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 running 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 humans - 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 other 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 were kitsune, evil fox spirits from Japan. They're something like our Western werewolves - but much more powerful. So powerful that they used malach, which are really plants but look like insects that can be no bigger than a pinhead or big enough to swallow your arm. And the malach attach themselves to your nerves and feather out along your entire nervous system and finally they take you over from inside."
Now Elena was shuddering, and her voice was hushed.
"That's what happened to Damon. A tiny one got into him and it took him over from inside so that he was only a puppet of Shinichi's. I forgot to say, the kitsune are called Shinichi and Misao. Misao is the girl. They both have black hair with red all around the tips, but Misao's is long. And they're supposed to be brother and sister - but they sure don't act like it.
"And once Damon was fully possessed, that's when Shinichi made Damon's body...do terrible things. He made him torture Matt and me, and even now I know that sometimes Matt still wants to kill Damon for it. But if he'd seen what I saw - a whole thin, wet, white second body that I had to pull out with my fingernails from Damon's spine - with Damon finally passing out from the pain - then Matt would understand better. I can't blame Damon for what Shinichi made him do. I can't. Damon was...you can't imagine how different. He was crushed. He cried. He was...
"Anyway, I don't expect to ever see him like that again. But if I ever get my Wings' powers back, Shinichi is in big trouble.
"I think that that was our mistake last time, you see. We finally were able to fight Shinichi and Misao - and we didn't kill them. We were too moral or too gentle or something.
"It was a bad mistake.
"Because Damon wasn't the only one who got possessed by Shinichi's malach. There were girls, young girls, fourteen and fifteen and younger. And some boys. Acting...crazy. Hurting themselves and their families. We didn't know how badly until after we'd already made a bargain with Shinichi.
"Maybe we were too immoral, making a bargain with the devil. But they had kidnapped Stefan - and Damon, who was already possessed by then, had helped them. Once Damon was unpossessed, all he wanted was for Shinichi and Misao to tell us where Stefan was, and then for them to leave Fell's Church forever.
"In exchange for that, Damon let Shinichi into his mind.
"If vampires are obsessed with Power, kitsune are obsessed with memories. And Shinichi wanted Damon's memories for the last few days - the time that Damon was possessed and torturing us...and the time when my Wings made Damon realize that he had done it. I don't think Damon himself wanted those memories, either of what he'd done or of how he'd changed when he had to face that he'd done it. So he let Shinichi take them, in exchange for Shinichi putting Stefan's location into his mind.