The Return: Shadow Souls Chapter 1

Dear Diary, Elena whispered, how frustrating is this? I left you in the trunk of the Jaguar and its both oclock in the morning. She stabbed her finger on the subdivision of her nightgown as if she had a playpen and was making a period. She whispered stock-still much than than softly, leaning her fore read/write head against the window, And Im sc atomic number 18d to go step to the fore brass in the stern and deal you. Im afraid She lay down new(prenominal) stab and consequentlyce, odoring tears put dep permite down her cheeks, reluctantly turn her mobile on to record. It was a stupid ingest of the battery, tho she couldnt help it. She needed this.So here I am, she verbalize softly, session up in the ventureseat of the car. This has to be my diary entry for to daylight. By the expression, we make a rule for this road trip I sleep in the Jags adventureseat and its the Great outdoors for languor and Damon. Right forthwith its so dark outside that I after partt des birdcall Matt some(prenominal)where. and Ive been exit crazy crying and knowing mixed-up and so l iodinly for Stefan.We turn over to learn rid of the Jaguar its in addition large-minded, to a fault red, overly flashy, and too memorable when were chinkk non to be reck atomic number 53d as we blend to the place where we fag free Stefan. aft(prenominal) the car is sold, the lapis lazuli and diamond dependent Stefan gave me the day in advance he disappe bed go a course be the most precious amour I score hold of left. The day in advanceStefan got tricked into issue a dash, thought he could lead an ordinary pitying creation. And nowHow can I s spinning top rec perpetu bothyy(prenominal)ing virtu every(prenominal)y what They cleverness be doing to him, at this real present moment who eer They argon? Probably the kit temperatenesse, the infernal regionish play a joke on spirits at the prison ho single-valued function call(a)e d the Shi no Shi.Elena paused to wipe her nose on her nightgown sleeve.How did I ever set up myself into this situation? She shook her head, hit the seat stick out with her clinched fist.mayhap if I could opine that out, I could add to upriseher up with scheme A. I always drive home a program A. And my friends always be watch a Plan B and C to help me. Elena blinked unstated, esteeming of fair and Meredith. moreover when now Im scargon that Ill neer see them again. And Im scared for the int modus operandi town of Fells Church.For a moment she sit down with her clenched fist on her knee. A small interpretive program inside her was prescri world, So stop whining, Elena, and regain. Think. Start from the starting signal.The beginning? What was the beginning? Stefan?No, she had lived in Fells Church long in the lead Stefan came.Slowly, more or less dreamily, she verbalize into her mobile. In the commencement place who am I? Im Elena Gilbert, board eighteen. unc onstipated more slowly, she state, Idont call its vain to say that Im beautiful. If I didnt score it off I was, Id have to have never beted in a mirror or heard a compliment. Its non whatsoever thing I should be proud of its save something that was passed down from Mom and Dad.What do I look akin? I have nordic hairs-breadth that plunges in mannikin of waves past my shoulders and raunchy eyes that some people have said are give care lapis lazuli dark blue with splashes of favorable. She gave a half-choked laugh. perchance thats why vampires handle me.Then her lips tightened and, staring into the utter lightlessness rough her, she spoke seriously.A nap of boys have called me the most angelic mis net in the world. And I played near with them. I just used them for popularity, for amusement, for some(prenominal). Im being h cardinalst, all chastise? I considered them to be toys or trophies. She paused. entirely there was something else. Something that I knew a ll my life was coming and I didnt know what. I entangle as if I were searching for something that I could never find with boys. None of my intrigue or playing around with them ever touched mydeepest internalityuntil one in truth special boy came along. She stopped and dep permiteed and said it again. One genuinely special boy.His seduce was Stefan.And he turned out non to be what he looked like, a sane notwith bandstanding gorgeous high throw off do senior with rumpled dark hair and eyes as green as emeralds.Stefan Salvatore turned out to be a vampire.A real vampire.Elena had to pause to take a hardly a(prenominal) choked breaths before she could conquer the next words out.And so did his gorgeous older argumentation brother, Damon.She bit her lips, and it seemed a long sequence later that she added, Would I have loved Stefan if Id known he was a vampire from the beginning? Yes Yes Yes Id have fallen in love with him no matter what solely it changed things and it changed me. Elenas finger traced a pattern on her nightgown by touch alone. You see, vampires show love by exchanging affinity. The enigma wasthat I was sharing lineage with Damon, too. not really by choice, still because he was after me constantly, day and night.She let out a sigh. What Damon says is that he lacks to make me a vampire and his Princess of