddenly Meredith was there beside Damon. She looked solemn and pale as a young martyr, her lips tight and her eyes wary, but she moved as fast as lightning. Her stave sliced through the air almost too quickly to see, leaving another long cut across the phantom’s stomach. The phantom howled, and the flames on its torso hissed as more greenish fluid gushed from the wound.
But the phantom remained upright. It snarled and reached for Meredith, who danced rapidly backward, just out of range. Meredith and Damon exchanged a wordless look and moved to flank the phantom, one on either side, so that it couldn’t watch both of them at once. Damon cuffed Jealousy, a short, intense blow, and pulled back a reddish, blistering hand. Meredith swung her stave again, nearly catching the phantom on the arm but instead cleaving only a wisp of smoke.
There was a crash as a burning shelf collapsed onto the floor. The smoke grew thicker. Away from the fight, Elena could hear Bonnie and Matt coughing.
Elena moved closer still, again coming toward the phantom from behind, safely out of Meredith and Damon’s way. The phantom’s heat was like a bonfire.
Meredith and Damon were moving in tandem now, as smoothly as if they had rehearsed, dancing in and back, sometimes catching the phantom with a blow, more often passing through a curl of smoke or mist as the phantom transformed its parts from solid to airy shapes.
A voice rang out. “Impera te desistere.” Mrs. Flowers leaned against the supporting arms of Matt and Alaric. But her eyes were clear and her voice was steady. Power crackled in the air around her.
The phantom slowed only slightly in its fight, perhaps no more than a half second behind in its thrusts and transformations. But this was enough to make at least a little difference. More of Damon’s and Meredith’s blows landed, and they were able to dodge a few more of the phantom’s.
Was it enough, though? The phantom flinched when a punch hit home, and it bled horrible green goo where the stave cut it, but it was still steady on its feet as Meredith and Damon hacked and choked in the smoke and stumbled away from the flames. The rose in Jealousy’s chest pulsed a steady dark red. Elena exhaled in frustration and immediately began to cough again. The phantom wasn’t staying in one place long enough for Elena to get a good shot at grabbing the rose-heart.
Meredith sliced at it with her fighting stave, and this time the stave slid through smoke, and the phantom grabbed the stave in one hand, swinging Meredith toward Damon. Colliding, they both fell heavily to the ground, and the phantom, still slightly hobbled by Mrs. Flowers’s spell, strained toward them.
“I’ve envied Meredith for her brains!” shouted Bonnie. Her face was smudged with smoke and tears, and she looked incredibly small and fragile, but she was standing straight-backed and proud, yelling at the top of her lungs. “I know I’ll never be as good at school as she is, but that’s okay. I cast my jealousy out!”
The phantom’s rose dimmed to a dark pink for a moment, and it staggered ever so slightly. It glanced at Bonnie and hissed. It was only a tiny pause in the phantom’s advance, but it was enough for Damon to spring to his feet. He stepped in front of Meredith, shielding her as she clambered up. Without even looking at each other, Meredith and Damon began circling in opposite directions again. “I’ve been jealous that my friends have more money than I do!” Matt shouted, “but I cast the jealousy out!”
“I envy the way Alaric truly believed in something unproven, and turned out to be right!” Celia yelled. “But I cast it out!”
“I’ve envied Elena’s clothes!” Bonnie cried. “I’m too short to look good in lots of things! But I cast that out!”
Damon kicked at the phantom, pulling his smoldering leg back quickly. Meredith swung her stave. Mrs. Flowers chanted in Latin, and Alaric joined her, his low voice in counterpoint to hers, reinforcing her spell. Bonnie, Celia, and Matt kept shouting: dredging up small jealousies and hurts that they were probably usually hardly aware of, casting them out to pepper the phantom with tiny blows.
And for the first time, the phantom looked . . . baffled. It swung its head slowly from one to another of its opponents: Damon stalking toward it, fists raised; Meredith, her stave swinging surely as she watched the phantom with a cool and considering gaze; Alaric and Mrs. Flowers reciting strings of Latin words, hands lifted; Bonnie, Matt, and Celia shouting confessions as if they were throwing rocks at it.
Jealousy’s glassy eyes passed over Elena without really seeming to notice her: Standing still and quiet among the entire hubbub, she was not a threat.
This was the best chance Elena was going to get. She nerved herself to move forward, then froze as the phantom turned toward her.
Then, miraculously, Stefan was there. He grappled at the phantom’s back, throwing one arm around its neck as the flames licked at him. His shirt caught fire. The phantom, briefly, was pulled backward past Elena, its torso toward her, unprotected.
Without hesitation, Elena plunged her hand into the fire.
For a moment, she barely felt the flames, just a gentle, almost cool touch against her hand as the flames flickered around her. Not so bad, she had a moment to think, and then she felt the pain.
