The Hunters: Phantom Chapter 31

K directlying he couldnt perform the religious rite on an muster out stomach, Stefan hunted atomic pile several squirrels in Mrs. Flowerss backyard, past returned to the boardinghouses service department. Meredith had set Mrs. Flowerss antique Ford flummox turn up in the drive, and thither was more(prenominal)(prenominal) than plenty dwell to set up everything they claimed for the proscription ritual. Stefan cocked his head at a skittering mental amazeance in the shadows and identified the fast-beating ensuret of a microscopic mouse. The atmosp present might not be a comfortable nonpareil, precisely the spaciousness of the room and its cement smash guide treeer meant it would be an excel ent place to melt down the spel .Hand me the tape measure, please, Alaric say from his sprawled lay in the middle of the garage floor. I pick out to know this line just now the remunerate length. Mrs. Flowers had dug up a box of sundry(a) screwball from somewhere in the boardinghouse, and Alaric had the admit propped open and was detailed y copying the circles, arcane symbols, parabolas, and el ipses from its pages onto the smooth cement.Stefan gave him the tool and watched as he measured careful y from the inmost circle to a row of contradictory runes scrawny the outer(a)most edge of his drawing. Its historic that everything be precise, Alaric express, frowning and doublechecking the ends of the measuring tape. The smal est fault could lead to us accidental y setting this thing loose in Fel s church building.But isnt it loose al exacty? asked Stefan.No, Alaric explained. This ritual wil al ow the phantom to step to the fore in its corpo unfeigned form, which is far more dangerous than the insubstantial thing it is now. thus youd better agitate this right, Stefan agreed grimly.If this al goes as planned, the phantom wil be trap in the intimatemost circle, Alaric tell, pointing. Wel be at the outermost edge, over in that respect erstwh ile(prenominal) the runes. We ought to be safe out there. He looked up and gave Stefan a rueful grin.I hope. Im afraid Ive never d atomic number 53ness either kind of induction in genuine life before, although Ive read a plentitude roughly it.Terrific, Stefan thought, provided he returned Alarics smile without comment. The man was doing the best he could. Al they could do was hope it would be enough to save Elena and the separates.Meredith and Mrs. Flowers entered the garage, from each one exacting a fictile shopping basis. Celia trailed bed them.Holy water, Meredith say, lifting a plant mister out of her bag to appearing him.It doesnt work on vampires, Stefan reminded her.Were not summoning a vampire, she replied, and went off to mist the outer spaces in the diagram, careful not to disturb the chalk lines.Alaric stood and started very cautiously hopping out of the Brobdingnagian multicolored diagram, clutching the book in one hand. I think were about ready, he t ell.Mrs. Flowers looked at Stefan. We need the others, she utter. Everyone unnatural by the phantoms powers has to be here.Il help you carry them down, Alaric offered.Not necessary, Stefan t obsolete him, and headed upstairs alone. Standing by the side of the bed in the well-lightedtle rose-andcream bedroom, he looked down at Elena, lustrelessness, and decorous. no(prenominal) of them had moved since he had placed flat there.He sighed and gathered Elena in his harness scratch line. After a moment, he in addition excerptioned up her pil ow and a blanket. At least(prenominal) he could try to make her comfortable.A few minutes later al three of the sleepers were lying in the introductory of the garage, wel outside the diagram, their heads supported by pil ows. forthwith what? Stefan asked.Now we each choose a certificate of deposit, Mrs. Flowers said, opening her plastic bag. One that you smelling represents you in color. According to the book, they real y should be hand dipped and special y scented, but this wil just have to do. I wont pick one myself, Mrs. Flowers said, handing the bag to Stefan. The phantom hasnt pore its powers on me, and I dont remember organism jealous of anyone since 1943.What happened in 1943? asked Meredith curiously.I muzzy the Little Miss Fel s Church crown to Nancy Sue Baker, Mrs. Flowers answered. When Meredith gaped at her, she threw her manpower up in the air. Even I was a child once, you know. I was strikingly adorable, with Shirley tabernacle curls, and my mother desired to trot me in fril s and show me off. sict the astounding image of Mrs. Flowers in Shirley Temple curls out of his mind, Stefan poked done the assortment of candles and chose a blue(a) blue one. It seemed right to him somehow. We need candles for the others, too, he said. Careful y, he chose a golden one for Elena and a bug one for Bonnie.Are you just divergence by their hair colors? asked Meredith.Youre such a guy.You know these are the r ight colors for them, though,Stefan argued. Besides, Bonnies hair is red, not pink.Meredith nodded grudgingly. I guess youre right. White for bland, though.Real y? Stefan asked. He didnt know what he would have chosen for monotonous. American-flag patterned, maybe, if they had had it.Hes the purest person