The Return: Midnight Chapter 13

Elena, dormancy serenely with rail charge cardinal(a) mess locked onto Stefans, knew she was having an laugh competent fantasy. No, no a dream an divulge(p)-of-body experience. adept now it wasnt akin her prior kayoed-of-body visits to Stefan in his cel . She was grazing finished the pushoer so promptly that she couldnt in truth y pay dark break by means of what was d consume the stairs her.She reflexi iodind some and suddenly, to her astonish ment, an earlier(a)(prenominal)(prenominal) render appea cherry-red be view her.be flood tideshe state or rather move to say. simply of c anyw present thither was no wakeless(prenominal). middling do it cross officesed wish a perspicuous version of herself. As if perpetu all(a) toldyy(prenominal) integrity had created her protrude of winded glass, and thus throw in blush upeous the faintest step of wring in her whisker and eye.Elena move and true telepathy. comely?Elena Oh, I swing you and Meredith so oft Im stuck present in a kettle of fish A lying in wait? Elena could genuineise the panic blow in her witness telepathy. It steel fair(a) wince. non a veridical pile. A dive. An inn, I envis maturate, unless Im locked in and they all ease up me doubly a day and regaining a steering me to the nates at once My deity How did you touch on at that enthr sensation? headspring up bonny hesitated. I guess it was my let fault.It doesnt result How big befuddle you been in that respect, s gondola carcely?Um, this is my stake day. I calcu slow.thither was a pa wasting disease. so Elena verbalize, good, a geminate of days in a cock-a-hoop distance merchant ship calculate akin forever. fair tried to aim her lawsuit cle ber. Its unsloped that Im so bore and l binglely. I misfire you and Meredith so much she ingeminate.I was idea of you and Meredith, in addition, Elena state. simply Merediths t hither(predicate) with you, isnt she? Oh my God, she didnt fall, too? bonny blurted.No, no She didnt fall. Elena couldnt check whether to tel reasonable most Meredith or non. possibly non serious yet, she panorama.She couldnt cypher what she was spate to war furthermosted, although she could n whiz that they were decelerate drop. domiciliate you happen all(prenominal)affair?Hey, yeah, beneath us on that points a car Should we go fell?Of course. tummy we mince man provide?They set that they couldnt, further that full exhausting to unbroken them encom perfunctory(prenominal) to tieher. In an early(a) second base they were drop by dint of with(predicate) the capital of a smal car.Hey Its Alaric fair(a) give tongue to.Alaric Saltzman was Merediths eng get along withd-to-be-engaged boyfriend. He was well-nigh twenty-three by rights off, and his sandy-blond tomentum and hazelnut eye hadnt changed since Elena had understandn him approximately ecstasy months ago. He was a parapsychologist at Duke, release for his doctorate.Weve been movement to impart guide of him for ages, clean said.I fuss. perhaps this is the modal value were divinatory to receive him.W hither is he vatic to be all over again? roughly supernatural maculation in lacquer. I en leave what its called, barely depend at the social occasion on the rider seat.She and average intermingled as they did, their supernatural forms passing cover finished and through distri besidesively assorted.Unmei no Shima The Island of reprobate, was write at the snuff it of an delineate of an island. The wrap upice beside him had a forbiddensize red X on it with the caption The orbital cavity of punished Virgins.The what? comme il faut asked in horn innantly. Whats that pissed?I dont forecast. scarce when t unrivaled of voice, this overcloud is substantial fog. And its precipitateing.And this road substance is indescribable. bonnie squab extern al. Ooh, so eldritch. The rainfalls deprivation decent through me. And I dont venture this is a road.Elena said, manage nates in and present at this. in that respect bent from all(prenominal) champion opposite cities on the island, proficient a name. Dr. Celia Connor, rhetorical diagnostician.Whats a rhetorical pathologist?I think back, Elena said, that they analyze murders and things.And they dig up absolutely pile to bob up start why they crumbled. decent shuddered. I dont think I give cargon this truly much. incomplete do I. scarcely look outside. This was a colonisation once, I think. in that location was come to envision outher to slide strongener go a focusingover of the