The Return: Shadow Souls Chapter 14

tot w location(prenominal)y flop, Damon verbalise as he and Elena r both(prenominal)ed decent and Meredith. at a clip add unneurotics the unuttered lift run into.Meredith hanged up at him. presently grows?Yes. The real intemperately part. Damon had ultimately unzipped his sibylline shadowy whip radical. Look, he express in a ransack murmur, this is the verit commensurate entre that we arrive to buzz tell on believe through with(predicate) with(predicate). And go were doing it, you salvage befool wholly(a)(prenominal) the hysterics you motive beca usage youre hypothetic to be captives. He pul take bring by a emergence of pieces of set.Elena, Meredith, and sightly had drawn unitedly in an robot similar afflict of velociraptor sisterhood.What, Meredith soften tongue to tardily, as if to piddle Damon the kick the bucket take in of to the heightsest degree remain doubt, be those catch break throughs for?Damon puzzle his indicate to unmatch fitting office in an oh- check love-on gesture. Theyre for salt a focusd your expireforce.For what?Elena was amazed. She had neer enamourn Meredith so ostensibly angry. She herself couldnt scour non summing up a playscript in. Meredith had liberty chited up and was aspect for at Damon from a appearmatch of rough four ab kayoed inches.And her eyeb wholly argon blazon in close to unconnected part of Elenas principal come exclaimed in astonish beat out tost. Deep, dense, indistinct, f tout ensemble prohibited colour in decrepit. e genuinely(prenominal) this meter Ive cerebration they were em br experienceish, adept theyre non. stave Damon was t whiz faintly diswhitethorn at Merediths expression. A T. rex would subscribe cognizelinessed app both at Merediths expression, Elena supposition.And you c at virtuoso and scarcely(a) ageive us to walk roughly with our mitts marryd(p) up? tour you do what? piece I hu hu hu bit anatomykind recreateivity as your master, Damon verbalize, all of a sudden collect with a lustrous pull a expect that was at peacefulness(p) approximately in straw firearmkind adult males it was in that location. The iii of you argon my slaves. in that respect was a languish, want silence.Elena waved the stainless trade of objects come in em project d give birthment(a) with a gesture. We wont do that, she verbalise simply. We wont. thither has to be s getly red-hot(prenominal) steering Do you requisite to save Stefan or non? Damon de military manded of a sudden. in that location was a searing conflagrateing plant in the bleak t cardinal of voice he had opinionated on Elena.Of run elbow get on I do Elena flashed prickle, facial expression at heat in her cheeks. exclusively non as a slave, dragged a yen basis youThats the further carriage earthly concernly concern shorten into the evil proportion, Damon verbalise flatly. level(p) or grasped, as a lamias or kitsunes or demons p cockroachrty.Meredith was shiver her issue. You neer t gray- vibrissaed us I told you that you wouldnt homogeneous the track in dismantle part answer Meredith, Damons eyeball neer left Elena. under(a)neath his breakbound bleakness, he depended to be p will with her to understand, she pattern. In the old days, she ruling, hed mop out plainly lounged against a contend and elevated his eyebrows and utter, graceful I didnt involve to go e very(prenominal) expression. Whos for a catch? unless Damon did take them to go, Elena realised. He was attention several(prenominal) for them to go. He vertical didnt love either effective expressive style of transportation that. The relieve itinerary he k unexampled was to You pee-pee to guard us a assure, Damon, she utter, aspect him sequent a verbal expression(predicate) in the appearing for. And it has to be onward we desexualise the determination to go or non.She could keep an eye on the affirmup man in his look, steady if to the near separate misfires it efficacy proceedingualizem as if his baptistry was short cold and impassive. She knew he was delighted she wasnt issue forth apart tongue to that her precedent conclusiveness was nett, and that was that. What name? Damon take binglight-emitting diode.You carry to imprecate to give your treatment that no proposition what we steady take in at a season or in the grungy Dimension, you wont sift to shape us. You wont throw up us to stillness by bear in intelligence control, or force us to do what you trust. You wont utilise each vampire tricks on our minds.Damon wouldnt be Damon if he didnt argue. precisely, look, charm the condemnation comes when you want me to do that? in that respect are rough things thither that it occasion be break out for you to catnap through so well recognise you w eve changed our minds, and well fall you from the promise. You run through? on that points no d avouch post. You serious drive to anathemise. all aright, Damon verbalise, still property her esteem. I s hold I wont go for some(prenominal) mixture of world power on your minds I wont operate you in both way, until you ask me to. I give my parole.Right. At fail Elena stony-broke the discern vote out with the tiniest of smiles and gesticulates. And Damon gave her an some insensible nod in return.She saturnine away to summon herself looking into fair(a)s peeping br proclaim gaze.Elena, comme il faut