in fear.
Chapter 26
Ley lines. Stefan had spoken of them, and with the influence of the spirit world still on her, she had seen them without trying. Now, still lying on her side, channeling what remained of that Power to her eyes, she looked at the earth.
And that was what made her mind go gray in terror.
As far as she could see there were lines converging here from all directions. Thick lines that glowed with a cold phosphorescence, medium-sized lines that had the dull shine of bad mushrooms in a cellar, and tiny lines that looked like perfectly straight cracks of the outer surface layer of the world. They were like veins and arteries and nerves just under the skin of the clearing-beast.
No wonder it seemed alive. She was lying on a massive convergence of ley lines. And if the cemetery was worse than this - she couldn't imagine what it might look like.
If Damon had somehow found a way to tap into that Power...no wonder he seemed different, arrogant, undefeatable. Ever since he had released her to drink Matt's blood, she had kept shaking her head, trying to shake off the humiliation with it. But now finally she stopped as she tried to calculate a way to make use of this Power. There had to be a way to do it.
The grayness wouldn't clear from her vision. Finally Elena realized that it was not because she was faint, but because it was getting dark - twilight outside the clearing, true darkness coming into it.
She tried again to lift herself up, and this time she succeeded. Almost immediately a hand was extended to her and, automatically, she took it, letting it draw her to her feet.
She faced - whoever it was, Damon or whatever was using his features or his body. Despite the almost-darkness, he still wore those wraparound sunglasses. She could make nothing out of the rest of his face.
"Now," the thing in the sunglasses said. "You're going to come with me."
It was nearing full dark, and they were in the clearing that was a beast.
This place - it was unwholesome. She was afraid of the clearing as she had never been afraid of a person or creature. It resounded with malevolence, and she couldn't shut her ears to it.
She had to keep thinking, and keep thinking straight, she thought.
She was terribly frightened for Matt; frightened that Damon had taken too much blood or had played too hard with his toy; breaking it.
And she was afraid of this Damon thing. She was also worried about the influence this place might have had on the real Damon. The woods around them shouldn't have any effect on vampires, except to hurt them. Was the possible-Damon inside the possessor hurt? If he could understand anything of what was happening, could he distinguish that hurt from his hurt and anger at Stefan?
She didn't know. She did know that there had been a terrible look in his eyes when Stefan had told him to get out of the boardinghouse. And she did know that there were creatures in the forest, malach, that could influence a person's mind. She was afraid, deeply afraid, that the malach were using Damon now, blackening his darkest desires and twisting him into something horrible, something he had never been even at his worst.
But how could she be sure? How could she know whether or not there was something else behind the malach, something that controlledthem ? Her soul was telling her that this might be the case, that Damon might be completely unconscious of what his body was doing, but that might just be wishful thinking.
Certainly all she could sense around her were small, evil creatures. She could feel them encircling the clearing, strange insect-like beings like the one that had attacked Matt. They were in a furor of excitement, whipping their tentacles around to make a noise almost like a buzzing helicopter.
Were they influencing Damon now? Certainly, he had never before hurt any of the other humans she knew the way he had today. She had to get all three of them out of this place. It was diseased, contaminated. Once again she felt a wave of longing for Stefan, who might know what to do in this situation.
She turned, slowly, to look at Damon.
"May I call someone to come and help Matt? I'm afraid to leave him here; I'm afraidthey'll get him." Just as well to let him know that she knewthey were hiding in the liverwort