It was pure and agonizing, and dark fireworks of shock went off behind her eyes. She had to fight to overcome the almost irresistible instinct to pull her hand back out of the fire. Instead, she groped at the phantom’s torso, searching for the cut Meredith had made just above its rose. It was slippery and smooth, and her hand fumbled. Where is it? Where is it?
Damon had thrown himself into the flames alongside Stefan, yanking at the phantom’s arms and neck, keeping its torso clear for Elena, preventing the phantom from ripping free and throwing her across the room. Meredith beat at Jealousy’s side with her stave. Behind her, her friends’ voices rose in a babble of confessions and spells as they did their part to keep the phantom off balance and disoriented.
At last Elena’s hand found the cut and she pushed inside. It was icy cold in the phantom’s chest, and Elena yelped at the contrast—the cold was excruciating after the heat, and the flames still licked at her wrist and arm. The freezing liquid inside the phantom’s chest was so thick, it was like feeling through gelatin. Elena shoved and reached, and the phantom screamed with pain.
It was a horrible sound and, despite all that the phantom had done to her and her friends, Elena could not help flinching in sympathy. A moment later, Elena’s hand closed on the rose’s stem and a thousand thorns pierced her burned flesh. Ignoring the pain, she pulled the rose out of the freezing liquid, out of the fire, and staggered backward, away from the phantom.
She didn’t know what she’d expected to happen, exactly. For the phantom to melt like the Wicked Witch of the West, perhaps, leaving nothing but a puddle of vile greenish water. Instead, the phantom stared at her, its mouth open, its pointed, shining teeth on full display. The tear in its chest had expanded, and fluid oozed rapidly, like an untended faucet. The flames burned low and green where the liquid tracked down its body and dripped to the floor.
“Give it to me,” Stefan said, appearing at Elena’s side. He took the rose from her hand and ripped at its petals, now fading to a lighter pink, and scattered the petals into the fire burning up the sides of the garage.
The phantom watched with a stunned expression, and gradually its blazing fire thinned to smoke, its solid form slowly vaporizing. For a moment, a smoky, malevolent image hung in the air before them, its eyes fixed sullenly upon Elena. And then it was gone.
Chapter 36
Damon was the first to move, which didn’t surprise Elena. His leather jacket scorched, long burns running across his face and arms, he staggered past the others through the fire and threw open the garage door. Outside, thunder rumbled overhead and a heavy rain was falling.
Despite the rain, the garage was burning ferociously, flames licking their way up the sides of the small building and across the roof. As they all stumbled outside, Meredith, coughing, turned her face up to the rain. Matt and Alaric supported Mrs. Flowers and placed her in the driver’s seat of her car. Elena held her hands out, letting the driving rain wash away the soot and soothe her burns. The rest of her friends milled around not far from the burning garage, still stunned.
“Oh, Damon,” said Bonnie. She paused to cough and wheeze for a few seconds, then leaned carefully toward Damon, avoiding his injuries, and kissed him on the cheek. “I’m so happy you came back.”
“Thank you, redbird,” Damon said, patting her on the back. “Excuse me for a second; I need to take care of something.” He stepped away and caught Elena by the hand.
In the distance came the wail of sirens, signaling the advance of fire trucks and police cars drawn by the fire.
Damon pulled Elena toward the dark shadows under a tree near the house. “Come on,” he said. “You need blood now.” He felt his throat with charred fingers, then drew a fingernail against one of his veins. His leather jacket was practically destroyed, just rags and ashes hanging from him, and the long burns on his face and body were still red and raw-looking, but already better than they had been a few minutes before.
“I could do that,” said Stefan, approaching them and leaning against the wall of the house. He looked tired and bedraggled, but his injuries, too, were already healing. “Elena’s always welcome to my blood.”
“You can definitely pitch in. But that’s a bad injury she’s got,” said Damon matter-of-factly, “and you don’t have the Power to heal it right now.”
Elena had been trying not to look at her right hand. Although she couldn’t really move it, it didn’t hurt much anymore. Which was probably a bad sign, actually. Did that mean the nerve endings were dead? A quick, anxious glance down at her hand made her stomach churn. Even that tiny glimpse showed her horribly blackened and reddened flesh and peeling skin and—God—she thought she’d seen a glimpse of bone beneath the flesh. She let out a low, involuntary whimper.
“Drink,” said Damon impatiently. “Let me fix it before they come and drag you off to the burn unit.” Elena still hesitated, and Damon sighed and turned to Stefan again. “Look,” he said, his voice softening, “it’s not always about Power. Sometimes the blood is just about taking care of someone.”
“I know that,” Stefan replied, blinking tiredly at him. “I just wasn’t sure that you did.”
