vampire diaries Shadow Souls | Page 3

have…feelings for him. He didn’t take
advantage of me when he could have easily.
“But I only had time to do a few things in my vampire life. I had time to rememb er Stefan
and love him more than ever—since I knew, then, how
difficult everything was for him. I got to listen to my own memorial service . Ha!
Everybody should get a chance to do that. I learned to always, always wear
lapis lazuli so I wouldn’t become a vampire Crispy Critter. I got t o say good-bye to my
little four-year-old sister, Margaret, and visit Bonnie and Meredith….
”
Tears were still sliding almost unnoticed down Elena’s face. But she spoke quiet ly.
“And then—I died again.
“I died the way a vampire dies, when they don’t have lapis lazuli in the sunlight. I didn’ t
crumble into dust; I was only seventeen. But the sun
poisoned me anyway. Going was almost…peaceful. That was when I made St efan
promise to take care of Damon, always. And I think Damon swore to
take care of Stefan, in his mind. And that was how I died, with Stefan holding me and
Damon beside me as I simply drifted away, like going to sleep.
“After that, I had dreams I don’t remember, and then suddenly, one day everyone wa s
surprised because I was talking to them through Bonnie, who
is very psychic, poor thing. I guess I had landed the job of being Fel l’s Church’s guardian
spirit. There was a danger to the town. They had to fight it and
somehow, when they were sure that they had lost, I got dumped back to the world of the
living to help. And—well, when the war was won I was left with
these weird powers I don’t understand. But there was Stefan, too! We were toget her
again!”
Elena wrapped her arms around herself tightly and held on as if she were holding Ste fan
to her, imagining his warm arms around her. She shut her
eyes until her breathing slowed.
“About my powers, let’s see. There’s telepathy, which I can do if the othe r person is
telepathic—which all vampires are, but to different degrees
unless they’re actually sharing blood with you at the time. And then there ar e my Wings.
“It’s true—I have Wings! And the Wings have powers you wouldn’t believe—the only
problem being that I don’t have the faintest idea how to use
them. There’s one that I can feel sometimes, like right now, trying to get out of me, trying
to shape my lips to name it, trying to move my body into the right
stance. It’s Wings of Protection and that sounds like something we could really use on
this trip. But I can’t even remember how I made the old Wings work

—much less figure out how to use this new one. I say the words until I feel like an
idiot—but nothing happens at all.
“So I’m a human again—as human as Bonnie. And, oh, God, if I could only see her and
Meredith right now! But all the time I tell myself that I’m
getting closer to Stefan every minute. That is, if you take into account Damon’s r unning
us up and down and everywhere to throw off anybody trying to
track us down.
“Why would anyone want to track us down? Well, you see, when I came back from the
afterlife there was a very big explosion of Power that
everyone in the world who can see Power saw.
“Now, how do I explain Power? It’s something that everybody has, but that huma ns—
except genuine psychics like Bonnie—don’t even recognize.
Vampires definitely have Power, and they use it to Influence humans to like them , or to
think that things are different from reality—oh, like the way Stefan
Influenced the high school staff to think his records were all in order when he
‘transferred’ to Robert E. Lee High School. Or they use Power to blast ot her
vampires or creatures of darkness—or humans.
“But I was talking about the burst of Power when I dropped down from the heavens. It
was so big that it attracted two horrible creatures from the
other side of the world. And then they decided to come see what had made the burst, and
if there was any way they could use it for themselves.
“I’m not joking, either, about them being from the other side of the world. They wer e
kitsune, evil fox spirits from Japan. They’re something like our
Western werewolves—but much more powerful. So powerful that they used