And Robin shall restore amends.’”
“Isn’t that all from A Midsummer Night’s Dream?” Stefan asked.
“Oh, yes. Dear Grandmama was a Shakespearean buff. But I’m sorry to say that she likes to pull sections together out of context or even skip bits. Still they’re all Puck’s lines, you know. Quite a character, that Robin Goodfellow.”
“Right.” With difficulty, Stefan dragged himself back to the real world. He was burning too much Power too fast. He could afford only one more minute with Mrs. Flowers.
“Thank you,” he said formally, standing and bowing over her hand, which he brought to his lips. Mrs. Flowers smiled like a Duchess. “Any last words for me?”
“Yes, my boy, and not oracular advice at all. Stop this plan right now, where you are. Don’t use your mind to make a hell of heaven. Go back to your friends, tell them everything. Tell Elena and ask for her help. Because you’re never going to be able to let go of her, nor she of you.”
Stefan didn’t mention the fact that Elena couldn’t by any means recognize him; that he had actually blasted away a not insignificant part of Elena’s brain in order to get all references to himself out of her memory. Not that it would leave her any less intelligent than before; just that there were many nodes in her mind that led only to dark spots in the gray matter now.
“Thank you,” he said to the white-haired woman. “Thank you for all your help in the past, and for all I know you will do for Elena in the future. I need to leave now. Goodbye, Theophilia Flowers. I never told you, but you always made me feel young.”
Tears suddenly wet Mrs. Flower’s blue eyes. She stood. “Goodbye, Stefan. And good luck, my dear boy.”
Stefan made himself turn around and walk away, threading once again between the motionless humans. He headed down the hall to Elena’s room. There was a police officer just outside it, as frozen and unseeing as everyone else on this floor of the hospital.
Ignoring her, Stefan edged in so that he could see Elena.
Oh, beautiful! Elena’s hair, all shades of gold, was fanned upon the crisp hospital sheet. Her face had color in it, not hectic red, but the translucent pale rose of apple blossoms. Her lips were parted. Her lashes lay heavy against her softly rounded cheeks.
But that wasn’t what Stefan was praising. He loved Elena for too many reasons to be attracted merely to her physical form. Stefan was looking triumphantly at the bag that was now hooked up to the IV in Elena’s left arm. The bag was full of rich, red packed cells—type A negative by the smell. They were giving Elena properly typed blood! That and her steady vital signs meant that she was not only going to survive; she was going to be superbly, splendidly well again.
No time, though—no time, no time. Stefan took Elena’s right hand gently. He dipped into her mind again, erasing, rearranging, and creating memories so that she would think she had stopped keeping a diary back before her senior year in high school.
Sometime later, he found himself stroking her hand, and felt a spurt of panic. What if she woke up now? What if his Power burned out as Mrs. Flowers had predicted?
“I can’t stay to say it properly,” he told Elena, feeling wretched. He kissed her forehead, which was delightfully warm. “But you knew it all, anyway, before I took it from you. You loved me for the best of reasons. I loved you for the best of reasons. But what I told you nearly a year ago was the truth . . . I am a monster. I’m a devil. I can’t even love without destroying.” His voice cracked and he bent down one more time, to kiss her lips. When he felt no response from her at this, he knew that it was time to go. “I will always belong to you, Elena,” he whispered. “To you and no one else. There is no one else. Goodbye.”
He turned on his heel and left the ICU room.
In the darkness just a few rooms away the three motionless figures were exactly where he had left them: Bonnie lying on the bed, Meredith sitting in the chair and Matt propped against the wall. He took some information from each of them. He made some minor adjustments to their cell phones. Then he spoke.
“I want you each to count to thirty and then wake up and leave this room without remembering that you were ever inside it. I want you to think only about Elena. I say this to Bonnie May McCullough, Matthew Jeffrey Honeycutt, and Meredith Teresa Consolacion Maria Sulez.”
He didn’t wait to see if it worked. He knew it would. Instead he began to run.
He ran out into the corridor. Past the central ICU nurses’ station, past the waiting room where Aunt Judith, Robert, Margaret and Dr. Alpert were beginning to stir. He ran through the great doors that opened on the ICU and down another corridor to the stairs beside the elevator. Six floors down and he was jogging through the emergency department. People were moving freely here; he had only frozen the ICU. He stopped, spotting the red-haired man who had interrogated him when Elena first arrived.
“I’m with Elena Gilbert—the girl who had the massive transfusion protocol,” he said, sending out a coil of Influence. “I need her property right now.”
A few moments later he was presented with Elena’s clothing—cut off her, except the cap. He saw a gleam among the ribbons of fabric and caught up the black diamond and ruby locket.
“Thank you.” He dumped the rest of the clothing back into the redhead’s arms. Blurring his image right and left, he made his way to the entrance doors.
There were still several police officers outside, standing around their cruisers. Irritated, Stefan sent a great wave of Influence at them and was gratified in a moment to hear from one of the police: “Dispatch, this is Unit Five. Ten-twenty-four.” Which Stefan’s telepathy translated as “assignment completed.”
He was afraid that someone might have confiscated the Porsche, but he found it parked neatly in a space for hospital visitors. He puzzled a minute over this, and then discovered that the spare key he usually kept behind his license plate had been used. It wasn’t a very brilliant place to hide a spare, but Stefan had placed wards around it so that anyone touching the little magnetic box got zapped with a sizable electric shock if they had evil intentions, while someone with good intentions—like Matt, say, wanting to borrow the car without having time to ask Stefan—felt nothing except a slight tickling.
As Stefan wheeled out of the parking lot, he heard Damon’s voice in his head.
Hey, wait a minute, genius! Before I go downstairs, I have two questions for you. What about Alaric Saltzman—and Sage? What if either of them just appears—?
Stefan took a deep breath. Then you’ll have to deal with them yourself, brother, he replied as expressionlessly as possible. As you’ll have to deal with Meredith if Alaric calls or texts her.
He felt not the slightest guilt. Alaric was Meredith’s fiancé and only a human—Damon could take care of him easily. As for Sage, that mysterious young man whose home was farther down than the Nether World; he was entirely Damon’s acquaintance and entirely Damon’s problem.