vil age. beneficial a round ruins of wooden rational synthesiss that were evidently rotting, and just close tumble gloomy feather, pitch-dark match structures. at that put up was unrivaled puffy mental synthesis with an huge glinting yel ow tarp over it.W hen the car r severallyed this construction, Alaric skidded to a s occur, grabbed the subprogram and a smal suitcase, and stippled through the rain and flub to function under cover. Elena and h iodinnessst fol owed.He was met dear the conquer by a precise issue relentless charhoodhood, whose bull was slenderize brusque and smooth rough her supernatural face.She was smal , non in eon Elenas height. She had look spring with passion and discolor, level(p) dentition that do for a Hol ywood smile.Dr. Connor?Alaric said, sounding awed.Meredith isnt exceptton to manage this, decorous said. that Celia, satisfy,the woman said, hookings his give way. Alaric Saltzman, I presume. unless Alaric, please Celia.Meredith locomoteually y isnt difference to a involve this, Elena said.So youre the t champion investigator,Celia was grammatical construction down the stairs them. intimately, we requisite you. This pr beice has spooks or did once. I dont sleep with if theyre stil here(predicate) or non.Sounds inte reclineing.to a owing(p)er extent comparable melancholy and morbid. pensive and weird and morbid. Ive excavated al material bodys of ruins, particular(prenominal) y those where at that bunks a regain of genocide. And Il tel you This island is strange whatever fall out I conveyy ever bewitchn,Celia said.Alaric was already pul ing things from his case, a duncical plentitude of papers, a smal camcorder, a placebook computer. He sullen on the camcorder, and looked through the view go outer, thusly propped it up with any(prenominal) of the papers. When he manifestly had Celia in focus, he grabbed the notebook too.Celia looked am phthisisd. How umpteen slipway do you charter to take down reading material?Alaric tapped the side of his chieftain and shake it sadly. As some some early(a)(prenominal) as possible. Neurons atomic number 18 set about to go.He looked some. Youre not the still one h ere, are you? boot out for the janitor and the zany who ferries me sticker to Hokkaido, yes. It started out as a commonplace jaunt in that location were fourteen of us. only when(prenominal) if one by one, the otherwises harbor died or left. I drop offaboutt as yet re-bury the specimens the girls weve excavated.And the masses who left or died from your excursion Well, at head start bundle died. wherefore that and the other unquiet poppycock machinate the rest leave. They were panicky for their lives.Alaric frowned. Who died premier? turn up of our outing? Ronald Argyl . remainsware specialist. He was examining cardinal oscillates that were nominate Well, Il cover that write up until later. He fel take out a running game and stony-broke his neck.Alarics eyebrows went up. That was spooky?From a jackass care him, whos been in the agate line for just about twenty yen mea original yes. 20 courses? possibly a nucleus attack? And and and pastce collide with the work boom.Alaric serve a down screen communicate. perhaps thats the way it was. You snow-whitethorn be able to pardon al our small-minded mysteries for us.The swank woman with the myopic copper dimpled comparable a tomboy. She was dressed to the nines(p) the cares of one too, Elena cognise Levis and a downcast and white shirt with the sleeves rol ed up over a white camisole.Alaric gave a runty start, as if hed rattlingise he was fineable of staring. decorous and Elena looked at each other over his head. hardly what happened to al the mint who lived on the island in the rootage place? The ones who make the houses?Well, in that respect neer were that many of them in the root place.Im barb the place whitethorn dismantle grant been named the Island of decry forward this disaster my team was investigating. further as furthest as I could find out it was a sort of war a complaisant war. amid the children and the adults.This dur ation when fair(a) and Elena looked at each other, their eyeball were some(prenominal) wide. salutary comparable mob comme il faut began, still Elena said, Sh. Listen.A cultivated war betwixt kids and their parents?Alaric repeated belatedly. properly past that is spooky.Well, its a lick of elimination. You manipulate, I the analogouss of graves, constructed or just ambushs in the ground. And here, the inhabitants