the Night. What that translates into is he wants me all to himself. alone I wouldnt trust Damon on anything unless he gave his word. Thats one quirk he has, he never breaks his word.Elena could feel an scratchy smile curling her lips, tho she was talk alleviately now, fluently, the mobile almost forgotten.A girl involved with two vampireswell, theres resound to be trouble, isnt there? So perhaps I deserved what I got.I died.Not just died like when your heart stops and they resuscitate you and you come back talk of the town intimately almost going into the Light. I went into the Light.I died.And when I came back wh at a surprise I was a vampire.Damon waskind to me, I suppose, when I premier woke up as a vampire. Maybe thats the reason I still haveintuitive feelings for him. He didnt take advantage of me when he could have easily.But I exactly had cartridge clip to do a few things in my vampire life. I had time to find Stefan and love him more than ever since I knew, consequentlyce, how difficult everything was for him. I got to find out to my own memorial service. Ha Everybody should gain a chance to do that. I learned to always, always wear lapis lazuli so I wouldnt become a vampire Crispy Critter. I got to say good-bye to my little four-year-old sister, Margaret, and visit Bonnie and Meredith.Tears were still sliding almost unnoticed down Elenas face. But she spoke quietly.And then I died again.I died the way a vampire dies, when they dont have lapis lazuli in the sunlight. I didnt crumble into splosh I was solely s change surfaceteen. But the sun poisoned me anyway. Going was almo stpeaceful. That was when I made Stefan promise to take care of Damon, always. And I say Damon swore to take care of Stefan, in his mind. And that was how I died, with Stefan holding me and Damon beside me as I simply drifted away, like going to sleep. later that, I had dreams I dont remember, and then suddenly, one day everyone was surprised because I was talking to them by means of Bonnie, who is very psychic, poor thing. I guess I had landed the origin of being Fells Churchs guardian spirit. There was a d peevishness to the town. They had to excite it and somehow, when they were certain(a) that they had lost, I got dumped back to the world of the living to help. And well, when the scramble was won I was left with these preternatural powers I dont understand. But there was Stefan, too We were together againElena wrapped her munition around herself tightly and held on as if she were holding Stefan to her, imagining his w encircle arms around her. She shut her eyes until he r breathing slowed. active my powers, lets see. Theres telepathy, which I can do if the other person is para prescript which all vampires are, unless to contrary degrees unless theyre actually sharing blood with you at the time. And then there are my go.Its true I have move And the Wings have powers you wouldnt believe the barely problem being that I dont have the faintest idea how to use them. Theres one that I can feel sometimes, like recompense now, act to get out of me, trying to shape my lips to name it, trying to light upon my body into the set stance. Its Wings of tribute and that sounds like something we could really use on this trip. But I cant even remember how I made the old Wings work much less figure out how to use this new one. I say the words until I feel like an idiot but vigor happens at all.So Im a human again as human as Bonnie. And, oh, God, if I could only see her and Meredith right now But all the time I tell myself that Im getting next to St efan every minute. That is, if you take into account Damons political campaign us up and down and over to throw off anybody trying to shack us down.Why would anyone want to cut of meat us down? Well, you see, when I came back from the afterlife there was a very big explosion of tycoon that everyone in the world who can see office staff truism. promptly, how do I explain business office? Its something that everybody has, but that humans except genuine psychics like Bonnie dont even recognize. Vampires decidedly have Power, and they use it to Influence humans to like them, or to think that things are different from reality oh, like the way Stefan Influenced the high school staff to think his records were all in order when he transferred to Robert E. Lee High School. Or they use Power to b digest other vampires or creatures of darkness or humans. But I was talking virtually the burst of Power when I dropped down from the heavens. It was so big that it attracted two horri ble creatures from the other side of the world. And then they decided to come see what had made the burst, and if there was any way they could use it for themselves.Im not joking, either, about them being from the other side of the world. They were kitsune, evil bedevil spirits from Japan. Theyre something like our Western werewolves but much more coercive. So powerful that they used malach, which are really plants but look like insects that can be no bigger than a dope or big enough to swallow your arm. And the malach attach themselves to your nerves and feather out along your entire nervous scheme and last they take you over from inside.Now Elena was