The Hunters: Phantom Chapter 29

I lead not die not again, Elena human body furiously as she writhed in pain, the invisible vise clamping down yet harder on her. fair fel to the expose, even paler than forwards, clutching her stay in a mirror image of Elena.It chamberpotnot take meAnd thus, dear as dead as it had dealerted, the deafening roar ceased and the stifling pain lifted. Elena col apsed to the ground, air whooshing suffer into her lungs. Its finished grinding bones to make step forward its bread, Elena thought semihysterical y, and almost giggled. sightly gasped loudly, let let out a smal sob.What was that? Elena asked her. beautiful agitate her gallery. It felt akin something was take a crapting pul ed out of us, she state, panting. I felt it before, too, counterbalance before you showed up.That pul ing feeling. Elena grimaced, her mind whirling.I recollect its the phantom. Damon says that it wants to drain our power. That moldiness be how it does it.becoming was staring at her, her mouth practiced a tiny bit open. Her bug tongue darted out and thrash her lips. Damon says? she express. She frowned anxiously. Damons dead, Elena.No, hes alive. The star bal brought him put up by and by wed already leftoer the Dark Moon. I plant out after the phantom took you. mediocre make a petty(a) noise, a furcate of eep that reminded Elena of a bunny, of something soft and smal and surprised. Al the declination drained out of her face, exit her common pose y faint freckles vivid muscae volitantes against the white of her cheeks. She pressed shaking de xtion to her mouth, staring at Elena with huge fatish front.Listen, honest, Elena said fiercely. Nobody else k instanters this yet. Nobody provided you and me, Bonnie. Damon wanted to keep it a hole-and-corner(a) until he could figure out the ad fair(a) way to come corroborate. So we make to keep quiet rough it.Bonnie nodded, stil gaping. The color was rushing back into her cheeks, and she olfactory perc eptioned like she was caught between joy and total confusion.Glancing everyw here(predicate) her shoulder, Elena go on that there was something in the grass at the foot of a blushbush beyond Bonnie, something motionless and white. A chil went through her as she was reminded of Calebs body at the foot of the depository in the graveyard.Whats that? she asked sharply. Bonnies expression tipped all over into confusion. Elena brushed past her and walked toward it, squinting in the solariselight. When she got c lag nice, Elena apothegm with amazement that it was Matt, assembly stil and silent beneath the rosebush. A spew of black petals was scattered across his chest. As she came close to him, Matts eyeball twitched she could see them contemptible rapidly back and forth beneath the lids, as if he was having an intense ideate and then flew open as he took in a long, rattling drink of air. His pale blue eyes met hers.Elena He gasped. He hitched himself up onto his elbows and looked past her. Bonnie Thank God Are you O.K.? Where be we?The phantom caught us, brought us to the bottom(prenominal) World, and is victimization us to make itself more powerful, Elena said succinctly. How do you feel?A little startled, Matt joked in a weak voice. He looked near, then licked his lips nervously. Huh, so this is the under World? Its nicer than Id envisioned from your descriptions. Shouldnt the sky be red? And where are al the vampires and demons? He looked at Elena and Bonnie sternly. Were you guys tel ing the truth about everything that happened to you here? Because this place seems pretty nice for a Hel dimension, what with al the roses and everything.Elena stared at him. Its possible too umteen weird things have happened to us. and so she noticed the hint of panic on Matts face. He wasnt unnatural y blase about what was dismissal on he was bonnie being brave, whistling to keep up their spirits in this newest danger.Wel , we wanted to come upon you, she joked back with a tremulous smile, then quickly got down to business. What was going on when you were back radix? she asked him.Um, Matt said, Stefan and Meredith were call into question Caleb about how he summoned the phantom.Calebs not credi devilrthy for the phantom, Elena said firmly. It fol owed us home when we were here before. We have to get home honest away so we can tel them theyre transaction with one of the Original ones. Itl be much(prenominal) more difficult for us to get rid of than an ordinary one.Matt looked at Bonnie questioningly. How does she know this?Wel , Bonnie said, with a hint of the glee she always got from gossip, patently Damon told her. Hes alive and she saw himSo much for tutelage Damons secret, Bonnie, Elena thought, rol ing her eyes. Stil , it didnt received y outcome if Matt knew. He wasnt the one Damon was retentivity the secret from, and he wasnt likely to be fitted to tel Stefan bothtime soon.Elena tuned out Matts exclaimings of wo nder and Bonnies explanations as she scanned the area around them. Sunshine. Rosebushes. Rosebushes. Sunshine. Grass. Clear blue sky. Al the aforesaid(prenominal), in every direction. wherever she looked, velvety black perfect blooms nodded serenely in a clear twelve noon sun. The bushes were al the selfsame(prenominal), down to the number and positions of the roses on each one and the distances between them. up to now the stems of grass were uniform al fillet at the same height. The sun hadnt go since shed arrived.It al seemed like it should be winning and relaxing, and after a hardly a(prenominal) minutes the sameness became unnerving.There was a gate, she told Bonnie and Matt. When we were looking into this field from the Gatehouse of the septet Treasures. There was a way in from there, so there must be a way to get out to there. We just have to find it.They had begun to struggle to their feet when, without warning, the sharp ramging pain struck again. Elena clutch ed her stomach. Bonnie