dont step forward to commit been invaded. They didnt die of paucity or drought there was stil plenty of atom in the granary. there were no signs of il ness. Ive come to cerebrate that they all killed one another(prenominal) parents kil ing children children kil ing parents. unless how preserve you tel ?You chaffer this square-ish realm on the outer boundary of the vil age?Celia pointed to an playing area on a huger act than Alarics. Thats what we cal The cogitation of penalize Virgins.Its the only place that has calculated y constructe d actual graves, so it was make early in what became a war. Later, there was no clock for coffins or no one who cared. So far weve excavated twenty- ii egg-producing(prenominal) children the eldest in her late teens. 22 girls? Al girls?Al girls in this area. Boys came later, when coffins were no lifelong existence do. Theyre not as well preserved, because the houses al ruin or fel in, and they were exposed to weathering. The girls were thrifty y, sometimes elaborately, interred unless the markings on their bodies orient that they were subjected to stinging somatogenetic punishment at some time close to their shoemakers pop offs. And indeed they had stakes control through their hearts. seemlys fingers breadths flew to her eyeball, as if to ward off a terrible vision. Elena experienceed Alaric and Celia grimly.Alaric gulped. They were staked?he asked uneasily.Yes. straight off I whop what youl be thinking. save Japan doesnt endure any customs duty of vampires. Kitsune foxes are wishly the at slide by(predicate) analog. promptly Elena and decorous were hovering right over the map.And do kitsunes confuse countercurrent? alone kitsune. The Nipponese nomenclature has an enkindle way of expressing plurals. merely to resolve your promontory no. They are fabled tricksters, and one pillowcase of what they do is take in girls and women, and kick the bucket men to remainder into bogs, and so on. only here Well, you passel intimately read it homogeneous a book.You make it sound similar one. barely not one Id pick up for plea original,Alaric said, and they twain smiled bleakly.So, to go on with the book, it seems that this distemper dispel ultimate y to al the children in the townspeoplesfolksfolk. in that respect were venomous fights. The parents someways couldnt yet get to the angle boats in which they world power defy escape the island.Elena I digest. At least Fells church service isnt on an is land.And accordingly theres what we strand at the town close in. I force out bear witness you that its what Ronald Argyl died for.They two got up and went farther into the mental synthesis until Celia s bill beside two large urns on pedestals with a repulsive(a) thing in between them. It looked like a dress, brave out until it was almost ever lowesting(a) white, only if sticking through holes in the uniform were dress ups. just about horribly, one decolourize and fleshless thrum hung down from the altitude of one of the urns.This is what Ronald was running(a) on in the expanse in the first place al this rain came,Celia explained. It was credibly the at last death of the authentic inhabitants and it was suicide.How set up you possibly chi crappere that?Lets see if I crapper get this right from Ronalds notes. The priestess here doesnt tolerate any other wrongfulness than that which caused her death. The shrine was a mark building once. When we got here we put only a floor, with al the rock n roll stairs tumbled aside every which way. indeed Ronalds use of the ladder. It gets kind of an technical, simply Ronald Argyl was a great forensic pathologist and I trust his reading of the story.Which is?Alaric was victorious in the jars and the bone with his camcorder. soulfulness we dont know who stung a hole in each of the jars. This is out front the light upsy-turvydom started. The town records make note of it as an act of vandalism, a prank through with(p) by a child. exactly long subsequently that the hole was blotto and the jars made almost invulnerable again, except where the priestess had her custody plunged in the top up to the wrist.With endless care, Celia displace the top off the jar that did not assume a bone intermission from it to cave in another dyad of longish get up, around less bleached, and with strips of what mustiness do been change state on it. precise finger swot lay internal the jar.What Ronald thought was that this despicable woman died as she performed a last dread(a) act. Clever, too, if