I know, Meredith said softly. Alaric raised an eyebrow at her and she elbowed him. splendid in spirit, I mean. What you see is what you get with Matt, and hes good and truehearted al the center of attentioning through.I suppose so, said Stefan, and he watched without comment as Meredith chose a benighted brown candle for herself.Alaric shuffled through the bag and picked a dark green candle, and Celia selected one of pale lavender. Mrs. Flowers took the bag with the remaining candles and stashed it on a high shelf near the garage doors, between a bag of potting soil and what looked same(p) an old-fashioned lamp oil lantern.They al sit down down on the garage floor in a semi circle, outside the diagram, facing toward the empty inner circle, holding their unlit candles. The sleepers lay tush them, and Meredith held Bonnies candle in her lap as wel as her own Stefan took Elenas, and Alaric Matts.Now we choose them with our blood, Alaric said. They al looked at him, and he shrugged defensively. Its what the book says.Meredith removed a smal pockettongue from her bag, do it her finger, and quickly, matter-of-factly, smeared a stripe of blood from the go by to the bottom of her brown candle, then passed the knife to Alaric a tenacious with a miniscule feeding bottle of disinfectant. One by one, the others fol owed her lead.This is real y unsanitary, Celia said, wincing, but she fol owed through.Stefan was very aware of the smel of kind blood in such an enclose space. Even though hed just fed, his canines prickled in an automatic response.Meredith picked up the candles and walked to their sleeping friends, crossover from one to the next and raising t heir men to make a swift bring down and wipe their blood against their candles. Not one of them blush flinched. When she had finished, Meredith redistributed the sleepers candles and returned to her spot.Alaric began to read, in Latin, the first says of the spel . After a few sentences, he hesitated at a word and Stefan silently took the grimoire. Smoothly he picked up where Alaric had left off. The words flowed off his tongue, the tactile property of the Latin on his lips reminding him of hours spent with his childhood tutor hundreds of years ago, and of a bound when he lived in a monastery in England during the early days of his struggle with vampirism.When the measure came, he snapped his fingers and, with a touch of Power, his candle lit itself. He handed it to Meredith, who dripped a littler of the melted wax onto the garage floor at the edge of the diagram and stuck the candle there. One by one, at the appropriate points in the ritual, he lit a candle and she placed i t, until there was a little row of multicolored candles bravely burning between them and the chalk outlines of the diagram.Stefan read on. Suddenly the pages of the book began to flutter. A cold, unnatural wind rose interior the closed garage, and the flames of the candles flickered wildly and then blew out. two candles fel over. Merediths long hair whipped some her face.This isnt supposed(p) to happen, Alaric shouted. But Stefan just squinted his eye against the gale and read on.The pitch-blackness and the unpleasant sensation of fal ing lasted for however a moment, and then Elena landed jarringly on both feet and staggered forward, clutching Matts and Bonnies hands.They were in a smuggled octagonal room lined with doors. A single piece of furniture sat in the center. loafer the lone desk lounged a tanned, beautiful, amazingly muscular, bare-chested vampire with a long, verticillate mane of bronze hair fal ing bygone his shoulders.Instantly Elena knew where she was.Were he re. She gasped. The GatehouseSage leaped to his feet on the other side of the desk, his face almost preposterous y surprised. Elena? he exclaimed.Bonnie? Matt? Whats personnel casualty on? Quest-ce qui arrive? everyday y, Elena would have been relieved to see Sage, who had always been kind and helpful to her, but she had to get to Damon. She knew where he must be. She could almost hear him cal ing to her.She strode across the empty room with precisely a glance at the shock gatekeeper, pul ing Matt and Bonnie along with her.Sorry, Sage, she said as she reached the door she wanted. Weve got to find Damon.Damon? he said. Hes back again? and then they passed through, ignoring Sages shouts of hold in ArretezvousThe door closed behind them, and they effect themselves in a landscape of ash. nobody grew here, and there were no landmarks. Harsh winds had winded the fine black ash into teddy hil s and val eys. As they watched, a firm gust caught at the light snarf layer of ash and sent it straightaway in a cloud that briefly settled into new shapes. Below the luminousness ash, they could see swamps of wet, muddy ash. Nearby was an ash-choked family of stil water. Nothing but ash and mud, draw for an occasional scorched and blackened atomic number 42 of wood.Above them was a twilit lurch in which hung a huge artificial satellite and two great moons, one a swirling bluish white, the other silvery.Where are we? said Matt, gaping up at the sky. once this was a world a moon, adept y that was shaded by a huge tree, Elena told him, walking steadily forward. Until I finished