Damon’s mouth twisted in a wry smile. “I’m an old man, little brother,” he said. “I know a lot of things.” He turned back to Elena. “Drink now,” he insisted, and Stefan smiled reassuringly at her.
Elena nodded at Stefan before pushing her mouth tightly against Damon’s neck. The second she tasted his blood, Elena became wrapped in warmth and the pain in her hand stopped. She no longer felt the unpleasant cold drumming of the rain on her head and shoulders, the icy trickle of water down her body. She was cozy and safe and loved, and time had stopped just long enough for her to catch her breath.
Damon? she thought, and reached out to his mind with hers. He answered her without words, but with a wave of affection and care, of undemanding love. Through the haze, Elena realized there was something new here. . . .
When she and Damon had allowed their minds to touch in the past, she had often sensed that Damon had been holding back a part of himself. Or, on the rare occasions when she got past the inner barriers he’d thrown up against intruders, she’d found hurt and rage, a lost child chained to a rock.
Now Elena sensed only love and peace as she and Damon melted into each other. When she pulled back from him at last, it took her a moment to return to the real world. Stefan was no longer next to them. It was raining still, cold water running through her hair, over her shoulders, down her neck and arms and body. Her hand ached and was still badly burned, but it had healed to the point of needing ointment and a bandage rather than surgery.
A couple of fire trucks and police cars pulled into the drive, lights blazing, sirens screaming. Closer to the garage, she saw Meredith abruptly drop Stefan’s arm, and Elena realized Meredith had been drinking from his wrist.
She realized vaguely that she would have been shocked by this only a few hours ago—she would have assumed Meredith would shy away from touching the blood of any vampire, and Stefan had always reserved his blood for Elena as part of the connection only they shared—but she couldn’t work up any real emotion about it now.
It felt like all the barriers between their group had broken down. Whether this new state of things lasted or not, they were all one for now. They’d seen the worst of one another. They’d told the truth and come out the other side. And now, if Meredith needed to be healed, of course Stefan would give her his blood. It would be the same for any of them.
The firemen jumped from their truck and unrolled the hoses. As they turned their attention to putting out the fire, a couple of uniformed police officers and a man who must be the fire marshal walked purposefully toward Mrs. Flowers, Matt, Alaric, Celia, and Bonnie, all of whom were now huddled in the car. Meredith and Stefan headed toward them, too.
“Why didn’t they help her into the house?” Elena wondered aloud suddenly, and Damon turned a blank gaze of surprise on her.
“I have no idea,” he said slowly. “It never even occurred to me that we could go inside. I guess everyone felt like they should be out here to watch it burn. Make sure the phantom doesn’t come out.”
“It’s like we were at the end of the world,” she said softly, thinking aloud. “Even the boardinghouse seemed so far away that it just wasn’t part of the picture. Now that other people are here, the world is starting to turn again.”
Damon hmmmed noncommittally. “We’d better get over there,” he said. “I think they could use some help.” Mrs. Flowers’s voice was raised indignantly, although Elena couldn’t make out the words. As she trailed after Damon she smiled to herself: Since when had Damon cared whether anyone, except Elena herself, could use some help?
As they got closer, Elena could see that Mrs. Flowers had gotten out of the car and assumed her best expression of dottiness and eccentricity, blue eyes wide, arms akimbo, as Alaric held an umbrella over her head.
“Young man!” she snapped at the fire marshal. “What are you trying to imply by asking why my car wasn’t parked in the garage? Surely I have every right to distribute my possessions anywhere I like on my own property! What sort of world do we live in where I am penalized, where I am judged for not following conventions? Do you dare to suggest that I might have had some advance knowledge of this fire?”
“Well, ma’am, it’s been known to happen. I’m not suggesting anything, but the matter has to be investigated,” said the fire marshal stolidly.
“What’re all these kids doing here?” one of the police officers asked, shooting a glance around. His eyes lingered on Damon’s burned leather jacket and the raw skinless patch on Stefan’s cheek. “We’re going to need to talk to all of you,” he said. “Let’s start by getting your names and addresses.”
Stefan stepped forward and held the officer’s eyes with his. “I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” he said softly, compellingly. Elena could feel him using his Power. “The garage burned because it was struck by lightning in the storm. No one was here except the old lady in the house and a few of her guests. Everything’s so straightforward and simple, there’s no need to question anyone.”
The officer looked puzzled and then nodded, his face clearing. “These storms can cause a lot of property damage,” he replied.
The fire marshal snorted. “What are you talking about? Lightning didn’t strike anywhere near here.”
Stefan shifted his gaze to the fire marshal. “There’s nothing to bother investigating. . . .” But the spell was broken, and now all three men were looking at him with suspicion.