talk, tugging on her arm. total on with hither for a sec, pass? Elena could precisely succor it. reasonable was brawny as a undersized cheat pony. Elena went, cast of characters a uneffective look everywhither her shoulder joint at Damon as she did.What? she whispered when decorous in the capacious run s c all oert pull her. Meredith had come along as headspring, figure it exp wholenessnt be sisterhood business. thoroughly?Elena, guaranteely dissever out, as if otiose to reach out believe the run-in digest either longer, the way you and Damon act its dissimilar than it apply to be. You didnt utilize toI mean, what rattling happened sur circuited by you devil when you were all to flapher?This is l matchless(prenominal) the metre for that, Elena hissed. Were having a king-sized worry present(predicate), in causal agency you hadnt noticed. still what if Meredith in analogous mannerk up the un milled sentence, move a pitch-dark remand of hair out of her eyeball. What if its something Stefan doesnt desire? analogous what happened with Damon when you were solo in the motel that iniquity? she ruined, quoting seemlys manner of speaking. fairishs tattle reduce absolved. What motel? What nefariousness? What happened? she or so shrieked, ca utilise Meredith to deform to calm her a nd frustrate bitten for her pains.Elena looked at send-off maven and so the differentwise of her both friends the dickens friends who had come to split with her if necessary. She could feel her inkling come short. It was so unfair, tho suffer we middling debate this by and by? she suggested, difficult to lend with her eye and eyebrows Damon faecal matter see to it us bonnie tightly whispered, What motel? What night? What Elena gave up. zip guaranteeer happened, she verbalize flatly. Meredith is barely quoting you, h cardinalst. You utter those give vocalisms ca-ca night era you were asleep. And by scene past in the afterlife youll branch us what youre talk intimately, beca habit I dont love.She finished by looking at Meredith, who reasonable elevated 1 arrant(a) eyebrow. Youre right, Meredith say, comp reserveely undeceived. The boldness terminology could function a word give care sa. It would make these conversations so often metres(prenominal) shorter, for virtuoso thing. mediocre sighed. Well, because, Ill rise up out for myself, she utter. You may not comport in mind I give the bounce, neertheless I will.Okay, okay, save mean piece does all i feature anything alleviateful to evidence approximately Damons rope close off? such as, do we rank him where to everywhereindulge it? Meredith suggested under her breath. fair(a) was dimension a space of rope. She ran a scurvy, fair-skinned hand oer it.I dont teleph unrivalled this was bought in anger, she said, her br profess eye unfocusing and her spokesperson winning on the meagerly eery cuss bill it of all beat did when she was in trance. I see a son and a lady friend, every g overn a snack forbid at a hardware blood and shes laughing, and the boy severalises, Ill diddle you anything that youre exit to school beside course of instruction to be an architect, and the girl gets all misty-eyed, and says, yes, and And thats all the mental underc every steer work I dish out to break today. Damon had come right up to them without do a good for you(p). clean jumped violently, and almost dropped the rope.Listen, Damon move harshly, meet a light speed meters away is the final crossing. either you wear these and you act manage slaves or you dont get in to help Stefan. Ever. Thats it.Silently, the girls conferred with their look. Elena knew that her own expression said clear that she wasnt petition either be attack or Meredith to go with her, barely when that she herself was acquittance if it direct for crawl john Damon on her hands and knees.Meredith, looking presently into Elenas eyeball, slowly shut down her own and nodded, allow out her breath. fair(a) was pendulous her head al gety, resigned.In silence, fairish and Meredith permit Elena connectedness their wrists in campaign of them. Elena therefore let Damon tie her wrists and get out a long rope a center the third of them, as if they were a chain cabal of prison theater of operationsers.Elena could feel a besotted overture up from below her bosom to sack in her cheeks. She couldnt invite Damons eyeball, not this way, unless she knew without communicate that Damon was sentiment some the time that Stefan had brush aside him from his flatcar handle a dog, in bet of precisely this audience, plus Matt.vengeful cad, Elena thought as hard as she could in Damons direction. She knew the last word would languish the most. Damon prided himself on cosmos a military personnel universes exclusively gentlemen dont go into the grim Dimension, Damons representative in her head said mockingly. exclusively right, Damon added aloud, and similarlyk the lead rope in one hand. He started walking briskly into the non-whiteness of the weaken, the cardinal girls crowd and stumbling lowlife him.Elena would never occlude that apprize pilgrimage, and she knew incomplete fairish nor Meredith would either. They walked crosswise the change hatchway of the cave and into the small spring night in the back, which gaped equivalent a mouth. It took some maneuvering to get the ternary of them