Right, right, just leave all the fine detail work to me, Damon grumbled. You’re the big picture guy.
Stefan drove faster. He didn’t want to imagine what his brother was going to see in a moment: all that wonderful hair fanned over the white hospital sheets like a halo.
Damon’s voice interrupted his contemplations. You know what, little brother? I can feel how much weaker you are already. You’re going to need to feed soon, and-
/>
Stefan cut off the conversation without answering. No one needed to tell him that he’d been unforgivably profligate with the use of Power in the hospital. He was already feeling hunger pangs.
* * *
Damon jumped off the roof of the hospital.
He landed easily in a shadowy corner of the parking lot where Stefan’s Porsche had recently been. He paused to sense his brother’s presence move off in the direction of Dyer, of Dalcrest. He shook his head, a brief, wild and almost beautiful smile touching his lips. Truly unfathomable. Elena was in trouble and her Stefan was running away from her.
But every cloud had a silver lining.
Suddenly, fiercely, Damon wanted to touch Elena; to hold her hands, to caress her hair. The desire was so strong that he deliberately decided to move slowly, to let the anticipation build. He moved into the artificial light in front of the emergency department and looked around leisurely.
No police anywhere. Inside, in the waiting room, sitting with their backs to Damon and watching a TV mounted on the wall, was a pair of young men, one with dark hair and one with auburn. The dark one bent over every so often to clutch his foot. Damon sent a tendril of Power into the waiting room and found out why.
. . . damn idiot to fall down the stairs . . . I didn’t have that much to drink . . . and right in front of Mia, too . . . at least Ethan was decent about driving me here . . . it’s good to know he’s a real friend . . . I was such a damn idiot to fall down the stairs . . .
And cut! Damon thought, like a director making a film. He turned the tendril of Power to the other young man’s mind and got:
So damn bored . . . I’ve seen this episode of Seinfeld twice before . . . I wonder what Jacob would think if he knew about me and Mia . . . if she hadn’t insisted on me driving we’d be doing it right now . . . and instead I’ve got to babysit this geek . . . maybe she’s cheating on me the way we’re cheating on Jacob . . .
Aha, Damon thought. And we have found a winner. A true bastard. Let’s see what’s in store for him.
Ethan, he sent musically. Oh, E-than . . . No, don’t look around; I’m not right behind you. I’m standing outside. Come here to the big sliding doors. That’s right. Don’t worry about Jacob, he’s busy with his foot . . . You can see me now, can’t you, Ethan? . . . Time to say, “Please come inside . . .”
“Please—please come inside,” Ethan chanted mechanically. He looked dazed, unable to take his eyes off Damon. Damon knew what he was seeing: a lithe and elegant young man dressed in black jeans and black jacket over a black shirt, with an air of esoteric power. The compact young man had black hair, straight and soft and fine, and eyes of endless and immeasurable darkness, unbroken by a single star.
The automatic doors to the emergency lobby slid open. Damon immediately stepped forward. Ethan stayed where he was, rooted to the ground. He was taller than Damon by half a head, which didn’t earn him any merit points in Damon’s personal register.
“And now,” Damon said pleasantly, just loud enough for the suddenly-pale young man to hear him, “since you’ve helped me out, you’re going to get your reward, see? Cos that’s how it works. What will it be? Let’s spin the mystical roulette wheel of fortune and find out, shall we, Ethan? And . . . you have won . . . a punch in the nose!”
His fist lashed out and made devastating contact with the middle of Ethan’s face. The auburn-haired young man went over backward, both hands clamped over twin geysers of red that spurted between his fingers. He moaned, an animal sound.
“Oh, and by the way,” Damon added, “Jacob knows all about you and Mia. I should be very careful not to make him angry from now on, got that?”
Ethan, eyes showing white all around, nodded fractionally, causing a ruby Old Faithful to erupt from his face again.
Damon left him. Kenzy had provided enough nibbles for the evening, but it always distressed him to see perfectly good rich red blood going to waste.
Since he had stepped inside, Damon had been holding himself blurred—almost invisible—to the hospital staff. It wasn’t as flashy as keeping a whole roomful of humans immobile, as Stefan had, but just as useful. He paused by Jacob, who hadn’t even noticed that his designated driver was gone.
Jacob, he said soundlessly. Jacob, an obvious fan of Orwell’s Big Brother, jumped up and stared, horrified, into the television set.
Jacob, Damon repeated, Mia is no good for you. Forget her and move on. Isn’t there a nice but shy girl who always sits in some corner of Ethan’s parties?
“What?” Jacob whispered to the TV. “You mean like—Abby?”
I mean exactly like Abby. Give Abby a try and you’ll find a galaxy inside her. But drop Mia; she’s two-timing you with Ethan.
With that, Damon strode across the waiting room and through the far doors, following Stefan’s trail into the emergency department and then up to the sixth floor. There he dropped the blurring shield.
The elevator doors slid back and Damon stepped out. He was facing another waiting room . . . and a gaggle of humans, all either leaking tears or stoically grinding teeth. Damon recognized Elena’s Aunt Judith and saw little Margaret rubbing her eyes.