Meredith shook her dark head slowly. “Better but—I don’t think
she even knows about Jim yet. That’s going to be very tough on her.”
Elena tried to quell a shudder. There was nothing but tragedy in
store for Isobel even when she got well. Jim Bryce, her boyfriend, had
spent only one night with Caroline, but now had Lesch-Nye disease—or
so the doctors said. In that same dreadful night that Isobel had pierced
herself everywhere, and cut her tongue so that it forked, Jim, a
handsome star basketball player, had eaten away his fingers and his lips.
In Elena’s opinion they were both possessed and their injuries were only
more reasons why the kitsune twins had to be stopped.
“We’ll do it,” she said aloud, realizing for the first time that
Meredith was holding her hand as if Elena were Bonnie. Elena managed
a faint but determined smile for Meredith. “We’ll get Stefan out and
we’ll stop Shinichi and Misao. We have to do it.”
This time it was Meredith who nodded.
“There’s more,” she said at last. “You want to hear it?”
“I need to know everything.”
“Well, every single source I checked agrees that kitsune possess
girls and then lead boys to destruction. What kind of destruction depends
on where you look. It can be as simple as appearing as a will-o’-the-wisp
and leading you into a swamp or off a cliff, or as difficult as