Oh, God, the people! The poor people! Elena thought, as this at last came into her field of view. As for the Guardians, who were keeping this place clear and fighting Bloddeuwedd on her behalf - God bless you for that, Elena thought, envisioning a standing-room-only lobby as they tried to race with Stefan across the floor. As it was, they were alone.
"Now we need your key again, Elena," Damon's voice, just above her, said.
Elena gently pried Stefan off her throat. "Just for a moment, my darling. Just for a moment."
Looking at the door, Elena was confounded for several moments. There was a hole, but nothing happened when she put the ring in it and pushed, jammed, or twisted left or right. Out of the corner of her eye she saw some dark shadow above her, dismissed it as irrelevant, and then had it come screaming at her like a dive-bomber, steel talons reaching for her.
There was no roof. Bloddeuwedd's talons had methodically ripped it away.
Elena knew it.
Because somehow Elena suddenly saw the whole of the situation, not just her part in it, but as if she were someone outside her body, who understood many more things than puny little Elena Gilbert did.
The Guardians were here to prevent collateral damage.
They could or would not stop Bloddeuwedd.
Elena knew that, too.
All the people running down the other corridor had been doing what an owl's prey normally does. They had been dashing for the bottom of their burrow. There was an enormous safe room there.
Somehow, Elena knew it.
But now, blurrily but definitely, Bloddeuwedd saw the ones she had been after in the first place, the nest robbers, the ones who had forever put out one of her huge round orange far-seeing eyes, and cut her so deeply that the other eye was filling with blood.
Elena could feel it.
Bloddeuwedd could see they were the ones who had caused her to smash her beak. The criminals, the savages, the ones she would tear to pieces slowly, slowly, a limb at a time, switching from one to another as she clutched five or six in one set of claws, or as she watched them, unable to run from lack of limbs, writhing beneath her.
Elena could sense it.
Beneath her.
Right now...they were directly beneath Bloddeuwedd.
Bloddeuwedd dove.
"Saber! Talon!" shouted Sage, but Elena knew that there would be no distraction now. There would be nothing but killing and tearing, slowly, and screams echoing off the single lobby wall.
Elena could picture it.
"It won't open, damn it," shouted Damon. He was manipulating Elena's wrist to move the key in the hole. But no matter how he pulled or pushed, nothing happened.
Bloddeuwedd was almost upon them.
She accelerated, throwing telepathic images before her.
Sinew stretching, joints cracking, bone splintering...
Elena knew -
NOOOOO!
Elena's cup of rage ran over.
Suddenly she saw everything she needed to know in one great sweeping epiphany. But it was too late to get Stefan inside the door, so the first thing she shouted was "Wings of Protection!"
Bloddeuwedd, barely six feet away, slammed into a barrier that a nuclear missile could not have harmed. She slammed into it at the speed of a racing car and with the mass of a medium-sized airplane.
Horror exploded beak first against Elena's wings. They were clear green at the top, dotted with flashing emeralds, and shading into a dawn pink covered with crystals at the bottom. The wings enwrapped all six humans and two animals - and they did not move by one millimeter when Bloddeuwedd smashed into them.
Bloddeuwedd had made herself roadkill.
Shutting her eyes, and trying not to think of the maiden who had been made of flowers (and who had killed her husband! Elena told herself desperately) with dry lips, and wetness trickling down her cheeks, Elena turned back to the door. Put the ring in. Made sure it was flush.
And said, "Fell's Church, Virginia, USA, Earth. Near the boardinghouse, please."
It was well after midnight. Matt was sleeping on the bunker's cot, while Mrs. Flowers slept on the couch, when they were suddenly wakened by a thump.
"What on earth?" Mrs. Flowers got up and stared out the window, which should have been dark.
"Be careful, ma'am," Matt said automatically, but couldn't help adding, "What is it?" - as always, expecting the worst and making sure the revolver with the blessed bullets was ready.
"It's...light," Mrs. Flowers said helplessly. "I don't know what else to say about it. It's light."
Matt could see the light, throwing shadows on their bunker floor. There was no sound of thunder, and hadn't been since he woke up. Hastily he ran to join Mrs. Flowers at the window.
"Did you ever...?" exclaimed Mrs. Flowers, lifting her hands and dropping them again. "Whatever could it mean?"
"I don't know, but I remember everybody talking about ley lines. Lines of Power in the ground."
"Yes, but those run along the surface of the earth. They don't point upward, like - like a fountain!" Mrs. Flowers said.
"But I heard that wherever three ley lines come together - I think Damon said - they can form a Gate. A Gate to where they were going."
"Dear me," said Mrs. Flowers. "You mean you think one of those Gateway things is out there? Maybe it's them, coming back."
"It couldn't be." The time Matt had spent with this particular old woman had made him not only respect her, but love her. "But I don't think we should go outside, anyway."
"Dear Matt. You are such a comfort to me," Mrs. Flowers murmured.
Matt didn't really see how. It was all her stored food and water they were using. Even the fold-up cot was hers.
If he had been on his own he might have investigated this...extraordinary thing. Three spotlights shining out of the ground at an angle so that they met just about at the height of a human being. Bright lights. And getting brighter every minute.