The Vampire Diaries: The Return: Shadow Souls Read Online Free PDF

potential for a gate. But since the Europeans drove the Native Americans out of their homes, most of the gates aren’t used or maintained as they were in the old days.” Damon shrugged.
    But Elena was tingling all over with excitement, with anxiety. “Why don’t we just find the nearest gate and go through it, then?”
    “Travel all the way to the prison underground? Look, you don’t understand at all. First of all, you need me with you to get you into a gate—and even then it isn’t going to be pleasant.”
    “Not pleasant for who? Us or you?” Matt asked grimly.
    Damon gave him a long, blank look. “If you tried on your own it would be briefly and terminally unpleasant for you. With me, it should be uncomfortable but a matter of routine. And as for what it’s like traveling for even a few days down there—well, you’ll see for yourselves, eventually,” Damon said, with an odd smile. “And it would take much, much longer than going by a main gate.”
    “Why?” Matt demanded—always ready to ask questions that Elena really, really didn’t want to know the answers to.
    “Because it’s either jungle, where five-foot leeches dropping from the trees are going to be the least of your worries, or wasteland, where any enemy can spot you—and everyone is your enemy.”
    There was a pause while Elena thought hard . Damon looked serious. Clearly, he really didn’t want to do it—and not many things bothered Damon. He liked fighting. More, if it would only waste time…
    “All right,” Elena said slowly. “We’ll go on with your plan.”
    Immediately, both boys reached for the driver’s side door handle again.
    “Listen,” Elena said without looking at either of them. “ I am going to drive my Jaguar down to the next town. But first I am going to get in it and get changed into real clothes and maybe even catch a few minutes of sleep. Matt will want to find a brook or something where he can clean up. And then I’m going to whatever town is closest for some brunch. After that—”
    “—the bickering can begin anew,” Damon finished for her. “You do that, darling. I’ll meet you at whatever greasy spoon you’ve selected.”
    Elena nodded. “You’re sure you’ll be able to find us? I am trying to hold my aura down, really.”
    “Listen, a fire-engine-red Jaguar in whatever flyspeck of a town you find down this road is going to be as conspicuous as a UFO,” Damon said.
    “Why doesn’t he just come with…” Matt’s voice trailed off. Somehow, although it was his deepest grievance against Damon, he often managed to forget that Damon was a vampire.
    “So you’re going to go down there first and find some young girl walking to summer school,” Matt said, his blue eyes seeming to darken. “And you’re going to swoop down on her and take her away where no one can hear her screaming and then you’re going to pull her head back and you’re going to sink your teeth into her throat .”
    There was a fairly long pause. Then Damon said in a slightly injured tone, “Am not.”
    “That’s what you—people—do. You did it to me.”
    Elena saw the need for really drastic intervention: the truth. “Matt, Matt, it wasn’t Damon who did that. It was Shinichi. You know that.” She gently took Matt by the forearms and turned him until he was facing her.
    For a long moment Matt wouldn’t look at her. Time stretched and Elena began to fear that he was beyond her reach. But then at last he lifted his head so that she could look into his eyes.
    “All right,” he said softly. “I’ll go along with it. But you know that he’s going off to drink human blood.”
    “From a willing donor!” Damon, who had very good hearing, shouted.
    Matt exploded again. “Because you make them willing! You hypnotize them—”
    “No, I don’t.”
    “—or ‘Influence’ them, or whatever. How would you like it—”
    Behind Matt’s back, Elena was now making furious go-away motions at Damon, as if she were