Midnight

Shinichi. He was here. Of course he could travel through the dimensions; he Stillhad a ful star bal that none of Elena’s group had ever found as well as those magical keys Elena had told Bonnie about. Bonnie remembered the horrible night when trees, actual trees, had turned into something that could understand and obey him. About how four of them each grabbed one of her arms and legs and pul ed, as if they were planning to pul her apart. She could feel tears leaking out behind her shut eyelids.

And the Old Wood. He’d control ed every aspect of it, every creeper to trip you, every tree to fal in front of your car. Until Elena had blasted al but that one thicket of the Old Wood, it had been ful of terrifying insect-like creatures Stefan cal ed malach.

But now Bonnie’s hands were behind her back and she heard something fasten with a very final-sounding click.

No…oh, please no…

But her hands were definitely fixed in place. And then someone – an ogre or a vampire – picked her up as the lovely woman gave Shinichi a smal key off a key ring ful of identical keys. Shinichi handed this to a big ogre whose fingers were so large that they eclipsed it. And then Bonnie, who was screaming, was quickly whisked up four flights of stairs and a heavy door thunked shut behind her. The ogre carrying her fol owed Shinichi, whose sleek scarlet-tipped tail swung jauntily from a hole in his jeans, back and forth, back and forth. Bonnie thought: That’s satisfaction. He thinks he’s won this already.

But unless Damon real y had forgotten her completely, he would hurt Shinichi for this. Maybe he would kil him. It was an oddly comforting thought. It was even ro –

No, it’s not romantic, you nitwit! You have to find a way to get out of this mess! Death is not romantic, it’s horrible!

They had reached the final doors at the end of the hal .

Shinichi turned right and walked al the way down a long corridor. There the ogre used the key to open a door.

The room had an adjustable overhead gaslight. It was dim but Shinichi said, "Can we have a little il umination, please?"in a false polite voice, and the other ogre hurried and turned the light up to interrogation-lamp-in-your-face level.

The room was a sort of bedroom-den combination, the kind you’d get at a decent hotel. It had a couch and some chairs on the upper level. There was a window, closed, on the left side of the room. There was also a window on the right side of the room, where al the other rooms should be in a line.

This window had no curtains or blinds that could be drawn and it reflected Bonnie’s pale face back at her. She knew at once what it was, a two-way mirror, so that people in the room behind it could see into this room but not be seen. The couch and chairs were positioned to face it.

Beyond the sitting room, off to her left, was the bed. It wasn’t a very fancy bed, just white covers that looked pink, because there was a real window on that side that was almost in a line with the sun, sitting as it always was, on the horizon. Right now, Bonnie hated it more than ever before because it turned every light-colored object in the room pink, rose, or outright red. The bow at her own bodice was deep pink now.

She was going to die saturated with the color of blood.

Something on some deeper level told her that her mind was thinking of such things as distractions, that even thinking about hating to die in such a juvenile color was running away from the bit in the middle, the dying bit. But the ogre holding her moved her around as if she weighed nothing, and Bonnie kept having little thoughts – were they premonitions? Oh, God, let them not be premonitions! – about going out of that red window in a sitting position, the glass no impediment to her body being thrown at a tremendous force. And how many stories up were they? High enough, anyway, that there was no hope of landing without…Well, dying.

Shinichi smiled, lounging by the red window, playing with the cord to the blinds.

"I don’t even know what you want from me!"Bonnie found herself saying to Shinichi. "I’ve never been able to hurt you. It was you hurting other people – like me! – al the time."

"Well, there were your friends,"murmured Shinichi. "Although I seldom wreak my dread revenge against lovely young women with red-gold hair."He lounged beside the window and examined her, murmuring, "Hair of red-gold; heart true and bold. Perhaps a scold…"

Bonnie felt like screaming. Didn’t he remember her? He certainly seemed to have remembered their group, since he’d mentioned revenge. "What do you want?"she gasped.

"You are a hindrance, I’m afraid. And I find you very suspicious – and delicious. Young women with red-gold hair are always so elusive."

Bonnie couldn’t find anything to say. From everything she’d seen, Shinichi was a nutcase. But a very dangerous psychopathic nutcase. And al he enjoyed was destroying things.

In just one moment there could be a crash through the window – and then she’d be sitting on air. And then the fal would begin. What would that feel like? Or would she already be fal ing? She only hoped that at the bottom it was quick.

"You seem to have learned a lot about my people,"Shinichi said. "More than most."

"Please,"Bonnie said desperately. "If it’s about the story – al I know about kitsune is that you’re destroying my town. And – "She stopped short, realizing that she could never let him know what had happened in her out-of-body experience. So she could never mention the jars or he’d know that they knew how to catch him. "And you won’t stop,"she finished lamely.

"And yet you found an ancient star bal with stories about our legendary treasures."

"About what? You mean from that kiddy star bal ? Look, if you’l just leave me alone I’l give it to you."She knew exactly where she’d left it, too, right beside her sorry excuse for a pil ow.