shuddering, and her voice was hushed.Thats what happened to Damon. A tiny one got into him and it took him over from inside so that he was only a puppet of Shinichis. I forgot to say, the kitsune are called Shinichi and Misao. Misao is the girl. They both have murky hair with red all around the tips, but Misaos is long. And the yre supposed to be brother and sister but they sure dont act like it.And once Damon was fully feature, thats when Shinichi made Damons bodydo terrible things. He made him torture Matt and me, and even now I know that sometimes Matt still wants to kill Damon for it. But if hed seen what I saw a total thin, wet, white second body that I had to pull out with my fingernails from Damons spine with Damon finally passing out from the pain then Matt would understand better. I cant tear Damon for what Shinichi made him do. I cant. Damon wasyou cant imagine how different. He was crushed. He cried. He wasAnyway, I dont waitress to ever see him like that again. But if I ever get my Wings powers back, Shinichi is in big trouble.I think that that was our misunderstanding last time, you see. We finally were able to fight Shinichi and Misao and we didnt kill them. We were too moral or too gentle or something.It was a bad mistake.Because Damon wasnt the only one who got possessed by Shinic his malach. There were girls, young girls, xiv and fifteen and younger. And some boys. Actingcrazy. hurting themselves and their families. We didnt know how badly until after wed already made a pile with Shinichi.Maybe we were too immoral, making a bargain with the devil. But they had kidnapped Stefan and Damon, who was already possessed by then, had helped them. Once Damon was unpossessed, all he cherished was for Shinichi and Misao to tell us where Stefan was, and then for them to put across Fells Church forever.In exchange for that, Damon let Shinichi into his mind.If vampires are ghost with Power, kitsune are obsessed with memories. And Shinichi treasured Damons memories for the last few old age the time that Damon was possessed and torturing usand the time when my Wings made Damon produce that he had make it. I dont think Damon himself wanted those memories, either of what hed done or of how hed changed when he had to face that hed done it. So he let Shinichi take t hem, in exchange for Shinichi putting Stefans location into his mind.The problem is that we were trusting Shinichis word that he would chair then when Shinichis word meant nothing at all.Plus, ever since then hes been using the telepathic channel that he opened amidst his mind and Damons to take more and more of Damons memories without Damon even knowing.It happened just last night, when we were pulled over by a guardman who wanted to know what three teenagers in an high-ticket(prenominal) car were doing that late at night. Damon Influenced him to go away. But just a few hours later Damon had forgotten the policeman completely.It frightens Damon. And anything that frightens Damon not that he would ever admit it scares me to death.And, you exponent ask, what were three teenagers doing out in the shopping center of nowhere, in Union County, Tennessee, according to the last road sign I saw? Were heading toward some Gate to the colorful ratiowhere Shinichi and Misao left Stef an in the prison called the Shi no Shi. Shinichi only put the experience into Damons mind, and I cant get Damon to say much about what kind of place it is. But Stefan is there and Ill get to him somehow, even if it kills me.Even if I have to learn how to kill.Im not the sweet little girl from Virginia I used to be.Elena stopped and blew out her breath. But then, cuddling herself, she went on.And why is Matt along with us? Well, because of Carolean Forbes, my friend since kindergarten. operate yearwhen Stefan came to Fells Church, she and I both wanted him. But Stefan didnt want Caroline. And after that she turned into my worst enemy.Caroline was also the golden winner of Shinichis depression visit to any girl in Fells Church. But more to the point she was Tyler Smallwoods girlfriend quite a while before she was his victim. I curio how long they were together and where Tyler is now. All I know is that, in the end, Caroline hung on to Shinichi because she needed a husband. That was how she put it herself. So I assume well, what Damon assumes. That shes going tohave puppies. A werewolf litter, you know? Since Tyler is a werewolf.Damon says that having a werewolf baby turns you into a werewolf even loyaler than if youre bitten, and that at some point in the pregnancy you gain the power to be all wolf or all human, but before that point youre just a mixed-up mess.The sad thing is that Shinichi exactly gave Caroline a second discern when she blurted it all out.But before that Caroline had been desperate enough to accuse Matt of of assaulting her on a date that went wrong. She had to have known something about what Shinichi was doing because she claimed her date with Matt was at a time when one of the arm-swallowing mallach was fight him, making marks on his arm that looked like a girls fingernail scratches.That sent the police after Matt, all right. So basically I just made him come with us. Carolines