vampire diaries Shadow Souls | Page 4

malach,
which are really plants but look like insects that can be no bigger than
a pinhead or big enough to swallow your arm. And the malach attach themselves t o your
nerves and feather out along your entire nervous system and
finally they take you over from inside.”
Now Elena was shuddering, and her voice was hushed.
“That’s 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 Shinichi’s. I forgot to say,
the kitsune are called Shinichi and Misao. Misao is the girl. They both have blac k hair
with red all around the tips, but Misao’s is long. And they’re
supposed to be brother and sister—but they sure don’t act like it.
“And once Damon was fully possessed, that’s when Shinichi made Damon’s body…do
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 he’d se en
what I saw—a whole thin, wet, white second body that I had to pull out
with my fingernails from Damon’s spine—with Damon finally passing out fr om the
pain—then Matt would understand better. I can’t blame Damon for what
Shinichi made him do. I can’t. Damon was…you can’t imagine how different. He was
crushed. He cried. He was…
“Anyway, I don’t expect to ever see him like that again. But if I ever get m y Wings’
powers back, Shinichi is in big trouble. “I think that that was our mistake last time, you see. We finally were able t o fight
Shinichi and Misao— and we didn’t kill them . We were too moral

or too gentle or something.
“It was a bad mistake.
“Because Damon wasn’t the only one who got possessed by Shinichi’s malach. There
were girls, young girls, fourteen and fifteen and younger.
And some boys. Acting…crazy. Hurting themselves and their families. We didn’t know
how badly until after we’d already made a bargain 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 wanted was for Shinichi and
Misao to tell us where Stefan was, and then for them to leave
Fell’s Church forever.
“In exchange for that, Damon let Shinichi into his mind.
“If vampires are obsessed with Power, kitsune are obsessed with memories . And Shinichi
wanted Damon’s memories for the last few days—the
time that Damon was possessed and torturing us…and the time when my Wings made
Damon realize that he had done it. I don’t think Damon himself
wanted those memories, either of what he’d done or of how he’d changed when he had to
face that he’d done it. So he let Shinichi take them, in exchange
for Shinichi putting Stefan’s location into his mind.
“The problem is that we were trusting Shinichi’s word that he would leave t hen—when
Shinichi’s word meant nothing at all.
“Plus, ever since then he’s been using the telepathic channel that he opened between his
mind and Damon’s to take more and more of Damon’s
memories without Damon even knowing.
“It happened just last night, when we were pulled over by a policeman who wa nted to
know what three teenagers in an expensive car were doing
that late at night. Damon Influenced him to go away. But just a few hours later D amon
had forgotten the policeman completely.
“It frightens Damon. And anything that frightens Damon—not that he would ever admi t
it—scares me to death.
“And, you might ask, what were three teenagers doing out in the middle of nowhere, in
Union County, Tennessee, according to the last road sign I
saw? We’re heading toward some Gate to the Dark Dimension…where Shinichi and
Misao left Stefan in the prison called the Shi no Shi. Shinichi only
put the knowledge into Damon’s mind, and I can’t get Damon to say much about what kind of place it is. But Stefan is there and I’ll get to him somehow,
even if it kills me.
“Even if I have to learn how to kill.
“I’m 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 Caroline Forbes, my fri end since
kindergarten. Last year…when Stefan came to Fell’s Church,
she and I both wanted him. But Stefan didn’t want Caroline. And after that she turned
into