lost her balance and fel back to a sitting position on the ground, her eyes clenched shut. Matt gave a choked- forth exclamation and gasped. What is that?Elena waited for the pain to fade again before she closureed him. Her knees were wobbling. She felt dizzy and sick. Another movement we subscribe to get out of here, she said.The phantoms using us to increase its power. I mean it needs us here to do that. And if we dont find the gate soon, we exponent be too weak to make it home.She looked around again, the uniformity almost dizzying. Each rosebush was center on in a smal circular freighter of richlooking dark loam. Between these circles, the grass of the field was velvety smooth, like the lawn of an English manor house or a real y good golf course.Okay, Elena said, and took a deep, calming breath.Lets spread out and look careful y. Wel stay about ten feet apart from one another and go from one end of this rose garden to the other, awaiting. Look aro und careful y anything thats at al different from the ataraxis of the field could be the clue we need to find the way out.Were going to search the whole field? Bonnie asked, seem dismayed. Its huge.Wel just do one little bit at a time, Elena said encouragingly.They started in a spread-out line, gazing intently back and forth, up and down. At root there was only the silence of concentrate concentration as they searched. There was no sign of a gate. Step by step through the field, nothing changed. neer-ending rows of identical rosebushes stretched in al directions, dislocated about lead feet from one another, comme il faut room between them for one person to easily pass. The eternal midday sun beat down uncomfortably on the tops of their heads, and Elena wiped a bead of crusade from her forehead. The scent of roses hung heavily in the impassioned air at first Elena had found it pleasant, but now it was nauseating, like a too-sweet perfume. The perfect stalks of grass bent chthonian her feet, then sprang up again, uncrushed, as if she had never passed.I wish there were a breeze, Bonnie complained. But I dont look at the wind ever blows here.This field must come to an end sometime, Elena said desperately. It cant just go on forever. There was a sickening feeling in the caries of her stomach, though, that suggested to her that maybe it could go on forever. This wasnt her world, after al . The rules were different here.So wheres Damon now? Bonnie asked suddenly. She wasnt looking at Elena. She was keeping up the same steady pace, the same careful, systematic gaze. But there was a note of strain in her voice, and Elena broke her own search to glance at her quickly.Then one possible answer to Bonnies question hit Elena and she occlude dead. Thats it she said. Bonnie, Matt, I think Damon might be here. Or not here, not in the rose garden, but somewhere in the Nether World, in the Dark Dimension. They looked at her blankly.Damon was going to try to come here to look for the phantom, Elena explained. He thought it fol owed us home from here when we came back to our own world, so this is probably where hed start searching for its physiologic body. The last time I saw him, he told me that he thought he would be able to fight it cleanse from here, where it came from. If he is here, maybe he can help us get back to Fel s Church.Damon, please be here somewhere. Please help us, she begged silently.Just then, something caught her eye. forrard of them, between two rosebushes that looked just the same as any other two rosebushes in the garden, there was the slightest shift, the tiniest distorted shape. It looked like the enkindle glimmer that would sometimes appear over the highway on the hottest, most stil days of summer as the suns rays bounced off the asphalt.No asphalt here to radiate back the suns heat. But something had to be causing that shimmer.Unless she was imagining it. Were her eyes playing tricks on her, showing her a mir age among the rosebushes?Do you see that? she asked the others. Over there, just a little to the refine?They stopped and peered careful y. maybe? Bonnie said hesitantly.I think so, Matt said. analogous hot air rising, right?Right, Elena said. She frowned, estimating the distance. Maybe fifteen feet. We should take it at a run,she said. In case we have any trouble getting through. There might be some kind of hindrance we have to break to get out. I dont think hesitating wil help us.Lets guard hands, Bonnie suggested nervously. I dont want to lose you guys.Elena didnt take her eyes off the shimmer in the air. If she lost it, shed never find it again, not with the sameness of everything in here. in one case they got turned around, theyd never be able to tel this spot from any other. They al three took one anothers hands, staring at the smal distortion that they hoped was a gate. Bonnie was in the snapper and she clutched Elenas left hand with her thin, stiff fingers.One, two, thr ee, go, Bonnie said, and then they were running. They stumbled over the grass, wove between rosebushes. The set between the bushes was barely wide enough for three to run abreast, and a spiny branch caught in Elenas hair. She couldnt let go of Bonnie and she couldnt stop, so she just yanked her head forward despite the eye-wateringly painful tug on her hair and kept running, leaving a tangle of hair abeyance from a bush behind her.Then they were at the shimmer between the bushes. block up, it was even harder to see, and Elena would have doubted that they were at the right spot except for the change in the temperature. It might have looked like a heat shimmer from a distance, but it was as cold and bracing as a mountain lake, despite the warm sun right above them.Dont stop Elena shouted. And they plunged into the coldness.In an instant, everything went black, as if someone had switched off the sun.Elena felt herself fal ing and clung desperately to Bonnies hand.Damon she cried si lently. Help me