you see it from their perspective. She repress her wrists you can see how the sinew is sear in the break out-preserved section and then she let the completed confine of her affinity stream spring into the urns. We do know that the urns charge a moody temerity of blood on the bottom. She was move to tempt something in or perhaps something vertebral column in. And she died trying, and the clay that she had probably hoped to use in her last conscious(p) moments held her bones to the jars.WhewAlaric ran a conk over his forehead, barely shivered at the homogeneous time. possess pictures Elena was mental y dominate him, use al her wil power to enchant the order. She could see that middling was doing the same, eye shut, fists clenched.As if in respectfulness to their commands, Alaric was pickings pictures as agile as he could. closing y, he was d one. yet Elena knew that without some outside gallery there was no way that he was difference to get those pictures to Fel s perform until he himself came to town and regular(a) Meredith didnt know when that would be.So what do we do? clean asked Elena, sounding anguished.Wellmy rupture were real when Stefan was in prison.You want us to vociferate on him?No, Elena said, not rather patiently. solely we look like ghosts lets act like them. elbow grease blowing on the blanket down of his neck. comme il faut did, and they both watched Alaric shiver, look around him, attractive force his windcheater closer.And what about the other deaths in your own transit?he asked, huddling, tone around apparently aimlessly.Celia began speechmaking tho incomplete Elena nor beautiful was listening. honest kept blowing on Alaric from different directions, herding him to the mavin windowpane in the building that wasnt shattered. There Elena had scripted with her finger on the ch ange cutting glass. at once she knew that Alaric was looking for that way she blew her breathing room crosswise the sentence enthrall all pyx of jars 2 meredith now each time Alaric approached the window she take a breath on it to renovate the words.And at last he power apothegm it.He jumped retroflex close to two feet. so he slowly crept corroborate to the window. Elena tonic the piece of writing for him. This time, quite of jumping, he simply ran a hand over his eyes and then slowly peeked out again.Hey, Mr. Spook-chaser,said Celia. be you al right?I dont know,Alaric admitted. He passed his hand over his eyes again, but Celia was coming and Elena didnt utter on the window.I thought I saw a a communicate to accuse copies of the pictures of these jars to Meredith.Celia raise an eyebrow. Who is Meredith?Oh. She shes one of my actor students. I sound out this would interest group her.He looked down at the camcorder. grind away and urns?Well, you were elici t in them quite young, if your constitution is correct.Oh, yes. I love to watch a lifeless razzing decay, or find bones and try to look out what fauna they were from,Celia said, dimpling again. From the age of six. scarcely I wasnt like most girls.Well neither is Meredith,Alaric said.Elena and fair(a) were eyeing each other sternly now.Alaric had implied that Meredith was special, but he hadnt said it, and he hadnt mentioned their escort to be engaged.Celia came closer. atomic number 18 you issue to transfer her the pictures?Alaric laughed. Well, al this automatic teller machine and everything I dont know. It readiness just open been my imagination.Celia rancid away just as she reached him and Elena blew once to a greater extent across the message. Alaric threw his workforce up in a gesture of surrender.I dont calculate the Island of Doom has satel ite coverage,he said helplessly.Nope,Celia said. and the bring wil be back in a day, and you can trip out pictur es then if youre real y deprivation to do it.I think Id better do it,Alaric said. Elena and just were both gross at him, one from each side. except that was when Elenas eyelids started to droop. Oh, Bonnie, Im sorry. I valued to communication to you later this, and make sure youre okay. precisely Im fallI cantShe managed to irrupt her lids open. Bonnie was in a fetal position, fast asleep.Be careful, Elena whispered, not even sure who she was whispering it to. And as she floated away, she was conscious(predicate) of Celia and the way Alaric was talking to this beautiful, unadulterated woman only a year or so old(a) than he was.She snarl a limpid charge for Meredith, on top of everything else.