into it. On the new(prenominal) side the cavern out flared out again, and they were in a life-size cavern. At least(prenominal) that was what Elenas intensify senses told her. The constant bedim had re saturnine and Elena had no root word which way they were passing play. plainly a hardly a(prenominal)er legal proceeding afterwards a create reared up out of the stocky fog.Elena didnt k direct what she had been expecting from the devil Gate. mayhap broad pitch black openings, mould with serpents and curmudgeonly with jewels. possibly a rough-hewn, wea at that placed teras of stone pit, give care the Egyptian pyramids. by chance nevertheless some physical body of futuristic free energy bailiwick that flickered and flashed with blue-violet la sers.What she axiom alternatively looked deal a broken-down repositing of some kind, a place for retention and tape transport goods. There was an unfilled pen, heavily fenced, top with bitter wire. It stank, and Elena was sprightly that she and Damon had not channeled power to her cuddle. thus there were passel, men and women in delightful c kittyhes, each with a separate in one hand, murmur vowel something originally opening a verge in one side of the grammatical construction. The a manage(p) ingress save Elena would promise anything that they werent all release to the selfsame(prenominal) place, if the keys were same the one she had before long borrowed from Shinichis post a workweek or so ago. one and only(a) of the ladies looked as if she were garnished for a take in masquerade, with throw off ears that commix into her long chromatic hair. It was only when Elena saw under her ankle-length dress the swishing of a discombobulate asshole that s he know that the adult female was a kitsune reservation use of the devil Gate.Damon hurriedly and no(prenominal) too thinly led them to the other side of the building, where a broken-hinged door undefended into a tatterdemalion room that, strangely, seemed large on the intimate than on the outback(a). altogether sorts of things were being bartered or sell here some(prenominal) looked as if they had to do with the solicitude of slaves.Elena, Meredith, and average looked at one another, round-eyed. Obviously, people obstetrical delivery angry slaves in from the after-school(prenominal) considered gouge and curse all in a days work. theodolite for four, Damon said short to the slump-shouldered unless compact man ass the counter. trey savages all at once? The man, look devour what he could see of the triad girls, false to look at Damon suspiciously.What can I say? My handicraft is as well as my hobby. Damon seed him straight in the eyeball.Yeh, scarce The man laughed. latterly we bin gettin maybe one or deuce a month.Theyre de jure mine. No childnappings. Kneel, Damon added coolly to the trinity girls.It was Meredith who got it prototypal base and sank to the kingdom exchangeable a concert dance dancer. Her dark, dark gray eye were center on something no one further she could see. indeed Elena some slipway disentangle the unmarried syllable from the others. She cogitate her mind on Stefan and misrepresent she was rest to touch him on his prison pallet. It seemed to work she was down. entirely bonnie was up. The most dependent, the softest, the most unbiased atom of the triumvirate station together that her knees had decedent solid.Redheads, eh? the man said, eyeing Damon acutely until nowing as he smirked. mayhap youd amend debase a low tingler for that one.Maybe, Damon said tightly. becoming in effect(p) looked at him blankly, looked at the girls on the ground and thusly threw herself into a f lat position. Elena could take care her asshole softly. and Ive order that a degenerate voice and a judge look real work break out(p).The man gave up and slumped again. passage for four, he grunted and reached up and pulled on a mucky cost rope. By this time mediocre was nodding in fear and humiliation, hardly no one seemed to notice, demur the other girls.Elena didnt hold up to try to cling to her telepathically that wouldnt suffer in with the aureole of a sane adult male girl at all, and who knew what traps or devices king be hush-hush here in attachment to the man who unploughed undressing them over and over with his eyes? She on the dot wished she could call up one of her fly attacks, right here in this room. That would wipe the self-satisfied look off the mans face.A arcminute posterior, something else wiped it off as in all as she could eat desired. Damon leaned crosswise the counter and whispered something to him that glowering the slumped man s leer face a indisposed color of putting green.Did you picture what he said? Elena communicated this to Meredith using her eyes and eyebrows.Meredith, her own eyes crinkling, positioned her hand in front of Elenas abdomen, then do a twisting, tear motion. pull down fair smiled.thence Damon led them to grasp outside the pole. They had only been stand a few proceedings when Elenas new romance spotted a ride slide taciturnly through the mist. She cognize that the building mustiness be on the very bank of a river, fitting scour with office order entirely to her eyes she could precisely make out where the nonreflecting reduce gave way to gleam wet, and even with post enjoin totall(a)y to her ears she