it. This is where Damon died.She matt-up rather than saw Matt and Bonnie exchange a glance. But, uh, then he came back, right? You saw him in Fel s Church the other night, didnt you? Matt said hesitantly. Why are we here now?I know that Damons close, Elena said impatiently. I can feel him. Hes come back here. Maybe this is where he began his expect for the phantom. They kept walking . Soon they were not so much walking as wade through black ash that stuck to their legs in nasty thick clumps. The mud underneath the ash clung to their shoes, releasing them at each step with a wet suction sound.They were almost there. She could feel it. Elena picked up the pace, and the others, stil coupled to her, hurried to keep up. The ash was thicker and deeper here because they were approaching where the trunk had been, the very center of this world. Elena remembered it exploding, shooting up into the sky kindred a rocket, disintegrating as it went. Damons body had lain underneath and had been completely buried in the fal ing ash.Elena stopped. in that respect was a thick, drifting pile of ash that looked similar it would be at least as high as her stem in places. She thought she could see where Damon had awoken the ash was disturbed and caved in, as if someone had tunneled out of one of the deeper drifts. But there was no one more or less except themselves. A cold wi nd blew up a spray of ash, and Bonnie coughed. Elena, kneedeep in cold, embarrassing ash, dropped Bonnies hand and wrapped her arms around herself.Hes not here, she said blankly. I was so sure he would be here.He must be somewhere else, then, said Matt logical y.Im sure hes conflict the phantom, like you said he was going to. The Dark Dimensions a big place.Bonnie shivered and huddled closer to Matt, her brown eyeball huge and ful of pathos, like a hungry puppys. Can we go home now? Please? Sage can consign us back again, cant he?I just dont understand, Elena said, staring at the empty space where the great trunk of the tree had once been. I just knew he would be here. I could practical y hear him cal ing me.Just then a low, musical laugh cut through the silence. It was a beautiful sound, but there was something chil y and alien about it, something that make Elena shudder.Elena, Bonnie whispered, her eyes wide. Thats the thing I heard before the fog took me.They turned.Behind th em stood a woman. A woman-shaped being, anyway, Elena amended quickly. This was no woman. And, like its laugh, this woman-shaped being was beautiful, but frightening. She it was huge, more than one and a half times the size of a human, but dead proportioned, and it looked like it was made of ice and mist in blues and greens like the purest glacier, its eyes were clear with just a touch of pale green. As they watched, its solid, icytranslucent hips and legs shifted and blurred, changing to a swirl of mist.A long wave of blue-green hair drifted behind it, its shape like a bit-by-bit y roiling cloud. It smiled at Elena, and its scheming teeth shone like silvery icicles. in that respect was something in its chest, though, that wasnt ice, something solid and roundish and dark, dark red.Elena saw al of this in an exigent before her attention was ful y riveted on what hung from the ice-woman-things outstretched hand.Damon. She gasped.The ice-woman was holding him casual y around t he get along, ignoring his struggles as he dangled in the air. It held him so easily that he looked like a toy. The black-clad vampire swung out with his leg, boot at the ice-womans side, but his foot simply passed through mist.Elena, Damon said in a choked, thin voice. The ice-woman the phantom cocked its head to one side and looked at Damon, then squeezed his neck a little tighter.I dont need to fade, you idiot phantom, he gasped defiantly.The phantoms smile widened and it said in a sweet, cold voice, like crystals chiming together, But your head can bag off, cant it? Thatl do just as wel . It move him a little, and then transferred its smile to Elena, Bonnie, and Matt. Elena instinctively stepped back as the glacier-cold eyes implant her.Welcome, the phantom said to her in a tone of pleasure, as though they were old friends. Ive found you and your friends so refreshing, al your little jealousies. Each of you with your own special smacking of envy. Youve got an awful lot of problems, dont you? I havent felt so strong or so wel -nourished for mil ennia. Its face became thoughtful, and it began to shake Damon gently up and down. He was making a guttural choking noise now, and bust of pain ran down his face.But you real y should have stayed where I put you, the phantom continued, its voice a little colder, and it swung Damon casual y in a great arc through the air. He wheezed and pul ed at its huge hand. Was it even true that he didnt need to breathe? Elena didnt know. Damon wasnt above lying about it if he had a reason, or even for no reason except to annoy his opponent. throw in it Elena shouted.The phantom laughed again, genuinely amused. Go frontwards and make me, little one. Its grip tightened around Damons throat and he shuddered. Then his eyes rol ed back until Elena could see only the ghastly, red-veined whites of his eyes, and he went limp.