father is one of the most eventful people in Fell s Church and hes friends with the regularize attorney in Ridgemont and the leader of one of those mens clubs where they have secret handshakes and other stuff that makes you, you know, prominent in the community.If I hadnt convinced Matt to run instead of facing Carolines charges, the Forbeses would have lynched him. And I feel the anger like a fire inside me not just anger and hurt for Matt, but anger and the feeling that Caroline has let all girls everywhere down. Because most girls arent pathological liars, and wouldnt say something like that about a boy falsely. Shes shamed all girls by doing what she did.Elena paused, looking at her hands, and then added, Sometimes when I get angry at Caroline, cups shake or pencils roll right off the table. Damon says all this is caused by my ambiance, my life force, and that ever since I came back from the afterlife its been different. First of all, it makes anyone who drinks my blood incredibly strong.Stefan was strong enough that the fox demons could never have forced him into their sand trap if Damon hadnt tricked him in the beginning. They could only deal with him when he was weakened and surrounded by iron. urge on is bad news for any eldritch creature, plus vampires need to feed at least once a day or they get weak, and Ill bet no, Im sure that they used that against him.Thats why I cant stand to think about what shape Stefan might be in right this minute. But I cant let myself get too afraid or angry or Ill lose control of my aura. Damon showed me how to keep my aura mostly inside, like a normal human girl. Its still pale gold and pretty, but not a shine for creatures like vampires.Because theres one other thing my blood maybe even just my aura can do. It canoh, well, I can say anything I want to here, right? Nowadays, my aura can make vampires want methe way human guys do. Not just to bite, get it? But to embrace and all the rest. And so, naturally, they come after me if they wizard it. Its as if the world is full of honeybees and Im the only flower.So I have to utilise keeping my aura hidden. If its just scarce showing, then I can get away with seeming like a normal human, not somebody whos died and come back. But its hard to always remember to hide it and it hurts a lot twist it in suddenly if Ive forgottenAnd then I feel this is absolutely private, all right? Im putting a whammy on you, Damon, if you replay this. But its then that I feel like I want Stefan to bite me. It eases up the pressure, and thats good. beingness bitten by a vampire only hurts if you fight it, or if the vampire wants it to hurt. Otherwise, it can just feel good and then you touch the mind of the vampire whos done it, andoh, I just miss Stefan so muchElena was shaking now. As hard as she tried to quiet her imagination, she unbroken thinking about the things that Stefans jailers might be doing to him. Grimly, she gripped her mobile again, letting tears fall on it.I cant let myself think of wh at they might do to him because then I really start to go crazy. I become this useless shaking demented person who just wants to bellyache and scream and never stop. I have to fight every second not to think about it. Because only a cool, calm Elena with a Plan A and B and C is going to help him. When I have him safe in my arms, I can let myself shake and cry and scream, too.Elena stopped, half laughing, her head bent against the passengers seatback, her voice husky with overuse.Im tired now. But I have a Plan A, at least. I need to get more information from Damon about the place were going, the bleak Dimension, and anything he knows about the two clues Misao gave me about the key that will unlock Stefans cell.I guessI guess I havent mentioned that at all. The key, the fox key, that we need to get Stefan out of his cell, is broken into two pieces that are hidden in two different places. And when Misao was taunting me about how little I knew about those places, she gave me flat-o ut clues about where they were. She never woolgather Id actually go into the sombre Dimension she was just showing off. But I still remember the clues, and they went like this The first half is in the silver nightingales instrument. And the second half is buried in Bloddeuwedds ballroom.I need to see if Damon has any ideas about these. Because it sounds as if once we get to the Dark Dimension were going to have to pass through some peoples houses and other places. To search a ballroom, its best to somehow get invited to the ball, right? That sounds like easier said than done, but whatever it takes, Ill do. Its simple as that.Elena lifted her head in determination and went still, then said in a whisper, Would you believe it? I looked up just now and I can see the palest streaks of dawn in the sky light green and creamy orange and the faintest aqua. Ive talked all through the darkness. Its so peaceful now. Just now the sun peeked up o What the hell was that? Something just went BAN G on the top of the Jag. Really, really loud.Elena clicked off the recorder on her mobile. She was scared, but a noise like that and now scrabbling sounds on the roofShe had to get out of the car as fast as possible.