Midnight

Warm was a concept as vague and faraway as life before she had met Stefan. But delirious she understood. That was not a good thing. What to do about it except laugh?

"All right. Elena, just wait for a moment. Let me find – "In a moment he was back. Not quick enough to stop her from unwrapping the fur down to her waist, but back before she could get her camisole off.

"Here."He stripped off the damp fur and wrapped a warm, dry one around her, over her camisole.

After a moment or two she began to shiver.

"That’s my girl,"Damon’s voice said. It went on: "Don’t fight me, Elena. I’m trying to save your life. That’s al . I’m not going to try to do anything else. I give you my word."

Elena was bewildered. Why should she think that Damon –

this must be Damon, she decided – would want to hurt her?

Although he could be a bastard sometimes…

And he was taking off her clothes.

No. That shouldn’t be happening. Definitely not. Especial y since Stefan must be somewhere around.

But by now Elena was shivering too hard to talk.

And now that she was in her underwear, he was making her lie down on furs, tucking other furs around her. Elena didn’t understand anything that was happening, but it was al starting not to matter. She was floating somewhere outside herself, watching without much interest.

Then another body was slipping in under the furs. She snapped back from the place she had been floating. Very briefly she got a look at a bare chest. And then a warm, compact body slid into the makeshift sleeping bag with her.

Warm, hard arms went around her, keeping her in contact al over her body.

Through the mist she vaguely heard Stefan’s voice.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Chapter 30

"Strip to your underwear and get in on the other side,"Damon said. His voice was neither angry nor fatuous.

He added shortly, "Elena is dying."

The last three words seemed to affect Stefan particularly, although Elena couldn’t parse them. Stefan wasn’t moving, just breathing hard, his eyes wide. "Bonnie and I have been gathering hay and fuel and we’re All right."

"You’ve been exercising – moving about – wearing clothes that kept you warm. She’s been dunked in ice water and sitting Still – high up in the wind. I got the other thurg to break off wood from the dead trees around here and try it on the fire. Now get the hel in, Stefan, and give her some body warmth, or I’m going to make her a vampire."

"Nnn,"Elena tried to say, but Stefan didn’t seem to understand.

Damon, however, said, "Don’t worry. He’s going to warm you up from the other side. You won’t have to become a vampire just yet. For God’s sake,"he added suddenly, explosively,

"some prince you picked!"

Stefan’s voice was quiet and tense. "You tried putting her in a thermal envelope?"

"Of course I tried, you idiot! No magic works beyond the Mirror except telepathy."

Elena had no sense of time going by, but suddenly there was a familiar body pressed against hers from the other side.

And somewhere directly in her mind: Elena? Elena? You’re All right, aren’t you, Elena? I don’t care whether you’re playing a joke on me. But you’re real y All right, aren’t you?

Just tell me that, love.

Elena wasn’t able to answer at all.

Dimly, fragments of sound came to her ears: "Bonnie…on top of her and…pack ourselves back on either side."

And dul feelings stirred her sense of touch: a smal body, almost weightless, like a thick blanket, pressing down on her.

Someone sobbing, tears dripping on her neck from above.

And warmth on either side.

I’m asleep with the other kittens, she thought, dozing. Maybe we’l have a nice dream.

"I wish we could know how they’re doing,"Meredith said, on a pause from one of her pacing bouts.

"I wish they knew how we’re doing,"Matt said wearily as he taped another note card amulet onto a window. And another.

"Do you know, my dears, I kept hearing a child crying last night in my dreams,"Mrs. Flowers said slowly.

Meredith turned, startled. "So did I! Right out on the front porch, it sounded like. But I was too tired to get up."

"It might mean something – or nothing at all."Mrs. Flowers frowned. She was boiling tap water for tea. The electricity was sporadic. Matt and Saber had driven back to the boardinghouse earlier that day so that Matt could gather Mrs.

Flowers’s most important instruments – her herbs for teas, compresses, and poultices. He hadn’t had the heart to tel her about the state of the boardinghouse, or what those maggot malach had done to it. He’d had to find a loose board from the garage to get from the hal to the kitchen.

There was no third floor anymore and very little second.

At least he hadn’t run into Shinichi.

"What I’m saying is that maybe there’s some real kid out there,"Meredith said.

"At night alone? Sounds like a Shinichi zombie,"Matt said.

"Maybe. But maybe not. Mrs. Flowers, do you have any idea of when you hear the crying? Early in the night or late?"

"Let me think, dear. It seems to me that I hear it whenever I wake up – and old people wake up quite frequently."

"I usual y hear it toward the morning – but I usual y sleep without dreaming for the first few hours and wake up early."

Mrs. Flowers turned to Matt. "What about you, Matt, dear?

Do you ever hear a sound like crying?"

Matt, who deliberately overworked himself these days to try to get a solid six hours of sleep at night, said, "I’ve heard the wind kind of moaning and sobbing around midnight, I guess."

"It sounds as if we have an al -night ghost, my dears,"Mrs.