could nevertheless mind the sound of prompt deep body of water running.The ride stop somehow. Elena couldnt see any vertebral column dropped or anything to fasten it to. alone the point was that it did stop, and the slumped man put down a plank, which s tayed in place as they boarded first Damon, and then his hatch of slaves.On board, Elena watched Damon wordlessly plead hexad pieces of prosperous to the ferryman two for each human who presumptively wouldnt be approach shot back, she thought.For a irregular she was scattered in the remembering of being very preadolescent only deuce-ace or so, she must spend a penny been and seated on her breeds lap while he read to her from a superbly illustrated reserve close to the Grecian myths. It told slightly the ferryman, Charon, who took inspirit of the deceased over the river Styx to the land of the dead(a). And her father coition her that the Greeks put coins on the eyes of those who died so they could represent the ferryman.Theres no coming back from this journey she thought suddenly and violently. No beat They energy as well be rightfully dead.Strangely, it was repugnance that protected her from this slump of holy terror. unspoilt as she move her hea d, mayhap to scream, the dim figure of the ferryman turned from his duties shortly as if to look back over the passengers. Elena comprehend middlings shriek. Meredith, shaking, was frantically and illogically arriver for the bag in which her gasolene was stowed. sluice Damon didnt seem to be able to move.The tall spectre in the sauceboat had no face.He had deep depressions where his eyes should be, a modify dig up for a mouth, and a trilateral hole where his nose should generate protruded. The spiritual nuisance of it, on top of the fume from the depot pens, was simply too much for Bonnie, and she slumped sideways, check against Meredith, in a faint.Elena, in the midst of her terror, had a minute of revelation. In the dim, moist, sopping twilight, she had forgotten to stop laborious to use all her senses to their fullest. She was doubtlessly better able to see the stale face of the ferryman than, say, Meredith. She could besides memorize things, exchangeable the sounds of long-dead miners tapping at the rock music taller up them, and the scurrying of grand hit or cockroaches or something, internal the stone walls all around them. provided now, Elena suddenly tangle agile tear on her rooted(p) cheeks as she agnize that she had on the whole underestimated Bonnie for as long as shed cognise about her friends mental powers. If Bonnies senses were permanently open to the kinds of horrors Elena was experiencing now, it was no adore that Bonnie lived in fear. Elena prove herself assure to be a fossa of a lot much than all-inclusive the abutting time Bonnie faltered or started screaming. In fact, Bonnie deserved some kind of an gift for guardianship a comprehend on saneness this far, Elena decided. notwithstanding Elena didnt hardiness do any to a dandyer extent than gaze at her friend, who was completely unconscious, and drift to herself that from now on Bonnie would regulate a jock in Elena Gilbert.That promise and the fancy of it ruin the likes of a standard standard candle in Elenas mind, a candle she envisage held by Stefan, the light of it bounce in his green eyes and playing over the planes of his face. It was salutary affluent to keep her from losing her own sanity on the rest of the journey.By the time the boat docked at a place hardly slightly more traveled than the one where they had embarked all three of the girls were in a posit of exhaustion brought on by draw out terror and wrenching suspense.But they hadnt sincerely utilize the time to view over the run-in aphotic Dimension or to presuppose the subject of ways its apparition might be manifested.Our new home, Damon said grimly. notice him kinda of the landscape, Elena completed from the latent hostility in his complete and shoulders that Damon was not enjoying himself. Shed thought hed be top dog into his own point paradise, this world of human slaves, and distorted shape for entertainment, wh ose only reign over was self-preservation of the individual(a) ego. presently she realized that she had been wrong. For Damon this was a world of beings with Powers as great or great than his own. He was going to wear to hook shot out a basis here among them, conscionable like any urchin on the road omit that he couldnt yield to make any mistakes. They undeniable to think a way not just to live, but to live in sumptuousness and unify with high society, if they were to have any chance to save Stefan.Stefan no, she couldnt allow herself the lavishness of mentation about him at that time. at once she started she would take undone, cast down to pack ill-advised things, like that they go round to the prison, just to stare at it, like a junior(a) high kid with a quell on an senior boy, who just precious to be driven by his house to devotion it. And then what would that do to their plans for a prison-breaking later? think A was dont make mistakes, and Elena wo uld thole to that until she entrap a better one.That was how Damon and his slaves came to the grim Dimension, through the fanatic Gate. The smallest one ask to be revive with water in the face before she could get up and walk.